CPT 023 - Internal vs External Changes

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.This is the Church Planting Today podcast with
Steve Chogrin and Jeff Hoagland, usefulconversations for those aimed at winning others into
relationship with Christ. Everybody. Myname is Jeff Hoagland. I want to
welcome you to Church Playing Today,the podcast for church plan dot Com.

(00:24):
Church Planning dot Com is for currentand future church planners, existing church leaders,
and those wanting to see renewal withinthe local church. And as always,
I am joined by Steve Schogrin.Hey, big guy, good to
be with you. Hey, Hey, how is Claremont, California? Right
now? It's under lockdown. We'restill as we record this. Anyway,

(00:44):
it's kind of crazy lockdown. We'vebeen inside for ten weeks now, I
think it is. It's arabin feveris yeah. I need food pretty soon
here, so I probably should callsomebody. But uh, it's going good.
You know, it's as the weatherit gets better. I'm looking for
or to you know, be moreencouraged and so forth. You right on,
right on, And I am inNorth Carolina, where well, it's

(01:07):
kind of been a weird situation becauseour our ratios you know, it doesn't
make a whole lot of sense.I know in some parts of California and
New York, New Jersey. Yeah, there's there's reason to be alarmed out
here. We have had forty threecases and zero deaths. Really yeah,

(01:29):
yeah, and so anyways, thebut but we have the same restrictions,
so it's kind of kind of adifferent thing. Yet, the the Sheriff's
Association actually wrote a letter to thegovernor saying that they are not going to
enforce oh really, yeah, thegovernment mandate, Yeah, regarding folks who

(01:52):
come to go to worship. Andso yeah, so actually we met for
the first time today and of course, well what we did we want the
best for our people as well,of course, and so what we did
was we we made some changes withinthe church and put out some hand sanitizing

(02:13):
stations. We spread the seats furtherapart. We yeah, we did a
lot of different things to to dodue diligence, I think, you know,
on our part. And also weencourage people if you don't feel comfortable,
it's okay, just join us online. We're going to stream. And
we also said, of course,you know, if you're sick, stay

(02:34):
home. And we also had tohave a no judgment zone. So if
you want to wear a mask,awesome, no judgment. If you don't
wear a mask, no judgment fromthe others who are wearing masks. Mutual
respect all around. But used somegood old fashioned common sense and you know
that that whole thing so it wentgood. And I didn't mean to go

(02:54):
rambling on about the whole COVID nineteenprocess or situation. I should say,
in our process to overcome our localsituation. And again, you know,
I know that that is actually contextualbecause there's some places where, man,
you probably should stay home, andthere's places like rural North Carolina where you

(03:15):
probably should be able to go tochurch. If you can go to Loew's
in Walmart, you can go tochurch. Just saying anyways, that's not
our topic today. Our topic todayis internal versus external changes. Internal versus
external changes. And when we sayexternal changes, there's a lot of folks

(03:39):
that believe, you know, inthe previous podcast, we were talking about
momentum, and when we speak aboutmomentum, a lot of folks think that
they can create momentum by simply changingthe external, like changing their logo.
I've had churches change their Yeah,I mean they were all in as far

(04:03):
as change, and they went offand they changed their name. Of course,
you have to change your logo,change the website, the whole nine
yards. But yet the internal wasthe same. I mean they had the
same processes they had in place priorto those external changes. So here's the

(04:28):
problem with that. You might beable to open the front door, so
to speak, but you're not reallyclosing the back door so people can come
in. But if the processes andthe systems on the inside are the same,
you're probably not going to hold ontothose that you've already attracted. Well,

(04:48):
it's really kind of a velcrow picture. You know. If you don't
have any belcrow and you change thebuilding, that has nothing to do with
the velcrow. Okay, what youwant to do is get a get a
belcrow going there, a person atcharge it so when you can catch them
on that, you know they willactually connect to your church. Like you

(05:11):
said, if the back door isbigger than the front door, and it's
very difficult and momentum man, yeah, yeah, And you know it's it's
kind of like a restaurant. Youknow, we've been to restaurants where they
have this big grand opening, andif that grand opening is lackluster or average,

(05:39):
or or worse, you know,if it's just a complete bomb,
guess what. Not only are wenever going back, We're going to tell
some folks. Yeah, So allthe effort they put into changing the logo
and updating the website, maybe paintingthe exterior of their building, all that

(06:00):
was for for not It was justjust a waste of time and just that
very expensive experiment. What becomes discouragingto the point where we tried everything.
You know, they would say wordslike that we tried everything. Well that's
not true, but I hear yourfrustration, we could say to them,
you know, yeah, absolutely,And so our encouragement today is for those

(06:25):
who are looking to change, tomake some changes within their local church.
Don't just think about the external,because that's just cosmetic in nature, but
we're going to ask that you wouldconsider changing the internal. And I love
what a brother down in Florida,his name is Bob frankuis and learned about

(06:48):
Bob from he has a I forgotwhat it's called. He used to have
like church ninja and things like that. But anyways, real good guy Calvary
fella down in Florida. But anyways. He he gives an example on one
of his books regarding the internal versusexternal. He says, the the internal

(07:15):
is the engine, the external isthe paint job. So don't don't paint
the exterior of the vehicle if theengine is bad, Yeah, because it's
not going to do anything. Itmight look pretty, but it's not going
to function the way that it wasintended to function. Yeah. I thought
that was pretty good. It's goodman, And I said, I'm going

(07:38):
to steal it. I'm going tosteal well, you know, like Robert
Schuler says, you quote Bob Frankwas the first time, second time,
you say, like others have said, and then at their time, I've
always said, you know what Ialways say, and you know, the
truth be told is that Bob Frankwas. You know, I bet that
he may have heard that someplace himself. Yeah. Yeah, you know,
we're all students of church plan huntingand church life in general. And I

(08:03):
remember you and I had discussing RickWarren actually and purpose driven church and how
man we said that was light yearsahead of its time. And then you
turned me onto a book by byRobert Schuler, and I'm reading this book
and I'm thinking, man, thissounds familiar. Now. Robert Schuler's book
came out prior to Purpose Driven,and I'm like sixties, yeah, sixty,

(08:30):
so talking decades. Yeah. So, but it's okay, you know,
because we're as long as we're allkingdom and we're not into the lawsuit
deal, you know the truth.We know, we're all learning from one
another and we're gleaning and we're we'retweaking for our context hopefully and yeah,

(08:50):
hopefully it's all good and hopefully noone's going to get up tied about it.
It's all for the glory of theLord. Yeah. Amen. So
internal changes are more systematic in nature, and so we would encourage you those
who are looking to make some changesthings aren't working your your churches at plateau

(09:15):
or in decline. Instead of thinkingcosmetics, instead of changing out the carpet
and switching from pews chairs, thinkinternal, think systematic changes. You know,
we're all called to make disciples.Well, what is your process for
making disciples? Well that's one ofthe things I noticed, Dave, is

(09:39):
people will say, you know,this is our mission statement. They'll rattle
off some things and I said,awesome, tell me about your process to
do one, two, and three, and they'll just kind of have that
deer in the headlights look, youknow, because really that is just a
slogan they have. There's no there'sno action points behind their mission statement.

(10:05):
And so going back to disciples,you know, I think the Great Commission
should be part of our every church'smission statement, you know, call to
go out in all the world makedisciples. Right, Well, what is
your process for making disciples? Howdo you take a first time guest and

(10:30):
bring them into the church family soto speak, and you know, disciple
them from first time guests to afully committed, on fire church member.
And so that would be one ofthe questions I would ask somebody. And
that goes down to clarifying. Iwould call it a philosophy of ministry.

(10:54):
Okay, how do we see people? How do we see the role of
the church. Those are the twobiggies right there, And how do we
see well, there's another one,how do we see new believers? In
a process? And so till yousit down and this is what you're saying,
of course, Jeff, But asyou till you sit down and think
through that, you talk through astrusted people. Maybe if you're just planting

(11:16):
a church or planning a church,just to you and your spouse from walking
listening to God. You know,God, what is it that you have?
But there's specifics we can do now, too, right Jeff? Amen?
Amen? Yeah, you know,I remember what you said to me
years ago, Steve, you said, what is your dream? Put it
on paper? And that's the startingpoint. Yeah, And you just told

(11:39):
me get along with the Lord,you and your wife, get alone with
the Lord, and just write iton paper, what your vision, what
your dream church is. Put iton paper. Well, we'll just put
that out there to our listeners todayand say, what is your vision for
the what vision has the Lord droppedthan into you regarding your local church?

(12:03):
Put it on paper. And nowwhat we have to do is we have
to put systems in place to makethat vision become a reality versus a pipe
dream. Ooh, that's good,that's tweetable. That's a I don't know,
but I would just encourage people togo back look at your mission statement
and see if you're living up tothat mission statement. And then another part

(12:28):
would be to go back into everyarea of your church and do the same
thing, ask if you're if you'redoing what you're called to do with regards
to the children's ministry, are youmaking disciples in the children's ministry? If
not, why not? What's hinderingyou? And the same thing for the

(12:50):
youth. What is the strategy forfor bringing you there? Are you a?
Are you? And we wrote aboutthis on church flan dot com.
Are you a Are you a hometo church? Are you go to you
know, go out church, cometo? Okay? Right, say that
again? See are you a comeand see church or you go and do

(13:13):
right? And so if you're justa come and see church, then you're
just really relying on on people whoand I don't know if they do this
anymore. See they come because youhave a cool sign. I don't think
they do that anyway. Yeah,so you need to find a way to
reach them. You just don't havethe uh, you know for a coal

(13:35):
sign the sea for church and havea dove flying through it and you know,
uh, you know, you lookat some of those getting off a
little bit, but you know,uh, you look at that and you've
got to realize that there's you're sayinga lot right there, you know,
you're saying a lot through and alogo. And yes, it's part of

(13:56):
the whole deal of internal external youknow, yeah, yeah, can I
get you going there? They're notgoing to come because you have a corny
saying on your sign. That's right, that's right, man, unlesson they're
desperate. Now, I don't thinkthey're going to be often. Hey there's
a corny sign down the road.We gotta go visit that church. I

(14:20):
don't know, man, I don'tknow what people are thinking, but I
don't think they're thinking that's that's thechurch for me. You know what is
missing in the church and church isspelled C H blank R. You are
yeah, oh my yeah, ohmy lord. Anyways, so go back

(14:46):
and examine your systems for your children'sministry, your youth ministry, even your
process for for your worship team oryour choir if you have a choir.
You know, how do people getinvolved in you know, say you have
someone that comes, they see yourcorny sign out front, they said,
I'm going to go to that churchand they see, you know, you've
got to worship team or a choiror whatever, and they said, man,

(15:09):
you know what I've always wanted tobe a part of that. What
is your system? I mean,do they have to go to a membership
class, do they have to dothey have to be able to sing,
you know, or do you havea some kind of process for them to
go through. So having something onpaper that you can be consistent with,

(15:31):
I think that goes a long way. And that's one of those internal changes,
one of those systematic changes that we'retalking about today, and the last
one I have here. You know, whether you have Sunday school groups or
you have small groups or life groupsas some churches call them, what is

(15:52):
your process for that? How howoften do you have these groups form?
How does one become a facilitator orhost? How does someone know that it's
happening? And how often do thesegroups happen? Or are they forever groups
or are they semester based groups?Are they book based groups? And when

(16:15):
you finish the book, gear you'redone. I don't know. I'm not
sure if there's a wrong answer,but I think people ought to know their
system. Well. You know,there's a protocon to all the above,
And you know the pro of havinga closed group is that you get to
know people really well. The conis that you can get staled very easily
because you know everybody and they don'tchange very slow, very quickly. Ah,

(16:38):
man, it becomes irritating. Yeah. Yeah, And so again there's
no right or wrong answer. Butguys, when you're looking to make changes,
when you're looking to going back toa previous podcast, So if you're
looking to build momentum, if you'relooking for a healthy church, guys,
I think you really need to knowyour systems and your processes in order for

(17:04):
those people coming through the front door, for them to have an understanding of
how they can connect and get intothe life of the church. Yeah that
man. Amen. Well, gosh, Steve, I feel like I've been
rambling most of them today. Butanyways, again, guys, I want

(17:25):
to thank you for tuning in tochurch Playing Today, the podcast for church
playing dot com, and of coursewe asked that if you would please leave
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(17:45):
And for more information and for somegreat content, I encourage you guys
to go to church planting dot comwhere we have new content at least three
times per week, and then alsofor outreach resources, visit kindness dot com
and Kindness resources dot com and KindnessOutreach dot com. We have u r

(18:08):
ls all over the place. Yeah, cheaper by the dozen, you know,
so keep you know, that's welike to think quantity and quality.
So visit all the above, andguys, we're gonna sign off. I'm
gonna stop rambling now until next time. Steve and I we like to say,

(18:30):
you know, keep it simple andkeep on making a difference. God
bless you guys. God bless You'vebeen listening to the Church Planting Today podcast
with Steve Chagrin and Jeff Hookland.Be sure to share and subscribe wherever you
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