Oct. 11, 2026

Uncensored Insider's View of Church Renewal - How to Confront and Help Heal Church Problems and Failures + Throwback Vietnamese Sarsaparilla Soda Review.

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Every Church Flourishing Episodes 39-40 with Tammi Smorynski and Samuel Kommu and possibly Pastor Christopher.

Title: Church Renewal from the Inside - Church Revitalization from the pews.
Samuel Kommu from Calvary Baptist Church in Santa Clara Tammi Smorynski from Oak Grove Baptist Church in San Jose

Some of the negative impacts of Church Drama.
Young leaders. To be sustainable, churches need to constantly prioritize getting younger people involved in leadership.
The church is a complex organism and quick fixes are rare and often ineffective in complex organisms.

“I do not claim to know fashion very well. I know cereal, and I know soda.”
Review Vietnamese Sarspirilla Soda.

Harry Alonzo Longabaugh is the Sundance Kid.

Samuel Calvary Baptist Church — Santa Clara
Calvary is an old and deeply rooted Silicon Valley congregation at 3137 Forbes Avenue in Santa Clara. Its story began with just 14 people gathering for prayer on August 5, 1959. A mission was formally organized two weeks later, and by 1963 it had acquired the Forbes Avenue property where it still meets today. By 1966 its membership had reached 218.
RECORDING? It supported international missions, conducted Backyard Bible Schools and mission trips, shared its facilities with a Korean congregation for years, and later hosted a Persian congregation. ” In 1997, the church's anniversary celebration included Dr. Mike Stewart, current GCA leader.
Tammy - Oak Grove Baptist Church — San Jose

Oak Grove is at 479 Blossom Hill Road in San Jose and is almost exactly the same vintage as Calvary. It was founded in 1966 as a mission of Foxworthy Baptist Church, incorporated in 1967 as Downer Avenue Baptist Church, and later became Oak Grove Baptist Church. It is currently celebrating its 60th anniversaryOak Grove explicitly identifies itself as part of the SBC, California Southern Baptist Convention, and GCA. Its connection to GCA is especially personal: church administrator Bob Bailey has “served on the Great Commission Association for many years” while also serving as Oak Grove's chairman of deacons. Topics to explore: What does revitalization feel like from inside the congregation? What's it like when somebody tells you the church you love isn't healthy? How do you honor people who gave 30, 40 or 50 years to a congregation while admitting that something must change? What makes members trust outside help? What makes them resist it? What does repentance look like corporately? How do ordinary church members become agents of renewal instead of consumers—or obstacles—to it?

We've talked to pastors about ReNEW, we've talked to churches that foster other churches, and we've talked about replanting…but today we want to find out what church renewal actually feels like to the people sitting in the pews.

WEBVTT

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Young leaders, if you've listened to this show for a while, you know that we

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at the Every Church Flourishing podcast often harp on the importance of churches

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developing the next generation of leaders.

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To be sustainable, churches need to constantly prioritize getting younger people

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involved in leadership.

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I know it's not simple, but one of our guests today, Tammy Smarinski,

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is going to talk to us about what happens when churches don't make that a priority.

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When the people leading the church are, I don't want to say old,

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but they're elderly and there's not like that next generation coming.

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There's not like two or three generations below them coming.

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I mean, there's a problem. Shouldn't be a surprise, right? So,

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and even when they asked me to do stuff, to be honest, I feel like I'm already

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in the latter generation. I'm like, well, I can do it now, but we got to get

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people younger than me involved and we don't have them. So...

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Resources that work together to build up your local fellowship 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 into episode number 39 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.

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We are brought to you by the Great Commission Association of Churches,

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And our website is gcasbc.org.

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And today we're talking about church renewal, church replanting,

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and we're going to take an entirely different perspective on that.

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In fact, I don't think I've heard another podcast take this perspective.

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And we're going to interview members of churches that are in that process of revitalization.

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And we're going to talk to them about what it looks like from an insider's point

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of view. So today we've got Tammy Smierenski and Samuel Kamu.

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Samuel is at Calvary Baptist Church, which is right there in Santa Clara in Silicon Valley.

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It is a church that began in 1959 with a group of 14 people that was gathering

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just for a time of prayer.

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It had explosive growth early on, reaching well over 200 members by 1966.

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It has, over the years, supported international missions, conducted backyard

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Bible schools and vacation Bible schools, gone on mission trips.

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It's hosted a Korean congregation in its building and then later a Persian congregation.

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And in 1997, the year that Dr.

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Michael Stewart came to the GCA, the Great Commission Association,

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they had him there for their anniversary church celebration.

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And Tammy is at Oak Grove Baptist Church, very nearby, also in Silicon Valley, in San Jose,

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It is also founded at roughly the same time, 1966. It was a plant or a mission

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of Foxworthy Baptist Church.

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It originally was called Downer Avenue Baptist Church and later became Oak Grove

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Baptist Church, which I think is a significant improvement name-wise.

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It's currently celebrating its 60th anniversary. It's part of the SBC.

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And we have a deep connection as the GCA with Oak Grove because we've had an

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administrator with the GCA, Bob Bailey, who is also an administrator in the church.

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And I think Bob Bailey has been with the GCA for about the last four or five

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centuries. So long term roots there.

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Well, I am so glad we get to have this conversation with two people I am proud to call friends.

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I have gotten to know both of them much, much better over the last couple of

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years, and together we have prayed, and we have even perhaps argued a little

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bit, maybe with both of these guests today.

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They've contended well with me and pointed out the flaws in my thinking,

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and I am grateful for their refinement of my soul and their refinement of my ministry. and

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What's exciting to me about both of these people is the heart that God has given

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them to lead as lay people within the local congregation.

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Now, I'm going to try and tell you little bits of things about them that they

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don't know that I'm going to share.

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Well, Tammy will try to tell you that, you know, her chief activities in life

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are things like worship hula dancing, which is I'm not making that up.

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That's actually really true.

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And in fact, she's got an upcoming worship hula night, I think,

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happening at Oak Grove. Oh, it was. It just happened.

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Just happened. And she'll tell you that she's a substitute school teacher.

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What she doesn't tell you is that she had a long career in various types of

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high-end tech corporation investment and board oversight.

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And she teaches board oversight and engagement programs.

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For Fortune 500 companies. She is very, very smart. She's worked on Wall Street.

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A lot of people would just kind of make that their upfront resume.

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Tammy leads in worship in her church, and she will contend mightily if she thinks

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you are wrong, but she loves deeply, and I am deeply grateful for her.

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Samuel Komu, what a wonderful brother in Christ.

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He is the only person I know who not only plays the piano, but will do it while

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sitting on top of a slap top that he will do and provide

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percussion for his congregation while leading in worship as well.

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Samuel has been a wonderful deacon and servant of the church there at Calvary

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Baptist, and he is a brilliant man.

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He works in the tech world. He has raised these amazing sons who are just godly young men.

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And his wife, Meany, is a great joy to be around as well.

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And they just serve their church in so many different ways.

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It's hard to explain how much his family is invested in the life and health

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and flourishing of the church.

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So I'm grateful that we get to have these two leaders with us today on the Every

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Church Flourishing podcast. Thank you for joining us.

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Today, and we'll probably learn more about you guys along the way.

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But before we talk about church renewal, church replanting, church revitalization,

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and anything else that needs to change in your church, tell us something

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that you guys love about your church.

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And so, Tammy, how about we start with you?

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What do you love about Oak Grove, and what has it meant to you personally?

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I've been at Oak Grove Baptist Church for six years.

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And so even when I read that question, I had to really sort of pause for a minute

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because the whole story about how I got there and why I'm still there,

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it's not because I grew up there and spent decades and kind of loved that church.

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It's kind of where God placed me. What I really like about it has been that

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I felt like, especially like during the lockdown with COVID,

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I felt like it was a good family, a good small community, right?

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And I enjoyed the fellowship and the people.

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Everybody there is just really kind and loving.

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We've had special needs adults. We've had people with serious health issues.

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And I just feel like the people that go there really love on each other.

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So I really love that and appreciate it. But sort of beyond that,

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I think that's part of why we're here is to talk about the church itself and

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how is it functioning and is it healthy.

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That's been the tougher part, but I feel like this is where God has placed me.

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Thank you. Samuel, at Calvary Baptist Church, what do you love about it,

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and what has it meant to you and to your family?

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We've been here about 10 years. So, again, not decades like some of the folks who have been here.

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But the thing is, as Tammy was saying, we feel God placed us here,

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especially at a point when the kids back then, like, I mean,

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they were under 10 maybe, right?

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You were saying the kids are so involved in the church, right?

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The truth is, you know, the church has invested a lot into their lives over the last 10 years.

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At every stage, right, I was just thinking, Shalom, like they started,

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the church started encouraging him and supporting him, even when he was 16,

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to actually help with the pulpit supply.

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When we started thinking about Treniv, one of the older gentlemen basically

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said, maybe I shouldn't say older gentlemen, please, Pastor Chase, cut it out. No,

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But why is there folks, right?

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His suggestion was immediately, he was not even 18. His suggestion was Shalom

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needs to know this, Shalom needs to understand this, so he needs to be part of this, right?

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And it's the same thing with Nathaniel. He is 15 and we have folks asking him

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to start looking at the finances and start providing his inputs on that.

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As a 15 year old for youth and things like that so to me this aspect of calvary

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is is the piece that we love the most because our kids are for us they're precious

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and to see a family come together and invest so much into them we love that

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and of course like for us personally to calvary

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Calvary has got our back. So we love being part of that, being growing together.

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Okay, great. You know, just listening to you guys, I could tell you care for

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your churches, and that's obviously crucial and important.

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But since we're in the renew process, that does mean that some changes are necessary.

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So I'm going to ask you this first, Tammy.

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At what point did you personally begin to realize that things in the church

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needed to change, maybe even a radical amount of change?

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Was there like a moment or was it something you more gradually began to realize

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that we're going a direction we need to change to a different direction?

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So before I even came to the church, because my mom and stepfather started going,

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I think, around 2014, I already knew there was a lot of drama going on at the church.

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So I already was aware of that. And I've always been a big churchist.

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I mean, I grew up as part of a Catholic church. It was a big church.

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And then when I became born again

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Christian, or sort of left the Catholic church, I was at big churches.

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So Oak Grove was really, from my first experience, with a smaller church.

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And I didn't really know what was normal.

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And I would hear about things sort of before I got there. I actually started

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attending Oak Grove on the day after the lockdown of the churches,

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Because once that sort of happened, I wanted to be with my mom and my stepfather,

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and we would watch the services together.

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And eventually we started going to the churches together. So I kind of went with them.

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And I was just kind of attending and not really sort of even understanding what.

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It seemed odd to me, but I wasn't really paying attention.

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But when the pastor that we had left, there was no plan and it seemed to catch

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everybody by surprise and they were asking me to step up.

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That's kind of when I was like, wait a minute, this is way more dysfunctional

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than I realized. And obviously once I started getting more and more engaged

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and involved, I started sort of asking a lot of questions and started just realizing

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that just a lot of things.

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And there's nobody to blame.

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The church had shrunk to such a size that there was no real support infrastructure.

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It was a couple of people sort of carrying all the weight.

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And I just didn't know. I just wasn't really paying attention.

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But once the pastor left and I was asked to step in, that's when I started realizing,

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hey, we've got big problems. And the fact that people don't fully appreciate

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how big these problems are, that's a problem. Yeah.

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When the people leading the church are, I don't want to say old,

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but they're elderly and there's not like that next generation coming.

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There's not like two or three generations below them coming.

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I mean, there's a problem. Shouldn't be a surprise.

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Right. So, and even when they asked me to do stuff, to be honest,

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I feel like I'm already in the latter generation. I'm like, well,

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I can do it now, but we, we got to get people younger than me involved and we

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don't have them. So yeah.

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Like, that's kind of the way I was looking at it. So that's,

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so really when the pastor left and they asked me to step up.

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Okay. That's, that's tough. I'll tell you before I asked Samuel the same question,

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my first run as a pastor, I wasn't ready for it. I was in my mid twenties.

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I was at a church with an extremely popular pastor. I was the youth minister

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there and he was kind of mentoring me and a couple of other young guys.

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And all of the sudden he, out of the blue, at least as far as me and the rest

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of the church was concerned, he announced he was leaving.

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And within a week of announcing that, he had left. He left me in charge as the

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pastor, and he took a big chunk of the church's money.

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And that went about as well as you would think it would.

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So I guess if you're a pastor listening to this, I would just say,

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be good to your church and don't suddenly leave if you can help it,

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because it can really leave things in shambles when you do that.

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I'm not completely sure that it was a sudden decision.

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It was presented that way to the congregation, but he had just retired.

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You know, the pastor was a part-time pastor and he had retired from his job. He was older.

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So it's not like people shouldn't have been assuming at some point he might

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retire, you know, or whatever.

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We live in Silicon Valley. People move out of the Bay Area once they retire.

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So I guess my only point would be that like, I don't want to characterize it

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as like, I don't want to put this all on the pastor's shoulders that he just

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kind of got up and left us.

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Then we were shocked, but it was a, it was a surprise to me because I wasn't

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involved in the worrying about the operations of the church.

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So just to clarify that, sorry.

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Well, it sounds like communications issue there. And I think that communications

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was an issue in my situation too, all the way back in the late nineties,

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because this is probably not a snap decision he reached.

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It's just a snap decision that it seemed like that from our perspective,

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because I think he was holding his own counsel and not telling anybody.

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So, Samuel, from your perspective on the inside of a church you've been at for

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10 years, going through renewal, when did you realize that things need to change at Calvary?

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How did that work? Was it a sudden realization or was it gradual?

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Pastor Chase, before I respond to that, Tammy touched on something that is very close to my heart.

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Just want to make one comment on that. And then the thing is,

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time and again, I think we see pastors for churches where the churches are fortunate

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enough to have pastors for a long term.

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Don't engage in building leaders in that church.

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And when suddenly that pastor leaves, at least in Pastor Chase's case,

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at least there was some training going on, but in most cases,

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there's no training at all.

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And suddenly it's like, okay, what do we do next, right? Like no one knows where

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the records are or any of that stuff.

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And I think that's a sad state. Okay, going to our church, Tammy, like...

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In the last 10 years, we had four pastors at least.

00:16:16.278 --> 00:16:21.975
Okay. And every time somebody leaves, it's kind of like it has a huge impact,

00:16:21.975 --> 00:16:26.795
right? And almost every single one of us, I mean, every single one of those

00:16:26.946 --> 00:16:29.286
pastors kind of almost left suddenly.

00:16:29.524 --> 00:16:36.015
And for us, it's kind of interesting because we, what I've observed with Calvary

00:16:36.355 --> 00:16:40.305
is we reach out to GCF for help almost immediately. immediately,

00:16:40.305 --> 00:16:43.351
I think, the same Sunday or the moment we hear the news.

00:16:43.833 --> 00:16:47.995
And we've been fortunate to actually receive that support to,

00:16:47.995 --> 00:16:53.545
at least in the last 10 years that I've seen, right, we've constantly received support from GCA.

00:16:53.789 --> 00:16:57.823
But the thing is, how come we are in this critical situation all the time, right?

00:16:58.235 --> 00:17:03.845
And so that's the piece that we started kind of examining ourselves and kind

00:17:03.845 --> 00:17:08.175
of started thinking, hey, what can we be doing differently?

00:17:08.175 --> 00:17:15.627
What should change here, right? So I would say it's a gradual realization because when we join

00:17:16.010 --> 00:17:21.965
our church with around, let's say, 50 people or so, but then every time a pastor

00:17:21.965 --> 00:17:25.702
leaves, it keeps dropping significantly.

00:17:25.935 --> 00:17:29.015
Not so much for the last two pastors, but that's not good news.

00:17:29.015 --> 00:17:33.533
It's simply because we are almost at the core of the church that loves the church.

00:17:33.957 --> 00:17:37.545
So it doesn't have that much impact on the church. But the truth is,

00:17:37.545 --> 00:17:39.472
we are down to the core of the church.

00:17:40.368 --> 00:17:41.086
Yeah.

00:17:41.307 --> 00:17:45.835
And, you know, at that moment, when you guys reach those places,

00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:55.239
that place of realizing something needs to change can lead a church to either a place of paralysis,

00:17:56.356 --> 00:18:03.516
A very, very common thing, or sort of sheltering in, turning inward, siloing, as we call it.

00:18:03.956 --> 00:18:08.356
You either get frozen or you turn very, very inward. We see churches do this

00:18:08.756 --> 00:18:11.925
all the way down to where they've got two, three people left,

00:18:12.204 --> 00:18:15.773
and they've got completely bent inward upon themselves.

00:18:16.017 --> 00:18:19.706
Other churches will try to just throw a giant jump ball up in the air.

00:18:19.706 --> 00:18:21.996
They don't like, we don't know what's going to happen. You know,

00:18:21.996 --> 00:18:26.540
sort of like the act of wisdom is to throw everything to the wind and see if

00:18:26.802 --> 00:18:30.221
someone, some rescuer will come in and save them.

00:18:30.436 --> 00:18:33.402
None of those are particularly great strategies, by the way.

00:18:33.768 --> 00:18:38.406
And they're not ones that we actively encourage for church renewal.

00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:47.299
And so just about six years ago, GCA created a strategic process of renewal that we now call Renew.

00:18:47.676 --> 00:18:53.686
And I think I was part of the early conversations with both of you about whether

00:18:53.686 --> 00:18:58.926
or not Renew might be a good fit for your particular church.

00:18:58.926 --> 00:19:05.875
And you guys had a series of conversations with us, informal and formal presentations

00:19:06.194 --> 00:19:08.458
about what this might look like.

00:19:09.293 --> 00:19:12.753
We want to ask you guys today, as church members, and you could be honest,

00:19:14.209 --> 00:19:20.169
What was your immediate reaction when you began really,

00:19:20.489 --> 00:19:25.959
maybe not just the first time you heard about Renew, but as you began to think

00:19:25.959 --> 00:19:29.869
about whether or not Renew was a good fit for your church,

00:19:30.729 --> 00:19:34.178
what was your immediate instinct? Was it was it hope?

00:19:34.770 --> 00:19:37.909
Was it fear? Was it skepticism?

00:19:38.649 --> 00:19:43.159
Maybe a sense of relief, maybe a mixture of all of those. Or you just said that

00:19:43.159 --> 00:19:48.889
bald guy is very confusing and I don't understand a single word he just said.

00:19:49.249 --> 00:19:54.153
But I'll tolerate him for yet another conversation. Let's start with you, Samuel.

00:19:54.889 --> 00:19:56.434
What was that like for you?

00:19:56.603 --> 00:20:03.529
So, just taking a step back, right, I've looked, or rather, let me put it this

00:20:03.529 --> 00:20:08.979
way, right, like, I've had multiple interactions in the past with Dr.

00:20:08.979 --> 00:20:13.629
Mike Stewart, so much so that to me, GCA is Dr. Mike Stewart.

00:20:14.016 --> 00:20:18.969
Okay later of course i learned a lot more after this gcdi training all this

00:20:18.969 --> 00:20:25.039
a lot more to gca right but those interactions of course it's almost like every

00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:28.082
interaction with dr mike stewart it either means

00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.465
i'm the troublemaker or there is some serious trouble

00:20:33.521 --> 00:20:41.445
and which one is true it depends on who you talk to right so so dr mike has over the years

00:20:42.885 --> 00:20:46.019
Has been this pillar of support and encouragement.

00:20:46.286 --> 00:20:51.755
And in one of the most vulnerable times spiritually in my life,

00:20:51.964 --> 00:20:54.512
he just started praying because, wow,

00:20:55.186 --> 00:21:00.223
I don't know how I would react the way I was breaking down, but he just started

00:21:00.223 --> 00:21:04.933
praying. He just started encouraging. He just started giving me wisdom on what

00:21:04.933 --> 00:21:07.859
to do next and how to go about it and all that.

00:21:08.230 --> 00:21:13.933
So to me personally, when Dr. Mike suggested, hey, your church needs to take

00:21:13.933 --> 00:21:15.241
a look at this venue, right?

00:21:15.647 --> 00:21:20.646
There's no further question or things like, okay, is this right or something, right?

00:21:21.045 --> 00:21:27.193
Because I knew we needed help. And I knew by experience that there's a lot of

00:21:27.193 --> 00:21:31.183
wisdom that is coming from this, from Dr. Mike and GCA.

00:21:31.563 --> 00:21:34.713
And that is true for the church, too. In general, like, I mean,

00:21:34.713 --> 00:21:39.679
there are maybe, like in every church, I think there would be one or two who disagree, right?

00:21:40.087 --> 00:21:44.383
But in general, the church has had a really good experience with GCA.

00:21:44.383 --> 00:21:51.267
I mean, just looking at the 10 years of support that we got from GCA just when I'm here, right?

00:21:51.807 --> 00:21:58.663
So given all of that for Calvary, yeah, our initial response was that hopeful

00:21:59.023 --> 00:22:05.402
and yes, there are options that we can look at that are different that probably would help us.

00:22:06.128 --> 00:22:10.400
Even though we did not like being told your church is dying.

00:22:11.667 --> 00:22:14.040
And you can cut the talk faster, Chase.

00:22:14.643 --> 00:22:18.858
No, I think that's very valid. Nobody likes to hear that.

00:22:19.705 --> 00:22:25.336
Yeah, as I recall, Samuel, in that interaction, there was a dislike for the

00:22:25.336 --> 00:22:27.136
fact that I compared you to

00:22:27.616 --> 00:22:34.596
a prominent cyclist who had the appearance of great physical health,

00:22:34.596 --> 00:22:37.498
but was actually cancer ridden.

00:22:37.829 --> 00:22:44.766
And that was not an analogy that was well received by all the congregants.

00:22:47.036 --> 00:22:54.836
So Tammy how did you guys feel at Oak Grove how did you feel you are there you're a leader

00:22:55.276 --> 00:23:00.046
the pastor's gone as you described and now you guys are trying to figure out

00:23:00.046 --> 00:23:04.136
something and you you had started actually

00:23:04.476 --> 00:23:08.436
the beginning of a pastor search process as I recall and you're trying to figure

00:23:08.436 --> 00:23:12.426
out what your next steps are so what's your immediate reaction are you are you

00:23:12.426 --> 00:23:13.826
there when you hear about Renew?

00:23:13.826 --> 00:23:17.197
Are you skeptical? Are you like curious?

00:23:17.551 --> 00:23:22.536
You're like, no, we don't really need help. Or what were your thoughts?

00:23:23.466 --> 00:23:28.186
So at the point that the pastor left, I was a couple of months away from leaving

00:23:28.186 --> 00:23:30.212
a job that I had been in for 24 years.

00:23:30.606 --> 00:23:35.506
And so I knew my life was changing. And that's when they asked me to step up

00:23:35.506 --> 00:23:37.253
and participate in helping the church.

00:23:37.503 --> 00:23:42.076
And to be honest, I don't know how to search for a pastor. I've never searched

00:23:42.076 --> 00:23:43.906
for a pastor. I've never thought about it, right?

00:23:44.109 --> 00:23:48.097
So when the deacon brought forward this concept of the Renew program,

00:23:48.346 --> 00:23:51.255
I was just curious. Like, what is this? What is it all about?

00:23:51.481 --> 00:23:54.198
And honestly, I didn't really even know what GCA was.

00:23:54.558 --> 00:23:57.112
Like, I just really did not know. I wasn't paying attention.

00:23:57.507 --> 00:24:01.187
So all of a sudden now I had to pay attention. I had to start listening.

00:24:01.442 --> 00:24:05.516
The irony of all ironies is that The more I became convinced we needed to do

00:24:05.516 --> 00:24:10.386
this, the more some of the people that have been around a long time were not

00:24:10.386 --> 00:24:12.476
convinced or becoming less convinced.

00:24:13.127 --> 00:24:15.836
And I think because they started realizing they were going to have to start

00:24:15.836 --> 00:24:18.607
giving up certain types of control that they didn't want to give up.

00:24:18.792 --> 00:24:23.204
So and I think as you remember, Pastor Chris, we had people who were like,

00:24:23.430 --> 00:24:25.876
who's the GCA and why are they coming in and telling us what to do?

00:24:26.196 --> 00:24:30.257
So we had to do a lot of education for people in our church.

00:24:30.484 --> 00:24:35.036
We had church members leave. And we I mean, there was a lot of turbulence kind

00:24:35.036 --> 00:24:37.920
of going through getting to actually.

00:24:38.152 --> 00:24:41.316
Sorry, let me back up a second. People stuck around while we were going through

00:24:41.316 --> 00:24:44.746
what I call the initial part of the process where we were trying to decide whether

00:24:44.746 --> 00:24:49.139
we were going to do like a replant or just hire, you know, a bi-vocational pastor, all that.

00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:54.136
So during that year, people were stuck around, lots of discussions,

00:24:54.136 --> 00:24:58.306
lots of, you know, we did a lot of, you know, information gathering and thinking

00:24:58.306 --> 00:24:59.733
about the health of the church.

00:24:59.988 --> 00:25:04.456
But then once we made a decision to do the replant process, that's where we

00:25:04.456 --> 00:25:08.097
had a lot of dissension and certain people left the church.

00:25:08.323 --> 00:25:11.051
But I don't regret, I have,

00:25:11.666 --> 00:25:15.948
no idea how to hire a pastor or honestly, what's this?

00:25:15.948 --> 00:25:20.478
I never took any classes on this stuff. So I wanted help. And after I got to

00:25:20.478 --> 00:25:23.711
know Pastor Chris and I better understood the process, I was like,

00:25:23.937 --> 00:25:27.519
I mean, I just think it was the right thing to do. And I still think it's the right thing to do.

00:25:28.888 --> 00:25:32.819
We're not out of the woods yet. We got a lot of work to do, but I just like,

00:25:33.051 --> 00:25:35.095
you know, otherwise it'd be like running around the dark.

00:25:35.321 --> 00:25:41.768
And we put together a pastor profile, Well, not because we were trying to circumvent

00:25:41.768 --> 00:25:46.513
or run around the process. I actually thought as part of the renew process, I misunderstood.

00:25:46.896 --> 00:25:51.441
I thought that we would need that for the initial part of the renew process.

00:25:51.679 --> 00:25:55.238
And you had to clarify that, no, during this initial part of the process,

00:25:55.238 --> 00:25:59.307
there is no pastor search. And I was like, oh, I just didn't understand.

00:25:59.539 --> 00:26:00.488
I just didn't understand.

00:26:01.142 --> 00:26:05.058
And then unfortunately, because I put together a profile, people got upset.

00:26:05.058 --> 00:26:08.298
They did get upset about that because they felt like, hey, we were getting ready

00:26:08.298 --> 00:26:10.956
to start looking for a pastor and now you're saying we can't look for anybody?

00:26:11.292 --> 00:26:15.948
Why is that? You know, and so that was kind of a little bit my kind of faux

00:26:15.948 --> 00:26:19.419
pas in the process, not understanding how the process worked.

00:26:19.617 --> 00:26:25.478
Well, right. And that was, yeah, and that was good for us to make sure we always

00:26:25.478 --> 00:26:31.148
want to be clarifying that because I think sometimes people think of Renew as

00:26:31.148 --> 00:26:34.385
sort of just like an enhanced pastor search process. Right.

00:26:34.628 --> 00:26:41.095
And while we do want to get to the place of helping assist with a pastor search,

00:26:41.532 --> 00:26:46.458
The goal of our renewed discovery phase, as we call it, is to really help the

00:26:46.458 --> 00:26:50.576
church know themselves before they go looking for the pastor.

00:26:50.797 --> 00:26:54.575
Think of it like working. You know, I sometimes have used the analogy,

00:26:54.929 --> 00:26:58.598
hey, before you start wanting to go out there and finding that perfect spouse,

00:26:59.358 --> 00:27:04.704
take a look at who you are really, really well. And so you understand yourself.

00:27:05.110 --> 00:27:08.198
So you know what the kind of person you actually need to be with.

00:27:08.498 --> 00:27:10.793
Pastor Chase, pick up the story from here.

00:27:11.043 --> 00:27:14.357
Yeah. So let's go over back over to you, Samuel.

00:27:14.741 --> 00:27:21.548
Kind of tell us how long this Renew process has been going on for Calvary and

00:27:21.548 --> 00:27:27.279
tell us where you guys are in the process. What is the water that's under the bridge?

00:27:27.639 --> 00:27:30.954
What are you looking forward to in the future at this point?

00:27:31.169 --> 00:27:38.500
It's almost been a year now since we started on this journey and we just signed the

00:27:39.156 --> 00:27:43.004
second phase of Renew, which is the actual work phase, I would say,

00:27:43.393 --> 00:27:52.054
versus so far what we've been doing is investigating and discovery and self-analysis and so on.

00:27:54.044 --> 00:28:01.565
I think some of the things that I feel have changed, this I'm kind of attributing

00:28:01.565 --> 00:28:07.075
to Renew, right, is take, for example, a simple thing like pulpit supply.

00:28:07.075 --> 00:28:11.455
The person who manages the pulpit supply for us is just surprising that we didn't

00:28:11.455 --> 00:28:14.656
call 911 yet because sometimes it's Sunday morning.

00:28:16.850 --> 00:28:24.292
That has changed so much. Abundance of, you know, help as far as pulpit supply is concerned, right?

00:28:24.553 --> 00:28:29.615
And then in terms of, you know, just being able to kind of recognize who we

00:28:29.615 --> 00:28:33.632
are at, and some of that was not very surprising.

00:28:33.743 --> 00:28:37.055
But some of that, like when we look closer, like for example,

00:28:37.055 --> 00:28:41.661
things like discipleship, while it happens kind of organically in the church,

00:28:41.817 --> 00:28:43.565
it's not a systematic thing.

00:28:43.885 --> 00:28:48.847
Being able to see those, you know, where the gaps are, where we could improve,

00:28:49.219 --> 00:28:52.539
has been a really good journey so far. Now, I think, I mean,

00:28:52.673 --> 00:28:56.208
we're kind of done with the diagnosis, I guess, in some ways.

00:28:56.376 --> 00:28:58.645
There's probably more to go, like in future.

00:28:59.308 --> 00:29:03.719
But we are at a phase where we are starting to kind of start looking at,

00:29:03.719 --> 00:29:06.790
like, how do we fix this and where do we go from here?

00:29:07.348 --> 00:29:13.959
So, Tammy, same question to you. Where are you guys at Oak Grove in the process?

00:29:13.959 --> 00:29:18.569
What's happened so far and what are you looking forward to in the very near future?

00:29:18.778 --> 00:29:23.139
So it actually sounds like we're almost identical spot that Samuel and his church

00:29:23.139 --> 00:29:26.173
are in, in that we went through about a year long discovery.

00:29:26.370 --> 00:29:32.009
And we signed the agreement that we're going to do a replant process and we have our new board.

00:29:32.009 --> 00:29:36.449
We've had one board meeting and we're starting to try to get things in place.

00:29:36.449 --> 00:29:39.959
During the discovery process, we did put together some of the documents that

00:29:39.959 --> 00:29:44.174
we're going to need for kickstarting a pastor search.

00:29:44.909 --> 00:29:49.811
We also are like this week, I'll be meeting with our finance people.

00:29:50.055 --> 00:29:54.263
We have external finance people because we've been having a really hard time like getting the data

00:29:54.548 --> 00:29:58.369