Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Eric Garza, Executive Pastor at Cross Church in Texas. Founded in 1995, Cross Church has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with 12 campuses across the Rio Grande Valley and beyond. With a unique focus on bilingual ministry, Cross Church is pioneering new models of multisite ministry in a predominantly Hispanic region.

Is your church wondering how to expand across languages, cultures, or campuses? Eric shares how Cross Church has embraced a centralized, bilingual multisite strategy that unites excellence with contextual flexibility.

To learn more about Cross Church, visit crosschurchonline.com or follow @crosschurchrgv. You can also connect with Eric directly at @ericpgarza and explore resources at 360global.network

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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Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. Honored that you would tune in and listen today. Excited for this conversation. ah Literally this week, I had two conversations around what we’re talking about today with people ah who are wrestling with these issues. And I’m sure that many of you are wrestling with these as well. Honored to have another executive pastor. We love executive pastors at unSeminary.

Rich Birch — We’ve got Eric Garza. He is the executive pastor at Cross Church. They were founded in 1995. They’re located in Texas and is one of the fastest growing churches in the the country. I think they’ve got 12 campuses, if I’m counting correctly, which is incredible. Cross Church is in a predominantly Hispanic area and and is likely has one of the largest bilingual ministries in the country. Eric, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Eric Garza — Rich, thanks for the opportunity. Happy to be with you and happy to have this conversation.

Rich Birch — Wow, this is great. So obviously you guys have experienced incredible growth…

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and, um you know, amazing things going on there. Why don’t you kind of unpack the story a little bit? Tell us a little bit about what the ministry looks like today and then about your role of executive pastor of campuses specifically. I know that kind of looks different in all you every church, but tell us, talk us through that.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Eric Garza — Yeah, well, you said it. 1995, almost 31 years ago, the church started. Senior pastors, Jaime and Rosemary Loya here in deep South Texas. So for context, ah we’re about 20 minutes north of the border with Mexico.

Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.

Eric Garza — So right on the bottom, ah deep South Texas, right on the tip of Texas. And so our our demographic is predominantly Hispanic, Latino.

Eric Garza — And we’re in a part of the country um that sometimes we’re we’re the last to receive news or information, although that’s changed recently with ah SpaceX here in the region and LNG and just a lot of economic growth.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, that’s good.

Eric Garza — Our church over the last, I would say five years, um we went from, well, let me backtrack. 2018 this way, we went from one location to now 12 locations.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s huge.

Eric Garza — So it’s been about a little over seven years where we went from one site where we had in San Benito, our main campus, our original location, and then expanded to the upper part of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, then to the southern part of the valley. And then now, even in San Antonio, our first campus out of our our region.

Eric Garza — So we got ah seven English campuses and five Spanish campuses. And so it’s been a challenging, it’s beena challenging season, but it’s been a very rewarding season. And God has just enabled us to really break the mold of what local ministry looks like here in our region and expand beyond one site to multiple sites. And in the last, Rich, in the last 18 to 20 months, we’ve doubled in size as an organization.

Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.

Eric Garza — And so that’s why Outreach Magazine, I believe this is the third or fourth time ah in recent years, have recognized it as one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And we’re just really blessed by that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Give us a sense of the the distance between those 12, like from the original location to the farthest. How does all that, what’s that look like?

Eric Garza — So right now in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, within 20 to 30 minutes, you can be at a Cross Church location.

Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.

Eric Garza — So our our first campus was in the upper valley in the Mission area. That’s about a 35 minute drive from our original location. And then the other locations ah from our original site, they’re about 25 minutes or so, ah no more than half an hour.

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

Eric Garza — So that’s why we say anywhere in the Rio Grande valley within 30 minutes ah max, you can be at a Cross Church location for for service.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love…

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I love that. You know, one of the things that we’ve seen about multisite is even to the way you’re talking about it there, you know, it really is a regional strategy. It’s like, hHey, we’re trying to reach the Rio Grande Valley.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — This is a, you know, is a particular cultural ah milieu. It’s an area it’s like people are, you know, have a lot in common and I love that you’re, you’ve saturated that area. Well, multisite ministry looks different from in every context, you know, like multisite, there’s like a number of different ways to skin the cat.

Eric Garza — Sure.

Rich Birch — At 12 locations, you are in the rare minority. Last last I saw, 50% of multisite churches don’t get beyond three. It’s like single digit percentage get beyond 10. You know, at 12, you’re in the rare thin air. So I’d love to kind of hear what does multisite look like for you when you say you’re multisite, you know, seven English, five Spanish, what’s that look like?

Eric Garza — Yeah, so we got seven physical locations. And so so ah some of our locations double up. In other words, They have an English campus with their own English pastor, and then they have a Spanish congregation with their own Spanish pastor.

Eric Garza — And so ah it’s for us, we are the, I believe we’re the largest church in in deep South Texas. And you’re right. We kind of broke the mold expanding to multisite several years ago. Our pastor had that vision and desire to, the biggest thing is we wanted to go to where people are at instead of expecting people to come to us. And so our our vision is to raise up an army, to lead a spiritual revolution.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Eric Garza — And so we felt that in order to do that, we had to go into the communities where people are located instead of expecting them to come to us. And when we started doing that through multisite strategy and and campus ah campuses. Well, we just saw right our growth increase, we saw our reach increase, our influence in the region increase.

Eric Garza — And so for us, we are a Latino predominantly area. And so we have a lot of speaking Spanish people um that want a modern, contemporary non-denominational type of ministry that in our region really wasn’t available up until several years ago.

Eric Garza — And we were kind of the forefront, the pioneers of offering that. And then now that God has given us resources and abilities to really be at the cutting edge of providing ministry for the whole family and a lot of local churches are just not in a position to do that.

Eric Garza — And so we feel humbled, and we feel responsible, and we feel ah blessed that we get to go expand and do multisite with both reaching English speaking congregants, and then of course, diving into making sure that we cannot ignore, especially in our region, a predominantly Hispanic, excuse me, Spanish speaking, a demographic.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. What do what do you hold in common between the campuses? What like what does teaching look like? What does um ah you know music, kids ministry, that sort of thing?

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And compare and contrast, you know both English and Latino, Spanish you know Spanish speaking, what does that look like? How do you how’s all that work together?

Eric Garza — So our our services, our service formats, whether it’s in English or Spanish, are very much similar and identical. The only difference is the language.

Rich Birch — Okay. Okay.

Eric Garza — And so we’ll have worship set lists. The songs may vary differently, but as far as the structure of the service, the ministry we offer, whatever we offer in English, we offer in Spanish. Next Gen, pastoral care, prayer, first impressions, Cross kids, kids ministry, whatever whatever we offer in English, we offer in in Spanish.

Eric Garza — And so for us, we’ve we’ve really been adamant about centralizing all of our ministries and our systems to where every campus location pretty much looks the same. The building might be different. The size might be different. The size of the congregation might be different. But as far as the ministry apparatus, it’s identical. Whatever you see in one location, you’re going to see at another location.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Eric Garza — And so when we launch campuses and when we launch services, we do so ah first making sure that we’re going to be able to provide as excellent a ministry as possible. And so for us, we offer the same, just just just in different languages.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — And so you’re not going to go to one location in one part of the valley. And then go to a different location in a different part of the valley and experience different teams or different structure or different layouts or different branding.

Rich Birch — Right.

Eric Garza — You’re going to see very much the exact same stuff.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. And and that’s, um you know, as a commentary friends that are listening in, yeah know, I’ve been involved in multisite for a long time, 20, almost 25 years. And early on, there was a lot of debate around, um like, should we have lots of local contextualization, like as in, you know, from one campus that’s 25 minutes away from another, like how different should it be or how common should it be?

Rich Birch — And for sure, we’ve seen over the last two decades that churches like Cross Church that are really trying to focus more on what do we have in common rather than, hey, let’s try to do a whole bunch of things different at all the various locations really are are prevailing in this model, in this approach.

Eric Garza — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, so for us, that’s that’s great. For us, what we do is, like I said, the ministry we provide is identical across the board. But campuses do have a little bit of local autonomy in this regard.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Eric Garza — Maybe their community that they’re in is doing a citywide prayer walk or they’re doing a, ah you know, an Independence Day celebration that another community might not be doing. They have the the opportunity to dive into a local context that may pertain to that campus that another another city may not be having a similar or same event. So that other campus may not be doing it.

Eric Garza — So they do have, especially with our community engagement endeavors, if something is happening in their community that that we can be a part of and that we want to be a part of, then we’ll allow the local campus to make that call and do so.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Eric Garza — And then when we do like baptisms or child dedications, we’ll do them all on the same weekend. But then the local campus might say, hey, our campus will do it Saturday morning.

Rich Birch — Right.

Eric Garza — And then another campus will say, we’ll do it the same day, but we’ll do it Saturday afternoon…

Rich Birch — Okay.

Eric Garza — …or we’ll do it Sunday after. So in other words, we try to have a calendar where everybody is synced up. That way we can tell the everybody, hey, no matter what location you’re at this weekend, we’re going to offer water baptisms.

Rich Birch — Good.

Eric Garza — But then we tell them, go to our social media or at your local campus, they’ll give you further details as to the time of those baptisms. So there is some local contextualization with community engagement…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Eric Garza — …with because not every community is created equal. Our ministry is similar across the board. It’s identical. But then the local context does play a part. And so the campuses do have to be a little bit flexible with with that.

Rich Birch — Okay, help us understand, you know, you’re leading the way really here, ah particularly on, um you know, having services both in English and in Spanish, really reaching and discipling people across language and cultural lines. I think this is an area, this is the thing where I said I had multiple conversations about this this week.

Rich Birch — I think growing church in the country is is asking this question. Every zip code is more multicultural, multi-ethnic today than it was 10 years ago, and it will be more multicultural, multi-ethnic 10 years from now. That’s just true. And so we’re all trying to figure out this question, but I think, frankly, a lot of churches have struggled with this.

Rich Birch — So unpack that a little bit. how What are you learning? How are you keeping these things aligned? How are you working? You know, I’m sure it’s easy. I’m sure there’s no problems, but talk us through what you’re learning on that front.

Eric Garza — Okay. Yeah. Wishful thinking, wishful thinking, my man. That is, yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, talk us about that.

Eric Garza — So for us, there’s been a lot of trial and error, right?

Rich Birch — Okay.

Eric Garza — We say we have a great system, but it’s not a perfect system.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Eric Garza — And as you grow and expand, you’re going to have to adapt and tweak some things in your current system. And then some systems that serve you in one season don’t serve you in another season. So a system that served us with four or five locations doesn’t serve us with six or seven or 10 or more, right? And so you have to adjust yourself.

Eric Garza — So for us, um the then you know millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, those are the ones that, even though they may come from a Spanish background, are English speakers. So you’re going to see a lot of that English ministry.

Eric Garza — In fact, even in our Spanish congregations, though we offer Spanish ministry across the board, you’ll notice or will notice that our next gen, a vast majority of them, I mean, 85, 90% plus are English speakers. And so we’re not going to do everything, you know, 50/50 bilingual. We’re going to do things that are going to help reach a demographic and reach people across the age spectrum, ah giving them their specific ministry and their required or or preferred language.

Eric Garza — And so for us, how do you do multisite ministry in a bilingual context? If you know something that we don’t, please tell us, because we’ve we’ve grown to adapt this in our context, Rich. There is, to our to our knowledge, no ah thriving ministry in America that sets a precedent for how to do multisite bilingual ministry.

Rich Birch — I would agree.

Eric Garza — We’re pretty much the trailblazers here. Our senior pastor, our our executive team, our our church, and in really pioneering what this looks like. And so that’s why I say, some things we’ve tried that haven’t worked. You know, when do you offer service times? When do Spanish speaking people prefer a Sunday service? English speakers? And so we’ve tried different things and we’ve just learned over the years what’s worked for us and what hasn’t worked for us. And again, it’s been through through a lot of prayer, through a lot of ah trial and error and figuring things out as we go.

Eric Garza — Now, we have learned from other ministries, of course, that there’s wisdom in that. But in our context, reaching a predominantly ah Latino area and where you have a dual language demographic, that has been a challenge that we’ve really… And here’s the thing: we’ve become really good at it because we have a lot of our pastors and teaching pastors and speakers are bilingual, myself included.

Rich Birch — Right.

Eric Garza — So our senior pastor, phenomenal. The man will preach bilingual and translate himself live on stage.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Eric Garza — That’s is that he’s got a gift.

Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.

Eric Garza — He’s a phenomenal pastor, a phenomenal leader. And a lot of our our pastors, our campus pastors are bilingual.

Rich Birch — Right.

Eric Garza — And so they’re able to flow in that dynamic that is attractive to families. It doesn’t slow things down and it gives them a greater footing in their community, being able to connect with dual language ah ah people.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s that’s incredible. I was going to ask the kind of, is there like a profile difference between people that are attending the English and Spanish services? Maybe you could unpack that a little bit more. In the Spanish services, are you doing, I can understand within the service, that makes sense.

Rich Birch — But are you also doing Spanish kids ministry associated with that? Or is it English? Because I know some churches that will do, they’ll offer like a Spanish service in another room kind of thing, but then they’re sharing a shared English kids ministry. Talk us through kind of what is the the difference in the communities kind of double click on that on that uh you know that those dynamics.

Eric Garza — Yeah, so it’s a wide – great question. It’s a wide spectrum, right? ah different You’re have guests and ah and congregants from you know different socioeconomic backgrounds, different income levels ah in both services.

Rich Birch — yep.

Eric Garza — And in one campus, you might have more of one one specific socioeconomic background than another campus. When it comes to kids, for example, kids ministry, at our Spanish service, we will still offer kids ministry in English because like I said, really the next gen and and and kids, you know, between the ages of really, you know, it infants and adolescents all the way to to high school, teenage years and beyond, young adults are English speakers. So we’ll have a Spanish service going on in the main sanctuary. And in kids ministry, it’ll be in English, with this caveat.

Eric Garza — We fully understand that there might be some Spanish speaking only kids that attend. And that’s perfectly fine. We’re prepared for that.

Rich Birch — Yep. Right. Okay.

Eric Garza — So we’ll have bilingual teachers, bilingual staffers, ah coordinators that are part of our kids ministry that, should that occur, they’re going to get exactly the same. We don’t water down.

Eric Garza — Our curriculum is in Spanish. Our videos are in Spanish. We’ll have teachers that will speak to kids in Spanish including with special needs, right?

Rich Birch — Wow.

Eric Garza — And so there’s, we do our absolute best to ensure that we provide as excellent a ministry as possible to every, without, and I use the word watering down, with but, you know, I hope you get the the sense of what I’m trying to say…

Rich Birch — I understand. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Garza — …without minimizing the impact and the quality of experience or teaching that they’re going to get.

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s incredible. I love that. That’s, uh, Yeah, you’ve you’ve set a high bar in a in a really great, beautiful way, um you know, to to make that happen.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Let’s double click on this again. You kind of already touched on this, but I’d love to circle back on the alignment and, you know, and autonomy issue.

Eric Garza — Sure.

Rich Birch — So, you know, the most, um we’ll call them single language, multisite churches, they struggle with this issue. You know, that this is like it’s a constant kind of battle. How do how much alignment, how much autonomy do we give locations? But then you’ve added this extra layer of multiple languages.

Rich Birch — And so talk us through how you think about that. How do you work on alignment? How do you work on autonomy? I get the idea local kind of outreach community service stuff. That makes sense. But what else does, how else does that work itself out for you?

Eric Garza — So we are a centralized ah ministry organization. And so what I mean by that is um every campus will have a kids leader and those kids leaders have a line to the central kids pastor or kids director. And so the central team is basically this central will set the systems. Campuses will execute those systems.

Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Great.

Eric Garza — So Cross Kids central department, right, our kids central department, Cross Kids because that’s the name of our church, um they will set the curriculum, they will set the lesson plans, they will set the videos that are going to be shown, ah the theme for that Sunday or for that month, and then the local campuses will execute.

Eric Garza — Central will provide the training to all of our kids leaders and teachers and staff and personnel. The same. So every every kid’s team at every campus will get the exact same training from the central director from the central department. Same with next steps, first impressions, worship. And so our alignment is very centralized.

Eric Garza — In other words, as far as our ministry systems are concerned. Even our finances, even our our our our our marketing. Our marketing, we do central, but then we also allow our local campuses to do different things based on one campus might be having a business breakfast with local business leaders that another campus is not. So their local marketing might look different. So we’re very centralized. And then the autonomy that we give is just that local context ministry.

Rich Birch — Right, okay.

Eric Garza — What is your community doing that we’re not doing? And so when we plant a campus, you’re going to get the same branding, you’re going to get the same banners, you’re going to get the same logos, you’re going to get the same signage, you’re going to get the same teams that any campus would have, regardless whether you’re a 200 member campus or you’re a 2000. We have both of those. We have that wide a spectrum of campus sizes. They’re going to get the same materials and branding and resourcing.

Eric Garza — And so we’re very centralized. And then the local autonomy is just based on local context when it comes to engagement, to outreach, to reaching a local demographic or or something that might be a little bit different. And that’s the way we found, Rich, that allows us to ensure that number one, we’re providing as excellent a ministry as possible across the board at any location. We wanna be able to tell people No matter what location you go to, what cross location you’re at, you’re going to get a great experience, a very similar experience. And we’ve over the years found that to be true.

Eric Garza — People love going to our Brownsville location. People love going to our Mission, Texas location. People like going to our Bay Area location because they found they’re not getting a different experience that they would at the original site from, you know, years ago. And so there’s people now that are part of our church, they’re members of our church who’ve never stepped foot in our original location. They’ve never stepped foot in other locations.

Eric Garza — They’re just so adamant about their local Cross Church location, and they’re getting the exact same quality that they would at the original location. So I hope that answer is right. It’s we’re very centralized systematically, but then there is some local autonomy where a campus pastor might make some decisions based on his or her local context that another campus might not.

Rich Birch — So this is like a super detailed church wonk question um at the level of at a campus level, um even this the way you you kind of set it up, we’ve got 12 locations. You talk about them all as campuses, but they’re really they’re sharing physical locations, if I’m if I’m correct.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — So how do the campus pastors who are sharing a physical location, English campus pastor, Spanish campus pastor, how do they relate to each other and in in that, you know, that location? what What does that look like for them?

Eric Garza — Yeah, great question. And so one of our core values is unity. And so we always try to instill that across the board, especially in that kind of situation where it’s one physical location, but you have two two congregations, one English, one Spanish. So the English will have their us English pastor and the Spanish will have their Spanish pastor.

Eric Garza — And so the way we train our pastors and our our our top level leaders is this. We’re one team. Right? And so we’re not, you know, we don’t come with the attitude of, well, I’m just, I just do English and I don’t do Spanish. Right? Or I just do so do Spanish and I don’t do English. And that’s, and that’s perfectly fine in the sense that we understand you have a responsibility to serve your service. But at the same time, we believe that teams should help each other out.

Rich Birch — yeah.

Eric Garza — And so for example, we have a 10 o’clock English service at at our locations and then locations have a twelve… That’s the other thing. Our service times are the same at every location. 10 o’clock in English. And then those that have Spanish, it’s 12 p.m. on Sundays in Spanish.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.

Eric Garza — So the teams will transition out. The Spanish has the exact same teams that the English does.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — And so they’ll transition out between services to make sure that everything that the Spanish service is equipped and that the English service transitions well into Spanish. So basically, English service will be the first ones there on Sundays. And then Spanish will be the team that leaves in the afternoon on Sundays. And so those two pastors have to work very much in in in tandem with each other.

Eric Garza — Hey, here’s what’s happened first service. Don’t forget about this. Or here’s what happened in the building the first service. Be aware of this. They both attend both each other’s service, right? It’s not, hey, my I’m done and I’m out of here.

Rich Birch — Right, yeah, yeah.

Eric Garza — No, they’re there to equip each other, to support each other, to help each other, to back each other up, to provide a stronger pastoral presence. And so they have the responsibility, but they’re not entirely siloed. In other words, where they abdicate responsibility and helping each other out. No, it’s a very pastoral structure where we help each other out and we’re there the entire Sunday to back each other up and to provide pastoral presence.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s that’s fantastic. Like, ah yeah, you’re you’re doing something really unique here and it’s it’s fun to kind of get a chance to dig around in it. Thanks for letting ask some of those, ah you know, detailed questions.

Eric Garza — Oh, absolutely. And we’re still learning, right? We’re we’re still learning as we go.

Rich Birch — Oh, yeah, for sure.

Eric Garza — Yeah. And as challenges and situations come up, up we’ll figure them out as they come, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah. You talked about um earlier, you met you said the we the the phrase, hey, we’ve got a great system, but not a perfect system.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And that does, it’s interesting, I’m working on this book um ah about breaking the 2000 barrier for churches. And one of the interesting things we’ve seen as I talk with church leaders who have done that is there’s this idea that under 2000, churches are trying lots of different things.

Rich Birch — But then eventually you get to the point where you’re like, yeah, there’s like lots of different ways to do this, but this is the way we’re going to do it. Like, this is, you know, this is kind of our thing.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And we’re not even convinced. It’s just like our approach. It’s fine. Like, we’re not hung up on it.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What would be ah some adjustments to the systems that you’ve made over the years to try to improve to, you know, some changes, you’ve maybe dropped some stuff or added some stuff to try to um you know, push the thing forward? What would be one of those or a couple of those that you could, you could think through?

Eric Garza — Yeah, um as I’m thinking about it, as you’re asking the question, ‘m thinking back to a couple of our campuses that underwent some building renovations and building projects to create more space.

Eric Garza — And so it used to be that we could host our our membership courses or membership classes in a small space. And as the campus grew that space, we outgrew that space or that meeting room or whatever.

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

Eric Garza — And so our our system, let me put it, let me put it this way. Let’s just say that our next step system, all of our first time guests get a ah blue bag with their gift, right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — Well, That’s the system that every campus has to do. What every campus can do differently is perhaps what exit they’re going to have their station at…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Eric Garza — …or their next steps room at or where they’re going to host it. And so for us, the systems have had to be adapted as we’ve grown. And that’s what I mean. They’re not perfect systems because sometimes things happen that are out of your control. You plan for 15 and 22 show up, or 30 show up or 30 RSVP and only, you know, 17 show up. And so they’re not perfect systems in the way that they’re concrete and they’re cookie cutter in the sense that we can’t maneuver or or rework them to meet the demand of the local campus.

Eric Garza — And so our systems are are the same, but the local implementation of those systems may vary campus to campus. Instead of using one mobile TV, you’re using ah an LED screen, right? because your your your spacing is different.

Rich Birch — Sure, sure.

Eric Garza — But you’re still teaching the same stuff. It’s the same books. It’s the same materials, same resources. And so as we’ve grown, Rich, from, you know, multi site and adding more and we’ll continue to add more into 2026 beyond. We’re obviously constantly evaluating our systems, right? Does this membership system fit, you know, for where we want to head, where we want to go? Does our Cross Kids curriculum, is it replicable across this so across the board to even more campuses?

Eric Garza — Our current systems, do they, now that we’re expanding even out of the Rio Grande Valley and deep South Texas to other regions, San Antonio and beyond, does how we do ministry in this region need to change how we do ministry in a different region.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Eric Garza — And so we’re constantly evaluating and tweaking. And then, like I said earlier, what system served us in one season, you know, they’re not sacred cows or they’re not sacred, you know, things.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Eric Garza — And as you’re right, as long as it’s not sin and it’s not anti-biblical or scriptural, yeah you can change things, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, 100%.

Eric Garza — Nothing nothing beyond the word of God is sacred…

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Eric Garza — …and in this in the in the context of this conversation, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Eric Garza — And so we’re always thinking, hey, does what we do in in this region, does it need to shift or change for the next region that we want to be in? And so that’s what I mean.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Eric Garza — They’re not perfect because they’re led by and they’re implemented by imperfect people. And so all of that, right, as we go multisite and expand, man, we’re constantly thinking about all those thoughts, ah perusing through our minds and our meetings, and how do we get better at what we’re currently doing?

Rich Birch — Yeah, this fantastic. So is there a difference or a kind of compare and contrast the discipleship pathway between English and Spanish is, you know, like you talked about, like, so you know, someone’s coming, they’re getting a gift and some sort of new here thing. And then, you know, you’re trying to get them connected to teams and groups somehow, I’m assuming. And, you know, then we’re hoping that they take these steps to kind of grow in their relationship with Jesus.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What does that look like? And are you bilingual at at that level as well? Like are the right to the, you know small groups and all that stuff and talk us through all, what does all that look like that side of what’s going on across?

Eric Garza — Yeah. So for us, we currently don’t have small groups at our church. We have serve teams.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Eric Garza — And so we push, ah we highly encourage people into our serve teams.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — And a large percentage of our church is involved in serve teams.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — And so that becomes kind of their church family, their church group.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Eric Garza — We’ve found that people have often said, man, we’re so we’re such a large church, but we feel so connected because we’re on teams. And so in their local context, people form those relationships.

Eric Garza — Yeah, our discipleship is bilingual. So for example, when we do Wednesday night discipleship classes or Bible studies, us English will meet in one room and Spanish will meet in another space. And but it’ll be the exact same teaching. So, for example, I’ll use myself as an example. When I record the content for discipleship, I’ll record the exact same content in English…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.

Eric Garza — …and then I’ll record it in Spanish.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.

Eric Garza — So that evening or that Wednesday night, right? Those seven English congregations are getting their set, their English discipleship teaching. Let’s say we’re talking about gifts of the Holy Spirit. Spanish is going to get the same exact teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, just in Spanish.

Rich Birch — That’s fantastic.

Eric Garza — And so that’s why, Rich, we’ve, we’ve been so blessed and, and we’ve had to work at this…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Eric Garza — …where as best as we can. Now, not everything, right, not a hundred percent bilingual. But as best as we can, we want to offer what we do in English, we want to offer it in Spanish and then vice versa.

Eric Garza — Maybe Spanish has a great idea that we’ve never done in English. We want to see if we can explore doing that in the English as well.

Eric Garza — So we do our very best. And I say nine out of ten – 90, 95% of the time, everything we do, we’re doing it in both languages to accommodate and to serve. We’re not trying to please one congregation over the other. I think when you’re trying to please people, that’s when you get into some trouble and you get into some pressure you were never meant to have. We’re trying to serve the congregations as best as we possibly can. And I believe our growth has spoken volumes of, like I said, hey, it’s been impactful and it’s worked for us. Not perfect systems, but they’re very efficient and excellent systems.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. Years ago, I had Derwin Gray on the podcast and we were talking about multicultural, you know, how our churches should, you know, continue to pursue multiculturalism and and become, you know reflect our community. And, you know, I was coming at it from like, a hey, like our churches should represent, they should, when you walk into our church, it should look like the community we’re in.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And he totally called me out on the podcast, and was like, Rich, like you could need to think about a bigger thought. This isn’t about some marketing trick. This is the kingdom of Christ. It’s like the, you know, every tribe tongue is represented, should be represented in our church. And I love what you’re doing to try to make, to operationalize that, to try to, how do we actually make that happen in our our context? I think it’s you know I think it’s I think it’s amazing.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It’s it’s incredible. Well, if there’s leaders that are listening in today that are thinking, hey, we we are thinking about we might need should add a second language service experience, or we we should maybe we have that at one location we should be thinking about doing that at multiple locations what would be some of the first steps that you would encourage someone to take say in the next month maybe two months what would be some of those first steps?

Eric Garza — Yeah. Great question. As a matter of fact, we’re actually in that exact scenario with one of our campuses right now…

Rich Birch — Oh nice.

Eric Garza — …that is only they’ve only been an English campus since their since their launch, since their start. But the community they’re in now, they’re reaching, you know, they’re getting interest from from Spanish speaking, you know, residents.

Eric Garza — And so we we don’t launch a second service from one month to the next. Right? It goes through a series of months before. So we do market research. We do surveys. I’ll give you an example. Last month in August, on one of the Sundays, one of our campuses, their Spanish service, they need to go to a second Spanish service because their Spanish congregation there has grown.

Eric Garza — So we did a community, we did a congregational survey, right? We asked our team, right? Because those are the ones that have the biggest buy-in is your team and your leaders. You know, between these two or three service times, which one would you prefer?

Eric Garza — And then we ask the congregation, hey, there’s going to be service available. Would you help us out and answer that survey? Just let us. It’s a one question survey. Just say if we had to open a second Spanish service. What time do you believe? Is that 2 p.m., 6 p.m.? Is it Saturday? What what what service? What does that look like?

Eric Garza — And then at the campus where I say we’re actually going through that scenario, So they’re going to launch a Spanish service, I believe, in December. So we’re still about three months away from that. But they already started a couple of months ago with worship nights…

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.

Eric Garza — …with ah canvassing the community, with starting marketing in Spanish, getting the names the church’s recognition out there in a Spanish context, meeting with local stakeholders, meeting with people in the in the congregation. And then here’s the thing. Because it’s a different service in a different language, we also have to build a leadership team that’s going to serve that congregation in Spanish.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Eric Garza — So right now we’re identifying candidates for leadership. We’re training our our executive Spanish pastor for the church is training leaders, identifying families. So that by the time we launch that second service, we have a leadership team in place. We’ve had several months of branding. We’ve had, we know what the community is saying to us. We’ve asked them through surveys, through conversations, through local events.

Eric Garza — So by the time we open, and then we have families that are going to commit to being part of that service, worship teams, kids, teachers. I’m the, across the board, by the time we launch it, uh, we’re pretty much in place to sustain it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Eric Garza — And so what happens is if, if if there’s pastors or leaders who, it’s not, hey, we’re growing, we’re expanding, right? Statistically, if a service is 70% full, ah then you can launch a second service. A lot of people say, well, yeah I still got empty seats. Yeah, but your kid’s ministry might not.

Rich Birch — Or parking or some other area. Yeah.

Eric Garza — And so a lot of pastors, a lot of pastors consider, well, we’re not ready for a second service because perhaps they’re only contextualizing that decision based on empty seats in the sanctuary without realizing your kids space may already be overcrowded. Your nursery is overcrowded. You got, and so you got to consider. So when your sanctuary attendance is at 70% or higher, ah you’re probably in a good spot to consider opening a second service, regardless of the language.

Eric Garza — In our context, opening a second service, we do a lot of back-end work. We do a lot of due diligence ah before but before we open the service.

Rich Birch — Yeah, love that.

Eric Garza — And then once we do a month, a month and a half leading up to it, we start promoting that service time so that people can become acclimated and aware that there’s a new service time in their community at our campus, at our church, and and they can be a part of that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.

Eric Garza — So a lot of front-end work, but then a lot of it’s a process. It doesn’t happen from one month to the next. And then, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t say, we also pray about it. Is God leading us in that direction?

Rich Birch — Right, what’s he telling us to do?

Eric Garza — Because just because it’s ah it’s a good thing doesn’t mean it’s a God thing, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah. True, true. Yep.

Eric Garza — And so even in in the context of ministry, even in us as a multisite bilingual ministry, which I believe we’re the largest in the country, we’re very adamant that, hey, we want to do systematic, but we want to make sure that this is a God thing for our church or for that campus um before making the final decision.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. And, you know, a couple things I want to underline there for our listeners. I love that you start with listening to your people.

Eric Garza — Yeah.

Rich Birch — You know, you’re surveying, but it’s like, hey, let’s let’s get out and have some conversations, whether that’s through survey or, you know, focus groups or just listening…

Eric Garza — Right.

Rich Birch — …you know, get 10 leaders in a room, have have some conversations.

Eric Garza — Right.

Rich Birch — Because I think sometimes as leaders, we can get in our ivory tower somewhere and we’re like, we think this is what we should do. And it’s like, well, maybe we should actually talk with the people we’re trying to serve.

Eric Garza — Right. Well, and and you have to, I didn’t i didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Rich Birch — No, no, it’s fine.

Eric Garza — And and you had you have to talk with the leaders because they’re the ones that are going to be helping you execute the ministry.

Rich Birch — 100%. 100%.

Eric Garza — And if they’re not, if if you don’t have a ah good segment of them on board, you’re going to have a difficult time getting that service off the ground.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah, it’s great. Okay. And then the other thing was, I love that you’re, there’s like the decision to launch and then that sets off a whole bunch of other actions. Like if you cannot just like pull the trigger and be like, okay, we’re doing this in two weeks. Like we got to work, we got to get ready for that.

Eric Garza — Right.

Rich Birch — We got to actually, it’s the difference between starting that service and launching it. Like where we really want to push it forward and um you know, do it well. So love that.

Rich Birch — So, all right. Well, as we’re wrapping up today’s episode, anything else you’d love to share, ah you know, kind of final parting words to leaders who are listening in today?

Eric Garza — Well, Rich, thanks for the opportunity, man. I’m very grateful just to get to share. Our church, we we believe we’re in a season of of just growth and expansion really across the country. And our senior leadership, our senior pastor is very adamant about pouring into other churches and other pastors and leaders. In fact, he just recently launched a brand new um ah organization, the 360 Global Network that’s available.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Eric Garza — You can go to 360global.network and we’re in a season and he’s in a season where he now wants to pour into other pastors and leaders.

Rich Birch — So good.

Eric Garza — And God has given us so much resource and so much wisdom. And ah it’s now a our responsibility and our desire to equip other pastors and leaders where they don’t have to face some of the pitfalls that we faced early on as we expanded and grew and serve and serve more people.

Eric Garza — And as the demographic of our country continues to shift and change. And you have the Hispanic community just really growing in throngs and and thriving. Bilingual ministry, we believe, is going to become a key factor in how the church operates in different communities in the country.

Rich Birch — 100%. Yeah, 100%.

Eric Garza — And so anything we can do, please reach out to us. We’re more than happy to provide resources. You can be part of the network. You can be part of what God is doing. And ah man, it would just be our pleasure ah to help serve pastors and leaders around the country where it’s more blessed to give than to receive. And so we want to be a blessing to the body of Christ at large.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Love that. So again, that’s just 360 global – so the numbers, 360global.network. You should check that out.

Eric Garza — Correct.

Rich Birch — A great resource, lots of, you know, stuff going on there. You can chase that down ah more and learn about that. Well, I really appreciate you being here today, Eric. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?

Eric Garza — Yeah, you can go to social media, @crosschurchrgv or crosschurchonline.com. And if I can be a resource to anybody, it would be my heart and blessing to be able to do so. It’s @ericpgarza on Instagram, social media. Man, thanks for the opportunity, Rich. Very, very blessed by our conversation.

Rich Birch — Thank you. Thanks for being here today.

 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Warren Bird—author, researcher, and one of the most trusted voices in church leadership studies. Warren has co-authored over 35 books for pastors and church leaders, including Hero Maker, Better Together, Next, Resilience Factor, and his newest, Becoming a Future-Ready Church. Known for his deep data-driven insights, Warren has spent decades researching trends that shape healthy, growing churches.

What’s next for large churches in North America—and how are they shaping the future of ministry? How are they adapting after the pandemic? Are they thriving, struggling, or transforming in unexpected ways? Warren shares early findings from his newest national research study—The Large Church Survey 2025—which explores how churches of 1,000 or more are changing and what’s coming next for the future of the church.

To participate in the Large Church Survey 2025 and receive the full results, visit bit.ly/largechurch2025. The survey takes about 20 minutes and is open until November 11, 2025. For more on Warren’s work, follow him on LinkedIn or explore his latest book Becoming a Future-Ready Church to stay ahead of emerging ministry trends.

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: Risepointe

Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?

Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.

Check them out at Risepointe.com and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We are honored to have a guest with us, Dr. Warren Bird today, who, what can I say about Warren Bird? He has co-authored 35 books for church leaders, but it’s more that, not that he’s just written a bunch of books. These are a number of the books that from my perspective are like the go-tos on their topic.

Rich Birch — Hero Maker on leadership development, Better Together on healthy mergers, Next on pastoral succession, ah Resilience Factor on effective leadership teams. And his latest is incredible: Becoming a Future-Ready Church on these eight emerging church trends. He’s not only an author but he’s also a researcher and the work that he produces, I think, is among the best that’s out there. His background is a pastor, seminary professor. He was a research director at Leadership Network and was the executive vice president of research at ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Rich Birch — Warren, I am so glad to have you here. He’s also, one of the distinctions Warren has is he’s one of the few people that I’ve said, anytime you want to come on the podcast, you come on, we’ll make space. And so he reached out. Happy to have Warren on. Welcome. So glad you’re here.

Warren Bird — Wow, Rich, you just rattled all that off. It’s like my life story. I could do that for you because you are so articulate and and the impact you’ve had on me. I listen to your podcast very regularly. The consulting insights when I you and I are sharing a speaking platform and all. So I could have done the same thing for you, but thank you for having me.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s kind of you. That’s kind of you to say that. And today we’re talking, you’re in the midst of one of the things I love about Warren, and and you might know this if you bump into him at a conference, he’s always working on some project. And he’s always wants to pick your brain about, Hey, like I’m working on this thing, got this thing coming up. And we were at a conference recently and he was talking about his latest research project. And so why don’t you talk to us about the study that you’re currently engaged in?

Rich Birch — And friends, I want you to stay tuned because we’re going I’m going to try to pull some early results out of Warren. This is the first place that some of these results have been talked about. So you’re getting an exclusive here, which is great, or a first because you’re listening in today. But what is this study that you’re working on?

Warren Bird — So Rich, the world of large churches—let’s let’s just say in-person attendance of a thousand and higher—you know, that was a big change in the face of the North American, actually the global church, the rise of the large church in the last 50 or so years. But now we’ve had the pandemic where large churches were hit the hardest, unless you were in like Florida or Texas, where they didn’t even participate in the pandemic. But the rest of us got hit hard.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — And and the question is, have they come back? And if they’ve come back, are they different? And then there’s that growing skepticism of, well, are big churches actually an asset or a liability? To what extent do they actually make their communities better? To what extent are they really healthy and vital versus, you know, are, are they an inch deep and a mile wide?

Warren Bird — What’s the level of financial transparency? I mean, you, you, you look at, you listen to ah headlines in the media and then they always have adjectives in front of the word megachurch, like rich megachurch or or something a even more disparaging. Well, how, how “rich” are they?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — Do people give more because they go to a larger church and more important, you know, what’s the level of transparency and discipleship that’s there? And, and fundamentally what’s the bar of discipleship and, and what are churches who are exploding with growth, in particular, are they giving out free coffee or are, are they giving out Jesus in a way that’s resonating with the population around them?

Warren Bird — So it’s it’s time to explore and to say, well, what’s happening? And the best way to do it, i mean, we hang out at conferences, Rich, because I don’t want to just ask questions out of the top of my mind. I want to know what people want to know about their world, their peers.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Warren Bird — And I can put that in a question and find out from a bunch of churches and then come back to you and say, well, here’s the lay of the land. And more importantly, here’s what seems to be around the next corner…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Warren Bird — …for churches that they are anticipating.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — Can you tell I’m excited about this project?

Rich Birch — Yeah, I was going to…

Warren Bird — Bit.ly/largechurch2025

Rich Birch — Great. that’s the That’s the link. We’re driving towards that today, friends. And you’re looking particularly for churches over a thousand is the is the kind of the…

Warren Bird — In-person attendance, yes.

Rich Birch — In in-person attendance.

Warren Bird — And that’s adults and children, all your campuses, every nose that’s there on it on a given weekend. You know, is it somewhere around 1,000 to up to 100,000? And it’s…

Rich Birch — All those people over a hundred thousand were asking you not to participate. Yeah, that’s great. That’s so, this is good.

Warren Bird — Well, that’s another story. Yeah I just interviewed the pastor of Africa’s third largest attendance church, and they would be more than 100,000 on a weekend across their campuses.

Rich Birch — Yes, it’s amazing. Amazing

Warren Bird — But that’s another story.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So a couple things, just while we’re kind of establishing why this particular study. So there does seem to be this um undercurrent in the culture in general. I don’t know whether it’s just the church culture that’s like, it kind of looks down on large churches.

Rich Birch — In fact, I was at an event earlier this year of large church pastors where the vibe there for sure was like, and it’s one of these kind of like social things. They get all their people together. And it’s outside of they’re all from the same denomination, but it’s not run by the denomination. They just do it themselves. And the reason is, is because they feel like, oh, everybody else looks down on us.

Rich Birch — So why is that? Why do you, why is it that we seem as, as Christians to kind of, I don’t know. It’s like we, we, we look at these large churches suspiciously. Why, why do you think that is?

Warren Bird — A lot of reasons. The probably the biggest reason is the cultural distrust of institutions, church included. And and that’s all the major institutions.

Warren Bird — Somehow we think, and I’ll just use a wild example, that going to GoFundMe where there’s zero accountability that my money is going to be better used than in an established non-profit or Christ-centered non-profit or church or whatever. And it’s like, really? But that’s the tenor of the culture.

Warren Bird — And there have been enough scandals that the media has highlighted that people like, okay, yeah, you’re raising money for the church van, for the youth. I mean, that’s a great idea, but i you know do I have any confidence that that’s what’s happening? That’s just on the money side. There are so many other factors that influence the distrust in large organized religion.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. You were saying about the, you know, when you see any scandal write ups, if the something goes sideways at a church, they talk about a rich megachurch or an affluent megachurch or a whatever.

Rich Birch — The other thing that bugs me in those reports is they always talk about, well, you know, they have rock and roll band. And like they they kind of talk about some of the stuff we do as if it’s like, well, that’s the reason, the only reason why people are there. So interesting stuff.

Warren Bird — Yeah. So, so Rich, let me put this in context.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — I am all for every single church, whether it’s three people, 30 people, 300, 3000, 30,000, whatever.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Warren Bird — If they are making disciples of Jesus Christ…

Rich Birch — Amen.

Warren Bird — …and even more so if they are making disciple-makers of Jesus Christ.

Warren Bird — Now, when a church is explosively growing and it’s genuine, I’m just thrilled by it. Because large churches have the opportunity to do things that other sized churches don’t.

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — Like let’s say special needs ministry that that often is very volunteer intensive and sometimes staff intensive and may require a certain room. You know, it’s a a quiet room or or ability to do things structurally with your facility that just not every church can do. But but large churches can. So I’m trying to zero in on, okay, every church size can do something well.

Warren Bird — And actually the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025 is part of a series that’s going to compare against every other size. So for example, the average pastor age, or the average pastor tenure, or the average, whatever. We’re going be able to do across all sizes. I’m doing the very large church size and, and I’m, that’s, that’s what, that’s the size that’s hardest to get good data on. And I’m bullish on the outreach, on the impact on their communities.

Warren Bird — In fact, let me let me leak one early finding.

Rich Birch — Sure

Warren Bird — We gave 15 things where we said, what has, have these changed since the pandemic?

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — Have they increased, stayed the same, and gone down? The number two vote at present is our service and impact on our local community.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — Wow, that’s such a positive thing…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — …especially for large churches.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. You know, one of the things in in the coaching I’ve done with churches, we talk about magnetic community service as a key piece of an invite culture that people want to be a part of a church that is not only making a difference, but they want to be seen as being a part of of a church that’s making a difference, so that I can invite my friends to come be a part of that.

Rich Birch — And it’s interesting, as I’ve talked with some large churches about that, you know, we’ll talk about this particular area. And they’re like, oh, we’ve never thought of that as like ah a way for us to reach our community. They’re like, it just seems like the thing we should do. And I’m like, no, you should be inviting first time guests to come and do that to be a part of. But that’s cool to see. Now, so what you said, number two, what was number one? Yeah, I’m going to try to milk more of this out of you here of these things, if you don’t mind saying.

Warren Bird — Very exciting. Very exciting. It’s the spiritual response by young adults.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — Wow. In other words, the the people that we’re able to impact as a church who are young adults, we have seen a clear increase in the spiritual interest of that group. Wow.

Rich Birch — Isn’t that interesting? We’re seeing that in in a number of places, right? That that this is bubbling up.

Warren Bird — And that’s another thing about large churches. They are disproportionately bulging in not only the the children, Next Gen, but also in that 20-somethings age is is usually a sizable percentage of of, especially, newer large churches.

Rich Birch — I was just with the church a couple weeks ago and they were talking about—and they’re a large church—and they were kind of thinking, they were like, I would say disparagingly about their own ministry. And they’re like, you know, young people just don’t want large churches. They they want a small, intimate thing. And I challenged them on that. Now I’m looking forward because when the study comes out, I can give them an actual stat.

Warren Bird — Okay, okay, Rich. I’m going to tease another finding then.

Rich Birch — Yes. Okay.

Warren Bird — Because this I’ve I’ve sat and listened to your… And and tell tell us the name of the title of your latest book where you talk about different growth strategies.

Rich Birch — Yeah, Breaking Breaking the 200 Barrier or 2000 Barrier is the this the title of the book I’m working on.

Warren Bird — Wow. Okay. So so this survey that I’m doing actually has been done every five years since the year 2000.

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

Warren Bird — And it’s fascinating to see the same question, the answer every 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, just before the pandemic, and now 2025 after the pandemic.

Warren Bird — And one of the questions is, it’s an agree/disagree statement, that how important are small groups or teams for the Christian formation and discipleship in your church?

Warren Bird — And the when it was first asked many years ago, it was right at 50%. Every single survey, it has inched up. And the last survey, it was 89%. And I thought, well, we’re not going to top that because you don’t get 90 or more percent in any survey.

Rich Birch — Wow. Of anything.

Warren Bird — But the responses so far, 92%…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — …give the highest rank to small groups, which translated is: you get bigger by getting smaller. And that intimacy that you were reflecting on, that’s what where people thrive. That’s the hub of discipleship. And that’s essential for the larger you get to know how to do that well. Plus, of course, that’s where so many of your lay leaders are developed and everything else.

Rich Birch — Yeah. And and we, on ah from a practitioner point of view, we know that um like large churches have to get good at that. Like you have to get good at moving people into smaller communities. You’ve got to figure out how, you can’t, people will come for whatever you’re doing on the weekend, but they will not stick and stay long-term.

Rich Birch — they They have to find a group of small, you know a small group of friends that they’re connecting with. My parents, most of their, ah my dad moved, I think, 23 times in his career, moved a lot and went to a bunch of different churches. I think like 18 different churches or something over the years, and mostly small churches. I’ve mostly worked in large churches.

Rich Birch — And if I’m honest, they would never say it this way because they love me and they’re good parents. I always felt like they kind of looked down on the large church thing. They’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know. They, at one point we’re moving to Louisville, Kentucky.

Rich Birch — And I said, you got to go to Southeast, at least try going to to Southeast and check it out. Just check it out for one weekend. They ended up getting connected there, stuck and stayed, loved it. And they would say too, and it’s a massive church, probably like it’s up there, top single digit, the largest church in the country, somewhere in that range. And it it they would say to this day, that was the church that they felt the most connected at, not the church of 200 people. You’ve we’ve got to get really good at that for sure.

Rich Birch — Any other findings that are kind of interesting for us to kick around?

Warren Bird —Yeah, what I did, Rich, before the surveys, I got a whole bunch of people together who work with churches and say, tell me what you think might be on the horizon that I can test for.

Warren Bird — And one of the things Ithen worded questions to test for is are, is the locus of where future pastors, leaders, missionaries are coming from, is it is it less from the seminaries as points of origin? You know, I’m going to go to seminary and try to figure out what God has for my life. And more happening there in the local church. And and just for an example, if you take all the churches of 5,000 and higher in attendance that of ah have completed the survey so far, and you ask, do you have a residency program or equivalent? (And I give them a whole bunch of words because everybody calls it something different…)

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — But designed to train future church leaders.

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — So far in the findings, 92% have said yes.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — And then when we said, okay, if yes, then how many people during the course of 2025 are you training? And the median is 15.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Warren Bird — Now, that doesn’t mean just really large churches are doing it. I also checked for 2,000 and up, 1,000 and up. And they’re all at different levels doing some kind of of serious ministerial training.

Warren Bird — So this is pipeline, pathway, whatever you want to call it, that, you know, from to use the phrase of another church, starting with the irreligious person who comes and and finds a vital life-changing forgiveness relationship with Jesus Christ. And then if gifted, there is just no lack of steps you can take toward leadership if God’s calling should continue in that particular way – all the way towards a ministry residency, towards doing something vocationally full-time.

Rich Birch — Wow, that’s incredible, 92%. That’s shocking to me, that’s surprising. That’s incredible for churches over 5,000. I wonder, one of the things I’ll look forward to when the study comes out is seeing how that gradiates with churches that are say at 2,000.

Warren Bird — Right. And and that’s what we’ll do in the report.

Warren Bird — For those who take the survey, by the way, they get the report first and…

Rich Birch — Yes. What is that link again?

Warren Bird — …and and but wait, there’s more. Those who take the survey get an exclusive webinar where we unveil it and do Q&A with us and special guests like Sam Chan there. And and and we’ve we’ve got a whole bunch of people lined up who are going to kind of ask the tough questions of the data. And again, it’s at bit.ly/largechurch2025.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Warren Bird — And so, and so participate and then be the first to get these wonderful reports that we’ll do.

Rich Birch — You know, that’s interesting because I, you know, I’m always looking for what are the behaviors at a kind of certain level of church that changes as they become larger. And um that’s actually that book I’m working on, that really is what it kind of is is based around. And one of them, there’s these eight different things that I’ve i’ve just seen. And and so I’m out talking to other church leaders. And one of them is they go from reactive volunteering to proactive volunteer growth. That like a church of a church of 800 or a church of 500 is like, oh, we need people for this. But then to really break that 2000 barrier, churches have to, they move to, or we see them move to, okay, actually we see that moving people into places of their gifting, their what’s kind of best for them. And also trying to find a way to create more space for more volunteers is a behavior that we see.

Rich Birch — I wonder if in this one, as churches go from 2,000 to 3,000 to 5,000, there’s like, it’s just kind of that behavior even just extended all the way up through the kind of staffing experience where it’s like, hey, we’ve got to develop our leaders from within. That’s that’s amazing. That’s that’s incredible.

Warren Bird — Yeah, it’s to me, it’s exciting.

Rich Birch — Oh, for sure.

Warren Bird — It’s it’s just thrilling to imagine the impact because frankly, last weekend of the people who went to a Protestant church, at least in the United States, um somewhat around half or more went to a large church.

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Warren Bird — And it’s where you cut do the cutoff for what becomes large. But this is a a small number of churches, relatively speaking…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — 320,000 U.S. churches. And at least in the megachurch department, 2,000 and higher, they’re only like 1,800 or so. And then when you go into the thousand range, it it adds a chunk more churches. But this is a disproportionate number of churches. And if they get leadership development right, um the impact, the ripple effect to bless all churches and all communities has great potential.

Rich Birch — Well, and this, absolutely, this has been um so much of the work that you’ve done over the years, which I think has been such a blessing to so many churches, is you have mined out these insights, these, that but then have become resources that then all of us can apply regardless of our church size.

Rich Birch — So even down the road when the when the study comes out, if you’re not a large church, this would be a great study for you to read, to but to to to learn from.

Warren Bird — Yeah. Yeah, and we will make it available to the public…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …but it’s just those who take the survey at – did I mention it: Bit.ly/largechurch2025. And it closes for those who may be listening to this later: November 11th, 2025. That’s your cutoff for midnight, that night…

Rich Birch — Midnight.

Warren Bird — …whatever your midnight is.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Warren Bird — U.S. churches take the survey. So, but Rich, you know, let me just tell you some of the questions we’re asking.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Warren Bird — I’d love to get your feedback on, for example.

Rich Birch — Okay, sure.

Warren Bird — First, the stereotype of a megachurch, for example, is that they have this colossal sanctuary like like Lakewood Church, you know, the seats 16,000. But the reality is typically the largest venue, and we’re asking this, but I haven’t looked at it for this survey so far, is about 1,400, which means, you know, you have multiple campuses, multiple services and so forth.

Warren Bird — Which leads to the question, is the is the spiritual commitment, is there any relationship between facility size and the amount of volunteering, giving, or anything else? Are there factors that proportion with the size of your largest worship venue? We’ll have some numbers on that, but Rich, do you have any predictions?

Rich Birch — Well, um so I’m looking forward, this could be one of those areas where I have been giving bad advice, but I have I have been saying for a long time, 15 years, think smaller rooms, more more services, more campuses, rather than you know fewer.

Rich Birch — And um the logic, I the reason why I say that is like, let’s say you take, um like my friends at Flatirons, they have 4,000 seats in their in their biggest room. You only, “only”, you only need maybe five or six people on the worship band. um You know, and that room only has, I think there’s, I think there’s only four entrances to that room. So you’ll only need maybe eight people to actually be like usher greeter people at the door.

Rich Birch — Man, I want to see way more volunteer engagement than that. I want to see, you know, for 4,000 people to only have, say, a dozen volunteers, man, that’s that’s like the wrong kind of efficiency. I’d rather go the other way. Let’s have a smaller room. Let’s have eight rooms of 500 where then now we require a whole bunch of more people to be involved to make it happen, which is then going to drive all kinds of the other positive behavior around inviting and them being leaning in more, all of that.

Rich Birch — So I would say, I think there’s a sweet spot. I think, you know, it’s, well, and I’ve heard that 14-, 1500 number before. I think it’s, you know, 500, 1000, somewhere in there. There’s like this interesting sweet spot. If I was going to guess, I would think as it goes dow… as it goes up, that kind of engagement and some of those participation numbers go down over a certain number. So that’s my prediction. We’ll see.

Warren Bird — All right. Rich Birch predicts. We will you see what happens. All right. Let me ask you another one, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — There are a lot of definitions to the attractional model. And there are a lot of questions of people saying, you know, is the attractional model, they use strong words like dead.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — But but is it lessening? And if so, what is replacing it? And we’ve asked enough different types of questions about involvement and, you know, where’s your front door, primary front door, and that most newcomers come and all, that I think we’re going to be able to tease out which churches are strongly attractional and and how strongly they’re growing, versus which churches are not and how strongly they’re growing. And which churches are doing other things like, let’s say, community service emphases, justice emphases – how that impacts growth.

Warren Bird — Do you have any prediction as to where you think it’s going to land when all these listeners of yours in large churches take the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025?

Rich Birch — Well, you got me on a bit of a high horse. I’ll try and I’ll try not to preach about the death of the attractional church, but I can say, so ah last year, I turned one of those numbers on my birthday that had a zero at the end that started for me to think like, okay, I’ve been in this for a long time. And one of the things that I’ve noticed in the people we serve is I do think when I started 20, 30 years ago, you could do things that were classically attractional. Like, and and we would have never said, we’re trying to entertain people. Like we were more spiritual than that. We would have never said like, put on a good band, be funny, have like a standup comic, do… Like we wouldn’t have said that. Although those were all the things we were trying to do.

Rich Birch — And I actually think that worked, but I actually don’t think that works anymore. Because the people that we’re serving has changed. I’m convinced that the people that are coming in our front doors in every zip code in the country is more unchurched today than it was 20 years ago.

Rich Birch — And so people are coming, they’re pushing through some sort of cultural resistance to be there. They don’t just stumble into church like they used to. Even…

Warren Bird — Right. They’re choosing church over…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …any number of other things they could have done on a Sunday morning.

Rich Birch — Yes. And they’re…

Warren Bird — And they’re coming find God.

Rich Birch — Yes, they’re coming with actual questions. Like they’re like, I, my marriage is falling apart. My life is not doing well. Who is Jesus? Does any of this make a difference? And so, you know, the classic attractional model I would think is in decline. And that comes from someone I’ll introduce myself in situation where listen, I came from the attractional church movement. That is my background. That is my heritage. But I, that I think model has has shifted.

Rich Birch — Now, It’s not like we’ve moved to repulsive church. It’s not like that works. We don’t want our churches to push people away. But I, but I, I, and I do think that there has been, I don’t know if you’re teasing this out as well. I have also noticed, man, a lot of our worship services, they look a lot similar.

Rich Birch — I’ve been in, I think 22 churches in the last year where I’ve been like there on a Sunday in a church. Most of those churches north of 500, less than, well, guess there’s a bunch that are quite large, but north of 500. And it’s interesting how we’re, a lot of us are doing a very similar kind of participatory raised hands, come to the front, get prayed for – that, whatever you call that. That sure is a great band. And there is somebody that’s like, they know what they’re doing from a communications point of view, all that. But there there seems to be, I don’t know whether that’s just me, but it seems like there’s more homogeneity in the church and than I maybe even realized was there. I’m I’m not sure.

Warren Bird — Well, at least…

Rich Birch — So that’s what I would say.

Warren Bird — …homogeneity in terms of experiential. And I think the pandemic, one of the silver linings is churches said, we need to distinguish what the value is in coming in person versus watching.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — And and you you can’t be hugged on on the… And and please don’t anyone hear me as disparaging the incredibly wonderful outreach by ah the the Internet that so many churches have with their digital ministries. But but to come in person, I can be hugged. I can I can be prayed over in person with somebody holding my hands to pray. I can tactilely, you know, take the Lord’s Supper, communion, whatever you call it, in person, in a way that that’s in community…

Rich Birch —Yeah.

Warren Bird — …that I just can’t do online by myself, even even with my family. And that’s that’s one of the many pulls for people coming back. And I’m hoping in the survey to learn a little bit more as to what is drawing people today in different aspects of a increased hunger for God.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I can see I can see that how, you know, there’s been a shift around that. And and again, super intrigued to see what comes out of – is there was there one last question that you, listen, you get to actually shape the questions that you’re like super intrigued. You don’t have to reveal the early results, but like you’re really looking forward to, I know that’s like picking which is your favorite children, I understand. But like, you know, are there any any other questions that you’re really hmm super intrigued to see what comes out?

Warren Bird — Yeah. It’s just the whole idea of the comeback. I, we ask people, what was your worship attendance in 2019? Which would be, remember the pandemic was March of 2020. So this is well before anybody had in inkling of what was to come. And ask, what is the attendance in-person today? Total noses. And and to wonder, because the larger the church, typically, as I mentioned earlier, the the harder you were hit during the pandemic and the and the slower often you were to do the comeback.

Warren Bird — So have they regained to where they were? And what is, first of all, so far 53%, limiting just, let’s say to megachurches, 2,000 and higher, 53% have come back at least 10% more than they were in 2019.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Warren Bird — But some have spectacularly, dramatically come back…

Rich Birch — Right.

Warren Bird — …three times the size, two times the size.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Warren Bird — And and I want to isolate those off. And there is a small group, but it’s still a definite group that has not. And they’re taking the survey.

Warren Bird — And if that’s you, please take the survey.

Rich Birch — We want to hear from you.

Warren Bird — Because we want to say, OK, what’s happening in those churches that’s different from those? So so we’ll look across the spectrum of comeback. But if someone said, nope, the era of the megachurch is dead.

Warren Bird — Oh, oh, oh. And the era of the people said, oh, megachurch is just a baby boomer phenomenon, you know, with pastors just getting older and older. And, you know, so far, the average pastor age is considerably younger, senior pastor, than when we did the survey five years ago…

Rich Birch — Interesting. Interesting.

Warren Bird — …which says there’s a whole new generation, at least enough of that generation of younger church planters or otherwise that are becoming large churches.

Warren Bird — And I say church planters because from our survey five years ago, 82% of megachurches, 2,000 and higher, reached their size under the leadership of their current and founding pastor, same person. So I’m sorry, that’s a misstatement. Under their current pastor, the majority of which are founding pastors.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Warren Bird — But many people come into a church that’s 100 years old and you know for 100 years ministered effectively as a community of 50 to 75, and then just exploded under one pastor.

Warren Bird — So um all that to say, I’m excited by the reaching of young adults, by the the apparent getting younger of the age of the leader and the explosive growth of some. And I haven’t correlated the explosive growth ones with the average age of the pastor, but we will do that.

Warren Bird — And the more people who take the survey, the more I’m able to slice and dice in that way. So please, before November 11, 2025, take the survey. It’ll make a difference and it will pay you back big time in terms of data informed, wisdom that the Holy Spirit uses to help you make wise planning and strategic decisions.

Rich Birch — Well, the thing, friends, we really do want you to take this survey. You really should be tracking along with Warren. And, you know, he does just such great work. And this is going to be a valuable resource. I know it’ll be the thing we’ll be chewing on for a long time, probably for the next five years until the next one comes around. And then we’ll be thinking about that one. So super helpful.

Rich Birch — This is great. It’s interesting that whole thing you were talking about. i have I’ve wondered, I heard, this is probably two years ago on the economic side, they talked about the K recovery in some industries, that there were some that have done quite well and then some that are doing not so well. And just intuitively, that has been my experience as I’ve talked with church leaders, that there are still, like there are people that COVID is in their rear view mirror and they’re like, man, we are just like we’re up and to the right. Things just are going. But then there’s some church leaders that are still like licking their wounds and are like, man, this just is, we’ve not been able to recover and it’s not, it’s not going well.

Warren Bird — Well, and and for some, you know, the the prime industry in their city tanked during the pandemic…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Warren Bird — …and there’s there’s been a massive departure. Or there was a leadership a change or there was, you know, something else that that could explain something that thwarted or or considerably slowed their growth and rebuilding impact.

Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, so good. So give us that link again and the timeline. Just so just give us a whole blurb.

Warren Bird — Yeah, I might not have mentioned it before, but it’s bit.ly bit.ly/largechurch2025. That’s all one word. And between now and November 11th, 2025, and please don’t wait till the last, but I mean, you can, but but we’d love to have you be part. And we’d love just to bless you back with all kinds of helpful ah guidance and information and benchmarks and ratios and everything else if you’ll participate.

Warren Bird — This will be, assuming we continue the way we are the largest ever study…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s right.

Warren Bird — …of large churches in the United States.

Rich Birch — What, how long does it take if i’m if I’m preparing to sit down to do it? How much time should I set aside?

Warren Bird — Okay. The average is just under 20 minutes. That’s a big ask.

Warren Bird — However, on the opening page of the survey, click here to get a PDF. Many people hand it to their admin and say, hey, there are certain numbers, things you fill those in and I’ll fill in the rest and then you can key it in for us or whatever. So so um while it is asking a very knowledgeable person to to give input. It’s often shared around the office. But that 20 minutes, up to 20 minutes will pay you back big time…

Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.

Warren Bird — …in in the feedback you get.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I just I just referenced that because I know you got to set time aside. This is not like…

Warren Bird — Yeah and and I know that people have survey fatigue everywhere you go. You’re asked to take a quick survey, which is really not quick. And so I’m just being upfront and telling you what the average is.

Rich Birch — Yeah, no, it’s good. And it’s super valuable, friends. And this this will help not only your church, but will help shape so many churches. We want to learn from you. You know, that’s really what this podcast is, trying to learn from other churches. This is a great thing.

Rich Birch — Warren, where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you, um if they just kind of want to be in the the greater Warren Bird cinematic universe?

Warren Bird — I am full time as a church researcher and writer. I probably post the most on LinkedIn. I’m pretty easy to find there to follow me. And and Rich, thank you for mentioning different books. And um that’s the most joyful thing that happens is somebody reads like “Becoming a Future Ready Church,” the latest book that Daniel Yang and Adelle Banks and I did, and then writes me an email. Just Google me. I’m easy to find. And says, I have a question or I’d like to tell you a story or whatever. So that’s the way to get even more connected with me.

Rich Birch — Well, it’s an honor, privilege to know you, even for folks that aren’t watching the video. There’s Mike Slaughter’s book, “Unlearning Churches”, over your corner. And that literally was a book I read when it first came out years ago, and it shaped my own thinking. This is the thing that I was thinking this as we were preparing. I know I said this at the beginning, but I want to honor you with this. Your books are for sure the ones I recommend the most, like “Better Together”, “Hero Maker”, “Multisite”, “Church Road Trip”.

Rich Birch — Like there’s a bunch of books that you’ve had your hand in, “Next”, that I’m always like – literally today, I was like, someone was talking about succession stuff. And I was like, well, you should buy “Next” first. Like before you do anything else, buy “Next”. That’s the book you should buy and go through that. And then, you know, think about your next steps from there.

So and they have that consistently with your work. So you do such good work. Thank you so much, friend. So glad you’re here. And let’s get a bunch of people to do your survey. Take care.

Warren Bird — Rich, you’re a good man. I always go out of my way to hang out with you or if we’re at a gathering together to sit down at your table or to be in your session. So keep up the great work and I look forward to the next time our paths will intersect.

Early in our marriage, rent ate half our income.

At the end of one of our first months living together, we had $35 total left for a week’s worth of groceries.

Christine was stressed. (Totally understandable.) I started building a compelling, highly spiritual case for “maybe we skip giving this month.”

Christine cut through my rationalization with five words: “Of course we are tithing.”

That moment kick-started a lifelong journey into generosity. And here’s the honest headline: we’ve received more through generosity than we ever imagined we’d “lose” by giving.

So no, money isn’t some awkward side topic we avoid like a seventh-grade sex talk. It’s discipleship, it’s spiritual formation, and the way you handle it matters.

Bad money preaching feels like a timeshare pitch; good money teaching changes lives.

And yet many churches go quiet. A recent poll found about a quarter of churches don’t teach on generosity at all. Silence is also a sermon; it just lets culture preach.

If you’re not talking about money, Amazon, Amex, and Apple are happy to.

If you won’t preach discipleship of dollars, Prime, points, and payments will.

The Rich Young Ruler isn’t a “rich guy” dunk; it’s a mirror. Money threatens to become identity, security, and scorecard. Jesus’ money talk isn’t fundraising …it’s heart surgery.

The church can’t heal what it won’t name.

And here’s a reality check on tithing language in the pews: only 21% of Christians say they give 10% or more to their church; among practicing Christians, the figure rises to 42%, but it’s still not a majority.

Clear, confident teaching matters.

So, here’s the deal: if less than half of your people are tithing, and you’re still allergic to talking about money, you’ve basically handed the keys of financial discipleship to TikTok finance bros and credit card companies.

The antidote? Stop reinventing the wheel and learn from churches already doing this well. Rip their best moves, pivot them for your context, and jam until it sticks. The following five examples aren’t theory; they’re field-tested, congregation-shaping strategies that actually move the needle.

These aren’t “talks about money.” They’re systems that pair sermons with scaffolding—tools, prompts, groups, and follow-up. (Yes, steal this.) The summaries below draw on their public resources and the field notes you provided.

Crossroads treats Malachi 3 like a lab: 90-Day Tithe Test, with public invitations, clear sign-ups, and—this is key—a refund guarantee if participants don’t sense God’s provision in that period. It’s not just a sermon; it’s an experiment with a feedback loop. They’ve also publicly talked about the tithe test/refund in weekend content: “we will refund your entire amount of money [after 90 days, if you don’t see God meet your needs].” They share stories from people who have participated and invite people to join in.

Why it’s smart

Steal this

Liquid runs a 90-Day Tithe Challenge with a money-back guarantee, reinforced by weekly videos/emails, budgeting workshops, and practical content across their site. Start here: “Give Generously” (challenge + guarantee). See also “The Blessing of Generous Livin’” and a sampling of debt/finance helps that continually point back to the challenge (e.g., How to Get Out of Debt, Keys to Financial Freedom).

Why it’s smart

Steal this

They invited a small, concrete step: “Add $10/week to your tithe.” Small enough to be doable; specific enough to be measurable. And they framed it theologically as “worship in motion.” Series overview and message page.

Why it’s smart

Steal this

They made a money series so simple it could fit on a T-shirt:

Each talk is a sticky, single idea, reinforced through YouVersion devotionals and group courses like Financial Peace (FPU). The series index is available, featuring individual message pages: Making Change overview, Less Is More, Stress Is Bad, Giving Is Good, and Tomorrow Matters.

Why it’s smart

Steal this

They named the water we’re swimming in: skyrocketing consumer debt + low financial literacy, and then they built a resource hub (worksheets, tools), ran workshops, and launched Financial Freedom groups. Start here: Uncommon Cents series hub

Why it’s smart

Steal this

Pastors often avoid discussing money for understandable reasons, such as fear of appearing self-interested, not wanting to trigger shame, or because it wasn’t covered in seminary.

But the bigger risk is malpractice by omission. Barna shows that only a fraction of Christians intentionally tithe; Stewardship’s polling reveals that churches rarely address generosity. People are already being formed—just not by Jesus.

If your church won’t disciple people’s wallets, don’t be shocked when Wall Street does.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lane Lowery, Executive Pastor of Warren Church in South Carolina and Georgia. Founded in 1898, Warren is one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with over 7,000 members across its campuses. Known for its Southern hospitality, Bible teaching, and focus on whole-person ministry, Warren has also launched a Hope Women’s Center and is preparing to open a Hope Mental Wellness Center.

Is your church wrestling with how to scale leadership and maintain unity as you grow? Tune in as Lane shares how Warren Church transitioned to a global leadership model, developed essential staff practices, and keeps the large church personal and relational.

Visit warren.church to learn more about Warren Church and reach out to Lane here. Plus, download the Eight Essential Practices document that Lane talks about.

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 — Well, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You are going to be rewarded for tuning in. Thanks for being here. I think we’ve got one of the oldest churches on the hat we’ve ever had on an episode. Warren Church, founded in 1898, is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, which I love that because so many times I think we think of fast growing churches and like there they’re like celebrate their fifth year and they’re so excited for how long they’ve been around.

Rich Birch — But this church has been around for a long time. They’ve got four campuses in South Carolina and Georgia. Southern hospitality, generosity, strong Bible teaching, and a passion for making disciples and multiplying disciple makers have been a heart of Warren from the very beginning and behind all they do. They also have a sports and fitness center programs that really try to minister to the whole person. Lane Lowery is with us today. He is the executive pastor. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here, Lane.

Lane Lowery — Thank you so much, Rich. I am grateful to be a part of this.

Rich Birch — This is going be a good conversation. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit. That’s kind of the bio of who the church is. Tell us about the church. Kind of give us the flavor and tell us a little bit about when you say executive pastor. I know as an XP, it’s like every XP looks a little different. Tell us about your role.

Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, as you said, Warren is about 127 year old church. We are multi-site and it’s happened just incredible. We launched our first multi-site campus, Grovetown, right at 11 years ago.

Rich Birch — Nice.

Lane Lowery — And then within the last five years, we’ve adopted two other churches.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Lane Lowery — So we did a church plant, if you will, which you know but was our first multi-site. And then the the Lord brought us two other churches and it’s been incredible.

Lane Lowery — We also have a Hope Women’s Center, which is a crisis pregnancy center that we oversee. And we are just about to launch what we’re calling the Hope Mental Wellness Center um that will open the doors of that in January. And so we’ve already had a counseling ministry going on here, but we’ve expanded that. And we’re really excited about about that.

Lane Lowery — We’ve got a large church staff here and I get to serve as executive pastor. We have another executive pastor as well, which I’ll talk about later on, who is just a phenomenal leader. And and so just grateful that the the Lord allows us to participate in this together. And we’ve got an incredible leader, Dr. David McKinley is our senior pastor. He’s been with us 17 years…

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Lane Lowery — …and the and the Lord has just done ah an incredible work here. As you said, we are in the in the deep South and it is it’s ah it’s a fantastic ministry. I’m grateful that that the Lord has allowed me to be here. I’ve been here 19 years. And I’ve seen a lot of change. I’ve had a front row seat to some exponential growth. And it’s been a lot of fun ah to to be a part of that.

Rich Birch — Why don’t we talk a little bit of metrics there in the time from when you came 19 years ago to today? What does that look like from a growth point of view? Just to give people, I know you’re not like, ah you’re you not a bragging kind of guy.

Lane Lowery — Sure.

Rich Birch — you don’t want to brag about it, but talk us through that. That helps give a little bit of context for the conversation we’re having.

Lane Lowery — Great. Well, when I came here 19 years ago, we were Warren Church, Augusta. That was it. And, um and since then we’ve planted three other churches and we’ve launched a Hope Women’s Center. Like I said, the crisis pregnancy center, and we are in the process of launching a Hope Mental Wellness Center.

Lane Lowery — So we’ve, when I got here, we were, um probably around 3000 members total. We’re over almost 7,000 now.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.

Lane Lowery — Um, like I said, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been able to adopt some churches and, and we’ve been able to, just really engage our community in just an incredible way.

Lane Lowery — Obviously, you know, staff is growing. I remember when I got here, our full staff, we could meet in a, in a, in a, like a life group classroom. Now we have to meet in a large, you know, we’re up to 270 employees at this point…

Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah. Yep.

Lane Lowery — …on our, our six campuses, if you will. So we’ve just seen incredible, like said, we just seen the Lord do incredible things over the last 19 years.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, I’d love to talk about that, particularly the kind of leadership structure stuff. I know as we, it’s like, everyone sounds great. Let’s add a bunch of staff. Let’s grow that side.

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — But that does come with some tension. um I’m sure, I’m sure you’ve bumped into things along there that have been a little bit tricky. Talk us through what, what does that look like as the kind of, as your structure has changed over these years?

Lane Lowery — You know, it’s kind of like going from, you know, having no kids to a child and then having two child, you know, two children. And then if you have multiples after that, you you’ve just got to change the way you parent.

Lane Lowery — And, and as our church has gone from one site location to really six now…

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — …as as we when you you know think about the other campuses, we just came to a place where we realized a single church model of leadership no longer worked for where we were. You know going from one to two was was was a stretch, but going from two to six, has been a huge stretch.

Lane Lowery — And so as I shared with you, you know we’ve had ah exponential growth, especially over the past five years, Rich, you know adding the the additional campuses and and the additional, you know the the Hope Women’s Center and Hope Mental Wellness Center. You know, so going from two campuses to six campuses, we realized that our single single church yeah and then our dual church model, leadership model was no longer, it just wasn’t effective.

Lane Lowery — It became evident that Dr. McKinley and myself, that we couldn’t effectively oversee the operations and staff on each of our campuses. you know we’ve got incredibly gifted campus pastors and we had to equip and empower them to lead with vision, not just give them tasks, but give them vision and responsibility.

Lane Lowery — So the key tipping point that really caused us to to to regroup and to implement a new leadership structure was when we realized at one point we looked up and we had three different discipleship models going on at our four campuses.

Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.

Lane Lowery — Yeah, yeah. And as we we we noticed that that that just that’s just not to work.

Rich Birch — No, absolutely.

Lane Lowery — And so we also noticed that our former leadership structure didn’t promote, it didn’t promote the the unity and the and the collaboration that we really wanted from our staff team.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Lane Lowery — You know, it felt like our ministry teams, Rich, were in competition with one another rather than really working together as a team. We always use a statement, we’re better together. We really believe that.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Lane Lowery — But the way our our leadership model was structured, it didn’t promote unity. It didn’t promote um it collaboration. And we needed more team collaboration.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. So yeah, just kind of stepping back statistically, 50% or around 50% of multi-site churches don’t get beyond, still are not getting beyond three locations. And I’m convinced a part of the reason why that is, is because of these issues that this, even just the structure stuff and how we interact with each other, it’s like, it’s working against what we’re trying to do. It’s it’s working against the mission that God’s called us to. So let’s get a little bit practical there.

Lane Lowery — Sure.

Rich Birch — Define in concrete terms. What do you mean? What are the roles? How does that all fit together? How do you, what’s the like, two minute explanation of how you talk about how you stuff gets done at Warren. What’s that look like?

Lane Lowery — Sure. So we we developed this, we call it a global leadership structure. And basically our global leadership team is it’s led by Pastor Andrew Bryan, who’s our executive pastor of ministries and leadership development. One of the best young leaders I’ve ever been around. And this team consists of the following ministry areas. So we have eight global ministry teams.

Lane Lowery — Our preschool and children’s team is led by Carol Young. Our next gen, which is our middle and high school team is led by Pastor Shane Padgett. Our spiritual formation and discipleship team is led by Pastor Corey Baxter. We have a local and and and global missions team, which is led by Pastor Mark Claiborne. We have a global worship team led by Pastor Joseph McKinley. We have a global communications and connections team led by Pastor Drew Robinson, a counseling and support group team led by Pastor Brett Legge. Then our Hope Women’s Center is led by Dr. Jacqueline Hyder.

Lane Lowery — Each of these people are player coaches. They’re overseeing an area of ministry on one of our campuses, but then they’re also overseeing the the greater, the overall ministry for all of the campuses.

Lane Lowery — For example, example Pastor Corey Baxter oversees our spiritual formation and discipleship. That’s our our life group ministry, our Sunday school ministry, if you will, and our discipleship groups and all of our discipleship ministry.

Lane Lowery — So Pastor Corey, he’s on our Grovetown campus and he is the day to day operations for that. But then he also kind of rises up to the 30,000 foot view and he oversees the discipleship and and spiritual formation ministry for all of our campuses. Which is why, we like I said, we got to a point where we looked up one day and we realized we had three different discipleship models going on you know within you know three of our our church campuses.

Lane Lowery — We thought this isn’t this isn’t right. This isn’t working well. So we thought let’s go to a global leadership model so that we have input and someone kind of overseeing over watching that for all of our campuses.

Lane Lowery — Like I said, these guys and girls are our player coaches. They’re they’re on boots on the ground on a campus, but then they rise up and lead the greater ministry of Warren as well.

Rich Birch — So like I’d love to double click on the player coach. That sounds like a conviction that you’ve had.

Lane Lowery — Yes, sir.

Rich Birch — That that’s like something, hey, we want to make sure we don’t just have like the head office people…

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …who like are like their whole job is head office. We want them grounded in local ministry. Talk us through that decision. What’s been maybe some of the upside of that, but then also some of the challenge of the player coach model.

Lane Lowery — Well, the the the challenge is it’s it’s a lot more to do.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — You know, they’ve got plenty to say grace over. Just like Pastor Corey, you know, our Grovetown church, they’re running over 2,000 every Sunday…

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Lane Lowery — …or about 1,500 every Sunday, about 1,500, excuse me, and And so he’s got plenty to say grace over just dealing with his own stuff with, with you know, we we believe that every person needs to be in a life group. You know we, you know, we believe every person needs to be in a discipleship relationship. So the challenge is saying, now hey, Pastor Corey, you’re doing a great job, but I’m going to add more to your more to your your your your table, you know.

Rich Birch — Yes. You’re so good at your job, we’re going to give you more.

Lane Lowery — Isn’t that how it works?

Rich Birch — Yes, absolutely.

Lane Lowery — You know find the busiest guy and give them more. But the good thing is we do have high capacity leaders, Rich. I mean, these, these folks are, so we’ve got to be careful not to, to overdo it and not to, you know, meet them to death. But you know, as well as I do, you got to have meetings. I mean, you have to.

Lane Lowery — And and so, so the, the, the, the stretch was, are we giving them too much? But they’ve risen to the, to the, to the challenge and they’ve done a great job. I’m so proud of our team. They’ve done such a great job. And they’re continuing to. So I think it’s a good thing that they’re still in, know, they’re still doing the work of the ministry because it to me, it brings credibility when they come to the table with an idea.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — They’re doing it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — And so the down the only downfall we found is just that I got to be careful that I don’t burn my burn my folks out.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. Okay, that’s good. Well, walk us through kind of the decision matrix. This is my language, not your your language, but oftentimes there’s like a global versus campus. There’s like, okay, where who gets to own what? What about local expression versus we’re doing this together as a church? What decisions are campus level by default? What’s get what’s get escalated across the entire church? Talk us through what that looks like.

Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, we we have an executive leadership team and it consists of our senior pastor, Dr. McKinley. It consists of our our Grovetown, each of our campus pastors. ah Pastor Joseph Humphreys is on our Grovetown campus. Pastor Steven Newman is on our Belvedere campus. Pastor Andrew Skelton is on our Crossbridge campus. And then, of course, Andrew Bryan, our other executive pastor. So every Monday we we meet together and everything is funneled through that.

Lane Lowery — So we are constantly every Monday at two. We’re going we’re going to meet every Monday at two o’clock. And, um, and, and so therefore, you know, everything runs through that filter whenever, whenever we’re together. Our senior pastor and executive lead team that they set the vision. We set the vision for the church and the ministry and, you know, an easy example of ah of a global decision and how it translates to the campus level is like our life group ministry, Sunday school, if you will, our life group ministry.

Lane Lowery — We believe that, that biblical community is essential. And we expect every church campus to have a strategy to offer and promote promote life group ministry. You know, when a life group happens to determine, you know, it’s happened to determine at the campus level, you know, like, for example, Grovetown, all of their life groups meet off campus because they don’t have education space throughout the week.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Lane Lowery — So they all of their life groups are in homes during the week. Our other three campuses, we have a hybrid model where we have some groups on campus and some groups off campus. But at the end of the day, we’re going to do life group. We believe that’s a stack pole ministry, just like we’re going to have worship on Sunday morning. We are going to offer life groups. You can offer them on Sunday morning or you can offer them in in homes during the week. But we are going to offer life groups.

Lane Lowery — So that’s kind of one of those big picture things that that we are that we make sure is happening on each of our campuses that we’re intentional about that. We are intentionally trying to get people from the pew into the life group.

Lane Lowery — It’s a little bit more difficult when you take them from um you know being on campus versus in homes. You’ve got to be a little more intentional about it. But to me, that’s that’s one of those big picture items that that we you know we’re pretty hard, hard pressed. So we’re going to to have life groups.

Rich Birch — So again, I’m I’m trying, cause I know there’s people that are listening in that, that are living in the tension of this and they’re trying to sort this out. Talk me through the kind of, in other contexts, we’ve talked about the dotted line, solid line responsibility. So like, who is the first mover? So there’s something, using your example, there’s something happening in a campus like, hey, we’re not seeing, you know, maybe enough people are experiencing that kind of life group, biblical community. That’s not happening ah well in one campus. Which team is that is going to be the team that’s going to be like, okay, we got to solve this. Is it the global leadership team or the executive team or both, or a combo of both? Or how does that, how does that work together?

Lane Lowery — Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m counting on our global leads having their finger on the pulse of what’s going on with each of their areas of ministry.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.

Lane Lowery — You know, singly as as well as globally. Obviously as an executive team, we, we look at statistics every Monday.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Lane Lowery — I’ve got our, I get, I bring a report to that meeting every Monday on attendance on, you know, worship attendance, life group attendance, all of that. So you know, we’re, we’re seeing it as well, but, but I’m counting on my global leads to, to, to, that’s why it’s important that they’re also in the mix, not just leading…

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — …but they’re also in the mix with it. So I’m counting on them to, to bring to us any issues or problems they may be facing or any hurdles that they need to try to get over. And then we can speak into that and help them do that. But that’s why we can’t be all places at all times, but, but that’s why we have teams that are doing that. So that’s really, has really helped.

Lane Lowery — And, and also going to this global leadership model, it’s it’s allowed us to employ more people into ministry who, like i said, aren’t just task people. They’re casting vision, said leading, and and so we’re counting on them to do that.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. That’s good. How do you, um, kind of an adjacent issue, the global leadership team is the expectation that they’re getting out and seeing other campuses, like actually getting onto other locations on Sundays. What does that, what’s the rhythm look like on that front?

Lane Lowery — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Honestly, yes, Rich, they we need them to. And what we’ve challenged our staff to do, and it’s hard because like I said, you got enough to say grace over in your own on your own campus on a Sunday morning…

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Lane Lowery — …but we’ve challenged all of our staff to try to get to another campus at least one time during the year. That’s all staff people. That’s not just the global leads. That’s, you know, that’s a you know Beth Power, our our our Augusta preschool director, I’d love for Beth to be able to put her eyes on each of our campuses at least one time during during during the year. And they’re doing that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — And when they do, it it brings greater you know unity. And she sees ideas. Every time I go to a new one of our other campuses, I see them doing something new. It’s so cool to see. Like I said, we’ve got incredibly gifted leaders and they’re smart and they’re doing great stuff. But I would never know about it if I didn’t go get on one of their campuses.

Lane Lowery — But we got to be intentional about it. It doesn’t just happen. Like I said, on Sunday morning, my home base, if you would be, is on the Augusta campus. But I’ve got to make myself say, no, I’m going to I’m going not be signed up for any new duties that this Sunday. I’m going to go to the Crossbridge campus this Sunday.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Lane Lowery — But it’s got to be an intentional. It’s like putting it on your calendar. I’ve got to do that or it won’t happen.

Rich Birch — Yeah, you got to plan for it. Yeah, absolutely.

Lane Lowery — So we constantly talk to our staff about doing that, especially for our global leads. I have to have them doing that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Pivoting in a kind of a slightly different direction, but talking about obviously these same issues, um you had passed along a document that caught my attention, the eight essential practices document that really defines, talks through, you you know the behaviors really of your team. Talk us through how has this these eight essential practices, how have they helped really take this kind of thing from being like, those are nice ideas sitting on a wall somewhere…

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …to like actually making a difference in the way you operate. Talk us through this and we’ll put it, we’ll link to this in the show notes for folks that are listening in.

Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, what you said is exactly what we didn’t want to happen. This came out of a strategic leadership meeting that our executive team went on almost two years ago now. And that’s what we, you know, you’ve done this too. You know, you’re an XP.

Lane Lowery — You go to a conference, something you get some great stuff and you and you bring it back. And next thing you know, it’s in a folder or it’s up on your shelf. We didn’t want to do that. So what we do, this is, so we constantly celebrate it. When we see somebody doing it, we celebrate it. Every person who is hired during the onboarding process, this is part of the onboarding process. They get a copy of this and their leader, their supervisor reviews it with them.

Lane Lowery — We do biannual reviews. We have review in March and in April, excuse me, September and and in April. And our September review is literally, they are reviewed on how they are um working through the eight essential practices.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Lane Lowery — Each of these are on that review and we walk through that with them and we talk through that with them. You know, so, so we, like I said, so we make sure that that that we are, it but it’s becoming a part of our DNA. It’s only two years old, but it really is now becoming our DNA.

Lane Lowery — We send out a a monthly email um staff email, because again, you’ve got so much going on try to keeping trying to keep everyone informed of what’s going on, upcoming events. We celebrate birthdays and and you know staff anniversaries. And we always highlight a an eight essential, somebody who who’s done the eight essential practices.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.

Lane Lowery — Plus there’s always a link in that, Rich, that if you see somebody doing that, you can click on that link and type up a little synopsis, you know sharing some information, how they saw so-and-so, you know, exhibiting one of these practices. So we’re really trying to push this in, making it part of our DNA.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. It’s so good. One of the ones that caught me, there’s a lot of—friends, I would encourage you to check out this document and go and do likewise. You know, don’t rip off their stuff, but come up with your your own on this. But one of the ones that caught my attention was ah connect with people.

Rich Birch — So one of the misnomers about very large churches like yours is that people aren’t connected, that it’s just everybody coming to the show. That’s actually statistically not true. Churches over 2,000 have a higher percentage of people connected to small groups and in volunteering opportunities than a church under 200. What specific behaviors do you expect from your staff to keep the ministry as high touch as possibly can as a large church?

Rich Birch — And how do you, how does it measure that? What’s that actually look like?

Lane Lowery — Sure. Great question, man. That’s a great question. We always use the word, in order to grow bigger, we got to grow smaller. Obviously, we got to get people in life groups and in that small group community. But we place a high value on our First Impressions Team ministry. And therefore, we have paid. We have a paid person who oversees our F.I.T. ministry—First Impressions Team—on each of our campuses because it’s so important, especially on a large church.

Lane Lowery — You know, we’ll have over 2000 people on the Augusta campus on Sunday morning. We want people to be seen and known and welcomed. And so we call every first time guest. Now, on typical Sunday, we’ll have 70 first time guest guests across our our four campuses, but they will get a personal phone call within that week.

Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.

Lane Lowery — We we make sure that that it’s happening within that week. And our Connections Pastor helps facilitate that. So we have, you know, first time you know guest calls. If you’re a first time guest on a campus, we give you a gift and we we want to engage with them. We still visit people in the hospitals.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Lane Lowery — We place a high priority on that, Rich. We you know we’ve got hospital lists from each of our campuses and we we have a person we have you know pastors on staff who go visit folks in hospitals. We pray with people before surgeries. We visit our shut-in our shut-in members. And so we we really do place a high value on that.

Lane Lowery — One of the best things is our senior pastor has a gift of shepherding. He’s a pastor shepherd. And so he exhibits that behavior as well. But it is a high value for us. And we spend time talking about it and we invest money in it.

Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love that. Friends, I want to underline something. You blew over it really quick, but I want to underline something here. You talked about 70, you know, guests a week, all getting personal calls.

Rich Birch — I’ve said this in other contexts. You know, we’ve talked about that kind of thing being a best practice. Like, hey, we’ve got to reach out to people. We can’t just send them an email. We got to try to connect. So friends, that’s over 3,500 calls a year that this church is doing. That’s a commitment to, I’ve had churches much smaller than your church say, there’s no way we can organize to call five people a week, 10 people a week.

Rich Birch — Friends, you got to do that kind of thing. That’s what a great inspiration for us. Another one of these, again, friends, check the link below that really caught my eye was, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a change document quite, or like a culture document like, like this.

Rich Birch — You said leverage change to move the mission. It talks about the idea of how flexibility and kind of looking for what’s going to you know need to be adapted in the future is embedded in your staff culture. So what did you stop doing? What’s that look like? How are you simplifying?

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I love that that’s embedded right in your staff essentials. Love that.

Lane Lowery — Well, I mean, something immediately came to mind is we changed our worship times, you know, um and and that’s no, I mean, that’s a…

Rich Birch — It’s a big deal.

Lane Lowery — …pretty big deal, but we changed our worship times on all four of our campuses. And two of our campuses, we added more time between the worship services so that they could onload and offload their campuses. Because of, so you know, praise God. I mean, it’s a winner’s problem, you know, because so many people are coming.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Lane Lowery — So at the end of the day, we said, you know, the we loved our our original times, but we we had to do something different to help with the with the growth situation. So we changed our worship times and you know and went through that whole process of doing that across. And we even allowed ourselves to allow different campuses to to to to set up times that’s bet that best fits them.

Lane Lowery — You know i’m saying? We’re not like, well, bless God, everybody’s going to do it at this time, at that time. We’re saying, look, what what works best in your individual context? So we you know that’s what we did. We just that that was the thing that came to my mind immediately. That’s something we just did within the last year was change those worship times. And it made sense. Because we were setting away how we did it for many, many years, but it’s worked really well.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Well, I love how, you know, what you’re hearing, friends that are listening in, you’re hearing, here’s a church that took some bold steps to try to change their structure, to try to better have their structure better serve where they were as a church and looking to the future, which is fantastic. I think inspiration for lots of us as we’re thinking about those kinds of issues.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to leverage you as a coach. Let’s say there’s a church listening in today who knows, maybe it’s an XP of a church of 1500. And they’re like, gosh, we know that maybe our structure not working. We’re at that, you know we’ve launched a couple locations. We’re trying to stretch to three or four. We’ve got vision for that.

Rich Birch — What would be some first steps, maybe 30 day, 60 day, 90 day steps that you would suggest that a church leader would take based on where you’ve gone through as you’ve kind of, um you know, reoriented your structure, tried to get better on this front. Help us think about that.

Lane Lowery — That’s a great question, Rich. First, I think you got to be willing to admit your structure is outdated or it’s not working.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Lane Lowery — You know, change is hard and and and, you know, not a whole lot of people like change, but it’s one of our essentials. So we’ve we’ve got to be able to embrace it and be willing to to look at things differently.

Lane Lowery — Second, I think your leadership um has to be willing to change.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Lane Lowery — You know, you you know, if if one guy on the staff wants to do it but no one else does. Well, that’s that’s gonna be tough. Third, you you need to identify where you currently are and where you want to go and the why behind It’s kind of like the old statement where you start with the end in mind.

Lane Lowery — You know, don’t, I don’t think you need to change just for this you know to change, but if something’s not working, and and you need to you need to know the why. If this it’s not, then you got to be willing to embrace it and and work to make the change.

Lane Lowery — Next, I think you got to develop a new leadership structure that’ll help you accomplish your desired outcome. Look at what you’re doing. I called a number of churches before we did this.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.

Lane Lowery — I mean, I really cut and looked and I saw some things that were happening. I tell you, Family Church down in for yeah down in West Palm is doing a great job. And honestly, I modeled our ministry after what they’re doing.

Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.

Lane Lowery — It fits us, our context.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.

Lane Lowery — But they had it figured out, man. And I’m not afraid to go find out you know what other people are doing. That’s that’s winning.

Rich Birch — 100%.

Lane Lowery — Then seek buy-in from your key leaders and stakeholders. What we did was was once we started, you know, developing this structure, I went to those those those team leads that we had identified. And I sat down and myself and Andrew Bryan, our other executive pastor, sat down and had conversation with them. And we really shared with them the why, because guess what? We’re getting ready to add a bunch of stuff to their plate. And and and they had to I had to have their buy in before it to work. And praise the Lord, they all bought in, man. They saw their they saw the need for it. They felt the pain of not doing it.

Lane Lowery — So, you know, so we we met with we took the time to have hour long meetings with all of those key stakeholders and they got and got their buy-in. And finally, we made the change. You know, we just finally had to jump and do it.

Rich Birch — What was the timeline, you know, in your from like, hey, I think we need to make a change through research phase all the way through to adoption? How long did that process take?

Lane Lowery — I’m embarrassed to tell you about a year. I would figure it’s something like that.

Rich Birch — No, that’s not unreal.

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I say that because it’s like, it doesn’t it it can’t happen overnight if you’re going to do it well.

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — You know and and you’ve got to walk people through it. That does that makes sense. So about a year, that that’s good. What part of it was the longest piece of the the puzzle?

Lane Lowery — Figuring out exactly how it would work in our context. You know, I saw what Family Church was doing there. Now no they’re, I think they’re up to 15 campuses or something like that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Lane Lowery — But I saw, you know, and so seeing what they were doing as well as some other churches and then saying, OK, how can this really work for Warren Church? How can it really? And so really figuring that out and then presenting that to our our our senior pastor and our our global pastors. Because at the end of the day, their people are are are going to have to take on more responsibility and do some things. And so getting getting there buy-in. And the cool thing, that was a pretty quick buy-in on their part.

Lane Lowery — And then implementing it. So just developing that whole structure and showing the need for it and then implementing it was about about about a year.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That that you know that doesn’t surprise me at all. I think it takes time to work it through. I love the idea of listening to other churches. Obviously, that’s actually at the core of why we started this podcast was you know we’re 800 and some odd episodes in. I really do think, man, there’s ah we should be working together as a body of Christ…

Lane Lowery — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and somebody else has faced most of the problems that we face as a church. Let’s go find them, talk with them, ask those questions.

Rich Birch — So this has been fantastic. As we come to kind of land today’s episode, anything else you’d love to share? Any kind of final words or encouragements that people might be listening in today?

Lane Lowery — Yeah, I think, Rich, I think that the biggest thing is communication, you know, amongst our staff.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Lane Lowery — You know, we we we’ve grown so much, which has been incredible. And we’ve added so many more staff members. And and I know a lot of people don’t like meetings and I don’t like to have meetings for the sake of meeting. That’s why I encourage every person if you’re gonna have a meeting, make sure you have an agenda, make sure you have a set time, but but you gotta get together.

Lane Lowery — And and so I think the biggest thing that’s helped us to make for this move to be successful. And it has been successful. I’m really encouraged by that is, is we have an executive leadership meeting every Monday at two o’clock.

Lane Lowery — Our global leaders meet twice a month. Our global leaders meet with their teams twice a month.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Lane Lowery — Every campus has a Tuesday at two o’clock staff meeting every week. And and that’s for some people go, my gosh, that’s that’s six meetings. But yeah, it it is. But they’re meetings with purpose.

Rich Birch — Yep, that’s good.

Lane Lowery — And and they’re not, you know, three and a half hour meetings there, you know, 45 minutes to an hour um with with an agenda, with action steps. When the meeting’s over, people walk out of there knowing what the next thing with what the next thing is.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Lane Lowery — But being willing to do that and seeing that that it really is important because there’s so many moving parts. And if we’re not all on the same page, something’s going to break down.

Rich Birch — 100%.

Lane Lowery — But it it takes getting together face-to-face, you know, email when you when you need to, but those face-to-face meetings are really important.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I agree. Totally. And well And even the way you’re thinking about it there, I think is critical for folks to lean in on is thinking clearly on kind of what the system of meetings is, like when is the best time to have the right meeting? I love the idea of like, hey, all are the thing like you’ve said, hey, our campus teams all have a Tuesday at two meeting. It’s like predictable. We know exactly.

Rich Birch — We’ve got to make this we’ve got to make the rhythm of what we do the weekly. Hey, every weekend so it comes, whether we like it or not…

Lane Lowery — Yes, sir.

Rich Birch — …use that rhythm to help us push the culture forward rather than being kind of overwhelmed by it.

Rich Birch — Well, Lane, this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you investing time in us today. If people want to connect with you or connect with the church, where do we want to send them online?

Lane Lowery — Yeah, just go to Warren.Church, and that that’s our website. And you connect with me right there my on the staff page. My email address LaneL at Warren.Church.

Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Lane. Appreciate being here today, sir.

Lane Lowery — Blessings to you, Rich. Thank you.
 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Chris Vaught, lead pastor of Connection Point Church (CPC) in Missouri. Under his leadership, CPC has grown from 300 people in 2011 to over 2,500 today across multiple campuses. With a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders, Chris has built a leadership development pipeline and launched the Connection Point Leadership College to multiply impact far beyond the church walls.

Is your church struggling to develop leaders and sustain growth? In this episode, Chris shares how the church equips volunteers, creates leadership pathways, and empowers everyday people to lead with clarity and purpose.

To learn more about Connection Point Church and their Leadership College, visit yourcpc.church

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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Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s conversation. I know I say that lots, but I really mean it today. We’re talking about an area that I think, frankly, lots of our churches should be leaning in on and learning more about and asking the question, how can we improve this area? Excited to have Dr. Chris Vaught with us. We got a doctor on the episode today.

Rich Birch — He’s the lead pastor of Connection Point Church. This is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And if I’m counting correctly, Currently two campuses in Missouri. They have a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders and they’ve developed the Connection Point Leadership College. Super excited to have you on the show today, Chris. Thanks for being here.

Chris Vaught — Hey, I’m excited, Rich. So excited to be here and get to share a little bit about what God’s doing with us. And of course, we’re constantly learning from you and all the other great hosts or leaders you have on your podcast with you and just excited and humbled to be to be able to share a little bit of our story. So thanks.

Rich Birch — Well, yeah, I’m, I’m excited to have you and to have, you know, I really do think this is going to be an area. I know a lot of us are wrestling with how do we do this well? How do we develop leaders? And, but, but kind of, you know, tell us a bit of the story, kind of set the table for us. Tell us about Connection and you know, what, you know, if what, if we were to come this weekend, what would we experience? Give us a kind of a flavor of the church. Talk us through that a little bit.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so Connection Point Church, we’re located in Jackson, Missouri. We’re about two hours south of St. Louis, down toward the Boot Hill, is what the area calls it, right. Just outside of Cape Girardeau. So there’s, between Cape Girardeau and Jackson, total driving distance around the church, you know, 20 minutes. We’ll probably lean in to around 70,000 people. Jackson itself is a small town of 15,000.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — But it’s ah it’s very it’s it’s a very fast growing area as far as young families moving in. The school systems are excellent. Sports teams, Southeast Missouri University is over in Cape Girardeau. And so um so there’s a lot of energy in the area.

Chris Vaught — And so for CPC, we’ve actually kind of designed all our ministries to fit the mode of this area. I’m a firm believer we should bloom where we’re planted, right? And so how can we get into this community? And over over the ah the past 14 years, that’s been our goal.

Chris Vaught — We came here in 2011 and church was running about 300 the time. We had a traditional service and a contemporary service and was just trying the church was just trying to feel that piece out and what that looked like and how to get into the community.

Chris Vaught — And God just began to put the pieces together in 2012. We we changed our name to Connection Point because we wanted the people in the community to know what our church was about. I mean, there’s churches, you know, on every corner in our area. And so what set this church apart? What is our niche? And we wanted it to be about connections.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Number one, a connected relationship with Christ. And then, relationships with people. So ah throughout the past 14 years, that’s become our emphasis, right? Getting out in the community, making those connections, and then making sure that the relationship with Christ is real and personal, not just religion.

Chris Vaught — We’re a very religious area. So we wanted really to build off of the relationship aspect. So from that, okay, so by 2019, we had bought 28 acres across town, built a new campus, and we moved into this campus with about 800 people in 2019.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Absolutely.

Chris Vaught — So we we made a lot of transitions from 2011 to 2019, and we’d grown from 300 to about 800. Of course, we all know what happened with 2020 and and covid. That all came four months after we built this brand new campus.

Rich Birch — Oh no. Perfect timing. Perfect timing.

Chris Vaught — I was literally teaching the membership class. We call it Starting Point…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — …to get new people connected to the church, when the phone call came into the church…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Chris Vaught — …that the government, the governing leaders of Missouri was asking the churches to stop meeting in public because of COVID.

Rich Birch — Wow. Right.

Chris Vaught — And I was teaching the membership class when that night, when that came in. I mean, I was teaching and my staff was in the back waving me down, said, hey, we just got a message.

Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.

Chris Vaught — I was like, are you kidding me?

Rich Birch — Wow. You’re giving me a little PTSD here. That’s those are those are dark days, man. That was, you know, hard to look back on.

Chris Vaught — They were, man. But you know what? Our income jumped 18% over the four months that we were shut down because our our people just built this building.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — They were scared we were going to lose it.

Rich Birch — Right. Wow. They leaned in nothing like adverse advert. Uh, can’t say that word adverity to draw people in. That’s amazing.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, they they jumped in, man. That was incredible. Came back. We came back actually, I think Father’s Day weekend or right after Father’s Day that June to back in-person services. When we came back, we came back with 600 people.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.

Chris Vaught — So building back on that foundation of 600, what God did next was absolutely phenomenal to us. So from 2021, we’d gotten back up to 1100. From 2022 to 2024, we doubled in size.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And today, if you came here this weekend, there’ll be there’ll be a little over 2500 people on the campus.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Praise God.

Chris Vaught — And three services, and then we have about 30 miles away, 10 months ago, we launched our first multisite campus.

Chris Vaught — And I have to tell you, Rich, about this campus. It’s 30 miles away.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — It’s in the second poorest county of our state.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Chris Vaught — It’s in a town of 1,700 people, a county of 10,000 people. And God has blessed that little campus

Rich Birch — Wow.
 

Chris Vaught — And it’s been the largest church in the county since day one.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And they’re running about 350 in a town of 1700.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s incredible.

Chris Vaught — So we have this motto.

Rich Birch — Praise God.

Chris Vaught — We want see God do something only he can get the credit for.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — And to be honest, right now, that’s that’s what you that’s what we’re seeing. But that’s the atmosphere you feel if you were to come on the campus this weekend. There’s just that anticipation.

Rich Birch — Wow. Well, that’s incredible to hear. And, you know, it’s, it does seem like that kind of post COVID. I know it’s like, I don’t know at what point we’re going to stop saying that kind of thing, but like, it’s a big deal obviously. And, and it’s like an inflection point we all went through. And it does seem like post COVID there was like, they at one point they were talking about the K recovery that there was like, some churches have come out not doing well. They’re struggling. And there are churches like Connection Point that are accelerating.

Rich Birch — And in like an odd sort of way, we look back and are like thankful for that time. We say something happened there that focused us. And we came back with, you know, even more, you know, drive and and all of that, which is amazing to hear. But I can imagine in the midst of all that kind of getting to where we’re we’re talking about today, talk, you know, developing leaders, trying to scale up. Every church has a problem finding leaders. How do i get people to actually take the ministry and run with it?

Rich Birch — You’ve made some changes on this front that, you know, have really helped, I think, accelerate some of this growth. But why don’t you talk us through when what’s that look like for you in the last couple of years?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so coming in right just before COVID, we knew as we were growing, we just could sense, you know, hey, this is picking up. God’s given some good opportunities. We have to spread this out. we’re We’re in Southeast Missouri.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — This is not a hotbed for people who don’t move here to take on a position. We started thinking through and looking at the New Testament, too. You can only hire out so much, right? Because even though our church has grown fast, budget always comes up last. So you have to look at other avenues other than just, oh, I’ll hire another position. So we started looking in the congregation. We began to develop our own leadership pathway or pipeline to develop, not only volunteers, but our future staff.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — We knew we grew really fast, we need to hire from within, but we still couldn’t hire every position.

Rich Birch — Yep. Right.

Chris Vaught — So we started looking at our volunteers as almost as non-paid staff positions. And so creating an atmosphere of expectation of roles and responsibilities, and also the value of what they’re doing.

Rich Birch — So true.

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—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 ah COVID, okay, we’re at that time period or the flu, could this ministry run the next day because of the person you have personally equipped to hold the ministry?

Rich Birch — I love that clarity. Yeah, that’s so good.

Chris Vaught — And we began putting those little pieces says together.

Rich Birch — I love that. So sorry. That’s right. Sorry, you go ahead. I cut you off there. That’s so good.

Chris Vaught — No, no, no. I was just saying that’s this so’s what we began. We began this pipeline, and that’s 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.

Rich Birch — I love there’s a lot of clarity there. I love that. Even just the practicality of like, hey, on Saturday night, somebody calls. Who can take this? Who can take your piece? I think that’s that’s so good. Break up a mindset for us. You talk about kind of, you know, use the phrase non-paid staff members. You’re setting a high bar for volunteers, like a high, high calling.

Rich Birch — I think there’s a lot of staff in our churches who are like, oh, like I can’t ask that of a volunteer. I can’t that they’re not, they’re like paid to do other things. And like, man, they either, they are not good enough is the mindset problem. There’s no way they could do it. Or that’s way too much for me to put on them. Break that mindset up for me.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, because we’ve tackled that mindset over and over and over again. Bob Russell, who who I consider to be a mentor in my life, he challenged me years ago, early on in this process. When you’re hiring staff, he would tell his staff at Southeast, if I hire you to to develop and to coach others to do, if I catch you doing, you’re fired, right? I mean, it was that kind of mindset.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Chris Vaught — And getting that across, first of all, to your staff. That it doesn’t have to be 100% of your ability. That our ministry, according to Ephesians 4, is to raise up the congregation to go do the ministry.

Chris Vaught — And now let’s paint a bigger picture of why that’s important. If we have a church of 150 and you’ve got two staff members, you’ve actually got 150 priests of God.

Rich Birch —Right. Yeah, I love it.

Chris Vaught — A royal priesthood. You can do more if they all do 30% of what you can do, spread out over the multitudes, then you can give all week long. And guess what? You don’t have to ruin your marriage or your health in the process. We spread this out.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Chris Vaught — It’s tackling that perfect mindset. The other issues we had to tackle, and you mentioned it, is this, well, I don’t want to ask them to do this. People will rise up to the level of expectation.

Rich Birch — So true.

Chris Vaught — So what we began doing was, is we actually created job descriptions for every volunteer row. And in that job description, it may say, this will require you on a weekly basis, X amount of time. Here’s how you prepare. Here’s who you report to. Here’s what’s expected. And here are the values we want you to conduct yourself with. People respond well to that.

Rich Birch — 100%.

Chris Vaught — People need clarity. People need to know, okay, if I’m gonna serve on the usher team or the parking team or the worship team, here is the level of expectation. They know whether or not they can get into it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — It clears up a lot of miscommunication. It makes people feel valued and you can do it in the right way with positivity and motivation.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love the clarity of job descriptions, getting it all written down. I think is is incredible. So, you know, what that it started with this simple idea, a simple idea, hard to execute. I feel like, hey, you find a Timothy, Ephesians 4. But it’s more robust today. When you say pipeline, give me like a simple definition of that. How do you explain that to like somebody who maybe is struggling with it? Maybe a staff member, elder, leader type person. When you say, you know, leadership pipeline, what does that mean? What’s that mental model for you?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, for us, we tell them we’re putting them on a pathway.

Rich Birch — Okay. Love it.

Chris Vaught — You’re here, but we want to put you on a pathway to help mature you and grow you and develop you and your skills that God has already given you, because that’s where you’re going to find fulfillment.

Chris Vaught — That’s where you’re going to find the energy and the motivation to go long term. But this is this is a process of development.

Chris Vaught — ah You know, we come to faith in Christ and we often talk about our salvation like it’s a done deal at one moment, one little prayer, one baptism, you know, now it’s done.

Chris Vaught — Yes, we may be instantly brought into the family of God, but there’s a whole life of sanctification and discipleship and development.

Rich Birch — That’s so true.

Chris Vaught — And so painted is a picture of this exciting pathway that we’re going to be on. And these are just this is a part of your path. We call it the discipleship path. And we kind of just draw it out for our people. We show them, hey, we’re getting ready to take you on a journey. And it’s a lifelong journey.

Chris Vaught — We got I got the concept from the Jewish concept of a disciple to a rabbi called a Talmud.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — And one of the cool definitions that learned years ago on what is a Talmud, one of the definitions is a Talmud is the shadow of their rabbi.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — In the in the Middle East, they would actually say a disciple knew they had arrived when they were mistaken for their rabbi out in the community.

Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. That’s so good.

Chris Vaught — So think about we are to become like Christ. We should be mistaken for his character, his heart, his attitude, right? But in a much smaller sense, part of that process comes into how we operate in and through the church, how we use our gift sets. The church’s responsibility is to help put them on a path…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — …to begin to develop what that shadow looks like.

Rich Birch — How do you, so I love that. It’s a very vivid metaphor. What does that look like practically going from metaphor to like, okay, that sounds like the kind of thing I want to be a part of. I want to be a shadow. I want to I want to you know grow. How are you structuring that and and doing that at scale? I think it makes sense in the kind of rabbi, you know, a follower kind of thing. But you know, you’re you’re talking about, you guys have grown by hundreds, thousands of people in the last few years. How have you been able to, to make those two things work? A relational, you know, discipleship experience that is, that is deep, but it has some sort of structure to it. What’s that look like?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so so the structure is going to be as people are coming into church, are new here, are next steps, so we’re always pushing them to that very first next step, which for us is Starting Point.

Rich Birch — Okay, yep.

Chris Vaught — There they’re learning the DNA and we actually talk this language to them at that introductory night of us explaining, here’s who we are at CPC, here’s our DNA. And we give them that next step. What does that look like?

Chris Vaught — For one, it’s maybe just joining a serve team. Now, not everybody’s ready to join something on a Sunday, but that’s a starting point. And we begin to teach these leadership competencies and explain to them, hey, there’s a path that we want to put you on.

Chris Vaught — Then included with that serve team is something we call Equip Workshops.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — These are about 10 week workshops. We do two to three times a year where people we market it to the congregation, to our serve teams. They sign up. We’re going to teach you about your circle of influence. How Replicate gave us this concept, um Replicate Ministries, and it’s helping them find their kingdom circle, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Because everyone has a circle of in influence. And what does that look like as you use your gift sets to serve?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so our goal of then is to not only get involved in Sunday Sunday morning or so or weekly serving opportunities here, we want it to stretch beyond. If we’re going to reach our community, I need them and taking the same competencies onto their job.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — I need them to take the same competencies to the traveling sports teams, right, wherever they’re living their life out. Then the next step we introduce them to is our leadership college, Connection Point Leadership College, CPLC. And that’s a 10-month internship program where it is it is straight on leadership, skill, competencies. We tell them, we’re going to teach you as if you’re going into vocational ministry. But we invite people who don’t feel a call to vocational ministry because we tell them, we need disciples living out their gift sets in the secular world, not just inside the church.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so there’s two ways of coming into that college, which is one step of it. There is the on-campus intern, where you’re actually taking classes and practical ministry, shadowing, being involved in the ministries here on campus.

Chris Vaught — But then we have a hybrid edition, which is online. And that’s for those who have to work a full-time job, can’t come on the campus, and maybe they’re wanting to learn the biblical leadership competencies, and apply them to the secular world.

Rich Birch — That’s fascinating. I want to come back to the leadership college in a minute. I want to put a bookmark in that, but taking a step back to the serve team and Equip Workshops, talk to me about, like, I think some churches would come to the moment of, like, when they’re trying to get people in connection and connected and into some sort of discipleship relationship, and they would actually push more towards groups, you know, rather than teams.

Rich Birch — Now, I’m not trying to I’m not trying to pick a fight here. Obviously, we want people to do both, but talk to me about that decision around, hey, we’re going to kind of go the team’s route and then add Equip. Because I think it’s a really interesting model of like, then add these workshops, which kind of drives some of that depth discipleship stuff to people who are serving, I’m assuming, but talk us through that.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so just for clarification, we do we do do life groups as well. But if it’s more for leadership development, we push them toward the serving.

Rich Birch — Yep, that makes sense. Yep, that makes sense.

Chris Vaught — Kind of like two different pockets, if you will.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — And some are going to switch over to both.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — Some will start and serve and eventually lead into a life group.

Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.

Chris Vaught — Others may start a life group and come over to a serve team. Life groups are going to be a lot more discipleship based while serve teams is discipleship with an emphasis on leadership competencies. Just because the faster we grow, the more we have to make sure we’re developing leaders not just attenders if you will.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — And discipleship carrying on that serving aspect. So if you looked at if if I drew my pathway out for you on this journey of course you go to Starting Point the next one is either join a life group or a serve team.

Rich Birch — Yeah, OK. Yep.

Chris Vaught — But then if you go into the serve team we’re going to really push you to these kingdom circles and circles of influence and then to the leadership college, if that makes sense.

Rich Birch — That makes total sense. Yep. That makes total sense. Well, let’s talk about the leadership college. Like give me a bit more kind of framework for what that looks like. Is it literally like full-time internship, 10 months, 40 hours a week? Talk us through that.

Chris Vaught — Yeah. So um first of all, we don’t make it easy to attend our leadership college.

Rich Birch — I love it. We’re not going to make it easy. We’re not putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. Love it.

Chris Vaught — We didn’t. And we say it up front.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — So if you go into this, you’re going into it with intentionality.

Chris Vaught — One of the things I teach from day one is I can teach you competencies. I can’t teach you initiative. And so from the get go, this has got to be something you’re after, you’re coming after, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Because this is the highest level of our training. So it is a full time intern is 10 months. You’re serving every weekend. You for the first six weeks of the internship, you get to go through a discovery phase where we’ll put you in every ministry department for a certain amount of time, let you get exposure. We believe you need exposure. After that, you got to pick a direction, right?

Chris Vaught — And so from then on, you’re here every Tuesday and Wednesday all day.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And that those are very in-depth biblical, theological, as well as practical leadership courses. Every morning up until lunchtime in the afternoons, you’re in the department in which you’ve chosen. That’s the avenue that I’m feeling led toward. And you’re going to be working under the leadership of that department. You’re going to learn the skills of that department. You’re going to go to their meetings, their departmental meetings. You’re going involved in activities. And that’s probably where you’re going to serve on the weekends.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Or through the midweek, depending on what it is.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — So now one of the beautiful things we partner with Evangel University outside of Spring… or in Springfield, Missouri.

Rich Birch — Yep.

They actually looked at our program and said, anyone that wants to come to school here or take online classes, if they go through that leadership program, we’ll give them 12 credit hours of of college.

Rich Birch — Oh, wow.

Chris Vaught — So there’s a bit there for the ones who are looking for more formal education. And we have students who will do that. We have many that just want the leadership competencies here.

Chris Vaught — Some of them are going into vocational ministry and others, as I said, they’re they’re wanting to take it into the secular world. And part of our goal throughout the year is we tell them, we’re not here to convince you what your calling is. We’re here to equip you for whatever God calls you to do.

Rich Birch — Wow. Give me a profile of the a kind of person or a couple, maybe there’s a couple different profiles of people that take that step into the the leadership college. Like is, is that, yeah, like give me a sense of some of the characters that you find in that, ah in that experience, if you know what I mean.

Chris Vaught — You know, this is year number four for us.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — And it’s so interesting that it’s grown every year.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — Oh, and by the way, one thing I left out, I told you we don’t make it easy.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — They pay us $500 to join.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Cover the cost. Or not really.

Chris Vaught — So they don’t get paid for this internship and they get all that back and resources.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Vaught — It’s just a commitment, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Vaught — But last year, it was primarily high school graduates or college age kids that were in our internship program. And we don’t know what the Holy Spirit’s doing.

Chris Vaught — This year, we doubled enrollment. And half of the group, more than half of the group are non-traditional. They’re like, we have a husband and a wife who are both working side jobs on Mondays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, so they can do the internship together because they’re both seeking what God’s will is for them. So they’re taking a financial hit. And they’ve got children. I mean, they’re having to get childcare so they can be here all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Chris Vaught — We’ve got others that are in their mid thirties up into their forties coming to the school. So we’re really watching God do something pretty unique because the the idea, this concept of growing and stretching…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — …is now reaching beyond just the college age. and we’re And we’re getting into really all age groups. The oldest intern right now that we’ve had was in 56.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, it’s incredible.

Chris Vaught — And he was so phenomenal, we hired him on staff after he graduated.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, and we’ve seen this in other, you know, echoes of this in other prevailing churches like Connection Point where um there’s like a high bar and there’s like, and we’re really calling people to say, hey, why don’t you come join the mission? And people respond to that. And, you know, the ripple out impact of that is huge. It’s almost like, you know, there are churches that are struggling and they’re just trying to like, well, we’re just going to make it as easy as we possibly can.

Rich Birch — And there’s something about that that actually repels people, ironically. Or maybe maybe attracts the right people or the wrong people, you know. And this idea of like, hey, we’re going to do something big for you. Like, it’s a lot of work what you’re talking about, pulling that internship together. But it also it’s ah it’s requires a lot from people. That’s ah you know that’s that’s incredible.

Rich Birch — How do you identify like and call out…I get that it’s like, you know, people have to make that choice, but what are, what are, what are you doing? What’s your team doing to identify leaders to kind of help them take steps next in their, you know, in their leadership development, or is it mostly just kind of driven by them? They’re raising their hand.

Chris Vaught — No, I mean, actually you apply for it. You have to go through an interview process.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — And and once we interview you then we kind of help navigate. Yeah, we believe you have the commitment level. You have the spiritual maturity for what you’re about to come into. You know we’re looking at your personality skills. You’re, you know, doing an assessment. And just to make sure, because it is a a commitment, right? And you don’t want to start, not finish. And and we will make sure you got the character for this.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — Because when you come into a leadership school like this, everyone know, you know, everyone knows that’s one of our interns.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Chris Vaught — The your personal disciplines, your character, competencies has to be at a certain level. So we even start there with an interview process. Then beyond that, once you’re in the system, and we learned this from Larry Osborne, there are two primary sides of leadership in every person, right? You’re either going either going to be that what he calls a big L leader, that one that lead the charge, and you know they’re going to drive a ministry or an avenue. Or you’ve got the shepherd.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — And both are needed in the church. And one’s not better than the other, right?

Chris Vaught — Your big L leader, they’re the ones that make things grow. There are two criterias to look for for that big L leader. One, can they make things grow? Everything they touch takes off.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — You know, they’re able to grow it. The second piece is, well, I love how Larry Osborne says, it says it’s the Tom Sawyer effect. And you know the story of Tom Sawyer. Can they can they make people paint the fence for them and thank them for it when they’re done?

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

Chris Vaught — Can they motivate the people around them? Well, if they are, and we recognize that kind of skill, that then gives us direction on how to craft their experience.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Where we want to emphasize them to be able really maximize those skills to be a big L leader. They’re going to lead a ministry. They may be potential future staff. They may go in a secular world, but they could really make an impact. They’re an entrepreneur, right?

Chris Vaught — The shepherd, if we see that they have the caring gifts, that they’re not the big old leader. They need a system. They need the structure. They’re not going to create themselves, but everybody wants to be around them. They have a heart. They have a care. They’re loving. They’re prayerful. They’re very spiritually deep. That helps us be able to craft their experience in the leadership college.

Chris Vaught — Because again, it’s not about us getting them to do something. It’s them to learn the competencies to be the best of what God has called them to be.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so we kind of kind of keep our eye on that and watch those metrics. Some of that comes through how they respond in classes. It’s how they serve on the weekends. It’s just what a lot of observation pieces as they go through the process.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. So kind of related issue, but more, maybe less of the this the art part part of it, more the science. When you think of metrics or mile markers around this whole area, what are some of the the numbers that kind of come to the fore? Things that you think about like, oh, we got to make sure we’re hitting this. If it’s, this feels, or I know this is healthy when that’s happening. Do you have kind of metrics that you think about on this front?

Chris Vaught — Mainly for us, it’s as as far as any kind of metrics is we’re watching as if the people are taking ownership and are they self-recruiting others, right?

Rich Birch — Sure. Okay.

Chris Vaught — If I have a ministry that’s self-recruiting, constantly growing, like for us, ever since COVID, our media outreach department exploded. We went from an average of 800 unique views on the weekend to now over 6,000 on the weekend.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Wow. Yep.

Chris Vaught — So all of sudden we’re like, okay, we’ve really got to keep our eye on the digital marketing media aspect of our church, right? So we judge health by it. How big has that volunteer base grown? Are they replicating, right? I think right now we have 50 volunteers in that ministry.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — Where they, with a full-time staff of three people, four people, four people. And so, you know, I can’t hire 50 people, but I got to have that kind of a base.

Rich Birch — Right. No.

Chris Vaught — Our kids ministry, you know, our church age dropped dramatically after COVID. It’s all these young families. So our kids numbers are through the roof. So can we, so what’s our volunteer ratio look like there? And are they replicating? Some of the metrics we look at is the volunteer ministry large enough that people can serve one and sit and worship in another.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — If the same volunteers are working every single weekend and they have no time to come and get fed themselves.

Rich Birch — That’s a problem.

Chris Vaught — And and even the ministry department leads, if they can never break away and come into a worship service and get fed themselves, that ministry is not healthy.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Vaught — They need more volunteers and the department heads need to be able to train their team lead who’s underneath them well enough to run a ministry for one service once a month to come into a worship service and get fed themselves. You know that’s just an example.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So good. Well, this is a great conversation. There’s a ton we could talk about here, but just as we’re we’re wrapping up, if you were to coach, a maybe there’s a leader that’s listening in today and they’re like, gosh, like I know we’re at the place where we got to take that first step. We got to take the, hey, who’s your Timothy?

Rich Birch — What would be some some advice you’d love to give? Maybe it’s like a pothole to avoid or like, here’s something, you know, that kind of early advice I would give you to to get as you’re getting the ball rolling on, you know, on trying to develop a leadership pathway.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, straight up early on, whoever your staff is or your key volunteer leaders are, when they find that Timothy, tell them the number one gift they can give that person is time investment.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Sit down with them, spend some time with them, and then lead into a competency. And it could be 15 minutes. We do this with our volunteer bases on the weekends. So they gather together for a huddle 15 minutes before their serving opportunity actually begins. And there’s only three pieces that you have to talk about there. One is caring for them. Hey, how can I pray for you? How can I care for you? Because remember, volunteers, it’s not just a job, though you give them responsibility to job, but you’re also a congregation. You’ve got pastoral care. Hey, how can I pray for you?

Chris Vaught — Then a quick update of here’s some things going on. Just keep communication going. Here’s what we need to know for the day. But that third piece that I’m so big on, and you can do this sitting around coffee. It doesn’t have to be a Sunday morning huddle. It could be as you’re building the program. Just but then teach them some leadership competency.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — You don’t have to preach a sermon. It’s just bring that little competency to help them develop and build some confidence. So if you came to one of our huddles like this weekend for 15 minutes, they’re going check up on you. They’re going to share a win. Hey, here’s what God’s doing. Celebrate with them. They’re going to give them a quick little update.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And then they’re going to share something like, hey, this weekend, our whole theme is we want to create hospitality. So whatever we do today, let’s just all be hospitable.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And they’ll talk just quick minute about that, right? So as you’re building your teams, as you’re building your pipeline, that’s really all you’re going to want to replicate. Then however large you get, you just keep adding layers to it. But it’s really the same simple structure.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s so clear. This has been great conversation, Chris. I really, really appreciate it. I feel like there’s a bunch more, even just there around huddles, we could jump in on maybe a future podcast. We’ll have you back on or your team back on to talk through ah that piece of the puzzle. Because I think there’s even that alone. I think that’s the thing so many of us, we’ve got to do a better job on or just got to do a better job on.

Rich Birch — Well, Chris, I really appreciate you being here today. As we land the plane, if people want to get in touch with you or get in touch with the church, kind of track with your story, where do we want to send them online?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, you want to send them to yourcpc.church. You can send a message to us just simply by email and [email protected]. course, you can catch us with that same handle on any social media site, and you can send some direct messages straight our way.

Rich Birch — Love it. It’s great. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today, sir.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much for the honor.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ashley Lentz from Lutheran Church of Hope in Iowa. As the Connections Pastor at one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country, Ashley brings a wealth of practical insight into creating personal connection in a growing church.

Struggling to connect new guests and help them take meaningful next steps at your church? Tune in as Ashley unpacks how her team prioritizes clarity, simplifies the path forward, and builds systems that still feel personal—without overwhelming people or staff.

Learn more about Lutheran Church of Hope at www.lutheranchurchofhope.org and email Ashley.

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: Risepointe

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Rich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m super excited for today. We’ve got a church that I’ve been tracking for quite a while and excited to have a leader from there on. But then I know this is an area that so many of our churches are struggling with, and it’s kind of like an area that you might not be aware that you’re struggling with. And so I’m hoping that we open up a discussion today to help that will move you to really make some changes that will ultimately see your church help people get connected to it.

Rich Birch — Today we have ah Ashley Lentz. She’s the Connections Pastor at Lutheran Church of Hope. It’s one of the fastest growing in the churches yeah churches in the country with, I believe, seven campuses, if I’m counting correctly, in Central Iowa.

Ashley Lentz — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Iowa. Sorry, it’s early in the morning, getting my lips going here, friends, ah multiple smaller local sites and opportunities to join online. They actively partner with and support other churches through their Hope Network. Super excited to have you on the episode today, Ashley. Welcome.

Ashley Lentz — Thanks, Rich. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here and help in whatever ways I can and just share, share what we learn.

Rich Birch — Nice. Why don’t, for people that don’t know, kind of paint a picture of Hope today, kind of tell us a little bit about the church and your role as a Connections Pastor.

Ashley Lentz — Yes, you described Hope beautifully. We are located in the metro Des Moines area of Iowa.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Ashley Lentz — So Des Moines is our capital for those who don’t know. And like you said, we have seven campuses and a whole bunch of local sites, is what we call them, and partner with churches all around the country to simply help them do ministry and meet them where they are.

Ashley Lentz — And so ah Hope is, we would call it a multi-site megachurch, right? But it very much feels like I’ve grown up in the Hope, what I would call the Hope system, the Hope Network. I did our middle school and high school ministry here and came back to be a pastor here.

Ashley Lentz — And so um I think we do a really beautiful job of reaching people where they are and inviting them into ah something deeper, but also meeting them where they are and saying like, if this is where you’re at, like we will, we will meet you there and walk alongside you and wherever you are in your faith journeys.

Ashley Lentz — So my role as a Connections Pastor is just that. I get to meet people where they are and help them navigate ah what is next in their faith journey. We worship at our campus, the larger campus here in West Des Moines. We worship about 7,000 in person weekly. And my favorite way to meet them as a Connections Pastor is truly to have one-on-one conversations.

Ashley Lentz — And sometimes that happens you know during weekend worship. Sometimes it happens during the week at other things. um But that’s what I love doing is getting to know people, helping them find the next best step for them in their faith journey and making a really large church seem intimate, seem like a ah community that is for them and finding a place where they can really feel like they belong…

Rich Birch — So good.

Ashley Lentz — …not just fit in, but where they can belong here.

Rich Birch — Well, for friends that have been tracking with for with me for a while, they know this is like a passion area for me. I’m super excited to learn from you, clearly an expert in the field. And you mentioned it, you know, one of your campuses is 7,000, multiple thousands in the other locations.

Rich Birch — It’s a large church by all, you know, all, you know, metrics, probably the top 0.2 to 5% of churches in the country. ah And, you know, when a church like yours is attracting thousands of people coming through the doors every single weekend, you know, helping them take the next step can be difficult. And one of the misnomers that I, that bug me is I know that a church like yours is very good at connecting people. That is a part of the reason why you’re the size you are. But there are challenges that you run into trying to connect with people at scale. I love that you started with, I love to connect one-on-one. I’m like, how do you do that at a so church that size. But what are some of those challenges? Talk me through why is it so hard at scale to connect with people?

Ashley Lentz — For sure. We do not do this perfectly. I’ll be the first to say that. And it’s important that anybody listening knows we do not have this completely figured out.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Ashley Lentz — I will just tell you where we’ve been and some of the challenges we faced and what we do in the midst of those challenges to just navigate them as best we can, because we’re still figuring things out too.

Ashley Lentz — One of the biggest struggles that we have is communicating effectively. When you have the the size of staff that we have, and by no means do we have a massive staff. I think many of our staff, people would tell you we’re probably understaffed. We could always use more. But we have so much programming. A lot of it is volunteer led. I help lead our women’s ministry and I have women facilitators leading those classes.

Ashley Lentz — But we have things happening every day of the week in every ministry area. So it is hard to effectively communicate where I want people to plug in. Because it’s easy to say, hey, check out the website. Everything is listed on there. But really quickly, people get overwhelmed by that.

Rich Birch — So true.

Ashley Lentz — And that’s one of, again, that’s one of the things that love is I tell people, come talk to me. Some people love that. They’re like, yeah, would love to sit in chat. And other people are like, no, let me just navigate the website and figure it out on my own.

Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.

Ashley Lentz — But when you have so many things, they’re all great. It is hard to effectively communicate. Here’s what we find most important. Here’s what we would say. Start here and then do these kinds of things.

Ashley Lentz — Prescribing a discipleship journey is really hard. And probably not effective because everybody’s on a different journey.

Rich Birch — Right.

Ashley Lentz — So we do like to offer, like we just have different offerings and I get to help people navigate season of faith, season of life, and what might meet them where they are right now and be an effective discipleship pathway for them. Yep.

Rich Birch — Okay. I’d love to unpack that a little bit more. You talk about, and there’s a great description. We’ve got lots of different things going on, lots of different ministries, ah and but we’ve got to simplify it. You didn’t quite least say that. You said, we got to start here. We have to you know make it kind of really obvious or have pathways. What does that look like in practice? Help us understand how you’re doing that.

Ashley Lentz — Yes. One of the tools that we use, and it is very much an internal tool is what I would call it. We call it the Hope circle. And it is what I would call a discipleship tool or discipleship pathway. And if I were to say that to our congregation members, they would really have no idea what I’m talking about. It is very internal. But it’s helpful to identify where people are on this Hope circle.

Ashley Lentz — And so the circle starts with being a seeker. At a church our size, we have people every weekend who have zero idea what the church thing is about. They’ve maybe never been introduced to Jesus. Someone just invited them to church. They maybe knew they needed church and walked in the door, but have no idea what to expect. And so they are seeking something that has been missing in their life. And so ah helping people identify if that’s where you are, here are kind of the very preliminary places that would be helpful for you to start plugging in.

Ashley Lentz — As we move around that circle, we get to believers, people who are like, okay, I’m bought into the Jesus thing. I’ve heard the message. I believe. Now what? Like, I I want to understand this better. Like, I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. Like, I’m here for it, but I don’t really know the things. So where do we go from there and how do we help them then move into like being super excited about Jesus? Like, I don’t just believe like I’m on fire for Jesus. I’m a follower, right? Like I am, I am all in my life looks different. I’ve been transformed. How do I follow him? And then how do you serve people in that arena too? Because that’s going to look different than somebody who’s come in as a seeker looking for Jesus and somebody who’s on fire for Jesus. So how do we move them around the circle?

Ashley Lentz — So it’s seeker, believer, follower, and then kind of the last part of our circle is servant leader. How do we move them then into serving and letting the transformed nature of the gospel pour out of them into the world around us?

Ashley Lentz — And I would say our secret sauce here at Hope is we love volunteers. Like as we move people around the Hope circle, I and my colleagues, we want to equip people to lead.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Ashley Lentz — So being a servant leader inside these walls, but also outside these walls is really like, that’s what’s attractional to people is is letting them know like you’re on fire for Jesus. Go tell everyone about it and serve in the arena you find yourself in, whether in the church or outside the church.

Rich Birch — That’s good. So how do you, how do you help people self-identify that? What’s that practically look like for folks that are at the church? How do you help them? And um folks, we’ll, we’ll put the Hope circle in the show notes. You can look down there. You can see it there if you’re, if you want to see that as a tool to kind of visualize that. But how do you help folks self-identify where they might be in that process? Or is it purely, they got to talk to somebody?

Ashley Lentz — No, it’s not. I would love to say, please just talk to me, but you’re right.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes.

Ashley Lentz — With 7,000 people worshiping on a weekend, there’s no way.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I can’t do that.

Ashley Lentz — Even if if everybody on staff talked to some people. We, I’ll talk about this as kind of like on ramps or pathways.

Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.

Ashley Lentz — One of the best places for people to start as a seeker, a believer, even a follower is the Alpha course. I’m sure you’re familiar with Alpha course.

Rich Birch — Absolutely. Yep.

Ashley Lentz — We love Alpha here at Hope. And Alpha does such a beautiful job of if you are a seeker, it gives you the foundation that you need to step into what’s next.

Ashley Lentz — If you’re a believer, it’s going to connect you to community, which is a really important part of discipleship. If you are a follower, like you are bought in and you are learning the things, we tell people Alpha is a great place to brush up on the basics, but also get plugged into community. So would say one of our biggest on-ramps is Alpha.

Ashley Lentz — And then from there, this is kind of like my bread and butter in my role, is taking people as they finish Alpha and helping them self-identify what’s next. Coming out of Alpha, am I ready to serve? Is that like, am I on fire? Am I ready to come back and host Alpha or step into a different service opportunity? Do I need more basics? Did Alpha spark in me like, oh, maybe I don’t know as much about the Bible as I want to. Do we direct them back to a Bible class and learning like the foundations of a Bible.

Ashley Lentz — This fall, we’re trying something new called Foundations. it’s a three-week class. The first class is, what’s my Bible? How do I read it? Second class is, how do I pray? And the third class is identity, like what God says about you.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Ashley Lentz — And so there’ll be people who come out of Alpha, yeah, who we say, maybe Foundations is next for you. Like, let’s Let’s really get some of these foundational pieces put together. up We also have a ton of just general classes, right? Like if you want to study ah spiritual disciplines, we have a class for that.

Ashley Lentz — If you want to really dive into the narrative of scripture from Genesis to Revelation, what is the story that’s being told? We have a class for that. We also outsource resources. So I’m always always directing people to BibleProject.com and other things that do a really good job of walking people through some of these basic parts of discipleship, Bible knowledge, prayer knowledge. How, how do I get plugged into community? These are the questions we continue to ask.

Ashley Lentz — And people can self-identify. I like, I do like directing people to the website. If you’re excited about community or getting plugged into a small group, check the website. There’s a page for small groups. Like we will help you with that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Ashley Lentz — By far and away, the best way we have found to get people connected is personal invites and personal relationships. I can’t personally do all of that. It is our congregation that does that for one another. And that is super beautiful to equip people who are on fire for Jesus to invite their neighbors and their colleagues, and to help them to share their story and say, here was here’s what my discipleship journey looked like. And I’d invite you to check out Alpha or this class or come join our small group and see what it’s like.

Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I love that you’re, you know, stressing that. I think there might be people that are surprised who are listening who would say, you know, here’s a person talking, you know, a large church, really stressing personal relationships. Unpack that a little more a little bit more. How do you practically cultivate those personal touches at scale? How do you encourage that beyond, you know, just, you know, you doing that or a small group of people doing that?

Ashley Lentz — Yes, ah we build teams. And everything that we do, we build volunteer teams. So if you walk into Hope on a weekend, and this is true of any of our campuses, there will be a New to Hope area with volunteers who are clearly marked. They they wear bright orange vests here at our West Des Moines campus. You can’t miss them. The vests say: “New to Hope?” And we clearly tell people, if you are new, we love to connect with you.

Ashley Lentz — They can fill out an online form. They can fill out a paper form. They can have a conversation with a real person. But those people every week are being followed up with personally um by staff members, by volunteers. They are being checked in with because we so deeply believe in personal relationship and personal invitation.

Ashley Lentz — Same thing with people who are just getting involved.They might not be new to Hope, but the fall is a great example of getting connected, right? Like rally weekend is coming up for us this weekend where all of our fall programming kick kicks off. So we have a ministry fair where we will have tables in our atrium and invite people to stop by the tables and really get to know the leaders leading those ministries or the volunteers involved in those ministries and ask your questions.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Ashley Lentz — Some people, again, some people won’t stop, right? Like they like, I don’t want to have a conversation with anybody, which is why a website’s a great tool. We have clearly marked women’s ministry, men’s ministry, general adult classes, everything’s on there. But if you are excited about what’s next and making a large place feel small, the best way you’re going to do that is by a conversation with someone or an email correspondence.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Ashley Lentz — But yeah, really having pointed conversations about where you’re at in your faith life and what you’re looking for.

Rich Birch — Okay, let’s deep dive on that. You talked about some stuff there that I’d love to double click on and hear a little bit more about.

Ashley Lentz — Yeah.

Rich Birch — So talk us through, if I’m if I’m a guest that comes, um talk us through, I arrive at the New to Hope, I see. So like, give me a sense of like, how many people are there? What happens when I arrive there? What are they going to ask me to do? How do they get me connected? I’m assuming I fill something out. Maybe I get a gift. Then what happens? You know, kind of talk us through what the the experience of someone who chooses to self-identify, you know, through the New to Hope experience, what’s that look like?

Ashley Lentz — Yes. Yes, I love this. Our New to Hope area is in the middle of our atrium. So we have our building is kind of, the worship center is obviously like big and there’s it’s kind of the main part of our building. But the atrium is very clearly when you come into the building, you are in the atrium. And so it’s a big old signs, bright orange. When you see that, you will see very friendly volunteer faces – usually like three or four and probably a couple of staff people lingering in that general area every single weekend, every single service.

Ashley Lentz — And it’s really funny, Rich, just this weekend, I was walking around the building and I saw a family. And it was a young adult woman and her parents. And they walk into our building. And you can tell when people are new because they just kind of stop and look around.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Ashley Lentz — Like they don’t know where to go, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Ashley Lentz — So I walked up to them and I said, hey, can I help you find anything? And they’re like, we’re brand new. We have no idea what we’re doing. And I so I introduced myself. And I said, here here’s where we’ll start. We’ll start at New to Hope. And so I had her fill out a connection card. We have paper connection cards, like a postcard. And it is name, address, email address, phone number. People can follow it as much or as little as they want. But I tell them, if you want us to get in touch with you, I need you to write your email and I need you to write it legibly.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Ashley Lentz — And then they can opt in for our weekly newsletter, right? Like that’s and then there’s a blank space that says, what are you interested in? What do you want more information about? Some people fill that out, some people don’t. But that’s, they can fill it out virtually. We have little tablets at the New to Hope or they can fill it out on paper. And then what we do, we give them a free Hope t-shirt and we tell people in announcements, like if you’re new, stop by the New to Hope area. We’d love to gift to you with a free Hope t-shirt as a way of saying thanks for being our guest today.

Ashley Lentz — So they get a free Hope t-shirt. And then I always ask them, can I help you find anything? Would you like a tour of the building? Like, I personally walked around this family this weekend. She was a young adult woman who had just moved here. And she said, like, where would I do young adult things? You have young adult ministry. And I said, yes. And I said, it’s not in the worship center. It’s in this, it’s in our chapel. Let me walk you around and orient you.

Rich Birch — So good.

Ashley Lentz — So when you get here on a Thursday night for, for that, then you know where you’re going.

Ashley Lentz — That’s what our volunteers will do for people too. We, I want people to feel seen, right? As It’s a large church. You don’t want people to walk in without being seen or walk out without being seen.

Rich Birch — So good.

Ashley Lentz — So yes, we I say hi to everybody that crosses my path. And some people purposely put their head down and don’t want to be said hi to. And it’s like, you’re in church…

Rich Birch — That’s okay. Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — …you don’t have to say hi back.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Lentz — But if you cross my path on a Sunday morning, I’m going to say hi to you because I’m truly glad that people are here and I want them to know that.

Rich Birch — Yes. Okay, that’s that’s fantastic. When So let’s say I come, I fill out, let’s say i’m I seem eager, maybe like that family, I fill out all the information. I give you my my mailing address, my email, my phone number, the whole thing. What then happens from there? What’s my experience? Do I get certain amount of follow-up? So what all happens at that point?

Ashley Lentz — Yes, our we have a team that that does follow-ups.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Ashley Lentz — So those all go, we have, I would call it a track. They’re going to get an email right away. If they fill out a card on Sunday, they’re going to get an email on Monday that says, thanks for stopping by New to Hope.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Ashley Lentz — And generally that’s a generic email. It will have their name in it, right? So it seems like it’s personal. And it comes from ah Pat Quaid, one of our pastors here. um He’s been on staff for like 20 plus years. He’s incredible.

Ashley Lentz — And so Pat will say, you know, we’re glad. Thanks for stopping by New to Hope. And generally here’s some information. If people put on the card that they want specific information, he will put that in the email as well.

Rich Birch — Okay, yep.

Ashley Lentz — Then I believe there are a couple other follow-up steps past that. We can send text messages. And so if people have put in their put their phone number down, they’ll get a text message later in the week that simply invites them back to worship.

Ashley Lentz — It just says, hey, hey, Rich, this is Ashley from Hope. I just want to say I’d love to see at worship again this weekend. Reminder service times are…, or something like that. So they get a couple follow ups past that to know like we actually care.

Ashley Lentz — While it’s automated, it also comes from real people.

Rich Birch — Right.

Ashley Lentz — So the system is in place because we’re such a large church.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Ashley Lentz — But if people text back, like I get those text messages back through an app, right?

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Ashley Lentz — Like I’m, I have good healthy boundaries. ah Nobody has, you know, like I’m not texting 7,000 people at a time.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — But we can personally respond to these people and answer questions that they might have.

Rich Birch — Yeah Yeah. I love that. So friends, I want to underline a bunch of things that Ashley said there, because this is best in class practice that we’ve seen in in other contexts. You know, the idea that the, you know, New to Hope is like in the middle of the atrium, it’s super obvious. It’s that orange. You’ve got lots of, you know, volunteers and staff there. The t-shirt I love, the free gift. People, you know, ah too many churches will say like, if you want to get connected, drop by the connection kiosk. That’s like way too, people are not interested in getting connected yet.

Rich Birch — They’re like just ah new. And so, but they will stop by and get a free T-shirt. It’s fantastic. I love that there’s multiple follow-ups. You wouldn’t imagine how many churches drop the ball there. they go They do everything else, but then they only follow up once or they, because they don’t want to bother people. I’m like, we’re talking about trying to get people connected to the kingdom of Christ. We’ve got to follow up with them.

Ashley Lentz — Yes.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s so good. There’s so much, so much good there.

Rich Birch — Okay, pivoting in a different direction. So, there’s a dichotomy, false dichotomy of in the church world around, we want to get people connected to teams or to groups. You know, we, we, and ultimately want to see them connect to both. And I think that’s the best practice. We want to get them there eventually, but it’s hard to point them towards both. What’s your thoughts on that? How do we, if if you were trying to kind of move people in an ideal direction, teams or groups, what’s that look like? What’s your experience been like when you’re trying to get people connected?

Ashley Lentz — Yep. I would tell you, we ask often around here, what does it look like for someone to be engaged? What is an engaged church member? Like, how do you define that?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Ashley Lentz — And I’m not going to quote the research because I can’t remember if it was Barna or Gallup, but it was one of the two. A few years ago released that a highly engaged church person, the research is that they attend church once a month. That’s a highly engaged church person…

Rich Birch — It’s true. It’s true.

Ashley Lentz — …in our society. And so to to engage them, like the task of discipleship is so interesting because to say like, if I’m highly engaged, that means I’m coming to church once a month. To ask them to do anything beyond that means you’re like a super duper, highly, highly, highly engaged person, right?

Rich Birch — Right. True.

Ashley Lentz — So one of, I call this maybe ah another secret sauce, secret weapon, is I love to invite people into service opportunities as their kind of pathway to getting more connected. What people undermine in service opportunities, and by service opportunity, volunteer opportunity, I mean like our hospitality team or our communion serving team or the kitchen team.

Ashley Lentz — We have a cafe where 100% of the proceeds go to missions. Somebody’s got to make that coffee, right? Like I invite them into these teams because I know that they will already be here for some of some of that time, right? Like if you’re coming to worship and I can get you on a team that greets before worship, I’m capitalizing on you’re already coming to worship.

Ashley Lentz — But number two, you are going to be in community.

Rich Birch — So true.

Ashley Lentz — You will start to have great conversations with these people in community. You’ll start to get to know faces, right? Again, large place will start to seem smaller. Discipleship will happen in the context of volunteer teams without me ever teaching a class. It will just happen naturally.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Ashley Lentz — And so I think we forget that that’s a really great place to get people plugged in.

Rich Birch — It’s so true.

Ashley Lentz — And then is it is an on-ramp to anybody who shows up in the in this space and says, I just want to meet people. I want to get connected.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.

Ashley Lentz — They might be in a season where they want a class, but I’m a young mom, right? Like I got two little kids. It’s hard for me to get here on a weeknight for six or eight weeks to do a class. A really good invitation might be, well, if you want to get connected, get to know people, you love greeting. Like you love talking to people. Why don’t you be on our greeting team? You’re already coming to service. Your whole family can do it.

Ashley Lentz — And discipleship will happen in that context in such a beautiful way…

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.

Ashley Lentz — …that that I love introducing people to volunteer opportunities.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I would say that for sure we’ve seen that as a trend in lots of prevailing churches like yours. You know, I would say particularly post-COVID, I think there has been a stronger emphasis or emphasis, depending on how you say it, to, you know, move people towards serving opportunities as like, a you didn’t say it this way. I’m saying it, but like as a primary path. Or like a let’s let’s take a first step there ah because of all the stuff you talked about. You know, we can get people on a schedule. We can yeah you know, there’s there’s something about the kind of envisioning we do in teams where we’re like pouring in like, hey, this is what Hope’s about. This is what Hope’s about that doesn’t necessarily happen in in in groups. So yeah, that’s that’s great.

Rich Birch — Curveball question. We didn’t talk about ahead of time. Hopefully you can take a curveball, Ashley. I’m sure you can. You’re an incredibly smart person. What are the metrics that you think about in this area? Like, are there numbers that you reflect on that you like come back to you time and again that somebody asks you about regularly? What what would be some of those metrics that you think about?

Ashley Lentz — What a good curveball question. Yes. Here’s what is fascinating to me, as somebody who does discipleship and gets people connected. I know, and this is specific to our context because these are numbers that I have crunched.

Rich Birch — Yep, yep.

Ashley Lentz — We can have really good intentions with groups and classes, but I will tell you that from sign up to show up, right? So if you’re promoting a class, amount of people who sign up versus the amount of people who show up just automatically will drop 20%. Because people have really good intentions.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.

Ashley Lentz — But when it comes to coming to class, you’re going to lose about 20%.

Rich Birch — Yeah. It sounded so good at church on Sunday to sign up for that class, but I did not actually come in. Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — Yes, so that being said, the people who show up to your class, you’re already looking at 80% of people who are gonna come. But we’ll we’ll call that 100% of people who are showing up.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — From week one to week three or four, you will drop 40% by week four.

Rich Birch — Oh, wow.

Ashley Lentz — I see this consistency, consistently across discipleship at Hope and and the groups that we do.

Ashley Lentz — And so we have also tried to build Alpha. I would tell you is probably the only exception. Alpha, we do Alpha in nine weeks here at Hope. But everything else we have tried to build in three or four week chunks because we just know that by week four, you’re gonna lose half your class or so about about anyway, right?

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s a good insight.

Ashley Lentz — So we have great intentions with six or eight week classes. And I love to teach the Bible in six or eight weeks. I also know that for people’s schedules, they see a six or eight week class and that’s daunting. So to do things in three or four week chunks is really, really helpful. And those are some of the metrics that I keep in the back of my mind.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. And you could see that, right? It’s like better to have two three-week classes than one six-week class. You know, you kind of re-up like this is part one, part two, how do we move people along? You know, that’s, you know, that’s fantastic.

Rich Birch — Well, let’s say you’re at a conference and someone is, you know, pulls you aside and they’re like, Ashley, oh, you’re the connections person from Hope – you guys do such a great job. What’s the one thing that you think I should do to make it easier? I’m sure you give out like common advice to somebody, to churches, church leaders around like, Hey, here’s the thing you could do to make it easier for people to get plugged in.

Ashley Lentz — I would tell them clarity is kindness.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Ashley Lentz — Be clear about what you’re asking people to do or or where you want them to get plugged in.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Ashley Lentz — Yep. If that’s a conversation, be clear that like step one is a conversation. If it’s Alpha, be clear that Alpha is like the thing you want people to do. Clarity is kindness. Make sure your website is clear. We’re not perfect at any of these things by any means, but…

Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — …the more clear we can be about where we want people to go, what we want them to do, what we know works. That’s a really loving thing to do for people is just be clear.

Rich Birch — It’s so true. And, and I know that’s like an, that’s like a journey, not a destination. Like we’re clarity is something we keep working on. We have to keep refining, keep making it easier. I think even in this, that’s part of why I was double clicking on theNew to Hope kind of process. Cause I’ve, in other contexts I’ve talked about that, that, that piece of that. I think every six months you got to look at it again. Okay. What can we do to make this easier?

Ashley Lentz — Yes.

Rich Birch — How do we make it easier for people to connect? Can you think of some areas where you’ve had to gain more clarity? Where like we thought it was clear but then, no, it wasn’t clear – we had to change it and and make it a little more clear.

Ashley Lentz — For sure, I will tell you, we kind of touched on this at the very beginning. We offer so many things as far as adult discipleship goes here at Hope, specifically even just our West Des Moines campus, ah that it’s kind of unclear where to even start.

Ashley Lentz — So one of the things that we have done in the last year is really kind of cleaned up what our fall and winter adult discipleship schedule looks like. So that when people say, okay, I’ve already done Alpha and maybe I already took that class, that we kind of have a very clear trajectory for them depending on where they find themselves in their season of faith, season of life.

Ashley Lentz — So we, Foundations is a good example. That will happen each semester. It’s kind of the foundational course. Here’s where you start. Then it’s Alpha. Then we then there are Bible classes and prayer classes, if that’s what you’re looking for next. Small groups. We always have a small group kind of class to help launch small groups.

Ashley Lentz — But we cleaned up a lot of what I would call white noise around that. So people say, like, what do I do? As a team, we clearly know: this, that, and the next thing, if you’re looking for a prescriptive track. Otherwise, iI got a million women’s groups meeting. There’s a million men’s groups meeting. I can point you in that direction too.

Rich Birch — Right.

Ashley Lentz — But we’ve cleaned up a lot of that white noise to say, generally, this is what we’re offering. It’s going to continue to happen in kind of a cycle, a semester cycle. And so it just makes sense.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I know so many, so many models, you know, churches, every seems like every five years, it somebody comes out with some new approach to cleanliness and clarity.

Rich Birch — And people are like, Oh, this is like the, you know, it’s Highlands’, you know, step one, step two, or, you know, 101, 201, 301. Or it’s like, you know, Saddleback’s run the bases. Or, you know, but the, the foundation of all of that is we’ve got to be super clear. We’ve got to make it as clean as possible. I feel like we cleaned up our schedule is like Des Moines nice for like, we cut a bunch of stuff or like, what did we do? Like that cleaned up. What does that mean? Like you, you are still doing everything, but we’re focusing people’s attention on just a few things? Is that what that means?

Ashley Lentz — Yes, we did get rid of some things and it’s not because they weren’t good.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Right.

Ashley Lentz — We actually moved some of them online. We said people can take this online at their own pace. It will always exist. It’s good stuff.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — But let’s be really clear about what we want people to jump into in the fall…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Ashley Lentz — …and in the winter and in the spring. And so we just kind of moved some of those things.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ashley Lentz — And then, yes, communicated it more clearly. A lot of our stuff happens on Tuesday nights. And so we have told our congregation, come on Tuesday nights. Men’s thing, women’s thing, general classes, dinner, stuff for your kids, right? Like we’ve also tried to make it super accessible. So it’s like, if you don’t know where to start, just show up on a Tuesday night and we’ll help you kind of a thing.

Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s so good. Well, this has been an incredible conversation, Ashley. I feel like I’ve got a page of notes here that is super helpful for me. There’s lots of other stuff I’d love to talk about, but I know you got other things to get to. So we’re going let you go. Just as we wrap up, any final word you’d have to say for us or anything you’d like to say just as we close today’s episode?

Ashley Lentz — I would just encourage listeners, like what you’re doing is great and continue ask to ask yourself and the people that you’re around, like what are they looking forward to? So many times we try to do things, like I live in church world, right? Like this is my frame of reference. It’s really when I start listening to the needs of other people that we really start gaining some traction, right?

Ashley Lentz — So I would just encourage them, like what you’re doing is great. Keep going…

Rich Birch — So good.

Ashley Lentz — …and ask your congregation what what they need and and what they want. And then just clarify that for them.

Rich Birch — So good. Well, thanks so much. If people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?

Ashley Lentz — Yes, LutheranChurchOfHope.org is our like landing page website.

Rich Birch — Perfect.

Ashley Lentz — From there, you can find our West Des Moines campus. You can find all of our other campuses. You can find out what you need to know at LutheranChurchOfHope.org. And I’ll be on our staff page and happy to connect with anybody further. My email, I think will be in the notes, but Ashley.Lentz L-E-N-T-Z at HopeWDM.org.

Rich Birch — Perfect. Thanks so much, Ashley. Appreciate you being here today.

Ashley Lentz — Thanks, Rich!

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Dave Miller. With a background in worship and creative arts ministry across Las Vegas, Kentucky, and Michigan, Dave now leads Leadership Pathway, an organization focused on helping the next generation of church leaders take their healthiest first steps into ministry through two-year residency programs, training, coaching, and consulting.

How can your church build a sustainable pipeline of future leaders? Tune in as Dave unpacks the critical role churches play in mentoring Gen Z and why the old models of leadership development just aren’t working anymore.

Learn more and pick up Dave’s book at www.leadershippathway.org.

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, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, today, I really do want you to lean in. We have got a return guest, which you know, we don’t do that often, and a friend. This is like a legit friend, somebody that I know from the real world who has got something for you today that I want you to take action on.

Rich Birch — We’ve got my friend, Dave Miller, who served as a Worship and Creative Arts Pastor in churches in Las Vegas, Central Kentucky, and Western Michigan, and also has spent a bunch of years helping churches on a variety of topics from strategy to technology and facility design.

Rich Birch — However, the thing he is the most passionate about is helping young leaders take their first, healthiest steps into ministry. He leads an organization called Leadership Pathway. They offer a two-year residency program for future church leaders, as well as training, coaching, and consulting services. Plus, he’s a great guy. Dave, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Dave Miller — It’s great to be here, Rich. Thanks for the opportunity.

Rich Birch — It’s so fun to have you back. Kind of fill in the picture there. You’re a return guest, so my mom, she listens to every episode, so she can skip ahead. But for folks that don’t, kind of fill in the picture a little bit.

Dave Miller — Well, my mom, she still asks me on occasion, do you have a job? What do you do?

Rich Birch — What do you do?

Dave Miller — Yeah, she has no idea.

Rich Birch — I love it, yes, yes.

Dave Miller — Fill in the picture. So the picture is, yeah, in ministry, thought I would be in ministry forever. Came, I don’t have one of those great testimonies about going to jail and coming back from the edge. I grew up in an amazing church, all that legacy stuff of my parents, what they handed me. An amazing youth group, an amazing high school experience, into college, and maybe I was an early adopter because upon graduation, I had no idea what I wanted to really do, but I knew I wanted to do something for God.

Dave Miller — And the local church was really important. I don’t think I would have even said that when I was 22, but looking back, I’m like, I never really thought about the family business or doing something else with my life. And I thought I would do it forever. And then I was found myself at a church that was closing. And yeah, which is a, we won’t go down that exit, but I was like, what happened? And someone invited me to go on a consulting trip, which I didn’t even know in those days.

Rich Birch — Yeah, what is that?

Dave Miller — What is it? And he said, we’ll figure it out, which was a foretelling of what was going to happen over the next few years. And I literally in those days, I’m like, okay, I think this will pay the bills for six months till I figure out where I’m gonna go.

Rich Birch — Right, what’s next?

Dave Miller — And that was 20 years ago now.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s crazy.

Dave Miller — So I mean, that is crazy to say 20 years. So anyway, that’s kind of the…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.

Dave Miller — …that’s kind of the high level story.

Rich Birch — The thing, there’s lots I love about you and love about Kristen, your wife, and you guys do lots of amazing things. But one of the things I love is you’re consistently passionate about not even next generation. It’s like, I don’t even sure what the best way to say that. It’s like this gen, people that are leading today…

Dave Miller — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …that has been a consistent drumbeat for you. And I realized, so I was born in 1974, the bottom of the bust. The lowest, I am classic Gen X. I literally at that lowest, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century, the pill was just kicking in well, wide adoption, do not have a lot of people in my cohort. And so I’ve spent a lot of my career either interacting with boomers and helping them do their thing. But now I realized, I clicked over one of those ages with a zero on it. And I realized I’m increasingly—a mutual friend of ours, Carey Nieuwhof, we joked about this—I’m like, increasingly, we’re the old guy in the room. Like increasingly look around and I’m like, oh, I’m now that guy, that’s my role. I’d love to kind of dive in on Gen Z specifically today.

Dave Miller — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Cause you are a thought leader. You’ve got real things to say. Plus you have actual experience working with dozens of leading an organization that works with dozens of Gen Z leaders. What are we getting wrong when it comes to leading Gen Z folks? What is the church, you know, you take the average church in America, we’re not doing this right. What’s the thing that we’re not doing right on that front?

Dave Miller — Well, first of all, a big change for me in the last eight, we started eight years ago. We’ll be eight years old this summer.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Dave Miller — And a big change for me is the realization that there’s a lot of churches doing well. And by a lot, I mean, I’m gonna say hundreds. You know, I take a look at some associations that are going around around the country. I look at groups that help interns and residents raise money, see how many postings they have. And you just kind of total it all up and then add 50% to try to be positive. There are hundreds of churches doing well.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.

Dave Miller — Eight years ago, in fact, I was digging out some old documents that we’ve done to pass to give to someone. And I would have said eight years, we’re only gonna work with the best and the biggest and the most cutting edge. And you know, there are churches of 150 that are some of our favorite people…

Dave Miller — So there are great churches. It kind of boils down to that senior pastor. Are they a developer? Do they naturally, not naturally, I don’t use that word. Are they a developer? Have they grown in such a way that they see as part of their mission of doing this?

Dave Miller — And so whether they’re a church of 60,000, 40,000 or 100, there are churches doing well. To answer your question, fundamentally, what are we getting wrong? I liken it to Mike Shealy in Indianapolis said in a masterclass that we do, a training. He said, I liken this—he’s a youth pastor, veteran youth pastor—this generation is like an unreached people group. We don’t conquer unreached people groups, like we used to.

Rich Birch — Right, yes.

Dave Miller — The stories of the way Christians has done this, right? Go in, make them sit in rows like Southern Baptists in Dallas in the jungle and teach them Sunday school curriculum.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — No, no. We go in and we sit with them. We learn their customs. We learn their language.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Dave Miller — We understand, we give them dignity, by the way. We give them little wins. We let them serve us as we’re serving them, right? And you can experience pieces of this. I’m not a missions expert, but I’ve experienced pieces of this on old missions trips to Haiti, where all the white people were doing the work and all the people that we should have hired standing around the edge.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — Just totally taking their dignity from them. We don’t do that anymore. No, we know better than that.

Dave Miller — If you can sit with this generation and learn their customs, learn their language, seek to understand, would be a boomer way of saying that. Then you’re gonna have a shot. If the goal of an internship or residency is just to get the kids working. Let’s get them on our page. Like we would have done, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yes, yep.

Dave Miller — I’m just a couple of years ahead of you. There was this assumption. You went to college, no matter who was paying for it. You got that degree, you showed up. And then I don’t think we, you and I might’ve said this, but we probably did not like our boss, but we were just waiting for them to move on so we can take their job. This generation does not think like that.

Dave Miller — And Dr. Tim Elmore, Gen Z Unfiltered, is like a book that has meant so much to us. He’s a great friend. And he talks about just the fundamental differences of the world they’re coming from and how they view their bosses, how they view their coworkers.

Dave Miller — And it’s not just church.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — So I think sometimes church people, we all think it’s our fault or it’s not. It’s not. Just hop online and start reading up in Forbes and reading up in journals and things and business. It’s not going well out there. And it’s not going well for the 35-year-old middle managers.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — That’s who’s not doing well. And in the church, that’s who’s struggling. My peers are the senior pastors who are beginning to think about legacy.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Dave Miller — You said you’re the oldest guy in the room now. Even though they’ve changed their glasses and they have cool shoes. And the bald ones, the bald ones are the coolest because you can’t, is he 35 or 60? We can’t tell. And maybe a little eye work done, but let’s not get into that.

Dave Miller — The oldest guys in the room, they understand legacy. They understand. They’re beginning to think things like you and I think. Like if I sit still, who were the eight people from age 22 to 25 that just did, they meant everything to me. I still talk to a couple of them.

Rich Birch — Right, right, right.

Dave Miller — They’re beginning to think about legacy. They’re slowing down, getting their eyes on the horizon and all this. The 33 to 40-year-old middle managers. And in church world, these are the next gen directors and the kids’ directors and pastors and worship leaders.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes, yes.

Dave Miller — They are running hard. They are running fast. And now enter something new to their world, which is: you must slow down. You must sit down. You must listen and talk. And these people are amazing people who for 15 or 20 years have run at a pace. And then people like us are saying, you gotta sit down. And they’re like, I don’t have time to sit down and talk.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — That’s the long answer to what are we not doing well? It’s a systemic small business, right? Small business. And even large churches are small businesses.

Rich Birch — Yes, that’s true.

Dave Miller — I mean, a church of 5,000 with 50 employees, that’s a small business. They do not have systems and processes. They do not think like this. They think get the job, hit the ground running. If you survive for three years, we’ll advance you or something. And that’s just not gonna work. It’s not working, period. It’s not working anymore. And it hasn’t worked for a long, and we’re just awakening to it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — That’s what we’re getting wrong. And so this book that’s coming, this book that’s coming, Who’s the Next You? Like literally answering that question. And I was with an executive pastor this week. Like, hey, if your kid’s pastor walked in and just quit, not in a mean way, but God called her to go do something amazing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — Or her spouse was transferred. A lot of this is like very positive reasons. What would you do?

Rich Birch — Yep, yes.

Dave Miller — And he’s like, well, I’d hire one of the firms and we’d probably take a year.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Dave Miller — Like all of my friends’ churches have taken a year and these job postings, and then we would settle.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I was gonna say that because that’s the real trend there. It’s not just that it takes time. Like we go into all these hiring things and we have this like ideal scenario. We’re gonna find this incredible person. And we go an entire year. And then really what we do is negotiate with ourselves at the end. And we’re like, well, this person from this other church.

Dave Miller — These are some of my best friends in some of these groups, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.

Dave Miller — In the time of that work. And how many times the first handful of candidates pass on, oh, there’s gotta be something better. Nine months later, I’m literally…

Rich Birch — You’re back at the same conversation.

Dave Miller — And I would call him a guy that worked for us for a while. He’d call it dumpster diving. You go dumpster diving and you’re like, how about this one? We tossed this one away. It’s so great to think about people that way.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — But now we’re back. And actually that was the best person we’ve looked at. Let’s call them back and see if they’re still available. Of course, typically they weren’t, they’d moved on.

Dave Miller — So I would just say this thing of going, it’s just sort of a principle, isn’t it? Like you have to go a little slower so you can go faster and farther. And this shows up big time on this topic. It shows up in every area of our life, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — People, what is it? Exponential, we’re gonna develop leaders like Jesus did and like Paul did. I’m like, well, they walked everywhere, man. I’m like, hey, Rich, let’s go hold a revival eight miles down the road. We’d get there at three o’clock. We started walking. You would not need a therapist. You would not need a coach. You would not need marital help. We would work it all out.

Rich Birch — Yes, lots of time to talk.

Dave Miller — So like to compare ourselves to that or Paul on these boats that took weeks to get where he was going. How many conversations could you have?

Dave Miller — We would be amazing leadership developers if we did not have any AI. Sorry, Kenny Jahng. If we had no modern tools, we would be amazing because we would be talking.

Rich Birch — Right, we’d slow down.

Dave Miller — And one thing we’ve discovered, when a residence, there’s always a quit moment or a get fired moment in the first six months. And when we start digging, we start picking at that as coaches. We run towards the smoke is what Kristen, you know her coaching.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Dave Miller — Run towards the smoke. Is it a barbecue or is the house on fire? We gotta run over there and figure it out, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Dave Miller — And like, well, but tell us about your one-on-ones. How have they been the last month? And you start digging in. They’ve not been in the physical presence of the resident or their down-line hire. Because of vacations and conferences and running fast and it’s summer. So you’re just like, okay. So to develop someone is not FaceTiming from the back of an Uber between airports or something.

Rich Birch — Yes, or sending them a book and saying, you know, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Miller — And I think of my own trends. I think of me, age 25 to 33, thinking I was developing leaders, right? Developing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — And it’s just a different, it just doesn’t work anymore. My intern, my intern, when I…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — She knew she had to sit there.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — She had no options.

Rich Birch — She was compliant.

Dave Miller — This was probably, she thought this was as good as it was ever gonna get. And I just think we’re in a, we’ve got these amazing, highly leveraged, highly talented, smart, you know, all of these adjectives. We’re trying to flip the script on all of this stuff. Flip the script.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Dave Miller — Changing the narrative on who this generation. They don’t, the biggest option is not doing it. It’s not becoming an astronaut or a doctor. The biggest option is they’ll just fall back on their 40,000 Instagram followers and monetize that and do what all of their friends, all of their, go make three times as much money.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — Through their 20s.

Rich Birch — And have more control and all that.

Dave Miller — Have more control and their weekend’s off and they can do what they want. Anyway.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s interesting. So my daughter, she’s been, you know, we’ve worked in and been led in, you know, great churches, large churches, and I would say healthy, thriving environments. And she’s working for our city, which is, you know, is like exponentially larger organization, our city, than the largest churches we’ve worked for.

Rich Birch — And I’ve worked for, you know, whatever, 3-, 4-, 5,000 person churches. And it’s interesting watching her, the thing that she’s loving is this development piece. It’s the, you know, when she talks about it, she talks about that her department head, who is two tiers up, coming down, sitting at the end of her desk, having a conversation at the end of the week, reviewing, hey, what, how did this go? How did that go? Here’s some stuff I would have done different if I was you.

Rich Birch — You know, it’s that advocating for. Let me test this hypothesis on you. I wonder if, because in the church world, we’re in the content business, like we make content. So, and particularly our senior leaders, they think of the world through content. They think of the world through 35-minute, you know, talks.

Rich Birch — And so we think of, when we think of leadership development, we immediately go to 35 minute talks. What are the, I just need to put together a great talk and we’ll get in front of people. But that’s actually, my experience is not, that’s not what you’re saying. You’re not saying let’s talk at them.

Dave Miller — No.

Rich Birch — It’s something deeper than that. Unpack that for me.

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. 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 market sense, I’m gonna 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…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Dave Miller — …plus Christmas Eve and whatever. And I would just say, we call that training.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Dave Miller — 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?

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Dave Miller — It is staff. When I say, do y’all do leadership development? Yeah. Tell me about that. 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 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.

Rich Birch — Yep.

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…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — …which kind of mirrors what’s going on on college campuses, if you think about it. We don’t need to just disciple them and get it. We got to go with them.

Dave Miller — 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. And then we have to provide best practices. 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 doesn’t get, oh, what doesn’t she get? He just doesn’t understand.

Dave Miller — 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. 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 changed the manager. We don’t talk about number 78 and 14.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — When the team’s doing amazing, it’s about the player.

Rich Birch — Wow, wow.

Dave Miller — He’s killing it. She’s killing it. He’s killing it. When the team is losing, we have to own it similarly. 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 here giving you even a theological construct because 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 in on.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — And then finally, developmental conversations. This is not delivered only through training, to your point.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — Rich, if content was the key, I don’t have to finish the con…

Rich Birch — We’d be fine, we’d be fine.

Dave Miller — From MDivs at the finest seminaries in the world…

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Dave Miller — …not just the country, but the world, all the way down to hack your way to being smart for free online, right? Content is amazing. It’s what a world, what a world.

Rich Birch — Well, I know that as a coach in the coaching that I do with churches, that the problem isn’t the training. The problem isn’t me coming up with great ideas. In fact, one of the things I’ve said with the clients I work with this year, cause I had my own coach ask me that, they said, are you more interested in your client’s results or them liking you? Which are you more interested in? And I was like, oh no.

Rich Birch — And my coach was like, you’ve got to be way more interested in their results. You’ve got to lean in and I can see this. I can out content my clients. I can out content the people I work with. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily make the changes that we’re talking about. I’ve got to actually slow down, ask the question, see them take a step. They won’t, if they take the step, great.

Rich Birch — If they don’t take the step, then I got to loop back around and say, hey, why did that? What happened there? Why didn’t you do that? What did you do that? Man, that’s convicting.

Rich Birch — So the thing I love, I had the honor of, assuming you didn’t delete it from your process. I had the honor of writing the forward for this book, which I just want to say thank you for letting me do that because I’m super passionate about this. I love the subtitle: A Call for 1000 More Churches to Invest in Gen Z Through Residency. That is a giant thing to put on the front of your book. Tell me about that.

Dave Miller — Well, so when I first, we used to talk about the 3% of churches. So it depends on who you read and which piece of content you click on. But how many churches are there? 3% of them are at, we would say advancing, right? Not just getting bigger, but advancing. And of all sizes, by the way. This church of 150 is definitely the one I’m thinking of in Atlanta. It’s definitely advancing. It definitely is. There are more people who know Jesus this year. There are these marks that we all would talk about. So 10,000 churches, 10,000 churches. So can we affect 10% of those churches? Can we affect a thousand churches?

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

Dave Miller — The other reason it’s a thousand is I went to Bible college and I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. So I can’t really do complex math. So let’s keep it simple. But that would be an amazing thing. Now I will tell you, we’re turning eight. We’re turning eight and it’s taken us, we’ve worked with 150 at this point. So it’s 80 years.

Rich Birch — Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop this. You know what I’m gonna say. Did you hear yourself, Dave? Dave’s like, well, gee, I make fun of Dave all the time. I’m just a guy from Eastern Kentucky. I don’t really know. Gee shucks, we’ve only worked with 150 churches. We’ve only had however many residents. How many residents have you worked with?

Dave Miller — It’s 160 something at this point.

Rich Birch — Yeah, which is amazing. I put that up against anybody’s residency. Who out there has done this as much as you guys? You are the experts on this thing. And so I can’t just let that float by. I can’t let that float by.

Dave Miller — Thank you for that. Maybe your editor’s like, should I cut this right now? I would also then on the others, I would be like Kristen, who she’s now got, she’s onboarding coaches and handing work off, right? But she does about 40 a month. She’s been doing about 40 a month coaching sessions…

Rich Birch — Wow.

…which anyone who’s coached knows that when the Zoom turns off, there’s the text tomorrow and the email. So it’s not just 40 hours, right? So 40 of these things a month, which is if you’re at a great church with a couple of residents, that’s about what you’ll do in a year.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — So every month. So if you just think about it, my best AI is actually Kristen when I wanna know something because she’s just sitting there just curating all of this.

Rich Birch — Yes, in the conversations. Yeah.

Dave Miller — In the conversations. So, yeah, I would say she’s the expert. She really is the expert. And it’s not, it is forged through, you know, hitting potholes and then helping the next one not. If like a lot of, if churches would just not make the same mistakes that we’ve made. There was a resident who finished, he’s the only one. He finished a two-year residency and did not get hired. Said he wanted the job, I don’t know.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — And that was the last one that I coached. That was like number nine out of 167.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — He’s the one. And so if we would just not make the same mistakes as just avoid, just avoid the stupid tax. She says that over and over. Paige on our team says one size fits one. There’s a lot in the book about recruiting.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Dave Miller — There’s a lot in the book about predicting success, which is still the hardest thing. She does all the candidate stuff. One size fits one. So when a church calls and says, hey, have you ever seen the senior pastor’s son be a good resident? Yes. The answer will always, we’ve seen most scenarios at this point.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — But if you, if they ask, have you ever seen the senior pastor’s son be a complete disaster as a, yes, totally. Have you seen moving cross country? Gabby, one of our board members, she’s now been full-time through four years at her church. She moved cross country. Everything she owned, the trunk of her car. And I’m just like, this is crazy. She’s going from Virginia to Denver. And that same month we moved someone from Denver to Virginia.

Dave Miller — I’m like, this is so dumb. This is as bad as the headhunter.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Dave Miller — And she made it. She made it. She killed it. In the middle of COVID, all of this headwind. And she just, her origin story of growing up the way, she just was, she’ll be speaking at a masterclass with us in Denver next week. Success story.

Dave Miller — Have we ever seen someone move across the country and be lonely and completely implode? Yes. One size fits one, every time.

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.

Dave Miller — And so just at this point, as you know, in my work history, this is the first time I can say, yeah, I’ve been at this for eight years. The same job for eight years. I’m a big quitter, like a lot of good consultants. I’m just a good quitter. And so we’re living out of the abundance of that at this point, I would say.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — Will it grow and will it affect a thousand churches? I hope so. Man, I pray that the Lord puts enough opportunities in front of us and we stay after it. But we’re living the benefit of having now worked, we had our 1,000th applicant in December.

Rich Birch — Wow, that’s great.

Dave Miller — Amazing amount of talking and hearing people’s stories and digging into why their Enneagram plus their disc minus their whatever equals that. The predictors of these things. We’re living the abundance of that. And a lot of that’s in this book. We took, this book is, someone challenged us right when we, well, actually before we started. You gotta have a book. I’m so glad we didn’t write some dumb book because it would have said completely different things.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — Gen Z, don’t forget, is turning 28 this year.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — So this, I think four or five years, it has to change to Alpha if we’re gonna do this.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.

Dave Miller — So, we’re just living out of the abundance of that. We took our masterclass. That’s what I was gonna say. We do these two day trainings, deep dive all day. I don’t know how people sit there and do it, but they do. We took the nine sessions of that. We put it in a book, added a few things.

Dave Miller — So it really starts with what’s a resident? Why should we do this? Takes you all the way into the deep weeds of legal things, HR concerns, how to onboard and how to interview and how this is a little different than interviewing full-time staff. First 90 days, first day, first 90 days, the one year thing, the six month check in. It’s just a, from the beginning to the end, how do you launch them full-time in the ministry?

Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.

Dave Miller — So that’s what this book is. So, people will say, who should come to a masterclass? Well, if you’re kicking the tires, thinking about interns, you should definitely come. This is gonna be amazing. Just like the book, I would say. Or if you, we’ve had people who’ve been at, they’re a thought leader. They truly are a thought leader and have been doing it at a local church for a decade.

Rich Birch — Right.

Dave Miller — And they leave this thing going, this has been so great. How do I get my other staff leaders through this material though? That’s what this book is. So, front end.

Rich Birch — I would imagine, again, you’re the expert on this, not me, but seeing this kind of operate in a number of churches, it’s like, I would think you need like the subject matter expert internally. You need the person that’s gonna be the residency kind of flag bearer. Hey, we’re gonna run this thing.

Rich Birch — But then I also need everybody else to be on the same page. To be like, no, these people aren’t just free labor. No, these people aren’t. And this would be a great tool to kind of get everybody up to speed, to kind of give an operating understanding of what we’re trying to do.

Dave Miller — Totally totally. I mean, a residency director, once they get more than two or three residents rolling, they are dependent on half a dozen staff on their team to own this the way they own it. And right there, it break. It’s kind of like campuses. I forget, you’re the multi-siting one. What number does the campus thing break and you gotta reinvent it?

Rich Birch — Yeah, at like three or four.

Dave Miller — There’s a point at which it works. Like one-on-one and then the youth pastor at that campus or the worship leader or the production or guest server, I want one of those. At some point, we then hire a residency director who’s now over the residency. They spend most of their time chasing staff around.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Dave Miller — It’s kind of like an in-house version of us. We’re chasing them around, getting them to sit down, tell us what’s going on, trying to coach and handing this book to someone on the team, skim this. In fact, just skim chapters three, seven, and let’s talk. That could be an in-house way of helping bring them up to speed. Each chapter has a little case study, a little victory story of a resident that went through something and almost quit or almost got fired.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Miller — And now they’re still on the team. Or they got hired up the street or back in their hometown or whatever. So I think, I am hoping that the book is 30% inspiration, 70% instruction. There’s some tools in it, tons of QR codes to resources.

Dave Miller — It’s a lot like that masterclass. It literally, the first masterclass we did 18 months ago now and man, it was like our kitchen table was the war room for trying to like, all right, what are we gonna say?

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Dave Miller — It was so much work. And now we’ve done nine or 10 of them. We just roll into town and it works, right? I think this book was similar. Like, okay, let’s take that content. How do we put this in a couple of hundred pages that people will actually wanna read, honestly. Hopefully people wanna read it.

Dave Miller — Yes.

Dave Miller — I guess we’ll see, but.

Rich Birch — No, they will, for sure.

Dave Miller — Your mom will. Maybe your mom will get it.

Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Yeah, so we wanna, we can pick these up. Where can we pick these up? We wanna go to your website, leadershippathway.org. I’m assuming we can kind of find all the links there. Is there anywhere else we wanna send people?

Dave Miller — Definitely go to Amazon. If you go to our website, there’s a big thing across the top of every page in obnoxious color that you can definitely find the book. That or Amazon and just search: Who’s the Next You? I think it’s the only book with that title, which is helpful.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that is interesting. As an author, that’s actually hard to do.

Dave Miller — I have a good friend who just released a book, his story. And when you search it on Amazon, be careful what you click on, because. We got none of those problems. So it’s out there.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, friends, I would strongly encourage, you’re like, I am biased. This is not like, oh, I’m the sober second voice. I don’t really care. I do on this one. I really think you should pick up Dave and Kristen’s book. Dave’s okay. Kristen’s even better. You’re gonna love this. It’s Who’s the Next You? A Call for 1000 More Churches to Invest in Gen Z Through Residency.

Rich Birch — It’s a fantastic resource. I think it’ll be super helpful. Even if you’re just on the fringes of thinking about residency, the reality of it is, I think for so many of us, particularly I’m thinking about executive leaders, executive pastors that are listening in. You get to any size and you are constantly dogged by your staff saying, I need to hire, I need to hire, I need to hire. And the reality of it is, man, what if we got up on top of that and said, what if we built a system for building young leaders that sure is not gonna deliver somebody today, but two years from now, it’s gonna deliver some people. Two years after that, two years after that, two years after that, we’re just gonna keep finding and cultivating next gen leaders. I really do think that this could be super helpful for you.

Rich Birch — Well, Dave, appreciate you. Where do we wanna send people online to track with you? Any other kind of final words as we wrap up today’s episode?

Dave Miller — If they just go to the website, leadershippathway.org, they’ll find all the stuff there would be the best.

Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Dave. Cheering for you.

Dave Miller — You’re such an encouragement. It’s like, if we could just put all of that in a battery, it’d probably be the last battery we would have to buy. And it was, you know what we would call it? We’d call it the, “hey friends!”, battery.

Rich Birch — That is true. The power of the world. You’re not the only person that’s made fun of me for saying, hey friends. I really mean it.

Dave Miller — I know, you do actually mean it. I’m like, have you seen Rich do, that’s actually if you meet him in the hall or you sit down with him and have lunch, he actually is like that.

Rich Birch — That’s funny. All right, well, thanks so much, Dave. Appreciate you.

Dave Miller — Bye-bye. Take care.

In this special rushed episode of the unSeminary Podcast, Rich unpacks the biggest nonfiction book launch in history: Alex Hormozi’s $100M Book Launch. Alex didn’t rely on TikTok trends, billboards, or mass media. Instead, he orchestrated a carefully choreographed campaign that leaned heavily on email — sometimes sending seven to nine emails in a single day!

So what can your church learn from this? I pull out three big lessons that every church leader should pay attention to:

I hope this episode helps translate these lessons into practical steps for your church, so you can strengthen your communication, deepen your invite culture, and move more people toward Jesus.

If you’re ready to sharpen one of the most important five minutes in your weekend service, don’t miss the Hosting Coaching Clinic … a six-week training designed to dramatically improve your service hosting. Each week includes actionable video lessons, best-in-class hosting examples, and tools to eliminate awkward moments, refine your “ask,” and boost engagement.

Use the code ALEX at checkout to get 50% off. This is the perfect next step to put these communication lessons into action. Click here to enroll today

IMAGE NOTE: No, I haven’t met Alex. The banner image is AI-generated and intended to serve as a pattern interrupt, following Hormozi’s style.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Taylor Scott-Reimer, a dynamic speaker, advocate, and author of She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves.

Is your church truly inviting the full participation of women? Are female leaders empowered to speak, shape, and serve—or are they silently sidelined? Tune in as Taylor shares a practical framework to help churches reframe the narrative, restore the practice, and reclaim the voice of women—so that the whole body of Christ can flourish.

Grab a copy of Taylor’s book, She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves, on Amazon. Learn more about Taylor at taylorscottreimer.carrd.co and find her 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!

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Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Listen, you’re gonna wanna lean in on today’s conversation. I know that this is an issue in your church. It’s kind of thing that that you really should be wrestling with, thinking about. It’s not the kind of thing that should be on the back burner.

Rich Birch — It’s the kind of conversation that you should be having with your staff team, you should be thinking about with, various leaders in your church. It’s going to be a super helpful and challenging and encouraging conversation. Excited to have Taylor Scott-Reimer with us. She’s a writer, speaker, and passionate advocate for building a church where women’s voices are not just welcomed, but they’re needed.

Rich Birch — She’s written a recent book that I want you to pick up for your team called She Believed: recovering the fierce face of fierce not face fierce faith of women of scripture and ourselves. Through this book she’s invites you, our readers, to rediscover the fierce forgotten women of scripture the prophets, preachers, judges, and warriors who refuse to shrink from their faith ah or callings. Taylor, welcome to the show – so glad you’re here.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Rich.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background? Kind of give us the the story, the Taylor story. Tell us about your, you know, yeah, just tell us about your background.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up deeply immersed in church life. My dad is a Presbyterian minister. And as a kid, I seriously loved church. I was the kind of kid who really enjoyed ah youth group Bible studies, just being around and part of our community.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — But over time, as I grew up and kind of moved away from my home church and encountered wider Christianity and the wider church world, I started to notice something that when we were having those conversations about leadership and calling and just more of the business and leadership side of church, it was really like the women in the room disappeared.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And of course, not physically, they were often there, but there was something going on spiritually. We were expected to serve, but not to speak, to show up, but to not shape. And as I worked in ministry myself, I started to experience this deep ache that maybe maybe my voice didn’t belong. Maybe I was wrong on this issue.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And “She Believed” was really born out of this ache. When I became a mom to my daughter and then to my son, I really was experiencing this tension of wanting to pass on a faith that affirmed and liberated and introduced my daughter to my personal savior, Jesus.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — But that also was ah enough for my son to be able to respect and to understand women as co-creators of the new garden. So that led me to writing “She Believed”. And it’s a reclaiming of space for myself, yes, but more importantly, for the many women who love Jesus deeply and yet have been told that they’re not allowed to lead boldly.

Rich Birch — Well, want to, so you’ve said something that really caught my attention that I want to kind of double click on and hear a little bit more. You said that there’s a deep but quiet pain. That that is a it’s powerful phraseology, uh, that many women experience in the church. Tell me about that. Talk that through, help us unpack that. What does that actually look like? What is that? How does that show up in a woman’s life? How is that, you know, how have you experienced that? How do you see that happening around us? How could that be happening in our church?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, of course. Yeah, I think it’s the pain of just being spiritually disqualified whether explicitly or implicitly. It’s sitting in pews week after week but never really hearing a woman’s story preached. Never really seeing a woman and lead from a pulpit and never being asked what you think God is saying and being invited to bring your unique female perspective to the church.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And that that kind of exclusion isn’t always loud, but I think what’s really insidious about it is that it’s formative. And over time, it teaches women to shrink their faith to fit a mold which stifles our spiritual growth, our creativity, and our courage. And as a result, we as a church, we miss out on the fullness of discipleship because half of the church is watching from the sidelines instead of participating on the field.

Rich Birch — Well, yeah, and I would echo that this this, you know, the issue you’re pushing on here has been my experience when I’ve interacted with prevailing churches that are making a huge difference. I look around those tables and I see it’s not all it’s not all men. There are often lots of women in the room leading, which is wonderful. Obviously a good thing we want want to we want to have have happen. We want to continue to kind of accelerate that.

Rich Birch — But my so my assumption, my thought as you’re as you’re as I was kind of listening to you unpacking what you talked about in in “She Believed”, is that this kind of quietening, silencing, sidelining, like that can happen even in a church that would maybe even theologically be like, I’m totally okay with having women lead, you know, and in all positions. Even in that, we’re not talking about churches that even necessarily just have a theological, you know, can, you know, bent towards limiting women’s voices. It can happen even in, ah you know, more, you know, in other churches. Is that true? Help us understand that.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, 100%. I think that is completely true. It’s it’s that difference between it’s not necessarily explicit exclusion, but it’s insidious and it it creeps up into our churches, whether we realize it or not. And I think it’s helpful to have these conversations where we can call it out and we can work and really ask the women who are around the table, if they are around the table, what is your actual experience? And creating such an environment where we can really dig into that. Because, Rich, this is important stuff. This is half the body of Christ we’re talking about.

Rich Birch — 100%. Yes. Yes.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And yeah, yeah, we can do better.

Rich Birch — Absolutely. Well, and there’s that great irony of like, and I’ve said this in other contexts as well, not just in the kind of talking about this issue. The great irony is you walk into most churches and 60% the people, it’s even 50%, 60% of the people, 70% of the people in that room are women. Lots of churches skew towards there being more women engaged than men engaged. And even in those environments, there this I can see this happen.

Rich Birch — Well, in your book, you offer a three-step framework, something for us to think about. Can you help us kind of think through, even at a high level, to kind of talk that through a little bit?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, totally. So high level, right off the bat, the framework is really simple. I think we need to be reframing the narrative, restoring the practice, and reclaiming the voice. So this really starts with our theology.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — So how we preach, how we teach, and how we talk about women in scripture. While writing this book, I encountered so many sources that delved into the stories of women in the Bible, but were so obviously written by men and centering the male experience of those texts. Reading things about how, ah you know, Rahab, when the Jewish spies go and ah scout out the city and they join her in a brothel and the text doesn’t address why are they in the brothel. What’s going on there? And what what would it have been like for Rahab, a woman, to not only have been exploited economically and societally, but then have the opportunity to meet God.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And that’s that’s such a different conversation, that’s such a different sermon when it’s preached by ah by a woman and through her lived experience. So this really, really starts foundationally with reframing the narrative.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And then it moves into church practice. So how we create space for women to serve and lead in meaningful ways. And meaningful ways is the important part here. Ways that allow them to show up authentically as their full selves.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I’m a new mom myself, so showing up at a church and being told that I can listen to the sermon, but it’s in the family room. Or I can listen to the sermon, ah but I’m going to be in the hallway with my children during it. These are real, real things that are happening.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — So we need to think through our physical spaces, but also just the spaces and the culture that we’re creating as a church. Are we allowing, again, I’ve already said it, but half the body of ah believers to show up in a way that’s real to them. And finally, it’s really about voice.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Helping women rediscover their agency and authority in community and in calling. And again, I really think this comes back to ah reading the stories of women in scripture and hearing their voices and interpreting it ah with a female-centered lens.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — It’s not a to-do list for churches, but it is a reimagining of what a healthy, vibrant discipleship can look like when women are no longer missing from the story, but are able to see themselves as important aspects of of this story

Rich Birch — Love it. I love it. And, you know, I got to say a part of what your work convicted me, even as I was reflecting on like, I feel like I’ve, I’ve worked, been a part of, led in great churches that are fantastic places. But even this idea of, I we we’ve never done, I’ve never been a part of like, hey, we’re going to do six weeks on, let’s look at six incredible female leaders in the Bible. Let’s look at six, you know, we just have never, and that would be, that would be the kind of thing that we’ve done in other kinds, like the kind of treatment of the text that we would have done in for other things, but we’ve never done that in this.

Rich Birch — I would say we’re the churches I’ve led in. We’re not probably on the extreme where it’s like the only time we talk about it as Proverbs 31 on Mother’s Day. Like that’s the only time we bring it up. It’s not that. But I like this idea of reframing the narrative. Maybe we could unpack that a little bit. Help us kind of imagine and kind of think a bit differently around that. I think that could be a really practical step for people to take away, which is, hey, how can we ensure that we’re infusing, highlighting, taking more time to point out some of the parts of the narrative that maybe we’ve just overlooked in the past? Help help us unpack that.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, well I really think when women only get to see themselves in scripture and in sermons as helpers or background characters in God’s stories, they subconsciously assume that that’s all they’re allowed to be.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — But when we can reframe this narrative and really claim it, everything changes. We know representation matters. Theological representation matters.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — When we lift up women with voices like Deborah, like the Jewish midwives, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Phoebe, Dorcas, suddenly the story gets so much richer. And I really think this is what we’ve been missing as a church. When women begin to see themselves as part of God’s story, they’re able to preach, to build, to speak truth. And what really happens is it’s like spiritual oxygen. It makes room for new callings to emerge, new stories to be told. And the Holy Spirit to come through all of us.

Rich Birch — I love that. I’m going to take advantage of the fact that you’re an expert in this area, ask you for some coaching on this. So let’s say I’m like, hey, that sounds like a good idea. Like my natural inclination or what’s that my hesitancy in the back of my brain is like, that’s like a fantastic idea for like a four or six week series. We’re going to do, we’re going to have like six weeks of women preaching on, I’ll have people on my team whatever, preach through all these things. That would be amazing.

Rich Birch — But then there’s, there’s a part of me that says, am I just ghettoizing this, this, through that, is that actually helping? Or am I is it one of those situations where helping hurts actually by kind of highlighting um you know the you know, this in kind of its own special thing. It’s like, the you know, it’s the thing that it’s like the churches that do the like, it’s youth Sunday. It’s like, that doesn’t really mean that you’re integrating youth to the church. It just means that you gave as a Sunday up for them. Help me. Maybe I’m just like overthinking it. It’s like, no, Rich, that’s a good idea. You should do that. Help us think through that. What what should we be thinking about?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I think the first thing that just comes to mind, Rich, when you say that is if you are a church who isn’t highlighting women’s stories, let’s start with that. If you’ve never done speaker series where you highlighted intentionally ah the the voices of women, maybe this is the push you need ah to to do that.

Rich Birch — Right.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Because representation starts with things like that. We need those initiatives. to kind of get the ball rolling. Now, if you’re a church that, you know, again, we said at the beginning it’s 2025, maybe you’ve had these conversations. Maybe this is something that’s already happening in your church. I think getting to the point where we have more mature conversations. One of the things I hear often when I preach through our “She Believes” series is, I didn’t know we were allowed to talk about that in church, or I didn’t know we were allowed to say that out loud.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And I think what’s really healing about these types of conversations is that it shows just the breadth and depth of God’s love for us within the human experience. And it lets us know that we can have these conversations, that God is big enough that we can challenge, we can ask questions, we can say, hey, you know what, what you just said really hurt me or that what you just said wasn’t fair. And be invited to really understand and move through those emotions as our full selves.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — God created us with the full spectrum of human emotion. And I often feel that sometimes women are only invited to bring some of those emotions into the church. In small group settings settings, I’ve seen women cry, laugh, really challenge each other. And most importantly, remember who God made them to be.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — So this devotional, “She Believed”, is designed to create that space. It’s less about arriving at answers or having a theological debate about women in leadership and spiritual headship and all of those kind of things, and more just about reclaiming that space and allowing people to wrestle honestly and faithfully and bringing in all of their questions.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — We’ve seen a lot of conversation in the last little while about deconstruction, reconstruction, all of that stuff. I think this is part of the piece of naming, explaining, and just being ready to hold the whole capacity of human experience and human emotion because God created it and it’s not something scary.

Rich Birch — So the, you know, in this you’ve provided, which is fantastic discussion questions, obviously it’s like a, Hey, we could do this in a group. We could have a, you know, conversation. You kind of touched on that little bit. I wonder if you could unpack stories you’ve heard or how has that impacted helped, you know, as you’ve invited people into this discussion to reflect wrestles, you know, and speak together, how, you know any kind of sense of the impact that that’s having or any kind of interesting stories along that line?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I would say one of the things that really struck me is I just finished preaching through “She Believed” at my home church where I grew up and where I was raised. Many, many women in our congregation came up to me afterwards with tears in their eyes just, and I realized in that moment that a lot of our older generations of believers haven’t been invited to have these conversations out in the open.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — They’re conversations that have happened in the kitchen and in the nursery, but not necessarily from the pulpit. And allowing the older generation of women to be affirmed, and to have the ways in which patriarchy has hurt them named is a deeply, deeply healing experience. But also for younger women like myself, new moms, women working, being able to see the the stories of scripture without the sanitized lens of helpers, what have you, has been super helpful.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And cultural cues are powerful, especially especially in the church. So you can have all the right theology about women’s leadership on paper, but if your platform never reflects that, the signal doesn’t land.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Modeling is a ministry in and of itself, And when women see others women, women leading with authority, with authenticity, showing up as themselves with breast milk stained shirts and [inaudible], we normalize it. And that’s how we build a church that’s that’s more reflective of God’s kingdom and frankly, more suited for a ministry in 2025, where we’re stripping back the camera.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So good. And again, I think this would be a great ah great resource for church leaders to pick up, to wrestle through, to think about, you know, to have you come and speak. I think there’s lots that could happen there. I think that’s amazing.

Rich Birch — This is a bit of an unfair question. I asked my friend Kadi Cole this when she was on the episode. I should have told you this ahead of time. I’m pulling the rug out from underneath of you.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — All right, let’s do it.

Rich Birch — But hopefully we’re friends enough to ask this question. So and I know this book is not really answering that question. You’re not really wrestling with what I’m about to ask you. But I just want you’re in this. You’re thinking about these things.

Rich Birch — Do you think that if you think of the the broadly evangelical church, not like people ask me if I’m evangelical, it’s like, it depends on what you mean by that. Like, if you mean someone who takes the teaching of Jesus seriously, yes, I am evangelical. if If that’s what you mean, there’s lots of other cultural freight to that word that I don’t associate with. But I’m, you know, like in that in that church, whatever that church is, however you describe that, do do you think that this, the issue here is more of a sticky floor issue or a glass ceiling? Is it more that women are not leaning in where there’s maybe more opportunity there than then there they’re choosing to be a part of? Or is it a glass ceiling problem? There’s actually like systemic, and maybe it’s it’s obviously both.

Rich Birch — There’s obviously both of those dynamics happening. But which of those do you think is kind of the the side of the equation that we need to be thinking about or should be wrestling with. Again, it’s not, it’s it’s adjacent to “She Believed”. It’s not directly what you’re talking about. But but what do what do you think? Again, unfair question. What do you think?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — No, I love it, Rich. That’s awesome. I think you were already kind of pointed to it, but I do think it’s both. It is a glass ceiling issue of if there’s no room, there’s no room. We need to make room. But it is also a little bit of the the need to just empower daughters of Christ ah to to take that space. And if it’s not available to make that space.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I notice a lot of the times in my own experience of evangelical Christian world, however you define it, there’s a lot of mentoring opportunities for for Christian young men um that Christian women aren’t being invited into. I think of an example for myself.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I went to a Christian university. I absolutely loved my experience there. But I had professors who abided by the Billy Graham rule, right, of not being a alone with a woman. How does that translate into career opportunities and mentorship for daughters of Christ if their professors won’t sit down and have a conversation with them? How does that transfer into internships and pastoral ministry if people aren’t engaging with women in that mentoring capacity to affirm their gifts, but to also tell them ah how to use them for the church.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I think ah women are grieving this, and the church is grieving this. We’re missing out on half of the body because of it. But some of the most powerful leadership I’ve seen really comes through this grief and this acknowledgement that it is both of those issues, the glass ceiling, we need to make the space, we need to do the work, but it is also empowering daughters of Christ to to live to their calling.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, so good. and ah And I’ve talked about this on other episodes, but like my own personal experience with the Billy Graham rule, like I have a ah certain sense of I have been the benefactor. Listen, I am a like middle-aged white guy. I am like, I check a lot of the boxes that are, you know, born in a fairly affluent family in the West, white guy, you know, at ah at of a great time.

Rich Birch — I was born in 1974, the lowest birthright year of the 20th century, which gave me a significant leg up. And I, in that particular issue, I have, there ah there was a a, and I’ve said that I’m only saying this again to to point out ah to other folks. I’m not trying to make this about me, but there was a week early on in my ministry. I was a young leader in my twenties where we were trying, we were stuck as a church. And like, there was another church, a very large church, literally like 10 times our size, who I knew they had solved this problem. And I reached out to a leader there and I said, listen, can I just come and hang out at your church for the week?

Rich Birch — And he was like, what? And I was like, yeah, I just want to like sit in in all your meetings and like take a bunch of notes and you don’t have to talk to me. You don’t need to you don’t need to do anything. I just want to be around. I just want to try to see what I can learn from that experience. And he graciously said yes. By the end of that week where I’m like having dinner at his house, hanging out, um you know. We’ve become friends. We’re now lifelong friends. That week was absolutely an inflection point in my leadership. Like I was like, oh, my goodness, I saw things differently.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Right.

Rich Birch — I know that that leader, if I was a woman that had called him and said, hey, can I just hang out for the week? I don’t think that would have happened. I think he would have said, ah well, maybe come, we got a conference coming up next month or next year. Why don’t you come to the conference and we can, why don’t we see each other after a session or something like would have been probably what he would have said. That’s, and that’s not a slight on him. That’s just a slight on the culture. What’s all all around that.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And so, yeah, that’s a, that is a very real issue. I think we have to create that space. So you touched the Billy Graham rule and it like touched a part of me and I was like, oh, I got to talk about that. So yeah.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Right?

Rich Birch — Well, let’s get back to your content. So you’ve given us a ah PDF that we’re going to link to. It’s called Seven Days to Reclaim Your Voice, a devotional guide for women. And I would say men. I went through this. I think this is fantastic. I know what you mean by that. But I think this a fantastic resource. Talk to us about this resource. We’ll link to it.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, awesome. So this is this a great resource to kind of get the the ball rolling, whether that’s ah around the table in your staff meetings or for your own personal use. The resource works through seven women of scripture, and it’s a quick daily reflection. And then my book, “She Believed”, which is coming out later this summer and will be available on Amazon, really delves into these topics in a fuller way.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Again, I think we’ve mentioned this, but something I’ve really intentionally done with She Believed is this is not this is not the place for a theological argument.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — This is the place for women and men, by extension, who have been hurt by the church, have been hurt by the ways that patriarchy has played out in the church and that ah that need ah that pastoral hug um and that commissioning that you are doing God’s work and there is ah there’s a lot of work to be done.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I really appreciate this fantastic. And I appreciate you redirecting. I’ve been pushing us towards, let’s talk about this issue. And I know obviously it’s connected to what you’re talking about, but but I love the underlying push of like, hey, we got to get back to scripture. Let’s look at these stories. Let’s engage women on this and let’s ensure that we’re looking at ah scripture from that lens. I think is is critically important.

Rich Birch — Listen, there might be some pastors that are listening who want to do better. They’re like, they’ve they have listened to this conversation and they’re like, man, I really do want to take a new start here. I feel like we’ve got a you know, I would say a step they could take would be to buy your book, which we’ll talk in a minute where people can get that when it comes out.

Rich Birch — But what what’s another kind of step or something they should be thinking about as kind of a first step in this direction to be like, Hey, we need to do a better job kind of regardless of where they’re at in this, in this area.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, totally. I would say ah next little bit, low hanging fruit look at ah look at the narrative that you’re telling from the pulpit. Look at your preaching calendar for the next few months and ask whose stories are we telling? Whose voices are we centering?

Rich Birch — So good.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — This might be looking and seeing who the preachers are, like we’ve already talked about. Are they male or female? But also, are we preaching about all male prophets? Are we preaching about all male disciples? Can we do better here? Can we include some of these voices that have been historically disenfranchised?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And then go deeper, invite women in your congregation into that conversation.

Rich Birch — So good.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — I wanna say to your pastors listening, particularly if they’re male pastors, is this isn’t all on you. Tap in, see who’s in your conversation, ask them what kinds of stories or sermons that they wish they heard of more often. I think oftentimes as pastors and ministers, people assume it’s all on them, but people in your congregation will be able to give you a sense of what’s actually happening beside behind the scenes.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Small groups are a great place to start these conversations where people already know each other more intimately and can speak more authentically. The goal isn’t to really overhaul everything overnight, but it is to start seeing what’s missing and to commit to filling those gaps with courage and care.

Rich Birch — Well, where do we want to send people to ah pick up not a copy, but copies? I think this would be, to me, this is done best in community. It’s like, this is a staff team resource. This is a, hey, we’re going to do with our small groups. We’re going to buy couple hundred copies and do with the entire church. Like it’s that kind of thing. I think it’s it’s best made for in community. Where do we want to send people to pick up copies?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, 100%. So the book is coming out this August. So you can find, or you will be able to find “She Believed” on Amazon, both print and ebook formats. And if you head to my website, which we provided for you, ah there’s a free downloadable discussion guide that we’ve kind of already highlighted and mentioned to help guide you to use it in starting these conversations.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And yeah, you can follow me on Instagram @taylorreimer96 and stick along for the journey. I’m really, really excited about this project. It’s it’s kind of a new thing for me to be stepping into. And I just, I’m really passionate about it. And I’m so thankful, Rich, for the opportunity to share it with you and your listeners.

Rich Birch — Yeah, any any last words, last encouragements you’d say ah just as we wrap up today’s episode?

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I was struck by a line this morning. I’m I’m of ah a certain demographic. I believe we’re called Zennials. I think that’s what it is. I’m the Gen Z Millennial kind of.

Rich Birch — Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so full disclosure, was on TikTok this morning and I saw a TikTok…

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — …like why… Yeah, yeah. How hard could it be – boys do it? And it was young women showing what they don’t think that they’re able to do, but men do all the time.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — And I was kind of struck by: how hard could it be boys do it? And I think that’s something we as women in the church need to remember.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — People do it. We can do it.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Well, this has been great. Listen, I want to like honor you publicly. I thank you for writing this book. I thank you for sticking your neck out here and raising a good question, doing it in just a super elegant way and helping us think through these issues and really hopefully encouraging, you know, some folks to, to think differently and to move forward in this. So I really appreciate this, Taylor. Thanks for being here.

Rich Birch — And we’ll link to all of that in the show notes, friends. You can you can get all that there. But thanks for being here today. Thank you so much.

Taylor Scott-Reimer — Thank you.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Zenzo Matoga, Senior Pastor of Impact Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Malawi, Africa, Zenzo brings a passion for evangelism shaped by the revival crusades of Reinhard Bonnke. Under Zenzo’s leadership, Impact Church has become one of the fastest-growing churches in America, thriving in one of the nation’s most unchurched cities.

Is your church struggling to move evangelism from a program to a culture? Zenzo shares practical strategies and spiritual insights that have helped Impact Church ignite revival in a spiritually dry place, equipping believers to impact one person at a time.

To learn more about Impact Church and Pastor Zenzo’s resources, visit impactpeople.org. His book Impact One: The Epic Prayer That Transforms Friends and Family is available on Amazon and other online retailers.

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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Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation, an opportunity to dive in on a conversation that really all of our churches should be wrestling with.

Rich Birch — Honored, privileged to have Zenzo Matoga with us. He is the senior pastor at a church called Impact Church that has, if I’m counting correctly, two locations in Massachusetts. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country. He’s also a seasoned worship leader. And I think this is a first for our podcast, a Dove Award nominated songwriter and author. So excited to have you on this the show today, Zenzo. Thank you for being here.

Zenzo Matoga — Thank you so much for having me, Rich. It’s such an honor to be here with you.

Rich Birch — This is wonderful. Impact has experienced you know incredible growth in these last number of years. And I’d love for you to kind of tell us a little bit about the church, bring us up on the journey and and tell us what God’s doing in your church these days.

Zenzo Matoga — Yes, so this next month here in September we’re going to be celebrating 10 years. So it’s been 10 years of ministry and we are in Boston, Massachusetts of all the places in the world.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — It’s been named the fifth most unchurched city in all of America. And so um you know people told me Boston is a very dry place and I thought to myself last time I checked dry places catch on fire faster than any other place it’s so so that…

Rich Birch — Oh, I like that. I like that. Nothing like a a cemetery for if you want a resurrection, right? Same thing.

Zenzo Matoga — There you go. There you go. That got us excited, you know, but it’s been an honor you know to do ministry here, you know, 10 years of incredible ministry. I’m originally from Malawi, Africa

Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Okay.

Zenzo Matoga — Very, very small country. So it’s humbling to be in this nation and preaching the gospel. Yes, I’m a worship leader first. So I started leading worship in what we call the African revivals that were led by a man called Reinhard Bonnke, who literally saw 79 million salvations in those crusades. And so I just adopted this passion for evangelism, this this passion for evangelism.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — Except back then it used to happen through crusades, big crusades. And when I moved to America the Lord said teach the Americans how to win their unchurched loved ones.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — That’s gonna be the key to evangelism. So in a nutshell, we’ve built Impact Church on that, you know, the Great Commission. That’s why we named the church Impact Church. It says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit.

Zenzo Matoga — And so, yeah, make disciples. Who make disciples? Who make disciples? Who make disciples? And that’s church growth. That’s revival. It was never meant to be rocket science, if you’re making disciples, not converts.

Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, I’m looking forward to digging in and learning from you today and and the good just the good stories, the good things that are happening at Impact.

Rich Birch — You know, many pastors want a vibrant evangelism and discipleship culture at their church, but it really is can be really challenging for many churches to create that. Why do you think that is? What are some of the obstacles that you’ve seen other churches face, you know, why why do you think this is? It’s like so core to who we’re supposed to be, but why is it why is it so tough so so so many times?

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah. Well, number one, I believe that the very art of making disciples was never meant to be too easy. There are challenges there, but there are beautiful challenges. So if you’re facing challenges, hey, welcome to the club. You’re heading in the right direction. Don’t be discouraged.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — I also feel that many pastors and churches and leaders, they they copy from other churches, you know. And it’s okay to learn from others, right? But when you’re copying something and you don’t receive it by revelation, because listen, to Moses, he said, use a stick. To Joshua, he said, march around the city. The power was not in walking around and the power was definitely not in the stick. The power was in the instruction, you know.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — And so I think it’s good to to pray, study your city. There’s a key that unlocks every city. You got to find that key. Whoever finds that key will unlock that city.

Zenzo Matoga — And so, and I think, ah and you can learn what others are doing, right? But sometimes people copy things, but then they just, they don’t follow through, or they start and they stop and they try something else, and then they try something else and then they go to that conference, pick up something else and try. Because most of these strategies, you got to, you got to see them through and you got to be patient.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Zenzo Matoga — You got to be patient for them to produce, you know. It’s like, you know, revival sometimes is like pounding the ground so that you can build a spring or rather you can break ground so that there can be a spring that gushes out. But you can’t just do that. You can’t do that for two days. You can’t do that for one day, you know. And sometimes you encounter rocks and you’ve got to break through that and keep going. And so I feel like sometimes people start and stop, start and stop. There has to be a long-term commitment to the strategy that the Lord gives you. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Well, there’s a lot there I’d love to unpack. You talk about ah you know every seat every city has a key that to unlock you know that and and leaders are part of our job is to find that. Unpack that a bit more. Tell me a little bit about that. What has that looked like for you at Impact as you’ve considered? I do think as, ah ah I think there’s an interesting advantage that you have as someone from outside the culture coming in to to see the culture. I actually think that’s a huge strategic advantage that God’s given you. So help us understand that. Unpack that a little bit more.

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, for sure. You know, every city has a key. Whoever has that key and will unlock it, you know.

Zenzo Matoga — And so, yeah, I think it’s good to study your city. And also every church has a calling, right? I don’t think I don’t think our churches are supposed to reach everybody. I think you have to know who you’re called to reach, you know. And then find the key that unlocks those type of people. For us here in Boston, We wanted to reach you know young professionals. And amazingly, in doing that, they brought their parents and later on grandparents, you know.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — But we wanted to focus on those. And so one, I wanted to create a welcoming a welcoming atmosphere, welcoming environment. I wanted to create a culture that was authentic because Millennials, Gen Zs, Gen Alphas, you know, you can’t reach them if you’re not authentic.

Zenzo Matoga — So from the get, I knew that I was going to use personal stories. It was going to be self-duplicating stories, but with integrity, right? Like the like the young people say, not forcing anything, but just really telling them here’s a story. I started talking about the issues my wife and I had um at the beginning of our marriage. I mean we’ve been married 19 years and always say we’ve had the best 16 years of our lives you know because the first three, first three was very rough.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Zenzo Matoga — She’s she’s Italian American. I’m African and I quickly found out that the the jungle spirit in me did not agree with the mafia spirit in our you know so we almost started World War III, you know.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Zenzo Matoga — But we we we were going to tell our stories, we were going to utilize humor, we were going to be honest, and we were going to train the young people to also be authentic. Tell your story. One the best things you can ever do is tell your story, you know.

Zenzo Matoga — We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. you know And they did not love their lives to shrink back from death. Sometimes people are afraid to share their story, your powerful testimony. Let people know what God has done. It creates an atmosphere where where there’s a culture of grace where people are not afraid of church people and they think like they’re better than us, you know, or I’ll never be like them.

Zenzo Matoga — I’ll never, you know, I’m drinking right now and I’m smoking and I’m doing this. I’ll probably never be like them. Well, a bunch of us used to do that, you know. So if you can tell your story, share your testimony, create an authentic environment.

Zenzo Matoga — I don’t know how much to share now, but also, you know, from from the book Impact One, let me just jump in that. I wanted to teach our church members how to reach their unchurched loved ones. To me, the key to Boston was if I can teach a typical churchgoer how to reach your unchurched loved ones, if I can teach you to just impact one, right?

Zenzo Matoga — In the next three months, if I can just teach you to impact one person, bring them into the house of God, and then, you know, some people can impact three, some can maybe do five, but every year, every believer has to be a producing believer, not a barren producer. I mean, not a barren believer. And so yeah, I wrote that book. I wrote that book just for the members of our church.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — It’s a small book, four chapters only.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — Chapter one is ah is is just get the burden for the lost. Ask God to break you with what breaks his heart concerning the lost. Start weeping again for the lost. You know, number two, pray for the one. So right just write three names down of people you want to win for Jesus, right?

Rich Birch — I love that.

Zenzo Matoga — Those people you’re eating Thanksgiving dinner with, you know, write write a few of those names. The people the the person who’s always next to you in the gym working out, right you know, write their name down.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — And then chapter three was simple. Just become a good friend. Friendship evangelism. Just become a good friend. Billy Graham, before he passed away, he said he believes after doing all the crusades that this present day of America, that the best form of evangelism is friendship evangelism.

Zenzo Matoga — Sometimes Christians are not good friends. Just learn how to be a good friend.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Zenzo Matoga — You know and we we taught our church just be a good friend for a season with no strings attached. Just really show interest in those people.

Zenzo Matoga — And then number four is seal the deal. You know, sealing the deal means wait for the right moment. You know, they will ask you, they will ask you, where does your joy come from? You know, why are you not shaking about this? You talk about this church thing all the time. Tell me about that.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, a door open, then you seal the deal, you know. But ride the waves.

Rich Birch — Step in.

Zenzo Matoga — Ride the waves of the Holy Spirit like surfing. You know. And so let the opportunity be created. So to us, that was I think that was the key you know in a nutshell…

Rich Birch — Right. Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — …creating a welcoming atmosphere where there was authenticity and a culture of grace and then teaching these young people you know how to win Jesus.

Zenzo Matoga — And I think the final thing for me being a worshiper was we wanted to create an atmosphere where there was radical worship, radical worship. I’m in Boston. You know, it’s the mecca of education.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — We have a quarter a million students. We have the most students than any other city in the world. We have Harvard University, MIT. And I felt a bit insecure, if I can be honest, ah Rich.

Zenzo Matoga — I was like, OK, I’m an African kid. I come from the third poorest country in the world. And I got no college degree, you know. Because I went into music route I wanted to go to school for music I couldn’t afford it…

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — …and I just dove straight into music and the Lord blessed that, but I felt insecure. And the Lord said hey one of the keys to Boston is the foolishness of worship. I will confound the wisdom of the wise with the foolishness of radical worship and joy. Radical worship and joy, you know.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — And so we worship radically and I found that people are looking you know for for for…

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Zenzo Matoga — …a radical version of believers again, You know, people are not looking for ah nice alternative of what they’re already doing. No, they’re looking for something vibrant, something that’s embedded in revival and radical worship…

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.

Zenzo Matoga — …and joy, joy, joy, joy. Yeah.

Rich Birch — I love that. I’d love to, we’re I’m going to put a a bookmark in that. I want to come back to that in a minute, but yeah I want to loop back on something you said earlier. You know, my sense is that one of the things you’ve been able to do at Impact is really see evangelism as a culture. It’s not a, it’s not a program. It’s not like a, hey, here’s a, you know, do this thing. It’s like a part of who we are. Talk us through how that um works itself out at Impact. What how are you ensuring that reaching out to unchurched folks in Boston, Bostonians, is a culture of impact rather than just a program? What’s that look like?

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, Rich, I believe that’s the that’s the key, is that sometimes we go on this journey of making evangelism or discipleship these systems and classes. And and nothing wrong with that to supplement and complement what you have. But I believe that evangelism and discipleship has to be embedded in the culture of the church.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Zenzo Matoga — On our worst Sunday, we’re evangelistic and we’re making disciples. And so what what does that mean? For us, it’s simple. You know, yet again, for me, it kind of goes back to that book because I wrote that book to release that evangelism culture you know for our church.

Zenzo Matoga — I think, one, it begins a prayer. Are we praying for the lost? Are we earnestly praying for lost? But before we pray for the lost, are we broken with what breaks the heart of God concerning our city, the burden to see them? You know, are we do we want them saved just because we want our churches to grow, or do we sincerely want them to know God and not go to hell, right? That simple.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — And so I think it starts there. And then after that, you know, we’ve started making it a culture. So every single Sunday, we pray this prayer, God, please give me one person to impact with your love and invite church.

Rich Birch — So good.

Zenzo Matoga — We pray that in our services every single Sunday. And then after that, Rich, we we show stories of people who have been impacted.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Zenzo Matoga — Because yet again, testimonies are so powerful. Last Sunday, we showed the story of Teddy. You know, Teddy was coming to Impact Church because a family friend invited him to church. Remember the prayer, God, please give me one person to impact with your love and invite church. So somebody prayed that prayer, and then invited Teddy to church. That was, he was their impact one prayer. And there are times when we pray that prayer, remember, we write three names down, practical. We write three names down. So somebody had Teddy as one of their…

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — …and then invited him to church. He started coming to church, you know, kind of still drinking and doing other things, you know, and then kind of started coming to church and started dating this young lady.

Zenzo Matoga — And, you know, she got pregnant out of wedlock. But we continued to disciple them because it has to transition from evangelism to discipleship. We started reaching out to them one-on-one and some of our pastors and group leaders just discipling them. Long story short, those two are married now. They’ve got a child. And Teddy now leads our men’s groups, man.

Rich Birch — So good.

Zenzo Matoga — This young man is shepherding and caring for young men in our church, just men in general. And those groups have they’ve multiplied over and over and over and over, you know.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — And this summer we’re believing God for another 20 or so just, you know and he’s he’s the coach over that. So so yet again after the prayer you write the names down, we show the story so that people see it in real time of a life that has been changed, you know. And then after that in service we have this 60 seconds, social seconds, where we tell people to go greet one another. And they ask each other the question, who did you impact this week? You know, so you you’ve prayed the impact one prayer and you’ve seen the impact story.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — We call them stories of impact. You’ve seen an impact story. And then you have the chance to walk around, greet somebody and ask them, and hold them accountable. Who did you impact this week?

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Zenzo Matoga — If they didn’t impact anybody, hey, come back next Sunday with the story of who you impacted, you know?

Rich Birch — Right. I love that.

Zenzo Matoga — And then that’s what’s happening in the service, right? So that that’s the evangelistic portions in the service, you know? And then I take ah take once a year and and in our series, and I do a whole series on how to win the lost.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.

Zenzo Matoga — But then also in all my messages, there’s going to be a portion somewhere in all my messages where I’m talking about evangelism.

Zenzo Matoga — And then like was all this is happening inside the auditorium. Now, outside the auditorium, God gave us something called F15, and I wrote it in the book. So F15 is a code, you know, and it’s funny because when we got F15, I said, yeah, I think we officially code. That’s a joke, by the way.

Rich Birch — That’s funny.

Zenzo Matoga — But F15 simply stands for the first 15 minutes after church.

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — Don’t go to your cliques in the lobby.

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — Don’t run to your cliques. Don’t run to the people you already know. We treat during F15 during the first 15 minutes of service being over we treat our lobbies like a mission field. You sacrifice wanting to run to Jimmy because you’re buddies, you probably know Jimmy’s phone number and you probably can hang out and go to lunch later. But we’re going to sacrifice the first 15 minutes after service to look in…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — …our lobbies and parking lot for somebody who looks like they’re new to church, you know. And we’re going to and impact them, you know.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Zenzo Matoga — And how do we impact them? God gave us something as well called C.L.O.N.E., right?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — Because the Lord said, go make disciples. So go clone yourself, essentially.

Zenzo Matoga — So so C.L.O.N.E., the C stands for chronology. So during the F15, you walk to somebody, ah chronology, and you say, hey, how long have you been coming to Impact Church?

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.

Zenzo Matoga — And they’ll tell you five months, six months. Or today is my first day. And the L is location. Hey where do you live? Where do you live?

Rich Birch — Oh, so good.

Zenzo Matoga — And the O is occupation, you know – hey so what do you do for a living? And the N stands for number or mode of communication, you know. And I hear these days you don’t ask for phone numbers, so hey stands for DM’s as well – hey what’s your DM? You know.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. What’s your Instagram handle? What’s your, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — Yes, there you go, there you go. What’s your Instagram handle, how can I find you? And what’s remaining? The E. The E is encouragement. Hey, I’m so glad you came to Impact Church. I can’t wait to see you next Sunday. Do you have a ride? We can come pick you up. You can sit with our crew. We can hang out together.

Zenzo Matoga — I’ll see you right here, the same place next Sunday. And so I share with you all the stuff that are happening in the auditorium every single Sunday.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — By the way, I’m giving you our secret sauce here, man.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, it’s good. It’s good. Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — We need to give this because we need to win America for Jesus.

Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.

Zenzo Matoga — And then these are things that are happening outside the lobby, you know.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. And are you…

Zenzo Matoga — And then part of the encouragement…

Rich Birch — Where are you talking about F15? Like, are you, how often are you, because I love that. I think practically training our people on, hey, this exactly what you should do at the end of the service. Man, I think that’s transformational. Are you talking about that in that once a year series? Are you regularly kind of encouraging people? Hey, remember after the service today, we’re cloning, get a chance to talk to someone. What’s that look like?

Zenzo Matoga — Yes, I’m talking about that to the whole church when I do that that series in the year. But I’m telling Vision Sunday, I drop it again, Vision Sunday. Because I’m talking about our vision of the Impact Church. Our vision is to impact you so you can impact your world. To me, that’s the definition of discipleship.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s so good.

Zenzo Matoga — I’m not just impacting you to become a convert who comes, sit down.

Zenzo Matoga — I’m impacting you so you can impact your world. What’s your world? Your world is your business, your family, your workplace, and all those people. So we’re talking about that, yes, from the pulpit.

Zenzo Matoga — But in our leadership trainings, right, in our leadership orientations, in our growth tracks, next steps, classes, all that stuff, we’re talking about that. If you’re becoming a member of the church, if you’re getting assimilated into our church, we are putting this burden here, this beautiful, we call it the beautiful burden on you to be able to do that.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — And not only are we talking about it, yet again, Rich, we’re doing it every Sunday. I’m praying the impact one prayer every Sunday after worship. We’re sharing the impact story. And then people are going to one another and asking, who have you impacted this week?

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — And then I’m doing I’m doing the series and teaching people, get the burden, you know, pray for the one, you know, write the names down. And and friendship evangelism, how do you become a good friend? How do you do that? How, you know, Jesus became a friend to Zacchaeus, you know. And then he waited for the conviction.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, it wasn’t Jesus who was like, change your life, do this. He just became a good friend. And the conviction came and then he sealed the deal. You know. So you teach the people how to seal the deal boldly with boldness.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, when somebody tells you, I’m struggling with this, don’t don’t don’t you bash, don’t don’t you become bashful. And you seal that deal with boldness. So I release the gift of faith over the people. I pray over them. And I during our impact one prayer, I tell them, hey, I pray and I’m believing God that before, you know, right now we’re in August.

Zenzo Matoga — So I’m telling them before the close of this year, I am believing that every member of this church will be responsible for at least one soul coming to the saving knowledge of Jesus. And we release the gift of faith and the burden, you

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah. And then part of the E.

Rich Birch — Sorry. Go ahead.

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, I got to say this part of the E in encouragement in the clone, right, is also, hey, you can be a part of our small group.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — So that E there is the final piece that transition you from evangelism to discipleship. If you invite somebody to church, you are responsible for also discipling them. So you’re responsible to not only bring them into the house of God, but you’re also responsible to invite them to your crew, invite them to your small group, give them a ride and see them through and just walk with them.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, and so that’s what creates evangelism and discipleship as a culture versus making announcements on a Sunday morning for people to attend some class.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — That’s supplementary, man. We have that stuff too, but it’s supplemental.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It’s so good. I love, well, first of all, I want to underline, I think it’s great how practical you’ve made this. You’ve you’ve given really clear next steps. I love that you’re training your people around this. I want to loop back because I said I was going to, and I’m intrigued to hear your thoughts on this around radical worship.

Rich Birch — I you know, I love that your background, you obviously are a passionate evangelist and you obviously are a passionate worship leader. And I think there can be a false dichotomy in a lot of churches that like those, that you can’t be a church that’s focused on reaching unchurched people at the same time as being a passionate worship environment. We sometimes see those as opposed to each other.

Rich Birch — Unpack that for me. How do those two work? Cause I would agree with you. I think, one of the changes I’ve seen in unchurched people over the time I’ve served is I do think what you’re talking about there is true. I think people are coming to church looking for something different than they were 20, 30 years ago. They and I think worship is a part of that. So unpack that. Talk me through the connection between radical worship and reaching unchurched people. How do those two things work together in your mind or and how are they working themselves out at Impact?

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, and Rich, it’s Acts chapter 16, right? Paul and Silas ended up in the jail cell, and they were in there. What were they doing? Prayer and worship.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Zenzo Matoga — It was so radical the other jailers heard them. It says to me it was loud and it was radical. Because because it’s loud in jail.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — But people heard them. People heard them. And it was so radical it caused an earthquake, man.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — And what happened? Chains broke. It wasn’t just the chains of the two people who were singing. It was the chains of everybody who was exposed to the worship…

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — …and the and the radical environment.

Zenzo Matoga — And what amazes me is that at the end of that, it says when the jailer saw that all the prisoners had ran away, right, he ran to them and and and they found him almost killing himself. He was almost committing suicide. You know, and they say to him, man, my guy, chill out, man. We’re good. You know, ah and then he says to him, what should I do? What should I do, you know, to be saved? You know, paraphrasing.

Zenzo Matoga — There was, so two things happened because of radical worship. Chains broke and there was a conviction. There was a conviction for someone who was lost, you know. And I just believe that’s what happens, you know. And I may we be set free from gimmicks because the Jesus we serve is powerful enough to get the job done. If we can just bring him down. He says, if I be lifted up, he says, I will draw men to myself.

Zenzo Matoga — And so don’t believe me. Believe the scripture. If we lift him up and if we praise him, I believe there’s a shaking. There’s a spiritual earthquake that comes to us to our regions and our cities. That’s that’s what people are looking for. I mean look at Boston, yet again the fifth most unchurched city. There are spirits of intellectualism here. There’s spirits of humanism here. Spirits of materialism and secularism, every ism you can ever think about, you know. Things are birthed here and then they go to, I always say that the truth is things are birthed in Boston, you know, and then they’re marketed, they’re marketed in in New York markets them, you know, and then California, you know, makes a movie out of them. But they’re really birthed here.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. No, it’s true. Yeah, that’s very true.

Zenzo Matoga — And those those those are those are spirits, man, that are holding our cities. And so we you’ve got to pray and the worship, you know, it’s like when Saul would start to have these these tormenting spirits and and David would come and start playing and worship, and these things would be removed. And I think there are things in our cities that need to be removed and when that happens, you know bible says what is this is this, help me out, is this 1 Corinthians 4:4 or 2 Corinthians 4:4 somewhere say it says the god of the god of this age, you know, has has blinded people’s eyes. You know that blindness spiritual blindness has to be removed. And it’s radical worship, it’s a radical worship…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good

Zenzo Matoga — It’s childlike joy.

Rich Birch — Right.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, the bible says the joy of Lord is my strength. The bible will also says you know for the spirit of heaviness I’ll give you it says the oil of joy every time you see oil that represents an anointing…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Zenzo Matoga — …a yoke breaking power. And so when you lose your joy, you don’t just lose joy. You lose strength and you lose power. You lose this anointing. And so there’s something about this radical joy. You know, when you go to Fenway Park here in Boston, my goodness, there’s joy there.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Zenzo Matoga — When you go to ah the Boston Celtics, man, come on. We were champions before Oklahoma OKC took us off, you know. We got the New England Patriots. We had the days of ah Brady here.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Zenzo Matoga — You know, it’s you go there and it’s a religion. It’s worship. It’s joy.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.

Zenzo Matoga — It’s a radical joy. they They don’t bash away from being radical. Man, they take their shirts off. They cuss up a storm. They it’s radical. And the church of Jesus Christ is not going to be outdone by the world…

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, that’s good.

Zenzo Matoga — …because we invented this joy, man.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Zenzo Matoga — We invented this radical behavior, you know, and it can be done well.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.

Zenzo Matoga — So don’t hold back. Don’t hold back.

Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. I love I love your thinking and your leadership there. That’s that’s fantastic. Now, I want to point people towards your book. It’s again, it’s “Impact One, The Epic Prayer That Transforms Friends friends and Family”.

Rich Birch — I do think this could be a helpful resource for people. I think it’d be kind of thing that church leaders could check out and would help them frame this conversation. Where do where do where can people pick up a copy of that if they want to grab a copy or copies of that? Where do we want to send them to to do that?

Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, copies on Amazon, everywhere online.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Zenzo Matoga — Right now it’s just online.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Zenzo Matoga — Yet again, I wrote this church just to teach our church, so it’s out there.

Rich Birch — Yep. That’s wonderful. Yeah. Love it.

Zenzo Matoga — But three times, Rich, churches have reached out to us, and we literally provided books to the whole congregation. And I partnered with the pastor to do to do a series around that and just equip the churches on how to, you know, how to win the loss. And man, I’m telling you, in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, in Providence, Rhode Island, sorry, not Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, man, we helped a church that was averaging about 130 people.

Zenzo Matoga — And just this last Easter, man, they saw over a thousand, you know.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Zenzo Matoga — And and every single Sunday, they’re now averaging about 300. And we, it was a joy…

Rich Birch — So good.

Zenzo Matoga — …to to go through this book, yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, Zenzo, this has been an incredible conversation, super encouraging today. I’m just so thankful for what you’re doing at Impact and the the impact you’re having in a part of the country, like you said, that is is considered spiritually dry. I love that. I love what, you know, I just want to honor you for, you know, for that. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online just as we wrap up today’s episode?

Zenzo Matoga — Yes, I love the church. I love the church so much. If a pastor wants to reach out, one of my greatest joys is to just stand with other pastors. You know we give God all the glory because what’s happening here, only God could have done that. But many others have helped us along the way, so would gladly do that. And my email address is simple, pastorzenzo at impactpeople.org.

Rich Birch — Love it. Easy.

Zenzo Matoga — Pastorzenzo at impactpeople.org. And our website is the same, very easy, impactpeople.org. That’s it.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, thanks so much, Zenzo. I appreciate you being here today, sir. Thank you for for serving us and for what you’re doing at Impact.

Zenzo Matoga — Man, to God be of the glory. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. And I’m humbled and honored to to do this with you. Thanks again, Rich.

Rich Birch — Thank you so much.