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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.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:00:00] We are live at the Intentional Churches Conference. We're live. Right? We're live.
ALL [00:00:04] Yes, we are live. Let's go. It's pretty awesome.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:00:13] Well, welcome everyone to the Intentional Churches podcast. My name is Erin Johnston. I'm the co-executive pastor at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. I'm here with Doug Parks, who is CEO and co-founder of Intentional Churches based out of Las Vegas. Hello, Doug.
DOUG PARKS [00:00:30] Hey, Erin, good to see you live. Not on zoom.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:00:33] Live and in person. We've also got Allie Bryant, who's the strategic alignment executive at Trader's Point in Indianapolis right?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:00:41] That is correct.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:00:42] Hello, Allie. Welcome. So glad you're here. We've got Bishop McCray, who's the senior pastor and CEO of the Experience Christian Church right here in Orlando, Florida.
DOUG PARKS [00:00:53] Glad to be.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:00:53] Here. Welcome, welcome. And we've got Mike Hickerson, who's the lead pastor at Mission in Ventura, California.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:01:00] That's right. Ventura. So that's right. Churros. But yeah.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:01:03] All right. Let's get that right. Well, here at the conference, we had people submit questions, questions that that church leaders are facing. And really, that's been the heartbeat of this entire season three of the podcast, which is what are the questions that church leaders are facing? And one of the things I've kind of said at the beginning of every episode is if you're a church leader for five minutes, you probably have more questions than answers. At least you probably should, right? And so we took some time yesterday to gather some questions from the people here at the IC conference to just say, what are the things that you were wondering about? What are the things that kind of keep you up at night? What are the things that you're exploring? And so, I've got a list of those questions right here. We're going to try to just get through as many of those questions as we can, and just try to have kind of a dynamic conversation around this. So you guys ready. Let's go. All right. Let's go ahead and jump in. Several of the questions were really around this idea of building culture. How do we how do we help develop culture? How do we bring people into the culture that we really desire? And so that's kind of where I want to start our conversation, if that's all right. I am curious, like, how do we help everybody on our team? Go the direction we hope people go. So let me read this specific question. We're just going to start with a zinger. All right. Is that all right. And then we'll move from there. This question that I'm sure one church leader asked, but many people have experienced is how do we deal with people on the team who are anchoring us down from moving forward? So they've been on staff for some time. They are great, but they don't share some of the key culture, mission, vision with our church. They say they do, but their actions say otherwise. So there was like a subtle groan in the room when I said that. So if you couldn't hear that just in the recording, I just want to emphasize that that's what happened when I read this. And so, Mike, I'm going to throw to you to start this question. How do we deal with people on the team who aren't moving forward? And really, the question behind that is like, how do we align people in the direction we want to go?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:03:06] Aspiring an option? Not.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:03:10] Step one, 2 or 3.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:03:11] No, no, no, that's joking aside, they can be great people and humans, but they may not be great teammates and so like to not be aligned. I would have a that would be a hard for me of that to call them great as a teammate and that they've been around and they're anchoring us down. I think adult joking aside, where I would start is like, that's why it's, the mission has got to be so personal, like the Great Commission has got to be personally lived out, not institutionally lived out. And so if if that's not happening on a personal level, that would I would have some questions that that's where I would start.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:03:44] Yeah. That's great.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:03:45] I also jump in there as well. I think that is not just, where they are now. We have to look at where they were when we first identify them. And look at sometimes ministry is transfer transformational. That where we start may not be where we end. And I think the church struggles with allowing people who were once great to find a new position.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:04:09] Yeah. Because the church growth is their church complexity is dynamic. It's always changing and growing. And so if we're not personally developing as staff to catch up with the complex, then we're going to find ourselves left behind. Even if we just stay static and we're the same type of skilled player for lack of a better term. But the the organization has gotten more complex. So, I mean, you drop this all the way through Allie. So I know I want to hear your title again so you can explain it to us I love it.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:04:36] Yeah. Well, to answer that question, my title is Strategic Alignment Executive. So basically focused on the execution or the work that we do and making sure it's aligned to our strategy in order to advance our mission. And so when you're looking at kind of how we function and how we operate, that's kind of the area that I live in a lot. I was going to reference something along that line when they used the term anchor, I would ask, I would use that same term and I would just say, well, are there is there a way to clarify your staff values and anchor them to that? So if they're anchoring you down from moving forward, like staff values for us have always been incredibly important because we can hire and fire to be a little crass, but like around those. And so clarity is kindness. I think we all love clarity. And so if we can really if you can align your staff to those, that has been really beneficial for us.
DOUG PARKS [00:05:27] I think the, but I'm going to back up kind of as the trend. We're seeing it intentional churches across the country. And that is this idea of misalignment is for real. And it's probably the greatest headwind to church leadership. Right. And nobody really talks about misalignment and what part it plays. So then if I enter into the exact, question that's being asked, I really think about, can you get to the root of the problem? What is the actual problem you're trying to solve with the person? You know what I'm saying? Is it actually a character issue is the misalignment in character because that's a different developmental thing than, oh, they're not on board with kind of a scriptural mandate or a core value issue, you know what I'm saying? You got to really know what the core is.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:06:14] So we have three C's that we hire for, and it's character, competency and culture. And so even your question of like is the misalignment in character or is it in a competency job performance issue or is it in, you know, kind of like their their cultural fit, the vibe of things?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:06:32] I would add a C just capacity. Yes. Because do they have the ability is will they be able to grow in capacity.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:06:39] Yeah. Any other seats?
BISHOP MCRAE [00:06:41] Cadence.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:06:41] Calling.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:06:42] Ok. Wow.
DOUG PARKS [00:06:43] Yeah. What do you mean by that.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:06:46] Do they have the ability? I'm used to, so I went to HBCU, Florida University.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:06:51] The only let's go shout out.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:06:52] Yeah. Great. Awesome. And so, but, I'm used to drum majors. And so with the drum major, you think about, especially, in the band, the drum major stands, he turns, he blows his whistle. When he turns, he no longer turns back. Do they have the capacity or the abilities to follow at the pace of the drum major? Because sometimes that's our interruption as well.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:07:16] Wow, that's really good. I think sometimes. As as leaders in the church, we set culture or we hope to set culture. We set values we have. Some of us even have these like value statements or mission statements or whatever, which are all good things. But if we're honest at times, they're a little aspirational. Right? And I think it's really important to get a read on the pulse of what are people actually experiencing. Like I, I push on this all the time, but like, let's do some wide listening across our staff and even key volunteers and ask the question, how would you describe our culture? If you had to describe our culture in a phrase or a sentence, what would you describe it as? And see, does that align with who were actually trying to be, you know.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:07:57] Can I have a just a practical nugget here? Yeah. This is something that I learned a couple weeks ago that I thought was just a great idea. So get a staff team together, whatever level of the organization you want to pull in, but beforehand, just send them three questions. Name one word that describes our culture right now. If you could change anything, what would it be? And, you know, anything that you would want to that you're celebrating right now or something like that. But they have to bring that to the meeting written down. And then you literally go around and you say, okay, youth leader, what are the things that you wrote down? Okay, worship leader, what are the things? And there's no groupthink or dialog, but you get straight from the horse's mouth kind of where they see the culture, because I think it can be swayed a lot of time if you do an open collaboration.
DOUG PARKS [00:08:41] Yeah, I think I would. I want to back up to this idea values and can do a little definition a little bit from what what we see typically we when we show up in a church, oftentimes they've got the church core values that we all have that everybody thinks are creative. But you know, I've seen a lot of them. And it's like authentic relationships.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:09:01] Doug is basically saying you're not creative. That what you're saying.
DOUG PARKS [00:09:04] That preaching, inspiring worship, radical generosity, you know what I'm saying? Like, we've done these things, but oftentimes what we find is some of the stuff you're talking about, these behavioral values, how we're going to act and behave as we do our work are not clear. Most of them are oral tradition. They've not been operationalized except by a lot of times. You only know it when you've stepped on it wrongly. What that behavioral value is. And at the end of the day, then what you guys are talking about, I love how do you operationalize those behavioral values and reward the ones you want to create the culture.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:09:42] Yeah. We would I mean, we had a whiteboard that we would just say when we stepped on those behavioral, let's, let's write it down and put it on the board so that we can begin to operationalize it. Like, you can't delegate. What you can't define is one of ours. And so for us, like I'm an intuitive leader, it's in my head I'm going to give you something to do. But then I'd get mad that you didn't do it the way I wanted you to do it, but I didn't define what I wanted you to do. So I can't really empower you if I'm not. So we have to constantly, we're saying. And if we're delegating something, we wanted to find the win that just want like an example.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:10:11] And what you celebrate usually gets like duplicated. So we would do we do a digital honor board where you get to honor other people. But it's all through the seven behaviors which fall out of our three staff values. And then at the end of the year, we do an all staff awards. So if anybody is a fan of The Office, kind of like the Dundies, where we make it really, really fun. The Dundies. Yes. You guys see that Chili's?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:10:34] Chili's?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:10:35] Yeah. No, it's not not, it's a Chili's and they don't get little trophies. But I will say it has. It's made it a fun, celebratory thing of like where to go and you call out people. So I think that was just one little thing that we did to operationalize.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:10:49] Can we do a couple of your do your seven behaviors?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:10:52] Yeah. Yeah. So the three so the three staff values are humble, hungry and healthy. And then under each one of those there's a couple behaviors. So under humble it would be things like be above the line. So basically make sure you ask more questions before just jumping to conclusion things like that. So yes make bold moves is another one. So making sure we're multiplying things like that.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:11:16] One of the things I am loving about the shape this podcast is taking is we're trying to have like use some real practical examples. And so I would love to move to just like a story that one of you has, because the original question was about this person has apparently a leader or staff member in their organization who is just they love him as a person, but they're just not on board. Have you ever had somebody that you just loved? But it was clear that they were just not on board or they were not, you know, bought into the to the vision or mission and that, you and your team were able to help walk in the direction of the vision or mission.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:11:51] I actually had a situation, and I just had to release the person, but I release them through giving them the permission to be released themselves. And I think just transparency in conversations sometimes with foster, because there are certain places and phases that you get into ministry that, just the common strategies and systems just won't work. And we have to get real into relationships again to find out, like, where's your heart in this? What do you desire for this? And then be fine as a leader in identifying that maybe you didn't do the best. Some things aren't repairable, I believe, as it relates to work. I think things can be repaired and, restored as it relates to relationship. But, let's just be honest on both sides of the table about how do we move forward so they both win.
DOUG PARKS [00:12:42] I'm curious. You may not want to share this because you never know who might listen, but can you talk about how you helped them release themselves?
BISHOP MCRAE [00:12:51] Well, I set a safe zone for conversation. In the safe zone for conversation is no judgment for me. No judgment from you. Let's talk issues. Facts. Let's talk desires and passions. Let's talk future. I'm reminded of a senior leader out of Los Angeles, California. Who who teaches a lot about promoting people, which is actually firing people. And so he would promote them in such a way. Make it feel so good. Like, you know. Hey, I need to release you to do what God has called you to do. And it's actually a release from what they were doing. But that's also a mental attack sometimes against the person who they work with. So for the senior leader, it may be a mental attack against them. And you just have to be comfortable relationships. And I think that's what we're failing a lot in church. We're making so much spiritual and we're not being relational. And if you're relational and give the right platform, I think people will really tell you what they want.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:13:53] Yeah. I think as leaders, we're to we're like gifted. What I read biblically is we're gifted to build up the body. So if part of the body is not thriving and we aren't brave enough or courageous enough or helpful enough, or servant leader enough to come alongside somebody on our team and go, like, you're not thriving, like, why would we not like that? Feels like a abdicating leadership to me. And she got to lean in.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:14:18] And we have to we have to. And with that in mind, we have to consider. Because one of the leader's thoughts always, and I know for me especially, is the loss of a member. We can't have genuine conversations unless we're open for that loss of membership. And I think that's what holds us back. Yeah.
DOUG PARKS [00:14:36] Fear. Yeah. Fear.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:14:37] Scarcity. Yeah.
DOUG PARKS [00:14:38] Scarcity mindset. I had a. This is a really good one for us as church leaders. A mentor of mine literally said, Christ follower said fear is of the devil. And how much of our leadership are we having to wrestle with around issues like this, of the fear of loss? Loss of relationship? Yeah. It's just we got to be on alert in our own spiritual formation. How much is fear governing?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:15:05] And I think we've got, voices in our head. Some of them need counseling, but voices in our head that are like, there's people that are crowds or people in our head that are causing us to make decisions that may not be the calling that God has for us, but we know that they're there. And so we make decisions out of fear.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:15:25] Yeah. That's so good. I think we're, we're starting to get around this idea that first of all there's easy like technical solutions to a situation like this. And one of those is do they keep working here or do they not. Right. But I think the the way I oh I'll use a word like the adaptive way forward. Right is okay. What needs to happen in me as a leader, what interior work do I need to do. And then how do I need to help? Like the people that are surrounding me, the people I lead? However you want to think about that into that work. Work as well and see what that reveals and keep it relational all the way along the way is what I hear you all saying. Like, our spiritual formation is a key component to the culture that's created around us.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:16:09] Yeah, at the sideways conversation, I don't think that any staff member should be surprised that they're not thriving. Like it shouldn't be a surprise then. Like, are all of a sudden taken back like it should be a progressive conversation. So I talk a lot tougher than I actually believe, you know?
DOUG PARKS [00:16:23] Yeah.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:16:25] All bark, no bites.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:16:26] Yes, yes, yes.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:16:29] I want to kind of move us, into another question that came up, actually a couple questions. And it's around this idea of, of outreach. I think lots of different churches have lots of different strategies and ideas around outreach and what that means. And so, Bishop McCray actually want to look to you because I know you've done some, some outreach work. First of all, would you just help us define what what do you mean by outreach and then maybe help us? The actual question as written is how do I develop an outreach strategy? But maybe before we get into the practical side, would you just walk us into what that means to you in your own experience?
BISHOP MCRAE [00:17:06] I think outreach is finding a need and meeting it, finding out hurt and healing it. So I said that again, finding a need and meeting it, finding a heart and healing it. I think so often that when we set up our churches, we're not always walking into it mindful of what are the needs of our community. And also, I think that we walk into it sometimes thinking we already have the solution before we do the evaluation. I strongly suggest and when we started our church, my first move was to go to, my city hall. I went and met with the mayor and met with the commissioners to find out what were their needs. They, they have needs for the city. They definitely have money in the city. And starting my church. I didn't have money, but I had people. And so I decided to collaborate and partner with the community to find out. Mayor, what are you saying that you need. And then I want to say that we're going to bring people alongside. And it gave our church an opportunity to become this, this model which is bigger than a Sunday. And so, that's our theme. We work to see what can we do community wise for our, our community. And there is a difference between missions and evangelism. And I think that sometimes we feel that we're satisfying the need because we're evangelizing, but we have not met the need through missions first. So let's find out what is this community needing. And let's not spiritualize that. Let's just make that just this is the base. This community needs food. This community needs water. How do we help that when we don't even have funding? We partner with our communities, our city, civic leaders to see how can we go further?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:18:44] So you've been going 15 years? I mean, till the stats. It's so compelling.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:18:47] So yeah. So we've been going for 15 years now. We've serviced over 185,000 families. And, we're strong on what can we do consistently with the community? We're constantly having new efforts. We're in about six different schools locally. And so we're really trying to figure out how to and, and watch this. It's not all designed to get people in our church. I think that's what it church fails a lot. We do outreach to pack out a facility versus just doing outreach to impact the community. So if your church closed down, we should miss you for more than your worship. Yeah, we should miss you for your efforts in the community. What did you do for this place while you're here? Yeah.
DOUG PARKS [00:19:29] Oh, yeah. Right. I love that you're separating because this gets really confused in churches, that outreach, the differentiation between relational evangelism and what you're talking about and what you've done, in essence, you've deployed, met a felt need in the community, and you've teed up your people to be in relationships where you can act in our language, activate, immobilize around relational evangelism, not to get them into church service, but to introduce them to Jesus. Like, you know, some of this, big idea we're trying to get around, like, get in the mission field, stop bringing your people to the building all the time. Get them out there and, equipped and trained. So I love the way you're thinking.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:20:14] About specifically in the context of Orlando, where you live and, like, like 1500 people a week. Moving here.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:20:21] Moving to the city. Yeah. So it's central Florida is growing, like, ever just it's changing. And you have to constantly be engaged with those civic leaders. You know, like most churches don't have the resources to continually find out what are the needs of their community. But the city always does. And we just allow them to have that information without us ever accessing it as well. We should be engaged in city planning. We should be finding these things so we can align our church. Because when our community residents, those taxpayers, when they see that we're engaged in the actual need, it automatically gives a birth to the church. They see that, wow, they're in tune. You know, we're always trying to be relevant in, you know, in relational all these terms we come up with in church today and we make it hard. Sometimes we on our knees instead of, let's go get in a book, let's go. Let's get on a computer system and find out what are they say. And let's figure out how can we bring that back to our local churches.
DOUG PARKS [00:21:23] Yeah. I think what you're saying is blowing the mind of a lot of our local, our listeners, because most of the churches I encounter do not think like what you're saying. Like, it's almost as if that city infrastructure, government, civic is a compartmentalized silo that may borderline be the enemy, you know, almost. So I just I hope our listeners are embracing. You're literally teeing up your people to be activated, mobilized after you. Yeah.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:21:57] So one of the like, real desires of intentional churches is that every person would have a one. Somebody that that is, close to them, but far from God. And so how do you think about, you know. Everyone in your church to to go after the one and an outreach strategy. How did those things begin to come together? Do you guys have any any thoughts or or experience with any of that?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:22:23] I mean, this is about as cheesy and hokey as you could possibly do. I stole it, and but it's been powerful for our church. We pray for our one at one. And we want everyone in our church to have a one, one. And so set an alarm that goes off every day. And your phone, it can be 1:00 am or 1 p.m.. Depends on who you are. So. And but it's like, but like, we just want it to be top of mind and we want to pray about it and kind of move there. And it's like, it's a big deal when our neighbors come, like, my neighbors come to church and my my church knows that my neighbors are about as lost as it gets. And they're showing up. And and then when we talk about our ones that mean I'm meeting ones in the lobby are like, hey, this is my friend. This is somebody I've been praying for. They try not to make it too cheesy, but yeah.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:23:07] So it sounds like when it's coming from the top, it just becomes, you know, effective in our, in our congregations. And so I think that we have to the leaders, the senior leadership has to buy into the one.
DOUG PARKS [00:23:20] Yes.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:23:21] And as we buy into the one, it has become the conversation. As you said, we have to celebrate the one. And I think that becomes that move for us.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:23:27] I mean your church is killing it. So please talk about.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:23:31] I know we, I would say we personalize personalized it quite a bit starting with the staff. So as the staff goes, you know the church goes. So just even in daily meetings, you know, it's the it's the icebreaker question. It's the you just you have to ingrained it into your daily, kind of vernacular. And then that continues like out of the overflow. It comes out on the weekend.
DOUG PARKS [00:23:55] Yeah. It. When your job is church and running. I know I'm Gen-X or I get kind of snarky, but when you're running the machine of the church, sometimes you can get lost in. You are still a disciple of Jesus. Are you emulating in your personal behaviors? Not your job, but in your personal behaviors, the things you would expect your congregation to be doing in first and foremost? Do you have ones in your life? Are you engaging with him or are you building relationships? And, we've found that that's not always the case with church staff. So I appreciate what you guys are saying, that we really, really need to focus. We have to model this more than anything. Yeah.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:24:42] I'm nervous. So my my one world right now is my daughters all played soccer. So I'm just was a soccer dad. And then people were like, I just found out you're a pastor. I'm like, yeah, don't hold that against me, you know? But just that, that's where all my ones are. And my daughter in a couple years won't be doing that anymore. So I'm trying to in the process of figuring out how am I getting to the edges of our community to find some more ones when it was kind of built in.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:25:03] And it's interesting that you say that because I find myself doing it a lot. People like, you a pastor or what do you do for a living? I'm a motivational speaker. That's the general thing for me, you know, because I don't feel like going through that. Let me pray for you right now. You know, I'm trying to get something to eat, you know? So I'm a motivational speaker, but, it's it's a lot of places that we are that we hide from that has access to our ones in this conference is really opened me up to see, like, hey, let's get back to the Warren.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:25:34] So do you, as we talk about this idea of outreach in impacting our city and hoping that every person in our church has a one, right. I want to get back to this question of like, how are you thinking about are you creating a program or a ministry of outreach? Or is your outreach strategy your wants? Is that your outreach strategy? Do you understand what I'm asking?
BISHOP MCRAE [00:25:58] Yeah, I.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:25:59] Think it's how are you inviting people to to engage in the work of outreach, or is that just the baseline expectation for any person who has a one?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:26:07] Yeah, I think the one concept is actually bigger and more, organizational wide. I would say, because it should be the driver of all that we do. Outreach is a huge component of that. Discipleship is a huge component of that weekend is a huge component of that. I mean, all those areas which are in our strategy, I think, should revolve around knowing the people who are walking in your doors, knowing the people who are out in your neighborhoods, you know. And that starts with a one.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:26:36] I also would add to that, I think that there has to be, the both, not the or, and so I think that we have to definitely, get each one of the members, the 90 nines looking for the one that's the personal piece. I also think that the church universal, the institution has to also work to be the the entity that is looking for the ones. So that's, that's the example that we give to our communities overall. And so, showing maybe large things that we do so that the people of the community that may not reach the member of the community will still see the beacon. So I think it's it's a combination of both working their entire time.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:27:19] Yeah, I, I always try to define those terms because they're a little mixed up to me because outreach I would go like what he said earlier, it's like it's seeing a needed meeting. And and then like evangelism in the one is like great commission living. And so I would want our churches to be meeting tangible needs in our community. What's our community's biggest needs? Let's lean in and like I would want the church or the city to miss us if we weren't here. But like, having one's and living out a personal great commission is is different than outreach to me. In my mind.
DOUG PARKS [00:27:48] They just will practically talk about. You guys are in wildfire zone.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:27:53] Yeah, right. Yeah.
DOUG PARKS [00:27:54] Talk about how you responded to that outreach as the beacon of the institution to the Ventura County, but then also how you saw, if you saw any mobilizing and activating of your people with their ones. Yeah.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:28:09] So Thomas fire hit a few years ago. It was sweeping down all of the mountainside in, in Ventura and burned, oh, almost a ton of Ventura. And so people were displaced. Evacuation. It was pretty scary. I mean, we're right behind their house. My in-law, I mean, it was wild. So we at the time, we were church plant that got to meet in a movie theater. And so, we, we opened up the movie theater to be like emergency housing and then all of a sudden became a distribution center, even for Red Cross. And Salvation Army was there because we had already built the muscles that when when there's a need, we will lean in and do that. And so our team was ready to go. And then it was like, well, that's I don't know if I believe everything that they believe, but man, if our city needs help, that church will help us. And so it gave us great reputation in the city, and that's the only reason we did it. Just have a good reputation. No. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. We were, we were. Just trying to meet very real needs for our neighbors that needed water and baby clothes and toiletries. And so we just had and people just started dumping all kinds of stuff, and we were filling up theaters with it. So it's pretty crazy.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:29:08] We call it street cred.
DOUG PARKS [00:29:09] So street cred.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:29:11] Has a reputation. That's right. That was cute.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:29:16] Teach me your ways.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:29:18] Well, I want to move from this conversation that's just been really rich around the one and outreach into kind of one other, maybe category of questions that that came in. And that's around like since Covid, as the church has kind of come back to life post-Covid, we see this real drive towards less of the maybe institutional type thing and way more towards relationship and trying to make everything extremely relational. Right. So that every kind of touchpoint along the way, in our churches, I think the real desire would be that people would experience real personalized relationship, not just an email funnel, email funnel, serve their purpose and have their place. But not only those things. Right. And so there's a couple questions like, how do we make our engagement process more relational? You know, it seems like since Covid, the biggest missing piece has been life giving relationships in a lot of places. And so I want to zoom in on this, this conversation, because I think this is a really a big part of kind of the fabric of intentional churches is life giving relationships. And so I'm wondering, how are you guys thinking about how every step along the way of people engaging your churches is relational? How are you thinking about that? How does that get kind of executed in your church?
MIKE HICKERSON [00:30:42] I have thoughts, but I would love to hear what you're.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:30:44] Yeah. So I was just thinking from an engagement pathway standpoint at the very top of the funnel, I mean, making it relational from the very beginning and knowing who your people are. So I do think it comes back to the one, a lot of the times and knowing who's walking in your doors, the other thing I would say, you know, processes and systems are great. They're at the core of my heart. But I would say.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:31:06] This is at the core, right?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:31:06] Right. Jesus is first, then processes. And so now, but, you know, but but just because, the, the complexity of that and sometimes you miss the meaningful relationships in that. So when we're looking at life giving relationships, answering the question of who are people and what do they need, like the purpose for them, we divide it into three categories of large group space and kind of small group space. So that's like 10 to 12. And then like micro groups is like a 2 to 3 mentorship type thing. And so having options for each of those really shows that, you know, knowing the people and kind of who they are and having those kind of key relationships. The other thing I would just say is from an a, we hop back to like the one, knowing your one and knowing how to maybe adjust your even, like, announcement block, so that they're saying things that don't, Christian ease like, all that. Just making sure you know who's in the room. We just actually had this conversation the other day about, even worship leaders and, you know, raising your hands. Well, is everybody comfortable to raise their hands just knowing who is in the room and making sure you're kind of targeting.
DOUG PARKS [00:32:19] Yeah, I, I wouldn't yeah. Do that for just a minute. And like because this can be divisive right now. You know, we've gone through these years of church growth and we have we chase models and it's the seeker sensitive and the attraction. We all know that we're the missional. And we got you know, and I want to say what you're saying about being sensitive. If I can right size our thinking. Think about it this way. You're thinking about the one who's coming to your door. Church. Don't stop doing church. Don't be afraid of doing right, but treat it like you're having a guest over to your house for dinner. Because when you have a guest over to your house for dinner, you have a one to wear filter. You know, it's the only time in our family where we light candles. Maybe the only time where we take the piles off the, you know, and so we and we pray still at dinner, but we we preface it, you know, hey, our family prays. I don't say, hey, you need to come to Jesus. I'm like, hey, our family prays. Can we pray for dinner? Anything for you. You know that guest over for dinner? So I just wanna make sure we have that free.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:33:20] Yeah. For sure.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:33:21] Yeah, I want to go back. I think the challenge to for everybody to get curious about is the bigger we get, the more personal we should become. Like, there's no excuse that we can't be more pastoral and more personal. So let's get curious about that. One of my big pet peeves is that we create processes that we feel good about, that don't serve our people well, but we feel good about it because it's all on paper. And we sent the email on Monday. My job is done. No, our job is connecting people, so not sending emails.
DOUG PARKS [00:33:48] Most, most churches design strategies, especially in communications through the lens of the ministry leader. Yes. So serve the ministry leader and we got to get away from that. Yes, I love ministry leaders, but they the program you run is not in first place, right? In first place are those ones. And we have to have ways that we're helping our 99 actually be a part of that solution. Not binary either or thinking about 1 or 99, you know.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:34:19] That's powerful. And that that's something that we've been facing in our church is that we are doing a lot of our events or programs based upon the leader, and we're not thinking about the person who's coming in the door. And we're definitely not thinking about the person who is not introduced to our model at all. And I think that as we're planning whatever we're working on, we have to put in a system to plan for the plan. Let's plan for the plan versus just trying to execute the plan.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:34:48] Well, I think there's a little bit of a mindset shift there. A lot of times people will say, people over process, and I hate putting those two things together because I feel like, you know, it's either or. You build the process for the people. So, like, there's a, there's enough, systematized work that is done, like you said, that is well planned. So it shows love and care for the people.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:35:12] I think there's a shift that's happening, where it used to be institutional vision. We've talked about this quite a bit, where it's like where the our church is so awesome. Come join our church. And we've got, we're going to plant ten churches in ten years. And we have this instant and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's this institutional vision. I think the shift is happening where it's like people are not as they're a little skeptical about institutions, if not cynical, if not real critical of institutions, all of them. And so I think if the church can move from join. Us is the institution to how can we help you as the individual? It's somewhat like the Home Depot Church, is what I've been saying it. And Home Depot is like, you can do it and we can help you, that God has given you everything you need to live the life that he's called you to. He's given you his presence, his son. It's his word, his gifts, my spirit, the church. He's. You have everything that you need to live the life that he's called you to. And we can help you as the church instead of join our vision. Like how do we help you get there? So that becomes more personal.
DOUG PARKS [00:36:09] I want I want to come back to Erin's question, originally, and just this is my opinion, my take. I think in Covid, we all had to rush to digital. Whether you were already doing it, you had to double down on it or you weren't doing it, and you got to go figure it out. We rushed to digital and I think it confused us coming out the other side. I think it confused us. The power of the gospel is in people. It's in us. And I go back to old school. I'm talking old school church growth guys. Gary McIntosh, who wrote about the power of a one connecting to seven relationships at least early in a church experience, is critical. And so I would argue. How does your digital help foster relational connection? Not how do we depend on digital to let the institution try to connect people? How do we fight for that, that seven plus relationships really early in a one's like inside the church is really critical and important. And he was able to scientifically prove you go read his research that, hey, they're more likely to stay because relationship is something starving in people. And he wrote that stuff. And like the 70s and 80s, you know, you think about now after Covid, you think people aren't starved for relationships looking for purpose. They're alone. They're isolated. It's anxiety. The church has the answer. We just got to make sure we focus our strategy on getting that relationship stuff square soon.
ALLIE BRYANT [00:37:43] Well, think about how many digitalized communities there are. I mean, you know, peloton. Yeah. I mean, everybody knows you.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:37:53] But a part of the peloton.
DOUG PARKS [00:37:55] Meet me. Me too. What's your handle?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:37:57] What's your yeah, I do, I am I allowed a no. I but I would say, hey, everybody can like, dislike I mean, all those things, but the life giving relationships, they're still looking for it. Even if I'm a part of all these communities online, there's still something missing that that I'm missing. And, you know, real life.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:38:20] And I think there's an openness like that's happening spiritually in our, in our world that God is doing stuff and bringing people back to him. And I don't want the churches to miss it. Like be prepared. Let's go for it. You know.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:38:33] It's so good. We we've talked through a few different buckets of conversation today. You know, we started by talking about this idea of culture and really how do you sort of alignment, how do you bring people together and, and kind of pull in the same direction. And then we move to this conversation around outreach. What does that actually mean? How do we think about that if we're trying to be people who are want to where, you know, and then finally, this conversation around relationship and the power of our churches getting back to the basics, like getting back to what Jesus actually embodied, which was relationship. And so as we close our time, I love I love thinking about this rather than like setting forth a statement, maybe a question like as you think about these, these three different categories that we've talked about today, what's a question that you could form or that you're thinking about or that you're wondering about, or that you would offer to other church leaders or to our listeners like, this is worth your reflection. Or maybe it's just a question you yourself are reflecting on in any of these categories that you would just offer for us, and you don't have to answer it. Just ask the question.
MIKE HICKERSON [00:39:44] Well I asked. I've been asking these like, do we love people that are far from God? Theologically, we have to, right? Do we like them? I don't know if we always do when they don't vote or think or talk or parent like us. But then the question I think I would have been messing with me is do. Do they like us? Are they inviting us in? Because Jesus seemed to get invited into places with people that were nothing like him, and they liked him, and he had this winsome way. And I would love for the church to recapture that.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:40:19] That's great.
BISHOP MCRAE [00:40:20] I think I would ask, are we adding value? Are we just producing more volume? Yeah. Is the church adding value or just volume?
ALLIE BRYANT [00:40:34] I was going to say, do we do we know, you know, the metaphor of, like, the shepherd and the sheep, if we're all shepherding, do we know the sheep and is as we continue to, meet people and as cities change and as even in our area, like suburbs change and all that, like, do we know the people that are coming through our doors, so that we can serve them?
DOUG PARKS [00:40:57] It's a good question. I think one for me that I'm trying to to really push to church leaders, how do we downsize our content and upsize our facilitation of relationship? And that's hard because the church is primarily become content, as if content transforms people alone. No it doesn't.
ERIN JOHNSTON [00:41:27] Well you guys thanks for hanging today on the Intentional Churches podcast. It's been a gift. can we hear it for our live audience. So grateful for this season and just, unpacking together questions that we probably will never fully have answers to. But we're just, want to be people who explore together. So thanks for listening to this episode of the Intentional Churches podcast. We'll see you soon.