Thank you so much for joining us for another great episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m thrilled to be speaking with Matt Engel, a research fellow at Leadership Network and also works at Gloo, a technology company. Our talk today is all about data intelligence.

So what is data intelligence? We as ministry leaders are taught to steward well and have great intentions when it comes to measuring data. But we tend to measure the three B’s: butts, budgets, and baptisms, rather than measuring how people are engaging with our church. So how do we get better about the type of data we collect and how we are using it?

* Analyzing and quantifying data. // Matt realized that every week in his church the staff prayed for requests that came in, but no one could identify what they specifically prayed about in a quantitative way. So he and his staff team began to analyze the prayer requests that were submitted during a three-month period to see what people were concerned about. These requests were then divided into specific categories, and it allowed Matt and his team to see that the top prayer request was for marriage while the second was for health. They then repeated this exercise during another three-month period, from January to March, with the same process and measurements. The staff was surprised to see that the top prayer requests had changed. During that time most prayer requests were for finances. After doing some research, the staff also discovered that February, in their state, was one the highest months for divorce filings. So between analyzing prayer requests and doing research in the larger community, the staff was able to identify the top two concerns of their people with regards to relational health during this time were sex and finances.

* Act on results. // With this new information, Matt developed a plan to preach on stewardship and generosity in November, before the financial pressures of the holidays. When you want to get actionable insights, you need to develop a culture that is responsive to the results. Matt’s church wanted everyone to know that the reason finances were being addressed in November is because of the studies they did in the first quarter of the year. As a result, attendance grew and continued into the next year, plus they saw an improvement in people’s finances and a drop in requests for help in this area. Matt found when people in the church knew the results of surveys and understood what the church would do about them, it encouraged the people who didn’t respond to get their voices heard, and led the congregation into a path of action. When gathering data, explain why you’re doing it, share what you learn, and what your response will be to the results.

* Know and match. // At the end of the day if we’re going to be accountable to our people, we need to know them well. There’s a core process Matt talks about: connect, know, match, catalyze. First we connect with people and then we get to know them a bit. Next we need to match them with their next step according to what they need and catalyze them into whatever God’s calling them to do. Ask yourself: How as a ministry leader can I do a better job of knowing and matching my people? First we need to increase our ability to know, and to do that we need a level of infrastructure and rationale on how and why to collect that data.

* Fill the gap. // Matt now works at a tech company called Gloo, which helps you look at the individual growth of your church and then use technology to support community and facilitate relationships. We need face-to-face relationships, but there is a gap in that area. Gloo helps facilitate “know and match” so you will better be able to connect the people in your church to what they need and ultimately serve them better.

You can learn more about the Leadership Network at leadnet.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast and thanks so much for joining with us today. We have Pastor Shawn Hennessy with us from Life Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Today Shawn is sharing with us about his experience with burnout, and how that helped shape the way he sets priorities in his life – especially important when one leads a fast-growing church with constant demands.

* Seek your priorities. // Burnout is a real issue pastors need to be ready to face in today’s world, regardless of the church size. But when you add fast growth to the already demanding needs of a ministry, it can shut you down if you’re not orienting your life around the right things. As Shawn shares, it’s natural to get tired. For a while Shawn was seen as “the fixer” before he began to pastor Life Church in Green Bay. He was a young guy and sent places around the country to “fix” ministries. Shawn also had a rigorous speaking schedule and traveled continuously for about five years. Meanwhile, his wife was a youth pastor, and so they often found themselves in different places. Those early years were tough – being on the road meant Shawn barely got to know his kids when they were infants; he was away from home for their milestones, and eventually things imploded. All the accumulated pressure and stress led to a huge burnout in which Shawn’s credentials were taken away. He spent a year at home, taking a break from ministry, but that time was crucial for helping him reevaluate his life. Shawn shares, “What I learned in that year off was how to love my wife, how to love my kids and I learned how to love Jesus. I tried to leave ministry, but ministry wouldn’t leave me, so when I got the opportunity to get back in, I determined this time I’m just going to have priorities.” He spent six months praying and seeking God’s voice on what should be his top 5 priorities.

* Jesus is number one. // Shawn’s hitting rock bottom and taking a break from ministry provided the time Shawn needed to really cultivate a deep relationship with God. At this point, Shawn can honestly say Jesus is his top priority. We’re all supposed to say that, but ask yourself honestly, is He really your top priority? This doesn’t mean making church your top priority, but making Jesus Himself your top priority. Truly seeking His face and listening for what God was saying to him helped Shawn put Jesus as his top priority above everything else.

* Prioritize yourself above others. // As Christians, we think it may sound selfish and shocking to say it, but Shawn has learned that if he doesn’t prioritize himself, then everything else in his life will suffer. You might think you sound self-centered if you say this, but if you get into the mix of life and aren’t taking care of your body, mind, and spirit, there will be consequences. We have to pay attention to our health in all these areas and what we are feeding our bodies, minds and spirits.

* Love your spouse above your kids. // We are blessed with our kids, but we choose our spouse. One of the problems in our society is that we can often ignore the person we chose in order to give our full attention to our kids. Shawn teaches that there should be no one else on earth that you choose over your family, but that when it comes to your spouse and your kids, your spouse is your priority over your kids. This both keeps your marriage strong, and adds a measure of security and confidence to your children when they see how you and your spouse prioritize and love each other.

* Say no. // For Shawn, his top five priorities are all relationships with either God or his family. When you realize that church is not one of those five priorities, you can say no without apology to things that are not vital or an emergency. You don’t have to attend everyone’s graduation or birthday party. Saying no guards our lives and helps prevent burnout for pastors and church s...

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast and thanks so much for joining with us today. We have Pastor Shawn Hennessy with us from Life Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Today Shawn is sharing with us about his experience with burnout, and how that helped shape the way he sets priorities in his life – especially important when one leads a fast-growing church with constant demands.

* Seek your priorities. // Burnout is a real issue pastors need to be ready to face in today’s world, regardless of the church size. But when you add fast growth to the already demanding needs of a ministry, it can shut you down if you’re not orienting your life around the right things. As Shawn shares, it’s natural to get tired. For a while Shawn was seen as “the fixer” before he began to pastor Life Church in Green Bay. He was a young guy and sent places around the country to “fix” ministries. Shawn also had a rigorous speaking schedule and traveled continuously for about five years. Meanwhile, his wife was a youth pastor, and so they often found themselves in different places. Those early years were tough – being on the road meant Shawn barely got to know his kids when they were infants; he was away from home for their milestones, and eventually things imploded. All the accumulated pressure and stress led to a huge burnout in which Shawn’s credentials were taken away. He spent a year at home, taking a break from ministry, but that time was crucial for helping him reevaluate his life. Shawn shares, “What I learned in that year off was how to love my wife, how to love my kids and I learned how to love Jesus. I tried to leave ministry, but ministry wouldn’t leave me, so when I got the opportunity to get back in, I determined this time I’m just going to have priorities.” He spent six months praying and seeking God’s voice on what should be his top 5 priorities.

* Jesus is number one. // Shawn’s hitting rock bottom and taking a break from ministry provided the time Shawn needed to really cultivate a deep relationship with God. At this point, Shawn can honestly say Jesus is his top priority. We’re all supposed to say that, but ask yourself honestly, is He really your top priority? This doesn’t mean making church your top priority, but making Jesus Himself your top priority. Truly seeking His face and listening for what God was saying to him helped Shawn put Jesus as his top priority above everything else.

* Prioritize yourself above others. // As Christians, we think it may sound selfish and shocking to say it, but Shawn has learned that if he doesn’t prioritize himself, then everything else in his life will suffer. You might think you sound self-centered if you say this, but if you get into the mix of life and aren’t taking care of your body, mind, and spirit, there will be consequences. We have to pay attention to our health in all these areas and what we are feeding our bodies, minds and spirits.

* Love your spouse above your kids. // We are blessed with our kids, but we choose our spouse. One of the problems in our society is that we can often ignore the person we chose in order to give our full attention to our kids. Shawn teaches that there should be no one else on earth that you choose over your family, but that when it comes to your spouse and your kids, your spouse is your priority over your kids. This both keeps your marriage strong, and adds a measure of security and confidence to your children when they see how you and your spouse prioritize and love each other.

* Say no. // For Shawn, his top five priorities are all relationships with either God or his family. When you realize that church is not one of those five priorities, you can say no without apology to things that are not vital or an emergency. You don’t have to attend everyone’s graduation or birthday party. Saying no guards our lives and helps prevent burnout for pastors and church s...

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

– James Humes

How can I make this clear? If your church is crappy at communicating, you won’t grow! In fact, communication is at the core of how your church will (or will not) grow.

The art and science of ensuring that the right message gets to the right people at the right time is at the core of seeing your church impact more people. You can’t just “wing” this aspect of your leadership; in fact, communication is your leadership. It’s core to what you “do” in the church.

Here are 5 ways that poor communication might be holding back your church …

Fuzzy Focus Leads to Vision Drift

“You or I could deliver a mind-blowing, God-honoring, pulse-quickening vision talk on Sunday that leaves everyone revved up to go change the world, but by Tuesday, many people have forgotten they were even in church the previous weekend. Unbelievable, huh? Vision leaks.”

– Bill Hybels, Founding Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

Over time if your church doesn’t consistently keep its vision in front of people, the reason for your existence will become fuzzy. If your people aren’t clear why your church exists they will just fill in the “vision blanks” and assume the church is about them. The church is the only organization in the world whose total existence is for the people outside of it! If you don’t remind the people time and again that the reason your church exists is to reach out to other people with the timeless message of Jesus, the church will drift into ineffectiveness.

4 Signs Vision is Leaking at Your Church

Below are some sure signs that vision is leaking at your church. Do you see one of these happening at your church? If yes, then you would need to clarify the church’s vision to the people. If you’re experiencing all four of these, it’s time to articulate the vision in a massive and repeated way at your church!

Petty Infighting // Are people worried about the color of the carpet at your church? (Or some other really petty stuff?) We tend to make mountains out of molehills when it’s not clear what we’re called to as a church.

Everyone Agrees With You // I once had a mentor who told me that if 10% of the church isn’t upset with something you’re doing, you’re probably not taking new ground. I think that sentiment is accurate!

It Seems Boring // We are engaged in a massive human drama, the outcome of which is literally global in scale. If you’re not picking up on some of that excitement, then vision is leaking.

Fiefdoms & Sideways Energy // Are there leaders in your community that seem to divert people to a vision that is not quite aligned? Are there aspects of your ministry that are pulling away from the overall direction of the church?

Fewer Volunteers = Fewer Inviters

The more people that volunteer at your church, the larger your church will grow. A growth in volunteer engagement seems to precede attendance growth. This makes sense because the level of vision casting that is required to move someone from not volunteering to being a fully engaged member of the team means that those people are brought in. A natural outflow of being totally sold out on what’s happening at a church is to tell your friends about it. Prevailing churches are attempting to grow the percentage of people serving in part to see more people reaching out to their friends and family about being a part of the church.

The ⅓ Rule of Church Health

How many people attend your church? How many individual people do you have serving in the teams at your church? If you aren’t seeing 33% of your people volunteering at your church, then you’re missing out on something and are probably not growing. Prevailing churches look for ways to grow this percentage because they know that the more people they get to serve on teams, the more those people will “remark” about their church,

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

– James Humes

How can I make this clear? If your church is crappy at communicating, you won’t grow! In fact, communication is at the core of how your church will (or will not) grow.

The art and science of ensuring that the right message gets to the right people at the right time is at the core of seeing your church impact more people. You can’t just “wing” this aspect of your leadership; in fact, communication is your leadership. It’s core to what you “do” in the church.

Here are 5 ways that poor communication might be holding back your church …

Fuzzy Focus Leads to Vision Drift

“You or I could deliver a mind-blowing, God-honoring, pulse-quickening vision talk on Sunday that leaves everyone revved up to go change the world, but by Tuesday, many people have forgotten they were even in church the previous weekend. Unbelievable, huh? Vision leaks.”

– Bill Hybels, Founding Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

Over time if your church doesn’t consistently keep its vision in front of people, the reason for your existence will become fuzzy. If your people aren’t clear why your church exists they will just fill in the “vision blanks” and assume the church is about them. The church is the only organization in the world whose total existence is for the people outside of it! If you don’t remind the people time and again that the reason your church exists is to reach out to other people with the timeless message of Jesus, the church will drift into ineffectiveness.

4 Signs Vision is Leaking at Your Church

Below are some sure signs that vision is leaking at your church. Do you see one of these happening at your church? If yes, then you would need to clarify the church’s vision to the people. If you’re experiencing all four of these, it’s time to articulate the vision in a massive and repeated way at your church!

Petty Infighting // Are people worried about the color of the carpet at your church? (Or some other really petty stuff?) We tend to make mountains out of molehills when it’s not clear what we’re called to as a church.

Everyone Agrees With You // I once had a mentor who told me that if 10% of the church isn’t upset with something you’re doing, you’re probably not taking new ground. I think that sentiment is accurate!

It Seems Boring // We are engaged in a massive human drama, the outcome of which is literally global in scale. If you’re not picking up on some of that excitement, then vision is leaking.

Fiefdoms & Sideways Energy // Are there leaders in your community that seem to divert people to a vision that is not quite aligned? Are there aspects of your ministry that are pulling away from the overall direction of the church?

Fewer Volunteers = Fewer Inviters

The more people that volunteer at your church, the larger your church will grow. A growth in volunteer engagement seems to precede attendance growth. This makes sense because the level of vision casting that is required to move someone from not volunteering to being a fully engaged member of the team means that those people are brought in. A natural outflow of being totally sold out on what’s happening at a church is to tell your friends about it. Prevailing churches are attempting to grow the percentage of people serving in part to see more people reaching out to their friends and family about being a part of the church.

The ⅓ Rule of Church Health

How many people attend your church? How many individual people do you have serving in the teams at your church? If you aren’t seeing 33% of your people volunteering at your church, then you’re missing out on something and are probably not growing. Prevailing churches look for ways to grow this percentage because they know that the more people they get to serve on teams, the more those people will “remark” about their church,

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re happy to have you here with us today as we talk with Benny Ferguson, the executive pastor of LifePoint Church in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Benny is with us today to talk about how LifePoint has developed its culture and systems in order to build a healthy, growing church.

* The culture and system “zipper”. // Most evangelical Christian churches have the same mission, vision and purpose. What separates your church from others around the country is a healthy culture and healthy systems. Culture is all about: how do people feel?, while systems are: how do people move? Benny thinks of these two aspects of ministry as two sides of a zipper that come together, working hand-in-hand. God is both creative and orderly – in scripture we see there was a culture around Jesus and how He made people feel, and a system of how to move: “Come, follow me.” How your church feels determines if people will come to your church in the first place, and how you move the people who come determines if they will stay and get plugged in. Both are measures of church health.

* Comfortable and connected. // When we prepare for guests at home we tidy things up, create a welcoming environment and even make things smell nice. LifePoint does the same within their church to make people feel at home and comfortable. Hospitality is a big deal. Your preaching should also make people feel welcome as well as encouraged. Worship should make them feel connected to God. Is there a culture of connection and belonging within your church? Even on your social media, examine what emotions it communicates and how it makes people feel when they check out your church. Does social media show other human faces, or are they images of a building and other things that might cause disconnect?

* Take it slow. // Newcomers to your church can feel overwhelmed by all the activity and how to grow on their faith journey. LifePoint is intentional about directing everyone through Growth Track to take their one, simple next step. A system around moving people is important because without it people will feel disconnected and you’ll lose them. But throwing too much at them at once can cause you to lose them as well.

* Go deeper. // Within Growth Track the purpose is to get people serving on a team and attending a life group. But at LifePoint they want people to go even deeper. They are currently kicking around the idea of doing something similar to Rooted, by the Mariners Church in California, which is a ten-week discipleship process that helps people go deeper in their faith for the purpose of personal transformation.

You can learn more about LifePoint Church at their website www.lifepointchurch.tv or email Benny at [email protected].

Thank You for Tuning In!

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,

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re happy to have you here with us today as we talk with Benny Ferguson, the executive pastor of LifePoint Church in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Benny is with us today to talk about how LifePoint has developed its culture and systems in order to build a healthy, growing church.

* The culture and system “zipper”. // Most evangelical Christian churches have the same mission, vision and purpose. What separates your church from others around the country is a healthy culture and healthy systems. Culture is all about: how do people feel?, while systems are: how do people move? Benny thinks of these two aspects of ministry as two sides of a zipper that come together, working hand-in-hand. God is both creative and orderly – in scripture we see there was a culture around Jesus and how He made people feel, and a system of how to move: “Come, follow me.” How your church feels determines if people will come to your church in the first place, and how you move the people who come determines if they will stay and get plugged in. Both are measures of church health.

* Comfortable and connected. // When we prepare for guests at home we tidy things up, create a welcoming environment and even make things smell nice. LifePoint does the same within their church to make people feel at home and comfortable. Hospitality is a big deal. Your preaching should also make people feel welcome as well as encouraged. Worship should make them feel connected to God. Is there a culture of connection and belonging within your church? Even on your social media, examine what emotions it communicates and how it makes people feel when they check out your church. Does social media show other human faces, or are they images of a building and other things that might cause disconnect?

* Take it slow. // Newcomers to your church can feel overwhelmed by all the activity and how to grow on their faith journey. LifePoint is intentional about directing everyone through Growth Track to take their one, simple next step. A system around moving people is important because without it people will feel disconnected and you’ll lose them. But throwing too much at them at once can cause you to lose them as well.

* Go deeper. // Within Growth Track the purpose is to get people serving on a team and attending a life group. But at LifePoint they want people to go even deeper. They are currently kicking around the idea of doing something similar to Rooted, by the Mariners Church in California, which is a ten-week discipleship process that helps people go deeper in their faith for the purpose of personal transformation.

You can learn more about LifePoint Church at their website www.lifepointchurch.tv or email Benny at [email protected].

Thank You for Tuning In!

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,

Church leaders who are wanting to make a difference in their communities are always studying what is happening at prevailing churches. I’m sure you’ve taken time to learn from the church across town that is trying some new stuff and seeing what you can apply to your church. At unSeminary, a huge part of the reason we host the podcast every week is to expose you to church leaders from growing churches.

In fact, we’ve focused on the fastest growing churches in the country because we want your church to grow more. 94% of the churches in the country are losing ground against the growth of the communities they serve. [ref] We’ve taken a keen interest in the 6% of churches that are bucking this trend and we spend a lot of time and energy talking with you about what they do because we want all of our churches to learn from them.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve noticed a subtle trend in the fastest growing churches in the country. These churches mobilize their people to get out of their seats and serve on the streets of the community. Prevailing churches take the mass engagement of people towards acts of service in their community very seriously. More than just simply “social justice”, these initiatives are getting high percentages of people directly involved in making a difference.

Rather than just a fringe dynamic in a few churches, you can see this trend in all kinds of churches that are making a huge difference. In fact, recently I just flipped through a list of the fastest growing churches in the country and did a quick dive onto their websites to see if I could find this trend, and sure enough, it just kept coming up time and again; below are some examples of what I found:

Examples of Fast Growing Churches Employing Mass Community Service Experiences

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati hosts a large-scale Thanksgiving Food Drive. Just last year, they brought in enough food for over 60,000 Thanksgiving dinners. They’ve also taken on the churchwide responsibility of sponsoring over 6,000 children in a developing country. This church has been declared to be the fastest-growing church in America for two years in a row by Outreach Magazine, which shouldn’t come as a surprise when you see a church doing so many good things in the community.

Red Rocks Church in Littleton, Colorado runs an event called Hope for the Holidays, which is essentially a gift drive and wrapping event. The church and the community wrap up and deliver thousands of gifts every year to various social service agencies in the community. The church also runs a prison ministry known as God Behind Bars in which the men of the church bring the hope of Jesus to the prisoners.

The Traders Point Church in Indianapolis, Indiana runs a special needs prom where they annually help young adults who could never go to a prom to experience one. This particular prom requires three to four volunteers for every guest that comes; it literally requires more volunteers than the number of guests in order to run smoothly. That night, you get an opportunity to see the last become the first. (Plus, it looks like so much fun… when Jesus is around there always seems to be a party close by!)

The Eastside Church in Anaheim, California is one of the fastest growing churches in the country and has even won that title for multiple years in a row. Compassion is listed at the top priority and concern on this church’s website. It’s right up there with messages and giving. In fact, this church has done so much community outreach that a documentary called Bravely Forward is now being put together to tell the story of all the various things that this church has accomplished.

Church leaders who are wanting to make a difference in their communities are always studying what is happening at prevailing churches. I’m sure you’ve taken time to learn from the church across town that is trying some new stuff and seeing what you can apply to your church. At unSeminary, a huge part of the reason we host the podcast every week is to expose you to church leaders from growing churches.

In fact, we’ve focused on the fastest growing churches in the country because we want your church to grow more. 94% of the churches in the country are losing ground against the growth of the communities they serve. [ref] We’ve taken a keen interest in the 6% of churches that are bucking this trend and we spend a lot of time and energy talking with you about what they do because we want all of our churches to learn from them.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve noticed a subtle trend in the fastest growing churches in the country. These churches mobilize their people to get out of their seats and serve on the streets of the community. Prevailing churches take the mass engagement of people towards acts of service in their community very seriously. More than just simply “social justice”, these initiatives are getting high percentages of people directly involved in making a difference.

Rather than just a fringe dynamic in a few churches, you can see this trend in all kinds of churches that are making a huge difference. In fact, recently I just flipped through a list of the fastest growing churches in the country and did a quick dive onto their websites to see if I could find this trend, and sure enough, it just kept coming up time and again; below are some examples of what I found:

Examples of Fast Growing Churches Employing Mass Community Service Experiences

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati hosts a large-scale Thanksgiving Food Drive. Just last year, they brought in enough food for over 60,000 Thanksgiving dinners. They’ve also taken on the churchwide responsibility of sponsoring over 6,000 children in a developing country. This church has been declared to be the fastest-growing church in America for two years in a row by Outreach Magazine, which shouldn’t come as a surprise when you see a church doing so many good things in the community.

Red Rocks Church in Littleton, Colorado runs an event called Hope for the Holidays, which is essentially a gift drive and wrapping event. The church and the community wrap up and deliver thousands of gifts every year to various social service agencies in the community. The church also runs a prison ministry known as God Behind Bars in which the men of the church bring the hope of Jesus to the prisoners.

The Traders Point Church in Indianapolis, Indiana runs a special needs prom where they annually help young adults who could never go to a prom to experience one. This particular prom requires three to four volunteers for every guest that comes; it literally requires more volunteers than the number of guests in order to run smoothly. That night, you get an opportunity to see the last become the first. (Plus, it looks like so much fun… when Jesus is around there always seems to be a party close by!)

The Eastside Church in Anaheim, California is one of the fastest growing churches in the country and has even won that title for multiple years in a row. Compassion is listed at the top priority and concern on this church’s website. It’s right up there with messages and giving. In fact, this church has done so much community outreach that a documentary called Bravely Forward is now being put together to tell the story of all the various things that this church has accomplished.

The Next Level Church has locations all across New...

Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have Jimmy Scroggins from Family Church in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Jimmy is with us today to talk about growing a church in a changing culture, while staying focused on the unchanging Gospel message.

* Encourage change without changing beliefs. // Our culture is quickly moving away from traditional Christianity and there are churches that have stepped away from the Gospel message in order to grow. But Family Church holds firmly to conservative doctrines and the Gospel message while still being one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Jimmy explains, “We haven’t changed our theology, we haven’t changed our network affiliations, we haven’t changed our historic roots, but we’ve changed our tone.” He believes that in today’s culture having a more direct approach to the Gospel is necessary because Christianity has thrived throughout the centuries as more of a subversive movement. While Family Church hasn’t changed their beliefs and what they preach, they have changed their tone in order to fully embrace the community in South Florida. Jimmy says this means being more culturally or racially inclusive, and speaking differently to people who disagree with them on cultural and theological issues.

* We are all sinners in need of repentance. // The most important thing to keep in mind is that no matter a person’s sexual orientation, race or belief system, we are all sinners in need of a Savior. Family Church is very open about this belief, and this is the conversation they have with people. As Jimmy says, it’s okay if you’re not okay, because none of us are okay: “We believe that Jesus is calling every sinner who will repent to Himself. So regardless what your lifestyle issue is, we’re inviting and calling and trying to persuade every sinner who will repent to come repent with us.” Family Church welcomes all, wanting no one to be made to feel outcast or inferior, because we are all sinners in need of a Savior.

* Diversity versus inclusion. // South Florida is a diverse and integrated environment, and the churches there should be reflecting that. But Jimmy says they need to move even beyond diversity to inclusion. Inclusion means that the diverse group of people in the room are now speaking into what is going on and are invited into leadership at the church. The Gospel is the great equalizer and as followers of Christ, we need to be willing to put ourselves in each other’s shoes and be willing to see the world differently.

* Gospel conversations are vital. // Jimmy estimates that there are about 5.5 million unchurched people in the South Florida Corridor. There’s no way all of those people can be reached simply by inviting them to church. “If you really want to move the needle on 5.5 million people, you’ve gotta have hundreds of thousands of Christians from thousands of churches having millions of Gospel conversations every day,” Jimmy says. Through a variety of resources, including a book written by Jimmy, Steve Wright and Leslee Bennett, titled Turning Everyday Conversations into Gospel Conversations, Family Church is focusing on training their people to have Gospel conversations. In their book they talk about ways to naturally have these Gospel conversations when talking with people outside the church.

You can learn more about Family Church at gofamilychurch.org, see the resources and podcast they offer at Familychurchnetwork.com, and find the book Turning Everyday Conversations into Gospel Conversations on Amazon.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today,