SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, hey. So uh Sunday we announced uh that we are uh making some decisions about what to do with growth. And uh if I if I know anything about people, I know that um um everybody's strongly opinionated, and so or they have lots of questions about what this means. Well, the opinionated to me is is people value their faith, they value church, and so anything, anytime something changes, I think sometimes that's a negative, but I I don't think it's a bad thing that people kind of go, hey, because you're messing with something that people really value. Like things have gone really well over the last couple of years. Like we've had a great stretch, it's been a ton of fun, lots of growth. And so I think some of that, um, as as we're listening to it, I think if the initial reaction you have is a wall up and you're kind of defensive, yes, yes, by all means. I think it should be. I feel like it's kind of like when somebody challenged you and your parenting and immediately like, no, those are my kids. Like, I love those kids. So it's not that you're challenging my parenting, but you're speaking into something I value dearly. And so I think for the church, so as we kind of get going on this one, um, we'll kind of give you our rationale of kind of how we came to some decisions, some of that, but you should be a little defensive. You should have an opinion. Like, I hope you do. I hope you either feel some excitement or parts of it feel some concern. I know, like as we've chatted with staff, with elders, with other churches, with consultants, like there are there are lots of things to factor in here. And so let me start with that to go. Um, I want you to feel and think and pray and consider. And so I don't know how people all reacted Sunday because we're recording this Friday in preparation for releasing it Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

So we're we're like, well, we'll see. I think it's important to note that the process that has been undertaken is has been quite robust.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay, so let's go with that. Let's go with so um we released on Sunday um kind of the the idea we're full. Not in every classroom, not in every space, not every Sunday. But most Sundays, there's several classrooms that are really full.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

And kids, man. So when we make that statement, what we're saying is it's not an anecdotal statement, meaning it's the way it feels, but it's an analytical statement based on um a tracking of uh of numbers of who's in classrooms and uh how many people are regularly attending in the auditorium. So we want you to know that that is a um an actual statistics that's being kept. It's not just something where we are like, oh, this is the way it feels, but it's not actually that way. Right. So that's an important distinction to make. With a lot of this, it's important that we we really grind it down. We've been challenged with um some of the anecdotal feelings and really parsing out what is actually there and happening on the ground. And it has brought a lot of clarity uh to this process. And that has been one of the one of the key components has been, you know, really understanding um what is happening from a like a a real um not just like it's it's not a it's not like a numbers thing in terms of like, you know, that's where you're driving all your things from, but actually like knowing who's here and what that means for, you know, because it matters for volunteers, it matters for how we support individuals, it matters how we plan, it matters for what we're what we're thinking. So all those types of things come into play.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So there's a lot of stuff we want to go through. So we're gonna try to keep this somewhat organized. Um, but again, we're not doing a scripted political speech, and so we're gonna kind of kind of go back and forth. Um, the other thing, if you guys have questions after this, please send them in. Uh, if there's something you're like, I don't know if you guys have thought of this, like let us know. Um, the process has been long. So that this began for the two of us probably several years ago already, where we felt there was enough growth to warrant discussions and start thinking about how do you grow a healthy church?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, I think, and with the um, I believe the time of prayer that we spent in 2019 and God leading us to what we believe his vision of the our of our community's church, of what Mount Salem was supposed to be, and then progressing through a few interesting years of COVID, and then coming out of that and trying to um, and feeling like God was bringing us somewhere, but then feeling like we kind of got a bit like, okay, what what is the next right move to make? Right. And then feeling like we really didn't know where to go with that for probably I don't know, a year, year and a half, somewhere around there, like still working to um, you know, provide refinement to the things that we're doing, working hard to advance what, you know, uh like Trevor and his worship teams and and what that means and Sunday morning programming and how we were trying to be a faith community together, uh, but still feeling like we were just not where we needed to be or what we should be, or that we weren't as healthy. Yeah, if that's the right word.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Like I think there's there's a lot of different words people are gonna use. I because I think what we looked at was there's a lot of people and churches in our communities who've grown and collapsed. Right. Right. So there's a lot of history that when when we're growing, like some of you guys were in this church years and years and years ago when it was really full. Um, some of you guys have been in other churches. I mean, we've seen this all over the place in our region of churches that would explode in size. Um, and then over you know, series of sometimes months, sometimes years, uh, they kind of implode. And so that there was a significant part of both the elders and the staff that were like, okay, we're excited about the that's good. That was good. We're excited about the growth. A lot of excitement there. Lots of excitement, lots of excitement. No, we're excited about the growth, but then at the same time, I don't want to make mass decisions quickly just because numbers are going up, that long term we're gonna regret. And so if you guys know me, and I think Patrick's a bit like me, that we make we we're on the fly, we go pretty quick. And so this whole process has probably been one of the slowest things that we've ever done in terms of we don't want to mess this up, we want to do the best we can to make good decisions, to make right decisions.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I think that's a notable point to slow down and sit down in for just a moment, is that if you know our track record for the five years prior to like this last two-year stretch, you will know that we we move very fast and we can jump from thing to thing. And people who know you and they know us will know that we can be very quickly to be involved and to push hard and to um and yet we've entered a period where for the last two years that hasn't been the case. Right. So I think it's important to note a distinction of what we're saying, is that we we've effectively continued to try to get better, but we've kind of paused what we thought the next step was. Because we wanted to, as you were saying, with with growth and with people and with uh with um who's coming, we we wanted to we wanted to be responsible in what this should what this should look like, what who we should be becoming, how we should be doing that, right? And feeling like we were in many ways kind of like we're not sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So the way the way I I I think we can frame this well when you see a small business, and a lot of you guys are small business owners, when you begin to get successful as a business and the restaurant, let's say it's a restaurant and the restaurant fills up, the temptation is to immediately expand. The challenge with expanding a business is just because you have clientele doesn't mean you have enough staff, doesn't mean you have enough leaders, doesn't mean you have enough equipment. And you see this with restaurants, you see this with businesses that started small and then they double and triple in size, and then all of a sudden it goes back down. Because if you're built like a restaurant's an easier one, but construction is the same thing. Just because you're a good construction worker does not mean you can hire enough good construction workers, a five, six, seven crews. Right. Right. And so in a restaurant, it's the same thing. You may be a great cook and your experience there is phenomenal. Can you duplicate it? Can you double it? And I think with church, sometimes people forget that part of it. They go, Well, we're full. Let's build. And in in some ways, it seems really easy if you're not, you know, behind the scenes in the nuts and bolts of it, going, okay, yes, we can build, but just because we double the size of the capacity does not mean we've doubled in volunteers. It doesn't mean we've doubled in skill sets. No, we haven't doubled in capability. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And so that's that you when we were looking at it. And then come on, if we we have to be honest at this point, we are in a weird part in our life where Canada's in a bit of a weird spot, our economy's in a bit of a weird spot. And so as we're making some of these decisions, also recognizing that a lot of people are penny pitching and they are, you know, we're we're going week to week. We're not in a place where there's just a crazy abundance. And that does factor in as we make some of these decisions, going, how do we be wise? Because it's the same as anything else. Like if we invested, let's say, you know, in part of our long-term visions of expansion or anything, if if we invest heavily in that right now, it's going to come at a cost for something. So are we willing to do less ministry? Are we willing to do less? It has to come from somewhere because we're not in a crazy season of abundance. And so if you can start thinking about all those different pieces, and that's where our heads were, we're like, okay, so if we, you know, and as you're going through this, kids men is filling up. And in numbers, to me, um, numbers in kidsmen don't matter quite as much because it's the experience. So if on paper you should be able to have 15 kids in the nursery, but when there's 15 kids in there, nobody has fun, the paper makes me no difference. And what we heard endlessly from families, from my kids, from other people's kids was like, the classrooms are full. It's too loud, it's too much. Um, and so we're like, okay, we have to do something. Um, and so then going back to what you were saying, so then within the last year or so, like we've done piles of research. Um, and that's part of where the um hiring um a consultant came in.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, so we we've been laboring and praying and fasting, and I mean different seasons for fasting, and we've been seeking and we've been really um in many ways, I think, waiting. Yeah. Which again is unusual. No, but like it's I think it's important that we I I think it it needs to be said. We've been waiting and not like waiting like like for something magical to happen and not take ownership, but like not seeing or not being given kind of like, okay, here's where we're gonna go yet. Like it's just kind of like we haven't been given that yet. And we were we we weren't really sure. And then um again, like you were saying, we we connected with a consultant uh group, um, which actually led to a really cool um has led to a really cool relationship opportunity, um, which has um provided us in many ways with um connection and not just resource, but um some experience to speak into where we are currently at in the timeline and season of where God has us in our ministry of the church.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Well, and it's local too. I think that's one of the cool things that the ministry itself is out of the US, and so we weren't sure who we were getting. I didn't realize they had a consultant that operates out of Toronto, so it's within an hour and a half drive. Um, and so I've gone and visited their church. We've met with them several times, uh, some some really, really great people. So let's let's go to okay, we're gonna go to two services. That that's the plan. Um, how did we get there? I think one of the biggest things for me, and this is not something we're gonna dive into too much today, because this actually goes to the announcement next Sunday. One of my biggest concerns was the fact that we grew so quick that we had no system in place for people to get connected. So what ends up happening is like so during COVID, there was a lot of in and out, and there was every church. And then post-COVID, it was kind of a settling period where you're like, okay, well, who's who's really here? Who's just visiting? If you remember during COVID, we we were running two services.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Yep. Because some of it had to do with the capacity limits that we had, if everybody remembers correctly, and the spacing that was required and all that. But we were running multiple services during COVID. Uh, but we actually grew during COVID in many ways.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And again, yeah, the yeah. But we'll get back to the COVID thing because I do think that plays in. But just in terms of growth, like when you have so much growth in a short period of time, you cannot expect all the new people to immediately jump into key volunteer roles and understand the mission of the church and understand all that. But the bigger part was they weren't getting connected. I've been here my whole life. We've never had that I can, you know, and so this will be post-teenage years because I don't remember the, you know, the pre-teen years of my life, but we've never had this significant of a diverse, healthy growth of people coming to the church from having gone for years, from I have no faith. Um, and then some people from other churches that feel like they'd fit in better here or they like the vision here. And so you have this diverse growth that's happened, and our ability to connect people just hasn't been that strong. And so that was one of the things that we were really concerned about over the years like, how do we get these guys connected? Because now, if you double this, and so you go, okay, let's we're gonna build a bigger facility, and immediately you double everything and you haven't created those pathways, then we're just gonna have a lot of people who aren't connected. And so that was one of our biggest fears of like, we need to pause and go, okay, it's great to have new people. But if those new people cannot get connected, if they cannot get discipled, then we're not doing our jobs.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, if they don't understand um, you know, how God has brought us to be where we are, and also where God wants to lead us to, then they can't they can't really become like members of this local body. Right. Um, they they remain kind of detached but present, and that's that's that's not how a healthy body functions. All the pieces have to be connected.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

And if they're not, eventually they're gonna look somewhere else. Right. So then again, it goes back. So that's been a big part. The other thing is raising up volunteers, right? And so that's been another key thing. So we're gonna go to services, which means we're going to need some more volunteers, which means we're going to develop more. Uh again, the hope is that we fill up both services. The hope is you're making space, but as you're making space, you're discipling people, you're connecting people, you're developing more volunteers. And so then it becomes more sustainable. I don't know where God's gonna lead. And I I don't know if in five years we build a bigger building or if in five years we've done other. I have no clue where that goes. I just know with more people, we need more leaders, and with more people, we're gonna need more volunteers, and with more people, we're gonna need some systems to help them get on board, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

So, with that understanding also, and in working together with um Jonathan, um, we came to learn, which we did not know, um, that through the consulting group that has worked with 800 now churches throughout North America, that the overwhelming um statistic probability of a church growing is always the route of moving to two services within the space that they currently exist in, to allow for the expansion of that volunteer base, to allow for the connections that need to be developed, to allow for ministries to be able to handle a heavier load within the current existing walls, to allow for the financial resources that are required when you grow, to also grow with the people that are coming in, to give it that time that is necessary to be in a healthy place, to be able to make that decision of where we would be looking in maybe five years, of what it would look like to have a larger facility. Right. But to do so in a way which is a responsible utilization of what the existing facility can provide. Um and like it's overwhelming that this is the direction that like most churches that remain healthy would go. It's a it's a rare thing for a church to actually do a big build and if it to go well. Right. Because the burden financially, the burden of not having enough volunteers becomes overwhelmingly apparent, and then people get discouraged and leave. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

And then that robs the resources that are needed to carry the load, right? And that ends up collapsing the movement that God wants to have happen there. So that also has played in this decision.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

And so then with that, one of our challenges has been is that a lot of us have seen churches that went to two services or experienced churches that went to services and it did not go well.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And so one of the challenges is you go, okay, well, those were my experiences. The problem is that we've seen lots of churches built and it didn't go well. There isn't a guaranteed, we have no clue right now that, you know, if we do A, we're guaranteed this, or if we do B, we're guaranteed this. What we're doing is we're looking at all the factors, we're looking at all the research, we're looking at different models, going, okay, for the type of people we are, for the congregation we are, for how we lead, for where our vision is, what works, what fits. Um, even as simple as, you know, like, yeah, we have room, but our building is, I mean, it would be really hard to design something that would really work well with what we have. So then to rush that, we're going to regret that. And so when we look at it, like um, I think we our hope is that the mission of this church, which is inspire people to follow Jesus, will not be hindered as we grow. And to do that, we need to, you know, resolve some of the things that we've just not done well in. And some of that we're gonna own, like we've said often, like we own some of that, but a lot of it, if we're being honest, man, these are new problems that are super exciting. Like when you think about the book of Acts, kind of where we're diving into right now, like when they baptized 3000 or the church grew 3,000 that one day, there wasn't a system in place yet. There wasn't something that, and so you're gonna have lots of learning and you're gonna have all sorts of chaos, and we're gonna be in the same boat. And so we don't know. I mean, we could be in a year having another video where we go, well, we filled up both services. So now what? Or we could be not like the world did not go the way we expected, and we're going back down to one. We don't know. We're gonna try to be faithful in this moment. Um, and so the one thing that uh I think also needs to be highlighted as we go through this. I have loved the ability to have such a diverse um group of elders and staff. Where I know when me and you sit up here and talk, I don't know if people realize how often we actually argue. Like I don't think people actually get it. We're good parents because we don't argue in front of our kids. Um, but like the none of these things, none of these decisions were like a one meeting and we're done. Like we're talking months and some of these years that we've kind of been like, uh, let's go this. And so to be able to get to a place where the entire board and all of our staff are like, yeah, yeah, we're a bit nervous. Yeah, we're a bit scared, we're a bit, you know, let's let's see how this goes.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And there's a lot of questions that we are um hoping to provide initial answers for, but in many ways, we're unsure of how that will play out. Right. So there's no pretending there. Right. I I don't think that's a wise thing. Right. Um, but we are definitely from a um logistics filliting. Facilitating administrative facilitating that point of view. We are um we are trying. Yep. And I think this is also a god thing, because this is not how we would typically be. Right. But we are trying very hard to um have um pathways to answer uh those questions um and to and to really help this to be a um a directional change that will provide um some of the things that we've been missing and give us opportunity to lean into them in ways that maybe we haven't or ways that we just haven't. You know, whether or not it's because we, you know, from a culture sense or from how our makeup was as a church, either way, uh it's very clear that these are things that need to be a part of where we're going.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

So let's get into some of the nuts and bolts of what we're doing. Um so right now the plan is service one is eight forty five a.m. service two is ten thirty, services will be about one oh five to one fifteen. Uh, and that leaves thirty to forty minutes between service one and service two. So some of the

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Reason for um like you you're gonna yeah. Um from a scheduling standpoint, obviously we're gonna be like everybody's gonna be trying to decide with their friends and family and everything else where they're where they're gonna try to line up. And um we from a uh leadership standpoint know that's gonna happen, but we want to encourage people to, you know, um that that in some part will be a natural thing that's going to happen. We understand that. We don't want to dismiss that at all, but we also want to uh you know ask people to to lean into where what what is the best service for them to attend in terms of like, you know, being an active servant to what's happening and what's taking place and how you can help facilitate what's happening to make it a healthy experience for everybody as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

So I think the from a practical standpoint, um, volunteers, you guys are gonna meet with your leaders and a lot of it's decisions. Some people are gonna be like, I want to serve both, um, and some people are gonna just want to serve one, uh, depending on the teams. Um, I don't want to give too many of those details because I want that to be team leads to be able to discuss with their own people. Um I think one of the things that that we'll we'll throw out there and then say we haven't fully figured out yet is we do want to do some changes inside the church um to create a foyer space. And so there are some ideas being floated, there's some thoughts being put out because we do think a foyer is essential to make this work, somewhere where between services people can gather, somewhere where you can show up and still have that conversation with people. Um, and so we're gonna try to create some of those spaces. It's hard to give all the details in one short little piece. And so we're trying to do this kind of a little bit piece by piece, because I know the volunteers are gonna have questions. How do you keep us from burning out? How do we get everything working? Um, there's all that stuff, and so leaders will be uh reaching out. But I'm honestly, I I don't have any more details we want to give. I think we've given a pile. Um, I think we'll put a link probably to this to on paper, put some of those things. I think this has been well thought through. I think we've gone through a lot of things, but I think people need to understand too like we're we're testing this a little bit, but we we do have good data. Like we're not just blindly guessing. There's good data from credible, you know, sources, especially from our consultants, saying this is not only doable, but we can do this well. And so we're going into this pretty excited.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah, we we we're really hoping that this will help us to be um in a healthier place. Right. Um and in many ways, it's you know, in terms of like going to two services, you're actually gonna have a a bit more of a smaller church experience, um, which means more opportunity for time to connect with the people that are there with you. It'll give teachers more time in their classrooms to have more one-on-one with each student. Um, it'll provide that kind of opportunity. Um, and it'll also, you know, it it's less, it's less intimidating. It's less because there's it's just not the volume of traffic that you're gonna see. Uh so in many ways that happen. And it's yeah, some of that is the reasons why we're expanding the parking lot. We're moving into some of those things and we're trying to facilitate transition, you know, between two services. So we're we're working towards that. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Um that being said, hey, uh email, text. Uh we we got and fully expect lots of questions. Phone call, like we'll go for coffee. You can bring coffee here. Um if your question is specific about your ministry, I'd encourage you to reach out to your ministry lead.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Because we're not going to micromanage that like we've given some directions to how different options. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Children's ministry, feel free to reach out to myself to reach out to Mika. Um, we'll we'll do everything we can to help answer those questions. Um moving forward, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah. Ushers and anybody on the coffee, any of that you're reaching out to Fred. Yep. Fred Froos and uh anybody on the worship tech, any of that you're reaching out to Trevor. Uh, those are the key ones that are involved. Anybody else who wants to reach out, yeah. Like I say, we're we'll available. Uh love to chat. With that being said, that's the end of uh number one.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

And looking forward to the Sunday and talking about connection and discipleship and where we're going with that. Yeah, blessings to each one of you. On your week. Bye bye.

unknown 26:17

Bye.