WEBVTT
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We got a really fun soda review today where we try Lester's Fixin's Buffalo
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Wing Soda, which is as weird and spicy as it sounds.
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More important than that, we've got Florida mission strategist Chris Reynolds
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on the show, and he's going to talk a little bit about
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being genuine and pastoring, about loneliness, about mission strategy,
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as you might expect, but also
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balancing competence and humility. And he's gonna
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Say- You need to have enough confidence to show that you're competent in the
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pulpit to say, this is what the Bible says clearly.
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But you also have enough humility to be able to say, I don't understand everything
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and we're all figuring this out together.
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When you don't have either, you lose the trust of your people,
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or you don't have enough of either, you begin to lose the trust of the people,
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or you begin to isolate yourself.
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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 28 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.
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We are a podcast of the Great Commission Association of California,
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which is a family of churches that spread all over North and Central California.
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If you are a pastor, a church, a church leader, and you're looking for a team,
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and you're in the West, you're in the California area, we would love to partner with you.
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Check out our website at gcasbc.org. That is gcasbc.org.
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I'm excited about the show today. We have a very interesting soda,
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as I've already mentioned, but also we continue our interview with Chris Reynolds.
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Now, we found Chris on Facebook and started reading his posts,
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and both Pastor Christopher and I were taken by his wisdom and a lot of the provocative,
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thoughtful, very important things he was saying to Christian leaders.
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And we immediately, three or four months ago, decided, hey, we got to get this
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guy on the podcast, and he was gracious enough to appear.
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So today we're back with mission strategist Chris Reynolds, and we're going
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to pick up our interview from last week.
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This is part two. You ought to listen to part one as well. But here Chris is
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discussing leadership and pastoral loneliness, which is a topic we've hit a
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few times before and is particularly important to Pastor Christopher and I.
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I wonder, Chris, you've written a lot about pastoral and leader loneliness in church, right?
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And I wonder why that is.
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And I'm wondering if that's a disconnect
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between if the reason pastors are so,
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lonely and detached, in part, is because the pastors themselves aren't really
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aligned well with how they've been designed by God and what they're doing day
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in and day out is not designed
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for relational intimacy
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and for discipleship in life on life terms, but designed around program.
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So that's just me sort of, you know, spitballing and jumping at that.
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So what would you say are some of the primary causes of pastoral and leader
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loneliness? What are some of the cures?
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There's a number of causes. It's similar to the situation. How do we fix this
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problem of disciple making in the local church?
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The loneliness thing is not one specific issue.
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It's a factor. It's a cultural issue because loneliness isn't exclusive to pastors.
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There's a lot of people. It's an epidemic of we have social media all over the
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place, but people feel lonelier than they do before.
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They feel isolated more so than they have ever felt, even though I can open
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up my phone right now and see 30 faces in less than 10 seconds.
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I mean, it's the aspect of connection. There has to be a greater connection
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to one another around the table.
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We also are dealing with a space where you're expected to be the expert.
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You're expected to have the answer.
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And even if people don't ever say that to you, that's the whisper that you hear in your head as well.
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As a pastor, as a church leader, it is uncomfortable to say the statement, I don't know.
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It actually takes a level of confidence to say, you know what,
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I don't know, but I'm gonna find out for you. I'm gonna research that a little bit.
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But I'm convinced that if we said that more often as church leaders,
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as pastors, as associational leaders, would actually probably be a lot better off because
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What it reveals to not only our peers, but also the people that God has called
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us to serve in our context is my pastor doesn't pretend he has all the answers.
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He may look like the guy that stands up on the stage and he waxes eloquent every
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single Sunday and he knows all the right things to say, but he openly admits,
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guys, I don't know, because that's the disconnect.
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There is this, you need to have enough confidence to show that you're competent
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in the pulpit to say, this is what the Bible says clearly, but you also have
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enough humility to be able to say, I don't understand everything and we're all
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figuring this out together.
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When you don't have either, you lose the trust of your people or you don't have
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enough of either, you begin to lose the trust of the people or you begin to
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isolate yourself to where it's like, you have to be set apart.
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So I think that phrase, I don't know, but I'm going to find out would actually
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be really helpful because then it gives your people the freedom to say, you know what?
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My pastor doesn't know. It's okay if I don't know. And I can go find out as
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well. How do we relieve that loneliness, having conversations with people and
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saying, you know what? I need help with this.
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You've been here before. Let's have a conversation. Would you be willing to
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share with me what it is that you've learned?
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To where we adopt a posture of just saying, it's okay if I don't have all the answers.
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The strongest leaders that run largest corporations, the best corporations, they'll
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More often than not, will be the ones that will say, I'm not the smartest guy
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in the room, but I'm intentional about hiring people that are smarter than I am.
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Because by hiring and being around those people, we collectively become smarter.
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That has to be the case for us as church leaders as well. We don't need to be
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the smartest guy in the room.
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Let's begin to leverage the strengths of our collective home.
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I think moving that way into invitation from, I don't know, and I'm okay with
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the fact that I don't know, to,
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invitation and even maybe tweaking that just a little bit to say,
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I don't know, but let's find out together.
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Let's explore together. Would you join me in learning that together?
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And I think that when I was a young pastor, I was terrified of saying those words. I don't know.
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Who was I if I wasn't the Bible answer man?
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And we had a guy in Southern California at the time that was literally his show,
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right? I'm the Bible answer man, you know?
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And I look back on some of those things today and I'm just going,
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you know, there's a lot of hubris if you position yourself as the Bible answer man, right? You know?
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But that pride does disrupt that relationship, that relational humility that
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can say, I don't know, I'm not perfect, I'm seeking to follow Jesus,
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and I want to help you follow Jesus,
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and I want to invite us into learning well with each other collaboratively
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and growing, not just in Bible knowledge, but,
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in living the way of Jesus.
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And even how we communicate from the pulpit, you know, when we illustrate,
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hey, I didn't know this and this person in the church was helping me learn this or, you know,
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using those kinds of illustrations as a pastor, at least in my experience,
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sort of lowers that reality and invites people into that set.
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It's okay, as you said. They don't have to know.
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They can enjoy the experience of being a person who's on a journey rather than
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having to always be perceived as the person that's got it all figured out on the end.
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I think that's so good. And I think the other piece is we see,
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like you said, the Bible man.
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We see in our newsfeed a lot of people that are confidently proclaiming their opinion.
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And we think, man, they really seem like they know what they're talking about.
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We're all insecure in our own ways as much as we present something otherwise. We just are.
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Anybody that reads The Strategic Outsider or listens to a podcast,
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I don't have it all figured out.
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I am simply sharing what it is that I am learning along the way and trying to
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figure out how to communicate it well so that it benefits others.
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Because I openly admit, I don't know.
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Yeah, I think we're hitting on a dynamic that it really does lead to loneliness.
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And it's not one I would have thought of at first.
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I pastored for a little over 20 years in Alabama before I moved out to California.
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A little over eight years ago. So I've been both places. And I would have thought
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the dynamic I'm about to talk about would be the opposite.
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But in Alabama, I was Chase.
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Even in churches, people sometimes called me Pastor Chase.
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They never called me Pastor. Mostly I was Chase, and I liked it that way.
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But in California, maybe in Alabama, it's because pastors are a dime a dozen
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Churches are on every street.
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In California, I'm very much Pastor Chase or pastor.
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And I've tried and tried to be like, hey, I'm just Chase.
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Just call me Chase. That's what people have always called me.
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But there's that title there.
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And I think it's because we're all used to our pastors and our preachers
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filling this role of kind of an exalted guru who knows all about the spiritual
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life, who stands up in an elevated pulpit and all of that.
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And the problem with that kind of living and that kind of position is it's going to be lonely.
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You're not going to have deep, vulnerable, profound conversations with people
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in the church about your struggles, your sins, accountability,
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your weaknesses, all of that kind of stuff, because these people are looking
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at you with rose-tinted glasses.
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And I think that does lead to profound loneliness.
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And I think probably a wise pastor would far more
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Benefit from keeping in a process of pointing people to Jesus as the guru and
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themselves as under shepherds at best.
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And sometimes we're just basically clueless under shepherds that are just fellow strugglers.
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And I think when we have that aura about us, which is, I don't know.
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I want to say 100% of the time fake, but let's, maybe there really are people
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that are the gurus that have arrived.
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I just don't know them. But for the most part, pastors are struggling followers
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of Jesus, just like church members. And I think pretending we are anything different
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really does create a profound sense of loneliness.
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So I'll say this, having been on staff at Omega Church and sat in the staff
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meetings and having talked with several support staff, many,
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many, many times over the years
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including recently that are running churches that run over 1,500,
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none of them feel like they've arrived.
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And all of them deal with insecurities. As much as they portray one thing,
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we're all dealing with it.
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And I think that is where you have to get around the table.
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And you do have to have peers to have conversations with.
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The Southeast is a little bit more of a struggle, I feel like for us,
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because there can be a concern of competition, a sense of competition.
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There's also pride in other places where it's not as churches are not as prevalent
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or they're more spread out or they're facing more difficult circumstances.
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I think that maybe that is reduced simply because there is shared tribulation together.
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Here in our region, there's probably not as much shared tribulation together.
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There's maybe perceived tribulation because they watch stuff taking place on social media,
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Not genuinely shared tribulation.
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So as a strategic outsider, Chris, you've been able to not only help individual
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churches, but you're trying to help churches that are networked together.
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And in Southern Baptist Life, we talk about that in the terms of associationalism.
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So it's 1707 here in the United States.
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Churches have been associating, Baptist churches, been associating together
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to carry out the mission of Christ together. And I know this is one of your big passions.
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It's one of the things that's in your heartbeat.
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But you've written recently and talked about the role of associations and how
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that facilitates national cooperation together and how,
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the two different entities, or three different entities, because you talked
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about in Southern Baptist Life, we talked about local associations,
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state conventions, national convention, and national partners.
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So what dynamics do you see that are critical for, say, local church pastors
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to think about when they're thinking about associating and partnering together
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on all these three levels, and how do they interact well with each other?
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I think that a key component for us to keep in mind is that associations are an organism.
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They are made up of a family of churches in a given region.
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Your national and state entities,
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Their organization, they are friends or acquaintances at best,
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but your local association, that's family.
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Now, it's important that I define association as well.
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Association is not the organization such as the Northeast Florida a family of
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churches in the sense that my office is the association or the title,
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you know, that I am the association. The association is...
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Is the churches. They make it up. They're the ones that without them, it wouldn't exist.
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And the reason why it's so essential that those things be strengthened is because
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without local collaboration among churches, our national cooperation begins
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to fall apart because we don't know how to interact with one another.
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Because Southern Baptists, by and large, we are a grassroots organization.
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That's who we are. We are a grassroots movement of local churches that decided
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on a local level and then a state level and then a national level to contribute
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to something larger than ourselves.
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And so the local association is the execution of, hey, this is how we carry this out in our context.
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This is how we work together in a real and tangible way.
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This is how we plant churches together. This is how we train up the next generation
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of leaders together together.
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In order to reach and minister to people in our context.
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This is how we send out and we support missionaries across the world because
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we're modeling it here locally, because we're doing it here in our context and we're doing it
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As an association or as a family of churches in our region.
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When that's done well, then I believe that you'll start to see a national shift
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take place because as people are doing this well on a local level,
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you begin to learn what's working.
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And then the association next door says, hey, you're doing that and it's working
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really well. That's something we'd like to try. So I'll give you an example.
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We had a church came to me and they said, we're interested in starting a ministry
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pipeline where it's not Bible college,
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it's not seminary, but it's sort of a 20,000, 30,000 foot view of ministry for
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those that feel like they're called so that they don't have to sell all their stuff and move to
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a seminary or a Bible college someplace. at 35 years old.
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They feel a call to ministry, but they just don't know what that means.
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We're wanting to start something that gives them an overview.
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And so I said, I think that's great.
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And I think it's absolutely necessary. Here's what I would encourage.
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Let's pull in other pastors from our region. Let's pull in other churches.
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So those other pastors, they help facilitate. Let's bring in the experts,
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those that their sweet spot is in those areas of emphasis.
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You got somebody that's really, really good at preaching, let's bring him in
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to teach the seven weeks whenever it comes to preaching. We have somebody that's
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good at counseling, let's bring somebody in that that's where their sweet spot is.
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Worship ministry, let's bring their sweet spot. Church planting,
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their sweet spot. Stewardship, their sweet spot.
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Let's leverage the strengths of our family of churches to help get this done.
00:17:47.098 --> 00:17:51.371
And then let's open it up for anybody that wants to participate or send people
00:17:51.371 --> 00:17:53.739
to it. And it's going to take a lot of coordination.
00:17:53.890 --> 00:17:58.151
And that pastor that was the champion of this met one-on-one with those pastors
00:17:58.151 --> 00:18:01.872
that sent people and said, we're not here to recruit your potential leaders.
00:18:02.226 --> 00:18:06.925
We're here to help be a resource for you at a local church level and to encourage
00:18:06.925 --> 00:18:11.005
you and to provide them with understanding of what it looks like to do ministry
00:18:11.005 --> 00:18:13.238
so that if they seek to pursue it more, they can.
00:18:13.343 --> 00:18:17.735
And we're not trying to teach them a specific doctrinal framework.
00:18:17.735 --> 00:18:19.194
We are going to keep this neutral.
00:18:19.310 --> 00:18:23.071
This is not about one extreme or another extreme. This is the basics.
00:18:23.233 --> 00:18:27.765
It's up to you to add salt to the food that's being cooked, to flavor it how
00:18:27.765 --> 00:18:32.075
you want to, because they're coming back to serve in your church in your local context.
00:18:32.075 --> 00:18:36.725
So as that's happening, I'm talking to other associational leaders across Florida,
00:18:36.725 --> 00:18:38.593
and they're starting to ask questions about it.
00:18:38.715 --> 00:18:42.785
So I then take them and connect them to that pastor and church leader,
00:18:42.785 --> 00:18:45.257
and we introduce them, and they begin learning from them.
00:18:45.391 --> 00:18:48.715
And when they start a dialogue, and now they're launching one in their context.
00:18:48.715 --> 00:18:54.174
This came as a resource from one of our state convention representatives, one of the catalysts.
00:18:54.325 --> 00:18:57.735
It's something that they did in South Florida. And he said, this is something
00:18:57.735 --> 00:18:58.644
that's worked well for us.
00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:02.655
We just took it, and we contextualized it to our need. Those other associations,
00:19:02.655 --> 00:19:05.035
they're taking it and contextualizing it to their need.
00:19:05.174 --> 00:19:09.125
What'd you have? You had a grassroots movement from one church that is now starting
00:19:09.125 --> 00:19:13.445
to spread at other places, and it's encouraging partnership and collaboration
00:19:13.445 --> 00:19:16.070
among churches in a very small microcosm.
00:19:16.221 --> 00:19:20.173
If we begin doing that as a collective whole, you see the impact that it can have.
00:19:20.410 --> 00:19:24.745
And then when we come together for a national conversation, we're all experiencing
00:19:24.745 --> 00:19:29.605
similar things because now we're working together and alongside one another.
00:19:29.605 --> 00:19:32.862
Just as an aside, there's also one that got started in London.
00:19:33.036 --> 00:19:37.025
So it went across the pond. Really, really cool story. But it's a picture of
00:19:37.025 --> 00:19:38.388
what we're talking about.
00:19:38.517 --> 00:19:45.175
You know, I love that idea of how associations can actually influence the national
00:19:45.175 --> 00:19:51.113
dynamics and the national missionality, if for lack of a better term.
00:19:51.445 --> 00:19:54.487
Another example that just came to my mind while you were sharing is,
00:19:54.638 --> 00:19:58.562
you know, we work a lot with the North American Mission Board's replant team
00:19:58.713 --> 00:20:04.140
and all of those guys, every single one of them came out of associational life
00:20:04.256 --> 00:20:06.961
and the work that they were doing there.
00:20:06.961 --> 00:20:10.869
Your neighbor association, Bob Bumgarner at First Coast Churches,
00:20:11.148 --> 00:20:14.874
Jimbo Stewart, helping to build out that dynamic there.
00:20:15.025 --> 00:20:20.461
The Genesis team on the Missouri side of the Kansas City Association there and
00:20:20.461 --> 00:20:24.891
the St. Louis Association with Bob Bickford and how those associations help
00:20:24.891 --> 00:20:29.478
move a network upward into a statewide movement.
00:20:29.588 --> 00:20:34.656
All of those sort of genesis points then merging together to influence
00:20:34.986 --> 00:20:40.151
the creation of an entire division and movement within the North American Mission
00:20:40.151 --> 00:20:45.029
Board through the replant and small church movement led by Mark Clifton.
00:20:45.314 --> 00:20:49.011
And then the way Mark Halleck was doing that out in a network family of churches
00:20:49.011 --> 00:20:55.031
out in Colorado, each of those cases, families of churches learning synergistically
00:20:55.031 --> 00:20:58.857
encouraging one another and reshaping an entire.
00:20:59.193 --> 00:21:03.501
National dialogue about what one of our entities should be putting their emphasis
00:21:03.501 --> 00:21:05.451
and their energy into. too.
00:21:05.567 --> 00:21:10.229
And we're grateful for all those associations doing that work. It's been a benefit.
00:21:10.513 --> 00:21:14.231
And we're glad for the small part we get to contribute in that from the West
00:21:14.231 --> 00:21:18.215
Coast side of things, too. So that's a great point there.
00:21:18.685 --> 00:21:24.421
Got to close out question. So I grew up on comic books and probably a lot of
00:21:24.421 --> 00:21:30.081
people around my age did. And in comic books and movies and in books and all
00:21:30.081 --> 00:21:31.793
sorts of fictional things, we
00:21:32.123 --> 00:21:38.002
We have this class of person who's not quite a villain and not quite a hero,
00:21:38.002 --> 00:21:44.432
and we call them anti-heroes or anti-heroes, and they live in this kind of difficult-to-define area.
00:21:44.772 --> 00:21:48.516
You know, you got Wolverine, you've got the Punisher, Ghost Rider,
00:21:48.835 --> 00:21:53.224
the BBC version of Sherlock, Jack Reacher, Jay Gatsby.
00:21:53.503 --> 00:21:59.452
Now, Chris Reynolds, I don't think you're an anti-hero, but you strike me as
00:21:59.452 --> 00:22:04.062
somebody who's not at all like a Donald McGavern or a C.
00:22:04.062 --> 00:22:10.362
Peter Wagner, Chris Hodges, or even a George Barna, but you care about church growth.
00:22:10.362 --> 00:22:13.362
So you're like an antihero of church growth.
00:22:13.362 --> 00:22:19.552
You're not like one of the traditional guys that focuses on buns on seats and that sort of thing.
00:22:19.552 --> 00:22:26.642
But I think any church that's making disciples is probably going to be reaching
00:22:26.642 --> 00:22:29.722
people, but not in a traditional way.
00:22:29.722 --> 00:22:34.342
So one of the things you wrote about recently was a very insightful article
00:22:34.342 --> 00:22:40.102
on the attractional fallacy, which is, you know, this idea that if you build
00:22:40.102 --> 00:22:42.011
it, they will come kind of thing.
00:22:42.162 --> 00:22:46.912
It's more than that, but that's included in that. So tell us about the attractional
00:22:46.912 --> 00:22:55.372
fallacy and is that kind of mindset dangerous or a trap, especially for small
00:22:55.372 --> 00:22:56.727
and medium-sized churches.
00:22:56.848 --> 00:23:00.522
I think the attractional fallacy, it was something that I developed simply because
00:23:00.522 --> 00:23:03.942
I just kept watching it happen over and over again as I was interacting with
00:23:03.942 --> 00:23:08.168
churches that didn't have the capacity to run a program model church.
00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:14.052
And I began to see where program model churches end up
00:23:14.432 --> 00:23:19.362
when their programs stop working, when the thing that they've always done no
00:23:19.362 --> 00:23:24.200
longer gets it done and they fail to pivot to something else.
00:23:25.054 --> 00:23:29.622
My friend, my mentor, George Bullard, he is finishing up his book.
00:23:29.622 --> 00:23:33.256
I've already seen the pre-copy of it. Vision Always Drives.
00:23:33.593 --> 00:23:36.512
It's supposed to be released in January, and so I'm looking forward to it.
00:23:36.512 --> 00:23:41.342
I've had the opportunity to help him in the book itself, and so I'm looking
00:23:41.342 --> 00:23:42.452
forward to that being released.
00:23:42.452 --> 00:23:47.102
But it talks about the life cycle of a church and that ultimately on the downside
00:23:47.102 --> 00:23:54.346
of the life cycle, you see vision is in the backseat taking a nap and management is driving.
00:23:54.473 --> 00:24:00.972
And the seats, the way that they are arranged is that it's supposed to be vision driving, relational.
00:24:01.312 --> 00:24:06.536
So relational experiences or disciple making relationships is in the passenger seat navigating.
00:24:06.687 --> 00:24:11.822
You have programs that are behind disciple-making relationships in the backseat,
00:24:11.822 --> 00:24:14.332
and you have management that's behind the driver's seat.
00:24:14.332 --> 00:24:20.062
But when vision gets tired, vision pulls off to the side of the road and switches
00:24:20.062 --> 00:24:23.472
seats with management. So management to get behind the wheel and management
00:24:23.472 --> 00:24:26.451
says, this is the place that I've always been meant to be.
00:24:26.637 --> 00:24:30.601
And it hangs on to the wheel. And after a little while of driving down the road,
00:24:30.829 --> 00:24:35.670
management looks over and sees disciple-making relationships and says, you're a mess.
00:24:35.792 --> 00:24:38.125
Because disciple-making relationships is a mess.
00:24:38.832 --> 00:24:43.302
You're a mess. So we got to pull over and I need programs up here because they're
00:24:43.302 --> 00:24:48.650
organized. And so now programs is helping to navigate and management is driving
00:24:48.794 --> 00:24:52.592
and vision and disciple-making relationships are in the backseat taking a nap.
00:24:53.027 --> 00:24:56.756
And when the church gets in that position, they stop realizing God's unique
00:24:56.756 --> 00:24:58.873
disciple-making vision for their context.
00:24:59.082 --> 00:25:02.816
And it becomes about the programs that we're running. It becomes about the things that we do.
00:25:03.196 --> 00:25:06.446
And they run through this cycle over and over and over again,
00:25:06.446 --> 00:25:12.256
where they say, as they're heading down on the life cycle, we need programs that attract people.
00:25:12.256 --> 00:25:16.228
But in order to have those programs, we need people to run them.
00:25:16.356 --> 00:25:18.423
But we need programs to attract people.
00:25:18.562 --> 00:25:22.910
And so they just keep going around and around and around, chasing themselves.
00:25:23.299 --> 00:25:24.117
Vicious circle.
00:25:24.437 --> 00:25:30.106
And until someone says you have to stop, you have to rethink what success looks
00:25:30.106 --> 00:25:33.796
like as a church until they can begin to conceptualize that,
00:25:33.796 --> 00:25:36.354
until they begin to think that through and realize
00:25:36.517 --> 00:25:39.855
they're not a cookie cutter, because that's where a lot of this comes from.
00:25:40.139 --> 00:25:46.223
That program model church was a cookie cutter model expectation of this is what all churches do.
00:25:46.345 --> 00:25:50.046
And so those churches that find themselves in that space, oftentimes it's we
00:25:50.046 --> 00:25:54.476
need young children. But in order to have young children, we need young people
00:25:54.476 --> 00:25:56.051
who can work with those children.
00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:59.996
And we need young parents to be able to come in. And so that's the same thing.
00:25:59.996 --> 00:26:02.639
It's the same basic principle of that attraction fallacy.
00:26:02.760 --> 00:26:04.816
And they have to break that cycle.
00:26:05.112 --> 00:26:09.136
And so they have to dream a new dream. They have to examine in this next season
00:26:09.136 --> 00:26:11.473
of the church's life, where is it that God is leading us?
00:26:11.624 --> 00:26:15.630
To whom has he called us to reach? And it may not be that cookie cutter model.
00:26:15.827 --> 00:26:19.296
I was meeting with a church recently, and I've used this example several times,
00:26:19.296 --> 00:26:22.686
and I said, I was standing in front of them and I was talking about this.
00:26:22.686 --> 00:26:24.622
I said, how many of you can do this?
00:26:24.772 --> 00:26:26.839
And I squatted down on my haunches.
00:26:27.106 --> 00:26:29.573
That's a Southern term. Do y'all know what I'm talking about whenever I say that?
00:26:29.909 --> 00:26:30.356
I do.
00:26:30.489 --> 00:26:33.338
You do. Okay. I just did. I know primarily.
00:26:33.338 --> 00:26:35.398
I think hunches translates to California.
00:26:35.398 --> 00:26:40.408
Okay, good. So I squatted down without getting on my knees and then I stood
00:26:40.408 --> 00:26:43.452
immediately back up and I said, how many of you can do this?
00:26:43.597 --> 00:26:46.508
And then I did it again. And all of them are in the room. They were in what
00:26:46.508 --> 00:26:50.162
you call a 60, 40, 20 window. They were all over the age of 60.
00:26:50.267 --> 00:26:55.044
They have been Christ followers for over 40 years and they've been in the same church for 20 years.
00:26:55.335 --> 00:26:56.868
They're an overly church culture.
00:26:56.868 --> 00:27:00.068
They're all gray hair. And all of them said, yeah, we can't do that.
00:27:00.068 --> 00:27:02.806
And I said that you're going to be, they're going to have a very difficult time
00:27:03.038 --> 00:27:06.298
ministering to young families with young children. Yeah. Because you have to
00:27:06.298 --> 00:27:09.846
be able to do that. That doesn't mean that you're done though.
00:27:10.055 --> 00:27:11.094
That doesn't mean you're done.
00:27:11.349 --> 00:27:15.248
It just means that maybe that's not the area of focus. Maybe your area of focus
00:27:15.248 --> 00:27:18.558
is somewhere else in some other capacity, ministering to a different people
00:27:18.558 --> 00:27:20.307
group that you can minister to.
00:27:21.050 --> 00:27:25.558
Be that because that's unique. Don't be the cookie cutter. Be exactly who it
00:27:25.558 --> 00:27:26.698
is that God has called you to be.
00:27:27.118 --> 00:27:31.516
Now, today, not what you were 20 years ago. Get out of that attraction fallacy
00:27:31.650 --> 00:27:35.258
and let's become the unique church that God has formed and fitted you to be
00:27:35.258 --> 00:27:37.739
in your context. So that's how they get out of it.
00:27:38.076 --> 00:27:42.293
But that's hard work because they have to imagine their story differently.
00:27:42.293 --> 00:27:46.633
They have to imagine a story they can't yet see, and they have to walk by faith,
00:27:46.633 --> 00:27:51.233
which is probably the most difficult thing for most churches to do is to walk
00:27:51.233 --> 00:27:52.588
by faith and not by sight.
00:27:52.832 --> 00:27:55.703
Yeah, I understand it's really important for you to
00:27:56.403 --> 00:28:03.063
not to use a sprinkler, a lawn analogy, to not water dead and dying churches,
00:28:03.063 --> 00:28:08.985
dead and dying ministries, and to not try to salvage past ministry models.
00:28:09.131 --> 00:28:14.073
It's far more important to, you know, strengthen the missional endeavors that
00:28:14.073 --> 00:28:18.953
you are gifted for that God is moving in. You want to say any closing words about that?
00:28:19.197 --> 00:28:23.003
I think that you can only grow from where God has you today.
00:28:23.303 --> 00:28:25.530
You can't grow back into what you were before.
00:28:26.103 --> 00:28:31.703
Don't allow that nostalgia of what used to work keep you from the opportunity
00:28:31.703 --> 00:28:35.585
that God has in front of you. And that's not prosperity talk. That's just reality.
00:28:35.730 --> 00:28:40.283
God's writing a story. We just have to be willing to step into it and say,
00:28:40.283 --> 00:28:43.223
God, whatever it takes, we're going to step into that and we're going to be
00:28:43.223 --> 00:28:45.006
faithful to it, even if it's difficult.
00:28:45.703 --> 00:28:49.093
Yeah. Amen. By the way, speaking of watering, that reminds me,
00:28:49.093 --> 00:28:54.683
how did that Orbit tripod lawn sprinkler work out for you that you were so excited to get?
00:28:56.763 --> 00:29:03.174
You saw it worked well. And then sure enough, the next week or actually the next day it rained.
00:29:03.406 --> 00:29:07.568
So, I mean, like it was one of those, I ordered it, it finally came in,
00:29:07.893 --> 00:29:11.813
and I watered my grass, and it torrential downpoured the next day.
00:29:11.813 --> 00:29:13.170
I mean, we had a drought forever.
00:29:13.309 --> 00:29:18.433
Yeah, yeah. I only ask because I almost bought that exact sprinkler on Prime
00:29:18.433 --> 00:29:22.263
Day, and then I noticed you had posted about it. So, I went with a different
00:29:22.263 --> 00:29:27.107
one. I'm not sure I picked the right one, so I'm still looking for the right sprinkler for my yard.
00:29:27.229 --> 00:29:29.453
That's funny. I have eight acres, so...
00:29:31.346 --> 00:29:36.766
I don't have eight acres. Only trillionaires in California have eight acres.
00:29:37.386 --> 00:29:37.606
Yeah.
00:29:40.296 --> 00:29:48.650
Our other class of people in this state have eight acres and it is unimaginable land wealth here.
00:29:48.853 --> 00:29:49.466
Oh, yeah.
00:29:50.356 --> 00:29:50.836
No doubt.
00:29:50.836 --> 00:29:54.936
Well, Chris, this has been a great conversation. We've gone all over the place,
00:29:54.936 --> 00:29:58.766
but I think it's sharpened my strategic thinking as a pastor.
00:29:59.166 --> 00:30:04.334
I bet from Christopher's perspective, it's sharpened his thinking as an associational leader.
00:30:04.485 --> 00:30:08.946
We are very grateful for your time and for your ministry, for your articles,
00:30:08.946 --> 00:30:14.992
for your podcast, and all of the different ways you encourage and strengthen and equip the church.
00:30:15.108 --> 00:30:17.052
Well, thank you guys. I've enjoyed it. It's been a lot of fun.
00:30:17.203 --> 00:30:22.366
Well, we've been so glad to have you, and we hope to have you back soon on Every
00:30:22.366 --> 00:30:29.016
Church Flourishing and have a deeper or broader conversation about some of these
00:30:29.016 --> 00:30:31.188
areas that we sort of just touched on today.
00:30:31.507 --> 00:30:34.938
We'd love to have you back as part of this conversation as we work together
00:30:35.228 --> 00:30:39.506
to equip and encourage pastors and church leaders across the Great Commission
00:30:39.506 --> 00:30:41.840
Association and beyond.
00:30:41.967 --> 00:30:46.616
Yeah, and you can check out Chris on his podcast, Kingdom Over Turf.
00:30:46.616 --> 00:30:53.256
Well, that's Kingdom Over Turf with Chris Reynolds, R-E-I-N-L-L-D-S,
00:30:53.256 --> 00:30:57.512
so a little bit of a non-traditional spelling there, Kingdom Overture. Thank you, guys.
00:30:57.919 --> 00:31:03.315
And interviews like that are one of the reasons why I'm in podcasting,
00:31:03.315 --> 00:31:06.205
because I love having a conversation
00:31:06.805 --> 00:31:12.005
along those lines that is thought provoking, is deep, is not sort of the thing
00:31:12.005 --> 00:31:16.385
you're going to hear cookie cutter wise on pretty much every pastoral leadership podcast.
00:31:16.385 --> 00:31:19.725
I hope that was good for you and healthy for you. I know it was for me.
00:31:20.105 --> 00:31:22.385
I appreciate Chris Reynolds. If you want to connect with him,
00:31:22.705 --> 00:31:26.565
we have all of his information for his substack, for his podcast,
00:31:26.565 --> 00:31:32.076
et cetera, on our webpage on the show notes for this episode and last episode
00:31:32.215 --> 00:31:34.694
at everychurchflourishing.com.
00:31:34.798 --> 00:31:37.445
Now, Pastor Christopher and I face...
00:31:37.869 --> 00:31:45.892
Our old enemy Lester next we're gonna dive into a soda review and one of us
00:31:46.194 --> 00:31:52.437
surprisingly likes it and the other is opposed so pastor Christopher
00:31:53.077 --> 00:31:58.957
we are back with our old enemy Lester to to
00:32:00.017 --> 00:32:04.397
check out his buffalo wing soda this time around.
00:32:04.397 --> 00:32:09.177
Buffalo wing soda, Chase. Like right there, it should tell you something,
00:32:09.177 --> 00:32:14.137
right? I mean, this right here, buffalo wing soda.
00:32:14.457 --> 00:32:17.156
And do you like buffalo wings?
00:32:17.383 --> 00:32:19.908
Love buffalo wings, absolutely.
00:32:20.035 --> 00:32:22.937
Do you have a favorite style of buffalo?
00:32:23.377 --> 00:32:27.777
You know, I like a lot of them. I like sort of an Asian sweet heat combo.
00:32:28.497 --> 00:32:31.707
I like, I don't really care for lemon pepper or the mild ones,
00:32:31.707 --> 00:32:34.345
but honestly, barbecue is pretty good.
00:32:34.600 --> 00:32:40.649
My favorite is just good old American original Buffalo wings with some kick to it.
00:32:40.788 --> 00:32:45.247
With some kick to it. So like that vinegary kind of kick to it.
00:32:45.247 --> 00:32:50.067
Yeah. Like if you go to Buffalo Wild Wings, their original flavor or Wingstop,
00:32:50.067 --> 00:32:53.787
their original flavor. Now those aren't the best wing places in the world by
00:32:53.787 --> 00:32:56.867
any means, but those are generally the most accessible.
00:32:56.867 --> 00:33:01.737
Now, what if I told you that although I love spicy foods and I love barbecue,
00:33:02.077 --> 00:33:04.985
I don't actually like buffalo wings.
00:33:05.298 --> 00:33:09.135
That's really interesting. So what's your beef with buffalo wings?
00:33:09.257 --> 00:33:12.397
Yeah. Yeah. I just, I don't know.
00:33:12.897 --> 00:33:17.907
I've never, it's something about like, you know, sucking on the drumstick and
00:33:17.907 --> 00:33:19.979
just like trying to get all that meat off it.
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:22.510
And then I've never really enjoyed it.
00:33:22.835 --> 00:33:26.254
Too many of the sauces. So this is going to be a challenge for me.
00:33:26.544 --> 00:33:30.714
But also I should note, it says on there the word artificial.
00:33:32.614 --> 00:33:36.914
And while I assumed that to be true, the fact that they had to put the word
00:33:36.914 --> 00:33:39.623
on there tells me something like-
00:33:39.623 --> 00:33:40.859
Like big letters.
00:33:40.981 --> 00:33:46.294
It's in big letters. Why is the word artificial on there in big letters?
00:33:46.294 --> 00:33:52.174
I wonder if Lester's had a lawsuit against him, but it does have cane sugar,
00:33:52.174 --> 00:33:53.728
which sounds disgusting.
00:33:53.879 --> 00:34:00.994
Citric acid, three colorings, but no chicken or cayenne pepper or butter or vinegar is listed.
00:34:00.994 --> 00:34:02.494
No, because it's artificial.
00:34:02.494 --> 00:34:08.531
Yeah. So this is more like a chemist's impression of a Buffalo wing than a regular one.
00:34:08.676 --> 00:34:09.338
Yeah.
00:34:09.529 --> 00:34:14.550
Yeah. I'm really troubled by this. I'm really scared. And you know what? If we drink it,
00:34:14.892 --> 00:34:18.614
pastor Christopher and die or, you know, on the air.
00:34:18.954 --> 00:34:22.392
Yeah. On the air or get really sick or whatever.
00:34:22.682 --> 00:34:29.994
The one thing I've done, my extensive research into Lester's fixings has revealed
00:34:29.994 --> 00:34:34.854
a devastating truth that Lester is not a real person, but a
00:34:35.534 --> 00:34:41.854
fake person made up by the founders of rocket fizz who are a company who apparently
00:34:41.854 --> 00:34:45.368
are devoted to making sodas that torture podcasts. hosts.
00:34:45.507 --> 00:34:52.257
This is amazing news. Lester, his photograph on our bottle here,
00:34:52.432 --> 00:34:56.704
he looks like your average classic Southern Baptist church deacon.
00:34:56.704 --> 00:34:57.334
Yes, he does.
00:34:57.854 --> 00:35:04.697
And I was kind of hoping that behind this nefariousness was a deacon at an SBC church.
00:35:04.935 --> 00:35:10.920
Yeah, he looks like Lester Johnson from 1958 First Baptist Church of Montgomery.
00:35:11.240 --> 00:35:12.814
Yes, absolutely.
00:35:13.194 --> 00:35:17.444
He tortures us with his sodas. So I just assume in other realms of life,
00:35:17.444 --> 00:35:20.894
he's just a very bad, bad person. But he's not a real person.
00:35:21.354 --> 00:35:24.522
But he's not a real person. All right, shall we commence?
00:35:24.742 --> 00:35:28.674
Honestly, I've been dragging my feet a little bit. I'm scared.
00:35:28.674 --> 00:35:31.099
I can do. But let's go for it.
00:35:31.435 --> 00:35:33.034
All right, we're fearful. Here we go.
00:35:33.034 --> 00:35:38.395
Bottle opener here from Miss Grace. I can't wait to get this smell in.
00:35:39.295 --> 00:35:39.699
I'm going to...
00:35:40.139 --> 00:35:40.719
No pop.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:43.214
Right away, the smell is not good.
00:35:43.341 --> 00:35:47.279
No, it's very disconcerting. I was already nervous.
00:35:47.746 --> 00:35:50.730
No, no, it smells bad, Chase.
00:35:50.881 --> 00:35:54.991
I mean, this surely is not worse than Lester's Fixin's ranch soda.
00:35:55.136 --> 00:35:58.059
Right. Okay, I'm going to close my eyes for this one.
00:35:58.059 --> 00:35:59.259
Are we going for it? Here we go.
00:35:59.259 --> 00:36:04.012
Do we need to pray? Lord help us. Lord protect us. Here we go.
00:36:04.157 --> 00:36:05.679
Shield us in our hour of need.00:36:06.299 --> 00:36:13.752
Okay, so we might have a response similar to our bacon soda where I was disgusted00:36:14.037 --> 00:36:18.089
beyond belief and you were like, you know what, I've had worse things.00:36:18.234 --> 00:36:24.679
I've had worse things than buffalo wing soda, but you look really genuinely tortured.00:36:24.679 --> 00:36:29.455
I wasn't ready for, despite the fact that it said clearly buffalo wings,00:36:30.019 --> 00:36:32.389
they've obviously put capsaicin in here.00:36:32.389 --> 00:36:32.829
Oh, yeah.00:36:32.829 --> 00:36:34.989
Literally, it's burning in the back of my throat.00:36:34.989 --> 00:36:38.159
It's got some kick. Right. I'm actually impressed with the kick.00:36:38.479 --> 00:36:41.274
I don't drink soda for kick, but I'm impressed.00:36:41.959 --> 00:36:48.409
I think this is like, this is what would happen if you took Tabasco sauce and put it in a cream soda.00:36:48.409 --> 00:36:49.748
Yeah, I agree.00:36:49.881 --> 00:36:55.094
If you put Tabasco sauce into a cream soda, I think it would taste very much like this.00:36:55.234 --> 00:36:55.499
Yeah.00:36:55.819 --> 00:36:58.939
Look, I don't know that there's a lot of nuance or other flavor.00:36:58.939 --> 00:37:01.340
It's just sort of sweet and heat.00:37:01.909 --> 00:37:02.279
It is.00:37:02.279 --> 00:37:03.709
Are you getting much other flavor?00:37:03.709 --> 00:37:09.499
No, no. Oh, sweet and heat is an excellent description. I met with my therapist yesterday.00:37:09.879 --> 00:37:12.289
I cried myself to sleep last night.00:37:12.899 --> 00:37:17.966
I numbed my tongue with ice before the tasting, all to protect myself from Lester.00:37:18.314 --> 00:37:22.128
And I didn't need to. This is, I'm not saying I like this.00:37:22.575 --> 00:37:26.355
I'm just saying when I say- It's not the worst. It's not bad.00:37:26.855 --> 00:37:31.062
I mean that literally. That's not saying it's good. I'm just saying it's not bad.00:37:31.715 --> 00:37:36.025
This is not a bad experience. It's a mixed experience.00:37:36.025 --> 00:37:43.531
If this was a church, this soda would be mildly irritating to every guest.00:37:43.810 --> 00:37:44.135
Okay.00:37:44.555 --> 00:37:49.045
But no one could put their finger on it. Gotcha. No one would be able to walk00:37:49.045 --> 00:37:52.695
away. They wouldn't be able to go, well, I don't really know why I didn't really00:37:52.695 --> 00:37:56.335
enjoy going there, but I don't have a reason not to go back.00:37:56.755 --> 00:38:00.967
Okay. All right. Keeping with the metaphor, I would say if this were church,00:38:01.101 --> 00:38:06.375
the worship would be kind of a combo of the worst00:38:06.875 --> 00:38:12.507
Southern gospel songs from the fifties with just kind of terrible theology,00:38:12.832 --> 00:38:17.912
sung poorly, and actually a pretty good sermon that's not going to00:38:18.655 --> 00:38:22.265
go into the Sermon Hall of Fame, but was nice and exegetical,00:38:22.265 --> 00:38:24.245
very biblical, very theological.00:38:24.245 --> 00:38:28.415
So definitely you walk out of it thinking, well, I don't know if I'm going to00:38:28.415 --> 00:38:33.825
go back to this church, but some good things happened. It wasn't a universally00:38:33.825 --> 00:38:36.418
horrible experience. That's my review.00:38:36.528 --> 00:38:43.040
All right, Chase, what's your Spurgeon scale on Lester's Vixen's Buffalo Wing00:38:43.168 --> 00:38:47.755
Soda, which by the way is burning right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.00:38:47.755 --> 00:38:51.440
I have done spicy sodas before and this is the spiciest.00:38:51.580 --> 00:38:55.208
So I'm impressed by that, even though I don't want spice in my soda.00:38:55.341 --> 00:39:02.563
I'm going to go. Yes. Okay. So Coke Zero, Mountain Dew Code Red, Dirty Dew Cream Soda.00:39:02.853 --> 00:39:06.935
These are kind of top of my list, a good Coke Zero cherry.00:39:08.255 --> 00:39:11.253
Those are really up there. Those are like five Spurgeons for me.00:39:11.404 --> 00:39:15.374
This is not disgusting, but certainly not good. So I'm going to say00:39:15.909 --> 00:39:20.855
Two to two and a quarter Spurgeons. Two and a quarter Spurgeons?00:39:20.994 --> 00:39:25.278
Wow, you are really generous. You are a gracious man. You are a kind man.00:39:25.424 --> 00:39:26.452
This doesn't offend me.00:39:26.852 --> 00:39:33.342
I'm going to give this a half Spurgeon. It's not a zero, but I'm not going back00:39:33.342 --> 00:39:35.612
for this. I'm not giving it a one Spurgeon.00:39:36.112 --> 00:39:40.392
It's no Osteens, and compared to some of the other ones we've had,00:39:40.792 --> 00:39:42.982
but this is half a Spurgeon, dude.00:39:43.755 --> 00:39:45.232
This is not that.00:39:45.772 --> 00:39:51.086
So this is almost the total reverse of our opinions on bacon soda,00:39:51.220 --> 00:39:53.101
Which you tolerated.00:39:53.246 --> 00:39:59.182
And I found from the pits of not hell, from the pits of, you know,00:39:59.182 --> 00:40:05.099
sheil or some other non-real form of afterlife.00:40:05.221 --> 00:40:09.912
But you found just horrible. This is, if somebody passed me this at a picnic,00:40:10.063 --> 00:40:17.962
I would not thank them sincerely, but neither would I pray imprecatory prayers00:40:17.962 --> 00:40:19.444
against them under my breath.00:40:19.589 --> 00:40:24.822
Got it. All right. Well, I will say I wouldn't pray imprecatory prayers,00:40:24.822 --> 00:40:27.922
but I might ask if they were my friend.00:40:27.922 --> 00:40:33.004
Okay. That's good. That's good. That's it. Well, I'll close out by saying, hey, thank you.00:40:33.346 --> 00:40:37.510
Lester for not torturing me today. I know we're not friends,00:40:37.510 --> 00:40:40.149
but I appreciate at least a little bit of grace.00:40:40.369 --> 00:40:43.080
And hey, grace is always good. All right.00:40:43.080 --> 00:40:48.430
As we head out today, I want to point you to a couple of upcoming GCA events,00:40:48.430 --> 00:40:50.880
as well as tell you about the website00:40:50.880 --> 00:40:55.210
and how you can subscribe to our newsletter, which of course is free.00:40:55.210 --> 00:41:00.910
And you can do so through our site, gcasbc.org.00:41:00.910 --> 00:41:06.260
It will keep you up to date on everything that's going on with the GCA family00:41:06.260 --> 00:41:13.030
of churches. And a couple of those things, we have an evangelism workshop at FBC Gilroy.00:41:13.410 --> 00:41:17.120
If you're a Southern Baptist church in the California area, anywhere in California,00:41:17.120 --> 00:41:23.260
you come to that, you will immediately be eligible for a $1,000 evangelism grant,00:41:23.260 --> 00:41:25.210
which is a fantastic deal.00:41:25.210 --> 00:41:31.870
I've been to several of those, And it's going to be this weekend upcoming and well worth your time.00:41:31.870 --> 00:41:37.080
And the Flourish Women's Conference is September 19th.00:41:37.080 --> 00:41:40.020
We've been plugging that. Kathy Smith is going to be there.00:41:40.020 --> 00:41:45.190
Laura Sullivan, Robin Meany, and Dora Ding. That is going to be at Journey Christian00:41:45.190 --> 00:41:50.100
Fellowship in San Luis Obispo, California. All of the information and registration00:41:50.100 --> 00:41:53.784
is at our website, gcasbc.org.00:41:53.917 --> 00:41:57.499
If you want show notes for the podcast, if you want to contact us,00:41:57.656 --> 00:42:02.840
If you want to share your past or disaster stories, we're collecting them right now.00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:10.620
You can do so by going to everychurchflourishing.com and contacting us either00:42:10.620 --> 00:42:16.100
through voicemail or through our contact page, everychurchflourishing.com.00:42:16.100 --> 00:42:19.505
That's all for now. Good day to you and Godspeed.
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