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Transcript

Next Steps · The Church Renewal Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I'm Jeremy, I'm Matt.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about next steps.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: How can your church get involved with Flourish Coaching?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: What's the process for partnering with Flourish, either for consulting or for obtaining a transitional pastor?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk through this process in today's episode and, as always, if you want to know more or if you want to start this conversation, you can go to flourishcoachingorg or send us an email at info at flourishcoachingorg.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Church Renewal Podcast.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Jeremy Seferati and I'm Matt Bowling.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We're glad you're here with us this morning or this day, whenever it is that you happen to be listening to this.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about next steps because we are coming to the end of Season 3.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Matt lay some groundwork for me in terms of expectations.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: From the time that I pick up the phone and I call Flourish Coaching.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: What is the roadmap?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: What are the next steps?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Well, let's do that for both somebody who's interested in being a transitional pastor and someone who might be a church looking for a transitional pastor.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: See, that's why you're the executive director.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So let's do the guy first.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: So you've heard this.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: You think you might be intrigued and interested in being a transitional pastor.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: The first step is email info at flourishcoachingorg, and what that would mean is that we you and I would have an introductory phone call and I'd want to know what your story is and why you're interested and what you think intrigues you about this and what you think equips you for it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And, um, from there, I'd invite you to attend the next transitional pastor training that the epc holds uh, and we'd meet there, uh, in person, and we would take some time there to get to know each other even better, and you'd have the opportunity in the midst of that training there is an evaluation that vital church has put out for transitional pastors to do sort of a self-inventory, and it's a fairly.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: It's rigorous but appropriate, because this is a challenging work.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I want people who are equipped and qualified and called for it to do it, and people that are not to use their gifts for the sake of the kingdom somewhere else.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: So if all of that goes well this is something you're still interested in Then what would begin is you'd become somebody who's on a roster and would begin trying to find a match for you in a church that's appropriate, that suits your gifts, your background, your experience, your passions.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Again, one of my friends puts it that we want situations where you're pegged for it, passionate, equipped and gifted.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: So if you're a healer type, we want you to send it towards a church that needs healing.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: If you're somebody that can walk towards a conflict easily and help resolve it, then maybe a more conflictual situation is you and anything on the spectrum between those.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So the path for the transitional pastor into a first assignment looks like that.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: About.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: How long does it take so?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: it's another one of those.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: It depends.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: So, if you have experience already you've already done a transitional pastorate we would allow you and even the EPC would allow you to to walk into an assignment before you'd gone through the training, but you'd have to go to the next training and be pre committed to that.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So, um, I think that it's it.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It depends on the flow of work that comes in and the gifts of the person.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So it's very hard to define what that is, but certainly I would hope within three, four, five months, something like that.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So it's not tomorrow, that's the thing.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: If you're just like, oh, I need work next week, it probably isn't for you because it's not something where there's going to be work next week, but in a period of months there certainly could be.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: We have people that reach out to us almost every week looking for help, sometimes more than one person in a week.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I had two in one day, and so there's a good flow of work coming our way.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Um, but even as we're going to talk about, uh, potential clients here in just a second, um, not all those potential clients actually end up as clients, um, and that's for a variety of reasons, and so I try not to make promises, but I do try and give opportunities.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Left blinker on moving over to the client lane.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, If a client calls, what's the first thing that happens?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So the first thing that I want to do is I want to hear the story of the church.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Why is your church where it is, where it's in a transition?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Because I'm trying to figure out are you a church that is just looking for a placeholder, or are you a church that's looking for a transformational agent?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, and that's a.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That's a big, big difference.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Those situations are again on that scale that we've talked about in the season.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: You know, between one where you could really just do fine with a very part-time pulpit supply in your fairly healthy church the elder board's working well, you can just stand up a pulpit committee and go find a pastor.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: You know, if you're just needing pulpit supply, that's not I don't supply that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: That's not what our guys are in the business of.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: If you're looking for somebody full-time to be there and it's just a placeholder, you can call Interim Pastor Ministries.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I think in the season we'll try and interview the executive director there.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: They're willing to supply interims that are what we call traditional interim right, and they're just there to be a pastor in the midst of it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: But they're not necessarily going through an intentional process like what we were talking about.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So I can point you towards another organization where you could find somebody who's just there acting in the role of a pastor but is not doing transformational work.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Now, if you are a church that knows that you need to wisely follow a thoughtful process and you're willing to put in the time and the work to do it, you've been humbled and you know that your church needs to be different before you call another long-term pastor, then that's the kind of church that should certainly call us and and that we would like to work with.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: So from there, usually I end up talking with a single elder from the elder board who calls and wants to hear about flip heardish.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: They've heard about Flourish through a podcast or a webinar or through a referral through a friend or another church and they're calling.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: They're sort of curious and their first phone call is typically one person and it's exploratory.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: They're trying to figure out what do we offer?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: What does it cost?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Do we have people in their area?
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That kind of thing, how much does that interview?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: cost.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Nothing, yeah, absolutely nothing.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Calling doesn't cost you anything.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: That's part of what's built into the pricing of everything else that we do is that you can call and I'll even give you advice for free.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I give a free hour to anybody because I think that's just part of the calling that God's given me, giving away lots of free hours that have benefited people and I'm glad to do that.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So typically that one call.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: If that goes well, that person takes that information back to the elder board and the elder board decides whether they want to have a call altogether.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So typically that ends up in a Zoom call with the elder board.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I've probably shared information with them via email.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: They've looked through that kind of basic information and they're saying, okay, we've looked through the basic information and we're interested in knowing more, and typically that ends up that I end up in a zoom call with the whole elder board and they've got a series of questions they want to ask and they want to understand more and I can send them more in-depth information.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: We've got particular questions.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they'll want to fly me out and have me with them in person, which I'm happy to do, because it's a significant outlay of money and I think sometimes people want to meet the person who's behind all this and I'm willing to do that, and so at a certain point then the church decides yeah, we want to go with you and we want you to help us find a transitional pastor.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm in that conversation right now with the church who said we want to go with you and I've got the follow-up conversation to look at details, and all that just a couple days from now.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And so once the church decides, yeah, we want to go with you now, we begin.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I begin after I understand kind of what their situation is.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I begin looking at the guys that I've got on my roster and their availability and I try and make a match-up.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to match up a guy whose background is experience, what I think he'd be good with, and the situation of the church and who they are from what I know already, who they are and what they could use, and we try and make a matchup.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: In my ideal world I put at least two candidates in front of a church.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that means I can only put one at a certain amount of time, that I only have one person I can offer to them, and sadly sometimes it just doesn't work out, and I don't like it when that happens.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: That's just recently happened with a church where I spent several months trying to find them somebody that would be suitable for them, and it just the Lord didn't.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't happen.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It wasn't in the Lord's will.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I wish it was, but it simply wasn't.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And in that case, in that church, we're going to serve as an external coach to them and they're going to figure out how to take care of preaching and care of themselves.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: At this point in the process, do you have a contract with the church?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: So I think that we draw the contract with the church when they actually identify somebody that they want to come and be their transitional pastor.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: So typically the way that happens is I'll say, hey, I think this is a possible match, let's do an interview together me, the guy, the elder board of the session and we'll do a Zoom interview and then, if that goes well, we'll set up a weekend when the transitional pastor will actually come and meet the elder board and meet the congregation, typically preach, and the elder board would have coached them in kind of actually along the way.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: One of the things I'm trying to do more of is to coach the elder board, because if the elder board communicates well with the congregation along the way, then it sets a good foundation for the transitional pastor's ministry.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And I've recognized that increasingly that I need to.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I have expertise in that now and know the consequence if you don't communicate well, and so I'm trying to encourage them to communicate well along the way so that when this guy comes, the congregation is like why is he here?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: And that they know exactly why he's there.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Setting expectations is really kind of important it is, and the elder board being able to say we think we need somebody who does this specialized ministry for our sake as an elder board and for us as a congregation, so that we're ready for the next long-term pastor and so that the congregation is not as anxious, they're not jonesing as much for a new pastor, because the elder board has said we are going to get there but we think we need to do the work first.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So the transitional pastor would go there for a weekend and typically, up to this point they know enough about each other.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: They've listened to sermons.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Elder boards listen to sermons.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: They'll put their resume, they've had a Zoom interview and, again, these are very highly qualified pastors that they're talking to.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So I know that and, um, and I have a sense of the church and the guys and hopefully you know the match is something that right, that works, and if it does, then we start working on contract, expectate particular expectations that are written and, and you know, agreed upon by both parties, and a move date and a start date, that kind of thing, and we write the contract and we start moving.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: When do they have to put money down?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: The first month that the pastor starts serving.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, so contracts, written contracts, signed TP's going out.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: That first month is when the church would have to put cash on the payroll.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And the church pays Flourish monthly one fee and then the transitional pastor is actually an employee of Flourish and we work.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: If you're a transitional pastor candidate and you're thinking of this, we'll work with you on whatever your mid-level judicatory is.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: For a lot of our guys that's a presbytery, so we'll work with your home presbytery to get you a call from Flourish for them.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: We'll work with the presbytery, with churches, in order to help you have status there, to get licensed there is what we call it so that you can serve in that church appropriately be the moderator of the session, if they want you to be.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: We'll work with you on all of that.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: We've done that several times and we know, generally speaking, how to make it flow well and so we'll work with you on all of that.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, so the month that the guy starts, we send an invoice the first of the month and the church starts paying Flourish just a monthly fee all the way through the length of the contract.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Then Flourish pays the transitional pastor and then any of our other staff.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: We pay out of those funds in order to provide the service to the church.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Is your transitional pastor being paid as a W-2 or a contractor being paid as a W-2.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, we offer housing allowances to our transitional pastors and we have access to benefits and retirement and all those kinds of things, because we want it to be.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: It's a from our perspective it is a pastoral call.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: In the PCA it's just a pastoral call to serve with Flourish.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: In our circles we call that laboring out of bounds because you're not laboring in a particular church long-term but for an organization.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: So we've discussed the pricing structure somewhat.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You've said that the base would be $35,000.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: If we're serving as an external coach to the church for the smallest church.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And if you go into a contract like that, is that contract price based out over the life of the contract If you're estimating 18 to 24 months or Is that payment a 35 down up front?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we do if we're just serving as an external coach to the church, we actually have them pay for each module as we get to it, to each phase as they get to it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Yep, so we break it down, and so if they want to just have one monthly, that's fine, we do that, but generally speaking, they pay for each phase.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: As it happens, you cut them a break if they want to do the whole thing in one that they pay for each phase.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: As it happens, you cut them a break if they want to do the whole thing in one.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: That $35,000 is a break.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Awesome, yeah, so if you so packaged together.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: That $35,000 is packaged together.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: If you onesie, twosie it, we do charge more because we don't know if we're going to get more than that I got you.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: So we have to make sure we make what we need to out of that contract make sure we make what we need to out of that contract.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: So when you place a transitional pastor and you figure out, one of the things that we've talked about in the earlier episode is you work with the church where the pastor is being assigned to say what is the annual salary that you will be paying the next pastor we're going to.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Our monthly charge will be 1, 12th of that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So essentially we're helping this church to be prepared for the financial burden of the lead passage going to come in right by having them operate with that budget.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Now correct that then would would be the the monthly cost that they would be paying to flourish on that contract.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, yep, got it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Plus the price of housing the transitional pastor, whatever way they choose to do that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Right, okay.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: For some churches.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: You look at that and you're like, oh, wow, that's a lot of cost.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Remember that one of the things that we offer and some of our transitional pastors this is actually attractive to them're like, wow, we can't afford 100 of the next pastor's total package plus housing.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: We think we can only afford, like you know, two-thirds or three-fourths of that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Well, a good number of transitional pastors are very willing to work a heavy part-time schedule instead of a full-time, because, again, this isn't the only source of their income for almost any of them, and so that's available to you, and so I just want to encourage churches that we'll do what we can to work with you and that that's not a barrier for us.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So what's the fastest that a church could get a plan into execution?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: A couple of months probably.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and because we deal with a lot of pca churches and their deliberative bodies, I have a follow-up text.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I sent out yesterday to a church and I talked to somebody who is in leadership of this church.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I think it was probably three weeks ago, but the first meeting that they have to talk about it is next monday, right, and so some of it is, uh, we can be as ready as we want to be, but we don't try and push churches to act sooner than they're ready.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: So, as it would say in the broad sales and marketing, it's a long sales cycle and I'm I'm OK with that because I don't I want a church to do this very thoughtfully.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so why did you get into this?
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: What motivates Matthew Bowling to get into the pastor rebound, I'm sorry.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Transitional pastor ministry.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow, you know my whole pastoral ministry.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Both of the pastors, both of the churches that I had the privilege of pastoring, were revitalization churches and when I met the other two guys that I started Flourish with Ted Strawbridge, who's now with the Lord, and Paul Hahn, who still serves on our board.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: When we met each other in late 2014,.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: When I met them in late 2014, and we started talking about putting together Flourish in late 2014, we at that time, in our setting, there were lots of resources for churches to start new churches, to plant new churches.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: There were lots of resources for churches that, uh, to start new churches, to plant new churches, there were lots of resources, lots of organizations you could go to, training and those sorts of things, support coaching.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: There just wasn't a lot for established churches and, um, jesus is the one who you know said leave the 99 to go get the one.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: All the letters in the testament are sent to existing churches that had challenges, that needed to be remedied, and so we paul's apostle, paul's second missionary journey, it's all going to supporting existing churches.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: So we had a heart.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: We felt like we wanted to have a heart that was, um, both sides of jesus, heart for both the new and for the existing in paul's heart, and so that's why we started to flourish.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: And so, because that my, the two other co-founders with me, their backgrounds had been primarily in church planting might have been a church renewal, it made a good marriage among the three of us to put together an organization that, um, that was.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Those were equally ultimate.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: So this, I'm sorry you're bringing.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: You're bringing this back to Jesus, which is where I want to land this one.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: From where you have been sitting, what you've been doing, what do you think Jesus is doing in his church today, and how has he called Flourish to be a part of that?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Jesus is seeking to renew his churches, renew the existing churches that are out there.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: And a time of transition is a critical time in a church where Jesus can renew your churches, renew the existing churches that are out there.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And a time of transition is a critical time in a church where Jesus can renew your church and really the role of the transitional pastor is to be Jesus' agent at that time for the renewal of your church.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Not more than that, not less than that, not more than that.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Matt.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You're welcome.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Appreciate this time.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: We are coming to the end of season three.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Matt, I'm sure that we've alluded to this in the.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people have heard this in the outro already, but I want to mention it as we're sitting here talking, If I'm listening, and I think that there's another church that could use this and I refer them.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: You're going to give me a kickback, absolutely, if the client, the potential client that you refer to us, if they end up coming under contract with us, we'll send you a $50 Star Wars card, just a token of our thanks for a referral.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Like real estate agents typically say, we live and breathe on referrals.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: That's excellent.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you, matt.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you guys very soon.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned, jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you.
• 20:06
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• 20:13
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• 20:20
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• 20:32
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• 20:36
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• 20:40
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