The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 076 – Raising the Dead: An Interview with Brian Wangler on How He Found New Life and Ushered in Growth in Four Stuck or Dying Churches
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 76 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff. I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And I've been excited about this episode for a while. Well, honestly, I mean, I get excited about all the episodes, but this one in particular has really got me excited. And I'll tell you why. Brian is somebody I didn't know a year ago, and he visited us, he came to an Orange Tour stop, I think maybe in Indianapolis last year. By the way, Orange Conference, Orange Tour, amazing places for leaders. Orange Conference happens end of April, and I'm gonna be across the street this year at the ReThink Leadership Conference. If you haven't registered yet, don't miss it, go to rethinkleadership.com. And then in the tour, in the fall, usually September, November, we go to a bunch of cities. And I guess that's where Brian was, and I didn't meet him, but he met my good friend Reggie Joyner, Reggie connected Brian and I. When I heard his story, I'm like, "Oh, dude, I gotta have you on the podcast." This is incredible. So yeah, Brian has actually done a great job taking churches that many people would say either don't have life like dead, closed doors, or whose best days are way, way, way behind them. And he's seen incredible turnarounds. And he's done this four times. This is just unreal. So a fascinating, fascinating conversation. Right now, he's at Chicago First Church in the Nazarene if you are Nazarene. You know that that's a pretty historic congregation has helped revitalize that. So I called this episode, "Raising the Dead." If you believe your church is dead, hang on. 'Cause you're gonna love it today with Brian Wangler. And he's really articulate. Sometimes people have great stories, but they can't tell you what they did or some of the principles involved, but I think you're gonna find this really helpful. So I hope that's the case. Anyway, glad you tuned in. That's what's in store for you today. And a couple of things before we jump into my conversation with Brian Wangler, number one, thank you to everybody who leaves reviews on iTunes. This is great. I'm just gonna share a couple of excerpts from some recent folks who have left reviews. They're up to, as of the day recording, 336 reviews on the US iTunes store. Woo-hoo, that's amazing. When you leave a review, and above all, when you subscribe to the podcast, iTunes goes, oh, this is important. We'll get it out to other people. So when you do that, it's awesome. So Chris Payne, Chris, thank you so much. You asked the question, is binge listening a sin? He said, Chris says, thanks for doing these podcasts. I just returned from a trip that had me on the road for a total of 36 hours. I'm not even joking when I said it felt like a 36-hour leadership retreat. That is so cool, Chris, because that's sort of my goal, right? The nice thing about these episodes is they come out every week, but they don't go away. You can go right back to episode one with Andy Stanley and start listening there. So if you miss a week, obviously, if you subscribe, you know, they're always on your phone so you can go back or always available. And that's sort of my goal is to build up an archive over the years, and that's cool. So you did 36 hours, which is great. And then Chris says, hey, your interview with Aaron Harris really set the example of how all of us as Jesus followers need to engage with anyone who's been rejected by the church. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. You said a lot more, Chris, but so encouraging. I read everyone. And Aaron Harris' episode, by the way, is episode 57. So again, if you want to go back into the archives, you can find it there. Brad Barrowski says, most helpful church leadership podcast. He says, I listened to most of the popular church and business leadership podcast out there. Me too, Brad. And as a lead pastor in a young church plant, let's hear it for startup churches, I can use all the help I can get. And then you say some very kind things, carries insight and clarity along with the experience and wisdom of his guests. Make his podcast by far the most helpful for me in my personal attempt to lead a growing and healthy church. Hey, thanks so much for that, Brad. That's great. EBC Pastor says, most helpful podcast I've found. And it goes on and on and on. I just want to say thank you for that. That means an awful lot. Again, if you haven't subscribed, it's free. So just go on to iTunes or Stitcher or TuneInRadio, however you listen and hit subscribe. And that way you don't miss any of this stuff, which is awesome. And we've got a lot coming up as well. So thank you to everybody who's doing that, you guys. That's sort of the payback. This is what makes it worth it. Hearing from you and knowing that it's actually helping. Man, I'll tell you, I sat down with my assistant Sarah last week and we kind of looked ahead at the podcast. I'm like, whoa, I got to stop asking people to be guests because we got like six months of content all rolling out now. So, man, it's great. I'm just so excited about who's coming up and we'll say a little bit more about that. And hey, if you have not yet registered or even checked out the rethink leadership conference, please do that today. Just go to rethinkleadership.com. I'm going to be in Atlanta the last week of April with Andy Stanley, Pete Wilson, John Acuff, Reggie Joyner, Cara Powell, Brad Lominek, Jeff Henderson, Leons Crump and so many more. And we are in a very intimate setting. Going to equip you hopefully to lead like never before. So I'm really looking forward to that. There is still room. The VIP reception is sold out. But if you go to rethinkleadership.com, you can get your spot. And now without any further ado, here's my conversation with Brian Wangler and some hope for all of you who are like, hey, is this thing ever going to grow? Well, let's find out. Really excited to have Brian Wangler as my guest today. Brian, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Kerry, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, it's a thrill. I mean, it's pretty exciting to see the story that God has written in your life. And so this is one of the things I love. This is like just a story about a guy who like every one of us is trying to help a local church win. And God, for whatever reason, has given you some incredible fruit in that area in the context of a denomination. No zero to million and 28 minutes type church growth story we're so used to, but incredibly inspiring. So Brian, how long have you been in ministry now? How many years have you been doing this? We are just at 25 years. Hey, that's amazing. Congratulations and happy 25th. So you've had four distinct ministries and you can say your denomination because I think most of us are working in denominational context, most listeners, leaders are. And we're calling this episode "Raising the Dad." And that's not an affront to anybody else. It actually, as you and I talked about, it comes out of my story where somebody told me when I was trying to transition three mainline churches. They said, hey, why don't you go plant something 'cause it's easier to give birth and to raise the dead. But in fact, we saw God bring life to those three churches and we amalgamated them and we reached tons of unchurched people as a result. And you've got a very similar story. And when I heard about it through our mutual friend, Reggie Joyner, I just thought, oh, I gotta tell the story on the podcast. That's a long intro to say welcome. - Well, thank you. - We're gonna let you talk, okay, for real. So you've been at this 25 years and four different churches. - Yes, yeah, congratulations. - We are in the Church of the Nazarene and we really have been blessed because we have found life every place we went. Now, the first place that we started, granted there wasn't a lot of life. There was, we went into a little country church where there was five folks left who were dividing up the monthly bills. And the only reason I went out there, I was actually teaching Sunday school in my home church. And it was a relatively new Christian within two or three years. And there was no one that would go out there. And the district superintendent couldn't come down for a while. And so they asked if I would go and just do something. - And are you like a lay person at this point? - I was, yeah, yeah, I was. And so I had, my wife and I went out and it wasn't long before we fell in love with ministry. And there was life in those five folks, man. I mean, it was. - Really? - Oh, yeah. I mean, I've got a Bible up in my office somewhere where it says, okay, we had five and then we had seven and then we had 11 and 15 and 18. And that church grew to a hundred. It was just so much fun. Yeah. - Wow. So I love the way you phrased that. You said, you got there. A lot of people would just smell death, right? They would be like, whoa, five people, this is weird. But you said you found life in those five people. Tell us a little bit about that. Like what are the signs of life you look for when you're trying to raise the debt? - Yeah, I think that in the context of that setting, there's a little country town, 400, a population of 400. Now we came from a town of about 30,000 a few miles away. But from the moment that I preached the first sermon and I was a little, I had no experience but I had a lot to zeal, okay? Because I had been saved, I was an addict. And so the Lord had saved me and rescued my marriage and the pastor who knocked on my door because my wife had went to see him. So there's a whole story there. - Wow. - But at any rate, the guy who introduced himself to me was my friend first. He said, I just want to help and led me to Christ. And then from the time that I became a believer, I didn't know anything other than mission on stuff. I mean, he was like, well, you had to tell your story to somebody. Well, the people who came to faith as a result of what we did in that first local church, he had me baptized and I didn't have a, I wasn't. I mean, it was just, but that was built into me. So when we went to this little church, it was game on from the time I started preaching, which was probably a little bit of overkill for the five people sitting in the room. But it was all I knew. And when the service was over, there was a husband and his wife. And then these three folks, all of them were over 70, 75 years old. But he said, I think we should have a church meeting. And I said, why? I don't know, I don't even know what that is, or if we can, I don't, he says, well, he said, here's the thing, we'd already resigned. We were ready to quit. But I think Jesus may be wanting to do something. And if you'll come back, we'll come back. - No way. - And it's exactly what happened. And so we said, okay. And so the districts, I called the district superintendent and he said, hey, I don't care. You know, if you can get something started, go ahead, it was cool because I couldn't break it. - Yeah, there was nothing left to break, right? You got nowhere to go but up. - And my background had been business and sales. So I was comfortable meeting people. And I just began to walk the streets and I never knocked on a door. But if somebody was out in the yard, I'd walk up and say, hey, my name's Brian and I'm the new pastor and I'm doing some PR. Here's my card. And in a little town like that, by the time I was on like the second street, these little old ladies were inviting me in for pie. I mean, it just, they just hadn't, that town, I think many, many times our churches have a tendency to take on the personification of their town. - Yeah, it's very true. - And they were just discouraged and defeated. And so when it hit and we started, you know, we experiencing what it was like to have 30 and 40 and 50 people in service, which they hadn't experienced in decades. It was a big deal, it was so much fun, man. - So 30, 40, 50 and then 100 in a town of 400? - Right. - That is nuts. I mean, that means a quarter of the town's population are coming to your church on a Sunday morning. - Well, you know, tipping point talks about, and I didn't know this at the time. I said to you earlier that there are several of you guys who have helped me greatly, that it would have really helped me if you'd have done what you did 20 years earlier. - Yeah, we'd written the books earlier. Yeah, you were saying leading change without losing it. It's like, what was that when I needed it? I was learning all the lessons I would put into the book at the time you were doing that, man. This was what, late, not mid 90s, late 90s? - Early 90s, early 90s. But I'll tell you, when, trust me, when I got leading change out of losing it, I needed it. It was good. But tipping point talks about how, if you could impact 10% of a demographic, you can change a demographic. And so we just began to say, you know what, in any setting that we've been in, since I kind of picked that up, where we are now in Chicago, there are 49,392 nuns. - Right, you mean by that what David Kinman means by that? Like no identified religion. - Right, gotcha. - So then six miles of our building. - Wow. - So we, I don't set goals so much as the tenants goals or anything like that. When we go to the church, I said, we have to get ready to impact 10% of that, or about 4,000 people. - Man. - That's not a goal that we're setting. That's just what, if Jesus is gonna change a culture that data tells us that we're gonna impact 10% of that. And so that's what we gotta think. We gotta begin to think that way. And you don't think that way when you get there. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You start where you are. So yeah, that was our first experience. Church grew to 100. We were invited to go to, and we were there about five years. We were invited to go to another church that was running about 75. - So let's back up. Let's just hit the pause button. And I know I always send questions in advance, but this is just so fascinating. 'Cause in the background bio I had on you, I didn't know there were four churches, I thought there were two. But I mean, hey, there are listeners and leaders right now who are trying to break the five barrier or the 10 barrier or the 50 barrier. - It's barriers a real barrier. - Okay, so let's talk about that. Obviously, one thing that was helping you and certainly helped me and I talk about it all the time is I had no idea what I was doing. And so if you don't know any better, you just go in with all these hopes and all these dreams. And maybe, oh my goodness, it might work. Like nobody told me it wouldn't work. Lots of people later would say, "Oh, you can't do that, you can't do that." I'm like, "Well, it's working, we're just gonna do it anyway." But you had a similar experience. You didn't really know what to do. So you just did whatever you thought would help. - Yeah, and the other thing is, I think that this was one of the things that really helped me was that in our movement, in our denomination, at that point, I had a really good district superintendent who would say, "Hey, what's going on? How did you do that?" And of course, I couldn't tell him. He'd say, "Well, figure it out." And he was encouraging. The other thing was, there was a pastor who's now actually the president of one of our universities at Treveca. His name's Dan Boone. And Dan was a pastor of a church of about 1500 or 2000. And I'll never forget this, Kerry. So we have this annual gathering of pastor and spouses retreat, right? Where we're on our districts. Our 70 churches coming together. And I did not wanna go to that. I felt so like I didn't belong. I hadn't gone back to school yet. I was just like, and I was, I still had bartenders looking for me at that point. I was like four years. They were still worried about me. - Are you okay? - Yeah, you know. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You paid this tab. - Yeah. - Yeah. And so I went to this first gathering and I'll never forget it. We were probably running 40 at the time. And I'm standing in the foyer of this hotel and Dan Boone walks over to me and he says, "Are you Brian?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "I'm Dan. I've been watching what you're doing. How in the world did you do that? And would you and your wife sit with me and my wife?" So there were things in that setting. If I can say anything to pastors out there, when you get a chance to put your arm around somebody, especially guys who are fighting that, that kind of trying to find themselves in ministry and are dealing with that. And he's been a friend. He's been in every church I've pastored since then. And we've had him in Chicago and we'll have him back again. But so there were things like that that the Lord did that I couldn't have done myself. - Yes, I agree. - Rakes, man. - I had a guy who was sort of my boss in the denomination, not a DS, but really an inter-moderator, 'cause I wasn't even allowed to chair my own meetings for the first two years, 'cause I was a student. And he was great. His name was George Cunningham. Unfortunately, he died. He went to be the Lord about 14 years ago. But man, oh man, he just pretended. He said, "You just pretend you're the leader and do what you need to do. And I'm here to cheer you on and point out any landmines." And man, we had so much fun together. And I benefited so much from his wisdom. And you're right, I had people. I had a guy who led the largest Presbyterian church in Canada at the time, Chuck Pongrom, who discovered what I was doing and did the same thing, said, "What on earth are you doing up there? And can we meet?" And he said, "And we are still friends." I mean, we share a meal together at least once a year now. And he's retired at this point, but oh my goodness, like I don't know where I'd be without those people. And so if you don't have that, I hope someone comes your way. But if you are that person who's leading the large church and you know of somebody who needs encouragement, here's your action step. Pick up the phone, call them, go invite them for a meal, bring them over to your house, go visit their church and encourage them. - I think it's look for life. You know, you talked about-- - That's good. - We go into that small church. And as a pastor, I'm looking for life. Well, the man who at the end of the first service said, "This is what we should do." He and I became really close. And he was a business guy who had just gotten discouraged because it seemed like that there weren't systems in the church and it was like that we weren't playing by the same set of rules and he watched us make bad decision after bad decision. And so when he saw life, he jumped on it and I did too. I think as a pastor, that's what I look for now when we have a, I'm in charge and maybe this is part of the reason but I lead a monthly gathering called pastors on purpose on our district. And what we're doing is we're looking for those places where there's some life and a pastor. And we want to get to them before the enemy. You know what I mean? Or before the job, if you will, snuff that light out. And they just want to feed that man. You find someone who's got that fire in that light. We just want to encourage him. We always tell him, you're doing better than you think you are. - Wow. - You got to trust us on this. And you are where you are in this moment by divine appointment. And so hang in there and God'll help you. - I love that. That's such a great principle. I've never heard it expressed that simply, but look for life. I mean, look for it in leaders, look for it in churches. And I mean, very few things are dead. I also thought it was really important what you said that churches and even communities sometimes feel really bad about themselves. And maybe God used you to really breathe hope. I always see us preachers as dealers in hope. - That's good. - So that's good. So you've mentioned 50 a couple times. I mean, all the literature and I've written about it. Other people have written about it. 200 is a big barrier, but 50 is a barrier. So let's talk about it. Let's go there. What happened? What were the hurdles you had to overcome? And how did you overcome them by the grace of God? - So the first person that talked to me about church growth barriers was Dan Boone. And Dr. Boone said, you don't dance with a barrier. You got to blow it up. And so find a horse and write it and just get through. And it's going to be somewhere in the 50 range. Well, what was interesting? I can still remember the board meeting in that little church. When the church had grown, I was actually working three jobs when I started and they were trying to give me a little bit more income. So I could only work two. And I remember the board meeting where I said to the board, hey guys, if I have one night this week to go calling on people, to go visit people, who do you want me to go see? Do you want me to come to your birthday party or to your anniversary party or to see you? Or do you want me to go see the folks who walked in last Sunday? - Wow. - It's up to you. And around the room, it was no go there pastor. - Oh, that's so good. And this was so cool because at that point in time, the dynamics in the room shifted and it was like, I said, okay, now I did my best to get to as many birthday parties in the anniversaries that, you know what I mean, you do your best. But there was something that happened in that moment. And I think that the mindset, we talk with barriers, whether it's 50 or 200 or 500 or 1000 or whatever the barrier is, there has to be a shift in the mindset. There will likely be a shift in the methods that you use because stuff that is wonderful. I mean, in that church of 50 and under, I was everybody's personal, spiritual, you know. - How could you not be? It's not like you can say you were too busy, right? - Yeah, it's true. - So I mean, I was there, if you sneezed, man, I mean, I was at the house with a tissue. And so, and if you're great, if you had a cousin that was in an accident, dude, I was there. I mean, well, that works in getting something, going and getting something started. But if you try to pastor a church of 100 or 150 that way, you'll end up doing only that. So shift in mindset, okay, so what are we thinking now? And a shift in the methods, we're gonna do things a little bit different. And so those are shifts, I think, that have to come at every barrier. And this is something that is so important. The time to get ready for your next barrier is not when you get there. You start getting ready the minute you blow through the last one. - Wow. - So I tell pastors that when they go through a 50 or 125, what are you gonna do when you get to 200, 250? 'Cause if you wait 'til you're there, I mean, sometimes you gotta do staffing stuff. You can't wait 'til you're there. And in a larger setting, the person who, the great staff for a church of 300 might not be the same staff for a church of a thousand. - You would agree with that, would you? - Oh my goodness, yeah, I mean, it's ready. And that doesn't mean they're bad. It means it's different. So as you grow to a thousand or as you grow to that next barrier, at some point, that staff member's gonna come and say, "Hey, I got an opportunity to go to somewhere." As they move on, don't replace them with what got you there. Replace them with where you're going. - That's so good. - That's the kind of stuff that I had another mentor, Dr. Crawford Howe, who was my DS for the whole time at Ottawa. And he pounded those kinds of principles into us. And when we got to ready to hire, he would say, "So Brian, are you hired for today?" Or, "Tell me about this person." So in the 50th barrier, we saw it. It literally just kind of swept away with growth. But I can take you back to that moment when I asked the board, "Who do you want me to go see?" And I let him, that was an honest question. I mean, I wasn't like, you know, sometimes I've come home from a few seminars and told him who I was gonna go see, right? I mean, we need, there needs to be like this detoxification after we go as leaders, where we can come back and... - 'Cause these are real people, not principalis and that sort of thing. - And there's life in them. - And sometimes it's over, right? Sometimes it's time for the church to close. It's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. We always talk about how I don't think a single church that Paul started is still open. So it's cool, I mean, it's okay. But where there's life, there's hope. And if in a setting like that, where you're passing a church of 50 or 60 or whatever, you have to recognize that these folks have, at some point in time, it's gonna be a mirror, a lot of times of the community that you're in, of things that are going on. And so what you're gonna bring shift to a change to is not just what happens on Sunday morning, but a whole mindset of what if. So if the church could grow, what would happen if I grew? What would happen if, from a standpoint of our community or any of those things, it can get really, really exciting. - That's great. So at 50, you would say the mindset was a really big shift. And basically, who am I gonna spend my time with? Insiders or outsiders? New people or existing people. And they helped you choose. I mean, you knew where you wanted to go, but you helped them and they helped you choose that you were gonna focus on outsiders. And they were cool with that. - We began to hand stuff off. So I'd say, this was another thing that we were coached on was that the leader needs to make sure that they're not doing something that someone else could do. - Right. - And a lot of times better. So you mentioned that it looked like I was in a music studio and I'm in one of the sound rooms here at our church, but so I do play the guitar. And there was a time when I like led worship with the guitar, Kerry it was awful. (laughing) But I love doing it and we didn't have anything else. And so it was cool. But the time came where it really wasn't about what I love to do, right? It wasn't about that. It was about handing things off. And that's something that takes some time and coaching things for people. - I did the graphic design for a few years for our church. - Which basically was clip art. I mean, it was horrible. It was horrible. But it was better than what was there before, which was I think done on a Gestetner in the '70s or I don't know what happened. But you know, and then clearly, I mean, if I touched anything design-wise at our church now, I think it would shrink to nothing. But yeah, you know, there's a role that you play and then you realize, you know, this is not my principal contribution and away you go. That's good. So those were key changes. Anything else in the five to a hundred church before we move on to your next church? - I think that it, this is true of the 50. And I think it's true all the way through however, whatever the size is. That when you look at what you're about, it can't be, well, we're just gonna get over this hump or we're going to try to accomplish this set of stated goals. But you wanna build a culture, a leadership culture, that's gonna continue to change. So that we are constantly shifting and moving and evaluating and experimenting. Which is to pastor in that culture, if say to anybody's out there, pastor in a small church, it is worth it to lead that group of whatever team you have to a place where they will begin to experiment because it is so cool to be able to say, "Hey, let's try this." And if it works, then everybody goes yay, and if it doesn't, then you stand up and I've had to do this on more than one occasion and go, "Hey, we thought this was a great idea," or, "I did," and it did not go well. I am really sorry. And what's happened is that I feel like there have been times carry when I have gained more credibility on my misses than I did on my successes because we just said, "Whoa, that was awful." - Yeah, and everybody in the room, this is so important to such a great principle. Everybody in the room knew it was awful, but they didn't know whether you would have the courage to say it. And when you get up as a leader and go, "Hey, this was my idea," or, "You know, you take full responsibility, I allowed this to happen." - Yeah. - It was a bad idea. Everyone goes, "Oh, thank goodness you knew. Thank goodness you knew." So I can see how that builds credibility. Totally, I mean. - I have a really embarrassing, short story about that. - Go ahead. - I tell my wife's gonna kill me for telling this. - But so years ago in the early 90s, there was a Bible study out that was the Andy Griffith Bible study, the old Andy Griffith show, right? - Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Family show. Back, it was still, you know, people were still washing on rerun, and so there was a summer Bible study they put out where you could show a portion of the show, and then these guys had brought this theme in. Well, we decorated on a week, I think it was our Wednesday night service back in those days when we had one. So we decorated the foyer and we had, you know, invite your friends, it's gonna be fun, and we gave away, you know, all kinds, it was a blast, and we reached some folks. There were some folks who would not come, who came to that, it was cool, it was good. So the next summer, it's like, "What do we do now?" And I don't even wanna say this out loud, but the same company had produced the Beverly Hillbillies Bible study. (both laughing) And so the guy who was leading this came and said, "Hey man, I found another one, it's gonna be great." And I'm like, "Sure." Well, there's a big difference between the Andy Griffith Show and Beverly Hillbillies Bible study with the cement bond of my goodness. Oh my goodness. And Granny's loaded about half the time, and you know, Jethro station women, we got three weeks into that, and I stood up on a Sunday morning and said, "This is the end of the Beverly Hillies Bible." And even as I said it, I thought, "What kind of an idiot would approve that?" And everybody laughed, but you gain trust when you do that because they're more willing to let you experiment. Number one, because these are folks who wanna see their kids and grandkids come into faith. Especially if you're in a smaller church, there are folks in that church who have given their whole life. And they honestly don't wanna see the church die, but they're terrified. And so if you can, there's moments when they know that, "Hey, we can follow this person, this leader," because if they blow it, it's okay, if they're gonna acknowledge it, and they're gonna figure it out eventually. - That's so good. And I think, is that one of the appeals you made to the older crew that was there? 'Cause you said, you know, the average age was, I don't know, 65, 70, 75, 80, whatever. - 75 or 80. - 75 or 80. But that's what I found with these old churches is just like, okay, you know, what do you think about your kids and grandkids? And that was extremely motivating to them. - Absolutely. I think there's, in the United States, especially in our movement, there's a large number of churches that where folks have reached an age where having, I mean, given up, invested, and their heart has been in that local church, they see what's going on. And they're not-- - Yeah, you're not dumb. - If you've got an answer, but you can't go to a seminar, come home, open up the book, and then quit two days later, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - There's a process, and that's where your book, especially, well, both of them actually, lasting impact, talking about the conversations, 'cause that's where this has to start. It has to start, but with having conversations with people, and having the right conversations, which is what lasting impacts about. But how do they change without losing it? It's kind of, is the equivalent of coming to a group of people and saying, hey, let's go on a journey together. - Yeah. - Yeah. - If, and we, in every assignment I've had, I spend a lot of time studying the history of the church, because what we're able to say is that we owe it to the people who built the room that we're in, the sanctuary that we're in, we owe it to the people that lost this thing, to take it to the next level. Not only are they not gonna be offended, they're only gonna be offended if we don't. We've got to go, and you'll find story after story, after story of, in the early days of virtually any kind, it's a gold mine. - It is, you know, it's funny you should say that, because a couple of weeks ago, totally cleaned out my office. And like, just, you know, all those file folders you need to get to and that sort of thing. And I ran into a, our first stewardship campaign, that moved us out of the three historic buildings and into an elementary school, and ultimately a few years later, into a multi-million dollar facility. And it was called Strong Roots Vibrant Growth. And I mean, the graphic design is laughable now, but I mean, there's all kinds of pictures in there, and I'd forgotten this. There's all kinds of pictures of like the youth group in 1930. And what we did in that time, I kind of forgot, was we appealed to the historic mission, which really didn't change, but got lost in that generation. And said, you know, these are just new methods, but the same mission. And so we were showing it around the office last week, and everyone was laughing and, you know, laughing at the picture of me when I was in my 30s, and the whole deal. But that was a really good memory. And that was it. It's like, hey, the mission is the same. We just have to revive it for this generation, or we have to translate it for this generation. And I think you also, you know, don't change and run. I mean, I've been in this community with some of these same people for 21 years now. And you know, not that you have to stay two decades, but you can't do this in two years and just bail. - No. - So you were there for five, right, with that group? - Yeah, you were there, right? And then the second church was in Elgin, Illinois. - Okay. - And that was the place where really, I began to struggle with, how do I do this? Because I was in a different setting in that first church, right, when you start with five and you're running a hundred, you can pretty much do anything you want to do. - Right. - You know, a lot of those folks are just converts to the faith and they're on fire. And then I moved into another setting where there was a little bit more background present. You know, there were folks were still there who were hurt that hadn't left. And so we began to work through that. We were there about four years and the church almost tripled. I mean, it was growth, but-- - So where did it start at, what size? - It started at about 70 and we got to 180. - Wow. - And so, and we would have Easter's that would, you know, that were big, but this was where I can still remember reaching a point where I didn't know what to do, where I had used all the tools in my toolbox. And it was like, Lord, we're just, we're here. And I began to look for answers and it was at that point in time that I actually got an invitation to go to another setting, which was Ottawa, where I met the mentor that radically changed my life. I'll never forget. So what's interesting is that when I left that second assignment and went to Ottawa, which was a church of about 230, 240-- - And that's Ottawa in the US, not in Ontario, Canada, where I live. - Right. We had grown, I went through the same thing. So we went, we were there about three years. The church grew to 350 or whatever. And I can remember having an appointment with my mentor and my district superintendent. And I said, you know, it looks like that I'm gonna be like a three or four year guy. I can turn some stuff around. I can get something started, but I've used, you know, I've used all the tools in my toolbox. I think we're plateaued with 350, I think we're about done. And so do you have another place you could send me that might be in need of that? I'll never forget. I thought this was a really noble thing to do. - Right. - I put yourself on the altar. - Absolutely. - Send me. And he, Dr. Howe wrote down note after note after note, looked at me over the top of his glasses and we got done. He said, is that it? And I said, yeah, I'll never forget this. He said, okay, he said, Brian, if you wanna move, you can get a church. I'll help you find a church. But do me a favor. Don't ever talk to me this way again. And I'm like, excuse me? - Wow. - He said, I followed your ministry from the time you started until today. And you've been challenging people to leave their comfort zones. You've been challenging them to stretch. You've been challenging them to grow. But now, when it's time for you to stretch and for you to grow, you just wanna go to another side. If that's what you wanna do, that's fine. I'll help you, it's cool. But don't, don't, don't give me that speech again. - Oh my goodness, you've had great leaders, great mentors along the way. And you know, that does happen. I've said, you know, 20 years in the same place, I feel like I'm five different leaders. And about every four or five years, I have to reinvent myself. And you know, getting past 800 just took forever for us. And I thought, am I ever gonna be able to do it? Am I ever gonna be able to lead in that way? And you know, you can, but like your old methods don't work. You've gotta change. And Dr. Hal was huge, Crawford was, he was huge on this. You've gotta be a student, be a student, learn from everybody and you can. I mean, I go back to when I was in that first little church and Dan Boone said, how do you do that? Some of that he was saying to encourage me. But he was also a constant. He literally just wanted to know what was going on. And so with, we talk about how that if the minute that I stop learning, all of my previous learning in my experience, it doesn't help me. It becomes the barrier. So we've gotta continue to learn. I've been, I get to meet with some organic church planners, some pastors who, you know, the approach where, you know, we're not doing the big event where, you know, it was such radical stuff for me, right? But I committed and I wanted to get closer because I knew there was some things that we could learn and boy, that has been huge. So I think that learning from people who are different than you, not just like the guy who's the church growth barrier person down the road. - No, and you look for life. - No, there you go. - The guy who was doing some organic church planning and I saw like the fire of Jesus and him, even though it was radically different than we planted and we were part of several church plants. But I was like, man, there's something in there. And I can't afford not to see it. And to hear it. So I think that part of what happens in ministry is that we have a tendency to get isolated. - Yes. - And we're in a denominational setting. A lot of times people are, the guys who are, and ladies are afraid. And so we put on a face and we go to whatever we have to go to and we call each other brother and we talk about how great it is and how awful the world is and we don't ever get to a place where we say, hey, I need to figure this out and I need help and man, there's all kinds of help out there. If you're coachable and teachable, it's out there. You can find it. - So you got stuck at 350. What was getting you stuck? And what did you need to reinvent in yourself as a leader? And then in the church at that stage as well. 'Cause that, you know, the other reality I often forget is most of us have only ever let a church as big as the church we're leading now. Do you know what I mean? Like I've never let a bigger church in our church right now. And that's been true over the last 21 years. It's just never been bigger than at that moment in time. And then you run into a new ceiling and you're like, okay, now what, right? So you've never let anything that big. That church probably hasn't been that big in a long time. Never been that big. So you're all stuck. How do you get unstuck? - You know, first of all, we declared that we were stuck. - Good. - That was a moment when I can remember. So one of the things that we did early on at Ottawa, and we'd learned, we'd learned this at our previous assignment was that in an effort to try to stay connected with the senior adult congregation and the folks in the church had been there a while, we had a senior adult luncheon once a month. - Okay. - And at that luncheon, we would provide the meet and the staff, and there was three of us, I think in that church of 350. And at that meeting, I would get up and, you know, I would say, so tell me what you're thinking about and they would tell me, you know, it's too hot, it's too cold, it's too loud, you know, that. And I'd say, I know, I understand and over time, we had fun with that 'cause it was every month. And then I would say, and then I would share with them, here's what I'm dealing with. And I can remember telling them, guys, we're stuck. And the problem with that is not church growth, it's that these are your kids and grandkids. And would you pray with us? And so there was a period, now this came after my conversation with Dr. Howe, who said, "Please don't talk to me that way again." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I went and so we began to pray, and then we began to listen. We committed ourselves to listen to what, we challenged our church to ask questions about the people they work with, the people who live in their neighbors, their kids. Why don't you go, this stuff that so many people have done, have you ever gone to church? Why don't you go to church? What do you think about God? What do you think about Christian? And it was so much fun to hear them bring that data back to me. Now, we could have got that from any number of Bill Heibels surveys or any of that kind of stuff. - You could have Googled it. - But when they came back and said, "Here's what my nephew said." He said, "All right, all right, what do we do?" And so then we began to explore, and I began to read everything I could get my hands on, and we were kind of looking, and it was then that we had some couple of our leaders who went to a Acts 2 conference at Willow and heard Reggie Joyner, and boom. - It was fun. - It was famous talk at that conference where I brought out the shopping carts. I feel like it's almost like one of those elections that was really close, but everybody says they voted for Kennedy or whatever. I think everybody I know was at that talk. The auditorium was only so big, but yeah, that was a pivotal talk and a really powerful talk. And so that was about reaching the next generation. That was about actually partnering with parents and engaging families and making family ministry a priority of the whole church, which of course these days has become orange and so much more. - Yeah, it was, but what that did for us was that our folks were so in love and it's that family ministry approach so resonated with all the age groups that we said, now listen, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to get ready for guests. We're gonna have to receive guests. And so that's where we begin to say, well, when would be the best time for us to do a small group setting? Is it Sunday morning? Well, I don't see how we can do that plus these other things, and we only have so many rooms. So man, this might be a time for us to do that. And if we're gonna create this atmosphere on the weekend that is irresistible, right? That's Andy Stanley's. We'll have the church to be irresistible, but Jesus is irresistible. Then man, if every Sunday's gonna be Easter, we're learning from everybody. Rick Warren's speaking to us. - Yeah, you got it. - If we're gonna do that, we're gonna need to streamline our schedule. So we probably won't do public services on Sunday night and Wednesday night anymore. - Right. - Like, oh, and so it just kind of evolved, and there weren't rough spots along the way, but that, we found that thing, that catalyst for us, and it was certainly a God thing, and it resonated with the people, and that's where the church grew from 240 to 1,000. - Wow, which is incredible. So to get past that stuck point, you kind of pulled your core together, and your brainstormed, and you found a new model. It's funny, I think we were running parallel existences, because I'd grown a program based church, killed all the old programs, started some new ones, and then went, "Nah, that's not it either." And then shut down all the programs we started, much to a lot of people's chagrin, and that ushered in the new era. So you brought it up to 1,000 people at that point, and then take us to the next chapter, your current chapter, correct? - Well, so as part of that, we began to be involved in church planting, and so we did a restart of a church not too far away. I had one of the coolest stories. There was a church about maybe 20 minutes away, a Nazarene church, about 20 minutes away from us, and the pastor's name was Larry Furtado. He was at the tail end of his ministry, and he asked to meet with me, and he said, "Brian, I've been pastoring my whole life." And the church he was at, like 20 plus years, and he said, "I do not want this, my ministry to end, leaving the church where it is." Can we partner on something? Or can we work together? And Larry was just this godly, wonderful guy, and I said, "Absolutely, we put our heads together." He came on staff with us as our senior adult and visitation pastor, and then we began to do two services in Ottawa, and then drive the 20 minutes or so, and the music would already have started at this other little church, and I'd walk in and preach, and then we met with the leaders in the afternoon, and so that church, we called in a church planner, that church restarted eventually. Now they're running in the 250-275 range. - It's amazing. - So we've done some of that. We did a video campus, it was so funny, because at the church that we were at Ottawa, there was a church on the south side of town. Now, Ottawa in the United States is a town of about 18,000 people. - Okay. - I mean, so the church of 1,000 again, in a city of 18,000. - It was cool. - Incredible. - So the fact that there was another Nazarene church, just three miles away, and it was again, it was a prototypical small church that was on its last legs, down to just a few people, and we had sent pulpit supply for them. They wouldn't quit, these folks would not quit, but they were there, and eventually they approached us and said, "Can we do something?" And so we launched a video campus there, and that was our first endeavor into that. And now, the church, now, I left in 2012, we got a call, this is another thing too. We had, we'd been at Ottawa, we'd raised our kids, and it was our home, it'll always be kind of our home, and great folks, and we were thinking, okay, maybe we'll go south, someplace warm. And, but we begin to feel like there might be a move, and Chicago first calls, and this is the oldest church in our denomination, 111 years old, actually predates the denomination. All of the greats of our founders, Phineas Eprizy, I've got a pulpit that won't mean anything if you're not Nazarene, but if you are, it means a lot. He that he preached from, and there's just these great stories, they had sent some folks out to see what we were doing and wanted to talk to us, and at first, we're like, yeah, there is no way, it's a traditional church and a great church, I mean, it's healthy, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't a church in trouble or any of that, but it was plateaued, and it'd been plateaued for about 10 years. - Gotcha. - And so, we had a couple of different conversations, and then found out that the previous pastor had started a ministry in one of the worst neighborhoods of Chicago, the Austin neighborhood of Chicago at that time, the data that we saw in that early, 70% of the kids in that neighborhood don't graduate high school. - Wow. - So, he had started to work there, and when my wife and I, we went down, we saw that building, and we began to think about what if God would help us to leverage the resources of a large church, deliver the personality and the proximity of a healthy small church, right where the church is needed most, which is right down the block, and it was over. I mean, we come back. - Go away. - Well, we're in. - Time to go. - Yep, so, yeah, so, we have, we came to Chicago first, which, the church of about 850, and with strong leadership, the board, I mean, it was a gutsy move. My resume looks nothing like the previous pastors. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, but their heart was for reaching people, and so, we executed a hundred day plan when I came in, and that first hundred days is so important. - Yes, it is. - What were, I mean, just the quick bullet points, what were some of the highlights of your hundred day plan? - You know, you're gonna listen to as many stories as you possibly can. You're gonna read everything I read, everything I could get my hands on that had ever been written about Chicago first, any histories, any of the like capital campaign stuff, you wanna get all that. You wanna get to the folks who know the history. You wanna absorb it. You don't want to make any decisions that you do not have to make. - Right. - That's a big one. And then when you're done with the first hundred days, do it again, because you're just getting started. So, about four months in, we presented the idea of a major refocus to the church, and we had worked with a guy by the name of Dr. Larry McCain, who now is my district superintendent, he wasn't then, but Dr. McCain had done a lot of work in our movement with helping churches kind of call a timeout and evaluate mission and vision and develop core values and then execute a plan. That's where we miss it sometimes. We have a lot, lots been written and there's a lot of church stuff around, you know, developing your mission statement and your core value's not, but executing it? - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, that's a little different. And so, he became our coach, that's another thing I would tell a pastor, if you're gonna lead a church through something, don't do it alone, find someone who has been where you are. Find someone who understands you. It's really important for a coach to understand you, to know you, that understands the culture that you're ministering in. He did that for us and the church voted to do it. And then that was in the fall of 2012. 2013, we put a refocus team together of about a dozen people who were highly gifted and loved the church. And for, there was a June, July, and August of 2013, this team met every Wednesday night for three hours. - Wow. - This is what they did on their summer vacation. And we went through the history and every meeting, carry every meeting began. As a matter of fact, every single meeting that I have, whether it's with staff or whether it's a church board or some other ministry team, begins with, what has Jesus been saying to you? - Wow. - So, I'm counting on you to spend some time with Jesus. And so-- - That sounds like John Stickle, episode 29, that's the question he asks his leadership team, absolutely. - It helped us, it kept the air clear. When we went to the congregation, I was able to have those members say, every meeting began with this question. And it just disarmed so much of the fear that people have that we're gonna try to chase the latest, greatest thing. So, that team brought back a proposal and then, so that was in the fall, in the spring of the next year. And that was a proposal to move to a family ministry, which is, you know, you don't do all the other stuff you used to do, you focus that. - Yeah, and just to amplify that, at the heart of the orange strategy is this idea that you pour resources into the next generation that would get dissipated in a thousand directions, but you focus them on the family. And you can go to whatisorange.org if you want more information about that, but super helpful, okay, keep going. - Absolutely. So, and we knew that for us to be able to disciple, if we were gonna break the plateau, we were gonna have to make some other changes. And that was gonna be a change in schedule. And so, the proposal came down to, you know what, we are plateaued. We can argue with that in 10 years and we've spent an awful lot of God's money in that 10 years, we're plateaued. It's not that nobody's getting help, they are. It's not that nobody, you know what I mean? It's not that nothing good it's happening, but we're not seeing the breakthroughs that we'd like to. And so, we said, we're not only plateaued, we're positioned. And so, we were able to shift that and say, so a lot of the things that we've been doing, 'cause we used to have this smorgasborda ministry. So, if you came in and got our bullets and it was like, you know, a big phone book. - Yeah, back in the day. - And said, yeah, we're not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna take, matter of fact, there were 50, no, I'm sorry, there were nearly 100 programs. - Wow. - In the local church at or right when I came. - One for every eight people, that's quite amazing. It was, and they were all good ideas. And see that whole program thing can help you at a point. But you grow out of it because you can't keep them all. You can't keep them up. - And they're not all equally effective. - And it's hard to quit. - Right. - It's hard to tell someone, you know, so we said we're gonna go from that to about 10, or maybe less. And so, in the spring of the next year, or the winter of the next year, starting in January, we began to invite people in, 50 to 75 at a time. And they came in on Friday night and Saturday morning. And it was cool because we played, you know, Reggie Joyner's Acts 2 family thing. And then we would, we began to talk about how we wanted to launch small groups. And we wanted to move away from trying to do everything on Sunday morning. So we wanted to, there were people, this was some great data. Talk about me in position. We found out that people were driving to our church from 63 different communities. - Wow. - 'Cause it's the suburbs of Chicago. So, you know. - And a historic church that had a draw. - Right. So we said, we're gonna reverse that. We wanna send people out to 63 different. So we began to talk about life groups and small groups. And we did, I think we did six of those weekends with 50 to 75 at a time. And I would stand up at the end and it would be okay. This is how we got to where we are. We wanna give you a sampling of what the refocus team spent all the time on. Now talk to me about what you're thinking. And it was pretty predictable, right? I mean, there was, well, you know, so what about this and what about that? And you don't care about, you know, 'cause you talk more about the loss than you do us and what about us and so you-- - So how did you answer that? How do you say it? What do you say to that? - So there was, first of all, you listen, you try to see beyond, I mean, if I give a snap response to someone who says, what about us, it's probably not gonna be very nice, right? - That's right. - It's gonna be cynical. But that's a result of 20 plus years of having mentors talk to me and people are where they've been led. So I think that what we began to say was, what we're doing in reaching out to these 49,000, we're doing for you. You're gonna find new life in ways that you've never seen it before. Not only that, but some of these 49,000 are your kids and your grandkids. So you just begin to, you have to begin, you have to be extremely patient-- - Reframe the issue for the-- - Reframe many ways. - That's the crucial conversations that you talk about in Last Impact. Why are they leaving the church? And what are we willing to do to reach them? And what might that look like? And it's interesting, because going through that first tree focus with that church from five to 50, and then breaking through the 200 barrier and going through some of that, the issues are the same, regardless of the size of the church. Now the scope is different, the weight is different, the culture, in other words, you're gonna talk to people differently in different parts of the country. - Yeah. - But the issues are the same. And so I think that when you talked about having your church needing a new pastor every five years, because you changed, I think that's what you have to continue to grow into. And people are afraid, and people are, they've heard this before. I mean, my goodness, the last 25 years, how many times have conferences went on, or they, and a pastor come back, and here's the new thing. And so you've got to gain and earn their trust and walk with them through the difficulties, through the process. - That's so true. And you know, you talk, I write about this, but you talk about it as well. That's communicating change in concentric circles. So you bring those six groups of 75 people, or you know, you start with your core team, or your refocus group, and you did that in your other churches, and that's so wise, because you know, you didn't hit all 825, but by the time you're really ready to embark on the change, - Right. - 100, 200, 300 people have bought in. And then, you know, you know, that change is going to be successful as a result. But let me ask you in the time that we have left, 'cause this has been fascinating. What other, just in a nutshell, what other barriers, like did you have to reinvent governance or staffing? You mentioned, you know, the staff that got you to 300 might not get you to 700 or 1,000. - Right. - And then what are, what are some other barriers just briefly that you had to overcome? - I think pretty much all of those. - Yeah. - I mean, you're going to make some transistors. There comes a time when the senior pastor needs to take another assignment, then the same thing is going to be true. We haven't done that with all, and we wanted to work, we wanted those to be wins for everybody. So we were very careful about that, but you have to ask questions. And governance were really, really fortunate in the Church of the Nazarene, because our district superintendents can allow us, and our protocol allows us to make shifts, so that we haven't had major changes in that. - So you didn't have like major congregational opposition or votes that you couldn't win or anything like that. - No, and matter of what's interesting is that in the middle of the refocus here, which it's, you know, now this is refocus on a big scale, 'cause you're at a Church of 800, 111 year old church, what happened in the middle of it was that we were doing things that really, we needed to do some work at the Church. And so we wanted to be able to do the family ministry model with the family experience, the FX experience, and so I had a lady on the refocus team who for a living was a project manager for a construction company. They had rebuilt auditoriums at Notre Dame University, all these different places. She came to me and said, we haven't spent any money on our sanctuary in 30 years. We need to renovate right now. And I said, we're in the middle of this major change and not everybody's happy. And now if we do that, this has got to go to a church vote. And we don't have the money. And so it was unbelievable, Carrie. I said, but I'll take it to the board. And I took it to the board and there were five unanimous votes. The congregational vote was somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 to 90%. - Really? - Above 80% anyway. And it was just boom. It was just a God thing. And people came forward. And so we started having other donations come in. When I went to the, we didn't have time to do a capital campaign or any of that. I went to the congregation and I said, here's the idea. It's going to be about $1.7 million. By the way, I have 750,000 already. - Oh man. - And that was in a two week period of time. So that's why when I talk about, are this church being positioned? - It really, really was. But you had to be willing to go through a process and say, okay, we're going to have to work some of this out. There needs to be a system we need to think. We need to talk and we've got to be willing. We got to be resilient enough to stick it out because at times it gets tough. - Yeah, yeah. That's so true. What's kept you from quitting? - I think there's the life in a lot of the leaders around you. I mean, when you think about, when you see everything that is so powerful, I think there's obviously a spiritual connection. I was reading first Timothy 117. Paul said, honest to Forest, was his friend. And he said, he searched hard for me until he found me. And so there's this grit, right? The Hibles talks about that it's like, we're going to do this. We're going to figure it out. In a matter of fact, I've got a blog and a devotional that's going to come out in February called Before You Quit. And it was kind of taken through a series of these different refocuses that we were involved in where one of them, my son came up to me and said, Dad, you're not writing anything. You're not, usually they were, they're growing up in our home. They were accustomed to a lot of stuff, right? - Yeah, yeah. - And I said, man, I said, you know, here's the thing. I don't have much to say right now. It's pretty hard. He goes, well, that's when you need to talk. And so I started just as some, a journal really, talking about what I'd like to do is quit. And then the idea came, well, before you quit. And so there's a 31 day devotional coming out. - And where can people get that before I quit? - That'll be our website, brianwangler.com. I think that all of those forces will sustain you in the midst and in the devotional. We talk about how that's not a devotional to say, don't quit. It's a devotional, because sometimes it's the horse is dead, right? - Yeah, yeah, get off it. - But before you do, what you don't wanna do is leave right before the breakthrough. You know, Seth Godin's book, The Dip, is a great, great resource in that because you've gotta be willing to go the distance. What got you there, or I'm sorry, leaving change without losing it, does the same thing. You say early on, this is not gonna be easy, it's gonna take time, but you can trust, you can trust the one who's called you, and the mission that you're on is the greatest rescue mission of all time. So it's best. - It is, it really is. So that's brianwangler, W-A-N-G-L-E-R.com, and that's where they can get the devotion. And then you've got something else, 'cause I know people are gonna wanna connect with you, they're gonna wanna find out more. I mean, we're on the hour mark of this conversation now. Which is, no, no, no, no, no, this has been so good. But obviously, there's so much more we can say, and people are gonna wanna drill down. So tell us what else you got. - So if you go to the website, brianwangler.com, give us your email, we'll send you like seven chapters before you quit that you can look at for free. But the other thing that we're working with right now that we're really excited about is a few years ago, we were seeing folks come to Christ with little or no background. And we wanted them to have a moment in the word, a devotional moment outside of the service where they would connect with God, connect with the Bible, so that they could become high-post calls as self-feeders, right? We want them to have that. And so we began to, we found we didn't find a lot there in terms of that for someone just starting. So we wrote something called God Time, your first 31 days. And it was designed to hand a new believer and it'll introduce them to the concepts in those 31 days that they'll spend the rest of their journey unpacking. And churches have found that really, really effective. It's been digitally transposed and folks of the discipleship place used it digitally for several years and it's gonna be available. It is available as a matter of fact right now, brianwangler.com. And it's a great book for somebody to start now. - I know there's a lot of people like us who have conversion growth and we'll definitely check that out, Brian. Wow, you've helped a lot of leaders today. And I think even more importantly, encouraged a lot of leaders today. Some very practical but also really hopeful. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. - Carrie, thank you. You are a hero to me. I have, your books have been exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. And I just, I said thank you to you in the email when I first started talking. But I can look at you now here for a moment, at least on Skype and tell you, I deeply appreciate your ministry. Thank you so much. - Well, thank you and I promise you it's 100% mutual. I just get so encouraged by what God has done through you over and over and over again and continues to do. - Amen. Thanks, Carrie. - Thanks, Brian. Well, how cool is that? So you can get everything in the show notes today. Just go to carrynewhoff.com/episodes76. And I'm gonna spell my name 'cause I never do and it's easy to say, terrible to spell. C-A-R-E-Y-N-I-E-U-W-H-O-F.com, episode 76. And then people go like, what is that? Is that German? Everybody guesses German. It's actually Dutch. That's what it is. My parents both immigrated from Holland. I'm a native Canadian born in this country. But anyway, so that's Newhoff. That's it. So carrynewhoff.com. And that's slash episode 76. And Brian also blogs at BrianWangler, W-A-N-G-L-E-R. .com and you wanna maybe send him some love and all the links to his social media are in the show notes. So thank him for today's episode because that was awesome, wasn't it? So hey, we got a lot coming up in the next few weeks. I got Perry Noble coming up, which I'm very excited about. Who else is coming up? Andy Stanley's coming back on the podcast. Man, there's a lot of folks. And again, one of the gems of this podcast that I love so much is that some of my guests you've just never heard of before. They don't like speak at conferences. They're not famous. But often those are the most popular episodes. People just love it. And if you're like me, you're kind of like, oh, like anybody can do this. This is an all skate, which is great. Also really excited about talking to Justin Dean. Justin was at Mars Hill when everything collapsed. He was the director of social media and online. And he and I are gonna have a conversation about Mars Hill two years later, fascinating. And then next week it's John Burke. You're gonna hear me. I mean, lots of people who are on this podcast, most of the people, honestly, who are on this podcast of written books. And this was one where I actually chased down the author. And I knew a lot of people who knew John, but it was just like, hey, would you be on my show? He's gonna talk about Imagine Heaven, which just fascinated me. He takes over a thousand near-death experiences that have been chronicled in medical literature, interviews people who've survived near-death experiences, and then does a mashup by basically mashing this up with what the scripture teaches about the afterlife. And it was a book I could not put down. John was kind enough to come on the podcast. It's a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation about eternity that for those of us who preach about it on a regular basis, I think this is really gonna make you kind of go, huh, never thought about that before. Anyway, that's lots of fun that's coming up next week. And again, if you subscribe a way ago, you're gonna get it automatically on your devices. First thing, Tuesday morning, 'cause that's when these things launch. So thanks to everybody who left ratings and reviews. Thanks for sharing the love. If you enjoyed this episode, put it on your social media, share it with your friends, text, email, whatever you need to do. And again, if you haven't checked out rethinkleadership.com, that is the venue of the year. You do not wanna miss it. There is still room. The VIP reception is sold out now, but there's still room for you to get in. So go to rethinkleadership.com and hang out with Andy Stanley, with Pete Wilson, with me, with Brad Lominek, Jeff Henderson, and so many others at the end of April. Sound good? Okay, listen, hey, we'll be back next week. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope our time together today helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the "Carry Newhof Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)