0:03

Welcome to the Multiply Network Podcast, a podcast created

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to champion church multiplication,

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provide learning and inspire new disciple making communities

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across Canada. Hi there, welcome to the Multiply

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Network. My name is Paul. So glad that you tuned in today.

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We're going to take a little bit of a different approach in our podcast

0:31

moving forward. In my role, I have a wonderful

0:35

privilege of connecting

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with leaders all over Canada.

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And often when we're on Zoom calls or we're in person, we

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have this similar thought. Because the conversation

0:47

was so good, that we wish it was recorded.

0:51

And so we're going to take a little bit of a different approach.

0:54

I'm going to bring you into some of the conversations that I

0:57

get to be a part of with great guests like the guest

1:00

we have today, Jeff Christopherson. He's the executive director of

1:04

Church Planting Canada. He's leading a church in Oakville.

1:09

He's written books. He's talked, you know,

1:13

he's a missiologist, so he knows what's happening and he's thinking

1:16

through the future as it relates to church and church planting.

1:19

We talk about that. And we just have a conversation

1:23

about where we're at today.

1:25

Hey, we even talk about Thanksgiving Turkey and the fact that he put his

1:28

turkey in a smoker, and now I want to buy one.

1:33

So we talk about a lot of things. Want to bring you into this

1:36

conversation, and

1:38

you're going to love it because Jeff Christopherson's got so many great

1:41

things to say, and it's coming up

1:43

right now. Hi, Jeff, thanks for coming

1:48

back on the Multiply Network podcast again.

1:51

It's great to be with you, Paul. Really is. Yeah, it's so good to have you and

1:56

just finishing off a Thanksgiving and, you know, weekend.

2:00

And so I mean, the big question we're all wondering, what did you

2:03

have for Thanksgiving dinner? Yeah. Well, we had the whole Hee-Haw

2:06

gang over, and so I broke out my big Shirley.

2:10

And actually we did three turkeys.

2:13

We roasted one in the oven and I smoked

2:17

two. And the two is a bit of a taste test, where

2:21

I got like a regular frozen one from the

2:24

grocery store and I bought a farm fresh one and I treated

2:28

them both the same. And I kind of said A or B,

2:31

which one do you prefer? And so that was kind of interesting

2:35

to me. Don't leave us hanging. What was it, A or B?

2:38

It's interesting. It was like the

2:42

$1.69 Turkey versus the 3.99/lb

2:44

farm fresh one. Yeah. And it was unanimous.

2:47

Everyone wanted the $1.69 one. No way.

2:50

Seriously. Oh my goodness. Hey, OK, just -- I'm curious

2:54

about this. What's with this smoking culture?

2:57

Not, you know, not cigarette smoking, but smoking meat culture.

3:01

Like, I feel like every time I jump on Facebook, someone's got a

3:05

smoker and showing brisket

3:07

and ribs and like, what?

3:09

Like, Am I missing something here? You're really missing.

3:12

I mean, it is kind of fun to see. Like, I've been doing this

3:15

since

3:18

2005, something like that. I've been involved in it, and I

3:21

started with a little Weber Smoky

3:23

Mountain thing, and then I had a

3:25

Green Egg. And now I've got this big

3:30

commercial smoker that I bought out of Alabama and had shipped up here.

3:34

Oh you're serious. Yeah. But I don't know.

3:37

It's just to me, there's a correlation between the amount of

3:40

investment of energy you put in something and the better the taste

3:44

at the other end. Yeah. Well, and so

3:47

what do you recommend now? I mean, obviously we're not going to

3:50

all buy something from Alabama.

3:53

But what's the -- if we were to go out and buy something today in

3:56

Canada, what would we be looking at?

3:59

Well, I mean, to me, an offset smoker, something like that

4:03

where your pellets are actually logs

4:05

and those are

4:08

the-- you know, that's where you're going to get your best flavor,

4:11

for sure. OK. Well, everyone, keep your eyes

4:14

open, you know, for good deals.

4:16

Maybe Costco will start getting in the market on these things.

4:19

Church Planting Canada, you're the executive director and

4:23

we have a conference coming up.

4:25

But why don't you tell us a little bit about the vision of Church

4:28

Planting Canada and

4:30

some of the -- We're going to be hitting three things

4:34

over the next six years, just kind of on repeat and

4:38

maybe unpack those things for us today.

4:40

Sure. So, Church Planning

4:42

Canada. I think in Canada, we recognize, maybe

4:46

what our brothers to the South do not recognize, and that

4:49

is that we're a minority and we need each other.

4:52

And and so there's, you know, there

4:56

are some of us, I suppose, that like the fight. But most evangelicals

5:00

in Canada, I think, are coming to the realization that we are

5:02

outnumbered, outgunned and we really need to learn

5:06

from one another, encourage one another. And so

5:10

the vision of a Church Planting Canada - way before my time, Cam

5:13

Roxboro and others before him

5:15

had this this vision of

5:17

how do we gather ourselves together to actually learn

5:21

from one another, encourage one another. So that's been

5:25

the genesis for a long time.

5:27

I think when when I was asked to give leadership to it,

5:32

I've been watching trends both in Canada and in the United

5:37

States and we're kind of the leading edge

5:41

of the bad news in Canada, and

5:43

we feel that we feel it first. Yeah, we do you, that's so true.

5:48

And so I've just been -- just come to the conviction

5:52

that us just doing what we have been doing, only doing it a

5:55

little better, doing a little sexier, a little flashier, a little

5:58

harder, putting more energy behind it isn't going to get us,

6:03

isn't going to turn things around. And we're actually

6:08

at a nexus point, I think,

6:10

where we have to make some significant changes

6:14

or, you know, there's just -- God's church isn't

6:17

going to die. But but a lot of our

6:20

our ideas and our, you know, structures and denominations

6:23

are going to be in big, big trouble and there's going to be sort of a

6:27

rising of something new that's going to take its place -- which may

6:31

happen anyway. Who knows? But, I just -- So

6:34

those three big ideas that we talk about are, we need,

6:38

first, a different kind of church. And in that I speak of

6:42

a church that looks at its pews

6:44

as the resources for, as a raw material for what God wants to

6:48

do. And so multiplication, reproduction,

6:51

happens from a discipleship

6:55

energy towards disciple making. We not

6:58

only use discipleship as a, you know, a way to help

7:02

people tithe and become good church members, but actually

7:06

is a way that we send.

7:09

And so we have a disciple

7:11

making process that doesn't

7:13

end, isn't a terminal process.

7:15

Our church isn't the dead end link on the great commission chain.

7:19

But it moves forward. So a different kind of church.

7:22

And then to that, a

7:25

different kind of church planter, different kind of leader.

7:28

And here's where we've got to take a page out of our history

7:33

or a page out of what's going on around the globe and

7:37

begin to look towards less

7:39

everything being professional and more between teams of

7:43

co-vocational people. Where we're deploying

7:48

teams of people that are called

7:50

to all kinds of things in the marketplace and also called to

7:54

the Church of Jesus Christ. And and

7:57

working sort of symbiotically

7:59

in that. And then thirdly, -- the different kind of church, a

8:02

different kind of church planter and thirdly, then a different level of

8:04

gospel collaboration. And that's just what we're seeing.

8:08

We're seeing in places

8:10

that are actually moving the needle in terms of seeing

8:13

evangelism rates increase the clip in an area,

8:17

we're seeing a correlation between

8:19

the pastors and leaders of churches

8:22

seeing that they're not in competition with one another, but

8:26

they're in competition with darkness and that they pull

8:31

in together to have a

8:33

gospel saturation

8:36

strategy where they're working together on that. And they

8:39

keep the main thing the main thing. And so those three big things are,

8:44

I think in Canada, we're set up

8:46

to culturally

8:49

say, I think we should lean in on these.

8:51

And so I just really want to

8:54

wave that flag hard and long for a while.

8:57

Yeah. And it's not just -- Those

8:59

are all important things that we need to be thinking about.

9:02

And it's not just for denominations

9:05

that are -- and networks -- that are together.

9:07

How many, you know, our partners with Church Planting

9:11

Canada, how many different kinds? Yeah, I think we're up to upwards

9:14

somewhere around 25. Yeah. So

9:19

it's -- I love this idea of

9:22

multi denomination or interdenominational collaboration.

9:27

And we were planning an event,

9:29

weren't we? To be in Calgary

9:32

and we were going to ---

9:34

--And Alberta had its best summer ever -- -- best summer ever.

9:36

Ouch. Yeah, it was

9:38

a great summer here in Alberta. But now we

9:42

are --Yeah, we're in the throes of a fourth wave

9:45

here and we were going to have an event in Calgary and it was going to

9:48

be amazing and we had people coming from all over Canada.

9:53

We had record enrollment, record

9:55

registration. Yeah, for for in-person.

9:58

And then we had to make this

10:01

wise decision. Not -- it wasn't the fun decision --

10:04

the wise decision to go online.

10:07

And so we're going to be going online

10:10

this October.

10:13

And why don't you tell us, you know, who's going to be there

10:17

online? It's going to be the --

10:20

let me just -- the 26th and 27th

10:24

in the evening,

10:28

and we're going to try to make it available for our co-vocational and

10:31

bi-vocational planters, so they can be there to participate.

10:35

But why don't you just share your heart with what we're going to be

10:39

sharing at this conference and maybe some of the speakers?

10:42

So on those three big ideas,

10:44

we kind of went around the globe

10:47

and tried to get the best examples of

10:51

people who are actually living this and seeing the fruit of it.

10:54

And so we're having speakers

10:57

coming in, now online, from around the world that are

11:01

actually living testimonies of what we're talking about here and how it

11:04

works. And then we are

11:06

having other expressions in Canada. So maybe,

11:10

a little more incipient, a little more early on.

11:13

And who are actually forming

11:17

themselves towards these kinds

11:19

of postures and movements. And so we've got kind of both

11:23

a global picture of it and a local picture of it.

11:26

And I think that's going to be helpful. Sometimes we're easy to dismiss

11:29

something that's going on around the rest of the world saying, you know,

11:32

Well, that's over there. It could never happen here.

11:34

Well, we're seeing we're seeing some of it happen here. And so that's

11:37

exciting. And so ChurchPlantingCanada.ca

11:42

- You can see all the speakers.

11:44

You can still register online. We've got

11:47

really good attendance. We're going to be doing some breakout groups as

11:50

well. In case you didn't know, I'm part of the design team

11:54

with Jeff, and so that's why I know so much about this and excited about

11:58

it. And you probably don't want to blow your own horn, Paul, but

12:02

it's interesting to me that many of

12:04

the -- We're probably heavily

12:06

numbered in PAOC.

12:09

I think PAOC has got a disproportionate

12:13

amount of expressions of what we're looking at.

12:17

And it wasn't because of you saying, I'm on this design team.

12:20

I want my way. No, I'm the guy looking around Canada to see

12:24

what we have here. And so a feather in the cap

12:27

of the leadership of your tribe

12:30

is that you have people that are on the front end of

12:33

thinking on a lot of these things. I think that's really great.

12:35

We have tremendous leaders in our group and

12:39

-- but certainly we don't want to,

12:41

you know, feel like -- We've got so much to learn.

12:44

And since I took this role nationally as

12:47

the Multiply Network Coordinator,

12:50

that just kind of drives, you know, just in our PAOC family, church

12:54

multiplication, as I chat with other denominations

12:59

and networks, we

13:01

certainly have a lot of catch up to do on some of those things.

13:05

And so I've enjoyed being a part

13:07

of this team and connecting with their design team, but just all of

13:10

Church Planting Canada, all of the leaders. And

13:13

that would be something I would say. If you're a leader out there and

13:16

you're thinking about church planting or church multiplication,

13:19

you need to be a part of these conversations.

13:22

So, you know, be a part of the

13:25

conference this year. Watch it online. It's not a huge time commitment.

13:29

I think it's two and a half hours on the Tuesday, two and a half hours

13:33

on the Wednesday. But then you're going to have an

13:35

opportunity to be involved in some cohorting after.

13:38

Did you want to talk about that a little bit, Jeff?

13:41

Yeah. Well, we're having to -- Again, everything is changing,

13:44

right? And so I can't

13:47

actually share too much on that. I have a call actually right after

13:50

this at two o'clock eastern time on that. But so I really

13:55

can't share too too much because the plans I did have have

13:59

morphed now. But we

14:02

just recognize that you don't change -- most people

14:06

don't fundamentally change -- especially a

14:10

habit like church, like how we

14:14

do church -- without really wrestling

14:18

through. And so

14:22

we really do want to have some cohorts of leaders who are walking

14:25

this journey together that are

14:27

actually, you know, wrestling biblically through this, culturally

14:31

through this. How does this work? How do I need to change?

14:36

How am I sucking wind here and who can encourage me?

14:40

And so most times those major

14:45

shifts that we have, in fact, if

14:47

you think about a big U-curve

14:49

like a big U - On the one side

14:54

is this letting

14:56

go, and then there's a repenting

14:58

and then there's a rethinking, you know?

15:02

And that word repentance. We think of it in often a negative

15:05

time, like we've been bad. But actually the word better

15:08

mettanoia means, you know, it's a new mind.

15:10

It's like God blowing our mind. And I think that's

15:13

what's happening right now. The ideas that we've had in Canada

15:18

about what the body of Christ

15:20

is has been blowing

15:23

up. I mean, it's been a bit of a slow leak for a while, but over

15:26

these last two years now, it has just exploded.

15:28

And I think God has a different picture

15:32

for us. And so -- There's lots of new conversations.

15:36

We didn't think we'd be having this early, probably. And

15:40

what I've loved about, you know, being involved in Church Planting

15:43

Canada -- Well, first of all, it's

15:45

--and I'm connected as you are, Jeff, to other

15:49

groups in the states that are learning and we're sharing together.

15:53

Thankful for the CMN Network, the Assemblies of God, who have just

15:57

been so generous. Big fan of John Davidson

16:02

-- --Oh and Jeffrey Portman. And those

16:03

guys are phenomenal and they just they've just --

16:06

Anything I've needed, they've just sent and just very open

16:09

handed. But it is a different culture in

16:12

Canada, obviously. And so what I love about these

16:15

conversations is they're Canadian conversations.

16:17

And at the event as well, after every session, we're going to have

16:21

Canadian missiologists talk on a panel and give feedback

16:27

regarding the content we just heard.

16:29

And so we're hoping to make it really engaging; opportunity

16:33

for the audience to jump in -- We're really trying to figure

16:38

out how to make this feel like it's that

16:42

everybody's in the room right at the same time.

16:45

And so we've even invented

16:47

a format -- none of us has ever seen it before, but we've invented a

16:49

format where we have a

16:52

couple of online hosts that are reacting in real time

16:56

to the online audience.

16:58

And then on the panel, on the stage,

17:00

we have live, like you say, these

17:03

emerging missiologists across Canada, that are kind of knee deep

17:06

in the middle of this conversation doing it themselves.

17:10

And so we're going to be discussing

17:12

what we've just heard.

17:14

And then the audience can engage with

17:18

the hosts to fire it over to to this panel.

17:22

So we're actually going to have Real-Time Conversation what was

17:25

even what the audience is

17:27

feeling. And this is the hope, Jeff. (laughter) This is the hope.

17:30

(laughter) This is our best plan.

17:32

And so if you're wondering

17:34

what this is going to look like, think about like CBC on

17:37

election night, or CTV,

17:40

where everyone has different desks on the stage.

17:43

That's kind of the thinking we have. So anyways --. Without the budget.

17:46

(Laughter) Without that -- Yeah, without that

17:49

large, large budget, I'm sure that they have. So anyways,

17:55

Church Planting Canada. Register. Be a part of it.

17:58

What I've loved and again, another thing I've loved about these church

18:00

planting conversations is -- Like, I view church planting a

18:04

little bit as the R&D -

18:06

research and development - of PAOC anyways.

18:09

And I think other organizations

18:11

do as well. And so there's a lot of conversations when you think about

18:14

Future of Church,

18:17

it often starts

18:19

with church planting conversations.

18:21

So if you have a heart

18:23

or desire an interest to see where the church is going, you need

18:26

to be talking with church planters

18:29

and missiologists. And you have an opportunity at Church Planting

18:32

Canada Congress this year, October

18:35

26th and 27th.

18:37

Jeff, we talked abou,t just prior

18:40

to this, and you know, you're 30000 foot leader,

18:43

you're missiologist, do a lot of writing, you've written books and

18:49

so you have a vision. And the executive director of Church

18:51

Planting Canada. But you're also

18:54

a local church pastor that's restarting or replanting,

18:59

you know, a church. And so it's not like you're

19:02

just always flying at 30000

19:04

feet, pontificating on where we should go as this movement,

19:08

you're actually in the trenches, you're actually right there.

19:12

And so I do want to talk about the replanting strategy you have.

19:15

Because I think there's some people that are approaching this fall,

19:18

including our planters,

19:20

I feel like I have to replant this thing.

19:22

But let's keep it a bit broader, but use

19:26

both perspectives. Like, Church in Canada.

19:31

What what are we seeing here? People aren't coming

19:34

back to church like they have.

19:38

Do we need a new apologetic on gathering?

19:43

How do we church plant in this climate? Like, just any thoughts?

19:45

Because I know you're engaging with lots of different leaders from all

19:48

different denominations and you're a local church pastor.

19:51

What are you seeing? What are you thinking about the church in Canada

19:54

moving forward? Well, at the start of this pandemic,

19:58

I very just clearly the Holy Spirit spoke

20:02

to my heart and said, When you speak to pastors, tell

20:05

them this. And

20:09

so I've heard for so many years pastors, leaders

20:14

who felt called by God to do, you know,

20:17

something and they end up running the instruments of a church

20:22

instead. And the things of their passion

20:26

have sort of dissipated. And now they're busy doing

20:30

all kinds of other trivial things that aren't really at the center of

20:33

what the how God called them in the very first place.

20:36

And so what I sense God's saying at the beginning of this is, OK,

20:39

now be courageous. This is your moment.

20:42

This is your moment. There's a pause that's about to

20:45

happen here and take full opportunity of the pause

20:49

to begin to reorder the priorities of your

20:52

church. And so, I

20:57

think what we -- you know, and it's been a common discussion,

21:01

has COVID produced problems or revealed them?

21:03

And I think probably both.

21:06

But the

21:08

revelation, I think, has been

21:10

that we have so

21:12

put our interest and attention

21:15

in gathering. Gathering has been everything.

21:18

We've become really good gatherers,

21:20

and we've sort of had a

21:22

subcategory of the church gathered and then the church scattered, which

21:26

had no thought behind it.

21:30

And all of a sudden, when the church became scattered,

21:33

you know it, it seemed like the church had no power.

21:36

The church it had nothing to do because the only thing

21:40

we understood how to do is put a worship service together largely.

21:44

And so

21:46

I hope we can reframe that

21:49

to the church gathered and the church deployed.

21:52

And we

21:55

begin to put as much energy

21:57

or more on the

21:59

deploying part. And so,

22:03

the church gathered might look entirely different than

22:06

it had in the past. And the church deployed might

22:10

be very strategic in how we use our leaders, our staff, in

22:16

equipping. We see in Ephesians

22:21

11, 12 - equipping people for the works of ministry.

22:26

I'm not sure why we just --

22:28

I'm not sure why, leaders, we just -- yeah, it's in there and we all

22:30

just, you know, collectively, not our heads. And then we

22:35

don't necessarily, you know, disciple them

22:39

to a place where they become ministers of

22:43

reconciliation seven

22:45

days a week. Like, I mean,

22:49

we're excited -- My wife and I are working with an existing church here

22:52

in Edmonton - Well, just

22:54

outside Edmonton - Gateway Family Church in Leduc.

22:58

And we're dreaming about an existing

23:00

church with a micro church network.

23:02

And how does that work together? And we're just -- even this Sunday,

23:07

I'm team teaching with my friend

23:10

as we kind of talk through what is it like

23:14

to live the missionary mindset or the missionary lifestyle

23:18

every single day? And I think that's what you mean by

23:21

deployed, correct? Yeah. So for instance, just a

23:24

practical example. So the church that I'm leading,

23:27

as I thought, like, how do I get

23:29

them to a point where emotionally

23:31

they're ready for

23:34

Sunday morning worship service

23:36

isn't everything we do. And so well,

23:42

God's in control of all things and

23:45

he's allowed this virus to disrupt.

23:48

And so what we've done is

23:52

we've moved from having a weekly

23:54

worship service to a -- we're continuing in our missional

23:58

communities to meet

24:01

weekly. And instead of having two groups

24:04

that meet, like on a Sunday and on a Wednesday and having

24:08

common people, like believers

24:10

both times kind of getting together twice -- So Sunday

24:15

we live stream

24:18

in teaching and

24:20

and we have a time where it is very much for the believers.

24:24

But that same group of people on Wednesday or Thursday are

24:28

actually missioning together. And then we're gathering

24:32

them together on a big sort

24:34

of gathering time once a month, instead of every Sunday, where we're

24:37

celebrating baptisms and doing all

24:39

kinds of things. But it takes just so

24:43

much energy to pull off the big thing that all of our energy

24:47

of our church was was going towards that. We didn't have any opportunity

24:51

or energy or bandwidth

24:53

or resources or money or anything towards our mission.

24:56

And so what this does is because we are doing a covocational model -

25:00

so we're not paying staff - and because

25:04

we are doing

25:07

not renting every week now, that all of the tithes and offerings

25:11

money goes towards mission in our communities and our neighborhoods.

25:14

So our missional communities

25:16

have thousands of dollars to meet needs with in the name of Christ.

25:19

And we don't have to pass the hat every five minutes to wipe

25:23

somebody's nose or whatever. And so, yeah.

25:27

Yeah. OK. So missional communities. I mean, micro church,

25:30

micro sites, micro

25:33

campuses. I think the thing that we have in

25:36

common is the decentralization.

25:39

Now, I'm not -- 'm a both/and guy. Like, I actually think that

25:43

existing churches, if they position

25:45

themselves to be more apostolic in nature -.

25:48

Use your building, use your congregation

25:52

as a sending area.

25:54

So you bring people in to send them out. Like that's just the --

25:58

I think there's a wonderful marriage between that

26:01

and, you know, embracing

26:04

this decentralization

26:06

and empowering laypeople

26:08

to be ministers. And so do you see,

26:12

you know, do you see this happening more and

26:16

more? Will you see more existing churches, do you think, moving

26:19

to micro church or micro campuses

26:22

or missionary communities? Yeah, that's where the trend

26:25

definitely is. I see two things happening

26:28

that are very healthy, I think, and it's being we're being led by

26:31

younger leaders on both of them. One is - When you think

26:36

about denominations, it used

26:38

to be at least, you know, talk about your Pentecostal distinctives.

26:42

Talk about your Baptist distinctives, in my world.

26:45

And so we're

26:48

kind of celebrating the things that make us different than everybody

26:50

else. And those become, you know, really big

26:54

points that we gather around. Well, the younger gang isn't doing

26:57

that. And there's a sense more

27:02

of the normalcy of the body

27:04

of Christ that they're actually

27:06

wanting to aspire towards and begin to put their

27:10

energies in. So there's that. And then there is this sense where

27:15

the church as performance is something that isn't working

27:18

for them and they're really wanting-- You know, they're seeing

27:23

the church as the vehicle for the Kingdom of God instead of the goal

27:26

in of itself. And so, I

27:29

think we're being led by a generation that has been

27:32

frustrated with the priorities

27:35

of previous generations, that one, including I, occupy.

27:41

And actually, I think they have their finger on the pulse of both

27:44

culture, and I think the heart of God, which is kind of exciting.

27:49

And I think there's still --- there's still this place.

27:51

They're not saying we don't want to meet together.

27:54

They're just maybe wanting to meet

27:56

for different purposes or different avenues or venues.

27:59

And I do see micro church and missional communities and

28:03

all of those things really, really ramping up because I think there's a

28:06

lot of people that are sitting in our churches and

28:10

coming on Sunday that have pastoral gifts, that have teaching gifts,

28:13

that have apostolic and prophetic

28:15

and evangelistic bents

28:17

and interest and gifts in those areas, for them to go

28:21

out and start things. And we've just made it all about --

28:24

Well, I'm not going to say we've -- At times we've

28:28

made it about just those who are just leading from the stage.

28:33

Yeah, I mean, the questions we ask and the answers we give kind

28:37

of tell us really where we are.

28:40

We say, So

28:42

where is your church? And then in that we mean like a

28:45

physical place. Or what time

28:47

is church? And in that we mean, you know, what time is a worship

28:50

service. Or what kind of church? And in that we're meaning, What kind

28:53

of tribe are you a part

28:55

of? Or something. Those are the questions that we're

28:58

asking to help describe

29:00

specifics of who we are. And those are all bad questions and

29:03

they give us bad answers. And

29:07

I think the picture of the body of Christ and the

29:10

person of Christ lining up.

29:14

And I think that's where that Ephesians passage is helpful too -

29:16

apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. So yeah.

29:20

And so you've actually included that into the leadership team.

29:23

We've chatted about this before. When you were thinking about

29:26

taking this church on and replanting or restarting or whatever

29:30

you want to -- revitalizing it, you actually went out of your way to

29:35

find those gifts and bring them on to your team.

29:39

So why don't you talk about the replanting, revitalization?

29:44

Because I think most leaders are feeling like we've had a year and a

29:47

half off, you know,

29:49

intermittent, maybe in-person

29:51

meetings, depending on which province you're in. And now,

29:55

you know, and now they're feeling like -- especially for church

29:57

plants, who have been out of buildings, can't rent schools -- You

30:01

know, what were some of the things you thought about pre-pandemic

30:04

and now maybe how has that changed since the pandemic?

30:10

Boy, that's a big question. Pre-pandemic.

30:21

I was stymied on how to get from A to B, to be honest.

30:24

I was stymied on how to get

30:28

beyond the theory on this, because

30:30

the pain points of --

30:32

that it is going to take to

30:34

live a different life.

30:37

You know, I didn't want to blow the church up. I didn't want, you know,

30:40

everybody to go, okay, you know, if

30:42

you're not going to meet my wants and needs, I'm out of here.

30:45

And so I was a bit stymied pre-pandemic.

30:49

I think I've referred to this already, but kind of God

30:52

set us up at this to take opportunity, take this opportunity

30:56

to not really miss a beat.

31:00

And so,

31:02

you know, we lose people in this? I don't think we did.

31:05

Did we pick up people? Yes, we have.

31:07

And so yeah. It's going to be -- It's going

31:12

to be an interesting thing. Now,I mean, in Ontario here we've

31:15

been so --. So locked down.

31:18

-- Locked down. But now - We're now able to meet

31:22

and homes, you know, and it's like, Oh, wow, this is we're starting to

31:25

live it. And so it's kind of --

31:27

So when you switched to the missional community idea,

31:31

was there initial pushback or was there excitement or --?

31:34

People, I mean, were cool

31:36

with the idea. The harder part was to say,

31:39

We are not going to also

31:41

gather every Sunday morning, sing hymns or sing worship songs, and

31:45

you know -- And

31:47

to say, No, we're just going to do that once a month.

31:49

And we're going to have a celebration once a month.

31:52

And we're going to put our energies on --- We build

31:56

a mini APEST in every missional community. So we have our A's

31:59

equipped the A's in each of the

32:01

Missional Communities, our P's... So our whole thing is an equipping

32:03

structure. And so yeah, we're just in the

32:09

beginning of living that now actually, now that we can

32:12

be together. What are you excited about, like as

32:14

you as you're journeying? Like, what are the things that

32:17

excite you about the local church? Yeah, I think ownership.

32:23

Yeah, that's good. I like that. Yeah, it's like

32:27

people, I think, are feeling like

32:29

this isn't, you know, this isn't Jeff church. This is Jesus's

32:33

Church. And I think we're

32:37

--- That open handed way that we have to live and have to lead

32:42

encourages everybody just to

32:44

come join in. The passage of scripture that always

32:47

bugged me as a pastor, saying, you know, follow me as I follow Christ

32:51

and everybody else in the back of your mind saying, Yeah, right, you

32:55

know, you're getting paid for this, you'r full time. And now they know that I'm as busy

32:59

or busier than most of them, I can say with a fair bit of conviction,

33:02

follow me as I follow Christ. And there's

33:06

less excuses of why not.

33:09

Yeah, yeah. Oh man, I love that.

33:11

The ownership piece is a big deal.

33:16

Like, we work -- You work nationally still, and obviously I work

33:20

nationally, and it's hard to get a shared vision.

33:24

It just is that - I found that to be such a challenge.

33:28

And not that people wouldn't, you know, collectively nod their heads

33:31

about the vision. Like, let's reach Canada.

33:34

Let's start a new disciple making communities. Let's revitalize

33:37

churches. And we all collectively

33:39

nod our heads. We always vote for the great commission. Yeah, we always vote for the great

33:41

commission. Hey, who wants to do the great commission? Yeah. Who wants to

33:44

do the great commandment? Yeah. Who wants to do the great requirement?

33:46

Yeah, we're all in. We love it. And then, but once it requires

33:50

the change - in structural change and courageous

33:55

leadership and people maybe not liking the change,

33:59

pushing maybe back to that consumer

34:01

mindset - the shared vision idea begins

34:05

to to wane because

34:07

that shared vision does cause change. And I think it was Brian

34:11

Sanders who said, on a call that that I was on

34:15

some time ago, he says Every organization has an immune system.

34:18

So anything that's new is seen as a threat.

34:22

Anything that's introduced as new is seen as a threat, until

34:26

it realizes it isn't in. So trying to get

34:29

that shared vision, a new shared vision -- Because

34:33

we bumped into that a little bit, you know, just kind of like, let's

34:36

introduce this. And I think,

34:39

you know, the mission of communities, micro churches,

34:42

microsites, micro campuses

34:44

could be very disruptive. And the fact that we

34:47

moved online? Like now, you could have a church

34:50

in, you know -- You

34:52

could have a church in Calgary, but have people from all over the world

34:55

be a part of your church.

34:58

Watching it, be involved in the ministry. Maybe you want to do a

35:01

micro site there. Like

35:04

it's very disruptive, this whole

35:07

thing, but what an opportunity

35:09

we have. Well, I mean, I think we as

35:12

leaders can sort of

35:14

-- There's a crucifixion that has to happen in our own spirit.

35:19

And the cross that we have to sort of die on is

35:23

that it isn't our church.

35:27

We know that. But we feel responsible for it.

35:30

We feel responsible

35:33

for the form, making it work.

35:35

And at some point we have to die

35:39

to that and say No, no, I'm responsible

35:43

to King Jesus, I'm responsible

35:46

to the, you know, the people

35:48

that God has given me stewardship over.

35:53

And I'm responsible to make followers of King Jesus by

35:57

these people. And all of a sudden,

36:00

the forms become less important. And yeah.

36:04

And when the church becomes the goal, it

36:07

becomes as idolatrous, powerless thing.

36:12

And I think we're there

36:14

way too much as pastors. Yeah, my friend

36:17

said to me, and this - We will kind of end on this.

36:20

This actually could take another 40 minutes. But anyways. I want to

36:24

I want to and with this. My friend said to me, some time ago,

36:29

you know - because part of my role is to help start new disciple making

36:32

communities all over Canada. So that's kind of the Multiply

36:36

Network, what we're part of in PAOC. And so we use the word disciple

36:40

making communities - He goes, It's interesting. We've asked you to

36:43

make, start new disciple making communities without disciple making

36:47

culture. And that is actually very true.

36:52

And part of me thinks I should probably stop worrying about

36:55

starting new disciple making communities and maybe start

36:58

worrying about embedding disciple

37:00

making culture in our existing and new churches.

37:04

Because until that happens, we probably won't see the

37:07

multiplication we want to see.

37:10

As Peter Drucker says,

37:12

Culture eats vision for breakfast.

37:15

It does. And so how do we build

37:20

disciple making culture? Like for me, I'm committed to this.

37:23

Like any new start we have,

37:26

we - our whole lead team is on board - that we're going to make sure that

37:29

every new start we have

37:31

will have disciple making culture baked right in, including

37:35

multiplication. And so we kind of

37:38

think maybe we could fix the future

37:40

by starting enough disciple making culture churches that it will slowly

37:45

shift and change and

37:47

impact, maybe, the others around.

37:49

And I know, even in our revitalization summit we had this

37:52

summer, it was all about disciple making

37:55

culture. So any thoughts on how we can do that

38:00

in our churches today? How do we ensure that disciple

38:02

making culture is there? Well, it has to be the

38:08

prime directive and nothing can compete with it.

38:11

And so it can't be, you know,

38:14

Here's what I need from my people

38:16

in order to keep everything going as a church.

38:18

And if we have time left, let's

38:20

give the extras to this disciple making stuff.

38:23

The second thing it has to be

38:25

modeled and lived by

38:27

everybody. And if your leadership isn't doing

38:30

it, don't bother trying to make it a priority. And so

38:34

if people are just going to do what they see people doing.

38:37

And if no one, you know, there's just no way to make that happen.

38:41

And... I had a third thing -- (laughter)

38:45

Well, I would add, I would add. Don't don't make it a program, don't

38:48

make discipleship a program, but a lifestyle. I think sometimes we say,

38:51

you know, and I'm a big fan of Alpha, that's a great start.

38:54

And it is kind of a structure and I think use it, definitely.

38:58

But beyond that, it should be like,

39:00

Oh, we're in discipleship classes. 101, 201, 301, 401. Then after you

39:04

finish that, you're done. You've been discipled.

39:08

Yeah. Like who is discipling you and who are you discipling?

39:11

That to me is the question. Yeah, reproducibility is the key to

39:15

it, right? That's the question.

39:17

How do you know you have a disciple making culture?

39:20

That when you walk up to someone in your church and you say,

39:24

Hey, who's discipling you?

39:26

And then they say someone and then you say, And who are you

39:29

discipling? And they answer that.

39:31

Like if you randomly go up to people and ask them? Maybe it's a litmus

39:35

paper test on disciple making culture. But if they if like nine

39:39

out of 10 people are going, Yeah, someone, this person is discipling

39:41

me and I'm disciplining one, two, three, whatever people.

39:44

That'll tell

39:46

you as a leader that it's that it's happening.

39:50

I mean, you need to define that. You know, define what discipleship

39:53

is and the characteristics and what you're shooting for.

39:55

But I just think like,

39:57

just a real simple question is Who are you discipling?

40:00

And Who's discipling you? And carry the whole continuum.

40:05

Like maybe even drop the word discipleship from

40:08

your vocabulary. OK. Because

40:12

it's been polluted, in our memories, with a course and

40:17

a book and a fill in the blank and a

40:19

small group study and that. And really disciple making

40:23

is what we're asked to do. And

40:26

that implicit in disciple making

40:28

is evangelism. And we make discipleship and

40:31

evangelism as contradictory

40:33

-- I was going to say that --. Yeah.

40:35

And disciple making

40:37

has always been How I'm fishing.

40:40

And then I'm teaching. You know, it's this whole thing.

40:44

Yeah, we've made them two separate things. It's like --. -- and competing things...

40:47

Yeah,. We're an evangelistic church, that means we're shallow.

40:50

We're a discipleship church, that means we're deep.

40:52

Yeah. And it's just like, actually discipleship happens well before

40:55

someone makes a decision to follow.

40:59

That's right. And I think that's something

41:01

that when I talk to young leaders, it's a no brainer. They don't even

41:04

blink. They like, yeah --

41:06

I call it incipient sanctification, because I watch people

41:10

who have been in this disciple making culture, who

41:14

have never yet bowed their knees to King Jesus.

41:17

But they're hanging around believers, and they're actually

41:20

changing habits, changing priorities, changing things, that by

41:23

the time they say yes to Jesus,

41:25

they are miles down the road. Yeah.

41:28

I love it.

41:30

So I think there's -- I mean, we could go down this trail

41:34

lots. But Jeff, thanks for

41:36

this conversation.

41:38

Thanks for all that you're doing for

41:41

Canada. I know you were in

41:43

the States for a number of years helping them out, but I know you

41:47

felt the call to come back to Canada. Yeah, it's my home..

41:49

Yeah, And help spur things on here. We're so grateful

41:52

for your voice. Keep writing, keep speaking.

41:56

And hopefully we can get a ton of people

41:59

on Church Planting Congress this year.

42:02

Yeah,. You know more sharing the vision and

42:04

--. Yeah, Thank you , Paul. We're behind you. We love it.

42:06

Well, I'm very grateful, both for the work and investment that

42:10

you are putting into this, and

42:12

Brian is our chairman of the Board of Church Planting Canada.

42:15

Yeah, right. And your people are a huge,

42:19

huge impetus in this whole thing. So very grateful for you.

42:22

We love it. All right. Thanks for jumping on today, Jeff.