The Myth That’s Quietly Stalling Your Disciple-Making with Vick Green
Sep 24, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Vick Green, CEO of Replicate Ministries and co-author of Movement Ready Church. Replicate helps churches across denominations and sizes strengthen their disciple-making culture, clarify their vision, and mobilize people to make disciples where they live, work, and play.
Is your church busy but unsure whether people are actually being transformed? Do you have a clear pathway for discipleship but struggle to see multiplication happen outside your programs? Tune in as Vick challenges several common assumptions about disciple-making and offers practical ways to measure transformation, mobilize people, and create a culture where ministry extends beyond the walls of the church.
Activity does not equal transformation. // One of the most common myths Vick sees is the belief that participation automatically produces spiritual growth. Attendance, serving, small groups, and classes are all easy to measure, but they only tell part of the story. A person can be highly engaged in church activity and still experience little personal transformation. Churches need to keep measuring participation while also asking whether people are actually becoming more like Jesus.
Build a clearer scoreboard. // Vick compares church metrics to baseball. If you only measured hits, you would miss the point of the game: scoring runs. In the same way, churches can overvalue attendance and engagement because those numbers are easy to track. Vick encourages leaders to develop a transformation scoreboard that measures not only what people are doing but who they are becoming. Incomplete scoreboards tend to produce incomplete disciples.
Define your dream disciple. // Every church should be able to describe the kind of disciple it hopes to develop. Vick calls this the “dream disciple.” Rather than relying only on pathway language that tells people what to do, churches should paint a vivid picture of what transformed lives look like. One church describes disciples as having a mind of truth, a voice of hope, a heart of compassion, hands of service, and feet of purpose. That language gives people something meaningful to pursue.
Focus on what you want for people. // Churches can unintentionally communicate that they primarily want something from people: attendance, volunteering, giving, or participation. Vick challenges leaders to shift toward communicating what they want for people. A healthy discipleship strategy should help people become better spouses, parents, coworkers, neighbors, and followers of Jesus. When people understand why transformation matters, they become more motivated to engage with the pathway that supports it.
Let your discipleship picture shape the culture. // A dream disciple should not live on a poster or disappear after a leadership retreat. It should show up in sermons, kids ministry, membership classes, assessments, volunteer training, and everyday language. Vick highlights churches that use their disciple profile to guide sermon planning, build personalized follow-up, equip parents, and help people identify specific areas where they want to grow.
Help people name their kingdom circle. // Vick’s second major metric is whether people can identify the individuals God has placed within their sphere of influence. Every person has a “kingdom circle”—neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family members where they can bring the kingdom of God. The goal is not simply deeper program engagement but helping people take ownership of disciple-making in ordinary life.
Equip people for ministry outside the church. // Vick shares the story of a man named Austin who began gathering non-Christian neighbors around a backyard firepit. The church provided simple questions, encouragement, and resources, but Austin led the ministry himself. Eventually those men began attending church, growing in faith, and multiplying into further discipleship relationships. The church’s role was not to replace Austin’s influence but to equip and support him in using it.
Clarify leadership and partnership. // To measure ministry beyond church programs, leaders need clarity around three questions: What do we consider a disciple-making leader? How will we equip them? And how will we partner with them? Without shared definitions and a unified approach, every ministry ends up operating differently. Clear expectations make it easier for people to take responsibility for disciple-making in their own context.
Challenge the myths beneath your ministry. // Replicate’s Ministry Myths resource helps churches identify faulty beliefs that quietly shape behavior. These myths can create a gap between good intentions and actual impact. By naming assumptions like the engagement myth, teams can begin honest conversations about why multiplication is not happening and what needs to change. Download the free resource Ministry Myths: The 5 Assumptions that Stall Disciple-Making Movements here.
Learn more about Vick Green and Replicate by visiting replicate.org. You can also explore the book Movement Ready Church and additional free resources at movementreadychurch.com.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Super excited for you today because you’re going to get front seat with a leader who interacts with literally hundreds, maybe thousands of churches across the country every single year. And we’re going to take advantage of the fact that we got an expert on the line today and try to peel back and help you in an area in your church, which I think will help accelerate your mission as we round out here in 2026 and look into 2027. Rich Birch — Excited to have Vick Green with us. He is the CEO of Replicate Ministry, where he leads a team of coaches and consultants who work with churches every year all across the country in their particular, their disciple-making vision and strategy. Rich Birch — Before Replicate, he served on staff at a fantastic church, Long Hollow Church in Hendersonville and The Chapel in Baton Rouge. He holds, if I’ve got all the numbers and letters correct, an MDiv from New Orleans Baptist and lives in the Nashville area with his wife, Sophie, and their three kids. Rich Birch — He’s the co-author of a great new book that I want to expose you to with Robby, who’s been on the podcast before called Movement Ready Church. Welcome to the podcast, Vick. Glad you’re here. Vick Green — Dude, thanks so much for having me. And what an intro, man. Down to my seminary degree. Wow. Like, that’s impressive. And. Rich Birch — People like that, you know, people like those things. So you’re an expert. Vick Green — There you go. Rich Birch — I just play one on the internet, but you’re like an actual expert. Vick Green — Hey, I appreciate it, Richie. I’ve been following the unSeminary Podcast since those Chapel days, like early on, trying to figure things out. And your podcasts, your books have been a gift. So fun to be on this side of the conversation with you. Rich Birch — I’m honored that that you would do this and really looking forward to expose what you do at Replicate and particularly this book and the kind of the work around that to folks. But why don’t you tell us about Replicate. For folks that are unaware, kind of talk to us about the kinds of churches that you’re interacting with week in, week out. Vick Green — Yeah, so Replicate was started in 2008 by Robby Gallaty. And so Replicate exists to help churches activate their unique disciple-making movement. And so since 2008, we’ve had a burden to see ministry get beyond the walls of the church, beyond the church’s programming. How do we see every person in our church to see themselves as a disciple-maker? And what does it look like to see ministry happening through our people as they make disciples? where they live, work, and play. And so that’s really been our passion since ’08. I joined in 2020. Replicate helped me down in Baton Rouge. I joined in 2020 and we get to work with churches across all denominations, all church sizes in helping them with their culture, vision, and strategy around disciple-making. I think to date, I think we’re over 4,000 now. I think actually closer to 4,500 churches that we’ve trained in that span. Rich Birch — Wow. Vick Green — And so, yeah, every year we’re getting to see around 700, 800 churches a year at this point that we get to work with and and help kind of further the mission of what they do. And so it’s a blast. I spend each week somewhere with a church. I’m heading to Chicago today and we’ll be somewhere next next week, but get to see a lot of different contexts and be with a lot of great leaders. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really the heart of why I wanted to have you on, to take advantage of the fact that you interact with so many churches, and have a really unique vantage point seeing so many churches and um I’d love to try to draw out some of those learnings for our listeners that are pulling in today.
Rich Birch — When someone gives you a call for the first time, they pick up the phone, they say, okay, we got a problem and I need the folks at Replicate to help us. What do they say? Like, hey, here’s the thing that’s gone wrong. Here’s the thing, the pain that they feel. Help us understand that. Vick Green — Yeah, often whenever churches are reaching out to us, they want help with disciple-making, they want help with multiplication. You know, we hear that in a lot of ways. And that multiplication takes a couple of different expressions. Sometimes it’s, man, we need better discipleship. Sometimes it’s we need more leadership development, our leadership pipeline. Sometimes it we need ministry outside the walls of the church happening. All of that is usually what is starting the conversation. Vick Green — What is often holding them back, that problem is they don’t know how to help the light bulb go off for their people. There’s this disconnect. The staff wants their people to be to really embrace this disciple-making lifestyle, to be out in the community, doing ministry and sharing their faith and helping others, but they can’t quite figure out how to get it to their people. Vick Green — And so there’s this gap that they consistently feel. And so typically we’re trying to figure out, okay, why are we not seeing that multiplication, that disciple-making culture? And then ah we’re identifying what is what are those things holding back the culture? Vick Green — And so one of those two that just kind of typically always comes up, most of them most of our leaders, they have a vision for multiplication, but they don’t necessarily know how to measure it. They don’t know how to measure disciple-making or are we developing the right disciples? And then they don’t necessarily know how to get ministries and lead in a way that their people actually will start living it outside of the walls of the church. Vick Green — And so those are two of the typical tensions that people are feeling. And what they’re looking for is that multiplication and mobilization. Rich Birch — Well, when I hear you say, you know there’s this idea that like, hey, we we want the light bulb to go off in our people. We really want them to. Um, you know, want to engage in this, but we’re feeling a certain amount of frustration. To me, that feels like there’s an assumption or there’s some underlying assumptions that you must run across…
Vick Green — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that you see inside of us as church leaders that that it’s kind of holding us back or holding back our leadership. What are some of those assumptions that you keep running across that are in our heads…
Vick Green — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …as church leaders that are holding our people back or potentially holding our churches back?
Vick Green — Yeah, we actually, we talk about it from the idea of myths. Do you remember the show Mythbusters growing up? Rich Birch — Oh yeah. I love that show. That was fun. Vick Green — Loved that show. We have so much fun on that. And so we will riff off that idea of Mythbusters. And one of the myths that we see the most in churches. This is the number one is something that we call the engagement myth.
Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And it’s the belief that activity equals transformation. It’s the belief that activity equals transformation. And so the reason that we really figured this out or we kind of stumbled across it, we jokingly say like, the we’ve paid the dumb tax for you. Like after doing this for 18 years and most of our coaches are pastors in the trenches right now. And so a lot of times what we’re working with through are stuff that we figured out the hard way. Vick Green — And the way that we figured this out is we actually had a guy in our church—his name was Scotty. And Scotty is the most active person in our church. He was coming to worship service. He’s coming to small groups. he’s coming he’s volunteering on Sundays. He’s listened to every podcast of Robby’s. He is, I mean, he’s coming to the prayer gathering. That’s how you know he’s committed. Vick Green — And so, all metrics that we’re measuring, he’s at the top. Like, if you want to put out our database, he he is number one, Scotty. But here’s the problem. When Scotty introduces himself, he introduces himself and he says, Hi, my name’s Scotty. And I’m an atheist. Rich Birch — Interesting. Vick Green — The number one most active person in our church is an atheist. Rich Birch — Right.
Vick Green — And I think on one side, I love that he feels safe enough to explore his faith in our community is that is welcoming. Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — That’s fantastic. And if that is our metric for maturity and an atheist is at the top, we have a problem. Vick Green — And it exposed this gap for us that program activity is not the same as personal transformation. Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — And I think that right there is the number one…angst that I see leaders feel. Every leader, when I, as soon as I say, activity equals transformation, they say. Yes. But then when I asked them, okay, now tell me. What is the picture of a disciple that you’re developing? What’s that picture of transformation? Vick Green — They can’t say it back. Rich Birch — Right. We can’t articulate those two things. Rich Birch — Well, and I’m having a hard time. Yeah. It’s like one of those, I had that same, exactly the same feeling inside of me when we started talking about that. I was like, yeah, that is true. But I’m like, okay, so if we aren’t measuring, because a part of what got my attention early is like, hey, we want to measure things. We want to have good metrics.
Vick Green — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And activity is very measurable. Someone either walked into the room or they didn’t, they joined the class or they didn’t. Vick Green — That’s right. Rich Birch — They registered and then so and then actually showed up. All of those things are the kinds of things that we can we can measure. But talk me through how do we how should we be thinking about this myth? How should we be thinking differently, if we really actually want to measure transformation or push towards transformation, really? Vick Green — Yeah, and and the thing about it is activity and measuring that, it’s not bad. It’s just incomplete. it’s only telling you half the picture. And so to give you that idea here is like, Think about baseball for a second. If you play, what if you measured who won the game by who got the most hits? Vick Green — Okay. There’s plenty of times where hits does lead to runs and there’s a correlation. But there’s also plenty of times where it doesn’t. Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — And a team with the most hits loses the game. But here’s the bigger picture. How much does that change the game for those that are playing? Vick Green — If hits is all you measure, a home run has no value. You would never run past first base. That right there is the impact that happens if all we measure is activity. And so it shapes how people interact with you. And because here’s the big idea is your people play where the scoreboard is the clearest. Rich Birch — Yeah. True True. Vick Green — And so if our scoreboard is all about activity at best, it’s an uninspiring invitation. I would say at worst, it promotes a work-based theology. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Vick Green — And I think that’s what’s at risk here. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Vick Green — And so ultimately, incomplete scoreboards create incomplete disciples. Vick Green — And so we just have to look and say, okay, we let’s not stop measuring activity. Now, let’s but let’s also measure something else. Let’s make sure our transformation scoreboard is as clear as our activity scoreboard. Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. I like that. And I i think that’s vivid you know the the hits versus ah you know runs is a great example. Yeah, you know, and that I can see actually in our church world, how and there’s metrics I know that are incomplete, but you’re like, okay, but we use, it’s at least measurable. So we put it down on a piece of paper. Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — So what should we be measuring then? What should we be paying attention to to help us get a better handle on this. Vick Green — Yeah, I’ll give you two metrics and we’ll tackle the first one and however much time we have for the second, we’ll tackle the second. Vick Green — The first one that I would that you need to measure is what is your, we call it a dream disciple. And that’s more a term from us to the church. The church tweaks that and adjusts that into their language. Vick Green — But tell me the picture of the disciples that you’re developing. And then how can we build our metrics of success off of those traits? Vick Green — And so this looks different because ultimately we’re not looking for activity. We’re looking for life change here. And so… What we’ll do, I’ll give you I’ll give you a a story and and of somebody who created one and how they now use it. Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And so we’re working with a friend of mine. You may know Chris Vaught. I don’t know if you know Chris Vaught. Rich Birch — Oh yeah, yeah. Vick Green — And so, yeah, he’s with Connection Point. And so they’re one of like and they’re an outreach church, had an unbelievable success… But whenever he called and reached out, he said, man, we’re growing super fast. But I don’t think we’re making disciples. And so we had to really go in there and say, man, what does that look like? Vick Green — We developed with this team their dream disciple. And I love in it because again if if people are listening just in audio, you won’t see this, but you can easily imagine it. They call their disciple, they say that they have a mind of truth. They have a voice of hope, a heart of compassion, hands of service, and feet of purpose. Rich Birch — I love it. Vick Green — And so it’s like head, shoulders, knees, and toes right now. Like you know, and so you’re you’re doing it, you can’t help but but but do it. Vick Green — But they got five roles that they want their people to live into. And then they built assessments and metrics and things around each of those roles. But then come back to the idea of how do we make the scoreboard clearer that, you know, they are sharing more about the roles of their disciple than their pathway. Because their pathway just says what you want someone to do. This tells you who you want them to become. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Vick Green — And that that piece there are so often, and here’s how you know you have this problem is a lot of times with pathway language, it’s all verbs. And you just tell me what you want me to do. Rich Birch — Do this, do this, do this. Vick Green — And… and exactly. And but your dream disciple is using nouns, adjectives, adverbs. It’s painting a picture of transformation. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Vick Green — And here’s the reminder that none of us need, but I’ll give it anyways, no one joins your church for a busier calendar. Rich Birch — True. Vick Green — Like nobody’s joining it to go to the net these four programs for the program’s sake. They’re joining it to become a better people.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — And so what they did is they they got a picture of that for their people, but not just that, down to their kids’ ministry. That tactile thing, I mean, it is a dance that they do for all their kids. It was in VBS. The other piece, it’s a blessing that they pray over a kid during in child dedication, during a baby… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Vick Green — …and then equip parents to pray it over their kids every night. Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — Now think of that. compounding effect from zero years old, all the way to the oldest person in your congregation. You’ve given this vision and this language that is is directing people’s attention. And then they built in assessments to measure: How well are we becoming this type of person? Rich Birch — I love that. And I think that’s such a key insight I think you just rolled out there that I want to double click and underline and highlight for folks that. Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — Too many times, I think our pathways, our discipleship stuff is, or any really anything in our church, but we’re talking about discipleship specifically today, is us-centric rather than our people-centric. It’s all about, hey, will you jump through these hoops, which like you said earlier, is there’s a real danger there that it can be, could even be like a you didn’t say this, I said it, like an abusive kind of thing. Like, hey, you got to check this stuff off. It can lean to, yeah, in the wrong way, as opposed to, hey, how do we make this about you? Which I think that’s a key insight. You gave a good, vivid example there with Chris’s church. Rich Birch — When a church works with you and helps narrow down, define—I love the crystallization of the movements, all of that— Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — Where does this start showing up? Their dream disciple? What are some other areas that you start seeing? Or maybe you do you have some recommended like, hey, here are the ways to start talking about it because I’ll give you this this my my skepticism… Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — …although I’m not really a skeptic person, is I wonder if this work is is like the we went away to the vision retreat, came up with a new vision, put it on the wall. How do we ensure it doesn’t become that, but it actually gets worked through our culture? What are some of the places that you see the dream disciple really showing up… Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — …in interactions in the church? Vick Green — Yeah, and I’ll connect too to that last piece that you just said as I share it. Like because I think that is huge, what you just mentioned, Rich, is that I think so often we don’t mean to. But we don’t realize that we communicate a message that says we want something from you. And so we share our mission statement. Here’s who we are. Then we share our pathway, which says, here’s how you get involved. So here’s who we are and do these four things to help us. And we miss the opportunity to say, hey, here’s what we want for you, not from you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Vick Green — When you step in and you’re a part of us, here is who how we’re going to help you be a better spouse, a better parent, better coworker. So much of this, what it does is it helps the church move from a vision that is from people to for people. And so with that in mind, what I’m always pushing our churches to is your pathway lives in your new membership class or in your Discover class. And so because at that point, they have decided, hey, I I want to i want to be a part of this. How? Your pathway tells them how. Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — Your dream discipleship is telling them why it matters. And so people don’t join your church for how, they join it for a why. So… Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — I’m encouraging them that dream disciple, like, I don’t I’m not worried about the lead pastor communicating their pathway. Like I’m worried about, tell me why your pathway matters, tells me who you want your people to become. Vick Green — And so where that where that shows up is you will see it visibly shown in places. You’re going to, like, I would rather that in your bumper reels in the beginning. I’d rather that in on the walls. I would rather that in your resourcing to it. Vick Green — And then beyond that, just talking about some fun ways where you actually like move this beyond just cute language, you know, like, I mean, the language is great, but if it just lives on the walls, then like. I mean no one no one is is wanting something that just makes the walls add more language. We want something that’s actually shaping our culture. Vick Green — So another great example of how I’ve seen this done is my friends at New Beginnings do it really well. And they’ll go and they’ll preach this sermon series. And then they will ask at the end of it, they’ll say, hey, which of these roles are you doing best in, which do you need to most grow in? Vick Green — Just, hey, real quick, give us 60 seconds. What do you need to grow in in the days ahead? Vick Green — But here’s what they do with it. Now they have thousands of people telling them, here’s where I’m at. Here’s where I need to grow. First off, that data alone, how much that shapes their sermon series. They’re resourcing because now they’re seeing our people are doing well at this role that deals with reading their Bible, but they’re doing really poor at sharing their faith. Vick Green — Okay, we need to we need to lean into this role in how we preach. But here’s the other thing that they do. They put in personalized drip campaigns based off your responses. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. Vick Green — So if you look, again, just using a Connection Point, let’s say they say A Voice of Hope is their lowest. Okay, that’s that’s their evangelism idea. So now they’re going to follow up with emails of like, hey, here’s a couple of books we really like. Hey, we have a new class that we start in two weeks around evangelism. You said you wanted to grow in this. We would love to help. Rich Birch — Love it. Vick Green — That language is so targeted, but it also, I want something for you, not, hey, I want you to sign up for one of our classes. And so that’s some of the practical ways that people take this and actually get it moving. Rich Birch — That’s good. I love that as so I’m a full-time coach now. And one of the things that’s been a little bit shocker, I probably shouldn’t because I’ve been in ministry a long time, is how much people are not willing to change and to and and unless they clearly see the why, and unless they’re ready for it, like unless they come to the place of saying, hey ah this is an area I want to grow in.
Rich Birch — And so even I love that of like, hey what if you’ve got five different areas in this, which of these five do you want to grow in? Rather than saying, hey here’s you should grow one of these.
Vick Green — That’s right.
Rich Birch — I think we’ll set people up in a way better spot to then be open to conversation around that area rather than us being prescriptive. That’s so good. Vick Green — And I would I would add too to that idea of of how to get people to change, like in that paradigm piece to it is every, ever you know, you and I have been to many of these conferences. The idea of define your disciple, get a disciple definition is like all over the place.
Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — I think that’s a good starting line. I just think it’s a poor finish line. Because the definition aims at the head. I think your dream is how it needs to aim at the heart.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Vick Green — It needs to paint a picture for people. And so like a great example, you can feel the difference in this statement. Like I was working with Harvest Bible in Chicago and they were and we were looking at their roles and they picked up on this agrarian Psalms 1 imagery. But what they said, we want our disciples to be uniquely planted, deeply rooted, carefully pruned, and persistently fruitful. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Vick Green — That’s right. Everybody does, but you can feel when it hits at the heart level. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Vick Green — And I think at the end of the day, that is ultimately where so much of the change is needed for our people. And you know Jesus didn’t just give us a different way. He showed us how that different way was a better way. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Vick Green — And you need to paint that picture that people look and say, I need that in my life. And so I think you’re, don’t stop at the definition level. Paint the picture that your people look and say, I want that in my life. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. So you had mentioned there is a second area. We could cover that even just quickly… Vick Green — Sure. Rich Birch — …just to kind of give it ah some context. What was the second area that you think we should be thinking about? Vick Green — So if that’s the other metric, if dream disciple is one of those, the second is—and this is, again, kind of our term, but it’s it’s easy to connect on—is this idea of every person needs to be able to name and reach their kingdom circle.
Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And here’s the idea is that every person in your church has a circle of influence that they’re called to bring the kingdom of God into. And you can call that whatever you want and and find what fits your culture. I’ve named it several different things at this point. But it’s just this idea that often, you know, before before covid—we’ll just kind of use covid it that was such a defining mark—before covid, whenever churches were working on strategy, though they wouldn’t say it, their end goal was often to just get deeper program engagement. And so, okay, let’s get them further engaged in what we’re doing and giving us more hours of their time. Vick Green — But here’s the problem is like program engagement is is really important. But it’s a byproduct, not the purpose. That’s again, that engagement myth slipping in there. It’s like, it’s good. It’s important. Let’s measure it. But what we realized is that covid was a nationwide disciple-making test. And by and large, the local church failed. Vick Green — And and and we were part of that where we looked in the people who were in our church who were always in who were in the church building every time we opened it. The moment they couldn’t get to the church building. They didn’t know what to do with their faith. Their faith crumbled in it. And and and and what it began to show us, it asked one big question: if we took away the church’s programming, would the people own the mission? Vick Green — And our people had yet to get to a place where they had owned what it meant for their faith and to be a disciple-maker. And we see it still. Like, I can’t tell you how many times I start working with churches and we start them through a through one of our discipleship group ministries. And people come back and they say, our our deacons, our elders, our key leaders. I can’t believe how few of them had a consistent time in the word. Vick Green — And so all I say all that to say this is we’ve we’ve changed now post COVID to say, hey, program engagement is a byproduct, but the end goal? It has to be, are they are they a disciple-maker? Are they investing in others now? And so that’s that idea of, in your life, in your circle of influence, whether that’s in the church. But maybe it’s in your workplace. Maybe it’s in your neighborhood. Who are you bringing the kingdom of God to? And that may be more evangelistic, may be more discipleship focused. But that right there is that second metric. I want to know how many disciple-makers are actively investing in others in your church. Vick Green — And if we can’t get really clear on how we measure that, we need to recalibrate. And it’s ultimately that right there is filling out that scoreboard. We’re still measuring activity, but now we know are they living this lifestyle and where are they actively investing in someone right now Rich Birch — Yeah. How so I think that’s like that’s a super noble idea. I love it. Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — I understand what you’re talking about, I think, if if I’m grasping it correctly. Vick Green — Yeah. Sure. Rich Birch — But a part of what you’re trying to do there is measure, by definition, things that are outside of the building or outside of the program that you’re you’re doing, I feel like we have a hard time understanding what’s happening even inside our buildings or inside our programs. So how do you help a church? How did how do we get our handle on ow many of these sidebar…I’ll give you an example. Vick Green — Sure. Rich Birch — I was talking to my brother-in-law—he attends our church—and he was talking to and a guy who also attends our church. And they had like a great engagement around prayer. Aand there was like this really cool outcome that had um you know that, but it really, none of this interaction had really anything to do with the church. It wasn’t in our in our programs. It all sidebar to what we’re doing. Rich Birch — How do we try to get our handle on those these things that are outside of our buildings, outside of our programs to measure them to say, hey, this is is this actually having an impact or not? Vick Green — Yeah, I think first off is what do we consider to be, in this instance, a kingdom circle? Or what do we consider to be a disciple-making leader? Rich Birch — Good. Vick Green — What we often find is that when we get to leadership, it’s usually fuzzy. Every ministry area has their own definition of it. We measure it differently. Okay, what if it’s outside of the walls versus inside? So first off, it’s just getting clear on what do we consider to be a leader?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Vick Green — Then, what is our plan to equip them? And then what is our plan to partner with them? So you got to have those three things. And what is the leader? How do we equip them? How do we partner? Most of the time, there’s not a unified approach in those three instances. Vick Green — And so what we’re doing with churches is, hey, we have a kingdom circle training that they can they can use and they can go through that helps them create a personalized disciple-making plan. And it and it lets them say, based off of what I feel like God’s calling me to, the people in my life, here’s who I’m investing in. Here’s how I’m going to do it. And then those churches saying, great. Here are here are different resources that you can use to do that. Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And here’s how we’re going to walk with you. And so just to give like a practical visualization of that. It was actually one of the guys that I had our discipleship group, which again, our Replicate has its model. It’s like a three to five, gender specific, you meet for a season and then you multiply out. I’m trying to like get Austin out of the out of the nest, if you want to think about it that way. It’s time for you to go invest in someone else. Vick Green — Okay, here’s the thing that you need to know about Austin. I jokingly say this, but you didn’t know Fred Flintstone still exists? But like, it’s Austin. Like I came from Louisiana dude. I didn’t even know quarries were like still alive and well. Rich Birch — A thing, yeah. Vick Green — Yeah, like I was like, oh wow. This dude is a fourth generation quarry worker. Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And we start working together and I’m like encouraging him on, hey, you need to step out and start a D group. And he he every time said, I don’t know, I don’t know. Finally, I just said, hey. Who in your life could you invest in? And we always do our D group around a fire pit. And so as we were around the fire pit, he goes, you know, I don’t have any of other believers in my life. But the people in my life that don’t know Jesus don’t have this. They don’t have a fire pit. Vick Green — And so he then starts to identify people in the neighborhood, and men who don’t go to church that are in our neighborhood. And he just, he has them over and he’s he around the firepit. He said, guys, we’re going to gather here every Wednesday night talk to talk about, um he just said, we’re going to talk about life and dude stuff. Like, that was his pitch. Rich Birch — I love it. Vick Green — But they like loved it. You know, like, it yeah, it was just, it was, but all of us were like, yeah. I watched a man a man ah every Wednesday that did not know Jesus, that did not go to church, walk past my house to go to Austin’s. Rich Birch — That’s great. Vick Green — And what he did to that, the church gave him, hey, here’s four or five really easy questions to help you figure out what that hour with those men are going to look like. And so he ran that based off the church. The church has encouraged him. Again, the church ah the the church, they don’t know the church yet. They eventually, these men all start coming to church with Austin. Their wives start coming. Vick Green — And then eventually he looks and says, hey, Vick, I’m going to take that D group guide that our church gave us. He says, I’m going to start doing what you did with me with them. They’re all now coming to church and want to grow in their faith. Vick Green — And so he took another resource of the church. Did it. And then eventually they multiplied out. And the story continues. Vick Green — And so, but but there were a couple of resources the church gave. The church partnered in prayer and encouragement of him. And they helped him figure out what’s God doing in his circle of influence. And how do we help equip and empower Austin to be plan A for his circle of influence, not the church’s event or program. Rich Birch — That’s good That’s great. Well, we we’ve got this. A resource I want to point people towards, it’s or you’ve got a resource that we want to point people towards, is the Ministry Myths download. We’ve been kind of talking about one part of it, the engagement myth. There’s you lift these five different, we don’t need to get into all of them, but talk to me about this resource. We’ll link to it in the show notes so people can, can pick it up and all that, but talk to me about this tool and how can it help and, and that sort of thing. Vick Green — Yeah, so this is, administering myths is probably our most popular tool, and it’s the five most common myths that are stalling your disciple-making culture. So if you’re not seeing leadership development or mobilization or if you’re not seeing that, often it’s coming back to a myth.
Vick Green — And what’s fun, you know, we we just use it as a personal assessment here. but this The myths idea, what myths are they’re faulty beliefs that are driving your behavior, and you don’t even know it.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Vick Green — And it’s what severs good intentions from good impact. And so what happens in our church is there’s these myths that we’re just kind of running on autopilot. So you’ve already heard the engagement myth. There’s four other ones in there. But this is not only going to introduce you to the myths. It’ll give you an assessment and then help you begin to kind of see and name some of the tensions that you’ve been feeling. Vick Green — And so that right there is one of our most popular resources that helps churches kind of get the conversation started on, hey, why aren’t we seeing disciples being made like we want to? Rich Birch — Love it. I think this would be a great place for everybody that’s listening in as a starting point out of today’s podcast You know, you’ve listened in here, you’re half an hour in, and this could be a great next step for you is to click that link, take the assessment. It’ll give you some good practical next steps and stuff to think about. Wrestle through with your team. Good conversation started there.
Rich Birch — Also, talk to me about “Movement Ready Church”. This is a ah book that you and Robby have put together. Kind of give us an overview of it. How does it connect with what we’ve been talking about today? Vick Green — Yeah, absolutely. So the “Movement Ready Church” is a book that Robby Gallaty and I released in March. And it is it is our toolkit kind of in a book, if you want to think about it that way. And so it is really, we started to ask after working with thousands of churches, what are the essential elements that must be true for a church to see a disciple-making movement? Vick Green — And so it is going to show those and it’s going to really help you not just identify those myths, but then we bust each of those myths in the book. Rich Birch — Okay, great. Vick Green — And so it’s going to that book’s really going to be almost like the solution side of the ministry myth assessment. But then it also, we when we work with churches, step one is we work through what does it take to be ah or to do a movement ready, to create your movement ready plan. And so we’ll go in and work with teams, one days, or do digital cohorts all around that book. And it’s helping churches get all the things that we’ve been talking about. So everything we talked about in here is going to be that and much more in the book. Rich Birch — That’s great. And you can pick that up at Amazon, I’m assuming, where finer books are sold. But anywhere else we want to send them to to grab copies of that? Vick Green — Sure, anywhere where books are sold, but then also if you go to movementreadychurch.com, you’ll see it there as well as a ton of free resources. We love, like our goal is to be as practical as possible. And so you’ll see a lot of resources there that help you take these principles and start having conversations and start putting them into practice. So movementreadychurch.com. Rich Birch — Yeah, I think that’d be a great place as well to check out and you know follow along with the story, the Replicate story. You guys are doing such great work and with so many churches. And you know I’m an honored that you guys would want to come on and talk about this stuff. So I really do think, friends, it’s a great starting point for you.
Rich Birch — Well, just as we wrap up today’s conversation, any kind of final thoughts for us as we’re wrapping up today’s discussion? Vick Green — Yeah, thanks so much for having us. And my encouragement for it is that as you look towards, we talked about the getting your disciple-making culture. We talk about it as make Jesus’ final words your first work. And I think the opportunity and why I love what we do is that these principles are all just getting back. We call it ancient innovation. Like it sometimes feels like new insights and new ways of doing ministry. Like how you said about the kingdom circle. Let me wrap my mind around this. And so it feels new, but it’s just a return to something old. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Vick Green — It’s a return to what Jesus has called the church to do. And so just to encourage any leader, this is not just about getting better. And it is about getting back to the heart of what we’ve ah we’re called to do from the beginning and making disciples. And so my hope is that this is a resource that helps helps you not just be a better leader. But what I love is every time I’m with a team, somebody comes back and says, man, like I’m getting back to why I got into ministry in the first place. And so it’s our prayer that it would be that for you as well. Rich Birch — Good stuff. Well, we’re cheering for you, Vick. Appreciate your work and how you help so many churches. If people want to track with you or with Replicate, where do we want to send them online? Vick Green — Yeah, so you can follow me on social media. There’s not a lot of Vick Greens out there, so you’ll you’ll find me pretty quickly. And so vickgreen.com as well, or replicate.org is our our ministry and what we do. And so if there’s any way that Replicate, we can partner with you, we sure would love to meet you, connect, and see what ways we can serve your church. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, sir. Appreciate you being here today. Vick Green — Thanks so much, Rich. It’s great to be with you. And thanks for all that you do with unSeminary Podcast. Longtime listener, still continue. So really grateful for you. Rich Birch — Thank you.
A Former Witch, an Ex-Muslim, and an Atheist Walk Into a Baptism Tank with Jon Thompson
Sep 17, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jon Thompson, senior pastor of Sanctus Church, a multisite church on the east side of Toronto. Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years and has helped lead the church through seasons of growth, renewal, revival, and cultural change. In this conversation, he shares insights from his latest book, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival, and explores how churches can faithfully witness in an increasingly post-Christian—and even re-paganized—culture.
Learn to minister in a re-paganized culture. // Jon believes Canada offers a glimpse of where many parts of the United States may be heading. Churches are increasingly engaging people with little or no Christian memory alongside Muslims, Hindus, atheists, New Agers, nominal Christians, and people shaped by contemporary cultural movements. The challenge is not simply to defend Christian truth, but to communicate the gospel thoughtfully and winsomely to radically different audiences at the same time.
Open the three evangelistic doors. // Historically, love, word, and power describe three ways people encounter God. Love demonstrates God’s character through hospitality and care. Word clarifies truth through preaching, apologetics, and teaching. Power reveals God’s presence through experiences such as healing, deliverance, dreams, and other supernatural encounters. Jon argues that churches need all three doors open because different people encounter Jesus through different pathways.
Admit your church’s bias. // Most churches naturally lean toward one or two of these categories. Conservative evangelical churches often emphasize word. Other churches may prioritize love through compassion and justice, while still others focus heavily on supernatural experiences. Jon encourages leaders to honestly identify their bias and intentionally elevate the areas they tend to neglect. A healthy church needs all three working together rather than allowing one to dominate.
Don’t let fear quench what God is doing. // Jon tells the story of a woman who came to faith out of Hinduism after experiencing visions, spiritual conflict, and encounters with Jesus. When her church removed those elements from her baptism testimony because leaders were uncomfortable with them, she felt that an essential part of her story had been denied. Jon warns that fear, theological bias, and lack of experience can cause churches to suppress genuine ways God may be working in people’s lives.
Choose encounter and systems. // Jon believes churches often falsely pit spiritual encounter against organizational structure. Healthy churches need both. Leaders should build systems that support what God is doing without attempting to control it. As spiritual activity increases, churches may need to adjust volunteer processes, pastoral care systems, staff expectations, and leadership structures. The goal is not to eliminate order but to make the organization flexible enough to respond when circumstances change.
Understand renewal, revival, and awakening. // Jon distinguishes between renewal, revival, and awakening. Renewal is the recovery of first love in individual believers. Revival is a sovereign move of God that He initiates and ends where sin is revealed and there’s widespread healing. Awakening happens when revival leads to widespread conversion. Leaders should not assume revival is guaranteed, but they should remain faithful and responsive whether God brings extraordinary renewal or simply calls them to steady obedience in an ordinary season.
Start by refusing to resist God. // Before changing structures or launching new ministries, Jon believes leaders should begin with a simple posture: “Lord, whatever you want to do, I won’t fight you.” Many pastors love God but still struggle to trust Him when ministry becomes unpredictable. Jon encourages leaders to confront their fear, relinquish control, and remain open to correction, repentance, and change.
To learn more about Jon Thompson and his books, including Convergence, Perseverance, Presence, and the upcoming re-release of Deliverance, visit jonthompsonresources.com or Amazon.com.
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, Rich from the unSeminary Podcast. Listen, you’re going to want to lean in today for this conversation because I think this kind what you’re going to get a sneak peek on is something that’s impacting churches all over the world that’s having, I think, an interesting kind of moment and is maybe points to a bit of where God is at work. And I think could for many churches that are listening in today, give them a sense of maybe some next steps, what the kind of evolution or the development of their church, what that could look like for the future. Rich Birch — Plus, it’s one of those times where I get to talk with like a real live friend, somebody that I know from the real world, not just on the internet, which is so fun. Excited to have Jon Thompson with us. He is the senior pastor at Sanctus Church, a multi-site church in the east side of Toronto with four in-person locations plus church online. This church began in 1985 with just 40 people meeting and now averages over 2,600 weekend attendees with a plan to reach 3,600 by the end of the decade and open a sixth site in the T. Dot in Toronto in the six by 2030.
Rich Birch — Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years, starting as a youth pastor before becoming the senior pastor. He holds both a masters from Tyndale and a doctorate from Fuller. He grew up in Ecuador from missionary parents, he and his wife, Joanna, who’s incredible, have three kids. His books include Convergence, Deliverance, and Perseverance. And the brand new one that I’m excited to have him talk about today, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival. And it’s from our friends at Zondervan Reflective. Rich Birch — Jon, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you’re here today. Welcome. Jon Thompson — Yeah great to be here. Great to be back on the podcast. Hang out with a real friend, like you said, and hi to anyone listening anywhere around the world today. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is good. I’m excited for this. For folks that haven’t maybe picked up a past episode, which you haven’t, you should go go back and find them. Jon’s been on a couple times, a few times. But give us kind of a picture of a normal Sunday at Sanctus. Who’s in the room? Give us a flavor for the church. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so our church is located, like you said, on the east side of Toronto. And some of your viewers will know this, but lots might might not. Toronto is the most multicultural city on earth, more than London, more than, well, LA, more than New York, more than Singapore, more than Hong Kong. And so there’s between 150 and 300 heart languages spoken every single day in our amazing city, by the way, you got to come to Toronto. The food culture is unbelievable… Rich Birch — That’s true. That is true. Jon Thompson — …and unparalleled because everyone’s here. So on a Sunday morning, depending on our locations, again, because we have rural sites, urban sites, and suburban sites, which makes life interesting to say the least, but we probably got 55 plus identified nationalities. We probably I think we’re on 13 on staff right now. And so everything from someone from Hong Kong to someone who’s moved here from Pakistan. We’ve got Congolese. We’ve got Irish. I mean just fill in the blank and you’re going to discover the amazing diversity of the human race on this side of heaven. And we you know we made a decision a long time ago that we were going to fight for Revelation 7 on this side of uh the moment.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jon Thompson — And it’s exciting, it’s hard, it’s difficult, and it’s um and it’s worth it. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. You know, Canada is and I know we share this conviction. I know you’ve said it and I’ve said it on other podcasts when we’ve had Canadian friends on the podcast. But I think it’s really important, particularly, you know, 95 plus percent of the people listening are in the States. But I think it’s important just to to set the context. Because in a lot of ways, Canada is a few a few years ahead or behind, depending on what language you want to use, of our friends in the States. What do you mean by that? When you say that, what springs to mind? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a very interesting place, right? Because Canada moved from, ah you know, Christendom worldview, to a nominal Christian worldview, to a struggling Christian worldview, to a post-Christian worldview. And now I think we’ve moved to a new place, which is not post-Christian, but repaganized. Jon Thompson — And so it’s a it’s a fascinating place. Because In our context, One moment, you’ll be talking to someone who still has Christian memory, who actually doesn’t love Jesus at all, but it’s a family thing. And it’s nominal Christianity.
Jon Thompson — The next moment, you’ll still run into a Mormon telling you you’re worshiping the right and wrong Jesus. The next moment, it’s a New Ager. The next moment, it’s ah a Muslim activist. The next moment, it’s a transgender activist. The next moment, it’s someone who has no clue at all on anything. Jon Thompson — And so what’s fascinating about up here is you’ve got modern, postmodern. You’ve got conservative, you’ve got liberal. You’ve got the heart of the sexual revolution in the center center of our city. It’s one of the hubs of that globally. You’ve got every religion on earth. And you’ve got churches that are dying. Jon Thompson — I think, I don’t know of the latest stats. I still think that they’re they’re estimating one third of churches will close in the next decade in Canada, like physical ah buildings will close. And while that’s happening. And all that’s happening. You’ve got still sort of Christianity memory in certain groups, and then there are churches that are exploding. Jon Thompson — And so the the way I talk about we’re a little ahead is we are your future in some form. Because we’re facing down Jesus and how we deal with the gift of immigrants globally, but also the complication of that. We’re dealing with having to pivot the gospel to an a Muslim person, a Hindu person, a nominal Christian, and and a Mormon all in one conversation. Jon Thompson — There are Bible belts left in Canada, very small ones. But like Abbotsford, for example. Rich Birch — Little teeny tiny belts. Jon Thompson — But but there are those places. Rich Birch — Sure. Yep. Jon Thompson — At the same time there is the post-christian thing. And the reason why I think our American friends should pay more attention to us is not because we’re we’re having a third cousin issue up here and we’re jealous. It’s because actually we reflect where you’re going. Because there are going to be sections in the United States that probably will remain nominally Christian and culturally Christian for a very long time. You know, in certain parts of Houston, for example, or maybe in sections of Kentucky or Louisiana. But then you go to New York and LA or Seattle. And here’s the point. The church has to speak to both audiences at once, which feels in contradiction. But isn’t. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah and I’ve definitely seen that. I like the uh the re-paganizing language you know I’ve used the uh the pre-christian that we’ve it’s like we’ve gone kind of all the way through. And that that totally has been my experience serving here. You know I took a break. I was in the States for a number of years better part of a decade and then came back. And one of the things I’ve noticed has been this shift kind of under the current. We used to say we used to joke actually we ain’t your mama’s church. But like, you can’t make that joke anymore because like mom didn’t go to church. Grandma didn’t go to church. Like nobody in there, you know, we run into that all the time. Like that’s, you know, really common. Jon Thompson — So like literally this week. This week, my daughter is doing swimming lessons. A woman comes up to us and says, hey, I hear you’re a pastor. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — Really tragic thing. She says, my husband’s dying, 45 years old. And so my wife and I end up speaking to her, praying for her. And she’s like, I have never. So she’s 45 grown up Canada. She says, I’ve never owned a Bible. I’ve never read a Bible. Could I have a Bible?
Jon Thompson — Now, for you listening in the Bible Belt before you dismiss this conversation and say not our fight, I just…May I do something for a moment? That might not be true because you’re surrounded by 400 churches. But every time you go online, it is your reality. So what we experience physically in Canada you digitally experience every day. And you have to be as as adaptive thoughtful, winsome, orthodox on your digital thinking as you do your physical thinking. And again, I’ll say this a little strongly. I find a lot of you aren’t. Rich Birch — Okay. We’re starting off spicy, which is great. Okay, so you’ve seen a lot of people. Part of what I love about Sanctus, friends like, I’m trying to, again, give some context. For folks that are listening in, Sanctus is known as a, you know this is a life-giving church. People, they come to Jesus here. This is the kind of place where people take steps towards faith in in Christ, which is amazing. You’ve seen a lot of that happen over the years at Sanctus—thousands of people. When you look back on some of the patterns in people’s lives, some of the, you know, the kind of themes that come back time and time again and how they arrived at that sort of decision. What are you noticing in people’s lives? Jon Thompson — Well, like I just said about the diversity of our place, the diversity of conversions come from those places. And so like on a Sunday morning, I mean, our baptisms aren’t more epic than yours or anyone else. I mean, praise the Lord. Right. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — We’ve got we’ve got 10 year olds confessing the faith of their parents. But it won’t be unusual for literally, I mean, this just happened. So we’ll have like two or three, not babies, but children who say, you know, I want to get baptized. And the next person’s like, I grew up an atheist. I’ve encountered the living God through Christ. The next person is I’m a former witch. And I just actually want to renounce Satan in the tank. And the next person’s like, I used to be a Muslim. And now I’ve actually found out that Jesus is Lord. Jon Thompson — So, so, that is not now an uncommon experience at any of our sites. And what is behind that is not only that the gospel is good for everyone—praise the Lord—but we worked really hard to make sure that all the doors are open evangelistically to all people. And that gets to our bias in spiritual gifts. But you know—and we’ve had this conversation many times, you and I, Rich—but there are three historic categories that Bobby Clinton invented years ago we’ve used where he divides all the gifts, love, word, and power. Jon Thompson — So love gifts demonstrate the love of God in the room. Word gifts clarify who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t. Power gifts evidence his presence in the room. That’s true of gifts, but to take a farther step out, those are three doors evangelistically. Jon Thompson — And this is why this is so critical. Because we have to have all three of those doors—such as, hospitality, apologetic defense of the gospel, and miracles and deliverance—open all the time. Because these are the ways people have always come to faith in our movement for 2,000 years. Jon Thompson — Now, all three doors have to lead to the true Christ because there are fake Jesuses. And there’s lots of heresy out there. And it has to be involved in repentance and belief and evidence by baptism. Amen. But I find most churches, theologically and experientially, are comfortable with one or maybe two of those things. And as I always lecture on this, like formally, if you sit on a three-legged stool and there are three legs… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …and one leg is missing. You wobble on the best of days, but you usually fall down. Rich Birch — Yeah. I’d love to kind of double click on love, word, and power, these three legs of the stool. And so familiar with, some people will be familiar with that framework for gifting like you talked about, and but kind of give us a little more, you gave you kind of a quick overview of each of them from an evangelistic point of view, but kind of give me some examples or what it might look like in a church that’s opening that that door evangelistically, you know, the love, word, and power door. Jon Thompson — Yeah, and um I think we’re going to talk about this a little bit later. I mean there’s a lot behind these statements. Rich Birch — Yep. Yes. Jon Thompson — Like almost 30 years of conversation. Rich Birch — Yes.
Jon Thompson — But like this is the best way I’ll say it. I’ve seen this in my life. I’ve seen this in my kids’ life. I’ve seen this across our church for two two plus decades, almost three now. Can I tell some stories that might help? Rich Birch — Yeah of course. I love a good story. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so… yeah so like here here’s a great example guy a young adult guy is in his basement. And he’s smoking weed, high as a kite. Freaks freaks out. Okay, great. Rich Birch — Shocker. Jon Thompson — Shocker. But actually sees a demon and like panics. Calls someone at our church, a friend of his, and is like, I’m really scared. And she laughs. And she’s like, no problem. So her first thing is not. Oh you’re an idiot. Her first thing is not, oh, you’re inventing that. The first thing is not, well, of course you’re high, you’re seeing that. Her first reaction is, well, I’ve got an answer to that. Jon Thompson — She’s like, yeah, his name is Jesus. By the way, if you say his name, watch the demon leave and then come talk to us. So the guy—total pagan—does it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — The demon leaves. He shows up next Sunday. He’s radically converted. Didn’t used to be able to read, by the way, very well. Now reads at a PhD level and on a theology sort of thing, like radically converted. And his starting point was a power encounter. Jon Thompson — Now the person next to it, next to him in a conversation is the one listening to John Lennox at Oxford on the the lack validity and the historicity of Jesus. Jon Thompson — Or or you know, and we’re like, yeah, of course. And then the next person, we were just talking to this on staff. So one of our so SLT members (senior leadership team) was talking about his conversion story. And his conversion story is one of his relatives—I think it was his mom—was really sick in the hospital. Two nurses come in, and and are Christians, start praying over her, and basically start committing you know hospitality in the hospital, probably in a way they’re not supposed to. She’s radically saved, ends up leading her son to Christ, and the hus… Jon Thompson — And and so so here’s all I’m trying to say. We have a gift bias that everyone should know their gifts and be using them not only internally in the church, but see how they work out evangelistically, but beyond the gift thing. This for us is normal. We talk about this in our sermons. We actually take the Bible literally in the sense of what we’ve defended is what we believe. I find a lot of conservative people defend the scriptures and don’t believe the thing they’re defending. Jon Thompson — So for us, when I look at the book of Acts, I’m like, we will see people come to faith through healings and through deliverances and through visions and through dreams, as much as John Lennox or or our good new friend Wes Huff from Canada, who’s on every podcast showing up why the Bible is reliable, and also through that incredible, Hey. Can you just talk to me? I’m really sad. Jon Thompson — And what I’m begging churches to do is this this matrix gives you the ability to pivot to multiple people, but you have to have a culture that believes this, defends it, defines it. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jon Thompson — And makes the weird normal, as we’ve said for years. Rich Birch — Yeah, okay. So you earlier you talked about how most churches are comfortable with one or maybe two, back to the three-legged stool. Jon Thompson — Yep. Rich Birch — Unpack that a little bit. How have you seen that? Or maybe even more pointedly, how do you fight a get that against that in your own church? Because I you know I can see naturally we would all kind of lean in one way because of our giftings. Rich Birch — you know As a leader, I always see I see the world through my lens. And so the stuff that’s important to me, if I was leading, we would be we’d love all that stuff, but we might not be into the other two. So help help me understand, what does that look like? How do you fight against that at Sanctus? Jon Thompson — So I’ll step back and just say that you know this has been almost like a three-decade journey. For us, everything changed when we got serious about spiritual gifts, unpacking them and doing all of that. That’s a different podcast we’ve done. But what I will but what i will say is this… is that there are most conservative evangelical churches are word churches: Who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t, the power of preaching. I’m all for it. I preach for a living. And by the way, for people who are starting to dismiss me, I’m reformed in my soteriology. And not only that, I’m an expository preacher. So you don’t get to throw me out the window too quick. Jon Thompson — So, I mean, i’m’m I’m all I’m all for that. But that is not the answer. It’s part of the answer. And so what we continually have done is when we realize that love, word and power are things that are all needed at once, we made them equally important. In staffing, in our conversations. That’s one.
Jon Thompson — Two, you need to admit as a church where you’re comfortable and where you’re not. Because there’s a lot of churches, for example, that I always say it like this. You can have all the word people on earth in your church and know all truth, but you’re cold as anything and you’re not even sure if anyone’s been saved lately.
Jon Thompson — I’m in all sorts of other churches where it’s love, love, social justice, and hospitality. But I’m like, but are you believing heresy? Do you even have any compass?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jon Thompson — And then I’m in other environments where it’s, you know, glory clouds and all this amazing spiritual stuff. But I’m like, do you even know the source of this? Jon Thompson — Where is this coming from? Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. Jon Thompson — Just because it’s good doesn’t mean it’s from our Lord. The spirit of Antichrist and Christ are identical in action. So so what we’ve tried doing is saying, number one, we have to admit these three things are important. Number two, we have to come up with language for each one of them and affirm them. Number three, and you just did it live so I love this, you need to admit where you’re limited. Jon Thompson — So you’re like, Jon, I mean we know each other you’re like One of my strongest spiritual gifts is leadership. That’s what you said. This is the way I immediately instinctually and spiritually react. So, Rich’s responsibility, if he was the senior pastor, is then to publicly talk about why he’s actually not biased in other directions and why he needs to be, and find other people to be that voice. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. Jon Thompson — Because a lot of people want to be open to this, but since they have not experienced it, they don’t know what to do. And I’m like, right, because it’s about interdependence. It’s not just about you. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I think this is a great framework. And you know, it it explains what I can think think could be what’s missing in, you know, so many of our churches and you know we so many of us are are led by uh very gifted word-oriented gift people. Like our churches are led by those people…
Jon Thompson — Right.
Rich Birch — …and which is amazing…
Jon Thompson — Yep.
Rich Birch — …but we could miss the other two. And you know in the last year our mutual friend Jeff Brody said something and that resonates with what you were saying. He’s talked about, you know you might believe that it’s true, but is it real for you? And that has like resonated with me so so deeply. It’s similar to when you talked about you know conservatives defend what they don’t necessarily believe. And you know, does this actually work out in our lives, I think is a powerful idea. Rich Birch — Now, there was a story in your book about a young woman who left Hinduism and then joined a reformed church. Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — I thought this was a vivid example. And particularly for us on the system side, I thought, oh, this is a good way to kind of systematize this… Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — …or think about this at a systems level. Can you unpack that story? Jon Thompson — A hundred percent. And I just want to acknowledge as we keep going, I know the vast majority of your viewers or listeners are more probably on the system side executive pastor, like that type of leader, which by the way, without you, we all die. So thank you for all your service and what you do. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah. Yep. Jon Thompson — We’re so thankful for you. But as we keep having this conversation, think this is a challenge for you to think deeply theologically, even before your systems, because what you systematize better be true.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Thompson — And so this is a great example of what we’re talking about. So I teach a course up here in a seminary on spiritual conflict, a very boring, non-controversial course. And so I was teaching this, I think it was two years ago now, and a young woman comes on and takes the course, and she is in tears at the end of one of the lectures. And ah and it’s all, it’s online. So so she said, can I meet? Jon Thompson — So I said, yeah. She says, look, she said, I just, I was radically saved out of Hinduism, which is incredible, and and she said soI you know I became a christian, I renounced my hinduism, and I I have no background. Either my family are Hindus or atheists and nothing in between, which even shows you the contradiction there. Her family is made up of atheists and Hindus. Rich Birch —Right. Jon Thompson — Like she is the embodiment of what we’re talking about. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Jon Thompson — And so she says, well, I’m going to find a church. She goes to a very small Reformed church locally, like a Christian Reformed, Dutch Reformed church. They’re of course excited that she’s come to faith, which is great. The average age in the church is much older. She told me, I think she’s the first adult baptism in over a decade or maybe two. Jon Thompson — So, because of course they’re covenantal, they baptize children overall. Fun. So he’s like, well, we want to hear your story. So she writes the whole story of encountering Jesus through visions and dealing with demons and Jesus setting her free. And so submits the the testimony, and the pastor edits every single encounter out of it. And this is like in the last three years in Toronto. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jon Thompson — This is in Toronto. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — And so she said, why have you edited this out? And he said, because I don’t fully understand this, though it’s true. My people will be afraid and I don’t want to make them afraid. And right there, she wept. And then she said to me. When I took your class, you not only affirmed everything that happened to me was true. Second of all, you gave me the theological principles and categories scripturally and historically to show that I am in the great line of succession of the church. If anyone should be defending the great line of succession of the church, it’s the Reformed kids. I mean, those reform kids. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — And so what I want to point out is in that story, fear and lack of experience, and theological bias ended up quenching what the Spirit wanted to do. Jon Thompson — And I just want to say to anyone listening. I’m not saying that every environment that you’ve been in has been perfect. I mean i think a lot of us have had experiences spiritually where people with right motives have done things wrong. Rich Birch — Yep, true. Jon Thompson — And we ended up getting hurt. So it’s sort of like dating. If you’ve ever dated and broken up or you married and and then and then got divorced, the amount of intensity it takes to re-engage is a lot. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — So there’s a lot of you listening, you’re like, Jon, I don’t want this conversation because I don’t want to touch that again. And I’m like, you have to. You have to. The scriptures are chock full of this. This is the only way we’re going to do well between retreat and revival, whether you’re in an environment where everyone’s a false nominal Christian or everyone’s not a Christian at all. This has been the pattern since the beginning. And it’s the way the Spirit works. So maybe I’d encourage some of you to pray about your fear and your anger. So you can get on with the thing. Rich Birch — So good. and And I would say um this, what we’re talking about right here, that story of um you know, this this you know young Hindu woman who came to know Jesus, praise God, amazing story. And, you know, kind of God appearing in dreams and all of that. I feel like has, been or I don’t feel like, has become more normative in my church experience in the same kind of climate that that you’re in. And that was not normative 30 years ago when I started. Rich Birch — Like, you know, it is this kind of like, you know, we have a laundry list of similar conversations where it’s like, you know people are having dreams and then wandering into church you know they’re having dreams on a Tuesday you know between Monday and Tuesday night and then they’re just wandering to the church because they’re like I think that’s a church over there. And are like hey, Jesus told me to come here. And you know then we end up having you know deeper conversations and they you know their life gets transformed. Rich Birch — I don’t remember that stuff going on. That’s happening more, which makes sense, I think, in this context of you know this uh what did you call it repaganizing or you know pre-christian kind of context because, you know, the Spirit’s got to work directly. He’s got to, you know, get directly encounter people. So I think that’s, you know, interesting.
Rich Birch — So the people that might be because people listening and…you want to say something? Jon Thompson — Well, I was just going to say, yes, and… Rich Birch — Yep. Good. Jon Thompson — 30 years ago, it was happening. Rich Birch — Sure. Jon Thompson — See, this is this is what we have to admit. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — It was happening, but we weren’t open. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. Jon Thompson — So for a lot of you listening you’re like, well I don’t live in Toronto. I’m like, I know you don’t. But what you legitimize from your pulpit tells your people what you’re allowed to talk about. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Jon Thompson — So if you’re going to have a sincere conversation about love, word, and power, and how the Spirit really works evangelistically, whether you’re speaking again to a a cultural Christian or someone else, here’s the point. I guarantee you in the Bible Belt, lots of people are having dreams too. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — They just have been told that’s weird, and we don’t talk about that. Rich Birch — Those are the kind of things we don’t talk about here. Yeah. Jon Thompson — Right. Rich Birch — That’s good. Okay, so pivoting in a slightly different direction. One of the things that I love about Sanctus that’s, you know, if you’re kind of in the outer orbit of the church, eventually you’ll start to hear like, oh, they have a deliverance ministry over there. That’s not on the list of like, you know, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, pioneer girls, deliverance ministry that I hear like in so many churches out there. And you’ve had it for a long time. What does that actually look like? So like an average Tuesday, how does that fit into what’s going on at Sanctus? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a conversation we wanted nothing to do with. Again, we were just again, you know Willow Creek, seeker-sensitive, historic church. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — And this is like 27 years ago now where people started coming to us and they’re like, I think I have something happening in my life that is beyond psychological or biological wiring. And we were like, we are not that church that does that. That’s the weird people down the street. You know, we’ll deal with them in heaven, but you know. And the Lord wouldn’t give it up. Jon Thompson — So 27 plus years later, I think we’ve had either been involved in or helped assist globally in a thousand cases. And just for, I love how you put that. It’s just normal for us. It’s not this thing. It’s a thing. Jon Thompson — So for us, a worship team practice and, you know, a youth gathering taking place, an Alpha running and a deliverance having the same building is just normal. Because again, our bias on spiritual gifts is there’s 21 gifts, 21 directions. We need to try to make sure that all the gifts are employed in some way. And this is a certain group of gifts. Jon Thompson — So, yeah, we’ve done it for years. The whole story of that is in the book, Deliverance, which I think you and I maybe have talked about. It’s coming out again in February through Zondervan Reflective. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — That’s the whole story. But like for us, dealing with the demonic, both in oppression issues and demonization issues and sanctification with Christians, but also evangelistically with non-Christians is just sort of normal. Rich Birch — Yeah. So good. Rich Birch — Yeah, I yeah there’s ah there’s a lot there that you I just think is kind of ah a great part of the story that God’s writing at your church, and I think can be instructive to many of us as we’re thinking about the future. Rich Birch — So let’s let’s kind of draw in the person that’s listening, maybe like an executive pastor, church of, I don’t know, 800 to a thousand, something like that. And they’re struck by this idea this like ooh maybe we are only opening one door. We’re not talking about these other these other doors. We’re not engaged in any of that. Rich Birch — Where would you suggest that they start? (Outside of actually picking up a copy of the book.) I you know I think that’s an obvious thing where we’re going to get to, but like outside of that, how would you help them think about um you know what they should be thinking about? Jon Thompson — Yeah. So just to step back a little to this question. This book conversation we’re having is about how you deal with an environment where renewal and retreat are happening in the same place. That’s very true in our social media feeds and it’s true in a lot of our cities. Jon Thompson — So I happen to know you and I happen to know your church. Because I’ve been conspiratorially involved behind the scenes at points. So your church’s own story is where all your people need to begin. Jon Thompson — And it’s this. Only when the leaders decide not to resist God will things change. And what I mean by that is not like open rebellion against God. It’s this. The lead, I just happen to know there were moments in your church’s own story where the leaders went, you know what? We’re not going to resist you anymore, Lord. What do you want to do? Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — That was it. That and that’s not, you know, like earthquake you know, feel. But it changed everything. I mean what are you starting this week? Is it this week you’re starting? 30 days of like. praying, or has that happened? Rich Birch — Well, yeah, we’ve done that already, which is amazing, and but there’s more of that coming…
Jon Thompson — Yep. Right. But…
Rich Birch — …like it’s there’s there’s lots of that stuff happening that wasn’t happening 10 years ago for sure. Jon Thompson — Right. The inception point, though, is when people just went like this. You know what? We’re afraid. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — We don’t understand. We prefer system over encounter. We prefer system over encounter and they’re not in competition, but both have to be there. So, Lord, what do you want to say? What do you want to do? That’s the starting point.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jon Thompson — Because before you work out the theology of love, word, and power and start thinking about how you, you know, witness to people from all the nations and not have a you know a vicious reaction towards them. And how you think through the, like all that. Jon Thompson — The first place is you say to the Lord, I won’t fight you. And the truth is the vast majority of us love God, but don’t trust him. And I said this on a former podcast with you. And and and lots of executive pastors, when they hear me talk, way more than this, get nervous because this starts sounding like Pandora’s box. Well, how do I systematize this? And what would be the implications? Jon Thompson — And I’m like, yeah, before any of that conversation, have you said to the Lord, whatever you want to do, I won’t I won’t fight you. Rich Birch — So good. Jon Thompson — Most pastors would say they have not prayed that. I don’t think. I also think, too, there are a series of systems that relate to what happens in an empowered encounterist church, a systemized church, and then a church going through a revival. Three very different things. And there’s there’s a set of systems. Rich Birch — You want to unpack…you want to unpack that a little bit? Jon Thompson — Yeah, sure. So I mean, there are lots of amazing churches that are commonly faithful who serve communion and preach God’s word and help the poor. And and and and those are all guaranteed places of encounter according to the scriptures. And so amazing. They’re that’s good. That’s right. That’s holy. And that’s one expression of it.
Jon Thompson — When you start saying to the holy spirit not only common faithfulness but anything else you’d like to do? At that moment I have a saying, most people praying for revival aren’t praying for revival, they’re praying for a normal church on Monday, they just don’t know it. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Thompson — And what I mean by that is most people praying for revival are actually praying for a church where the Spirit is more present, there are more encounters, and everyone’s using their gifts and loving each other better. That’s not revival. That is actually what it’s supposed to be. So when you have a whole group of encounters taking place more than a system, there are other things you have to adjust like we’ve done.
Jon Thompson — For example, you start asking your volunteers, what are your spiritual gifts? You start clarifying from the front what encounters look like. You start building house rules of how encounters are handled. It’s part of your intake process. You think about this through pastoral care. There’s no dismissing of experience. You now become an interpreter of experience 24-7. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Jon Thompson — So like there’s that. And then there’s revival. And revival is a sovereign act of God where everything falls apart, and all sin is revealed, and there’s en masse healing. And if it’s a genuine move of God that moves from renewal to revival to awakening, there’s en masse conversion. Jon Thompson — And as I share in the book, because we went through a three year experience with that, it was documented. There’s another set of organizational rules. I was meeting with a lot of leaders in England for the last three years because they are experiencing this genuinely. And I was just telling them what we went through historically. And I used the analogy for the executive pastors or the admin leaders saying, You’ve got to think about renewal and revival like being on a bike. And I said, you’re all English and you all ride bikes, so you should be fine. Jon Thompson — And I just said, you know how there are gears on a bike? And I just said, when a move of God actually takes place, you have one set of things that are in place for that. And then when you go back to normal, you use another set. And we just said, you have to have a code word for your staff where you literally say, Monday was normal. Wednesday is now not normal, so the whole system collapses and now looks like this. And when the Spirit walks back, you go, okay. We’re going back to the other gear. Jon Thompson — That thinking is incredibly important in renewal and revival environments for sustainability of staff, for clarification of experience, and also for literal helping people not burn out. Because when God shows up, all hell and heaven break loose. And and maybe I’ll just throw this out quickly too. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — We should never forget that a lot of people dismiss revival-like environments because a lot of things are done wrong. And that’s a horrific starting point. Actually, that’s true in all of this. Jon Thompson — So we forget that, you know, I don’t know if I said this on this pod one of this one of these episodes, but we forget that that that Moses went up the mountain. The people were looking at the physical Shekinah glory of God. And while God was present in the most magnificent of way, they still built the golden calf in real time while they’re looking at him. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — So anytime there’s a significant move of God, the devil is in the room, the flesh is in the room, and God’s in the room at the same time. If you think God’s just going to be in the room, you’re going to end up dismissing much of what he’s done. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Talk about, you kind of you breezed over this, but I think it’s an important piece of the puzzle—the connection between repentance and revival, you know, and how repentance fits into the overall picture. The reason why I asked that, I don’t know, a year ago, I was at an event where a bunch of leaders were there and there was a Gen Z leader who has been involved in some stuff that’s been going on. And led like a public confession experience with the leaders that were there. And he was challenging us around you know, basically the question was like, well, why why is why repentance? Why is that such a big deal? Rich Birch — And this leader, which I loved, you know, was like, Well, hasn’t that isn’t that always the way? Like isn’t that what isn’t that what this is about? Like aren’t we aren’t we shouldn’t repentance be a part of the transformation of Jesus in in our lives like that? How can you separate those two? And I was like, oh yeah, right. Rich Birch — But I think that that… issue could be the fear you know you’ve mentioned talked about fear a little bit could be a part of the fear that’s in many leaders lives today.
Jon Thompson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s like man, I’m not sure I want to engage that. Unpack that.
Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I’ll I’ll I’ll do it like this. The language we’ve come up with, because I always find that categories are helpful for translation and expectations. So we always talk about renewal as the recovery of first love in an individual’s life. Jon Thompson — Revival is a sovereign act of God that he initiates and he ends. Awakening is when mass conversions take place out of a revival. What you’re talking about is probably the renewal category even more than the revival.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jon Thompson — Revival people tend to mush everything together, which is never helpful. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — And it really bothers me. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. Jon Thompson — So and I’m friends with lots of the people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s good.
Jon Thompson — So I keep helping I keep saying, please, please help us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jon Thompson — So here’ here’s what I would say about you know repentance. Yes, of course, it’s always part of the thing. Of course it is. And It’s a fascinating reflection when we look at Adam and Eve. The very first thing that Adam and Eve did when they sinned is they hid. So hiddenness is the first sign of trouble. Then they tried fashioning something to cover their hiddenness. Then, of course, God comes and finds them, exposes them and gives them a better, of course, covering. Jon Thompson — Why this matters is this gets back to the love and trust thing. Lots of us are comfortable with Jesus at the wedding of Cana. Most of us are not okay with Jesus glorified at the Mount of Transfiguration. Or actually the encounter between Jesus and John in Revelation 1. Jon Thompson — And so I think a lot of times as leaders, and and let me just say this boldly too, your people will not go beyond you. You are Moses to your movement. And so I think saying to the Lord, you know, I’m open to what you would say to me, good or bad. And would you help me be in a position where I would want to repent. Jon Thompson — And I think this is okay to say. Regularly, I pray that the Holy Spirit would give me desires I don’t have. Because I don’t have lots of desires for repentance or you know. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. Jon Thompson — So I think for leaders listening, whether God decides sovereignly to bring revival to your church or awakening to your area is not the starting point. That’s actually a sovereign decision. And in in the book, I talk about how I’m really concerned these days that everyone’s saying revival’s coming, revival’s coming. I’m like, actually, the Bible says revival’s not guaranteed. You have to ask if he’s decided to come. If he says, yes, you pray back the prayers, then all Heaven and hell breaks out. Jon Thompson — But if he doesn’t do that, in other words, if summer doesn’t come and you’re stuck in winter you still have to be involved in common faithfulness, including no hiddenness as a leader. And so anyone listening, I would just encourage you to trust the goodness of the God you continually tell others to trust in. Jon Thompson — I was writing a section. yesterday for a sermon I’m doing out of Mark where, you know, Martha is serving in Lazarus’s house and Mary takes the nard and smashes it on Jesus’s feet. And Judas gets really pissed off and says, how dare you do this? Jon Thompson — And I was reflecting on how her—everyone ready, system leaders?—her uncontrolled, embarrassing, inappropriate public activity exposed his double life. And so I just want to challenge everyone that when genuine encounter starts happening, systems are not the enemy, but it will expose double lives. Rich Birch — So good, Jon, this is I feel like we could go for so long about these things. And I’m always got I got a page of notes here and other questions I’d love to ask you. But this is super helpful. Rich Birch — So the thing for folks that haven’t been tracking along, you’ve been writing a number of books. Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — And that, you know, and they they hang together as a bit of a the thing you’re tricking people into is it’s like they think it’s one book, but really it’s like it’s like a Tolkien, more than trilogy. Kind of talk to us how these all fit together. At least that’s how I see them. I see them as like, it’s kind of one continuous conversation around the similar kind of stuff. How does Presence, this current work, fit in the context of the other stuff that you’re working on? Jon Thompson — Sure. You are right about the conspiracy. And I’ll take I’ll take the Tolkien nod. Rich Birch — Yes, I figured you’d like that. Jon Thompson — That’s very kind of you, because I don’t deserve it. I only quote him once in all my books, though. So the only once for one section. Rich Birch — Oh nice. Yes. Jon Thompson — ah Yeah, here’s how I would say it. Convergence is the is the story and the theology of how we wrestled down love, word, and power from the gift side of things. How it was implemented. How we move, basically what is the theology thing what is it what does it feel like, how do you actually build house rules around it, all the good and bad that happened with it, and then tells the story of the renewal and revival we went through, and how we survived it. So that’s book one. Jon Thompson — Book two, well, it’s not really book two anymore, but I’ll do it like this. Deliverance, which comes out in February, is a 25-plus year theological and practical experience of how we dealt with the demonic. Jon Thompson — Perseverance, book three, which is still out which will disappear soon, is all my reflections at the midway point on survivability, because you and I have talked about this before, only 30% of leaders in the Bible end well; 70% fail. The stats have not changed. So there’s a lot of the first two things involved in this. Jon Thompson — This book Presence is talking honestly about retreat and revival, talking about incarnation and why multiple models of church that feeling contradiction to each other is the point. That’s always been the point, which again, for a lot of you as admin leaders, I’d really beg you to read this, not because it’s my book. Because a lot of the battles between churches is a misunderstanding of mission. Jon Thompson — And then I talk about how love, word, and power are employed evangelistically, and then walk again through revival and how you can ask for it and what you do if He says yes or no. But the majority of the book is actually on long-term witness to a very diverse, complicated world. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Jon Thompson — That’s the trellis. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — And the book I’m writing right now is on suffering, but we’re not there yet. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Friends, I would strongly encourage you, you know, listen, I’ve had multiple friends, multiple teams who have just been incredibly blessed by by Jon’s work and has challenged and done the best kind of disruptive work that this kind of thinking can do. And so i would strongly endorse uh you know that you pick up copies of Presence for your team.
Rich Birch — This could be a great um you know resource to work through with your leaders and ask the question all the time. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? Don’t just let these be ideas in your head, but something you can really wrestle with. Rich Birch — Where do we want to send people to pick up, you know, to get copies and all that stuff. I’m assuming you can get them on Amazon, but are there other places we want to let people know about? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so Amazon, of course, is easy for all of us these days. But jonthompsonresources.com has it too. J-O-N. Jon Thompson Resources will have all of that. Like I said, Convergence is out. Presence comes out September 22nd. Deliverance is re-released in February 2027. And Perseverance is available now and will disappear and then we’ll come back… Rich Birch — It’s like the Disney vault. Jon Thompson — …sooner than later. It is like, it’s like the Disney. Yes, it is like the Disney vault. Rich Birch — That’s a throwback to the, the you know for people of a certain age, we’ll get that. And Gen Z friends will be like, what? What are you talking about?
Rich Birch — Well, Jon, I just also want to just publicly honor you. You’re you’re doing a fantastic job. Like it’s been fun to watch over the years, your continued leadership and the positive impact you’ve been having and the community that you have stewarded. And you know I can’t I love when you know more people get a chance to interact with you. So thanks so much for being here on the show today. Appreciate your time with us. Thank you. Jon Thompson — Yeah, thanks for your friendship and your prayers.
Making Scripture Come Alive for People Who Think They’ve Heard It All with Jason Hildebrand
Sep 10, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jason Hildebrand, founder of Presence Creative Arts. For nearly 30 years, Jason has used acting, storytelling, film, and coaching to help people encounter scripture in fresh ways while creating space to listen for the voice of God.
How can churches use art and storytelling to help people slow down and engage with God more deeply? What happens when creativity becomes less about delivering a message and more about creating space for transformation? Tune in as Jason shares the journey behind The Shepherd and the Sound, a contemplative film exploring the life of David, and the lessons he has learned about creativity, obedience, presence, and storytelling.
Create space for people to slow down. // We are living in an age of distraction and disconnection. Rather than creating another piece of content people consume quickly, The Shepherd and the Sound intentionally slows viewers down. The pacing, landscape, music, and storytelling create space for people to become present to what is happening inside themselves and to listen for God. Jason has seen viewers reach instinctively for their phones before realizing they are being invited to remain present in the experience.
Help people find themselves in the story. // One of Jason’s biggest discoveries during the project was that powerful storytelling gives people room to recognize their own experiences within a biblical narrative. Instead of simply explaining David’s life, the film invites viewers to encounter themes like failure, loss, lament, family, identity, and grace. As people see pieces of their own stories reflected in David’s journey, the biblical story becomes personal rather than distant.
Tell stories that reveal real people. // Jason’s work has consistently focused on embodying scripture rather than simply presenting information about it. Whether performing the life of Jesus, Job, Abraham, or David, he wants audiences to experience biblical characters as real human beings with emotions, struggles, failures, and desires. For Jason, faithful storytelling does not require removing the humanity from scripture. Rather, bringing that humanity forward can actually help people encounter the truth of the story more deeply.
Obedience often comes before clarity. // The journey to produce The Shepherd and the Sound required Jason to move forward without having every answer. After sensing that God was calling the team to film in Scotland, Jason received confirmation from trusted prayer partners and advisors and stepped out financially before the resources were available. Shortly afterward, donors began providing what the project needed. The process reinforced Jason’s conviction that listening carefully and responding obediently sometimes means moving before the entire path is visible.
Let God handle the transformation. // Early in his career, Jason wrestled with whether Christian art needed to be more overtly evangelistic. He eventually sensed God reminding him that transformation was God’s responsibility, not his. Jason’s role was to faithfully create excellent art while carrying the presence of Christ into the work. That realization released him from forcing a message into every project and allowed him to focus on creating truthful, beautiful stories that invite people into deeper questions.
Gather people for shared experiences. // Rather than immediately releasing The Shepherd and the Sound onto a streaming platform, Jason and his team have prioritized live screenings. People gather in theaters or creative spaces, are invited to slow down before the film begins, experience the story together, and then participate in conversation afterward. Jason believes transformation often happens differently when people experience something in community rather than consuming it alone.
Extend the experience beyond the film. // The Shepherd and the Sound has grown into more than a movie. Presence Creative Arts has developed an immersive gallery with eight stations exploring themes from the film along with a small group resource incorporating scripture, reflection, sensory experiences, and action. These tools help churches move people beyond simply watching a story and toward personally engaging with what God may be stirring in them.
To learn more about Jason Hildebrand and Presence Creative Arts, visit presencecreativearts.com. You can also explore The Shepherd and the Sound and learn about screenings and resources at theshepherdandthesoundfilm.com.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Intulse
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. Listen, friends, give us this next half an hour or so, and I think you’re going to be challenged and encouraged. I think it’s going great conversation.
Rich Birch — This is a person that I have, you know, a friend of a friend we met, and I want you to meet them as well. But more than that, I think that this conversation could lead to something that could really help your church later this year, maybe into next year. I want to introduce you to Jason Hildebrand. He runs, leads an organization called Presence Creative Arts.
Rich Birch — It was formed close to 25 years ago, or the deep desire to create and perform authentic, hope-filled, spirit-infused stories. Part storyteller, he’s part creative catalyst. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. He’s produced a bunch of different projects that we’re going to get a chance to kind of tiptoe into, learn a little bit more about. Jason, welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here.
Jason Hildebrand — Hey Rich, thanks so much. So great to be here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m pumped to to kind of have this conversation.
Jason Hildebrand — Me as well.
Rich Birch — So friends, to to pull back the veil a little bit, Jason’s a friend of a friend.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And we were talking a little bit about what he does. And I started digging in and literally I thought, man, I’ve got to get Jason on the podcast. So for folks who maybe have not encountered Presence Creative Arts, take us back and kind of tell us the story.
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — How did this whole thing get started?
Jason Hildebrand — Well, funny enough, my my wife was saying to me yesterday, in September, isn’t it 30 years, Jason? And I was like, oh my gosh, 30 years.
Rich Birch — Oh, ah that’s funny.
Jason Hildebrand — So we were like, whoa, it kind of snuck up on us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — But I mean, the whole genesis was, ah you know, I’m an actor by trade. I have a undergrad and a master’s in acting. And, you know, all those years ago, I graduated from York University in Toronto, Canada, and went out and I was like the fresh young wanted to be in, you know, Hollywood movies or to do Shakespeare or whatever. And, and in the midst of all that, God just like, halted the whole thing and had me completely move in an entirely different direction. And my first solo theater show was on the life of David.
Jason Hildebrand — And I had a district superintendent in the denomination that I was a part of take me around to all the pastors conferences. And I he would speak and I would perform. And that was kind of like the beginning of what I never would have conceived would become a career. And now 30 years later, like a full company with employees and and you know projects and all those kind of things. And yeah I was an actor who just wanted to get on stage. And and really really, the thing is, and and I’ve learned this over the 30 years, is that my place of deepest listening for the voice of God is in front a whole bunch of people standing, which is really a weird thing to say.
Jason Hildebrand — But, you know, I think it speaks to how we’re all wired differently and we need to find that thing that allows us to hear most clearly the voice of God. And that’s often the place for me.
Jason Hildebrand — I think a lot of it has to do with that. I really feel responsible for bringing the the the show on David was, you know, it’s almost word for word scripture. So I feel responsible like any pastor or preacher would be like, I’m bringing this thing and I need to be aligned inside and out.
Jason Hildebrand — But that that kind of grew. And so we did more. I did more. It was first just me. And I did that, toured all over the world, performing those things.
Jason Hildebrand — Then I had I did a show on the Book of Job, which was very um gruesome in some ways, but quite intense. And and I’ve been revisiting that ah that in the last little while. Series of monologues in the prodigal son, I’ve done Abraham.
Jason Hildebrand — And then I adapted Donald Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz. That was kind of a kind of took us to the next level with what we were doing. It was a multimedia show and we kind of toured it all over Canada and the US before the film came out, like the film film that that that Steve Taylor and Donald Miller made.
Jason Hildebrand — And we’ve just grown this over the over the course of, you know, 30 years. And right before the we right as the pandemic happened, you know, we had this great season coming up. We were touring and and I also do a lot of coaching with pastors, both on communication and listening to God, work with Arrow Leadership and a bunch of other organizations. I think one of the things they don’t teach you in seminary very well, in my opinion, that is just my opinion.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — My experience was they teach you how to exegete text really well. Oftentimes, they don’t teach you how to communicate that to small rooms and large rooms very effectively. And so I’ve been working with pastors for years on you know voice burnout, communication, how do you hit the back of this how do you hit the back of the auditorium with your thoughts? All those kind of things.
Jason Hildebrand — But COVID hits, and we have this great season, and everything falls apart. And God directs us and we’re just we had a donor come to us. We’re we sit under a not-for-profit umbrella as well. And donor came to us and said, well, what would you do if you had money? And at that time, you know we everything on social media was doom and gloom and everything was falling apart.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — And and I thought, could we craft something like short bursts of permission to be present in your life, short bursts of hope, and just release those for free into the world.
Jason Hildebrand — And so this donor, I was telling him, you know, I think we could we could make short films on the Psalms. And those would be kind of like little, little breaths of fresh air. And so he gave us a, this couple gave us a, you know, a chunk of money. And we ended up making seven films that kind of blew up on Facebook and went all over the world. And, and we’ve since shot 11, but that kind of shift into media happened.
Jason Hildebrand — And then out of that, ah the last basically five years of my life, which has been um crafting this new film rooted in that original story 30 years ago on the life of David…
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Jason Hildebrand — …but a contemplative film on the life of David called The Shepherd and the Sound, which we shot in Scotland. So that’s been kind of the like very Coles Notes version of of of what we’ve been doing. But you know I think the biggest, highest value is, as a company, we have ah a very high value on um listening for the voice of God, cultivating that. And, and if he all of a sudden tells us to go left instead of right, I want to be, I want to be, we want to be nimble enough to be able to shift like that.
Jason Hildebrand — And oftentimes it’s not the most popular choice or even the most lucrative choice, but, but I’m more interested in the kingdom choice that I have in the other things. So, you know, that’s, that’s kind of our framework of of what we do and and kind of the, you know, the, but the timeline of things.
Jason Hildebrand — And, uh, so, you know, it’s, it’s been, it’s been it’s been wild. It’s definitely 100% not where I thought I would be, you know, 30 years ago, but like I could not be more grateful that we get to kind of both care…
Jason Hildebrand — The other values that we have are like carrying presence in story and this kind of thing. I know that we’ve had the the chat about this before, but it’s it’s I think I grew up in ah in a culture that was very high on the on on exegeting and the mind. And here’s how we pull apart one word and these kind of things. And here’s how we do things. And it’s very linear. And that’s great stuff. I think we need to be still doing that.
Jason Hildebrand — But I had an the reason that I even did anything that I did is that i watched a guy. There’s an actor and named Bruce Kuhn. And he, my wife and I were dating at the time, she was going to McMaster University, and she invited me to this one man show on the book of Luke, King James Luke.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And I was dragged kicking and screaming as about Oh, my goodness, it’s gonna be some crappy Christian theater, and I don’t want to go see it. And that was the first time watching that guy was incredible. And that was the first time I actually encountered scripture. It came alive in me and I was like, oh, that’s what I’ve been reading for all these years. Oh, that that with real people, with real stories.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — And I think that marked me in a way that has been significant and transformative. And and it’s it’s so much of what I my heart is to impart through Presence in what we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Love it. And you know friends that are listening in like I’ve known of Jason for a while. Like you know we’re we’re in similar circles. Like you know, obviously…
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …church world in Canada is not the biggest thing. And but I had I had heard specifically about this project, The Shepherd and The Sound. And I was like, what on earth did he do that? And then saw trailer and was super intrigued and you know wanted to lean in. And and you put a word to this there that I’ve always appreciated about your work. I’ve actually years ago i remember seeing you um it might have even been like one of those youth things or something years ago.
Rich Birch — And and the the part I’ve struck by your handling of scripture of these stories that we’ve been telling each other for thousands of years that are true is you, and this is my language, not your language, but you’re doing a better job here talking about Presence, but it’s like, you’ve humanized them in a similar way that, and I was thinking about this over the weekend before we called—you know, I, I was ah my wife dragged me to The Chosen.
Jason Hildebrand — Oh, yeah. Right.
Rich Birch — And was like, I was like, I do not want to see more crappy Christian media.
Jason Hildebrand — Yes. Right.
Rich Birch — And I have been struck by the very human moments in that art and actually have thought a lot about what you do and thought like, oh, there’s ah there’s a resonance there. It’s obviously different. It’s a different kind of thing.
Rich Birch — But there’s a similar kind of piece there where it’s like, are we brave enough to kind of look at the human side of what’s happening? And so tell me about The Shepherd and The Sound. I think this is a crazy project.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s been a crazy project.
Rich Birch — When I saw this, I was like, tell me about it.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Just kind of unpack it, what it is.
Jason Hildebrand — Sure. Well, I mean, thank you for saying that. I mean, I’m very interested, I used to call it, you know, enfleshing, but that got a little bit weird. I think people thought it was a weird, but more more like embodying.
Jason Hildebrand — I have this solo performance that I still do on the life on the life of Jesus called Jesus Stories. And the number one comment is, oh, he oh Jesus had emotions. Oh oh oh oh, wait a minute. He laughed. Oh, he was he was he was upset. Oh, wait, he’s passionate about loving people. Like just very human things.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — And I think, like you said, The Chosen has done a brilliant job of you know um allowing Jesus to be both a human being and God at the same time. But The Shepherd and the Sound, yeah.
Jason Hildebrand — So, I mean, I’ve been dreaming about doing a film version of um of of the David my David show for maybe a decade. And I didn’t know what it I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t know what it looked like. And then again, during COVID, I’d written like a full cast treatment.
Jason Hildebrand — What ended up, you know, what’s interesting now is that House of David came out on ah on Amazon and it’s it’s very amazing. Like it’s it’s quite it’s quite great, especially so season two is quite great.
Jason Hildebrand — And I realized why that God was like, actually, you’re not supposed to do this. You’re supposed to do that because those people are going to do this. And I was like, oh, okay, I get it. And they’re way more qualified than than I was to attempt something like that.
Jason Hildebrand — But all I kept hearing was go to Scotland. and ah and connect with a couple of people you know there. And and and so I went, my my film partner, Tad Munnings and I, he’s with StoryStream Creative, and we we we kind of location scouted to Scotland.
Jason Hildebrand — And we have this friend, this incredible playwright, screenwriter named Murray Watts, who owns a castle in Northern Scotland called Fresic. As people do.
Rich Birch — Yes, as one does.
Jason Hildebrand — I know it’s it’s it’s actually a Christian retreat center.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — So if you want to have the most extraordinary experience, go to this castle. It’s ah it’s ah really an Airbnb castle, which is wild, in the northern very northern tip of Scotland.
Jason Hildebrand — But one of the one of the best things I ever did for my for my company was form an intercessory prayer board. And it’s just a small handful of people that kind of lift us up, which I just cannot be more grateful for those folks.
Jason Hildebrand — So two of those people live in Wales. and And so I when we were hitting Glasgow, I picked Tad up in Glasgow, and we were about to head up north. And i was they said, can you hop on a Zoom call? There are folks that pray for Europe on a regular basis, this this these these two people and their group, part of the twenty four seven prayer movement.
Jason Hildebrand — And so I said, sure. So I hopped on the call and my friend Charlotte from Wales, who’s on my board, says, hey, can you just tell everybody what you’re up to? And so I was like, OK. So I said, you know, I think we’re supposed to do a film on David. I think it’s supposed to be in the north. I think it’s supposed to be kind of like man wrestling with the with his the demons of his past. I mean, David’s life is mostly a disaster after he becomes king.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — And uh and and uh and we don’t have any money. And uh I thought it was supposed to be a full ensemble cast but now I’m kind of hearing no it’s supposed to be more contemplative and it’s supposed to be a guy wandering around the landscape. And I thought—this was my argument with God prior to the prior to that—it’s like who wants to watch a guy wandering around. And then he reminded me of Castaway and he said that’s a pretty good movie. And was like oh yeah I guess that’s true.
Jason Hildebrand — But anyway, so I’m on this call with these folks, these lovely intercessors, and there’s 25 of them on the call. And I tell them all this, and they said, oh, you have to shoot next summer. And I said, what do what do you mean you have to shoot next summer?
Jason Hildebrand — And they said, we are on the cusp of the 100th anniversary of a number of revivals that came out of northern Scotland that changed the world.
Rich Birch — wow
Jason Hildebrand — And God wants to pour out his spirit through Scotland to the nations, and you need to be part of that. And I was like, whoa.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.
Jason Hildebrand — Whoa, okay.
Rich Birch — I thought I was just coming on a Zoom call.
Jason Hildebrand — Well, I don’t even, quite I didn’t. Do you have money? Like, I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — Like, does anybody, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — And, you know, this is not how you plan how to do a project or a film shoot. Normally you have everything lined up. The money’s lined up. The script’s lined up. And and but God tends to throw me off a cliff, or asks me to jump off the cliff. And then as I’m plummeting to my doom, he shows up, you know, and rescues.
Jason Hildebrand — So so I come back home and all I’m feeling, Rich, in my spirit is I want you to book all the flights and accommodation for your whole crew.
Jason Hildebrand — And I’m like, I don’t I don’t have any of the money. Like I don’t even have enough. We were in a season just coming out of COVID. but I didn’t even and have enough money to pay my staff. We were just like scraping by. And so I’m like, I, so I’m wrestling with God over this. This is stupid. This is irresponsible. And I send a note to my intercessory prayer board and say, Hey guys, here’s what I’m hearing.
Jason Hildebrand — And they all went back and came to, they said, yep, that’ that’s good. You’re on, you’re on track. And I was like, what? And then I sent a note to my board, like my board of advisors. And I, and I said, here’s what I’m, and I have people on my board on purpose that tell me no, cause I tend to be a bit of a dreamer.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — But I have those kind of like check me people on my on my board.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jason Hildebrand — And I said, here’s what I’m hearing. What do you think? And they all went, yep, you’re hearing right. And I was like, what are you talking about? When is it responsible to take out loans?
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And like, when is that’s not responsible? But they were both affirming me.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — So the next week I am in, I’m at a retreat center that’s just built this massive new building.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s a 30 year vision and I’m performing as part of their thank you to all the people that helped build this building, a vision. Five million dollar building, incredible. It’s really extraordinary. And I’m sitting at the dinner before performing next to one of their board members. And she turns to me and she says, oh, Jason, so what do you do? And I said, well, and I’m an actor. I have a creative arts company. Well, what are you working on? Well, I’ve just been to Scotland and I’m thinking about doing this thing. She goes, oh, I see a picture.
Jason Hildebrand — And I go, ah okay, what? She goes, yeah, there’s a ledger. And all the income and expenses add up to zero at the bottom. And the Lord says, just go do what I told you to do.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — So, i mean I mean, I don’t roll in lots of like prophetic charis…
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s not normative.
Jason Hildebrand — Like this is not my, nor like I’m I have great value for the prophetic and for for words of knowledge…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — …but I don’t roll in kind of a lot of those worlds.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jason Hildebrand — So I’m like, okay, cool. Like, okay. So I came home, Rich, and I was just like, okay, God, I hear you. And so I did it. I went to the bank. And as you know, as as as ah as ah as a small business owner, it’s like you got to go through all the rigmarole. I increased my line of credit. I increased my credit cards. And I put 50 grand on on on credit.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And I thought, well, after 25 years, Lord, you’re actually either we’re going down in a blaze of glory or you actually talked to me. Like, I don’t know what it is, but here it is, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — So, and then I left it. And then as soon as I did it, I felt complete peace about it, which was shocking to me. And I was kind of grumpy with God. Like, okay, like I should be very stressed out about this, for Lord. So anyway, I left it, man. and And then two weeks later, I’m at a completely separate event.
Jason Hildebrand — It has nothing to do with my company. And but there’s a donor couple there that has given to our work before. And they say, yeah oh we hear you’re working on ah on a movie on David. And I said, yeah, yeah, working on David.
Jason Hildebrand — Well, you know, tell us about it. So I’m doing all the good due diligence things, right? Here’s our outcomes. Here’s what we’re hoping to achieve. Here’s the blah, blah, blah. All of things, you know, in art, it’s almost impossible to measure, you know, the the art.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — Like, you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — These are 18 people had their hearts changed by this piece of art. Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — But anyway, I’m doing all the things you’re supposed to do. And they said, well, how much money is it going to take to get to the other side of of filming this thing? And I said, well, probably about 200 grand. And I hadn’t done any fundraising yet…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jason Hildebrand — …but I’m 50 grand in the hole. And they looked at each other and they looked back at me and they said, yeah, we can do that.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And, and they wrote me a check, Rich, for 200 grand the next week.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And that was the start of, we went back three times. God was as, even as we went and began to shoot, he was, we came back the first time and we’re like, that’s not it. We went back three times and he began to reveal that what he really wanted in the process and more and more money cut coming in another hundred thousand, another two, another 50,000.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — Like, you know, we, the, the budget ended up being over 600 grand for this thing. And, um, Just extraordinary miracle after extraordinary miracle, both while we were filming and in providing for the filming.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s really incredible. And so in the process, what this is this is was the big learning for me. One is he wanted us to tell a tale to give space for people to slow down and to listen.
Jason Hildebrand — I think we live in an age of distraction and disconnection. And what he was asking us to craft, and i’m not I wasn’t clever enough to figure this out. He revealed it and as we were as we were doing it.
Jason Hildebrand — But what is the way we can help people slow down as they’re on their phones and they’re busy and they’ve got this thing and the other thing? To create space within the context of the film to literally almost in a way cause people to slow down and feel uncomfortable.
Jason Hildebrand — We did a screening of the film and a lady said…And I tell people it’s going to cause you to feel uncomfortable.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — She says, I’m so glad you did that because halfway through it through the film, I reached for my phone and I went, oh, no, Jason asked me to to like be present in the in the film. And that present moment was a catalyst to massive transformation in her heart.
Jason Hildebrand — But so the first thing was like help people to slow down and connect to what’s going on in the side themselves, in community with God.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — And the second thing is, is, and I didn’t, need I would have never even thought this, is to invite people to find themselves in the story. So you’re both having a moment to be present and connect with who you are and who God made you to be and and God himself.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hildebrand — And also then go, oh, my story, there’s moments in this David story that actually resonate with my journey right now. And that was like a revelation to myself and our team. And then out of that, we you know also built an immersive gallery, like think Stations of the Cross meets Immersive Van Gogh and a small group resource to go with it.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — That was very non-Bible study-y.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s kind of a small group resource for people who don’t like Bible study-y resources. You know what I mean?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay, there’s a lot I want to unpack there. So ah friends that are listening in, want, I want so um You listen to a lot of podcasts. You do a lot of things.
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — You’ve listened to us. That’s great. I want you to go and watch the trailer. We will link to the trailer in the show notes.
Jason Hildebrand — Cool.
Rich Birch — You can even stop now and go and do that. Or at the end, I want you to watch the trailer because I think obviously it’s hard to talk about this and without seeing it.
Jason Hildebrand — True. Yeah.
Rich Birch — So I would, I want people to, to do that. But come back to this idea. So put us, put us, one of the stories I want people to hear is your just obedience. Like, that’s incredible. Like, I think that’s amazing. Like, and want to honor you for that. It would have been easy to shut that down at multiple points in that story and just be like, no, I’m not hearing this. Like I move on. So just honor you for that.
Jason Hildebrand — Thank you.
Rich Birch — And the fact To me, that feels very Jesus-y. That feels that that feels like the Jesus I know where he’s like, hey, you got to take a step here and then I’m going to step in and help. That feels like, man, I’ve seen that time and time again.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so that’s that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — Give us a sense of on the ground. So you’re shooting this thing.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Again, it’s dramatic. It’s it’s contemplative. It’s um, what was that experience like? What did you take away from that as a performer, as a leader? You know talk us through that.
Jason Hildebrand — Well, I would say first and foremost, one of my greatest one of my greatest joys is getting to getting to work with extraordinary people. I think that I’ve always thought I need to find the people that are better at me than doing the thing and invite them into my world so I can learn and grow and we can bring those people in. So we had an extraordinary cinematographer, or sound person, all these. Got to bring a couple of my kids with me over the course of the time too to do Begrips, which is really cool.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jason Hildebrand — But I mean, we’re shooting in Northern Scotland. So, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s magic. I mean, the, the place is, the place is wild. But we, we, we location scouted and showed up when we’re a little bit like, Lord, where’s the fertile ground?
Jason Hildebrand — Like we’ve not, we’ve been here once. We don’t know where we, we actually don’t know how to frame this whole thing. You’ve got to direct us. And so we would, we, in the morning we would pray, like show us where we’re supposed to go. And we would, we would, I mean, of course we had, we had a plan.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — You know we entered in with a plan, but oftentimes the plan would be like, I think we should go here.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — You know, I think we should go there. I mean, we went the first time we went, this is hilarious.
Jason Hildebrand — I didn’t know much about sheep. And of course the whole film is about David. So there needs to be sheep around. And we actually, we actually hired a shepherd to bring sheep into, into a field that he owned. And the sheep would not come near me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — Like just would not come anywhere. Like we tried to wrangle them. It was horrible, horrible, horrible.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jason Hildebrand — And then the second time we went, it was just myself and my director, film partner. And we ended up being on the Isle of Skye. And it was probably the most, one of the most extraordinary moments that we had in the film, which was, you know, I my my my Tad is, my film partner, is like very super uber in shape guy. And I’m in shape, but not to his his level.
Jason Hildebrand — So we’re kind of hiking all over Scotland. He’s got most of the gear. He’s got the bag and the camera and the thing and the drone, and I’m carrying the tripod and all the different things. And so we go to this one place and it’s, it’s, it’s literally like ah like a sheer rock face that goes up and then like kind of a meadow on the top of it. Not very big, but it’s glorious and you’re right on the ocean.
Jason Hildebrand —And um so we had already hiked in off the main road about two hours through bogs and different things. And it, know, it’s, it’s bonkers trying to hike in Scotland. We called it the the radical common sense country because there’s no warnings anywhere.
Jason Hildebrand — Like if you fall off the cliff, you’re just stupid. You shouldn’t have fallen on off the cliff. There’s like in North America, we’d have like a thousand like signs saying you’re going to fall off the cliff, but not in Scotland.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. No.
Jason Hildebrand — They just look at you and go, that was stupid.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Jason Hildebrand — But so we we we get to the bottom of this rock face after we’ve climbed up. And I’m just like, he says, I think we should climb up. It’s like a three-story rock face, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And I’m thinking, there’s no way I’m climbing up that three-story rock face. And he’s like, I’ve got you. Like, I have got you. And I’m like, okay, you know, if I die, my wife is going to come kill you. And then she’s going to come to meet Jesus and she’s going to kill me again. Like, you know, this is not good. But he, so he helped me climb this rock face. And it was, it was, I was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life.
Rich Birch — Amazing. Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And then as I’m going up, I’m thinking, I got to come down. Like, I gotta come down. So, but the the extraordinary part was, so we come up and he goes, okay, I’m just gonna scurry down and I’m gonna throw the drone up.
Jason Hildebrand — And so sit in this one place and I’m gonna put the drone around. And this is this is the magic of the whole thing. And I’ve had so many people say, is this, did you guys do this with CGI?
Rich Birch — Oh, nice.
Jason Hildebrand — So the the the sun is setting in the background, on the ocean, on the top of a cliff, beautiful green meadow on the top. So Tad puts the drone up and the battery immediately dies. He’s like, ah crap. So it comes back to him, puts in a second battery. And as he’s coming up, the the drone goes up and starts to circle around me. And as he’s doing that, five sheep come out of nowhere up onto the platform one by one. Look at me. And I’m just like, we hadn’t seen any sheep. No sheep would come near me.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — And all of a sudden they’re like right there.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah.
Jason Hildebrand — And one by one, they go over the other side of the cliff and down until one sheep and I are looking at each other. And I’m now it’s a wide shot. So you can’t see my expression really, but I’m just weeping. I’m like, Lord, like what on earth?
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s amazing.
Jason Hildebrand — And it goes down the other side and it finishes the drone finishes going around me and the the battery dies again, and it has to go back.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And I’m like, what just happened? And it’s the final shot in the whole film.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hildebrand — And it’s this encapsulation of the moment of like the faithfulness of God and David and the whole thing. And it and it was like that kind of the whole the whole time where we’d, we all of a sudden we’d be like, we were gonna go here, but I think it’s raining. So we’re gonna go to this other location. And then that was the magic of like what happened in this, in the scenery.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Jason Hildebrand — it it was It was pretty special.
Rich Birch — So maybe a dumb question. Why David? So why why this story?
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know there’s obviously a lot of narratives you could have you know produced.
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — Why start here? Obviously, this has been a long journey for you. Like you said, 30 years ago, you started with David.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah. And I thought it was culturally relevant 30 years ago. And I feel like it’s even more culturally relevant now.
Jason Hildebrand — I mean, one of the things that kind of haunts me in the, in, in a good way is I think I mentioned earlier that after he gets anointed as king, he’s mostly a disaster for the rest of his days. He makes horrible choices over and over and over again. And at the end of his days, he’s mostly screwed it up.
Jason Hildebrand — Like, he you know, he kind of heard the voice of God early on. And in the in the film, we’ve actually maybe it’s something we could also chat about is I’ve been really interested in language and and using language in a way that um steps outside of the current cultural baggage that some of our evangelical language has.
Jason Hildebrand — So we actually use the sound, the idea of sound as a as um as a you know a metaphor or or who the Holy Spirit is, which is kind of interesting.
Jason Hildebrand — But but in the midst of this mess, I think it’s quite extraordinary that God says that David was a man after his own heart. And he literally builds the foundation of his kingdom who who moves through Jesus out of this horribly flawed man, who at the end of the day was like, you know, a murderer. Some would say a rapist. Some would say like, there’s lots of there’s lots of stuff. There’s lots a lot of mess in his life.
Jason Hildebrand — And and and at the end of his days, God says, but he’s my child. He’s my boy. I love him. And and it’s it’s not because of what he’s done. It’s not his disaster. It’s his heart.
Jason Hildebrand — And I think that is an incredible incredibly hopeful thought for me. Because I don’t know about you, but I feel like mostly a disaster most days. Like I’m deeply loved. I know that. But I’m like, yeah, I kind of screwed up all the time. And I mean, no not to that extent.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — I’m not living in that… you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — But if he, but if God can do it for that guy who is just messed up, he can certainly do it for me. And I think people, I am watching as we do these screenings that people receive that in such an incredible way. They’re like, wait, me?
Jason Hildebrand — Like, wait, like I’m a…I’m loved. How really? I’m really loved.
Jason Hildebrand — There’s so much hunger for that. Our culture does not provide for that. Our culture provides anxiety and are you good enough?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — And are you know, do you have the right things?
Rich Birch — Yep. Jump higher.
Jason Hildebrand — Do you have the amount amount of money?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — Do you have the right clothes? Have you watched the right clips?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — All those kind of things. And unconditionally in that story at the end, you know, I think he says, ah when you rule in righteousness, when you rule in fear of God, you are like the light of morning, like the brightness after the rain that brings the grass from the earth. And I just love that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hildebrand — I love that.
Rich Birch — Well, and speaking of the language thing and, you know, the propensity of, you know, the the evangelical world in in its kind of relationship to art…
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — …a lot of it can get stuck in this kind of like either preachy or like shallow or, you know, like the the it’s the quintessential, you know, evangelical film from the 80s where like the two kids, you know, one kid says like, what is it about you in your life…
Jason Hildebrand — Oh, oh.
Rich Birch — …that’s so different. Tell me about that. You know what i mean?
Jason Hildebrand — Yes, yes.
Rich Birch — Like, and that which isn’t what you’re doing.
Jason Hildebrand — No.
Rich Birch — How do you how do we make something that is both genuinely artful and genuinely faithful at the same time? How are you? How do you hold that to mention? I realize there’s like, there’s no formula for that. You can’t get that in a spreadsheet. But how do you think about that?
Jason Hildebrand — First great story. And I think we’ve found you know in so in the scriptures, we have great story. Like, I mean, great human stories.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — But I, oh man, it’s it’s, a number of years ago, I was, I don’t know if I was feeling guilty or struggling with something like what you’re suggesting. Like, I think somebody had suggested to me, like, why aren’t you more evangelical and or evangelistic in your approach to your work?
Jason Hildebrand — And so I was like, oh do I have to be to like, to you know, and and I think there’s some people who are, a I have a friend who’s an evangelist and the guy, you know, gets on a plane and three people are saved before they even get off the plane. Like he’s that guy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — And, I you know, you kind of like, should I be that guy?
Jason Hildebrand — And and I really, i I was in prayer one day and or I don’t even remember the exact moment of it. I just, I remember having this encounter with God where I felt like he spoke into my spirit stop trying to do my job, Jason. You’re not very good at it.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.
Jason Hildebrand — Like, like, like your job is not to do my job.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah. Like I, I bring the transformation. All you have to do is show up and allow my presence to co-create through you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — And I thought, oh, wait a minute. Like, I don’t have to have all the right words and do all… No, you carry me. You carry me into the room. You carry me when you get on a set.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hildebrand — You carry me when you’re on a stage. Like Christ in me, the hope of glory is the thing that’s transformational. Not Jason saying the right words. And it took all the pressure off.
Jason Hildebrand — I thought, oh, wait, I’m built to be an artist. I can just be an artist. That’s enough. And that was like, and so whether you are, whatever you are, if you’re a woodworker, if you’re a teacher, if you’re like a doctor, whatever. I mean, I think it’s the same. We carry God into the room.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hildebrand — And by our, you know, people we’ve been, we’ve been I don’t know if you have this, we’ve been talking through how do we communicate that on social media? And I, you know, I have this extraordinary new social media person. And and I said, if you want to know who I am, just watch my work.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — That’s what it is And I think it’s the same with you too. you know If you want to know who you are, just listen to a bunch of podcasts by Rich.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s like I know who Rich is right away.
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So good. Well, I want to talk about kind of dance around this a little bit. Tell me about the screenings that…
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — So how how is this actually, you know, how are you rolling this out? Where can I, you know, watch this, that kind of thing. Talk us through that part.
Jason Hildebrand — Well, we had a good long debate at the beginning of what to do with this and had a a lot of meetings with various ah distribution folks. And I had been feeling a big check in my spirit about throwing it up on streaming. Like, you know, there’s a lot of stuff on streaming. Some good, some not, but so much of it, even on on the major platforms, it just gets lost. You know, great films that get lost in the middle of nowhere.
Jason Hildebrand — And you know we come from a theater background. And so we’re really interested in getting people together in community. Like that’s a really big deal for us because I think that’s where the transformation happens – in-person.
Jason Hildebrand — And so we’ve kind of balked at putting it up on on any kind of streaming service because I just feel like it’s just like, ah, I can do that at the end of my night. But how can I gather people to have an encounter? And so I think inadvertently we did it. we’veve We’ve done, we’ve done a, you know, it’s, this is classic.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s just so how God works with us. He’s like, you know, we just try it. Or he gives a suggestion. We try We go, oh, oh, that’s why we were supposed to do it. Okay. It’s like the worst, the worst strategy ever is like, you know, but mostly…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hildebrand — …well, I don’t know if the worst strategy, I think I’m learning to be like getting up in the morning and say, Lord, what do you actually want me to do today? But in the same way with this stuff. So we, we did it. We did a handful of, we did a handful of screenings so far and we’re about to do a Canadian tour and a European tour.
Jason Hildebrand — But what we have found, Rich, which was the which was the epiphany for us again, was we invite people to a theater space, so like a movie so movie theater space or or a really interesting cool art space, something that’s like, non-churchy. ah Although, you know, there’s a lot of great churches that have these kind of environments. But in Canada, we have like smaller, smaller church, you know, communities, but so places that have a great screen and great sound. Because we shot in Scotland, so the landscape is extraordinary. And, and the score by Mike Jansen, who’s this incredible Canadian composer is, is I think, like Academy Award winning. The score is like, wow.
Jason Hildebrand — So we got people together and then we got a local host, somebody that’s trusted in the community to just kind of invite people to a place to slow down. And a lot of times, both in my coaching and in in the work that we do, we incorporate breath, this idea of Ruach, the breath of God into our stuff. So invite people to slow down to breathe, to like turn off their busyness of their day, like just actually turn it off and to get present.
Jason Hildebrand — And, you know, maybe it’s a 10 minute or so thing, but it really, it really sets the tone. And we invite people to encounter the story, to find themselves in the story, like I mentioned earlier.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jason Hildebrand — And then people watch the film. It’s just over an hour. And then one of our team, usually me so far, sits and we unpack it in a Q&A after.
Rich Birch — So cool.
Jason Hildebrand — And the question and and the people that have come are both people of faith and people who are completely outside of faith.
Jason Hildebrand — And and the response. I really feel like my mandate is to create work for human beings, not for any particular stripe of person, because we all have the same need.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — We all need Jesus, but when we all need who God, we all need the Holy Spirit. But whether a person been walking with God for a long time or not walked at all, the need is still the same.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jason Hildebrand — To encounter God.
Jason Hildebrand — And so, man, I, so it’s wild. I had I invited my, I have a Mini car and my mechanic, this 60-ish year old Scottish mechanic.
Jason Hildebrand — And I’ve been talking with him as I’ve been going back and forth from Scotland about Scotland and whatever. And I invited him to the screening in Toronto. And he came with his girlfriend. And so I texted him the next day. I said, hey man, like, what did you think? He goes, what you and your team have built is so extraordinary. He said, thank you for allowing me to slow down and listen.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jason Hildebrand — He said, and then I was lost in the wind and the waves and I was overcome by everything. And I was like, what? Like, this is a no, this man, there’s no faith going on.
Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.
Jason Hildebrand — And interestingly, another, another person was there that I invited that actually makes, makes my glasses, made in Toronto, and incredible artist and like a entrepreneur, really great guy. And I said to him after, I said, wow, what did you think? And he goes, the thing that I noticed, Jason, was that people were hungry for what you brought.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jason Hildebrand — And this is a person completely outside of a faith context. We have lots of really interesting discussions about faith, him and I.
Jason Hildebrand — But I was like, wow, okay. And then those who have a faith context, it’s like all a sudden God goes, all right, we’re here. We’re going to go deeper. And I had the questions that come out of those folks are like deep in the guts, like, oh, wow.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jason Hildebrand — And it’s been extraordinary. I like… You know when you you do something that’s more that’s more than the sum of its parts? That’s how it feels for me.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hildebrand — I’m like, this shouldn’t work, but it totally works.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like on a piece of paper that doesn’t make sense. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Jason Hildebrand — So, yeah, that’s been that’s been it’s been wild. It’s been wild to watch it.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. I love that. And when I heard this, was like, I think that is the best way to present this kind of content that you’re, you’ve chosen to say, no, we’re going to really do like, it’s like uncomfortable. You’re forcing, we’re going to have to get it into, you know, live room with real people.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re going to have to slow down. There’s a cost to that in just you know it’s it does not.
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s an ornery decision, which I love. I think it’s fantastic.
Jason Hildebrand — Oh, thank you.
Rich Birch — I think is like i think that’s i think that so so makes so much sense. I was thinking again about this. You know, we went and saw the Odyssey this summer. My wife and I went and saw that.
Jason Hildebrand — Oh, yeah.
Rich Birch — And, um you know, it’s one of those movies that like, yeah, sure, we could wait and, you know, whatever, get it on our streaming device. I’m sure they’ll release on streaming device. But there’s something about being in the room with other people. And it’s it’s not just the big screen.
Jason Hildebrand — Yes.
Rich Birch — There’s that kind of community experience of it. And I know this has a similar kind of feel to it. I love that.
Jason Hildebrand — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — So if I’m a church leader listening in, are you are you like partnering with churches to do this? Are there ways we could plug in with this? How does how does that work?
Jason Hildebrand — Sure. I mean, we’re doing a Canadian tour of movie theaters right now. So, you know, we’re we’re we’re in the process of building national and regional sponsorships across the country. But our long-term goal is really to, you know, we’ve got both a film. And then we’ve got this immersive gallery, which is eight stations based on themes from the film.
Jason Hildebrand — So like failure and loss and lament and family and the elements like, you know, the the physical elements outside wind and water and and such. And so, you know, that gets set up. you know, we in a for about a week and people can kind of wander through that at their leisure.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hildebrand — And then there’s a small group resource. So our hope, I think long-term after we kind of do this screening tour is really to invite church communities to utilize the whole package in a way…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jason Hildebrand —…to, you know, invite people to encounter the screening in a, in a big screen with great sound. And then for them to unpack the whole thing over the course of a week, people could wander through it in a, know, in a, in kind of a hall or a space, an art gallery, something you know connected. And then they could even take it to the next level by doing the small group resource.
Jason Hildebrand — And we’ve incorporated some of those Psalms micro-films that I had spoken about into the into the resource as well.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jason Hildebrand — So you’re you’re encountering scripture. And both in the in the gallery and in the small group resource, one of the things that I was big on incorporating was a lot a lot of the small group stuff is very kind of intellectual, sit on the couch and think about things. And same with the gallery type space.
Jason Hildebrand — And we wanted people, we you know, people learn in different ways. We wanted people to both have a contemplative experience, but also there’s doing, you have to do something. And so each station, there’s a doing. And in in the room when you’re doing the small group reserve, every week is you’re doing something.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jason Hildebrand — You’re getting up and standing outside and putting your feet in the grass or like different things like that, which is which is kind of a sensory thing alongside of a visual thing.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. I love that. Well, if people want to, well, first of all, this has been a fantastic conversation. I’m sure there’s a lot more we could cover.
Jason Hildebrand — Thanks Rich. Yeah. We could go for days, you and I.
Rich Birch — And I, yeah, so good. But if, where do we want to send people…
Jason Hildebrand — Sure.
Rich Birch — …to kind of learn more? I really do want people, again, I think you would be served well to just even watch the trailer today, friends. But if people want to explore this a little bit more, where do we want to send them online?
Jason Hildebrand — Yeah, absolutely. Well, theshepherdandthesound.com. You can check it out there.
Jason Hildebrand — All on our socials, @PresenceCreativeArts or mine, @JasonHildebrand. And our website is PresenceCreativeArts.com. They can you can kind of on that site, The Shepherd and The Sound or on Presence, you can see kind of like a breakdown of the three things we’re working on.
Jason Hildebrand — We’re also in the process of taking the original soundtrack by Mike Jansen and building an app that ends up being a contemplative space act or app built out of scripture and the music as well.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool.
Jason Hildebrand — But that’s that’s coming in the future.
Rich Birch — Love it. So great. Well, friends, again, that’s, we’ll put links to all that, theshepherdandthesoundfilm.com. Again, I want you to go over there, check that out. You’ve got a, it’s hard to describe art in audio format.
Jason Hildebrand — It’s so true.
Rich Birch — It’s like, how do we, how do we talk about this in a way that will give you the sense of what it is? But hopefully we’ve done a little bit for that. Jason, I appreciate you being here today. Just want to honor you for the good work you’re doing.
Jason Hildebrand — Thanks, Rich.
Rich Birch — And thanks for taking time to be with us today.
Jason Hildebrand — Appreciate you a lot. Thanks so much.
From Imitation to Innovation: Finding Your Church’s Own DNA with Sam Hamstra
Sep 03, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Sam Hamstra, Lead Pastor of Anthem Church, a fast-growing, multi-ethnic and multi-generational church serving Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland. Anthem became an independent church in March 2020—the same week the world shut down—and has since grown to multiple locations and thousands of people. In this conversation, Sam shares how clarity around mission, values, discipleship, and vision has helped Anthem develop a distinct ministry culture and sustain healthy growth.
Does your church know exactly who it is and how it does ministry? Are your leaders aligned around a shared playbook—or are you borrowing someone else’s model without adapting it to your context? Sam offers practical lessons on creating organizational clarity that shapes everything from calendars to leadership development.
Move from imitation to innovation. // Sam is quick to acknowledge how much Anthem learned from churches and networks that came before them. But even before Anthem launched, he began recognizing that another church’s model could not simply be copied and pasted into Northwest Indiana. The local culture, demographics, ministry environment, and people were different. Healthy leaders learn from others while also doing the harder work of discerning what God is uniquely calling their church to become.
Clarity takes courage. // Copying an established model feels safe because leaders can see evidence that it works somewhere else. Developing your own approach requires greater faith because the outcome is less predictable. Sam believes churches must have the courage to move into that uncertainty. Rather than endlessly chasing the next successful strategy, leaders should prayerfully identify the unique blueprint God has given their church and commit to it.
Define your “way.” // Inspired by Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage, Sam and his leadership team spent roughly nine months working through five foundational questions: Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How do we live? Where are we going? Their answers eventually became what they call “The Anthem Way”—a framework that brings clarity to mission, values, discipleship, spiritual formation, and long-term vision.
Mission and vision are not the same thing. // Anthem’s mission is to lead people to know Christ and make Him known. That mission remains constant because it flows from the Great Commission. Vision answers a different question: where is God taking this particular church? Separating those ideas has helped Anthem distinguish between the timeless calling of the church and the specific future they believe God is leading them toward.
Let your discipleship pathway drive the calendar. // One of the biggest benefits of clarity has been simplifying Anthem’s yearly ministry calendar. Instead of allowing every ministry to bring new ideas and events to the table, leaders evaluate opportunities through their defined discipleship pathway. The result is greater focus and consistency. Sam says their annual rhythm has remained largely the same for years, helping both staff and attenders understand what comes next.
Boring can be a strength. // Churches often feel pressure to constantly create something new, but Sam has learned that repetition can be one of the greatest drivers of health. Anthem maintains a weekly prayer gathering, predictable discipleship rhythms, and recurring ministry events rather than continually reinventing the calendar. The goal is not novelty. It is consistency around the few things the church believes matter most.
Create intentional invite moments. // Anthem builds four major invite opportunities into its annual rhythm: Easter, a Summer Kickoff, Homecoming, and Christmas. These predictable moments give the congregation specific opportunities to invite friends and family. Sam has seen the church grow following these events because people know when the church is intentionally creating space for them to bring someone who may not normally attend.
Values have to become behaviors. // Anthem’s core values include “We Love People,” “We Choose Joy,” and “We Bleed Passion.” But Sam emphasizes that values only matter when people can see them lived out. Loving people means creating a culture where people can belong before they behave. Choosing joy means approaching ministry with gratitude rather than obligation. Bleeding passion means refusing to settle for the status quo and remaining willing to change as God leads.
Use clarity to protect multisite culture. // As Anthem expands to additional locations, the Anthem Way provides clear boundaries for what must remain consistent. Sam is not claiming Anthem’s approach is the only way to do church, but he does believe it is important for every one of their locations to understand and embody Anthem’s distinct way of doing ministry. That documented clarity gives leaders freedom while protecting the culture across campuses.
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!
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is a funny one because literally yesterday I was talking to a church in a coaching call. We were talking about this exact issue that we’re going to unpack today. They’re wrestling with these things. I know that this is going to help you. So you’ve tuned in for a great conversation today with Sam Hamstra. Super excited to have him. He and his wife, Taylor, they founded Anthem Church in March 2020 with a vision and heart to lead people to know Christ and make them know known. Rich Birch — Over the past few years they have seen this mission become a reality, continues to grow. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-generational family made up of thousands of people from all walks of life in Northwestern Indiana, Chicagoland, and beyond. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. So honored that you’re with us today, Sam. Welcome. Sam Hamstra — Rich, so honored to be with you. This is a full circle moment for me. I’ve been following you for quite some time. So super honored to be on your on your show. Rich Birch — Oh, come on. That’s I’m glad you’re here. We, we’ve got a lot to learn from you today. So March, 2020, it’s one of those dates that sticks in all of our brains. Cause like, we all know, what were you doing? March 15th, 2020. We all can say exactly what we’re, where we were. That’s a wild month to, to launch. Rich Birch — It’s funny because I keep bumping into people who are telling a similar story. They’re like, we started during the pandemic, right at the beginning, right after that sort of thing. Give us a picture today and kind of from that moment all the way on to today, kind of bring the story, bring us, tell us a little bit about Anthem. Give us a flavor of the church. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we currently today we’re headquartered in Hammond, Indiana, which when we say Indiana, different people have different thoughts. But we’re we’re actually butting up to Chicago. Rich Birch — Yep. Sam Hamstra — Joking around right now, we’re going to be the future home of the Chicago Bears soon. Rich Birch — Nice. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. But um yeah, so we’re headquartered in Hammond. Our second location is in Merrillville, Indiana, about 30 minutes from here. So currently um our family’s grown to about 2,500 people in English. And we also have a Spanish service as well. And God’s done a phenomenal work over a six-year time frame. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we did launch in March of 2020. Our first Sunday was the same Sunday the world shut down. Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Hamstra — And so the third week of March was our first service on the internet. Rich Birch — Dude, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Sam Hamstra — Yes. So in God’s divine plan, kind of underneath our origin story, we we were actually a part of a church in Tinley Park, Illinois. We were a location of that church called Christian Life Center. Sam Hamstra — And our senior pastor and I, Pastor Jerry McQuay, we had been having an ongoing conversation about him making us independent, which is a whole long story. And he decided to really lean into what he believed God was doing in our lives and in this region and made us independent in God’s divine plan. That started in March of 2020.
Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Hamstra — And so we transitioned from being a multi part of a multi site church a location up to being independent in March. And yeah, we started with nothing. We didn’t have any cameras, didn’t have anything. I called our media guy and said, do you have anything at your house? And he brought it. Yeah. Rich Birch — What gear you got in your basement? Yeah, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — Yeah and he he brought a camera from his house. And yeah, that’s how we started. One continuous shot streaming online. And that was the start of Anthem Church in March of 2020. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — So God’s done a great work. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s incredible. That’s cool to hear and fun to see where it’s come, you know, since then. When you look back on that experience, you know, a lot of what you’re trying to define in those early days of a church, you’re trying to bring clarity to like, what is our approach? And part of what we do is you know, we there’s ah there’s, I think, some good copying and pasting. You’re like, hey, here’s the way they do it over here. Maybe we could try a little bit that. But then eventually you start kind of coming up with your own way. You kind of birth your own a approach, playbook, you might call it.
Rich Birch — When did you start to feel… ah the kind of transition from, hey, I just want to do it like in this case, either CLC or another church over there. And you started to realize, hey, there’s something unique here at Anthem. And we got to try to define some of that. Talk us through maybe from um a timeline point of view or from a revelation point of view, like, oh, this is kind of things I started to see. Talk us through what that looked like. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so about two years before we launched Anthem, God started to really kind of do a work in our heart just on unique DNA. And we were coming out of like heavily influenced by ARC, Church of the Highlands, and learned so much from there. Sam Hamstra — And we’re seeing just how like clarity really was so important on where we’re going. Sam Hamstra — And so we were coming in there and I just was really praying and seeking the Lord on, okay, this is great. But in our context here, there’s some some differences, there’s some nuances. Sam Hamstra — This is, um we’re over here. what What does this look like here? And so really took the foundation of that and started looking at what does this look like? So when we started Anthem, it was with the thought of, we really want to lean into this unique blueprint of how God designed us and what God has called us to here. Sam Hamstra — So it really started from the jump from from day one. And so but it was a couple years ahead of time to say, OK, this is great. Let’s let’s use this. Let’s we’ve been imitating. Let’s imitate now move to a little bit of innovation and what the Lord would have for us. Rich Birch — Yeah, and there’s obviously there’s like an art and science to that, right? There’s like the, the yeah, insert whatever church, Church of the Highlands is fantastic. They’re doing a great thing, but you’re not Birmingham, Alabama. And you know and so there’s cultural differences, there’s community differences, there’s different resources and all that. That’s like the kind of science-y part of it. Rich Birch — But then there’s the art part of it, which is a little bit more… like intuitives, it’s like vibes, that kind of thing. How did you discern, okay, what are those things that we should be thinking about that are different that you start, or maybe things you started to see, evidence you started to see like, oh, maybe this isn’t working, just importing. Was there evidence of that that you saw? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so like, and it was like small things, you know, just on approach to Sunday service. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — You know, like, hey, this is open door, we don’t do this on Sunday. And we had just been starting to see like pretty early on, we’re we’re reaching lost people through like a hard approach to the gospel. Sam Hamstra — And it was just like, it wasn’t really seeker sensitive.
Rich Birch — Sure. Sam Hamstra — It wasn’t, not saying they are, but just, it was just a little bit different in in our context where people were coming from. On the multi-ethnic side, it was just some approaches being super intentional with sounds, sights, all of that in in our context. And so, and even on the discipleship model, you know, groups, what kind of groups are we doing? How are we setting these up? Sam Hamstra — And so it was definitely like these nuances in the different categories, I would say, of discipleship that we started to pay attention to. That that was really the start, I think, of innovating what we have now. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Why do you think so many of us just reach for someone else’s model rather than doing the longer, harder, deeper, like it’s more annoying work to try to define you know our own thing and and then ultimately to document it which we’re going to get to here. what What did you actually do to kind of try to codify that? But why do you think we avoid that as leaders? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so I think on one end, what’s established, you can see that the model works. And so um there’s great success you’re seeing. I mean, it’s working everywhere. And so I think it’s safe. And so deep down, it’s like this is established. I see it work. And so I can kind of press play on this. And and I know to a level that this this works. Sam Hamstra — And so it takes courage to do something that you haven’t seen before. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — And deep, deep down, i think in our hearts, to me, that’s probably foundational thing. It’s like, man, I haven’t really seen this so his is going to require some courage, require some faith to press into the unknown. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Sam Hamstra — And so I do think that unknown word leads to some different decisions sometimes. Rich Birch — Well, and your church is an interesting um example just because it’s grown so quickly. I, you know, even in the… the lead up to it, I was thinking about, you know, the word, the term church plant. Rich Birch — Like, I don’t know when that term, you know, I was talking with a church that had been around for 30 years and they’re a big church. They’re like 20,000 people. And they, the lead pastor was like, well, we still think of ourselves as a church plant. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t at some point you stop being a church plant and just be, you start being a church. Rich Birch — And I think actually this is one of those, one of those differentiations is when you start saying, okay, like we’re going to, we believe that kind of God’s called us to this unique thing. There’s something in there. You built something that I think you call the Anthem Way.
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Walk us through what that is. How does it function? What is the Anthem Way? Help us understand that. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so this was actually birthed in an odd place. I was reading “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni,… Rich Birch — Yeah.
Sam Hamstra — …and he was talking about organizational health, and one of the keys is clarity.
Rich Birch — Yes. Sam Hamstra — And I had I have kind of, I’m somewhat of a mutt in church in my upbringing.
Rich Birch — Love it. Sam Hamstra — So I’ve been in a lot of different environments and seen to a lot of different things. And so it was really just kind of like looking like, how can we just be crystal clear on who we are, where we’re going and different things. And so I read that book and in that book, he actually laid out these questions that he was like kind of pointing to every successful organization needs to answer. Sam Hamstra — And Iwas kind of seeing that with some of the stuff I’ve been hearing. And I’m like, and there’s a couple of missing pieces for me that he pointed to that I thought was so important in church world that I would actually point to that have been some of the biggest things I think that have been what I would call probably the secret sauce of what we’ve seen as far as clarity. Sam Hamstra — Just the separation of something simple, but the difference between mission and vision, you know, why we exist compared to where we’re going. And so, yeah, I read that book and in there he laid out questions that you need to answer. I took that to our leadership team and we wrestled with these probably for about nine months. Sam Hamstra — I’m just going back and forth on wording, how we say things. question by question in five different questions. We answered those and we gave it a name called the Anthem Way. And so that was the foundation, but I want to give credit where credit is due. It came through the book, The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s fantastic. And I, you know, one of the things I love that you’ve hit on here is I’ve talked in other contexts that our vision, well, this is the problem with with vision, mission stuff is it’s like, first you have to have a conversation. How do you define vision? How do you define mission? Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — But the big thing that we’re called to, the big idea, it comes from Jesus, right? We’re supposed to reach people and grow them up in in in relationship with him. All churches should have that as their core. That is at the core of what we do.
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But getting clear on how we do that, you know, these other questions I’m assuming has helped give you a bit of a more of an edge, something that’s a little bit different. Do you want to rattle through the five questions…
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and maybe some high level, I know we can’t get into all the detail, but kind of high level how you’ve answered it. And then the follow-up I’m going ask you is, which are those couple that have given you what you think are the biggest distinctives around Anthem…
Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Okay.
Rich Birch — …that kind of that that kind of, um you know, that provide that edge that’s a little different, you think. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. So five questions and I’ll rattle them off quick. But so first one is why do we exist? Mission – the mission question, um which you just said it, I 100% agree, you know, every church really is called to the same thing. Let’s make disciples who make disciples, the Great Commission is still our first priority. Sam Hamstra — And so the way we say that is to lead people to know Christ and make them known. That was something we just prayed into language. We want to share language that people could really rally around. Sam Hamstra — Next question is how do we behave? The values question. We wanted to boil down in our culture those not aspirational values like truly who we are. So we boil those down to three things and wrestle with the language a lot. We wanted them actionable, but we choose joy. We love people and we believe passion. Sam Hamstra — And those all have disclaimers and really feed into our culture of what we call multi-everything. We love people from all walks of life, belong before you behave, and all that falls in there. Sam Hamstra — What do we do? Patrick Lencioni was talking about how that’s really your your business definition, so to speak, not for external use, but internal. We answered that with, we provide defined discipleship pathway. Sam Hamstra — It’s what we do day in and day out. It’s why we wake up in the morning. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re not a country club. We’re not here to make money, we’re a church and and this is this is how we do, like what we do to ah to reach our why. Sam Hamstra — How we live is the spiritual question for us. We wanna make disciples. So we wanted to be able to weigh spiritually what a disciple is. And so we looked at Acts 2:42, which we felt like was a really good, definition of these handles on a disciple. And so we have five kind of disclaimers on what we want to see in our people at our church. And we offer resources on those, but from daily devotion to prayer to we share our Jesus story. How do you testify? How do we share? How do we make Christ known? Sam Hamstra — And then the last one is where are we going, which is the vision question. And we’ve we’re wrestling with the timing right now. We currently have a 10 year vision statement, which is just kind of pointers on like, this is where we believe God is taking us as a people. Sam Hamstra — And so those five questions are give us the framework for what we call the Anthem Way. What I’ve seen, as basic as it sounds and in our context. And I don’t know if this resonates with anybody. One of the most frustrating meetings I had in church context was the yearly calendar meeting. Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Sam Hamstra — And I just felt like everybody was coming every year with their own ideas. Some of them had to do with our mission, some didn’t. And these are just in past experiences. And so it just felt like everybody was trying to, and some, you know, just different reasons, good, bad, indifferent. Sam Hamstra — And what what gave me great clarity was to look at our defined discipleship pathway and say, this is how we create our calendar. And um that’s been one thing that has simplified everything for us. Sam Hamstra — So every year in the last six years, our our yearly calendar flow has been the same. And our people are starting to understand it. The next steps fall within it when we even, you know, baptisms, we’re doing it this time. And So that’s been one thing is basically that sounds like what do we do? Rich Birch — No, no, that’s good. I like it. Sam Hamstra — I found a lot of confusion on that in the past, on like, how do we do groups? How do we have services? To define everything within that in the discipleship pathway, to me has been life-giving, not only for us as a team, but as as our church as well. Rich Birch — Yeah. Pull that apart a little bit more. I think, because I think this is where we fall down on this type of work is, you know, and, and I know it’s none of the people that are listening in, but there are churches that like, they do a retreat and we’re like, we’re going away. We’re going we’re reading Lencioni. We’re going to define the five questions. We even make a snappy poster and we put it up on the wall. And then we go back to business as usual. It’s the same thing we’ve always done. But you’ve been able to make the connection there, particularly with the calendar. Rich Birch — Maybe talk us through, give us some examples of how this work is shaping, how you’re actually defining, you know, how you operate as a church. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so one example I would say is prayer. I had somebody call me and I like to think our prayer culture is strong. And they said, how did you get your prayer culture strong? And I said, well, this is really mind blowing. We have a weekly prayer meeting. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Sam Hamstra — And so because of that, and and still as the lead pastor still today, I take responsibility for leading that because I believe it’s it’s a high value for the church. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — So it’s on the calendar. We you know And we’re not adding to it. It’s just 6 p.m. to 7 every Thursday. And we support it, which I think is the secondary layer behind that because it’s important. Now we have staff support. We have worship team support. We’re, we’re like staying very focused, on a few things rather than getting broad and going to a retreat and saying, this is a silver bullet. I don’t think there, I think the whole thing is a silver bullet, the whole pathway. Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Sam Hamstra — And so we always say, you know, I took this from somebody, but, you know, we want to be Ruth’s Chris, not Ponderosa. We want a one page menu and we really want to just do that. Rich Birch — Yep. Sam Hamstra — And it might even get boring. And we we’re trying to learn that boring is good. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Boring stuff grows churches. I love it. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — One of those five is sharing Jesus. Every disciple has one mission, to make Christ known. We don’t keep the gospel to ourselves. We share it through our words, our actions, our lives, wherever we go. We carry the hope of Jesus to a world that needs him. Rich Birch — Unpack some ways that that value drives behavior at the church, that actually drives calendaring and and you know what you’re talking about, that sort of thing. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so deep, you know, we always want to empower everybody to be inviters and not just share. I think the key word in that is share your Jesus story. You know, we have to be people who understand how to share a testimony outside the four walls with it, you know, with a pretty quick invite to be like, hey, come be part of this community if you don’t have a community. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — And so that is really through calendaring. We that’s really probably intrinsically baked into what we’re doing. So anytime I bring a guest to church, I’m saying it from the pulpit. And this is my friend. They’re here. I invited celebrating those through baptisms. Sam Hamstra — We let people testify of so you’re hearing stories of that. And then really resourcing people to make Christ known by sharing their story, teaching them how to do that. Sam Hamstra — So In the context of the calendar, um you know I took this from your playbook, sir, so thank you. We wanted to create four big events in our flywheel…
Rich Birch — Yep. Love it.
Sam Hamstra — …that are big invite events, that these are the moments where you need to bring 10 people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Sam Hamstra — We have found in our calendar since day one that we are seeing people respond to that and our church grows after every single time we do a big event.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Sam Hamstra — And so we’re we’re doing four quarterly things. Rich Birch — Are those are those four the same every year? Are they, are they, yeah. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, yes. Rich Birch — So what are they? What are those four? If you don’t want me asking. Sam Hamstra — So, you know, Easter, of course…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sam Hamstra — …summer kickoff was something we just created…
Rich Birch — Yeah, great.
Sam Hamstra — …to start the first Sunday of June. We rented a football field and we just say, bring everybody. We don’t…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Sam Hamstra — …in our culture here, this is one thing, like, we’re like, we don’t shrink in the summer. This is a great time to grow. Rich Birch — Keep going forward. Yep. Love it. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. And then we created something years ago called Homecoming, just, you know, it was really show up Sunday, invite day.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep.
Sam Hamstra — And then Christmas.
Rich Birch — Love it. Sam Hamstra — So those are our four homecomings in November on the calendar. It just kind of flows quarterly for us that way. Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. Well, I love what we’ve seen in fastest growing church in the country, friends that are listening in, is, you know, lots of churches will get, they have two big days, Christmas and Easter. But what we see is the behavior that you’re doing, which is you kind of end up having to make up a couple other days where you’re kind of injecting energy. We’re recording this in the summertime. You know, lots of churches have pulled a page out of Life Church’s book around At the Movies. And they, at the movies is one of their biggest attended days of the year on the the front end of that. Rich Birch — It’s just made up. There’s no reason for you to come the first week of August…
Sam Hamstra — Yeah, absolutely.
Rich Birch — …but they’ve decided, hey, we’re going to do that. That’s great. So we’re going to link to your about page where a lot of this is on that that page. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — On the how our core values, how we behave: We love people. We bleed passion. We choose joy. There’s some unique stuff in there. So talk me through. We love people, I think could be universally true of lots of churches…
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but I’m not sure that every church would say we bleed passion. We choose joy. Talk me through those as how those are kind of a unique thing that is helping you define what it means to be Anthem. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so you know on the love people thing, is you do hear that a lot. And I found there’s a difference between hearing it than living it out. And in religious environments sometimes, you know, I think we all pray we wanna reach the lost until you reach the lost.
Rich Birch — True. Sam Hamstra — And our first service, our first Easter Sunday here, we only had one door into our auditorium. And I still remember we had the whole back of the auditorium smelled like weed. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Okay. Love it. Sam Hamstra — And it was like this tense moment, you know, like of like, okay, this is what we pray for. Rich Birch — Yes. Sam Hamstra — And kind of diving deep into that. So we really own that language within that of we belong before we behave. And so we’re, you know, you can come from all walks of life and we believe Jesus died for all people. So we love all people. Sam Hamstra — And then the we choose joy… Rich Birch — I love that. Before we move on, the thing I love about that…
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that you’re calling out, that I do think is a nuance that we miss in too many churches, which is oftentimes we say we want to reach people. But what that comes with is messy pastoral care, hard conversations, stuff that doesn’t make sense, and long nights. Like, it’s just hard. Rich Birch — And, um you know, if you’re, it’s easy to reach Christians from the other church across town. It’s hard to reach people who don’t normally journey in this stuff. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — And I love I love that story, even of your opening weekend with the the smell of weed in the back of the room. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — I love it. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Definitely messy. Rich Birch — That’s great. Yes, yes, love it. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. You know, the “We choose joy” has just been, um i think one of the greatest testimonies we had was from somebody that just, it was their first time guest. So like, man, everybody feels like they’re the same here. Everybody’s so happy. And we just wanted to build in just this, we believe that, you know, joy should be a badge that every believer wears. It’s just been, you know, you go into the different environments and some people just, it seems like a chore to be alive. Sam Hamstra — And so we just wanted to drive in. This is a privilege to be part of what God is doing in the earth in this hour, even if it doesn’t look perfect.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Sam Hamstra — And then with “We bleed passion”, um that’s really our way to say here, you know, if you’re looking for a place that’s content with status quo, you’re probably not going to like it here. We’re always going to be changing. We’re always going to be moving. We’re always going to be shifting. We always want to go with where the Lord is leading. And so we’re a sending church. Don’t get comfortable. There’s always going to be more services. There’s always going to be new churches. Sam Hamstra — So we tried to to really get that in the DNA from the front side. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. Rich Birch — I love that “we choose joy”. When I was at Liquid Church, are one of our three in this in this coupling was “Church is fun”. And you know the way we would talk about that is we would say, you know we we we say good news or we say gospel. We’re like, we should be gospel people or we should be good news people. Rich Birch — But what that actually means, how that actually should work itself out in our culture is when people interact with us, those people are a lot of fun to be around.
Sam Hamstra — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because they’re redeemed people who have figured out, man, we’re following a God who loves us dearly. So what that should actually like, I love the way you’ve said it, we choose joy. Joy should be the natural outcome of our churches…
Sam Hamstra — Yes.
Rich Birch — …which is, again, that should not be rocket science, but it’s amazing how much that is a cultural difference or can be a huge cultural difference in many churches. Sam Hamstra — Yes. 100%. Yep. Rich Birch — That’s cool. So um you’ve been using this really throughout your how you develop leaders, how you onboard people, how you, you know, how do you come back to this time and time again? What are you using? How are you using these tools in your leadership development, in your raising up of volunteers, that sort of thing? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so foundationally, I got to give credit where credit is due once again on this. I heard University of Kentucky’s baseball coach say this about culture, and it was like the best thing I’ve ever heard. He totally transformed his program, and he said it was culture at at the root of it. He said culture is every day. Culture is what you accept, and culture is what you reinforce. Rich Birch — It’s good. Sam Hamstra — And so we try to keep that in front of us as much as we can. It’s you know not something we just say we want to lead the way every day. So within these three, we actually just came out with 10 leadership values that all fit within those three… Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Sam Hamstra — …that give a little more language to our leadership, like, you know, we love people, so we park in back. And so really speaking to the culture of, you know, we put other people first, we serve. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Sam Hamstra — And so, you know, we try to outdo each other. You know, I park about a half mile away from church on Sundays. We don’t we don’t do pastor parking, you know, or anything like that. umAnd so just, it’s every day. Rich Birch — Yes. Sam Hamstra — We do a value at every single one of our pre-service huddles on Sunday. So we’re taking those three values every Sunday, one, here’s what we’re doing. Sam Hamstra — And then Leadership Pipeline, we implemented this two years ago and we’re teaching our Anthem way across the board to a new set of leaders three times a year. And so we really zone in on culture a lot. We’ve just realized people coming from a lot of different places and what makes our culture, our culture are these distinctives. And so we’re teaching those and then really trying to walk them out. And the best testimony we’ve been hearing is people say, yeah, we see that in the leadership of the church. So that’s been really cool to hear. Rich Birch — That’s really cool. I love it. And friends, this just reminds me of the like such a foundational thing we’ve all got to get right and work on and then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Rich Birch — We’ve got to keep on top of this language and and just come back to it time and time again. So you’re multi-site, you’re you’re going to launch more campuses down the road. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — How does this tie into that conversation around, you know, there can be in you know, some multi-site churches, there’s like this tension of uniformity, you know, versus autonomy. And like, how how does that how does how does your thinking work out with the Anthem Way in multiple locations? Sam Hamstra — Yeah. So I want to preface this with I’m new, so I am figuring this out in real time. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sam Hamstra — I’m coming from from being a campus pastor to now being in the position I’m in. We’re two years into our first ah plant location campus. So and we’ve seen it be successful. Sam Hamstra — But what we’ve agreed on is we are going to be uniform in the Anthem Way. So we’re choosing uniformity and everything that falls within that box of the Anthem Way. Um, and so that has been like the running lanes for us to define what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, the way we talk, the way we move, our style of church, um, and all of that. So that’s been, you know, we’ve been really struggling with, with, with what you just said, that uniformity versus unity versus, you know, autonomy. Sam Hamstra — And so, the Anthem Way is to become our framework on how we’re starting locations. And we feel like as long as everybody’s in sync with all, and it and it entails a lot, right? I mean, how we do church, our approach to a lot of things. Sam Hamstra — And so that’s been that’s been our overarching theme is we want to be uniform in this. Rich Birch — yeah that’s good.
Sam Hamstra — And so that’s what we’ve been trying to make sure it’s documented, ready to go. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s an interesting, that’s like a, we could have a whole other half an hour just on on on that issue. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — But one of the things we have seen over the long arc of the multi-site movement is churches that are choosing clarity and um and more, yeah, an understanding of, in your case, what is Anthem and how do we do what we do, those churches are the churches that, from my perspective, and not just statistically, are actually benefiting more from the multi-site movement. Rich Birch — The churches where they’re like, hey, let’s spend a lot of time. It can actually be the worst model because it’s like, we have a lot of people thinking about all the different ways you could potentially do church. As opposed to saying, no, no, like this is the way we’re not, we’re not saying this is the best way. We’re just saying it’s our way. We’re not saying that this is the only way to do it. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — We’re just saying this is the way we do it. And, um and we’re okay with that. We’re settled on on that as an issue. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. That’s good. That’s good. Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Is there anything that changed or that has changed as you, I realize you’ve influenced ben to this from the beginning, but like, has there been anything that has kind of changed as you got clearer on the Anthem Way over the over the years? You know, something you cut or improved or, you know, is there anything that jumps to mind on that front? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, we’re would I might use the word refined rather than changed.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yep, that’s good.
Sam Hamstra — I was just talking to our discipleship director this morning just on, you know, is there is there a small group model? So like our three kind of handles in our discipleship pathway are know Christ, grow in Christ, and and make Christ known. Sam Hamstra — And, you know, our small group model isn’t working. We added what we call the Mosaic School of Ministry, which is is another thing in Grow. And we’ve actually seen way more interest and success in that. And so, you know, we have a way higher percentage right now going through what we call a School of Ministry, which is classes and and discipleship then we’re getting in small groups.
Sam Hamstra — And so we’ve been just kind of wrestling with that a little bit. Like, is that culture, is it good, is it bad? And so I think those those refining moments have have really changed. We started off, though, I feel soft saying this, but it worked in our context. But we would start every year with 21 days of prayer and fasting in the beginning. And do 21 days again in the fall. Rich Birch — Love it. Sam Hamstra — We’ve actually gone down to seven days to start the year. There’s seven days in the fall. We just feel like we’re seeing actually better results with more people getting involved just with those minor tweaks, just to say this… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Sam Hamstra — …his is we’re we’re seeing bigger impact there.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sam Hamstra — But so I think those refining things have been really good. Rich Birch — Has there been any of that refining that has come not from you, but from a member of your team? Like, has anyone called you out or called the church out on like, hey, like on prayer or on any of these where, you know, like when that’s happened in my life, I kind of like that.
Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — I’m like, oh, well, that’s a pleasant thing that just happened there, even though it feels weird to be the person being called out. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — Have you had any experiences like that? Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Yes. I’m laughing because, yeah, I’ve had quite a few. I could point to the one with prayer fasting.
Rich Birch — Yes.
So somebody on our team was like, hey, pastor, you know that there’s really no a place in the Bible where there’s a three week corporate fast.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sam Hamstra — Yeah like where the whole church is coming together for three weeks and I’m like well I got a challenge, I’m gonna look. And I’m like sure enough you know, I’m maybe somebody could find it, but it was like these times and seasons where people come together for specific things of like, oh man you’re right.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, love it.
Sam Hamstra — So and so that was like one of those um yeah it’s it’s definitely happened quite quite a bit and so which I love that too and so it’s been such a blessing of solid team that feels free to speak when when they need to. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, this has been a good conversation, just as we’re kind of coming to land. If you think about a church out there that feels like okay they’ve listened to this and they’re like okay, we maybe they’ve opened up your website. And they’re like, hey, we’re not as clear on this that as we could be, we need to get much clearer on that. Rich Birch — What’s kind of one first step that you would encourage people to take? What would be kind of the best first step towards getting clarity on this front? Sam Hamstra — Write the vision, make it plain so that he that reads it may run. Rich Birch — Dude, I love it. And with that, we end the episode. That’s fantastic. No, that’s great. Unpack that a little bit. Sam Hamstra — Um, you know, I for so much of my life, I was always looking to be so unique and so different. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — And I felt like I just needed the next best thing. And it was wasn’t until I just locked into this is what the Lord has for us. And it might sound like somebody else it might look and that’s OK, but this going to be very unique to us. And this is what we’re doing. And just to be very clear on that and then just this is for me, but I get bored so easily. And to just, just not get bored and just keep doing the same thing in the same direction day after day. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — And in that that flywheel, to use your words, it does work. And just to see that go and to to get very clear and and simple and and let people know where you’re going and just keep saying the same thing over and over is so life-giving. Rich Birch — That’s so good. So good. Rich Birch — Well, I really appreciate you being here today. If we want to send people anywhere online to track with you or to track with the church, where do we want to send them? Sam Hamstra — So first name, last name would be all my personal stuff. So @samhamstra, last name H-A-M-S-T-R-A. Sam Hamstra — And all church stuff is weareanthemchurch.com. And then weareanthemchurch on social as well. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Appreciate that, Sam. Thanks so much for being here. Honored that you take some time to be with us today. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, thanks so much, Rich, my honor.
Your Bench Is Empty: What Growing Churches Do Before the Role Opens Up
Aug 27, 2026
Most churches don’t start thinking about leadership development until a key person resigns. By then, the only real option is to post the role and hope someone qualified applies. In this special compilation episode, we’ve pulled together four conversations with leaders who have built the habit of developing people long before the seat opens up. The churches growing fastest right now are rarely the ones with the best job postings. They’re the ones who already know who’s next.
Don’t miss the four critical lessons every church should consider as they head into fall hiring and budget planning. From the leadership model that quietly keeps benches empty to a mindset shift about where leaders actually come from to a challenge you could give your team on Monday to the structure that produces people you can genuinely put on payroll, each conversation offers a practical step forward.
The Model Nobody Names Out Loud
Tim Foot explains what he calls hero-driven leadership: the habit of relying too heavily on standout individuals to carry the mission. It produces short-term results, but it creates burnout, unrealistic hiring expectations, and fragile systems. What makes it so hard to escape is that it feels good. It feels productive to be the person who solves the problems and holds the answers. Foot also names the “shiny object trap,” where churches chase talent from larger organizations only to discover that the leader arrives with a playbook that doesn’t fit and no systems to support them.
Key Takeaway // Hero dependence is a staffing strategy, whether or not anyone chose it on purpose. Healthy teams are built when leaders get comfortable saying they don’t know what to do next, because that’s what opens the room for collaboration.
Spence Shelton draws a parallel most church leaders have never made. We all agree that growing a church by reaching lost people beats growing it by transfer from other churches. Then, when it comes to leaders, we reverse the logic and look for someone who’s already trained elsewhere. Shelton makes the case for the shoulder tap: intentionally asking someone whether God might be calling them into ministry. At Mercy Church, both executive pastors and two of three campus pastors came out of the marketplace, from banking, plant management, and physical therapy. None of them would have applied. Somebody had to ask.
Key Takeaway // Many future ministry leaders never consider vocational ministry because no one ever raised the possibility with them. Developing from within takes longer than hiring from outside, and it produces leaders shaped by your church’s culture rather than someone else’s.
Chris Vaught faced the constraint every growing church knows well. Connection Point was growing fast, but budget always arrives last, and southeastern Missouri isn’t a place people relocate to for a ministry position. So the church started looking at its own congregation and treating volunteers as unpaid staff with real roles and responsibilities. The starting point was a single challenge to every staff member: go find your Timothy. One person you invest in deeply enough that if you were out on a Sunday, the ministry would still run.
Key Takeaway // A leadership pipeline doesn’t have to begin with a budget line. It can begin with one question asked of every staff member about who could carry their ministry if they weren’t there next weekend.
Dave Miller draws a distinction that reframes what most churches call leadership development. Churches are excellent at training: the sermon, the class, the book of the month, the small group discussion. All of it is content delivery, and content has never been more available. Development is something else. Miller’s team identifies seven ingredients: training, spiritual formation, soft skills, ownership, mental wellness, and developmental conversations. He also challenges leaders on where accountability sits. When a sports team wins, we talk about the players. When it loses, we replace the manager. Church leaders should apply the same standard to the people they’re developing.
Key Takeaway // If content were the key ingredient, leadership development would already be solved. What emerging leaders need is proximity, ownership, and someone willing to slow down and have the conversation.
These four conversations form a ladder, and you don’t have to start at the top. Most churches never start at all because they assume the only real option is a residency program they can’t yet afford. Tim named the model keeping your bench empty. Spence gave the mindset shift and the shoulder tap. Chris gave the first move that costs nothing. Dave gave the structure that produces people you can hire. As you head into this fall, the question worth bringing to your next staff meeting is simple: who on our team has never been tapped on the shoulder, and what would it take to have that conversation this month?
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: TouchPoint
As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way. TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow.
TouchPoint is trusted by some of the fastest-growing and largest churches in the country because it helps teams stay aligned, understand who they’re reaching, and make confident ministry decisions week after week.
If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo.
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — At the beginning of 2026, we surveyed executive pastors like you and nearly one in four named that staff health and structure, how we get our teams to work together was your top fear going into 2026. You know and I know it, you probably have an open role at your church that you’re trying to fill, or you’re maybe about to have an open role. When a key person leaves your team and your instinct is just to post it, what can we do? Rich Birch — Finding, releasing, equipping leadership is critically important. Welcome to the last compilation episode of summer 2026 here on the unSeminary podcast. Super excited about today’s conversation, all about developing leaders within our organizations. Rich Birch — I know that in many churches, we think of this as a season where new staff are hiring or we’re hiring them into new roles. We’re working on budget planning for next year. There’s all the fall ramp up. Rich Birch — All four of these conversations are going to be helpful for you. The first one, we’ve got Tim Foot. He is the CEO of Slingshot, has nearly 30 years in ministry leadership, and his team has literally worked with thousands of churches on staffing. Rich Birch — Listen to this kickoff to today’s conversation, really setting up the tension that we find ourselves in. He names the leadership model that most of us have absorbed without anyone talking about it out loud, and it could be derailing your church and my church. Let’s listen in to what Tim has to say about developing leaders.
[Clip 1 Begins] Tim Foot — Yeah, I mean, the model we see is hero-driven leadership. It’s when we rely too much on individuals to actually carry the mission. And I think the cracks have happened. Tim Foot — I mean, we’ve seen it, Rich. You and I are similar ages. I think the cracks are happening generationally. Tim Foot — The builders and boomers were wired differently for a different time and culture. And us Gen Xers, we can code switch. I mean, we see that happening all the time. Tim Foot — And as we stepped into leadership, the cracks started to appear. I mean, we see it every week, another leader burning out, doing stupid things because of too much pressure. Then Millennials and Gen Z are now leading in a new way that we need to embrace. Tim Foot — And so I think we’re seeing those cracks around that hero dependence, and we’re starting to see the need more than ever to have a team awareness, a holistic approach, or we’re just going to have leaders continue to burn out. And we see it around unrealistic hiring expectations, lack of support for great leaders when they’re hired, a lack of development. Hero dependence is a terrible staffing and growth strategy and becomes a massive trap when it comes to a number of the key focus areas or patterns we’ve seen that healthy teams focus on a move mission forward. Rich Birch — Yeah, see, this is the thing when you I heard you say that once and it literally I sat up and I was like, oh, man, I’ve seen that in my own, you know, my own hiring. I’ve seen that in the way I’ve talked with, you know, I see the leaders around me. You see these people who they’ve kind of built the entire ministry around themselves and they’ve built it’s like it doesn’t work if they don’t. It’s like they’re such a unique individual. They have to lift it all. Rich Birch — Like, why do we keep coming back to that? Why? Even if we know like intellectually in our heads, yeah, that’s not a good idea. Rich Birch — But what makes that model so sticky? It feels like we just keep coming back to this same thing time. In fact, we actually reward it. We’ll be like, wow, isn’t that great? This person’s amazing. And we just kind of keep moving on. Why is that? Tim Foot — It’s the shiny object trap. I mean, the shiny object, aka the talented leader that we think is going to catapult the ministry. Often we see it in hiring conversations when a particular organization wants to go after somebody that’s been in a much bigger organization than them. Tim Foot — And often that person, if they can attract them, will come in with a playbook that isn’t uniquely suited to the organization they’re stepping into. Or there aren’t systems to support that new leader and the growth that’s going to happen. And burnout happens at every level. Tim Foot — But we both know, Rich, busy work makes us feel productive. But is it the right work? And we know that we can be ourselves the shiny object. It feels good to be the hero. It feels good to be the one that’s solving problems. It feels good to be the one that has all the answers. Tim Foot — And I think that’s one of the biggest threats in healthy leadership today, is feeling like you have to have all the answers. Because I think one of the most powerful statements from healthy leaders and healthy teams is, Hey, we don’t know what to do next. Because it actually opens up the room for new thought. It opens up the room for collaboration. And it opens up the room for teamwork. Tim Foot — But it’s easier to move quick. It’s easier to move quick and be surrounded by people who agree and play it safe. And then down the road, we realize that we weren’t growing in every sense of that word. And the mission was stalled out. Tim Foot — We know we often have to slow down, re-strategize, look at who’s around the table, work out how we work together to move faster in the long term. We have to be vulnerable to make a team work. And sometimes it requires us to actually help others win than focus on heroes. Tim Foot — I mean, you think about a winning sports team. It’s not about just one person out there doing all the work. We’ve got to work together as a team. Tim Foot — You know, it’s how do we work together and have less dependence on that shiny object, those standout leaders or those heroes.
[Clip 1 Ends] Rich Birch — Oh, so good. You know, Tim named something there. Man, it feels good to be the person with all the answers. Rich Birch — Can I have a little confessional time with you, friends? Earlier parts of my ministry career, I have really struggled with that. I wanted to be the person who had all the answers, but it’s a trap. And most of us find ourselves in it. Rich Birch — We’ve got to move beyond hero dependence, either wanting to be the hero or to find heroes. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a system that ultimately rewards the wrong thing.
Rich Birch — So the question that I have is what is the alternative? Where do we go if we’re not just trying to hire the next shiny object? Rich Birch — The thing that will, the person that will, you know, plug in like a thing, where do leaders actually come from? I love this conversation coming up with Spence Shelton as the lead pastor of Mercy Church in Charlotte, planted in 2015, now three campuses online, plus launching a family of churches. I want you to listen for a few things. Rich Birch — First of all, Spence parallels, makes a parallel that I really have not heard many people say between how we think about reaching people who are far from God and how we think about finding leaders and how these two are connected. Listen carefully for the shoulder tap that he talks about. You know, oftentimes one of the things I find most revealing about podcast interviews is people say things just in the sides that really do under that, that give you a sense of what’s actually going on under the hood and pay attention to where his executive pastor campus pastors come from. Rich Birch — Let’s listen in to what Spence Shelton has to say.
[Clip 2 Begins] Spence Shelton — I think that mentality starts all the way down to the idea of reaching people that don’t know Christ versus just sheep swapping from one church to the other church, right? So you can grow your church by transfer growth, which I actually am one who, hey man, if somebody’s on the sideline in one church and then they plug into your church, I’m all for it. And if the same thing happens with Mercy, all for it. Spence Shelton — But our aim, what we all know as pastors and ministry leaders is our aim is, man, let’s reach lost people and then disciple them, right? The same thing I think should be true with leadership development. For some reason, when it comes then to developing leaders, we tend to go a different direction and think, well, let’s just go find where some leaders are and get them to plug in. Spence Shelton — It’s like, we don’t do that even with discipleship. Why are we switching our mindset? And so I want to just kind of, I have to, I was convicted and wanted to call our church and I would call others to the same mindset that you have with discipleship. Spence Shelton — Let that carry over into your leadership and your leadership development as well. And I think that’s how we’re going to grow, just as how we’re going to grow the kingdom by reaching lost people, how we’re going to grow the leaders in the kingdom, the number of leaders we have, it’s going to be developing them in our church. And I just, I don’t know that we’re even thinking that way and asking the question, is the guy who’s a 27-year-old physical therapist in my church, has anybody ever bothered to tap him on the shoulder and ask, Hey man, could God be calling you into ministry because I watch you? Spence Shelton — And no, we’re not doing the shoulder tap, man. And so, um, our right now, I just, I love it. I’m just a little bit of the story of our church. Our exec, both of our executive pastors and two of our three campus pastors were all in the marketplace. Spence Shelton — One of our executive pastors was in banking. Another was a plant manager. We have two campus pastors who were both, I use physical therapists cause they’re both former physical therapists. And you know, we’re sitting there having these conversations. You know, what makes a great pastor is someone who has sat with person after person, told them, Hey, you should do this to feel better. Spence Shelton — And then they come back to you later and say, Hey, I don’t feel better. And you say, did you do the thing I told you to do? And they say, no. And you say, well, you should have done that. Spence Shelton — And a patient long suffering physical therapist turns out to be a great pastor, but somebody has got to tap him on the shoulder and say, Hey man, I think God might be calling you into this. Spence Shelton — And so my, my encouragement to anybody who’s in ministry right now, kind of in that leadership development role. And you’re like, I don’t know, we’re going to have to go outside to find some talent. I promise it’s going to take longer the way I’m talking about. But if you will seek the Lord, ask the Lord, and then start shoulder tapping and giving some opportunities for guys to lead for men and women to lead there in your ministry and whatever the leadership roles might be. I think there might be more people in there than you realize, because I believe that God provides for the church that he’s growing, that he’s called you to lead. And so I think that’s true with leaders as well.
[Clip 2 Ends] Rich Birch — Hey, friends, 9 out of 10 campus pastors, they do come from within. So if you are launching new locations in the future, man, we got to start developing campus pastors today. Rich Birch — But I know some of you are saying, listen, listen, listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That all sounds good. Shoulder tapping. Great, great, great. Rich Birch — But how, how do I do it? How do I train my team to do it? How do we motivate, stay focused on this? Rich Birch — The gap that my, what I have found, it’s not desire. It’s not even understand that people don’t understand that that’s how we do it. It’s not a resistance to those things. It’s none of that. It’s just that nobody owns it because you see development is everyone’s job, which means that it’s nobody’s job. Rich Birch — It’s easy for this to fall through the cracks. Aren’t we all supposed to be developing leaders? So if we’re all developing leaders, my experience has been that means that really none of us are or we’re not doing it in a systematic way. Rich Birch — Super excited to have Chris Vaught with us. He is the lead pastor of Connection Point Church in Missouri. Listen, it grew from 300 people in 2011 to 2,500 today across multiple campuses. Rich Birch — And he outlines one challenge that Chris gave every staff member. And I really want you to listen carefully for this, because to be honest, this is pure unSeminary magic. This is like what I love about our podcast. Rich Birch — You could take this out of this interview today and put it into your next team meeting on Monday. Apply it to your church. Let’s listen in for what Chris wants to say to you about how we train people to shoulder tap, find leaders and release them.
[Clip 3 Begins] Chris Vaught — You can only hire out so much, right? Because even though our church has grown fast, budget always comes up last. But you have to look at other avenues other than just, oh, I’ll hire another position. Chris Vaught — So we started looking at congregation. We began to develop our own leadership pathway or pipeline to develop not only volunteers, but our future staff. We knew we grew really fast. We need to hire from within, but we still couldn’t hire every position. Chris Vaught — So we started looking at our volunteers as almost as non-paid staff positions. And so we have an atmosphere of expectation of roles and responsibilities and also the value of what they’re doing. Chris Vaught — That the kingdom is dependent upon all of us using our gifts and talents. And so we started this pathway. And at first it was simply a challenge to every staff member. You go find your Timothy. You go find one other person that you can invest yourself into, a volunteer. Chris Vaught — So that if on Saturday night, and here was kind of the criteria for us: if on Saturday night, something were to happen and you catch COVID. Okay. We’re at that time. Could this ministry run the next day because of the person you have personally equipped…
Rich Birch — I love that clarity.
Chris Vaught — …to hold the ministry. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Rich Birch — We began to put those pieces together. That’s right. You go ahead. I cut you off there. Chris Vaught — No, no. I was just saying that’s what we began. We began this pipeline and that was really the basic level at first. Every staff member finding that one Timothy, if you will, if you want to use that terminology, that could run that ministry if you were out.
[Clip 3 Ends] Rich Birch — See what I told you? The Saturday night test is literally the cheapest leadership development tool in this entire episode. If you do nothing else out of today’s episode, do that. Rich Birch — But I know, listen, there can be a gap on that, a ceiling. Finding your Timothy fills gaps, but it does not produce people necessarily kind of week-in, week-out that you could put on print a payroll. You need to also do some development. You need to have some intentional leadership development. Rich Birch — Most churches, again, think that they’re developing leaders, but they’re really just handing out books or running a monthly team meeting, that sort of thing. I want to introduce you, reintroduce you to my friend Dave Miller. He’s a former worship and creative arts pastor in Las Vegas, in Kentucky, in Michigan, and he and his team have worked with over 150 churches and over 160 residents. Rich Birch — What do we mean by residents? These are people that are in the pipeline for thinking clearly in their lives about joining your staff team or staff teams of another church somewhere across the country. He defines seven ingredients. Rich Birch — Listen, I had the honor of writing the foreword to Dave’s book, Who’s the Next You? I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of that and think through that. But let’s listen in a little bit of what Dave has to say today.
[Clip 4 Begins] Dave Miller — Well, we would say there’s seven ingredients. There’s a chapter in the book, seven ingredients. You can get it on our website right now. Dave Miller — Seven ingredients of what we would say is leadership development. So what you’re talking about, really, a sermon is training, if you think about it, like in a, in a market sense, I’m going to talk at you for 35 minutes. There’s four points. It’s very good. It’s inspired. It’s like Ted, Ted, long Ted Talk every 52 times a year, plus Christmas Eve and whatever. Dave Miller — And I would just say, we call that training. Churches for a long time have done really, really well with training, right? It’s either it’s the sermon or it’s Sunday school. It’s even the AI delivered small group questions I get from my men’s group, right? Dave Miller — It is staff. When I say, do y’all do leadership development? Yeah. Tell me about that. Dave Miller — And they start talking about your book or Carey’s book or Craig Groeschel’s book. It’s a book of the month. It’s conversation. Even now, now we’ve taken training and we’re still delivering the content, but we’re discussing it and we’re filling in blanks. Right. And we do that. Dave Miller — And, or spiritual formation. I had a well-known keynote kind of person. We just need to disciple these kids and get out of their way. And I was like, Oh, neat. Actually we don’t.
Dave Miller — We did that once. It’s called the Jesus movement. I think that was the Jesus movement or the Jesus people in the early seventies, which kind of mirrors what’s going on on college campuses, you think. Dave Miller — We don’t need to just disciple them and get… We got to go with them. So, so training, spiritual formation, soft skills, which is the pain point of all the bosses, the emotional lack of intelligence of things. Those would be the three core ones. Dave Miller — And then we have to provide best practices. We have to, we have to provide ownership, which is a big thing for us in our small business, small church world at the 12 month mark. When we’re saying, well, she just doesn’t get it. She didn’t get, Oh, what doesn’t she get?
Dave Miller — He just doesn’t understand what… We talk about our downline people as if they’re executive leaders with 20 years of experience. It would be totally fine for someone to accuse me of something like that. Dave Miller — But like when we think of sports, we don’t talk about individual players. We talk about the coaches. When the team’s losing, whose fault is it? As a lifetime Cincinnati Reds fan we change the manager. We don’t talk about number 78 and 14. Dave Miller — When the team’s doing amazing, it’s about the player.He’s killing it. She’s killing it. He’s killing it. When the team is losing, we have to own it similarly. Dave Miller — This is on us.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Dave Miller — Mental wellness. One of the seven things, mental wellness. If you can’t prove to me that you know, I’m not, I’m not here giving you even a theological construct. Cause we work with all sorts of churches that believe all sorts of things, right? But mental health, if you can’t prove to me that you have a plan, at least, or you’ve thought about it, that’s gonna be a problem. We’re checking it on. Dave Miller — And then finally developmental conversations. This is not delivered only through training to your point.
[Clip 4 Ends] Rich Birch — What a fantastic group of conversations. Just a thin slice of so many of the conversations we’ve had over the last year in this whole area. Rich Birch — Tim, he named the model that can keep your and my bench empty. Spence gave us the mindset shift and the shoulder tap. Chris gave us the simplest form of the really first move that costs you absolutely nothing. And Dave finally gave you the formal structure that produces people you could hire, put on your team long-term. Rich Birch — Listen, you do not need to start at the top. Most churches never start at all because they only think the real option is just going out and hiring people externally. Listen, really the question I want to leave you with is where Tim started us at the beginning. Rich Birch — Maybe dear listener, you are listening in today and you have the hero mindset. Maybe you need to start with you and figure out what you can do in your area to pass it all along. Listen, we’ve got links for all these four episodes in the show notes here at unSeminary. Rich Birch — We’re on a mission to help 100 churches grow by a thousand people. We do that through these free podcasts, courses, coaching, cohorts. We do a lot to try to get in your corner. Rich Birch — We’ve got so much coming up this fall. Stay tuned. Some great stuff coming your way to see your church be more effective. Rich Birch — Thanks so much, friends. Take care.
Why We’re Working Harder and Spending More to Reach Fewer People with Todd Wilson
Aug 20, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Todd Wilson, co-founder of Exponential and a leader at Multipliers, where he helps churches and ministry leaders pursue multiplication and greater Kingdom impact. Todd has spent decades studying church planting, disciple-making, and movements, and his latest book, How Did We Get Here? Looking Back to Look Forward, explores the evolution of the American church growth movement and what it may mean for the future.
Are churches working harder while reaching fewer people? Have our systems become better at producing activity than disciples? Todd challenges leaders to examine the operating system beneath modern church ministry and consider what needs to change if we want to see true reproduction and multiplication.
We have a disciple-making problem. // For years, Todd has championed the goal of seeing more churches reproduce. Research once showed that fewer than 5% of U.S. churches were reproducing, and while that number has improved, multiplication remains rare. But Todd believes church planting is ultimately an outcome of a deeper issue: most churches do not have a functional culture of disciple-making. If disciples aren’t reproducing disciples, churches will struggle to reproduce churches.
Reproduction has to become generational. // Multiplication begins when reproduction continues beyond the first generation. One disciple makes another disciple, who then makes another, and the process keeps going. The same is true with churches. A church plants a church, which plants another church, which plants another. Once reproduction moves across multiple generations, addition becomes multiplication and the potential for movement begins to emerge.
The church growth system has slowly changed. // Todd’s research traces roughly 75 years of church growth history, beginning with missionary Donald McGavran. McGavran originally studied why some churches on the mission field grew while others did not and developed principles aimed at helping missionaries reach more people. Over time, those ideas moved into the American church and blended with seeker-sensitive ministry, the megachurch movement, purpose-driven strategies, multisite, church planting networks, and other innovations. Much good came from these eras, but Todd believes the system gradually shifted toward institutional and programmatic growth.
Good intentions can still create the wrong outcomes. // Todd is careful not to blame previous generations of church leaders. Many of the people who shaped modern church ministry were deeply evangelistic and sincerely wanted to reach people. Yet over time, the dominant definition of success increasingly became bigger attendance, larger programs, and expanding organizations. The unintended result is a consumer-driven model that can attract people effectively but struggles to produce disciples who reproduce.
The angst leaders feel is real. // Todd hears a growing frustration among pastors: churches are spending more money, employing more staff, and working harder while seeing less fruit. Even churches that appear successful can sense something isn’t right beneath the surface. Todd believes much of that angst comes from trying to produce multiplication through an operating system designed primarily for addition. Naming the problem is an important first step toward changing it.
Leaders must model what they want reproduced. // Todd believes transformation has to begin with senior leaders. If disciple-making is going to become the church’s growth engine, lead pastors and elders must personally participate in a simple, reproducible disciple-making process. Rather than merely preaching about discipleship, pastors should be able to name the people they are actively discipling and allow those relationships to shape the way they lead and teach.
Keep the process simple and reproducible. // Whatever model a church chooses, Todd believes it must be simple enough for anyone to reproduce. The goal isn’t another sophisticated program but a way of following Jesus that can move naturally from person to person. The same approach should work for a lead pastor, a volunteer, or even a teenager. Simplicity increases the possibility of multiplication.
Give the next generation permission to experiment. // Todd isn’t calling churches to abandon everything they’ve inherited. Instead, he encourages leaders to learn from the past, retain what is fruitful, and recognize that the current operating system may be losing effectiveness. Churches should create space for younger leaders to experiment, learn, and discover more reproducible approaches to disciple-making without being forced to preserve every assumption of previous generations.
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have tuned in today for this reason, friends, lean in. um I want you to be a part of the conversation that we’re having today. The leader that we’ve got on the phone, on the I don’t know why say the phone because we have not been on phones for podcasts in, you know, 10 years, but on the line is really pressing on an issue that I know that a large portion, you know, almost 90 percent of the churches in the country need to be doing what we’re talking about today. And they’re not. And I really want you to lean in and learn from Todd Wilson.
Rich Birch — If you do not know Todd Wilson, he has been the founding and co-founding member of a number of faith-based organizations, including Exponential and Multipliers. He has designed a number, and been a part of the launch of a multiple of national church planting networks. He’s currently a team member, or team leader at Multipliers and serves leaders and ministries who are pursuing multiplication, helping them develop vision and strategy ultimately for a 100 X impact. You know that I love that.
Rich Birch — Recently, he wrote a book that caught my attention that I want to dive in on and kind of um unpack some of the core lessons for us today. It’s called, How Did We Get Here? Looking Back to Look Forward. And it’s really looking at the whole conversation, American church growth movement. Todd, welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here. Todd Wilson — Rich, it’s great to be here with you. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Rich Birch — Yeah, me too. So why don’t we start with kind of giving us a picture of Multipliers and the work that you’re focused on now, kind of set the context for us. Todd Wilson — Sure. It’s probably good to have the context, you know, at at my core, my own personal calling. I am an entrepreneurial engineer at my core. I love to envision, envisage opportunities, seek strategies and opportunities of the future. And so where I like to do it anywhere, there’s potential for a hundred X kingdom impact. And that’s what gets me in trouble often is the, wherever there’s potential for a hundred X kingdom impact. Todd Wilson — When I came out of the marketplace over 25 years ago into full-time ministry, the most natural hundred X place for me, in addition to being in the local church was, was church planting. I was just drawn to church planting. I got to spend almost 20 years, ah you know, leading Exponential and co-founding there. Todd Wilson — And in recent years, really trying to get even more focused really on the 100x impact. I want to spend my next decade as I’m getting older here, you know, what’s it look like for every hour, for every dollar, for every bit of energy, to see 100x return. Todd Wilson — And so the idea of Multipliers, and it’s a small team of us that, you know, we have a definite bias within the kingdom space to the disciple-making as the mission and engine of the church. And what’s it look like to get back to Jesus style disciple making. But then church planting and multiplication, what does it look like to be doing things that that are even capable of reproduction that can lead to multiplication and ultimately movement. So our goal is to just help champion at the personal level through personal calling, at the church level through disciple making and cultures of disciple making that can ultimately produce movements. Todd Wilson — And so we are a champion and advocate for that. Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. You and I are are similarly wired. And over the years, you know I’ve heard people talk about, you know, and they always they’ll do like a series at a church on spiritual gifts. And I’ve often wondered because of the kinds of things I’ve been involved in, if, you know, if I have some sort of apostolic gift, just because of the stuff I found myself doing and, you know, launching campuses and all that. Rich Birch — And it’s interesting that gift over the years I’ve heard, which is similar to the kind of work you’ve been doing over the years is the only gift that I’ve ever noticed that preachers, they seem to talk down about it. And they’re like, stop starting things like, you know, they’re like, they always, you know, are like on the negative side of, you know, being the guy who wants to be entrepreneurial and see new things. Rich Birch — And that’s a part of what I admire about you and the good work you’ve done. When you were at Exponential over those, you know, with you that you co-founded, you know, that almost 20 years, you know, they had this, they saw some amazing things happen there under your leadership, where this idea of moving church reproduction from under 5%, really trying to push us towards 16%. Rich Birch — So for people that are unaware of this, I think this is good context to kind of take a step back and talk about why that number, why are we actually, why are you giving decades of your life towards this idea of trying to move towards 16%? What do we mean by that when you you know talk about that? Because I think that’s a good foundational idea for today’s conversation. Todd Wilson — Yeah. I think it’s important it to understand, again, context for me. I didn’t grow up a Christian. I never had a dream to be in full-time vocational ministry. I’ve never wanted to be a lead pastor of anything. You know, ministry was the farthest thing from my mind growing up. When you’re asking kids, what do you want do when you grow up? Todd Wilson — So when God brought me into full-time vocational ministry, and I’m going to say kicking and screaming, I wanted to go start a company. I wanted to go make money. I wanted to go change the world. And so coming into full-time vocational ministry, why in the world would I want to see anything except movements happening?
Rich Birch — That’s good. Todd Wilson — We read about movements in the New Testament. Why do I want to be personally satisfied if God’s calling me into a new life of ministry with anything less than seeing movements? Todd Wilson — And so that was my context of stepping in and and leading at Exponential and what was driving us. And your question from 5% to 16%. Well, Houston, we have a problem. Todd Wilson — If movements are multiplication, and multiplication is generational reproduction, and we, at the time we were starting Exponential, there were less than 5% of U.S. churches were reproducing. You just got to let that sink in. Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Wilson — 95% of churches just 25 years ago, 95% of churches in the U.S. are not reproducing. It’s physically impossible, both mathematically and biblically, to see multiplication and ultimately movements if less than 5% of churches are reproducing. Todd Wilson — So the answer to where’s the 5 to 16, for me personally, God’s called me into a new life and a new ministry. I don’t want to be satisfied with just status quo, but the state of the U.S. church is such that we physically can’t see 100x impact in the operating system of how things are working.
Todd Wilson — So the 5 to 16 was very simple. Let’s measure where we’re at. And so the 16% sociologists say that if you can get 16% of an audience acting a certain way, behaving a certain way, it will become normative for everyone else. I like to say, if you’re in a room and you start quacking like a duck to talk, if you can get 16% of the people in the audience quacking like a duck, then everybody’s going to communicate by quacking like a duck. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — And so it just became a conviction. Let’s move the needle from less than 5% to 16%. And then the language we would use is, at 16%, healthy church reproduction would become such a normative thing that we would see multiplication happening. Todd Wilson — Now, the little bit of an elephant in the room before we move on, church planting is just the outcome. So that 5% number, it’s an outcome of the system and what’s happening. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — The more ornery number is that the national studies that we did on what percentage of U.S. churches have a disciple-making culture. That’s also less than 5%. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — So 95% of churches don’t have a functional mission of disciple-making, and that’s their normative growth engine through disciple-making. So in reality, we have a disciple-making problem, not a church-planting problem. And so those two became very tied together, as as will become evident as we have this interview. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. and And just can you define generational reproduction for folks that are listening in? When you when you when you say that, like, hey, we’re trying to move churches towards generational reproduction, kind of just unpack that a little bit more. Todd Wilson — Yeah, let’s let’s start at the personal level of disciple-making. If one person makes a disciple of another person, you’ve got one generation. If that person goes on to make another disciple two generations, that person makes a disciple three generations. We see that biblically. We see that in the leadership pipeline with Paul, that you know we need to see disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Todd Wilson — Once you get to the third or fourth generation of something reproducing itself, if you drew that on paper, one becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, eight becomes 16. That is an exponential or a multiplication curve. So all you have to do to go from addition to multiplication is have healthy reproduction broad and wide multiple generations into the future. Todd Wilson — Now we just take that to the church level, a church that plants a church that plants a church that plants a church broad and wide. Todd Wilson — Now you’ve gone from one church to 16 churches. And now look at the collective attendance of those 16 churches. That’s what you call healthy growth. That’s what you call multiplication when you keep reproducing it over and over. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And there’s actually been progress against this. This is one of the things that I’ve loved as a person just sitting on the outside looking in as you and the team, you know, Dave and the broader Exponential community have really been hammering away at this. You know, we’re not at 16% yet, but we’re seeing progress, which is which is amazing. Todd Wilson — Right. It’s in the studies that we did, and it’s been repeated a couple of times, the needle has moved to at least 7%. That may not sound like a lot, but if you go take the number of churches we’re talking about… Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Wilson — …and that needle moving from less than 5% to 7%. And we’re not taking credit for all that at Exponential. Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Wilson — We’re getting to ride a wave that really started around 2000. Prior to 2000, denominations planted churches, not really churches or networks. We saw the birth of networks around 2000 in the U.S. It’s hard for people to realize, but like in the church planting world, groups like City to City and GlocalNet and Acts 29 and ARC and Church Multiplication Network and Stadia and New Thing Network, none of them existed. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Todd Wilson — Literally in a five-year time period, we saw the birth of all these church planting networks, and that happened to coincide with that we saw that need to start Exponential to serve those networks. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — So We we were a little bit the right group at the right place, advocating for the right thing. Todd Wilson — And I do think that generally the the wonderful thing is that as that needle is starting to move and the visibility is getting more and more, the next generation wants it.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, I would agree. Todd Wilson — They want the scorecard of that. So I feel very optimistic that we’re still a ways away from 16%, but the needle is moving in the right direction. Rich Birch — Yeah, I would echo that too. I think there is, um you know, one of the couple years ago, I had one of those ages in my life flip over with zero on the end that you kind of notice and you reflect back on life a little bit. And I would say one of the things I’ve noticed over, you know, almost 30 years of ministry is this issue is has become more normative. Like it’s it’s a part of the conversation. It’s not that everyone’s doing it, but it’s in the dialogue, which I think is is wonderful. Rich Birch — Well, I, so you know, there’s, you interact with a lot of church leaders across the country. You interact with a lot of people, you have a pulse on a lot of, you know, what’s going on. And there’s a growing sense, you have flagged that there’s a growing sense among leaders that there’s just something wrong. It’s like, you know, there’s like a stink in the bottom of our, our, garbage that’s like, oh it’s a little bit stinky. It’s not like overwhelming, but we can’t put our finger on exactly what that is.
Rich Birch — They can’t necessarily name it, but we feel it. We kind of see that there’s maybe something in the way we’re doing what we’re doing that isn’t working. What are you hearing as you sit across the table from church leaders in across the country, you know, around all of these things that we’re talking about? Todd Wilson — Let me describe it a couple of different ways. I think the the word I would put on it is an angst. I think if you look at the definition of an angst, there’s a there’s a growing and an underlying angst. um I’m going to say, if I’m descriptive of the angst, that might not be the way people would exactly say it but it’s how I translate what I’m hearing. Todd Wilson — We are working a lot harder to reach less people and we don’t like the cultural Christian product we’re getting. We’re working a lot harder. We’re spending more money to reach fewer people. And we’re just having this angst that the product we’re producing is a little bit too much consumer cultural Christian as we’re working harder and spending more money. And that leaves somebody full time, know, if I mean, if you’re a full time vocational pastor, there’s an angst that sits in the middle of that dynamic going on. Todd Wilson — My mentor and friend, Robert Lewis, who led Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock for years, Robert’s handed off the leadership back in 2005. Robert describes it this way. He did the foreword on my recent book, and when he read and reviewed the book, he said, Todd, oh my goodness, this is first and foremost a walk down history lane. It’s like going back and looking at history. Todd Wilson — But he said, here’s the thing. I had this angst in 2005. Everything was up and to the right. We were growing. We were doing new campuses. We had started a church planting. Like we’re doing all of the stuff. People are turning to us. They’re looking at what we’re doing. We had started a leadership conference. And I just had this angst that something wasn’t right. Todd Wilson — And he said, I couldn’t name it. He said, I needed a therapist. But where does a megachurch pastor who’s having nothing but success with up and to the right, who’s feeling angst about the system, where do you go for therapy in that? He’s like, I didn’t know whether to feel like I was being ungrateful or what. Todd Wilson — And his words were, as you’ve traced the 75 years of the church growth movement and its evolution into a consumer-driven operating system, you have named my angst. I wish I would have had this book in 2005 to name my angst because half the battle is getting our hands around understanding why we’re feeling the way we do. Rich Birch — Yeah, I was talking to denominational leader within the last year to kind of add a bit more flavor even to that angst, who was saying, and this is a fantastic denomination, you know, Jesus loving, you know, fantastic group of people um and have, you know, very similar what you’re saying, like lots of good things going on. Rich Birch — And this was one of those like, After dinner conversations, you know, long ah a long ways away from a bunch of leaders, we were just chatting on the sideline. And he said, you know, the interesting thing, when you look at our tribe, his movement, he rattled off all their stats. We have a certain number of churches. We have a certain number of pastors. We have a certain number of, you know, baptisms every year. It rattles all that off. Rich Birch — And he said, you know, if you were to look at where we were 20 years ago, the number of churches is the same, the number of, and rattled off all these stats that are the same. Like we’re baptizing the same number of people, the attendance is the same, the the like all these things. He said, the only thing that’s gone up in the last 20 years is we’ve doubled our staff head count. There’s twice as many staff today as there was. And when I read, heard about your book and you talk about this angst, I was like, ooh, that’s exactly what he was describing. He’s like, wait a second. what’s happening here. And him as a denominational leader, he had the same read, hey, there’s something wrong with the way we set this thing up.
Rich Birch — So your book, let’s actually dive into a little bit. It starts really at 70 year arc from Donald McGavron from 1955, all the way to today. And so for a leader who’s never really stepped back and thought about the history of like, what, how did we get here? It’s the name of your book. Why does knowing what got us to where we are today, this kind of consumer operating system that you describe, why does, how does understanding that help us as we think about the future? Todd Wilson — It’s a really good question. And I’m not sure, honestly, that I when I, when I set out to write this book, that, that that was even driving me to begin with, but very quickly that became the, I realized that’s why I need to write this book. Todd Wilson — So let, let me explain. And I need to give you a little bit of background to explain, because it’s an important question. Rich Birch — Yep, yep, for sure. Todd Wilson — So when I think about the moment that, that I realized we had a problem. Like that that, okay, we’re on this trajectory, things are moving the right direction to the 16%, and I’m back in the leadership of Exponential now. And I’m realizing, oh my goodness, we really do have a problem. And here’s here was what that looked like. Todd Wilson — I believed we had started learning communities and we had very vibrant learning communities And our learning communities got started because we felt like we need to shift the paradigm of people’s measure of success in the scorecard of church. It was very much about we need to shift paradigm. Alan Hirsch was involved with this on how do we shift from just growing large things to growing decentralized things that saturate. And it was very much about scorecard. Todd Wilson — And if you think about it, we’re wanting to move the needle from 5% to 16%. That’s a scorecard thing. So our initiating event was scorecard. But as we got into these learning communities, which in my opinion were the best things we were doing at Exponential. I mean, they were six to eight month learning journeys and we would rock people’s paradigm. Todd Wilson — We really would. People would go through it and be like, Oh my goodness, I got to have a different view of success in the church. Rich Birch — Right. yeah Todd Wilson — And guess what? They’d go home and Sunday’s coming.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Wilson — There’s, services to run, there’s people to pastor, there’s things to do. And the aha moment for me came, Rich, when I realized the the whole definition of insanity, that if you just keep doing the same thing over and over and hope for a different outcome, but that’s insanity. And here I am trying to lead a national organization to see a change in scorecard to move the needle to 16%. Todd Wilson — And I remember the day that I realized we’re not going to get there with the operating system we have in place in church right now. This operating system is not capable of getting us to the 16% number. Todd Wilson — That was a personal crisis. I’m leading an organization that’s up and to the right that the needle is moving. But as a futurist, I’m realizing we’re not going to get where we need to be with the operating system in the church. So the the operating system part was what drove me to start writing this book. I’ll let you ask a question there, and then we’ll circle back to the how does it relate to understanding how we got here, though. Rich Birch — Yeah, so ah just to underline what you’re saying there, um you know in in other conversations, I’ve heard leaders say, you know it’s like, um you know what you know what you reach people with is what you end up keeping them with. And so if what I hear you saying, just putting, I think, other language around it, but correct me, is kind of a consumer-oriented or a consumer cultural operating system that we’ve we’ve used as a church…
Todd Wilson — Right. Rich Birch — …you know, obviously by definition, if you ah use a um consumption-based model, that doesn’t, leave you it’s very difficult to turn around and say, okay, now become a multiplier. You know, we got you here as a consumer. Okay, now how do we make you a multiplier? Is that the core pain? Todd Wilson — It is. And Rich, you’re painting the picture of why looking back to understand how we got here is important. If it’s true, that are ah If it’s true, and I want to suggest people ought to go look at it for themselves, that the underlying operating system that has evolved over the last 75 years, it’s not where it started with Donald McGavern in 1955. And there was never bad intentions by any of the good people through the 70 years. Rich Birch — Yeah, right. Todd Wilson — We have evolved from what was originally one thing. into a consumer model that is way more focused on success is growing big, success is making converts, not necessarily disciples. And we we can diagnose that if there’s a problem today, and I suggest there is a problem today, then how we got here and understanding how over 70 years, what was intended to be one thing, gradually (like the frog getting boiled in cold water) turned into something else. Todd Wilson — We’ve got to go through the the, if we really want to change the operating system, and I’ve seen how hard it is, guys can have the paradigm shift. We need to change. Then they go back home into the operating system that they’re operating in. And it is really, really hard to just throw off one operating system and embrace another one Todd Wilson — And I wouldn’t even encourage people to do that. Don’t go home and just change your operating system overnight. But if you do want to make thoughtful, progressive change, the best way to do it is to start by going back and learn the lesson of how did we get where we are? Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Wilson — How did things get off track to where to where we are? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Todd Wilson — And that’s what ended you know, I started out the book really to go after understanding the operating system itself. And very quickly came to the conclusion, oh, we I’m not sure how we’re going to move to a new operating system if people don’t go through the hard work of looking back and understanding how well-intentioned people over time have delivered for us what we have today in a flawed system. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. You know, I know, again, from my own personal experience, not to bring this back to me, but to my own personal experience, again, it’s been interesting to see similar patterns. You know, every couple years, there’s like some new idea that comes up in the church. And oftentimes I’m like, yeah, this is just like of rehash of a thing I saw 10 years ago or 15 years ago or 20 years ago. Rich Birch — It’s like, oh, this is is brand new. It’s like, ah, it’s echoes of things we’ve seen in the past. So why don’t we just kind of give people a flyover or a walkover of the kind of eras that you kind of define as you went through the book, just to give people a high level. Rich Birch — Ultimately friends, you know, I’m encouraging you to to do two things out of today. One is to pick up, I think this could be a great book for you and your team to go through. You and your leadership team, buy copies of this, read it. I think it could be an interesting book for you or, and go and listen to Todd’s interview with Carey as well. Carey just takes longer in his podcast and has more time. So there’s going to be, there’s lots packed into that as well. Rich Birch — But why don’t you kind of give us a flyover of the eras? And then maybe when you think about each one of those, something that was like, really positive that came from that area something like hey there’s something good there or maybe there’s something there that we’ve got to be cautious about as we think about the future. Todd Wilson — Yeah. And just to be clear, Rich, you know this, ah I’m a local church guy. My calling is a local church. I’m still on staff at a local church. I love the local church. So this part of the, difficulty for me in spending two years and over a hundred hours of interviews and putting this timeline of history together is I love the church. Todd Wilson — And I I, don’t know that I’d be sitting here talking to you if it weren’t for several of these eras I’m getting ready to name to you. So you’ve got really, I think a common thread through across these areas as we jump into them is typically apostolic, evangelistically driven leaders who really want to reach people. Hell is real. Lost people are going there. We got to reach them. And I think that’s the driving factor across all these eras is well-intentioned people… Todd Wilson — And if I can start with the end point, I think we’ve sort of co-opted the more holistic disciple-making growth engine that’s capable of generational disciple-making with strategies for institutional programmatic growth that are not capable of reproduction. They’re very good at growing large things and reaching lots of people, but not necessarily making, you know, through relational disciple making, disciples who make disciples who plant churches that plant churches. Todd Wilson — So here’s how I would do the flyover. When I got started writing this history, I thought I was doing one chapter of this history in another book. Rich Birch — I love it. Todd Wilson — And one chapter turned into two chapters and three chapters. And eventually my editor said, Todd, you just need to do a full book. Rich Birch — Well, that’s a book. Todd Wilson — And it ends up turning into the longest book I’ve written because of the 75 year history. And ah Rich, seriously, don’t, people don’t need to feel bad if they don’t know all the history. I, I’m like a where’s Waldo through a lot of this history. I’ve had a seat at the table for a lot of the stuff through these eras. Todd Wilson — Until writing this book, I did not know how all the dots connected across these eras. And then it became there were so many, oh, oh, oh. So here’s here’s the shot I’ll give to you. Ididn’t really I knew I had heard of Donald McGavern. I knew he was considered the father of the modern church growth movement. I’ve never, prior to writing this book, read about him, gone off and studied him. Gary McIntosh is his by is Donald McGavern’s biographer. So I spent a lot of time with Gary. He pointed me in the right directions. Todd Wilson — And here’s what I learned. Donald McGavern, born in the late 1800s, international missionary in India. um His father and mother were missionaries in India. He came from the mission field and his context was the international mission field. Todd Wilson — Now, get this as the starting point in 1955. He’s an international missionary. He has planted 15 churches himself in his career, none of which ever grew to more than 100 people. So you got to let that sink in. The father of the modern church growth movement planted 15 churches, none of which grew to more than 100. And yet he’s the father of what we consider now the modern church growth movement. Rich Birch — Right. Interesting. Todd Wilson — So the kind the context was, he became fascinated after reading a research report on why some churches in provinces in India were growing and others weren’t. Sometimes churches in the same village that were growing and just down the street, others weren’t. Todd Wilson — So he kind of took a scientific approach, the study of church growth. Like let’s study this like it’s a science, like what’s causing some churches to grow. And he he had very clear conclusions out of that, but you know, a handful of conclusions of what’s causing that. Todd Wilson — And so ultimately, when he came off the mission field by 1960, 61, he started the Church Growth Institute, not for U.S. pastors, but for international missionaries who were on furlough to come home and learn about church growth principles that they could take back to the international mission field. He had no interest in U.S. pastors. Todd Wilson — So for multiple years in the 60s, he was doing that. And when Fuller wanted to start their International School of World Missions, one of their best faculty member ratings was Donald McGavern. So they invited him to come become the founding dean of the the Fuller School of World Missions. Todd Wilson — But he only agreed to do it if he could bring the Church Growth Institute with him. So by 1970, you’ve got that up and running. He’s built his team. He invited a guy called C. Peter Wagner off the mission field to come be on his faculty staff. And in 1970, 71, Peter Wagner convinced Donald McGavern that they ought to run one class for U.S. pastors on church growth. Todd Wilson — And the rest is history. That one class, it just turned into, Imean, people were very interested in it. Denominations became interested. And literally within a couple of years, you’ve got this up and to the right people latching on to church growth science. Todd Wilson — And that starts the process, you know. Even from the beginning, you start to see a little bit of co-opting away from McGavern’s things. Not fast, but a little bit. Todd Wilson — So right on the heels of that, in the 70s then, you’ve got this young kid, ah Bill Hybels…
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Wilson — …who’s running you know going to go into business and he’s running a street ministry with youth. He’s being mentored by Robert Shuler. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Wilson — And Shuler’s got the possibility thinking, think outside the box, very apostolic. Turns out Shuler not only mentors Hybels, but there’s some mentoring of Rick Warren. And so you’ve got the birth of the seeker-sensitive era then. Todd Wilson — You know, if the first era was the McGavern-Roots era, now we’ve got the seeker-sensitive era. And, you know, that can be a positive or a negative stigma. For me, in 1976, I’m in middle school going into high school, not a Christian, live down the street from this movie theater called the Willow Creek Movie Theater.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Todd Wilson — And my mom drags us kicking and screaming into the Willow Creek Movie Theater. We were the avatar family for the Seeker Sensitive family movement. Rich Birch — Right. Movement. Todd Wilson — From Seeker Sensitive, you get out of that the what Peter Drucker and Bob Buford would call the large church phenomena and the birth of Leadership Network then with the large church phenomena, which became the megachurch phenomena. Todd Wilson — You’ve got Rick Warren and his masterful work with the purpose-driven church. Rick’s able to put handles on this church growth part, but Rick was a disciple of Donald McGavern, so he’s got the McGavern roots. Todd Wilson — You’ve got Hybels with the Shuler roots. And in that 80 into the 90s with the birth of the Global Leadership Summit and the other, you’ve you’ve got this very influential large church phenomena, purpose-driven, being shaped by, you know, in large part, the combination of Leadership Network, Hybels, Rick Warren… And that brings us up to you know about 2000. Todd Wilson — And just as a flyover, I would then call the era of the externally focused church. You’ve got the rapid fire birth of church planting networks. You’ve got multi-site. People don’t realize prior to 2000, there’s less than 50 multi-site churches. Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Wilson — Leadership Network engages it in 2000. And from 2000 to 2010 you see an up, I mean, radically up and to the right. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — The externally focused church, same thing. Rick Russo has book right in that time period. The missional guys, right in that time period. So the common theme between these church planning networks, the missional guys, the externally focused guys, the multi-site, is we’re now looking outside of ourselves. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — But in large part, we’re still looking outside of ourselves as growth strategies for our things. If you really go look under the hood of a lot of those. Todd Wilson — And then I would say coming out of the externally or outwardly focused era, 2015 to 2025, I just have no other name than the disruption era. As I was doing the research on this book, um I had to stop at like 12 major disruptions that happened in that time period with COVID right in the middle.
Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — And so that’s the… Rich Birch — Political upheaval. There’s a bunch in there in that same, you know, yeah, that there’s been a schism. Todd Wilson — You’ve got deconstruction of faith. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Wilson — You’ve got cynicism. You’ve got platformed individualism with the birth of social media. Now anybody can be their own, you know, playlist influencer. There’s just so many disruptive factors in there. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — Now you look at all those disruptive factors with the evolution of what’s happening in the church and the church operating system. And it leaves us on a very shaky foundation at that point that, you know It kind of brings us up to where we are now, and you can either be a pessimist at that or an optimist. And I choose the optimist path that we’re poised for a new day and a new operating system is my prayer. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. And friends, as you can see, you just got a real thin slice of, you know, just all the various phases that you do such a great job unpacking for us to help us really understand how we we got here. It was It was wild, it’s wild thinking about a lot of that because I remember, you know, various phases of those over the last particularly 25 years, you know, seeing that up close and seeing, you know, kind of the impact that has had and then wondering about the future and where we go from here.
Rich Birch — So thinking about the future and, you know, obviously you’ve, um you know, you’ve you’re making a clear clarion call around, hey, we’ve got to think differently than the consumer driven operating system. We’ve got to we’ve got to come up with something different. After all of that, um and we’ve kind of covered this already, but I’d love to make sure we kind of hone on this, have this resonate with people that are listening in. Why is it so difficult for that system, for the consumer-driven operating system to to really ultimately produce healthy reproduction and multiplication and in churches? What’s structurally ah broken about it? And what what would be some first steps we should be thinking about change to the future as we think about, okay, where we go from here?
Todd Wilson — Yeah. Rich Birch — How do we, you know, build on the positive stuff, but also look for something different as we look to the future?
Todd Wilson — Yeah. I think we don’t have to make it complex, Rich, if we just keep trying to come back to simplicity for a minute. Like the system that has evolved has actually become pretty complex when you think about it. I would say if we could just focus on, I’m not even going to say changing overnight, but if if I’m a lead pastor, if I’m on staff at a church, I’m really focused on disciple-making as the core mission and growth engine of the church.
Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — Like what is it, most churches are going to say our mission is disciple making or it’s going to be part of it. They’re going to say we have a culture of disciple making, but it is not what the data shows.
Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — You know, again, 95% of churches do not have a culture of disciple-making. They have a culture of program activity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Wilson — And so I’m not an advocate of changing everything overnight, but if you want to shift from a culture of program activity to a true culture of disciple-making‚ it has to start with the lead minister having a simple, reproducible, in-practice disciple-making approach that is being modeled for the… I don’t mean discipling the staff. I mean there’s people the lead pastor are personally discipling, modeling that simple, reproducible process.
Todd Wilson — Where we’re starting to see traction and where I think the breakthroughs are going to come in getting us to the new operating system of the future, it is going to start, and it’s it’s happening right now, with pastors who say, you know, if I’m really honest, I’ve been preaching the last 52 weeks. I’ve been leading meetings. I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing, I’ve done, but I’m not really personally making disciples.
Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — And I think it’s going to start with the lead pastor, the elders, senior people saying, If we could only have one metric of success in the next 12 months, it’s not growth, it’s not the activities we do, it’s not the new building. If we only have one measure of success, it’s how many disciples have I personally, relationally been involved in? me Not how many have I preached to, not how many outreach events have we done where we’ve got, but what have I personally done on the disciple-making front? Todd Wilson — And I don’t want to make it more complicated than that. That’s what we’re missing right now. Rich Birch — That’s good. No, that’s really good. Yeah, that’s good. I love the practical takeaway of, um yeah, it’s like, who are the three people in your life that you’re actually discipling? Let’s start there.
Rich Birch — So this is kind of a sidebar to it. Todd Wilson — Can I just look real quick? Rich Birch — Yes. Yep. Push back. Yep. Todd Wilson — So David Putman, who’s part of what we do at Multipliers, David’s longtime kingdom guy. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Wilson — You should have him on as an interview here. David is completely focused on what he calls the 5-3-2 right now. Five simple reproducible principles, three rhythms, and and two relationships. So it’s a triad of three people that just keeps reproducing. Todd Wilson — Anybody can do it. A ninth grader can do it. A lead pastor can do it. I’m watching this model take different groups by storm right now. And whether you embrace the 5-3-2 or some other model like it, the key is going to be having a simple, reproducible process that works for the lead pastor and anyone else in the church. Same model. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah we had David on back in 2020 and I’m like we got to get him back on uh the podcast. Rich Birch — So sidebar issue, so this is not something we’d you know kicked around ahead of time but it’s kind of adjacent to this. So I am not a I’m not a teaching pastor. Similar to you. I’m not, i never saw myself as a lead pastor. I’ve always been in the like, Hey, my job’s to be in the second chair, cheering for other lead pastors. I’ve worked for um really over my career as an XP three incredible communicator lead pastors who it would appear like, and it is, they, all three of them, God gifted them with this ability to speak and gather crowds. Like that was like core. And, and I, I’ve spent a lot of time like listening to them and watching them. And part of it just appears to be like, it’s definitely a gifting that’s going on there. Rich Birch — And I, over time, ah questions like the following would come up that I would I’d struggle with, where it’s like, it would appear like this person can gather a lot of people, and we can build more chairs in front of that person and people will hear that person and they’ll they’ll take steps towards Jesus.
Rich Birch — And I understand that that’s not, or that’s not a full picture of discipleship. That’s one piece of the discipleship puzzle, but it’s not… And the the kind of organizational pressure is, okay, let’s keep figuring out how to build more seats in front of this person and and their gift. How do we get them to leverage their gift well?
Rich Birch — And to be honest, I’ve been in conversations where I’ve been the voice of like, I want to line 100,000 people up in front of this person to hear this person speak because I think the way they talk about Jesus is different than what I’ve heard other people say and it it’ll make a difference.
Rich Birch — That is, I think, at the center of this tension that there’s some there seems to be something about the gift of teaching that it’s not, I don’t know whether it’s not evenly distributed, or there’s like a brokenness in humanity and we only want to listen to certain kinds of people. I don’t know whether it’s one of those two things. So all I’ve done is describe a problem and I’m going to say, comment on it, Todd. Todd Wilson — Yeah. I think you’re right on the mark. I think I want to affirm that, you know, I mean, everybody has their definitions. I believe the preaching role is, and and the teaching and reaching is a piece of the discipleship equation. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Wilson — I think if I’m defining the problem statement, We have made it the biggest piece…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Todd Wilson — …instead of a piece or a playing a role in it. So I think the issue is that how big we’ve made it. Like you, I was an executive pastor for years. And when I look back on that time, my role was not about holistic relational disciple making that could be the growth engine of the church. and it It was how do we get as many people in seats in the auditorium on Sunday? We need great marketing. We need great outreach. Todd Wilson — And again, I think all of those play a role in the disciple-making process ultimately. But let’s just be honest, that’s not disciple-making itself. It plays a role in the disciple-making process. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — So the elephant in the room here is, how do we scale disciple-making? If I if I could be If I could be the czar of this, I’m not, but if I could be, I want the genius at the end. I want the unique gifts that are represented across the whole mosaic and the church, starting with that dynamic creature that can attract the crowd. I want it. Todd Wilson — But I also want those senior leaders of the organization I really want to be focused on what is our growth engine and what is our holistic disciple-making process. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Wilson — And the number one thing I want from those senior leaders is not their unique gift. I want their modeling, their personal modeling of the simple, reproducible, disciple-making growth engine that anybody in the church can do.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Todd Wilson — I mean, that that preaching gift you’re talking about, that that one lead pastor can do, how many other people in the church can do that? Rich Birch — Right. Not many. Yep. Todd Wilson — So there’s their paradigm. So we need them doing it. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Wilson — But I would argue what we need them doing even more than that inspiration is modeling the simple reproducible disciple making thing that people know that’s how we’re going to win here. Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, and I’ve that lines up, I’ve said it at probably, well, not a thousand times, but hundreds of times with lead pastors over the years that in the context of this conversation, I would rather them weave in the discussion about their discipleship relationships as like just a normative part of conversation rather than the, we’re doing six weeks on discipleship and how to become disciple making. I’m like, if you just pepper that stuff in week in, week out, it just is a normative part of the conversation that changes culture.
Rich Birch — The kind of like, we’re going to make it a program. We’re going to brand it. We’ve got a great name on it. And my experience has been, it’s it’s a little bit like nailing jello to the wall. There’s there’s actually some of that containing of what we’re talking about actually kills the exact thing that we’re trying to do. And so, man, I think there’s a real tension there. And how do we help those people?
Rich Birch — Because it’s not like we want them to do a worse job. It’s not like, hey, if you could stop talking in a way that attracts a crowd, that’s not the answer. But we’ve got to, like you say, how do we move them into those personal relationships? That’s fantastic. Rich Birch — Well, this has been a great conversation… Todd Wilson — My question would be, Rich, what what would happen… Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Wilson — …if an average lead pastor went on a one-year journey to to of disciple-making themselves? Call it a triad, call it four, five. They’re always, over the next year, going to be in a disciple-making small micro group…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Todd Wilson — …and all of their preaching is going to be informed. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Wilson — That’s their laboratory of learning. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s their paradigm. Yeah, that’s good. Todd Wilson — That’s their paradigm. And now they’re bringing it to life, not just as periodic examples, but, you know, my whole frame of reference of my library is what comes out of that experience.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Wilson — And our problem right now is that’s just lack. It isn’t that it’s inserted a little bit. It’s just lacking. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, this has been great. what ah What a great conversation. And as you can tell, friends, there’s a lot we could talk about there. And a lot you know just there’s a rich conversation that could be had around this.
Rich Birch — Let’s let’s pivot and kind of talk a little bit about the book specifically. i want to make sure people pick up copies of this. Again, the name of it is How Did We Get Here? Looking Back to Look Forward. People can get this on Amazon. Are there other places that you would send people if they want to pick up copies of this? Todd Wilson — Yeah. So if they go to church-growth.org, church-growth.org, that’s the book’s homepage. You can actually get the free PDF there. You can get the free audio version there. There’s a full wiki there that people can contribute to. What you kind of mentioned it in passing, but I’ll highlight, it is impossible to read this book and not see yourself in it.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Todd Wilson — Anyone who’s been a Christian for a while, they, the editor of the book said the power of this is going to be, she said, I can tell you the page in the book that I entered the story.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Todd Wilson — So you’ve got the free PDF, the free audio, the wiki, and then for people that just want the paper versions, you can get it on Amazon. Rich Birch — That’s great. And we’ll link to that friends so that you can, you know, find that quickly in the show notes and, and friends, I would encourage you again, to me, I think this could be a great resource to do with your leadership team, as I mentioned earlier. It would be a great kind of conversation starter and really context setter for us to think through these issues as we think about the future.
Rich Birch — So kind of as we, as we come to close up today’s conversation, any final words as we wrap up today? Todd Wilson — Rich, I just appreciate the work you’re doing. I want to be an encouragement to pastors. Don’t let this book be, it’s not a deconstruction book. It’s not, oh my goodness, the church has fallen apart. Rich Birch — No, yeah. Todd Wilson — We need to keep plugging away doing what we’re doing, but we also have to have an eye on the future that this operating system that has evolved, everything has a beginning and an end. And this operating system, I believe, is in its final days. I think we’re we’re seeing you know less and less effectiveness with it. And I think we just need to be in a posture of giving permission to the next generations to do some trial and error and experimentation and not be locked into the paradigm of the of the past inheriting previous things. Rich Birch — No, fantastic, Todd. I appreciate you being here. And I would echo that, you know, you’re you’re the kind of leader that’s in our corner trying to help us get better. And so I appreciate the voice that you’ve had for for decades. And so I really appreciate that.
Rich Birch — If people want to track with you, get connected, follow along with Multipliers where do we want to send them online? Todd Wilson — Multipliers.org can get me to all the different ways from email to phone to social media. So multipliers.org. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Todd. Appreciate you being here, sir. Todd Wilson — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it.
Why the Best Leaders on Your Team Are Often Running on Empty with Michelle Drake
Aug 13, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Michelle Drake, a Christian health coach, Pilates instructor, and host of the Health Habits for Christian Moms podcast. After overcoming years of eating disorders, perfectionism, and an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise, Michelle now helps Christian moms pursue health from a place of stewardship rather than striving. In this conversation, she offers a compassionate and practical perspective on creating healthier rhythms for women in ministry.
The invisible weight moms carry. // Michelle explains that one of the greatest challenges for working moms is the constant “mental load” they carry. Beyond their ministry responsibilities, they’re managing family schedules, meals, appointments, school decisions, friendships, finances, household responsibilities, and countless unseen details. Many simultaneously wrestle with guilt, feeling they’re never doing enough at home or at work. While they often appear highly capable, many are quietly carrying an exhausting emotional burden that supervisors rarely see.
When health becomes another burden. // Modern culture often frames health through pressure, perfection, and appearance. Instead of becoming a source of strength, health can become one more impossible standard moms feel they must achieve. Michelle describes how many women believe they must exercise perfectly, prepare flawless meals, and meet unrealistic expectations, or they shouldn’t bother trying at all. This “all-or-nothing” mindset creates shame rather than freedom and often pushes healthy habits further out of reach.
Create a culture of rest. // One of the greatest gifts church leaders can offer their teams is permission to embrace rhythms of rest. Michelle points to Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28–30, reminding leaders that rest isn’t a distraction from ministry. Rather, it is part of faithful ministry. Churches that consistently model healthy rhythms help staff understand that their worth isn’t tied to constant productivity. When leaders prioritize abiding in Christ over endless activity, they create healthier teams capable of sustaining long-term ministry.
Recognize the warning signs. // Burnout rarely appears overnight. Michelle encourages leaders to watch for subtle changes in previously engaged team members: withdrawing from conversations, reduced enthusiasm, difficulty making decisions, unusual forgetfulness, or becoming overwhelmed by tasks they normally handled with ease. These outward behaviors often reflect burdens that have been accumulating beneath the surface for months. Rather than immediately trying to solve the problem, leaders should view these moments as invitations for compassionate conversation.
Movement supports more than physical health. // As a Pilates instructor, Michelle sees firsthand how exercise isn’t simply about fitness—it helps people release accumulated stress, become present, and create space for clarity. Setting aside time for movement also communicates something important: “I matter too.” For busy moms who spend much of their lives caring for others, intentional physical activity becomes an act of stewardship rather than selfishness, allowing them to show up with greater energy for their families and ministries.
Start with listening, not fixing. // Michelle believes the most practical step leaders can take is surprisingly simple: have intentional conversations. Rather than assuming they know what someone needs, supervisors should ask questions like, “What’s taking the most energy from you in this season?” Then simply listen. Many moms don’t need immediate solutions as much as they need to feel seen, understood, and supported. Relational leadership builds trust long before organizational changes become necessary.
Small habits create lasting change. // Through her Health Habits for Christian Moms podcast, Michelle encourages women to reject perfectionism and instead build simple, sustainable habits that fit their current season of life. Whether it’s preparing healthy meals in practical ways, fitting in ten-minute workouts, or reframing health through a biblical lens, the focus is always on consistency over intensity.
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: Intulse
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, if you’re an executive pastor, senior leader, person that’s like over leading people in your church, you’re going to want to tune into today’s episode. You’re going to want to stay connected all the way to the end because I suspect that today’s thing that we’re talking about, you’ve either reflected on and thought, hmm, that’s something that I’ve got to work on. We’ve got to think through as an organization. Or we’re going to name an issue today that I think you should work on and be thinking about. So whether you think it or you should just want to listen to me you should tune in and be a part of this conversation. Rich Birch — I’m excited to have a new friend of mine, Michelle Drake, on the on the phone on the phone. We’re not on phones, on the internet, on the not even on the internet, on the podcast. Michelle and I attend the same church, Connexus Church, and have a mutual friend and made the connection. And we got talking, got to know each other. And I said, hey, Michelle, I got to get you on the podcast. I want I want people to hear from you and learn from you.
Rich Birch — So Michelle, why don’t we start with kind of tell us a little of your background. What do you do? Who are you? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Michelle Drake — So hi, I’m Michelle. I am a mom. I am a Pilates instructor. But most importantly, I am a daughter of the king. I am a Jesus lover, follower. And really, I think that why I’m landing here today is because I spent a lot of my life feeling like I was never enough. I was a perfectionist really early on. I was always trying to prove my worth. And, you know throughout my teenage years, I really used food and exercise as a way to cope and gain control over my life. And that quickly spiraled into multiple eating disorders and that I battled. And I was in and out of the hospital throughout my whole teenage life, basically. Rich Birch — Wow.
Michelle Drake — So yeah, so it was really chaos. So that’s kind of the foundation of like ah the where I have where I am at now.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Michelle Drake — You know, so even like I went to university when I went to university, I was like trying to go to the furthest university way to run away from my problems, but of course they followed me there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Michelle Drake — And instead of things getting better, unfortunately, they spiraled more, more extreme. I kind of swung to the opposite extreme. So where I once was like overly controlled with like food and exercise, I lost control completely. And so, you know, where I had once been like super underweight and ended up the hospital with severe eating disorders, I was like now gaining a ton of weight. Like I wasn’t moving, I wasn’t going to class. It was just super chaotic. Rich Birch — Wow. Michelle Drake — So eventually I started to you know do some inner work and found some spiritual practices. And I even back back in the day, like in my mid-20s, I started a coaching practice because I had found some freedom, a little bit of freedom in like my food and exercise journey. But I was still very much in my own process. And I also didn’t know Jesus at the time. Michelle Drake — But then im met Jesus And everything changed. And, um you know, within six months, six months, I was married. And then two years later, I had my first daughter, Daisy. And it was really becoming a mom that really brought everything into focus in a new way for my health in particular. Michelle Drake — So I chose to have an unmedicated home birth. And I had this very like ideal, ideal picture.
Rich Birch — Right. Michelle Drake — Idealized, I guess, kind of vision of like what I wanted it to be. So I really wanted to be like peaceful with worship music and, the sense of like calm and control. And of course, like it was absolutely nothing like that. It was beautiful, but I realized like I actually wasn’t in control of anything. And it was really intense and it was super primal and it was just far beyond anything that I was prepared for. Michelle Drake — And but that was a really beautiful moment for me because somewhere like in within that process, I hit this point of like surrender. Like, okay, I can’t actually do anything here. I just have to like let go and let my body do this work. And so, yeah, I I realized that there was really nothing I could do to control what was happening. I just had to trust my body. Michelle Drake — And it really struck me that this was my body doing something that I could not will my way through, but that it was really designed for. And, you know, it carried me through something that I could not do on my own. Michelle Drake — And so that that experience, it shifted something in me. It made me realize, and this is a piece that I was missing, is that my body isn’t something to control or to punish, but really it’s something that God designed as a vessel. And it’s really how we become, you know, his hands and feet in the world. Michelle Drake — And so, you know, after that point, I became like after birth and realizing like, okay, my body is designed as a vessel. Like it’s it’s actually God’s. So at that point, I became I began to bring more like intentionality into the way that I cared for my body. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Michelle Drake — And not from a place of obsession, but a place of stewardship. Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s pretty cool. Michelle Drake — Yeah. And so, you know, the result of that is feeling like the best that I’ve ever felt, more confident in the way that I take care of myself. And and actually that allows me to become more outward focused because, you know, my habits are sustaining my health in a way that supports how I can show up for my family. Michelle Drake — And so, yeah, I just feel like, you know, I I feel the sense of God inviting me into something that I can like share my story to help other moms, you know, step into that same place of stewardship, like free from that shame or guilt.
Rich Birch — So good.
Michelle Drake — So yeah, that’s kind of, a sorry, that’s like a lot. Rich Birch — No, no, it’s wonderful. Don’t apologize. That’s fantastic. I think that’s that’s great. Like the thing, um friends that listening in, obviously we talk to church leaders every week and trying to provide help. And, you know, I’m honored that you would take some time to be with us today for a couple of reasons.
Rich Birch — First of all, um you know when a allow we have a lot of executive pastors listening. And if I was to go and speak at a conference of executive pastors, maybe there’s 500 leaders in the room and 15 of them would be women. And they’re, unfortunately, in the minority. Rich Birch — And then when I think about there’s like a thing I’m going to name publicly that I don’t think I’ve ever said publicly in whatever, 800, over 800 episodes. Like there’s I know on the staff teams that I’ve led that when I think about the people that I led, it was the moms that are like amazing leaders. They’re just incredible, like doing so much. And it’s like a secret hack. Find them a mom and they’ll get stuff done because they they have to. Michelle Drake — Yes. Yes. Rich Birch — And so today, I’m honored that you would help us kind of think help us think more critically on behalf of the moms on our teams and to think through you know, what we, you know, some, maybe some ways we should be leading. That’s the kind of conversation that we’re going to have here, friends that are listening in. Michelle Drake — Yes. Totally. Rich Birch — So when you think of the, you know, Christian moms…
Michelle Drake — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, assuming that they’re Christians who are working for us on our teams as staff at church, which that should be the case. Michelle Drake — Hopefully. Rich Birch — What are some pressures that these people are carrying around them that especially as they’re you know, as their leaders, employers, that we maybe don’t see, that isn’t isn’t clear, that maybe isn’t on the surface? Because I look at moms and I’m like, those people are superheroes. They’re getting tons done. But what are some of those pressures that they might not see? Michelle Drake — Yeah. I think that, you know, mental load is a huge thing for moms. You know, and depending on like what season of life that they’re actually in with their families and children, you know, they’re thinking about like scheduling appointments and like socializing their kids and, you know, how they even like want to educate their children. That’s a big conversation, like the Christian kind of sphere.
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Michelle Drake — And then, you know, also what’s for dinner and doing laundry and organizing their homes and making time for friends and, you know, getting the kids and all these different activities and like, everything else that doesn’t really to a huge degree include themselves. Michelle Drake — And, you know, oh ah then if we’re talking about women in ministry um and leaders on on ministry teams and they’re working outside the home. And then maybe that there’s this sense of guilt for like working outside the home and then, you know, not being home enough or not being at work enough or, you know, not contributing enough in the household or not contributing enough at work.
Rich Birch — Right. Michelle Drake — And so like there’s there’s this tension of like, I feel like there’s this tension of moms um of like they’re doing so much and at the same time feeling like they’re still not doing enough. And so, you know, yeah, I just think like, and then and then also in the in this sphere of health, as it kind of falls to the back burner because they have all this going on in their heads of like…
Rich Birch — Other things happening. Yeah.
Michelle Drake — …all of these things is like, okay, well, and then there’s also this thing of like exercise and like eating healthy and how do I feed my kids healthy and how do I eat healthy and how do I feel good and exercise and look this certain way and, you know, it just a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Michelle Drake — So these are some of the mental things that moms are carrying.
Rich Birch — Yeah, just a few of the things that are that are bubbling around.
Michelle Drake — Just a few of the things. Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, it feels it feels like as a guy watching messaging that is pointed at moms particularly, women generally, but moms particularly, there’s like so much on the health front that…
Michelle Drake — Yes.
Rich Birch — …that runs pressure, you know, guilt, perfection.
Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — It’s like tapping and and a negative emotion. Help us understand what does that do to someone over time? How does that, how does that impact the people on our teams?
Michelle Drake — Well, yes, I think that and definitely the culture, there’s like a lot of cultural messaging around health. For moms that’s rooted in like pressure and guilt and perfection. And over time, you know, instead of like health being a thing that is like supporting your life, it actually becomes something that like drains you. And I know because that’s like, you know, the exact kind of messaging that pulled me into the extremes and the extreme patterns in my own life.
Michelle Drake — And so, so much of what the world offers is really centered on either like aesthetics, like how you look or and this like hyper vigilant pursuit of like doing it perfectly. And, um you know, I think a both of those things carry a lot of shame and that’s really the world’s framework for health is like, you’re not doing enough and you’re not where you need to be, you know?
Michelle Drake — But again, like we just spoke about, like moms are already carrying so much and there’s, you know, not enough time or energy or mental space or even like finances, because that’s a huge thing now, like spending as much money as you can on your health and on the best foods to do health in the way that culture says that you’re supposed to do it.
Michelle Drake — You know, whether that’s like the hour long workouts or perfect, perfect meals and, you know, um buying all organic even and, you know, doing all the right things.
Michelle Drake — So the message underneath all that is like, if you’re not doing it all, you’re not doing enough. So, you know, I think a lot of moms believe that health is only really worth pursuing if it’s, you know, looking a certain way and doing a certain way. And if they can’t do it that way, then often, you know, they’re not doing it at all. It’s just far too overwhelming to even start.
Michelle Drake — Yeah. So, you know, I think that then the shame cycle kind of kicks in where like, you know they’re feeling behind. They’re feeling guilty about their bodies and about their habits and about not being more disciplined and because they can’t like live up to this cultural standard. And that creates this like inward spiral that actually pulls them away the presence with their families, the presence in their workplace, you know, that’s that really is what health should support. Michelle Drake — So the thing that’s really supposed to become this like supportive mechanism for the rest of their life…
Rich Birch — Right.
Michelle Drake — …becomes another source of burden.
Rich Birch — So as a supervisor, like I want to create a culture where my team can thrive, where people have, you know, it’s it’s a great experience. And, you know, we’re obviously talking about moms specifically today. Like often without realizing it, I can imagine a world where work can become a negative force in that cycle that we’re talking about there. That actually just being a part of the kind of the pressure of that environment. Rich Birch — And I don’t want that to happen. I want it to be a positive force. I want to create a kind of culture where like, where, you know, pro moms, moms can have a great experience. It’s a great, you know, it’s a great experience for them. Michelle Drake — Yeah. Rich Birch — What does that look like? How, what, what would be, how could you coach us, you know, to, to try to make this a kind of environment that particularly for moms could be, and even maybe particularly around these health issues, how do we make it a more positive environment for them? Michelle Drake — So I guess the question, yeah like how do you support these moms and how do you create environments that supports these moms? Rich Birch — Sure. Michelle Drake — And, um you know, I think that the best place for leaders is not like about like jumping in and saving the day or something like that. Rich Birch — Right. Michelle Drake — Or like start like changing whole environments. But I think just like relational. I think that’s the first thing is just like understanding the weight that moms are carrying. Michelle Drake — And because like, again, like moms in ministry are wearing those multiple hats are not only like the leaders and the employees, but they’re also wife and mom and homemaker, and they’re constantly shifting between them. So, you know, that’s a really heavy mental load, like we discussed. And yeah, so when you’re carrying that much, it’s really easy to kind of start believing that your value is tied to, you know, your productivity or how well you’re like, holding it all together. Michelle Drake — And so, you know, like I know that because I’ve also lived that. And and there’s a season where I felt weighed down by so many, all these different responsibilities and felt like it all came down on me. And then if I dropped the ball, like everything would fall apart.
Michelle Drake — But I think the reframe here is like looking to what Jesus offers. And that is, you know, in Matthew 11, where he says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. And so I think like, I think that really creating a culture of rest and a culture and a rhythm of rest within these workplaces, within these ministry pursuits is like that rest isn’t like rest is encouraged and is part of, is part of the kingdom work and it’s not taking away from the kingdom work, but it’s actually how, you know, we are able to be filled and overflow into, you know, everything else that we’re supposed to do. Michelle Drake — So I think like, I think that if leaders can really establish that rhythm for moms, because again, that’s not only going to benefit moms who already have so much, you know, to carry, but everybody else on the ministry team really is that, is that like rest is part of this. And that is, you know, abiding in Christ. Like when we can do that, like our priorities begin to shift. We begin to like lay down some of those heavy burdens and just making that, you know, really central to the mission is, yeah. Rich Birch — That’s good. Michelle Drake — Yeah. I think that’s, I think that’s really one of the greatest gifts that leaders can give to the moms and their team. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rest in the midst of it. Yeah. Michelle Drake — Yeah. Just a culture that consistently points them back to Jesus. Rich Birch — Yeah. Michelle Drake — Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. If if there was a mom on our my team who was running on empty, I feel like it’d be easy for me to miss the signals, that there would be like signals that are sent that and it could be… Listen, I like feel like I’m fairly in touch, but like maybe I’m just an idiot guy and I just don’t see it.
Rich Birch — What are you know those early warning signs that like, hey, maybe there’s something here that’s not going correctly that that, and and it might not be that like, hey, I’m like you say, it’s not my job to necessarily jump in and, you know, fix it. But it’s but, you know, we want to provide a a culture that can support women in the midst of that. So what would be some of those early signs that kind of we should pay attention to before it becomes a crisis? Michelle Drake — Yeah, I think, so if there’s a woman who’s like, yeah, generally like quite engaged and then all of a sudden they’re starting to become a little bit more withdrawn or, you know, like a little bit less, whether it’s talkative or energetic or whatever within those settings, I think that’s a really good sign. um you know, and then also to like showing up physically, but and maybe not like emotionally invested into the mission. Maybe it’s taking longer to make decisions or, or, you know, decision-making becomes harder. Michelle Drake — I think also to forgetfulness, like forgetting things. So if you notice like a mom, Oh, like I asked her to things. She’s not do, she didn’t do it. Like, and usually she does or ah overwhelmed by, you know, seemingly menial tasks. Rich Birch — Right. Michelle Drake — I think that’s things that she would normally handle. Well, I think that’s a good sign that maybe she’s carrying a little bit too much. Yeah. And, and, you know burnout, it doesn’t happen overnight. And I think that a lot of ah a lot of these signs are actually just like finally the physical manifestation of something that she’s been carrying for a while. Rich Birch — Right. Been bubbling. Michelle Drake — Yeah, so… Rich Birch — Talk to us, at you know, from your perspective as a person who spends their days, like you said, you’re a Pilates instructor, you spend a large portion of your day helping people be active and stay active and do that in a healthy way, in a way that’s not, like you say, focused on the kind of negative reasons for that. Rich Birch — Talk to us about the connection between being active, and this would really be for anyone, moms included, being active and dealing with stress, the stuff that’s going on in life. How are those two connected to each other? Michelle Drake — Yeah, I think that they’re hugely, hugely connected. Because being active is like taking the time to be active and setting apart that time is, you know, is not only like you’re getting the physical benefits and and and the actual neurochemical benefits of that and of that activity. And but you’re also saying to yourself, like I deserve this time too. Michelle Drake — Like I’m pouring constantly out into everyone else, into my ministry, into my family. And so setting apart this time for me is doing something good for myself. But that, that has like these reverberation effects on everything else that I do. Michelle Drake — And so, um, yeah, I think that, sorry, I forget what the question was. Rich Birch — No, it’s just what’s the connection between you know being active and dealing with stress? Michelle Drake — Yeah. Rich Birch — How do those two work together from your perspective as someone who helps people stay active? Michelle Drake — Yeah. Yeah, I think also too, like just the the physical, like being physically active, there’s something like there’s like the psychosomatic thing where you can like be active and, and, and like get your heart rate pumping and sweat. And it’s like releasing something.
Michelle Drake — I don’t know what it is.
Rich Birch — Right.
Michelle Drake — But like, often too, we’re carrying stress in our body and and we can feel it in our body and we’re tense and stuff. So then when you’re able to, and I teach like hot Pilates, so you’re sweating a lot…
Rich Birch — Right.
Michelle Drake — …and you’re just like releasing all this. And, you know, and you see people get like so intense, like in the burpees and, and they’re just getting really into it. And, and you know, a line I often use is just like in those burpee moments, in those moments where it’s like really, really intense. I’m just like, I’m just saying like, let everything go that you do not need to carry anymore. Like let it go. Michelle Drake — And I don’t know what it is about that, but yeah, something does release when we are moving physically and it just creates this like space of clarity. And I think also to like presence, like you’re so present when you are moving your body in like maybe an intense way, maybe a less intense way, but when you are like intentionally moving your body does require a sense of presence. And when you’re present, like, i don’t know, stress doesn’t really exist in the present. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah. Right. Michelle Drake — So I think it’s really beneficial in that way for sure. Rich Birch — So true. Yeah. During COVID, I was one of those people that bought a Peloton and, and I’m over a thousand rides in love it.
Michelle Drake — Amazing. Rich Birch — It’s like, it’s incredible. And I would say, it has changed my, my view on all of this.
Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — Like I used to, I used to go to the gym and all that. And it was, but it was like a, I did it because it was like, I got to check the box. I got to do this. I know this is an important thing.
Michelle Drake — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — But I look forward to those experiences and the days I don’t do that, I can feel it. I’m not as sharp.
Michelle Drake — Yep.
Rich Birch — And, you know, and I don’t deal with stress as well.
Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — And I’ve even joked with other friends. It’s like, don’t get me started talking about Peloton. You know, I’ve talked with other friends. I’m like, there’s something about, obviously they’ve, obviously spent a lot of time listening to their and instructors and it’s always positive. It’s always, you know, there’s, they’re, they’re not like, um, even though you’re working hard, there’s no, it’s never a negative. It’s always, you know, they’re always using positive reinforcement.
Rich Birch — And I’ve, I’ve joked with friends. I’ve said, listen, even just having 30 minutes in a day of someone telling me like, you can do this, like you, you got this, you know, is…
Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — …cause there’s a lot of things in life where we don’t have that, you know, i don’t have that kind of…
Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — …you know, reinforcement, which has been, it’s been transformative for me for sure.
Michelle Drake — Yeah, and I think in those moments too when you’re like working really hard like and you’re sweating and it’s in it you’re like, oh, man, I don’t know if I could go anymore. And you have that story playing in your head of like, I can’t do it. Michelle Drake — But then somebody says, you can do it.
Michelle Drake — Like, okay, in my head I said I can’t, but then this person is saying I can. So there’s like, yeah, that that instantaneous like kind of moment of like, oh, no, yeah, I am doing it actually. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it was, I’m the slow learner. I was hundreds, maybe four or 500 rides in before I realized this is actually mostly a mental thing than it is a physical thing. Michelle Drake — Totally.
Rich Birch — Like I’m, it’s mostly between my, my ears where I’m like…
Michelle Drake — Yes. Rich Birch — …you know, my body can keep going, but it’s in my head. I’m like, oh, OK, I’m done. I’m done. I just don’t want to keep going. And I never quit a ride, but you can you know, you can bail on a ride before you know you actually stop turning. And so, yeah, that’s interesting. That’s been an interesting journey for me, for sure, in a in a great way. And it and it for sure has helped me be better at what I do to be more show, you know, show up more in the rest of my life, for sure. Michelle Drake — Yeah, that’s beautiful. Rich Birch — So you actually built a podcast around this, which I think is exciting.
Michelle Drake — Yeah. Rich Birch — And I’d love to hear us a little bit more about this. It’s called it’s called Health Habits for Christian Moms. Michelle Drake — Yeah. Rich Birch — We’ll put a link to it in the show notes, but tell us about the podcast. How you know how is it helping? What’s your heart behind it? I know as a podcaster, it’s a lot of work to pull the podcast together. So talk to me about the podcast. Michelle Drake — Yeah. So, ah you know, Health Habits for Christian Moms is is really something that I felt drawn and into or invited into by the Lord, you know, after like what I told you with my story and everything like that. But it really exists because, you know, I see that this pattern from moms of like moms who like love God and love their families and want to take care of their health, but, you know, feel exhausted and overwhelmed and stuck in this all or nothing mentality. And so, you know, this podcast is for moms who like know that their health matters, but struggle to make it a priority in the middle of like all of those things that we talked about, all of the real life things. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Michelle Drake — You know, she’s busy. She’s carrying a lot of responsibility. And then and then I think a big thing is that she feels guilty taking that time away from herself, like away from every all the other responsibilities to put into her health, into herself. Michelle Drake — So like instead of adding more pressure, like how the world would with with health, I am, my aim is to help this mom build simple, sustainable habits, you know, that fit into the season of life that she’s actually in, and honor all the responsibilities that she already has. Michelle Drake — And I also really try to frame it in a biblical lens. So it’s not about like chasing a gut and like not about chasing perfection or, you know, not trying to earn worth through the way that we look or whatever it is. But but it’s about stewardship and caring and like really talking about like how do we care for the body God gave us. So that actually we can have more energy, more stamina, more capacity to serve the people that God has put in our life. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. Michelle Drake — Yeah Rich Birch — I would, give me a sense of what, you know, maybe a couple episodes, the kind of thing that you cover on the podcast. Michelle Drake — So it’s it’s honestly mostly super practical tips.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Michelle Drake — So it would be super practical tips like meal planning, like how to do that in a way that’s ah not overwhelming, um how to get dinner on the table in 10 minutes in a way that’s like still healthy food, um you know, habit formation, 10-minute workouts, like things that are super applicable and immediately applicable to her life.
Michelle Drake — And then, but then also we’re talking about like these underlying issues and underlying struggles as well, whether it be like that guilt piece or the comparison piece, the people pleasing piece or believing, you know, that everyone’s, everyone else’s needs comes, comes first, comes above like her own needs. Rich Birch — Yep. Michelle Drake — And so, yeah, I think that’s that’s kind of how I I start with the practical. I lead with the practical. And then I’m sprinkling in that that encouragement of like reframing health into that biblical perspective. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, that’s fantastic. You know, what struck me about this, even in this conversation is like, this could be a great thing to hand off if I’m an executive pastor or senior leader type person in the church. Like, this could be a great thing to pass off to your team and say like, hey, here’s here’s a resource for you, you know. You’re doing a great job. You’ve got lots of health habits, healthy habits, you know, person on our team, people on our team, but like this might help. And here’s a, you know, here’s a link to it. That could be a great way to pass it along ah to, you know, just help ah the folks even to just acknowledge, hey, I understand that here’s some things that you’re, you know, you’re thinking about. Rich Birch — So just as we’re kind of closing up today’s episode or thinking about, you know, bringing it down, you know, for a leader that’s listening in today who wants to do something this week to kind of take a first step to better support, particularly the moms on their team, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them that they could they could take a step this week to help support ah those and just incredible people on their teams? Michelle Drake — I think intentional connection and conversation. And, you know, I think asking the mom on your team, you know, what is taking the most energy from her in this season? I think moms really thrive on, on like that, that kind of connection piece and sharing burdens. Rich Birch — That’s good. Michelle Drake — And so I think, and and just listening to her and not trying to fix it, because I think that good leadership really starts with like, understanding your team in a relational way. So I would say that and and and trying to help kind of take off some of her burden simply just by listening, you know. And then um and then those other pieces of like creating cultures of of rest and and rhythms of rest is is really important. But something immediately applicable is just establishing like a relational, like truly caring conversation with with the mom on your team. Rich Birch — So good. Super helpful. Well, we’ll link to Health Habits for Christian Moms in the show notes. We want people to go over there and check it out. Is there anywhere else we want to send people online to connect with you, to kind of follow with your journey? Where do we want to send people?
Michelle Drake — So definitely the podcast is the first the first place that I would send people. I am in the process of publishing my web website. So that will be published probably within the next week or so. I’m sure I would imagine that it’s going to take a while for this podcast to come out, but I don’t know what the timeline is. Rich Birch — Yeah. Michelle Drake — But but yeah, people will be able to find me at my website as well. Rich Birch — Great. What’s the address there? Michelle Drake — So the address is michelledrake.co. Rich Birch — Dot co. Great. Well, thanks, Michelle. I really appreciate being on today. So fun to connect over the internets for the podcast and all the best at Health Habits for Christian Moms. It was fun getting to know you a little bit more better today. Thanks so much. Michelle Drake — Thanks, Rich.
Stop Plucking Talent, Start Developing It with Spence Shelton
Aug 06, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Spence Shelton, Lead Pastor of Mercy Church, a rapidly growing multisite church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since launching in 2015, Mercy has expanded to multiple campuses while maintaining a relentless focus on reaching people, developing leaders, and sending them into ministry. In this conversation, Spence shares how churches can intentionally build a culture of multiplication by developing leaders from within, creating healthy sending pathways, and stewarding opportunities for church revitalization.
Stop “plucking” leaders. Start growing them. // One of Spence’s biggest challenges to church leaders is resisting the temptation to solve leadership shortages by hiring talent from elsewhere. Just as churches prioritize reaching lost people rather than simply attracting Christians from other churches, they should approach leadership development the same way. Instead of constantly recruiting experienced leaders, churches should intentionally identify, disciple, and develop people already sitting in their congregations. This approach takes longer, but it creates leaders deeply shaped by the church’s culture and mission.
The power of the shoulder tap. // Many future ministry leaders never consider vocational ministry simply because no one asks them. Spence encourages pastors to intentionally “tap people on the shoulder” when they observe leadership potential. Some of Mercy’s key leaders—including executive pastors and campus pastors—came directly from marketplace careers like banking, manufacturing, and physical therapy. Rather than waiting for seminary graduates to apply, Mercy helps people connect their existing gifts and experiences to ministry opportunities.
Create a clear leadership profile. // To make leadership development intentional, Mercy created a “Lead Pastor Profile” built around three categories: character, competency, and calling. While designed for future church planters, the framework serves as a roadmap for developing leaders throughout the church. By clearly defining what healthy leadership looks like, staff members know exactly what qualities to identify, cultivate, and reproduce in others.
Character matters before charisma. // Within the character category, Spence believes self-awareness is one of the most overlooked leadership traits. Effective leaders understand both their strengths and limitations and are secure enough in their identity in Christ to build teams around areas where they are weaker. Without self-awareness, talented leaders can make excellent first impressions while creating long-term organizational damage. Character requires observation over time and not just impressive interviews.
Multipliers build movements. // When evaluating leadership competency, the ability to multiply is critical. Can this person develop other leaders? Have they demonstrated the ability to move beyond accomplishing ministry personally and instead equip others to lead? Churches often unintentionally hire capable “doers” rather than leader-builders, limiting long-term growth. Multipliers create healthy ministries because they reproduce leadership instead of accumulating responsibility.
Alignment creates unity. // Calling isn’t simply about theological agreement, but also includes ministry philosophy. Spence stresses the importance of ensuring leaders share the church’s convictions about how ministry is carried out. When someone consistently wants to reshape the church into something fundamentally different, the healthiest response may be helping them pursue the ministry God is calling them toward elsewhere. Clear alignment creates healthier teams and stronger long-term partnerships.
Let people discover their gifts by leading. // Churches shouldn’t expect to know someone’s leadership potential before giving them opportunities to serve. Mercy intentionally creates pathways where people can lead community groups, coach leaders, and gradually assume greater responsibility. Some will flourish as long-term small group leaders. Others will demonstrate broader leadership gifting and eventually plant churches. The key is creating a culture where trying, learning, and growing are celebrated rather than feared.
Revitalization begins with humility. // Spence also shares lessons from Mercy’s experience helping revitalize struggling churches. Successful partnerships require patient relationships, deep humility, and genuine respect for the legacy of existing congregations. Rather than viewing church buildings as opportunities to expand Mercy’s influence, the team approaches every conversation as the stewardship of Kingdom resources. By honoring the faithfulness of previous generations, Mercy has seen older congregations joyfully become part of new seasons of ministry fruitfulness.
Faithfulness compounds over time. // Spence closes with an encouragement for church leaders: don’t underestimate what God can do through long-term faithfulness. Leaders often overestimate what can happen in five years while dramatically underestimating what God can accomplish over twenty. Healthy multiplication isn’t built through shortcuts. It grows steadily through consistent obedience, patient leadership development, and a commitment to stay the course.
Bonus Download: The Mercy Church Lead Pastor Profile
In this episode, Spence Shelton walks through the framework Mercy Church uses to identify and develop future leaders, and he’s generously allowed us to share the actual document with unSeminary listeners. This one-page profile lays out the nine qualities Mercy looks for in a lead pastor, organized under three headings: character, competency, and calling. You’ll also find the three additional marks required for alignment with the Mercy Family of Churches. Use it as a starting point for building your own leadership profile, training your staff on what to look for, or figuring out who to shoulder tap next. [Click Here to Download]
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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Check them out at risepointe.com and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, this week is a great conversation and was recommended by one of my favorite church leaders in the country. And so you’re going to love this conversation. It’s going to be super helpful. And I do think it’s going to challenge you and provide you some steps forward.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Spence Shelton with us. He is from Mercy Church, a multi-site church with three locations, if I’m counting correctly, in Charlotte, plus Church Online. God is leading Mercy Church into a season of a bunch of expansion and investment in ministry facilities and outreach over a two-year discipleship initiative called All to Him. They have a goal to launch the Mercy Family of Churches in in late 2025, which I think is maybe launched, or we’ll see where that goes, and is aiming to form their own collective within the next five years. Super excited to have you on the show today, Spence. Spence Shelton — Man, such an honor to be with you, Rich. Man, this is, I’m a big, going to say it, I’m a big fan of yours, man…
Rich Birch — That’s kind of you to say.
Spence Shelton — …because you have produced so much helpful content for me as a leader to lean into and grow little by little. And I can only hope that I can contribute a little bit more to the great work you’ve been doing, man. Rich Birch — Come on, that’s amazing. Honored to have you with us and to learn from you today, Spence. And mutual friend in Andrew Hopper… Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — …who I love, fantastic leader. And so shout out to Hopper. Thankful for what God’s doing in his church as well. So Mercy Church started in 2015. Give us a picture of kind of where things are at today. If we were to come to the church, what would we experience? Kind of talk us through the last season, kind of the last couple of years. What’s that look like? Spence Shelton — Yeah, man. So if you came to Mercy today, what you’d find is a church, you might be surprised to learn how big it actually is because the church is, you know, a couple thousand people, but it’s across seven services and three campuses. And there’s some of some of that’s intentional. Some of that is, hey, we’re just kind of following the Lord where he’s led in this. And we didn’t really plan for it, you know, so.
Spence Shelton — Our average service size is not that big, but we’ve the Lord’s been really gracious. If you came what you’d find is especially at our broadcast campus you’d find an old church building that you’d be thinking: wait are all these people how are they you know filling in here, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And you’d see cars parked uh all through a neighborhood and everything else and you’d see a retrofitted old church building, and that’s just the story of God’s grace on us – a building that was given to us and a church family that decided, hey we want to join you guys and they gave us their building. Really cool moment that like a legacy moment of faith in our church. And a couple other spots where we’re seeing similar sorts of things and it’s just it’s awesome, man.
Spence Shelton — So we feel blessed. We feel like we are um doing what God has called us to do because we’re seeing that kind of momentum in the ministry that we’re doing. But none of our facilities are going to wow you, I promise. I actually love training church planters because, you know, so many times they come in and they’re like, Oh, ah we can do this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — I’m like, yeah, you can do it. You know?
Rich Birch — That’s normal like us. Spence Shelton — So we are praying and asking the Lord for better wins. Yeah. But you can do it, man. If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere kind of thing. So Lord’s been really gracious to us. And it’s a, it’s been a real joy these past 10 years. Rich Birch — It’s so cool. It seems like you guys are in a bit of a pivotal season or an inflection point season where you’ve got a bunch of things on the horizon, launching Mercy Family of Churches…
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — …the 50 Missionary Goal by 2030, a collective. Talk me through those. What is the future look like? What’s driving the urgency? Help us understand kind of what the future looks like. Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, I think this happens for any church, both leader and in just the life of a church. You come to those milestone moments. We hit it last year with 10 years, and it was not only a milestone in terms of age. There was some just real growth that had been happening to the church that was forcing some good conversations around long-term you know expansion so that we can continue to facilitate what we believe God, actually, I should say we could steward what God is doing in our church. Spence Shelton — And so we launched an initiative that we called All to Him. I was teaching through the book of Romans all year last year. And so it comes out of Romans 12:1 and 2, because Christ gave his all for us, we give our all to him. That is our living sacrifice that we do. Spence Shelton — And so we said, we got some goals as a church, man. We want to see our church, we got some reaching goals. We got some training up goals. We got some sending out goals. Because when I planted Mercy Church, one of the things that was on my heart: if we’re going to come to Charlotte, North Carolina, we were going to be a sending church. Which means we’re going to build a sending hub here where this thing’s going be like an aircraft carrier that just sends out missionaries all over the place into the battles that the Lord has for us across the world. Spence Shelton — That was just on my heart. Instead of going to, you know, a place that might be, might have a, I don’t know, like a north Pacific Northwest or Northeast, something like that. If we’re coming to the Southeast to the Bible Belt, we’re doing so intentionally. Very intentional. Spence Shelton — So that’s been on our heart um ever since day one and this All to Him initiative. You know, we were hoping that by 2030, we double the size of our church. That’s because Charlotte is growing by 150 people a day. Spence Shelton — So like, we’ve got to, you know, this isn’t like it’s just because it’s something we want to do. It’s a calling, a good stewardship of the moment that we’re in. And we want to we’re launching a seminary certificate program for our members of our church because we want to train them up. Right. Spence Shelton — And we got a goal to see 50 missionaries go on the mission field by 2030. We just planted a couple of weeks before the recording of this, we planted our next church here in Charlotte, and we’ve got plans for several more. Spence Shelton — We are a large family of churches about to become a collaborative. We’re, we’re ah you know, 2028, 2029, somewhere around there, we’ll officially form that collaborative if the Lord continues to do what he’s doing. All because, man, we are convinced that God has brought us here to reach people, train them up, send them out, which I hope does not sound novel to any church leader listening to this. Spence Shelton — I hope it just sounds like, yeah, man, that makes sense. Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — It’s like, well, then what’s the the magic or what’s the the secret sauce? It’s just putting your hand to the plow. And now here we are 10, 11 years in, and we’ve been steadily doing that same work. And I think the Lord is, um you know, our buddy Andrew would use the flywheel. That’s his favorite version of that illustration. But you keep putting your hand to the same thing and eventually the Lord starts to bear fruit. And that’s what we’re seeing now. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. And yeah, you know that and you’re a kind leader, you know that for some leaders, the reason why we’re talking to you today is unfortunately, that is more novel than it should be. And so we want to dig into that a little bit. Spence Shelton — Sure.. Rich Birch — Particularly, let’s maybe start with that middle section, this training goals, you’re working on trying to train people up. When you’re thinking about the kind of leadership vision you have as a church, you’re thinking about, hey, we’re going to raise up leaders both you know here to and then also sending. Rich Birch — I think we we can fall into this dichotomy around, okay, so do we find these leaders from other places and attract them to come here? Or, do we grow them up internally? Rich Birch — Do we find a way to develop them internally? So it’s this idea of plucking talent rather than developing it. Talk to me through why is training so hard in so many churches? Why do we struggle with that? And we seem to default towards, let’s just find somebody from over there and have them come and help us here. Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, I think that mentality starts all the way down to the idea of reaching people that don’t know Christ versus just sheep swapping from one church to the other church. Right. Spence Shelton — So you can grow your church by transfer growth. Um, which I actually am one who, Hey man, if somebody on the sideline in one church and then they plug into your church, I I’m all for it And if the same thing happens with Mercy, all for it. Spence Shelton — But our aim, what we all know as pastors and ministry leaders is our aim is man, let’s reach lost people and then disciple them. Right. Rich Birch — Yes. Spence Shelton — The same thing I think should be true with leadership development. For some reason, when it comes into developing leaders, we tend to go a different direction and think, well, let’s just go find where some leaders are and get them to to plug in. Spence Shelton — It’s like, we don’t do that even with discipleship. Why are we switching our mindset? And so I want to just kind of, I have to, I was convicted and wanted to call our church and I would call others to the same mindset that you have with discipleship. Let that carry over into your leadership and your leadership development as well. Spence Shelton — And I think that’s how we’re going to grow, just as how we’re going to grow the kingdom by reaching lost people, how we’re going to grow the leaders in the kingdom, the number of leaders we have, it’s going to be developing them in our church. And I just… I don’t know that we’re even thinking that way and asking the question, is the guy who’s a 27-year-old physical therapist in my church, has anybody ever bothered to tap him on the shoulder and ask, hey, man, could God be calling you into ministry? Rich Birch — That’s good. Spence Shelton — Because I watch you and no we’re not doing the shoulder tap, man. And so um right now, I just I love it. Just a little bit of the story of our church…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — …our executive both of our executive pastors and two of our three campus pastors were all in the marketplace. One of our executive pastors was in banking. Another was a plant manager. We have two campus pastors who were both, I use physical therapists because they’re both former physical therapists. And you know, we’re sitting there having these conversations. Spence Shelton — You know what makes a great pastor is someone who has sat with person after person told them, hey, you should do this to feel better. And then they come back to you later and say, hey, I don’t feel better. And you say, did you do the thing I told you to do? And they say, no. And you say, well, you should have done that. Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — And a patient, long suffering physical therapist turns out to be a great pastor, but somebody’s got to tap him on the shoulder and say, hey, man, I think God might be calling you into this. And so my my encouragement to anybody who’s a in ministry right now, kind of in that leadership development role, and you’re like, I don’t know, we’re gonna have to go outside to find some talent. Spence Shelton — I promise it’s going to take longer the way I’m talking about. But if you will seek the Lord, ask the Lord, and then start shoulder tapping and giving some opportunities for guys to lead, for men and women to lead there in your ministry and whatever the leadership roles might be, I think there might be more people in there than you realize. Because I believe that God provides for the church that he’s growing, that he’s called you to lead.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Spence Shelton — And so I think the same thing is true with leaders as well. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I love that. And I you know I love the even the vision for, hey, maybe there are some people within your church. We see this statistically, like even if you’re thinking about campus pastors, 9 out of 10 campus pastors are coming from within, which means we’ve got which means we’ve got to get good at this.
Spence Shelton — Yeah. Rich Birch — And yeah, if your church has any kind of unique slant on the world, you’ve got to find people who have come up through that culture to ah to ultimately push that culture forward. Spence Shelton — Yes. Rich Birch — I love this this marketplace to ministry transition. How do we help people do that? That’s a real key transition. I would imagine on your end, you’ve got to help connect the dots for somebody. I love that there, how you even with the physical therapist, we’re able to connect the dots between, hey, here’s what you’re doing. Let me talk to you about the kind of role that we’re thinking about. How do you make that transition? Have you developed anything to try to help make that, you know could you know, connect those dots for people as you’re having those conversations? Spence Shelton — Yeah, I would say we don’t I don’t have a conversational map that I’m doing. Rich Birch — Sure. Spence Shelton — I don’t have that yet, though I think that’s just like many things, trial and error, and I’m still in the still cooking to formulate that map. Spence Shelton — But what I do have that we’ve worked through with our staff is something we call, it’s interesting, we actually call it the lead pastor profile. Rich Birch — Okay. Spence Shelton — The reason we call the lead pastor profile is because everything we’re doing, we’re building towards, developing towards planting more churches. And you’ve got to have a lead pastor to go and plant those churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — Now, the thing is actually when you when you look at it, it’s actually just a ministry leader profile, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — Everything on there, but there may be a couple of things that are nuanced specifically to lead pastors, but it’s kind of like when you go into Timothy and you see what are the characteristics of an elder? Well, every single one of them is just a good Christian, except then you got this thing able to teach. You know what mean? Rich Birch — Right, right. Spence Shelton — So it’s a similar thing is like most of our profile, nine points on it and divided into three buckets, it’s mostly just what makes a good ministry leader. Well, then what I’m doing is what we are doing is we’re taking that and we’re training our whole staff through it and saying, Hey, here’s what we are looking for. Here’s what we’re trying to develop. And then here’s everything. So I do a training monthly with our staff on these points.
Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — And then I do it and I say, yeah, I have to verbally say it, never underestimate or never overestimate, I guess just that it’s going to happen without you saying it, always say what you want them to do, you know, just good old preaching point there. But man, Hey, I want you guys to take what I’m teaching you and go teach your volunteers.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — And go teach those that. And I want you to teach your leaders. And then I want your leaders to be able to teach them. And if it doesn’t work, I want you to come back and tell me so that we can get better at making this a multiplying thing. Right. Spence Shelton — So we just got to have a lot of checks and balances along the way. So we’re hopefully training. And it took a while to pull this together in a way that it makes sense to all of us. And now that we’re kind of running it, we can see the value in it of, hey, this is what we’re looking for. And now you can go shoulder tap and say, I know what I’m looking…So the the kids director can go, I know what I’m looking for. Spence Shelton — Now I can go and start shoulder tapping because I know what, you know what i mean? Now that know what I’m looking for, it’s… Rich Birch — Totally. Spence Shelton — Those are probably the the beginnings of a conversational map to to walk somebody through, but at least you know what you’re looking for. You can start to have those conversations. And if you have the relational equity, those conversations can really go somewhere. Rich Birch — Love it. I’d love to double click on that. I love this lead pastor profile idea. I think working to get the clarity I think is in is a great, you know, a great task for all of us to wrestle through. Rich Birch — We think, well, we want to develop our leaders, but then we don’t have any definition of what do we mean by a leader, like at its more most basic level. Spence Shelton — Yes. Rich Birch — So we don’t need to get into all nine, but are there a couple of them that are either counterintuitive or maybe we miss, or you find yourself coming back to time and again, that are like real dividing points or like ones that kind of stick out to you in the in the framework? Spence Shelton — Yeah. All right. So obviously all nine matter to me or I wouldn’t have had them all. So I’ll do my best. Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Spence Shelton — I’ll do my best. Spence Shelton — So we divide him into three buckets, character, competency, and calling. So each one of those has three points under it. And I’ll click on one of them, maybe in each, and you can tell me if you want to go further. Rich Birch — Sure. That’s great. Yeah. Spence Shelton — But in character, the one that I find to be the most overlooked is self-awareness. Rich Birch — So true. Spence Shelton — I find that to be the most overlooked characteristic of a good leader is one who is aware of their strengths and aware of their weaknesses and is settled in their identity in Christ so that their weaknesses don’t crush them. Rich Birch — That’s good. Spence Shelton — You know, they can instead build a team around them, you know. Because the classic thing with a lead pastor is to say, well, I’m good at vision and bad at details. It’s like, OK, man, maybe we need to do something a little more thoughtful than that, because that resonates with me for sure…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Spence Shelton — …that you ask the guys around me for sure. But what what? what about are you better at vision casting or vision creating? And what are the evidences of that in your ministry? You know, so for me, I’m better at vision casting than I am vision creating. That’s probably my my 9 to 10 is actually sharing it. Spence Shelton — But I got to have some help and and love having help in the other side of that. And so there are plenty of other things like that. But when we have someone who’s not aware of their strengths and weaknesses, usually that’s that’s like a stop point for us. Spence Shelton — And so if we’ve got someone we think, oh, man, they they come across because here’s the thing. Unless you have these points, somebody will can make a great first impression and a lot of long term damage in your ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — Not because they have bad intent, but because they’re not aware of what they’re… And you give them a lot of responsibility and maybe they’re not actually, they don’t have the eyes of Jethro in Exodus 18 to know how to build out a ministry. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Spence Shelton — You just thought they did because they gave off a good first impression. Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — So that’s my biggest biggest one in that character, or not biggest one, but that’s a key one, I think, in the character is… Rich Birch — Right. A key one that sticks out. Spence Shelton — …man, are you self-aware? And so whatever we use, we love different, whether it’s the personality assessments, leadership assessments, but we also, and we just, we wanna develop from within because that gives us the ability to see. Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — We can see what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — Because we’ve had people eyes on them for months and years and you can’t really trade that out. Rich Birch — Yeah, and character takes a long time of up-close observation to really get a sense of where where people are at. Spence Shelton — Yes. Rich Birch — Because, and you know we know this is, this is you know we don’t have to think long. There are lots of examples of leaders who—and all look great—but there’s like a 2% you know, problem in their character that ended up showing itself in the most kind of ugly of ways. Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — So I know all nine are super important. I get that. appreciate that. But we can’t be here for three hours. So competency, what was what’s one in there that that that tends to say we’re just trying to whet people’s appetite to kind of help them think through it a little bit. Spence Shelton — Yeah, man. For competency, the one that I would, the the one that, yeah, that spend a lot of time on when it comes to competency, what I would say is the multiplier. Rich Birch — That’s good. Spence Shelton — I want someone who is a proven multiplier before I move them into an increased um level of leadership and responsibility. I want to see it, man. And if we, otherwise, again, what I’m trying to weed out is someone that talks a good game or someone that just has a, there may be someone I think a lot of leaders that might actually be really strong in the gift of hospitality have found themselves in the arena of administration simply because they are, like generous, kind, easy to talk to people. And they’re great. You want to be around them. They’re probably encouragers, that kind of thing.
Spence Shelton — And it’s like, wait a minute, have they multiplied? Do they actually understand what it takes… Rich Birch — That’s good. Spence Shelton — …to take someone from leading self, to use the old Ramsharan leadership pipeline, from leading self to leading others, have they actually, do they understand what it takes?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Spence Shelton — And do they understand what it takes to go from leading others to leading leaders? And have they, let’s let’s just look behind them. If you wanna go the the Bible route, you just take 2 Timothy 2:2…are they able to train up faithful teachers who can then teach others also? That to me is, especially when we get into who’s going to go out and plant a church… Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — …and I’m not sending somebody out that’s not a builder. Another way to say multiplier would be builder, but I say multiplier because I’m specifically thinking around leadership and leading those who will lead others.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — If we want to build a movement of churches for the sake of the glory of God, and we want these churches to go and continue to build, there’s got to be multipliers leading this.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Spence Shelton — You know, gotta be. So when it comes to competency, that’s like a a deal breaker for me for who we’re going to send out the plant. And so I want to develop it starting in our student ministry, you know, and working our way through or starting in our college ministry, working our way through. Spence Shelton — I don’t want to wait until we just try to, otherwise we’ve got to go pluck out from the, you know, ether, somebody that we hope is a multiplier. And I don’t want to do that. I’d rather raise them up. Rich Birch — Well, and we see this temptation in churches when they get to, say, 1,000, and then they’re they’re growing you know they’re they’re eyeing 2,000 beyond. There’s a there’s a dangerous temptation that can come in, particularly for our staff teams. I know we’re talking broader than just staff teams, but particularly for our staff teams, we can ah we can forget the Ephesians 4 call to equip others to to ministry. Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — And we just become doers. We hire doers rather than multipliers…
Spence Shelton —Yes.
Rich Birch — …because they get stuff done. And we’re like, oh man, they’re solving problems for us. But that is can then erode a church long-term very quickly. I’ve seen that so many times where they end up with, you know they slow down. Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — They’re like, why are we slowing down? It’s well, because you’ve stopped multiplying. You’ve stopped doing what we’re called to do. I love that. Rich Birch — So then the third category calling anything in there that would, that steps that kind of is similar. Again, I know all nine are are really important, but, but any of those that that kind of jumped to the, to the front. Spence Shelton — Maybe I’ll give you one that has we’ve learned through some some painful trial and error, Rich Birch — Okay. Sure. Spence Shelton — And that is, we call it alignment. And what we mean by that is: as you develop a leader, when it comes to their long-term place in your church and leading maybe even beyond your, so in our case, beyond our church to going in and leading ah a church that’s going be a part of the family of our churches, it’s really important that not only are they theologically aligned, but they are philosophically aligned in terms of how we do church. Spence Shelton — So no shade on any other way of doing church. What I’m saying is so that we can continue to be united in one voice internally, so at Mercy Church with how we do discipleship, and then so that we can be united in how we can help and train one another as a family of churches, we got to be aligned not just around our theological convictions, but on our ministry convictions, how we do it. Spence Shelton — I would say to those of you out there who have a promising young leader, but it seems like they just don’t want to do, they want to change your church into their, a different kind of church. Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — The best thing you can do is set them free.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — And I don’t mean like, that’s not like code for firing, by the way, that genuinely that genuinely is like, help them find a way, an off ramp to whatever it is they sense God calling them to. If they’re not, you know, they might be just, they need more season of development. That might be all it is. But when it comes to appointing people towards and, and, setting people into key leadership. So take an elder role at Mercy Church, community group coaching, shepherding, that kind of thing where you’re in now, you are shaping, not just participating. You’re really shaping the DNA of our church. Spence Shelton — We’ve got to be aligned with what we’re doing. It also makes for a much more enjoyable experience. I’m not saying we’re not thinking. We’re always thinking over here about how to do it better and trying to be faithful and everything else. Rich Birch — Yes. Spence Shelton — Of course. But I’m saying, man, you want to feel like you’re locked arm and arm going together. And when conviction comes that goes a separate way, it’s like best to separate. So we’ve we’ve learned that the kind of the hard way. I think a lot of lessons are hard. Rich Birch — Sure. Spence Shelton — And so I offer this as our missions pastor likes to say, we have paid some dumb tax.
Rich Birch — True.
Spence Shelton — And so wherever we can save another person from paying it, we’d love to do that for you. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. and And yeah, I think alignment’s a massive deal and and calling it out. And I would think being in a church that is um so focused on sending, you’re you’re hoping that that’s a big part of what’s kind of the outcome of the church.
Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — That, you know, having an an outlet for that sending in a way that makes the most sense. Hey, here’s a leader who seems to have the skills and, you know, and and and then you can celebrate, hey, they seem to have some unique ideas that they want to go and see happen somewhere else. Spence Shelton — Yes. Yes. Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. Rather than having to like fight that. I think that’s cool. That’s really good.
Rich Birch — So, you know, help me ah pick this apart a little bit. So one of the interesting things I find in this whole kind of leadership pathway, leadership pipeline conversation is there are, so I think we all can be influential. I think in one way we are all called to be leaders, but not necessarily everyone that we’re discipling is necessarily going to be a lead pastor. They’re not all necessarily going to. Rich Birch — Now I understand we’re kind of discipling towards that, but help me understand what are you doing internally with folks that you’re like, I just, they’re just not going to make that jump eventually. How do you have that conversation? I know that’s a hard conversation. What does that look like? Spence Shelton — Right. Rich Birch — Or am I just looking at this wrong? Which could be the case too. Happy to be wrong. Help help me think through that. Spence Shelton — Well, we’ve got to have some freedom that comes from distinctive categories. This will help us a great deal. Helps me in pastoring a great deal.
First, we got to have the category of spiritual gift. The Lord has given everyone a spiritual gift…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Spence Shelton — …and we got to celebrate that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And we got to be careful not to turn the leadership pipeline into, or that concept of leader development, turn that into a a grading of gifts. Like you’ve got a, you know, you’re, you need to graduate from one gift. Maybe that’s a better way to say it. Graduate from one gift to the other, to the other. It’s like, no, no, no.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — What we’re not talking about is graduating out of your gift set. God has given you that. And the best thing for you and for his church is to get really good at how he’s given you or how he’s gifted you.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — And when we when we conflate those, when we only talk about just you know getting better, it’s like, man, we got to watch out. Instead, let’s say, how can we get better at the giftings God has given us so that we can steward it really well? Spence Shelton — And then we find ourselves able to say, and when it comes to leadership, and here we are as church leaders, we’re now inside of a category. We’re inside of a category of leadership. And how can we develop leaders who are gifted by God as leaders? Well, the good news is maybe take some pressure off everybody, you’re not really going to know if someone’s gifted in leadership until you let them try to lead.
Rich Birch — True, yes.
Spence Shelton — So you got to let them try to lead, man. And then as they lead and you give them a couple of swings, two, three, four, whatever, and you coach them along the way, hey, here’s what we’re looking for in a leader. Here’s how you can grow from leading self leading others. Take the pressure off. Spence Shelton — This might be how God has gifted you, we don’t know. But the best way to see, based on what we’ve seen so far, is to let you try. So here’s a community group, and here are the things you’re gonna need to be a good community group leader, and we’re gonna coach you and support you. Spence Shelton — Let’s go. And let’s see what the next six months brings, right? Rich Birch — Yep, that’s great. Spence Shelton — Hey, this went really well. We wanna take you out of this community group leader seat and put you in as a coach. Now there’s a different set of skills you’re gonna need to be a coach, but man, it seems like your people responded to your leadership. What do we think about you as a coach? Spence Shelton — Each set of the way, man, do I have the, the way I always say it to our staff—they’re sick of me saying this, so it’s great to talk to you because… Rich Birch — I’m not sick of it. Yeah. Spence Shelton — …[inaudible] fresh person to say this too—is that clarity in expectations creates confidence in execution. The clearer you are with what you are asking someone to do, the more confident they will be in doing it. Another way to say it. Rich Birch — That’s good. Spence Shelton — So that’s just my my big thing there on on this. Let’s get over now that we’re, and what we’re going to find is some people are going to lead a community group faithfully for 20, 30 years at our church.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Spence Shelton — Praise the Lord. What we can’t see is that we can’t see that a failure.
Rich Birch — No.
Spence Shelton — Others are going to lead for six months to two years. And we’re going to man, this, this person’s a leader and, and we’re seeing it. They already, they’re planting. Spence Shelton — I had someone come up to me the other day at church and tell me, Hey man, I just wanted to tell you, we’re so excited. You challenged me about five years ago to lead a community group. And we just planted our fifth group. And I went, like I went, I was, my mind went so far. I didn’t even have time to be, to be celebrating.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — Cause I was like, does anybody know that there’s a guy out here…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Who’s just cranking out groups. Spence Shelton — …with the with an apostolic gift just planting groups every year what’s going so so.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great.
Spence Shelton — I was like hey, but so that that was a a great moment the Lord gave me just of, hey this is this is going really well and there will be some that will lead a group and things won’t go well and they won’t go well and you’ll keep trying different efforts. So to my community group leader friends, hey once someone tries and tries and tries, would you maybe tap their shoulder and say hey can we try something else. You know.
Rich Birch — Good.
Spence Shelton — Like you are not a failure. We just got to find the gift that God has given you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And the more that’s in the conversation of your church, that’s in the atmosphere of your church—We’re just looking for the way God’s gifted you. And we’re going to try and make you the best you can be at how he’s gifted you.—The easier the conversation is going to be of, I don’t think it’s community group leadership. I don’t think it’s this. I don’t think it’s that. Because we have a culture of, Hey, trial and error, you know? Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. That’s so good. I love that. And I love this has been a great kind of look under the hood of this whole multiplication issue. I think a lot of church leaders out there have the desire. They have the like, oh, we, man, I would love to be a church that has that kind of vision. But then what are the mechanics underneath of that? How do we actually do that? Spence Shelton — Yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — Super helpful. Pivoting in this totally, well, it’s a related but different direction. Your church has been involved in a number of revitalizations. You talked about on the you know top end, you had a you know facility given to you. And I this is like a super inappropriate, with just a few minutes left, curveball to throw in there. What’s your shorthand thing for us to learn about that? Rich Birch — You know that we’ve seen, particularly from a multisite point of view, this area has grown hugely in the last 10 years. It was 10 years ago, 5% of new campuses came about because multiple revitalization. The most recent study showed showed it was 40%. Spence Shelton — Wow. Rich Birch — I suspect Warren’s out talking right now. I suspect the number is even going to be higher. What are the few things that you’ve learned about, you know, those kinds of conversations and relationships that have allowed it to work for you? And it’s been helpful. It’s been a joy giving part of the story at Mercy. Talk us through that. Spence Shelton — I’m going to do so using another point in my lead pastor profile just to have some fun here. Rich Birch — Love it. Spence Shelton — So one of the things we look for in a leader is confident humility.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — Confident in terms of, man, they believe God has called them to something. You know there’s a there’s a settled confidence there. But the humility to be patient and wait on the Lord and see what he has and to consider others, Philippians, to consider others more important than yourself. Right? This matters a great deal when it comes to this area of revitalization. Spence Shelton — What a leader needs to know that there’s this temptation, and I had it, of why would you not give us your church building? Rich Birch — Right. Spence Shelton — Things are going well for us and struggling for you. Why would you not do that? Rich Birch — Yes. Spence Shelton — Well, it’s that there’s an unintentional, I’m call it a holy ambition that may be a little bit creating some blinders. Okay, let’s use the positive side of that. The the negative side would be there’s some arrogance there. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Spence Shelton — But the positive would be holy ambition. But what you gotta know is, man, often these facilities that are housing these churches, the ones that are remaining, a lot of the times that there are people that have been there for decades and for a generation or two, and they put blood, sweat, tears and money into where they are.
Spence Shelton — And we had to take the the approach of slow by my standards, still fast by theirs…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — …slow by my standards. Conversation after conversation that began with , in both of these cases, began with the church that needed revitalizing coming to us. We didn’t go to them. Spence Shelton — They came to us and said, hey, we’re trying to figure out what’s next. We hear you might be able to help. How can you help? Spence Shelton — And we had to present them. We had to consider that a stewardship process. of a kingdom resource, not a how do we advance the name of Mercy Church. Spence Shelton — And so it’s happened two different ways for us right now. One is a campus of our church. You know, we it took months and months, but they wound up voting to hand us the keys, join our congregation, and we held their hand the whole way through. And it was a really beautiful thing. And it’s where our broadcast campus meets today. Spence Shelton — There’s another one that happened where we decided the best thing was for that to be a, because of the neighborhood it’s in in East Charlotte, to be a church planting incubator where we could plant a church every 18 months to two years.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah. Spence Shelton — And so that’s what we’re doing right now. And there’s a church plant in there. And that was the best stewardship of that building. And after the conversation with their people, but we kind of, we basically put that with them and say, I had a lot of lunches and dinners that I just I’m going to tell you, if you want to get into this game and you want to do it in a way that’s going to honor the Lord, you got to be ready for the patient handholding that I would say is honoring a legacy of faith these folks are are taking. Spence Shelton — In many ways, the greatest step of faith taken in our church has been a couple of other churches handing us keys… Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%. Spence Shelton — …to something that the Lord was an outpost for the gospel at one point. And now in both of those cases for us and in the others that we’re starting to see that are still too soon for me to talk about, it’s just, man, now there’s an outpouring happening in both of those places. And you got like, man, there’s a couple of folks that are from the original congregation of what is now our, where our broadcast campus now is. And they, they, they’re greeters. They have tears more mornings than they don’t on Sunday mornings. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure. Spence Shelton — It’s beautiful, man. Rich Birch — Yeah, it is. Spence Shelton — I mean, they’re all in. They are way bigger fans of Mercy Church than I am. And I’m the lead pastor of the church. Rich Birch — Yes, right.
Spence Shelton — You know what I mean? And they just, they are like, they love, because what they actually are is they, they took a step of faith, a huge step of faith, trusting the Lord. And the Lord has blessed them and renewed a a vigor in their ministry.
Spence Shelton — I saw a couple of them, mid 80s, and it was about 11 a.m. weekday and they were leaving the church building. I was pulling up. I just put windows down. Hey, what are you doing? It’s like, well, we just finished prayer walk in the neighborhood a couple of times… Rich Birch — Wow. Spence Shelton — …and it’s getting too hot now. We’re going inside. And I’m like, these are the people I want, man. Rich Birch — Yes. Spence Shelton — Like just they’re retired and they have chosen they’re going their day prayer walking. It’s like, well, you told us to pray. And I’m like, yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s incredible. Spence Shelton — Thank you for leading the way you have the time and this is what you do with it. So, man, there are if if all we see is just, Oh a facility to advance my cause. And we miss what has actually been the sweetest thing for our church has been our very young church got some grandparents. Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — It’s beautiful, man. Beautiful.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good.
Spence Shelton — So that’s just a little bit I learned from that ah from those couple of runs we’ve had.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. And yeah, that underlines, so it’s definitely the majority—I think it’s three quarters, if I remember the most recent statistics on these sort of revitalizations—are coming about because the joining church is coming to the lead church, not the other way around. Spence Shelton — That’s right. That’s right. Rich Birch — And so you have to position yourself in a way that that confident humility is a great kind of benchmark to be thinking about, friends. How do we you know hold ourselves in a way that we’re here to serve other people, we’re here to care for them in a way. And I say to church leaders when we talk about these things, I’m like, you have to handle these relationships well enough so that then they’ll tell other people, hey, wow, we loved working with Mercy Hill. Rich Birch — Man, there we love working with Mercy Church. Well, we love working with mercy Mercy Hill too. Spence Shelton — Sure. That’s right. Rich Birch — We love working with Mercy Hill, Mercy Church, too many Mercies. Wow, what a great you know interaction that was been. And wow, that’s a life-giving thing. Spence Shelton — That’s right. Rich Birch — And I loved that. That is what ultimately we’ll see more of these happen long-term. Not because you did some, you know, so too many people have these like, You know, like they use merger and takeover and like this kind of aggressive language, which just doesn’t help in the conversation at all. Spence Shelton — No, it doesn’t help at all. Yeah, that’s exactly right. You got to have that humility. And if somebody’s sitting there wondering, okay, man, well, how do I how do I wait on that without, I want to go get it. I want to get started. I’d say two or three things to do if you’re looking and you believe your church might be a good church candidate for helping another church revitalize, whether that’s being a campus of yours or or something to that effect. Spence Shelton — I’d say first start praying and asking the Lord. And that if you’re not fasting, then you’re not praying yet. Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. Spence Shelton — So I don’t want to hear that you’re praying if you’re not fasting on this. Secondly, man, this is why networks matter. So I would say whatever your denomination or stream is, whatever, however you’re kind of tied to other churches in your community. If you have no relationships with other churches in your community, and then you want to go and be the revitalizer, that’s going to come, that’s probably going to come across a certain way. Spence Shelton — So There are a number of—years and years and years—of meetings that I’ve gone to, conversations I’ve sat in, in order to genuinely try to say, how can we help? How can we help? Rich Birch — Yeah. Spence Shelton — Whether that’s sending a worship leader to go serve at a church one Sunday morning or helping one church with a a building fundy kind of like thing they got to upfit or something, you know. Spence Shelton — Basically, I’m trying to be a team player in the Kingdom here in our little corner of the world in Charlotte. And then that’s going to earn the respect and the trust for when those conversations can happen in the relational network, those conversations can happen. Spence Shelton — So I am one who just in my nature, I do not like meetings. I don’t like them. Rich Birch — Sure. Spence Shelton — They feel like necessary evils. Rich Birch — Love it. Spence Shelton — And I’m trying to get better about that. But they are actually what I do love and value is trust and relationships. And again, confident humility. I have to be more about the Kingdom than I do about my own church. And a rising tide lifts all boats, you know. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, this been a great conversation today, Spence. I really appreciate that. And thanks for going with me there with that little you know detour at the end. Spence Shelton — Of course, the joy. Rich Birch — That was fantastic. But anything you’d love to share just as we wrap up today’s conversation? Spence Shelton — I would say too—I don’t know what’s spurring this, but something that has helped me so much in my ministry to the leader out there, especially the young leader, but maybe to all of them—you will always overestimate what you can do in five years and you will drastically underestimate what you can do in 20.
Rich Birch — That’s so true. Spence Shelton — And there maybe a way to say it is you will overestimate what God will do and underestimate what God will do. So this is a little plug of me saying, stay the course, stay the course where you’re at. The Lord is going to do a work in honor of your faithfulness to the work. Stay in it, man. Stay in it. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Just to add to that, I’m doing some research on working on a book on churches that break the 2000 barrier. And one of the interesting telltale signs are senior leaders and senior leadership teams that have been in the same church or the same community for 20 plus years.
Spence Shelton — There you go.
Rich Birch — So going into their third decade, it just takes time.
Spence Shelton — There it is.
Rich Birch — You know, it’s not it’s it’s not you know’s not overnight.
Rich Birch — Well, I really appreciate this. This has been a great a great conversation. Spence, if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, you can go to probably social media is the the day and age that we live in. So @SpenceShelton is my social media handle. It’s Instagram and and those kind of things. Our church is just @MercyCharlotte. And you can go on our website, mercycharlotte.com. Find everything you need there.
Spence Shelton — We’re launching a podcast. Praise God, let’s go. You can find all of it, though, just through our Instagram handles, which is usually a good first landing point for folks. And however we can help, man, feel free to reach out. Nothing super shiny about what we got going on over here, but we love being in the game for the Kingdom. However we can help. Rich Birch — All the best as you serve in Charlotte. Thanks so much, man. Spence Shelton — Thank you, brother.
Why Gifted Pastors Still Crash: Four Honest Conversations About the Inner Life of a Leader
Jul 30, 2026
Leadership failures rarely happen overnight. More often, they begin with unseen pressures, unresolved pain, and unhealthy patterns that slowly erode a leader from the inside out. In this special compilation episode, we bring together four candid conversations with experienced church leaders who openly share the personal struggles that nearly derailed their ministries.
Rather than focusing on leadership strategies or organizational systems, this episode explores the inner life of church leaders. From burnout and unprocessed grief to stress management, character formation, and radical honesty before God, don’t miss the lessons that can help you build healthier, more sustainable ministries. Use these conversations as discussion starters with your teams, asking not simply how the ministry is doing, but how the leaders themselves are doing.
Unprocessed Loss Eventually Takes Its Toll
Bob Riedy reflects on the burnout that brought his ministry to a halt and the painful realization that decades of accumulated loss had never been properly grieved. The death of a family member, staff transitions, declining attendance after COVID, fractured relationships, and personal shame all compounded over time because he kept pushing forward instead of processing what he had experienced. His story is a powerful reminder that even successful leaders are vulnerable when they ignore the emotional weight of ministry.
Key Takeaway // Pastors experience constant loss, but simply “moving on” isn’t resilience. Healthy leaders intentionally process grief with God before it silently grows into burnout, anxiety, or shame.
Charles Stone shares practical neuroscience-backed habits that help leaders reduce stress and remain emotionally healthy. Rather than offering complicated solutions, he begins with something every leader can practice immediately: intentional breathing. By slowing the body’s stress response through simple breathing exercises, pastors can create space to think clearly, regulate emotions, and respond wisely during difficult seasons.
Key Takeaway // Resilience isn’t built during a crisis. It’s developed through consistent daily practices. Simple rhythms like intentional breathing can help pastors lower stress before it becomes overwhelming.
Allen Holmes explains that gifted leaders often reach a defining crossroads when crisis exposes weaknesses beneath their talent and experience. Every leader eventually faces a moment when they must decide whether to hide behind their abilities or allow God to shape their character through hardship. Churches that embrace this perspective create cultures where leaders remain, grow, and mature instead of running from difficult seasons.
Key Takeaway // Leadership development isn’t primarily about improving skills. Rather, it’s about allowing God to form character. Crisis often becomes the catalyst that moves leaders toward deeper maturity and lasting influence.
Scott Landry vulnerably recounts one of the darkest moments of his life after personal failure left him isolated, angry, and questioning God. Rather than meeting condemnation, he encountered God’s presence in the middle of his raw honesty. His story illustrates that true healing begins when leaders stop pretending, acknowledge what’s really happening inside, and allow God to meet them in their deepest pain.
Key Takeaway // God doesn’t meet the version of us we project to others—He meets the person we truly are. Healing begins when leaders stop hiding and bring their deepest struggles honestly before Him.
This compilation reminds us that leadership health begins long before visible success or failure. Healthy churches are built by healthy leaders, and healthy leaders cultivate habits that address the condition of their hearts, not just the effectiveness of their ministries. Whether you’re leading through growth, challenge, or personal struggle, these conversations invite you to slow down, examine your inner life, and take intentional steps toward long-term faithfulness in ministry.
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!
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. You know, the subtitle of our podcast is Stuff You Wish They Taught in Seminary.
Rich Birch — And today I wish there was like a big underline under that word wish. I wish this conversation was a robust conversation when I was in school. Today we’re listening in on four senior leaders talking about really stuff that was going on on the inside when nobody was watching.
Rich Birch — This is a good time of year for you and I as executive leaders to pull back and to think deeply about the kind of structures we’re building as an organization that really create a flourishing environment for our people. You know, we asked earlier in the year what your greatest fears were for this year and 24.8% of you indicated that staff health, structure, morale, succession were your top fear this year. And so today’s conversation, what we’re doing is listening in on four senior pastors who get really honest on the show about what was happening on the inside of them.
Rich Birch — One of the churches that I was an executive pastor at, about a decade after I left, the senior leader made tragic decisions in their own personal life that ended up burning the church down, literally to the place where that organization doesn’t exist anymore. And from my understanding, actually the building is going to be demolished. Literally there’s nothing left.
Rich Birch — A ministry that impacted tens of thousands of people doesn’t exist today because of the decisions of a senior leader. And so at this time of year, in the summertime, I want to challenge us to listen carefully to some leaders that have been through some horrific moments and have come out the other side more healthy. And I want us to learn from these moments and say, hey, what can we do to structure our ministry so that we can be the healthiest possible environments we can possibly be?
Rich Birch — So up first, we’ve got Bob Riedy at Church of the Open Door, who hit a wall on a Sunday morning a few years ago, and he learned about ungrieved losses that took 40 years of ministry to see. So let’s listen in to Bob and see what you and I can learn as we think about the future.
[Clip 1 Begins]
Bob Riedy — I really do think that loss, and especially not properly processing and grieving loss, was a big part of what was behind all of this. In 2018, I lost my brother, my younger brother, who was really my wingman in so many ways. That was a loss that I think in some ways I’m still wrestling with.
Bob Riedy — During the pandemic, we lost, pick a number, a lot of loss as far as attendance and stuff. At first, we were off for about four months, but then when we came back, people began to trickle in, and it was clear to me that we lost hundreds of people as well from our church during that time. That was probably a profound thing for me.
Bob Riedy — We lost some key staff members as well during that time. We lost some friends because of the politics and some of the difficulty of that. And so I think loss was a big part of that.
Bob Riedy — My counselor has really helped me a lot with that, not properly grieving loss. Terry Wardle is one who said that ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. And I found that I really wasn’t doing that good. I was shaking it off and just moving forward, shaking it off and moving forward, and not really grieving it and bringing God into it and surrendering it to Him.
Bob Riedy — And I think part of what happened with that as well was I was concerned about what people thought. We were this powerhouse of a church, growing like crazy, and all of a sudden, like every other church, we were struggling.
Bob Riedy — And I remember the day that I burned out. That afternoon my children all came to our apartment. My wife and I were living downtown, and my daughter reminded me of this the other day. And she said, Dad, do you know what you said to me that day? And I said, no. She said, Dad, you said to me, what are people going to think of me that this happened to me?
Bob Riedy — And that was a loss that I wasn’t able to really properly wrap my head around. I was more concerned about how this was going to look with me as a Christian leader in our community. And then I think one of the places that the anxiety came from as well was shame.
Bob Riedy — One of the things the enemy, I think, came after me with was like, you’ve been telling people here in York how to live for the last 15 years, and you let this happen to you. And wow, I wrestled with that as well. So I think that loss and worrying what people were concerned about or what they were thinking of me, and then the shame of wrestling through that as a senior pastor whose church had been top 100 churches.
Bob Riedy — I taught church leadership and biblical preaching at Lancaster Bible College, and this happened to me. And so I really wrestled with just the fallout of all that.
[Clip 1 Ends]
Rich Birch — What are people going to think? Bob’s daughter quoting him back to him is a part of this thing I just will not shake. Ungrieved loss, it compounds.
Rich Birch — Loss is a part of your role. It’s a part of my role. But what Bob learned the hard way is that shaking it off and just kind of moving on will cost you more in the long run than sitting with it and processing it.
Rich Birch — Charles Stone is up next. He’s a friend, a pastor, a counselor, and did his PhD on stress while he got diagnosed with three serious conditions in the same year. And we’re going to focus on an easy kind of habit that he has installed or practiced that he has installed that I think you could use in the midst of your processing, of dealing with even those kinds of ungrieved losses. Let’s listen in on what Charles has to say today.
[Clip 2 Begins]
Charles Stone — Well, I kind of get thematically. One involves how we breathe. These are practices that can help us develop resilience.
Charles Stone — One has to do with how we breathe. Two have to deal with our emotions. One has to do with our thinking. One has to do with contemplative practices, spiritual practices.
Charles Stone — One has to do with something called certainty. One has to do with gratitude. One has to do with relationships. And one has to do with sleep. So any of those, I’m game for any of those that you feel like we ought to touch on one or two of them.
Rich Birch — Well, what about maybe breathing? Why don’t we start right at the top where you started? And then, you know, we’ll scratch the surface. There’s a ton we could, obviously, we want people to pick up a copy of the book, but let me start with breathing. That might be kind of interesting.
Charles Stone — Yeah. Well, actually, this ended up being the first one because it’s very easy to do. Now, I think around 75 times plus, you’ll find the word breath or breathe in the scripture.
Charles Stone — And Genesis, God breathed into Adam. He became a living being. I think his early part of Acts, Jesus breathed on the early church, the Holy Spirit came.
Charles Stone — And then David, the psalmist wrote, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Now, here is the interesting neuroscience insight. Deep breathing activates a key set of nerves that come directly from my brain, just come from my spinal cord. But these are these are key nerves that they’re in pairs.
Charles Stone — One of them is called the vagus nerve, comes from the word vagrant. What does a vagrant do? He wanders around. So this nerve wanders around our hollow organs, our heart, our lungs, our stomach. So there’s a lot of communication back and forth.
Charles Stone — Scientists have found that deep breathing, especially on the exhale, when you exhale a little longer, it actually engages this nerve, which lowers the stress response. And here’s here’s why you practice it. I call it the sniff breath.
Charles Stone — Now, the actual term is “a psychological sigh”, but here’s how it would work when you’re facing some stress. Just breathe in, you know, a little more and then breathe out through your mouth. Now on the out breath, you want to be a little longer than the in breath, doing that three or four or five times.
Charles Stone — Labs all around the country found it lowers the stress response. So that is a simple, a portable tool you can take. Anybody can use anywhere.
Charles Stone — So yeah.
[Clip 2 Ends]
Rich Birch — I love Charles. He’s such a practical leader. Listen, I’d pick one of those practices this week and really try to install it.
Rich Birch — I love that he started with breath work because it’s really the easiest one to start with. You can install it today. Literally, he gave you everything you need, but maybe look at the other ones. Pick up his book, “Stress Less”. Got a bunch in there.
Rich Birch — Well, coming up next, we’ve got Allen Holmes. He’s been the senior pastor at Definition Church in Greensboro for 25 years. He has watched gifted leaders crash long enough that he’s built a framework around this to understand it. Let’s listen in to what Allen has to bring to this conversation.
[Clip 3 Begins]
Allen Holmes — It’s interesting when I, one of the other real key moments for me is I went back to do my doctorate of ministry degree at Gordon Conwell in redemptive leadership. And so much of what we were studying is how God works in the crisis, in these pressure moments to expose the unfinished places in our character so that we can grow and become more like Jesus and therefore maximize our kingdom impact in the world.
Allen Holmes — And one of my professors, Dr. Powers, he actually wrote a book called Redemptive Leadership. It’s a simple little book, but profound, where he describes leadership development in five stages. And stage one is a skilled leader where you get a leadership role just based on your skill. So maybe the ability to preach. And so they call you to be the pastor.
Allen Holmes — That’s how I became the pastor of my first church. I could preach. I hadn’t done anything else, but they let me be a pastor because I could preach.
Allen Holmes — And then the second stage is a principal leader where you begin to understand why you do what you do. But the third stage, which is so important, is the character stage. And in order for a leader to go through the character stage, God always uses a crisis to bring him into that stage. But when he comes into that stage, he has a choice. In that stage, he can open his heart and allow God to do that deeper work, or he can go back and hide behind his skills and principle.
Allen Holmes — And that’s what pastors do. A lot of times the reason you see this turnover every, you know, depending on what statistic you read, every two to four years, pastors are leaving churches is because they come into a church and they have this honeymoon season. And then all of a sudden there’s a crisis that exposes some things and they start floating their resume and hiding behind their skill rather than allowing God to deal with their character so that they can advance and become a transformative, redemptive leader.
Allen Holmes — So I think one of the things that’s been so true for us is we’ve just tried to say to people when there’s a crisis, don’t panic, don’t run away. See it as an opportunity.
Allen Holmes — In fact, I ended up doing my dissertation on the idea that if we could teach this model to leaders, that it would cause them to respond differently in the crisis instead of running from it, they would run to it and open their heart. And God could use that to really propel them into their redemptive future. And the research said that was true.
Allen Holmes — And so we’ve tried to really work that in our culture to understand when something goes wrong, don’t run away and don’t hide. Let’s run into it and trust God to meet us there so that this thing God works redemptively to use it for your benefit and to launch you into your future.
Allen Holmes — And because that’s been our culture, people have stuck around. I mean, my lead team, Rick has been here 25 years. He was he’s actually here two Sundays longer than I’ve been here. Eric’s been here 24 years. Jonathan’s been here 19 years. Chelsea’s been here almost this year will be 14 years. Steve’s been here 10 years.
Allen Holmes — I mean, so they’ve just been here a long, long, long time. And that but that’s why they’ve seen these moments and we’ve helped them to find God in it so that it actually works for us instead of against us.
[Clip 3 Ends]
Rich Birch — Allen walked us through the five stages. The third one he talked about is character. And that’s really where I think you and I, our greatest test is at. And this is where we meet our crisis. You should go back and listen to Allen’s episode. Super helpful.
Rich Birch — Coming up next for our last part of the conversation today is a friend of mine, Scott Landry. He’s the senior pastor of The Bridge near Ottawa. He’s been on the podcast before.
Rich Birch — Next is a clip from a book that was coming out or that has come out called “The Fight”. And it’s the moment that he lost everything and that he was alone in a house in the Northwest Territory. The reason why I wanted this on is because I think Scott models for you and models for me an open transparency with ourselves, with our people.
Rich Birch — That is something that I think you and I should live with our live with and should think through. How can we be this transparent with the people around us? Heads up. This is a heavy clip and it’s worth every second of your attention to lean in and hear what Scott shares.
[Clip 4 Begins]
Scott Landry — I hope that’s a powerful moment in the book because it was it’s genuinely the most powerful moment in my life. And this was this was kind of at the crescendo of my my breaking point. So after my marriage and my life specifically falling apart and I kind of lived in a place of isolation.
Scott Landry — I was living in the North, Canadian North, and I was yeah, I was lost. I was I was angry like I had so much anger. And it was so, yeah, I talk about in the book and I was angry and ultimately I was angry at myself, but I was also angry at God.
Scott Landry — And because even after, again, making a mess of my own life, he didn’t make a mess of my life. Nobody made the mess in my life. I made the mess in my life.
Scott Landry — And but then after that, I was trying to do everything right. And I was trying to do the right thing, do the right thing. And I was like, God, when are you going to start intervening on my behalf?
Scott Landry — And so, you know, being the preacher that I am, I was like, I got all the Bible verses that tell me that you’re going to like now is you’re going to do the redemptive thing. You’re going to show up. You’re going to move.
Scott Landry — You’re going to fix. You’re going to redeem. You’re going to restore.
Scott Landry — You’re going to repair. You can do all the R words. And and nothing was happening like it was like and it was almost as if I and I literally heard nothing. And I’d like to say I didn’t feel anything, but I did.
Scott Landry — It was just this this anger that was welling up inside of me like a like a pot boiling and eventually it just I just became unhinged. Like I was alone and I was completely isolated. I was in this empty house and I just started crying out like and yelling out and I threw through things.
Scott Landry — I I used words I’ve I’m ashamed to admit I used. Like I mean, I was as unhinged as could possibly. I was like, I God, if I saw you face to face, I would give you the…like I told him all this stuff.
Scott Landry — And and what I found in that moment was like and I again, I talk about in the book, but like I yelled, God, I don’t even believe in you anymore. I’m done. Like I like I don’t I don’t believe. You’ve promised me that you would never leave me. You would never forsake me. And that’s exactly what you’ve done. I’ve told people that you would never leave them and forsake them. And yet you’ve done that to me. You are you are dead to me. I don’t believe in you anymore.
Scott Landry — And I even now I still feel this and I’m just talking about it. But like this is and this is I know some people are going to roll their eyes at this. But like genuinely, when I heard myself say that, I felt this…like over me, over my house. It was like this eerie like pause.
Scott Landry — And I heard if I’ve ever heard the voice of God, I heard a voice say, well, then who are you yelling at? And it was like this, like…
Rich Birch — Beautiful.
Scott Landry — And in that moment, it was like my anger was it wasn’t my degree. It wasn’t my Bible. It was it was my anger was my evidence that God was present right then and right there. And because my anger was directed at him.
Scott Landry — And he knew that I was angry with him and he met me at the place of my anger and he was waiting. And this is the part that I still, I can’t do this, what’s in my head and in my heart justice. But it was God was saying, I’ve been waiting for you at this place your whole life.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Scott Landry — You you have been hiding from this anger from your childhood, from your young adulthood. And I’ve been waiting for you to meet me here at your anger. And I’ve I’ve wanted you to know that I would be here waiting for you.
Scott Landry — And if you met me on the top of the tallest mountain and if you look me face to face and if you were to give me the finger, you would find me there waiting because I am waiting at who you really are, not who you’re pretending to be.
Scott Landry — And everyone around you, you’ve got them fooled. And you’re a used car salesman and you can spin the Bible verses and you can do all that other stuff. But I know who you really are. And I’m waiting for you to finally be honest with yourself about who you really are.
Scott Landry — And now that you finally are, now we can do something about that together. And that was the moment that God truly revealed himself to me. And that’s when I, for the first time in my life, truly discovered who I was.
Scott Landry — And yeah, that’s the moment that I hope anybody who ever meets me or talks to me or listens to me or reads it, like that’s the part that I long for people to have before it costs them, like it cost me.
[Clip 4 Ends]
Rich Birch — I love that moment when Scott said he heard, who are you yelling at? Man, that sticks with you.
Rich Birch — Listen, four different stories. What I’m trying to do is raise for you the question about the inner life of what’s going on at your church with the senior leaders around you.
Rich Birch — What if you were to go back and look at these four conversations and maybe say, OK, this one might be the best for us to lead a conversation with, and send them one of those, send your team one of those episodes. And say, hey, I’d love for us to take some time this summer.
Rich Birch — Maybe you go and relax on a back deck somewhere or jump in somebody’s boat or spend a little extra time at the office. Because there is a little bit of slack at this time of year. And ask the question, hey, what’s going on on the inside of us as leaders at the church? How are we developing and how could this conversation help us ask some different questions than we normally do in our team meetings?
Rich Birch — All the links to those four conversations are down below. Thanks for sticking through this this entire conversation. I know there was a lot today, but we’ll see you next week with our regularly scheduled programs, kind of back to what we normally do here at unSeminary.
Rich Birch — Thanks for being a part of the podcast. Thanks for doing what you’re doing, including the hard work of the inner life to lead your people in a way that makes a huge difference. Thanks for being engaged in the local church. Take care, friends.
Don’t Let Your Building Become a Lid on Your Growth with Aaron Stanski
Jul 23, 2026
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe. For more than 15 years, Aaron and his team have partnered with growing churches and Christian schools across North America, helping them design facilities that remove barriers to growth and create environments where more people can encounter Jesus. In this conversation, Aaron shares some of the most common (and costly!) mistakes churches make during construction projects, along with practical strategies to avoid them.
Don’t build today’s problem into tomorrow’s building. // One of the most common mistakes Aaron sees is phasing projects incorrectly. Churches may be tempted to build a larger auditorium while postponing essential components like increased parking, children’s space, or student ministry areas, assuming they’ll complete them in a future phase. Unfortunately, that second phase often gets delayed for years, leaving the church with a building that limits growth from day one. Instead of designing around what leaders hope they’ll afford later, Aaron encourages churches to build a complete project that fully supports their next season of ministry, even if that means reducing the overall size of the expansion.
Create a long-term plan first. // Before drawing floor plans or establishing budgets, churches should develop a long-range vision for their campus. A master plan doesn’t mean building everything immediately. It simply provides clarity about where the church is heading. Once that long-term vision is established, leaders can determine the next right step that fits their current budget and ministry needs. Without that roadmap, churches can solve one immediate problem only to create another one a few years later.
Short-term savings can become long-term expenses. // Budget pressure may lead churches to remove features or simplify systems in order to reduce construction costs. Aaron cautions that these decisions frequently create much larger operational expenses over the life of the building. Whether it’s HVAC controls, building systems, or maintenance-related decisions, saving a small amount during construction can result in years of higher operating costs. Churches need to evaluate every cost-saving measure through the lens of long-term stewardship rather than immediate affordability.
Your facility should serve your mission—not become your mission. // Buildings are simply tools for ministry. The goal isn’t completing a construction project; it’s creating environments that help people take steps toward Jesus. Once the ribbon-cutting ceremony is over, the real work begins. Healthy churches continually evaluate guest experience, signage, gathering spaces, children’s environments, and overall functionality. Facilities should continue evolving alongside ministry rather than remaining frozen in time.
Plan for growth before it arrives. // One surprising reality Aaron sees is that solving a facility constraint often produces immediate attendance growth. Sometimes this comes from new guests, but often it’s because existing attenders begin attending more consistently once parking, seating, or children’s capacity improves. Churches that don’t anticipate this surge can quickly find themselves facing another capacity challenge. Planning for success means considering what happens if the project works exactly as intended.
Know when to start the conversation. // Aaron recommends churches begin facility planning long before they’re completely full. His general guideline is simple: when your largest service consistently reaches about 80 percent capacity, it’s time to begin exploring your options. That doesn’t mean starting construction immediately, but it does mean beginning strategic conversations, gathering data, and creating a long-term plan before your building becomes a lid on ministry growth.
Courage is part of every construction project. // Building projects can feel intimidating because they involve significant financial commitments and countless unknowns. Aaron encourages leaders not to let fear drive their decisions. Throughout his career, he’s watched God repeatedly provide for churches that prayerfully stepped forward in faith while remaining focused on the mission rather than the building itself. The goal isn’t constructing impressive facilities—it’s creating spaces that help more people hear the gospel and experience life change.
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Listen, I know that today’s episode is going to be particularly helpful to a lot of churches. I am consistently interacting with churches, asking questions about the things that we’re talking about today. It’s a real pain point that I know many of you are leaning in on. You’re going to want to stay tuned right to the the end. Rich Birch — Excited to have my friend and really an incredible leader and expert in this whole area of developing our facilities and using them to ultimately see people take steps closer to you, really leveraging architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, all of that stuff. Rich Birch — Aaron Stanski is the founder and CEO of Risepointe. With 15 plus years of church design, leadership, and project management experience. He works not not only with churches, but also schools and nonprofits in a wide variety of contexts. Excited to have you on the show, Aaron. Welcome back. Aaron Stanski — Thank you, Rich. Excited to be back, man. This is fun. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good to see you again. And I wanted to get you back on because I feel like, man, this is a conversation that we’ve got to keep in front of people and keep thinking about these things. But for folks that don’t know, give us a picture of Risepointe and maybe particularly the types of churches that you help when you’re like, hey, here’s the kind of churches.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you think about that? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, Risepointe, I mean, we’re we’re an architecture and design firm. So we have architects, interior designers, graphic designers that work directly for us. And we work with churches and Christian schools um all across the U.S. and Canada. And for us, I mean, the typical churches or schools that we work with, are ones that are about growth and are about um what we call like the you know personal ownership of evangelism. Aaron Stanski — They are churches that are like, hey, it’s not about us. It’s about it’s about people who aren’t at our church yet. It’s not even necessarily about our students and raising up those students, but it’s about families that are considering what would it look like to you know grow up their their child in Christian education. And so yeah, for us, it’s about churches and schools that are growing and wanting to have an impact on the kingdom. So. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. And I know, you know, our facilities are such a key part of what we do. You know, it’s a critical piece of the puzzle. And, you know, it’s it’s not, it can be an accelerant. It can be, or or it can hold us back. It can be the kind of thing that can help us reach more people, connect more guests, or the kind of thing that hinder us from that. Rich Birch — And you’ve been doing this for 15 plus years. When a church first comes to you, let’s say they’re wrestling with these issues. What do most leaders think, not realize that they’re walking into?
Aaron Stanski — Oooh.
Rich Birch — Like they’re they’re like, hey, I think we got to like do something here to fix this. What what do they what do they stumble on that’s like, hey, maybe they they’re not aware of? Aaron Stanski — Oh, interesting. That’s a great question, Rich. I mean, I think most churches, like when they call Risepointe, I mean, they understand they’re talking to an architect. They understand that construction is going to be difficult or pricing and budgeting. Aaron Stanski — And we’re going to get into a lot of that here in the podcast. I think one of the things that they might not realize when they’re first starting is, you know, just the mental load that it’s going to take to carry a project through to completion. Rich Birch — that’s good. Aaron Stanski — I mean, it’s easy to think about, oh, yeah, we’re going to have some extra meetings or, oh, yeah, Risepointe is going to be running some things. But there’s just going to be an extra load when it comes to decisions that have to be made, conversations that have to be made with your congregation, your leaders, your staff. Aaron Stanski — And that that mental load over time can take a toll and it can certainly add to the stress if you’re not careful. So. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I don’t know what the stat is, but I remember hearing that there’s some just a giant number of percentage of lead pastors, particularly or senior leaders who transition after…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, within 18 months of opening a new building because of that mental load. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — You know, how does that kind of show up in maybe how you interact with them?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Or how do you lead them in a way to try to reduce that mental load? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve heard that I’ve heard that statistic referenced. I haven’t been able to find it actually myself. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Me too. Aaron Stanski — Fortunately, most the vast majority of executive pastors and senior pastors that work with us, like they don’t quit once it’s over. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Stanski — So…but I don’t know if that’s us doing something right or if like just as a culture and as a as churches, we’ve figured out like, hey, we’re going to support them. We’re going to make sure they have the right administrative support. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — We’re going to make sure we you know bring some other people around them. um So I have no, maybe we should add that to like the XP ah survey or something next year, figure that out. Rich Birch — Survey. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny in that survey you referenced, we, we did, we do survey every year and there was, I was thinking about this morning as we were prepping for that. There’s an interesting dichotomy found in this year’s study where executive pastors had higher confidence that they were going to start a project this year. And I think it was like 80, it’s a high percentage, 80 some odd percentage versus finished projects. Rich Birch — So there was this like tension of like…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …yeah, yeah, we got stuff rolling. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — Are we going to be able to finish it though?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — Is it going to be a problem? Who knows, you know, whether we’ll be able to do that. Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah. That’s good. I mean, they’re the prag you know they’re the pragmatists. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Stanski — They’re like, we we’re the ones that are going to have to get this done. And, you know, like we got vision stuff flying around here, but we also have like Sunday coming. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Stanski — So, yeah, I love that. That’s great. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. So you’ve put together a new resource that I want to make sure people pick up at. You can just get it at Risepointe.com/unseminary. We’ll link to that. That’s Risepointe with an E, but it’s called “Top 10 Mistakes Churches Make in Construction Projects”. Rich Birch — Now, I don’t want to give it all away but let’s talk about maybe a couple let’s talk about a couple of them.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — What a couple top mistakes that you see churches make when they’re thinking about construction projects? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, at some point I should probably write a book on this topic, Rich.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Aaron Stanski — Not because, not because I know the right things to do, but probably cause I’ve, I’ve done most of these things myself.
Rich Birch — Love it Aaron Stanski — So if you’ve done some of these things, don’t feel bad, just join the club. I think I should have like a punch card or something like people can like punch out if they’ve made some of these mistakes, but… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — One of the things that we discovered is, you know, rarely, you know, when we make one of these mistakes, rarely is it like the first time that it’s ever happened in the history of church construction projects. Aaron Stanski — Right. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — Like, and rarely is it like some like random, unique one off thing. Most of the time we can look back and say like, oh, yeah. I kind of saw that thing coming. And so hopefully like some of these things will just like help, you know, some churches hedge off like what some of those things are. Aaron Stanski — But yeah, I mean, I’ll I’ll jump right into the first one. And the first one that we see a lot is churches that try to phase the project. And that’s a, you know, that ends up being, you know, can be a big construction mistake. And one of the biggest that they make. primarily because we think phase two is coming. So we’re just going to phase the project. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — We’re going to get this done and completed. And then three years later, we’re going to go into another campaign or we will have paid off the debt and we’re going to fix the, you know, finish the project. You know, we’ve worked with dozens of churches that spent decades in misaligned buildings because they had this approach, you know? Rich Birch — Yes. Let’s start with, I think this is great. In fact, I’ve heard you talk about this one and I have parroted this to other people when they’ve talked about their buildings. So first explain, what do you mean by phased?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — Clearly pull that apart when you’re, you know, what what is the mistake that we could step into? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so, ah because there’s two different ways that you can look at phased. Sometimes you can look at the project and go, hey, we’re going to do this first and then this second, and the construction team is going to do phase one, phase two, and then we’re done. Aaron Stanski — The construction error that I’m talking about is when we say, Hey, um, we’re going to go ahead and build the thousand seat auditorium in phase one, knowing that we don’t have enough room for the kids or parking or students and think, well, we’ll just come back in phase two and add in the parking that we need or the kids space. Um, that’s the, that’s the part that I’m talking about. Rich Birch — Yeah. And in fact, actually, I know a church that’s in this exact spot. They did not build any kind of youth space. They’ve got a great, you know, the rest of the building, but now they’re like, oh my goodness, we’ve got to go back now and redo this. Rich Birch — So why is this such a problem? Why not? Isn’t this a great way to playing the devil’s advocate? Isn’t this just a great way to save resources? We can’t do it all now. So isn’t this an a logical thing to do? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, you’re we either spend money building something that we can’t fully occupy, which is poor financial stewardship, or we end up like stuck and it hurts that first time guest experience, right? Aaron Stanski — Like I tell churches, I mean, look at the drawings that you have on paper and say, yes. Like we can do a decade or more of ministry in that space as it’s designed. Or like you got to fix it. Either fix it, or don’t spend the millions of dollars. I mean, that would be my, that would be my encouragement just to make sure we’re spending the resources the way we, the way we should, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And so how do I know, you know, like, because like I think this is one of those things that, you know, it’s like a, it’s a bit of a counterintuitive idea because I think lots of people actually think this is the way you do it. Rich Birch — How, what’s the better alternative then? How do we kind of pull that apart.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Double click on that, expand that a bit more to help us think more clearly on that? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I think, you know, what we do want to have is a long term plan, right? Skipping the long term plan, that’s going to be another one of these construction fails if you don’t do it.
Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Stanski — So if we have a long term plan and say, okay, here’s what it’s going to look like on our campus if we continue to grow and we continue to trust God and here’s what, yeah, maybe here’s what phase two and phase three looks like and we’re planning for expansion. That’s great. But when it comes down to like the construction and the budget, if we just like lop something off so that we can move forward with the project, we could be we could be introducing a lid that that we don’t know about yet. Right? Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Stanski — And so I think what we want to do is establish that long term plan and really dial that in first and then scale it back to something and say, OK, this is a great project. It’s going to set us up for the next run. It’s the step of faith God’s calling us to do. And this thing is going to last us 10 years if we if we you know if we get it done correctly. Rich Birch — Is this, again, I’m not the expert friends at all. So I may not be so thinking about this correctly. So correct my thinking on this. Is a better way… So let’s say we’re thinking about exactly what you’re talking about. We’ve got like a 300 seat auditorium and you know we need we’re thinking we need to triple the whole thing. Rich Birch — And so we, like you say, go to a thousand seats. And so we know that then in rough terms, we would have to triple the kids ministry space, triple the you know, the parking, triple, the, you know, the crush space, the lobby space, that sort of thing. Aaron Stanski — Correct. Rich Birch — You start doing this work and then you’re on the design and you’re like, okay, but we can’t afford all all that. What I’ve seen is churches get all the way through and then they’re like, okay, they literally, they do all the design and then they’re like, okay, well, we can’t afford this. Rich Birch — They try to scope it and they just cut off the student wing or they cut off whatever. Aaron Stanski — Right. Rich Birch — Are we better to think about, okay, We eventually we want to get to triple, but let’s, let’s go from 300 to 600 and scale all those parts up that way and design a plan that then we could come back 10 years from now and maybe add the third. Is that more, is that a better idea? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s a better idea because you’ll build less square footage in the first phase.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — It’ll be more it’ll be more achievable. I think understanding what we can afford and can’t afford at the beginning…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …designing something to the budget, I mean, that’s really critical, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so, yeah, I mean, I think if we just get into like, hey, what’s the vision and what would we love to have someday? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — We’d love to have a thousand seats and stuff. Well, that’s great. um But what can we afford and what’s what’s that right next step? um Because, yeah, we have to scale the kids, the students, the parking, the guests, like all of that stuff with those number of seats. Rich Birch — Isn’t it interesting? Like we would never approach the building of our own personal house. This is the way that we sometimes do with the church. It’s me speaking with, this is not Aaron, but I, you you know, I do think we forget the, like what’s actually affordable step. Rich Birch — And we would never do that with our own home. It’s like, sure. I would love a five car garage and like, you know, this amazing, whatever insert, you know, whatever the play space and all this stuff. I, I just kind of, so like, I’m going to renovate the kitchen and I’m going to, you know, make these few changes with what I can actually afford. Rich Birch — It’s interesting that we do that. Well, you talked about the ah skipping the long-term plan is maybe one of these or something around that. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — Let’s talk about that. How do we think that about the long-term plan? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes it’s tempting to just kind of try to solve some immediate space needs as quickly as possible. We’re running hard. Some of us are launching campuses or we’re trying to plant a church down the road and we’re out of seats. And it’s tempting to say like, hey, can we just blow this wall out and add 200 seats? Like it it feels like that’s just the next thing to do. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — you know I’ve talked, you know a lot of pastors, they just want the problem to go away. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And I get it. And like the thought of, like let’s spend some time like planning out the future, like this feels like a waste of time to them a little bit. And I mean we’ve rushed few you know we’ve rushed through some projects at Risepointe’s only to be ready to start construction and realize, like oh shoot, like the problem shifted, or we’re just going to introduce this other problem. And so, I mean, I think, you know, sitting down, taking the time and it doesn’t have to take a long time. Aaron Stanski — I mean, ah you know, we’ll come in and do a needs analysis for church in like 30 days. Aaron Stanski — So like we’re not talking about like, let’s spend a year like blue sky dreaming about all the possibilities. But I am saying let’s spend let’s spend a good amount of time like thinking about it, planning it so that we know we’re not you know causing more problems than we’re fixing. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. What’s the tension there on, and you know I picked this up from you in a previous conversation and it it has stuck with me, is that you know all of our buildings are built in kind of a particular kind of cultural moment and a philosophy of ministry moment. Rich Birch — They’re an expression of that. And but then ministries change, right? And our ministry looks different. How do we balance that reality of like, we’re kind of want to make it work for today, but then we also want to design, have some sort of conception long-term that’s like, Hey, we could imagine a future where things might change a little bit. How do we, how do we work? How do we make that happen? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, you know, some of some of it’s prescribed pretty clearly in the Bible and it hasn’t changed for thousands of years. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And so like the gathering together of the saints and the singing and taking care of the widows and orphans and the opening up of the word and you know inviting the Holy Spirit to participate. And so some of those things um are just going to stand the test of time. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — I think a little bit what you’re talking about in the expression of it is you know some of the design choices and some of the things that feel relevant or good. I think we have to be careful not to chase trends you know too often in doing some of that. But I would say there’s like a wrong there’s a strong resurgence right now in you know getting back to churches that feel like churches, in walking into spaces that feel holy and not just black boxes and some of those. Aaron Stanski — And so we want to pay attention to some of those things. And we also, ah yeah, we just don’t want to be too trendy, you know. We don’t want to chase trends, especially with architecture and steel and concrete because those things are expensive to to change. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, that’s interesting. Okay, so what maybe what’s another one in these top 10 mistakes? Again, friends, we want you to drop by and pick it up. But what’s another one of these we could unpack for folks? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. As I was thinking through, you know, some of the mistakes that I’ve even I’ve made, I think sometimes when we’re in construction and budgets are tight and we’re tired, we get to a point where we want to ignore, you know, maybe the long term costs for some of the decisions that we make and we want to sell it out short.
Aaron Stanski — I was talking to a church last week. Right. I mean, they you know, they made a decision that saved them 20 grand on the construction project, but it cost them like 10 times that every five years in ongoing maintenance. Rich Birch — Wow. Right. Aaron Stanski — And so you look back and you’re like, well, shoot, why did we do that? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — You know, why did we try to save, you know, $1,500 per kids, you know, room in trying to like, we’ll just put one thermostat in and make all the rooms hot or all the rooms cold and we’ll just run the air conditioning or run the, run the heater. Like long-term, like you’re spending way more money in those scenarios. So that’s one of the things is like, man, what are, what’s the ongoing operational and maintenance costs of these decisions going to be? Aaron Stanski — And I mean, sometimes it’s like, oh, this thing looks really cool, or we really want to have that. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And that’d be an awesome feature. And you just have no idea like, oh, man, every week someone’s going to have to go out there like with a machine and like a chemical or something to keep that thing ah functioning or looking the way ah we want it to look. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — So. Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, and that that I can see, mean I feel like I’ve been in that conversation around even the, you know, the system controls and stuff where we’re like, man, every one of these thermostats we put in is going to cost X amount of dollars. But the long-term, you know, ah flexibility and just, you know, ability to actually reduce the cost, you know, can be amazing if we get more sensors and more stuff in there. But it seems like we’re just pinched. Rich Birch — Why why does that happen? Is it rush at the, you know, we’re just not slowing down enough when we make all those decisions. We’re not asking the questions. We don’t have the right partner at the table. Help me understand why, why do we end up making these short-term, long-term, you know, trade-offs or maybe we’re saving a dollar today, costing us 10 tomorrow. Where does that actually come from? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think it comes a little bit from, you know, some decision fatigue definitely happens. And then, you know, maybe not counting all the costs and, you know, potentially like we’ve missed some things or, oh, yeah, we got to get the furniture in here. And the like, and so we’re right up against like what we feel like is the top lid for what we want to spend. Aaron Stanski — And then you get into some of these things, you’re like, man, we just need to value engineer, you know, some stuff out of this project. And at that point, you know, you’re saving, you know, you’re trying to save pennies. But you’re you’re sacrificing a lot of functionality.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think in those situations, we would say we would typically take a longer term approach and say hey before we make that decision, let’s talk about those consequences, and let’s figure out if there’s another area that we might that we that we might want to save some money on. Or another decision that we could make that would still get you to where you want to be financially but isn’t going to cost you you know the the pain every year kind of moving forward. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s, man, I feel like that one, I feel like I can feel that one a little too close to home. I feel like i’ve been in that conversation in the past. Maybe one more. What’s one more top 10 mistake?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Rich Birch — And then again, we want people to pick up the whole thing. Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Oh, man. There’s a few different ones on here that I could certainly do. You know, one of the one of the mistakes I see and I’ll kind of end with this one. It’s it’s number 10 on the list. But, you know, I called it treating the building as as the mission.
Aaron Stanski — I’ll state the obvious, like yeah and most of the you know all the churches that listen to your podcast would not say like the building is the mission, right? The goal is never simply to complete the building project.
Aaron Stanski — The goal is to create spaces that support discipleship and outreach and worship and community impact, right, when it’s all done. But I think we also subconsciously potentially treat the building as the mission when we get to grand opening and say, man, I’m so glad I’m done. Like that’s it, like mission accomplished. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — Like you’re building your spaces, how you’re inviting guests in. I mean, it’s never done, right? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — I think, you know, I mean, I think McDonald’s has renovated every restaurant in America at least five times since the last time Burger King has ever done a remodel. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Aaron Stanski — And so they one of those environments is nice and I want to take my seventh grade boys over there after we play laser tag after church or whatever. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Stanski — And one of those I don’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so I mean I think you know trying to figure out how are we going to constantly improve, move signage, change where the guest services spot is, like experiment with kids, check in and move them around and update the carpet and use some accent paint and buy some awesome lobby furniture and um kind of see it as sort of a repetitive thing.
Aaron Stanski — And then i would also say that a lot of churches, like they hit that finish line and, you know, because of the financial stress of it and stuff, they’re like, and we made it. Unfortunately, like if you continue to grow, you’re going to have to do another project at some point…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — …or you’re going to want to launch a multi-site. And if you’re still carrying the debt of that first project, you’re not going to have the finances to do it. And so I think it’s also like saying, hey, you know, this building wasn’t the end, and we’re going to aggressively pay down the debt.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — We’re going to aggressively um open the doors to our community and let as many people use it as we can. And so, ah so yeah, that’d be one of the, one of the end ones. Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I can see that. and And I think it’s great. This part of why I love you is like, I feel like there’s a lot of folks that are in your seat that do what you do for a living, who do see the building as the mission. Even the way they talk about it, they’re like, hey, this is the most important thing. But actually, it’s just a tool to serve, which is part of why I love Risepointe, love your team, love love what you’re doing. Rich Birch — Talk to us about, I think the idea there, I’ve also experienced this, I’ve seen churches with this where they build the building and then I literally, close to a church where they built a new campus and then that campus grew by 50% in the first 10 weeks after they launched and then they were scrambling. They were like, oh my goodness, now we’ve got to like do the next thing. Rich Birch — How do we how do we plan for this one? Assuming like it might actually work like people will show up.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know how do we how do we plan on the front end thinking about, you know, beyond okay so that we get the thing open and then a bunch of new people show up. Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and and not just thinking that if you build it, they’ll somehow magically come, right? Rich Birch — Right, that’s the tension of those two. Yes, for sure. Aaron Stanski — Because that’s the tension of those two things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — So I mean, I think having the right, you know, strategic design partner or like a partner to walk alongside you in some of that, whether that’s like someone, you know, on the church growth ah side of the equation…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …that can speak into some of that strategy or the multisite strategy side of the equation, I mean, those are going to be very important voices. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Stanski — you know Like you mentioned, we want your facility to serve your mission, not ah be a lid. ah Sometimes when we take the lid off, we open, we solve a problem, right? Uh, and that’s kind of stating the obvious. Aaron Stanski — But we’ve worked with churches where, you know, they’re running three or four services, you know, they’re maxed out. And so, yeah, we go and we double the number of seats. We open a bunch of things. And instead of coming once every six weeks, everyone starts coming once every three weeks because there’s more parking spots and more seats. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — And so that’s when you get that immediate 50%, you know, bump. And it’s not from, you know, reaching more people necessarily. It’s it’s literally just your attendance pattern changing. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — So when you’re sitting down and having these conversations, I think it’s really important that you look at some of those trends. You’re looking at your attendance data, and you’re, you know, you’re sort of measuring, you know, what do we think this thing’s going to do? Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s fantastic. I love I love this. So we’ve got, you know, there’s a multiple, there’s other ones that we want people to check out. Again, we’ll put a link in the show notes, but it’s just Risepointe.com/unseminary. You can pick that up. There are “Top 10 Mistakes Churches Make in Construction Projects” from the mouth of someone who sees a lot of these, we don’t want people to make these mistakes. Rich Birch — How early in the process should a church reach out to you? So my my sense is that we have churches reaching out too late in the process. But how early, like if we start thinking, hmm, you know, we’re filling, you know, things are filling up. We’re thinking about, we got to fix the kids ministry space. How when in that process should they say, hey, I got to talk to Aaron and the team at Risepointe? Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think like if you talk to any salesperson in the, you know, on the planet, they’ll tell you like, well, you got to talk to me right away.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — The sooner, the better, like the sooner you’re planning to buy a car or the sooner you should call me.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think ah having the conversation and the right strategic triggers to know when you need to start like the design process and the construction process, that’s the key. Aaron Stanski — So, you know, if you call Risepointe, you’re not, you know, we’re not starting architecture. We’re not selling you services or anything like that. So I think bringing bringing either us in or another trusted expert, you know we say when you reach 80% capacity at your largest service, you need to have the conversation started. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — You know, you can be at 80% capacity at your largest service and be launching your first, second service, right? And that’s very different than adding your fourth or fifth on a Saturday or something like that. But in general, we we say that that’s usually that tipping point…
Rich Birch — That’s good trigger.
Aaron Stanski — …where we want to at least say, what is the strategy? What is the plan? What are the triggers so that the facility itself doesn’t become a lid to our growth? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s I like that’s a really good I like a good tripwire like that. I think there’s a lot of churches that are at that spot. And actually, you can go on the Risepointe website and actually schedule like an initial call, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Rich Birch — You can drop by there. Why don’t you to tell us a little bit about that? What am I committing to? If I click the schedule to call button, what what does that mean? Aaron Stanski — Yeah, we’ve got a little “Ask the Architect” series and stuff that’s that’s rolling as well. But it basically just means you get to talk to someone who’s a church guy or gal first, but who’s an architect or a design professional. And they just want to meet you and hear a little bit about like your church and your story and where are you at and what are some of the questions that you have? What are some of the things that you’re wrestling with? Aaron Stanski — A lot of times we’re pulling up examples from other churches and kind of like walking you through some ideas or pointing you in a direction that might be helpful. But yeah, on that call, we really want to get into what’s what’s going on at your church specifically. What are some of the concerns? What are some of the things that you’re seeing or not seeing? And sometimes there’s some a homework assignment coming out of it. Aaron Stanski — Like, right. Hey, let’s go get your attendance data. Let’s take a look at some of these things. Let’s try to figure out what’s going on. Let’s have someone take a picture in the parking lot because you’re never in the parking lot on a Sunday morning. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Stanski — You’re backstage or whatever. And ah but, yeah, it’s a great first step in you know trying to figure out you know what you need to do with your facility. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’ve had, you know, multiple friends who have done that. I just be so thankful for your team’s interaction with them and just some helpful guidance in that, even that initial call to be like, hey, here’s a couple of things. Here’s a couple questions that they would ask that have you think about that, Yeah, it’s not like ah we’re committing to anything today. It’s necessarily a conversation to get the ball rolling. I think that could be super helpful. Rich Birch — Well, friends, again, we want to send you to Risepointe.com/unseminary to pick up a copy of this 10 Mistakes. I think it’s a super helpful resource that you could even just kick around with your leadership team. Hey, let’s talk about these ones. Could be great. Any kind of final words, just as we wrap up today’s episode, we want to make sure that people hear about when we’re thinking about construction projects. Aaron Stanski — You know, I would, you know, I’d say construction is ah scary and it can be expensive and it’s not what most of us went to school to do. So I would just say, like, take courage. Rich Birch — That’s good. Aaron Stanski — Like man, the number of times that we’ve seen the Lord like just show up in unbelievable ways ah when His churches stepped out in faith and said, hey, like we’re going to you know we’re going to go take something on. And so I would just say like have courage. Do not be afraid. And you know, like, yeah, make it, you know, it’s not about the building, right? It’s about it’s about lost people and and sharing the gospel.
Aaron Stanski — And so, um yeah, if my mistakes can help you out in any way, I would love to love to share those with you. Rich Birch — I love it. So good. Well, Aaron, this is a great, great conversation today. Appreciate you coming back on and and helping us think through some of these issues. Again, we want to send people to Risepointewithane.com to schedule that call or, you know, pick up the mistakes. Anywhere else we want to send them online to track with you or with your firm? Aaron Stanski — Nah, man, that’s fine. I mean, they can find us on socials and stuff like that if they want to see like nerdy pictures of like church construction being built and like… Rich Birch — Mid build guys walking around… Aaron Stanski — …mid-build stuff, concrete getting poured or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — But but no, it’d be great. Rich Birch — Guys in hard hats, people in hard hats walking around…
Aaron Stanski — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know, half built buildings. That’s good. Thanks so much, Aaron. Appreciate you, that sir. Thanks for coming on today.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich. Bye.
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Leading with Clarity: Lessons from Atlanta Mission’s Tensley Almand
Nov 27, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tensley Almand, President and CEO of Atlanta Mission, the largest and longest-running provider of services for people experiencing homelessness in the Atlanta metro area. Founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen during the Great Depression, Atlanta Mission now operates four campuses, serving over […]
From Scarcity to Multiplication: Lessons from a Prevailing Church with Jamie Barfield
Nov 20, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jamie Barfield, the Lead Pastor at Palmetto Pointe Church in South Carolina. Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with four locations in South Carolina, a campus in Southern Illinois, and Spanish-language services reaching even more people. Is your […]
From Guests to Baptisms: Building Clear Next Steps with John Sellers
Nov 13, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with John Sellers, Executive Pastor of Locations and a location pastor at Journey Church in Central Florida. Journey is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with a thriving online community, three campuses, and a fourth location on the way. Is your church […]
REPLAY: Church Growth Launchpad: 5 Levers Fast-Growing Churches Use to Multiply Invitations
Nov 12, 2025
In this special workshop episode, Rich Birch unpacks the same five systems thriving churches use to move from hoping for growth to launching it. If you’ve ever felt like your church’s momentum is hard to sustain—or that your people love your church but don’t naturally invite—this episode gives you a simple roadmap to turn things […]
Why Most 800-Person Churches Die of Niceness
Nov 11, 2025
Nice is not a growth strategy. When I was a young adult, I worked at a Christian summer camp called Camp Mini-Yo-We. You know the place; canoes skimming across a glassy lake, worship songs around a campfire that somehow made the stars feel closer, friendships soldered together over bug juice and burnt marshmallows. It was […]
Faithful in the Moment: Staying Rooted in Christ While Leading a Growing Church with Jeff Warren
Nov 06, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeff Warren, Senior Pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Founded 86 years ago, PCBC is a fast-growing multicultural, multilingual, and multigenerational church. What does it mean to stay faithful when leadership gets hard? In this candid conversation, Jeff shares […]
Stop Buying Church Marketing. Start Building Inviters.
Nov 04, 2025
Most churches are overspending on visibility and under-investing in invitations. In the late 1900s 😉 I ran a dot-com back when saying “I run a dot-com” got you a seat at the cool table. We obsessed over our branding. Fancy logo. Perfect domain. Debated five kinds of red like our lives depended on hex codes. […]
Helping Your Church Engage with God’s Word Daily: Lessons from YouVersion with Lucinda Ross
Oct 30, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lucinda Ross, Central Group Leader of Communications at Life.Church, one of the most influential and innovative churches in the world. Since its founding in 1996, Life.Church has grown to more than 40 locations across the U.S. and a massive global online presence. […]
Stop Saying the Attractional Church Is Dead
Oct 28, 2025
Let’s start with a confession. I’ve misdiagnosed “dead” more times than I care to admit…more than a coroner in a zombie movie marathon. I have this bad habit of declaring the demise of trends that are, in fact, quietly entering their prime. I thought podcasts were “saturated” back in 2013 when I started the unSeminary […]
Stop the Noise: Building Clear Communication in a Growing Church with Luke Cornwell
Oct 23, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Luke Cornwell, Communications Pastor at Realife Church in Indiana. Founded in 2007, Realife has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America with two thriving campuses, a STEAM Academy for preschoolers, and a partnership with Southeastern University. Luke brings a unique […]
Your Church’s Growth Is Killing Your Church’s Growth
Oct 21, 2025
In 8th grade, I thought I was unstoppable. A growth spurt gave me height, leverage, and what felt like destiny. I could clear high jump bars with a scissors kick while others struggled. No training, no technique, just raw advantage. I beat everyone in my school, made it to my town’s track and field meet, […]
Pioneering Bilingual Multisite Ministry with Eric Garza
Oct 16, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Eric Garza, Executive Pastor at Cross Church in Texas. Founded in 1995, Cross Church has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with 12 campuses across the Rio Grande Valley and beyond. With a unique focus on bilingual ministry, Cross […]
The Future of Large Churches: Early Findings from the 2025 Survey with Warren Bird
Oct 09, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Warren Bird—author, researcher, and one of the most trusted voices in church leadership studies. Warren has co-authored over 35 books for pastors and church leaders, including Hero Maker, Better Together, Next, Resilience Factor, and his newest, Becoming a Future-Ready Church. Known […]
Teaching on Money Without Being Weird: 5 Churches Doing It Right
Oct 07, 2025
Early in our marriage, rent ate half our income. At the end of one of our first months living together, we had $35 total left for a week’s worth of groceries. Christine was stressed. (Totally understandable.) I started building a compelling, highly spiritual case for “maybe we skip giving this month.” Christine cut through my […]
From One Campus to Six: Building a Global Leadership Model with Lane Lowery
Oct 02, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lane Lowery, Executive Pastor of Warren Church in South Carolina and Georgia. Founded in 1898, Warren is one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with over 7,000 members across its campuses. Known for its Southern hospitality, Bible teaching, and focus on whole-person […]
From 300 to 2,500: Building a Leadership Pipeline That Fuels Growth with Chris Vaught
Sep 25, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Chris Vaught, lead pastor of Connection Point Church (CPC) in Missouri. Under his leadership, CPC has grown from 300 people in 2011 to over 2,500 today across multiple campuses. With a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders, […]
Clarity Is Kindness: Simplifying Next Steps in a Growing Church with Ashley Lentz
Sep 18, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ashley Lentz from Lutheran Church of Hope in Iowa. As the Connections Pastor at one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country, Ashley brings a wealth of practical insight into creating personal connection in a growing church. Struggling to connect new guests and […]
Who’s the Next You? Building a Gen Z Residency Pipeline with Dave Miller
Sep 11, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Dave Miller. With a background in worship and creative arts ministry across Las Vegas, Kentucky, and Michigan, Dave now leads Leadership Pathway, an organization focused on helping the next generation of church leaders take their healthiest first steps […]
$100M Book Launch? What Your Church Can Learn from Alex Hormozi
Aug 29, 2025
In this special rushed episode of the unSeminary Podcast, Rich unpacks the biggest nonfiction book launch in history: Alex Hormozi’s $100M Book Launch. Alex didn’t rely on TikTok trends, billboards, or mass media. Instead, he orchestrated a carefully choreographed campaign that leaned heavily on email — sometimes sending seven to nine emails in a single […]
Reclaiming Silenced Voices: Women, Scripture & the Church with Taylor Scott-Reimer
Aug 28, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Taylor Scott-Reimer, a dynamic speaker, advocate, and author of She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves. Is your church truly inviting the full participation of women? Are female leaders empowered to speak, shape, and serve—or are […]
One Prayer That Changed Everything: Building an Invite Culture with Zenzo Matoga
Aug 21, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Zenzo Matoga, Senior Pastor of Impact Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Malawi, Africa, Zenzo brings a passion for evangelism shaped by the revival crusades of Reinhard Bonnke. Under Zenzo’s leadership, Impact Church has become one of the fastest-growing churches in America, […]
Don’t Make It Hard: Welcoming Newcomers to Faith with Robert Watson
Aug 14, 2025
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest, Robert Watson, comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights he shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Welcome back to […]
Leading Staff Teams Well: Behind-the-Scenes Lessons from Growing Churches
Aug 07, 2025
In this special roundup episode of the unSeminary podcast, we highlight key insights from three previously recorded interviews focused on strengthening church staff teams. In celebration of the Summer 2025 issue of Executive Pastor Magazine, this curated compilation revisits rich conversations with leadership experts Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird, executive pastor Ken McAnulty […]
When Tech Holds Your Church Back: IT Fixes You Should Make with Steece Hayes
Jul 31, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Steece Hayes, a bi-vocational pastor and account manager at Higher Ground Managed IT, part of the ACS Technologies family. Is your ministry struggling with unreliable tech, security risks, or outdated systems—and you’re not even sure where to begin fixing it? Tune in as Steece brings […]
Spirit-Led Strategy: Smarter Church Decisions Without Losing Your Soul with Yolanda Stewart
Jul 24, 2025
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest Yolanda comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights she shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Do you ever feel […]
Why Your Church Isn’t Seeing Christmas Growth
Jul 21, 2025
You’re not alone. Many churches hope for big impact at Christmas but end up seeing minimal growth, and it’s not because your people don’t care or your services aren’t good enough. In this final installment of our 3-part summer series on planning for Christmas, Rich Birch unpacks the real reasons why churches miss the mark—and […]
Why Your Church Staff Might Be Out of Alignment (and How to Fix It) with Devin Goins
Jul 17, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Devin Goins, Executive Pastor of Strategic Development at Biltmore Church in western North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. Is your church growing but you’re struggling to keep your team aligned and rowing in the same direction? Tune in as Devin outlines a […]
3 Churches That Leveraged Christmas Well … and What You Should Copy This Year
Jul 14, 2025
What if you could double your church’s attendance this Christmas … just by doing what other growing churches already do? In this second installment of our special Christmas planning series, Rich Birch unpacks three real-life examples from churches that didn’t leave Christmas up to chance—and saw incredible results. These churches represent different regions and contexts, […]
Dream Again: A Church’s Journey from Debt to Deep Impact with Mike Winger
Jul 10, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Winger, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore-Washington area. What does it take to launch a bold new vision while carrying the weight of financial obstacles? Tune in as Mike unpacks the multi-year process that led to Mosaic’s Unlimited campaign—one […]
Why Christmas Can Still Be the Biggest Service of the Year At Your Church
Jul 07, 2025
Is your church treating Christmas like the massive growth opportunity it truly is? In today’s solo episode, Rich explores why Christmas remains the most strategic moment in the church calendar for reaching new people, even in a post-pandemic world. Drawing on compelling stats and years of experience helping churches grow, Rich makes a compelling case […]
Leading Through Stress Without Burning Out with Charles Stone
Jul 03, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Charles Stone, seasoned pastor, author, and leadership coach. Feeling overwhelmed by the constant demands of ministry? Looking for biblical practices that can help reduce anxiety and fuel long-term health? Tune in as Charles shares insights from his latest book, Stress Less, blending timeless biblical […]
Reaching Gen Z Starts with Rethinking Church with Russ Ewell
Jun 26, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Russ Ewell, Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) in California and founder of Deep Spirituality. How can churches meaningfully engage and empower the next generation of leaders? With campuses across Silicon Valley and a deep commitment to developing future leaders, […]
From Living Room to 5,000: Leading a Fast-Growing Church with Jason Hanash
Jun 19, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Hanash, the founding and lead pastor of Discovery Church in California—one of the fastest growing churches in the country. How do you restructure your staff leadership to keep pace with rapid church growth? Tune in as Jason shares how Discovery evolved from a living […]
Leading Change Without Losing Your Team with Craig Smith
Jun 12, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast! Today we’re talking with Craig Smith, Lead Pastor of Mission Hills Church in Colorado—an 80+ year-old multisite church and one of the fastest-growing in the country. Is your church growing faster than your systems can handle? Do you ever feel like your team is working hard but not aligned? […]
Cultivating a Staff Culture that Drives Church Growth with Shayla McCormick
Jun 05, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Shayla McCormick, Executive Pastor at Coastal Community Church, a thriving multisite church in South Florida known for its authentic culture and rapid growth. How do you build and protect a thriving staff culture as your church grows? Tune in as Shayla offers practical, actionable insight […]
Burnout, Breakthrough, and the Road to a Healthier Ministry with Bob Riedy
May 29, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Bob Riedy, Senior Pastor of Church of the Open Door in Pennsylvania. After leading one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, Bob found himself facing a personal and professional breakdown. In this deeply transparent episode, he shares his journey through burnout, […]
Cracking the Outreach Code in Your City with Quovadis Marshall
May 22, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Quovadis Marshall (Pastor Q), Lead Pastor at Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa. Caught up in a life of gangs and violence, he became incarcerated at nineteen years old. However, Pastor Q experienced a life-transforming encounter with Christ through the Prison Fellowship Academy Program. Now […]
Leaving Well: A Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Healthy Staff Exit with Rachel Long & Danny Anderson
May 15, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we’re joined by Danny Anderson, Lead Pastor of Emmanuel Church in Indiana, and Rachel Long, founder of the Joshua Center. They share their story of navigating a significant transition when Rachel moved from being the Executive Pastor at Emmanuel Church […]
Cut Prep Time, Boost Engagement: The Future of Preaching with Eric Smith
May 08, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Eric Smith, founder and lead pastor of Hope City Church in Florida and co-creator of SermonDone. Are you a pastor who’s feeling the pressure of sermon prep each week? Wondering how you can save time on research and content creation without compromising the quality […]
The #1 Question Growing Churches Should Be Asking Now with Aaron Stanski
May 01, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a church design and project management firm that helps growing ministries align their physical spaces with their mission. With a background in engineering and church leadership, Aaron brings unique insights into how churches can strategically […]
LCBC: 19 Campuses in the Rust Belt with 25,000 Attendees? Keys to Multisite at Scale
Apr 24, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast during our All About Multisite month. Today we’re talking with David Ashcraft, CEO and President of the Global Leadership Network (GLN), and former Senior Pastor of LCBC Church in Pennsylvania. Are you wrestling with growing pains as your church multiplies? How does an expanding multisite church keep its vision […]
The Money Question: How to Fund, Sustain, and Grow a Thriving Multisite Church
Apr 23, 2025
Let’s face it: talking finances can be uncomfortable, but it’s a critical conversation, especially in multisite ministry. Today, I’m tackling one of the toughest—and most essential—questions in multisite: How do we fund, sustain, and scale financially healthy campuses? Throughout our All About Multisite series, I’m providing practical answers every Wednesday and hosting insightful interviews with […]
Christ Fellowship Miami: Homegrown Leaders, Global Impact in a Thriving Multisite Model
Apr 17, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this All About Multisite month podcast episode we’re talking with Omar Giritli, Lead Pastor, and Carlos Cardenas, Executive Pastor at Christ Fellowship. With campuses spread across Miami, the Caribbean and South America, Christ Fellowship has truly become a model of how to lead a diverse, multi-generational […]
Multisite Myths Busted: How to Overcome the Biggest Multisite Growing Pains
Apr 16, 2025
The multisite journey isn’t always smooth—even thriving churches experience growing pains. Today, I’m busting some of the biggest myths and offering practical insights to overcome common struggles within multisite churches. Every week during All About Multisite month, I’m diving deep into practical solutions on Wednesdays and hosting behind-the-scenes conversations with multisite leaders on Thursdays. Today’s […]
One Church: Preaching, Prayer & Presence—A Fresh Take on The Multisite Model
Apr 10, 2025
Welcome back to another special All About Multisite episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Bo Chancey (Senior Pastor) and Jeremy Peterson (Executive Pastor) from One Church, a growing multisite church based in New Hampshire. With four physical “outposts” and a thriving online presence, One Church is reaching communities across rural and suburban […]
Many Locations, One Church: How to Keep Your DNA While Adapting to Local Campuses
Apr 09, 2025
Multisite ministry sounds great—one church, many locations—but practically speaking, balancing centralized consistency with local campus adaptations is a real challenge. In today’s episode of the All About Multisite series, I want to help you manage this important balance effectively. Throughout this series, I’m sharing practical wisdom every Wednesday and insightful interviews with successful multisite churches […]
The Summit Church: Clarity, Culture & Core—Keys to Leading 13 Campuses
Apr 03, 2025
Thanks for joining us for this special episode of the unSeminary podcast as we kick off All About Multisite month. In this conversation, we’re joined by Rick Langston and Daniel Simmons from The Summit Church in North Carolina. Rick serves as the Executive Pastor of Strategic Initiatives, and Daniel is the Executive Pastor of Campuses […]
Is Your Church Ready for Multisite? Avoiding Costly Mistakes Before You Launch
Apr 02, 2025
Multisite churches have dramatically increased—from just a few hundred in the early 2000s to over 5,000 today. I’ve had the honor of being at the core this movement for nearly 2.5 decades, having led 13 multisite launches and coached many more. My goal in this solo episode is to share insights from my own experience […]
Future-Focused Churches: Why Relational Discipleship Matters with Kara Powell
Mar 27, 2025
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’re talking with Kara Powell, the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. How is your church engaging with the next generation? Building connection and trust with young people can be difficult in today’s world. […]
The Leadership Balancing Act: Building Trust as a Middle Manager in a Large Church with Diana Rush
Mar 20, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Diana Rush, the Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church, a multisite church with locations in California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Are you a middle manager in a church trying to balance the pressures from both your senior leadership and your […]
Right People, Right Seats: Rethinking Church Staffing for Growth with Amy Anderson
Mar 13, 2025
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Amy Anderson, the managing director at The Unstuck Group. Unstuck helps pastors grow healthy churches by guiding them through experiences that align vision, strategy, team, and action. Is your church feeling stuck or overwhelmed by its growth? Wondering if you have the right […]
Seven Days, Not Just Sundays: Using Technology to Engage Your Church All Week Long with Tyler Vance
Mar 06, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tyler Vance, the COO of Apollos, a digital platform designed to help churches thrive by using technologies for personal growth. Despite being more digitally connected than ever, people lack deep, meaningful relationships. Gen Z has often been called the loneliest generation in history. However, churches are uniquely […]
Building Bridges, Not Barriers: A Gospel-Centered Approach to Immigrant Ministry with Rick & Patti Love
Feb 27, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rick and Patti Love, founders of the organizations Love New Canadians and Love New Internationals. These ministries equip churches to serve new immigrants, refugees, and international students in their neighborhoods. Since 2014 Rick and Patti Love have worked with more than 700 churches and ministries in […]
Healthy Things Grow: Building a Unified and Thriving Staff Team with Chad Bickley
Feb 20, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chad Bickley, the executive pastor at Skyline Church in California. Is your church experiencing growth, but you’re struggling with how to maintain a healthy team culture? Wondering how to create a culture that drives growth while ensuring your staff remains aligned and healthy? In this episode […]
Big Dreams, Healthy Rhythms: Avoiding Burnout in Growing Churches with Danny Anderson
Feb 13, 2025
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Danny Anderson, the Lead Pastor at Emmanuel Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Is your church growing quickly, but you’re feeling the pressure? Wondering how to balance church growth with spiritual health for yourself and your staff team? Danny shares his journey of leading a fast-growing […]
Great Leaders Over Great Content: Secret Sauce to Thriving Groups with Adam Ader
Feb 06, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Adam Ader, the Groups Director at Parkview Christian Church in Illinois. Is your church looking to improve how you connect people into life-changing groups? Wondering how to lead a growing group ministry that truly impacts people’s lives? Tune in as Adam shares valuable insights on […]
Breaking Free: Addressing Sexual Brokenness in the Church with Nick Stumbo
Jan 30, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Nick Stumbo, the Executive Director of Pure Desire Ministries. According to a Barna study, 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women view pornography at least occasionally, with 67% of pastors having a personal history of porn use. How can churches effectively address pervasive issues […]
The Art of Preaching: Balancing Depth and Accessibility in a Secular World with Mark Clark
Jan 23, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re learning from Mark Clark, the founder of Village Church, a multi-site church with locations in multiple cities across Canada and online around the world. He is […]
Repurpose, Reach, Renew: Unleashing AI for Your Church’s Mission with Kenny Jahng
Jan 22, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re learning from Kenny Jahng, founder of Big Click Syndicate and AI for Church Leaders, and Editor in Chief of Church Tech Today. We’re talking about how […]
700 Million and Counting: Your Church’s Role in the Fight Against Extreme Poverty with Mike Mantel & Jonathan Wiles
Jan 16, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re hearing from Mike Mantel, the President and CEO, and Jonathan Wiles, the Chief Operating Officer, of Living Water International (LWI), a faith-based global humanitarian organization. Together […]
Preventing Marital Breakdown: Creating Proactive Support Systems in Your Church with Nicky & Sila Lee
Jan 15, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Nicky and Sila Lee of The Marriage Course // Alpha International, and are talking about how marriages will still be struggling. Nearly half of […]
Mentoring Gen Z Leaders: Insights from Leadership Pathway’s Residency Program with Dave Miller
Jan 09, 2025
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Dave Miller, co-founder of Leadership Pathway, and are talking about how the next generation will matter more. Are you curious about how your church […]
Healthy Digital Habits: How Churches Can Support Families in a Tech-Driven Culture with Natalie Frisk
Jan 08, 2025
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re continuing with our special series called unPredictions 2025 – these are timeless topics that will keep shaping church leadership in 2025 and beyond. Today we’re talking with Natalie Frisk, the director of curriculum at Raise Up Faith, about how parents will be worrying about their kids. […]
Faster Connections, Lasting Community: Effective Church Assimilation with Greg Curtis
Jan 02, 2025
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. To kick off the new year, we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless topics that are consistent and crucial for church growth in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Greg Curtis, the Director of First Steps and Content Development at Eastside Christian Church and founder of Climbing the […]
Rebuilding and Relaunching: Lessons in Church Renewal with James Griffin
Dec 19, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with James Griffin, the lead pastor at Crosspoint City Church in Georgia. Is your church working through a difficult season and struggling to see fruit? Wondering how a church can overcome significant challenges and emerge stronger than ever? In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast James shares […]
Power of a Map, Not a Menu: Transforming Ministry Strategy with Mariners Church’s Jared Kirkwood
Dec 12, 2024
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jared Kirkwood, the Executive Pastor of Ministries and Lead Pastor at the Irvine location of Mariners Church in California. A church’s mission isn’t much without a strategy. How are you aligning, training, and equipping people at your church to take their next steps […]
Building Leaders for the Next Generation: Insights on Developing Residency Programs with Pat Gillen
Dec 05, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Pat Gillen, the Executive Pastor of Families and a teaching pastor from First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina. How are you cultivating leaders at your church? Are you trying to figure out your next step for developing Gen Z? Tune in as Pat […]
Staying Aligned as a Staff Team in a Growing Church: Insights from Andy Hill
Nov 28, 2024
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Andy Hill, the Executive Pastor at Mobberly Baptist Church in Texas. How do you keep your church’s staff aligned? The more your church grows, the more challenging it is to keep everyone connected and moving in the same direction. In this episode of the unSeminary […]
Embracing Digital for Church Growth: Insights from Saddleback’s Online Pastor Jay Kranda
Nov 21, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda this week, the online campus pastor at Saddleback Church in California. What are you doing with online church? How does it fit in with your digital strategy? How can digital tools strengthen in-person community? Tune in as Jay discusses a team-based approach to digital […]
Stability in Transition: Insights on Church Succession from Drake Farmer
Nov 14, 2024
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m looking forward to talking with Drake Farmer, the Executive Pastor of Ministries from Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada. Are you curious about how churches manage leadership transitions smoothly? Learn about the strategic and intentional planning behind the leadership transition as Daniel Im (interviewed here) […]
Leadership People Will Trust: Insights from Jenni Field’s Nobody Believes You
Nov 13, 2024
In this deep dive episode of the unSeminary podcast, we explore Jenni Field’s insightful book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow. This conversation delves into practical strategies and timeless leadership principles tailored especially for those guiding teams in a church context. Field’s book offers a fresh perspective on becoming a credible leader […]
Grow More, Send More: Building a Sending Church with Andrew Hopper
Nov 07, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Andrew Hopper, the founding and lead pastor of Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina. Andrew has also started Breaking Barriers, which provides pastors and churches with biblical strategies to help them grow in order to go. Are you curious about how to effectively grow […]
Kids Ministry in a Changing World: Building a Thriving Children’s Ministry with Justyn Smith
Oct 31, 2024
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast! This week we have with us Justyn Smith, Executive Kids Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Arizona and a story catalyst at Plain Joe. What does an effective children’s ministry look like? What does kids’ ministry at your church look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a child, […]
How to Make Your Church Irresistible: Proven Strategies for Creating an Invite Culture
Oct 30, 2024
In this Deep Dive episode of the unSeminary Podcast, the hosts explore how to make your church irresistible by discussing Rich Birch’s book, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture: Strategies for Church Growth That Work Today. The conversation unpacks Birch’s insights on how churches can cultivate an environment where members naturally want to invite others into […]
From Despair to Connection: Helping Youth Overcome Mental Health Challenges with Will Hutcherson
Oct 24, 2024
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Will Hutcherson, a Next Gen and Student Pastor who has become increasingly passionate about finding practical ways to bring hope to kids and teens who are facing anxiety, depression, and despair. This led to him starting Curate Hope, a non-profit that focuses on […]
Rethinking Your Kids’ Ministry Spaces: Aaron Stanski with Practical Tips for Church Leaders
Oct 17, 2024
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Aaron Stanski, the founder and CEO of Risepointe. They provide creative design solutions so that your church’s mission isn’t held back by its building. Is your kids’ ministry space feeling tired? Churches often take more design risks with kids’ environments through use of color […]
Portable Church Success: Systems that Last and Leaders that Thrive with Jeff Beachum
Oct 10, 2024
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Jeff Beachum with us. He’s part of Portable Church Industries (PCI), which has helped thousands of churches launch and operate successfully in mobile settings. Jeff serves as the Multiplication Specialist and Director of Marketing. Is your church running out of capacity, but looking for […]
Prepare for the Unexpected: Crisis Communication Strategies for Your Church with Kim Tarlton
Oct 03, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to talk with Kim Tarlton, the General Manager of Church Communications Group which helps church communicators navigate the complexities of the modern communication landscape. Many churches operate under the misconception that crises won’t happen to them. However, crises can arise from various sources, including issues in the […]
Marking a Milestone: Carey Nieuwhof’s Change Leadership Insights 10 Years Later
Sep 26, 2024
Thanks for joining us for today’s unSeminary podcast. Carey Nieuwhof has been a guiding light in the church leadership space for decades and this week we’re celebrating the ten-year anniversary of his podcast. To mark this special occasion, we’re revisiting an interview we did with him 10 years ago. Do you have things at your […]
Can a Church Stay Mid-Sized and Still Multiply? A Conversation About Growth and Vision
Sep 19, 2024
Welcome to an Office Hours episode of the unSeminary podcast. In our Office Hours episodes I’m happy to answer your questions that you can submit via an audio file through our website. Mark Strickland is the lead pastor at Milton Bible Church in Milton, Ontario, Canada. His mid-sized church has about 300 attending on Sunday […]
Building an Inviting Church: Greg Griffith on 60% Growth in Two Years
Sep 12, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Greg Griffith, Lead Pastor at King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska. If your church does what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. But when you take a risk and step out of your comfort zone, who knows how God can use […]
Building Trust and Unity in a Fast-Growing Church: Drew Karschner’s Insights on Empathy and Authenticity
Sep 05, 2024
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. This week Drew Karschner is joining us. He’s the Lead Pastor at Northridge Church in Rochester, New York – one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. While church growth is a blessing, it often comes with hardships that must be navigated carefully. Whether your church is […]
Creating Inclusive Spaces: Making Churches Accessible for All with Kerri-Ann Hayes
Aug 29, 2024
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kerri-Ann Hayes today. In addition to being a senior consultant at Ministry Architects, Kerri-Ann has worked in children’s and family ministry for over 20 years and has a heart for making churches more inclusive for families with special needs. At our churches we want […]
Redefining Ministry for Men: Brian Tome on Man Camp and Spiritual Awakening
Aug 22, 2024
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re sitting down with Brian Tome, the founder and senior pastor at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati – one of the fastest growing and most innovative churches in the country. Whether we realize it or not, the systems in our churches are often set up to cater to […]
The Volunteer Playbook: Secrets to Building a Thriving Ministry Team with Nick Blevins
Aug 15, 2024
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. Today, we have repeat guest, Nick Blevins, the Children and Student Team Leader at Community Christian Church in Maryland. He is also the cofounder of Ministry Boost which helps leaders fast forward their growth in ministry through training, coaching, and consulting. Every church out there could use […]
Out of the Seats and Into The Streets: Leading Effective Community and Global Outreach with Kristin Flynn
Aug 08, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Kristin Flynn, the Outreach Director at Liquid Church in New Jersey. She leads the charge in both local and global outreach. Putting our faith into action through loving service is an important part of following Jesus. So how do we help the people at our […]
From Blown Up Lives to New Beginnings: How Summit Christian Church Transforms Communities with Bryan Smith
Aug 01, 2024
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Bryan Smith, the lead pastor of Summit Christian Church in Sparks, Nevada. We are increasingly living in a culture where many are completely unchurched, having no preconceived notion of what church looks like. Yet this can provide just the opportunity where people are […]
Community First: How Century Church is Redefining Outreach and Church Spaces with Patrick Quinn
Jul 25, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Patrick Quinn, the lead pastor at Century Church in Alabama. Century has a vision to plant one hundred churches across America in order to see more people brought into a life-saving communion with Jesus Christ. Can you imagine a church so ingrained in a local community […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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. You can learn more about Emmanuel Church at www.eclife.org, […]
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 […]
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