Mark Hallock and Brandon Moore joined the Bootcamp for a Replant Roadtrip episode. In this episode, we talk about setting personal goals.
Goals need to be clear, attainable, and measurable.
Personal goals need to prioritize personal spiritual growth and family time.
A few weeks ago, my husband Will and I attended the AMS Lab from NAMB in Atlanta, Georgia. Hundreds of pastors and AMS leaders from across the country gathered together to learn more about partnerships and collaboration in revitalizing dying churches. We listened to several leaders discuss ways their associations and churches had worked cohesively for the spread of the Gospel and each other’s benefit. We heard testimonies of how these collaborations bore the fruit of faithfulness, health, repentance, and revival. The message was clear: There is power in partnership.
In Genesis 2:18, we read that God formed Man and then came to an important realization: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now, we know that God then formed Woman and declared it “very good.” But the main idea was not merely for man and woman to be in partnership together– the main thought is that it is not good for man to be alone. Over and over in God’s Word, He reminds us that collaboration is better than alienation.
We often remind our congregations that God has formed our church like a body, quoting from 1 Corinthians and Ephesians. We tell them that we all need each other, we all have different gifts, and that we all benefit from our unity. And yet when it comes to churches partnering with other churches, many pastors neglect to foster and encourage partnership in their ministries.
On a recent episode of the Replant Bootcamp podcast, Jimbo talked with Mark Hallock, author and Lead Pastor of the Calvary Family of Churches in Colorado, and Brandon Moore, Replant Specialist at NAMB, about the benefits of radical collaboration. When we partner together, ministries flourish, churches come back from the dead, and pastors are strengthened. On His way to the cross, Jesus prayed that the church’s unity and partnership would display God’s plan and His love for the world to see (John 17:23).
Here is the truth of the matter. Pastors who neglect to partner with other churches are working against God’s plan for the Gospel. You might not realize it, but God desires us to be in close collaboration with other churches– not competition. Too often, we get wrapped up in the human desire to grow our personal kingdom and not God’s.
Of course, that’s not the language we use. Pastors would never say they desire their kingdom to grow over God’s. But when we hoard our resources for our gain, when we disparage the church across town (especially from the pulpit), and when we isolate ourselves from other pastors, we’ve created a “my church, my growth” mindset instead of a “God’s church, His kingdom” mindset.
God commands us to work in unity with other churches. Our passion must be for God’s Kingdom to grow, because His plan is to reach the lost world through people– not only your church but mine, too. His plan is for all of us to cooperate so that His name is magnified throughout the nations.
At the AMS Lab, one of the phrases we heard from pastors and AMS Leaders was, “Partnership sounds great, but we don’t have that mindset in our association. No one seems to want to share or to cooperate.” What a missed opportunity!
When pastors alienate themselves and build walls around their ministry, it typically signifies an area of personal weakness. Maybe they’ve been hurt by other pastors in the past and they are hesitant to be vulnerable again. Perhaps they are afraid to be transparent or admit that something isn’t working. Or maybe it’s just good, old-fashioned pride that makes them feel like they don’t have anything to learn from someone else. Regardless of the root issue, a pastor who “Lone Rangers” his ministry may need to evaluate his behavior and repent.
Often, one of the first steps toward collaboration is one of embracing humility. It’s one thing to agree we need pastoral friendships for encouragement, but it’s quite another to be willing to share resources like money, time, and leadership with fellow pastors. It’s one thing to say, “I’m willing to help the church down the street,” but it’s different to say, “I don’t care who gets the credit, I just want to see God’s Kingdom grow.” Humility offers us a chance to let go of our ego and step out of the picture, and it allows God to step in and do radically transformative work in both our congregation and in the other church. Laying down our pride for the Gospel reaps fruit we can’t even begin to imagine.
Once we’ve embraced the command to partner with fellow pastors and churches, and we’ve repented of any pride or fear standing in our way, it’s time to lean in and pursue partnership. Now I wish this was as easy as simply passing a note to another pastor at the next Association meeting that says, “Do you want to partner with me in ministry? Check yes or no.” Unfortunately, radical collaboration takes a little more time and effort!
To start with, you need to actually attend association meetings. Those meetings aren’t merely to give you information and discuss everyone’s budget and church attendance numbers. Those meetings are opportunities for networking with other pastors and for encouraging each other! You have something to learn from them. The Holy Spirit indwells them just as He indwells you! God has given them unique perspectives, experiences, and giftings that can benefit you, even if they are different than yours.
Being a good partner in ministry means being a good friend. When you’re at the meetings, ask good questions of your fellow pastors. Pray over their churches. Have someone from your church send them a card to encourage them. Some of our best partnerships have come from having close friends in ministry. Last year when we were gone on a mission trip, we needed help with our worship service– we were short a pastor and a worship leader. We were able to call our best friends in ministry and ask for their help– and they sent a worship team over to lead our service, even though it meant their church struggled a little that morning. Why? Because we aren’t in competition, we’re in cooperation.
Maybe not everyone will understand your desire for partnership. That’s ok. Start with a few guys who do. Plan a night of worship and combine your campuses. Look for ways your church can help with their VBS (or vice versa). Do you have a couple of talented musicians while their church struggles to have live music? Ask one of your people to serve there a couple of weeks a month. Not because you don’t love your church and your people, but because you’ve taught your church to love other churches. And before you know it, a funny thing happens when other people see radical partnership thriving… they’ll want to join, too. That’s where you see the culture change. That’s where the goal of “church growth” becomes “Kingdom growth.”
Hopefully, by now you’ve realized that we need to partner with fellow churches for one very good reason: God commands us to! But partnership isn’t merely a rule to follow. Radical collaboration is a superpower. Once we tap into it, the benefits to our ministry and our personal walk with Jesus are huge!
One of the main benefits of partnership? We are better together! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 reminds us, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” There will always be times when ministry is a struggle. I have a friend who swears her husband quits ministry every Monday morning. Discouragement, disappointment, and feelings of frustration with church members or church politics can feel overwhelming. But partnerships with other churches mean your problems aren’t just your own to solve. You have helpers to pick you up and raise your arms, as Aaron and Hur did for Moses (Exodus 17).
Another benefit? Faithfulness in the ministry. A recent Barna study found that 65% of pastors reported feeling isolated or alone in 2022… that’s up from only 42% feeling that way in 2015. It seems many pastors are feeling like Johnny Cash when he sang, “I’ve got no one to tell my troubles to, no one to care to call my own. It seems that I must always be alone.” And when pastors feel isolated, they are more susceptible to temptation, hip-shot decisions, and leaving the ministry altogether. When you partner with other pastors, you have built-in encouragement, but you also have built-in accountability. Your partners are also pastors who can tell you, in humility and love, where you might be going off-track.
Lastly, there is the benefit of having a cohort to help you navigate the complexities in the culture and society we face today. We are dealing with aspects of culture that society has not wrestled with before and in our digital and technologically advanced society, these complex questions do not stop at the church’s front door. Increasingly, these cultural issues are encouraging pastors to take a new look at their by-laws, their polity, and even their own personal beliefs. Having other pastors beside you as you walk through these decisions gives you a plurality of educated leaders that you may not yet have access to within your own congregation.
I hope that you now see the superpower of partnership and the ways collaboration benefits your ministry. Now, allow me to introduce a superhero who can help you in your quest for partnership– your local AMS.
Hopefully, the local AMS at your association has been there long enough to have the one gift you need– the power of connection. The AMS has an acute knowledge of not only the churches in his association, but of each pastor, and each congregation. When you need ministry partners, there is no better place to start than your AMS. Have a music/worship need? He knows of a local cohort of worship leaders you can join. He also knows which churches have large choirs and an abundance of musicians who may be able to join you for a while. Have a question about polity? He knows which church recently rewrote their bylaws, and what roadblocks they ran into, and he knows who you need to call at the state level for assistance. Need help with VBS? He knows the church doing theirs weeks before yours, and he’s happy to put you in touch with them so you can borrow their decorations when they’re done.
If you’re interested in hearing more ways your AMS and your local association can assist you in radical collaboration, the Replant Bootcamp has a podcast and blog on the partnership between pastors and Associations.
When we talk about partnerships between pastors and associations, there is no better place to explore that than at the Replant Bootcamp events. We have several coming up, from two Am I a Replanter labs in April, the Revive Summit in May and September, and of course, through our website and archives.
Don’t forget to let us know how much your ministry partners have helped you by suggesting them as future guests using the “Suggest a Guest” button! We would love to hear your stories!
Special Guests: Mark Hallock and Brandon Moore
Fresh off the AMS Replant Lab JimBo discusses the power of partnership. The guys dive into the biblical foundation of partnership, encouraging pastors to work together for the greater mission. Mark and Brandon discuss the benefits of collaboration, including trust-building, credibility, and the potential for a movement in church replanting.
Local associations are the best-placed organization in Southern Baptist life to help pastors care for each other, collaborate, and celebrate together.
This is a great event for anyone (and their spouse) who is new to or considering any form of church renewal – not just replanting.
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Check out the show notes below for more details. Show transcripts are an approximation of the podcast, audio should be consulted for exact detail
In September of 2022, our oldest son was called to be a Youth Pastor at a church in Alabama and moved out of our home in South Carolina. We waited the prerequisite 6 months before we decided he probably wasn’t coming back, at least not to stay. So this weekend we decided to paint his bedroom and turn it into more of a “guest room” space.
When he lived there, his room went through several transitions as his tastes changed. So yesterday, when we started the process of repainting the room, we knew it would need a little work. There would be a few holes to patch– just a couple of areas that probably needed putty and sanding.
But then we turned on the lights, took down some old décor, and started patching… And oh how wrong we were. See, what we couldn’t know was that these walls were covered with one hundred different holes as a testimony to his ever-changing decorations. Posters featuring athletes or video games had been hung with sticky tape a decade ago. Pictures and notes from his time as a camp staffer had been thumbtacked all over the room. Floating bookshelves that were meant to hold a few trophies had strained under the weight of old textbooks and pulled loose from the wall. And at one point, he hung old skateboards on the walls with screws and nails.
This is the ACTUAL room in my house. It looks like we have decided to polka-dot it with putty. There are hundreds of tiny holes, and a few large ones that will require sheetrock repair. There is so much work to be done just to simply prep it for painting that the room may never actually get painted.
Sometimes when we begin replanting, we have the same issue– we don’t see what lies under the surface. This limited perspective means we don’t know how much we need to do to merely prepare for the process of changing.
In one of the first Replant Bootcamp episodes, JimBob talked to Keelan Cook, the designer of the Fourfold Panorama for Replanting Churches. This tool is invaluable to replanters as they begin the work of bringing life back into their church.
Keelan notes there are three things that churches must know when they decide to begin the process of discovery that leads to revitalization: The Biblical Mission of the church, which is unchanging, the congregation itself, which may be different from where it was at its start, and the context in which the church exists, which is ever-changing.
The problem in most churches is that the pastor typically only knows and can articulate one of those perspectives. It takes a unique, multi-perspective approach to know where the “holes in the wall” really exist.
In his fourfold panorama approach, Keelan states: “Churches exist to bear witness to the glory of Christ through the making of new disciples from all nations. In order to do that, two big categories must be considered: the local church itself, and the context they are attempting to reach. Too often, people attempting to revitalize, plant, or replant a church do so with an eye on only one of these categories. That is always a recipe for disaster. It may, in fact, be why the church is in its current shape. It is possible to polish up a church real nice, and due to a lack of contextual understanding, create the fanciest obstacle to the gospel in a particular neighborhood.”
Many pastors and churches are simply “nose-blind” to their condition. They think they know how their church is viewed within the congregation and the community, but in reality, they may not “smell” as good as they think. What I mean is, sometimes we see ourselves the way we aspire to be, but an assessment from outside perspectives might prove that evaluation to be false. In order to begin collecting data for this assessment, a church must ask itself: Do the activities of the church match the needs of the community?
As Keelan points out in the podcast, “a community is more than a geographical location-it is also a moment in time.” Instead of thinking of your community like a rock in the field, think of the community more like a rock in the current of a moving stream– the surrounding community is most likely drastically different than when your church began and you’ll need to “exegete” the community in order to know the needs of your community and how to meet them.
In order for the church to begin a proper assessment of its current condition, some outside sources are necessary. You’ll want to get someone’s unbiased, external viewpoint to help you begin the process. Your local AMS or DOM is beneficial, but you could also ask a trusted pastor from a different church. You’ll also need members of your church on the team. Your team needs to be as diverse as possible, filled with new members, longtime members, and potential members. You may even want to include the perspective of members who’ve left the church and gone elsewhere.
For the fourfold panorama assessment of the church’s condition, you need to consider four angles (or perspectives), and you’ll want to consider several sources for each. First, you need the perspective of your church, both inside the church and outside the church. Then, you need the perspective of the context (or community) in which your church exists, both from the inside and the outside.
The insider church perspective is looking for signs of life in your church. They are looking to answer questions about the vitality of the church, spiritually, financially, relationally, and missionally. In the fourfold panorama approach, this information is found through church data like budget, bylaws, and its annual profile, and is typically something you can find through interviews and surveys of your current membership. Some questions this perspective is answering are:
The outsider church perspective is searching for the reputation and witness of this gospel community. In other words, how does the outside world see the church? This is found through visitor surveys, asking other area pastors, and your AMS. Some questions this perspective is answering are:
The outsider context perspective is searching for demographic and cultural data for the community where the church is located. This is found through census data, chamber of commerce information, even area websites. Some questions this perspective is answering are:
The insider context perspective is, according to Cook, often the most challenging to obtain. This perspective attempts to understand how the actual community residents view themselves, their community, and the world around them. It can be found through community interviews with business owners and residents around the church. Some questions this perspective is answering are:
Once you have a proper assessment of the true condition of your church, you will find there are places where you may need to repair some damage. This may be within the church in the form of reassessing your programs and your missional vitality to your community. As the shepherd of your church, it would be helpful to remind your congregation of the unbelievably beautiful calling of the Great Commission and to issue a call to rekindle their love for the community around them. You might have to have some difficult conversations about change and adaptation, and you may experience some of the Emotional Cycle of Change (see Podcast Episode 126 for details) as you guide your people through their fear or their reluctance to change.
You may also need to repair some damage in your community. Your church’s reputation may be smudged, and you might need to make some apologies for past behavior. There may be areas where the church will need to repent of its resentment toward its surrounding community and you will need to foster love and hospitality within your membership.
This work will be hard. But in the end, it will be worth it. Your church will have a new canvas, ready to be filled with the next great chapter of your church’s history.
Resources:
Keelan Cook’s Fourfold Panorama Assessment Tool
https://replantbootcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/PND_-Fourfold-Panoramic-Assessment.pdf
Mark Hallock’s Replant Roadmap
https://www.amazon.com/Replant-Roadmap-Congregation-Revitalize-Churches/dp/0998859729
Bob Bickford and Mark Hallock’s Pathway to Partnership
Let’s get right to it, the boys break down some of the key insights from the 2022 Replant Summit held in Alpharetta at The North American Mission Board. Also, a challenge has been issued to take on the hosts from Revitalize and Replant to a 2 on 2 hoops contest!
Now, on to the Summit insights.
You can listen to all the great presentations here: 2022 Replant Summit or sign up for the Replant Hub and watch them there
Did you attend the Summit? We’d love to hear from you. If you are considering Replanting we’d love for you to join us at Southern Seminary, October 28-29, 2022 for Am I a Replanter?
Our good friend Mark Hallock stops by to talk about the nuts and bolts work of Replanting a local church, but before getting to strategy, Mark looks at the character and heart of the Replant Pastor.
Replanter be aware of this:
In Mark’s new book, The Perseverance of a Faithful Pastor, he unpacks practical steps, actions and heart postures to take as you lead in your Replant.
Check out Mark’s books, get equipped, encouraged and ready yourself to serve the Lord and people.
Check out the Calvary family of Churches resources and all the great books over at Acoma Press
We love our great sponsor, One Eighty Digital. They’ve helped us and they can help you make sure your web presence conveys who you are which helps you connect you with your community. Drop them a line, give them a call, let them know you’re a bootcamp listener!
This week the guys welcome to the bootcamp a long time Replanting friend, Pastor Mark Hallock, of the Calvary family of Churches in Denver Colorado. The guys spend time talking about how to be encouraged as a Pastor during this difficult season we find ourselves in.
Key takeaways:
Start the Barnabas Challenge: encourage three people everyday. This will transform your congregation-it is powerful when a church becomes an encouraging church.
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Show notes powered by Descript are an approximation of the verbal content, consult podcast audio for accuracy
In this episode Bob and JimBo are joined by BOOTS ON THE GROUND GUEST Jesse Peters from Ebenezer Baptist Church in Henderson, NC. Jesse is helping start a replanting residency at his church and wanted to know what advice we would have for replanting residents and rookies.
Replanting is not easy work, but it also isn’t super complicated.
In this episode, Bob and JimBo discuss and define terms. This is one of the questions we get the most. What is the difference between a replant and a revitalization.
Replanting is a form of revitalization. Every replant is a revitalization, but not every revitalization is a replant.
REVITALIZATION = existing church + existing leaders + existing structure + history or legacy + renewed/new effort (over a protracted period of time)
REPLANT = new qualified/skilled leader + existing people + new structures/approaches + outside partners + new people + history
Want to read more? Check out this blog post
