The Church Lobby

Karl Vaters interviews Dale Sellers of the 95 Network, which provides resources for the 95 percent of churches that are not large.

In this conversation, Dale and Karl talk about some of the important issues facing small churches as we come out of the pandemic and look ahead to 5-10 years of fallout, including:

• The need for rest and soul care for pastors
• Why the expected wave of pastoral resignations hasn’t happened
• What to do instead of chasing absent members
• The importance of accurately defining your congregation’s current reality

Links:

• 95 Network
• Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They'd Be There by Now
• The New Very Large Church

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Karl Vaters interviews Michael Clary about the dangers of what he calls Elitist Christianity.

This conversation was inspired by a Twitter thread Michael wrote in which he confessed to an arrogant attitude he had developed as a young, successful church planter. Michael found himself looking down on pastors and Christians who hadn’t had his training, even though they were the people whose shoulders he was standing on.

His vulnerability, confession, and repentance hold great lessons for all of us.

Links:

• Michael Clary on Twitter: @DMichaelClary
• Read Michael Clary’s Twitter Thread on Elitist Christianity
• Read it here if you’re not on Twitter

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Karl Vaters interviews Ryan Lokkesmoe, a church-planter and the author of a new book, Paul and His Team: What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Leadership and Influence.

Karl and Ryan talk about what we can learn from the way Paul worked with his ministry team, and how those lessons translate to ministry today. Including:

• How Paul dealt with conflict, not seeing people as enemies to be defeated, but as people God loves and who can be redeemed just as he was redeemed.
• Paul’s Kingdom Diplomacy as seen in a very helpful, eye-opening walk through the short, but challenging book of Philemon.
• How Paul’s teaching and life match each other in the way he dealt with people.
• How Paul prioritized constantly handing ministry off to the next generation.

Links from this episode:

• The NET (New English Translation) Bible
• Book: Paul and His Team: What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Leadership and Influence
• Real Hope Community Church

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Karl Vaters interviews Sean Nemecek, author of the just-released book, The Weary Leader’s Guide to Burnout: A Journey from Exhaustion to Wholeness. In this episode we’re talking to pastors who are wondering if they might be dealing with burnout in ministry.

Sean walks us through the following steps:

• What is burnout, and why does it seem to be on the rise, lately?
• How do I know if I’m struggling with is burnout?
• How do I take steps to recover from burnout?
• How do I protect myself from future burnout?

Sean also works with pastors through Pastor-in-Residence Ministries (pirministries.org), where his primary focus is on coaching pastors through burnout and recovery.

Links:

• SeanNemecek.com
• PastorSoul.com
• PIRministries.org
• @pastorsoul on Twitter and Instagram
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sean.nemecek
• The official website for the book is www.wearyleadersguide.com

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Karl Vaters interviews Brad Roth, a Mennonite pastor in rural Kansas, a blogger at DoxologyProject.com, and the author of God's Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church.

Brad and Karl talk about four concepts from his book:

1. The importance of Rural church
2. Acedia
3. The importance of Place
4. A New Way to Measure Growth

They also have an important conversation about replacing the typical metrics of demographics and attendance with what Brad calls “getting weird” as we assess church health and growth. Specifically, Brad raises the idea of using “rule” rather than metrics as our baseline.

This episode will encourage you who serve in rural areas, and hopefully will inspire pastors in transition to keep small towns on your list of ministry options.

Links from this episode:

• The Daily Yonder
• Rural Advancement
• Small Town Summits
• Rural Home Missionary Association
• DoxologyProject.com
• Book: God's Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church
• Book: The Hunger Inside: How the Meal Jesus Gave Transforms Lives

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Karl Vaters interviews Craig T. Owens, a pastor, author, co-host of the podcast “The Craig and Greg Show”, and a blogger at CraigTOwens.com.

In this conversation, Karl and Craig talk about the subjects addressed in his recent book, Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics that Really Matter.

Some of the important subjects include:

• Using biblical metrics for pastoral ministry
• The tendency to lead based in confidence or humility
• The essential nature of sabbath in a life of ministry
• The relationship of wisdom to shepherding
• The importance of overcoming guilt as a motivator for decisions in ministry

There’s also an important undercurrent throughout the episode about putting our servanthood into action first, knowing that only then will a servant’s heart follow.

Links from this episode:

YouVersion Bible App

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In this conversation, Karl Vaters talks to Daniel Sih about the information in his recent book, Spacemaker: How to Unplug, Unwind and Think Clearly in the Digital Age.

Specifically, we address three areas that are having a massive effect on our lives and ministries:

1. Clutter
2. Neuroplasticity
3. The stories we tell

In our increasingly tech-driven world, the technology that used to be (and still can be) so helpful is now causing significant changes to the way we work, worship, live, communicate and even the way our brains are wired. And many of these changes are not good.

But the news is not all bad. Daniel offers great Bible-based insights into how we can acknowledge these challenges, offer a far better alternative, and minister in ways that answer people’s deepest needs.

But first, we need to get and stay healthy, ourselves. Stop living by the world’s stories, and find ourselves immersed in the bigger, better story God is telling.

Links:

Movements.net

Spacemakers

Raising Humans

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An interview with Gary L. McIntosh about the principles in his new book, The Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a Church Alone.

In this episode, Karl Vaters talks with Dr. McIntosh about:

• The relentlessness of being a solo pastor
• How influence works in the solo-pastor church
• What expectations people have of the solo pastor
• Our connectedness to the congregation
• The great hopefulness of solo-pastoring

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Karl Vaters interviews Erik Reed, a pastor in Nashville TN. This conversation is, surprisingly, based on a Twitter thread Erik wrote about how excellence in smaller churches looks different than it does in bigger churches.

Karl and Erik talk about

• The dangers of small churches trying to imitate larger churches
• The attractiveness of authenticity
• The importance of investing our time and resources wisely
• Examples of what small-church excellence actually looks like

Instead of pushing for the technical “wow” factor, we need to remember that people who come to a smaller church are looking for us to do the small, relational things well, so that’s where we need to put our energy.

Erik Reed on Twitter: @ErikReed

Read Erik Reed’s Twitter Thread on Small Church Excellence

Read it here if you’re not on Twitter

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Karl Vaters interviews Dan White Jr.. the coauthor (with JR Woodward) of The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities.

They talk about why we need a complete rethinking of how we do church, from the current, popular ways of seeing it as an institution or a series of programs, to seeing it as the movement Jesus intended it to be.

Specifically, Dan builds the case for a new type of leadership he calls Polycentric Leadership.

To get there, Dan and Karl discuss the primary elements of:

• The Church as Movement
• The importance of church structure
• The four stages of learning
• Rethinking leadership and mutual submission

These seismic shifts can feel overwhelming at first, but if we really hear what the New Testament tells us about discipleship, it can become second nature to us.

Links From This Episode:

• The KINEO Center Website: https://www.thekineocenter.com/
• Dan's Website: http://danwhitejr.com/home
• Dan's Books: http://danwhitejr.com/books
• Twitter Handle: @DanWhiteJr.

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