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Church Leader, shift your focus from mere institutional insights to individual transformation. Be intentional. Join hosts Doug Parks (CEO and Co-Founder of Intentional Churches) and Erin Johnston (Co-Executive Pastor of Canyon Ridge Christian Church) as they share weekly thought-provoking discussions and actionable takeaways that will resource you to help your people encounter Jesus. Take the step toward authentic discipleship of your congregation so you can mobilize the ninety-nine to reach the one.
JEFF BENNETT: When you think about church planters, they'll come to me almost like they think I have a vending machine. Church planters? Stadia? Yes. It's like my response to them and answer to your question is, where are the next church leaders coming from? Is they are within your church.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Well hey everyone, welcome to the Intentional Churches Podcast. My name is Erin Johnston, co-executive pastor at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. And I'm here with two my friends, Jeff Bennett and our good friend Doug Parks from I.C. Hi, Doug.
DOUG PARKS: Hey there. Erin. Jeff, great to see you.
JEFF BENNETT: All right. Thanks for having me. It's good to be on there.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Hey, Jeff, would you go ahead and just introduce yourself to our listeners? I know you are a big deal in the church planning world. Really? In the church world in general. But would you just, go ahead and introduce yourself? Who are you? What are you up to these days?
JEFF BENNETT: Absolutely not sure about the big deal part, but. Yeah. Work for stadia, church planting. Plant a church outside of Atlanta, Georgia, 20 years ago, pass the baton there. Moved to Las Vegas. Your home? Yes. Well, yeah. Absolutely. Work for the new church there. Started doing some part time work with Stadia and then came on the stadia team in 2016. And so, yeah, stadia helps you start thriving, growing, multiplying churches. So we work with church planters, we work with established churches to help them think about multiplication and get in the multiplication game. And we serve networks and denominations as well. And, just really kind of in a word, stadia acts as a guide, and partner for new church leaders and established church leaders to help them pursue multiplication dreams. They have, married, wife Lisa and two college age daughters. So.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Okay. Right on. That's awesome. I know for many of our listeners just been so deeply helped by the work of stadia. So, just grateful to have you with us. In this season of the podcast, we are answering questions, maybe some of the biggest questions that church leaders, have. And so I want to go ahead and pose a question your way. And that is this. Where are we going to get future leaders in our churches? Like, I think everywhere we turn, there's we're having a hard time finding people the higher I know, there's like a hiring crisis in ministry. And so, Jeff, from your perspective, where are we going to get our future leaders?
JEFF BENNETT: Yeah, it is a great question. And it is being asked constantly by church leaders. I agree, it's the it is the most common question I get asked, which I do think before I even answer the question. I think that's a positive. I think the fact that leaders are asking this is a good sign, because they are noticing that the pipeline is drying up, and they're realizing something has to give, so I do I have pastors come to me all the time. Even when you think about church planters, they'll come to me and they'll say, hey, we're looking for a church planner for for this area, you know, age plan, this, this kind of experience. Almost like they think I have a vending machine, church planters, stadia. Yes. Slide. You know, I don't have a storage unit somewhere. Let me go find that church planner that you want. Yeah.
ERIN JOHNSTON: You're not holding hostage a bunch of church planters just.
JEFF BENNETT: Ready to go. We're not. I wish we were warmer. We are not. So. So my my response to them and answer to your question is, where are the next church leaders coming from? Is they are within your church. And and that is at the end of the day, the answer? Yeah. They are sitting in your church. They're in your congregation. They're in your small groups. They're in your student ministry. That is where the future church leaders are coming from.
DOUG PARKS: Well, in there. And if I can jump in, Jeff, I would add, like the way we think about an intentional church is, is they're actually coming from the relational reach zone. If we go even further back of your people, like the people that you're reaching today, your people are reaching evangelistic Lee or the potential future leaders, including your student ministries and kids.
JEFF BENNETT: So absolutely.
DOUG PARKS: I'm like you. It's like everybody thinks we have I have this magic vending machine. I get asked twice this week, do you know anybody who has a youth guy or gal that's looking so absolutely no.
JEFF BENNETT: I and part of my story, that I share that was just very impactful for me. So like I think about my home church. So I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. So when we were living in Atlanta, a few years after we planted, I get this call from our home church, and they were inviting me to come back to a youth group reunion at my home church. And I'm like, has anybody ever heard of a youth group reunion? I've heard of high school reunions. I've never heard of a youth group reunion, but it sounded fun. So I was like, sure, I'd love to reconnect with, folks. So they had invited everybody here that had been in our student ministry, like late 80s. Early 90s to come back, bring their families for weekend. And so they planned this whole weekend of activities, if that's couple of us preached at services on the weekend. And I had this moment on Saturday afternoon at the church, we were in the church gymnasium, and a lot of folks had come back that I'd grown up with. And I'm looking around the room and I'm like, well, there's a lot of us that went into some type of ministry. And and different. I mean, church planters, lead pastors, worship, children's youth, but also missionaries. Also Christian fiction writer, just lots of different things. And I just was like, this is not normal, right? Like a really high percentage of us went into some type of ministry. And so that weekend and really the the weekend beyond or the couple weeks beyond, I just start reflecting on it, thinking, you know, what did my home church do to create this kind of legacy? And I just upon reflection, I realize my home church, you know, they saw us, they loved us, and they intentionally invested time, talent and treasure to disciple and develop and eventually send us, into ministry. So I'm not sure that's as rampant these days, normalize, but it needs to be. And to your point, Doug, I think I look at some of those students from when we were growing up. I mean, they came to church because of us. Our relational reached, inviting them to be a part. And now many of them are in ministry.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Oh, man, it's so good. I think one of the temptations of church leaders is when we need a leader to fill a position or, to do a specific task, we immediately look outside the walls. We want to go find the expert. We want to go find the person that, you know, has just all these years of experience and is ready to jump in and just pick up the baton. And instead, if we took all of that energy because, for any person that's listening right now, you know, it takes energy to find great leaders. It takes energy, time, all of that. But instead, what I hear you guys both saying is like, if we took all the energy it takes to look outside our walls and instead spent that time and energy investing in the people inside our walls, that's going to be the key to raising up the next generation of leaders, and it will cost us something. It's not easy. It's not convenient. It's not the simple route. But I hear both of you saying it's the future. The future does not have a vending machine of amazing church leaders with tons of experience, just ready to be plugged into whatever ministry they find. But we're going to have to raise raise people up. Doug, would you speak for just a second of just what are you seeing nationally in this kind of concern around where are we finding our leaders? You know, I hear you saying, people come to you asking if you have, certain people, you know, ready to go or if you know anybody, but maybe you just expand on that, like I think it I'm not overstepping to say there is a church leader crisis happening in the church in America in terms of a, of a shortage. And so maybe, Doug, would you speak to that just from your national perspective?
DOUG PARKS: Yeah, I, I think, Erin, that something happened somewhere in the, in what Jeff called the pipeline. And I don't know, you know, I like I like his story of his church because I am I'm in living example of a small church in a small town. That was very intentional. I was reached as a teenager and that church developed. That youth pastor spoke in to me. That full time Christian work and being in ministry is something you could do. And I don't know where the breakage happened. I don't know if it's our kind of addiction in church leadership to the silver bullet mentality and speed, and we've kind of just abandoned this idea of the church first and foremost needs to be a developmental entity. And somewhere along the line that just got broken. You know, we stopped our camps, stopped working as well. Our Bible colleges stopped working as well. The one thing, though, that I'm encouraged by, just being alongside stadia, Jeff, and this their commitment to building out the pipeline. I was in a conversation, just this week with Larry Fraley. If you don't know him, he is on staff at Christchurch of the Valley in Phenix. I think they're averaging Jeff, like 40,000 or something a week right now through all their games. And Larry's on the board of a group called CII, Christ in Youth who puts on youth conferences. And he he just rattled off this thing that, I just said to him, man, we all have to link arms to help figure out how to do this. And their vision is, how do we get 30,000 students into full time Christian ministry and partner with churches, to do that? So I think there's two sides. I think that that is one youth ministry has to come back to those roots of calling people to, full time Christian ministry. And then the other side of it is that there are people in your church right now who are leaders that develop mentally. You can, pour into and bring in and recruit who may be in the marketplace. And then the second thing I think we just really have to commit to is there are great leaders in our all of our churches right now who are grown adults who need to be challenged to be thinking about taking these skills, experiences and talents that they've learned in the marketplace or in education or other places, and applying them inside of the kingdom. And I think if we had that mentality first, instead of what you said, Erin, this let's go out and find from outside that first and foremost, our churches, we're thinking develop mentally from the get go, from our students, from the people were reaching from the people who were already with us, that these are the people that need to solve this. I think it is a crisis in church leadership right now. There's just not enough people who are leading in church.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Yeah. It's so good. Jeff, I know you have some, like, convictions around this conversation and this topic, and you've kind of already shared one of those with us, which is we have to stop looking from the outside and really start looking inside. But would you kind of just, like, double click on, on this conversation for us, just in terms of, your conviction around the future of church leaders, where they're going to come from, what that what that's going to look like, could you speak to that and your conviction around that? Yeah.
JEFF BENNETT: Yeah. You know, one of the things I, I really believe and I think so while we're talking about this is, I believe the lack of well prepared leaders is the single most limiting factor in church leadership, in church multiplication. I mean, it is the limiting factor. And to your point, you know, Doug, I don't know what's happened within the church in the last few decades that's gotten us away from your experience in your home church. Mine. My experience as well. I do think there's probably been as we've grown, as you guys talk about the institutional approach of a church. I, you know, I think a lot of higher staff hires have gone to be putting on a great event on the weekend. And they're not they're not people developers. They're event producers. And and I think we have felt that shift and and because we do have so much responsibility. We've gotten away from thinking about, who we can be developing. I also think that, when. So here's another conviction I have. Not only do I believe we've got to grow them up from within, but I believe, that. What every leader you need to at least begin fulfilling your church's part of the Great Commission is already within your church. And I have pastors push back at that and they may go, well we don't really have those kind of leaders in our church I like. Yes you do. You just don't realize it. the reality is you have people in your church who are leading in the marketplace right now who have started their own company and are leading, who are leading in the school system, who are leading it and whatever, whatever it may be. But we've not we've gotten away from realizing hate, those marketplace skills they use, they can be used in ministry. We just need to walk alongside of them and help them see that. And it doesn't mean they all go into full time ministry somewhat. Again, we we have to stop thinking about just plugging in volunteer roles within the church, which again, oftentimes we have so many needs there. That's where we focus and start thinking about developing people to be missionaries wherever they're at, not just filling a volunteer role. So, you know, that's just that lack of well prepared leaders being the limiting factor, but then realizing, hey, the reality. And I think you see this in the church at Antioch in acts 13, they have leaders and they developed people and they sent out. And there's nothing to indicate in the book of acts that the church, Antioch was an outlier, that, you know, they were just special. So, I mean, we have every indication that, no, this actually should be the norm for the church then and now. But a lot of times we don't think like that.
ERIN JOHNSTON: One of my maybe maybe it's a good trait. Maybe it's a bad trait is, I, I like to name elephants in the room. I like to call things what they are and just kind of, speak truth. It's like I can't help it. And so I feel like what I. What I hear you guys saying is, if I could summarize in my own words our church staffs and the way we think about hiring and the leadership of our church has become so focused on excellence that we have forgotten the like gift of development. We have been so focused on the it's like creating an excellent product that we have forgotten the people development side and the like, relational side of what it means to be a church leader. We're looking for such experts in like, niche, niche, like contributions from people that we discount so many who can who can bring just a really great contribution. Doug, do you have further thoughts on that?
DOUG PARKS: I, I just agree so much with what you guys, what you are saying. And I look at my own leadership in the local church as an executive pastor for a number of years, and I am guilty. You know, there was there was a run where I think what Jeff said is very accurate. We hired specialist to produce events that created a need to plug and play volunteers, and we had very little eye toward the transformation of the individuals heart, almost assuming the event in the content that we're producing or giving would change people's heart. I think that is the call back that we're fighting for in intentional churches is, hey, we're in the transformation of the heart business, Jesus's. And we have to look at every strategy that we're deploying, develop mentally of. How are we challenging that in people? And, I mean, this on this topic of, future leaders and all these leaders being in your church already, I want you to not just think staff, because part of the the rut we're in is we're thinking about future staff almost all the time instead of, could we do this with less staff and put people in volunteer positions that could do some of this work, instead of just event production for a weekend or a children's event? So I see it happening more and more, but I think we just are going to have to hold each other accountable, that when we hire, we're hiring less specialists and more developers of people. That's what we're on the hunt for when we hire, and then providing these a opportunities we had at Cane Ridge, we had this volunteer that was an engineer, petroleum engineer for Halliburton, and worked in Saudi Arabia for years and years and years. And he, in essence, worked almost full time alongside me as a volunteer, as a ownership rep on our building project. And we didn't pay him, you know, and he was great. I think we have to have more. We give more places like that for especially our marketplace people to, to, engage their gifts in the church. So.
JEFF BENNETT: Hey, Doug, I would say something to that, too. And I think what you're saying scares some pastors and and here's why. I find that one of the things we typically do is we think about handing out authority and titles before we hand out responsibility. And so there's some danger of just going after that person in the congregation who's not a staff member. And I'm going to go give them a title and this role with it. And it's like no that's not what you do first. You give them responsibility. Now eventually you may need to give them authority. Eventually you may want to give them a title. But you don't have to do that at first. Like give them responsibility. And then as they are developed, as they're discipled and you see what are some of their gifted, you know, gifts and strengths, then you start to realize, okay, we can trust them with more responsibility and with more authority as well. Yeah.
ERIN JOHNSTON: And when everybody is like activated or empowered to bring a piece of who they are to like, offer, you know, to fulfill a responsibility when everyone is like when the culture is created, that everybody's invited to do that the titles and the hierarchy and the authority matter less because everybody's bringing something to the table. I want to pivot in this conversation to kind of some of the more practical side for any of our listeners who are thinking, okay, like, I want to be a developer of people, or they're thinking, man, I have a staffing crisis. We we have tried looking everywhere else for leaders around us. What are we going to do? Before we get to what should they do to start developing the future leaders in their church? I want to get there, but before I do, I want to ask this question. If either of you. This is an all play to answer, what? What are the questions that church leaders should be asking as they reflect on this in their own church? Like, what are the things they should be asking to reflect on? How are we doing at developing future leaders, or how are we doing about thinking about the future, the next generation of leaders in our churches? Any like powerful questions either of you have that you would offer church leaders to spend some time reflecting on?
DOUG PARKS: Yeah, I mean, out of the chute. I am like, I want every church leader listening to stop thinking about the program. The other staff members, their up line supervisor, and I want them to ask themselves the question, the audit question of what? Who are the people I can point at in the last year or two that I have invested in to develop? And what was true about how I recruited them and how I invested in them, and start documenting that a little more part of. Getting to this kind of developmental mindset involves just truthful last 10% of truth. Self-awareness on what am I doing to contribute? And out of that then you can lead others. But if you're not doing it's like anything else. If you're not developing people as a pastor and leader, how can you expect your staff and others to be doing it?
ERIN JOHNSTON: So good. Jeff, do you have any questions that church leaders should be asking themselves to reflect on this?
JEFF BENNETT: I think of I mean, I'm a church planner. I think a great question is, what is your church's multiplication dreams? And I think talking about that, dreaming about it, you realize you can't do it yourself. You're going to need others. And what I find is most pastors have thought about it, and they've never communicated it to their leadership or from their stage on a weekend. And I think that's one of the first steps they needed to need to take is don't keep it to yourself. Share it. I think some other things in the development piece. I do think it's like, okay, if we're going to be a multiplying church, if we're going to if we're going to raise up leaders. To Doug's point, who am I working with right now? And how do I need to change my schedule in this, is going to be significant if they're going to make the transition.
DOUG PARKS: Jeff, I want to ask you this, man we covered this last season a little bit, but multiplication is a buzz word in church leadership. Give us your definition. What do you mean when you're saying multiplication dreams?
JEFF BENNETT: How you're going to. I mean, you know, use, reproduce. It's obviously a common word as well. How are you going to reproduce yourself? And and it's all across the board, not just campus or new church, but a group, a service, I mean, a ministry. How how are you going to help others do what you do and help them help somebody else become that as well. So it's really that. Yeah. Another buzzword disciple. But disciple and others to disciple others, not just it doesn't just end with you. And so obviously that does get into multiple campuses or a new churches of folks are sending out. But I also think we make it more complicated than it needs to be. We will tend, and I say that working with the church, my organization, it's easy for Pasco to how are we going to like plant another church. It's like, no, start with how are you going to develop the people within? Like what is your discipleship development? I look at church, Antioch. I'm not sure they were sitting there worried about who they were going to send out because it says, actually, the Holy Spirit tapped them on the shoulder who they were going to send out, and it was through worship that they were lost. Not everybody was sent out. Everybody was developed. And then the Holy Spirit made it clear who needed to go. So I think sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves. We're looking for the next church planner. It's like, and just start developing people to multiply themselves to, to reach their one to do ministry. Then, you know, it becomes obvious who needs to go if you're to speak into that.
DOUG PARKS: If we have this tool inside of in digital churches, we've talked about it before, but it is really helpful to think about what you're saying. And it's called the acts one eight model. And basically it's representing the multiplication of campuses or church plants are byproducts of a root level proposition that involves every believer in your church committing to the Great Commission as a personal mission statement. And in doing that, they will multiply themselves, become people, developers. And some of these leader, issues we have will be gone. We have to have a generosity mentality around it. Even sending like and the church in Antioch did.
JEFF BENNETT: Yeah, yeah. Establishing a culture of discipleship and development that that promotes servant leadership, providing opportunities at every level of church participation, inside and out to, to foster growth of future church leadership and multiplication. It's huge.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Yeah. I think, I love this conversation. What I hear us saying is the future of church leaders are right here. We already have them alongside us, with us. And so we just need to be spending more effort really, looking inside our walls instead of outside of our walls and taking intentional effort to develop those people. I know for us, we we take time in staff meetings to say this is our developmental time. Every single one of us still has room to grow in our own development. And so even just across your staff, yes, you as individuals, developing people. But how are you like making even the idea of development like building that into the calendar of how you live and work together as a staff team? Even in our volunteers, we do, you know, weekly circle ups and a piece of that circle up is developmental. It's not just talking about the thing that's right in front of us. And so I just wonder, what is the five minute developmental piece that you can do with people in a circle up before service? Or what is the 20 minutes of development you can do with your staff once a month to just start building in this idea that, if you're around here, we don't just focus on the thing we're doing, but we focus on who we're becoming. And I think that language of who are you becoming? Who are we becoming, is really important and builds in this idea of just this developmental mindset. I, I got really practical there. I would love to ask both of you as well. You've both said, every church leader should be reflecting on who they themselves are developing, and they should be thinking about how am I reproducing who I am and someone else so that they can reproduce that or multiply that in someone else, and so on and so forth. Is there any other practical advice you would offer, for church leaders or whoever's listening as they take the next steps towards trying to think about how to raise up their future church leaders around them? Any other practical advice you would offer?
JEFF BENNETT: So I'll, I'll give you a couple questions that are really good to ask and can really lead to some practical things. So a good friend of mine, Sean Sears, he ask this question, he says, if God supernaturally revealed to you that you were going to die on Saturday night, and this is not a great morbid thought here. But but but it is a great question. If God supernaturally revealed to you that you were going to die on Saturday night and you had to hand off your ministry to two people inside your church, who would you hand it off to? You have to. And and again, remember, you don't have to give them authority. You don't have to give them a title. But who would those two people be? Because again, if you're thinking, I don't know that having leaders. Well, no, you have to choose because you're not going to be here after Saturday night. And so it kind of forces you to okay, now start spending some time with them. Start developing them. And so the other question in this question I ask pastors regularly is what would it look like if for you to invest 10% of your workweek to raising up the next generation of church leaders? And I know every pastor works more than 40 hours, but let's just call it four hours. Okay. Like, what would you do differently next week? Like, you can start now. No. You don't have to have a whole residency program in place. You don't have to like all the things we tend to go to thinking we have to programs all of that. Like, no. Right now for you personally. What would that look like next week? I think those are some, you know, practical questions to ask and, and then some other practical things. It's like literally make a list of everything you do. And then start thinking about what can only I do. What, what can I do if I don't have to. What can I, what should I not even before. And then bring people along. Get them. Do it with them. Get them to do it like it's just some real practical things like that. And I love Erin. Everything you're talking about is the key is you're intentional, like you're having intentional conversations. You're taking time. And it doesn't take a lot of time to change the culture and to model something else.
ERIN JOHNSTON: So good. We're heading to the end of our conversation here. But, Doug, any any final thoughts or things that you would add as we kind of conclude this conversation?
DOUG PARKS: Yeah, I think I want to fight for this in church leaders. And that is, we get so. Obsessed with getting the job done. Getting the next thing done. Getting the checkmark that we forget. The way Jesus exemplified. Development of people was very dynamic. He was doing work to develop the heart, transform the heart as they were walking somewhere or teaching something or. So if we could just adopt a mindset as church leaders that. Our work is dynamic. Yes, we are going to take care and teach kids about the Bible. But how can I dynamically develop not just the kids, but the workers in the room, the other leaders? It is a it's like it begins with what Jeff said, awareness. But it is a mindset shift to not just have the goal being a checkmark, it is the transformation of the heart. That's what I want to fight for in church leaders that we are in the transformation of the heart business, not the producing of a business.
ERIN JOHNSTON: Totally. Oh my goodness, this conversation is so good. And really, we're just scratching the surface. But, our hope for you listeners is that you will walk away from this just really reflecting on what is my next step in thinking about the development of the future church leaders that I have direct influence over, and maybe taking some of the questions that have been, posed today and just spending some time reflecting and maybe sitting down with someone you trust and asking those questions and getting really honest about where you're at and maybe what God has in mind for you next. And so, Jeff, so grateful for you jumping in with us on the podcast today. It's just been a gift to have you. And thanks for listening to the Intentional Churches podcast.
JEFF BENNETT: Thank you Erin. Thank you Doug.
DOUG PARKS: Thanks Jeff.