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,

Prevailing churches are investing time, energy and finances into leveraging social media to drive engagement and weekend attendance. Gone are the days when a Facebook page or Instagram profile was a “nice to have” for ministries. Using these channels are now as important as having a sign on the front of your building or even where your building is located in town. Church leaders are required to closely study what others are doing and apply those lessons to their ministries.

Two Type of Social Media Posts by Churches

As you evaluate other churches’ social media content, you can observe that there are, in fact, two broad categories that help in understanding what they are doing to gain traction. (This actually applies to all social media content, not just churches’!) All great social media can be understood as one of these two types of content as the organization attempts to attract people to share the content with others.

Remarkable // Remember when Oreo encouraged you to “dunk the dark” during the Super Bowl or all those great carpool karaoke videos or basically anything by the Bad Lip Reading guys? Such content is designed to create an interest in you to talk about it. It’s remark worthy … remarkable. Such type of content is hard to predictably produce but when it’s done well, it has the opportunity to spread far and wide.

Helpful // Content that is designed to help you solve problems is another form of social media, which spreads far and wide. On social networks, the most helpful people win in the end. Examples of this content are those “top down” cooking videos or helpful blog posts or in fact anything that attempts to break down problems into bite-size solution chunks. While remarkable content is amazing when it goes “viral”, helpful content is scalable and can provide a predictable way to build influence online.

As you evaluate the following leading churches’ social media accounts, notice these two different types of content that they produce. Think about how you could follow their lead and produce similar content for your church.

Leading Churches on Social Media

Real Life // Clermont, Florida

Check out this church’s Facebook feed. Too many churches fall into the habit of simply using Facebook as a place to notify “Church is happening this Sunday” but Real Life gives us a great sense of what’s happening in the life of their church through their feed. Also … their Instagram stories should be emulated by your church!

The Meeting House // Toronto, Canada

I love their YouTube series “Bruxy’s Big Bag of Questions”! This is a perfect illustration of providing helpful content that spreads over time. When I viewed this, they had close to 100 videos on a wide variety of topics.

Road to Life Church // Northwest Indiana

This church has exploded out of the gates since it launched five years ago. Last fall, I was in a conversation with Pastor Dave from Road to Life where he described the phenomenal growth his church had witnessed and credited Facebook as core to their strategy. Follow along and learn from a church converting social browsers into committed followers of Jesus!

Forefront Church // Virginia Beach, Virginia

If you are looking for a church with a great consistent brand and story, check out their Facebook page.

Prevailing churches are investing time, energy and finances into leveraging social media to drive engagement and weekend attendance. Gone are the days when a Facebook page or Instagram profile was a “nice to have” for ministries. Using these channels are now as important as having a sign on the front of your building or even where your building is located in town. Church leaders are required to closely study what others are doing and apply those lessons to their ministries.

Two Type of Social Media Posts by Churches

As you evaluate other churches’ social media content, you can observe that there are, in fact, two broad categories that help in understanding what they are doing to gain traction. (This actually applies to all social media content, not just churches’!) All great social media can be understood as one of these two types of content as the organization attempts to attract people to share the content with others.

Remarkable // Remember when Oreo encouraged you to “dunk the dark” during the Super Bowl or all those great carpool karaoke videos or basically anything by the Bad Lip Reading guys? Such content is designed to create an interest in you to talk about it. It’s remark worthy … remarkable. Such type of content is hard to predictably produce but when it’s done well, it has the opportunity to spread far and wide.

Helpful // Content that is designed to help you solve problems is another form of social media, which spreads far and wide. On social networks, the most helpful people win in the end. Examples of this content are those “top down” cooking videos or helpful blog posts or in fact anything that attempts to break down problems into bite-size solution chunks. While remarkable content is amazing when it goes “viral”, helpful content is scalable and can provide a predictable way to build influence online.

As you evaluate the following leading churches’ social media accounts, notice these two different types of content that they produce. Think about how you could follow their lead and produce similar content for your church.

Leading Churches on Social Media

Real Life // Clermont, Florida

Check out this church’s Facebook feed. Too many churches fall into the habit of simply using Facebook as a place to notify “Church is happening this Sunday” but Real Life gives us a great sense of what’s happening in the life of their church through their feed. Also … their Instagram stories should be emulated by your church!

The Meeting House // Toronto, Canada

I love their YouTube series “Bruxy’s Big Bag of Questions”! This is a perfect illustration of providing helpful content that spreads over time. When I viewed this, they had close to 100 videos on a wide variety of topics.

Road to Life Church // Northwest Indiana

This church has exploded out of the gates since it launched five years ago. Last fall, I was in a conversation with Pastor Dave from Road to Life where he described the phenomenal growth his church had witnessed and credited Facebook as core to their strategy. Follow along and learn from a church converting social browsers into committed followers of Jesus!

Forefront Church // Virginia Beach, Virginia

If you are looking for a church with a great consistent brand and story, check out their Facebook page.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have you with us today as we chat with Dr. Benji Kelley and George Franco of New Hope Church, which has campuses in the Carolinas and internationally.

The church started in 2002 and has grown greatly since then. They have a home in Durham, North Carolina, with ten campuses. If you were to come to New Hope one Sunday, you would find a warm and welcoming church that loves demonstrating God’s diversity in their congregation.

Today we talk with Benji and George about how they are building their staff team at New Hope.

* Choose staff on the healthy side of their stories. // At New Hope, they began to notice a trend where there was a high-turnover rate for their staff. After doing some digging, they realized that some of the staff weren’t ready for the demands and responsibilities of full time ministry. As George explains, “Everybody’s got a story. When Pastor Benji’s interviewing people, he can see the redemption happening in people’s lives which is what makes him such an amazing pastor and leader. But sometimes when we hired staff, there were people who weren’t on the healthy side of the story yet.” So this was one of the areas Benji and George began to have honest conversations about, for the health of the larger church.

* Have candid conversations. // Benji has tried to be intentional from the very beginning, with his staff and with the church, when it comes to being candid and transparent. One of his mottos is to “Move toward the funk.” When potential problems are arising, move toward them and have the hard conversations. As Benji says, “At the end of the day we know 3 things: we love the Lord, we love His church, and we love one another. If you have those 3 things in place, we should be able to talk about everything because we talk about it with respect, with mutual honor, mutual submission to the vision and the church.” Ultimately the staff at New Hope wants Jesus’s church to be beautiful and thrive so they are willing to have those candid conversations.

* Outside help. // Finding and keeping great staff is one of the top problems churches face. New Hope decided to work with a search firm to help them in hiring staff members. Rather than working with several firms, they wanted to find just one that would really take the time to understand their church’s culture. Not only is the organization they found a good fit, but they also send out a rep to come on the campuses. She’s very aware of the culture of the church, which helps immensely when seeking candidates who would fit within that atmosphere. Culture is the biggest challenge when hiring from outside the church, and so finding that company that will work to fully understand the church’s needs and culture is vital to finding great staff.

* Hire based on character. // Hiring based on character can be more challenging than one might think in a church. Sometimes there is an assumption from churches that because we’re hiring Christians, character shouldn’t be an issue. Although there are some obvious areas of health and maturity we want staff to possess, we all have those “soft areas” where we can grow. But the question is, will we be teachable and let others speak into those areas? As Benji and George interview potential candidates, they ask specific questions to get a feeling for if these people are open to having someone work on those soft areas with them.

To learn more about New Hope Church at www.newhopechurch.org

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,

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have you with us today as we chat with Dr. Benji Kelley and George Franco of New Hope Church, which has campuses in the Carolinas and internationally.

The church started in 2002 and has grown greatly since then. They have a home in Durham, North Carolina, with ten campuses. If you were to come to New Hope one Sunday, you would find a warm and welcoming church that loves demonstrating God’s diversity in their congregation.

Today we talk with Benji and George about how they are building their staff team at New Hope.

* Choose staff on the healthy side of their stories. // At New Hope, they began to notice a trend where there was a high-turnover rate for their staff. After doing some digging, they realized that some of the staff weren’t ready for the demands and responsibilities of full time ministry. As George explains, “Everybody’s got a story. When Pastor Benji’s interviewing people, he can see the redemption happening in people’s lives which is what makes him such an amazing pastor and leader. But sometimes when we hired staff, there were people who weren’t on the healthy side of the story yet.” So this was one of the areas Benji and George began to have honest conversations about, for the health of the larger church.

* Have candid conversations. // Benji has tried to be intentional from the very beginning, with his staff and with the church, when it comes to being candid and transparent. One of his mottos is to “Move toward the funk.” When potential problems are arising, move toward them and have the hard conversations. As Benji says, “At the end of the day we know 3 things: we love the Lord, we love His church, and we love one another. If you have those 3 things in place, we should be able to talk about everything because we talk about it with respect, with mutual honor, mutual submission to the vision and the church.” Ultimately the staff at New Hope wants Jesus’s church to be beautiful and thrive so they are willing to have those candid conversations.

* Outside help. // Finding and keeping great staff is one of the top problems churches face. New Hope decided to work with a search firm to help them in hiring staff members. Rather than working with several firms, they wanted to find just one that would really take the time to understand their church’s culture. Not only is the organization they found a good fit, but they also send out a rep to come on the campuses. She’s very aware of the culture of the church, which helps immensely when seeking candidates who would fit within that atmosphere. Culture is the biggest challenge when hiring from outside the church, and so finding that company that will work to fully understand the church’s needs and culture is vital to finding great staff.

* Hire based on character. // Hiring based on character can be more challenging than one might think in a church. Sometimes there is an assumption from churches that because we’re hiring Christians, character shouldn’t be an issue. Although there are some obvious areas of health and maturity we want staff to possess, we all have those “soft areas” where we can grow. But the question is, will we be teachable and let others speak into those areas? As Benji and George interview potential candidates, they ask specific questions to get a feeling for if these people are open to having someone work on those soft areas with them.

To learn more about New Hope Church at www.newhopechurch.org

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,

This weekend is critically important for the growth of your church. It could be make or break when it comes to influencing your community with the message of Jesus. As much as we’ve talked in the past about the importance of being ready for “big days” that only come along a few times a year, your church also needs to be ready every single weekend to make an impact. We can’t rest on our laurels, but need to be ready to make the impact that we’re expected to. Churches who are making a difference in their communities leverage every single Sunday to see the mission moving forward. Here are three reasons this weekend is so important if you want to see your church grow in the coming years:

Guests Show Up To Your Church Every Weekend

This weekend is going to be someone’s first experience at your church. As a rule of thumb, your church should see the same number of people visit it each year as your average Sunday morning attendance. [ref] That would mean, that even if your church comprises of 100 people you’ll see one or two guests, this weekend. Ensuring that your teams are ready to receive guests every single weekend is important.

Because there might be guests at your church this weekend who would be trying church for one last time. Therefore, you need to be ready in the following ways:

* “New Here” System // What are you doing to ensure that your guests feel “expected” & “accepted” as they arrive this weekend? There is no worse feeling than going somewhere for the first time and feeling lost and unwelcome. However, often guests can feel like that when they arrive at our churches. A simple gift for guests is an easy way to start this process. We gathered together 33 “first time guest” gifts from churches to give you some ideas to implement at your church.

* Helpful Content // When people arrive at your church they are wondering if whatever being presented is going to help them at all in life. In fact, adults are primarily “just in time learners”, which means that, they learn best when they face problems that they are trying to immediately solve in their lives. Therefore, so many people only end up coming to your church when they are going through a personal crisis or an issue in their lives. They are looking for help with what they are faced. They don’t care what it says in the Greek but they are wondering what to say to their kids!

* Clear Next Steps // One of the stark differences between struggling churches and those that are thriving is that prevailing churches have made it dead simple to get connected to the church. It can be confusing or even frustrating when you first arrive at a church. Often, we have way too many programs running and all of them are presented equally in a program or church bulletin. Churches must strive to understand that they need to narrow the focus and give people clear steps from the moment they arrive at the church. The best practice prevailing in churches is to provide a single first step that everyone is pointed towards after the weekend service. Listen to this helpful podcast with Greg Curtis on how his church is integrating hundreds of people every year through a simple next steps approach.

Prevailing Churches Use The Persistent Rhythm of Sundays to Help Them Grow

The weekly persistence of Sundays can be tough for leaders to get used to, if they haven’t experienced it before. I’ve seen this first hand,

This weekend is critically important for the growth of your church. It could be make or break when it comes to influencing your community with the message of Jesus. As much as we’ve talked in the past about the importance of being ready for “big days” that only come along a few times a year, your church also needs to be ready every single weekend to make an impact. We can’t rest on our laurels, but need to be ready to make the impact that we’re expected to. Churches who are making a difference in their communities leverage every single Sunday to see the mission moving forward. Here are three reasons this weekend is so important if you want to see your church grow in the coming years:

Guests Show Up To Your Church Every Weekend

This weekend is going to be someone’s first experience at your church. As a rule of thumb, your church should see the same number of people visit it each year as your average Sunday morning attendance. [ref] That would mean, that even if your church comprises of 100 people you’ll see one or two guests, this weekend. Ensuring that your teams are ready to receive guests every single weekend is important.

Because there might be guests at your church this weekend who would be trying church for one last time. Therefore, you need to be ready in the following ways:

* “New Here” System // What are you doing to ensure that your guests feel “expected” & “accepted” as they arrive this weekend? There is no worse feeling than going somewhere for the first time and feeling lost and unwelcome. However, often guests can feel like that when they arrive at our churches. A simple gift for guests is an easy way to start this process. We gathered together 33 “first time guest” gifts from churches to give you some ideas to implement at your church.

* Helpful Content // When people arrive at your church they are wondering if whatever being presented is going to help them at all in life. In fact, adults are primarily “just in time learners”, which means that, they learn best when they face problems that they are trying to immediately solve in their lives. Therefore, so many people only end up coming to your church when they are going through a personal crisis or an issue in their lives. They are looking for help with what they are faced. They don’t care what it says in the Greek but they are wondering what to say to their kids!

* Clear Next Steps // One of the stark differences between struggling churches and those that are thriving is that prevailing churches have made it dead simple to get connected to the church. It can be confusing or even frustrating when you first arrive at a church. Often, we have way too many programs running and all of them are presented equally in a program or church bulletin. Churches must strive to understand that they need to narrow the focus and give people clear steps from the moment they arrive at the church. The best practice prevailing in churches is to provide a single first step that everyone is pointed towards after the weekend service. Listen to this helpful podcast with Greg Curtis on how his church is integrating hundreds of people every year through a simple next steps approach.

Prevailing Churches Use The Persistent Rhythm of Sundays to Help Them Grow

The weekly persistence of Sundays can be tough for leaders to get used to, if they haven’t experienced it before. I’ve seen this first hand,

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast! Today we’re talking with Jon Ritner of Ecclesia Hollywood.

For ten years Jon served at a megachurch in the Williamsburg, VA area. During his time there he worked in a number of different roles as the church grew. As the church experienced explosive growth, however, he began to wrestle if this was the place he was meant to be for the rest of his life. Jon always had remained in touch with local colleges and mentored young adults, but found that though they were interested in the Bible and spiritual things, they had no desire to come to church. His concern about reaching the younger generation grew and he knew something had to change.

During this time, a friend serving in Europe connected with him, and Jon and his family moved overseas to Brussels for an opportunity to learn from and experience sharing the gospel in a post-Christian context. Here discipleship existed primarily outside of the traditional Sunday church gathering. When he came back to America, Jon moved to the largely post-Christian city of Hollywood with his family to implement the strategies he learned in Ecclesia Hollywood.

Jon talks with us today on how churches can thrive in a post Christian context.

* Take charge of creating disciples. // In Brussels, discipleship looks different than it does here in America. The disciple making process is much more personal and European Christians take ownership of it. American Christians are taught to simply invite people to church gatherings, expecting the pastors and presence in the church building to pop out a disciple. So the only job of an American Christian is to invite someone into the church building. Europeans have grown up in much smaller churches and so they know you cannot invite someone to church and get a positive response. It’s a complete disconnect for the unbeliever. We have to be the church and take ownership over the disciple making through relationship building. We have to discern what is the good news for unbelieving people we are talking to, and what would sound like the gospel to them?

* Change your narrative of good news. // There is no sense of shame over sin in Europe because there is no sense of absolute truth in the culture. In America, most of the situations in which people come to Christ center around shame over an area of sin in their life which they want to change. In Europe no one views morality as absolute, so you can’t lead them to Christ through feelings of shame over sin. How do you have good news for people who don’t feel bad about themselves? When Jon realized this, he worked on figuring out what are other narratives of good news. One example is, Europeans are obsessed with work, so he focused on helping them find rest and knowing that there is no shame in rest. Our Creator rested on the seventh day. They long to receive a blessing and God will do that through rest with Him.

* Take the church to the people. // For believers in Hollywood, the city can be hostile toward Christianity and faith can feel like it’s about survival out in the world. Some churches there have created cultures that distance themselves from the rest world, and so Ecclesia Hollywood has had to reset people’s thinking. Instead Ecclesia sees themselves as a training center which teaches and equips people to go out into the world and engage with it about faith and truth. Jon says you can’t expect people to come to church, instead the church has to go to them. Share meals and hospitality with people you come across. Listen for wounds. Use that to engage the deepest longings of their heart. As our culture changes, churches and the people within need to innovate and recognize the need to adapt.

Learn more about Ecclesia Hollywood by visiting their website at https://churchinhollywood.com/

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast! Today we’re talking with Jon Ritner of Ecclesia Hollywood.

For ten years Jon served at a megachurch in the Williamsburg, VA area. During his time there he worked in a number of different roles as the church grew. As the church experienced explosive growth, however, he began to wrestle if this was the place he was meant to be for the rest of his life. Jon always had remained in touch with local colleges and mentored young adults, but found that though they were interested in the Bible and spiritual things, they had no desire to come to church. His concern about reaching the younger generation grew and he knew something had to change.

During this time, a friend serving in Europe connected with him, and Jon and his family moved overseas to Brussels for an opportunity to learn from and experience sharing the gospel in a post-Christian context. Here discipleship existed primarily outside of the traditional Sunday church gathering. When he came back to America, Jon moved to the largely post-Christian city of Hollywood with his family to implement the strategies he learned in Ecclesia Hollywood.

Jon talks with us today on how churches can thrive in a post Christian context.

* Take charge of creating disciples. // In Brussels, discipleship looks different than it does here in America. The disciple making process is much more personal and European Christians take ownership of it. American Christians are taught to simply invite people to church gatherings, expecting the pastors and presence in the church building to pop out a disciple. So the only job of an American Christian is to invite someone into the church building. Europeans have grown up in much smaller churches and so they know you cannot invite someone to church and get a positive response. It’s a complete disconnect for the unbeliever. We have to be the church and take ownership over the disciple making through relationship building. We have to discern what is the good news for unbelieving people we are talking to, and what would sound like the gospel to them?

* Change your narrative of good news. // There is no sense of shame over sin in Europe because there is no sense of absolute truth in the culture. In America, most of the situations in which people come to Christ center around shame over an area of sin in their life which they want to change. In Europe no one views morality as absolute, so you can’t lead them to Christ through feelings of shame over sin. How do you have good news for people who don’t feel bad about themselves? When Jon realized this, he worked on figuring out what are other narratives of good news. One example is, Europeans are obsessed with work, so he focused on helping them find rest and knowing that there is no shame in rest. Our Creator rested on the seventh day. They long to receive a blessing and God will do that through rest with Him.

* Take the church to the people. // For believers in Hollywood, the city can be hostile toward Christianity and faith can feel like it’s about survival out in the world. Some churches there have created cultures that distance themselves from the rest world, and so Ecclesia Hollywood has had to reset people’s thinking. Instead Ecclesia sees themselves as a training center which teaches and equips people to go out into the world and engage with it about faith and truth. Jon says you can’t expect people to come to church, instead the church has to go to them. Share meals and hospitality with people you come across. Listen for wounds. Use that to engage the deepest longings of their heart. As our culture changes, churches and the people within need to innovate and recognize the need to adapt.

Learn more about Ecclesia Hollywood by visiting their website at https://churchinhollywood.com/

Doesn’t it feel like Sunday is always coming at your church? Every seven days, it just keeps showing up!