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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
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Derek Sanford, and I'm here with my cohost, Danielle Hartland. Hi. And, this is the introductory episode of a new podcast for church leaders called Reinventing Church. And I never dreamed that after serving, this church for 30 years, that God would call us to transition from a successful megachurch, what I would call an attractional church growth model, to a multiplication disciple making model of ministry.
Speaker 1:And so this podcast is gonna chronicle the journey in real time, while we talk about some, some church leadership issues, some disciple making, principles along the way, and, things that we're learning about and stumbling through as well as some just practical answers to some of the most common questions that pastors get.
Speaker 2:I think
Speaker 1:that should be fun and funny Yeah. At some level, as we go into my email inbox and, wrestle down some hot topics. This is the first episode, and and we're just gonna give a quick overview of this journey that we're on and invite you into the journey with us. And and so this should be should be cool. We've talked about this for a while.
Speaker 2:I know. I know. Now you have a reason to do it.
Speaker 1:Right. So this is Danielle. We've served together for a long time, many years, and, she's our director of programming. She's also served in communications and marketing and worship and just about every other possible role you could think of. So, Danielle, thanks for doing this Sure.
Speaker 1:With me. And how do you think this podcast can help other church leaders?
Speaker 2:I'm excited because I know for us, like, as we've we've kind of learned on the job. Yeah. You know? And, yeah, I mean, obviously, people have schooling or whatever, but, like, we've really experimented. We've kind of prided ourselves on that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And there have been several times where we've come up to a point where no one was ahead of us, and we were kind of in uncharted waters. And I feel that way now, for sure. Probably the biggest this is the biggest time I've ever felt that way. And I think it'll be cool for leaders to not only kind of learn from our mistakes as we're making the mistakes.
Speaker 2:Because sometimes, by the time you write a book, it's a little whitewashed.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right? You're not really talking about, like, we had to fire that person because, like, it you get past those things. And so, I'm excited for that. I'm excited for the dialogue that could potentially come, even just digitally from other leaders and what their ideas might be in the moment as they help us even build what this new reality looks like. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think
Speaker 2:it could be cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. And it's funny kinda as we found found ourselves in those uncharted waters before Mhmm. Oftentimes, what we would do is go, oh, this would be cool, and then we kinda back away from that for for a while, and then somebody else does it.
Speaker 2:They're like, crap. We thought of that funny. We have probably sold in our heads so many ideas and books. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh. Yeah. So this one we're trying to get in right at the front end and going, hey. We're I think we're I think we're paving a little bit of new ground. I'm sure we're not the first to do this, but but, maybe the first to kinda chronicle our journey along the way and let other people learn from from the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm excited to do this. So the way we're gonna format this, and we'll see how it develops. But I think right now, we're we're thinking about each episode kinda having 3 parts to it. One of them, the first part is, I think we're just calling it from the pastor's inbox.
Speaker 2:This is my favorite part. And any of you any of you who are close to pastors are like, oh, no. Because, man, the inbox, it's a treacherous place. It's scary in there.
Speaker 1:So what we're gonna try to do is every week, pick something, and I've already got a backlog. I've been doing this for 30 years. So I've got lots of questions that have been asked along the year along the years. I promise that we're not gonna be, like, doxing people, like
Speaker 2:No. No. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's gonna be more of just, like, I'm gonna read you actual questions, but they're gonna be more, like, conglomerations of a few questions that all go into 1 so that one person doesn't listen out there and go, oh my gosh. I emailed that last week, and they're talking about it.
Speaker 2:Whatever. No. I'm not. That's great.
Speaker 1:One of my one one of the things I'm excited about, first of all, I've listened to a few podcasts along the years that have done that sort of a thing. I found it to be one of the most helpful things.
Speaker 2:Like, when
Speaker 1:you actually hear real pastors talk about real questions they get and how they answered them. Mhmm. And so that's what we're gonna do with that little part of it. And, eventually, as we hopefully build some listenership, I would love to have other pastors contributing in
Speaker 2:That'd be great.
Speaker 1:Or or church leaders contributing in some things from their inbox and how they responded, and we can highlight that and all learn from each other. The second part of it, kind of the main body of the, of the podcast is just gonna be the reinventing church topic of the day. Yeah. And so, we're gonna talk at a little bit of a higher level about some of the principles that we're trying to apply as we move this megachurch, attractional megachurch, into more of a missional multiplication model. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And, so it'll be a little bit more principle, philosophical, topical, and this is where we'll also maybe bring in a guest Yeah. Or 2 from time to time that has some expertise in this area. It'll be fun to learn from them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Then the final part of the podcast is we're just gonna spend a little time at the end of every episode talking about something that happened this week. And so we wanna keep it, kind of, just boots on the ground real.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I think by talking about a meeting that we had or decision that we made or a conflict that we went through or, you know, a tension that we felt or whatever, that that's gonna be one of those ways that we can really keep it real and help people to see kind of the real, the real grassroots stuff that happens when churches make changes like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's gonna be that's gonna be a cool part,
Speaker 1:I think. I think so too.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, just in this introductory episode, I wanna talk just for a minute about, just how we got here and a little bit about our story. Grace is an old church. We were born back in the late 1800 as the Swedish Baptist Church.
Speaker 2:It's so crazy.
Speaker 1:So we've come a long way, baby. Mhmm. And, one of the things that, you know, there there's been a lot of inter iterations of our church trying to to make appropriate change Mhmm. To stay relevant to the times. And, so, you know, when I came on and you came on shortly
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:After I did
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Which was back in the mid nineties
Speaker 2:No. I mean It wasn't. It was. No.
Speaker 1:Yes. It was. 5 years ago. It feels like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, we, we're running this model of church Right. You know, when I came on, which is
Speaker 2:The one we're running now. We're running right now,
Speaker 1:which has its roots, you know, in the seventies eighties. This is the megachurch movement, the church growth movement. So you got the Willow Creeks and the Saddlebacks and the Bill Hybels and the Rick Warrens and, Seacoast, I think, was in there in some of those early years and with multisite. Mhmm. And so some of those principles are all what what we use.
Speaker 1:But, right now, it's kind of arresting to think that that's a 50 year old model.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Yeah. Especially considering our history Right. And how even around the model, I feel like we've innovated.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:But the playbook is very intact, I think. Agreed. The the roots of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's wild.
Speaker 1:So and I you know, the the the the thing that I often say is I imagine when I came to grace in 1995, if they had said Yeah. We're running a 1945 model of church Right.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:would have been like, peace out. I'm going to a different job.
Speaker 2:I know. It's so wild.
Speaker 1:So it's like we've been I I feel like the the church at large has been kinda hanging on to this model and squeezing every bit of last juice out of it. Yeah. And, and so we're just saying, I'm not sure. It's it's weird to say it because in many ways, it is working.
Speaker 2:It's it's been working for us this month.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Like, it does it's not broke. It's there's a lot about it that's not broken if we're being honest. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and really a lot of when I sit in rooms with pastors who are running this model, everybody is kinda just saying, hey. It's never been better. Like I know. It's up into the right. Like, all the numbers are growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A lot of the reports are coming out right now saying that same thing.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So it's it's one of those weird things of just like, man, it still seems to be working, and yet there's this there's been this thing here in me and us, I think, for the last 5 years or so. There's like, I don't know. Like, as we see our culture shifting away, as we see the church moving from being the the good guy to the bad guy, in a lot of people's minds as we see the rise of these numbers of people who are walking away from church, You know, the at the same time that this kind of church seems to be growing, we're getting the great de churching
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Numbers of, like, 40,000,000 people
Speaker 2:who've
Speaker 1:left the church Mhmm. In America, a lot, which is which is wild. So I don't know. There's just been this sense underneath it all that, like, I I think we have to begin to make some changes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, you know, I I always come back to, like, the Netflix and Blockbuster Yeah. You know, analogy of just, like, you know, Netflix came to Blockbuster and was like, hey. We'd like to partner up. We think there's this new edge to Yeah. And Blockbuster's like, no.
Speaker 1:They they were sure that their model was right, and we can see where both of those, places are. And I I don't wanna be blockbuster.
Speaker 2:No. I not to be off the topic, but one of the things I'll never forget is going into Blockbuster during that time with my friend, and they had just started their own. Oh, you can get mail in DVDs. Okay? Mail in you know, get them to your house.
Speaker 2:And they kept calling the queue a quay, and I was like, this isn't somebody doesn't understand what what they're even selling here. So yeah. No. For me, Blockbuster, Netflix, Redbox, all that stuff, it's like a very clear
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, this this podcast, we're gonna be taking a a a look at our shift from, again, the the words I would use are attractional assimilation model or church growth model
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or megachurch model. I feel like all those things kinda go in to the same bucket, and and we're really trying to innovate a missional multiplication, model. And, you know, it's the idea of building a church where they come to us versus building a church where we go to them. Mhmm. One of the centerpieces of this new thing that we're talking about is the idea of helping every individual believer find their calling
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool. In the world where they live, work, learn, and play. And what would happen if we unleashed an army of people who had a crystal clear idea of of what they've been called to do by God Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's incredible.
Speaker 1:And so, that's the that's the journey we're on.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:And, that's what we're gonna talk about during this podcast. So any final thoughts? Otherwise, we'll sign off.
Speaker 2:No. It's great. Can't wait. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 1:Good. So there will be a series of blog posts and resources, for church leaders and pastors that will kinda go along with this. There's an email list that you can get on to get constant updates about what's going on with these things. You can find all of that stuff as well as the show notes for this podcast over at dereksanford.com, and, we would love to have you along for the
Speaker 2:journey. Cool.
Speaker 1:Alright. Peace.
Speaker 2:See you.