The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 036 – Why Churches Die—An Interview With Thom Rainer
(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 36 of the podcast. My name's Carrie Newhoff. Hey, thanks for hanging out. And I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And my guest today is somebody I think a lot of you will probably know you'll recognize his name. Maybe you've read one of his books or you read his blog or listen to his podcast. His name is Tom Rayner and Tom is just one of those influencers in the church. And he has written an awful lot about how to transition churches. And that's one of the things I love about Tom is, you know, a lot of people plant churches and we talk about church plants here, I planted a church, but I've also transitioned to church and it's different. In fact, in many ways it's more challenging. I don't know whether it's more challenging. I mean, church planting is tough too. But anyway, it's going to be a fascinating interview. And we're going to talk about why churches die. Like, what are the reasons? And this can be true of church plants too, right? I mean, you can be 18 months old and go, "Hmm, I'm not sure this is going anywhere." That's what Tom and I are going to talk about today. So you're in for a treat. Thanks for hanging out with us. And hey, we always record these a little bit in advance. That's what I like to do. I like to get a couple of months ahead. And on the interviews, and then I usually record this part of the podcast, a couple of weeks before broadcast. So this is like the first time I'm recording something since coming back from Orange Conference at the end of April. And I know that's kind of on delay now. If you were at Orange Conference, you're like, "Wow, that was a long time ago." No, really, it was a couple of weeks ago. But I just want to say to all of you, there were like 7,000 leaders at the Orange Conference in Atlanta. It's a conference for next-gen ministry, but it's also for senior leaders and their teams. And for all of you who were there, and for like the hundreds of you who stopped to say thank you, I just want to let you know, that was like the absolute highlight of the conference for me. It was meeting so many podcast listeners, so many blog readers. And it was just incredible. I mean, it's a fantastic conference. Reggie Joyner was brilliant. I mean, loved hearing from Andy Stanley, who was there, gave an unbelievable talk. Perry Noble was there, Jeff Henderson was there. I led the senior leader track with Jenny Catrin, and Jeff, and then also Josh Gagnon. And Terry Scalesetti spoke on it as well. And I met a lot of you guys there. And I just want to say thank you. You know what? You guys are the motivation for doing this. I really want to try to help with this podcast, and you gave me lots of feedback, and just so much encouragement, and to the dozens of you who made it out to the meetup that we sort of spontaneously did, that was so fun to connect in person. So I just want to say thank you, thank you so much. And if you want to connect, I do get on the road from time to time, and we did Orange Conference here in April, but I will be on the Orange Tour in selected cities this fall. So if you just go to orangetour.org, you can register for that. We're going literally all over the United States. I won't be at every stop, but I'm going to be at rather as many as I can. And just want to say thank you for that. Also, really exciting time. I don't know what's going on in your life, but it's a really exciting time in the life of our church. And if you've ever moved into a building, we are getting ready to do that this coming weekend, May 24th. That is going to be a lot of fun. We're so excited. We just actually, a couple of weekends ago, relaunched our portable location, Aurelia, that was a lot of fun. And I happen to lead full time, Kinexis Church, north of Toronto, Ontario. And so our berry campus is moving into a brand new permanent facility. It's a $2.8 million project. We are super excited about it. And so if you can remember us in your prayers, that would be great. And for any of you who have ever built a building or been through a building project, you kind of know what that's like. So I'm amazed I can even do this podcast in the midst of it all, but here we go. So thanks for your prayers this weekend. And we just want to be a church that unchurched people love to attend. And so we are super excited about this next phase of ministry coming up. And to all of you who are in portable church, I get that to all of you who are in startup church. I get that trying to transition a church. Yeah, been there. And also like got brand new facilities or are expanding your ministry. That's really cool. And just know we're all in this together and it's a lot of fun to do this. So everything we talk about today is gonna be in the show notes. You can just go to karaenuhoff.com/episode. Can you believe it? We're all the way up to episode 36. So just go to karaenuhoff.com/episode36. Thank you for sharing this on social media. Thank you for, you know, just letting your friends know about this and also for all you awesome people who leave ratings and reviews in iTunes. But without further ado, let's get right into the interview with Tom Rayner. It's a thrill to have Tom Rayner on the podcast today. Tom, welcome. I know you're well known for a lot of listeners and it's a thrill to have you on the podcast today. I don't know how well known I am, Carrie, but I've been waiting for your invitation, dude. I just, I wanted to interact with you both through your blog and now through your podcast for some time. So it's my honor and I am thrilled to be with your listeners and with you during this podcast. Well, it's really great. This is like the first time we've actually met, we spent a little bit of time before this interview getting to know each other a bit, comparing notes. And I think we'll be chatting a little bit more in the future, which is absolutely. We're on so much common ground and we have so much common philosophy. It will be fun in the future. So I'm looking forward to it. Cool. Well, I'm fascinated. I mean, you sit in a seat where you've done an awful lot with your life. So I know a lot of our listeners know you, but probably some people, you know, first time. So tell us a little bit about what you've done over the last couple of decades of ministry in life. It's been a circuitous path. I started in the business world. I was a fifth generation banker. And so from banking, the call to ministry sent me to seminary. After seminary, four churches where I served as pastor, while I was serving as pastor, I formed a boutique church consulting company that stayed around for about two decades. And then simultaneous to the church consulting company, I went to be a dean seminary for about 12 years. And so I was in Louisville, Kentucky for 12 years. Then from there, and for the last decade, I have been at LifeWay. And LifeWay is a Christian resource company based out of Nashville. We have retail stores around the United States anyway. And I've been there the last decade. I love my time at LifeWay. And in my spare time, I write a few blog posts and I have a couple of podcasts a week. And I think I've written 25 books. I don't know what the-- That's crazy reason. It's so similar. But see, I'm writing these brief books now. I am a church member off top of a deceased church. And I have one coming out this year called I Will. They're so brief that they show the shallowness of my thought. (laughing) I have found this new niche that I absolutely love just simply because I like the brevity of it. Blogs, the blog posts led me into the brevity of these books. - Well, that's really cool. I'm working on a book right now too. I'm working on a couple of books right now. And man, I can crank out a blog post in like an hour or two, but a book, I was working on a chapter which actually comes out of some blog posts I wrote. It's gonna be a book for church leaders. And last night I was working on it going, if I spent this much time like working on my blog posts, I would never ever write anything, publish anything. So I admire 25 books, that's great. - Yeah, but I've gotten simple now. Very simple, very quick. What I should say before we dive into where I wanna go today, which is about why churches die and why churches live, 'cause I think that's close to a lot of our hearts as ministry leaders, church leaders who listen to this podcast or business leaders who are just actually interested in the mission of local church, but you have a unique vantage point because you connect with so many church leaders and you connect with so many churches. One of the reasons I was really excited about interviewing you is you see a lot that sometimes we don't get a chance to see in the ministry of a local church. So let's talk about one of your latest books anyway, 'cause you write so many, maybe there's another one by the time this airs, autopsy of a deceased church, which I thought was fascinating, coming out of a mainline context. And now also seeing some of the issues that we struggled with a decade or two ago in a mainline context, infecting and affecting evangelical churches like all churches in all regions. I thought it was a fascinating book. And in it, you say that only 10% of churches are healthy and 10% are dying and 80%, 80% are showing symptoms of sickness or being very sick. So I just wanna ask you, like, is that overstating the case or what do you base that off of? You say it's a little bit subjective. I'm not disagreeing with you, but that's not a, that's not a great visit to the doctor. - Unlike physical health, sometimes church health has a lot more subjectivity to it than what is, what is a good definition of church health? And so when I look at those particular numbers carried, what I'm looking at is how are churches doing in their respective community? Only 10% of churches are growing at a rate faster than the community growth rate. - Okay, that's a good metric. - That's the 10%. The 80% in rough numbers are churches that are growing slower than their respective community. Are there declining? One of the two. And then the 10% are showing the symptoms of death. They seem to be terminal. So you can disagree with the metrics that you, but anybody in general, because metrics are subjective. But when you look at those metrics, only about 10% of churches are healthy. - Yeah, I agree with that too. And I mean, when you, we talked earlier before we started recording about comments on the blog. - Yes. - And you get a lot on your blog. I get a ton on my blog. And you know, when you hear the stories, I think both qualitatively and quantitatively, we can probably say the church is not in the shape it ought to be today. - Well, that's absolutely the case. And it's hard to deny it. I don't want to have my metaphorical head in the sand, but at the same time, I'm really beginning to get a bit hopeful despite the overwhelming evidence of dire statistics and dying churches. - So let's talk about some of the underlying causes of sick and dying churches. You talk about the past being the hero, right? I thought that was a really good capturing of that. Is that something that just impacts traditional churches? Because I mean, stereotypically, we'd all look at the white church in the country or the mainline church on, you know, downtown city block and go, okay, you're succumbing to the past as the hero. But have you seen other churches succumb to that? - Oh, absolutely. And I guess we really have to ask the question, what is the traditional church? We used to defend it in terms of worship style. I don't think that holds anymore. But from what I say, once the church has started within three to five years, it starts showing the sense of traditionalism. It starts doing things the way that it's always done it just because they've done it that way. And so you're not talking about just 100-year-old churches, 50-year-old churches or 25-year-old churches. You're talking about relatively new churches that start having patterns of established churches or traditional churches because they're no longer asking the question, why do we do what we do and is it still effective? - Well, any church can get in that right. I work with church planners in a number of locations. And I will ask the question, if they've been around two, two years, three years, why are you doing this? We started this our first year, it's very effective. Is it effective now? Well, I don't really know if it's effective now. So yes, this is endemic in churches across North America in particular. And it really does not depend upon the aid, unless you may be in your first to second year of a new church. - Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, I can see that. I've always said, and I mean, I'll just run this by you, I always said, churches should revisit their strategy every three to five years. Do you think that's changed? We need to review it annually. - I think we need to review it every two to three years somewhere in between that. Culture is shifting so quickly. And while we don't compromise biblical truths when culture shifts, we do have to understand the times in which we live. We have to be those it's a car type of people who understand the times in which we live and the pace of cultural changes so fast that I would be saying to churches and church leaders, measure what you're doing now, test the effectiveness. And every two to three years, come back and say, "Are we still doing what we should be doing now "in the culture and what we live?" - So that's very fair. Yeah, I can buy that. I can see with the pace of change and also the pace of the gap that exists between the culture and the church, you'll have to revisit it more significantly than that and evaluate effectiveness. I think that's a really good point. You also say in your book, Tom, that most churches don't die quickly. It's a slow erosion. So how can you tell if you're in a slow erosion? - Well, slow erosion is the most deadly type of death that sounds redundant if not an overemphasis, but it is the type where you going to a physician and the physician does not detect that anything is wrong with you. And so he misses the diagnosis and you continue to die. Slow erosion means that the problems are almost imperceptible day by day. And so you ask the question, Carrie, what can we do in order to make certain that we are aware of any type of erosion? First thing is to have an outside eyes. It could be a fellow pastor in the community. It could be a family member who visits the church once a year, anybody that can see the church from a vantage point other than daily or weekly is someone who can help us. That's why I'm such an advocate of outside eyes consultants or whatever you may get. So many churches cannot afford those, but you can get those on an informal basis. So I love the beach. I know you're in Canada, so I don't want to rub it in, but I absolutely love Florida. And one of my favorite vacation spots is in the Panhandle of Florida. And it's a beach on one end that is eroding. And if you're there, say year by year, you'll notice the erosion. If you're there day by day, you do not. It's imperceptible, it's slow. And so in a church, you may not notice a decline. Let's say you're in a church of 200 that attended. You may not really notice that decline of five or six per year. But after five years or 10 years, it then becomes a very noticeable decline, which brings up another issue, have honest metrics as well. Continue to watch what your metrics are. One of the criticisms that comes my way from time to time is that I have an overemphasis on numbers. Well, facts are our friends if they are used well. And I use numbers for numbers sake, but you use numbers in order to find out where we're going. One thing that I have done with churches owns many occasions. I've simply given them a 10-year attendance chart. And they have had their eyes wide open. Oh my goodness, I did not know that we were declining at that rate. Well, it's very slow late, but here's 10 years. So two major things you can do outside eyes to just let someone look at the church from a year to year perspective and then keep honest metrics and don't deny the reality of the metrics. I think the pendulum has swung too much where back in the '80s and the '90s, the church growth movement had a heavy emphasis on numbers. The pendulum has swung the other way where we don't want to talk about numbers anymore. Yeah, they are friends these days. Use them for good, for God's glory. Don't use them as an end, but do use them as a means. Well, it takes an awful lot of security, I think, for a leader to look at the numbers honestly because often we want them to say something they don't. Oh, I'll tell you what the numbers are. The numbers are a scale where we step on and get our weight every, every so often. You know, we would rather think that we weigh something usually a lot less than we do. And so we avoid the scales because we don't want to see the numbers. Well, it's the same thing with church life. You're not going to make the substantive changes that you need to make unless you have that test of reality. So outside eyes and numbers are two of the key ways to do that. So Tom, some of the causes you outline in the autopsy of a deceased church are not really a surprise. Like, no, I'm not saying they're not valuable. I mean, a lot of churches miss them and sometimes I miss them. Like, but no clear purpose and obsession over facilities totally get that, right? We can't give up what we have in order to get where we need to go. Or the church refuses to look like the community, right? That's sort of an ethnic thing. That's sort of like, wow, our communities change demographically or in terms of composition, but our church hasn't. We're a reflection of 1980 or 1980 or whatever. But there were a few surprises, like some stuff I just didn't expect to see, like the budget. So what does your budget tell you about your church and what are some signs you can look for in your budget that your church is dying? - As you and I just discussed, the issue of numbers is one of those big metrics that we can follow in order to see where the church is going. I would challenge church leaders to look at their budget five years ago and then look at their budget today. And when they begin to do that, ask this question, how much of our budget is going externally? In other words, how much of our budget is used in Acts 1/8 cents to recharge Jerusalem, our community of Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth? And how much of it is used for our membership and for those who are here? You definitely want your budget to take care of the members to disciple the members. I'm not suggesting that. But dying churches tend to have a monetary shift away from external uses and then to internal uses. So just simply ask the question, are we doing things that are getting our people in the community and indeed in the world with our funds? Or are we more taking care of our own now? In many cases, our churches have become religious country clubs. And what's happening is the perception by many of the members are that they are paying their dues and they pay their dues and they get their benefits, their perks instead of serving God through the church. And one of the signs of that is more and more is focused upon them. Tell you about a business meeting, business meetings are another topic into themselves and many of our churches. But I tell you about a business meeting that a church recently had where they were looking at doing some ministry in their community, particularly with some of the schools in the community. And it was going to be a $50,000 cost annually for the church. They didn't have those type of funds. And there was a few other people who said, we need to do this, we need to let our community know that we love them, we care for them, and going into the schools would be one of the great ways. But then the majority stood up and said, no, this church is about taking care of its members. That's why we are members. And so it was defeated and you could immediately see the shift in dollars that was proposed one way that now became inwardly focused. That is a dramatic example, but you can see it gradually in many churches as well. What is our church doing to reach beyond our self and how is that measured in dollars? - See, I find that really interesting. In the same way that you said in the '80s and early '90s, the pendulum swing moved so much in favor of numbers that there's a counter reaction against that now. Nobody wants to talk about numbers, but it's important to talk about numbers. I see a similar thing happening with the whole evangelism movement that's happened with the tractional churches and outsider-focused churches. You know, in the '90s it was secret churches now, it's just you're focused on outsiders. But one of the constant criticisms I hear is you're so focused on outsiders that you've neglected your members. I mean, we hear that sometimes about our church. I hear that about the whole model I write about on my blog and so on regularly, but you don't think that's necessarily the case. - I do not think that's the case. One of the more common criticisms of those of us who are advocating an outward focus or an evangelistic focus or community impact focus is that we are not taking care of our own. And the common argument carry is this. If we would disciple our people more closely, more fervently, then they would become more outwardly focused. So let's focus inward and therefore they will become outward. It didn't work that way. Discipleship includes the outward focus. You become a greater disciple by going. Matthew 28, 19 didn't say stay and absorb knowledge. It says go and make disciples. And so part of the process of discipleship is making disciples, is going beyond ourselves. And so if we think it's the eternal absorption of knowledge all the time, we will remain inwardly focused and we won't reach beyond ourselves. - Now I think you and I are very much of similar mind on that. I think our definition of spiritual maturity is wrong because often it is that self-absorption that I need to know more, I need to know more. And I think a lot of Christians are about 3000 Bible verses overweight. We just have not worked it off, right? - That's a good metaphor. - A component for me is like, if I'm not investing in somebody who's far from Christ, I'm not growing spiritually. Like there's only so much you can absorb and I think a big part of spiritual maturity is actually exactly what you said. It's making disciples. It's not being a disciple. Jesus didn't say go and be disciples. He said go and make disciples. And that's an inherently outward focused thing that I think the church should be the best in the world at. You know, we serve, we give, we invest in other people. And that actually in turn, spawns maturity. You don't get when you're sitting there just trying to learn more. - I'm sure many of your listeners will know this, Carrie, but Matthew 28, 19, the go is actually not imperative. It's a part of simple. And what it is saying in the command of Christ to his followers is as you go, instead of go, as you go, make disciples. So there is always the command that we are in constant movement, focus outward. And we are not just absorbing inwardly. If we're not as we are going to use that part of simple phrase, then we are not becoming greater disciples, nor are we making disciples. - Yeah, that's such a good point. Another thing that really surprised me is you said that dying churches rarely prayed together. Now that's interesting. I think prayer is very, very important. One of the criticisms, I don't know whether you get it on your blog. I get it on mine all the time. It's like, where's prayer in this list? And it's foundational to me. It's like if you're not praying, all the strategy in the world doesn't really matter. I get that. But I know some churches that pray together regularly and are still dying. And I know other people who think that prayer fixes all things. All you have to do is praying. You don't need a strategy. So help me understand. What does healthy prayer in a church look like if prayerlessness is one of the reasons that churches are dying? - You know, have you ever written something or said something and you wish you had said it a little differently and elaborated on it a little more? - Great. - Oh yeah, that's happened Tuesday and Wednesday and yeah, yeah, regularly. - That's one of the cases in the little book autopsy that I wish I had elaborated more. The sense of prayerlessness of which I speak in that book is not that people are not praying. - Okay. - It is that there is a type of prayer. There is prayer that is redundant, wrote, and we are praying because we want to. And then there's a prayer of fervency because we are burdened for those both in our church and outside of our church. That is a very subjective different type of prayer, but it is a different type of prayer. And then secondly, look at the types of prayers. Again, don't make prayers too legalistic, but look at the types of prayers that there are. Is there prayer for the community? Is there prayer for the unchurch? Is there specific prayer for those who are not believers in Christ? Or is it primarily a sick list? We do need to pray for those who are sick or infirmed. But is it just that? Or is it truly a type of prayer that is compelling us to look beyond ourselves? You look at the great prayer movements, and I could focus on North America because I'm more familiar with that than the rest of the world, but Jeremiah Lemfier in New York City and the great prayer revival, that was a prayer movement that started outwardly because there was this great burden because there were not people being reached with the gospel. So they prayed that burden. Certainly prayer takes place. And matter of fact, in many of the dying churches, if you don't pray, they will consider that you are doing something spiritually wrong, but prayer has to have that fervent outward focus as well. I don't think I spoke clearly in that book and in that particular part because it sounds like I just say, pray or not pray. And that was not what I intended to say. - Well, no, that's a really interesting distinction. And I get that. You're saying like, you need to be burdened. And I think a lot of Christian prayer these days in North America anyway, and I think in the Western world is very selfish. It's like, God protect me, God keep me, God, make sure I never get sick, go to the hospital, heal these people, and that's it. But there's no burden. Like it's not your prayer isn't tied to the mission. - Absolutely. - And when we look at them, when we begin to look at the prayers of the early church, particularly in Acts 2.41 and following where it talks about, they committed themselves, they dedicated themselves, they were consumed literally. And one of those things that they were consumed with were prayers. And what was the result of that Acts 2.47, the Lord added to them daily those who were being saved. And so their prayers were always outwardly focused while they were praying inwardly for the needs that they had as well. - Well, and I must say, I mean, prayer is something, it's a daily discipline for me, but I mean, you confess, here's a confession for me. I've had a really ambivalent relationship with corporate prayer in the church over the years. And I think you've helped me diagnose it because I mean, I think we should all pray. I think we should pray as staff. I think we should pray as elders. I think we should pray in our small groups. But so much of that prayer is so self-absorbed. So much of that prayer is just make my life better, make me do this. That I'm like, I don't think that's why the church should get together to pray, but when you start to pray for the lost, you start to pray for your community. You start to pray for people who aren't yet part of your community. I think that is some of the best prayer that the church can pray. And it's not change the world. It's not like, you know, may someone so wind the next election or cultural trans reverse or, you know, Lord, get rid of this Supreme Court justice or something. I think it's a question of just reaching out in your community. That's an extremely helpful distinction. Well, it is not an either or it's a both and, but we tend to gravitate toward the inwardly focus. That's the way we do with our lives. That's where we do with everything else that is a part of us. And prayer tends to move more and more inwardly instead of outwardly. - Right. You also talk about decreasing pastoral tenures. So people are just staying less long in a church. How long does a pastor have to stay to turn a church around? - Every church is different. I'll make that caveat to begin. But typically, the church does not accept the pastor as the pastor until the pastor has been there about five years. - Wow. - And with the average tenure. Now this is the churches in the United States, don't have the North American number, but the church in the United States, the average tenure is just under four years, about 3.6 years. And the most common time that a pastor leaves is between years one and three. And they're leaving after the honeymoon is over and after the great first conflict is taken place. And therefore churches are not seeing leaders who are accepted, who are really identified as you are my pastor, or if you're on staff, you are my leader in this position. I wish I knew the psychology of why that acceptance takes so long, but it is a reality. And in most churches, you will see an inflection point in many churches when the pastor gets beyond the fifth year. And it's at that point that you begin to see some real neat things that happen in the church. Can it happen before year five? Absolutely. Can we have a dead church after year five? Absolutely. But correlatively, all other things being equal. Those are years five to about 12 are the prime years for a pastor. - Oh really? So there's something, that's a sweet spot. Year five to year 12. That is a sweet spot by almost all metrics. I am not ready to declare that longer term pastors are ineffective, meaning 12 years or more. There are so few pastors who make it that much. We don't have sufficient data to be able to conclude that. - Well, I've been 20 years in the same community. Now it took the course of two different churches, but basically with some of the same core, which is interesting, and I've always wondered, I'll just pick your brain on it while we're on the subject. Like if you look at the national ministries of significance, anything from Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Steven Fertik, New Spring with Perry Noble, tends to be the founding pastor, that has stayed now a decade, 20 years, 25 years, Bill Hybels in Chicago, and even guys like John Piper and so on and so forth. Is, that's not an automatic ticket to effectiveness, but do you think there's a correlation between lifelong ministry and lifelong effectiveness, or are those the exceptions, the outliers? - They're outliers, but that does not mean that they're exception, and that doesn't sound like I'm doing a good Malcolm Gladwell job by saying that they're the outliers in the sense that there are very few of them that get to this type of health in their churches, but they are also the exceptions, and that very few of them actually make it to this point. And so our database is so small, but here's what I've observed here, and it's more than an observation, I don't want this to be totally anecdotal, because we have done some tenure data studies. It is more connected to how long you were there than if you are the founding pastor. It just happens that if you are the founding pastor, you tend to stay longer. - Okay, that's probably true. - Because you're able to lead the church to fit more of your personality, and therefore the conflict is a different type of conflict. But give me an example, I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and the church I go to is Brentwood Church. Brentwood has existed for almost 50 years, and it has had two pastors, and my pastor is the second pastor, he's approaching his 23rd, 24th year. He is the type of pastor that when he says something, not in an autocratic way, but in a true leadership way, the entire membership says, yes, we want to follow you. He was not the founding pastor, but he has been there long enough to have by and both from the church membership and from the community. So I do think it's more of a reflection of tenure than whether or not you're the founding pastor. - Well, and you said something else in one of your podcasts where you're talking about the impending retirement of many boomer pastors. You said that you really have to be careful in the long-term tenure to make sure that you're still effective, right? Because there's another thing, and I mean, I saw this as a young leader, you'd see people hit their late 40s or early 50s, and they hit cruise control. And they stopped leading a few years ago, but they need the paycheck or they just can't move on, or as you've said, their identity is tied up in what they're doing. Is effectiveness really measured just by looking at the metrics and whether there's fresh leadership or how do you determine effectiveness over a longer tenure? - Well, first of all, we have to be clear that tenure does not automatically engender effectiveness. There are many ineffective longer-term pastors and other church leaders. So that would be the automatic first step. And I want to answer your question specifically, but I do want to kind of go in a little different direction than you can bring back the issue of the boomers, the roughly 80 million, 75 to 80 million, and now they are in positions of leadership in secular world and in the churches. And many of them, because of the economic, the great recession that hit our world, many of them are hanging on financially, but they're not hanging on philosophically and ministerially. And so those churches are becoming ineffective. It does not mean that an older boomer pastor cannot be effective, but many of them are staying for the wrong reasons instead of staying for the right ministry reasons. So we're watching a number of churches with older to middle-aged boomer pastors 50 to 55 and up. And we're watching to see what's happening in that transition. I fully expect that many of them are going to stay to 70, even 75, and a lot of that, not all of it. A lot of that will be driven by their retirement plan instead of-- - So not healthy. - Not healthy, yes. - I feel like this is the three little bears. It's like too short, too long. We just need to find just right. So we're in the middle, right? - That's right. - And it really, I can totally see that. That under five years, it's hard to really cement trust because I think leadership is built on trust and you might get a jumpstart and get it after two or three, but five to 12 being the sweet spot. And then beyond 12, you better make sure that you're still effective and you're not hanging on for selfish reasons. And I think part of that, Andy Stanley talks about this a lot, but holding things loosely. I've thought, you know, more than once, like maybe we need to get a younger leader, maybe, and I'll bring my leadership on an open platter to the elders and say, like, what do you guys think? And they're like, no, no, no, you're the guy, keep going. And I was like, okay, I'll keep going. But that can't go on forever at some point. I gotta step back, too. You wrote about a lot of different causes 'cause it's just, it's a fascinating book and I thought it was a really succinct summary of sort of the state of the church today. Anything else in your research or maybe that wasn't even in the book that you would say, yeah, here's another factor. Here's something that's really important, 'cause we're not gonna get to all of it, but like anything else you wanna share before we go to what I'll call the lightning round. - Okay, before we go to the lightning round, I'll make this added comment. Mike, going back to my church, Brentwood, in South Nashville and my pastor, Mike Golan, I heard someone ask him not knowing his tenure at the church and I think his tenure's 23 years to be exact. I heard someone say how many pastors has Brentwood had and say the past 25 years? And he said five, but they were all me. (laughs) And what he was saying is he had to reinvent himself. He had to learn new skills. He had to refresh. He said, if I were the pastor I was when I came here, this church would be the church it was when I came here. He said, I have to keep on reinventing, refreshing and getting just a fresh wind of God's spirit and leading as a new person on a continuous basis. He's a prime example of someone who has stayed and stayed well and I think will finish well. - Well, I'm so glad you said that because I think that is a leadership principle. I would agree. I've been here for 20 years. I think there's been four or five different carries. - Yes. - I have to learn. I mean, the stuff that got me through my early 30s, it's not gonna lead me into the future. And that is a very painful emotional journey. I mean, when you have to reinvent yourself, you have to look in the mirror. You have to get mentors around you. You've got to get people going, okay, Carrie, you can't do that anymore. It's like, well, it worked. - Well, look at the two of us right now. We are on a podcast. We write blogs. If you had asked us seven or eight years ago, would this be our lives? We probably said, I don't even know what that life is. - Exactly. - But that's the world in which we live. And if we're not in this world, we're not, we're not contact with culture. So therefore, we're not helping to change culture for the good. - No, I think that's a really, really good point. Okay, so we're gonna, I'm gonna borrow a little bit here from John Lee Dumas and from Rich Burch on unsiminary.com. And you had said it was okay. Once in a while, I'm gonna throw this out to, just on social media, hey, I'm interviewing, you know, Dr. Tom Rainer and if you got any questions. So there were some listeners and readers who had some questions. So we're gonna go to that, if that's okay. We'll make these a little bit snappier, but David, I think it's Mary, M-E-H-R-I-E, wants to know, when you begin a new ministry, it's a great question. How much change should you do in the first six months? Brackets, if you wanna keep your job, I added that. Are there levels of change that will cause friction and others that won't? - Well, the answer, which is always, the answer people hate here is it's contextual. Every, every situation is different, every opportunity is different. One of the things that I did when I was a pastor, I would go into a church, and I would find the key leaders in the church, and I would make certain that I had their ownership for whatever change I had, and I would do as much change as I could do early, where those key owners, those key influencers, would nod their head and say, it's okay, they may be in positions of informal leadership, but you find them quickly. I do as much as I can within those first time, first few months, but at the same time, I am making certain that I am not going beyond, you can eat an elephant one bite at a time, but if you start swallowing that thing whole, you will get sick, you'll die, you'll be gone. - Well, a really good principle too. Boy, there's some good stuff in there, is to find the influencers. I found I had to do that when I started here for the first time, is there are definitely people who carry disproportionate weight, whether they're in leadership or not, and if you want to go back, David, episode, I think it's 10 with Ron Edmondson, we'll link to it in the show notes. Ron engineered, and you and I both know Ron. - He's great. - Oh man, he engineered a ton of change in the first 18 months where he is right now in Lexington, Kentucky, and then a guy by the name of Dom Russo, and we'll link to his episode as well. I can't remember what number it was off the top of my head, but Dom Russo in Sarnia, Ontario, engineered a lot of change in a traditional context, and again, the first 24 months, and they share some stuff on that, so great answer. Darryl Roland wanted to know, what are some key changes to be aware of when a ministry transitions into multi-site? That's one of the big subjects these days, a lot of churches, and a multi-site used to be for mega churches now, so many churches are doing it. So what are some of the key changes to be aware of when you transition to that? - Multi-site is a trend that is no longer a trend, it is an established reality, and I think multi-site is going to be something that will be here for years and years to come, actually I think is healthy. The number one issue with multi-site is continuing to have a leadership pipeline. Many churches go into multi-site, and then they say where are the leaders for these new campuses, for these new locations, for these new venues, leadership development is one of the keys you have to be focused on. I hate to keep coming back to my church, Brentwood, but right now, six or seven campuses, and the key issue that we are facing right now is how are we training all of the people that will carry the vision of Brentwood, and to all of these campuses. So leadership development is a huge issue. - Yeah, and that should, we should have you back into a separate podcast on that leadership development. It is one of those conversations that comes up in every leadership circle I know. I've got a friend who leads one of the largest churches in our country, and he's like, I could launch 20 more campuses if I had 20 more leaders. - There you go, exactly. - And you see that too? - I see that too, and I see that in churches all across North America now. And we will see Kerry, we will see churches of 100 and 200 become multi-site more and more when it used to be the mega-church movement only. - And that's, like you say, that's not such a bad thing in an era where a lot of churches are dying, it can be taking over those churches and injecting health where there hasn't been health. - Right. - Just I'm sure if I was Darryl, I'd be asking, okay, so what are one or two keys to developing the leadership pipeline? You wanna take a shot at that? - Well, I'll certainly take a shot at Darryl. One of the first things you have to do, and we talked about this in simple church when we talked about members growing into scientists, you have to have a clear process. And so what is your process for developing people? So that's one thing. Secondly, you have to have a clear network and you should be constantly asking through informal and formal networks, where can I find the right leaders for this? Those are the two paths that my church are going right now, having a clear process that they have developed. Well, again, in a lightning round, just going through the process would take about 45 minutes so we're not gonna do that. But they also have a clear recruiting if I could use that word on a very informal and formal basis as well. So those are the two keys. - Good stuff. Justin Delacruza asked, "What are you learning about the importance "in the rise of campus pastor "or what a lot of people are calling them now, "location pastors? "Any trends you see there, "any like key insights around the rise "of location or campus pastors?" - Well, first of all, it's a reality. That's one of the trends. I said this in either a podcast or a blog post some time ago, the most highly demanded position these days of vacancy is a campus pastor. So you and I talked about this earlier, William Vanderblum in a Vanderblum in search group. You go to his site and you look at all the openings and I believe number one among those is campus pastors. So here's the unique thing that we're looking for. We just be in the churches across North America in general. Here's one of the key things that we're looking for. We are looking for people who are leaders who can serve under leaders. And that is a unique type of person because they will-- - Well said. - They will not be the key visionary, but they will be a visionary. And so that's a whole different type of person than we have had in the past. - You're right, you know. I remember when we became a North Point strategic partner at Kenexus, I had to ask myself that question 'cause I was kind of used to being the leader of our church and I was part of a denomination, but it's like, you know, am I ready to submit to someone else's leadership? And the answer was, well, of course, and Andy Stanley's a great leader to follow. - There you go. - But it takes a degree of humility and it takes, yeah, you're right, you're on a team and particularly, you know, if you've got two campuses, yeah, you've got a lot of influence. If you've got 12, you're one of 12. - That's right. - And that, those are really, really good points. And so you need that humility, but you also need that leadership and you have to be prepared, depending on the model, sometimes to not be the principal communicator. - Can you be Joshua for 40 years while there's a Moses? - Mm, that's a great description, yeah. Yeah, that's hard, that's hard. And finally, Brent Dummler has got a question. He leads a great church in Georgia, I know Brent, and he has a question about multi-ethnic, multi-generational ministry. Now, this is something that Derwin Gray is doing. He's been on, I think it's episode 17, Derwin Chesky at Heartland Church in Indianapolis. They're doing multi-ethnic, multi-generational ministry. And I know that's a growing trend and the church Derwin's talked a lot about it. Brent's trying to do the same. What are some keys you've seen to doing multi-ethnic, multi-generational ministry well? - Simple answer to begin, leadership, leadership, leadership. Multi-ethnic, multi-generational typically does not happen by accident. It typically happens by a very key and intentional leadership. So that's number one, you're probably not going to move to multi-generational unless the leaders are highly intentional about moving in that direction. Number two, the millennial generation I define is that roughly 80 million born between 1980 and 2000. This generation, if they end up in an all-same ethnic group, such as Anglo or other, same generation, just young people, they are not going to stay. They are a part of a culture that is multi-ethnic and multi-generational. And if the church looks differently than that, they're going to think the church is an aberration that doesn't have an impact on the community. And so if we really want to reach that millennial generation, then that is a key for the future. - Yeah, do you think some of that, because I mean, Derwin's African-American, Derwin, my friend in Indianapolis, he's Caucasian, is part of that like modeling diversity in your senior leadership team and that sort of thing. And I don't mean token, I mean, like real. Like you've actually just got a variety of things, does it start there or? 'Cause I mean, at the end of the day, when you're the point leader, you're one nationality or, you know, you're one background or the other, like I'm a Caucasian guy. So, you know, a person cannot be multi-ethnic. - A person cannot be multi-ethnic, but the leadership team can't be multi-ethnic. And if it's not modeled at the leadership level, it will not be modeled throughout the church. And so I know Derwin well and love his leadership. And I love what he is doing, absolutely. It is a leadership issue, it is an example issue, and it is a critical issue for the future, because we're not going to see these younger adults come in unless we are modeling that well in our churches. - Well, Tom, I wanna thank you so much for today. This is the first of what I hope will be a number of great conversations. And really, thank you for being so generous with your time with us today. - Well, thank you. I tell you, Kerry, it's been just a joy to watch your ministry. We link all the time to your articles on my blog at Tomrainer.com, and we are looking forward to having you as a podcast guest where you will be in the hot seat. - Well, that'll be fun, that'll be fun. - I'll look forward to it. - Hey, Tom, yeah, and let's, before we go, where can people find you? Easiest place, Tomrainer.com. - Tomrainer.com, that's T-H-O-M, the weird spelling, R-A-I-N-E-R.com, right? - And then tell them about your podcast, too. - Podcast is a regular on leadership. You can get there through my blog. We actually post the podcast with a link on Tuesdays and Fridays, is when we do the post, of course, is there any Tuesday and Friday, or like many others, it's at iTunes and other locations as well. - Great, great. And yeah, you do too a week. Like, that's ambitious, good for you. Yes, I do, and it is ambitious, if not crazy. - Yeah, thanks, Tom. - Thank you, Kerry. - Well, Tom's just one of those guys that I just loved hanging out with, and we've actually never met as we sort of hinted at in the interview, like in person, but I look forward to doing that. And if you haven't checked out Tom's stuff, you need to, just go to Tomrainer.com, that's with an H-T-H-O-M, Rainer.com. All the links are in the show notes. He's written so many books as well, and if you just go to his site, you'll be able to find them. And the interview is sort of based on autopsy of a deceased church, which is one of his more recent books. So, super excited that Tom would be a guest on the podcast, and if you haven't checked out his podcast, he does this like twice a week, which is awesome. I don't know how he does that, but he does that. I guess it's a full-time job. So, just go to Rainer on Leadership on iTunes, and you can find it. And again, all the links are in the show notes, just Kerry Newhoff.com/episode36. Next week, we are back on Tuesday with a brand new episode. Chris Rivers from Culture Bus, used to work at New Spring Church with Perry Noble, all about how to lead your team into a unified culture. It's a great interview. I can't wait to hang out with you next Tuesday. And the best way to make sure you don't miss it is to subscribe, so hit that big subscribe button, and just subscribe. It's absolutely free, and if you would be so kind, if you love this, to leave a rating and review, or just some honest feedback. I would love that on iTunes. I read everyone. Thank you so much for that, and we'll see you next Tuesday. I really do hope that this helped you lead, like never before. - You've been listening to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)