[00:00:00] The Moon Mission didn't need a committee to spend endless hours wordsmithing a goal into a verbose, meaningless, impossible to remember mission statement.
[00:00:08] Ouch, yeah. No, the goal itself, the mountain to climb, was so easy to grasp, so compelling in its own right that it could be said 150 different ways yet easily understood by everyone.
[00:00:20] But an expedition sets out to climb out Everest that doesn't need a three-page convoluted mission statement to explain what Mount Everest is. Welcome to episode 351. What do you day dream about in the life of the church?
[00:00:34] If you could wave a magic wand and move the ministry forward, what would need to happen? And what if those dreams are God-green? We're talking about putting dreams into action as today on The Reclaimed Leader.
[00:00:46] Hey everyone, welcome to The Reclaimed Leader Podcasts. Two pastors talking shop about leading churches. I'm Jason Tucker, along with Jesse Skiffington as always, man, how you doing? Doing good, Jason. Just plug it away and get ready. We're gearing up.
[00:01:07] Let me fall as in sight, something I'll summer kind of know how to go. But it got up. So hurts my heart a little bit, but I also love the fall, so you know, it'll be okay.
[00:01:17] Man, seems like life is just racing by these days, especially the beautiful weather and all that out here. I know. And speaking of racing by, I don't know, summer traffic here at the Jersey Shore is something to behold.
[00:01:31] People say that there is no frontier left in America, but I'm going to tell you where the frontier is. It is in parking lots. Apparently there are no rules in parking lots. So parking lots, it's the wild west. It stops not knowing that matter.
[00:01:46] Any sort of etiquette, and nobody's, there's no law enforcement also in parking lots, I've noticed. Anyway, that's been really fun experiencing that. This summer, so the driving in New Jersey and the summer is enough to test anyone's faith.
[00:02:00] But speaking of cars, do you have a dream car? Are you in the car? Is it all? You have a dream car? What's your dream car? Probably like a 1957-58 Corvette.
[00:02:10] The car that I could never have and never afford, but which I have a small model sitting on my shelf in my office. Yes, that is the most faster answer I've ever heard. No, that's good. So dream cars for me, my dreams are very meager.
[00:02:25] My dream car was, I'll say, why was a Jeep Wrangler, just regular Wrangler, top-down, cruising around. That was my dance. The car always wanted. So when we first moved here 12 years ago, I at least won for three years and it was everything I hoped it would be.
[00:02:45] It was I loved it. I loved driving that around. And the problem is apparently you need things like enough seats for your family. We're so my wife told me how inconvenient of that. I mean, the nerve, the nerve.
[00:03:01] You could say it was my crisis car. I don't know. But I want to talk speaking of vehicles. I want to talk about what's the relationship between dreams and vehicles? Dreams and the vehicles to get there. I was thinking that that dumb 80 song, get out of mind.
[00:03:18] You could add a lot of dreams. Please don't sue me for copyright issues. But you're saying just a little bit of it. Okay, well, I hope not. Otherwise, about that edit that. That's right. That's right. So anyway, the relationship between dreams,
[00:03:34] getting those dreams to move. You know, dreams aren't very practical. But what if that didn't have to be the case? So last week we're talking about we're in the weeds with planning and all of that.
[00:03:49] How do you bake it into what you're doing? And this is really a way of saying, okay, what's this next big season for your life, for your church? And how do you tackle it? How do you take these big dreams and give them legs?
[00:04:02] How do you land them? What are the vehicles that are going to drive these dreams to fruition? So that's what we're talking about today. Because here's what I believe. I believe that if your dreams are God-breathed, then you should be taking action on them.
[00:04:16] I really do. I think we get scared or there's many too many perceived obstacles to chasing those dreams. And I think it prevents us from realizing what God has for us and what God has for our churches and for our impact in our community.
[00:04:38] So we're talking about big dreams today. What do you think? I like it. I think it's spot on. And I think it's probably important to differentiate between sort of like pipe dreams, like a 1957 Corvette that is not like a need in my life and not practical.
[00:04:53] You know, something that really is a dream or something that God is putting on your heart, a passion, a direction and move in. And I think that's kind of what you're getting. Sort of these God dreams that are something that show up.
[00:05:09] And what are we going to do with them? Or do we just dismiss them? Because it feels too far too hard to whatever. And the reason I'll never go get a 1957 Corvette is because I'd like to stay married and I'd like to retire someday.
[00:05:22] So, you know, so those are different situations right. Honey, honey, it's an investment. It's good. That's good. But let's talk about. Let's talk about dreams. Listen, one of the terms that has gotten kicked around. I think Jim Collins coined it in his book, Bill to last.
[00:05:41] Well, link to that in the show notes or our B-hags. Yeah. The H-A-G since for a big Harry Audacious goal and it's a business term. It's gotten kicked around for years and years and people talk about it.
[00:05:54] But if you're unfamiliar with what it be, Hag is, it's a concept that's developed in his book, Bill to last. And it's a powerful way to stimulate forward movements, stimulate proctor progress because it takes the energy of dreaming.
[00:06:10] And sometimes do you think Jesse people feel like in church world that dreaming almost feels irresponsible. Like, well, I don't have time to do that because Sunday's come in and we got all these other more practical pragmatic things to do. I don't have time to dream.
[00:06:27] But I don't know, I feel like it's the dreaming that pushes us forward in the best way. Yeah. If we're not doing some of that forward looking, then we're getting the grind of the day to day where we're out.
[00:06:38] If we don't have some vision of something compelling that we're moving toward it. And so finding the space to dream and to discern about that is I think challenging in the grind of it all.
[00:06:51] But if you're not moving towards something, if there's not that part of you that has allowed to dream and think about bigger things and the possibilities. I think it kind of sucks the life out. Yeah.
[00:07:03] And the times when I feel most tired or thinnest or whatever in my leadership and as a communicator and all that, I think are the times when the dreams begin to fade or I haven't had as much room for that.
[00:07:17] And so I think a lot of times the leaders are that they need that dreaming component to keep us going, keep us moving towards something. Even if it's really big one of those behags that seems kind of outrageous and audacious.
[00:07:32] Do you know what it does for me? It helps me not get stuck in in the rut of the routine. And it is reminding me of why I became a pastor in the first place and why our church exists and what God's mission is all of that.
[00:07:50] I think dreaming helps to stimulate that muscle if you will. So here's a quote, just sort of kind of land the idea of behags. This is from Jim Collins book. This is a quote from the book says, like the moon mission.
[00:08:04] A true behag is clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort, often creating immense team spirit. It has a clear finish line so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal. People like to shoot for finish lines. A behag engages people.
[00:08:22] It reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away. It takes little or no explanation.
[00:08:32] So he goes on, the moon mission didn't need a committee to spend endless hours wordsmithing a goal into a verbose meaningless impossible to remember mission statement. Out.
[00:08:43] No, the goal itself, the mountain to climb was so easy to grasp, so compelling in its own right that it could be set 150 different ways yet easily understood by everyone.
[00:08:54] In an expedition sets out to climb out Everest, it doesn't need a three page convoluted mission statement to explain what Mount Everest is.
[00:09:03] So behags are bold, falling in the gray area where reason improvements might say this is unreasonable but the drive for progress says we believe we can do it nonetheless. Again, these just aren't goals. They are big hairy audacious goals from Jim Collins built to last.
[00:09:21] I think the important question to ask is, is a behag congruent with the church in Mission of God or is that just sort of like leadership corporate speak? I think it's the right question asked before you sort of launch into it.
[00:09:38] And I think we always need to be guarded a bit against corporate solutions to church life. However, what corporations have figured out is how to move people in a way together toward achieving a mission.
[00:10:02] And I think there's a lot that we could learn from those strategies but I think you always have to kind of hold that intention a bit with like it. Let me just make sure we're not getting too sucked into corporate whatever.
[00:10:14] But I do think a lot of these things can really work in the life of the church. It just may take little translating.
[00:10:20] Yeah, another one of the things that Jim Collins does that I appreciated out of his book Good to Great which is I think he brings that behag stuff into that.
[00:10:29] And that builds on some of those topics but he produced a smaller a dendum for nonprofits and churches who are interested in his work and he said, you know, for for a corporation they're all about the bottom line and profitability.
[00:10:44] You have something even better. You have a mission you believe in that you've in for churches you have a God given mission you believe in. So why wouldn't we aim high and big go go for it when it comes to that and move people in a direction together and I would just say this if your your goal or your behag is like something self serving in the life that you know to make a name for the church or something.
[00:11:09] Or for yourself as the speaker or whatever then probably that's not good. But if it's moving intended to move everybody together toward the mission to do something amazing that only God could do through you and what would that thing be.
[00:11:24] That is I think where this this actually has a ton of merit in the church that we should be people are saying God what is something that you can do that we can all move towards together that would just blow our minds if it happened.
[00:11:37] How do we move in that direction and I do think that kind of thinking is in line with the behag stuff and the right ways with and we're moving toward a mission not just a bottom line.
[00:11:47] Yeah and I feel like if you have a dream that leads toward greater faithfulness. Then it's probably from God and if you find that when you talk about it people get excited. There's a lot of energy around it even if they're a little bit nervously excited.
[00:12:10] I think we talked about it here before but we decided that because we were in a suburban community with lots of families that we need to grow from reaching about 50 kids on any given week to reaching 225 or 250 kids on any given week.
[00:12:37] We wanted to have touch points with that many young people in high school all the way down through you know birth through high school or whatever.
[00:12:44] And so what we did we got everybody into a room when we dreamed together and we had balloons representing those 225 kids that we wanted to reach every week.
[00:12:54] And we had all these healing balloons and bunches and we said it's going to take one volunteer for every eight to ten kids and we had this moment of dreaming together and there were a few people who were skeptics a few people were excited people were.
[00:13:08] And we had to get a concert or a stern reaction and we asked what's it going to take what would need to be true in order for us to reach this many kids.
[00:13:17] And we had somebody in the front row that said well if you take the ratio of kids to adults that we have right now to reach that number of kids and a given week we would need to have 1200 adults on a Sunday where we're going to put all those adults there's no way we can't do this and then at toward the end of the meeting I started popping balloons.
[00:13:37] And we were saying you know are we willing to walk away from this and who what young person is going to miss out on hearing God's love because we weren't willing to go for it and I started popping balloons and pop and balloons and pop and balloons.
[00:13:50] Let all the balloons go to the top of our sanctuary prayed for all the young people in our community and that God would help us move toward this vision of reaching all these young people.
[00:14:00] Now I was young and maybe a little naive and all of that but it was one of those big hairy audacious goals it was a way out there for us to reach more than four times you know close to five times the number of kids that we were reaching on a given weekend at the time what would it take.
[00:14:16] What would have to be true we would all have to work together and we would take God at work in our midst in order to make that happen.
[00:14:22] How did you know Jesse that that was like the right thing for your church at that time did not top a mountain I.
[00:14:31] No it was really an outcome of us as a leadership team so we got our session and staff together and we spent time thinking praying to surning together.
[00:14:40] And we said who who is our community we have all these young families what has been effective in our life together in our history well we started as a Sunday we've always had vibrant youth and children's ministries and.
[00:14:54] And yet we were sort of under-resourcing those things from a staffing and budgeting standpoint and so we said what would it take to move our organization more in the direction of. The next generation and including our budget and our staffing and everything else is so we said.
[00:15:12] If we're going to do that we need to set something of a target out there like this big goal of reaching 250 kids or whatever the number was I think it's 225 actually.
[00:15:21] No remember why we landed on that number but 225 kids on any given week we want to have contact with them and a way that helps them know God's love.
[00:15:29] And so what would have to be true in our life together and so we said it kind of came out of a sense of where the Lord would leading us toward our community.
[00:15:39] What were the needs and opportunities in our surrounding community not just at marine view but in in the greater community around us and that kind of set the stage and then we really did say let's really dream big.
[00:15:51] Let's aim so far out there if we make any progress toward it at all is actually going to move the needle quite a lot.
[00:15:57] And so coming out of that series of conversations one it caused some tears for our youth and children's staff because they were like how we.
[00:16:04] I feel all the pressure and how we're going to do it and so we have to make some some some adjustments there and how we talked about that and not put all the pressure there,
[00:16:12] but it ended up leading us to hiring two youth directors when we really only had one role at lead to massive shift in our budgeting to steer so many more of our financial and volunteer resource toward youth and children and it has produced a ton of fruit.
[00:16:31] I don't know if we bumped into that top number that we aimed for but man we've gotten really close and it's really moved things for us so that's an example of this in our life and I kind of hijacked the point to tell that story but it really.
[00:16:45] It was amazing to be a part of a moment where we aimed so far out there and it felt like there's no way and then we began to take steps to make progress toward it. I think that's actually a perfect example what we're talking about because.
[00:17:00] The first thing you have to do, you know what's where does that kind of be had come from or what is that big dream come from that we're going to follow is it was there are a couple of different parts to it there was an organic bubbling up.
[00:17:14] I think that's a very important thing to do with this concern for the next generation and who's going to reach him and what do we do and then it was.
[00:17:22] Let's not shoot for incremental change I don't think it's terribly exciting to say we're going to have two more kids a year. Which two more kids years great but I don't think that excites people needs to be something that feels it feels big.
[00:17:39] And that's a big part of it the first thing is you identify what different future do you hope for in the life of the church have you named it if you could wave a magic wand and have something happen in your church.
[00:17:53] That moves the mission for what would that thing be I think these are questions to ask to start getting you at and where do we feel God's leading us and if those two things converge.
[00:18:05] Then that's probably a be had worth following right and I would say this it should be a stretch. It should be a stretch if it doesn't scare you at least a little bit I don't think it's big enough.
[00:18:18] Yeah, yeah one way we phrased it over the years if God said he would do one miraculous thing in our life together what would we want it to be.
[00:18:26] Why would we want to see God do the only God could do and blow our mind but we get to be a part of it and moving that direction so I love it just and I think obviously this gets us stirred up because.
[00:18:36] This is our wheelhouse baby we got to be careful you don't go four hours but. But here's the thing I feel like if a if a dream is beyond your current capabilities it means you're going to depend on God for it which is the whole point and.
[00:18:52] Our example of that was we were feeling is five years ago the way back machine to 2019 and it was right after a very challenging staff situation.
[00:19:06] And we had a staff retreat to really just like mend all the wounds that were involved in that situation and to start looking ahead and the feeling that we all had was. We're just scratching the surface that there's so much more impact that we feel.
[00:19:27] We need to have in the community because we're in such an undercharged region of the country and like we just want to do it we can. And I asked a question that I was literally laughed at. I said what would it look like to double our reach.
[00:19:45] So twice as many in worship twice as many total people that were reaching twice as many like twice. I like what would it look like to double our reach and and I was straight up laughed at like I was telling a funny joke.
[00:19:59] And I don't know why double but it felt like that's a really big there a lot of issues to try and to get there but.
[00:20:10] Would it help us to think like a church that's one and a half times bigger than what we have like what sort of things do we need. If that's even going to happen so.
[00:20:21] But things we identified real quick was that well, we really need to have online ministry at the time we weren't streaming or anything. It was pre pandemic. We now have digital reach would have to be away that we're leveraging relationships. More worship opportunities probably.
[00:20:38] Because you can only fit so many in the sanctuary kind of like what you were talking about. We would need to change our facilities a bit to accommodate that many kids on both on Sunday school and youth group nights. And there are some others funding all that stuff.
[00:20:54] But it felt like this feels like the right plan and how do we start heading in this direction.
[00:21:01] So I just I was curious I'm like five years later what do our numbers tell us where are we we did not hit two x everywhere we hit it in some. So as far as worshiping goes. We increased our worship attendance 67% in five years.
[00:21:22] Which is crazy to me. We more we doubled we more than doubled our reach as far as the number of people that will call our church home and we measure that through. Newsletter subscriptions big like holiday Sunday attendance so on and so forth.
[00:21:45] We we did not double our youth reach it did increase so I don't know what percentage I didn't look that up. But we tripled our small group participation. And so yeah in some ways we technically didn't hit two x in other ways we exceeded it.
[00:22:04] But the whole point was it pushed us to start thinking about what would it take to get there. Yeah and it didn't happen over right this is five years. And it took and it's been incremental but because we've been so focused on that idea.
[00:22:21] It's helped us to make decisions to get us as far if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah I imagine when you guys are having a conversation there was a general acknowledgement what would need to be different just about everything. Exactly exactly but to you point.
[00:22:35] No system out of bounds for working on you know it's your point earlier in our conversation is well how do you make sure it's not a pipe dream.
[00:22:43] Right and I think that's another important question how do you start testing a be had how do you make sure that it's even remotely possible.
[00:22:50] I think it's you start asking the question what would have to happen for this to be true and if the answer is we would need Elon Musk to fund us. It's probably a pipe dream right or something like that yeah.
[00:23:01] Yeah, I think the other ones that are like testing the waters is it doesn't really truly meet the mission that we feel called to does it meet the need that is really represented in our community.
[00:23:13] I mean you're you guys were looking around going there not enough churches for people to be a part of to grow in their faith and grow the church and Christ. And so we need to we need to grow for the sake of the kingdom.
[00:23:24] Right that's different than saying well we would love to be the biggest church in the neighborhood so we want to grow by any means possible.
[00:23:30] Or whatever I don't know whatever gross motivation there could be there's this real genuineness about I think the the behags in the church life or these goals that are in keeping with the mission that are come from this heartfelt longing to make a difference for the sake of the kingdom order.
[00:23:47] To change things in a better way for the real people that are around us our friends and neighbors and so those are the ones that are the right ones who grab hold of church for church to say.
[00:23:57] Or so that we can be around for another hundred years or so that you know whatever the self serving stuff might be I'm not super interested in those ones and I think those are the.
[00:24:06] The could become the pipe drains or the bad dreams but the ones that are in the direction of the mission and that's that's the stuff that that we want to find a pay attention to even if it feels like a pipe dream.
[00:24:19] So far out there it would take you on mask and who else. Yeah, where does he want to slip and you on if you're listening. Tower Hill church red bank New Jersey you're walking anytime anytime.
[00:24:31] Yeah, that's right. Okay, so I'm going to try to go quick through this next part. I want to get to the vehicles we're talking about dreams be some vehicles to get there.
[00:24:41] How do you start planning to accomplish a be had like how do you just start breaking down listen moon shot takes working out the math.
[00:24:50] Like we've ever seen hidden figures I think that's a great movie talking about the moon shot and all the math that was involved in doing that you need some strategic planning.
[00:24:57] You know there are five basic steps to strategic planning I'm not going to spend a lot of time in that but just like you know vision what you're objective what your plan of action what your approach what your tactics.
[00:25:07] You know, so having smart goals all of that we've talked about it before I just want to mention it here that you're going to have to do the math on what would it take it's not just enough have a conversation but.
[00:25:18] What is the cost let's count the cost what would it take how do we work out the math on this goal and then.
[00:25:25] The real secret which is wild so there's research that was done a few years back Dr. Gail Matthews psychology professor at Dominican University in California she did this study on goal setting.
[00:25:37] With it was like over 250 participants and she found that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Yeah. And basically the idea that comes from that is.
[00:25:51] Dreams turn into goals through intention right it's just like when you write down your dream you start turning it into a goal and that's kind of part of what this part's talking about how do we do that right it down.
[00:26:03] Start picking at it start thinking okay what are the five things that would need to be true.
[00:26:10] To make this a reality and then and then it kind of puts everything into motion but I think if you never write it down just like I wouldn't it be nice you know and.
[00:26:19] It's really hard to take action and we've all been part of church meetings where it's like you know someone's been talking about moving the dumpster in the parking lot for 17 years. And nobody could come to a decision because it net there's no not ever really a plan so.
[00:26:33] Turning your dreams into goals is about that. Doing the math and trying to figure that out writing your goals down so with that in mind we talked about dreams and cars right what are the vehicles to make our dreams a reality.
[00:26:49] What are the things that you need to start planning or unpacking to make it happen so vehicles I'll just talk about three today there's lots more.
[00:26:57] Number one is staffing whether it's volunteer staff or paid staff you've got to think about you pastor probably already have enough on your plate.
[00:27:09] So if you if you're going after a be had going after this big thing you're probably going to need some more help than you currently have. So think about who are some really important people or even if you don't know who.
[00:27:23] Who are the types of people that you're going to need I love this strategy of staffing we've we used it when we made that big goal and that is. What sort of staff positions would we need volunteer paid to accomplish this.
[00:27:37] And I know Andy Stanley talks about this they talk about when they planted north point and he just drew a bunch of boxes in the position titles and he and the other two people on.
[00:27:46] Staff would put their names and all of them until they could fill those with other people. I think there's something like that how do you start thinking about how we're going to sustain this how are we going to get from here to there.
[00:27:57] By bringing the right people with us and what does that look like is that something that you guys have done. Yeah, yeah for sure and within that I think is.
[00:28:07] Creating something of an organizational strategy and who's going to do what by when and and starting to think around the discipline of that.
[00:28:15] So having having those boxes are just thinking through what would it take what kinds of resources would we need financially and with our staff or volunteer staff to pull this off in an ideal scenario.
[00:28:27] What would it be and what's realistic for when we are now and what steps can we take to move toward it so I think yeah absolutely kind of count the cost and start to drill down a little bit.
[00:28:39] So what we did just I'll just talk about something we're currently working on as an example. We at the end of our fiscal year is when we sort of talk about vision and where are the gaps and.
[00:28:51] You know, what do we need to do staffing wise and one of the things that came up is really feel like we're at a point or we can use a volunteer coordinator of some kind.
[00:29:00] We use somebody helping to connect the volunteer opportunities with the people coming to the doors we just don't have any mechanism of doing that.
[00:29:09] And and so like our volunteer opportunities become like the best kept secrets in the church because we don't know how to connect it to you so.
[00:29:19] We already made our budget for the next year was like we can't afford another staff position so let's try it on volunteer staff position and let's write up a job description and.
[00:29:27] We just met with someone today this morning who said yeah heard you talking about that and I'm interested in we had a conversation looks like she's going to be able to step in and to do that.
[00:29:38] But we did that because we were able to identify and sort of draw the box on the org chart we need some sort of volunteer person there. And so that when we knew what what we were looking for so when somebody came our way we're like hey.
[00:29:53] Maybe that'll work and she's like, hey, maybe that'll work for me. So I think that's how it works. I think it's very organic but it just keeps it front of mind when you have a plan.
[00:30:02] I'm going to be able to fill that position for two or three years, but then you know what you're looking for by the time you do if that makes sense.
[00:30:08] Yeah, totally does and you guys we talked a little bit about this so you got the volunteer box another one for us is event coordination box it's like.
[00:30:16] We had a lot of things going on at the time in our staff kind of rallies to make it happen, but there's enough one off things in our life together we kind of need either a team or a person to be our.
[00:30:28] Our our event coordinator because it takes so much energy and to pull those things off and sometimes our ministry staff there's certainly administratively gifted but a lot of some more relationally motivated.
[00:30:41] And so that the to pull off events well becomes a sort of exhausting and relation I energy that we want to have for discipleship kind of gets.
[00:30:49] It's eaten up with event coordination and so we were like, how do we create a spot for this. Who could it be is it a person is it a team of people.
[00:30:58] What's that going to look like we don't have staff resources for that position either as far as the finance is to hire someone yeah so. How can we take a step toward that but you got to draw the box first and articulate the need.
[00:31:10] Yeah absolutely okay the last two are pretty quick. One is one of the vehicles to get you know the dream going or dream moving is of course financing most churches we don't have just extra money land around.
[00:31:25] You know unless your life church and you plan on having margin money of you know it's just we're just not that good. How do you talk about.
[00:31:36] Financing and we've talked that we've done whole episodes on this is that you've got to connect the story of the mission of what God's doing in your church with the giving.
[00:31:44] And so we've we really hit that hard the end we're on the fiscal year and we we swung for the fences with our budget last year where we were we planned a 9% increase in giving. We were so we're so excited to be able to do that.
[00:32:02] And then we started to have a look at this and we thought we had to take a big swing where we were.
[00:32:07] And the final numbers are not yet in as of the recording of this pocket but looks like we are just going to speak by and meet it. We were really behind in June.
[00:32:21] And we just started hammering home like about all the life transformation that's happening the church and people stepped up in a humongous way.
[00:32:29] That's part of it is when they see the value of the story of what God's doing in people's lives they want to give it to it. And I even had somebody come up and say thank you so much for telling us.
[00:32:41] That we had a gap because I you know, I didn't know and and and I want to help because I believe in what we're doing as a church so. Pretty awesome you know connecting the story you I know you guys do this a lot.
[00:32:55] And I think you know, you got to be putting it out in front of people and I think even just the transparency of how things are going in our finances is important.
[00:33:03] People want to be part of an organization that's trying things that's moving forward taking some risks hopefully wisely nine percent in Jason that seems. I know that was a little nuts. It was the finance guy said it was okay. I love it. That's a good sign right there.
[00:33:17] And then when people see that that gap we always try to present it in terms of something that they can have some influence or control over.
[00:33:24] So instead of saying here's what we've spent and here's what's been given and here's the deficit and sometimes we'll do that as a kind of a year-end report but.
[00:33:32] But you can't really do anything about what's already been spent but we can talk about giving relative to what we planned and and the shortfall that maybe is there and saying can you help us. And we're really really, really, really.
[00:33:45] And so we've got to do that and we're really really really. We're really really. So I think there's a couple ways that we can talk about finances in a healthy way one is we feel called to this here's what's going to take to do it.
[00:33:57] Can you help me a part of that here's some of the stories of what God's doing. And then thinking in terms of kind of funding for the future can you help us grow so that we can continue to think about these awesome ideas.
[00:34:10] I don't know for me, I never want church to be about the money ever like if that's the question somebody gets we've kind of blown it.
[00:34:18] There are really healthy ways to talk about our financial life that are life-giving and keeping with scripture and have something of a call to action that is also leaves a good feeling and so we just got to be wise about how we go about that.
[00:34:35] And again, with financing there are ways that you can make do some quick fundraisers to raise a little extra just to get things going.
[00:34:42] We talked about a couple months ago the envelope wall take a bunch of envelope, some of them one to a hundred and that's people to give that amount in there comes out to about five grand so it's like.
[00:34:52] You know, that's a great way to just get some seed money to get something off the ground and you can make it fun with your congregation as well.
[00:35:00] And then lastly is actually just a call for folks to go back and listen the last week's episode because the last part of or the last vehicle to help get the dream there is ongoing systemic support which is all about making it a part of what you're already doing so I'll give you an example.
[00:35:17] When we do our switch over from traditional to contemporary in a Sunday morning in about 15 minutes there's a team that does that for us and there are team of volunteers who are.
[00:35:30] Many of them are our traditional worshipers who were willing to help to get contemporary ready which warms my hearts no end. But also understanding that not everybody has the energy to desire to do that every week for the rest of their lives so.
[00:35:45] I decided to make it one of the deacon responsibilities to make it a deacon team or sub team so that they would staff that on a regular basis and.
[00:35:55] That was how we baked it into our system because we know if we didn't do that it wouldn't have the kind of support that it needed so again we we go into that a lot last week and it'd be a great thing to go and review but ongoing systemic support how do you make.
[00:36:10] I think that's this car drive the dream forward as part of what you're doing as a church so again got out of my dreams get into my car. Who knew that song was so prophetic.
[00:36:21] I'm just even just having this conversation inspires me to think big you know and to reflect back on the times when we risk doing that and all the ways that God showed up provided.
[00:36:34] I think on the finance side you know it's all or even on the planning side or the volunteer resource side it's like that the vision has to proceed the growth toward that otherwise you'll never be ready for it and so you kind of drain big and move toward it.
[00:36:48] And in order for those things to back fill that are going to make it possible but is that first big step that be hagg that going for that God dream that feels daunting or maybe like I don't know it is it even possible and what I hear you saying today is.
[00:37:03] Yes we need to do that and there are some vehicles that we can use that can move us in that direction once once we've agreed to that and so it's not mission impossible and anything that God is in.
[00:37:16] And we're faithful to I you know it's going to be amazing to see what happens so thanks for introducing us back to the idea of dreaming. Falls common let's dream big for what God's going to do in our midst in our churches.
[00:37:29] Hey man brother alright hey everyone thanks so much for being with us really do appreciate you and be in a part of this reclaimed leader community if you ever want to reach out it's Jason or Jesse at reclaimed leader dot com.
[00:37:39] Again ministry is hard it is so much better when we do it together.