WEBVTT
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We're talking today with two Central California pastors, Pastor Jeff and Pastor
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Michael, about how change and transformation happens in the church.
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And the thing about it is, if we force those changes, if we shove them through
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with our own power, they're not going to work out as Pastor Michael talks about here.
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Pastors talk about nickels and noses or butts in seats and bucks in the plate or whatever you want.
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You can't expect those things to change without a heart change first.
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It will be temporal, it will be our doing, and I don't want anything of it.
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It will have the smell of human on it if we can just force it.
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Leaders and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice,
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soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship
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and the broader kingdom of God.
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Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission
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Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry
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and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.
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Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 29 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
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I am your host, Chase Thompson. I'm a California pastor.
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I'm going to be joined in just a moment by Pastor Christopher Cole,
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who is with the Great Commission Association, a family of churches that spread
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out all over North and Central California.
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If you're in our area or anywhere near it, we would love to partner with you,
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and I will invite you to check out our website,
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gcasbc.org, to find out more information about that.
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We've got two other California pastors joining us today, four California pastors in total.
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It might be this week's sign of the apocalypse, but Pastor Michael Denton from
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First Baptist Napomo and Pastor Jeff Wollstenhoom from Foothill Baptist in Los Altos is joining us.
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And we're going to be talking about something that is universally important
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in every church, the process of change and transformation.
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We're going to talk about it in the context of church replanting,
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but every pastor and leader listening will be able to benefit from the wisdom
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that you're going to hear on the process of change.
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How does transformation happen? What fuels it? What part does prayer play in?
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And that whole process. How can you lead and pastor the church through change?
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What are some tips that will help you bring about healthy and needed changes
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in the church you're part of?
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It's a great discussion. I just was pumped to be a part of it.
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Let's dive in. All right. We have the privilege to be joined by a couple of
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our Great Commission Association pastors who are serving right now in replant situations.
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Not only are their churches interesting and their stories interesting,
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but their hobbies are kind of interesting too.
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So I am really looking forward to talking to Pastor Michael and Pastor Jeff
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about replanting and about surfing and about water polo and all sorts of things like that.
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You know, Chase, I'm super excited that we We get to have these guys on the
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show as a part of our series on
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our GCA Renew strategy, and in particular, how GCA has been involved in church
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replanting in the past few years.
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For about six years now, we've been thinking seriously about the work that God
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has called us to do in helping work with churches that are plateaued,
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in decline, or maybe even
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approaching really spiritual
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Death as a church.
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And so we've been thinking about it, praying about it. And then over the past
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few years, we've been developing out an intentional strategy to help churches engage in
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becoming a church that has been brought back to life, brought back to flourishing and to health.
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And cornerstone to that strategy is finding guys who want to serve and are called
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to serve, gifted to serve as replanters.
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And we'll talk more about the difference between replanters,
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revitalizers on either this episode or some others in this series.
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But these two guys, I am so proud of. I think they are amazing.
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They are the best of the best.
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And we are stoked to have them in our association.
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And they serve in very different environments, different contexts,
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but they're both doing similar work in replanting our churches.
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Pastor Michael's been doing this now for over four years.
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And Pastor Jeff's just a few months into his actual first lead replanter role.
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So we'll get some of that information out of them today to talk about how their
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stories are similar and different, but I'm excited to have them on the show.
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Yeah, me too. And particularly, as I said earlier, their hobbies.
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Pastor Michael is known as the surf pastor.
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I'll tell you this real quick before I ask you for a story, Pastor Michael, I'm
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When I was in high school, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama,
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which is about five hours from the beach, and I was looking for an identity.
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I played a little bit of football, but not enough to have that as my identity.
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So I started buying all the surfing clothes I could, Ocean Pacific,
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Hobie, Panama Jack, et cetera, and I wore surfing clothes every time I could to my school.
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And people eventually just assumed with a little help on my part that I was
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a surfer because I went to the beach a lot and I was pretty tan.
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But I could not surf five feet for a million dollars.
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I was the biggest poser in Birmingham. But you're not a poser.
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You're a real surfer. So give us either a surfing story or a shark story.
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Sure. I'm becoming more of a poser the older I get and the more my kids are
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able to surf better than me.
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So I definitely enjoy as much as I can getting out there in the water still.
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So I think catching the wave of my life off of St. Thomas Island,
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they have one surf spot there called Hole Bay.
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It is after a hurricane and natives were encouraging me to not go in the water.
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And I only had one day there. So I did and caught the wave of my life was cool.
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But for any surfer, the day that you see a dorsal fin cut the water and you
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feel the invitation to walk on water back to the beach as fast as you can,
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usually as a dolphin, almost always, always is a dolphin.
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But still, your heart does pick up a beat, that's for sure.
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Yeah, no doubt. I saw a shark in the water one time from a pier swimming and
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it was blindingly fast. I feel like I'm a decent swimmer.
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I would just be eaten before I even knew what happened. So, Pastor Jeff,
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your senior year at California Baptist University, you were a water polo guy,
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and you played in 36 games.
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You had 27 goals, 17 assists, 26 steals, and those are really good numbers.
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You scored four goals against Redlands. You scored a goal against number 11, UC Davis.
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That's really impressive. And from my just memory here, you drew 23 ejections,
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which is more than Tommy Hunter, Bo Brumley, and Chris Nguyen put together.
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And we're really happy to have you on the show to talk a little bit about your water polo career.
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Now, I'm not a water polo expert. So what is that stat about the ejections?
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Does that mean you were ejected 23 times or you got people ejected 23 times? Yeah.
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It means I got people ejected 23 times. I was really good at selling.
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So you see soccer where the guy, you get to see falls, but he never even got
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touched by someone's foot.
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I was really good at swimming down the pool and acting like a guy's pulling
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my leg backwards and I would lurch backwards.
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And the referee would call an ejection, which would, in hockey terms, put us into a power play.
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Nice. We had an additional player and we go into a power play,
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which is about a 25 second power play.
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And in water polo, it's a huge advantage that you get power play and you're
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going to score probably six to seven out of 10 times on a power play.
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Oh, hey, wow. Just in that 20 seconds. That's pretty fascinating.
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It's quick. You get down there real quick and you can't move super fast in the
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water. So once you have one person less, formation is set up to make you score quickly.
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Fantastic. Now, do you think causing people to commit fouls,
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essentially making them stumble, is that a Christian thing?
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No, I'm just kidding. But Pastor Christopher, over to you for more serious pastoral questions.
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Well, we want to hear on the show, we want our listeners to hear the unique
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story of how God's been at work in your churches and in your life.
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And your churches are very unique. So we kind of want to do just a little bit
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of background on each of your churches, how they're different from each other.
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And then also to talk about how you guys got drawn into this particular role. So Pastor Michael,
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Tell us a little bit about the first Baptist church of Napomo.
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What was its condition in the year before you arrived?
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And then how did you end up getting there?
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Yeah, boy, I love telling this story because anytime it involves God's call
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in your life, there's some heartstrings attached and you're just seeing God work.
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It's awesome. I had just finished up about 10 years at one of our churches up
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in Milpitas. Loved the time there as a youth and family pastor.
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Saw God's faithfulness. And then during COVID, like with so many churches,
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there was some decline that caused them to need to shuffle things as a staff.
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And so I was asked if I would be willing to resign to make things a little easier
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financially for the church.
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That was hard, but I always know that God was going to put us somewhere.
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And he'd always had on my heart to be a lead pastor.
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In my desire to serve some small church somewhere, I didn't know where,
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but I just have a heart for smaller churches thanks to a class I took from Dr.
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Stewart many, many years ago on pastoral leadership in a small church.
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I just wanted to serve somewhere where they might even need someone just to
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lead music on a Sunday or something.
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But I heard about this church in Napomo where the pastor was getting ready to
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retire at some point, and they had a handful of members, roughly five or six,
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still attending on Sunday morning per week.
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And they were older ladies, most of them, and what I was told is that they didn't
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want their church to die.
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And that phrase so gripped my heart. God used that to show me sheep without a shepherd.
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And I didn't honestly know where Napoma was. I thought it was Inland Valley
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or something, but I told Katie, we got to check this out.
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I want to be put in conduct with the pastor, see if we can serve.
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And so that's really how we found out about it.
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It turns out it's on the Central Coast, 15 minutes away from Pismo Beach and
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a literal stop on some of the surfing tours.
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That was the furthest thing from our mind of location was not on our minds.
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So I just see that as the kindness of God to put us a place where we love the
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place as well. But the people are amazing.
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And so that's really how God brought us here.
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That's so awesome. And Pastor Jeff, your church is in a radically different location from Napomo.
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And so tell us about Foothill Baptist Church Los Altos, how they got to where
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they were maybe the year before you got there and how you ended up showing up
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and being part of the work that God's doing there now.
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Yeah, so Padilla was founded in 1954, part of a Southern Baptist campaign, a million more in 54.
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Wow. And so the church was planted and immediately grew over the next 10 years.
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It would grow to about 500 members.
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They built a large building. And essentially what happened from about 1964,
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1965 is the church began to decline.
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So by the time we get to 1980, there's only 200 people in regular attendance.
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By the 1990s, there's 100. By the time you get to the early 2000s,
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there's 25. And the last baptism was in 2003.
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So in 2025, the church called me in July of 2025 to be the pastor,
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and there were eight members left.
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And so I was in Portland, and I was pastoring at a Baptist church in Portland, an associate pastor.
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I wanted to be a lead pastor. I grew up in Southern California,
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wanted to get back to California, couldn't take the Portland weather anymore,
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and just wanted to be somewhere that God wanted to use me.
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And like Michael, I didn't have a list of God, this is exactly where you need to put me.
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But I always had a heart for being somewhere strategic, being somewhere near college students.
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I used to do college ministry. And so college students have always been near and dear to my heart.
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And so when I heard about Foothill Baptist Church in Los Altos,
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which is, if you look it up on the map, it's kind of the heartbeat of Silicon Valley.
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Surrounding it is the Apple's about 10 minutes away from us.
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Google's about 15. Facebook's about 20 minutes.
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And Stanford University is about 15 minutes away. When I heard about the opportunity
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to help this church that was dying, we just felt like this is what God was calling us to do.
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It wasn't how I had designed the process. I'm sure we can get into that later.
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But I was excited about the opportunity and the potential. And so we started
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interviewing, And that was about a six month process.
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And then we answered the Lord's call when the church called us.
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Awesome story there. Just guys, how's it going? Michael, you've been doing this
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for just over four years.
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Jeff, you're in, this is month number seven. So Michael, how's it going?
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We just passed our fifth anniversary, but I wasn't the lead pastor.
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Those first nine months was a strategic process, which we can talk about later.
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But I tell you, I wish that the numbers were higher as far as in the auditorium, but literally
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we just got back from youth camp with 15 teenagers and I've got boys coming
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back, fired up to walk with Jesus and meet together and memorize scripture.
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I have people who are taking leadership roles. I have an elder candidate where
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it was just me and the lead pastor, the pastor that was getting ready to retire.
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No other men in the church. Now I've got, you know, deacon candidates and elder candidate.
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Jeff, it gets better, man. I don't know what you've got over there,
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but I tell you, there was a lot of lonely Sundays and I guess I'm going to probably
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pray again this week and I'm probably going to lead the music and do a few other things, you know,
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and just to have people who are discipling others and it's the best thing ever.
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Jeff, how's it going over there at Foothill in month number seven?
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I think it's going really well. The first five, six months were really particularly
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difficult for me just personally.
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I remember reading a book about month two and about pastoral character and that
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he was talking about patience and praying for slow growth, counterintuitive,
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but praying for slow growth.
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And I thought, nah, I'm not praying that prayer.
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And a few months later, I started praying that prayer because I was just struggling
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to see how we're going to do this.
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You know, it wasn't seeing necessarily any growth, at least numerically.
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I was starting to see some growth in the people, which was encouraging.
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Now, seven months in, I do feel like we're seeing growth both numerically and
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in our other members. And that is super encouraging and growth in me as pastor.
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My wife told me early on, she said, Jeff, I think God wants you to go through
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all of it, the highs, the lows, the difficulties. Wow.
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And that has rung true in just the short seven months that I've been going through
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a lot of different highs and lows as I think the Lord is trying to shape the
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man that he wants to use for his work here at Foothill.
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Yeah, I think that is something pastors may not and church leaders don't think about enough.
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We are often so committed to the process and the outcome and the results.
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And I think it seems to be something higher on God's priority list to shape
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the people and the leaders involved in their character and their maturity.
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And that's that's hard. That's hard for all of us.
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So, guys, there's going to be church replanters and potential church replanters
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that are listening to this interview.
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And I would ask you, we'll start with Pastor Michael first, then Pastor Jeff.
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What would you say as an encouragement to those replanters, especially those
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early in their runs replanting?
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And what kind of, give us a pro tip, a something, a truth that will help them in their journey.
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Sure. Boy, what comes to mind immediately is to remember that your real legacy
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is living at home with you and to make sure that you are investing in them and
00:17:28.344 --> 00:17:31.762
that this church and your role in it will come and go.
00:17:31.913 --> 00:17:35.622
But God will continue to work in the hearts of your own children and family.
00:17:35.913 --> 00:17:40.674
That's important because your work can literally never be done if you don't
00:17:40.674 --> 00:17:44.533
want it. I mean, if you want to, you can just continue working at this all the time.
00:17:44.911 --> 00:17:49.243
And there are people who gladly meet with you. And so there's real people attached
00:17:49.243 --> 00:17:51.893
to it, not just busy work in your office somewhere.
00:17:52.293 --> 00:18:00.492
And so I think the one pro tip I would give is really to communicate well when there's changes.
00:18:01.593 --> 00:18:06.099
There will be changes and be willing to go slow. I think I would just ask myself,
00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:08.398
does this really need to happen right now?
00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:14.683
And how can I help communicate in the best way possible without making the old
00:18:14.683 --> 00:18:20.773
way or the old decision seem like it's dumb or not reaching people or I can't
00:18:20.773 --> 00:18:22.590
believe why we haven't done this yet.
00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:26.493
And so I think that I mostly did that well,
00:18:28.029 --> 00:18:31.473
But there are certain times where, man, if I had to go back,
00:18:31.473 --> 00:18:35.283
I just say, let's just, as we're going to make this change, let's just spend
00:18:35.283 --> 00:18:38.769
a little time to grieve the thing that needs to go and just say,
00:18:38.920 --> 00:18:40.113
as Marie Kondo would say,
00:18:40.773 --> 00:18:44.733
thank you for your service as we take it out to storage where it will in the
00:18:44.733 --> 00:18:47.006
dead of night find its way to the dumpster.
00:18:47.163 --> 00:18:51.853
So that would be my pro tip for anyone doing this.
00:18:52.167 --> 00:18:57.183
Okay, two tidbits of wisdom there. Over-communicate, especially when it comes
00:18:57.183 --> 00:19:02.043
to change, and focus on your family first. What will it profit a pastor who
00:19:02.043 --> 00:19:05.988
builds his kingdom and loses his family in the process?
00:19:06.296 --> 00:19:10.583
All right, Pastor Jeff, over to you. What is an encouragement you would give
00:19:10.583 --> 00:19:16.253
to replanters and potential replanters, and what are the pro tips you've learned
00:19:16.253 --> 00:19:18.654
from seven months in this process?
00:19:18.990 --> 00:19:22.743
Yeah, I think one of the things that guys need to remember is this is both a
00:19:22.743 --> 00:19:25.265
church plant and a revitalization.
00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:29.773
And so you need to know your priorities. You need to think through how you're
00:19:29.773 --> 00:19:30.513
going to spend your weeks.
00:19:31.047 --> 00:19:35.273
Like Pastor Michael said, there's a black hole worth of stuff to be doing.
00:19:35.732 --> 00:19:38.901
You've got to, if you're going to revitalize, you've got to preach excellent
00:19:38.901 --> 00:19:41.491
sermons to your people. You need to build up the eight people.
00:19:41.891 --> 00:19:43.992
I preach to eight like there's a hundred.
00:19:45.131 --> 00:19:48.731
I don't want them to feel like I'm preaching to eight. So if three people show
00:19:48.731 --> 00:19:50.561
up, we don't sit around and have a Bible study.
00:19:50.561 --> 00:19:54.711
I preach the full sermon that I wrote that week. And we trust that the Lord
00:19:54.711 --> 00:19:59.041
is using it for his work in their lives. And maybe some people that will listen
00:19:59.041 --> 00:20:01.691
to it on the internet or whatever he wants to do with it. Maybe it was just
00:20:01.691 --> 00:20:03.352
because I needed that sermon that week.
00:20:03.951 --> 00:20:08.360
So make sure you have your priorities straight and that you preach excellent sermons every week.
00:20:08.511 --> 00:20:12.412
And then I think pro tip is just that, man, we're in this for the long haul.
00:20:12.610 --> 00:20:15.961
I mean, I'm only seven months in, so it's somewhat easy to say it,
00:20:15.961 --> 00:20:17.567
but I know Michael would affirm this.
00:20:18.271 --> 00:20:23.302
It's that truism that God will do far less in one year, but he'll do a lot after five.
00:20:23.517 --> 00:20:27.122
And there is just that longevity, the importance of sticking to it,
00:20:27.290 --> 00:20:31.249
that the way that God builds his church and his people is through slow and steady growth.
00:20:31.435 --> 00:20:34.396
And we've got to trust in the longevity of the process.
00:20:34.524 --> 00:20:37.231
Yeah. Amen. All right. Let's chase a rabbit trail here real quick.
00:20:37.571 --> 00:20:39.591
You brought up preaching, Pastor Jeff.
00:20:39.591 --> 00:20:42.991
If I had to guess, and I'm about to find out if I lose my bet,
00:20:43.331 --> 00:20:47.901
I bet you and Pastor Michael have different preaching philosophies.
00:20:47.901 --> 00:20:53.641
So Pastor Jeff, I know you are an expository preacher, but also that you just
00:20:53.641 --> 00:20:59.821
preached through a series on Deuteronomy in what, six, eight weeks for the whole book?
00:20:59.821 --> 00:21:04.551
Five weeks for the whole book. Okay, so Martin Lloyd-Jones, if he was preaching
00:21:04.551 --> 00:21:08.131
on Deuteronomy, it would take him three lifetimes.
00:21:08.131 --> 00:21:12.321
So first to you, Pastor Jeff, what is your preaching philosophy?
00:21:12.321 --> 00:21:15.851
I find it very interesting. And then we'll ask the same question to Pastor Mike.
00:21:15.851 --> 00:21:20.381
Yeah, so I mean, I would be committed to expositional preaching and that the
00:21:20.381 --> 00:21:22.901
main point of the text becomes the main point of the sermon.
00:21:22.901 --> 00:21:28.485
And so you can preach expositionally, like Martin Lloyd-Jones and you can preach
00:21:28.827 --> 00:21:33.126
100 sermons in Genesis chapter 20 or whatever he's done on revival.
00:21:33.466 --> 00:21:36.786
You can preach 13 books worth on Romans like I have on my shelf.
00:21:36.786 --> 00:21:38.532
And you can do those things.
00:21:38.665 --> 00:21:40.556
You can also do one sermon on the
00:21:40.556 --> 00:21:44.697
whole Bible like Mark Dever has done at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
00:21:44.831 --> 00:21:49.086
So it's all types of, you can go through Deuteronomy in five weeks or 50 weeks.
00:21:49.086 --> 00:21:52.499
Expositional sermons don't have to follow one rigid pattern.
00:21:52.633 --> 00:21:56.406
But that's the commitment that I have is that I want the main point of the text
00:21:56.406 --> 00:22:00.556
be the main point of the sermon that we walk away with having been taught how
00:22:00.556 --> 00:22:03.566
to read our Bibles better and transformed by the word of God.
00:22:03.566 --> 00:22:06.708
Hey, that's a great nugget of preaching wisdom there.
00:22:06.853 --> 00:22:10.836
I really do think we are largely, and I don't want to get emails on this because
00:22:10.836 --> 00:22:18.144
I could be wrong. I think we're largely past the day of 250 to 300 sermons on the book of Ephesians.
00:22:18.254 --> 00:22:22.486
So I kind of like your method of going through the book of Deuteronomy.
00:22:22.486 --> 00:22:24.866
So Pastor Michael, what is your preaching philosophy?
00:22:25.005 --> 00:22:26.936
I strongly disagree with Jeff.
00:22:26.936 --> 00:22:31.908
Oh, boy. No, it's fantastic. And I love what he said there at the end.
00:22:32.064 --> 00:22:38.266
And I would add to what he said at the end that my goal, because I have so many
00:22:38.266 --> 00:22:42.076
new believers in my church, literally they received the Lord and were baptized
00:22:42.076 --> 00:22:43.924
here and being discipled by someone here.
00:22:44.708 --> 00:22:49.796
I want to turn them from spiritual toddlers who need to be fed to people who can feed themselves.
00:22:49.796 --> 00:22:53.946
And so I want to show them through the message how to get into the Word of God.
00:22:53.946 --> 00:22:58.036
And that's what I heard Jeff saying just now, how to study the Word of God,
00:22:58.297 --> 00:23:00.931
and then yes, to apply it to their lives.
00:23:01.158 --> 00:23:05.106
So as I'm praying through a series, and yes, it'll be from a book,
00:23:05.106 --> 00:23:08.983
or most recently through the Sermon on the Mount, I'll take and say,
00:23:09.145 --> 00:23:11.386
this is what I think our people need
00:23:11.906 --> 00:23:15.766
in their walk right now, and talk with my elder candidate about that as well,
00:23:15.766 --> 00:23:20.802
so we can both be in prayer about it, and then go into it that way. So I took
00:23:21.150 --> 00:23:24.720
50-something weeks, I think, through Genesis.
00:23:25.016 --> 00:23:30.486
So I need to watch Jeff's sermons online since he says they're readily available
00:23:30.486 --> 00:23:34.336
and find out how I could have done that in about probably seven weeks,
00:23:34.336 --> 00:23:37.677
I'd say, for Genesis. It's going to take a little bit.
00:23:37.955 --> 00:23:41.846
But no, I just love that because I have a desire also, Lord willing,
00:23:41.846 --> 00:23:44.138
in my time here to preach through the Bible.
00:23:44.271 --> 00:23:49.426
And so I can't realistically be taking 66 years or whatever it is to preach
00:23:49.426 --> 00:23:53.396
through all things. So I'm going to have to switch things up a little bit in
00:23:53.396 --> 00:23:56.624
my style as well. So I love that. Kudos to you, Jeff. All right.
00:23:56.926 --> 00:24:00.876
Well, handing back control to Pastor Christopher, I will ask you as I hand it
00:24:00.876 --> 00:24:04.965
off, what is your style of preaching? What is your method, Pastor Christopher?
00:24:05.401 --> 00:24:11.427
Oh, I just open up my Bible and stick my finger in it and comment from the beginning right there.
00:24:12.303 --> 00:24:16.843
At this point, this many years into the ministry, dude, I don't need to do any studying or anything.
00:24:17.283 --> 00:24:23.813
And if you are listening at home, please do not listen to that advice or that counsel.
00:24:23.813 --> 00:24:29.193
No, man, I love the expositional preaching of God's word. I love to take it
00:24:29.193 --> 00:24:36.443
and apply it well while revealing the intent of the text and what God is speaking to his people about.
00:24:36.823 --> 00:24:40.433
And I love these brothers' heart for teaching the Word of God,
00:24:40.433 --> 00:24:47.145
centering the church around the revitalizing, the strategic work of the Word of God.
00:24:47.412 --> 00:24:50.643
Because Scripture reminds us, you know, it's the Word of God that's living and
00:24:50.643 --> 00:24:56.247
active and sharper than any two-edged sword that pierces to the division of soul and spirit.
00:24:56.462 --> 00:25:01.546
And it's that word of God that discerns the thoughts and intentions of the human heart.
00:25:02.143 --> 00:25:08.423
So, you know, I think anybody that we want to work with in our GCA strategies
00:25:08.423 --> 00:25:11.633
is we want men who are centered around the word of God. And both these guys
00:25:11.633 --> 00:25:12.943
are great examples of that.
00:25:13.263 --> 00:25:16.473
And I love their heart for God's word, for God's people. Well,
00:25:16.473 --> 00:25:21.743
guys, let's talk about replanting as a strategy.
00:25:22.163 --> 00:25:26.963
And in this day and time, there's a lot of different people who have sort of
00:25:26.963 --> 00:25:29.493
jumped on the replanting bus.
00:25:29.493 --> 00:25:34.054
You know, when I was doing this 35 years ago for the first time,
00:25:34.193 --> 00:25:37.432
there was no one wanting to do this, right? This was not...
00:25:37.775 --> 00:25:41.449
A, a exciting part of church ministry.
00:25:41.589 --> 00:25:46.035
And now, you know, even, even 15 years ago, there were almost no books,
00:25:46.675 --> 00:25:52.049
No major books on this topic, not a lot of that had been written about it.
00:25:52.299 --> 00:25:54.765
But today there's a lot of people throwing around terms like,
00:25:54.765 --> 00:25:57.956
oh, I'm a replanter, I'm a revitalizer.
00:25:58.061 --> 00:26:02.025
And there's not a lot of clarity or definition about that. And I've,
00:26:02.465 --> 00:26:08.165
I work with both of you guys through your processes as you guys were coming into this role.
00:26:08.525 --> 00:26:15.725
So I'm curious with your experience now, how well you think my analogies resonate
00:26:15.725 --> 00:26:19.465
as I try to teach and coach on this particular point.
00:26:19.875 --> 00:26:24.776
One analogy that you guys I think are both very familiar with from me is this,
00:26:25.118 --> 00:26:31.165
that I tell guys who are considering the work of planting or replanting or church
00:26:31.165 --> 00:26:33.059
revitalization They're trying to discern.
00:26:33.367 --> 00:26:38.945
I say, listen, the scripture talks about the church. It uses the analogy at
00:26:38.945 --> 00:26:45.058
times of us being like a building. You know, Peter uses this analogy. Paul uses this analogy.
00:26:45.192 --> 00:26:50.979
So I say, so what kind of spiritual building do you think God's called you to be in or to steward?
00:26:51.303 --> 00:26:53.605
Or to help build. And some people,
00:26:53.605 --> 00:26:57.978
they just want to go into sort of the suburbia equivalent of a church.
00:26:58.169 --> 00:27:00.161
It's just, it's an existing house.
00:27:00.375 --> 00:27:04.358
They want to maintain it well. They may even want to expand it just a little bit.
00:27:04.566 --> 00:27:08.293
And I say, hey, if that's you and that's your spiritual house,
00:27:08.555 --> 00:27:13.675
you're probably a pastor. Other guys want to find that empty field and they
00:27:13.675 --> 00:27:18.245
see that empty spot and they just dream up that great, big, beautiful home that
00:27:18.245 --> 00:27:19.096
they want to build there.
00:27:19.404 --> 00:27:22.785
And they spend their life and ministry building that.
00:27:23.185 --> 00:27:26.399
And I say, man, if that's you, you're a church planter, right?
00:27:26.538 --> 00:27:30.355
And if you're a replanter or a revitalizer, though, you've got a little bit
00:27:30.355 --> 00:27:35.135
different wiring and you're the guy who's passing through the neighborhood and
00:27:35.135 --> 00:27:41.145
you see this old run down Victorian or craftsman home and you can't help it.
00:27:41.145 --> 00:27:45.755
You keep walking by it and you see the raccoons, you see that the wiring is
00:27:45.755 --> 00:27:50.475
shot, you maybe even poke your head in through what once was beautiful glass
00:27:50.475 --> 00:27:53.850
windows and realize that the house is full of mold.
00:27:53.989 --> 00:28:01.831
And yet you are crazy enough to buy that house and move into it and room by room, not knock it down,
00:28:02.133 --> 00:28:06.155
not try to turn it into something completely new, but room by room,
00:28:06.155 --> 00:28:12.495
renovate that house spiritually so that it becomes a place both that holds the
00:28:12.495 --> 00:28:14.649
history and beauty of the past
00:28:14.800 --> 00:28:18.965
and is functional and fruitful in a modern time.
00:28:18.965 --> 00:28:24.615
So that's my analogy that I use. I'm curious, how do you guys feel about that
00:28:24.615 --> 00:28:28.085
analogy now that you're in this work? And we'll start with Michael.
00:28:28.085 --> 00:28:29.063
You've been doing this for
00:28:29.208 --> 00:28:33.725
Almost five years. Is that still a good analogy? Where does it fall apart?
00:28:33.725 --> 00:28:35.413
Critique it if you want to.
00:28:35.838 --> 00:28:39.182
Well, I'll let you know in year 10, if the house falls apart,
00:28:39.321 --> 00:28:43.180
you know, you got to shore up the foundation or something. But I like that analogy.
00:28:43.520 --> 00:28:47.767
I've used it myself. And it was very poignant that when I came here,
00:28:47.918 --> 00:28:50.947
the parsonage needed to be literally renovated.
00:28:51.139 --> 00:28:55.110
And God kept sending us people. When we moved in there, one of the upstairs
00:28:55.110 --> 00:28:57.443
ceiling fans was held together with hair ties.
00:28:57.716 --> 00:29:01.031
The downstairs carpet in the dining room was held together with duct tape.
00:29:01.187 --> 00:29:04.680
And so you can just imagine the rest of it. And so
00:29:05.100 --> 00:29:10.410
I see that, that you don't, I guess the admission is you don't get to be a church
00:29:10.410 --> 00:29:13.820
of just a handful of people meeting on Sunday morning by loving your community
00:29:13.820 --> 00:29:17.232
well, and by there being intention to the important things
00:29:17.575 --> 00:29:22.580
that just, that doesn't happen by accident or oops, you know, we didn't mean to.
00:29:23.080 --> 00:29:28.990
And so that takes someone who loves that church to say, God,
00:29:28.990 --> 00:29:31.850
would you give me wisdom and carefulness and time?
00:29:31.850 --> 00:29:35.510
And so that's what we committed to is Pastor Christopher, you told us at the
00:29:35.510 --> 00:29:39.210
beginning, told Katie and I that would take probably between seven and 10 years.
00:29:39.210 --> 00:29:40.818
And so we committed to at least
00:29:41.165 --> 00:29:44.573
10 years, should the Lord tarry and allow us the opportunity.
00:29:44.724 --> 00:29:48.269
So there's not been delusions of, boy, this was supposed to have happened a
00:29:48.269 --> 00:29:52.669
couple of years ago, or why aren't we at a certain spot by now?
00:29:52.966 --> 00:29:56.709
We want to continue being faithful, yes, but we're in it for the long haul and
00:29:56.709 --> 00:30:03.757
expecting it to be that from the get-go, from the jump. So yeah, I love the analogy.
00:30:04.065 --> 00:30:06.549
And though I'm not a remodeler.
00:30:07.289 --> 00:30:11.579
I used to say that God sent us people and the people sent me to Home Depot.
00:30:11.579 --> 00:30:16.469
So that was my role in the whole renovation of the parsonage.
00:30:16.469 --> 00:30:20.749
I recall that renovation work. I pulled up a good bit of carpet in there.
00:30:20.749 --> 00:30:22.749
You did it. I did your lovely wife.
00:30:24.589 --> 00:30:28.723
And that was, it was gross. There's a funny story here we got to tell.
00:30:29.077 --> 00:30:36.029
No joke, on the day that we took over the parsonage, which had been rented out.
00:30:36.029 --> 00:30:36.839
For 10 years.
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:42.009
And for 10 years, the church had reassumed authority over this parsonage.
00:30:42.009 --> 00:30:48.134
But on the day that we show up with these renovation crews to gut the place
00:30:48.273 --> 00:30:51.589
with multiple church volunteers from different churches there.
00:30:51.669 --> 00:30:53.189
18 volunteers from different churches, yeah.
00:30:53.189 --> 00:30:56.529
Yeah, different churches were there. Michael goes over there,
00:30:56.529 --> 00:30:57.939
but he can't get in the house.
00:30:57.939 --> 00:31:03.059
So he breaks into the church's parsonage, Only to find there's a dude in the
00:31:03.059 --> 00:31:10.629
shower and, and the family has, has decided to stay because they have COVID.
00:31:11.149 --> 00:31:14.361
Oh, I know. Wow. What a story.
00:31:16.295 --> 00:31:20.761
That's called pivot. So we cleaned out the food storage instead with those volunteers.
00:31:20.761 --> 00:31:25.211
But Pastor Chris and his wife masked up with us after the renters finally got
00:31:25.211 --> 00:31:28.821
out that day, and they still tore out carpet in that COVID-infested home.
00:31:28.821 --> 00:31:31.171
So it's good to have ministry partners.
00:31:32.392 --> 00:31:37.411
It was quite the story. Well, Jeff, you've heard me use that analogy.
00:31:37.411 --> 00:31:42.591
You've been living in this reality. You come from also a church that's a little
00:31:42.591 --> 00:31:46.265
bit farther on their revitalization journey.
00:31:46.711 --> 00:31:51.761
So does that analogy stand up? How would you explain the differences in these
00:31:51.761 --> 00:31:55.315
kinds of work to guys that are considering it?
00:31:55.437 --> 00:32:01.311
Yeah. I mean, I think that part of what differentiates a replanter versus a revitalizer is that
00:32:02.051 --> 00:32:05.735
a revitalizer is in a church that can fully support the pastor,
00:32:05.868 --> 00:32:10.535
and he's there for the long work of turning around what has become a spiritually
00:32:10.652 --> 00:32:12.196
dying and or dead church.
00:32:12.329 --> 00:32:17.361
A replanter is taking on a building, a people, a history, has to externally
00:32:17.361 --> 00:32:19.441
fundraise to support the work, and
00:32:19.441 --> 00:32:23.631
has to balance church planting and revitalizing, which means you have to
00:32:24.091 --> 00:32:27.689
love and appreciate the people who are there and their history
00:32:28.584 --> 00:32:33.453
While not getting only caught up with them and their history,
00:32:33.766 --> 00:32:36.343
but also helping them see the way forward.
00:32:36.483 --> 00:32:39.710
There's a reason why we got here to where we are.
00:32:39.855 --> 00:32:44.644
Now we need to move forward while not losing the history, but appreciating,
00:32:44.644 --> 00:32:46.803
valuing, and looking ahead.
00:32:47.122 --> 00:32:50.884
And so it's why when I came in, I had no intentions of changing the church name
00:32:50.884 --> 00:32:54.044
because I wanted the witness that has been on the corner of Grant and Fremont
00:32:54.044 --> 00:32:57.064
for 60, 70 years to continue.
00:32:57.064 --> 00:33:02.575
And for this community to see a church that is dying, turn around and flourish.
00:33:02.859 --> 00:33:06.594
And isn't that just a picture of the gospel? People who are dead, who come to life.
00:33:06.594 --> 00:33:10.264
And so I love that vision of in a decade, you know, Lord willing,
00:33:10.264 --> 00:33:14.744
if he tarries, Michael, that we're seeing a church that has turned around as
00:33:14.744 --> 00:33:18.414
life and that the community takes notice of because of the way that we love
00:33:18.414 --> 00:33:19.804
each other and that we love them.
00:33:19.914 --> 00:33:22.914
So if you want to be a church planter, I think you're after a really good work.
00:33:22.914 --> 00:33:25.911
It's just a very different work as is revitalization.
00:33:26.126 --> 00:33:30.924
Replanter, I love the term or renewal as others use. I love the term because
00:33:30.924 --> 00:33:34.594
I think it captures the essence of what we're doing. We're both revitalizing
00:33:34.594 --> 00:33:35.744
and we're church planting.
00:33:36.464 --> 00:33:41.084
Yeah. Well, let's shift gears a little bit because both of your answers are
00:33:41.084 --> 00:33:45.624
getting us into a discussion of how transformation takes place.
00:33:45.624 --> 00:33:50.122
And a big part of that is practical. A big part of that is spiritual.
00:33:50.273 --> 00:33:55.274
So let's think about those spiritual aspects, specifically prayer,
00:33:55.274 --> 00:33:57.065
but going beyond that as well.
00:33:57.344 --> 00:34:03.195
So again, starting with Pastor Michael, what role did prayer intercession,
00:34:03.532 --> 00:34:09.804
both in the church and outside the church, what role did that play in kind of getting you,
00:34:10.324 --> 00:34:14.329
through the years you are now to getting you from point A to where you are now?
00:34:14.711 --> 00:34:19.472
Yeah, boy, it was foundational at first. I'm so grateful for Pastor Chris Cole,
00:34:19.472 --> 00:34:22.892
who came and led some amazing
00:34:23.852 --> 00:34:28.482
heart-transforming Bible studies and suggested some things to me,
00:34:28.482 --> 00:34:29.772
was my coach along the way.
00:34:29.772 --> 00:34:34.952
And one of the things that we've done is even recently going back to a 21 days
00:34:34.952 --> 00:34:39.402
of prayer emphasis as we're looking to have an outreach in the park across the
00:34:39.402 --> 00:34:41.523
street, just calling people to prayer again.
00:34:41.780 --> 00:34:46.312
At the end of last year, when finances were really in limbo,
00:34:46.312 --> 00:34:51.329
basically, hey, we're not sure what God is saying to us through the lack of finances.
00:34:51.538 --> 00:34:55.412
God, would you do something and would you make it clear because we'll be obedient,
00:34:55.412 --> 00:34:57.046
but we just need to hear from you.
00:34:57.308 --> 00:35:03.292
So called the church for a season to be praying intentionally and God answered
00:35:03.692 --> 00:35:07.462
and finances really picked up. We're so grateful. But that's not the story.
00:35:07.462 --> 00:35:11.587
It's not about finances. It's about that there need to be a reliance on God.
00:35:11.721 --> 00:35:16.252
You can't expect just the outward things of, as pastors talk about,
00:35:16.252 --> 00:35:20.672
nickels and noses or butts in seats and bucks in the plate or whatever you want.
00:35:21.392 --> 00:35:24.912
You can't expect those things to change without a heart change first.
00:35:24.912 --> 00:35:28.752
It will be temporal. It will be our doing, and I don't want anything of it.
00:35:29.092 --> 00:35:33.652
It will have the smell of human on it if we can just force it.
00:35:33.652 --> 00:35:39.222
It's not a popular thing that I did, but I did not put up a new sign outside here in the Pomo.
00:35:39.222 --> 00:35:42.482
I'm not suggesting this is the strategy for elsewhere. I did not put up a new
00:35:42.482 --> 00:35:48.032
sign, new logo for almost three years because I was afraid in this town of 19,000
00:35:48.032 --> 00:35:51.572
people, we have one chance with some people.
00:35:51.572 --> 00:35:54.270
They might come one time and it's a small town.
00:35:54.566 --> 00:35:58.247
And I was not sure that our people would love them if they came in the door.
00:35:58.732 --> 00:36:03.452
Just to be gut level frank with you, I didn't know because they had not loved
00:36:03.452 --> 00:36:07.262
their community well to get to this point. They'd become insular. And we do that.
00:36:07.523 --> 00:36:11.343
It's not because they're bad people. They're very, very good people. They're sweet people.
00:36:11.714 --> 00:36:14.654
But they just lost sight of mission in order to keep
00:36:15.234 --> 00:36:20.744
And turn it to let's keep these doors open in a sense, rather than remembering
00:36:20.744 --> 00:36:24.814
that we have a public elementary school literally across the street from the
00:36:24.814 --> 00:36:29.628
church who can see us and did not know who we were, knew nothing of that.
00:36:29.901 --> 00:36:34.024
So to transform their hearts, we started literally praying for the school across00:36:34.024 --> 00:36:37.454
the street. God, would you help us to love them? Would you show us how to love00:36:37.454 --> 00:36:38.695
them, their families, whatever.00:36:38.950 --> 00:36:44.844
And so prayer, absolutely foundational. And I don't take credit for even thinking through that.00:36:44.844 --> 00:36:49.024
Like I said, Pastor Christopher Cole, again, you've heard me thank you in private,00:36:49.024 --> 00:36:54.693
but also publicly, just amazing your heart for our church and for me.00:36:55.394 --> 00:36:58.908
We had to do that. We had to do the hard spiritual work.00:36:59.047 --> 00:37:02.474
And I'm so grateful that the ladies were willing to do that.00:37:02.474 --> 00:37:07.334
The former pastor and his wife, Tom and Nancy, stayed with us at my invitation,00:37:07.334 --> 00:37:13.014
stayed for three years and as our emeritus pastor for the first little part00:37:13.147 --> 00:37:16.212
as paid and then just being here because they love the people.00:37:16.602 --> 00:37:20.033
And so I'm so grateful for them being willing to go through that work with us,00:37:20.033 --> 00:37:24.276
but just, yeah, all glory to God for, for him transforming hearts.00:37:24.474 --> 00:37:29.164
So then we actually do love, love the school across the street and they know it.00:37:29.338 --> 00:37:33.673
So anyway, anyway, I just want to say that that's been foundational.00:37:33.673 --> 00:37:36.785
Pastors should not overlook that work of prayer.00:37:37.116 --> 00:37:40.473
I don't want to paint with too broad of a brush, but I'm going to anyway.00:37:40.473 --> 00:37:45.905
I know for most of us men, when our wives come to us with an issue,00:37:46.044 --> 00:37:51.823
our first instinct is almost always to fix it instead of to sympathize,00:37:51.823 --> 00:37:54.893
empathize, listen, and extend compassion.00:37:54.893 --> 00:38:03.058
And my anecdotal survey of pastors is about 92 to 93% of us are doers.00:38:03.186 --> 00:38:07.813
You would think pastors should be great at prayer. It's hard for us to pray00:38:07.813 --> 00:38:09.415
because there's so much to do.00:38:10.123 --> 00:38:14.471
And there's always that pressure of if it's to be, it's up to me.00:38:14.622 --> 00:38:17.913
And I'm glad to hear your testimony.00:38:17.913 --> 00:38:21.983
And I hope all of us hear it well that, you know, the work of the kingdom is00:38:21.983 --> 00:38:24.908
not going to primarily be accomplished00:38:25.048 --> 00:38:29.192
by our tasks and our work and our gifts and our efforts, but by00:38:29.529 --> 00:38:33.690
God moving on behalf of our prayers. So Pastor Jeff, over to you.00:38:34.383 --> 00:38:40.223
In the seven months you've been serving in Los Altos. Tell us about how prayer00:38:40.223 --> 00:38:41.585
has played a part in that.00:38:41.735 --> 00:38:46.063
I think one of the cornerstones of what I encourage our people to do,00:38:46.543 --> 00:38:49.671
and I'm trying to model as well, is I had to pray for each other.00:38:49.798 --> 00:38:53.953
To pray for the members, there's about 14 members of the church,00:38:53.953 --> 00:38:58.239
and I have a membership list that I pray through regularly for each person by name.00:38:58.390 --> 00:39:03.393
Just pray scripture because I believe that it's prayer that does the work and00:39:03.393 --> 00:39:04.633
it's prayer that changes people.00:39:04.633 --> 00:39:07.873
And so I'm encouraging our members to do that, to pray for each other.00:39:07.873 --> 00:39:12.212
And then my wife and I just been in a regular season of prayer for the church,00:39:12.350 --> 00:39:13.976
prayer for the work that's happening.00:39:14.422 --> 00:39:18.564
And what's interesting is, you know, just a quick story. We were praying for00:39:18.564 --> 00:39:21.301
just that the Lord would grow the church. He'd bring more people.00:39:21.447 --> 00:39:26.624
And then we decided to pray on a Sunday for one. So, Lord, just bring us one family.00:39:26.924 --> 00:39:32.980
And amazing enough that following Sunday, one family showed up with three kids.00:39:33.095 --> 00:39:36.729
And they showed up and they walked in the door. And within the first week,00:39:36.862 --> 00:39:40.660
I had met with the husband and he said, how do I join? We want to be a part of this church.00:39:40.798 --> 00:39:44.264
And that was such an encouragement to me and to us just praying.00:39:44.264 --> 00:39:49.054
And then there's other stories of prayer as well, but I did feel like the Lord00:39:49.054 --> 00:39:50.864
was directing us to pray for that one.00:39:50.980 --> 00:39:54.527
And then I was also just convicted that I'm encouraging the church to pray,00:39:54.637 --> 00:39:57.326
but we're not making any time as a church to pray.00:39:58.352 --> 00:40:01.984
If you come to our service, you'll hear long prayers. I'm all about prayers00:40:01.984 --> 00:40:05.244
of petition, prayers of confession, prayers of thanksgiving.00:40:05.244 --> 00:40:09.064
So you're going to get long prayers that I'm leading or someone else is leading,00:40:09.220 --> 00:40:11.513
but we weren't actively praying as a church together.00:40:11.652 --> 00:40:16.174
And so we've started monthly lunch where we get together to eat,00:40:16.174 --> 00:40:18.356
fellowship, and then spend some time praying.00:40:18.582 --> 00:40:22.714
And that's prayer that I'm directing, that I'm leading and guiding us so that00:40:22.714 --> 00:40:26.274
we're not just praying for each other's health, but we're actually praying for00:40:26.274 --> 00:40:27.284
the ministry of the church.00:40:27.423 --> 00:40:30.674
Praying that we would have a church that has a culture of hospitality,00:40:30.674 --> 00:40:32.304
of discipling, of evangelism.00:40:32.704 --> 00:40:36.548
Praying for one another, praying for the preaching of God's word,00:40:36.791 --> 00:40:39.891
praying for evangelistic opportunities in the community.00:40:40.025 --> 00:40:43.734
So, I mean, prayer is the bedrock of what we're doing. And so I think the Lord00:40:43.734 --> 00:40:46.924
has been just shaping the way that that plays out in my own life,00:40:46.924 --> 00:40:49.812
but also how we work that out in the life of the church.00:40:49.980 --> 00:40:50.880
Yeah, fantastic.00:40:51.177 --> 00:40:57.832
So while we were talking, Pastor Christopher live added a question to my notes.00:40:57.832 --> 00:41:01.702
And I think it's an excellent question. So I'm going to throw it out to you00:41:01.702 --> 00:41:03.572
guys. Let me tell you a quick story first.00:41:03.892 --> 00:41:08.122
I am an Alabama football fan and grew up watching the Crimson Tide play.00:41:08.122 --> 00:41:12.882
And I remember a running back we had back when I was very young in the 80s named00:41:12.882 --> 00:41:17.252
Kerry Goode. Kerry Goode is a Christian. He was a fantastic running back.00:41:17.781 --> 00:41:21.232
Either his cousin or his brother, Pierre, is one of the fastest players I've ever seen.00:41:21.232 --> 00:41:27.152
But Kerry Goode has ALS now, one of at least a handful of Alabama players I'm00:41:27.152 --> 00:41:30.152
aware of that has ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.00:41:30.152 --> 00:41:35.992
And I follow Kerry on Facebook, and he writes all the time about ALS.00:41:35.992 --> 00:41:43.442
And what he wrote about just, I think, yesterday was that moment when the tests00:41:43.442 --> 00:41:49.672
had been run and his doctor had come in and told him that he has00:41:50.092 --> 00:41:53.382
ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, which if you know anything about ALS,00:41:53.382 --> 00:41:55.662
it's a terrifying diagnosis.00:41:55.662 --> 00:42:01.271
You don't normally get over, you know, there's no cure. It's just degenerative,00:42:01.405 --> 00:42:05.062
essentially, usually apart from the miracle of God until you die.00:42:05.812 --> 00:42:12.283
So huge deal, breaking bad news. And that gets me to Pastor Christopher's question,00:42:12.428 --> 00:42:15.981
which is about breaking bad news. Over to you, Pastor Michael.00:42:16.248 --> 00:42:23.312
What is the spiritual work of helping a church see and understand and acknowledge,00:42:23.832 --> 00:42:29.824
the spiritual reality and the natural reality of the fact that they are,00:42:30.452 --> 00:42:34.672
dead or near dead at the beginning of that replant process?00:42:34.672 --> 00:42:39.212
What does that look like communicating that news and saying,00:42:39.212 --> 00:42:43.797
hey guys, we don't just need a band-aid, we need miraculous intervention.00:42:44.516 --> 00:42:52.350
Yeah, the people here were very painfully aware of the lack of young people.00:42:52.350 --> 00:42:56.765
And my family shows up with a bunch of kids and including a couple teenagers00:42:56.887 --> 00:43:00.891
and the result was jarring. You could see they're so excited,00:43:01.037 --> 00:43:02.197
but they were very aware.00:43:02.337 --> 00:43:09.590
The problem is that they don't always associate that with spiritual lack in00:43:09.590 --> 00:43:11.710
some way or something that's happened.00:43:11.710 --> 00:43:17.880
And so what I did early on, so if we came in mid-April, this was very first00:43:17.880 --> 00:43:19.030
part of June, I'm talking00:43:19.850 --> 00:43:25.170
within two months, I had asked them to come to a night, I believe it was a Sunday00:43:25.170 --> 00:43:29.520
night, which we called Humility Night, and that we would just be,00:43:30.640 --> 00:43:32.875
That we would repent as a church.00:43:32.991 --> 00:43:38.831
And not all of us had been there for the wrong things that had been said on behalf of the church.00:43:39.110 --> 00:43:46.750
Not all of us had not done evangelism in our community, but all of us were reaping that.00:43:47.110 --> 00:43:52.350
And some of us had had some part in that or had rude things said to us.00:43:52.710 --> 00:43:57.730
And so there were a lot of tears that night and it was not a flashy service at all.00:43:58.390 --> 00:44:02.520
And I've not done it since. I haven't felt the need to do that since,00:44:02.520 --> 00:44:08.379
but to own as a church and for my family to be with them in it.00:44:08.541 --> 00:44:14.776
And because we're now part of the family and we grieved together for what had00:44:14.932 --> 00:44:17.910
been said or done on behalf of the church or to people00:44:18.674 --> 00:44:26.292
And I just feel like that helped to then set the tone for additional conversations that you need to have.00:44:26.530 --> 00:44:30.934
Well, we want to see people welcome here. We want whatever. And so,00:44:31.274 --> 00:44:33.894
yeah, I think that was foundational for that.00:44:34.314 --> 00:44:35.876
Awesome. Jeff, you got anything to add to that?00:44:37.054 --> 00:44:42.564
I might not be the best one to answer this question. I've not had any conversations00:44:42.564 --> 00:44:45.094
or acknowledgements of the failures of the past.00:44:45.474 --> 00:44:51.024
Partly because I trust that the remnant that God has kept here is going to respond00:44:51.024 --> 00:44:54.314
to the preaching of his word, that they're going to grow, that they're going00:44:54.314 --> 00:44:57.662
to grow in their love for Jesus. They're going to grow in love for the community.00:44:57.964 --> 00:45:01.261
And as they see people come to the church, it's going to encourage them.00:45:01.551 --> 00:45:05.667
It's going to embolden them. They're going to want to see continuing what we're doing.00:45:05.795 --> 00:45:10.914
So essentially, I think what I'm trying to do is just love the people and trust00:45:10.914 --> 00:45:13.494
that God has kept them here for a reason.00:45:13.494 --> 00:45:16.734
There are so many reasons why this church should not still exist,00:45:16.734 --> 00:45:21.624
and yet it's still here. And so now is the time where we see the fortunes of00:45:21.624 --> 00:45:24.794
the Baptist Church turn, but it's going to be because the Lord is growing His00:45:24.794 --> 00:45:26.889
people and the Lord is adding to His people.00:45:27.196 --> 00:45:31.295
And I just want to keep pointing them to that testimony and to that witness.00:45:31.422 --> 00:45:34.414
And I trust that the Christians will see it and rejoice.00:45:34.714 --> 00:45:38.353
And if there are any that are not Christians, they will not like it.00:45:38.470 --> 00:45:41.047
And I can just trust the Lord and then the work that he's doing.00:45:41.366 --> 00:45:43.624
I appreciate the fact that both00:45:43.624 --> 00:45:50.434
of you have two significantly different approaches to the same problem.00:45:50.894 --> 00:45:59.854
And I think that is a great example of spiritual giftedness and the individual00:46:00.174 --> 00:46:02.444
way that God calls people.00:46:02.874 --> 00:46:06.714
We're different and we're going to be different. And I'm not going to do everything00:46:06.714 --> 00:46:09.174
like Mark Dever or David Platt or J.D.00:46:09.174 --> 00:46:14.274
Greer does. And that's not only American individualism deeper than that.00:46:14.274 --> 00:46:20.705
It's God's way of calling and crafting his people. So thank you guys both for those answers.00:46:21.187 --> 00:46:27.561
If I could also say, I came following a very faithful pastor who had not left,00:46:27.741 --> 00:46:32.506
not left these ladies in the lurch and was regrettably retiring.00:46:32.886 --> 00:46:38.488
And so it was not his fault the way that he got the church when it had 20 in it on a Sunday.00:46:38.633 --> 00:46:44.246
And so he was gently leading them into the future with the people that he had.00:46:44.246 --> 00:46:49.776
And so that in a very real sense, so far from wanting to put blame on anybody,00:46:49.776 --> 00:46:51.736
there wasn't like just a person.00:46:51.736 --> 00:46:55.496
Like you couldn't just point back if there had been a pastor who had been malicious,00:46:55.496 --> 00:46:59.311
for example, or had divided the church, that was not this pastor.00:46:59.450 --> 00:47:02.946
He had loved them well to the point where I said, I want him to stay.00:47:02.946 --> 00:47:05.232
I would not have asked him to stay if that were the case.00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:10.676
And so I just want to say that that also played into how I led through that,00:47:10.676 --> 00:47:15.193
that careful realization of now, what can we do?00:47:15.326 --> 00:47:19.676
We didn't have people before that could go across and bring snacks to the monthly,00:47:19.676 --> 00:47:21.071
to the school across the street.00:47:21.379 --> 00:47:25.126
Now my family could at least do that until we end up having other people who00:47:25.126 --> 00:47:27.286
could come alongside us, which we eventually did.00:47:28.305 --> 00:47:31.806
Okay. I think that's a good place to pause the interview for now.00:47:32.067 --> 00:47:37.036
We've got a whole second part coming for you next week, where we keep on talking00:47:37.036 --> 00:47:41.830
about that process of change and transformation with Pastor Michael and Pastor Jeff.00:47:41.998 --> 00:47:44.826
I think the conversation gets even deeper.00:47:45.058 --> 00:47:49.475
It's always the same in these kind of interviews. The first half is good,00:47:49.754 --> 00:47:53.916
but the second half just has a tendency to go deeper and deeper and deeper and00:47:53.916 --> 00:47:56.702
better and richer, further up, further in.00:47:56.923 --> 00:48:04.110
Now, before we are finished, we're going to review a soda from Manchester, England.00:48:04.471 --> 00:48:09.109
That has black currant and all sorts of other fascinating ingredients in it.00:48:09.509 --> 00:48:14.942
I have no earthly idea what to expect out of this one. Let's see how it tastes.00:48:15.174 --> 00:48:18.395
Well, Pastor Chase, I have a question for you that's really important. Are you ready?00:48:18.622 --> 00:48:24.618
What was invented in 1908 in Manchester, England?00:48:24.967 --> 00:48:29.069
Well, it just so happens I know the answer to that question because I did a00:48:29.069 --> 00:48:30.739
little bit of research before the show.00:48:30.739 --> 00:48:34.799
I want to be a soda academic when I grow up. And the answer to that question00:48:34.799 --> 00:48:44.617
is Vim Tonic, which was brought about by the famous Mangunian urban spice merchant, a guy named John Noel.00:48:44.762 --> 00:48:45.149
Yeah.00:48:45.609 --> 00:48:50.309
And we're going to find out shortly whether we should thank John Noel or go,00:48:50.869 --> 00:48:52.529
I don't know, spit on his grave or something.00:48:52.529 --> 00:48:56.889
Well, Vim Tonic was intended to give people Vim and Vigor.00:48:57.329 --> 00:49:00.708
I love that. Vim and Vigor. I want more Vim and Vigor.00:49:00.940 --> 00:49:05.979
I need Vim and Vigor. I often feel like this, and even though it started in00:49:05.979 --> 00:49:11.029
Manchester, England, Chase, it's sold today in more than 60 countries00:49:11.549 --> 00:49:16.020
and is especially popular in the United Kingdom and the Middle East.00:49:16.125 --> 00:49:21.359
Okay, that's fantastic. Yeah. And even though the Every Church Flourishing podcast00:49:21.359 --> 00:49:27.746
was started in California, USA, it is heard in dozens of countries, maybe close to 60.00:49:28.019 --> 00:49:32.849
Okay. Well, I don't know if any of those countries are in the Middle East, but00:49:33.169 --> 00:49:40.709
apparently Vimto, as Vimtonic is known today, is the cultural staple during00:49:40.935 --> 00:49:45.022
Ramadan in many Middle Eastern countries.00:49:45.213 --> 00:49:50.513
So now on a Baptist podcast, we are going to drink the Vimto,00:49:50.647 --> 00:49:54.069
a deeply popular Middle Eastern soda.00:49:54.469 --> 00:49:56.689
What's the flavor profile supposed to be on this thing?00:49:56.689 --> 00:50:03.801
It's got a mix of 23 fruit essences, herbs, and spices. You think, hey, it's grape soda.00:50:04.113 --> 00:50:09.058
But it's got all sorts of things. Gray, raspberry, blackcurrant.00:50:09.058 --> 00:50:12.042
Do you know what a blackcurrant is? Because I do not.00:50:12.251 --> 00:50:13.398
I do know what a blackcurrant is.00:50:13.398 --> 00:50:13.698
Fill me in.00:50:13.698 --> 00:50:17.324
Because I grew up drinking blackcurrant cordial.00:50:17.614 --> 00:50:23.648
What? Because that's very popular in countries where Britain was a colonial power.00:50:23.648 --> 00:50:24.116
Okay.00:50:24.337 --> 00:50:27.678
I grew up drinking blackcurrant cordial. That's one of the reasons I'm excited00:50:27.678 --> 00:50:30.958
about this particular soda. I'm excited about this in the way I think you've00:50:30.958 --> 00:50:32.440
been excited about some of the other sodas.00:50:32.748 --> 00:50:36.527
Because I liked the flavor of blackcurrant cordial when I was a kid.00:50:36.759 --> 00:50:37.198
Okay.00:50:37.198 --> 00:50:43.568
And having a blackcurrant profile, which is supposed to be strong in this particular00:50:43.568 --> 00:50:49.310
soda, is hopefully going to be as refreshing as I remember having blackcurrant cordial.00:50:49.426 --> 00:50:54.558
I hope so too. Were you a part of Her Majesty's Army, the imperialists that00:50:54.558 --> 00:50:56.328
basically conquered most of the world?00:50:56.328 --> 00:50:58.000
I was not myself.00:50:58.180 --> 00:50:59.018
Okay, okay.00:50:59.638 --> 00:51:08.083
But as a little child, I had friends that were heavily from the greater commonwealth nations.00:51:08.256 --> 00:51:13.828
So a lot of kids from Australia, New Zealand, anywhere where the commonwealth00:51:13.828 --> 00:51:15.878
was, Hong Kong, Singapore.00:51:15.878 --> 00:51:18.943
So you didn't conquer other nations personally?00:51:19.047 --> 00:51:20.578
I did not. I did not.00:51:20.578 --> 00:51:20.878
Okay, that's good.00:51:20.878 --> 00:51:25.808
But they have a lot of British cultural things. So a black currant cordial,00:51:25.808 --> 00:51:28.359
cordial is a concentrated fruit syrup, right?00:51:28.550 --> 00:51:32.038
Right. And typically when I was a kid, it would be mixed with like either a00:51:32.038 --> 00:51:34.175
still or a sparkling water that was cold.00:51:34.941 --> 00:51:36.598
And it was very tasty.00:51:37.518 --> 00:51:41.513
There was an orange one that was for some reason always called squash.00:51:41.832 --> 00:51:47.057
But the best known black cordial, black currant one is called ribena.00:51:47.335 --> 00:51:48.518
Never heard of that. Okay.00:51:48.518 --> 00:51:53.587
I loved ribena when I was a kid. My family couldn't afford ribena. We were poor.00:51:53.907 --> 00:52:00.368
But I had wealthier friends that could afford Ribena and I got to go to their house and drink Ribena.00:52:00.583 --> 00:52:04.200
Oh, maybe we have to get some Ribena on the podcast at some point soon.00:52:04.513 --> 00:52:10.140
Okay. Before we crack these open, I look at the risk of saying something dangerous00:52:10.140 --> 00:52:12.284
and culturally offensive.00:52:12.429 --> 00:52:18.260
When I look at this can and look, I'm not a scholar of the Middle East or of00:52:18.260 --> 00:52:24.520
the Islamic faith. But when I look at this can, it does not scream Ramadan to me.00:52:24.520 --> 00:52:28.671
It does not. Perhaps they package it differently in the Middle East.00:52:29.650 --> 00:52:33.247
Maybe in the Middle East, it doesn't say love the taste or your money back.00:52:33.444 --> 00:52:39.230
That seems like a distinctly American packaging of this particular product or00:52:39.230 --> 00:52:41.065
maybe for the U.S. market.00:52:41.635 --> 00:52:43.916
Hey, what's that green thing on there?00:52:44.061 --> 00:52:45.780
I think it's supposed to be a grape.00:52:46.058 --> 00:52:47.486
Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.00:52:47.666 --> 00:52:50.447
Yeah, but interestingly, I don't know if you noticed, Chase,00:52:50.592 --> 00:52:52.930
it has barley malt in here.00:52:52.930 --> 00:52:55.207
Oh, so it's sort of beerish.00:52:55.479 --> 00:53:00.300
Well, you know, I'm on a Baptist podcast. Yeah, really? Right, exactly.00:53:00.300 --> 00:53:03.460
Let's check the alcohol content. Okay, I think we're good. Okay,00:53:04.080 --> 00:53:07.540
I'm ready. Look, you've got me excited. I'm ready.00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:11.200
I'm excited. After all the bad things you have made me try.00:53:12.240 --> 00:53:16.788
Wait a minute. This isn't me. We are supplied these drinks by our podcast overlord,00:53:16.933 --> 00:53:20.723
Miss Grace. It's so true. We are just slaves to her whims.00:53:21.320 --> 00:53:25.530
And she does seem to enjoy torturing us. All right. Apparently. I'm ready for my go-to.00:53:25.540 --> 00:53:26.030
Okay, let's go.00:53:26.030 --> 00:53:30.430
Oh, now see, that's a pleasant smell right there.00:53:30.430 --> 00:53:36.490
It takes you back to your childhood conquering nations for the queen and country. There we go.00:53:36.606 --> 00:53:39.828
It smells a little bitter to me. Whoa, you already tasted it. I better catch up.00:53:39.967 --> 00:53:40.849
I was eager.00:53:41.192 --> 00:53:50.050
Mmm, that's yummy. And it does have a little, it reminds me a lot of the aftertaste. Iron brew.00:53:50.100 --> 00:53:51.190
Of iron brew.00:53:51.190 --> 00:53:55.408
Yeah. Iron brew. Because it has a little bit of a, I don't know if bitter is the right word.00:53:56.680 --> 00:53:59.623
I think it's that barley malt in there, I think.00:53:59.797 --> 00:54:01.620
Yes, I think you might be right.00:54:01.620 --> 00:54:03.020
Yeah. Interesting.00:54:03.020 --> 00:54:13.577
It's got a flavor that is somewhat unfathomable, somewhat difficult to describe, but I really like it.00:54:13.971 --> 00:54:16.543
Trying to see what kind of, how many calories it's got.00:54:16.972 --> 00:54:22.394
18 kilocalories. Is that the same as 18 calories? I don't know.00:54:22.394 --> 00:54:23.274
I'm not British.00:54:23.754 --> 00:54:26.594
I don't know that either. We might need to look that up.00:54:26.914 --> 00:54:32.254
I am. Okay. 18 kilocalories is 18,000 calories? What?00:54:32.654 --> 00:54:32.774
No.00:54:33.534 --> 00:54:37.094
No, surely not. Maybe I'm reading that wrong. Hmm.00:54:39.519 --> 00:54:41.545
73 KJ. Kilojoules?00:54:41.777 --> 00:54:42.144
Yeah.00:54:42.144 --> 00:54:45.594
18 Kcal. Surely that means kilocalories.00:54:47.034 --> 00:54:48.504
I don't know. I don't know.00:54:48.504 --> 00:54:51.373
What is a K-Cal? There we go.00:54:52.214 --> 00:54:56.998
Oh, okay. K-Cal stands for kilocalorie. In everyday language and nutrition,00:54:57.311 --> 00:55:01.031
one K-Cal is exactly equal to one calorie.00:55:01.165 --> 00:55:05.234
Well, that's confusing, England. Right. But 18 calories for this can,00:55:05.547 --> 00:55:08.234
that's good. That's a good deal. This is tasty.00:55:08.754 --> 00:55:12.774
No, it's per 100 milliliters. How many milliliters? This is three. What?00:55:13.564 --> 00:55:22.301
Yeah, this is whatever three times 18 is, which is 54 and another half. So 60 calories.00:55:22.591 --> 00:55:25.197
That's actually not bad, Chase. 60 calories.00:55:25.342 --> 00:55:31.327
It's not as bad as Lester's Fixin's, which is 170 calories per bottle.00:55:31.478 --> 00:55:34.734
But I still wouldn't call it a diet beverage. It's kind of an in-betweener.00:55:34.734 --> 00:55:38.324
Yeah. Yeah. It's not a diet beverage. That's true.00:55:38.324 --> 00:55:41.741
But I like it. I can't tell what you think. What do you think?00:55:42.414 --> 00:55:46.682
So here's the thing. I'm a little bit disappointed because I had hyped it up so much in my mind.00:55:46.809 --> 00:55:51.654
I would say this, I wanted that stronger black currant flavor.00:55:51.654 --> 00:55:52.374
Okay, gotcha.00:55:52.374 --> 00:55:58.216
I enjoy the bubbles on this. The color is really nice. It's a pretty light purple.00:55:58.355 --> 00:56:01.437
It's a little too grape soda-y for me.00:56:01.582 --> 00:56:04.624
But I think if you like grape soda, you probably would like this a little bit00:56:04.624 --> 00:56:06.110
more. I was hoping for a stronger.00:56:06.330 --> 00:56:11.137
I do like that back end barley malt flavor, whatever that is that's on there.00:56:11.259 --> 00:56:11.534
Yeah.00:56:11.914 --> 00:56:15.009
A little more distinctive, I guess, is what I was thinking.00:56:15.131 --> 00:56:21.237
If you're super disappointed, unfortunately for you, the can says that the money-back guarantee...00:56:21.608 --> 00:56:30.020
Is only in effect from 01-07-25 to 30-09-25, which are obviously made up dates,00:56:30.020 --> 00:56:33.572
but appear to be in the last year.00:56:34.019 --> 00:56:36.740
I know they're not made up dates. I'm just aggravating our British.00:56:36.740 --> 00:56:43.810
Right. That's exactly, exactly. Well, if you are in the United Kingdom and you are listening to00:56:44.290 --> 00:56:49.080
our Every Church Flourishing podcast, we are so excited that you are one of00:56:49.080 --> 00:56:54.740
those listeners that we have detected on our streaming tool that helps us figure00:56:54.740 --> 00:56:57.672
out where people are listening, and we're grateful that you are listening to us.00:56:57.922 --> 00:57:02.746
And if you have other sodas from the United Kingdom that you want us to try,00:57:03.210 --> 00:57:08.713
and you send us one of those sodas, we will send you some Every Church Flourishing swag.00:57:09.027 --> 00:57:13.235
Or if you just send us a reference and we pick it up, we will absolutely do that.00:57:14.410 --> 00:57:18.767
And let us know your thoughts about Demto. Or if you're in the Middle East,00:57:18.953 --> 00:57:24.310
Let us know if it has a different can than this or in the Middle East,00:57:24.310 --> 00:57:26.714
it says love the taste or your money back.00:57:27.088 --> 00:57:33.453
Are we authorized to offer days out of purgatory for participation in imperialism00:57:33.453 --> 00:57:35.633
for our UK listeners or not?00:57:35.633 --> 00:57:39.109
I don't think that's actually authorized for Baptists.00:57:39.255 --> 00:57:39.693
Oh, my bad.00:57:40.333 --> 00:57:45.693
We kind of leave that over to the folks on the other side. Okay.00:57:45.693 --> 00:57:49.133
The Tiber. I'll just check. I've only been a Baptist for a few decades now.00:57:49.433 --> 00:57:51.273
I don't feel like I've learned all about it.00:57:51.313 --> 00:57:55.973
You haven't quite figured out which side of the Tiber River you're on.00:57:56.662 --> 00:57:59.543
No, no, I have not. Hopefully I'll get there.00:57:59.543 --> 00:58:02.873
Like C.S. Lewis, you don't know which side of the time we're on.00:58:02.873 --> 00:58:04.853
So you're in good company there.00:58:05.132 --> 00:58:09.983
So Pastor Chase, what is your Spurgeon rating for Demto?00:58:09.983 --> 00:58:13.353
Yeah, this is like, it's going to be strong. I really like this stuff.00:58:13.353 --> 00:58:17.165
I like something that's unique. It's fresh. I'm going to say four and a half Spurgeons.00:58:17.310 --> 00:58:19.882
Four and a half? Yeah, it's Charles Spurgeon himself.00:58:20.553 --> 00:58:24.243
I have the bad habit, or most people say it's a bad habit, of drinking a soda00:58:24.243 --> 00:58:25.681
or drink every time I preach.00:58:26.001 --> 00:58:29.478
Charles Spurgeon would drink this while he preached. I'm pretty sure.00:58:29.623 --> 00:58:35.712
Wow. I think Spurgeon probably would drink Vim Tonic and get his Vim and vigor up.00:58:35.852 --> 00:58:41.783
And I really would like to say that I would give it a higher rating,00:58:41.783 --> 00:58:45.128
but the truth is I'm going to give it three and a half Spurge.00:58:45.412 --> 00:58:47.578
That's not terrible. No, it's not bad.00:58:48.033 --> 00:58:51.351
It's good. I would drink it again if somebody passed it to me at a party.00:58:51.502 --> 00:58:56.103
I would enjoy it. But I just am a little bit disappointed. I expected there00:58:56.103 --> 00:58:59.041
a little more of them and a little more bigger.00:58:59.436 --> 00:59:03.243
All right. Well, I'm happy. So this is two in a row where I've been a little00:59:03.243 --> 00:59:06.133
more positive than you, Pastor Christopher. If it's three in a row.00:59:06.513 --> 00:59:07.933
Just in general in life, I think.00:59:07.933 --> 00:59:12.863
Yeah. We might just have to check in with your therapist and counselor and make sure you're okay.00:59:12.863 --> 00:59:13.780
That's exactly.00:59:15.944 --> 00:59:21.646
That is so correct. That is a wise idea for us to check in there.00:59:22.221 --> 00:59:26.974
Okay, well, that was a good soda. And now it's time to say goodbye to Jed and00:59:26.974 --> 00:59:30.626
all his friends and your friends at the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.00:59:30.922 --> 00:59:36.174
But before we go out for the week, I do want to point you to a couple of upcoming00:59:36.174 --> 00:59:43.234
events with our Great Commission Association Family of Churches in September, September 19th.00:59:43.234 --> 00:59:48.105
The Flourish Equipping Conference for Women in Ministry is happening,00:59:48.372 --> 00:59:55.656
and that is going to be at Journey Christian Fellowship, which is in San Louis Obispo, California.00:59:55.877 --> 01:00:01.564
If you want to sign up for that, just go to gcasbc.org slash flourish,01:00:01.884 --> 01:00:07.874
And I am teaching the next Great Commission Training Institute class on church01:00:07.874 --> 01:00:11.544
history, which starts August 25th.01:00:11.544 --> 01:00:16.304
I can't wait. I love early church fathers. I love early church history.01:00:16.606 --> 01:00:22.964
It's going to be a blast. It's really inexpensive, but also a good deal in terms of education.01:00:22.964 --> 01:00:26.224
And the GCTI has all sorts of classes.01:00:26.224 --> 01:00:32.104
You can check those out on our website, gcasbc.org.01:00:32.104 --> 01:00:37.844
And if you want show notes for today's episode or any other episode of the podcast,01:00:37.844 --> 01:00:43.854
just go to our webpage for the podcast itself, which is Every Church Flourishing.01:00:43.854 --> 01:00:47.944
We would love to hear from you. You can leave us a message through our website.01:00:47.944 --> 01:00:49.631
You can leave us a voicemail.01:00:50.084 --> 01:00:52.491
Good day to you and Godspeed.
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