Latest / Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association / Episode 28: Vision vs. Management + How Can Leaders Balance Confidence and Humility? + The Loneliness Epidemic + the Humility of "I Don't Know." AND Buffalo Wing Soda...SPICY!

Transcript

Episode 28: Vision vs. Management + How Can Leaders Balance Confidence and Humility? + The Loneliness Epidemic + the Humility of "I Don't Know." AND Buffalo Wing Soda...SPICY! · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

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Speaker1: We got a really fun soda review today where we try Lester's Fixin's Buffalo
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Speaker1: Wing Soda, which is as weird and spicy as it sounds.
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Speaker1: More important than that, we've got Florida mission strategist Chris Reynolds
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Speaker1: on the show, and he's going to talk a little bit about
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Speaker1: being genuine and pastoring, about loneliness, about mission strategy,
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Speaker1: as you might expect, but also
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Speaker1: balancing competence and humility. And he's gonna
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Speaker2: Say- You need to have enough confidence to show that you're competent in the
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Speaker2: pulpit to say, this is what the Bible says clearly.
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Speaker2: But you also have enough humility to be able to say, I don't understand everything
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Speaker2: and we're all figuring this out together.
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Speaker2: When you don't have either, you lose the trust of your people,
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Speaker2: or you don't have enough of either, you begin to lose the trust of the people,
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Speaker2: or you begin to isolate yourself.
1:14
Speaker2: That work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.
1:18
Speaker2: Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission
1:22
Speaker2: Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry
1:27
Speaker2: and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.
1:30
Speaker1: Hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 28 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
1:36
Speaker1: We are a podcast of the Great Commission Association of California,
1:40
Speaker1: which is a family of churches that spread all over North and Central California.
1:45
Speaker1: If you are a pastor, a church, a church leader, and you're looking for a team,
1:50
Speaker1: and you're in the West, you're in the California area, we would love to partner with you.
1:55
Speaker1: Check out our website at gcasbc.org. That is gcasbc.org.
2:03
Speaker1: I'm excited about the show today. We have a very interesting soda,
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Speaker1: as I've already mentioned, but also we continue our interview with Chris Reynolds.
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Speaker1: Now, we found Chris on Facebook and started reading his posts,
2:17
Speaker1: and both Pastor Christopher and I were taken by his wisdom and a lot of the provocative,
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Speaker1: thoughtful, very important things he was saying to Christian leaders.
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Speaker1: And we immediately, three or four months ago, decided, hey, we got to get this
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Speaker1: guy on the podcast, and he was gracious enough to appear.
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Speaker1: So today we're back with mission strategist Chris Reynolds, and we're going
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Speaker1: to pick up our interview from last week.
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Speaker1: This is part two. You ought to listen to part one as well. But here Chris is
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Speaker1: discussing leadership and pastoral loneliness, which is a topic we've hit a
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Speaker1: few times before and is particularly important to Pastor Christopher and I.
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Speaker0: I wonder, Chris, you've written a lot about pastoral and leader loneliness in church, right?
3:06
Speaker0: And I wonder why that is.
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Speaker0: And I'm wondering if that's a disconnect
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Speaker0: between if the reason pastors are so,
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Speaker0: lonely and detached, in part, is because the pastors themselves aren't really
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Speaker0: aligned well with how they've been designed by God and what they're doing day
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Speaker0: in and day out is not designed
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Speaker0: for relational intimacy
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Speaker0: and for discipleship in life on life terms, but designed around program.
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Speaker0: So that's just me sort of, you know, spitballing and jumping at that.
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Speaker0: So what would you say are some of the primary causes of pastoral and leader
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Speaker0: loneliness? What are some of the cures?
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Speaker2: There's a number of causes. It's similar to the situation. How do we fix this
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Speaker2: problem of disciple making in the local church?
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Speaker2: The loneliness thing is not one specific issue.
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Speaker2: It's a factor. It's a cultural issue because loneliness isn't exclusive to pastors.
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Speaker2: There's a lot of people. It's an epidemic of we have social media all over the
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Speaker2: place, but people feel lonelier than they do before.
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Speaker2: They feel isolated more so than they have ever felt, even though I can open
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Speaker2: up my phone right now and see 30 faces in less than 10 seconds.
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Speaker2: I mean, it's the aspect of connection. There has to be a greater connection
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Speaker2: to one another around the table.
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Speaker2: We also are dealing with a space where you're expected to be the expert.
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Speaker2: You're expected to have the answer.
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Speaker2: And even if people don't ever say that to you, that's the whisper that you hear in your head as well.
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Speaker2: As a pastor, as a church leader, it is uncomfortable to say the statement, I don't know.
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Speaker2: It actually takes a level of confidence to say, you know what,
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Speaker2: I don't know, but I'm gonna find out for you. I'm gonna research that a little bit.
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Speaker2: But I'm convinced that if we said that more often as church leaders,
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Speaker2: as pastors, as associational leaders, would actually probably be a lot better off because
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Speaker2: What it reveals to not only our peers, but also the people that God has called
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Speaker2: us to serve in our context is my pastor doesn't pretend he has all the answers.
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Speaker2: He may look like the guy that stands up on the stage and he waxes eloquent every
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Speaker2: single Sunday and he knows all the right things to say, but he openly admits,
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Speaker2: guys, I don't know, because that's the disconnect.
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Speaker2: There is this, you need to have enough confidence to show that you're competent
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Speaker2: in the pulpit to say, this is what the Bible says clearly, but you also have
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Speaker2: enough humility to be able to say, I don't understand everything and we're all
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Speaker2: figuring this out together.
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Speaker2: When you don't have either, you lose the trust of your people or you don't have
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Speaker2: enough of either, you begin to lose the trust of the people or you begin to
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Speaker2: isolate yourself to where it's like, you have to be set apart.
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Speaker2: So I think that phrase, I don't know, but I'm going to find out would actually
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Speaker2: be really helpful because then it gives your people the freedom to say, you know what?
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Speaker2: My pastor doesn't know. It's okay if I don't know. And I can go find out as
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Speaker2: well. How do we relieve that loneliness, having conversations with people and
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Speaker2: saying, you know what? I need help with this.
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Speaker2: You've been here before. Let's have a conversation. Would you be willing to
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Speaker2: share with me what it is that you've learned?
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Speaker2: To where we adopt a posture of just saying, it's okay if I don't have all the answers.
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Speaker2: The strongest leaders that run largest corporations, the best corporations, they'll
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Speaker2: More often than not, will be the ones that will say, I'm not the smartest guy
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Speaker2: in the room, but I'm intentional about hiring people that are smarter than I am.
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Speaker2: Because by hiring and being around those people, we collectively become smarter.
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Speaker2: That has to be the case for us as church leaders as well. We don't need to be
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Speaker2: the smartest guy in the room.
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Speaker2: Let's begin to leverage the strengths of our collective home.
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Speaker0: I think moving that way into invitation from, I don't know, and I'm okay with
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Speaker0: the fact that I don't know, to,
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Speaker0: invitation and even maybe tweaking that just a little bit to say,
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Speaker0: I don't know, but let's find out together.
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Speaker0: Let's explore together. Would you join me in learning that together?
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Speaker0: And I think that when I was a young pastor, I was terrified of saying those words. I don't know.
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Speaker0: Who was I if I wasn't the Bible answer man?
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Speaker0: And we had a guy in Southern California at the time that was literally his show,
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Speaker0: right? I'm the Bible answer man, you know?
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Speaker0: And I look back on some of those things today and I'm just going,
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Speaker0: you know, there's a lot of hubris if you position yourself as the Bible answer man, right? You know?
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Speaker0: But that pride does disrupt that relationship, that relational humility that
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Speaker0: can say, I don't know, I'm not perfect, I'm seeking to follow Jesus,
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Speaker0: and I want to help you follow Jesus,
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Speaker0: and I want to invite us into learning well with each other collaboratively
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Speaker0: and growing, not just in Bible knowledge, but,
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Speaker0: in living the way of Jesus.
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Speaker0: And even how we communicate from the pulpit, you know, when we illustrate,
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Speaker0: hey, I didn't know this and this person in the church was helping me learn this or, you know,
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Speaker0: using those kinds of illustrations as a pastor, at least in my experience,
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Speaker0: sort of lowers that reality and invites people into that set.
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Speaker0: It's okay, as you said. They don't have to know.
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Speaker0: They can enjoy the experience of being a person who's on a journey rather than
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Speaker0: having to always be perceived as the person that's got it all figured out on the end.
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Speaker2: I think that's so good. And I think the other piece is we see,
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Speaker2: like you said, the Bible man.
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Speaker2: We see in our newsfeed a lot of people that are confidently proclaiming their opinion.
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Speaker2: And we think, man, they really seem like they know what they're talking about.
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Speaker2: We're all insecure in our own ways as much as we present something otherwise. We just are.
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Speaker2: Anybody that reads The Strategic Outsider or listens to a podcast,
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Speaker2: I don't have it all figured out.
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Speaker2: I am simply sharing what it is that I am learning along the way and trying to
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Speaker2: figure out how to communicate it well so that it benefits others.
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Speaker2: Because I openly admit, I don't know.
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Speaker1: Yeah, I think we're hitting on a dynamic that it really does lead to loneliness.
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Speaker1: And it's not one I would have thought of at first.
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Speaker1: I pastored for a little over 20 years in Alabama before I moved out to California.
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Speaker1: A little over eight years ago. So I've been both places. And I would have thought
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Speaker1: the dynamic I'm about to talk about would be the opposite.
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Speaker1: But in Alabama, I was Chase.
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Speaker1: Even in churches, people sometimes called me Pastor Chase.
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Speaker1: They never called me Pastor. Mostly I was Chase, and I liked it that way.
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Speaker1: But in California, maybe in Alabama, it's because pastors are a dime a dozen
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Speaker1: Churches are on every street.
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Speaker1: In California, I'm very much Pastor Chase or pastor.
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Speaker1: And I've tried and tried to be like, hey, I'm just Chase.
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Speaker1: Just call me Chase. That's what people have always called me.
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Speaker1: But there's that title there.
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Speaker1: And I think it's because we're all used to our pastors and our preachers
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Speaker1: filling this role of kind of an exalted guru who knows all about the spiritual
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Speaker1: life, who stands up in an elevated pulpit and all of that.
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Speaker1: And the problem with that kind of living and that kind of position is it's going to be lonely.
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Speaker1: You're not going to have deep, vulnerable, profound conversations with people
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Speaker1: in the church about your struggles, your sins, accountability,
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Speaker1: your weaknesses, all of that kind of stuff, because these people are looking
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Speaker1: at you with rose-tinted glasses.
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Speaker1: And I think that does lead to profound loneliness.
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Speaker1: And I think probably a wise pastor would far more
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Speaker1: Benefit from keeping in a process of pointing people to Jesus as the guru and
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Speaker1: themselves as under shepherds at best.
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Speaker1: And sometimes we're just basically clueless under shepherds that are just fellow strugglers.
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Speaker1: And I think when we have that aura about us, which is, I don't know.
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Speaker1: I want to say 100% of the time fake, but let's, maybe there really are people
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Speaker1: that are the gurus that have arrived.
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Speaker1: I just don't know them. But for the most part, pastors are struggling followers
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Speaker1: of Jesus, just like church members. And I think pretending we are anything different
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Speaker1: really does create a profound sense of loneliness.
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Speaker2: So I'll say this, having been on staff at Omega Church and sat in the staff
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Speaker2: meetings and having talked with several support staff, many,
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Speaker2: many, many times over the years
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Speaker2: including recently that are running churches that run over 1,500,
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Speaker2: none of them feel like they've arrived.
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Speaker2: And all of them deal with insecurities. As much as they portray one thing,
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Speaker2: we're all dealing with it.
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Speaker2: And I think that is where you have to get around the table.
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Speaker2: And you do have to have peers to have conversations with.
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Speaker2: The Southeast is a little bit more of a struggle, I feel like for us,
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Speaker2: because there can be a concern of competition, a sense of competition.
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Speaker2: There's also pride in other places where it's not as churches are not as prevalent
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Speaker2: or they're more spread out or they're facing more difficult circumstances.
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Speaker2: I think that maybe that is reduced simply because there is shared tribulation together.
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Speaker2: Here in our region, there's probably not as much shared tribulation together.
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Speaker2: There's maybe perceived tribulation because they watch stuff taking place on social media,
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Speaker2: Not genuinely shared tribulation.
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Speaker0: So as a strategic outsider, Chris, you've been able to not only help individual
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Speaker0: churches, but you're trying to help churches that are networked together.
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Speaker0: And in Southern Baptist Life, we talk about that in the terms of associationalism.
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Speaker0: So it's 1707 here in the United States.
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Speaker0: Churches have been associating, Baptist churches, been associating together
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Speaker0: to carry out the mission of Christ together. And I know this is one of your big passions.
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Speaker0: It's one of the things that's in your heartbeat.
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Speaker0: But you've written recently and talked about the role of associations and how
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Speaker0: that facilitates national cooperation together and how,
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Speaker0: the two different entities, or three different entities, because you talked
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Speaker0: about in Southern Baptist Life, we talked about local associations,
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Speaker0: state conventions, national convention, and national partners.
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Speaker0: So what dynamics do you see that are critical for, say, local church pastors
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Speaker0: to think about when they're thinking about associating and partnering together
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Speaker0: on all these three levels, and how do they interact well with each other?
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Speaker2: I think that a key component for us to keep in mind is that associations are an organism.
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Speaker2: They are made up of a family of churches in a given region.
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Speaker2: Your national and state entities,
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Speaker2: Their organization, they are friends or acquaintances at best,
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Speaker2: but your local association, that's family.
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Speaker2: Now, it's important that I define association as well.
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Speaker2: Association is not the organization such as the Northeast Florida a family of
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Speaker2: churches in the sense that my office is the association or the title,
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Speaker2: you know, that I am the association. The association is...
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Speaker2: Is the churches. They make it up. They're the ones that without them, it wouldn't exist.
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Speaker2: And the reason why it's so essential that those things be strengthened is because
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Speaker2: without local collaboration among churches, our national cooperation begins
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Speaker2: to fall apart because we don't know how to interact with one another.
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Speaker2: Because Southern Baptists, by and large, we are a grassroots organization.
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Speaker2: That's who we are. We are a grassroots movement of local churches that decided
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Speaker2: on a local level and then a state level and then a national level to contribute
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Speaker2: to something larger than ourselves.
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Speaker2: And so the local association is the execution of, hey, this is how we carry this out in our context.
15:48
Speaker2: This is how we work together in a real and tangible way.
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Speaker2: This is how we plant churches together. This is how we train up the next generation
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Speaker2: of leaders together together.
15:59
Speaker2: In order to reach and minister to people in our context.
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Speaker2: This is how we send out and we support missionaries across the world because
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Speaker2: we're modeling it here locally, because we're doing it here in our context and we're doing it
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Speaker2: As an association or as a family of churches in our region.
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Speaker2: When that's done well, then I believe that you'll start to see a national shift
16:24
Speaker2: take place because as people are doing this well on a local level,
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Speaker2: you begin to learn what's working.
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Speaker2: And then the association next door says, hey, you're doing that and it's working
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Speaker2: really well. That's something we'd like to try. So I'll give you an example.
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Speaker2: We had a church came to me and they said, we're interested in starting a ministry
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Speaker2: pipeline where it's not Bible college,
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Speaker2: it's not seminary, but it's sort of a 20,000, 30,000 foot view of ministry for
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Speaker2: those that feel like they're called so that they don't have to sell all their stuff and move to
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Speaker2: a seminary or a Bible college someplace. at 35 years old.
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Speaker2: They feel a call to ministry, but they just don't know what that means.
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Speaker2: We're wanting to start something that gives them an overview.
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Speaker2: And so I said, I think that's great.
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Speaker2: And I think it's absolutely necessary. Here's what I would encourage.
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Speaker2: Let's pull in other pastors from our region. Let's pull in other churches.
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Speaker2: So those other pastors, they help facilitate. Let's bring in the experts,
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Speaker2: those that their sweet spot is in those areas of emphasis.
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Speaker2: You got somebody that's really, really good at preaching, let's bring him in
17:27
Speaker2: to teach the seven weeks whenever it comes to preaching. We have somebody that's
17:31
Speaker2: good at counseling, let's bring somebody in that that's where their sweet spot is.
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Speaker2: Worship ministry, let's bring their sweet spot. Church planting,
17:38
Speaker2: their sweet spot. Stewardship, their sweet spot.
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Speaker2: Let's leverage the strengths of our family of churches to help get this done.
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Speaker2: And then let's open it up for anybody that wants to participate or send people
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Speaker2: to it. And it's going to take a lot of coordination.
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Speaker2: And that pastor that was the champion of this met one-on-one with those pastors
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Speaker2: that sent people and said, we're not here to recruit your potential leaders.
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Speaker2: We're here to help be a resource for you at a local church level and to encourage
18:06
Speaker2: you and to provide them with understanding of what it looks like to do ministry
18:11
Speaker2: so that if they seek to pursue it more, they can.
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Speaker2: And we're not trying to teach them a specific doctrinal framework.
18:17
Speaker2: We are going to keep this neutral.
18:19
Speaker2: This is not about one extreme or another extreme. This is the basics.
18:23
Speaker2: It's up to you to add salt to the food that's being cooked, to flavor it how
18:27
Speaker2: you want to, because they're coming back to serve in your church in your local context.
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Speaker2: So as that's happening, I'm talking to other associational leaders across Florida,
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Speaker2: and they're starting to ask questions about it.
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Speaker2: So I then take them and connect them to that pastor and church leader,
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Speaker2: and we introduce them, and they begin learning from them.
18:45
Speaker2: And when they start a dialogue, and now they're launching one in their context.
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Speaker2: This came as a resource from one of our state convention representatives, one of the catalysts.
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Speaker2: It's something that they did in South Florida. And he said, this is something
18:57
Speaker2: that's worked well for us.
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Speaker2: We just took it, and we contextualized it to our need. Those other associations,
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Speaker2: they're taking it and contextualizing it to their need.
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Speaker2: What'd you have? You had a grassroots movement from one church that is now starting
19:09
Speaker2: to spread at other places, and it's encouraging partnership and collaboration
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Speaker2: among churches in a very small microcosm.
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Speaker2: If we begin doing that as a collective whole, you see the impact that it can have.
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Speaker2: And then when we come together for a national conversation, we're all experiencing
19:24
Speaker2: similar things because now we're working together and alongside one another.
19:29
Speaker2: Just as an aside, there's also one that got started in London.
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Speaker2: So it went across the pond. Really, really cool story. But it's a picture of
19:37
Speaker2: what we're talking about.
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Speaker0: You know, I love that idea of how associations can actually influence the national
19:45
Speaker0: dynamics and the national missionality, if for lack of a better term.
19:51
Speaker0: Another example that just came to my mind while you were sharing is,
19:54
Speaker0: you know, we work a lot with the North American Mission Board's replant team
19:58
Speaker0: and all of those guys, every single one of them came out of associational life
20:04
Speaker0: and the work that they were doing there.
20:06
Speaker0: Your neighbor association, Bob Bumgarner at First Coast Churches,
20:11
Speaker0: Jimbo Stewart, helping to build out that dynamic there.
20:15
Speaker0: The Genesis team on the Missouri side of the Kansas City Association there and
20:20
Speaker0: the St. Louis Association with Bob Bickford and how those associations help
20:24
Speaker0: move a network upward into a statewide movement.
20:29
Speaker0: All of those sort of genesis points then merging together to influence
20:34
Speaker0: the creation of an entire division and movement within the North American Mission
20:40
Speaker0: Board through the replant and small church movement led by Mark Clifton.
20:45
Speaker0: And then the way Mark Halleck was doing that out in a network family of churches
20:49
Speaker0: out in Colorado, each of those cases, families of churches learning synergistically
20:55
Speaker0: encouraging one another and reshaping an entire.
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Speaker0: National dialogue about what one of our entities should be putting their emphasis
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Speaker0: and their energy into. too.
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Speaker0: And we're grateful for all those associations doing that work. It's been a benefit.
21:10
Speaker0: And we're glad for the small part we get to contribute in that from the West
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Speaker0: Coast side of things, too. So that's a great point there.
21:18
Speaker1: Got to close out question. So I grew up on comic books and probably a lot of
21:24
Speaker1: people around my age did. And in comic books and movies and in books and all
21:30
Speaker1: sorts of fictional things, we
21:32
Speaker1: We have this class of person who's not quite a villain and not quite a hero,
21:38
Speaker1: and we call them anti-heroes or anti-heroes, and they live in this kind of difficult-to-define area.
21:44
Speaker1: You know, you got Wolverine, you've got the Punisher, Ghost Rider,
21:48
Speaker1: the BBC version of Sherlock, Jack Reacher, Jay Gatsby.
21:53
Speaker1: Now, Chris Reynolds, I don't think you're an anti-hero, but you strike me as
21:59
Speaker1: somebody who's not at all like a Donald McGavern or a C.
22:04
Speaker1: Peter Wagner, Chris Hodges, or even a George Barna, but you care about church growth.
22:10
Speaker1: So you're like an antihero of church growth.
22:13
Speaker1: You're not like one of the traditional guys that focuses on buns on seats and that sort of thing.
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Speaker1: But I think any church that's making disciples is probably going to be reaching
22:26
Speaker1: people, but not in a traditional way.
22:29
Speaker1: So one of the things you wrote about recently was a very insightful article
22:34
Speaker1: on the attractional fallacy, which is, you know, this idea that if you build
22:40
Speaker1: it, they will come kind of thing.
22:42
Speaker1: It's more than that, but that's included in that. So tell us about the attractional
22:46
Speaker1: fallacy and is that kind of mindset dangerous or a trap, especially for small
22:55
Speaker1: and medium-sized churches.
22:56
Speaker2: I think the attractional fallacy, it was something that I developed simply because
23:00
Speaker2: I just kept watching it happen over and over again as I was interacting with
23:03
Speaker2: churches that didn't have the capacity to run a program model church.
23:08
Speaker2: And I began to see where program model churches end up
23:14
Speaker2: when their programs stop working, when the thing that they've always done no
23:19
Speaker2: longer gets it done and they fail to pivot to something else.
23:25
Speaker2: My friend, my mentor, George Bullard, he is finishing up his book.
23:29
Speaker2: I've already seen the pre-copy of it. Vision Always Drives.
23:33
Speaker2: It's supposed to be released in January, and so I'm looking forward to it.
23:36
Speaker2: I've had the opportunity to help him in the book itself, and so I'm looking
23:41
Speaker2: forward to that being released.
23:42
Speaker2: But it talks about the life cycle of a church and that ultimately on the downside
23:47
Speaker2: of the life cycle, you see vision is in the backseat taking a nap and management is driving.
23:54
Speaker2: And the seats, the way that they are arranged is that it's supposed to be vision driving, relational.
24:01
Speaker2: So relational experiences or disciple making relationships is in the passenger seat navigating.
24:06
Speaker2: You have programs that are behind disciple-making relationships in the backseat,
24:11
Speaker2: and you have management that's behind the driver's seat.
24:14
Speaker2: But when vision gets tired, vision pulls off to the side of the road and switches
24:20
Speaker2: seats with management. So management to get behind the wheel and management
24:23
Speaker2: says, this is the place that I've always been meant to be.
24:26
Speaker2: And it hangs on to the wheel. And after a little while of driving down the road,
24:30
Speaker2: management looks over and sees disciple-making relationships and says, you're a mess.
24:35
Speaker2: Because disciple-making relationships is a mess.
24:38
Speaker2: You're a mess. So we got to pull over and I need programs up here because they're
24:43
Speaker2: organized. And so now programs is helping to navigate and management is driving
24:48
Speaker2: and vision and disciple-making relationships are in the backseat taking a nap.
24:53
Speaker2: And when the church gets in that position, they stop realizing God's unique
24:56
Speaker2: disciple-making vision for their context.
24:59
Speaker2: And it becomes about the programs that we're running. It becomes about the things that we do.
25:03
Speaker2: And they run through this cycle over and over and over again,
25:06
Speaker2: where they say, as they're heading down on the life cycle, we need programs that attract people.
25:12
Speaker2: But in order to have those programs, we need people to run them.
25:16
Speaker2: But we need programs to attract people.
25:18
Speaker2: And so they just keep going around and around and around, chasing themselves.
25:23
Speaker1: Vicious circle.
25:24
Speaker2: And until someone says you have to stop, you have to rethink what success looks
25:30
Speaker2: like as a church until they can begin to conceptualize that,
25:33
Speaker2: until they begin to think that through and realize
25:36
Speaker2: they're not a cookie cutter, because that's where a lot of this comes from.
25:40
Speaker2: That program model church was a cookie cutter model expectation of this is what all churches do.
25:46
Speaker2: And so those churches that find themselves in that space, oftentimes it's we
25:50
Speaker2: need young children. But in order to have young children, we need young people
25:54
Speaker2: who can work with those children.
25:56
Speaker2: And we need young parents to be able to come in. And so that's the same thing.
25:59
Speaker2: It's the same basic principle of that attraction fallacy.
26:02
Speaker2: And they have to break that cycle.
26:05
Speaker2: And so they have to dream a new dream. They have to examine in this next season
26:09
Speaker2: of the church's life, where is it that God is leading us?
26:11
Speaker2: To whom has he called us to reach? And it may not be that cookie cutter model.
26:15
Speaker2: I was meeting with a church recently, and I've used this example several times,
26:19
Speaker2: and I said, I was standing in front of them and I was talking about this.
26:22
Speaker2: I said, how many of you can do this?
26:24
Speaker2: And I squatted down on my haunches.
26:27
Speaker2: That's a Southern term. Do y'all know what I'm talking about whenever I say that?
26:29
Speaker1: I do.
26:30
Speaker2: You do. Okay. I just did. I know primarily.
26:33
Speaker0: I think hunches translates to California.
26:35
Speaker2: Okay, good. So I squatted down without getting on my knees and then I stood
26:40
Speaker2: immediately back up and I said, how many of you can do this?
26:43
Speaker2: And then I did it again. And all of them are in the room. They were in what
26:46
Speaker2: you call a 60, 40, 20 window. They were all over the age of 60.
26:50
Speaker2: They have been Christ followers for over 40 years and they've been in the same church for 20 years.
26:55
Speaker2: They're an overly church culture.
26:56
Speaker2: They're all gray hair. And all of them said, yeah, we can't do that.
27:00
Speaker2: And I said that you're going to be, they're going to have a very difficult time
27:03
Speaker2: ministering to young families with young children. Yeah. Because you have to
27:06
Speaker2: be able to do that. That doesn't mean that you're done though.
27:10
Speaker2: That doesn't mean you're done.
27:11
Speaker2: It just means that maybe that's not the area of focus. Maybe your area of focus
27:15
Speaker2: is somewhere else in some other capacity, ministering to a different people
27:18
Speaker2: group that you can minister to.
27:21
Speaker2: Be that because that's unique. Don't be the cookie cutter. Be exactly who it
27:25
Speaker2: is that God has called you to be.
27:27
Speaker2: Now, today, not what you were 20 years ago. Get out of that attraction fallacy
27:31
Speaker2: and let's become the unique church that God has formed and fitted you to be
27:35
Speaker2: in your context. So that's how they get out of it.
27:38
Speaker2: But that's hard work because they have to imagine their story differently.
27:42
Speaker2: They have to imagine a story they can't yet see, and they have to walk by faith,
27:46
Speaker2: which is probably the most difficult thing for most churches to do is to walk
27:51
Speaker2: by faith and not by sight.
27:52
Speaker1: Yeah, I understand it's really important for you to
27:56
Speaker1: not to use a sprinkler, a lawn analogy, to not water dead and dying churches,
28:03
Speaker1: dead and dying ministries, and to not try to salvage past ministry models.
28:09
Speaker1: It's far more important to, you know, strengthen the missional endeavors that
28:14
Speaker1: you are gifted for that God is moving in. You want to say any closing words about that?
28:19
Speaker2: I think that you can only grow from where God has you today.
28:23
Speaker2: You can't grow back into what you were before.
28:26
Speaker2: Don't allow that nostalgia of what used to work keep you from the opportunity
28:31
Speaker2: that God has in front of you. And that's not prosperity talk. That's just reality.
28:35
Speaker2: God's writing a story. We just have to be willing to step into it and say,
28:40
Speaker2: God, whatever it takes, we're going to step into that and we're going to be
28:43
Speaker2: faithful to it, even if it's difficult.
28:45
Speaker1: Yeah. Amen. By the way, speaking of watering, that reminds me,
28:49
Speaker1: how did that Orbit tripod lawn sprinkler work out for you that you were so excited to get?
28:56
Speaker2: You saw it worked well. And then sure enough, the next week or actually the next day it rained.
29:03
Speaker2: So, I mean, like it was one of those, I ordered it, it finally came in,
29:07
Speaker2: and I watered my grass, and it torrential downpoured the next day.
29:11
Speaker2: I mean, we had a drought forever.
29:13
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. I only ask because I almost bought that exact sprinkler on Prime
29:18
Speaker1: Day, and then I noticed you had posted about it. So, I went with a different
29:22
Speaker1: one. I'm not sure I picked the right one, so I'm still looking for the right sprinkler for my yard.
29:27
Speaker2: That's funny. I have eight acres, so...
29:31
Speaker1: I don't have eight acres. Only trillionaires in California have eight acres.
29:37
Speaker0: Yeah.
29:40
Speaker0: Our other class of people in this state have eight acres and it is unimaginable land wealth here.
29:48
Speaker1: Oh, yeah.
29:50
Speaker2: No doubt.
29:50
Speaker1: Well, Chris, this has been a great conversation. We've gone all over the place,
29:54
Speaker1: but I think it's sharpened my strategic thinking as a pastor.
29:59
Speaker1: I bet from Christopher's perspective, it's sharpened his thinking as an associational leader.
30:04
Speaker1: We are very grateful for your time and for your ministry, for your articles,
30:08
Speaker1: for your podcast, and all of the different ways you encourage and strengthen and equip the church.
30:15
Speaker2: Well, thank you guys. I've enjoyed it. It's been a lot of fun.
30:17
Speaker0: Well, we've been so glad to have you, and we hope to have you back soon on Every
30:22
Speaker0: Church Flourishing and have a deeper or broader conversation about some of these
30:29
Speaker0: areas that we sort of just touched on today.
30:31
Speaker0: We'd love to have you back as part of this conversation as we work together
30:35
Speaker0: to equip and encourage pastors and church leaders across the Great Commission
30:39
Speaker0: Association and beyond.
30:41
Speaker1: Yeah, and you can check out Chris on his podcast, Kingdom Over Turf.
30:46
Speaker1: Well, that's Kingdom Over Turf with Chris Reynolds, R-E-I-N-L-L-D-S,
30:53
Speaker1: so a little bit of a non-traditional spelling there, Kingdom Overture. Thank you, guys.
30:57
Speaker1: And interviews like that are one of the reasons why I'm in podcasting,
31:03
Speaker1: because I love having a conversation
31:06
Speaker1: along those lines that is thought provoking, is deep, is not sort of the thing
31:12
Speaker1: you're going to hear cookie cutter wise on pretty much every pastoral leadership podcast.
31:16
Speaker1: I hope that was good for you and healthy for you. I know it was for me.
31:20
Speaker1: I appreciate Chris Reynolds. If you want to connect with him,
31:22
Speaker1: we have all of his information for his substack, for his podcast,
31:26
Speaker1: et cetera, on our webpage on the show notes for this episode and last episode
31:32
Speaker1: at everychurchflourishing.com.
31:34
Speaker1: Now, Pastor Christopher and I face...
31:37
Speaker1: Our old enemy Lester next we're gonna dive into a soda review and one of us
31:46
Speaker1: surprisingly likes it and the other is opposed so pastor Christopher
31:53
Speaker1: we are back with our old enemy Lester to to
32:00
Speaker1: check out his buffalo wing soda this time around.
32:04
Speaker0: Buffalo wing soda, Chase. Like right there, it should tell you something,
32:09
Speaker0: right? I mean, this right here, buffalo wing soda.
32:14
Speaker0: And do you like buffalo wings?
32:17
Speaker1: Love buffalo wings, absolutely.
32:20
Speaker0: Do you have a favorite style of buffalo?
32:23
Speaker1: You know, I like a lot of them. I like sort of an Asian sweet heat combo.
32:28
Speaker1: I like, I don't really care for lemon pepper or the mild ones,
32:31
Speaker1: but honestly, barbecue is pretty good.
32:34
Speaker1: My favorite is just good old American original Buffalo wings with some kick to it.
32:40
Speaker0: With some kick to it. So like that vinegary kind of kick to it.
32:45
Speaker1: Yeah. Like if you go to Buffalo Wild Wings, their original flavor or Wingstop,
32:50
Speaker1: their original flavor. Now those aren't the best wing places in the world by
32:53
Speaker1: any means, but those are generally the most accessible.
32:56
Speaker0: Now, what if I told you that although I love spicy foods and I love barbecue,
33:02
Speaker0: I don't actually like buffalo wings.
33:05
Speaker1: That's really interesting. So what's your beef with buffalo wings?
33:09
Speaker0: Yeah. Yeah. I just, I don't know.
33:12
Speaker0: I've never, it's something about like, you know, sucking on the drumstick and
33:17
Speaker0: just like trying to get all that meat off it.
33:20
Speaker0: And then I've never really enjoyed it.
33:22
Speaker0: Too many of the sauces. So this is going to be a challenge for me.
33:26
Speaker0: But also I should note, it says on there the word artificial.
33:32
Speaker0: And while I assumed that to be true, the fact that they had to put the word
33:36
Speaker0: on there tells me something like-
33:39
Speaker1: Like big letters.
33:40
Speaker0: It's in big letters. Why is the word artificial on there in big letters?
33:46
Speaker1: I wonder if Lester's had a lawsuit against him, but it does have cane sugar,
33:52
Speaker1: which sounds disgusting.
33:53
Speaker1: Citric acid, three colorings, but no chicken or cayenne pepper or butter or vinegar is listed.
34:00
Speaker0: No, because it's artificial.
34:02
Speaker1: Yeah. So this is more like a chemist's impression of a Buffalo wing than a regular one.
34:08
Speaker0: Yeah.
34:09
Speaker1: Yeah. I'm really troubled by this. I'm really scared. And you know what? If we drink it,
34:14
Speaker1: pastor Christopher and die or, you know, on the air.
34:18
Speaker1: Yeah. On the air or get really sick or whatever.
34:22
Speaker1: The one thing I've done, my extensive research into Lester's fixings has revealed
34:29
Speaker1: a devastating truth that Lester is not a real person, but a
34:35
Speaker1: fake person made up by the founders of rocket fizz who are a company who apparently
34:41
Speaker1: are devoted to making sodas that torture podcasts. hosts.
34:45
Speaker0: This is amazing news. Lester, his photograph on our bottle here,
34:52
Speaker0: he looks like your average classic Southern Baptist church deacon.
34:56
Speaker1: Yes, he does.
34:57
Speaker0: And I was kind of hoping that behind this nefariousness was a deacon at an SBC church.
35:04
Speaker1: Yeah, he looks like Lester Johnson from 1958 First Baptist Church of Montgomery.
35:11
Speaker0: Yes, absolutely.
35:13
Speaker1: He tortures us with his sodas. So I just assume in other realms of life,
35:17
Speaker1: he's just a very bad, bad person. But he's not a real person.
35:21
Speaker0: But he's not a real person. All right, shall we commence?
35:24
Speaker1: Honestly, I've been dragging my feet a little bit. I'm scared.
35:28
Speaker1: I can do. But let's go for it.
35:31
Speaker0: All right, we're fearful. Here we go.
35:33
Speaker1: Bottle opener here from Miss Grace. I can't wait to get this smell in.
35:39
Speaker0: I'm going to...
35:40
Speaker1: No pop.
35:41
Speaker0: Right away, the smell is not good.
35:43
Speaker1: No, it's very disconcerting. I was already nervous.
35:47
Speaker0: No, no, it smells bad, Chase.
35:50
Speaker1: I mean, this surely is not worse than Lester's Fixin's ranch soda.
35:55
Speaker1: Right. Okay, I'm going to close my eyes for this one.
35:58
Speaker0: Are we going for it? Here we go.
35:59
Speaker1: Do we need to pray? Lord help us. Lord protect us. Here we go.
36:04
Speaker0: Shield us in our hour of need.
36:06
Speaker1: Okay, so we might have a response similar to our bacon soda where I was disgusted
36:14
Speaker1: beyond belief and you were like, you know what, I've had worse things.
36:18
Speaker1: I've had worse things than buffalo wing soda, but you look really genuinely tortured.
36:24
Speaker0: I wasn't ready for, despite the fact that it said clearly buffalo wings,
36:30
Speaker0: they've obviously put capsaicin in here.
36:32
Speaker1: Oh, yeah.
36:32
Speaker0: Literally, it's burning in the back of my throat.
36:34
Speaker1: It's got some kick. Right. I'm actually impressed with the kick.
36:38
Speaker1: I don't drink soda for kick, but I'm impressed.
36:41
Speaker0: I think this is like, this is what would happen if you took Tabasco sauce and put it in a cream soda.
36:48
Speaker1: Yeah, I agree.
36:49
Speaker0: If you put Tabasco sauce into a cream soda, I think it would taste very much like this.
36:55
Speaker1: Yeah.
36:55
Speaker0: Look, I don't know that there's a lot of nuance or other flavor.
36:58
Speaker0: It's just sort of sweet and heat.
37:01
Speaker1: It is.
37:02
Speaker0: Are you getting much other flavor?
37:03
Speaker1: No, no. Oh, sweet and heat is an excellent description. I met with my therapist yesterday.
37:09
Speaker1: I cried myself to sleep last night.
37:12
Speaker1: I numbed my tongue with ice before the tasting, all to protect myself from Lester.
37:18
Speaker1: And I didn't need to. This is, I'm not saying I like this.
37:22
Speaker1: I'm just saying when I say- It's not the worst. It's not bad.
37:26
Speaker1: I mean that literally. That's not saying it's good. I'm just saying it's not bad.
37:31
Speaker1: This is not a bad experience. It's a mixed experience.
37:36
Speaker0: If this was a church, this soda would be mildly irritating to every guest.
37:43
Speaker1: Okay.
37:44
Speaker0: But no one could put their finger on it. Gotcha. No one would be able to walk
37:49
Speaker0: away. They wouldn't be able to go, well, I don't really know why I didn't really
37:52
Speaker0: enjoy going there, but I don't have a reason not to go back.
37:56
Speaker1: Okay. All right. Keeping with the metaphor, I would say if this were church,
38:01
Speaker1: the worship would be kind of a combo of the worst
38:06
Speaker1: Southern gospel songs from the fifties with just kind of terrible theology,
38:12
Speaker1: sung poorly, and actually a pretty good sermon that's not going to
38:18
Speaker1: go into the Sermon Hall of Fame, but was nice and exegetical,
38:22
Speaker1: very biblical, very theological.
38:24
Speaker1: So definitely you walk out of it thinking, well, I don't know if I'm going to
38:28
Speaker1: go back to this church, but some good things happened. It wasn't a universally
38:33
Speaker1: horrible experience. That's my review.
38:36
Speaker0: All right, Chase, what's your Spurgeon scale on Lester's Vixen's Buffalo Wing
38:43
Speaker0: Soda, which by the way is burning right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
38:47
Speaker1: I have done spicy sodas before and this is the spiciest.
38:51
Speaker1: So I'm impressed by that, even though I don't want spice in my soda.
38:55
Speaker1: I'm going to go. Yes. Okay. So Coke Zero, Mountain Dew Code Red, Dirty Dew Cream Soda.
39:02
Speaker1: These are kind of top of my list, a good Coke Zero cherry.
39:08
Speaker1: Those are really up there. Those are like five Spurgeons for me.
39:11
Speaker1: This is not disgusting, but certainly not good. So I'm going to say
39:15
Speaker1: Two to two and a quarter Spurgeons. Two and a quarter Spurgeons?
39:20
Speaker0: Wow, you are really generous. You are a gracious man. You are a kind man.
39:25
Speaker1: This doesn't offend me.
39:26
Speaker0: I'm going to give this a half Spurgeon. It's not a zero, but I'm not going back
39:33
Speaker0: for this. I'm not giving it a one Spurgeon.
39:36
Speaker0: It's no Osteens, and compared to some of the other ones we've had,
39:40
Speaker0: but this is half a Spurgeon, dude.
39:43
Speaker0: This is not that.
39:45
Speaker1: So this is almost the total reverse of our opinions on bacon soda,
39:51
Speaker0: Which you tolerated.
39:53
Speaker1: And I found from the pits of not hell, from the pits of, you know,
39:59
Speaker1: sheil or some other non-real form of afterlife.
40:05
Speaker1: But you found just horrible. This is, if somebody passed me this at a picnic,
40:10
Speaker1: I would not thank them sincerely, but neither would I pray imprecatory prayers
40:17
Speaker1: against them under my breath.
40:19
Speaker0: Got it. All right. Well, I will say I wouldn't pray imprecatory prayers,
40:24
Speaker0: but I might ask if they were my friend.
40:27
Speaker1: Okay. That's good. That's good. That's it. Well, I'll close out by saying, hey, thank you.
40:33
Speaker1: Lester for not torturing me today. I know we're not friends,
40:37
Speaker1: but I appreciate at least a little bit of grace.
40:40
Speaker1: And hey, grace is always good. All right.
40:43
Speaker1: As we head out today, I want to point you to a couple of upcoming GCA events,
40:48
Speaker1: as well as tell you about the website
40:50
Speaker1: and how you can subscribe to our newsletter, which of course is free.
40:55
Speaker1: And you can do so through our site, gcasbc.org.
41:00
Speaker1: It will keep you up to date on everything that's going on with the GCA family
41:06
Speaker1: of churches. And a couple of those things, we have an evangelism workshop at FBC Gilroy.
41:13
Speaker1: If you're a Southern Baptist church in the California area, anywhere in California,
41:17
Speaker1: you come to that, you will immediately be eligible for a $1,000 evangelism grant,
41:23
Speaker1: which is a fantastic deal.
41:25
Speaker1: I've been to several of those, And it's going to be this weekend upcoming and well worth your time.
41:31
Speaker1: And the Flourish Women's Conference is September 19th.
41:37
Speaker1: We've been plugging that. Kathy Smith is going to be there.
41:40
Speaker1: Laura Sullivan, Robin Meany, and Dora Ding. That is going to be at Journey Christian
41:45
Speaker1: Fellowship in San Luis Obispo, California. All of the information and registration
41:50
Speaker1: is at our website, gcasbc.org.
41:53
Speaker1: If you want show notes for the podcast, if you want to contact us,
41:57
Speaker1: If you want to share your past or disaster stories, we're collecting them right now.
42:02
Speaker1: You can do so by going to everychurchflourishing.com and contacting us either
42:10
Speaker1: through voicemail or through our contact page, everychurchflourishing.com.
42:16
Speaker1: That's all for now. Good day to you and Godspeed.