Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
Danielle & Derek (00:07.406)
you
Danielle & Derek (00:17.55)
Hey, welcome in today's episode, Falling into Autumn. Oh, I see what you did. Okay, from teaching to training, my favorite shift. And this week at Grace, we're gonna talk about some training things that we're going through that are really cool and how to have difficult conversations. yeah, yeah. Excited everyone. Favorite ever. Hey, so before we jump in. Hi, Danielle. Hi, how are you? Great. Great.
So we're getting to fall. in fall, basically. in your EPA is beautiful. Pristine. Yeah, it is. Sometimes it lasts a week. Yeah. Sometimes it lasts three months. That's right. Usually more toward the week. But I love it so much. Yeah. It's my favorite for sure. Yeah, me too. Yeah. What do you what makes fall fall for you? So a couple of things. So sweatshirt. I'm just the sweatshirt weather is my favorite kind of weather. So like you get a little bit, you know.
T-shirts are great, like, know, when you have to put on that sweatshirt, that's good. Man, this is going to sound weird. And this is like old high school football athlete weirdness. like when I hear marching bands playing like, we grew up, we grew up like close enough to a school that you could hear them practicing. That's cool. And like it just has this maybe more than most sounds for me like that is nostalgia of like.
Getting ready to play football. Yeah, that time of year was very special to me for a lot of, you know, for a lot of that season. so, yeah, marching bands is good. And the leaves here, like we're just in the greatest part of the country, I think, for like changing leaves. feel like we're like the gateway to like the Northeast. The Northeast. Yeah, exactly. You have to stop in Yeah, it's really beautiful. Yeah, that's with like this. He's, you know, being a little bit of a sporty kid. And so.
The difference between cross country meets in August. And then when you can put a sweatshirt on and go and it's like in the leaves and it's beautiful. Same with baseball. Like there's a summer one, the fall one, far superior. I love the fall baseball season. Yeah, I love that. I'm definitely like, that's when our family starts to turn up the like.
Danielle & Derek (02:32.418)
Board games. there you go. know, like fire kind of stuff. We have like a fake fireplace, but we still use it. Yeah. I feel like I need that like coziness. That's when that starts to feel like, you know, yeah. Yeah. mean, with, you know, we've talked here before. I mean, with a group of guys and, you know, across kind of different spiritual persuasions. And it's really fun.
But yeah, when we get in front of the campfire, this is that time of year where we're in sweatshirts and campfire and outside and yeah, it's just, yeah, it's Stuff southerners would never do. Right. We have really good friends in the south and they would be like, no, no. Get me away from the fire, please. Love it, okay. So today,
In our 11 shifts that we're talking about, these are the shifts that we need to make to be effective in our current cultural reality as churches, ministries who want to be on the move. We're talking about moving from teaching to training. This is by far my favorite shift out of all of them. It's been so crazy and the stories are so awesome. It's one of those immediate, you feel it immediately. So today we have Dave Rhodes.
setting us up from Clarity House. And we have an interview with Mark Canada. Don't be fooled. He's a lead pastor in Texas. Right. Yeah. So we'll get there. And I'm going to try to say Pflugerville, Texas. So yeah, Parkway Church in Pflugerville, Texas. They have a really cool vision they're chasing down. I'm just going to read it word for word because I think it's so cool. So it's to make and multiply disciples.
Our vision is to reach every man, woman, and child in greater Austin and beyond with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We envision a day in 2030 where Parkway Bible Church is marked by 300 everyday missionaries, 30 missional communities, and three new church plants. That'll become the freeway to the future of seeing that vision accomplished. It's so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So it'd be cool to hear more from him, but first let's start with Dave.
Dave (04:41.368)
you
Dave (04:46.542)
Have you ever had the feeling that something was missing? Something that should be there that wasn't? If you're like me, you have this feeling every day. I mean, I'm the kind of person who feels like every time I leave the house, I've left my keys or wallet behind. Or maybe you felt this way when you bit into a bite of food that wasn't quite seasoned right and you're like, this was really bland and I got to get the salt and pepper really quick.
If you're a Vanderbilt University football fan or a New York Giants football fan, it's the kind of feeling you have every Saturday or Sunday afternoon when you watch your team play. There's just something missing. Hey, pastors and leaders, when's the last time you felt that way about your church or ministry? There's just something missing. The truth is we feel that way a lot and there probably are in all of our churches, things that are missing, things that we wish that were there that just
aren't. But one of the things that I want to just take a few moments to think about is something that's missing in a lot of American churches today, and it's something that we at Clarity House talk about as a training center. Now, when I talk about a training center, I'm not just talking about, I'm not talking about a brick and mortar building. I'm also not just talking about the thing that you bring your volunteers to to get them to serve better. What I am talking about
are intentional creative environments that help people acquire the competencies of becoming a disciple who becomes a leader that is sent out on mission. And in many churches today, this is the kind of environment that is so necessary for the future of the church that actually is missing from the way that we do ministry.
For many of us who are pastors and leaders, we were trained to create a teaching center. And to be honest with you, I love teaching centers. I think they're phenomenal and I think they're important for the future of the church. I love the power of preaching and teaching and I love seeing God move through a worship service. What I wanna suggest to you though is as important as a teaching center is, it's just as important that the teaching center be complimented
Dave (07:12.206)
by a training center. I think this is part of what Paul was addressing the church at Corinth with when the church at Corinth had the best teachers of its day coming through and yet had remained as one of the most spiritually immature churches in all of the New Testament. And so in 1 Corinthians chapter four, he writes to them and says, I write this not to shame you, but to warn you, even though you have 10,000 teachers, you don't have many fathers. And then he says, I'm sending you Timothy, imitate him as he imitates.
me. What Paul was saying is, you know, if teaching alone could create mature disciples, then Corinth would be, we expect to be the most spiritually mature church in the New Testament. But Paul was saying, no, you're not that. And so what you need is something more. You need an imitative model. So we talk about this shift from teaching to training. We're talking about not just simply getting people more information, but actually helping them see a model that they can follow.
So why is this important for our church? And I want to just take some time to take a few things from the people's perspective that the shift from teaching the training I think brings up. First is this. Here's why it's important. Number one, it's really hard to go live on Monday with what you heard on Sunday. I mean, honestly, you get back into the real world and you hear some things that you should be doing, but you're not quite sure that you could do it. You have no place to practice and succeed or practice
and fail. And so what often happens is you walk out thinking that you should be doing something and you're not doing it. And often you're trapped in the fear of failure. And what we know, you know, from all kinds of different kinds of trainings that the fear of failure is always worse than failure itself, because failure can even be a learning exercise. So creating a training center creates a place
where people can try and succeed, try and fail, they can get real-time feedback, see an imitative model and actually have some success before they have to go live with something. Second is the culture we live in, this kind of American mythology puts incredible pressure on us. And here's the American mythology that everyone just kind of feels from time to time. In American mythology, we believe that we should do something the best it's ever been done the first time we do it.
Dave (09:35.82)
And if we haven't done it the best it's ever been done the first time we do it, then it must not be our gifting. And the truth is that keeps normal people from actually stepping in and acquiring the competencies of becoming a disciple that becomes a leader that is sent out on mission. So at best in their mind, they think they can become a volunteer that serves, but not really a disciple who becomes a leader that is sent out on mission.
Well, pastors and leaders, I would just want to encourage you. Build a training center to go along with your teaching center. Equip the saints for the work of ministry. And that's going to require both teaching and training. And in our minds, we got to make the shift from teaching to training. So here's the challenge. What if we put as much imagination into training over the next 25 years?
as we have in teaching the last 25 years. What if we created environments where people could actually gain the competencies of the way of Jesus? And for me, I learned this much more as a soccer coach than I did in seminary. See, I knew as a soccer coach, my players needed to me say it, they needed to see it, they needed to try it, and they needed me to tie it. Yes, I'm gonna tell them what we're doing. That's important.
Teaching is really important as a part of that. But they need to see an imitative model. They needed a demo that they could imitate in their mind. They also needed to try some things and succeed and try and fail, getting real-time feedback, affirmation, and critique. And then they needed me to tie it to a fulfilled scrimmage. Well, I want to suggest to you, same is true in our churches, and that's why it's so important for us to create a training center in order to make the shift from teaching to training.
Derek (11:35.35)
All right, I'm here with Mark Canada. Thanks to Dave Rhodes so much. Dave talks about this imitative model that he learned more as a soccer coach than as a pastor. you know, this idea that, you know, when we're in a teaching situation, there's this, you know, myth that the first time we do it, we have to do it the right way. And we don't commit to this training situation. And so I just love how Dave talks about this, say it, see it, tie it, try it, talks about the way of Jesus and
Rhodes is just so great at that. And I'm here with Mark Canada. Mark, so good to have you, And how are things in Pflugerville, Texas?
Well, yeah, it's so good to be with you here Derek and yeah when people say, Flugerville like where in the world is that? It's literally like five minutes outside of Austin. So for the vast majority of people, this is Austin, Texas. And the way we say in Flugerville, we're between a rock and a weird place. Round Rock just being to the north of us. So we're between a rock and a weird place.
Ha ha.
Derek (12:34.968)
haha
Derek (12:40.43)
I love that. Yeah, my son just moved to Austin, Texas. And so next time we head down to see him, I'm coming over and see you too. Yeah, hey, I love it. That sounds fantastic. So hey, we're talking today about from teaching to training. And I know for us, this has been like a huge, massive shift that has broken my brain at times and also really energized me at times. And I know you guys have been on a
Get a taco or some barbecue.
Derek (13:06.408)
similar journey at your church there. And so can you just talk about that? Talk about your church's journey from teaching to training. What was maybe an aha moment that convinced you that teaching alone wasn't enough, that you needed to become kind of a training center and shifting the church in that direction?
Yeah, no, I love that question. And for us at Parkway, right before COVID happened, we were kind of in that place where we were, you know, passionate about preaching the gospel, starting to think about like, man, what does it look like to make disciples, help people live on mission, but kind of had that like background of an attraction, like, hey, how do we attract people to this?
But at the same time, knowing that, there's something so much more of how do we kind of make this shift from being a people who are just consuming to helping people contribute, that they're a part of this thing, that it's not about this paid clergy who's up here that we need to applause and say, hey, you guys get after it. It's not like we're all called to this. I was so struck by, you know, when I think about Jesus's call to us in the Great Commission to go.
make disciples of all nations that there's this great commission. But maybe you've heard this before Derek, but I was so convicted when the first time I heard of the functional great commission that is simply go into all the world and make more worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups and then teaching them to volunteer a few times a month. And that was like the very definition of a tractional church. And I remember hearing that for the first time and being stuck like in the heart and just saying,
Wow, like that is that that's kind who we are. And yet when you look at Jesus's pattern and what the Great Commission actually looks like, it's this it's this funnel that goes out of, he worked with 12 and then those 12 went to 72 and then those 72 went to 120 and then it continued to multiply from there. And then so for us, it really began with that conviction of we don't we don't want to be a part of the functional Great Commission. We actually want to be a part of
Mark (15:16.268)
the great commission of making disciples of all nations. And the only way that that's going to really happen is if we move from building a congregation of consumers to building a body of contributors that are actually going to move into that. And so for us, that's kind of that impulse that really started, which actually led to us having a conversation with Dave Rhodes to begin to explore what that could look like.
Yeah, I think I heard that functional great commission from Dave as well. It had a similar penetrating effect on my heart. I'll never forget the sentence he said after he presented that. said, I think Jesus died for more than that. And it's just like, man, yeah, that's right. He died for this multiplication funnel that we would call people and train them up and send them out. So yeah, that's really good. We had a similar spot there.
resonate with that so much. you know, we've kind of talked about this phrase a lot as we've been making some of our transitions here that, you know, the church in the West or the American church is over-inspired and under-trained. And like when you hear that phrase, like, because we come together, we have great teaching, we lift our hands in worship, like we can get all the good feels, you know, about Jesus. And then Monday comes and, you know,
Anyway, how what does that phrase kind of mean to you? How have you tried to flip that script at Parkway?
Yeah, so I think for us, you know when we look at actual disciple making is that we We realized that we were pretty good at faking disciples rather than making disciples and that we were focused so often on the quality of our programs and then those programs Develop all kinds of busyness to keep the machine running and that actually distract us from the truth of making disciples
Mark (17:14.348)
because we found that programs don't disciple people, people disciple people to become like Jesus. And so it's that people part that matters so much. So for us, we started to look at the bigger picture and to say, okay, well, how do we help people move from just consuming to contributing? What's that pathway? And so for us, we've called it our 4M strategy. And that's kind of dovetailed into what we have as our 4Ms of merge, mature,
immobilize and multiply and and we talk about it in terms of hey What does this look like at Parkway and then I can get into some language later as what does this look like as the people of Parkway? So when I talk about that at Parkway, it's hey we merge together every week We come together for worship and the word we mature meaning we get into Life groups or small groups and we do that at all stages of life from adults to students to kids for maturing
Then we get into mobilize where this is the really the training center of what we do of helping people be equipped with the God given gifts and abilities that they've been given from God, but then how to maximize those for his glory. And then that leads into multiply where we're equipping our people to be everyday missionaries where they're learning to live a blessed lifestyle. We can talk more about that. learning to live a blessed lifestyle, but where they're actually learning how to make disciples of their one or their three or their 12.
And then out of that launching new churches where we have a church plant residency at our church here where we're now launching new churches out.
Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, I love that. Those four M's are very clarifying, you know, as you think about that, that, that what it actually means to be not, you know, not just a consumer, but a contributor, you know, this is what that means. And in your context, it's really great. So when you when you think about the shift, again, we're all, you know, anybody who's a pastor gets the gets the teaching bug, I think it's somewhere along the way and the preaching, but like, we all love great teaching and preaching and
Derek (19:16.93)
hopefully to produce it as well. But can you think about, you know, when when you guys started making this shift, what was one of those early environments, maybe that you first changed into a into a training environment, maybe from a teaching environment? And, and what did that look like for you guys? What was one of the starting places?
Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah, so again, this kind of leads into the second shift for us, which was we care so much about that teaching part and the preaching that's so important, but we also want to shift in the second shift from informing to equipping. And so in that shift, it doesn't take away from that Sunday preaching and the importance of preaching God's word. But what we said is, hey, there needs to be some other environments that are more interactive in their learning where people can
dive into the word together, but then also be given some practical experience where they have to go out and practice and then come back and debrief. Similar to what Jesus did with the 12 and 72, he would launch them on mission and then they would come back and they would debrief that together. And so we formed what we've called our Parkway Institute. And within the Parkway Institute, we have a number of different classes, cohorts and seminars that we've produced that help bring that interactive environment.
And really the one that I, you know, I could talk about a lot of them, but the one that I'm so grateful for is what we've called, and there's three levels to it. It's our discipleship 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. And it's really just stages and it's a guide that we've created, but it's reproducible so that when you walk through it, you can reproduce that in someone else. And what we're really careful to say is, Hey, this is not a curriculum. While it could be looked at that way, this is a guide that you can
Adjust to who you're meeting with because we know that discipleship is not a one-size-fits-all But we need to be able to flex it according to the people that we're working with 1.0 is really for that brand new baby believer or someone who's not a Christian yet 2.0 is for someone who's been walking with Jesus for a little bit and that 3.0 is really that leadership development of Helping see like hey who are the next leaders in our church? And how do we create that leadership pipeline so that we can continue to multiple?
Derek (21:28.462)
Now that's incredible. Yeah, so give us a little bit more detail about that. Like, what are the size of those those like guide groups or cohorts or whatever that are coming together for those 1.0 2.0 3.0 kind of stuff and, even take us into that into a little bit of the detail of it. Like, what is it? Is it an hour long? Is it 90 minutes? What are what are people actually doing during that time? Yeah, you know, give us a little bit of a pull back the curtain moment if you would.
Yep, for sure. Yeah, so in each of the 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, it follows the same pattern, which we would call are our mission measures. And so we would say, hey, these are the things that when we're talking about what a disciple is, that when they're actively living these things out, they're actually living as a disciple. And so our mission measures are formed in question format so that we can constantly be asking this. And so again, this happens in all three.
phases, but it's simply this is, are you in the word? Are you in the family? Are you in the trenches? And are you in the field? And so in each of those categories, we're breaking that down at different levels of depth and practice. So for example, when we say, are you in the word, that's a basic, like, let's, let's help you learn not just to know what the word says, but to actually put it into practice so that you're living out God's word. And so there's different study tools that we'll give.
to help them get in the word for themselves. We like to use discovery Bible studies as well. But then there's the practical nature where then each week you're being held accountable with, hey, what did you read in God's word this week? And then what did he say to you through it? And then being able to share that. And again, these group sizes can be anywhere from, one-on-one to up to 12 potentially, depending on what dynamic you're going for. But then we move from that, are you in the word to are you in the family? And so this is
God's created and wired us for relationship. We're the body of Christ and it takes the body of Christ to help form us and shape us into the image of Christ. And so we need each other. And so we highly value authentic relationships. And so it's getting into those relationships and learning how to connect with one another. And so then we're encouraging people to not just get into life groups, but what does it look like to be an active contributor? And then when you're in the middle of those life groups, what does it look like to love people?
Mark (23:53.208)
when you disagree and how do you deal with conflict? And so we spent a good bit of time dealing with how to grow in relationship through conflict. And again, you can see the different levels you can go in there where at a 3.0 level, we're getting much deeper into marriage relationships, family relationships, and digging into those spaces. Then we move on to, are you in the trenches? And so that's part of like, hey, are you using your God-given gifts? Do you know what they are? How can those be?
built up inside of you and then launched out to actually use. And so again, we're evaluating, hey, is this person serving? Where are they serving? But that's not just within the church, while that's important, but also being able to say, where is it in your community that God has already blessed you with natural relational connection where you live, learn, work, and play? And how can you use those connected relationships and those gifts to be about building the kingdom?
And so then that's that next part debriefing that and then we get into are you in the field and then that field part is really important because as we talk about living in an everyday Missionary lifestyle that's living that blessed lifestyle and that's again begin with prayer be listen eat with one another Serve and then share your story and God's story helping people live with those five missional practices again where they live learn work and play
and then evaluating it. One of the things that we do with a monthly cadence is we call it our missional temperature check, where they'll check in with the person who's discipling them or even within their life group and just say, hey, what's your temperature on a scale of one to 10? What's your temperature? And what's one goal you can set for this next month by God's grace and his strength to increase your missional temperature? And so then we evaluate that. There are a couple of examples.
that's really good. Yeah, I love the simplicity of that. And, you know, I you've you rattle off some of these here, I'd love you to drill down maybe into one I know for for, for me for us, one of the the big mind shifts was from
Derek (25:58.676)
Helping people to know new things to helping people be able to do new things. And so like when they come into one of our training environments, the idea isn't that they leave knowing something that they didn't know when they came in, but it's leave to leave being able to do something that they weren't able to do when they came in. And the training environment then provides this almost, you know, greenhouse to be working on skill development. And again, it's not just dumping information on people, but it's how do we around tables help people to develop new skills?
and practice them in a safe environment so that when they go out, they have new skills. And so can you just talk about that skill development that may be, and maybe one particular skill that you're trying to intentionally train into your people and what that process looks like?
Yeah, yeah, I think when it comes to the, you in the field? And, you know, again, we get into that living, everyday missionary kind of lifestyle. We want to provide different tools for the tool belt of when you're actively learning to share the gospel, what does that look like? And so there's a ton of different methods out there. One that we really like to use is the three circles method. And so equipping our people with that three circles, again, to be able to show that God created us for a relationship.
Sin broke that relationship, but God had a rescue plan through Jesus, which brings us back into a right relationship with God. So teaching them the three circles and then actively giving them a chance to now go out and pray that God will open up a door for you to share the gospel. And then let's come back and debrief how it went. So that would be one example.
I love that. Yeah, that's really great. And just as such a simple tool that they can take with them and, and the skill building around that. That's really great. So here's one of the downsides of the training, right? So the teaching, you can kind of, you can kind of just give the information and separate yourself from that. a trainer engages with the content in a different way than the teacher does.
Danielle & Derek (27:56.424)
And so I just wonder about you. I've got my own story, but this is about you right now. So how have you found these kind of training environments to expose you a little bit? what is it required of you personally to kind of find yourself as more of a trainer than just a teacher?
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think for me, it's that
Maybe you can relate to this, but there's just something about a full room that's really energizing. And I love to get to be around people. And so when there's a lot of people around and you have an opportunity to cast vision, preach God's word, and engage with people at that level, it's fun. And at the same time, when you look at Jesus's ministry, yes, there were times where he gathered people. And this would be shift number three for us.
Yeah.
Mark (28:54.882)
but it's moving from that mindset of just gathering, but shifting from gathering to scattering. And if we're going to really scatter people, then they need to be equipped with the tools necessary to scatter, to actually go and share the gospel. And so I think part of it has been to release some of that. And not that I still don't get to do that, but it's like, that's important, but this is even more important. And so don't settle for the gathering part.
like move beyond that to what Jesus did with the scattering. And then part of that requires that, that up close personal relationship where man, they can, they get to see the stink that's on me. They get to see the messiness of my own life. And when we're talking about, when I'm sharing like, Hey, here's who I shared the gospel with this, this past week, or here's where I chickened out and I was afraid, or here's where we're dealing with conflict with relationships.
Here's where I blew it with my kids this past week and let me give you a specific example. And they're seeing that up close and personal versus just a story upfront. They get to hear it, see it. And yeah, there's just something about that vulnerability and, the reality. And I always use this phrase, but you know, we're all hypocrites in transition and for them getting, getting to see that in me, like, man, I don't have this all figured out, but I'm trusting in Jesus just like you and learning to obey Jesus just like.
Yeah, that's really compelling. I know for me, it's just like, you're right. It's one thing to kind of come up with an illustration that you can give to the room. But when there's this almost dialogical thing going on in a training environment, and you're trying to train people in skills, it becomes very apparent very quick if you don't
actually know how to do that skill yourself. You know what I mean? It's like you can't hide behind a fancy illustration in a room like that because all of sudden you're going, here's what you do. And somebody asks a question. And if you're not doing it, it becomes very apparent that you're not doing it and that you're trying to tell people to do something that you're not willing to do yourself.
Derek (31:12.81)
I don't know. It's such a great challenge. It's annoying at times. It's like, man, I guess I have to do all this stuff. And again, I love your hypocrite. What was the phrase? Hypocrite. In transition. there we go. I love that. My dad was a high school track and field coach.
Yeah.
Mark (31:30.956)
Yeah, it's that we're all hypocrites in transition.
Derek (31:42.95)
And one of the reasons he was a very successful and popular coach, and one of the things that made him so popular is that he had a philosophy that he would never ask an athlete to do something that he wasn't going to do himself first. And so when we were running hills, my dad was the first one up the hill. And when we're running sprints and when we're doing it, he was kind of leading the pack. And man, it's so much.
easier to follow a coach like that, that you know what I mean? That you know is doing it versus somebody that's just kind of talking about it.
Yeah. Yeah. Just to give you an example of that, that's been so good for, for me, we're an elder led church. like with our elders and even with our staff. So that example of that missional temperature reading that we kind of do as a part of our evangelism cohort, that's a part of our Parkway Institute. We actually do that missional temperature reading as an elder board every single month that we're holding each other accountable.
to living on mission. And we do the exact same thing with our staff for the exact reason that you just said right there that, as we equip our church with this through our institute, that these things have to be true of us. Like we've got to lead the way in this and we can't expect others to do what we're not willing.
Yeah, that's really great. Yeah, so you talked earlier about that reproducibility. And I do think that that's one of the things that makes training different than teaching, is that we can teach a great sermon and people can walk out and they'll remember maybe bits and pieces of it for a little bit. One of the discouraging things is to realize how few of your words people actually remember.
Mark (33:31.932)
I don't appreciate you reminding me.
And but bits and pieces here and there, you know, and that, you know, something triggered some thought in them or memory in them, maybe they'll remember it. But, you know, I think that one of the values of training is that it does become reproducible, that it carries on a life of its own outside the room, you know, that it was shared in. And so how are you thinking about you mentioned it earlier, but how are you thinking about the training environments that you're creating?
being not so dependent upon a dynamic leader, but creating it in a way that can be multiplied by others in your church.
Yeah, I think one of those would come from our fourth shift that we talk about. And it's really that shift from quantity to quality in that, you know, you could do a lot of different trainings and it'd be like a smorgasbord for people, but we're saying, Hey, we want to move just from doing a whole bunch of stuff to making sure what we actually are doing is quality. So therefore it becomes.
reproducible. So again, that shift has been really big for us. So there's a lot of times where we'll have an idea, be like, this would be a great parkway Institute. We should do this. And then we hit the pause button and say, okay, remember from quantity, what are a few things that we can do well versus a lot of things that we can do mediocre. and so that's been a huge shift for us. And then, so some of that plays itself out in
Mark (35:04.898)
you know what we're doing in our training, the materials that we produce for people, making sure that, Hey, we're going to hand you something in such a way that we've thought about it so that it doesn't just stop with you, but you can actually pass this on to someone else or you can recreate it with a group that then you decide to do. And so that's been a lot of it. That big shift for us again, from quantity to quality, making sure that everything we're producing in those courses, cohorts, seminars are done in such a way that they can be passed on.
Yeah, that's really great. you know, we're so we're piloting a one of our dream disciple training courses right now. Yeah. And so six week thing. And we're actually going through we've we've developed some material around the BLSS stuff you talked about earlier. And, you know, I just thinking about like, what you're talking about, and the and the reproducibility.
And we had to get it shifted in our mind, like that this whole thing doesn't have to be reproducible, but we have to create each kind of module in a way that's memorable and reproducible. so once again, like they're not going to take everything that we did in six weeks and be able to reproduce it. It's not like we're saying, now you go teach this six week curriculum to every. But the modulating of those individual sessions.
Yes.
Derek (36:29.388)
can be reproducible within it and again memorable. And I think that helps it to get out of the room and into the real world. And I'll give you one quick example that I'd love to hear your any thoughts that you have. one of the things we're so the BLESS, the middle one there is EAT. The E stands for eat. And so we've been really trying to encourage our people to reclaim some of their meal times.
and use them for disciple making, use them for friendship, to build friendships with new people, with people that they are in existing relationships with but want to deepen. And, you know, if friendship is essentially a combination of time and vulnerability, well, the time can come by having a meal together that creates time for you to be with them. But vulnerability doesn't come naturally, you have to create it. And so we talk about like,
what are some good questions that you could ask at meal times to create that environment of vulnerability and can go a little deeper than just news, news, weather and sports. And so in our, in our eat session, we actually set up the room with a variety of different eating environments. And so there was like a little coffee shop over in the one corner with some coffee, you know, two person tables, high tables, we set up a break room, like a work break room in one of the other
areas and a dinner table at one of the other areas and had people with questions at each of those environments just practice asking different kinds of questions at those tables to try to increase the vulnerability of eating. And I think about and the reason I say that is just like so our whole six week course isn't going to be reproducible but people could take that one module that one 25 minutes that we spent doing that one little thing. It's going to stick in their brain a different way.
than if we had just taught, here's 10 questions to ask at your next meal. And honestly, the next time they're at one of those kinds of tables, they're going to be triggered to think about this experience that they had, where they learned some questions and they learned about going a little bit deeper and that sort of thing. So again, that's kind of our version of that. What does reproducible look like? We want to create these experiences or modules in a training environment that we can't do on a Sunday morning that's going to help people to really
Derek (38:50.19)
some of the principles, you know, in their real life.
Yeah, that's so good. mean, I feel like I need to steal that one.
Let's go. There's listen, there's already stuff you've said that I'm ready to steal. So let's just swap. You know, swap these, these ideas and we'll go from there. That's great. Yeah. Mark, you go ahead. Yeah, no, please respond to whatever you have to say.
Yeah, no, I was just gonna go back to... I mean, this is pretty simple, but those discipleship questions that we ask, this is where it's so reproducible of, you in the Word? Are you in the family? Are you in the trenches? And are you in the field? And again, we've baked that in literally to everything we do so that it can be at a high, high leadership level with our elders even of asking those questions.
but then at the smallest level at the dinner table with my fourth grader. And I'm able to ask him like, Hey buddy, like as we look at the Bible tonight, like we're going to be in the word. What'd you, what'd you learn about Jesus? And when we're in, you know, I can, I can get to that granular level with a fourth grader of asking those questions. If I have time, I want to share you where, where this connects to real life.
Derek (40:06.326)
Yeah.
Please, please.
Mark (40:10.83)
And so this is about my son, so I'm a little bit prejudiced here and biased. But you know, I think for me, as we've really leaned into that part of, you know, are you in the field and caring about, no, sharing your faith, letting people know who Jesus is. It's a training that we do with our teenagers over the summer. And we actually launch our teenagers out and we call them our Parkway Kids Clubs. But we go out into homes in the community. Think
think like VBS, but like in the community.
In the streets. love it. Yeah.
And so our teenagers are trained to share the gospel in those environments. And so my son's participated, like, literally in our driveway with neighborhood kids participating in this. So he's in fourth grade, and he's at school. This just this past week. He's at school, and he's talking with his friend, and he just asked him the question, like, hey, do you go to church? And the kid's like, no, no, no, I don't know anything about that.
And then my son Matthew goes, well, do you know your ABCs? And the kids looking at him like, what are you talking about? And ABCs in their training is a way to share the gospel with, know, admit that you're a sinner, believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again and choose to follow him. And so my fourth grader remembered that. And here's a little side and he had been what he had heard us watching a Forrest Frank video this past week.
Mark (41:40.972)
where Forrest Frank was talking about sharing his faith. And so my little guy, Matthew, heard that made the connection in school to share the ABCs with this kid. And literally in school right there in public school, this kid prays to receive Christ. And, and I'm thinking like, what? comes home to tell us this story. And we're like, are you kidding me? Like, that's amazing. So cool. Like as a fourth grader doing that, and it all connected from, you know, that summer of
teenagers being equipped, then passing that on to them, him getting it in such a simple way. God's sovereignly using Forrest Frank's voice into that, and then him speaking it to his friend at school. And now he's like, Mom, Dad, can I get him a Bible? Absolutely.
Yeah, no, sorry, you can't.
Yeah, no, sorry we yeah, we can't afford that right now. So yeah, no, that's great. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that story That's a fantastic Exclamation point on this and I I do want to circle back you've you've deftly Woven some of these shifts that I know you guys have made through some of our conversation But I'd love for you to say it all at once here so when you think about moving from a teaching center to a training center you guys at Parkway have made four key shifts, could you just share those shifts with us and like
Give us a little bit of texture for each one. What does that mean?
Mark (43:00.674)
Yeah, absolutely. So shift number one is from consuming to contributing. And so it's helping our people see, as you are a part of this church, you're not a consumer. You're a contributor, which means you're called to live on mission where you live, learn, work and play. So that's the first shift and shift number two kind of takes us in that direction from informing to equipping. And so we're going to invite you into environments where it's not just going to be you listening.
but you're going to be equipped with tools to then go and live as a follower of Jesus. And then you're going to come back and we're going to debrief those things together. If number three is that shift from gathering to scattering. And so, Hey, as followers of Jesus here at Parkway Bible Church, yes, we're going to gather, but know that this is just like an airport where you gather, but you're gathering for the purpose of scattering.
where you live, learn, work, and play. so helping people see the bigger purpose of what they're involved in as a part of our church. And then that last shift is shift number four, from quantity to quality, realizing that we can only do a few things well. And if we're going to do them well, we want to make sure that we do them well enough so that they're able to be reproduced in others. Because there's a lot we could do, but there's only a few things that we must do. And so those have been the.
four key shifts. love it. I love it, man. Thank you so much, Mark, for being with us today. We're cheering you on from from afar up here in Pennsylvania to you down in Pflugerville, Texas. Yeah, yeah. God bless all that you're doing, man. Thanks so much for being here.
Well, thanks so much for having me, Derek. It's an honor to be with you and just continuing to pray that you guys continue to maximize Jesus, that your church continues to mature as Jesus followers and continues to multiply the gospel where they live, learn, work and play.
Danielle & Derek (44:53.728)
Amen. Thanks, man.
Danielle & Derek (45:02.274)
Okay, welcome back. That was awesome. Yeah, it's such a great discussion. Favorite, favorite, favorite shift for sure. Yeah, they set such good principles around what they're doing. I think that, you know, just kind of learning from their shifts resonated so much with so many of those things. And it's like it's fun. It's fun to talk with people that are speaking the same language as you and you know, you can relate to. yeah, it's great. All right. So let's move on. We're to talk about what happened at Greece this week behind the curtain.
What I thought we'd talk about is the experience that we're having really shifting from the whole teaching to training thing. We're in, well you are, you and Sarah, Scott, some others are doing some work on retooling curriculum, writing curriculum for the first time around our dream disciple roles. And you guys have had some really cool stories come out of those recently, some pilot stories. Yeah, yeah, it's been great.
We're in week four of six. Both of you were kind of launched a couple of them at the same time and are seeing multiple classes through some of the same classes. One of them is a brand new pilot for our dream disciple role, intentional friend. wow, wow. And I'll just talk kind of philosophically first. Like we started.
thinking that when we think about training that we needed to start from the ground floor and build up and say, okay, what are some basic tools that we're to offer the whole congregation about, for example, being an intentional friend and then kind of do a basic intro and then a little bit more and then a little bit more in our life groups. And then eventually people would take kind of like a master training course or whatever. And we figured out along the way that it's probably better to start with the master training. So figure out the six week
that you want to take people through and all of the tools and exercises that are part of that experience and then once you have that established you can kind of pull down into the you know, if I need to do a staff training on being an intentional friend all of a sudden I've got 15 exercises or tools or something from that master class that we could pull down and use and so that was just a bit of a I don't know if that's helpful to anybody but the starting with the full
Danielle & Derek (47:23.138)
breadth of what we want to train our people to do and then kind of work our way backward was a big learning along the way because I feel like we started down the wrong path and then course corrected. But Handcrafted is our embedded influencer course that we're going to adapt for that but it's something that I was able to help develop with Clarity House to help people find and name their two word calling.
So we've got three of those courses going at once now, about 12 to 14 people in each. And then we've got the pilot for our intentional friend course, which is about 20 people in there. the stories are unbelievable. mean, we sat there last night afterwards and practically cried. trainers just, the people come up, I'm saying, mean, one guy came up just in full tears after the class and said, this has transformed.
everything about how I operate my life. Yeah. And he's like, I was at a hayride the other night with my family or whatever. And this guy that I had talked to before, again, this is the intentional friend training. Yeah. I could see he wasn't doing great. And we had just learned about the. My gosh. Progressing deeper questions. And so he said, I just asked him a question or whatever. And he said after he dropped, he was the one driving the tractor, owned the farm, dropped the kids off.
asking good questions and
Danielle & Derek (48:45.458)
And it was just this guy and him and he goes, he turned to me and just said, can I confide in you? And started talking to me and he goes, and I told him, can I pray for you right? He's like, it's the first time I've ever prayed for somebody. Can I pray for you right now? Can I pray for you right now? And he's like, I put my hand on him. My wife was there, she put her hand on him. He was going through some stuff and we prayed for him. This guy's bawling. He's like, I never would have known how to do that. I never would have had the guts to do that. But because we're learning, not just.
principles But we're practicing in the class and this is the key, know, we talked about it. This is the key. It's not just Helping people to know new things it's helping to be able to do things that they couldn't do when they came in and to practice into and My goodness, I could tell I mean we could podcast and podcast and podcast the the the handcrafted one has also just been incredible as people are
going through these processes of figuring out how has God made me to operate in the world? Has He given me, where has He placed me? And for them to begin to put words to, here's who I'm called to be in every room I walk into. And to see those light bulbs go off and to see people wrestling through some of their past experiences and like, my goodness, because everybody has a life story and we live our life story, but
would
Danielle & Derek (50:11.182)
very few people interpret it. Yeah, that's good. And the interpretive work is what helps us to break cycles and helps us to step into say, I want to repeat this thing, or this is a thing I want to continue. And to watch people like come to grips with like, oh my gosh, that happened to me when I was 10. Right. I never realized how much it marked me and and made me who I am today. Yeah.
But like if I can go back and go, okay, how has God redeemed that and what does he wanna do with that? And how has he postured and positioned me to like actually make a difference because that thing happened to me? Oh my goodness, Danielle. I mean, it has been for me, some of the most moving, you know, month, four weeks of my ministry. 30 years. Because it's just watching people make the connections of like, oh,
This is not just something I learned in church or I heard in a sermon. Like, I know how to do this. I know how to do this now. I can walk it out. And it's impacting my Monday to Friday, not just my Sunday. So anyway. Listen, one of the things I am most thankful for through this whole entire process is that we stopped assuming that people knew everything they needed to do what they needed to do. we've had jokes forever.
you could start repeating your sermons from five years ago. Just straight through, straight through and no one would notice. The reason they wouldn't notice is because it's just knowledge. Right. It's not transform. It's not it's not moving. I'm not. No, it's true. No, it's true. know what I mean? The style of it. Right. And they might remember a bitter piece from here or there. yeah. I remember that story or something like that. Yes. But like the totality of of sermon, like people don't remember that.
Monday. No, it's like it's like books from school. You only remember the ones that you need for your life. But like so I'll give you an example. So one of the.
Speaker 1 (52:07.861)
one of the
trainings that we did last night in our intentional friend training class is so one of the skills we're trying to build is how to have great meals. have great meals with a friend that are meaningful because we're saying true friendship is is is a combination of time and vulnerability. So you have to spend time together and you have to have increasing levels of vulnerability for that person to be called a true friend. Yeah. OK. So we're saying meal time.
is a great time to get both, to get time and vulnerability. You have to be intentional. You get automatic time, but you have to create the vulnerability. So one of the ways to do that is to have good sets of questions that you talk about over meals and you can dive into each other's lives. So last night, again, in a training environment, we could have talked about that and just taught it, but we set up in the room a couple of bistro tables, a lunch break room, a
and a dinner table and had people choose their environment. And then we did had series of questions that people just practiced asking questions over. We had food there, we had drinks there. So like we wanted them to feel how to eat food and to drink and to be talking how to do that. the people were saying at the end, and I was even just thinking last night going, they're gonna be at their next meal and that...
experience is going to be in their head. Yes. Like because they experienced it. Yes. And it wasn't just here's four lessons about how to have a good meal. It was like they sat around a table and practiced with questions. And I don't know. I'm just such a I'm such a convert. no kidding. The whole training module versus T. And again, teaching is good. Right. It is, of course. We have to keep preaching the gospel. Of course. No question. But my my. And I think one of Dave's early
Danielle & Derek (54:02.71)
challenges to us is he said if we What if we put the time and energy into our training environments that we do into our teaching environments? And that's what we're trying to Yeah, and it sounds when you say it sounds like What okay? It sounds elementary. It sounds like but we are all just like kids trying to learn stuff and Yeah, you're not making a play with play-doh or anything. But like you're making experiential, which is so huge To transform those environments. That's really cool. Yeah
Really cool. Okay, let's move to our last segment, tips and tools. We've had a lot of tools, but I think this is our first tip. This is the first tip. This is the first tip. Just in case anyone has their hashtags, we've had tip number one. Here we go. And this, of course, is going to be great. And sarcasm. Just kidding. This is awesome. Conflict.
So yeah, I think, man, heard Sheila Heen, I don't know if you remember that name. She was at the GLS a few years ago, but she talked about hard conversations. And I thought this was just so profound. She said, most people go into hard conversations and walk away answering these two questions. Did I stay calm and were my intentions good? And she's like, those are the wrong questions for hard conversations.
She said, the real questions are, did we talk about the real issue and did the conversation make things better or worse? And she's like, those are the questions. But here's the tip, that's not the tip. It's just good context to go, okay, let's think about.
Right? And if we do that, we chalk it up as the victor. It like, okay, I stayed calm. I got through I through it. freak out. Yeah. That's funny. Okay. Sorry. So that's not the tip. That's just the setup to the Here's the tip. And this comes from me. I actually had a conversation many years ago. It was actually when we were negotiating the sale of a building. Okay. And it was a business person. you're going to say it was me? No. It was a business person in town who...
Danielle & Derek (56:13.62)
I was just seeking some guidance from him and just said, hey, I'm walking into a negotiation with like a big time real estate mogul in our town to talk about the sale of one of our buildings. I need some advice. Like I've never been in that kind of a room before. And he gave me this piece of advice that has stuck with me for difficult conversations. It's a negotiating tip, but it really works well. I've used it a hundred times for this. And the tip is write down the exact sentence that you need to say.
and don't walk out of the room without saying that sentence. man. And it forces you to, if you go, and again, taking it now to difficult conversations, if you go in and go, I have to communicate this to that person. And if I don't say this sentence to that person, I will not have addressed the issue. And so whether you write it on your hand, whether you put it in your phone and just glance at your phone when the time comes, if you have a little piece of paper, like whatever.
but to write the exact sentence down that you need to say in order to address the issue and then not leave the room unless you say that. It has helped me many, many, many, many, many times. Because it forces you not to dance around it. Yeah. And it forces you to say exactly what needs to be said. So anyway, that's the tip. We've created a whole little thing around that to just kind of remind people of the tip and we'll include that in the newsletter this week. Okay, great.
Okay, good luck. Good luck everyone. Oh man, all right. That's good for today. If you like this episode, you can tell us by leaving a rating or review. You don't want to miss what's coming next. Subscribe now if you haven't already. Ring the bell, smash the like button or whatever the YouTube kids saying.
And as always, I know this, I repeat this, but I need to be reminded of it too. If this is good and you're thinking of somebody, share it with them. If you think it'll help. You can find detailed show notes and related resources over at DerekStanford.com forward slash reinventing church. And that's where you can also subscribe to his weekly newsletter, get all the latest free tools and posts. And that's it. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you next time. Peace.