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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 & Derek (00:17.998)
Hey, welcome in, in today's episode, most likely to succeed, me, from attendance to apprenticeship, on staff mentorship, and taking on the keyboard warriors. Yeah, how are doing, I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, I'm Danielle, for those of you who are just tuning in. There's a lot going on. I know. It feels like a whirlwind of sorts. I don't know if it's just the time of year, the stuff that's going on in the world, mixed with.
It's a lot. feels like it's yeah, it feels like things are ramping up. I was talking to somebody yesterday and they were like Legitimately overwhelmed and like at two o'clock. They were like, is it okay if I just leave? it's something's going on. You can leave. I see that looking you're
Yeah, but it's listen, it's beautiful. Fall time in Eerie P.A. The weather's been gorgeous. It's really warm and lovely. had the northern lights again the other night. Yeah. Why are we getting I'm a big I'm starting to get I know it's a beautiful thing, but I'm also personally starting to get concerned about the amount of northern lights we're The celestial events. Too many celestial events. go see him. I'm like, again. We already got them eight times. The sun blowing up.
Everyone's just la-dee-da about it, but the sun's getting closer. Something's happening in like four days. Everyone's gonna be like, should've listened to Danielle. You gotta get in the atomic shelter or whatever. Yeah. Well, and apparently there's a big spacecraft coming our way. Have you heard about this? No. yeah, there's a big like meteor or whatever, but- Like a hail bomb? Yeah, that was a comment. Yeah, that was a comment. But then there's all these like conspiracy theories that it's like changing course and speeding up and coming directly to earth and-
So like the are like, wait a minute and turn toward us like that? Pretty much. That is something you would believe. I don't believe it. just was, you know, just reported it to me. Like it was happening. conspiracy theorists are blah, blah, blah. Whatever. You sound like my daughter. My daughter just accused me of the same thing. She's like, Dad, you told us that one thing and it turned out to be not true. I'm like, all of the conspiracy Twitter thinks this is true, but I'm not reporting it as fact. So have two people in your life telling you.
Danielle & Derek (02:26.35)
Okay, let's play a game. It's called this or that okay? Or no, sorry. Yeah, that's we're playing this or that no, that's not playing. Yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna say Just this or that yeah, and you pick this everybody knows I'm I don't know what this no you don't know what it is I'm telling you what it is all right. everyone. I just pick a thing Yeah, I'll give you I'll say like hot or cold and you pick one. just like what I prefer Yeah, my preference. Yes my favorite one of the two
I'm gonna cancel this game. I'm ready. Okay. All right ready. Yep coffee or tea coffee me too That's a recent development. I you know, I didn't drink coffee for the first time until I was 50 years old That's right. We've talked about that before but yeah, but yeah, it's way better than tea Well, hang on. He's nasty. He's not nasty. Yes, it is. It's two equal choices. No, okay But I only drink espresso not coffee, okay
It's focused coffee. This game is going great. This or that rapid fire test. No, we're supposed to discuss it. ahead. right. Early bird or night owl? I mean, night owl. But it's changing, It is changing. You're shifting. Yeah, I'm shifter. Paper book or audio book? Boy. So, Danielle, these are nuanced. These are nuanced answers. Go ahead. It's fine. So we're supposed to. It's both. It's both.
I've always been paperbook my whole life. Obviously, their audio books are a recent thing. But my thing is, my thing is, You had audio books in the 80s. We kinda did, they were books on tape. Oh, you're right. Remember those big binders? we've talked about this, Those binders were always, and the tapes wouldn't come out real good. No, you would have to get your finger in there. You had another tool to get them out. So listen.
I listen to audio books for fun reading. Yeah, me too. Same. So it's fiction. Same. So stuff that, and this is what I use when I walk. This helps me get my 10,000 steps in because I want to listen to something interesting and fun. But if it's leadership stuff, if it's Bible stuff, if it's study stuff, I'm Kindle or hard copy. So I'll even break down Kindle. I won't do leadership stuff on Kindle. I will.
Danielle & Derek (04:48.618)
I don't know why I only do like entertainment. Okay. Mountains or beach. Mountains. Okay. Classic hymns or modern worship. boy. I know. It depends which modern worship you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I love them both. I would probably go modern worship at this point, but the boy there's something really
Lovely. The thing that I will not do is to suggest that the ancient hymns are somehow more spiritual than modern worship. don't think that's true, but some of it's nostalgia. Don't you think some of these dead people too are like, uh, why are they caring so much about this song I wrote? Like I was not in a good place. You know what I mean? They're just, they're the same. They're humans. Right, right. Human beings writing. Yeah. Last two. Okay. Netflix or YouTube?
Yeah, Netflix. Yeah, oh, I not me. I haven't made that switch yet. Oh, I'm 80 % YouTube, I think. Yeah, interesting. Let's do one more. Planning or spontaneity? Oh, planning. Yeah. It's not even close. That's kind of a dumb one. I should have known that. That's all right. Yeah. What about a superpower? Read minds or fly? Oh, read minds. I know. Are you kidding me? would be so freaking amazing. They would both be super cool in their own way. Yeah.
But like on a day-to-day level, ReadMinds would be way better. Like on the weekends, let's fly. Okay. That was hilarious. I'd love to ReadMinds on the weekends, let's fly. I love it. That's a t-shirt. There's something in there. That's so good. Okay. Let's move on to our Reinventing Church segment. We're talking about 11 shifts every church must make to be effective in our current cultural reality. Dave Rhodes and Shane Stacey from Clarity House set us up each week.
This week, we're talking about shifting from attendance to apprenticeship. And before we hear from Clarity House, I want to give a little bit of texture on our guest today that you're interviewing, Adelman. Jeremy is the lead pastor of River City Church in Minneapolis. It's a church replant. And interestingly enough, I was looking at their website. It's like the oldest church in Minneapolis and maybe west of the Mississippi. And if you go to their like website, they literally have this amazing. I think we need to do it. We need to steal it from.
Danielle & Derek (07:05.774)
this amazing history scroll that feels like you're walking through a museum. It's really beautiful. It's really cool. So I think we could... Our church is old too. The oldest church in that area is saying something because there's a lot of early stuff that They have stuff like got in the wagons and took the pioneers over and planted a church and planted a church and planted a church. It's really cool. he is a really good teacher and he's making a shift from...
to the training model and training center model, and they also have a residency program in their church of just about 200, so that'll be a good conversation. Yeah, this idea of apprenticeship is hot and heavy for them. Yeah, which is really, really cool to start it that way. So before we hear from Jeremy, we're gonna kick it off with some wisdom from Dave Rhodes of Clarity House.
Dave (07:58.094)
Hey, pastors and leaders, got a question for you. How do you think about define or measure success? I remember watching one leader that I deeply respect answer that question. He was asked, how do you define success? And I love his answer. He said, I don't define it, I redefine it. Well, that's what I want to talk to you for a few minutes about in this video. How do we redefine success? Now, before we get there, we got to understand that most of the time when we think about success,
We are only thinking about what we can see. And what we can see is about what people attend. We have different ministry environments and what we can count are what we at Clarity House talk about as input results. And so we see the number of people that are attending and our goal as pastors and leaders is to help our strategy or disciple making pathway get more efficient. How do we help more of the people in worship?
become people who are in small group or serve. And so we spend all of our efforts really working on efficiency. Well, in this video, I want to suggest to you while input measures are important, there are another couple of ways in which we want to think about measuring success, which are equally or more important. So in a church, I want to suggest to you, we don't just have input results, we have what we call output results. And output results are really the kinds of people that we're creating. In other words,
are our ministry environments creating a kind of person? At Clarity House, we talk about this in helping churches really answer this kind of question. What kind of disciple is your church designed to create that your community desperately needs more of? And, you know, a problem with discipleship so many times is that it means so many things that it's not that it means nothing, it's just that it means so many things that in the end it means nothing. So helping teams get a shared vision.
of the kind of person that they are creating. Then one other kind of result is really impact. And that is really, do we measure the kind of change that we're hoping to see, not just in our church, but in our community? Well, if we're going to think about redefining success from input results only to actually measuring output and impact, I want to suggest to you that a shift that we have to make is a shift from attendance
Dave & Jeremy (10:22.498)
to apprenticeship. Again, when you're only measuring input results, the only thing that you can see is the number of bodies that attend a specific environment. But the bigger question that output results demand us answer is this, what kind of person are they becoming? Are the environments that we create and invite people to helping people become that kind of person?
And far too often in our ministries, I want to suggest to you that we have left maturity undefined and therefore we have limited the way that we've met. We've measured success to only counting what people can attend. So when we think about measuring success, we're saying, are the people that we're giving our life to becoming a certain kind of person and do we have a shared
picture of maturity in the church world, it's a shared picture of the kind of disciples that we're trying to create that our community desperately needs more of. And in that, it requires a different kind of process. Once we've defined maturity, once we've said that we want not just to measure input results, but output results, it means that we need a process that actually helps them become that kind of person.
And that process is what we're gonna talk about is a process of apprenticeship. Now at Clarity House, we have a master tool that we talk about as the disciples journey. It's about leading people through the dip from immaturity to maturity. And that what that requires is not just simply excellence from those of us who are leading, but access to our lives. See, when I'm only measuring input results, I'm measuring
excellence in my performance only, which means it's really possible for me to be a leader, but not be a leader, really just be a performer. And so I get better at my performance, hoping more people will attend.
Dave (12:30.36)
But when we think about output results, it's not nearly about the number of people who attend, but the percentage of people who are attending that actually get breakthrough into becoming the kind of person that we are helping them become. And that means they not only need to see excellence, they need access to my life in apprenticeship.
to help walk them through the dip of immaturity to maturity. Now, this was one of the big repentances for me as a leader because I realized too often I had become a performer rather than being a leader. In other words, the only question that I was asking is, is the sermon I'm preaching this Sunday worth preaching? And that's a good question and one that, you
We often feel challenged, but I want to suggest to there's an even bigger question than is the sermon I'm preaching worth preaching? And this is the bigger question. This is the question of apprenticeship, and that is, do I have a life worth imitating? And am I giving people access to that life? See, to redefine success in our church, we have to think about naming maturity, the kind of disciple that we're trying to create.
that our community desperately needs more of, but we also have to invite them into our life to walk through the dip from immaturity to maturity, which means this, we can't just measure efficiency, we've also got to measure effectiveness. And that journey through the dip of immaturity to maturity is one that isn't clear cut, it isn't clean, is remarkably effective.
But it
Dave (14:27.062)
So I want to ask you the question, how are you thinking about measuring and defining success? And I want to encourage you to redefine it, to get your eyes off of just input measures, but really naming as a team, output measures and impact measures that actually help you not just get more people to attend, but develop a certain kind of person. But the warning I got to give you is that this is a move from attendance to apprenticeship.
And it requires us as leaders to have the kind of life that is worth imitating.
Derek (15:07.04)
Alright, good words from Dave Rhodes thinking about how do we measure success as a church from from you know the the input measures only to output and impact and I'm so excited to be here with Jeremy Jeremy so good to have you man I'm thrilled to be talking to you today heard so many good things about you and your ministry and can't wait to unpack some stuff. Yeah, things in Minnesota.
Today's beautiful. I feel like we're in the middle of the idyllic fall that Minnesota gets for you know, three days out of the year
Yeah, exactly. Before the devil arrives. That's right. So hey, you're part of this really historic church. know Danielle set us up a little bit, just I would love to hear me you're like, really old pioneering church like way back to the and we actually have some family roots my family back in in Minnesota as well from my wife's family has an original homestead in Minnesota that like the first
I'm follow him and it's gone.
Derek (16:07.128)
people that ran west or you know still own the same property so it's wild to think about that area of our country so just talk a little bit about and really just kind of tied into where what we're talking about today and how that pioneering spirit maybe in your church has kind of carried over to some of the stuff that you guys are doing
Yeah, so one of the things that's been really important for us in our replanting journey and some of the shifts we've made is that we've wanted to recapture
the pioneering spirit that started our church. This one is we've talked about it. So in 1853, 172 years ago, this little group of 10 men and women gathered in a home in Minneapolis to plant a church. And it grew over that time and planted churches throughout the Twin Cities, started this incredible rail car ministry, planting churches out in the Western frontier, just these, again, these pioneering moves, a deep trust in the Lord. And
It peaked in 1935. Almost 3,000 people were part of the church at that time. And then it went through 88 years of consistent numerical decline by the time we replanted. And so it's this rich history and so many beautiful things the Lord did through the church and continued to do even in those years of numerical decline. But we, as we talked with our church, we went all the way back to the early history saying we want to recapture that pioneering spirit, that planted churches, that's that
reached a city. It's easy to think about that peak attendance as the glory days, but we really wanted to recapture the early movement and invest in church planting now and making disciples. And so we're still thankful for the history and it's been fun to uncover much of what the Lord did.
Derek (17:55.98)
That's incredible. you know, we talked a little bit beforehand. I think we could take a whole episode or two probably talking about history stuff. And it is fascinating as a backdrop for what you got. And just real quick, like, when you say church replanting, can you just give a two sentence definition of what you mean by that?
When I talk about replanting, I'm talking about what you could maybe characterize as a death to life journey. It's where a church intentionally dies to what was, recognizing that legacy, but also restarting something totally new. It's like the parable Jesus uses about the seed that falls into the earth and dies that new fruit would come. When a whole church does that together, and that's what we did. So we shut everything down and went through a core team phase.
We sold our old building that was 70,000 square feet downtown Minneapolis. It was just way too big for a church of our size at that point. then went through a quarantine phase and then relaunched, much like a church plant. So in some ways we're like a two-year-old church and 170-year-old church all at once.
that's incredible. That's a good word. mean, I just think there's such such interesting lessons even in that, you know, humility in that and to, you know, to be be able to untether and re tether to some things is just, I think that's just a really good word that could be broadly applied in other ways as well. Like, yeah, you
It was a courageous thing. When I was becoming the senior pastor, one of the things that I had said to our church at the time, because we had already been in decline for, you know, seven decades by then, or eight decades, was just, hey, if we're gonna do this together, we need to want what Jesus wants more than what we want. We have to be committed to what he wants. And I watched members who were born in our church be willing to vote to die to what was. And...
Jeremy (19:48.258)
to sell a building that was the only building they ever knew. And it was courageous from the members who were willing to do it. And by God's grace, really a miracle has happened and we've grown for the first time in 90 years. so I'm just so thankful for the saints who have gone before us, who were faithful to our church and the courageous members who were still around and willing to vote to die to what was and to start fresh.
And yeah, it's an incredible thing that they've been willing to
really is and thanks for sharing that story and great leadership by the way but also just you know I heard back in the day just you know it takes an unselfish church to grow.
And no matter what that what form that growth takes, the body of the church needs to be unselfish in order to position itself or posture itself to reach more people. It's just, you know, part of the formula. And man, this is this is like a prime example of that. So anyway, we better get into the topic at hand. The topic at hand is from attendance to apprenticeship. And so when you just when you hear that shift framed that way, how would you describe
what that means in your own words and maybe what it's meant for you guys.
Jeremy (21:04.622)
Yeah, well, the language of attendance to apprenticeship, what comes to my mind is how easy it is for us to want to measure the crowd that shows up on Sunday. And attendance then becomes the mark of success. And of course, we all know, I mean, we do want to grow. We want to reach more people. We want to see more people encounter the Lord. So.
Attendance is not a bad thing. I want to be careful that I don't frame it as some negative thing for us to want. But it's just an inadequate measurement of what God calls us to and what faithfulness looks like in leading a church. And so when I think of apprenticeship as one of the lead measures and one of the things we prioritize, it reframes our goal. And so our goal changes from who shows up on Sunday to what's happening in their lives.
It changes from just how many people do we count in our small groups to the conversations that are happening in the small group and whether it's producing the kind of disciples God has called us to make and multiply. And so it shifts in my mind what our primary objective is as a church. It's not just about growing the crowd on Sunday, but about the apprenticing to Jesus. I mean, this is the language that was used so often in the New Testament, this idea of apprenticeship.
And we can learn a lot from other industries that still use the language of apprenticeship. I think about the trades. My brother is an electrician and he was an apprentice to an electrician and he walked alongside the master electrician for years as he learned how to be an electrician himself. And that sort of replication, being an apprentice to Jesus and then also learning how to be an apprentice to other mature disciples.
shifts the way that we think about ministry. And so that's what comes to mind.
Derek (22:54.198)
Yeah, it's so great. And there's a lot there to unpack. And so I want to circle back but
You know, I think it's funny, we've been having obviously conversations around our church too about these same matters. And, you know, it's interesting because it is hard to figure out what do we measure, you know, what is it then that we, you know, that we kind of hang our hats on in terms of are we making progress or not? And one of the things I told our team early on is I just really feel like even if we don't nail down exactly the measurement part of it,
correctly right from the beginning. Just this is what you just said, just the shift in our focus of saying, hey, we're just going to focus on this right now, is going to change our church dramatically, just the change in focus. Yeah, even if we don't have all the metrics figured out. But but to come back to the metrics, because I think the the scoreboard for so long has been, you know, Sunday attendance only and and, you know, giving, which are the two easiest things to measure, because we can count them.
So you mentioned a couple of things as you kind of, you know, rolled through that last part from small groups to the, know, how are you helping your church redefine success toward transformation and not just how many people turn out on a Sunday?
Yeah. Well, I'll just echo you were just talking about it. It is much harder to measure these things and.
Jeremy (24:14.926)
I don't know what things I've been thinking about as I was coming to talk with you today is just to recognize we don't have all this figured out. Like we're still so much in process. And so I'll just say to, you even if people are listening and they're thinking, Hey, I'm still in, I feel like we're all in process in this, you know, we're just learning. And so I don't, the measurement piece and how to truly assess that is something we're still figuring out in some ways. Like you're saying, I think the shift in focus has already made a significant impact.
And so that itself helps because you mentioned attendance, like people and pennies, if you will, whatever you want to call these. They are so often lagging measurements as well. Like they are the result of decisions you've made six, 12 months earlier. They're not even great measurements at the end of the day, but they are easy to measure, which is why we do it. And so I think that's part of the work we're trying to do is the more difficult work. One of the ways we've done this is actually just to provide even a self-assessment for people.
So as we named what a disciple is at our church and the kind of disciples God has called us to make mature and multiply, we have named it in four different roles. And that itself has been helpful. I know we were talking about before we got on. I used to have my definition of disciple and I had nine marks of a disciple in three different categories of conviction, character, and competence. I loved them. I thought they were great. they were specific, they were detailed, they were accurate. You know, I still think they're helpful marks.
But in many ways, they're kind of boiler room level information. And I was talking with our friend Shane, Stacey, and we were having this conversation about, I want more activation in this. And he just asked me, said, well, do you have a definition of disciple? And I said, well, yeah, I do have a definition. And then he said, how many other people share that definition? I said, well, I don't think anyone knows it. It's just me.
You're please stop asking questions. I don't like your
Jeremy (26:09.582)
Yeah, right. Like, you're a bear here. So that really started us on a journey of saying we need a shared definition. We need a definition that all of our staff, our elders, our deacons, our leaders, we're using the same definition. And so we went through a journey of refining that. And that's been incredibly helpful because then we use these four roles of a disciple, which if anybody's been around Clarity House, they know that this is part of the work that you do with them.
But then what we're able to do is ask people to self-assess on those four roles. And so one of our roles is a responsive follower. Can you hear God's voice and yield to God's spirit in response? A patient pursuer, someone who is doing the work of knowing others and being known by them. A courageous restorer who takes active steps of redemptive good in their life and a winsome witness whose words and way of life communicate the disruptive and surprising hope of Jesus. So we've got these four roles and then we can ask someone to say, hey,
How are you doing as a responsive follower? And their self-assessment itself is a massive help to us in the ability to say, how are we doing at this? How are they growing at this? And then start to point them to tools and ways to grow in those four roles.
Yeah, yeah, that's really great. And yeah, I agree with you. Everything that you just said, we've been through a similar process and naming those four roles has been so helpful, not just for not just because we're naming them, but because we're naming them locally, we're really asking like, what kind of disciple do we need to make to reach this
place where we find ourselves. It's not. And the thing about, you know, your nine marks and you know, we we've had similar marks before or, you know, we've doubled up using kind of like our core values as measures like our core and trying to shoehorn the, you know, the discipleship measures into our core values. And I think one of the great benefits of naming the roles is that we're not just giving people something to kind of shoot for and getting common language.
Derek (28:11.212)
We're also naming it locally that this is the kind of disciple that we want to create for this place and time. And it's all biblically based. It's not like we're coming up with some crazy stuff out of the blue. Right. Same with you. But it but it's it's that ability to do that. I love the self-assessment thing. We're exploring some similar things of like how do we help people? Because really in the end we just want people maturing and growing and you know seeing progress in their spiritual life. And so that may not
come out in a measure of, you know, what rooms they're sitting in, because they can sit in lots of rooms and still not be making spiritual progress. Yeah, so yeah, I love the self assessment thing. I think that's really strong. So hey, you're you're a as this replanting thing happened. You're leading a young church, an old young church as we described under 200 people. So a smaller church, but you
How do you see your size as an advantage when it comes to thinking through this like apprenticeship model instead of just attracting a crowd?
Yeah, that's great. Well, there's a couple of thoughts. One of them is that we have a lot of flexibility right now. In many ways, we sort of stripped everything to the studs, you know, in our journey. And so we've had the ability to make shifts.
has been helpful. So we've been incubating a lot of things and this is something I think any church can do, but it's nice when you're small because you don't feel like you have to get something from, I'm inventing it and building it to now I have to deliver it to a significant number of people in a short amount of time. So we're incubating several different ways of training our people in these roles. And so one of them, for example, in our winsome witness role, we want our people
Jeremy (30:01.538)
to be having relationships with their neighbors, to be able to communicate the gospel in a way that is disruptive and surprising, and to be able to engage in spiritual conversations with neighbors, coworkers, family, friends, et cetera. And so we're trying to learn what's a good tool, how can we train people to do that? So one of the things, and that's something I wanna grow in. So I gathered a group of about eight of our leaders and I kind of had this posture being a first in learner.
And we actually reached out to a church in Kansas City that's doing an amazing job of using discovery Bible studies to engage their neighbors. And so we reached out to them and said, Hey, we'd love to learn from you. And so this little cohort of our members have been meeting with someone from their church to just learn from them about how to engage neighbors in this way. And that's been incredibly helpful in our ability to do that because we're small.
you know, we have 10 leaders gathering. Well, that's already, you know, 10 to 50, you know, whatever percent of our church. And when that gets in the water at that level, the ability for that to continue to multiply is just really helpful. So I think it's helped us be able to incubate some things and learn together without feeling the rush to feel like now we have to find a way to get this to everyone so quickly. And I do think there that
that pressure might feel less in a smaller church. I've never led a big church, so I just assume it might be a little bit easier in a smaller church.
Yeah, no, I think that's really I think that's a really great insight And and you mentioned it, but I just want to put an exclamation point on it mean I think that that whole idea of you know Being able to take 10 or 12 people to something or you know have a common language among that many people Man that that is such a jumpstart on critical mass in terms of like bringing change You know if you can get that many people through something
Derek (31:58.464)
early on in the process and build ownership among that many people. And the path to ownership among the whole congregation is a little bit shorter because that's a good percentage of your church that's already kind of like moving in that direction. think that's really, you know, that's really an advantage too.
Yeah, well, it's one of the things, and I know Dave mentioned it in the video before us, that I want to have a life worth imitating. Apprenticeship means pulling someone close and having a life that is worth imitating. And I was just challenged to say, I'm not having the kind of spiritual conversations with my neighbors that I want to be having and that I want our people to be having. And so I can stand up front all day long and say, hey, go reach your neighbors, you know.
have spiritual conversations, make disciples, all that, you live as a wince of witness. But if I'm not doing it, then I can't train others to do it. I don't have a lot of business just telling everybody go do something I'm not willing to do. And so it was a challenge for me to say, you know what, I want to step into this. I want to learn how to do this right alongside of our people so that I can eventually become a trainer so that I can be someone who
is able to help teach others how to do this as well.
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Yeah, these darn training environments really expose the trainers, don't they? Man. So hey, I want to I want to shift to talk a little bit about residency programs. So I know you guys are doing some work in this area. And this is, again, something that's that's usually associated maybe with some bigger churches, like the assumption is you have to be at a certain size or scope or have the manpower to pull off a residency program like this. How do you develop a residency program in your context?
Derek (33:44.883)
And what fruit have you seen from that effort?
Yeah. Well, a couple things I'd say about it. One, I would say if we want to be developing leaders and we want leaders, then as the senior leader, I have to pull people close in my life. It's just not going to happen in our church unless we're doing it.
And fortunately, I will say I had the benefit in college of being discipled through a campus ministry called Campus for Savior of or CRU now. And so I had older men pulling me close my entire college career. And then as a result, I started doing it as a sophomore. I'm meeting with freshmen and I'm doing it. I'm just engaged. So it was baked into my growth as a disciple early on. So it's something I've always wanted to do, but
What I started to do is I found a couple of young people in our city who wanted to be trained for ministry. And we started an intern cohort originally. And it was simple. wasn't a ton of information or ton of time. They're already in school somewhere. We relied on our universities and our seminaries to be doing some of that training. But we thought, hey, in the context of a local church, you can take that learning and put it hands on. And so I just started pulling people close.
You know, I a couple of these young guys, I'd have them come over when I'm doing house projects at my house, you know, I have a young family and so we're quite busy. So I said to them, hey, you want more time with me? I want more time with you. Would you come help me paint my walls or, you know, do whatever project? So they just spent time with us. And then those interns stuck around long enough that eventually they became residents. And one of them, actually, we just sent out this year to be a pastor at a local church in the Twin Cities. So we've brought on another church planning resident. And so,
Jeremy (35:33.144)
I think part of it was starting small, starting with what you can do, but it has to be part of our posture as a leader is that we're gonna pull people close, we're gonna invest our lives in them, we're gonna spend time with them, and then those interns can become eventually residents. And I will acknowledge, we have a couple of things going our way here in the Twin Cities. One, we have some local institutions. We have a lot of seminaries and...
know, institutions of higher learning. The other thing, as a church, we have some money, which helped us be able to, you know, and our interns, we were paying them a lot early on, but it did allow us to start some residencies maybe a little quicker than the average church could. But again, I think it was just starting where you can, and then it develops over time, but it has to come from a posture of wanting to invest. So one of our values as a church is raise and release.
because we believe gospel influencers are meant to be catalytically sent and not selfishly collected. And that starts with every one of our members that we are sending them into their workplace, into their neighborhoods, into the world. And it means our key leaders and the leaders we're developing. It means our church needs to devote some of my time to say, in your job description is developing leaders that we're gonna send into the world so we can bless our region and help other churches be healthy as well.
And so it took a lot of commitments early on, but think it's possible. It just takes the first step.
That's great. What a great value raising release. That's a fantastic reminder. Just by way of definition, before we move on, get talk a little bit about what how do you distinguish between intern and resident? What moves that needle? That's all right. No, that's all right. That's all right. I think it's just as you to hear you talk about both of them. I think it's important to just
Dave & Jeremy (37:15.608)
Probably a little more squishy definition than I'd...
Jeremy (37:22.72)
Yeah, intern for us is someone who is much earlier on in their journey development. It is probably, you know, 10 or fewer hours. It's someone who is maybe not even going to be in vocational ministry at some point. They're probably at one of the local institutions, but they don't have to be. And we've done that in a cohort setting typically. Residency, at least at this point in time,
We have something new now. We have a worship resident. That's new for us. So he might kind of break our definition this way. But by and large, our residents have been pastoral residents who are feeling called to vocational pastoral ministry. And we're probably on a two to three year track with them where we're making a significant investment in their lives. They've probably been to seminary or are going or want that level of training, even if they're not in seminary. They want that type of training. And their hope is to be vocationally in ministry at some point.
So that's probably a bit of a pipeline from intern to resident.
super helpful, super helpful. So I want to circle back to kind of our main our main shift here. We're talking about, you know, moving from attending, attendance to apprenticeship. And so, as you've been walking this journey, we've talked about a couple of different aspects of it. What's been the hardest part of shifting people like you've got an old church, you got people have been around for a while. This is shifting imaginations from
being attenders to being apprentices and to be a church that kind of focuses on apprenticeship, what would have been some challenges that have come with that and helping your people to see that shift?
Jeremy (39:06.03)
I'd say one of the biggest challenges is that a lot of members of churches expect their pastors or their staff to give them opportunities for ministry.
X.
Jeremy (39:21.546)
I actually don't say that as negatively against every member of a church, actually we've done this. We've created this We've created a dependency cycle where I want to feel valued, so in order for you to have purpose in your life, you need to come to me. We create this cycle, but it's hard to break. And so one of the biggest shifts was for people to start to see their lives as the primary ministry of our church.
And so this what I would tell people when they would come to me and say, hey, I want to do some ministry. Give me some opportunities for ministry, especially as we're like stripping down all of our old programs, trying to, you know, make it a little bit more clear. And how are we doing this? Less complex, less of a buffet table of ministry options. Then people are saying, what do I do now? Like, I don't have as many things to plug into. And so they'd come and say, when are we gonna get, when are we gonna do some ministry? Like, I want to do some ministry. And what they meant by that was,
I want you to create an outreach program for me to come and volunteer at. I want to be a part of some auxiliary ministry that I can go serve in. And what I would always tell people and the shift I wanted for people to make is, your life is the primary ministry of our church. What you do in your neighborhood, what you do in your workplace, even what you do here on Sunday, when a new family shows up and they've got three young kids and you're someone who is now an empty nester.
your ministry can be go say hello to them, go befriend them, invite them over for lunch, care for that young family. You know what it's like to have gone through that. And so it was that sort of shift where people started to see their very lives as our ministry and the ministry that God has called them to rather than think of ministry as showing up to something the church has put together.
Now it's not that we don't do those things sometimes. We had a buy nothing event in our parking lot this summer where our community could come and engage in some community activities. We still do those things, but we want our church to see their lives as the ministry of our church.
Derek (41:25.698)
That's great. Yeah, I've heard it described as the the Home Depot approach. You can do it. We can help Versus depending on you know, depending on the church to to come up with all the ideas. So that's great So hey, we're gonna wrap this up Jeremy. This has been so incredible. Thank you so much for your insights I think they've been really really helpful and as I think about like the broad group of pastors church leaders that are listening to this podcast from all kinds of sizes and scopes of churches all kind of
ways of doing church, what encouragement or practical steps, is there anything that we haven't quite thought about yet or talked about or that you want to just reinforce that we did already talk about. If somebody's interested in building a culture of apprenticeship, not just attendance, is there any final words of encouragement that you would give to them?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'd say just two things briefly. One, be patient. It takes time. So these shifts take time. So stay at it. And the fruit of that work will be seen. So be patient and stick with it. The second thing I would just say is when we use the language of apprenticeship, can be easy to forget that the one that we're truly apprenticing to is Jesus. And so it's whether it be, you we talked about
All these ministry programs can become exhausting, but the work of discipleship can also become exhausting if we turn it into a new type of legalism. And so fundamentally, there's this great book by Richard Loveless called, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life. And he talks about the precursors of renewal, which is really a recovery of the gospel. And so I just say, when we're teaching people to be apprentices, we always want to remind them, we ourselves are apprentices of Jesus. It is his easy yoke that we're taking on.
And that's what we're pointing our people to. And so never forget the point of it all in the work of ministry that we want people to actually know Jesus, not just a new tool or a new strategy, but the one to whom we're actually pointing them toward.
Derek (43:31.662)
That's really great. Such a great reminder. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom and insights with us. I want you to know we're cheering you on from afar here in the area PA, hoping that the gospel will continue to go forward in Minnesota through your ministry. Thanks so much, Jeremy.
Thanks, Derek. It was great to be on with you. And same, I just am so thankful for everything I heard about you guys are doing out there. So was great to spend time with you.
Amen, man. Thanks. Peace.
Danielle & Derek (44:02.03)
Okay, that was great. hopefully it was helpful. Let's move to what happened this week behind the curtain at Grace. have one. So I started thinking through, we have this really talented person who wants to be involved. Nick actually helped the team kind of set up this podcast studio and he's on the worship team. He is a professor at Slippery Rock. That's a local university, semi-local.
in media studies. And so he has a job, he's been doing it forever, tenured, all the things. That's one of those people that we're kind of like, that's a high capacity volunteer if they have the time. If they're available, they have the time, they're passionate, he would fall right in that lane. So our team had several different meetings with him. High capacity volunteer, just for those who listen. We have a whole category of these folks that are unpaid volunteer leaders that we tried to...
allowed to lead at whatever capacity they want to. We have no limitations in our structure that says paid staff can only do these things and volunteer staff can do these things. We try to lift the lid so that people can rise to any part of our organization that their capacity allows. Yeah, you can supervise a traditional paid person. anything. So after a lot of discussions with him and the team and just with him personally,
And by happenstance this week, the reason I bring it up for this week is that I had three really critical conversations with three different volunteers this week, which doesn't normally I'm a little bit out of that orbit. Like someone will get to me for something, but I'm not like fully rubbing shoulders with people all the time that way. both of those other people had this exact same kind of sensibility about them. And so talk to him again, talk to Nick again. And we came up with a job description.
That we think is gonna be really cool and the thing that I'll read you just kind of the we do our job description have like a role in one sentence like a win Yeah, then just kind of what you're responsible for we try to say if you can't summarize the job in one sentence It's too much. too complex. Yeah, you haven't you haven't done the work of really defining what this especially Yeah, especially for yeah a volunteer for sure. So we're calling it right now. We're calling it a pro the programming mentor
Danielle & Derek (46:28.576)
So, rule in one sentence is to co-create systems and processes that maximize the production team's ability to develop volunteers and leaders through and within their experience in the ministry. So, you know, it could have been co-create systems and processes for the production team. That would be like the task version of that job, which is a version. It's just a lesser vision, I guess.
Yeah, so he was super excited about it. That's awesome. And what I like about this is it really does speak to this kind of Ephesians 4 mentality of like Yeah, we certainly should have job descriptions for people who are doing things around there around our church We would usually think of those folks as volunteers that are stepping into volunteer roles as soon as somebody comes into a kind of a leadership role We want there to always be a people development component to that
You know, I've often said, you know, if you're a church leader and you're running around doing all the ministry yourself, you're actually not doing your job. Because our job from an Ephesians four standpoint is to equip the saints for works of ministry that he gave some to be apostles and prophets. You know, the passage he gave some to be leaders in the church, not to do all the work, but to equip the saints to do the work. And so one of the things I love about this job description is it is very equipping in its language. Your job, your role.
is to mentor and equip other people, to mentor and equip other people, essentially. Which is awesome. I think it'll be cool. We'll see what happens. But I think he's going to end up having a little team of people who do that. So not even just him. he'll be able to... Amazing. Yeah, which will be really cool. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess from my standpoint, we're coming down the home stretch on some of our handcrafted calling courses. And so we're getting to, I think, week five. And so everybody's working on their two words. Part of the handcrafted calling experience is that...
one of the deliverables of the course is that people walk away with a two word calling statement or statement of their life's purpose. And it's really meaningful work. They're drawing from all kinds of different parts of their lives and their experiences and how God wired them and who he put them around and all that. And by the way, one of the people I had a meeting with gave me all that information. They're like, here's all my tests I just did for handcrafted. I was like, yeah. So the.
Danielle & Derek (48:48.524)
But I guess the thing that I would say, it's just so, so rewarding to see people unlocking that in themselves. Because what we're really trying to do is equip people to live out there calling whatever room they walk into. And when they can identify and put words to, this is why God has me on the planet. I just think it makes a life more powerful, more impactful, you know, if you know that. anyway. Yeah, no matter what room I walk into.
Yeah, this is what as a parent, here's what I as a pastor, as a leader, as a employee, employer, whatever. So anyway, the thing that stood out to me this time as I'm working with these people through their two words is from the person who's at a stage of life and a part of their life where they're saying literally my main focus right now is to care for my mother who's in a nursing home. And my life has kind of been focused all the way down to that.
Level yeah versus somebody who's going I'm interviewing to be a college president at a few different universities around the country like And everything kind of in between all of those things and to see this process helping both of those people That's crazy like really really really help. Yeah them. Yeah It's just kind of the universality. I think of the truth of this idea has been
Really, it's brought me to tears a couple of times this week as I'm just talking to them and getting their emails and here's what I'm wrestling through and just like, oh my God, you are doing something so profound in these people's lives that's gonna serve them for a long time. So again, it's just been really awesome. Oh, that's so good. Really awesome. That's really cool. Okay, I think we have a really good tip for today in our tips and tools segment. And this one's close to my heart just being in communications for so long.
And also, I'll be honest, hitting the delete button more times than I would care to admit. So this is from you. This is five tips for responding to aggressive emails. What are you talking about? So, yeah, this one is close to home for lots of years. In fact, one of our previous seasons of this podcast we did from the pastor's inbox.
Danielle & Derek (51:14.35)
and kind of answered answered publicly all the time. We wouldn't have to do anything else. Right. So, yeah, if you missed that, I think it was season one. I think go back to season one and you can hear us responding to some to some emails. But I apologize to some people who respond to me. We did that. Yeah. Anyway, so I finally kind of put together as as our pastors meeting it together, one of the things that comes up more and more frequently is like, I got this email. How do I respond? Can I get some coaching? Yeah.
Again, we don't share names, we don't share details of information, but it's more like concepts of like, what are some principles? So I finally put together some tips for responding to what I've called aggressive emails. And listen, there's some trends right now that are just, it's infuriating actually. It is crazy. And so-called respectable pastors that are coming out and saying these same things, like if your pastor didn't mention...
X, Y or Z this Sunday, it's time to find a new church. I've seen that more times than I could count. is going on? What are we doing? Yeah. So anyway, that it's such a weird thing. So I just feel like even that kind of stuff is amping up the the hate and the environment toward pastors. And so anyway, I think we've all had this experience. If you're listening to this podcast and you're a church leader, you've had the experience of opening your inbox and seeing the dreaded.
first line of like, you know. Subject line, question. Yeah. I know you're doing your best, but. About this Sunday, dot, dot, dot. I don't mean to be critical. Don't take this the wrong way, Several people have mentioned to me. yeah. I don't think this myself, but I'm on behalf of. anyway, not to make light of these things, but there are some trigger phrases.
that church leaders are well aware of. So I've put together this tool. Everybody who subscribes to my email list will get the full thing. I'll just mention one thing here. There's five tips. I'll mention one of them. And actually, there's a little pre tip, is you really do have to... You mentioned the delete button. You really do have to decide who gets a response. And I will just say my policy is if somebody doesn't sign their name,
Danielle & Derek (53:31.502)
I don't respond. I mean I've gotten like concerned attender at gmail.com like five four three two eight at gmail.com like I yeah exactly how concerned are you yeah exactly and again it's like I'm willing to engage in dialogue to help people or to help myself like that's productive yeah but these like lobbing grenades without signing your name is not helpful to anybody no it's not helpful to them either yeah so anyway
That's the first thing is just like who do you respond to and and again? We're in an age now where somebody in three states over can listen to your sermon on us on the internet right and Send you a nasty email about something they don't agree with right to me that person doesn't get the same weight as somebody that's engaged in my congregate exactly You know whatever even if yeah, you gotta be wise about yeah, how much time you spend doing this so anyway, that's good the the one tip that I would just highlight for this podcast today is to
I've phrased it, mischaracterizations without malice. And so I think one of the more helpful things to do, it's easy to get defensive in these things. And again, aggressive emails will often get facts wrong. Yeah, sure. they will miss assign motives to people that are unfair. And I think it's very important as a pastor, church leader to kindly
but firmly clarify what's true without being sharp or defensive or that kind of thing. I think about things that I've heard before. Every one of those worship leaders up there is just doing this for their ego. And to be able to go, listen, I know these people. I pray with these people on our knees together in the green room before the... There's nobody about ego up there. And certainly ego can creep in. You wanna be fair about it, but like...
That's a mischaracterization. Yeah, to say 20 people have... Right. Yeah. And that everybody's doing... Or, you know, our church never prays is another one I Or one of my favorites from a year or so ago, somebody said, I've never heard a single time you mentioned the word sin in one of your sermons. So the accusation is all this fluff and whatever. You've never said the word sin. And so...
Danielle & Derek (55:51.572)
It wasn't hard for me just to add facts to that and just say, I just did a quick search of my transcripts over the last three months. And here's how many times I actually use the word sin. So it's not being a jerk. It's just saying, hey, let's calm down. Your facts are wrong. Let me give you some actual facts. And there's no malice. And just like stating here's actually what's true and here's what you've maybe missed or gotten wrong or whatever.
So I have an example so with each of these tips and comes with an example So here's my example for correct mischaracterizations without mouth you mentioned that no one has reached out to families in crisis In fact, our care team has been walking with several families Personally, I realized that that may not have been visible to you. So I wanted to clarify what's been happening behind this That's good. So again, it's just you're just Correcting their perception with some actual facts
And it doesn't have to be mean or defensive or nasty. It's just going, here's what's actually, I realize you probably wouldn't see this, but here's what's actually happening behind the scenes. So anyway, yeah, I think people will benefit from that document. Like I said, there are five tips for responding to aggressive emails. Great. So if you want that document, that tip sheet or any other resources, you can always go to derrickstanford.com forward slash reinventing church for those.
I think that's it for today. So if you like the episode, you can tell us by leaving a rating or review or, you know, send an email with some good facts and you'll get a response. You don't want to miss what's coming up next. We're finishing up the second half of these shifts that we're going through. And we'd to have you join us. Feel free to share this with someone that you think might enjoy it. And like I said before, for detailed show notes, related resources, you can go to DerekSanford.com.
Thanks for watching.