Transcript of Podcast by Multiply Network

 Created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple- 

making communities across Canada

2018 – Jared Siebert

Paul Fraser:  Welcome to the Multiply Network podcast, a podcast created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple-making communities across Canada.

Hi there.  Welcome to the Multiply Network podcast.  Thanks for jumping in here on episode #4.  We’re rolling them out once a month.  Thanks for taking time to listen to them.  We’re excited about today’s interview with Jared Siebert.  He is the Church Planting Director for the Free Methodist Church.  And if he wasn’t busy enough doing that, he decided to start a network for church planters and multipliers that welcomes all denominations to start new conversations, create new ideas and talk about the future of the church in Canada.  He has done a lot of research on culture and trends.  So New Leaf Network - if you haven’t heard about it, you will want to check it out.  They have a podcast every month.  They are doing some great things in Canada.  You are going to love the interview with Jared Siebert.  He’s coming up right now.

Q.  We are really excited today to have a new friend to the podcast, Jared Siebert.  Welcome to the Multiply Network podcast.

Jared Siebert:

A.  Thank you very much for having me.  I am excited to be here.

Q.  I’m glad you are happy to be here because we’re going to talk about some pretty important things; church multiplication in Canada.  But you have started up a fairly new network called New Leaf Network so we’re going to get into that.  But why don’t you tell us a little bit about what keeps you busy during most days? Where do you work?  Where do you live?  Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself.

A.  Sure.  Well, I live in Saskatoon.  I have lived here for about 7 years.  I grew up in Ontario.  My day job, so how I earn my living, is I’m the Church Planting Director for the Free Methodist Church. So I have a national role with that church.  But I am also, as you said, the Executive Director of the New Leaf Network, which is a fully volunteer position on my part so I’m a little bit of a bi-vocational person.  A lot of what I do there is help keep us organized and moving forward.  I have an amazing team of people behind me who believe in what we’re doing, so much so that some of them are even raising their own support for the privilege of doing work for us.  It’s a totally amazing thing that I stumbled into.  I had never had any intention of starting a church planting network.  But I did start a podcast!

Q.  I was just going to say, you did do a podcast.  And for our listeners out there it is called New Leaf podcast.

A.  The New Leaf Project.

Q.  The New Leaf Project.  So you want to check out that podcast.

A.  Yes, yes.  It’s a pretty sizable collection of stories about people who are just starting new things in Canada.  I think that is probably one of the most important things we can be up to right now.  Honestly, this is why I give my time to it because it is what I believe we have to be on about at this stage in the life of the church.

Q.  So you do church multiplication for the Free Methodists but you broadened it out to the New Leaf Network, wanting to bring in several tribes, several groups, a bit of a coalition of the willing.  Correct?

A.  Absolutely.  At this stage in our life here in Canada as Christians, as the church, just this whole Lone Ranger go-it-alone stuff is just not going to work anymore.  So I have recognized that.  Lots of others of us have recognized that and we’ve banded together around our need for each other.  So it’s a very beautiful group of people I think the world of.  I think that is a beautiful thing to be able to tell people.  We need each other.

Q.  Yes.

A.  And not be ashamed of needing each other.  I think it generates so much great stuff.

Q.  Yes.  And if I could do a plug for you, I am holding up a book.  I know our listeners can’t see it.  I got your book.

A.  Wow.

Q.  I got your book.  It is on my summer reading list.  It is called Gutsy: (Mis) Adventures in Canadian Church Planting.  Did you want to do a little plug for that?

A.  Oh sure, absolutely.  I’ve been a part of church planting for probably twenty or twenty-five years.  I had a number of friends who came up kind of at the time that I did and there was a bit of a wave of church planting in Canada.  A friend and I did a documentary on that in 2007 called One Size Fits All.  We just kept having conversations about where were these church plants at because they were really unique.  They were doing something brand new.  They were what I call pioneer church plants so not only were they trying to plant a church, they were trying to plant a new kind of church.  My buddy Joe, who was really the brains and brawn behind that documentary ---

I kept saying Joe, we’ve got to tell this story, like a follow-up.  What happens to these church plants over time?  How do they continue?  What is the difference between one that continues and one that doesn’t?  He was saying no one is ever going to watch a documentary like this.  No one is ever going to want to be on camera.  Well, he was right about one thing.  A number of the people that were a part of this story didn’t want to be on camera because some of their stories were painful.  So I wanted to tell the truth about what it means to plant a church at this time in Canada.  I interviewed people and I just started asking questions about what makes the difference between someone who continues in church planting in the long term and someone who is not able to, their project changes or ends in some way.  That’s what the book is about.  I am so grateful because our older brothers and sisters in the Spirit and in Christ have bared their souls and they are giving us a gift of truth, authenticity and telling us what it is really like.  So I just consider it to be a gift to a new generation of planters to say hey, if you are going to go out there and try something new, we want you to do that.  We don’t want to discourage you from doing that.  We are cheering you on.  But learn from our lessons.  Learn from the things we did right.  Learn from some of the things we maybe didn’t get so right.

Q.  I love the fact that it is Canadian content.

A.  Yes.  That is actually one of the keys to where the New Leaf Network came from.  I’m passionate about helping Canadians understand their life and Canadian Christians to understand what it is that is going on in our country.  Not to be a protectionist, not to be exclusive, but I truly want Canadians to begin telling their stories.  Because we’ve got something to offer, not just each other, but we’ve got something to say on the global stage.  So, I want to encourage people to do that and say yes, I’m very proud to have written a book about Canadians for Canadians and really the content is Canadian.  So that for me is really exciting.  That is what we strive for in the New Leaf Network as well.

Q.  Yes.  Thanks for doing that; capturing some of these stories. That’s what we’re trying to do at the Multiply Network.  We’re just a couple of months old but we are really wanting to champion church multiplication.  So if you are interested in getting a great book on Canadian church stories.  It is out there.  It’s called Gutsy (Mis) Adventures in Canadian Church Planting.

But why don’t you unpack a little bit what the New Leaf Network is to our largely-PAOC listening base?  What is the New Leaf Network?

A.  I think the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada is a group of people I have a deep and abiding connection with.  Just in my own personal history I have spent lots of times in Pentecostal churches, engaged in profound moves of the Holy Spirit.  That is my heart beat and I am deeply resonant with that.  My wife grew up Pentecostal.  My father-in-law is Pentecostal.  He is a minister in Atlantic Canada.  He eventually moved on to work at 100 Huntley Street.  But I have a deep resonance with people who pay attention to what is the Spirit doing, where is the Spirit going and how can we get involved in it.  That’s really where the New Leaf Network came from.  The Spirit is up to something.  Yes, the church is in a lot of trouble.  Yes, we are falling behind.  Yes, we have to do some changing and we have to screw up our courage and start doing some new things in some new ways.  But the beautiful thing is the Spirit never abandons us to that, never leaves us alone in that and the Spirit is raising up people right out of Canadian soil, right out of Canadian churches and they are doing brand new amazing things.  Part of what we’re here to do is just tell each other: Something good is going on.  Hey, pay attention.  People are doing this.  You may be worried that we’re not doing it fast enough or soon enough, all of those things.  But the beautiful thing is, actually that something is going on in our country.  It is specific to us.  It is built by us.  It is in partnership with what the Spirit is calling us to in our neighbourhoods, and that is something you can get involved with.  You don’t have to be, maybe, the most fearless church planter-type person.  You can get involved with this in all kinds of ways.  

So where the New Leaf Network came from, as I mentioned before, it came out of my own sense of need.  I’m a leader of a small denomination of about one hundred forty congregations and I can’t do everything on my own.  I’m partnered with lots of small denominations, lots of big denominations, and even the big ones are finding they can’t do it all on their own either.  So, in this stage, with the Spirit up to something beautiful, with the Church needing to change and respond to what is happening, we’re either going to turn on each other or turn toward each other.  I prefer the latter.  I want us to turn toward each other.  I want to say: hey, what are you learning, what do you know and how can we share it.  So, the New Leaf Network and where it came from - it was born out of need; it was born out of what we saw already happening.  It wasn’t begging something to happen.  It was paying attention to what was already going on and we’re just all about helping the Canadian Church find new leaders, find new potential and start a kind of new kind of conversation.  That’s basically what we’re all about.

Q.  And you have added to it some training, some assessment, workshops  You are providing resources, looking at different models of ministry.  Maybe talk a little bit about that kind of stuff that practically can affect our PAOC planters?

A.  So, you know, if we take new leaders, new potential and new conversations as, the sort of, 3 things that we’re about - The new leaders thing requires us to nurture and support the people who are already out there.  That is actually a missing piece for a lot of denominations.  Sometimes the people that God calls into the mission aren’t necessarily always the people we would pick.  But I’ve noticed God is in the habit of doing this.  Moses was not a great public speaker.  Gideon was a terrified person.  But God calls the unlikely and the unprepared often to do things.  So sometimes denominations aren’t really good at noticing some of the kinds of potential that we have.  So we’re all about nurturing and supporting those people.  So we’ve got Made in Canada training, called a Design Shop.  We help planters think through what is this thing.  How do I define it?  How do I gather people around it?  How do I pull it off?  And then how do I maintain it once it’s out there and operating?  How do I change and mutate and adapt to what I’m experiencing? 

The other thing we are trying to change right now and we’re just in the middle of it, the very beginning stages, we’re trying to change how denominations assess who a church planter is.  One of the big challenges out there is that a lot of the assessment programs that denominations have built --If your listeners don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to church planter assessment, all that is meant to do is say a person puts up their hand and says I think I might want to be a church planter and then a group of people come around and we say yes, we think you have the skills and abilities to do it--But one of the challenges we have is when the church is faced with a brand new reality we’ve never walked through before, one of the big assumptions we can no longer make is: We know what kind of churches work. That’s where the challenge is, right?  You can grow a church by just being in competition with other churches and if you just have a better Sunday morning experience, make the preaching better, Christians are going to join your church.  That is still a functional way of planting a church.  

But in my opinion that does nothing for what the Church is actually facing in these next twenty years.  So we have to be about the mission.  So if you want to be a mission-oriented church that is going to involve a level of experimentation we’re not used to.  So, if the assessment system is only designed to detect who is a great speaker, who can organize a church that Christians want to go to, those are all the wrong questions.  New Leaf is trying to redo how we think assessment should be.  We are not going to fit you into a box.  We’re not going to come in with a predetermined model of what works.  What we’re going to do is invite you and your community to listen to the voice of the Spirit.

Q.  We had a conversation a couple of months ago that one of the things that you are looking for is discerning calling.

A. Yes, yes.  100%.  100%.  The most important thing you can have, the most important thing I can argue with as a leader in the Canadian church, is if you are going to go out there and take the risk to plant, the thing you have to have iron clad in your mind, you have to have crystal clear in your mind: Am I called to do this?  That is the only way you are going to survive the challenges that lie in front of you.  No matter what kind of church you plant, it is going to be a challenge.  So I want to arm you with that.  I want to get you with people who listen to the Spirit and who will listen on your behalf, and I want you using your community and I want you praying, saying ‘God, what are you doing?  What do you want me to do?’  And then developing a deep confidence that you have heard, and you are going to step out and do whatever God is asking you to do.

Q.  That is something, for me, that in my new role here - I asked a friend of mine, a close friend, ‘hey what is it going to be like working at a national level for church multiplication?’  He didn’t tell me.  Why aren’t you helping me out?  He goes ‘No, I’m going to ask you this question first.  Tell me how you know you were called.’  I have come back to that conversation over and over and over again and I know for certain I am supposed to be where I’m at for that reason.  It hasn’t been easy.  I have been walking through difficulties.  

So, when you said that about how you’re building that - and I know it is brand new and you are still working it through - but nailing down that calling piece is absolutely huge.

A.  To me it is priority one.

Q.  Yes.

A.  And one of the things that I think makes the New Leaf Network unique is that we want to be a planter-centered Movement.  So denominations often hope that planters will serve the needs of the denomination and I believe that they do anyway.  But my goal is to not have planters jumping through all of my hoops, but for me to jump through theirs and please them, serve them, nurture them, support them.  They are my number one priority.

Q.  Yes.

A.  So, if I can build a system that preferences the needs of planters, I’m going to do it. And that’s what I’m trying to do with the discernment piece, for sure - and all the other things we do to support them.

Q.  You talked about the third piece of that conversation: Starting Conversations.  The New Leaf Network is about starting different and new conversations that maybe other groups aren’t talking about.

A.  Exactly.  So, the way we do that; we do that through events.  So right now, we are touring in Canada this thing where we’re focusing in on the ‘Nones’, the religious ‘nones’.  That is an emergent priority in Canada.  That is a growing group of people.  That is the fastest growing religious designation in the country.  Twenty-five percent of Canadians, that’s on average - and it is as high as 44% in BC.  When you go from east to west in Canada, it is more and more people say they have no religion.  Instead of freaking out about that or getting mad about that, I want to understand that.  I want to know what is facilitating that, what is creating that, what is making the secular mindset a more attractive way of looking at the world than what we are presenting through the gospel? And not only from a marketing standpoint, just because I’m a missionary and I care about the people I have been sent to. If you care about the people you have been sent to, you care about how they think.  You care about what makes them tick.  So that’s something we’re taking across the country.

Honestly Paul, I can’t believe the response that we’re getting.  It has been absolutely incredible.  I’m super excited.  And we’re trying to bring in the best information, so we’ve got two Canadian sociologists, a Canadian historian, and then myself, who have done a lot of work and a lot of research on evangelism.  So that is one conversation we are starting.

We’ve got a blog.  As I mentioned before, we have a podcast.  We are also looking to start a Canadian publishing company, a publishing company that is not there to make money - because there’s really not a lot of money in Christian publishing.  But to put out books that Canadians will read by Canadians for Canadians.  That’s really important, because we have to continue to deepen our sense of each other and what is going on.  Because there are things in Canada that are totally new.

Like for instance, in the US, their politics is a blood sport.  Their way of having public discourse is very rough, it is very aggressive and it is very punchy.  And guess what, their irreligious folks emulate that basic component.

Whereas the religious ‘nones’ in Canada are not nearly as aggressive, not nearly as interested in debate or having a fight or even trying to convert you to their way of thinking.  So, what the Church in Canada faces is not a fist fight with our neighbours.  It is more what I call the culture of ‘meh’.  Like ‘oh, I don’t know.  I don’t care.  It’s not important.’

Q.  Yes.

A.  So that’s what the Church has to overcome. The other thing I think we have to pay attention to is a lot of times Canadians don’t think they have a culture.

Q.  Um-hmm.

A.  And that is absolutely not true.   My perfect example, my favourite example is Target came and went inside of 2 years.  They did not make it.  They are a massive American institution.  That is a bullet-proof plan that they have.  They rolled in, and they didn’t survive because they didn’t know they were somewhere different.  I notice Canadians making the same mistake, pretending we are very, very similar to the US.  We are not.  In so many important ways, we are not.  And we just have to begin taking ourselves a little bit more seriously; our story, our culture and our unique history.

So those are the kinds of conversations we need to do a better job of servicing and celebrating and pointing each other towards.

Q.  Right.  So those are some of the cultural trends and conversations that are happening in the New Leaf Network?

A.  Yes, absolutely.  The other thing we are really dedicated to is doing real Canadian research projects.  This year what we’re working on is bi-vocation ministry.  So yes, there have been books written by our neighbours south of the border and they are very helpful books.  They are very important books.  But we want to look at what makes Canadian experience of bi-vocation ministry different.  Our economy is different.  What kinds of jobs are available are different.  The way our churches function, what our culture expects how we do things, all that is different.  So we want to do that kind of thing.  So we’re just kind of going out there.  We’ve got some folks, some PhDs, who are helping us steer our energies.  We’re doing something that is academically consistent and informed.  And we’re just going out there and saying, ‘Hey Canadians, tell us about what it is like to do bi-vocation ministry.’  We’re going to take that information out on the road. We’re going to create some conversations around that.

I would like to do more on what happens to the planters’ families.  Things I kept noticing time and time again in the writing of my book was that sometimes the planter was ready to try again.  Yes, maybe it didn’t work or maybe Yes, it did work, but I’m tired.  And you know there is such an important trend here where maybe the husband wasn’t ready to replant or the wife wasn’t ready to replant or I couldn’t put my kids through that again.  I want to figure that out.  Because if planters can’t manage their life and their family and they can’t come back and try it again, we’re really losing out on a vital source of innovation in our country.

Things like that.  I want to do all kinds of research going forward.  And that’s something else we take very seriously.  So we think about questions.  We want to hear your questions and then we want to do something about those questions - Get out there, ask the questions, think through what are the principles and then bring that back to each other.

Q.  Love that.  Absolutely love that.  The health of planters’ families is so critical to the success of the church. When you’ve got your kids and your wife or your husband onboard when you are planting ---

You have to have them onboard and you can’t be burning them out.  You can’t be burning out.  Those are all really good conversations, Jared, really important.

A.  I am excited to get started doing that.

Q.  So Canadian culture, I don’t know if you call yourself a missiologist or whatever.  But you spend a lot of time studying the culture and where we’re headed, even in the next twenty years you are thinking and forecasting.  Where do you see church multiplication addressing cultural needs in Canada?  And where do we fit?

A.  There are obviously the things that make Canada distinct that we have to do a bit more work to begin understanding those.  Because again, in the Canadian mindset we have no culture.  That is just not true.  The other thing I think we have to start paying attention to is the way in which regions play such a huge role in what is going on.  Like if Canada is one nation of many nations ---

Saskatchewan is very different than the GTA.  It is very different from Edmonton, in Alberta, and Calgary and the rest of Alberta.  It is very different from Vancouver, Winnipeg or anywhere else.  So, when we pay attention to those things, that stuff really, really matters.  So, what we have to start doing is getting dialed into: Who are Canadians; What do they need; What are their starting points. What are their starting points for this conversation about God?  But then to also harnessing, to recognize the actual potential that church planting is.

Q.  Right.

A.  Church planting represents a possibility to do church in a way that is brand new, a way we’ve never seen before or tried before.  That opens us up to dependence on the spirit.  It opens us up to new possibilities and the beautiful thing is if established denominations can create room inside of themselves for experimentation, and even failure ---

That’s key.  You can’t experiment if you can’t fail.  So, if we can be permission-giving groups and we can provide stability and support to our experimenters, our experimenters are going to find brand new ways of living out this old, old story.  Ways we have never thought of; ways we have never heard of; ways we have never seen.  And it is together – that, to me, is the major piece going forward in the next twenty years.  If denominations can get this right, if we can do the stability piece but be permission-giving; giving stability and nurturing stability, supportive stability, and we can give people permission to really go out there and push into the fringes of our culture; give them permission to experiment; really give them permission to fail.  If we can do those things well together, I see tons of potential.  Because the Spirit is already bringing this about.  It is just a matter of whether you, as a pastor, are going to get involved or you, as a denominational leader, are going to get involved.  The Spirit is not waiting for us, is not waiting for our permission.  The Spirit is already in charge of the church.  He doesn’t need you or me to give it the thumbs up.  So, it is just a matter of: Do you want to catch up; Do you want to catch up on the wave of what is going on?

For me those are 2 keys to moving forward into the next twenty years.

Q.  I love that.  Permission-giving.  We’ve got to put permission back in the hands of planters and senior pastors that are leading healthy churches.  To see a community and go, ‘we need to have an access point to the gospel there’.  I think that is critically important.

And I think some of our planters and leaders, you know, are waiting on all this permission when it is already given.  I think some denominations out there are saying: ‘Yes, go. Experiment.’  But they’re going, “well, I don’t know yet if I have the permission.”  You have the permission.  Go! Try!  Experiment!  So that’s all really fantastic stuff.

Where do you see the PAOC and New Leaf having an intersection?

A.  I am excited about this as a chance to work together.  Can I just say my own experience has been - and I know it is the experience of many planters - my own experience of just starting a network: I kept waiting for someone else to do it.  I was frustrated by all kinds of things that we did to planters, said to planters, the hoops we made them jump through, the boring ways we would teach them how to do their job.  And I was frustrated.  I kept waiting for someone else to do it.  The thing that I had to learn, and most planters have to learn, is I had permission to start a network.  I just didn’t give myself permission to start a network.  I was waiting.  I was like, “God, do you give me permission?”  Yes.  “Friends, family, am I cool to do this?”  Yes.  “Do you think I can do it?”  Yes.  And I still kept waiting.  I still kept waiting.  I had to have a breakthrough in my life.

So, what I think is going to be really unique about the connection between New Leaf Network and the Pentecostal Assemblies is that I am a person of the Holy Spirit.  I have tremendous confidence in the power of the Spirit and in the ability of the Spirit and the leading of the Spirit.  I can tell you we were born out of prayer; we really were.

Q.  Right.

A.  I was at an event at a Missio-Alliance (?) in the US -- a classic Canadian thing going to the US to a conference to learn --

Q.  Right, right, right.

A.  I went to a workshop on failure because I’ll be honest with you, this group I was telling you that I came up with in the church planting world, like it’s really tough when 50% of your friends wipe out.  You thought you were going to making the march through life with them, 50% of them wiped out on you and some of them aren’t part of a church any more.  Some of them aren’t even part of the Christian faith anymore.  Honestly, I was feeling like a failure and I was looking at what was going on in Canada.  I was watching people who were attracting other Christians get celebrated as “successful” church planters.  I was frustrated because I lacked the courage to say yes to what I knew the Spirit was doing in me and I was feeling like a failure.

I was getting very frustrated.  People were calling us forward to pray.  If you need prayer, come forward.  I decided I wasn’t going to go forward.  That’s a genius rule.  Always resist the Spirit.  Right?  A ‘can’t fail’ maneuver.

Q.  Good.  Real good.

A.  I knew the people who were running the workshop and I made the Spirit a deal.  I said, ‘I am not going to ask for prayer, but these are my friends and I want you to get them to pray for me’.  I was so blown away, because over supper one of my friends in the weirdest, like ‘this is not an appropriate time to start a prayer meeting and laying on of hands’ ---

Q.  Yes, yes, yes.

A.  She just said, “I have an overwhelming sense I need to pray for you.  Can I pray for you?”

Q.  Wow.

A.  And I said yes.  And my life changed.  I was released from that burden and I was free to serve God.  

So when I say I’m a person of the Spirit, I owe this network and all the beautiful people I have met and all the beautiful things I have watched happen, I owe it to somebody who said yes ---

Q.  Yes.

A.  ---to a prompting they had.  They said yes to maybe feeling a little bit foolish. Like, ‘oh, I don’t need prayer’.  What are you, some kind of weirdo?  She took a risk and it paid off huge for me.  So I can’t wait.  I want to be around those kinds of people, ‘yes’ kinds of people, ‘yes God, what do you want’ kind of people.  People who listen, people who are willing to step out.  So I’m excited about that particular aspect.  I think we will inspire each other, I really do.

Q.  Yes.

A.  And I am truly excited about seeing what God is going to do in and through you guys.  Our whole thing is not the New Leaf Network comes in and we’ve got the answer to every question and we’ve got all this stuff.  Yes, we have some things to bring to the table but we get better every time someone brings their own unique thing to the table.

Q.  Yes.

A.  When Paul talked about the original Church he described it like a body.  He said some people are hands and some people are feet.  Oftentimes, when we apply that verse, we are just thinking about the local church. But I am convinced that is actually true between the denominations too.  There is something you guys do that all the other denominations sitting around our table don’t do.  There is some emphasis.  You are maybe a left hand and you are going to meet up with the right hand.  Or you are going to meet wrists and elbows and shoulders and arms.  Together we’re going to be something unique.  

Q.  Yes.

A.  So the idea that you guys want to come to the table and sit down with us; I don’t know what it’s going to look like when we get together, but it’s going to be awesome.  I just know that because I’ve seen it time and time again.  Every time a new denomination joins us they bring something brand new to the table that we never knew we needed.  Paul, we do.  So I’m excited to offer you a seat at the table, meet new friends you didn’t know you had and introduce you to other parts of the body and also to see what it is you guys are going to change about us by just being part of us.  That’s the part I’m really talking about.

Q.  As we have conversed as national leaders but also within that we’re creating as networks to help facilitate and champion church multiplication, provide resources, we’re doing very much of the same thing.  You guys are a bit farther down the road as it relates to training and assessment -- the Church Plant Design Shop; I’ve heard nothing but really great things about it.  So we recognize, too, that we need you.  You are offering something that we need and we’re grateful for all the networks that we are highlighting this month in the Multiply Network.  But I wanted to bring you on the podcast for you to share your heart, share your vision, introduce yourself as you travel across Canada.  New Leaf Network comes up and our PAOC guys go, ‘I’ve heard about that.  Oh, maybe I should go check it out, hear a podcast’.  So we’re just trying to get this introduction out there.

Thanks for sharing your heart on that.  I want to give you the forty-five second elevator pitch.  What do you want to say to the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada leaders and those who are like-minded listening to the podcast today?

A.  The first thing I want us to say together is ‘yes’.  The Spirit is already at work.  The Spirit is already calling people forward.  Something incredible is happening so let’s just say ‘yes’ and let’s say that together.  ‘Yes’ looks like all kinds of different things.  For some of us, it is going to be finally saying ‘yes’ to starting that new experiment, that thing I’m not sure about, the thing I might not know I have permission to do.  So if you’re listening to the podcast today and you’ve got a dream and you think it might be a little bit crazy and you’re not sure, I just want you to say ‘yes’.  Start something.  Take a step!  Take a courageous step on just saying maybe, maybe there’s something here.

To the established church pastors I would say ‘we need you’.   Planters need you.  Don’t feel that just because you are holding down the fort somewhere, or you are stabilizing, or you are growing or you are deepening, that somehow all of this church planter business is leaving you in the dust.  No way!  We need you.  We need your stability.  We need your kindness.  We need your prayers.  We need your support.  Sometimes we need your money.  Sometimes we need your encouragement.  We are going to need you in a hundred different ways we haven’t thought of, so I want to encourage those folks too.

The other thing I want to say is: Friends, if you pay attention to how God has moved through his people in the past when we’ve been up against it, we need to give dignity to the small.  The New Leaf Network is small.  Pound for pound we pack a pretty good punch but we are a tiny little group of people and we want to give dignity to other people who think small, too, who try small as well.  So, to my friends out there who might be listening to us, yeah, please by all means pay attention to join our conversation, get involved in a Design Shop, test what is the spirit saying to me and maybe come and join us for one of our discernment camps.  And lean in.  And also if you are doing something interesting, if you want to try something risky, listen to the stories we are telling and maybe consider being part of ---

Show up on our podcast.  I would love to have you on the podcast to talk about what is it like to be a denominational leader who starts something new in their denomination.  That would be exciting.  So, for me, it is we need to say yes, and if we can get there I think everything is going to work itself out.  It always seems to do that.  I am confident.

Q.  This is fantastic stuff.  And Jared, thanks for saying yes to this podcast, for being a part, and yes to the call of God on your life.  Man, there’s more things we could talk about, rural planting, I know that is in your heart.

A.  Absolutely.

Q.  Boutique shop planting and downtown urban core, all that stuff is in your wheelhouse.  So how can people reach out and get a hold of you?

A.  Right.  We have a website; newleaf.ca.  That is where the New Leaf Project lives.  That is where our blog lives.  That is where our event page is.  We’re going to be doing Design Shops in 2019 all across the country.  If you would like to just test your idea, that is a perfect way to do it.  And as you and I keep talking, we’re going to find a hundred other ways we’re going to be partnering together.  We’ll be there and I’m looking forward to forming deeper connections.  I think God is going to bless our unity.

Q.  C’mon.  Thanks Jared so much for being on the Multiply Network podcast.  I will include all that in the show notes.  

Have yourself a great day and rest of the summer!

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