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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Tensley Almand, President and CEO of Atlanta Mission, the largest and longest-running provider of services for people experiencing homelessness in the Atlanta metro area. Founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen during the Great Depression, Atlanta Mission now operates four campuses, serving over 800 men, women, and children nightly through programs that provide housing, recovery support, and Christ-centered transformation. How do you lead through complexity while staying true to your calling? Tensley shares leadership lessons from his transition from church ministry to leading a $20 million nonprofit—insights that apply to every pastor or church leader navigating growth, complexity, or change. Moving beyond shelter to transformation. // While many think of Atlanta Mission as only an emergency shelter, over 60% of its beds are dedicated to long-term transformational programs that address root causes of homelessness. The yearlong program includes counseling, trauma recovery, life skills, and vocational training. Clients complete a four-week “Next Steps” program focused on relational, emotional, and workplace health. The results are remarkable: 70% of graduates maintain stable housing and employment a year later. Learning to lead by listening. // When Tensley stepped into his CEO role, he faced the challenge of succeeding a leader who had guided the organization from crisis to stability. Rather than arriving as the expert, Tensley began as what he calls the “Chief Question Officer.” He met with every employee to ask four key questions: What's right? What's wrong? What's missing? What's confusing? The responses revealed a clear need for strategic focus. Building clarity and focus. // Using that input, Tensley led a yearlong process to create a strategic roadmap—a seven-year plan that defines the organization's mission, values, and measurable outcomes. When there's clarity in an organization, saying ‘no' becomes easy and saying ‘yes' becomes difficult. The new strategy gave Atlanta Mission a unified framework for decision-making, with every initiative measured against the same mission. Measuring what matters. // Data fuels care. In order to better track client progress, the team at Atlanta Mission built dashboards, measuring not only how many people they serve but how lives are changing. When graduation rates dipped from 70% to 45%, they discovered the cause wasn't program failure but economic change. That same approach can transform church leadership. Churches measure nickels and noses, but what if we measured progression—how many first-time guests become group members, or how many volunteers grow into leaders? Partnership through presence. // Atlanta Mission thrives through partnerships with churches across the city. Tensley explains that relational poverty—people lacking healthy connections—is as debilitating as material poverty. Rather than only focusing on “do for” service projects, he encourages churches to create “be with” opportunities: hosting birthday parties, sharing meals, or building relationships with families at Atlanta Mission. Encouragement for leaders. // Reflecting on his own journey, Tensley reminds church leaders who feel stretched or uncertain that often you’ll overestimate what you can accomplish in 90 days, but underestimate what you can do in a year or two. Take time to listen, build unity, and stay faithful in the process. Over time, that faithfulness becomes transformation—both in the people you lead and in yourself. To learn more about Atlanta Mission, visit atlantamission.org or email to connect or schedule a visit. 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! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a real honored to have an incredible guest on today’s episode. We’ve got Tensley Almand with us. He is the president and CEO of Atlanta Mission. Rich Birch — Now, if you don’t know Atlanta Mission, I’m not sure where you’ve been. You really should know. This organization was founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen to feed men who were displaced by the Great Depression. And they just keep chugging along. They do incredible work. They now serve Metro Atlanta’s largest homeless population and bring hope in the face of homelessness, poverty, and addiction. Rich Birch — Prior to serving at Atlanta Mission, he was in vocational ministry for 20 plus years, the last 12 of those, as we were just saying in the pre-call. He said, felt like he had the the best job in the world, was a lead pastor at Decatur City Church, one of the eight Atlanta City, Atlanta area campuses of North Point Ministries. Tensley, welcome. So glad you’re here. Tensley Almand — Man, so good to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. Rich Birch — No, this is going to be good. I’m excited. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit more of your background and tell us a bit more about Atlanta Mission, that kind of thing. Just help set the table. Tensley Almand — Yeah, so I’m a native Atlantan. I grew up here, born and raised just north of the city. Yeah. Only child. Parents still live north of the city in the same town that I grew up in. Rich Birch — Nice. Tensley Almand — My wife and I, we have four kids. We have been married now, just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary… Rich Birch — Congratulations. That’s great. Tensley Almand — …which makes me feel old, but it’s it’s it’s all good. So four kids, three boys, little girl, they’re all just amazing, doing great things and in their worlds. We live over in city of Decatur. So ah for those that don’t know, just kind of just right outside of downtown Atlanta. So we feel like we’re living in the heart of the city. Rich Birch — Cool. Tensley Almand — Like you said, I spent 20 plus years on the church side of ministry, which you had told younger me that that was going to be my future, I probably would have laughed at you. Grew up in a family that church just frankly, wasn’t that important to us. My mom gets mad if I say I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, um, which, you know, looking back, I think is really true. I just grew up in a home that we didn’t feel like the church was for us. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so, um, after, you know, meeting Jesus in college, giving my life to him, which is a whole nother really cool story, started down the path towards ministry. And eventually several years into that kind of looked up and thought, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I’m working at these churches that I don’t even want to attend. Tensley Almand — Like remember this very pivotal meeting in my life where our pastor asked us, he’s like, if I didn’t pay you to go to church here, is this the church you would attend? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And every one of us said no. Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness. Tensley Almand — And they were all okay with it. Rich Birch — Oh, no. Tensley Almand — And I just like something broke in me. Rich Birch — Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Tensley Almand — And I remember going home and I told my wife, I was like, I can’t do this anymore. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so I started the process of just trying to find a job. But the problem is I’ve genuinely felt called by God to ministry. And so God used that to, to lead us down the path of starting Decatur City Church. And, um, our whole dream was just to create a church that people who didn’t like church would love to attend. Tensley Almand — And so, which is really cool. Again, it’s probably a whole other episode, but really cool because we got to do that in one of the most unchurched cities in Atlanta. 70% of the people who live in Decatur ah don’t go to a church. And Decatur, for those who don’t know, small little town right outside of a big city. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — But literally, there’s over 600 churches in that town. So we used to say all the time, nobody wakes up on Sunday wondering where a church is. They just wake up wondering if church is for them. Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — And so that’s, that’s the thing we tried to solve. Right. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so did that for 12 years, thought I would do that with my whole life. Just an amazing season. And then God called me out of there to Atlanta Mission. And so for those who don’t know, and we can get into that story here if you want to, but, for those who don’t know, Atlanta mission, like you said, it’s the largest and longest running provider of services… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness in our city. So for perspective, what that means is on any given night, we’ll have about 800 men, women, or children who are staying with us. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s a significant operation. That’s, that’s incredible. Tensley Almand — It’s a significant operation. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — It represents that in our city, that represents about 35 to 40% of all the shelter beds in Atlanta. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — So that’s, it’s a, it’s pretty remarkable opportunity that we do that across three campuses in downtown Atlanta. Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — One for men, two for women and children. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And then we have this really cool drug and alcohol addiction facility out near Athens, which is about an hour outside of town, on 550 acre farm that is just beautiful ah for men who are in recovery from addiction. Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. Huh. Tensley Almand — So yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s, that’s incredible. i’m I’m glad you started with the kind of community size that you’re you’re serving. That’s, that’s amazing. Give me a sense of the operation from like a, you know, total number of staff, other kinds of metrics. Like I’m just trying to, I know, you know, you’re not a kind of person that’s going to brag about that kind of stuff, but just trying to help people kind of place, because this is a significant operation, friends. Atlanta Mission is it’s a world-class organization doing great work and honored to have you on this the show. But people might not be ah kind of aware of the the scale of it. Give us a bit more sense of that. Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a good question. I appreciate you asking. Cause yeah, I definitely don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t like going there, but… Rich Birch — Yes. And it’s even just, it’s a funny thing to, it’s a funny thing to even like, it’s like, well, we’re really good. It’s like, it’s like, well, yeah, it’s a tough thing you’re doing. So it’s like, man, it’s a weird thing to kind of try to but get ah your arms around. How, how do we talk about this? Yeah. Tensley Almand — Yeah. So let me kind of give you scope and then let me talk a little bit about what we’re doing. So scope is ah we’re we’re about a $20 million dollars a year organization. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — And so just like every church out there, that means, you know, we start July as the start of our fiscal year and we start at zero… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …and then we go and raise $20 million dollars… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …to meet the need of our expenses. And we do that through mainly private and and corporate donations. And so… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …we’re almost a hundred percent privately funded this year. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — We, we, we took our very first government grant. Rich Birch — Huh. Tensley Almand — But I mean, it’s a $250,000 grant, which is not insignificant, but on the scope of 20 million. So that kind of gives everybody an idea. So you’re talking about, uh, you know, thousands of donors who come alongside of us to partner with us, which is just amazing. Rich Birch — Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Tensley Almand — We serve about 800 men, women, and children, like I said, Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And we have right at about 180 staff… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …who are who are either you know full-time equivalents basically here with us. And that’s across four different campuses. So we’re essentially like a multi-site operation. So I’m sitting here at my office today, which is basically our mission support center. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — So your accounting, HR, development team, all of your infrastructure, and we support the work that’s happening all over our city. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And then we also have three thrift stores across Northeast Georgia that’s included in that head count. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — And so a little bit of that 20 million that I was telling you about that that revenue comes from sales as well. And so, so yeah, it’s pretty broad organization. And then what we do, a lot of people think about you know Atlanta Mission, especially here in our city, and they just think emergency shelter. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Certainly what we do. But of those 800 beds, roughly only 40% of those go towards emergency shelter. And so if you… Rich Birch — Oh, really? OK. Tensley Almand — Yeah. And so if you show up at our door and you just need safety, security, stability, um, you’re just trying to like get off the street… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …we have a program called Find Hope… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …and it’s a 30-day program. You can stay with us rent free 30 days. You know, bed meals, showers, really, really, really, really low expectation on those clients. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — It’s just like, hey, we’re here to meet your needs. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Tensley Almand — The other 60% of our beds go towards what we call our transformational model… Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — …where we provide complete wraparound services. It’s about a year long program. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — You show up and we’re going to try to help you get healthy relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, vocationally. We’ve got counselors, we’ve got advocates, we’ve got social workers. You have a whole team… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …that works with you, walks with you for a year… Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — …depending on really your core traumas, what’s caused your homelessness. And our main goal, our mission is to transform through Christ the lives of those who are experiencing homelessness, poverty, and addiction. Tensley Almand — And so what we want to do, what that means to us is over the course of that year, Um, we want to give you the tools to identify your traumas, understand those traumas and ultimately break the cycles so that you don’t ever have to come back to our doors again. We we tell our clients, we love you, but we don’t ever want to see you again. Like this is just like, like, how do we… Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. This was a phase of your life, hopefully, right? Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s the goal. Tensley Almand — How do we end that for you? And so our program goes through all the counseling, all the services, and it wraps up in a vocational training program we call Next Steps that… Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. Tensley Almand — …that gives our clients the soft skills they need to not just get a job. Because here’s here’s what’s really cool. You you would get this. Our clients are really good at getting jobs. But like so many people out there, we’re terrible at keeping a job. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — Like people don’t know the skills needed to like keep a job. Like how do you manage conflict? Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — What do you do with that boss who’s just overbearing? How do you have normal workplace conversations? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And so we have a ah four week training program that gives our clients those skills. And what we’re finding is that for the clients who go all the way through our program, 70% of those who graduate our program, they still have a house or a living situation a year later. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — And they are maintaining that job a year later. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible. Tensley Almand — And so it’s just been a remarkable, remarkable journey. And so we’ve got some transitional housing in there… Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — …where you graduate our program, you stay with us, we help you save up and and we help you find an apartment. And then when you’re ready financially and you’re you’re stable, we help you move into that that apartment. Tensley Almand — And what’s really cool, probably one of my favorite things is for alumni is that year after you graduate, you get a retention coach with us and they walk with you. And they just help you navigate life because, man, when you’ve stayed somewhere for a year and then you kind of come back in and you’re like, oooh, the pressures of the world are on me. That first year is so tough. Rich Birch — So hard. Yeah. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — Well, that’s cool. I appreciate you sharing that. and And yeah, even church leaders that are listening in, um man, ah there whether if you’re in the Atlanta area, you definitely should reach out to Atlanta Mission. Rich Birch — But even in your neighborhood, like there are, this is why you shouldn’t be trying to invent this yourself as a church. There are these are incredibly complex issues that you know when I heard all of the the different things you’re doing to surround people, try to help them, um that’s that’s inspiring. That’s amazing. Rich Birch — Well, I’d love to pivot and talk about kind of your experience as you’ve transitioned in, like some try to extract some leadership lessons. It’s been said that one of the first things that leaders do is define reality or gain clarity for their for their organization. Rich Birch — When you first started early on in your role, what were you listening for or look for that told you, maybe there’s some areas here that just aren’t very clear? What did you see as you were, you know, we got to bring some more clarity in the organization? Were there things you kind of saw that that made you think, oh, we maybe this is some areas we need to gain some better clarity as an organization? Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, every leadership transition is different. One of the advantages I had is that what my predecessor was leaving me was so much different than what he inherited. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And so he inherited an organization that was in crisis. He handed me an organization that was thriving. But, that organization really was, and he was, and it’s it’s all kind of wrapped up in our story, is that it was time for him to retire. It was time for him to move on. And so the whole organization was asking what’s next. And so that’s, that’s one advantage I had is that there was this collective, like, well, like what what is next for us? That was helpful. Tensley Almand — The other advantage I had, and I did not think this was an advantage. But, you know, I, I came out of church ministry. I didn’t know how to lead a nonprofit. I didn’t know anything about homelessness. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Tensley Almand — I didn’t know much about social services. And so, yeah I truly believe God called me into this, but I couldn’t come in like an expert. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so I literally was forced to, my I tell people my door said CEO, but I think I was really the chief question officer. I mean, my my first year… Rich Birch — Help me understand. Help me understand. Tensley Almand — …was, yeah, asking questions. I can I can vividly remember our clinical director coming into my office and saying, hey, we’ve got this massive clinical decision that we need to make and there’s this and this and this. And you know and then like trying to leave that way. What do you think we should do? And I’m like… you’re the clinical director. Like, what do what do you mean? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — But that was again, and this is and he would say this if he was sitting here, my predecessor had an organization that was in crisis. And so every decision had to center on him. And I needed to come in and teach our team how to have a decentralized leadership. How like, hey, look you’re the clinical director I’m going to support you, I’m to remove obstacles for you. But if I have to make clinical decisions, we’re we’ve got a really big problem because I’m not qualified to make that decision. Tensley Almand — And so um really pushing leadership down… Rich Birch — yeah Tensley Almand — …asking a lot of questions, understanding what we do. And so that was that was a huge advantage that that i think a lot of people probably, they can like I did, they they think about the things that are stacked against them. To me, it’s like you don’t know anything about the space. That’s a big obstacle. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Well, maybe lean into those obstacles because it’s a really good way to to get underneath the hood. And so it forced me to ask questions, forced me to listen. And then what I did is I I truly went on a just a listening tour. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — I set up a meeting, I think, with every employee of our organization. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — And I asked everybody what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s missing and what’s confusing. Rich Birch — Huh. Tensley Almand — And I still have that notebook. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — I mean, my assistant like cataloged answers for days. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And what was so cool to me was that without having the same language, almost everybody in the organization identified the same rights, wrongs, missings and confusions. And so I was able to then take that and really come back to our senior team and say, hey, what should we do about this? Like we all… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — We all agree this is a problem. like What should we do do? And I think a colleague of mine, I remember walking into his office and he had this drawing on his board. I’m like, what is what is that? He’s like, well, is how I feel about our organization. I remember it was ah it was a circle. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And all the arrows were pointed in every direction around the circle. And he’s like, that’s us. Like, we’ve got the right idea… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …but everybody’s pulling in a hundred directions to try to figure out how to do that idea. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — and I said, man, we need to take that circle and get all those arrows on one side. Cause if we can collectively pull… and that just kind of became our quest. And so we took all those answers and, you know, basically the the big thing was, um you know, and I don’t know where I learned this, but I feel like when there’s clarity in an organization, ‘no’ is really easy and ‘yes’ is is really difficult. It’s like really easy to say no. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And what I found at Atlanta Mission was we were just saying yes to everything. And the reason we were saying yes to everything is because there was no strategy, there was no clarity. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And so we took that first year and a half, wrote our strategic plan, identified who we want to be and why we want to be that. And then what would it look like to be that organization? And so we just kind of built it backwards. And that’s the journey we’ve been on now for the last four years since I’ve been here. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s, ah yeah, that’s incredible. I love that that feeling. In fact, i I took over a nonprofit ah kids camp and much smaller scale than what you’re running. But I remember those early days where there yeah people are looking at you and and and there is this sense of like, okay, so like you got to tell us where we’re going. What is the thing we’re doing next? Like and it’s easy to like… the easy thing is, let’s try this. Let’s try that. Let’s do a bunch of different things. And that can lead to that pulling, those hundred different, you know, it’s lots of activity, but it’s not focused. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — And trying to get everybody on a kind of a shared page of or shared picture of what the future looks like, man, that’s great through this, this process of kind of we’re going to do a strategic plan over a year. What, what would you, what would you say to a leader that is feeling the pressure of like, Hey, I want to define the future now, as opposed to that feels like a step back. We’re going to year and a half and define this stuff. What would you say to a leader? Why should we slow down? Talk us through why that, how that benefited now that you’re on the other side of all that. Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is it’s it’s totally worth it. I mean, it it was hard. It was challenging. It it does feel like a step back. But I don’t know how to step forward without without clarity, you know. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And that’s, you said at the beginning, I got to ah got to be one of the campus pastors at North Point Community Church for years. I can remember Andy always saying, The beauty of North Point wasn’t that we got to start with a blank page, just that we started on the same page. Rich Birch — That’s good Tensley Almand — And I just think that like that, that is always set with me. And so when I when I started here, I realized like, hey, I don’t I don’t get the luxury of a blank page. I mean, this organization has been around since 1938. You know, when I when I started Decatur City, it was so easy because I just told everybody what we were doing and why we were doing it and there was nothing else we were doing. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so it was just like… But here it’s like, OK, if I can’t get to a blank page, the best thing I can do is we’ve got to get on the same page… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …or else we’re just we’re going to spin our tires. And, and you know, I think I’ll I’ll this story probably sums it up and maybe somebody can relate to this. I have a monthly breakfast with our board chair and our vice chair. And the very first breakfast I went to in this role, it was my predecessor’s last breakfast and my first. And so we’re all so it’s him, it’s me and it’s a board chair a vice chair, all of which have been around this organization 3x the amount of time I had at that point, I had been there like three days. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Couple weeks. Tensley Almand — And and we got this email the night before the breakfast, and it was from a developer. And they were offering $14 million dollars for the piece of property that my office sits on, which is a widely underused piece of property… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …that we’ve always kind of wrestled with, like, what do we do with this thing? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — $14 million dollars. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — That’s almost our entire year’s budget. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — And I remember showing up to this breakfast with this LOI and I asked the question, should we take it or should we not? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And nobody could answer my question. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Tensley Almand — Nobody knew if it was a good idea to take $14 million dollars or to walk away from $14 million dollars Rich Birch — And if that group doesn’t know, nobody else in the organization is going to know, right? Tensley Almand — And that’s exactly what I said. I was like, if you don’t know, and I don’t know… Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, exactly. Tensley Almand — …nobody knows. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Tensley Almand — And so I started with that small group and I said, hey, would you give me the freedom to to take however long it takes for us to make sure we can answer that question? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And so in our first board meeting, I raised my hand and I just said, hey guys, I know I’m new, I know I just started. But I shared the story and I said, hey, we have to be able to answer questions like this. Or we’re never going to get anywhere. We may do a lot of good things, but we are going to have no idea if we did the best thing. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. That’s good. So kind of double clicking on that, continuing to kind of focus in on this. You know, there are churches, organizations that will do the strat plan or roll. We go away for the big retreat. We come up with the new value statements. It’s got great strategy on paper. But it doesn’t end up translating into practice. What are you doing at the mission to try to make sure that we’re going from that wasn’t just a great document that’s like in a nice book somewhere, but it’s actually rolling out. Maybe give us some examples of that. And what are those kind of rhythms, cadences, all that? How how are you making that happen? Tensley Almand — Yeah, it’s wish I could really tell you we’re crushing it in this area. It’s this is a new habit for us. Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Good. Tensley Almand — And so we’re I’m four years in. We just finished our first full fiscal year under our new strategy. And so I can tell you what we’ve learned. Rich Birch — Hey, that’s good. Yeah, good. Tensley Almand — One, once you get it built you have to start small. We, I wish I could remember the exact number, I think as a senior team we committed and told our board we were going to do 392 new initiatives or something in year one, you know. Rich Birch — Wow. Right. Tensley Almand — And this is a seven-year plan… Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — …we’re like we got almost for it and I think we got 100 through of the 392. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And we celebrated like crazy at the end of the year because it was like, that’s 100 things that were all in alignment that we’d never done before. We learned so much. So, start small. Tensley Almand — The other thing is we built our plan. And I was I was very intentional about this because of what you just said. I did not want another notebook that was going to sit on my shelf. And so our strategic plan is really a strategic roadmap. And what I have told our board, what I’ve told our staff is I want an organization that knows how to think. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And our our plan is really a roadmap for how we should think. It’s not overly prescriptive in necessarily what that means. Because it’s it’s designed to take us all the way through 2030. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Well, I have no idea what’s going to happen between now and 2030. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Tensley Almand — But I do know that if what we said we want to accomplish, we’re accomplishing, however that looks, by 2030, we’re on the right track. And so that would be the other thing is just like, I would build, I wouldn’t make it so prescriptive that it tells you like, Hey, next week you’re doing this. And the week after… It needs to teach the organization how to think, how to act so that the person who’s brand new on the front line, if I’m not in the room, they don’t need to spend any time going like what, what would Tensley want me to do? They just, this is who we are as an organization. It’s how we think. Tensley Almand — And then we at a senior level and then we pushed it all the way down to our organization. We built a meeting cadence around it. Rich Birch — Nice. Tensley Almand — And so we have our senior team meets once a week. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — That’s my six direct reports and plus my admin. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And we, one, so we do that on Tuesday morning, one, the first Tuesday of the month is a strategy meeting. We talk all about the strategic plan. That’s like a, how how are you doing and your department doing towards what you said you were gonna do? Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And we have a dashboard to measure that against. And then the next Tuesday is an operations meeting. And it’s just like, hey, what are what are we working on? We can’t live at 50,000 feet all the time. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Let’s get down to 1,000 feet or whatever it is. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — And so we have that operations cadence. And then the third meeting is kind of like a catch-all, like, hey, what you know what needs to happen? And then our last meeting of the month is a monthly ministry review with the entire, not just my direct reports, but all the managers that sit under my direct reports. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Tensley Almand — And they lead that meeting. I listen in that meeting. And I get to hear what’s happening at every campus, what’s going on. And I get to hear how people are implementing or not implementing the strategy. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And then the very next meeting, if you’re keeping up, is then our strategy meeting. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — So then I’m like, hey… Rich Birch — Here’s some stuff I heard. Tensley Almand — …tell me more about this. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Tensley Almand — Or I didn’t hear like, Hey, I thought we were working on this. Why is that not happening? And so we have dashboards. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Tensley Almand — We’ve never had those before. We have data that we can follow. We have metrics we’ve identified as a, as a team, our wins. And so it’s like, Hey, how are we tracking towards those wins and just have created a layer of accountability that didn’t exist probably three years ago. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s talk a little bit more about the data thing. I’ve, or data thing. We, I’ve, I’ve said with younger leaders, you know, spreadsheets are the language of leadership. Like you’re going to have to get used to this stuff. This is just… Tensley Almand — Yep. Rich Birch — …this is how we care for people at scale is, is that is what it looks like. So data can either inspire or intimidate. How do you track outcomes? How do you, how do you how have you seen, you know, data over this last year actually change behavior and move things, improve care, better outcomes, all that kind of stuff. Talk us through what, cause you know, what we measure can get, can, you know, steer us in the wrong direction or steer us in the right direction. Help, help us think through that. As we’re thinking about what numbers should we pay attention to? Tensley Almand — Yeah. So again, when I started, that was a big question I had. So if you were to look at our numbers, you would see that we serve, you know, let’s, these are rough, but right at about 3000 people a year come through our doors. Rich Birch — Okay. Tensley Almand — Right. Which is huge. Rich Birch — Yep. Tensley Almand — You’re like, man, that’s amazing. Well, then I, as I walk you through that, by the time you get to the end of our vocational training a year later, we may graduate like 400. And then 70% of those 400 are still doing well the the next year. And so, you know, on paper, you’re like, man, is that good? Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — Like that, that there’s a lot of attrition there. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — Like should, is, is, are we fail… And that was, again, when I started, that was a question nobody could answer for me is, Hey, is that good? Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so even backing up before we built our strategy, our senior team spent so much time defining our outcomes. And we had all of these statements, you know, but it was like we want somebody to be healthy vocationally. Tensley Almand — It’s like, okay, what does that mean? Crickets in the room. Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — Wait, if you don’t know what it means and I don’t know what it means, does the person who’s leading that program know what it means? Better question: does the person who’s receiving our services know if they’ve actually achieved help in that area? Tensley Almand — And so we went through, defined all of those terms so that there was a clear outcome to it… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …so that we could then measure it. And then we built both a one-page dashboard that our senior team could look at at a high level. So I could I can open this dashboard on any Monday morning. It’s just in Tableau, so nothing super you know exciting. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — And I can just see, i can see progression through our program. I can see healthy exits. We’ve defined what are healthy exits. I can see, ah you know, are people getting stuck? That was a big thing we were we were learning is like, people are just getting stuck in our program and we’re committing to somebody. You’re going to be at this phase of the program 30 days. Well, then they spend 60 days. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And what we were finding. We were, so this, this probably long winded way of saying this, but what we, we didn’t know what was happening or why it was happening and it felt good. But you know, you’re like, I don’t know. Tensley Almand — And so what we were finding is it’s like, Hey, so that’s an example. Like, somebody gets stuck in our program. We promised them 30. It takes 60. All of a sudden, we were able to track that, hey, there’s a certain amount of fallout rate at this stage of the program. Why is that happening? Oh, people are stuck. They’ve been here too long. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — We got to fix that. And so it it enabled us to know what needed to be fixed and and not fixed. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And probably the the best real-time example of that is just recently. So I keep telling you the 70% number of graduates are successful. That’s kind of our historical data. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Tensley Almand — Well, this year, that number fell for the first time ever. It’s gotten better every year. Rich Birch — Wow. Tensley Almand — This year it fell and it fell like dramatically. And this is one of those I don’t like to talk about it because it doesn’t look good. Rich Birch — Interesting. Yes. Tensley Almand — I mean, like it fell down to almost like 45, 50 percent. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — You’re like, what’s happening? Rich Birch — Almost inverse. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Tensley Almand — Exactly. And so at first, you’re like, our program is no good. We got rewrite our program. Well, thankfully, we had been tracking all of the kind of whys and we understood what was happening in people’s lives. And what we have found out is no, like the economy shifted. You can’t get a job in 30 to 60 days anymore. Rich Birch — Interesting. Tensley Almand — And so a gate in our program is when you graduate, you have 60 days to get a job. If you don’t get a job, you can’t move into our transitional housing because if we just allow you to stay, beds back up and then more people can’t get in. Tensley Almand — Well, our clients then would stop taking our advice and stop waiting for a good job. And at day like 50, they would just go get that job that doesn’t pay well. Rich Birch — Ohhh. Tensley Almand — And they knew it wasn’t going to be a career builder job. It was just going to keep them sheltered. Rich Birch — Right, right. Tensley Almand — And so it was our our like metrics were actually driving a behavior we didn’t like. Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Tensley Almand — And so we’re in the process now of like, hey, we’ve got to change this. The length of time it takes to get a job now takes longer. and Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — The job market’s more you know fierce right now. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so we don’t want nothing against these types of jobs. We don’t necessarily want our client leaving to go get a job at McDonald’s Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — But for them, leaving it to go get a job at McDonald’s versus not having a place to stay, I’ll take the McDonald’s job… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — …even though I know I’m only going to be there three months. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Tensley Almand — And so it was throwing off all of our numbers and it’s because we were incorrectly driving a behavior that we don’t want to drive. So. Rich Birch — Wow. That’s cool. That’s a great, very vivid example. And there’s lots of that in the church world. I know you I know you know that. There was a church I was doing some work with last year, large church, 10,000-person church. And they were we were talking one of the numbers I obsess with my clients over is documented first-time guests, the actual number of people that come every single weekend. And I was convinced that this church was just was missing a whole bunch of first time guests. And so they were telling me about how great their, their, their assimilation numbers were. They were like, Oh, this is so great. And I was like, I just don’t believe it. I’m like, because, because if you are not capturing the number of, of documented first time guests, then yeah and you’re comparing against half of what you probably actually have coming into your church, then then every number be below that, all your integration stuff looks twice as good as it actually is. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — And you know that that happens in lots of places across our numbers. We’ve got to get real clear and benchmark against other people. Tensley Almand — If I could go back and if I could go back, no, no, it’s just, like I’ve often thought like, what would I do different if I was a church leader now? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a good question. Tensley Almand — And I would I would measure so much differently. Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting. Tensley Almand — You know, historically we’ve measured nickels and noses, right? Like how much money’s coming in and how many people are sitting in the pews. But it’s like, those are important. Rich Birch — Yeah. Tensley Almand — I wouldn’t stop measuring them, but I would pay attention to like this. I would try to find a way to measure progression, you know. Rich Birch — Yes, 100%. Tensley Almand — It’s like to your point how many first-time guests are you having okay well then of those first-time guests how many of them are actually moving to your small groups. Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%. Tensley Almand — Of those who moved your small groups do any of them ever volunteer like and and really understand the behaviors you want. And then measure to those behaviors and i think especially in a world where just church attendance looks so much so much different, we could gauge health of our churches so much more effectively if we were Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. I’d love to I’d love to kind of pivot for a few minutes in a slightly different direction. Tensley Almand — Okay. Rich Birch — So we have a lot of church leaders that are listening in and I’d love to understand how Atlanta Mission partners with churches. What does that look like? How do you work together? So specifically at Atlanta misha, and then what would you, Mission, and then what would you say to churches in general? Hey, um what advice would you give now that you’re on this side of the equation of actually partnering with an organization like Atlanta Mission? How can you be kind of the best partner? How do we what are what are people on your side of the table actually looking for from a church like ours? Because I’m sure there’s all kinds of stories of like, yeah, that didn’t work well. Talk us through what that looks like, partnerships specifically, and then kind of in general, how can we be better at that? Tensley Almand — Yeah, and partnership is one of our pillars of our strategic plan. I think I think for nonprofits, especially when you’re large and you’re self-funded, you can it’s easy to get siloed. And we we fell into that category, not just with outside partners that wanted to come in and help us, but also with other service providers across the the, you know, continuum of care in our city. is It’s just it’s easy to kind of put your head down and do your own thing. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And so this is a huge emphasis for us, mainly because it’s really woven into the vision of our organization. Our organization is a community that’s united to end homelessness one person at a time. Well, I mean, it’s like partnership has to be built into that. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, baked into it. Yeah. Tensley Almand — So what who are we to then go get siloed? Like, that’s like, wow, you can’t even accomplish what you said you wanted to do. And so um we… I’ll back into this answer by telling you one of the things we’ve discovered at Atlanta Mission is that this isn’t this, you know, this isn’t novel, but, you know, material poverty, we all know is debilitating. Relational poverty is just as debilitating as material poverty. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Tensley Almand — And what we find with our clients is that almost 100 percent obviously are struggling with some version of material poverty, but they are just relationally broken and poor. They are void of healthy relationships. And so this is this is so much where partnership comes in, because we we literally have a metric that we track of how many healthy contacts does a client have in their phone before they graduate our program. And what we were finding is I mean we were their only healthy contact. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Tensley Almand — And it’s wait this is this is not good. And this is such a great place for churches to partner with us because we have so many opportunities that we just call we call them “be with” opportunities there’s like there’s “do for” service projects but there’s also “be with” service projects. And they’re just designed for you to establish healthy community with our clients, build relationships, throw a birthday party for somebody… Rich Birch — That’s so good. Right. Tensley Almand — …have a Christmas party at one of our shelters. Come, you know, we’re moving into the holiday season, you know, come and build gingerbread houses together with our kids who are staying with us and just create an hour in somebody’s life that’s normal. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — And I feel like churches are better at this than anybody. Our corporate partners are fantastic at the “do for” projects. They can then come in and beautify our campuses in 30 minutes in a way that none of us can. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — You know, Home Depot comes in and it’s like, we’re going to transform your landscape. Great. This is awesome. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Tensley Almand — I love it. But a church can come in and just be authentic and be real and be with our clients. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — And you would be amazed at how different somebody’s life looks after just that hour. And so, and I think that’s a huge thing. And then what I would tell churches, I think even as a church leader, I I probably overlooked how vital we were to nonprofits. You just you know, you think it’s an hour, but you know, even the day of, you know, you wake up that morning and you’re like, they don’t really need me. Like, I don’t know. Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — This is, am I not really going to make a difference? Yes, you are. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — You are going to make a huge difference. It is worth the hour. It is worth the drive. Tensley Almand — And we we tell people all the time, and I’ve seen this in my own life. The thing that happens at Atlanta Mission is there’s always two stories of transformation happening. There’s the story of transformation that’s happening in a client’s life. But God transforms my life every day. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Tensley Almand — And it’s that’s the part I didn’t expect, Rich, is that… Rich Birch — Right. Tensley Almand — …my life is being changed as much as anybody else’s. And so I would, I would tell a church, Hey, our clients need you. But you need this as well. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Tensley Almand — Like God’s going to do something in your life. Tensley Almand — And then the other is just, um I think, especially for really big churches, it’s easy to think like, I bet they need my expertise. It’s like, actually, that’s not like. We need your partnership. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Tensley Almand — You know, we, we know how to do this. Come put wind in our sails. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, Tensley Almand — Come just serve, be a part of what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s super helpful. Love love that. Well, just as we’re coming to land, any kind of final words or encouragement you’d you’d say to church leaders that are listening in today that are, you know, wrestling with maybe clarity or wrestling with some of the stuff we’ve talked about today? This has been a really fruitful conversation. Thank you for it. Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the, you know, probably the biggest thing I would say, and I have to tell myself this all the time. I mean, I’m an entrepreneurial type A. I’m going to like, you know, go conquer the world in a day is that, you know, remind yourself, you know, more than likely what you can accomplish in 90 days is nowhere near what you think it is, you know. But what you can accomplish in a year or two years is probably way more than you ever imagined you could. Rich Birch — Right. So true Yeah, that’s good. Tensley Almand — And so just again, kind of back to the strategy thing, it takes time. It’s messy. You know, you’re going to feel like, is this worth it? It creates conflict on your team. It feels uncomfortable. We were, we were joking as a senior team the other day. There was, it was about a year where I just, every Tuesday morning, I thought I want to cancel this meeting because I just didn’t enjoy, like we were just, we were at conflict because we were… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Tensley Almand — …hashing out who we are and why we exist and what are we going to do and why are we going to do it? Rich Birch — Yes. Tensley Almand — But now it’s my favorite hour of the week. Like, I just love it. And so, you know, I would say that… Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — …you know, and I think, yeah, I don’t know that I have anything, you know, much more. Rich Birch — That’s good. Tensley Almand — Yeah. Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Well, I really appreciate being on the show today. Where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you or with Atlanta Mission? Where are the best places for us to send people online? Tensley Almand — Probably the easiest place is just our website, atlantamission.org. You can find everything you want to about us. If you want to know more, you can email info@atlantamission.org. And that actually goes right to my assistant and we’ll get you connected to the right person. And you can, you know, next time you’re in town, you partner with us. You can help us. You can be happy to give you a tour, show you what we do. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Tensley. Appreciate you being here today. Tensley Almand — Thanks.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Jamie Barfield, the Lead Pastor at Palmetto Pointe Church in South Carolina. Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with four locations in South Carolina, a campus in Southern Illinois, and Spanish-language services reaching even more people. Is your church in a season of slow growth or scarcity? Wondering how to stay faithful and creative when resources are tight? Tune in as Jamie shares powerful lessons from 18 years of ministry—how his team built a thriving, multiplying church by embracing perseverance, stewardship, and servant leadership. The long road to growth. // Palmetto Pointe's story is one of persistence and faithfulness. It took three years to break 100 in attendance, five years before Jamie drew a paycheck, and six before the church had its own building. Today the church averages 2,500 weekly attendees and continues to grow—up 31% last year alone. Jamie credits that perseverance to remembering the “why” behind ministry: reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ. Stewardship over scarcity. // In the early years, Jamie says the constant feeling of “not enough”—not enough money, volunteers, or influence—could have been crushing. Instead, it shaped the church's DNA around stewardship and innovation. Rather than throwing money at problems, the team learned to think creatively and maximize what God had already placed in their hands. That approach still drives their ministry today. Faith that looks forward. // While rejecting the “name it and claim it” mindset, Jamie embraces faith-filled vision. Even when he doesn’t know how to get to big things, he continues to be faithful with what he has right now. This conviction shapes how he leads – every resource is treated as a seed that can grow if cultivated with faith and hard work. Developing leaders intentionally. // One of Palmetto Pointe's most distinctive practices is its 12-week leadership development process, a hands-on journey that every potential leader must complete before serving in a leadership role. Participants are recommended by current leaders and walk closely with Jamie throughout the course. During those 12 weeks, participants serve across multiple ministries and complete weekly assignments that build humility and discipline. Only after completing the program do they join the pool of eligible leaders. Multiplying wisely. // As Palmetto Pointe has launched new services and campuses, Jamie has learned key lessons about healthy multiplication. Each expansion begins with identifying potential pain points, recruiting dedicated volunteers, and ensuring no one burns out. Before adding services, his team recruits a core group committed to that specific time slot for at least nine months. Encouragement for church leaders. // As a district overseer, Jamie has a heart for pastors—especially those in smaller churches who feel stuck or discouraged. His advice: make one Sunday amazing. Pick one big day—Easter, Mother's Day, or another big day—and go all in. Then pick one person and invest deeply in them. Small, faithful steps of stewardship often lead to exponential impact. To learn more about Palmetto Pointe Church, visit palmettopointechurch.com or connect with Jamie on social media at @pastorjamieb. 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 to have you tune in today. We’ve got a great conversation. Really looking forward to talking to a leader who I know you can learn from, talking about stuff that is really important as we think about our churches and think about the future. It’s our honor today to have Jamie Barfield with us. He is part of the leadership team at Palmetto Pointe Church. I don’t know why that’s stuck in my mouth coming out.Rich Birch — It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with four locations in beautiful Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, a location in Southern Illinois and Spanish services as well. He’s an ordained bishop in the Church of God, serves as a district oh overseer for the Myrtle Beach and surrounding areas. He’s also served, he’s got a lot going on, in the State Evangelism Board for the Church of God in South Carolina. Welcome to the show, Jamie, a real expert on the show today. Appreciate you being here.Jamie Barfield — I don’t know about expert, but it is an honor to be here. I learned a lot from the school of hard knocks, so I will be definitely able to answer from that point point of view.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Now multiple locations, which is we see that 73% of churches over 2000 have multiple locations. For leaders that don’t know the story, kind of give me the story of your church. Tell me a little bit of what’s going on. If it were to arrive this weekend, what would that look like?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, wild, wild story. 18 years. We just celebrated 18 years. Rich Birch — Congratulations.Jamie Barfield — Took us three years to ever break 100. Five years before I was ever getting a paycheck from the church. Rich Birch — Wow.Jamie Barfield — Six years before we ever had our own facility. Seven years before I ever had another staff member with me. Right before COVID hit, we were doing four services. And then obviously COVID shut everything down. And last year, God’s favor has just been upon the church the last few years. Last year, we grew about 31% last year – it was wild. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. And what does attendance look like now on the weekends at your church?Jamie Barfield — We had 2,500 last Sunday. Rich Birch — Wow. Jamie Barfield — And we had but 2,500 last Sunday and that we we had about, of that probably 2,100 was here at our our main location here in Myrtle Beach.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Well, I appreciate that you paced out the timeline there, because I think there’s a lot of church leaders who, or church planters who are in these early days, and it feels like, and the early days could be half a decade, you know, it could be a long time.Rich Birch — Take us back when you think kind of the mindset of that, what what what was that experience like? How did you keep going? Talk us through what did that look like?Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Early on, you know, and I talked at a conference last weekend about your “why”, knowing why you’re in this to begin with, knowing why you started and never forgetting the thing that actually put you in ministry to begin with. You know, that moment God called you, that moment that he asked you to do something great for him.Jamie Barfield — And in those moments or those seasons, um early on specifically, when you were ready to throw in the towel and ready to quit, you always had to be reminded of, okay, God, why am I doing this? What is it that you put inside of me that pushed me to want to do something great for your kingdom?Jamie Barfield — It was never about a paycheck. It was never about being on an amazing podcast like this. It was never about speaking at conferences. It was always about reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ and doing our best to get that out there. And so in moments where you wanted to throw in the towel and you wanted to quit, you always go back to those seasons of, okay, God, why did you call me into this to begin with?Rich Birch — And what, what, when you answer that question in your own life, where does that, but you know, kind of, when you think about the why, how, what is what’s the kind of image that comes to mind or language that you wrap around for, for you?Jamie Barfield — I’m very visual. So I think of standing before the throne of God one day and him saying, well done, my good and faithful servant.Rich Birch — So good.Jamie Barfield —And I’m so it’s going to be such a beautiful moment, but it also also motivates me .bBecause I think in that moment that I’m going to go in there almost nervous of the time that I wasted or the time that I gave up or the time that I… And I’m so I’m so motivated by that moment that I just want to stand there and have him look at me with a big smile on his face and say, you did it. You did everything that I put before you to do. You did it. Good job, servant.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, early on, if we could talk for real here… Jamie Barfield — For real. Rich Birch — …like church planting, man, it’s it’s it’s tough.Jamie Barfield — It’s the hardest thing ever.Rich Birch — And those early years, yeah, those early years, it’s like, I don’t know. It’s like, you’re not rolling in cash. You don’t have the resources. You don’t have the people. Man, how how did that go for you? The kind of scarcity? How did that shape the way you lead, innovate? Talk us through that piece of the puzzle.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, lack of money, lack of volunteers, lack of influence in the community. You know, it it feels like you know the the word attached to church planting so often is lack. I don’t have enough.Rich Birch — Yeah, right.Jamie Barfield — And that mindset inside of church planters, it’s going to be the thing that either crushes them or is going to cause them to innovate. For us, we just decided it was going to be the thing that pushed us or that drove us. And so the scarcity mindset that you spoke about at you know the beginning of ministry was some some things that were birthed inside of us that created some stewardship principles that we still follow today at our church. You know, we’re very much penny pinchers. We’re going to try the best to figure out the best way rather than just throwing money at problems.Jamie Barfield — You know, I got buddies that, you you know, with the best of intentions, they just think that they can you you know, throw money at situations or at problems and it’s going to fix everything. And our mindset is just, we’re just going to be innovative. We’re going to try to figure this out and do it the best way we can without expecting that money is going to fix everything, or that volunteers are going to fix everything, or that influence is going to fix everything. So even at the start, all of that lack created or birthed something in us that has followed with us for the last 18 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d I’d love to talk a bit a bit a bit more about that. Well, first of all, I think it’s I think it’s good that you’re underlining mindset. I know for me as a leader, and it took me way too long to figure out that like kind of my approach. You know, I’m not like, ah you know, name it and claim it kind of person. I don’t think I can like, you know, I can’t just like make stuff up.Jamie Barfield — Sure.Rich Birch — But what I do know is if I don’t have the faith for it, if I don’t believe that God’s going to do something, then it doesn’t happen. Jamie Barfield — Yeah, for sure. Rich Birch — And so I’m not sure how that happens. There’s like a weird connection there between what I believe about faith and like, and I probably some people are like, man, this guy’s got bad theology. But talk us through that mindset and how, maybe give us a couple examples of how that has impacted you even today.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah. So I agree completely. The the you know concept of name it and claim it versus you got to have faith and where is that balance? And I’m unsure as well, probably got bad theology as well. But I definitely think that, you know especially early on, like it was, God, I see big things in our future. And I’m not sure how to get to big things, but I know I can’t settle with these things that we have now. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.Jamie Barfield — So I have to press forward to make the things that we have in our hand now. I have to be a good steward of what you’ve given me. You know, he is faithful with little. You’re going to reward us with much. So, God, I’ve got to be faithful with what you put in my hands now.Rich Birch — That’s so true.Jamie Barfield — And I’m going to do the absolute best with this that I have in my hand now. But I’m going to do everything I can to make this thing better. Because I see bigger, because I see greater in front of us. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so I’m not going to just stop here and say, well, this is all that I have. This is this is all that I’m ever going to be. I’m going to do more for you with what you placed in my hands. I’m going to be that servant that whenever you walk away from me, you gave me two talents. I’m go to do my best to turn it into four.Rich Birch — Yeah that’s, yeah, that’s amazing. That’s that’s so good. I love, you know, we wanna be multipliers of what, you know, what’s given. And I think the the financial stewardship thing makes sense. I think that’s understandable. You can see where, man, we gotta be good we gotta use the resources we have.Rich Birch — What about on the people side? When you think about kind of being good stewards of your people, maybe developing leaders, that sort of thing, how does that work? What practices have you helped has have you kind of kept this mindset of innovation, kind of getting the most out of our people, that sort of thing. How has that impacted how what you do even today?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, so I grew up in a very small church, you know maybe 70, 80 people. Maybe on on big Sundays we had 120 on Easter or something of that nature. And I saw leaders being thrown into situations, not trained well, not knowing church culture, not knowing what expectations were, not knowing the pastor’s heart. I saw all of that growing up.Jamie Barfield — And those leaders that were thrown in oftentimes would find themselves burnt out by focusing on things that they really had no passion for. And the pastor maybe didn’t know what the thing inside of them that was the thing that really you know would drive them. And so we just decided whenever, you know, probably 10 or 12 years ago, we just decided we were going to create a process of knowing our our leaders and our leaders knowing me well.Jamie Barfield — And so so we we go through a you know, I tell them all the time as we do a 12 week course. It’s not really we call it leadership development, but it’s not really leadership development. It’s more about you have to learn this culture. You have to learn my heart and my expectations for you. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — But I’ve also got to learn your story, and your passion, and your vision. Because I want us to walk away from this 12 weeks together, I want to walk away better prepared for a future together. And so as you’re walking this 12 weeks out with me, you’re you you know they’re serving everywhere in the church and serving in kids ministry one week and you know making coffee one week and all of the things. But what we’re learning in that season together is expectation. And you’re learning me and I’m learning you, but we’re putting expectation on what it takes to be a leader. And so as they finish this 12-week process with me, they then go into this pool of just to even be considered to be a leader in our church. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s interesting.Jamie Barfield — So everybody that’s ever been a leader in our church, before they ever get to a leadership role, they’re a part of this pool because they’ve been through this 12-week journey with me. And I’m there with these people every step along the way, because again, I’ve seen it done so poorly that I just wanted to make sure that my fingerprint was upon leaders and volunteers in such a way. Rich Birch — That’s cool.Jamie Barfield — You know, there’s again, go back to a parable of Jesus, you know, the sower and the seed, you know, there’s this, there’s this principle of where you sow, if you sow in good soil, that it’s going to produce a good fruit. And so these people that are, that are, have a passion for the kingdom of God and want to do something great for the kingdom of God, those are the people that I want to invest my time, effort, and energy into because those are the people that are going to produce the, the largest or most productive harvest.Rich Birch — Okay. I want to double click on this. Jamie Barfield — For sure. Rich Birch — There’s a ah bunch there that I want to unpack… Jamie Barfield — For sure. Rich Birch — …which is fantastic. So how, so how do you identify or how does your team identify people that land in this 12 weeks? And then I’d love to talk a little bit about, you know, the, actually the mechanics of it what’s going on in those 12 weeks.Jamie Barfield — They have to be recommended by a leader in our church.Rich Birch — Okay.Jamie Barfield — It’s the only way to join the 12-week journey.Rich Birch — Okay.Jamie Barfield — So a leader in our church sees them, watches them serve or whatever inside of the church, and then they recommend them to my assistant, and we we start the journey with them.Rich Birch — Okay. And those, is it like you run it in like a couple of seasons during the year? It’s a class and like a cohort matter. What’s the content? Just give us a ah a bit of, you know, a bit more about that.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, we do we do two… Yeah, we do two semesters of it. So twice a year we run it. And it is ah one night a week. We meet at the church. We go through ah hour, hour and a half you know class type setting with constant homework through the week. And homework looks as simple as, you know, we we read the book, Andy Stanley, Next Generation Leader. We read through that together.Jamie Barfield — Homework is serving assignments on Sunday. Homework is cleaning the church. You know, little things like that that just creates this culture, this this servanthood inside of them. So once ah once a week, we’re here at the church learning together. But then through the week, we’re constantly um connected and, um you know, again, working, efforting to to sharpen them through the 12 weeks.Rich Birch — That’s cool. And you know you mentioned it multiple times. So you’ve really kept ownership of this group. They’re meeting with you. That I want to underline for folks that are listening in.Jamie Barfield — Yeah.Rich Birch — You know, your church you said is 2,500 people. There’s a lot of pastors of a church of 2,500 that would say, hey, I don’t have time to meet with this. Kind of unpack that a little bit more. I know you mentioned this already, but I want to kind of unpack what what are you thinking about there? What’s the advantage? How far does that scale, you think?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I am a huge advocate of whatever it is that you do, whatever’s on your plate. There’s some things that you have to do as a pastor or as a leader. And leadership development ought to be something that you have your fingerprint on. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Jamie Barfield — Whether it’s [inaudible] as much as mine is or whether it’s just, hey, I’m creating class and I’m stepping in every now and then, but somewhere, somehow, you have to be touching your leaders in the church and they have to know your heart. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — Whenever they go away from this class and they’re serving wherever, and maybe even they’re on a campus or doing whatever they’re doing, when they walk away from me, they know me, they know my heart, they know my, my expectations.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so I don’t have to go into, you know, seasons and step into kids ministry and try to put out fires and fix problems because they know me from the start before they ever get involved in certain ministries. They already know me and already know my heart. And so it just makes the the family community atmosphere of the church healthier…Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — …because from from birth, this is from birth. This isn’t something that we’re trying to teach on the run. This is something we teach from birth to through the process. And then whenever they launch into whatever ministry they um lead or or serve in they already have all the foundational principles, all the pillars are built.Rich Birch — That’s interesting. I love it. That’s, that’s great to learn more about. Talk to me about an expectation that ah that you have of your leaders that might be a little bit different. That might be like, oh, hey, it’s, you know, kind of in the secret sauce category that you’re like, hey, this is a part of what God’s using when, you know, hey, if you’re leading here, this is what we want you to be like, or something activity or something like that.Jamie Barfield — Yeah. So so for instance, servanthood is something that I’m very passionate about. I am a servant. I expect leaders here at this church to be servants. I think Jesus is the greatest leader of all time, and he was a servant leader. It’s who he was. It was a part of his you know, character. And so, so servanthood is something that we, my wife and I portray to our leadership. And then we give expectation that this is what we expect from leaders inside of our church and throughout every department of our church.Jamie Barfield — I think that is, that is, you know, something as simple as when you see some trash in the parking lot, as you’re walking up, you pick it up. All the way to when we’re having church events here, my wife and I are the last ones to eat. We’re not first in line. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — We’re making sure everybody else is served because we want we want to make sure that we are servant leaders inside of our our team.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So I’d love to know, you guys have launched multiple locations, obviously multiple services within that. Multiplication is, to me, is a sign that you’re developing leaders. There’s something good happening on that front. You can’t do that unless you, you know, have multiplied leaders. Talk us through some of the lessons you’ve learned around multiplication as it relates to leadership development and how that all works together.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I will say that good leaders multiply themselves, but so do bad leaders. Rich Birch — Oh gosh, that’s true. Oh man.Jamie Barfield — And so that’s and so that’s that that’s that’s dangerous as well. Rich Birch — Yes. Jamie Barfield — And so as as we multiplied, you know, from multiple services to, you know, multiple campuses and all the things that come with multiplication, as we have walked through the seasons of multiplication, we’ve always identified early the needs that were going to be present and tried our best to make an effort to make them not as painful as they could have been if we wouldn’t have identified them.Jamie Barfield — And so something as simple as you know whenever we you know we were talking about launching multiple services, when when we launched into multiple times, we’ve launched into multiple services and been able to you know, through growth, knock out walls and go back to one and then we’re at two and then we’re at three, knock out a wall, back to one, two, three. And then right at COVID, we were doing four. But the the healthiest way that we ever launched a service was we did a 8 a.m. and a 10 a.m. The 8 a.m. was for volunteers only. So it was kids’ workers. It was, you know, we did, but did we did a full service. We did the band. We did I did my full sermon. It was volunteers only, but you’re welcome to come. Rich Birch — Right. Jamie Barfield — But this is strictly, you know, we’re focusing on volunteers. But then whenever we launched into two, as that second service filled up, we launched into two. We completely changed service times. What was a 10 a.m. service, now we went to 9 and 11. So then everybody was forced and instead instead of saying, oh, well, this is my service time. Now everybody was forced to choose a different service time. Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — So the 8 a.m. people we you know went to the 9 a.m., obviously, and the 10 a.m. people had to choose, do I want to get up an hour early or do I want to come an hour later? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so it was almost it was actually a 45 to 65 percent split whenever we went to the 9 and the 11. So it was the healthiest way we had ever done it, so incredibly beautiful.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so just, you know, if somebody’s watching this and they’re looking to go to two services, I would suggest have a volunteer service, go all in because that starts training your your band to do two services. It starts training your volunteers of what time they’d have to get there to be able to do multiple things. It kind of creates that buffer of a tension point in the future and being able to look look in advance to say, hey, let me let me work some of these issues out before we get there.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. um Kind of related to that, I feel like this is the year of like the three service questions, third service questions. Like I’ve had so many people in this last year reach out to me. I’ve written, I think three or four blog posts, probably 10,000 words on different stuff I’ve learned um about this because it’s like just keeps coming up. Like even today, literally today, I got an email about it this morning.Rich Birch — So talk me through what what you’ve done at Palmetto Pointe around identifying when we pull the trigger for more services. Is that what mix of that is like opportunistic—we’re creating new space—or it’s reactive, like which of how much of it’s proactive, reactive? And how do you, you know, your church is growing, you’re growing quickly. How do you, how do you keep a far enough ahead? Cause you can’t just decide, Hey, we’re going to do new services. You got to do planning to make it all happen. Talk us through what’s that look like? How are you kind of the, how, how do we know how to identify when we pull the trigger? That sort of thing. Talk us through what that looks like.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, reactive is terrible. I’ve done it twice. Reactive to, oh no, you know the parking lot’s full. Let’s plan a second service. You know, hat’s terribly difficult. You know, the proactive approach of, I see growth, here goes what, you know, we’re already talking about Easter next year, okay? Here goes how many people are gonna show up. How many services do we need for Easter? And then how much did we grow last year for Easter? So if those people come back, what can they expect the next week?Jamie Barfield — And so for me, it becomes, opportunistic, yes. Launching multiple services are going to help your church grow. But as you’re launching multiple services, the growth versus the attrition, how is this going to wear your team out? Is this going to wear your staff out? Is this going to wear your band out or your kids’ ministry workers out? And that balance of, okay, at what point do you press forward and what at what point do you pump the gas or pump the brakes? Jamie Barfield — And so I would just say for us, what we learned through this journey is, you know we want to make sure that when we launch into a another service that there’s a core group of people that are going to be a part of that service. I need you to I need you to say for nine months you’re going to be a part of this service and this is your thing.Jamie Barfield — And so when we launch into another service, we’re going to make sure that this group of people wants to be there, and this is their church and their service. And then for us, we’re going to make sure that we have a completely different staffed kids’ ministry, completely different group, so we’re not wearing out the already wore-out volunteers of kids’ ministry.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And depending on the time slot, we’ve we’ve tried three different time slots for our third service, but depending on the time slot we choose, it potentially may be a completely different band as well. Maybe the same worship leader, but a completely different band. Because those are the really the two areas, kids ministry and band and the staff. Those are the three areas that are really going to wear you out with multiple services.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s some really clear thinking there around that. Really appreciate that. You know, at 31%, if you continue to grow, I know you know this, you know, that’s like just less than two and a half years, you’ll end up doubling. Jamie Barfield — Right. Rich Birch — So you’ll be a church of 5,000 if you continue at this rate.Jamie Barfield — Crazy.Rich Birch — And that that becomes difficult to stay in front of. You know, I’ve led in churches that are growing at that rate. And it’s it’s hard to to keep the skis out in front, you know, keep things moving in the right direction.Rich Birch — Let’s pivot in a totally different direction. I want to take advantage of the fact that you’re a district overseer, in your movement. From your perspective, from your vantage point, what are you seeing across the church these days as it comes to growth and and challenges? And kind of what are you learning as you’re in that kind of coach seat?Rich Birch — I’m taking advantage of the fact that you’re coaching other leaders.Jamie Barfield — I actually love that you asked me this question because I was talking with a guy yesterday, and we were talking about how smaller churches specifically, those pastors are really struggling with grasping what their expectations of congregants are, and what the congregants’ expectations of the church should be.Jamie Barfield — We as small you know smaller church pastors specifically, but we expect them to show up and to give and to serve and to connect, but they don’t have those same expectations on their life. So 30, 40 years ago, those were the expectations of a church attender.Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — Now they’re not.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Jamie Barfield — And so we have these unrealistic expectations that are creating frustrations from the pulpit to the pew. And I think it’s it’s creating this disconnect, or or honestly, I’ve seen some pastors even preach maybe very angry towards their congregation because of the unrealistic expectations placed upon those people. And so I would say maybe just to the smaller church pastor, which again is 80% of America, you know…Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yep.Jamie Barfield — …those those guys listening to this, maybe be more understanding of how life has changed in the last 30 or 40 years. I’m not saying lower our standards of righteousness or scriptural truth, but understand that travel ball is a thing and it’s always going to be a thing. And you know, school plays and you know, families going on vacation. Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — Man, we celebrate when families go on vacation. I’m not mad at you for taking a vacation because I want a vacation, you know? Rich Birch — Yes.Jamie Barfield — And so we celebrate when families go on vacation. So just creating realistic expectations for the congregation rather than what the, what the expectations were 30 or 40 years ago.Rich Birch — That’s good. I like that. You know understanding where people are are today and not you know not overburdening them with ah a previous model. I think that’s a really good word for sure. How can we think about that same pastor that maybe sees that frustration and and takes the, you know, the pastoral word of like, yes, I’m not going to exacerbate my people, but I want to help clearly articulate. I kind of want to point to a brighter future for them. Jamie Barfield — For sure.Rich Birch — How do I what what would you suggest to them? How do you how should we do that? Jamie Barfield — Well, first off, I would say one of the things that I see giving life to pastors is them connecting with other pastors. Rich Birch — So true.Jamie Barfield — I would just encourage a pastor watching this to make sure that he has or she has somebody in their life that’s outside of the bubble of their own church that may be going through something similar to their to what they’re going through.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And I just think pastors encouraging pastors. We’re on the same team. We’re in this together. Pastors, encouraging pastors. I love what you do here where you celebrate ministries and what they’re doing. I just see that giving such life to um to other pastors that are discouraged and frustrated and aggravated. So I would start there. I would say, man, pastors, find another pastor and speak life into them.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — Maybe maybe the second thing I would say is you know maybe maybe an encouragement to, you know, to pastors who have wanted to try something new and try something different. Maybe just an encouragement to you know and to to do it, man. Just do it. Just try it.Rich Birch — Give it a try.Jamie Barfield — See what happens. Throw spaghetti up against the wall and see what sticks.Rich Birch — You get a lot of grace from most, I think most of the people in our churches, we have the the negative voice person in our head, the person that like doesn’t love what we do and is like a complainer or whatever, but that’s like a rare minority in most churches. Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like most of the people in the church are cheering for the pastor, cheering for the leaders… Jamie Barfield — That’s right. Rich Birch — …and are like, man, I love that guy. I love that girl. And if you were to say, Hey, I’d love us to try this thing. It’s just a test. Let’s see what happens. Most people would be like, let’s do it, you know, and, and I, you know, that’ll be fine. And if it goes bad, then don’t take yourself too serious and say, well, we tried that. That didn’t work. And that’s okay. um Yeah, that’s good. I love that. That’s a great word for sure.Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Agree. Agree completely. Agree completely.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, just as we’re kind of landing today’s episode, any final words as we think about for people that are listening in about, you know, what you’ve learned through the years? I love the mindset stuff we’ve been talking about and just this whole area of like our our you know our approach to scarcity, how that works. But anything else you’d love us to think about today as we’re hanging up today?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah um maybe maybe maybe just to um to the guys that are feeling guys and gals that are feeling stuck, um you know maybe maybe short on everything. Lack is a big thing. Here goes here would be my encouragement. Make every Sunday amazing the best you can, but pick one day and throw all of your energy towards that one day. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — Maybe it’s Christmas Eve service coming up, or maybe it’s an Easter service or Mother’s Day or, you know, a manufactured big day, ah you know, a back to church Sunday or something of that nature. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — Pick a day and throw all of your energy towards that one day. Pick a person and start investing in a person. You may not be able to do a leadership development process, but pick a person and start investing your life into that person.Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so good.Jamie Barfield — Pick one event in the community and just show up for it. Just you know wear a church shirt and show up for the event and shake hands and hug necks and tell everybody, hey, you know. Pick one area of ministry and you know you know go go to your kids’ ministry and say, how can I make this better? You don’t have to fix it all right now. Rich Birch — That’s so good.Jamie Barfield — You don’t have to you don’t have to be great at everything right now. You don’t have to have the most amazing, you know, Mother’s Day yet. But man, you can find one thing and just start focusing on something. And I think this is where that mindset of there’s more out there. I’m going to focus on something and make this one thing that God has put in my hand. I’m going to make this thing better.Rich Birch — Dude, that is such good advice. You know, don’t drown in the all the things you wish you could do. Pick one thing and just do it. I love that. Jamie Barfield — Pick one thing and do it.Rich Birch — A friend of mine was a church planter and i was like, I think it was either the first or second Easter they did they went all in on the like Easter egg drop, which I know lots of people have done. But it was a smash success for them. They, you know, it was like five times their normal attendance. It was fantastic. The local news showed up. It was, and it gave, man, it breathed energy into the church for months. Jamie Barfield — Yes. Yes.Rich Birch — Like they lived off of that because it was like, hey, that was a win. Yeah, that’s, that’s so good. Well, this has been a great conversation today. Rich Birch — I love talking to church planters. You know, I was recently with a leader of a church. We were walking around his facility and their buildings about 250,000 square feet, giant building. And he was talking about himself as a church planter. He was like, you know, referring to that. Rich Birch — And and I joked with him. I said, well, at what point do you stop being a church planter? Like when you, you know, when you you just are doing a $20 million dollars building or whatever, I think, you know, somewhere along the line. But he’s like, no, once a church planter, always a church planter. We’re always, ah you know, the same thing. So I’ve really appreciated this similar conversation today.Jamie Barfield — That’s exactly right. Rich Birch — Jamie, if people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, palmettopointechurch.com, it’s all over social media.Rich Birch — Perfect.Jamie Barfield — pastorjamieb, all of all of the social media handles are that. Love to connect with them…Rich Birch — That’s great.Jamie Barfield — …palmettopointechurch.com, I’d love to connect. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Jamie. Really appreciate you being here today, sir.Jamie Barfield — Thank you so much for the opportunity.

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Let's start with a confession. I've misdiagnosed “dead” more times than I care to admit…more than a coroner in a zombie movie marathon. I have this bad habit of declaring the demise of trends that are, in fact, quietly entering their prime. I thought podcasts were “saturated” back in 2013 when I started the unSeminary […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Luke Cornwell, Communications Pastor at Realife Church in Indiana. Founded in 2007, Realife has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America with two thriving campuses, a STEAM Academy for preschoolers, and a partnership with Southeastern University. Luke brings a unique […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Eric Garza, Executive Pastor at Cross Church in Texas. Founded in 1995, Cross Church has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with 12 campuses across the Rio Grande Valley and beyond. With a unique focus on bilingual ministry, Cross […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Warren Bird—author, researcher, and one of the most trusted voices in church leadership studies. Warren has co-authored over 35 books for pastors and church leaders, including Hero Maker, Better Together, Next, Resilience Factor, and his newest, Becoming a Future-Ready Church. Known […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Lane Lowery, Executive Pastor of Warren Church in South Carolina and Georgia. Founded in 1898, Warren is one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with over 7,000 members across its campuses. Known for its Southern hospitality, Bible teaching, and focus on whole-person […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Chris Vaught, lead pastor of Connection Point Church (CPC) in Missouri. Under his leadership, CPC has grown from 300 people in 2011 to over 2,500 today across multiple campuses. With a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders, […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Ashley Lentz from Lutheran Church of Hope in Iowa. As the Connections Pastor at one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country, Ashley brings a wealth of practical insight into creating personal connection in a growing church. Struggling to connect new guests and […]

What's the difference between launching a multi-site campus and planting a church? We explore why we believe multi-site campuses serve as growth strategies while church plants function as multiplication strategies [unSeminary], and why treating them as identical could limit your church's long-term kingdom legacy. We look at the "multiply everything" principle and how it prepares churches for both campus expansion and church planting success. Perfect for pastors, church planters, and ministry leaders navigating growth and multiplication strategies.Conference: https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com/conferenceWebsite: ⁠https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com⁠Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakinggrowthbarriersFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakinggrowthbarriersInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakinggrowthbarriers

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Dave Miller. With a background in worship and creative arts ministry across Las Vegas, Kentucky, and Michigan, Dave now leads Leadership Pathway, an organization focused on helping the next generation of church leaders take their healthiest first steps […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Taylor Scott-Reimer, a dynamic speaker, advocate, and author of She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves. Is your church truly inviting the full participation of women? Are female leaders empowered to speak, shape, and serve—or are […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Zenzo Matoga, Senior Pastor of Impact Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Malawi, Africa, Zenzo brings a passion for evangelism shaped by the revival crusades of Reinhard Bonnke. Under Zenzo's leadership, Impact Church has become one of the fastest-growing churches in America, […]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest, Robert Watson, comes through loud and clear, and you won't want to miss the incredible insights he shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Welcome back to […]

In this special roundup episode of the unSeminary podcast, we highlight key insights from three previously recorded interviews focused on strengthening church staff teams. In celebration of the Summer 2025 issue of Executive Pastor Magazine, this curated compilation revisits rich conversations with leadership experts Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird, executive pastor Ken McAnulty […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Steece Hayes, a bi-vocational pastor and account manager at Higher Ground Managed IT, part of the ACS Technologies family. Is your ministry struggling with unreliable tech, security risks, or outdated systems—and you're not even sure where to begin fixing it? Tune in as Steece brings […]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest Yolanda comes through loud and clear, and you won't want to miss the incredible insights she shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Do you ever feel […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Devin Goins, Executive Pastor of Strategic Development at Biltmore Church in western North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. Is your church growing but you're struggling to keep your team aligned and rowing in the same direction? Tune in as Devin outlines a […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Mike Winger, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore-Washington area. What does it take to launch a bold new vision while carrying the weight of financial obstacles? Tune in as Mike unpacks the multi-year process that led to Mosaic's Unlimited campaign—one […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Charles Stone, seasoned pastor, author, and leadership coach. Feeling overwhelmed by the constant demands of ministry? Looking for biblical practices that can help reduce anxiety and fuel long-term health? Tune in as Charles shares insights from his latest book, Stress Less, blending timeless biblical […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Russ Ewell, Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) in California and founder of Deep Spirituality. How can churches meaningfully engage and empower the next generation of leaders? With campuses across Silicon Valley and a deep commitment to developing future leaders, […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Jason Hanash, the founding and lead pastor of Discovery Church in California—one of the fastest growing churches in the country. How do you restructure your staff leadership to keep pace with rapid church growth? Tune in as Jason shares how Discovery evolved from a living […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast! Today we're talking with Craig Smith, Lead Pastor of Mission Hills Church in Colorado—an 80+ year-old multisite church and one of the fastest-growing in the country. Is your church growing faster than your systems can handle? Do you ever feel like your team is working hard but not aligned? […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Shayla McCormick, Executive Pastor at Coastal Community Church, a thriving multisite church in South Florida known for its authentic culture and rapid growth. How do you build and protect a thriving staff culture as your church grows? Tune in as Shayla offers practical, actionable insight […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Bob Riedy, Senior Pastor of Church of the Open Door in Pennsylvania. After leading one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, Bob found himself facing a personal and professional breakdown. In this deeply transparent episode, he shares his journey through burnout, […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today, we're talking with Quovadis Marshall (Pastor Q), Lead Pastor at Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa. Caught up in a life of gangs and violence, he became incarcerated at nineteen years old. However, Pastor Q experienced a life-transforming encounter with Christ through the Prison Fellowship Academy Program. Now […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we're joined by Danny Anderson, Lead Pastor of Emmanuel Church in Indiana, and Rachel Long, founder of the Joshua Center. They share their story of navigating a significant transition when Rachel moved from being the Executive Pastor at Emmanuel Church […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Eric Smith, founder and lead pastor of Hope City Church in Florida and co-creator of SermonDone. Are you a pastor who's feeling the pressure of sermon prep each week? Wondering how you can save time on research and content creation without compromising the quality […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're joined today by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a church design and project management firm that helps growing ministries align their physical spaces with their mission. With a background in engineering and church leadership, Aaron brings unique insights into how churches can strategically […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast during our All About Multisite month. Today we're talking with David Ashcraft, CEO and President of the Global Leadership Network (GLN), and former Senior Pastor of LCBC Church in Pennsylvania. Are you wrestling with growing pains as your church multiplies? How does an expanding multisite church keep its vision […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this All About Multisite month podcast episode we're talking with Omar Giritli, Lead Pastor, and Carlos Cardenas, Executive Pastor at Christ Fellowship. With campuses spread across Miami, the Caribbean and South America, Christ Fellowship has truly become a model of how to lead a diverse, multi-generational […]

Welcome back to another special All About Multisite episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're joined today by Bo Chancey (Senior Pastor) and Jeremy Peterson (Executive Pastor) from One Church, a growing multisite church based in New Hampshire. With four physical “outposts” and a thriving online presence, One Church is reaching communities across rural and suburban […]

Thanks for joining us for this special episode of the unSeminary podcast as we kick off All About Multisite month. In this conversation, we're joined by Rick Langston and Daniel Simmons from The Summit Church in North Carolina. Rick serves as the Executive Pastor of Strategic Initiatives, and Daniel is the Executive Pastor of Campuses […]

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we're talking with Kara Powell, the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. How is your church engaging with the next generation? Building connection and trust with young people can be difficult in today's world. […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today, we're talking with Diana Rush, the Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church, a multisite church with locations in California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Are you a middle manager in a church trying to balance the pressures from both your senior leadership and your […]

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Amy Anderson, the managing director at The Unstuck Group. Unstuck helps pastors grow healthy churches by guiding them through experiences that align vision, strategy, team, and action. Is your church feeling stuck or overwhelmed by its growth? Wondering if you have the right […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Tyler Vance, the COO of Apollos, a digital platform designed to help churches thrive by using technologies for personal growth. Despite being more digitally connected than ever, people lack deep, meaningful relationships. Gen Z has often been called the loneliest generation in history. However, churches are uniquely […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Rick and Patti Love, founders of the organizations Love New Canadians and Love New Internationals. These ministries equip churches to serve new immigrants, refugees, and international students in their neighborhoods. Since 2014 Rick and Patti Love have worked with more than 700 churches and ministries in […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Chad Bickley, the executive pastor at Skyline Church in California. Is your church experiencing growth, but you're struggling with how to maintain a healthy team culture? Wondering how to create a culture that drives growth while ensuring your staff remains aligned and healthy? In this episode […]

Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Danny Anderson, the Lead Pastor at Emmanuel Church in Indianapolis. Is your church growing quickly, but you're feeling the pressure? Wondering how to balance church growth with spiritual health for yourself and your staff team? Danny shares his journey of leading a fast-growing church […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we're talking with Adam Ader, the Groups Director at Parkview Christian Church in Illinois. Is your church looking to improve how you connect people into life-changing groups? Wondering how to lead a growing group ministry that truly impacts people's lives? Tune in as Adam shares valuable insights on […]

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Nick Stumbo, the Executive Director of Pure Desire Ministries. According to a Barna study, 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women view pornography at least occasionally, with 67% of pastors having a personal history of porn use. How can churches effectively address pervasive issues […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we're focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we're learning from Mark Clark, the founder of Village Church, a multi-site church with locations in multiple cities across Canada and online around the world. He is […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we're focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we're learning from Kenny Jahng, founder of Big Click Syndicate and AI for Church Leaders, and Editor in Chief of Church Tech Today. We're talking about how […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we're focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we're hearing from Mike Mantel, the President and CEO, and Jonathan Wiles, the Chief Operating Officer, of Living Water International (LWI), a faith-based global humanitarian organization. Together […]

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we're focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we're joined by Nicky and Sila Lee of The Marriage Course // Alpha International, and are talking about how marriages will still be struggling. Nearly half of […]