unSeminary Podcast

stuff you wish they taught in seminary.

unSeminary Podcast is a religion podcast hosted by Rich Birch, with 300 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Rich Birch hosts unSeminary Podcast, a religion show with 300 episodes published.

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  unSeminary Podcast

  You Can Be a Kind Boss and Still Wear Your Team Out with Adam Weber

  Oct 1, 202646 min

  Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Adam Weber , founder and lead pastor of Embrace Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. What began in 2006 with 32 people has grown into a multisite church reaching thousands each week. Along the way, Adam has experienced explosive growth, painful leadership setbacks, seasons of rebuilding, and renewed momentum. Has your church hit a plateau after years of growth? Are you carrying more than your team can sustain? Wondering how greater clarity and healthier leadership rhythms could help your church move forward? Tune in as Adam shares lessons from Embrace’s lowest season and explains how greater self-awareness, organizational focus, and the Traction framework helped reshape both his leadership and the church. Growth can expose unhealthy leadership. // Embrace experienced significant growth from 2009 through 2016, but Adam admits that his drive to keep moving forward eventually took a toll on his team. He wasn’t an angry or demanding leader in obvious ways, but he constantly pushed toward the next goal. Looking back, Adam realized that leaders can genuinely love people and still wear them out. Good intentions don’t automatically produce healthy leadership. Own your part in the problem. // A painful staff conflict eventually resulted in 10 of the 16 people closest to Adam leaving the church, along with hundreds of attendees. While it was easy initially to blame others, Adam gradually recognized how his own leadership contributed to the situation. He had to confront people-pleasing, his relentless pace, and the ways he had failed to care for his team. That willingness to take responsibility became foundational to Embrace’s recovery. Build a circle that can handle the truth. // Adam leaned heavily on his wife, close friends, therapy, and trusted ministry relationships during his lowest season. These were people who allowed him to express grief, anger, and confusion without abandoning him. They also helped him see blind spots he couldn’t recognize on his own. Leaders need people who love them deeply but aren’t overly impressed by them—people who can offer both support and honest feedback. Learn to pause. // One of the clearest changes in Adam’s leadership today is his willingness to slow down. He pauses more in meetings, accepts when team members say no, and resists the urge to squeeze one more project into the schedule. Rather than automatically pushing for what is possible, he now asks whether pursuing another opportunity will unnecessarily burden the team. Slowing down has helped him become both healthier and more sustainable as a leader. Protect your own soul. // Adam also changed the way he approaches personal health and his relationship with God. Instead of allowing busyness to crowd out time with Jesus, he now increases that time when ministry becomes more demanding. He intentionally creates margin, eats lunch, steps away, and takes breaks that once would have felt unproductive. Use clarity to create focus. // After COVID, Embrace implemented the Traction framework based on the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) model. The process helped the leadership team revisit its vision, identify its distinctives, define its target audience, and establish a long-term goal. Embrace clarified its mission as “relentlessly reaching the next person for Jesus” and identified relatability as one of its key distinctives. That clarity has helped the church say no to distractions and concentrate energy around its primary mission. Break big vision into smaller steps. // Traction helped Embrace move from a 10-year vision to three-year, one-year, and 90-day priorities. Every 90 days, leaders identify five or six major “rocks” that deserve focused attention. Each rock has a clear owner, measurable milestones, and weekly accountability. Rather than chasing whatever feels urgent or exciting, the team continually returns to the handful of priorities it has already agreed matter most. Let accountability replace micromanagement. // The system has also helped Adam release control. Team members own specific priorities and report whether each one is on track or off track. That accountability means Adam doesn’t have to constantly monitor every detail. The process has increased ownership across the staff while allowing him to function more effectively as the visionary instead of becoming the bottleneck. Listen to the people you serve. // Embrace also uses an annual survey to gather candid feedback from attendees. Open-ended questions reveal recurring patterns that leaders might otherwise miss. One example was parking, an issue Adam barely noticed because he wasn’t experiencing the church like a first-time guest. Listening carefully to people has helped the church identify practical problems and respond before they become barriers to growth. To learn more about Adam Weber or connect, visit adamweber.com or find him on Instagram at @adamaweber . To learn more about Embrace Church, its campuses, and how the church is relentlessly reaching the next person for Jesus, visit iamembrace.com . T hank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please  share   it  by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to  leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes , they’re  extremely   helpful  when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Intulse If you’re committed to the growth of your church, make sure your communication systems are set up so nobody feels left behind. When your church is smaller, that comes easy. You know people by name. A guest doesn’t get lost in the shuffle—someone follows up, every guest, every time. But growth can change that—unless your systems grow with you. Perhaps this church using Intulse says it best: “Intulse has revolutionized the way we communicate with people, giving us the ability to make a big church feel small because of that personal connection.” The Intulse app gives your team members a working church number, so anyone can call or text without ever handing out a personal number. Every conversation syncs straight into your ChMS, like Planning Center, so your whole staff stays on the same page—no matter who a person talks to. That’s how you keep every person feeling known, no matter how big your church gets. Want to know if your communication systems are ready for growth? Download Intulse’s free guide, “10 Communication Blind Spots That Hinder Church Growth,” at Intulse.com/unseminary . And if any of those blind spots hit home for you, schedule a call with one of their church communication specialists to learn how Intulse can help. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, lean in on today’s conversation, ah because I know you’re going to have some stuff you can pull out of this for your church. There’s some part of this discussion that’s going to help you as you think through leading in the season you’re currently in. Rich Birch — We’re honored to have Adam Weber with us. He’s the founder and lead pastor of Embrace Church, which began in 2006, with just 32 people gathered at a worship service. Today, it’s a few more than 32. Embrace is one church with, if I’m counting correctly, five campuses worshiping with thousands each week around Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Outreach Magazine named these guys, Embrace, one of the fastest growing churches in the country in 2026. Adam is the author of Talking with God and Love Has a Name . He hosts the Life Between Sundays podcast while he and his wife, Becky, have four kids. Adam, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Adam Weber — Oh, Rich, huge honor. I know I said this before to you. You are someone that I’ve looked to for wisdom, encouragement, insight for many years. And so this for me is a huge honor. And I do I just really don’t take it lightly. Honestly, if it was anything else today, I’m headed to the cabin right after this. If it was anything else, I’d be like, ah, let’s pass on that. But for me, like for me, this is one of those like key true honors. And so I just thank you big time. I’m just on behalf, honestly, of so many people who listen just like me and read your writing. Thank you. Rich Birch — That’s kind of you to say. That’s really kind of you to say. This is between you and the cabin. So we’ll make this quick. We’ll get this. We’ll move this on. I don’t want to… Adam Weber — No. No, there is zero rush. Zero rush. Rich Birch — No, I’m just kidding. That’s that’s great. That’s fantastic. So why don’t you kind of give us the story, the the Embrace story. It’s like 20 years in a few minutes. Adam Weber — Yeah. Rich Birch — Take us back to 2026, back to those 32 people. What did that look like? And then paint the picture of where Embrace is today. Adam Weber — Oh, so I always, when I encourage pastors, I’m like, do the opposite of what we did. So I was going into my third and final year at Asbury Seminary. So I was living in Kentucky and my pastor who led me to Christ, led me to my wife, led me into ministry, led me to Asbury, had the initial idea of a new church in Sioux Falls. Adam Weber — He’s the one who who reached out to me and said, hey, we’re we’re thinking about starting a church in Sioux Falls. What do you think? And I’m like, I think Sioux Falls has enough churches. Rich Birch — Right. Adam Weber — Like I don’t think… and and then who’s gonna pastor this thing? He’s like, that’s why I’m calling you. Rich Birch — Right. Adam Weber — Like I don’t think and and then who’s gonna pastor this thing And I was like, ah, I’m not in, I’m actually not interested. We love Kentucky, the weather, the history, so much of it. We love. So we had no plans of coming back to South Dakota. And he ah told us to pray about it. We didn’t. Adam Weber — And then he found then we then he found out I was coming back to do my brother’s brother’s wedding. Uh, so the week of us coming back, he said, Hey, how about you send an email and I’ll send an email. We’ll see who shows up. And I’m like, nobody’s going to show up. It’s going to be Labor Day weekend. Nobody’s going to come. I’m not even interested in being this thing. So I was like, this is the perfect way to kind of get them off my case. Adam Weber — So we sent a couple of emails. That night, September 4, 2006, 32 people showed up. And I was depressed cause 32 showed up. I was, I was hoping for zero and, and… Rich Birch — Oh, no. Now we got to do something. Adam Weber — …and my, my, my pastor was pumped. So he, once a month, he’s like, Adam, once a month, we’re going to fly you back for services and we’ll just see how this goes now. Now, quick note. At the time, were United Methodist. And so we had 40 years worth of failed church starts in North and South Dakota. And so they were very reluctant, you know, specifically going to be a new seminary grad. Adam Weber — So we kind of needed to prove to the denomination that people would come. So that’s why we started once a month, even though I was in seminary. So I’d come back every time, I’m like, this is such a bad idea. I mean literally months into it I’m like this is a bad idea. And but I just didn’t have the courage to tell my pastor no. He’s just an amazing, godly man. Zero. He put zero pressure on me, which made it even harder for me to say no. Rich Birch — Sure. Adam Weber — And so once a month I’d come back and then sure enough, I ended up getting appointed to start this church. So I came back in 2007, we kept once a week worship. We kept once a month worship. Adam Weber — In March of ’08 we went to weekly Sunday evening services. And we struggled to grow. We were just struggling to get above 100. I mean, we were just, we were almost closed. About once a quarter, the denomination would say, We just don’t think you’re financially sustainable. We don’t think this is going to work. Even early, early on, I can remember a one denominational leader said, when this church fails. What are we going to do? Rich Birch — Oh wow. Wow. Adam Weber — And so that was kind of the mindset going into it. So September of ’09. Three years in. We moved in through the most insane circumstances, we got our own space on a Sunday morning. And in one morning, we doubled in size. Rich Birch — Wow. Adam Weber — And so we went from barely surviving to flourishing. And every week we were seeing more and more new faces. That really began our first season of incredible growth. I was, ah you know I you know, I started Embrace when I was 24. So that would have been three years. I’d have been 27, 28, man. And I was, I was super unhealthy. Adam Weber — You try for three years to get it to grow. And then it finally grows and you don’t know when the water is going to shut off. So you just keep running faster. And so that was just a really hard season. But really away from that, Embrace has always been the most unlikely of people. Gosh, I feel like if… ah yeah Yeah, it’s just the most unlikely of people to be in church. Adam Weber — So I went to college in Sioux Falls. And I always said early on, if you would have told me you’re going to start a church, who’s going to come to your church? I would have listed off all the guys that were in bible studies with me blah blah blah. And if you were like, who’s the most unlikely of people? I’d have been like, ah, a lot of the football players and you know, whatever. From that first group, only like one or two came. Because they already had churches and were connected and whatever. From the second group, all of them came. Rich Birch — Wow. Adam Weber — And so from really the get-go, it’s just been this most unlikely of people. Adam Weber — And so since then, we are now we have three physical campuses. We have two God Behind Bars locations. ahRight now, we are we just announced earlier this week that we’re launching a fourth physical campus that will be our new broadcast campus… Rich Birch — It’s amazing. Adam Weber — …over double the size of our current broadcast. And um still today, it just continues to be the most unlikely of people. And um I feel like we don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take God very seriously. And I think the thing that people are like, what is the thing? I think it’s just really trying to be as relatable as possible. And just trying to make as much of Jesus as we possibly can. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Adam Weber — And for for for me, the more I follow Jesus, the more I realize how wonderful and and grace-filled and loving and truth-filled he is. And so it’s just trying to share that as as clearly and as simply as we can. So I’m talking too much. Rich Birch — No, no, not at all. That’s great. That’s so good. You know, we track pretty closely the Outreach 100 list here at unSeminary. We look at it and our… Adam Weber — Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, the secret we find a lot of guests there. And um when, you know, I was looking at this, there’s this interesting kind of blip of history where Embrace was on the list 10 years ago, ’15, ’16, and then there was a gap, and then congratulations, you’re back on for 2026, which caught my attention, or 2025 caught my attention. Rich Birch — And I thought, okay, that’s interesting. Like, I wonder what the story is there, you know, when it’s just little… you know, buttons or whatever it’s like it looks really antiseptic on the website. But am I framing that incorrectly? Adam Weber — No, no. Rich Birch — Talk me through what happened between these two, ah you know, showing up on this list. Adam Weber — Very, that’s, you you’re you’re highlighting something that’s very, very true. I first got to say, ah I just shared this with my team on Monday. My first full-time hire, his name’s Travis Waltner. Yeah, he’s always so good at saying, hey, Adam, I know this, you’re fired up about this. Can you share why with our team this matters? And something he had never heard before, I said, I can remember every year when the Outreach 100 came out and I was this new pastor who didn’t have anybody that he could connect with who had led a large thriving church. Adam Weber — I mean, there’s at that time in Sioux Falls, there just wasn’t really many. Now there’s several, which is awesome. And so I would get that Outreach magazine. And those pastors, I would try to find 5 to 10 churches that were similar to to Embrace, or where I saw us going. And those people never met me or I never talked with them, but they became mentors of mine. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. That’s cool. Adam Weber — And so it’s where I learn from. And so I just told the team, I’m like, it’s so cool to think that like God is now using us and hopefully we can be a blessing to others. Because it’s cool to see fruit grow on your own trees… Rich Birch — Yeah. Adam Weber — …but it’s even it’s even better when you help others grow fruit on their trees. Rich Birch — Oh, so true. Adam Weber — So that blip that blip though, so growing, growing really from I would say from 2009 to 2016. I mean, just constant growth. At one year we were number four on Outreach, whatever. So I mean, just like enormous growth. We plateaued. And I’m going to talk very unfiltered about myself. As an Enneagram three achiever, plateauing is not your favorite thing. Rich Birch — Okay. Adam Weber — And so I’ve never been a yeller. I’ve never been, I feel like I could say this confidently, never been an angry boss. But ah something I’ve learned out about myself is I wear people out. You can still be super non-angry and still wear people out. Adam Weber — And so I didn’t do a great job of caring for my team. I love people. It’s why I I literally, I just love people. I got a steak at a grocery store for lunch today and ended up talking to all these random people. It was my favorite thing. I love people… Rich Birch — Sure. Adam Weber — …but I haven’t always been good at loving my team. And so we went through, I wasn’t caring for my team. Adam Weber — And because of that, someone began to care for my team that was taking the church another direction. And so I let that person go. That’s the only time I’ve let someone go in the history of Embrace. And when I did, again, this is very unfiltered, 10 out of 16 people that were closest with me left. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Adam Weber — Including one of my, including just a very, very, very close friend. And so, man. It was brutal. Rich Birch — Yeah. Adam Weber — And out of that, hundreds of people left Embrace. And it wasn’t just people. It was people that I had literally left date nights with my wife to care for ’em. And it was it was people that I skipped, you know, being with my kids to meet with them. And so it was it was brutal. Lowest point in my life, including even harder than losing my brother unexpectedly two years ago. Rich Birch — Wow. Adam Weber — With my brother, it was all one feeling, g

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  unSeminary Podcast

  The Myth That’s Quietly Stalling Your Disciple-Making with Vick Green

  Sep 24, 202638 min

  Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Vick Green , CEO of Replicate Ministries and co-author of Movement Ready Church . Replicate helps churches across denominations and sizes strengthen their disciple-making culture, clarify their vision, and mobilize people to make disciples where they live, work, and play. Is your church busy but unsure whether people are actually being transformed? Do you have a clear pathway for discipleship but struggle to see multiplication happen outside your programs? Tune in as Vick challenges several common assumptions about disciple-making and offers practical ways to measure transformation, mobilize people, and create a culture where ministry extends beyond the walls of the church. Activity does not equal transformation. // One of the most common myths Vick sees is the belief that participation automatically produces spiritual growth. Attendance, serving, small groups, and classes are all easy to measure, but they only tell part of the story. A person can be highly engaged in church activity and still experience little personal transformation. Churches need to keep measuring participation while also asking whether people are actually becoming more like Jesus. Build a clearer scoreboard. // Vick compares church metrics to baseball. If you only measured hits, you would miss the point of the game: scoring runs. In the same way, churches can overvalue attendance and engagement because those numbers are easy to track. Vick encourages leaders to develop a transformation scoreboard that measures not only what people are doing but who they are becoming. Incomplete scoreboards tend to produce incomplete disciples. Define your dream disciple. // Every church should be able to describe the kind of disciple it hopes to develop. Vick calls this the “dream disciple.” Rather than relying only on pathway language that tells people what to do, churches should paint a vivid picture of what transformed lives look like. One church describes disciples as having a mind of truth, a voice of hope, a heart of compassion, hands of service, and feet of purpose. That language gives people something meaningful to pursue. Focus on what you want for people. // Churches can unintentionally communicate that they primarily want something from people: attendance, volunteering, giving, or participation. Vick challenges leaders to shift toward communicating what they want for people. A healthy discipleship strategy should help people become better spouses, parents, coworkers, neighbors, and followers of Jesus. When people understand why transformation matters, they become more motivated to engage with the pathway that supports it. Let your discipleship picture shape the culture. // A dream disciple should not live on a poster or disappear after a leadership retreat. It should show up in sermons, kids ministry, membership classes, assessments, volunteer training, and everyday language. Vick highlights churches that use their disciple profile to guide sermon planning, build personalized follow-up, equip parents, and help people identify specific areas where they want to grow. Help people name their kingdom circle. // Vick’s second major metric is whether people can identify the individuals God has placed within their sphere of influence. Every person has a “kingdom circle”—neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family members where they can bring the kingdom of God. The goal is not simply deeper program engagement but helping people take ownership of disciple-making in ordinary life. Equip people for ministry outside the church. // Vick shares the story of a man named Austin who began gathering non-Christian neighbors around a backyard firepit. The church provided simple questions, encouragement, and resources, but Austin led the ministry himself. Eventually those men began attending church, growing in faith, and multiplying into further discipleship relationships. The church’s role was not to replace Austin’s influence but to equip and support him in using it. Clarify leadership and partnership. // To measure ministry beyond church programs, leaders need clarity around three questions: What do we consider a disciple-making leader? How will we equip them? And how will we partner with them? Without shared definitions and a unified approach, every ministry ends up operating differently. Clear expectations make it easier for people to take responsibility for disciple-making in their own context. Challenge the myths beneath your ministry. // Replicate’s Ministry Myths resource helps churches identify faulty beliefs that quietly shape behavior. These myths can create a gap between good intentions and actual impact. By naming assumptions like the engagement myth, teams can begin honest conversations about why multiplication is not happening and what needs to change. Download the free resource Ministry Myths: The 5 Assumptions that Stall Disciple-Making Movements here. Learn more about Vick Green and Replicate by visiting replicate.org . You can also explore the book Movement Ready Church and additional free resources at movementreadychurch.com . T hank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please  share   it  by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to  leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes , they’re  extremely   helpful  when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way. TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow. TouchPoint is trusted by some of the fastest-growing and largest churches in the country because it helps teams stay aligned, understand who they’re reaching, and make confident ministry decisions week after week. If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo . Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Super excited for you today because you’re going to get front seat with a leader who interacts with literally hundreds, maybe thousands of churches across the country every single year. And we’re going to take advantage of the fact that we got an expert on the line today and try to peel back and help you in an area in your church, which I think will help accelerate your mission as we round out here in 2026 and look into 2027. Rich Birch — Excited to have Vick Green with us. He is the CEO of Replicate Ministry, where he leads a team of coaches and consultants who work with churches every year all across the country in their particular, their disciple-making vision and strategy. Rich Birch — Before Replicate, he served on staff at a fantastic church, Long Hollow Church in Hendersonville and The Chapel in Baton Rouge. He holds, if I’ve got all the numbers and letters correct, an MDiv from New Orleans Baptist and lives in the Nashville area with his wife, Sophie, and their three kids. Rich Birch — He’s the co-author of a great new book that I want to expose you to with Robby, who’s been on the podcast before called Movement Ready Church. Welcome to the podcast, Vick. Glad you’re here. Vick Green — Dude, thanks so much for having me. And what an intro, man. Down to my seminary degree. Wow. Like, that’s impressive. And. Rich Birch — People like that, you know, people like those things. So you’re an expert. Vick Green — There you go. Rich Birch — I just play one on the internet, but you’re like an actual expert. Vick Green — Hey, I appreciate it, Richie. I’ve been following the unSeminary Podcast since those Chapel days, like early on, trying to figure things out. And your podcasts, your books have been a gift. So fun to be on this side of the conversation with you. Rich Birch — I’m honored that that you would do this and really looking forward to expose what you do at Replicate and particularly this book and the kind of the work around that to folks. But why don’t you tell us about Replicate. For folks that are unaware, kind of talk to us about the kinds of churches that you’re interacting with week in, week out. Vick Green — Yeah, so Replicate was started in 2008 by Robby Gallaty. And so Replicate exists to help churches activate their unique disciple-making movement. And so since 2008, we’ve had a burden to see ministry get beyond the walls of the church, beyond the church’s programming. How do we see every person in our church to see themselves as a disciple-maker? And what does it look like to see ministry happening through our people as they make disciples? where they live, work, and play. And so that’s really been our passion since ’08. I joined in 2020. Replicate helped me down in Baton Rouge. I joined in 2020 and we get to work with churches across all denominations, all church sizes in helping them with their culture, vision, and strategy around disciple-making. I think to date, I think we’re over 4,000 now. I think actually closer to 4,500 churches that we’ve trained in that span. Rich Birch — Wow. Vick Green — And so, yeah, every year we’re getting to see around 700, 800 churches a year at this point that we get to work with and and help kind of further the mission of what they do. And so it’s a blast. I spend each week somewhere with a church. I’m heading to Chicago today and we’ll be somewhere next next week, but get to see a lot of different contexts and be with a lot of great leaders. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really the heart of why I wanted to have you on, to take advantage of the fact that you interact with so many churches, and have a really unique vantage point seeing so many churches and um I’d love to try to draw out some of those learnings for our listeners that are pulling in today. Rich Birch — When someone gives you a call for the first time, they pick up the phone, they say, okay, we got a problem and I need the folks at Replicate to help us. What do they say? Like, hey, here’s the thing that’s gone wrong. Here’s the thing, the pain that they feel. Help us understand that. Vick Green — Yeah, often whenever churches are reaching out to us, they want help with disciple-making, they want help with multiplication. You know, we hear that in a lot of ways. And that multiplication takes a couple of different expressions. Sometimes it’s, man, we need better discipleship. Sometimes it’s we need more leadership development, our leadership pipeline. Sometimes it we need ministry outside the walls of the church happening. All of that is usually what is starting the conversation. Vick Green — What is often holding them back, that problem is they don’t know how to help the light bulb go off for their people. There’s this disconnect. The staff wants their people to be to really embrace this disciple-making lifestyle, to be out in the community, doing ministry and sharing their faith and helping others, but they can’t quite figure out how to get it to their people. Vick Green — And so there’s this gap that they consistently feel. And so typically we’re trying to figure out, okay, why are we not seeing that multiplication, that disciple-making culture? And then ah we’re identifying what is what are those things holding back the culture? Vick Green — And so one of those two that just kind of typically always comes up, most of them most of our leaders, they have a vision for multiplication, but they don’t necessarily know how to measure it. They don’t know how to measure disciple-making or are we developing the right disciples? And then they don’t necessarily know how to get ministries and lead in a way that their people actually will start living it outside of the walls of the church. Vick Green — And so those are two of the typical tensions that people are feeling. And what they’re looking for is that multiplication and mobilization. Rich Birch — Well, when I hear you say, you know there’s this idea that like, hey, we we want the light bulb to go off in our people. We really want them to. Um, you know, want to engage in this, but we’re feeling a certain amount of frustration. To me, that feels like there’s an assumption or there’s some underlying assumptions that you must run across… Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — …that you see inside of us as church leaders that that it’s kind of holding us back or holding back our leadership. What are some of those assumptions that you keep running across that are in our heads… Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — …as church leaders that are holding our people back or potentially holding our churches back? Vick Green — Yeah, we actually, we talk about it from the idea of myths. Do you remember the show Mythbusters growing up? Rich Birch — Oh yeah. I love that show. That was fun. Vick Green — Loved that show. We have so much fun on that. And so we will riff off that idea of Mythbusters. And one of the myths that we see the most in churches. This is the number one is something that we call the engagement myth. Rich Birch — Okay. Vick Green — And it’s the belief that activity equals transformation. It’s the belief that activity equals transformation. And so the reason that we really figured this out or we kind of stumbled across it, we jokingly say like, the we’ve paid the dumb tax for you. Like after doing this for 18 years and most of our coaches are pastors in the trenches right now. And so a lot of times what we’re working with through are stuff that we figured out the hard way. Vick Green — And the way that we figured this out is we actually had a guy in our church—his name was Scotty. And Scotty is the most active person in our church. He was coming to worship service. He’s coming to small groups. he’s coming he’s volunteering on Sundays. He’s listened to every podcast of Robby’s. He is, I mean, he’s coming to the prayer gathering. That’s how you know he’s committed. Vick Green — And so, all metrics that we’re measuring, he’s at the top. Like, if you want to put out our database, he he is number one, Scotty. But here’s the problem. When Scotty introduces himself, he introduces himself and he says, Hi, my name’s Scotty. And I’m an atheist. Rich Birch — Interesting. Vick Green — The number one most active person in our church is an atheist. Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — And I think on one side, I love that he feels safe enough to explore his faith in our community is that is welcoming. Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — That’s fantastic. And if that is our metric for maturity and an atheist is at the top, we have a problem. Vick Green — And it exposed this gap for us that program activity is not the same as personal transformation. Rich Birch — That’s good. Vick Green — And I think that right there is the number one…angst that I see leaders feel. Every leader, when I, as soon as I say, activity equals transformation, they say. Yes. But then when I asked them, okay, now tell me. What is the picture of a disciple that you’re developing? What’s that picture of transformation? Vick Green — They can’t say it back. Rich Birch — Right. We can’t articulate those two things. Rich Birch — Well, and I’m having a hard time. Yeah. It’s like one of those, I had that same, exactly the same feeling inside of me when we started talking about that. I was like, yeah, that is true. But I’m like, okay, so if we aren’t measuring, because a part of what got my attention early is like, hey, we want to measure things. We want to have good metrics. Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — And activity is very measurable. Someone either walked into the room or they didn’t, they joined the class or they didn’t. Vick Green — That’s right. Rich Birch — They registered and then so and then actually showed up. All of those things are the kinds of things that we can we can measure. But talk me through how do we how should we be thinking about this myth? How should we be thinking differently, if we really actually want to measure transformation or push towards transformation, really? Vick Green — Yeah, and and the thing about it is activity and measuring that, it’s not bad. It’s just incomplete. it’s only telling you half the picture. And so to give you that idea here is like, Think about baseball for a second. If you play, what if you measured who won the game by who got the most hits? Vick Green — Okay. There’s plenty of times where hits does lead to runs and there’s a correlation. But there’s also plenty of times where it doesn’t. Rich Birch — Right. Vick Green — And a team with the most hits loses the game. But here’s the bigger picture. How much does that change the game for those that are playing? Vick Green — If hits is all you measure, a home run has no value. You would never run past first base. That right there is the impact that happens if all we measure is activity. And so it shapes how people interact with you. And because here’s the big idea is your people play where the scoreboard is the clearest. Rich Birch — Yeah. True True. Vick Green — And so if our scoreboard is all about activity at best, it’s an uninspiring invitation. I would say at worst, it promotes a work-based theology. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Vick Green — And I think that’s what’s at risk here. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Vick Green — And so ultimately, incomplete scoreboards create incomplete disciples. Vick Green — And so we just have to look and say, okay, we let’s not stop measuring activity. Now, let’s but let’s also measure something else. Let’s make sure our transformation scoreboard is as clear as our activity scoreboard. Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. I like that. And I i think that’s vivid you know the the hits versus ah you know runs is a great example. Yeah, you know, and that I can see actually in our church world, how and there’s metrics I know that are incomplete, but you’re like, okay, but we use, it’s at least measurable. So we put it down on a piece of paper. Vick Green — Yeah. Rich Birch — So what should we be measuring then? What should we be paying attention to to help us get a better handle on this. Vick Green — Yeah, I’ll give you two metrics and we’ll tackle the first one and however much time we have for the second, we’ll tackle the second. Vick Green — The first one that I would that you need to measure is what is your, we call it a dream disciple. And that’s more a term from us to the church. The church tweaks that and adjusts that into their language. Vick Green — But tell me the picture of the disciples that you’re developing. And then how can we build our metrics of success off of those traits? Vick Green — And so this looks different because ultimately we’re not looking for activity. We’re looking for life change here. And so… What we’l

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  unSeminary Podcast

  A Former Witch, an Ex-Muslim, and an Atheist Walk Into a Baptism Tank with Jon Thompson

  Sep 17, 202647 min

  Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jon Thompson , senior pastor of Sanctus Church , a multisite church on the east side of Toronto. Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years and has helped lead the church through seasons of growth, renewal, revival, and cultural change. In this conversation, he shares insights from his latest book, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival , and explores how churches can faithfully witness in an increasingly post-Christian—and even re-paganized—culture. Learn to minister in a re-paganized culture. // Jon believes Canada offers a glimpse of where many parts of the United States may be heading. Churches are increasingly engaging people with little or no Christian memory alongside Muslims, Hindus, atheists, New Agers, nominal Christians, and people shaped by contemporary cultural movements. The challenge is not simply to defend Christian truth, but to communicate the gospel thoughtfully and winsomely to radically different audiences at the same time. Open the three evangelistic doors. // Historically, love, word, and power describe three ways people encounter God. Love demonstrates God’s character through hospitality and care. Word clarifies truth through preaching, apologetics, and teaching. Power reveals God’s presence through experiences such as healing, deliverance, dreams, and other supernatural encounters. Jon argues that churches need all three doors open because different people encounter Jesus through different pathways. Admit your church’s bias. // Most churches naturally lean toward one or two of these categories. Conservative evangelical churches often emphasize word. Other churches may prioritize love through compassion and justice, while still others focus heavily on supernatural experiences. Jon encourages leaders to honestly identify their bias and intentionally elevate the areas they tend to neglect. A healthy church needs all three working together rather than allowing one to dominate. Don’t let fear quench what God is doing. // Jon tells the story of a woman who came to faith out of Hinduism after experiencing visions, spiritual conflict, and encounters with Jesus. When her church removed those elements from her baptism testimony because leaders were uncomfortable with them, she felt that an essential part of her story had been denied. Jon warns that fear, theological bias, and lack of experience can cause churches to suppress genuine ways God may be working in people’s lives. Choose encounter and systems. // Jon believes churches often falsely pit spiritual encounter against organizational structure. Healthy churches need both. Leaders should build systems that support what God is doing without attempting to control it. As spiritual activity increases, churches may need to adjust volunteer processes, pastoral care systems, staff expectations, and leadership structures. The goal is not to eliminate order but to make the organization flexible enough to respond when circumstances change. Understand renewal, revival, and awakening. // Jon distinguishes between renewal, revival, and awakening. Renewal is the recovery of first love in individual believers. Revival is a sovereign move of God that He initiates and ends where sin is revealed and there’s widespread healing. Awakening happens when revival leads to widespread conversion. Leaders should not assume revival is guaranteed, but they should remain faithful and responsive whether God brings extraordinary renewal or simply calls them to steady obedience in an ordinary season. Start by refusing to resist God. // Before changing structures or launching new ministries, Jon believes leaders should begin with a simple posture: “Lord, whatever you want to do, I won’t fight you.” Many pastors love God but still struggle to trust Him when ministry becomes unpredictable. Jon encourages leaders to confront their fear, relinquish control, and remain open to correction, repentance, and change. To learn more about Jon Thompson and his books, including Convergence , Perseverance , Presence , and the upcoming re-release of Deliverance , visit jonthompsonresources.com or Amazon.com . Other Conversations with Jon Thompson Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point with Jon Thompson // February 8, 2024 What if John Stott, John Wimber, Dallas Willard & Andy Stanley Planted a Church with Jon Thompson? // March 14, 2019 Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please  share   it  by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to  leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes , they’re  extremely   helpful  when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to  subscribe to the podcast on iTunes , to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich from the unSeminary Podcast. Listen, you’re going to want to lean in today for this conversation because I think this kind what you’re going to get a sneak peek on is something that’s impacting churches all over the world that’s having, I think, an interesting kind of moment and is maybe points to a bit of where God is at work. And I think could for many churches that are listening in today, give them a sense of maybe some next steps, what the kind of evolution or the development of their church, what that could look like for the future. Rich Birch — Plus, it’s one of those times where I get to talk with like a real live friend, somebody that I know from the real world, not just on the internet, which is so fun. Excited to have Jon Thompson with us. He is the senior pastor at Sanctus Church, a multi-site church in the east side of Toronto with four in-person locations plus church online. This church began in 1985 with just 40 people meeting and now averages over 2,600 weekend attendees with a plan to reach 3,600 by the end of the decade and open a sixth site in the T. Dot in Toronto in the six by 2030. Rich Birch — Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years, starting as a youth pastor before becoming the senior pastor. He holds both a masters from Tyndale and a doctorate from Fuller. He grew up in Ecuador from missionary parents, he and his wife, Joanna, who’s incredible, have three kids. His books include Convergence, Deliverance, and Perseverance. And the brand new one that I’m excited to have him talk about today, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival . And it’s from our friends at Zondervan Reflective. Rich Birch — Jon, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you’re here today. Welcome. Jon Thompson — Yeah great to be here. Great to be back on the podcast. Hang out with a real friend, like you said, and hi to anyone listening anywhere around the world today. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is good. I’m excited for this. For folks that haven’t maybe picked up a past episode, which you haven’t, you should go go back and find them. Jon’s been on a couple times, a few times. But give us kind of a picture of a normal Sunday at Sanctus. Who’s in the room? Give us a flavor for the church. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so our church is located, like you said, on the east side of Toronto. And some of your viewers will know this, but lots might might not. Toronto is the most multicultural city on earth, more than London, more than, well, LA, more than New York, more than Singapore, more than Hong Kong. And so there’s between 150 and 300 heart languages spoken every single day in our amazing city, by the way, you got to come to Toronto. The food culture is unbelievable… Rich Birch — That’s true. That is true. Jon Thompson — …and unparalleled because everyone’s here. So on a Sunday morning, depending on our locations, again, because we have rural sites, urban sites, and suburban sites, which makes life interesting to say the least, but we probably got 55 plus identified nationalities. We probably I think we’re on 13 on staff right now. And so everything from someone from Hong Kong to someone who’s moved here from Pakistan. We’ve got Congolese. We’ve got Irish. I mean just fill in the blank and you’re going to discover the amazing diversity of the human race on this side of heaven. And we you know we made a decision a long time ago that we were going to fight for Revelation 7 on this side of uh the moment. Rich Birch — So good. Jon Thompson — And it’s exciting, it’s hard, it’s difficult, and it’s um and it’s worth it. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. You know, Canada is and I know we share this conviction. I know you’ve said it and I’ve said it on other podcasts when we’ve had Canadian friends on the podcast. But I think it’s really important, particularly, you know, 95 plus percent of the people listening are in the States. But I think it’s important just to to set the context. Because in a lot of ways, Canada is a few a few years ahead or behind, depending on what language you want to use, of our friends in the States. What do you mean by that? When you say that, what springs to mind? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a very interesting place, right? Because Canada moved from, ah you know, Christendom worldview, to a nominal Christian worldview, to a struggling Christian worldview, to a post-Christian worldview. And now I think we’ve moved to a new place, which is not post-Christian, but repaganized. Jon Thompson — And so it’s a it’s a fascinating place. Because In our context, One moment, you’ll be talking to someone who still has Christian memory, who actually doesn’t love Jesus at all, but it’s a family thing. And it’s nominal Christianity. Jon Thompson — The next moment, you’ll still run into a Mormon telling you you’re worshiping the right and wrong Jesus. The next moment, it’s a New Ager. The next moment, it’s ah a Muslim activist. The next moment, it’s a transgender activist. The next moment, it’s someone who has no clue at all on anything. Jon Thompson — And so what’s fascinating about up here is you’ve got modern, postmodern. You’ve got conservative, you’ve got liberal. You’ve got the heart of the sexual revolution in the center center of our city. It’s one of the hubs of that globally. You’ve got every religion on earth. And you’ve got churches that are dying. Jon Thompson — I think, I don’t know of the latest stats. I still think that they’re they’re estimating one third of churches will close in the next decade in Canada, like physical ah buildings will close. And while that’s happening. And all that’s happening. You’ve got still sort of Christianity memory in certain groups, and then there are churches that are exploding. Jon Thompson — And so the the way I talk about we’re a little ahead is we are your future in some form. Because we’re facing down Jesus and how we deal with the gift of immigrants globally, but also the complication of that. We’re dealing with having to pivot the gospel to an a Muslim person, a Hindu person, a nominal Christian, and and a Mormon all in one conversation. Jon Thompson — There are Bible belts left in Canada, very small ones. But like Abbotsford, for example. Rich Birch — Little teeny tiny belts. Jon Thompson — But but there are those places. Rich Birch — Sure. Yep. Jon Thompson — At the same time there is the post-christian thing. And the reason why I think our American friends should pay more attention to us is not because we’re we’re having a third cousin issue up here and we’re jealous. It’s because actually we reflect where you’re going. Because there are going to be sections in the United States that probably will remain nominally Christian and culturally Christian for a very long time. You know, in certain parts of Houston, for example, or maybe in sections of Kentucky or Louisiana. But then you go to New York and LA or Seattle. And here’s the point. The church has to speak to both audiences at once, which feels in contradiction. But isn’t. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah and I’ve definitely seen that. I like the uh the re-paganizing language you know I’ve used the uh the pre-christian that we’ve it’s like we’ve gone kind of all the way through. And that that totally has been my experience serving here. You know I took a break. I was in the States for a number of years better part of a decade and then came back. And one of the things I’ve noticed has been this shift kind of under the current. We used to say we used to joke actually we ain’t your mama’s church. But like, you can’t make that joke anymore because like mom didn’t go to church. Grandma didn’t go to church. Like nobody in there, you know, we run into that all the time. Like that’s, you know, really common. Jon Thompson — So like literally this week. This week, my daughter is doing swimming lessons. A woman comes up to us and says, hey, I hear you’re a pastor. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Thompson — Really tragic thing. She says, my husband’s dying, 45 years old. And so my wife and I end up speaking to her, praying for her. And she’s like, I have never. So she’s 45 grown up Canada. She says, I’ve never owned a Bible. I’ve never read a Bible. Could I have a Bible? Jon Thompson — Now, for you listening in the Bible Belt before you dismiss this conversation and say not our fight, I just…May I do something for a moment? That might not be true because you’re surrounded by 400 churches. But every time you go online, it is your reality. So what we experience physically in Canada you digitally experience every day. And you have to be as as adaptive thoughtful, winsome, orthodox on your digital thinking as you do your physical thinking. And again, I’ll say this a little strongly. I find a lot of you aren’t. Rich Birch — Okay. We’re starting off spicy, which is great. Okay, so you’ve seen a lot of people. Part of what I love about Sanctus, friends like, I’m trying to, again, give some context. For folks that are listening in, Sanctus is known as a, you know this is a life-giving church. People, they come to Jesus here. This is the kind of place where people take steps towards faith in in Christ, which is amazing. You’ve seen a lot of that happen over the years at Sanctus—thousands of people. When you look back on some of the patterns in people’s lives, some of the, you know, the kind of themes that come back time and time again and how they arrived at that sort of decision. What are you noticing in people’s lives? Jon Thompson — Well, like I just said about the diversity of our place, the diversity of conversions come from those places. And so like on a Sunday morning, I mean, our baptisms aren’t more epic than yours or anyone else. I mean, praise the Lord. Right. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — We’ve got we’ve got 10 year olds confessing the faith of their parents. But it won’t be unusual for literally, I mean, this just happened. So we’ll have like two or three, not babies, but children who say, you know, I want to get baptized. And the next person’s like, I grew up an atheist. I’ve encountered the living God through Christ. The next person is I’m a former witch. And I just actually want to renounce Satan in the tank. And the next person’s like, I used to be a Muslim. And now I’ve actually found out that Jesus is Lord. Jon Thompson — So, so, that is not now an uncommon experience at any of our sites. And what is behind that is not only that the gospel is good for everyone—praise the Lord—but we worked really hard to make sure that all the doors are open evangelistically to all people. And that gets to our bias in spiritual gifts. But you know—and we’ve had this conversation many times, you and I, Rich—but there are three historic categories that Bobby Clinton invented years ago we’ve used where he divides all the gifts, love, word, and power. Jon Thompson — So love gifts demonstrate the love of God in the room. Word gifts clarify who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t. Power gifts evidence his presence in the room. That’s true of gifts, but to take a farther step out, those are three doors evangelistically. Jon Thompson — And this is why this is so critical. Because we have to have all three of those doors—such as, hospitality, apologetic defense of the gospel, and miracles and deliverance—open all the time. Because these are the ways people have always come to faith in our movement for 2,000 years. Jon Thompson — Now, all three doors have to lead to the true Christ because there are fake Jesuses. And there’s lots of heresy out there. And it has to be involved in repentance and belief and evidence by baptism. Amen. But I find most churches, theologically and experientially, are comfortable with one or maybe two of those things. And as I always lecture on this, like formally, if you sit on a three-legged stool and there are three legs… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …and one leg is missing. You wobble on the best of days, but you usually fall down. Rich Birch — Yeah. I’d love to kind of double click on love, word, and power, these three legs of the stool. And so familiar with, some people will be familiar with that framework for gifting like you talked about, and but kind of give us a little more, you gave you kind of a quick overview of each of them from an evangelistic point of view, but kind of give me some examples or what it might look like in a church that’s opening that that door evangelistically, you know, the love, word, and power door. Jon Thompson — Yeah, and um I think we’re going to talk about this a little bit later. I mean there’s a lot behind these statements. Rich Birch — Yep. Yes. Jon Thompson — Like almost 30 years of conversation. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — But like this is the best way I’ll say it. I’ve seen this in my life. I’ve seen this in my kids’ life. I’ve seen this across our church for two two plus decades, almost three now. Can I tell some stories that might help? Rich Birch — Yeah of course. I love a good story. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so… yeah so like here here’s a great example guy a young adult guy is in his basement. And he’s smoking weed, high as a kite. Freaks fre

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  unSeminary Podcast

  Making Scripture Come Alive for People Who Think They’ve Heard It All with Jason Hildebrand

  Sep 10, 202645 min

  Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jason Hildebrand , founder of Presence Creative Arts . For nearly 30 years, Jason has used acting, storytelling, film, and coaching to help people encounter scripture in fresh ways while creating space to listen for the voice of God. How can churches use art and storytelling to help people slow down and engage with God more deeply? What happens when creativity becomes less about delivering a message and more about creating space for transformation? Tune in as Jason shares the journey behind The Shepherd and the Sound , a contemplative film exploring the life of David, and the lessons he has learned about creativity, obedience, presence, and storytelling. Create space for people to slow down. // We are living in an age of distraction and disconnection. Rather than creating another piece of content people consume quickly, The Shepherd and the Sound intentionally slows viewers down. The pacing, landscape, music, and storytelling create space for people to become present to what is happening inside themselves and to listen for God. Jason has seen viewers reach instinctively for their phones before realizing they are being invited to remain present in the experience. Help people find themselves in the story. // One of Jason’s biggest discoveries during the project was that powerful storytelling gives people room to recognize their own experiences within a biblical narrative. Instead of simply explaining David’s life, the film invites viewers to encounter themes like failure, loss, lament, family, identity, and grace. As people see pieces of their own stories reflected in David’s journey, the biblical story becomes personal rather than distant. Tell stories that reveal real people. // Jason’s work has consistently focused on embodying scripture rather than simply presenting information about it. Whether performing the life of Jesus, Job, Abraham, or David, he wants audiences to experience biblical characters as real human beings with emotions, struggles, failures, and desires. For Jason, faithful storytelling does not require removing the humanity from scripture. Rather, bringing that humanity forward can actually help people encounter the truth of the story more deeply. Obedience often comes before clarity. // The journey to produce The Shepherd and the Sound required Jason to move forward without having every answer. After sensing that God was calling the team to film in Scotland, Jason received confirmation from trusted prayer partners and advisors and stepped out financially before the resources were available. Shortly afterward, donors began providing what the project needed. The process reinforced Jason’s conviction that listening carefully and responding obediently sometimes means moving before the entire path is visible. Let God handle the transformation. // Early in his career, Jason wrestled with whether Christian art needed to be more overtly evangelistic. He eventually sensed God reminding him that transformation was God’s responsibility, not his. Jason’s role was to faithfully create excellent art while carrying the presence of Christ into the work. That realization released him from forcing a message into every project and allowed him to focus on creating truthful, beautiful stories that invite people into deeper questions. Gather people for shared experiences. // Rather than immediately releasing The Shepherd and the Sound onto a streaming platform, Jason and his team have prioritized live screenings. People gather in theaters or creative spaces, are invited to slow down before the film begins, experience the story together, and then participate in conversation afterward. Jason believes transformation often happens differently when people experience something in community rather than consuming it alone. Extend the experience beyond the film. // The Shepherd and the Sound has grown into more than a movie. Presence Creative Arts has developed an immersive gallery with eight stations exploring themes from the film along with a small group resource incorporating scripture, reflection, sensory experiences, and action. These tools help churches move people beyond simply watching a story and toward personally engaging with what God may be stirring in them. To learn more about Jason Hildebrand and Presence Creative Arts, visit presencecreativearts.com . You can also explore The Shepherd and the Sound and learn about screenings and resources at theshepherdandthesoundfilm.com . T hank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please  share   it  by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to  leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes , they’re  extremely   helpful  when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Intulse If you’re committed to the growth of your church, make sure your communication systems are set up so nobody feels left behind. When your church is smaller, that comes easy. You know people by name. A guest doesn’t get lost in the shuffle—someone follows up, every guest, every time. But growth can change that—unless your systems grow with you. Perhaps this church using Intulse says it best: “Intulse has revolutionized the way we communicate with people, giving us the ability to make a big church feel small because of that personal connection.” The Intulse app gives your team members a working church number, so anyone can call or text without ever handing out a personal number. Every conversation syncs straight into your ChMS, like Planning Center, so your whole staff stays on the same page—no matter who a person talks to. That’s how you keep every person feeling known, no matter how big your church gets. Want to know if your communication systems are ready for growth? Download Intulse’s free guide, “10 Communication Blind Spots That Hinder Church Growth,” at Intulse.com/unseminary . And if any of those blind spots hit home for you, schedule a call with one of their church communication specialists to learn how Intulse can help. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. Listen, friends, give us this next half an hour or so, and I think you’re going to be challenged and encouraged. I think it’s going great conversation. Rich Birch — This is a person that I have, you know, a friend of a friend we met, and I want you to meet them as well. But more than that, I think that this conversation could lead to something that could really help your church later this year, maybe into next year. I want to introduce you to Jason Hildebrand. He runs, leads an organization called Presence Creative Arts. Rich Birch — It was formed close to 25 years ago, or the deep desire to create and perform authentic, hope-filled, spirit-infused stories. Part storyteller, he’s part creative catalyst. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. He’s produced a bunch of different projects that we’re going to get a chance to kind of tiptoe into, learn a little bit more about. Jason, welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here. Jason Hildebrand — Hey Rich, thanks so much. So great to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m pumped to to kind of have this conversation. Jason Hildebrand — Me as well. Rich Birch — So friends, to to pull back the veil a little bit, Jason’s a friend of a friend. Jason Hildebrand — Yeah. Rich Birch — And we were talking a little bit about what he does. And I started digging in and literally I thought, man, I’ve got to get Jason on the podcast. So for folks who maybe have not encountered Presence Creative Arts, take us back and kind of tell us the story. Jason Hildebrand — Sure. Rich Birch — How did this whole thing get started? Jason Hildebrand — Well, funny enough, my my wife was saying to me yesterday, in September, isn’t it 30 years, Jason? And I was like, oh my gosh, 30 years. Rich Birch — Oh, ah that’s funny. Jason Hildebrand — So we were like, whoa, it kind of snuck up on us. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hildebrand — But I mean, the whole genesis was, ah you know, I’m an actor by trade. I have a undergrad and a master’s in acting. And, you know, all those years ago, I graduated from York University in Toronto, Canada, and went out and I was like the fresh young wanted to be in, you know, Hollywood movies or to do Shakespeare or whatever. And, and in the midst of all that, God just like, halted the whole thing and had me completely move in an entirely different direction. And my first solo theater show was on the life of David. Jason Hildebrand — And I had a district superintendent in the denomination that I was a part of take me around to all the pastors conferences. And I he would speak and I would perform. And that was kind of like the beginning of what I never would have conceived would become a career. And now 30 years later, like a full company with employees and and you know projects and all those kind of things. And yeah I was an actor who just wanted to get on stage. And and really really, the thing is, and and I’ve learned this over the 30 years, is that my place of deepest listening for the voice of God is in front a whole bunch of people standing, which is really a weird thing to say. Jason Hildebrand — But, you know, I think it speaks to how we’re all wired differently and we need to find that thing that allows us to hear most clearly the voice of God. And that’s often the place for me. Jason Hildebrand — I think a lot of it has to do with that. I really feel responsible for bringing the the the show on David was, you know, it’s almost word for word scripture. So I feel responsible like any pastor or preacher would be like, I’m bringing this thing and I need to be aligned inside and out. Jason Hildebrand — But that that kind of grew. And so we did more. I did more. It was first just me. And I did that, toured all over the world, performing those things. Jason Hildebrand — Then I had I did a show on the Book of Job, which was very um gruesome in some ways, but quite intense. And and I’ve been revisiting that ah that in the last little while. Series of monologues in the prodigal son, I’ve done Abraham. Jason Hildebrand — And then I adapted Donald Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz . That was kind of a kind of took us to the next level with what we were doing. It was a multimedia show and we kind of toured it all over Canada and the US before the film came out, like the film film that that that Steve Taylor and Donald Miller made. Jason Hildebrand — And we’ve just grown this over the over the course of, you know, 30 years. And right before the we right as the pandemic happened, you know, we had this great season coming up. We were touring and and I also do a lot of coaching with pastors, both on communication and listening to God, work with Arrow Leadership and a bunch of other organizations. I think one of the things they don’t teach you in seminary very well, in my opinion, that is just my opinion. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hildebrand — My experience was they teach you how to exegete text really well. Oftentimes, they don’t teach you how to communicate that to small rooms and large rooms very effectively. And so I’ve been working with pastors for years on you know voice burnout, communication, how do you hit the back of this how do you hit the back of the auditorium with your thoughts? All those kind of things. Jason Hildebrand — But COVID hits, and we have this great season, and everything falls apart. And God directs us and we’re just we had a donor come to us. We’re we sit under a not-for-profit umbrella as well. And donor came to us and said, well, what would you do if you had money? And at that time, you know we everything on social media was doom and gloom and everything was falling apart. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hildebrand — And and I thought, could we craft something like short bursts of permission to be present in your life, short bursts of hope, and just release those for free into the world. Jason Hildebrand — And so this donor, I was telling him, you know, I think we could we could make short films on the Psalms. And those would be kind of like little, little breaths of fresh air. And so he gave us a, this couple gave us a, you know, a chunk of money. And we ended up making seven films that kind of blew up on Facebook and went all over the world. And, and we’ve since shot 11, but that kind of shift into media happened. Jason Hildebrand — And then out of that, ah the last basically five years of my life, which has been um crafting this new film rooted in that original story 30 years ago on the life of David… Rich Birch — That’s crazy. Jason Hildebrand — …but a contemplative film on the life of David called The Shepherd and the Sound , which we shot in Scotland. So that’s been kind of the like very Coles Notes version of of of what we’ve been doing. But you know I think the biggest, highest value is, as a company, we have ah a very high value on um listening for the voice of God, cultivating that. And, and if he all of a sudden tells us to go left instead of right, I want to be, I want to be, we want to be nimble enough to be able to shift like that. Jason Hildebrand — And oftentimes it’s not the most popular choice or even the most lucrative choice, but, but I’m more interested in the kingdom choice that I have in the other things. So, you know, that’s, that’s kind of our framework of of what we do and and kind of the, you know, the, but the timeline of things. Jason Hildebrand — And, uh, so, you know, it’s, it’s been, it’s been it’s been wild. It’s definitely 100% not where I thought I would be, you know, 30 years ago, but like I could not be more grateful that we get to kind of both care… Jason Hildebrand — The other values that we have are like carrying presence in story and this kind of thing. I know that we’ve had the the chat about this before, but it’s it’s I think I grew up in ah in a culture that was very high on the on on exegeting and the mind. And here’s how we pull apart one word and these kind of things. And here’s how we do things. And it’s very linear. And that’s great stuff. I think we need to be still doing that. Jason Hildebrand — But I had an the reason that I even did anything that I did is that i watched a guy. There’s an actor and named Bruce Kuhn. And he, my wife and I were dating at the time, she was going to McMaster University, and she invited me to this one man show on the book of Luke, King James Luke. Rich Birch — Wow. Jason Hildebrand — And I was dragged kicking and screaming as about Oh, my goodness, it’s gonna be some crappy Christian theater, and I don’t want to go see it. And that was the first time watching that guy was incredible. And that was the first time I actually encountered scripture. It came alive in me and I was like, oh, that’s what I’ve been reading for all these years. Oh, that that with real people, with real stories. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hildebrand — And I think that marked me in a way that has been significant and transformative. And and it’s it’s so much of what I my heart is to impart through Presence in what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Love it. And you know friends that are listening in like I’ve known of Jason for a while. Like you know we’re we’re in similar circles. Like you know, obviously… Jason Hildebrand — Yeah. Rich Birch — …church world in Canada is not the biggest thing. And but I had I had heard specifically about this project, The Shepherd and The Sound . And I was like, what on earth did he do that? And then saw trailer and was super intrigued and you know wanted to lean in. And and you put a word to this there that I’ve always appreciated about your work. I’ve actually years ago i remember seeing you um it might have even been like one of those youth things or something years ago. Rich Birch — And and the the part I’ve struck by your handling of scripture of these stories that we’ve been telling each other for thousands of years that are true is you, and this is my language, not your language, but you’re doing a better job here talking about Presence, but it’s like, you’ve humanized them in a similar way that, and I was thinking about this over the weekend before we called—you know, I, I was ah my wife dragged me to The Chosen. Jason Hildebrand — Oh, yeah. Right. Rich Birch — And was like, I was like, I do not want to see more crappy Christian media. Jason Hildebrand — Yes. Right. Rich Birch — And I have been struck by the very human moments in that art and actually have thought a lot about what you do and thought like, oh, there’s ah there’s a resonance there. It’s obviously different. It’s a different kind of thing. Rich Birch — But there’s a similar kind of piece there where it’s like, are we brave enough to kind of look at the human side of what’s happening? And so tell me about The Shepherd and The Sound. I think this is a crazy project. Jason Hildebrand — It’s been a crazy project. Rich Birch — When I saw this, I was like, tell me about it. Jason Hildebrand — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — Just kind of unpack it, what it is. Jason Hildebrand — Sure. Well, I mean, thank you for saying that. I mean, I’m very interested, I used to call it, you know, enfleshing, but that got a little bit weird. I think people thought it was a weird, but more more like embodying. Jason Hildebrand — I have this solo performance that I still do on the life on the life of Jesus called Jesus Stories. And the number one comment is, oh, he oh Jesus had emotions. Oh oh oh oh, wait a minute. He laughed. Oh, he was he was he was upset. Oh, wait, he’s passionate about loving people. Like just very human things. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hildebrand — And I think, like you said, The Chosen has done a brilliant job of you know um allowing Jesus to be both a human being and God at the same time. But The Shepherd and the Sound , yeah. Jason Hildebrand — So, I mean, I’ve been dreaming about doing a film version of um of of the David my David show for maybe a decade. And I didn’t know what it I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t know what it looked like. And then again, during COVID, I’d written like a full cast treatment. Jason Hildebrand — What ended up, you know, what’s interesting now is that House of David came out on ah on Amazon and it’s it’s very amazing. Like it’s it’s quite it’s quite great, especially so season two is quite great. Jason Hildebrand — And I realized why that God was like, actually, you’re not supposed to do this. You’re supposed to do that because those people are going to do this. And I was like, oh, okay, I get it. And they’re way more qualified than than I was to attempt something like that. Jason Hildebrand — But all I kept hearing was go to Scotland. and ah and connect with a couple of people you know there. And and and so I went, my my film partner, Tad Munnings and I, he’s with StoryStream Creative, and we we we kind of location scouted to Scotland. Jason Hildebrand — And we have this friend, this incredible playwright, screenw

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  unSeminary Podcast

  From Imitation to Innovation: Finding Your Church’s Own DNA with Sam Hamstra

  Sep 3, 202635 min

  Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Sam Hamstra , Lead Pastor of Anthem Church , a fast-growing, multi-ethnic and multi-generational church serving Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland. Anthem became an independent church in March 2020—the same week the world shut down—and has since grown to multiple locations and thousands of people. In this conversation, Sam shares how clarity around mission, values, discipleship, and vision has helped Anthem develop a distinct ministry culture and sustain healthy growth. Does your church know exactly who it is and how it does ministry? Are your leaders aligned around a shared playbook—or are you borrowing someone else’s model without adapting it to your context? Sam offers practical lessons on creating organizational clarity that shapes everything from calendars to leadership development. Move from imitation to innovation. // Sam is quick to acknowledge how much Anthem learned from churches and networks that came before them. But even before Anthem launched, he began recognizing that another church’s model could not simply be copied and pasted into Northwest Indiana. The local culture, demographics, ministry environment, and people were different. Healthy leaders learn from others while also doing the harder work of discerning what God is uniquely calling their church to become. Clarity takes courage. // Copying an established model feels safe because leaders can see evidence that it works somewhere else. Developing your own approach requires greater faith because the outcome is less predictable. Sam believes churches must have the courage to move into that uncertainty. Rather than endlessly chasing the next successful strategy, leaders should prayerfully identify the unique blueprint God has given their church and commit to it. Define your “way.” // Inspired by Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage , Sam and his leadership team spent roughly nine months working through five foundational questions: Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How do we live? Where are we going? Their answers eventually became what they call “The Anthem Way”—a framework that brings clarity to mission, values, discipleship, spiritual formation, and long-term vision. Mission and vision are not the same thing. // Anthem’s mission is to lead people to know Christ and make Him known. That mission remains constant because it flows from the Great Commission. Vision answers a different question: where is God taking this particular church? Separating those ideas has helped Anthem distinguish between the timeless calling of the church and the specific future they believe God is leading them toward. Let your discipleship pathway drive the calendar. // One of the biggest benefits of clarity has been simplifying Anthem’s yearly ministry calendar. Instead of allowing every ministry to bring new ideas and events to the table, leaders evaluate opportunities through their defined discipleship pathway. The result is greater focus and consistency. Sam says their annual rhythm has remained largely the same for years, helping both staff and attenders understand what comes next. Boring can be a strength. // Churches often feel pressure to constantly create something new, but Sam has learned that repetition can be one of the greatest drivers of health. Anthem maintains a weekly prayer gathering, predictable discipleship rhythms, and recurring ministry events rather than continually reinventing the calendar. The goal is not novelty. It is consistency around the few things the church believes matter most. Create intentional invite moments. // Anthem builds four major invite opportunities into its annual rhythm: Easter, a Summer Kickoff, Homecoming, and Christmas. These predictable moments give the congregation specific opportunities to invite friends and family. Sam has seen the church grow following these events because people know when the church is intentionally creating space for them to bring someone who may not normally attend. Values have to become behaviors. // Anthem’s core values include “We Love People,” “We Choose Joy,” and “We Bleed Passion.” But Sam emphasizes that values only matter when people can see them lived out. Loving people means creating a culture where people can belong before they behave. Choosing joy means approaching ministry with gratitude rather than obligation. Bleeding passion means refusing to settle for the status quo and remaining willing to change as God leads. Use clarity to protect multisite culture. // As Anthem expands to additional locations, the Anthem Way provides clear boundaries for what must remain consistent. Sam is not claiming Anthem’s approach is the only way to do church, but he does believe it is important for every one of their locations to understand and embody Anthem’s distinct way of doing ministry. That documented clarity gives leaders freedom while protecting the culture across campuses. Check out Anthem Church’s About page to see how their story, mission, values, and discipleship pathway fit together. You can also follow @SamHamstra and @ThisIsAnthemChurch on Instagram. T hank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please  share   it  by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to  leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes , they’re  extremely   helpful  when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is a funny one because literally yesterday I was talking to a church in a coaching call. We were talking about this exact issue that we’re going to unpack today. They’re wrestling with these things. I know that this is going to help you. So you’ve tuned in for a great conversation today with Sam Hamstra. Super excited to have him. He and his wife, Taylor, they founded Anthem Church in March 2020 with a vision and heart to lead people to know Christ and make them know known. Rich Birch — Over the past few years they have seen this mission become a reality, continues to grow. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-generational family made up of thousands of people from all walks of life in Northwestern Indiana, Chicagoland, and beyond. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. So honored that you’re with us today, Sam. Welcome. Sam Hamstra — Rich, so honored to be with you. This is a full circle moment for me. I’ve been following you for quite some time. So super honored to be on your on your show. Rich Birch — Oh, come on. That’s I’m glad you’re here. We, we’ve got a lot to learn from you today. So March, 2020, it’s one of those dates that sticks in all of our brains. Cause like, we all know, what were you doing? March 15th, 2020. We all can say exactly what we’re, where we were. That’s a wild month to, to launch. Rich Birch — It’s funny because I keep bumping into people who are telling a similar story. They’re like, we started during the pandemic, right at the beginning, right after that sort of thing. Give us a picture today and kind of from that moment all the way on to today, kind of bring the story, bring us, tell us a little bit about Anthem. Give us a flavor of the church. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we currently today we’re headquartered in Hammond, Indiana, which when we say Indiana, different people have different thoughts. But we’re we’re actually butting up to Chicago. Rich Birch — Yep. Sam Hamstra — Joking around right now, we’re going to be the future home of the Chicago Bears soon. Rich Birch — Nice. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. But um yeah, so we’re headquartered in Hammond. Our second location is in Merrillville, Indiana, about 30 minutes from here. So currently um our family’s grown to about 2,500 people in English. And we also have a Spanish service as well. And God’s done a phenomenal work over a six-year time frame. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we did launch in March of 2020. Our first Sunday was the same Sunday the world shut down. Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Hamstra — And so the third week of March was our first service on the internet. Rich Birch — Dude, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Sam Hamstra — Yes. So in God’s divine plan, kind of underneath our origin story, we we were actually a part of a church in Tinley Park, Illinois. We were a location of that church called Christian Life Center. Sam Hamstra — And our senior pastor and I, Pastor Jerry McQuay, we had been having an ongoing conversation about him making us independent, which is a whole long story. And he decided to really lean into what he believed God was doing in our lives and in this region and made us independent in God’s divine plan. That started in March of 2020. Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Hamstra — And so we transitioned from being a multi part of a multi site church a location up to being independent in March. And yeah, we started with nothing. We didn’t have any cameras, didn’t have anything. I called our media guy and said, do you have anything at your house? And he brought it. Yeah. Rich Birch — What gear you got in your basement? Yeah, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — Yeah and he he brought a camera from his house. And yeah, that’s how we started. One continuous shot streaming online. And that was the start of Anthem Church in March of 2020. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. Sam Hamstra — So God’s done a great work. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s incredible. That’s cool to hear and fun to see where it’s come, you know, since then. When you look back on that experience, you know, a lot of what you’re trying to define in those early days of a church, you’re trying to bring clarity to like, what is our approach? And part of what we do is you know, we there’s ah there’s, I think, some good copying and pasting. You’re like, hey, here’s the way they do it over here. Maybe we could try a little bit that. But then eventually you start kind of coming up with your own way. You kind of birth your own a approach, playbook, you might call it. Rich Birch — When did you start to feel… ah the kind of transition from, hey, I just want to do it like in this case, either CLC or another church over there. And you started to realize, hey, there’s something unique here at Anthem. And we got to try to define some of that. Talk us through maybe from um a timeline point of view or from a revelation point of view, like, oh, this is kind of things I started to see. Talk us through what that looked like. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so about two years before we launched Anthem, God started to really kind of do a work in our heart just on unique DNA. And we were coming out of like heavily influenced by ARC, Church of the Highlands, and learned so much from there. Sam Hamstra — And we’re seeing just how like clarity really was so important on where we’re going. Sam Hamstra — And so we were coming in there and I just was really praying and seeking the Lord on, okay, this is great. But in our context here, there’s some some differences, there’s some nuances. Sam Hamstra — This is, um we’re over here. what What does this look like here? And so really took the foundation of that and started looking at what does this look like? So when we started Anthem, it was with the thought of, we really want to lean into this unique blueprint of how God designed us and what God has called us to here. Sam Hamstra — So it really started from the jump from from day one. And so but it was a couple years ahead of time to say, OK, this is great. Let’s let’s use this. Let’s we’ve been imitating. Let’s imitate now move to a little bit of innovation and what the Lord would have for us. Rich Birch — Yeah, and there’s obviously there’s like an art and science to that, right? There’s like the, the yeah, insert whatever church, Church of the Highlands is fantastic. They’re doing a great thing, but you’re not Birmingham, Alabama. And you know and so there’s cultural differences, there’s community differences, there’s different resources and all that. That’s like the kind of science-y part of it. Rich Birch — But then there’s the art part of it, which is a little bit more… like intuitives, it’s like vibes, that kind of thing. How did you discern, okay, what are those things that we should be thinking about that are different that you start, or maybe things you started to see, evidence you started to see like, oh, maybe this isn’t working, just importing. Was there evidence of that that you saw? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so like, and it was like small things, you know, just on approach to Sunday service. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — You know, like, hey, this is open door, we don’t do this on Sunday. And we had just been starting to see like pretty early on, we’re we’re reaching lost people through like a hard approach to the gospel. Sam Hamstra — And it was just like, it wasn’t really seeker sensitive. Rich Birch — Sure. Sam Hamstra — It wasn’t, not saying they are, but just, it was just a little bit different in in our context where people were coming from. On the multi-ethnic side, it was just some approaches being super intentional with sounds, sights, all of that in in our context. And so, and even on the discipleship model, you know, groups, what kind of groups are we doing? How are we setting these up? Sam Hamstra — And so it was definitely like these nuances in the different categories, I would say, of discipleship that we started to pay attention to. That that was really the start, I think, of innovating what we have now. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Why do you think so many of us just reach for someone else’s model rather than doing the longer, harder, deeper, like it’s more annoying work to try to define you know our own thing and and then ultimately to document it which we’re going to get to here. what What did you actually do to kind of try to codify that? But why do you think we avoid that as leaders? Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so I think on one end, what’s established, you can see that the model works. And so um there’s great success you’re seeing. I mean, it’s working everywhere. And so I think it’s safe. And so deep down, it’s like this is established. I see it work. And so I can kind of press play on this. And and I know to a level that this this works. Sam Hamstra — And so it takes courage to do something that you haven’t seen before. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — And deep, deep down, i think in our hearts, to me, that’s probably foundational thing. It’s like, man, I haven’t really seen this so his is going to require some courage, require some faith to press into the unknown. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Sam Hamstra — And so I do think that unknown word leads to some different decisions sometimes. Rich Birch — Well, and your church is an interesting um example just because it’s grown so quickly. I, you know, even in the… the lead up to it, I was thinking about, you know, the word, the term church plant. Rich Birch — Like, I don’t know when that term, you know, I was talking with a church that had been around for 30 years and they’re a big church. They’re like 20,000 people. And they, the lead pastor was like, well, we still think of ourselves as a church plant. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t at some point you stop being a church plant and just be, you start being a church. Rich Birch — And I think actually this is one of those, one of those differentiations is when you start saying, okay, like we’re going to, we believe that kind of God’s called us to this unique thing. There’s something in there. You built something that I think you call the Anthem Way. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — Walk us through what that is. How does it function? What is the Anthem Way? Help us understand that. Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so this was actually birthed in an odd place. I was reading “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni,… Rich Birch — Yeah. Sam Hamstra — …and he was talking about organizational health, and one of the keys is clarity. Rich Birch — Yes. Sam Hamstra — And I had I have kind of, I’m somewhat of a mutt in church in my upbringing. Rich Birch — Love it. Sam Hamstra — So I’ve been in a lot of different environments and seen to a lot of different things. And so it was really just kind of like looking like, how can we just be crystal clear on who we are, where we’re going and different things. And so I read that book and in that book, he actually laid out these questions that he was like kind of pointing to every successful organization needs to answer. Sam Hamstra — And Iwas kind of seeing that with some of the stuff I’ve been hearing. And I’m like, and there’s a couple of missing pieces for me that he pointed to that I thought was so important in church world that I would actually point to that have been some of the biggest things I think that have been what I would call probably the secret sauce of what we’ve seen as far as clarity. Sam Hamstra — Just the separation of something simple, but the difference between mission and vision, you know, why we exist compared to where we’re going. And so, yeah, I read that book and in there he laid out questions that you need to answer. I took that to our leadership team and we wrestled with these probably for about nine months. Sam Hamstra — I’m just going back and forth on wording, how we say things. question by question in five different questions. We answered those and we gave it a name called the Anthem Way. And so that was the foundation, but I want to give credit where credit is due. It came through the book, The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s fantastic. And I, you know, one of the things I love that you’ve hit on here is I’ve talked in other contexts that our vision, well, this is the problem with with vision, mission stuff is it’s like, first you have to have a conversation. How do you define vision? How do you define mission? Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — But the big thing that we’re called to, the big idea, it comes from Jesus, right? We’re supposed to reach people and grow them up in in in relationship with him. All churches should have that as their core. That is at the core of what we do. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — But getting clear on how we do that, you know, these other questions I’m assuming has helped give you a bit of a more of an edge, something that’s a little bit different. Do you want to rattle through the five questions… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and maybe some high level, I know we can’t get into all the detail, but kind of high level how you’ve answered it. And then the follow-up I’m going ask you is, which are those couple that have given you what you think are the biggest distinctives around Anthem… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Okay. Rich Birch — …that kind of that that kind of, um you know, that provide that edge that’s a little different, you think. Sam Hamstra — Yeah

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