December 1, 2020 • 30 mins
The year 2020 has brought change on every front. What does 2021 hold? No one has a crystal ball to see into the future, but in today's episode, Jeff Hoglen and Steve Sjogren help you get a clear view of things any pastor or church leader should consider.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to ChurchPlanning Today, the podcast of church Planing
dot Com. Church plan dot Comis for current and future church planners,
existing church leaders, and those wantingto see renewal and revitalization within the local
church. My name is Jeff Hoaglandand I am joined today by author,
coach and my good friend Steve Chagrin. Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.
(00:22):
This is the Church Planting Today podcastwith Steve Chagrin and Jeff Hoagland. Useful
conversations for those aimed at winning othersinto relationship with Christ. Well, for
sure, twenty twenty one has tobe much better than twenty twenty. It
wouldn't be hard, man, I'lltell you run on. So, you
(00:44):
know, what I thought we woulddo today is kind of unpack, you
know, the biggest concerns that pastorshave leaving twenty twenty going into twenty twenty
one. And just for full transparency, I'm pulling these these sub headers off
of a blog that I read onFacts and Trends dot net and Aaron Earls
(01:08):
he's the author of this blog postand I'm not going to read his his
blog per se, but I wouldI just like his main points and and
his first point here is the biggestconcern, one of the biggest concerns for
pastors going into twenty twenty one is, you know, maintaining unity within the
(01:30):
church mm hmm, and I makesure yeah, yeah, And just thinking
about that, you know, there'sa whole lot of division within the church
right now. We have we havethe mask versus no mask situation, we
(01:51):
have a political divide in some yeah, well anyways, yeah, yeah,
So we have a very divided countrywith regards to all sorts of different issues,
and so how do how do wemaintain unity? Yeah, you know,
(02:13):
that's always a challenge, I think. Can I give you a shot
from the hip? Absolutely, Andit kind of fits in with what I
was actually going to talk about abit anyway, is that the more we
focus beyond ourselves, the more likelywe are to, I believe, live
(02:35):
in unity. It's tough to dislikeour for Peach's sake, I hate somebody
who loves the Lord. When you'reout doing something for the community and you're
out doing I would call it againmy words, servant evangelism. As you're
out doing and challenging people to beoutwardly focused versus because you know, really
(02:59):
it's been said many times is thatthe body of Christ is more like fertilizer.
The more that you keep it together, you're going to burn beneath it.
But you spread it out. Andwe won't say what kind of fertilizer
it is, but and uh,but the more you spread it out,
it can do a lot of good. But but if we just focus in,
it's going to be uh, youknow, there's some trick we're going
(03:21):
to pull out of our rabbit hatand rabbit out of our hat and uh
produce unity. I think it happensas an after effect. Yeah. Yeah,
Well, you know what that's interestingbecause you know, one of the
things that I've just recently learned.Actually I've known it for a long time,
but you know, I just reconcileit all together, and that is,
(03:42):
you know, having working, havingworked with other churches in the revitization
process, looking at their their churchhealth in a broad sense, without a
doubt, it seems that evangelism outreachis one of the biggest needs in those
(04:02):
churches needing revitalization. Yep. Andyou know it's kind of common sense.
But yet, you know, Iguess common sense isn't so common anymore,
or you know, they just neededa fresh set of eyes on the situation.
So it does go back to thatas well. Being outreached, being
outreached, centered, outward focused.It gives us, it brings us together
(04:29):
for common cause, common goal,but it also does something to the health
of the church as well. Soit's pretty cool. Well, it's hard
to deny that in a sense,even though they didn't have resources, including
scripture, for the most part,the early several generations of the church were
able to pull off amazing stuffy theyyou know, depending who you think about,
(04:54):
they evangelize the known world. It'spart of the world. They didn't
quite understand what was out there atthe time. But uh, you know,
you know, considering the few resources, there were such creativity, there
was such gumption and so forth,and there was such fellowship, you know,
Acts two forty two. They sharedtogether, They were focused, and
they were they you know what,again, it's hard to be in discord
(05:18):
deep down. Now you can discussthings and so forth, but deep down,
if I if we're out there doingsomething for the community and loving people
into relationship with Jesus, nudging themalong, bumping them, whatever you want
to call it. Uh, we'regoing to learn to love each other.
I mean, we're just gonna Ithink it will happen about this long fast,
right. I've seen it again andagain and again. I've got out
(05:42):
and done outreach with nuns in habitsOkay, and again I'm not a Catholic
and I hardly have any habits wellwell, okay, not that kind of
habit, but but but uh,and then I've gone out with people that
were absolutely added that all about eightypercent of what I believe, as you
(06:03):
know, in various other areas,and so you know, they're at the
other end of the spectrum. Ithink that we will, we will get
along if we just learned to focusbeyond ourselves. Amen, Amen, maintaining
unity is I love that? Yeah, I love that. Another area of
concern going into twenty twenty one ispastoral care from a distance. And so
(06:27):
you know, here we are endof November early December, and you know,
our numbers for COVID are on theupswing in a lot of different areas.
And again we have to kind ofqualify that in some areas, in
a lot of areas, depending onwhat stage you're in and Anyways, so
(06:48):
a lot of churches that I knowpersonally, they have went from online only
to back in person and kind ofsplit. You know, they still have
an all end presence, of course, and but they opened the church's church
buildings back up for attendants. Andnow some of them are are closed again.
(07:12):
And so now these pastors here here, they are open, close,
open, closed, and you knowthey're having to do pastoral care from a
distance. You have any tips tricksyou can share? Well, you know,
uh, clearly we have turned achapter, not a page, but
(07:34):
a chapter in church history. I'dsay, I go to that flamboyant and
say we and and probably zoom isone of the incredible, amazing tools that
God has provided really right now forwhat we can do. And so you
know one thing I could touch thatA couple of things. One is not
(07:57):
to beat one drum only. ButI I would say, uh, uh,
why don't you, in terms ofwhat you're doing in your own spiritual
life, why don't you begin toconvey that uh to others? And and
you know, really create online groupswhere and again you know there's a different
kind of training goes on. ButI would say, right from the gid
(08:20):
go you train everybody that you're involvedwith. You you pick out two or
three I would say confederates, soyou think are absolutely going to succeed and
uh and have at it, youknow, and uh, you know,
don't don't get the guys that youthink are a big gamble to begin with.
And then after a rather short time, you're gonna have some stories to
share. Right who else would liketo da da da? You know,
(08:43):
maybe you know, avoid the temptationto it for a cute name for this
whole thing. You know, justdo it. You don't need a the
zoom small group to the third power. I mean, just uh, just
you know, do it. Thisis what I said the prophet Nike,
just do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or the uh the guy
(09:07):
invented the ball cap. His biggreat line was if you want to get
something done, you have to doit. Go figure. He had about
a third grade education, the guyyou know, hey man, And you
know this, this third one herekind of goes hand in hand with with
the other pastoring pastoral care from adistance. The third one is safety and
(09:28):
well being of the members. AndI actually spoke about this on one of
the previous podcasts. But yeah,it has to be on the forefront of
our minds, you know, especiallyif we're if we're open and you know,
they haven't had COVID just one hundredpercent transparency. I've had COVID.
(09:50):
I have this superpower at least forfour months, and so I think I
do. Yeah. So yeah,keeping them safe is a concern, absolutely,
and conveying that to the community iswe take your safety as an incredibly
(10:15):
you know, high concern and itisn't. And part of it now from
now on, you know, wewe all want to have a welcoming place.
Uh so that you know, whenJesus said, was it Andrew,
we said, come and see andyou know the come and see dynamic of
the church. Of course we wantthat. But part of the the come
and sea is going to be fornow on safety is that people are not
(10:37):
going to come unless they feel safe. And it probably is going to go
beyond the you know, the theCOVID is issues. Probably we we can
need to continue having that options.People walk in the door, there's a
bottle of hand stuff, you know, and there's maybe even a possibly a
(10:58):
mask. Don't leave the whole thingout there because some child will come by
and take the whole stat right,you know. But but you know,
make that more like we're gonna seepeople wearing masks for a long time,
I think because they're just afraid,they don't trust the vaccine, and so
they're going to keep on wearing amask. You knows what that's going to
happen. Yeah, well you gotto convey that message, ay man,
(11:20):
you know. And yeah, Ifeel like we'll be seeing a lot more
of this. I think it willbecome part of the norm to a certain
degree. You know, when afternine to eleven, we we had a
lot of changes in the travel areaof our of society, and uh,
(11:41):
and now it's it's just the norm. You know. We're we're used to,
uh, long lines and high securityand overseas, oh my goodness,
we have we have so much moresecurity. It's almost uh, you know,
sure, I have a cavity searchand so so we're used to that,
(12:03):
you know. And sure, andso here we are in going into
twenty twenty one, and I thinksome of that will stick around. We
shall see. I'm no profit,but it certainly seems that, you know,
especially we're here, we are we'regoing to be entering into flu season
(12:24):
pretty soon. And people won't knowif they have the have allergies or the
flu or COVID. And so mything is, if you're sick, you
stay home period. Don't don't tryto self diagnose. Just stay home.
Yeah that's right, man, that'sright. Better to be safe. Yeah,
(12:50):
I agree. And that's part ofthe safety thing is that you're reiterating
if if you don't feel well,don't come to church. For me sick,
you know that we want you tobe well, and we want to
protect everybody here too. Yeah,and you know there's another sign to that
those steve because of safety and wellbeing of members, and so we kind
of compartmentalize that a lot because wethink they're coming or staying home due to
(13:15):
COVID, but the well being ofmembers, you know, for those who
are staying home, those that arein that high risk category, I seem
to feel that they need extra specialattention because especially those who are in an
isolated type environment, you know,the elderly, those who live by themselves,
(13:39):
those with no family nearby, thosewho live a little bit further than
the typical five to ten mile radiusfrom the church. And so in those
cases I believe that maybe the localchurch needs to be very intentional about communicating
with those those church members and justchecking on them, you know, and
(14:03):
making sure they're doing all right.And I think they would just so appreciate
that. You know, the churchwhere Janie works here in Los Angeles area,
they've been really picking up on that. That's a really good point to
bring out, Jeff. And they'vebeen taking things to people they find out
in the course of calling everybody ortexting everybody that people do have needs that
(14:28):
maybe they're not speaking up about.And so they're asking people, you know,
the old Robert Schueler, see aneed and meet it, feel over
and is that who I stole thatfrom? Well, you stole it from
me, but I stole it fromhim, Okay, Indeed, and meet
it, feel hurt and kneel it, and and you know it's worked well.
(14:50):
People that were not really engaging withtheir nearby or whatever the case was.
A friend who even goes to thesame church, weren't even aware going
on it. Doesn't that sound?So you know along those lines too,
they have texting services now where youcan text gigantic masses all at once,
and it's a subscriber service. Butif I was planning a church right now,
(15:15):
I would get that service in aheartbeat. And I think they charge,
of course by the number of peoplein your church or your your text
list. So the idea that youcould send out a whole thing all at
once versus an email, which isin my opinion, likely to get lost.
Let's face it, I get hundredsa day now, It's nuts,
(15:35):
you know, But so I,you know, think about the texting thing.
I think it could be a goodtool for doing the exactly wor're talking
about today. Absolutely with that inmind, Guys, down on our website
churchplan dot com you can see alink to faith Teams and they have an
amazing setup for you that Faith Teams. It's created by a pastor for pastors
(15:58):
and churches, especially small to midsized churches of up to about five hundred
that can work for megachurches. Butit is a finance type platform and that's
why he initially created it. Butit does so much more now. It's
communication with members and even invitations andsign ups, and it's so much more
(16:22):
than just keeping track of giving.And so I highly recommend that you know
they are not a sponsor of churchplanning dot com verse, but I just
feel so strongly about what they do. And actually, if you sign up
through our website church plan dot com, you'll get a discount. And now
(16:44):
none of that comes back to us. We're we're doing this. It's a
kingdom thing for us. But BrianDavis, he's the CEO out there,
and he gave us, gave youour listeners and readers solid discount if you
want to sign up with faith teams. But anyways, that's great. Yeah,
(17:04):
I'm gonna have to charge them nowbecause I just did a commercial,
you know. Yeah, yeah,here's the last two, Steve, Well,
can we can rapid fire through these? The next one? Uh.
Pastors are very concerned with personal exhaustion. HM. So you would think,
(17:30):
you know, especially those who areare not having live services, you would
think that they they would have akind of a more relaxed tempo to their
their day. But I found thatit's it's not that way at all.
Now we are doing live services,and actually we do quite a few,
and and so and so ours isyou know, the way it's always been.
(17:56):
But I know some folks who haveclosed and reopened and have closed again,
and in their days are still jampacked. And you know, I
speak into them and encourage them totake some vacation because I see it taking
a toll on them. And andI think some of that is the weight
(18:21):
of ministry on them, you know, especially independent pastors and even churches within
denominations. You know, there's acertain weight I think these pastors or senior
elders they carry because with the slowdown of attendants or no attendants, and
(18:42):
that typically means lower amounts of fundscoming in. Well, you know,
but all the members expect to havesome degree of care. And if you're
church is mortgaged, and I don'tknow of any forgiveness programs there yet,
(19:06):
but it continues to come in monthly, and so do the light bills.
Yeah, yeah, you know everybody. I talked to Janie, my wife,
who is on staff at a multistaff church what do you call multi
multi sec? And uh, theyare to a person, more busy now
(19:29):
they've been and h not a megachurch. It's in the three hundred on
a good Sunday range, you knowkind of thing. But they're doing so
many more ways of uh flexing youto make it possible to be ministered to
and so but yeah, it's uhyeah, and then you get into the
(19:51):
technology and the things, and ifyou're not the mega church with a full
time for peachake, you know,a full time media guy who knows what
he's doing, you end up withpeople doing it and five minutes after the
head of the clock, we're stillnot on Facebook or whatever. The deal
is, right and so and forme, that is incredibly stressful. If
(20:11):
you are a go get her ayou lean toward it, being an evangelist
and so forth. What gets yourcra is that there are people here today
who came to connect with God andwe can't even get on Facebook. You
know, I'm just burying my soulhere. Jeff, Yeah, no,
I get it. I would imagineif you can relate to that absolutely absolutely,
(20:37):
at least with austion man. Yeah. Yeah. And so guys,
whenever you can, guys and galsout there in ministry, if you feel
like you're burning out, please calla time out. If you have a
board of directors or eldership team,deacons, whoever helps you lead that local
church, please you know, takesome time and take care of yourself because
(21:02):
you're you're not going to be anygood, you know, in the future
if you don't take care of yourself. Now. That's actually my last blog
on church plane dot com was pastorself care. Okay, I got you,
Yeah, that was on my mind, so I wrote about it.
Anyways, here's the last one,Steve, Wisdom and Direction. That is
(21:26):
one of their concerns, wisdom anddirection heading into twenty twenty one. Pastors
say they're struggling with uncertainty, youknow, with the pandemic and how to
how to plan and lead their congregationsinto this new year. Yeah. Well,
I mean, let's face it.You know, even though it's good
to see the the dumpster that's onfire going down the river versus ortis at
(21:51):
the same time you're thinking, uh, well that thing's going to go over
the waterfall hopefully that that trash can. But what about the aftermath the flood,
what about the aftermath of the fireand so forth? And but you
know one thing that hit me,Jeff is we were talking briefly earlier today.
That is something that was said byBill Hybels. And I've gone on
(22:15):
record of saying that I love anddo not relate to whatsoever aspects of what
Bill did up there. But thepart that I do relate to was a
comment that he made was that hethinks that no matter what you are thinking
about your funding, your focus onevangelism, you need to minimally double it
(22:37):
to be in touch with reality ofyour needs. And and again I think
that doesn't mean giving more money toyou know, pop on New Guinea,
which is fine as well, butI interpret that as being locally we're going
to take seriously that we are abridge from outside relationship with Jesus into faith
(22:59):
with Jesus. And so to dothat, we're gonna have to really,
you know again redouble our efforts.And I you know, again, this
is kind of the end of theparenthes from earlier what I was saying,
And I think that if we ifwe can do that, I think that
a lot of the clarity we're lookingfor will come together. And does this
(23:22):
makes sense, Jeff, Then ifwe see it as a chapter being turned
into we have a chance to redefine normal. And to me, that
is incredibly exciting being able to redefinenormal or maybe define it more clearly than
we've ever had it before, andjust reiterating it like a broken record.
(23:44):
Cunk kunk, kunk, you know, yeah, yeah, And you know,
I think while we can't predict thefuture, right, we do know
there's some principles that are just sosolid we can we can lean on those
principles. One is that we're calledto make disciples, and so be about
the disciple making process, whatever ittakes to make disciples within your context.
(24:10):
We just recently purchase the Right NowMedia Resource Library and we've given to all
of our members and that's just oneway of helping them help themselves. And
so twenty five thousand various resources andso ignorance would would never be an issue.
(24:33):
Or you know, they can neversay that they're not being fed.
So if they're not being fed,its because they're not opening the jar and
you know, taken partaking. Andso that's just one way that we're encouraging
discipleship. Within that, we're alsoencouraging folks to gather in small groups.
(24:56):
And so again you can do thateither in a small small clusters or you
can actually do that virtually. Andso however, whatever it looks like for
your context, the say, gogo to and start putting feet to your
faith with regardless to discipleship. Andthen on the other hand, just exactly
(25:18):
what we spoke about before, weknow that we're to go into all the
world and we start writing in JewsJerusalem, and that's where you are,
and so go out and you knowwhat, and if you're locked in,
if you're own quarantine, guess what. I believe that you can do outreach
online to a degree. It's notgoing to be like the one on one,
(25:45):
but I believe that you can encourage. I believe that you can sew
seeds. And that's what we callit when we go out and do outreach,
right what we're sowing seeds. SoI believe that you can do that
online. And the whole thing isto get out of yourself and and get
into the world, so to speak, and engage. So yeah, if
(26:11):
we if we do like a cleverline we say send this to ten people
or are you're going to be introuble, that wouldn't work. I found
it, okay, Yeah, soyou get those you get those emails that
sends you oh boy, yeah,you know, you know it really ties
perfectly together the h being online,uh, influencing people and so forth.
It kind of it gets down tothe essence of what disciples disciple making is
(26:36):
yea, And I would say thatit's more of a virus, a good
virus you catch from people more thanit is an outline or just a book
or just it is another behavior.But you want to become a disciple.
Find somebody who is a disciple thatyou deem that way and hang around them,
you know, be their shadow.Uh, you know, bug them.
(26:59):
If and I'm not everybody's able tobug people, I'm really good at
that. I should probably use abook or something. I'm bugging in the
power of the spirit. You knowthat sounds like a book proposal right there.
Yeah, yes, Uh, butuh you know that it all,
it all hangs together. It's ait's a it's a good you catch it,
(27:21):
you catch it, you catch it, and uh you know, Uh,
there's a guy, Lonnie Frisbee.Some of you guys have heard in
Lannie and some of you you don'tneed to look him up necessarily, but
he was the guy that I gotto know. He really was a central
figure in the Jesus movement, anduh really walked in a really clear sense
(27:41):
of the power of God. Uh, with all sorts of amazing stories.
But I always changed lockstock and barrelby having dinner with him three or four
times and I can tell you todayfive things that I learned and I I
don't think about all the time,but it's just part of what I've incorporated
into me. I became a Lanidisciples and even though he was imperfect if
(28:04):
you know much about Lonnie and onand goes, you know. But at
the same time, I again,I think it's more caught than it is
even explained or taught or what haveyou. You know. Yeah, now,
some of my best disciple ship momentshas happened life on life, even
some of my spiritual sons and daughters. You know, it happened in the
(28:27):
context of being outside the four wallsof church, and it wasn't based on
a curriculum. It was really justlife on life. Yeah, that's right.
Funny. I was speaking to oneof my friends in the Philippines about
how he is doing discipleship in theircontext, and he pulled out this jar
(28:48):
of peanuts and he says, Itake this, and I set it in
the middle of the table and wepour everyone some water or whatever we have
to drink. And he says,you know what, we start talking.
I said, but what curriculum areyou using? Because we just start talking.
(29:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, peanuts. If you have an allergy,
we'll get you something else. That'sit. That's it. I don't think
we have those allergies in the Philippinesfor some reason, I don't know that.
Yeah, we don't have rice allergiesor penalalergies or yeah, any of
(29:33):
our our fruits. But anyways,guys, this has been a good time,
and this is one of our longerpodcasts, and so until next time,
Steve and I just wants you toknow that you're not alone in this.
We're praying for you. We believein what you're doing. We believe
that you're making a difference. We'repraying for you or praying for your church
families. And I know Steve,yeah, he would sign off with keep
(29:57):
on keeping on. Yeah, hewrote inside of one of my books.
So yeah, but anyways, justnote we love you, we're praying for
you. God bless you, andwe'll see you on the next episode of
Church Planning Today. You've been listeningto the Church Planting Today podcast with Steve
Chagrin and Jeff Hoakland. Be sureto share and subscribe wherever you listen to
(30:18):
podcasts. Connect for free outreach articles, ideas, and resources at kindness dot
com and church planting dot com.
Hey, everyone, Welcome to ChurchPlanning Today, the podcast of church Planing
dot Com. Church plan dot Comis for current and future church planners,
existing church leaders, and those wantingto see renewal and revitalization within the local
church. My name is Jeff Hoaglandand I am joined today by author,
coach and my good friend Steve Chagrin. Equipping and encouraging church planters everywhere.
(00:22):
This is the Church Planting Today podcastwith Steve Chagrin and Jeff Hoagland. Useful
conversations for those aimed at winning othersinto relationship with Christ. Well, for
sure, twenty twenty one has tobe much better than twenty twenty. It
wouldn't be hard, man, I'lltell you run on. So, you
(00:44):
know, what I thought we woulddo today is kind of unpack, you
know, the biggest concerns that pastorshave leaving twenty twenty going into twenty twenty
one. And just for full transparency, I'm pulling these these sub headers off
of a blog that I read onFacts and Trends dot net and Aaron Earls
(01:08):
he's the author of this blog postand I'm not going to read his his
blog per se, but I wouldI just like his main points and and
his first point here is the biggestconcern, one of the biggest concerns for
pastors going into twenty twenty one is, you know, maintaining unity within the
(01:30):
church mm hmm, and I makesure yeah, yeah, And just thinking
about that, you know, there'sa whole lot of division within the church
right now. We have we havethe mask versus no mask situation, we
(01:51):
have a political divide in some yeah, well anyways, yeah, yeah,
So we have a very divided countrywith regards to all sorts of different issues,
and so how do how do wemaintain unity? Yeah, you know,
(02:13):
that's always a challenge, I think. Can I give you a shot
from the hip? Absolutely, Andit kind of fits in with what I
was actually going to talk about abit anyway, is that the more we
focus beyond ourselves, the more likelywe are to, I believe, live
(02:35):
in unity. It's tough to dislikeour for Peach's sake, I hate somebody
who loves the Lord. When you'reout doing something for the community and you're
out doing I would call it againmy words, servant evangelism. As you're
out doing and challenging people to beoutwardly focused versus because you know, really
(02:59):
it's been said many times is thatthe body of Christ is more like fertilizer.
The more that you keep it together, you're going to burn beneath it.
But you spread it out. Andwe won't say what kind of fertilizer
it is, but and uh,but the more you spread it out,
it can do a lot of good. But but if we just focus in,
it's going to be uh, youknow, there's some trick we're going
(03:21):
to pull out of our rabbit hatand rabbit out of our hat and uh
produce unity. I think it happensas an after effect. Yeah. Yeah,
Well, you know what that's interestingbecause you know, one of the
things that I've just recently learned.Actually I've known it for a long time,
but you know, I just reconcileit all together, and that is,
(03:42):
you know, having working, havingworked with other churches in the revitization
process, looking at their their churchhealth in a broad sense, without a
doubt, it seems that evangelism outreachis one of the biggest needs in those
(04:02):
churches needing revitalization. Yep. Andyou know it's kind of common sense.
But yet, you know, Iguess common sense isn't so common anymore,
or you know, they just neededa fresh set of eyes on the situation.
So it does go back to thatas well. Being outreached, being
outreached, centered, outward focused.It gives us, it brings us together
(04:29):
for common cause, common goal,but it also does something to the health
of the church as well. Soit's pretty cool. Well, it's hard
to deny that in a sense,even though they didn't have resources, including
scripture, for the most part,the early several generations of the church were
able to pull off amazing stuffy theyyou know, depending who you think about,
(04:54):
they evangelize the known world. It'spart of the world. They didn't
quite understand what was out there atthe time. But uh, you know,
you know, considering the few resources, there were such creativity, there
was such gumption and so forth,and there was such fellowship, you know,
Acts two forty two. They sharedtogether, They were focused, and
they were they you know what,again, it's hard to be in discord
(05:18):
deep down. Now you can discussthings and so forth, but deep down,
if I if we're out there doingsomething for the community and loving people
into relationship with Jesus, nudging themalong, bumping them, whatever you want
to call it. Uh, we'regoing to learn to love each other.
I mean, we're just gonna Ithink it will happen about this long fast,
right. I've seen it again andagain and again. I've got out
(05:42):
and done outreach with nuns in habitsOkay, and again I'm not a Catholic
and I hardly have any habits wellwell, okay, not that kind of
habit, but but but uh,and then I've gone out with people that
were absolutely added that all about eightypercent of what I believe, as you
(06:03):
know, in various other areas,and so you know, they're at the
other end of the spectrum. Ithink that we will, we will get
along if we just learned to focusbeyond ourselves. Amen, Amen, maintaining
unity is I love that? Yeah, I love that. Another area of
concern going into twenty twenty one ispastoral care from a distance. And so
(06:27):
you know, here we are endof November early December, and you know,
our numbers for COVID are on theupswing in a lot of different areas.
And again we have to kind ofqualify that in some areas, in
a lot of areas, depending onwhat stage you're in and Anyways, so
(06:48):
a lot of churches that I knowpersonally, they have went from online only
to back in person and kind ofsplit. You know, they still have
an all end presence, of course, and but they opened the church's church
buildings back up for attendants. Andnow some of them are are closed again.
(07:12):
And so now these pastors here here, they are open, close,
open, closed, and you knowthey're having to do pastoral care from a
distance. You have any tips tricksyou can share? Well, you know,
uh, clearly we have turned achapter, not a page, but
(07:34):
a chapter in church history. I'dsay, I go to that flamboyant and
say we and and probably zoom isone of the incredible, amazing tools that
God has provided really right now forwhat we can do. And so you
know one thing I could touch thatA couple of things. One is not
(07:57):
to beat one drum only. ButI I would say, uh, uh,
why don't you, in terms ofwhat you're doing in your own spiritual
life, why don't you begin toconvey that uh to others? And and
you know, really create online groupswhere and again you know there's a different
kind of training goes on. ButI would say, right from the gid
(08:20):
go you train everybody that you're involvedwith. You you pick out two or
three I would say confederates, soyou think are absolutely going to succeed and
uh and have at it, youknow, and uh, you know,
don't don't get the guys that youthink are a big gamble to begin with.
And then after a rather short time, you're gonna have some stories to
share. Right who else would liketo da da da? You know,
(08:43):
maybe you know, avoid the temptationto it for a cute name for this
whole thing. You know, justdo it. You don't need a the
zoom small group to the third power. I mean, just uh, just
you know, do it. Thisis what I said the prophet Nike,
just do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or the uh the guy
(09:07):
invented the ball cap. His biggreat line was if you want to get
something done, you have to doit. Go figure. He had about
a third grade education, the guyyou know, hey man, And you
know this, this third one herekind of goes hand in hand with with
the other pastoring pastoral care from adistance. The third one is safety and
(09:28):
well being of the members. AndI actually spoke about this on one of
the previous podcasts. But yeah,it has to be on the forefront of
our minds, you know, especiallyif we're if we're open and you know,
they haven't had COVID just one hundredpercent transparency. I've had COVID.
(09:50):
I have this superpower at least forfour months, and so I think I
do. Yeah. So yeah,keeping them safe is a concern, absolutely,
and conveying that to the community iswe take your safety as an incredibly
(10:15):
you know, high concern and itisn't. And part of it now from
now on, you know, wewe all want to have a welcoming place.
Uh so that you know, whenJesus said, was it Andrew,
we said, come and see andyou know the come and see dynamic of
the church. Of course we wantthat. But part of the the come
and sea is going to be fornow on safety is that people are not
(10:37):
going to come unless they feel safe. And it probably is going to go
beyond the you know, the theCOVID is issues. Probably we we can
need to continue having that options.People walk in the door, there's a
bottle of hand stuff, you know, and there's maybe even a possibly a
(10:58):
mask. Don't leave the whole thingout there because some child will come by
and take the whole stat right,you know. But but you know,
make that more like we're gonna seepeople wearing masks for a long time,
I think because they're just afraid,they don't trust the vaccine, and so
they're going to keep on wearing amask. You knows what that's going to
happen. Yeah, well you gotto convey that message, ay man,
(11:20):
you know. And yeah, Ifeel like we'll be seeing a lot more
of this. I think it willbecome part of the norm to a certain
degree. You know, when afternine to eleven, we we had a
lot of changes in the travel areaof our of society, and uh,
(11:41):
and now it's it's just the norm. You know. We're we're used to,
uh, long lines and high securityand overseas, oh my goodness,
we have we have so much moresecurity. It's almost uh, you know,
sure, I have a cavity searchand so so we're used to that,
(12:03):
you know. And sure, andso here we are in going into
twenty twenty one, and I thinksome of that will stick around. We
shall see. I'm no profit,but it certainly seems that, you know,
especially we're here, we are we'regoing to be entering into flu season
(12:24):
pretty soon. And people won't knowif they have the have allergies or the
flu or COVID. And so mything is, if you're sick, you
stay home period. Don't don't tryto self diagnose. Just stay home.
Yeah that's right, man, that'sright. Better to be safe. Yeah,
(12:50):
I agree. And that's part ofthe safety thing is that you're reiterating
if if you don't feel well,don't come to church. For me sick,
you know that we want you tobe well, and we want to
protect everybody here too. Yeah,and you know there's another sign to that
those steve because of safety and wellbeing of members, and so we kind
of compartmentalize that a lot because wethink they're coming or staying home due to
(13:15):
COVID, but the well being ofmembers, you know, for those who
are staying home, those that arein that high risk category, I seem
to feel that they need extra specialattention because especially those who are in an
isolated type environment, you know,the elderly, those who live by themselves,
(13:39):
those with no family nearby, thosewho live a little bit further than
the typical five to ten mile radiusfrom the church. And so in those
cases I believe that maybe the localchurch needs to be very intentional about communicating
with those those church members and justchecking on them, you know, and
(14:03):
making sure they're doing all right.And I think they would just so appreciate
that. You know, the churchwhere Janie works here in Los Angeles area,
they've been really picking up on that. That's a really good point to
bring out, Jeff. And they'vebeen taking things to people they find out
in the course of calling everybody ortexting everybody that people do have needs that
(14:28):
maybe they're not speaking up about.And so they're asking people, you know,
the old Robert Schueler, see aneed and meet it, feel over
and is that who I stole thatfrom? Well, you stole it from
me, but I stole it fromhim, Okay, Indeed, and meet
it, feel hurt and kneel it, and and you know it's worked well.
(14:50):
People that were not really engaging withtheir nearby or whatever the case was.
A friend who even goes to thesame church, weren't even aware going
on it. Doesn't that sound?So you know along those lines too,
they have texting services now where youcan text gigantic masses all at once,
and it's a subscriber service. Butif I was planning a church right now,
(15:15):
I would get that service in aheartbeat. And I think they charge,
of course by the number of peoplein your church or your your text
list. So the idea that youcould send out a whole thing all at
once versus an email, which isin my opinion, likely to get lost.
Let's face it, I get hundredsa day now, It's nuts,
(15:35):
you know, But so I,you know, think about the texting thing.
I think it could be a goodtool for doing the exactly wor're talking
about today. Absolutely with that inmind, Guys, down on our website
churchplan dot com you can see alink to faith Teams and they have an
amazing setup for you that Faith Teams. It's created by a pastor for pastors
(15:58):
and churches, especially small to midsized churches of up to about five hundred
that can work for megachurches. Butit is a finance type platform and that's
why he initially created it. Butit does so much more now. It's
communication with members and even invitations andsign ups, and it's so much more
(16:22):
than just keeping track of giving.And so I highly recommend that you know
they are not a sponsor of churchplanning dot com verse, but I just
feel so strongly about what they do. And actually, if you sign up
through our website church plan dot com, you'll get a discount. And now
(16:44):
none of that comes back to us. We're we're doing this. It's a
kingdom thing for us. But BrianDavis, he's the CEO out there,
and he gave us, gave youour listeners and readers solid discount if you
want to sign up with faith teams. But anyways, that's great. Yeah,
(17:04):
I'm gonna have to charge them nowbecause I just did a commercial,
you know. Yeah, yeah,here's the last two, Steve, Well,
can we can rapid fire through these? The next one? Uh.
Pastors are very concerned with personal exhaustion. HM. So you would think,
(17:30):
you know, especially those who areare not having live services, you would
think that they they would have akind of a more relaxed tempo to their
their day. But I found thatit's it's not that way at all.
Now we are doing live services,and actually we do quite a few,
and and so and so ours isyou know, the way it's always been.
(17:56):
But I know some folks who haveclosed and reopened and have closed again,
and in their days are still jampacked. And you know, I
speak into them and encourage them totake some vacation because I see it taking
a toll on them. And andI think some of that is the weight
(18:21):
of ministry on them, you know, especially independent pastors and even churches within
denominations. You know, there's acertain weight I think these pastors or senior
elders they carry because with the slowdown of attendants or no attendants, and
(18:42):
that typically means lower amounts of fundscoming in. Well, you know,
but all the members expect to havesome degree of care. And if you're
church is mortgaged, and I don'tknow of any forgiveness programs there yet,
(19:06):
but it continues to come in monthly, and so do the light bills.
Yeah, yeah, you know everybody. I talked to Janie, my wife,
who is on staff at a multistaff church what do you call multi
multi sec? And uh, theyare to a person, more busy now
(19:29):
they've been and h not a megachurch. It's in the three hundred on
a good Sunday range, you knowkind of thing. But they're doing so
many more ways of uh flexing youto make it possible to be ministered to
and so but yeah, it's uhyeah, and then you get into the
(19:51):
technology and the things, and ifyou're not the mega church with a full
time for peachake, you know,a full time media guy who knows what
he's doing, you end up withpeople doing it and five minutes after the
head of the clock, we're stillnot on Facebook or whatever. The deal
is, right and so and forme, that is incredibly stressful. If
(20:11):
you are a go get her ayou lean toward it, being an evangelist
and so forth. What gets yourcra is that there are people here today
who came to connect with God andwe can't even get on Facebook. You
know, I'm just burying my soulhere. Jeff, Yeah, no,
I get it. I would imagineif you can relate to that absolutely absolutely,
(20:37):
at least with austion man. Yeah. Yeah. And so guys,
whenever you can, guys and galsout there in ministry, if you feel
like you're burning out, please calla time out. If you have a
board of directors or eldership team,deacons, whoever helps you lead that local
church, please you know, takesome time and take care of yourself because
(21:02):
you're you're not going to be anygood, you know, in the future
if you don't take care of yourself. Now. That's actually my last blog
on church plane dot com was pastorself care. Okay, I got you,
Yeah, that was on my mind, so I wrote about it.
Anyways, here's the last one,Steve, Wisdom and Direction. That is
(21:26):
one of their concerns, wisdom anddirection heading into twenty twenty one. Pastors
say they're struggling with uncertainty, youknow, with the pandemic and how to
how to plan and lead their congregationsinto this new year. Yeah. Well,
I mean, let's face it.You know, even though it's good
to see the the dumpster that's onfire going down the river versus ortis at
(21:51):
the same time you're thinking, uh, well that thing's going to go over
the waterfall hopefully that that trash can. But what about the aftermath the flood,
what about the aftermath of the fireand so forth? And but you
know one thing that hit me,Jeff is we were talking briefly earlier today.
That is something that was said byBill Hybels. And I've gone on
(22:15):
record of saying that I love anddo not relate to whatsoever aspects of what
Bill did up there. But thepart that I do relate to was a
comment that he made was that hethinks that no matter what you are thinking
about your funding, your focus onevangelism, you need to minimally double it
(22:37):
to be in touch with reality ofyour needs. And and again I think
that doesn't mean giving more money toyou know, pop on New Guinea,
which is fine as well, butI interpret that as being locally we're going
to take seriously that we are abridge from outside relationship with Jesus into faith
(22:59):
with Jesus. And so to dothat, we're gonna have to really,
you know again redouble our efforts.And I you know, again, this
is kind of the end of theparenthes from earlier what I was saying,
And I think that if we ifwe can do that, I think that
a lot of the clarity we're lookingfor will come together. And does this
(23:22):
makes sense, Jeff, Then ifwe see it as a chapter being turned
into we have a chance to redefine normal. And to me, that
is incredibly exciting being able to redefinenormal or maybe define it more clearly than
we've ever had it before, andjust reiterating it like a broken record.
(23:44):
Cunk kunk, kunk, you know, yeah, yeah, And you know,
I think while we can't predict thefuture, right, we do know
there's some principles that are just sosolid we can we can lean on those
principles. One is that we're calledto make disciples, and so be about
the disciple making process, whatever ittakes to make disciples within your context.
(24:10):
We just recently purchase the Right NowMedia Resource Library and we've given to all
of our members and that's just oneway of helping them help themselves. And
so twenty five thousand various resources andso ignorance would would never be an issue.
(24:33):
Or you know, they can neversay that they're not being fed.
So if they're not being fed,its because they're not opening the jar and
you know, taken partaking. Andso that's just one way that we're encouraging
discipleship. Within that, we're alsoencouraging folks to gather in small groups.
(24:56):
And so again you can do thateither in a small small clusters or you
can actually do that virtually. Andso however, whatever it looks like for
your context, the say, gogo to and start putting feet to your
faith with regardless to discipleship. Andthen on the other hand, just exactly
(25:18):
what we spoke about before, weknow that we're to go into all the
world and we start writing in JewsJerusalem, and that's where you are,
and so go out and you knowwhat, and if you're locked in,
if you're own quarantine, guess what. I believe that you can do outreach
online to a degree. It's notgoing to be like the one on one,
(25:45):
but I believe that you can encourage. I believe that you can sew
seeds. And that's what we callit when we go out and do outreach,
right what we're sowing seeds. SoI believe that you can do that
online. And the whole thing isto get out of yourself and and get
into the world, so to speak, and engage. So yeah, if
(26:11):
we if we do like a cleverline we say send this to ten people
or are you're going to be introuble, that wouldn't work. I found
it, okay, Yeah, soyou get those you get those emails that
sends you oh boy, yeah,you know, you know it really ties
perfectly together the h being online,uh, influencing people and so forth.
It kind of it gets down tothe essence of what disciples disciple making is
(26:36):
yea, And I would say thatit's more of a virus, a good
virus you catch from people more thanit is an outline or just a book
or just it is another behavior.But you want to become a disciple.
Find somebody who is a disciple thatyou deem that way and hang around them,
you know, be their shadow.Uh, you know, bug them.
(26:59):
If and I'm not everybody's able tobug people, I'm really good at
that. I should probably use abook or something. I'm bugging in the
power of the spirit. You knowthat sounds like a book proposal right there.
Yeah, yes, Uh, butuh you know that it all,
it all hangs together. It's ait's a it's a good you catch it,
(27:21):
you catch it, you catch it, and uh you know, Uh,
there's a guy, Lonnie Frisbee.Some of you guys have heard in
Lannie and some of you you don'tneed to look him up necessarily, but
he was the guy that I gotto know. He really was a central
figure in the Jesus movement, anduh really walked in a really clear sense
(27:41):
of the power of God. Uh, with all sorts of amazing stories.
But I always changed lockstock and barrelby having dinner with him three or four
times and I can tell you todayfive things that I learned and I I
don't think about all the time,but it's just part of what I've incorporated
into me. I became a Lanidisciples and even though he was imperfect if
(28:04):
you know much about Lonnie and onand goes, you know. But at
the same time, I again,I think it's more caught than it is
even explained or taught or what haveyou. You know. Yeah, now,
some of my best disciple ship momentshas happened life on life, even
some of my spiritual sons and daughters. You know, it happened in the
(28:27):
context of being outside the four wallsof church, and it wasn't based on
a curriculum. It was really justlife on life. Yeah, that's right.
Funny. I was speaking to oneof my friends in the Philippines about
how he is doing discipleship in theircontext, and he pulled out this jar
(28:48):
of peanuts and he says, Itake this, and I set it in
the middle of the table and wepour everyone some water or whatever we have
to drink. And he says,you know what, we start talking.
I said, but what curriculum areyou using? Because we just start talking.
(29:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, peanuts. If you have an allergy,
we'll get you something else. That'sit. That's it. I don't think
we have those allergies in the Philippinesfor some reason, I don't know that.
Yeah, we don't have rice allergiesor penalalergies or yeah, any of
(29:33):
our our fruits. But anyways,guys, this has been a good time,
and this is one of our longerpodcasts, and so until next time,
Steve and I just wants you toknow that you're not alone in this.
We're praying for you. We believein what you're doing. We believe
that you're making a difference. We'repraying for you or praying for your church
families. And I know Steve,yeah, he would sign off with keep
(29:57):
on keeping on. Yeah, hewrote inside of one of my books.
So yeah, but anyways, justnote we love you, we're praying for
you. God bless you, andwe'll see you on the next episode of
Church Planning Today. You've been listeningto the Church Planting Today podcast with Steve
Chagrin and Jeff Hoakland. Be sureto share and subscribe wherever you listen to
(30:18):
podcasts. Connect for free outreach articles, ideas, and resources at kindness dot
com and church planting dot com.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.