speaker-0: All right, we want to welcome you out to another cohort session. And it's a time where we're going to be looking at a topic I think that's near and dear to our heart. In fact, several topics as we line up this next kind of series where we're looking at four practical things that every church leader should regularly review. So whether you're a lead pastor, a supporting pastor, or even a staff member, I think all these things can be pretty important to us and for all of us to kind of review. Should be something we do on a regular basis. And so I want to kind of introduce our guests for today. We have Josh, Dave, and Daniel, and of course myself here. We're gonna be looking through ⁓ a couple of things here. And and hopefully the things that we talk about as we go through this will kind of spur on some great conversation with those who are in on this online group and then those who maybe you have on your staff, because we think that this stuff matters. And so we're gonna be jumping into this first topic. First session one, which is all about the weekend service, and really answering the question of what actually happens. And I know that's just kind of an open-ended question, but we're thinking from the perspective of a staff, not necessarily ⁓ all the time from the staff, but a staff as we think through our guests showing up, they're they're thinking like, hey, what is going on? First time guests. And so we need to ask ourselves the question: what is actually happening? And so One of things I've kind of learned over the years, and I think many of us have at some level, is that you can have a great vision statement, you can have it put out all kinds of places, you can have great theology, which you should, and you can have all the great intentions in the world. ⁓ but the problem is is that even with all those things, your Sundays can still drift off to the side and not be where you want it to be because ⁓ we miss these things. We're we're missing little things that maybe need our attention. And I think one of the The text I want to kind of refer to as we get started is in 1 Corinthians 14 40. In the NIV, it says, But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. Now, I know for many of us, maybe we like structure, maybe we don't like structure, but here's a tension point here. Even though we can look at this and think, well, you know, that's being too rigid and that's being overly kind of polished if we think about our church service. We need ⁓ freedom for the spirit to move. I've heard all these arguments, and I think we do need ⁓ the spirit to move. But I also believe that the spirit gives us the opportunity to give some sort of order so that people can come into a place where the spirit is able to move and there's not a lot of distraction. So this is always kind of a healthy tension within the church world for us to kind of look at. And so here's kind of the big idea for today and kind of where we're gonna be going. We're gonna be looking at this whole idea that your weekend and my weekend, we think about the church context, reveals a lot about us and reveals a lot, hopefully. to us on some things that we need to be taking a look at. And so we're gonna looking at three ideas here as we work through our time as a as a kind of group of guests here, this roundtable discussion, and then you'll be taking this home, so to speak. But we're gonna be looking at three ideas kind of that surround Sunday morning and three things I think that we should be looking at. And are these the only three things? Absolutely not. These are just three things to get the conversation started. So I want to kick off our time and look ⁓ start in this first section. Which is really what happens on Sunday tells a lot of truth that many of us may or may not be aware of. And so when we think about in the church culture and church meetings and staff and volunteers, we can have meetings and meetings can hide problems. We can run with spreadsheets and metrics and they can look really healthy, but it can also hide problems. And vision statements, although they can sound very inspiring, don't always tell the truth and can hide a greater problem. But here's the deal: is that we know Sundays don't lie and people Are coming to our churches can speak with their feet, and when they don't come back for whatever reason. And so we think about people coming to our churches, they don't often experience, you know, your elders' meetings, they don't experience kind of leadership events and kind of what's going on, especially if they're first-time guests. The first experience they have starts in the parking lot, it continues with the greeting team, it involves your worship team, your preaching, your transitions, and even how we dismiss people. All those things matter. And so This is the one hour if you do an hour service, or maybe you go longer, but just think about it, it's the hour to hour and a half of time that the entirety of what people understand about your church is presented. So it does, I think, require a little bit of time for us to look at that. So we're gonna start off with kind of this whole idea of why Sundays tell the truth. And so I want to kind of throw a question out there for our panel here. And as we work through this and we think about why Sundays tell the truth and maybe just ask a question to to all of us, can you share a moment? When a Sunday service told the truth about something you needed to address as a leader. And I'll let you guys fire off. speaker-1: I think about in the earlier days of of the chapel and I didn't really have a lot of people that I knew that would speak for me when I was out, so I would find some guest speakers to bring in and didn't have the connections like I do now with some of you guys and I learned very on, you really have to be clear with your guest speakers what you want them to share. 'Cause there were times I would come back home and ⁓ realize I'd I'd have to give a whole sermon. on what that person had shared. So a few times I've had to make sure that the guest speaker knew exactly who we were. Had to make it clear what our vision was and our personality was of our church to the guest speaker before they came in. So I didn't have to come in behind. But that was one area I had to learn. speaker-0: Yeah, and I'll pr I'll ask a kind of follow up question real quick on that, Dave. I think, you know, you mentioned y you'd have to come back and kind of unpack and undo. And so when you think about when people are attending your church, let's say you had a first time guest or second time guest and they're thinking like, Okay, well, if he's the kind of pastor, just let whoever in here Yeah. Is this the kind of shepherd that I want to follow? speaker-1: Exactly. You learn over the years to really you know, the pulpit is that that's a major, major point of your church. We need to protect the pulpit. And if we know who we are as a church body, make sure somebody getting behind that pulpit is right there with you. That's why now I have a few key people in the church and I know them well. And I know I can put them behind the pulpit and they're gonna share who the chapel is, because they they love the chapel. But early on, you know, I had to learn that lesson. speaker-3: You know, I would say too that story is funny to me, Dave, because I've had that where I've gone and spoken at a church and it's just very clear that nobody knows what to do if pastor's not there. I spoke at a small church one time in Okeechobee, Florida, middle of nowhere, and ⁓ was covering for a pastor on a Sunday and I mean I had to do announcements. I'm like, Yeah, we got a ladies' Bible study, you know, like I'm trying to do the whole thing because they didn't have that person. And so I think in that case it did reveal that perhaps that pastor was too important in that yeah context. He needed to figure out how to branch out. But to answer your question, Billy, I think I think of all the times where I realized in the middle of a service that we didn't have a plan for something. Right, that we're talking about. You know, we'll have like a kid's presentation at the end of the service, and there's got to be a transition that takes place between the end of the sermon and the kid come the kids coming out to sing a song, but nobody like remembered to tell somebody to go tell the kids. So then there's this awkward silence as everybody's waiting for the kids to realize they're supposed to be out there. And you know, an old mentor of mine used to say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Right? Like if you don't have the the plan in place. But I think oftentimes I think There is a plan. So that's kind of the issue, you know, and Sunday can reveal that you didn't have things as well planned out as you thought. speaker-0: No, that's a good point. That's a good point. Daniel, what do you got? You gotta have a story or two. speaker-2: I got so many. But no, it it made me think about clarity and what reveals. So when we give guest speakers expectations, hey, you know, this is sort of the dress code, our styles, teach for this long. Oftentimes we don't do that for the people that are so close to us. So our volunteers. What time do they show up? When are they gonna do? Where are they supposed to be? The transitions. And I found myself one time, if I did take a step back, does anyone know how to do announcements, how to lead communion, how to pray, how to open it up? And when you start thinking about all of those transitions, all those pieces in a service, even though preaching is a big part and the pastor's role. There's a lot of things that if you don't explain it, it'll just go on. I think we've all experienced the ⁓ he's speaking announcements for twenty minutes. That's probably not what I ask him to do. So try to cut it back to two to four minutes, buddy. You know, so if I don't give the when I didn't give those clear expectations to volunteers or people going into those slots, I naturally assume it's natural and easy because I'm thinking about that. But you actually have to write it down, let people know this is what I'm expecting of you, and actually helps them. to execute what you think, just not in your brain, but you know, you can actually have them understand and know that stuff. speaker-0: Yeah, and I would even say, you know, one of the things I saw one time in a church I was serving at was we did communion at the end of every service, which was great. And ⁓ the church still does it today and it and it's amazing. But if you're a first time guest and you aren't aware of that and that was never communicated like in the service, it was just at the end, like, hey, we're gonna do communion, there's this awkward moment, like, well, you know, because everyone went up front. And so it was like just here, this is just what we do. Nothing wrong with that, but again, I think for first time guests, it could be a little bit of a surprise. And ⁓ not that we want to, you know, make the service all about the first time guests, but again, as we think about our identity and just maybe just communicating it in a way that people understand, I just again think on this point, you know, the Sunday does tell the truth. And the way oftentimes if we could capture people as they're leaving and and if they're never gonna come back and and you just would you know want to know like well, what are some of the things that maybe we could have done better and things like that. Oftentimes I think it it's it's around these little things that maybe we could just look at, not necessarily change or get rid of, like drastically change, but just maybe make a couple of tweaks to. So speaker-1: Be you know, don't be afraid to I think explain things in the middle of the service. I I had worked before I I'd had this church, I'd worked for some big churches as a music minister and we were on television and all that. And so you we were so concerned about what it looked like on T V ⁓ that I think it's good for s to step back and and just sometimes go, Okay, for those of you that are new here today, here's what's happening and and ninety nine percent of the crowd knows exactly what's happening, but that those visitors don't. So I don't have a problem just stopping in the middle and and explaining. You know, here's here's what's happening right now. Because I know some of you aren't familiar with it. You've got so many people coming to church now that did not grow up in church. Yeah. Sometimes it's good to just take a step back and give a clear explanation for those people. I think that's great. speaker-0: Right. And if you kind of think through what you know, even what you just mentioned there, just people need to understand there needs to be clarity. Well, clarity is another big big part of this. And kind of the second thing I wanted to look at was, you know, clarity. Do people know what's actually happening? And it's kind of related to the whole idea that Sunday tells the truth. But again, if you think through that first time guest, do they understand what's happening? Again, they're the it's their first time there. Do they understand where the kids are supposed to go? Do they understand, you know, the pickup process, or if there's, you know, if you use parent tags or whatever, like all these little things that are just common to us because we've been doing it in that context for a long time, but as a new process for so many people. And I think for many of us, you know, we explain, we explain things, but we just, for the most part, assume people already know. Like for us, I'll give a good example. We've never printed off notes as a church. And that was by design because I wanted to get out of. Printing and cutting and all that stuff early, early on. So we started using an app from day one. But we just didn't tell people that early on. We just said, ⁓ yeah, just download the app. Why do I need the app? Well, that's just where our notes are. You know, it's just like, but but that's an important thing. If we want people to go find the notes, you got to help them get to the notes. And it was just like clear, making that clarity. And I think again, that even comes down to the gospel presentation, which I know all of us know how to communicate the gospel. But how you tie that into the message, the transition, what is the, you know, what is the response? What is the next step? All those things matter. And so, you know, the lack of of clarity doesn't just offend people, I think, you know, because I think they can some people get offended, some people are like, you know, well, whatever, maybe it's just kind of how they do it. But I think ultimately it disconnects them and it keeps them disconnected from the greater, you know, connection that's waiting for them in the body of Christ, which is kind of going against. What we're trying to do. And so around this idea of, you know, do people know what's kind of happening in the church, this question that we're asking. I've got a couple of questions and maybe I can just ask our group here. But what is something that maybe in your service, maybe in the past, or maybe even currently that you're going through that makes sense to maybe you and your team and people who maybe call your church home, but to a first time guest would be like, What is that? I have no idea what that is. Anybody want to share share what what they have there? speaker-2: I mean I'll s I'll start with a big idea. I don't think a lot of people even know what a church service even involves w like what what do you even do? So most people that I talk to new that have never been in church, they're scared, they don't know, they think the building's gonna fall down with them. So we're very clear on even though we don't have liturgy and like this is the order of service, ⁓ using transitional phrases or making sure a first time guest knows, hey, we're gonna be studying the gospel of Mark in chapter nine, that's page eight ninety nine. in a Bible that we're going to give you if you need a Bible. We'll also have the words on the screen. This is how we worship God with our minds. Or hey, you may see us lifting up our hands. And this is a sign of adoration or surrender to the Lord. You do know God inhabits the praises of His people. Just always thinking about like what you said, Dave, explaining those situations and letting people know this is actually what we're doing today. And then saying and following through. So we're going to sing and then you sing. Hey, this is why it's important and then you do it. And whatever elements of the service it is, even announcements, we want you to know that we're a community, not just that meets on a Sunday, but throughout the week. And here's some things how these people gather together. This is what you can know and how you can get connected. Here's a connection card. Here's how you fill out the email address. Just little things like that. I think explanation throughout the service is so helpful. And many churches have ⁓ bulletins or liturgy, like you said, but with us being a portable church and cutting cost, we didn't want to do that as well. So we just orally say it and give that those expectations and clarity through the service as well. speaker-1: I think most of us grew up in church and like you're saying, Daniel, we pretty much we we know how the game goes. We know what to expect. But so many people and it's not just younger people, there are older people coming into our church that have never been in church and they don't have a clue. So I do think a lot of I've had to learn how to explain things as you go through the service more. And I think that's great. And I and I I think it's great if you're people who have been in church forever, explain to them why you're doing it. I mean, I give some of the same announcements every Sunday. And I've had some people that go to our church a lot say, Why do you say that every Sunday? I'll say, Because we've got people coming once every three months or once every week or once a year. So I say so I you explain to those people here's why we're over explaining things 'cause we want want to reach people. That's what it's about. Wanna reach all people. speaker-3: Yeah, I forget who said ⁓ clarity is kindness, right? Like it's actually ⁓ a way to be generous towards people is to clarify why we're doing things. And ⁓ you know, I was thinking of an example of that. You know, we do most of us, a lot of us do some sort of gospel presentation at the end of the service. And as a young Christian, when I would bring a friend to church, you know, you guys probably prayed the same prayer I prayed, like please just don't let it be weird, number one. Like please don't let it be a wiggle one of those weeks. And then second, like, please, you know Articulate the gospel at the end. And I think that one of the things that we do is like everyone knows in our church that we're gonna do that at the end of the service. And I think like that is even an expectation that you're setting. Like, hey, this is really important to us that a clear gospel presentation comes at the end of this service. And I know I can be confident. Number one, that I can bring my friend to church and they're gonna get it and it's gonna not be weird, hopefully. ⁓ I don't know about Daniel's church, but the rest of us. And then the second is that that there's gonna be a gospel presentation. Presentation, that there's gonna be an opportunity for people to hear the truth. And I think that even that, like your your people trust you to bring their friend because they know that you're gonna take their friend and carry them along the way. And I think that's what stating those clear expectations really helps with a lot, even for your own people that know what's going on, but they want to bring someone else. speaker-0: And I'll share just from my perspective, one of the things that I learned and we learned, you know, through the church planting process, we just assumed everyone knew how to get prayer, you know, early on. It's like, well, yeah, you just you let some you let one of the team members know, you you fill out a card or whatever, but then we realize we aren't getting a whole lot of prayer requests. So we must not be in clear there. You know, we're not we're not being very clear. And I think it kind of goes along sometimes, and I'm gonna pick on us as Calvary Chapel for a while because I know I know for some of us we we've come from the school of we have, you know, especially when it comes to tithes and how how we handle giving, some of us do the box in the back, some of us do other methods or whatever, but there are some we're all familiar with the box in the back and the guy and and the Lord will provide and you don't really need to talk about it a lot. And you know, we kind of we didn't start that way because I was one of my several of my mentors who said, you know, the Lord will provide, but you know, you should also probably tell people how they can support the church. And be real clear because if you're not clear, that you know, for them to go find some arbitrary box in the back that they're supposed to put something in, like how do they don't know what that is. I say, so you know, you really have to spell it out. And and today's point, it feels like we're saying the same thing every week, but it's because new people are showing up. You're trying to integrate them into a culture. And the way I like to think about it is I know we live in Florida and we've all been on the amusement part, right? We've always gone to some sort of ride, whether it's Universal or Disney. And I think about the person or the people who walk up and side, walk up I guess up and down the sides of the the roller coaster and they're always checking the seat belts and they're seeing the same thing over and over and over and over again because they're assimilating you into a process, into something that's about to happen. And so I think of it in terms of like for us, I mean that's what we're doing. We are we've got to be clear. We've got to be champion champion be champions of clarity in our culture in every aspect of the church so people know what's going on. And people they it's real clear. of what's happening. One of the things that I think our executive pastor does really well is that anytime we have events, especially men's events, he will stand out front and every guy that walks by, he will help them in whatever way is needed to get them onto these events. And whether that's you got to write it down or you're going to use the app or you need smoke signals, what do you need? How can I help you? How can I make it clear that we'd love to have you there? And so it's almost like you have to do that each and every weekend if you want to kind of help do all that you can do for that culture. Any other thoughts on on this topic? speaker-2: I would think this, like, I think we forget sometimes that it's okay to repeat ourselves over and over and over again. Absolutely. They say vision leaks and so one by the time that you're tired of saying it is about when the time people get sick of doing it. Think about even Peter, the apostle Peter. Second Peter, he said, Hey, I write these things to tell you, not that you don't know the truth, but just to remind you of these things. And I think what ends up happening with culture is if you're not repeating it and continually doing it, remember these are some segments or some big things a pastor should always be thinking about because if you don't think about it, no one will. And it's your job and responsibility to create the culture as a pastor. And on a Sunday, if it's the biggest aspect that people see, what do you want them to see? Habakkuk's ⁓ told the Lord told Habakkuk, write the vision down so people can run with it. So I would just encourage you, don't be afraid to repeat it over and over and over again because it actually brings clarity. It brings ⁓ like Josh said, an expectation. ⁓ they're gonna re they're gonna ⁓ repeat the gospels, words that I say, turn your Bibles to. It's like I start my message with that. It shows we're gonna study the Bible and eventually people just assume and get a ⁓ a attitude of this is our culture. We invite people to church. ⁓ we value God's word, we're we're going to give. But you wanna be able to shape that as the leader. So just repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. speaker-0: Good stuff, good stuff. Well, I'm gonna talk through our last segment here. And it deals with a word that can be terrifying. And I know we've all have probably experienced watching this before, but I think we probably have all experienced, perhaps even our own churches, but it's called transitions. And I and I want to title this kind of the hidden leak, where oftentimes we have not the greatest transitions. They can be awkward, the mic doesn't work. There's feedback, or maybe you misspeak, you know, you you're talking, you put the wrong dates, or you know, there's all these little things that go into transitions, announcements, and this person thought communion was gonna be after this song and not here. You got all these little things. And what it does is it's it feels awkward, it feels uncomfortable, it feels unclear. But when you think about transitions and you kind of think about from you know the beginning of service, the welcome into worship, and I'm just kind of generically speaking of a service. And perhaps even into a welcome announcements and prayer into the the the message and then prayer into a response. All those things are designed to kind of be tied together like a train going down the same track. And what we can find is that transitions can either help carry momentum forward when it's all connected together, or it can break it all apart and make it a mess for us. And I think transitions oftentimes, whether we want to believe this or not, I think it really kind of communicates on on where we're at with our leadership. Cause if if if it feels awkward and we know it's awkward and we're not dealing with it, then I think that speaks to us as leaders. And so I think sometimes that's that's more of a of an issue than than preaching. And I know sometimes as pastors and preachers we get so focused on the word, but there's also the transitions. And so people don't always remember the sermons, but I guarantee you they will remember that mic that didn't work. They're gonna remember, you know, the misspeaking of a word or something that felt rushed, or maybe something that wasn't well thought through, especially in the presentation of the gospel. And so I kind of want to talk through this painful thing. And I know that we've all experienced this these transitions in the hidden leak, but can you share a moment? Maybe when a transition either really helped a service or really kind of just derailed it? And I really wanna hear the derailing part because I think that's most what most people most of us want to hear. But we'd love to hear and see if there's any ⁓ any any examples, any stories that you guys have on that. speaker-3: Yeah, I got I got one that comes to mind immediately 'cause it's one of my more embarrassing moments in life. When I was a young worship leader, I'll give you I'll give you what you want, Billy. I'll tell you. speaker-0: Thank you. speaker-3: I was a younger worship leader, I was probably twenty, and ⁓ leading worship at a church on a Sunday morning, and the pulpit was kind of parallel with where the worship leaders stood. And so I'm playing the song and we get to the fourth song. You know, we do four songs and then it's time for the sermon. Start the fourth song and we get to the part where the rest of the band is supposed to and I'm into it, you know, I got my eyes closed, and we get to the part where the band is supposed to kick in and nobody kicks in. But I'm like, all right, so I just keep playing. And ⁓ I look and the pastor's standing there at the pulpit with his like kinda turned towards me like are you gonna finish? And so I I quickly finished the slide. The rest of the band didn't even play 'cause they saw him standing there and ⁓ and afterwards he you know, he told me, Hey, if if you ever see me just come up, go ahead and and stop. But that wasn't even in my brain at all. Like we do four songs and then it's time and and you know, as a an older pastor myself now, I think I can see that that was a communication issue on both sides, right? But yeah, that transition was super awkward. Now for everyone else, they probably don't remember that. But I remember it, right? Like I think about it all the time. Like don't play a song if there's a guy standing at the pulpit, you know. So that's one that comes to mind immediately. speaker-0: Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. And I'm sure people looked at it, especially if they're new, like they felt the tension that the pastor's standing next to you and they're like, I feel this offered them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. speaker-3: Like, are you done? You know speaker-1: I just acknowledge it. If something goes wrong, I think one of the best things I can do is just acknowledge it from the pulpit what just went wrong and make maybe make people feel a little more comfortable or laugh about it or something, if you can. ⁓ 'cause I never want to if anything goes wrong with the sound or the video, I never want to call those guys out and make everybody turn around and look at them and give them dirty looks or anything. I'll just make it my fault somehow and blame it on me and get ⁓ laughing somehow to try to just make people feel a little bit more comfortable with it. But yeah, those things happen. I will say announcements. I I'm old, so I've been doing this my whole life. And I think in the church world we have tried to figure out every possible way to do the announcements in church to where they don't what what we used to say in my Pentecostal church is kill the spirit. You know, that's what we always thought. The announcement was going to kill the spirit. And then I heard a Calvin Chapel pastor say one time, you know what? These announcements are important. These are these are ministries. And he said, These aren't the announcements, these are opportunities. And so my my church is trained now, ⁓ not every Sunday, but from time to time I'll say these are not the announcements, these are, and the crowd will go, Opportunities, because they matter. And sometimes we try to stick the announcements before church or after church when half the crowd doesn't see it. So I think the announcements are actually important. And I don't think it's killing the flow, it's just worship is ministry. The message is ministry, but those announcements are ministry. And so I think they're important and we don't need to just stretch them out for twenty minutes, Daniel. You're absolutely right. But we do need to give the announcements and and then lastly on that, I have chosen some people to give announcements sometimes just because they were in leadership, but they're not good speakers. speaker-0: I was hoping someone was gonna go there. speaker-1: So even someone that's doing announcements needs to be a good pulpit person. Somebody who has a good presentation sty presentation style. Or it's gonna like you say, Billy, it's gonna just crash. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-3: Yeah, David, I was gonna s ⁓ sorry, I was just gonna say I know I don't wanna dominate but this I was just gonna say I think that it's important for pastors to realize that giving announcements well is a skill that you can practice and get better at. Yes. And you know, I try to be funny in my announcements a lot of times and people will say, ⁓ that was so funny that and I say I'm actually not trying to get the laugh. I mean it is fun when people laugh, but I'm trying to be memorable. Like they're not gonna remember that I told them this thing's happening this day, but they're gonna remember that I made a joke about it. So like we're doing a men's event this week and last time we did one, a bonfire, all the men made fun of the fire being very small. That that's not a bonfire. So I've been doing this bit every week talking about, you know, we're gonna have the biggest fire you ever saw, you know. So it's just keeping them, you know, thinking about it. But it's something you can get better at and train. speaker-2: Yeah, actually I'm I'm training a guy right now, a church planning resident at our church. He's done the announcements twice. And I'm like, all right, come to the backstage, practice. Like he literally practices all it out for me. I I time him, cue it up. Hey, this is how you can get better. This is this, whatever. And I I just tell the guys that do our announcements, preach the announcements. Like share vision and stories rather than just facts. You have the slide back there. So what is the key story you're gonna share? How are people gonna remember this? And just make it, like you said, memorable, fun. What is your time frame? If you have five, ten minutes for announcements, great. If you have 30 seconds, what does that look like? So making sure we're strategic in that, but also training up communicators because next time he's gonna be able to ⁓ lead us in communion. And then the next month he's gonna preach a message. And so I'm just trying to develop his casting vision, developing skills in those things. One thing I'll say about announcements is this. We gotta we gotta enjoy prayer. I know w prayer is not just a transition, but when we talk about like transitions, announcements is one thing, but you know we've been doing something great at our churches. We open up our service with just a welcome and just pray. And it's sort of like getting people's attention. We don't want just prayer to be a transition, but when we do have a transition, to have different people come up to actually pray for needs. We had certain ministries, so we're launching a street team. with ⁓ heavy on evangelism and outreach. And we could have done that as just of announcements, but we had someone come up and say, This is starting. Let's just pray as a church body in this moment for this new ministry and let's ask God to save some souls. You know what I mean? So praying, you know, those those ministry opportunities and announcements, I tell my community group leaders during the week, pray for every single announcement you hear because those are real ministries. And what if we cover everything and prayer. So I just think it's really important to make sure that we don't just use prayer for a transition, but in our transitions that we do pray. If that makes sense. speaker-0: Good stuff. And I'll add just one other thought in there, but I know you know, as we've had people come onto our team that do an amazing job at announcements, it's made me had to kind of work on upping my game. And so from the practice, I mean no one's immune from it, all of us have to practice. You know, you might be a great communicator as far as how you communicate truth from God's word, but you may be terrible at announcements. And so I would say whether you know, whatever you're doing, whether it's announcements, communion, prayer. or your message, I mean, to to kind of work through that, time yourself, practice that a little bit, kind of hear yourself and think through that. I know that's really kind of helped me over the years. And I think as you're, you know, as God continues to bless, you know, your your church and your expression of the church, I mean, these are all, you know, important things. Announcements and these awkward transitions and, you know, all the things that we've kind of talked about. are important things to be kind of looking at. And so when you kind of look again at the three areas that we looked at today, the practical things, and there's more than just these three, but this is just enough to get the conversation started, perhaps, you know, with with our staffs and maybe with our teams. Again, the first one we looked at was just really why do Sundays, you know, why Sundays tell the truth and really what's happening and what people see, you know, it really kind of shows a lot about your church, whether you realize it or not. And we kind of talk through clarity again, making sure people know what's happening and maybe the why behind that. ⁓ and then even down to the real practical stuff about transitions. And so it's not about perfection. So the heart behind this conversation isn't about making things perfect, isn't about making it overly produced. That's not the heart there, but it's just really being intentional about stewarding. I mean, these people have come into your church. God has brought people into our churches for a time, ⁓ and he's brought them there, and so we shouldn't use that time unwisely. And so this is really all about kind of stewarding the time, the space. And the people that God has entrusted us to. And so I would say some practical steps for some of us this week is maybe think about attending your own service as a guest. If next time you have a guest speaker lined up after you give them instructions on what you want them to do and kind of what you know the expectation is for the message, and don't have them do announcements, but maybe just attend your own church as as a guest and notice what's clear, confusing, what doesn't make sense. ⁓ because as a leader, you have obviously some saying that you're directing at. Another area I think that we can kind of think about this week is, you know, what is one area for improvement when it deals with a transition? What what kind of feels awkward? Have there been awkward moments? And maybe, maybe someone's just in a role where they're handling transitions and they're not a good fit for that. Well, these are things you're gonna have to wrestle with. And and I know as pastors, we can oftentimes be people pleasers, but we have to think about the greater good of who God is sending to the church. And so again, it's just Something we're gonna look at. And then finally, maybe kind of clarity, clarifying one key moment, whether it's announcements, worship, next step, and make sure they're fully understandable by a new guest. And so I would say take some time this week to reflect and pray on some of the things we talked about maybe this week. ⁓ and these aren't just operational tweaks. We're not thinking of it as an organization, but really they're acts of love for the people that God is sending and bringing to your church. And so next time we get together, we're gonna be looking at discipleship pathways, but I think between now and then we've got a lot for all of us can to consider as it think as we think about our Sunday. So I'm going to thank our guests for being here today. And we hope that you enjoy some great conversation on this topic. All right, fellas, I'm going to stop it.