Doug Park - Intentional Churches

 Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities in modern church leadership, focusing on intentionality, relational evangelism, and church growth strategies with Doug Parks from Intentional Churches.

Find out more about Intentional Churches

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you are here, that you're listening. I know you're not actually physically here because we're recording this on a random Wednesday, but we are glad that you would tune in and listen, and we are looking forward to an amazing conversation. Rob, you and I actually have gotten to play golf a couple times. We kept saying we were going to make it happen, and we did. And right now, if I look at our total scores through two rounds, we're tied. We're even, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Yeah, I beat you by a stroke, you beat me by a stroke. And uh and you know what? And we both like hit some great golf shots, and we both left a lot of stuff on the table. I hate starting double bogey, double bogey on like the front nine and then on the back, like you know, like hole one and hole ten. That was brutal.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah, it was brutal to watch. Amen. Man, so before we dive into our guest, Rob, anything else we need uh we need we need to talk about, or do we want to just bring our guest in and just get the mush going?

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Well, you know, I think our guest might have a comment here because as we were talking right before we hit record, you know, he's the one that that really brought this up. And you know, I think sometimes, you know, for people in ministry, I don't know, Jason, how like you kind of feel about this or felt about it. Like I can, I feel, you know, just these tensions all over the place. You know, here we are. Uh this this will drop right at the end of uh you know, a month that has become synonymous with the Pride Month, right? And you know, for people in ministry, like, you know, what you know, what do you what do you do with that? You know, do you do you just keep your mouth shut and not pour any gas on the fire? Do you say something? You know, do you yeah, you know, it I it's just it's it just seems like such a potential trap, you know, and if you come out swinging about it, you know, I don't know that that's a really good look that really, you know, is something maybe Jesus would do. Uh and and yet, you know, it it's tough, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

And and so I love it.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Let me let me let me say this too. Like, it's tough because we talk about pride, you know, and and generally when you look at scripture, pride is bad. Uh, you know, like that those and yet I also understand, like, if you really want to get behind it and talk, there are roots to it that I think I understand where they're coming from, in that it's really about saying, hey, these are people who have been sidelined in our culture, and we want to at least acknowledge that yes, they're different than us, you know, than what you would call normal. But in the same breath, we want to acknowledge that they're there. And and there was a time, I think, when yeah, they, if you were in the LGBTQ community, if you were in a same-sex relationship that from a purely civil perspective, right? I'm not talking religious, any of that. I'm just saying, you know, in in a governmental way, you know, you were denied some rights that a heterosexual couple, you know, just had. It was ingrained in the law. And so I understand that some of the roots of this grew out of, hey, we need to acknowledge that there are people who are being sidelined, both, you know, in in culture, but also even in some of their rights. And we want to acknowledge that. Now, what it's become, uh I'm not always, you know, like I'm not trying to defend all of it, but I'm also trying to say, hey, you know what? Uh without being on both sides or saying, I I understand where it came from and and how can we find redeeming qualities and and speak into it, like you said, as Jesus did.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Yeah. Well, well, and I've I've had you know people say, Well, what would you do, you know, if a gay person came to your church? And I kind of chuckle. And even though I live in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest, and like, you know, very conservative, like my community, my region, you're gonna see way more Trump signs than you would see, you know, Biden sign or whoever, you know, and in the last number of elections, you know, I do have people who are gay that attend my church, you know, almost every week. And and my response is always the same, you know, like just like somebody who struggles with any sin, or you know, maybe doesn't struggle, you know, with that sin, you know, if they come in like the rest of us, humbly, wanting to learn and grow and worship and be open to what God wants to do in their life, you know, you are you are welcome and you can be just as much a part of this as anybody else. If you want to sit in the front row and make a spectacle and ask for us to like, you know, put up flags and like you know, do celebrations. You know, that's you know no, but you don't we don't do that for we don't do that for anything or anyone, right? Yes. So certainly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Let's uh let me let's bring in our gun in, baby. This is not at all the reason we brought you on, Doug.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I know, I know. But here's my like I don't know if anybody saw this article that came out reporting that Major League Baseball players were writing Bible verses on their pride hats that MLB was making the players wear this month, off and on. And then MLB told them they couldn't do that anymore. And so what it raises for me isn't it it's really another group that I really get kind of frustrated with. And that is a lot of my uh friends who are Gen Xers who deconstructed faith in reaction to you know pain they felt or saw in their fire and brimstone churches or or whatever, really being hypocritical, really hypocritical. Like calling out the the more conservative views to the point that you know they want to tout they're inclusive to the ends of the earth, but they're really not. They're only inclusive if you believe they're reconstructed kind of worldview. And uh this is what MLB's thing just reeks of. Like, how could you force players to wear pride hats and then tell them they can't write Bible verses on them? It's just nutty to me. This is where we're at. And so I guess in all this, my beef is more with my friends who are Gen Xers who deconstructed and then reconstructed a very what would be considered progressive or liberal view of the world. And I'm like, man, I be I say all the time to my one of my friends, I fight for the middle. I think that's where Jesus was. He was never on the right wing or progressive liberal. He was on the he's in the middle, and he saw people for people, not as buckets or groups, yeah, and loved on them.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

And so anyway, I don't know if you guys well, yeah, that that's where I feel like there we as followers of Jesus, we need to find, and I feel like this phrase has been used too much, but we need to find a third way, right? Uh not not not a middle ground where everything is okay or you know it's fuzzy at every end, but we need to really find, hey, what is the way Jesus dealt with in because he didn't become political, but he also was very political within his context in a way, right? And and what he did had implications on how people were treated, on how you love people. Like, how do we in America in you know 21st century really function as followers of Jesus when we have the right to vote, when we have all these rights that for 2,000 years Christians haven't had those kind of rights? And so it's some of this is it's an ex the American experiment is also testing our faith and how we handle our faith in a new setting that is, you know, it's relatively new to the to the to Christendom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Guys, anyway, so one of one of the things that uh I think about, and I I mean, we may have to do three podcasts, right? We may have to talk about this for a while, and then we'll introduce Doug and actually talk about what he what he's up to. But uh, you know, I just remember learning like in the rhythm of the Beatitudes, you know, like the first number of the Beatitudes are really things that God does for us that we cannot do. Like we are, you know, we are crushed, we are in need, and God meets us where we are, and He blesses us. And then the next number of the Beatitudes are things that then we're supposed to do in response to the things God has done for us, you know, how we're supposed to live. But then how how the last two, you know, are blessed are the peacemakers, right? Well, what does a peacemaker do? It doesn't say, ooh, I take this side or this side, they stand in the middle, which then means you're hated by both sides, right? And then the last one is blessed are those who are persecuted. Because if you're gonna actually truly be a peacemaker, everyone's gonna be mad at you. And I find this sometimes where you know all my really conservative friends, like you're you're like, you're just a liberal. And all my liberal friends are like, you're way too conservative. And it's it's not that it's just that I'm right of some and left of the others, and I don't really care about left and right. I care more about trying to keep my eyes on Jesus and do what he said to do, which in some instances makes me seem very extreme politically in both directions, you know. So it it's a tough way to live in a world that is like pushing, you know, extremes these days.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah. The refreshing thing though is I don't find it as much in the younger generations who are adults now.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

They they they are they are truly inclusive. It really is the Gen Xers responding to their boomer parents. Yeah. Swinging the pendulum the whole way back from the government's going to save the world and we can legislate morality to we're gonna screw the government and screw everything. Yeah, we're Gen Xers. But I gotta ask this because I live in Vegas. Rob, as a Canadian, how much does it tick you off that we keep winning the Stanley Cup in the U.S.?

SPEAKER_03 9:55

You know what? Uh so I'm a lifelong Edmonton Oilers fan, which the last, not this year, but the last two years, you know, be getting to the cup finals and losing to Florida, you know. I Miami nonetheless. I I have a deep problem, and I probably need to confess some things and have God do a deep inner work in me about this. But I have a hard time when anyone wins the Stanley Cup when they come from a place that cannot sustain snowfall. Like you I don't even think you should be allowed to have a team if that's the case.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So yeah, it bugs me a little bit. My golden nights really messed up the uh middle of the ice for you guys. You couldn't get rolling this year, man.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Oh, well, and you know what? I mean, at the start of this series, Vegas looked unstoppable, and they choked away a couple games they should have won, and that cost them the cup.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, they were tired. I just thought they were tired. Anyway, sorry, Jason, but thanks for letting me go on a tangent. You're not everywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

I what I watched the Stanley Cup Finals too. I I I kept my eye on it. So mainly.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Hey Jason, who's our guest? Tell us we should talk. You should tell our listener who's our guest is.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Well, we have an amazing guest. His name is Doug Barks. And uh Doug and his uh co-founder of Intentional Churches, uh Bart Rindle, uh, have been friends of mine for a while. Bart, I've actually known since before first grade. Uh he's another one of the we've had a couple of guys now on the podcast that I knew growing up and you know, whatever. But Bart's been around. But Bart, of course, blew me off because, you know, that's just the way my old friends are. And instead he sent Doug. No, I'm just kidding. Doug, I've been talking with both of them. And and so Doug is joining us. Doug and and Doug, Doug and Bart are the vision drivers and the orchestrators. I love the way you guys uh word that, who love helping churches, church teams reach more people for Jesus in their communities. And as executive church leaders, uh, they've been through the drill, they've gone through all this stuff, and they've just they're the kind of guy that when your church is either struggling or maybe wrestling with what's next or how do we keep moving? And these are the guys you call, and they come in and they really walk alongside you. They've got some amazing systems and structures and strategies that they they help you understand. And so, Doug Parks, welcome to the Church Talk Podcast and uh welcome to intentional churches. You guys are awesome. I can't wait to hear more. Maybe start, Doug. Just tell us the story of intentional churches. How did you and and Bart start this thing?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, well, I always like to go back to kind of my origin story a little bit because it's kind of been the governing theme of my life. So I grew up in southeastern Ohio out in the like have you guys ever seen the show Moonshiners on Discovery Channel? Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of my family. Like I literally was given whiskey when I had a cold when I was a kid. But uh, you know, that area of the country back then was pretty depressed, very blue-collar, and I grew up in a really not good home and uh good situation. And so I had a youth pastor who was very evangelistic in our county, and he befriended me. And late in high school, I came to believe in Jesus as my savior, and man, it has been the adventure of a lifetime. Like it's the miraculous the difference in my life. Uh of course, I still got crap in my life, but man, so when you're talking about the origin of IC, IC has always been about, always from the very beginning. How do we reach more people for Christ? Like I was reached by you, Pastor. So then let me fast forward a little bit through my story. So went to a Bible college, first of my family to go to college, had to work, went to work for Chick-fil-A, and through miraculous events and mentoring, got a chance to become the youngest Chick-fil-A owner operator they had ever hired. I was 21 when I took over a mall store. This is pre-cals, so it wasn't as big. And we did really well there, but you can imagine even back then the leadership development that Chick-fil-A did and business development, because I went to Bible college. I didn't have a single math class, I didn't have a single accounting class, and they developed in us as owner operators strategic planning and you know, really the prioritization and all that. So that was really the beginnings of my shaping. If I fast forward, I we did awesome, won a ton of awards my last year, but I had not dealt with my childhood and I burned out. And at that time, one of the guys I was friends with in college had come to Vegas to be an intern of in a church plant. I was a part of a church plant in Cincinnati. And so my wife and I moved out here before kids to be a part of a church plant that was going to reach Gen Xers that was inside of another church plant. So it was like, I know, Rob, you have church planting background, it was a lot of risked stuff. So and then Bart, my co-founder, was across town on the executive team at is what it's called Central Christian Church here in Vegas. I was at Canyon, I eventually, our church plant that was reaching Gen Xers was model chasing. If you know that about Gen Xers, deconstructing and model chasing. He he eventually we got up to 500 people. He chased the house church model and the whole thing imploded. I stayed on to be the executive pastor for Canyon Rouge Christian Church. And then he and I had a dinner, a mutual friend had us to dinner, and we realized I was already doing strategic planning. Central was doing business strategic planning, and we began about 2010 with the intent of could we get a framework where literally thousands of churches could collaborate together, but remain contextualized to whatever they are. And we thought if we could get build something like that, we might see millions come to Christ through the believers of those churches. And so we've been through multiple iterations, but that was kind of the genesis of IC. It felt a lot like strategic planning in the beginning, but that was never the point. The point was could we build a framework and a platform where thousands of congregations could collaborate together to reach millions for Christ?

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Wow. Well, I that's I've I've seen you guys, I've I've watched that evolution from a distance, right? Through Bart and our friendship and just you know, loose connection over the years. Uh and I gotta say, I love where you're at. Like what what you're doing right now. I do feel like you guys have moved into a sweet spot of of the way you're doing things. And I'm I'm excited to see where it goes and and and and what all happens with it. Go ahead, Rob, you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, Doug, I mean, it's it's cool to kind of hear about where you've been now for I mean, did you say 2010 is kind of when you guys started doing this kind of stuff? So you know, for 16 years.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

So like give us a little bit of a picture of where Intentional Churches is now, and really like what's the dream? I mean, if this could really, you know, we got the big picture, you know, like hey, we want to see, you know, tons of people accept Jesus, but like, man, what's the dream if this was functioning like, you know, kind of at full capacity?

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Well, I'll just say guys and thank you, Jason, for your kind words there. It is the sweetest season of the entire ministry's history right now. And and a lot of it is Bart and I have built this thing to always be in collaboration. Like we didn't neither one of us wanted to be on stages and write books, and and we started the very first meeting to begin the planning. We out of our own family's checking accounts, flew in about six other friends to say, what will we do if we're gonna do something like this? So it's always had this collaborative nature in it. And um, the reason why it's such a sweet season is is because we've built it to be basically a giant practical ministry learning community where any church, no matter the size, and I could tell stories of churches of a hundred winning right now in incredible ways. Uh, one of them Minnesota comes to mind. But the uh the the real thrust behind it now, we get we've gotten crystal clear. Uh we help your church make the Great Commission a personal mission statement for every believer, congregant, staff member, and board member uh across the board. And the big learning, if you will, in the learning community over the last few years was here's what's kind of broken in the American church. The ecclesiology and missiology are broken. Programs and branding and marketing and social media don't win and grow people. The whole equation is meant to be mobilizing and activating us as individuals. So kind of the this season, we we say it must start with you, church leader. Do you have Great Commission fruit in your life? Not necessarily conversion because we're not in control of the outcome, but do you have great commissioned fruit in your life? And so, Rob, when you ask about the future, we've had some generous donors behind us the last couple years. We've gotten our infrastructure all set for scale. And we're hoping right now we're sitting at about 1,200 churches across 30 plus denominations or networks using what we call our radical alignment system. And we're hoping to get to 5,000 in the next three years, man. And we got a pretty robust plan to get there, taking our own medicine about like friend-to-friend invites, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well, I I would definitely so, first of all, any of our listeners that want to reach out to you know intentional churches, of course, there'll be a link in the show notes. Um, you know, intentional churches.com if you don't if you're like the majority of people who never actually look at the show notes of a podcast. But it's Is that like the bulletin at church? It's exactly like the bulletin at church. Um do people have bulletins? My little church is a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

We call ours the scoop.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

If you want the scoop, you get a scoop.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yes, yeah. I want a scoop of ice cream, is what I want.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Yeah, amen.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

But uh, but I would encourage them to reach out uh and and connect with you guys because there are multiple ways for for a church to connect with intentional churches. Uh and they can do it through you know very low-level beginning point to a high-level, you know, almost I don't want to say re-org, but it's a true like strategic planning process that you know you guys help them do all that. And so I I yeah, I would just say, man, make the call. Like it reach out, test the waters, see what's there, see how you resonate with it. And it does seem what you guys are creating is truly a platform. Uh, I know your your first book, uh, the the red one, as you guys call it, uh intentional churches, like it really uses the the metaphor of an engine and and you know, and getting that stuff together and making it all work. That's what you're I don't want to say selling because it's that sounds really bad, and I don't mean it that way, but that's what you guys are offering to churches. Hey, we want to help you create an engine that keeps humming. It doesn't matter who the pastor is, it doesn't matter you know, all this. How did you guys like come around to that kind of thinking? Was it just the strategic brains between you and Bart? Was it something else? Like, what what does that look like in real life?

SPEAKER_01 21:23

I think it you know, it was a combination. You know, we unlike the church leader world, which kind of is set up around a personality and then content, as if content can bring enlightenment. What we built was very relational and we went kind of gr a ground game, you know, we were going church by church, and you can't help but if you're going church by church to start learning patterns. And the big learnings initially were the ecclesiology and missiology. What I mean by that, the what we believe in America to be true about what the church is is a dial turn off or two. And this is a great, you know, I know Gen Xers were snarky and we want to criticize everything. But I'm being serious. This is a real learning that institutional thinking is hard to break. It's in our subconscious psyche as churches, church leaders. And what it inadvertently does when you do that, especially if you're a more shepherding type leader, you accidentally are sewing in a DNA in your church people of Christian consumerism. When you're not mobilizing and activating them in the Great Commission, the flip side of that is you're actually sewing in consumerism. It doesn't feel like it and it it on the surface it feels like I'm doing all the churchy right things and checking the boxes. But if I do all if I attend one, give one, serve one, reach one, group one, whatever, and I am not active in personal ownership of the Great Commission in my everyday life, you actually, I would argue, are not living what Jesus taught in the New Testament and exemplify. One of my big challenges to teens right now, to any believer, go read the New Testament through the lens of Jesus showing us how we should implement the Great Commission before he ever gave the words. And the preparation to be a Christ follower is actually in the going. It's not you go to a class or you huddle together with Christians. He prepared his disciples and they screwed up left and right. He prepared as soon as they came to faith in him, they were going in every case.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah. And so how many of our churches really look like that?

unknown 23:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

You know, it's that's that's it is.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

So Doug, I just want to make a connection because like I'm I'm coming to this conversation, you know, with Jason saying, hey, I know these guys they're doing really cool stuff. Let's have a conversation with them. So he knows a lot. I know virtually nothing. And so like am I correct in my understanding that when you your organization intentional churches that that what that means is helping you know churches that you work with like you said earlier to have everyone take ownership of the Great Commission. That's the intentionality that you're talking about. Okay. So with that in mind I'm kind of curious like what are the things that you typically see that are keeping people and churches from really truly engaging with the Great Commission?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

It is primarily I believe because we do the same thing to our congregants that church growth conferences do to our platforms or teaching churches do to us. We tell them from the platform they should or teach them out of scripture and we do very little equipping and we never really show them and we rarely what we found in it's not every case but we found a lot of staffs throughout the country aren't themselves practicing the Great Commission in our language don't have ones in their life that they're interacting with every week. And they're all there. Ones are everywhere. Ones from Luke 15 for us those who aren't yet following Jesus they're everywhere in our lives everywhere we go every restaurant every sports team for our kids every they're everywhere. So a part rather part of what I think if I'm a church leader listen to this thing part of what you got to do, you gotta it has to start with you. And then that has to weave into your preaching and then what I see is trying to do is come alongside churches that want to go here and provide resources then that could get the congregation there. The other thing we found to be true is that oftentimes the senior pastor this is the reason they got in ministry to see people who don't know Jesus reached by their church people. This is why almost everybody's gotten into ministry. But in a lot of cases it's a board who's about preserving what has been that gets in the way of the congregation actually being equipped and challenged to do it. I had one elder in a church in the Midwest say to me to take my church from my mother like that other church down the street did. And I'm like, do you read your Bible? So anyway I would say these things that we learned and we did in this radical alignment book that just came out last fall and we called it the radical alignment the surprising journey to becoming an attention church. And the surprise is it must start with you the leaders and then you will start to think about your ministry differently if you're producing great commission fruit. So and I give like these are really easy low level pragmatic tips. Like yesterday I was talking to somebody how do I get my board here? Well let's put on every elder agenda the very first item is we tell our salvation story and who invested us. The very first one. Then the second one, let's take 10 minutes and write down every one in our lives as board members. And then let's pray for them together before we become the board of directors managing the church. And it will change the culture of that team. You can do that with your staff. These are easy simple things. Have your meetings have your elder meeting at a local restaurant. Don't have it at the church interact with ones you know yes track it with me.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Yeah you know that that's where so I was at a church in South Carolina last week and the the the executive pastor there is I I love him and he is on fire for Jesus in so many ways. And the the senior pastor there who's this young kid and this is a church of 1700 right it's exploded. And but they are just they're trying to make that leap that you were describing because um Joseph the guy that I've been working I had a phone call with him just yesterday he was telling me about this guy who came up to him is this guy's the husband of a woman at the church and this guy's not a believer or anything but he came to church with his wife because he's trying to be nice and he sees Joseph and he goes hey you look like you might work out occasionally and and you know Joseph's I you know he's not huge or anything but you can tell he's in shape ish more than me. And and so but uh he's like yeah dude why don't you join me at the gym someday and so they end up they've been going to the gym together for like you know six weeks and Joseph was like I looked at Joseph and I said dude that's your one that that's the guy that God has sent into your life and you don't need to do a Bible study with him. You need to go to the gym with him and you need to show him what being like Jesus is like in the normal part of life. And he looked at me and he went oh my gosh I never thought of that like and and that's where telling those stories is so important because this is a staff member executive pastor he has every excuse in the book not to have the one you know a one in his life right all this stuff. But he does and he is so passionate about it but he didn't even realize it and so when we started talking and I can't wait to connect him to you guys it was like you guys are already modeling it. Now you need to come behind it and give yourself some systems and structures to empower your whole church to do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

And I'll tell you to a one when churches do this to give you some idea kind of across the spectrum as best we can estimate right now in America we I think we've been in a revival for a little while and we'll continue to be for a run here. And so the the tide has shifted on average about three we're seeing about 3% conversions in a normal church annually in IC churches getting back to this basic fundamental biblical model of Great Commission ownership 13%. Wow 13 4x and it's not any program or magic it is just thinking about ministry about not just using these words how they overused in church leadership truly mobilizing and activating the heart mind and strength of our entire board staff and congregation to be on mission together. And this is what I love Jason main session one and on our podcast we just released it again Dr. Carlos Kelly Beuland Bible Church Georgia Warner Robbins Georgia traditional African American church and uh it's amazing what's happened in their their church was dying uh and in a three year run it's completely he gave this talk about Luke five I'd never seen it this way and he and at the end he goes here's this master carpenter telling master fishermen how to fish and he tells them not to do what they normally do but go out to the deep. If you want to be deep go to the deep throw your nets over well we've done that before throw your nets and then the nets come up and the nets are breaking your church should be chaos to all the fellow executive pastors if Great Commission ownership is happening church should be chaos. And executive pastors me included we're always trying to get it controlled and organized. But again if you read the New Testament through this lens this is not how it should be it should be chaos with screw ups all over the place because that's what we see exemplified in in the Bible. Anyway you guys get me rolling I'm just like I can't stop ripping man.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Well you touched on this earlier though we we have and I'm I'm reading to uh Todd Wilson his book uh how we got there or how we got here uh and it's basically the church growth movement and and all those things George McGavern the whole thing and and he's not opposed to it actually he doesn't write about it in a negative sense but he's talking about the unintended consequences of some of the things that happened and how we have basically we've institutionalized evangelism right so so we we just want if we just if our people would invite people then the the program will get them saved. And and all of a sudden it's there's no person who's sharing the gospel it's a program it's an institution it's and that's consumerism.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah yeah it's why text in church is a bad idea do not use text in church for your first timers that's not that's not good. Right?

SPEAKER_02 32:18

We want them to be in a relationship as quickly as they can be yeah yeah yeah but it's efficient right it's invisible and scalable I'm I can be responsible these are all good things you try to be as a good executive pastor or elder well and that's I remember you know you we're all about the same age I I remember being and I grew up I went to a Cincinnati Bible seminary that's my master's is from there let it rest in peace. But I I remember the the the people the traditionalist conservative whatever you want to call them saying oh this you're just letting business and practices into church and you know the whole marketing and all this and I remember thinking oh come on we got to do stuff whatever but looking back I'm kind of like they weren't all wrong. Like that there some of those practices that we have introduced to the church in order to make it efficient and scalable and all that stuff we've actually I mean in some ways we have bastardized the whole Great Commission and made it more you know I've joked about this before Rob you know you know the the practical or the functional Great Commission that we've been living by right is going to all the world and make worship attenders, baptizing them into small groups and then teaching them to serve once a month. Like that that's really what we we've done. But that's we've pillaged the soul out of the church.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yes yeah and we've taken away the one tool Jesus exemplified the most from the believer in relational evangelism I am at a point now and I want to hear what you guys think. Rob I really want to hear what you think leading the church right now man. When we don't challenge our congregations to relational evangelism their heart actually can't transform to die to self because if I'm saved initially by Jesus for myself that I'm a better person and I do better things in life and I check all those boxes but I'm not active in relational evangelism am I really able is that Jesus' equation like what do you think about that kind of statement?

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Like can you truly transform a believer's heart if they're not active in relational evangelism I mean I I don't know the honest answer to your question but I what I would say as you say that I think there's so many hurdles anyway you know to people actually having those types of conversations and engaging in that some people are like well I'm not trained enough like I don't I don't know all the right words to say I may have built a great relationship I may have a lot of trust but how do I really you know take that step like they and so what they end up doing is they default to you know us paid professionals who you know have been to the seminars and taken the classes and have lots of practice which really I always joke around like the two times in my life where I was perhaps the most effective now I lead way more people to the Lord nowadays but it's because I have a larger church and so you know I have a lot of opportunities to let the machine do what the machine does. But man personally speaking I was most effective right after I was saved when I had no idea what to do but I was so fired up that God was changing my life and I want to tell my friends about it. And it was like you know that was yes it was just a huge thing. And so when people are like well if I just was trained or I just knew and it's like no no no like just tell your story. Just say what people are doing. And so then what ends up happening is because you know stuff gets outsourced to us professionals we are the ones whose hearts continue to be transformed and we're fired up and we like so desperately want our people to do it. But because we are willing to sort of step in and be that peace they never get to experience just like that transformative like joy and whatever and so then they they continue to resist it. So I I would say at the very least it makes it very very difficult for their hearts to be changed if if they don't like in faith risk some of these conversations and let God use them in this way.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Yeah yeah Jason you have thoughts man I have lots of thoughts a few of them are even appropriate. I I would say so Doug let me ask you this and in response to that like intentional churches what do you guys provide a church or how do you help a church equip everyone in the church to be able to identify their one and and actually invest in that way?

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah well our our our deal was if you get this active in your church, again, no matter the size, no matter the size of town we had a church in Minnesota the one I was referring to earlier that was about 110 people in average weekend attendance new leader came 60 something years old legally blind deaf worse hearing aids he was at the conference with his team came up to me prayed for me several times Tom Cobb he's awesome they you want to guess how many people they had this last Easter? 650 and he said last year we baptized 24 people and it's the most we've ever baptized in a year in our church and we've already baptized 35 this year in May. I'm like if it works in Kimball, Minnesota, you don't need a lot of money and fanfare and programs to be it so what we realized that if you do this and you even get a small portion of your church mobilized that your church will grow. And when it grows is when you will start the we believe the fast growing churches are actually the ones in the more danger than a revitalization because the growth we are assuming we know the route and we start to make decisions as we get resources and money that we should never make that are actually unintended consequence pulling away the mission from our congregation. For instance, we have staffing ratios you can overhire and I've seen it again and again once you get money and now you're taking away subconsciously you know so all that to say we believe in order for this to carry on for generations and not have this conversation ever again about a life cycle of a church because I don't think that should be in the mix you got to have a system and we call it the radical alignment system and think about it as a toolbox a radical alignment to personal ownership of the Great Commission. And the toolbox has three subsets the one team we use the Luke 15 thing a lot which keeps the staff all the staff and leadership stuff organized to the ends of personal ownership of the Great Commission mobilizing and activating everyone. And inside of that we have a lot of training around what we call the activator it's the internal champion and executive pastor training. And the reason why is even in a small church we identify a volunteer leader to do that is because they have most of the control over the budgets, the calendars and the meetings which is where you slide back into institutional thinking. So the one team piece that's what we've been doing forever we just launched the one church section of the toolbox which will have more things in it but it has the one more initiative. And think about the one more initiative as a 10-month campaign similar to a generosity initiative for capital campaign where in those concentric circles of staff, board, and eventually congregation, we inspire and mobilize and train and equip the heart, mind, and strength of every believer in your church in that year campaign and have then a standing set of trainings ongoing to pull people back to some of these base fundamental things like you guys are talking about. How do I share my testimony? How do I become a great question asker? So that's the one church and the one more initiative and the final piece is we're piloting right now the one board how does a board govern a church so that it doesn't take away great commission ownership from its people so that is in essence what Intentional Church has provided and what we're building. And we're doing it in a pretty unique way in that we have what we call partner churches. So we're decentralizing some right now where church leaders on the ground in regions are owning more and more of this collaboration at the ground and not try it not making it so it all has to come back to headquarters of IC. So and that's why it's 5,000 is actually a doable number 5,000 churches at this point.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Yeah that's that's awesome. Doug I have like 20 questions I want to ask and we're like basically out of time now. But I so but I I so you wouldn't have to have you back first of all but I think maybe the one question that I'd have is maybe someone's listening in maybe someone's like me and this is like I'm being honest right now as we're having this conversation I like I like love everything that you guys are doing. I love everything that you said I'm like man like if everybody in my church could take responsibility you know for the Great Commission, it would be a game changer in really pouring gas on everything that we believe God has called us to accomplish in our region. And so like me I'm sitting here going, what does it look like for New Hope to become part of the intentional church's network? So what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Someone's listening they're like man I think I might want to be a part of this like how what does that process look like well the the starting point for everybody this book that we released the Radical Alignment book it's a short book it's built for teams. So at the end of each chapter is question a lot of questions for your team and it's a lot of scripture it's a prequel to our original book that really goes back to the why, this personal ownership and builds the framework of how do you build a church like this? And you have to take the long haul view this intentional churches if you're new to us go read this book test the waters we have easy simple baby steps you can take but the churches who've been in for a long time like Exponentials at First Baptist Orlando they're nine years into this and they are pioneering a lot of the stuff that's showing back up in the radical alignment system because they took the long view they didn't take the silver bullet chasing church leader view. They said no we're going to commit to this and we're actually going to contribute and help shape the future of what this network is so the easiest step Rob is that book with your team and a team study or board study. And then for you we're doing with our partner churches more and more in-person what we call alignment workshops. It's a six hour team based workshop I'm coming in August to Zanesville, Ohio to one of our partner churches to do one. So bring your team man those are being stood up all over the nation right now.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Awesome that's that's great. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

I'm in we'll come yeah yeah we'll we'll make it happen and I was gonna say Rob I Doug and I were talking about me coming to that too. So uh yeah let's make it happen still up here then I'll I'll let you go I'll stay home your team needs it man Doug uh we're we're definitely gonna have to have you and and and maybe even Bart both of you on again soon because this is just great stuff. Our the churches that that Rob and I interact with are struggling with this exact issue. They are excited and ready to really empower you know develop and deploy uh you know all the stuff the people of their churches so I I know they're ready and they want this and what you guys are doing is really just handing them some tools and making this like real. Right in the way they do and so man I appreciate you guys I know it's been a a 15 year journey for you guys really of you know evolving and growing and man I just really appreciate the the effort and the work that you guys have put into that. Thank you Jason thanks man yeah well thank you guys for having me on too of course no we're we're excited and obviously show notes will have websites and all that stuff but if you're in central Ohio and you'll see on the website the Zanesville uh you know meeting uh the alignment workshop and hey we'll we'll come hang out and uh maybe we can you know get get the Church Talk project involved and connect these two amazing organizations and maybe even get more stuff done you just never know or maybe we just play golf and don't do a thing. No I'm just kidding. And talk hockey. Yeah no no no no well to all our listeners man we appreciate you we love you we are so excited to to share in life with you I hope you have an amazing week and please reach out. If you would like a copy of the book that Doug was talking about uh you can either go to their website call me I will help you I will get you hooked up you can email us Jason at church talkproject rob at churchtalkproject dot com. I've read the book it is worth every page it's not a hard read and it will get you going in the right direction. Have an amazing week and thanks for being part of the Church Talk podcast. We'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Thanks guys thanks for joining us today at the Church Talk Podcast we hope the conversation encouraged and challenged you we would love to hear from you email your questions or comments to Jason at churchtalkproject dot com. The Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason is brought to you by the Church Talk Project we work to engage, equip and encourage pastors and church leaders around the world thanks for listening.