Going From Megachurch To Microchurch

SPEAKERS: Lance Ford, Rob Wegner, Julie Roys

Note: This is a rough transcript and may contain some misspellings.

Rob Wegner: They’re coached, the leaders are convened on a regular basis so that they’re held accountable and they’re supported and it’s actually a very small span of care. So folks worry about in a decentralized network, ’cause there’re gonna be a bunch of heresy or a bunch of wolves coming in to get the sheep.

And it’s actually I think we have better oversight. In our decentralized network then in most mega churches, and I can speak from experience ’cause I was a pastor in a mega church for 20 something years and now I’ve been a leader in a decentralized network for six. And I’m telling you, we have really meaningful support, accountability, and oversight.

Because it’s actually a family of families.

Lance Ford: Today I am with my good friend, longtime friend, Rob Wegner. Rob and I have written together. We work together. We continue to collaborate together. And Rob, I feel like that Rob has one of the most unique stories going today because Rob, you were heavily involved for years as the founder of one of the largest mega churches in the country.

Then you actually were one of the leading teaching pastors at another. Large mega church in the Kansas City area, but over the last few years, a lot of people are learning of you through your work with the micro church movement and particularly the Kansas City Underground. Now, I know you love the church.

You love the church, whether it’s mega, whether it’s micro. Either way, is that true that you’ve not abandoned? The mega church as you’ve moved over to the micro church. You just love the church. I know that from knowing your heart.

Rob: Yeah. Thanks brother. I do love the church. I do believe that God’s spirit enlivens and empowers all forms of the church.

I think all forms of the church can be healthy and all forms of the church could be sick. I think I also think that personally, I’ve. Have a set of convictions that this smaller, simpler expression of the church is a better environment for disciple making. I think it’s better in terms of incarnation mission.

I think there’s a certain, fragility to the large predominant model. It looks big and strong, but I, and I’m sure we’ll get into all of that. But I also know that God is calling people and assigning people to all forms of the church. And he’s the head of the church, right? My man, I know a guy wrote a book called The Atlas Factor.

It’s all about that. And yeah. Who am I to question the assignments that are being given?

Lance: Yeah. One of the things I like to say is that. The real issue is not the box. It’s not whether it’s a big box or it’s a small box. The issue is what’s going on inside the box. And really just as importantly, what’s happening outside the box.

Are the people being formed as disciples of Jesus? Are they being sent out as missionaries in the places they live, work and play? And we both know that depending on the system, depending on the leadership, that’s it. That can go or not. In either a mega box or a micro box.

Rob: Absolutely, brother. It’s really about the operating system underneath and less about the surface size.

And that is ultimately I think what, when we stand for Jesus and giving an account for, that’s what’s gonna get tested for wood, hay, stubble, or gold.

Lance: Yeah. Amen. I, we are going to dive into kind of some of the pros and the cons of each model. But I think that we would agree that over the years, the predominant model that’s been presented before, church planters.

To aspire to has been more this attractional. Big model. And that’s where most denominations in most groups, most church planting groups have really presented as this is the goal to attain, this is what you should be shooting for. And if those things do go off the rails, because of the leadership systems that so often are a Petri dish for abuse and heavy hierarchy.

Then you really do see a lot of the problems that we see today. What would you say, Rob what did the culture of leadership look like in the mega context as far as the aspects of it that you would say are dangerous and can really contribute? To the darker side in people and cultivating that and developing that.

What, what did that culture of leadership look like in that context?

Rob: First of all, Granger Community Church, Michelle and I weren’t the founders, mark and Sheila Beeson were. So I just wanted to correct that. They did invite us in. At one point it was Mark and Sheila, Beeson and Michelle and I were like the staff in terms of pastoral staff.

And there was a relaunch. ’cause shortly after we joined the team, there was one other. Couple, but there was a church split and so it happened actually the week that Michelle and I got married. So it was great timing. That was awesome. Wait

Lance: a way to kick everything off.

Rob: And they were both in our wedding too, so that was awesome.

But anyhow, like I, I think of Mark Beason and he was an incredible servant leader. Like he used to lead this. What was called Camp Adventure, and he was like the middle school camp director. And man, he’d mop the floors, every night. He’d lay hands in every single cabin and pray for every single kid.

And there was times like when I went to, I was training church planners, like in Sudan, and he went over to my house and he’d mow my lawn. You know what I’m saying? And there’s a megachurch pastor there, you know what I’m saying? And, but I would, back to your question there was a system that began to emerge, like the first 10 years.

We didn’t own a building. And we rent, we met in 17 different rented facilities over the years. So created like a decentralized vibe. And it also made it clear, it’s like the church is the people not a building. ’cause we’re in a movie theater on Sunday and then we’re meeting at the elementary school on Saturday night and then any kind of groups is gonna be in someone’s home or it’s gonna be and that was really special.

Being a portable. Mobile, nomadic church. It does create a sense of like movement. And it does, and we were so entrepreneurial and apostolic and we were weird. This was back in the early days where churches like Willow Creek were restoring this sort of evangelistic function back to the local church.

And God’s spirit was doing something man, like we were. We were reaching people that were so far from God. I’d never been in a local church that had so many freshly redeemed people. I was like, this is nuts, man. It felt like a miracle in a cornfield, we’re in Indiana.

Laughter: Yeah.

Rob: And it, and we just kept baptizing more genuinely lost people every year.

And then 10 years in, we were about a church of 2000. And I was like, this is nuts. It wasn’t like cheap shift like we’re taking because the Christians thought our church was weird or wrong ’cause of what we were doing, ’cause we were in attractional church, we’d play secular music on the weekend, and and we’re like Paul was quoting, secular poets on Mars Hill.

So there, the whole nine yards. But here’s, I’m getting there to your question now. But then when we built the building, it went, we grew like a thousand more people in three months.

Laughter: Wow.

Rob: And then when we had this stage and screens and the lights and it got really heady ’cause it was like, wow, 3000 and 4,000 and 5,000 it became more and more seductive and it started to become almost like a celebrity culture.

And we, and that’s when Outreach started. All the lists, like fastest growing, most influential, and we were on all of them when they started the list. And and all of a sudden all these churches are reaching out and going, what are you guys doing? And who are you? How’d you do it? How’d you do? What’s

Lance: the secret sauce?

Rob: Yeah. And it did change our culture. And it wasn’t overnight. It was gradual. And I do think it created not intentionally, a hidden hierarchy. And there’s something deep in human heart that wants a king, that wants a shaman, that wants a mediator between us and God and.

And even if you’re doing all that you can to resist that when you create that form of church where the platform is so central. And that’s what we did. It was like we’re growing so fast now we, everything became very programmatic and very centralized. And it slowly began to create I think this gap where a few were elevated and and became in essence of special class, and even in those that were in there, some of them did, even if you didn’t wanna be, you were because of the nature of the system.

Lance: Rob, when did you begin sensing that something was off? And not just at that particular church, but I mean you were working with ’cause I know when you and I first met probably, I don’t know, 16, 18 years ago you were working a lot. You were called upon a lot to work with other churches that were of that same size or spectrum. And so I’m, I don’t want to just lay it on. On your particular church expression there at Granger, but when did you start seeing something, ah, something’s off in this prevailing model of church and the leadership systems that are driving it?

Rob: I think for me there was a number of different factors that began to converge.

One of ’em was my role shifted. I. Where I was, a teaching pastor. So I was teaching on the weekends probably a third to half of the time, something like that. And then I began increasingly giving my time to local and global mission. So locally we were investing most of our energy into one particular at risk neighborhood, and it was this blending of community development, grassroots disciple making, eventually threw.

Grassroots development over time became a community center. That was everything from afterschool tutoring, GED, job placement with really like an indigenously led simple expression of the church at the heart of it. And then internationally because of a mentor who is director of church planning for this large organization, he got us connected with this.

New apostolic team is forming of indigenous leaders that eventually over a decade became a legitimate disciple making movement. Like a quarter million new disciples 2000 new expressions of the church. But they were micro churches and walking with them and some really deep exposure. It wasn’t like, oh, we’d stop by once a year.

It was a very dynamic, transformational partnership. Some years I would. Stay at a month at a time or be there two or three months a year. It was like walking around the pages of the New Testament and what happened was, seeing the quality of disciple making that was happening in India were ordinary people, like all the church planners were basically butchers and bakers and candlestick makers.

It’s here’s a stay-at-home mom. Here’s a college professor. Here’s a day labor who’s illiterate, but now he’s leading a network of five micro churches. See what I’m saying? Yeah. And there’s this one woman in particular named Martha that Michelle and I fell in love with and we watched over about a year and a half or so where she through just.

Ordinary disciple making. God used her to spark a disciple, little disciple making movement. It became a network of three churches among the prostitutes in the town that she lived. And then they started like a seamstress business to help them get out of that industry. And it was like breathtakingly beautiful.

So she’s a stay at home mom, but now she’s like a network leader of this new network of churches that owns a business, and there was this one trip where we’d come back from spending time with her. I got up that weekend to teach and we were doing a series on volunteerism. And I even remember the series, it was called Stomp, remember That?

Stop stuff. And so I’m getting up and I’m preaching and I’m trying to get people to volunteer an hour or two a month and talking about how important it is to volunteer and stomp like find your stomp, and I finished preaching the first service and I went backstage and I just wept. ’cause I realized our mobilization pathway here is like getting a group.

Or volunteer a few hours a month. And I realized if Martha was in my church here, she would end up doing this. She would never become a leader of a network of micro churches.

And I was like, Lord, I didn’t mean for this to happen. Like I really want these people to become everything you want them to be.

But I inherited this system. I’ve not questioned it enough. I’m accidentally domesticating your people.

Lance: It had to have in that moment, because you’d seen the distinction, you’d seen the differences it had to feel so placated and forced and plastic. This trying to recruit volunteers versus just the beauty of this organic gifting that rose up because she was free to, to express these gifts.

Rob: Yeah, to basically discover her calling and then building her capacity as a disciple maker. And then to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Not to plug into a program that someone’s created, but to actually live into her personal calling as a disciple maker. That’s what, basically started for me what’s been now like a 20 year journey of going, that’s what we need to do everywhere.

That’s actually what the whole, that’s what the scripture shows us. It’s like it’s the birthright of every child of God to be a missionary disciple maker, not to be a volunteer in a program. And not that I’m against programs or volunteerism but the problem is when we design our systems for that to be the end zone.

Then we actually are domesticating god’s people. And that is the model that often happens. If that is in, if that’s a part of a larger ecosystem, it’s okay. But if that becomes the end zone, which is often what happens, then it’s not okay. We need to repent of that and go, God, sorry for domesticating your people.

And so it began this journey and what was wonderful, and this is true about a lot of attractional churches, they’re very entrepreneurial. They’re very open to change, right? So at Granger, I had freedom to go, Hey, I wanna run a bunch of experiments. I want to create another pathway, and I got permission to do that.

I got support to do that. So we started to create kind of a parallel pathway to go, Hey, how does, how do we do this in America? How do we help people become Martha? Basically to develop this capacity and these skills, and to pursue their personal calling and to do that through disciple making. To see what God does,

Lance: so this had to be affecting, it was not only your senses that were being affected did it start changing your. Theology or Totally, absolutely. Your ecclesiology. Which for those we’re not trying to drop $10 words here, but ecclesiology just means your ideology of the church, how the church should function and work and be structured.

So it had to affect that too. It probably dove you deep into some study and some soul searching.

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. For example, suddenly you start realizing, now, wait a second, like this. Suddenly you realize this form of the church that I’m leading, it’s not unbiblical, but it’s extra biblical.

And this form of the church that I’m now experiencing in India, this is actually much closer to what we’re reading about New Testament than what I’m doing. It’s much more apples to apples. And let’s just be honest about it. If anyone’s living closer to the original design, it’s certainly not us, it’s them.

And so let’s examine okay, what now I’m getting a chance to experience a different form of ecclesiology. And so then you start looking at the Bible and going, oh, you know what? After Acts chapter eight. In the New Testament church is actually operating almost exclusively as a decentralized network of what we call micro churches.

Like they’re not gathering like we gather, there’s no one like standing up in front and lecturing people for an hour every week with a band playing. You start deconstructing all of that and realizing, no, these are house to house meetings. And then you start actually doing the study with people like Rodney Stark and go, okay, these are ocos of about 20 to 50 people.

And then, okay, these networks emerged in cities like Rome and Corinth and Ephesus, and then people like James Dunn. Leading New Testament scholars like, oh, in Acts chapter 16, that’s a network of 26 leaders that are leading five different expressions of the church in Rome. So the church in Rome was a network of what we would now call five micro churches.

And then you start reading the whole New Testament different. It’s oh, these epistles, they actually make most sense for this size of church, if like the one another commands are they best practice in a community of about 20 to 50 or a church of 7,000 that gathers for a couple hours on the weekend.

You see what I mean?

Lance: Yeah. It’s nearly impossible. It’s pretty impossible to even practice ’em in that setting,

Rob: right? Like suddenly you’re like, oh, but all these epistles, you can practice these all in a community of 20 to 50 in a way that’s so embodied and so meaningful.

Like the only instructions we get, for example, for gathered worship are in what, one Corinthians 14. And you start to realize if you try to do that with a group any bigger than 20 to 50, it’d be a circus. And most churches just ignore that chapter. It’s we’re not gonna do that. Why?

Because you can’t do it with a group bigger than 20 to 50. Yeah. So we just do, so we just ignore that chapter. Pretend it’s not in the Bible.

So we start reading the Bible selectively. We start actually laying on top of the Bible, our extra biblical definition of the church. Like I hear pastors all the time say, Hey we’re doing what they did in the book of Acts.

There’s the temple gatherings, and then we meet house to house, and that’s our weekend services and that’s our small groups. And it’s no, come on man. That’s not true. What was happening in the temple courts is nothing like what we do in our weekend services and what they’re doing in house to house is nothing like we do in our small groups.

And we, it’s not really, that’s not apples to apples.

Laughter: So

Rob: that’s the stuff that started to happen to me. It was like, whoa, I’m suddenly reading the Bible. And I think a much more honest way. And then it started messing with my mind as a missionary. I began to realize, for example I. I think my church is my church, first of all.

My church is growing. First of all, there’s only one church in, I was in, the South Bend region. There’s only one church there. It’s not my church. There’s only one church. I had to stop thinking about it like my church and that church and this church.

Laughter: Yeah.

Rob: Like the church in the Bible, it talks about like city identity, right?

So I had to start repenting of that and going, I’ve been thinking about my brand. I. Grainger Community Church and growing our weekends, and I realized Grainger Community Church could be growing, but we actually could be losing in our city. The lostness is growing in our city. Even though we have more people coming in our weekends and we feel like we’re winning, but actually the city church is losing, but I don’t care because it looks like our brand is winning.

I had to repent and go, I gotta start looking to work with anybody, any church leader in my city. So then you start thinking about the churches, the network, and the city. Yeah. This is all the stuff that started happening to me. It’s whoa, this changes everything. Like I cannot think congregationally anymore.

I had to start thinking about the church and the city and the churches and network and then, and you see how it has this cascading effect and suddenly what it means to be a church leader changes Totally.

Lance: Completely. It really changes the role of what a pastor is, what a church leader is, because you are thinking outside of your box.

And that’s the issue here, right? So it’s you’re thinking beyond yourself, which totally, and you and I have talked a lot about this because we’ve written about it and we’ve written about it together. Over the last few years we’ve heard of actual Oh, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen non-competes.

Not only just NDAs, but we’ve seen non-competes come into where I had to sign one.

Rob: Yeah. When I resigned from Granger, I had to sign one. I had to promise I wouldn’t start a new church in a certain region for a certain number of years, which, which

Lance: just is it is literally confessing by that organization to say we think we’re it.

And we’re really not thinking our paradigm is not that we’re part of the larger body, that we are just a group within the larger big C church that Jesus is planting in our city. That’s a diabolical confession to to tell someone We want you to sign a non-compete, and then they don’t even realize what they’re saying.

Rob: It is revealing and. It, we have to make this shift from I’m the pastor of, the first church of Shawnee to I’m a pastor in the Church of Shawnee.

Laughter: Yeah.

Rob: And ask ourselves what would it take to fill this entire city with the good news of Jesus?

How do we collaborate as the body?

So that every single man, woman, boy, and girl, could have repeated opportunities to see, hear, experience, and respond to the good news of Jesus.

Lance: And I want folks to really camp on the beauty of that thought. What would it take for our city to be filled with the beauty and the goodness and the kindness and the grace of Jesus Christ?

The first answer to that question is we certainly can’t do it by ourselves. We can’t do it alone.

Rob: That’s what eventually led to the, Kansas City underground.

Lance: That, that’s where I want to go. Perfect. Perfect segue. So tell us about the birth of the Kansas City Underground. What is it and really how did it come to be?

Rob: We really launched as a mission agency. We tell people we’re not a church plant. We’re a mission agency that exists to fill the city with the beauty, justice, the good news of Jesus. Our mission is to see a disciple maker in every street in a micro church, in every network of relationships so that everyone can experience gospel flourishing in every place in our city.

And for us, that’s all comes out of Ephesians chapter one, that Jesus is feeling everything in every way. So he is already at work everywhere in our city. We don’t have to bring Jesus anywhere. He’s the one that’s initiating the kingdom of God. He’s already at work.

Lance: So pause right there because and this is just a little this is a personal bell.

I just always have to ring when it comes this way, you set it up. So you’re saying we don’t expand the kingdom of heaven, we don’t expand the kingdom of God, we don’t build the kingdom of God.

Rob: We get to embody it. We get to proclaim it. We get to witness to it, receive it. Suffer for it. Yeah.

Embody it and participate in it.

And seek it. Yeah. And manifest it. And ’cause it says there Jesus is feeling everything in every way, but then it calls the church, we are the fullness of him. Which is crazy. I can never get over that. It’s have you seen the church? Do we look like the fullness of Jesus to you?

We’re

Laughter: full

Rob: of something.

Laughter: Exactly.

Rob: But it’s the way the Lord looks at us, man. He just believes him, and in other words, we get to be a gospel presence. It’s like we get to be this loving, reconciling, joyful presence and like our micro church is in our neighborhood. We really are now this like loving, joyful, reconciling presence.

It’s really changed the culture of our neighborhood. And then that becomes a gospel demonstration,

Lance: I gotta say. ’cause I’ve visited you and Michelle a lot. I’ve practically made your basement my second home. That’s true. And I, people cannot grasp what I’m about to say, but there, this has happened many times.

You and I will, maybe hop in your car to go get some great Kansas City barbecue or something. And it sometimes it’s difficult to get outta your neighborhood. I’m like, we got a reservation. We, I don’t wanna miss Q 39. Because people are out raking their leaves or they’re mowing their yard or whatever.

And so many of these people in your neighborhood are part of your micro church community, and they wave or they gotta stop, or they stop the car or they want to chat. How are you doing? How’s this going? How’s that going? It’s a phenomena. It is very. Weird in a beautiful way. It’s beautifully weird.

Rob: It is, man.

We had a young couple that moved in this last summer and they bought their home from a couple that was in our micro church and she was actually baptized in our backyard and they had been in the neighborhood a couple weeks and, and they got to they had a tree fall in their front yard and our micro church was there in 30 minutes.

Like ants had a picnic with chainsaws and we took it down and cleared it out and they were just what? What? And then everyone like made their way spontaneously back to our house for a cookout and swimming in the pool. And I think they were like, what? What is this? And then we had another party that they came to where we were sending the couple, they bought the house from like away and.

We were telling stories for an hour and a half of our life together as a family. And at the end of that party they were like, I was like, what do you guys think? And she was like, we hit the jackpot. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, the love in this neighborhood. And I said, yeah. And she said it again, the love in this neighborhood.

And that’s what Jesus said. They will know. They’ll know by the love. And that’s that gospel. It’s the gospel demonstration and then we get to proclaim the gospel. They’ve been coming to the micro church gatherings now we’re studying the Sermon on the Mount. They’re studying the words of Jesus with us, man, from the jump, like they moved into the neighborhood and a few weeks later they’re studying the words of Jesus with us, and and they’re not yet proclaiming to be followers of Jesus, but they’re being discipled. They moved into the neighborhood and were immediately being discipled, preconversion discipleship, right?

Lance: Preconversion discipleship. So this is what you mean when you use these words of decentralized network.

This is what you’re talking about. So all the resource, all the energy, all the power, all the influence is not concentrated in one location, not concentrated in, in one time slot a week, one event a week. It is dispersed.

Rob: Yeah. We have, so like for us. A micro church is an extended spiritual family.

They’re living in everyday gospel community, so it’s not a meeting. Now, do micro churches have meetings? Oh, yeah. A lot of ’em, but we’re actually a family that’s living together in everyday gospel community. They’re led by ordinary people that become spiritual mothers and fathers through disciple making, and that extended spiritual families under the lordship of Jesus.

And they’re owning the mission of Jesus in a particular place with a particular pocket of people. And it’s very small. Like it’s a very small focus, and in fact, in some ways it’s like the smaller, the better for us. It’s like a couple blocks. That’s what we can handle. Not trying to grow a megachurch here, just trying to do my little part right here.

So we hold this huge vision for the whole city, but then it comes down to everybody finding their little assignment, like the place the Lord has sent them. We currently have 107 of these micro churches in our city, and then we have what we call hub teams. And hub teams are other level equippers, and we have 11 hub teams.

So the micro churches are organized into networks, and so there’s 11 hub teams supporting 11 networks that those 107 micro churches are a part of. And those are built around Ephesians four, fivefold. Equipping so that those folks are equipped, they’re coached, the leaders are convened on a regular basis so that they’re held accountable and they’re supported and it’s actually a very small span of care.

So folks worry about in a decentralized network, ’cause they’re gonna be a bunch of heresy or a bunch of wolves coming in to get the sheep. And it’s actually I think we have better oversight. Our decentralized network than in most mega churches. And I can speak from experience ’cause I was a pastor in a mega church for 20 something years and now I’ve been a leader in a decentralized network for six.

And I’m telling you, we have really meaningful support, accountability, and oversight. ’cause it’s actually a family of families. It, it’s not just some more kind of corporate structure. It’s like we’re plugging people into programs and here’s the curriculum and we check in with you once a quarter.

It’s no, this network of micro churches came out of multi-generational disciple making, and it’s a familial connection. And this network of micro churches, ours is called the Western Edge. It’s like the hub leaders. We have presence and we have influence and. It comes outta relationship and spiritual authority and history and not some title or something, and not an organizational structure and a curriculum.

It’s no, I poured my life into you and we’ve known each other for years and I’ve disciples you, and now you’re leading a family. I’m proud of you. Well done. You’re sitting at my fire on Thursday night and you’re coming to the equipping gathering you, like that.

Lance: Speaking of the structures what is the difference, the biggest difference been for you guys structurally systemically governmentally compared to the prevailing model of leadership, whether it be a ma a mega church or just a.

A normal church system. What’s been the biggest difference in the way that you guys have formed your systems of leading in government?

Rob: Yeah. There, one of the simple ways to describe it is it’s basically circles versus a pyramid. So in the predominant model, there’s typically a few leaders up at the top, and then.

Those two or three kind of, or four or five, whatever, it’s senior staff have, like the next level down. If you’re talking large churches, which is more rare most churches in America are much smaller. They’re 70 to 125 people.

Lance: But you could still have that pyramid system even in a church of.

75 or a hundred. Yeah, that’s true. In fact, a lot, most of ’em probably do, I would say.

Rob: But in a large church, it’s gonna be like there’s an executive team with five or six people, and then there’s gonna be the next layer of staff, like support staff that maybe 30 or 40 people. And then there a lot of times there’s even another layer of staff there.

And then you’ve got your kind of head of your programs that are typically volunteers down to the folks. So there’s that, those layers of hierarchy and command and control. And it’s usually done with a lot of love and benevolence and folks try to lead with a servant heart. So it’s not, in most cases, there’s not people there who are coercive or cruel.

But it is not a culture of equip. Usually it’s not a culture of we’re trying to disciple everyone to get to their maximum influence so we can release them into their personal calling. We want everyone to become a spiritual mother and father. And it’s interesting because I use this analogy a lot and it makes people uncomfortable, but it is, I think, absolutely appropriate.

Like you look at your children and you would never say it to them. My plan for you is that you will live in our house forever and we’re gonna have volunteer programs. You’re gonna volunteer to do the laundry, and you’re gonna volunteer to mow the lawn. And then we’re, I have a little curriculum where we’re gonna meet in the living room and you’re going to discuss the curriculum that I write for you.

You would never do that with your children. You want them to grow up and leave home and learn how to do all these things and have their own family, but that is literally how we treat Christians all the time. I want you to be in this weird, codependent relationship with me where you need to have me hand you all this stuff like you’re a child the rest of your life that’s messed up.

Like you want them to become spiritual mothers and fathers where they know how to do all these things for themselves and to actually lead their own spiritual family. I’m telling you,

Lance: that should be normative

Rob: normal,

Lance: right?

Rob: 90 something percent of the churches aren’t organized to help people do that. So what we’re trying to do is actually organize. So that is normal, and I can see that is how we’re organized. So we’re organized so that everything we do is to equip ordinary people to become disciple makers. They walk what we call the missionary pathway, which starts with extraordinary prayer and fasting.

Then it’s incarnation mission, live as a missionary in the context plant the gospel. And this is all about disciple making. Church emerges, right? Multiplication. So then eventually you have a new expression of the church. And then as churches begin to multiply, there’s a network of churches and then folks can kinda walk the pathway towards eldership being a spiritual mother and father.

And we have different layers of equipping. So it creates a process where you can go from disciple maker, a leveling up to becoming a micro church leader, which is the equivalent of being a spiritual parent. And then there’s leadership over a network of micro churches, which is eldership or being on a hub team.

Lance: And when you talk about eldership, Rob, talk talk just a little bit about here because in a lot of. Churches. The elders are the people that make all the decisions. They’re, and in fact, particularly even in the mega world, you’re gonna find that most of those elders are probably successful businessmen, maybe business owners bankers.

That’s usually the ilk that they look for. I beyond suspect, lemme maybe not play games here ’cause I know the Kansas City underground pretty well, and I know a lot of your folks, that’s not what you’re talking about when you’re talking about elders. Correct.

Rob: No. For us it is we would use the phrase that, elders emerge.

Elders for us is something, we think about how Paul did it. It was on his second missionary journey that he came back and that was when they laid hands on people and said, here are elders. In other words, they were recognizing a life that was already embodied. They were already elding, it was, that’s a wimber

Lance: there.

Rob: Yeah, exactly. And that’s what we do. Like the, a biblical definition of an elder is, they’re guardians. They’re protectors of the flock, their caretakers, they know the word of God. They can apply it with discernment and grace. They’re wise guides. So they’re seasoned disciples.

They have depth, they can steward doctrine. They’re influencers by example. They know how to restore the weary. They can guide confused people. They can call away back. They know how to persuade people, not cool people. And they’re appointed, not elected. They’re not chosen by some majority vote.

They’re recognized by the fruit as evident in their lives. They’re firm people laying out of hands. So it’s not some political appointment based off of like how much money they gave or marketplace success. It’s spirit led recognition and maturity, integrity, faithfulness, godly character ability to rightly handle the word.

And in our setting it would be folks that have done multi-generational disciple making. Now a church has emerged because of their disciple making capability, and then among a new network of micro churches, it becomes apparent that now they’re influencing and equipping this network of micro churches in a region.

Like right now we’re training three new hub teams, and one of them is down in Gardner. You’re familiar with Gardner South the city?

And there’s these three or four couples down there. That have started like pulling the disciple makers and the micro church leaders together in their home, and they’re praying for them and encouraging them and bringing them together for meals.

It’s it’s pretty easy to figure out who the elders are over there. You know what I’m saying? It really

Isn’t it? It’s like they’ve owned it. They’re loving these people and praying for them and training them. So what we do then is we reach out to them and go, Hey, we’d like to train you. So right now they’re currently in a four month additional training that we do called The Hub Development, and then we get to step in closer.

We’re meeting with them weekly, we’re pouring into their lives. And then we also have this other nine month training that’s called Elders Made. So it’s, there’s four months here, there’s nine months here. It’s not like we’re serious. You know us, man. We’re serious about training. No, it’s hundred percent.

Laughter: Yeah.

Rob: It’s not oh, we’ll meet with you two hours on Sunday. It’s no, man. We’re gonna pour into you. And so we’ve got, for these three new teams, when they finish the hub development on June the first, we’re gonna have a gathering at Shawnee Mission Park, and we invite all the other hub leaders.

We’ll get together and we’re gonna have a commissioning, and we’ll lay hands on that. Then guess what? We’ll eat barbecue. ’cause it’s Kansas City.

Lance: Of course you’ll eat

Rob: barbecue. We

Lance: know you’ll eat barbecue.

Rob: So there’s that public, then affirmation, so that’s what it looks like in Kansas City and to me that feels a lot like what we read in the New Testament.

And I grew up in a church where it’s man, I never saw the elders. I’m not sure what they did. I’m sure they met meetings and they’re great people and I never got discipled. One that I, I don’t know if anyone ever did. I think they made a lot of business decisions. And I think that’s true in a lot of churches, unfortunately.

I think we have elders who’ve never discipled anybody.

Lance: Yeah. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. I’ve seen that. Rob, what would you say as far as lessons that you’ve learned even wounds that. Have been healed. What has God taught you about yourself as a leader, as a pastor in this journey, in this transition from really mega to micro,

Rob: So much?

One, I would say it’s just how incredibly weak I am. I think for me there was a lot of untended wounds. Scars, a lot of the things that I was so very good at that made me successful in ministry came out of wounds from my early years and Jesus is so kind. He redeems all things and he used that for good.

I had to get to a place where that what used to be successful became like dust in my mouth and had to be frustrated and become very empty. And that led to very deep depression for me. And then I had to go back, I had to go down into the basement of my soul and. Face the monsters that were down there and the idolatry that was down there.

And I would say that was, that’s the most important work. It’s like the work inside the work to face my false self and realize Jesus loves me so much that he loves even my imposter.

Accepts me. That’s and that, it was okay, I could stop performing, I could stop the coping skills and to walk back through all those memories and meet him there and find healing.

And it’s still like an ongoing process of getting like my heart back, getting my soul back renewing my mind and really becoming a free man so that it’s like I don’t need ministry. I don’t need. To preach, I don’t need to lead. ‘

Lance: cause that can be such a codependent relationship, can it? Between the celebrity, solo heroic leader and the congregation.

And so letting go of that addiction. And a lot of times I’m finding that a lot of leaders, a lot of pastors, they’re getting worn out from it, but they’re addicted to it.

Rob: Oh, and I am an addict to the work. I’ll always be an addict, but I’m in recovery. And by God’s grace I’m sober.

I’m sober, man.

Lance: We, it would be good for pastors to have a group where we just all get together and say, hello, my name’s Lance. I’m a, I’m addicted to the adrenaline of ministry, which is one of the things that, that Eugene Peterson said many times. He said I had to learn not to lead through adrenaline.

What would you say to a. To a pastor right now that’s feeling burnt out. Maybe even a staff member could even, church folks, but someone that would say, Hey my livelihood. Is dependent upon this position, and even I have to admit that a lot of my self-worth is tied up to it. What would you say about someone that’s there, but they’re afraid to pivot?

They’re afraid to, make that change?

Rob: Yeah. First of all, it’s I feel you. I’m with you. I’ve been there. I remember when I was in my really dark time, Granger was a town of 46,000 people. I. And we had 7,000 people coming on the weekend, so it felt like there’s nowhere I could go to hide.

Yeah. And when I felt so empty and so depressed, I’d go to this little movie theater and now it was Michigan and go sit in the back row just to try to be alone. Sometimes it’s funny. Or go out in the woods. Those were the two places I felt like I could be alone. So I just wanna say I understand, and I remember being at this point of going, what else would I do?

This is all I’ve done since I was 21. I don’t know how to do anything else. But I felt so empty and I remember even thinking at some points, I’m like, I wondered even if I believed in God anymore. I’m like, and I think they take your pastor card if you don’t believe in God. I

Laughter: think.

Rob: Yeah. So I’m just, and I’m talking about the darkest moments, so I just share that Sure.

In case someone’s sitting there going, man. So I share that to go, God’s got you. Jesus is with you. And I would actually strongly encourage you to do a couple things. One is make space for silence and solitude in your life. My prayer life for a very long time when I was in my dark, darkest time was actually just walking in the woods with Jesus.

A lot of times there weren’t any words even I didn’t even know what to say and I didn’t realize it, but that was like chemotherapy. Like the Lord was working in the walking and there’s gonna be something that wants to avoid the science and the solitude. But I would encourage you to create time.

To be with him and alone with him in the science and the solitude and enough of it. I had a, I did this like three day silent retreat at a monastery, and the first, like couple days were miserable. I like hated it. I wanted to turn on my phone and watch movies or something, but I always had enough discipline to hold out and had a real breakthrough day three, and I realized like.

Sometimes it takes a certain amount of silence and solitude actually to get a break. So I just wanna encourage you to do that. Secondly, ask for some help find a safe person like there’s a ministry called Tin Man Ministries.

Laughter: Yeah.

Rob: I would encourage you to reach out to them. They’ve been super helpful to me.

Another find a spiritual director. Get someone outside of your world that can help you get your heart and soul back. Start with those two things and don’t make any rush decisions right now. Be kind to yourself. Be patient. So those are two things I’d just recommend right now to someone who’s sitting in that spot.

Lance: Great. Hey brother, you’re my dear friend, my dear brother. I love you, brother. I appreciate getting to visit with you here today. And I. We’re gonna do it again because we ba we barely scratched the surface we’ll have more to come, so appreciate it, Rob. Thanks

Rob: brother. It was so much fun.

Julie Roys: Thanks so much for listening. Listening to the Roy’s report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. And just a quick reminder that we are listeners supported, meaning we don’t have advertisers or major grants. We have you. So if you believe in what we’re doing, would you please consider donating to the Roys report?

To do just go to Julie Roys, spelled ROYs.com/donate. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you won’t miss any of these episodes. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review, and then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content.

Again, thanks. So much for joining us today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged.