Pastor to Pioneer

In this episode, Britton Smith and Neal Karsten explore the future of church models, the importance of repentance in reforming church practices, and the cultural shifts driving interest in simple and house churches. They discuss the risks of superficial movements and the need for deep, heart-level change to foster healthy, faithful communities.   Contact Neal at [email protected]

Joe Kimmell shares his journey from growing up as a pastor's kid in Oregon to leading a traditional church for over 20 years, and the painful decade of loss, tragedy, and personal failure that eventually led him to question the sustainability of the conventional church model. After years of discernment, prayer, and studying disciple-making movements, he and his church walked through a costly two-year transition — losing most of their congregation — to move away from Sunday services toward simple, reproducing house churches focused on making disciples who make disciples. That shift has since opened an unexpected door into jail and prison ministry, where he's watched incarcerated men and women come to faith, get discipled, and start multiplying churches behind bars across multiple facilities. Joe closes with a challenge to pursue "faith that risks" — the kind of all-in obedience that leaves no option but for God to show up.

In this episode, Josh Leister shares his journey from traditional pastoral ministry to pioneering a disciple-making movement in Kenya and the US. He discusses the challenges, breakthroughs, and lessons learned along the way, emphasizing the importance of relational discipleship and simple church models. He brings in two of his sons in the second half of the episode to share their experience making this transition. 

In this episode, Brian Thompson — a former pastor and lifelong surfer — shares how he stepped away from ten years of formal pastoral ministry after the weight of licensing requirements, congregational expectations, and carrying others' burdens began stealing his peace and joy. He describes returning to surfing in his fifties , and how that return unexpectedly became a spiritual practice and a new context for quiet, judgment-free faith conversations. Brian reflects on wrestling with guilt and the fear of disappointing God by giving up his title, ultimately concluding that his calling to reach the lost never required a license or institutional role to fulfill. The conversation closes with Brian describing an emerging, informal faith community he's starting with friends outside the church, built around open discussion rather than top-down teaching.

In this episode, Britton talks with Jeremy Pryor, co-founder of Family Teams and founder of 1000 Houses (1KH), about reimagining family life around a biblical model of household rather than the modern isolated nuclear family. Jeremy shares his journey from traditional pastoral ministry through seminary and multiple churches, into bivocational work after starting an e-commerce business, which eventually freed him to volunteer in ministry while supporting his family. He explains the concept of "oikos"—the first-century household as a multi-generational team with an economic, spiritual, and missional core—and how his own family has lived this out across four generations, businesses, and a house church.