Sept. 27, 2026

WHY leads to WHAT: Pastoring Change in Churches That Want Change But Resist It. HELP! My Church Isn’t Growing…What Should We Do?! With Bob Bickford

Download episode

Show Notes
Transcript

Episode 37: WHY leads to WHAT: Pastoring Change in Churches That Want Change But Resist It. HELP! My Church Isn’t Growing…What Should We Do?! With Bob Bickford of the Nashville Baptist Association.

Notes:

We think if we deal with our problems, people will leave, but the truth is that if we DON’T deal with our problems, people will leave.

How attendance fluctuates in church replants and church revitalizations. Sometimes you will have a double dip when people leave because the church has changed TOO much, and other people leave because the church has NOT changed enough.

Don’t shepherd not to get hurt, but embrace the suffering and embrace the conflict, because it is often a sign that a church is heading in the right direction in a church revitalization situation.

When Discipleship is deficient, it leads to focusing on the wrong things, like the administration of the church and other details. TOYOTA FIVE WHYS PRINCIPLE.

HELP DEVELOP A CULTURE OF JOY BY CELEBRATING SMALL VICTORIES AND POSITIVE THINGS. REVITALIZATION IS LARGELY GOOD OLD PASTORING.

Applying the principle of the nudge to church leadership and church revitalization.

Before we decide what we need to do about a declining church, we need to understand WHY the church is declining. The most important question to ask at the beginning of church revitalization is: WHY are we declining? The WHY is the most important issue of church decline.

Soda Review: Everybody’s favorite coffee flavor: Orange. TASCO

Coffee Soda Orange Flavor review. If not toilet paper, what do Indonesians use instead of toilet paper? YOUR LEFT HAND?! Barring a clear calling from God, I would like to avoid that particular toilet adventure for now.

All about Bob Bickford:

Bob Bickford has studied and taught on church renewal for years, and also lived it out in the trenches, one church at a time. In 2012, Bob left a staff position at a large multisite church to become pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church in suburban St. Louis. Through a careful process of renewal and replanting, Sherwood gave birth to a new congregation called The Groves in 2014, where Bob served for nine years.

That experience opened the door for Bob to help struggling churches on a much larger scale. As Associate Director of Replant for the North American Mission Board, he developed a national church-renewal strategy for Southern Baptist associations. He also helped create Missouri’s Resound Network and has written several practical resources, including Am I a Replanter?, Pathways to Partnership, and The Associational Replanting Guide.

Today, Bob serves as Executive Director of the Nashville Baptist Association, helping churches and pastors pursue greater health, gospel faithfulness, and missional effectiveness. He and his wife live in Nashville and have three adult children and five grandchildren. Bob brings together the heart of a pastor, the experience of a replanter, and the strategic insight of someone who has walked alongside many churches at critical crossroads. Nashville Baptist Association: (https://nashvillebaptists.com/about/)

WEBVTT

00:00:00.324 --> 00:00:05.287
Today, we're talking with Bob Bickford, who is the head of the Nashville Baptist

00:00:05.287 --> 00:00:10.127
Association. And one of the things he's going to talk us through is churches

00:00:10.127 --> 00:00:12.944
dealing with necessary change.

00:00:13.281 --> 00:00:18.257
And he's going to tell us that the biggest hindrance to change is not understanding

00:00:18.257 --> 00:00:20.613
that the necessity is there, but...

00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:26.812
Most declined churches are aware that things aren't as they should be or as they were. Right.

00:00:27.044 --> 00:00:31.207
So they can see that their attendance has been down.

00:00:31.207 --> 00:00:34.287
They can't fix their condition in the Sunday school space. So they have to close

00:00:34.287 --> 00:00:38.067
the Sunday school space and close the doors. And, you know, so you've got puppets

00:00:38.067 --> 00:00:40.860
growing mold in there and all kinds of other things that are happening there.

00:00:41.069 --> 00:00:42.573
So they don't lack awareness.

00:00:42.817 --> 00:00:45.893
What they lack is readiness to do something about it.

00:00:59.282 --> 00:01:02.905
Is all about helping churches, leaders, and pastors find health,

00:01:03.091 --> 00:01:07.522
encouragement, practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together

00:01:07.522 --> 00:01:10.649
to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.

00:01:11.032 --> 00:01:15.402
Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission

00:01:15.402 --> 00:01:19.822
Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry

00:01:20.162 --> 00:01:22.648
and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.

00:01:23.002 --> 00:01:28.958
Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 37 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.

00:01:29.306 --> 00:01:35.204
We've got a deep, fun, interesting, intriguing guide today to talk to in Bob Bickford.

00:01:35.512 --> 00:01:41.132
His website is bobbickford.com. And since Pastor Christopher actually knows

00:01:41.132 --> 00:01:45.174
Bob and knows all about him, I'm going to kick it to Chris for the introduction.

00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:51.362
Yeah, we are so excited to have Bob on the show today. Bob, thank you for coming, for being here.

00:01:51.902 --> 00:01:55.982
For those of you that aren't familiar with Bob, even though he is not only my

00:01:55.982 --> 00:01:59.402
friend, a friend of our Great Commission Association as well.

00:01:59.837 --> 00:02:03.842
We want to tell you just a little bit about him. Bob has studied and taught

00:02:03.842 --> 00:02:05.584
on church renewal for years.

00:02:05.915 --> 00:02:12.142
He's lived out that reality in his own life, leaving a large multi-site church

00:02:12.142 --> 00:02:19.872
where he was on staff to go renew and replant a new congregation called the Groves in the St.

00:02:19.872 --> 00:02:25.135
Louis area in 2014. Bob served there for nine years.

00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:31.002
Through that time, he was also working to help develop the Missouri Baptist

00:02:31.002 --> 00:02:36.092
Convention Resound Network, which is a network focused on church renewal within

00:02:36.092 --> 00:02:37.744
the Missouri Baptist Convention.

00:02:38.388 --> 00:02:44.135
He also then began to write resources, and he's written some wonderful books.

00:02:44.135 --> 00:02:48.925
We'll have these links in our show notes for books like Am I a Replanter?

00:02:48.925 --> 00:02:56.678
Pathways to Partnership and a phenomenal resource called the Associational Replanting Guide,

00:02:56.980 --> 00:03:01.165
which if you have a chance to go to the North American Mission Board's AMS Replanting

00:03:01.165 --> 00:03:07.835
Lab, is still sort of the seminal text for how associations can be involved in helping churches

00:03:08.235 --> 00:03:11.035
walk through a renewal process.

00:03:11.035 --> 00:03:16.295
And it's through that experience that I got to know Bob, where he was the associate

00:03:16.295 --> 00:03:19.800
director of replant for the North American Mission Board.

00:03:20.113 --> 00:03:25.076
Today, Bob serves as the executive director of the Nashville Baptist Association.

00:03:25.477 --> 00:03:29.668
Helping churches and pastors pursue greater health, gospel faithfulness and

00:03:29.929 --> 00:03:31.642
missional effectiveness.

00:03:31.944 --> 00:03:37.055
He and his wife, Barb, live in Nashville, and they have three adult children

00:03:37.055 --> 00:03:39.159
and five grandchildren.

00:03:39.524 --> 00:03:43.585
And I love every conversation I get to have with Bob. When he posts something

00:03:43.585 --> 00:03:45.439
onto that blog, I read it.

00:03:45.689 --> 00:03:51.233
I don't always agree with it, but I always read it and I always come away having

00:03:51.343 --> 00:03:56.167
my heart provoked, my mind stirred up to think about many things.

00:03:56.492 --> 00:04:02.459
And Bob, you have been a great friend to our association. You've spoken at our annual meeting before.

00:04:02.773 --> 00:04:08.385
You even helped with the genesis of the GCA Renew program, helping us do some

00:04:08.385 --> 00:04:13.015
of our early online work, doing a cohort that you were a big part of,

00:04:13.015 --> 00:04:16.195
and you helped us communicate and connect together there.

00:04:16.195 --> 00:04:21.445
And we are just deeply grateful that you're here with us today on our podcast.

00:04:21.445 --> 00:04:23.218
And I can't wait for this conversation.

00:04:23.825 --> 00:04:26.970
Man, great to see you guys. Great to be introduced to you, Chase.

00:04:26.970 --> 00:04:30.344
And always good to think about my friends at the GCA.

00:04:30.507 --> 00:04:33.281
And what a great time we had out there with you guys a couple years back.

00:04:33.670 --> 00:04:38.570
Okay, Bob, before we get into the nitty gritty and the frameworks you've developed

00:04:38.950 --> 00:04:42.710
and all of that, let's talk a little bit of stories. Let's talk a little bit

00:04:42.710 --> 00:04:46.945
of history and go back to your time at Sherwood Baptist Church.

00:04:47.195 --> 00:04:54.270
How did you kind of lead that church through the replanting stage and how did

00:04:54.270 --> 00:04:58.440
it shape and model the way you think about church renewal?

00:04:58.440 --> 00:05:02.000
And while you're talking about that, we'd love a couple of stories along the

00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:08.482
way about what happened during those years you were at Sherwood that might encourage

00:05:08.772 --> 00:05:13.306
replanters and potential replanters that are listening in right now.

00:05:13.538 --> 00:05:19.569
Yeah. So I was serving multi-site church in St. Louis and just really sensing that

00:05:20.149 --> 00:05:24.527
We were wanting to do something different. It was, we'd been to a couple different campuses.

00:05:24.527 --> 00:05:29.997
I'd worked centrally and we had high school kids and I knew I didn't want to move from St.

00:05:29.997 --> 00:05:34.347
Louis. And so the associational assistant director approached me and said,

00:05:34.347 --> 00:05:37.487
hey, there's a small church on the Southwest side of town and they're looking

00:05:37.487 --> 00:05:41.330
for a pastor, about 40 people, and they think they just have one more shot.

00:05:41.579 --> 00:05:43.837
So I'd like to send your resumes.

00:05:44.267 --> 00:05:47.857
I was just like, wow, that's not what I was thinking. I was thinking like plant

00:05:47.857 --> 00:05:49.434
a church, you know, do something.

00:05:49.886 --> 00:05:53.607
And my wife grew up in small church. And so she was like, what do we have to

00:05:53.607 --> 00:05:56.037
lose? Like, this is, you know, there's a building already and there's some people,

00:05:56.037 --> 00:05:59.656
let's, let's go. So I threw my resume in there and they kept tossing it out.

00:05:59.853 --> 00:06:02.396
Like they would find all these reasons why not to choose me.

00:06:02.611 --> 00:06:07.267
And it was actually, I think I was the last guy standing because it took me

00:06:07.267 --> 00:06:12.177
longer to interview and be accepted as a, voted in as a pastor for a declining

00:06:12.177 --> 00:06:15.701
church of 40 people than to work for a church of 3000.

00:06:15.852 --> 00:06:20.307
It was crazy. Right. So, so I started, right. And in the interview process,

00:06:20.307 --> 00:06:22.313
they all said, we need to change.

00:06:22.580 --> 00:06:25.726
We've got to change. We're going to die. And I remember asking he deacon,

00:06:26.057 --> 00:06:29.621
okay, well, how would you go about changing? He goes, I just start changing things.

00:06:30.157 --> 00:06:35.280
I was like, great. This is awesome. And so a hundred percent vote unanimous.

00:06:35.512 --> 00:06:38.792
Everybody said they need to change. The deacon goes, let's just start changing stuff.

00:06:39.036 --> 00:06:43.570
So man, I started with a small change. And this is, you hear this quote often.

00:06:43.796 --> 00:06:47.215
I just was going to make a change to the bulletin. He said, I had all of the

00:06:48.277 --> 00:06:50.937
Committee meetings listed in the calendar, all of that stuff.

00:06:50.937 --> 00:06:53.577
And I thought, if we have guests come here, they're going to think,

00:06:53.577 --> 00:06:56.297
if I attend here, if I join here, I'm going to be put on a committee.

00:06:56.297 --> 00:06:58.993
And I didn't want that to be in their first impression. So I removed them.

00:06:59.098 --> 00:07:01.887
And you would have thought that the Holy Spirit left the earth.

00:07:01.887 --> 00:07:04.055
It was like crisis moment.

00:07:04.682 --> 00:07:08.292
You know, wailing and gnashing of teeth, et cetera. And so I,

00:07:08.292 --> 00:07:14.243
what I realized was that their desire for change did not meet their willingness

00:07:14.359 --> 00:07:19.352
to change in the sense of, you know, we want change, but change meant we want more people here

00:07:19.624 --> 00:07:23.061
doing the same things we're doing. And we've always done, we don't want to be different.

00:07:23.293 --> 00:07:26.072
Now there's some really sweet people. There's some really hard people.

00:07:26.072 --> 00:07:27.612
There were some really difficult times.

00:07:27.862 --> 00:07:32.172
There was a campaign from a Sunday school class. They had like a secret meeting

00:07:32.172 --> 00:07:35.142
at their house and were sending anonymous letters to try to figure out how to

00:07:35.142 --> 00:07:39.892
stop me, you know, from making changes in the church and led to a showdown between

00:07:39.892 --> 00:07:42.384
me and the key deacon who said, I'd just start changing stuff.

00:07:42.587 --> 00:07:48.402
And ultimately he ended up leaving the church because we, we don't walk away from conflict.

00:07:48.402 --> 00:07:52.420
We confront conflict. So I think one of the things I learned early was that

00:07:52.653 --> 00:07:58.347
conflict, in many cases, is a good sign that you're moving in the right direction,

00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:03.038
not if you're being stupid and doing dumb things, right, and being harsh.

00:08:03.624 --> 00:08:08.039
When you start changing small things and you start trying to pursue and the

00:08:08.039 --> 00:08:10.967
Lord's objective for the church and become missional and reach people,

00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:14.398
you're going to have to change a few things. And so you need to be smart about how you do it.

00:08:14.648 --> 00:08:17.919
But even just small things can lead to conflict.

00:08:17.919 --> 00:08:22.869
And what we began to sense was that a lot of the conflict that had gone underground

00:08:22.869 --> 00:08:26.129
and was embedded into the church, as the church was trying to get healthy,

00:08:26.129 --> 00:08:27.379
the Lord was revealing it and

00:08:27.379 --> 00:08:29.729
it was coming out into the open and we were going to have to deal with it.

00:08:29.967 --> 00:08:34.469
So I think my My view of success changed from everybody's happy and they're

00:08:34.469 --> 00:08:39.089
fired up about where we're going to we might see people be upset and leave and

00:08:39.089 --> 00:08:41.239
cause division in the church as we're trying to be healthy.

00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:44.719
Also, I think if I could go back, one of the things I would do is I would just

00:08:44.719 --> 00:08:48.443
try to really love the people that were there and pastor them well.

00:08:48.681 --> 00:08:53.348
Laugh with them, have joy, do fellowships, all of those sorts of things.

00:08:53.592 --> 00:08:57.279
You know, there were some shots across the bow that made me fearful around those

00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:01.279
people because I didn't know who was going to complain about what and what they

00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:02.398
were going to complain about next.

00:09:02.590 --> 00:09:05.370
And it was stuff that was inconsequential in my mind.

00:09:05.608 --> 00:09:08.134
But I think one of the things that we have to be mindful of,

00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.899
especially if a church invites a pastor in to renew it, everybody's for change

00:09:11.899 --> 00:09:16.150
unless it has their address on it. We always love to see the Amazon guy deliver stuff to our house.

00:09:16.394 --> 00:09:18.989
We don't like to see the pastor deliver change to our church.

00:09:19.633 --> 00:09:23.429
We just don't like those things. And the older I get, the less I like change.

00:09:23.429 --> 00:09:24.929
I don't like when my phone updates.

00:09:25.269 --> 00:09:28.799
I don't like that I have to look at the menu with the flashlight on my phone

00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:31.329
if I'm at a restaurant at night. I don't like those changes,

00:09:31.329 --> 00:09:34.005
right? So we get to the point where we just don't like changes.

00:09:34.237 --> 00:09:39.915
But we have to realize that change represents a loss, that our people are going to grieve.

00:09:40.098 --> 00:09:42.820
One of the most powerful stories, I think, was a lady named Karen.

00:09:43.070 --> 00:09:46.489
She was the first baby born into the church. And she was a sweet, sweet lady.

00:09:46.715 --> 00:09:48.979
And she came to me one Sunday morning. We were just talking.

00:09:48.979 --> 00:09:51.159
And she was like, I said, how are you doing? And she's like,

00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:53.890
well, it's really hard being here. And I was like, tell me more about it.

00:09:54.244 --> 00:09:57.569
She said, every time I drive up outside, the church looks like the church I

00:09:57.569 --> 00:09:59.428
grew up in and the church I remember in.

00:10:00.052 --> 00:10:03.808
But every time I come inside, I'm reminded it's not that church anymore.

00:10:03.994 --> 00:10:05.602
It's just really coming in life.

00:10:06.203 --> 00:10:11.927
And so, man, I learned you got to grieve with the people as the church changes,

00:10:12.206 --> 00:10:14.092
the original legacy members.

00:10:14.342 --> 00:10:18.435
Now, the new people that come with you, while you have those vestiges of,

00:10:18.771 --> 00:10:22.827
you know, the former church that are being peeled away, the new people are going,

00:10:22.827 --> 00:10:24.269
when is this going to change?

00:10:24.582 --> 00:10:27.948
Like, it was funny. Christian, I don't know if you've ever seen this,

00:10:28.197 --> 00:10:31.637
but I would do announcements and they had just, and this threw me off my game

00:10:31.637 --> 00:10:34.057
big time. Remember, I'd been at churches of like thousands, right?

00:10:34.057 --> 00:10:35.157
And so I hear I'm in church at 40.

00:10:35.395 --> 00:10:38.767
So in the service, I'm going to do announcements. And then Joy,

00:10:38.767 --> 00:10:41.677
one of the oldest members, just raises her hand and just starts blurting out

00:10:41.677 --> 00:10:45.607
announcements. Like I had never seen that happen in my life.

00:10:45.607 --> 00:10:47.754
And I was just like, what's happening here?

00:10:47.981 --> 00:10:51.757
Right. And so you just got to embrace the awkward and the weird and just know

00:10:51.757 --> 00:10:55.632
that, man, there's some really strange things that are going to happen and just got to hang on.

00:10:55.904 --> 00:11:00.517
Love the people, laugh a lot, and pursue God's mission.

00:11:00.517 --> 00:11:06.387
And I think I struggled with the first two, loving the people well and laughing a lot because

00:11:06.967 --> 00:11:11.947
it felt so, so serious because of the shots across the bow and the kinds of

00:11:11.947 --> 00:11:16.317
conflict that we were experiencing that I became fearful as a shepherd.

00:11:16.317 --> 00:11:21.191
And when you do that, you shepherd not to get hurt. And so I would just say,

00:11:21.867 --> 00:11:25.352
if guys are listening to this and they're going through some hard times,

00:11:26.362 --> 00:11:30.027
Celebrate the fact that conflict is coming out because that's probably a sign

00:11:30.027 --> 00:11:30.588
you're getting healthy.

00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:36.225
But man, embrace it. Embrace the suffering, embrace the conflict and realize that.

00:11:36.769 --> 00:11:40.367
Possibly things are headed in the right direction and love the people in the

00:11:40.367 --> 00:11:42.342
lab. And that will diminish a lot of that tension.

00:11:42.551 --> 00:11:46.487
Hey, that's great advice. That's a great story. Let me ask you a follow-up question

00:11:46.487 --> 00:11:51.427
to that, because I know replanters are going to be listening to this and you

00:11:51.427 --> 00:11:52.687
have a lot of experience with it.

00:11:52.687 --> 00:11:55.479
I was actually just contacted by a replanter this week. It's like,

00:11:55.781 --> 00:11:58.697
I don't understand the process, what all is involved in this.

00:11:58.697 --> 00:12:02.447
And I said, well, good news. We've actually had some replanters on the podcast

00:12:02.447 --> 00:12:04.331
lately that'll help you walk through it.

00:12:04.535 --> 00:12:10.127
But I know we place too much importance on attendance, at least a lot of pastors do.

00:12:10.127 --> 00:12:16.327
But at the same time, it is far and away the easiest metric to see and track.

00:12:16.327 --> 00:12:21.677
So real briefly, kind of walk us through during this process at Sherwood,

00:12:21.677 --> 00:12:27.831
how attendance fluctuated and maybe what kind of sign that was.

00:12:28.586 --> 00:12:32.757
Well, when we left the multisite church, people heard what we were doing and

00:12:32.757 --> 00:12:35.569
a handful of people came with us. And that was awesome at first.

00:12:35.813 --> 00:12:39.777
We had like 20, like 20 families and their kids came and immediately all the

00:12:39.777 --> 00:12:42.517
older ladies who were serving in the kids ministry quit because they were like

00:12:42.517 --> 00:12:43.547
too many kids can't do it.

00:12:45.827 --> 00:12:48.337
It's like, all right, well, but they were excited to see the young people.

00:12:48.337 --> 00:12:50.703
So I decided to see the kids, et cetera.

00:12:50.946 --> 00:12:54.637
So we had a real significant bump. Well, that, that lasted probably for,

00:12:54.637 --> 00:12:58.877
I would say nine months to 12 months and people were excited,

00:12:58.877 --> 00:13:02.567
but they also realized, wait a second, these people are going to join our church

00:13:02.567 --> 00:13:05.372
and they're going to participate in the decision-making process, right?

00:13:05.621 --> 00:13:09.657
And so they begin to be fearful for that, right? So we kind of have this idea

00:13:09.657 --> 00:13:12.877
of new people and long-term people, and so kind of an us and them.

00:13:12.877 --> 00:13:17.317
And so if you're replanting, you need to bring new people with you in order

00:13:17.317 --> 00:13:20.198
to move things forward, to have critical mass, to do ministry,

00:13:20.430 --> 00:13:22.803
to have kids ministry, to do childcare, because we've all

00:13:23.111 --> 00:13:27.107
heard about the church that has only older people and a young family stumbles

00:13:27.107 --> 00:13:30.297
in there and visits, sees no kids in attendance, no young families like them,

00:13:30.297 --> 00:13:31.243
and then they don't come back.

00:13:31.808 --> 00:13:35.105
And so you need to have critical mass. And so it's sometimes good to bring some people with you.

00:13:35.285 --> 00:13:40.697
But over time, what we saw is the church that we were becoming was not the church

00:13:40.697 --> 00:13:44.213
that the people who came with us wanted to see fast enough.

00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:49.565
And it was not the church that the people who were there had been there a long time remembered.

00:13:49.797 --> 00:13:53.791
So we experienced something that I called the double dip. So the first dip was

00:13:54.064 --> 00:13:56.717
people who were like, this is not what I want to be a part of.

00:13:56.972 --> 00:14:01.987
And then they were out. Then the second dip was people who you had conflict

00:14:01.987 --> 00:14:06.267
with or who decided that you were not going to be the church that they wanted

00:14:06.267 --> 00:14:09.177
it to be or you were not going to remain the church they remembered.

00:14:09.177 --> 00:14:12.487
And so you have a double dip. So what I would say is if you're replanting and

00:14:12.487 --> 00:14:17.377
you have an existing group, let's say a 40, you should probably expect to lose

00:14:17.377 --> 00:14:18.613
a good percentage of them.

00:14:18.845 --> 00:14:22.674
If you have people who come with you, and we see this whole true in church planting,

00:14:22.924 --> 00:14:26.169
the people that you start a church plant with are not the people that you've

00:14:26.395 --> 00:14:30.407
seen usually past two years or so. Like it just cycles through.

00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:33.687
And so you have to understand the people who come with you to start something

00:14:34.027 --> 00:14:37.927
are what some church planters call scaffolding people. They're there to help

00:14:37.927 --> 00:14:42.127
you get the structure, to make the changes, to create what the next new is going

00:14:42.127 --> 00:14:45.476
to be, and then realize that they're probably not going to stay with you.

00:14:45.587 --> 00:14:49.777
So I think the thing that I would say is expect a bump, expect a decline,

00:14:49.777 --> 00:14:51.067
expect maybe a double dip.

00:14:51.299 --> 00:14:55.617
But then if you can survive through those two dips, what happens is people start

00:14:55.617 --> 00:14:59.803
choosing the church because they like the church that they see when they show up.

00:15:00.558 --> 00:15:04.679
So the new crowd that comes in are folks who resonate with your vision,

00:15:04.819 --> 00:15:08.237
with who's there, with the proximity, all of those things.

00:15:08.237 --> 00:15:11.917
And so they're just looking for a church, and when they show up and stay,

00:15:11.917 --> 00:15:16.661
they love the church because it's something they experienced with their son and they loved it.

00:15:17.350 --> 00:15:19.810
One of the things we heard was from people who were looking,

00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:23.850
we like that there's multi-generational. We like that there's some older folks

00:15:23.850 --> 00:15:25.263
here and some younger folks.

00:15:25.489 --> 00:15:28.790
But here's the thing we heard a lot. I really like that I can actually have

00:15:28.790 --> 00:15:31.799
a conversation with a pastor after the service.

00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:38.800
So in the large churches we're part of, a pastor might be going to another campus in a car or vehicle.

00:15:39.032 --> 00:15:40.855
He might be headed to the green room.

00:15:41.157 --> 00:15:44.924
He might be in the lobby for a little bit, but there's a ton of people around him.

00:15:45.168 --> 00:15:49.140
Or there's somebody kind of directing traffic near him. And so actually talking

00:15:49.140 --> 00:15:53.231
to the people that opens, talking to the pastor that opens God's word for you

00:15:53.428 --> 00:15:59.193
and teaches directly to you, for some people is never of the experience they have in a larger church.

00:15:59.193 --> 00:16:03.297
It's not to say anything against a larger church, but I think there's a value in,

00:16:03.847 --> 00:16:07.716
what we might call a normative-sized church, where a pastor can know the people

00:16:07.716 --> 00:16:08.845
and the people know the house.

00:16:09.072 --> 00:16:09.467
Amen.

00:16:09.763 --> 00:16:15.406
Yeah, that is so good. And I love the fact that you shared a double-dip story

00:16:15.406 --> 00:16:20.036
here, because I have a double-dip story. In my very first replant,

00:16:20.036 --> 00:16:22.579
we didn't have that language, that terminology.

00:16:22.910 --> 00:16:27.821
We were trying to figure out how to survive and thrive in this first church.

00:16:28.071 --> 00:16:34.326
And I remember this happening in 1997, 1998, as we led a church through significant

00:16:34.326 --> 00:16:39.135
transitions, what we would definitely call a replant, significant revitalization today.

00:16:39.472 --> 00:16:45.985
What surprised me was that I was working the church over a four-year process

00:16:46.241 --> 00:16:50.217
to become the church that all my younger couples in the church wanted.

00:16:50.472 --> 00:16:55.306
And then they all bailed on me once it went into launch phase at like,

00:16:55.306 --> 00:16:59.964
like literally we lost like 80% of my young couples that had been working four years.

00:17:00.184 --> 00:17:05.664
And they were like, it's too late. It's, you know, we, we'd had so much resistance to change.

00:17:05.914 --> 00:17:10.076
And, and so we lost not only the people that we expected to lose,

00:17:10.076 --> 00:17:13.956
the people had been resisting the transformation, but we lost all these people

00:17:13.956 --> 00:17:15.804
that had been cheering it on.

00:17:16.141 --> 00:17:20.716
And I've since seen that in our second replan as well, that as you make those

00:17:20.716 --> 00:17:25.348
adaptations, As you change and you become healthier, there's people who are

00:17:25.458 --> 00:17:29.219
only comfortable with certain levels of health and change in a church.

00:17:29.405 --> 00:17:33.376
And so I think it's profoundly helpful just to even bring that out.

00:17:33.376 --> 00:17:37.317
So if you're listening to us and you're a planter, replanter, this is normal.

00:17:37.497 --> 00:17:39.639
Don't feel like the world has not ended.

00:17:40.266 --> 00:17:42.855
It doesn't make it less painful, but it is normal.

00:17:43.273 --> 00:17:47.886
So thank you for bringing that out. And Bob, thank you for your candor.

00:17:47.886 --> 00:17:50.843
I love your blog because of your candor.

00:17:51.151 --> 00:17:55.526
I love how you say things that so many people that are doing this work have

00:17:55.526 --> 00:17:58.476
thought, but you give us such great insight on it.

00:17:58.476 --> 00:18:03.976
And speaking of that, I know that on July 28th, you published a helpful,

00:18:04.596 --> 00:18:10.486
article on your blog, BobBickford.com, about how conflict often increases,

00:18:10.486 --> 00:18:13.976
at least for a season, as the church gets healthier.

00:18:13.976 --> 00:18:18.796
So if you're listening and something Bob said earlier about conflict increasing

00:18:18.796 --> 00:18:22.316
as the church gets healthier, take a look at that piece. That's really great.

00:18:22.316 --> 00:18:27.337
But I want to bring up a piece that you published on August 18th. And I have,

00:18:27.994 --> 00:18:32.860
I unashamedly shared this over and over again since this piece came out, Bob.

00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:39.700
You distilled down, I mean, not that we Baptists distill things,

00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:42.750
right? But if we did distill things.

00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:44.120
Only the Reformed brothers.

00:18:44.120 --> 00:18:48.932
You know, only the Reformed brothers distill things down.

00:18:50.080 --> 00:18:55.340
But you do. You distilled something down that was just so critical that I've

00:18:55.340 --> 00:18:58.500
seen happen over and over again when I'm trying to co-tree planters.

00:18:58.500 --> 00:19:00.090
I've experienced this myself.

00:19:00.340 --> 00:19:05.660
And that's the tension between the realities of the awareness of the church

00:19:05.660 --> 00:19:07.758
and their readiness for change.

00:19:08.003 --> 00:19:13.940
And that article is just brilliant. And so in that article, you talk about the

00:19:14.320 --> 00:19:20.266
necessity of helping us sort of discern a quadrant type of matrix here.

00:19:20.533 --> 00:19:23.990
The church may have high awareness, but low readiness to change.

00:19:23.990 --> 00:19:29.636
So maybe just walk us through that conceptual framework.

00:19:29.798 --> 00:19:34.940
How would you explain the necessity for assessing both readiness and awareness

00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:37.540
to an ordinary pastor or an ordinary

00:19:37.540 --> 00:19:41.437
church member who's trying to discern this very reality right now?

00:19:41.606 --> 00:19:44.570
Yeah, great question. And thanks for the shout out on the blog.

00:19:44.950 --> 00:19:49.130
You and my five friends from seminary are checking it out. Everybody says,

00:19:49.130 --> 00:19:51.799
no, I appreciate your kind words. Thank you.

00:19:51.985 --> 00:19:58.817
We know that most declined churches are aware that things aren't as they should be or as they were.

00:19:59.502 --> 00:20:03.658
So, they can see that their attendance has been down.

00:20:03.658 --> 00:20:06.748
They can't fix their condition in the Sunday school space, so they have to close

00:20:06.748 --> 00:20:10.538
the Sunday school space and close the doors. And, you know, so you've got puppets

00:20:10.538 --> 00:20:13.323
growing mold in there and all kinds of other things that are happening there.

00:20:13.538 --> 00:20:15.029
So, they don't lack awareness.

00:20:15.273 --> 00:20:18.818
What they lack is readiness to do something about it, right?

00:20:18.818 --> 00:20:25.682
So, one of the things that's true of us is we get habituated to our environments or our cultures.

00:20:25.925 --> 00:20:29.844
So, for instance, if you have a door at your house that you have to lift up

00:20:30.082 --> 00:20:33.838
to open, like lift up on the doorknob to open because it sticks,

00:20:34.076 --> 00:20:37.958
because the foundation is settled and you haven't sanded it down or adjusted

00:20:37.958 --> 00:20:39.190
it, you're just used to it.

00:20:39.445 --> 00:20:43.358
And it doesn't stand out to you until a guest comes over and can't get out of

00:20:43.358 --> 00:20:45.929
the room that they're trying to get in, you know, get out of.

00:20:46.167 --> 00:20:49.616
So that's what we would call awareness. Do you know that there's a problem?

00:20:49.871 --> 00:20:54.128
Most declining churches are aware that there's a problem. here's where they

00:20:54.128 --> 00:20:55.937
might not have the awareness that they need.

00:20:56.140 --> 00:21:01.597
They don't know the decline rate and what we would call their vitality clock, right?

00:21:02.148 --> 00:21:06.731
So they're probably not sure how much have we been declining over the years, right?

00:21:06.731 --> 00:21:12.469
It's like, if I look at a picture of myself in 2026

00:21:13.566 --> 00:21:18.245
Here in September and a picture of myself in, let's say, 2015,

00:21:18.459 --> 00:21:24.456
I'm going to suddenly be struck with the hair on the sides of my head is gray, right?

00:21:24.711 --> 00:21:25.199
Yes.

00:21:25.483 --> 00:21:29.651
And if I don't look in the mirror, or if I look backwards, I see a picture like, holy cow.

00:21:29.981 --> 00:21:33.189
I've got a lot of gray hair, right? Et cetera, I've gained weight,

00:21:33.189 --> 00:21:35.786
or I look older, whatever, et cetera.

00:21:36.030 --> 00:21:42.349
So we're often struck with awareness of things that now come into our perception

00:21:42.349 --> 00:21:43.727
that we didn't have focus on.

00:21:43.954 --> 00:21:47.469
So one of the things we do in the consultation process is we try to help bring

00:21:47.469 --> 00:21:49.440
awareness to things that churches may not see.

00:21:50.461 --> 00:21:53.428
How far have they declined? Are they 50% lower than where they were?

00:21:53.660 --> 00:21:57.249
How much money do they have left? Where do the people live? They no longer live

00:21:57.249 --> 00:21:59.494
in the community. They live all, they're all commuters, right?

00:21:59.749 --> 00:22:05.019
So the church's awareness about its condition hopefully can lead to a sense

00:22:05.019 --> 00:22:07.126
of urgency or readiness.

00:22:07.334 --> 00:22:13.599
So a church with high awareness and low readiness is not going to do anything, right?

00:22:14.139 --> 00:22:17.743
Because they don't have to do it. Maybe they're just not ready or they're unwilling.

00:22:17.987 --> 00:22:21.979
Maybe they have $250,000 in the bank and they can, at their current cash burn

00:22:21.979 --> 00:22:25.122
rate, they can last another 10 or 15 years.

00:22:25.365 --> 00:22:29.729
But if that same church can no longer hire a pastor and they have a $30,000

00:22:29.729 --> 00:22:32.799
air conditioner bill that depletes half of their budget or almost all of their

00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.861
budget, then their urgency or their readiness will increase.

00:22:36.093 --> 00:22:40.509
So it could be a church that sees that they need to change but doesn't have

00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:44.659
the urgency to change because they're unwilling to face the hard things that

00:22:44.659 --> 00:22:46.774
they're needing to face because they have cash to make.

00:22:47.058 --> 00:22:50.304
Like, very rarely do you have a church that has high awareness,

00:22:50.459 --> 00:22:55.766
high lack of readiness that is cognizant of a spiritual condition, right?

00:22:56.968 --> 00:23:00.519
So I'm trying to think of one of the churches. And mainly when I wrote this

00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:03.003
article, I have several churches in mind that I've consulted.

00:23:03.136 --> 00:23:07.379
And so, for instance, I've got a church that will say, we've got some hope.

00:23:07.379 --> 00:23:10.839
We had a young family visit. We can still have a pastor come and we've still

00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:12.523
got a part-time pastor and he drives.

00:23:12.749 --> 00:23:17.533
We can have a music guy and he comes and leads singing. So, the checkbox success is we held a service.

00:23:17.817 --> 00:23:18.469
We have preaching.

00:23:19.629 --> 00:23:21.596
Yes. So, that's success.

00:23:22.166 --> 00:23:26.846
What they don't realize is that either they're on the precipice of significant

00:23:26.846 --> 00:23:29.300
decline that's going to lead to their demise.

00:23:29.556 --> 00:23:33.796
And I was consulting a church like this, and after we showed them where they

00:23:33.796 --> 00:23:38.086
were in their trend lines and their financial vitality, and after we projected

00:23:38.086 --> 00:23:40.899
their cash burn rate, et cetera, someone came up to me and said,

00:23:41.137 --> 00:23:44.242
I knew we were not doing well, but I didn't know we were this bad.

00:23:44.457 --> 00:23:48.079
And I didn't know fat in the sense of I didn't know we were in this much danger.

00:23:48.712 --> 00:23:53.446
Now, that still didn't produce readiness in that congregation because they were

00:23:53.446 --> 00:23:57.820
unwilling to embrace the courageous decisions that needed to take place.

00:23:58.416 --> 00:24:04.536
So what I've discovered is we really needed to take an approach as a pastor

00:24:04.536 --> 00:24:08.106
and or a consultant for a church in each of those quads.

00:24:08.106 --> 00:24:14.256
So like the quad with, I would say, high awareness and high readiness,

00:24:14.576 --> 00:24:16.871
man, they're ready to go. Like, let's fast track them.

00:24:17.074 --> 00:24:20.046
They're ready. And by fast track, what I mean is they're ready to receive the

00:24:20.046 --> 00:24:21.561
recommendation. They're ready to go.

00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:27.726
A church that has high readiness and low awareness, you need to help them understand

00:24:27.726 --> 00:24:30.693
where they are, right? So we know we need to do something.

00:24:30.995 --> 00:24:35.093
We're just not sure what we need to do in the timeframe in between you do it.

00:24:35.308 --> 00:24:39.789
A church that has low awareness and low readiness, they're just not going to be in, right?

00:24:39.975 --> 00:24:43.458
And so they may have a lot of money in the bank or they may just not care, right?

00:24:43.696 --> 00:24:46.645
They may not want to change. They're like, we're just going to die.

00:24:46.877 --> 00:24:49.806
That's a church you just simply, as a consultant for association,

00:24:49.806 --> 00:24:53.965
you simply say, look, I know you guys are not in a posture that

00:24:54.602 --> 00:24:58.167
Leading you to consider doing something new and different. That's fine.

00:24:58.411 --> 00:25:01.731
When you get to the point where you're ready to stop or you can no longer go

00:25:01.731 --> 00:25:05.481
on, please give us a call because we want to build on the legacy of this church

00:25:05.481 --> 00:25:09.758
and we don't want to lose this gospel location, right? So that's an approach that you do with them.

00:25:10.193 --> 00:25:14.878
A church that's low in their awareness and low in their readiness.

00:25:16.051 --> 00:25:20.161
What you need to do is you need to develop them, right? And so be patient with

00:25:20.161 --> 00:25:24.521
them, develop them, do flickering lamps, reclaiming glory, 40 days of prayer,

00:25:24.521 --> 00:25:26.685
preaching sermon series, all those sorts of things,

00:25:26.947 --> 00:25:31.771
and just see if you can develop them into a place of awareness and readiness, right?

00:25:31.771 --> 00:25:34.791
So you have to think about the quad and where they are in the quad,

00:25:34.791 --> 00:25:39.011
and it informs your action and your posture towards them. And so what I have

00:25:39.011 --> 00:25:43.293
adopted in terms of just consulting churches is the principle of the nudge,

00:25:43.462 --> 00:25:46.430
which I got from hostage negotiation books.

00:25:46.639 --> 00:25:49.061
In particular, There's a book called Never Split the Difference.

00:25:49.061 --> 00:25:51.377
It's written by an FBI hostage negotiator.

00:25:51.621 --> 00:25:56.433
And so he teaches the principle of the nudge. If I have a church that's resistant,

00:25:56.873 --> 00:26:00.553
can I nudge them to be a little more ready, right?

00:26:00.785 --> 00:26:04.216
If they're unaware, can I nudge their awareness just a little bit more?

00:26:04.430 --> 00:26:08.656
And so the questions go something like, hey, you guys have a rich history here

00:26:08.889 --> 00:26:11.031
as a church. You baptize a lot of people.

00:26:11.511 --> 00:26:14.601