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3 Red Flags of an Unhealthy Church with Derald & Karen Weber

In this episode, join Derald and Karen Weber, District Superintendent and first lady of the Louisiana District, as they share their invaluable insights on transforming church health and growth. With decades of experience in ministry, the Webers discuss key moments in their journey, define what a healthy church looks like, and identify common barriers to growth. Discover practical strategies for prioritizing health while pursuing expansion and hear inspiring success stories from their consulting work. Whether you're a pastor, church leader, or involved in ministry, this episode is filled with wisdom to help you thrive!









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Transcript


The mission of every church should come from Jesus directive, which we call the Great commission. Go, teach, baptized disciple. So an unhealthy church can be 2 different things. Either number 1, you're not doing those things at all. Mh.


And it's like a social club. There's no kingdom purpose or maybe you're doing those things, but there's no results. You're evan analyzing, but there's no spirit baptism or water baptism. Maybe you're preaching a lot, but you're not teaching, so it's not making disciples. So it's it's too pronged there, either you're not...


Doing what Jesus said to do which is how his church was gonna be established. Mh. Or you're doing them, but it's just activity and there's no results, which goes back to what are we measuring What are we are we are we analyzing to see if we are even having results of what we're doing? Welcome to the Christian leader made simple podcast. I really hope this episode helps you learn and master the skills you need to grow your leadership effectiveness and enjoyment.


Be sure to hit the subscribe button to get notified as soon as I post a new session so you don't miss the single episode. I'd also greatly appreciate any reviews, likes and shares that you can give me. It just helps me extend my reach to more people. So leaders? I know just how frustrating it can feel when you're in the weeds of work or ministry and life is chaotic, you're struggling to feel effective and you're just not enjoying leaders...


Ship as much as you could be. And so to help you after many years of leadership and executive coaching, I've developed a framework called the Christian leader blueprint that'll guide you to find clarity in your life and leadership. It'll help you gain a better rhythm of life. It'll help you see yourself more clearly to leverage your strengths and you'll produce more productive relationships. It's a step by step guide to leadership transformation.


And I have that in 2 formats now. I have a free short guide that you can find on ryan Franklin dot org, and I have a book, the Christian leader blueprint. And you can find that in any format including an audiobook wherever you buy your books. I have a few more things on my website that you may be interested in, so just head on over to ryan franklin dot org and check it all out. And now, let's get to our session.


Welcome to the Christian leader made simple show. I'm your host, Ryan Franklin, and on the show today. We have a special guest. Well, actually, today, we have 2 special guests. We have Darryl and Karen Weber.


Darryl and Karen have near have nearly 25 years of experience pastor the Pinnacle of lafayette in Louisiana. They have planted and revitalize 4 additional churches, which just shows their huge commitment to church growth. Darryl has been a licensed minister with the Upc since 19 84, and he currently serves as the district superintendent of the Louisiana district, which is the largest district in the United Coastal Church International. And this happens to be my district, Louise louisiana a District is is the district that I'm a part of. Karen holds a B in computer science.


She has an M in Christian ministry. And even more importantly for today's conversation, she search she's a certified church growth consultant. And together, they have a huge heart for empowering local churches through their consulting work within large church growth ministries. So with that said, brother and sister Whoever, welcome to the show. Wonderful to be with you, brother Ryan.


We're so thankful for you're certainly you're the work that you're doing in in the podcast, not only the podcast, Christian later made simple, but also the wonderful book that you have put out it, and your care and compassion for for the ministry. Well, thank you for that. And thank you for letting me tag along and being female voice on this podcast. We are glad that you are... You're not just tagging along.


You're you're a strong voice in the mix of this subject. And I'm so glad that you guys agreed to this. It's... I know you you both are extremely busy, traveling all over and and just, you know, caring for the state of Louisiana, is quite a an undertaking, and so I don't take it for granted that you're carving out a hour or so to to be with us today. So thank you for that.


To, kick us off today, I would love for you guys to... Share a few key moments of your journey of ministry leadership that has gotten you to where you are today and the place that you are today? Well, Karen has ask me to build first. So when I chime in, she has asked me to do that. Otherwise, I would let ladies go first.


But first, to to be mentored brother the Ryan, to be mentored in your early years by great leaders. It just gives you a head start on on your journey. I had exceptional pastors, Ga Invest Magnet, and then, Anthony and Mickey Manga. They exemplified to me the main elements of Christian leadership. I didn't get this off of the Internet or Google, but these are the things I felt were most imported.


Christ character, Christ like conviction, Christ like compassion, and Christ like commitment throughout this ministry journey, I've tried to emulate how they would handle issues how they would treat people, how they would make important decisions, how they would represent God, how they would honor and submit to their leaders. So I guess the cliche is correct. You can't have good leadership without good fellowship. And certainly, I've had great mentors to follow. That's good.


And we and we definitely share those mentors and and I absolutely confirmed that, they are tremendous tremendous leaders to follow. I tried to think of key moments like specific times that I felt. Mh. Maybe shifted my leadership journey. And, honestly, I didn't...


I couldn't think of any specific moments, but I I felt that it's a it's a heart thing. Being sensitive to God's direction and not not flowing based on what your peers may thank you ought to do or even being so worried about elevating yourself. I think God sees the future for all of us. And if we will be obedient to what he is trying to lead us to do. But I think the key moments for me was accepting what God was calling us to do even when I was uncomfortable about it.


And I can honestly say I don't think we would be where we are today if we had not been willing to answer the call even when we may not have understood it or thought it was comfortable. But as a woman, I also wanna add that for me, the key moments of ministry leadership involved whatever I wanted to do or whatever I wanted to pursue, I always went to my husband and talk to him about it because he has a perspective that maybe I don't have. First of all, it's script, You know, he's the head, but also, there's nothing that you do in a marriage, you can't do anything by yourself that doesn't affect the other person. And so I knew that for me to fulfill my calling. That he had to be part of that process.


And so I... Every every moment in my journey where a decision had to be made. He was always part of that decision. That's it. Tremendous answer, tremendous answer for that and and definitely key moments that that brought you to where you are.


And I love what you said embracing whatever was before you no matter how hard it was or how inadequate you felt you know, there's been many times throughout my journey that I've felt, you know, sort of that impostor syndrome of not being adequate, And and you just have to lean into that. Right? Well you put things. When your husband tells you, he feels God calling him to plant a church and you're thinking, you know, your first thought is... We're going to a city where we don't know anyone, how's this gonna work?


Or we're gonna be able to eat or by kids gonna have food, and but you just have to be willing to trust God because he knows the future, and he doesn't show you the future. So true. First calls you. So true. Well, it seems to me that you guys have have always had a a special interest in church growth and revitalization.


I mean, first long as I could remember, I've I've seen you guys and looked up to you guys for... Since I was a kid. And and I'm just curious that's been a part of your life for for, you know, many, many, many years. What drew your focus there? How how has your personal journey in ministry influenced your approach and and allowed you to have a special focus there.


I'd love to hear from both of you. You know, III keep coming back to our roots at at, in Alexandria. Of course, we were raised in a growing revival church there, then we were privileged to be on staff in in 3 large growing revival churches. But perhaps the most significant influence, when it comes to church growth, it came when we planted that church in Lafayette in 19 96 because planting a church, your entire focus is on growth. But what really pushed us over the top and made us wanna focus on helping other pastors and churches, it took place in in 20 11, our our church was on a plateau, it had not seen numerical growth for about 3 years, although we were ba baptized a lot of people.


We we were teaching a lot of bible studies all throughout our church our membership was bringing people to church. We were having lots of guests. We didn't really know why we were we weren't growing. At the end of the year, We were averaging the same and attendance that we were at the beginning of the year. So we were very frustrated.


People weren't staying, a pastor friend, at that time turned us onto a book by Doctor Gary Mc macintosh, who is a church growth consultant. The book was entitled 1 size doesn't it fit all. The book opened our eyes to realize the the vast differences between a small church, a medium church and a large church and how they needed to change in order to move to the next level in growth. So I was so frustrated with the no growth that I contacted Doctor Macintosh, who again was a church growth consultant and that we hired him to come to our church and help us somehow get off of this plateau. He came, and he evaluated our systems, our processes, all the challenges we were facing and made some recommendations.


Of course, none none of those recommendations dealt with doctrine or core values. It was more programs, organization structure, things like that, well the results and I I won't get into the weeds, but the results were amazing over the next 3 years. Our church nearly doubled in attendance. So we were we were on a plateau for 3 years, with no additional growth, then the following 3 years after making a few adjustments in those those programs and strategies and structure, the next 3 years our church nearly doubled when we had this experience of being stuck and then getting help from a consultant and then experiencing growth again, it caused us to to just want to assist others. We felt like, hey, if they can you know, Daryl Weber and Karen Weber can see this type of result after being on a plateau like we had been on, we felt like everybody has a chance to grow.


And so, that's when we started to to try to to do all we can to learn about church growth. We partnered with doctor. Macintosh who really spoke into our lives in the area of church growth and assisted us. We began to to put on church growth conferences, pastors began to call and ask, can you help us with our growth barriers and etcetera. So to me, that's where really church growth kicked off in our minds and and in getting us on this path of church growth.


And so what What I'm heard you say is that you hired somebody, and you invested money, you invested money probably that you didn't have at the time. And and actually brought somebody money in to get an outsider point of view, and it really drastically made a difference. And Most definitely. And I just wanna point out that it a lot of times it doesn't take a a lot. It just takes a different perspective of somebody coming in and seeing something a little bit different.


And sometimes that can be... That can set us on the right trajectory to really do something significant within our our ministries, I would say. Most definitely. It's it's... What it is is evaluation.


Yeah. And many times, we aren't willing to evaluate. For the reason that of what we might find. But evaluation and measurements, those things really tell us where we're strong, maybe where we're weak, so we can do something about it. You know, Doctor Macintosh said, he highly honored what we were doing by having him come because it says many pastors, their egos will not allow them to ask for help.


Yeah. But we're in the kingdom business. We wanna do the best we can and sometimes, it's beyond 1 person's knowledge. And so this really launched us. We saw that we could just adjust some things that had nothing to do with doctrine had nothing to do with those those core elements of truth, just everyday practical things.


It it really did, excite us to to think that we could help other churches see the same results. Yeah. We get des to our surroundings. I know often I do. I'm...


I've got a consultant type mindset when... And people hire me for things as well to go and look at... You know, give a different perspective. However, I can get des even in my own church, you know, with a frame of mind of church growth. And so it's it's helpful to have somebody else, somebody else's perspective to come in and evaluate like you said, sister Weber, do you have something to add there?


Just to tag on with what he said, when that experience happened to us, Basically what I said was it... These things are so simple. They were really simple things. It's not anything deep and and detailed and I was so stunned at just the simple things that we did that made a huge difference, and that's what made me want to go after certification because I felt like that, I felt like the apostolic movement is very unique because we do have spiritual elements that no other, movement has. And you combine that with these very simple processes.


And, I mean, the sky's is the limit at that point, III didn't... I explain it like this. If you're gonna cook gum for 50 people, you don't get a little saucepan. You get a gum pot. And all of these things that we did were basically expanding the structure to hold what God was trying to give us, we were limiting God.


It's not that God wasn't growing the church. We were limiting him. Because we didn't know to expand these systems in the processes that were needed to hold the growth that God wanted to give us. And I do wanna mention something that, tag on to something he said, He talked about how we had never been part of a small church. Our whole lives.


We've never been part of a small church. And what that meant is when we planted our church, that experience gave us a sense of what could be. Gave vision. Gave us vision. And so it...


It... We were continually reaching for more and creating that culture and our congregation to never be satisfied. I remembered 1 Sunday. My husband telling our church. We will always have a building fund.


Because it was setting that mindset that we're gonna always be growing, and I think that is such a simple mentality for a church to have that can really change the trajectory of where they go for the future. It's culture and mindset as well. Yeah. That's good. That's good.


So back to you, mister, Weber, you're you're a certified church consultant. And I've heard both of you talk about, healthy churches on many occasions, and I'm gonna throw a little curve ball and ask you sort of a negative question, in your education and your experience, what actually makes an unhealthy church? Well, I think the answer to that would be dependent upon who you ask. So Mh. For every time someone asks me something like that I'll try to go back to scripture.


And for an example of our churches, we look at the words of Jesus and we look at the example of the early church. 2 different things. To me, the mission of every church should come from Jesus directive, which we call the Great commission. Go teach, baptized disciple. So an unhealthy church can be 2 different things.


Either number 1, you're not doing those things at all, and it's like a social club, there's no kingdom purpose or maybe you're doing those things, but there's no results. You're evan analyzing, but there's no spirit baptism or water baptism. Maybe you're preaching a lot, but you're not teaching, so it's not making disciples. So it's it's too pronged there. Either you're not doing what Jesus said to do, which is how his church was gonna be established.


Mh. Or you're doing them, but it's just activity and there's no results, which goes back to what are we measuring? What are we are we are we analyzing to see if we are even having results of what we're doing? So before we continue on with the podcast, this episode is brought to you by Christian leader, community coaching. Are you a Christian leader who is overwhelmed by the complexity of trying to figure out how to grow your team.


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And now back to our podcast. Then if you look at the 10 the church and the book of acts. And I'm I'm gonna say this. I hope it's okay. But when my husband and I start talking about data and systems and processes.


Sometimes we get back because people say that's not really spiritual. And so when you look at the church on the bush... Can I push back on that? That's. That's not...


I'm kidding. Go ahead. And I I understand because it is practical, those things are practical and as I... S, we do want to focus on the spiritual. But I read an article when I was finishing up my schooling, and it really opened my eyes to the church growth in the book of acts.


If you look at the book of acts, they grew in 3 different ways. They had spiritual growth, they had numerical growth and they had geographical growth. So to me, an unhealthy church, you're either not growing spiritually, and you're not growing numerically, and you're not growing geographically? Because that's what the book of acts church did? Acts 02:42 through 47, doctrine, worship, prayer, fellowship.


That's all the spiritual growth. But how many times in acts does it talk about a hundred and 28000 increase. Entire households learning, receiving the gospel entire towns being changed. That's numerical growth, but then geographical growth is also, are you planting churches? Or do you have satellite churches?


Or do you establishing the gospel in an area? It's like what North American missions calls the next town? Okay. Are you willing to start a daughter work? If that's geographical growth.


So sum it all up. Unhealthy church is you're not growing in those 3 ways or you're doing all this activity and you're not seeing any results? Yeah. That's that's very good. Brother Web, or anything you wanna add to that?


No. That is that is quite far. You're you're smart man. Right. You're a smart man.


So is there any outside of those 3 things which are which are phenomenal? I love that. I love that thought. Is there any other indicators of health that you would mention or Or is that? Well, I mean, you could you can measure all kinds of things and determine whether something is healthy.


I told my husband, I wasn't sure if I was gonna mention this on the podcast, But today, while I was preparing, I thought. You know, we talk about church health, and if we're not careful, we will we will liken it to a feeling. May think about it. If we're physical... If we feel good physically, we think we're healthy.


But yet, there may be something growing on the inside that's killing us. And the same is true of a church... Just because you feel good, that's what happened to us. We have great church, Congregation was wonderful ministries were happening. But at the end of the day, we weren't growing And until we dug underneath the layer of how we felt and found are we really seeing results?


We didn't realize that we weren't really healthy. We were spiritual. But the results weren't coming, like we... Like, well, the Bible says his kingdom never ends. It's constantly growing, and so if we're not constantly growing, we're not healthy.


So, you know, church health does not a feeling. It's a state of being, and it's Yeah. Analyzing and self evaluating to make sure what you're doing is really seeing results. Well, it's sort of like the fig tree, You know, is the fig tree producing fruit? Or is it not?


And if it's not, you got a question what is what is in the trunk of the tree? You know, is there something damaging in the trunk of the tree? Is there something damaging in the saw is it getting adequate water, you know, the... But the fact of the matter is is we want to see fruit and Jesus was very clear He wanted to see fruit from that victory. Well, there is a...


I said I didn't have anything further. But the more you talk about church growth, you're you're going to find we have so much inside of us that it's it's tough to close it off. But in church growth, there is a a saying. It says, the the wrong question is what do I need to do to grow? That's the wrong question.


Mh. Correct question is what am I doing? That's keeping me from growing. Because it doesn't matter what you add, what things you include or new things you do, if there things that are a part of what you're doing now that are keeping you from growing you can add all those other things and you still would not grow. You have to take care of things that are unhealthy things that perhaps are barriers.


And I know we're talking about healthy here. And so you have to be able to identify those things. In order to see growth again. Like you said, you have to... There's a reason why there's no fruit.


There... There's a reason. I had a a in lafayette, for probably I guess, I planted it the first 5 years, 3 to 5 years, 0 fruit. The tree grew over my head, but 0 fruit. And so I went and purchased, sat ts tree, Probably 3 feet tall planted it probably 10 feet away from the lemon tree, and that year, I had so many lemons on that tree, that perhaps, Well, the the point of the matter is, it didn't need more water.


It did not need more fertilizer, what it needed was cross poll nation. There was a a missing link that was built into it that it would not grow unless that that barrier to growth was removed. And so Wow. Immediately. So now this tree, it just...


Is producing. It's unreal, what what the limits it produces, but the key is that's a powerful statement there. I... I... My mind goes wild with that.


You can do a lot with that. Certainly. Yeah. Believe it you have to make sure you take care of things that aren't well before you start adding all these other things. Yeah.


So, Brother Weber, would you say those things, you know, a man in your position as a district superintendent. By the way, I just wanna say publicly, you do a phenomenal job, and you and sister Whoever do a phenomenal job in leading our district. And I'm so grateful to have you. As my leader in this district. I just wanted to say that publicly.


But a man in your position as a district superintendent, you're helping many pastors overcome a wide range of tough challenges. Probably not a day that goes by that you're not on the phone with some some pastor in Louisiana or whatever with tough challenges in their in their local churches. What are what are some of the more common challenges and barriers that you frequently see that churches or leaders, face either leaders personally or or just in general in in in churches when they're attempting to growth. Yep. What and first, thank you for your kind words.


We love what god calls us to do, and we did not foresee. It wasn't on our radar to leave Lafayette. But being in the will of God has always been first and foremost in our lives. And we love the Louisiana district, of course, we were raised here and it is... We're passionate about and always have been to think that we're able to to be a part of something that we grew up loving.


It just makes it even better. We're privileged. Not not it's not a right. It's a great privilege to serve this district certainly. Well, when you talk about, growth barriers, things that maybe challenges that churches face, pastor face.


I think that you know, when you talk about barriers, there are physical growth barriers like buildings and park their method growth barriers, not like, you know, like not having a strategy to follow up on gas, not having a strategy for bringing guests into services, you know, those can be method growth barriers, but I think the most common barrier that I run into our mental growth barriers. For example, church members who have a fear of change. When you talk about church growth, it is constantly updating rearranging, changing, growth brings change. Maybe a church member fears growth would limit their access to a pastor or or maybe a church member has the... It's all about me mentality.


When in reality, it should hope be about... Always be about the lost. So so it could be that the members have a fear of change, And, you know what? Maybe the pastor has a mentality that is a barrier to growth. For example, maybe there's no vision to grow in that pastor heart.


Maybe he sat... Or she is satisfied, with where they are or maybe they have trouble releasing lay members to minister. The pastor can't personally minister to everyone if that church is gonna grow, because if a pastor personally ministers to every person in a church then that church cannot grow beyond that pastor. So that be a barrier to growth. And I think those are the most common is probably the mentality growth barriers, brother Ryan.


I... Yeah. I I would agree, the the mental... Those are all tip typically mental growth barriers. What...


How can people overcome these things? Well, to overcome these types of, you know, it's nearly easier to to build a building. It's much easier to put a program in motion, but to change your mentality. Now you have come to the crux of where everything begins in the most important barriers exist. And I think to overcome a mentality growth barrier starts with the pastor.


He has he or she must make up in their mind that they want to see their church grow because it is the will of God. Karen, you know, quoted scripture a moment ago of the increase of his kingdom. There shall no end. It's god's will for for the church to grow and to increase. Next that pastor needs to constantly share vision, vision of growth, vision of of, increase, with the leaders and with the church.


It has to come through the teaching, it has to come through the preaching, has to come through the lifestyle of that minister. You can't say we need to teach bible studies, but you're not teaching a bible study, you have to be an example of church growth. And the pastor needs to talk to other pastors who are having success in church growth. Pastor, and leaders, they really need to read about church growth. Look at church growth materials at 10 church growth conferences, it begins to cause you to think because remember, we're talking many times about a a mentality growth barrier.


It's amazing when folks had attended our our leadership. I'm sorry. Our growth conference switched dealt with a lot of leadership. But they attended our growth conference, and they would come to us or write or email or send a letter something and say, this blows our minds. It totally causes us to think differently about how we pastor or how we lead at a church as a perhaps they're not a pastor.


Maybe they're a leader in the church. And so that's what church growth conferences and reading books does. And certainly, those things are the beginning of trying to turn a mentality toward church growth. Yeah. Just curious if if if there's any 1 particular maybe situation or whatever, that you would care to share, what what's the toughest challenge that you've seen in in this barrier.


Well, as brother our timmy. As brother Timmy used to say we said, brother Timmy, he would tell the stories we said, you've gotta write a book. He said not enough people are dead yet. Oh, So I thought that. As I was asking then I thought about that.


Yeah. It he was classic. Right? Yeah. And we quote him more than it.


I think sometimes we we quote, and it's not even from him. We just give him the credit. But but I I think, you know, to whittle this down to to what I felt I've seen in my travels, the toughest challenges, I I would say take that takes place with a a pastor. May get weary. And just decides to hold the fort so to speak.


He doesn't wanna lose anybody. It's not that he doesn't wanna grow or or his his answer to burnout out. And exactly. They just don't have the emotional or the, or the energy, the stability to put in the work because church growth is work. And it happens more often when a pastor bi vocational.


So that is probably the 1 of the largest challenges that I've seen, because that's not an easy answer. It takes some discipline. It takes, putting in motion strategy. Mh. Order.


Yes. So, it it takes a lifestyle change. Oh, yeah. And and it it takes help. You you can't get through this many times on your own true if you're weary, you're burned out, you really need some help in and there certainly some avenues to to walk.


There's can be better. There's power in that relational support of a district or friends, you know, fellow fellow fellow pastor or friends of of you know, other local churches, maybe they may not even be the same state as you, but they could support and and guidance and things of that nature. Anything else on, churches making health a priority, you know, as they continue to put push for growth. Anything else you'd like to add to that, maybe sister Weber or Well, I would like to say that, Not every church, it will be a large church. And when I...


When I'm talking small medium large, I'm talking about the number and attendance. Okay? Yeah. There are some very powerful churches. That are not large a number.


There are communities that would not even be able to... The the the math doesn't equate for their church to be what we we might consider the size of a large church. So I would say even to pastors that just like scripture says, don't compare yourself to others, you do the best you can do. With, like, my husband said, vision with that passion for the lost, desi church growth and church health. And if that means 3 soul revival, are a hundred soul revival.


The bible Paul said, we plant somebody else waters and God gives the increase. As long as we're doing everything we can to position ourselves, and try to define... Or make sure that we're not doing something that is keeping us from growing. I and I know a lot of times too. I wanna say this.


I think we had it easy by planning a church because you can create your own culture when you plant a church, whereas some pastors, they're fighting against a culture. Like he said that doesn't wanna change or they really don't want any new people. You know, there... It's us for and no more and they're fine with it. And in those types of situations, I cannot tell you how many times I've told people.


Don't worry about the people sitting on the pews that don't wanna grow, get out there in wind souls and before long, there's gonna be fresh blood in there. And it's gonna create a new environment and a new atmosphere, and people will eventually get with it or get out. You know. Maybe I should have said that. But, Well, that's the truth.


Yeah. You know... But you've got to do what God has called you to do. And if people come on board fine, if not, continue to do what God has called you to do and eventually, God will bless those efforts. Just because your church is not 500.


It doesn't mean it's not exactly what God wanted it to be. And I and I would imagine that peep... That the Lord sends, you know, you guys have have started a church and have grown it to a very good size church and lafayette. I would imagine that the Lord has sent you along the way people that were needed for that moment that were needed for the for the living room, and some of those people in the living room didn't make it. You know, midway through that journey or or even towards the end, you know, the Lord knows who you need at that moment and we'll send you those individuals I I would think.


Right? Oh, absolutely. And you've gotta be sensitive enough to be okay with that and lead with an open hand trust in God as you as you move through that as as you know, trusting that the Lord is going to provide that 1, but also, if somebody actually leaves You know, maybe that... Maybe that's the the the person that needed to leave so that you can continue to grow in the in the way that he desires for you to grow. Absolutely.


Absolutely. So this is this is obviously a leadership podcast. So I wanna specifically ask, how important do you feel leadership development is in the context of church health and growth? Well, first, it's it's very important for the pastor to develop his or her leadership, think that is... Could go without saying, I've always said, as as goes the leader so goes to church.


You can't Reproduce what you aren't. Secondly, leadership training is 1 of the 5 growth engines which drive the growth of a church. Sometimes ago, there, some time ago, there was a, a church growth study. They surveyed 1000 churches. They found that all the growing churches had 5 practices in common.


1 of those practices was they each had a strategy for identifying, raising up and training leaders. Mh. So leadership development is is not only personally important. But it is necessary for church growth. So thank you for what you're doing certainly because you're lending toward the, the efforts of growth.


I know sometimes it seems like it's personal growth. But you can't have corporate growth without personal growth and so it goes together, it works together. Yeah. Thank you for that. And sister sister Wherever, do you have anything to add to that?


Well, 1 of the... Let me just add why leadership development is so important is because each 1 of us has a limit. Now, some of us are limit is greater than others. But everyone has a limit. And so there are no superman pastors.


There's no pastor that can pastor even a medium church, a large church or a mega church by themselves because we all have a limit. And in fact, studies show that 1 of the greatest hindrances to breaking the 200 barrier is the pastor tries to keep leading as a lone ranger. And so if the... If there's a limit to how many people a church a pastor can lead, then then it suffice that the more leaders you have, the more people you can lead. Mh.


So that means without developing leaders, your church cannot grow because leadership, the the more leaders you have, the more followers you can have. And so Right. Going back to your previous question, if there's a pastor that is feeling that hindrance I'd I'd start developing leaders and letting leaders start taking care of people and and doing help with that pastor care and help with that connecting and help teaching bible studies and help witnessing and doing doing those things because what you're doing is now you're be able to lead more people because there's more leaders involved, which increases the capacity for followers. So that is definitely a church growth. Initiative.


Yeah. We've got to have people to be able to delegate to, and and delegation is not just, you know, vacuum in the carpet delegation. We have to have leaders to to delegate authority. Too as well. You know, small groups to...


I know that we we probably are closing in on the the end of our our visit here. But a, great illustration of this was 1 from 1 of our wonderful leaders, brother Randy Keys, who was who who what now the bishop in Modest and his son laws is now the pastor. When he was pastor he said, he was in service 1 Sunday and a very kind, elderly lady, a member of their church came to him and said pastor, I you are the best pastor anyone could ever have. I love you. I'm so thankful that you are my pastor her, and you know brother the key says I was really feeling good about that.


And she made me feel like this is why I pastor her, and and then he said she made this statement. She said pastor, you have always been there for me. And he said it first, it was... It felt... Made him felt feel wonderful.


But he says the more he thought about that statement. You have always been there for me. He said it became an indictment. He said if I'm always there for everybody. How, can I ever grow or this church become larger than my ministry?


Mh And that's when he he the light turned on in his head and he began raising up leaders, developing leaders that could help him with pastor care. And well, the rest is history, his church just began to blossom and grow, and he... We have now 1 of the largest United Independent Coastal churches in our fellowship because a leader realized his own limitations and realized that he wanted that church to go beyond himself and he spread leadership throughout his church in order to help minister to more people. That's so good, a mental shift that literally changed the trajectory of his church. That's phenomenal.


So as we are bringing this to to a close and in relation to healthy churches, what tools or resources do you recommend for churches that are looking to assess where they are and move beyond their health and growth areas. What what would you recommend your resources or others or whatever. Karen Model don't you go. I just finished talking. I don't wanna feel like I'm hog this thing.


So... Well, I'll let you mention S gi, so I'll talk about in large church growth ministries. As a consultant, I look at the practical side. So I look at data and I analyze and and evaluate and then make recommendations. And so I have put together a few things, I had to do this with my schooling because of my topic of my my internship and my capstone.


So I put together some resources that I'm allowed some pastors to use, and so I'm just gonna... Offer it up here, but I put together 3 lessons, 1 is on church on growth barriers. 1 is on creating a growth culture in your church, and another is how metrics can help you analyze the health of your church, those can be found at large ministries dot com slash lessons, and it's like that because I had to do that for class. But in each 1 of those, there's an assessment or there's some information on how you... Some areas you could look at yourself, look at your church and say, you know, I really need to help work on this.


I'd like to work on this, But I I wanna key in on the metrics. Most of our apostolic churches. We don't measure enough data to really know whether or not we're healthy. And this is... It is practical, but I like to call it stewardship.


God has given us resources. He's given us the gospel. He's given us people, facilities, finances. And if we don't steward those well, then that could affect how our church is growing, and whether it can even grow or not. So I created an interactive spreadsheet, it has the...


You can download it from that same website, you can take it. If you're not numerically inclined give it to someone in your church who is and tell them to do this for you. But it... You literally start filling in your attendance, you start filling out how many guests you have, you start filling in how many spirit baptism, and there are embedded formulas that tell you when you reach this percentage and you're building, it's gonna start hindering growth. You need to do something.


If you've reached this percentage if you need to have this many parking spaces. Or else it's gonna start hindering growth. True story. Usher were coming to us in our church in Lafayette saying pastor, there are people driving on our parking lot cannot find a parking space and they turn around and leave. Now, you don't have to be all spiritual to know that that's a barrier And so this interactive spreadsheet.


There's a there's a a worksheet for, your worship services. There's 1 for your finances. Do you know you can have your finances structured in a way that can limit your growth. That spreadsheet will help you with all that. There's information on how to get a hold of me?


I can help you walk through it? Also, are you... Do you have enough people in your church involved in ministry? Is that keeping you from growing. Do you have enough groups in your church where people can connect?


So you can tell I'm very passionate about that. So if anybody wants to go in there in large ministries dot com slash lessons. They can watch the videos, they can get the assessments and get the spreadsheet. I'll put those in in the show notes, those links. In the show notes so that people could find that, and that's very kind of you to be willing to offer that to to everyone that's tremendous.


Thank you for doing that. My husband might wanna tell about S gi. Do. The United Hospital Church has a new committee. It's just a little over a year old.


It's called the church growth or revitalization committee. It's a sub committee of the strategic growth edition committee. I'm honored to chair the new committee, and we have 2 brand new resources that are now available to license ministers. First of all, is our church health checkup up. The checkup up it uses evaluation questions concerning different growth categories in a church.


When you complete the churchill checkup up, you receive an electronic report, showing your church's score for the different growth categories. The report will display the current areas of strength for your church as well as any area where maybe your church needs improvement And for those areas which need your attention, you'll be directed to our second new resource and that's church growth track. The church growth track consists of video sessions that deal with some of the most important topics in growing a church. The lessons are taught by apostolic pastors, ministers and leaders who who have a proven track record distorted as far as church growth in Church Health go, to access these 2 very vital resources. You just go to ministry central the homepage, ministry central dot com, and you choose the s gi logo at the top of the page, both the churchill check up and the church both track or on the S gi page.


Those are tremendous new resources, you would probably have to pay a lot of money to get that type of information and and and those types of, video training if you were to go to a consultant or to a, a, group which causes, or which makes these things available, but it's free to our licensed ministers in United Independent Coastal church. That's awesome tremendous, and thank you for sharing that, and thank you for providing that for free to, us, licensed ministers. I think that's a tremendous tremendous resource that we'll definitely wanna take advantage of I, I've got 1 more personal question for you guys for both of you. But before we do that, I just wanna check. Anything else on church growth before I ask that last question?


Well, there there are few books out there. And certainly good authors U. You know, we're we're blessed to have some apostolic authors, brother Bernard, some years ago put out a I would think 1 of the best books on growing a church. In fact, that's the name of it. Growing a church.


Also, doctor Gary Mc macintosh, as I mentioned earlier, if I had to pull 1 book out of his entourage of books on church growth, it'd probably be what every pastor should know, and then some authors that we we certainly see are well versed in church growth, Bill Ea, Nelson's Crc and Tom Rain, all of these. Men Have a variety of perspectives on church growth, you know, most... It's it's dealing with systems, processes, structure, things like that, programs that really do assist church growth. Tremendous. Sister Whoever, I don't wanna go too quick, anything from you?


I wouldn't add anything to what he's already said. Okay. Well, last question, this is a personal 1. What's 1 ritual or routine that helps you be successful in what you do? You're both very successful.


What's 1 ritual or routine other than the obvious prayer and devotion? What's 1 ritual routine that helps you be successful? Karen and I'm going to let you answer that first. Well, you mentioned prayer and devotion, but I I would reiterate personal that that routine because when we travel a lot, and it's easy to get out of a routine. And I can feel it when I'm out of the routine.


So I would say that for sure. But another 1 is reading and constantly learning. You never get to a place where you know everything, and, that in fact, just yesterday, I had text sister Kenny and told her, thank you for sending me some books, and she she mentioned, you know, she said, I'm not even sure I agree with 1 of them. But what it does is it broaden your... Your horizons, and it makes you realize there are other aspects of thought out there that I may not agree with, but at least I can converse with someone and give my point of view and help me solidify my point of view even better so reading and just continually learning to me is is something I can't do without.


So devotion, daily devotion, and daily learning kinda reset you. In your day and helps you be successful. That's good. And if both of those are on the beach, that's even better. For sure.


For sure Brother waiver? Biggest challenge or obstacle leadership I would say that I'm having to adjust to the different process of getting things accomplished. When Was a pastor or the process to to get things approved and accomplished was so much shorter. That you know, it took days, weeks at the most, but as a superintendent to process for approval and moving forward takes months and sometimes literally years, to to move forward in those those plans and implement them, and even to get them approved. It doesn't mean the different process is wrong.


It just means what I've got to do as a leader, I've got to adjust expectations. Just because this process and time in my leadership was was a certain way. Doesn't it mean that carries off... Carries over into all types of of positions or places I serve. I have to be able to adjust.


I have to be flexible with my expectations. I could bow up and say, well, that's not the way we did it when I was pastor. There's too much red tape and etcetera, but I have to understand, this is a different, entity, running a district and being a superintendent overseeing these types of things, 830 some odd licensed ministers of 300 churches. It's... It's totally different.


So I would think be flexible to within in my expectation, be patient in the approval process. Mh. Be better and more... Thorough in in my presentations because now it includes way more people, more committees, boards, etcetera. So I've learned to adjust in those areas You know, I could dig my heels in and demand that it it remained the what I'm with what I'm used to, which wouldn't get me very far, or I could roll with the punches, understand, make the adjustments and and and pull people in, share more details be more thorough and and see things began to unfold as god...


His god has given me vision for that. That is tremendous, tremendous. Thank you both, Brother and sister Weber, your your tremendous people again. I I wanna say that I highly respect your you as individuals. You've been so kind to be over the years.


And now your leadership as our district superintendent. I just greatly appreciate you, and I also greatly appreciate your time today. I know it's very valuable and and don't I don't take that for granted art. Our audience is gonna really love this, particular episode. It's it's packed full of good nuggets.


So thank you so much. Thank you. It's been honor. Thank you, Brother Ryan. We're so thankful for you.


Your ministry. For pastor Manga allowing you to to have this time to to help others to assist ministry to assist assist leaders, you know, in these tremendous steps to be better, to talk about the hard things to be able to handle challenges. It's a a breath of fresh air. Thank you for your manager. We love you guys, Thank you so much.


We love you as well. So this concludes our show today. My name is Ryan Franklin. Thank you so much for joining us on a Christian leader made simple podcast.


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