thinking.church podcast

Amy Jorden is the Executive Lead Pastor at One Church Gloucester and is also responsible for overseeing all the Sunday Services across the One Church Network. Hi Amy, tell us a bit about your role of overseeing Sunday Services. What’s involved in that? What’s your goal for each Sunday Service? What’s the big win? One Church is a multisite church, and one of those locations was a separate church that has joined us, and then since planted a further location. What challenges have you had in bringing Sunday Services together? How important is it that all services are alike? Why? 3 of the church’s locations are small congregations. How do you manage the tension between big and small services? How do you create consistency?

My guest today is Gianni Gaeta. Gianni Gaeta is the founder and leader of the LIFE Church Austria movement with his wife Angela. Gianni's passion is to encourage people to dream big and to think of the seemingly impossible, and then to take steps to implement this, whether in church planting nationally and internationally or in the field of business, education and politics. I’d love to hear about how you started Life Church. Both you and your wife Angela are not Austrian. You are Italian and Angela is English. How did you find it planting a church in a culture you didn’t grow up in? Life Church has many churches across Austria. How do you choose where to plant? What qualities do you look for in leaders for your churches? How do you keep consistency between churches? Is that even important to you?

My guest today is Adam Legge. Adam is the Activity & Faith Leader for Sportily, run by the Diocese of Gloucester. Hi Adam, you’ve started working for Sportily. What is Sportily and how does it all work? I was privileged to go to the Commissioning Ceremony for your role. What really stood out for me from that ceremony was that you were being commissioned to start a form of church, but in a different way. Is Sportily a church, an event, a lead-in? Where does it sit? Sportily is primarily aimed at young people, but can this kind of expression of church work for the whole family too? How would that look? Why do you think it’s necessary to start churches in different ways than what we’ve always known?

My Guest today is Dan Reiland. Dan Reiland is the Chief of Staff at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He previously partnered with John Maxwell for 20 years, first as Executive Pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, then as Vice President of Leadership and Church Development at INJOY. Dan is also the author of the books Amplified Leadership: 5 Practices to Establish Influence, Build People, and impact others for a lifetime; and his latest book Confident Leader! Become one, stay one. Hi Dan, I’m aware that the invention of role of ‘Executive Pastor’ was thanks to you. Back when you were working under John Maxwell at his church, you coined that term, and it’s a job title that’s stuck to this day. What is the job of the Executive Pastor? Can the job of an Executive Pastor work in a small church? Your current role at 12Stone is Chief of Staff. There’s lots of resources available on the type of people to hire, but not so much on when. At what size should a church look to make it’s first hire? Which roles are most important to hire first in a church plant or small church situation? How do you balance the hiring of pastoral staff and the hiring of administrative staff?

My Podcast guest today is Nathan Jorden. Nathan is the Online Pastor at One Church, based in the Southwest of England. Nathan is also one of my very best friends, so it’s great to have Nath on the show today. You’ve just launched One Church’s Online Location. What was the remit you were given for this role? What did you have in terms of resources to start with? Why is online church important? Who have you designed the online location for and why? What’s your current approach to reaching these people online? What are you doing?

My guest today is Tom Elliott. Tom is a comedy magician and also a Christian. Tom also hosts a podcast on wellbeing having interview guests such as Milton Jones.   How do write your comedy? Hi Tom, I’d love to hear a bit about your story, how did you end up being the comedy magician you are today? What motivates you to do what you do? How do you get received on the comedy circuit as a Christian magician and comedian? Where’s a good starting point for churches if they have never really thought about evangelism?

My Podcast guest is Jim Tomberlin. Jim is the Chief of Staff at Christ Fellowship in Miami and the multisite specialist for The Unstuck Group.   Hi Jim, your expertise is in Church Multisite. What were the pre-COVID best practices around multisite? If you were to advise a church before COVID, what would have you advised them to do? Now we are in the COVID era, what’s changed? What’s the new advice? What are the initial conditions needed in a church to go multisite? Let’s talk about planting. We used to talk about planting in that 20-30 minute drive time radius from a campus. Has that changed now with the online church revolution? Another area I’m thinking about is buildings. You talk in your article with Outreach Magazine that smaller buildings will become the norm. Why smaller? And how small are we talking? What is the new ideal size to plant with?

My guest today is Justin Brierley. Justin is Theology and Apologetics Editor at Premier and presents the podcast 'Unbelievable?' interviewing such guests as Bishop Robert Barron, Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Sir Roger Penrose, Dave Rubin, John Lennox, and Derren Brown.   Justin also hosts the fortnightly Ask NT Wright Anything podcast, where Justin gets the audience to ask Tom Wright all sorts of questions. Justin is also a TikTok sensation and has a whopping 253,000 followers on that channel!   Justin, you talk with a lot of sceptics and many of the sceptics on your show started out life as a Christians, but since moved away from the faith, often at the time of being teenagers. How has the church failed in helping people tackle life’s deepest questions? What are the big questions that you think the church needs to start addressing? Do you think there’s a problem with how we present what we believe? Fascinatingly, there is a resurgence of people investigating faith, and especially looking at the Bible. One person who particularly comes to mind is a guest you had on your show, Dr Jordan Peterson. He’s not outspokenly a Christian, although he teaches extensively from the Bible, with thousands coming to listen. What are these new thinkers, like Jordan Peterson, doing that we in the church are missing?

My Podcast guest today is Tiffany Deluccia. Tiffany is the Director of Sales & Marketing at The Unstuck Group. She graduated from Clemson University, and before joining The Unstuck Group, worked in public relations with major national retail brands, nonprofits and churches on content creation, strategic planning, communication consulting, social media and media relations. When we’re thinking about marketing, I think that many Pastors and church leaders get confused about what it actually is. What is marketing? Marketing and the Church have had a rough relationship. What marketing mistakes have you seen churches make? What the right way to think about marketing in the church? What’s the goal of Marketing? Why is it important? Much of marketing in the workplace is based around funnels. What are they and do they translate into the church?

Brady Shearer – The New Era of Church   My guest today is Brady Shearer. Brady is the Founder of Nucleus Church & Pro Church Tools. With a large following of 35 thousand people on Instagram, and a huge 116 thousand people on YouTube, Brady is the best person in the world I can think to talk to about church communications. Brady is a great strategist and thinker too, so I know that you’ll enjoy this conversation.   You say in your videos that we’ve just undergone the biggest communications shift in 500 years, and that’s correct. The internet, and mobile devices, in particular, have been as revolutionary as the printing press. However, the church is, in many instances, still struggling to keep up. What are the biggest areas of communications in church life that still need to come in line with the times? I’ve hard you talk before about how all our church services are essentially the same. They’re all slight variations on Worship, Announcements & Preach. Are you seeing any churches starting to buck the trend? What new thinking do we need to adopt to start bucking the trend? How can we break out of the box we’ve made for ourselves? In the last 2 decades, the church has been defined most by the attractional church service. Probably most popularised by Australian and American megachurches, Hillsong, Willow Creek, Elevation, and more. is this model still relevant in the era of Millennials & Gen-Z? What’s changing?

My Guest today is Sam Hailes. Sam is the editor of Premier Christianity – the UK’s leading Christian magazine. Before joining Premier he worked as a freelance journalist and social media manager. Sam, we all know that church attendance in the U.K. has been declining for decades now, and at the same time, I’m noticing that churches aren’t addressing the issues that are on peoples’ minds. The big topics of life. Why do you think churches have taken a step away from the big questions? I’ve been blogging through the book of Acts, and I’ve been struck how often the early church got into trouble, not by being obnoxious, but by boldly saying what they believe publicly. Is the church playing it too safe? One of the things I love about Premier Christianity is that it is deliberately seeking to comment on the current affairs in Britain and around the world. How do you curate the content for that? Do you ever get accused of leaning one way politically? How do you deal with that? I think there’s churches that may want to address big topics in their church, but are worried about the backlash that can come, either from their own congregation or from the public. What are the risks you face when publishing opinion pieces online and in print? How are you seeing culture change, and how, specifically, are you seeing it change Christianity in the UK?

My guest today is Hannah Williamson. For nearly two decades, Hannah has served in the local church in various roles including as youth pastor and more recently as an executive pastor. Hannah now serves churches across the country with her ministry, Echo, helping Empower people, Coach and mentor leaders, bring Health to churches and partner to bring Organisational clarity. Hannah, you spend a lot of time coaching youth ministries, what are some common problems that you are finding when you are brought in to help? What qualities does a good coach bring to their role? How could churches better model coaching within their church? Does your approach differ from department to department, or are there some principles and practices that work in any ministry? What are they key strategies that ministries need to think through? Churches don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s why people like you and me exist, to help give a clear assessment of where a church or a ministry is at. When you go and help a ministry, what are the signs of health that you’re looking for?

My guest today is Lee Baker, Worship Director at 12Stone Church. 12Stone is a large multisite church near Atlanta, Georgia with 8 campuses. 1. As you know, thinking church is all about church strategy, but I’ve also been a worship leader for 20 years, and I always thought of them as entirely separate. But I’m starting to realise that they may be more linked that I first thought. It’s in prayer and worship where we not only speak to God, but we allow Him to speak to us, and that’s the start of vision. As a worship pastor, I’d really like you to help me develop this further. Can you tell me about how you see vision and worship linking together? 2. In Acts Chapter 6, the Apostles promote the seven to give them time to prayer. Often we as leaders want to get on with doing. How much time do you give in your working week to prayer and worship? What’s the fruit of that? 3. We often think that having time for prayer and worship in our working week is a luxury. How could we make more time to do that? 4. There seems like a global rise in more spontaneous forms of worship. Bands like Maverick City, UPPERROOM and Bethel are carving a new path in worship music with the spontaneous. Why do you think that is on the rise at the moment and what is God trying to do through it at the moment?

My guest today is Dr John Andrews. John has been in full-time Church leadership since 1987. Though called to the UK, John has ministered in over 30 nations of the world with a passion to equip and inspire leaders as well as empower followers of Jesus into effective lifestyle and service. John has pastored churches in Havercroft, West Yorkshire, Rotherham, served on the team at Renewal Christian Centre in Solihull. John has also served as the Principal of the British Assemblies of God Bible College, and now travels extensively engaging his passion to teach the Word of God, inspiring a generation of Jesus followers to love Him and serve their world. A graduate of Mattersey Hall, he also holds a Masters degree in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies from Sheffield University and a Doctorate from the University of Wales. He has authored Twelve books including  “2:52 – Learning to grow on Purpose” and “Extravagant – When Worship becomes Lifestyle.” I’m currently spending my time blogging through the book of Acts and I’m looking at it with a strategic eye. And the reason for that is that many people look to the book of Acts as a manual of “how to do church” and I’ve heard many people say, “we need to get back to the Biblical way of doing church.” Do you think that it’s right to look at Acts as a manual of how to run a church? What is the overarching strategy of the early church through the book of Acts? Acts Chapter 2:42-47 is the most classic Scripture used in the discussion of the Biblical way to do church. I was reading about 1st century Synagogues and to me there seemed to be a very strong correlation between Acts 2:42-47 and the synagogue. What’s going on in this passage? In Acts 6, the Apostles choose the Seven and give their reason as freeing them up to focus on prayer and the ministry of the word. Do you think that job description of a church leader has changed in the modern age, and do we need to make changes to correct it? There are some denominations that see the early church has having one central leader in the form of Peter, but the book of Acts doesn’t seem to tell that story. What was the organisational structure of the early church? The Story of Philip and the Ethiopian is particularly interesting, because there is a man who becomes a disciple of Jesus and then goes back to his home country of Ethiopia, but there’s no indication of any other believers in Ethiopia. It makes me think of the online space and how we now can reach people where they don’t have any further connection with people. What was going on in this passage and is there a key to how we think about online church? Saul’s conversion is clearly a major part of the story of Acts, and it almost makes it seem like there was an extra apostle that Jesus missed in his early ministry! Now obviously, Jesus doesn’t make mistakes, but the strategy certainly shifts with Saul. What was that shift and why was it necessary for Saul to be brought on board? Later parts of Acts is about Paul’s missionary journeys. Is there a clear strategy around the places that Paul was visiting? We know that the Holy Spirit makes some key interventions to the plan, but what was the plan? At thinking.church we are more interested in the thinking behind what happens, rather than just focusing on what people do. What areas of thinking does the modern church need to re-adopt from the early church?

My guest this week is Jessica Bealer. Jessica has been leading children’s ministry for 17 years, including 5 years overseeing standards, systems, staffing, and atmosphere for the children’s programmes of Elevation Church. She has overseen the launch of nearly 20 locations and is considered a specialist in kidmin multisite. Jessica is married to Frank, and together they are the founders of familyministry.church. Jess is also the author of Don’t Quit along with Gina McClain. In the U.K., all COVID restrictions have been lifted and the country’s getting back to some semblance of normality. However, I hear many stories of churches that have lost a lot of volunteers over COVID. What do you think has contributed to that drop-off? I speak to many church leaders who suffer from volunteers being seemingly engaged and then quitting suddenly, or signing up for every team under the sun and then burning out. How can we stop that cycle occurring? I’ve never met a church that feels like it has enough volunteers but we don’t ever give much thought to how we recruit new volunteers. What things have you found to be most effective in inviting someone to join at team? How do you systematise recruitment?