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Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
Danielle (00:17.858)
Hey, welcome in on today's episode. have two truths and a truth shifting from customer service to coaching, brainstorm buddies and tips and tools. Actually a tip. tip. Hello, Derek. How are you? I'm fine. You don't sound fine.
I'm fine. How are you? Well, I've been, I got sick a few weeks ago and I'm fine. And here's the thing, like the week that I got sick, of course, I had like six filmings to do. so, you know, for like a week of our church's life, I'm going to sound like a serial killer.
Yeah, because it doesn't, no offense, your sick voice is not like, wow, it sounds like.
Barry White. No, no, it's like he sounds like Kermit the Frog swallowed a... Yeah, it's...
Kermit the Frog swallowed himself. Kermit the Frog swallowed it.
Derek (01:00.174)
And the frog. And the problem is I can't laugh because if I laugh I'll break up coughing. if I sound like I'm fake laughing today, it's just I'm trying not to cough.
Just be like Beavis or Butt-Head, whatever their names were. Okay, cool. That was great. They've come back into fashion lately because of SNL. Ryan Gosling.
Alright! I know!
Derek (01:26.034)
They were bad. It was bad from the start. my gosh. I was never a big. They did have a cultural moment. weird. Yeah, that is strange. That takes me back. We've come way. Have we?
That wasn't either, I was not in. Yeah, they did.
Danielle (01:37.23)
No. Okay, so let's warm up with this segment. I'm going to call it two truths and the truth.
I like that very clever. I see what you're doing there. It's like a play on the phrase two truths and a lie or you exhaust two lies
I'm tired. Yeah, right. Perfect. So three quick questions. You can go as in depth as you want to. All right. First question. And if you need time, I can go first. OK. What's one food you absolutely refuse to eat? I think the people would like to know this about.
All right
Derek (02:11.47)
I mean a lot of people I mean Sarah called me out in this past weekend's sermon She told she said that I don't like white creamy sauces, which is very true I do not so that's what I grew up in a home that was very Non adventurous when it comes to food. yeah, so like we we didn't even eat any of kind of the ethnic food like so my it was meat and potatoes
You weren't even doing like...
We didn't do Chinese, we do Indian, we didn't do Mexican, like nothing. So my wife gave me a pep talk when we had Caleb and said, you will no longer be a picky eater. That option is not available to you anymore. That's smart actually. And she said, you will eat everything that is put in front of you and you will like it. And I actually learned to like everything. and part of
conversation I had with Dax.
like well yeah, yeah, she had it with me as a grown adult. But, and part of it is like traveling around the world, you have to eat things that you don't maybe even know what they are. so, so yeah, I've gotten much better, but I draw the line at ranch would be my number one offender, ranch, mayonnaise, any kind of like, with the exception of Alfredo, I'll do Alfredo on pasta or something like that.
Danielle (03:34.752)
Is it the warmth that helps with that? Or just like that it's cheese?
Listen, warmth wouldn't help with ranch.
Well, people put it as like a pizza sauce. I'm just saying, is it? So I think I would refuse anything that's like alive. Like, like some cultural.
I don't. What's yours? What's your food?
Derek (03:55.886)
you go to Japan and the street vendors are giving you squiggling.
if you pour this sauce on it comes back.
The tentacles act up.
The only thing I've ever eaten that's technically alive is like probably like a shellfish thing like an oyster or something like that But even that I would not do that again. Yeah, it's mentally But that's I think that's about it, okay, yeah that I would refuse hmm, yeah yours is very weird though ranch and man, I mean, I don't like mayonnaise but
No, I'm with you there.
Derek (04:27.234)
Yeah, I mean it goes to cream cheese sour cream like any any kind of yeah, I don't know what it is, but like I can't yeah There's a texture thing. There's a but it's a taste thing too. I don't know anyway
They all do mayonnaise, not that we need to be talking about this, you're probably gonna. They all do have a very common sour. Yeah, that's in there, like even yogurt. Interesting. Okay. What is one piece of church jargon you secretly wish we could retire for?
I am it's like giving me a gag replay
Derek (04:48.91)
Yeah, like profile. Yeah, I can't do yogurt. I can't do yogurt.
Derek (05:01.984)
ever. man. There are so many. There are so many. So, so one is I have a visceral response when people say we need to love
That's what's be mine. That was Was it really? Yes, yes.
Love on people. See, we've been around each other too long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, there's a more recent one. I'm sorry. I know there's people. But Daddy God and Papa God when people are praying to Papa God. I can't. I can't. There's something.
When people say that I'm like, I don't trust you. I don't.
Danielle (05:42.262)
It reminds me of like, what was his name? Bobby, whatever from, that movie with Will Ferrell where they like prayed to like little baby.
What is that movie? racing movie?
need to do that.
Danielle (05:58.734)
The racing guys. Yeah. don't know. Diggins. Yeah. Little nine pound baby naked baby Jesus. That's the as like Papa. God. I don't like it. Yeah, that's.
Yeah, yeah That's it. I'm sure there's some theological truth to it that but that we're putting it into words that we get but like Because there is the the point is that there's a familiar that God allows us a familiarity in In you know, this Abba father kind of phrasing I get I get what's trying to happen. I'm just not sure that's the right
Okay, let me be 100 % honest. I'll say it so you don't have to. I think a lot of times in my experience when I hear people do that, it feels different than what their actual personality is. And to me, feels like put on sometimes. This is not how you talk to your own dad.
Derek (06:47.662)
They're trying too hard. Right. Right, right.
You don't walk around saying papa this, papa that when you're telling stories about your dad. I don't know, it feels performative.
Right.
Interesting. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, do you you had love on?
I like, I can't, no, no. There's a ton of in. All right, if we ever switch jobs for a Sunday, how long before chaos, not even Sunday, we should say if we switch jobs for a week. Yeah, how long do you think it would be before there was like absolute chaos? And why would I be the one that caused it? I think if I got a hold of your email.
Derek (07:06.104)
There's a lot more. But we shouldn't get into that.
Derek (07:17.837)
You and me?
Derek (07:24.398)
You
Derek (07:29.171)
yeah.
Derek (07:34.35)
I think we could go for bit. I think we could go for a
Go for a bit. I could even get myself almost to the pulpit problem. I could get to the space. But the minute I stepped up there, they'd be like, excuse me.
Yeah, no you do fine
Derek (07:49.422)
Excuse me. I don't know. I think we could do it for a little while. think part.
Let's tell people we've been doing this for six months actually. This is awake late.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, we probably could. mean, we know enough about...
what each other does. The designs wouldn't look as pretty. It's not what you do, but you oversee it. And I wouldn't, I don't have that kind of an eye. You do. But I mean, I've got a little bit of an eye, not like that. and yeah.
Danielle (08:05.42)
Yeah, and we cross paths so much.
Danielle (08:21.262)
I mean, we could switch for Christmas. Do you want to switch for Christmas? Nope. I'll do the little...
Yeah.
Sure don't. Little message.
All right, yeah, cool. All right, that's Two Truths and the Truth by Danielle Heartland.
I love it, thanks. You're welcome.
Danielle (08:40.534)
Okay, so as we move on to our reinventing church topic, we're talking about the shift moving from customer service to coaching. And again, these are 11 shifts that we need to make as we're navigating in our current cultural reality as churches today. And as always, we'll have a segment from Clarity House. But before we get to that, I want to introduce Stephen Hay. Stephen is our interview today.
Stephen came to us at Grease during COVID and he was a vital part of us being online when we couldn't gather and things like that. And it took us a long time to like warm up just because we never met each other like face to face, but he was instrumental in that time. Became our video director and started working with creative team, tech team, things like that.
He had been a lead pastor for 10 years before that.
Yeah, was like a 200-ish person.
Yeah, it was super interesting to have him around. He's still around, but he's in a new role right now with Inago and he's the VP of their church health that they do there. You guys are gonna get into that and talk about that a little bit. But yeah, so he's, and he's now volunteer with our team and doing stuff still at Grace, but it'll be cool to hear from him with this perspective that he has with Inago. So before we get to Stephen, let's hear from Clarity House and we'll move from there.
Dave (10:07.16)
The great and legendary Dallas Cowboys football coach, Tom Landry, defined coaching this way. He said, coaching is getting grown men or women to do what they don't want to do so that they can become who they've always wanted to be. I love that definition of coaching because to be honest with you, as an athlete myself who played soccer in college, it was the coaches who made me do what I didn't want to do that actually brought out the best of who I could be as an athlete.
And even though in the middle of the season, there were points where I wanted to curse them. didn't have great things on my mind when I thought about them at the end of the season. I was so grateful and thankful for the way they pushed me and what that brought out of me. Well, that's not just a great definition of coaching. I want to suggest to you, it also describes great discipleship. Discipleship is about helping people do what they don't want to do so they can become. And here's where I would insert what
God always intended them to be. Which means as a pastor and leader, I need to think about how a coaching mentality might shape everything that I do. Now, I know this is a difficult kind of topic to address because so many times in the world that we live in, we function under
what I'd call a customer service mentality. We wanna attract people to our church. We want them to stay at our church. And so what happens is we start seeing them as customers, they start acting as customers, and we start thinking we gotta get good at customer service. Now, while part of that is true, what I wanna suggest to you is that if you are going to move to implementing a disciple making culture,
There's a point in the culture where you gotta move from a customer service mentality into a coaching mentality. Why is that? Well, it's that way because doing anything great with your life is hard. doing anything great with your life increases your chances of suffering. But suffering...
Dave (12:20.494)
isn't always a masochistic God trying to put you through difficulty. It's actually God taking advantage of the circumstances of your life and pushing you to places that you may not have desired to go. But as you go through those things, he makes you into the kind of person that you've always wanted to be. Make no mistake about it. Part of Jesus's disciple making mandate mandate was to pick up
our crosses and follow him. So what does this mean to us as leaders and what does this mean to the cultures that we're creating? Well, it brings up the difficult situation of pain. How do we deal with pain? Now, again, we're not talking about being masochistic with our lives, but if you're dealing with pain from a customer service mentality, then when pain enters the equation, your job is to remove pain as quickly as possible. However,
If as a coach, your players are going through pain, you know that you don't want to remove that. What you want to do is guide them through it because in it holds the secrets of them becoming who they've always wanted to be. In fact, I learned this as a soccer coach. I knew that we weren't practicing unless my players were complaining. In fact, I led them through things that I know was going to increase pain in their life.
Not because I was masochistic or I just wanted to torture them, but because I knew it was in those stretching moments that they would see that there was more in them than what they thought they were capable of doing more than they ever imagined. And what I wanted as a coach was to stretch them so that they could become these kinds of players. Well, the same is true in a disciple making culture. When we lay out our
definition and our picture of maturity, part of what it means to disciple people into that kind of person means leading them through a dip. It's a maturity dip from immaturity to maturity. And as they go through that dip, it's going to introduce them to difficulty, hardship and pain.
Dave (14:39.532)
People's normal tendency when they go through difficulty, hardship and pain is to often think that this is only trying to kill me or this is only trying to make me worse. And I want to encourage you in these moments, especially as people start feeling all the things they feel in those moments, they feel overwhelmed, they feel embarrassed, they feel ashamed, they get angry. That actually these are key moments for you to function as a coach in their life.
rather than a customer service agent in their life. See, if you're a customer service agent, you're just trying to relieve the pain. But if you're a coach and even if your players are complaining, you know that means they're actually becoming. So if you want to create a disciple making culture, it means getting people to do what they don't want to do because that is what helps them become who they have always wanted.
to be. Doing anything great requires going through hardship. It increases your potential for suffering. But at the other end of that suffering, well, you have a group of people who have become who God has always intended them to be.
Derek (16:02.322)
man, I love that line from Dave, coaching is helping people do what they don't want to do so they can become who they've always wanted to be. it just flips so much of our church's mindset upside down that the real work of discipleship is more like coaching and less like customer service. And so we're going to keep exploring that theme in this next conversation with my friend, Hay. Stephen, so good to be with you, man. Good to be Thanks for joining us.
So listen, we've worked together for a bit now. You're on to some new adventures. And so just tell us a little bit about what you're up to these days. And then just flow right into it. Let's give us the initial take on this idea of moving from customer service to coaching.
for sure. Um, anytime Dave talks, yeah, there's like, it's just go. Um, yeah. So was on staff at grace for five years. Yeah. Yeah. And then transitioned to volunteer role. Um, and moved, uh, to an organization called a Nago partners. Yeah. Uh, and now it goes a Greek term. It's also a Japanese word. I found this out. Um, I was, I was teaching and, uh, one of the guys put his hands up and.
I
Stephen (17:08.664)
He's hand up and he was like, hey, do you know what a nagel means? And thankfully I did. I was prepared for the questions. I'm like, yeah, it's a Greek term. It means to raise to another level. And he was like, no, it's not. you're like panicked sets in. shoot. I thought that's what it meant. Anyway, he was just being silly. It's a Japanese term for a fish in Japan as well. anyway, it's got another. He could have said that and I would have believed him.
I got
Derek (17:31.086)
It's not as bad as it could be. These words for you're an idiot.
Stephen (17:39.456)
I have no idea.
No, that's cool, but you're helping pastors and church.
Yeah, so the two main things that I now go focuses on is making sure that pastors are as healthy as they can be because we know that that's Yep, a tough tough thing and making sure that their churches are as healthy as it can be So those are really the two main areas Our president is 92 Wow, and he's still rocking and rolling He'll never tell you this because he's a humble man So we tell his story for him, but he was the man actually hired Tim Keller. Wow. He was the executive pastor at
at Redeemer at the time. Terry Geiger is his name, phenomenal. Just humble, gentle, but very driven. I guess he's figured it out by 92. Yeah, I mean, this is the world that we swim in now. And so we live, we live in data. And I just knew I was coming on here. So just pulled up this barna stat, which I think sort of frames what
David Rhodes was talking about as well, or at least points to that sentiment. And Barna did a survey a number of years ago, it said 92 % of churched adults, so they've been around the church for a number of years, they say that worshiping God is very important, but then there's the shift to only 59 % that actually say that moral or spiritual accountability, so we'll call it coaching, is actually very important.
Stephen (19:09.39)
And so you got like what's that like 33 % difference so that accounts for a ton of people. So you have to start asking the question. Well, why how do we get there? Yeah, right. How do we get what has contributed to some of those things?
huge.
Derek (19:22.37)
Yeah, so what has contributed to some of those things? Because I think, you know, that, to me, it paints this picture of yes, we love to gather and worship and lift our hands and sing great songs and hear great messages. But then like when it comes to actually living this out, are we, are we as committed to that? And obviously the statistics say no. And, know, in some spaces that's called consumer, consumer Christianity, consumerism.
So I was telling you
Derek (19:50.254)
We're talking about customer service, so it's like from a pastor's perspective, like thinking about, oh, the customer's always right, like I wanna make sure, keep everybody happy versus coaching them, pushing them. so, yeah, what do you think has contributed to that? I know.
So we only have 30 minutes.
I told you before I read my list to my wife. She's like 12. I so I had originally 12 I'm a natural natural critics. Yeah, it's hard for me So we've got like three or four in the list yeah, yeah So to narrow it down, I think it's a great question one. I'm very passionate about I just call it the seduction of intimidation the seduction of
That was 12 down from 50.
Stephen (20:40.376)
gosh, sorry. Brain's not working there. So that's what I call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the seduction of imitation. And it's just this idea that, well we say it was birthed from the mega church movement. Maybe I don't know if I want to give it complete credit. but it's just this idea as churches began to succeed and grow, other churches rather than stopping and asking, okay,
why has God planted us in this region or in this community? We're actually just gonna start imitating what other churches are doing. Because it's working for them, so it'll work for us. And we just find that that is not the case. But not only that, but it starts to sort of breed into this consumerism. And almost it starts from a leadership level, like what can we do that seems easy?
and it's a plug and play idea. So I think the seduction of imitation is a real thing. I think oftentimes from that, we've started to confuse charisma with character. I think, mean, hopefully we agree, but the last 15 to 20 years of Christianity in America, especially from a leadership standpoint, it's just been wild. I mean, I grew up,
in the young, restless and reform movement. And so, just Google search that and all the guys, all those guys that led the way just started falling for various reasons. But it was just this idea that they had tons of charisma. They might've even had tons of capability too, our ability to lead early on, but we didn't necessarily check their character.
all your heroes go down.
Stephen (22:33.006)
And so we just said, hey, they've got tons of charisma. Let's put them into position and give them what they need. Let's toss resources and money and whatever at them. And that's just, that's not the right recipe. It's not the recipe that works anyway. It's certainly a recipe. I think from that as well, not that these are sequential in any way, or form, but I think we have a tendency as a church and I'm working through this right now, even in my own mind is to
the recipe.
Stephen (23:02.754)
to draw on good ideas too quickly and in the process maybe forget about or forsake discipleship. And so, I'm just gonna throw out a hypothetical here, but could we as church leaders get to the end of our life and God as a gracious father, because I believe that's how we would approach it, would almost look at us as church leaders and go,
those things were great, like awesome. And I did work through them, but I didn't ask you to do them. Like Matthew 28, just go make disciples. That's what I asked you to do. that's a, mean, we're trying to figure that out. So that's difficult, but do we forfeit the hard work of figuring out what that looks like in our context for the, you know,
Yeah, of course.
Stephen (24:03.286)
Sexiness if you will have a good idea. yeah, we'll just do yeah the next big thing So I think it's just a guardrail. We need to be
Thanks.
Derek (24:11.838)
Aware of? Yeah, I like that. I think that's really strong. I think that idea of just like, let's get back to the basics of what Jesus... I mean, the scenario that you just said is very profound. Like, I asked you to do one. Those are great ideas, but were they accomplishing that one thing? I think it's a great filter for all church leaders to think through. So what practices... Here's the thing.
one day.
Derek (24:40.75)
I think that as we think about this consumerism, it's easy for pastors to get little bit jaded or to just kind of go with it and just go, the customer's always right. And I'm just gonna try to keep my congregation happy. How do we keep our hearts soft toward people and still challenging them to grow? I think there's like a healthy space in there that's really hard to strike.
So, do you have any advice on that? You've worked with lots of pastors. You've been a pastor for a long time.
Yeah. So it's a real thing. I I'd be the first one to say it. I did not, I did not carry myself well as a lead pastor at times. And I allowed myself to get sucked into the hardness of a heart or build up resentment towards a couple or a group of people. so it's, I mean, it's a real thing. think if you're signing up to be a pastor,
you're really signing up to embrace disappointment. Sometimes daily, depends on the season. But definitely there's a lot of disappointment that you have to walk through. So what do you do with that? Honestly, I know it maybe sounds cliche, but it's maybe cliche for a reason. But figuring out what daily repentance looks like at a personal level. I mean,
Especially if you're a lead pastor, right? There's probably a sense in which you're a visionary. You know where you want to go. You might know how to get there. And not everybody buys in it. So it's so easy for us to be swallowed up by cynicism. Maybe we're critical thinkers. We can see maybe what's not working, what's broken, and try to move the needle in that direction. And then once we come up against pushback, sometimes it's, you know.
Stephen (26:38.338)
We love control. That's a blind spot. Maybe in a healthy season, control is good and we can lead well. But when we buy into cynicism, that control or that pride, it can just become such a destructive tool. quite literally developing a practice, a daily practice of repentance tends to level the playing ground. And there's an amazing article by Tim Keller,
It's called all of life is repentance. And sometimes we encourage pastors. mean, we see pastors on all walks of life. Sometimes we will say, okay, for the next 30 to 60 days, I just want you to read that daily. And it is really powerful. mean, we don't have time to get into it now, but maybe we can put some stuff in the show notes. But there's four areas that he really challenges people to think through.
as far as repentance is concerned personally. So daily repentance. I honestly, think praying people's names and not their problems. I remember being super convicted about this a couple of my last church. It was just, it was a hard season. It didn't seem like anything I could say or do was right. And everything I said and did sort of, it was like I was rubbing a cat the wrong way.
I wouldn't know anything about
I know that about that. And I have just, remember just being so frustrated. And then I was chatting with Nicole and it was one evening. It wasn't an audible voice of God, but it was a real true impression on my heart. It was just this phrase, have you prayed for them lately? I'm like, no, I'm not, obviously.
Derek (28:28.718)
Thank very much.
Don't want to do that. But it was so convicting for me that I began to pray for them. And I mean, we've preached this from the Pope before, but when you actually pray for people, God doesn't work in your life. That's so true. And so I guess, do you like it or not? So are you actually praying for those people? Because when you pray for your people by name, or the people that God has given you by name, there's a softening that takes place there. Either that needs to happen or,
Whether you like it or not.
Stephen (28:59.81)
He keeps your
It's really good. It's funny. were, so we're just doing a, we just finished up an intentional friend class and talked about this prayer framework that I've found very helpful. you saying this is just reminding me of somebody that I had totally given up on as a friend, that this class kind of reignited my heart for them.
But the framework that we created was called a now to next prayer. And so you just kind of pray, where are they now? And then you imagine some sort of breakthrough or transformation and say, God, here's what I pray for them next. And when you kind of just name, here's where I see them now, but here's where I see them next with your help. Man, did that wreck me. It not only forced me just to pray for them by name, which I think is a really, really powerful thing.
Yeah.
Stephen (29:50.998)
Yeah.
Derek (29:57.464)
but to go, and God, what do you see for them out of this next? And it forced me to have an imagination for God's redemptive work in their life, which is another whole thing. I really think that's a profound piece of advice. So I wanna come back, let's come back to your cynicism. I liked that better. You were getting too soft, but let's go back. So what are some signs where you're your best, like, Rand?
Can't be serious.
Derek (30:30.062)
What are some warning signs that a church is unintentionally feeding a customer service mentality? Like where do we see on the dashboard? What are some lights that start blinking that go, hey, you might be a little too far down into
I mean, it's such an important question, right? Let's put it this way. Working in sort of living in that church health assessment space now, part of our process is to actually go in and do on-site interviews. So we gather data. We spend a lot of time in that phase just gathering data, gathering as much data. And some of the language that we use is if feedback starts sounding like yope reviews.
So as you sit with people and they're saying, well, I didn't get much out of worship, you know, for the last two months or whatever, or being at the church for a while, it doesn't feel like it's serving my needs or it doesn't have what it needs for me and my family. Those, mean, those are all consumeristic. Phrases and you want to walk the line because there is a sense in which we as pastors should shepherd people in a way that does.
Needs but are they consumeristic needs or are they actually true spiritual needs? and that's what we really need to spend time trying to filter through But it's certainly a warning sign when we're when we're hearing those types of phrases. Yeah, think Francis Chan said it I mean this I think this went viral a lot years ago. He hasn't gone viral in many years He said somebody said to him at the end of service
I didn't like the worship today. And he's like, well, that's fine. Cause we weren't worshiping you. So there's a sense of which that's consumeristic. how do we, how do we filter through those reviews? And honestly, I think another thing that's really, really important, and I know even at grace, I haven't been in a lot of meetings in the last year, but we were starting to talk about this, that when your staffing energy is spent,
Stephen (32:39.31)
primarily on Sunday morning. think, I'm not saying it's a red flag, but let's say, I mean, we're at least throwing a flag on the field and going, okay, why are we so invested in a Sunday morning? Jesus said, go make disciples. He didn't say run- Worship services. Yeah, run worship services. And we've done that really well in the last 20 years. again, it's one of those like, we do it really well, even good intentions, good ideas about our Sunday.
But when we get to the end of our pastoral journey, the end of our life, and God goes, listen, those worship services were awesome. I didn't ask you to spend that much time on them. And there's a discipleship component in worship as well. So we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, are we taking an honest look at how much time we're actually investing in a Sunday?
Yeah, and I think a very simple step there would be just like a quick time inventory. I think for a pastor who's running a church, how much of my week am I spending on Sundays for a whole staff to just, hey, we're going to do a quick temperature check. How much time is everybody spending on Sunday versus other parts of there? I think that's really good. Sure. So what church systems or language unintentionally reinforce this consumerism or customer service?
Yeah, for sure.
Stephen (33:57.186)
mentality. Yeah. So, I mean, we, we see this all the time in the church health space that they're, actually we're going, going this weekend, to help a church sort of review their, the amount of ministries that they have, because it's very easy for a church to be over-programmed. and that sometimes sounds like older language for a larger church. but the average church size in America is 86. and so
where we feel like we've had those conversations already, maybe in like a grace setting where we're going, we wanna simplify things, we wanna pull things back. That's not necessarily true for all of the churches across this nation. And so I would still say that when ministry calendars are program heavy without a discipleship pathway attached, I mean, that's a breeding ground for consumerism. Because you're just meeting needs at that point. You're not trying to move the needle of discipleship in any sort of direction.
or when you're, when your volunteer language at your church, becomes about filling slots. And those are usually go hand in hand, right? If you're over programmed, then you're just trying to fill spots rather than, I'm going to go nineties here for a second. I'm right with you. Rather than stewarding spiritual gifts. Yeah. and so we, I don't know, go actually, we're quite literally going nineties for a second. Remember the old spiritual gift inventories and the assessments.
and nobody really knew what to do with them, so they were like hot for a minute and they got thrown by the wayside. We're trying to dream again about how we might incorporate that into the churches that we're working with. Because we find that honestly this idea of spiritual gifts, I 1 Corinthians is pretty clear that if you're saved into the body of Christ, he has.
God has willed you to have a spiritual gift. And there's a lot of people in churches right now that just are not tapping into that. Because I think we try to systematize it like we do everything, you know, rather than just create conversation about spiritual gifts. So we're going, okay, maybe we reintroduce these assessments, but we don't actually say that's the spiritual gift that you have. You say, that's the spiritual gift you might have. Now let's come along.
Stephen (36:19.264)
in a coaching environment and actually talk through it. And so yeah, if we're just filling spots, then yeah, that's a consumer mentality. And then lastly, this is something that I've learned at Grace, honestly. I think you guys, I don't know if you did it before me, but I definitely experienced it it was really helpful. So after every ministry or event that we have here, we have an evaluation meeting.
So I would say lack of honest feedback loops. If that is not in place, then you're not really learning. And so there's a sense in which we were just gonna do the same thing over and over and over. But those honest feedback loops, I think from a staffing standpoint, at least allows some level of coaching to happen too. So as a lead pastor, are you entertaining feedback, both personally and then in the environments that
doing. So I think those three things, they could go hand in hand.
Yeah, and and those are those are hard. I mean we can just admit that those Hard to get get your brain around because but I but I do think you're right I do think that those kind of things contribute, you know, I think about like I remember hearing a systems talk one time that talked about you know, the importance of Just the programming thing that you said, you know that we just have these huge menus of programs and the prop what happens is that
Yeah, they're really
Stephen (37:40.448)
Over.
Derek (37:50.122)
often we ask the right questions to create a program. So what's gonna reach the women in our community or whatever. The problem is, so we ask, at one point we ask the right question, we start a program, we never stop that program, we institutionalize it in fact. And then that's not even the worst part. The worst part is we stop asking the question.
Stop asking, yeah. Because we have that program.
And so we've become so married to these, forgive me, the answer to 20-year-old questions that may or may not work anymore. We don't even know because we're not asking the question anymore. But we sure have this full slate of things that answered a question at one point. And so I just think that, just agree, we have to keep asking great questions.
So on that note, I think it's an interesting concept. you look at professions like doctors and lawyers and stuff, there's an assumption that they are going to continue to learn. Right. And they're going to continue to get better at their field. first, stay up to date. Stay relevant. this is what the medical field is saying. And you're honing your craft in that evaluative and coaching environment. But when it comes to churches,
today.
Stephen (39:06.264)
We, for whatever reason, we've just chosen to forsake that. And so very, very few pastors on an annual basis are even reviewed to go, okay, is this, are we still moving in the right trajectory? So feedback loops are just, I like to call them learning loops rather than feedback loops because feedback can sometimes have a negative connotation. But if you are, if you're developing learning loops within your own personal life and within
the organization that you're leading. think you're setting yourself up to be coached well, to set an example, but also to grow and improve that which God is calling you to lead.
That's good. And actually I have a tool out there for it's an evaluation tool used by our elders on me that have made available to other pastors. But you know, we're talking about this importance of conversations. Like one of the one of my favorite things about that, because it's not all just them going, you're doing a good or bad job. It's conversational. They're making me ask and answer, what are the three things that are going well at our church right now? What are the three things that are struggling?
Just me having to answer those questions every year to a group of people that care about me and our church is powerful. But it's a conversation, it is, it's just welcoming that feedback conversation. All right, so listen, you are working with churches. What have you learned about the value, I know I'm learning so much in this space, but the value of coaching and training environments and their benefit to churches and pastors?
the
Derek (40:47.532)
And then any tricks of the trade you've picked up along the way in that.
Yeah, in this space. I mean, I'll say I've only been intimately involved for the last 12 months in this space, so still learning. But some things I've seen over the last 12 months, and again, we're involved in many different stories in churches' lives. But I'm seeing a trend that pastors are often at two extremes. So they either want the coaching because, they are burning out. They're either burnt out or they're burning out. They're very close. And so they're like, give me everything.
I haven't had this in years, so they're desperate. Or the other extreme is they're going, I'm good. And they'll be nice and they'll be polite, but you can just tell they're not into it. But what I think is both of those extremes really reveal the same issue. And that issue is that when a leader doesn't value coaching, his church is never going to. And I think...
Should it serve as a word of warning or at least an accountability word? I think so. Because you shouldn't need to burn out in order to realize what you actually need. Because if we are the chief disciplers in some sense of our churches, we are discipling them about what is important and what is not important. And it's amazing if we experience that with a pastor, what we're also experiencing that the church is saying as well. The narrative, the stories are very.
very similar. Parallel. There's parallels for sure. what's on the flip side of that, what's also really important that we're starting to see is that the key leaders, so whether they're high capacity volunteer or they're a staff member, if they're a key leader in that environment, they crave it. It only takes one workshop. in a consultant position, you're sort of paid to bring up the stuff that the leaders aren't okay bringing up.
Stephen (42:45.39)
And it's okay, cause you're consulted. So they could be mad at you. That's fine. But it's our job to really provoke some difficult conversation, or at least encourage some difficult conversation. And it's amazing. I'm not charismatic, but it's amazing how the atmosphere changes. Maybe I have charismatic. When they entertain or when they have the conversation that they needed to have maybe two years ago.
and how suddenly that door is open and now we're having real conversations in a space and it just points to the necessity of this coaching culture. I will say avoidance will always cost more than honesty. mean, we've worked, I think of a church in particular and they were literally hiring around a particular person
because they weren't willing to have the hard conversation with this person. And ultimately this person ended up actually resigning. And they've since said, I think we have been hiring around this person that they realized they didn't actually need the positions that they were hiring for. But again, it's that coach and coacher is absent. And so it's just things that we need to really, we need to be aware of.
I think coaching will create clarity. And we've said it around here before, but clarity is kindness. It really is. Even though it's difficult, even though it's awkward, if you are achieving clarity as a leader, then you're doing a great job as a leader.
And people are going to want to be around you. we think it repels people. It actually attracts people.
Stephen (44:37.358)
Yeah. And it may temporarily. Of course. Um, we would always say at Wilson when I was the lead pastor there, that as a family, we're going to walk towards the tension together. Yeah. It's going to be, it's one of our values. We're going to walk towards the tension together. The body of Christ can't do that. I mean, Jesus, right. And he, uh, the 12 were an eclectic bunch. And so they were obviously walking towards tension together. And that needs to be one of our commitments as a body.
Christ. So a couple of things that I've learned. Again, this was something I actually picked up at Grace premature prior to working at Enago, but facilitation, like true facilitation. So I'll throw out ajnsmar or facilitation.com if anybody wants to actually go, okay, what do you talk about facilitation? But true facilitation can be the first step towards a coaching culture. True facilitation really creates a space.
for a group of people to say things without getting caught in the weeds. And so if you can facilitate from a church leadership level in a way that invites people to say hard things, but we don't get caught in the weeds, that's, think that's one of the first steps towards creating, don't just jump into hard conversations, you know, but let's create this culture where people are used to awkward conversations or hard conversations.
And then I've learned honestly, over the last few years that temperature checks are pre-assessments can change the game. So not everybody designs tools. I think we're similar. love designing Yeah, we have tools. Love it. Yeah. But there's so many tools out there that if you can get your hands on a tool that maybe takes 30 seconds to five minutes and you can just toss it towards a team and go, Hey, just fill this out. Cause this is going to frame our conversation.
allows us to begin putting language. So I met with a church leadership a few weeks ago and I gave them a pre-assessment. It was their elders and in their mind they were good, but it was amazing what the pre-assessment revealed for them just in two minutes it took. And we had a phenomenal conversation, about two hours we spent talking about the findings of this pre-assessment.
Stephen (47:00.364)
Again, if you can get your hands on some of those stuff, I mean, there's tons out there. I think you said it, just to be able to walk towards conversation. That's so important.
And that priming the pump, that getting ahead of that conversation is just so, because now they're already engaged. They're engaged without saying a word. They're processing things in their heart that is really powerful when it begins to come to the surface. All right, we're at the end. Let me ask you just one final thing and have you kind of summarize. What advice...
would you give to pastors? I think the reason why coaching environments don't necessarily take hold is because pastors are afraid if I coach somebody hard or if I challenge them on something, they're gonna leave my church and I can't afford having anybody leave my church. How would you, just very quickly, how would you frame up a piece of advice to that pastor?
Yeah. no, very quickly, right? pastors don't do anything quickly, but I will say this hopefully from a net through an empathetic lens that I don't think pastors set out to people, please. I do Jenny, cause I felt this that they just simply grow weary of conflict. and I think that's a real thing. And so they're not necessarily, they're not burning out because they're afraid to, and so they're burning out cause they're afraid of losing another relationship.
And I think it's just important to name that honestly. Obviously we see in John six, Jesus saying hard things. Because I think what's important, maybe this is the way to phrase it. When we avoid necessary challenges, yes, we keep people comfortable, but we also keep them immature. When we lovingly confront them, yeah, we might risk some conflict, but we're inviting transformation.
Stephen (48:57.334)
And I think that's what we need to remember. Yes. We need to invite transformation. And I think it's important for the pastor to trade the false responsibilities for faithfulness. And here's what I mean by that. We're not responsible for the outcome. Yep. We're just responsible to be faithful pastors. And sometimes being faithful pastors means, God, I'm going to trust you with another hard conversation. I'm going to be on, we're in Habakkuk right now. I'm going be honest.
I don't want this conversation. I don't want it, but I'm going to trust you with it. That nothing is wasted in your economy. And that includes this hard conversation that I'm about to have.
Yeah, that's great, Stephen. I think that's an appropriate place to end with our jokes earlier about.
It's a criticism of it. Critical thinking, yes. Amen.
I appreciate you brother and the work that you're doing in the kingdom. appreciate our friendship and I'm continuing to cheer you on. So thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today man.
Danielle (50:01.248)
Stephen.
Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, it's always good. Yeah, we're teasing about his cynicism. I love Stephen so much. Yeah, we had a blast talking about that and hopefully it was helpful to some folks.
Cool. All right, let's move on to something that happened this week at Grace.
Danielle (50:26.328)
us in just as a practical, like we're actually walking through this right now. is not just us like pondering ideas and not taking action on them. Right, right. So I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about kind of how we're breaking down our approach to our 10 year vision, Awake the Lake vision, reinventing, for us when we talk about reinventing church on this podcast, the big implication for us is we call that Awake the Lake.
at grace that our tenure
And reinventing the church is kind of like embedded in that bigger vision. Like we realize that we have to rethink how we do church in order to accomplish that vision. And so the vision's kind of driving all of that. And the vision is really, want to have gospel impact in the nine counties between Cleveland and Buffalo. So this is, we're along the Lake Erie region. And so we're just saying, what would it look like for us to multiply gospel?
influence in those nine counties and because the population of those nine counties is around three million we're saying what would it look like to have 30,000 gospel kind of ambassadors in that area and so yeah so that's the bigger thing and again we're reinventing as we go but it's toward that end.
towards that end. And so that's part of the big goal statement is that nine counties, 30,000 people. And what we've done is not to get like super granular on it, but basically we've broken it into like three year movements where we have like, we'll have like a final year probably, but like, so three sets of three years basically. And that those break down and we have like a three year, we call it like the background objectives. And then we have
Danielle (52:06.09)
every one year we'll have a new mid-ground objective. And then we do like 90 day sprints below that. So we recently just launched our, we have been doing like the little sprints, the 90 day things and the one year thing we just started. But we recently launched our three year objectives. I mean, I guess say a little bit about how we
Yeah, so I mean I get we we did brainstorming around those things and so a handful of our leadership team got away really nailed down What are the what are what is the three-year markers that we want to? Hit and then really the next step was we identified two leaders per per objective Let's say we want you to be the drivers and so we've given some framework for those teams of two that will eventually be bigger teams But two people that are gonna own that objective
giving them a framework to map it out, what does it look like? So that map then gets kind of proposed back to our vision team. And then those teams are kind of free to run, free to go lead. And so you're co-leading one of those three-year teams. it's really the, you know, we've talked before, there's the part of our strategy that's internal, that's assimilation that...
we recognize that we just need to tweak that to make it more disciple making focused. But there's a whole new part of our strategy that we, it needs to be invented. And we're calling that build your calling and bless your world. There's two kind of components to that helping people. And it's the multiplication funnel. So it's the call, train, send. How do we, and we're not staffed for that. We we don't have any infrastructure for that. Like, so yeah, so it's all brand new.
And part of it is just going, okay, what would it actually look like for the church to create resources and opportunities in that multiplication funnel, and then to rethink ourself around that reality, because that's really what's gonna take us from Cleveland to Buffalo. And we still need to run a great church in the process. But in the midst of all of that, we wanna re-
Derek (54:20.706)
kind of invent this new multiplication funnel. So anyway, your specific three-year objective is around what part of that?
Building Bless, so bless your world, is the biggest part of that funnel, the output part.
So that's all people on mission. So once they kind of find their calling, then just going, I'm gonna serve, if I wanna be a pastor in my neighborhood, if I wanna be a pastor in my workplace, if I wanna be a pastor in my affinity group, if I wanna be a pastor of a nonprofit, this is how I'm gonna live out my calling in this next season. So we're trying to get our hands around all of that.
And how I think the, we had, Mike and I had two of our final of the first three meetings this week.
So this is what happened this week
Danielle (55:04.494)
literally this week. so, yeah, think the interesting thing for me is like, we're trying to, and obviously we're not even close to brainstorming, but stuff comes up as you're to. It's gonna take six months or a year. So, I mean, some of the things are like, how to, and this is my struggle. So when I look at like the past, when we've ever built like infrastructures for discipleship or growth or whatever,
Sure, sure. Well, how do we decide?
Danielle (55:33.038)
or to assimilate. There's a process for that, and it is not only something that I know about, but it apparently is deeply ingrained in my DNA at this point. Because I'm about to say something in these meetings, and I'm like, no, that's how we would do the other one. And there is a little bit of that, obviously, architecture or whatever. So we've talked about how do we build a support system or a structure
that is supporting and isn't red tape, hoops, like wait. We want it to be nimble, agile, and be able to respond. Say one of the spheres is taking off, say the workplace one is taking off for some reason, we're getting hundreds of people who are interested in that. We need a structure in which whatever the staffing is, whatever the volunteers are, we can pivot to grow that where the bright spots are, but still keep other things going.
So, I mean, it's been interesting even just in these two meetings, just thinking through like...
How do you build a multiplication funnel that doesn't like crumble under its own weight or restrict people from feeling freedom?
Right. Or restrict.
Derek (56:48.654)
Yeah, it's interesting. So my mind is just going as you're talking like, you know, we did do some some pre Conversations with people who are you know, we see as bright spots in this area and Actually gathered some semi-formal data around what what they're what they need and really the overwhelming two things were they they need resources so like best practices, how do it like tools how do I
what do I actually do when the rubber meets the road to live this out? And community or cohorts. And so, you know, thinking through how do we resource those folks? How do we provide cohorts or coaching or whatever for those folks? Fascinatingly, there was a guy in town who runs kind of a national coaching ministry recently who actually heard what we were doing and we had a little conversation about it. And so he sees a lot of crossover from like,
his company that coaches business leaders that just thinking through like if we had, and specific to our conversation today, if we had an army of coaches or people who are trained to coach in those specific sectors, like really good business coaches who are living out their faith in their, so our coach is not just how to be better at being a business leader, it's how to be a Christian in that space.
But some of those, I feel like coaching tools could benefit us. Think about what does staffing this look like? know, staffing this line look like having 50 coaches trained to, know, some in the different sectors to be on the spot, ready to walk people through as their face.
for sure.
Danielle (58:37.504)
Yeah, and even just like coach of the coaches or something. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it feels big, but I feel like this process we have will help us take it bit by bit, not make any rash decisions. The cool thing about it is I feel like we are, other than what we have with missions and what we've had with Cerviri, I think we have a pretty blank slate, which is fun, but that also can feel like parallel or paradoxical choice kind of.
So yeah, and I think the other the other big challenge that you guys have is what what does it look like to have people? Identify themselves as these people who want to be in this funnel, you know So how do they how do we let people raise their hand and go? I want to be one of these is there something we're calling those or like I want to be one of these awake the Lakers or you know, what? I your world or whatever and How do they identify themselves? How do we identify them? Yeah
Because there is a tracking component too, like we want to be faithful, you know.
That's the part where my mind starts getting crazy. like, yeah, okay, we want to know, we want to have our finger on the pulse of what's going on, but we don't want it to be a thing where people are like having to do a ton of extra things to be able to be quote unquote counted or.
Yeah, so it's the fine line between free for all and micromanaging. We want to find that space where it's actually helpful. But, yeah.
Danielle (01:00:06.702)
I immediately just go pyramid scheme. I'm like, all right, get a coach if he gets two coaches and they get three coaches. He's great. So that's how we do it. And then we just talk to the one coach and everything's Not gonna work. Anyway, yeah, sorry. That's what's happening. It's a lot, but awesome. All right, so let's move on to tips and tools. Another tip. All right, do you got? Turning complaints into clarity.
Yeah, nope. Nope.
What's going on?
Derek (01:00:25.634)
Another tip.
Derek (01:00:30.393)
So we just did one a couple weeks ago on like how to handle aggressive emails. People might be asking, hey what's going on over there?
That's fair.
Danielle (01:00:39.48)
He's sick, it's what happens. I also thought, I'm just gonna say it. That last time in this is making me think we need to just do like a really quick rapid fire, like what's the worst thing you could say to a pastor and just do like that.
Thanks,
Derek (01:00:52.786)
That could be two truths and the truth. Yeah, the reality is like when I was thinking about this going, you man, this is a little negative. The truth is all church leaders know this is a part of the job of handling complaints. And it's almost the unspoken devil amongst us kind of thing because it's like everybody knows it's happening.
There you go. Complaints and a clarity.
Derek (01:01:21.026)
we don't really talk about it a ton other than if it's just kind of like, my, you know, it's been a tough season or something, know, and, and there's this acknowledgement, but then I feel it. And here's what I'm trying to, I feel like we don't ever get to like, well, what do you actually do about it? Like what, what, what are some good skills that you could have when you get these complaints or whatever? And so this actually came out of a conversation speaking of this week that I had this week with one of our pastors who was wrestling through just some complaints and
These are more, I talked about email last time, these are more like in the atmosphere complaints. So like when people come up and go, you know, our church never blah, blah, blah, or our leaders are so, you know, and there's these like generalized complaints that feel like they're in the, in the air. And what do we do with those? And so this tip, and I've got a whole two sheet thing on it, so people can get that in the email. I won't give it all away, but this tip really presses toward,
And part of it, when I get these questions, I'm forced to think about how do I have been doing this for 30 years? How do you do this? And to put words to it. And so I have found a very helpful thing is to press towards specificity. To like say, tell me exactly. Because as long as it stays vague, nobody can solve anything. It's just this thing that we let linger. And it's not helpful to anybody when it's like that. And so this is some different ways to press towards specificity.
The phrase I put to it is you can't fix what's fuzzy. Yeah, that's good. And so, know, one, know, nobody ever gets back to me. Like I try I tried to reach out to the church staff and nobody ever gets back to me. And so. To me, in that moment, you say, tell me what tell me what your experience has been like, like, who did you reach out to?
How many times did you try? What was your experience? Did you get nothing back? Did you get something back and then they didn't follow up? Or what actually happened? And usually the more you, and you're not trying to be accusatory. You're actually, trying to be helpful. This has to be all in a spirit of helpfulness and trying to solve the problem. You usually get somebody when you get specific, they start backing, either they back away and be like, nevermind. It really wasn't that bad. Or was a long time ago or I can't remember. And sometimes that's just kind of like a general, they want to,
Derek (01:03:41.056)
issue a complaint of some kind, but they don't have something super. So that can be, sometimes it's, well, it actually wasn't me, but it was somebody in my small group that told me about it. so in those two situations, the solution really is coaching that person. There's really nothing to fix other than to coach that person and how they respond in the moment. If they do say, last Thursday I reached out and last Friday I reached out, blah, blah, blah, to this person and they didn't get back to me.
That makes sense.
Derek (01:04:09.738)
now I've got something that I can fix and just say, you're right, that should never happen around here. I'm going to go. But in either case, there's either a coaching opportunity or a fixing opportunity. And if it just stays vague and we just say, okay, I'll check into that or whatever, we can never get to actual solutions. so anyway, this tool is built or this tip is built around how do you walk through those kind of vague complaints and help them to get specific.
Well, and even if they're hesitant to get specific, mean, practically, you can, but it's not effective to even go to a staff of anywhere from two to 20 people and say, hey, everybody, we have an issue where nobody's responding. Because the people who are responding are going be like,
Yeah, that's not my issue. Yeah, yeah.
Or it's just gonna, and then the people whose issue it is have not actually been talking to you. They can just go with the flow, you know, so it's helpful all the way around.
We were confronted about it, yeah.
Derek (01:05:07.352)
Yep, yeah, vagueness is just the enemy of everything. I think specificity is very, very helpful because it allows you to pastor. You're either pastoring the people or you're pastoring the processes and both of those are important.
Yeah, right.
Danielle (01:05:23.15)
Very important. It reminds me too of like how when you said those small group person, I think that's also how like narratives get built about people, not just organizations. Totally. When you're doing those kind of passing from person to person and not even necessarily gossip or anything. It's just how it happens if you can't get granular about what's going on. Yep. And then all of sudden that person is this thing.
Yep, exactly. Yeah. So in the tip document, I even put some like little, you know, questions to ask back to that person that aren't, know, can you tell me a time that this happened to you personally? Just tell me about that time or who was involved specifically so I can follow up directly kind of thing. So, you know, there's just some questions that I think will be helpful to get to specificities.
Great. Okay, cool. Great tip. Thanks. You're welcome. All right. So I think that's it for today. If you like this episode, you can tell us by leaving a rating or review. And as we continue down the rest of this list here of the shifts that we're making, love to have you continue to join us and share this with friends and coworkers that you think would find it helpful. You can find detailed show notes, related resources, including this tip sheet from Derek at Derek Sanford dot com forward slash reinventing church.
And that's also where you'll get the opportunity to subscribe to his weekly newsletter. Okay.
This was seven of eleven. Oh, is this already? Yeah, this was seven. So we're getting there.