Video Transcript: Lesson 27 Outside Help
Hello, and welcome back. Can you believe it? We're up to lecture number 27 already. And today we're going to be talking a little bit more, one more way about thinking differently about how you do ministry and what revitalization might be in some steps needs to take there. And so today, I'm going to challenge and encourage you to get some outside help with this great work that you're doing in your context. Okay. So let's begin with a word of prayer. We always want to begin and end with prayer, putting this before God. Lord, we give you thanks for this day, we give you thanks, we have the breath of life and us, we thank you that we have the Spirit of life within us you are holy and awesome of the worthy of all that we can give you and we just honor you today, Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord that in some way that you might empower and equip us to do the divine work of Your kingdom. Lord, thank you so much for my brothers and sisters, watching today and listening, pray that Lord, you are going to do a great work in them today. And bless them so that we as a whole world might bless you. Amen. Okay. So throughout this whole class on revitalization, I have referenced that we had a coach who helped us out and that was definitely a huge part of of our, of our experience. So kind of going back to the beginning, when when I knew that our church needed revitalization I've shared this, I was floundering for a while I had some well intentioned ideas that really kind of bombed. And I got to a point where I just realized, like, I don't know what to do. Like, again, I said, like, I don't even know what revitalization is. I don't know what the and I wouldn't even know how to get there if I did, because I thought I had, but I really wasn't getting very far. So that's why I enrolled in a program, a doctoral program on church revitalization. Because I wanted to be with people and study under people who knew all about this, who were way much more further down the road than I was, I wanted to be with people who had done this, who had experience, who had wisdom, who had insight, and who could help me. And so that's why I got into this program. And the program that I got into was specifically geared towards church revitalization. And as part of this program, this doctoral study, that we had a coach from out of state fly to our church, and spend two days a month with us for about a year and a half. And actually, even after that we contracted with this person to continue to come with us beyond that for a certain period of time. I can say definitively that any success that we have had over the past number of years, is because we got outside help, until we got some outside help, and some wisdom and some coaching. We were stuck, like I said that like that, that rock that big boulder in the mud, like we were stuck, we could not get it going. We couldn't figure out what to do. Now, it's not just us. It's kind of like everybody, the ministry I've worked through is called embers to flame. It's the one that my friend and mentor Harry Reeder is over. There's another gentleman who at the time was working with him, Len. And Len was kind of over this ministry as well, in the use of rather than just the embers to flame ministry is kind of like a conference. And they wanted to know how
effective these embers who flame conferences were, how much revitalization was actually taking place by the people who came to the conference. So they had done some interviews and surveys and all that. And they found out that the level of implementation to those who had gone to their conference was about 15%. So people would go to these 3-4 day conferences, they'd go home, and they'd actually apply about 15% of what they learned. And as you can imagine, Harry and Len were very disappointed with these results. They were doing these big conferences, they had great content, wonderful teaching really profound biblical truth inspiring stories. But it was only resulting in 15% implementation. So then they brought on kind of a coaching piece to go alongside their ministry. And then they did that. So people would go through the conference. And if they wanted, they could sign up for a coaching, which is what basically what we had. And then they would, they ran that for a while. And then they said, Okay, we know that if you don't have any coaching, implementation is about 15%. What about if you do apply coaching? And you have somebody there working with you from the outside on site? What is now the level of implementation? So let me guess, what would you think it went from? I can tell you it went up, it has to go up, right? So it was 15%? How about 80 to 85%. That number was just astounding to me when I first heard it, and I heard it just as we were starting our coaching, I can tell you, as somebody who's gone to conferences, and just kind of come home and read books and kind of put it back on my shelf, versus my experiences having a coach, it is absolutely the case, I'm actually surprised the numbers aren't lower for the 15% and higher for the coaching. Our experience was like 100% implementation. Whereas we had really struggled before we really got unstuck. It was the fact that we had a coach working with us, who could give us to kind of show us why we were stuck, and how to get it unstuck. That made all the difference. And he was able to do that because he'd helped. I think it was like 99 or 100 other churches before us get unstuck, as well. So I want to talk to you today about getting outside help to make this happen. Now, when I talk about outside help, I'm talking about just a few things like you can take the route our church went now we were in a position where we had the ability to hire a paid coach, a consultant, somebody who would come and help us. And that was, it did come with a cost. Fortunately, our denomination was able to help us with those expenses. We also spread it out over a couple of years of church budgets, we had individuals who really believed in what we were doing, they paid for it. So we had all different kinds of streams that were able to make coaching a reality. So it wasn't like we were flush with money and we have like a million dollars in the bank, we had to kind of scrimp and ask and budget for it. But since it was a priority for us, we we made it happen. Okay, I'd say that's more a good description, we kind of we made it happen by just going through a lot of different avenues to to make it happen. So that's always just a good, a good way to go. Somebody who does this professionally, who's walked
alongside many churches just like you were ministries, and has helped them experience the turnaround. There is also if you are part of a denomination, there, a lot of denominations will have all kinds of staff members or coaches or resources that are available to you. That, you know, that might be either reduced cost or free of charge, people that will will help you out in this process. And then a third, it could just be somebody like a retired pastor in your area, or somebody not far from you who have gone through revitalization. And they would just be willing to help out with you. Like you just say, Hey, we're kind of where you were, we've seen good things happening. Would you be willing to just be a counsel for us just somebody, I can bounce things off somebody who'd be willing to check things out for us. You can do that. And maybe it's a paid thing like a nominal fee, or they're just willing to do it for free. But I would just say whatever it is, whatever route you go, just inviting somebody in to your ministry situation, who has the freedom and the authority to speak into your church and to speak into your life. Somebody who will be able to just kind of come in and just be that outside help, that I have found is so critically important. Okay, so let me talk just a little bit more specifically, what are some of the benefits about having a person from the outside come in? Kind of why does it go from 15%? To 85%? What does somebody from the outside bring? Okay, so let's talk about some benefits. We've mentioned this already. They bring wisdom and experience. They've been there, they've done it, they know what the pitfalls are, they know what to expect. You're not the first church going through what you're going through. I mean, just think of it mean pro athletes. You would think like, why do they need coaches, like, I mean, they've been doing this forever, but they don't just have one coach, they've got a, you know, a strength and conditioning coach, a mental coach, a skills coach, they've got the team coach, they've got all these people around them. They're there. They're world class professionals at what they do. And yet they are always inviting in professionals. You know, you think of, you know, great athletes, you know, golfers and stuff, they all have coaches, and it's not all like self taught like they you have somebody who's been there, they know how to imagine if you're going whitewater rafting, you know, you don't just go head down the river, you do have a guide, somebody who can read the water, somebody who knows how to get through the difficult areas where to go and where not to go. And just having a veteran, somebody with wisdom and experience is incredibly beneficial. Like I said, the coach we had, he was an extraordinarily successful businessman, who then went into church, really church coaching, pastoral coaching, church consulting, and he already works with 100 churches by the time he got to us, and he was tremendous. He just, he was the difference maker. You say what happened before when you were struggling, and then what happened when you things started to happen, and you started to move, what was different, I can tell you the difference. My friend, Joe, who was our coach, he came in, he made all the difference. I mean, the wisdom
he would just share and leading us and guiding us at a meetings of monthly meetings we would have is just invaluable. I mean, the man is worth his weight in gold in just his love for the Lord, and how he would offer counsel and say, and here's what you want to do next. And you want to just focus on one thing, and like I said, when it and then he told me, okay, and you're not leading, and other people have to do it. And then, you know, he taught us so much as we went through that we really began to think differently, we began to operate differently. Because it was somebody from the outside who had a different perspective, that made us look at things from a different perspective from a different angle. And that's what we needed, we needed to look at things from a different way. In order to move in order to have any progress. We kept trying to push that boulder the same way. And our coach came in and said, Well, what about if you tried it from here? Or what if you use this for leverage, and we did and it's like, Oh, my goodness, it's moving. That's really what happens. You get somebody from the outside, they can look at the problem differently. Okay. A second, there's, you really need somebody who can speak objectively and directly about where you're at. So one of our first meetings with our coaches, our team had come and they were totally unprepared. Our coach had told us to do something, we had a month to do it. And about 11 or 12 of us to be honest, I was the only one who was ready for the meeting. And our coach said something just very direct to them. He said, Well, if this is the way it goes, I can see why the church is in the situation it's in and if nobody's gonna take this seriously. He's like, I'm gonna have trips up here for the next year and a half. And he goes, we're gonna have the same agenda. We're not gonna go any further and he he just laid it on the line. He was really direct that they, they did not do what they were supposed to doing. They did not do what they were supposed to be doing. We had lost a month of progress. And that was just the way it was. Now, that kind of thing. It was not uncommon at our church for kind of people to show up unprepared or not to do what they wanted to do. And And as their pastor, I had tried to approach this in kind of a pastoral way, I tried to, like encourage people I tried to be, you know, help them. But I couldn't come at it that directly because like, I was their pastor, and I was, I knew they were volunteers. And I was preaching to them. And they were under, you know, these were my flock, and I was helping, you know them through pastoral counseling issues. And so I couldn't be as direct as I would want to have been. And then when Joe came in, and our first one of our first meetings, and this happened for the 100th time, and Joe just laid it on the line, I was just silently in my seat saying, like, Thank You, Lord, because they heard it very differently from him than they would have for me. He was just being very objective, he could be very direct. And it wasn't like he had compromised now my relationship with folks in my church. What a blessing that was. I'll also say, though, there were conversations that Joe had with me in my office where he said, I think this is an area that you need to work on, or I think
you maybe should have said something here when you didn't, or, or whatever. And then I could hear it from Joe, very differently than I could hear from one of my elders or a guy on the team who was a really good friend of mine, it would have been, I kind of would have taken it more personally. But I knew what Joe was there for. He was looking at things objectively, and fairly, I knew he loved
the Lord, I knew he had our churches, best interests at heart, he had no personal stake and what was, you know what decisions we made, other than he just wanted to see us succeed. And that was just incredible. Now, through Joe's objectivity, he was able to really reveal some blind spots for us, things that we hadn't seen. At the end of our previous lecture, I talked about a ministry that we had been doing for 70 years, that drew tons of people, it was the thing that it's the thing that we've been known for in our community. And we ended up dropping it this past year. You know why? Because several years ago, when we were talking about our church and direction, Joe brought this up, and he goes, this has absolutely nothing to do with the vision and the direction your church has, like, it's a great thing. And he wasn't saying like, you should just shut the whole thing down. But he's like, that's a great thing, but it's not your thing. And over time, we started to bring other people on board to lead and run this ministry until this past year where we let it go. And what what a relief, in a sense, it's been to us now that ministry continues, it's going great, it's going fabulous. God is honoring it, and our church blesses it. We want to bless the people who are doing it. But it's not ours anymore. And that all got started with the conversation Joe started with us a few years ago and says, I have no idea why you're doing this, because it's disconnected. You know what we had no. We had no sense of that it was a blind spot. We did it because it was big, it was successful. And this is what we are known for. And lots of people are coming. Of course, we are going to keep on doing this. But it took an outside person to reveal a blind spot to us that, in fact, this wonderful ministry was going to keep us back from what we really needed to be focusing our energies on. So he was able to reveal that he was able to expose some sacred cows, he would ask questions, why do you do that? It makes no sense to me. And sometimes we would explain it and he'd say, Oh, that makes perfect sense. And other times, he'd ask a question, we just be like, I don't know, I just we've kind of always done it that way. And it doesn't make sense. Or we should stop doing this or we should do this a different way. So really, that objectivity, and just that insight he had it was just tremendous. It really, really made a big difference. Another thing that Joe really brought was accountability. You know, it's hard to be accountable to people that you're in a sense that you're really close with. Now, I know that there's different people like men's groups have accountability partners, and, and that's all really good. But accountability can be a really tough thing with people you're close to. It's tough as the pastor sometimes to be the accountability guy. Just like if you're married, and you tell your spouse you want to like go on a diet or you want to work out,
you know, five days a week. It's hard when they're the your accountability partner, because you don't want your spouse saying, you know what you're eating a piece of cake like, now you really shouldn't be eating that or you you want to sleep in, and they're saying, I thought you were gonna go running today, or it's actually we're gonna go lift weights today that can create friction right between between a husband and a wife. Well, it's kind of the same way I have found with pastor. Now there are certain people like with my staff and ministry leaders, that I have a different level of accountability with, but But broadly, it's a challenging thing. And it was really great to, you know, have tasks to do and Joe to be the one to say, Are you staying on task? Are you doing what you said you would do? And it was great that I didn't have to be that person. But also, it was great for the other people that Joe was asking me those very questions about what I had to do. Because it was kind of uneven in a sense. And it was really hard for them to say now, did you? Are you going to be ready for the meeting? Did you do what Joe said you were going to do? So it just can be really hard when you're the when you're the senior leader of an organization. Especially like a church where it's an all volunteer organization. So just having somebody who can be there and hold people accountable. And if they if they don't meet deadlines, or they don't get things done, somebody didn't deal with it graciously and encouraging, but let people know like, hey, you need to do this. And that was just wonderful. I really appreciated our coach's role in doing that. And then finally, depending on who you would get to help you, they can come with all kinds of resources. My goodness, like I said, Joe was just fabulous with leadership kind of stuff. He had a lot of training for our church on doing spiritual gifts assessments, we had a whole stack of books, we had to read that we did as a team, we listen to CDs, he had a ton of just digital documents, for us to look at how to run meetings, how to develop leaders. good agenda templates. Every time he came, we had like a new just stack of things that we could work on and resources that we could refer to. So that was just a great thing. And so many of those things like were really helpful. Some of those things we still use, you know quite a bit we refer to them. And if we didn't have him, we never would have had those things at our disposal. So a coach or somebody who's done this before, you know, they can just really bring a lot to to the game. So kind of like just some some concluding thoughts here would be if you could do revitalization by yourself without any outside help, my guess is you would have done it already. Okay, I think you would have done it or, you know, if we could have done it without Joe, we would have done it because we were trying, we were doing all these different things, you know, there, again, go back to that 15% to 85% 15%, doing it on their own 85% doing it with somebody from the outside. That's just like a difference maker, it changes the whole dynamic of what you're trying to do. And it may be uncomfortable, you might mean you might feel threatened. And that's something you have to work through because you but I say bring in
somebody that's trusted, who you who you know, who can speak into your church, and into your life in a in a grace filled, but honest way, right? If you could have done it with what you know, and the people around you, you would have been you would be on that path already. But you're not just in the same way that I was not. And I needed, I needed that help. I needed that encouragement, I needed that direction, I needed the wisdom to come alongside me, all that sort of stuff. So really just my way of saying this is I want you to take advantage of the gift that is the body of Christ. You were never intended to know it all to be at all to have every answer, right? Nobody does. But there are people in the body of Christ, who have been where you are, who understand things in a way that you don't, What a gift that we have each other. So I realized that there's probably some very, very, very limited budgets and opportunities and and the idea of hiring a church or a consultant is a million miles away. It's doesn't have to be, I have done this sort of thing for other churches in my area. And I just have done it free. Somebody says, Hey, I understand you guys are doing some revitalization. Yeah. And they're like, would you just be willing to come to worship with us? If you're not preaching on a Sunday? Or could you come to a meeting? Or can I just sit down with you and talk to you a little bit about this? Or can we have, you know, maybe quarterly meetings where you just share, I can share with you what's going on? And you can tell me what you think, could you sit down with our leadership team, and just kind of go over some of these things that you've talked about with me, yet? You know, I don't, there's no money in that. For me, I'm just so glad to share what other people have taught me that I can teach somebody else. And so hopefully, the Lord is bringing to mind one or several options in front of you that you can invite people in, and really help you throughout this process. Because we need each other right, we really need each other, we're not islands, we're not super Superman, and super women of ministry, we really need some, some people who can offer some help and, and just think I mean, down the road, this is going to be you, right, you're going to be that person with wisdom experience, you're going to be that person who's had some success, and you figured things out, and you're going to be able to go down the street or across town or online, and you're going to be able to offer something to somebody else, not just because of what you've learned, but you're going to just be a wonderful collection of all the things that other people have poured into you authors and conferences and online classes and, and fellow people. So my challenge to you is to really find somebody that you can talk to and partner with locally, right? I am so glad you're doing this class. I am thrilled in the fact that you're watching this as an answer to my prayer that God would raise up a harvest of people to do church revitalization. And I love that, even though it's a bit on the one side, it's been you and I are forming a connection here through this, but I'm not where you're at. I can't come and visit you and encourage you but God has placed I know he has he has placed
somebody not far from you. Who can do that. Would you please just enlist them and just again, I pray, Lord, for my brothers and sisters out there God that you are bringing to mind now or in the very near future? Just the right person, God who can be who can be their partner who can be their friend who can be their trusted adviser, God, would you bless them with that person, so that they may do all that you have created them to do? All right. Thank you so much for hanging in there. We're getting there. We're getting into some really good stuff. I'm excited about where you're at in this process. Keep going. Okay, dig your heels in God has yet to do great things in and through you. Alright, so God bless and be well until our next lecture.