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Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
Danielle (00:17.986)
Welcome in. In today's episode, we discuss the most accurate personality test of them all, our church shift number one from Sunday to every day. This week at Grace, we're going to talk about our most recent sermon series and empowering team members with our 131 tool. Hello, my name is Danielle Heartland. How are you? is Derek Zanford. Good, how are you? Good. Good.
Hi Danielle. Hello.
You seem a little mellow today, you all right?
I'm fine. Okay, we're not gonna do this again. This was season one really. Are you okay? Sorry, okay. I mean I didn't feel good about it. I'll be honest. It's not as not as close No, thank you. Let's start on a high note. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's all good Well, let's okay. So let's start with a warm-up. Okay, so we like to with a warm-up mainly because we're Derek's old right? So he needs a warm-up right so today's topic
It kind of a mellow intro.
Derek (00:53.225)
Just like me to call it out.
Danielle (01:10.734)
Algorithms social media algorithms. Okay, first I'm going to talk about I want to talk about like what we're finding in our feeds nowadays Okay, okay. Okay. Um, but I also want to talk about so we as a church did that digital fast. Yeah January Oh, yeah, you have to yeah. Yeah. Um, so I Full disclosure. I have not gotten back on Facebook or Instagram since then. Yeah, I just realized like wow
January, February. no, was leading up to Lent.
Danielle (01:40.91)
You were kind of toxic to me, for me. Whatever was coming in was not helping me. However, an unintentional side effect is I mainly use TikTok now. I like use real news and TikTok online. So that's just full disclosure. My algorithm is purely based on TikTok. I don't have the other inputs that you might have.
.
Derek (02:06.422)
Yeah, no, and I'm a producer, not a consumer mainly on social media stuff. I put people like, you're on social media all the time. And it's like I'm pretty I have scheduled things that I put out. And it appears that I'm like on there all the time and I really don't consume too much social media. maybe one or two evenings a week, I will, you know.
scroll through some videos as well, like some reels or TikTok or whatever. I have some, you know, yeah, it's funny to see what comes and goes in those things based on whatever they're thinking you're thinking.
The TikTok algorithm in particular is extremely strong. Extremely strong. Like it's very reactive. Like it's not like,
What does that mean? It's extremely strong. To so it picks up your your trend right away. Quick.
Yeah, it tries to get you in little rabbit hole.
Derek (02:55.515)
she watched this whole video twice. Let's get her in this groove.
God forbid you fall asleep. And something just. Okay, I'm gonna be honest. One time that happened to me, I fell asleep. This was a while ago. I think it was on vacation. Again, I don't know. This was not in my algorithm. It was just something that was like scrolling. And there was this person giving a house tour. And she was like, and this is our kitchen. And blah blah uses this oven. I use this oven, blah blah. She's going on and on. And then I realized, okay, this is like someone in a.
We go over and over again.
Danielle (03:29.038)
like polygamous relationship. And they're explaining how it works. That's my last conscious thought. Okay. The next week, my TikTok. Yeah. It was bad. I was like, recipes, recipes, recipes. I was like, getting me out of this polygamy algorithm. was bad. was bad. My feed right now, I would say the number one thing is, well, I would say, yeah, the number one thing right now is AI babies.
I think you're into all that.
Derek (03:48.856)
Well, what's on your feed right now?
Danielle (03:58.666)
So like, so it's like, so there's this trend right now where they're taking AI babies and putting them in like with scripts from like sitcoms or like podcasts. So like the Joe Rogan one, there's a Joe Rogan baby. That's like his voice. Whole body baby. It's a whole, it's like baby world. Yeah, so here's a picture. So that's like Bobby Lee and that's the, the other one is the Joe Rogan one. That's the Joe Rogan baby.
what that means.
Derek (04:14.958)
What makes his head look like a baby?
Danielle (04:28.15)
So it's just funny because like they're saying all these adult, I just die laughing. The real housewives ones are the best because it's just.
I've never seen one of these. I'll send you some. It'll show up.
It'll up. So that's my one that says something about me. My next one is I have like a lot of choir things. So like pop up choirs or like there's this one I think it's called like the one day choir. wow. And they'll like pop up in an abandoned building and have like a famous person show up and it's just like and I just want to I want to be in a choir again. So that's part of it. I'm not like a solo singer. I'm like a choir singer. Yeah. So I just.
you
Derek (05:04.652)
loved
I thought about it. I really have and then my third and most popular one is How do I say this I've thought about how to say it and I lost it Overprivileged white women and teenagers Escalating traffic stops to the point where they get arrested and put in jail So it's like hey ma'am, hey ma'am
Knock knock knock. Hey ma'am. You were going 80 in a 20 And she's like, what? He's like, can I have your license registration? She's like I do not consent to this he's like and then they're very patient Yeah, he's like well when you got behind the wheel of the car, right and obviously they have body cams on so they're being very patient for the most part like Well, I don't even know why you're pulling me over. Well, ma'am I told you when you rolled down the window and then they'll like roll up the window
while the cops talking or whatever. I want a supervisor. want a supervisor. Nothing's happening to these people.
Why? Why is this a new-
Danielle (06:13.07)
And then they're on the ground and they're in the jail. And it's like a bomb on the ground. And she's like, I'm peeing myself. I'm peeing myself. And they're like, stop resisting. Stop resisting. I'm not resisting. It's like they're arguing the entire time. And then they're in the back of the cop car and like, they're so stupid. Blah, blah, blah. You're getting a lawsuit. But I don't know. But I love it.
Meanwhile $79 fine or whatever probably gets them out of this. They don't need to go to jail.
There's been several where he's like, ma'am, ma'am, give me your, give me your ID. I'll give you a warning and we'll move on. Like there's been several that, no, they're, they're in some sort of like tunnel vision, like, yeah, like you, I am, you, you do not have my consent to search my car, ma'am. Smells like marijuana in your car. I'm going to search your car. You do not have my consent. I think it's because.
I have bigger questions. I really do. We don't have time for them right now.
No, we don't get no we don't you don't have time for the answers. We don't have time for what's in your algorithm. All right
Derek (07:14.766)
I'll keep it. Well, listen, my biggest one here, I'm going to use reserved your most popular one. here's my honest thing. I knew that we were going to talk about this today. So I went and did some scrolling last night. I just to see like what is my because like I said, I'm really not on their tongue. But yeah, by far by a long, long shot is. P.O.V. Breakfast Line Cooks.
No, be honest.
Danielle (07:27.596)
Okay cool, yeah yeah yeah.
Derek (07:44.662)
in restaurant. So, they're just whipping up omelets and pancakes and French toast and they must have a GoPro on their head or something like that and they grab plates and it's so fast. You know, they're doing all this stuff so quickly and moving through these breakfast orders.
So they're not like commentating, they're just...
Zero talking you just watching the food being prepared very quickly. All right scrambled eggs omelets Hash browns. got a big row of hash browns on the back of the griddle that they keep firing at all times and they you know They just plop it on the side of every so yeah, that's a that's a that's my buy a lot. I'm getting breakfast line
This explains to me why we had a team's message recently and you were like indignant about someone messing up eggs at a restaurant. Maybe you're being influenced to like have high standards.
Listen I know
Derek (08:29.55)
I know how they're supposed to be made. That's one. The second one is very boring, but it's NFL stuff. lots of it. Here's the top five running backs for this year. Here's going to be the top three receivers for this year. Like, there's a lot of that.
Let's get you in there.
Danielle (08:44.13)
You know what got into mind about NFL was the rival jerseys. When they released the rival jerseys or something. Nike or somebody. They're like secondary jerseys that like like Buffalo's is all white and looks like there's snow all over it. I don't know.
wow, yeah, no I've never heard of Maybe it's not real. No it could be, but I just, yeah. I'm not on the fashion side of the NFL. Me neither. I'm X's and O's.
Third? I'm not on the fashion side of anything, but I came through.
And the last one is just like the have you seen these people that their only posts are other people's posts? yeah. So like they're just them watching a video. It's a contest. And then they'll say like three sentences at the end of what they think about it or whatever. But you're they're just like literally stealing this other person's content using. So there I get a lot of that of like Christian Christians and pastors critiquing other Christians and pastors. That's annoying. Which is gross.
Yeah, that's a nice.
Derek (09:38.062)
Spend your time better, like we're on the same team, let's go.
I thought you meant it was like people who like when I read it like people who visit churches and have opinions. So pastors on pastors. Yeah.
Or Christians on Christians. They'll show this other person's opinion and then talk about how it's their false teacher or their anti-biblical. So that's, you know, that's the not fun part. It's discouraging.
Gosh. Yeah.
Danielle (10:02.168)
Well, okay, that tells me a lot about you though.
So yeah, there's my three things and very please please arrest Danielle sometime for going too fast. Yeah, because I want to see what happens
Very wholesome.
Danielle (10:12.544)
Here's what will happen. I'll give them my license.
Listen, if I drive by and you're on the ground screaming about your right-
That's how you know I've lost my mind. I said to my husband after I started watching.
I- I- They send you this if they know that you're susceptible to it.
I said to Dave I was like, hey, you know when a cop pulls you over you need to do what they say, right? And he goes what kind of question is that? I just don't want you to be under these. He's like what? was so disappointed in me that I was even talking about it. He's like we learned this when we were 16. I'm like, yeah, you'd think. Segment, next segment. Okay, so this season we're talking about the 11 shifts every church must make to be effective in our
Derek (10:48.398)
Yeah, we need to move on.
Danielle (10:58.158)
current cultural reality. This week we're talking about the challenging shift from moving from Sunday to every day. And we're always gonna start this segment with some wisdom from Dave Rhodes and or Shane Stacey from Clarity House, which will be cool. it's so good. Followed by someone who's in the trenches and kind of living out the principles of whatever shift we're talking about. So why don't you start us off, talk about the theme. Why?
So pumped about it.
Derek (11:23.614)
Most church leaders, including us over the years, put an enormous amount of energy into Sunday mornings. Our people, however, spend 167 hours a week somewhere else other than Sunday mornings. And so we're talking through now, how do we help?
folks see their Monday through Saturday as just as sacred as their Sunday. And so experimenting with different ways to equip people for their real mission fields, their workplace, their neighborhoods, their daily routines. And we just want to explore today kind of what's working, what isn't. And we're just trying to figure it out together.
Yeah, it's great. So today we have Trey Taylor. You'll see him after we go to Clarity House. He's the lead pastor of City Hope Church in Mobile, Alabama. Trey stepped into this role after his father carrying on his powerful legacy while also helping shape a new vision for the church. City Hope's a multi-campus church that began with a highly attractional model. But over the past three years, Trey's led a remarkable shift from simply gathering people in to sending them out.
Their vision now centers on extending the 10, empowering people to live out their faith beyond the walls of the church. So he's been in ministry for more than 20 years. He's passionate about seeing people step into the fullness of God's plan for their lives and his heart beats for family, believing that's the foundation of everything. So whether he's preaching on a Sunday, casting a vision for the future, Trey is committed to calling out the potential in others, boldly reaching the lost and championing the victory that comes from fighting for every family. He and his wife, Becky, have three children, Bella, Nora, and Max. I'm excited to hear from Trey, but first,
Here is Dave Rhodes from Clarity House.
Dave (13:01.15)
Every week I sit with pastors and leaders that express a deep desire to mobilize more of their congregation on mission. To bridge the gap from Sunday to every day. So here's the question. Why isn't more of that happening? Why isn't more of our congregation being mobilized? And as a pastor and leader, it's easy for me at First Blush to say, well, we got a people problem. Our people are distracted or they're too busy.
our people are unmotivated or apathetic, just kind of stuck in a consumer culture. And while I'll concede to you that that is a reality that many of us find ourselves in, I wanna suggest for a moment that maybe it's not just that we have a people problem, but is it also possible that we as pastors and leaders have a perspective problem? That one of the first shifts that needs to happen,
If our people are going to bridge the gap from Sunday to every day is that we have to bridge the gap in our perspective from Sunday to every day. Over the last couple of years, I've had the opportunity to sit with many pastors who have either retired or for one reason or another moved out of vocational ministry and back into the workforce. And in the middle of those conversations, usually it's about six months in to their experience.
There's a common thread that begins to emerge. here's the common thread. It's not in every conversation, but it is in many conversations. They look at me somewhere in the conversation, they say, Dave, if I would have known then what I know now, I would have pastored totally differently. And it's left me kind of asking, I wonder why they would say that. Well, one of the reasons, definitely not the only reason, but one of the reasons
that they make that kind of statement is because they now sit on the other side of the Sunday experience. See, as pastors and leaders, it's easy for us to get caught in a Sunday to Sunday kind of perspective because Sunday's always coming and we're always trying to do next Sunday better than we did this Sunday. But our people, they're not stuck in the pressure of Sunday to Sunday.
Dave (15:21.09)
They're stuck in the pressure of Sunday to Monday and Monday to Tuesday and Tuesday to Wednesday. See, when you live Sunday to Sunday, it's easy to only focus on the crowd. Did we have one more person in the crowd this week than we had last week? But when our people leave our Sunday services, they don't just simply see the crowd.
They actually move from the crowd to the cloud. What do I mean by that? Well, we talk about this idea of the crowd cloud at clarity house, and it's the realization that every person in your congregation has a cloud of influence of about 30 to 300 people, really an average of about 120. And so when they leave our buildings on Sunday, they move from the crowd to the cloud and the people in their cloud of influence have all kinds of hopes.
and expectations and pressures that they are placing on them. And our people move from Sunday to Monday from the crowd to the cloud.
What if as pastors and leaders, when we showed up on Sunday, we didn't just look at the crowd, but in our imagination, we were able to imagine not just the crowd, but the crowd cloud. See a church of a hundred has a potential crowd cloud of 10,000. If every person in the congregation has, you know, a hundred people in their sphere of influence that moves that potential of impact from a hundred people each week to 10,000.
And most of our ministry, honestly, as leaders is focused on just getting one more person in the crowd. But what if we began to focus more of our ministry, not just on the crowd, but helping the crowd reach the crowd cloud. Helping the hundred begin to interact as disciples in the midst of the 10,000. See. In my experience, this isn't a problem of intention.
Dave (17:30.722)
For us as leaders, it's a problem of attention. What do we give our attention to? Can we see the crowd cloud in our mind? It's not a problem of inspiration. It's a problem of concentration. See, when we live Sunday to Sunday, our focus is simply to try and get our people more engaged in our church.
But when we're able to imagine the pressures of Sunday to Monday and Monday to Tuesday, when we're able to step into their world, we don't just simply sit there and think about, you know, how to get them more engaged in our church, but rather the question becomes, how do we get our disciples more engaged in the places that they live, work, learn and play?
Now, that's a big shift for us as leaders and a big call to us as leaders. And I want to speak clearly here because I'm not calling for us to make our ministries more relevant. Rather, what I am suggesting is that as we see the crowd cloud, it might give us the opportunity to reimagine our ministries so that our people feel more equipped to make and bridge the gap from Sunday
to every day. So here's the question for us as leaders. Do we have a Sunday to Sunday ministry or you know, more react more more real a Sunday to Wednesday to Sunday ministry? Or have we ever thought about with the crowd cloud in mind, how to make a Sunday to everyday move and that might just cause us to reimagine ministry altogether.
Derek (19:29.644)
Hey Trey, good to have you man.
Yeah man, it's so good to be here.
Yeah, it's really nice to meet you. we were just talking, you know, we're on similar journeys here as we're rethinking church and what it's like. And I really appreciate you joining us. We're here in Erie, Pennsylvania. You're in Mobile, Alabama, so in a little bit different parts of the world. I think like all pastors, you know, we're facing some of the similar stuff. And so I really appreciate you being here. you know, I know you're a family guy. know you took over the church for your dad. So there's like some family bloodlines in the church.
huge heart for your own family and your wife and kids and your church family too. So just take a second brag about all your families, your personal family, your church family. Just bring us into your world for a sec.
Yeah, so my dad started the church in 98 and I was about 19 and was not really planning on being in ministry at all. And it really felt like God called me back after college to come back and help him and kind of...
Trey (20:29.806)
ultimately led in every role except worship because I can't sing at all. So I didn't, I didn't even attempt that one. But just as the church grew and as the church just kind of took off, my role just kind of developed and got bigger and bigger. And eventually he informed me that I was going to take the church. There was no, there was no real ask there. was really just exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, so throughout that whole journey, I ended up taking over in 2018.
Just,
Trey (20:57.654)
So a little over seven years now I've been leading the church and he's still very much involved. His thing is missions. So he's on the road a lot and traveling a lot. But it's been a great transition. It's been really, really good. But yeah, I've got my wife, Becky. We've got three kids and I grew up a pastor's kid and now they're growing up a pastor's kid too. And actually I'm the third generation pastor. So there are a lot of families there for sure.
A whole lot of families there. But as far as the church goes, it's an interesting dynamic. Just this church, a lot of the people here saw me grow up, watched me grow up from 19 to now. And so it's an interesting dynamic to lead the people that I was down in the trenches with for so long and saw me as a punk 20 year old and saw me as a, know, think I knew it all and all that kind of stuff.
God's been really good these last few years. been quite amazing what God's done.
That's awesome. And we have that in common, too. I went to, I was in the youth group here at this church and went away to college and came back as a pastor. So similar dynamics. They know too much. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Derek (22:15.252)
Hey, we're talking today about just moving the church from Sunday to every day for you know, a lot of our at least modern history the church has been very much a Sunday morning kind of situation and you know as you and I and our churches together have kind of been on this Disciple making journey. There's this challenge of going we don't want to just attract people to Sunday We want to we want to move people out throughout the week and that Monday through Saturday is just as important if not more than then Sunday and so you guys have developed kind of a
discipleship journey called dust and you said you know it's kind of been a game changer for your church in terms of making that shift from you know just coming to Sunday to to moving out into the world so could you just give us a quick overview of that how did it come into existence and how how is it helping really to kind of reframe people's expectation of what what church is and what church does yeah
Yeah, so this journey for us, gosh, I mean, really I felt like the Lord started dealing with me even before 2020. Just dropping little things, just something wasn't right in the model that we were running. I just, you know, for a long time, I only knew one thing. I grew up in this model. I grew up in this type of church. in some ways it was like, I felt this gnawing on the inside, but yet I didn't really know what I didn't know.
And so God kind of took me on this journey of understanding what discipleship is. And I had to de-learn a lot and then relearn a lot in order to figure out what that is. But one of the, what I would call, I don't know, kind of that holy discontent type of moment for me was in 2019, I was in a cohort with a couple of pastors and a big church.
You would know the guy that was leading it. If I said his name, you would know who he is and mega, mega, mega, mega, mega church kind of guy, you know. But the question got brought up about discipleship and the question was asked, Hey, at a church this size, how do you disciple people? And the response broke my heart, but honestly ticked me off at the same time. Like it was that holy discontent of just like, but basically his response was that some churches are go churches and some churches are make churches. And he was
Trey (24:31.946)
ultimately dividing discipleship and evangelism. And he was basically saying, we're an evangelistic church. And at some point, if somebody wants to be discipled, they're going to have to leave our church to go down the street to be discipled somewhere else. And his, kind of distilled it down to this, his, his words were, he just doesn't think that any church can live on both sides of the great commission. And I walked away from that just shook like, like, you know, like, man, that just,
I didn't have the answer of what was right completely, but like in my head I was like, I know that's wrong. And I don't necessarily know how to get there yet. So it kind of began this journey that we're on now. And, you know, some of the things that we've, you you and I both have kind of walked some of those similar journey and kind of learning what true discipleship is and reading and studying and, and then kind of taking our staff through the same thing of just
kind of breaking it apart and figuring it out. And so we did a year long journey with the guys at clarity house and we kind of walked through that process. And I think a lot of that was, that D learning and relearning phase for us, but it was kind of corporately for all of us as leaders. Because I had been banging the drum for several years since that moment. I'd been banging the drum on Sundays. I'd been banging the drum in meetings and everything else, but it just wasn't quite getting the traction because everybody,
thought they had an idea or they had an understanding of what discipleship was. It was different than what I was saying. And we didn't really have to have a way of, how do we break this apart and let's all make sure we're meaning and saying the same things. And so we went through that process and our staff was just incredible as we went through it. But coming out of it, the very first thing that we did was create what you talked about as our, call it a disciples journey and we call it dust.
based on that ancient Hebrew blessing, may you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi. And so the whole idea is our mission statement is walking together as we pursue the way of Jesus. So it's all kind of built around this, this is what discipleship looks like. We're literally going to follow the way of Jesus. If Jesus did it, it's what we're going to do down to how we disciple and kind of how we kind of walk out our faith. We walk out the way of Jesus.
Trey (26:54.138)
So dust is kind of an outpouring of this whole journey that we've been on, but now we're able to take it to the church and we kind of built it into this. And I'm sure you guys talked about this as well and have talked about this is I think one of the problems with the, don't know, I'll just refer to it as the old model. The old model was, yeah, was every, let's make everything as simple as possible. Let's make it easy. Let's make, you know, let's make small groups easy. Let's make.
you know, class is easy, let's make everything easy. And we kind of went the other direction. We said, there's nothing in the New Testament that tells me that discipleship is easy. So why aren't we trying to make things easy? Let's kind of do the opposite. Let's make it hard and let's cast vision for discipleship as what it truly is. And then let's call people into a journey that's difficult. That's hard to begin exercising some new muscles. Cause us for us too, here in the South, we're dealing with a lot of cultural Christianity.
You know, so there's a, there's a fight against that as well that kind of leans to the easy thing. And so this is a 10 week journey. It's not a four week, it's a 10 week journey. And it's all built around, this is what's so beautiful about it. It's not built around teaching. There's very little teaching in the 10 weeks at all, actually. It's built around daily devotions. And so we wrote a, we wrote a 10 weeks worth of devotionals.
And the ask is every morning, read this devotion and then just simply write what you hear God saying. And so throughout the whole journey, it's teaching people how to hear the voice of God. Then whenever we come together once a week, the session together is all, hey, what did God say to you this week? And it's one another beginning to pour into each other. And there's a facilitator that's guiding the conversation, but it's all built around, can you hear God's voice? And
let us help you in that. And of course, the devotions range from theology to mission and practice and generosity. And the devotions kind of cover the gamut of what kind of life in Christ is all about. But the secret sauce is really in that discussion of what did God say. There's outreach built in. There's, like I said, generosity. There's several things built into it.
Trey (29:16.342)
The main, really the main core is meeting with Christ every day. You're meeting with the Lord every day and then you're coming together as brothers and sisters and we're unpacking and we're talking about what God said. And it's really, it's really been a game changer. And by the end of it, we really start talking a lot, a lot about mission. And one of the beautiful things is, and we didn't completely pioneer this, you know, we stole like everybody feels a little from here and a little from there.
But the ending is kind of this celebration service, if you will, but really it's a commissioning. And so we end this whole thing with commissioning them into ministry. And it's a pretty emotional, substantial, it's a powerful moment for hundreds of people in a worship center to stand up and commit to living out a life of not only discipleship but ministry, but living it out.
And so we go through a couple things, you know, kind of jokingly saying, you know, things like, I won't read them all, but, you know, things like, if I see someone in need this week, that I'm not going to call the church office to get a pastor to go help this person in need. I'm going to realize that I'm a pastor, I'm a minister, and I'm going to meet the need. So it's those kind of statements that we're repeating and the church is repeating. And at the end of it, we pray commissioning over them and we commission them to be sent.
and so that's, that's, yeah. So it's like, it's a really big moment for a lot of people that are used to church being all about receiving and getting and consuming. And it kind of, flips that around. And you know, even some people don't like that language of, don't call the church, you know, but it really, it grabs the attention of people and they go, yeah, why can't, why wouldn't I be the one to meet a need or pray, you know, pray for healing.
don't call a pastor, pray for healing. You're there in the moment. You're a pastor, pray for healing. you know, so it's just begin to kind of shift that thing. So it really has, change the, the ground floor, I guess, the baseline of what it means to be a part of our church, what it means to be a disciple of Christ, what it means to live out our faith, what it means to even be in community with one another and be in connection with one another. It's changed how we do small groups.
Trey (31:45.902)
You know, now small groups can no longer just, hey, let's sit around and talk about the sermon. Now small groups are like, hey, what it got to say? What's got speaking to you? And so it just, it even changes the dynamic there. So anyway, it really has been a beautiful thing.
That's fantastic. And I know you've taken a whole bunch of people through that, which has got to just have changed the culture already, even though it's a pretty new thing. Can you drill down on one, like is there one story, like one person who's kind of grabbed ahold of this missional living, you know, outside the walls of the church kind of thing that you don't have to give their full name or anything. Just give us kind of a little snapshot of how this plays out.
really have.
Trey (32:22.818)
Yeah, and it kind of looks, it kind of looks different in different ways because we've tried not to, you know, know, you know, the training center kind of conversation as well of trying not to pigeonhole it because some people just think, this means I've got to go start a nonprofit and I've got to go, you know, create this thing. And we have had that there's several people and there's a homeless ministry in our church that is thriving now that has just come out of this heart for understanding that I'm in, I'm
minister, I'm a pastor and I'm going to go do it. But then there's also a guy that I'm thinking of now, name's John, that just felt a burden for men and just was like, man, I just, want to see men become godly, become dads that they're meant to be. And so it's like, he's got a really a mini church happening in his house every week. And it's not barbecue and football. Let's talk about what's going on in the world. It's, Hey, leave your phone at the door because we don't need that for the next two hours. We're going to pray.
we're gonna seek God, we're gonna be vulnerable, like we're gonna hold each other accountable. You know, and so it's like just, it's empowered people at a level to go, hey, I don't need, I didn't train John how to do that. I mean, you know, at some point we wanna be able to train people to do those things,
This was before we even had a training center. He's just like, hey, I just feel God's called me to do it. And there's this empowerment to go and do the thing God's put on his heart. And we're just kind of cheerleading and high-fiving and, hey, give us a call if you need help.
You're killing it, man. So there's been quite a few things like that, or business leaders that start a lunch in their office and it's just a discipleship lunch. It's not a lunch and learn, let's come and talk about leadership, but it's a, we're praying over needs, we're walking through the book of Mark, or whatever, it's deeper things that people are doing.
Derek (34:20.502)
Yeah, that's awesome. And the big shift there, I mean, when you think about it again, think about the way that most of us have done church or a lot of our people have experienced church. It's like if I get an idea that, I have this passion for men, often the first instinct is to come, like you said, call the church and go, hey, we need a men's ministry and or we need a prayer ministry or we need to pray more as a church. And so incorporate that into Sunday mornings. It's kind of like a you do it. It's my idea, but you do it. And what you're seeing is those ideas are starting to be manifest.
and through, you know, the priesthood of all believers that are living this thing out, you know, in their.
in their everyday lives, which is so cool. So you drew this distinction, I've heard talk about this, this difference between outreach events and everyday missionaries, which I think is another kind of important distinction in, you know, the way a lot of people think about church. And so can you just talk about that distinction? And how do you help people make that shift from from an outreach events mentality to an everyday missionary mentality?
Yeah, so when we started, when the church started 28 years ago, we were, it was very outreach heavy. And so we did just incredible outreach and we're known, we're known in the city to this day for being an outreach church.
So people just naturally grab hold of that culture. I mean, it's just kind of the natural thing and it's wonderful, but it can be a little bit of a struggle to go, hey, we're calling you to be an everyday missionary, which means you don't have to get our permission. It doesn't have to be a church organized thing. But now we're kind of creating it in a sense where...
Trey (36:01.528)
where outreach, the church ministry outreach is more the on-ramp into teaching people how to go and do ministry on their own. It's empowering them, it's training them, it's teaching them. It's the shallow end of the pool in outreach. It's here's this big event and you don't have to do much at this big event, just come, get your feet wet and let us train and teach you what's the real world.
you know, experience so that hopefully you can go and do your own thing. That used to not be the, used to not be the heart. The heart was, hey, come here. We're all going to do the outreach together. And then it's over. That's it. Like it's an end deal. We just hope and pray people come back on Sunday and then we've done, you know, our job. So it's shifting that perspective of
What if outreach were part of the training center? What if outreach were part of teaching them how to go out into their world, their spheres, and do the same thing? Maybe not the same exact type of event, but I mean, the heart translates across the board. The meeting needs, you know, one of the terms that we use is first responder.
We live in Hurricane Alley, so we have a disaster response team. Hurricane's like crazy. So First Responder has that sense for us, not just paramedics and EMTs and that sort of thing, there is a disaster, there's a problem, there's something falling apart. How do I respond to that? So even training people to go, hey, do you see when there's something going on? Do you see?
in your sphere when there's a crisis, when there's a need you could step into, you're the first responder. You're not calling somebody else, you're the first responder. So little things like that of just training people to see outreach differently, see mission differently.
Derek (37:56.524)
Yeah, I love that. That's just incredible. And I love that that, you know, I know one of the things that, you know, we both have gone through this kind of Clarity House experience. And so that whole local predicament and really kind of naming, naming discipleship roles around what's happening in this region or locally has been such a powerful move, you know, to to put words to stuff that our region would bet. What kind of disciples do we need to create that there's going to reach this particular place where we find ourselves? And I just thought that's so cool that to hear that.
first responder word just because that's really amazing because it reflects your community and the heartbeat of your people already. So that's cool. So you mentioned this training center idea and it's something that I'm super passionate about too. In fact, as we're talking here tonight, we're a couple of weeks into this new training module that we just created that's been just a total game changer. just to give people a little bit of context, I think one of the moves
is from teaching to training. And, know, the phrase that's caught my attention is the church is over inspired and under trained. And in the church in the West, at least, you know, we can we know how to come and get inspired. But but when it comes to living this out, you know, people are often struggling to put feet to it. And so as you've entered this kind of training center space, is there a training or a tool, particularly, that has really clicked with your people? And how are you leveraging that? And maybe just talk about training in general and some of
shifts that you guys have made.
Yeah, it's a pretty big shift.
Trey (39:29.706)
I think, I mean, I know it has been for us. I imagine it is for you guys too, just that the understanding of it makes perfect sense. Like when you, when you get it, he's like, yeah, of course that is that, you know, that's how I learned. That's how I learned how to play baseball or how I learned how to do, you know, anything. So it's like, yeah, it makes sense. But then how to take the things that we've been doing in, church and theology and, and all the mission stuff we've been doing, but how to take that then and kind
or re-engineer it or whatever and create a training out of it has taken a little bit time and energy for us. Like that's not been, it's not been an easy thing. And so we're still at the beginning stages of it. We by no means have it figured out. And I would even say that we're not to the point yet that we're like dust. We don't call dust part of the training center. It's really the front door. It's.
You can serve before you go through dust, but it's like a holding tank because dust for us is like, this is the front door to the church. Like before you do anything, you know, we want to get you through dust. And then for us, the training center is a, it's a, have to have completed dust before you can do the training center. So it's, we're constantly kind of pushing people to go through there. So training center for us, I think we're about to roll out our fourth one.
We just started our third one last week and then our fourth one will be next month. And so I think out of the three or four that we've done, the one that stands out to me is Disciple Maker. And it really is, it's kind of a simple four week training, it's kind of walking through some of the principles that we learned and that you probably learned as well, some of the tools that we walked through to kind of do the same thing of kind of breaking down what does discipleship really mean? What does it look like?
you know, to not just learn information, but to learn a new skill, to learn a new thing. And I think that one's been really good. We haven't, you we've only done it a couple of times. And so it's not been something that's taken over the church yet, but we're very much headed in that direction. I would say for us, the bottleneck right now is leadership, is now we've, because we've got this great thing. And so now we're trying to create the pipeline of developing leaders to be able to lead all these core trainings.
Trey (41:52.118)
you know, that's kind of where we're at right now. So we've got some great core trainings. We just haven't quite gotten them you know, rolled out yet. Some of that's leadership.
Yeah, feeling that too. People have to go through it and own it and become trainers themselves. And that's a whole different thing than being able to stand up and give a lecture on a subject, because a trainer has to be living it, people will see right through that within about 30 seconds. Yeah, we find ourselves in a similar spot.
Yeah, what about what about you guys? So what's the core training that's that's clicking?
Well, the one we're in right now is around one of our four dream disciple roles, which is intentional friend. And so it's a six week really training on how to be an intentional friend. And so we've kind of built it around the Dave Ferguson blessed BLESS model.
And so, know, how do you begin with prayer? How do you listen? How do you eat together in a meaningful way? How do you serve? How do you share your story kind of thing? And so but again, you know, my first pass at that, you know, was and our team was really through a teaching, you know, so we get done. like, this is great. You know, come and and we didn't thankfully we hadn't offered it yet. It was just in its raw form and ran it by Dave and Shane. And they were kind of they just kind of were silent. They're like, yeah. And then we did a little
Derek (43:15.656)
training on that on how to train and I kind of ripped it up and we started over again and it's much much better but thinking about training as as a series of experiences and exercises that and tools that somebody can learn and go through and I think the big shift for us was to go when somebody comes into a training the goal by the end is not to get them to know
something new or something that they didn't know before. It's that they will walk out being able to do something that they couldn't do before they walked in. And the only way that you can do that is like hands on like, having them do stuff, you know, and, practicing that stuff with other people in the room. And so that, you know, more stringing together four or five exercises versus like, here's my all my wisdom on, you know, being a great friend is the big shift. And where I just again, a couple weeks into this new
and it's just been so, so, rewarding.
Yeah, that's similar to our disciple maker. mean, it is that week one, hey, you're going to go find somebody, you're going to sit at a coffee shop and you're going to begin practicing what we talked about and going through the tool, using these tools in a real world, you know, place and kind of walking it out. yeah. that's good stuff. I don't actually know what I was going to say. So go ahead.
no go ahead for a finish
Danielle (44:33.908)
Sorry.
So I want to, we're kind of starting to wrap up here, but I want to come back. You know, we're pastors and so pastors think about Sundays. We've been trained to think about Sundays. And I'm just curious as to how you guys are reframing your Sundays. I know that's been a part of our conversation around here is that, know, you can't, you know, we're not doing away with Sundays anytime soon, but how do we reframe them in a, kind of a, you know, a disciple making way. And you've said Sunday's not the finish line. And so, you know,
do you keep Sundays excellent and meaningful while resisting the gravitational pull that we all feel because it comes with stunning regularity to put all of your time and energy into making Sunday great? So how have you kind of reframed that or reshifted Sunday?
Yeah, I we're definitely still in it. I mean, it is definitely the, you know, the tension to manage kind of thing of trying to figure out, figure out exactly what that is. I think one of the big, revelations, I guess for us was looking at how much staff resources, time, talent, energy, the whole deal, how much of that we put toward an hour and 10 minutes on Sunday morning.
and versus the equipping and preparing and all the other things that we should be doing from Monday to Saturday and kind of helping folks. And that was a big shift in that. gravitational pull for sure is to kind of go back to, let's keep making Sundays better and better and better. For me personally, as the lead pastor, I
Trey (46:10.294)
I came out of the creative world, like creative programming, all that stuff was kind of my background before I took over. So for me personally, a big part of it was kind of taking myself out of weekend programming. not, and so that that wasn't always my focus of.
nitpicking and you know, even that the borderline or that line between excellence and perfection, which we like to say we're excellence. That's what we're aiming for, but let's be real with our, we're all aiming for perfection. You know, and so it's like the more I kind of pulled myself out of that and just said, Hey guys, I want it needs to be excellent. But even me, I'm pulling myself out energy wise from this thing. and I think that, you know, kind of helps down the line of start going, yeah, it's important, but this is not the
same thing that we do, you know. And kind of, I think, just slowly peeling that back and slowly undoing that. You know, another thing too, I think for us was, and to kind of say this carefully, because I like what I mean by this, but we really are working or learning to be more of a spirit-led church in the moment.
versus a programmed out to the second church.
And I think that also was not something that I would have planned for or I would have figured that out on the front end. But it's what I'm seeing now that what it has unlocked in worship leaders, what it's unlocked in our staff is a deeper reliance on Sunday morning at 10, 15, halfway through worship. There's more of a reliance on the Spirit to speak, to move, to do what He wants to do versus us going, yeah, the Spirit can move a week from now, a week earlier.
Trey (48:00.8)
But we got to have it all mapped out, you know? And so I don't know if that makes sense. It's like I feel it more than I've probably articulated it.
but there is something really kind of neat in that that has happened where it is, we're just kind of leaning more and more into that. Again, not, not looking for hyper Pentecostal crazy wild, wooly kind of stuff. That's not it at all. There's, there's a plan, there's an order and all those things, but we're not.
We're not scheduling down to the minute. We're not scheduling down to the second. It's just like, hey, let's make sure that we're, far as worship goes, we're bringing people into the presence of God. Let's make sure we have a really good, well thought out, challenging message that does lead into the next week. How do they bring this into the next week? Let's make sure those two things are great, but let's don't over program this thing to death where, you know, it's, it takes our staff out of the week, out of the...
all the other things that we really should be doing.
Yeah, this is so good, man. I got to wrap this up. But I thank you so, much for your time. And I have one one final question like we've got
Derek (49:12.194)
pastors and church leaders that listen to this podcast all over the place and probably a lot of them like I have feel a little bit stuck in the Sunday centric model. Is there a you know for you is there is like a catalytic step that that somebody could take you know to kind of begin to make this shift that we've been talking about from Sunday to every day that you could just kind of offer generally to big churches small churches you know that urban churches suburban churches rural churches any any kind of catalytic step advice that
you would say if you want to move from Sunday to every day man just start right here.
Yeah, I mean the...
One or two quick things that come to mind are just the intentionality of small steps. I think we, you know, maybe all lead pastors, but I know probably a lot of lead pastors lead toward, it's got to be quick, it's got to be fast, I got to make all the moves now, and it's got to immediately be there. And I had to really go against that in me and just go, no, this is small, intentional steps toward a goal, you know. And if the goal is, you know, becoming a disciple-making church versus a Sunday
focused church, then what are the steps that I can begin taking now? And so, I mean, I know it's really, really simple, but I really feel like it's keeping that in my forefront or keeping that in front of you all the time of, what are the small intentional steps that I can begin making? Because we all get busy in the rat race of it all, and we lose sight of those big overarching goals that we have. And so I think that would be a big part of it. And then, of course, bringing staff along in that as well. Elders, keep
Trey (50:48.368)
volunteers, like what's the learning? For me it was what needs to be unlearned so that we can relearn. You what is that process that you're bringing others along with you? So yeah, those are the two things that kind of come to mind.
I love it, man. Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today. We're just cheering you on from a long ways away and cheering on your church as you make these big changes that the gospel would go forward and the kingdom would advance in Mobile, Alabama. So thanks, Trafer.
Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much. appreciate it. you. Bye.
Derek (51:25.762)
Yeah, it was so great to meet Trey. So great to hear about his insights on what they're up to in Alabama.
And every time I hear Dave, I'm like, well, I'm smarter now. I'm smarter.
I'm still dumb for what I'm
Exactly. All right. So let's go. Let's go behind the curtain. So we love I think one of our favorite parts of this podcast is just taking the opportunity to talk about something actually happened in our lives, the life of our church this week.
We have to choose. Please don't. please don't think. Yeah, we kind of yeah. Yeah, lobby for what we want to talk about. Right. Yeah. So we're going to talk about our most recent series teaching series called Influencer.
Derek (52:14.476)
Yeah. Yeah. So we we this really is tied to and the reason I want to talk about it, because it really goes with today's theme quite a bit of because I think one of the things we struggle with is like, OK, yeah, but we do meet on Sundays. Right. And we do have and should. Yeah. And should. And we do do teaching and we do do worship. And how do we continue to kind of, you know, make our Sundays count as well?
And one of the things I've been experimenting with a little bit is just to say, you know, how can, how can my, how does my preaching need to shift? And, we're tons of feedback from, had a little bit of trepidation to be honest with you, cause there was some shifts that we did, about this influencer series, but it's tied to one of our dream disciple roles embedded influencer. And we just wanted it to be uber practical. really the first two weeks we talked about kind of some bigger picture items and that how everyone is an influencer wherever they are.
called by God to be an impact to the people around them. And then the second week we talked a little bit about wiring, how God made you the way he made you and put you where he put you for a reason. But here was the shift, and this was kind of the thing that I hadn't really done before. We spent those first two weeks kind of setting the stage, and then the last three weeks we got into very specific skills. So each week we took a separate skill. One was encouraging words.
again, try to make them very accessible so everybody can do encouragement. But it's one of the things that allows you to have influence over other people. We talked about catalytic questions, so asking good questions, and we talked about being fully present. And again, these were micro skills that we said could turn ordinary moments into spiritual possibilities. And so, I don't know, it was just the first time, and again, I think there was a couple of things that I did differently in terms of just how I structured.
both the series and structured the messages. Yep. That we can talk about in a second. the the I was getting feedback like I mean, I had somebody literally run up to me after one of the messages and say, you trained me today. Cool. This was this was you didn't just teach me. You trained me to do something different that I couldn't do before.
Derek (54:29.43)
somebody else said it felt like you were discipling the whole congregation in your message. And again, that discipleship word gets thrown around and I've we've always tied it to teaching, right? You know that there is this kind of teaching component and what they were communicating was that there was this like you were showing us how to do things differently. And so, you know, I think the setup of the series was different, but also just the leaning into some very specific skills and very specific tools.
that enabled those skills. like the one the question week, we did a question ladder. How do you how do you take a hey, a, know, a common moment and turn it into a more of a deeper, more spiritual conversation and walk people up the ladder with a series of questions. And so you have an opening question. You have a seeing question that maybe helps them to see something differently than they've seen it before. A feeling question and then believing questions. So you move kind of toward, you know, from from.
basic to a little bit more spiritual and insightful. And so each week kind of had a tool that we were unpacking like that. And I think it was just it just felt different. Yeah, for sure. And got a lot of a lot of good, good response.
I was a big fan of the structure of the series. Like I'm always, not always, but consistently banging the drum of like, this is, it's too much, it's too much. And I don't mean we're doing too much, just like it's too much info for people. This was before we made the shift. But I think this scratched that itch for me because you, like you're just saying, you spent time developing really one concept and then breaking down, like you just said, how to do it three different ways. And so even though there was like a different tool,
concert.
Danielle (56:08.876)
like three different, I guess, focuses or whatever. It still was all it was a very like it all went together. You could see how went together. And what's the phrase that you've been using? Like we're giving people something to not something to learn, but something to. yeah. That that that summed that up.
Yeah, I think it's just the shift from help letting people know something that they didn't know. Yeah. To helping people to do something that they couldn't do. Right. That's it. And so it's not just a knowing. We're not just after a knowing goal. Yes. We're after a doing goal. Right. And so how do we actually equip people for their real lives to do different things that they than they were doing before?
Yeah, and I think it was one of the, we've done it before, but one of the first times successfully where we almost, we almost were able to demonstrate for them what a Sunday is for versus like a, it's not for like a only a passive reception. It's for like.
Hmm.
Derek (57:07.534)
Yeah, yeah, and I think that you know the shift we've talked about and we talked about today is just that whole you know Sunday being the starting line not the finish line and so you know this is like okay We're gonna we're gonna equip you now go out. Yeah and do it Yeah, no, this doesn't these are things that don't just end here in our walls Yeah, you have to go to so anyway influencers see people can actually check it out
Over at the whoisgrace.com website in the sermon archives if they want to you know if they're curious as to kind of how we approached it. That stuff is there as well some of the tools and stuff that we have.
Feel free to use whatever. Great. Our discipline is going to be remember that this happened, celebrate that it happened, figure out that we have stories. All right. So let's move into our last segment here. Tips and tools. You want to go through this one three one tool.
Mm-hmm.
Derek (58:02.006)
Yeah, so, and this is kind of a, it's more of a leadership tool than is, I almost feel like we need to say. And now for something completely.
yes, right. And now for something we hope you really like. What's up from? There's some like 70s thing. Yeah, I was in a life.
than I don't know. You tell me. Yeah, my memory wasn't working.
Yeah, so let's take a turn. So a practical tip or tool. really what this section started out as was kind of like when you develop something that you feel is helpful and useful for other people, that's where we're kind of done with this.
Yeah, and so this is a leadership tool and in fact, I didn't come up with it. I don't know exactly where it came from, but it's one of these things that, you know, as we try to empower people, I feel like this is kind of a bridge from, know, I wrote a book called Untap Church where we're trying to empower high capacity volunteer leaders to move into positions of leadership. I think this also applies to staff, staff relationships.
Derek (59:05.614)
I think one of the sticking points that a lot of people who supervise others have is how do I stay engaged with this person that I'm trying to empower for ministry without falling to one of the extremes, which is either being too distant or too present. And so the too distant side is just like, just dump it on them and say, good luck. Figure it out, see you at the finish line kind of thing.
The other extreme is this like micromanagement like I'm hovering over their shoulder for everything You need to touch base with me before you make any decisions And so it's like I feel like we've always had this tension between how do we empower people without being? To giving too much freedom. Yeah, and also without exhibiting too much control Yeah, where is the fine line? I think this is one of the tools that kind of cuts through the middle of that and so it's called one three one
It allows you to empower somebody to to make decisions and come up with ideas about decisions, but still be involved in kind of coaching them through it. So there's a lot of they're taking a lot of the initiative, but you're still then playing the role of the coach. And so one three one is just really at its basic level is to find the one problem, find three possible solutions.
and then formulate one recommendation. So that's what the 131 stands for. One problem, three solutions, one recommendation. And so again, you're kind of having them do this. So if they come to you and they say, here's what I'm facing, or here's what I'm trying to figure out, whatever, you can just assign this and say, I want you to just go through the 131 process. And so the first thing is actually the most important. It's writing out a clear, concise definition of the problem. Often, if somebody just goes through that exercise, they don't even need to do the rest.
Yeah, because sometimes just clearly defining the is the biggest hurdle. so so they write out a clear and concise definition of the problem and then are asking really what what is going to happen if we find a solution? What is the thing that we're trying to get at? three possible solutions is just like, you know, what what what ideas do they have for the solution? So once that problem is defined, then they work through, you know, on their own.
Derek (01:01:31.802)
what are three ways that we could address this. And then the final thing is formulate one recommendation. And so.
Is that
I like them to do this whole thing before they come to gotcha. And then you're working through the whole thing. Okay. So then you can come back and go, did you consider this solution? did you consider? Okay. What about this is the definition of the problem? Again, you can do it however you want. People can collaborate the whole way along here. that recommendation then, and I really like to have people try to sell it. Yeah, that's cool. So I want you to be passionate about it. Like by the time you've worked through this.
And then we can go back through the problem and go, okay, let's coach our way through this. And did we define the problem correctly? And if not, let's rethink that. And if we rethink that, does that lead us to a couple of different solutions? And then how would you tweak your proposal if you So it's a way I think that, I think it was Grochelle that said, if you delegate tasks, you train followers. If you delegate authority, you train leaders.
And this is a way to delegate authority because you're saying, hey, I want you to think problem, solution, recommendation. then I'll coach you along the way. you're gaining these skills. That person is gaining these skills now to do this on their own. And they're feeling the authority of your leadership going, OK, you did great with that one. Now, next one, you know, you might have more confidence in. So I just think it's a great threading the needle thing between too much freedom and too much control.
Danielle (01:02:58.348)
Yeah, well, and the other thing it does too is I think all of us have a person like this in our sphere, like the verbal processor. You can do this. You can figure this out on your own and then we can talk about it. And so it's not you're having these meandering meetings about, yeah, that's great.
Yeah, right.
Derek (01:03:17.166)
And I like the fact that the framework itself gives them a little bit of a freedom that they can yeah So they don't even have to use you necessarily go to a couple of their peers or some their ministry team Yeah, and say hey, here's the thing I'm working on and get collaboration from them and then bring it back to you Yeah, so it's a great. think just the framework takes the nebulous You know mystery out of solving a problem. Yeah, and and gives them an actual tool to help them, you know go forward
Great. Okay, cool. Good tool. All right. I think that's it for today. If you like this episode, tell us by leaving a rating or review and you don't want to miss what's next. We have more of the same coming, but really good concepts from Clarity House and some good interviews coming up that are going to be awesome. So subscribe now wherever you listen to listen to or watch this podcast and help a friend by sharing it with them. You can find detailed show notes and related resources at DerekSanford.com.
And that's where you can also subscribe to his weekly newsletter, get all the latest free tools and posts. So thanks for joining us today.
Thanks everybody.