Building a Culture of Collaboration | Tim Chaddick & Andy Deane

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[00:00:11] I really do think that if a practical lesson for me has been in the act of collaboration is managing expectations, and I know we've mentioned that because we've seen some of the best

[00:00:24] stuff come out of collaboration and I've also seen some of the most pain in hurt from unmet expectations, especially in LA when everyone's at all this vision and the church was growing like so many hurt feelings amongst

[00:00:36] layleaders and staff members. And it forced me to really be clear. Like hey that's amazing. There's a lot of caveats there. It could be a ministry for you or for a group or you know,

[00:00:47] a pair of church thing or for the church. So I want to walk you through exactly what this process looks like as opposed to just leaving it mystical and mysterious. I emailed Robin, I emailed Andy and Ted never gone back

[00:00:59] to me, you know, so I don't know. Like it's just so nice to just say it up front and just manage people's expectations so that the collaboration process doesn't produce any kind of pain. Well welcome to season 3 episode 31 of The Leadership Collective Podcast.

[00:01:17] Today on The Leadership Collective Podcast we are talking about building a culture of collaboration in your ministry. Ted, who are our guests today? Well we're joined by two great guys today. We have Tim Chatech, the lead pastor at Reality Church

[00:01:32] in Ventura, California and Pastor Andy Dean, lead pastor at Cornerstone Church in Wildemar, California. Welcome to the program guys. Thank you. It'd be great to join you guys. Hey Tim, let's just jump in with you. You've had quite the ministry journey over the last decade or so.

[00:01:49] Tell our listeners a little bit about your story and the best places to get tea in London. You mean coffee? Yeah, I think that almost got me kicked out of the UK. So briefly I worked at Carver Chapel Coast Amesa from 2001 to 2004.

[00:02:08] So those are my first formative years in ministry. So I got ordained, got my roots, loved it. My wife was born and raised there at that church. During which time in that Brit America who started a small church planning network called Reality

[00:02:24] and I was the first plant of the first reality church and we moved to LA Hollywood in particular. So that was 2005 when we got that going and got rid of a lot of crazy things and we were there for 10 years.

[00:02:39] And at the end of 10 years when everything was going great in LA, we sense that God was calling us to sell everything and moved to London to start over again in Planet Church in London. So we did, we are over the transition to the church in LA,

[00:02:51] and we moved to London and in 2015 we planted Reality Church London and we were there for about five years through a lot of different kind of decisions and conversations and a lot of different prayers to certain that we were supposed to come back to California.

[00:03:07] So since that time I started at Reality Ventura, which is part of our family of churches, people that I knew really well, seemed like a good spot for ministry in our family so we moved and I started here in Ventura in 2021.

[00:03:19] So I'm currently the teaching pastor here at Reality Ventura. So Orange County LA London Ventura. Wow. And you recently took over the position of lead pastor to Cornerstone. Tell us about your journey there.

[00:03:40] Yes, I was eight years a youth pastor at a cover chapel in New Jersey where I learned to ministry and then after I wrote a book on how to study the Bible and mailed it to the President of the Bible College in California.

[00:03:55] He asked me to come out and teach some classes there so I started doing two weeks in intensive courses. My wife from California, she was happy to come along and then one day they asked me to move out there and take over the schools of director.

[00:04:07] So I did that for eight years until 2012. And around that time I was trying to introduce the college to other churches in the area that weren't covered japples.

[00:04:17] So I started having coffees and lunches with different pastors and everything completely backfired at Cornerstone because I was trying to recruit him. He taught a class for us but then he was looking for someone to transition the church to.

[00:04:30] And so we prayed about it. I taught a few times to kind of feel it out and made that decision. About 15 minutes before COVID left Wuhan in January, I made the decision to leave the Bible College and take over at Cornerstone.

[00:04:44] And that was expedited as we had to send all of our students home. So I went there in April, did a two year transition, read a bunch of books on transitioning. And then next week it will be my second year's lead pastor. Very cool.

[00:04:59] And we hear things are going amazing there. So it's really awesome. Glad you're doing that Andy. Well guys today we're talking about building a culture of collaboration in your church and in your ministry.

[00:05:12] And I think it's safe to say that collaboration is not something that any of us really saw modeled when we were growing up in ministry. And I know the culture that I grew up in was sort of a every man for himself kind of mindset.

[00:05:28] The senior pastor had his responsibilities and then every other ministry had their responsibilities and the ministries. Sort of all had their own focus and if you were leading a ministry it was almost kind of a sink or swim type of mentality that you have.

[00:05:44] In fact I don't remember even times where we even met and prayed for each other or what was going on you know in our ministries. It was definitely like every man for himself type of culture.

[00:05:59] What about you guys? What was, you know, was collaboration something that you were exposed to early on in ministry? You want to go to first tip?

[00:06:07] Yeah. It's funny that you say that phrase every man for himself because that was my experience in the early years and I think that that wasn't a bug. It was a feature like it was seen as a virtue, you know.

[00:06:21] Here you go and if God's in it you'll float and it not you'll be right. I don't mean that with any kind of you know it will or anything. I think it was genuinely seen as like this is kind of the best way just here's your opportunity.

[00:06:36] Stay in your lane, you know unless you need some huge help or if you're going to do anything that drastically impacts the budget like just do your thing.

[00:06:45] So I think I assume that that is how it's supposed to be in ministry and the two things I noticed is like some of that will depend on a church as a ecclesiology. How they have things structured, you know, specifically.

[00:06:59] But some of it more I would say was just the culture that's just the way things were done where that came from.

[00:07:06] Obviously it's going to look different depending on where we were working and what environments we are in but it was during those years that I really craved the collaborations. I realize like I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't think. I don't know if nobody's doing it.

[00:07:25] And I really and not only that I love working with people, like even if we have roles and we'll get into it I'm sure.

[00:07:32] But I think some they have a fear of like oh no if I have this position of authority like collaborate with someone you know technically beneath me will that less than my authority like.

[00:07:44] Maybe some people have those fears and concerns but I don't see that as any threat.

[00:07:48] I only see it as a benefit and I began to crave it so I grew in your blog like that was very much my experience and it was in that environment that I started craving collaboration. Yeah. What about you too? What was your experience like?

[00:08:01] It was more of like what you talked about that experience and you know I agree with you Tim that I think there's sort of. I guess I'd phrase it this way that there's this common denominator amongst certainly our art.

[00:08:20] Yeah, our experience but but you know I don't think the even our tribe has the corner on this market you know I think that.

[00:08:28] There's there's many churches do where the common denominators there's a top down structure right and and that's what you were talking about Tim's that sort of top down structure and and that that. That chokes out collaboration before even.

[00:08:42] Start right you know you have no voice you have no voice and and so you know I definitely experienced that although I will say it wasn't so much collaboration.

[00:08:54] Maybe it was my my senior pastor we actually hired him we had started the church before he came so that experience was a little bit different certainly was not you know cavalry chapel prototypical but.

[00:09:06] Since we hired him and brought him in and had established the ministry there would I enjoyed more collaboration than then many but still. You know there still was an underlying flavor of if I want your opinion I'll give it to you.

[00:09:21] Ted's the only guy know who planted a church as an XP. Not the lead guy right true. That's exactly how went down.

[00:09:31] What about for you Andy what was your experience like yeah I was I was hired with zero skills in ability and training and given a platform and.

[00:09:40] I craved mentorship and I saw it out and got it because I saw it out but without it wasn't required of me I was given some books to read.

[00:09:50] I think I thrived personally in the a culture where I could think of thought and run with it and the Lord was just you know merciful and allowed some of those things to be helpful.

[00:10:00] Some things you know I have to have gone through seminary I would obviously do different differently now and do a better job of equipping the parents to be primary disabled makers stuff like that but.

[00:10:08] But I can't say that the like the youth leaders with me were thriving they all they all say I disabled them and they love the Lord all that kind of stuff but.

[00:10:17] I wasn't thinking about their development at all or their ideas they were just enjoying implement the ideas I did so I don't think that was healthy although it happened to work without just luck at that point at the Bible college I began to have you know bored above me.

[00:10:29] And I'm interested about me that I was able to glean more from and learn from yeah and at the church to be honest because I didn't have any of that training like I didn't come in here with the.

[00:10:38] Natural giftings of this collaboration leadership skills but we were blessed we are blessed to have a great executive pastor that's very gifted in that so I'm leaning really heavily on him for my personal training and for him to just run with him that stuff to.

[00:10:54] And so that's a good segue into you know how has this change now that you know we're all lead pastors and you know as we're leading our own churches let's talk about what that.

[00:11:08] And so it's a great question that I think we've all you know kind of journey through this you know over the years wrestling with how much of a.

[00:11:14] Tim with the idea of just casting vision for your church is that something in your tribe and reality that is a collaborative thing. Or is it the lead pastor gets the vision and you know lays it out.

[00:11:30] Yeah, it's a great question I think we've all you know kind of journey through this you know over over the years wrestling with how much.

[00:11:38] Collaboration is appropriate and helpful and whatnot the first thing that comes to my mind and I'm sure you guys would agree with this one conversation is about your ecclesiology and how you structure your church.

[00:11:48] Yeah, but I think you can have that conversation separately I think even with however.

[00:11:55] Tightly your I know this is kind of a bad word hierarchy is structured you can still collaborate within that so I wouldn't want anyone to hear this thinking oh no I can't hold the title of lead pastor if we collaborate like I'm not getting in any that you can hold all of the right position senior pastor lead past whatever it is and then have a culture of collaboration so for me.

[00:12:18] And I think this is. Particularly true of a lot of people who have started their own churches there is a. Fear that the vision you have it if it hasn't. I don't think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea to see the music.

[00:12:38] To me that's kind of. So the music. I've been kind of around some kind of buy in or agreement like a root grass roots level that is going to feel very just kind of top down maybe even disconnected at best. And out of my concern. You know.

[00:12:58] for the church. I would meet with all of our not only our staff but our lay leaders and key leaders and kind of hear what God was doing, I would at times run by some of the things

[00:13:07] I was thinking of regarding vision for the church just to kind of you know I wasn't saying hey can you make the decision for me? Can I outsource my senior leadership?

[00:13:17] Like that's not how I was saying. I would just say you know hey I'm really sensing and thinking you know it's God has put me in this position here's where I'm thinking the direction is going

[00:13:26] does that resonate with you? And they'd be like yes or maybe a little bit but one thing to think about and that was so helpful so that when I went and cast the vision or presented it

[00:13:36] there was like so much more resonance because there had been that collaboration on the ground level so you don't have to relinquish your you know position of authority or whatever it's just it can

[00:13:46] be as simple as just having conversation with some of the leader lay leaders and staff members of of your church and that was so helpful and so formative for me especially as a younger church

[00:13:55] planner where I was always second guessing myself like is this the thing and this is the right am I off here am I missing it? Yeah that's good you know in our culture at Calvary Vista

[00:14:09] I actually call this as a Reserlaze division I'll call it the the Four Seas of Vision and and we say this in our church structure anyone can cast vision it can come from me it can

[00:14:23] come from someone on staff it can come from someone in our leadership it can come from somebody in the congregation and so there are things that you know we do in our church that have

[00:14:33] came directly from an idea of vision that somebody in our body had and so our four seas is that anybody can cast the vision and then the second seas is clarity so when somebody comes with

[00:14:48] an idea our leadership team will then ask questions and we want to get clarity as to what is this look like and you know how would this work and you know that sort of thing and then once we

[00:14:59] get clarity the third seas confirmation so our leadership team which consists of 10 guys will take some time to pray over that and then they'll come back with a you know hey we think

[00:15:10] God's in this let's go for it and then the fourth seas is the carrying out and so that's when we look to our staff and we look to the body of how do we carry out this you know vision and I

[00:15:23] found that to be so fun because you know our leadership team and myself have probably cast the overall vision for you know the the church but I love seeing the body get a vision for something like

[00:15:37] we give me an example we do this thing every year that we call the Mary Mall and so we have shopping day for people in our community to come into the church and we we bought this year I

[00:15:51] think it was 3,000 gifts and so we had all these people from our community that are low-income people they come in and they get to they get gifts for their kids for free and and so you know this

[00:16:05] was an idea that somebody had in our body and so we we gave gifts this year to 1200 kids in our community outside of our church and it was an idea that somebody else you know had

[00:16:21] that the body you know our leadership got behind it the body got behind it and it just keeps growing every single year but that's an example of what I mean somebody else getting a vision for something

[00:16:33] and we're like yeah let's go for that right and sometimes you know instantaneously yeah I mean we had we had a gallon our church and I think I mean I've told the story before but we had a gallon our church

[00:16:43] she was she was a Chinese missionary out of Costa Mesa and then when she came back into the state she finished up you know landed here and this gal is an evangelist at heart she's passionate

[00:16:58] about sharing the gospel it's just who she is and just a regular attendor here at our church and the next thing you know you know she's she discovers she's out in the community sharing

[00:17:12] Christ and she discovers that in certain businesses here in town they were all Chinese don't and so she's knowing that she started targeting all of these little massage shops in town

[00:17:28] that were all Chinese own and people are coming to faith left and right well I walked into the sanctuary one day and there was a box of what I thought were iPods there and I'm like what are these

[00:17:39] and one of our guys says well that's that's our that's our translators for for our Chinese ministry and I said we have a Chinese ministry I didn't know anything about it well I mean they

[00:17:55] just these guys just saw what God was doing she's bringing people to Christ left and right they all speak Mandarin and so my multimedia department had just bought translators and this gal is

[00:18:08] there sitting there translating I mean we have I mean I want to say we probably have 75 Chinese people now in our Chinese ministry that start and like let's buy more translators so let's

[00:18:20] get let's get this gal whatever she needs and and again it just happened it was an initiative that that somebody took in the spirit and you're like she's bringing people who are you know in a

[00:18:35] questionable industry living in questionable lifestyle to Jesus Christ and and you just want to get behind that I love that yeah I love what you said Tim about going and asking

[00:18:48] questions and and going and sharing like hey this is something I feel like God's kind of put on my heart do you bear witness with this or you know I think that's a really really smart thing to do and

[00:19:01] it takes some pressure off of you to to feel like you know I got to go up to the mountain like Moses and get the word from God and then bring it down and share it you know can you elaborate on

[00:19:12] that? Yeah it's actually funny that you mentioned that I think that last example of like I'm Moses I gotta go you know by myself kind of away and I bring the vision down I do think that

[00:19:24] that is the experience of a lot of leaders that they think that's the expectation maybe the congregation has the expectation of the leaders but man for two reasons that stand out to me that I definitely experienced in LA and London which they're just very difficult places obviously to

[00:19:42] live but also to minister and I think that sense of overwhelm you really want to like pay attention to what's going on and how is the congregation you know experiencing everything and when we moved to

[00:19:55] London I think I was so aware of the culture gap you know between me being an American I'm an expat I'm living there obviously I have my theology and the convictions of course all that my

[00:20:08] role as a lead pastor but sort of how to carry out the ministry I was so aware that I was going to have a lot of blind spots and so I really leaned into collaboration in that and like you said

[00:20:18] Robin I'm sure you guys have felt this way before I think it takes the pressure off like in two ways and I want you don't just feel alone you know in it and for me that's like a big deal

[00:20:30] but two I just think that's part of how the that's how the bodies like to work like we're all gifted in different ways love Acts chapter six you know they bring the need and you know

[00:20:42] Peter's like hey choose among yourselves you know these people are full of faithful to Holy Spirit both wisdom like go for it like Robin described earlier that like empowering ministry it's not free

[00:20:53] for all there's still real decision making power it's not free for all but it is collaborative I love it I love the journey it does take the pressure off because you know if you

[00:21:04] know the word succeed is a dirty word in the church but if it's fruitful then you experience it put together if it's not that fruit you experience the failure to get right and you can like

[00:21:14] do you really like what's that yeah I love that that's so good so Andy with you when you come in to an existing culture and an existing sort of structure and how things are going

[00:21:29] how how was the collaborative process for you going in and maybe how did you tweak it what what did you do yeah I've been blessed with great mentors in my life and the founding pastor of

[00:21:40] cornerstone told me early on that he knows that I'm different than him and then I'm gonna take the church in a different direction and that's why he chose me and so he didn't want me to doubt

[00:21:51] any leading I was feeling from the Lord and so that gave me a lot of confidence because we're very different people he's better than I he's better than I am to be honest but we're very different

[00:21:59] and so that kind of support he just wants to be able to voice his early on those opinions and then he always ends up with your lead pastor you know what do you want to do and those early mentoring

[00:22:09] conversations were crucial but I was encouraged actually to go and seek the Lord for like five years worth of vision like just a bigger longer term things and I love I love the spiritual discipline

[00:22:21] solitude being alone so I have had saw that so I enjoyed getting way in doing that but I am a verbal processor and the Lord loves to hear my voice but I love I love when people can look at me

[00:22:31] and give me the verbal you know the non-verbal cues like that was a dumb idea and that is so I hit it from that so I constantly toss out mediocre ideas and the team is very gracious

[00:22:42] to talk them through with me let me know how they're feeling about them and I feel a lot of safety in doing that with them you know I felt they're judging me in horrible ideas and so so I was

[00:22:53] I did I did seek the Lord for vision but I just kept walking across the hall and talking with all the pastors about it I'm an extrovert and a verbal processor and so I just need to be around people

[00:23:02] and so the ideas come from all over the place and I've a less formalized version of you know moving those things form right well you guys think about the guy that's got to manage up

[00:23:15] you know we have you know because in what sparked this question is you said safety you felt safe and doing that and I ended up and so I wanted I was thinking well let's go down that line

[00:23:27] you know what do you do to create an environment where you're safe but then my next thought is what about the guy who's managing up he's part of and he's part he's listening to this he

[00:23:37] he doesn't have the luxury of being in charge being the lead guy but you want to see more collaboration so what would you guys say to that guy you know about how do you how do you manage up in terms of the

[00:23:51] idea I tried building a real relationship when I was a youth pastor the senior pastor at the church in New Jersey always invited the whole team to be in relationship with him and

[00:24:03] everybody turned them down except for me it seemed like I would constantly go in his office because he didn't really mean it yeah apparently never it looks like why are you taking him up on it

[00:24:14] you're not supposed to take that off so I played basketball wasn't tough. I went in his office we would we would my wife and I would like drive to a great restaurant in his town and then call him

[00:24:25] and say we're in your town do you want to go play scrabble and come over his house please grab all I don't so some people thought I was trying to be a golden boy to get my agenda accomplished

[00:24:33] but I just knew nothing about ministry and wanted to be around the senior pastor yeah so because we built a real relationship that trust then came and I was able to get some of that mentorship

[00:24:43] and you know green lights to move forward on certain things but yeah I had a clear conscience that I didn't do that with an agenda or an ambition but because I needed the mentorship and I was

[00:24:52] going to trust the guy it is word he's not going to come to us that's just how he's wired that's okay but I'm going to go to him he said too. Yeah you're taking an amount of him up on what he asked

[00:25:00] you to do yeah another poor guy said which is actually the way I would answer that question I think it's as simple as you know and again there's probably two parts of the question of managing it

[00:25:11] up I think there's the average like congregant how do they bring up particular burden or vision that they might have but then maybe we're officially on a team we encourage people to share their

[00:25:23] you know the passions for ministry that they have or their ideas particularly on staff like man if you have a vision by all means present us now we do manage their expectation like it may not

[00:25:34] get approved. Like just know that just be humble not every idea it's a good idea and you know that for my own experience like it's or maybe it just has not the right time and we don't have

[00:25:43] the research there's a lot of caveat but we do want to create a coach where people can explore they can pray they can like talk about it and then you know for us we have like our

[00:25:55] our staff team and we all have our lay leaders and and a similar way Rob you know obviously is elders we have to like discern sometimes we're presenting something to get feedback sometimes they're presenting something to us we've got to get together we've

[00:26:09] got to pray about it but I love that open line of communication yeah I do think it is important to manage people's expectations because we've all got me you know like I'm going to start

[00:26:20] you know blank a tambourine ministry you're like well she yeah we're actually we gotta do it you know yeah so yeah I think there's a very loving way to say like look we're not always able to

[00:26:33] you know fulfill every ministry idea that's ever come from our job is to discern you know what is the best and right thank for us but we definitely want that open door community communication so I do think managing expectations is important but also get the freedom

[00:26:48] and permission to ask yeah and for us I mean it all goes under that banner of the confirmation like we're gonna you know we'll pray about this you know we'll pray about it or sometimes you just

[00:26:59] know like no that's not gonna happen but tambourine ministry is gonna happen but but there's a documentary right exactly but I part of it too and I found this in our culture is part of

[00:27:15] it is it becomes a part of your DNA and you know one of the things that's part of our DNA I love three fur two when Paul is talking in Philippians chapter three about you know wanting to discern

[00:27:29] the reason why Jesus apprehended him and I tell the congregation all the time that for Paul that was an ongoing revelation that every new city, every new place it was like oh this is why God

[00:27:40] apprehended me as to preach here in Ephesus and so one of the things I share with our church a lot is that we all have an assignment and we're you know part of the Christian life is figuring out

[00:27:52] what is God's assignment for for me right now in this season of my life and I like to really equate it to the question of what has God put into your hands and I look at Adam and Eve and

[00:28:05] I see that you know God I would describe their assignment in this way that their assignment was to love him to love one another and to take care of the garden that's what he put into their hands and so

[00:28:18] I always say to the body what is God put into your hands what resources what relationships what opportunities and then and then I want to encourage them that look we want to get behind you

[00:28:30] in what God has put in your hands we want to encourage you you know and what God has put in your hands and you know help you use and discover your gifts and I think that that kind of language just

[00:28:40] freeze people to be like you know God has something for me and my churches they're behind me the very least pray for me you know in this thing rub you mentioning that is reminds me how important it

[00:28:54] is to it's one of the fruits of collaboration is you're able to discern is that vision you have that ministry is it for you as an individual yes is it perhaps maybe for a group within the church

[00:29:07] or is this a ministry for the whole church the whole church? I love that because when as you were describing that like encouragement of what's it what's in your hand I think we've all found as

[00:29:19] leaders there's times where people will bring us but it's a staff or a lay leader someone in the church you're kind of hearing them going okay that's great I don't think we collect I'm not sure that

[00:29:28] that's right collectively for the church maybe we don't have you know the right resources or ability at this point in time but man maybe that's for you but you don't you only discern that in the collaborative process in the conversation and the talking through it and whatnot and

[00:29:46] I think that's really important for people to know that there's different levels that that ministry can take but collaboration is what helps discern what form that ministry can take. Yeah and to establish that culture of collaboration either if it's if it's the culture of your

[00:30:03] staff or if it's the culture of your key volunteers or you know just generally in the congregation I think it's helpful for us to be able to to instruct and to point out and say you know

[00:30:17] teaching our people look community is seen in the Godhead you know with an outward focused orientation you know let us make man in our own image you know and and again community in the church

[00:30:32] you you have this outward focused orientation you know it's impossible to miss the one and others of the Bible as you read through it you know love one another do we devoted to one another on

[00:30:43] or live in harmony council serve one another you know and then we see this this collaboration as we go through the scriptures in Acts chapter 11 you know so on Barnabas you know Barnabas goes out and recruits Paul and they're collaborating together and

[00:31:01] then they're collaborating with the church in Jerusalem in Acts 15 you know when they're dealing with some heresy and you know Paul then recruiting Timothy and collaborating with him and and then we see Paul's heart into the Corinthians 2 Corinthians 1 24 where basically says look

[00:31:19] we don't want to dominate you but we want to work with you you know and so I think as we're instructing our our people our teams strategically to say look collaboration is biblical

[00:31:33] we see it and this is what we want to strive for then that kind of gives them permission to be able to step into that and you know to respond to those invitations that are given

[00:31:45] to say hey we we want to see you you know if you've got something to share share it yeah then they can step into it given them that freedom I think is huge um hey let's segue into

[00:31:55] talking about collaboration as it relates to the teaching ministry I think that that again is something we didn't really see modeled for us growing up but I I think I know Ted and I

[00:32:08] have been doing a lot more of this in recent years I know that's a huge part of your guys' culture uh Tim but what does that look like for you guys Ted here at Reliance?

[00:32:20] We intentionally uh involved the guys on on a regular basis whether I'm in town or out of town every um four to six weeks I want to I want the congregation to hear from one of our other pastors

[00:32:34] so you're collaborating by having some your other pastors T. They're in regular rotation and teaching and then also we're collaborating for certain series okay so our Advent series for Christmas we we collaborate together on that or during Easter beginning with Palm Sunday and all through

[00:32:56] Holy Week we're collaborating to see what it's what it's good to look like what direction we're gonna take now for you Tim and correct me if I'm wrong you have actually a weekly collaboration in the preparation is that correct? Oh yes although we've recently transitioned away from that

[00:33:13] to the time being because it was so time-consuming yeah but there's but we haven't eliminated collaboration but we did eliminate how formal it was and in my travels I'm sure you guys have seen

[00:33:29] this you know I've seen everything from I had the privilege of sitting in on colors meeting and redeemer you know like back in the day in New York seeing how they did it and it was so long and so

[00:33:40] form it was amazing but it was a lot for a lot of churches that just doesn't work like to take right you know that many hours to have the sermon done that far in advance you know it's just some

[00:33:51] some of this church size dynamic and all that plays into it but we've never eliminated the collaborative you know effort so for us collaboration very much goes into the choosing of a series or a book

[00:34:04] that we're gonna teach we involve our prayer ministry in that like so our prayer ministries all kind of this one group and they pray for and over people on Sundays of course but they also

[00:34:14] praying to a lot of matters for the church so if I say you know right now we just started second Thessalonians so back and we were praying about it the elders are talking about it

[00:34:22] then we shot it out you know to some other people there and then we threw it out to our staff to see if it kind of resonated and then if we really sense that man we we think you know this

[00:34:31] just be such a timely book for us then we'd get into the collaborative part of mapping out the series so everyone would have to say in that I'm sure we've all used the phrase first among equals differently yeah within leadership team the way that I see

[00:34:48] the way that we see it is there's first among equals in your area of gifting so I'm the first among equals and teaching and preaching we have another elder is first among equals in student and family

[00:34:59] ministry so in it's support so I will kind of go get an outline together and then I will present it and then I'll have everyone feed into it like hey how much time do you give to this text

[00:35:09] or that and then I'll go back to the you know back to my draft and adjust it so that's how we map it out and then we'll also choose the right teachers for that whether it's people on our team

[00:35:18] or guess and then when it comes down to the week of preparing it we always get another person or too to like you know go through the outline and whatnot but it used to be more formal the

[00:35:27] sermon had to be done you know at least 75% and we would like read the whole thing and everyone chime in but to be honest that works in a larger probably church staff and I had that back

[00:35:39] in LA in different times it's just honestly not practical but you still want to run it by people and get that voice and expositors collected we talked about the importance of that all the time

[00:35:49] like get other people you know to speak into the into that outline so important to collaborate on that's great we're doing something similar recently where I'm going to teach about 41

[00:36:02] sermons a year right now or early on I might just scale that back later on so about every five weeks I'll have one of our pastors teach but what I do is we plan our sermon calendar in October

[00:36:14] in November for the following year and usually 95% of that stays the same unless there's some crazy stuff going on in the world which never happens. And now it's always not that's the prop I know

[00:36:25] all the time you can't even teach the book anymore every year of election year yeah so month before I create the sermon calendar all of our pastors are sending me thoughts you know like

[00:36:36] hey I think this is what our church is doing if I were to write a letter to the local church like our revelation letter here's where I think we're doing well here's we're not doing well so that kind

[00:36:45] of helps form some of the ideas and then I have a recently formalized like I don't know what to call it a teaching preparation team so it's four to five people that are diverse lay leaders in the church

[00:36:58] so I've got the worship pastors wife I've got some older people all different kinds of ethnicities people that have different kinds of jobs and what they're committed to do is pray for me while I'm

[00:37:07] studying and then by the by Sunday night they're reading ahead in the chapter I'm going to be teaching on in the following Sunday and they're just going to give me a half a page to one page of

[00:37:17] notes saying hey here may be some blind spots that you have make sure you don't forget about the single mom or the blended family when you're talking about this that can really hurt them

[00:37:27] so they're just answering some basic things that might help me with blind spots what questions would a new believer have an unbeliever so they get that to me on Sunday night I read that quickly and it's

[00:37:38] pretty easy and it's just by email and I tell them is no pressure if you're if you're busy it's fine I love writing sermons alone but you know so they get that to me Monday and Tuesday mornings off site

[00:37:48] I get alone and write the majority of the sermon in the morning and then Tuesday I have a pretty good first draft and then after that I go to a different team of basically one of our current pastors

[00:38:02] and then retired pastors that happened to call a cornerstone home and I send them my outline that's almost ready to be preached and they give it a once through and give me a couple more thoughts

[00:38:11] and then after that I finalize it request my slides and then four times a year on on series that I choose give them a worksheet and ask them to give me feedback on my actual delivery

[00:38:23] of the sermon as well and so I'm trying to like limit that not all not all time give me feedback but four times a year give me give me feedback so I mean I take you know I watch preaching you know

[00:38:32] the art of teaching jamacomer those guys had a really good teaching you know workshop class you could take and so I do stuff like that as well but it's been it's been great I mean it really has been

[00:38:42] helpful to catch them those blind spots early I still feel free to create but then I get one more once over by retired pastors golden school I love that that's really great I'm I'm impressed

[00:38:55] you guys I'd say my collaboration looks a little bit more like Ted's in the sense that you know we might talk through ahead of time a book hey what would you you guys feel like this is

[00:39:09] you know would be timely you know for the body and then we're talking through series you know like we usually do the Christmas series and I'm not the only one that teaches in that and so we'll

[00:39:21] we'll talk through it or sometimes we'll pick a series and I know like in the fall we're going to do on Wednesday nights and men of faith he bris a leaven and and I'm not going to you know be the

[00:39:32] only one teaching in that and so we'll talk through that with the different guys that are going to teach but but I got to be honest with you guys I have the hardest time and this is why I'm

[00:39:42] wired laying out like a whole year of messages because like I started the book up back I know you're an axe right now too and I started with the intention of I have no idea how long I'm going to go

[00:39:57] on this I mean and it's going to end up being a year and a half when I'm finally you know done with it and so I'm always impressed with you know guys I told my media team this past week that after

[00:40:10] our week of prayer and fasting I actually got direction from the Lord on what we're going to be teaching for the rest of the year and that has never happened. My media director just said to me

[00:40:24] I'm going to have to ask and pray every single time that we got to do this every time that would be like I just made their life so much easier by giving him that but yeah but you know

[00:40:35] what Rob I think you're you're freeing up just saying that is freeing some people up because not everybody's wired the same way. I'm not wired you know we we we had Nate on a couple times as a

[00:40:46] gas Nate holdridge Nate you know has pretty much a five year teaching plan you know and I'm like wow that's great yeah our friend Jason has a seven year seven years for not know about Jason yeah

[00:41:01] and there's just an insane of the church itself like I've changed so at reality I when we were kind of it that the big staff you know during those crazy days it did require everything to be so much

[00:41:16] more formalized than in advance and so there were three years I had to do it a certain way whether it's even like worship team needing this you know ax amount of weeks in advance and

[00:41:27] because of the sensitive nature to the topic we're addressing and the size of the church at the time there's just a lot more of a formal approach to it and that has changed like church planning you're

[00:41:39] like okay I got 30 people like you're like a part time person you know so then that changed but in the that grows you have to adapt but I think the principle of collaboration should always under

[00:41:53] you know beyond relying on and when we do the expositors collected that I know something you guys have you know been involved with you're aware that a lot of people attending those conferences

[00:42:05] they have all kinds of different church and ministry sizes and I say look you might hear an example that's really amazing but that fits that structure what about if you have a smaller congregation

[00:42:17] just adopt the principle read your outline to your non Christian neighbor like I would just know I would just like especially in London I would just we rented this co-working space and I would just

[00:42:28] try out my sermon on literally you know this like British guy working next to me just kind of see what their reaction was and then I would on a phone call run it by a member in our church and then I'd run

[00:42:39] it by one of our staff members that was a very informal but still intentional version of what I used to do at a much more kind of a formalized level in reality way but I think the underlying

[00:42:50] thing we're all talking about here is involved other people in that process you can save you sometimes my wife looks at every printed sermon you know early enough where I could make a change

[00:43:01] in 95% of the time she's like that's great but the one time a year where she gives me a look I spend the rest of the night working right so I'm gonna sit at it and I and she'll she has saved

[00:43:12] me from well it's funny because you know what's what's the old adage there's three messages you preach right the one we've then you put in the sermon together the one when you give the

[00:43:21] sermon and then the one in the car on the way home and it was interesting because yesterday today money no it's not so so yeah yeah it was it was yesterday my wife and I were having a

[00:43:36] conversation about message I preached on Sunday and she had some insights that I thought man I wish I would have talked to you on Saturday you know or she's like earlier in the week you know

[00:43:53] so anyway it's it's interesting how about collaborating with you know department heads staff someone you know what is what does that look like because that you know we're talking about you know the sermon but there's you know there's a hundred ways we can collaborate in the ministry so

[00:44:12] what are some other ideas here yeah I could jump in we um sorry Tim oh no we this is a great great conversation yeah so once a year our XP is a church consultant too so he works for unstuck

[00:44:27] ministries and so it's just it's gold to have a he goes out there and here's the best ideas and kind of appropriately bring them back sometimes and we can pray about them but but he wants a year

[00:44:37] leads an annual strategic meeting where we get off site for a full day we review our vision our discipleship pathway the fight you know all those different things and then we just with all

[00:44:48] the pastors we start putting together what that years usually we come up with the first half of the years initiatives who want four or five initiatives of new things we want to do so this Sunday

[00:44:58] we're launching a once a month family meal after our third service where you know five bucks for adults kids eat free if you're new to the church that month eat free and just trying to

[00:45:07] create some family stuff so that came out of that meeting so once a year everyone gets a chance to pour in for initiatives they're all different leaders are youth pastor may take a family

[00:45:15] camp initiative that doesn't really involve him so it gives people a chance to step out of their lane and do something exciting for the church and then our twice a month pastors meetings that we

[00:45:25] have as a time where if any ministry proposals are created we perform that people can fill out that are on our staff if they're created and passed up to the pastors then we go over them in

[00:45:36] those meetings and we had this like sweet little old lady she's actually an accurate description that had a great idea for a ministry but we knew she needed some handholding we're not going

[00:45:46] to make her fill out our forms and some of our other staff members kind of walked her through the whole process was an ambassador for her and so we kept a bit of our structure and molded it

[00:45:54] a bit towards her and a great ministry was launched through her as well yeah that's cool we did we have those rhythms at least yeah I think for me what was really important to understand

[00:46:08] my own mind especially as when I was younger and especially row the way when it first started growing and our staff were really fast and I think at one point we went from my having 12 to like

[00:46:21] 30 and like a year to a year and a half it's just nuts and I realized how unacquipped I was you know just from kind of a leadership of an organization that that size but one of the things that was so

[00:46:34] helpful for me was embracing the word overseer and really understanding that my role is yes we want to encourage people to pray and present their vision but my job is not so much you know to tell them

[00:46:52] what to do nor are they telling me what to do I'm to make sure that whatever is being proposed fits in with the overall vision and direction of the church and obviously guarding the theological gate which

[00:47:04] is assuming that in there but that was very helpful for me and it was also helpful to communicate that to our staff because there's that balance of we want you to be three to make proposals

[00:47:16] right but I also slash the others we also need to be three to say hey we don't think this fits in with the overall vision of the church and as long as we were saying that up front it managed a lot

[00:47:31] of pain and disappointment and the reason I laughed by the way Andy I got you out early the reason during that season we had a lot of people on our staff who were probably the average age of like 23

[00:47:46] we're now right it's like the most you know aggressive individualistic place you know honor so you don't need to tell people an L.A. that they should have a vision and a passion for what

[00:47:57] they do right it hardest thing is making them know that like the thing that they want to do is not what the billions of people need to do you know and I mean I laughed but like people quit

[00:48:10] because oh yeah I want to do this thing I want to create this huge resource and it was going to cost all this money like do this doesn't even fit in with the direction of our church and like

[00:48:18] how dare you you're squashing ministry and they they laughed yeah so if I learned one thing it's the managing expectations yeah managing and knowing my role like I'm an overseer so I'm not going to be like the

[00:48:32] kind of CEO that's going to go around or department head is a you need to do this obviously I'm giving them the the framework there's the job that needs to be done but all the particular aspects

[00:48:41] of it use your gifts seek the Lord but I am still responsible as an overseer so I've got to make sure that this is fitting in with with everything both theologically but all the way down

[00:48:51] to the practicalities of it and so you need to know that like that's what you should expect from me that's what you should expect from the leaders but I don't want you to think about me do can't present

[00:49:02] or propose things so there's a balance there it killed me for years because everyone had an expectation that we were just there to like fund any project came in and it was like no it was

[00:49:14] it's not right so I think that could be a whole another pod guest to have a pcession of you too how to how to manage expectations of Gen Z and Millennials on the idea you know we want to

[00:49:30] support you and you know the heart but we'd also you know what you do feel like you're a part of this too and because that's the thing I hear so often is you know like you guys just want to

[00:49:43] you're not willing to use just want to squash everything and we're like well no we can only do so much you know and but and there's a lot of discussion about giving you know let's give these

[00:49:55] kids a seat at the table yeah you know and let's not just give them a seat at the table let's give them a voice and I and I'm all for that so am I but you know it's we don't you just don't get it

[00:50:05] we just don't hand it out there is some of them want to run the table right there's some very it goes into that you know a view of voice and about I don't know if you can

[00:50:16] board yeah I like it yeah yeah have the have the voice you know it's some people can have the view but like sort of the boat like there really is such thing is leadership positions and

[00:50:28] they're half right decisions that are made but they need to know the heart behind it that's why I like the my job is to make sure it fits so it's not so much my opinion as if we're is I'm trying

[00:50:37] to look at every what are we doing here students families men women different age demographics and then our theological priorities and our missional priorities and I'm trying to hear everything

[00:50:46] and light up that and so if it's a yay or nay would I hope they're not hearing is oh tin likes or doesn't like that and all the time that's what I'm here and those like really

[00:50:56] streams senior pastor models they're like hey what's your vision like yeah I don't like that we're not doing it yeah that it's just that and then it doesn't fit you know within the broader

[00:51:11] vision yeah right and then it gets translated Tim not only doesn't like my idea but he doesn't like me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but you know and at our church at

[00:51:27] Calrevisso one of the things that we have been working really really hard to try to get in the mindset of our culture is that this is a we culture not a day or a you culture

[00:51:41] and meaning that you know we're all in this together and so we want to come alongside each other and and I love watching this because I think youth and Ellen ahead Tim is as far as in the sense

[00:51:53] of the lead pastor role being that kind of overseer and I love watching the different people on our staff collaborate and come alongside one another and I'll walk into this room we call it our staff

[00:52:06] lounge and they're you know four different ministries sitting out the table and they're all talking about the event that children's ministry has coming up and they're all you know collaborating they're all buying in I just love seeing you know that whereas before like we talked about

[00:52:21] it was sort of like everybody's off in their own little silo doing their own little thing but just you know trying to get that I have to remind them oftentimes like hey guys this is a wee

[00:52:32] not a day out of you but then I'll say this but if something ever gets to the point where you know the wee is is feeling burdensome for all of us or if that if we feel like the wee

[00:52:48] is it's just falling all on the staff and it isn't something that the body's getting be hit you know maybe it's something we need to step back and really look at is this something God really

[00:53:02] wants us to be doing yeah right now you know I really do think that if a practical lesson for me has been in the act of collaboration is managing expectations and I know we've mentioned that

[00:53:14] because we've seen some of the best stuff come out of collaboration and have also seen some of the most pain and hurt come from on that expectations so I don't know if you guys have read this book

[00:53:24] difficult conversations it's not a Christian book that's like one of those like Harvard Business Review it's great but the main takeaway is there's four rules to expectations expectations need to be known realistic communicated agreed upon and they applied to marriage it's

[00:53:43] well which is great but what we started doing with staff is walking them through expectations if you have something you want to propose I just want to walk you through like Rob you

[00:53:53] have your four seas it's kind of a version like here's how it goes what is your expectation of like how this proposal is going to go or this ministry that you want to do we have to look

[00:54:05] at and say is it realistic are we communicating about it and what's the decision process like is that agreed upon if you're going to propose something I want you to know upfront how a decision will ultimately get get made because especially in a way whatever you have all

[00:54:19] this vision and the church was growing like so many hurt feelings amongst layleaders and staff members and it forced me to really be clear like hey that's amazing there's a lot of

[00:54:30] caveats there could be a ministry for you or for a group or you know a pair of church thing for the church so I want to walk you through exactly what this process looks like as opposed to just

[00:54:40] leaving at mystical and mysterious like I emailed Rob and I emailed Andy and Ted never got back to me you know so I know like it's just so nice to just say it upfront and just manage people's

[00:54:52] expectations so that the collaboration process doesn't produce any kind of I've never heard that beyond is I think it's great we we scrape from marriage by the way too yeah anytime someone says oh I just thought that meant that their expectations were managed oh I just hoped

[00:55:11] their expectations weren't managed you know we try and have one-on-one meetings with our team individuals obviously every six weeks and we'll share expectations for them right and we agree we agree upon them when we write them down and we both have that you know kind of a

[00:55:28] document we try to do that more than an annual review just like six weeks touchpoints but I don't think I've ever guided someone through how decisions are made and I've had that mystical moment

[00:55:39] there I will let you know which is the Christian way of saying no yeah right oh pray that's good I'm going to research that which is often this blow you know and it's interesting

[00:55:50] you know I was thinking as you were talking about communication of course obviously that's on the on the front end of it but for us here we have a department head structure and it's finding that

[00:56:01] unique balance between letting a department head you know you know carry you know their individual ball towards their individual goal and there is a place where we're all collectively conversing about it where it is the we were talking about it as you were talking about

[00:56:21] but then there's also that kind of that that line where it's like okay now that's your ball to carry that's your you know you're going to take it from here and I actually noticed and

[00:56:33] one of my one of my people actually pointed out to me to where we were we're getting to the place where we were having so much conversation about the details of it so our department head meetings

[00:56:43] turned into these massive planning sessions and it's like oh no we got to we got to back this off it was good for us to collaborate and to kind of get some clarity but to the point to where now

[00:56:55] we all got to you we got a plan and you know no no there's there's there's a there's a point where you got to delegate that you know right right I think there's also a point of sometimes just having a

[00:57:07] willingness and I think this is a form of collaboration but to be able to say with somebody you know hey okay you have this idea and it definitely fits within in the vision not quite sure though

[00:57:22] this is the Lord but but why don't you go for it and let's just see if God's in it you know type of a thing and then you sit back and you watch and sometimes you find out oh yeah I think the Lord was in that

[00:57:32] and but I think it's a way of also you know freeing up people especially people on our staff to be able to dream and be able to you know take a step of faith on something and be willing to

[00:57:45] let's something fail I think we have to be able to be willing to do that the risk of collaboration there's a risk of what do you know staple risk you know you know but you know you know

[00:57:57] yeah but you said something beautiful earlier Tim about how when you are collaborating with a group in something does fail it's not all on you and it's kind of freeing to feel like you know

[00:58:09] like oh my gosh you know that was a stupid idea that I had and everybody's gonna be looking at me but like no we went in this together with the sense of let's take a step of faith let's take a

[00:58:19] risk and and let's see if God's in it or not I'll use a real practical example of that when we plan to in London we spent the first nine months doing you know core team meetings, prayer meetings,

[00:58:31] vision values kind of you know essentially like creating a co-group and then it came time to get ready to launch an actual public Sunday gathering the problem was the location and the time

[00:58:43] there was like nothing like nothing I don't know how many emails we all sent out to get venues you know London's crazy like no one would let us meet in the mornings we only had options for the

[00:58:55] afternoon and they were in a very central place which not a lot of people live but it is accessible to everyone and I felt man this decision is so huge like this I really need

[00:59:09] I need to hear what this core group which at that time was probably maybe like 40 or 50 people and so I threw it out to the entire group and I didn't say like I want your vote

[00:59:21] but I did present it as I want all of you to pray because those of us involving in enrolment and decision making problems is such a huge deal so long story short we all I got feedback

[00:59:32] right open it up like if you want to give me your view on that that would be amazing so everyone kind of chimed in and we all agreed let's do the the afternoon service and we did it for a year and it

[00:59:43] wasn't great and at the end of that year what was nice about that as I said look ultimately like there's a group of us that have to make the decisions but we invited you all

[00:59:54] into the process of that and we all discern that it's not working so it actually made me free to then make the decision because we've been hearing from you who've been seeing how hard

[01:00:05] it's been for families you know those of you who are you know not yet married or you know working it didn't really matter that much to you we kind of like almost informally surveyed the

[01:00:15] church but because I was relaying that information to give everyone confidence then I slash the leadership team was aware of the needs there and so we all kind of like through that

[01:00:25] how we have an opportunity to move to a morning service and new location you know let's pray into this like feel free to share your thoughts with us pray with us so we didn't invite them to

[01:00:35] vote but we did invite them to have a voice and because we opened that up it just gave us so much more confidence going forward but I was also able to met like hey we were all kind of in this thing

[01:00:45] for the first time didn't really work so I'm never listening to you again yeah yeah yeah yeah you had your chance I'm going back to the mountain what do you guys fail to fail together but then

[01:01:01] take the next step together was misskin right what do you guys think about the notion of collaborating with other churches other ministries let's why is it so hard for that right that it seems

[01:01:13] like people in the church think that that should be easy right and so they're always suggesting ideas and and then I just see all the obstacles so there seems to be a way to do to have you want to

[01:01:27] do this you know neutral thing then you know find a neutral location and we all you know share responsibility or let's plan in advance the five different times we're rotating the location to five different

[01:01:37] churches for these corporate things but it just requires so much effort really to do that and so as a practical reasons for that yeah I mean it's kind of like you know you have two families

[01:01:50] talking about oh let's let's go on vacation together let's have our family's going in it we got our own gig and you got your own gig and we got our finances just to worry about

[01:02:00] and yeah that's I love going to those years that I've done prayer breakfasts that we have with pastors I love those I love Colin Pastor friends and ask them for advice but not all we haven't

[01:02:12] figured really really correct the code yet on how to work together in certain things it seems like there'd be something we could do right for the gospel for helping the poor but um I don't know

[01:02:21] to always harder than it should be yeah I think one place where I've seen it work though for instance like our church just hosted a youth camp and you know we had four other churches involved

[01:02:35] and our youth guys do a great job of collaborating with those other youth leaders on what the we can look like and who do we want to teach and you know that sort of thing where it's you know

[01:02:48] not just sometimes it's the you know the big church that's hosting something and they're like hey why you guys you can come along and like we're gonna plan it all and you guys if you want to come

[01:02:58] you can come but I think it's different when we whether it's like a mens retreat or a mens conference or and we're actually planning something and we're going to bring some other guys in

[01:03:09] and let's talk about you know what are the needs what do we want this to look like what are the messages that we want to you know have shared I think that collaboration can work in and that way for sure

[01:03:22] Tim I saw you had something cut on your your thoughts you were about ready to talk I mean there's I've had horrible experiences as I'm sure you guys have and then I've had amazing

[01:03:34] experiences I think especially in LA there was a strong desire for churches to you know do everything together some of that was pretty unrealistic I think what we had to learn to do the two things that came to mind is one collaborations were best within existing relationships

[01:03:58] so it's good if churches heard me talking about another church or another leader or another pastor maybe we had them speak or you know the prayer breakfasts and things like that and I'm able to like reference that the congregation feels there's a little more trust

[01:04:14] there like they are unknown entity but then the second part is there's levels of collaboration so one of the things like in LA obviously mercy type ministry was probably the easiest collaboration because it didn't really involve there's a lot of doctrinal concerns around collaboration

[01:04:32] like when I was in Hollywood uh um Bella or press not always press Bella or press used to always host the the big Easter service at the Hollywood Bowl but then it started becoming more of an

[01:04:43] inter faith you know type thing and I was like well we we can't collaborate um oh not so I just started having to be very clear people would ask why don't we do the thing you know I had to say look

[01:04:54] there's levels of collaboration if there's things that don't involve teaching or content we have a fairly low bar like the door is pretty broad to go serve the poor and skid row serve

[01:05:06] the poor in Hollywood like me that that door is pretty wide open if we're talking about collaborating not on service but on a content then there's going to be a much smaller door for that because

[01:05:18] we have certain responsibilities we have certain conviction and when I explain that to people they would understand that or is it a law and is the collaboration a one-offer is an a long-term collaboration well that's a different level of commitment and that will require a lot more time

[01:05:32] so once we started explaining that to people look we have different levels of collaboration and that's not abstract you know there are reasons for that and as we started explaining that to people they understood why we collaborated on some things and refused to collaborate on others but

[01:05:49] I did learn it works the best when you just have you know relationships that are known and you're talking about them yeah one of the things I love about what you just said I say one of the things

[01:05:59] because I love a bunch what you just said but one of the things is you know earlier when you were talking about managing expectations and establishing like you know clarifying what the expectations are

[01:06:11] that reflects you know some some wisdom on your part to be able to say what are my expectations in collaboration and being able to identify you know these are the broad doors of collaborative opportunities these are the narrow doors of collaborative opportunities and so you know that's

[01:06:32] fantastic that's really good people receive that well like they they get it especially when you make the difference between service and content those are as we all know there's two very different

[01:06:41] things there are some churches in LA that we would go serve the poor in a heartbeat and we did but if we were going to do a conference together there's a lot of times around like I just wouldn't I wouldn't

[01:06:50] do convictions are too strongly divided it would be confusing it would literally be confusing it's not going to be helpful doesn't mean we don't love Jesus we love Jesus we're preaching the gospel

[01:07:00] but on these other issues that are not central but really important it's only going to create an illusion so let's operate on a service level in our collaboration yeah relationship and and similar mindset as far as doctorally and missionally is I think really really key it's

[01:07:16] interesting though here in California I think because you know in California we have I mean our churches are quite large you know for in comparison to many other places in the country and so

[01:07:29] even finding a place where your churches could actually meet together is almost impossible you know it's really really hard and so this idea of like hey let's have a you know community service

[01:07:41] you know type of thing it's just it's just difficult to you know try and pull off but I love what you said about you know Tim the levels of collaboration I think that's a really great way to look at it

[01:07:52] and you know defining what that is then makes it really easy to answer that question you know like yeah we have a lot of other ways they hear like oh you're you either collaborate or you

[01:08:03] don't like they only have a very narrow way of collaboration like there's like one way you can collaborate and if you don't do a public service together on the first Sunday of the month in more than

[01:08:12] any other counties and you're not collaborating at all that's not true and another part of it depending on broad door narrow door of collaboration there is still a common denominator of the need for shared responsibilities and which is a key part of collaborating because sometimes you were describing

[01:08:34] or I'm sometimes guys are like hey this is this is our gig we're doing this and we want you all to get on board but they just want them to participate in the gig that they're doing and they're

[01:08:44] not really inviting them partner and collaboratively on something you know and so it can be and what you know it can look like okay we're doing this event and we're going to have this church

[01:08:56] be responsible for this aspect of the event and it's going to be entirely there's you know and that's a way where you collaborate and you invite participation well he's great example of

[01:09:08] that Ted is you know your wife has the mystery when she leads and she has a conference coming up and our church is taking one of the days where we're doing the food right and you know

[01:09:20] and so that's a way of like hey yeah we'll come alongside and be a part you know I think well in Andy's wife got to participate in the last one is part of the present the presenters

[01:09:32] of the front so and you know you mentioned also about with other ministries and you know a pair of church type of thing perhaps and and I think you know one of the things that the

[01:09:44] Lord put on my heart a few years ago was this idea that we can do more together than we can do by ourselves and so I really started praying about and we started praying about partnerships Lord

[01:09:57] who what ministries out there are can we partner with and so one of the the ministries that the Lord led us to partner with it was this food distribution ministry and so every single Wednesday

[01:10:11] this ministry shows up at our parking lot with a semi full of food and then people in our church and we've invited people from other churches they come to help serve and we have every single

[01:10:25] Wednesday morning from about 7 to 830 about 200 to 250 cars come through our parking lot and we fill up their trunks with food and I just saw last week someone posted a picture of your last

[01:10:40] that's not something we could have done on our own you know we don't have the funds to go by a semi truck full of food and we don't even have a semi truck to go to the food bank and get the food

[01:10:50] but this ministry was looking for a place to do it and you know we did it and then another ministry that we partnered with is really amazing ministry it's called humanity showers and

[01:11:03] it's got to be mobile shower units and he pulls up to our church and there's six showers and we do every Friday showers for the homeless and people in our church and people from other churches come

[01:11:18] and they cut hair and they you know and just so I love that you know that idea of you know collaborating that's a level of collaboration that we can do this where the body of Christ we

[01:11:29] want to reach out to those in our community that are in need and this is a way that we can do it and you know we didn't have a mobile shower you know but this guy he has six of them and he

[01:11:40] takes them all over the place and it's amazing and so we partner with him by providing the spot in the place and the in the labors to help do it and I love that type of collaboration with other

[01:11:52] ministries. Our mission's pastor is really good at that he already had a mission's non-profit organization called Mosaic International and so when we hired him we were looking to transition from really funding good international missions back to a discipleship model where our people are going

[01:12:09] and serving but you know he studied it fuller in different places to really know and his main question he asks churches all over the world is like well what do you want to do that has nothing

[01:12:20] and we just want to do that for you we want to fund it we want to help you with it but we don't want to break bring the idea and so sometimes like are you sure you want to do it this is the number one

[01:12:29] thing they want to do art then let's do it and he does that locally too or he just calls up nonprofits and says like how can we be a blessing to you I think we're throwing a just a family

[01:12:37] party for the boys and girls club in menify just because they work so hard there in that community and we're just going to go love them and so I would have done something different but

[01:12:45] they're like this is our number one need and so art well we have to listen to you yeah right cool I love the really cool awesome yeah well guys this has been an awesome conversation and really appreciate

[01:12:59] everybody's input and sharing your experiences I'll just kind of let each one of you go around and see is there any last thoughts that you might have anything we haven't hit on that maybe you think

[01:13:12] would be important anything on your heart and I'll start with you Tim I think the one thing that I've been reflecting on even as we're talking about it and when you told me that we were going to discuss collaboration collaboration sounds great to people who haven't collaborated before

[01:13:28] or especially in the industry the more that you do it you realize that man there's beautiful moments and there's really hard moments because collaboration can be really messy because you're allowing other people to speak into something or participate in something and I think the reflection

[01:13:47] that I want to share with other pastors is don't allow the negative experiences you had in collaboration control whether you choose to collaborate or not going yeah I think as we've all referred to that there's very there's a very beautiful biblical value you know the multitude of counsel

[01:14:07] there's wisdom it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us you know you were referring to gospel Paul's gospel partnership even though Paul clearly isn't a apostle in Romans one he's like

[01:14:18] man I want to be mutually encouraged you know so there's this beautiful collaboration within the church it is often messy but it is worth it and I don't want I joked about some of the bad

[01:14:30] bad things that I had but I don't want to become cynical about it and I have seen and this isn't just because of the church structure I have seen some senior leaders who because of wounds they've experienced in an open collaborative process they've isolated

[01:14:48] themselves like they just kind of like removed themselves and they're little like out of connection whether it's their leadership team and I know if you personally and though admit they're like yeah

[01:14:57] it's too I got hurt I don't want to do it anymore and that's real but I think we just need to be wise and going forward like expectations guardrails a process like whatever it is but I just don't

[01:15:10] want anyone to allow their bad experience of collaboration to determine whether or not they can allow very I think there's a beautiful biblical principle there that we want to pursue and this conversation is great hopefully it'll inspire some people with some good ideas about how to do it

[01:15:23] that's a great word great word to know I want to follow up though with this question for you and Andy in your preparation have you ever had this experience where somebody gave you some input and you didn't use it did they get offended?

[01:15:43] yeah you did never get offended. I know yeah when I invited people onto this team in that invitation I told them you've got to be the kind of person that knows that you are supporting me by doing this you may not find a single quote

[01:15:59] in what I say but that doesn't mean you didn't help shift me or prevent me from doing something and so I did it on day one and it's a one year commitment I'm asking for them so

[01:16:09] I did try and manage expectations early on that one because I'm like man I may never use anything but the one time a year when I'm told about a blind spot that prevents me from hurting somebody

[01:16:19] in the church by speaking in sensitively it's going to be worth it. That's great I'm really glad I asked that question because that was gold and Andy where you say them?

[01:16:27] yeah I did not as as Andy did I didn't know that I needed to you know set people's expectations and implement you know how I was going to communicate without but man probably maybe at first

[01:16:41] several years five years like especially reality lay when I just didn't know if somebody contributed something and I didn't use it or it wasn't a proof or if I didn't say it in the sermon or something

[01:16:50] like that I would literally get like a novel but people literally there's there's a woman who left the church because I think she she wanted she wanted me to include I won't get in detail

[01:17:02] she wanted me to like include this thing in a talk and I didn't include it and then but I never even understood the level of gravitas with which she presented it I didn't know

[01:17:13] this is like your life or death but I give this like giant you know she left the church because I didn't use her idea and that was like within the first year and that just happened

[01:17:24] often and it revealed how precious people can be about their ideas because like you alluded to Rob like it feels like a rejection of them and I think it's learning the hard way like oh

[01:17:37] wow people's default expectation is that I am going to endorse and use and champion like everything that I say it's a hobby horse totally so having to manage their expectations in a way

[01:17:51] that doesn't come off this condescending like a genuine one to hear you but I also genuinely cannot use every but like it just can't be just a can so yeah I wish somebody had told me to learn how to

[01:18:03] navigate those conversations earlier because I was hurt in that process and then they were hurt unintentionally hurt them as well so yeah I that's such a good lesson and I'm so glad you were able

[01:18:18] to take this with you to articulate that for sure that was so good any any final thoughts Andy just that the mission and the vision should be so important that we realize we have to

[01:18:29] collaborate right I mean I tell our church often that I don't think if there's Sunday only Christians I say it slightly nicer that's not where change happens like changes and happen from listening for a bit you get momentary conviction that most people don't have the capacity to

[01:18:44] they go and then make a change in their life you need to grow with others you need accountability right so you got to get into groups and serve them so we're asking all of our ministries to

[01:18:53] embrace the mission our discipleship pathway even though they're different so the kids ministry has to figure out how to help the hurting but how does the second grader do that well they got

[01:19:02] to figure it out right so that if if the discipleship pathway in the vision is in all the ministries it actually has a chance of changing the church culture and being effective if it's just the

[01:19:14] sermon and on the website we really have no chance they're not going to not going to see it remember anything so if there's buying with all the the leaders then there's a there's a chance

[01:19:23] and so we've got to go for it even though it can be messy and painful yeah love it I think you know I love what Tim said about how collaboration is really born out of relationship

[01:19:36] I think about our relationship you you me Rob we've been close for a number of years this podcast is a collaboration that we do together um and when you collaborate you know you lead differently than

[01:19:49] I do but we're both leaders and so when you collaborate it's like you can't you know there's there's given take you know and we have to think differently our brains work differently but it works yeah you know and so yeah that's my final thought is

[01:20:09] that is to to highlight an exclamation point and asterisk next to what Tim said about those it all comes out of relationship and I think that um that and maybe this is projection on my part but

[01:20:25] working on developing those relationships more um fosters any hopes that you would you might have for collaboration and so that's an important thing yeah I love the the saying that a leader is a

[01:20:39] learner and um I have learned a lot today from all you guys and uh draw to down some some notes and I just appreciate everything you guys had to say and share I feel like this is uh

[01:20:53] going to be very helpful so thanks Tim thanks Andy for being on the show and being with us love you guys love you guys too glad it's not called the leadership individualist that's right

[01:21:10] hey that concludes our show for today I want to thank you so much for joining us on the leadership collective podcast and if this program has been a blessing to you we'd love it if you would subscribe

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[01:21:41] Duff and Pastor Jim Gallagher and we will be discussing understanding your churches seasons of momentum and creating effective on ramps and off ramps for your ministry so tune in next month and we just really appreciate you joining us today on the leadership collective podcast