JimBo Stewart: [00:00:00] All right, Bob, here we are, uh, back at the bootcamp. Hope you’re ready for the next episode. Switz Domed to home edition as we are down in the nuclear facility.

Bob Bickford: Fallout Shelter,

JimBo Stewart: Shelter Recording Studio with our, our wonderful audio engineer, Adam Covington

Bob Bickford: Our staff seems to be continually

JimBo Stewart: look, we, we’ve made it.

This is, I feel this is the most official our podcast has ever been at this moment. Yeah.

Bob Bickford: Now, interestingly enough, when we, if you come to Southwestern, everybody talks about the dome. So that’s the main building where the president’s office is. And then the, the, the dome

JimBo Stewart: It’s a pretty big dome.

Bob Bickford: is a rotunda built.

There’s a rotunda underneath it. And there’s paintings of previous seminary presidents. I’ve, it’s been rumored that Matt Hensley’s beard sometimes. Is as long as BH Carroll’s beard. And it’s also rumored that beach Carroll’s hand in his left hand, there used to be a cigar, but [00:01:00] somebody painted over it with black paint

I don’t know. Is that

JimBo Stewart: that true?

Bob Bickford: He okay. Our audio engineer cannot say, or

JimBo Stewart: or he, well, now they’re confirmed nor

Bob Bickford: No, no. Yeah.

JimBo Stewart: So

there’s also a really weird telephone

Bob Bickford: closet.

Yeah, we gotta put the, put that on

JimBo Stewart: picture. Yeah. Like right next to the, like, there’s this like little bitty could barely fit one person telephone booth, closet thing. And it says courtesy phone.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. Well, Jimbo, back in the day when, there were, you did not have cell phones, right. Sometimes institutions would have a, a courtesy phone, which would allow you as a, a guest at that location or facility to call not a long distance number unless you had a, a phone card. Yeah. To dial long distance. But they’d allow you to make local calls.

Just say like, check in, uh, with the church secretary if you were a student here. Yeah. Hey, Ethel. is anything going on at the church that I need to know

JimBo Stewart: She probably was named Ethel. Or Doris.

Bob Bickford: Yes.

JimBo Stewart: Yes.

Bob Bickford: Or Gladys

JimBo Stewart: [00:02:00] Absolutely, man. We’re so excited to be here, for a few days. it’s, it’ll be the first time either of us have stepped fully into the professor role to teach a DM n seminar and on church revitalization replanting, and super excited that we get this opportunity.

Bob Bickford: Yeah, it’s fantastic. I’m, I’m grateful for, Dr. Queen, Matt Queen, the provost and the chair of, school of Evangelism.

he’s a great guy. He’s been a friend of us, replant for quite some time. And, uh, we’ve got to get him on a, an episode of the bootcamp. He’s written a new book about evangelism. That’s fantastic that we just need to have a conversation with him. But he,

JimBo Stewart: I have to sneak him down here into the Fallout shelter while we’re here.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. Yeah. But it, it’d be great to, to connect with him, but yeah, I’m just thankful, you know, when Jimbo, one of the, the things that we’ve hoped to do over the last couple of years as the replant team is to be able to help shape the conversation for leaders who are studying church revitalization and replanting.

There’s so many, good resources out there, and it’s just a, a privilege and an honor to be part of, this experience of. [00:03:00] Presenting our side of the story, right, in terms of replanting and revitalization.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. So last episode we talked about the implications of, patterns of forced termination and how that’s a symptom of a foundational issue, which is leading to a church’s decline contributing to that church’s decline. Towards the end of that though, one of the things we talked about, the, I think springboards into this episode was, If you’re going to a church to be hired as the, to be called as the pastor there and you hear that they have this pattern, that’s something you should look into and only go if they have had outside help.

Yeah. To help them. I thought it would be helpful for us today. What if Bob, we, what are other things? Let’s say, let’s say they don’t have this, necessarily this pattern of forced terminations, or maybe they do, but when you’re in that process and they’re looking at you and you’re looking at them, they’ve awkwardly come to wherever you were preaching to do the view of the call thing.

 if they haven’t just listened online, but like, you know, everybody knows who they are when they come in, and then the whole [00:04:00] church is like, oh man, the pastor’s leaving,

Bob Bickford: He’s getting picked. Yep.

JimBo Stewart: Or they’re like, oh man, yes, the pastor’s leaving. either way they couldn’t terminate you, but they might be happy for you

Bob Bickford: you.

Straight. You. Yeah.

JimBo Stewart: Um, the, the, the transfer portal has opened up and, what are some things we should consider? so let’s just kind of one by one. Let’s, let’s, let’s rattle ’em off and, see if we can get to 10 so that we can call this 10 questions you should

Bob Bickford: ask.

I think so. All right. Here’s the first one. What are your expectations for me and for my family.

Right. So for me, we’re talking about professional, the, the, the course of fulfilling your call to ministry. And, people have expectations. And here’s what I know about expectations. Unexpressed expectations always lead to disappointment and conflict.

JimBo Stewart: Yep.

Bob Bickford: And so you want to do your best to get those out there, Jimbo, when I, when Barb and I got when we were first married, I had, probably a suitcase full of expectations about how marriage should be and was going to be.

And can I just tell you that none of those came true?

No, Jimbo, she, you can ask her about [00:05:00] this next time you see her for the first week. We were married, after we got back from our honeymoon and moved into our apartment. She cried the whole first week. Yeah. I I thought it was over. I thought it was over

No, I, I don’t know why she cried, but she just cried. I mean, I. It was bad. I was like, man, this is not, this is not good. Like what, what’s happening? She just, you know, I guess it was PTSD for marrying me. I

JimBo Stewart: don’t

know Yeah. You were not the Prince Charming, she thought

Bob Bickford: no, I certainly was

JimBo Stewart: was not

No, absolutely. I think so often, conflict comes

Bob Bickford: from where

JimBo Stewart: we just did not know that that’s what was expected. And so the, you know, my wife and I call it the, the movie in

Bob Bickford: your

head,

JimBo Stewart: like, oh, you had a movie in your head of how this was gonna go. and, and so when we, one of the ways we have learned to address conflict in our marriage is to say, okay, so the movie in my head was,

Bob Bickford: that,

JimBo Stewart: I was gonna come in and tell you.

So the, the funny one we laugh at is my family is a very celebratory family. We celebrate everything [00:06:00] like big. Whereas Audrey’s family is kind of a critical family, and they, they like, like if you were like, we won the lottery, they’d be like, oh, the taxes, right?

Like, and so and so legitimately, I was working at a.

At a mortgage place and I was answering phones and I went for an interview to get a promotion to, uh, a job that I was not qualified for, but I interviewed well and so I got the job and I was super excited because it was more money and we were like below the poverty line and, and I come home and I was like, Hey, I got that job.

And she goes, oh, good.

And

that was it.

And I was like, that’s

Bob Bickford: that’s

it.

JimBo Stewart: Like,

what, what, what are we doing? Like we gotta celebrate this. And I was like, the movie in my head was that you were gonna freak out and you were like, let’s go get tacos. Let’s make a big deal. But that’s. Not what she did. So, uh, I think it’s a really good question is what, what are the exp And I would, I would add further clarifying [00:07:00] questions of your own, customize further clarifying questions of if they give you a job description, when you this sentence, what is, what does that look like, what does that mean?

You wanna get us clear a picture as possible of what is

Bob Bickford: expected of you?

Absolutely. The larger the church, the larger the search committee, the more

JimBo Stewart: different

Bob Bickford: and the more.

In number

are the expectations. Yeah. Right. So it’s, it’s wanted to clarify. Here’s the second one I, I would say is asking those who you are interviewing with what they believe, identify. , the marks of a healthy church.

What does a healthy church look like? And, and dialogue with them about that and, and try to get some understanding. Now, some of ’em are gonna be stumped, right? And they’re not gonna have, much to offer, but some are gonna have some suggestions or some statements that will help you understand, what their, insights are, or what their opinions are about what the marks of a healthy church are.

Someone may not even be biblical, right? They must be culture. And they may be experiential, but it’s important to know [00:08:00] because usually a search committee that the committee that’s interviewing you are a cross section, hopefully a cross section of the, church body. And so that’s really how, a process.

It’s put together. You try to get a number of different people from a number of different stages of life and perspectives, young and old, that sort of thing. And you try to learn from them what their opinions are. So I, I said, let that be informative. Don’t be discouraged by it, it does, if it doesn’t match with where you are.

Yeah. Um, and your convictions. But know that’s where some of those folks are starting at in terms of evaluating the health of a local church.

JimBo Stewart: and then I would even add to that. Ask them how they measure up to those, yeah.

Standards and marks. Right? So if they tell you whatever marks they tell you, then you just go, all right, well how healthy would you say this church is? And part of that is to see what their. Perception of reality is how, how connected to the reality are they? And then I would follow that up, asking an associational leader, state convention leader, you know, is that how healthy they are?

And so that you get a clearer [00:09:00] picture of what you’re walking into.

Bob Bickford: And

if none of them involve their own obedience and missional efforts, then you know you’re gonna be, uh, in for a lot of work.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah, it doesn’t mean don’t go, it, it may be very much means, I would say it very much means, if you do go, you know exactly what your first sermon series

probably

is.

right? Like, what, what is a healthy church? And, and let’s walk through that

Bob Bickford: basically. Yeah. Yeah. Here’s the third. why did the previous pastor or pastors leave.

you, you wanna find out, and we touched on that in the previous episode, uh, that we did here. You just really want the story. And, and so if you didn’t catch that episode, go back and, and we really unpack that more fully. So we, we don’t necessarily need to do that here, but, but find out why the guys who were there before you left and dialogue with them, not only with the people, but even contacting the previous pastors.

Here’s the fourth one. This is a really important one. Jimbo, what is the community around the church

JimBo Stewart: like?

Mm-hmm.

Bob Bickford: here’s what we know in some declining, in dying churches. They’re commuters. They don’t live in the community any longer. They drive in, so they, they know a few things about the [00:10:00] community, but they really don’t know the community.

They don’t live in the community. And so if you’re trying to revive a, a declining church, and you have commuters that don’t shop, get gas, groceries, kids go to school in the local community, and then they’re adversarial towards that community, or they’re completely disconnected. demographically, diametrically different than them, then, you know, you’ve got a, a long road ahead of you.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. And, uh, so not only what is the community like around the church, how many members live, what percentage of the members live in the community, what is the church member’s perception of the community?

And then I would try, if you can be there physically present, or if you can’t lean on that associational leader. Or state conventional leader that can help you. What is the community’s perception of the church? See if you can figure that out. If you can get there present, you can go and you can, you can literally go to the gas closest gas station and go, Hey, I saw there’s a church around the [00:11:00]corner.

Bob Bickford: what do you know

about

JimBo Stewart: church?

And see what they, see what they know. See what they think. Ask the local elementary school that’s right next to ’em and, and try to figure out, again, I don’t think these are, go, don’t. , but they are certainly clarifying issues for what need to be your priorities

Bob Bickford: when

you

get

there.

Yeah. Some of them are exploratory to discern the initial phase of ministry.

that needs to take place there. And if your heart is aligned to that and your skills are aligned to that,

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. Are you ready. Are you

ready to

Bob Bickford: jump

into

that. Mm-hmm. . The other ones would be enders. Like . There’s some enders like that. Okay. That’s an ender. Right. And he, you know, I actually heard one guy, he, he got up during an interview cuz they, he asked a question and it was an injured.

He’s like, okay, thanks. I’m gonna go ahead and go, you know, . I

was like, alright.

yeah. Anyway, he, you know, Keelan Cook has talked about trying to understand the, community around the church and the church reputation in the eyes of the community through the fourfold panoramic window. And we’ll, we did a podcast on that, and we also have that document, so we’ll link [00:12:00] that in this podcast for those guys.

the other thing I would, ask, number five would be what have been some of the greatest joys, frustrations and difficulties the congregation has faced? Mm. Like, just get ’em to do kind of a narrative history. Like tell me, tell me about what you like, what’s been really.

JimBo Stewart: great,

Bob Bickford: what’s been really hard, you know, what have been some of the, the pain points that you guys have had to endure over.

Yeah. And so what will happen is some unscripted things will come out that, that did not make the

JimBo Stewart: church,

Bob Bickford: background study letter that they sent you. Right. Look, here’s our church. Right. Here’s who we are. We’re a small but friendly congregation. Right, right.

Well,

there’s a whole lot more there

JimBo Stewart: probably to unpack.

Yeah. I’ve said on this podcast before, every single dying church I have ever consulted will tell me they are the friendliest church that

Bob Bickford: you’ll

ever

meet.

JimBo Stewart: Right.

They’ll all say that. Every one of ’em say that. Every one of ’em will tell you and, and part of that, so they’re friendly within

their click. But if you ask anyone who’s not within that community, they would not say, our church, the church that I replanted. [00:13:00] I remember when they kept telling me that, and I didn’t know this cause I didn’t consult churches at that point.

I didn’t know this was a pattern. I just knew everybody in the church kept telling me, we’re the friendliest church. It’s the best thing we got going for us. Every visitor would tell me they’re just not very friendly people.

And so I said it from the pulpit one day. I said, you guys need to know the perception of our church is that we are not friendly.

And you would’ve thought that, I said, the perception of the church is that we are Satan

Bob Bickford: worshipers. .

And

JimBo Stewart: what in the world? How? And they were like, well, they just, they they’re, they’re wrong cuz we are the friendliest. And, so yeah, when you see friendliest, just know that that might

Bob Bickford: not

mean that well people struggle with self-awareness and declining and dying.

Churches absolutely struggle with self-awareness. So here’s the sixth one. If you are married, how does the congregation view the pastor’s?

JimBo Stewart: pastor’s? Mm-hmm.

Bob Bickford: what what about the pastor’s wife? Tell me, tell me about how you view the pastor’s wife. So, I, I interviewed a couple different places, and I would hear things like [00:14:00] this.

Well, the pastor’s wife, she did everything. She was involved. She was great. She played the piano. She like baked the cookies for the wmu, you know, she did this and that. And then, another one’s like, well, the pastor’s wife, she really didn’t come very often. And then when she came, she looked at her phone the whole time while he was preaching and she kind of, when as soon as the service is over, she left.

Right? And so like, okay, well

JimBo Stewart: somewhere

Bob Bickford: somewhere between

those

two.

somewhere between those two, you get the view, but then you also under understand like, is this a two for one, you know, kind of a situation. do you expect the the pastor’s wife to lead ministry? All those sorts of things. And so let them dialogue about that.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. So when we, were interviewing for the replant we did in Jacksonville, the replant itself did not have a whole lot of expectations on the wife, but the mother church that was our sponsor church to bring us in, they, they did a surpri, like we didn’t know they were gonna interview my wife, and my wife.

At that time especially, really had a pretty high anxiety, uh, and she had pretty high anxiety about the [00:15:00] whole situation we were walking into. And we get there and it’s a pretty large church that was interviewing me. And so they had every single pastoral staff member interview me back to

Bob Bickford: back,

to back,

to back,

to oh

JimBo Stewart: to back. It was a gauntlet in one day. And I’m sitting in this gauntlet and like, I’m just rotation. No breaks, no breaks, and I can feel my phone going. Just, just receiving text messages and I’m like, I dunno what’s going on. I dunno what’s happening. And so I finally was like, Hey, can I take a bathroom break? I go look at my phone.

And my wife had text in all caps. This is an interview. And then the next text, they are interviewing me. Next text. I told them

Bob Bickford: everything

JimBo Stewart: they know everything . I’m now crying in the office like, and so the first time the pastor of that church met my wife, she was being interviewed by his. Secretary who decided it was her responsibility to interview my wife.

and she’s just, my wife’s just weeping and she’s like, good to meet you, pastor. and so I’m still surprised they ended up hiring us, but, [00:16:00] it, it

Bob Bickford: worked

out, I

guess.

Well, she’s fun. And you’re fun and you guys are friendly people, so you know, who wouldn’t want Jimbo and Andrea as their, you know, Jimbo’s, their pastor? I almost said as their pastors,

JimBo Stewart: that

would

No, no, that

Bob Bickford: No, no, they’re only men can be

JimBo Stewart: pastors. Um, so, uh,

Bob Bickford: who wouldn’t want Jimbo as their pastor and Andrea as the pastor’s

wife? absolutely.

All right. here’s the seventh question. If I am being successful, what am I

doing?

Right?

JimBo Stewart: Yeah, it was kind of another look at the, second at the, the first question, the expectations.

What are your expectations for me, and I think it’s important to revisit it from a different angle and not just what are your expectations, cause that’s kind of the bare minimum, but like, what does success look like? Can you define that? And is, is there a undue expectation to reach a nuMe? You know, mile marker by a year.

Like, oh, we need to grow by [00:17:00] 25% in the next year. That’s what success would look like. And so there would need to be some conversation

Bob Bickford: about

that.

Absolutely. Here’s the eighth question. This is an important one, and I know guys hesitate to ask this, but how much are you going to pay me?

mm-hmm.

and if there are going to be increases, how are those?

Right,

right. So you need to know what you’re gonna be compensated so that you can determine not only is this a ministry fit, but is this an economic fit? Right? Because I, I think I’ve seen too many guys, Jimbo, go into a situation and not give attention to this and be underpaid.

JimBo Stewart: underpaid. And

Bob Bickford: Then if you’re in a revitalization situation or a replanting situation, here’s what I can guarantee you will happen. If you start moving the church forward, you’re going to take a hit in terms of attendance and economics.

JimBo Stewart: Mm-hmm.

Bob Bickford: so the salary’s gonna dip. Does the church have the resources and do you have the ability to weather that?

Right? And let’s say things go well then is the church [00:18:00] gonna think about, okay, well we need to do increases. How are those handled? And, is it a, kind of a probationary period and then you get a, a big increase, or then it’s percentage after and those sorts of things. Right? So scripture’s very clear that the, the one who pastors and leads and preaches, the word is worthy of not just honor, but double.

Right. And so sometimes churches can have this attitude of let’s keep the pastor poor and humble. Right, right. Well, here’s the deal. it’s the Lord’s job to deal with the pastor’s attitude and the pastor’s heart. It’s not the treasurer and the personnel committee’s job to do that through the paycheck.

Yeah. I’m just gonna leave that there.

JimBo Stewart: you gotta figure out now if you have a passion and a calling to be co vocational, and, and that’s something, you know, the, the pastor that is pastoring redemption now, it’s his desire. I mean, he, he just not, they, they even asked him, you know, if we, if we got to a point that you felt like we needed you to be [00:19:00] full-time instead of the way you want to approach it, what would you do?

And he said, then I would feel like it’s probably time for me to go somewhere.

because that’s, it’s not his goal to become full-time. So he’s taken what, what could have been his full-time salary and split that out amongst some other staff members so that he could kind of spread the, the load that way.

And I love that because it’s what he feels called to. Do. I would not love that if it was just, out, completely out of like, that’s what you’re forced to do, because we don’t want to pay you. Now if you can’t pay a pastor, that’s another situation. But, I have seen plenty of churches where they’re, they had the funds in order to pay a livable wage.

We’re not talking, you don’t have to be wealthy. We’re not, you don’t to be. You know, crazy, rich, but a livable wage and you have the means to do so. I think you, you should take care of that. And I think it’s fair to ask questions like that. when , when we were moving to Jacksonville, they asked, what, what salary do you need to make?

And I mean, we had been [00:20:00] well below the poverty line for our entire ministry. And, and so I said, look, I don’t even know enough to know a number to give you. all I know is we have. In the hood for 10 years. And my wife said, if I’m moving her to a different time zone, then we have to make enough money to not live in the hood.

You, you know, the market, you know what that is? I don’t know what it is. And so they were able to do it. I mean, they were able to work out where, I wasn’t making insane amounts of money at all, but I mean, enough that, we were able to live just on the other side of the track, just, just barely on the edge of the hood.

but not,

Bob Bickford: not

in the

hood.

Right. You know, I think one of the, the

JimBo Stewart: good

Bob Bickford: conversation points that I’ve heard AMS leaders say when churches ask them how much they should pay the pastor, an am s leader will say something like this, if this pastor or his wife were your son or daughter, and their kids were your grand, How much would you want them to be paid?

Yep.

And so it puts them, it puts it in a different perspective. It personalizes it, right? Yeah. So I think that’s super important, right? Here’s the ninth question. if you have concerns with [00:21:00] me, my leadership or something else, how will you let me know mm-hmm.

right? How are we gonna have a feedback loop?

What are the feedback loops? Who’s gonna do that? Like, how will we handle those things? Because there will be concerns that arise, there will be questions that arise, and there needs to be an understanding of here’s how we’re gonna

JimBo Stewart: gonna handle

Mm-hmm. ? Yes. So I’m gonna add a 10th question just so we can round it out to 10. And I think it’s a good question to ask.

Bob Bickford: I,

JimBo Stewart: I would say, Hey, I plan on reaching out to and interviewing each of your former pastors that are still alive and available. That’ll take my call. what do you expect that they’ll tell me about their experience here?

and just I think there can be some things that would come out in that conversation that would be really helpful for you, and then you need to actually follow up and just like they’re gonna. Call background, you know, references on you and, and get background on you from references. You need to do the same thing.

You need to do some due diligence. And again, it’s not necessarily, I’m not, I don’t want this to sound like we’re saying, like, you need to, you know, burger King have it my way, custom order a church that you get to [00:22:00] pastor and, and if they don’t fit everything that I want ’em to be and are perfectly healthy, uh, then I’m not going.

I mean, if they’re perfectly healthy, they’re probably not hiring you. Yeah. Uh, . And so, this is more. S you know, one, is there something I need to know that’s an ender? you know, like you, you may call and find out, oh, like, oh, the, the chairman of deacons is a polygamist. And, and I’m not making that

Bob Bickford: up.

I, I I know, I know

JimBo Stewart: that’s

true.

And so, like, you know, like that might be an ender. Like that might be a, okay, I’m not, Walking into that. but it’s really wise to walk in at least getting as clear a picture as you can know. And then I wanna give this caveat, because I encounter this a lot. When I talk to young guys, especially going into their first revitalization, pastorate, I’ll start to talk to ’em about the difficulties of revitalization.

And very often, here’s what they’ll say back to me, man, I, I know that that’s usually how that happens. But I’ve talked to these people and they’re very ready to make the changes

Bob Bickford: necessary.

Mm.

JimBo Stewart: Have you ever

Bob Bickford: heard

of that?

JimBo Stewart: Too many

times. Too many times. Has it ever

come true?

Not

once. Not once. [00:23:00] No. Uh, and so I hope if, if that’s you and you’re listening to this, you go, man, that’s so bad for those people.

I hope you’re

Bob Bickford: the exception. Mm-hmm. ,I haven’t encountered

JimBo Stewart: yet. change is hard and so change is gonna be

Bob Bickford: hard

for you too. Mm-hmm.

JimBo Stewart: So go in with eyes wide open as well as you can. Hey, I wanna throw out something to our listeners. I was looking the other day, , we have not had a review on iTunes in for our podcast since like 2001.

Bob Bickford: What?

Yeah, 2001. We weren’t doing this in 2001.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah, we were, I, I think or not, in 2001. I’m, I’m getting my numbers wrong, whatever. 2019. 2021.

Bob Bickford: 2. Okay. All right.

JimBo Stewart: Since 2021. I’m dyslexic. All right. All right. Since

Bob Bickford: I was like, who was, who are you hosting this with? With, but when? 2001.

JimBo Stewart: since 2021. So, all right, but when we travel, we encounter you guys and you guys are always like, man, this is so helpful.

Thank you so much for this podcast. just do us a favor and here’s why. It’s not that we need you to inflate our. there’s algorithms at play here, right? And if we [00:24:00] get reviews, it helps other people discover this podcast. So do us a favor and go put a review on iTunes for

us. Share the Love.