Ask the Pastors S6 E3: “How do we make our church resolutions more tangible? (part 3)”
(00:04):
Welcome to Ask the Pastors. My name is Brian and I'm coming to you with a quick intro for today's episode. We sat down together as a pastoral staff and recorded our thoughts on Pastor Will's list of 10 New Year's resolutions and how to make them practical. And we had such good conversation that we had way too much to say for just one episode. So we chose to after the fact, split up the recording into two episodes. So on today's segment of the recording, you'll hear a conversation about resolutions number eight, nine, and a bit of number 10. Number eight was leader empowerment nine, community cohesiveness. Number 10, soul winning. We hope you enjoy.
(00:45):
Let's transition then to number eight, which was leader empowerment. And I focused in more on, I think I mentioned by name in some case maybe the elders as sort of the top tier, if you will, of ultimate leadership of the church. Obviously we're all, Christ is the head of his church, but the elders are really the ones that have been tasked both biblically as well as practically here by us and constitutionally at our church as being those representative leaders elected by our church, but then called to hey and most of this stuff, whether it is the building stuff or creating the budget or hiring and firing of staff and any number of things that the elders are the ones leading us. So I focused on that a lot.
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And the fact that we have seven elders, as I said, I think we probably should have more 10 to 12 with the size of our church and the workload and especially in this year. And I've got my idea of who those other three to five guys that we've had those conversations with and we're praying and maybe they're praying that God will make it clear to them, whether now is the time for them to serve here with that. But obviously that's a small subset of our church. I mean that's talking 10 to 12 out of 260 members. So y'all helped me think through for the others, the other 95 whatever percent the math is on Joe Jill Congregant. What does it mean when we say that we need more leaders? We need more folks, especially at a growing church to step up to fill in, stand in the gaps and to help lead.
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And how might that person, listener discern that and act and what do they do with that call to action? And maybe some of your practical thoughts on it are for us, and well, we as a church need to do a better job of having a leader training process that we can walk people through so they feel empowered, so they feel more comfortable stepping up and saying, yeah, I'll raise my hand. I'll take over the cafe team or the info bar team or whatever, because I feel like I know enough about the culture of the church and the expectations and et cetera. So I don't know what are y'all's thoughts on how we make sure we don't find ourself in a position where we're begging and just taking anyone who will raise their hand and do the work. You'd rather, no, you'd rather there really be, again, a culture of Here I am, Lord, send me, empower me.
(04:01):
Yeah, I think specifically with the elder deacon, I'll be brief because you name that and spend a lot of time thinking about that, and partially just for the general listener as well is seek to grow as a mature Christian in Christ that you can look at those biblical qualifications for elders and deacons and in one sense they're pretty unremarkable and should be the pursuit of all Christians of desiring to grow in those areas. So just generally speaking like, hey, grow in that way. I would say outside of those is be one who takes initiative. You see a problem, be willing to like, Hey, I'm not just going to bring problems. Maybe this goes to distractions as well, but see a problem and take initiative to solve it to villain. I love when I hear after the fact of, oh, someone took care of something, that means they saw it, they recognize the problem, they did
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Something
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About that, that that's part of what it is. And we want to empower people to feel freedom to do that then to not feel like you need to ask permission about everything. There are perhaps some things you should ask permission about, but we want to really empower the congregation at large to be able to work. I would also just say,
(05:31):
Can I say something on that real quick? I love that. I love that you pointed that out. Leadership doesn't always mean a big church vote in some formal two year, three year long commitment term, whatever. The one stupid example I thought of as you were mentioning that is I remember at some point a year or two ago, daylight savings time, we used to have a clock, I don't know if it's still there, a clock hanging on the wall in the men's bathroom upstairs and daylight savings time changed. I was in there using the urinal, look over, I see the time. I'm like, oh, the clock's an hour off now. And I thought, oh, I'll wash my hands. I'll change the time so it's accurate. And then I thought, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to leave it there and I'm going to see how long it takes before somebody else at this church takes the initiative and takes it upon themself.
(06:21):
That's leadership. That's stupid. But I mean a little, and to me it's part of, it's a litmus test of how much do we feel like this church is our home? We talk about church in those kinds, that kind of terminology of a family, and it just felt like home and whatever. If it was your home and the clock was an hour wrong, you would pick it up off of the wall and you would change it and make it right, unless you're just a psychopath. I mean, you would do that if that was really your home. And so I'm like, I know that there are enough other guys that are going to see that, and I want to know if they either think, well, that's someone else's job, that's the staff that someone is deacon of clocks here,
(07:02):
Or do I feel like, no, this is my home. And because I think that trickles down into everything else, that's going to trickle down into how welcoming are we. When people come in the door, it goes to the inclusive inclusion thing from last week. It's like you're going to include people, you're going to welcome and be hospitable to people when it feels like home to you. You wouldn't just invite people over for dinner and they walk in the door and you're upstairs in the bedroom. I'll get there when I No, you're, it's your job to make them feel welcomed here. And so having that kind of a mindset with everything here as a church, I love coming in and seeing, driving in over the summer and it was the day, it was like 107 degrees and already at nine o'clock and Ryan Turk is out in our playground pulling weeds out of the playground or fixing the fence post that broke or something.
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I can't even remember what he was doing, but I'm just like, thank you for, and I think I even asked him, did somebody ask you? And he was like, no, I building too. Power wash the building. That guy shout out to Ron. And he's like, no, my kids were playing. And I noticed and I thought I'd come up here. I had some time. I love that. I mean, those are your favorite people that you want everybody to be like that. So like you said, we've all got our things that we can, you said Providence, we've all got our things that we can add to the equation here. Take the initiative. Don't wait. You don't have to wait to be asked. We'll tell you if we liked it better with the weeds on the playground. Better to ask what is it? Ask for forgiveness than information forgiveness. Yeah, if you need to ask for forgiveness for fixing things around the church that, oh, we like the clock being wrong. No, just do it. Just do it. Thank
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You. And don't be afraid to take the initiative for a big problem. Sometimes I worry that we just set our, and it's to do something piddly. I say piddly, but weeds are small. Change your class. Thank you so much for doing it, but it's also not a major move. But if you see a big need, I think it's a big need and I want to take a big challenge. Let's talk about it.
(09:06):
Whoever wrote that $150,000 check for the mortgage. Yeah,
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That is, thank you. That is a big problem. It's taken a big step. So it is okay to want to solve and have ambitious dreams. Sometimes I think I worry in our reformed world, we want moldy carpet and small dreams. It's okay to dream big and to swing for the fences.
(09:25):
That's good. Yeah. I think just one other thing I had apart from taking initiative and then seeking to just grow is aspire for more and ask for opportunities to do it. Like man, I've heard people say this, I think I'd like to teach an adult Sunday class. I'm like, okay, that's great. I can connect you with the guy who can make that happen. I
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Know a guy.
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Or we can have you co-teach with someone, so you're going to teach just once instead of the whole section. But aspire to more or individuals who have, I think I'd like to lead a life group someday. Okay, well what's stopping you? What are you doing to make that? Have you told your life group leader in general? Like, Hey, I'm thinking I'd like to be able to do this and take those small moments, aspire for more and work towards that. Or let us know even if, and someone's listening who's like, I think maybe not now, but in the future I'd potentially like to serve as an elder or a deacon or that's a good thing for you to share. The scriptures say it is to aspire for that. Aspire
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To a noble task.
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There's other things that can be done in the meantime. If someone's listening, they're like, I'm 22 years old, I'm probably not going to be an elder now. But there's things that you can perhaps work towards and aspire to and efforts and things that you can do and build relationships towards that. And so just want to think bigger and pray and ask the Lord, how have you gifted me to uniquely serve the church and ask, is there a place for me to serve and lead and do more? Hey, can I work alongside someone who's leading in this, who I really admire and would like as I grow to be like and spend time with them?
(11:12):
I got two, at least two that I'd like to add on that one as well, that as close as one, it was on my list too, was talking about leading classes is that that's a big commitment you're talking about even if you co-teach it, you're talking about 12 Sundays where you're going to be pretty involved. But that is what we recite every week is making disciples of all nations. It is not merely convergence, it is teaching them the whole council of God. We're is teaching them what's in the Bible. So if you're like, Hey, I think I have gifting and teaching and I'm thinking about doing that or whatever we need, we need more teachers because the ones that have been doing it can't do all of them forever. And so if you're wondering what kind of topics are on the table, I'll give you four categories right now, very practical that these are always open for discussion.
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Number one, book of the Bible, we're always okay on God's word. So if you have a section of Psalms that you want to teach on, or if you want to talk about the parables in Matthew, or if you want to do the letter to find Lehman or whatever, a book of the Bible, always great biblical theology, meaning looking at health themes, run through scripture and find their climax in Christ just like we did. The ladies did the even better than Eden. They went from creation to new creation. We did knowing Jesus of the Old Testament where we looked at his identity and his story and his mission and Son of Man and all these titles that come in and find their fulfillment in him. Three doctrine. So if you want to teach a class on something about the beliefs of the Christian faith, a doctrine of God, man sin, Christ salvation, whatever at last, things like all that stuff is available to be teaching people more about how to think deeply about how does the entire Bible speak to this truth. And then finally topically. So if it's a class on parenting, if it's a class on counseling, on marriage, if it's on cultural apologetics and evangelism, all those are also available to be talked about as well. But the other one I want to mention, because I think this kind of comes into the leadership role and the making disciples
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Is lemme just say real quick on that you and particularly have done a great job of building out our Sunday school class culture here, where again, some of y'all are all have not been here as long as me, so I don't take it for granted. I mean, nine years ago we had one Sunday school class, sometimes two, and you might've had 15, 20 people total involved. And now we're talking three classes and in a given
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Time
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And what, 60, 70
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People between all of them? Yeah. I mean you'll have 50 and one. We had the
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Other 50 and one, so yeah, 70, 80, 90 people. So that's amazing and we want to continue. But like you said, that requires those teachers if you're going to make the classes happen,
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We got to
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Get some
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Teachers a break
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In there
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Having done a number of classes. You've taught classes about I need a term and then I need a break for 12 weeks. Because Sunday's always coming. You preach every Sunday, and that information doesn't just download into your brain. It's a hard drive. It takes time and it's a wonderfully rewarding thing to do. It is so delightful and we have good students here. If you're like, Hey, I don't know how that's going to go. We had people that show up, they prepare, they ask great questions. No one's going to make your life terrible. It's a real delight to teach in this church if you've got a teaching gifting. The other one is one-on-one discipleship. We have no intent to building out a one-on-one discipleship program, but I think the scripture is clear for older saints to be teaching younger saints. And I fear that we have older saints that are hoping that a younger person comes to them and says, Hey, will you disciple me?
(14:26):
And I'm telling you, I think that you've got the script backwards. I'm saying if you believe that you want and can form to somebody else, that the responsibility is probably upon you to be the one Jesus became incarnate condescended to us to seek, to redeem us is like I can imagine if I was back at 24 years old and had a 45, 50, 60-year-old, whatever, say, Hey, I see something in you and I want to show you what living the Christian life has been all about for me. Can we get together regularly? My heart would've leapt. So please don't wait for the church. We're not going to put together a program for you to do that. Let that happen.
(15:00):
Yeah, that's good. I mean, we could, and maybe, I don't know if we help facilitate that and that's part of our role as a church. But yeah, we're just, at the end of the day, we're not looking to have more programs, more ministries, and there's any number of good ones that we already have. But yeah, like you said, there's no reason that Canton shouldn't happen organically. Anyway,
(15:20):
I wanted to go back and just mention one of the thing that I thought of while you were talking Pastor Thad, that anyway, just for, again, jojo co, even if you're not, but what about me, Austin? I don't have the gift of teaching. What about me? I'm never going to be the elder, the deacon, or maybe even the person taking an initiative maybe with little things, but I want to do more. How can I help our church better empower leaders? Here's just a very, for me, simple. It should be for us simple. I would love, so two things, one actually. So one goes back to what you were saying about the gospel focus versus distractions. And I think the more that, especially in this realm with leaders being easy, being an easy congregant, so maybe you're not the leader, but make that elder's job easy, make that deacon's job easy.
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Whether that's you just again, as a congregant and you're being over like Hebrew was 13, 17 says, submit to them and do it. Let them serve joyfully, not begrudgingly. And so don't be the black sheep, don't be the reason that we have to spend 10 minutes of our elders meeting talking about how to get this person back to church or whatever. Be a good congregant sheep. So that's one. If you're serving on the welcome team, okay, yeah, I don't have the gift of leadership. I'm not going to, we'll make it easy for Andrew and Cassidy then
(17:12):
Don't make them email you. Don't show up late to pass out bulletins. Show up early, be a good volunteer. So that's an easy one should be. And then the other is encourage, go beyond that. Don't just make it, but encourage, okay, if you're not going to be the leader, how can I help the church empower and serve our leaders is to encourage them. When was the last time you thinked? Not just me? I mean I'll take it, but I'm the most visible. Like Brian, that song I love that song we're visible. When was the last time you think, when was the last time you thanked our lay elders, Mike and Todd and Eric and Brad? I mean, when was the last time you thanked the Campbells who are just mentioned them or the Conex or any number of our deacons? When was the last time you thanked your life group leader?
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None of them get paid to do any of that. They're doing that out of the goodness of their heart and a lot of them spend a lot of time doing it and prepping time. When was the last time you think that Sunday school teacher lay person who's just out of the goodness of their heart and they love Jesus and they love the scriptures? So yeah, there's that too. But also they're doing it mostly as a service to you. Their leadership is a service to you. It's servant leadership. So again, let them do it joyfully. And part of that to me is the appreciation. It's like just like you wouldn't want hopefully me to spend 25 hours crafting and then getting up and preaching a sermon that days later. I'm like, I don't even know if anybody listened. It's like, no, send the text. God spoke to you to me today. Do that for those lay leaders. Let them know how much you appreciate. And when it comes specifically in the recruiting is when you see that giftedness in others. Yeah, I don't have the gift of teaching, but you do. You just asked me to coffee and all of a sudden I know more about electrical engineering now than I've ever known in my life because in five minutes, just to explain this incredibly, you have a gift. I mean you can explain things really well to people. Have you ever thought about translating that into
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The Bible and teaching it? Or you have such a shepherd's heart, you were so caring as a life group leader. Have you ever thought about sharing that, not just with our life group, but with the whole church? Have they talked to you about, if not, I'm going to go talk to pastor Will and I'm going to recommend you for eldership. So affirming giftedness and others, encouraging that pushing because again, maybe those three to five guys that I want on the elder council right now, if they had that, they'd be on. They're just like, do people even want me to be an elder other than Will just to make his life easier. And if they had a dozen people at the church saying, you need to be an elder. He's preaching these sermons and say, we need more leaders. You're a leader. Go lead. And maybe they just need that push and that encouragement. So that's another one I threw out. Anything else before we,
(20:17):
Let's move on. Let's talk about community cohesiveness. So how do we as a church, these are big ones, but I know we've gone long already, so let's try and be quick community cohesiveness. How do we as a church practically, what can jojo congregate do in the year to come help us what you already named for us? Help us not fray and not let our relationships. And again, everybody has a different perception. We're a medium big sized church now and growing. And so some people are going to hear this and they're going to think, I don't feel like there's that tight knitness at all. So we need to form it in the first place. But a lot of us, if we're here and we're in the inner circle, you feel like this is a solid communal church. We, I think, know and love each other, do a good job of taking care of one another. How do we make sure that that is prioritized and doesn't begin to get on the back burner? How do we be intentional and what practically might that look like? Maybe we even get practical thinking months ahead, especially when we're out of the building. You mentioned having people into your home, but other ideas, other thoughts y'all have for how do we do that?
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I think it's thrilling. Like you mentioned in your sermon, how could our relationships deepen when we were out of the church building? This is an opportunity to actually go deeper, not fragment. And that's really exciting. And yeah, one thing as the church crows, there could be people you don't yet know, but maybe if you're like me or other congregants that have shared this with me, you may have met them before and they also may have been at the church way longer than you've been alive. And I've met many of those people as well. So I've found going into conversations, assuming that they've been here for a while, is really helpful. Just in first interactions or maybe second, third interactions after a while. Les, is this your first time here? It always hurts when you've been at church for a while. And is this your first time here? I dunno, it's hard to receive that
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With that. It's just asking the question, how long have you been here? You just change it. Is this your first time too? Just how long have you been here?
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Yep. Yep. I was going to say that. And then, or I'm not sure we've met. Could you remind me how long you've been here? More gentle ways of saying I want to know you without saying man, just your first time.
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It's a lot of that.
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It's very cold to receive that.
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It's a lot of that with Covid especially. I mean this was another, going through Covid was another big community cohesiveness issue, man, we're out of the building for a couple months and now we're coming back and people coming back at different paces and not knowing each other. So yeah, how do we smooth that?
(23:22):
Yeah, yeah. I mean it's totally like how are you going to communicate with each other? Be gentle, assume that they've been here for a while, and be inviting and encouraging when you interact with each other and then inviting people into your home. I think that's huge. Taking the initiative in relationships, not just sitting back and waiting for somebody to talk to you though we hope that you are talked to, as we talked about last week, somebody sitting alone as an emergency. We want to seek those people out and care for them and love them well. And when that doesn't happen, we hope that you're also taking that initiative to connect with others as well. I think D groups in life groups are just going to be so important even more
(24:06):
If you're not in one already got to get in one of those before we're out of the building. Yeah, you're going to feel it otherwise,
(24:16):
Which in a way goes back to the leader empowerment. We will need more life group leaders and de group leaders in order to accommodate everyone who wants to be a part of needs to be a part of an intimate community. And so I think that's really good, Brian. And just seeking to be intentional and just also being intentional of not only talking to the people you are friends with or in life group at church of when we're in a different space in particular and just in general of I have these people, these relationships are already formed. I am going to try and form a new relationship. And it means a lot to individuals when you come back to them a second time and you remember their name or a detail about them or where they work. I think that just means a willingness to even be uncomfortable at times.
(25:09):
I know there's introverts listening who are like, I can't imagine going up to someone I don't know and introducing myself. And yet a willingness to be uncomfortable of making that step towards an individual means so much. And so there's that. And then yeah, the getting plugged in, the willing to break up from your normal group of people in order to form new groups of people to form community so that other people can come in. I think it would be really a shame if someone wanted to be a part of a group and an individual is like, well, I've got my people. I don't need to form a new group. And when we're not meeting in our building, it's like, yeah, but you live five minutes from this person. Why not start a new group so they can experience that same kind of intentional relationship that you have with your life group.
(25:59):
Well, and just something to name too. I mean with the shakeup being out of the building, if our groups are meeting in homes, that could change things practically too. Where the church is a central meeting place, half of our life groups a third almost are beat here on Wednesday nights when we're out of here. Everybody who's in my life group might not live as close to my house if that's where we're hosting. So that could mean that you have refugees that need a new life group. I'm not going to drive 30 minutes across the river to go there. And so I'd like to use this unique season to try out something new. But again, maybe they need an invite. And so I would just add with Brian's thing about introducing your thing, about introducing yourself to new people. Maybe that's just a part because we're naming the importance of those small group as sort of a hub for relationship and connectivity. Maybe even making that a part of your, just your default
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Conversation
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Card, default conversation that when you are meeting new people at church on Sundays, Hey, I'm Will, what's your name? And then second, who's small group are you a part of where it's almost just like an expectation. You need to be in a small group and so are you in? And if you're not the answer, well, we've only been here a couple months, we're still feeling that. It's like, oh, you should come check ours out. It's no commitment. You don't have to join it, but just come see how one of 'em runs and no one's going to not feel at least thankful and loved and honored that you would allow them to do and ask them. So that's always a good thing. So anyway, yeah,
(27:50):
I would say just even now would be a great thing. Something I hear from particularly those who have been here for some time of like, man, there's just so many new people. I would just encourage you to everyone to resolve one new person on a Sunday. Just one.
(28:09):
Well, you mentioned, I think it was last week on the podcast with our inclusivity and just given opportunities for people, but would work for this one too. A practical idea we could do as a church is to bring back the summer supper club idea where you give people the chance to opt in and say, Hey, I want to spend this summer getting to know new people. And so throw my name in the hat and
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We're not going to connect you, whoever.
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We're going to find people that we're pretty sure you don't know and they want a new friend and you do
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So. And people we think you should know that people you don't know, but we think that you should because there's something you have together.
(28:49):
Yeah, yeah. So other ideas on that one?
(28:52):
No, I got my wires crossed and started talking about community cohesiveness and gospel focus. So I'll
(28:58):
It's never too
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On
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Early together. Too early, too early to talk about the importance of community. Alright, so let's end with soul winning. And I mentioned, and I would like to suggest that not to completely punt on this one, but that we do a whole, I think it would be worth us doing a whole extra separate podcast on this one. And specifically on the question of, one of the questions that got asked on after the sermon podcast a couple weeks ago with diversity was the question of what are you willing to give up and allow to see change about the culture of the church in order to see the church become more diverse? Which is, someone could hear that as a racist question as how much diversity are we going to let in before the culture? But I want to get be gracious and say, I think that is a really wise question to acknowledge that anytime you're praying that the church would change in any particular way, that it's going to change the culture. And I thought of that question as applied to this issue of soul winning in particular, that I just think it would be worth us discussing this question of if we really wanted to get serious, if we're diagnosing a perceived problem here that we don't really see people come to Christ at our church.
(30:33):
We are growing pretty quick, but it's 98% conservatively that are coming from other churches and even people's kid, I don't remember the last time I baptized a kid who came to Christ through the ministry of this church. So we're not seeing people come to Christ through the ministry of our church. That seems like a problem. So what are we going to do about it? And then the second question is, what are we willing to see change about what we're currently doing as a church?
(31:05):
I mean, we could come up with any number of lists, we could give altar calls, we could do revivals. But anything that we do, we could just do treatment. I don't know. We could do lots of different things, but anything that we do is going to be a change from what we're doing now. But if you don't change anything, why would you expect any different results? A lot of people would say, well, we just need to pray more, rub some prayer on it. And that's good. I mean, we can and should always pray more, but are we willing to change things tangibly about what we're doing as a church to see more souls won here and could those things be, and how would they have other unintended consequences? Are we willing to pay that price? So I'll just float that out if y'all think that would be Facebook, whoever listening and live put it in the comments. Is that a thing?
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It's a thing,
(31:50):
Yeah. So drop in there if that's a conversation, you'd like to hear a little bit of a combination of a question that was submitted on a different topic, but I want to apply it specific to this topic I think would be good. But any quick hitters on this that y'all want to say now about soul winning?
(32:10):
Yeah, I do. I think what you're saying, the old adage is true is you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting, and we're doing a lot of things well, but whatever we're doing in relationship to seeing convergence isn't working very well. So we've got to make some kind of change and we could start theorizing what that might be. So I'm going to make at least one that people need to consider. And this is going to feel like it's in tension because it is. With our last point on community cohesiveness.
(32:36):
I recently read through a book by Sam Chan called How to Talk About Jesus Without Being that guy. And I 100% recommend it. It's 170 pages and it's extremely easy reading and it's extremely practical. It's not what you think it's going to be. It's not going to be when they say this, you say that. It's not that kind of a book. But I'll give away kind of the first chapter because I think it's the one where we can leverage something that we already have. What we already have is great community. We have great friendships within the church. So his first chapter is called Merging Your Universes. And the basic premise is this, people have a hard time believing in a different faith. Like say the Christian faith, they don't know many other Christians. It lacks what psychologists call a plausibility structure. Okay, technical term. The technical term being that if more people that you are around believe in this thing, your plausibility goes up a notch
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You won't fit in.
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So here's, here's a simple pitch. When you do things with your live group and your D group, invite your non-Christian friends. That's it. We
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Do such watch the Sunday mornings too, right?
(33:36):
It does. We're not taking away Sunday mornings, but if y'all go out and bowling on a Friday night, don't just go by yourselves. Invite your non-Christian friends. Step one, just start with step one. We do such a great job being free. What did Jesus say that they will know that you are my disciples for your love for one another. They won't know it if they don't see it. And guess what? You have friends that aren't Christians and they probably like to go bowling or eat pizza or baked pastries or whatever it is that you do as a group. Don't just do it among one another. I'm not saying there isn't an occasion where you're like, we just want to be kind of among our own, but that is such an easy way to get in and to bring people in so that at least the plausibility of it as a full life script goes up and not just a proposition.
(34:16):
It is One of the things we lost when my life group shifted to Wednesday nights here in the building was we used to meet at my house and we'd have, on Tuesday nights, we'd have 10, 12 cars lined up
(34:27):
On our road. And in some cases probably annoying our neighbors. Like our lane isn't wide enough as you know her, but I'd have neighbors that would, Hey, what's going on over here at Tuesdays? And you could imagine me saying, oh, it's our small group, and it'd be an awkward, okay, happy mowing and going back. But no, that's an opportunity for me to be like, you should come check it out. We do dinner if nothing else, you meet some good people, get some dinner. And we did. We had one young lady from three houses down that through that started coming to some of our life groups and
(35:06):
There's so
(35:06):
Many introduced to the gospel through that. So it didn't come to saving faith that I know of, but I mean, hey, that's a seed planted touchpoint. So yeah,
(35:15):
Look for those opportunities. So many adults that I've talked to that came to faith as an adult, it happened when they sat down with other people and read the Bible.
(35:23):
It is sometimes I think, less complex than we think. It's like just invite them over because some people are academically interested in the Bible. They just have such a skepticism over institutions that it's going to be an easier invite to you into your home's than church. I'm not saying don't invite them to Sunday morning do, but also it's like that's too weird for them. Like, Hey, we have a Bible study on whatever night at my house of the week. You want to come, we're just going to read it. And they might very well say yes also. But again, you can also invite 'em to go bowling. Yeah,
(35:52):
Yeah. We're reading through the Great Churching book as a staff, and that's one of the things they point out is it's something crazy de-churched being people who were in church at some point in their life and then now are not actively going to church. And it's a massive, massive, 40 million Americans greatest sociological demographic shift trend in the history of our country. But if you had to sum the book up and the takeaway from it, in a word, it would be invite people, invite 'em back because it's something crazy. Maybe three quarters of people interviewed, even people who had bad experiences of, I was hurt by this or that church or religious abuse or whatever. So many of 'em, you'd be so shocked to know how many of 'em say, yeah, but also if a friend invited me, I'd probably go just, I mean, just because I want to hang out with friends. I mean, I hate bowling. If you invited me to go bowling, I'd go with you. We're going bowling Friday. But seriously, so invite 'em. Yeah,
(37:00):
I would a convicting quote by Charles Spurgeon, every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter. And I feel that when we do our closing great commission, we quote that and either we're either just saying words because they're on the screen and we're told to say them, or we either believe them. And so I want to touch on something a little different, and that's the idea of personal evangelism. Personal evangelism is personal. It's not asking people to come to the church, but you should. It isn't just praying for salvation, although you should do that too. It's person and person conversations about the personal work of Christ, personal evangelism. You have to actually do it personally
(37:47):
As well as it's evangelistic. It isn't merely mentioning christiany things like, oh, I'll pray for you, or The church is good, but actually sharing the good news of the gospel. And that's something I've grown in my conviction of. I want us to continue to invite people to church. I want us as a church to continue inviting the church to pray for salvations people. Those are really good things. But also us as a church personally, desiring to share the gospel with our neighbor, with our siblings, with our coworkers, also without being that guy. And so read the book, Austin suggested, but also be committed to actually sharing the gospel, and we'll preach the gospel when they come to church, but also we want you to preach the gospel to them as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
(38:37):
Well, thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills or by asking them online through our website at www.westhillssto.org. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.