unSeminary Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jerod Walker from Intulse, a church calling and texting platform designed to help ministry teams communicate with people without relying on personal phone numbers. Jerod spent 20 years serving in local church ministry as a children’s pastor, lead pastor, and church planter before joining Intulse, where he now helps churches strengthen communication, follow-up, and accountability.

Are your staff members using personal cell numbers for ministry? Are important conversations living on individual devices where no one else can see or access them? Tune in as Jerod identifies communication blind spots that can quietly hinder church growth and explains how churches can serve people more personally while protecting staff, families, and ministry.

To learn more about Jerod Walker and Intulse, visit intulse.com/unseminary. There you can download the free resource, 10 Communication Blind Spots That Hinder Church Growth, and schedule a conversation with the Intulse team to explore how your church can improve communication, follow-up, accountability, and staff boundaries.

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Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, lean in, folks. Lean in hard on today’s episode because we’re going to talk about something today that I’m pretty sure 100% of the churches that we’re listening with, or very close to 100 % of the churches we’re listening to are wrestling with.

Rich Birch — This is an issue that if you could solve this issue, it’ll be a better work-life balance stuff for your team. And at the same time, you’ll serve more people in a better way. The people you’re trying to serve in your community, which that can sometimes be in opposition to each other, but not in today’s conversation.

Rich Birch — I’m really excited. We have coerced the one and only Jerod Walker to be with us on the call today. Super excited to have him. He’s a part of the executive team at a technology firm called Intulse. They’re a church calling and texting platform that has spent the last 10 years building this incredible solution. It lets church staff call and text from their own smart smartphone or from a smartphone without using their own personal number. It’s all connected to your church management software. So stuff like Planning Center and Rock. So all of that is logged. And they work with some incredible churches across the country, help lots of great things happening. They’ve got 20 years of hands-on ministry experience. Jerod, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Jerod Walker — Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity, Rich. Looking forward to it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m pumped to to talk this through a little bit. But why don’t you start with kind of giving us a little bit of your background. Tell us the Jerod story. Tell us about Intulse and kind of the the corner of the church world that you have found yourself in and and kind of your area of expertise. Tell us, talk us through that.

Jerod Walker — Yeah, so I spent 20 years serving churches in ministry in located ministry as pastor children’s pastor, lead pastor even a church planter. And I’m not the only one on the Intulse team. We have a number of former pastors, missionaries and other church planters on our team.

Jerod Walker — In fact, the founders of Intulse had originally written church management software that maybe some of the people listening to this used. And then they sold that company and Intulse became what they did next. And originally they sold to businesses because of their arrangement when they sold the company not to not to you know those non-solicitation agreements.

Rich Birch — Yeah, non-compete or whatever.

Jerod Walker — And so I often say that we use the business world to figure out how to make it all work and then brought it to churches where our heart really is. And so our our pricing for churches is discounted by 20%. 10% of our profit goes to a missions organization in the Dominican because that’s just the heart of of who we are.

Jerod Walker — So we want to serve churches because we’ve been there and we’re active in our own churches. We want to continue to create technology tools, that benefit the ministries and churches that we love. And so we work with churches all across the country, all different sizes i could name really large churches with hundreds of staff on our system as well as the church plant with just a couple of people on the team that are using us as well.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to take advantage of the fact of kind of your vantage point because of what you just said there at the end. You you really see inside a lot of churches as an organization. You get ah an upfront view of the kinds of issues that churches are trying to solve and to fix and to use technology.

Rich Birch — I love, you know, unSeminary, we call it this you know stuff you wish they taught in seminary. And I can tell you there ain’t no seminary that’s talking about what we’re talking about today

Jerod Walker — Right.

Rich Birch — But this is classic because this is an issue that all churches wrestle with, but we just don’t talk about it. And so I want to take advantage of that. When you let’s think about a kind of a growing church. You’re thinking about maybe it’s like a church of a thousand people, just as a framework. You know what do you see in a church like that what’s their communication like? Where are maybe things working well? Maybe things they are struggling with? What are some of the pains they have? Talk us through what does what does that look like.

Jerod Walker — Well, it’s kind of interesting to talk about it because this is an area where we’ve seen a lot of transformation in the last 20 years. If I think about when I served at a church of about 1,500 as a children’s pastor, when I started there, the church had one email inbox.

Rich Birch — Ha!

Jerod Walker — And one person was monitoring that and they would print out every email that came in and put it in the staff member box…

Rich Birch — Love it. …that that message was relevant for. And then we would call them using the phone on our desk…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — …to follow up. And that was that was what communication looked like. I think partly because of new technology that’s come out. I mean, smartphones really transformed our ability to communicate. But then COVID as well, we we probably pre-COVID thought about communication especially one-to-one church communication happening from our office, whether that was a physical desk phone or email. But then we realized we don’t have to be tied to our office to do ministry.

Jerod Walker — And what sort of silently happened was our cell phone became our primary ministry communication tool as well. And so that happened, I think, simply because of convenience and circumstances, not because we strategically said: this is the best way, as our church is trying to grow, for us to communicate.

Jerod Walker — And over time, we’ve seen there are some pitfalls, there are some blind spots that that have developed over time because of kind of defaulting to those personal devices.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so when I first interacted with you guys, when you’ve named this I was like, oh my word they’re naming a thing that I didn’t it’s like I all I saw so clearly, but was not able to get my hands on it. And um you know this idea that like we shifted communication strategy, silently, we made a decision. We all collectively made a decision that now we’re living in and is impacting us.

Rich Birch — Why did that stay silent you know for so long? We made this change, and I think a lot of our churches, we just are kind of, we’re going along with that. And we and we and we haven’t stepped back and said, well, wait a second. Why did we do that? Was that the right call? Was that the right decision?

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I I think like any organization that grows, there is there is the the constant challenge of being reactive versus proactive, and communication problems, unless someone raises their hand and said, hey, I’m not getting communicated with well.

Jerod Walker — If a guest says—which which is very unlikely, right—hey I visited your church and I never heard anything. They’re probably not going to say that. And so it’s just an area where we have to be proactive to dive into it or it isn’t going to be brought to the surface.

Jerod Walker — And I think there’s also an element of Staff sometimes feeling some of the pain of the system, but it’s almost like well, this is the price of ministry. I want to be a good team player. I want to be available to people and we almost feel guilty calling it a problem ah in instead of recognizing that it is and that there is a better way.

Jerod Walker — And I often compare it to email. We kind of know, I have I have personal email. And I have work email. And I know when I should use the other. But I think because email is very easily cross-platform it doesn’t matter where I’m at I can probably access my work email or my personal email. And calling from my mobile phone feels like I only have one option. And it’s just the churches don’t realize there is a there is another option. There is a better way. So I think that’s why it stays invisible for so long.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. So kind of taking a step back, that’s, ah you know, you’ve really identified, you put together a resource that we want to point people to, which is this “10 communication blind spots that hinder church growth”. This is a great resource, friends. And it’s one of these, it’s a simple resource, but you’re pointing to some I think some some tender spots let’s say it when i read it i wasn’t like i was like Ouch. Oh, no. I think I see that so clearly.

Rich Birch — Why don’t we why don’t we pick one? You just pick one and let’s talk about one of those. What’s a blind spot that we have that we might not know that we have when it comes to this whole communication issue?

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I think the first one is is fairly obvious. We’ll just state it. We’ve been talking about it, but using my personal cell number for ministry.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — Again, it’s easy. It’s in my pocket. I carry it around. Wherever I’m at, I can use it. But what that means is I can’t take it back once I’ve used it. And so sometimes if I’m at a conference speaking or something, I’ll in fact, I was at a large conference last week. And from the stage, I just said, hey, how many of you in the room have used your personal number to call or text somebody in the church and then later regretted that they had your number because they felt like they had anytime access. And it was like like almost a standing ovation, right.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — Like everybody felt that pain.

Rich Birch — Ouch.

Jerod Walker — And I said, stop saying names out loud because that’s almost where it was. Right.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — You know, late at night, on weekends. And we want to serve people well. And and I would never fault anyone in ministry for wanting to try and be available and serve. But we often say remember your most important ministry and that’s your family.

Rich Birch — Okay, so let’s double click on that. So I get the invasion in time, like I think that’s an obvious one we can kind of see, or that makes sense. You know, we’ve all had those like texts.

Rich Birch — I will, there’s there’s a friend of mine who will. remain anonymous in today’s conversation who I know when they go on their day off, they do a copy and paste thing that that replies back as if it’s like an autoresponder to an email. Like we’re sorry, this person is not working right now. They’ll get back to you on X date. They’re still having to do that.

Jerod Walker — Yes.

Rich Birch — They’re pretending like it’s a technology solution doing that.

Jerod Walker — Yeah, and I…

Rich Birch — So yeah, I get that.

Jerod Walker — I think…

Rich Birch — But what else is, what why else is this a problem?

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I think there’s almost, I remember getting text messages that even if I didn’t respond, they changed how I felt. Like it was something negative or it was an issue somebody was having and even if i wasn’t responding to it, it impacted how I felt in the room with my family.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jerod Walker — It took me out of vacation or wherever I was into a spot where i just felt different because of whatever that communication was. And you’re exactly right you also feel this burden I’m the only one who got this message. So I’ve got to send what looks like an automated reply because otherwise they just think that I’m ignoring them.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s tough. But what about now let’s look at it from the other side, from the church side. So there’s also some deficiency on our end with this as a solution. And some of this is like stuff we don’t really want to talk about but like there is there’s, like I think, a real issue here. I think you’ve raised like a real question for us to think about.

Rich Birch — What why is this a problem from our perspective? Like I, in fact, I’ve even thought at certain moments, I’m like, well, it’s kind of cool. We’re leveraging all these other people’s technology spent. They bought the phone. I didn’t have to buy my own phone.

Jerod Walker — For sure.

Rich Birch — I never thought that, friends. If I was an executive pastor at your church, I never actually thought that. But that is a part of what is going on here. Why is that bad for us as a church?

Jerod Walker — Yeah. I think that as we grow—in fact, this this goes into a another problem that we talk about, another blind spot—we want to assume the best of our team. We want to assume if they need to follow up on something, they’re doing it. But I have a friend who says, believe the best, but also verify. So believe the best in your team, but but you also need to do your due diligence. Is that follow up happening? Is that message getting responded to?

Jerod Walker — And I think that is a big risk with everybody using their own personal devices is things falling through the cracks. Whether that’s your discipleship pathway or one of the ones that we address is guest follow-up, and I know that’s a that’s a big deal, something you all talk about a lot on unSeminary.

Jerod Walker — But just assuming, oh we we have somebody owning that. And so it’s being taken care of.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — I’ve served in a small church. I was ah a my first full-time ministry after I graduated from college, it was a church of like 35 people and I knew every guest who was there. And I knew whether or not they got followed up with because I did it. Well, Jerod, did you follow up with that guess? Yes, Jerod, I did. It was pretty straightforward. But as you grow, you’re trusting that’s all happening, but how do you check? How do you know that nothing’s falling through the cracks?

Rich Birch — Yeah, and that, I’d love to double click on the first time guest thing. It’s funny, I was literally with a church earlier this week where we were talking about this issue and um all I was doing was adding the word “really” at the end of the sentence to check.

Rich Birch — It was like, okay, so like we reach out to first-time guests after every week and whatever their pattern was. And I said, really, is that is that true? And what you realize pretty quickly is you peel back the layers and you start to realize, well, it doesn’t happen. I know it’s in the document, but we don’t, you know, there’s sometimes it’s blah, blah, blah.

Rich Birch — So explain this problem a little bit more. Why is this an issue? Maybe double click here on the first time guest or the kind of new prospect issue that we we wrestle with and in the church.

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I mean it’s such a critical part of our assimilation pathway right trying to get someone involved both on discipleship and involvement, and such a key touch point. So first of all making sure that it happens and knowing that it happens but even knowing that the system is bigger than one person.

Jerod Walker — So if you know one person is responsible, we’re dependent on that person and they have an emergency. And they’re not available this week. Did it happen? And how did it happen?

Jerod Walker — But then even that is an initial touch point. But hopefully there’s a handoff happening even after that. They indicated they’d like to take some kind of a next step. They want to try an Alpha course. Or they’re curious about what we have for their kids. What does that follow up look like? And if you hand off that first time guest to another department, do they have to start over completely in the conversation because they don’t have any context for what happened?

Rich Birch — Right.

Jerod Walker — What’s already been communicated? What did they say in text message, you know, as they responded to the text message? So that that gap can really be significant.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true. And you know, we’ve seen this is like a high a hobby horse of mine, like don’t get me started. Most churches have think they have a backdoor problem, but they actually have a front door problem. Statistically, it’s just true.

Jerod Walker — That’s good.

Rich Birch — And I’ll challenge any church. I’ll take your numbers and I’ll show you that you’re missing people at the front door. Like this is you know, people come, there’s way more guests arriving in in churches that and that aren’t getting connected than people that are falling out of your groups, teams, and and donor pools. It’s just true.

100% of the church is when we’ve actually dug into the numbers. you start to realize, oh my word, there’s there’s like real opportunity there, when we, you know, a solution like yours can help, you know, with that.

Rich Birch — Well, why don’t we peel back? Why don’t we pivot a little bit and talk about, so we’ve kind of described some of these major problems. There’s 10 in this resource and we’ll, we’ll link to it in the show notes and give you that link at the end. But why don’t we talk a little bit about how Intulse actually tackles these issues? What is it that you do as a technology provider? How are you helping churches actually try to, you know, like we said, make it less crazy for our team?

Jerod Walker — Yep.

Rich Birch — Make sure that we’re tracking what conversations are happening? Providing a bit of accountability around some of these conversations, being able to pass off. What what what are…that sounds like some sort of magic pill that you’ve got. What how are you doing that?

Jerod Walker — Yeah. I do think it is kind of magic. I actually often refer to it as automagical.

Rich Birch — Ooh, I like it.

Jerod Walker — So it’s a combination of a couple of things. It’s an app that you put on the cell phone that you already use, whether that’s iOS or Android. It’s an app that you use. It has its own controls for notifications. And it’s tied to a work assigned number instead of your personal number.

Jerod Walker — So first off, you make a call from that app and no one’s getting your personal cell number.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Jerod Walker — And when it’s off time, you turn off the notifications from that app so that you’re undisturbed. And even better, you can you can share access to that same number. So when you are the… the Pastor, you mentioned who’s got that copy-paste automatic response. You actually can have someone monitor your number while you’re out and actually respond for you, so you don’t even have to worry about people not getting some kind of response that you’re out of town.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jerod Walker — Someone else can be sending that response. Jerod’s out of town this week. Looks forward to following up when he’s back next week. You can truly turn it off because of that.

Jerod Walker — But then as you mentioned earlier, it’s connected to the church management software that you already use like Planning Center or Rock or CCB, breeze, a number of different solutions.

Jerod Walker — So first off, you don’t have to look up somebody’s number in your chms first. It’s available right there in the Intulse app on your device. You type their name, tap it and you can start the call or start the text message. And what I think is even more significant, we talked about follow up, following through the cracks. You know, you have the interaction with the first time guest and then the handoff, what happens to the communications already happened.

Jerod Walker — Every text message is logged on that person’s record in your database. The fact that a call took place is logged on that record in the database. You can even open a little box and take notes while you’re in that call that becomes a part of that record.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Jerod Walker — You don’t have to remember to go back later. And I think that actually makes your team more efficient, which I think is an important part of the conversation because we all know, oh, you know the the person who owns the database at our church is always saying you know if it’s not in there it didn’t happen but i’ve got to remember to go in there afterwards.

Jerod Walker — Well we—again, that auto-magic—we make as much of it happen automatically without you having to do it manually.

Rich Birch — Yeah, the one and you you kind of blew over it. But for me it’s like one of the it’s like a small feature of this thing that is is just mind-blowing to me how helpful this would be for a church of it doesn’t even need to be a giant church like a couple hundred people to have our Church’s database automatically connected to my phone and all of those contact information right in there and positioned in a way that’s like positioned for action, positioned for outreach. Like, hey, I can hit just let’s just call right now or let’s text them. Man, that that is powerful.

Rich Birch — You know how many times I have like fumbled. I’ve opened up the database and I gotta go over there and then I’m like search for them and then copy and paste and blah blah blah… Just those friction points. And I’m like, I’m not going to text him. Forget it. Like… and maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m lazy. I’m the problem. But I think the fact that you’ve integrated that.

Jerod Walker — And so what you do, Rich, is just use your personal cell number, right? Because it’s easy.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yes, absolutely. You just use the easiest, you know, I don’t even think about it. I’m like, oh, whatever. But this actually has made it even better. I know that the information’s up to date. I know that, you know, the work we’ve put in to ensure that the database has got the right contact information is available. That’s that’s amazing.

Rich Birch — So let’s think about let’s imagine a church. They’re, well, let’s stick, we kind of quoted the Church of a thousand. You know, we’ve got a lot of executive pastors listening today. You know, they’ve got a staff of 10 and they’re an XP.

Rich Birch — They’re thinking about that kind you know this kind of stuff. If a a church is let’s say they go the full bore. They’re like, this sounds great – we’re gonna make these changes. And they want to get started. What are some kind of initial first steps when they they get rolling with Intulse that kind of separate—I’m sure you see this you’re like oh this is going to really work and help this church or like ah these people are struggling a little bit—what are the behaviors or or some initial actions that we see churches that kind of get the most out of it when they actually integrate your solution?

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I would say that churches should really start with a communication policy that’s bigger than just your mass communication. You probably have a lot of mass communication policies. Like we’re not going to send an email to everybody in the church more frequently than whatever.

Rich Birch — Yeah, right.

Jerod Walker — And we don’t send a mass email without a certain team approving it and and all of that. But you may not have a policy around individual communication. And that’s another blind spot that we address that is hard to talk about. And it’s the accountability piece and protecting the church.

Jerod Walker — There’s a former XP that I’ve listened to his story several times. I’m going to be recording an interview with him here in a couple of weeks. While he was serving in a church. there was an accusation made against the student’s pastor.

Jerod Walker — And they they had to investigate and they were going through text messages of this student’s pastor which first of all can be really hard to get, if they’re using their personal cell phone. The church doesn’t own that. So sometimes there’s court orders and subpoenas as a part of that, which is just a mess anyway.

Jerod Walker — But he shares how he was going through those text messages, and it confirmed the student’s pastor was grooming students in the ministry. And then that XP saw his 15-year-old daughter’s number and the text messages that were exchanged.

Rich Birch — Oh my word. Oh my word.

Jerod Walker — And I, you know, I’m a dad with four daughters.

Rich Birch — Gosh, yeah, that’s heartbreaking.

Jerod Walker — I can’t imagine what what that was like. And so it it starts with a policy that says, hey, this is how we communicate with people in the church for ministry use. And if you’re using something else, we have to assume you stepped outside of our policy for some reason.

Jerod Walker — So this is the policy. And that helps protect the church. It also gives me permission because, again, that guilt factor it allows me to say when someone’s messaging me on my personal cell, I respond back from the church number just saying hey our church actually has this policy. And it helps me serve you better in a lot of ways. And so that’s why I’m responding from this number.

Jerod Walker — But I would actually say that’s probably the most critical first piece is making sure that you have policy and guidelines and then the tools—something like Intulse—that allows you to fulfill that policy, to follow that policy in your communication.

Jerod Walker — So that was that was deep. That wasn’t fun.

Rich Birch — No.

Jerod Walker — But it’s it’s a reality of ministry today.

Rich Birch — Yeah, why…So I’m glad we’re talking about this. Let’s double click on this issue because I think this is ah this is a real issue, real live issue for sure. You know. And and um and we’ve actually had multiple conversations over the years about like the Billy Graham rule. And this ah you know this idea for for folks that aren’t aware that you know he had set this out where it’s like hey he would not be in the room with someone of the opposite sex, and really structured a lot in his his life and leadership around that to try to protect himself. And it was a part of, you know, he would say a healthy part of their ministry. And I think there’s a lot of super value for that.

Rich Birch — But there is a weird thing around our digital use now where we don’t have the same safeguards in place. We don’t you know we haven’t thought through okay so what does that mean? Like of course there are churches who would have policies or or even approaches you know practices that would be like that would align with that. But they would be completely silent even on, well who are you texting at night? And who are you you know…

Rich Birch — So why do you think that is?

Jerod Walker — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Why, is it just an, just an area we haven’t thought about? Or what why is that, that it’s like we, we might hold these two opposing ideas in our head and we haven’t, we haven’t kind of closed the back door on that one?

Jerod Walker — Yeah, I think partly technology moves so quickly that we’re often just slow keeping up with it and recognizing that we haven’t adapted our policies.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s probably true.

Jerod Walker — And I love that you referenced the Billy Graham rule because even with the Billy Graham rule, you recognize someone who has evil intent is going to bypass it.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jerod Walker — And that it’s it’s not meant to prevent someone who’s proactively trying to do something wrong from doing, but but to put safeguards in place and provide accountability. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about here is trying to bring our technology into that same place. Where you’ve got safeguards. You know the the conversation that starts at 11 pm I know is being logged. And so I just think differently about where I go…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Jerod Walker — …in that conversation, then that helps me.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Again, I wish we didn’t have to think about those things, friends, but I do think it’s wise…

Jerod Walker — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …for us to to consider those conversations. And to and even in the way we talk about those, you know, these issues. I do think you have to have a sober conversation with your team around, this is more about protecting you than…

Jerod Walker — For sure.

Rich Birch — …you know and and trying to create a ah place where no one can make that kind of accusation about us.

Jerod Walker — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It’s actually that’s actually more what this is about.

Jerod Walker — For sure.

Rich Birch — We actually don’t think that you’re going to go off and do some nefarious thing.

Jerod Walker — Yep.

Rich Birch — But what we don’t we don’t want someone to accuse you of that.

Jerod Walker — Yeah. I often word it this way. Using the system that is used churchwide allows me to defend you.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Jerod Walker — If you’re not using that system, I just can’t defend you. I don’t have access to it to defend you. I can’t say I looked at the messages and it was all above board. I just can’t defend you.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah that’s good. That’s good. Yeah, I feel bad that you we have to think about those things, but that’s, ah you know, that’s that’s really true. So again, friends, you’re going to go to intulse.com/unseminary. You can pick up that that resource there. We’ll also link to this in the show notes.

Rich Birch — When we think about um you know so other we’ve kind of covered a couple of these, are is there maybe a third one that in the of the 10 that you find it might be kind of interesting for us to kick around. And then we want to really get people to pick up all of them we can’t cover all of this too much good stuff in here. But yeah we’ll be on another one another blind spot?

Jerod Walker — Yeah. Yeah, I think another one is just the fact that communication history resides on a single device that’s another blind spot because that creates a challenge if that staff member leaves that phone that device goes with them. And if they don’t leave well and they’ve been using their personal number for ministry, someone could text them.

Jerod Walker — Saying hey, what times the whatever this week? And then their response could could not be great in representing the church.

Jerod Walker — Like wait you still attend that place? I wouldn’t go anywhere near there. Again, something else we don’t want to think about. But that that leaves then with that personal staff that individual staff member instead of being retained by the church so they continue to be used for for ministry purposes. So I think that’s that’s another one of the blind spots that we point out. And there’s about six more in that guide as well.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fun. When I was reading that part, the thought, and I realize this is a minority of churches that are on that are listening in today, but I was just thinking about very large churches with a lot of staff and the power of having even small notes, like two sentences on all of these calls and texts, for driving like what are the conversations that our people are actually having.

Rich Birch — Like what is, you know, what is our team spending time on? And and are there things that are bubbling up…Like, I feel like one of the things that happened, I know, it’s not a feel. I know that one of the things as a church grows larger and it.

Rich Birch — It doesn’t even have to be that much larger, for a couple hundred people. And you you start to become disconnected from what’s going on. And using a technology solution to say hey let’s pull out all the conversations that people have had in the last three months and talk through, okay, what what are we actually working on and how you know are are there things we should be doing as an organization to address that?

Rich Birch — It’s like we keep seeing marriage things keep coming up in all these conversations. Man, maybe we should do something around marriages.

Jerod Walker — Yeah, that’s great.

Rich Birch — You know, or like we see people struggling with financial stuff.

Jerod Walker — Yep.

Rich Birch — Maybe we should do something about financial stuff.

Jerod Walker — Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Birch — You know, you can see how that would be super helpful. That’s that’s cool.

Jerod Walker — One of my favorite testimonials about Intulse is a large church that uses us, and we actually actually captured on video one of their team members saying, Intulse has helped us, as a large church, feel smaller.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Jerod Walker — Because of how we better communicate with people.

Rich Birch — Okay, so…

Jerod Walker — And I love that. I love that.

Rich Birch — Okay, let’s talk about that. So I’m glad you brought this up because this is a lot of the coaching I do with churches, is with larger churches, 1,000, 2,000. And one of the things I say, particularly in a church that’s going from 1,000 to 2,000, is when you were 500 you were trying to play bigger than you actually were. You had to look bigger than you were. So you would like spent money on graphics and all this stuff that was like bigger than you should have really it doesn’t you know you, which is fine, that’s normal.

Rich Birch — But then you hit about a thousand people, somewhere around there you actually have to play smaller you have to become, because your size can become an impediment actually to your growth because it’s you start to act like people are like, I can’t get into, but I can’t talk to anybody. I don’t, you know, I can’t, I don’t have you know any connection. So what what are a couple of ways that churches could use Intulse? when they’re a larger church, to actually act like a smaller church or provide the service of a smaller church.

Jerod Walker — I think one of the biggest ways is, again, a lot of larger churches are using texting for mass communicating, but it’s not two-way communication.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jerod Walker — Other than, you know, keyword. So you RSVP’d by by responding with whatever. Right.

Rich Birch — Well, it’s not even that. It says, please don’t reply.

Jerod Walker — Right. Right, exactly. Exactly.

Rich Birch — Or like, you know, it’s like, it’s like, we’re just sending you things. Don’t expect to talk to anybody, you know, which is crazy.

Jerod Walker — Yep. And the great thing about our app is it allows you to bulk text. But then you receive the responses as individual messages and then can respond and provide care…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Jerod Walker — …or follow up. Hand it off for someone else to follow up. And that that mass communication becomes individual person-to-person communication, which—and we could we could spend a lot of time in an AI age how much human interaction is more important and really distinguishes us.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent.

Jerod Walker — Totally changes people’s perception of us when we are providing personal human care, when we’re trying to get them more involved or connected in our church.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and it’s funny you’re thinking that because I was… Carey Nieuwhof’s new book, “AI and the Future Church”…

Jerod Walker — There you go.

Rich Birch — His conclusion from this book—I was thinking about this as a follow-up—is you know, it’s a bunch of pages. You should buy it and read it with your team, friends, that are listening in. It’s a great book. But his conclusion is, listen, the future is going to be more artificial, more synthetic. Therefore, the church needs to become more human. We need to we need to not hide behind this technology, but find a way to be more human.

Jerod Walker — 100%.

Rich Birch — And to me, this is a perfect solution, like being able to I would love to be able to log on to go to a church website. And I’m, I land on the whatever location. you know, campus. And there’s a nice picture of my friend Jerod is the campus pastor. And that person’s phone number and it says text or call me. That would be insane. Like, that that would be great.

Jerod Walker — Yep.

Rich Birch — We should be doing more of that and Intulse would really help you do that in a way that that doesn’t kill your team. It doesn’t like make it terrible.

Jerod Walker — 100%.

Rich Birch — So I love it.

Jerod Walker — Yeah. Yep. I think sometimes we avoid technology because we think, oh, it’s just more time spent there away from people. But if that’s what technology is doing for you, then you’re using it wrong, or you have the wrong technology.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jerod Walker — Because what technology should be doing is making the time that you’re not with people more efficient and actually less of that so that you can spend more time face to face with people, which is why you got into ministry anyway.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so good.

Rich Birch — Well, Jerod, this has been a great conversation. Just to remind folks, as we’re coming down to land, go to intulse.com/unseminary. There you’ll see a number of things. One, you’ll you can download this resource that we’ve been talking about. You can also book a demo, like schedule a call to actually talk to one of your team.

Rich Birch — What happens on that call? The thing I love about you guys is you actually are trying to help church leaders, not sell them a thing. And so your calls are really super helpful. So talk about what that is.

Jerod Walker — Yep. So once once you go there, you just provide your contact info and then we’ll actually follow up with a link where you can book a time with somebody on our team, whether it’s a 15 minute kind of an introductory call, or a 45 minute like full demo of how it works with the church management software that you use.

Jerod Walker — And then because we want to hear what are your needs? What are you using? What problems do you need to solve? And that way we can put together a proposal that fits you. And we’ll send that to you and you can get started with us.

Rich Birch — Yeah, if you’ve been listening in today, friends, and you’ve had… stuff like, yeah, but what about this? Or yeah, but what about that? Or no, that’s not going to work in my, we’ve got this problem. Then what that’s telling you is you should go to intulse.com/unseminary and book one of those calls.

Rich Birch — And then they’ll actually answer those questions, which is insane, that they’ll sit down and talk that through. They they want to actually help you solve your problems.

Jerod Walker — For sure.

Rich Birch — They’re not trying to sell you something. They want to talk you through how they can help you you know get better at this stuff. And so again, just go to intulse.com/unseminary. Any last words as we wrap up today’s conversation?

Jerod Walker — I often say, we want you to be very connected to technology. We’re a technology company. We believe in technology as a as a great ministry tool for the church.The challenge is that we can become very connected without being protected. And so I often say that we want to both connect and protect your ministry your church

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s spoken like a true church leader. You got a rhyme there and everything. That’s good. I love it.

Jerod Walker — I remember I remember preaching class.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, Jerod, I appreciate you being here. It’s super kind that you would take some time out to come and help us think through these issues. Really honored you’re here today. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with Intulse? where Where’s the best place for us to send them?

Jerod Walker — Yep, so intulse.com, a great place. Again, intulse.com/unseminary. And then feel free, because I actually dohave tools that help me manage this number. I have a number that I’m willing to give that you can call or text.

Rich Birch — Yes, let’s do it!

Jerod Walker — Okay, let’s, all right, 717-455-3943

Rich Birch — Love it.

Jerod Walker — 717-455-3943. The good news is, is I’m on vacation with my family. I don’t have to respond to you but I’ve got a team member who will.

Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. That’s so good. I appreciate you being here today, Jerod. Thanks so much for your help. And thanks for what you’re doing for the church. I really you know want to say that, man. You’re helping us get better at what we do and using your skills in a great way. So thank you so much for that.

Jerod Walker — My pleasure. And hopefully our heart is is what speaks loudest and that’s what you see the the clearest.

Rich Birch — Thanks so much.

 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Toni Nieuwhof, author, speaker, family law mediator, podcaster, and co-host of the Smart Family Podcast. Toni has spent much of her professional life helping people navigate difficult circumstances, and her own journey through pain, healing, and faith has shaped her latest project, Honest to God: Daring to Trust When You Don’t Understand.

How does your church help people when God feels distant, silent, or even confusing? Are there people in your congregation quietly wrestling with suffering while everyone around them assumes they’re doing fine? Tune in as Toni shares why churches need to create safer spaces for honest questions, how community can shape the way people walk through suffering, and how her new book can help leaders support people in seasons of pain.

To learn more about Toni Nieuwhof, purchase Honest to God: Daring to Trust When You Don’t Understand, or explore resources for churches and small groups, visit honesttoGodbook.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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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.

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Listen, come here, come in close, you listen in because today’s conversation is fantastic and you are going to love where we are going.

Rich Birch — Today I’ve got like a real world friend, somebody that I know outside of the internet and I want you to know them better. But not only that, they’ve got this incredible project that is going to help you and your church. And I ultimately think actually people you know who attend your church and maybe even beyond your church, this is going to be a fantastic conversation.

Rich Birch — Honored to have my friend, Toni Nieuwhof with us. She is an author, a speaker, a family law mediator, and has spent decades of her professional life practicing law where she’s combining her professional careers also as a pharmacist, and a lawyer in leadership roles for hospitals. She’s incredibly talented, and and she’s also a podcaster, and she’s an author. She does a lot of different things. Toni, welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here.

Toni Nieuwhof — Oh, Rich, I am thrilled to be here. And yeah, it’s so great to have ah a good conversation with a friend anytime, but especially with you. So thanks for having me on.

Rich Birch — That’s so kind of you. It’s always a little bit funny when I have people that I know in the real world on the podcast because, you know, there’s like this conversation we’re having and it’s mediated through this technology, which is kind of funny, but hopefully it’ll it’ll it’ll be a positive I know it’ll be a positive conversation for people that are listening in.

Rich Birch — But I kind of gave a little bit of your professional background. You have this incredible, when I talk about you, I’m coming clean. When I talk about you behind your back, Toni, I say, you know, I have this friend, Toni, who’s done everything. She’s pharmacist, lawyer, you know, all that stuff I rattle off, law mediator, podcaster, author. It’s like you’re constantly reinventing yourself in the best way possible. So to what’s the through line in that and how what led you to to here to where you are today? Kind of author, you know, podcaster. Talk to me about that.

Toni Nieuwhof — Oh, sometimes, Rich, I’d have to say that, you know, I feel a bit schizophrenic when we talk about all the different hats. I’ve had such a winding path of a of a career. As far as a through line, I feel like God’s been very gracious to me. I’ve felt like I went through those various changes in my professional life, wondering where this is all going. But in every context, feeling like, okay, I have an assignment right now and I can serve these people this way.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so I think the through line is that I’ve really I feel like God has led me through a um a personal healing journey of my own, um where I’ve actually been privileged to serve people along the way with the tools that he’s put in my hands. But at this stage in my professional life, I know a thing or two about what it is to um to suffer trauma and what it is to heal and find God in the midst of it. And that process has just left me with so much gratitude and also very motivated to just be a part of conversations um that focus on how God truly does show up ah in the journey of suffering.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And we’re, you know, friends, you’re getting a hint of where we’re headed today. And I’m, this thing is gonna be a good conversation for us to to wrestle through and think about that. What stood out to me there is you talked about, you know, your own personal healing journey, you know, that this has been, you know, as you look back in your in in your life, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Talk to me about, in your own life, how the kind of intersection of suffering, trauma, doubt, faith—How does how of all those kind of weave together for you in your own life?

Toni Nieuwhof — Yeah, well, I would um just to give a little bit of context for people briefly.

Rich Birch — Sure. Yes. Perfect.

Toni Nieuwhof — I grew up in a middle class home that from the outside would have looked pretty normal, but from the inside um felt very chaotic. So my my dad was a binge drinker and alcoholic. He also was functional. So he he worked and he was a manager and had a a good position himself professionally. But in my home life, there was a lot of emotional disconnection and anger and you know. And so growing up in that kind of environment, um you know there are consequences that really were off my radar. I didn’t understand them at all.

Rich Birch — Right.

Toni Nieuwhof — But I started off, you know, went, decided that I wanted to become a professional, studied pharmacy, wasn’t finished there, studied law, um was very blessed to meet my husband, Carey, at law school. And um and then ah over all these years, God, I think just slowly, you know, I know this is kind of a cliche, but we talk about, you know, God peels the the onion from the outer layers inward.

Toni Nieuwhof — And I think slowly God just started revealing to me that um I had very strong defense mechanisms set up. I would have in my early 20s said that I had a normal, like happy childhood. And by the time I was in my mid 30s, I knew from my emotional climate that something was really wrong. And and then it’s been a couple of decades of unpacking that.

Toni Nieuwhof — So it’s and I was I’m as surprised as anyone that, you know, that healing journey extended like into my 50s, until I was like almost 60. And to me, that sounds incredible. But hey, maybe I’m a slow learner.

Rich Birch — No, it’s true. I think, I you know, as someone, it takes time, right, to unpack our entire life and to try to understand, hey, what is it that God’s been doing? What is the story that that he’s been writing? What’s my part in that? How does all all that fit together? And, you know, it’s amazing. I know I have found as I as I get older, even reflecting on my own parents, it like it wasn’t until recently you realized, oh, those are like humans, like they’re like their own people in their own story, right?

Toni Nieuwhof — Yes.

Rich Birch — Like you’re trying to figure out what is it, you know, we’re doing life together.

Rich Birch — And so now you’ve actually put together a book, a resource that I’m going to just jump up to. I’d love to talk about this more directly. It’s it’s it’s I think it’s going to be super helpful for people. And it’s around this topic. Why don’t you tell us about that? Talk to us about, you know, this is called “Honest to God: Daring to Trust When You Don’t Understand”. Tell me more about that.

Toni Nieuwhof — Well, this this book had its genesis over a couple of years ago when I had actually been inspired by how Moses responded in a conversation with God after Moses was well, after he had discovered that his people rebelled, that that rebellion with the golden calf while Moses was up solidifying the the covenant with God on the mountain.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so Moses in his distress had this conversation with God. And to me, I thought that that was that was fascinating, that. Because in in times of distress, I mean, let’s look at Moses. He was um charged with a huge responsibility, leading people who were rebellious. He had gone through a great amount of suffering himself already and was there again. And it would be easy for Moses to blame God. You know, why did you put me in this position? Why have you brought me through all this? He’d just gone through 40 days, 40 days and nights of fasting.

Toni Nieuwhof — And yet he leans in and he asks God to teach me your ways and to let us stay in your presence, despite all the rebellion, and to show me your glory. Like Moses is leaning in.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so, you know, I just found that in in and of itself compelling. And I was planning to someday, you know, I’m going to write a book, but it’s going to, I want this to be, you know, a lot of a collection of really heartfelt stories. It’s going to take me five to 10 years to write this book.

Toni Nieuwhof — And then I just think it was a ah nudge from the Holy Spirit. And I think that the Spirit said, why don’t you do this together with other people? You know. And it’s not going to take five to 10 years. And also the picture of unity, you know that we could as a group do this. And I thought, oh, this is like so this is an idea that’s so out there. How could it ever work? It’ll only work with you, God.

Rich Birch — Yes. Amazing.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so, so anyway, that’s how it, that was the the genesis. And then a whole group of very generous people said yes. So here we are.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is amazing. This to me, I remember, I don’t know, it was maybe 18 months ago when we were talking and you were telling me about this. And that as it was kind of coming together. I was like, wow, that is so cool that, you know, you’ve got this kind of multiplicity of voices, this great cloud of witnesses that are, you know, pulling this conversation together. Unpack that a little bit more.

Rich Birch — How has that steered the project? How has that kind of influenced the project? I would imagine having different voices, you know, lean in on this particular topic actually gives it a certain quality that is just incredible because we’re seeing, you know, a similar issue from multiple perspectives. But talk talk me through what does that look like as you’ve actually been, you know, pulling this this group together?

Toni Nieuwhof — Well, sometimes it it is like herding cats, but the but going through the process overall has has been a joy. And it’s and I’ve also personally loved my role as the general editor in this project, just having such a close-up view at of all these stories.

Toni Nieuwhof — So it’s, you know, it’s been a lot of open-handed prayer to work with people on what they felt they could write about, what they wanted to, you know, what they what messages they wanted to convey and where they wanted them to land in the structure of the book, you know, whether they’re talking about God’s ways or intimacy with God or the present or or sorry the the glory of God, you know, those are the three parts of the book.

Toni Nieuwhof — And it’s all centered around what what did they personally discover during their time of suffering? What was the gift that God had for them? Was it that they learned something more about his ways? Was it that they ended up feeling closer to God and had a deeper sense of intimacy? Or did they actually see something more of God’s glory through that time of personal suffering?

Toni Nieuwhof — So, yeah, it’s been a real journey of, honestly, I feel like I’ve been totally blessed to walk through this journey. But it certainly you know has its challenges when you’re working with a group of people and a group of people who are so who have such full lives. like This is part of the incredible part of it from my perspective. Like we’ve got Mark Batterson and Ann Voskamp and Jennie Lusko and Amy Groeschel and Tara Lee Cobble. I mean, all kinds of people who have lots going on in their lives.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Lots of other things going on.

Toni Nieuwhof — And and yet they they took the time to um you know sit down and put words to paper and um very generously offer a vulnerable story or perspective.

Rich Birch — Well, and yeah, and the thing, I think that’s amazing. Like so just if you were to list all the people who were involved in this project, just getting them together is incredible. But even more pointedly, I think it’s amazing that you’ve been able to work with these friends of yours to have a what I think is a conversation that I don’t know that maybe it’s just the stream of church life that I’m in. We just don’t talk about suffering. We don’t talk about these moments. We don’t talk about, you know, the dark night of the soul and all this stuff. It just isn’t, we’re very focused—which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing—we’re focused on the good news. Jesus transformed and, you know, the bad stuff in my life into good. That is like, that’s one thing. But you you’ve pulled 25-ish people together and said, hey, let’s talk about that part of our life that’s maybe the most tender.

Rich Birch — And it really is almost like, hey, like crisis of faith kind of stuff. And you’ve said that people have faced this at some point. And, you know, this this crisis of faith doesn’t need to be this big, dramatic thing. It could be more of a slow burn.

Rich Birch — As you’ve been unpacking this, either in your own life, through these conversations, just as you’ve been pulling this together, maybe talk that that part of it through a little bit more. What what it, because I think our people could be experiencing this and we’re just not aware of it.

Toni Nieuwhof — Yeah, it’s not always obvious from the outside. You know, I think, like, I’ve gone through personal crises before, andI know, pretty skilled, like, to my own detriment, at hiding and masking what’s actually going on, so that most people, you know, would have no idea.

Toni Nieuwhof — And I think the, um yeah, one thing that united us as a group when when I started sending out these invitations, we didn’t know where the title was going to land. We didn’t even know exactly where the book structure was going to land. But basically, I described it as a you know ah book a book that would be helpful for somebody who feels like they’re at that point of disillusionment. Like dealing with the crisis, but God feels near. Sorry, God feels far. Like you want to draw near, but God feels far. God feels silent. Maybe even as a couple of our authors describe, you know, maybe even God feels cruel, like according to what they’re facing.

Toni Nieuwhof — And and so, you know, you as a church leader, you might not see this happening because um if people are like me, they’re doing their best to not let people see what’s going on and and not see the crisis.

Toni Nieuwhof — And maybe, you know, sometimes those questions about God and God’s faithfulness and is he good and has he forgotten me or… you know, am I am I just, is God indifferent? You know, there’s like, we wonder those things sometimes when we look at our circumstances and are going through a crisis, but it may be easier to distract ourselves and focus on something else than to actually focus on this spiritual question.

Toni Nieuwhof — And some people will lean in and pursue God, but some people will just, they’ll just lean away because the the question feels too scary or it feels too sacrilegious and they or they don’t want to be judged by their church peers.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so it’s a very strong temptation to work more. Or maybe work out more. Or you know focus on something else, double down on the focus on the kids. There are all kinds of ways that people can just drift away because the, you know, the the crisis feels like it’s too hot to handle.

Rich Birch — Well, I think you’ve, yeah, you’ve, I’d love to double click on that a little bit more. There’s, I can see how, and I’ve seen this as a pastor, you can see, right, where a crisis comes or people are, you know, they go through a moment of suffering and there are or moments or or not even moments, it’s like they’re in suffering.

Rich Birch — I don’t even know how to talk about it. It’s funny how like the right language for this thing, which is why I’m, you know, I think everybody should read your book. But the, when they’re in that, they’re experiencing that there is, yeah I’ve seen that where I’m like, man, there’s some people who it’s like their faith blossoms under that pressure. It’s like they, something happens inside of them and like a beautiful thing comes out the other end. And it’s not it’s not beautiful like ah like a meadow beautiful. It’s like beautiful like the highlands of Scotland beautiful. Like it’s like that’s rugged and it you know it it looks different, but it’s there is something beautiful about that.

Rich Birch — Or there’s folks like you say that just kind of drift out the back door and we don’t really notice. And and then, you know, I’ve sadly, I have that experience as a leader where it’s like, you know, two years later, I’d be like, I wonder what ever happened to that person. Like, I haven’t seen them in a long time.

Rich Birch — What makes the difference, you think, between those two responses? What do you think is, you know, some factors or something that, you know, kind of determines which way you think people end up going on that? And obviously, I know it’s not binary, but we’re picking kind of a binary approach to try to help us think that through.

Toni Nieuwhof — Sure.

Rich Birch — What do you think makes the difference?

Toni Nieuwhof — Well, I mean, there’re there are so many different influences You know, I think ah it’s multifaceted, but in my mind, one of the huge factors is the the community, like the Christian community around that person. How connected are they or how disconnected?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Toni Nieuwhof — If you’re relatively isolated a Christian, and and and let’s say this, isolation can happen in a setting that still looks church-based. So, you know, if if they’re in a small group, is the small group functional and healthy?

Rich Birch — Right.

Toni Nieuwhof — You know, is the small group leader trained and will, you know, recognize and engage somebody? Like, is there um is there a setting that feels safe enough that everybody can take their masks off and be real? Because it’s, I think, you know, one of the factors that would make it worse is being surrounded by a culture that doesn’t feel safe. And that the person may even feel like they have to slide away from or separate themselves from because they feel like they just can’t belong in the tension, like the internal tension is too great.

Toni Nieuwhof — Isolation, however it happens, lack of community. I think those are huge factors. And then in the in the community setting, how are people responding? Like, are they it is it truly a safe place? Can people be real with their questions and still and it still feels safe?

Toni Nieuwhof — Do people experience the the love in terms of the hands and feet of Jesus and not a lot of pressure, which can be very subtle, pressure to to spiritualize, like put a positive spiritual spin on a situation that’s actually heartbreaking?

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Isolation. Rob Meter, you’re the co-host of the Smart Family Podcast. I remember him talking about he’s an incredible pediatric psychiatrist for folks that don’t know. And I remember we were talking once about isolation and and this was post-COVID. And, you know, he said in his kind of joking sort of profound way, said, well, we’ve learned that having a bunch of kids isolated for a long period of time is not good for their mental health.

Rich Birch — And, you know, we’ve seen that, right? That, at you know, that this kind of isolation are… and our culture pushes towards that, it feels like that is just accelerating, like the, yeah, there’s just so many places that are pushing us apart. Well, this is so good.

Rich Birch — Well, let’s talk a little bit. We’ll take a step back from the content and talk more of it kind of as as a little bit of a resource. So personally, when I saw this, I heard you talking about this. I thought, man, this is the kind of thing that would be a great tool for churches to use.

Rich Birch — And it’s the kind of thing that I think could help leaders have a conversation with people in their church that maybe is difficult to have and they’re not having. So walk us through how a church, how a pastor, maybe a small groups ministry, how could they use this as a tool in their church? What were you kind of thinking about how they could implement, you know, use this with people to help them wrestle through these issues?

Toni Nieuwhof — Well, when we put the book together, we kind of struggled with the idea of, you know, how do you create and a journey for people when you have so many different voices? And where we’ve landed with it, I think this is where it was meant to go. It’s like an anthology.

Toni Nieuwhof — So the the book is um structured in three parts, you know, where people have learned more about the ways of God. So the three parts are the ways, and intimacy with God, and the glory of God as the, you know, the beautiful gift that God had on the other side of the author’s suffering.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so as a tool, um we do encourage people to pay attention to how they feel and what they need. So if you feel like you need more of the presence of God, then go to that part of the book and read those stories. If you feel like you need the inspiration that, you know, there is that that, you know, God has glory and I want to see more of it. And if it comes by way of suffering, well then so be it. You know, if you need that, then sample a story from the glory section of the book.

Toni Nieuwhof — So each of these stories is, you know, we’re we’re telling vulnerable stories. A couple of the things are are devotions as well. And so each one, each chapter is focused around one author’s story. And then it’s followed by a question for reflection. And we encourage people to go through the book, not quickly. You can go through it slowly. You can take it one story at a time, but but then sit and pause and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind whatever the author was raising and how it lands personally.

Toni Nieuwhof — So we really are praying that every reader will find one gem in the book, that they’ll find one and one thing that they feel was written specifically for them.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Toni Nieuwhof — And because I realized that, you know, this is a whole collection of voices. It’s a whole collection of stories. The situations people talk about, it’s far ranging. But our prayer is that everybody finds one thing that hits so close to the heart that they want to go back to it. And they want to go back to it. And maybe that’s an anchor for them in ah in a time of suffering. And overall, of course, we’re praying that it does help them grow closer to God.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Yeah, I could see this as the kind of thing, man, I should have like 10 copies of this book. And, ah you know, in my office, and I would could be interacting with folks where I’m like, Hey, you know what, this like this might be, you know, obviously, it’s not the like, you know you just chuck it out.

Rich Birch — But it’s like in conversation, here’s a book I could, you know, here’s something for you to to check out, you know, here’s a here’s a resource that could help you as you’re as we’re thinking about these issues together as we’re praying through those, I think that could be, you know, a great way to use it. I think it could be a great tool in small groups.

Rich Birch — But you’ve also built a four-week sermon series and study guide that also goes with that. Can you talk to us about that? How how does that fit in? I think this is a this and gift that you’ve put this together. What how are you what’s your vision for that? Kind of paint a picture of how that could work.

Toni Nieuwhof — Yeah. So, you know, as a as a church leader, you have your finger on the pulse of the congregation. And there are times where a community faces collective grief. Something has happened and people are reeling. And I mean, this book would be perfect for that context where you know that that people are suffering. And this book is a ah tool that doubles down on that journey of suffering and how is it that we can grow closer.

Toni Nieuwhof — And it not just in terms of strategies.

Rich Birch — Right.

Toni Nieuwhof — Like there are actually many practical strategies in the book…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Toni Nieuwhof — …that emerge through so many different voices. But it’s also the camaraderie of, ah you know, me too. Like I was in a place, I, wondered where God was, or I felt forgotten, or I wondered if if if God was just cruel. But this is how I went through that journey, and this is how I rebuilt trust.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so the the sermon series addresses addresses adversity. How is it that we can, you know, if we if we run from God, we may be running from the goodness of, I mean, if we run from adversity, we may be running from the goodness of God.

Toni Nieuwhof — And, um you know, and even if you, even if the people around you are not, God is relentlessly faithful.

Toni Nieuwhof — So we we have those kinds of messages. But honestly, Rich, you know, when when the topic of sermon series was raised by one of my fellow authors on the book, um I was very reticent. I just thought, oh, you know, I don’t know. Who who am I to write this series? But I mean, it is true that I have preached. So you know it’s not a new thing for me. And I have somebody close to me who’s pretty skilled at writing sermons.

Rich Birch — Yes. Whoever that would be.

Toni Nieuwhof — So so I had an expert editor, whoever that would be.

Rich Birch — And he’s also willing to give you feedback. He’s he’s good at that.

Toni Nieuwhof — Yeah, he’s the best. So, you know, so as I thought about it, you know, one of my authors, fellow authors, who’s also a pastor said, you really should do this. And as we we held an earlier an early readers group earlier in the year, and and we got comments like the church really needs this book, because sometimes we’re not the best at dealing with grief.

Rich Birch — Oh, 100%.

Toni Nieuwhof — Like there’s all kinds of things that we’re great at. And I think the church is, is you know, the the light of the world and is the the place where community is formed. Absolutely. But, you know, we don’t always ah do the best job at supporting people through really tough times of suffering.

Toni Nieuwhof — And so, yeah, this sermon series is is meant to help open those conversations. And as far as a personal experience goes, every person who reads the book has, you know, will get the feeling that they’ve got 25 or 25 people around them saying, yeah, me too. And this is what it looked like for me.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.

Toni Nieuwhof — Yes, it it comes with ah ah with a group study guide as well. So so each sermon has, I think, 10 questions that go along with it so that small groups can follow along with the series if that’s how your church is structured.

Rich Birch — So good. That’s fantastic. And I feel like we’re burying the lead here on this whole thing, but I wanted to highlight, you’ve structured kind of the the way the book works on the back end in an interesting way. So ultimately, this is to support a couple organizations. Talk us through that. How does how is that? That’s kind of a cool piece of this story as well. Talk me through what that looks like.

Toni Nieuwhof — This is a part I’m so excited about, Rich. Thanks for asking. So each of our, each of the authors was super generous financially as well. Nobody is is taking any proceeds from the book, myself included. We all donated our time and our efforts free of charge. Of course, that doesn’t apply to the the publisher who took this on.

Rich Birch — Right.

Toni Nieuwhof — You know, so we have some publishing expenses, but um but we’re really working and doing our best to make this a very cost-effective process.

Toni Nieuwhof — And 100% of the proceeds are going to support the cause of young young adult education and…

Rich Birch — So good.

Toni Nieuwhof — …through two charities that I absolutely love, Compassion International and Convoy of Hope.

Rich Birch — So good.

Toni Nieuwhof — And we’ve seen firsthand how you know all of these all of the children who get sponsored and go through their education programs, you know once they reach the age of 18-ish, around that age, a portion of them will go on to receive resources for studies. But in our experience, in my personal experience, like all these kids have dreams and we really want to add fuel to what can be accomplished if a whole group of under-resourced young adults can all of a sudden just receive the resources they need to become educated.

Rich Birch — So good.

Toni Nieuwhof — It’s it’s just such a potential lift for these individuals, their families and their communities. And I am I’m I’m so deeply grateful that all of the authors were 100% board with this.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, I think to me, I think that’s such a cool part of this whole story is it’s like, you know, we’re talking about so things of huge consequence. I think it’s going to be super helpful for people in our churches. I think, you know, we we all can think quickly of folks that are you know maybe in the midst of some suffering and you know we’re trying to find ways to help them.

Rich Birch — And I think that’s like a gift that you’ve given gathering these folks together. And then this is like the accelerant on top of that, that it’s like, hey, when you if we were to do this as a church, if we were to you know if we were to buy copies of these books or if we were to have some available, that sort of thing, it’s then, it’s like a triple win, you know which is amazing.

Rich Birch — So you know that’s that’s fantastic. This has been just a great conversation. I want to make sure we get people to go to honesttoGodbook.com. When they arrive there, this is the best place for people to to pick up the book. They can get it in and like the other places. Who knows where those other places are that people can buy books.

Toni Nieuwhof — Who knows?

Rich Birch — But the best place, and the reason why I say that, is because we want to see the, you know, kind of the largest portion of it end up with compassion and with convoy. And if what I understand is you’ve is you’ve organized it in a way. So that’s kind of the best way to do that.

Rich Birch — Talk us through when we were to land—it’s a fantastic site—when we were land at honesttoGodbook.com, what are a couple of things there that might see? Obviously, a chance to buy books, but what what else is on that that page to help them with this process?

Toni Nieuwhof — Yes. So ah we’ll have a tap for a tab for individual per um purchases. um There’s also a place for pastors or church churches to go if they’re interested in placing a bulk order.

Rich Birch — This is great.

Toni Nieuwhof — And there’s there’s also additional resources…

Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.

Toni Nieuwhof — …that support the the healing journey. So yeah, it’s, you know, Rich, you mentioned going to the website. I really want to underline that. If people buy through the website, it avoids us giving about five extra dollars to to that retailer we don’t need not name.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Toni Nieuwhof — And that and that it converts that $5 to profits that we can support the cause with.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent.

Toni Nieuwhof — So we would be very, very appreciative of people going through the website.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is great. So that’s honesttoGodbook.com, which I am shocked that you got that, that name. That’s a great domain.

Toni Nieuwhof — Me too. No, I am shocked as well because there are actually other books titled Honest to God.

Rich Birch — Right.

Toni Nieuwhof — But it was just such a fitting and compelling title and we were united around it.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Toni Nieuwhof — So we we went with it anyway and figured that somehow we’ll we’ll be able to get the message out there that that this is the book that you’re looking for.

Rich Birch — No, it’s so great. Well, Toni, you are a gift to many. And I think the fact that you’ve, this has been a labor, how long this has been couple years, you’ve been working on this project, year and a half, maybe it’s just been a year. I feel like this has been a journey for a while to get to this point. And, you know, what a gift that is.

Rich Birch — And the fact that, ah you know, we kind of exposed at the end, you’re, you’re just donating your time here, you’re just trying to help people. Trying to you know give back is is amazing. And so I just want to publicly honor you for that. I think this is, it’s going to be a gift for the people who are going to read this and feel like you say, they’ve got this group of 25 people around them that are like, hey, I’ve been there too. I understand.

Rich Birch — You know it’s like the the the book version of the side hug saying, hey, you know, it let me tell you a little bit of my story. But then also the fact that you’re, you know, this this kind of triple win of of helping Compassion International and Convoy of Hope. And ah this is fantastic. So thank you for your leadership. Any final words just as we wrap up today’s conversation? Is there any last things you’d like to leave with us?

Toni Nieuwhof — Well, I just thank everyone for listening and considering this. And Rich, I really want to thank you for what you do. What you do to equip churches and leaders just has such an impact and I am I’m I’m just always inspired by what you do, Rich. So thank you.

Rich Birch — That’s kind.

Toni Nieuwhof — Thank you for your ministry and your love for the Lord.

Rich Birch — That’s such a kindy thing to say. Again, friends, we want to send you over to honesttoGodbook.com. This one I do not mind pushing big time. So honesttoGodbook.com. Drop by there. Toni, thanks so much. You can come back anytime. There’s very few people I’ve said that to. Toni Nieuwhof is one of them. So come back anytime, Toni. Really appreciate you and your leadership. Thanks so much.

Toni Nieuwhof — Oh, thank you. Love this conversation. It was a pleasure.

 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Trey Hildebrant, Danny de Armas, and David Loveless from First Orlando, a historic multisite church serving Central Florida since 1871. Together, they are helping lead the church into a new season focused on multiplication, leadership development, and sending people into new gospel expressions across their region and beyond.

What happens when a 150-year-old church decides it doesn’t want to simply preserve what it has built? How do you move from addition to multiplication without losing the strengths that got you there? Tune in as the First Orlando team shares how a bold vision, a new leadership structure, and a commitment to empowering everyday people are reshaping the future of the church.

To learn more about First Orlando and follow the story of its campuses, sending residency, and expanding gospel expressions, visit First Orlando at firstorlando.com and follow the church across its social channels. Leaders interested in learning more about their framework and resources behind their multiplication strategy can also connect directly with the First Orlando team.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Wow, we have got an incredibly special podcast for you today. The stuff we’re talking about on multiple layers, I know, hope, pray, will impact your church. We’re talking about how do teams interact with each other. We’re talking about vision for the future. We’re talking about multiplication. And we’re getting a chance to sit down with multiple leaders from a prevailing church that’s doing a great job. Looking forward to looking under the hood. Alittle bit excited to have our friends from First Orlando with us. This is the first time I was just joking about this. The first time we have had. Three, not one, not two, but three guests on the line. So this is going to be good. It’s going to stretch me. It’s kind of like The View, but for church leaders. It’s going to be good and hopefully fun.

Rich Birch — Excited to have Trey Hildebrant with us. He is the senior teaching pastor at First Orlando, newest member of the team. Danny de Armas, he is the Senior Executive Pastor, if I’m getting all the titles correctly, and David Loveless, Executive Pastor of Global Mobilization. Honored to have you guys with us.

Rich Birch — If you’re not aware of First Orlando, This church started in 1871. They currently have multiple campuses across the greater Orlando area, including, if I’m counting correctly, four English locations, Campus Hispano and Campus Brasilio. It’s a fantastic church doing lots of great things. There’s lots of stuff we could talk about. Excited to have you guys on the call today. Thanks for being here.

Trey Hildebrant — We’re excited.

Danny de Armas — Great to be a part.

Rich Birch — Why don’t we start, Trey, with you. Kind of tell, that’s like a boilerplate about the church. For folks that don’t know the church, kind of tell us a little bit about the church. Give us a bit more flavor. Fill out the picture a little bit for us.

Trey Hildebrant — Well, you mentioned that we are a church that’s 150 years old. So there is a rich legacy. When I joined the team, one of the things that we celebrated was there’s only been five pastors in the past 100 years or something like that.

Rich Birch — Wow, wow.

Trey Hildebrant — So there’s this history there. There’s this presence in the community and around the world, honestly, that that honest partly drew my heart to First Orlando. And so we’ve been here since December of ’25, my wife and I. We came from an incredible church, but knew God was calling us to something different. and knew that Wherever God called us, we wanted to be a part of salvations and baptisms.

Trey Hildebrant — And early in the conversation with First Orlando, David Uth and I, our senior shepherding pastor, just sat around and talked about our heart for baptisms for an hour one day in the interview process. And it’s that history. It’s that culture, it’s that calling, that Great Commission calling that helped affirm that this is where God wanted us to be. And hopefully, with me being the the new one on the team, one of the younger guys on the team, I hope to be here for 35 years to continue what God has been doing over the past 150.

Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Yeah. You know, to honor your your leadership and your church, you know, I think of First Orlando as like one of those churches of record. It’s like when I think of Orlando, I think of First Orlando, like you guys have been there for a long time and served well. You know, I like to call you like a, it’s a life-giving church. Like this is the kind of church, my wife and I have this shorthand whenever I travel or interact with other church leaders, the shorthand we’ve boiled it down to, she says, yeah, but would you go there? Like, would you be a part of that church?

Rich Birch — And First Orlando is definitely one of those churches. It’s like, man, you guys do such a great job on so many levels. And there’s a lot we could talk about.

Trey Hildebrant — Well, it’s really kind of really kind of you to say that.

Rich Birch — Oh, come on.

Trey Hildebrant — There is something sweet. There is something really sweet about the presence of this place that you just even touched on. We just had a prayer gathering. We pray on Thursday mornings at 9 a.m. as a staff. And one of the things that came out in the prayer today was just there’s a presence here that helps draw people in and we’re grateful.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And we bumped into each other at Exponential last year. And I think you, I think actually it was this three-part leadership team. You guys were kind of wandering around the halls and as you graciously allow all these people from all over the world to come in, you poked your head into one of the sessions I was a part of. And, and talk to me about this kind of three-part leadership team. How, how does that work? Kind of unpack that a little bit. I know, like I think it’s amazing. I think it’s good. There’s no undercurrent of like cynicism about that, but just how what did you step into as a leader, Trey? When you joined, you know, Danny and David Uth as you started leading there.

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, so it is different. And we can embrace that, that there’s this this plurality of senior pastors. We have three senior pastors at First Orlando. We call it the table of three. The team before I got here did a wonderful job of of telling the story of why three, even putting language around it. And so I stepped in as the senior teaching pastor.

Trey Hildebrant — So I offer leadership to our Sundays, to teaching across our campuses, helping shape sermons for our our John Young campus, which is our largest campus, but then also all of the campuses. And we have a great relationship with the campus pastors who also preach live. We broadcast from time to time, but that’s our primary model. So I get to help provide leadership to that. And then things that might would trickle down from teaching and vision and spiritual leadership.

Trey Hildebrant — Danny de Armas here is our senior executive pastor. He runs the church, for for lack of a better way of saying it. Danny’s got his hand on all the levers and all the buttons leading the staff, helping us move forward in a way that’s healthy across the board financially to strategy to staff culture. And then David Uth is our senior shepherding pastor, and he offers so much in just his presence and spiritual leadership and prayer and care.

Trey Hildebrant — I’m grateful to be able to follow the preaching ministry of a man who’s still here. And you asked like, how is it working? So all three of us report to the board, you know. So we have we don’t report to one another nobody reports to One or the other, we report to the board. But we have a friendship among the three of us. We spend a lot of time together. We’ve learned how to beat up ideas. Maybe even disagree a little bit, but then step out of a room in in unity.

Trey Hildebrant — And one of the greatest gifts to me is I have a trusted, both Danny David and Danny are trusted. But I think about 20 plus years of David Uth preaching to step into an environment where he’s still here and he’s a cheerleader. He is the biggest supporter of the teaching ministry that I’ve been able to bring to First Orlando. He comes in, he sits on the front row. If he’s not going to be on the front row for a sermon, he tells me like, I’m so sorry, I’m not going to be here for this service. Because he’s going to go speak to a life group or go care for someone.

Trey Hildebrant — So we we’re still working on some of the dynamics for sure, but it’s working because the relationships are right and the spirit’s right. And we so we have our lanes and we we’re learning how to how to operate in those lanes, but then trust one another to help influence the overall vision and direction of the church. So it’s been wonderful.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. I love I love that. What that’s like a whole other conversation at some point. I’d love to sit down and kind of unpack that.

Danny de Armas — It is. It is a whole nother podcast. It’s been a five-year journey to…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Danny de Armas — …go from a single senior pastor to where we are today. And it’s ah it’s been fantastic. And our church has been so supportive. That’s probably the biggest surprise for me, having been here through the whole process.

Danny de Armas — The church, when we first started talking about this, it seemed like such a stretch to get the church to embrace it. And it has it has happened without a I mean, it’s just been incredible. It’s been a work of God, to be honest with you. It’s just it’s inexplicable that we were able to do it. And again I echo Trey’s sentiment, it is you know, there’s some it’s a relationship, so you’re still learning a little bit, and poor Trey has to hang around with two old guys most of the time, and that’s a challenge for him, I’m sure.

Danny de Armas — But it’s been awesome for us and and it gives us uh, you know freedom to to work in the lanes where we’re called and gifted in a way that is just has been fantastic. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve I’ve been lurking since since Exponential, just kind of following along a little closer with your, you know, just just all the public stuff. And it and yeah, I think it’s amazing. The kind of vibe that all that generates externally, I think is super positive. And I think it’s a great model, interesting kind of like thing to for churches to consider. You know, I think we are all wondering, okay, how do we lead these things?

Danny de Armas — Right.

Rich Birch — They are difficult.

Danny de Armas — Right.

Rich Birch — They’re not, you know, we talk about stuff you wish they taught in seminary. There is no course on how to lead a church like First Orlando. This is a complex, large organization, you know…

Danny de Armas — Yes it is.

Rich Birch — …a lot of history. And that I think is an interesting kind of solution you know towards that. That’s but I get, like I said, it’s a whole other conversation. We won’t get into that…

Danny de Armas — It is.

Rich Birch — …much more of that today. Danny one of the things that caught my attention was again, we were at Exponential and I had heard that there was some kind of a new season that was kind of coming up at the church. And I love that a church is a church 150 years old, still dreaming, still thinking about the future, still thinking about what’s coming next. And in the midst of this kind of leadership transition what were you sensing as a leadership team that God was stirring as we were looking into this next season?

Danny de Armas — Well, the way those things always work for me is it’s there’s multiple forces hitting me at the same time. I acknowledge I’m God’s remedial child. And so it it takes hearing things multiple ways. And I was in, probably a year and a half ago, in a conference setting. And and a friend of mine who was leading our time said said something that I’m sure he had said a bunch of other times but it didn’t connect with me. And it was the idea that the the Great Commission is not institutional, it’s individual. It’s a personal mission statement more than it is a church mission statement.

Danny de Armas — ‘m a systems guy. I’m a church guy. And I’ve always viewed it as a church thing. And then and then the the challenge was, so how do we make the Great Commission, a personal mission endeavor. Like this is what we want our people to wrap their hearts around.

Danny de Armas — And so that was boiling in me. And then I attended a conference with David Loveless. I think we were in California. We were in a conference with other multi-site and church planting churches that are kind of similar to us. Somehow we got in the room. I’m not exactly sure. I didn’t feel like I belonged in the room, but we were invited to be there.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Danny de Armas — And at the end of the time, it was a challenge time by the leaders of the of our gathering, which was really a peer to peer kind of environment. But the challenge at the end, they said, hey, as your with your groups, we had three or four of us from staff there. Would you write down, over the next 10 years, if things just went great and you were able to do the things that are in your heart to do. How many new church plants or campuses or kind of gospel expressions do you think you could launch in the next 10 years?

Danny de Armas — So we went together and and we we’re so committed to stuff already. I mean, we’ve got we’re building a campus on the west side of town. That’s a big investment. And we got missions giving that we do. And for goodness sakes, now we’ve got three senior pastors we have to pay. And all of these things that we have to do. And a lot of, you know, we’re busy already.

Rich Birch — Right.

Danny de Armas — And so in the conversation, I pitched like what I thought was super aggressive and say, well, what if in 10 years we did 10 more? Like we’re, we have four campuses and so and we have a couple of church plants that we’ve helped start in the last couple of years, our last three years. So I said, well, what do we do ten?

Danny de Armas — So anyway, to make the story story not so long, the challenge [inaudible] the leaders said so what if what if God was doing something really dramatic in you? And wanted to do something that could be like God-sized, not not something you feel like you can do, but something that’s bigger than that?

Danny de Armas — And it was there was kind of a silence in the room and everybody kind of mulling that around. And one of the other pastors stood up and said, I feel like that The Titanic is sinking and I’m moving furniture around on the deck. And when he said it, it’s like. Man, it just penetrated.

Danny de Armas — And and I thought, man, am I just moving furniture around? So and again, it was just convicting. And then the the leader said, well, what if what if you just did something bold and put a zero to whatever number you wrote down. Add a zero to it.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Danny de Armas — And I said it out loud to Loveless who was there with me. I said, I’ve lost my mind, but put a zero up there.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Danny de Armas — Because it’s felt so unreachable. Like there’s no way. And so but in a prayer that we just had together in those moments, we committed to it and said, I don’t haven’t. I haven’t talked to David and Trey yet. And obviously I can’t speak on behalf of the church, but I did write it down and I’m gonna come back and share it with them.

Danny de Armas — And so. I did, and with with angst. And fear. And with the preface of… Hey guys. I’ve lost my mind. and I need you to tell me I’ve lost my mind and this is not something we need to do.

Rich Birch — Shouldn’t have gone to California. There’s something in the air. They’re smoking weed out there or something. Who knows?

Danny de Armas — Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we’ve always we’re always suspicious of that West Coast anyway.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes, exactly.

Danny de Armas — So this just confirms it.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Danny de Armas — But when I described like I’ve just described to you, what the moment was for us. They both said, that’s awesome. We don’t know how. But let’s commit to it. And again, we prayed and said, God, we don’t know how to do this. And I actually, I don’t know, a few weeks later preached it at the beginning of the calendar year. And I told the people, I don’t know if we can do this. We don’t know exactly what it takes to do it. But here’s what I know. We’re going to give everything we have and put ourselves fully towards it for the next 10 years, this is what we’re aiming at. And if we don’t make it, we can say we gave it everything we had to get there.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Danny de Armas — And so that’s that was the genesis of it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. I love just to underline for you listeners, like I think it would be really easy for a church like First to just like, let’s just ride on what we’ve been doing. And instead of like saying, no, like, in fact, actually, it would be easier to say, Let’s just gather more people into the buildings we already have, rather than say hey we’re going to do this hundred thing in 10 years. That’s that’s amazing; that’s inspiring.

Rich Birch — How does it how does that kind of what’s the language that’s been started to kind of form around that, Danny? How do you say it publicly now? It’s it’s moved beyond just on the board now. You’ve you started to talk about it.

Danny de Armas — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What was does it look like? How do you so kind of…

Danny de Armas — I mean, we…

Rich Birch — …talk about it.

Danny de Armas — …internally would call it 110.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Danny de Armas — We just say that. Our vision our our vision for 110, there’s also emerged with Loveless’ help. We’ve we’ve kind of codified that. What does it take to do that? And it’s it’s about having a leadership pipeline. The leadership pipeline is what this is all about. That’s this is that’s the way it multiplies. And it it takes multiplication. And multiplication was a big part of the conversation at the conference that we were at.

Rich Birch — Right.

Danny de Armas — And that was before we came back and hosted Exponential whose theme was Multiply.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Danny de Armas — Right.

Rich Birch — Right.

Danny de Armas — And so for us, this was all confirmation. We didn’t know where Exponential was going thematically at that time. And you know but God was doing something and in the midst of a lot of different churches who are all experiencing this same thing.

Danny de Armas — So for us, it’s i’s us raising up and empowering and training 300 leaders over the next 10 years. who can who we can deploy. into a hundred different expressions. And we’re we don’t this word gospel expressions is kind of code too. That was probably the first environment that I remember hearing that comment, or that title, that description, that term. And but here’s our the reason we’re landing on it and it’s it’s probably not the best I don’t know if it’s the best way to describe it or not but here’s why, is we don’t know everything that’s going to be innovated in the next 10 years.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Danny de Armas — So it’s hard to, our staff struggles with it. I struggle some, but our staff struggles more. When we don’t when we can’t define everything.

Rich Birch — Right.

Danny de Armas — And so. It’s a and I think there’ll be seasons of I think that is but I’m not sure it is and I don’t think that is but maybe it is.

Rich Birch — I don’t know if that counts. Yeah, yeah

Danny de Armas — But we’re we’re, yeah, we’re just going to hold it loosely. And today it just feels so different than it did. It was almost a year ago we were at that conference. It just feels so different than it did then. It feels like, man, God’s doing something and we’re just a part of something way bigger than us. And He’s raising up our people and we’re training and empowering them and we’re giving them permission to do what God’s put in their heart to do.

Danny de Armas — And this is a blast. It’s messy. It’s out of bounds. We don’t control it. They’re doing stuff. It’s not us. And and it’s it’s just, it’s it’s becoming more fun every day.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. When you, just double clicking on the the gospel expressions language, I’m going to force you to do what you don’t want to do. Tell us, Danny, what what are the kind of things you are imagining? I understand there’s probably things outside your imagination, but what would some of those things you think will end up looking?

Danny de Armas — Well, the I’m going to answer the two most common because they do count also, and that’s church plants and campuses. So we need to be about both of those.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Danny de Armas — I think most of our campuses will actually be revitalization. I’m kind of convinced for the time being the church in central Florida owns enough real estate.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Danny de Armas — We just need to fill up the buildings that we have. And so and we have some opportunities. But and then some church plants, we want to be about that. I’m going to defer to David Loveless to tell us more about the other. And right now we have four categories. Uh, and and I ‘ll let him describe the others because he’s had it kind of helped us develop the categories.

Rich Birch — Yep. Operationalizing, yeah.

Danny de Armas — Yeah. So…

Rich Birch — Yeah, David, David, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that four different categories?

Danny de Armas — Loveless, why don’t you explain that?

Rich Birch — How does that hang together?

David Loveless — Yeah. What we do we talk about, we have four different types of gospel expressions. We’re going to have regional campuses, church plants, microsites, and the missional expressions. And so we’ve given a simple definition for each one of those. Then we have defined what types of people are each one of those best at uniquely reaching and discipling. And then what types of leaders are required to lead each one of those four different types of gospel expressions.

David Loveless —And actually just backing up before that, the first thing we had to do, you know, Danny said, OK, we get this vision and now we got to now we got to define all this. We got to figure out what’s the strategy behind it.

David Loveless — So he looked around the room, tried to figure out who had the lowest IQ that would agree to such a thing. And so that fell to me.

Trey Hildebrant — Who’s the mad scientist in the room? That’s…

Rich Birch — That’s fun.

David Loveless — And so I went, okay, we got to start with we have to define for us, What’s a gospel expression? And so we worked and worked on that for several months and basically came up with three simple words.

Danny de Armas — Yeah.

David Loveless — And then gave three defining characteristics of it. We said that a gospel expression for us was going to be a great commission community. It was going to be a family on mission. Community is family, extended spiritual family that’s on a mission together, great commission.

David Loveless — So we said a gospel expression is a great commission community where people are pursuing Jesus together where they’re becoming more like Him, and where they’re sent by him back into their everyday world. So we started with that, and then we started thinking about how can that best be lived out. That’s when we came up with these four different types of launch models of the campuses of the church plants, of the microsites, and the missional expressions.

David Loveless — Now you know, a while ago, you know, you were talking about this grand, illustrious history of First Orlando. She dramatically changed course about eight years ago where we moved from being a church that was consumed with thinking about addition, as most churches are, to we began thinking eight years ago around multiplication in ways that perhaps we never had. That’s when we started making plans for and we executed a plan on going multi-site for the first time. We were probably one of the few large churches in the country that hadn’t yet been to the multi-site party.

David Loveless — And so about eight years ago, we joined that party and we started launching other campuses as well as planting churches within this same region all at the same time. So that kind of set us up for really where we’re evolving, morphing, moving into today in these four particular expressions.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, just some stats on that. And Warren’s got new stats coming out this fall, which we’re excited to talk about here in upcoming episodes.

David Loveless — This is why he exists, is to come up with more stats.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes, exactly. I love Warren. he We all love Warren.

Danny de Armas — We do too.

David Loveless — We do love him.

Rich Birch — The most recent study, not the one he’s doing right now, I’m sure it’s even higher, churches over 2000. It’s low 80 % of churches ah over 2000 across the country are now multi-site. So it’s almost the way I say that I work with a lot of churches in the thousand to 2000 range. And the way I say those churches, I’m like, you statistically it’s unlikely you will get over the 2000 barrier and not be multi-site.

Danny de Armas — Not be multisite, right.

Rich Birch — Like you’re you are in the radical minority which you guys found yourselves obviously you’re much larger than that at that point and started going you know multi-site which led to this which I think is just incredible. Can you um pull out a little bit of the definitions around regional church plants, you know, and and again, I realize it’s early days. I’m trying to push you to to nail down some some terms here, like nailing jello to a wall. I get that. But kind of give us the 15 second on each of those. How do they how do they how do you define those four?

David Loveless — Yeah, it’s no longer it’s no longer feeling jello-ish to me.

Rich Birch — Good. Okay, good.

David Loveless — I mean we’ve we’ve laid out some things. We now have some examples, real life examples, that we’re in the early embryonic stages of of creating or exist now. So when we talk about a regional campus, we’re talking about a full service campus that extends our reach into neighborhoods in Central Florida where they’re going to have a worship service that looks like ours. They’re going to have a kids ministry, student ministry, life groups. They’re going to have connection experiences, so a full-service campus like that. That’s got our name. It’s led by one of our campus pastors.

David Loveless — Then when we think about the second category of church plants, this is where we are taking a trained church planter, we are sending resources and people with that church planter where they have our DNA, but they’re going to establish their own name, their own brand, their own identity, their own governance. But at the same time, they want to stay in a coaching relationship with us and want to be a part of our broader network of our family of churches that we would have.

David Loveless — And we know with church plants, they’re best at really going into pioneering areas under-resourced areas, as in there aren’t that many churches or that many effective churches. And going in where people are really desiring something that’s more real. authentic local they don’t want something exported in from somewhere else. So that’s why church plants are great for.

David Loveless — Then the third type is microsites. These are small, simple gatherings of 20 to 50 to maybe 70 people that are going to show up in a living room, an apartment complex, a common room, in a coffee shop, in workplaces, things like that. And this is really designed for people that are either unchurched or de-churched. And they’re just really skeptical of an institutional church. And this is typically going to be led by a lay leader and by a team of people who have been trained uniquely for that. Oftentimes in microsites we might broadcast a part of a service or a sermon into there, and they’ll create some other live events and then group experiences from it.

David Loveless — Other times, we may not broadcast anything into there. We may take that lay leader. And where he’ll take the the teaching outline that Trey and his team have put together and where he will actually use that or she will use that themselves in that context. But it’s not about creating a church service. It’s about, let’s go back to our definition of a gospel expression. It’s having this great commission community that has those three traits I mentioned a while ago.

David Loveless — And then the fourth thing, of the missional expression is usually ah the community of disciples that are organized. They want to be an incarnational presence and you unique crack or crevice in the in the culture. It might be in recovery groups or in prisons. It might be like right now I’m having conversations with two couples that are part of a pickleball club. And all the people in their pickleball club, they could care less about the church. They don’t want to go to an established church. We’re talking about how can they create a unique missional expression right there with them. So those are some of the examples of it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really cool. As that’s, thank you for walking us through that. As you’ve been kind of pivoting from, you know, an idea an idea of vision to these four, and then trying to articulate it and start to operationalize it, David, what’s been the hardest part of, you know, getting this into people’s hands, actually saying, okay, here is the you know, this is what the next steps look like beyond, hey, that’s somebody else’s idea.

Rich Birch — The thing I’m picking up here is that at the end of the day, and and you started with this, Danny, about you know the the Great Commission is a personal commission.

Danny de Armas — Right.

Rich Birch — So it’s not it’s about individuals at first being engaged in this.

Danny de Armas — Right. Right.

Rich Birch — So David, what’s been the hardest part about actually getting individuals to engage in this process?

David Loveless — Where do we start?

Trey Hildebrant — Yes.

David Loveless — I think. I think the most fundamental thing, and this came out of the research that a lot of us were involved in back a number of years ago where we ended up in an Exponential kind of published it as level five churches. And talked about level one, level two, three, four, and five churches that were, at level one that were just barely surviving, up to level five churches that were now reproducing themselves.

David Loveless — And what a lot of us saw back a number of years ago is that churches basically that are either in subtraction or addition mode, they are all about, we can do it and you can help us.

David Loveless — But churches that move into level four and five, where they become ou know reproducing in nature where they become ultimately multiplying in nature, they have a different mentality. Their mentality is looking at people and saying, you can do it. God’s given you a vision. God’s equipped you. There’s an acorn within you that is a potential kingdom force, not just a tree. And we want to help you be able to do that where you live, work, or play.

David Loveless — So I think for us, it’s beginning to help our people have a brand new kingdom imagination. They’ve never had before. Up until now they’ve thought about First Orlando is where you go to church. It’s where you go and give. It’s where you go and serve in faithful, very meaningful ways like that.

David Loveless — But now we’re trying to turn the tables and going, listen. It’s going to take all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. And this kind of church is limited in the amount of people it can actually reach. We want to be able to have some new gospel expressions through hundreds of you.

David Loveless — So now being able to envision and now through our sending residency, equip them to do that. The new residency that we’ve just designed we’re about to launch we’ve just got through having two preview events around it it’s kind of unique in nature in that it’s intended for people that are co-vocational or bi-vocational rather than people that are just predominantly full-time vocational.

David Loveless — So we tell people, hey, listen, we’ve designed this thing so you can keep your family, your job, your neighborhood intact, all at the same time learning and being equipped in some new ways of what it means to be, you know a part of a family on mission. And we’re going to train you to do that. And then we’re going to help you either launch these new expressions based upon the unique calling God’s given you that will help you discern and identify. Or we may send you back into one of our existing expressions where you will be a leader in a brand new way there.

Rich Birch — That’s cool. Give me a little more framework of the residency. Is it like two years long? Is it how how often do they meet? What is that? Just a little bit of detail around that would be interesting.

David Loveless — Sure. It’s it’s ah a weekly training cohort that’s two and a half hours in nature. It begins with a meal because, first of all, we’re trying to build relationships with people. We’re trying to demonstrate what it means to be community…

Rich Birch — Community. Yep.

David Loveless — …not go to a church. And so people learn that around tables, right? And then from there we have training sections and we have practices where we create feedback loops around all that. And then they have assignments. It’s like an eight hour a week commitment. And the initial commitment extends from October through May.

Rich Birch — Okay.

David Loveless — Then they get to come up for air. And either will graduate them at that particular level or they’ll sign up for a year or two around the whole thing.

Rich Birch — Okay.

David Loveless — And so we’re going to offer it two different times each week. And we’re trying to capture people just where they are and their availability. I was just hosting another preview event last night. And I said, I know a lot of you think eight hours a week, where am I going to get that? I said, I can find your eight hours. I said the research is most of you spend 40, 50 hours a week on your screen. So I can find those eight hours really easily for you, you know.

David Loveless — And but what we’ve noticed is the people that have been coming to these preview events, God’s already been at work in them. He’s already been stirring something.

Rich Birch — For sure.

David Loveless — They just haven’t had language. They didn’t know what to name it. And they didn’t know that their church at First Orlando had actually been designing something just for them. And man, it’s making them come alive.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and David, I do want to affirm that. It’s amazing and connects to us stuff that we often run into in other churches, fast-growing churches where you know there’s a big ask. One of the differences between usually a stuck in stagnant church and a growing church is growing churches make big asks of their people. They they are not they do not do not hesitate with saying hey you got it this is a big deal for you. You got, it’s got eight hours for an entire year and then you might do a second year.

Rich Birch — Like as opposed to a stuck in stagnant church is like, well, could you just give us 15 minutes? Could you just do this? We’ll make it super easy. You just got to do these few things. That’s a sign of a stuck and stagnant church as opposed to a growing church. I love that.

Rich Birch — Trey, pivoting on how you’ve been talking about this from the stage, what how has this changed and morphed from the kind of public communication side, you or David or anyone else that’s speaking as you’re communicating about this, what are you doing to ensure that there’s kind of the vision is properly aligned and we’re moving people along from that vantage point?

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, that’s something that we’ve begun to do is it’s kind of baked into every single teaching. And I think that’s, we were in a teaching series on family as we have this conversation right now. And it’s even beginning to talk about parenting through a great commission lens. It’s talking about marriage through a great commission lens. Then we’re starting a teaching series called One More. And we’re going to we’re going to talk about the personal evangelism, personal Great Commission, as of you know the Great Commission as a personal mission endeavor.

Trey Hildebrant — But then make sure that our church doesn’t separate any of these other teachings from what God is calling us to do. Like we are going to have to help teach our church, hey when we have a series on family, we’re still talking about the great commission. When we talk about One More, yeah, we’re talking about personal evangelism. But for some of you, this gospel expression something’s gonna birth in you. And here’s how you can jump into the sending residency.

Danny de Armas — Yep.

Trey Hildebrant — So when we start One More in two weeks, I’ll teach through the Great Commission all the way to domino into there may be something God has put in you to go reach a people who have not yet been reached. And that’ll be some of the language that we use.

Trey Hildebrant — A big piece of this, and we’ve said this a few times, is continuing to say things like this. This isn’t what the first Orlando pastors are going to go do. This is what you’re going to go do. And we’re going to help you go do it. And the more we say that, the more I think it’s going to bake into the the culture.

Trey Hildebrant — One of the things that we’re also having to do is just shift the world view of our church. David and I were having this conversation—I don’t know if that was yesterday, two days ago—around a church like First Orlando—and you used the idea of Titanic, Danny—in a positive way, it is a cruise ship. Like it’s we have all the amenities.

Rich Birch — There’s a lot going on. Yeah, yeah.

Trey Hildebrant — There’s a lot going on. You have all the amenities. We have all the ministries. And it’s easy for people to be here and continue to ask the questions of: well Is the kids ministry what I need it to be? Is the student ministry what I want? Do you have a small group that fits my particular niche?

Trey Hildebrant — What can we do all the time to activate the cruise ship to get people from not thinking as much about what does this mean for me, but push the like the uncomfortable piece a little bit, in how we teach and disciple our people to go, I want to be a part of that.

Trey Hildebrant — And you mentioned the the big ask, like a lot of churches that are growing are good at making the the big ask. I think ah another piece of it is there’s this multiplication principle. I’ll say it from the negative first. I think a lot of pastors and even a lot of our team and even myself, let me just put myself in that category. It’s easy to think from a scarcity mindset of…

Rich Birch — So true.

Trey Hildebrant — …Oh man, if i if I have a sending conversation (sending residency, we have a brochure), if I have a sending conversation with my best small group leader in middle school. What does that mean for the ministry I’m currently leading, right?

David Loveless — Great point.

Rich Birch — Right.

David Loveless — Yep.

Trey Hildebrant — And what I think you begin to see, like a great commission formula that doesn’t even make sense is once you begin to hold people loosely. And you begin to see, Okay, we want to measure our church, not just by butts in the seats, but by who we’re sending. By the way, that’s a statement I will keep saying as well, Rich, from the stage is what if we didn’t measure our church just by who’s here, but who we’re sending. When we begin to do that, it’s like God brings up the people that were in the wings who needed that other leader to take a step. And we can release the scarcity mindset and just go, man, if we multiply and send… Our ministries are going to be okay.

Trey Hildebrant — I think that’s what we have to break a little bit at a church like First Orlando is, Hey, the amenities are going to take care of themselves. I keep using that word kind of tongue in cheek. But if we become a sending church. Man, that’s who we want to be for the future.

Danny de Armas — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.

Danny de Armas — And that is…That is hard though. For me, I mean I’ve been here a long time. And it’s sending some people who have become like family to me. And now you see God doing work in their lives and I can see it already, like they’re gonna go. And it’s going to be awesome. And some of the expressions don’t require you’re still going to be here on Sunday and all that. But some of them not that way.

Danny de Armas — Some of them, it’s like, I know that God’s doing a work in them and I can see it. And on one hand, I celebrate it. On the other side, I grieve. Like, I like having them here.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Danny de Armas — It is a that is part of the formula is that you got a good, but man, it is awesome. The two things that have surprised me the most…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Danny de Armas — …since we first cast a vision to the church publicly is the big vision of a hundred resonates with people. Like it taps into top leaders who go, that’s awesome. How can I help? It’s inspiring.

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, and that’s the key. Just to double tap on that quickly, Danny. You I think it all ah aligns with what we’ve been saying over the past 10 minutes, Rich, and the big starting with the big ask thought, is our sharpest leaders and our people who are leading large in life, they they’re not they don’t respond to the, hey, give me the 15 minutes if you please.

Danny de Armas — No.

Trey Hildebrant — They’re hearing this and there’s an entrepreneurial spirit that’s awakening in some of them as we go with the big vision. They want to be…

Danny de Armas — Yeah.

Trey Hildebrant — …brought into something larger than, I promise it won’t be too much.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Danny de Armas — Right.

Trey Hildebrant — You know that type of mentality.

Danny de Armas — And even my caution when I said it publicly that I did from the platform, man, our top leaders. They were texting me or calling me going, way to go. And yeah, we’re going to do it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Danny de Armas — Don’t you, God’s going to do something here. We’re with you. It was just bold.

Danny de Armas — The other part is how how inspiring it is to our people for us to say, This isn’t us doing it. This is you doing it. We’re going to help you, but you’re going to do it. And all of a sudden they’re like, okay – I got a role in this. And it’s and the response has not been, oh, okay, they’re asking us to do something. The the response is inspiring, in a way that is, yeah, that’s been the shock to me is how quickly our people have embraced an idea that again, I was cautious and ashamed even to bring it up, like they’re going to… I think I’ve lost my mind. So I know they’re going to think I’ve lost my mind. And and yet somehow God used it in a way that I just never.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Danny de Armas — Yeah, I never really contemplated and I’m just so grateful for the way he’s doing it and the way Loveless is helping put structure to it all. The way Trey’s communicating it and leading us to all communicate it. It’s just it’s just been a ou know one of the greatest joys of ministry that I’ve been a part of to see something you know, take hold within our church and now to see people that I love and care for deeply. And see God moving in their lives and doing, you know taking steps they’ve never taken before.

Danny de Armas — I had a businessman that I was with recently who said he’s they’re contemplating building a new office building for his company. And he said, I got I think I’ve got to make sure I’ve got a room on the ground floor that can seat 100, 150 people.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Danny de Armas — Because if we if we if we build it, I’m sure there’ll be some kind of gospel expression that wants to use that room on a Sunday.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.

Danny de Armas — And my comment is make sure you got parking. But yes.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s I love that.

Danny de Armas — And so, so, yeah, and if you if you’re asking for 15 minutes and make sure you’re here 30 of the next 52 weeks, that is not a big vision.

Rich Birch — It’s not inspiring. Yeah. And I…

Danny de Armas — And so somehow it, yeah. Somehow it resonated with our people. And I’m so grateful that I was at the conference that the leaders there and the pastor there spoke what they did. It anchored in my soul. And I I was compelled.

Danny de Armas — They say, man, we got to add a zero. And so.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s so cool. I love that. And I you know I know in my relationship with Jesus, I feel like he’s constantly reorienting me around other people. He’s saying, it’s not about you. It’s about others. It’s about others.

Danny de Armas — Right.

Rich Birch — Stop being so self-centered. Stop making it about you. and To me, what you’re doing as a church is the same thing. You’re saying, hey, like we’ve got to be focused on this external vision that’s bigger than us. And and and yeah that’s just amazing. that’s That’s incredible.

Rich Birch — As we come down to land, maybe Loveless, we can come back, if I’m friends enough with you now to call you by your last name.

David Loveless — You are.

Danny de Armas — That’s what we do. There’s two Davids here we got to call. Actually, there’s three, but we got to call him by his last name.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Why don’t you talk to us a little bit, if if I’m a church of a thousand people, so much smaller church. But, you know, I have a similar kind of thing bubbling inside of maybe my senior leader. And I’m like an executive pastor type person. And I’m I’m trying to think about what some first steps towards operationalizing this is. To actually sit in that seat of I want to help make this thing work rather than being the voice of no.

Rich Birch — What would be some initial steps you would encourage, you know, an operational type leader to kind of help provide some structure to this thing to get this thing rolling?

David Loveless — I think a couple of things come to mind. First of all, you know, there’s been so much talk in recent years about we need to plant, we need to start more churches. And every time I hear that, I go, what do you mean by that? Like what kinds of churches?

David Loveless — I don’t think we need to just start a bunch of new churches. We need to go what kinds of churches…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

David Loveless — …are going to be high impact in the 21st century that are completely anchored into the first century, but they’re expressed in these brand new unique ways. So I would encourage a church in the context of what you just described to sit down and even try to redefine. When I had to kind of start working on this definition of what a gospel expression was. Really in the back of my mind, I’m like, it’s time for us to redefine church. What kind of church do we want to be and be able to multiply and reproduce in the future?

David Loveless — So that can create in and evoke its own interesting conversation. Then second of all, we go, all right, so what kinds of life forms, what kinds of ministry vehicles might this look like moving forward? What are some of the ones we’re already familiar with? What are some ones we’re not as familiar with, but we’ve heard rumors? We’ve heard rumors in other parts of the world are going on, and do some research around those and say, God, are there any of those particular types that you’re drawing us toward?

David Loveless — We don’t have to try to copy what everyone else is doing, but are you…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

David Loveless — And then the third thing is to learn who are some people that are already just a couple of steps in front of you. They are not a leap of a tall building in front of you, but a couple of steps in front of you. You could reach out and learn from and all that.

David Loveless — And then fourth thing is to say, are we willing to put together the training apparatus that’s going to be absolutely essential to make that happen. Because you can have the vision, you can have a fantastic strategy, but if you haven’t raised up the right kinds of men and women that are then mobilized to do this, not individually…

Danny de Armas — That’s right.

David Loveless — …but teams together…

Danny de Armas — Yep.

David Loveless — …the whole thing’s going to be nothing but a pipe dream.

Danny de Armas — Yeah.

David Loveless — Learn how to establish that in some brand new, innovative ways. I think the residency of the past have been fantastic, have been helpful on many fronts. But also believe they have their own severe limitations placed upon them that we’ve got to break free from as we move into the second quarter of the 21st century.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s, yeah, super helpful. I know in the 13 campuses I launched directly and then a bunch I’ve coached coached the thing I push all the time with people is the predictor of the success of those new campuses is the size and health of the volunteer core that’s going to those new new campuses.

Danny de Armas — Yep. Yeah.

Rich Birch — And so really, that’s part of what I love what you’re doing. You actually have to think about the pipeline that produces those volunteers, really way out from before you launch the new location. You’ve got to figure out what are we doing to find and release and train those people, not just like, hey, we’re going to make this thing happen.

Rich Birch — Trey, let’s let’s give you the final word. We started with you. We’ll end with you. Any encouragement to leaders that might be listening in today? Any kind of final thoughts around where this kind of next step is for, you know, for First and for people that might be listening in?

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, one of the things that I’ve loved about the how God has put together the team to help build this. So I think some encouragement to your listeners would be, you may have somebody that’s at the epicenter of the idea or even is good at communicating it. But what’s going to make this win for First Orlando? First and foremost, we believe the Holy Spirit’s in this. It’s empowered. It’s great commission. But that there are people in their lane that are going to help make this work.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Trey Hildebrant — So bring the team in. Find the the David Loveless, have the Danny de Armas, know how you’re going to communicate it. And trust other people to build the different pieces of it that are necessary to make a big vision work. Don’t let it stay siloed inside of just even the the, you know, one or two key leaders.

Trey Hildebrant — The other piece that’s been on my head and heart a lot over the past few weeks is how do we celebrate this along the way? One of the one of the things that I’ve seen happen in churches, even churches that I’ve helped lead, is the the joke ah was for years. We’re good at having the baby, but not good at raising the child. And you’re and talking about vision and strategy, I think one of the ways you raise the vision up in the life of your church is how do you celebrate it as you get the ball rolling?

Rich Birch — Good.

Trey Hildebrant — So one of the things that I know we’re going to pay attention to over the next few weeks, not only how do we cast vision, in how do we equip, how do we bring it into sermons. and other environments like I’ve shared.

Trey Hildebrant — But every four months, every three months, how do we elevate? Here are the three new gospel expressions. Here’s a baptism story from one of our new expressions out on the other side of town. Making sure that as you get a vision and a strategy rolling, that we celebrate it in the the right ways. Because I wonder how often that is the missing component of a vision having sustaining power is we launch it and we start it. And then six months later, the church is like, are we still? Are we still doing that thing?

Rich Birch — Is that still a thing?

Trey Hildebrant — And…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Trey Hildebrant — …so I have a lot of heart and passion for how do we tell the story throughout the next 10 years that our church stays attached to it. Not only attached to it in vision, but honestly kind of attached to it emotionally that this is who we are and and how we’re growing. So.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, I appreciate you, gentlemen. I just want to publicly honor you for making this this, what to me seems like an amazing, huge pivot as a church. And again, just honor the fact that you could have just been like, hey, let’s keep, to use your analogy, Trey, let’s just keep enjoying the the cruise ship, but are choosing to do this new thing. I think it’s amazing. So Trey, where do we want to send people online if they want to track with the story at First Orlando? Is there social places we want to send them? What would be some of those places?

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, I definitely think our social media will do a great job of sharing the story as we get going. So you can look for First Orlando. And then you’ll even see how we’re doing expressions. We have handles for all of our other campuses, First Orlando Hispaño, First Orlando Brazil, some of these other places. So find us online. We’re going to talk about it a lot in our social worlds. Danny, David, any thoughts on the best place for people to follow.

David Loveless — Yeah, give them, the two the two of you, give them your text number.

Trey Hildebrant — Yeah, that’s it.

David Loveless — That’s that’s what, that’s my highest recommendation right there.

David Loveless —They could up practically, they can also just reach out to me, davidloveless [at] firstorlando [dot] com.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

David Loveless — We’ll see what we can do to help serve the cause out there. We’re committed.

Trey Hildebrant — Because we have, like like I mentioned earlier, we have framework documents, we have sending residency has has been built. So there’s, I don’t know how much of that. you know People would wonder how much, but we have a lot of stuff people could look at. A lot of work David and others have done to get us to a place of definitions, codifying, next steps, that type of stuff. So that’d be helpful.

David Loveless — We’re running a special for the next 14 days for $599.95.

Danny de Armas — Hey Rich, if I can add one bit to this. We’re students and we’re learning like crazy.

David Loveless — Yep, yep. Yep.

Danny de Armas — there’s more learning than anything else and going on. And we’re stepping into categories, again, a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to use any of the terms that we’ve talked about today. Okay. It’s just like I wasn’t there. And so I would. uh also ask within your audience. There are many who are well ahead of us in this journey.

David Loveless — Yes.

Danny de Armas — The multiplication idea is something that has resonated with people. And we’re we’re tapping into something that is a force that the Holy Spirit is doing. We didn’t you know and to be honest, like I mentioned at the beginning, I feel like we’re late to the party. And I feel like we’re the least likely place for this to be going on.

Danny de Armas — And so I would just invite your audience to give us the he best of the best of information. We’re hungry for things.

David Loveless — Yes. Yes.

Danny de Armas — You can reach out to any of us and ways that you’re communicating this, the way that you’re structuring things, the elements of your residency, which is really our leadership pipeline. That’s what we’ve are developed for the first time. But we’re we’re eager to learn that the whole vision birthed in a peer-to-peer learning environment where peers challenged us to take steps we had never taken before to this level. And so really having you know, your audience participate in that with us, I want you to know we are we’re students and we’re learning. And we want to ah participate together with others in this. So any any input they’re willing to give us, we’re eager to hear it.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, that’s great. That’s a great place to end, Danny. I really appreciate that modeling that leaders are learners. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for being here and look forward to hearing how this story of story evolves in the coming years.

Rich Birch — Thanks so much, friends.

David Loveless — Thanks, Rich.

Trey Hildebrant — Thanks, Rich.

Danny de Armas — Thank you, Rich.

 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Gavin Adams, author, ministry consultant, leadership coach, and founder of Accelerate Consulting Advisory. Gavin previously served for 13 years as lead pastor of Woodstock City Church, where attendance grew from 200 to 8,000. Today, he works with churches around leadership strategy, organizational health, and clarity.

Has your church become more complex than it needs to be? Are you running good programs that may no longer be moving the mission forward? Tune in as Gavin shares practical ways to rethink your ministry model, simplify your church’s pathway, and make sure everything you do helps people take meaningful steps toward Jesus.

To learn more about Gavin Adams and his work with churches, visit gavinadams.com or follow him on Instagram. Download an excerpt of his book, RE:MODEL: Five Questions That Reshape How You See and Build Your Church. Or purchase the book on Amazon for a step-by-step framework for evaluating and rebuilding your ministry model around the mission.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church

Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!

Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Listen, we’ve got a return guest today, which what that means is, you know that I really love this person, think they’ve got a lot of good things to say to you. Doesn’t happen very much, but I’m really excited to have this guest back. And you need to lean in today because I think what this person has diagnosed, there are churches that are listening in today that are wrestling with. In fact, I know that’s true. There are churches that are, there might be something going on in your church that you might not be able to name that we’re going to name today, that if you could really wrestle it down, could make a real huge difference in your church.

Rich Birch — And so you’re not going to want to miss today’s conversation with Dr. Gavin Adams. He’s an author, communicator, ministry consultant, leadership coach, and the founder of Accelerate Consulting Advisory. He works with pastors around leadership strategy, church health, organizational clarity. He previously was the lead at Woodstock City Church in Woodstock, Georgia for 13 years. During that time, the church church grew from 200 to 8,000 in weekly attendance, which is staggering. Gavin, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Gavin Adams — Hey, I appreciate that. That bio sounds way better than it actually probably is. But good to see you again.

Rich Birch — I appreciate you coming back on. Tell us a little bit, fill in the picture since we last talked, what’s what’s going on in Gavin’s world?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, yeah, lots of great stuff. My family stuff is probably my favorite thing that’s happening. You know, we we love that. I’ve got two little grandkids now, which makes me feel very old, but I’m very, very grateful. And my kids are all love each other, and we get to spend time with them. And I’ll tell you, that’s wonderful. And I love so much getting to work with pastors and churches around, really, I guess, around the world at this point.

Gavin Adams — And watching what God is doing in different contexts, but also helping diagnose what’s working, what’s not working, how do we make things better, knowing, you know, I think we all believe this, that the the mission of the local church is the most important mission in the city. And so how do we ensure and this is my bent for sure but how do we ensure that the organization is functioning in the most healthy, most dynamic way possible so that that mission can come to fruition, that we don’t leave anything on the table because eternity is at stake, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Gavin Adams — I love getting to do that. I get to do it every single day. And that’s my favorite it’s my favorite thing about my job.

Rich Birch — Love it. So good. And we want to take advantage of the fact that you’re here today as a coach/consultant to so many churches across the country, around the world. Like you said, we want to tap that expertise and hear what you’re hearing and help the churches that are are listening in. You sit with a lot of leaders, a lot of pastors, and you have a lot of conversations. When a church picks up the phone or emails you, they call you. What’s going on? What’s happening there that they reach out to you?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, there’s there’s one of a couple of things it usually comes down to. Most everyone I talk to is typically growth-oriented, and I don’t mean necessarily numerically growth-oriented. But the pastors I tend to work with or who reach out are pastors who are who care deeply about their community, about the local church, but also care about seeing people grow in their faith, unreached people be reached.

Gavin Adams — And so there is this kind of dynamic of progress right in their heart. And they’re putting people first, but they want to see people making progress. And so I end up talking to lots of churches where that is happening in some dynamic ways, but it has become really complex, right, as as things have scaled, lots of complexity and and there’s just chaos that happens around that. So helping them kind of cut through all that complexity to find some clarity and alignment, organizational, again, organizational leadership stuff.

Gavin Adams — And I see a lot of churches that have a huge heart that are also stuck. Potentially maybe things were working really well in the past, or they’re they know that things should be working better. They have a sense that things just aren’t moving as either as fast as they think it could. Or and you know this, Rich, you bump into these people all the time as well, amazing leaders and pastors who just aren’t sure if they’re working on the right things the right way.

Gavin Adams — And so they look around, they see other churches that seemingly are doing something that’s working, and so they try to copy it, yet they’re in a completely different context. They see something that’s a dynamic somewhere else, but they aren’t sure how to do it in there. There’s different resource allocation.

Gavin Adams — So there’s so much of of this desire to see things be better, but not necessarily knowing how to get there or even what better, you know, quote unquote, looks like in their context, right?

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Gavin Adams — In in their space. And so I tend to work with pastors who are in that, you know, I know that’s probably a broad brush in a way, but in that kind of, in that world.

Rich Birch — No, that makes total sense. The thing that stood out to me there was this idea of complexity and chaos. I feel like. man, that happens as a church grows, and you have a lot of executive pastor types listening in…

Gavin Adams — Yeah.

Rich Birch — or operational leaders or lead pastors that are asking similar kind of questions. You know, we often talk about leading at the intersection of vision and execution. And man, things can get complex. Chaos can come in.

Rich Birch — When you start to dig into that, you start kind of trying to understand what’s going on under the hood a little bit beyond just the first couple calls. What do you usually find underneath of that? What’s what’s what’s driving all that?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, I actually find that the pastors kind of know what the problem is. They don’t know how to articulate it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Gavin Adams — But they have a sense of what’s happening without knowing what it is, which, of course, you can’t you know fix something that you can’t name, right? So I rarely talk to pastors who are struggling with you know passion or have theological problems, doctrinal stuff, you know whatever. In the organizational side of the church, you know, the the church is an organism, right? But you’ve yet to see a healthy organism that is disorganized, right? Think about our bodies, right. So are bodies are organisms that are run by systems right that are highly organized.

Gavin Adams — And so when we think about the local church, it’s the same thing. The issue is really a design issue. It’s not a passion issue, we want to reach the community issue, we want to see people grow—all of that is innate in them. It’s the calling that God has placed in their lives. So they’re in these churches for that calling, but how do we execute that calling? How do we turn that calling into reality, the vision into fruition?

Gavin Adams — And as you mentioned, it’s execution, but how do we do that well? How do we think about this correctly? How do we contextualize it, as I mentioned earlier? And the good news about all of that is that those are all design questions. Those are structural design questions. And design questions always have answers to them, which makes this possible. That’s the thing I love about the conversation with these kinds of pastors is that we’re not looking at something that doesn’t have a solution.

Gavin Adams — Now the solution isn’t cookie cutter, right? But it is a design conversation, which means there there is a structural solution that we can find.

Rich Birch — So talk to me about what might be off in the design. You didn’t say this, but what that led me to is this idea that like all of us have systems. We have a design in the back end.

Gavin Adams — Whether we know it or not, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah, whether we know it or not, whether it’s named or not, whether it’s on purpose, it’s there.

Gavin Adams — Right.

Rich Birch — What could be what could have gone wrong with the design side, the design elements? that we have as an organization that could be leading us in the wrong direction.

Gavin Adams — Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s let’s call design like model, right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Gavin Adams — Like in a church, we have ministry models or you know whatever. And that’s just another word for strategy or plan or whatever. But every ministry model was, and I think this is probably true, was designed with some really intentional thought behind it, in most cases, almost all cases.

Gavin Adams — The hard part of it is that the minute you design a model, you’re in a moment when you design it, right? Whatever moment in time you’re in, you design a model, and that model might be perfect for the moment you’re currently in. However, the next day, that model is a little antiquated because that moment has shifted. Now, granted, it’s been a day.

Gavin Adams — But add up a week or a month or a few years or even decades, right? So many churches right now, and I understand why, but they are operating out of ministry philosophies or ministry models that were designed, I mean, I want to say before the internet, which is crazy. But some of them were designed in the 80s, in the 70s…

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Gavin Adams — …and they’re still operating, and they have slightly tweaked the model. But their approach hasn’t really evolved as the moments in their community have evolved. And so, you know, we we talk about this a lot, right? Being, you know, married to the the mission and not to the model, dating the model, not marrying the model.

Gavin Adams — The model is just a tool. You know, the model is like a building. You know, the building is a church. The building is just a tool we use to execute ministry. And so our model, our plan is the same way. And so what happens in so many churches—and I think this is one of the reasons churches get stuck so much—is that the model that got created in time, and let’s just assume it was a perfect model, but it was created in a moment to serve a moment. And then as time has gone on, we don’t really rethink the model as much as we just add some things to it to maybe meet needs in the moment. But the problem is now we have accumulated all of this stuff on layers and layers on top of the model to where, again, it’s not even codified anymore because we can’t document it.

Gavin Adams — Because again, it has been almost, it’s like a house that had a foundation and then we kept laying more and more foundations of paint on it, right? And now the room has gotten real small because we have 48 layers of paint. Right.

Gavin Adams — And the original model was probably a really good model in the beginning. But we don’t feel like we can change it. Maybe we’re afraid to really peel that paint back and see what could be done differently. So we keep doing what we’re doing, adding a little bit at a time to make it meet the need in the moment. But then we end up with you know the grand buffet of a model, which is really lots of stuff, lots of busyness, but not necessarily the most effective way to run ministry.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I was actually talking, I was thinking about you this week. I was talking to a leader at a church and was thinking about this idea of accumulation like we just… And when they were describing their church, that was what they were describing. It was like, we’ve bolted on all these different things. It’s like, we bolted on a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of this. And before you know it, you’re like, obviously this whole this whole thing is slowing down, right?

Gavin Adams — And good things, right? That’s the problem.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That’s why you bolted them on.

Gavin Adams — Like we don’t bolt on things… That’s right. Yeah, they’re all good things that meet legitimate needs in this moment…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Gavin Adams — …but could be working against better things that are more missional for you and your organization, right? That’s the hardest part of this.

Rich Birch — Right. Absolutely. So let’s assume that there’s a leader that’s listening in they’re saying, okay, I can see that. I see that. Oh my goodness, where we’ve accumulated. We’ve got a bit of these, a bit of this, a bit of that. And I need to step back and redesign, you know, get back to first principles. Where does the redesign actually start? How do we start this kind of process?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, well, that’s a hard question, and it takes some real guts and some, you know, ah instincts on the leader, but to recognize it and then do the hard work of doing it, right?

Gavin Adams — I think of this, maybe the simplest analogy for those of us that are in pastoral ministry, even if you don’t preach a lot, but you understand this part of it. When we preach, There’s a lot of things we can say. But the best messages have one point that point us to one clear principle. Now several application points and things like that, but we have one core principle that we’re pointing to.

Gavin Adams — In our church, that’s the same thing. Our ministry model, right, is built for one thing, and it’s the mission. And we all have the same mission overall. We put some different words to it, but our mission kind of is basically the Great Commission. We just label it differently.

Gavin Adams — And so the best thing you can possibly do is, and I actually lead this exercise all the time. Let’s let’s put your mission on a whiteboard. But let’s narrow it down to about eight words or less if we can. Let’s get rid of all the fluffy stuff. It’s all great. I love the fluff, but let’s just get it to eight words or less.

Gavin Adams — What are we really trying to do? Now let’s list everything that we are doing, and evaluated against that mission. The problem is that what we end up finding is lots of things that met a moment, met a need, met a small need, maybe even a big need, but it was a need that isn’t as necessary anymore. And we’re doing a lot of things that are barely moving the mission forward. Meanwhile there’s all of these other things that we we actually probably know would be better if we remodeled, you know, the house. But there are so many things we’d have to unearth and get rid of to remodel the house. The pain of that is is very challenging.

Gavin Adams — But what I would ask these pastors, and I do ask these pastors, but I would ask us today is, are we more concerned with the mission? Or the ministry model? Like what are we really married to?

Gavin Adams — Are we, we have this conversation with staff all the time, right? When you have to make a hard staff call. We love people. and want to lead people really well and and and lead you with integrity, but you are called to be loyal to the mission. Not a person. And so if a person is an obstacle between the community and the mission, we’ve got to resolve that obstacle.

Gavin Adams — Same thing with these ministries and programs and events, right? Too too often what we see is churches, we’ll just basically take last year’s calendar, move it to this year, adjust the dates so the weekends work again. And now we add a couple more things to it and we call it a plan, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Gavin Adams — Well, that is so hard because we aren’t evaluating against the right criteria. And the benchmark criteria is the mission. So everything we do has to move the mission forward. And if it doesn’t, we really should think about why we’re doing it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and the church leaders that I respect, you see this all the time. They’re like they’re so focused in on the mission in a good way and are trying to figure out, okay, how do we you know how do we how do we do this? How do we stay focused? How do we say no to things that we shouldn’t be saying yes to and, and, and so on and so forth.

Rich Birch — But let’s assume again that like I’m I get that I understand those pieces I still feel like okay we’ve accumulated all this stuff and I’m I’m not sure what even process, like, where do I start? Where’s the kind of right way to kind of roll this thing out? Kind of the the cutting back and focusing conversation. What would be some initial steps we should be taking around this?

Gavin Adams — Yeah. One, and this will sound self-serving, but I do not mean this in any way for me. I think it’s really important to bring fresh eyes into this conversation.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Gavin Adams — It’s also really challenging. And it, again, there are lots of people who are fantastic at this. And so find and you could even be somebody in your church who ah works in consulting or works in some sort of place that’s very strategic thinking, a leader like that.

Gavin Adams — But you know Rich, you know this, it’s really hard to participate and facilitate at the same time. And you know, as a lead pastor or an XP or someone in that space, we need your full attention on the thinking, not the facilitation. So I would bring somebody in to help with this.

Gavin Adams — And what I would, as far as a process goes, and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Gavin Adams — I mentioned earlier, you know we we write the mission on the board and we try to figure out what are we actually trying to do. But we have to become very open-handed with everything we are doing and we have to ask some really, really hard questions. Who are we doing this for? What next steps is this creating?

Gavin Adams — If we think about discipleship ah pathways as a spiritual journey, that’s all it is. It’s a series of steps. Have we designed a pipeline or a pathway, whatever you want to call it, that is leading people who are far from God, closer to God with every interaction that they have with us. And do we have clear steps?

Gavin Adams — And some of them it could be events or programs. It could be all good things, right? But they are strategically aligned to create incremental steps. I like to think of it like a moving sidewalk. If you were to step onto our church’s moving sidewalk, will you automatically, almost easy, obvious, logical kind of steps, be moving in the direction of spiritual growth?

Gavin Adams — Because you’re in the pipeline now, you’re on the sidewalk. Now, but to create that means that we have to probably get rid of a lot of things maybe, or some things, maybe not a lot, but some things that are good, but aren’t strategic in that pipeline on that sidewalk.

Gavin Adams — I live in Atlanta. I say this, you know, as a joke, but you know, if I want to go to Disney world in Orlando from Atlanta, I could go through Arkansas. But that doesn’t really make a lot of sense, right? Churches have a lot of things like that on their pipeline on their you know kind of discipleship pathway where It’s good stuff, you know. Arkansas is a fun place possibly, but it doesn’t really align with our pathway and it creates confusion and complication for people who are trying to take steps.

Gavin Adams — And so I would just, you know, again, this this is a full day process, right? Write the mission up there. Write down all the things you’re doing. Ask some hard questions. And is it working? Because, you know is it working against the mission? Is it moving the mission forward? And you have to ask that for everything that you are doing. And then in a way, lay it out like a pipeline or a pathway and place all of these things that you’re doing on your calendar—the programs, the events, the gatherings, the mentor thing, the groups thing, all the things, generosity and and and give and and recruiting and volunteers—everything that you do.

Gavin Adams — Lay it out and look at it. And see if it’s actually a path. Or is it a giant buffet of stuff? And how do you reduce this thing down so that it looks a little bit more like a moving sidewalk than just a massive, you know, ah you know interstate with 13 lanes all heading maybe in ah in the same direction. But imagine being a person trying to drive on that. You don’t know where to go. I want to get you on a sidewalk that just takes you incrementally from where you are to the next right step for you.

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. And you know ah you and I have been in this long enough. I remember a time when churches actually would talk about their ministries in menu language.

Gavin Adams — Absolutely.

Rich Birch — They would say, we have 110 different ministries. And they would kind of brag about that.

Gavin Adams — Yeah.

Rich Birch — That would be like we’ve got like this whole big thing and you know and then over time, we realized, no, that just doesn’t really work. And it’s very hard to you know get momentum on that. And we’ve got more and more focused. And I think something happened around the pandemic, particularly, and how we…

Gavin Adams — Lots of things happened around the pandemic, right? Yeah.

Rich Birch — yeah, exactly. But particularly on this front around our keeping people focused and keeping them moving in the right direction. How how have you seen this change, this conversation change ah in the last, say, decade or five, six years, that kind of thing?

Gavin Adams — Yeah. Well, crisis illuminates and accelerates, right? So I think that and the pandemic was certainly a crisis. I think it illuminated a lot of things that we were doing well and then a lot of things that we probably weren’t doing well.

Gavin Adams — It also accelerated trends that were already beginning to happen. And so even you know in our church, watching trends that were beginning to pop up slowly in 2018 and ’19, you know, took 10 years went 10 years faster immediately you know in 2020. And I had the you know honor, privilege of leading through all that at the church. I was a lead pastor during all that, which was a nightmare, but I’m grateful I got to experience it and and learn from it.

Gavin Adams — And I learned some hard things. I think the number one thing that I learned that it really caused me to pause was how many people missed Church during this time and didn’t feel like they actually missed anything.

Gavin Adams — You know, I think a lot of people were going to church before the pandemic, and I don’t think I was doing a great job of creating something dynamically spiritually moving—and I don’t mean that like it has to be this grandiose you know you know thing—but that we were so probably unfortunately focused on butts in seats, inviting people to see the thing, that discipleship wasn’t as in the forefront as it should have been. So therefore we were accidentally leveraging consumerism to get people to church. But then in doing so, reinforcing consumerism in church. And so now people are consuming church. They went for six months, in my case, 11 months without consuming it in person, and realized they didn’t need to consume it.

Gavin Adams — Because their life didn’t…and in fact, what’s so hard to to acknowledge is how many people that would say their life didn’t get worse because they weren’t going to church anymore. Some of them would even tell you if they wanted to be honest, and some have with me, their life got better.

Rich Birch — Right.

Gavin Adams — They were home more. They had more time with their family. They were less busy. They were whatever. And I and I just remember thinking. Wow, like we really thought we had we were doing something great. A lot of people. And aAll of those people stopped going. And very few felt like, at least, I’ll say very few, at least this I’m probably being more pessimistic because it felt so hard, but you know, how many people missed going to church and didn’t really miss it.

Gavin Adams — And so therefore they didn’t really come back because they didn’t feel like they needed it. They realized not going wasn’t costing them anything. And that’s on me as a leader, right? That’s not their fault. That’s my fault for creating a church or allowing that to be the case. And that was really hard. That was a a real hard real realization for us.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and bringing that back to the alignment and kind of, you know, the accumulation that we have as a church what I’m assuming then, what and I’ve seen this in so many churches, we realized, oh, there’s a bunch of stuff we’re doing that that isn’t actually pushing the mission forward. It just kind of and then we took a break and it was like, oh my goodness, maybe we don’t need to do these things. Maybe you know turns out nobody’s actually interested in that. Or we’re giving way more energy to that and people are more distracted than they’ve ever been been before. And so we’ve got to be more focused because we can’t, we we’ve got to be super clear on when we move people through.

Rich Birch — When you talk about, you know your church needs to move people in one direction you have kind of this one point we’re trying to move people towards one thing. Can you unpack that a little bit more what’s that actually look like in a church?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, yeah, and this is gonna sound way too simplistic. But when when we talk about this with with pastors and churches, one of my favorite words for this is centricity. And it’s a business term. But we you know in the in the In the business community, they talk about being customer-centric or business-centric.

Gavin Adams — Customer-centricity means that we make every decision in light of our customer and really a purchase decision for a customer, right? So why does Target carry a certain you know kind of product? Well, because the customer will buy it. It’s customer-centric thinking.

Gavin Adams — Churches have notoriously church-centric in thinking, not person-centric in thinking. And so and here’s the part that gets real too simple, but I do think it it it makes sense. If you think about people in your community right now. We could plot everybody spiritually on a number line. Again, too simplistic, but it makes sense. If negative 10 is yeah Satan and plus 10 is Jesus, right? Everybody in your world is somewhere, everybody in the world, everybody in your community is somewhere between that, right?

Gavin Adams —And this is just pretend zero is some point of conversion, right? Put your faith in Christ we’re all somewhere between that everybody wherever eyeball to eyeball is somewhere between that. So when i when I think about, you know, the the place we’re trying to move people. We are trying to point them towards plus 10 and help them take incremental steps in that direction. This is Paul what he would call the renewing of the mind, right. And renewing, present tense, it’s never fully done. We never get to 10; nobody’s a 10.

Gavin Adams — Now, we have some people who think they’re 10s, and that’s dangerous. But interacting with people who are wherever they are, meeting them where they are, but helping them move in the direction of plus 10. That’s really what discipleship is. That’s all it is. We go to the negative side of the number line, as far back as we can reach. If a person’s a negative three and we can help them move to negative 2.9, that’s a huge win. If we as a church can help them move from you know negative three to negative two to zero, what an incredible thing.

Gavin Adams — And then move to one, move to three, move to seven. Like that’s what a a true pathway should look like. In fact, when you asked me earlier what does it look like to do this in process, really is putting that number line, this is another part of it, but you would think about everything that you’re doing as a church. Put it on the number line. Who is it serving on that number line?

Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah.

Gavin Adams — Is it serving negative threes, negative eights? You know, probably not negative eights. It’s hard to go that far back. Plus eights. If you list everything, most churches are going to have a huge pile of things in this zero to three range and not a lot before it, and very little after three.

Rich Birch — That’s true.

Gavin Adams — Which is why, by the way, when you hear someone say, we just don’t feel like we’re being fed, this is the problem. Like this is exactly what’s happening. They got to they got to plus three. They don’t know how to get to plus four. Your church doesn’t know how to move people past three. And so therefore, they think another church will be better at this.

Rich Birch — Right.

Gavin Adams — So they go somewhere else that maybe feels deeper. They use Greek words more or whatever it may be. You know, and deeper doesn’t mean more confusing, but that’s typically what we associate it to.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s what they mean. Yes

Gavin Adams — But then after another couple of years, they still feel the same way. Now they’re looking for another church. Because that church also didn’t have a really good plan to move people past a three on the number line. Does that make sense, Rich?

Rich Birch — Yeah, it makes total sense. Okay, so you’ve got a book coming out or it’s come out around these areas.

Gavin Adams — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Talk to me about this. How does it connect to this conversation? How do we, how do we, you know, get kind of knit these two together?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, it’s called a Remodel, but it’s really five questions that help you as a church understand how to rethink, rebuild, or before you build anything, ask the five questions to ensure we’re getting it right.

Gavin Adams — In fact, we call it the five rights. This is something I developed probably 10 years ago initially and began working through it and really have helped, I don’t want to say perfect it, but have really made a framework out of this now, having worked with churches around the world and seeing it work in so many different kinds of contexts.

Gavin Adams — So the five rights is based on the five rights. The five rights are: we want to make sure the right person gets the right message at the right time and the right way that leads to the right next step. Those are the five rights. And so what I said earlier that this is really a structural design conversation where you can kind of see even in those five rights, what we’re doing is starting with the person. Let’s decide who we are building this program for, this event for…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Gavin Adams — …this sermon for, whatever it may be. How do we ensure that we design a message? And by the way, if you’re a business person or think this way, this is just segmentation. That’s all this is, right? So how do we design the right message for that person so that we’re speaking to them where they are with words that make sense to them, right?

Gavin Adams — We don’t talk to a person who’s a non-believer about progressive sanctification. That doesn’t make sense, right? But we will do that later on. So we talk to them where they’re at with verbiage and language and a message that meets them where they are. We make sure that the timing is right. We we can’t offer you know an opportunity for somebody who isn’t ready for it. But when they are ready, we want to make sure that we are ready for them.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Gavin Adams — So again, this is them-centric, not us-centric. We don’t launch groups in August only because that works for me and our church, right?

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Gavin Adams — We you know we already we already have some of that we can’t undo, you know church service times and so forth. But by the way, this is why we don’t see churches you know with massive Tuesday night services. Why? Or Tuesday morning. Most of us were at work. We choose Sunday morning because it’s the optimal time. We know that for people, right? So the timing matters.

Gavin Adams — The way matters, you know? People who are not believers versus 40-year deep in their faith believers are going to take steps in different ways. And so is it one-on-one mentoring steps? Is it one-to-few in a small group setting? Is it ah one-to-many in a service setting? I mean, there are so many different ways that we can execute ministry. And again, all of those four are building to number five, which is the right next step. This is what discipleship is all about. Not…Progress is important. Pace is not. It can go very slow at times, and that’s okay.

Gavin Adams — Negative 2.8 to two point negative 2.7 can be very slow, but that’s okay. They’re making progress towards the 10. And so when we think about those five rights, it gives us five questions that we can evaluate everything we’re currently doing and anything we want to start doing. So we ask the question, who is this really for, right? What message do they need to hear? What timing is going to be best for us to ask this or talk about this with people, ah depending on who they are?

Gavin Adams — What way is typically going to be best for these people depending again on who they are. And then what is the right next step for this category of person. Those five rights…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Gavin Adams — …ensure that we do the right things for the right people.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That all that makes a lot of sense. I can understand that’s a really clear framework. I think that’s fantastic. Just define or tease out a little bit the difference between the right way and the right next step.

Gavin Adams — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Those kind of at the end of the five, how does where does where’s the bridge between those two?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, so when we think about um the right next step, that’s the easier one to think through first. The right next step is movement towards Jesus, right? A Christ-like life.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Gavin Adams — So that’s our plus 10, moving closer to that.

Gavin Adams — So we know that in everything that we are offering, we do not want people walking away with more information. We want them to have application, which means they are doing something, taking a step.

Gavin Adams — So when we think about steps in our church, we want to think about whether they are steps we are offering or steps that a person can take on their own. You know, reading the Bible more consistently, praying, those are things that they could do, of course, in the church, but they all also can do on their own. Serving in the community, being generous, all of those things can be done in the church or outside of the church. But those are all steps.

Gavin Adams — To grow in anything is probably taking a step. So when we think about what step we are hoping to ask a person to take. Depending on, and I’ll go quickly back to the number line, you know, a person who is a negative three to a zero, we call those people seekers. Zero to three is a student because they’re learning. Three to about seven, we call those people shapers because they are actively shaping their life now after their their savior. And then, you know, again, nobody makes it to 10, but seven to 10, we call those people stewards. They are stewarding their life for the kingdom at this point, right?

Gavin Adams — Each of those different categories of people are going to probably function, again—and I don’t mean every single person—there are outliers…

Rich Birch — No, I get that. Yeah.

Gavin Adams — …but categorically, each of these categories are going to function a little bit better in certain types of ways. So think about we want you to begin serving. However, a non-believer serving in a large group setting in the community is probably a better way for them than coming alongside in a small group to do you know you know teaching high school students about Jesus that’s you First of all, you would never let a non-believer do that. But that would be a very intimidating way.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Gavin Adams — And they wouldn’t take that step. Because the way doesn’t match where they are. So when we think about how we offer things, can I give you an example like in volunteering since we’re just talking about that, Rich?

Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Gavin Adams — You know, if you’ve got a person who’s you know somewhere in that seeker category, and but you want to get them into a you know serving. It’s a part of spiritual growth. And they begin to learn a little bit more about themselves and about you know faith. So what what can you do? Well, maybe there’s a food drive your church is doing. And it’s a one-day opportunity, low commitment. They get a fun t-shirt from it and they get breakfast, but they’re not doing anything spiritually, but they are rubbing shoulders with people and beginning to engage in the life and mission of a local church, even though they’re not a believer yet.

Gavin Adams — So that is a perfect way, a one-off opportunity for someone who is seeking and that category of seeking they’re not there yet not a believer yet to take a step that is easy for them to take, that can help move them down a bit of a discipleship pathway, right? Well, the next thing a person could do is maybe serving and this is just basic pipeline work but maybe they serve every other week in a guest services or hospitality space, or once a month in something like that, or maybe in production.

Gavin Adams — It’s not a spiritual support space, leadership space. They are not being asked to be there every week. It’s a low commitment. They can still actually attend the service while they’re serving. So we’re not asking them to serve and attend, right?

Gavin Adams — And so it’s a lower it’s a higher commitment than the food drive, but it’s still a lower commitment role. That’s perfect for somebody who’s kind of transitioning into maybe becoming a student. Right? Well, now we can take a person and say, well, what if the next way for you is to do an every week thing? That’s a different kind of way. Then you become a coach or a captain over leaders.

Rich Birch — Oh, I see. That’s good.

Gavin Adams — Then you become a staff member, right?

Gavin Adams — So when you think about the pipeline of how it moves, it’s all moving in a volunteer perspective from virtually no commitment to a very high commitment.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Gavin Adams — That’s the different ways that we would use.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes that makes total sense. One other on the five rights, looking back to the right person, and you named this, the this idea of segmentation, who are we trying to reach?

Gavin Adams — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Who, you know when, you know, we define that. Is that the kind of thing you’re thinking about?

Gavin Adams — Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like trying to think through clearly who are who’s the person that we’re trying to design this thing for?

Gavin Adams — Yeah. Exactly. The problem is a lot of times because we’re church-centric, not people or community-centric, we do tend to design backwards. We we start with what we are what we want to do, and then we try to figure out who it’s for.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Gavin Adams — What I’m trying to suggest is we start with who are we trying to reach. And then let’s build something for them. And what we find is that when you build something for everyone, you kind of end up building something for no one.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.

Gavin Adams — So, if we want to build something to help us reach a non-believer, what should we build? How should we talk about it? How do we market it? How do we advertise it? How do we speak to that category of person who might be in our rooms on a Sunday morning service to inspire them to take a step? I’ll give you a great example.

Gavin Adams — You know. lots of churches do things like Alpha or Starting Point. How do you talk about that, right, really is going to make a difference. How you offer that experience is going to make a difference, the timing of it. Again, whether it’s Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Wednesday at nights, whatever it may be, but also even the timing of the year makes a lot of a difference. You know, so coming out of in January, coming out of Easter, those are great timings for things like that.

Gavin Adams — The way – a small group of people sitting around who all are kind of curious and have some questions is a safe way for someone to take that step. So we always start with the person and design from there.

Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah that’s good. That’s great. So talk to us about the book. How does this fit into helping churches, you know, if i’m a I’m a church leader that’s sitting in, to me, it strikes me as the kind of thing like, hey, this could be a good opening conversation for us to wrestle through these questions. But how can you see this fitting into the kind of our leadership discussions at our church?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, great question. So that’s why actually why I wrote the book. I had been I’ve worked on this for about a decade and and implemented it in my church, and now I’ve implemented it in so many other churches now. And what what I have found is that these questions, everybody wants to be effective in their mission. Everybody wants to not waste their time.

Gavin Adams — We don’t want to just be busy for the sake of being busy. I mean, we all hate that. And so how do we become the most effective ah church? How how do we organize in a way that ensures that our mission is the most important mission? We treat it like that. So we all believe that, but the gap between knowing that’s true and then being able to do it, that’s the hard thing.

Gavin Adams — And and Rich, you know this as well as anyone. This industry that we are in in church is such a cyclical every seven days here comes this thing and it feels like every four days.

Rich Birch — Yeah. So true. Yes.

Gavin Adams — And so to pause and work on it is so challenging. And so the book gives you a very step-by-step guide. It’s a framework to help you really to have kind of have me, I guess, help you through the questions and the process of evaluating what you’re currently doing, deciding what needs to be different, and then rebuilding a model that works for where you are today. It’s the simplest way that you could do it.

Gavin Adams — Because as we all know, if you just say one day to your lead team or your elder board, I think we’re going to change our model. That’s a challenging thing to say. How are you going to go about doing it? So the book is written to help walk you through the process of evaluating where you are and then rebuilding something that works better for your mission in the world today.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And we’re going to put a link in the show notes for people to get a sample of this. I think it’s that’s super kind and generous of you to put that. We’ll put that link in there if people want to pick up and get a chance to read a little bit of it before they jump in.

Rich Birch — The name of it is RE:MODEL – Five Questions That Reshape How You See and Build Your Church. Where can people get this if they’re buying books? I’m assuming Amazon. Are there other places we want to send them?

Gavin Adams — Yeah. Amazon’s the best. Yeah. Amazon’s the best place to get it. And then you can go to gavinadams.com and I’ve got information there and links that you can grab all the the stuff there too.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is super helpful. As we wrap up, any final words as we leave people with on this this topic as we close today’s conversation?

Gavin Adams — Yeah, well, yeah, and not necessarily specifically for this topic as much as I am so grateful for the number of of men and women that are dedicating their lives to the kingdom through the local church because it is, I think I can say this, having led one for 13 years, it’s the hardest job I have ever seen. And it comes with more weight, more spiritual expectation, more pain, more tragedy, challenges. I mean, who else is working on a P&L and also planning a funeral on the same day?

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Gavin Adams — It’s just such a hard job. And so it’s easy to be discouraged and it’s easy. um to not to not feel certain that you’re getting it right. And I love the fact that if God’s going to lean in the direction of any leader, it’s going to be the the direction of a pastor and helping us get it right. And so just keep doing the hard work and keep pressing forward and you know be okay with making it 1% better every day. That’s kind of the goal.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Thanks so much, Gavin. Really appreciate being here. Thank you for all the work you do to help so many church leaders. Again, that’s gavinadams.com. You should swing by there, check out him, Instagram, all those places, and pick up a copy of the book. I really appreciate you being on today. Thanks for being here.

Gavin Adams — Yeah, thanks. I appreciate you.

 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Adam Weber, founder and lead pastor of Embrace Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. What began in 2006 with 32 people has grown into a multisite church reaching thousands each week. Along the way, Adam has experienced explosive growth, painful leadership setbacks, seasons of rebuilding, and renewed momentum.

Has your church hit a plateau after years of growth? Are you carrying more than your team can sustain? Wondering how greater clarity and healthier leadership rhythms could help your church move forward? Tune in as Adam shares lessons from Embrace’s lowest season and explains how greater self-awareness, organizational focus, and the Traction framework helped reshape both his leadership and the church.

To learn more about Adam Weber or connect, visit adamweber.com or find him on Instagram at @adamaweber. To learn more about Embrace Church, its campuses, and how the church is relentlessly reaching the next person for Jesus, visit iamembrace.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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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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Want to know if your communication systems are ready for growth? Download Intulse’s free guide, “10 Communication Blind Spots That Hinder Church Growth,” at Intulse.com/unseminary. And if any of those blind spots hit home for you, schedule a call with one of their church communication specialists to learn how Intulse can help.

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, lean in on today’s conversation, ah because I know you’re going to have some stuff you can pull out of this for your church. There’s some part of this discussion that’s going to help you as you think through leading in the season you’re currently in.

Rich Birch — We’re honored to have Adam Weber with us. He’s the founder and lead pastor of Embrace Church, which began in 2006, with just 32 people gathered at a worship service. Today, it’s a few more than 32. Embrace is one church with, if I’m counting correctly, five campuses worshiping with thousands each week around Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Outreach Magazine named these guys, Embrace, one of the fastest growing churches in the country in 2026. Adam is the author of Talking with God and Love Has a Name. He hosts the Life Between Sundays podcast while he and his wife, Becky, have four kids. Adam, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Adam Weber — Oh, Rich, huge honor. I know I said this before to you. You are someone that I’ve looked to for wisdom, encouragement, insight for many years. And so this for me is a huge honor. And I do I just really don’t take it lightly. Honestly, if it was anything else today, I’m headed to the cabin right after this. If it was anything else, I’d be like, ah, let’s pass on that. But for me, like for me, this is one of those like key true honors. And so I just thank you big time. I’m just on behalf, honestly, of so many people who listen just like me and read your writing. Thank you.

Rich Birch — That’s kind of you to say. That’s really kind of you to say. This is between you and the cabin. So we’ll make this quick. We’ll get this. We’ll move this on. I don’t want to…

Adam Weber — No. No, there is zero rush. Zero rush.

Rich Birch — No, I’m just kidding. That’s that’s great. That’s fantastic. So why don’t you kind of give us the story, the the Embrace story. It’s like 20 years in a few minutes.

Adam Weber — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Take us back to 2026, back to those 32 people. What did that look like? And then paint the picture of where Embrace is today.

Adam Weber — Oh, so I always, when I encourage pastors, I’m like, do the opposite of what we did. So I was going into my third and final year at Asbury Seminary. So I was living in Kentucky and my pastor who led me to Christ, led me to my wife, led me into ministry, led me to Asbury, had the initial idea of a new church in Sioux Falls.

Adam Weber — He’s the one who who reached out to me and said, hey, we’re we’re thinking about starting a church in Sioux Falls. What do you think? And I’m like, I think Sioux Falls has enough churches.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — Like I don’t think… and and then who’s gonna pastor this thing? He’s like, that’s why I’m calling you.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — Like I don’t think and and then who’s gonna pastor this thing And I was like, ah, I’m not in, I’m actually not interested. We love Kentucky, the weather, the history, so much of it. We love. So we had no plans of coming back to South Dakota. And he ah told us to pray about it. We didn’t.

Adam Weber — And then he found then we then he found out I was coming back to do my brother’s brother’s wedding. Uh, so the week of us coming back, he said, Hey, how about you send an email and I’ll send an email. We’ll see who shows up. And I’m like, nobody’s going to show up. It’s going to be Labor Day weekend. Nobody’s going to come. I’m not even interested in being this thing. So I was like, this is the perfect way to kind of get them off my case.

Adam Weber — So we sent a couple of emails. That night, September 4, 2006, 32 people showed up. And I was depressed cause 32 showed up. I was, I was hoping for zero and, and…

Rich Birch — Oh, no. Now we got to do something.

Adam Weber — …and my, my, my pastor was pumped. So he, once a month, he’s like, Adam, once a month, we’re going to fly you back for services and we’ll just see how this goes now. Now, quick note. At the time, were United Methodist. And so we had 40 years worth of failed church starts in North and South Dakota. And so they were very reluctant, you know, specifically going to be a new seminary grad.

Adam Weber — So we kind of needed to prove to the denomination that people would come. So that’s why we started once a month, even though I was in seminary. So I’d come back every time, I’m like, this is such a bad idea. I mean literally months into it I’m like this is a bad idea. And but I just didn’t have the courage to tell my pastor no. He’s just an amazing, godly man. Zero. He put zero pressure on me, which made it even harder for me to say no.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — And so once a month I’d come back and then sure enough, I ended up getting appointed to start this church. So I came back in 2007, we kept once a week worship. We kept once a month worship.

Adam Weber — In March of ’08 we went to weekly Sunday evening services. And we struggled to grow. We were just struggling to get above 100. I mean, we were just, we were almost closed. About once a quarter, the denomination would say, We just don’t think you’re financially sustainable. We don’t think this is going to work. Even early, early on, I can remember a one denominational leader said, when this church fails. What are we going to do?

Rich Birch — Oh wow. Wow.

Adam Weber — And so that was kind of the mindset going into it. So September of ’09. Three years in. We moved in through the most insane circumstances, we got our own space on a Sunday morning. And in one morning, we doubled in size.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And so we went from barely surviving to flourishing. And every week we were seeing more and more new faces. That really began our first season of incredible growth. I was, ah you know I you know, I started Embrace when I was 24. So that would have been three years. I’d have been 27, 28, man. And I was, I was super unhealthy.

Adam Weber — You try for three years to get it to grow. And then it finally grows and you don’t know when the water is going to shut off. So you just keep running faster. And so that was just a really hard season. But really away from that, Embrace has always been the most unlikely of people. Gosh, I feel like if… ah yeah Yeah, it’s just the most unlikely of people to be in church.

Adam Weber — So I went to college in Sioux Falls. And I always said early on, if you would have told me you’re going to start a church, who’s going to come to your church? I would have listed off all the guys that were in bible studies with me blah blah blah. And if you were like, who’s the most unlikely of people? I’d have been like, ah, a lot of the football players and you know, whatever. From that first group, only like one or two came. Because they already had churches and were connected and whatever. From the second group, all of them came.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And so from really the get-go, it’s just been this most unlikely of people.

Adam Weber — And so since then, we are now we have three physical campuses. We have two God Behind Bars locations. ahRight now, we are we just announced earlier this week that we’re launching a fourth physical campus that will be our new broadcast campus…

Rich Birch — It’s amazing.

Adam Weber — …over double the size of our current broadcast. And um still today, it just continues to be the most unlikely of people. And um I feel like we don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take God very seriously. And I think the thing that people are like, what is the thing? I think it’s just really trying to be as relatable as possible. And just trying to make as much of Jesus as we possibly can.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Adam Weber — And for for for me, the more I follow Jesus, the more I realize how wonderful and and grace-filled and loving and truth-filled he is. And so it’s just trying to share that as as clearly and as simply as we can. So I’m talking too much.

Rich Birch — No, no, not at all. That’s great. That’s so good. You know, we track pretty closely the Outreach 100 list here at unSeminary. We look at it and our…

Adam Weber — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …you know, the secret we find a lot of guests there. And um when, you know, I was looking at this, there’s this interesting kind of blip of history where Embrace was on the list 10 years ago, ’15, ’16, and then there was a gap, and then congratulations, you’re back on for 2026, which caught my attention, or 2025 caught my attention.

Rich Birch — And I thought, okay, that’s interesting. Like, I wonder what the story is there, you know, when it’s just little… you know, buttons or whatever it’s like it looks really antiseptic on the website. But am I framing that incorrectly?

Adam Weber — No, no.

Rich Birch — Talk me through what happened between these two, ah you know, showing up on this list.

Adam Weber — Very, that’s, you you’re you’re highlighting something that’s very, very true. I first got to say, ah I just shared this with my team on Monday. My first full-time hire, his name’s Travis Waltner. Yeah, he’s always so good at saying, hey, Adam, I know this, you’re fired up about this. Can you share why with our team this matters? And something he had never heard before, I said, I can remember every year when the Outreach 100 came out and I was this new pastor who didn’t have anybody that he could connect with who had led a large thriving church.

Adam Weber — I mean, there’s at that time in Sioux Falls, there just wasn’t really many. Now there’s several, which is awesome. And so I would get that Outreach magazine. And those pastors, I would try to find 5 to 10 churches that were similar to to Embrace, or where I saw us going. And those people never met me or I never talked with them, but they became mentors of mine.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. That’s cool.

Adam Weber — And so it’s where I learn from. And so I just told the team, I’m like, it’s so cool to think that like God is now using us and hopefully we can be a blessing to others. Because it’s cool to see fruit grow on your own trees…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — …but it’s even it’s even better when you help others grow fruit on their trees.

Rich Birch — Oh, so true.

Adam Weber — So that blip that blip though, so growing, growing really from I would say from 2009 to 2016. I mean, just constant growth. At one year we were number four on Outreach, whatever. So I mean, just like enormous growth. We plateaued. And I’m going to talk very unfiltered about myself. As an Enneagram three achiever, plateauing is not your favorite thing.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Adam Weber — And so I’ve never been a yeller. I’ve never been, I feel like I could say this confidently, never been an angry boss. But ah something I’ve learned out about myself is I wear people out. You can still be super non-angry and still wear people out.

Adam Weber — And so I didn’t do a great job of caring for my team. I love people. It’s why I I literally, I just love people. I got a steak at a grocery store for lunch today and ended up talking to all these random people. It was my favorite thing. I love people…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — …but I haven’t always been good at loving my team. And so we went through, I wasn’t caring for my team.

Adam Weber — And because of that, someone began to care for my team that was taking the church another direction. And so I let that person go. That’s the only time I’ve let someone go in the history of Embrace. And when I did, again, this is very unfiltered, 10 out of 16 people that were closest with me left.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Adam Weber — Including one of my, including just a very, very, very close friend. And so, man. It was brutal.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And out of that, hundreds of people left Embrace. And it wasn’t just people. It was people that I had literally left date nights with my wife to care for ’em. And it was it was people that I skipped, you know, being with my kids to meet with them. And so it was it was brutal. Lowest point in my life, including even harder than losing my brother unexpectedly two years ago.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — With my brother, it was all one feeling, grief.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — Which is horrible, you know?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — But with that. There was so many feelings. I mean, I was done. I was I was done. I was done with everything except Jesus. When it came to ministry, I mean, I wanted to give up and then…And then um I stuck with it. I don’t know how. I honestly, looking back, 2018, I literally don’t know how I survived.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And again, I want to make sure I take ownership. I had a lot to learn about myself. And it’s it’s it was my leadership that allowed the situation that happened with with the person um so that’s that’s not on them that’s all me And so. But yeah, we we we it was rock bottom. It was brutal.

Adam Weber — And then we just started. It was just like one foot in front of the next.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And we just we I mean, it was just like you began to see some resemblance of daylight. I mean, it was so bad, I can’t even tell you. And it’s in Sioux Falls is not that large of a town.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — And so it’s like, I thought every everything that God had done was over. I mean no good days were ahead of us. I mean I couldn’t see anything. And then just little by little. And little by little and little by little. And then we started getting momentum right before COVID.

Rich Birch — Classic. Classic.

Adam Weber — So this, this is what’s kind of crazy. And I, I’m not, I don’t want to, I’m not devaluing COVID whatsoever, but like, so away from the the tragedy of COVID. COVID for me as a pastor was a cakewalk. I’m like, we could not have services for the next 15 years, and this would be nothing compared to 2018.

Rich Birch — Right. Okay. Yes.

Adam Weber — And so what was kind of cool was I was able to be. And so many hit people had done this for me, but I was able to be a light to other pastors. Because they hadn’t gone through 2018. So it was really cool because for me, I couldn’t have been more at peace during it. Because, ah again, I was just glad that we were healthy.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — And so it ended up being really cool. And then when we came out of COVID, we started a process called Traction, which I just have to mention. Traction, away from God’s kindness and amazing people, Traction. It’s been huge. Since 2021 we started Traction in August and that just helped us focus and now we’re just seeing, I’ve never had this much fun in my life.

Rich Birch — Traction like the Larry Bossidy, that book?

Adam Weber — So, yeah, it’s so it’s the it’s an EOS.

Rich Birch — EOS, yep.

Adam Weber — It’s a lot, a lot of, a lot of businesses use it, a lot of nonprofits use it, a person on our lead team.

Rich Birch — Yep, yep, yep.

Adam Weber — We were just trying to figure out, so what are we doing?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Adam Weber — You know, like COVID had just come. And so it was a, if you’re going to start over on your strategy, it’s a perfect time to do it.

Rich Birch — Right. Might as well.

Adam Weber — So they just said, I think we should go through Traction. And I’m like, I have no idea what that is. And he’s like, well. All these major businesses in Sioux Falls are all Traction businesses.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Adam Weber — And I’m like, no way. And this nonprofit’s a Traction nonprofit.

Adam Weber — So we looked into it. They’d helped us set a 10-year goal. And then off of that, a three-year goal, one-year goal, and then every 90 days you have rocks.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — Before that though, I should say, they re…like is your vision statement truly your vision statement. So ours was reaching the next person for Jesus. This sounds so small. One guy on our team who’s not an Enneagram three, he said, I don’t think that’s accurate to who we are.

Adam Weber — And I was like. What do you mean? And he’s like. That just seems seems way more chill than what we are. And I was like, okay, what do you mean? He’s like, we’re like relentless about it. We’re like, if someone needed help and they didn’t know Jesus, we would do everything we could to get to them. We wouldn’t just try to reach them. We would relentlessly.

Adam Weber — And it was so crazy coming from that individual specifically that I said, I feel like that’s so true. We added that in. And then you set kind of like, what are your distinct things that separate you maybe from others? So ours is relatability is our number one.

Rich Birch — yep

Adam Weber — And that just really dialed us in. And even just one small thing, even like who’s our target audience, we we kind of set it.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And we said young families was in it. Well, young families was in it when we first started Embrace. And we kind of went away from it. Because, you know, I had young kids that needed a nursery back then, but now I don’t. And so now.a nursery had become optional, because it’s like, oh, it’s not a big deal. Well, when you have little kids, it’s a huge deal. And when you have little kids, it’s a huge deal, and you’re the lead pastor, you have nursery and everything because you want your wife there, and you want other people to be able to come. So there was a couple of things that we just got off track a little bit that we just dialed into. So I just need to say that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I do want to dig into Traction a little bit more, but I’d love to take a step back and talk about your own journey around you know, just having to process your ownership of 2018. And what was, what did that look like? Like, how did you find some health around that? Was it, you know, did someone challenge you? Did you end up getting some help? What did that look like to to actually try to process through that.

Adam Weber — I…

Rich Birch — I like that sound that’s like, oh I don’t really want to talk about this.

Adam Weber — Yeah, yeah. Forever. For for me…um I can’t remember one time the Lord is as clear as I could hear it said, Lord said to me: Adam, I’ve been trying to address this people pleaser inside of you since you were a little boy.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And and whether or not I caused this situation to happen is irrelevant. I’m most definitely gonna use it to address some things inside of you.

Adam Weber — I was forced to address some things inside of me. Everything from being a people pleaser, wearing people out, not caring for my team. I really didn’t have an option.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — I mean, it was just so…

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — It was there. I mean, there there were Sundays before certain staff left that I’d be on stage with with an individual, and I mean he ah they hated me. Ah you could feel it in the air. I mean, I can remember Sundays that I literally didn’t want to go to church because of how scared I was. Not like for fear of my life, but like just like the awkwardness. So I was forced to deal with it. And I because I couldn’t make everyone happy for the first time in my life And so, I I stood my my wife and my best non-family member, best friend, his name’s Tyler Goff. He’s a realtor. I would talk to my wife and Tyler every day and ask them if I if I could quit my job, probably for six to eight months. Can I quit my job? And they would basic both say, nope. Nope. But we, you know, Tyler, every single time he answered the phone.

Adam Weber — So it was just processing that pain, first off and all the hurt. And early on, it was everybody’s fault.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — You know, it’s like, it’s everybody else. It’s everybody else. It’s everybody else. That’s I wouldn’t say that publicly. I said it internally. The only thing that I really did did well during this time is I did, I really felt like I was not supposed to talk to anybody outside my little tiny circle. And I didn’t feel like I was supposed to to defend myself. So I really just felt like, nope, there was, you know, the Lord will be your defender. I don’t know what it was.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — I just felt that internally. So I just, I didn’t talk. I didn’t eEven what I’ve said, I’ve been trying to be really, really intentional. I just have not bad-mouthed anybody…

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — …at all. And that’s God’s protection because I wanted to. But so I just, but anybody who reached out to me, I would meet with them. And cause you know, there was all these questions and I would say, there’s no question that’s off limits. You can ask me anything. And if I bad mouth anybody, even for a second, that’s unacceptable. So please cut me off if I start speaking. So I just. I did a lot of that, but as far as how to how do I start addressing it? Talking to that close inner circle. And just verbalizing my pain. My, just my, all the feelings.

Adam Weber — I can remember with Travis Walton one time I’m on the phone and I’m embarrassed to say this, but I probably made up swear words. It just came gushing out.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — And I got done with this emotional outlet over the phone to him and I said and now you probably hate me. And he said, no. I’ve actually been wondering when that was all going to come out.

Rich Birch — That’s cool. It’s good to have friends like that.

Adam Weber — And I was I was like, you don’t hate me? And he’s like, no. You literally have not said a word to anybody or about anything. And I just this has to be killing you. And so I think that was huge.

Adam Weber — Therapy was huge.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — I mean, just going therapy. Also, just like really with Travis Walton or others like help me understand because I’m not angry. I’m not like an angry person.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — I’m not a yeller boss. Like I’m not a dictator, like you would think like ah that, like someone going through this. I don’t understand why. Like, I’m quick to say thank you. And they’re like, Adam, I know. But like you just don’t have an off switch.

Adam Weber — And so as actually a business leader, he’s he’s still one of my dearest friends, a very just awesome business leader in Sioux Falls. He’s the one who gave me the terminology. Adam, you and I, we don’t yell at people. We don’t, you know, throw stuff. We just wear people out.

Adam Weber — I was like, Oh, man.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And because so that did because I couldn’t see that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — And s I was like, you know, I’m saying thank you. I’m not angry. I don’t understand why this is a big deal that I wear people out.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — Well, because they have lives.

Rich Birch — Right, yes.

Adam Weber — And because they they feel like you’re you’re just using them. And that you don’t actually care for them. Because all you care about is the next hill that you want to climb.

Adam Weber — Even if you got the best intents of teach, like my drive in life is telling people about Jesus. because i I know what it’s like to be lost. And I can’t imagine being wired like me and not know the hope, joy, peace. Every, life found in Christ.

Adam Weber — I’d never heard the gospel until I was a sophomore in high school and I never missed church my entire life. And so I was just like, when I heard about Jesus, it was the greatest news I had ever heard. And so I wanted to spend the rest, I hope I’m the guy in the wheelchair at the nursing home going from one room to the next talking people’s ears off and trying to share about Jesus. And so.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool

Adam Weber — It was just a lot of like self-awareness.

Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, that’s great.

Adam Weber — And just really pushing in. And then I got to mention Brad Lomenick too. Being around Brad Lomenick. His gatherings are like non-negotiables for me.

Rich Birch — Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah.

Adam Weber — And just to hear other pastors going through it, and to see them and hear them. So that was, all that. I’m talking too much again.

Rich Birch — No, you’re not talking too much. That’s great. Yeah. And yeah, you know, a good friend of mine says, you know we all need people in our lives, who love us, but aren’t impressed by us. Right. It’s that, you know, which is true, right?

Adam Weber — So true.

Rich Birch —It’s that like, like that friend of yours who was, who said like, Hey, I’m, I was waiting for that to come out. That’s, that’s a gift. What a gift to be that kind of person and to have those kinds of people in our lives for sure.

Rich Birch — So what would you say—and then we’ll, we will get back to Traction—but what would you say, Adam, today, what your leadership, how is it different? Are there different rhythms, different patterns? Did you, are there some kind of a couple behaviors that you look to like, oh, this is new, kind of new Adam rather than where we were you know 15 years ago or 10 years ago

Adam Weber — I would say so a couple of things that have been told to me first.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — You you pause. You’re you pause more, like in a meeting. You pause more.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Adam Weber — You also, like I’ve always had a deep respect for, for if we don’t have the money for something, I’m not going to be the person let’s green light it. And just trust God. I want to take faith steps, but I’m not I’ve always had that healthy fear of like, I don’t want to put the church in a bad place. And people around me would say, you now have the same fear, in a good way, of not burning your team out.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Adam Weber — So when you see that in the past, I would have been like, but is there in any way we could possibly do it still? Like I got told even no about something today, like just a small thing I wanted it to do. And Emily really, she, she, my assistant, she pursued it. And she was the one and she’s like, I just don’t think we should do this. In the past in the past, I would have been like, well, is there any way that we could do this still?

Adam Weber — You know, like again, not a yeller. I wouldn’t have been like, Emily, you should do this, blah, blah, blah. I would have probably used like, hey, there’s not a way that we can? So I think it’s just a healthy like pause.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Adam Weber — And then, but but then like the practical things, well, it’s even going to the the the cabin after this. I would have seen no need for it. Um…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Adam Weber — …you know like I would have been like, I don’t understand why I’m doing this. I kind of just I could probably work though. So like, so it’s…

Rich Birch — Right. I could send some more emails and give some people some more feedback on things, just to be helpful.

Adam Weber — Yeah. Emily’s smiling just as you just said that. She’s like, oh, sweet baby Jesus. So I think it’s pausing. I’ve always spent time with Jesus, always.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — I mean, my I’m just so hungry for God. But now it’s like it is like yeah untouchable. Like I get up and I’m at the coffee shop by 7 a.m. And I’m just sitting with the Lord. And like this morning, I didn’t bring my computer out with me to the coffee shop. I just sat and I got scripture open. I got my journal and I’m reading.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Adam Weber — And man, the busier my day gets, oh the more time I’m spending with Jesus.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Adam Weber — In the past, I would have squeezed out that time of Jesus because I got to go.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And now it’s like, no, no, no, I’m so busy that I need to spend even more time with him.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Adam Weber — And, um and then instead of like shoving one more, I’m still working on this, but in the past it was like, okay, let’s do this interview. And then, you know as I’m whatever, let’s have the next thing right up next to it, and then the next thing. And I would start, I’ve always verbalized it to my myself and my wife. I feel like a robot without a soul.

Rich Birch — Oh wow.

Adam Weber — I would treat myself like that. And now I don’t want to treat myself like a robot without a soul.

Adam Weber — So now what I’ll do, like me going to Hy-Vee, the grocery store, and getting a randomly getting a steak for lunch would have never happened.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — A, I literally wouldn’t have ate lunch. I would say up until three years ago, I literally didn’t eat lunch.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — And now I like I mean it’s stuff like that…

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.

Adam Weber — …that is seems really small, but it’s huge to me.

Rich Birch — No, that’s good. I love that. That’s super helpful. Thanks for letting me go down that road with you.

Rich Birch — Let’s take a step back and and talk about Traction. So the 10 year, the 90 day, the what do I do on Tuesday afternoon? I’d love to kind of talk through all of that. So so you define the 10 year goal. How did you get clarity around that? What what does that actually look like? How are you making steps towards that? Talk us through that.

Adam Weber — So good. I so I can’t tell enough pastors about this. So I didn’t read the book and I’ve been told the book is kind of confusing. If you can find someone in your community, specifically if you’ve got ah a business leader in your church that’s willing to donate his time or her she’s willing to donate her time, try to get, if there’s there’s usually in community, there’s there’s people who lead you through this process.

Adam Weber — So we had a guy named Mike Ritter. I got to shout out Mike. He doesn’t attend our church. He donated his time for us to go through it because he’s a faith man.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing.

Adam Weber — So we had our lead team, and which is the group that I report to along with the strategy team, the group that reports to me. We just brought them all together. And we wrestled with our vision, you know, kind of key things that set us apart. Who is our target audience? And then we really began to pray through what is our 10-year goal?

Adam Weber — So our 10-year goal that we set back in ’21—I know these numbers just because I’ve been sharing them with the church the last few nights—in August of ’21, we were right around 1,900 people in worship when we set the goal. So we wanted to reach 5% of Sioux Falls, which at the time was 12,500 people.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — Again. 1,900 people, 12,500 people are this, again, I’m going to share this just because it’s pastors and I want it to be helpful. I usually don’t share this elsewhere.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — But you know away from non, we had We broke 5,000 in worship this last spring. One non-holiday Sunday, we were up over 5,600 people.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — So we set that. That, that 12-year goal. It’s just so fun to see it happening.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, you’re totally on track to that.

Adam Weber — And then… We really are. And ah with this new campus we’re pursuing, this new broadcast, I mean, it it will catapult us towards our goal, which is just awesome.

Adam Weber — So then what we do is, you know, we have a three-year goal, a one-year goal, and then these 90-day rocks. And we just, what’s it’s so good for someone like me. I get I’m the next fun, shiny thing I want to go do.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — What Traction does is it helps me stay focused.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — Adam, you’re number one thing you want to tell people about Jesus. This is why this church exists. 100%. So those side things are fun, but we’re not going to do them because we are focused.

Adam Weber — And then what’s also nice is, you know you know, as a lead pastor, it’s often easy to get in martyr syndrome. I’m working harder than everybody else.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — No one else cares about Jesus as much as I care about them. I, you know, you’re tempted to micromanage. Well, the Traction has accountability built in the guts of what it is.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — So what we do is we set in every 90 days, we have an offsite meeting for a half day where we, we lay out our current rocks that we’re just finishing and we grade them. A green, or a red. Was that successful or not? So there’s that built-in accountability. And then we say, okay, for this next 90 days, that starts in two weeks, what what do we want our rocks to be?

Adam Weber — So we lay them all out and then we pick them. So what are the top five or six things that we’re going to focus on? Yeah. Again, for me, I got all these shiny things.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — But Adam, are they more important than those things? No. No, they’re not. And then so you pick your five or six rocks and then everybody except me gets to be the owner of a rock. And they, then you, so out of that meeting, you, Okay, here’s my goal for the next 90 days. And here are the benchmarks that I’m going to hit to reach that goal, that rock.

Adam Weber — And then every week there’s a weekly meeting. And at the start of the meeting, you go through each rock every Monday – on track or off track.

Rich Birch — Good.

Adam Weber — And if it’s on track, good to go. You don’t talk about the rock at all. And if it’s ah off track, according to the milestones that you set, you say, what do we need to do to get back on track then? Because we’ve said that that’s one of the top five things. And that is the process.

Adam Weber —And now as of this January, I’m not even in the weekly meeting anymore.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Adam Weber — So if it’s lead, you’re supposed to have that meeting lead by someone other than the visionary. They call it the integrator.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — And so I never led the meeting when I was in it. And now I’m not even in it anymore. And so that process has refined us and dialed us in. And here’s what’s been so fun to see at work, first off. And then the ownership. It’s just skyrocketed.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.

Adam Weber — You know my team is more, they’re more boots on the ground than I am. And ah so it’s just been so exciting. It’s all about instead of, it’s all about focus. You know, water can’t really do much unfocused. But man, you if you get it in a pressure washer. Man, that thing can, it can cut stone…

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Adam Weber — …if you focus it enough. And that is the power of Traction.

Adam Weber — I feel like so many churches and leaders, just like me, have no focus. And so they’re doing a trillion things not very well instead of getting really, really dialed in. Well I just have to say one thing. What we did in the very first rocks is we said, should we stay multi-site? And I I was like we’re gonna take 90 days to decide that? Like can we just decide that in a meeting?

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — Like why, why? And again, at first it felt horrible to a go-getter like me.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — I’m like, we’re going to spend 90 days. And so one of the rocks was we’re going to interview 14 churches from across the country, similar to us in similar communities, just bigger and ask them about the strategy and whatever else.

Adam Weber — And that homework told us, do not go away from multi-site. What they said is multi-site works. Crappy multi-site doesn’t work though. And that’s what most churches do is crappy multi-site.

Adam Weber — And so they’re like, if you do good multi-site where every service is amazing regardless of what location. So it’s not just the broadcast that’s awesome. And then these other sites are what are terrible. And then you’re saying it doesn’t work. It’s like, well, it doesn’t work because it’s terrible. That was one of the initial things. And it it really taught me to like, if you go slower, you’ll actually go further.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And that was the type of things that I needed to learn.

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s great. I know our friend Warren Bird’s coming out with there with a new study this fall on multisite. And I literally we were just talking about yesterday that one of the and I’m not preempting any of his numbers. But one of the the big findings is exactly that that there’s numbers backing up what you’re saying there.

Rich Birch — That it you know there’s this popular notion that like oh multi-state’s gone away. And the way he said it was, no, really what it is is it’s gone vertical. When you see what’s happening is there are churches like yours that are driving much deeper into multi-site and, you know, launching more campuses, getting better at it, going, you know, spending a lot more time on alignment and you know that sort of thing.

Adam Weber — Yes.

Rich Birch — And it’s and it’s having huge impact the impact. And I have seen some of the numbers, it’s just insane to see. So that’s interesting

Adam Weber — Oh, it’s well it’s it’s it’s scalable.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Adam Weber — What I what I love is that our campuses, people know who their pastor is.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And and they’re not me.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — You know, like it’s it’s the campus pastor.

Rich Birch — Well, and you can’t you can’t have a vision like 5,000, you can’t have a 5 % vision. with a single location.

Adam Weber — No!

Rich Birch — There isn’t a building big enough in you know in town to do that. You have to come up with some sort of multi-site thing that that does does that. So.

Adam Weber — It’s really it’s really it’s really incredible. So that’s great.

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s cool. Back to the 90 days so because I because I where I think some of this stuff falls down with churches is, yeah, we’re good at the like, we’re going to change the world. And we might even be okay at like this year, we’re going to focus on these three things. But then I like to call it the youth pastor on Tuesday problem. The like Tuesday afternoon, it’s like one o ‘clock in the afternoon, the youth pastor staring at the wall. And they’re like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be working on right now. Like I, you know, I just don’t know. That’s where it starts to fall apart.

Rich Birch — So every 90 days, do you, I get that, like the team that works directly for you, they’re going to own those pieces. And then, but is there like a cascading that comes down, a communication that goes down? What does that look like?

Adam Weber — So cascading for sure. I mean, again, that’s something we weren’t good at. We would make decisions and then not tell anybody. So, so I mean, it’s just like, well, that’s unhelpful.

Rich Birch — And then be mad when they didn’t do it.

Adam Weber — Oh, a hundred percent.

Adam Weber — And so now what’s cool is our directors also have their own meeting. We call that the S10. And so they now have their own rocks. And sometimes they’re built off of past rocks from the their strategy team, but a lot of times they’re not.

Adam Weber — And so they’re they’re setting their own goals. And in a lot of it, it’s so it’s so it’s not some of it is so simple. What is our follow-up for first impressions? Like like what like when someone comes, what is our follow-up when someone wants to say they want to volunteer? I mean, it’s something it’s a lot of it is just systems.

Rich Birch — Right.

Adam Weber — And so for these 90 days, we’re going to work on this system. Again for Enneagram three. That sounds like horrible. A system? Why do why do we need a system?

Rich Birch — Why are we doing that?

Adam Weber — And so, ah so, so that the S10 group, but a lot of directors is due on their own rocks, which is which is critical. But that so that cascading is huge. And then here’s what’s so cool. We just had it this last week, ah the L10, so the strategy team presented their rocks. And said, hey, guys, you’ve maybe noticed over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been focusing on this and this. Here’s the full rock. And do you guys have any questions about it?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Adam Weber — Yeah. Why why why do we have this rock?

Adam Weber — I mean, literally and anybody can ask and they do. And so like any questions on this rock. And and and so, so them even like, oh, it just brings so much clarity. Oh.

Adam Weber — That’s why we’re that’s why we’re doing this. That’s huge. And then one other thing I would say that’s been just gold and where I can’t wait to get the results from it. As a part of Traction, you do a yearly survey. So you do a survey and it’s very open-ended questions. You know what are two or three things that you love about Embrace? What are two or three things that you wish Embrace would address?

Adam Weber — I mean it’s very, and we encourage, if you’ve even thought about attending Embrace, it’s not like our our inner like people who love Embrace.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — It’s everybody.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Adam Weber — And they give very unfiltered anonymous feedback. And it’s and sometimes it’s brutal. What’s so cool is they just there’s such there’s trends that you can get. And it’s gold. If you want to continue loving people, serving people, caring for people.

Rich Birch — That’s good

Adam Weber — Something in for years that we undervalued at Embrace—we just never thought about it—was parking. And so it’s just like the the tighter the services, the more chaos, the better.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Adam Weber — Well, it’s like, ah then we hired a years ago, actually in 2018, we hired ah a guy from Eagle Brook in Minneapolis.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — Eagle Brook has been a huge blessing to us.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s a great church.

Adam Weber — I’m a big time Bob Merritt fan, Jason Strand fan, if you haven’t interviewed them, man, just incredible. But we brought him on and he’s like you guys realize your parking lot experience is horrible here, right?

Adam Weber — And it’s like, no, I’ve never even been in the parking lot. What are you talking about?

Adam Weber — He’s like, you realize that like dozens of cars are leaving because the parking lot… I’m like, no, they’re not. Their probably just going around the block. He’s like no they are leaving your church.

Adam Weber — Well again we so we I got a sneak peek. I just jumped in the survey thing to see some. t’s almost all parking, parking, parking, parking, parking.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Adam Weber — And so again, we’re like, what do we need to do?

Rich Birch — Yeah, we gotta fix that.

Adam Weber — So we’re looking at bringing in just a shuttle system for volunteers, like for staff and volunteers.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Adam Weber — Let’s park way way away, so it’s just been huge.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Love it. Well, that’s been good. That’s a great kind of under the hood look at Traction. If you were talking to a church leader who was interested in like, hmm, we need to maybe take a little step closer, take take a next step in this, what would you suggest kind of a first couple steps would be for them to try to begin to build a system like this?

Adam Weber — I would say is go to your lead team first, or your board.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — Do we know anybody who implements Traction?

Adam Weber — Like, do we know anybody? And if they don’t, post it on your Facebook, Hey, this is really random. I’m wondering if there’s anybody in Sioux Falls, South Dakota who is an integrator? Like what would help like implement Traction.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Adam Weber — I would just love to take them out for coffee.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good

Adam Weber — That would be my initial thing.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Adam Weber — And just just begin to see if you can find. Because here’s what’s so cool. That person, similar to Mike Ritter, again, Mike doesn’t even attend my church. Mike just, like, he heard about what Embrace was, what God was doing through Embrace, and he’s like, man, I would I just want to be a part of it.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — And so what he did, he brought two of our lead team, he allowed, like they were in the room And then he kind of equipped them. And now those two guys lead the 90 day meetings for us.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Adam Weber — And so and I feel like all three of them would say.

Adam Weber — It has made us feel like we’re so connected to the church and it’s given us so much purpose and whatever else. So you might just have a a business leader who is an implementer for Traction that has never served at your church. That’s like, Oh my gosh, I would love to help the church that way.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to be a part of that. Yeah, that’s so good. Great stuff. Well, this has been a great, great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on today.

Adam Weber — Oh.

Rich Birch — Adam, this has been fantastic any final words as we wrap up today’s episode?

Adam Weber — A couple of things. I just want to just give a shout out again to you. One of my, one of my favorite things was, uh, I can’t remember what it was about. Carey posted something. And then the next day you posted something that totally disagreed with Carey. Ha ha!

Rich Birch — Yes.

Adam Weber — I told Carey this too. I’m like, I just thought, you know, Carey is such a leading voice and you are as well, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Weber — And ah so I just, I just really got to honor you. And I love. As as pastors, we’re so spoiled by the both of you. And I thought it was so cool knowing that the both of you honor each other, and yet you disagreed. I was like, this is my favorite thing ever. I read both of those blog posts…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Adam Weber — like 10, 15 times. So I just need to say thank you. The second thing I would say is I would just say to anybody in ministry, whether you’re full-time or you’re a business leader, in like just thanks for serving. And um if you need if you find yourself at a place of rock bottom, our God specializes in bringing dead things back to life.

Rich Birch — So good.

Adam Weber — And that’s not just something that you and I can preach on a Sunday morning. It’s something that God can do in our lives as well.

Rich Birch — So true.

Adam Weber — Sometimes we get to be on the receiving end of that. So he can do that in our own personal lives if we’ve had a moral failure even, or whatever it looks like, but he can also do that in our church.

Adam Weber — And so you might say like, gosh, my my ministry is dead. Or my church just feels dead or whatever. That’s God’s specialty.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Adam Weber — And so I would just encourage you just to keep going. Deal with the things inside of you that need to be dealt with as well, For the sake of your own soul. for the sake of your your spouse, your kids, for the sake of your ministry. Do the do the hard work because it’s worth it.

Rich Birch — That’s so good

Adam Weber — It’s a, I always say self-awareness feels like your worst enemy, but it’s actually your best friend. And so pursue it, pursue it, pursue it.

Rich Birch — That’s a great place to end. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?

Adam Weber — Yeah, probably the best place is either adamweber.com or Instagram @adamaweber. And then the church is iamembrace.com. We’re probably most active on Instagram, our website as well. Yeah. Man, that would be it.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much for being here today. I appreciate that.

Adam Weber — Yes, thank you.

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.

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.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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.

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.

 

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.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church

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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.

 

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.

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.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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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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.

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.

Check out Anthem Church’s About page to see how their story, mission, values, and discipleship pathway fit together. You can also follow @SamHamstra and @ThisIsAnthemChurch on Instagram.

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 share it 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 extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

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.

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.

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.

Listen to the Full Episode // Hero Dependence Is a Terrible Growth Strategy with Tim Foot (June 18, 2026)

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.

Listen to the Full Episode // Stop Plucking Talent, Start Developing It with Spence Shelton (August 6, 2026)

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.

Listen to the Full Episode // From 300 to 2,500: Building a Leadership Pipeline That Fuels Growth with Chris Vaught (September 25, 2025)

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.

Listen to the Full Episode // Who’s the Next You? Building a Gen Z Residency Pipeline with Dave Miller (September 11, 2025)

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?

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 share it 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 extremely helpful 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.

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.