May 12, 2025 • 47 mins
What happens when the “youth guy” suddenly finds himself stepping into the lead pastor role? On this episode of the Bible Belt Bros Podcast, we sit down with Kyle Henderson from Church That Matters.
Kyle shares the unexpected journey that’s leading him from youth ministry (and whatever else needed doing) to becoming the Lead Pastor this September. We dig into what that shift looks like, the excitement and challenges ahead, and how God sometimes calls you into roles you didn’t even apply for.
This episode is packed with leadership insights, fun stories, and a sneak peek at what’s coming for Church That Matters. Whether you’re in ministry, thinking about leadership transitions, or just here for the Bros banter, this convo with Kyle is one you don’t want to miss.
When You’re the Last to Know You’re the PastorSome people feel called to be a Lead Pastor. Others get called into the office and find out they already are one.
That was basically Kyle Henderson’s story on this episode of the Bible Belt Bros Christian Comedy Podcast. A longtime youth pastor, volunteer wrangler, and guy-who-fixes-everything, Kyle didn’t so much apply to be the new Lead Pastor at Church That Matters — he kind of tripped into it.
No Resume, No Tryout, Just… “Hey, You’re Next”It started like most things in church leadership: casually. A conversation at a staff retreat. Someone asked, “Who do you think would be a good Lead Pastor if something ever happened?”
Kyle threw out a name or two.
Then the Lead Pastor looked him in the eye and said, “What if it’s you?”
Cue awkward laughter. Cue silence. Cue every youth pastor's worst nightmare: responsibility.
Kyle wasn’t gunning for it. He wasn’t dropping hints. But apparently everyone else around him had already seen it. The only person not in the loop… was Kyle.
“I’m Just the Youth Guy”There’s something beautifully ironic about youth pastors. They’re often treated like they’re in the minors, like their job is some kind of ministry spring training.
But they’re also the ones cleaning up messes, managing chaos, mentoring students, fixing tech, and running services when the real adults are out of town.
Kyle was that guy. He did all the things. The late nights. The camps. The sermons. The leadership development. The emergency plumbing issues.
He wasn’t climbing a ladder. He was just doing what needed to be done.
And then suddenly, someone handed him the ladder and said, "You’re at the top now."
The Calling Nobody Wants (But Everybody Sees)There’s something kind of biblical about this. Moses didn’t want the job. Neither did Jonah. Or Paul. Or honestly, most people God used.
The ones who aren’t chasing the spotlight are usually the ones most ready for it. Not because they have the best ideas, but because they’ve learned how to serve without needing credit.
Kyle didn’t say yes right away. He wrestled with it. Felt the weight of it. Wondered if he could do it.
That’s how you know someone’s probably ready: they’re scared.
Spiritual PTSD from Youth MinistryKyle’s years in youth ministry were preparation. Not on purpose. More like spiritual bootcamp with dodgeballs.
He learned to improvise. To build teams. To pray through crises. To disciple students. To host events with zero budget and leftover pizza.
That kind of ministry doesn’t give you a stage. It gives you scars.
But it also gives you a deep sense of how people actually grow — not in the hype, but in the hard stuff.
And when the Lead Pastor seat opened up, Kyle wasn’t the obvious choice because of charisma. He was the right choice because of consistency.
Leadership Without the Ego TripWhat makes Kyle different is he’s not trying to be a CEO pastor.
He’s not coming in with a 42-page vision plan or rebranding the church overnight. He’s not here to be famous. He’s here to be faithful.
His
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Bible Bell Bros podcast!
I've got myself here in Andrew here.
What's up guys? And then last week I felt like I was a little
too ranty on pastors.
It really was church leadership technically,
not just pastors, but people that are leaders of different ministries.
(00:32):
Right. Complaining about them, and so I figured what's the best thing to do
is to bring a pastor on to make sure that we balance the scales
a bit. So we can bash them in person.
Yeah. Uh, bash them in person.
So, except he's a little bigger than both of us.
And this guy's kind of, he's kind of a pastor,
he's a youth pastor. Oh, so half pastor.
(00:54):
So he doesn't technically count yet,
but come, come in, uh, was it September?
September October time for him, yeah. Then, then his opinion will matter.
So, uh, everybody, welcome to the podcast, uh,
Kyle Henderson. Yeah, that, that is my name.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for having me. Here's the applause. Kyle,
(01:15):
uh, It's been a while since we've had somebody on a podcast.
I don't know how to interview people. Well, first off,
uh, most people don't know us in this,
like our podcasts, most people listen outside of,
Our internal group, cuz I know that we're all idiots.
Yeah, but Australia for some reason they don't think we're idiots and they like
(01:36):
us. Yeah, they like us. That's That's good. So, uh,
shout out Brett. Uh, so Kyle,
tell us a little bit about yourself, uh, your ministry ladder that you've been
growing. Hey, look at this. That's an actual red-winged blackbird.
We need shade. We need shade to be able to see this now.
Oh, yeah. Sorry. There's, uh, our bird feeder,
camera, stream on YouTube is,
(01:57):
Got a lot of birds on it today, uh, because we got a storm
coming in. When the storm comes in, birds go and they store,
they can store up a little bit. So, uh,
anyway, Kyle, tell us a little bit about you,
who you are, and why you're in ministry.
Yeah. So, uh, my name's Kyle and,
man, I've been in ministry now for.
I guess a, I guess a little over a decade started about a Bible
(02:20):
studying college kind of where ministry took off from me and then just kind
of hopped around a little bit. Carlin, I were, uh,
we were here at church that matters. Gosh,
I guess almost 12 years ago now it's been and we launched the youth
ministry 12 years ago and then that kind of spurred us on.
Since then we've been able to live in six different states and get to
do ministry indifferent. Geographic areas,
(02:43):
we've been in Colorado, we've been in the kind of upper Midwest,
we've been on the East Coast, and for us it's been great.
We've got to see different contexts, got to see how God is global,
but the culture definitely kind of dictates how you get to share,
share the love of Jesus. And so for us, it's helped grew us into
better, better leaders, better disciple makers.
Um, so we got the opportunity to come home October of 22,
(03:05):
Carla that we found out Carla's dad had cancer. And so that that was
already some of those kind of Trying to bring us back home and then
the same day we found out he had cancer or rusty cold and offered
me this position. Um, so that was kind of like a god got thing
bring us bring us home. So that got us back here.
Uh, my my official title is the executive pastor of next gen ministries
(03:26):
and house churches. Um, I feel like that's a title that just makes you
do more things for the same pay. It it absolutely is.
Absolutely. It sounds fancier than youth pastor.
So that's that's why they gave me the the fun.
Fun title there. It helps some adults listen to me
and then most of them are kind of like you guys are like, oh
yeah, he's a youth pastor. Well listen to him occasionally.
(03:49):
It reminds me of the corporate ladder structure where people do get like random
title. Like I changed my title on LinkedIn a million times because just whatever.
Right. It's just a title. Yeah, titles don't really matter.
They don't matter, but uh, people people like to live.
People like titles. They do love titles.
Yeah, yeah, uh, so at the center. Well, so at least it's work.
(04:09):
Uh, everybody seems to be a vice president of something.
Yeah. And so there's nobody in that department.
Right. There's nobody. They are the only person, but they're the vice president of
it. So the only person and why can't they be the president of that
department? You know, because you can only have one president.
It's a title matter, I guess. Right. I'm my LinkedIn.
I'm the director of uh, search engine marketing,
uh, consulting. And I'm basically it for that
(04:33):
department. Yeah. Fine as some virtualists.
So at the veteran center, we did the same thing and everybody's a vice
president. So like Karen's vice president of Treasury.
That's awesome. I'm the president. Uh, so I'm again,
I'm the only president, but everybody else is a vice president.
So you're the king. You're king and castle. That's right.
That's awesome. So yeah, titles don't matter, but you know,
we still want them. They're fun. I do want to thank you and also
(04:55):
especially thank your wife for holding off.
I'm telling you, man. I mean, she's,
she's a troupe. I'm surprised you don't have a packed in the car.
Just ready to go in case. We thought about it.
We thought about it. I have the hospital bag. I got the baby car
seat in the car right now. Just in case I got to zip back
a cross down and snagger. But yeah, we're literally any day.
(05:17):
For reference, his wife is pregnant. I was going to leave him on a
cliffhanger. Not tell them,
but okay, Dusty, wait a minute. Very,
very pregnant. Like two years pregnant.
It seems like it. It seems like it.
Yeah, no, the due date was the 10th, and now we're a little over
a week past that. And so we're, yeah, we're,
we're ready. We're ready. Well, thanks for being here.
(05:38):
Absolutely. Sorry I was late again. Absolutely. Probably think.
Carla more than thinking. Yeah, thank you.
Shut up. All right, so you've grown into youth ministry.
You came back here, church, the matters,
and then you haven't left. And then now you're going to be,
uh, the senior pastor. How's God been pulling you in that direction of a
call? Whenever we moved back home,
(05:59):
the plan, which, you know, if you want to make God laugh,
tell him your plan, right? And so our plan was kind of this like
five year plan. And we had it all worked out.
To where we were going to kind of be in this role for about
two years and find someone else to come in and take over the youth
ministry and my goal was to kind of train them up and equip them
with the things that we've grown to know over the last ten years.
(06:20):
And then after that point we were going to start a church planting residency
and we were going to walk through the residency program and plant our own
church. So that was that was the plan.
Whenever we whenever we moved home, that was the kind of the the game
plan there. And then after I got back,
we pretty Pretty quickly, I-I realize that.
Maybe I'm not supposed to plan a church. I've seen it done now.
In this context close up with with Rusty and this is process and everyone's
(06:44):
asked me when I said yeah, I'm going to play in a church someday.
Where are you going to do that at? Oh, I don't know. Well, who,
who, like, when? I don't know. It's just like these big question marks and
those things are important. Like, you should probably know the win and the where.
Uh, and, and we're not necessarily up until this point.
We haven't really been passionate about any place.
It's just kind of been like this generation that I've been passionate about.
(07:05):
And so that started to kind of shift my heart a little bit into
more of a leadership heart of like, How can I lead and equip this
next generation who's very much looked at as the church of tomorrow,
but I see them for the ability they have to be the church of
today. And so that's kind of shifted my perspective a little bit.
And so getting opportunity to step into a lead role, that man,
I think that's going to be cool to be able to be in that
(07:26):
spot where we can continue to dream about what it would look like to
equip this next generation, but then have the ability and the capacity to just
do it. Like not just talk about it, but to actually actually get to
do it. I think leading adults is gonna suck.
I mean, I just say- I mean,
I agree. Yeah, people like me that- That me.
It was, uh, excuse me. I think- I think leading all the- Other adults
(07:47):
are going to be great. I think leading you to is going to. Oh,
yeah, tricky. I can see that actually since we come on the podcast afterwards
and they talk about you. Exactly. Exactly. Then I get to come back and
listen to it. And then I know I know we were your studio is.
I can hold you. I'm just a mile from the church.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I was told to
me and why I say I think it's going to suck or whatever is
one of the guys at the, uh, revival that was speaking on the last
(08:11):
night. He said that, uh, the reason youth ministry is so awesome is because
A lot of most of the youth haven't been bogged down by life.
Yeah. Haven't had all like Been hurt by so many people.
So you get almost a hundred percent buy-in on a lot of these things.
When they get saved, there's just a hundred percent buy-in that they'll just do
(08:31):
whatever you tell them, whatever their leadership tells them,
whatever the Lord's telling them, like they're just a hundred percent all in.
Where then when you have adults like us, that have been like cynical,
cynical, been hurt by the church, maybe we've had just experience like this is
the same thing, same same thing, you know,
we're seeing how the sausage is made. Right.
The behind the scene. And so then you just like like those people don't
(08:52):
buy But then you also need them to pay.
So then you have to like cater to them to make sure that they're
following the command to tie, but then at the same time.
You have to also lead them and make them mad in the process because
most of the time if you're leading us in the right direction,
the sheep aren't wanting to go that direction. That's the harder direction.
(09:12):
Call back from last week. Sheeper stupid. Sheeper stupid.
Yeah. And you need to protect us from ourselves.
That's what I said. And so that's what I, like,
I think you're going to have maybe a different shift is people aren't going
to buy in us. 100%. Maybe as a general if I'm going to think
you're 100% correct. I think it wasn't my thing.
It was a boy you're saying, but I think the What's kind of unique
(09:33):
and what's been really cool to be able to look back kind of last
18 months or so with like our church and our peoples.
It's been this new wave of people who've,
came into our church and it's a lot of people who don't have church
experience and they don't have this church hurt that you're talking about.
They don't have these preconceived ideas of what it's supposed to be like and
so they come to a place where we do things a little different like
(09:54):
we are a little weird and we are a little creative and a little
red neck and a little out there and I think that's what sets us
apart and I so you have people who are coming to know Jesus for
the first time in this is their context and so that same idealism of
like man kids are awesome because they just buy in.
In a sense this is just gonna Like all these fresh people,
it's kind of like just an older youth ministry in that context where they're
(10:15):
all coming into Jesus at the same time. And so that,
that is cool. You've got this level of excitement,
which meant like the best, the best evangelist for people who have known Jesus
for less than three years. And so our church is going to become this,
uh, this movement in our town. Hopefully it's what the prayer is of these
adults now who are coming to know Jesus and they're kind of jacked up
for them and they're ready to go share. Coming into a church,
(10:36):
I mean, you, you were with us. Almost since the very beginning,
and then you've come back. Now coming into the church has very been very
successful in San Springs and in the community that we are part of.
Uh, and we're not a mega church, but we are,
uh, my opinion, humble opinion. We are an amazing church.
Is that make you nervous stepping into that role rather than maybe starting
(10:58):
your own and starting from scratch? Yes and no.
I mean, there's components of it. That,
I think the nerves would come from just not wanting to screw something up,
you know what I mean? And it's like, all of the things that do
scare me, that do make me nervous, it's all,
it's all Kyle driven. It's all like,
from man's perspective, but man just seeing how God's kind of orchestrated
(11:20):
all this and laid it out, that's what gives me the confidence.
It's definitely not my ability, because I feel like I'm,
like, not ready, not qualified, ill-equipped,
all the things. But, God,
I think. I think that's what's going to kind of spur us on.
And, man, if it was just me, I'd be, I'd be terrified.
We have such a good team. And like our other pastors on staff are
(11:40):
incredible. We're unique in the sense that we have a preaching team.
And so like that helps alleviate some of that burden of feeling like you
have to prepare a message every Sunday, get it ready,
and then you have the meetings on top of that throughout the week.
And if I'm still going to have to backfill as the youth pastor for
a season, like all of those things kind of pile up on top of
each other. So if I was having to do all that and preach every
Sunday, that would be miserable. But I think our team is just so
(12:05):
equipped for this, for this next season.
So I'm like I'm excited. Am I nervous? Absolutely.
Am I scared? Absolutely. But I'm really excited about what this is going
to look like. So yeah,
yes. Great explanation.
Uh, I am going to need you to call, uh, Matt Burnett and say
Nana and Boo Boo were better. Uh, our youth pastor became pastor first.
(12:28):
So I'm sure he'll love that. I'm sure he'll love that.
Uh, Matt and I, every time we see each other, it's,
uh, you know, I always show up and be like,
don't worry, the church that matters is you. We got you.
Yeah. Including last night at the dinner.
So one of the things I wanted to talk about is we did just
recently our church did a creative ministry outreach to the schools and
(12:53):
just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about You know,
that's, that's part of our, we, we call it our core value is doing
things, funnily doing things creative out of the box.
Yep. So talk a little bit about what we just did and then kind
of the mentality of behind that and why that is more than just the
act. Yeah. Are you sure about the shoe giveaway? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So we, let me get my notes out so I can find out
(13:14):
where to get these shoes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And do you have any extra sizes? Size 11?
Yeah. So, man, yeah, we, we were blessed from one of our,
our partners to, uh, Get- get the- The ability to give away some
cool shoes. Maybe we're able to give away some, some Jordan ones.
Uh, we have an alternative high school here in our town and we're able
to have every kid in the school,
(13:36):
uh, come into their student lounge and we had a team of,
uh, I think there was seven of us in there.
Uh, and so four of us were able to sit down and kind of
fit kids for shoes and we, we physically like help take their shoes off.
We fit the, we try to kind of model like what Jesus did when
he washes his disciples feet a little bit. And so that kind of freaked
him out. They're like, hey, don't, don't touch my Dogs man,
(13:56):
but uh, dude, it was awesome. And so every single kid came in and
we got to fit them. Like for a pair of shoes that that actually
fit their feet, and then we gave them a pair of Jordan ones.
And so it was this really cool shoe, this trendy shoe so they were
able to still kind of like look cool. It wasn't something that looked cheap
or looked like it was a hammy down. Like this was straight out of
the box, a nice, nice Jordan one. Uh,
(14:16):
and then everyone of the kids got invited to church,
got invited to the youth ministry, and we got to kind of build some
relationship there. But man, it was, it was awesome.
We had, uh, one kid I got to interact with,
went out in the hallway, had a conversation. He had just had a lot
of questions about how to pray. And what that even meant and we know
getting to pray and let him to the Lord in the hallway over a
pair of, pair of Jordans, dude. So it was incredible.
(14:36):
Like it was incredible. But uh, Michael Wilson's our outreach pastor and he did
such a good job of just coordinating all this with the school and with
our, our partners to be able to get all the supplies.
And it's awesome. Like I said, our team. Like,
our team is incredible. I had nothing to do with that. Like,
that was totally planned by someone else and I just got to show up
and and be a part of it and then get to pray with somebody
else. Like, our team is awesome. And so this was just kind of the,
(14:59):
the ultimate example of that. And it's like, that's out of the box,
man, to go and be able to put shoes on feet and get out,
you know, get those interactions and the teachers got to walk through and see
the whole thing happening because they walked their kids to this,
to the student lounge. And it was cool. It was really cool.
And so why do, why is it important to, to kind of do things
like that? So your meeting like a tangible need. Right,
and so I think often as, as Christians,
(15:21):
at least in our context, not everywhere, but here in the Bible belt,
this cultural Christianity is rampant,
and it's so easy just to be like, oh, you're struggling?
Okay, I'll pray for you. Well, I just help them.
Like if they didn't, if they're struggling, and you know what they're struggling with,
just help them. Like, Acts 2,
42, 347, right? Like they, they gave everything to be together with the church,
(15:42):
and so if we have the means to do it,
Do it. Don't just say hey, I'll pray for you.
Like if we could be about it, let's be about it. And so I
think we do a pretty good job and we try to do that. Like
whether it's food, like feeding our community, we do a great job of that,
whether it's financial assistance,
we help with that. Our house churches do a great job of kind of
meeting needs within our church. And yeah,
I think it's important. So like, okay, so meeting the shoes,
(16:05):
shoes need. That's one. And now I saw that.
We had a video. I saw your Dogs hanging out there in the video.
Oh, yeah, I was wearing tacos, dude. My little Florida's were dangling out there.
They were all over the place. But uh, what are some other creative ideas
that other churches could kind of maybe take the idea from us and go
with it? Where's the other things that we've done? Yeah, so I think,
(16:26):
Well, man, just like food distributions, like the things that we've done for a
long time that kind of feel to us like,
oh, yeah, we've always done that. Like food distributions is one,
um, by a county shop. Yeah, yeah,
but by a county shop. But I mean,
honestly, the like the heartbeat behind that is like have a,
have a, a ministry in the marketplace where you hire someone and then offer,
offer meals for people who are experiencing homelessness. Like,
(16:47):
there's a lot of things with the nap. But I think the,
the deeper issue is churches get so stuck in their ways and they get
so used to Like, I hate this sentence.
Well, in the past we've, fill in the blank.
That's a cuss word, dude. Like, if you, if you say that,
you're stagnant. If you say that, you're stale, you need to get some creative
juices flowing. And so I think anything that a church is doing,
(17:09):
and that's how the conversation starts,
it's like, well, in the past, we've always done this,
or we've always done it this way. I think if you, if you start
it that way, throw it up on the board and say, okay,
this is how it's always been. What would the opposite of this look like?
How could we, how could we recreate our processes to still accomplish the same
goal, but we want it to look different.
(17:29):
We want it to be fun, be energetic, be whatever.
And I think those are, those are the conversations that we kind of lead
with at CTM, which makes us, that's what makes us unique.
And so instead of saying, how would a traditional church accomplish this goal,
we're like, how can we be really weird and make this happen?
And so those things have kind of been what,
what spur us on, but And ultimately they get the most shares and most
(17:50):
people start talking about it, you know. Yeah.
And I think one thing that makes our church a little different than others
is most of the things that we're trying to do are not bringing people
into our building. It's, it's trying to go wherever they're at.
Absolutely. Yeah. Um, like the food distribution even,
like, we have to do that somewhere and it's in our parking lot.
But we're not saying, Hey, come to church and then as you leave,
(18:10):
go get some food. Well, even our parking lot's different,
right? Like it doesn't look like your traditional church building.
It's like in a strip center. So when you come into our parking lot,
you see 20 other businesses.
And so it's like, which one do I go to? Which ones? So even
that in itself is kind of unique. I'm going kind of real back to
where I asked about if you're nervous,
um, because I know Dusty's all,
(18:32):
you know, outside ministry and get your take on all that.
I want to know your feelings and all that.
So what's it go be like having We're in a unique situation where our
lead pastor actually is not leaving the church.
He's still going to be there. So is that going to make you nervous?
I like. I want to know those type of thoughts like you want to
know inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(18:54):
Uh, no. So Rusty's, Rusty's been my,
He's my spiritual dad. And so he's the one who anything that I know
really how to do when it pertains to house church and like really my
initial entry in the ministry, he, he showed me how to do it.
Um, now if you, you both know Rusty,
so when I say he showed me how to do it, that meant he
said, oh, go do this. And I'm gonna tell you how you messed up.
(19:15):
Yeah. And so I got to learn like trial by fire a lot,
which was great. Like it was very hands on.
He gives you the opportunity to just go and try.
And then if it messes up, okay, well let's talk about how How that
went, why, why did it mess up? And so, again,
it makes you, makes you think, it makes you process.
And a lot of the things that I had done early on that did
fail, those things came from, well,
(19:37):
in the past I. And so then he's like,
okay, well, that, that doesn't work anymore. And so, even his vision of,
of being unique and being outside of the box,
right? What the church called the box when you do outside the box things.
So, there is that level of, well,
my dad's, my dad's here. Like I got like this,
my spiritual father's here. But with that, it's like,
oh, my dad's watching. Yes. And so there is that level of intensity and
(19:59):
that level of like, okay, I don't want to mess this up. Like this
is his baby. And so there's, there's obviously,
there's some nerves that come with that. But I think the overwhelming sense of
comfort knowing that he's not going anywhere far,
like they far exceed the nerves of him watching because it doesn't feel like
a, oh, it's a washful eye so he could see how I've messed up
(20:19):
and like wag the finger. It's more like, okay.
Let's have a conversation about this because he's,
he's done this and this is like, he launched CTM 15 years ago and
in a house and a house church and so for him,
this is like, this is his vision, this is his baby and he's trusting,
like he's trusting God and trusting me in that process to be able to
take it to the next level in the next space,
(20:40):
which I feel like, I feel like I have the capacity to do.
I think what CTM needs next is something that God's equipped me with,
and so just kind of setting into that and knowing that we still get
to do it together, but he gets to kind of just sit back in
an enjoy now, and he gets to really do what God's calling him into
next. I was talking, we were talking about this on Wednesday,
(21:01):
like, people ask me, how do you know when a season is ending?
Like, how do you know when it's actually time to move on,
and I was listening to this other podcast, and they said immediately,
once the grace is lifted. When you're in ministry,
when you're in a role and you have this capacity that doesn't make any
sense, you get to do things and accomplish things that everyone else looks at
and they're like, dude, how do you even do this? Like,
(21:23):
that sounds hard. That sounds like a lot. And your responses are like,
well, I don't know. I just, I just do it. Rest he's done that
for 15 years, man. Like, the things he's done,
the things he's accomplished, everyone looks at and like, how'd you do that?
How'd you get into the school system? How'd you get into this ministry?
How'd you get in with this, I don't know, I've done it.
He's put in the work. And he's had God's grace in that.
And so that kind of answer of like, man, once the graces lift the
(21:45):
things that have always sounded and been easy,
it could be overnight. Like, when the pillar moves,
man, the next day, something that was easy can be hard.
And I feel like Rusty has felt that. And so being torn to follow
this pillar into this send network to be this church planning catalyst for this
movement that we need. Like, we, we need it drastically.
And so for him to be this catalyst for that movement,
(22:08):
like, that's where the pillar is. That's why he's able to now do things
that to us sound super hard, but to him,
it seems a little easier. And he's, he works hard. I'm not saying that,
but just the grace that he's getting in these opportunities is because God's grace
is there. And things back home here that used to be super simple,
like having a conversation about the HVAC not working or figuring out why the
fridge is down. Now we got to fix the freezer because we had things
(22:30):
go bad before, like all those things that you Should just be easy conversations
are now hard. And it, and it tears him in two different spots.
And so, to me, that has been a clear answer.
Like this, this is happening. And so now we're able to kind of follow
that pillar with Rusty as I step in to a new area
of God's grace and leadership too. And then what's really been unique in this
(22:53):
process is I'm on both ends of this. So I'm stepping into a new
role. But I'm also having to do what Rusty's doing on the backside and
fill my role. So it's helping me kind of be a good student in
this process for him because I'm having to do what he's doing on the
backside. So I'm getting both ends. And so it's like,
okay, I understand why you're doing that because I feel that too.
(23:13):
Is it hard? Yes. Is it annoying? Yes, but I get it because I'm
having to do the exact same thing. So the whole process has really been,
it's been good. So it's kind of alleviated some of those nerves just getting
to be able to process the whole thing as we go.
No, so I've done this. This is all new.
And so just kind of stepping into the unknown, right?
And so that's, that comes with some nerves naturally,
(23:33):
but also some, some excitement. Yeah, for 15 years,
Rusty's done things that has been done.
Oh, he's kind of used to that. So, so now for the next 15
years, you get to do that. Yeah,
there we go. There we go. And I'm watching if that favor leaves you.
Hey, let me know. Get out of here. Kick me out,
dude. If you see it, let me know. I know,
(23:56):
I think- I mean, you're joking, but I think that's important, man.
If you see- if you see someone struggling, sometimes we're blind to it,
right? So, I think that's important. Here's a- Questions popped from my head.
Our church is actually, we have three overseers.
Are those overseers going to stay the same or are they going to change?
Yeah, it's a good question. So we're, we're figuring that part out.
Um, they will change eventually. But I think we're,
we're kind of going to look at something. Again, we've never done this before.
(24:19):
Right. And so it's, it's figuring out, I think what we're going to look
at is bringing a couple new ones on because the,
the overseers, we have three, but it's actually a range.
You could have three to five. Oh, gotcha. And so I think we're going
to bring two new ones on and kind of do another overseer.
(24:44):
So that's currently the plan.
Again, we've never done it. So in our head,
it sounds like it's going to work okay. And so that's that's currently what
we're going to try out. Now are these going to be people that are
that know you and know you real well.
Kind of like what Rusty has. Yep. Yeah,
that's the goal, and it's, uh, it's supposed to be dudes that they know
(25:07):
me well, but they know me well enough to tell me when I'm screwing
up. Yeah. Like it can't just be like a friend, like it's gotta be
people who I know are gonna hold me, like hold me accountable.
And so that's always fun. Finding people who I think are like frenemies in
a sense, but like I trust so much. Like they're,
they're mentors. All right. Nice. You can have me as an overseer.
I'll just complain about everything. Why don't you put you an overseer to do
(25:27):
that? I do that every day. Well, because I don't have,
The ability to fire you. Oh,
that sounds fun. That's good. Give me all the authority.
Yeah, I mean, I'll complain every week until something happens.
And then I'll complain when you do it, what the way I do it,
you know, that sounds exciting. I'll put that in my notebook.
Yeah, just think about it. Yeah, I'll mold over. Just pray over here and
(25:49):
just see if that's the, Yikes.
Boy, you'd be so, you'd be fun. You'd be fun.
Kyle, I'm just gonna say, I hope you keep our church stocked better than
you keep the cafe stocked. Because we really need supplies in that cafe.
Okay. On Wednesday. So noted, noted,
noted. That's a good problem to have, right? Yeah.
Kids are buying all the goodies. Yeah. I'll take that. Luckily,
(26:09):
you don't run Mission Cafe, so, Aim into that. Even into that.
No, they stay straight. At least we won't starve.
Exactly. On Sunday, we won't. Yeah, they're kids resilient.
They're fine. They're fun. They'll bounce right back.
We kind of went into doing things health things have always been done.
And we always do things weird and different. Uh,
so the opposite of that would be, uh,
(26:30):
doing things we've always done. Yeah. Yeah. So we go do things we've always
done or we go keep doing things doing it the way we've always done
it. Like I'm keeping it weird. Church at large,
yeah, I understand. Yeah, so like we have red neck.
We have red neck Easter and weird events like that.
Yeah. Um, or even then sometimes those start to feel outplayed.
They can. Oh, yeah, you know, like we were at a church.
(26:52):
I was at it, I guess more, uh, where they started a,
uh, they kind of started doing the trunker treats.
Yeah. When before it was like a thing and like they would do it
this way. And then also every church around them was doing trunker treat.
And then we'd be like, okay, well, we need to stop doing trunker treat.
We need to do something else, you know. And so it was like,
that's how I feel kind of the last couple of years is like,
(27:12):
okay, we're, we're just kind of doing the same.
We're not doing any reinventing thing. If anything,
we're scaling back because everybody gets stressed out on Easter services for some reason.
Like I don't Understand it at all. Like me either because Easter is still
Easter. I mean, yeah, you have an influx of Every week is Easter.
Yeah, well, exactly. You do have an influx of people,
but I mean, we already know most of those people are just there for
(27:34):
Eastern Christmas. That's it. Why? I'm unpopular
opinion. Stop catering to them. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh. Yeah. I'm not going to get on my soapbox,
but stop catering to them. No, what I'm saying is like,
for years now we've done the parking lot, Yeah,
or whatever, the blow up stuff, you know, and so excited.
Again, another unpopular opinion. It's getting old. We're just repackaging it to something a
(27:58):
little different, but it is kind of the same. Process,
same vendors, you know, this kind of, so like, uh, you know,
we did the helicopter thing for a while and the people around here start
doing a helicopter egg drop, you know, so that's why we switched to something
else. Yeah. So like now everybody's kind of doing that thing.
So, you know, what's a secret sauce? What are we going to do next?
Yeah. It's a good question. What would you guys do? You will seem very
passionate. We could do drive by Easter, like,
(28:19):
you know, just throw an egg to go egg people. Yeah.
To actually I wouldn't be bad. Drive by Easter. Okay.
That's something different. It's like literally egg people.
Well, I mean, just essentially door to door Easter.
And we go and, uh, I mean, we already,
we just did door to door last week in house church.
Yep. Uh, yeah. But then,
what if we did a don't go to church Sunday on Easter and we
(28:41):
actually, we go out into the neighborhoods and minister and we take Easter to
the people. Yeah. That's different. That is different.
So that is different. I don't know. That's just the first thing popped up.
I don't, I don't have any ideas. I'm the guy that brings up the
problem. I don't free up solutions.
That's not my forte. Yeah. But you know what I mean?
Like that's part of it. Like we can easily get into like doing the
(29:02):
same cool things that are different still to a lot of people.
But for us now, they're becoming more mundane a little bit.
And I don't know. I just, uh,
so here, what is the target for Easter?
Well, I mean, who do you think it should be? Everybody, but. Uh,
at the same time, the unreached,
which is a target every Sunday, so why do a special Spectacle,
(29:23):
I mean, obviously, I know why Jesus rose for us.
Yeah. Uh, and we, that's why we celebrate that.
But why why such the spectacle on one Sunday and not every Sunday?
Yeah. Well, I mean, the logistical part of that is like one finances.
Like a lot of money goes into Easter and the planning and the prep
and all that. But then two, like you said it yourself earlier,
like a lot of the people that are there on Easter,
(29:45):
they only come like, they're like the CEOs, the Christmas and Easter is only,
right? So if those people are only going to be there a couple times
a year, do you think they know Jesus? And so we want to make
sure that we're doing something that one would excite and entice people to have
this invitational heart that they should already have,
but most of the time that's not the case. It's not the,
it's not like the reality. And so if we're able to create something to
(30:05):
where people are invitational and then we know when they get there,
because what we do as far as our worst spin counter,
It's not different. There's not this bait and switch thing.
It's not like, hey, on this particular Sunday,
we're going to do 14 songs and we're going to have strobe lights.
We don't do anything different. We still have our same process.
We do it through the same structure and the same flow.
(30:27):
And so then if they came back the following week, it's not like they
showed up for something and then it's totally different.
And I've been a part of churches that that is the case. And that
I don't like that. But I think doing Doing things,
like doing things that are coolin' out of the box and fun,
in the parking lot, again, it's outside of our church building,
so it's in the community, you know quote unquote,
(30:47):
tour people can see it, like That's why it's not parking lot.
So when people drive by, like, if they're driving,
if they're driving by, they're, they're probably not in a church because we're doing
this during church time, right? So we want to be able to see,
like, dang, what was happening there? Like, I want to be a part of
that. So the whole idea behind doing things in the parking lot,
again, is kind of evangelical. It's, it's imitational by nature.
Um, can it get old? Yeah. Can it get like kind of like,
(31:09):
oh, here we go again, for those of us who have done it for
a lot of years, but for that first time person, for them,
it's mind blowing. Like, dude, this is a church.
You guys are having mutton bustin' and this is a church.
Like, how does that even work? And so, I think all of the things
that we're feeling, we want us to be more creative and do something fresh
and do something new, but at the same time, you kind of have to
view it through the context of that person who doesn't go to church also.
(31:32):
It's like, okay, well, if I've, Never seen this before,
and this is my first interaction with the church,
or maybe it's my first interaction in a lot of years when I was
hurt when I was younger. Like that, to me,
that feels good to have this, this environment where it could be fun for
the whole family. Like that's key too. It's not just cater towards the youth,
it's not just cater towards the kids, it's like this whole family thing.
(31:52):
So I don't know. I mean, I think we should be creative and continue
to flex and bend with like what's happening, but still need to be able
to have this imitational space to bring.
Bring people in. I will say one thing that I have been harping on
for like four or five years now. And this is coming when you're bringing
up the worship. We don't change anything about it. I think,
and I have been mad about this every year,
(32:14):
right? Well,
I don't usually play on the Easter weekends or whatever.
I don't know reason why I think last year I did the,
um, I did the like online production stuff,
the coordinating stuff. But I never like sign up for anything because usually last
last minute. There'll be a gap in the production side of things.
So I'm usually always just ready. But for me,
(32:36):
I have always, and we're doing it again this year,
we're doing a new song, we're doing like a song that's fairly new,
and then a song that we did last week or whatever.
And most of our staff at this point are not even in that service.
And so I hate worship and counter.
Thank you, Andrew. Okay,
let's, okay, we're not going there. But same thing,
(32:58):
second verse. I think. Because basically you're gonna be in that service,
it's gonna be like, completely silent.
Just the band playing, nobody's really gonna be singing along,
they don't- Our people don't even know this song, they're not comfortable with.
I think it should always be the best of Sunday.
Yeah. Most of our people aren't in there anyway. We should be playing the
songs that everybody sings the loudest,
(33:19):
the craziest, the most excited. Yeah. It could be the re-teaching of the sermon
that we, Get hype. Yeah. We'll just turn a,
turn a Wednesday up on a Sunday. Exactly. Yeah.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, we did that coming back from,
Being cut off a couple weeks on a Wednesday. I did every song that
I knew was going to wear everybody out.
Bring out the bangers. Exactly. Why not?
One, probably 20% of the people in the crowd are going to our church
(33:43):
right now. Yep. And so if, if those people are silent,
why the other people think that this isn't a very exciting place.
Nobody here is really excited that go here.
You know what I mean? So I've always just, every year we do that.
We do like, not the most popular songs and we try to throw in
like a cool new Easter song. Yeah. Why all of our people are in
the parking lot, helping out with the stuff. I don't get it.
(34:04):
Yeah. Anyway, that's, that's my rant. That's a great rant actually.
It's a solid rant. Solid rant. I said that every year.
I haven't heard that, but that's That's a very good question,
and uh, point you bring it. And that takes the stress away from everybody
else that's trying to plan this cool and be a part of the production
side of it. We're doing the songs that we're that we know we can
do. I can show up right now in 30 minutes before we go and
(34:46):
I mean, does he just pee a little further?
I can't see what happens. Don't do that.
Own people aren't energetic or excited to be there,
then why come back? Yeah, and we do, we're doing this massive spectacle to
attract people. Yeah. It's just perception.
But it's going to, yeah, it's going to seem lame if no one's singing.
(35:07):
Yeah, I agree. I'm asked great. I agree.
Do you think in general, because I mean, you guys have been,
you've both been at CTM 15 years.
A long time. Yep. 15 years. And so how have you seen our,
like, worship through song, okay?
It's, it's worship. Like how have you seen our worship culture shift?
We're have you. Well, we've introduced prayer time,
uh, long prayer time. Yeah.
(35:29):
Uh, we've, uh, introduced,
um, tithing into the worship section and,
and really focused on giving our tith is worship.
Yeah. And I mean, that's changed my mind set about tithing,
honestly. Yep. Um, so I mean, I've seen a huge shift in our worship
because we've, we incorporate everything essentially,
except for the message into worship. Yep. Um,
(35:52):
I, Yes, I see all the stuff you say in here.
I guess for me coming from a guy who likes music,
because you're not really into the music anyway. Um,
I think sometimes all those stops are hard to build any kind of fluid.
I think the last few weeks we haven't really done an interruption in between.
Have you liked that? Um, I have. Yeah.
It's been intentional. That's been a creative shift.
(36:14):
A creative shift. Um, I mean, I've stopped playing on Sundays and prefer
Wednesdays because of some of That's why I don't like Sundays.
Like Sundays, Sundays is a like,
you know, one, it's a longer commitment. It's about a four to five hour
commitment on a Sunday. Yeah. Wednesdays is about a two to three or really
three to four. But when Russy first started Church of Matters,
(36:37):
it The joke that I always had is we did every youth ministry thing
at the very beginning. Like that first two years was like we're always doing
a game on stage. Yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, sometimes two or three games.
I do miss the games. I do miss the fun stuff. We only do
that on Christmas and Easter and Easter.
Yeah. Um, but like we would do like some games on stage.
(36:58):
We would have some like Longer worship times and shorter sermon times and
it's kind of not that I hate necessarily sermons But it doesn't always have
to be the same like we have it so structured as far as very
this sermon time is 40 minutes Well, this guy probably sounds great for 20
minutes Yeah, but now you know But when he tries to extend it 40
(37:18):
minutes, it's not like that's not his thing and that shouldn't be his you
know, you can always like You know, add some more things.
I always, I always hated, as a worship leader on Sundays.
Uh, a song was always the thing that was cut. It was never the
message time. It was always, if we wanted to do something cool,
we lose a song. Yeah. So then like, why am I showing up at
six, or waking up at six, 30, showing up at seven to play two
(37:40):
songs? Yeah. You know, and I'm here until 11,
30, you know, like that's, that was always my,
uh, My rant on Sundays, and so now I try to just quit it
all together, but I do commit to one Sunday amount.
Has the pillar moved dusty? The pillar moved.
Yeah. Uh, no, well, kind of, I guess,
like, I've more committed on Wednesday nights.
(38:02):
Yeah. Because I was just coming and singing and leaving.
And so that was the shift I did. It was like,
now I will be a small group leader. Yeah. Now I will do a
little bit more. Yeah, pillar moved. Yeah. Nice.
Look at that call back. Good job,
Andrew. Thanks. You're more than just a pretty face.
I saw that. Yeah. So that's,
that's my two cents on it. Yeah. But I do miss the games.
(38:22):
I do miss like the fun stuff. Right. The games were fun.
It seems so, like, it seems so, like,
minute by minute sometimes. Yeah. All the time.
And then the prayer thing can extend, but then as an introvert,
those are always awkward to me. So, I know.
When you have to get in with a group with, like, five or six
people, I'm like, uh, yeah.
(38:42):
Cause yeah, the introvert, I used to be an extrovert.
Not anymore. I'm an introvert. Stay away from me people.
Yeah. That's kind of where I'm at now. Andrew needs some spirits.
Not just the Holy Spirit. Yeah,
so anyway, so that's best interesting.
Listen, how did this get turned around to us getting interviewed?
(39:04):
Do like that? Yeah. Do you like that? No,
I don't. I mean,
I like to, because we didn't have a dead air there for a second.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.
You're welcome. Well, you want to ask Dusty any more questions?
Yeah, look. I'm-I'm a knowledge of ideas,
and uh, He can bring up the problems.
(39:25):
No, his brain's in encyclopedia, baby.
That's right. That's right. So, Dusty,
what other problems do you have? Yeah, this is,
this is fun. Here's a problem with Rusty.
No. No, he, he even all,
cause I've always been saying like youth pastors and children pastors should be like
streaming after school, like on YouTube or something for kids to come home and
watch. Yeah. And you know what Rusty said to me? Do it.
(39:47):
Do it. Yep. So, you know what I didn't do. Didn't do it.
I was like, I worked. I mean,
that's, that's how I got into youth ministry.
You know, 12 years ago was that same conversation of like,
man, why, do you guys have this? Well, no, well, why not?
We'll do it. Yeah. Here we are. So sometimes it takes,
sometimes it actually works. Oh, yeah. People get, people get hooked.
(40:07):
We did it for a little bit during COVID. And it was great.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it could be,
I just had like a vision of it being bigger and being more of
a connector with all youth ministries at the end of it.
Yeah. I can do it. Are you ready to become a streamer?
Or a gamer anyways? Dude,
listen, if I had the time, I would play games more right now.
(40:28):
I have not gotten to, I have an Xbox that is sitting in,
like our sectional's got like little storage containers in it.
And I have an Xbox that has been sitting in that storage container for
two, almost two and a half years now.
Just collecting, it makes me sad. Yeah,
there's a PlayStation there if you would like. There's an Xbox in here.
Let's go. I mean, you got to PC right there.
(40:50):
I did. So I talked Carla into letting me buy a Switch.
So I've got a switch that I've gotten to play, like,
twice in the last six or seven months, so that was cool.
But I found a cheat code and I found a way to download,
like, ROMs on my phone. So now I can play,
like, all the old-school gameboy, like, Pokemon games.
I'm like, I'm kind of a nerd. I got, like, the nerd out a
(41:11):
little bit, specifically with Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.
You know, there it is. There's my closet's empty now.
But, uh, so now, you know,
on bathroom breaks, I get to play, like,
Pokemon Gold.
(41:34):
I don't know if I'll cut this out of the podcast yet,
but we'll see. But you've heard the joke, like, what are you doing in
there and you're like, p***? Because that's better than what you're probably doing,
which is so nerdy.
That's funny. Oh god. Anyway,
all right. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast,
man. Uh, sorry, Andrew was late after this whole back and forth texting and
(41:55):
making sure we're here on time at 8.30 and then Andrew doesn't,
is the one it doesn't show up. I'm pulling at 8.30 on the minute.
Well, that's usually how he rolls up on the minute,
but uh, that's why I said a 40 thinking that you would be on
time early and then that would give Andrew a buffer and,
like, you make coffee and all that kind of stuff.
And I just completely made a solid cup of coffee.
(42:15):
Thank you, man. It was good. That is My basically only choice around this
house is to make sure the coffee is in the wrist of the house.
You did a fantastic job. My mind is gone.
The, the wells run dry over here. We'll guess what.
We can reload if we need. Let's just do another episode here.
Let's just keep it rolling. Yeah. I mean, I'm on the clock at work
(42:36):
who cares. I did say something to him yesterday and he was like,
oh, yeah. So now you work from home. So your podcast is back.
Uh, that's pretty crazy. And I was like, yeah, I got all the stuff
to bring home now. Yeah. Yeah. It's been great.
Thanks. Thanks for, thanks for supporting me boss.
Thanks for doing that. Yeah. Thanks for being on podcast.
We're here every week ish.
(42:57):
And so. You know, come back whenever you feel like it.
Just don't make us ask you. Just say, hey, I got something to talk
about and we're like, cool. Well, hopefully, hopefully this was helpful.
I mean, I know you guys, you had some questions. I don't know if
I answered all of them. I was able to kind of turn a couple
of them back on you guys. Like more like Matt,
people can hear this that go to our church and they'll be like,
oh, okay, I cannot leave the church when we're asking.
Like maybe I can stay, you know, this you a little bit of an
(43:19):
interest. I'm still on the fence. Yeah. Fair enough.
Fair enough. I'm gonna save my tithe money separately and just make sure things
He's work out, put it in a little account for now.
It'll be an interest earning account.
So it's 11% by the end of it.
So that's your actually better off. 10.04%.
Yeah. Or we put it all on the thunder winning on the championship
(43:42):
and hey, and you get. A little bit bigger,
because you know. It's called favor.
Is that favor exist? Let's test it. Let's throw out.
It's called something. Was it a lot that threw out stuff?
Or was it a lot? Are you saying a lot because it would be
like casting a lot? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Who was the guy that had like thrown out,
(44:05):
like tested the Lord? Tested the Lord. Yeah,
it was like test the Lord to.
God. Let's say, uh, let's say Michael because oh god.
Don't say my okay. I accidentally called Satan Michael and hold the
whole story and then he let me finish the entire thing and sounds stupid
(44:25):
or he corrected me. What a friend and I left it in the podcast
because I just want people to know I am stupid.
So what a friend we have in Andrew right?
I really I just wanted him to keep saying the music is of Satan
Yeah, yeah, that was a good podcast.
That's a that's a whole other little can of worms right there.
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that's this podcast, man. We open up the can of worms
(44:48):
and we let you guys figure it out. That was a man.
That one's real, dude. Bring me back for that one.
That one's real. The power of music is so real.
Absolutely. We actually, so that was the podcast that Dusty just released,
was that one, but we could do a follow-up, but it was more on
the Christian music. Uh,
can also lead people astray. Not, not,
(45:08):
not, and I didn't take it. We didn't take it the lyric way.
We took it like emotional. The,
the timing of songs that we sing just so you know,
is we just had those fires happen and then I got requested to sing
the song Fire and Wind. Yeah. Maybe,
maybe, maybe, you know, and let's read the room.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. There's, there was a study I looked into,
(45:29):
gosh, probably like five or six years ago and your brain Reacts the same
way when you have the haze and the lights and all the things your
brain reacts the exact same way as if you were watching p**********.
As far as like dopamine effect. Yes. And so people can get addicted to
the worship, you know, atmosphere being created.
(45:49):
And so then that becomes like, it becomes like your p***,
like worship p*** almost. And that was a different message I listened to before.
It was wild. You said p***, so I'll leave that joke in here now.
Dude, you need to preach with hazing lights now.
Oh really keep people awake them up,
right? Yeah, okay, that's why I don't preach very long anymore My first dude,
(46:11):
my first time, we're all there the first Sunday at CTM when I preached,
never preached for like an hour. It was horrible. Yes.
It was like an hour and 15 minutes. One of those guys that sounded
really good at 20 minutes. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. It sounded good for like 10 minutes. The very first thing out of
my mouth was making a joke about Rusty for how long he preached and
how I'm not going to do that. And then I went longer than he'd
ever gone. It was so bad.
(46:32):
So now I'm like a solid 30 to 35-ish minutes and I'm gone.
That's usually this podcast. Usually. Oh,
what I was going to say with that The haze situation, that's why everybody
always comes back from these conferences and these like the Like these,
uh, worship experiences and you're like, we have to do this song.
Yeah. I was like, it was the because of where you heard it in
the moment that you heard it. Yeah. It does not have the same effect
(46:55):
in a smaller room with a smaller beginning.
With the voice I can't hit bass notes.
That's true. Okay. All right. This has become a back.
All right. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for listening, guys. Hopefully you learned something.
Hopefully I talked better and Okay,
(47:18):
let's get out of here. See you guys. Take it easy.
See you later.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Bible Bell Bros podcast!
I've got myself here in Andrew here.
What's up guys? And then last week I felt like I was a little
too ranty on pastors.
It really was church leadership technically,
not just pastors, but people that are leaders of different ministries.
(00:32):
Right. Complaining about them, and so I figured what's the best thing to do
is to bring a pastor on to make sure that we balance the scales
a bit. So we can bash them in person.
Yeah. Uh, bash them in person.
So, except he's a little bigger than both of us.
And this guy's kind of, he's kind of a pastor,
he's a youth pastor. Oh, so half pastor.
(00:54):
So he doesn't technically count yet,
but come, come in, uh, was it September?
September October time for him, yeah. Then, then his opinion will matter.
So, uh, everybody, welcome to the podcast, uh,
Kyle Henderson. Yeah, that, that is my name.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for having me. Here's the applause. Kyle,
(01:15):
uh, It's been a while since we've had somebody on a podcast.
I don't know how to interview people. Well, first off,
uh, most people don't know us in this,
like our podcasts, most people listen outside of,
Our internal group, cuz I know that we're all idiots.
Yeah, but Australia for some reason they don't think we're idiots and they like
(01:36):
us. Yeah, they like us. That's That's good. So, uh,
shout out Brett. Uh, so Kyle,
tell us a little bit about yourself, uh, your ministry ladder that you've been
growing. Hey, look at this. That's an actual red-winged blackbird.
We need shade. We need shade to be able to see this now.
Oh, yeah. Sorry. There's, uh, our bird feeder,
camera, stream on YouTube is,
(01:57):
Got a lot of birds on it today, uh, because we got a storm
coming in. When the storm comes in, birds go and they store,
they can store up a little bit. So, uh,
anyway, Kyle, tell us a little bit about you,
who you are, and why you're in ministry.
Yeah. So, uh, my name's Kyle and,
man, I've been in ministry now for.
I guess a, I guess a little over a decade started about a Bible
(02:20):
studying college kind of where ministry took off from me and then just kind
of hopped around a little bit. Carlin, I were, uh,
we were here at church that matters. Gosh,
I guess almost 12 years ago now it's been and we launched the youth
ministry 12 years ago and then that kind of spurred us on.
Since then we've been able to live in six different states and get to
do ministry indifferent. Geographic areas,
(02:43):
we've been in Colorado, we've been in the kind of upper Midwest,
we've been on the East Coast, and for us it's been great.
We've got to see different contexts, got to see how God is global,
but the culture definitely kind of dictates how you get to share,
share the love of Jesus. And so for us, it's helped grew us into
better, better leaders, better disciple makers.
Um, so we got the opportunity to come home October of 22,
(03:05):
Carla that we found out Carla's dad had cancer. And so that that was
already some of those kind of Trying to bring us back home and then
the same day we found out he had cancer or rusty cold and offered
me this position. Um, so that was kind of like a god got thing
bring us bring us home. So that got us back here.
Uh, my my official title is the executive pastor of next gen ministries
(03:26):
and house churches. Um, I feel like that's a title that just makes you
do more things for the same pay. It it absolutely is.
Absolutely. It sounds fancier than youth pastor.
So that's that's why they gave me the the fun.
Fun title there. It helps some adults listen to me
and then most of them are kind of like you guys are like, oh
yeah, he's a youth pastor. Well listen to him occasionally.
(03:49):
It reminds me of the corporate ladder structure where people do get like random
title. Like I changed my title on LinkedIn a million times because just whatever.
Right. It's just a title. Yeah, titles don't really matter.
They don't matter, but uh, people people like to live.
People like titles. They do love titles.
Yeah, yeah, uh, so at the center. Well, so at least it's work.
(04:09):
Uh, everybody seems to be a vice president of something.
Yeah. And so there's nobody in that department.
Right. There's nobody. They are the only person, but they're the vice president of
it. So the only person and why can't they be the president of that
department? You know, because you can only have one president.
It's a title matter, I guess. Right. I'm my LinkedIn.
I'm the director of uh, search engine marketing,
uh, consulting. And I'm basically it for that
(04:33):
department. Yeah. Fine as some virtualists.
So at the veteran center, we did the same thing and everybody's a vice
president. So like Karen's vice president of Treasury.
That's awesome. I'm the president. Uh, so I'm again,
I'm the only president, but everybody else is a vice president.
So you're the king. You're king and castle. That's right.
That's awesome. So yeah, titles don't matter, but you know,
we still want them. They're fun. I do want to thank you and also
(04:55):
especially thank your wife for holding off.
I'm telling you, man. I mean, she's,
she's a troupe. I'm surprised you don't have a packed in the car.
Just ready to go in case. We thought about it.
We thought about it. I have the hospital bag. I got the baby car
seat in the car right now. Just in case I got to zip back
a cross down and snagger. But yeah, we're literally any day.
(05:17):
For reference, his wife is pregnant. I was going to leave him on a
cliffhanger. Not tell them,
but okay, Dusty, wait a minute. Very,
very pregnant. Like two years pregnant.
It seems like it. It seems like it.
Yeah, no, the due date was the 10th, and now we're a little over
a week past that. And so we're, yeah, we're,
we're ready. We're ready. Well, thanks for being here.
(05:38):
Absolutely. Sorry I was late again. Absolutely. Probably think.
Carla more than thinking. Yeah, thank you.
Shut up. All right, so you've grown into youth ministry.
You came back here, church, the matters,
and then you haven't left. And then now you're going to be,
uh, the senior pastor. How's God been pulling you in that direction of a
call? Whenever we moved back home,
(05:59):
the plan, which, you know, if you want to make God laugh,
tell him your plan, right? And so our plan was kind of this like
five year plan. And we had it all worked out.
To where we were going to kind of be in this role for about
two years and find someone else to come in and take over the youth
ministry and my goal was to kind of train them up and equip them
with the things that we've grown to know over the last ten years.
(06:20):
And then after that point we were going to start a church planting residency
and we were going to walk through the residency program and plant our own
church. So that was that was the plan.
Whenever we whenever we moved home, that was the kind of the the game
plan there. And then after I got back,
we pretty Pretty quickly, I-I realize that.
Maybe I'm not supposed to plan a church. I've seen it done now.
In this context close up with with Rusty and this is process and everyone's
(06:44):
asked me when I said yeah, I'm going to play in a church someday.
Where are you going to do that at? Oh, I don't know. Well, who,
who, like, when? I don't know. It's just like these big question marks and
those things are important. Like, you should probably know the win and the where.
Uh, and, and we're not necessarily up until this point.
We haven't really been passionate about any place.
It's just kind of been like this generation that I've been passionate about.
(07:05):
And so that started to kind of shift my heart a little bit into
more of a leadership heart of like, How can I lead and equip this
next generation who's very much looked at as the church of tomorrow,
but I see them for the ability they have to be the church of
today. And so that's kind of shifted my perspective a little bit.
And so getting opportunity to step into a lead role, that man,
I think that's going to be cool to be able to be in that
(07:26):
spot where we can continue to dream about what it would look like to
equip this next generation, but then have the ability and the capacity to just
do it. Like not just talk about it, but to actually actually get to
do it. I think leading adults is gonna suck.
I mean, I just say- I mean,
I agree. Yeah, people like me that- That me.
It was, uh, excuse me. I think- I think leading all the- Other adults
(07:47):
are going to be great. I think leading you to is going to. Oh,
yeah, tricky. I can see that actually since we come on the podcast afterwards
and they talk about you. Exactly. Exactly. Then I get to come back and
listen to it. And then I know I know we were your studio is.
I can hold you. I'm just a mile from the church.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I was told to
me and why I say I think it's going to suck or whatever is
one of the guys at the, uh, revival that was speaking on the last
(08:11):
night. He said that, uh, the reason youth ministry is so awesome is because
A lot of most of the youth haven't been bogged down by life.
Yeah. Haven't had all like Been hurt by so many people.
So you get almost a hundred percent buy-in on a lot of these things.
When they get saved, there's just a hundred percent buy-in that they'll just do
(08:31):
whatever you tell them, whatever their leadership tells them,
whatever the Lord's telling them, like they're just a hundred percent all in.
Where then when you have adults like us, that have been like cynical,
cynical, been hurt by the church, maybe we've had just experience like this is
the same thing, same same thing, you know,
we're seeing how the sausage is made. Right.
The behind the scene. And so then you just like like those people don't
(08:52):
buy But then you also need them to pay.
So then you have to like cater to them to make sure that they're
following the command to tie, but then at the same time.
You have to also lead them and make them mad in the process because
most of the time if you're leading us in the right direction,
the sheep aren't wanting to go that direction. That's the harder direction.
(09:12):
Call back from last week. Sheeper stupid. Sheeper stupid.
Yeah. And you need to protect us from ourselves.
That's what I said. And so that's what I, like,
I think you're going to have maybe a different shift is people aren't going
to buy in us. 100%. Maybe as a general if I'm going to think
you're 100% correct. I think it wasn't my thing.
It was a boy you're saying, but I think the What's kind of unique
(09:33):
and what's been really cool to be able to look back kind of last
18 months or so with like our church and our peoples.
It's been this new wave of people who've,
came into our church and it's a lot of people who don't have church
experience and they don't have this church hurt that you're talking about.
They don't have these preconceived ideas of what it's supposed to be like and
so they come to a place where we do things a little different like
(09:54):
we are a little weird and we are a little creative and a little
red neck and a little out there and I think that's what sets us
apart and I so you have people who are coming to know Jesus for
the first time in this is their context and so that same idealism of
like man kids are awesome because they just buy in.
In a sense this is just gonna Like all these fresh people,
it's kind of like just an older youth ministry in that context where they're
(10:15):
all coming into Jesus at the same time. And so that,
that is cool. You've got this level of excitement,
which meant like the best, the best evangelist for people who have known Jesus
for less than three years. And so our church is going to become this,
uh, this movement in our town. Hopefully it's what the prayer is of these
adults now who are coming to know Jesus and they're kind of jacked up
for them and they're ready to go share. Coming into a church,
(10:36):
I mean, you, you were with us. Almost since the very beginning,
and then you've come back. Now coming into the church has very been very
successful in San Springs and in the community that we are part of.
Uh, and we're not a mega church, but we are,
uh, my opinion, humble opinion. We are an amazing church.
Is that make you nervous stepping into that role rather than maybe starting
(10:58):
your own and starting from scratch? Yes and no.
I mean, there's components of it. That,
I think the nerves would come from just not wanting to screw something up,
you know what I mean? And it's like, all of the things that do
scare me, that do make me nervous, it's all,
it's all Kyle driven. It's all like,
from man's perspective, but man just seeing how God's kind of orchestrated
(11:20):
all this and laid it out, that's what gives me the confidence.
It's definitely not my ability, because I feel like I'm,
like, not ready, not qualified, ill-equipped,
all the things. But, God,
I think. I think that's what's going to kind of spur us on.
And, man, if it was just me, I'd be, I'd be terrified.
We have such a good team. And like our other pastors on staff are
(11:40):
incredible. We're unique in the sense that we have a preaching team.
And so like that helps alleviate some of that burden of feeling like you
have to prepare a message every Sunday, get it ready,
and then you have the meetings on top of that throughout the week.
And if I'm still going to have to backfill as the youth pastor for
a season, like all of those things kind of pile up on top of
each other. So if I was having to do all that and preach every
Sunday, that would be miserable. But I think our team is just so
(12:05):
equipped for this, for this next season.
So I'm like I'm excited. Am I nervous? Absolutely.
Am I scared? Absolutely. But I'm really excited about what this is going
to look like. So yeah,
yes. Great explanation.
Uh, I am going to need you to call, uh, Matt Burnett and say
Nana and Boo Boo were better. Uh, our youth pastor became pastor first.
(12:28):
So I'm sure he'll love that. I'm sure he'll love that.
Uh, Matt and I, every time we see each other, it's,
uh, you know, I always show up and be like,
don't worry, the church that matters is you. We got you.
Yeah. Including last night at the dinner.
So one of the things I wanted to talk about is we did just
recently our church did a creative ministry outreach to the schools and
(12:53):
just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about You know,
that's, that's part of our, we, we call it our core value is doing
things, funnily doing things creative out of the box.
Yep. So talk a little bit about what we just did and then kind
of the mentality of behind that and why that is more than just the
act. Yeah. Are you sure about the shoe giveaway? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So we, let me get my notes out so I can find out
(13:14):
where to get these shoes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And do you have any extra sizes? Size 11?
Yeah. So, man, yeah, we, we were blessed from one of our,
our partners to, uh, Get- get the- The ability to give away some
cool shoes. Maybe we're able to give away some, some Jordan ones.
Uh, we have an alternative high school here in our town and we're able
to have every kid in the school,
(13:36):
uh, come into their student lounge and we had a team of,
uh, I think there was seven of us in there.
Uh, and so four of us were able to sit down and kind of
fit kids for shoes and we, we physically like help take their shoes off.
We fit the, we try to kind of model like what Jesus did when
he washes his disciples feet a little bit. And so that kind of freaked
him out. They're like, hey, don't, don't touch my Dogs man,
(13:56):
but uh, dude, it was awesome. And so every single kid came in and
we got to fit them. Like for a pair of shoes that that actually
fit their feet, and then we gave them a pair of Jordan ones.
And so it was this really cool shoe, this trendy shoe so they were
able to still kind of like look cool. It wasn't something that looked cheap
or looked like it was a hammy down. Like this was straight out of
the box, a nice, nice Jordan one. Uh,
(14:16):
and then everyone of the kids got invited to church,
got invited to the youth ministry, and we got to kind of build some
relationship there. But man, it was, it was awesome.
We had, uh, one kid I got to interact with,
went out in the hallway, had a conversation. He had just had a lot
of questions about how to pray. And what that even meant and we know
getting to pray and let him to the Lord in the hallway over a
pair of, pair of Jordans, dude. So it was incredible.
(14:36):
Like it was incredible. But uh, Michael Wilson's our outreach pastor and he did
such a good job of just coordinating all this with the school and with
our, our partners to be able to get all the supplies.
And it's awesome. Like I said, our team. Like,
our team is incredible. I had nothing to do with that. Like,
that was totally planned by someone else and I just got to show up
and and be a part of it and then get to pray with somebody
else. Like, our team is awesome. And so this was just kind of the,
(14:59):
the ultimate example of that. And it's like, that's out of the box,
man, to go and be able to put shoes on feet and get out,
you know, get those interactions and the teachers got to walk through and see
the whole thing happening because they walked their kids to this,
to the student lounge. And it was cool. It was really cool.
And so why do, why is it important to, to kind of do things
like that? So your meeting like a tangible need. Right,
and so I think often as, as Christians,
(15:21):
at least in our context, not everywhere, but here in the Bible belt,
this cultural Christianity is rampant,
and it's so easy just to be like, oh, you're struggling?
Okay, I'll pray for you. Well, I just help them.
Like if they didn't, if they're struggling, and you know what they're struggling with,
just help them. Like, Acts 2,
42, 347, right? Like they, they gave everything to be together with the church,
(15:42):
and so if we have the means to do it,
Do it. Don't just say hey, I'll pray for you.
Like if we could be about it, let's be about it. And so I
think we do a pretty good job and we try to do that. Like
whether it's food, like feeding our community, we do a great job of that,
whether it's financial assistance,
we help with that. Our house churches do a great job of kind of
meeting needs within our church. And yeah,
I think it's important. So like, okay, so meeting the shoes,
(16:05):
shoes need. That's one. And now I saw that.
We had a video. I saw your Dogs hanging out there in the video.
Oh, yeah, I was wearing tacos, dude. My little Florida's were dangling out there.
They were all over the place. But uh, what are some other creative ideas
that other churches could kind of maybe take the idea from us and go
with it? Where's the other things that we've done? Yeah, so I think,
(16:26):
Well, man, just like food distributions, like the things that we've done for a
long time that kind of feel to us like,
oh, yeah, we've always done that. Like food distributions is one,
um, by a county shop. Yeah, yeah,
but by a county shop. But I mean,
honestly, the like the heartbeat behind that is like have a,
have a, a ministry in the marketplace where you hire someone and then offer,
offer meals for people who are experiencing homelessness. Like,
(16:47):
there's a lot of things with the nap. But I think the,
the deeper issue is churches get so stuck in their ways and they get
so used to Like, I hate this sentence.
Well, in the past we've, fill in the blank.
That's a cuss word, dude. Like, if you, if you say that,
you're stagnant. If you say that, you're stale, you need to get some creative
juices flowing. And so I think anything that a church is doing,
(17:09):
and that's how the conversation starts,
it's like, well, in the past, we've always done this,
or we've always done it this way. I think if you, if you start
it that way, throw it up on the board and say, okay,
this is how it's always been. What would the opposite of this look like?
How could we, how could we recreate our processes to still accomplish the same
goal, but we want it to look different.
(17:29):
We want it to be fun, be energetic, be whatever.
And I think those are, those are the conversations that we kind of lead
with at CTM, which makes us, that's what makes us unique.
And so instead of saying, how would a traditional church accomplish this goal,
we're like, how can we be really weird and make this happen?
And so those things have kind of been what,
what spur us on, but And ultimately they get the most shares and most
(17:50):
people start talking about it, you know. Yeah.
And I think one thing that makes our church a little different than others
is most of the things that we're trying to do are not bringing people
into our building. It's, it's trying to go wherever they're at.
Absolutely. Yeah. Um, like the food distribution even,
like, we have to do that somewhere and it's in our parking lot.
But we're not saying, Hey, come to church and then as you leave,
(18:10):
go get some food. Well, even our parking lot's different,
right? Like it doesn't look like your traditional church building.
It's like in a strip center. So when you come into our parking lot,
you see 20 other businesses.
And so it's like, which one do I go to? Which ones? So even
that in itself is kind of unique. I'm going kind of real back to
where I asked about if you're nervous,
um, because I know Dusty's all,
(18:32):
you know, outside ministry and get your take on all that.
I want to know your feelings and all that.
So what's it go be like having We're in a unique situation where our
lead pastor actually is not leaving the church.
He's still going to be there. So is that going to make you nervous?
I like. I want to know those type of thoughts like you want to
know inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(18:54):
Uh, no. So Rusty's, Rusty's been my,
He's my spiritual dad. And so he's the one who anything that I know
really how to do when it pertains to house church and like really my
initial entry in the ministry, he, he showed me how to do it.
Um, now if you, you both know Rusty,
so when I say he showed me how to do it, that meant he
said, oh, go do this. And I'm gonna tell you how you messed up.
(19:15):
Yeah. And so I got to learn like trial by fire a lot,
which was great. Like it was very hands on.
He gives you the opportunity to just go and try.
And then if it messes up, okay, well let's talk about how How that
went, why, why did it mess up? And so, again,
it makes you, makes you think, it makes you process.
And a lot of the things that I had done early on that did
fail, those things came from, well,
(19:37):
in the past I. And so then he's like,
okay, well, that, that doesn't work anymore. And so, even his vision of,
of being unique and being outside of the box,
right? What the church called the box when you do outside the box things.
So, there is that level of, well,
my dad's, my dad's here. Like I got like this,
my spiritual father's here. But with that, it's like,
oh, my dad's watching. Yes. And so there is that level of intensity and
(19:59):
that level of like, okay, I don't want to mess this up. Like this
is his baby. And so there's, there's obviously,
there's some nerves that come with that. But I think the overwhelming sense of
comfort knowing that he's not going anywhere far,
like they far exceed the nerves of him watching because it doesn't feel like
a, oh, it's a washful eye so he could see how I've messed up
(20:19):
and like wag the finger. It's more like, okay.
Let's have a conversation about this because he's,
he's done this and this is like, he launched CTM 15 years ago and
in a house and a house church and so for him,
this is like, this is his vision, this is his baby and he's trusting,
like he's trusting God and trusting me in that process to be able to
take it to the next level in the next space,
(20:40):
which I feel like, I feel like I have the capacity to do.
I think what CTM needs next is something that God's equipped me with,
and so just kind of setting into that and knowing that we still get
to do it together, but he gets to kind of just sit back in
an enjoy now, and he gets to really do what God's calling him into
next. I was talking, we were talking about this on Wednesday,
(21:01):
like, people ask me, how do you know when a season is ending?
Like, how do you know when it's actually time to move on,
and I was listening to this other podcast, and they said immediately,
once the grace is lifted. When you're in ministry,
when you're in a role and you have this capacity that doesn't make any
sense, you get to do things and accomplish things that everyone else looks at
and they're like, dude, how do you even do this? Like,
(21:23):
that sounds hard. That sounds like a lot. And your responses are like,
well, I don't know. I just, I just do it. Rest he's done that
for 15 years, man. Like, the things he's done,
the things he's accomplished, everyone looks at and like, how'd you do that?
How'd you get into the school system? How'd you get into this ministry?
How'd you get in with this, I don't know, I've done it.
He's put in the work. And he's had God's grace in that.
And so that kind of answer of like, man, once the graces lift the
(21:45):
things that have always sounded and been easy,
it could be overnight. Like, when the pillar moves,
man, the next day, something that was easy can be hard.
And I feel like Rusty has felt that. And so being torn to follow
this pillar into this send network to be this church planning catalyst for this
movement that we need. Like, we, we need it drastically.
And so for him to be this catalyst for that movement,
(22:08):
like, that's where the pillar is. That's why he's able to now do things
that to us sound super hard, but to him,
it seems a little easier. And he's, he works hard. I'm not saying that,
but just the grace that he's getting in these opportunities is because God's grace
is there. And things back home here that used to be super simple,
like having a conversation about the HVAC not working or figuring out why the
fridge is down. Now we got to fix the freezer because we had things
(22:30):
go bad before, like all those things that you Should just be easy conversations
are now hard. And it, and it tears him in two different spots.
And so, to me, that has been a clear answer.
Like this, this is happening. And so now we're able to kind of follow
that pillar with Rusty as I step in to a new area
of God's grace and leadership too. And then what's really been unique in this
(22:53):
process is I'm on both ends of this. So I'm stepping into a new
role. But I'm also having to do what Rusty's doing on the backside and
fill my role. So it's helping me kind of be a good student in
this process for him because I'm having to do what he's doing on the
backside. So I'm getting both ends. And so it's like,
okay, I understand why you're doing that because I feel that too.
(23:13):
Is it hard? Yes. Is it annoying? Yes, but I get it because I'm
having to do the exact same thing. So the whole process has really been,
it's been good. So it's kind of alleviated some of those nerves just getting
to be able to process the whole thing as we go.
No, so I've done this. This is all new.
And so just kind of stepping into the unknown, right?
And so that's, that comes with some nerves naturally,
(23:33):
but also some, some excitement. Yeah, for 15 years,
Rusty's done things that has been done.
Oh, he's kind of used to that. So, so now for the next 15
years, you get to do that. Yeah,
there we go. There we go. And I'm watching if that favor leaves you.
Hey, let me know. Get out of here. Kick me out,
dude. If you see it, let me know. I know,
(23:56):
I think- I mean, you're joking, but I think that's important, man.
If you see- if you see someone struggling, sometimes we're blind to it,
right? So, I think that's important. Here's a- Questions popped from my head.
Our church is actually, we have three overseers.
Are those overseers going to stay the same or are they going to change?
Yeah, it's a good question. So we're, we're figuring that part out.
Um, they will change eventually. But I think we're,
we're kind of going to look at something. Again, we've never done this before.
(24:19):
Right. And so it's, it's figuring out, I think what we're going to look
at is bringing a couple new ones on because the,
the overseers, we have three, but it's actually a range.
You could have three to five. Oh, gotcha. And so I think we're going
to bring two new ones on and kind of do another overseer.
(24:44):
So that's currently the plan.
Again, we've never done it. So in our head,
it sounds like it's going to work okay. And so that's that's currently what
we're going to try out. Now are these going to be people that are
that know you and know you real well.
Kind of like what Rusty has. Yep. Yeah,
that's the goal, and it's, uh, it's supposed to be dudes that they know
(25:07):
me well, but they know me well enough to tell me when I'm screwing
up. Yeah. Like it can't just be like a friend, like it's gotta be
people who I know are gonna hold me, like hold me accountable.
And so that's always fun. Finding people who I think are like frenemies in
a sense, but like I trust so much. Like they're,
they're mentors. All right. Nice. You can have me as an overseer.
I'll just complain about everything. Why don't you put you an overseer to do
(25:27):
that? I do that every day. Well, because I don't have,
The ability to fire you. Oh,
that sounds fun. That's good. Give me all the authority.
Yeah, I mean, I'll complain every week until something happens.
And then I'll complain when you do it, what the way I do it,
you know, that sounds exciting. I'll put that in my notebook.
Yeah, just think about it. Yeah, I'll mold over. Just pray over here and
(25:49):
just see if that's the, Yikes.
Boy, you'd be so, you'd be fun. You'd be fun.
Kyle, I'm just gonna say, I hope you keep our church stocked better than
you keep the cafe stocked. Because we really need supplies in that cafe.
Okay. On Wednesday. So noted, noted,
noted. That's a good problem to have, right? Yeah.
Kids are buying all the goodies. Yeah. I'll take that. Luckily,
(26:09):
you don't run Mission Cafe, so, Aim into that. Even into that.
No, they stay straight. At least we won't starve.
Exactly. On Sunday, we won't. Yeah, they're kids resilient.
They're fine. They're fun. They'll bounce right back.
We kind of went into doing things health things have always been done.
And we always do things weird and different. Uh,
so the opposite of that would be, uh,
(26:30):
doing things we've always done. Yeah. Yeah. So we go do things we've always
done or we go keep doing things doing it the way we've always done
it. Like I'm keeping it weird. Church at large,
yeah, I understand. Yeah, so like we have red neck.
We have red neck Easter and weird events like that.
Yeah. Um, or even then sometimes those start to feel outplayed.
They can. Oh, yeah, you know, like we were at a church.
(26:52):
I was at it, I guess more, uh, where they started a,
uh, they kind of started doing the trunker treats.
Yeah. When before it was like a thing and like they would do it
this way. And then also every church around them was doing trunker treat.
And then we'd be like, okay, well, we need to stop doing trunker treat.
We need to do something else, you know. And so it was like,
that's how I feel kind of the last couple of years is like,
(27:12):
okay, we're, we're just kind of doing the same.
We're not doing any reinventing thing. If anything,
we're scaling back because everybody gets stressed out on Easter services for some reason.
Like I don't Understand it at all. Like me either because Easter is still
Easter. I mean, yeah, you have an influx of Every week is Easter.
Yeah, well, exactly. You do have an influx of people,
but I mean, we already know most of those people are just there for
(27:34):
Eastern Christmas. That's it. Why? I'm unpopular
opinion. Stop catering to them. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh. Yeah. I'm not going to get on my soapbox,
but stop catering to them. No, what I'm saying is like,
for years now we've done the parking lot, Yeah,
or whatever, the blow up stuff, you know, and so excited.
Again, another unpopular opinion. It's getting old. We're just repackaging it to something a
(27:58):
little different, but it is kind of the same. Process,
same vendors, you know, this kind of, so like, uh, you know,
we did the helicopter thing for a while and the people around here start
doing a helicopter egg drop, you know, so that's why we switched to something
else. Yeah. So like now everybody's kind of doing that thing.
So, you know, what's a secret sauce? What are we going to do next?
Yeah. It's a good question. What would you guys do? You will seem very
passionate. We could do drive by Easter, like,
(28:19):
you know, just throw an egg to go egg people. Yeah.
To actually I wouldn't be bad. Drive by Easter. Okay.
That's something different. It's like literally egg people.
Well, I mean, just essentially door to door Easter.
And we go and, uh, I mean, we already,
we just did door to door last week in house church.
Yep. Uh, yeah. But then,
what if we did a don't go to church Sunday on Easter and we
(28:41):
actually, we go out into the neighborhoods and minister and we take Easter to
the people. Yeah. That's different. That is different.
So that is different. I don't know. That's just the first thing popped up.
I don't, I don't have any ideas. I'm the guy that brings up the
problem. I don't free up solutions.
That's not my forte. Yeah. But you know what I mean?
Like that's part of it. Like we can easily get into like doing the
(29:02):
same cool things that are different still to a lot of people.
But for us now, they're becoming more mundane a little bit.
And I don't know. I just, uh,
so here, what is the target for Easter?
Well, I mean, who do you think it should be? Everybody, but. Uh,
at the same time, the unreached,
which is a target every Sunday, so why do a special Spectacle,
(29:23):
I mean, obviously, I know why Jesus rose for us.
Yeah. Uh, and we, that's why we celebrate that.
But why why such the spectacle on one Sunday and not every Sunday?
Yeah. Well, I mean, the logistical part of that is like one finances.
Like a lot of money goes into Easter and the planning and the prep
and all that. But then two, like you said it yourself earlier,
like a lot of the people that are there on Easter,
(29:45):
they only come like, they're like the CEOs, the Christmas and Easter is only,
right? So if those people are only going to be there a couple times
a year, do you think they know Jesus? And so we want to make
sure that we're doing something that one would excite and entice people to have
this invitational heart that they should already have,
but most of the time that's not the case. It's not the,
it's not like the reality. And so if we're able to create something to
(30:05):
where people are invitational and then we know when they get there,
because what we do as far as our worst spin counter,
It's not different. There's not this bait and switch thing.
It's not like, hey, on this particular Sunday,
we're going to do 14 songs and we're going to have strobe lights.
We don't do anything different. We still have our same process.
We do it through the same structure and the same flow.
(30:27):
And so then if they came back the following week, it's not like they
showed up for something and then it's totally different.
And I've been a part of churches that that is the case. And that
I don't like that. But I think doing Doing things,
like doing things that are coolin' out of the box and fun,
in the parking lot, again, it's outside of our church building,
so it's in the community, you know quote unquote,
(30:47):
tour people can see it, like That's why it's not parking lot.
So when people drive by, like, if they're driving,
if they're driving by, they're, they're probably not in a church because we're doing
this during church time, right? So we want to be able to see,
like, dang, what was happening there? Like, I want to be a part of
that. So the whole idea behind doing things in the parking lot,
again, is kind of evangelical. It's, it's imitational by nature.
Um, can it get old? Yeah. Can it get like kind of like,
(31:09):
oh, here we go again, for those of us who have done it for
a lot of years, but for that first time person, for them,
it's mind blowing. Like, dude, this is a church.
You guys are having mutton bustin' and this is a church.
Like, how does that even work? And so, I think all of the things
that we're feeling, we want us to be more creative and do something fresh
and do something new, but at the same time, you kind of have to
view it through the context of that person who doesn't go to church also.
(31:32):
It's like, okay, well, if I've, Never seen this before,
and this is my first interaction with the church,
or maybe it's my first interaction in a lot of years when I was
hurt when I was younger. Like that, to me,
that feels good to have this, this environment where it could be fun for
the whole family. Like that's key too. It's not just cater towards the youth,
it's not just cater towards the kids, it's like this whole family thing.
(31:52):
So I don't know. I mean, I think we should be creative and continue
to flex and bend with like what's happening, but still need to be able
to have this imitational space to bring.
Bring people in. I will say one thing that I have been harping on
for like four or five years now. And this is coming when you're bringing
up the worship. We don't change anything about it. I think,
and I have been mad about this every year,
(32:14):
right? Well,
I don't usually play on the Easter weekends or whatever.
I don't know reason why I think last year I did the,
um, I did the like online production stuff,
the coordinating stuff. But I never like sign up for anything because usually last
last minute. There'll be a gap in the production side of things.
So I'm usually always just ready. But for me,
(32:36):
I have always, and we're doing it again this year,
we're doing a new song, we're doing like a song that's fairly new,
and then a song that we did last week or whatever.
And most of our staff at this point are not even in that service.
And so I hate worship and counter.
Thank you, Andrew. Okay,
let's, okay, we're not going there. But same thing,
(32:58):
second verse. I think. Because basically you're gonna be in that service,
it's gonna be like, completely silent.
Just the band playing, nobody's really gonna be singing along,
they don't- Our people don't even know this song, they're not comfortable with.
I think it should always be the best of Sunday.
Yeah. Most of our people aren't in there anyway. We should be playing the
songs that everybody sings the loudest,
(33:19):
the craziest, the most excited. Yeah. It could be the re-teaching of the sermon
that we, Get hype. Yeah. We'll just turn a,
turn a Wednesday up on a Sunday. Exactly. Yeah.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, we did that coming back from,
Being cut off a couple weeks on a Wednesday. I did every song that
I knew was going to wear everybody out.
Bring out the bangers. Exactly. Why not?
One, probably 20% of the people in the crowd are going to our church
(33:43):
right now. Yep. And so if, if those people are silent,
why the other people think that this isn't a very exciting place.
Nobody here is really excited that go here.
You know what I mean? So I've always just, every year we do that.
We do like, not the most popular songs and we try to throw in
like a cool new Easter song. Yeah. Why all of our people are in
the parking lot, helping out with the stuff. I don't get it.
(34:04):
Yeah. Anyway, that's, that's my rant. That's a great rant actually.
It's a solid rant. Solid rant. I said that every year.
I haven't heard that, but that's That's a very good question,
and uh, point you bring it. And that takes the stress away from everybody
else that's trying to plan this cool and be a part of the production
side of it. We're doing the songs that we're that we know we can
do. I can show up right now in 30 minutes before we go and
(34:46):
I mean, does he just pee a little further?
I can't see what happens. Don't do that.
Own people aren't energetic or excited to be there,
then why come back? Yeah, and we do, we're doing this massive spectacle to
attract people. Yeah. It's just perception.
But it's going to, yeah, it's going to seem lame if no one's singing.
(35:07):
Yeah, I agree. I'm asked great. I agree.
Do you think in general, because I mean, you guys have been,
you've both been at CTM 15 years.
A long time. Yep. 15 years. And so how have you seen our,
like, worship through song, okay?
It's, it's worship. Like how have you seen our worship culture shift?
We're have you. Well, we've introduced prayer time,
uh, long prayer time. Yeah.
(35:29):
Uh, we've, uh, introduced,
um, tithing into the worship section and,
and really focused on giving our tith is worship.
Yeah. And I mean, that's changed my mind set about tithing,
honestly. Yep. Um, so I mean, I've seen a huge shift in our worship
because we've, we incorporate everything essentially,
except for the message into worship. Yep. Um,
(35:52):
I, Yes, I see all the stuff you say in here.
I guess for me coming from a guy who likes music,
because you're not really into the music anyway. Um,
I think sometimes all those stops are hard to build any kind of fluid.
I think the last few weeks we haven't really done an interruption in between.
Have you liked that? Um, I have. Yeah.
It's been intentional. That's been a creative shift.
(36:14):
A creative shift. Um, I mean, I've stopped playing on Sundays and prefer
Wednesdays because of some of That's why I don't like Sundays.
Like Sundays, Sundays is a like,
you know, one, it's a longer commitment. It's about a four to five hour
commitment on a Sunday. Yeah. Wednesdays is about a two to three or really
three to four. But when Russy first started Church of Matters,
(36:37):
it The joke that I always had is we did every youth ministry thing
at the very beginning. Like that first two years was like we're always doing
a game on stage. Yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, sometimes two or three games.
I do miss the games. I do miss the fun stuff. We only do
that on Christmas and Easter and Easter.
Yeah. Um, but like we would do like some games on stage.
(36:58):
We would have some like Longer worship times and shorter sermon times and
it's kind of not that I hate necessarily sermons But it doesn't always have
to be the same like we have it so structured as far as very
this sermon time is 40 minutes Well, this guy probably sounds great for 20
minutes Yeah, but now you know But when he tries to extend it 40
(37:18):
minutes, it's not like that's not his thing and that shouldn't be his you
know, you can always like You know, add some more things.
I always, I always hated, as a worship leader on Sundays.
Uh, a song was always the thing that was cut. It was never the
message time. It was always, if we wanted to do something cool,
we lose a song. Yeah. So then like, why am I showing up at
six, or waking up at six, 30, showing up at seven to play two
(37:40):
songs? Yeah. You know, and I'm here until 11,
30, you know, like that's, that was always my,
uh, My rant on Sundays, and so now I try to just quit it
all together, but I do commit to one Sunday amount.
Has the pillar moved dusty? The pillar moved.
Yeah. Uh, no, well, kind of, I guess,
like, I've more committed on Wednesday nights.
(38:02):
Yeah. Because I was just coming and singing and leaving.
And so that was the shift I did. It was like,
now I will be a small group leader. Yeah. Now I will do a
little bit more. Yeah, pillar moved. Yeah. Nice.
Look at that call back. Good job,
Andrew. Thanks. You're more than just a pretty face.
I saw that. Yeah. So that's,
that's my two cents on it. Yeah. But I do miss the games.
(38:22):
I do miss like the fun stuff. Right. The games were fun.
It seems so, like, it seems so, like,
minute by minute sometimes. Yeah. All the time.
And then the prayer thing can extend, but then as an introvert,
those are always awkward to me. So, I know.
When you have to get in with a group with, like, five or six
people, I'm like, uh, yeah.
(38:42):
Cause yeah, the introvert, I used to be an extrovert.
Not anymore. I'm an introvert. Stay away from me people.
Yeah. That's kind of where I'm at now. Andrew needs some spirits.
Not just the Holy Spirit. Yeah,
so anyway, so that's best interesting.
Listen, how did this get turned around to us getting interviewed?
(39:04):
Do like that? Yeah. Do you like that? No,
I don't. I mean,
I like to, because we didn't have a dead air there for a second.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.
You're welcome. Well, you want to ask Dusty any more questions?
Yeah, look. I'm-I'm a knowledge of ideas,
and uh, He can bring up the problems.
(39:25):
No, his brain's in encyclopedia, baby.
That's right. That's right. So, Dusty,
what other problems do you have? Yeah, this is,
this is fun. Here's a problem with Rusty.
No. No, he, he even all,
cause I've always been saying like youth pastors and children pastors should be like
streaming after school, like on YouTube or something for kids to come home and
watch. Yeah. And you know what Rusty said to me? Do it.
(39:47):
Do it. Yep. So, you know what I didn't do. Didn't do it.
I was like, I worked. I mean,
that's, that's how I got into youth ministry.
You know, 12 years ago was that same conversation of like,
man, why, do you guys have this? Well, no, well, why not?
We'll do it. Yeah. Here we are. So sometimes it takes,
sometimes it actually works. Oh, yeah. People get, people get hooked.
(40:07):
We did it for a little bit during COVID. And it was great.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it could be,
I just had like a vision of it being bigger and being more of
a connector with all youth ministries at the end of it.
Yeah. I can do it. Are you ready to become a streamer?
Or a gamer anyways? Dude,
listen, if I had the time, I would play games more right now.
(40:28):
I have not gotten to, I have an Xbox that is sitting in,
like our sectional's got like little storage containers in it.
And I have an Xbox that has been sitting in that storage container for
two, almost two and a half years now.
Just collecting, it makes me sad. Yeah,
there's a PlayStation there if you would like. There's an Xbox in here.
Let's go. I mean, you got to PC right there.
(40:50):
I did. So I talked Carla into letting me buy a Switch.
So I've got a switch that I've gotten to play, like,
twice in the last six or seven months, so that was cool.
But I found a cheat code and I found a way to download,
like, ROMs on my phone. So now I can play,
like, all the old-school gameboy, like, Pokemon games.
I'm like, I'm kind of a nerd. I got, like, the nerd out a
(41:11):
little bit, specifically with Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.
You know, there it is. There's my closet's empty now.
But, uh, so now, you know,
on bathroom breaks, I get to play, like,
Pokemon Gold.
(41:34):
I don't know if I'll cut this out of the podcast yet,
but we'll see. But you've heard the joke, like, what are you doing in
there and you're like, p***? Because that's better than what you're probably doing,
which is so nerdy.
That's funny. Oh god. Anyway,
all right. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast,
man. Uh, sorry, Andrew was late after this whole back and forth texting and
(41:55):
making sure we're here on time at 8.30 and then Andrew doesn't,
is the one it doesn't show up. I'm pulling at 8.30 on the minute.
Well, that's usually how he rolls up on the minute,
but uh, that's why I said a 40 thinking that you would be on
time early and then that would give Andrew a buffer and,
like, you make coffee and all that kind of stuff.
And I just completely made a solid cup of coffee.
(42:15):
Thank you, man. It was good. That is My basically only choice around this
house is to make sure the coffee is in the wrist of the house.
You did a fantastic job. My mind is gone.
The, the wells run dry over here. We'll guess what.
We can reload if we need. Let's just do another episode here.
Let's just keep it rolling. Yeah. I mean, I'm on the clock at work
(42:36):
who cares. I did say something to him yesterday and he was like,
oh, yeah. So now you work from home. So your podcast is back.
Uh, that's pretty crazy. And I was like, yeah, I got all the stuff
to bring home now. Yeah. Yeah. It's been great.
Thanks. Thanks for, thanks for supporting me boss.
Thanks for doing that. Yeah. Thanks for being on podcast.
We're here every week ish.
(42:57):
And so. You know, come back whenever you feel like it.
Just don't make us ask you. Just say, hey, I got something to talk
about and we're like, cool. Well, hopefully, hopefully this was helpful.
I mean, I know you guys, you had some questions. I don't know if
I answered all of them. I was able to kind of turn a couple
of them back on you guys. Like more like Matt,
people can hear this that go to our church and they'll be like,
oh, okay, I cannot leave the church when we're asking.
Like maybe I can stay, you know, this you a little bit of an
(43:19):
interest. I'm still on the fence. Yeah. Fair enough.
Fair enough. I'm gonna save my tithe money separately and just make sure things
He's work out, put it in a little account for now.
It'll be an interest earning account.
So it's 11% by the end of it.
So that's your actually better off. 10.04%.
Yeah. Or we put it all on the thunder winning on the championship
(43:42):
and hey, and you get. A little bit bigger,
because you know. It's called favor.
Is that favor exist? Let's test it. Let's throw out.
It's called something. Was it a lot that threw out stuff?
Or was it a lot? Are you saying a lot because it would be
like casting a lot? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Who was the guy that had like thrown out,
(44:05):
like tested the Lord? Tested the Lord. Yeah,
it was like test the Lord to.
God. Let's say, uh, let's say Michael because oh god.
Don't say my okay. I accidentally called Satan Michael and hold the
whole story and then he let me finish the entire thing and sounds stupid
(44:25):
or he corrected me. What a friend and I left it in the podcast
because I just want people to know I am stupid.
So what a friend we have in Andrew right?
I really I just wanted him to keep saying the music is of Satan
Yeah, yeah, that was a good podcast.
That's a that's a whole other little can of worms right there.
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that's this podcast, man. We open up the can of worms
(44:48):
and we let you guys figure it out. That was a man.
That one's real, dude. Bring me back for that one.
That one's real. The power of music is so real.
Absolutely. We actually, so that was the podcast that Dusty just released,
was that one, but we could do a follow-up, but it was more on
the Christian music. Uh,
can also lead people astray. Not, not,
(45:08):
not, and I didn't take it. We didn't take it the lyric way.
We took it like emotional. The,
the timing of songs that we sing just so you know,
is we just had those fires happen and then I got requested to sing
the song Fire and Wind. Yeah. Maybe,
maybe, maybe, you know, and let's read the room.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. There's, there was a study I looked into,
(45:29):
gosh, probably like five or six years ago and your brain Reacts the same
way when you have the haze and the lights and all the things your
brain reacts the exact same way as if you were watching p**********.
As far as like dopamine effect. Yes. And so people can get addicted to
the worship, you know, atmosphere being created.
(45:49):
And so then that becomes like, it becomes like your p***,
like worship p*** almost. And that was a different message I listened to before.
It was wild. You said p***, so I'll leave that joke in here now.
Dude, you need to preach with hazing lights now.
Oh really keep people awake them up,
right? Yeah, okay, that's why I don't preach very long anymore My first dude,
(46:11):
my first time, we're all there the first Sunday at CTM when I preached,
never preached for like an hour. It was horrible. Yes.
It was like an hour and 15 minutes. One of those guys that sounded
really good at 20 minutes. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. It sounded good for like 10 minutes. The very first thing out of
my mouth was making a joke about Rusty for how long he preached and
how I'm not going to do that. And then I went longer than he'd
ever gone. It was so bad.
(46:32):
So now I'm like a solid 30 to 35-ish minutes and I'm gone.
That's usually this podcast. Usually. Oh,
what I was going to say with that The haze situation, that's why everybody
always comes back from these conferences and these like the Like these,
uh, worship experiences and you're like, we have to do this song.
Yeah. I was like, it was the because of where you heard it in
the moment that you heard it. Yeah. It does not have the same effect
(46:55):
in a smaller room with a smaller beginning.
With the voice I can't hit bass notes.
That's true. Okay. All right. This has become a back.
All right. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for listening, guys. Hopefully you learned something.
Hopefully I talked better and Okay,
(47:18):
let's get out of here. See you guys. Take it easy.
See you later.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.