Ep. 7 - Who Am I Pouring Into?

Interview with James Gleason, Executive Director of Venture Northwest on the topic - "Who Am I Pouring Into?"

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hey, welcome to Currents, the podcast from Venture Northeast, where we encourage, equip, and connect pastors, ministry leaders serving across the Northeast. You know, one of the greatest responsibilities we have as leaders isn't simply leading ministries, it's developing people. And leadership gaps aren't solved by finding people, they are solved by intentionally developing people. The problem is most of us wait until we need a leader before we start developing one. But what if we started today? Just with the simple question, who am I pouring into? And that's the question of the topic today. Today's episode asks the simple but searching question: who am I pouring into? It's a question every pastor, elder, ministry director, any Christian leader should ask on a regular basis. Leadership isn't measured only only by what we accomplish. It's measured by uh who is better equipped to lead because we intentionally invested in them. And joining us today is my friend and good brother James Gleason, executive director of Venture Northwest. James has spent years helping churches think intentionally about leadership development, mentoring, multiplication. Together we'll explore practical ways to identify emerging leaders, cultivate them with purpose, build churches that continue to thrive for generations to come. Hey, James, I am so grateful you are on currents with us today.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Thank you. It's an honor to be here. I love what you're doing in the Northeast. We're in the Northwest, so we're on the other side of the continent, but very similar cultures, uh, very progressive, uh, moved away from God. And and I'd have it no other way. I mean, I love uh not being in the buckle of the Bible belt. I love being on the frontier where people uh they don't know Christ and they don't want to. And so you're you kind of feel like Paul walking into Athens, all the gods are everywhere, they don't even acknowledge that there's a real God. And so I I love it. So thank you for what you do in the in the Northeast, and and it's very similar uh for us.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Well, you you framed this very uh appropriately because this is kind of the first part of a three-part series um all on this topic, because um here we are venture uh you know, churches all across the United States, but especially here in the Northeast and you in the Northwest. And I want to be on the front end of, I believe, the wave that is coming with our Gen Z and our 20 somethings. And uh, you know, I don't want to be on the back end of this thing. Um, I came into the faith during the Jesus Revolution, and I had, I literally had a CB pastor, a conservative Baptist pastor, say to me years ago, he said, um, we did a horrible job. We dropped the ball back in the 60s and 70s when all of those, you know, young people with long hair, those Jesus hippies, we did a terrible job. We dropped the ball when we could have been welcoming them in and introducing them to Jesus, and instead we were saying, you know, get a haircut, you know. And I wear some real clothes. Yeah, wear some real clothes. So I want to be on the front end of this, and that's why we're asking the question today. And um, I love the fact that when I talked to you just what was it, several days ago? This was this was what I mean, you came up with this question right off the bat. You're ready to talk about this, right? Who am I pouring into? So why is this, why was this kind of on the front part of your cerebral cortex there? You know, one of the more most important questions that pastors regularly should ask themselves. Why is it so important?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say because it's just been the burning passion of my life. Um, I I think about it this way, you know, so I have this uh this big cup here. This is coffee people, it's a northwest thing. And um, but I I just heated some water and I poured hot water in here, had a tea bag, had some sugar in there. And um I see where you're going. And and there's something about pouring into, and once it does its work, and then I get to drink it. You know what I mean? It's like the pleasure of that otherwise it's a dry cup. What what good would it be walking around with an empty cup, right? But pouring into, and I love the visual because that's what we do. It's intentional, has to be intentional, has to be strategic. Uh, you have to think about the right people at the right time for the right needs. And man, most importantly, it's relational. It's not a program. Yeah, it might it might be wrapped around a program. I I was uh climbing Mount Adams with my friend D. He's an older pastor, and um, he's had this leadership, this men's leadership thing. Every year he cycles through it. And he's been doing it uh probably 40 years. The guy's an animal. And uh he's produced so many leaders, uh, men and women. Uh and so uh, you know, you got to keep doing it. I I did it uh an okay job. I kind of got tired at times, I got distracted at times. Uh, but both personally and I would say professionally as a pastor, you have to invest your time. You have to invest your energy, you have to see uh your life lift somebody else up. And so that's really my story because I came to Christ uh in high school, and uh all I remember, I don't remember their name, I don't remember what they did, other than this older couple invited the youth group boys, smaller church, maybe eight or ten of us, over to their home on Saturday mornings. And it was the coolest thing. She'd make breakfast, you know, eggs and bacon and all that. And he'd open the Bible and he'd do some kind of Bible study. Again, I don't remember their names, I don't remember what he taught, but I remember they took the time. Yeah, they took the time to invest in us. I mean, I learned about the Bible through this guy, and then that just started me on a journey um through high school and into college. And one day I was in college, and the my Dina students said, Hey, uh James, who are you discipling? And I said, Uh, I I don't know what that means, you know. He goes, Well, people poured into you. Who are you pouring into? And I said, I wouldn't even know how to do that, uh, Rich. And he said, Well, all that you learned, pour into someone else, which kind of echoes Paul's words, right? Yeah, uh, you know, what I've learned, what I've received. But um, you know, I I had to figure it out. I had to be intentional and start doing that. I was a youth pastor eventually. I had a ministry team. I started pouring into them every week, helping them do the ministry to the peers, you know. Um, and then I at college age and then adult ministry, I started senior pastoring. And I realized that if I were gonna do it corporately, I had to do it personally. And so God was so good. I about every two or three years, I get to lead a man to Christ and I spend a couple of years discipling him personally, sometimes one-on-one, sometimes a couple guys. And then at some point, I then turn to them and say, Okay, now you have to do this with someone else. You have to take this and do it with someone else. In fact, I'm still doing it, I'm doing with a guy uh named Tim. And uh funny thing, he he works for uh Phil Knight, uh, not Nike, but Phil himself and his family, the hanger. And I get to go over there, uh it's in it's in my town, and I get to hang out in this building and disciple a guy who's uh just on the verge of just exploding with Christ and learning these things and growing. And you never know who you're gonna get, but if you do it, you do it, you multiply yourself. And so that's kind of why it's my passion. Uh it's what somebody did for me, and I just find it's the greatest thing to do for others.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Amen. You know, okay, so I can already think I can hear pastors out there who are listening to this right now and thinking, yeah, but James, I'm I'm busy, busy, I'm busy putting out the fires, I'm busy filling ministry positions. Um, I don't have time. What so what's the difference between, you know, filling positions, recruiting volunteers, and actually intentionally developing leaders? I mean, there's a there's a tension there, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, I think there is. Um and I'm I'm a I'm a super simple guy. I'm just I'm just a simple guy. I mean, I've I've got degrees and whatever, but but I'm just at my core, very basic. And here's what I believe. I believe that it's God alone that saves people. I mean, the reality is he's saved people and brought him to your church. So he brought him to the church, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Uh, you know, maybe you had a postcard or something, but but God saved people, God brought people to your church, God alone gifts them their spiritual gifts, they're there are talents that God gave them. In their mother's womb, they were fearfully and wonderfully made. They can do certain things. You put all that together, and I think in every church are all the ingredients necessary for that church at that time. Uh, you know, I know you're gonna go to a conference, you're gonna read a book, you're gonna watch somebody on, you know, YouTube or whatever. Uh, forget all that stuff. For your church at your time, God has brought all the necessary ingredients. I don't know what cake you're baking, I don't know what cookies you're making, but it's specific to you. So, what your job is, lo and behold, equip the saints, right? Yeah, that's your job. And so it I think it's all about our attitude. Are we trying to fill slots? I've been there. Yeah. In fact, I I was on Facebook with uh one of my friends who I went to college with years ago, and he had this big grid, and he goes, Our church is a co-op and we got all these positions, and it's kind of like an org chart. We need everybody to fit in there. And I just thought, God forbid, uh, I hope that doesn't work because it doesn't work, but um, we we don't want to fill slots. Yeah, we want to make servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? We want to we want to see people humbly walk a path of Jesus, and then we get to walk with them, either one-on-one or other people do, or some of our ministries and programs, I get all that, yeah. Get to help them discover who they are made to be, and then then we align our church around that, yeah. Which means we have to say no to things, yeah, programs. Um because we're trying to get tasks done. I get it, I'm a task person, but we need to rethink and go, okay, who has God brought? What do they look like? We're to equip the saints. I get there's preaching and there's meetings, and I've got all that stuff. Okay. Yeah. But all told we might be doing the wrong things with our time. But if we do the right things with our time, we develop the people that God has brought to us, and then we become that church. So I'm simple, Doug. Yeah, that's what we did at our church. I was uh on staff for 30 years, 24, a senior pastor, and it exploded, and the ministries were incredible. But I never set out to start a ministry, I set out to develop people, to equip people, to pour into people, and then wild things happened.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, I I think that's you're onto something, but here's my here's my question. So, you know, as a as a pastor in the Northeast, you know, most of our pastors, most of our pastors are pastoring churches of say a hundred or less, some maybe a little bit more, some drastically less. What are the you know, you're looking out at a congregation and um you're looking at some maybe some 20 somethings that are out there right now? Some of our churches are actually telling us that they're starting to fill up with some 20 somethings that are asking questions. What are the qualities? What do you think the qualities are that you're looking for when you personally are deciding who am I supposed to be investing in? Are there character traits that matter more? You know, what what character traits are they? You know, more than talent. More than talent, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Well, you think about this. Uh, anybody that's recruiting for a sports team, they're looking for something, right? They go, these recruiters, they they they go to games, they watch for things, they see potential, right? They're they're looking at a kid, uh guy or gal, and going, okay, look at that arm, or or you know, look at how they run, or look at their, I mean, literally look at their shoulders or look at their grip or whatever. They know what to look for because they're looking for the future, right? And so, in a very real sense, that's what we have to be doing. Uh and and so this is not new to me. This has been around forever, but I use the um acrostic faith, and um, I'll send it to you. It's a little PDF I have, and it's something we've used at our church. It's super simple. By the way, that's the name of your church. That's pretty good. Faith, okay. So it works. So, first of all, market it. That's right. If you make any money on it, just you know, send me a burger or something. So faithful, first of all, faithful. That's the number one thing. Faithfulness to God, faithfulness to others, the church, you know. Yeah, um, if there's if they're showing up, it's character, right? Faithfulness to the character. Never bypass that. Young leaders should exhibit those early qualities of following Christ. But again, look at the early followers of Christ. I mean, they were knuckleheads, right? That's okay. Oh, you have little faith, and but but they were just faithful, they followed Jesus. Yeah, A is available. Uh, we live in a busy, busy, busy world, right? Everybody's got stuff going on. There's a million things that are pulling for attention. Availability is absolutely essential. Um, people have to learn to strategize and structure their time around serving others, which means saying no to some really good stuff going on in the world today. It's about priority. So they need to be faithful, they need to be available, they need to be intentional. That's the I. The idea here is that um they're not just haphazard, they're leaning into this. They're they're coming up and saying, hey, what about this? Maybe it's their passion, or what about this? I see a problem here. I was wondering about that. Um, they're thinking about a mission. You know what I mean? They're they're they God's speaking to them and they're moving. Now, I get sometimes we're passive, but these are like people who take initiative and step forward. So they're faithful, they're available, they're intentional, they're teachable. That's so important. They're hungry to learn. That's just being a disciple, right? They're just learning through instruction and one-on-one time. It's it's almost as if you're the kind of pastor that people go, Hey, could you could we have coffee this week? Yeah, not so much to talk about my problems, but I I wonder about this or I wonder about that. And I love those meetings. And then, and and then finally, they're humble, you know. F-A-I-T-H, they're they're truly humble. There are people in it for the wrong reasons, and you've you've got to weed through that. Even the disciples. I mean, you can see this through the whole 12 disciples. Um, you know, guys for the wrong reasons. I want to sit on your right or your left, I want to be with the pastor, I want to hang out, I want to be on the platform, whatever. You got to look for humility. So that's simple. That's something we've used at our church forever. I don't know who first came up with it, but I'll send you a PDF that has, for me, I list a bunch of questions around each of those that are helpful to think through.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, hey, I'm here at Faith Church, man. We're using that now. So uh yeah, so that's great. So, how do you know? Uh you know, obviously faithful, available, intentional, teachable, humble. I I look at that, I have memorized already. They're not all the way there yet, right? How do you know when someone is, you know, kind of ready to move in that direction? They're not there yet, you know, they've got some growing up to do. Um I I know with our 20 somethings, man, okay, they're not all the way there yet, but but you see something, right? You see you you you you have those ICNU conversations and you see something in them, right? How do you know? Uh how do you know when uh they're yeah, I don't think you do.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

I think you just have to keep doing what you're doing, which is never do ministry alone. Right. Um, you know, uh you have to invite them into a deeper level of ownership. Um, and and it might not be their thing. I I a picture that comes to mind is uh I was at church, we have a couple services, and by the way, we were 150 people. So I get I get 150, and maybe that's bigger for a small church, but can you just say that one more time?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Because some of our churches, they just need to hear that. You were you were a pastor of a church of 150.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

150, that's right. And um, you know, we our heyday was long gone. We had been double that, and we kind of all the arrows turned inward and we forgot our community. Okay, so uh so so it was like, how do we activate people? I'll never forget. Um, I was there at uh we had two services on Sunday, and and um I found out somebody was in the hospital. And so I'm standing there with Donnie. Donnie's the guy I've known for a while, and I said, Hey Donnie, have you ever done a hospital visit? And he goes, No. I go, uh I'll tell you, I'll buy you lunch if you come with me to the hospital. Bribery can help, you know, a cup of coffee, a lunch. Because again, that's time spent, right? Yeah. And so he goes, Great. So we're driving over, and it's only about 12 minutes from our building. And I said, Okay, here's the person, here's what's going on. They we found out they've got cancer. Uh, I mean, they're they're probably spinning in their head. And so here's what I do, and I'm driving over. And I say, I normally I check into the hospital, I go up to the front desk, I thank the people. I need to know where to go. Hospitals are crazy. Okay. Then I get to the nurse's station and I always check in at the nurse's station. So he or she will know why I'm there and I'll say, Hey, I want to go visit so and so. And then uh then, you know, I'm thanking people for their job, right? And then we get to the door, we go in, and if they're awake, I you know, I greet and I run through the stuff. I first of all I you know love on them. I find out what how they're feeling. I don't ever touch them unless I have permission, don't sit on the bed unless they invite me to. And then I, you know, I just try to encourage them, listen to them, and then I read scripture, and then I I ask if I can pray for them. So I said, I do all those things. What would you like to do? Because you're gonna do something. He goes, Well, I'd like to read scripture. Now I have uh a couple page word doc I keep in Dropbox of all my favorite encouraging verses because I got to be prepared, right? You gonna you're gonna send me that one too? Sure, absolutely. All right. Uh you got to come up with your own, though. But these are the ones that I love. And so I sent it to him. We had got to the hospital, sit in the car, I go, here's the one I like, here's what I'd probably use. He goes, Okay, I'll use that. Fine, no problem. So I walk through 15, 20 minutes, a good hospital visit. He got to do the part, we got to pray. I prayed, Donnie prayed, the person prayed. We get in the car, I go, How'd that go? He goes, That was amazing. I've never done that before.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Well, all I did was invite him along on the journey. And now he does this for us, right? And and he loves it because he found a passion. Now, I don't love hospitals. The smell of ammonia knocks me out. Blood, I mean, but I had to learn how to do this. So not everybody's gonna get that, but find the thing that they're gonna get and invite them on the journey because pastors have tons of jobs to do, yeah, never do it alone.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, isn't that great though? What you just said, because again, many pastors are thinking, well, I don't have time for this, but wait, just what are you doing that you can invite people to be alongside of you and do it with them? And it's I'll tell you, going on hospital visits, it's much better to do it with somebody, you know, especially if you don't like hospital visits too much. It's so much better to be uh, you know, going along with somebody else on something like that. Yeah, what a great are there, are there some other ways? What are some other um things you can invite them into while you do ministry?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, you know, even teaching, for example, or training. I remember doing a uh uh a membership class at our church, and I was kind of developing a membership class, and you know, to be completely frank, I kind of you know stole a lot of Rick Warren-based stuff for a while. A lot of people did that, but I needed it to be ours. And so one of my guys, Kevin, that I was pouring into, I said, Kevin, um, what would you do? I had it on the whiteboard, I think that way, and here's an outline. What it and I said, okay, well, do you want to help me with this part? Because it was his idea. And he said, sure. So we come to that Saturday morning, we're doing a membership class, and um, I said, Hey, Kevin's gonna come up and share, you know, this thing. Well, he got up there, he froze. He froze. I mean, literally froze, and he took a drink of water and he just kind of walked out. I had no idea what was going on. I just picked up and kind of went through it. I said, All right, hey, we're gonna take a break, uh, go get some coffee, whatever. I found him in the kitchen. He was weeping, he's so embarrassed. And I said, That's okay. Don't worry about it. Just come on back in the room. You have a story. When you're ready, just stand up and come up and you can share it. So he did. Man, that guy ended up preaching for me, ended up doing ministry. I eventually hired him as a pastor of discipleship. But I just invited him, you know. I just hey, what are you doing? Come along. Um, I remember doing uh interviews, I was doing an outreach series, and I just took my camera around and I said, Hey, come with me and you could help me. You know, again, I could do a lot of stuff myself. What a fail. I want to invite someone in. And so just figure out what they like to do. They might be spreadsheets, like, hey, I'm developing a new spreadsheet. I need help. I don't get this thing. Who knows what they might love doing? God bless them if they love.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

A spreadsheet. You know, that's right. Um that happened to me. So I came to Christ when I was 15 and I was in a small little church, and the pastor Gary Greenwald, I still call him Pastor Gary. Um, Pastor Gary invited me to do a tag team preaching on a Sunday morning. So he stood on one side, I stood on the other side, and we did a tag team preaching. I still don't remember, I don't remember what I preached on. I don't remember. Um, I I can remember that it didn't go too well, but I remember watching him afterward and him smiling at me and the joy on his face. And I still remember that to the this day. And that's what started me on this trajectory. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

That I'm on. Indulge me for just a moment. So I'm I'm maybe 17 years old and I'm working at a gas station in uh in California, pumping gas, you know, doing oil changes, you know, tire checking tires, all that stuff. And um, my boss, Dave, who was a deacon at our church, came out to the pumps. He goes, Gleason, what have you been reading? And I'm like, Oh, thankfully I remember reading what something in the Bible that day. I go, Naeam 1.7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who trust in him. He goes, Oh, I like that. So he leaves, kind of a gruff guy. Yeah, comes back out a few minutes and goes, What was that verse again? He tells me. A few minutes later, he goes, What are you doing tonight? You know, we closed like seven o'clock, six, six thirty, whatever. And I go, homework? He goes, Nah, you're coming with me. So I showed up at the church after I got a shower. We went to the rescue mission in Santa Rosa. Along the way up there, driving to the rescue mission, he says, uh, Cleason, I want you to preach tonight. I'm like, what? I've only been saved a couple years. He goes, I want you to share that verse and talk about why that's meaningful to you. I'm like, I I can't talk in front of people. There's no way I could do that. He goes, Oh, you'll be fine. Praise God, half of those guys were probably drunk. I don't remember. Nobody threw anything at me. But I got up there and I shared the worst sermon the planet's ever heard. You know what? That started me on a journey. In fact, Dave passed away and I flew down to Petaluma, California, and I did his service and I shared that story because Dave kickstarted me on a journey just by inviting me along, asking me questions. So that that's kind of really as simple as that. It is simple, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Right. All right. So so what are some of the what are some of the mistakes that we could make along the way? Trying to trying to pour into others. Um, how do we avoid just tripping up along the way as we're trying to mentor, as we're trying to pour into someone? Are the are there uh can you think of some things you've done wrong in actually pouring into another person?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, I mean, I I think I think you're never gonna get it right. One of the reasons people don't do this is they don't feel like they're adequate, right? But you're never gonna get it right. Yeah, you're gonna make mistakes, it's it's it's gonna be sloppy, but but don't worry about it, you got to keep going.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Um, I think though, one of the mistakes pastors make is they fear that this person might be better than them. Remember having a worship leader who was doing a good job, yeah, but he was above 40 and uh he was actually above 50. And I said, Hey, we need to get some younger people up on the platform because we need to model a multi-generational, multicultural church. He was so afraid of 20-somethings who could play the guitar and sing. Well, because he was a 50-something who played the guitar and sang. Yeah, and I had to actually pry him off the stage for a while. Yeah, because he just thought if I train someone, they'll take my job. Yeah, well, I hope so, because we're all gonna be dead one day, right? Right, we're all we're all interim pastors, right? We're never gonna pastor forever. I just think it comes back. Paul said this at least six times, some derivative of follow me as I follow Christ, you know, follow my example. That's I mean, that we look in the mirror and go, I'm not perfect. Well, yeah, Paul wasn't either, but he set an example, you know, imitate me. I urge you to do this. We never feel adequate, but just start doing it. And what you do is you just create opportunities. And here's something we did. Now, I have to be honest, we were a medium-sized church by this time. So we had what I call multiple-size platforms, meaning opportunities. And so um, someone wanted to learn how to teach. So I would spend time with them. Here's how to teach, here's how to study the Bible. I love doing that, love teaching classes on that. Then I'd put them in the fifth and sixth grade class. If there's ever a test of a crucible, it's fifth and sixth graders, right? Oh man, and then and then, but they're awesome, and then they'd either the fire. Yeah, it's like, uh, but Jesus showed up in the fire. Okay, that's good. And so um, then it's like, hey, why don't you hang out with the the high school? And the idea is that then I would have them share at our uh Wednesday night, and then I would have them share maybe at our recovery. And then then one day they got good enough to where I said, Hey, let's help you present a sermon. The idea is multiple platforms, don't just shove them up on a big platform because that's a do or die scenario. You don't want to humiliate them, you don't want to crush them. Give them a safe place to fail or to struggle, encourage them and allow them to go. So that that's that's one of the things I would say is you know, the idea is that we just have one slot. And if you're not for that, well, you need more opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, yeah, those are such great um tidbits of wisdom, really are. I I I you know, yeah, getting thrown in um into a a large church situation and preach a sermon might be daunting, but you yeah, how do you how do you start them out in in small situations? So so most of our churches, you know, again, smaller here in the Northeast, um limited staff. What would be some of the practical steps that you could begin that a pastor could do to intentionally develop leaders in their midst? Again, doesn't have a staff, but he looks out, he sees a few young people. What are some conversations that he could begin to have?

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, that's good. Um I learned this early on in youth ministry, um, and it's a great little word. So in in John 3, so John's gospel isn't as chronological as like Luke would be, Matthew's teaching blocks, John's as theological, you know, Mark just jumps in. Um, but in John three, we have this already a couple encounters before the woman in John 4, but somewhere in the midst of that, Jesus it says this, he says, Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem and they went into the Judean countryside. And here it is, Jesus spent time with them there, baptizing people. Now, it it in in uh the you know Greek language, it's a funny little word to spend time with is diabo or dia tribo, and it means it means this it means to rub through the skin or to pass time with. We would say rub shoulders with or rub off on. Now this creates friction. My hands are warming up a bit. You do this when you're cold, right? Yeah, but the idea is that you have to intentionally spend time with people, yeah, which might be their schedule. Yeah, um, it might be you find out they're they're uh avid golfers. Um, I tried it, I sold my clubs because I wasn't that great and I wanted to have fun, not be crushed. But um, you might find that, hey, um, they like to go hunting or they like to go fishing or they like to go uh work on a motorcycle or whatever. Okay, find out what people are doing. Go spend time with people. You're just rubbing shoulders, you're just creating an opportunity. This is something that I've just thought over and over again throughout my ministry life is who am I rubbing shoulders with? Who am I spending time with? And that that right there is a key because that's what Jesus did. He poured into people by spending time with them. And and so you got to find out what they're doing. Um, maybe they're into you know baseball or they're into sports or they're into something else. Yeah, uh, find out what they're doing. Admit that you're not gonna be perfect at that, but just go spend time with them. They will appreciate it. Yeah, they will appreciate it. And then when you do that, get some questions ready, get some uh ask them about their life, find out about who they are. Try to pry. I will say this, you know, this is stereotypically true. Men uh could go like eight hours driving in a truck together and and never know the other person's name, let alone the problems they have. So you've got to figure out questions to pry information out to where you're like, so what are some of the struggles going on in your marriage right now? Which assumes there are struggles, which is like, hey, I've been married, I am married 30 years. There are struggles. Any kind of conversation like, what's the biggest pressure you're having at work right now? Or man, have you ever dreamt of God using you in a big way? What would that look like? You know, just start engaging in questions that evoke responses that get them talking, that get them opening up about their dreams and their hopes.

unknown 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

And then you might find out where God is directing them.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah. You know, and there's there's another factor here too. And, you know, one one of the things that I've tried to institute. Um, well, this was when I was kind of the senior pastor, but one of the things, you know, I just remember the times Jesus would do debriefing. It's like, you know, it's ministry after the ministry. It's it's debriefing after the event itself. And there were times that Jesus did that, you know, he'd send send out the 12, and then after they got back, they'd have a time of debriefing. I I remember doing it with, you know, you you know both of the guys, uh, you know, Sam Maisanet and uh my son Matt. And uh we would have Monday morning bullpen, and it was a time to debrief the whoever preached the day before on Sunday. And man, we grew to love that time. That was such fun. Um, and and they were just so doggone critical always of my sermon, you know, because I would let them critique me too. But it was it was fun to see them um really figure out, okay, this is what makes for good sermons, you know, and it was helpful. I it was we had a blast. It was so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Let me offer a that yeah, that's great. The the other, the opposite is also true. Um uh, you know, I was coaching Sam, love Sam, just a great young man. And uh he was going to preach a sermon at this church that he's at now. And uh I said, Well, why don't you preach it to me on Zoom? And it's like run through that. Is one of the best things you can do for a person. Wow. And then take notes. I remember a young kid, uh, 20-something, was doing our youth group. He wanted to preach. We're going through a chronological through the scriptures in a year, getting everybody to read it and go through it. And he he wanted to tackle Job in two Sundays. And people, several of my you know, people said, What does he know about Job? He's 22, you know, but it didn't matter. And he preached it on a Thursday to me in an empty room. And I sat down with him. I said, Great job here, here, and here. Let me offer a couple suggestions. Why don't you ask a question here? Why don't you do this? What do you, you know? And then he I said, just go right now and just do those. So get up there and say those things. He did. Well, then on Sunday, he did a stellar job. But but but he learned and listened and applied that, and it was a better sermon because of it. And then when we debriefed, it was good. So giving people an opportunity in a non-threatening environment to test it out, you know. Okay, well, share your testimony with me. Just assume I'm a non-believer. Tell me your testimony. I'm gonna push back on you. You're you're kind of role-playing with people. Boy, isn't that great?

SPEAKER_01 34:05

I mean, again, you talked about the car ride, right? Yeah, that would be so cool to do on car rides and uh to have those kinds of uh discussions back and forth to kind of role-play situations like that. Okay, James, um, I'm gonna wrap this up here, but I'm gonna ask you the question. How many churches do you have in the Northwest there?

SPEAKER_00 34:28

About yeah, we have 242 churches. All right. And you know, we're an association of churches. Uh, we're based on uh covenant, not contract kind of thing. We have relationships, and some more and some less connected, just to be completely fair.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

So so I want to say we have a very similar number here. We've got some that are not so connected, uh, some more connected, about 220 or so on paper. So, you know, on paper again, similar, similar, similar areas, right? Northwest, northeast. So I want you to just dream for a minute with me. I want you to tell me what you think. So if every pastor who's listening to what you're saying right now about committing to intentionally pouring into just one or two future leaders, I'm gonna even put it out there, a 20-something, Gen Z, over the next year. Brother, I want you to just dream for a minute. What kind of impact do you think we could have here in the Northeast over the next decade? Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

So it it it's it's a beautiful question, it's a beautiful vision. Um, because we are here as a result of prior generations. Yeah, we get pretty myopic and we think about our season of ministry, which is awesome, but you're never gonna have new leaders, younger leaders, until you spend time with them rapporting to them, right? You're you're never gonna just it's so easy for people to say, and I see this, you probably see this. I go to a church, hey, we want to get younger. Okay, great. Well, who are you gonna trust that's younger? Well, they're not ready yet. I'm 50, I know what I'm doing. Well, they're not. If you want to get younger, you have to have younger. And if you have younger, you got to invest in younger and you got to trust younger. And and it's like we want this magical formula of I want to see a multi-generational church, but I don't want to change anything I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you I can't remember who said this, but the systems you've created are giving the the exact answer you're getting. You're getting what you're getting because of what you're doing. So if you're gonna get something different, you have to do something different, right? So the only way is to break that and to change it and to give up and to die to self and to pour into and recognize like Paul to Timothy, and I'm I poured into you and you're pouring into others, you know, 2 Timothy 2, 2, and being able to say, okay, I'm not the end of it. I'm just an interim pastor, however many years I've got, and God made this church last a hundred more years. But it's only gonna do that if you take that step.

unknown 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

So I envision churches, I envision churches that are strong. Many of them have to be revitalized, and I envision churches that are planting new churches for the kingdom. Amen. We've we've got a church that's that's dying, it's gonna close uh first week, first Sunday of August. And I wish it weren't so it's dwindled down, it's in a rough area. Well, here's here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna receive that building as an association of churches. They're gonna close, give it to us. Um, and because of that, the nature of that, we have already said we're gonna sell that property, which is always hard to give away property, but then 100% of those dollars are gonna go out to churches that are planting churches right now. Because the spirit moved, the the wind blew back then for this place, yeah, but it's not right now in that place. So now we're gonna gift other people the resources of that for the kingdom of God. That's how we have to live. Amen. That if it does, if it dies with me, that was a bad leadership move. Yep. So the only way to attract younger is to be younger. I 10 years before I passed the baton off, I did a sermon on passing the baton, and I I used Moses and uh Joshua as an example, you know, Elijah, Elisha, there's there's tons of them in the Bible. But I I said, um, and I handed out little plastic batons, and I said, um, you know, I don't think in 10 years it'd be good for me to be the senior pastor. I still want to be here, I want to be part of the church. But in order to pass the baton off, I have to invest in younger leaders. And I said this, I said, I became your senior pastor at 34, which was a huge stretch for my church. Yeah. Because they were a couple years older than me. It was hard to imagine a younger pastor. Yeah. I said, if that's true that I became senior pastor at 34 and I'm gonna pass this baton in 10 years, I've started investing in 24-year-old people. Yeah, yeah, and there was a collective gasp in the room. Like, what do 24-year-old people know? I'm like, well, we were all 24 once. I knew nothing, but I but people invested in me. And I just began that investing in the next generation to where our church, at least at this season, is still doing well. It passed the baton off to a young leader who was uh 38, okay, at the time, and doing great. And now I'm the old guy that gets to walk around and preach every once in a while and and do stuff. But you have to see that you're a temporary hire. Yeah. And you have to be secure with that. Yeah. And if you invest in the younger generation, the next generation, that means giving them a platform, giving them a voice, celebrating that, taking the hits, because it's not the way you do it, but allow them to change things. I I had uh this 20-something leader, two of them actually, a worship leader and a guy that worked with discipleship. They came to me and said, Hey, we want to want to paint the inside of the building, the foyer and everything like that. I go, Great. And I go, What what what what do you want to do? And they showed me some colors. I would never pick those colors, Doug. I would never pick those colors. But here's the thing 10, 15 years prior, yeah, when we were building this building, we had these ladies go to all of the Starbucks in town, because that was the third place. And they they developed a color swatch palette, and we painted everything inside those colors. Well, those were 15 years old. That's right. And so the young people they they decided to paint the colors, and then it came to my office. They said, Do you want to have your office repainted? I said, Sure. They chose an orange color from my wall. I would have never chosen that. It didn't matter. I had to give up control to allow them to have a creative voice and to paint it a different color because you have to give them authority as well as responsibility. Yeah. And so I would say that's what we have to do. We have to envision that one day we'll be gone. And if the church died with us, that's on us. But if it lived beyond us and we're one of the pictures in the hallway of the old dead guys, that's a what a beautiful history and lineage of our part of the story, but it's not the end story because we're investing in the next generation.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Yeah. Even when it comes to simple things like a color palette, right? It's dumb, but it's real. It is. Hey, James, thank you so much for sharing today your wisdom, your experience with us. If there's one takeaway from this conversation conversation, it is this leadership development isn't something we do when we finally have extra time. It's one of the primary callings of every leader. And the future health of your church will be shaped not only by the sermons you preach or the ministries you lead, but by the people you are intentionally investing in along the way. So before you move on to the next meeting or your next ministry responsibility, take time, take a moment, ask yourself the question today, right now, who am I pouring into? And if someone comes to mind, don't wait. Reach out right now, right after you watch this, call that person, schedule uh coffee with them, invite them into your life, into your ministry. Hey, um, November 15th and 16th, we are inviting Mac Lake from Multiply Group, who's going to come in and share with us uh kind of this leadership pipeline that's he's kind of developed. Um, we're using it here at Faith Church, and it's just turning our church upside down. Um, so we really invite you. You can check it out on our website. It's there, uh venturenortheast.org. You can see it. Um uh it's a one-day conference. Uh Sunday night before is the banquet. Uh, our national president Dave Whitaker speaking the night before, but Mac's going to be speaking all that next day on November 16th. You won't want to miss it. So thank you for joining us for this episode of Currents. If today's conversation encouraged you, we'd love for you to share it with another pastor or ministry leader who could benefit from it. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future conversations as we continue helping leaders navigate the unique opportunities and challenges of ministry in the Northeast. Until next time, hey, keep leading faithfully, keep investing intentionally, keep advancing the mission of Christ in your community. Thanks for watching. God bless everybody.