American Reformation
From Addition to Multiplication: Redefining Church Growth and Discipleship with Steve Pike
Are you ready to discover the profound impact of shifting from an addition to a multiplication mentality in the context of the church? If so, this enlightening conversation welcoming back Steve Pike, the author of 'Next Wave,' is one you can't miss. This isn't just about adding numbers to the church but about fostering a culture of disciples who, in turn, create more disciples, thereby instigating a potent cycle of growth and outreach.
This episode transcends the bounds of conventional church discourse as we look at how disciple making can shape our everyday lives and influence our relationships. We challenge the packed schedules of leaders and explore how prioritizing disciple making, even if it requires personal sacrifices, can lead to lasting impact. We also confront the rampant busyness of church activities, highlighting how it can sometimes eclipse the real mission of reaching those who are yet to follow Jesus.
In the final stretches of our conversation, we debunk myths related to making a difference and expound on how even a small group of dedicated individuals can ignite profound change. We discuss the nuances of leadership and how understanding our unique strengths and gifts can catalyze positive influence. So prepare to redefine your understanding of growth, delve into discipleship, and discover practical ways to bring about significant transformation in your community. Tune in, and let's embark on this transformative journey together.
Are you ready to discover the profound impact of shifting from an addition to a multiplication mentality in the context of the church? If so, this enlightening conversation welcoming back Steve Pike, the author of 'Next Wave,' is one you can't miss. This isn't just about adding numbers to the church but about fostering a culture of disciples who, in turn, create more disciples, thereby instigating a potent cycle of growth and outreach.
This episode transcends the bounds of conventional church discourse as we look at how disciple making can shape our everyday lives and influence our relationships. We challenge the packed schedules of leaders and explore how prioritizing disciple making, even if it requires personal sacrifices, can lead to lasting impact. We also confront the rampant busyness of church activities, highlighting how it can sometimes eclipse the real mission of reaching those who are yet to follow Jesus.
In the final stretches of our conversation, we debunk myths related to making a difference and expound on how even a small group of dedicated individuals can ignite profound change. We discuss the nuances of leadership and how understanding our unique strengths and gifts can catalyze positive influence. So prepare to redefine your understanding of growth, delve into discipleship, and discover practical ways to bring about significant transformation in your community. Tune in, and let's embark on this transformative journey together.
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Happy day. Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast, tim Allman, here with my co-host brother from another mother who just moved Matt, you just told me you transitioned to St Louis. Now for those of you who are in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, you went to Mecca. Tell me about that move and introduce our guest today for the second time.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, that move is really tied tightly to the stuff that we're talking about, because we've moved four times in the last 12 months. I don't suggest that to anyone, but when God leads, you follow, but it's really cool. Yeah, we live down the street now from the Purple Palace. If you can believe that, no way.
Speaker 2:Purple Palace is the international center of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod. So are you like? Five minutes away. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just got to get on the bike and get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's pop in and talk a mission of multiplication. Can I get on? I want to go to the council of presidents meeting and talk about multiplying leaders. You ought to try that soon, matt, that'd be great.
Speaker 3:You know, I just hang outside and I'll see who walks by. We'll just have conversations. But hey, I'm really excited because we're here with Steve Pike, who he's one of the voices in my life that's been just pivotal in thinking about multiplication and thinking about moving from kind of the older paradigm that I grew up in, which is not bad, like we said before. But if we're going to thrive in the 21st century and we're going to reach those that need Jesus, we've got to make some mental shifts and Steve's been huge in talking through those shifts. So I'm so excited to introduce you guys to Steve. He's in Colorado, leads urban islands, and Steve, thanks for being with us again, man.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me back. I guess I wasn't a disaster the first time, so not at all man.
Speaker 3:Oh man, well, actually it's fun. So, if you guys check it out, we do have a first conversation that we had, and Steve wrote this incredible book, next Wave, and Next Wave is all about these 10 mission shifts that we need to make 12. Sorry, 12. Mission shifts. We need to make you know clearly. I read extra close.
Speaker 4:We're talking about number. You told me we're going to talk about number 11 today, so I didn't want to confuse the watchers.
Speaker 3:As I was thinking about Next Wave, I realized you wrote that book and that book literally released during the pandemic, which couldn't have been a more perfect time, because I think if it had released before the pandemic, people would have read it and been like oh you know, whatever, like everything seems to be going fine, everything shuts down and it's like reading this prophetic work. In fact, I shared it with everybody because I was sitting in a seven hour COVID test line reading Steve's book going. I think more people need to read this, but the shifts in there it's phenomenal. You need to check it out online. But we talked a lot about those shifts, so go back and watch the first one if you haven't watched it. But let's talk shift 11 and this idea of moving from this addition mentality to a multiplication mentality. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know. I think that the premise of the book is that the 20th century church kind of landed on some practices and values that actually served well in the 20th century culture, but moving into the 21st century they're not so helpful, and so I was. My whole idea was to say this is where we've been and this is where we need to go. And so addition is is where we were in the 20th century, and what I mean by that was churches were sort of sort of just content to add people to the number of people sitting in the pews. So it wasn't unusual in 20th century for a church consultant to be engaged with a church and the goal would be to have if the consultation process was successful, the goal would be to have 20% more people. That would be like almost impossible. But the idea of if we get a year from now, have 20% more people that are worshiping together than big win, which certainly is a good thing. Progress, kingdom progress. More people following Jesus, more people deciding to intentionally go worship with others Nothing wrong with that at all. But when you look at the biblical model of how the church moves forward, the early church was actually built on a platform. This is the way I say. It, built on a platform of making disciples, and that is the foundational idea behind multiplication.
Speaker 4:Multiplication is not some kind of you know whatever a technique for growing the church faster. I mean, if you approach multiplication as that, you're probably going to get it wrong. But multiplication is actually built on the foundation of disciple making, where Jesus said go and make disciples, teaching them to observe things I've commanded you, and basically what he had commanded to do was go and make disciples as well. Of course you know the rest of that verse kind of talks about helping people become part of a worshiping community and all the things that are part of that. But the beginning of that, the reciprocating invitation, is to you become a disciple maker, who makes disciples, who makes disciples, who makes disciples. And when that begins to happen, then it is the foundation of multiplication. So it starts, if you will, it starts at the granular level.
Speaker 4:Multiplication is not a program necessarily. I mean, there are things we can do and should do to help our organizations and our churches become multipliers, and there are some organizational things, but it's really really, really hard to do it from the top down without the bottom up happening. And so multiplication at its heart, at its root, is disciples making disciples. So disciples begat disciples. Groups of disciples become churches and they begat churches. Churches become, you know, collections of churches that maybe turn into networks or denominations or whatever. And you know for that to when that happens, the church will have no problem staying up with population growth, all the challenges that are part of the church. So addition is really inadequate to keep up with the pace of change and rural population growth and all that sort of stuff. Multiplication is the only way that we're going to get there. So that's kind of the basic idea.
Speaker 3:Well, steve, what I hear you saying is multiplication is a bad goal but a good outcome, just like addition was. Addition was a bad goal but a good outcome. And I think the problem is we start to turn it into the goal Right, and then it's like, okay, well, we'll just swap out addition for multiplication, that'll become the goal. Let's get the consultants in here. You know they'll tell us that. And what you're saying is the way to get there is to not focus on that at all and to just focus on the core of what we were always called to, which is disciple making, which, if I remember correctly, somebody said that in scripture, that that should be our focus. I'm just trying to remember who that was.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, and I want to emphasize we start there. That's got to be the foundation, like if we get the disciple making piece right, then there can be institutional intentionality that harnesses the kind of the DNA of multiplication that's built into disciple making, and so you can see institutional multiplication best. I think you can artificially kind of prop it up by sort of you know, learning the tricks of the trade of multiplication and saying, okay, you know, our church is going to start two churches a year from now until Jesus comes, and people make stuff, make up ideas like that, call it multiplication. But that's still actually a form of addition. Multiplication really happens when, yes, when you make the goal hey, wait a minute, what if we all become disciple makers and we help each other do that? And when that happens it's like the natural. As you said, it's the outcome that's important, it's multiplication is not the goal, it's the desired outcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is good, steve. So many of our listeners are connected to the Lutheran Church, lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, a confessing, you know, very conservative church body. And it's interesting, we're almost 200 years old, by the way, we're celebrating our 175th anniversary as a church body. But I look historically, the tension between the priesthood of all believers and the office of holy ministry is where is where I think the crux of this struggle, especially in a post-Christian secular culture, is, because if there's an imbalance on well, the pastor does it. If he's not the Word and sacrament guy you all come and receive, I would say right now, that may have worked for a while. And discipleship from 10 to maybe 200 people. But if Jesus only had 12 and then he sent the 12, like how could we think we can really deeply disciple many more than Jesus? But what words of encouragement would you give to someone who says but man, how are we going to work through this cultural shift of thinking the pastor does it all and how would you back up that cultural shift with scripture, steve?
Speaker 4:Yeah, those are really great questions. I'll start with, I really think this. So a lot of times, pastors hear stuff like this and we're listening to it as okay, I want to find the latest hot technique to be able to jump on the bandwagon that all the cool kids are involved in, and I think even Lutheran ministers, who are steeped in all the traditions of a Lutheran church, are pragmatic enough to think you know, I want my church to get as much benefit from, you know, the latest things that are being learned and all that kind of stuff. So they're. So they think about it from that aspect and their thought is how do I get people to, how do I get my people to make disciples Is kind of where they land, and so they come up with okay, let's do a whatever sermon series or, you know, a seminar or a cohort or whatever, and it'll all be about disciple making and people will graduate and go make disciples and that's how we get this going.
Speaker 4:So here's what I would say the key is the leader, the pastor, whatever the title of the person is needs to become a disciple maker First, like we have to get out. It's not. You know, being behind the pulpit is not wrong. But if that's all we do, we're not actually doing what Jesus said all of us are to be doing, which is to make disciples. And that's, I guess that's, the scriptural justification His Jesus said. He didn't say I just want the leaders to make disciples or I just want the followers to make disciples. He says go and make disciples, talking to his disciples and again built, if you, if you just read that, read that command or meditate on the command, it is a, it's got this built in. It's like, as it gets passed on it, it just keeps going and going and going, so that ripples down through the centuries to us as a fundamental responsibility for every person.
Speaker 4:And so it starts with the, the pastor deciding, or the leader, whatever the title the person has. I'm personally going to be engaged in making disciples. And once that person begins doing it and then begins to invite others along with them, that's when a disciple making movement can actually get going. And if the pastor doesn't do that, what happens is other people will pick up the slack and they become the leaders. They set in motion a disciple making movement and you know, then it gets awkward because you know, if the pastor's not involved, if it's a side thing. Uh, there are all kinds of weird stuff can happen. You know, churches can have splits and blah, blah, blah. So it's, you know, I just I think the challenge is every pastor has to decide, every leader has to decide that I'm going to become a disciple maker myself first. That's, that's my first step towards setting in motion a multiplication movement.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think, steve, you hit the nail on the head and we are, we are the biggest lid and we have to die a lot more to ourselves to be able to do that.
Speaker 3:That's been, that's been what we've been doing the last year, and let me tell you the shift. It's challenging when you're used to preaching to several hundred people and then the new dynamic is to pour deeply into three or four, uh, and take that time to do that, and and you're scheduling that in with everything else you're doing, um, and it's like, okay, well, I don't have time. Well, if you don't have time, how can we look at the stay at home mom with four kids and say you should make time, or the guy that's, you know, working a second job to support the like? But if we look at our schedule and say I need to make time for discipleship, how can I repurpose, how can I be more intentional? We realized discipling can happen as we go. But once we pull that lid off and we died to ourselves a little bit, man, that's when this movement really begins.
Speaker 4:Right, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, one of the key things is learning to say no to stuff. You know you really have to look at all the stuff you're doing and ask the question is that what I'm really called to do? You know, whatever that specific thing is, because we know we're called to make disciples. So that's a high, high, high, high priority. And, um, that means we need to be willing to look at, um, everything. Just take everything we do and lay it before God and say, okay, what, where cause you you? We have to find space for this. We have to now. Here's the thing. I think it's easier than we think to build disciple making to our lives. And you know, part of the, the rest of next wave or other portions of next wave we talk about what we think is just a it's, it's, it's a modern day explanation of what disciple making was viewed as by the early disciples, and bottom line is they were always making disciples like, like, wherever they went.
Speaker 4:Disciple making was not confined to the church building, it wasn't confined to a class, it wasn't confined to teaching, it was literally life on life. And so, for example, I live in a high rise apartment building in downtown Denver and you know, today I got on the elevator to take my dog out and there was another person on the elevator and you've got like five seconds or 10 seconds depending on how many floors you're going, and I see that like, like the way my the shift has happened in my brain is that's a disciple making opportunity. Now, obviously I can't take the person in five seconds from you know, richard Dawkins, atheist, to whoever your favorite. You know, martin Luther, I guess would be the right person for the Lutherans to be excited about, but anyway, I can't take them from one end of the spectrum to the other. But you know, I can do something to help that person move toward Jesus and that's so, that's what disciple in my mind. So so disciple making actually can be more embedded hat. But here's the thing One of the challenges is that we've defined healthy followership of Jesus as only being designed involved in in church activities, and so we sort of have this dichotomy.
Speaker 4:It's a false dichotomy, like when I'm with the church, then I'm serving God and I'm honoring God and da, da, da, but when I'm working my job or I'm out in the community, at Costco or whatever it may be, that's, that's not spiritual, and I think we might have talked about this last time, but I often, you know, I just remind people the dichotomy is not sacred or secular. That's a false dichotomy. I think it's actually a satanic dichotomy. The dichotomy is sacred or sinful. And so, as a follower of Jesus, everything I do is sacred. Everything, you know having lunch at a restaurant, taking a walk with a neighbor, riding the elevator with a neighbor, that's all. Those are all sacred moments, as well as being gathered around the Lord's table, you know, preaching or receiving a ministry from of the word, that's. That's sacred too.
Speaker 4:But so, because as a follower of Jesus, everything I do is sacred unless it's sinful, then that means everything I'm doing every day walking my dog, you know, going to the store, and so there's. You're actually influencing more people toward Jesus just by living your life as a person of the spirit, a person full of the spirit. Then we often give ourselves credit. So it's not like, okay, I have to schedule two hours this week to make disciples per se. It might be. How can I just look at what's already happening in my life, make a few adjustments where it puts me?
Speaker 4:I think I started to say this. The problem is a lot of times, because we've associated sacred with only church activities, then we think that we're only making disciples when we're in a church, like an intentional churchy kind of environment, and we have to shift the idea that no, no, everything I'm doing, sometimes it will involve, you know, deeply evaluating, talking through scripture with somebody, helping somebody decide literally pray to you know, decide to follow Jesus and accept His Lord and Savior. But other times it's just being a kind person that they want to have a conversation with again, you know, and so that's part of disciple making too.
Speaker 2:So man, steve. That is profound, matt. I want to go deeper on the sacred and secular dichotomy. But what did you want to talk about, matt? That was not about love.
Speaker 3:We've Steve hit the nail on the head. In fact, we need to look for those easy opportunities to start discipling. We were working with the church in Vancouver and they started their pastor started training in this with us and then he started changing his business meetings to start with Discovery Bible study 1015 minutes of your meeting. All of a sudden this discovery Bible study starts to shape his team and then somebody on his team won't mention who his brother across the country starts having some problems issues. So this guy from his team, because he's had Discovery Bible study and discipleship modeled for him, says hey, let's do discovery Bible study together. They start discipling and all of a sudden he is helping him grow in the faith from across the country because a business meeting turned into a discipleship opportunity and I think there's all kinds of opportunities for that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's exactly what I'm. So it's not necessarily Now it can be again. I want to make a point that the early church like there was nobody at the point where Jesus said I will build my church in the gates of hell and I prevail of against it, there were not very many people in the world that were following Jesus at that point. So the point is, if the people who heard that just said, well, our response to that is we're just going to meet together every week, several times a week, and we're just going to talk to each other and we're not going to share this with anybody else, that would kind of be missing the whole point. So there was a they. Somehow they intentionally embedded in their lives the sharing of the gospel, the living out of the gospel, in such a way that over the next 300 years Christianity ended up being the religion of the empire. And again, there's some great books about how and why that happened. But Rodney Stark's book talks about. His conclusion is how did this very minor cult, basically in year 33, come the religion of the empire? What made it different than all the other little cultic groups that were populating the Roman Empire? And his answer was that the Christians actually lived out the gospel. Basically, that's just my summation of his summary paragraph of his answer.
Speaker 4:So the point is there's real. There's real power in just embedding it into your life, in everything you do, not just even in church business, but just seeing yourself as helping somebody that isn't, doesn't even think they want to follow Jesus. They may be like again, richard Dawkins, atheist, they're not looking to follow Jesus. And you say, hey, you want to come into a discovery Bible study? Their answer might be no way, but that doesn't stop you from seeking to make a disciple of them. My attitude is we keep giving them the opportunity to follow Jesus, but depending on where the person is at. And what you just described is a beautiful illustration of making great use of time. But even so, what I'm trying to I guess where I'm going is sometimes our busyness with church activities actually prevents us from having time to even interact with people who aren't already following Jesus.
Speaker 3:We just so almost, Steve like we're exacerbating the sacred secular divide.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly, and so we actually have to kind of break out of our bubble. Like think of it, as we've got a contagious positive disease and we got to be around other people for them to catch it or it's not, we're going to only be the ones that have it. And so that means we have to change, like, our habits. We have to be intentional. You know, I've talked to Now I've helped a lot of pastors make this shift and you know they say, well, I just don't have time. I'm always in church and I never have an opportunity to interact with somebody who's not a believer and I just say, okay, well then what might you do? Well, one guy said, you know, I've always wanted to learn how to do jujitsu, so he joined a jujitsu class and now about half of his class is part of his church. You know, after a year. You know it takes a while, but so there's, you build intentionality and sometimes even churches have such a busy habit of church stuff that they don't the people that are fully invested in the church don't really have bandwidth to interact with people who are not following Jesus. So, anyway, if you, we encourage people to see disciple making as everything that goes on across the whole spectrum, from you bumping into somebody who's not following Jesus. Disciple making begins there. That's where disciple making begins. They don't know it, but you're starting to help them move toward Jesus. You're doing the best you can to help them move toward Jesus All the way across to. They're making disciples who make disciples, who make disciples. That's so.
Speaker 4:I think the revolution we have to have in our thinking is, instead of segment, I think evangelism happens inside of disciple making. Disciple making is the whole thing. Making a disciple starts before the person decides to follow Jesus and continues after the person. But in the middle is where that evangelism opportunity happens, or the evangelism moment. They decide to follow Jesus, but you just call the whole thing disciple making and then that helps you, not? It's easier to embed that instead of saying, okay, now we're going to go out soul-winning, you know, for the next two hours, and then we're going to stop and we're just going to. No, we're just going to be making disciples all the time and have people in our lives that are at all different places along the journey and that's how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2:Steve, I love this. There is so much so what I hear. Just to summarize if you're a church leader in your hobby, whatever it is, it gets you outside. Whatever the rhythm is, this is where you get a bump into people who are on the way to Jesus. But then I think it's for the everyday follower of Jesus it's just a re-understanding, actually, of Luther's idea of vocation. In your going, wherever God has placed you with a unique gift God has given you, build relationships that lead people to know and follow Jesus. Do you agree with that, steve? Is that?
Speaker 4:another way to understand it Absolutely, and the Actually the role of the church kind of shifts from come here and serve Jesus to we're here to help you as you go and do what you just described. You know, like everybody's got a vocation and we've sort of downplayed that and we've made it like people who are in ministry, leadership roles, you know vocational ministry they're the heroes in the kingdom and everybody else, you know, is just like Again, we reinforce this unhealthy idea about the church and really it's the other way around. The church, the gathered church, exists to be a place of resourcing and encouragement, so that people are equipped to go out on mission in their everyday life, and that's where the real ministry is happening. That's probably not the right way to say it. It's where ministry happens. That's just as real as ministry that happens within the confines of the church activities. It's both and not either or. But we've emphasized so much, you know, the institutional and the you know, religious I think I just made up a new word there Aspects of, you know, following Jesus to the demise, of just being present with people and letting the Holy Spirit work through us in their lives. And we have.
Speaker 4:I think the difference is being. You know, that's kind of happening anyway. But when you're cognizant, when you're aware, when you're like, okay, I'm on an elevator for five seconds with this person, what can I do just to help him move toward Jesus? And you know, most of the time for me that just means be a kind person, you know, just make it where they think, okay, I wouldn't mind talking to that person again, you know.
Speaker 4:And then maybe a month later we're at a HOA picnic and we sit across the table from each other and now we start to meet each other, you know, and he's not afraid to sit across the table from me because he had a good experience on an elevator, you know. And then, as we have a conversation, we start sharing life and, you know, I find out some of his background and you know, that's how that's actually disciple making on the pre-conversion side. And we need to become not only, we need to become conscious of that. It's not rocket science, we just need to see it. We need to make it what we call it what it is and help people to realize wow, there's tons of opportunities already happening in my life. I just hadn't thought of it that way and it really changes it in people's lives.
Speaker 2:Well and I want to know what you're talking about. Go ahead, go ahead, Matt.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was just going to say like I think sometimes we're afraid of the words re-imagine or innovation, because we think about it as creating something completely new, instead of realizing that the best innovation is just going back to the core of your DNA. I mean, listen to what Steve's been talking about. He's been talking about here's what the early church did, you know. Here's how they moved and reached out. And then Steve is digging deeply into something that you know a lot of Lutherans should be super passionate about, which is vocation. Like Luther was really the standout in saying every job is sacred, every job is a sacred calling from God. And I don't know you know, tim, maybe you can help me. I don't know where along the path we lost that, but we need to go back, remember that and really embed that in our people.
Speaker 3:Because you know the days of lowering the bar to show up to worship, put money in the plate, invite a friend out so we can see. You know that's a low, low discipleship bar. That, to me, is the difference between. You know, my three boys love working out. The older two will jump up there and do pull ups. The younger one, who's only six, he wants to do them too. So he jumps up there and I kind of like have to oh yeah, you're doing them bud, you know.
Speaker 3:And it's like that's what we're doing to the church. We're making them think they're doing something that they're not doing, instead of saying hey, I think it's time for you guys to learn how to do this, and we want to equip you to do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So some thoughts there. I think that vocation is think of a teeter totter, a re understanding of Christian vocation all offices husband, mother, father, et cetera out into the community. That is the balancing seesaw mechanism that moves us to office of holy ministry. The church needs leaders and we are called to be on mission to send out the priesthood of all believers, to multiply the message of Christ to the masses. So I think we need to dig deeply into vocation. It is the catalyst that I think. Then, when we get together for the gathering, I think the Lord is doing a new thing right now.
Speaker 2:Steve, in the gathered and then scattered church, those that are coming to my church as I'm talking about really the mindset and the heart space of the disciple of Jesus going out just yesterday, preached on do not be angry. Anger is not in the Bible. Anger does not produce the righteousness of God. So they're eager to have their character shape more after the heart of Christ. Why? Because the struggle against sin, death and the devil is a real thing that they're encountering right now.
Speaker 2:And Satan go back to that sacred and secular satanic divide. I believe it is assault of Satan. Man. Jesus came to seek and save those that are lost. Jesus goes after the one. Jesus came to love the world, and right now we're making those that have different ideologies our enemy, and they're not our enemy. Satan and his lies is the enemy. So anything more to say about where that kind of came from, and I think the church right now is falling off on one side or another? I could speak to folks that are on the far, far right, that just are. I mean the far right. This is a religious type of a movement right now, and you could say the far left as well, if you're just talking politics. The way of Jesus walks that middle middle road or moves us to find heavenly solutions to heavenly problems. Where everyone else is playing finding earthly solutions or earthly problems, and that's Satan's playground there. Anything more to say, though, where this sacred and secular satanic divide kind of came from, steve.
Speaker 4:Well, I think it's been a part of the dynamic of the challenge and the dynamic of the church pretty much through the whole story of the church. That's just there's sort of there's the pendulum swing of the church. We tend to emphasize different things at different times and so I think what happens is, as sin abounds, grace abounds more, but also as sin abounds, we feel like we have to do something about it and we decide the answer is to move harder this way and avoid sin and stay away from sin and obviously stay away from personal sin. But no, there's a difference between staying away from personal sin and staying away from sinners, people who need Jesus, and when we so. Anyway, I think I don't know.
Speaker 4:That's a great question.
Speaker 4:I mean, some of it might be the politicalization of the church, where we tangled up, the church got tangled up with a certain brand of politics and actually, depending on the church you're part of, different parts of the church tend to be tangled up in different sides of the political divide. There's churches that are more left-leaning, they resonate more with the message of the left, and there's churches that resonate more with the message of the right, and I just submit that Jesus is equal opportunity offender and he would. If you take everything he says and you're hard right, you're going to be offended. If you take everything he says and you're hard left, you're going to be offended because he's calling. And I think when the church just allows itself to be hijacked by these polarizing views instead of being oriented around Jesus, that's when you get into trouble. But I think the solution again is get back to this simple thing. The solution is not some kind of media campaign to tell the church to it's not even going for the middle that's another myth is like the middle is a safe place.
Speaker 2:Jesus is a safe place to be.
Speaker 4:Yeah, jesus is Exactly, exactly, it's not like okay, we have to compromise some middle ground and we're not trying to make everybody happy, we're trying to follow Jesus. And there's a small little story.
Speaker 2:Matt, can I just? There's a small little story of Jesus that we often overlook. That I think is really formative in Luke 9. So, luke 9 at the beginning you got the sending of the 12, and then Luke 10, obviously sending the 70, 72. And then, toward the end of chapter 9, there's this journey with Jesus and the disciples through a Samaritan town that rejects him. Do you remember this? They reject Jesus and the disciples, and the disciples go do you want to call down fire from heaven to consume them? Right, and Jesus? It simply says and Jesus rebukes them sternly. Right.
Speaker 2:And my vernacular. He's like come on, man, don't you know, if fire comes down from heaven, we're all burning because we all deserve, we've all rejected. So you got a lot to learn, son, as you start to follow me, not just the what but the how of following me, because if you've lost love for the Samaritan who has rejected me, for the neighbor that has rejected me, man, you have lost. You have lost me. So anything else to add there, matt?
Speaker 3:No, I just love. I love the way you talk about that, because you know what. Honestly, whenever I think about that story, the idea of hey, we're going to burn up too, hadn't crossed my mind. But yeah, clearly, proximity is going to create a problem for everybody. But I think also there's that idea of I wonder, if Jesus is sitting there going, man, how surprised are they going to be when they're going? Okay, what's the mission?
Speaker 3:The mission's obviously to tell all our Jewish brothers, who have been waiting for the Messiah, that you're coming, and Jesus says, no, I want you to go out to Jerusalem, judea, samaria and the ends of the earth, and even the challenge the disciples had with that. Because I think that the kind of thing we're talking about, it's going to create tension, it's going to create challenges. That did in the book of Acts that's why you have Acts, chapter 15, and they're trying to work out what does it look like now that all these Gentiles are in the church and what? And that meant change for the church and some things they held on to pretty closely. But I think the important thing that I hear over and over in this conversation is we have to recapture the art of disciple making and it's like my buddy Mack Lake said he goes in his generation. We focus so hard on getting 10 to 12 together that we lost the art of sitting across a cup of coffee and making a disciple.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, you know another story that is maybe we'll speak to this conversation as well is Jesus going into Jericho? And you've got all the people waving and, you know, excited, jesus is here and he's going along through the streets and I don't know. It doesn't say I'm not. I don't think he ignored people, but it's fascinating that he picked out the worst sinner in town. I mean Jesus was always making this point, like if you were following around, you were going to see him.
Speaker 4:He was called a friend of sinners and so in that story of Zacchaeus, zacchaeus was actually in collusion with the Roman occupiers to basically extort money out of his fellow Jewish people. I mean he was Bernie Madoff on steroids and I mean just another level of the guy was just, frankly, he was evil. You know, I mean that's how he was viewed by the people in his town. And Jesus, in front of all those people, said hey, zacchaeus, I want to come have table fellowship with you today at your house. Okay, so Jesus is, he's telling everybody, this is where my priority is, and he gets. You know, I don't know when this happened exactly, but at the end of that story as it's wrapping up in, jesus is either at or he's headed to Zacchaeus' house.
Speaker 4:He makes this statement I came to seek and save that which is lost and therein, that is the mission of Jesus. And therefore, if he, if, if he's the one building his church, that's the mission of the church is to seek and to save that which is lost. And Jesus is saying if you're going to follow me, you're going to be intentionally going after lost people and it's ugly and it's counter-cultural and it's it's not going to be understood by religious people. Religious people are really going. What is he doing? This can't be the son of God. He's, he's having a meal with, with this evil man, and yet. So the whole point is, our mission we join with Jesus on, is seeking and saving that which is lost. And yeah, so enough said.
Speaker 3:So, steve, I love the dynamic we got going right here, because I'm seeing myself on the left of the screen and I kind of took the option of like, let's start something new to be able to do this. Tim, my brother over there on the right side of the screen, he is taking something that has existed and he's making these shifts and doing some really cool things in the way of that. So you're looking at both of us, you're coaching us. What advice are you giving us individually to make these shifts we need to make, to move into disciple making?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So a lot of times again, I'll just jump back to sort of a institutional answer to start with, but I'll get I'll get to a more practical for him in a minute. But a lot of times when organizations are thinking about existing churches and new churches, they treat them almost as competitors. And you know, it's like if you're going to start a new church, we got plenty of money and we're going to put you up on a stage and, you know, throw glitter at you or whatever. And for those of you that are plugging away with an existing church, god bless you. I hope it works out, you know, and we'll throw a few bucks your way if you come up with a good plan or something. So you know, it creates this tension between church planners and pastors of existing churches who are trying to help that church flourish again, because we're we're treating and we treat them as different, like church planning is great and good and the other is, you know, okay, you just got to plug it out. Anyway, here's what I would say to that. I believe that church planting and church renewal, church revitalization whatever label you want to give to it are the same thing, starting in a different place. Okay, I think that's really helpful to think that way, because the end goal is to have a healthy, multiplying church. Okay, but with a new church you're starting at a very different place than you are with an existing church and actually I think it's way harder. So, between the two of you guys, I have way more respect for Tim than I do for Matt, because Matt's taken the easy way out. He's like me. Oh no, no, that's not true. I'm going to do the fun thing, because it's actually easier to start a church from scratch than it is to help a church that's already been on a journey to flourish again, and that it requires a higher level of leadership skill. There's just a whole. It's just really a hard thing to do. That's why it's not a super common story is. You see a lot of churches where their story is? They just kind of go along, go along, go.
Speaker 4:In fact, tom Rainer, the guy from Lifeway, did a. He wrote a book that was the pre. I can't remember the name of the book now, but it was. The premise of the book was he was going to do the same thing that Jim Collins did with Good to Great for companies. He basically studied a bunch of companies that went from being good companies to great companies. And he was looking for the secret sauce like what's the common elements that all of those companies that went from good to great and that's what the book is about there's, like I forget how many common elements that he found that were common practices that helped a church go from good to great.
Speaker 4:Tom Rainer decided, hey, I'm going to do the same thing for the church. What a service. So he came up with these parameters like how do you define, when a church has gone from good to great, what's a good church and what's a great church? And so he actually decided on just, I think before he started looking for him, he said well, it's got to be and I don't remember the specific parameters, but they had to do with number of baptisms, you know stuff like that Okay, so, and there's got to be, like this, certain percentage increase. But here's the one key, or the one element that he made sure was part of it was the same leader had to be there when the church was good, through when the church became great.
Speaker 4:So he got a sample of 50,000 churches five, zero thousand churches to study, looking for churches that fit the parameters that he had come up with of what it means to go from good to great, and the thing that stuck out to me was he didn't actually put this in the main content of the book. It was in the footnotes. How many of these churches 50,000, he said. He only 13, one, three out of 50,000 fit the parameter. And that's, those are the churches he wrote the book about was. Here's what they have in common. But my takeaway was it's almost impossible, right, that's not encouraging.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so. So that's why I'm saying it's a really hard thing to do. It's a really rare thing to do, but I think part of the solution is that you hear, here's the mistake that a lot of leaders make. So I guess I'm looking at you, tim, and I would say, if you want to see your church flourish into the future and be able to develop new habits, one of the mistakes, or a mistake to avoid, would be saying I want to take the whole church on the journey at the same time, and success is that everybody that is currently part of the church, whatever two years in the future, is going to be part of this, this new vibrant church, or this reimagined church, whatever it may be. I think that is a that's really, really difficult to pull off, where you bring everybody along with you all at the same time. So what, what I would recommend? So let me back. Let me let me switch to Matt for a second and say if you're starting a new church, don't worry about the congregation as much as you worry about making disciples. Okay, that's going to set you off and that. Pour your energy into making disciples and the congregation will take care of itself, but you might be able to gather a bunch of people together that call themselves a congregation, but none of them are making disciples, and you know, all you have there is is a bunch of Christians getting together and they like Matt, you know, and the messages that Matt preached. Okay, so, going back to Tim, so what?
Speaker 4:What we recommend, and what we've seen be successful, is that you, as the leader, identify some people within the congregation that you under, based on their behavior, their whatever. This is more of an art than a science, but you identify some people and you invite them into a journey together and you start by saying I'm going to make disciples and you know, I don't know how to. Maybe you do know how to do it, but let's just assume you don't. And so I'm going to make disciples and I'm I'm scared and I don't know what to do. And you know we're going to, you're going to watch me first, and then you invite them to start to make disciples, and so this isn't a you know, this isn't a preach, a sermon series for six weeks, and then the church is reimagined. You actually almost, in a way, you're forming a side con congregation, if you will, a group of people who you invite into a different rhythm and you leave the bulk of the people. Just not leave them. It's not the right word, but you, you don't mess with what's already, what you're already doing, you know, because if you go, you go with the theories of a diffusion of innovation. It makes total sense.
Speaker 4:Only about 20% of people are really interested in change to the point that they're willing to change their behaviors. So instead of the 80% are not, they prefer to stay the same. So, instead of fighting that resistance and making that where you have to put your energy, go with the goers you know and, and then you have to. So I always say reduce the energy you're giving to the people who are going to be prone to sort of just stay where they're at and increase your energy to this group over here. Give your energy here. Figure out a way to do this with minimum energy and over time, this is going to start to flourish because it's loaded with life and over time, people in the existing congregation are going to go wow, this I love. What's happened in Billy Bob's life, you know, and how is that happening? And they start finding out about it. And so, instead of trying to, you know, conquer this huge resistance that people have well intended resistance. They're not evil people. Instead of trying to overcome that, you instead give, breathe, life and energy into people who are ready to go there, go into the new and let that grow and grow and grow, and pretty soon at some point.
Speaker 4:Well, there's. There's probably two out of three outcomes that might happen with this kind of process. One would be you really, you really get it wrong and you blow the church up, and that's one possibility, okay. The second possibility is you actually realize, okay, what this, what we've created over here, is actually a seed for a new church, and instead of trying to bring the two congregations together, you just send this one out and then you do it again. That's not a bad thing.
Speaker 4:And the other option would be that you find a way where there's enough excitement generated where the the, the bulk of people say, yeah, we, we want to go where this group's going, and that can happen too. So that that would be my counsel to to you, tim, for an existing church. And then, matt, just build on a platform to decide, making like relentlessly uh, don't. People will come to a new church and they're like, hey, when are we going to start doing this or that, and they're all like institutional elements that they personally love and desire, and they will sidetrack you from a disciple making focus. Don't let them do that. Stay focused, ah.
Speaker 2:Steve. So much wisdom there. Bro, like I am, I am so excited and I never want to forget what it's like not to know. So I'm 40 I'll be 42 next month. I was 31 32 when I came into a divided church in school. We have a lot of schools in the Missouri Synod and Financially anxious, lot of debt. We had 11 million dollars worth of debt, worshiping about 400 people, and so it was. It was a little overwhelming, but I didn't have the wounds of like trying stuff and it kind of. So you're just like, yeah, I want to play the 31 year old dumb pastor, like my entire ministry. You know where it's like. I don't know exactly what God's gonna do, but he called me here and I Like you. I like you and let's see what the Lord does and I promise to be here to bring the word consistently with passion and and I'm gonna invite other people on so what we kind of did. You work with what you got right. You work with a willing. It's a small group of people and this small group of lay leaders came together Within six months, steve, and started a ministry called La Mesa. Now that has two sites. It's working.
Speaker 2:Poor and homeless meals, resume building, moving people into sustainable living, and it the new thing with a small group of people Over the course of. I'm not even in it, it's the Lord's will, lord's timeline. But it was like two years and kind and Christ Greenfield went from being whoa man. That church has some stuff going on the like. They're a Missional, multiplying, new start type of an engine and now our vision is 20 campuses, 20 years, multicarregational approach where we're starting some that will be supported by Christ Greenfield, recognizing in time they're gonna be, you know, probably self-sustaining, different branding, all that kind of stuff. But the innovation that comes with working, I don't know that. You even got to get 20% right out front. Get five percent of the car.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, get five. So that's the biggest. Yeah, that's another myth.
Speaker 4:That's another myth that needs to be blown up. You know there's actually some really good research has been done on what the tipping point is. In fact I, the Malcolm Gladwell's book tipping point talks about, like what does it take? And he makes the point. It says it could be as little as three or four percent. That's right. That are people who are passionately focused on a new direction or on on, you know, a new way of being the church or whatever can actually set in motion a Profound movement in it. But you're, it sounds like what you're talking about is exhibit a, what I just described.
Speaker 2:You know I didn't know, I didn't know it.
Speaker 4:But you know what, if you get behind the stories of churches that have actually Accomplish what you've accomplished, it's it's a very simple. They kind of stumble stumble into it. So actually we wrote what happened with next wave as people started going well, what about new churches? I mean, what about existing churches? Because next wave was sort of written with the idea of these are the shifts you got to make when you're starting a new church. And they said, what about an existing church?
Speaker 4:And so we actually are in the process of writing the book, the reimagined church, which basically Takes this Brief conversation we've had and just blows it up over another 12. I'm like stuck on 12 chapters. That's just my thing, apostles, you know whatever. But you know we actually are writing that book and should come out in the fall, which the idea is to help. Like you said, you kind of accidentally stumbled into it out of Desperation and stupidity and maybe some, probably some anointing of the spirit mixed into the all of that. But instead of instead of people, you know, I again just say here's some, here's something to think about. And I've actually the cool thing in writing the book, we've actually been walking some groups of congregations through this exact process and helping leaders do that.
Speaker 4:And it's different in every situation. You know the situation you inherited is different, but it's it's. We're seeing it work well across, you know, denominational differences, theological Variations, all that kind of stuff. It's just. These are sort of just sociology. It's not, it's not magic and it's not hidden. It's stuff that everybody kind of into it. Oh yeah, that makes sense and it works.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that's huge, steve, and kind of you know, one of my last questions for you is, you know, I think we can all agree this this is a shift we have to make and we see a couple pathways we could do it. We could take the existing, we could start new. How do I determine which pathway is best for me? Because I think what I heard in Tim's story is Ten years, and when I'm thinking about my story, you know About ten years. You know everything's gonna take time in the making and it's all gonna be wildfire. So how do I help determine which pathway would be best for me to make these moves?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it comes. That's a that's a really great question. I don't know if there's a like super clean answer to that, except to say, you know, there's a sociological principle past behavior predicts future behavior. So, when you think, we reflect back on your leadership opportunities, and where did you thrive? Did you thrive where you, you basically started with a clean slate and there was nothing and you created something, something out of nothing, so to speak.
Speaker 4:Or are you better Wired to be somebody who takes something that's already there 11 million in debt or whatever you said it was? You know and you know for. So I'm, I'm wired to be a starter, like when, when Tim said that that that sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. I, I don't, I would go into that situation. Now I think, because I'm older and I have some wisdom, I probably wouldn't do this, but in my younger version of myself I would have. I would probably blown that thing up, tim. Tim has the right giftings To understand how to nuance it and work through it over time and not get stuck. You know one thing that can happen with those churches they just get stuck and you, you can't move them off center because you're you're getting so anyway, the point is it takes a certain Wiring of a leader and and I, you know it's more complicated than just two, two kinds of leaders.
Speaker 4:But generally speaking, especially if your track record is like okay, I started, you know. I mean I look back at my life and I've just been starting stuff my whole life. That's what I do, I start stuff, you know. So it that's where my zone is, that's where I'm, that's my happy place, that's my most productive place. Once something gets going, I mean I started seeing them in, you know, planted Several thousand churches, and I got bored with that, you know, because I wanted to move on something else. You know Other people would go wow, why did you leave that, you know. But that's. I'm wired differently now. On the other hand, there's people who just go in and they and you know they take something and make it better. They see the opportunities in the foundation, or they see the opportunities. And so Just reflect on your own journey and say you know what, where am I most productive? Where am I happiest? Where am I, where do I see fruit? And and that will kind of answer the question whether you start something new or take something existing.
Speaker 2:This has been so much fun, steve, I mean I'm leaving. The conversation was so much Jesus juice, hope, optimism, there's. There's so much opportunity right now In this chaotic, crazy world in which Jesus died and rose again, to redeem. So, listener, whatever, whatever the Lord has placed upon you, I just double-click on your last thing deep dive on knowing self, invite other trusted friends to help you kind of know the way you do it. But then the non-negotiable of the conversation go on mission to make disciples. Who make, make disciples.
Speaker 2:Find others if you're a pastor. If you're a pastor, find others you can teach. Second Timothy 2 to that they can find others who can teach. That could potentially, over time, long after you're, probably your soul, your spirit is with the Lord could be reaching, reaching people, you know, that's that's, and I don't know that everybody has that kind of in them.
Speaker 2:But my, one of my prayers, steve, is that more of us, whether you're a new leader starting out in your 20s or whatever, or your, you know, a seasoned leader or somewhere in the middle, like Matin and I, are that you would kind of say, my life it's not mine, and this legacy it's not mine, it's a legacy of Christ. And and we, we think so individual and so short term, but Jesus thought. Jesus thought way beyond him and well, let's go. Not Jesus, obviously, yahweh, from the very beginning, my the anger of the law. I'm slow to anger, but what I'm on bounding instead, fast love, excess 34, and that steadfast love goes on to thousands of generations of those who know and Know and follow me, so that we would think, but be beyond where we currently are right now. That's one of my prayers. Any final thoughts, steve, as this has been so much fun, you're awesome, oh.
Speaker 4:I had a thought and Somewhere along the line it went out the window. I just I guess I would. Yeah, I think I love the fact that you kind of Landed at the place back where we started, which is making disciples, who make disciples, and my challenge would be that everybody really dig deep into that, and especially the leader that has kind of given themselves permission to sort of Get into the I don't know, just become somebody who teaches other people. I think you, you know, what's beautiful is when you have your own stories that just happened in the last two weeks or something you know to tell about making disciples. And it's not that hard to get there because it's really just starting to interact people around with you. But I think that is gonna be the.
Speaker 4:The tipping point of a revolution is when the leaders of the church, themselves, begin to make disciples and then invite other people around them to do the same thing. It, that's, that's the whole picture of the same Jesus. Jesus said you've been watching me make disciples, now you go do this and we do the same thing and that's. But you can't. Jesus did it first. You know he showed the way. He didn't say okay, here's how you make a disciple one to. They just did it. He showed them, and that's what we're, that, that's how we do it. So I think I just want to I to me, that's the key to the whole thing. That's like the foundation. You get that right, everything else will land in the right place.
Speaker 2:Final thoughts Matt.
Speaker 3:I would 100% agree and Realize, especially for your church leader, it's. It's gonna feel much smaller, and I don't want to use the word insignificant, but maybe insignificant to what you're used to doing, but it's not one. One year down the road it will be unbelievable Seeing the traction that happens. So I just try.
Speaker 4:That reminds me of what I was gonna say earlier, and there's the parable of the talents, and, you know, one of the things we have to avoid is Comparing ourselves to. There are some people who have five talents, and some people have two, and some people who have one, and and you know, though, they're all contributors to the kingdom there, they weren't viewed. You see, that the only thing people got reviewed for was not Using the talent they were given. That's it wasn't. You know what you should do. The one should be doing as much as the five. It was.
Speaker 4:So, anyway, the the point I'm trying to make is absolutely Don't measure. We've got to put some kind of blinders on, or something, and stop trying to, you know, either be intimidated by people that we think are more talented than us, or feel Superior to people that we feel are less talented than us. That's such a dangerous path to go down, yes, and it's super subtle, and in this area of making disciples, like you said, matt, you know, I've seen situations depending on the circumstance, it might take. It might take a long time before you start to see fruit that you feel like is worth counting, and that's where we get back to the other absolute foundational principle that I kind of talk about in the book a little bit of obedience trumps everything. You know, one of the worst things that happened at the 20th century church was we made excellence the number one value that everybody was shooting for and that is not a kingdom, that's a, that's an American idea is excellence, is the number one value. Obedience Trumps excellence every time.
Speaker 4:And so what is God calling you to do? And if God's calling you to sit with five people for five years and just pour into them, then do that. And I realize that that creates a lot of Very practical challenges like how do you, how do you make a living if you're doing that and stuff like that. That's a whole nother discussion. But if you know, the question is, what is Jesus calling me to do? And then do it. And you, if you're a one talent person, that it's gonna be different than a five talent. It's stop looking at everybody else, just do what you're called to do.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is so much fun. Sayla, yes, well, this has been so good, hey, steve, of people want to connect with you and reimagined church. Is that what we should look for here in the the yes yes, sometime in the fall.
Speaker 4:We're still working out the details, but the book is basically written. Yeah, so reimagined church, it'll. It'll be available, I think it might be. This is premature, so I probably shouldn't say but that we're working with a publisher and it may. It'll be with a publisher you're familiar with, maybe, and but but anyway, to get in touch with me, probably the simplest email for me would be Steve s TV e at UIP, uip dot city. Steve at UIP dot city. That has the fewest letters in it, so it's kind of the easiest for people and that will get to me.
Speaker 2:So fun, matt, love partnering with you to learn from amazing leaders like Steve, and I think we're gonna do this a handful of times into the future and that will be. That'll be great. This is the American Reformation podcast. Sharing is caring. Please like, subscribe it. You guys may not know, but the United Leadership Collective this is a podcast, united Leadership Collective. The audience is growing and wherever you are taking this in, if it encourages you and you find joy, you find hope, you find Encouragement to start new things, to reach new people with the gospel, or just do the one right next thing, which is find that, brother or sister, that your journey alongside your neighbor, your co-worker, and just start to lean into Jesus, conversations with them, and the Holy Spirit will show up and show off. This is the American Reformation podcast. We'll see you next week. Thanks so much, steve, thanks Matt.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you you.