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Heather Zempel, Discipleship Pastor and Ministries Director at National Community Church in Washington, DC, discusses recruiting and developing small group leaders, making disciples, and raising the value of groups with busy and important people.
In each episode you will discover effective ways to recruit more leaders, form better groups, and make more disciples. Guests to this monthly podcast will include small group and discipleship experts like Carl George, Dr. Warren Bird, Steve Gladen, Mark Howell, Dr. Bill Donahue, Bill Willits, Chris Surratt, as well as some pastors you've never heard of who are doing some amazing things with small groups and discipleship.
Heather:
Hey.
Allen:
Hey. How's it going?
Heather:
I'm good. How are you doing
Allen:
Good. It's been a long time.
Heather:
It has been a while. It's really good to see you. How is your holiday?
Allen:
Pretty good. I, I, uh, since we talked last, I moved back to Kansas where I grew up.
Heather:
Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Allen:
Yeah. So, um, you know, I got to have Christmas with my dad and with my sister and her family, so that's kind of nice. Oh,
Heather:
So nice.
Allen:
Yeah. First, first time in like over 20 years, we don't travel at Christmas. I never wanted Christmas to be about, you know, a trip. So, yeah. Anyway, so how are things with you?
Heather:
We're good. You know, I, we stayed here in DC for Christmas. Yeah. We didn't go anywhere. No one came to us. We're gonna go see family in February. And so, um, it was very quiet. I feel very rested and then was ready to like run into the new year full esteem ahead. And my kid has been home from school now, four outta five days this week. Oh. So it's just, it was a common of, they delayed the start of school cuz they wanted to get kids tested for COVID right. Few snow days. Cause if it just flues in DC, the city shuts down. So that's
Allen:
Funny. well, I, I lived in South Carolina for 14 years. Okay. Yeah. Like they would shut things down if there was snow in the forecast, even if it didn't even if it didn't no. Yeah, for sure.
Heather:
For sure. I get it. I I'm from mobile, Alabama, so oh, okay. The temperature dips below freezing and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Literal really
Allen:
Freezes off. They lose their minds. Yeah, totally, totally.
Heather:
So you know, it's so I'm home today, you know, I'm, , we're back to the whole work at home scenario, but uh, there
Allen:
You go, man.
Heather:
We're excited about the season we're in and it's fun.
Allen:
That's fun. That's good. So, uh, yeah. So you've been at Nashville for a while now. Haven't you? Gosh,
Heather:
It is. Yeah. I mean I started going in 98, fall of 98 and then I was here for one year. It was what, what first brought me to DC was a fellowship on Capitol hill. That's right. And, and that was meant to last for a year. I was offered the opportu to stay, but I moved to Nashville Tennessee for two years. And, and I, that was, I, I had intended to be in Nashville for a long time and then wound up, there was an opportunity to come back to DC. I took it. It was, it was crazy. I mean, like within two weeks, my mind shifted from a no way to a I'm in . So, um, you know, move back to DC to work on the hill again. And that's when, you know, Mark Patterson asked me if I would come on staff part-time I was silly enough to, to believe him when he said we're gonna hire someone full-time to do groups in nine months. Um, and here I am still, so there you go, grateful, you know, grateful for the opportunity. And so, yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been in continu, its fall of 20, no fall of 2001, you know, you're getting older when all the decades just
Allen:
Kind of bleed. I know it just, it does. It's crazy. Well, and it's weird cuz we moved back to Kansas and I gone for 38 years Ali cause I, so here's the funny thing cuz when I went to college, um, and in Springfield, Missouri, and cause I grew up in the assemblies of God and actually attending an assemblies church now. And so anyway, so when I was reading Mark's first book, um, in the pit with the lion on the snowy day. So the first is, is I'm reading it and he repeats the phrase so much in a while in my head, what it's saying is in a van down by the river is kinda where that's going but then I start picking up on some things cause he said something about Springfield and then of course Naperville and his mentor Bob and I was suddenly a Dawn on me. Oh well that's Bob Schmid and he went to central Bible college where I went to school. So oh right.
Heather:
Did you guys know each other? No. I mean you would've been,
Allen:
I graduated in 87, so I don't know when I think he's a little, little younger than me maybe. Okay. But um, yeah, we weren't there at the same time. It, I, I started putting this together and I didn't know, you know, I, I didn't know the connection to the assemblies or anything, but so
Heather:
Crazy. It's such a small world. Like the whole, it is, I grew up Southern Baptist and so it has its own brand of small world. Yes. Um, and when I, when I started working at NCC and, and was, you know, kind of found myself, you know, adjacent to the assemblies of God, I realized it, it is an interconnected web. So, um, yeah, if you went to central or valley forge, it just creates these little worlds that
Allen:
Oh yeah. Yeah. And um, and I was talking to a pastor in, in Maine yesterday, like in rural Maine and some of the connections there and I was like, um, but yeah, it's kind of funny how that goes. Yeah. The last three churches I, I was part of were all, we're all Southern Baptist cuz we were the last church we were attending was new spring. Yeah. And then before that I was at a church Brookwood that's in the Greenville area. And then before that we were members of Saddleback. And so yeah, when we were living out there. So anyway, all right. So the way the podcast is gonna go, it's not overly fancy. I don't have like the theme song. I mean, unless you car to grace, us. Um, and uh, so I'll do, um, I'll do an intro, uh, and then I'll read your bio, whatever hunter sent me, I'll read it. I, I haven't looked at it yet, but so, or I'll make something up, um, and maybe drop something in there that you're the mother to the famous Sawyer of cooking with Sawyer. So oh yeah.
Heather:
Yep. There
Allen:
Is that, you know, so she could be the next Ryan, you know,
Heather:
She is a mess. I mean just a mess.
Allen:
So
Heather:
Before, before we get started, let me switch over to another network. I'm on extension right now. And sometimes it glitches. Oh, okay. So I'll freeze for like 10 seconds. Okay. I'll be
Allen:
Thanks,
Heather:
Shoot. That's not it. I meant to do this before we got on. I forgot. Right. Here we go.
Allen:
All right. You're back. I'm back. I had to do the same thing because the printer in this building is on the other network and I had to print, I had to print off the questions and um, so then I was like, oh no, I can't be on that network. Cuz it's terrible.
Heather:
And if this one, if this one starts getting glitchy, I'll switch back
Allen:
And try the other one. Okay. And I'll, you know, I'll edit it. It's not like it's gonna go live. And cuz I get all of the UHS and ums and pauses and you know, and if you start saying something and you're like, that's not how I wanted to say it. And you could say, you know what? Cut let's, let's go back. Let's say it again. That's awesome. Um, you know, editing's the pets, but what do you, you know, I'm a one man band. So what do you do? Um, people are like, oh you're the president. And I'm like, yeah, I'm the janitor and the secretary.
Heather:
Exactly. Exactly. Well, I do all the editing for cooking with Sawyer,
Allen:
So oh, okay. You know
Heather:
It's work.
Allen:
it is. It is. Everybody thinks
Heather:
Ryan does the hard work cuz he has to like deal with her on screen. Oh I gotta edit out all of her
Allen:
Ridiculousness. That's funny. That's funny. How old is Sawyer? She's six. Okay. Well my youngest is eight, so okay then. And he's full of it. So they, they call him little Allen. So you could only imagine um, yeah. So, uh, if we got those two together, it would be dangerous. Love it. They would, they would be great. They would be great. They would be great. He is such a spunky kid every morning. He is like his half happy is I'm like, who are you? you haven't even, he doesn't even even had coffee. It's like what? But anyway,
Heather:
I have mine every morning how much I was like how much coffee you want. I, and then just
Allen:
Goes on. So funny. So funny kids are fun. That they're great. That's good. So within I'll just, you know, I'll just welcome you and then we'll get into the questions and I, I mean it, part of it depends on how the conversation goes. Cause like bill on you, I send him a similar list and we got like three questions in and then I was like going other directions. Sure, sure. I, I won't throw you any curve balls, but um, but I think I, I, you strike me as one. They can roll with the punches. So
Heather:
I'll, I'll do my best. We'll see ya. There you
Allen:
Go. and, and, and then this'll come out in a couple of weeks. Um, I usually put it out the end of the month. My last one I did was just like a, it was an ask Allen episode and I put it out the week of Christmas cuz I thought, well, you know, it's not gonna be an exciting week and it actually, you did pretty good the week of Christmas. I was surprised. Oh good. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I just do once a month and we go from there. So, um, are you good with all the questions?
Heather:
Yeah. They're they're all, they're all good. Um, I man, the one that I don't know that I have a answer to because we're changing what we're doing. Is that just, how do you support small group leaders? What does training and coaching look like? But at the same time, honestly, sometimes when you're able to say, you know what, we're not doing a great job, we're shifting our approach. Like that's even helpful to people just
Allen:
To hear. So it, it is it. And so this is funny. I was working with the church of God, Cleveland. So down, down into co Georgia and their small group team had devoured your book and they swore up and down community is messy. Yeah. And so they swore up and down that the way that you articulated and structured coaching was the way to do it. And I said, let me check in cuz I'm not sure that's still happening Uhuh. And so I, um, I called, um, I called Kirsten. Yeah. And I said, Kirsten, I said, let me read a few things to you. And she says, oh yeah, we're not doing anything like that.
Heather:
Look, I, I have some funny story. Like yeah. It, your question about community is massive being 10 years old. That was Fu like, first of all, I was like, holy cow, I didn't realize it. And I mean, there's, there was stuff we had changed before it even hit the shes. I mean, I, I expressed my concern to, to Ivy, you know, inter varsity. I was like, I don't wanna write this book because I don't trust what we're doing. so, you know, there's and
Allen:
It's changed. And the thing that I've always admired about you and mark and the church is that you guys innovate, you can pivot when you need to pivot. You're, you know, you're not like locked into something of, oh, I published, that's what I always, people will quote things from my book to me. And I'm like, who said that? And they're like, you did. I'm like, I don't know if I believe that anymore.
Heather:
I, I heard a quote. I reserve the right to get smarter. There
Allen:
You go. I like that
Heather:
Idea anyway.
Allen:
And the, and the other quote about authors is that books are never finished. Only abandoned.
Heather:
Oh, interesting. I gotta write that down. I
Allen:
Gotta write that down. That's fine. I reserve the right to get smarter though. I like that a lot. Mm-hmm
Heather:
All right. Well, I, I trust you wherever you wanna take it. Okay.
Allen:
So we'll, we'll dive in and um, I plan for it to be about 30 minutes. Um, if it's a little long I'll and I'm the time keeper. So if I feel like we're good, if we get on a roll and it ends up being 40 minutes, then you know, people will have to forgive us for 40 minutes. So sounds good. All right. Let's get going cuz I'm sure you're busy and uh, you know, you get episodes of cooking with Soyer to edit. my
Heather:
Gosh.
Allen:
Oh, hopefully. All right. All right. Well, here we go. All right, Heather. Welcome to the podcast.
Heather:
Hey Alan, how are you today? It's so good to be on here.
Allen:
Hey, it's so good to have you, uh, you know, we have an talked in a while, but you know, the last 24 months have been boy, something else. And you know, you guys are in the heart of DC. Um, the whole culture has just rapidly changed. So for you, as far as small groups go, um, you know, what's held true and you know, what have been things that you've to adjust?
Heather:
Yeah. That's I mean, that's, that is the question right now, right? Like that's what mm-hmm, I think everybody's wrestling with to some degree or another, I mean, between COVID and social distancing and, and then some of the disagreements that come with that, uh, you know, political polarization, racial reckoning in our nation, like, yeah, it's just been a lot. And as you can imagine in DC, like we are, we are, you know, it's, we've really been dealing with it. I, I would say the thing that is held true for NCC and for groups at NCC is we would say that groups are still the community in national community church. Mm. Um, I would say that when it comes to the last 24 months, our focus on community and discipleship and mission have stayed on track. And in some ways have even, I think heightened, uh, down the, during the pandemic, you know, our, our services went to online, but we also adopted this NCC anywhere strategy.
Heather:
And so we had small groups that were meeting in like COVID pods around the area, not just doing group life together, but doing church life together. Uh, we were still handing out, you know, we, we had had, um, spots in our community with our office spaces and some of the businesses that we run, where we are handing out groceries and food distribution to our city. And so mission community discipleship stayed on track. And as we pivoted to some things online, we actually discovered that there were some environments that worked better in that space. Mm. Like I always felt like digital discipleship were two words that did not go together. Yeah. I'm such a believer in the face to face and the shoulder to shoulder, a theology of proximity and space. I just always had a little bit of an allergic reaction um, but when we were forced online, um, we had one group called in real life that met every single day.
Heather:
They're still meeting, wow. They meet 30 minutes online, first thing in the morning to pray together and encourage each other and go on. And I, I ran into this group, um, out apple picking one day they had been meeting online for months, had not met together in person yet. It was their first time they had come to this apple picking thing just to meet together for the first time they had formed real community and real discipleship was happening in that space. And it was, it was outside the bounds that I'd always kind of had my head for what a small group looked like. Um, another in environment that we have is called the story where we take people through the story, the chronological story of the Bible in three nights, Uhhuh . And in the past that had always been like, you know, you got a workbook.
Heather:
And then I stood on a platform and talked like, literally just talked for two hours. And during the pandemic, we shifted that over to online. So all the content was available on the line. People watched ahead of time. Then we gathered on zoom for those three nights. And it just made the whole experience, more interactive, more engaging people they'd already gotten the content so that they were coming in on zoom, able to ask questions, able to make comments and have conversations in the chat. Uh, and we were just a, to do a lot more with it. And so what we're trying to do now is figure out what does this look like moving forward? Mm-hmm um, so we, we've learned a lot. We're still learning a lot. Uh, we're still on our toes a good bit, because as, as things keep progressing, um, especially with, with COVID, uh, we just now ever know what, what DC is gonna throw at us. So we're trying to stay on our toes.
Allen:
That's, that's the thing. And it's interesting. Cause I've heard some people actually say that the kind of the digital revolution and kind of, I mean, you imagine if we weren't digital, where, where would ministry have even gone? You know? Oh, totally. Some people are putting it right up there with the invention of the printing press, as far as the implication on, you know, church and ministry and, and all of that. So, um, let's switch a little bit, um, because you guys are in a culture that is a bit of a revolving door, um, you know, depending on, you know, whose guys voted in and, and whose gals voted out and you know, you, you got people in and out switching around military, all of that. So, but all of these groups have to have leaders. So somebody shows up or the new crop shows up or, you know, last year, a whole new administration, new people come up, show up at your church. How are you identifying recruiting, developing leaders in kind of a short span of times you can get 'em, you know, get 'em going, cuz you don't know, you know, when they're gonna disappear.
Heather:
Yeah. We, we determined several years ago that the average time someone was with us at NCC was about two years between our military, our hill staffers, our students. Yeah. Actually our students are our longest tenured. They're here for three or four years for grad school law school. Um, and so we, we, we started thinking in terms of what is a two year track for people. And so in term, the, the nice thing about DC is DC tends to attract leaders. Mm-hmm so DC attracts people that wanna change the world. So we're able to cheat in terms of that. Like, we don't have to convince people to be leaders. Some of them we have to convince you're not ready to be a leader , you know, so, um, you've got people that understand, um, you know, leadership, they under, they want to influence, they wanna change the world.
Heather:
And so what we've tried to do is we've tried to set a really low bar for leadership terms of entering into leadership, but then set a high bar for development. How do we come alongside those leaders once they're in and do on the ground, in the trenches training with them to develop them as they, as they're leading. Um, and so the fact that we have, uh, a small group semester system helps to we're on this rhythm of launching three different times of year, uh, three times a year, we're able to launch leaders into those spaces in kind of a systematic and rhythmatic way. And so there are a handful of groups that we have identified that are great at producing new leaders. So for instance, our alpha environment, freshman of the city environment, our commissioned environment, we know that those are just, if you've been through that experience, you're gonna make a good small group leader.
Heather:
And so we look to those groups and some other groups like it as a potential training ground for leaders. Um, when we do alignment series, when the series is aligned with a sermon series, and so the leaders aren't having to do as much prep work, cuz we're doing it for them. Um, that's a great opportunity for us to recruit new leaders in. We try to do that at least once a year. And um, we just try to, to continually look for, um, who's making a difference in their space and, and recruiting them into higher level of leadership. And back to that two year time span, I mean, we, in the early days, especially in, in that time, that average lifespan of an NC is probably increased a bit over of the years, but we saw ourselves as just as much a bootcamp for developing missionaries and sending them out mm-hmm as we saw ourselves, small group leadership training structures. And so, you know, some names that you would probably even know like a will Johnston. Yeah. And Ashley Anderson, a Brad Dupre, Jonathan trader, Clint, ready, a guys and girls that started out as small group leaders at NCC and are now groups, pastors lead pastors, um, you know, leading in influential spaces. Um, that's what that was our heart in the beginning is just how do we send, how do we develop and then send out whether that's sending out leader at MCC or sending out leadership across the kingdom. Yeah.
Allen:
And I love that the, the low bar of entry, the high bar of development. So, so let's go this way, cuz some people are afraid of this low bar. How, how low is the low bar
Heather:
? So we have, um, we have three primary, uh, requirements. Uh, one we ask that you be in an NCC small group for at least a semester. We want you to breathe our air, experience our culture, swim in our waters for a little bit and have a, a season where we can get to know you. Secondly, we have a simple application that we ask you to fill out. Um, and uh, it it's just basic information. We wanna know your story, your faith story. Mm-hmm um, and then thirdly, we have a, um, a leadership training it's called leadership one on one it's online, it's both video content that you watch and then interactive questions you answer based on that. Hmm. And so that's really a part of that application process because it gives us some insight into their readiness relationally to lead a group spiritually, to lead a group and then just kind of logistically to lead a group. Um, and then I guess there's actually four things after they go through that process, we ask them to sign a leadership covenant, and that is an agreement both. Um, it's, it's partly theological. And then it's partly lifestyle that we will agree to these standards and these values. So that's the bar. Do you love Jesus? Do you love people? Do you have the relational and logistical skills to do a group? And then we're gonna throw you out there and, and we're gonna, we're gonna make you swim, but we're gonna swim along with you. Well, and
Allen:
You look at the apostle Paul in the book of acts and the way that he planted churches and was never a church, you know, six to 18 months picked the back best and brightest said, Hey, you're in charge. If you get in trouble, write me a letter. Um yeah,
Heather:
Exactly. Exactly. Yes.
Allen:
Now is so once they get going, then what does the leadership development piece look like?
Heather:
Yeah, and I mean, look, we're, this is the part of all of this that we continuously reinventing, reimagining, struggling with failing at trying new things. Um, in, in any church that that says they have coaching and leadership development figured out, I immediately am suspect of, but if they exist, please me an email. I wanna know what you, what, what we're doing right now after someone is in that leadership role. Uh, they're connected. We're a multi-site church. Mm-hmm so they're connected then to their small group director at their campus. Uh, it's some of our campuses, this is full-time staff in other places, it's a, it's a volunteer, uh, position, but that is the person that's the face with the place, the group's pastor, uh, of that particular campus. So they're connected there relationally. And then we have a number of, and then they're brought into whatever kind of coaching model we're doing at the time.
Heather:
And that has shifted dramatically over the years. We've done different things at different times, a lot, obviously online right now. Um, but then some of the training that we do is one of the things we're experimenting right now is with leadership labs. So once a month, it's all on zoom. It's for one hour, once a month on Sunday night, uh, we do leadership development and it's it ranges, um, to topics from how do you do discipleship in group? Um, how do we handle, uh, you know, uh, how do you do mission within your group? Uh, it's a wide range of subjects and we'll bring in guest speakers. We'll bring in people that are, are actually doing the work in their groups to share about how they're, how they're, um, sorry, I'm kind of all over the place that I'm creating an editing nightmare. You're okay.
Allen:
so,
Heather:
So in the leadership lab, we bring an expert. Sometimes that's within our church. Sometimes it's outside the church that are practitioners that can give really practical information on how do you do discipleship group? How do you build community? How do you talk about hot topics and politically polar topics mm-hmm and racially polarizing topics in groups. So trying to give really practical training, but also, um, having a group element to that so that there can be interaction. There can be questions and answers. There can be people that are actually real time leading groups and real time dealing with these issues, sharing what they're learning, sharing, what they're trying and sharing what they're struggling with and learning from one another. And then once a semester, it's actually tri masters. We have three times a year that we're launching groups. We have a leadership summit and that is a, that's bringing all of our leaders together.
Heather:
Mm-hmm from all of our campuses, our lead pastor, mark Paterson, prioritizes that he does the primary vision cast and teaching and affirmation of our leaders, uh, to kick off each of those summits. And then there's always some sort of training, uh, leadership development, leadership training that is included in that, whether that's an inside voice, somebody from our team or somebody from the outside, and then occasionally we'll have breakouts that are just for, uh, small group leaders specifically. And depending on what kind of small group they're leading, uh, breakouts that are relevant to what they're doing. So we're constantly pivoting and reinventing and trying new things. That's what we're doing right now.
Allen:
Yeah, no, and that's, and that's great because, you know, I think part of it is culture shifted. Things of things have changed the way people process information, the things people have time for. And I don't know if you've seen this. I, I kind of feel that people are a little stingier with their time than they used to be and, and you know, who they interact with and why. And I was just meeting with the churches last week and, you know, it used to be, we got all the leaders together in a huddle with the coach. And then we discovered that trying to do that was kind of like hurting cats. You're better off just, you know, how, how are they willing to communicate is it's text is a phone per is a cup of coffee, you know, and, and even what is training, you know, those are kind of, um, some things we totally we've wrestled with. So knowing that you guys are constantly innovating, constantly trying to figure things out, if there's a better way as cultures shifted trying to chase that. So your book community has messy, uh, has been out for almost, but now like a decade. Can you believe it
Heather:
No, no. I feel so old right now.
Allen:
No I'm sitting. No, no, you were just ahead of everybody else. That's what it was. So, um, so first of all, do you remember anything that you wrote in the book? Cause I have that problem.
Heather:
I remember some things remember the title. I remember a, there you
Allen:
Go. The titles and community is still messy. So I think that's, that's held, that's held true, but uh, what, what else from, you know, kind of what you were, you know, hitting on back then, what else is held true and what are things that have just kind of morphed over time?
Heather:
Yeah, I I've shared with you both for that in the beginning. I, I didn't, I, I told my publisher, I really didn't want to write the book because I didn't trust what I was writing in it mm-hmm , uh, I just knew that things were changing so much and that a year, five years now, 10 years later, you know, a lot of the things that I would write about very dogmatically, I might have very different opinions about. And so, as you said, what has remained true? Uh, the thing that has held true the most is the title itself community is met and you know what, it's only gotten messy, or sometimes I go back and I read parts of the book and I'm like, oh, that was cute. right. Cause the longer, the longer you're in ministry, the bigger the messes get. And so I think that, uh, you know, when you're faithful to walk through the early messes and the smaller messes, it's gonna prepare your heart and your mind and your will power for when the messes just get bigger and bigger.
Heather:
Mm-hmm . I would also say when I think back to some of those chapter titles, you know, everything's an experiment groups should happen in real life. Growing people grow people, which mm-hmm I stole from Mac lake, those, those chapter titles, I think really still hold truth. For me, those were the things that we looked at as a church. And we thought, you know, there, there, these are the, this is the DNA, this is the stuff that we value related to community and discipleship. And then I would say everything that's written in those chapters about how we did it. Those were all models. Mm-hmm some of those have remained the same. A lot of those have changed. And, um, so we're just, we're constantly discovering and redeploying and re redoing new, you know, new things. One funny story about community is messy is when, when it was released, um, it had, it had barely hit the shelves.
Heather:
And I was in meeting with my group's team, our, our staff team at NCC. And we were beginning the conversation about like, what does next year look like? What do we wanna keep doing? What do we wanna stop doing? And as a reference point, one of my team members grabbed the book off my desk and my team literally started tearing pages out of it. Like, well, we shouldn't do this anymore. Well, I dunno if this is true anymore. And the reality is I loved that moment because I think that's the posture. And that's the, um, the environments, the cultures that we need to create, that we're constantly rethinking why we're doing what we're doing. Mm-hmm so what is held true community is messy. What's still true for us. We still embrace the idea of operating according to semesters, operating, according to free markets, growing the leaders and, and trusting them to grow the people that are coming behind them. All of those things have stayed true the way that we've done it has shifted. And I think we, we've also discovered some of the downsides of semesters, the downsides of free market, the downsides of, of some of our DNA, uh, and in trying to, to create new structures and new strategies to mitigate that.
Allen:
Yeah. And that's, that's the thing. So, so what I'm hearing in all of this is really, you should be putting out a new book every year. That's what I, that's what I'm hearing
Heather:
Gorgeous. Never post, maybe a blog post once a year, that just says, this is what I'm trying right now,
Allen:
Or start this, stop that, or, you know, something. But I, I love that they were tearing pages out of your book. I haven't had anybody do that. I've been, I've tempted to, you know, purchase some used copies of my book to see what they highlighted, what they crossed out, you know, oh,
Heather:
That's a, I have never thought about that. That is a fantastic idea.
Allen:
I don't know. I, I was, I was wrestling with it cuz they thought, well, does this make me narcissistic? I don't know. Um, ,
Heather:
Here's often a fine line between what's narcissistic and what is really good self assessment. And I don't
Allen:
Know, that's, that's hard. That's hard. Um, let's, let's talk about this. Let's talk about it. Kind of the setting that, uh, NCC is in, uh, being right there in the heart of Washington DC, I work with a number of churches in Maryland, DC and uh, Virginia. Now, you know, your neighbors, don't like to be called the DC area. They like to be called the, the DMV. DC is true, Maryland and Virginia. So the thing that they wrestle with with, and I know other locations wrestle with this too, so don't, don't tune us out. Um, but what I've been told about people in the DMV is that they are busy and important and their importance is measured by how busy they are. Now. Everybody has people in their church that are busy and important and because they're so busy, how do you get 'em to slow down, connect into a group? How do you raise this value with them when they're, you know, trying to, you know, save the world?
Heather:
Yeah, well, I, I would just affirm the way that you characterize that, you know, people in DMV are busy and they're importa and their importance is measured by their business. Is that, that, that is true. That, that I think that that's a very true statement. One of the things we've tried to do at NCC is focus on the vocabulary of that, right? Hmm. So we try to tell people, look, it's not a matter of busyness. It's a matter of priority. Now that stings a little bit, that's hard to hear, but look, this is a matter of what you prioritize. We all, no matter who you are, what your job is, we all have the same number of hours in the day. It it's not elastic. It is a defined amount of hours. And so how you choose to invest those hours is up to you.
Heather:
So then we, we change the conversation to priorities. So what is a priority in this season? And I think that's also important is especially with the work that a lot of people do in this area is understanding the season they're in mm-hmm and what's a priority in that season. And just constantly raising the question that like, look, community discipleship mission should be prioritized in your life. So how is that prioritized right now? Mm um, so, so changing the vocabulary there, trying to hone in on that, that, those ideas. And then I'll also say this, I think that every day city people simultaneously overestimate and underestimate their importance and influence Hmm. Every day you've got hill staffers that on one hand think they're like the most important person in the world. They have all this power, all this 30, all this influence, right? And, and really at the end of the day they do.
Heather:
But then there are moments where they have an opportunity to make a real difference in the life of a person or the life of a community. And sometimes that is underestimated. So the, the value, the importance of people in this city is both inflated and deflated in their own minds simultaneously every day. And we try to come along and just affirm their value, affirm their influence and come alongside them to add value. One of the things we've tried to do as a church is not to build a group structure or any kind of ministry structure where we say, come serve us. Here's our program. We want you to come be a part of what we're doing. Come serve this thing that we've created. We've tried to turn that inside out and say, Hey, what is God put you on mission to do with your life?
Heather:
How can we come alongside you and equip you and serve you and unleash you to do that. So talking to people then about you're called to make disciples, what does that look like for you? And so one group in particular is a group that's been meeting on Capitol hill for a number of years now, Republicans and Democrats together. I mean, you talk about biblical community. Mm-hmm, you talk about like acts J Gentile, acts 15 community, like it's happening. It is a beautiful picture of unity in the body of Christ. But what they did is they were like, okay, we're on the hill every day. This is our job. We're already interacting. So what if we just get together a little bit earlier in the morning and pray together mm-hmm and study together and learn what it means to be a leader in the ways of God together. So the free market system and the semester system is really about trying to get, trying to harness the momentum of people's lives as they live it and, and unleash them to make disciples and to experience community in the worlds that they're already living in. So those are, those are a few of the things that we're, we're trying to do to, to, to make community life and discipleship admission accessible for very busy and, uh, and often important people. Yeah.
Allen:
Yeah, no, that's great. And that's great. And I love that you're embracing, you know, not that they're part of the church's mission, but how can the church equip them on their mission that God has called them too. I, I love that perspective. Um, I'm fond of saying that ministry is not something that we do to people.
Heather:
Um that's yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that, one of the things we say at NCC is that we, we invite you to be the part, we invite you to be a part of the story. God is writing in our life, but we also wanna be a part of the story that God's writing in your life.
Allen:
I like that. I like that a lot. That's good. So what's the, what's kinda the big challenge that you're tackling right now.
Heather:
Well, there's, there's two simultaneous challenges and Alan I'll let you figure out how you want to edit this or, or we wanna do. So the, the group's challenge is one of the things that we initiated, excuse me, during the pandemic was re-looking at discipleship specifically and how it practically happens in our groups and in other ministry contexts at NCC. Okay. So what does it look like in family ministry is what does discipleship look like in our missions world? And we tried to land on some language related to discipleship that could be used across the spectrum at NCC translated into those ministry worlds and activated groups will always be our primary engine for discipleship, but it was a realization that we needed to partner across departments across our ministry areas to make disciples in every environment where people are gathering at NCC. Along with that, we launched a new small group experience called commissioned.
Heather:
That is kind of a discipleship 1 0 1. It's introducing people, uh, whether they're new to NCC or just new to, or new to the concept of discipleship, what does it mean to be a student of the words of Jesus, a follower in the ways of Jesus and a partner in the mission of Jesus? It's it's a little bit, um, if you could imagine, like it's a little bit new, new NNC class, new to groups, class to learning the ways of Jesus class. And we're just talking about people, what it means to be a student of the word, an imitator of his way as a partner in his mission. Mm-hmm , that will become a hub for us. It's still very much in pilot mode, Uhhuh , but that will become a hub for us. That's basically where we will tell every CCRE to start their journey, whether it's starting their journey at NCS, see starting their journey of faith or starting their journey as a, a disciple of Jesus.
Heather:
So that's one new thing we're working on. The biggest challenge I'm tackling is something called the dream collective. Uh, for years, NCC has felt like we're called to not just be a church, but a teaching church, they're hospitals, and then they're teaching hospitals. And we just believe that part of our calling is to help other people do what they're doing and to also provide a platform for what they're doing so that people can learn from one another. So the dream collective, it it's really rooted in this idea that we wanna see revival in the church, reformation in the kingdom and Renaissance in culture. Hmm. It's gonna begin with church planting. Like we wanna plant more churches. We're, we're really shifting some of our strategy. Uh, we'll still be a multi-site church. We have three campuses in an online campus, but we're shifting our strategy away from opening locations to planting churches.
Heather:
We wanna do more things where we have less control and get less credit. We wanna get, we want people to get a vision from God and run with it. And then we wanna be the first shareholders in that, but we also wanna be an incubator for business' mission. We really feel that for every church we plant, we should also launch a business's mission. Some of that just comes out of our own story as we've launched ene yeah. A, a productions, miracle theater, or event space, the turnaround. And so we wanna, we wanna raise up the next generation of leaders who are followers of Jesus, who, who are gonna write better books, tell better stories, draft better legislation, produce better music, uh, produce better movies and start better businesses. And so this, this new endeavor, um, is what my time and attention is gonna be given to moving forward. And, uh, and I'm excited about elevating the values of community and within that space. So I don't know. I mean, that's not related to groups specifically, so I don't know. You might wanna edit all that out but oh, that's great. That's my next, that's my next big job. That's great. No, that's that
Allen:
Was the, you, you answered that well. So if people wanted to become part of dream collective, how would they
Heather:
That? Yeah, so it, um, it's, it's actually not officially launched as we are recording this, but by the time this goes live, we will be launched. So if you go to the dream collective.com, that's our website. You can, uh, get early access. I think there's a button that will say, get early access or maybe contact us. And, uh, there's a quick form. You can fill out with your interests and what you wanna be a part of there in this first year. We're gonna, we're probably gonna have a conference, uh, in may. Um, we're gonna have round tables for, and for groups, people in particular, just gathering groups, people in a room what's working, what are you learning? And how has COVID impacted your experience in groups? What are you doing? That's new and, and creating that space to learn from one another. We'll have a number of retreats throughout the year.
Heather:
Some will be more for lead pastors. Some will be for people that are interested in writing or speaking. And then, uh, and then the other thing is that we'll create some cohorts of people that can learn together, utilizing technology like zoom, other online tools. Um, again, specifically for groups, people to just get in the same virtual space together and wrestle the challenges they're facing, wrestle, the questions that they're facing and, uh, and learning together. Sometimes people just need a tribe, right? You just need to know who the people are. I think that's one of the gifts that you and I have experienced over the years of having people that are in the trenches, doing this work that we can call up and say, Hey, what are you learning? What are you doing? And we're wanting to create that for other people as well.
Allen:
Yeah, no, I, I love that because, you know, I mean, even in the small group world, um, small group leadership can be lonely and you're in community with people, but it's that experience of leadership that can be absolutely
Heather:
A little bit one. Yeah. One of the things I always told leaders is make sure that you don't spend so much time and energy creating community for other people that you failed to experience it yourself. Mm that's good. And, and, and ideally that will happen most of the time within the communities that you're forming and that you're leading and nurturing. It should happen that way, but there's also a level of leadership that can't be shared or understood by the people that you're creating the community for. And so having a space where we can come together, learn from one another, uh, I'm, I'm really excited about helping to, to curate that. That's
Allen:
Great. Well, Heather, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you for being you and the perspective that you bring to all of this and thank you for back in the day, introducing us to the concept of poo and the community is messy. Well, um,
Heather:
Thank you so much for having me. This is, uh, an honor. Um, it's a privilege it's so good to be with you, and I'm just grateful for your influence in my life and in the kingdom throughout the years. And, uh, let's keep doing this thing. That
Allen:
Sounds great. Thank you. All right, so we'll cut. Um, so, uh, thing that you shared as far as some of your development things, can, are they things that we could share, like in the show notes for people?
Heather:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay. Um, let me, you mean like links to leadership lab and stuff like that?
Allen:
Yeah. Leadership, I mean, even like down to, you know, your application, your leadership one. Oh, I mean, whatever you're comfortable sharing. Yeah.
Heather:
I'm comfortable with all of that. I'll need get some links from Kirsten. Okay. But, um, but yeah, we're
Allen:
Good with all that. Yeah. And I've got a couple weeks before, you know, this goes out there, so, uh, we've got some time, but I think people, you know, they do really well with, you know, here's an example of something and, um, you know, I've always and better, you know, trying to adapt some, an example than coming up with scratch. So yeah, this is great. This is
Heather:
Great. One of the things we wanna do with, with dream collective is create like a, there'll be a resource portal Uhhuh. where it won't hopefully not just NCC stuff, but people we're partnered with, if we find somebody that's doing something really well, because sometimes you just need us starting point, even things as simple as like job description. It's like, yeah, if you're trying write a job description from scratch, that's difficult. But if you can take one or two examples and begin to play with it. So whether it's curriculum, leadership, development, materials, forms, templates, all that stuff, we're
Allen:
Gonna try to have a place to upload. That's great. Yeah. I did a, a, a workbook for my book last year. Release date was April 1st, 2020. How about that? Oh my gosh. I'm like really? This is my release date. And, um, but what I did was cuz I, I do coaching groups every year and have, you know, five to eight churches involved. Well, I'm more of just, you know, I, I'm kind of like big picture. Let's take the hill and I tell people you're not gonna get a lot of details with me, but I would have people that would take concepts of things. And like this one gal came up with for a new coach coaching, a new leader here are the talking points for the first 12 weeks that you're meeting with them. And I'm like, that's awesome. I would never create that. I put it in my workbook. right, right, right. With permission. So anyway. Yes. It's great. Very good. Um, well I
Heather:
Appreciate you the time and uh, hope I get to see you in person
Allen:
Again sometime soon sometime. We'll see how it goes. I'm, I'm traveling to Michigan a lot. I'm the outsourced life group, pastor for a church in Lansing, Michigan. Really? Wow. Yeah. We're coming up on a year. Our goal is to get 80% into groups and we're about percent, but we got one more push and I think we're gonna get there. Amazing. You know, we've got
Heather:
All doing that
Allen:
Distance. Yeah. Cell phones, email. Um, and then I'm up there every four to six weeks. I haven't been there since October, but I kind of go in a key moments. Yeah. And um, yeah, I've got a couple more. My, but we're close. I mean the in person we're doing, they have two thirds in person and a third online in person we're doing great with groups online has been a bit of a struggle and I'm like, well, you know, one way we could achieve our goal is just to kill off the online service and then we're there with groups. They won't buy that.
Heather:
Yeah. That's true.
Allen:
It's true. So I'm trying to reach out to elevation in several places that are doing online groups really well, just to find out, you know, what's the secret of getting people engaged. So yeah, a lot of it, I think has just been communication. So anyway, thank you very much. And if there's any way that I could ever be useful to you, please do not hesitate to ask.
Heather:
Absolutely. Thank you
Allen:
So much. All right. Thank you. Have a good rest of your day. You too. Bye. Bye.