Podcasts about Connexus

Twenty years after burnout almost took him out, Carey is back with Part 2—the recovery playbook. You don't need to get back to normal. Normal is what burned you out. In this solo episode, Carey shares seven strategies to burnout-proof your life: stop managing time and start managing energy, move to a fixed calendar, guard your green zone, and stop letting the wrong people hijack your best hours.

Most people have tried the strategies. The therapy. The self-help books. The mindset shifts. And for a lot of people — it helps. To a point. But what happens when you've done all of that and something still feels broken underneath? In this episode, Jeff Brodie, Vijay Krishnan, and Dom Ruso have an honest conversation about why simple answers don't fix complex brokenness, why the comparison trap runs deeper than just social media, and what it actually looks like to accept reality without giving up on healing. This is the kind of conversation that's easy to share with a friend who might not be ready for a sermon — but is ready for something real.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras from Climbing the Assimilayas, an organization dedicated to helping churches build systems that move people from first-time guests to engaged disciples. With years of experience working inside and alongside growing churches, Greg and Tommy bring practical insight into one of the most overlooked—and most critical—areas of church health: assimilation. Are people showing up at your church but not sticking? Do you feel like guests are slipping through the cracks despite your best efforts? In this conversation, Greg and Tommy unpack what's changing about how people engage with church today and how leaders can respond. A seismic shift in why people are coming. // One of the biggest changes in churches is a shift in motivation: people are no longer primarily coming to church for community or life improvement—they're coming to find God. Where previous generations often needed to be convinced of the benefits of church, many new guests today are already spiritually curious or even actively seeking Jesus before they arrive. Greg shares stories of individuals with no church background who are reading Scripture, watching content like The Chosen, and showing up ready to take decisive steps like baptism. This means churches must recalibrate their approach—not just creating welcoming environments, but facilitating genuine encounters with God. You're missing more people than you think. // Tommy identifies a foundational issue: most churches are only tracking a fraction of the people actually engaging. Many leaders celebrate the number of new guests they can count, but in reality, they're missing a significant percentage—especially families checking in children or people who never stop at a guest table. Churches often aren't lacking opportunity—they're overlooking it. Recognizing and responding to all entry points into the church is critical if leaders want to move more people toward connection and growth. Stop telling your story—start naming theirs. // A common mistake churches make is focusing on communicating their own story—how the church started, what it believes, and why it exists—rather than connecting with the story of the guest. Guests aren't primarily interested in your church's narrative; they're asking what God might be doing in their life and how your church fits into that. Instead of offering multiple vague next steps, churches should provide clear, guided invitations that help people take one meaningful step forward. When churches shift from “Here's who we are” to “Here's how we can help you,” engagement increases dramatically. The first questions every guest is asking. // Every new person is subconsciously asking, “Is there anyone here like me?” That question shapes their experience from the parking lot to the worship service. But today, a second question is emerging: “Is there someone worth imitating?” Guests are looking for more than information—they're looking for transformation. This has led many churches to create space for prayer, reflection, and personal ministry during or after services. These moments often become powerful connection points where guests experience both God and meaningful relationships with others. People are looking for people—not programs. // Both Greg and Tommy emphasize that guests aren't primarily searching for better programming—they're searching for meaningful relationships. That means churches must prioritize relational connection over information delivery. Simple actions—like learning someone's name, asking thoughtful questions, and creating environments where people feel seen—can have a greater impact than any polished program. Designing clear pathways for connection. // Greg outlines three key journeys every church should consider: from the “screen to the seat” (first-time attendance), from the “seat to the circle” (relational connection through groups, teams, etc.), and from the “circle to the street” (living out faith in everyday life). Each stage requires intentional environments and clear next steps. Without these pathways, guests may attend once or twice but never fully engage. Every response is a sacred opportunity. // Tommy closes with a powerful reminder: every form submission, every piece of contact information, every small step a guest takes is a miracle. People don't casually give their information—they do so because something significant is happening in their life. When churches fail to follow up or steward those moments well, they're not just missing a system—they're missing a person God is drawing. Leaders must treat every interaction as sacred and respond with urgency, care, and intentionality. To learn more about Climbing the Assimilayas, access their free assimilation audit, or explore their Sherpa Tribe coaching community, visit assimilayas.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don't need more pressure—you need support. That's why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn't stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It's like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got repeat guests on the call, which you know what that means. These are people I love dearly and who I know have so much that they can help you with. You’re going want to stay plugged in. In fact, this is one of those areas that I think many of our churches are stumbling on and are not doing a good job. We’re not doing what we should be doing. And that doesn’t just come from like, it’s a hunch. I’ve literally been in dozens of conversations where what these guys have shared literally illuminates our thinking and helps us take steps towards being a more effective church. So you’re going to want to stay tuned stay tuned for the entire conversation. Rich Birch — Super excited to have Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras with us. They’re with an organization called Climbing the Assimilayas. Greg is the director of First Steps and Content Development Eastside Christian Church, a fantastic church. Been on the podcast a number of of times. They’re a multi-site church with six locations in all the places that make sense, California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Of course, those fit together.Rich Birch — And then Tommy is is the head sherpa at Climbing the Assimilayas. Super excited to have both of you guys on. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Greg Curtis — Yeah. It’s awesome to be with you, man. Always.Rich Birch — Always fun to connect. Why don’t actually, before we jump in, Tommy, why don’t you tell us about Climbing the Assimilayas? How do you guys help churches? What do you do to come alongside us and help us get better at what what we do?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I’d love to. Climbing the Assimilayas was started by Greg back when I was brand new in ministry. I was a groups pastor who had just taken over sort of the rest of the pipeline of getting people into groups because I realized I couldn’t get anybody into groups because I wasn’t in charge of anything that was happening before that.Tommy Carreras — So I met Greg in like 2013, 2014. He had just taken over the role of assimilation at Eastside. He kind of designed the role himself when his lead pastor—I’m telling your story now, Greg. Usually you get to tell it.—But his lead pastor, Gene Appel, said, hey, what what do you want to do in this next season? And Greg kind of designed the role based on what he saw was super necessary in the church and also what he was really well designed for.Tommy Carreras — And he was right. Because it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was just trying to figure out what a replicable and scalable system looked like for making things more personal and more effective at getting people to take real next steps. And it sounded really simple, but it was so unbelievably challenging because I just kept getting it wrong myself. And I had no idea where to actually go for advice on any of this. And he started figuring it out, started universalizing some of the principles that were working for him at Eastside and testing those with other churches.Tommy Carreras — I was at his first ever base camp training at Eastside. And so a long friendship began there. And then I just believed everything he said at that point and customized it, contextualized it for ministry and in also Southern California, but a different part. And, you know, it’s California is like five states total. Rich Birch — Right. Sure.Tommy Carreras — So it was much different than Eastside, but also all the principles held up. And so that’s what he’s been doing ever since. I came alongside him a few years ago to sort of throw gas on the fire. I had transitioned out of my role in ministry and started doing a few things with multiple churches. And this was one of them. And it has been a blast to help build these systems in churches that are super hungry for helping people connect, but can’t quite build the systems or just don’t have the models out there that are able to adapt and flex with the changing culture and the changing needs. Because those needs of guests have changed a lot over 12, 13 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. And friends that are listening in, both Greg and Tommy are the kind of leaders that I just say, you should just do what they say. Like, just listen to what they’re doing and do it. And you’d be amazed at the results that we’ve seen at churches all across the country. And so you’re in for a treat of a conversation today. Rich Birch — Greg, since we last talked, so I think that was maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, what have you continued to notice that’s maybe different around how people are engaging, connecting? We’re talking about getting first time guests, the kind of people that are arriving, trying to help those people get assimilated, get connected. What what have you noticed maybe something that’s that’s maybe different in the way people are engaging right now that’s different than maybe even a year or two ago?Greg Curtis — Yeah, over a crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards—this is going to sound crazy because we’re talking to churches—they’re wanting God now. And what I what I mean by that is prior, we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus, most growing churches, which there are, and I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture.Greg Curtis — And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and and what was causing people to engage with church was really what can, what help in my life? How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed.Greg Curtis — This has shifted. I’ll put it in the terms of our um our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me. He said, Greg, prior to a few two, three years ago, maybe not even that long. He said, young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community, and about 20% to find God. He goes, it’s flipped. It’s flipped. Now it’s 80% God and 20% community.Greg Curtis —  And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I’ll just throw two out. At the end of last year, i was covering somebody, ah a pastor who was gonna baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone, so I said, yeah, I’ll cover it. So in our context, I’ll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show him where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera.Greg Curtis — And I met her, she was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we’re walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions, how how long have you been coming to Eastside, which is my church? And ah she says, oh, I’ve I’ve never been to Eastside.Greg Curtis — And was like, oh, so you’re from our online campus? And she goes, no, I’ve never really heard of Eastside. And I said, well, what’s led you to be baptized today?Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non-religious home and I’ve I’ve never been to church. And I have, I vowed I’d never even date a religious person, but I had some friends three months ago that invited me to watch The Chosen with them.Greg Curtis — I didn’t want to. I got I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode. Kept watching. Decided to buy myself a Bible two months ago. I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided, I love Jesus and I want to follow him. And I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But get this. I’m the game day operations coordinator for the NFL. So I work on Sundays. And I just Googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up and I filled it out. So here I am.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Yeah. And and I’ll tell you what. She didn’t know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.Greg Curtis — Okay. The questions she had, we’ve we’ve remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. I mean…Rich Birch — So good.Greg Curtis — …but I’m telling you, I met with somebody, I’ve had a few of those that are similar. That one’s pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They’re coming because they’re having a God moment before they get to us.Rich Birch — Yeah. Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they’re coming to us to find God and and they’re already they’re already encountering him in some way and they need help with that and want it. And that’s a huge shift.Rich Birch — Yeah, I would agree. I’ve seen that in our context, in our church, so my specific home church that I’m a part of, Connexus. I’ve seen that at our church. We’ve seen it in the churches we work with. There is a um a measurable change in the way, kind of the state that people are at when they arrive. You know, that the way I’ve said, echoed similar to what you’re saying there, Greg, is like, There used to be, you know, you and I are of a certain age. I can remember a time when, you know, people would kind of stumble into church and they, you know, they were there for all different kinds of reasons. And, you know, we had to hold their hand for a long time. Rich Birch — But it seems like now people are arriving and they have ah It’s like a God question on their heart that they’re looking for an answer for. It’s they’re, they’re arriving already asking something significant. And, you know, we’ve got to meet them there. We can’t, we can’t just leave that.Greg Curtis — So get get this. I’ve often, I think I’ve probably said this on your podcast before, but for for our church, Christmas is our Super Bowl. It’s our number one outreach event for the year. Traditionally, we’ve gotten 18% of our guest leads from Christmas for for the year.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Okay. But yeah, but we tried something in light of this. Because we’re we’re we’re looking at this and trying to meet God in in this. And we did something we have never done at Christmas services. And that’s, we it’s so counterintuitive. We invited people, we just shared the gospel. If you want to be baptized right now, We’ll do it.Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.Greg Curtis — And we have never done that because, and and you’ve heard me say i Christmas guests are different than other guests of the year. They’re not there to find God. They’re there because Aunt Sally invited them to a Christmas service before the dinner and gift exchange. So they’re on their way someplace. They’re not going to do anything. And we just thought, let’s just try it. Rich Birch — RightGreg Curtis — And it probably, we we were we were prepared for, we thought maybe, you know, we’re a church of, I don’t know, 12-, 15,000 today. We thought maybe we’d get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case. We had 399 people… Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s incredible. On Christmas Eve. Greg Curtis — …get baptized by coming to a Christmas service, not knowing that they were going to do that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible.Greg Curtis — So that just that that just illustrates there’s a seismic spiritual shift going on. And I think meeting guests there is going to be very smart for us in this hour.Rich Birch — Yeah, and I want to, that’s a great place to start. I think sets up, tees up the conversation we will be having today, which is, friends, I think a lot of our churches could be missing some of these folks as they’re as they’re connecting. And I want to really mine from you guys. You guys are the experts on this. You interact with a lot of churches. I want to mine for our our listeners some help for them. So Tommy, from your vantage point, you work with churches across the country where we’re asking questions like this.Rich Birch — How do we get these people plugged in? How can we help these first time guests take steps towards ultimately groups, teams, get plugged into whatever it is that we’re trying to get them plugged in. Where do you see that leaders keep getting stuck when it comes to helping people take their next steps beyond this kind of first weekend? Where do we keep stumbling? What do you see consistently bubbling up in the churches that you’re working with?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. Yeah, there’s a few really specific things. And the first one is, first of all, we always have to move as far left or as far up, however you’d like to think, left to right, top to bottom. We have to move all the way to the left or all the way to the top. And the problem is there aren’t enough people in your funnel in the first place.Tommy Carreras — We’ve talked about this before, but a really, really popular church that I’ve been talking to a lot recently, and working with—by “popular”, I mean it’s growing, it’s a few thousand, so it’s there’s something there, obviously, and really popular online pastor. Not not super duper 2 million followers, but like quarter of a million. That’s a lot. Right. And just a wonderful guy. Right. Tommy Carreras — They announced really proudly recently that they had 1300 new people in the last year and their church of 25 to 2800. And I, looked him and said, guys, guys, that’s not even half of how many new people walked in the door. And they just looked so con confused.Tommy Carreras — They’re like, that’s a great number. I’m like, that’s a that’s a great number. It’s a really bad percentage, though. And it’s just wrong. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly.Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — It’s just wrong. The idea is most often we’re trying to help people take next steps, but we’re just looking at half or less than half of the actual people that are there. And so if we can’t get the top of the funnel right and recognize who’s there, and some of that is just missing the data that we do have. You can give this one away… If you’re not treating your new families like new guests, you’re ignoring them. You’re not missing them. You’re ignoring them because they’re giving you all the info. They’re giving you all the info besides their social security number, right? We need all their info for having their children. And we’re just missing that opportunity usually because we don’t treat them like, well, they didn’t go to the new guest table. But well, who cares? Bring the new guest table to them, right? Just bring it over there and treat them as such. And so that’s a huge one. That’s 30 to 40% of your new guest leads are actually coming in through kids. And so we have to stop ignoring those people.Tommy Carreras — But also it’s all about that invitation. If we can’t get that invitation right originally, then we’re always going to be looking at less than the actual amount. And then fewer people are going to take next steps because fewer people are being invited to take next steps. And so the top of the funnel is the first problem. We’re just not dealing with all the information. Tommy Carreras — The bigger sort of meta problem that I think has has been really interesting to watch is that most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest’s story.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so if you want to go like the StoryBrand route, and if you’re a Donald Miller fan, which I think, Rich, you are a Donald Miller fan, like it, how could you not be, right?Rich Birch — Sure, sure.Tommy Carreras — Like, “Blue Like Jazz” and “StoryBrand”, where does this guy stop? But the idea is we try and play the hero so that they’ll choose us. We’re trying to make sure all our theological ducks are in a row. We need to tell them the story about the incredible call that that God had on this this church planter’s life 23 years ago and that incredible first moment. And and they’re just sitting there going, Okay, that’s really cool…Rich Birch — That’s interesting to you.Tommy Carreras — …but it has nothing to do with them. Yeah, that’s super interesting. And that sounds like a great documentary that I would watch the trailer for. But that’s it. And what we’re not trying to do, though, is name their story, how they might be feeling right now, and how we might play a part in their story.Tommy Carreras — So instead of trying to say, here’s the story of our church, do you want to get on board? Those assimilation environments, whether it’s your “one program”, which is our language for, you know, the the program that you invite somebody to to help them take a next step into belonging and purpose. Instead of trying to name our story as an organization and say, here’s where you can fit into it. We’re trying to say, here’s the story we believe that God is writing in your life. And we might be able to play a part of it. It’s way bigger than us as a church, but we would love to play a part in it. And here’s the specific next thing that we would like to try and do for you because God’s writing your story and it’s a really good one. And we think we can plug in right here, right now.Tommy Carreras — And that’s the other thing. It’s a lot of times we’re just trying to go and here’s all the ways you could connect. And Greg’s been saying this since 2013 when I met him. But, you know, if you give if you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E, none of the above. We’re just we’re giving them options and really they want guidance. And so if we can say, hey, here’s the thing that we have found is the best step for most people like you right now. Then they can just say yes or no.Tommy Carreras — And yes or no is great because if they say no, we just downsell and say, well, what do you want? What are you looking for? What what can we help you accomplish in your story and in your life right now? Not what environment do you want to be in? Because they don’t know. They don’t know what the deliverable of a group is. They don’t know why they would do it. We just have to say, what what do you want then?Tommy Carreras — And they say, oh I’m kind of looking for this, this, this. And you go, oh well, this is an environment that might be built just for you. And so we’re just trying to come alongside their story. But most often we’re trying to convince them that our story is really compelling. And that’s just falling way too flat.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So much there. Unpack. Friends, rewind. Listen to that. There’s good stuff packed in there. Greg, sticking with this idea of options versus guidance, you know, when we’re thinking about a new person that walks into our church this weekend, this season, what do you think they’re actually trying to figure out in those first few weeks? What are the kind of questions that are on their minds that we’ve got to try to guide them towards? What are you seeing in the churches you’re working with? How should we be trying to guide those people?Greg Curtis — Multiple thoughts come to mind with that one. I’ve always said, and I do think that it’s still true, that the number one question when any of us are in a new environment is, and we’re not conscious of it really, but we look around and is there anyone here like me? And that’s that’s the inner question everybody is asking whenever they go to someplace that’s foreign or new to them. And that, you know, in a church context, that starts in the parking lot.Greg Curtis — And that sounds unusual. But if you’ve if you’ve driven in in on your motorcycle and every other car is a Mercedes and a Beamer, when you pull up, you know, you start to feel other than. And it’s people just look around, is is there somebody here like me? Greg Curtis — And I do think, like I had mentioned before, they are trying to figure out if this is a place where I can encounter God. So I do think we need to calibrate our services in such a way that they do encounter God. And I think that there’s a shift and I can’t wait to see how it gets ferreted out. But the shift in worship that needs to be happening is not just singing great praise songs and, having compelling announcements and and great teaching that is given to you, but having moments where they they actually feel like they’re encountering God, you know what I mean, in some way. And not that he’s not encountered, you know, through his word and and and and in worship. But um you know, ah creating a little bit of space ah for that, I think, going to actually speak to what they’re trying to figure out, which is, okay can I figure out God here? I have so many questions.Greg Curtis — And when they encounter God, that covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. Like, they may have three burning questions, but when if they actually encounter God, the questions almost go into the backseat because, oh my gosh, I just I sense God here. And when I say this, I’m not being theoretical. I just met with a gal, another 28-year-old, yesterday. And again, no church back when whatsoever.Greg Curtis — Her father was Jewish. She passed away a year ago. And she just feels orphaned and started looking for God and started watching us online for two weeks and then came and got baptized her first week she came because we happen to be doing one of those baptism things that we do maybe five times a year.Greg Curtis — And so we sat down, she had her little Bible that we print. It’s one of these few dads that we make. We call it a Bible, but we just print out text for the Bible because we’re doing an Old Testament survey kind of thing called the Old Testament Junk. But she’s she’s like, I think I should get it. Like she just figured out that’s not actually a Bible. And she what what Bible should I get was her first question.Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Right.Greg Curtis — Her other second question. because I said, you got a real pastor of front of you. Where do where do you which what kind of Bible should I get? The second one was, how do you pray?Rich Birch — Love it.Greg Curtis — This is the kind of stuff that as we were growing up, you said we were men of a certain age, that we used to anticipate and dream that people would ask us these incredible discipleship questions, like the disciples asked Jesus, Lord, how do we pray? And he gives them Lord’s Prayer. And we were prepared for those questions, but we were unprepared for a culture that was pretty disinterested. And so we’ve gone to the other paths I mentioned before. But now they’re asking the questions that we we are very prepared to answer, but I think we’re just got a little unused to it. And we need to put those things right in our pocket again because they’re asking. Greg Curtis — And so those are the kinds of of things that that they’re looking for in their first few weeks. And I think they’ll gauge and they are gauging our church by different things than they were a couple of years ago. You know, yeah, sure we have our kids program needs to be good and safe. You know, and and and we can’t do a sloppy job, you know, as we worship God corporately. But they’re gauging it by is God here? Am I meeting him? How can I connect with him? And that is just a very beautiful thing to see happen. That’s a great shift.Rich Birch — You know, I kind of sticking with that. One of the things I’ve been doting as I’ve been interacting with churches across the country is something that a friend of mine, Jeff Brody, lead pastor at Connexus has said. He talked, he’s talked about how we’re trying to offer what we’ve been calling accessible encounter, that it’s like we are trying to, so he wouldn’t say this next part, I’m saying this, so I don’t want to put words in his mouth.Rich Birch — But, um you know, i come from I come from the attractional church movement. That would be my background. Happy to say that that is my background. I know you’re not supposed to admit that, but that’s where that’s my background. It’s like you’re not supposed to say or that’s who it is.Rich Birch — And you know, what we were trying to do there was trying to connect with people who don’t normally attend church. And that’s still our heart. That’s still what we’re trying to do. But what we’ve realized is people are looking for an encounter with God that is that does go beyond. It transcends like, here’s three great ideas for this week at work or whatever. It’s it’s like, hey, I’m coming with real questions.Rich Birch — And so people are looking for something in the service that does have a transformational experience or an encounter to it. Sticking with you for a second, Greg, do you see that trend? So we’re doing more, I’m seeing more churches doing more kind of prayer stuff at the altar, end of the service experience, light these candles if you’re praying for that, fill out this card and post it on the cross. More of those kinds of experiences than I’ve seen before. What do you think about that, Greg?Greg Curtis — No, I feel that too. But that do you know what that does, is it shifts me into one thing I didn’t say is, I also think they’re looking for a person, a resource that they can talk to also. Tommy Carreras — Yeah.Greg Curtis — And I think that when we have those after church like prayer moments, like what what how that’ll look at our church is, and we’ve we’ve decided for this very reason to increase the frequency of them because we didn’t do them often. Now we’re doing them a little bit more regularly, more cyclically. But we we’ll have a prayer team, and I love being on the prayer team that’s at front afterwards because of the content that we were talking about.Greg Curtis — And lines will form of people, and we just pray for them and and talk to them and look in their eyes and sometimes connect them to resources if you know, that’s appropriate. But we just watch the people just line up for that, you know. And I just think people are looking for also a person or a guide, you know, that they could ask some questions of. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And so I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who’s, I think he’s 31. And um his name is Kellen. Love this guy. He’s a leader on staff at a church in Georgia. And his thing, and I’m not saying this is the answer, but because I don’t think anybody knows the answer right now, because all of this, there’s not, and it’s really multiple answers, right? It’s just a bunch of things. But I’ll throw this in as an ingredient in the thought soup, you know, that’s percolating right now on all this. He was saying, especially with all the younger people returning to church, he that he sees a shift in the attractional church model maybe that may be happening over the next five years, where instead of the worship service being the attractional event, and then we get them assimilation-wise into small groups and ministry teams, that it it may be the reverse of that.Greg Curtis — Where because they’re looking for God in a person, they end up in somebody’s home at, at a, something that may look like a small group, as we think of them, and conversations over coffee. And they get so enraptured in it that it starts there. And then it ends kind of like my friend, Connie, who, who came the NFL gal, it ends at your church. It doesn’t start there. That’s the shift. It starts to end there. And that may mean in the future, our attractional church model and worship may shift to something that’s unapologetically for those who are following and seeking Jesus, not trying to get them to. And that’s a big shift. So so the the the river flow may be shifting. And I just think that’s an interesting thought. It’s been in my head for a while.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Tommy Carreras — I think it’s so funny that you mentioned that people are looking for a person, because I was hoping to jump in and say, I think that all of this is like they’re looking for people, not experiences. Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — And so thank you for for going there. The question that came to mind, because I’ve always loved your question to to remind us how simple and basic the initial need of a guest is. Anybody in any new scenario, is anybody here like me? I think the question that they’re asking next, is anyone here worth imitating? Because also imitation, imitation is the way we learn. It’s the way we grow. It’s why Jesus is a, is a person we follow, not a doctrinal set of beliefs that we adhere to. Tommy Carreras — That’s not the point. The point is the person we follow and the people we’re becoming and everybody wants to become someone better. And that’s not actually a legalistic gross, like, Oh, you’re just prideful. No, no, no. We’re designed to be phenomenally wonderful people that look like Jesus. That’s what our, our actual heart’s desire is. Tommy Carreras — And so if God’s leaning into that desire in people, then their first question is going to naturally be, is anybody here worth imitating? And we can’t tell people that we’re worth imitating. We can only show them that we’re worth imitating. And how do we show them? We walk up to people we don’t know and say, Hey, I don’t think I know you yet. And you deserve to be known. I’m Tommy. What’s your name? And just take it from there. Tommy Carreras — That’s somebody that’s worth imitating. That is somebody that’s confident and inviting and welcoming and kind and compassionate and interested and curious. That’s who I want to be. And so I’m going to naturally say, oh, if that’s the first person I met here, what are all these other people like? This could be wonderful.Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And so I think those two questions really build the the exact desire set, or at least the first initial desires of somebody who’s who’s coming to church, especially somebody who’s explicitly coming to get to know God and to be the best version of themselves. And they’re they’re actually saying, and I think God defines what that best version looks like. That’s like the best news ever for churches. But we tend to miss it because we design for information transfer and not relationship building. And that’s just not what they’re looking for.Greg Curtis — Yes.Rich Birch — So sticking with that, Tommy, I’d love to, I’d love you to unpack that a little bit. Think of maybe I’m a church of a thousand. So it’s, you know, this thing’s got some energy behind it. And I want to design this, these kind of initial first steps. I want to design our weekend experience and then whatever I’m asking for people to make, to try to get them towards some relationship and get them towards some people. What are some of those initial things that we should be thinking about to try to help them take those first couple steps? What are some of the, these initial steps. Again, picture a church of maybe a thousand. What’s that look like? So it’s gotta be done at scale.Rich Birch — I love the idea of like, you know, I could note people in the room who I don’t know, but like, we all know you get up over a couple hundred and it’s like, I don’t know. By the time you get to a thousand, you look around your lobby and you’re like, I don’t know any of these people. Like I don’t know who any of these people are.Tommy Carreras — I don't know any of these people. Yeah.Rich Birch — So how do we, how do we build a system for lack of a better word that helps us move people towards that?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I think that first we have to get clear on our goals as a team and we have to get clear on every environment’s goal and make sure there is an environment for every step of the journey. Nobody’s just going to take a big swing. Right. And also we, I would love to live in a place and and be in a church where this is just like, I don’t have to design any systems because all the people just naturally do it. Tommy Carreras — And I would say that often, like I want to, I want to, I want our church to be a church where we don’t even need a group connection event because everybody gets invited to a group personally. And that wasn’t because I was actually hoping that would be a realistic thing. I was trying to set such a clear picture of my actual goal that we could just move 5% in that direction. We could get 20% of our people invited instead of going through a connection event. That would be awesome. Even 5% is better than zero. Tommy Carreras — And so I tried to set ah a visionary goal just for the sake of the culture building. But we have to build the systems and and be really obvious about it because people are also walking in with baggage and they’re walking in with a clear picture and they’re they’re asking to be proved wrong in most cases. Well, i don’t know about in most cases, but in plenty cases, they’re they’re hoping they’re proved wrong. Tommy Carreras — Well, church people just like each other. Well, church people are going to judge the places that don’t have it together yet. Lightning is going to strike when I walk in the door. I’m not actually going to be useful here. I’m going to be a burden. All of those things, that’s the baggage they’re walking in with, not just because of church hurt, because of life hurt. And that is exactly why we’re here, to meet that and say, that’s actually a lie. That’s actually a lie from the father of lies. And you’re here to meet the good father that has only truth for you. And I’m going to show it to you. Tommy Carreras — But we need the systems and the environments that build it correctly and that that lean toward those and produce those kinds of relationships or relational touch points. We need to set clear goals and we need to be relentless in our invitation into those environments. So just having a new here sign on a booth is not an invitation. It’s information. But when my favorite way to announce, for example, which should be an announcement, every single service, hopefully twice in the service. Hey, if you’re new here or you consider yourself new here, and if if you haven’t done this yet, we’d love you to go have a conversation at this place. We want to put this gift in your hands or this something and, and, and here’s what I would always say. And if you’re thinking that the free mug is a bribe to get to know you, you are exactly right. The mug is great, but what’s better is that we think you’re worth knowing and we want to make sure that you have every opportunity to have a familiar face next time you walk in the door.Tommy Carreras — Not, we want to meet you because it’s part of our organizational goal to identify this many guests so that hopefully you give at some point. That’s not a great message. The great message is you’re worth knowing. We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door. And hopefully also there’s going to be a next time. And we’d like to ensure that there’s a next time. So yes, it’s a bribe. All we want to do is get to know you. We stop by the place. Tommy Carreras — And that, that really worked because also we’re not being slick. We’re being honest. We’re being vulnerable. We’re being transparent. We’re saying we’re just here to do this and whatever it takes to get you there. That’s great. You can leave the mug. The point is we would love to get to know you because you’re worth knowing. And so we’re trying to make sure those environments exist. And then we also have to follow it up. Tommy Carreras — And that means training people training. empowering volunteers to actually accomplish the goal as opposed to accomplish what they think is the goal, but never really was. And so if they’re like, I got to sell the church. Nope. No, no, no. You got to remember their name and ask three personal questions about them. That’s my, that’s my goal for you. Just do that. Tommy Carreras — And if they come to the next thing, like we’ll, we’ll get them to the next thing. You got to mention the program that we want them to come to. That’s fine. They’re not going to come next week anyway. They’re not ready for that. Just get to know them. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so we’re setting real goals and making them very attainable for those volunteers. And then we’re also doing it ourselves in staff and we’re not hiding in the green room, just a little note. But you know, if you’re on staff and you’re hiding in the green room, you know, would fix that. Just fix it.Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Stop doing that. I love that. So super tactically, Greg, because we’re talking, we talked, you brought up the ethical bribe. I like to call it the like, Hey, we’ve got a great coffee mug or a water bottle. And you know, it’s one of those things. I love how you framed that, Tommy. Cause I like, think that’s a, that’s a great way even just to like unpack this exactly what we’re trying to do. I think that’s fantastic.Rich Birch — Greg, you’ve helped us think, you’ve helped me think so clearly around um how are we collecting people’s contact information, which is just the start of the of the relationship. Like we’re I think sometimes we can get that turned upside down. It’s like we’re trying to hit the metric because for some metric reason. No, no, it’s ultimately about trying to start a relationship. What are you learning about the timing, the context of all of that, of that kind of part of the service that we’re asking when we’re giving them? You know, what is the ethical bribe, all of that?Rich Birch — What are you learning these days for this very tippy top part of the transaction we’re talking about, the very first step? Is there anything that you’re learning there that we should be thinking differently about?Greg Curtis — I don’t I don’t know. I’m always cautious about saying what I’m learning as if it’s been learned. Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — I think that we are experimenting with some new things in light of this. And I would say that one of the big shifts is it’s look, how do I say it? In light of everything we’ve said already about them looking for God, right? And not just life help. They, I think looking at their discipleship, there’s an old word, you know, but they’re they’re learning to follow Jesus, right? Their discipleship, becoming a follower of Jesus. We have always looked at that through just a biblical theological doctrinal lens. Like, do they know this? Have they done that kind of thing? Greg Curtis — And I think it’s an interesting thing to look at it through the journeys that they experience at at when they come into a new church from their angle. So I call them, I’ve said this before, I think to your crowd, but I call those three journeys the journey from the street to the seat, which really became from the screen to the seat after COVID.Greg Curtis — Right. Like I mentioned, the gal I met with ah on Sunday, she had already attended our church twice online before she had come. And many churches I have talked to, their average is about four times that they’ve attended your church online. But that journey from, say, the screen to the seat where they’re ah they’re seeing you on their television. But then it’s the parking lot, the greeters, the info counter, kids checked in, ushers, whatever. Right. That journey is is so important. Greg Curtis — And that journey is about but ah belonging. But then you get the journey from, ah that’s really the growing journey, which is what they’re there for. And that’s a journey from the seat to a circle. And that’s because the circle is the environment we know works best for somebody to grow, where they’re just kind of FaceTime with people, you know, that in Tommy’s words, they might want to imitate, right? And learn from.Greg Curtis — But it’s so important to get that information. We’re making a big shift where instead of like we’re actually experimenting and saying this for the last few weeks at our church where we’re not collecting their information at all at the at that stage. What we’re doing is saying just come get a free get come get…in our case, we have like a grill where they could get a free meal. Come get a free coffee drink or meal or whatever on us. And we’re we’re not asking them for anything. We’re just creating engagement.Greg Curtis — But we’re starting to shift because we are baptizing, like in our in our case, over the last 15 months, we’ve baptized over 1800 people. And that’s a big that’s a big shift from targeting what I call cold leads to warm leads. You know, you want to get engagement, start collecting stuff and engaging with people when they’ve been willing to get wet in front of people they don’t know, because they made a decision to follow Jesus. That’s a warm lead.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — Somebody, you know what I’m saying? And in the, in the spirit of the parable of the talents investing where the, you’re starting to see results, you know, in the fruit and just being strategic about that.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — That’s where we’re pouring in some of our, of our best stuff. We’re experimenting with that. I’m not telling people to do that yet because we don’t know how that’s going to work for us.Rich Birch — Yes.Greg Curtis — So let me just say that in the… Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good. Yeah.Greg Curtis — But moving them from the seat to the circle through that kind of engagement, you know through whatever one program you have, inviting them into a ministry team, a small group. And then that third journey is the journey, you know once it’s belongings established, growing established, then it’s it’s going, the journey about going.Greg Curtis — That’s the journey from the circle back out to the street. And it’s really just equipping people to to not just know Jesus, but to be more like him and to imitate him ultimately, even through their other people examples. And ad I just think that there’s some great environments that we can talk about later that really equip them to do that. Because we may look at the Bible and see, here’s discipleship steps. But from the guest vantage point, it’s their journey from the screen to the seat, the seat to the circle, and the circle back out to the street. And so what environments are we creating?Greg Curtis — And like you said, how are we engaging with them? When do we get their contact info, right? When do we invest in in the engagement? And for us, it it seems a worthy experiment to shift to, because we are seeing so many baptisms in light of the the huge God interest, is to start it’s like a it’s a it’s a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what. And look at it through the lens of these journeys that guests experience our church with. Right. So that’s a little bit about, you know, what we’re looking at in there and on the front end.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I friends who are listening in, I was really hoping that you’ll take steps to get connected with Greg and Tommy. We’ve talked about a bunch of stuff. The problem with these things is, man, we can just keep going. And like, there’s so much in this that I find fascinating and, you know, I’ve always loved when people connect. Rich Birch — I do want to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about how you guys help churches. So first, maybe Tommy, talk to us about, you’ve got this incredible free audit that you’ve made available for folks. Talk to us about the audit. How will it help us? We’ll put a link to in the show notes about it. But I really think 100% of the people that are listening today should take this. This would be a great next step for folks coming out of today. Talk us through this a little bit.Tommy Carreras — Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things about the audit, because it’s it’s a brand new tool that we just rolled out. Because we had a 63-point checklist before, and it was phenomenal. I worked through every item on that checklist…Rich Birch — Yes.Tommy Carreras — …when Greg initially rolled it out a long time ago. And what we did was we took our own medicine and said, how do we reorganize this instead of around an organizational checklist of do we have the features that we think are valuable? Instead, we said, well, what what milestones are going to help a guest on their journey. And so we, we organize the assimilation audit around the three journeys of the guest, not the environments of the church. Tommy Carreras — Now the audit does say, well, this is an environment that meets them in this thing that they’re looking for on their journey, but, do you have the environment? Is it working? Is the main question usually is, is it actually working? And we give you some actual markers around whether or not it’s working. Because the the reality is you have the programs, you have the ingredients, you have the volunteers, you probably have a great Sunday experience. And yet all the people are still disappearing or at least most of them. And they’re, the problem is they do it quietly. They don’t write in and tell you… Rich Birch — Right. Tommy Carreras — …by the way, I left because I didn’t find somebody that I could imitate quickly enough because what I really had was all this baggage from this… They don’t tell you any of that. You just never knew they were even there. Rich Birch — So true. Tommy Carreras — And so what we’re trying to do is look at the experience and go based on all the churches that we’ve worked with, Greg, for over 12 years and seeing this happen over and over and over and seeing the remarkable consistency in the issues and the challenges. We said, here are the leakage points in the system. And some of them are pretty surprising. Some of them are super obvious. But what this will do is actually help you audit the effectiveness of those experiences, organized by what the guests are hoping they experience. They’re desperately hoping you can provide for them on their journey.Tommy Carreras — And the best part about it, honestly, like it’s a Google doc right now. That is, I’m just giving you that admission because also it’s not a fancy tool that I vibe coded like Rich recently vibe coded one of his really cool assessment tools. I haven’t done that yet. And the the reality is though, it’s a Google doc because also you should write some notes on this thing and you should sit around it as a staff and share it and have real conversations.Tommy Carreras — Cause the, the, the gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and the arguments: No, I think it’s red. No, it’s yellow. It’s doing okay. But what about this person? What about this person?Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — Will somebody go pull up the numbers? Because the numbers… That’s where the gold is in the audit. And it’s, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of stuff to dig through in your system because it’s 49 points. It’s 49 stops along the way on those three journeys. But you’re going uncover so much. And then I think that it’ll give you a really clear pathway toward, okay, well, here’s what we should do first. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And that might be the most important thing about it.Greg Curtis — I would just say, too, on that point that for your listeners, if you’re at a point where you are either feeling alone in in wanting to see a breakthrough in engagement or you have a team and you guys are just kind of spinning your wheels and you have the same results all the time and wanting to see them increase and they really don’t that much, this thing is do it for a few weeks together in meetings. It will invigorate. And you’ll do it do it with a team, even if if ah ah but ah a team of key volunteers yeah in a smaller context.Greg Curtis — But make a day retreat or something out of it and really go through it. And you will find that you, oh my gosh, you can shake out all of the obstacles, all the pain points and weaknesses. It will be very, very helpful and rejuvenating. And it’s free. So there’s that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. I really do think this would be a great next step for everybody who’s listening in. Super helpful. Great. It’s crazy that it’s free to me. You know, don’t don’t trash talk that it’s just a Google Doc. Like, man, a lot of intelligence built into that that, you know, we want people to take.Rich Birch — And then the second thing, Greg, could you tell us about the Sherpa tribe? Because I think there are people, well, I know there are churches that are listening in that, you know, you talked about earlier, there was this, you know, hey, there’s 1300 guests or or, you know, sorry, Tommy was talking about the fact there’s 1300 guests at this church, and they should have had a lot more. That has been my experience with 100% of the churches that I’ve talked to around these issues, we’re missing people. So how does the Sherpa tribe help with that? How does that actually help us find those guests, get them to stay, get them to serve and to start growing? What does that look like?Greg Curtis — Well, alongside of looking at the guest journeys in these three ways that I earlier described, we we find that each church, once they do the audit, has a different weakness. You know what I mean? Some of them are common, right? But they ah they’re at their own place and shoring up and strengthening different aspects of that journey. Greg Curtis — And so what we did is we took our video course, which was one of our mainstays, and we started breaking it up and creating a ton more videos that breaking up around 10 minutes and then creating action points for each one and allowing ah people who become part of our Sherpa tribe—which you can go to assimilayas.com and click on Sherpa Tribe, find out more—to to to go right where they need it and study the things and action points that they need. Go deep in that. And then weekly meet with Tommy or I, with other people just like them from around the country and beyond that in these Zoom sessions where there’s no agenda but you. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And you bring your questions and what you’re struggling through in this. And we have the most dynamic and fun conversations that create breakthroughs for teams through those through those Zoom moments. Tommy, would you add anything to that?Tommy Carreras — No, I think the the other the other piece of the puzzle that’s so powerful is we’ve seen the we’ve seen the best results from the folks who haven’t just jumped in to go like, I got to shore up a thing and get some information and and then get out and then you know milk it for all it’s worth and just get in.Tommy Carreras — What they’re really, that the churches who are getting the most out of it are the ones who say, this is the year where we fix this. Greg Curtis — Yeah, yeah.Tommy Carreras — This is the year where we look different at the end of it. This is the year that our staff gets it. There are no more people just sitting around in workflows or process queues 29, 42, 83 days overdue. That is the biggest crisis that we could have now because we all get it. We’re speaking the same language and we’re serving each other and we’re doing all these things to shore up all of these systems because it’s not just one person. And most likely it’s most people’s second or third job on their actual plate. Tommy Carreras — And so we’re trying to skip them up to third base on all of these different kind of sections of their assimilation system. And we’re trying to give them the people and the contextualization that’s going to make it come to life for their entire team. But it’s it’s the churches that go, we’re going to make it this year is going to be the one where things change.Tommy Carreras — And they they dive in and they go, I’m going to commit to this thing because they believe that it’s a keystone. It’s almost like a keystone habit. We fix this. Everything else is going to make more sense in our church. And that’s assimilation is a mindset and ah a sort of almost a belief system, not just a couple different environments in our church or a couple different process cues. And so those are the churches that are really crushing it inside the tribe.Rich Birch — Yeah, that that’s fantastic. And friends, again, we’ll link to that. It’s assimilayas.com where you can you know connect more with Tommy, with Greg, with everything that they’re they’re doing. And you know super hearty endorsement from me. You guys do great work and I think it’s super helpful for many churches. This is one of these areas that if we don’t keep an eye on over time, we’re just missing people. We’re missing people taking steps closer to Jesus.Rich Birch — Tommy, why don’t I give you the last word here? Any kind of last encouragement as we wrap up today’s episode that you’d like to share with listeners who are you know thinking about these issues? Obviously, these people are the better part of an hour in. What would you say to them as we wrap up today’s call?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. I was at a church recently and they I was working on mostly data with them. Okay. And they said, hey do you want to talk to the staff for 20 minutes? And I said, okay, sure. Random. I’m going to try and convince them that data matters. And that they okay, they should love their church management software at the end of this 20 minute talk.Tommy Carreras — And by the end of it, they did actually. They believed me. But the whole idea was I led with there’s a whole bunch that got to it, but the the crux at the end was every form response. Every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle. God has moved heaven and earth since before time began to get them to put their name, email, and phone number on that stupid Planning Center form. And it’s a dang miracle.Tommy Carreras — And if that’s true, then every single person in a queue or a workflow or a form, you know, submission, whatever you call in your church management software, that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders.Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And every red light overdue, 23 days not started, all of those are massive warning signals in our ministry. All because it’s a miracle that anybody would say yes to anything. And how could we not do everything in our power to lean in meet them there and steward their next step and get them across the gap that they are not going to and may not be able to cross on their own.Tommy Carreras — That’s the opportunity ahead of us. And it’s just sacred. And I hope that we don’t miss it.Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you so much, guys. really appreciate you being on the show. Again, that’s assimilayas.com. We’ll link to all of that, but appreciate you being here today. We’ll have to have you on again in the future because this is such an important area, but appreciate you being here today. Thank you. Tommy Carreras — Thanks, Rich.

What happens when a leader chooses obedience over comfort and creates space for the Holy Spirit to move? In this episode of Leaders in Living Rooms, Sean Morgan sits down with Jeff Brodie to unpack a remarkable season at Connexus Church that began with five years of quiet wrestling in prayer and culminated in a week of corporate repentance, renewal, and deep encounter with God. Without a playbook, branding strategy, or polished program, Jeff led his church into a posture of “shameless persistence” (Luke 11), creating space for confession, freedom, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Welcome to Episode 153 of the Leaders in Living Rooms Podcast with Sean Morgan.

Recorded live on February 19th, 2026   Two people making music on the fly… Bugs In The Basement creates improvised musical journeys from an array of vintage and handmade instruments to modern technologies. Recorded live from our basement studio in the Pacific Northwest, each week we experiment in the process of making exploratory music and soundscapes. Unmixed, unedited and unapologetic.   www.bugsinthebasement.com

In this episode, we break down Paradromius' newly FDA-approved human trial for its ultra-high-resolution brain-computer interface Connexus. We explore how this implant could restore fluent speech for people with severe motor disabilities and why it marks a major milestone in the neurotech race. Get the top 40+ AI Models for $20 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's next for Connexus Church? This week, Pastor Jeff Brodie shares an exciting vision of where God is leading our church — and how you can play a part. From new spaces to new stories of life change, this message is all about creating more room for people who are searching for hope. We've seen lives transformed, communities grow, and hundreds experience the love of Jesus through the For Them initiative. But we're just getting started. In this message, Jeff unpacks the future of Connexus — new facilities, new opportunities, and a renewed passion to reach people across Simcoe County and beyond. If you've ever wondered how your generosity and faith can make a difference, this message will inspire you to see your part in what God is doing next. Be part of the story. 

What's next for Connexus Church? This week, Pastor Jeff Brodie shares an exciting vision of where God is leading our church — and how you can play a part. From new spaces to new stories of life change, this message is all about creating more room for people who are searching for hope. We've seen lives transformed, communities grow, and hundreds experience the love of Jesus through the For Them initiative. But we're just getting started. In this message, Jeff unpacks the future of Connexus — new facilities, new opportunities, and a renewed passion to reach people across Simcoe County and beyond. If you've ever wondered how your generosity and faith can make a difference, this message will inspire you to see your part in what God is doing next. Be part of the story. 

In this special episode, Sydney Jackson sits down with Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie to unpack the heart and vision behind Sacred Homecoming—a four-day experience calling our church to return, repent, and renew. Jeff shares the journey that led to this moment, the inspiration from Luke 15 and Nehemiah, and how this time is about seeking God's presence together as a community. They talk candidly about what to expect, why this isn't just another church event, and how Sacred Homecoming is an invitation for every person who calls Connexus Church home to draw near to God in a fresh way. Whether you're new to Connexus or have been around for years, this conversation will inspire you to prepare your heart and lean into what God might do in this powerful week.  

What happens when your calling leads you out of church ministry and into entrepreneurship? In this Made for Mondays bonus episode, Connexus Church Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie sits down with Justin and Sarah Piercy—former Connexus staff and now the creators behind Daddy Got Coffee. They share their powerful story of discerning God's leading in leaving full-time ministry to launch a business rooted in faith, integrity, and kingdom purpose. From faith-filled risk-taking to finding God's presence in everyday work (even roasting coffee beans!), this honest conversation is for anyone wondering how faith and vocation truly intersect.  If you're trying to figure out what's next in your career—or wondering if God cares about your work—this episode will inspire and encourage you. 

What happens when your calling leads you out of church ministry and into entrepreneurship? In this Made for Mondays bonus episode, Connexus Church Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie sits down with Justin and Sarah Piercy—former Connexus staff and now the creators behind Daddy Got Coffee. They share their powerful story of discerning God's leading in leaving full-time ministry to launch a business rooted in faith, integrity, and kingdom purpose. From faith-filled risk-taking to finding God's presence in everyday work (even roasting coffee beans!), this honest conversation is for anyone wondering how faith and vocation truly intersect. If you're trying to figure out what's next in your career—or wondering if God cares about your work—this episode will inspire and encourage you.

Re-architecting Finance with Blockchain - Not Just Hype, But Real-World InfrastructureWe're wrapping up this special Tokyo series of Couchonomics, filmed at the GFTN Forum — and what better way to close than with a bold conversation on the future of financial systems?In this final episode, I'm joined by Naveen Mallela, Co-Head of Kinexys & Managing Director at JP Morgan — and we're going beyond the buzzwords to talk about what it really takes to rewire the plumbing of global finance.It's a fascinating conversation about the real challenges — and opportunities — in transforming the global financial infrastructure.

In this bonus episode, Rob brings practical answers to tough questions about how to have conversations about mental health with your kids, and what to do when you aren't sure what to do. He tackles topics like anxiety and depression, infant mental health, the role of medication, preventative practices, and how to walk with a child through challenging times. Rob is the Medical Director for Child and Youth Mental Health at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. Rob is also a part of the Elder's Team at Connexus. He and his wife Rose have four children and have been a part of the mission of Connexus since its very first day.  

On this episode of The Mobile Alabama Business Podcast, we sit with Blake Martin. Blake is one of the founders of Connexus Clinic. Listen in as we discuss how they got started in helping people live healthier lives.

What began as a hobby ended up turning Carey Nieuwhof into one of the most influential leadership speakers and authors in the world! Between 2012 and 2014, while Carey was pastoring at Connexus (the church he founded), he began blogging and podcasting casually. Today, his online content gets over 1.5 billion views a month and his podcast episodes have been downloaded over 27 million times. In this episode, Carey talks about the providential meeting that kick-started his speaking career, how he has gradually developed his personal brand over the years, and his approach to fulfilling his personal mission of serving leaders. From law school to seminary to the global stage, Carey's story exemplifies what life can look like when you listen to your calling!  

Don't miss this BONUS INTERVIEW on the latest on the Ukraine Refugee crisis and how Connexus has partnered with the team on the ground with Partners International Moldova. Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie interviews Sergei Mihailov and Tim Arkell

Don't miss this BONUS INTERVIEW on the latest on the Ukraine Refugee crisis and how Connexus has partnered with the team on the ground with Partners International Moldova. Lead Pastor Jeff Brodie interviews Sergei Mihailov and Tim Arkell

Anthony Young Connexus Crossover by Valley Christian Church

Connexus Crossover Mike Bolton 1 by Valley Christian Church

Dr. Kelley Connexus Crossover by Valley Christian Church

Dr. Rodney AganCEO/PresidentConnexus Group1-800-283-3105https://www.theconnexusgroup.com/

Dr. Rodney Agan CEO/President Connexus Group 1-800-283-3105 https://www.theconnexusgroup.com/

Dr. Rodney Agan CEO/President Connexus Group 1-800-283-3105 https://www.theconnexusgroup.com/

Carey Nieuwhof left his law career to become the founding pastor of Connexus Church, one of the most influential churches in North America. Carey shares his reasons why, how he almost burned out pursuing his passion, and why community matters more than ever in these turbulent times.  Today, Carey Nieowhof is an author, much sought-after conference speaker, podcaster, and thought leader. This episode contains some great takeaways and inspiration for anyone looking to make positive changes in their life and career.    

Highlights from this week's conversation include:Eric's background and career journey (3:30)Presenting to people without knowledge of AI (11:04)Why math was chosen over AI (19:03)From compilers to databases (25:42)The contribution of category theory (30:09)The Connexus customer experience (37:45)The primary user of Connexus (46:33)Interacting with 300,000 databases (51:07)When Connexus begins to add value (54:02)The best way to learn this mathematical approach (55:46)The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we'll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Dr. Daimler is an authority in Artificial Intelligence with over 20 years of experience in the field as an entrepreneur, executive, investor, technologist, and policy advisor. He is also the founder of data integration firm Conexus, and we kick our conversation off with the work he is doing to integrate large heterogeneous data infrastructures. This leads us into an exploration of the concept of compositionality, a structural feature that enables systems to scale, which Dr. Daimler argues is the future of IT infrastructure. We discuss how the way we apply AI to data is constantly changing, with data sources growing quadratically, and how this necessitates an understanding of newer forms of math such as category theory by AI specialists. Towards the end of our discussion, we move on to the subject of the adoption of AI in technologies that lives depend on, and Dr. Daimler gives his recommendation for how to engender trust amongst the larger population. Key Points From This Episode:Experience Dr. Daimler has in AI in an academic, commercial, and governmental capacity.An issue in the choices being made around how to create data that is useful in large organizations.Dr. Daimler's work bringing heterogeneous data together to influence better business decisions.How much money is wasted on ETL processes and how bad the jobs in that field are.The difference between modularity and compositionality and why the latter is the future of IT infrastructure.How compositionality enables scalability and the need of certain branches of math to justify it.The work Dr. Daimler is doing in the field of compositionality at Connexus.Whether it is crucial to grasp these newer forms of math to achieve AI mastery.How AI systems can integrate into contexts involving human labor and empathy.The need to bring together probabilistic and deterministic AI in life and death contexts.How to get the public to trust and believe in AI-powered tech with the capacity to save lives.What AI practitioners can do to ensure they use their skillset to create a better future.Tweetables:“You can create data that doesn't add more fidelity to the knowledge you're looking to gain for better business decisions and that is one of the limitations that I saw expressed in the government and other large organizations.” — @ead [0:01:32]“That's the world, is compositionality. That is where we are going and the math that supports that, type theory, categorical theory, categorical logic, that's going to sweep away everything underneath IT infrastructure.” — @ead [0:10:23]“At the trillions of data, a trillion data sources, each growing quadratically, what we need is category theory.” — @ead [0:13:51]“People die and the way to solve that problem when you are talking about these life and death contexts for commercial airplane manufacturers or in energy exploration where the consequences of failure can be disastrous is to bring together the sensibilities of probabilistic AI and deterministic AI.” — @ead [0:24:07]“Circuit breakers, oversight, and data lineage, those are three ways that I would institute a regulatory regime around AI and algorithms that will engender trust amongst the larger population.” — @ead [0:35:12]Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:Dr. Eric Daimler on LinkedInDr. Eric Daimler on TwitterConexus

On this episode, Dara sits down with Dr. Eric Daimler, founder of Connexus and Presidential Innovation Fellow during the Obama administration, to discuss the biggest dangers lurking in AI, the first ever spin-out from MIT's math department and how its addressing today's AI challenges, and Eric's views on how the heck we go about trying to regulate an algorithm. 

Listen to a special message from Joseph Swan of Connexus Church in Barrie. God's plan for our lives is that we would “run and not grow weary, walk and not faint.” Sometimes we struggle to step into all that he has planned for us due to the weight we carry from our past. There is a better way. Because of what Jesus did at the cross, God has made a way for us to live our lives unburdened! Westside is part of a leadership network with Connexus as we strive to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus together.

About the Episode Our 2nd of 2 episodes on the topic of preparing the church for the decisions of a new leader - particularly when it comes to making changes to your org chart, structure, and even transitioning staff off. Jud and Jeff give us great insight. Who is Jud Wilhite? Jud Wilhite is an author, speaker and senior pastor of Central Church, a church founded in Las Vegas with over twelve locations nationally and internationally. Central is recognized as one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. He is a bestselling author of several books, including Uncaged, The God of Yes, Pursued, and a study Bible for new believers, The Uncensored Truth Bible for New Beginnings. His teaching segments are heard nationally on K-LOVE radio. He and his wife, Lori, have two kids and live in the Las Vegas area. Who is Jeff Brodie? Jeff Brodie is the Lead Pastor of Connexus Church, one of Canada's most influential churches located north of Toronto. He brings vision and leadership to Connexus' multiple campuses and partnership network. Jeff has led in the multi-site church context for 20 years. He has a passion for investing in next-generation leaders and helping churches develop strategies and leverage tools to scale for greater impact.  

About the Episode Our 2nd of 2 episodes on the topic of preparing the church for the decisions of a new leader - particularly when it comes to making changes to your org chart, structure, and even transitioning staff off. Jud and Jeff give us great insight. Who is Jud Wilhite? Jud Wilhite is an author, speaker and senior pastor of Central Church, a church founded in Las Vegas with over twelve locations nationally and internationally. Central is recognized as one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. He is a bestselling author of several books, including Uncaged, The God of Yes, Pursued, and a study Bible for new believers, The Uncensored Truth Bible for New Beginnings. His teaching segments are heard nationally on K-LOVE radio. He and his wife, Lori, have two kids and live in the Las Vegas area. Who is Jeff Brodie? Jeff Brodie is the Lead Pastor of Connexus Church, one of Canada's most influential churches located north of Toronto. He brings vision and leadership to Connexus' multiple campuses and partnership network. Jeff has led in the multi-site church context for 20 years. He has a passion for investing in next-generation leaders and helping churches develop strategies and leverage tools to scale for greater impact.  

About the Episode Our 2nd of 2 episodes on the topic of preparing the church for the decisions of a new leader - particularly when it comes to making changes to your org chart, structure, and even transitioning staff off. Jud and Jeff give us great insight. Who is Jud Wilhite? Jud Wilhite is an author, speaker and senior pastor of Central Church, a church founded in Las Vegas with over twelve locations nationally and internationally. Central is recognized as one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America. He is a bestselling author of several books, including Uncaged, The God of Yes, Pursued, and a study Bible for new believers, The Uncensored Truth Bible for New Beginnings. His teaching segments are heard nationally on K-LOVE radio. He and his wife, Lori, have two kids and live in the Las Vegas area. Who is Jeff Brodie? Jeff Brodie is the Lead Pastor of Connexus Church, one of Canada's most influential churches located north of Toronto. He brings vision and leadership to Connexus' multiple campuses and partnership network. Jeff has led in the multi-site church context for 20 years. He has a passion for investing in next-generation leaders and helping churches develop strategies and leverage tools to scale for greater impact.  

What kind of background prepares you best for your business?  College? Grad school?  Experience?  How about "None of the above?"  You won't believe how Rodney Agan's lack of business experience actually propelled his company into the top tier of his field.  Great story and a great company -- with a special offer for listeners!Subscribe to the podcast! Visit TheBizCall.com to become a guest on the show and plug your business!

Our founders, Toni and Carey Nieuwhof, shared lessons on life, leadership, and ministry they have learned over the past 25 years. A conversation on the highlights and insights from the early days of launching Connexus until today, plus a look ahead to the future as we continue to create a church that unchurched people love.

Our founders, Toni and Carey Nieuwhof, shared lessons on life, leadership, and ministry they have learned over the past 25 years. A conversation on the highlights and insights from the early days of launching Connexus until today, plus a look ahead to the future as we continue to create a church that unchurched people love.

Join Andreafor an exclusive conversation with Ben McDonald, Director for Supply Chain and Procurement Practice for Connexus Global, based in Singapore and focusing on Singapore and Asia Growth Markets. Both podcast episodes focus heavily on billing managers – so for those individual billers that are looking to move into management then you will find this podcast just for you. Ben has over 14 years of experience with Hays, Randstad, Proco Global, Vertical Talent, and more recently he is one of three founders for Connexus Global focusing on supply chain and procurement practice for Singapore and Asia Growth markets. The podcast is split into two parts for your listening pleasure! Do check out Part One if you haven’t already. In this episode of Part Two, Ben will share his experiences of managing underperformers, what adjustments he has had to make as a manager managing through tough times, and how the team has shaped up during the pandemic. He also shares what roles are in demand right now and which ones have contracted and why. He will share his insights on how procurement candidates work with recruiters and how as a leadership team at Connexus they are anticipating further disruptions to their industry and how to overcome them. Course Outline [3.20] – Dealing with underperformers [10.15] – Challenges to a billing manager under the pandemic [16.10] – Driving high team performance during Covid [20.51] – Popular industries and positions right now [25.35] – How Ben handles procurement candidates [30.15] – Ben’s views on business growth in the future and how Connexus prepares for it [41.05] – Book recommendations that could help leadership career [45.25] – Find out everything you wanted to know about Ben in this Quick Fire Round Connect with the guest: Ben McDonald, Director Supply Chain and Procurement Practice, Singapore and Asia Growth markets. https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmcdonald1/ Connect with the Host, Andrea Ross Andrea.ross@thecareerestablishment.com Andrea.ross@talenttalkasia.com (if you are keen to be a guest on the show). enquiries@thecareerestablishment.com Connect with The Career Establishment Follow Us: www.thecareerestablishment.com Follow Us: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrearossrecruitmenttrainer/ Follow Us: https://www.instagram.com/thecareerestablishment/ Guests mentioned on the show Alex Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-lee-a34b9835/ James Egremont: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egremont/ David Hawkins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hawkins-86950939/ Listen to David’s episode with Talent Asia Talk at https://soundcloud.com/user-171565882/tta007-david-hawkins-men-championing-gender-equality Books mentioned on the show The Trusted Advisor, by Charles H Green and David Maister It’s the Manager, by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter (Gallup).

Join Andrea for an exclusive conversation with Ben McDonald, Director for Supply Chain and Procurement Practice for Connexus Global, based in Singapore and focusing on Singapore and Asia Growth Markets. Both podcast episodes focus heavily on billing managers – so for those individual billers that are looking to move into management then you will find this podcast just for you. Ben has over 14 years of experience with Hays, Randstad, Proco Global, Vertical Talent, and more recently he is one of three founders for Connexus Global focusing on supply chain and procurement practice for Singapore and Asia Growth markets. The podcast is split into two parts for your listening pleasure. In this episode of Part One Ben will share the history of Connexus Global, what the early days looked like for him when he started out as a billing manager back in Hays, Australia, how he manages his time between individual billing and managing a team, how he leads his one-on-ones and how he’s been able to motivate during Covid-19. Don’t forget to tune into Part Two for more of Ben’s experiences and insights on his leadership career. Course Outline [1.20] – Introducing Ben McDonald [3.30] – History of Connexus-Global [9.55] – Ben’s journey to a management role [21.45] - Time challenges of being a manager [28.13] – Functions of specialization at Connexus-Global [32:00] – What Ben is looking for in a talented recruiter [39.36] – Ben’s story of hiring the wrong candidates [45.45] – Three key things in managing a successful team [50.00] – Special ways to motivate staff during Covid [53.50] – Importance of one-on-one meetings with a team member Connect with the guest: Ben McDonald, Director of Supply Chain and Procurement Practice, Singapore, and Asia Growth markets. https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmcdonald1/ Connect with the Host, Andrea Ross Andrea.ross@thecareerestablishment.com Andrea.ross@talenttalkasia.com (if you are keen to be a guest on the show). enquiries@thecareerestablishment.com Connect with The Career Establishment Follow Us: www.thecareerestablishment.com Follow Us: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrearossrecruitmenttrainer/ Follow Us: https://www.instagram.com/thecareerestablishment/ Guests mentioned on the show Alex Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-lee-a34b9835/ James Egremont: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egremont/ David Hawkins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hawkins-86950939/ Listen to David’s episode with Talent Asia Talk at https://soundcloud.com/user-171565882/tta007-david-hawkins-men-championing-gender-equality Books mentioned on the show The Trusted Advisor, by Charles H Green and David Maister It’s the Manager, by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter (Gallup).

Looking to grow your church with YouTube? Join us as we discuss 3 Tips for Growing Your Church by 10X with YouTube Monday, July 13th at 9a PT on Modern Church Leader, Frank Barry will be joined by Justin Piercy, Director of Adult Services at multi-campus Connexus Church in Canada. The two will be discussing tips on how Connexus has grown their audience on YouTube. - Simple changes you can make to increase engagement - Ideas to keep content fresh and creative - Live communication strategies that boost participation   Sign up for Tithe.ly here: https://get.tithe.ly   Never miss a show, subscribe via: iTunes: https://apple.co/2DQSm5i YouTube: http://bit.ly/364e95D Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2YkLC9f Stitcher: http://bit.ly/33NWXQx Google Play: http://bit.ly/387hLWp Soundcloud: http://bit.ly/2s1LjnC Subscribe for cutting edge tools and strategies for church leaders. Is your church in financial trouble? Do you wish you had more resources to reach people for Christ? Subscribe to Modern Church Leader to get daily tips on how to increase giving, remove the stress from managing your church, and grow your church with the latest digital tools. Grow Your Church For Free With Tithe.ly Sign up for Tithe.ly here: https://get.tithe.ly Sign up for the Tithe.ly newsletter here: https://get.tithe.ly/books/unleash-ge... What is Tithe.ly? Tithe.ly is the global leader in digital giving, church engagement, and church management software. Tithe.ly serves over 25,000 churches in 50 countries and is trusted by churches and ministries such as Hillsong, North Coast Church, Rock Church, and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

We talk about the Connexus building in Wascana Park. What is the Planning & Priorities Committee and why should we kill it? Whatever happened to the Renewable Regina framework? Music by Guidewire (aka Ryan Hill). Originally broadcast on 91.3FM CJTR.

We talk about the Connexus building in Wascana Park. What is the Planning & Priorities Committee and why should we kill it? Whatever happened to the Renewable Regina framework? Music by Guidewire (aka Ryan Hill). Originally broadcast on 91.3FM CJTR.

Don't miss the incredible full stories of God moving in the lives of these 5 women. Today, we share the FULL stories of what God is doing in their lives. On Sunday, we saw them publicly share their faith in Jesus, tell about how God is moving in their lives, and take the step of baptism together. Listen in on the stories of Jennifer, Megan, Nicole, Nicole, and Carol-Anne.

On today’s episode, we get to have a discussion with the authority on quality leadership, Carey Nieuwhof. When he was a young man working at a law firm, Carey had a vision that he was supposed to be a pastor. Following that calling led him to become a founder of Connexus, now one of the most influential churches in North America. Carey has been an instrument of change that has helped the church evolve drastically over time to better serve its community, and has since found his passion for helping leaders all over the globe thrive and become the best versions of themselves. In this episode, Carey walks us through what to do when we get burned out, exhausted, and life seemingly falls apart. How do we recover from that in a way that helps us become exceptional leaders? How do we learn to balance each important element of our lives, each of which seem to demand too much from us? Carey discusses the difficulties of establishing boundaries in today’s ever-connected world, how to build better relationships with people, and how to live in a way that will help us prosper tomorrow.    Links, Products and Resources Mentioned: Carey Nieuwhof Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast “Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Sees” book Connexus Church Osgoode Hall Law School The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery History of the Eagles Documentary Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Andy Stanley Lysa Terkeurst Archibald D. Hart, Ph.D., FPPR  ”Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward” book *This episode discusses suicide. If you or a loved one are experiencing thoughts of suicide, there is free and confidential support for you. Call the National Suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255 to receive prevention and crisis resources.   Interview Quotes: “Andrew Steen, a physicist at Cambridge and a person of faith, talks about how physics informs the way that we think about God and theology; and in the 17th century Newtonian physics, the universe is like a giant machine. So thinking about God and His sovereignty in a pretty mechanical way kinds of made sense. Everything is cause and effect. Now with the law of indeterminacy, reality looks so much different and [Steen] says it actually fits the story of the Bible better because the God of the Bible is a God of improvisation.” —John Ortberg    “When you're on the outside looking in, or you're 25 years old, you think, Oh, all these successful people, they're successful because they don't have any struggles right there.They're just really gifted, really talented. They work hard,they hustle and therefore they succeed—and they must not have the struggles that I have. They don't get tired. They don't argue with their spouse.They don't struggle with identity or purpose or any of that. I've had the great privilege over the last decade plus of meeting a lot of the people I used to read or admire or listen to. And you realize, when you get to know them as people, they've all got that story. And one of the ones that almost everyone moves into is the end of what they can accomplish.” —Carey Nieuwhof, on our perception of others   “Most people, if they don’t have a burnout story, there is a pivot that happens where they really, really struggle with, with the limits of what they can do.” —Carey Nieuwhof, on life’s essential moments   “I think one of the traps that got me was, Oh, so working for God must earn me points of some kind. And, oh, to not work harder is probably unfaithfulness. And so all through my thirties I cheated my family. And as our church grew, more people equals more hours, and more success equals more accolades. And I was winning church, but losing at home. And I realized when you're winning at church and losing at home, you're losing. That is a temporary victory, an empiric victory, an empty victory. But it's not really a victory.” —Carey Nieuwhof, on untangling his job from his personal faith   “I think technology has made [life balance] more complicated because we're never really on and we're never really off anymore. You know, the office is something we used to go to and now the office goes to us. And that is really difficult because as a CEO or as a founder or an entrepreneur or a pastor, you've got 11 inboxes and you're available 24/7, and this device that you're using to figure out where you're going to go for dinner with your wife is the same device that your team is emailing you on.”—Carey Nieuwhof, on having life balance “By the time this race is over, I want the people closest to me to be the people who are most grateful for me. I want [my] relationships to be healthy, and good, and real, and the friendships deep, and the team that I actually work with day to day and have to put up with me day to day to want to work with me day to day.” —Carey Nieuwhof, on relationships with others   “We are designed to be fully known by God and by a handful of others.” —Carey Nieuwhof    “Let God go deep—go deep into whatever this dysfunction is, or this season is—go deep. Because if God wants to go deep, it's because He wants to take you far.” —Carey Nieuwhof    “We just get used to mediocre living. We get used to living drained or with a lack of motivation, or inspiration, or elevation, or a dream. And nobody sets out for that. Nobody says, ‘I want to live a life where I'm exhausted or tired or not inspired.’ We just get used to it.” —John Ortberg ________________________    Connect with John Ortberg John Ortberg website Twitter Instagram Facebook

Welcome to Episode 2 of the FOUR12 Canada Podcast.Listen and access the show notes here or search for FOUR12 Canada Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for freeWe are excited to have Shawna Lester. Shawna is the Director of Family Ministry/Interim Midland Campus Pastor at Connexus.  She is going to share with us some amazing tips on serving weekly, keeping healthy and crazy fun things to try. Connect with ShawnaFACEBOOK | EMAIL | INSTAGRAM PODCAST HIGHLIGHTSStart with Small Steps to change the cultureGather a few to get on board and have them help others to catch the visionDevelop weekly roles and roles for those that can’t,Help them find the best role that fits themTry 8 to 10 weeks to start for Elementary and younger, middle school and highschool is a longer commitmentAttend one and serve one Coaches - build up some coaches that will build up your team and check to see how everyone is doing. How much is too much, ways to stay healthyWatch for disengagement, passion and enjoyment lacking or dwindledArriving lateAs the leader make sure you check inNotice how often people are serving and where How to implement crazy fun ideas1st Filter through the mission of your church and ministryIn Children’s ministry:Does this help small group leaders win?Does this help families win?Does this help new people attending?Adults or whole church:Make sure it’s reasonable and executablePractical for the spaceThink outside the boxConsider the barriers and ways to work around them Ways to Encourage VolunteersCelebrate major holidaysSend thank you cardsCandyBreakfast?! Or treatsGood coffeeMake sure you remove barriers to servingProvide a space for the kids of those that are servingInvest in them as people Connecting with familiesRealize you can’t meet them all at once every week, plan to meet one family a weekSend out Birthday cardsCalling and talking to parentsAsk about up coming events Share the wins!!Share with others that are servingShare with the familiesCelebrate the wins! One Thing to Remember! Every person has a Place!Thanks for listening!  We hope this episode has equipped you for greater influence through serving and we don’t want you to miss a single episode so if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can help us reach more people by writing a review for the podcast on the Apple podcast app and other podcast apps that you use. The FOUR12 Canada podcast is a ministry of Faith Baptist Church in Huntsville Ontario. Explore everything FOUR12 Canada at four12.ca. Thanks for spending some time with us. See you next time! Up Next Season 1 Episode 3: Rich Birch Importance of Communication, Great Ideas to Encourage Volunteers and How to Set Up Your Team to Succeed

What a morning to celebrate how Jesus has changed people’s lives and their choice to follow Him. It’s amazing to see what God is doing. Baptism is also a time for all of us to reflect on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and celebrate the freedom He brings us.

Entrepreneurs have lots of ideas. But what does it really take to turn one of those ideas into a viable business? In the new episode of Intersections, Rich Notargiacomo, director of RIT’s Venture Creations Technology Business Incubator, talks with Brandon Hudson, an applied arts and science major in the School of Individualized Studies and the first student selected for RIT’s Gap Year Entrepreneurship Fellows program, about the path taken by his award-winning energy services company, Connexus. Read a transcript of this podcast here: https://www.rit.edu/ritnews/pdfs/RIT-Entrepreneurship-Podcast-Transcript.pdf

Carey is the founding pastor of Connexus Church in Ontario, Canada. He is also the host of the widely popular podcast, The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast, and the author of many books with a brand new one about to be released entitled, Didn't See It Coming. Carey is a native of Canada and originally had intentions of being a lawyer. He eventually made the transition to ministry, and founded Connexus Church in 1995. He now oversees the communication and is working to expand Connexus' broader ministry. In this episode, Mike Linch talks with Carey about the content of his new book, Didn't See It Coming, and his passion and experiences that led him to authoring the book. They also dive into the struggles of many leaders, how leaders can keep perspective on what they do and how leaders handle things within their private lives, the struggles of becoming irrelevant, and how pride is one of the biggest struggles of a leader.