Lessons from the Front Line of Ministry with Joshua Sorrows

Join Jason, Rob, and guest Joshua Sorrows as they explore church planting, leadership, overcoming challenges, and the importance of multiplication and vision in ministry. Discover practical insights and inspiring stories to fuel your faith and leadership journey.

Joshua Sorrows and his wife Sara have 3 young boys and moved to Conway, SC to plant Harvest Church in 2022. The church is seeing tremendous Kingdom impact with almost 150 new believers coming to faith over the last few years. Joshua is very excited to report that 60% of those decisions to follow Jesus came outside of a Sunday gathering. Joshua recently earned his Doctorate.

 Action  Items:

• Share your story of redemption with your congregation
• Focus on multiplying leaders and disciples, not just attendance
• Develop a clear vision and filter all activities through it

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Introduction
02:29 Meet Joshua Soros
04:28 Call to Ministry and Early Experiences
06:49 Navigating Challenges and Failures
11:27 The Importance of Vulnerability in Leadership
18:00 Measuring Success in Church Planting
19:53 Measuring Effectiveness in Ministry
27:10 Navigating Challenges in Church Planting
35:12 Exciting Future of Ministry and Discipleship
40:30 The Importance of Vision and Consistency in Ministry

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you have taken a few minutes of your day to check out what's going on in the world of the Church Talk Project. Hey Rob, we just spent like three days together, solid, and yet we're still alive. We still like each other and we haven't been arrested yet. So I feel like that was a win.

Rob Paterson (00:26)
You know, I do have a question though, cause I didn't even know this about you till like yesterday when you're like, let's go to the airport early. Cause we don't want to get caught in DC traffic. And then you're like, I can get you into the admiral's club. And I was kind of like, what, ⁓ you like have this new. So I'm just wondering if when you're in the American airlines, admiral's club, if there's like a special dispensation where if you were to not that you ever would.

Joshua (00:39)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (00:51)
you know, do anything illegal that it kind of protects you even against sort of minor infractions from the law.

Joshua (00:55)
Thank

Jason Allison (00:57)
Well, it's kind of like being in international waters, right? I have, I do. It's like my own little world right there. Yeah, it's pretty amazing actually. I mean, I didn't show you all the special little nooks and crannies, but you know, it's kind of one of those, if you know, know, type deals. But yeah, it was nice hanging out in the Admiral's Club with you for a few minutes before our flight took off, because traffic wasn't as bad as it.

Rob Paterson (01:00)
Yeah, you have diplomatic community when you're there.

Jason Allison (01:24)
was for the last three days before that. And the security took pretty much no time. I mean, it was really fast, especially when you're in DC, you would think. And then we got to just hang out and relax.

Rob Paterson (01:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Joshua (01:34)
you

Rob Paterson (01:36)
Yeah, it was, you've ruined me and I'm like mostly ruined on my own, but you've like ruined me even more because I've never experienced that. And now the idea of sitting at a gate in a terminal in any airport, especially after a month ago when I basically had to like sleep on a hard bench in the Atlanta airport when we were stuck there for 23 hours. Like, you know what? Like if I could have just gone to the Admiral's club, I'd be like, I can live here for the rest of my life and they'd be fine.

Jason Allison (02:04)
I try, I try to ruin you at every turn, but hey, so today though, the cool thing, ⁓ yes, yes, today we have a third person on the, the interview table that we're going to, we're going to talk to because we actually spent the last few days with him tagging along. And I'm, just excited. We, we, we've known Josh for.

Rob Paterson (02:09)
Hey, speaking of ruining people...

Joshua (02:13)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (02:29)
several years, but we've never actually had the chance to have a conversation with him with the record button pushed, which sometimes that was probably a good thing that we didn't. But so, hey, Joshua Soros, my friend, welcome to the Church Talk podcast, man. How you doing?

Rob Paterson (02:38)
It's frightening.

Joshua (02:39)
Yeah, probably so.

I'm great. Thanks for having me. And I can also vouch for traveling with Jason Allison is gold standard. Elite of elite. When you check into a hotel and the people behind the desk know that you're with Jason Allison, you get treats, you get bottles of water, you get all these things. mean, it is, if you are listening to this, you've never had the privilege of doing it. You need to text him right now.

and tell him he needs to take you someplace because it is next level. Like Maldives, everywhere you go.

Rob Paterson (03:19)
Jason, yeah, Jason

at church talk project.com. schedule a trip. Hey, you know, maybe we could start like a travel club.

Joshua (03:29)
Alright.

Jason Allison (03:30)
Hey,

you know what? I just want to make sure my friends, if you have to spend time with me, you might as well get compensated somehow. Because I'm not paying for the therapy and I'm not paying for the bail money either one. Well, Joshua, you have been you were with us on the things we were doing in D.C. this past week. And I know this. But just so everybody knows, Joshua Soros is a church planter.

Joshua (03:41)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (03:53)
with Converge Mid-Atlantic. You planted Harvest Church in Conway, South Carolina three years ago, four years ago, I can't remember.

Joshua (04:02)
this September will be our four-year anniversary.

Jason Allison (04:05)
Okay, excellent. You have an amazing wife that we also got to spend a little bit of time with on this trip, Sarah. And she's a better golfer than you from what I discerned. And that's amazing. You've got three feral boys ⁓ that are amazing and enjoy doing lots of the boy stuff, Caleb, Micah, and Ethan. So we're just glad that you're here.

Joshua (04:19)
Yes.

Jason Allison (04:28)
We're gonna learn a little bit about harvest and the conversation our listeners are, but man, as you think about your life, I'm just curious, maybe just to get things started, tell us a little bit about your call to ministry. Like why did you go into ministry?

Joshua (04:44)
Yeah, so 17 years old, we were at a church, the First Baptist Church of Clifton Dale, right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And Alan Floyd was the pastor. And at that time, he was probably late thirties, you know, and he had taken over a church kind of, I don't know if it would be a replant, but had revitalized it. And we were there.

lot of energy. And so he kept telling me, he kept asking me, I was already saved at this point. He said, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to do with your life? I'm like, man, I don't know. I kind of want to be a coach and maybe I would want to be a counselor, which now I know I did not want to be a counselor. Um, and right. And, you know, I, you know, maybe I want to be some sort of like leader or something. I don't know, you know, something like that. And he said, you know, I think you have a call to ministry on your life.

And he said, here's the thing about being in ministry, you get to be all three of those things. And so from that point, I just began to really feel like the Lord was calling me into ministry and specifically into being a lead pastor. So from the time I was 17, and then I had various jobs, you youth pastors and everything, I've led everything for free, by the way, in the church for most of the time.

Rob Paterson (05:39)
Mm.

Joshua (06:01)
except for women's ministry and you cannot pay me to lead women's ministry. But nonetheless, and then when I was 33 years old, I got my first opportunity to be a lead pastor and did a church replant in Colorado. So that's kind of the short version of that call of ministry.

Rob Paterson (06:16)
Mm.

Yeah, that's so good. you know, Josh, when I was in college, I, my joke was always that God had called me to single women's beach ministry because I loved beach volleyball and you know, you know, ⁓ but you know, I, I'm just thinking right now, if someone's listening in and they're like, here's this guy, he's like a teenager, he gets saved as this, you know, younger pastor speaks into his life. He's called the ministry and now you've planted a church that's doing really well. We'll talk.

Joshua (06:33)
Of course you did.

Rob Paterson (06:49)
about that in a minute. You know, there's a lot of people be like, Oh, here we go. Another success story. And I'm like, I'm struggling where I am or whatever. And, you know, just having gotten to know you a little bit better, um, you know, you know, Jason and you and I have talked even this week about sometimes like the pressure pastors feel to sort of sanctify our past and to sanctify our story. Um, but man, even after those really cool, godly things happened as a teenager,

Joshua (07:11)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (07:18)
you know, you kind of were a little bit wayward for a while before you really kind of came back to the path. And, and, and, know, it's not something that, you know, any, any of us like, like, Hey, let's celebrate this or encourage pastors to do this. But I do think it's hopeful, you know, for people who have, you know, a past that maybe they're not proud of, or even maybe struggling with something right now that nobody knows about. And they're just sort of ashamed of or whatever, you know, like,

Joshua (07:30)
Yeah

Rob Paterson (07:45)
give us some hope, like, cause again, you've, you know, you've made some choices maybe that you weren't like super proud of, but you know, God, God is still using you, you know? So like talk, talk a little bit about that for people listening in today.

Joshua (07:58)
Yeah. I mean, I would say if I were to reflect back, I'm 44 now, if I were to reflect all the way back from 17, I would say that my life has had several ebbs and flows, you know, like it hasn't been wonderful. So I'll just kind of talk about it. mean, so after that, you know, go to college and you know, we're at college football games, you know, in Athens, Georgia, every single weekend where

Me and my buddies are bartending and I mean, you wanna talk about feral boys. I mean, I was feral and we were feral and we had, I mean, I have some really good stories that I can't tell them all, you know? so, but I mean, you wanna talk about all the normal stuff, right? The drinking, you wanna talk about chasing girls, you wanna talk about doing just ridiculous stuff like.

Jason Allison (08:40)
You

Joshua (08:51)
I mean, throwing TVs off of balconies, know, partying in Atlanta. mean, you know, all kinds of stuff. Right. And while you don't want to celebrate it. I have found that it has I'm thankful for the experiences. Number one, when I look back on it, I'm thankful that we didn't die and then to that we didn't kill anybody else.

Rob Paterson (08:59)
Mm, yeah.

Joshua (09:13)
But, you know, I also think it makes me as a pastor be able to relate, you know, to other people. And then also for them to be like, whoa, they call me PJ pastor. PJ is just like normal. And I'm like, yeah, well, we're all normal. Every single guy, I don't care what they portray themselves is normal. And I've had those struggles. then even, you know, even later.

Jason Allison (09:35)
Mmm.

Rob Paterson (09:37)
you

Hmm.

Joshua (09:41)
⁓

you know, there have been times where I've struggled with burnout. You know, there have been moments in my life, think, burn it legit burnout. And I'll be like, my gosh, I'm so burnt out. You know, can't handle it. That kind of deal that we have today, but like legitimate burnout, like I didn't feel anything, while we were helping plant a church in Dallas and in seminary and teaching and all of that, you know, struggling with, intimacy and marriage, you know, because

so tired and so burnout and such a being a jerk, right? And like, even to the point where even after Colorado and things went incredible there, I mean, we went from like 40 to over 350, we built a building. So all these people come to Christ launched a church planner out as an executive pastor. That was really, really hard. And then we moved to South Carolina and took on another church and and I failed.

Right after 18 months, I failed. It didn't do well there. So if you're listening to this and you are a person who maybe is not in ministry, but you just like to hear about ministry stuff, man, one thing that I've learned is that God doesn't waste one thing. He doesn't waste one positive experience. He doesn't waste one negative experience. He doesn't waste it. So use every single

negative experience, every failure as a place to grow and learn and experience God's grace. And He can redeem every single thing. Like His hit the cross and God's grace is big enough to redeem everything, every situation, every circumstance. And I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, cut me off.

Rob Paterson (11:10)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (11:17)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (11:27)
Yeah, Josh. No,

no, no, no, I was trying to jump in before Jason said what I was actually trying to do.

Jason Allison (11:35)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua (11:35)
Yeah,

good. You should. This entire interview, jump in before Jason.

Rob Paterson (11:39)
No, I just I want to echo what you're saying because I remember my 20s Bethany and I got married super duper young and I shouldn't say super duper but we got married really young and You know, I thought for our first ten years that our marriage was kind of perfect until at 30 ish she informed me that there were some things that weren't and it just and and I struggle with that as a pastor because I'm like well people can't know that

You know, I'm like things aren't working as well as I thought that they were. but it was as we struggled a little bit and figured that out and got help that people in our churches and ministry actually wanted help from us because, they're, they've struggled like we have, and they figured it out. Now they can, now they're helpful. A perfect person has a real hard time helping a non-perfect person because we don't know what they're going through. And this is an encouragement for people just to go do a whole bunch of stuff.

Jason Allison (12:30)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (12:35)
But man, if you have a past, God can use that,

Jason Allison (12:38)
Yeah.

Joshua (12:38)
Yeah,

and I think there's also for pastors, there's a fine line between being vulnerable and being transparent. Okay, so you can be vulnerable and say to your congregation and say to people sitting across from you, hey, I need to tell you about a time when I need to tell you about a time when we went through this in our marriage, when we went through this in the throes of leadership and being

burnout or depressed or sad or, or, uh, in that moment where you had one or two more, um, you know, Benadryl to help you sleep or any of that kind of stuff, right? You can be vulnerable, but you don't always have to be fully transparent, meaning you don't have to tell every detail there is still a.

Responsibility as as I feel like the leader to where you don't have to give everybody every detail of your life, but you can give people a little bit of insight to say, hey, I can relate with that when you're sitting. I can relate to that. Let me tell you about a time when and I think that's so important, especially when we think about and we talked about it a lot this week, right where leadership has been and where leadership is going.

Jason Allison (13:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Joshua (13:58)
to be able to tell those vulnerable stories because then we're on the other side of the cross. And so we also get to tell a story of redemption, a story of hope, a story of reconciliation. And so we can live that past and know what it was like, we don't have to carry that all with us all the time, right?

Jason Allison (14:20)
Right. So I was leading a cohort last night and the handcrafted calling thing and the one of the exercises that we do, it's called your hinge moments. And so we gave them time to reflect on the five negative and the five positive moments, the highs and the lows of their life. And at the after we reflected on it and then we had them narrow it down to the top five of

of all that and then one lesson that they learned from each of those and then they were to share that with another person and get some feedback and I warned them at the beginning of the call that this was going to engage stuff that maybe you haven't thought about in a while so just know that and then at the end we gave some time for some reflection back and there's about I think there was 13 or 14 people in this cohort and all of them were saying this was harder than we thought

It was scary because we had to actually think about times in our life that were hard or that we didn't succeed or that we didn't, you know, but then by the end, like you just said, there's a redemption of those things that it doesn't necessarily make the negative consequences go away. Right. I mean, those things are still lingering in some ways, but man, when we see that God uses those experiences to now

take us into the next level of being who he called us to be. It's just pretty amazing, amazing to watch. I wanna pick up, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah.

Joshua (15:51)
It can't. Yeah, I want to say something

because we were writing in the car this week and Rob, you just you shared a little bit more depth to what you just shared now about that early stage of your marriage and all that. And so I would just encourage and this is from like pastor to pastor. Right. So when we went through the church planning assessment, Rob was one of our assessors. So, you know, even from that point, there's a certain level of like me looking up.

Jason Allison (16:01)
Yeah.

Joshua (16:18)
to Rob in the context of ministry and being in leadership and being pastors and super thankful for him. And he's always just been awesome to us. But when he shared some more in-depth stuff that was happening in those, that 10 years of marriage, I'm sitting in the back seat thinking.

I'm not alone. Like I'm okay. I'm not glad that he went through it, but I am thankful that he's sharing what he went through. And I'm thankful that like, Oh, wait a second. I'm not alone. We're not alone. And literally I think it was the first thing that I shared with Sarah when she said, well, how was it? And I was like, can I tell you about this? And she's like, Oh, and I'm like, okay, we're not alone. And so even from the standpoint of pastor to pastor leader to leader,

Jason Allison (16:40)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (16:40)
Mm.

Joshua (17:09)
It's invaluable to each other to be able to be vulnerable in that sense. and, and you weren't fully transparent, but you were vulnerable enough to where I'm like, I understand that. And I'm like, I understand what that felt like and understand what that was like and the tension that that was, was involved in that. And it was so incredibly helpful just in the sense of like, we have something in common. I'm not alone.

other guys have experienced it. And so I would just encourage other pastors to find some people that you feel like you can be vulnerable with share what's going on. And knowing that they're going to help you and not judge you and not call the chairman of the elders of like, you got to get this guy out. He's trash sucks at life. You know, kind of deal, but we'll love you and shepherd you and pray for you and encourage you and all that stuff. So just wanted to share that, you know,

Jason Allison (17:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so, uh, so, you know, we talked about vision and stuff this past week. We were at a, you know, session six and seven of our vision clarity journey thing for the network. And you were part of the team that's, you know, going through this and it's been five months, you know, a five month process and there's still a little bit to go. Um, but in that, you know, some of the stuff we were doing is figuring out outcomes. What do we hope for? What do we want to see as a church planter? And, know, you planted three and a half.

I guess you kind of started the process four and a half years ago, but you launched three and a half. And I've known you since the beginning of that and have been connected. I take no credit for any of the successes that you have.

Joshua (18:41)
But you should, you you should. Like you coached

me for like two years. I did everything you said and it's worked out great.

Jason Allison (18:46)
I'm not I'm not touching that with the 10 foot pole.

How so as you're thinking about all this though, how do you measure success as you know as a church planter in this stage of of ministry?

Joshua (18:59)
Um, all right. So I got to take you back first to Colorado to let you know kind of how I measure things. We were growing pretty rapidly in Colorado and I would get so torn up on attendance numbers. Everything rose and fall on attendance numbers. I'm sure this is very relatable to most pastors because everybody's like, oh, you go to a conference. Well, how big is your church? You know, whatever. Um, and so

I remember I was, I would get so depressed if we were down. I hated the summers. We lost half of our congregation and somehow it became like this identity piece for me. And I remember one time in prayer, just asking the Lord, like what, why is this? Like, why, why would this happen? Like, you know, why would we lose half of our congregation? Like da, da, da, da, da. And he asked me a question and he said, how many do you deserve to have?

Rob Paterson (19:51)
You

Joshua (19:52)
And I'm like...

He's like zero. So if I bring one, it's already more than you deserve.

And so it was at that point that I was like, we can't measure everything on this. We have to figure out other ways to measure effectiveness, not success, effectiveness of the ministry. And so we started really working through, people sharing the gospel? Are we multiplying disciples and leaders?

Rob Paterson (20:12)
Mm.

Joshua (20:23)
I'll be raising up lay leaders in our church. And so we just shifted the whole focus and like the church went from like then like 200 out of another 150 people, right? So when we planted harvest, I knew we couldn't measure and I didn't want to measure.

attendance. And so when so what we've done in measuring effectiveness is is change. OK, with our team leaders, because we have two staff members, me and Chase, worship leader, everybody else is volunteer. OK, on our teams, do we see layers of leadership being built? So if I look on my kids team in Brooke, how many leaders does she have underneath her? She has four leaders underneath her. OK, awesome.

Reid and our tech team, how many leaders does he have underneath him? He has four to five other leaders underneath him. Okay, that's fantastic. Okay, what is our engagement? What's the percentage of our church that is engaged in serving, engaged in harvest homes, as we call our life groups, right? And we have 10 of those that meet all throughout the week or whatnot. What is the percentage? Okay, so we have 70 % of our church engaged in harvest homes.

Okay, on a Sunday morning, we have X amount of people serving and therefore when we broaden that out, we have, you know, 80 % of our people involved in serving. These are things that we can control, right? So we can control the controllables. We cannot control how many people come. We can just control the things of are we building things and then, and who is our levels of leadership? And then we have, we do the Timothy Initiative. Some people will know what that is.

Rob Paterson (21:49)
Mm.

Joshua (22:02)
Some people on here will not know, but it's an obedience-based discipleship model. And we started it the very first month that we started. We launched with seven people in a room. So now we have two, what we call training centers. So now we measure how many people are sharing the gospel, how many people are sharing their story. We keep track of that. How many discovery Bible studies do we have outside of our harvest homes? So we do that. measure.

How many micro churches are we saving people in the discovery Bible studies and baptizing and does that become their church? And then we also measure and see effectiveness in the percentage of salvations that happen outside of a Sunday morning, which our numbers about 65 to 67 % of our 140 salvations in three and half years come outside of a Sunday morning. So we had when we were planting a church, I was like,

Rob Paterson (22:50)
Hmm.

Joshua (22:54)
So we said, we want to be Acts 2.47, 24.7. So what that means is, know, Acts 2.47, they were praising God, they had favor with the people, God was adding to their number daily, the number who were being saved. There you go. You think I would know that, right off the top of my head, right? And so then it went to, now we want to be more than Sundays. And so when we planted the church, we do measure how many people come.

on a Sunday, but we really wanted to measure the effectiveness and the multiplication of the ministry. Are we multiplying harvest homes? Are we multiplying new believers? Are we multiplying disciple makers? Are we multiplying team leaders? Are we multiplying people who are serving in the church? And so that really became our primary form of measurement of saying, we're being effective if we're doing this, right? Because I take

Rob Paterson (23:48)
Yeah.

Joshua (23:49)
the Great Commission very seriously. And I tell people, I tell our church this, when you are leaving for a trip or you're leaving from seeing a friend for a long time or family members, right, you always tell them the most important thing before you leave, and that is, I love you. I can't wait to see you again. This was so fun, right? Well, Jesus tells the most important people the most important thing before he leaves. And what he says is, I want you to make disciples.

And I want you to do that as you go in your going. And I want you to do that in every tongue, and nation. And so when I think about what is our purpose of the church, that's the purpose of the church. And so I just told our team, was like, listen, we're going to, we're going to multiple, we're going to focus on multiplication in these areas. And that's how we're going to judge our effectiveness. And if we're not doing that, then we've got to switch something or change something. If we have.

150 people come one week and 200 people come one week and 210 one week and 170. Great. Cool. And that's what it's like. That's what it's like. You know, that's our kind of thing. But we're not going to go in the ebbs and flows of attendance. Right. So.

Rob Paterson (25:00)
Yeah,

that's good. That's good, Josh. I'm a so fun little story for our listeners. when, at your assessment for you and Sarah, there were tornadoes that the, that swept across the Midwest, Ohio was hit really hard. My area was hit really hard with a whole bunch of tornadoes. So I remember I had to leave at like three 30 to catch my flight, to your assessment. And I almost missed my flight because.

I had to make four detours because there were literally like trees like had blown down across major roads. And I'm like, okay, I got to go this way. And then I get roadblock there. I mean, you know, circumnavigating my area. Thankfully, I've been here a long time and kind of know how to do that. And just made it to the airport in time. And I just looked this up. I was thinking about it. That 1994 movie with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves speed. Remember on the like runaway subway car or whatever.

Joshua (25:50)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (25:52)
a bus.

Rob Paterson (25:52)
⁓

but I mean, it's been a long time. I'm old. but, the, the, the great quote, I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experience never work. Right. So, ⁓ and I, I was like the lead assessor for you and Sarah. So I did your behavioral interview and like, spent a lot of time together over those few days. And even as you're talking, and I think that's the, you know, every one of us needs to be reminded of and hear the idea that

Joshua (26:03)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (26:19)
If we will, if we make disciples, we're always going to get the church. But if we plant churches and just have like Sunday morning things, we're not always going to get disciples. So like, love kind of the focus that you have brought to this church plant and the ways that it is bearing kingdom fruit. You know, it may not necessarily always be, seen in the seats on a Sunday morning, but man, you're like, you are changing your city, which is cool. But I also think, you know,

just as there is for every pastor, there's people listening in that have had, you know, maybe a hard week, a hard month, maybe, you know, someone's marriage has blown up, maybe, you know, like a key leader has left the church or whatever. So maybe, you know, I mean, yeah, you're seeing God do some really cool things, but like tell a hard story or two, you know, from these first few years of the church plan, you know, what are, what are some real difficult things you've had to kind of walk through or overcome?

Joshua (27:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, we've lost 70 % of our initial launch team. So all the people that were in the living room, they're like, man, we're for you. We're here, you know, all that kind of stuff. We've lost 70 % of those. some of them were harder than others. So I'll tell one story. The very first individual that I let preach at harvest.

About three months later, he started becoming really distant and so did his family. And come to find out they left and they were really mad at me just for whatever reason, right? Like I told them, no, they wanted to have like move through a process that we had with kids and put their kids somewhere else or whatever.

And I told him, no. And I think that that was just one of many things that just really made them angry. And what was so hurtful about it is, is that not only did they leave, but they took like three other families with them. And then not only did they do that, but he got out on social media and blasted me, as a leader and were, was really, talking about how much I made and all that kind of stuff. And so.

You know, that's probably one of those that that period where all of a sudden you've lost, you know, three or four families, you have somebody blasting you, you don't know who else is going to go, you know, with you. That's that's been a hard story and a hard thing to go through. I mean, right now, I mean, right now, yeah, things are going great, like, you know, whatever. But right now, you know, we're dealing with two other families, a situation that happened between two families and

both of them we love so much. One of them has been with us from the, well, both of them were with us from the beginning, one on our core team, one not, and one has left for a time being, we're still in communication. The other one is still there, but they're working through difficult things. And so it's not all sunshine and roses, right? Like it's literally the daily grind. It's the,

best of times and the worst of times, right? A tale of two cities. Okay. It's like that all the time in ministry, you know, it's the best of times and the worst of times. we've got another couple that is wanting to be married and they want to be engaged, but now they're going through some difficult stuff and that, you know, their key leaders kind of in our, in our youth and all that stuff. So like, yeah, God's doing stuff. He's, doing good things, but there's all, I mean, there's always,

Rob Paterson (29:24)
Yeah.

Joshua (29:44)
stuff that you have to deal with, especially when we're dealing with people and especially when you're trying to till new soil for the Lord and the spiritual warfare that comes with that. I would say probably even a year ago, Sarah and I hit one of those really rough patches for about four or five months where we were at each other's throats and we were arguing and we couldn't

really have a great conversation. We had to go to counseling and kind of, we're in a great spot now. Right. So I don't want anybody to think like, my gosh, all this stuff is happening. It's awesome. And, know, we bought property, we're in the process of going to start building, like all that's really great. And underneath all of that, there have been probably three or four really big challenges. And you just have to navigate through that, with.

Rob Paterson (30:32)
Hmm.

Joshua (30:39)
connecting to the Lord and connecting to other people that have wisdom and and honestly just have a little bit of resiliency Right as a leader and I one of the things that's really helped me is I listened to I was read I listened to this podcast. I was reading a book about mental. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah and the book unpublished by the by the you know by Allison

Rob Paterson (30:58)
The Church Talk Podcast.

Joshua (31:06)
Jason Allison and Rob, but, it was talking about how to see situations and how to grasp them mentally and emotionally. And one of the things that this book was talking about is oftentimes when there's a scenario or a situation or a challenge that pops up, what we tend to do is use the magnifying glass and we tend to zoom in on that. And therefore we think it's pervasive. We think it's going to.

you know, be happy, it's going to affect everything that is involved. He said, what we have to do mentally and emotionally is zoom out actually, and view that challenge in the context of everything else that is happening, not only in our life, but also in our organizations. And then what we'll see typically is that that scenario, there are very few challenges, very few scenarios that are going to affect the totality of everything.

and actually could compromise what you're trying to build. And that's really helped me in some of those moments where I'm like, okay, I can zoom out here and I can, like you're talking about, can see we have people sharing the gospel. I can see we have this happening. I can see that our giving is strong. I can see that our engagement is strong. And there's like three families that are disgruntled, but there's like a whole bunch of others that aren't.

and who cares what anybody posts on social media anyway because people are crazy. Talk about Pharaoh, there are Pharaoh out there. And so just being able to have that mentality from viewing things and then being connected to the Lord and allowing Him to speak life into you, I think those two things have really helped me navigate those turbulent times.

Jason Allison (32:50)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (32:50)
Yeah,

Josh, think just last night we got a message from a lady in our church that has family stuff going on with one of their kids, young kids having some medical challenges. And they reached out and we become good friends with them. been in our church like weekly for over a year now. And they were like, you know what? Like when we were worse people, like we never had any challenges. And now that we're like being serious about our faith and following Jesus.

We have all these things going on that are really, really hard. so we'd like made an emergency ice cream run and brought it over to them. Cause she in particular loves ice cream. but you know what, like it's, it's that whole idea, right? Of we have an enemy and when we're like actually doing things like for the kingdom, the enemy is going to try to discourage us, get us off track, you know, whatever. And we can't let that happen. We've got to like use it, have resilience and push through.

and know that over the longer stretch of time, it's going to make a huge difference.

Joshua (33:48)
Yeah. And know that like if we're, if we're pushing ground, if we're seeing salvation, if we're, if we're advancing the kingdom as a leader, just expect it to pop up. was telling a guy that I was, that I coached the other last week and he was talking about, yeah, they're, they're even pre-launched, but they're seeing some really cool things happen. He's like, and then this thing popped up and I just told him, said, here's how I would handle it. I'm like, but here's how for you.

As you're moving and as you're building and as you launch, just expect it. Like it's gonna come. And so when you see it, it's not fun to navigate, right? But use it as a marker of like, we must be doing something for God because we've got somebody's attention and they're coming after us. And let's view it from the perspective of, okay.

All right, let's let's go to battle. Let's go to war. Let's get in prayer. Let's do whatever and and move forward. Right. So, yeah.

Jason Allison (34:48)
Yeah,

well, speaking of moving forward, as you kind of look into the future, you know, over the next year, two years, three years of of ministry at Harvest. And, you know, I mean, you're doing more than just the local church. You're connected with the with the region. You all that. But I'm just curious, like, and what excites you about ministry, about what's coming, about what you you sense God doing? Yeah, what's exciting you?

Joshua (34:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think what is exciting to me is a and I don't know if it's a renewed. I don't know if it's I don't know what is I think that what's exciting to me is that there is it seems like a shift in a move toward the idea of effective ministry really is all about multiplication and making disciples and especially

with the young generation, the younger generation, right? And giving them leadership responsibilities and beginning to pour into them and giving them opportunity. and you know, there's, um, I think that there, was, I've been reading a little bit about like the next generation, Gen Z and all that kind of stuff. And I know that's kind of like a hot topic, but one thing that's really set in my mind is as a millennial is that I'm kind of like the Patan passer.

Like that, my generation millennials have to look at like your role, your job in a sense, I think is, could be a Patan passer. And I think by establishing some, some rhythms, establishing some new ways of doing things, because like millennials really challenge the world, baby boomers built because they're, they're, they're a generation away from them. Right.

Rob Paterson (36:33)
Mm.

Joshua (36:37)
And so they really challenge that in the area of like, you know, emotional awareness and personal awareness, right? And being able to break down some of those structures and things like that that were built. Yeah, but we could do it differently. We could do it this way or whatever. I think it's really an opportunity to pave the way for the next generation. So I'm excited about that and move into that.

I don't ever want to, when I say this, I don't ever want someone to think that I'm like, poo-pooing on mega churches. Like that's not my role, right? I don't have a, I don't care, right? But what also excites me is I think we're seeing the emergence again of the neighborhood church where the pastors are like, man, God sent me to a neighborhood. God sent me to a place and I just want to, I just want to invest in the neighborhood. want to, I want to.

love people in the neighborhood. I want to serve like Jesus in the neighborhood and not from the sense of like, come to our church, but just from the out of the heart of like, man, I'm just, I was sent here and, and like, I want to, I want to invest. I think that's kind of cool. And I think with the clarity house stuff that we've done over the last five months, the first article that we read talked about, you know, the assimilation process that we've known since the eighties.

Rob Paterson (37:38)
Mm.

Joshua (37:56)
but actually utilizing the assimilation process that then multiply out. And I think there's a greater emphasis of that coming, which I love. and I'm all about, and then I'm really, I mean, I'm always excited about church planting and, and, and it's not just about the church planting from the perspective of can we get, send out a planter and raise $500,000 in plant? Like, I think we need that.

But it's also with the emergence of the microchurch stuff that I think is getting more and more traction in America and alternative ways to plant churches. Those things are really exciting to me. And I'll give you one like illustration and then we can go from there whatever. know, when during World War II, the Nazis had these huge bombers.

And so when Winston Churchill, know, 50 over 50 % of London, the world's largest city at the time is destroyed. And Winston Churchill is like, man, how do we keep up with this? Like, what do we do? It takes time to manufacture huge bombers. Well, you started manufacturing what is more of a modern day fighter jet. So you could manufacture them quicker for less money and get more in the air. I feel like that's what the micro church is to the church to a certain degree. It's the nimble.

fighter jets, like we can mass produce micro churches if we can just get people to like give their time to and share the gospel. We can mass produce those and still build the big bombers, right? Build the raise $500,000 plant the church. mean, we did, you know, we did that, right? So do that. And then let's also do some micro church as well. So I think those are kind of the three areas or three things that I get excited about for the future of the church.

Rob Paterson (39:41)
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, Josh, we just have a couple of minutes left actually. So it is a good thing that Jason and I didn't just ramble on for, you know, extra minutes at the front, like we like to do. but you know, as you were saying that I just have like one last question. and part of it is based on this last five months where we've been in the stuff with clarity house. And part of it's what you just said about like this whole idea of finding new and different and unique ways to multiply the kingdom.

Joshua (39:50)
Hahaha ⁓

Rob Paterson (40:07)
Maybe not just doing, you know, what's been done for the last hundred or so years. you know, talk about like the importance of, not just like what we do every day. That's super important for sure. But also having like that picture or the vision driving that, you know, like why both of those are important. Sometimes it's like, I'm just going to be faithful and I'm going to serve and I'm going to help every day. Right. Super important.

Joshua (40:18)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (40:30)
But then, but like no one's joining that because we don't have a vision that we're casting. Other people have a great story and like, let's do this together, but they don't have that consistency and faithfulness. And so that doesn't really, you know, people come and go, but it doesn't really take root and make the difference. Why are both of those important? Why, how are you seeing that and what you're up to?

Joshua (40:50)
Yeah, so like I think it's having something on the horizon that you're calling people to. And it's not just that, but it's also having something on the horizon, a set of values, a mission, a vision, also that you're filtering everything you do through. So it's not about casting the widest net, it's about narrowing the focus. And so,

I felt like that in the last five months, one of the things that is been refreshing to me is, learning that number one, you don't have to just do what you've always done. And I know a lot of people have read that, kind of stuff, like, you know, but you don't always have to do what you've always done. It's okay to shift focus and it's okay that when you shift focus to do it in a way that builds off of your strengths from the past. Right. So.

It's okay, but then it's also good to narrow your focus so that you can call people to something and it forces them to ask the question, is this a priority for me in my life? Is this a value in my life? Like, do I want to align with this? And if I'm called to something so like transformational, if I'm called to something that's so narrow that I'm going to have to

Rob Paterson (41:47)
Hmm.

Joshua (42:10)
sacrifice for this, is that something that I'm wanting to do? Because here's the deal, it'll cause people to get off, right? It'll cause some, but it'll, but at the same time, and we, think a lot of times in churches and in organizations, we worry about all of the people taking the off ramp, but we forget about when we cast that compelling vision and we have that filter that we're filtering everything to and be like, this is who we are. This is what we're going after. We're going to have other people on the on ramp that normally would not be like,

yeah, I want to go after that too. Like God's calling me to that too and let's ride. And then what happens I feel like is that you've got more unity built around where you're going and what you're doing. Like at Harvest, I have no problem almost every Sunday saying if you're here today and you want programs, we are not your church. However,

Rob Paterson (42:48)
Mm.

Joshua (43:04)
If you want to come and you want to be challenged to serve, you want to be challenged to give, you want to be challenged to reproduce yourself, you want to be challenged to sacrifice in your life, you want to be called to so that people in your community, right, know Jesus and grow with him. If that's your deal and that resonates with your heart, then we are the church for you. Right. So I think when you have the clarity of where you're going and the vernacular to call people to it, yes, you're going to have off-ramp people.

but you're gonna have on-ramp people and then you're gonna have more unity around where you're going in your people. look, dude, give someone 175, 100 unified people on mission. I'll take that all day, right? And so I think that's what I've learned through this last five months. And that's really encouraging for me.

Rob Paterson (43:40)
Yeah.

So.

Jason Allison (43:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

that's great. Well, Josh, dude, it was it was a pleasure having the conversation. And obviously, we spent hours over the last few days talking, so there's no way we could touch on everything that we talked about. But man, I appreciate I appreciate you, your heart and what you're doing. It's it's fun to watch. And one of the cool things about you is I also know that you're saying

Joshua (44:11)
Sure, sure.

Jason Allison (44:22)
Hey, we got this far, but I don't know exactly what's next. And I'm willing to just spend some time listening to what God is calling us to so that we can then start shaping a strategy to get there. I just, I appreciate that about you. And I'm hoping sometime in the next couple of months, Rob and I get down there to visit you and have some fun, play little golf and then see what God is doing and how we can come alongside you and support you in that.

Joshua (44:49)
Well, can I just say, can I say one thing about you guys real quick before we hop off? Number one, on the plane yesterday, there were so many people getting golf clubs. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. ⁓ and number two, just for anybody who's listening, and this is not the Pat them on the back or whatever, but I will say from my perspective and my interaction with both of you, you guys are super genuine. You're super authentic. You want to help you have been.

Jason Allison (45:00)
I know, I know.

Joshua (45:17)
very impactful in my life. look up to both of you. I'm thankful for both of you. And so I just felt like I want to honor both of you just for your hearts and for your friendship. And I love you both. And I'm very grateful that you allowed me to come on your podcast. So thank you very much, guys.

Jason Allison (45:35)
Well, that feeling is mutual, my friend. We love you deeply and can't wait to hang out with you again. And to all of our listeners, if you want to see anything about what is happening at Harvest Church in Conway, you can visit them at Harvest247.org. Is that right? Harvest 247.

Joshua (45:54)
Yes, sir. And the socials

are harvest.247. So it's YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Yep.

Jason Allison (46:00)
Awesome, and if you

are in that area by some chance man great place to visit see what's going on learn something but yeah to all our listeners do we appreciate you we Genuinely want to see you become all that God has called you to be we want to see your church making some kind of kingdom impact in your community as God has called you to do and if we can do anything to support you in that process all you got to do is reach out

You can do it through the website. You can email us rob at church stock project.com or jason at church stock project.com. There's even a thing in the in the podcast notes where you can reach out to us through a link there. We would love to help you. We are cheering for you. We love you and we can't wait to hear what God is doing. Have a great week.