This week on Pastor to Pioneer, the guys talk to Jim Pool, formerly a pastor of a large church in the Detroit area, about his experience leaving that role and stepping into a new, different, pioneering one.  They discuss candidly the shortcomings of the big(ish) church model, and the ways in which they desire and seek the best for its people—who are themselves, the church, after all.  The guys also walk alongside Jim as he describes the ways in which stepping into intentional relationships with people helped those folks realize he was against neither them nor the church itself.

Welcome to the kickoff episode of season two of Pastor to Pioneer!  This week, Britton, Matt, and Neal discuss where the path of pioneering can lead.  The guys wrestle with the ideas of what the church truly is—doing life together—and what it is not—an event we just show up to once (or sometimes twice) a week.  They dive into the concept of empowering people to join a community in relationship rather than just step into a church service.  Britton, Matt, and Neal also touch on the importance of elders in this way of doing church, as well as sharing stories of what this looks like practically in West Michigan.

In this round of Pastor to Pioneer, Britton, Matt, and Neal (no guest this week) discuss barriers to pioneering in the Church today.  The guys dive into some of the difficulties they have seen as they have walked alongside other pastors, but also examine hurdles from their own stories.  These obstacles include—among other things—finances, pastoral identity, and the reality that having a deep love for the people in one’s current church can make it exceptionally difficult to leave.

Everyone knows there’s only one way to be a pastor, right? Well…not so much.  In this episode of Pastor to Pioneer the guys talk to Wes Sharp, a pastor in Alabama who began discovering new paths of leadership and disciple making. 

Wes shares how his initial understanding of making disciples was that the only way to do that was to go to seminary and become a pastor—to do it the “right” way.  He eventually discovered, though, that it was much less complicated than that.  Wes has been able to make huge strides in his community and in growing and empowering other followers of Jesus through operating in a much simpler and more relational way than the path he originally thought he had to follow.  Wes didn’t abandon his initial work as a traditional pastor, though, and talks about how and why he simultaneously operates as both a pastor of a larger church and helps lead the simple, decentralized church in his area.

Transition is never easy, and this week on Pastor to Pioneer, Moy Soriano talks about the challenges of leaving his role as a pastor and stepping into pioneering something significantly more decentralized—in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, but also with a heart for Mexico.

Moy shares about going when called, and trusting God in that call.  He discusses the ways in which the church is—needs to be—sent, and stories from his life and others about answering that call.

Welcome to episode three of Pastor to Pioneer.  This week we hear from John Marshall, a pastor who left a large, successful church in New Mexico to start a church plant in New England.  John discusses how as he attempted to grow this new church, discontent was growing within him as he came to new realizations of what the Bible says about pastors and pastoring.

John shares how he became so disillusioned with the church plant and his role in it that he left—and started a small, simple house church that meets in his home.  In this setting, John has found that he is better able to lead and shepherd our of who he is rather than out of external expectations, and he is enjoying the freedom that comes with leading in this way and the resulting growth and empowerment of the people he walks alongside.

This week on Pastor to Pioneer, the guys talk to Justin Roper, a former youth pastor of a large church on the East Coast.  Justin talks about how he was quickly climbing the “corporate church ladder” and moving to bigger and bigger churches—a hotshot, surefire success of a youth leader.  He was having an incredible amount of what most people would deem success, but no matter how big his youth group got, he struggled mightily whenever kids would leave—his identity was completely wrapped up in the number of kids attending the youth group.

Justin discusses how this hit him, the leap of faith that lead him to leave the big church setting and begin a simple house church, and the mistakes he made along the way as he and his family began to do church differently than they ever previously had—and how he still has great hope for the church as it moves forward.

In this new podcast, three pastors examine the ways in which the church has shifted, needs to shift, and could be made better.  With insights from weekly guests of various backgrounds, they dive into a subject that is a true passion for each of them—the church.

As Pastor to Pioneer kicks off in this first episode, meet the hosts.  Each of them shares a bit of their respective story as they moved from the role of a traditional pastor into a more exploratory, pioneer role. Britton, Matt, and Neal explore a combination of Scripture, statistics, and their own experiences that point to the ways in which the church seems to be broken.  This comes not out of a sense of criticism but rather recognizing that there are ways in which it might and could be different going forward.

The trailer for the Pastor to Pioneer podcast. The podcast is an honest conversation with pastors and former pastors who are exhausted from existing church structures and are seeking a simpler way of being the church and making disciples like we see in scripture.