The Church Lobby

Have you ever felt like your church is “less than” because you don’t have a worship experience with the talented musicians you’ve seen in larger churches? According to Teresa Stewart, not only is that not needed for an excellent worship experience, but the small church actually has advantages that are not always available to our big-church friends.

In this conversation, Karl Vaters talks with Teresa Stewart about some of those advantages, including:

• The Happy Birthday Effect
• Seeing and adjusting our aesthetic cues
• Stone Soup planning
• The value of small-church symbols
• How to ask better questions about our worship experience
• And so much more

Teresa Stewart is the author of The Small Church Advantage: Seven Powerful Worship Practices that Work Best in Small Settings.

Teresa’s approach is simple, practical, and applicable in most small-church settings. She challenges some of the ways we’ve thought about small-church worship, offers viable alternatives, then gives some wonderful step-by-step advice about how to curate worship to be more participatory without letting chaos reign.

Links from this Episode:

• WorshipNerds.com
• [email protected] 

Bonus Content

The Role of Conversation in Small-Church Worship, with Teresa Stewart

Karl Vaters talks with Teresa Stewart about conversation can be incorporated into the small-church experience. She encourages us to start slow and small. And she helps us curate the experience so it doesn't become a free-for-all. As Teresa wrote in her book, “Conversation in worship is not an anything-goes pursuit. It should serve and deepen the worship. Begin by curating worship in one element of your usual order.”

On a very practical level, Teresa talks about the three levels of questions and conversation. Knowing these levels will help you approach this with wisdom and patience, allowing people to participate while maintaining a sense of direction.

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Ian Borkent is a pastor in the Netherlands who walked through a season of ministry burnout and now helps pastors address this issue in their own lives through the ministry of Grow a Healthy Soul.

In this episode we’ll talk about the causes of pastoral burnout, how to avoid it, and how to recruit church members to the task of helping pastors by employing the five-fold ministry gifts.

Also, I’ll be sharing some of content of my new book, De-Sizing the Church: How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession, and What's Next (coming April 2, 2024) and how our obsession with bigness is a major contributing factor to pastoral burnout, church scandals, and more.

Links From This Episode

• Alan Hirsch APEST test
• The Church as Movement (book)
• Grow a Healthy Soul

Bonus Chat (Available to Patreon supporters and newsletter subscribers on our YouTube channel)

Helping Your Pastor Lead Beyond Burnout

Karl Vaters talks with Ian Borkent about how congregation members have a calling to help their pastor, including what pastors can do to let congregation members know they need their help.

They also talk about Bunjee Cord Leadership, plus the importance of simply asking for help, and working through the discomfort of not doing everything. 

Link:

How to Lead and Still Have a Life: The 8 Principles of Less is More Leadership, by H. Dale Burke.

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Our brains are the most important, but least understood part of our body. In this episode, Karl Vaters interviews Michel Hendricks about the fascinating place where faith and brain science intersect.

Michel is the co-author (with Jim Wilder) of The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation, which Karl listed as one of his top ten books in 2023.

If a conversation about brain science sounds intimidating, it’s not. Both the book and this conversation put the cookies on a low shelf for all of us.

Michel is the Director of Life Model Consulting at LifeModelWorks.org where he works with churches and organizations to help bring maturity and the transformation of character back into the center of Christian practice.

Links:

• The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation
• Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms
• The Pandora Problem: Facing Narcissism in Leaders & Ourselves
• LifeModelWorks.org

BONUS MATERIAL

The Importance of Joy and Gratitude in Ministry

Karl Vaters talks with Michel Hendricks, the co-author (with Jim Wilder) of The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation about the concept that “God designed our brains to run on joy like a car runs on fuel.”

The conversation includes why joy "leaks", how to refill our joy tank, and the three importance points of convergence about joy.

To get Bonus Content every week, click here to become a Financial Partner, or here to subscribe to the Free Weekly Newsletter.

This is the second of two very special episodes that we’re doing in back-to-back weeks instead of our usual bi-weekly schedule.

This episode features the message I preached in January 2024, on the day our church honored Shelley and me for our 31 years of serving the church on staff.

In this message, I talked about what we’re doing next, including why God has called us to the ministry of Helping Small Churches Thrive.

It includes some of the key points we teach to Small Church Pastors, like:

• The Theory of the Long Tail
• The Grasshopper Myth
• The Pastoral Prime Mandate
• and more.

 It also includes how people can support us in this new era of ministry.

We will no longer be receiving a salary from the church, but we’re raising all our own funds to be missionaries to the small churches in need. But the churches that need the help the most can afford it the least.

To become a financial supporter, please visit https://karlvaters.com/support/.

The message ends with one of the most touching stories I’ve ever heard about a Small Church Pastor who, like so many others, is one of the unsung heroes of the faith.

To get Bonus Content every week, click here to become a Financial Partner, or here to subscribe to the Free Weekly Newsletter.

This is the first of two very special episodes that we’re doing in back-to-back weeks, instead of our usual bi-weekly schedule.

In January 2024, Karl and Shelley Vaters were honored by their home church as they ended 31 years on the pastoral staff—25 years as lead pastor, six years as teaching pastor. This, and the next episode of The Church Lobby are taken from that Sunday service.

This episode features an on-stage interview in which Gary Garcia (the current lead pastor), asks Karl about their time at Cornerstone. It’s a helpful look at the value of longevity for the pastor and the church and some insights into how they were able to navigate a healthy pastoral transition.

Be sure to stick around after the interview for some of Karl's important takeways for people in ministry.

You can watch the entire service on the CornerstoneFV YouTube channel, here.

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A little over a year ago, A.I. came into our lives in a big way. Suddenly, it seemed to be everywhere.

Karl Vaters talks with Jason Moore about what A.I. is, why it came into our lives so suddenly, and what its strengths and dangers are. 

Then they spend the bulk of this slightly longer-than-usual episode with Jason physically walking us through using A.I. in real time, showing it to us on his computer screen.

This is a great episode to watch on our YouTube Channel, but we also describe everything verbally, so you’ll get all the key information if you’re listening to audio only.

Links From This Episode:

• This podcast episode on YouTube
• Bard.Google.com
• Chat GPT: Chat.Openai.com
• Claud.ai
• Magai.co
• Elevenlabs.io
• Email: [email protected]
• https://www.facebook.com/midnightoilproductions/

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Everyone has an opinion about live streaming, pro or con. As I sift through it, I only want to give a platform to the most helpful, thoughtful voices, and Tim Fox is one of them.

In this podcast, we talk about the content of a Facebook post Tim wrote that challenged the reasons most churches live stream their services, while offering some thoughtful alternatives.

Tim is not anti tech, but he is good at asking deeper questions about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. He offers eight points, all of which are thoughtful, including two that really caught my attention. And all four of his alternatives are helpful.

Tim is a denominational leader in Georgia who spent several years leading a small church into a healthy turnaround.

Also, this episode marks a change in the way I close podcasts. From this point on, if I have closing words after the interview (and I may not always) it will be to add something new to the conversation, not just to give a summation of it. And that’s what I do at the end of this episode, so stick around for my additional thoughts.

Links From This Episode:

• Tim's Original Facebook post
• TheRethinkingLeader.com
• gloo
• ChurchTrac
• TextInChurch

Bonus Chat (Available to Patreon supporters and newsletter subscribers on our YouTube channel)

Creating A Digital Disciple-making Strategy, with Tim Fox

Ask better questions. This is the essence of Tim Fox’s approach to ministry and his advice for us. In this bonus content, Tim talks to us about how to think better about how we engage people online as a lead-in and as supplemental to our in-person service, not as an alternative to it.

To get Bonus Content every week, click here to become a Financial Partner, or here to subscribe to the Free Weekly Newsletter.

Pastors need to read, not just for information, but for formation.

Austin Carty and Karl Vaters cover topics like:

• The importance of reading many types of books, not just works of theology and leadership
• How reading helps us become more mature, wise, and caring
• How reading the Bible with a sense of wonder helps embed its truths into our lives
• How important it is to take reading seriously, not a luxury, or as something I squeeze in around ministry, but as an essential aspect of growing in life, faith, and ministry 

Links from this episode:

• Ministry In A Secular Age, by Andrew Root
• e-mail: [email protected]

Bonus Chat 

How To Become A Pastor-reader (5 Takeaways), with Austin Carty

If you’ve had a hard time reading more, check out how Austin and Karl flesh out these following steps to becoming more of a pastor-reader:

1. See reading as a pastoral visit
2. Don’t start by trying to read too much
3. Hold no knowledge or writing in contempt
4. Trust that there is beauty to be found in all sorts of books
5. Try to read as much material off-line as possible.

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Just showing up in people’s lives is such an important aspect of life and ministry.

Karl Vaters talks with Drew Dyck about why this is so important, as outlined in Drew’s new book, Just Show Up: How Small Acts of Faithfulness Change Everything (A Guide for Exhausted Christians).

Including:

• The value of our physical presence in pastoral ministry
• The importance of quantity vs quality time
• How showing up is not the end game, it’s the onramp for healthy life and ministry

Links from this episode:

• Pocket App
• Website: https://www.drewdyck.com/
• Facebook: drew.dyck
• Instagram: drewndyck
• X: @drewndyck

Bonus Chat 

The Importance Of Letting Some Things Slide, with Drew Dyck.

Drew and Karl talk about how telling people “no” is not as costly as you might expect it to be, how to be more proactive in our schedules, and even how to decide which things to drop and which things to keep.

To get Bonus Content every week, click here to become a Financial Partner, or here to subscribe to the Free Weekly Newsletter.

Burnout is a huge issue among pastors. But did you know there’s a simple (but not simplistic) way to start addressing and reducing burnout? And that your congregation can help you with it?

That’s the premise of Karl's conversation with Josh Taylor, based on his book, A Preach Well Church: How Churches Can Stop Burning Out Pastors.

Josh and Karl talk about what causes ministry stress, and how to start relieving that stress by doing the two primary tasks pastors are called to do – preaching and prayer.

They also talk about:

• How good stewardship of a pastor’s time and energy should not be measured by what they do, but by what they focus on – prayer and preaching
• That focusing on prayer and preaching does not – and should never – mean neglecting the other hands-on aspects of pastoral care
• That planning and prioritizing our sermon prep time doesn’t just help us be better preachers, but it reduces the urgency, allowing us to be better caregiving pastor as well
• and more

Links from this episode:

• ChatGPT
• YouVersion Bible App
• BreezeCHMS
• Preachwell.com
• Facebook - Joshoutloud

Bonus Chat

How Prayer Helps Reduce Ministry Stress (with Josh Taylor)

While stress reduction is not the main reason for prayer, it is a wonderful, often under-appreciated side effect in three ways:

• It reminds us we are not alone
• It’s not just about getting things from God, but about giving things to him
• It gives us strength to handle criticism

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