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Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
Danielle (00:06.779)
you
Danielle (00:17.474)
Hey, welcome in on today's episode. Have we gone too far? Usually not, but sometimes yes. And are from moving from staff driven to leader multiplying, tapping untapped and barriers. Hello, hello Derek. Good. Good, good, good. How are you? I'm great. Great, okay. Yeah, I think it's gonna be good. Yeah. This is, yeah, this is.
Danielle. Hello. How's it going?
Derek (00:38.222)
excited for today's conversation. It's gonna be a good one.
Danielle (00:43.726)
one of my three favorites of the 11. I mean, I them all. This is s*** we do. Okay, so I thought today, before we start, we could talk about, because we are talking about like multiplying leaders and influence and ownership and all that kind of stuff. So I want to talk about times in the past where maybe we were like, whoa, that was fast. Like we gave somebody authority.
center of the target.
Danielle (01:11.682)
quickly or you know, little too fast or but it turned out good. Right. Like a good version of that I guess.
Well, yeah, because our mantra always has been, and you know, I wrote a whole book about this. like our mantra has always been, you know, you give away, give away leadership maybe sooner than it feels comfortable and and trust, you know, to have a little trust in that process and, you know, look at Jesus and the 12 disciples and like, according to our standards, Jesus probably gave away ministry a little too soon to these very untrained, very raw.
You were just possessed by demon. ahead.
Go do your thing.
Go do it, you're good. I have to remind myself of that on regular basis. I think the further along you get in ministry, well, obviously the further you get from your origin story even. True.
Derek (02:00.568)
Yeah, you forget how raw you were when you started out.
And for example, my example of that, one time I was on, we were taking two school buses of children. was Youth Ministry days. Two school buses of children. So what is that? Like 80 kids? something like that, 100 maybe?
This is a youth minister.
Derek (02:16.588)
be more.
Ha ha ha.
So I was somewhere between 19 and 21. I was in that area. I was one of the three volunteer leaders who were also in the 19 to 21.
and you were one of the volunteer leaders.
Derek (02:33.422)
So no legitimate adult to be seen anywhere
So we're driving down to like central Pennsylvania. OK, so and again, Ohio Pile. Yeah, we were going to whitewater rafting. Exactly. We had worked with this church to be like, hey, can we stay overnight at your church? Everyone brought sleeping bags. Like, it'll be fun, you know, and then we'll go whitewater rafting the next day. So we get down there, we get to the church, whatever. We're all getting off the bus while the kids are getting their stuff. And this bus driver looks at me goes, hey. I'm like, yeah, he goes, this is not what I signed up for.
What?
And I was like, and he's like 50, 40, you know? At least to me, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like my dad. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? don't understand what he's talking about. And he's like, we only signed up to do a one day trip with you guys. And I'm like, okay. And I start looking around, I'm like, is anybody here who's an adult, who can talk to this person? Why is he talking to me? Why did he pick me? You know? And so I go find Aaron and Paula and I was like, hey,
Okay.
Danielle (03:36.554)
he says we only have a one day trip, Paula starts looking through it, she always would have like binders, organized, awesome. She's always looking, anyway, it ended up being fine, but it was one of those moments where I was like, well, cause we had Aaron and Aaron is always like an expert negotiator. And so we figured it out. They had a miscommunication, so I was kind of proud of us. We actually did it right. Solved the problem. But it was one of those moments where I literally thought to myself, I don't have any business being here.
How am I in charge negotiating with a 50 year old bus driver?
Right, and then fast forward, you know, 12 hours later, I'm underneath a canoe hitting my head on rocks, knocked a tooth out of my head. I'm like, this is not for me.
Danielle (04:20.814)
And Aaron and Paula, like all faithful in ministry forever. yeah, it's just, we had no business doing that.
Yeah, sometimes you find yourself in those moments. Yeah, for sure. Like, speaking of those days, you know, so I'm a youth pastor and we, this really is when this culture started for us anyway, was just really, you know, was, somebody was meeting with me yesterday saying, when did this start for you? And in addition to like seeing my dad and mom early in their faith when I was just a little kid, leaning into ministry in the church and going, okay, it's possible for somebody who's not paid by the church to be a leader in the church. Like that was my first exposure, but.
The youth ministry days were really these experimental times where like you guys were coming up through, you had natural leadership gifts. I'm like, yeah, we can expand this ministry through leaders that aren't getting paid, you know? And just because I don't have a big paid youth staff, can still accomplish a lot, but it does involve these moments of giving stuff away a little too soon. And so one of the other ones, we would have used to this again, mega church days, right? So we used to have these big skits and sketches that are big.
outreach nights for youth and so we had a whole team of students that were writing sketches and Looking back now at some of the content of those things. Yeah, it's it's it's good. We're still around Yeah, if there was social media, yeah, it's not yeah, but the one funny one we had one of the one of the student skit writers Who was probably not ready?
You want to have a gun, viral?
Derek (05:52.366)
yet to be writing spiritual content for hundreds of years. were really creative, not so much in that. So I'll never forget. And we talk about this all the time. We came in the one day to review his work and he goes, oh, you're going to have to. Yeah, sorry. I really, I encrypted, I encrypted those files. This is like early days.
They content.
Danielle (06:18.967)
to parents.
Yeah, I don't want any parents seeing this. I've like I encrypted it So we're like encrypted it and again like computers have been around that long. So like
barely had a computer. It one those big white ones with the butt on the back.
And so I encrypted and you were pretty good at computers of the day think you were the one that was like all I had to do was change the font He put it in like zap chance or Wingdings
Wingdings. It was like wingding. We highlighted the word document and just changed it times New Roman to wingdings. was like, this works.
Derek (06:56.046)
And the quick and the quick change back and you were the codecracker of the century like you Yeah, you should have been in World War two solving the Nazi codes
I want everything.
Danielle (07:05.834)
Yeah, but we did. There are several moments with that group, that crew in particular, where we're sitting in the audience and we were on top of it, but we would do spontaneous skits and stuff sometimes. Like, I've been pretty good this week. pew, pew pew. There's stuff that would happen and we would be like, whoops. but listen, all worth it in the end.
Here we are. The gospel goes forward. Jesus is on his throne. Yeah. And we can take refuge in that. Okay.
Okay, let's move on. So, reinventing church topic today is, and again, just a reminder, we're talking through the 11 shifts that every church needs to make to become more effective in our current cultural reality. And today we're talking about going from staff driven to leader multiplying. And we have a little bit from Shane Stacey of Clarity House. We go to him. Let me talk a little bit about
That's a great setup for our topic today.
Danielle (08:09.526)
who you're going to be interviewing, Derek. This is Brent. Brent is the lead pastor of Keystone Church in Ankeny, Iowa. He started there in June of 2016. And in 2017, they so they started as a church plant or a multi-site church, basically. And they became autonomous and changed their name to Keystone Church, which shout out to Pennsylvania. the Keystone state. Yeah, you can get some connection there.
Brent Minter.
Derek (08:36.046)
You
And their mission, their vision is to help people know and follow Jesus. So I'm really excited to hear from Brent, but first let's hear from Shane.
Shane (08:50.83)
Do you want to experience more joy in your leadership and in your ministry? I know I do. So let me start with a little pop quiz. When in the gospels are we told that Jesus was full of joy? Maybe your mind immediately runs to Hebrews 12 too. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. And that's true, but that's not in the gospels. There's only one time in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, where we are explicitly told that Jesus was filled with joy through the Holy Spirit. And it's Luke 10, 21.
In the context, it's interesting. The context is Jesus had just sent out the 72, they came back reporting all that they had done. And apparently all that they had done is the very same work that Luke told us back in chapter eight that Jesus himself had been doing, but now they're able to do it. Why is this so important? What increased Jesus's joy in his leadership, in his ministry? Wasn't just doing great ministry, it was raising up more great ministers. Let me say it again. What increased Jesus's joy?
in his earthly ministry wasn't just doing great ministry, it was raising up more everyday ministers, more leaders who could be in places that he could not be physically in his earthly ministry, but could do the things that he could do. And I'm telling you friend, I'm finding that this shift in thinking and practice is making significant difference in both leadership and ministry, but also in my joy. You know, we're not called to do all the ministry. We're called to develop and empower and release others into their full kingdom potential.
And here's something worth pondering. Leaders who only do often multiply activity, but leaders who develop others ultimately multiply impact. So why is this shift from seeing ourselves as doers of great ministry to becoming developers of everyday ministers? Why is it so important? Let me give you a handful of reasons. And a couple of them are going to be obvious, but a couple of them think will be a little more subversive. The first reason I would suggest is that multiplication beats addition.
one person doing ministry can reach dozens, but one person developing others can reach hundreds, right? That's obvious. But the second reason would be this, it prevents burnout, all right? Doers hit a lid and therefore the capacity of the church even hits a lid on that. And so developers expand capacity, both of their own leadership, but of the organism of the church. And apparently according to Luke 10, it also expands the joy of leaders.
Shane (11:13.058)
But third, the shift from being doers to developers, it builds ownership in the body. Ministry's not supposed to be a spectator sport, is it? Ephesians 4, Paul's gonna pick up this example from Jesus and he's gonna instruct the church leaders in this way. He's gonna say, he calls leaders to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. And he actually says, you won't get an Ephesians 4.13 outcome, namely Jesus shaped maturity without a Ephesians 12 equipping practice.
That's that, let that lean on your mind for a moment. A fourth reason I would suggest moving from doer to developer is so important is it starts showing up, this leadership then starts showing up in unexpected places. When spiritual leadership multiplies, it doesn't stay confined to church programs. It begins spilling into offices, in backyards, in sports fields, and around dinner tables. Developed leaders begin to carry the words and ways of Jesus into places that most staff
never step foot and help others taste and see those same words and ways themselves. And finally is this, I think it just helps cut through the over-programming of the church. Sometimes the best way to grow leaders is to do less for a season so that we can invest more in people. And here's what I mean by that. See if this is true. The more programs your staff have to manage, oftentimes, the less people development that manages to take place. Does that feel true?
And this whole idea of moving from from doers to developers, I mean, it's not just a theory. I mean, the gap that often exists in the church is very, very real. We're experiencing all around the country. In fact, Lifeway Research reported back in 2016 that 92 % of pastors affirm that leadership development is vital.
But.
Shane (13:00.174)
only one in four, 25 % of churches actually have a plan to do it. Again, that was back in 2016, but not much has changed. If it's so important then why is it often so neglected? It feels slower, right? We measure staff output, not staff impact because some of us fear becoming dispensable. And if we're honest, if we're just honest, sometimes we just don't know where to start. And I'd also say because
often even our mindset is we're not doing leadership development. We're actually looking for proven leaders rather than thinking about and having a plan for leadership potential. Therefore we default to leadership placement by finding those who are already leaders rather than having a leadership development mindset that sees people with potential and raises them up to be emerging leaders. You know, that stat I shared earlier, it's sobering, but here's a bigger issue. When you don't have a plan for development,
you limit leadership to what happens on your platforms and in your programs. And we keep leadership development then locked in the realm of volunteerism and we keep great leaders locked into the realm of volunteerism. It gets stuck oftentimes in our assimilation funnel. But do you know where there's a million platforms, a million places to live as a person of kingdom influence? Out in the world. So here's just one simple practice for us as leaders to consider. Embed development
into regular rhythms, embed development into regular rhythms. Development isn't just an add on, it's a built in rhythm. If you try to just tack it on, it's gonna get lost. But if you bake it in, it becomes culture. So use staff meetings as mini development labs, asking your one-on-ones with both staff leaders and lay leaders, who are you developing right now? Celebrate the multipliers, both staff and non-staff, celebrate them publicly and make people's people development part
of the goals and evaluations of everything that you do. When you're even hosting people from your neighborhood in your own home, pull someone alongside to develop them and doing the same kind of thing. See, here's the truth. In the short run, developing leaders feels slower, but in the long run, it's always faster. You can cram for a test, but you can't cram for capacity building or legacy building. So here's the legacy question. If you left your role,
Shane (15:20.994)
As a staff person, as a lay leader, a year from now, would ministry stop because you were a doer of ministry or would it thrive because you developed others? And just like Jesus, you may find that your deepest joy isn't just in doing ministry, but empowering others to step into it, both inside the church and out in the everyday places of life. I mean, that's the kind of ministry that multiplies impact, but also apparently fuels greater joy.
Derek (15:51.542)
Hey, such great stuff from Shane. I'm here with Brent Minter. yeah, we just as we reflect on this, Jesus did his ministry and really found his greatest joy in multiplying other ministers. And so that's just incredible to reflect on. And I think the real question becomes, how do we lead that way? What does it look like to move from pastors being the primary doers of ministry to become developers of everyday leaders? And I'm here with Brent today.
And from Keystone Church, as Danielle told you a minute ago, but he's passionate about planting and multiplying leaders, not only in his church, but through movements like Salt Network and such. so, Brent, I can't wait to get your perspective on this shift. Thanks so much for being part of the podcast today.
Yeah, yeah, man, I'm really honored to be a part of it.
How's life in Iowa these days? Lots of corn?
Lots corn fields. It's about to be harvest. And life gets busy. A lot of people go home to help on the farms and it's fall season. that's kind of the ministry kickoffs for a lot of us. Family wise, it's my kids are in marching bands. And so we're one of my daughters at a university of marching band, high school marching band. So it's kind of a crazy season, but we love it.
Derek (16:45.493)
You
Derek (17:06.988)
Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, great to hear it. So listen, let's get right into it. Keystone has grown far beyond maybe what a small staff team could possibly carry on its own. so I'm just wondering when you first realized that there was more ministry than you had paid staff to accomplish it, and how did that realization kind of change the way you led your church forward?
Yeah. At the end of the day, you know, staffing is this thing that as lead guys and like when you're leading a church is just this constant adjustment. And because you're constantly saying, what's the work to be done? And then how do we get it done? And then you start seeing the budgets of how much staff we have. And, know, this the more your church grows, all of a sudden.
The easiest solution to any problem is to hire. Yeah. And, everyone's like, uh, if we just hired more staff, we could do this and you just can't do it. we've, you know, I think for us, we've, you know, a lot, a lot of times we refer back to other church size dynamics. And there's just this, we have moved several cultures, like size cultures over the last seven to eight years. And you kind of have to approach it differently.
And as we moved in, we often are just like, how do we all do this? And what we have come to know is early on, we decided to camp out on Ephesians four, which he gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers who equipped the saints for the work of ministry. And so a lot of what we do comes from our background of collegiate ministry. But we early on just began to say, Hey,
actually some of our leadership roles in the church is not to just do the thing, but to equip the people to do the thing. And so honestly, we have one of the biggest things that we love to do is to continue to raise up leaders. And actually probably one of the biggest distinctions that we've made in our staffing is at this point, Derek, we have a lot of staff, but the vast majority are residents in a two year program.
Brent (19:20.364)
because we're not just seeing that we need paid staff here. We actually are trying to equip young staff so that they can, we're multiplying staff leaders that ultimately won't even end up here. And so when we hit, you know, our ministries, it's just a constant development of our people. and when we think of our staff, now we train our staff is just like, who are you raising up? Who are your leaders? Who are the volunteers? And we can maybe talk, and this will come out a little bit more is in my mind, I,
I'm not just thinking who are your volunteers and who are you delegating the smaller task of you to? I'm actually saying, who are you raising up that can do what you do? Yes. Here's a great example. When we are to worship our last worship guy, most of our staff are hired inside. We put on the job description. If you're not okay leading worship 50 % or less of the time on the platform, you're not our guy because your job is to develop other worship.
Yeah.
Derek (20:17.112)
That's great. Yeah. Now go ahead, go ahead. No, so we-
So we actually, yeah, we put that in some, in some job descriptions, but we actually put that on, on a lot of things as a lead guy. I, by vision will never preach more than 50 % of the time, because if I don't model giving ministry away, then other people won't do it as well. So we try to model that, put it in job descriptions and just be like, you know,
That's what we do.
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I told our staff last week, we just had a training on this, and I said, listen, if you're running around doing all the ministry yourself, you're actually not doing your job. That is not your job. You have an Ephesians 4 job, and it's not to run around and do the ministry.
And I think what's interesting is, is, it was recently, one of our staff members was doing a pretty, a job that is not a fun part of her job. And, just like just the recurring thing. And in her mind, she had said to herself, I'm, this is kind of annoying job and I'm not gonna make anyone else do it. And I paused her and I said, listen, there are so many people that don't have skill sets.
Brent (21:31.606)
teach, they don't have skill sets to get up in front of lead people. But you thinking that this is beyond someone is actually taking someone in our body and saying and removing their, how they can serve the church. It's removing. so they're at that point, the only thing they can do is just attend and not contribute because we are, we don't have an imagination enough to believe that that's actually a contribution someone could give that would be so helpful.
That's right.
Brent (21:59.342)
And we just have to rearrange our brains to know how to do that.
It's so true. Yeah, so true. talk often about, know, there's that thing that you hate to do, there's somebody that actually loves to do that. That's it. And so when you just keep doing it to like, save everyone else from having to do it, you're like you said, you're
You just removed someone's greatest contribution to the body. That's right. Because you thought it was just a menial thing.
Yeah, so good. So true. So listen, you alluded to this already, but I want to drill down on it for just a second, because I do think, and just say it kind of boldly, is that, you know, I feel like in some ways, the church has gotten staffing wrong, that we just assume staffing... We've adopted a business model for staffing. So we just say, hey, like...
you know, look through my networks, if I know, you know, submit your job descriptions, give me your references, get the headhunter groups involved going around the country to find this person for this role. And and so how when you compare that kind of business model to a biblical model of raising up leaders, can you just talk about how you see the difference in those two approaches and maybe, you know, how we can get back to some of that biblical model of staffing?
Brent (23:14.336)
Yeah, I think maybe the best way for me to talk about this is something that we do every, every new staff member, that comes on staff after the hiring process. And they come, I do, a gathering with them and I call it the keystone way. And when I'm like, and I call it the unofficial staff team guys, I'm like, Hey, if you, if you need to know how to take time off, if you want to know what our, eternity leave is, if like,
All the things like there's a book for that and go you go get it. But this is like, what's the culture of this church? And it's, it's me. Operate, have an opportunity to talk about the beyond like our stated values, like what happens. And this is one of the phrases in the Keystone way. And it gets repeated nonstop here. And here's the phrase. The most honored person at Easton is the one who develops others. This is what I say. I don't care if you can preach the pain off the wall.
Wow.
Brent (24:11.794)
If you can't teach people to preach, I'm not interested in you. I don't care if you've got a record. Like, I don't care if you're the best at the best at the best. If you cannot multiply that into other people, you're no good to me. And so I think what's difficult is in the church world is we have, I'm assuming Derek, that you're really good at preaching and leading. And so people want
Yeah.
Brent (24:38.764)
the starting quarterback in all their positions, whether that's kids ministry or the parking ministry or whatever it is. But, you know, businesses, you get the commission, you get the bonus if you do really good. And so we often like, give me the ball. And I think there's some level of leaders in church that were like, Hey, I want the ball at fourth down. I want to, I want to help. put it on my shoulders. We'll go. And we just have to change.
The metric, the metric is can you raise up other people, not can you preach a home run sermon? Can you organize the main event? It's like, can you humble yourself and bring people along? And if you're gone, do the thing. And that is the metric of success.
Yeah, it's great. It's great. It's it's it is a mindset shift, like you called it that. And it is like, because we've we've really come up with a system that says like, you be the be the man be the woman, you know, that really pulls it off. And and until we make that, you know, here's what we're actually celebrating. Here's what we're actually rewarding even in our staff is the developers, not the viewers.
And I think what's interesting is, like, there is a beautiful ownership and stewardship that those of us who have are called to do leadership and all that sort of, that we should feel, it should feel responsibility. but let's also look at the underside of that. Often we like to add a boys more than we like giving our platform and giving our authority to other people to operate. And it can be difficult, but sometimes it's not just about, we want to take responsibility. It's about the pride in our own soul.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's good. Yeah, and I think one of the temptations of you know, when you think about multiplying leaders, one of the temptations is seeing other leaders or seeing volunteers or whatever people on our teams as helpers, instead of leaders instead of kind of developing them as leaders. And so I think one of the mistakes that church leaders often make is to say, I need you and you and you to do these things for me, like help me.
Derek (26:47.212)
do these things versus I want to give you authority and a platform to lead. And so how have you seen that mindset flip at Keystone?
Yeah. I think, you know, the phrase on it says like we often want to delegate tasks and not give authority. And, and what's interesting is, is actually a step to giving away authorities. You do have to learn to delegate tasks, but, I think, this is a little bit of, know, as the church grows, it's really interesting because early on you can do everything and the size and the scope is at a point where you can.
That's right.
Brent (27:27.83)
you know, make make a lot of sense. And there's a there's a joy in some sense to be able to delegate things that don't bring you joy. There's there's a level of like that. But I actually think the great thing here is when you learn to give away authority. And this is something that's easy to talk about, but hard to do.
That's right.
Like we could, I could, you know, to talk on this and everybody like, yeah, that's good. That's so Jesus leadership. Yes, yes, yes, But here's what giving away authority is. It means letting someone else make a decision and run with it. And that wouldn't be how you would do it until you can sit in that meeting. Like I think of it all the time, like a little bit of my background is I was a worship pastor for 15 years. And then that worship pastor also oversaw communications before my current role. So.
Right.
Brent (28:19.278)
When it comes to design, websites, music, not only do I have opinions, have professional opinions. don't have like, like, oh, this is just my thought. like blue or green. can speak the language and here's what giving authority is. I'm giving authority is that is yours. And I believe you to make that decision. And even if I disagree, I'm cheering you on. And it just like,
Yeah, that's great.
From my perspective, that's been the hardest thing for me is there's a lot of like, I would say a lot of fun things in our church that I get, I used to get to do. And now I've given other people the authority to do it. And the biggest challenge for me is to not come in and take the ball from them, but to watch them run a play, even if it's not the play I would run. And we've established vision and values. No, everyone's on the, on the playing field. No one's running in different directions.
But cheering on the play that you wouldn't choose. I feel like that's where it gets really practical from a concept to, yeah, yeah, this is how we're going to roll and I'm going to believe other people and cheer them on when they have the authority that I've given them.
Yeah.
Derek (29:32.64)
I love that Brent. It's really good. you know, we've wrestled with a lot of that ourselves as well as like, does it really look like to give away authority? think you hit on some incredible things. And one of the things that we've often talked about too, is just really getting people involved earlier in the process. if you want to, if you delegate, you can delegate a task late in the game where you've already wrestled through what's the problem, here's the answers, now go do these things. But the earlier you involve someone in that process to go actually, actually, we don't even know the questions we're trying
Yeah.
Derek (30:02.544)
trying to answer yet. Can you help us think about the questions? Then help us think about the answers. Now we're going to go chase this thing down together. All that sudden, all of a sudden, that person has authority that they didn't have because they've been involved from the very beginning. They're not just coming in at the tail end to get the thing across the finish line. That's it.
And it, and it's, here's the thing. Ultimately, if you want to talk about staff and teams, if people aren't given authority, their, their, I wouldn't say their, their affection for the organization begins to fail because they, they all of a sudden know you're just using me for whatever, but you believe in me versus you're going to get me, like you're using the gifts. And of course I'm talking about like you're using me, right? But it's honoring to people.
I believe in you. trust and I'll hold you accountable and we'll walk through this but I actually believe in you and trust you to make the decision.
Yeah, yeah, and here's the problem. I don't this I'm sure this is not true of you, but I know I struggle with it. So a lot of pastors can be control freaks, like a lot of pastors are kind of a little bit type A a little bit like my way or the highway. And there can be this thing of like, it has to be done a certain way. And that can really, you know, hold us back from developing other people, because not only do we think, oh, they couldn't do it as good as I can, but it's like, the standards are going to be different. Can you talk about and so
empowering other people can feel very risky. Yeah. For a lot of reasons and can so can you talk about a story when empowering someone went went better than you expected or didn't go as planned? Give us a either
Brent (31:41.646)
Actually, this is a fun story because this, think it's so formational for who I am as a leader. This is my first year in ministry and I am 21 year old, think I'm incredible worship leader. You know what I mean? And now, and now I'm in a youth ministry and running all this stuff. Long story short, as we ran this vacation Bible school for sixth graders that are transitioning, it's a pretty large church and there was a kid in sixth grade.
that was the most annoying kid I ever seen. And it wasn't just like, he's an annoying kid. He had some special needs and at an intellectual level, but he also had some physical issues that at the end of the day, couldn't control some of his bodily functions and he smelled very poorly. And I remember that week being so annoyed with this kid and I'm like, how am I going to get rid of this? And he,
He came into this room and he was like, he just kept asking, let me see the soundboard. Let me see the soundboard. Let me see the soundboard. Let me see the soundboard. And I was so annoyed. was actually talking about like, I'm going to have to like figure out how to block this kid. And I'm going to fast forward three years. This kid became the one of the most sacrificial volunteers I've ever had in the life of mine. over time that guy, that little guy turned into a
from annoying sixth grader to like a ridiculously responsible, still special needs. And he handled every ounce of sound I needed beautifully. And I learned early on that God can use people that you would never think or imagine. You just got to give them space and not be annoyed with where they're at, but develop them to where they need to be. That's such a huge story for me. And also I'll bring in what you just said.
Wow.
Brent (33:39.48)
For 15 years of my life, I worked with controlling pastors, very controlling pastor. And here's what I saw as a staff member is I saw ridiculously gifted people that gave up because they weren't believed in. they like people with ridiculous gifts that just gave up. I'm, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. And it's simply because you know what Paul says,
is.
Brent (34:06.37)
to Timothy is fan and deflame the gift of God that is given to you by the laying on our hands. I think that as leaders, our job is to fan and deflame the gift that God has for other people. And we got to see like the special needs kids. He was literally one of the most best volunteers I've ever had in my life. But we got to have imagination and give real authority, give real responsibility and not control it. Or we're just missing out on so much gifting of the church.
That's great. So I want to make a little shift here you've Something very near and dear to my heart the salt network connection that you have so you were you've been on the the board of the salt network and So the reason it's close to my heart is because my daughter is one of the leaders of salt at Ohio State.
Let's go with Lit Peterson.
Yeah, with Luke and they've got an incredible movement going there. mean, it's just unbelievable to see what God's through that movement. that part of the magic, if you will, I think of SALT is this raising up of leaders from the university campus, leaning into these kind of embedded kids who are already there. And so I would just ask kind of step up.
back, you've been part in the church world and you've been on the board of salt, like what can the church learn from salt network or that model, even if they're not near a major college campus?
Brent (35:35.522)
Well, so salt is, what we do is plant churches with major collegiate ministries and spend ridiculous amounts of resource and time and energy to reach college students. and what we do is we don't just reach college students and create like a cool experience for them. We act salt company as a platform to raise up student leaders who are gifted with authority to go reach their campus and equipped to help do that. It's man, a it's a joy. Like it's just a deep joy to watch that.
I think that one thing that really helps us remember to raise up other leaders is that we have 18 to 24 year olds running around this church, like nonstop. And, you know, our job is to introduce them to Jesus and then say, you can actually make a difference in your life. So I'll just tell two stories that are within the last week. Literally, these two are within the last week. We just planted our third church.
last just a couple of days ago was at their. In Bowling Green, Kentucky, at Western Kentucky University. my favorite story beyond the launch is like, oh, everyone wants to be excited about the launch. I agree. It's super cool. My favorite story is that there's a student, his name is Aidan and Aidan. Except to Christ in February of twenty twenty four. And now he has moved with the church plant.
Wow, congratulations.
Brent (37:03.922)
And he is responsible for all production. He had never done production, but he's been trained. And so here's a guy who has been a believer for a very short period of time. is a leader at that salt company that we just started. And he's also running AV and listen, the next generation is hungry for people to believe in them and develop them. Just give them a space to serve. And so
All it takes is Aidan, we believe in you. We believe in you. Like go get it. Another story, just this week, like you have to give student leaders and students, like you are designed for ministry and you can do it. I got to preach at Salt Company, our Salt Company last Thursday, preached and right after, you know, there was a girl who came up, my wife was there with me and there's this girl who comes up and she's just weeping after the sermon and
got to minister to her for just a little bit. And here's my favorite part. Here's the reason Salt Company works is because the second we got done talking with her, there was a student leader right there who could see she needed help and she stepped in. And so we're not talking about platform ministry here. We're just talking about your life can matter in the building of disciples. And so this student leader watched that interaction and in the most beautiful way, waited until that conversation was over and walked right up.
Hey, can I have your cell phone number? I'm a follower. And so that, that's what like, but it's because we have student leaders that we like, God's given you the campus, go get it. We believe in you. Who can you reach? And not just like, I mean, when we think of church, we have to think of the roles of all the, I mean, I think it takes 200 volunteers a week at this place to get it all done. Right. So, but we're not talking about just like making coffee, opening doors, singing on the stage. We're talking about
give them authority to make disciples in the of your church and cheer them on to make it happen. So that's the power of salt is.
Derek (39:07.726)
And listen, as a dad, thank you for whatever role you played. literally, is to know that my daughter has something like that, that she's a part of at Ohio State, that she's being developed as a leader and a discipler of others. And it's just thank you. Thank you.
it's a miracle. We're going from seven churches in 2017, but we're at 40 churches this fall. Yeah, praise God. It's unbelievable. We're going keep going.
Awesome. So Shane talked in the video that preceded our time here about just the rhythm of development, building that rhythm of developing leaders into you know, what we do. So can you can you talk about what are some rhythms of development that you've established for for your leaders, you know, during the course of your week month year kind of thing?
Yeah, I mean, there's so many, I think the practical reality, like the most bare text, and I'll give an example of ice to do is early on in my ministry, I read a book called E myth, which is not like, and, basically the idea is like, the entrepreneurial myth is like, you've got to be incredible and every entrepreneur hits a wall. And if one of the things that we have to do is if we've done it once, document it and train other people to do it. And that's secular people.
Let alone what God's word says. Are you kidding me? So I learned early on to, um, to, like, if I do it, I, I write down what I do and I develop other people. So one of the things that we do, um, like in, hiring of staff, like these are like practical things when we're hiring people, we bring our two year residents as a part and we train them how to interview people. Um, they're a part of hiring teams, not because they have the
Derek (40:30.19)
Exactly.
Brent (40:56.084)
experience and authority necessarily, but because we believe they they're one day going to need to know how to do that kind of thing. Like if we have something I'm going to invite every next generation leader into it at every possible level I can and train them in how to do it because and this is something we got to emerge. Well, I can talk about that later. But let's talk about lead pastors. Here's one of things that I believe. I don't know.
you
Derek (41:20.546)
Yeah.
Brent (41:24.504)
how you guys run our church, we're an elder-led church. And so for us, that means that 50 % of our elders or more are gonna be lay guys. And I think a litmus test of how good a pastor is is how many elder-level men they can raise.
wow, yeah.
I mean, Esther, if you can't raise up other elder level people where they have the spiritual maturity, the doctrine to lead the church, that's probably one of the highest tasks. And I get it. Not every church does that exactly the way we do, but at least for me, it keeps me in the game of constantly raising up people. mean, I have a pipeline now of experiences from your, like you walked into our church.
You can become a connection group leader. There's a process for that. There's a system and structure for that to happen. Then I go and invite every connection group leader into what we call an aspiring leader cohort to help develop the character of an elder in their lives. And then we have a whole nother, once we've identified a person that we may want to bring on a whole nother like six month process of developing like what's required and checking the doctrine of an elder. And so we actually have
processes along every step of that. And I've now had a person walking in our door to connection group leader, to aspiring leader, to a sitting elder. And so, I mean, you can hope that that happens and you can have a couple of good buttons that you believe in. Or you can have a robust system that says, Hey, I can take someone off the street and get them through that process. And so, yeah.
Derek (43:02.996)
Unbelievable, man. That's just such a great reminder, great challenge, I think, for pastors to think about that. As you were talking at the beginning of just bringing younger leaders into everything, it reminded me, we did a little training last week, and I just decided to do a role play recruiting conversation.
for an incoming volunteer. So I brought somebody up and just said, here's how you to the number of our younger staff that just said that blew my mind, because I'd never thought that that's a but it's just a reminder, like people don't automatically know how to do stuff. You know, people don't automatically know. And unless we very intentionally develop them and build those rhythms of development in it doesn't just happen.
Yeah.
Brent (43:52.342)
doesn't just happen. And here's the thing, Derek, someone did it for you. right. Like everyone I know in ministry that is that is laid down their life and at some point they can point to a person who says they believed in me before I would be and they gave me the ball anyway. You can't find someone in ministry that can't have that person or two that said, Hey, you're not ready and you might embarrass us, but we're going to give you the ball. Go run with
Exactly. That's right. Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. And it's very funny because Danielle and I, at the beginning of this podcast, talked about some of our old school youth group stories where we did that very thing. So, hey, listen, I got about 60 or 90 seconds left here. Just one last question. For the pastor of a church of 75 people who's like, listen, I'm already stretched too thin.
I don't have time to develop new people. I'm just trying to keep my head above water now. What's the first small step that you would recommend to take toward a leader multiplying culture?
Yeah, I really think it would be that back to like, think a lot of those pastors that are spread thin, because you can be spread thin at 75 and at 1000, but is go beyond delegation and give some authority and tell people you believe in them. And because delegating just like just a responsibility that helps. But I promise you there's a brother or sister in your church that if you gave them some of the things that you're so worried about,
They might do a better job than you. They might just do a better job than you. And I mean, I can think of it like one thing, when we plant churches and one of my favorite numbers of our church is a hundred, we've set 141 adults from out of our church to other churches, the vast majority of them out of state. Here's one of the greatest, healthiest things. Everyone's all scared about how many tithers you lose and how many incredible worship leaders, and we lose it all. Right. But one of the greatest things that happens when great leaders leave,
Brent (45:59.694)
new leaders step in and people who are super gifted, but there was a damn because we had really great talent. And what I'm trying to say to the pastor of 75 is there is talent in your church. And if you would just give it to them and give it to them, maybe before they're ready. Danny Fudge, when I was an 18 year old, just recently started following Jesus. He believed in me and I was an 18 year old knucklehead.
He put me on the missions committee to help decide where the money should go. I, that was probably an ill-advised decision. Um, but can I tell you something? I almost spent my life overseas and it, to this day, a burning passion reason, I plant churches and want to see our people go overseas is because early in my life, sir said, Brent, I think you should care about this. Let me, let me give you the authority to decide where our money goes as an 18 year old. So
Ha
Brent (46:57.548)
Don't overlook what God's given you and give them authority even though they might not deserve it. And of course, watch their doctrine, watch their life. Like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But no one's not saying that, but just believe in somebody and be a cheerleader.
Yes.
Derek (47:12.044)
Yeah, I love it, man. That's a great, great, great exclamation point for our conversation. Thank you so much for spending time with us, Brent. God bless what God is up to in Iowa. We're cheering you on from from over here on the East. Blessings.
Appreciate it,
Danielle (47:32.814)
Okay, that was great. Great topic, great conversation. Like I said before, this is one of my clutch shifts personally. So I hope this is helpful for everybody. So now we're gonna talk about what happened this week at Grace, little behind the curtain action. Well, what we thought we'd talk about is really kind of this concept we talked about ahead of time, even just the idea of unleashing volunteers.
to high levels of ministry within your ministry. So talk a little bit about Untapped and...
Yeah, so in 2021, I wrote a book called Untapped Church, really talking about Grace Church's journey in really kind of seizing, I think, what is a massive leadership development opportunity for every church. It certainly was in our church. And that word, untapped means available, but not used. And so the idea is that there's people in our congregations who are available to be used by God in incredible ways that often are not used. They go untapped. And so that's the concept.
really our journey starting back in 2010, I'm just going, hey, we're gonna recruit some people, we're gonna bring them onto our staff, and we're going to let them rise to whatever level of the organization that their capacity allows for. And so anyway, at our church we said we've had so much turnover in the last four years, and so many new faces and all that, that I wrote this book about this, and I'm...
we're going, is this really still part of our culture or not? know, at Grace, like, does our staff even know these principles that we've been using for, and certainly there's lots of that has has continued on. Our staff continues to be majority unpaid volunteers. However, our existing staff, you know, maybe some of those muscles got a little, you know, we weren't working them as much as we once had.
Danielle (49:31.288)
think, not to blame it, but I do think COVID broke the rhythm a little bit. And even if you look back to that time, we had people doing stuff in that time as staff that we would never have a staff person do. The director of our entire creative department was the puppet on video. Literally, the puppet for kids. We would have millions of people who would wanna do that. And we just, yeah, I think.
One, we had to keep people employed.
Keep people employed, we to keep stuff to do, literally. But yeah, and I think, yeah, I agree with you. think it wasn't an abandonment of it. It was just, we had to build it back up because of the turnover and because of what happened in COVID, I think.
Yep. So we did it. did a big training day for our whole staff. We're taking the whole staff again through the book and kind of reorienting ourselves to that idea. And had about a, I don't know, three or four hour training day last week that the whole staff went through. And I took us through some of the workshops that I go and do for other churches and did it for our staff. And it was really it was really fun to actually see.
some of our longer term staff investing in some of our newer staff and telling stories about how this has worked for them. And yeah, it was just really a good hands in the middle moment for us to go, okay, this is who we are, this is what we do around here. And we just need to re-up some of those skills that we may have lost along the
Danielle (50:58.446)
I love too, before that day and even to this week there's still some more. I love that we adopted kind of a...
training versus teaching model around that. We did cohorts, which was cool, and obviously your presentation leaned that way. So that was cool to even put it in the new context in the way that we learned it, relearned it. So yeah, that's...
And this bleeds right into our tips and tools segment. Sorry, I don't mean to do the transition for you. Thank you. But one of the we thought we'd offer this and people that subscribe to my newsletter will get a free version of this this tool. And it's really a barriers tool that we walked our staff through that just said, hey, what's what's actually preventing you? And there's it's
in my book a little bit and then we've amplified it a little bit since then, but we talk about 10 barriers that describe the hesitation that a church staff person might have about inviting a high capacity volunteer onto their team. And I think kind of diagnosing those 10 barriers and then figuring out like, what do I do? If that's my barrier, what do I do about that?
is a really helpful first step for anybody, for any staff person. you know, we talk about like, I'll give a couple examples, the energy barrier. And so it's too much work to train and develop someone. Very common one. So just to go, hey, my plate's already full. I don't have time or energy to do this work. the while not realizing that this is going to save you work and that little work invested up front is actually going to save you a lot of work on the back end. But this idea that I'm already overwhelmed and
Derek (52:47.406)
training volunteers seems like more work. And so that's one of the barriers. The role barrier is something that comes up a lot. So this role is too important for a volunteer. Like I could never ask somebody to do this. And it's funny even to look back on our history and go, the kinds of roles that used to be off limits, that all this, once you kind of breach that barrier, then all of sudden, I think about preaching. I think about like back in the day serving communion. There were like these.
answers.
finances, working with the money. Like there were these roles that were only reserved for either pastoral staff or paid staff or whatever because of the accountability associate. And it's like, man, once we started breaking through those barriers, it's like anybody, you know, the body of Christ is a beautiful thing that God equips with people, you know, with skills all over the, and there's people that can preach that aren't paid. want some people on our preaching team now still that are unpaid volunteers.
that, yeah, that's just, once that barrier's cracked, it's really beautiful to see people step in. You know, I think about the commitment barrier is a big one. you know, they might quit when things get difficult or like, what's gonna happen, you know, are they gonna be committed enough? And we've just found as soon as you treat people like the authority that you're entrusting them, that they will step up.
Yeah, that's really good.
Danielle (54:11.542)
And you, of course, you will have people quit, but it's the same, it becomes the same risk as an employee. right, exactly. Yeah, you could have an employee quit just as easily. Yes, that's right. Yeah, you gotta get your head around that, that's a.
Exactly.
Derek (54:23.31)
I'll say one last one. So I mentioned four, there's 10 total. But one is the guilt barrier. And think this is what a lot of people feel of like, I don't want to burden that person. And again, one of the most toxic phrases that's used in churches is when people look at paid staff and say, I'm not doing that ministry. That's what we pay you to do. And so sometimes that can get in staff people's mind and go, that's what I'm paid to do. When in reality, the Bible is pretty crystal clear that
there are leaders in churches to equip the saints for works of ministry. That is the job of leaders in churches. so anyway, I've got a great tool. Hopefully people will sign up for that newsletter. You can get a free copy of this in there that goes through those 10 barriers. gives some here's what to do with this barrier if you have this one and then simple ways to take action to overcome those barriers.
Bare minimum and it will make a great discussion guide for your
team. That's very true.
Okay, great. So I think we're good. I think we're done. If you like this episode, you can tell us by leaving a rating or review, five stars if you did, and you don't want to miss what's next. What are we three, four through? Yeah, four. One third of the way. So subscribe now wherever you listen to or get your podcasts and help a friend by sharing this with them. And like Derek said, he has that newsletter at Who is Grace? Nope.
Danielle (55:47.202)
That's our church website, but you can go there. Darisamford.com forward slash reinventing church. That's where you can catch up, get those tools and tips and sign up for that newsletter. Thanks for joining us today.
Thanks everybody, bye.