[BONUS EPISODE] Church planting residencies

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Hey, welcome everyone to the unfiltered podcast Real Church Planning Conversations. My name is Lee Stevenson, my co host here. Danny.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:17

I'm Danny Parmelee and I'm from Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:20

And today we got a special guest. So Danny, why don't you introduce our guest for the day?

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:27

All right, well, with us today we have Caleb Smith. And Caleb and I actually go back. He was executive pastor at the church that I was leading in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but is now working with Converge.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:38

Yeah, so Caleb is one of the most recent hires that we have here at Converge and his specific, with a specific goal and kind of role of helping us establish church residencies and specific to raising up new church planters and much further beyond eventually down the road. But Caleb, glad to have you with us today.

Caleb Smith: 00:01:02

Good to be here. Really appreciate it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:04

Talk, talk to us first.

Just what is a residency like if, if you're, you know, some people may not understand the terminology and kind of what we're talking about when we talk about church residencies?

Caleb Smith: 00:01:14

Absolutely, yeah.

One of the things that I found pretty consistent is that when I say residency outside of the church world, most people immediately start thinking like medical residencies. And that's the mindset that we kind of take into this. It's the idea that somebody knows what they want to do.

They know they've been called to vocational ministry, but they're going to come into a situation where they get to spend a year to two years of balancing that educational plus experiential components and getting those hands on experiences while they are in a local church setting.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:49

Some people interchange the word internship and residency. Are they the same? Are they different? How are you helping people to.

Caleb Smith: 00:01:57

Yeah.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:57

Use those words either the same or differently.

Caleb Smith: 00:01:59

Absolutely, yeah.

Defining, defining those terms I think is super important in this process because if we're not careful, we can make residents become like glorified interns.

Sometimes that happens on church staffs where we hire somebody and we unintentionally make them just a glorified admin instead of like the director of a ministry or something. And we don't want our residents to be glorified interns.

Interns to me are people who are interested in ministry, but they're not sure if they've been called to that life focus. And a resident is somebody who says, I know that I have been called by God to vocational ministry, but I need to get that clarity of call.

Like, where is that specifically supposed to be in my, in my next season of ministry life?

And a residency allows for the opportunities to Get a number of touch points so they can begin to, through the power of the Holy Spirit, find that, find that direction and that contentment.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:54

Awesome. Give us just a quick brief history of kind of your ministry experience and why this, like, why transition into this kind of role?

Caleb Smith: 00:03:02

Yeah, absolutely. So I came right out of school.

I graduated from Cedarville University in Ohio and had a youth ministry degree and just went right into being a youth pastor. And throughout my first three churches, like, I didn't have a person or a group of people who were really coaching me or pouring into me.

And so it was a lot of, of learning on the fly. My guess is, is that most people who are on staff at a church, that's how they've kind of learned is they just get in and they just start doing it.

And that can be good in a lot of ways, but in other ways it can create a lot of, of, of struggles and a lot of frustrations because I'm not having a broader frame of reference.

And when I went to a church in northern Louisiana, today it's called the Bridge Community Church, that church actually became like my residency place.

Even though I was there doing youth ministry for three and a half years, they coached me, they poured into me, they saw skills in me that, that they wanted me to, to launch from there and be released into, into a broader impact and my horizons growing. And as I've kind of looked back over these past 17 years of full time ministry is I see that as a pivotal mom.

And so my passion with residency stems right from that. I want people to be able to get that before they kind of get thrown in all in.

I want them to have that experience early on, to be able to get a lot of that experiential with the educational side, but to also, even to grow their network and their support system that can be there for the marathon that is hopefully full time ministry for them. Over the years, I also have developed and started internship programs and kind of many residencies and some churches that I've been at as well.

And all of that has now played into just the, the joy I have in being able to do this, just solely focusing on, on this aspect of it.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:05

So residencies for churches, certainly there's a benefit because you have someone around, but there's really a sacrificial element. Why are churches even considering doing residency programs?

Caleb Smith: 00:05:17

Yeah, I think they're considering it.

Some of the things that we've been hearing as we've been doing some research and even before I started here at Converge earlier in August, Lee and, and Scott Rideout have done a ton of research talking to people and they're just, they're saying, hey, we're having a harder time finding people who have the experience. Like they're getting people who, who have educational background, who have the head knowledge.

But churches more and more are leaning on that side of saying, well, what is it that they've actually been able to put into practice? And I think that the residency has become that place for that and helps to bolster, even for a lot of churches, the opportunity to.

We talk in sports analogies about making sure that you have a strong bench. So if you need somebody to step in, they're ready to go. And I think residencies can serve that.

No matter what church size, they can serve as a bench building avenue.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:16

I love it. When a church were.

If they were to contact you, what are some things that you just want them to consider before they would jump into a residency side of things?

Caleb Smith: 00:06:29

I'll start that out by. With just a short story. I was sitting with a friend of mine at a baseball game in June before I moved to Orlando.

We were at a, at a Brewers game and, and, and we're sitting there and he, he starts telling me that this summer he just happened to get a summer intern. It just kind of fell to him in his job and his place, and, and I, we kind of sat there for another five minutes just in silence.

And finally I was, I just said, you're not getting any work done. He goes, nope, I'm not getting any work done this summer.

And the next two hours was us dialoguing about that and about what it means for him to have this intern this summer and how he can focus on that, I think. So that to say. I think the first thing that churches need to know is that it's not about what you're getting out of, out of a resident.

It's not what you get from them. It's what we're giving to them.

And that's a key piece that has been said in a lot of, of really top notch residency programs, whether we're talking 12 stone church or Austin Stone, who have residencies that have been going on, they talk about that a lot. It's about what we're giving back into this person for their launch into ministry.

So remembering that as the number one thing I think is super important because the other side of that then is, um, you need to have somebody on site who can give their time to that resident, who can walk alongside them, who will have the space in the Margin to give to them. And whether that's a paid person or a volunteer person kind of is up to. Up to that church and how they're structured and what works for them.

But that's. That's one thing I would say. Another thing would be the kingdom mindset that it's.

It's not about just what's happening here in our building or in our town.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:14

Our specific staff or our staff.

Caleb Smith: 00:08:17

Exactly. Yeah. It's. It's about what does it look like for us to be a part of the body of Christ, no matter where that is around the globe?

And if that means raising someone up, even from within, somebody who's grown up at this church, somebody who. Who has graduated college and has really been wrestling with. With I feel called.

But I don't know how to get into it, even if it means raising them up and then sending them out. That kind of kingdom mindset I think is really crucial in having and hosting good residencies.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:45

That's great.

One of the interesting things that I've seen over the last 10 years is that there's been receptivity of church planters to want internships or residencies where it used to be that that was seen as like a punishment.

Like if you went through assessment, it was like, well, you're not quite ready to now where even guys that are getting a green light, they can go ahead. They're saying, well, I would really like to step into a residency.

Any insight to why there is that culture shift or paradigm shift where there's that desire for residency in comparison to the past?

Caleb Smith: 00:09:19

Yeah, I think it is a lot of the shift that there's been in just the educational components. Like that's super important.

And we want to train people theologically so that they can have the good conversations with people so they can know how to write a sermon. Well, they can know how to. They can know how to counsel people. Well, like those are good educational components. But.

But to just know those things is very different than actually applying them and having the space to kind of hone those crafts before being thrill thrown into. As. As we know, and especially those of us who are in ministry, we know we're kind of seen as the experts, whether we actually are or not.

In our context, it's like, well, you're getting paid to do this, so you must know exactly how to do this. Right. And a residency allows for somebody to be able to hone those skills better. I think the other thing for.

For church planners especially is, is they.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:15

They.

Caleb Smith: 00:10:16

There's probably a desire For a little bit of an easier entry. It's like not just having to go out and go do right away, but being able to take that energy and learn from somebody else.

We talk at Converge about making sure that every one of us, no matter where we are, has a coach. Getting into that type of environment, that type of coach, coachee relationship, I think is a huge desire.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:39

Well, and I do think it is so helpful you take the medical analogy to it. None of us want to go to a doctor that just has head knowledge.

You know, you want to make sure that he has some experience, he has people skills, you know, that there is an awareness of kind of multiple things that this could potentially be.

I think that's a great perspective that you've helped us gain here, Caleb, is that the practical experience is so important when it comes to our overall development. I'm thankful.

I mean, I had churches that open up the doors and gave me way too much freedom in those early days, but also walked with me and refined who I was and who I was becoming with no intention of keeping me there or stifling who God had made me to be.

Caleb Smith: 00:11:27

Yeah.

And I think one of what one of the other advantages in that is instead of us looking at launching people out into ministry and them having to do it perfectly all the time, a residency, it actually gives them a safe place to fail.

It gives them a safe place to make a mistake and then to learn from it and have that as a reminder for 10 years down the road instead of like, instead of for me having to cancel a youth trip last minute because of something that I forgot to do or didn't plan.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:56

Well, that's great. Talk to us a little bit, Caleb, about the 10 year goal that Converge has surrounding residencies and why.

Caleb Smith: 00:12:07

Yeah, so the 10 year goal, to put it just succinctly and shortly, is 100 residencies established in local church settings over the next 10 years.

And whether that's through churches that don't have residencies right now and want to become a part of a Converge residency program, or whether there are those churches who have already developed their own residencies and have them strong, but they are a part of Converge and they want to be a part of our, of the network side of that.

So whatever that looks like, we're looking for 100 churches and some of that process of getting there is going to be a lot of learning from each other. There's going to need to be some flexibility as we kind of get into it and get our feet settled. But over these next Nine months.

It's spending a lot of time in conversations. We're gonna have some webinars coming up. We'll have some trainings at some of our converged conferences and events.

Next spring, we're hoping to gather a whole group of churches who are desiring to do residencies to gather together to learn really more about those nuts and bolts and details of how are these. How is this going to happen?

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:13

Awesome.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:13

How big of a church do you need to be to be able to have a resident? A residency program.

Caleb Smith: 00:13:19

Yeah. Size of church does not matter. Size of church doesn't matter. Whether a church has 20 residents or one resident, that's. That can be a residency place.

I think it even just goes back to what we said.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:32

I'll take 20 residents. Please sign me up for that one.

Caleb Smith: 00:13:35

Yeah, it goes back to. To some of the things we said at the beginning of somebody who is on site, who can. Who can give the time and the energy to the residents.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:45

So you're saying that essentially even in a small church setting, that could actually work.

Caleb Smith: 00:13:49

Absolutely.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:50

Seen. Even. Even if it's solo senior pastor.

Caleb Smith: 00:13:53

Yes.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:54

Would be able to pour in and that it's not a. It's not just seen as cheap labor or the way to test out in a potential associate pastor. But.

Caleb Smith: 00:14:03

That's right. And it's not just for the large churches or the mega churches. It is for churches of every size in every context. And I think especially.

Especially becomes a handhold even for the. For the rural churches that. That struggle with where do we find people and how do we. How do we raise people up?

We want to be there to support especially rural churches in that. That are out of the big cities that just don't have that pool of people around them.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:30

Well, and I, I. You know, our heart when it comes to raising up church planters is realizing we all need church planters in every community in the US and beyond.

Caleb Smith: 00:14:38

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:39

And so it's.

How do we create training areas where people can be trained and grow in understanding rural America and rural churches, urban settings, metropolitan settings, and everything in between. And so we'd love to see residency centers, you know, get developed around those specific niches. Yeah, I love that.

Caleb Smith: 00:15:00

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:15:02

Caleb, what's the next step? What's the next thing? So maybe there's a church out there, a church planter out there going, man, I want to be a part of this.

I think this is something we can get behind. I think we have the resources, we have the ability to do this. What now? What's the next thing.

Caleb Smith: 00:15:21

Call me: 555555

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:29

Where can people find you?

Caleb Smith: 00:15:31

Send me an email.

Caleb smithonverge.org I would love to get a phone call with you to get on a video chat with you to hear about what's going on in your setting and to help you get connected with where things are moving for us as we move through the fall. In the winter, there will be an application process that each church will need to go through.

It's just a way for us to get a better sense of who the churches are who are wanting this. But as we step into that, that'll become a key part in this as well. And we'll have a lot more information that'll be coming out about that.

As I mentioned earlier, there'll be some webinars. We're going to do a webinar in November or October, I think one in December.

But more information about those will be coming up and those will be key, key points of being able to take those next steps towards hosting a residency maybe starting next summer or next fall for you and your ministry.

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:26

I love it.

And if you want to find out a little bit more information about those webinars when they are, let me encourage you, check out the converge website@converge.org you could also like us on Facebook and on Instagram and that information will be coming out here shortly.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:42

I have another question for you, Caleb. And I know that there's probably not all the specifics and it may change from church to church, but what does it kind of look like?

Are churches having to pay a full salary for someone? Is it a stipend? Do the residents usually have a full time job or does it totally depend from church to church?

Caleb Smith: 00:17:02

That's a great question.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:03

So I know that's why I asked.

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:08

Yourself on your back, Danny.

Caleb Smith: 00:17:09

Those are always the nuts and bolts that people want to know about right away.

So we are partnering with Reliant, which is a company, financial company that works with missionaries and church planters and residencies all across the US and internationally and helping, helping people do support raising. And so support raising is going to be a portion of this for the resident. I'm currently doing that myself.

I think it's a great experience for everybody to have to go through, especially as they launch out not knowing really what they might launch into as their next season of ministry. But having that faith based experience of support raising I think is super important. So that'll be a part of it.

How the rest of that looks is really something that we're going to be open handed with the church, that local church about whether they, whether they want to support that person, whether, whether that person goes and gets a part time job so that they're out in the community and not just in the church walls all the time.

And we'll, we'll get into more of those details going but those are some of the things that we're currently discussing and getting down to the nitty gritty details on.

Lee Stephenson: 00:18:20

Love it. Well, if you would like to contact Caleb again, his email address is Caleb Smith. That's S M I T H yes.

Caleb Smith: 00:18:28

Not S M Y T H E.

Lee Stephenson: 00:18:30

To be confused converge.org and he'd love to hear more about you but let me encourage you tune in to the webinars where he'll be releasing some more information just about what it means to be a host church when it comes to hosting a residency. Caleb, thanks so much for being with us today, man.

Caleb Smith: 00:18:46

Thanks guys. Good to sit with y'all.

Lee Stephenson: 00:18:48

Yeah, great having conversations. Until next time everyone. Keep it real.