The Importance of Church Revitalization w/ Phil Kniesel

Hey guys, Frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader, excited about today's episode talking with a new friend all the way from Canada during the hockey playoffs. Phil Kniesel, that I got right.

Yeah, you did it. Good job. I mean, that's a. That's a tough one to nail, yeah there you go and hockey playoffs. Man, we're up here in Edmonton and our Oilers are going, so we're pretty stoked.

What? What round are we in right now?

Round one, round one. Okay, yeah, we're winning 3-2 and round one against LA.

So I don't even see. I mean I like I enjoy hockey. I was telling you in the pre-show I played a bunch of like video game hockey as a kid yeah but I've never played real hockey. I'm actually shocked that, like LA has a hockey team.

Yeah, and they're doing pretty good bro. Yeah, that's right, old time right there, that's right.

so do you? Do you ever go to any games live?

Oh yeah quite a bit actually, yeah, we, we enjoy it all the time. We have a church of our sides. You got a lot of ticket holders at our season ticket holders and you want to come with me or you want to take your kids, or we just get them on our own as well and we'll go.

We love going. That's awesome, that's so fun. I've taken my boys to one Laker game like basketball, yeah, and just the live experience, you know, and it's so cool. It's so cool and they loved it. And hockey I've only been to like like minor league games or whatever the you know, not not pro, but like the league down, and it's super fun. I could imagine pro-level being that much more intense, you know.

Yeah, and then you, if you can get the opportunity to go to a playoff game, right like those, are even more intense.

Yeah, yeah, I mean fun yeah, yeah, the kids would love it because you know they're out there. I mean they kind of when the one we went to they the minor league team. There's a stadium where my in-laws live in Palm Springs. Okay, like Palm Desert area yeah, they just built a new stadium and so we went to a game out there and like all my kids really wanted to see was like people getting hit into the glass and like fights, like they were stoked. Any any time that happens.

That's funny, well, and it doesn't change, even at the higher level. Everyone just cheers when that goes down.

It's amazing. Well, man, like you lead a pretty awesome church out there in Canada, why don't you tell us a little, just a little bit, of your story, like how do you get into church leadership, how'd you get to the church you're at, like what's the what's the story?

Yeah, you know, been been a pastor for almost 26 years now, which is unbelievable when you think about, well, where's time go. Yeah, but in the context of, you know, just even pastoring here in our city of Edmonton. We moved here 18 years ago. I came to take over. We really had what would be a church within a church, a campus within a church for young adults. We called it the project and it was a young adult ministry to our city where I came over and took lead of that and ran the staff team for that and we would, you know, we would probably have around five to seven hundred young adults every week that would just engage with us and it was an awesome season of just ministry to that age demographic and being in the context of the church and just seeing some of the things that were happening in the church.

I then transitioned to an associate role for a year and then took lead eight years ago of Hope City well, changed the name to Hope City when, when I took lead, but, yeah, just saw some really great things happening and been in this orbit for that long. So when you're, I said to you earlier, like longevity just brings a lot of neat stuff, right. Yeah, like things that you can experience. So some of my board members now are kids that I married and you know so, just seeing that transition, even in the context, yeah, that's cool, it's fun to experience yeah, I love that.

So eight years there, eight years leading as lead pastor, yeah, yeah, so you kind of grew up in ministry there.

It sounds like like I'll just like 18 years, 10 years or so outside of that, and I and my dad's a pastor.

Okay, well, there you go you grew up in ministry period. You got it man um out there as well, in Canada, in.

Canada in Ontario close to. Toronto. Yeah, so he's not pastoring anymore. He's 88, so he's just enjoying the, the retired life right yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Why, why did you change the name?

primarily because we launched campuses, so we were a geographic specific church name, so we were called Millwood's Assembly, and Millwood's is the area that our main campuses in. And then we've subsequently launched two additional campuses in our city in different neighborhoods, and obviously, you can't call yourself the neighborhood that you are in in another neighborhood. Right, right, right, we need a global name.

I guess you could, just to see what would happen.

You know I do anything, you're right, bad, you do anything. But it was counterintuitive for sure. So, yeah, the drive for the name was primarily we're going beyond just our local neighborhood right, right.

Was that something that happened when you came into the lead role eight years ago? Like, yeah, the adding new campuses and all of that. That's what. What's it been like just since you took over the lead role and you changed the name? You added campuses? Sounds like you're growing as we were talking before. You've grown in a pretty cool way. Yeah, what's the eight years been like?

you know what, honestly, man, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, you know like to look back and just say we recognize God builds his church and we do our best to come alongside and help and do whatever it is that we feel called to do and he uses our gifts and the team at hand and all that kind of stuff. But for me, the biggest joy is just seeing Canadians who are far from God make the best decision of their life and say I want to follow Jesus. And in our contacts in Canada, there's not a lot of religious undertones left anymore in our culture. I'll give you an example of that. So let's back up 60-plus years.

In 1960, 60% of people went to church every week. Okay, so that contacts. If you went to school, six out of ten kids would be in church every Sunday. Right, our latest stats, 60 years later, we're talking less than a generation 2% of people go to church. Wow, and that is based on once-a-month attendance.

So you know, just to see the reach of people, because there is a spiritual hunger. You know we've lost in a generation really the dynamics of people going to church and just engaging and seeing the value behind it or even the purpose behind it, right. But then there's still that hunger in people and so being able to engage in that and seeing that and really for many it's hearing about God and Jesus for the first time, especially the younger generations, because they've grown up without any context, without it ever being spoken, right, and so that's been a lot of fun. It's. It's like when the light of the gospel comes on in someone. Right, yeah, like right, oh man, just seeing that we see that with our baptisms and just, you know, younger generation specifically, it's been a lot of fun.

So those eight years, just seeing the growth we've experienced like we've pretty much doubled in size in eight years, and a lot of complexity comes with that too. Right, yeah, you're constantly like, oh man, now we got to go after this. We need a team member to do this. I mean, if they're just, it's a snowball effect, but it's a lot of fun leading. It's a lot of fun just saying, okay, god, you're up to something and we want to steward it rightly, right, and humbly. Yeah, yeah, yeah what?

Um, it's interesting. Right, eight years you guys have doubled. I mean that's a lot of that's a lot of growth. You've added locations. I mean, what are some of the biggest challenges that you've faced along the way?

Team alignment would be big, you know, just keeping everyone aligned, because as you deal with growth, you're like, okay, we need to hire someone for this, bring them on. Okay, let’s, who are we at the core? Let's keep building that. Let's let's hope that translate, translates out to everyone and they understand our vision, our values, our purpose, our mission, all those type of things. So that that is a challenge in rapid growth and also just assimilation with people, because you're constantly getting more people in the church. How are we getting them to a next level, whether it's discipleship, whether it's serving, whether it's just understanding spiritual steps, creating the systems and the structures for that, with the size that you're you're dealing with. So I think those are two macro things that we just Are still dealing with, still figuring out and still working towards. I mean, we have great team, that we're putting things in place that work, but it's always that challenge right, right, right.

It's like dynamic, like it's yeah, this year, maybe next year it looks different because you're bigger right, next year looks different again, kind of thing. Yeah, have you had, you know, I guess maybe not the color-like. What's your experience been With attracting great leaders and young leaders? Yeah, from a comedian perspective.

You know, in our denomination we're the largest church and so it becomes. People want to work here, and I don't say that arrogantly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's natural I get it. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I think I think people, yeah, they see. Yeah, a place, that what I noticed.

Yeah, Frank our vision as a church is to reach 1% of Edmonton. Have them make the best decision of their life and call our church home and you attract some really great leaders. When you have the vision that's tangible and something where they're like man, I want to sink my teeth into that and work towards that. I can give my life to that Right. So we've got some killer leaders that are just like the vision has sold them. When I sit down with them they're like, yeah, man, I can do that, let's do it.

A lot of our staff pastorally. So I mean we, our staff is over 60. We got 24 pastors on staff. I would say 18 of them are 35 and younger. So when you talk about next-gen, you know I'm the old guy on the team and we're building them up, we believe in them, we pour into them. Our, our tribes, bible colleges in town, and so we have an internship program that we do with the Bible college where we're bringing up up-and-coming leaders consistently. So really believe in that, really you know it's our future right and so we need to pour into them and so given them some significant ministry opportunities and then hiring them and saying, okay, we believe in you go do this yeah very important.

Yeah, what was I guess can somewhat related, right, eight years ago or even before that, when you came on staff there, right, you were a young guy once, yeah, and the, the former senior guy, had to believe in you and kind of you raised up at the church and then you went through the kind of succession plan. I mean, what was the, yeah, that succession plan? What was it like taking over the church? Because I mean you, you'd have been what, early, early 40s at that time, yeah, yeah, which in some cases I mean that's young, right, taking over a church and being the lead guy, not everywhere, but in some contexts, you know, like the senior guy kind of holds on for a while, right, and you end up in your fifties taking over the church, right, um, so my former guy his name was Gary him and I have an exceptional relationship, had an exceptional relationship, so we were friends working together.

Yeah, that's awesome. Now, um, he's 71 today, you know. So he's Definitely in a different role in kingdom ministry. Yeah, he hasn't tapped out or done anything, but he left early based on the fact that he saw God's call and said I gotta, I gotta leave now because you're the man for the next season of the church's life, right, and so he was able to recognize that. What was kind of weird was he became my, one of my associate pastors, and so we like literally just flipped, flipped roles.

Yeah, you know, and and so. So everyone's at the table. The former boss is still there, and so there were some intricacies that you'd have to like and nuances. I'd be like man, maybe you can stay out of these meetings for the next three months, and things like that. He was totally cool with that. He got that and about a year into it he's a big L leader and he's like Phil I'm getting bored. And so we just looked at something else Macro wise for our movement, our tribe, that he could do and he's one of our tribe Um leaders now, and so just seeing how God has placed them into that has been really great.

So, seeing the transition I think you know I see it Um a succession plan works or can work, but it really depends on three factors the outgoing pastor, the incoming pastor, and the body of believers or the congregation. And everyone has to kind of play their role in this. And for us you know me being the incoming one and Gary being the outgoing one we just talked about everything and had everything, so we didn't shy away from awkward conversations, and that was so necessary in order for him to understand and me to understand and truthfully, Frank, honestly, like we didn't let egos get in the way, because there's just the person coming in has to be secure to allow the person leaving to still lead some things in that context and all that, and just be okay with it and not think you need to grab everything by the horn right away and just all that kind of stuff the person leaving has to release and go. Okay, they're going to do things differently and I got to be okay with that. So those are just some of my thinking thoughts.

Initially, when you mentioned that, and I mean it also, I think, probably helped that you were there and you were kind of, you know like you led the young adults ministry, and then you were the associate pastor. You had history with the church because you mentioned the church like the actual body of believers has to sort of embrace the new guy as well. Yeah, like in our tribe.

They still vote on one position in this church and that's the lead pastor. Everything else is hired through me and our lead team, and so they had to vote on that. The membership base and I mean, you're right, the 10 years of longevity built the credibility. It was a 99.7 vote, so someday I want to meet those three. That one person or however many people have Come on man what?

They didn't like the glasses. You know, this guy has white glasses.

I'm not sure what's going on. We're done, man.

Oh my gosh, what about like leading through COVID right, that had been middle of the way ish. For you know, four or five years in, you know what's the and you said the church is exploding like it's growing through all of this. So you know, you've been through a season that's pretty challenging, and seem like things are going well.

I think COVID freaked all of us out. I still remember when I filmed the video on a Friday, saying we're shutting church down and no one's coming, and you're like we had just launched Thursday night services and so we had our Thursday night service and there was like a third of the crowd that normally is there, and so I'm like, guys, we got to pull the trigger on this. So the the anxiousness and the oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm doing this was real Right, and I would say, from a leadership perspective, it was a taxing time because everything's new. I mean, we were streaming online, so it's not like we had to get cameras going. We had all that already. So it wasn't like, oh no, what are we going to do? Right, right, right, how do we shift to now pastor our people in the context of not seeing them anymore? What are wins with? So you just have to redefine the goals you're going after as a team and redefine how you're going to reach them and what we're supposed to do now because most of the team is like well, what's my role now?

Now, I do remember pulling the staff together. So one of the things I'm pretty adamant about is the fiscal stewardship of just church Right, and it's one of the things I'm just passionate about and I was able to, prior to COVID, have a great contingency set up, so I have basically have three months of staffing salary put aside. So if you ever hit something, you don't have to be like, okay, 20 people, you're gone tomorrow. Sorry, right, you kind of carry because I take the responsibility. Quite serious is that there's families that are depending on this Right, and so one of the best things I was able to do at the beginning of COVID was sit down with the entire staff and just say here's the deal, guys, all your jobs are safe. Okay, now, if you worked here, it's because we wanted you here. It's like you understand that right now.

You're not going to be on the team if we feel you don't fit. So that's taken care of. So I was like right now I just need you to dream how to reach our people and how to do ministry and not worry about do I have a job next week? Yeah, that's awesome and so that's. That was a real, just kind of like. You know, everyone got to exhale and go okay, now we get to focus on something where we can not worry Am I losing my job Because it was happening to a lot of friends, a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different churches?

Yeah, I was happening everywhere, not just churches, but you know every, every. You're right, it was happening all over the place. No one knew what was going on.

Yeah, totally, that's exactly it, Frank, and so, yeah, that was helpful, I think, for us as a church, and so we were able to focus really on our online presence and reaching people digitally and all the different generations and what we're doing for them and that. And we had some wins and we had a lot of losses and we learned, you know, okay, don't do this ever again, and things that are beneficial and things that were a waste of time. I mean, that's that's all part of experimenting, right, we're throwing mud at the wall and seeing what would stick. What we noticed post-COVID was Wow, there was a bunch of people that actually found us online and now are showing up like and that was a Surprise for a lot of us, right like they're they're in the building now or whatever they're like.

They're coming physically somewhere. Exactly found you online during COVID.

Yeah, and they're just like. You know, we were looking for a church I and we play with a lot of Google analytics in our city that were one of the top churches when you Google, you know. Oh yeah, hey, churches in Edmonton boom. You know how you can do all that and so that's part of our strategy in that. But just Seeing brand new faces, people who are like man, you know, we watched you for six months and like we don't even know church, but we were just kind of experimenting, that's a joy, that's awesome, heck yeah.

Yeah. So you know, we're just living in the season right now of still seeing a lot of these individuals, newer individuals and I'm not gonna lie, people from other churches. It happens right, but that in and of itself I always say, if you're still coming to church, if you're still attending, it's a win for the kingdom. That's what we want, right? We want to have kingdom wins across the board. So that's been kind of a joy to steward and lead in this time.

Yeah, yeah, what do you have? Any, I guess? Additional thought, like what's been the most surprising thing that you've seen, whether it's Just kind of in your growth season, like kind of coming out of cove it, like the growth of the church, like is there anything you're just I don't know just super surprised by or things that are working Well, or things that just didn't work. I was surprised, this one was terrible, or like, wow, I look what. God's doing over here.

I think any next-gen ministry that has focused, you know, intentionality in our culture is winning right now because parents are looking for stuff for their kids to do right and so we have been very intentional about, you know, kids, preteen, junior high, senior high, young adult ministry across the board. Now young adults are young adults, so it's not so much parent-directed but our next-gen ministry really focusing in on that and providing even some midweek opportunities, because I know some Churches just do their Sunday experience. We're pretty big on that. But allowing a midweek option has been something that reaches into our community because parents are always looking for stuff for their kids to do. COVID has made Some people tighter financially and so our programs for the most part have minimal fees or are free right, and Community parents gravitate towards that. So that's been a win. I'd say a surprising thing, Frank, is the people you thought were with you as a church Aren't around anymore.

You're like yeah.

I thought you were like all in and I thought you know and I I'm not judging their relationship with Christ, because that's not mine to Judge, but it's just their commitment to church. I thought maybe there'd be those that you're like, man, I don't see them around anymore. It's surprising.

Right right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean I Bet you that's happened like I feel, like the COVID and everything right, it's just like this big shakeup and lots of different ways. So people, churches coming back and it's weird even talk about I mean we're what? Three years, three years, yeah, and so it it almost seems like now is like churches are mostly back to whatever normal is like. This is just what it is now there's no more Postco is just. This is church life, you know, and it definitely shook things up. Yeah, you know it's anecdotal, but in the people I talked to see, yeah, yeah, that's what happened, yeah, would, it would like for where you live in San Diego kind of the same results you would.

You say, like in church circles, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, just generally speaking. I mean, there's always exceptions, you know. You talk to some churches that exploded. You talked to other churches that are still half of what they were before. You know, like there's all kinds of stories, but, yeah, it definitely seems like it was just a big shakeup. And finding Finding this whole, like you know, church online and church in person and how they blend together and how to do that, well, right, still something churches are trying to figure out, but they know it's important and they want to do it and all of that. But because this people's patterns, you know, people got used to doing a little bit of church online, you know, yeah, and maybe they're not and they don't want to do all of it.

Yeah, what's that? Well, a lot of them loved it. Yeah, you know, there there's, especially if you have options in life. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people who call our church home, who are like well, I'm going to Vegas this weekend, I'll be in Phoenix golfing this weekend, but I'm tracking with you, dude, don't worry. You know what I mean. Yeah, and great, great.

Yeah, it's an interesting world to live in, right, cuz, yeah, you know, like people in seats that's kind of how you did church for a long time and and it's obviously important that you're with Like the body right, that you're physically with people in person somehow right, right, like you can't replace that, but no, you can. At the same time, online Is a blessing in a way for certain things and it does, you know, it just opens things up. So I just think lots of churches are trying to figure out how to do all the things and green, you know.

I, you know what, getting back, if you don't mind, Frank, the question you asked like some surprising things, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just something just came to mind to me and that was so I mentioned earlier we, we did draw online during COVID some people from other churches, different Denominations, mainline, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, one of the things that, and I always asked so, what drew you to us? And this was surprising to me. It's like what, what drew us to you? Is you actually preach the Bible, right? And I was like what else is there? Yeah, yeah, like, cuz that's easy, like we got it right here, you know, yeah, and, and honestly, can I tell you the amount of times that I have heard in our new people, well, you preach the Bible.

Hmm, where we came from, that wasn't happening. Interesting. And I'm like man, I talked to a couple churches in Canada. Here's a couple lead pastor like like, tell us why you're growing. And I'm like, well, god does that. I mean, he's doing his thing. But I think one of them and I said just preach the Bible. Man, it seems like people are hungry for the transformer, transforming word of God right, like truth, you know, like give me, like something concrete.

And just make it relatable. Yeah, it makes sense. Don't make it weird, right.

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally get that. Um, obviously, at Tithely you may not know a lot about what we do, but we do tack for churches. So, like in your universe, like what kind of technology have you seen like spring up that's helping you guys, you know, fulfill the mission?

Yeah, um, well, I mean outside of the whole online reach you're saying yeah anywhere.

I'm just curious. You know this is more. I'm a tech guy, so I'm always curious like what's going on that you're seeing? You know there's streaming and all that kind of stuff, but is there other things that you guys are you know with?

Yeah, I mean there's post-on-demand things that we're providing. There's our whole social media platforms that we're engaging our church with. Yeah, we're seeing, you know that's working for us in small degrees. I mean, I just talked to a guy a couple of weeks ago. We had two policemen get murdered in our city. Actually, wow, pretty tragic yeah. And they were super young guys. One just got married, was expecting a baby, and so our church we want to be for Edmonton we actually did the childcare for all the police force so that they could go to the funerals of these guys, right, and when we reached out to them I'm kind of skewing on this, but I'll get to your question when we reach out to them it was just kind of cool because they said you know what? You're one of the only, you're, in fact, the only church that has called us. And I thought, man, we got to do better. You know churches, let's go.

But where I was going with that whole thing in technology, I had a guy who came in and he was talking to me. He's on the police force and just really, he's a, he's a Muslim and he said I grew up in Iran and I walked into your church today and your God is real, so he just does some of his experience. But he said how I got here was I started following you on social media. Yeah, and I'm like man. Why would you follow a church on social media? How do you even get connected?

Right Like where did they start? Totally. And so you're just like, wow, what a cool story and what a unique story of how God just uses random things that we do, technology-wise wise out there. And here he is saying your God is real and just kind of a new thing, right? Other tech things that we're experimenting with, I mean we do.

You know Yellowknife. Yellowknife is way, way Northern Canada, so it's like you got to fly from Edmonton to get there, okay. And so there's a community there where we just are streaming our sermons to them and just seeing because they don't have a pastor. So we're seeing, just okay, let's bring them lift. And we actually just started that like six weeks ago, and they're loving it because they're a church without a pastor but are able to do that. So that's utilizing technology. And one of my hearts is redeeming spiritual spaces or helping churches, where a lot of times, smaller churches can't find pastors to go to, and so how can we lean in and help as a larger church? And I think you know, in Canada this is a crazy stat. I just read this recently we have about 30,000 churches in Canada and by the year 2030, they're expecting 10,000 to close, so that's a third of our churches in the country in the next. What are we? Seven years, you know that's sad.

But we need the other number. We need the church plant number too, because we know there's plans happening right, huge right. Hopefully, you'll do 20,000 plants and you'll just yeah, there you go, bro.

Just to counter that. That's a good point, Frank, that's good and that's happening right, we're seeing that for sure. But just part of my heart and both of our campuses like right now we're renovating a Anglican church that we bought for one of our campuses and we're going to be there in June, and another one at the other end of the city we it was a dying church and we just reneged that and redeemed the space and I'm like my heart is to redeem the spiritual spaces that once people came into the glory of God, we're going to reach people here and they've died, but I don't want it to turn into condos, right, okay, let's see what we can do. So that's a big heart and a big driver, and so technology helps with that when you can go into different spaces.

So can make that happen. Yeah, that's super cool, though I mean there's a church out here. At a similar conversation with a while back this is closer to COVID, but church closures and they're growing and he's like man we're buying buildings and we're bringing them back to life because we don't want to lose the kingdom ground Right? And I was like that's cool, like that's really cool that you guys, you know that God's using guys to do that and you're able to.

Yeah, yeah, it's a cool. It's. You know what? It's an opportunity. I say especially for us around here, because there's going to be so many churches that are closing and you can't buy them all. You buy the right ones or whatever, but it is a great opportunity to reinvent the church's presence in the communities where they were.

Yeah, so what, just maybe on a closing thread here, what other kind of things do you guys do to connect with the community? Like you said, you want to reach the city and you mentioned the police force and what you were doing there. But, like, what are the things that you what? Like where do you really focus to be like connected to where, like the city knows that you guys are and you're part of, like the fabric?

Yeah, Great question. It's something we're always because every church gravitates inward right?

Like you, just know exactly where right.

And so it's the constant push myself as the leader, lead team, you know our department heads and then we push out. What are we doing? That's bringing us to the community, not always the community to us. So you're right, it's the constant struggle Things that we're experimenting with, and I mean many churches do this.

We have a yearly let's go serve the city and that happens in June, and so we mobilize hundreds of our volunteers and they go out to a bunch of nonprofits in our city and just lean in for the weekend. What can we do? How can we help? How can we serve? So that that's making a dent, that's making a difference. We do a lot of help, like we have a food bank out of our main campus here we provide a lot of like necessities when it comes to groceries and things like that out of all our campuses because people are needing that. So I mean the spiritual is definitely our drive. We want people to know there's no question. We're not just going to not go there, but we also recognize that people need help in so many areas. So we're leading it to that and we do like back-to-school events where we offer like school supplies, backpacks, and things like that. So that's every summer where we launch that and we're seeing post-COVID. It just keeps growing and growing and growing, because the needs are there Right?

And so we're trying to get into the city in different ways, into our communities in different ways. Our main campus has what's called care closet, which would be probably similar to a Salvation Army store, and so it's open for our community but yet everything's free and we really reach a lot of immigrant families with that. So they're moving into the city and they're like they have three kids and they need winter boots, winter jackets, clothing, and all that, and so they just come here and we'll set them up and we'll get you going. So those are some of the things we're targeting doing. Other things are like marriage seminars for broken marriages, finance seminars, like we use the Ramsey stuff that just is very applicable and practical. So that kind of stuff works in just touching people's felt needs right, and so we see that you know, bring lift that way.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's amazing. Well, man, this has been awesome. I don't want to keep you too long, yeah.

I appreciate you reaching out for it I can just get in the noia man Totally.

Before we leave, though, what like a couple of quick, kind of rapid-fire questions what's a book that you've read, or you can throw out a couple, but you know and it can be on anything, so anything that you've read where you're just like man, every, every church leader out there has got to read this one.

Hmm, I'm a little biased on this one. There's a few I'm going to throw away. Okay, I'm a little biased on this one because Larry Osborne is a friend of mine, but I think the Sticky Teams book for for any church leader is money and for a church board is like you need to like. Yeah, it's a classic one, right? So I would say that I recently and I'm still not through it because it's like this thing is thick Tim Dallina out of New York wrote a book called The 260 Journey and I'm loving it. It's a great resource for the 260 journey.

Yeah, I think it's based on that. There's 260 chapters in the New Testament.

So he goes through every chapter and does kind of like a, picks a couple verses in a chapter and does a little bit of a commentary yeah, you know, devotional thoughts, so to speak, on it. Very cool, pretty rich. I just read Bono's latest book, nice, and that's always fascinating, like just hearing the spiritual journey of someone so much in the spotlight and recognizing he had, more than I knew, very deep charismatic roots and Just yeah, I thought that was awesome. And right now on my nightstand is who wrote it? Darrell Johnson. So he's a theologian. It's called discipleship on the edge, okay, and it's basically a chapter-by-chapter work through the book of Revelation, nice, and that's your nighttime reading.

Yeah, bro, so but I I think that's actually a fascinating read as well.

Yeah, I love it. Is there anybody? So you mentioned Larry as a mentor and some of you've looked to. Is there any other churches, church leaders as you've been in your season of, like senior leader, growing church, like that, you've looked at like man. I really respect what they're doing or I think some of what they're doing applies to us and you've tried to model off of.

Yeah, I got some. You know I'm part of a large church network of lead pastors and so you know that would include LCBC down in in the southern states. It includes like liquid church Down in Jersey, and so I say down because everything's down. So so there's, there's some really great guys there, including North Coast, where you're just looking at what they're doing in the churches there and seeing what God's Using them to do, where I'm like man this this is pretty sweet. Yeah, you know, influence all obviously by life church as well, just seeing their trajectory of growth, what has happened there, and so those would be some solid churches that you know have helped, shaped Personally, and then from a distance like I don't know anyone at life church but I have like friends at the other churches, right, which I think is better when you can do it in relationship, yeah, and so that would just be a few I throw your way.

All right, last one what's a podcast that you're listening to right now? What's?

a podcast. This one's old, but I love it. Stuff you know, or or stuff you should know stuff you should know, okay, and it's just, I don't think I've ever, I've never listened to that one.

No, it's just random, on any topic, like they can talk about anything, and it's just fascinating to me, like one day I'll learn about, you know, the landing on the moon and all the intricacies that went into it, and next day they're gonna talk about turtles, or you know, I totally I mean in my house, like my kids, to my kids in particular, like you know, the history channel or like science stuff, or how there's a show, how it's made, or yeah, I mean they're fascinated with all these things, so I totally they might like this man stuff you should know they would

they would just interesting for sure. So that that would be one. I always lean towards the unstuck church one when it comes to like church podcasts and that. And Then I'm a big punk rock fan and so tooth and nail has I it's called, labeled. Tooth and nail used to be kind of like this Christian punk scene In the 90s and they they go through and they just interview a lot of guys from the bands from back then and for me that's fascinating, it's. It's kind of how do I get my mind off ministry all the time and church work, stuff you should know and probably labeled would be to that I just kind of get lost in.

Yeah, I, I mean we, you know I like to ask the question because I kind of looking for what are the things you like to listen to that aren't like just church specific thing?

Yeah, cuz you do that, what about you give me yours, cuz I'd love to have my?

absolute favorite hands down. It's called the all-in podcast, okay, and it's four guys. They're all extremely wealthy, tech kind of guys, okay, but they've been at it for a long time and they kind of come from different places like Immigrants wealthy, not wealthy like angel investor versus like public market investor.

Like you know, they have a pretty wide spectrum their commonalities. They're all kind of into the tech world right. Um, you got all kinds of like Republican Democrat. It's a good mix of these four guys, but they're like best friends and they talk kind of. It's kind of like politics and tech and business. You know, it's just stuff. Yeah, I'm just kind of from the Like investment, startup investing angle right, which is interesting to me.

Yeah, that's always a good it's you know it's just they do a thing every once a week and it's just this they're commenting on kind of like world news and tech and business and all that. So super great Right which is a little bit on the nose because I'm a tech guy and everything but like they kind of Cover it's broad right, they cover a lot of stuff and just you know it's interesting, that is interesting.

Yeah, it's a good one.

And they're just good together. You know they have a good like dynamics. You're like I like listening to you guys. You guys do a good job together.

Right, and that's important, because otherwise you're like what you know you're trying too hard, yeah, it's not working.

Yeah, yeah, there's another one and I'm spacing on the name. I don't listen to it nearly as often but it is also covering like business. But they will do like a two-hour episode Okay where, and sometimes more, two, three, sometimes they'll do like three part segment. It was like three two-hour episodes on warm Buffett and they'll just well Digested everything that they could find about a person or a business or something and they go super deep on it. It's really fast. That sounds interesting.

Yeah, they just go deep, like they go so deep on it, and then they give you their Two-hour version of that, which is more than you're probably gonna do on your own kind of thing, right, but right, really interesting.

So then you know what, bro, honestly, stuff you should know is exactly what they do. They dive into it and they'll give you, like maybe, a half-hour version of it 40 minutes.

Yeah, no, I'm gonna check that one out. That does sound interesting. It's like.

I like y'all in. I'm gonna check all in out. All in's good.

I actually think the all-in podcast for church leaders from the Building perspective right, because church leaders and church planters are, you know, startups and business runners right, it's, the church is not a business, but there's lots of things that, like that, overlap, there's common things, right. So I think that that you can't. I actually think there's parts of it that you would totally enjoy, you know when it, when it comes to, like, growing things and investing in things and all of the stuff great about so Thanks for that.

Okay, before we wrap. What's the website? Where can people go to see, learn about?

you guys Just go to hope. City dot CA city dot CA.

Love it, love it. Yeah, Phil man, this has been awesome. Glad we connected.

Yeah, thanks, Frank. Yeah, you're reaching out, and just fun to chat.

Yeah, absolutely, and thanks guys for listening or watching. We will catch you next week on another episode modern church here, See ya.

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