From First Fifty to New Frontiers: Mike Signorelli on Moving Your People to Deeper Levels of Commitment

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 the tension between evangelism and discipleship? Tune in as Mike shares the key to empowering your leaders and how to transition people to deeper engagement and growth.

* Model the culture. // Are we teaching people to evangelize and lead lost people to Christ in their own lives outside the church? Are we helping them disciple people? Mike knew that New York City was a tough place for a church to grow and he felt strongly that leading the lost to Christ needed to be at the heart of V1 Church. In order to develop a culture of evangelism, Mike modeled the importance of it by living it out himself and leading the first 18 members of his church to Christ. As church leaders, we impart who we are. If we don’t do what we tell our congregation to do, we become the lid.

* Discipleship in everything. // Mike also wanted V1 to be about ruthless disciple-making. At V1 Church they intentionally connect the word discipleship to everything going on at the church, from small groups to listening to sermons. Like most churches, V1 has an assimilation pipeline, however they also have a family tree framework that helps disciples make more disciples.

* Inward to outward-focused. // Discipleship-focused churches can have a reputation for becoming too inward-looking. To counter this, Mike presents V1 Church’s process of guiding people through three distinct phases that help them move from inward-focused to outward-focused: hospital (healing), to family (belonging), to army (mission). This framework aims to shift the church’s focus outward, combating the consumeristic culture that often infiltrates American churches.

* Finding healing. // When people come to Christ, they are coming broken because of the world we live in. As pastors, we want people to jump in and serve, but they can’t live beyond their level of health or be generous when they are in pain. The path to sustainable serving is to make people the healthiest version of themselves. At V1 they have a huge emphasis on therapy and counseling in the hospital phase, building value into a person’s life so they become healthy.

* Selflessly lead them. // As they get healthy, people transition to family and start to think about others. Church leaders need to discern when to put people on assignment and recruit them to serve in the church. Transitioning from a family mindset to that of an army on a mission is crucial as it furthers the church’s mission and growth. However, if you recruit people without an attempt to get them healthy first, you’re being selfish. Instead we need to recruit people after selflessly leading them, showing them that we don’t want anything from them. Then we’re empowering them.

* 10 enemies. // Mike is giving us a free download called The 10 Enemies of Process that helps church leaders work through common barriers that could be stopping your church from moving forward. It’s a great resource to read and discuss with your team.

You can connect with Mike at his website www.mikesignorelli.com. Plus, click here to download The 10 Enemies of Process.