The Bootcamp Bros are back at it and this time they are musing about what they would go back and do differently in their first 100 days as Replanters. It’s not too late if you’re into your Replanting Journey, pray, develop a plan, recruit some leaders, pick a starting point, and go for it.

Jimbo started with something “not” to do: Forget your family. You can throw yourself in so deeply that you neglect your family during the first 100 days-don’t do that!

Here are more suggestions

• Schedule plenty of face time with the congregation to have fun and fellowship! You need connection time to develop relationships and become their pastor.
• Identify the “influencers and powerbrokers” Note: there are directional influencers and emotional influencers-there’s a difference you need to know they difference and who they are.
• Learn about your community buy getting a great demographics report-we suggest Double Doc-Josh Dryer, get your free demo report here. Additionally-pound the pavement-ask people in your community; “If our church were going to serve this community in some meaningful way-what would that be?”
• Change something physical in a visible way-not the flags, the history room etc. but something that catches the eye and helps people know-things are changing.
• Find out where God is already at work in your church and community-and then join him.
• Celebrate and commemorate your first 100 days!

What would you do differently in your first 100 days?  Drop us a line, send us a text-we would love to hear from you.

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Show notes powered by Descript are an approximation of the verbal content, consult podcast audio for accuracy

JimBo Stewart: [00:00:00] Here we are back at it again more than 100 , which makes us bonafide experts. And I’m here with the bonafide Bob Bickford here in South Carolina, the Palmetto or Palmetto, Palmetto, Palmetto state. and I’m excited, man. We’ve got tomorrow to go with the bees, some barbecue. And a big goal revitalization summit with our buddy James Nugent.

Bob Bickford: It’s going to be great. Excited to be here. James is, done phenomenal work with the South Carolina Baptist in, some of our best partners are here in South Carolina. We’re thankful for James and Johnny. Rumbo Craig tuck, bobble Bob Lowman. Is he in South Carolina? He’s a Metro. I don’t know if he’s in North Carolina.

He’s a carrier. He is

JimBo Stewart: Carolinian. So I’m going to count him. Yeah. So if we’re going to do that, it just go and a Walker in Walker,

Bob Bickford: Armstrong, the velvet hammer and

JimBo Stewart: hammer himself. And we’re coming off of the, the crash from the party of 100 episodes. It was a, if you aren’t [00:01:00] there, we only sent out special invites to the VIP guests.

It was a super exclusive rooftop event. Almost nobody

Bob Bickford: knew about it, including me.

JimBo Stewart: So, here’s, here’s what I think to be a fun thing for us to talk to. And let’s, let’s milk the 100 idea. Just, just a little further, if you’ll, if you’ll indulge me, I will. Don’t you. Okay. So here’s what I want to talk about today. Bob, if you were to go back and start again, I’m not asking you to, so don’t, don’t don’t freak out.

Bob Bickford: Can I hit the reset?

JimBo Stewart: Just hit a reset. So here we go. If you hit a reset button. Yeah. Would you make sure that you did in your first 100 days? I want to start out with one thing not to do, because here’s what, here’s some, a lesson. I, I carried over an idea, you know, when we make metaphors or we carry things from one area of the world to another, we should probably make sure [00:02:00] that should go that direction from one thing to it.

Bob Bickford: That’s appropriate to carry into the new

JimBo Stewart: situation. So I have a restaurant background and in the restaurant world, there’s literally, maybe nothing more important than your first 100 days. Your first 100 days will decide a lot on whether the restaurant is gonna make it or not. much like a replant really takes about three years or so, but those first 100 days really set the ground.

So I had, that was my mindset. And so we moved from new Orleans, Louisiana to Jacksonville, Florida, and I literally looked at Audria and she was on board. She was supportive. She agreed. And I said, Hey, babe, I’ll see you in a hundred days. Right. Good. And I slept at the same time, the house that my family slept at, but man, I woke up at 5:00 AM, did my quiet time and then left before.

If I was awake, I was having dinner with a church member every night or in the community with somebody. Sharing the gospel with somebody [00:03:00] doing something. And I was intentionally doing that and it certainly helped create a little bit of momentum and energy, but the way that a hundred days timed out for us was my wife and I, his 10 year anniversary, which we had preplanned was going to be at Disney world because that’s where we went on our honeymoon.

And so we’ve decided every 10 years, we’re going back to Disney. And we’re going to do the, the picture. Right. And we’re going to all the pictures we took the castle. well, yeah, whatever. No, like whatever pictures we took on our honeymoon, we’re real. We recreate them. Oh, I got ya. Okay. And we bought the same frame, everything.

So we’ve got a 10 year twenties coming up, not too far from now. So we’ll do that. We’ll do it again. We’ll have the honeymoon and the 10 years of 20 years. Right. So here’s the problem though. We go on this 10 year anniversary trip to Disney world and it took, it took like four days for my adrenaline to come down.

No, like I could not like she was so excited about going on the lazy river, bro. That was torture. [00:04:00] I, I had no idea how to, how to just sit in a tube and she made me leave my phone at the, at the little thing. I couldn’t bring it with me. And so we’re sitting in that lazy river for like 20 minutes. I’m keeping a cool face, man.

It’s it’s anniversary and I’m trying to just make sure she knows she matters to me more than this ministry, but internally I was struggling. It was really hard. So don’t, don’t ignore your family in the first 100 days. So let’s just going to start with that. Okay.

Bob Bickford: That’s good advice. So we get the big, the big rock in the jar, and now we’re going to put the other big rocks in the jar.

And then fill it with sand and fill it with water. Is that what we do? Yeah. That’s

JimBo Stewart: that’s that’s honestly, man, that’s a great analogy. If you don’t know what he’s talking about. Yeah. Figure it out.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. YouTube it, and you’ll see, you’ll see. About 45,000 pastors that dispatch the, I

JimBo Stewart: saw that as a teenager, man, that it impacted me.

It was ping [00:05:00] pong balls. But it impacted me. I was like, man, that was a good way to share. Go get your priorities. Right.

Bob Bickford: All right. So first hundred days, here’s one of the big rocks. All right. You’ve already put the, don’t leave your family. Don’t ignore your family for the person that raised. Yeah. Let me, let me go to the positive side of things.

Please do. I think you need to have as much face time and fun time and fellowship time with the church. Not just a couple of people, the church, but as many people in the church. You just need to have fun. You need to get to know each other. You need to build relational connections. And as a re planner, let me tell you that can be hard.

And here’s why in a replant, if it’s been in for, in decline for more than five years, 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, you’re going to have a lot of dysfunctional people in our church that don’t know how to do relationship. And it’s going to feel like the awkward middle school dance, and it will be weird and it will feel funny and you will.

What in the world have I done right. And coming here, but you know what, you’re just going to have to have fun and you’re gonna have to get with people. And, [00:06:00] think you need to do that.

JimBo Stewart: it’s so important to realize that the difference between starting a restaurant and a replant is you have to really actually pass through these.

And care about them and you don’t get to fire the bus. Boy, if he slow you, you have to love that bus boy. And it’s so going in and knowing that this, this is a relational role that you’re playing and you cannot come in with strategy over relationship. You can’t do that. That’s the mistake I made. and so spend that face time, spend time in homes, if you can.

But not so much that you’re outside of your own home all the time while you’re doing that. I think it would also be important to identify who are the power brokers, the influencers, the top five people that, if they make a decision on how they feel about you, there’s going to be some people who are going to fall in line with their decision.

And their opinion [00:07:00] on you or the direction that you’re taking things.

Bob Bickford: Totally. So I want to break this down in a couple of ways. One is, I want to say you’ve just identified the directional influencers and they influenced the direction of the church by their permission, by their endorsement, all those sorts of things.

And so you need to understand who are those people when, when there’s a decision to be made, there are the people that are looked at in the room. Like there were kind of the last, maybe not speaking. Makes me glass, but it’s everybody doesn’t say anything until that person has spoken or you realize they’re the gatekeeper on this.

Here’s another influencer that I overlooked. There’s usually inside the church and emotional influencer. Yeah. so re planters are all about change and they want to see things move forward. And here’s what I underestimated and ignored. I think I didn’t realize who the. Influencers of the church were, and emotional influencers are not always positive, right?

It’s an emotional influencer. It can take the, couple of ladies that are upset about something, there’s somebody who has questions about something, [00:08:00] and then they can feel like they’ve got to take on that emotion. And they’ve got to shepherd those people and be an advocate for those people. And so, because they’re upset, they upset the entire congregation.

And I ran into that and that was one of the most difficult things that I completely undressed. And we had a person who was, appeared to be somebody who would really have a lot to contribute towards our replant, but they were an emotional influencer and they got off track and they took all of the frustrations and the concerns of the people.

And they began to just influence the entire congregation. Yeah. And by saying things like, well, you know, I think a few people are upset about such and such. And so what happened is then they had just begun to spread through our congregation, even into Jimbo. The core group that came with. And so that emotional influence or even influence them in a not so positive way.

JimBo Stewart: Essentially what we’re talking about is the characteristic or competency of organizational awareness. And so we define that as a replant [00:09:00] or, or revitalizer with organizational awareness is adept at understanding how power dynamics work within the church, the anticipating how changes would be received, recognized.

We’re change may produce friction and showing an awareness of how current practice and changes affected their position within the community, in which they served. And so the other part of organizational where’s that we haven’t talked about that I think is important to learn in that first 100 days is the profile of the case.

Uh, obviously demographics help, which you can reach out to double doc doubled up. You can on our website, there’s a free demographics request, report thing that you can click. And I don’t think that’ll get you in touch with the best demographic Missy ologists that has ever existed. The devil doc, Josh dryer.

Now he really is very good. And he’ll work with you to figure out how to serve you. But not just, but here’s the thing. The demographics are helpful. And I read demographic reports and all those things and my first 100 days, [00:10:00]but that does not replace the need to put some, some feet on pavement and walk around the community, walk around the neighborhood, talk to business owners, talk to people who live in that community.

And there’s an opportunity you have in those first hundred days that you don’t really have. To say the phrase with Elise with integrity. You shouldn’t say this after too much after that. Hey, I’m new here. And the new pastor at this church in this community right here. Yes. That one. Yes. We’re still open.

Yeah. They still do things there at that church. Hey, I just want to ask you a couple questions. I would ask just conversationally. I would say, Hey, good to meet you. New pastor in town at such and such church. As I just want to ask you, cause you know, this community better than I. If our church, we’re going to serve this community in some meaningful way.

And you got to decide what that was, what would it be? And you get to hear from them, what their felt needs are, what they think the community really needs in that moment. And that gives you [00:11:00] great opportunities to get to know them better, to have conversations with them, to share the gospel with them, to invite them to church.

I mean, I had some very fruitful time pounding the pavement in those first a hundred. That really helped shape a lot of things, missional direction for our church and some great relationships. People who got saved. And man, it helps it is helpful for a replant to get somebody in the water to, to celebrate a new life in Christ.

And that manages shot in the arm for a congregation, especially if they haven’t seen. In a long time. And so I would put a priority on pounding the pavement as that part of organizational awareness of getting to know what, what else would you look to in those first a hundred days? Bomb. Yeah. I

Bob Bickford: want to go real simple and real practical here.

I want to suggest that in the first hundred days you need to change something that’s physical in a visible way. Right? So that

JimBo Stewart: means remove [00:12:00] the flags, throw the pulpit away. And get rid of

Bob Bickford: their remembrance table, get rid of the history room and all the China’s. Yeah, well, Jimbo, you’re not quite hearing me.

Here’s what I’m saying. Now you could do all that, but then you would be done in your first hundred days at the end of your a hundred days. And if that’s your goal, maybe you should try all those things. But one of the simple things that you can do is. You need to paint a kid’s classroom or the kids’ hallway, or you need to, uh, you know, freshen up the lobby for the guests who are going to come in, do something physical that’s visible.

Right. I was noticing, and I think I texted this to you. there was a recently, an organizational leader that was, entering a new realm of leadership and he took a picture of their faces. And outside their facility. The first thing I noticed, you know, what I noticed about the facility. I [00:13:00] said, Jimbo, the bushes in front of the facility that had been planted there 25 years ago, like we’re covering almost the entire facility, looked overgrown, nobody trimmed them, et cetera.

And here’s the deal. Everybody had, everybody drove into that place, that organization, and they just got used to it. Right? Yeah. They just needed to be. Trimmed really good or taken completely out or freshen up. You know, there’s a lot of churches that

JimBo Stewart: same thing that we had that same. Exactly. We had to take all the bushes out from the front of the sanctuary right there by that street.

We had to take them all. They were all massive. They’d turn into trees.

Bob Bickford: Yes. Yes. And so for us in our life, here’s what we had. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this at a church, but back in the day, a church service. was really big and I think there’s no better place to like, lose your witness and possibly your salvation.

I don’t believe you can lose your salvation, but if I did, you could lose it played church softball. So do our church played softball. We had all these [00:14:00] softball trophies in our lobby in a trophy case. I’m not sure why we needed them there. I’m not sure what that did. I’m not sure what a visitor coming into the facility would think.

And so I just like, you know what? I think we could probably clear these out. It makes us space. Bulletin board that talks about the new things we’re doing and all that. So we did that and then we also painted some of the kids’ classrooms because we all of a sudden started having kids in those places, what was needed to be painted.

And so we got everybody together and we did that and it was, it wasn’t one of those things necessarily that caused everybody to be in an uproar, but it was something that we could all do. And then when everybody walked in the building, they saw something new and don’t underestimate the power of, of something visible.

That is new to help your congregation think, all right, we’re making some changes.

JimBo Stewart: I think part of that is even letting the congregation be a part of that process of telling them, Hey, here’s what we’re going to do. And we’re going to do this because we’re moving forward and let’s take a step further. I think it wouldn’t be a [00:15:00] really bad idea at all in the first hundred days to have a work day.

Right. Let’s let’s have a work day. And in you with your outside eyes. Because you’re new and you’re not nose blind. You come in with a legal pad, just walk around the whole place and make a list of easy task. Right? Easy things. Maybe it’s just trash pickup. Maybe just painting a couple of rooms. Maybe it’s pressure washing a sidewalk, something that doesn’t require a license insured contractor or a permit or a permit, right.

Something, something simple, something. And, and say, Hey, here are all the projects I want to see us get done at Workday. And then hopefully you have partner churches, mother, churches that could even come in as well. We, it can be relationship building time, have dinner on the grounds afterwards, have pizza or something that can serve a lot out of the same things that we’ve been talking about doing a work day and letting them be a part of that process and [00:16:00] own the future of the team.

You know, one of the things I think about as, as I was thinking about walking around the community as the old Blackaby look for where God’s already at work. and I love, I love the posture of that mentality of not assuming that you’re, bringing God into that community, right.

Recognizing that God’s already at work. And let’s see what he’s doing. What is he up to? Right. What are, what are nonprofit Christ based organizations that maybe are already doing something they’re pair of churches, other churches? Yeah. What’s, you know, there’s, I guarantee you, there’s something, there’s something that, and to ask God to show that to you, walk around and pray and spend time asking God to show you those things.

I think. all of this culminates, how though Bob, so we, we, we’ve got this a hundred days and we’ve started to plan out a lot of these things. What would be the best way to cap that off?

Bob Bickford: [00:17:00] So if you’ve had a small child in your home who has completed their first hundred days of school, you may do something like this.

You may get a hundred cotton balls and glue them on a piece of paper, right? You may. A hundred pennies and put them in a jar on

JimBo Stewart: a, on like a day, 100 of preschool. They dress up like old people.

Bob Bickford: I’ve never

JimBo Stewart: seen that. You’ve never seen them. Oh, it’s so it’s a new trend and I love it. Here’s

Bob Bickford: the gear for it. Oh, okay. It’s what my daughter did. We lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, and it was a hundred days and she glued a hundred pieces of macaroni to a piece of construction paper. I like that. Well, I don’t know about your family, but you know, where every craft that a kid did in Sunday school or preschool or kindergarten with will Jimbo and ours in our home, it always went on top of the fridge.

Right. It disappeared up there. Like if you’ve ever watched toy story, you remember, we see the penguin who is squeaker, [00:18:00] who was broken and when he got put on the sheet, right. So anyways like that, but Jibo, you know what happened in Corpus Christi? there was a mouse. That started eating the macaroni off of the, off of the construction paper.

We, we heard this noise and I’m going somewhere with this, but we heard this noise and we didn’t know what it was. And so walked into the kitchen, turn the light on the noise would stop. Leave the kitchen, turn the light off the noise would resume it. So finally, I got a little flat. And I looked up on the fridge and I, I came face to face with that little mouse.

Did you jump? No, I’m not afraid of them. I went to the 24 hour Walmart. I got some peanut butter and a trap and I tripped that mouse and my wife was happy. Then we could sleep that night. GMO. It was a really good thing. What am I saying? All this sport you need to have at the end of your hundred days, something to commemorate those hunts

JimBo Stewart: shit.

Everybody dress up like, no, cause they’re already old.

Bob Bickford: Here, you don’t have to dress up. [00:19:00] Maybe see if you get some younger folks here, feel

JimBo Stewart: you just got to Google, it’s going to make your heart happy. It’s gonna make your heart. I mean, if you just Google hundredth day of school or kids dress up and you see all these little kids dressed up like,

Bob Bickford: well, Jim, I’m getting older.

I don’t know if I like that idea or not. I’m halfway there, but oh, we’re over halfway. So what here’s what I do. I I’d have a family meeting of the. And I look back on our a hundred days and I’d celebrate that together and I’d have people share things and share testimonies. And then general, I think I would probably identify three or four or five things that I would do to say from that a hundred days guys.

Here’s what I’ve noticed. Here’s what some of the leaders have talked about. Here’s what some of the deacons have talked about. Here’s what some of the folks that are involved in leadership in our church have talked about, and these are the three or four things that we’re going to focus on over the next season of ministry together.

I would spend the rest of my time just talking about those, leveraging [00:20:00] those and moving towards the accomplishment of those. And then when we could check one off the list, I think I would do that on a Sunday morning. We’d celebrate it and check it off the list and then move on to the next one. And I think the early wins that you can celebrate like that together in those first hundred days, if you walked in there and did those things, I think it would be really incredibly helpful.

And I think it would reduce this, the sense of anxiety. Because it’s stuff that you’re working on together.

JimBo Stewart: I love that. Don’t let it just end the a hundred days. Let it lead to, Hey, what are, where are we going from here? What are realistic next steps that we can take together. Communicate those over.

Communicate those. When you feel like you have said them too many times, you have S people have started to hear you. I think that’s one of the hardest parts about leadership just to, and this is not, this is not specific to replanting is Is it man, you have to communicate important things.

You have to communicate them over and [00:21:00] over and over and over and over again in those first 100 days. Here’s a, here’s another thing I would, I was just, I was just thinking of a resources. We were talking about this, our buddy Kenneth priest, with Southern Baptist, Texas has. preaching point processes and he has a whole, sermon series.

If you’re looking for a guide way to do that, of, he has the Bible in a hundred days, it gives you a preaching plan and some summer based small group stuff to go with that you can do the Bible a hundred days. You could do the lock series that he has. If you’re thinking about here’s the, you don’t have to use his, but I would recommend.

doing something intentional in the pulpit in those first 100 days, there’s a plan for those first a hundred days. And I would recommend that you, that you attempt sermon based small groups during that first 100 days. and here’s why I’d say it is. I do think there is a discipleship benefit to that.

And if you’ll say, Hey, we’re going to be this for the first a hundred days. You’re not saying we’re throwing away everything you’ve ever [00:22:00] loved about Sunday school. You’re saying, Hey, for 100 days, will you help me? And we’re going to focus on this because we’re doing this for a hundred and it gives you the opportunity to beta test that process and see if you like it and see if it’s effective for your church, but just get everybody unity is the key, man.

If you look at Ephesians four and you look at what I, I, I think if he’s just born as the blueprint for church revitalization, church health, for us. Is is such a key key part of that passage and things like that. It just helps people get all on the same page together. alright. First 100 days, some of the things we talked about, spit FaceTime relationally with church members while you’re spending face time with people in the church, don’t ignore your family.

Don’t forsake your time with your face. Invest heavily. I would even say in your family, figure out ways to be strategic about the time that you do have with them. Even though it’s going to be a busy season for you identify [00:23:00]influencers within the church, the power dynamics, the emotional influencers, what are those things?

What are the landmines that you need to know about as you’re having those conversations? Try to try to mine that out. Where, what are the landmines that you need to be careful? Survey community pound the pavement, man, get out there. No people talk to them, share the gospel and get things figured out what your, what, what the missional situation there is.

Using. Demographic reports can help you with that as well. Look and see what God’s already doing, dealing in the community, make some sort of simple visual renovation. Maybe even have the church be a part of that process through a work day and those sorts of things. And then cap that off with a celebration family.

that’s not just a family meeting, celebrating the person a hundred days, but it gives next steps. Here are things we’ve observed in the first 100 days.

Bob Bickford: man, that’s a pretty ambitious list that we put together. And so, you and I could, you know, we could just spin up a ton of things that you could do in the first a hundred days.

So what I would say is if, [00:24:00] if you listen to that list and you could only do four of those things, just only do four. Yeah. Could you get another a hundred? Yeah, let me get another a hundred. And it’s, just figure out what’s your first Saturdays is going to look like write it down. And then every Monday, when you walk into the office, you know, before that Monday, maybe game plan it all out, but then the next Monday you meet.

And then if you grab some leaders in your deacons, every meeting that you have to talk about where you’re at in those first a hundred days and celebrate it and enjoy it. and then here’s what I would ask. Expect some of it to look really good on paper and be really bad at practice. So if you’re, if you’re a driven perfectionist like myself, just realize that it’s going to be a lot different in your mind that it actually is going to be when you work it out.

But celebrate the fact that you’re just getting people together to do something. And that’s probably more than they did prior to you coming

JimBo Stewart: there. That’s a great word. Yeah. Celebrate.