Developing a multiplying mindset – Part 2

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Hey, everyone. To our unfiltered podcast, real conversations about church planting. My name is Lee Stevenson.

I have the joy of serving Converge as the executive director of church planting and just a local church planter in Orlando, along with my co host here.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:23

I'm Danny Parmelee and I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:28

So we are starting session two of a series that we started just talking about the art of church multiplication.

Really the heartbeat is that any church that starts specifically within our circle and Converge our hope and desires, they don't just stop with their church plant, but that they really have a heart and desire as part of their DNA to continue to plant churches that plant churches that plant churches. There's a science to both. How do you move your church forward in that kind of vision? But there's also an art side of that.

We spent the last kind of the start of this series talking about sacrifice and how sacrifice really has to be a part of the heart and the DNA of a church if they want to see this vision take off. And we talked about the importance of vision alignment. Today we want to specifically talk about kind of sacrifice and generosity in phase two.

It goes beyond just finances and really leans into the people side of the local church, whether not existing church or a new church plant that wants to send people to be a part of that vision. Danny, talk to us a little bit. I mean, you've done church planting, you've done multi site.

What have you seen in your own personal story that you kind of go, hey, that worked for us, or I'd do that differently if I was doing that again now?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:49

Yeah, well, I can certainly speak from experience of I didn't start off strong in this area and really misunderstood it. And so I would probably, you know, identify as being someone who was greedy with people.

And by that I mean that very early on as the church plant, I wanted people for the church plant and I wanted all of their time dedicated towards a church plant. And if anybody wanted to do something different or be part of another organization or another church, my visceral reaction was no.

Maybe add a little, sprinkle a little guilt trip on there and have them recommit to working where God really wanted them, which of course was only our church plan. And what I found was that it really worked in the opposite direction.

Maybe there was initial compliance, if you will, or initially people be like, okay, you know, I guess we just got to stick around EPCOs or we need to double down on our time at our church plant. But what happened is over time the more tight fisted you are with people, people recognize that. And there's really not the heart of God in that.

It's not being generous and eventually you end up driving people away.

And I certainly did that in the early years and it took me some time to go, oh man, you know what, if I'm really caring about the kingdom and really caring about people, there's going to need to be a little bit more of an open handedness with, with people.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:13

Well, let me dive a little bit more into that phrase that you just used there. This idea of being open handed.

Is, is there a time that it's not appropriate to be open handed when you're thinking about seeding a church plant with people specifically? Or is it the type of thing or a posture you think every church that wants to plant just lives open handed?

Once you describe what you mean by open handed.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:38

Yeah, well, I absolutely think that it, it's a, it's a heart position, it's a posture to have.

So it doesn't mean that every single person that comes and says, hey, you know what, I want to, you know, step back from, you know, leading the connections team so that I can help out with this local non profit in the community that you're like, oh, okay, you know, yes, you know, yes or no.

But just that you take some time to actually process with the person what's going on in their life, what God might be calling them to and that you really have a conversation about that. Because like I said in the beginning, my first reaction would have just been, no, no, you can't, no, we need you to do this.

Or if someone said, hey, we really feel like God is leading us to help out with this other church or this other church plant and to feel like there was betrayal there. And I needed to convince them that their commitment to our church plant was like a marriage covenant that you do not break.

I mean I remember, I remember saying, and using that like, no, this is a marriage covenant. Like, well, not really so much. Okay, maybe you're married to the bride.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:46

But maybe to the big.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:49

Yeah. And so I, I definitely got that confused and people pick up on that.

And again it ends up driving people away instead of getting what you want and that's to have them be part of the church and be part of the kingdom. So but like you said, it doesn't mean that you automatically just say yes to everything. But at least, at least have some of that conversation.

And what I, what I learned in kind of the phrase that I use a lot is we want you where God wants you.

And if God wants someone somewhere else completely or using their time in a different manner than actually the church that you're leading, that is actually where you want that person. Okay, that, that's. And so to just say that's what we want or that's what I want for you. So let's process through that.

And God may through that time reveal to them that no, they shouldn't actually be diverting their time, they should double down or they should, you know, maintain their time or their commitment at the church plant that you're leading.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:48

Yeah.

And I think the things that cause a leadership team, board of elders, maybe a lead pastor to be tight fisted, to hold back and reluctant to send people usually comes down to the financial bottom line. Again, that we're fearful that if I send out some of my best givers out the door, how's that going to hurt us in the long run in a local church?

We dialogued a little bit about that in the kickoff to this miniseries. And again, my encouragement is don't allow fear to dictate the decisions that you make when it comes to the kingdom of God.

God operates in an economic sector is so different than our interpretation to understand the world in which we live and which we're called to engage as, as well.

I've also seen it play on the other side where the pastor can almost manipulate the situation to send people that he doesn't want in his current church. You know, it's like these people are in trouble. I, I don't, I don't like these people. So here, take them. You can talk to them.

You can, you can't talk to these people. You know, we say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but there is some truth behind that. And I've seen that play out.

My guess is you've seen that play out. Lee.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:08

This is unfiltered. Let's just be honest.

We have all missionally sent a couple to another church that we wanted to sharpen that young church planner by blessing them with some of our finest. Right, exactly, exactly.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:22

But I think that brings up the next point.

When it comes to people, you really want to have what I kind of describe as harmony and value or agenda value, harmony and how people connect to the vision and the mission of this new church. Because we know that the new church, the church planter is being sent.

Whether or not existing church are coming out of a church plant, that new church is going to be different than the church that's sending it. And so it's Going to be a different vision. It's going to be a different mission that they're called to engage in.

And it's so easy for people stepping out of a mother church into this new baby church to kind of bring with them all the, well, this isn't how we did it before, you know, type of attitude. This isn't the way that we did it in our last church.

How do you navigate that in an existing church and for a church planter that may be being sent from a parent?

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:20

Well, I mean, I think you hit the key is right there. I think as.

As a sending church, and even if that's ascending church as a young church, plant yourself, that we do a better job of sending and training. And I learned this partly because in the early.

Well, probably even the latter years as well, we had a lot of young people, college students, young professionals, and they would leave just because they went back home, they graduated, or they got jobs somewhere else, and they would say, oh, man, I can't find a church like, like what we had in. In Milwaukee. And I, oh, I felt so good about that. My ego was like, through the roof.

But then I realized when other people were coming from other places and they're like, oh, man, nothing will compare to the church that I came from. It's like, oh, wait a minute, the same thing. Yeah, Wait a minute here. Well, you should talk to this person that just left. They love our church.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:12

Yeah, yeah. You've only been here two weeks. Come on.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:15

Yeah, yeah. But what it made me realize is that we can probably do a better job of sending people.

Whether there's an intentionally, hey, they're helping a church plant in the next community over or whether they're, you know, leaving across state lines to take a new job that we help prepare them and, and to say, hey, here's some, some, maybe some things as you're looking to get plugged into another church, some things that maybe you'll want to look for, but understand that your experience will never be the same as what happened here. And especially for people that came to Christ in that church, they built their first relationships with other believers in that church.

Some people met their spouses, you know, in. In the chur, like you will. You will never have that same type of thing as you move on to another church.

And there's certain things that you're going to want to kind of let die. And maybe that church has that, maybe it doesn't. And of course, what we would hope is that their next experience would even surpass it.

But For a lot of people, it's just not the reality because of circumstantial. This is where a huge, you know, spiritual transformation happened in their life.

They think that it's going to pick up and that they're going to have that same history and that they just won't. You won't have the same history. Everything is, is going to be matched, you know, against the church they left.

And I don't know if you can speak to that as far as when you went from church planter to your role now.

And now you are on the other side of trying to find a church that you are going to plug into and to go, man, it's just, it's a lot harder because it's impossible to not take your past experience into it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:45

Yeah, it always is. And I think part of it is an identity wrestle.

If we're honest that anytime we're out of that existing church, stepping into a new church situation where we're not the lead, you do feel a sense of identity crisis, of trying to figure out what is my voice, what's my place in this. I think, you know, I want to talk to two levels of this.

One is I want to talk to church planters that are in a parent situation where they're in a church that is getting ready to send them out and maybe they've given them a free hunting license. You know, like, hey, you can take anybody that you want.

First of all, church planner, you need to know how much of a blessing that is, and that's rare. There aren't a lot of churches across America that I would say give a church plan, a free hunting license to talk to, recruit whoever they want.

The second part of that though, is host information meetings, engage the leadership of that parent church to be at those information meetings.

Give a platform for the lead pastor in that parent church to stand up and talk about why they're excited about this new work and give him an opportunity to speak into this, into the lives of people.

But the second piece of that, during that information meeting, even on one off conversations, you're going to have people come up to you in that church going, hey, I heard you're playing church. We're really excited about that.

And it might be simply because they've been trying to get their way in this church for two years and now they're kind of going fresh. Me, I think I can get my agenda across in this church.

You probably need to look at some type of application process for people to join the launch team and you want to Think through, like, are they giving currently? Are they serving currently in the life of the church? What do they think is going to be required of them in a church plan?

And then I would encourage you, like, ask for commitments on all those before you get into the launch team phase, before you get to a grand opening so that you have true buy in of everybody that's, that's on that team. I think it can really mitigate a lot of pain and heartache as you kind of move down the road.

And the reality is people will also see, you know, Danny, like, oh, you're serious about this new church plant.

Like, you're not just taking anybody that's warm bodies, you're making me apply and people will selfie like, oh, I don't, I don't want to do that because I'm, you know, the other speak.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:09

Can you speak to practically the kind of application process that you've used, either that's worked or hasn't worked or as you approach church planters, because obviously there is a certain element. Church planters, they want anybody and everybody.

What would you say is the ultimate purpose of the application and how does it change if you're basically, you know, hiving off of another church, so to speak, in comparison to if you're pioneering or parachuting in and you're just meeting people at the library or the coffee shop or the grocery store and oh, oh, you're interested here, fill out this application. How do you kind of approach that?

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:50

Yeah, super, super. I think there's three levels in which people can get involved in a church plant coming out of a parent church.

And so I think it's good to identify those levels. One is you have people that are going to come just to be critical mass.

You know, they may commit to a month of just sitting in the Sunday service so that the room feels a little fuller that during that, that first or two, first month or two, then you have people that I think are great to be what I would call short term missionaries.

They may operate on like a three month or six month or a nine month missions project that hey, we'll come twice a month from the parent church to the church plant just to serve. Maybe they'll be there every week for three months or something of that sort.

But they're serving in children's ministry, they're serving in guest services knowing that it's going to take a certain amount of time for people to rally and be trained and to begin to fill those spots. And so they just say, hey, we will own this but we're going to go back to the Mother Church as soon as that, that period of time is up.

And then you have people that you want to be part of your launch team. And the launch team members are people that really are going to help you mold and create the DNA in the life of your church.

And so that's why it's important for those that are going to join the launch team. You really need to know who you're getting and how committed they are.

It could do you a lot of harm that if they're all in and then a month after you launch, they're like, this is what I thought it was, and they're gone. And so you do want to have some upfront conversations, have some applications points, and here's some ideas of things to ask.

One is ask what their current giving habits are. I would then follow up with another question in the questionnaire.

Kind of would you commit to 10% of your income going to this new church plan over the next three years? I mean, be that specific. Ask them how many hours a week that they think that this is going to require of them.

If they have a family, ask them questions of what do you think this will both positive and negative experience be for your family, for your children? See how help them process that. This is more than just, oh, I'm excited, I want to be a part of this.

Like, there is an expectation for everybody that's on a launch team. You're all in like, you're serving, you're picking up pieces.

If somebody calls out sick, we need somebody to be willing to step in that it may mean even like you may be a couple months before you actually get in a Sunday service because you're, you're filling the gaps until the team can be created and trained to fill those. I think too, if somebody self claims like, hey, I'm a Christian, I've been in church a long time.

It's good to have some basic doctrinal understanding. Where are they at doctrinally? Have they led somebody to Jesus? How does somebody get to heaven? And give them kind of a sliding scale?

So that way it gives you an understanding. Ask them, you know, do they ex what their expectations of the lead pastor are?

Do they expect the lead pastor be at the hospital every time somebody's sick? Do they expect them to do home visits every week?

You know, some of those type of things will help you begin to understand, like, is this a person that's a good fit on our team or are they going to be a hindrance to us being able to actually move the vision forward and the mission forward, what.

Danny Parmelee: 00:17:07

God has called us to, that's great. And so who do you have fill out those applications?

Like, if you're kind of understanding that someone's going to kind of just not take up space, be used intentionally by God to fill a seat, you know, or maybe a one month to three month missionary, are they getting that full application or you just kind of.

Lee Stephenson: 00:17:28

I would say it's people that are coming from an existing church situation that want to join the launch team or be a part of it from day one. So specifically, like, if you're coming out of a parent church, it's people in that, that mother church situation.

They're saying, hey, I feel like God may be calling me to be a part of this church plan. Have them fill out the application.

If it's somebody you're talking with at Starbucks and they're a nominal believer, but they're excited about, don't make them fill out the application. Like that's, that's too big of a step for them to take.

But people that self identify, like, I'm mature, I'm a believer, been in church a long time, I'm excited about this. Those are the people that need to fill out the application.

Danny Parmelee: 00:18:09

Awesome.

Lee Stephenson: 00:18:10

Well, guys, it. This is just part of our series on church multiplication and how do you create the DNA. Glad that you joined us. This is the unfiltered podcast.

Until next time, guys. Keep it real.