Strategic Decisions for Church Health with Dale Sellers

In this engaging conversation, Jason Allison and Dale Sellers explore the importance of authentic friendships among pastors, the challenges of leadership, and strategic decisions for church health and growth. They share personal stories, insights on mental health, and practical advice for building resilient ministry teams.

Contact Dale about 95Network

Dale's conversation with Bob Hamp

Get Dale's book - Stalled

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Church Talk podcast today. It's just me, Rob. Currently, as we're recording, this is down in exponential in Orlando, Florida, having a great time party and, you know, all the things that Rob does. But I have a special friend with me today. I have with me Dale Sellers. He is the executive director of 95 Network. More importantly, he is a dear, friend of mine. And for the past six

Dale Sellers (00:15)
Thank

Jason Allison (00:31)
plus years. We have been friends. He's been on the podcast two times before. So this is his third time back, but it has been a couple of years actually since Dale you were you were on. realized, wow, we haven't we haven't chatted in a while. I almost feel bad about that.

Dale Sellers (00:45)
I thought it might have just been so bad before you just wouldn't have me back.

Jason Allison (00:48)
Well, you

had me on your podcast. so I always get confused as to, know, which day you do at just so everybody knows you do have a podcast, 95 network, 95 podcast. I'm sure you can find that at the same places that you find the Church Talk podcast. And we've we've shared, you know, each other's podcast before. So that'd be great. But Dale, man, thanks for coming on. I just thought, man, with Rob out of town, I just need a friend. Maybe we should.

Dale Sellers (00:52)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (01:14)
know, Conan O'Brien has a podcast that Conan needs a friend. Maybe I should start one. Jason needs a friend.

Dale Sellers (01:17)
Yeah. I think that's a

great idea. There'll be a lot of pastors that would probably tune into that because they need one too.

Jason Allison (01:24)
Yeah, yeah,

the more I travel, the more I finding that pastors need friends. And I had an interesting question. I wish I could remember the context now, but somebody asked, can pastors have friends in their church? know. ⁓

Dale Sellers (01:31)
Boy.

Did

that catch you off guard?

Jason Allison (01:44)
It didn't catch me off guard. guess what caught me off guard was the fact that they actually thought that you could have a friend in the church that was also in leadership or something because My experience I'm not saying ideally what it should be but I'm saying my experience is basically Yeah, you it's really really almost impossible to have a really trusted friend You know in your on your leadership team that you do life with regularly

Dale Sellers (01:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (02:12)
Would you agree or am I out in left field?

Dale Sellers (02:14)
I think,

no, I think what you're saying is exactly where we are. think it's sad that it is what it is. But, when, know, when you first made that statement, I'm like, that's, what I heard my whole life is, you know, Hey, know, and, even John Maxwell in the eighties addressed this because, you know, people would say, well, it's lonely at the top. John says, take somebody with you, you know, and I think the greatest is the greatest advice is to have, you know, your closest friends outside of your own local church. They can be in ministry. They can be in another church.

But when you start getting into the nitty gritty and all that kind of stuff, can, the wires can get crossed and things can kind of go south. But I'm not going to say it's totally impossible because there are some settings. I don't know, man. It starts off, a lot of things start off well. I'm not sure what happens down the road. So be cautious.

Jason Allison (03:01)
Yeah, that's true.

Yeah,

maybe the best advice in this is you can have friends within your church, and you should be relational with the people in your church. ⁓ But you also need a trusted friend that is outside of your ministry organization that you don't have to pastor in a vocational way. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (03:11)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, let me, I'll share the story with you and you've heard me

share this. don't think we've shared on your podcast, but you know, I had a place when I was pastoring. I'd been at my church for probably six, seven years and I wasn't doing well. Just on the inside. I was, I had some issues and you know, which led to me writing the book that I wrote, but I had some issues just on the inside where I just felt like I was a failure. And so I had these board members with me. and one specifically was a really good friend. mean, we fished together and hunted together.

You know, our families got together, we ate out and that kind of stuff. So we were close. And so I'm like, man, you know, they tell you, you're supposed to reach out and get help. You know, this is kind of like post promise keepers, but, so I thought, okay, I'll do that. And to precede this, I had joined like three different networks of pastors looking for relational support, friendship. And every time I joined a network, I'd end up leading it. And I'm like, I didn't join this to lead it, you know? And so.

Jason Allison (04:08)
Yeah.

Dale Sellers (04:14)
So I'd go, I take this guy to lunch one day. We're at, we're going to lunch. We're sitting there and I'm looking at him and I'll go, Hey, I just want to talk to you today about some things I'm working through. said, I haven't, I have no moral failure. I'm not leaving the church, but I'm just going through some, some difficult times. And as I'm talking, he puts his hand up in front of me and says, stop pastor. He says, I don't want to hear this. He said, my life is a disaster and I need your life to be perfect. So I don't want to know.

Okay. Well, I guess we just won't, we won't tell anybody anything. And so that's when I really kind of doubled it. It wasn't my, it wasn't my idea, but it just kind of doubled down. I guess this is the way things are. And so it's it, it, it, listen, man, if it's lonely at the top, get somebody with you. You know, no.

Jason Allison (04:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be. It may not

be someone from your church, I mean, I've shared this before. I've got two guys I meet with every Thursday morning for breakfast. it's start of a bad joke. I got a global Methodist and a Southern Baptist and a converged guy walk into a scrambler's. But we've done life together. there are times that because we're geographically close to each other and we understand each other's ministries and

Dale Sellers (05:10)
you

Jason Allison (05:17)
There's just something about being able to share, hey, I'm struggling with this and I don't have to worry about that getting out to the congregation or that being spun in some weird way because we have each other's back in that.

Dale Sellers (05:30)
So let me ask you this question. Could you tell them anything?

Jason Allison (05:33)
Yeah, you know, I think I could, honestly. I mean.

Dale Sellers (05:35)
Okay, all right good because because

I don't have many people in my life that I could do that with

Jason Allison (05:40)
Yeah, I mean, I guess probably I haven't had to. Yeah, we did. But no, it's good. I haven't had to. ⁓ would, know, Rob and I have become really close just in ministry together and so forth. And Rob and I are could share things in that way. And these guys, generally speaking, yes, you know, and we've they've been vulnerable with me and I've been vulnerable with them. So, you know, there is kind of a.

Dale Sellers (05:45)
We got into it quick, didn't we? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I have a motive for asking and it's because, know, I referenced promise keepers, you know, back, back in the day, it was like, you know, one of the things they do is everybody needs to be in accountability groups. And so, you you're supposed to get together with somebody and go to your favorite restaurant at six of the morning on the Tuesday, which I keep fathom that, but you do, you know, and you go and you spill your guts every Tuesday morning in the restaurant. And I'm like, I'm not doing that. Yeah. And here's why, you know, I got to know they love me.

Jason Allison (06:07)
We know where each other's bodies are hidden.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yep. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (06:36)
I mean, really love me. I don't mean

like me. mean, because if to trust a people when you've been in ministry, as long as I have, and as long as you have is a difficult thing because we've been so burned. And so, you know, I mean, I feel comfortable saying this to you, but I mean, I think can talk to you about anything because we've been together and we've, we've shared a lot of life stuff together, but just, there's just very few people that I believe in ministry.

Jason Allison (06:50)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Dale Sellers (07:05)
That you can really be that honest with. I, and I think, and you could dive into this too. I think it's because we've just been burned so much that every time you start trying a new relationship, you still smell smoke.

Jason Allison (07:15)
Yeah, well,

and I mean, some of it, too, is just the culture we live in. you know, like, you know, I feel the same about you and I have shared things with you over the years, you know, and and but you also live, you know, 12 hours away. And so it's not like we can do life together day after day after day. You know, we catch up often and talk often and, we have a prayer call every Monday morning, but that's on Zoom. So that's just different, right, than doing life together.

Dale Sellers (07:39)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (07:43)
day in and day out.

Dale Sellers (07:44)
I will say this too, I have Bob Ham. Bob's my counselor. Obviously I could tell him anything. and he's in Dallas, but, but I guess the point of us going here maybe is just to let people know, don't let the excuse that somebody's not next door keep you from at least develop these relationships. Cause if you and I, either one had a crisis, when I was the top on a plane and go there in a heartbeat. And when I had my, you know, almost drowning experience, you know, I, I'm, know,

Jason Allison (07:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. yeah.

Absolutely. Yep.

Dale Sellers (08:10)
I was on a plane to Dallas and sat on Bob's couch for a week and he cleared his schedule or not, you know, the whole thing, but he cleared it to work me in and he's booked up a year out. And so that's what friends do. And so he's my counselor. He's also my friend. and, and I'm much more whole today than I was 10 years ago. ⁓ and certainly much more whole today than I was beyond that. And it's because of those kinds of relationships, you know, where people, feel like you can really trust, you know, and I think it happened for me in 2014.

Jason Allison (08:15)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Mm.

Yeah.

Dale Sellers (08:39)
When I told Tony Morgan that I felt like a failure because he had never said that to anybody. And we're just, we're just on call. I'm calling him to find out things about how to, how to connect with churches. And it went, it went in a direction. And, and I just told him, I said, I feel like a failure, Tony. I thought I'd be there by now. And so that started opening my heart. But again, you know, I'd go back to even middle school when I, when I had a best friend who I told him something and you know, was, it was secretive and he blabbed it.

Jason Allison (08:43)
Right.

Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, I think as men, we're supposed to be the strong ones. We're supposed to be the stoic. You know, I mean, I I remember my dad. I'm standing at his workbench and I'm probably eight, nine years old, you know, and my dad basically saying, yeah, we don't show our emotions as men, you know, and that was the generation. No. No, he wasn't. That's the.

Dale Sellers (09:08)
And I was burnt, man. You know what saying?

Was he a pastor? Cause that's what it sounds like. That's what,

that's what we've been, I don't know, we've been taught it, but we certainly caught it. At least my deck, I'm older than you, but our generation has for sure.

Jason Allison (09:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting. I was reading something about Promise Keepers the other day. I wish I could remember the whole context, but they basically said, know, Promise Keepers actually set us up to to perpetuate this cycle of the of a patriarchal view where it's you you're only allowed to be vulnerable with two other guys at a restaurant at 6 a.m.

Dale Sellers (10:03)
Sure.

Jason Allison (10:03)
And you can only share about things that, you know, where you failed being manly. And so it kind of created this cycle of, but when I'm with everyone else, I have a I'm supposed to be the certain thing and kind of interesting.

Dale Sellers (10:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Promise promise keepers had a great effect on a lot of guys' lives, but I think they should have changed it into promise makers. Cause a lot of guys made lots of promises they didn't keep, know, and then, and then over time, you know, even some of the upper echelon leaders, their marriages didn't make it. I'm like, that kind of undermines you, you know, not being critical, not judging people.

Jason Allison (10:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, true.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (10:43)
But you know,

end of the day, you know, you're not going to listen to me talk about how to, you know, be married when my, you know, when your own marriage is not in great shape. So.

Jason Allison (10:51)
Yeah,

I've got a well, Matt Steen, he's been on the podcast. He's a it works with chemistry staffing. He's the president or founder of chemistry staffing. And he makes this statement every so often and he does it just to get a reaction. But that's kind of the way Matt is. He he says, he says, you know, I know I could never be a great church consultant because I'm still on my first wife. I'm like, I wish there wasn't so much truth in that, but.

Dale Sellers (10:57)
Mm-hmm.

That is.

Ha ha ha.

⁓

that stings a little bit. Well, he's an agitator anyway, so you know how he is. He has the gift of it.

Jason Allison (11:17)
Yeah, that's kind of one of those. man. But yeah, that's kind of. He is naturally. Yeah, that's just what he does. He does. It's a spiritual gift of agitation,

but that's why we get along so well, I guess. Well, so let me ask you this then in the context of this, know, I mean, I know over the last two years you and Gina have been through a time, some great, some terrible, you know, like it's just been an eventful. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (11:35)
Okay.

Jason Allison (11:43)
Because you, I mean, you literally built your house. And I mean, literally, as in you and Gina hung the drywall, laid the, you know, all the stuff, right? Because you're a builder. Not your generation, but you actually had the vocation of builder with your dad for a while.

Dale Sellers (11:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

grew up doing that. Yes.

Jason Allison (12:00)
Yeah,

yeah, and and that was you know, that's never an easy thing and it never goes smoothly I mean, let's be honest, right? That that's the that's the whole point. and But in the same breath, I know that you guys have joined a new a church in the last, year ish, and you love it and you know, you talk about it and the joy that you have in attending but you're not on staff, you know, you're just you are just a member there's

Dale Sellers (12:20)
Amen.

Yes, I am.

Jason Allison (12:25)
And so I'm just curious in the midst of that. And now you're in the middle of developing kind of a renewed vision for 95 network. And it's not like we're announcing anything today. It's just you're in the middle saying, OK, hey, it's time to look into the next chapter. What's going to happen in the midst of all that? What are you learning about yourself?

Dale Sellers (12:32)
Mm-hmm.

Uh, I'm learning how old I am. We, we, know, we built, I'm 63. We built the house basically when I was 61. And what happened was, I mean, I had a, I had a friend, I had no intentions of doing any of the work. And I had a friend that, uh, that I had worked for many years ago and I hired him to do it within, and I thought he had a crew.

Jason Allison (12:47)
Hahaha.

Dale Sellers (13:08)
He didn't have a crew. So me and him did, you know, we, we framed the walls and put up the trusses and, every now and then a couple of other friends would come help us do stuff. But I mean, I literally, there were days I was cheating the roof for those who know what that is by myself. So I'd have to take, I had scaffold set up and I'd take a piece of plywood and set it up on the scaffold and then get up and pull it up and then get up and lay it then go back down and get another one. And I'm 61 years old. And so, you know, the, the shocking part of us building our house was, is

You know, I got my builder's license when I was 18. So I've been around building my whole life. I was shocked at what it cost. And we borrowed, we borrowed at the most money that we could borrow that we were comfortable borrowing, probably that the bank would have loaned us. And then after doing that, it was just like, my goodness, what happened? it costs so much. We didn't have enough help. It was just all these different things that happened. And I got very, very tired. You know, I got, I got.

Jason Allison (13:41)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (14:02)
Yeah.

Dale Sellers (14:04)
I've said this many times, the biggest mistakes that I've ever made in life were when I was exhausted. When I just, to quote my friend, Kevin, when my, my give a darn got broke, you know? And, so I was really guarding against that, but you know, the problem was we got into it and we had to finish. You can't just go, well, I'm almost got the house done. We're just going to stay in the apartment. We're in for another year and not worried about you got to finish. got a loan. And so we did all, we did all that work and dude,

Jason Allison (14:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dale Sellers (14:31)
It was rough, but, but you you mentioned the church we're going to, I've known this pastor for probably 25 years and he and his wife, they are the most pastoral couple I've ever met. mean, they're just so loving and kind. And so just going to church and sitting week after week, after week, the Lord just, it was like every service was for me. Just healing this, healing that, healing this, feeling that all that kind of stuff, you know? And so,

Jason Allison (14:53)
Hmm.

Dale Sellers (15:00)
I've, I've learned that I need help and I've learned that I need rest. so between those two things, think, and, that, you know, I've learned that you can, you can stick it out through some really difficult things that maybe are even harder than you thought they were. So, you know,

Jason Allison (15:03)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

That's good. No, that's that's important, honestly, to really think about that. Hey, I can make it through stuff that honestly, I don't I don't know that I could have otherwise. And. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (15:29)
Well, Jean and I did it together. So like

you said, mean, literally every week, this house has got, it's got three inch wide Hickory hardwood all the way through it. She cut every piece of it. So she cut it and then I nailed it down and my daughter and son-in-law helped me do some of it and different people came along, but basically it was just us. and, and I will say, man, there was a period of time where I'm thinking, you know, God moved away and forgot me. He, he meant, he meant to take me, but he, he left me back there and it's like, what just happened?

And, I, and I had some days I discovered some, discovered I have some, some, some it can me. I discovered it when I get tired. I can say some things that I didn't even know I knew. I'll leave, I'll leave it at that, but it was, it was a difficult season because it was like, there was no way out. just got to put your head down and get it done. And we did, and there was a lot of outside pressure and the whole time I'm keeping 95 network going.

Jason Allison (16:01)
Ha ha ha.

Hahaha ⁓

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right, right, right.

Dale Sellers (16:22)
I'm doing,

I'm doing conferences. I'm doing a podcast every week. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, sit out here on the front on the scaffold and talk to a pastor in Florida. So it was, it was, it demanded a great deal of me. Now I think the question that I don't know the answer to is if knowing what I know now, would I do it again? My first thought is no, cause it was so exhausted, but I'm not the flip side is we have a wonderful home. on five and a half acres. It's covered in deer. You know, we've got chickens. might even hear him squawk today because they're laying eggs right now.

We have chickens and we got bees and, and, it's, what it's, it's a wonderful place to live, but buddy, it it exacted a toll for us.

Jason Allison (16:56)
Yeah.

Yes, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you learned how old you really are. But in the same breath, you also learned that you are more resilient than you probably thought you were.

Dale Sellers (17:06)
Mm-hmm.

I learned especially that my wife is that was the shocker, man. We see, we, we, I didn't mention this. We built a 30 by 24 barn before we started the house. And she literally, she and I did all that. I mean, we, didn't have any help with that hardly. I had some guys that didn't put the plywood on the outside of it, but that was, it was a little work. You made me tired. Yeah. She is tough, man. She's, my wife did things I've never seen her do. I mean, she, I mean,

Jason Allison (17:13)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Gina's tough, I know that.

Dale Sellers (17:38)
I mean, she's doing it now. mean, it's just something clicked, but part of it is this is her place. This is home and she loves being here. And, and so it just, when you, you know, I mean, she's got raised beds, she's moved them like five times and that ain't an easy thing to do. Cause you got to take all the dirt out and start all over again. But, yeah, she, her, her, her resiliency inspired me.

Jason Allison (17:43)
Hmm, yeah. Yeah.

Ha

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, I think that's a testimony to, you know, one to the commitment to your marriage, both of you. But then also, you know, just the role of the Holy Spirit when you are both submitted to the Holy Spirit and saying, yes, this is a stretch, right? It's not it's not we're not going to be like this forever. This is a time and I'm going to endure. And I think that does build resilience.

Dale Sellers (18:08)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

One of our core, I would say the core statement of our marriage, we've been married 43 years, be 44 this coming August. And we're recording this in March. One of our core statements has always been when hard times come, we're going to pull together instead of pull apart. watched, especially the generation behind me, it was like they were always keeping score and they're always blaming each other for things. Or they would do things like, you know, well, I'm not going to vacuum the floor because you didn't wash the dishes. Or then I'm like, blah, that's just ridiculous.

Jason Allison (18:52)
Yeah.

Dale Sellers (18:53)
You know, so our, so we faced lots of tough times over the 40 years, but we've always had that as our core thing that, when tough times come, we're going to pull together and not pull apart. And we did that. And that, and it strengthened us, I think, unless you've known a year or two. No, I don't know what you meant. have enough energy to do that right now.

Jason Allison (19:07)
Yeah.

Plus, hadn't smothered you in your sleep yet, so that's a good thing. Well, I

really appreciate that about you, though. mean, as your friend who has seen this from the outside looking in, that really is a testimony to me of God's faithfulness, and it's a blessing.

Dale Sellers (19:31)
It

flushed up a lot of the guilt stuff that I feel though, because I felt like I wasn't doing my job at 95 network like I needed to, and I wasn't because, because I had to, I had to get the house done. And, and, and I talked to our board and you know, the team and everybody before I started and said, you know, we're diving into this and now it's become a whole lot more than we thought it was. And then everybody was extremely supportive, but I still felt guilty. I'm I guess, you know, you and I had a conversation, you know, and I actually did a podcast on our podcast.

Cole, why is it always my fault with Bob Hemp? You ought to share the link to that one on this one. Because, because I asked him, said, you know, me and my friend Jason were talking and we just discovered when something bad happens, we always think, what did I do wrong? And man, it took him about 10 minutes. And, to get me to where I was literally Jason, was mentally, I was sitting at the table with my mother discussing things in high school and it really uncovered.

Jason Allison (20:00)
Yes, yes, I, yes, I will.

Right.

Dale Sellers (20:25)
A lot of things in me. The reason I shared that is because some of that came up in me that while I was doing that, it's like, so you got the physical strain, the mental strain, the financial strain, but then you got this emotional thing going on inside where the enemy is just beating the snot out of you. Just you're, you know, you're just a failure. What are you doing? Why did you do this? And you just got to, you got to listen to the, as you said, this is the Holy spirit and just stay with the stuff. So, so going to our church on the backside of that is, was extremely healing. mean,

Jason Allison (20:48)
Yeah.

Dale Sellers (20:53)
This is like every service for a while. And it made me just cause I was so tired, but I did get, did get a lot of healing there.

Jason Allison (20:58)
Yeah. Yeah, Rob always makes fun of me that he said, Jason, you feel guilty about everything. He's like, why do you feel guilty about stuff that doesn't even matter? I'm an only. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (21:09)
Are you first born? Yo, that's even worse.

No wonder you, got it. You got, you got the first born, the middle and the end one all in one. Yeah. I'm first born and, know, and so, which we won't dive into this, I'll guess that you want to, but you know, I discovered that what happened to me was growing up building with my dad, my dad wasn't verbal. And so, so my dad never said, I love you or I'm proud of you. I knew, I knew he loved me. I knew he was proud of me, but I needed to hear it. So I found myself working harder.

Jason Allison (21:18)
I do.

Dale Sellers (21:37)
to try to get him to notice me, you know, like with the construction stuff. And so he was like, if we did a job for, know, you and Kristen, we do it, you know, come help do work for y'all. He would brag on me to y'all y'all from South. He would brag on me, but he would never tell me. And so somehow that got over in my walk with God where I just felt like I couldn't do enough. And if something went wrong, it's like, what, why didn't I see that coming? Or why did, why did you do that? Or, like I said, when I was exhausted, this one, I'd really make some just bad, the best bad leadership decisions, you know,

Jason Allison (21:51)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dale Sellers (22:06)
Thank

God I have not fallen immorally or, or, you know, hadn't cheated on my wife or, and the reason, uh, obviously, cause I love the Lord and I, but I tell this story, you know, I mean, I keep, because I had a friend I had to go talk to who had cheated on his wife, a guy I'd done ministry with and, uh, so they're still together. But I went to him and I said, man, how'd this happen? You know, and he explained to me how some things, you know, just got in the wrong direction. And I looked at him and I wasn't there to condemn him. was there to support him, but I'm going, you know, I can't fathom having to tell my wife.

Jason Allison (22:09)
Mm-hmm.

Dale Sellers (22:36)
that I had done that. said, but let me just tell you now. said, I think I would, I think I would take my life before I had to face my daughters and tell them that, you know, and I start boohoo and I'm going to help him at all. But you know, so, so I made a decision at the beginning of our marriage that I was always going to put our family above ministry or my work or whatever. And that, that is a, that was a great decision.

Jason Allison (22:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just had like 15 questions pop into my mind as you were talking through that. I'm trying to think, did how did you start that? Because something went off in my brain that I wanted to poke into. And now I can't remember what it was. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (23:15)
It was just my commitment to my family is

what kept me going during the difficult times.

Jason Allison (23:19)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Well, it'll come back to me and that's fine. I do have a question, though, that kind of follows up on this because, you I know because you and I have walked together even over the last five months or less. You know, you've had to make some very strategic decisions and pretty significant decisions within your role as the leader of 95 Network. You know, and and I'm not.

Dale Sellers (23:43)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (23:46)
I don't want to get into the whole decision and just all that stuff. I just want to ask you as you were going through that and making these and these are vision decisions, right? This isn't just a do we do A or B? This is vision for the next eight to ten years and beyond stuff. What helped you in this process? And here's why I'm asking. I have pastors ask me all the time, hey, I don't really know how to do this vision thing.

Dale Sellers (23:55)
Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (24:12)
How do I think strategically and as a visionary and make some of these bigger decisions when I just don't feel that confident in that? So what helped you in that process?

Dale Sellers (24:24)
hate to say this to most of our pastors because I think they already do this too much, but I moved very slowly because the Lord had been getting up. We have been, I don't know if it's kind of set up what we've been dealing with. So we have been, I would call flat over the last nine months. And as you know, things have shifted in how we do ministry to specifically the small and mid-sized churches and conferences, even though, you know, Rob's at exponential. I even hear most people say, I go to exponential to see people. So, so I'm just going to say that. And multiple people have said that.

Jason Allison (24:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (24:54)
Which is not bad, but I'm just saying that the conference thing is, is kind of gone flat. Now it may come back around, but we are bombarded with content. everybody, I everybody's got too much content, but what people are looking for is more relational things that, you know, connections. hate the word cohort, but they like cohorts. but what they're looking for is more mentorship and a long-term basis, which has not been the way we've done things at 95 network per se. You know, we've, we were available for people, but we just haven't established those.

long-term relationships like what is where people are at now, what they need. And so the Lord has been stirring in me that we needed to make a shift and a change. And so back in the summer, I was, you know, I got a very clear impression that over the next 10 years that we're setting a goal and it may be achievable and it may not, but to try to help a thousand churches get healthy in the next 10 years, which would be, you know, about a hundred churches a year.

and get healthy is a broad thing. What does that mean? Well, my first thing would be that pastor is healthy through soul care and that kind of thing. And so we've been praying about that. One of the things we're definitely gonna do, and I don't mind saying it today, is we need to change our name. 95 Network is a great name if you explained it. And you talk about the fact that 95 % of churches are small or mid-sized, but that number is wrong now.

It's shifted to 92 % or 200 or less. And it's always going to shift. for a while I've known we need to come up with a name that will connect us to people who are trying to find help. And so we're in the process of trying to work through that. And then in the midst of all this, we had another ministry reach out to us and talk about merging together. Kind of the same vision, same kind of thing. And it seemed too good to be true. And so I did a couple of interviews. I went to a couple of in-person interviews.

And I'm just like, man, this, mean, there was so much alignment and so much desire to do, to do it together. And I have a dear friend named Lance Witt who has a wonderful ministry called replenish. And I texted him and asking me, praying with me about it. And I texted, you know, all of you guys on our team and, uh, you know, our board, just lots of people, our family and a couple of other trusted friends, Clayton King, you know, you know, Clayton, and I just, guys, praying with me about this. And it's the Lord brings something in your spirit. Just let me know.

Cause I've never done anything like this. we're talking about merging our ministries, you know, and kind of going with the name that they have. so I said, I've checking this thing out and praying about it. And Lance said, he sent me a text and he said, Oh, this sounds great. It would be awesome for you to be able to do that. And he said, but in the second paragraph of his text was I've known a lot of people who tried to do these things and they seldom work because there's so much excitement and desire to make it work at the front end and not enough time is allowed to allow.

some things that won't, that won't mesh come up. And so I took that to heart. I'm going, Cause everybody's saying this is great. And I even looked at the people involved in one, this just seems too good to be true. And so that's a flag for Dale when it's too good to be true. It probably is. Uh, and so, uh, as we kind of spent some more time diving into it, we began to uncover that there would be some areas that we would have misalignment. And so we ultimately decided not to do that.

Jason Allison (27:46)
Hahaha

Dale Sellers (28:00)
Uh, and it was the right thing, but the answer to your question is I submitted what we were doing to a lot of different people, people on our team, our board, my family. And, I will say this to the John Maxwell's taught me this in the eighties, there's only two people you need to hear from. And that's the Holy spirit and your wife. And so she was with me on the last trip and we both assessed say, we need to pray through some, some's not right. And we will begin to discover what it was. And so.

Uh, I think that that's the key man is, is don't just ask people to pray about something. If you've already made your mind up and, ask them to be honest with you. And it, know, it's shocking even, even to this process, I've had a couple of people I've kind of gotten onto. I'm going, why didn't you tell me you felt that way? And it was like, well, you we didn't want, were so excited. Well, I'm excited about everything. I was excited about breakfast while I go. It's the way I'm wired. You know? And so, so guys like me make it hard for people who's who.

Jason Allison (28:33)
Right.

Mm.

It is.

Dale Sellers (28:58)
aren't like me to tell them the truth. And so, so we have to double down and go, no, I really need to know what you think and what you feel. We have a mutual friend, Joseph, who's on our team. does my podcast with me and we're talking the other day about this whole thing. says, yeah, well, you know, was, I was thinking a couple of things. I'm going, you can't do that. You got to tell me if I ask you. And, and, and, and, I'm sorry, I'm like trying to analyze why did everybody that told me that did, and it was just like, they didn't want to dampen my spirit.

Jason Allison (29:16)
Mm-mm.

Dale Sellers (29:28)
They didn't want to, they didn't want to, they didn't want to kill my fire. Well, look, if I'm asking for your honest input, I really need it. And you know, I can get, I can get my fire relit. You know, like I said, I'll be excited if you didn't want breakfast, I'll get excited about supper. So

Jason Allison (29:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember, you know, us having a conversation about this and I poked at a couple things, just, you know, just stuff that I noticed. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't even you shouldn't do it because of this. Just, hey, have you thought about this? And, you know, first of all, I remember thinking that initial, I don't I don't want to be the guy that's always the downer or always trying to find the negative or, you know, like I'm not trying to be. But I also thought if I don't say something now, then I.

Dale Sellers (29:46)
Mm-hmm.

Good

to go.

Jason Allison (30:08)
Yeah, and so

and you know, I want if you've ever seen the the what's it called the working genius thing and the Yeah, okay. Well, I'm a I'm a WD and D is discernment and so a lot of what I do is ask questions about you the idea that we're looking at and I know I can also be the one who slows everything down because we've moved past that phase and I keep coming back to you know, and so I've tried to be sensitive to that and understand

Dale Sellers (30:16)
Mm-hmm. My kids talk about it every day.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (30:38)
you know, just self-knowledge.

Dale Sellers (30:38)
Well, here's what I want

to say though, to guys like you, I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't really value what you thought. So, so if you're in my place, if you're asking people, and I've seen this, if you're asking people their opinion, but you really don't care, don't ask them. But if you're in your place and someone does ask you and you know that they, they want your opinion, go ahead be honest with them. And here's, here's kind of my approach. I've worked on staffs at churches for many years.

at different capacities. I've been on XP and I've been on. And so I had this one pastor, we, we, we were David and Saul, man. mean, there were days he would tell me his deep dark secrets. And the next day he'd be throwing spears at me. Just crazy guy. But, but, but one of the things he never understood, and I told him this, he would ask me stuff and I would give him my opinion, which was always opposite of his. And I said, I don't care what decision you make, but you asked me to tell you what I see. And I said, I feel like that gives you another set of eyes.

You know, and so I'm going to tell you what I think and I'm good with whatever you decide, you know? And, and so I think if people are coming more from the position of, of what, the way we set that up with your side in this conversation, they need to understand that, you know, leaders want your honest opinion. They want to know what you feel. They want to know, or they wouldn't have asked. Now you, some of you listening may be in a situation where, you know, they don't really want to know what that, you know, don't cast your pearls before swine either. You know what I mean by that?

Jason Allison (31:39)
Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (32:03)
If you already know they don't care, but you know, I mean, I am where I am today because of great friendships and great input. And I've always sought that out. You know, I will still make a decision based on what I feel like the Holy spirit's leading me to do, but I'm never going to make a decision where I didn't even ask anybody.

Jason Allison (32:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's and I think that's good for pastors to hear, right? Hey, you need a few people that you can ask these things to, and you're willing to actually listen to their response, even if it's not what you wanted to hear.

Dale Sellers (32:36)
If you don't care what they think, don't ask them. I mean, they know, you know, and, I will say this too, you know, most people in churches, that we work with, even the churches that are in bad shape, they've got people in those churches that love Jesus and they love that pastor and they love that church and they want that church to work. And so, that's what they're thinking about. And that's where they're coming from.

Jason Allison (32:38)
That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (32:58)
I used to label anybody who disagreed with me as a Jezebel and I'm like, you can't do that Dell because sometimes, sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes my hunch is wrong or my, my timing. think my issue, if I'm honest about my looking back over the 43 years I've been doing this, my issue wasn't always not knowing what to do, but sometimes it was timing and I'm

Jason Allison (33:02)
⁓

Do feel like you rushed

it?

Dale Sellers (33:22)
very guilty of Jesus giving me direction to do something. I'm going, okay, I've got it. We'll see you. Boom. know, and, I'm gone. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You got to walk with me on this. And it would be like, you know, he would just let me go. And then I, you know, after I'd fall apart, mean, he, he, wasn't footprints in the sand with me. It wasn't like he came in and picked me up. No, he said, get back over here and then we'll walk it the way I told you. You know, I used to pray and tell God, listen, I've got this problem and here are four scenarios. I don't care which one you pick. Just one of those will work.

Jason Allison (33:42)
Yeah, yeah.

That does not surprise me one bit. Yeah, I know, I know.

Dale Sellers (33:51)
Well, and he never picked any of mine, once, but again, again,

all of that comes from this, that whole inferior thing was inside of me that I did not know was there. When I wrote my book stalled, hoping for pastors who thought they'd be there by now. When Gina read it, she cried and she said, I didn't know you felt this way. I'm going neither did I. So, you know, when I wrote the book, I'm getting things out of me that I didn't know was in there. Cause if you knew me.

You know, I'm, I'm a go getter, man. I'm out front, but you know, I just learned a few months ago that like 70 % of pastors are introverts. Well, if you're an introvert, you're not going, you're not going to reach out for help. And if you do, you don't want them to tell you the truth. And so we, have to get past that because the Bible does say there's wisdom and counsel and, and, and, and, everybody, everybody felt like I had a green light to go for this. Everybody did. was like, you know,

Jason Allison (34:25)
Yeah.

Right.

yeah.

Dale Sellers (34:43)
Proceed with caution, but

Jason Allison (34:44)
Yep.

Dale Sellers (34:44)
this looks like a great thing and it did look like a great thing, but, I gave it enough time to where the underneath, underneath the surface stuff came up and it was enough for me to go, wait a minute that if I get in this, it's not going to end well. So

Jason Allison (34:53)
Yes.

And it's not like you drug this out six months. You know, it's like an extra couple of weeks of simmering that this stuff kind of came to the top. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (35:00)
No, I didn't have to.

Well, I just had a lot of people pray in and

a lot of, have a lot of people, probably 20 people who were praying about this, including my family and who, and here's the deal. There's not one of those people that doesn't care about me deeply. And because of that, I knew they'd pray about it and I knew they were, and it was on their mind. And, and, and, know, so it, think it's a really good way to proceed forward with stuff is just have some trusted people in your life that can just give you their opinion.

But if you've already made your mind up, you're going to do something. Then why ask?

Jason Allison (35:37)
Yeah, yeah, now you're just looking for conflict.

Dale Sellers (35:39)
And a lot of pastors, that's what they do. They just, this is what I'm going to do. You know, you and I grew up, you know, I say we live in the residue of the secret and attractional movements. And what that means is, is that, you know, everything about the secret and attractional movement, as far as the lead pastor was concerned, was y'all need to come here and help me fulfill my vision. You know, I need you to come, you know, work in my parking lot and do our children's ministry, clean the building up because this is, you God's given me this great vision to change the world. The problem with that is that's not biblical. The job of a pastor is to equip saints to do ministry.

Jason Allison (35:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dale Sellers (36:08)
And yes, you have to have a mission and a vision, but it's collective, not individual. And our objective as leaders is to help those people fulfill their vision and what God's called them to do. And most pastors in this crazy world we live in today are not equipers. know, they get, they get, they get their kudos from preaching a deep sermon. I used to ride home from church and my mom, but I was going, that sermon was so deep. It was so rich. And I'm going, what does that mean?

Jason Allison (36:23)
No.

Yeah.

Dale Sellers (36:33)
Was deep, always do rich. I'm going to, cause y'all don't ever do anything he said. really, you know, and I don't see that most of my life.

Jason Allison (36:39)
Well, I mean,

with that in mind, like what in your mind is a healthy church? You say that's kind of where there's a shift of how we want to pursue this way of partnering with churches to help them be healthy. with Converge Mid-Atlantic, we're going through the exact same questions. And so from your perspective, what is a what are some markers maybe is a better way to say it of a healthy church?

Dale Sellers (37:05)
healthy leader

that with the pastor, pastor being healthy. And I, when I mean healthy, they, they, they take a day off during the week. They honor their family, their, their, their healthy physically. You know, I grew up in the era where we know that preached on smoking and drinking and all that other stuff, but the pastor weighed 400 pounds because he ate too much fried chicken and they never talked about overeating. So I'm talking about healthy whole, you know, spirit, soul, for the leader and then a healthy staff relationship.

So, and I talked about this while I was on a podcast recently and I was talking about how, you know, a lot today since COVID we've, we've focused more on pastoral health. and, and like churches that have staff, especially bigger churches, what I've discovered is a lot of those churches, man, they are really focusing on that lead pastor getting healthy, but they treat their staff like crap. I mean, I've, I've watched lead pastors and I, in fact, one of my friends was a pastor of a very large church and I told him one day, I said, you know what you do? I said, you take people.

Jason Allison (37:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Dale Sellers (37:57)
And you wear them out and they drop dead and you step over the body and go, what happened to them? And you just keep on going. And I see that a lot with, with, with large staffs. So if you're going to be healthy, you have to have a healthy culture. So healthy with the leader, healthy with the staff culture. I think you have to have real good clarity on what your mission is, which is why you exist. What, are you having church on Sunday? And, and, and one of the things that, that I'll probably always be remembered for saying is most small churches are most midsize churches and even some large churches.

are known for doing 20 things poorly instead of one or two things. Well, so figure out why you're at your church at this time in your community, in this, in this era, what God hasn't called you to do 20 things. If you pastor a church of a hundred and down the roads of church of 6,000, you can't do everything they do. You don't have the place, the resources, the, the, the people, the, you don't have the stuff and you're not God hadn't called you to. get real good clarity on your mission. Understand it. then.

Find ways that you can do evangelism, do discipleship, this real discipleship, which is relational, and then develop leaders. I think those are the keys to having a healthy church, which is what we're going to focus on is making sure the pastor's healthy, making sure the relationship with the staff and the leaders of the church, which would be elders and, you know, it's healthy. They're not fighting with each other. That the church understands what the mission of that church is. And then that they know how to reach people for Jesus, train and disciple those people.

And then raise up leaders. then, and the caveat would be to have a succession plan in place. You got, you got it. know, you gotta have a succession plan. Yeah.

Jason Allison (39:25)
Well, if you're developing leaders, then

that should be part of the process.

Dale Sellers (39:29)
Yeah. Well,

I want to make sure we highlight that because, you know, I've been told that the average age of a pastor in America is 63. And the next 10 years, a hundred thousand plus pastors are going to retire or step away or transition out. And we, you can't wait till the day before you leave to start trying to find somebody. Do it at the height, do it at the peak, start succession when things are going well, you know, begin to involve again, it's all if we would just do what the Bible says.

Jason Allison (39:36)
That's what I've heard.

Dale Sellers (39:59)
If we would just equip, if we would just equip people, this would take place. It would raise them up. But when your whole ministry is about you preaching, so you can feel good about yourself, that whole educational mentality is not going to disciple and build churches. Most churches will say, yeah, we do lots of discipleship every Sunday morning. That's not discipleship.

Jason Allison (40:20)
Well, mean, ⁓ research has shown that the least effective educational setting is what we do every Sunday. That is the least effective.

Dale Sellers (40:21)
Somebody just drove out of the road. Somebody just drove right out of the road.

Mm-hmm.

And most churches that I've worked with would say that's their number one way of discipling is preaching, and it's not.

Jason Allison (40:39)
Well, and

look at your resources. How what percentage of your resources go to Sunday morning? And I would bet when you count in that salaries and things, it's at least 80 percent go to that. And yet it's the least effective method that we have. And the one thing Jesus said to do was make disciples.

Dale Sellers (40:45)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You know, there was a shift, Jason. I don't know the exact timing of it, but I was talking with Kurt Mackie who works with the aspire network on the West coast. And he said there was a shift somewhere in the forties or fifties where we started, and it might've been because of the war. I don't know what was going on back then that caused this, we, we, we shifted toward wanting chaplains instead of pastors. We needed somebody to come along besides the paddus on the back and tell us how good we are. And it's going to be okay. And preach a message that is wonderful and rich and deep, but don't meddle in our lives.

And that's, that's what we do. mean, that's just where it is. And you know, my dad would always come, someone would preach. My dad would ask him, he's a good little preacher. I'm like, daddy, what does that mean? He's a good little preacher. Well, not our church. was like an hour. So, yeah. yeah. Yeah. I can't sit through that either. Of course we just released a podcast on preaching that was wonderful because I can't sit through most people's sermons.

Jason Allison (41:36)
That means he entertained me for 30 minutes.

dear Lord, OK. Yeah, ⁓ I couldn't do that, but yeah. No, no.

Dale Sellers (41:54)
I saw it today. Saw a graphic today that said that most people stop listening to you five minutes into your message. Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, if you're doing online ministry, this is, this is the caveat. If you're doing online ministry, you have to give a next step in the first minute because the odds of people staying engaged, I mean, engagement is not more than a couple of minutes for anything. Hardly, you know, so

Jason Allison (42:01)
Yeah, that's why I front load it. All the good stuff first. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Yep.

I mean, I checked out of this conversation like 40 minutes ago.

Dale Sellers (42:23)
A long time ago. I've been,

I've been, I'm about to eat some cinnamon rolls. I'm just kidding.

Jason Allison (42:26)
You are excited about breakfast. See, that's important.

well, Dale, I really do appreciate that. First of I appreciate you and our friendship. And I'm looking forward to many more years of doing ministry together. And I appreciate you taking a few minutes to come and share on the podcast. know, we didn't get Robin here, but that's all right. We love Rob. But, you know, he'll he'll just have to survive. He does. Let's be honest.

Dale Sellers (42:34)
Yeah.

Sometimes he drags us down. He's kind of slowed it

down a little bit.

Jason Allison (42:52)
We'll see if he actually listens this far. Yes, and they are on his property as well. not the fish, but the deer. So, yeah. Well, one of these days we'll have you come up here and you guys can go hunting and I'll sit on the front porch and smoke a cigar.

Dale Sellers (42:53)
He's too busy fishing and hunting and getting really big fish and really big deer. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Wait,

wait till we get back. No, I don't either.

Jason Allison (43:11)
It's too cold. I don't like being cold. well, we

keep us updated on the developments with 95 network because we consider you guys a partner in ministry because we've got similar aims in what we do. And of course, I work with you in a lot of things. And so I appreciate that.

And to all our listeners, hey, thanks so much for coming along today. And I will, of course, leave links in the show notes to 95 network, how you can reach out to Dale. And the easiest thing right now is 95 network dot org, w w w dot nine five network dot org. And I'll put a link to his book stalled. I thought I'd be there by now. I love that book. I've read it multiple times. And so those are things as well as just some other links that I'll put in from our conversation today.

We hope you have an amazing week. We are excited to serve you in any way we can. So feel free to reach out and please know that not only are we praying for you, we're cheering for you and we look forward to talking to you soon. Have an amazing week.