Episode 59
Special guest: Matt Shull
Special guest Matt Shull joins Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee to talk about planting City Lift Church in South Florida.
0:44 Matt discusses why he decided to plant in South Florida.
1:42 Matt says his church started in his townhouse, then moved into a community center and launched in a high school.
2:13 Matt explains how his church has been able to connect with millennials and Gen Zers.
3:30 Matt discusses the importance of developing community and relationships.
5:28 Matt talks about how his church took a different approach to small groups called Lift socials.
7:01 Matt says part of their discipleship process is building friendships and relationships through Lift socials.
9:08 Matt shares about the challenges he’s faced as a church planter.
11:41 Matt talks about what kept him going during the fundraising process even though it was hard for him.
Transcript
Hey, welcome, everyone, to the unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stevenson, and I get the privilege of helping and overseeing church planting with Converge.
Danny Parmelee:My name is Danny Parmalee, and I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.
Lee Stephenson:And today we got a special guest from down the street, South Florida. So want to welcome Matt Shull to. To the podcast, man.
Matt Shull:Yeah. Great to be here. Thanks, guys.
Lee Stephenson:Yeah. So, Matt, you planted roughly 15, 16 months ago with your grand opening.
Tell us a little bit about where you're at and specifically why did you decide to plant City Lift church there?
Matt Shull:Yeah, because South Florida's got all the good weather. This is February. Come on. So. No, well, I, you know, we. We definitely started with just a heart to.
To bring people to faith in Christ, which kind of turned us into church planners, realizing this is the most effective way to make a disciple.
erving in south Florida since:We had a lot of peace, and it still made it an uphill climb. I think sometimes God's will is beautiful, but it's still got a lot of battles in it. You know, it doesn't always come easy.
But with that came a lot of blessings and some great fruit. So we're grateful.
Lee Stephenson:So facility wise, where did you guys launch from? Give us a makeup of specifically for sure. Targeted area.
Matt Shull:Yeah. So we built some teams in our townhouse for a while. Then we went to a community center and. And then we launched in a school.
So we're in a high school down there.
Lee Stephenson:Okay. Fort Lauderdale proper, or.
Matt Shull:Yeah. Area called Oakland Park. So it is its own city, but it's kind of greater. Fort Lauderdale.
Lee Stephenson:Yeah.
Matt Shull:Yep.
Lee Stephenson:And you have a lot of millennial and Gen Z that are a part of your church, the majority of kind of what makes up your church at this point. What have you done that's helped you connect and bring in that generation?
Matt Shull:That's a great question, I think. And I feel like so many churches across just the world, you know, definitely, definitely in the west, are asking that question.
And we, you know, a couple things. We're a young family, so I think we related just naturally to young families. But the other word I would just say is we're intentional.
We were very intentional about who we felt like God was asking us to reach and get ready for the upcoming generation. And even Gen Z is very different than millennials. I mean, you know, people are kind of talking less millennials now because millennials are old, man.
We're close to 40 now, you know, and so now here comes Gen Z, and then I think they've even named the generation after them now. So it's just. It's amazing how it goes fast. And, you know, I have a conviction the gospel has to go out, and it's got to go down.
So we were very intentional, and we realized we need to. We need to build our marketing, our messaging, our Sunday services, and we're just intentional in building it that way.
I definitely don't have it all figured out. Have probably more questions than answers, but.
Danny Parmelee:So give me some examples. When you say intentional about it, you did. You did mention marketing. I do want to touch on that a bit.
But other than marketing, what were some of the things that you either do or say that you're. You have that in the back of your mind? Here is who we're trying to reach. And so we're going to specifically do this.
Matt Shull:Absolutely. So a couple. A couple just, I think culture shifts that are kind of happening for millennials and Gen Z and, you know, first generations, right.
Totally raised on social media, TV, Internet. And so they no longer have 30 opinions to navigate through. They have 30,000 opinions to navigate through.
And I no longer compare my life to five people. I compare my life to 5,000 people on Instagram.
And that's drastically changed the way that our minds, I think, have developed and the way that we gather information and learn. And so church is no longer about just feeding information or telling you something. It's about being in community.
So we recognize if you choose to come on the weekend, obviously we want a great message, we want excellence. But you're really not coming for production.
Especially in South Florida, you could go somewhere to get incredible production that I'll never be able to even get close to.
So we realize really what it is is community that we're changing a little bit from church is, you know, super heavy production focused to maybe more of an authentic worship experience where you can be in community, where you can ask questions, where somebody might hit you up during the week just to see how you're doing.
And so we're realizing relationship is starting to take over, you know, So I feel like the last 20, 30 years, church has been about, like, all right, we got to be cleaner. We got to be more produced. We got it.
Which I think at the time, really, we needed you know, because kind of before that church like, hey, let's just throw anything together, sing a couple hymns and, you know, Sister sue can do it. So I've realized that.
But watching a lot of particularly Gen Z, even more millennials for me is like, they want an authentic experience and they want the relationship. And we're trying to build our back door as well as our front door right now. So I don't, I don't. It's a lot.
It's a huge question, but these are some things I'm.
Danny Parmelee:What do you do for. Do you have a specific system or structure for groups? Do you call them small groups?
What's really important because I mean, people say, hey, we have small groups, but it looks totally different than someone else.
Matt Shull:So for sure, yeah. So we do lift socials. We. That was one thing and it could, it could be the Gen Z influence.
Small groups didn't work for us and because it was too structured. So we said, let's kill that. Let's just kind of have more of an organic approach to relationships. So two things.
We're intentional with our leaders to have them take people out and spend time with them. What we realize is like a lot of these guys, they don't want to come to a structured event. They want to be seen and they want to be in relationships.
So we realized we're going to have to take a totally different way, more chill approach to getting to them. And so our leadership is active. And then we do socials where it's just, you know, relationships pretty free flowing.
And we're exploring some digital options too, you know, in the next couple years.
Danny Parmelee:So I didn't hear. Exactly. So you said Lyft social or what?
Matt Shull:That's called lift social. And it's just gatherings. We'll do food trucks, we'll meet at a cool venue and hang out. And it's.
Danny Parmelee:So how do people know about that? Do they come on Sunday and they're.
Matt Shull:Like, hey, there's a lift social or there's Instagram, a website, mostly Instagram. I would say the bulletin board for us is Instagram.
Lee Stephenson:How do you structure those and not have structure? Because I know you know that. I think I know that's part of the game. It is. Because there is an end and goal.
Matt Shull:Absolutely.
Lee Stephenson:In that process.
So, like, how do you plan a lift social but make sure that there is a spiritual conversation or something that takes place that is moving people where you hope to.
Matt Shull:Absolutely. So, you know, we.
Danny Parmelee:How do you calendar your spontaneous events?
Matt Shull:I know it's so Hard, you know, those are two great questions. So one is, I think, and I think every church has to answer how you want to do this, right?
So we kind of like the idea, at least in philosophy, that everything is discipleship. And we want people to be worshiping, serving, giving, sharing their faith. We want them to be in fellowship.
And really what a lift social is for us is just, it's the opportunity to begin to build friendships and relationships. So.
So if you kind of came in as a stranger on the edge of our church, you had several great conversations, really, about whatever, you know, and that's where we kind of give them the freedom there. It's like we want you to start building relationships and friendships, and if that's taking off, that's a win for us. And so that's kind of how we.
How we tackle the fellowship piece. Sundays, you know, we're a little bit more active, and again, we're looking at kind of doing a city lift university thing.
So I'm looking at kind of doing almost what life church did. They took a lot of, like, the personal discipleship. They moved it all online. And as we grow, I'd like to go that way a little bit. But.
Okay, so it's just, it's. It's doing discipleship, covering the bases, just in a little different way.
Danny Parmelee:How are those funded and how are they governed? So in other words, if someone said, hey, I got a great idea. Let's do food trucks. Who's paying for that?
And then what if someone else says, hey, we're going to the. To Hooters? I don't know, whatever. Some extreme example where it's like, yeah, well, actually, that you can't put Social Lift.
Matt Shull:Yeah, no, no. So like, our leadership is obviously like, we're still picking the places, we're organizing the venues. You know, we're doing the marketing there. So.
So no Hooters yet. Okay. It is south Florida, so. No, but. No, it is.
Danny Parmelee:Times are changing.
Matt Shull:But. But yeah, so we, Our leadership is still, you know, kind of leading. Leading the charge with them. So.
Lee Stephenson:No, I. I mean, it's normal to have some serious pain points when you're less than a year and a half old. So this is unfiltered podcast. Like what.
What have been one or two of your pain points in the life of the church? Maybe it's because of. You do have a lot of young people in the church or just being a not quite year and a half year old church.
Matt Shull:Right? Yeah, I know there's too many pain points to mention. I We talked about this before. I go, oh, man, it's all, it's all pain, you know.
No, there's definitely some huge challenges, I think, which again, I've relied, I've had to fall back a lot on like God, you know, I know you called me to do it. I didn't even really want to do it kind of, kind of story when he started talking to me about it. And so I was pretty comfortable.
So I think I've fallen back on that a lot. But a couple things for me is I did not enjoy the fundraising thing at all. That's.
I'm not, I've never been a salesman, you know, I've just never been a salesman. I've been, been blessed to be in full time ministry for 16 years. I, I'm comfortable in the speaking role.
I'm comfortable in the, the pastor, shepherding, you know, kind of counseling, ish kind of role. I do not like sales. I do not like fundraising. I, I don't, you know, I don't, I just don't enjoy it. It's so, for me, that was a huge one.
We did well, but it was really hard for my personality. So I think, I think that was tough. I don't like rejection. You get rejected a lot. If you're going to plant and get used to it, it's your friend.
You're going to, you're gonna go through disappointments and then being misunderstood. I think when you're a pioneer, you are going to get misunderstood. The community may not understand what you're trying to do.
Other churches may not understand. Even people in your own kind of plant context. I think plants are notorious for drawing all kinds of different people. A lot of people are on agendas.
Yeah. Different people. Yeah.
Lee Stephenson:I call them crazy.
Matt Shull:Thank you. Yeah. It's unfiltered. Right. Just go for it.
But so I think just getting misunderstood or kind of of maligned a little bit like that is definitely hard and painful.
And so I've gone through all those things and I think sometimes, particularly about six, seven months ago, I just had to go through just, I had to make it a week. I just had to breathe and just go another week. Go another week.
And right now, the last couple months has been a neat little season of growth and a lot of good things happening for us. So I think our spring shaping up really good. But you just have to breathe and go a week. Yeah.
Danny Parmelee:I want to circle back to fundraising because I know a little bit of your story. You actually did exceptionally well at fundraising and yet to hear that it was a pain point for you. How did you keep going?
And what advice do you have to.
Matt Shull:Pay the bills, man, My wife's like, yo, you gotta pay the rent. Like, get out there, make my money.
Danny Parmelee:But I mean, for real, I mean, how did you continue to follow the process, be obedient, even though it was contrary to who. I mean, some people like it. There are those, like, oh, there's the thought. Like, that's, That's. That's a little nutty.
Matt Shull:But not me.
Danny Parmelee:But it was not you. But you continued what. Yeah. What honestly did just keep you going at it?
Matt Shull:Yeah. No, I mean, part of it was, I think, the pressure. You know, I would highly recommend the book, Steve Shadrach, the God Ask. You know, great book.
That helped me a lot. Definitely. You know, again, I think God was on it. Again, I kind of have to fall back on that a little bit. You definitely are praying.
You're asking God and you're asking people. And while I wasn't a great fundraiser, I'm relatively good with relationships. And so I let relationships develop and friendships develop.
And out of that came the ask a lot of times, and sometimes it was yes, and a lot of times it was no. But I just kept going and, you know, just trusting God every step of the way. So I. But I read the right things. I read the right things.
I listened to the right things. I talked to a lot of fellow church planners, which kept me motivated. And a lot of it's just the grind, in my opinion. You just got to keep going. Yeah.
Lee Stephenson:Keep going and not give up.
Matt Shull:That's right.
Lee Stephenson:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, Matt, I appreciate taking the time to be with us today and sharing a little bit of your story and the story around City Lift Church.
And for our listeners, if you're in the Fort Lauderdale area or adventuring down in that area, stop on in great church there, City Lift Church, and excited to see what God continues to do through your ministry down there, Matt. Till next time, everyone, keep it real.
