unSeminary Podcast

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jeff Henderson, founder of The FOR Company, which helps organizations build a good name where purpose and profit grow together. Many people are more familiar with what the Church is against rather than what the Church is for. What does your church WANT to be known for? What would the people you are trying to serve say you ARE known for? Listen in as Jeff shares how to shrink the gap between these two questions. What’s uniquely different? // Jeff built the framework of The FOR Company around two questions: What do you want to be known for? And what are you known for? When the answers match, you create vision carriers for your organization. Your people will invite others to try your church because of the vision and integrity that has been built.Close the gap with clarity and research. // Most organizations have a gap between what they are known for and what they want to be known for, so Jeff and his team help non-profits and businesses close that gap. Once you clarify what you want to be known for, then do research on what you are known for. Once you have that research in hand, you’ve got to get to work on closing the gap. If there’s confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace.Begin at the top. // What is the problem that your team has been gathered together to solve? Every organization needs to be solving a problem. When Jeff works with an organization, he has the leadership team write down what they think their organization wants to be known for. More often than not, the answers are very different from each other. That’s when you know the work of clarification has to be begin at the top.Get into the community. // How do you figure out what people in your community think about your church? Ask guests for feedback when they attend your church. To keep from isolating yourselves from the people you’re serving, have staff and leadership meet in the community as often as you meet in your church offices. Use your social media accounts not just to promote your church, but also highlight businesses in the community and add value to them. Introduce yourselves to business leaders and create personal interactions in the community. Have the courage to listen to feedback and don’t take it personally if you discover your church has work to do.Apply these questions personally. // The pandemic has forced people to look closely at their lives and ask hard questions. Many people realized they didn’t like their jobs, but figuring out what to do next can be a paralyzing situation. Asking what you want to be known for can be a way to clarify your next step. You don’t have to figure out your whole life, just figure out what’s next and keep moving forward.What to do next. // If you’re looking for help on taking your next best step in your career or circumstances, pick up Jeff’s book “What to Do Next: Taking Your Best Step When Life is Uncertain”. This book outlines the process Jeff used to determine the next best step for him and how you can pursue more meaning and purpose in your life and work as well.  Learn more about Jeff’s book and other resources, including the free career risk assessment at jeffhenderson.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today. You know we every week try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and that’s our goal every week, but this week I know that’s going to happen. We’ve got my friend Jef

Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We are talking with Heath Bottomly, the Lead Pastor of Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church in Arizona. Does your church’s organizational structure match the vision that you believe you have been called to? Listen in as Heath shares how to get clarity about what is true, realign your structure, and build margin into your systems in order to achieve your God-given mission. Be intentional and plan. // It’s become more difficult to strategically plan and navigate our quickly changing world. We have to be intentionally planning what our strategies are for where we want to go, and intentionally streamlining processes. Does your church have the ability to pivot in a day’s notice, or take advantage of new opportunities when they arise?Begin with the end in mind. // What is your church’s mission statement and where are you headed? Does your church have the capacity needed to achieve your mission? As Heath has conversations with churches, many times he discovers that how they want to go about fulfilling their mission doesn’t match how they are staffed, or where they’re putting the bulk of their energy and resources.Say no to the good for the best. // It can be difficult to redirect energy within our churches so that we are focusing on the right things to achieve our missions. But everything we say yes to means we are saying no to something else. The hardest things to say no to are good things, but we have to sacrifice the good things for the best things.  Have the hard talks. // When a church is focused on things that are out of alignment with its mission, the senior pastor feels the weight of that, and how it affects the people attached to these areas. No matter how much you try to care for them, some people may still feel devalued in the process. However, we can’t let that restrict our decisions. The best way to broach hard conversations is showing what the reallocation of that time, energy and resources could look like. Demonstrate what could be accomplished in pursuing the mission and vision or the church and ask the people involved which they think is the better stewardship decision.The importance of margin. // Many church leaders struggle to introduce margin into their lives and church systems, but Heath says margin is the only way that we fight for the future. How many people on our teams are actually and adequately creating margin in their personal lives in order to take advantage of opportunities when they come? Margin also creates space to dream about the future. Take time to dream with your team. Pay attention to what percentage of time you are allotting toward margin vs the tyranny of the urgent.Plan for the right people. // Margin also allows us to hire the right people when they pop up instead of waiting until the need is a pain point. Great people are not available long. The right fit is hard to find, and when a position opens up the people that apply may not be the ones that are actually right for the job.Experience Conference. // Heath is also the creative strategist for Experience Conference, an opportunity for worship leaders, creative leaders, production, and more to come together. Rather than being a concert or green room environment, it’s more about bringing peers together to hang out, jump into workshops, and learn from each other. You can register for the conference at www.experienceconference.com and reach Heath at www.mavenmediaproductions.com or www.heathmichaelbottomly.com. Learn more about Pure Heart Church at www.pureheart.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, 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: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today’s conversation. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Larry Osborne, the Teaching Pastor and Kingdom Ambassador at North Coast Church. North Coast has nine locations in California, one in Ohio, one in Hawaii, and one in both Mexico and Japan. Churches can be tempted to look back to the old way of doing things and wish we were there. But we’ve been trusted, empowered and equipped to lead in this new, strange time. Listen in as Larry Osborne offers advice to church leaders in this season and how we can lead in the unchangeable present. Know where you are. // Churches need to have a clear understanding of their goals when moving forward, but Larry says they also have to know where they currently are. Right now a lot of churches don’t know where they are. They were on one road prior to COVID and didn’t just move backward – now they are on a completely different road. Our churches may still be heading for the same goal, and have a lot of the same things on the new road toward that goal, but are starting from a different point and we need to accept that.The effect of choice on the world. // We’ve always lived in echo chambers, but they used to be geographical, rather than by choice. In today’s world we have so many choices that it naturally creates these echo chambers. Larry believes that more choices in our culture will increase our inability to communicate because we are choosing the information world we want to live in.Kingdoms, not castles. // The result of more choices means our ministry lanes need to be narrower, but we also have to be more supportive of the lanes right across the street. In other words, we have to be more supportive of churches that are different from us because different churches may be able to reach people that we can’t reach. If we think ‘Kingdom’ instead of ‘Castle’ we will be as excited about the church across the street as we are about our own, rather than viewing them as competition.Connect people in all ways. // A lot of worship leaders and speakers desperately want to get everyone back in the room for church services. They may feel like their church is failing if people aren’t physically in the church. Internet services used to be viewed as only a way to introduce people to a church, but they can be so much more than that. An entrepreneurial leader can transform church online into a community where people truly connect.Focus on relationships. // What we need to focus on in the church is relationships and iron sharpening iron, rather than whether services should be only in person or online. Believing that gathering with a large group of acquaintances is the only way that we can meet according to Hebrews 10:24-25 is a modern idea. Some people can better focus and absorb the teaching in a small group or through an online service that they are able to pause and think about. Others focus better in person with the pastor in front of them. Serve more people with more services. // Larry doesn’t think mega churches will be going away, rather the churches are adjusting their services to serve more people as needed. Rather than build bigger buildings, offer more services across your campuses to reach people in smaller settings. You can learn more about North Coast Church at www.northcoastchurch.com and reach Larry at www.larryosborne.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. We’re in for a real treat today. We’ve got Larry Osborne with us. Larry’s been connected with North Coast Church for a long time. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country, if you’re not aware of it. Larry’s been at the front of so many different innovations—North Coast has been as well—video venues, you know, so ah small groups, multisite. Larry was the lead pastor there and then co-senior pastor from 1980 to 2019, if I’m doing my math right. Ah, but he’s current

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Executive Creative Director Melody Workman from California-based Sandals Church – one of the fastest growing churches in the country for several years now. It’s hard for churches everywhere to build high performance volunteer teams. Often our growth strategy for volunteer teams doesn’t match our growth strategy for church planting or campus expansion. Listen in as Melody shares about how to shift to a team-building mentality that will support growth at your church. Make the shift to building robust teams. // At first Sandals Church had a great growth strategy for planting campuses, but no growth strategy for building high performance volunteer teams. Melody began putting a lot of emphasis around the idea that when hiring someone they can’t simply be really skilled at their job, but they also need to be a strong team builder, or they probably won’t work out at the church.Who knows what you know? // Great leaders always ask two questions: Who knows what I know, and who can do what I do? As church leaders we may falsely believe that if someone else is as skilled as we are that we are devalued. But the truth is that when we reproduce ourselves, we have increased our value. Now we’ve trained others to know what we know.What do you value? // When it comes to what the church values, Melody tells her team that if they’re not vocal about it and it’s not visible, it’s not really a value. Team building needs to be front and center all the time if it’s something a church values. Talk about team building in your meetings and cast vision around it for your team. People are not drawn to tasks, they’re drawn to vision. Recognize that team building brings value to the volunteers involved, the campuses, and to the church. Show the volunteers you appreciate them. // You’ll find that volunteers will care about the work that needs to be done when you care about them. Recruiting is only part of the job; build time in your calendar to express gratitude to your volunteers. Let them know that you couldn’t do everything you do without them, and that you wouldn’t want to.Growing pains of a growing church. // Growing churches are going to have growing pains. For example, it can be hard for the central team to be aligned with the campuses. First, celebrate the fact that you are growing. Then establish wins. Melody worked with the executive team at Sandals Church to outline the Weekend Win: what is the win on that weekend regardless of what campus you are at? They also have weekend evaluations that come from the campuses to the central network staff every weekend. Supervisors from both areas review these evaluations.Look for the little wins. // When recruiting team members, every leader brings different strengths to the table. Work with leaders at each campus to set sizable, reachable goals. Melody underscores that it’s important to celebrate before you evaluate so that you don’t deflate your team. Leaders at Sandals know they will be evaluated on team building, so Melody makes sure they are offered constant encouragement when they take steps toward this goal. Every step is celebrated. Without celebration, a team will become deflated by evaluations, and a deflated team will underperform every time. Celebrate the small things and it helps evaluations become less of a nemesis.Building and Caring For Your Team. // Sandals works to train up leaders from within, and one of the ways they do this is through ROGO school, which stands for Real with Ourselves, God and Others. One of the ROGO resources Melody has developed is called Building and Caring For Your Team. Help leaders build and care for their teams by watching the video below, and downloading this PDF. You can visit Melody online at www.melodyworkman.com or on Instagram @MelodyWorkman. You can find out more about Sandals Church at sandalschurch.com. The Vision And Heart On Building Teams | ROGO School | Sandals Church 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over t

Welcome to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Chris Hahn, the Executive Pastor of Missional Spaces at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. In the demands and activity of ministry, church leaders can find there is a disconnect between their public leadership and struggles in their personal lives. Don’t miss today’s podcast episode where Chris shares his story of how God brought him to a place of burnout and brokenness in order to bring about His redemptive purposes. Stepping back. // Chris has been in ministry for over 30 years, starting in student ministry, moving into working as a children’s pastor, and finally an executive pastor role at a large multi-site church in Kentucky. Amidst all of the growth and hard work at the church, in January 2020 the leadership brought to Chris’s attention that he was not operating from a healthy place. Chris sensed that something might not be right internally, but he hadn’t wanted to confront it. It ultimately took outside help for him to see that he needed to step back from ministry.Seeing the truth. // Although leading up to this point Chris was walking with Jesus, praying and in the word daily, he realized he’d been ignoring the warning signs in his life. Chris was experiencing burnout, and ignoring it resulted in immature behavior patterns. When God got his attention and everything was stripped away, Chris knew that he had to make some serious changes in his life, and he left his executive pastor role.God has wired all of us with emotions for a reason. // As Chris sought healing, he wanted to understand what had gotten him to this place and how he could have ignored it. He began journeying with mentors and a counselor to take an honest look at his life and committed to being 100% vulnerable. In one of the early sessions with his counselor, she asked Chris how everything he was going through made him feel. Chris realized the truth was that he didn’t know how he felt. He knew what he thought about everything and how he should feel, but not how he actually felt. At that moment Chris realized he didn’t really know who he was anymore. Figure out why. // Chris had to start a journey back to how to feel emotions again and understand what it means to sit in feelings and not just get through them, compartmentalize them, or bury them. It is important to figure out what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling a certain way. Then just sit in it and recognize that you feel sad, even if you don’t know why, and it’s okay. You may need to talk to someone about why you feel what you feel, or journal about it.Find your ministry mentors. // Chris reached out to his ministry mentors to help him find his way back along the path back to health and wholeness. These people are pastors he had worked with, spiritual mentors, close friends, and a trusted counselor. He could reach out to them and be vulnerable, and they would be completely honest about what he should do. Through this process of healing, Chris realized that God was rescuing him from going deeper into unhealthy patterns and falling further into burnout.It’s okay to not be okay. // Chris never thought he’d be able to return to ministry within a church, but when he surrendered these fears to God, God brought him to his current position at Willow. In his current leadership role, he’s able to help create a culture where it’s okay to not be okay and not feel like you’re going to get canceled. Within the church we need to create a culture from the leadership to the staff where we can talk about things we’re struggling with, not be afraid to get help, and lovingly confront and be honest with each other.Be transparent and real. // Find someone you trust to talk about your own struggles in your life. Be completely transparent and honest with them, and be willing to go to those hard places. Chris also makes himself available to any leader or pastor who needs to talk in these situations. No matter where you are or how far you’ve fallen, God isn’t done with you. Your failures don’t define you and they can be redeemed to help others down the road. You can reach out to Chris by emailing him here. Watch a bit of his testimony at Willow Creek below. Chris Hahn Sharing at Willow Creek Staff Gathering 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, to get automatic updates every ti

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Carl Kuhl with us, the lead pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country, Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. Listen in as Carl shares about the missing piece that will help people in our churches go deeper, both with God and each other, in order to find healing and freedom. A church for the wounded. // Mosaic Christian Church has a bold statement on their website that they are a church for people who don’t go to church. Carl explains that it’s a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 14. Paul tells everyone to speak a language everyone can understand so the nonbeliever can hear the gospel. Part of the way Mosaic does that is by doing church in a way which makes it ok to be broken and hurting.Be real with Jesus. // As Christians we can forget the things Jesus saved us from and the depths of our brokenness. We become disconnected from what it looks like to live life without God. We can help ourselves remember not only by being around nonbelievers, but also by continuing to let Jesus address our junk. Our relationships with Jesus and others will deepen as we are honest about the ways we’re still broken, so that God can continue the lifelong process of healing in our lives.Embrace open brokenness. // We need to combine open vulnerability about our brokenness with the truth and grace of the gospel. The result is true community in the church. Shifting this culture has to begin with the leader, whether we are hanging out with friends, spending time with family, or teaching and leading the church. To make sure there is an appropriate level of sharing with the church, first talk about what you want to share with trusted leaders, friends, and your spouse.Grace and truth. // What is the truth that you don’t want anyone to know? That’s what is most important to share and bring into the light. The confessions of our brokenness have to start with the leader in order to demonstrate that the church is a safe place for everyone. Start the community that you want to be a part of. If we allow God to really work in us and deal with our brokenness and sin, then when we confront someone else about their sin, it will come from a place of love and compassion, not judgement and comparison.Transform the church. // Carl has written a book called Blood Stained Pews: How Vulnerability Transforms a Broken Church into a Church for the Broken. Many churches feel that they are missing something and need more – a deeper, truer community where vulnerability and the gospel collide. Through personal stories and powerful insights, Carl’s book calls us to more deeply consider God’s grace and turn our churches into places people can run to when they are wounded. You can learn more about Mosaic Christian Church at www.mosaicchristian.org and learn more about Carl and his book at carlkuhl.org Download and read the first chapter of Carl’s book here plus get free resources for your team for the book by emailing Carl. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. Today we’ve got a repeat guest, somebody who was on just a year ago. And you know when we have a repeat guest it means we’ve got more to learn. So super excited to have Pastor Carl with us. He is the lead pastor of Mosaic Christian Church, which is in Maryland. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country and it’s serving the Baltimore/Washington DC area. And we know that that’s not the kind of place in the country that fast-growing churches normally come from so we’ve got a lot we can learn from Carl today. Welcome. So gla

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Vern Streeter, the lead pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, Montana. Harvest Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country and has had a long-time value of being community-focused. Listen in as Vern chats with us about paying attention to the unique needs in your community, and how you can creatively impact and serve your city in Jesus’ name. Focus on the community to be relevant. // Planting a church where the focus is simply “doing church” should not be our primary goal. If people don’t want churches in their neighborhoods because churches are irrelevant to their lives, Vern believes that’s the church’s fault for not connecting with the community in meaningful ways. At Harvest Church their mantra is to be so tangible and relevant that even the most ardent critic of Christianity would be bummed if they ceased to exist. Plant a church with a focus on serving the community and being relevant to them.Serve others outside worship services. // In an effort to build a connection with the community, Harvest Church didn’t start with worship services, but rather with serving the neighborhood. They began with simple activities such as raking leaves and taking care of landscaping, and over time have held bigger events and gotten really creative about serving their community. That even led to the construction of a pool and water park for the city of Billings. Rally others to new ideas. // Vern advises to other pastors who hear an urge from the Lord to do something crazy for their community to just get out there and go for it. Ask yourself what your community needs and rally everyone to the new idea that will serve the community in a surprising way. Followers of Christ are tired of the consumerism in churches and are ready to surprise and delight the community in Jesus’ name. Think outside the box and get outside the church walls to engage the curiosity of unbelievers, and your church will gain traction in your community.Needs unique to your community. // Montana and Wyoming lead the nation in per capita suicide and the need for mental health care is huge in the community. To address this need, Harvest Church is redirecting funds that were originally for a new building and they are constructing a mental health facility to serve the community instead. The arrangement is not without challenges, such as accepting medicare, medicaid, and insurance, and having all federal and state licenses that are required. But the team at Harvest believes this is a specific way that God is calling them to serve their community with excellence while being unapologetically bible-based. You can learn more about Harvest Church at www.harvestchurch.tv. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we like to bring you a leader who will inspire and equip you and I know today is no exception. Super excited to have Vern Streeter with us. He is the lead pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, Montana. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. They, a number of years ago, started the Better Billings Foundation which we’re going to hear more about, and their kind of practical outreach to make a difference. They’ve been done all kinds of really cool things. I’m excited to learn from them and part of what I love is Billings, Montana is not the kind of place that you would say a fast-growing church comes from. And so we can definitely learn from Vern today. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Vern Streeter — Really glad to be here. Thanks, Rich. Rich Birch — This is going to be great. Why don’t you fill out the picture kind of tell us a bit more about Harvest. Give us the kind of the picture, if people were to arrive this weekend, what would they experience? Vern Streeter — Yeah, so ah, Harvest Church was planted in the year 2000. I was a

Welcome back to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Paula Ley, executive pastor at Radiant Church in the Tampa Bay area. Paula is talking with us about the spheres of influence in our lives and how to balance the busy seasons of ministry while still prioritizing our most important relationships. Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint. // Paula has served in many different ministries from being a missionary to working for Radiant Church, to starting a non-profit with her husband. She has a saying that she sticks to which is: the principles don’t change, the particulars do. When you’re grounded in the word of God, He can move you anywhere and give you unexpected experiences, and he never wastes a thing. You might not be in the right role right now, but God will use it in the future if you stay close to him.Spheres of Influence. // When working in ministry, there is a lot that can bleed into your personal life. Church leaders carry a huge responsibility, and so Paula put together a system called the Spheres of Influence that helps her make decisions about what to prioritize in her life. She also uses it when coaching team members and volunteers so they can figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to.Start with God in the center. // On the sphere, Paula starts out with a small circle and puts God in the center of, indicating that a relationship with him is top priority. From there she draws more concentric circles, moving out from the center. Next she has a circle for her husband, then her kids and grandkids, and then her job and ministry. As the circles get larger they extend to other parts of her life. These Spheres of Influence help you stay on task, but also keep people as most important in your life because ultimately as pastors, people matter more than what role we play.Urgent items. // Urgent items will move into the inner circle at times, but they can’t stay there. By nature urgent items are short term. Otherwise they need their own permanent spot in the Spheres of Influence and regular attention in your life. Examples of urgent items might be a sudden death in the church, or other events that need a pastor’s temporary focus.Hard calls and soft calls. // Once you have your Spheres of Influence drawn, Paula says to pay attention to hard calls and soft calls. The hard calls are the things that God has brought into your life which need you and aren’t going to change, for example: your spouse, young kids, aging parents, etc. The soft calls are the outer circles in your life that do change, such as job, ministry, and other relationships.Finishing well. // Time management and prioritization applies to everyone. Pray about how God wants you to organize your spheres. Each person has to draw their own sphere, although it may help to speak with a spouse or family as they can help us pay attention to patterns of workaholism. Heavy seasons of ministry will have a sacrificial component to them, but it’s also important to make sure that your innermost circles are healthy. Finishing well is about having integrity in those inner areas.Serving Beyond Borders. // Paula works with the non-profit Serving Beyond Borders which helps leaders and nationals in other parts of the world create leadership structures for church planting. They partner with existing ministries in other countries to reach out to the people in their communities. You can learn more about Radiant Church at www.weareradiant.com. You can also learn about Serving Beyond Borders at www.servingbeyondborders.org. You can hear more from Paula and her husband on the podcast, The Radical Christian Life with Doug and Paula, which can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tony Morgan, the founder and lead strategist of The Unstuck Group, which offers consulting and coaching for churches as well as practical resources such as courses, access to research and more – all to help churches get unstuck. The Unstuck Group does quarterly trend reports that reveal where churches are thriving or getting stuck in this season. Today Tony is talking with us about some of the latest findings. Spread the gospel. // One of the notable trends in churches right now is that baptisms have increased over the last 12 months, indicating that churches are reaching new people who are taking steps in their faith. This is an important shift because in the beginning of the pandemic, ministry leaders became so focused on taking care of their own congregations that they lost sight of the broader mission of spreading the gospel. The report on baptisms indicates that churches are bouncing back to being focused on pointing new people to Jesus.Create an intentional discipleship strategy. // The average number of people that churches are baptizing is 5 people for every 100 people in attendance in a given year. In other words, if a church has 1000 people in attendance, on average between 50 and 60 people go public with their faith through baptism. Churches need to keep in mind the fact that people are on a spiritual journey. God ultimately has to work on someone’s heart to prompt them to take the step to be baptized. However churches also need to be intentional by having discipleship strategies in place that show people what their next steps are.Create an intentional reach strategy. // In addition to having intentional discipleship strategies, churches need to have intentional reach strategies which engage new people outside the church and faith. The most common challenge for churches is this “front door” issue – engaging new people with the gospel. Without an intentional reach strategy we cannot live on mission, and it’s only a matter of time before our churches start to plateau and decline. Decrease in church engagement both ways. // The Unstuck Group has gathered data for the first quarter which shows about a 15% drop in online engagement and a 27% drop in in-person church attendance. Church leaders have been hopeful that if people aren’t attending in-person then they’re watching online, but these numbers are indicating that church engagement overall is decreasing.Engage with people online. // Our online services can be part of our reach strategy – many new people will watch a service online before they ever attend in person. However we need to create more connections with these people instead of just streaming services. Engage with people online to help them take next steps. Use social media for more than just promoting what’s happening at the church and actually interact with people. Discipleship happens in community so connect people online with each other as well.More statistics from reports. // Tony shared some of the other statistics that the trend reports reveal as well. For example, growing churches have smaller boards and fewer committees. Growing churches also have less debt than declining churches and are baptizing a higher percentage of people. Most notably, declining churches have significantly bigger staff teams than growing churches, employing 56% more full time employees. Overstaffing means the staff does the work of the ministry instead of equipping the people of God to do it, as Paul instructs in Ephesians 4:11-12. If you want to get a copy of the latest trend report from The Unstuck Group you can go to www.theunstuckgroup.com/trends and explore all of the resources available to churches. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Derwin Gray, the lead pastor at Transformation Church in South Carolina. In the bible we see every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping Christ together, yet in our country and churches we continually see examples of the racial divide. Listen in as Derwin shares his heart and steps that we can take toward racial reconciliation in order to achieve God’s vision for a redeemed and reconciled multiethnic family of believers. Consumer Christianity versus authentic Christianity. // Jesus says the world will know His disciples because of their love for one another. There is a difference between consumer Christianity which says Jesus is a means to an end and authentic Christianity which says Jesus is the end. Jesus broke down every dividing wall so we could be a part of a new multiethnic family. This is intrinsic to the gospel.Our differences reflect God. // Some Christians don’t want to talk about race, but Derwin points out that the bible does talk about it. God redeems our colors and our culture to be a beautiful reflection of Him in the world. At the end of the bible there’s every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping around Christ. God saved us as individuals to put us into a family, and this family is a multicolored family. Keeping silent about the issue of racism hurts the witness of Christ.Homogenous unit principle. // The homogenous unit principle teaches that if churches want to grow fast, they should gather and target the same type of people in a church. This idea was developed by a missionary in India to reach out to the different castes of people and bring them together as the family of God. But it was changed in the US to reach out to people who already look and think alike. Decades later the result is increased political division, racial prejudice, and isolation in the body of Christ, along with deteriorating discipleship.A gospel issue. // If you truly want to heal the racial division in our churches, you need to recognize that there will be a backlash. You need to have a theological conviction that this is a gospel issue so that you can stand against the opposition. Examine your motives for taking this step. You shouldn’t want a diverse church just because America is more diverse, but because it is the outworking of the gospel of Jesus Christ.Diversity in leadership. // Your leadership should reflect the congregation you want to have. That doesn’t mean that someone is on the immigration team just because they are Latino, or someone is on the urban team just because they are Black. It means sharing the pulpit and needs to be reflected in leadership positions that make decisions, such as executive pastors and small group pastors.Cross-cultural competency is important. // Love means being willing to learn about someone else’s culture. When you have the majority culture, you don’t have to listen to others’ stories. Choose to listen so you can understand where people are coming from, and what they experience in their lives. In the gospel, our ethnic differences don’t need to be obliterated, they can be celebrated. All of us through the blood of Jesus are equally declared righteous.Healing our racial divide and living in His light. // Derwin’s book, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation, is meant to help leaders lead more effectively in the area of racial reconciliation. It goes through Scripture, showing the heart of God, and how God from the beginning envisioned a reconciled multiethnic family in loving community, reflecting his beauty and healing presence in the world. Don’t miss the giveaway unSeminary is offering to the first five leaders who commit to reading Derwin’s book with another leader at their church. For a chance to win two free copies of How to Heal Our Racial Divide, respond to an email from Rich with your interest. You can learn more about Derwin Gray, his book, and other resources, such as The Multiethnic Church Roundtable, at his website www.derwinlgray.com. Or follow along with Transformation Church at transformationchurch.tc. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they nev

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’ll be chatting with Dino Rizzo, the executive director of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) as well as part of the senior leadership team at Church of the Highlands. ARC was created in 2000 by six pastors and has grown to be a preeminent church planting and leadership support organization. Having been a church planter himself, Dino has a passion for training other church planters, and coming alongside them as an older brother in Christ to cheer them along on their journey. Listen in as Dino shares encouragement for church planters and leaders in this season. Decide on your outlook. // It’s been a season where church leaders everywhere are evaluating if their souls are healthy and their spirits are full. Painful seasons can cause you to focus on the complications of church and leadership and become disillusioned. Bring your focus back to the simple gospel of Jesus Christ and decide what your outlook will be.Look at your soul. // If you find you are frustrated, angry, fixated on the negative, and comparing yourself to others, it’s a sign that you need to shift your focus. Remember that you are valued by God for who you are and not what you do. You are seen and loved. Look at the field you’re in and know that this is where God has you in this season. He’s responsible for your usefulness.Reach out to others. // If you feel isolated, remember that you’re not alone. Take time to cultivate relationships and be proactive about reaching out to those around you. If you have friends you haven’t seen or talked to in a while, you can be the one to take that first step in reconnecting with them. Serve your community. // So many times the way out of your own pain is by serving someone else. There is no peace or fulfillment when you live your life for just me, myself, and I. Dino recommends that before having your first church service at a new church launch, serve your city. You’re not there to just build a church; you’re there to make the city better and will grow the church by engaging and serving your community.Empower your people to make a difference. // Church of the Highlands wants to empower their people to make a difference so they hold a Serve Day in July with the purpose of serving the people in their community in various ways. An “all call” event like this helps to pull in people who aren’t already exercising those serving muscles. Rather than a one-time event, a serve day is meant to build a culture of service at your church. As you create serving opportunities, you can develop leaders, build partnerships, and plug people into small groups where serving is a regular part of life.Be a blessing today. // With all of the pain and hurt in the world, one of the greatest things we can do is decide to be a blessing each day. Get up and bless the people around you, even in the smallest ways, and model it to your church. For ideas on how to begin, visit www.serveday.com and www.servolution.org. You can learn more about ARC and access their many resources for church planters at www.arcchurches.com. Or follow along at Church of the Highlands at www.churchofthehighlands.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super honored to have Dino Rizzo with us today. He’s the executive director of ARC, The Association of Related Churches. If you don’t know ARC, man, this is an incredible movement. It was started in 2000 by six pastors—and one of them’s on our show today, Dino—and has grown to be really a preeminent church planting organization and really leadership support organization. They’ve launched, I think at the last count, over a thousand churches in the last twenty years which is amazing and they just keep it going. They they not only launch but support churches. They have just all kinds of you know, great helps for churches and they really have a focus on churches reaching unchurched folks. And so I

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with marketplace leader Chris Ducker, who is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and runs several businesses. As churches find themselves more a part of the online world, there is continually a challenge to connect with people in a meaningful way. Listen in as Chris shares how to add a personal touch to your interactions online, encouraging conversations instead of simply shouting into a virtual megaphone. P to P versus B to B or B to C. // We may be familiar with businesses and organizations being business to business or business to consumer, but Chris says the new focus should be people to people. At the end of the day, whether you are signing a deal with a company, or serving a community, people are attracted to you because of who you are and what you stand for.Attract and repel. // If you want to build a community and attract a certain segment of people, you have to be you all the time. You will equally deter and repel people away as you will attract the right people who want to be part of your tribe. You can’t please everyone. Understand what you want to be known for, where your unique traits lie in respect to that, and how to lean into it.No comment left behind. // When someone sends Chris a direct message on social media or email, he believes strongly that they should get a direct reply from him because they’ve taken time out of their day to reach out to him. He tells us it’s wrong to ignore someone who has come to you in this way, seeking help. Take the time to respond to them even if it’s only a quick response.Connect to the people. // Ask people open-ended questions about how you can serve them. When you are willing to have a conversation beyond a yes or no answer, you’ll be able to receive information that can help you offer value to others using your unique skillset as a leader.Online communication is not a megaphone. // Pastors may not be willing to get into as many conversations online because it can be overwhelming and feel like a time-waster. But for those who decide to do it, Chris believes only good things can come from it. It’s a way to build relationships and you never know when one little question you answer can change a person’s mindset. As leaders we need to take seriously the responsibility to show up for our people. Have a virtual staff. // Build a virtual team to support on the online communication and social media part of the church work. It will give you more time in your day to focus on aspects of your work that only you can do when you have others handle the repetitive tasks.Hire the staff type you need. // If you’re looking for someone who can work a few hours a week on tasks you’d like to delegate, you can find individuals through freelance sites. The other way is to hire someone for a role rather than just a task, which can be done through Chris’s site virtualstafffinder.com. Virtual Stafffinder will go through the process of going through applications, vetting and testing them so you don’t have to focus on it.One person is not the same as three. // A common misconception Chris notices when hiring virtual team members is the assumption that one person can successfully do three people’s jobs. That doesn’t work with local staff, and it doesn’t with virtual staff either. Another big mistake is assuming that because a person has a specific skill that they don’t need guidance or onboarding of any kind. Training always helps set new team members up for success. We’re giving away 10 copies of Chris’s book, Rise of the Youpreneur: The Definitive Guide to Becoming the Go-To Leader in Your Industry and Building a Future-Proof Business – two copies each to five people. You can be entered to win by responding to any one of the emails unSeminary may have sent you. Learn more about Chris and his work at chrisducker.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody! Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. Normally those are church leaders, but today we’ve got a great marketplace leader – guy by the name of Chris Ducker. If you do not know Chris, I don&#

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This time we’re talking with Brian Dodd, the Director of New Ministry Partnerships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions. He also runs a blog called Brian Dodd on Leadership which provides perspective, encouragement, and solutions for church and ministry leaders. When you look at the world today, there seems to be a real deficit in leadership at the top levels. But if you look at everyday life and what’s happening in local churches, local businesses, and community there’s extraordinary leadership going on right now. Listen in as Brian shares wisdom and insights on leadership that can be used to train, inspire, develop, and equip your people and teams. Humble leaders grow churches. // Around 85% of churches are plateaued or declining. If your church is one of the 15%, what are you doing to get to that point? The number one characteristic Brian sees in pastors of growing churches is unbelievable humility. A humble leader who is ready to follow God’s leading and steward well what they’ve been given is a number one asset for a growing church.Three components to spiritual leadership. // There are three components to spiritual leadership: God, the assignment, and a person. God determines the assignment and then gives a person the privilege to be part of that assignment.Character, competence, and creativity. // When doing personal coaching with church leaders, Brian has them focus on character, competence, and creativity. In his research on leadership, he found that character didn’t make it to the top ten traits needed to get to the top in a person’s line of work. While you may not need character to get to the top, however, you will need it to stay at the top. Leadership skills and leader skills. // A leader must develop leadership skills and leader skills. Leadership skills are developing the skills, talents, and abilities to accomplish a task or assignment given to you by God. Leader development is becoming the man or woman who can accomplish those tasks given to you by God. When you systemize the setting of God as the primary resource of everything in your life and leadership you have solved 90-95% of the character issues you’ll face.Creativity is about solutions. // Creativity is directly tied to what we are producing. It’s leveraging resources in a new and different way to produce results that nobody has ever done before. It doesn’t come from abundance, but rather from a lack of abundance. We need to make sure we aren’t leading in a domineering way that stifles creativity and does not produce solutions.A tool for leading your people well. // Brian has written a book called 2021: The Year in Leadership. The Stories of Faith, Athletics, Business and Life Which Inspired Us All. Every page is filled with leadership lessons and contains over 80 illustrations that church leaders can use in sermons, trainings, team huddles, as well as individual growth and development. You can follow along with Brian Dodd and grab a copy of his book at briandoddonleadership.com, plus get free access to The Top 75 Leadership Quotes Of 2021 Part 2. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody – welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. Today We’re also going to bring you someone who I know you’re going to be encouraged with. You’ve got my friend Brian Dodd. He is the Director of a New Ministry Relationships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions. He runs an incredible blog called Brian Dodd on Leadership where he really provides lots of great information and help. Over the years he’s a coupl

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Shawn Lovejoy, the founder and CEO of Courageous Pastors and Courage to Lead. His work is all about coaching leaders around what keeps them up at night and focuses on personal and organizational growth. Shawn is talking with us about building and redeploying healthy teams in our churches after the struggles of the last couple of years. A switch in the focus. // Shawn says that three years ago, before so much of the upheaval we’ve experienced, 90% of his talks with pastors were on the nuts and bolts side of leading a church and 10% on the personal side. Today with everything we have going on in our world, that has now switched to 90% personal and 10% nuts and bolts. Shawn’s organization talks with pastors about getting back up and finding confidence and courage again.Grieve the loss, then move ahead. // Grieve the loss that you had in your church since the pandemic, but then focus on moving ahead. Look at the church leaders currently on your staff as your new launch team and pour into them. Rebuild the team you’ve got and deploy them to equip your people to live out the church’s mission.Look at building leaders at every level. // The opportunity for church leaders now is not to focus on getting more followers, but rather building leaders at every level. Look for people who aren’t just ministry doers, but ministry developers. Build teams from the staff to lay leaders to volunteers. Train your staff team to replicate themselves and give their jobs away. In doing so they make themselves indispensable rather than being bottlenecks. And building a strong leadership culture at your church will strengthen you at the center so you can stand firm when the next challenge comes your way.Culture, team, and systems. // Shawn’s book Building a Killer Team Without Killing Yourself or Your Team helps leaders move ahead with becoming a better leader and team builder. Shawn can trace every growing or non-growing church back to three things—the culture, the team, and the systems—and he coaches around these three gears of growth. The number one thing that keeps church leaders awake at night is people. We need to stop believing that if we can hire a certain person it will solve all of our problems. Instead we need to learn to develop our people on healthy teams.Build great, healthy teams. // Shawn’s process to building healthy teams focuses five pillars. This sequence includes fostering togetherness, recruiting and building great talent, bolstering accountability, structuring for growth and peace, and maintaining rhythms and finish lines.Be clear and honest with your staff. // We all would love to acquire the best team ever. But we all have folks on our teams who aren’t meeting expectations. As a leader, part of developing staff member means talking to them when we are not happy with their performance. By doing so we can help them get realigned, or they may recognize the current position isn’t right for them. Be clear and honest about not meeting your expectations. It allows them to hear from the Holy Spirit on where they are called and whether they should opt out. Offer clarity and honesty on where they are winning and not winning, on what’s acceptable and not acceptable. You can learn more about Building a Killer Team Without Killing Yourself or Your Team at www.killerteambook.org. To get coaching help, listen to the Courageous Pastors podcast, and explore more free resources that can help your church, visit Courageous Pastors at www.courageouspastors.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So gl

Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Kevin Cook, executive pastor at Cross Point Church in the greater Nashville, Tennessee, area. They have six locations in middle Tennessee plus online services. God has entrusted those of us who are executive pastors with a significant leadership. While He may be preparing you for what’s coming next, it’s critical that we be present and pay attention to what God’s saying to us in the now. Listen in as Kevin shares how God prepared Cross Point Church for an unexpected senior leader transition and kept them from missing what He was doing. What is He saying to you today? // Sometimes it’s difficult to see what God is doing in our lives, and we become restless, wanting to move ahead to something different. When Kevin joined the lead team at Cross Point as the Executive Pastor of Stewardship Operations, he struggled to see how his wiring connected with some of his responsibilities and wondered if he belonged elsewhere. After an especially draining season, Kevin learned that his relationship with God is more about being present with Him in the moment, following His promptings today, and being willing to say yes. Focus on the now. // God is often preparing us for things we could have never imagined. When we are so focused on the next we can miss what God is calling us to do in the now. We get our to do list and try to take control, figuring things out on our own. Rather than focusing on the next thing you have to do, look for what it is He has for you here and now.Say yes to God. // Kevin said yes to God and chose to stay at Cross Point, paying attention to what God was doing. Two months later there was an unexpected lead pastor transition. Cross Point approached Kevin about moving from Executive Pastor of Stewardship Operations to becoming the head Executive Pastor, leading the church through the transition. Kevin knew there was no way he could approach this transition on his own so he turned himself fully to God for guidance. God led him to pray for wisdom, discernment, clarity, unity, and peace. Peace sometimes doesn’t come until after the decision is made, but God will lead you to that peace in His time.Don’t lead on your own. // Kevin didn’t dive into leading the church on his own. He started a small interim leadership team and with their help would follow where God was leading the church. What God has called us to do is more important than us as individuals. We need others to help us and we need to allow God to lead through us, but we also need to hold on loosely to what we’ve been given.God will work in His time. // During the search for a new lead pastor the interim lead team kept the church up-to-date on the status of interviews and candidates. Six months into the lead pastor search Cross Point had said no to 10 candidates, but they knew the right person was out there and they had to wait for God to reveal who it was. God’s calendar is not our calendar and He will send the right candidate when it’s time.Be there for the lead pastor. // There’s a huge amount of pressure on lead pastors, especially in larger churches, and it’s so important for the executive pastor to be a support to the lead pastor. Help hold the lead pastor up by praying for him. Be willing to charge the hill with him, be there for him, develop that relationship of trust, and help alleviate pressure in his work. You can learn more about Cross Point Church at www.crosspoint.tv, and the message that impacted Kevin, Don’t Stop at Six by Steven Furtick. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friend,s welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in and today. You’re going to be really blessed. We’ve got a fantastic conversation lined up with my friend ne

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Greg Surratt, the founding pastor of Seacoast Church in the Carolinas and also a founding member of ARC, Association of Related Churches, which trains, coaches, and equips church plants across the country. So many pastors are wrestling with similar concerns and soul care issues today. They are wanting to know, “Is it ok where my church is right now?” Listen in as Greg shares from his own ministry experience over the decades and offers wisdom and encouragement to struggling church leaders. You’re not alone in your struggles. // The last couple of years have been some of the hardest between the pandemic changing everything, racial tensions, the elections, division about vaccines, mask-wearing, and more. Church leaders are dealing with so many emotional issues from all of these burdens in addition to their concerns about their church. Depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief are all very real for many pastors right now.Go by faith. // Discouragement can be an occupational hazard in ministry. There are times in your life when you don’t feel encouraged, but you still need to encourage others. By faith keep doing what you need to do. But having internal disconnect should be the exception and not the norm. Examine your life to make sure you have an integrated inside and outside. Living with this sort of integrity is the only way to sustain ministry for the long haul.Find friends who can help you. // Get a group of people around you who love you and are an encouragement to you, but also people who are not impressed with you and will call out pride in your life. Surround yourself with people who know you, are concerned about your future, and want to help you get from here to there.Focus on what God has given. // Don’t look at your church’s pre-COVID attendance numbers. That’s in the past. We aren’t entitled to thousands, or hundreds, or even tens. Express gratitude for the people God has brought to you and be the best pastor you can be to the people you have right now. Culture trumps vision. // Greg believes that the most important part of the founding team for a new church is having someone who can create culture. Culture is treating people right and creating a place where they all feel valued and part of something bigger than themselves. If you can get a visionary leader who knows how to treat people right, create culture, develop leaders, and call out the potential in those around them, it’s a strong recipe for future success.Live well and finish strong. // Many pastors don’t have a group of friends who understand what they are struggling with and can come around them. This need led Greg to start taking groups of church leaders on retreats. During this time away there is no agenda, but rather attendees can just rest, relax and experience the peace of God. At night they process with each other what God is doing in their lives, and allow time for friendships to be built with each other.Don’t give up. // God never wastes a crisis. It’s in these seasons that he establishes us and our leadership is built. If we remain faithful and persevere, we will see a harvest and realize what a privilege it is to lead at this time. If you want to follow along with Seacoast Church, find them at www.seacoast.org. Or if you’d like to know more about the retreats Greg mentions, visit www.retreatatchurchcreek.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, 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 Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited to have you with us today. I’m super excited for our guest. His name’s Pastor Greg Surratt – he’s a fantastic leader from a church that if you don’t know, I don’t know where you’ve been. Greg is the founding pastor of Seacoast Church. They have, if I’m counting correctly, 12 physical locations in North and South Carolina, plus church online. It began way back in 1988 with 65 people in an apartment clubhouse and has really become a preeminent church across

Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenni Catron, the founder and CEO of the 4Sight Group which helps both leaders and their teams be healthy and thriving. With the disruptions that covid has brought, many church leaders are struggling with a sense of overload and fatigue. Shifts in how we work have created fractures in teams which have resulted in strains on relationships, communication, and trust. Listen in as Jenni talks about how to address these issues in ministry. Relational connectivity. // Recent statistics show that 25% or more of employees are considering leaving their jobs. Many people are feeling disconnected from the significance of the work they’re doing because they aren’t in proximity to their leader, team, or the people they serve in the way they used to be. Interactions with teammates have become largely transactional as we do more virtually, and we’ve lost natural human interaction that happens when we’re face-to-face.Focus on the why. // Organizational clarity has been difficult in this season because we don’t know what the next few months or years will look like. But rather than focusing on the what, we need to focus on the why. If leaders can go back to their why, they will re-inspire their teams. In this great reorganization people want to be a part of something that has meaning and purpose. We don’t have to give our teams a detailed roadmap to the how. Once they understand the why and reconnect to that, they will work together to discover the how. Organizational structure should serve our strategy. // Org charts can feel bureaucratic, however they provide clarity for every staff person at your church to understand how they contribute to this mission. One of the most critical things we can do as leaders is provide clarity for our team and help people see their place in the organization.Work on your Org Chart in layers. // As you work on your ministry’s org chart, you’ll need to go back and forth between what and who. Look at what your organization needs to achieve its mission, and then what core functions are necessary to achieve it, whether they are operations, creative weekend experience, etc. Start at the top and figure out how many direct reports a leader can have. Define the roles and then look at who in the organization best fills those roles. Continue this process layer by layer.Changing values. // Values serve us for a season and while sometimes that season can last for decades, other times that season may come to an end a lot sooner than we expected. In cases like this, take a look first at what doesn’t need to change and what still represents who your organization is. From there, find the values that no longer embody who you are and identify why those should change.Four steps to writing values. // Jenni has given us access to the resource The Four Steps to Writing Values that are More Than Statements on a Wall. This document walks readers through how to evaluate your values. You’ll identify what is the belief, why it’s significant, what are the behaviors, and the language to then talk about them.Culture Blind Spot Assessment. // If you want to troubleshoot the culture at your church, visit the 4Sight Group and take the Culture Blind Spot Assessment. 4Sight will then talk on the phone with you about the trouble spots that are identified and how they can help you. Visit www.get4sight.com to take the assessment and learn more about all that 4Sight Group can do for you. Click here to download The Four Steps to Writing Values that are More Than Statements on a Wall. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know e

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Shawn and Sonny Hennessy, from Life Church Green Bay in Wisconsin. Shawn and Sonny are also co-hosts of The Rise After the Fall podcast and together founded The Exchange Collaborative. The highs and lows of ministry, and the trials of life can threaten to destroy pastors and church leaders if they don’t address their own brokenness. Everyone experiences trauma and has weaknesses that can lead to a fall. But that’s not the end of the story. Listen in as Shawn and Sonny talk about how to find healing and move toward restoration after a fall. So many hide before they fall. // There are so many pastors in the midst of a fall or in danger of a fall who hide, either in pride or fear, and don’t reach out to someone for help. They may feel that they don’t have someone they can go to, or they may fear losing their position and livelihood, especially if they are the senior leader.Step away when needed. // God has used Shawn and Sonny’s own brokenness and restoration process to found The Exchange Collaborative where they come alongside other pastors and church leaders who are struggling. In addition to offering resources such as The Rise After the Fall podcast, Shawn and Sonny have put together a program for pastoral restoration. As part of this program, one of the things they offer to pastors who are at a point where they really want help is a financial incentive to walk away from their ministry for a year.Fake it until we make it or fall. // Some of the biggest pastoral falls come from the things people are ashamed and embarrassed about, like financial or sexual impropriety. A lot of times our insecurity causes us to hide our own doubts about ourselves, and we try to fake it until we make it. So as church leaders we actually fail the most by not admitting our weaknesses in the first place, and then not setting up safeguards to prevent our falls.Walk in repentance. // The first step toward healing and restoration is admitting that we are broken. The pastoral restoration program is not for the person who just wants to save face and preserve themselves. Rather it’s for those who want to walk in repentance. It helps leaders who are broken dig down to the root cause of why they took a wrong step in the first place.Paths for help. // Everybody’s needs are different so there are a couple of different paths in the pastoral restoration program. One option is for people to come to Green Bay for 30 days to a year and live there, going through an intense restoration process. The Exchange Collaborative offers housing, a job, a church they can attend, and the Journey to Wholeness course to work through. It is an honest and open process that will help leaders, and their families, defragment and reconnect.Other options for restoration. // There are other options for those who can’t come to Green Bay for a year for the restoration process. Shawn and Sonny can fly to pastors and work with them and their families while they are still serving in their ministry role. There is also an option for 2-3 day intensives at various locations. One is at the Living Waters Retreat in Arizona on June 23-25, 2022. Additionally, you can contact Shawn or Sonny directly through their website if you need to talk with them about help you may need.Create a culture of vulnerability. // As a church leader, you can create a culture where people on your staff will feel safe opening up about their struggles before their life goes off the rails. Have conversations about your struggles and how you are addressing them. You don’t need to bare your whole soul, but can start by speaking generally to lay down a foundation for your team. Talk time to pray for one another. The Journey to Wholeness course offered at The Exchange Collaborative website is also available for your staff to walk through together. You can learn more about The Rise After the Fall podcast, the pastoral restoration program, and other resources at www.theexchangecollaborative.com. Find out more about Life Church Green Bay at www.lifechurchgreenbay.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week here on the podcast we

Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tiffany Henning, founder of HR Ministry Solutions which helps with human resources in churches and faith-based ministries. At the beginning of 2021, many churches were restructuring their staff. Now in 2022 with so much inflation, there are concerns about how to compensate staff fairly. These things combined with the fact that so many have left ministry over the last few years leave churches realizing they need to retain the staff they have and take care of them well. Listen in as Tiffany shares insights into current HR trends in ministry and changes you can make now. Address harassment issues. // Aside from COVID issues, Tiffany says the second most common phone calls HR Ministry Solutions gets are about harassment issues. There is more unwelcome and offensive conduct these days, and so harassment issues can come up often within churches.Align pay rates with market value. // In 2022 the biggest challenge has been compensation because of inflation and the difficulty finding new quality staff hires. Churches are realizing that they need to hold onto the staff they have and align pay rates with the current market value.You have to be proactive. // By the time you hear from an employee that they’re not happy or they’re looking at other places, you’ve already lost them. Be continually plugged into your staff. Have “stay interviews” and ask your staff how they feel about working for you, what motivates them to come to work, what they are passionate about, and what would motivate them to leave. Download a sample Stay Interview template from HR Ministry Solutions here.The top of the lists. // While your budget will ultimately drive compensation, studies show that pay is actually not number one on the list of what is keeping people at their jobs. They’re looking for time off, flexibility, work life balance, good culture, and to be poured into. These things cost time more than money, and if staff leaves you will spend much more time rehiring for the open positions than you would caring for existing staff on a regular basis. Deciding on outsourcing. // Churches are taking more steps toward a flexible work arrangement by looking at what they can outsource, such as accounting and creative needs. There are many organizations that can do things at the fraction of the cost of a staff person. To decide whether some things can be outsourced, think about your compensation strategy and what things you really want to put your money into without causing a major shift in culture.Regular check-ins with your staff. // Weekly and bi-weekly check-ins with the staff are becoming more common because regular, low key, honest conversations are healthy and needed with your team. They can help keep your staff from burning out and help you understand what issues they may be facing outside of the church. Having that relational capital really helps you understand and minister to your team while also leading people in a much better way.Change starts at the top. // Culture changes come from the top down. If the lead pastor isn’t on board about making changes to better care for the staff, it will all fizzle out. Take a look at yourself and make sure you are involved in those changes to model them for your staff. Realize that one staff person going south can really tank your entire staff, and a big chunk of your church as well. Conversely helping your staff helps your numbers and the whole church.Mental well-being. // The percentage of people in ministry that take anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication is big. It is a stressful job and one benefit people in ministry can really use is paid professional Christian counseling. Offer this as a benefit to everyone—even during work hours—so they can receive the help they need. Another thing to consider is allowing dogs in the workplace. Pets are emotional support animals and can help with your staff’s stress and mental well-being.Free burnout webinar. // HR Ministry Solutions did a free webinar they are sharing with us called Identifying Staff Burnout & Learning How You Heal with a downloadable checklist you can use. Often church staff don’t realize they are struggling with burnout until they read through a list of the symptoms. You can learn more about HR Ministry Solutions, sign-up for their newsletter, and book a free 15-minute consultation call at www.hrministrysolutions.com. 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 t

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Scot Longyear, the senior pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana, and guest host for the Worship Leader Probs podcast. Two years after the pandemic, church leaders are still trying to figure out where to go from here. It’s been a tough season to wrestle through with our staff teams, and one that’s been riddled with fear, anxiety, and discouragement. Listen in as Scot shares about addressing the cracks in our foundation and finding freedom from that internal anxiety. Talk about who you are now. // At the end of 2021, Scot’s staff decided that in the new year they would no longer talk about what they used to be before COVID, but focus on who they are now. Things have changed a lot from what they were two years ago and it can be hard to process all of this on a personal, and professional, and ministry level. Pay attention to where God has revealed the cracks in your foundation. Spend more time connecting with your staff as you move toward health.Transparency and vulnerability. // Everyone in ministry has struggled in some way since COVID made its appearance. For a leader there is a delicate balance between transparency and vulnerability. Your staff doesn’t have to be your primary counselors, but let them see that you also struggle like they do. It’s not uncommon to struggle with anxiety that comes from an imposter syndrome. Acknowledge that our thoughts make a huge difference; we want to be a people who think well.Connect with Jesus. // For Maryland Community Church’s staff, their connection with Jesus is number one. Scot says the staff is paid to do devotions because as followers of Christ we need to hear the truth, know the truth, and live out the truth. There are so many voices competing for our attention, from the culture around us to social media and other church leaders. Everyone has an opinion about how we should be doing things, and we have to make sure we are listening to the Holy Spirit in all of that.Key truths tied to scripture. // In Romans 12 Paul says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. When our mind thinks differently, we act differently. Scot speaks key truth statements from scripture to himself when lies begin to stir up anxiety or doubt at vulnerable times. On Saturday nights before preaching on Sunday, Scot takes time to recognize any lies that are being lobbed at him by the enemy, take those thoughts captive, and replace them with scripture and his key truth statements. Actively allowing scripture to renew our minds is what strengthens us for our callings and helps us keep moving forward after so much discouragement and fear.DITCH Your Thinking. // Scot has a released a book called DITCH Your Thinking which talks about how the mind impacts the brain, and how our thoughts actually create neurological changes. In his book, Scot explores a proven system to help you identify negative thoughts, hand them to Christ, and watch Him transform your thinking, and your life. Determine, Identify, Truth, Capture, and Hand them over. // DITCH is an acronym – D stands for Determine the Emotion. There are eight primary emotions that we might find ourselves fighting and we have to identify which one we are facing. The letter I is Identify the Stronghold, which is a process where we dig into what we are feeling with “why” questions. Next we want to Truth that Stronghold, Capture the Lies, and finally Hand them to Jesus. Go through each of these steps to work through the problems you’re facing, renew your mind, and move forward in your faith. You can learn more about Scot and order his book at his website www.scotlongyear.com. You can also find out more about Maryland Community Church at www.mccth.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, 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! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends – welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is absolutely no exception. So super excited to have Scot Longyear with us. He’s the senior pastor of a church called Maryland Community Church with two campuses in Indiana not in Maryland which I’m sure creates sometimes a bit of a a fun conversation on t

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda, the online pastor of Saddleback Church in California. Digital ministry is here to stay and churches need to think about how to move beyond just managing their weekend stream to actually connecting people online to the church and each other. Listen in as Jay Kranda shares how to focus on closing the back door of your church online experience rather than focusing on having a huge front door with a lot of subscribers. Define your wins. // Saddleback has moved away from the term online campus to embrace online community instead. This is an important shift because of how they define their wins when it comes to digital ministry. Digital ministry can look very different from one church to another based on a church’s objectives and strategy. The main objective for the online community team at Saddleback is to provide church for people that live thirty miles away from one of their physical locations. More than streaming services. // Jay is commonly asked how there are so many people who engage with the church from far away. Aside from the fact that Saddleback is a well known church around the world, Jay has been developing systems and teams for ten years now and so he has built the online community to be more than just watching streams of the service. Just as physical church is more than a building, don’t limit church online to merely watching a service on YouTube. Take time to begin developing more robust systems, people, and teams to support an online community.Meeting spaces online. // Create a Facebook group where you can interact with each other like a community of churchgoers would in a physical space. You might not see each other in person because you live in different states or countries, but you can still be a community online and create connection. Work on developing and investing in a community here week after week and you will begin to see a return over time.Focus on smaller events and connections. // Don’t worry about the big streaming numbers when creating a place for online viewers to interact. Focus on small events and one-on-one Zooms that allow you to offer pastoral care and develop people. Offer online classes for things such as membership. Host some kind of monthly or quarterly 45 minute Zoom where you talk to new people about how to engage with the church and answer their questions. Many people are not walking through a church’s doors anymore, and they want to figure out who you are before they visit in person.How far you reach. // When deciding how to staff for church online, first take a look at your online audience. How many people watch services on each platform? Run a report on how many people are within an hour drive of your church and how many are outside that. Over the last two years, how many have given to your church that live an hour away? That will help you determine how to invest in your strategy and if this is a local outreach, a farther away, or a hybrid. Jay recommends that most churches think locally.Hire a team. // Too much of the online pastor or director’s time has been focused on just project managing the weekend stream. Have a media team that can help with this part to allow the online pastor to be a pastor and connect with the online audience. Make sure to cast vision for the online pastor and define the win. An example of a win for a local audience would be to connect the digital to the physical and be thinking about how to move people from online to an actual physical location. Connect your win to your church’s strategy.Keep the online groups healthy. // One of the big game-changers for Saddleback’s online team was to move people into online groups and begin connecting them with each other. To keep groups healthy, Saddleback has certain requirements that have to be met. One of the goals is for every leader of online groups to become a member of the church and go through the online class within the first 60 days. You can create an online group and invite your friends, but Saddleback won’t plug new people into your group if you’re not a member of the church, and agreeing to their covenant. They also make sure the group leaders are regularly talking to them, and that they take an online leadership training class for groups.Double your focus. // Evaluate how many hours a week you spend thinking about your digital ministry and aim to double it this year. Recruit people from your church who are skilled in this area whether they are coders, marketing strategists, or have a large social media following. Hold a digital summit event at your church, cast vision, and find talent at your church that can help you double down on digital ministry.Go beyond streaming. // Jay has a free download, Online Church: How to Go Beyond Streaming Service to Bringing People into the Body. This download helps people think about how to structure their online church and

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Sean Morgan, founder of The Ascent Leader, a year-long development program structured around relational cohorts which is designed to engage ministry leaders in transparent conversations and one-on-one coaching with world-class leaders. As we transition from COVID being pandemic to endemic, there are paradigms church leaders have carried for decades that need to change. Listen in as Sean talks about where we need to shift our thinking and adopt new mindsets to be able to reach our communities and move forward in the future. Redefine “full”. // One of the things Sean believes we need to reexamine in the church is the 80% rule that says if the room is 80% full, then it’s “full”. With everything that’s changed since covid and the social distancing people were encouraged to do, Sean believes today that “full” number is around 70%. However, you don’t grow your church by reaching your current attenders, you grow by reaching the unchurched. And Sean believes unchurched people who visit your church will feel like the service is full when it’s at 50% capacity. People who are new and visiting your church don’t want to be wedged right in between two other people.Get back to some of the normal. // As church leaders, we have to get out of the mindset that we want to see the room 80% full before offering another service. Get back into some of the normal rhythms of your services before COVID. If you had two services before, but are now offering just one, go back to the two scheduled services as before. If you don’t create more space for people, they won’t come. Cast vision to your team not about filling the room, but rather reaching people. If you wait to hit the 80% mark in your service, it will create a bottleneck both physically and mentally.Have focus to lead your team. // In this season, leaders need to continue caring for themselves and developing themselves by creating margin in their lives. Margin fuels focus, and in return focus fuels more margin. A great leader has focus and their team knows what their focus is and what success looks like. That leader can say no to things that aren’t their focus. When a leader doesn’t have focus, the team is on edge because they don’t know what to expect or how to measure success. Listen to those close to you. // To create space and margin without being so busy, listen to your spouse and others close to you. Give your team permission to speak to you on what’s working and what isn’t. Ask and listen to your spouse about where you’re spinning your wheels, and do the same with your team. Those closest to us can see things that we can’t, and can identify our weaknesses. Create a culture where you can openly talk about these things.Coming together to grow. // Leadership is lonely and it takes work to be transparent and vulnerable. This is why The Ascent Leader developed cohorts. Church leaders have an unlimited amount of content at their fingertips but it’s just noise until they can process it. The Cohorts bring a small circle of peers closer together for support, feedback, and learning as they grow in their leadership. Here church leaders can meet physically and process curated information together through facilitated conversations.Shift gears when needed. // At times you have to shift gears in leading a team. What got you there on the team won’t always get you to the next level of your leadership. The Ascent Leader offers three cohort tracks to serve ministry leaders where they are. One track is for pastors navigating the transition into a new leadership role, one is for leaders seeking to grow in preaching, and another for planting pastors looking for the key relationships, tools, and resources for their new season of ministry. You can find out more about The Ascent Leader at https://theascentleader.org/ and on Instagram @TheAscentLeader. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. CDF Capital’s XP Summit Coh

Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kaylee Estes who was the Connections Pastor at Restoration Community Church in Denver, Colorado. More and more people are single in our churches today than in previous generations. Younger people are waiting longer to get married, the divorce rate continues to increase, and even as lifespans increase, married people will likely find themselves widowed at some point. Listen in as Kaylee talks with us today about how to better create space for single people in our churches. Don’t overlook singles. // Many ministries, events, and messaging in churches are built around couples and two-parent families, and single people may feel overlooked or pigeonholed. The fact is there are more singles across all age spans in our churches than ever before and it’s important to communicate to them in a way that they can connect to without putting them in a box.Be careful about using the “singles” label. // While labeling small groups or ministries with the word “singles” is done with a good intention, it can inadvertently communicate that the purpose of the gathering is for dating only and puts unnecessary pressure on people. Single people may be wanting to connect with their peers in a similar stage of life for reasons other than finding a partner. Instead of using the word “singles”, try other terms like “30-somethings” or “college and career”. It’s ok if the groups are co-ed. The truth is when you get a bunch of people in a room, whether it’s a small group or a larger social ministry, people who are single are going to find each other just as married couples will find each other.Use stories from singles too. // Whether you are the pastor who does most of the preaching, you handle the social media, or you are responsible for some other aspect of external church communications, pay attention to the stories, metaphors and examples you use. It’s harder for a single person to identify with a marriage-related story and apply that to their own life. However, if you share a more relationally-neutral story, such as about coworkers/classmates, neighbors, or friends, then both a married and single person can put themselves into that scenario. Share about how a widowed 42 year old is stewarding their finances well, or how a divorced 64 year old is living on mission. Or how a never-married 20-something is serving their community. Use a variety of ages and stages in your examples.Ask, don’t assume. // A lot of times people make assumptions about singles, what they need, and how they want to be involved in the church rather than asking them. Don’t assume that single women want to do all the serving in your kids ministry. And don’t assume that the bulk of the volunteering should fall to young single people or they will become burned out. Ask them how you can better support, serve, and equip them. Ask them what they want to do in your church. Don’t just assign them tasks that you think they’ll like; ask them where they feel most called to be.Represent a variety of life stages. // Don’t overlook single people in the photos of your church life. In both the graphics inside your church and on your website and social media, use images of singles as well as couples and families. Feature perspectives from single people in your messaging too. You can visit Kaylee’s website at www.houseofaxios.com or find her on Instagram at @303Kaylee. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, everybody. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad to have you tuned in today. You know every week we bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is no exception. Excited to have my new frien

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joe Boyd, lead pastor of Grace Fellowship in Minnesota. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country as well as a church-planting church and have started 28 churches during their 34 years of service. Jesus changed the world with a small group. Groups help fulfill discipleship and fellowship functions, create a connection and family, plus are a critical component to helping your church close the back door. Listen in as Joe talks with us about how Grace Fellowship shifted their groups culture and saw a huge increase in engagement. Take a look at the groups. // When Joe first stepped into his role as lead pastor at Grace Fellowship, he took a look at the small groups within the church to gauge their health. Within his first three months in leadership, Joe visited each of the small groups and found that only 23% of the adults in the church were participating in groups. The groups that were in existence were strong and the members enjoyed them, however no new groups were being started.Create a plan ahead of time. // At this point Joe and his team made the commitment to shift from being a church with small groups to a church of small groups. They didn’t want to rush into things, so made a plan to launch more groups nine months out. Grace Fellowship looked to the Rooted experience at Mariners Church to provide training and brought their staff through it before rolling it out to the rest of the church. Both adults and youth were exposed to Rooted and the result was a 70% participation of adults and 100% participation of teens in groups.Drip it before you drop it. // Before relaunching groups, Joe dripped the topic to the congregation by talking about groups over and over. After the staff went through the Rooted experience, the church rolled it out to their leaders. By reimagining small groups, by modeling it, and then by challenging their leaders to carry it out, Grace Fellowship began building a new culture.Devote the resources. // As Grace Fellowship rolled out their plan for groups, they devoted a significant amount of time, money and key people to leading the process. They also built a campaign around the launch of groups through the fall and didn’t allow anything else to compete with it. This was tough on one hand because the church didn’t grow through the fall, but Joe saw existing people at the church consistently engaging and taking ownership of the church. Make it a priority. // While growth didn’t come in the fall for Grace Fellowship, it did come at the beginning of the new year. Now people were confident that if they invited their friends to church, they would have a positive experience. Make it a priority to get groups right because it will give you the foundation to grow and not have constant turnover.Slow down and work together. // If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go with others. Slow down and spend time getting your team together to talk through a plan for groups. Not only does it allow everyone to bring their gifts and talents to the table to develop the plan together, but everyone will be bought-in when it comes time to roll out the plan.Have a leadership structure in place. // Some lead pastors may think that churches become successful and grow based simply on their outside appearance – making themselves look attractive and fun. But the secret behind a growing church is having a leadership structure in place that is focused on developing and retaining leaders.Focus on groups. // Looking to the future, Joe believes one thing that will scale up will be groups and group pastors. In groups you have to care for leaders and identify additional leaders for new groups so that you can make room for the number of people coming into your church. If you want to be a church of small groups as you grow, you need more leaders in the groups ministry than just about anywhere in your church. This will add to the success and health of your church moving forward.Grow slow and strong. // A lot of times we get hung up on fast growth in our church. But Joe reminds us that compound growth that is slow over time can actually grow our church into one of the largest. We can have plans to grow, but we need to actually focus on and care for the people rather than just the numbers. You can learn more about Grace Fellowship at www.findgrace.com. 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,

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Matt Slocum, executive pastor at Victory Life Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. Conflict is inevitable in relationships and it’s important to handle it well. Matt is talking with us today about how Victory Life Church sought to help its staff get better at having crucial conversations as the church grew. Develop a system. // When a church is small it tends to be more relational and can handle day to day tasks without systems and “family rules”, but all of that changes as a church grows. Even with a mission statement, a growing church can suddenly discover that it isn’t doing enough to communicate expectations to the expanding staff, and there are a lot of gray areas left.Honoring others. // After some issues of conflict, the church realized that people hadn’t necessarily been doing anything wrong, but they were feeling dishonored. So the leadership developed some governing core values to help them communicate with each other when problems come up. These core values are different than bylaws or an employee manual; they deal with more day-to-day communication. When something happens, it allows the staff to fill in the gaps with trust and say to a coworker, “I know you didn’t mean it this way, but I felt dishonored when this happened…”Coin conversations. // Victory Life had their core values minted on a challenge coin as a tool for the staff and core lay leaders. When conflict arises the staff can sit down to have a “coin conversation” with another staff member and everyone understands what that means. This conversation is a time when people let their guard down and move forward for the purpose of unity and restoration. The coin is a physical reminder to have a conversation rather than just arguing, blaming each other or leaving things unresolved.Take a step back. // Matt reminds us that it may take a few days to be ready to have a coin conversation. If you’re looking to win an argument, you’re probably not ready to have a conversation. But if you can emotionally get to a point of desiring restoration, and wanting the best for the other person in spite of your being hurt, then that’s a good place to start.Four core values. // The four core values at Victory Life are: faithful, teachable, honoring, and excellence. These governing values are embraced by the staff and are also taught in membership classes to the church. Victory Life doesn’t shy away from communicating that if people embrace these four values, they will be challenged, but it will lead to growth and being a part of an amazing community and environment.Teach your teams. // Because of the core values and coin conversations Victory Life Church has, the staff team is strong and can readily recognize issues that come up. Still, it’s important to take the time to coach and lead your team members so that they feel equipped to have a crucial conversations with their teams and colleagues. Help your team to understand how to get good at conversations and see the real issues underneath what is happening. Remember to be honoring, but also honest.Get your staff’s feedback. // When you’re developing things like core values, engage your staff to get buy-in and see what resonates with them. Ask them what they think the real issues are, and then use that information to develop the foundation of your values. You can learn more about Victory Life Church at www.victorylife.church. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: FiveTwo It’s hard to know how to grow your church. Especially as you come out of a pandemic in a changing culture. But you desperately want to. You believe the church can still grow. The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to find the right group of people who will help carry the load and bring growth to your ministry. You’ll be relieved. People will be helped. Your church will grow. Download this guide TODAY for an easy 5-step plan to get the right leaders on board. We’ll give you 5 surprisingly easy steps to activate your congregation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey everybody – welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Warren Bird, the Senior Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. It’s time for a fresh look to see what God is doing, especially coming out of the pandemic. If you’re wondering how church planting and launching multisite campuses have changed, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Listen in as Warren offers a sneak peek at initial findings of his currently open survey, New Faces of Church Planting, plus invites you to participate. A new era. // Warren believes that church planting and launching multisite campuses has shifted in a number of ways over the last several years. Not only from the suburbs to a more multiethnic, urban context, but also from being the work of a solo church planter to being more of a team effort. It’s changed from being standalone enterprise to being very network supported. It’s significant to pay attention to these shifts because as goes church planting and multisite launching, so goes the rest of the church. ECFA’s current survey, New Faces of Church Planting, is examining current multiplication trends which Warren believes will ultimately shape the whole North American Church.Initial findings. // The survey just opened in late February 2022 and some of the very early findings indicate shifts in church multiplication. There are seven things Warren is starting to see that seem to have changed in church planting over the last 10-20 years. The first is that a huge number of survey respondents identify themselves as missional, but even more significant is that the second most common way churches are identifying themselves is as being multiracial or multiethnic. Our communities continue to become more diverse and churches are moving toward being less homogeneous and embracing Revelation 5:9 where the kingdom of heaven is going to include every tongue, tribe, nation, and culture together.Rent or own? // About one third of people who have responded to the survey so far own their facility. Coming out of the pandemic, Warren anticipates this number may shift even further. Many rented spaces closed during the pandemic or stopped allowing churches to use their locations, and churches realized how difficult it is if you don’t have control of your location.Creating healthy disciples. // The number one thing churches are doing to create healthy disciples is helping their people with personal spiritual disciplines. A significant second response is service to the community outside the walls of the church. Third was helping people produce fruit in their lives, such as embracing justice, or forgiveness, or love, peace and joy, which would not have been as widespread ten or more years ago.Primary ethnicity. // While the primary ethnicity of church planters was predictably Caucasian, the second most selected option so far is multiethnic or multiracial. The more this becomes the norm with new churches and new campuses, the more the broader church will shift.Residency and internship vs assessment. // More than one-third of church planters or campus pastors did a residency or internship, and over half said that they had undergone assessment. A residency or an internship is a big commitment, but about 87% of multisite directors—those who are responsible for their church’s multisite campuses—said they preferred that their campus pastors have done a residency or internship.Top things done online. // Coming out of the pandemic there has been a huge shift as to what churches do online. Whereas ten years ago it would have focused solely on broadcasting services, now the top things that churches do online also include small groups, staff meetings, prayer teams, counseling, children’s ministry, plus more.Church multiplication. // More than one-third of the church leaders responding have been involved in planting one or more new churches. And more than two-thirds of the multisite churches have added another campus during the last three years. That seems to indicate that not only were there a lot of launches leading up to the pandemic, but also during the pandemic.Participate in the survey. // At the time of this podcast airing, the survey will be open for a couple more weeks so you still have a chance to share your experience with church multiplication. The survey takes about 15 minutes. By participating, not only do you get a free copy of the final findings, you get invited to a webinar with Warren where he’ll answer questions about the survey results. Secondly, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win one of several Amazon gift cards. Plus, if you are in the US, you’ll receive the spiritual demographics for the zip code that you select which will help you identify needs that you can meet in that area in Jesus’ name. Finally, you’ll receive ECFA’s top five tools for church planting, su

Welcome to this month’s Office Hours episode. This month Rich is taking on your questions about building volunteer teams, and reaching people who might not normally attend your services. Leslie Moffat, administrative pastor, Celebration Church in Brantford, Ontario, Canada: “For churches with multiple services, do you recommend the same volunteers stay on for the entire morning and cover both services, or do you have two different teams?” Volunteers and growth. // Churches grow because people invite their friends. When you get more people plugged into volunteering, that ultimately leads to more people coming to your church and getting plugged in long term. In fact attendance levels are typically three times the number of volunteers you have. Attend one/serve one. // A best practice for volunteers is letting them attend one service and serve at another one. This helps create balance so that a small group of people aren’t doing a large amount of the work. Attend one/serve one values your volunteers and keeps them plugged into the community, especially if they are serving in kids ministry.One in three rotation. // The best practice for serving rotations is for volunteers to serve one week and then being off for two weeks. The exception may be small group leaders in kids ministry which may need high consistency and are better serving every week or every other week. A three-week rotation for other positions in the church is easier than serving once a month when some months have four weeks and others five.WIIFM? // What’s in it for me? When communicating about volunteering, don’t communicate your need but rather communicate how the people in your church will benefit from volunteering. Don’t use the word “we” when writing about volunteering, always use the word “you.”Talk with groups. // The best volunteer recruiting tool is the shoulder tap. Look at existing small groups you can visit, and sit down to talk about the opportunities that could benefit them. Talk in a relational context, not an obligatory one, and you’ll see a better return rate. Create fun social times to let people at the church connect and enjoy themselves, and you can give a short talk about the vision of the church and getting plugged in. Jeff Peters, executive director, La Croix Church in Missouri: “How do we reach new people in our community who aren’t going to attend a worship service, either in the building or online? Also how do we build a more robust leadership pipeline that isn’t so staff-centric.” Increase the invite culture. // The way our churches grow is when our people invite their friends. We should look for ways to increase the invite culture, and not just on a Sunday. Churches can hold programs such as Financial Peace University to engage people looking for practical help in their lives. You could also offer Alpha, which brings people together to watch a video, talk about faith, and have a meal together.Go out to serve others. // Instead of telling people to “come and see” what your church is about, go out and serve the community. Look for regular opportunities to help make a difference in your community and get it on the calendar. Have the cash available in your budget for addressing problems that arise and consistently get out into your community.Leadership book club. // Start a small leadership book club which can help develop the leaders in an organic way. You can start out leading the book club, but then encourage one of the others to lead it in the next round.Campus expansion. // Think about launching a new campus to develop a robust leadership pipeline and volunteers. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I know this sounds like some homespun advice from your mom, but it does apply to looking for resources on the internet to improve the weekend services or announcements at your church. A quick search online will reveal an endless amount of templates and done-for-you resources that you can simply plug and play into your services; however, if you’re looking to improve your announcements, copying materials from someone else’s church is not the way to go about improving your church. It’s Time to Think Carefully about This Important Part of Your Weekend Services Rather than trying to take the easy way out and copying what somebody else has written, you need to find a way to improve this aspect of your service systematically by training your people and motivating them toward a better approach. Now, it’s understandable that you might want to simply copy and paste announcements. In fact, there could be multiple reasons why you would be tempted to take this shortcut. You simply can’t stand this part of your weekend services. It brings a hassle to you every time it happens.You’re frankly not sure what to say this weekend, and although you know that announcements should be done, you aren’t sure how to leverage them to move people toward engagement.You might even be unsure of why you do this aspect of what you do every weekend. As you look to improve your announcements, let’s talk more in-depth about why copying and pasting an announcement script from a website is a terrible idea for your church. Best Practices Versus Blind Copying Studying other churches is a good thing to do. Finding leading churches that are five steps ahead in various aspects is a great way for your church to level up its development and skip stages that could be holding it back as you attempt to reach more people. Here at unSeminary, we do this through our weekly podcast. For nearly 600 episodes, we’ve interviewed church leaders from some of the fastest-growing churches in the country on a wide variety of topics. We do this because we want to help you find the best practices to apply at your church. Blind copying, however, is a terrible approach because it doesn’t ultimately force the transfer of the understanding behind the practice. It just copies the end-state practice. Announcements Are About Increasing Engagement The musical worship portion of what you do every weekend is about transcendence. You’re hoping that people will connect with God and get a clear picture of His love and care for them. The teaching portion of what you do is about transformation as you open scripture and help people wrestle through how to apply those lessons to their daily lives. The hosting portion, while typically the smallest piece of what happens on the weekend, is critically important because it’s about moving people to action. It’s about moving people beyond just thinking and getting them to actually take a step. The announcements are the engagement engine!Talking about announcements and ensuring that you’re doing a good job on your announcements is about increasing the engagement at your church. Most modern airplanes are flown on autopilot when they’re flying in the air, but they switch to human pilots when they go to land. Similarly, announcements are of the utmost importance and cannot be done on autopilot. You need the care of humans at your church making decisions around what’s happening in this aspect of your service. If you are looking to increase engagement at your church, diving deep into improving your announcements is a great place to begin. Three Reasons Not to Copy and Paste the Announcements This Week at Your Church Your church isn’t in Alpharetta // Every resource you find online comes from a singular context and is written by a group of people that have a particular perspective on the world. While you might actually be in Alpharetta, Georgia, if the resources are from a different church community, then they don’t have the same context as your church. Your church is moving your people toward the next steps that you need your people to take. You need to develop a resource that has your community’s unique voice in it. Copying and pasting will make you sound like some other church in some other context and won’t meet the needs that you need to move forward.Your team has unique needs // You know that team member who does the announcements at your church who seems to get up every weekend and try to turn the five minutes of service hosting into their personal standup comedy routine? Or what about that leader who you really want to host, but they simply lack the confidence at this point to do that? No copy-and-paste resource will help you navigate the unique needs of your team. You need to move beyond these generic resources and find a way to train your people to build up their unique needs and appr

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Benjamin Windle from Life Place Church in Australia. Whether or not churches are going to opt in to the digital revolution is no longer an option. Now the question is, how do churches operate and minister in a digital world, particularly to younger generations? Listen in to today’s podcast as Benjamin shares research and insights on what Millennials and Gen Z are really looking for, and how churches can reach them. Understanding younger generations. // When it comes to digital ministry, we can be tempted to design our churches around convenience and comfort to such a degree that we shift the necessary convictions in our church. Part of this is because we may have misread what younger generations are looking for in church. We may wrongly think that they are shallow and interested primarily in entertainment and what’s “cool”, and focus our services on that. But instead we should see younger generations as a movement of thoughtful people in search of significance and authenticity. Be part of a community. // One of our primary needs is community. Loneliness among Gen Z in particular is epidemic and coincides with the surge in social media. We may think that young people want everything to be fast and easy and on their phone, but we shouldn’t be afraid of challenging them to be a contributing part of a biblical community.Seven layers of community. // Benjamin has found seven layers of practice to community in the bible. Preaching, worship, prayer, and evangelism can be done well online. But the other three are best done in-person: interpersonal responsibility, inconvenient hospitality, and institutional physicality.Interpersonal responsibility. // We all have a spiritual fingerprint of God with unique gifts and need to understand that we each bring something special to the church and community. We aren’t in community simply to receive; we’re in community because we have a biblical responsibility to each other.Inconvenient hospitality. // Benjamin challenges us with the idea that community or friendship doesn’t really exist until we are willing to inconvenience ourselves for each other. Inconvenient hospitality is a necessary and intentional part of God’s design for community, and it’s where richness is found in our relationships with each other.Institutional physicality. // Barna discovered that the thing churchgoers missed the most during COVID was taking communion in-person. It’s likely that Gen Z will start to crave the physicality of what community really is, such as sharing a meal together, as their lives are primarily focused on the online world.Reimagine, reevaluate, reconnect, and rebuild. // Benjamin has put together a report with Barna called Digital Church in a Lonely World: 7 Ingredients of Church Community. It walks through the seven layers of community and also bold digital innovation. In this report Benjamin covers four words that form a framework for churches of any size to apply to any area of their ministry. These include: reimagine, reevaluate, reconnect, and rebuild. Download the full report from Barna.com. Learn more about Benjamin and his work at www.benjaminwindle.com, and listen to Benjamin Windle’s previous unSeminary podcast interview, visit Millennials, Gen Z and Your Church with Benjamin Windle. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. CDF Capital’s XP Summit Cohorts provide an exclusive, year-long experience that brings together hand-selected global ministry leaders and your peers in an intimate, small-group setting. Visit http://cdf.capital/UnCohort to learn more and enroll today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week on the episode we like to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is no exception. Super excited to have a repeat guest which, friends, you know if you’ve been list

When you have a little pebble in your shoe, it’s hard to focus on anything around you besides that minor discomfort, right? We sometimes do the same thing with our tiny habits during our weekend service announcements. What about that little smudge from your kid’s finger on the TV as you watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster? Small distractions can deter even the biggest fan from concentrating on their favorite movie. People can get distracted by the smallest of negative habits that you might have when you’re hosting your weekend services. Your goal during these 5 minutes of “doing the announcements” at your church is to motivate people to spring into action. Part of the service is asking people to engage. These are incredibly important moments every weekend when you attempt to inspire people to plug into a group, join a service team, or give to the mission. Surely you don’t want a small (bad) habit to distract them from doing good deeds. Churches looking to grow in the future have to find ways to increase engagement. Jesus didn’t call people to “attend” to him; he called people to “follow” him. Engagement has been baked into Jesus’ message from the beginning! Eliminate These Tiny Habits from Your Weekend Hosting to Boost People’s Engagement Sports commentary // Commenting on the local sports heroes all the time or every weekend will drive people to stop listening. It’s a crutch when you don’t know what else to say—don’t do it! Add a high-value transition, like commenting on what just happened in the service rather than what your sports heroes have been up to. “Blessings” and other insider language // I don’t know what it is about doing the announcements that makes some people use “churchy” language. Rather than talking about how great the youth event was, they talk about what a blessing it was for the youth to be involved in fellowship in that way. What?! Use language that makes sense to people who don’t normally attend church. (And stop taking up those “clap offerings!”) Ignoring what just happened // We’ve all been in that sort of service where someone gets up to make the announcements and their hosting is completely disconnected from what just happened. It’s like they were only waiting backstage for the rest of the service to be over so that they can perform their part. Your announcement is part of the experience your guests just had. Treat it as the same service and respond to what happened and look for a way to elegantly hand off to what’s coming next. Shielding your eyes from the light // You go on stage and there are bright lights for people to see you. You want to be able to see them too, so you make a shield over your eyes with your hand. Stop that! It takes people out of the moment, reinforces the fact that those lights are there, and makes people feel disconnected from you because they can’t see your face clearly. Not introducing people // Who are all those people on stage with you? If you’ve ever visited a church and not known who was on stage, you know how disorienting it can be. Take 10 seconds to introduce everyone—it puts first-time guests at ease. Acronyms or fancy names // Does your church use a bunch of acronyms for various ministries and departments? Stop it. Acronyms are how insiders talk to one another, and they deliberately build walls because new people don’t understand them. Cut it out! Just say the whole phrase and avoid the use of acronyms. The same rule applies to “clever” but unclear names for various ministries. I once heard an announcement inviting people to a “keenagers” event. What exactly is that? Practicing your stand-up comedy // Sure, you want to make people smile—but you don’t need to practice your latest stand-up routine on them. Your goal isn’t to have them busting a gut in laugher but to simply have them engaging with what you say. Smiling is a great goal, but you don’t need to overshoot by making your guests roll on the floor with laughter. Weird prayers // One of the reasons we pray in public is because it represents what a “normal” prayer life is like. However, some church leaders fall into the trap of trying to impress people with big words or overly complex prayers. Don’t do it. Model a prayer life that uses normal language to connect with God. It’s a simple way to help people take their next steps in this important part of their spiritual lives. Not making an ask // People are anticipating that you’re going to ask them to engage, so ask them. Don’t leave them wondering, “So … what do you want me to do?” Make the ask clear and compelling. Say it in a way that draws a line in the sand and forces a decision. Don’t beat around the bush. We’re fighting to increase engagement. People need to know what you want them to engage in—so ask them! Increasing Engagement Is About Putting Our Guests First Ultimately, these nine habits are manifestations of us putting ourselves and our needs ahead of our guests. We need to think about how our ministry will be received by

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Rachel Long back on the podcast. She’s one of the executive pastors at Emmanuel Church, a multisite church in Indiana. Today Rachel is talking with us about building healthy volunteer teams within our churches. Take a step back and evaluate. // Back at the end of 2018, even before COVID, the staff at Emmanuel started to notice that the church had shifted from a serving culture to a consumer culture which was more focused on what the church could do for you. The staff knew this consumerism was the symptom of a bigger problem and so began to examine the themselves. What they found is the staff had become very siloed and volunteers were possessively claimed by staff members. Even leadership noticed that their language became more about filling spots on volunteer teams, and they realized they had slowly faded completely off vision. The staff needed to take a step back and determine where they’d gone off track and how to make sure their volunteer teams (known as Impact Teams) aligned with the church’s vision. Build a system that is a better fit. // Emmanuel began by looking at larger churches to see examples of how they could add some structure to their teams. After experimenting with a modified version of Growth Track from Church of the Highlands, Rachel and her teammate, Leah, began to build a system that would be custom-fit for Emmanuel. They developed six pillars which defined what a healthy Impact Team would look like, with the main goal being seeing people that have come to Christ then grow in Christ. This goal now aligned with Emmanuel’s vision and mission. Six pillars of a healthy team. // The six pillars Rachel and Leah developed are 1) Systematic Staff and Volunteer Training – things like lunch-and-learns, vision nights and even job descriptions for volunteer positions. 2) Appreciation – regular thank yous, infusing appreciation into team nights, and taking note of what would be a meaningful thank-you to individual volunteers. 3) Impact Week – a time where volunteer teams across all campuses come and serve during one week, all together. 4) Impact Team Night – an event six times a year where the campus pastor gets to preach to his or her campus and really infuse the vision of serving there. 5) Volunteer Onboarding and Data – has to do with making sure the staff’s data is correct because good data matters. 6) Vision and Branding – things such as branded t-shirts, using the Impact Teams logo, and communicating with language such as “serving opportunities” rather than “filling spots”. Showing appreciation. // Embracing more appreciation was a huge game-changer for Emmanuel and included not only new processes, but also funding their appreciation. They started with systematic thank-you note-writing and helped the staff to understand what a great thank-you note looks like. Staff learned to call out and applaud really specific instances where a volunteer had an impact in small or big ways. Emmanuel also gathers all of their volunteers in one place to celebrate them with a themed party and gifts. And one of the new things they are starting is recognizing and celebrating the serving anniversaries of each of their volunteers. Impact Team Night. // Adding Impact Team Nights every other month has been pivotal to the growth and success of Emmanuel’s volunteer teams. These nights are held at each campus and include a time of worship, some snacks and have a fun theme of some king. After worship there is vision casting which is done by either the campus pastor, the lead pastor, or a panel of campus staff. Then new Impact Team members will go to Impact 101 to start the onboarding process while existing team members will go to their specific areas of service for special trainings. Trainings might include going deeper in their service area, or prepping for a holiday or other big day coming up. Team Nights are a great time, not only to connect with other team members, but also to connect with the staff that is caring for volunteers from week to week. Impact 101. // During the onboarding process at Impact 101, the staff provides a tour of the campus and offers a DISC assessment to help new volunteers find their best fit. This time also allows staff to infuse into new team members the knowledge that they are growing in Christ through serving, and the volunteers are helping other people come to Christ as well. You can learn more about Emmanuel Church at www.eclife.org, or email Leah Torrison for more specific information about Emmanuel’s Impact Teams. 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 cons

Do you dread being asked to get up and host a weekend service at your church? Can just talking about hosting the announcements this coming weekend make your stomach turn? Is your team pushing you to drop the announcements? And maybe even more worrying, do you have a good reason not to drop them? Are you convinced something is wrong with the announcements at your church, but you’re not sure how to fix it? As a leader, are you confused about how you can improve this aspect of your church services? Over the last two decades, I have been leading churches from the second chair. I’m not the primary communicator, but I love leading on the operations and communication sides of what we as leaders do in the local church to help them grow and reach more people. So, that means that for hundreds of weekends, I have hosted weekend services in a bunch of different contexts. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot about how to do announcements well and ensure that this aspect of our weekend service is successful. I’ve had some pretty awkward experiences during weekend services that I don’t want you to repeat, like the time I walked out onto the stage to do the announcements after our band’s second song, only to find out later that the band had planned to do three songs! I’ve also learned a lot from coaching other church leaders, helping countless campus pastors get over their fear of doing announcements and raising awareness of why this part of what they do is so critically important to the development of their particular faith community. I understand that your team may not like doing the announcements or hosting your church service. Over the years, I’ve heard a number of reasons church leaders give for disliking doing the announcements. Here are a few: The Laundry List We’ve all seen someone get up to host a weekend service, and we can tell by the way they’re looking at the piece of paper in their hands that they have a long, boring list of items they need to talk about. They have four or five different things from three different departments happening over the next four weeks that they’re required to somehow speak about each of them with an equal amount of passion and energy. This is a terrible way to do the announcements. No one should ever have to rattle off a laundry list of items. In fact, the best practice is to narrow the focus, and have one item, two at the most, that the person who is hosting the service needs to move people towards. The Speed Bump Imagine for a moment that you are participating in an incredible weekend service. The music at the front-end is transcendent. It’s helping connect you with God and is taking you to a new place. It’s being spoken in a deep way that is sometimes hard to communicate with just words. And then, at that moment, the host gets up and places a giant speed bump in the middle of the service. The service takes a dramatic turn to focus on some problem with the youth ministry. There’s a plea to the congregation to step in and help prevent the kids from running wild in the streets. Speed bumps happen when the church leadership doesn’t think clearly about the place that announcements have in the overall flow of a weekend worship experience. It shouldn’t detract from everything else that’s happening. In fact, good hosting should feel like an extension of the worship and teaching moments during weekend services. Announcements should connect what’s being said and felt in the service to people’s schedules. Plan your weekend service announcements around a clear call to action that moves people to their next discipleship moment. The Weather Report Okay, this one’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. You know that host who, every time they get up, starts with a weather report for the weekend. “Man, it’s cold out there today.” “Wow, it’s really sunny outside.” “Gee, I think it might rain this afternoon.” This verbal tick has its place in wanting to connect with the audience. Its heart is in the right place. Using this verbal crutch is simply a way of establishing common ground with the people that are listening. The problem is that if the host repeats this time and again, week in, week out, it becomes boring, staid. It’s the same when that one host gets up every weekend and gives a commentary on what’s happening with their favorite sports team. It’s a verbal cue that tells the audience that the next few minutes are going to be completely irrelevant to them, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as they stop paying attention. The way to avoid this verbal tick is to provide active coaching to the people who host your weekend services.Provide them with a clear framework rather than simply letting them get up there and do whatever they want. Active coaching can help avoid such verbal ticks, which are distracting and ultimately derail the weekend hosting experience. The Second (or Third)

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Kevin Singer, co-founder and co-director of the student-led movement, Neighborly Faith, which brings Christians and Muslims together. There is very little in the church to help equip believers regarding how to engage with our neighbors of other faiths in a way that is both committedly Christian, and also exudes the generosity and love of our Lord. Kevin is with us to share how Neighborly Faith seeks to equip evangelical Christians, particularly on college campuses, to love all our neighbors, no matter their religion. Neighborly Faith helps to build bridges. // What it means to love our communities must now include loving those who have different worldviews than we do. There are a lot of students who are passionate about Jesus and want other people to know about Jesus. The purpose of Neighborly Faith isn’t necessarily to teach Christians how to love Jesus, because churches already do this work, but rather to build bridges between Christians and those who practice other faiths around them. You can’t change hearts if you’re not in relationship and building trust with the other person.Get to know each other inside the walls. // Kevin encourages to begin by getting to know your neighbors and increasing proximity with each other. Visit a mosque open house and share a meal with the people there. Then invite them to come to your church, or home, and share a meal with you. Don’t expect people to do things that you won’t do, including reading the Bible. As you build relationships with Muslims and invite them to read the Bible, be willing to also read the Quran if invited to. If we truly believe that Jesus is immensely attractive in a world of many faiths, then have faith in that. But also have faith in the fact that Jesus is going to protect you spiritually if you engage with Muslims and their religious traditions.Work together on projects. // Helping serve the least of these alongside your Muslim neighbors can be fertile ground for relationship-building. Organizing clothing donations for Afghan refugees, for example, is not a Muslim thing, rather it’s obeying God’s command to love our neighbors. Go out and look for ways to do cooperative work with Muslims in your community and see what doors open up for the gospel.Gospel opportunities. // Most Muslims in your community have either never met a Christian, or have never learned about Christianity from a Christian. As you build relationships with Muslims, you would likely be the first person to preach the unfettered gospel of Jesus Christ to them. By inviting them over to share a meal, Muslim neighbors would be able to see the gospel embodied in the fact that you invited them in, you paid for the food, and showed them hospitality.Be clear on what you mean. // You can be gospel-centered while still having terrific, neighborly relationships with friends of different faiths. Instead of censoring yourself in front of other Christians in this area, name it to the people who you are most worried about and what they might think. Be vulnerable and let them know what you actually mean by your actions and building friendships with people of other religions.Figure out who they want to be. // All of our communities are more diverse than they were ten years ago. Neighborly Faith helps college students figure out what kind of Christian they want to be as they show up in the world and move into adulthood. Events are organized on campuses to bring Christian and Muslim students together. Christian pastors will speak onstage alongside a Muslim partners on different topics, such as how to suffer well or the purpose of prayer, so they can give their unique perspectives. The goal is for Christian students to then connect and have conversations with Muslim students, or Muslims in the community.Share the work back home. // Neighborly Faith also runs a fellows program to coach and equip students to do this sort of work at home with their churches. You can learn more about Neighborly Faith at www.neighborlyfaith.org. Church leaders who would like to learn more and have a conversation with Kevin can email him. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Medi-Share Medi-Share is an innovative health care solution for Christia

Just when you thought the word “unprecedented” couldn’t possibly be used any more, we continue to climb into levels of inflation that haven’t been seen in over four decades. In fact, the last time we saw inflation this high, the world was a completely different place. Bread had soared to the cost of 50 cents a loaf. Late-night TV was ruled by Johnny Carson. A newfangled invention called the modem was just released for personal computers (which had barely taken off). Ted Turner had just launched a TV station that broadcasted news 24 hours a day called the Cable News Network (“that’ll never work!”). We find ourselves leading in an environment of increasing inflation. Although in the local church world, we may not see its impact right away, it is going to affect your church and mine. Small business owners in your church are no doubt trying to puzzle out how to increase the fees that they charge for the services or goods they provide to combat inflation as it continues to rise. In a recent study by the US Labor Department, inflation had peaked at 7%, which is something that you and I need to take note of as leaders in this environment. [ref] What difference does inflation make to our churches in this season? Put most simply, inflation erodes an entire country’s spending power. As inflation continues to rise, the cost of goods continues to increase, and salaries try to match those levels. The entire country has a more and more difficult time purchasing goods with existing resources. This was one of those financial earmarks that we were watching carefully at the end of 2021. In fact, most economists were advising waiting while we got through the Christmas season to see what would happen in the new year. But alas, inflation is continuing to rise. Our churches need to think carefully about how we react to this as we plan for our ministry for the rest of this year and beyond. Here are a few articles to dig deeper into understanding inflation: Investment Executive: Fed to signal rate hike as it launches risky inflation fight. The Washington Post: Prices are rising all over the world, and leaders see no quick fix The Wall Street Journal: Inflation, Supply Chain, Omicron Expected to Take a Bigger Toll on Global Growth In 2007, I had the opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe, which just happened to be in the midst of a rapid inflation increase. It was a heartbreaking time to be in the country because during the two weeks we were there, the cost of everything doubled. One of the key church leaders we had met with was converting donation dollars into building bricks. He was literally buying bricks to warehouse for future church building projects down the road that were yet to be authorized because although the Zimbabwean dollar was worth less and less with every passing day, he at least could have a giant pile of bricks under lock and guard that could be used in the future. The current inflation that we’re experiencing isn’t going to be anywhere near that level, but it is something that we need to be thinking about carefully as we plan for the future. This blog post really isn’t financial advice for your church. I would suggest that you need to secure solid financial advice from trusted individuals as you think about how to position your church financially for the future. What I want to talk about here is a series of things that we can do as leaders to help guard our churches from the impact of inflation in the coming year. You may hear such financial advice from your advisors as: Borrow now with interest rates at an all-time low. These are bound to go up, and now’s a good time to lock in rates. Refinance your mortgage. If you’re carrying any long-term debt, now might be a perfect time to either pay some of it off with the cash you have on hand or refinance for the future. Plan for a 25% wage increase. Although your wages are not likely to jump that high, it is a good to consider what would happen if the cost of your staffing were to jump by 25% overnight. Lock in long-term pricing. Now would be a good time to renegotiate every contract that you have to secure long-term pricing at today’s lower rates. While this isn’t financial advice, the following leadership options could help your church as you deal with inflation in the coming weeks and months. Leadership Hedges To Help Your Church In a Time of Inflation When we talk about a leadership hedge, we’re referring to a protective move that you could do as a leadership team now to ensure that your church is prepared for inflation in the coming year. It’s about positioning your team and community to weather the storm of increasing fees and costs of doing what we do over the next 18 to 24 months. Proactive Fundraising Plan At its very core, inflation is about increasing the cost of services. The cost of “doing business” is going to be higher a year from now. If we don’t continue to increase the amount of revenue that is c

Thanks for joining us for this month’s Office Hours podcast episode. Today Rich is answering your questions about attracting young families and getting help with hiring your next team member. John Boyle, executive pastor, Calvary Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado: “I wanted to pick your brain on attracting more young families to our church.” Know your neighborhood. // The ESRI Know Your Neighborhood Tool provides mapping information regarding neighborhood styles at a granular level, which drives deeper into social behavior in your area. Have your leadership team talk about the ESRI neighborhoods in your area and how you are connecting, or not, with each of these groups of people.Five things to try to connect with young families. // 1) Host a parenting series targeted directly to young families. 2) Audit your kids ministry by getting someone to look at the quantitative and qualitative results of your ministry pre-COVID and post-COVID. Bring in a strategic outsider to help you find where you could be doing a better job with things. 3) Think life milestones for your church. Listen to this podcast with Kurt Brodbeck from Northview Church for life milestone examples. 4) Ask a focus group of five families how you can make it easier for them and their friends to connect with your ministry. And then ask how you could help them right now. 5) Find the things that the families with young kids in your area care about and get outside your walls to get involved in those things. How can you serve and love and care for the schools, kids, and young families in your community? Audrey Eisenberg, executive pastor, Inland Hills Church in Chino, California: “How can we get the word out about opportunities in our church in such a way that they feel exciting and meaningful to the kinds of people who we would love to have join our team?” Internal versus external. // Look at internal and external church hires from two different perspectives. What are you trying to accomplish? You hire someone internally for an area when you want to maintain the good things that are working and incrementally improve. But you hire externally when there’s an area in your church that’s broken and you want to find a way to accelerate and fix it moving forward.Cultivate your relationship internally. // If you’re thinking about hiring internally, create some fishing ponds where you can better get to know potential leaders in your church, and then hire from there. Determine if any of your top 50 donors might be able to move into a leadership role. These people are already bought into your mission. Or put together a list of key leaders and host a book club. Get together, read a book and talk about. This allows you to get to know people better and identify potential future hires.Network outside the church. // In networking outside of the church for an external hire, create a spreadsheet with three columns. In the first column write the name of 10-20 people who have some sort of existing network. Rate their influence from one to ten in the second column, one meaning they have a huge social network and ten being not that influential. Then in the third column rate the likeliness of them getting your jobs out to people on their networks. Sort the names by the influence rating and then by the possibility of the networking influence column. Start with the top of the list and work your way down to ask them if they’ll help you share about your open roles. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jason Poling, lead pastor of Cornerstone Church of Yuba City in California. For the first ten years of Jason’s ministry as a pastor, he felt like he had been living in “maintenance mode.” While his church was experiencing growth, some of which was due to brand new believers, a lot of the growth came from the already-churched crowd. After a bold prayer for God to increase his faith, in 2019 God opened his eyes to the massive, unchurched population in the digital world. Listen in as Jason talks with us about the mission field in the Metaverse, how your church can begin to reach the lost, and even establish a campus there. Ripe for harvest. // The Metaverse is a unique space where especially younger generations who are digital natives go to build relationships. No matter how cool or relevant your church is, there are some people who will never attend a brick-and-mortar church. Yet the Metaverse provides an easy entry point for them where they can check out a service and interact with the other people there in a safe, low-pressure way.What is VR church? // The Metaverse version of services at Cornerstone Church are very much like being at the in real life (IRL) location. Instead of seeing physical people, you’ll see their avatars. As you walk toward other people in the Metaverse, audio is spatially constructed and you’ll be able to hear them talk and enter into conversation, just like IRL. The one thing you need to participate is a VR headset. In the Metaverse, Cornerstone streams their services, similar to how they would on other platforms like Facebook or YouTube. In addition to VR, you can utilize Discord (similar to a beefed up version of Zoom) and Twitch (a streaming platform that goes beyond YouTube) to create a robust experience in the Metaverse.Keep a connection. // Cornerstone Church of Yuba City treats their VR church as one of their campuses and maintains a connection between their IRL site and their Metaverse location. Talk to your IRL campuses about what God is doing in the Metaverse location, and talk to your Metaverse campus about what God’s doing in the IRL locations. Hybridize training and offer opportunities for things like bible study or small groups for your people both IRL and in the Metaverse. Make use of Discord and its ability to use a two-way camera to provide opportunities for more interaction between IRL and the Metaverse. Share vision and prayer requests across campuses.Build relationships. // Remember that people primarily visit the Metaverse to connect. Serving people in the Metaverse can look like approaching them and asking them how you can pray for them. While it might seem creepy to approach a stranger out of the blue IRL and do this, it’s normal in the Metaverse. Many people might be discouraged, lonely or depressed and hungry for relationship. Even if people might want to be anonymous at first, in the end they are much more open to conversation in the Metaverse. There are always opportunities to share Christ’s love and encourage others.A world of its own. // Jason suggests thinking of the Metaverse as a world that has different continents. Each VR platform (AltSpace VR, Rec Room, Horizons, etc.) is a different continent with different tribes that have had very little exposure to the gospel. Test the waters. // You can experience the Metaverse world first by logging into the 2D version to find what might be attracting people on that side. Then pick up a VR headset, which currently is about $300 and talk with people. Explore the world and Metaverse church services to see what you can do and what the Metaverse has to offer.Try out small events. // When you’re ready to set up a church experience, Altspace VR is one of the easier platforms to try out your first Metaverse service. Set up an event and it will show up to others who log into the platform. It will start small, but keep showing up, don’t get discouraged, and persevere in sharing Christ’s love and the community will grow.Diving deeper. // Curious about the Metaverse and the mission field there? Rich will provide an Oculus headset to the first church leader who emails him and takes time to explore the Metaverse, as long as they provide a 500 word write-up about their experience there—the good, the bad and the ugly—to be shared on unSeminary. You can learn more about Cornerstone Church of Yuba City at www.cornerstoneyc.com and find information about their virtual services there. Jason has also provided a copy of his article about diving deeper into the Metaverse world for download. It shares his story and offers encouragement for people who might be skeptical of the value of starting a Metaverse ministry. Help Taking Your First Steps Into Metaverse Ministry View this post on Instagram A post shared by unSeminary (@unseminary) Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you

Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken McAnulty, executive pastor at Arise Church in Florida. The hiring process is tough, and ramping up new staff can be awkward and stressful if it isn’t done with a lot of intentionality. Ken is with us today to talk about how to onboard new hires well and set them up for success. Create a great experience. // What do you want new hires to experience when they come to work at your church? What do you want people to understand? These are questions that Ken and his team began to ask as they created the onboarding process at Arise. Their goal was to set a healthy pace so that when a new staff completed their onboarding week, they would feel like they could run in their role without hindrances. The pace that a church sets during the first week of a new hire’s orientation is the pace that individual is going to live by for their first year. What works for them. // The first thing that Ken and his team do is to make sure that they have things set up for the new staff member before their first day. They communicate with new staff about things like setting up their office in a way that works for them and providing a computer of their choice with software they need. They also add fun aspects to the welcome by doing a bit of research on new hires through social media, or by talking with a person’s spouse, to surprise them with things they enjoy, such as playing a favorite song upon their arrival. Four things to impart. // There are four things Arise Church really wants to impart to their new staff members in their first week. They want them to walk away with a sense of the culture at Arise, a sense of care that they’re about more than what they do, a sense of competency or an understanding of how they can be successful, and finally the course or path in which way they should go. Sense of culture comes first. // Culture is much more important than competency. So the pastor takes the new staff member to lunch and talks with them about the history and culture of the church, as well as the future vision. After spending time with the pastor, the new hire then sits with other staff members who they will work closely with and hears their stories. Plugging new hires into relationships not only communicates culture, it humanizes the staff and creates open doors so they can get to know each other faster. The onboarding week wraps up with a truth or dare lunch which provides opportunities for the staff team to be authentic with each other and build rapport. Last Day at Arise. // The last culture component of the onboarding process is a document called Last Day at Arise. Working through the document helps new hires intentionally think about how they will be known at Arise and who they’re going to be. Finally they will review that document with their direct-up at the end of their first week. This creates accountability as well as future coaching opportunities to help the new staff member achieve their goals. Take time to express care. // When we expect new staff to hit the ground running right away and we become all business about getting them plugged in to their role, the person is lost in the tasks. We’re in the people business, and that needs to start with our staff. Each person we bring on board has a gift and a calling that we’re being given by God to steward. Take intentional time to express care for them and communicate that they are more than what they do for you. Every day of the onboarding week at Arise, certain staff have lunch with the new hire. The onboarding process can feel like a firehose, so Ken checks in with them throughout the week to see how they are doing and what questions they may have. Competency and course. // Competency is about how to do your job or role, and course is about knowing which way to go. When a new staff starts, they aren’t expected to solve any problems. Instead Arise follows the John Maxwell method of training where: I do and you watch, then we do together, then you do and I watch, and finally you can do alone. Define success. // Along with the details of how to do their job, Ken gives new hires a binder that has a welcome letter, a calendar for the first week, the contact information for everyone they need, core values, their budget, and more. Rather than charting their own course, show new staff a clear path they can follow. Clearly define wins so new hires understand how they can be successful in your organization. Looking for a structured way to onboard new staff at your church? Check out the Onboarding Week Planner for New Church Staff template, inspired by our conversation with Ken McAnulty on best practices for welcoming new hires. This customizable, step-by-step guide will help ensure a smooth and effective transition for your team. Access this resource as part of unSeminary Extra Credit to take your church leadership to the next level! Get the Onboarding Week Planner Here Y

Thanks for tuning into the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jesse DeYoung, the executive lead pastor at Flatirons Community Church in Boulder, Colorado. Jesse is talking with us today about how Flatirons Church worked through a difficult season of ministry, addressed their broken team culture, and witnessed God’s redemption among the staff. Recognize what’s not working. // The culture at Flatirons is self-described as anti-corporate and so for years the staff largely resisted structures and systems. As the church grew, however, it became difficult to uphold the vision without systems. The culture on the staff at this point was to push off blame and responsibility to the lead pastor. As a result, more and more pressure fell on the lead pastor and he was forced to take a six-month sabbatical. Acknowledge the need for repentance. // At first in the lead pastor’s absence, the staff felt confident that everything would be sorted out and fixed with regard to issues in the church. But those same problems came back a short time later, making it clear that the issues didn’t come solely from the lead pastor, but from the church culture itself. The first step in moving forward was that everyone acknowledge a need for repentance and growth.Offer severance. // When the lead pastor returned at the beginning of 2020, Flatirons knew they would need to reduce staff, partially because there were some staff that just weren’t aligned with where the church was headed, and partially because of covid. So one of the things Flatirons did to begin the changes needed for the church was to offer a voluntary five-and-a-half-month severance plan that church staff could take. The leadership had conversations with people to guide them in what was best for them and expected a small number of people to take the severance. It turned out that a third of the staff members stepped down, demonstrating that change was needed.Redistribute responsibilities. // To help the lead pastor level up and teach and lead in a way that is sustainable, Flatirons realized that they needed someone who was going to carry his other prior work and responsibilities. This decision led to Jesse becoming the executive lead pastor and managing the rest of the lead team. Now Jesse and his team work together to solve most of the issues within the church and keep it running. This structure allows the lead pastor his time to focus on his ministry.Stay relationally connected. // Jesse meets with the lead pastor once a week so that he can tell the pastor about everything that’s going on before they meet with other staff. Four or five times a year they go on a day trip together to have more unstructured conversations. This time allows them to relationally stay connected.Four things to keep in mind. // Jesse keeps four things in mind in his relationship with the lead pastor: Emotional awareness in the moment between each other. Honoring the lead pastor with generous empathy toward what baggage he carries in his work. Trying to spend five to ten percent of his energy to help his lead pastor win. And confronting each other when your opinions on matters disagree. You can learn more about Flatirons Community Church at www.flatironschurch.com. 4 Keys to a Thriving Executive Pastor & Lead Pastor Relationship View this post on Instagram A post shared by unSeminary (@unseminary) 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing It’s important for church leaders to pursue the right fit for the right position, which helps determine a long-term, healthy fit. It all starts with properly assessing the applicant’s resumé. Download Chemistry Staffing’s Resumé Screening Playbook and walk through a screening process that will help you discover which candidates to focus on.

Today we’re chatting with Julie Hawkins, the Next Steps Pastor at Chapel Hill Church in Washington state. So many churches had to quickly develop an online presence at the beginning of 2020 and it made the area of helping people take their next steps more challenging. Listen in as Julie shares how Chapel Hill Church took advantage of opportunities to pioneer new methods of building deeper relationships and increasing connection and engagement, and how they are using what they’ve learned moving forward. Try new things. // It can be hard for larger churches to make sudden changes. However, the early days of COVID gave Chapel Hill Church the opportunity to try new things quickly and see what worked or what needed to be changed. With these pioneering efforts came more exploration of what could be done online and this actually led to deepening of relationships and increased engagement.Virtual mission trips. // One of the things the church did was organize some virtual Go teams with their global outreach partners across the world. What they discovered was doing an online mission trip allowed the church to engage a segment of their congregation that would never be able to actually visit countries like Cambodia or Thailand. Similarly, the church was able to engage with their ministry partners in a deeper way by listening to their needs over Zoom and praying for them. Chapel Hill also included cultural aspects to the online experiences, such as sharing a recipe or music from the country, or providing fair trade gift boxes. Build local outreach relationships. // Similarly, with local outreach partners people at the church learned that while showing up to serve is a great opportunity to build relationship, you can continue to build that relationship outside of the actual experience. Take time to pray for various ministry partners and connect with them online.Online evangelism. // Chapel Hill was surprised by how well groups like Alpha did when moved online during the pandemic. People were still willing to dig into the deep questions of life. In fact, they saw more people come to faith through their online Alpha groups via Zoom than they’d seen in person. Online life groups. // During the initial phase of the pandemic, life groups were also moved online to Zoom, and more people joined those groups than ever before. Having the meetings on Zoom moving forward allows people to stay connected even when they’re out of town or unable to get together. People love these little communities that have been developed.Training online. // Chapel Hill adapted much of their training to be online too, and hope to continue with this method moving forward. Online training allows people to watch the videos at their own speed when it fits into their schedule, and then build a relationship in person.Connecting via text. // When it comes to connecting with people and reengaging new people, or those who haven’t returned to in-person services yet, Julie uses the tool Focus Growth. Focus Growth helps with first-time guest follow-up by reminding the staff to begin a conversation with guests via text message. Text messages are a primary way we communicate and so it allows the church staff to reach out without overwhelming new people or being too pushy. The response from guests has been overwhelmingly positive.Future relationship-building projects. // Using technology to help us better care for people has many applications. Just a few that Julie has on her radar are creating a structured framework for engaging volunteers at the church, creating a system of congregational care within the large church so that people feel well cared for, and working with the leadership to make sure they are caring well for themselves and the staff. You can learn more about Chapel Hill Church at www.chapelhillpc.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, 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: Risepointe Is your church ready? Are you re-opening? Ready to welcome MORE people to worship and grow with your church? Are you out of space or are your interiors dated and needing improvement? The architecture and design team at Risepointe want to help you align your facility with the mission and vision that God has given your church. That’s why Risepointe developed The Needs Analysis. The Needs Analysis is a comprehe

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kadi Cole, the founder of Kadi Cole & Company, an organization created to help leaders of all organizations. Kadi is with us today to talk about encouraging female leaders at your church while removing barriers from leadership opportunities. Find the drop off. // Many men in church leadership are trying to help the women on their teams develop their potential, but they find that opportunities aren’t being taken advantage of by women, or enjoyed by women who are there. We may unknowingly put up barriers to women thriving in leadership and do a disservice to what we’re trying to accomplish in creating opportunities for them. If you find this is the case, look at where women are entering the pipeline in your church’s staff and volunteers, and where they’re dropping off. In most churches there is a big drop-off in women moving from the lower level leadership roles to manager roles. If you see that drop-off then you know there is something in your culture preventing women from finding their place and feeling confident.Ask about experiences in those roles. // If you have women with great potential stepping down or stepping back from leadership, ask them what their experience was in the organization. We may hear a variety of answers from the work not being worth their time, to lack of feedback to help with growth. But sometimes we simply have things in our culture that make meeting easier for men and not women based on needs for their daily family and home lives.Acknowledge the awkwardness. // When you’re thinking about how to talk to women about their roles and what is holding them back, it will be an awkward conversation on both sides. Just acknowledge that it might be weird and uncomfortable to talk about these topics. Let her know that you care deeply about her and her being everything she can be in the kingdom. Communicate that you want to talk about what needs fixing in your leadership that will help open doors for her to lead successfully. Make space for that confidential, honest and authentic conversation to happen.Ask open-ended questions about life. // It’s easy to make assumptions about women or their life stage, so be individually focused by asking them open-ended questions about their actual lives. Communicating assumptions without knowing the truth sends mixed messages about a female leader’s value and importance as a leader. Valuing a female leader and her contribution means making space for her voice.Give advice, not just compliments. // Giving vague compliments on a job well done isn’t constructive. Women rely more on constructive feedback. Offer specific compliments, but also add in suggestions on what to do next time. This affirms and develops her leadership while also encouraging her that she’s still wanted on the team. Help clean the sticky floor. // When a woman comes into a male-dominated organization, it’s not easy to navigate and can bring out insecurity. Each woman has a “sticky floor” that is made of doubts and conversations women have in their own minds that keep them stuck. It causes them to hold themselves back from moving forward and going for leadership opportunities. You can help them fight the sticky floor by letting them know how they are demonstrating leadership. In addition to their confidence, also help them increase their competence by developing specific leadership skills that prepare them for higher levels of management.Increase leadership confidence. // Women often tend to hold themselves to higher standards in their work and compare themselves to others. In Kadi’s latest book, Find Your Leadership Voice in 90 Days, she hopes to give women step-by-step guidance on how to step into leadership roles with confidence without compromising who they are. You can learn more about Kadi and her work at kadicole.com. Learn more about the new book at findyourleadershipvoice.me. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Red Letter Challenge One of the best times of the year to start an all-in church series is the time after Easter. The team at Red Letter Challenge have become the 40-day church series experts…they created not only a 40-day church series, but offer unique daily challenges as well for everyo

Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Brian Cook, the lead pastor of ACF Church  (Alliance Christian Fellowship) in Eagle River, Alaska. Right now 4.5 million people in the US are quitting their job every month and 50% are looking for a new job. Staff culture is a big deal and it’s important to enjoy yourself at work. Listen in as Brian talks with us about shifting your team culture so that your staff and volunteers will love what they do. Do you enjoy the current culture at your church? // A short time after coming to work for ACF Church Brian realized that he didn’t really enjoy the culture there, but also that he was responsible for setting it. If you find yourself in a similar place, ask yourself what you and your team have done to create your current culture. Ask your staff what it’s like to serve at the church. Encourage your team to be honest and share their thoughts and experiences.Set up the structure to grow. // Part of the problem at ACF Church was that they didn’t have the structure for their growth. When the church grows the team should grow, but also a structure for moving from a smaller size to a larger one is necessary. At ACF people felt like they were cogs in a wheel that could be replaced rather than part of a team that was being discipled and building relationships. Instead of trying to use people to build the ministry, ACF wanted to shift to using the ministry to build people. They set up a discipleship structure with a director/coach/team captain and flow charts so each person knew who they were caring for and who was caring for them.Check in with others. // ACF Church determined that the right number of people for someone to lead is six individuals. This small number gives leaders the time to check in consistently with their people. A higher number made it difficult to keep up with the check ins, and less than six wasn’t meeting the needs of the teams and church.Know what to look for. // There are things the leadership looks for in their team members to identify those who could move into a leading or coaching role. This includes looking for those who are setting the culture in their area by investing in their colleagues and praying for them without being asked. They might arrive early or stay late for meetings or events, and have trust and rapport with others.Create changes needed in leadership. // As the church grew, Brian found himself overwhelmed with doing all the leading at the top by himself. He realized he was trying to excel at things he wasn’t built for, so he divided his work into three jobs and brought in two people to work on the leadership team with him. In addition to the lead pastor role, this now includes the executive pastor and director of operations. Each of the three jobs has their own focus. As lead pastor, Brian’s focus is on the vision. The director of operations focuses on how to “make it work”. The executive pastor role is to “keep it moving”.COVER is needed to love your role. // Brian is giving us a digital copy of Leading At ACF Church: Being a Coach. He wrote this to help him define someone who loves what they do at the church. He created the acronym COVER, which stands for Care, Oversight, Vision, Encouragement, and Resources. These are the things people need in order to love their jobs. The staff has weekly COVER meetings with every team member which last 20-30 minutes. During this time they focus on those letters and whatever the immediate need is. Oversight, for example, helps people understand what is expected of them and what success looks like. Encouragement reminds people of the big why behind everything ACF Church does by telling stories of how God is at work. You can learn more about ACF Church at www.acfak.org or you can find Brian at AKBrian on social media. Click here to download a copy of Leading at ACF Church: Being a Coach. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Medi-Share Medi-Share is an innovative health care solution for Christians looking to save money without sacrificing on quality. As the nation’s largest health care sharing community, Medi-Share members take comfort in knowing their eligible medical expenses will be shared by their community. Click here to

Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Eddie Hastings, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Chets Creek Church in Florida. Eddie is talking with us about using personality tests to better build and communicate with your staff teams. Know and trust each other. // When a church grows, especially to have multiple campuses, you’re not with the teams at each location often. As a result, you have to work harder with those teams to get to know each other and build trust. Value each team’s input on the strategy in their context at their location. Provide opportunities for the people on different teams to come together in meetings to talk with each other.Understand your team. // It’s important for us to understand ourselves as well as the people on our team – who they are, what they’re like, how they think. Just because you all work for the same church doesn’t mean you view and process things the same way. Eddie’s staff uses the DISC personality profile to bring together individuals that are all very different into a community which God has called together to accomplish a mission.Differences between us. // Rather than pigeon-holing people, understanding different personalities helps us ask, “What does this person need from me as I lead them? How do I talk to them, give them feedback, and help them develop?” We often communicate with others the way we want to be communicated with and that doesn’t always work to reach those who are wired differently from us.Balance the personalities on each team. // Eddie uses the DISC profile to explore how a potential hire might fit into the team they would be part of. In this way he can balance out the personalities within teams and distribute strengths where they are needed across the staff.Talk and understand each other. // Eddie’s team does one staff retreat a year. They do the DISC profile tests every other year and then talk about them together as a team. As they discuss the results, they review what fits them and what doesn’t. These moments help people to better understand each other.Know what works for each member. // When it comes to coaching conversations, personality tests can help you better understand how to approach a team member. The goal here is to help them understand where their performance needs improvement so they can receive it and act on it, rather than seeing it as an attack and becoming defensive. For more task-oriented people, a direct approach that is clear on the specific changes they need to make is important. For more relationally-oriented people, they will take feedback to heart, so focus on the action that needs changing, not their personality.Find what each staff needs. // Personality assessments can help you find what each campus staff needs. Take a look at who is already on the team at a location and see what may still be needed in gifting and strengths. When hiring for a leadership position, look for a personality that the other team members will work well with and want to follow.Have multiple interviews when hiring. // When interviewing someone new for a position, have as many interviews with them as you can, and more than you think you need. Bring other people into the interview who may have nothing to do with the position, but are trusted and know the church culture well, so that you can get a better feel for the potential hire and how they might fit in with the church staff. Remember that ultimately hiring is a spiritual decision. You can learn more about Chets Creek Church at www.chetscreek.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: FiveTwo It’s hard to know how to grow your church. Especially as you come out of a pandemic in a changing culture. But you desperately want to. You believe the church can still grow. The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to find the right group of people who will help carry the load and bring growth to your ministry. You’ll be relieved. People will be helped. Your church will grow. Download this guide TODAY for an easy 5-step plan to get the right leaders on board. We’ll give you 5 surprisingly easy steps to activate your congregation.

Are you a senior leader in church thinking about health care options for your team? Did you know that your team is anxious about this aspect of serving at your church? Today on unSeminary we want to help with that worry & stress. We are joined by Marq James, an expert in health care sharing options for church leadership teams to talk about this innovative and cost savings approach. We tackle questions like … What are health care sharing ministries and what makes them different than traditional insurance? What sort of churches is a health care sharing a good fit for? What are the top reasons churches don’t consider health care sharing at times? Is there a church team too small for health care sharing? What about too big? Why should a church or individual consider and trust Medi-Share specifically? Marq James is a strategic, customer-driven leader known for consistently creating value, profitability and aggressive growth through sound fiscal management and building, leading and enabling high-performing teams. Possessing the passion of a successful entrepreneur and the discipline of a veteran executive with tremendous personal energy and strong emotional maturity. Utilizes keen analysis, insights, and a team approach to drive organizational improvements and implementation of best practices. An adept relationship builder, known for guiding executive teams through complex dealings, cultivating strategic partnerships, and fusing disparate interests for win-win outcomes. It’s our honor to have Marq on the show! Medi-Share, the largest and most-trusted Christian health care sharing ministry, might be exactly what you’ve been looking for. We’ve been long-standing partners with Medi-Share and despite its growing popularity, we’re always surprised at how many people haven’t heard of health care sharing or don’t know exactly how it works. For more information about Medi-Share click here. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Charles Stone, lead pastor at West Park Church in Ontario, Canada. He also is an author and provides training for pastors. 75% of people forget most of what they’ve heard from a talk within an hour. 90% forget what they’ve heard after a week unless we learn to employ certain techniques and principles in our communications. Charles is with us today to share how to craft your communication so that it better sticks with your listener. Understand your listeners. // Most pastors do a good job extracting what the scriptures say. However, we also need to clearly pay attention to what is going on in the brain of our listeners and how to craft the communication of the message (before we get up to preach) so that it sticks.Consider how we process. // It’s hard to keep people’s interest today. You can overdo the entertainment side of teaching. We need to take into consideration the way God created our brains and how we process information and learn as we preach the gospel because Jesus modeled these same things.Eight blobs of communication. // Charles refers to eight “blobs” on the platter of communication to keep in mind: clarity, attention, affinity, capacity, durability, emotion, mindset, and transfer. Each of these principles has three takeaways in Charles’s teachings. You don’t have to use all eight of these when giving a message, but try using three or four at a time. Download the 8 Core Communication Principles Checklist here.Principle of clarity. // In the principle of clarity, Charles teaches to begin with the end in mind. The three takeaways for this principle are to clarify the big takeaway (gist or verbatim), create a concept map, and the primacy recency principle. The primacy recency principle is about how people remember the most of what you say at the beginning of a talk, and they remember the second most at the end of the talk. This is because as you introduce a new concept, the brain begins to process the information to send it into long term memory. It’s important to front load and back load your key points because that’s what your audience will remember.Dual coding in our brains. // The brain encodes both visually and auditorily. When you mesh those two together, that is known as dual coding, and what you’re saying will stick better with the listener. Your working memory is where things are processed and if it’s important enough it then moves to the long-term memory. Working memory is like a small stage. Only so much information can be on that stage at the same time. If you can use dual coding to better help people remember your teaching, it will stay in memory longer. One of the ways of helping someone remember is by using acronyms. Acronyms can be easier to remember, and then your listeners can recall those memories of what was learned.Stay simple and clean. // Don’t allow the visuals you use to be so attention-getting by themselves that people forget what the message is about and what the visual means. Don’t overcomplicate your visuals. People may be so focused on the visuals that they don’t listen to your words. Meanwhile putting a small amount of text on a screen reinforces what people are hearing because it is both heard and seen.Create a concept map. // Another way to use simple visuals is with a concept map. This technique might look like using an image to represent a concept, such as love. There are several websites that offer free stock images for your slides, or try software like Doodly to sketch a simple diagram. You can learn more about Charles’s book, If Jesus Gave a TED Talk: Eight Neuroscience Principles the Master Teacher Used to Persuade His Audience, and read the first chapter at his website www.jesustedtalk.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unsem

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zeb Cook, the lead pastor at Apex Baptist Church in Apex, North Carolina. Zeb is talking with us today about establishing healthy rhythms and boundaries in your life so that you can continue to thrive in the ministry where God has called you. Create a system of boundaries. // When you’re young and just starting out in ministry, it’s easy to think that you can run at a fast pace nonstop, especially because the power of God is with you. But the reality is that ministry can be very draining. We can keep up a fast pace for a time, but at some point we will all hit a wall. Zeb found in his journey that creating healthy rhythms in his life is an important part of running the race well. Developing a system of boundaries around you will help you see clearly when you’re running in an unhealthy direction.Be honest about your limits. // To begin establishing healthy rhythms and boundaries we have to get really honest about our limitations. Stop pretending that you can handle it all. Be honest with yourself and then be honest with other people around you. There will be certain seasons of your life that are especially draining and it’s important to recognize when you are pouring a lot out because you will equally need to refuel more. Remind yourself that it’s okay to say no to things.Make the changes needed. // Take the time you need to do the simple things in your life like get a good night’s sleep, exercise, or eat better. Be cognizant of the small compromises that can happen when we are depleted. Recognize the dragon when the dragon is small and slay it. Have a layer of accountability so that you can address temptation and sin before it gets out of hand, and make the changes needed.Be disciplined and committed. // When you make a radical commitment, the results always come. Make a commitment to make the changes needed to take care of yourself. Be disciplined in developing healthy habits, your relationships with others, and your time with God. Identify where there are deficits in your life and what needs more attention. Keep the balance. // There has to be a balance of boundaries when you’re a servant leader. There are some invitations you are drawn to while you won’t connect with others. But you can’t base all boundaries simply on what you do and don’t like to do. Instead ask what is best for the faith family you’re serving. Take a look at what’s coming up in the church and what hours you have in your calendar, and attend what you can. It’s ok to say no too.Don’t hide yourself. // We can easily identify narcissistic pride in people, but for many of us pride can be more subtle. Instead it manifests itself because of our insecurities. Pride wells up when we constantly try to prove ourselves and be seen in the best light. Combat this by remembering when you were first called into ministry and what was driving you then. Don’t hide your struggles just to look good. Be vulnerable and honest with people around you.Connect with others. // Everyone in ministry needs a support network. Look to other pastors or church leaders in your area and connect with them. They can understand experiences you’re walking through and be the friends you need in your life. You can learn more about Apex Baptist Church at www.apexbaptist.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, 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: Risepointe Is your church ready? Are you re-opening? Ready to welcome MORE people to worship and grow with your church? Are you out of space or are your interiors dated and needing improvement? The architecture and design team at Risepointe want to help you align your facility with the mission and vision that God has given your church. That’s why Risepointe developed The Needs Analysis. The Needs Analysis is a comprehensive look at your site to seat experience through the lens of your first time guests. Learn more by visiting www.theneedsanalysis.com. Let them know you heard about The Needs Analysis on unSeminary for $500 off!

Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tommie Bozich, the executive pastor of Trinity Church, a multisite church with locations in Virginia and also internationally. Tommie is talking with us about what led them to launch a location in Stuttgart, Germany, and what a church should think about when considering an international campus. Problems and opportunities. // As Trinity began their multisite journey, they realized that with the help of video teaching, they could take sermon messages anywhere. They already had a few campuses in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area, which has a huge military population. When some church members who had been transferred to Stuttgart, Germany lamented at the difficulty of finding an English-speaking church overseas, Trinity realized the opportunity to launch a campus serving the military and English-speaking community abroad.Church plant vs church campus. // Launching a church campus is very different from planting a church and when Tommie went to Germany with his family, they were sent with the mindset that this international campus is part of Trinity. Trinity did not want to start up this campus and then check back months later, but there were still challenges with the distance that made this campus feel separate.Thank God for the resources. // As the Stuttgart campus pastor, Tommie and his team had to rely heavily on video and remote meetings before that was widely popular. It can be easy to become resentful and feel left out when you’re so far away. But rather cultivate humility and thank God for all that you can do with the resources you have. Embrace being uncomfortable.Find family. // An incredible family is created when you connect with other English-speaking believers in a foreign country. It teaches us a great deal of humility and breaks down many of the dividing walls that exist back in the USA. Everyone is looking for community, especially those who are moving to a new country and don’t know anyone around them. Tommie found that people who were not followers of Jesus came to the church so that they could find community and then were saved through that experience.Love goes a long way. // The church in Germany started out primarily with American families living there, a lot of them military. But soon German friends and neighbors were invited and started attending, and they loved it. Love transcends a lot of boundaries and brings people together.Identify similarities between locations. // Decide what elements of your international campus you want to be the same as your other campuses. At Trinity’s Stuttgart location, they had similar worship styles and branding, and were on the same sermon series. Make sure your central staff thinks about how teaching and kids content will translate in another context. Accept that some things won’t translate and incorporate the elements that will.Reliance on God. // When Tommie and his family moved to Germany to help launch the campus, it forced him to rely heavily on prayer for everything. Nondenominational churches in Germany were practically nonexistent and God had to open the doors for the church to find a place to meet. As you lean on God in prayer, He will show up in ways you never would have expected.More than one. // When sending people into foreign places to launch a campus, be sure to send them in at least a pair so they can work together. Their families can keep each other company and help each other through this new environment and life.Mission over method. // Have a decent amount of flexibility both in the personalities of the people starting this new location and the church’s ability to allow them to minister in their context. The mission always has to be more important than the method. How do you need to shift the method to accomplish the mission?Think outside the box. // Consider the possibilities of what can be done with technology and sending people out. Trinity now knows that they can equip a believer who’s in the military and going overseas to be a light for Christ and create community. This doesn’t always look like launching a campus, but it could be providing resources for a person to lead a small group and invite others to participate in church online in their home. You can learn more about Trinity Church at www.trinitychurchvb.com. 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, t

Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brian McMillan, from CenterPoint Church in Long Island, New York. Brian is talking with us today about how pastors can keep their souls healthy by being generous and Kingdom-minded toward church plants coming into their area. Challenges of church planting. // When planting a church, many pastors quickly discover that other pastors in the area may be territorial or fearful about a new church in town. When Brian was planting CenterPoint Church on Long Island, it was before there was much church planting support and resources available. As a result, Brian sought the help of five other respected pastors in the area, assuming they would welcome his efforts to reach the unchurched on Long Island. Instead Brian was met with rejection, loneliness, discouragement, and even slander. Sadly these experiences are not uncommon because of the deep brokenness, insecurity and fear that many pastors are living with.Bringing beauty from pain. // After so much rejection, Brian and his church planting team had nothing but faith to go on. God often takes pain and rejection and redeems it, making it into something beautiful. In the end CenterPoint developed a strong desire to be the kind of church that raised other churches and ministries in the area up. By being Kingdom-minded they saw church planting to be about much more than simply starting a church. Instead it’s about seeing Long Island come to Christ.Blessing other churches in the area. // A large part of CenterPoint’s budget goes to local church planting. They make sure that any church plant, no matter how close by, is supported by them. Support can be financial, offering opportunities for another church’s teams to shadow their teams, or giving a new church stage time in some way. CenterPoint even lets the people in their services know that if God is calling them to help with a new church plant, then to follow where He leads. CenterPoint also lists on their website over 20 reputable churches of different denominations and personalities so that if someone visits their church and doesn’t find it to be a good fit, they have some other solid options in the area to consider.Be generous and openhanded. // Staying Kingdom-minded isn’t easy. Brian admits that losing people to other churches is hard and it can be easy to get jealous of other churches and the amazing things they are doing. But if you want your church to grow and be healthy, you need to get the blessing of God. And God blesses people when we’re openhanded and put His Kingdom above our own kingdoms. When we’re generous, God will do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.Keep your soul in check. // Generosity keeps the souls of church leaders healthy too. Without it, fear creeps in and affects decision-making. It becomes based on self-preservation or bettering ourselves for our persona or church brand. But being really generous and willing to give away the people in our churches is a soul check. It shows that this movement is all really about God and not about a person or a brand. Give as much as you can to bring life to other churches in your area without bringing pain to yourself.Build connections with local leaders. // ReviveLI, a group that Brian started, brings church leaders on Long island together to support one another. Currently it includes about 50 pastors who get together every two months. They pray and eat together, building relational connection and supporting one another. As Brian puts it, when you can be life-giving to other pastors, you are racking up some serious treasure in heaven. You can learn more about CenterPoint Church at www.cpchurch.com. You can also learn about ReviveLI at www.reviveli.com. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Medi-Share Medi-Share is an innovative health care solution for Christians looking to save money without sacrificing on quality. As the nation’s largest health care sharing community, Medi-Share members take comfort in knowing their eligible medical expenses will be shared by their community. Click here to download the FREE REPORT: The 10 Things About Mental Health Every Pastor (& Leader) MUST Know!

Thanks for tuning into this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Stone Meyer, executive pastor from The Bridge Church in Tennessee. Stone is talking with us today about the musical worship part of services and how to develop excellence in your unpaid volunteer musicians. The musical worship aspect. // The musical worship aspect of services is an important part and is often the first thing people hear when they enter your church. We may think of church as a presentation, but church is really people. Ephesians 4:11-12 says we are to equip God’s people for acts of service so the body can be built up, and this includes musicians who have been gifted to minister to God’s people through their talents. Raise the standard. // For many churches it can feel like we need to pay musicians in order to get the quality of music that we want. The truth is it’s a risk to use volunteers for the worship team. And if we don’t have enough volunteers, we can be tempted to lower the standard to attract more people. Really the opposite is true. If you raise the standard, you’re going to get more volunteers because great players love to serve with great players.Make changes when needed. // Rebuild the music team when things aren’t working out as you’re hoping. The Bridge Church took one step back to take two steps forward. First they scaled down their worship teams, and then they looked for people who were both excellent in their proficiency, and had great spiritual leadership. Initially these steps eliminated volunteers, but ultimately it raised the level of excellence and now they have a large pool of worship team volunteers to invite into service.DVLP process. // The Bridge Church wanted to raise the standard on their volunteer worship team, but they also wanted to create a development pipeline so people could reach that standard. That pipeline is a program called DVLP which is 100% volunteer run. Each week there are 90-minute rehearsals for the worship music, and in the hour before the rehearsals DVLP happens. DVLP is a 12-week development process for anyone new to the team. It helps set new members up for success, allowing them get to know their teammates and coaches, be immersed in the culture, and learn about how everything works.Don’t say no. // Someone interested in DVLP begins by completing a short form about their relationship with Jesus and their music knowledge. There is then a 10-15 minute evaluation with the individual. About 75% of the people go on to join DVLP, but for the others the team doesn’t tell people “no”, but instead “not yet.” Those interested persons may still need to grow or develop skills in some areas before this group would be right for them. Encourage those you coach. // The primary role of the coaches in DVLP is not to tell the new members what they did wrong, but to train, teach and develop people, encouraging them to believe in themselves. They ask those going through DVLP what they felt that they could do better during rehearsal so that they can examine and study their own skills.Learning and developing. // The end of DVLP involves evaluations for each person to see where they are and if they’re ready to graduate and begin serving on a team. Some of the main values of the team are development, learning and curiosity. Some people will go back through DVLP to coach, or to grow new aspects of their God-given potential.Download the DVLP Playbook. // You can learn more through the DVLP Playbook that we have available to download. It walks the reader through the vision for DVLP as well as practical aspects of the program. You can learn more about The Bridge Church at bridge.tv. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: FiveTwo It’s hard to know how to grow your church. Especially as you come out of a pandemic in a changing culture. But you desperately want to. You believe the church can still grow. The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to find the right group of people who will help carry the load and bring growth to your ministry. You’ll be relieved. People will be helped. Your church will grow. Download this guide TODAY for an easy 5-step plan to get the right leaders on board. We’ll give you 5 surprisingly eas

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Van Vandegriff, lead pastor at Cedarcrest Church in Acworth, Georgia. Van is talking with us today about dealing with COVID and helping people at the church to shift out of neutral and reengage with the mission of the church. Reengage with the mission. // When the church reopened in 2020 after the quarantine in Georgia, Van found that people had formed new habits. Some people preferred staying home and watching the service online rather than gathering in the church building. Others had slid into neutral in their faith. But the number one thing isn’t having people in a seat at church on Sunday mornings, rather it’s helping people follow Jesus. Cedarcrest decided that leading people to reengage with the mission, instead of getting people inside the church, was the thing to focus on.Pay attention to needs. // One of the ways Cedarcrest helped its people to reengage with the mission was by paying attention to the needs in the community around them. Right across from the church is a community of under-resourced families who could not afford laptops or even things like internet. When schools closed down in 2020 and met online, Cedarcrest opened its doors and provided a place for the children to come and attend classes online. Volunteers from the church helped the kids connect with their teachers on laptops provided by the church and even held P.E. classes, playing games of kickball during the school day. This outreach was a huge success for the children nearby, introduced their families to the church, and Cedarcrest’s people came alive as they were invited to live on mission.Join God in his work. // Van and his staff started to really pay attention to what God was already doing in their communities so that they could join him in his work. This led to them taking church out to the neighborhoods around them during the month of July. Each Sunday they showed up in a different neighborhood with musicians, speakers, bounce houses for the kids, and food to grill. Being willing to take this risk opened the way for Cedarcrest to meet lots of new people and get them connected to the church.Using giveaways. // Giveaways can get people’s attention, so the church held one for various prizes at their outdoor summer services. This incentive allowed them to collect people’s information with their permission, and then the church could reach out to those people in the future.Next steps tent. // At their Summer in the Suburbs events, Cedarcrest Church saw at least four times the normal number of first time guests. Cedarcrest set up a next step tent at their outdoor services which provided information on what people could do in their next step toward Christ, how to get connected at the church, and what activities are available for kids. Even if people don’t take their next step immediately, Cedarcrest hopes it will point them to God down the road. You can learn more about Cedarcrest Church at cedarcrestchurch.com and connect with Van on Instagram @vanvandegriff. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. CDF Capital’s XP Summit Cohorts provide an exclusive, year-long experience that brings together hand-selected global ministry leaders and your peers in an intimate, small-group setting. Visit http://cdf.capital/UnCohort to learn more and enroll today!

Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Zach Lambert, lead pastor at Restore Austin in Austin, Texas. Zach is with us today to talk about how to take the stress out of sermon planning and coming up with biblical and engaging topics in your teaching. What are you preaching on? // In a study done by the Gallup Group, they found that 75% of people who attend church do so because of the teaching. Yet when Zach gets together with other pastors, they often express that one of the hardest things about preaching is coming up with incredible ideas for sermon topics and series that will resonate with their congregation.Planning the year. // When Zach first planted Restore Austin, the feeling of needing to come up with a new sermon series every few weeks was exhausting. He wanted to preach sermons that kept people’s attention, centered on Jesus and weren’t just self-help teachings, plus aligned with the church’s values, vision and measures. Zach and his team also wanted to include diverse voices and current events and stay engaging. In order to break this stressful planning cycle, they began to structure everything around an annual sermon series theme. What is your congregation going through? // Each spring Zach and his team meet to decide on what that sermon theme will be for the next year. In planning their year-long focus, the team gathers as much information as possible about their congregation, what questions they have, and what they’re walking through. What are they celebrating? Where are they hurting right now? Also, ask yourself what is God teaching you as the leader and how can you mesh that together with what your congregation is going through. Use all of this data for ideas and how to plan the next year.Take control of your own schedule. // If you don’t control your calendar and schedule, someone else will. This principle is true whether you have an administrative assistant or not. Zach spends every Monday afternoon just reading the passage he will be preaching on and taking notes. He knows that if he’s intentional about that time on Monday, it will percolate in his brain the rest of the week. Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings he works to write his sermon so that he is ready to roll on Thursday afternoons and can provide his notes to the production team. Friday is then a Sabbath that Zach can enjoy with his family.Be creative about taking breaks. // When Zach first planted Restore Austin, he was teaching nearly every week. Over time, he has scaled that back to build in rhythms where he’s taking a break and exposing the congregation to diverse voices and topics. One creative way Restore Austin does this is by doing what they call “Summer Mixtape” where they bring in other pastors and have them preach their best sermon. The last two years with covid, Zach did Zoom interviews with people from around the world. Some of those included interviews with authors who had written important books on racism, biblical womanhood, and more. During this five- or six-week preaching break, Zach works on planning the next year.Other ideas for Sundays. // In addition to the Summer Mixtape series, some Sundays Zach does a hot seat where people submit questions beforehand and Zach answers them. This format requires a lot less prep during the week for him. Restore Austin also has about four Sundays during the year where they don’t meet for a traditional service. Instead two of those days are serve days and the other two are a party with a purpose, such as a baptism with a barbecue.Recommended reading. // Some books Zach recommends reading are Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez and Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both can shed light on what’s going on in our current culture and educate on racial justice. You can reach Zach on Twitter at @ZachWLambert and learn more about Restore Austin Church at restoreaustin.org. Download an example of their sermon series calendars here. 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, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than