BETA13: Defining a Successful Church

Hey, we're going to get you to that podcast in one second, but before we get there, I,

Jeff Reed, the Church Digital, Stadia Church Planning, I wanted to have a conversation with

you, churches that are out there. One of the greatest things I arguably think that I've done

in my life, other than married and kids, okay, that aside, one of the greatest ministry things

I've ever done is this idea of the fidgetal learning communities that we are offering

through Stadia Church Planning. We want to help you. We want to help your church learn to thrive,

grow, and multiply fidgetally, physically, as well as digitally. We've seen about 200 churches go

through this already, and it's been a phenomenal result of it. Culture is changing within these

churches. They're understanding what it is to thrive. They're understanding how to grow people,

how to grow their church, even in the midst of this COVID, not COVID, wherever we are in the season,

and they're even starting to understand what it means to multiply in fidgetal space. There's no secret

sauce to doing a digital strategy. There's no secret sauce to doing a fidgetal strategy. There's no

secret sauce to making your church thrive, grow, and multiply. It takes work. I'm not going to lie,

but through the framework, through the questions, through the learning communities,

we connect you with churches. We give you some content. We coach you along the way to help you

make the decisions that you need to make so that your church's strategy can thrive, grow, and multiply

your church along the way. This is a great opportunity for your church. We would love to have you be a part

of it. For more information, check out stadiachurchplanning.org slash fidgetal,

stadiachurchplanning.org slash fidgetal, P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. All right. Hey, that's it.

We're going to get you back to that episode right now.

Hey, welcome to the beta show, episode 13 here, also part of the church digital podcast. My name

is Jeff Reed, powered by Stadia Church Planning, director of digital church planning with Stadia

Church Planning. It's funny. I said everything I was supposed to say there in the opening,

but in completely wrong order. So you're going to have to jigsaw, puzzle, all that together.

But basically, I'm excited you're here. We got a really interesting conversation coming up here

with beta episode 13 here, measuring a successful church. And so bringing in a panel of people that

are going to be part of helping us figure out here in 2021, mid post COVID, wherever you think we are

in this situation, how do we measure the successfulness of a church? So we'll get into

that here in a little bit. Here with the beta show, we answer your ministry questions. So online

ministry, digital church, fidgetal church, all that fun stuff. If you've got questions, by the way,

we got this question a lot. Text us the questions that you have, 484-324-8724. That literally rings my,

that's my cell phone number. You want to call and harass Jeff Reed right there, 484-324-8724.

We'd love to hear from you. Text me those questions and we'll use them in future episodes of the beta

show here. Also, hey, Stadia is doing this. I just figured this out today when the dates are. Stadia is

doing an innovation meetup where we're, one of the innovations that Stadia is doing in this season is

really focusing on digital. And so we are doing an innovation meetup online free conference Tuesday,

March 16th from, from noon to 4 PM. That's Eastern. Probably should have put Eastern on there.

Noon to 4 Eastern stadia church planning.org slash meetup to sign up for that. Uh, we're going to have

Conway Edwards, lead pastor of one community church there in, uh, in Plano, Texas is doing a

phenomenal, uh, job with digital and, and adapting in the season, merging that physical and that digital

together. And so excited to have a Conway Edwards speaking at our free conference online. Once

again, stadia church planning.org slash meetup. Well, Hey, let's, let's turn the corner here and

let's start talking here about this idea of how do we measure a successful church here in mid post

COVID 2021, COVID 2021, wherever we are. What does it mean to be successful in a church? What does that

look like? So here's who we're bringing in for the, for the panel here. First off, uh, let's do Craig

Whitney. Craig is, uh, well, used to be my boss, but a VP of planner development at stadia. Uh, a, one of my

closest friends with stadia. And honestly, within the year that I've worked with him, I have learned so much

about myself and about the church overall. So excited to include Craig into this conversation.

It's funny. We're going over former bosses here. Carlos Lollette also used to be my former boss. I

just put this together. Like this is going to be a really interesting panel. Carlos used to be my boss

like a decade ago. Uh, when I was, when we were both on staff at Christ Fellowship Miami, Carlos is

currently planting, uh, a church, um, uh, reality church here in Miami, Florida, and is working hard

towards that launch, uh, whatever launch means in the coming days. The guy who's never been my boss,

uh, Stephen Smith is, uh, director of not yet, but there's a chance, uh, director of, uh, multi-site,

uh, for first Baptist Houston, uh, a large multi-site church. Um, and so in, uh, Houston, Texas,

is obviously the first Baptist Houston, Greg Mott. Uh, I feel like Greg was my boss at one time.

We just really, I spent so much time when he was at, um, um, uh, Texas A&M with breakout. Oh my gosh.

Like just, just the experiences I've had over then. So ultimately these three people have had a really

interesting influence in my life and, and everything from the, you know, giga church multi-site

mentality all the way down to like the church plant that's yet to launch out here. Uh, I really am

curious how we define what a successful church is. What, what are we measuring? What are we looking

at here? And so this is one of these conversations. I just want to say upfront, I'm going to shut up,

sit back and kind of listen. Cause I don't, I'm not necessarily driving this conversation as much as

learning here. So, Hey, people way smarter than me. How do we measure? How do we define

what a successful church is? What do y'all think?

Who's brave enough to go first?

All right. Well, Carlos has heard me say this, at least if Carlos was paying attention, he's heard me

say this in our planner training, uh, to our planners, you're not going into the Sunday church service

business. Um, you're going into the people movement business. Now, even that may surprise some people,

but you know, the mission of the church is to make disciples. What is making disciples? It's helping

people move from wherever they are to where God wants them to be. And the role of the church is to

help them move. We can't make people move, right? That's, that's the work of the Holy spirit. We can

help people move. We can create environments and experiences and relationships and all those things

that help people move. And that's our primary work. And so the question is when we talk about

effectiveness, how are you measuring? How are you keeping track of how do you know whether or not you're

helping people move? Um, and so too many of our measures are about things that are, you know, about

programs, about what's static and it's not giving us any insight into people movement.

I say that same thing. Um, we, we talk with our campus pastors a lot about creating environments

where people fall more in love with Jesus. Really? If you boil everything down to that, it's,

it's about creating those environments. You can't move the people. The Holy spirit does that. It's just,

as Craig said, the second ago, absolutely everything has changed, uh, in the last year, almost a year.

Um, this is, uh, great commissioning has, is the same, but the great commissioning method,

you know, has completely, uh, it's, it's tilted on its axis, I guess is the way to say it. Um,

I think the first week of COVID, uh, last year, uh, I, I looked at Jeff and we were at a conference

together. I, I walked up to Jeff. We didn't know each other and, uh, we spoke just for a moment. Um,

and he told me what he does, you know, with church digital and now a stadia said, uh, man,

you are about to become everyone's new best friend. Um, it's not a lie. Whether you, whether you know it or

not, you're about to be the busiest man on planet earth, you know, and when everybody else's is,

is, you know, not, not busy in the springtime of 2000 and wondering what to do. I think Jeff was

out front with, with all of that stuff. So it's great to be here with you. These guys also, um,

I'm interested in hearing from these smart guys on, uh, really what the, what the new targets are on

the wall. So, yeah, I'm, um, man, listen, this question, uh, Jeff, when you asked me to be a part

of this, it really, um, I had to back up a little bit and remind myself even like, Hey, how do you even

define success in ministry? How do you define it? How do you define it? And I thought, uh, and of course,

as somebody who's planting, um, just like what Craig said, part of what we want to do is we want to take

territory, right? Like we want to take new territory in the city. There's a sense in which you're

advancing, um, the mission of God. You're, you're wanting to see new people come to know him and grow

in him. And as a planter in this season of life, I think, you know, anybody in pastoral ministry can

wrestle with like identity and success and all of these different things. And I'm like, wow, God,

like, you know, where's my worth coming from? And for me, these kinds of three words stood out.

Um, and it was the word, uh, you know, what does success in ministry look like? I think it looks

like obedience. It looks like faithfulness and fruitfulness. And I know faithfulness is at the

core of it. And everybody says, and if you talk to somebody about, Hey, what is success in ministry?

Is it's, it's, oh, it's faithfulness. And I'd say yes, but it's not only faithfulness

because I, you know, I started thinking, well, if we plant this church and let's say it closes in

three years, I was faithful. Maybe it wasn't fruitful. Was that successful? And I thought,

for instance, like, okay, um, I think obedience is a little bit different than faithfulness because,

you know, I just started thinking, I'm like, okay, what are some places in scripture where there's

success? You have Saul taking over the Amalekites. He was successful in accomplishing that mission,

but he was disobedient to God. Um, you have faithfulness is not, um, like in that metaphor,

I think my favorite one is in first Corinthians three, where like you have Paul saying that he

waters and plants, but he also lays a wise foundation. I think there's, there's skill involved

in church. Like, and, and I think at some point we've all met leaders who have great character and

who are faithful men and women of God, but maybe they're not great at leading like, you know,

and so sometimes you don't see particular fruit and it doesn't mean that they're unsuccessful in

life as Christians, but sometimes I don't think that's enough in measuring, uh, success. And so,

yeah, I don't, those are just some thoughts. That's really, that's great, Carlos.

Uh, let's go. Uh, Craig, you were breaking up on us. Uh, okay. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's try it again.

Uh, what were you saying, Craig? Sorry about that. Oh, I was just say, Carlos, I mean, those are great,

great thoughts. And I think, especially for church planners, as you move into that, uh, but I think

not just church planners, I think there's people leading, you know, existing churches, small churches,

large churches that wrestle with the same kinds of things at a very personal level. Um, I was just

gonna say to you, I, um, started a church 30 years ago. Now I hate to say that. I tell everybody I was

12, so they won't know how old I really am. Uh, but, um, that church no longer exists. And there's a

temptation on my part and particularly, you know, the, the church, um, you know, died after I had left,

but there's still without having, there was this, this real deep sense of failure. Um,

like this church we started, it failed, but really, you know, a little bit of time, I think a little

bit of God, one of the things I began to recognize and is still true today, you know, 30 years later,

I have friends who are followers of Jesus because we started that church. Right. The church was the,

starting that church was not a failure. It was not fruitless. Uh, the church had a much shorter

lifespan than we envisioned it having. I would even say that I, that I wanted it to have. Uh,

but I think that's a key thing when we talk about those, like, you know, obedience, faithfulness,

fruitfulness, there's a unique dynamic to each of those. Uh, but, but I think sometimes we,

we can even misperceive, you know, what is fruitfulness. Um, you know, and so for me,

that's just at least something that's encouraging for me is to think about those friends, those people

that I know and how their lives have been changed. Uh, you know, probably the way I'm wired,

you know, they'd be easy for saying, I kind of wish there were more, uh, maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe that's an egotistic thing on my part. Um, you know, I'm, I'm willing to, you know,

put that out there. Uh, but I know those people, I know the ways in which their lives were impacted

and that was fruit. And so that effort was, was not fruitless, was not wasted.

You know, I, I love some of us who were talking about Carlos is like obedience and faithfulness.

Uh, the fruitfulness Craig is, is, is what you're enforcing. Ray, you're, you're jumping in the

podcast here, jumping in the broadcast. Uh, what, what are, what's resonating with you with this

question of how, how do we define what a successful church is? What, what, what are some of the lessons

that, that you're learning in this season? Ray, you're muted.

Is it on? Can you hear me? There you go. I'm the, I'm the old guy in the zoom now. Right.

All right. Fantastic. Uh, so I agree with Craig. We've got to make sure and look towards people

and have those stories of people whose lives have been changed because by any measure, we wouldn't

look at Jesus and call him a failure, but by the metrics that we might, right? Like, oh man, 12,

you know, 12 guys or 11 guys, right? One, one went away and three and a half years of ministry

is Jesus a failure. See, nobody would ever say that, but at the same time, when we judge ourselves

according to metrics, sometimes we think we've got to go a certain distance in order to proclaim

ourselves as a success. And so I think stories of black change are important. And I also think that

we also look at churches and ministries as for a time and not as forever, you know, some things are

just for a season. Some, some seasons of growth are just there and we should appreciate them when they're

there. And that's why scriptures talk so much about farming and we're not a farming environment as much

in the United States as much as Miami. So it's a hard time to think of us as planting a seed, taking

the time to fall into developing and having a harvest and then having another time where there is death

in the land and then planting again. That is a very difficult thing for us to accept in ministry.

And so I totally understand where you're coming from, Craig.

Yeah. I, I love that. I want to build off that because if we're, if we're looking at it as,

hey, we're, we're in this for a season, um, there, there's, there's an, an angle of that where it's,

okay, I'm able to take more risks. Uh, I'm, I'm willing to challenge and maybe do something

different with, with this church. And this is maybe a little off topic, but, but I'm curious,

like, and Steven, I'm going to put the hot seat on you here a little bit. First Houston is,

is a legacy church. I've spent 20 years in, in maybe 15 years in Texas area, Dallas, Fort Worth,

Austin. I know the legacy that, that first Houston carries. Is it, and as you went multi-site and as

you're feeling some of the tension of maybe doing something different, I know that's been an

experience and there's probably some other experiments that you've wanted to do or are not able to do.

Like, how do you, or what's the difficulty of, of looking at the seasonal approach? Maybe when you're

dealing with an organization that's not wanting to be experimental, that's not wanting to maybe even

redefine how it's being measured as being successful. Is it more difficult? Is it easier? How do you balance

some of those tensions, uh, within a legacy like first Houston?

Well, first of all, thank you for giving me the rest of the podcast time to answer this question.

Cause I'll need it. Um, let me tell you that, let me go back to something that Ray said. Uh, I think

the agrarian mindset is something that we've got to recover in the church. We are too heavily invested

in the industrial enterprise, uh, uh, mindset. I mean, we've got, we've, we're thinking in terms of

widgets and multi-level X, Y, Z, and, and all this other stuff. I really think the agrarian mindset

is something that we've got to go back to. That's just totally difficult in, you know, post-industrial

revolution posts, you know, in modernity. We're not, we're just not going to think unless we do it.

Uh, uh, and you're listening, you know, to this podcast in some place where you're familiar with

that. The majority of people live in cities and they don't understand the waiting involved in seed

planting, the waiting involved in what harvest me or the waiting and the starting over after a disaster.

Um, you're going to really want to, you know, even after Harvey, uh, you're really going to want

for, uh, for Houston, you know, we just had to absorb Harvey and then, and then rebuild. The difference

is for us that it took about a month to absorb and start rebuilding. This, this thing is just not that,

um, we, we, we haven't seen the, uh,

that may say it like this. There's just that we're, we're, once you're punched with something

like this, you're just down for longer. I don't know if that makes any sense. I'm not a boxer, but

I've been hit many times. You're just down longer. You're just down longer for, for this one. And so,

um, by my kids, that's what I meant to say. Um,

so what, what we've had to do is trace back to inflection points in our, um, in our history and, and

go back. And so it's 180 years old, something like that. The church, uh, a guy took a boat from Boston,

came around, landed in Galveston, went into Houston, started a church. Pre-Texas, pre-United States having,

you know, I mean, this is crazy. What, what are we, what in the world are we doing? You know,

now in 2020, that's the big question here. So we've had to go back to inflection points and, and just

kind of in our recent history, we, we looked at what it meant to go multi-service in the eighties.

Okay. What did it mean? Or in the nineties, I should, what did it mean to do multi-service from

mono to multi-service and then from multi-service to multi-multi-locational. So multi-site in 2013,

we're able to draw off of those things to go, okay, what loss did we experience? How did we navigate

through that loss into kind of the new reality? Uh, what's the, what was the preferable future of

the thing? How did we lead people in that? And those things I've been around for a lot of those

inflection points. And then we got to 2020 where I feel like we're in a, uh, completely new territory

as a church where, uh, we're thinking kind of like meta thoughts, you know, it's just something like,

it's so different. It's so meta that, um, I think our inflection point, we're trying to put a name

on this inflection point for us as Houston's first is, is this really kind of, we've gone from multi-site

to meta site now because the digital, the digital expression of every, of, of, of what we do,

we've had to filter everything through the digital expression now. So we're in this meta world that we are

learning a lot in and are enjoying like, like crazy. Um, but it's a, it's, we're still asking

the question, is it real or not? You know, is this, is this, is this Bitcoin, you know, really for

churches is digital Bitcoin, you know what I mean? So we, we're, uh, exploring that man on a daily basis,

on a weekly basis. So, um, I can give you specific if they, you know, example of things that we've done,

but I think the general thing is our model has fundamentally changed in my, in my opinion, uh,

to something, uh, way past multi, you know, anything. So, yeah, uh, this is dangerous, uh,

because I'm realizing I'm going to call with a bunch of Baptists and I'm going to use a metaphor

that's beer and wine. So I'm aware of where I'm about to go recovering Baptist.

I'll cover up my, yeah, I'll cover up my camera. So I don't, uh, um, but your comment about, um,

kind of industrial agrarian, uh, super insightful, Steven. And it just struck me,

I had an experience two days ago, three days ago, Sunday, went wine tasting with my wife,

some friends. Uh, and the guy who has created this winery, uh, used to be a brewmaster. He used to

make beer. And so we're kind of asking him this question, like, like what, what's the shift where

he says, well, a lot of people don't realize that beer making is an industrial process,

right? You, you have these formulas. Now there's a process of kind of creating the formula. What's the

formulas created? You just, you know, you put those exact ingredients in through a, you know, a process

and you get the same tasting beer out the other side, but wine making is an agrarian process and

it's impossible to make a wine taste the same year after year after year because of all of the variables

of weather. And it just, you know, all of those things that can happen. And so I think what, just as

you were saying that made me realize that we've been in a season of church where we've

approached it very much in that industrial mindset, we, we do certain things. We, you know, we, we

generate certain inputs and we count on getting certain outputs. And it's like overnight we wake

up and we're, we're no longer in that process where we become farmers again. Um, and there's all of

these variables and the inputs that we create don't necessarily produce the same outputs. And there's

a need to figure out. And this is what he was talking about. The fun of wine making is figuring

out, okay, this is the grape that the vine, you know, produced this year because of all of those

variables. And so how do we take that? And how do we make a good tasting wine out of that?

Uh, you know, you could, in the same sense, you know, how do we take this environment that we're

in right now? And how do we turn good news into something that, that tastes good and, and transforms

lives, but it may look completely different than the way we did it last season. And that's the problem

with our metrics being based around all those, you know, industrial processes is we kind of wake up

overnight and go, those are useless to us now. That's right. It's, it's interesting. I love the

beer wine metaphor. And evidently Brad Henson, uh, is watching on the outside, you know, maybe we're

all recovering Baptist here. The beer wine metaphor is really helpful. Uh, Brad, we can give you

inspiration. Uh, not sure you need to take that one to your leadership, maybe tweak it depending

upon the thing. It's, it's, it's fine. You know, and it's funny. One of, one of the, um,

well, Carlos, you know, I've, I've heard you say this, this analogy, the, the, um, the, the Cuban

wine kind of proverb. You, you've told that story to me a couple of times, Lisa. I've been around.

What, I mean, draw some analogy and, and, and tie into this. I think what you've said historically

to me off air has really fitting in this season. Well, um, that's a quote by a

Cuban poet by the name of Jose Martí. One of the people in, in our launch team was like,

you know, when people think about Miami, uh, you know, like in a lot of global cities,

um, it's sometimes you can have a love hate relationship. And so there's incredible things

about Miami and other people are annoyed by Miami and that's okay. Uh, but there's a Cuban poet who's

very famous. His name is Jose Martí. And he has a little phrase that says, "Nuestro vino

is amargo, pero es nuestro vino," which means our wine is bitter, but it's our wine.

You know? And, uh, yeah, I don't know if I can tie that in Jeff, but.

Oh, I can't. I'll shoot. I'll, I'll preach that sermon. I mean, if, if we're really looking at this

or organically, I mean, cause, cause what I'm hearing here is it's not a formula. What, what the

formula for church X is going to be different than church Y. So now there's, there's an organic

approach. Maybe it's intentional organic, but there's an organic fluctuation between. And so my

church may measure success even in the same way that we're measuring discipleship at, at one church,

but that's going to be different than, than race church. And that's going to be different than,

than, than Stephen's church. And you know, I, it's historically pre COVID and call me crazy,

totally open the conversation. Crazy.

Pre COVID. Oh, that's, that's fine. You're not the first guy today. Um, pre COVID. It felt like

it was, Hey, what are you doing? Let's do the same thing. And, and, and, and in this season,

I'm wondering if it's not, Hey, we all need to be measuring out of the same bucket as much as we

need to be intentional of what we're measuring, but that measurement may be different than what's

happening. Someone else, you know, and even within stadia, we're, we're having conversations about

multimodal churches. Like it's not just this launch large model. It's, Hey, let's, let's launch in

physical space. Let's launch digital space. Let's launch digital only space. Let's launch micro

church spaces. And so with a lot of this fluctuation, I'm asking the question humbly.

Oh, I want to learn here. Is there consistency with some of the metrics or is, does it, is it

okay that there's variations? Hey, this is my wine. This is how I'm measuring it compared to,

Hey, we're going to measure our wine different somewhere else.

Oh, open for conversation humbly here.

I did have a thought on this, Jeff, and that can go again, you know, along with that agrarian metaphor.

I think part of our metrics, I think part of what we need to embrace is time in terms of metrics and

nuance. And the thing is, of course, even myself right now, it's very satisfying to embrace a short,

clear measurement that gives me a quick picture and a quick snapshot. But if you're thinking about agrarian

metaphors and you're thinking about, you know, what's that Dallas Willard quote about, yeah,

you don't count the number of disciples, but you weigh them. You know, if you're going to weigh

the disciples and the quality of disciples, I think that's going to take time and nuance. And if I'm

thinking about, let's say five years from now, are marriages at reality flourishing? Is the rate of

divorce less? What is the impact that we're having in a community? Are disciples from reality,

we can't control this, but are they going to have a certain worldview that is going to embrace,

let's say Jesus's work of mission and justice and flourishing in the world? And I think that takes

time to measure. And that can't, I think it's difficult to do that in a quick snapshot.

Yeah, I think your point, Jeff, back to your earliest comment, Carlos, about fruitfulness,

and that is an agrarian term, right? And so the one thing I would say is, you know, every farmer who

plants a crop expects it to produce fruit. That is what the seed is supposed to do. Nobody puts seed in

the ground, you know, hoping that the plants will die. But, but there are so many variables. That's your

comment, Jeff. I think we've tried to, to just imitate someone else's industrial process to get the same

outcomes versus recognizing that the, the soil in Miami is different than the soil in Houston is different

than the soil where I am in California. And thus, as a farmer, you know, I can't, and we see this with

church planters all the time, you know, someone, you know, church planters will talk to each other,

you know, it's kind of like, well, Hey, you know, I just harvested, you know, harvested, you know,

a hundred bushels of fruit. Right. And the, the other planner over here is going, man, I haven't

harvested any yet. And there's this, then there's this comparison about like, he must be doing it

right. And I must do it, be doing it wrong. And what the agrarian mindset helps us realize is,

you know, maybe his seasons are just ahead of yours. Um, and, and rather than trying to figure

out how do I just become like him or do the things that he did or she did to get that outcome.

It's more of going, Nope. What is the seed in the soil that God's given me need in order to be

fruitful? I would think for you, Steven, the challenge of that is you probably have those variables

inside of a single church. Yeah. I would say, you know, uh,

totally blaming. I mean, let me say it like this, putting the emphasis in our model and our agrarian

model on, uh, seed and soil, it leaves out, uh, personal development too. And that's what we've

seen a lot of in the last year. I can only develop as far as I'm developed, you know, in the thing.

And so, um, if I went out and I planted, uh, corn, uh, at the end of the harvest, I would,

it would suck because I don't know how to plant corn. You know, um, uh, somebody that lives in

Kansas or Iowa, if they went out and they plant, they know how to plant corn, but not just

a row of it. They'd know how to plant thousands of acres. Why? Because they've been trained to do

it. They know exactly what to look for. They understand the season. They understand crop

rotation. They understand irrigation, all of these things. So I'm taking us back into this industrial

thing by saying like, cause I'm a nerd about this and I, and I think about this a lot. I'm sorry. But,

um, Israel has performed a miracle in the last, uh, 70 years, 80 years, they've turned a desert into a,

um, into a, uh, a garden. And, uh, they are the leading, uh, uh, developers of, uh, agricultural

technology in the world. People are looking at tiny Israel going, how in the world do you do,

do you produce the amount of crops out of nothing? You know? So I think our, our metaphor takes one

step farther and say it's, it's definitely seed and soil, but then there's some crazy

Holy spirit given technique, you know, and development personally to go, okay,

when to plant, when to reap, when to till, you know, all of these things. Now I'm getting out of my

lead because I'm introducing, uh, and you know, implements and all that stuff. I think I'm about

to burn out on the agrarian thing other than to say, um, other than to say that, um, that for us in

our church, to answer your question, Craig, we've had to think about rapid development and, and Jeff,

I would love for it to be, you know, as, as utopian, as you made it sound where we all sit back and go,

what's good for you is what great for me with it. No, we're all scrambling to go. What are you doing?

I mean, I'm on the phone the week of COVID going, okay, you got it with, with multi-site churches

everywhere going, okay, it's multi-site now dead. What do you think? You know, because everybody,

everything contracted, we all went mono-site again. Let me just let that sink in. We all went

mono-site and it was through, through device, you know, so now we're having to like, think about,

okay, now we go multi-site again and you know, 40% of the people or less show up, you know, that kind of,

that kind of thing. Praise the Lord that they do. But what I'm trying to say is development in,

in us has really led the, led the way to, uh, I'm hoping for, for new fruit. And I think it's not an,

it's not an development is not industrial. There's, there's just development that's real organic too,

that we've got to embrace, you know, as, as leaders too. I know that's like, so philosophical and,

you know, meta, but again, that's, that's trying to tie some, some bows, you know, on what we're all

talking about. So. Yeah. I, I would go back to, um, Carlos, your comment about, you know, um,

I gotta go find that Willard quote. I think I've heard it. Absolutely. The weight of, uh, versus the

number, uh, it works in, I grew up in the Napa Valley. So part of my wine thing is, you know, I, I grew

up around grapes, didn't farm them, but I grew up around them and, um, a huge harvest in a, you know,

grape concept is not necessarily a good thing because it matters how good they taste.

Right. And so I think that's got to be like what you were saying, Carlos, it's not one or the other.

Somehow I think it's got to become both and right. It's not going to do me any good if I can grow the

perfect single vine of grapes and make one bottle of wine. That's the best wine anybody's ever had.

What, what, you know, what good is that? You know, you know, 10 people get a little teeny sip of it,

right? What's the good, we make one perfect disciple. That's not the point, right? And so it's not just

about quality, but at the same time, if somehow I figure out how to double the output of that vineyard,

right now I'm getting twice as many grapes, but the wine that it makes tastes terrible,

nobody's going to want it. Nobody's going to drink it. Well, what was the point of doubling

the size of the vineyard? I've just made more junk. Um, and so that, that's, and I think that's what

somehow our metrics lack. And I think part of the industrial piece is we want to count things.

How do you count discipleship? How do you, how do you count that a person is thinking, acting, talking,

you know, more like Jesus in their daily life? That, that is not an easy thing to quantify. And I think

sometimes because it's difficult, we've just defaulted to let's count the things we can count.

That's right. Right. But that's not giving us the answer to the question. It's not letting us know

whether what we're doing is really being fruitful. Yeah. I mean, is, is there a piece of this where

we're trying to figure out the balance and I don't want to oversimplify this? Um, you know,

utopian being what it is, but is it quality? Is it, is it quantity? Is it the quality of the

discipleship? Is it the multiplication quantity of what the disciple making system provides? Like what,

what is that balance look like for us moving forward? Event-based evangelism is waning. We need

to figure out how to empower, how to equip, how to multiply in that space. So what, how, how do we

measure that tension, even just between quality and quantity, like Craig was alluding to?

So I'll speak to that just briefly. I think we, the word immersion has come up, not just because

we're Baptist, but the word has come up in the last, um, the last little bit where we are, if we,

if we take this environments where people fall more in love with Jesus thing out, we,

we've really got to raise this word up in our meetings and our thinking. Um, uh,

we had a very immersive experience pre COVID. Um, what, what are we going to do now that's going to

provide an immersive experience, uh, post COVID or in the middle of it? I mean, this, this idea of immersion

of saying, okay, it's not just the, the gathering part is not just the, is the only immersive element

that we are trying to advance. It's, it's something, uh, it's, it's something completely different.

So you've got the digital, you know, aspect of, of everything that it's going. I don't have that,

all of this worked out in my head, but I'd love to hear from you guys. I think if, if we said,

okay, immersion is the question now, what do we do? You know, if churches went, okay, how can we do

immersion in everything gospel and everything Jesus to our people? How are we going to go about doing

that? You know, I think that's an interesting question. Hmm. What do y'all think

in the context of, you know, what my understanding, Steven, in the context of, um, being, uh, immersion,

being immersed into the life of, of, of the church? I mean, how, how, how do we even measure

what that looks like? Is that, uh, is that, uh, you know, recently we just did a podcast on, uh,

knowledge-based, uh, discipleship versus, uh, obedience-based discipleship, knowledge-based

discipleship. Ricky Bailey is a link somewhere, but the heart of it is come to the buildings,

grow deeper in that Christ. And so the immersion within the, the Christian culture, within the

church, within the discipleship is more of, of that knowledge base, you know, that, and honestly,

that's getting back to this quality, uh, level. So the quality of my spiritual identity is how I'm

measuring successfulness of the church. Whereas the, you know, another aspect would be, uh,

obedience following the commands of Christ. Christ commanded us to, to go and share.

And so the quality of the discipleship, isn't the depth as much as it is the depth of an individual,

as much as it is. And I don't want to make it about numbers, but the breadth of our, of our disciple

makers and how we're, we're multiplying pre COVID. I would at least say, I think that there was,

and I may be overstating, correct me if I'm wrong. I think there was more tension, more energy, um,

towards the idea of engaging with individuals at a deeper level and not necessarily more individuals

at, at a deeper level, but not necessarily this multiplication piece. Are you seeing any pendulum

shifts? Craig, you opened up talking about movements. Do we need to adjust and, and move towards, uh,

a movement piece? What, what are y'all in thinking about maybe this idea of depth versus breadth?

I think ultimately it's both. And I think that's the tension that we have to figure out

how to manage it. You know, it's, you can, it is, um, you know, breadth is more, is more disciples

better? Yes. Yeah. Depth is better. Disciples are, are better disciples better. Yes. It's not. So it's really not an either,

or there's a tension. I think we have not, overall, I would say we have not thought about

how do we measure the quality piece. And so we've defaulted to kind of over measuring the, the quantity

piece. And it's not that that needs to go away. It's just kind of over measured it. And so we've,

we've become unbalanced. We have to figure out how to kind of bring it back and let those things live in

and the tension they belong in. In my people movement metaphor, the way that I kind of say it is, you know,

if, if more people are taking more steps towards becoming who God wants them to be,

then we're being effective or fruitful, right? Because then both things are happening. There's more and there's

better. I think in most of our models, we don't have any way to measure or haven't even thought about

identifying what are the steps towards Jesus. And that's part of the problem. We're measuring a

program. So we're measuring, Hey, people showed up for this. That doesn't mean a person took a step

towards Jesus. It just means they showed up for a program. And so how do, how do we begin to think

about that? What are the, what are the evidence, evidences would be the, you know, that we could

look at that would say, this person is taking these steps towards Jesus. And so then we could really be

able to say, it's not perfect, right? We're never going to, you know, I can't judge any of your three,

you know, minds or hearts or souls. It's not my place, but there are things that if I, you know,

was in relationship with you, I would know, Oh, Stephen's doing this, that, that activity is

reflective of a person moving towards Jesus. Carlos is doing this, that activity is reflective of

moving towards Jesus. And if I had somehow thought those things through in a way that I could kind of,

you know, measure them, then I could say, all right, this, you know, this person's taking steps.

And if I could do that across a group of people, these people are taking steps. And ultimately,

that would give me a pretty good indication that we were being fruitful. It's not perfect. And it's

never going to be, I think that this might be the tension in our kind of American mindset. It's

never going to be a hundred percent accurate. I think that's part, like we can count the people

in the room. Cause like, we can tell all these people who are kind of like, you know, make sure,

you know, churches at large has gone, you know, like video and pictures and ways like to make sure

that we get the exact right number. You know, digital makes it super easy for us, right? You

know, the digital data comes in perfect. This is exactly how many IPs, and this is, you know, what

they were. The, the quantity side is never going to be that pure. It's never going to be that perfect.

But somehow we have to figure out how to include those aspects into our measures or we'll be content to

just run programs and not know whether or not we're actually making disciples.

the, uh, I love the fact that you said it's both and it's quantity. It's a quantity and quality. So our,

our hope is that it's up to up and to the right with quantity and quality, the fruit tastes sweet

and everything. The outputs are great. Um, uh, that's such, that's such great wisdom, Craig, uh, for us to

angle everybody towards. So for no, if we know that we're looking in that direction of, of height and

breadth, then we're in good shape. I think on the other side of the seed planted, um, I think their

church leaders are probably saying, okay, now what seeds do we plant? I don't want to take this analogy

too far, but I mean, so what do I do tomorrow? You know, what are some steps? What's the tending

that I've got to do in this garden tomorrow in order to, uh, make it through this thing? And I think

you'd asked me originally, what in the world have we done in our particular context?

We've had to reevaluate every piece of what we're doing. Even as late as yesterday,

our pastor is standing in front of our whole staff doing staff training going, what are we going to

cancel? What are we going to slide? What are we not going to plant anymore? Uh, we're going to put that

to the side and we're going to get more energy to this particular thing. We're going to plant more of

this in order to get, we hope more, you know, with, with, with the Holy Spirit's power, more of this.

And I think that might be, you know, uh, if we could come to, I know we're at 43 minutes on this

one, but if, man, if we came to some principles, you know, that, uh, that are universal and said,

okay, this, this, and this, uh, let's, you know, I think that that would be such as a handy thing.

Wouldn't you say though, Steven, I mean, I, there's an uncertainty. That's again,

we're really leaning into this. I'm here for, right. Just, you know, I don't know what's

going to happen after I plant a crop. I don't know if there's going to be a tornado or a flood

or a drought or like all of those things. And so all you can do is the best you can do in the

moment. But I think you're in that metaphor. I think what you're identifying is really good is that

I think a farmer does to the best of their ability, you know, look at the field, look at the

scene and say, all right, this in this season, this, that's right. I need to plant more corn and less

wheat. That's right. Right. Now you don't know until it gets to harvest season, whether that decision

was right. Now, you know, in, in our context, I think there's Holy Spirit that, you know, there's a

lot, you know, there's wisdom. There's a lot of things that can, can be a part of how we make

those decisions. I think the, the critical thing, and maybe this was your hit as

what are we using as the evaluation or the expected outcome of those decisions? Are we,

do we have a concept of, you know, what is the, the right kind of fruit of what, what do more and

better disciples look like? And if the reason we're doing that is because it is in the moment, the thing

we believe will have the best ability to be fruitful and make more better disciples, then all we can do

is go do it. Yeah. It's very frustrating, um, to our, you know, industrial, you know, control

kind of mindset, but it's really, it's really all we can do. Yeah. And so dude, you know, go ahead,

Steve. No, no, you got it, Carl. I was going to say that it made me, I think one thing that COVID exposed

is that we were really good at maybe doing the macro and environments. Um, we want to put people

through a process. Um, but I think part of the quality question has to be almost a return to being

excellent at the simple, small things. Can I, as a pastor, right? When's the last time I taught

somebody just to read the Bible, you know, like you got to pick up the phone and just have a regular

conversation and maybe be excellent at the small. How can I help, um, the person at the office, you know,

this whole faith and work movement. I think that there's something there too in equipping people in

their vocation, but it's like, how do you become excellent also in the small thing? And how do you,

how do you measure that? Um, I don't know. I think we there, I'm sorry. Was that a question to Craig?

Uh, go for it, Steven. So I, I don't have a direct answer to that, but that is exactly the line of

thinking, uh, you know, for, for us that I think maybe gets into the practical areas of things.

We realize some exposure as a mega church, a mega gatherer, whatever, you know, we don't ever refer

to ourselves as a mega church, but we, uh, we realized that our care systems needed some help.

We realized that our community systems needed some help. And the third C is our content systems

needed some help. Our content was all coming here. Maybe you'll get a webcast. Our community was

Sunday school. Our, our care was a pastoral care department that we kind of subbed it out to,

you know, whoa. So now COVID hit and we're like, okay, we've got to, we've got to, we need roots

to go deep in our care systems. Meaning just like you said, use the phone, begin to really, to really,

uh, uh, uh, uh, reinvent care for our people, uh, really reinvent what it means to then do distributed

model of, uh, of community, community groups over zoom and home groups and those kinds of things.

And then obviously as everybody said, our content, how do we disciple people virtually? I'm not just

talking about the, the weekend worship service or those things. And how do we read the Bible

together as a group? How, how do we deliver? Uh, we're not seeing each other physically. How do we

continue to deliver or deliver in new ways? Um, you know, just the, the, the basics, you know,

to our people. So those are like three things that we have, have attempted to in this last year and

that we're stressing with our, with our congregations is the win for 2021 is if you can get care systems,

right. And I don't mean systems like Craig and I have been talking about, I don't mean systems like

with cogs and wheels and pulleys and, you know, steel and rivets. I mean, systems like, uh, the

earth and lining it out and tilling and, uh, the right, uh, piece of equipment for the right field,

for the right time, the right irrigation system to do the care, do the community and do the content,

man, if we could keep nailing that, you know, we're going to, we've, we've got some great comments

coming in on that. And so let, let me throw some of these up here. Uh, Connie, simple,

small things mean the world to many people, especially at this time in, in, in isolation

and the church connecting with, with an individual, Eric, uh, Kidwell, uh, throwing in here. Uh,

it's got me thinking how we get through ratio of people shepherding the sheep as close to one-to-one

as possible. And so what, what I, what I love about this, Eric and Eric keeps talking here. Uh, I, I

wonder the best way to measure breadth depth is this ratio of shepherds to sheep or from farmers to crop.

Each person is a field, uh, in, in this metaphor. I, I, I love this approach because what you get here

is you're not measuring, uh, quantitative. Uh, you're really measuring once you get to that intimate

level. You're able to measure qualitative. Um, hey, yeah, let me, let me teach you to read the Bible.

Let me teach you how, and it goes from, um, you know, scalability and mass, but it goes to, uh, uh,

intimacy and, and, and depth. And what's interesting in the digital environment, you can use the digital

tool either way. You can scale and do the mega giga thing broadcast, or you can disciple at a one-to-one

level. The tool of digital adjusts either way. It's really how you as the sculptor are sculpting the,

the work of art that, that is your church. And that may be a bad analogy, but you can get kind of what

I'm hearing here. One last thing, Connie, uh, in the past church leaders have asked congregations what

they are doing. The church is the people, not the leaders. They have to be surveyed kind of like what,

what Eric was, was alluding to. So I listening and wrestling with this idea of

this one-on-on-one. Um, how do we, is that the solution? How, how do we get our, our church to

see that? What's, what are the holes? What do we need to watch for necessarily? What are the

challenges that our churches may be facing as we're getting into this, maybe this idea of more care on a

more individualized basis?

I think some of it is just shifting what we really see as, as the end, but like what, what does, what,

what is maybe the ultimate or the thing that tells us that a person is following Jesus? And I think,

you know, again, kind of, you know, and I'm not trying to be, you know, really prepared, but you

know, you know, are they a regular attender? Are they part of a group? Do they volunteer and serve?

Do they give? Well, like that's all about the program. I think one of the greatest things for us

us to look and say, is this person really all in with Jesus is, are they on mission with Jesus?

That's good. And so, you know, when Eric's are talking about, you know, that one-on-one part of

what that's telling us is that we've been effective in moving people who were once sheep to now be

shepherds, right? And that is a great indicator to us that whatever the process was, the process moved

that person from where they were to where God wants them to be because God wants them to become

a disciple maker. We know that. And so it becomes evidence of that. And so when we don't, when we

don't see that our systems aren't built for that, I think sometimes we put lids on people's development

because they've done the things we've asked them to do, but we haven't actually asked them the thing

that matters the most, which is to get on mission with Jesus and to identify, you know, what is the

soil that God's given them to farm and to go do that. That's really the, you know, the, the measure,

and that's the life cycle of the seed. We, I mean, we could, you know, easily go into all of that.

Yeah. So good.

Yeah. Connie seems to like that. Yes. Moving sheep to shepherds. Um, it's interesting,

you know, and, and honestly, I didn't think I'd have this conversation, but you know, I've,

I've talked a lot about through blogs and podcasts, this idea of churches platform and I'll type a link

in here, but it's this idea of, uh, Airbnb doesn't deem its success based off of how many hotels they

have, how much money they're generating, the quality of their product. Airbnb is a platform

and through the platform, it empowers others to, to do the work, to lease out their, their homes.

And Airbnb by platforming, instead of building, they've managed to make five times more money than

the top, or excuse me, they've managed to make more money than the top five hotel chains combined.

Uh, so they've been immensely successful off of helping others. I guess that the thing that I've

always looked at is what if the church would take that stance instead of building the, the, the services

and, and fine tuning the product. And I used to be the guy responsible for fine tuning that weekend

product. Um, what if instead we, we went towards more of a disciple making multiplication approach,

moving these, these sheeps to become the shepherds. And when I see churches that are doing

that in digital space, when we talk about that through the digital learning communities,

this idea of the churches platforming and empowering people with their, to define their

farmlands and start telling those fields physically and or digitally. I don't know, like I see those

churches being successful in, in this season and the idea of multiplication and reaching maybe a

different type of person that comes into the building. Like I see that model being successful.

Um, it's so good. What, what, what thoughts about this idea of, of multiplication here, uh, moving sheep

towards, towards shepherds is, is that the ultimate metric? Are, are we measuring other kind of stop

gaps along the way? What, what would that measurement look like?

I think to use our metaphor, it's the moment where we, where the, the disciple takes up the tools

and begins to farm, you know, uh, for themselves, you know, to Craig's point, I think there's that

magic moment that the Holy Spirit provides where the person owns the thing, you know, and, uh, they

begin to till soil. So, um, we, to, to church's platform, um, I think that's the, you know,

one of the largest conversations that we've, we're having today, you know, is how can we, uh, uh,

how can we, uh, let me figure out how to say this, how can we, um, create an immersive environment

outside the local one, you know, one, one, one or two services on a Sunday morning kind of,

kind of a thing. What, where, where are we going to meet people where they are most of the time and

that's on their device? Um, where are we going to, um, uh, provide the, uh, platform to use your,

to use your spot or the, the, uh, it, the environment where people can interact,

you know, in discipling, uh, you know, or, or what can we use? It's already out there

to get people in environments where they can disciple, you know? I mean, that's just,

if you would have told me that's a year ago that, you know, 8 billion people would have learned how to

use zoom, you know, in a week, you're like, what? That's incredible. You know, but it's,

how can we, how can we marshal those things? Whether it's the platform that we're on right now,

you know, I would love to be able to meet, you know, and do with three other guys and okay,

this is what we're doing weekly. You know what I mean? It's about getting the, these type of resources

in their hands and then handing them the, the shovel and going, turn some dirt. Let's go.

You know, I, yeah, I also think that, um, embracing the fact that it's always going to be complex and

it's going to be different and there's different ways to skin a cat. Um, I think it's totally okay

in the sense of there's different ways of making disciples and which is why I think self-awareness

is such a key part of planting. Uh, like dude, with the person you are and the gifts God has given

you and how he has shaped you, what's the most that you can do for God's kingdom? I think I had to

realize at some point that I'm like, dude, you know what? I'm not Alan Hirsch, you know? And like,

I'm not, that's not how God providentially has shaped my experiences, my character and competencies.

And it's okay for me not to be this kind of leader, you know, but I am totally okay. And excited for

instance, about dude, what, uh, Casey underground is doing the micro church movement. There's so much

to learn from that movement. And yet at the same time, I know that I'm like, okay, God, like, um,

um, I, I need to have those moments of self-awareness in terms of men. Is that what I'm supposed to be

doing? Is that what you've called me to do? And I think it goes back to that obedience piece of like

my being obedient and trusting you in that not excusing, right? So it's not, it's not making an

excuse for, let's say, uh, gaps in disciple making, but realizing that in order to reach a city,

it takes a lot of different kinds of churches that are going to meet different needs. And so I think

embracing the complexity and also investing in people's self-awareness, um, I think it's huge.

Yeah. Yeah. I think a big part, go ahead, Craig. I was just going to encourage you,

Carlos with that, because I think a big part of the faithfulness does flow out of the self-awareness,

right? Right. It's the, it's the parable of the talents, right? Right. What did God give you? And

the point is that, you know, the people that got the two and the five were faithful with what they were

given, right? The one who got the one wasn't. And so, but I think sometimes we only think of that in

the context of, okay, I shouldn't bury my talent. Well, one of the ways you bury your talent is by

trying to be somebody else's talent. That's good.

And instead of owning, no, this is what, you know, this is who God made me to be. This is what I know

I have gifts and abilities for. And so I'm going to be faithful with that. And I'm going to celebrate

what somebody else does. That's completely different than what I could do. I see that all the time with

our church. Like I could never do what that person's doing, but that, right. But I'm going to celebrate

that because that's who God made them to be. And, and they're being fruitful by being faithful.

There's a piece of self-awareness that I think there's also a piece of faith to trust that what

God gave me is enough to do what God wants me to do. Yeah. Amen. Come on.

Yeah. I honestly don't know that we can add anything else to that, that conversation that,

that, that was a beautiful point to end. Um, yeah, you know, honestly, the, the heart of this was not

to solve the problem as much as to start the conversation. And so hopefully in this context,

audience, podcast listeners, YouTube people, whatever you've now got an opportunity to have

this conversation, uh, within your leadership to quote Carlos, there's more than one way to skin

the cat. I hate cats and do want to skin them. Uh, and so, you know, there have been some things

coming in, uh, about, you know, Connie's talking about clubhouse. Definitely want to do that.

Somebody else on Facebook is saying, Hey, uh, a carpenter is very skilled at tools. We need

training to help us understand how to do the skills. Uh, so cool. Uh, uh, Eric is saying this, uh,

what tools are the sheep lacking? That's holding them back from being shepherds. Some of that,

that training piece. Hey, the good part is you get to figure this out with your churches. So

dig into this conversation. The beta part of this is you get to experiment. You get to have this

conversation. You get to figure out how to do this within your environment. So it's been an awesome

conversation. Ray had to drop out. He was having some bandwidth issues. Uh, but for it was at the

beach. What are you talking about? Yeah, he technically was in a parking garage. Uh, I think

he was, he was commuting back and forth. It's okay. Um, but for, for Ray, who's not here for Craig,

for Steven, uh, for Carlos, uh, this is Jeff with the church.digital and Stadia church planning. Uh,

this has been an awesome time. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time here at the beta show.

Y'all have a good day. Thanks for the invitation, Jeff. Thanks. Oh, my pleasure. We're going to

have to do this again. Definitely sometime soon. Thanks everybody. See you, man.