[00:00:00] Any chance for a pollers don't really want to hurt the status quo. And the status quo don't want to really hurt the change for a pollers, but they don't know what you're going to do. And when you're going to put on a document like "we're not going to do these things" then they say, "okay I'm okay with the change then because we're going to keep this that way" unless we reconvene and revisit it all together and agree to change. One of the most critical questions when it comes to church health is how do I generate buy-in when it comes to change?
[00:00:29] Today we welcome back Dr. Bob White, so as we talk about how to manage change reactions, that's
[00:00:34] today on the Reclaimed Leader. Hey everyone, welcome to episode 322 of the Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:45] I'm Jason Tucker, back again with Jesse Skiffington. Good to see you Jesse. How's it going?
[00:00:50] I'm doing okay, Jason, hanging in there, I don't know. In real time the Huskies lost
[00:00:54] the national championship.
[00:00:55] I'm so sorry, I shed a tear for you. I just didn't even show up for that game really, it was just tough.
[00:01:00] Michigan's a good team, but I feel like we could have done a few missed opportunity,
[00:01:05] missed chances along the way. So still reeling from that, but remembering that football is
[00:01:09] not life and that God has given us.
[00:01:11] Football is life, yeah. That's right.
[00:01:15] Yeah, so excited today, we're welcoming back a friend of the podcast, that our very first
[00:01:19] guest, Dr. Bob Whitezel, who has accomplished church leader and consultant and author and
[00:01:27] professor and his credentials going on, but he's talking about some really important stuff
[00:01:32] today. Some of the biggest questions that we get asked are about how do you generate
[00:01:36] buy-in in your church and then how do you deal with the sticks in the mud or how do you
[00:01:42] deal with folks who just want the status quo? What's the right posture to have? I think
[00:01:46] it's really important as we talk about leading change.
[00:01:50] That's right. Bob, what I appreciate about Bob is his love for the church and his enthusiasm
[00:01:54] for our faith and is just kind of come spilling out of him. It's just fun to get to listen
[00:02:00] to him, kind of talk about what's most important to him and leadership in the church, leading
[00:02:05] change and revitalization and all that and comes from a wealth of experience and also
[00:02:09] just a passion to see the local church thrive, so I always appreciate hearing from him.
[00:02:15] And I also just—I was reminded of what's at stake in all of this. You know, I feel
[00:02:20] like sometimes when you're in the weeds, you sort of get lost on the big Y, you know,
[00:02:26] because you're just trying to just move forward and slog it out, and I was at a little cafe
[00:02:33] near where I live and I was just it's a French, like a French bakery kind of place and I
[00:02:39] was going to pick up, we call it Magic Bread. I was asked to go get Magic Bread for dinner
[00:02:42] and it's like they make really good baguettes. So I'm waiting in line and there's this,
[00:02:46] I posted this on our Facebook page, but there was this young woman who was waiting in line
[00:02:51] and she makes—she starts having a conversation with a young man working behind the counter
[00:02:57] who was maybe a couple years older, both I think in the early 20s. And she's like,
[00:03:02] "Oh, look at this project we did for First Baptist Church." I don't know what—which
[00:03:07] First Baptist Church, and she shows something on her phone. I'm guessing it was some sort
[00:03:11] of decoration or something, and he compliments her and then he says, "But it's also kind
[00:03:16] of creepy, giving me PTSD," meaning about church. And she goes to him, "I've never
[00:03:23] been to church in my life so I wouldn't know." And then they both kind of left and went on
[00:03:28] about their conversation and I was just reminded what's at stake here. There are people either
[00:03:32] with so much baggage that they want— now they want to hear about a project you did
[00:03:37] at church, or there are people who literally their entire lives have never been to church.
[00:03:43] And I just got really sad for both of them. And yes, of course my wife afterwards, "You
[00:03:48] should have told them, we got this church." And I'm like, "No, it didn't feel—I
[00:03:53] felt like it was his right force, every stereotype. Yeah." But I did walk out of there feeling
[00:03:59] like, "Man, this is what we're doing this for. We're doing this for them to show them
[00:04:03] that there isn't a better way, there is a hope in Jesus Christ, and no matter what's
[00:04:07] happened to you in the past or whether you've never been exposed to it in your life, here's
[00:04:12] an opportunity for you to have this." And I don't know, I was just— it just reminded
[00:04:17] me what's at stake. Yeah, and it matters. And what we do every day and the way that
[00:04:22] we lead all adds up to something. We want to have healthy churches. I mean, that's
[00:04:26] why we started out in this conversation. It feels like a million years ago. It does feel
[00:04:30] like a long time ago. But that's why because we want to see not only our own congregations
[00:04:35] thrive and flourish, and our own leadership mature and develop, but also to see that happen
[00:04:39] for others too. So I always get to be talking shop with you, Jason, and also remembering
[00:04:45] what's at stake and what it's all for. Yeah. Well, all right, let's get into our interview
[00:04:50] welcoming back to the podcast, Dr. Bob Weitzel. Well, it is our pleasure to welcome back to
[00:04:56] the podcast, Bob Weitzel. For over 30 years, he has coached and consulted for churches
[00:05:01] of all sizes on issues of growth, health, and change. He's an award-winning writer,
[00:05:08] scholar. And he holds two earned doctorates from D-Minn and PhD from Full Earth Theological
[00:05:13] Seminary. And he's the recipient of both Donald McGavan Awards, the founding professor
[00:05:18] of an accredited seminary and has authored 14 books and hundreds of articles. And he
[00:05:23] is so busy. He makes him wonder, what am I doing with my life? He has the distinction
[00:05:29] of being the very first guest ever on the reclaim leader. And so it is just wonderful
[00:05:34] to have him back. Welcome back, Dr. Bob Weitzel.
[00:05:38] Good to be back with you, Jason and Jessie. I remember when this was starting off, I thought,
[00:05:43] boy, this is this podcast. This is early in the idea of podcast. Will it take off? Here
[00:05:49] it is, all these years later. I get your emails all the time. You got a great podcast, great
[00:05:54] resource. I'm glad to be back on it again. Well, thank you, Bob. We love having you.
[00:06:00] I wanted to ask you a couple of specific questions for this episode, Bob, because the questions
[00:06:05] that I'm getting now, I'm getting a lot of questions that I dealt with early on in the
[00:06:13] revitalization process. And the first one is this. How do you generate buy-in? How do
[00:06:20] you get your congregation to go along from the ride? I recently came across an article
[00:06:25] that you had written. I think it was something like two don'ts and one do, you know, two
[00:06:31] don'ts, you know, don't force change, but the same time kind of go through the steps
[00:06:34] of change. And I think pastors are struggling with, where am I forcing change and what's
[00:06:41] just I have to generate buy-in? So I'm hoping you could speak a bit to what are some strategies
[00:06:47] for doing that well? Yeah, that's really important because there's a counterintuitive
[00:06:52] way that you effectively bring about change. Most of us think we bring about change by
[00:06:59] bringing an idea to the church leaders and the church. And we are excited about that.
[00:07:05] And we've learned and researched how to bring about the change, what the change needs to
[00:07:10] look like. We are visionaries who see the change taking place. So we go not to get buy-in,
[00:07:17] we go to sell it. And that's what dooms most change. Some research, and you're familiar
[00:07:23] with this. I know you've referred to it in your broadcast, but by Connor from Harvard University
[00:07:31] found that the leaders main role is not to create buy-in or to sell it, but to create
[00:07:39] a sense of urgency. Let people know why they have to do this. So the first step I would say is
[00:07:47] establish a sense of urgency. I tell this little story about Bishop Barbara and Pastor Jim. And
[00:07:56] this is just made up a little story, but just think of it. They're two pastors, same town, about
[00:08:02] the same age, same family situation, both have spouses. They're pastoring two churches nearby,
[00:08:08] both churches run about 75, but people are moving into the area. So they want to reach out to these
[00:08:13] new people. So Jim and Barbara and their spouses go to this conference on how to reach young families.
[00:08:18] And they learn all sorts of these ideas, dozens of them. They have pages filled with ideas. And
[00:08:24] they go back and they take two different approaches. Jim comes in, has a board meeting the next week,
[00:08:30] tells the board, look, I've seen the future. Here's what it's like. Here's what we have to do. We
[00:08:34] have to add a daycare. We have to start children's ministries. We have to have a better playground.
[00:08:39] We have to have a cleaner facility, and he just bombards him with all these ideas and he says,
[00:08:44] now I want you to go home and think about it. And the only people who speak up at the board
[00:08:48] meeting are people who agree with Jim. The few people that do, yeah, that sounds good. Jim goes
[00:08:53] back home, tells his wife, hey, we got we got buy-in. Really, he hasn't got buy-in. What had he
[00:08:59] got? He's got a sales job done. He hasn't even started the buy-in yet. Barbara goes back to her
[00:09:05] church that next week, but she waits a week or two until the regular board meeting, and she tells
[00:09:09] the board meeting. She says, look, I went to a seminar and I've seen the writing on the wall.
[00:09:14] The writing on the wall is younger generations are moving into this community. And when they come
[00:09:18] here, they will look for about 18 months for a church. And if they come and they will visit our
[00:09:24] church, but if we don't welcome them in that 18 months, they will decide that we're not friendly
[00:09:29] towards their culture, and they will avoid us, and we will be circumvented, and we will get a
[00:09:36] reputation of not welcoming. So we have to do something. I would, and Barbara says, I would like
[00:09:42] you as leaders to pray with me for 30 days, to pray with me. God reveals with us what we
[00:09:48] should be doing. And they prayed for those 30 days, and then she said, and let's now gather together
[00:09:53] as a group of elders, invite in some of younger people too, and let's begin to pray and ask God
[00:09:59] to help show us a plan forward. And Barbara was part of that committee, but she didn't run it.
[00:10:05] What she did is she let the ideas from all these different parts of the church percolate together,
[00:10:11] and they came up with a plan that actually then became very successful. The difference was, Jim
[00:10:17] saw himself as the visionary instigator, or the captain of the ship. Barbara saw herself as the
[00:10:25] person on the ship that's giving the warnings in the crow's nest, giving a warning of what's up ahead,
[00:10:32] and saying together as a team, we need to come up with solutions. So the buy-in, your question,
[00:10:38] is a great one, and the buy-in is created by forming a guiding coalition of leaders
[00:10:46] who will come up with the changes that need to take place. Now, those changes won't look like
[00:10:52] you thought they would, because you're just one person, but it will look like God has in store for
[00:10:58] that congregation because it's made up of many people who have the Holy Spirit in them, coming up
[00:11:02] with good ideas together, sharing what they see as the future. That's the only way it works,
[00:11:08] Jason and Jesse, is you have to get the people in the church working on the plan for change
[00:11:15] with you, and you have to have people from all different quarters of the church. If you don't,
[00:11:19] the plan will fail.
[00:11:20] Pastor, vision doesn't move without buy-in. You need a field-tested, research-based,
[00:11:30] proven system to get from where you are to where you want to be. We've now combined our
[00:11:36] three-day kickstart we did a couple weeks ago with our updated three-step guide for leading change,
[00:11:42] so that you can have the same proven roadmap that has helped churches of all sizes get momentum.
[00:11:48] Download it today at ReclaimLeder.com/Momentum.
[00:11:53] That's ReclaimLeder.com/Momentum and go further faster. And now back to the show.
[00:12:01] That's so good, Bob. What kind of posture should a leader take? I mean, you kind of give
[00:12:06] Jim and Barbara there and my staff used to be scared to death when I would go to a conference.
[00:12:12] Yeah, they knew the men that I came back, I had there was 10 things that were going to be
[00:12:16] added to their plate. And when I was a young leader, you're sort of fired up. You want to
[00:12:20] bring revitalization and change. And so how do you become a Barbara instead of a Jim? Is there like
[00:12:26] a just kind of an approach that you would recommend with that?
[00:12:30] Yeah, you have to say that you have only one part of the vision. I believe God has the pastor
[00:12:37] there as a person to pull together the different spirit-led people in the church to come up with
[00:12:43] a plan forward. You're not there to come up with the entire plan. Now, today, because the average
[00:12:48] length of tenure in many churches a day is anywhere from four and a half to seven years.
[00:12:53] The people in the church, if they've been there two decades, they've had anywhere from, you know,
[00:12:58] three to five different leaders. So they don't really want to hear the leaders' idea because they
[00:13:05] know they'll only get started in it. And then you'll be gone. Really, what they want to do is say,
[00:13:10] we see that you have some good ideas, pastor, but we want to to, to wed those with what we've
[00:13:17] learned works here and what hasn't worked in the past. Now, this is really threatening to
[00:13:23] ask pastor because we go these conferences and I often say at these conferences, I said there
[00:13:28] ought to be, you know, a surgeon general's warning that in taking home these ideas,
[00:13:34] willy-nilly to your church can result in firing because we come back, hey, they said, if we just
[00:13:41] do this and we implement this and we add this curriculum and we do this and we do that, we will
[00:13:48] grow. No, you will do that if that's part of a plan that includes ideas from your members. The
[00:13:55] members are the one that's going to make it work. The members are the one that's that know what's
[00:13:59] worked in the past. The members are the one who are going to be there after you're gone.
[00:14:03] Now, people say to me, they say, well, what about that member that's not very, you know, spiritual,
[00:14:09] that's not very godly in their life? Do I have to listen to them? I said, well, you really want to
[00:14:16] focus on the leaders who are spiritually anointed...
[00:14:19] Kids In The Holy Spirit and They Have That Wisdom To Work With You And You Can Kind Of Weed That Out If You Have A Whole Church Committee That Doesn't Have That Spiritual NoNaming Then You're In The Wrong Church But Those Local People Have To Feel Like They Have Given Input To The Plan And Only Then Will You Get By In. This Is So Important Bob I Definitely Have Been Both Barb in?
[00:14:48] That's For Sure And I'm Residating Very Much With What You're Saying This Is The Way To Go Forward But I Also I Also Think There are A Lot of Pastors and I Was One Of Them Certainly From Time To Time Who Become Unintentional Gems In Other Words I
[00:15:04] See The People on The Leadership Board Or See It And I'm Just So I Feel Such A Sense Of Urgency Myself I Feel Like We Don't Have Time To Wait
[00:15:14] Because People Just Don't Get It
[00:15:18] What Would You Say To Somebody Who's Kind of Feeling That?
[00:15:21] Frustrations Like You Know I Know We Got A Change Things Yesterday and
[00:15:25] You Know I Don't Even Know Where to Begin
[00:15:28] With The Folks Around me to Even Get Them on The Same Page I mean What?
[00:15:33] What Would You Say To That Person Who's Kind of Feeling That Frustration Yeah I Hear That A lot when I'm Coaching Pastors and That's True
[00:15:40] But You Are Only Part Of The Solution So Your urgency Is Also
[00:15:46] Counter Balanced By Someone That Wants To Move Slower And Of Works The Answer It's In The Middin
[00:15:52] Yes You want to find Those People I'm Married To One of Those People That Move Slowing
[00:15:56] Running Off In Too Many Different Directions And I Didn't Realize I needed People Like That
[00:16:03] Until I Was Pastoring A Church And Realized That The The Staff Felt About Me The Way They Felt About Jessie
[00:16:09] They Didn't Want To Hear About The Latest Conference Because Admit More On Everybody's Plate so Now I Realized
[00:16:14] I'm Passionate About The Harvest I Know People Need Jesus, and I Want To Share It With Them
[00:16:21] Today But I Also Know There's People in The Church That Know That In My Wife's Like This She knows
[00:16:28] It's Better To Move Slowly To Talk to Them To Build Up A Relationship With Them I'm More The Teacher Preacher
[00:16:34] She's More The Shepherd Nurturer So
[00:16:38] You Can't Go By Your Own Feeling And That's Because I believe our Own Feelings Are
[00:16:43] Incident Judging by The Holy Spirit Better Corrupted By The Flesh And So Our
[00:16:48] Visionaries And I Think I'm A Visionary I Think Both of You Are Visionaries We will See The Future
[00:16:54] Oftentimes We Don't See With Futures Actually Going to Look Like We See Kind of a
[00:17:00] Characterized Version Of It That's Been Tainted By Our Flesh The Best Thing To Do Is With
[00:17:07] A multitude of Counselors There's Wisdom And Let's Look In The New Testament How Did They Handle The First
[00:17:13] Major Theological Difference That They Encountered And That Was Reaching Out To Gintiles And Whether Gintiles Are Going to Have To Get
[00:17:21] Circumcised And Where They're Gonna Have to Start Eating The Jewish Diet And
[00:17:25] Even Though Peter Had A Vision Of These
[00:17:30] Unclean Animals Coming Down And A Sheet And Being told To Eat Them Peter Didn't Go Out And Say Okay Everybody It's All Right
[00:17:36] They Convened A
[00:17:39] Counsel In Jerusalem Of
[00:17:42] Spiritually Led People Who Prayed And Talked And Look And Came to the conclusion Together So It Wasn't One
[00:17:51] Person Coming Up With The Vision And Saying This Is What We do It Was Rather Coming Together And
[00:17:56] Coming To A Solution That Spirit Led Men and Women Have
[00:18:01] Agreed That The Spirit Is Leading In This Direction And There's Something Of Of Some
[00:18:06] Momentum Or Morale That's Generated In That That You Can't Get If You Just Force A Vision Onto A Group Of People It Just Doesn't Happen Right You
[00:18:13] You Might Get Some Buy In From People Because of Their Loyalty To You Or Their Trust In You But It's So much More Fun
[00:18:20] When The Best Ideas Were Not Years And They Just Gonna Come From The Woodward and
[00:18:25] Everybody's Excited And Moving Together and That's What Can Happen When You Kind Of Have That That Barbara Mindsad I think
[00:18:31] Yeah Approach Now The End Of That Story
[00:18:34] Right The End Of That Story Is Kind Of Interesting Again It's Not A Real Story It's Just A fictional Story To
[00:18:40] Illustrate But I See In My Mind Jim
[00:18:43] After Two or Three Unsuccessful Pastorets With And Did What He Wanted To Do He Wanted To be a Captain Of A
[00:18:50] Charter Boat In Florida
[00:18:52] Captain Jim And He Was The Captain Of His Boat When People Came On There They Knew He Was in Charge
[00:18:59] He Made The Shots He Called What Was Gonna Be Done He Did What He Did He Was The Captain Of A Ship on the other hand
[00:19:07] Barbara Because She Had This Way of Building Consensus And She's Actually Kind Of Based on One of My Clients Years
[00:19:13] Ago from Illinois Who Is Actually Not Not Methodist, but Presbyterian, but
[00:19:18] She Wound Up Becoming
[00:19:21] Predator Or In This Story I Tell Here To Make More Analysis To More People I Say Bishop Barbara
[00:19:26] She Becomes Bishop Barbara Because She Is Raised Up In The Hierarchy Cause She Sees How Even In The Highest Levels Of The
[00:19:34] Denomination You Have To Bring The People of New Ideas And The People Who Wanted To Hold On To The Status Quo?
[00:19:40] You Have To Bring Them Together To Create A Solution
[00:19:43] That's What I Love It I Love It Bob so
[00:19:46] With I Mean You've Had The Opportunity to Really Work With A lot of Churches and See A lot of Pastors and Speak Into Their Ministries
[00:19:53] Is There Maybe A Strategy Or Two For Generating Congregational Buying That?
[00:19:59] That You Really Think Man Not Just Really Works Or Maybe It's Something That's In Common With Strategies That You've Seen That Really Work
[00:20:06] Yeah, What the most Thing Is That
[00:20:10] It Happens In All of Them Is
[00:20:12] Slowness And Starting With Prayer and Letting People Pray About
[00:20:16] Pray About Not The Solution
[00:20:19] But The Urgency You Say Look There People Moving Into This Area There's Hispanic Spanish Speaking People Moving This Area
[00:20:25] What?
[00:20:26] Shall We Do What We Do if We don't do We're Going to Die As A Church We're Going to End We're Going to Close We're Gonna Try And Move
[00:20:32] Out the Subverbs And We Probably Won't Make It
[00:20:34] Let Them Pray And Spend Some Time
[00:20:37] Then Only Incurring I Would Say Usually Only Put Into your Into the plan
[00:20:43] Twenty Percent of Your Ideas That 80% of the Ideas of The Plan Come from the Congregation I don't know What that Number Is
[00:20:50] The Best And I Maybe It Should Be 6040 But When I'd Used It With My Clients Over The Years
[00:20:55] Usually The Pastory Of He Or She Holds Back Their Ideas To Only About 20% And Let The Congregation Come Up With About 80%
[00:21:02] And I Say You Have to Do That Because The Congregation They'll Come up With Creative Ideas Too They Visit To Their Kids
[00:21:10] Churches And Their You know Relative Churches They've Seen What It's Been Done Differently
[00:21:14] You Have Great Ideas But Your Ideas Are Based Upon The Theoretical
[00:21:20] seminars
[00:21:23] Environment You know Understanding Their More On the Ground Boots on the Ground so
[00:21:30] Try And Not Make Your Idea The Majority
[00:21:33] So 20% Would Be Good if You have to go 50%
[00:21:37] Maybe But Try And Not Make Your Opinion
[00:21:40] Rule The Majority of the Plan
[00:21:43] Yeah Because Because then it's Their Plan so
[00:21:45] Buying Happens Organically Because It's
[00:21:48] They're They're on the Ground Floor Right so that's good so okay so let's Say
[00:21:52] You've Got Buying
[00:21:54] Things Are Things Are Going On The Direction You're Starting to Implement Your Plan and Then
[00:21:59] You're Getting Some Resistance and
[00:22:01] All Maybe Maybe a Catch Wind That
[00:22:05] Somebody's Matter Maybe A Group of People
[00:22:07] Approach You and They're Like you know Pastry If You Keep Going This Direction We're Out
[00:22:12] How Do You Manage That Change Reaction Well Because?
[00:22:17] This Is Something I know Todd Bolsinger Talks About This and His We're Talking About Sabotage and Just Expect It's Gonna
[00:22:24] Come But That Doesn't Make It Any Easier For me it's I'm Not Really Looking Forward To That but How Do You?
[00:22:29] How Do You Handle That Well I Know You wrote A Book on This and It Was It's Been Very Helpful Resource in
[00:22:34] My Leadership So I'd Love to Hear Your Thoughts How Do You start Dealing With With The Change Reaction As You go
[00:22:40] Yeah With The Basic Way You want to do it is not get in the Middle Between The Change Proponents and
[00:22:47] The Status Quote in other Words in Your Congregation There are Two Sub Congregations the People the want Change
[00:22:53] They've Seen It Else Where They've come from Another Church they've come to come up to you and hung Around With You and Said
[00:22:59] Well We Need to do this Other Churches are Doing This and We're Getting Left Behind Then There's A Status Quo and They're Saying look
[00:23:05] You know if We Change It This Way We'll Lose What We have now the people We have Here Won't Feel A Part of It
[00:23:11] What do We do and They will come to you to Complain the Problem is When You Get in the Middle
[00:23:16] They Start Then Blaming You for the Other Side They See the Other Side Through You Whenever They come
[00:23:23] To You You're Defending the Other Side so you're Perceived as defender of Both Sides you get in the Middle and
[00:23:29] Like Jim You get Pushed out and You're Somewhere Sailing a Boat in the at Florida Keys
[00:23:35] Now in
[00:23:37] What's Best to do is get Them to sit Down Together and you can be There but you are not the go Between
[00:23:44] You are Just Kind of the Ringmaster you Make Sure that each Size has a
[00:23:50] Chance to share you do not give Any of your Opinion if you give Any of your Opinion When you're with Both Groups
[00:23:58] They will Then latch on to us Their supporters so they'll Say
[00:24:02] Pastor Jim what do you think about that you know doing a new Playground out There so we can Reach out to the young Families in the Area
[00:24:10] You Said Before you Thought That was a good Idea?
[00:24:12] Jim Should Respond
[00:24:15] That's not what We're Talking about Right now My Ideas Really don't Matter What Matters are
[00:24:20] Your Ideas and Ever and these other People's Ideas coming to some Consensus of
[00:24:25] What We do they're Trying to get you to line up on their side and as soon as you do you're
[00:24:31] Perceived as the linchpin that they gotta get on Their side now here's the ugly True the status Quo
[00:24:37] Most of the Time win
[00:24:40] Because They've Been There Longer
[00:24:42] They Know More About the Community they Know more about the Church and they give more than newcomers do usually not all the Time
[00:24:49] but Usually so the status Quo
[00:24:52] Can't be Forced to
[00:24:54] Take a Side they need to see Themselves as Collaborate so Jim Should Say Rather I want to see you all
[00:25:00] Collaborate in a Solution that's what Our Church Needs
[00:25:04] The Status Quo's not going to be Half All 100% Happy
[00:25:08] Chain For formally Tark Gonna be 100% Happy but together Will come up with something that most everybody is happy with so it's that Type of
[00:25:18] Combined Solution the Pastor can Facilitate but Only Should be a Ringmaster should not be the Take sides in it even When they're Asked
[00:25:27] But that Takes a lot of Discipline
[00:25:30] Especially No really Especially been Something you're Really passionate about is to not Take that bait
[00:25:37] But that is so True and so Important I think I don't know Jesse have you have you been on
[00:25:44] Yeah I've Been on Didn't those Were yeah for sure you know one of the Things we've Learned to do is just to
[00:25:49] Help People Understand all the Questions that we Asked in
[00:25:53] Order to get to where we got with our Decision and Say here's some of the Questions we were Asking and Wondering about and Things we were
[00:25:58] Kind of Suspecting and here's what we Discovered and Kind of Sometimes maybe People got
[00:26:03] Missed in the Process of Coming Along and so Giving some Space and Permission for them to be a Part of it too
[00:26:09] and Building that Coalition rather than Us and them and all that and
[00:26:13] We when we did a Huge Change at Ring Do so the number Years ago now but we we called it Vision and Legacy on purpose
[00:26:20] We're Moving Forward but We're Honoring Where we've Been I like that for your Faithfulness that Allows us to move Forward today
[00:26:27] And Without your what we've Where We've Been we could not do what we're doing now so I think you can honor the status
[00:26:34] Quo Without Staying in it you can Say isn't Amazing what God has done
[00:26:39] Now let's Move forward into whatever God has next and Isn't it great that we can do that and and so I think there's ways to
[00:26:46] Bring People Together Where you're not in There advocating for one Side or the other but doing that Pastoral Work of
[00:26:52] Unity or Just Creating Space for People that Kind of talk Talk it Through Together so I'm with you Bob
[00:26:57] I think that's what's worked and the opposite when you start to Defend and get into some Hot Water in a hurry
[00:27:03] Yeah and then when you're done with that Conversation with Them they the takeaway they have is
[00:27:09] The Pastor wants Us to come together and come up with the Solution rather than the Pastors on their Side or the Pastors on their side
[00:27:18] The Pastor wants Us to come up with a Solution he's going to Coaches but we have to come up with the Solution then long after the Pastors gone
[00:27:28] The People still say hey remember that Pastor who brought Us Together and helped us come up with a solution
[00:27:33] In fact I'm Coaching right now Tom Crenshaw who used to be at your church
[00:27:38] Jason and
[00:27:41] He did a great job at kind of great. He's great at that. He's just the consummate bring People Together from different
[00:27:47] Viewpoints Yeah and and there's Something else that you and
[00:27:53] That I learned from the class that I took actually during my Demon Process and we're Gonna Talk about a fuller Class that you are
[00:27:59] Actually a cohort that you're about to get started which is really Exciting but in that Class you had Mentioned a
[00:28:05] Statement of Change Boundary agreement is that something you still counseled churches to use from time to time?
[00:28:13] Amen Amen Preach it Brother
[00:28:17] What it is a statement of change boundaries you get though that group together that guiding coalition with people from both the status quo and the change
[00:28:25] Proponents they sit down and they say okay. We're Gonna make some changes, but here are some things we the
[00:28:31] Status quo don't want to change and here are some things we the change proponents
[00:28:37] Don't want to change and then you put together?
[00:28:39] correspondence with other students; And then you can say "Okay, that's fine, let's have the contemporary service at 11 o'clock." But not 11 o'clock, but 12 o'clock. Maybe we move it up just a little bit. We won't change it, but we will have another service. We'll add another one. So the statement of change boundaries is a written document that this guiding coalition comes up with the
[00:28:42] first thing, the first thing they do is to make sure that you get on top of the box. So I'm just going to get on top of the box, so let's say we want to change the traditional service.
[00:28:51] We want the traditional service at 1030. And you can say "Okay, well, that's fine, let's have the contemporary service at 11 o'clock." But not 11 o'clock, but 12 o'clock. Or may we move it up just a little bit. We won't change it, but we will have another service. We'll add another one.
[00:29:06] That this guiding coalition comes up with the first thing. The first thing they do as a guiding coalition. You explain to them, number one, the sense of urgency.
[00:29:17] Number two, you convene them together and say the first thing I want you to do is put together a list of things you don't want to change.
[00:29:26] Because then you're going to hear people right away say, "Look, I want that organ music. I love the choir. I love proceeding in from the back of the sanctuary.
[00:29:38] I have certain things that I just want to see preserved."
[00:29:44] That change boundary statement, you type that up, you hand that out to everybody. And you say, "This is a working document at this committee. It can change over time."
[00:29:56] But if we're going to change something, let's say they want to have a traditional service at 1030, and you want to move that traditional service up to 930, then it has to be agreed upon by everyone on that committee to change that time.
[00:30:09] Because that was a boundary. You agreed not to cross unless that committee revisited it.
[00:30:15] Yeah, I love that strategy just because part of the resistance to change is just fear that once we start changing, I'm going to lose the things that I love.
[00:30:23] And so what you're doing is you're setting them at peace a little bit more, saying, "This is where we're not changing, so you can be at peace on those things and we're going to agree to work on these things."
[00:30:34] I love that's one of the things I really love using.
[00:30:37] Somebody said to me one time, just remember that the people who are at your church now are there because they like it the way that it is, or at least are okay with the way that it is.
[00:30:45] So if you're going to ask things, you've got to find a way to help them not be threatened by it, or not too much or to alleviate some of those fears.
[00:30:53] So I love that. Setting some boundaries around that seems super wise.
[00:30:57] Exactly, exactly.
[00:30:59] And so just describing those really helps people visualize this is going to hurt this other group.
[00:31:08] The change for opponents don't really want to hurt the status quo, and the status quo don't want to really hurt the change for opponents.
[00:31:14] But they don't know what you're going to do.
[00:31:16] When you're going to document, like, "We're not going to do these things," then they say, "Okay, I'm okay with the change then, because we're going to keep this that way unless we reconvene and revisit it altogether."
[00:31:28] And agree to change it.
[00:31:30] I love it.
[00:31:31] Man, this is such good stuff, and I know our listeners are soaking it in.
[00:31:35] But hey, tell us about- you've got an opportunity coming up, and I'm excited to let our listeners know about it, because I think they'll be some that are interested.
[00:31:43] Tell us about what you're doing at Fuller.
[00:31:45] Well, Fuller Similarly has asked me to lead a three-year cohort, and the topic that I'm going to be leading it on is called Leadership Forsight.
[00:31:55] And what it is, it's about looking ahead, and they do this in the business world.
[00:31:59] There's this entire discipline called "futuring" or "four-site leadership" that looks at where the culture is going to be in three years, five years, ten years, and fifteen year horizons, and says, "What should we start doing now to address that?"
[00:32:16] And the church is really poor at that.
[00:32:18] What we usually do is we wait until things are changing, and then we start saying, "Okay, we got to change.
[00:32:23] They're doing this now."
[00:32:24] "They're doing online church. We should have been thinking about online church ten, twelve years ago."
[00:32:30] I would talk at a school, and I started teaching there thirty years ago, been that long, I guess so.
[00:32:37] And when I first started teaching, it was online, and they were doing online courses.
[00:32:43] And they later became the biggest private school in Indiana, but the online learning started not really quite thirty years, maybe twenty-five years ago.
[00:32:54] But churches just started getting into that two and a half years ago.
[00:32:58] So the problem is, the culture and technology changes, and we try and change the church too late, and the church misses it, and it becomes antiquated and sidelined.
[00:33:11] So what this course is going to do, it's going to be a doctorate ministry on how to expertly pivot and engage what's next.
[00:33:19] We have to pivot the church, and we have to engage with the good news what's next.
[00:33:24] So we're going to be studying things such as artificial intelligence.
[00:33:28] We're going to be studying things like social economic disparity, how the rich are getting rich in a poor, a poor.
[00:33:33] We're going to be talking about unity and diversity.
[00:33:36] How can churches be diverse while at the same time being united?
[00:33:40] We're going to talk about the rising importance of small congregations and how to make small congregations healthy.
[00:33:47] We're going to talk about how to pastor and lead a church in an era where there's rising unfriendliness towards the church.
[00:33:54] I think we all see that in becoming more unfriendly.
[00:33:57] What are we doing today to plan to get our church ready three years from now when it's even more hostile towards our church?
[00:34:07] What about virtual realities? What about holograms?
[00:34:10] What about virtual augmented realities on Sunday mornings?
[00:34:14] What about artificial intelligence and church and staff members?
[00:34:19] And what about these new expressions of the church?
[00:34:22] Small churches, large churches, venue churches, cafe churches, bar churches, pub churches.
[00:34:29] All of these different things, how is the future going to look like in regards to all the plans we're making?
[00:34:36] What's church planting going to look like in a future?
[00:34:39] So this is as far as I know, not being studied holistically like this by anyone.
[00:34:44] So when Fuller gave me the option of doing a cohort on anything I wanted, I said,
[00:34:48] you know, I want to do it on the future so that our students can get done in three years.
[00:34:53] And that's the good thing about this.
[00:34:54] I'll tell you that in a second.
[00:34:55] But in three years they could finish and they can then help take their denomination or church or district or presbytery,
[00:35:04] help take them and begin to pivot them to engage what's up ahead.
[00:35:10] Rather than waiting till we hit what's up ahead and then trying to convince people to pivot.
[00:35:14] So it's much more thinking longer term, especially important for pastors of churches who have potential in that church or potential in that denomination to make an impact but don't know what they should do now.
[00:35:28] So that's what it's called. It'll be a doctor of ministry and the topic will be leadership foresight.
[00:35:35] How to pivot and engage what's next.
[00:35:38] Wow, that sounds really exciting.
[00:35:40] So if our listeners want to know more, how do they get hold of you?
[00:35:46] If they have some questions, what's the best way to reach you?
[00:35:49] Sure.
[00:35:50] Best way is probably just to go to leadership.church.
[00:35:55] That's my website, leadership.church.
[00:35:58] And then there's on the menu there.
[00:36:00] There's a thing that says leadership foresight.
[00:36:02] How to pivot and engage what's next on the menu.
[00:36:05] And you just click on that.
[00:36:06] It takes you to a page.
[00:36:07] There's a three minute introduction by me.
[00:36:12] There's a flyer from Fuller Seminary.
[00:36:14] There's a link to the Fuller page.
[00:36:16] It'll give you the topics we're going to discuss.
[00:36:19] It will give you information about it.
[00:36:22] Fuller is as you know, Jason, I think that's where you earned your doctor.
[00:36:28] That's where we first met.
[00:36:30] Fuller is very highly regarded for its doctor of ministry program.
[00:36:33] Has always been one of the top and there economically, it's right in the middle of the pack for expenses.
[00:36:40] It's not more expensive and it's not necessarily less.
[00:36:43] It's right in the middle.
[00:36:44] But the best thing about this, I think, is they also allowed me to redesign the program.
[00:36:50] So in the program that I've designed, over the three years, you'll have basically three courses, one each year, your homework you write for each of those years courses will become part of your final dissertation.
[00:37:02] We don't call it a dissertation.
[00:37:03] We call it a project.
[00:37:05] So it's something practical, so it may be creating a small group system for Gen Z, or maybe a millennials, or maybe it's how to plant churches in five years and ten years from now, when the virtual reality and technology is going to make it different planting churches, how to have a denominational structure in the future.
[00:37:30] So, you will write a group, and these are all things that you can study, and you will write your paper on each year you'll write a third of your final project.
[00:37:42] So, most doctor of ministry programs, you take three years of classes, and then you write papers for the three years of classes, then you write additional papers for your project.
[00:37:53] So if you go to a deeper, during the coursework so in three years, your writing will be done. If you stayed on top of it, you'll be done in three years, you can graduate with the doctor of ministry in just three years and that's, that's revolutionary
[00:38:07] and fuller. I think I'm the first one who, who developed that they gave me, okay, it launched, it launched to go in there and do whatever and they approved it all too so I'm excited.
[00:38:20] So, that's awesome Bob, and I was on the six year plan so that would have been nice to be able to get.
[00:38:28] I was on the five year plan but I went seven years.
[00:38:32] Yeah, but you got two doctorates out of it.
[00:38:35] Well no, that was my first one took me seven years.
[00:38:37] Oh, okay.
[00:38:38] My PhD took me well let's not go there maybe a little.
[00:38:41] Well hey Bob, thanks so much for being back on the podcast your stuff is always great and I love just seeing what you're doing in the life of the church and excited about this cohort that you're doing I know you are too and again we just appreciate your, your
[00:38:57] mentorship and your friendship along the way and may God bless all your good work.
[00:39:02] Thank you very much, Jason, Jesse I just love what you guys are doing keep up the reclaimed leader. It's one of the most practical podcasts that's out there and not because you've had me because you've had much better people over the years and I just love it so
[00:39:18] thank you for what you do as well.
[00:39:20] You're welcome, Bob take care.
[00:39:21] Okay, God bless bye bye.
[00:39:23] Jason's always so much fun to get to talk with Bob not just to you know hear his ideas but to just kind of get that enthusiasm back you know just sort of contagious enthusiasm for the things that we're working on and, you know, when we talk about leading
[00:39:39] change and creating urgency and addressing people that have some issues, you know, maybe with the change and how to build coalitions and all that it just.
[00:39:47] It kind of resonates deeply with my own experience of leadership in the church and I go yeah those are the, those are the right things that's what we should be paying attention to so for those listening in if you're at the front end of leading change and revitalization
[00:39:59] these are just hold on to these ideas that Bob brought up today they're so so important for us so kind of that's kind of my takeaway just good strong reminders of what matters most in leadership.
[00:40:10] Absolutely, and we're gonna link on the show notes if you just go to reclaim leader calm forward slash 322.
[00:40:17] Go on there and we'll have maybe an example of a statement of change boundary agreement so you just kind of get an idea of what they look like and maybe it's something a tool that you want to add to your toolbox as well as anything else that we kind of mentioned on this episode
[00:40:31] will link there but yeah it's always good to talk to Bob and I'm excited about his cohort that he's doing.
[00:40:38] I had such a great experience getting my D minute fuller so I want to encourage everyone to check that out.
[00:40:45] But in the meantime thinking about whatever this next thing is for you in your ministry whatever thing you feel you're passionate about if you feel like the church needs to take a step and to change just remember
[00:41:00] you're playing the long game not the fast game and and it doesn't mean it takes forever I think that's that's the thing like well if I go slow like Bob said it's just gonna take too long that's not true he usually doesn't take as long as you think
[00:41:12] but go slower than you want to because what happens is you are building buy and you're building consensus along the way and in the end whether it's in a way you are selling it to them but you're doing it in a collaborative way
[00:41:30] right you're still making clear what you think is important but you're doing it side-by-side with everybody else and I think that's what's really effective.
[00:41:40] Yeah I think so I remember one of the most important moments for me as a young leader was we were in a kind of a brainstorming session about our vision and what we're gonna be doing as a congregation
[00:41:50] the conversation at that moment did not feel like it was going the right direction and I I just wanted to jump up and say no this is not what God's calling us to is not the right direction and right as soon as I just about open my mouth
[00:42:04] and a really seasoned wise leader next to me just put his hand on my leg and said it'll be okay just let the conversation go.
[00:42:13] And it ended up being okay you've got a lot of ideas out there and we ended up staring back over time but I think we want to micromanage or over control sometimes and it's just a reminder to trust in the midst of that and that you get a lot of input
[00:42:29] we have a lot of voice and all that but there's also something about collaborating that's as if not more important than you getting your way in a conversation or something so be patient with it and we're gonna see some good results come out of it.
[00:42:44] Alright well hey thanks everyone for listening as we always say ministry is hard it is so much better when we do it together take care everyone.
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