060: 3 Simple Steps To Innovative Community Outreach | With Miles Larson

060: 3 Simple Steps To Innovative Community Outreach | With Miles Larson

Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, and welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast where we believe that God is alive and well and working in churches of every size! We really, really believe that small church ministry is not less, but it is different. We believe in growing churches that are healthy and that healthy small churches don’t always grow big, shockingly enough. Joining me on the podcast today is Myles Larson. He is the Director of Pastoral and Congregational Vitality in the Brethren Church out of Ashland, Ohio. So we’re gonna have some fun, and you’re gonna tell me what that is, Miles in a minute, but before we start, it snowed in Arizona, today!

Miles Larson 0:49
Today?

Laurie Graham 0:50
Like we woke up and there is snow, like, on cars and on housetops.

Miles Larson 0:54
Like it stuck, too. It didn’t just fall out of the sky. Wow!

Laurie Graham 0:58
Exactly! I know you’ve lived a few different places, so what’s the weather like by you today?

Miles Larson 1:03
Yeah, so I live in Wilmington, North Carolina now. It’s about 73 degrees. No, obviously, no snow. I went for a walk earlier and got just sweaty enough, I had to change shirts. It was perfect.

Laurie Graham 1:15
Oh, how lovely. That’s very cool. I have a lot of new friends up in Canada, and, you know, over in Europe, just from the community here. And it is really crazy how different all of us are like coming in with. So wherever you all are listening from, we’re happy you’re here. But Miles tell us, just a little bit, before we jump into your job title in your current position, like tell us about your experience in small churches, you pastored, you’re helping pastors now, but give us a little background.

Miles Larson 1:42
Sure. So I, I sort of started my ministry about 2009 in Ashland, Ohio, kind of the world headquarters of, of the Brethren Church, and started kind of accidentally in the Brethren Church, at a church that meant that I love the teaching, I love the people, and so that’s where I landed. When I was going to seminary, I got a little scholarship because it was a Bretheren church, I got a little Bretheren scholarship. And I was like, I should figure out who these people are. And so I figured out who they were and I loved them. And that church, probably at its biggest that I was there was 150. Lots of college students kind of nice age distribution. When I felt called away from there, I pastored, a church in Mantega, California, just a little tiny town. Actually, it’s not that tiny. It’s like 90,000. But by California standards, relatively small, small church of about 20 when I got there, and when I left it was 50 ish. But just really powerful ministry, great opportunities out there to do really interesting things and innovative things that we can make another two podcasts out of, but I love the small church. I love traditional church, but I also am a bit of an innovator and creative person that realizes somethings probably need to be tweaked a little bit. So I love to kind of walk that line of, of tradition and innovation.

Laurie Graham 3:06
That’s so fun! So I did not know your church in California was that small! So in our community here, we mostly focus on churches under 200, but there’s almost a break between like a micro-church and a small church and a lot of people in our community say no, you don’t understand we’re small. And we’re like, we’re all small here. So that would almost be considered kind of a micro-church. You said, like the largest was about 50.

Miles Larson 3:29
Yeah.

Laurie Graham 3:30
So, let me just get kind of personal here. So did you struggle with any feelings of failure as a pastor of a church that had 50 people?

Miles Larson 3:38
I didn’t. There were days when I dreamt of more because, you know, a lot of hands was heavy, many hands make light work, and all those sorts of things. And I, I and the people that I got to serve with really were people of big vision. And so we had lots of things that we wanted to do, and so I always would have taken more, but there was never a part of me that was and this is just a blessing, I never really tied up my identity in size of budget or building or congregation. I always felt like I was called to give that church the very best I could while I was there, and there were times, I will say, when I, you know, I had just the absolute greatest message to preach, and like 18 people would show up and I’d be like, dang it. But maybe that’s just how it was supposed to go. Because that old adage is also true that when I thought I had a great message, people didn’t care and when I thought I preached a stinker, people just were, you know, lives were changed. So I clearly have no idea what I’m doing.

Laurie Graham 4:37
Well, and you know, it’s just like God shows up and I think that’s so much biblical like He shows up in our weaknesses. And so with small churches, though, there really is a struggle and a very prevalent feeling, in our modern culture, of if we’re doing it right, or God is blessing us, we will grow in numbers. So how do you think you’ve stayed out of that or maybe the question might even just be how do you encourage pastors when they feel like that? And not just pastors, like volunteers find us and say, our church is gonna die, we only have 50 people, or we’re half the size at COVID. So not just pastors, I guess, but anyone, how do you speak to that?

Miles Larson 5:15
Yeah, I mean, I try to encourage folks not to be caught up in, I think we’ve sort of exchanged the idea of fruitfulness of ministry with like, effectiveness or efficiency or something like that. Preached a sermon once, using some of your language out in the southwest, Sororal cacti have like 40 million seeds, and like, virtually none of them come to maturity, right? Like, God is not in the business of efficiency, He is in the business of fruitfulness, right? And so if one of those seeds grows, now you have a 4,800-pound cactus that leaves for 300. Like there’s, like, it’s not about how many, it’s about the fruitfulness of the ministry. And so, you know, for me, I think we could do some really powerful, creative things with 30 people that you couldn’t do with a bigger, you know, I had some, some megachurch, pastor friends that we all have the same problems, theirs are just bigger. You know, their budget is never enough. Their volunteers are never enough. It’s the same thing. We just, we scaled our vision and our passion and who the people we wanted to care for were, so that we could serve them well. So I just say, yeah, don’t, don’t get caught up in a numbers game. Jesus lived a very interruptible life and I think young or small churches are interruptible, but you get enough momentum on the tracks with a giant church, and all these people you have to keep happy, it’s real hard to turn and be nimble and agile. I think there’s an agility to the small church that needs to be celebrated because we can just do different things. Not better, not worse, just different.

Laurie Graham 6:59
So you just said that word nimble and agile, and that has come up several times over the past few months in our Small Church Network and on another podcast, and I’m kind of betting you don’t even know we’ve been talking about that.

Miles Larson 7:10
I don’t!

Laurie Graham 7:12
There’s a pastor in the UK named Tony Bryce, and he brought up that word nimble. And he said, “I just think that is one of the beauties of small churches.” And I think it’s so fun to keep uncovering more and more gifts of small churches. Instead of wishing for things that we don’t have, actually appreciating the beauty and the gifts of actually being small. And I think nimble. And as you said, agility is like, one of those. So tell us what you’re doing now. What is your job with the Brethren Church?

Miles Larson 7:40
Yeah, so that long title, Director of Congregational Pastoral Vitality, I do a ton of different things, some of its transitions of our leaders, but most of what I’ve been trying to focus on is honestly, you’ve probably talked about this sometime in the last two years, but this has been a hard season to be a pastor. It’s been a hard season to be anything.

Laurie Graham 8:02
Yes!

Miles Larson 8:02
Not just COVID-wise, but I mean, going back, you know, political division and all these different things, it’s been a really, really hard season for pastors, and much of the conversations, many of the conversations I have with our pastors, they don’t know how tired they are, but you can see it on their faces. And, and I suspect that congregants can see it on their faces, and they, they can tell that they’re pastors are often missing some inspiration and energy and they’re just, they’re just fatigued. They’re just burned out. So I’ve been focusing really hard on trying to kind of preach the good word of, of sabbaticals. I’m really trying to help our pastors and even church leaders find ways to rest, whether that’s a full-on sabbatical, or just protecting the Sabbath or, you know, reintroducing hobbies, you know. I, my wife and I have been married for about 20 years, and we, we don’t have kids, and so everybody thinks, like, oh, that’s why you have time to do these things, and maybe that’s true, but like, you can carve out time to do things that you care about that are just refreshing to your spirit. So I’ve been doing a lot with with those sorts of things, just trying to get pastors and leaders rest.

Miles Larson 9:13
Beyond that, we do some things where we try to help churches evaluate their health in some objective ways, and talk about what it looks like to be a healthy church. Some of those are, are assessments from outside, some is just, you know, having conversations with, with people within, but identifying where you’re healthy and where you’re not, You know, I’m 44 now, and I went to the doctor last year for the first time in like, 20 years, because I’ve always just felt good, right? But I keep using this example of like, the doctor can tell things that I can’t, right? He can look at my blood and my blood sugar and oxygen levels and all these things, and he can actually tell me if I’m healthy or not. So it’s, you know, trying to get some of those metrics in place and help churches to say, “Oh, I didn’t realize I had high cholesterol. I should probably change the way I behave a little bit to, to restore somehow.” So doing some of those things, and then really just trying to do some trainings to in areas that churches need help with. Some things upcoming, you know, we still have a number of churches that have no web presence. We still have some churches that need help with structuring their board and some of those things. So some very practical things, handling conflicts, all these things, but anything really that relates with either pastoral health and vitality or the health of the church is kind of me and my team’s area.

Laurie Graham 10:31
Sweet. So you’ve seen struggling small churches. Have you also seen healthy small churches?

Miles Larson 10:36
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, there are, so in my denomination, we have about 110 churches across the country. And one of the things that is just a reality, we have settled in mostly rural areas, and so many of our churches just flat out aren’t going to grow. Like if, if St. Peter came back and was their pastor, I just don’t know that they’re going to grow because the city around them is shrinking, and there’s nobody there, you know, so these sort of things. But some of those churches really do have unique and innovative ways of loving on the people in their neighborhood and really making Jesus famous in, I don’t want to say humble, because that sounds diminutive, but like, in really like, intimate, vulnerable kinds of ways that I think are just really sweet. So yeah, we’ve seen, we also have some churches that are small and probably approaching the end of their life cycle. And we try to be gentle and delicate as we talk about that. Nobody wants to close churches, but we sort of have the range, you know. In the same way that large doesn’t mean health, I don’t think that small means unhealthy. You have both of both.

Laurie Graham 11:47
For sure! So what do you see when you see healthy small churches, what do you see? What are the qualities? Like if you were the doctor coming in, and you’re like, wow, you have got it covered, what do you see as healthy in small churches?

Miles Larson 11:58
I am a firm believer in, in some of its obvious, right? Like, are you a church that prays, and do you, is it all recited prayers, right? Like, God is gracious, God is good. Thank you, Jesus, for our food. Like, if it’s all recited stuff, that means something, but if it’s prayer, worship, leadership, those sorts of things. But two that I think are, are a little unique, and maybe not as obvious are, is the church that’s small, still investing in and involved in the community around them?

Laurie Graham 12:28
Yeah.

Miles Larson 12:30
We have a lot of churches that, especially as crisis hits, and this is just human, right? When, when my budget takes a hit, I kind of retract, and I keep all my money, and I don’t spend anything on fast food or any like, I just keep it all. We, we see that when churches start to struggle, and they turn their focus inward and just become a church about sustenance, about sustaining themselves, that’s deadly. We find that that’s really unhealthy, and it doesn’t fulfill the mission that we’ve been given. The other thing that I think so, so to frame it in response to your question, churches who continue to focus outwardly, even if they have modest means to do it, but are passionate about serving in the community in real and tangible ways, those are healthy churches. They just are. Other churches or other things, I think churches that want to continue to be innovative, and just creative and how we apply the reality of the gospel in our local context. It is, it is not the case that we ought to just hit repeat on what we’ve been doing. I don’t think the answer is, or, I don’t think the question is how do we get back to what we were before COVID. It’s different now. We’re just in a different world. And so we have to think about ministry in a different way. And so churches who aren’t afraid to kind of take risks, be courageous, fail a little, I think those churches tend to be really healthy because A) they have an opportunity to do Kingdom work. And B) if they don’t, they have a community around them within the church that can say, ooh, that didn’t work. Let’s not do that, again. Let’s come up with something else. And so I think that those two things in particular, our evidence of, of health and rootedness not in self-preservation, but in, in the things that, that Christ is calling us to do, which is go and make Him famous in our communities and transform the communities that we live in.

Laurie Graham 14:25
You know, let’s talk about creativity and innovation because you, I’m like, my hearts, like go on right now because that’s so just a big part of how I live. Like there’s so many opportunities and newness, and yet in many churches big and small, people complain about we’re doing things the same old way, nobody wants to change, and yet there’s such a hold on that. And yet, when I see culture changing around us, which it is rapidly, I just think Jesus would have been like, woohoo, look at this opportunity because He was not in a time where there was no change or no pressure or no, you know, conflict. And so how do we, how do we embrace that some more? Like, what does that look like to you?

Miles Larson 15:09
Yeah, I think there are kind of three things. One is we, I think need to, this is too many C’s now, but we need to curate a culture of curiosity, right? Like, we, we as the church, I think sometimes, again, it’s kind of a retreat, right? We’re just like, oh, gosh, how do we keep this thing going? And I don’t think that’s the right question, but a church that wants to really invest in the community around them, there are two or three churches that have been around for a while in my denomination, that are in a very, like a residential area. And it’s just like, in the last couple years that they’ve been like, oh, those people don’t look like us, how do we serve them? Like we’re supposed to take care of? And so they start asking that question, right? Like, okay, so I look like this and they look like that, or I think like this, and they think like that, and rather than using that as an off-ramp, they say, huh. How can I start to understand them? And so, you know, some creative approaches to that. I think having like, listening sessions with those people in your community, or like judges, or city council people, or get the fire and police chief into your church, and just let them tell you what your community needs.

Miles Larson 16:27
When I was out in California, we got to meet with the mayor and the city council members really regularly. And we, we walked in with a posture of, hey, you know, there’s my church, and there were a handful of other churches that were committed, and we just said, “Hey, what do you need?” And the mayor’s like, “What do you mean?” Like he expected us to come in with this agenda, and we’re like, no, no, no. Like, we have things we want to do, but like, what, what do you, what, what isn’t getting done? How can we as the the combined church start to serve you in ways? What are the needs? And so, they, they know. There are people in your community who know what they actually need. So listening to some of those people, I think, is critical. And then you got to come up with creative ways to respond. And you have to have the courage to do it, and sometimes you look at the dollars or you look at the numbers, especially in small churches, you say we only have five volunteers. Okay, how can you scale it, or how can you combine with and partner with other churches to do things, sort of collaboratively, to serve the kingdom? But there are, I mean, you know, we have so many churches that do things based on their context, in really good ways. Some things that are happening in California, that have honestly, like, really raised the hair on the back of some of the people in Pennsylvania’s neck, because you can’t do that. It’s like, it works out there, man! So we just have to understand that the community that you live in and respond to those things.

Laurie Graham 17:51
I think you said too many C’s. And you said curate, something?

Miles Larson 17:56
Curate a culture of curiosity.

Laurie Graham 17:59
Curate a culture of curiosity, and I want to throw in that you threw in two more C’s. One was courage, I And context? Yeah, I know, it’s like 6 C’s which I love, and we’re gonna have so much fun kind of unpacking this. But can we talk a little more about those listening sessions? Because so many times churches say, how do we reach out into our communities? How, how can we be creative? And I think sometimes we hold ourselves back, like, we don’t have ideas. And you’re absolutely right. We don’t, but they do. And to me, gosh, if some of these people that you’ve talked about whether they are in government in, you know, community service, even in education, whatever, if, if we would approach them say, hey, what’s going on? We just want to hear from you. I think some of them would fall over!

Miles Larson 18:51
Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s a posture of, because it could have gone the other way. If we had gone to the mayor and the city council and said, “Hey, we got a plan,” they would have just come in with a very different disposition. But we literally just walked in and said, hey look, we’re a bunch of churches, and this is in California, right? So anybody, like there’s a certain cultural context in California that may not make this as fertile as other places. But we just walked out with our hands open and said, what, like, give us an assignment. And then we earned their trust because we did some of those things. And we engaged in some of those things. But yeah, there are people, and this is, this is not a secret, people love to talk about themselves, right? And so even if you just invite the neighbors, like if you’re a church in a residential area, and maybe you have to drop a couple 100 bucks to feed them, and maybe you bring in a band? Like, you make it interesting enough that they want to come, but you, you try to get them to come and just say hey look, we’ve been on this corner for 10, 20, 50, 180 years. We really want to reinvest in this community. Can you tell us how we can? How can we collaborate? What are the things you need? The people who live there will know, and they want to tell you. Now, the other side of that is, you got to respond, right? Like, you can’t just like, oh, cool, good for you, and then not do anything. So you have to have the, sort of the clarity and leadership and so on to actually try to meet some of those needs. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. Make sure that you’re able to kind of scale that, but.

Laurie Graham 20:23
Yeah, you know, one thing you said is people, people will tell you, and they will talk to you, and they like to talk about themselves and their needs and things like that. And I just want to back up just a little bit and say, if they don’t think you’re manipulating them, or if they trust you. Because I know sometimes like, it’s almost like they think you have an agenda and there’s a wall that goes up. And so there’s almost a relational piece, even before that, to be, have a posture, and be in a place where you really do want to know them.

Miles Larson 20:53
Yeah.

Laurie Graham 20:53
And that they feel that genuine heart from you. Because I think the Christian church has a little bit of, you know, reputation to sometimes overcome. Where when we can change our posture in that way of yes, we do want to learn from you, we want to hear from you, something really beautiful can happen.

Miles Larson 21:15
Well, who was it? I think it was Donald Miller, maybe in Blue Light Jazz. I think he may be talks about, like the reverse confessional booth. Is this a thing that I might, I might be attributing to the wrong person? But.

Laurie Graham 21:26
No, I think it was him on, it was on a college campus, right?

Miles Larson 21:29
Yeah! And he’s just like, hey, look, we’ve messed up. So I think like, if your church does have negative reputation, whether earned or not, in the community, man, some of that sort of reconciliation work of just like, again, hey, we’re here. I don’t know what happened before, but we’re here to apologize how we need to apologize and, and move on, but know that in the future, we do want to be a part of making your life better and bringing transformation and healing and all these things. So I think there are creative ways to, even, restoring the relationship. Gosh, just clean up the neighborhood of litter and do that for six months and see if people notice. I mean, like just simple things like that, again, not about efficiency, right? It’s not like we’re gonna add 70 people to our church tomorrow, because we picked up some Pepsi bottles, but being seen caring about people, I think, has to restore a relationship.

Laurie Graham 22:21
Well, and here’s the thing, like most churches that we are in communication with, they’re saying, what is our next outreach program? I need an outreach idea, and it’s coming from within, it’s coming from other churches, and to me, this concept right now is like gold for this episode of this podcast, is flip that on its head, and instead of coming up with a program to offer to your community, to your, you know, the people around you, is actually have a listening session and get to know them. So what kind of questions would you ask, Miles, at like a listening session like this?

Miles Larson 22:59
That’s a great question. I think, I mean, the things that I think you want to know are and again, it depends on who you’re asking, if it’s politicians or nonprofits or local councilors or whoever, but I think very, like pointedly, “What are the needs that you see in the community?” So when we talked with the Mayor and the City Council people, we just said, look, we got about six churches that have some resource and time. If you could point us to one thing, what would it be? And they, in the town that I lived in, at the time, we had about 1,300 homeless children, school-aged children, which is like, like that’s yucky, but that’s the thing you can gather churches around right? The idea of, oh, this isn’t a homeless guy, he’s not an addict. This is a nine-year-old kid. Like, we can, we can gather people to serve and love on those people. So, but they knew they knew exactly what it was. So again, talking to the right people, just what is it you need? Where can we encourage you and so we started doing, and it wasn’t just us, but this, this organization, we start buying doughnuts for the, the police officers a couple times a month or a couple times a year. But just like, who needs encouraged? Like, what are the things that Christians are good at hospitality, encouragement, prayer, service? Like, is there anywhere that, anybody that you know, people on this board, who need encouragement? Is there anybody who needs prayers? Is there anybody who needs hospitality? And so, knowing what the strengths of your church are, if you hear that they need hospitality, gosh, maybe you just host a, you drop off your kids, we’re all background checked, go have a date, because you guys never get to see your spouse, like those kinds of things. But, but yeah, ask. What are ways that you need encouragement?

Laurie Graham 24:48
So asking what they need, asking what needs they see in the community, I think that’s so key because sometimes we would approach somebody and say, “What do you need?” And they’re like, I don’t need anything. But if you say “What needs do you see in the community”, it very much could be something different from yours. And then you also mentioned, you talked about responding and the need to respond. So let’s say we have a listening session, and it’s an hour long and the needs are overwhelming. Like, you’re like, oh my gosh, what, what did I just open? Like, how would you leave that meeting? Like, what would you say to them? Like, okay, now we have this big list, we’re gonna go pray about it, or you’re gonna hear back from me, like, how would you suggest, if you could just tell somebody do this, this, this, how would you tell them to leave?

Miles Larson 24:49
I would say, again, you want to clarify expectations. You don’t want them to think, especially if your church of, you know, 40 people, let them know, look, hey, we got 40 people, we’re gonna stick on this problem or one of these problems. We don’t know which one it is yet. We got to pray about it, and we want to figure out the best way for us to partner with you and maybe some other churches in the area. We, as you know, people on the panel, can’t, we can’t handle all of these problems on our own either. Maybe you can help prioritize them for us. And then, you know, one of the, there’s, Will Mancini talks about, in his book Church Unique, when you’re trying to figure out the vision and the value and mission of your church and stuff, kind of this Venn diagram of what skills are already existent in your church? What are the needs of the community? And what kind of rubs your people’s engine? I think that Venn diagram being brought up in your, you know, after you leave the thing with your church to say, Okay, what gets us excited? What are we actually capable of, if if they need people to feed people, gosh, somebody in your church can cook. If they need real high-level Mental Health, Counseling, you may not have that, but just might not be a thing that you can be, can do. But so were those three things sort of map drawn to one another, I think would be how I would as the pastor try to leave or as a church leader, and say, This is how we’re going to try to divide and conquer. Because we can’t do all of them.

Laurie Graham 26:58
Can you give me those three things? Again, what were those three things? diagram?

Miles Larson 27:02
The first is what skills are already existent in the church? Building, right? So if you have a bunch of teachers, well, it would make sense for you to be in the schools, right? If you have a bunch of construction workers, gosh, let’s partner with Habitat for you, man, like that kind of thing. So what skills are already present? What are the needs of the community, you don’t want to go build a bunch of houses? Low-Income Housing, if you’re in an affluent neighborhood, that’s just not, that doesn’t help. So what are the needs? And then for your people, what gets you excited? If you if you’re a teacher, but you’re like, Dude, I teach all the time, I don’t want to go read to kids anymore. Okay, that’s not going to get you excited, then don’t don’t put your effort. It’s something that’s not going to bring life that you’re going to do begrudgingly. So community needs existence skills, he has better cuter, more memorable names than I do. But those are kind of the principles, what gets you excited, what’s the need in that community? And then whichever one I left up.

Laurie Graham 27:59
what grabs their engines? Yes, yes. Okay. So I’d love that you brought those three things up in the context of these listening sessions, because to me, these are so huge, because we can sit around as a church, and we know our skills, like we’ve got that. But when we try to sit around and talk about the needs of the community, that’s these listening sessions, get us to what their needs are not just what we think they are. Yeah. And then to take those needs back and say, Okay, which of these gets us excited? Because I’ve seen churches, like sit around, say, Oh, what are we good at? What are the needs and what we’re excited about? And then they start doing this thing? And there’s, there’s no response? Because they weren’t looking at the needs, I don’t know from from an outside view, right. Like we think we know what people need, or what the community needs. So, how fun is that to like, take our internal and get some external feedback. And for sure, move from there.

Miles Larson 28:53
One other thing that I’ll say, is a way to evaluate community needs. I think every place does this, but do a ride-along like with the police officer or some, some, you literally like I just call it we had a person in Mantega, who was. Specifically his position was to offer care to the, to the homeless. So I got up at three o’clock in the morning when he started his shift. And I just wrote along with him for a day. And I mean, you have him he’s a captive audience for seven hours or however long you get to go along with them. And you can really start to drill down on like, oh, so with that person, what’s the issue? And in this case, that guy knew he knew all of the homeless folks in our community, just intimately. And if somebody new came in, he’s like, where are you from? He’s kind of protective of them in a great way. But you can I think most communities will, will allow pastors to do ride alongs those listening sessions could either be you go to the city hall or you invite them and maybe a bunch of other pastors in the, in the area to your church and you host a thing and I But there’s I think listening is I mean, you know, the two ears one mouth kind of thing.

Laurie Graham 30:06
Yeah. So before we before we go, yeah, you’re talking about pastors and getting pastors together. And our audience is a lot of people who just love small churches, they are volunteers. They’re accidental leaders. They’re people who said, Oh, I’ll help with that. Their pastors are burnout and stressed out, or these kinds of things. Do you think people just in the community, just your average teacher, or city worker, or stay at home parent, do you think these types of listening sessions, do you think they could be really powered by volunteers? And not just the pastors?

Miles Larson 30:39
I do? I think I mean, in a lot of ways, you know, when I was pastoring, I knew the people that I knew, and honestly, most of them were pastors, and people in my church. But you take a person who, who isn’t a pastor, they have a lot more interactions with people, then, then we pastors often so yeah, you get the elementary school teacher to talk with their principal and say, hey, my church is doing this thing do you think you could? Or you talk with somebody who works at a nonprofit and they can talk to the youth? Like, I think there’s just so it’s a network in a web that I think a lot of it’s in it just invitation, somebody has to organize? You know, if you have a meal, somebody has to organize that you have to have somebody do the flyers? Or how are we going to communicate it? But gosh, I think, like the grassroots approach is actually, in a lot of ways disarming. You know, a teacher that’s in an eighth-grade teacher might be more interested in responding to one of their colleagues inviting him to this than some random pastor at some church that they’ve driven by.

Laurie Graham 31:40
But if I just want to say who I’m so glad you answered it like that. I really wanted I was really hoping that you would say like, it does not have to be the pastor that does this. Because I think one of the beauties to me in small churches is that every single person in a small church is significant. I have worked in large churches, I’ve worked in very large churches, and you can be a member at a large church and not be needed. But in small churches, man, we have this opportunity to develop leaders to develop networks to you don’t have to be the pastor, you know, to say, Hey, this is a great idea. Right? But Myles, you and I were also going to talk about this. How do we take things on without offending or putting another burden on the pastor, right? So if somebody here is really excited about community outreach, or these listening sessions, which I really, really hope Yeah, many people listening are and this conversation continues. What do you do with this if you’re not the pastor?

Miles Larson 32:39
So you’re just asking as a as a as a congregant? What’s, like next steps? Yeah.

Laurie Graham 32:45
well, and let me just get direct. So I think what a lot of people do is they say, Hey, Pastor, we need to do this, which ENCODE is you need to do this right? Or, hey, Pastor, why are we doing this, or there’s a negativism of, well, my church isn’t doing that I must be in a bad church. And so this is kind of what I’m saying. If they’re if there’s a layperson, how would you advise them? You’ve been a pastor, you serve pastors? What do we do with our own passion? Yeah. When we’re excited to change the planet, and maybe our church does, it doesn’t feel like our church is as excited as we are.

Miles Larson 33:17
Yeah, I would say, first of all, I absolutely agree. I am a big proponent of priesthood of all believers, like the spirit is in all of us go do the thing. You know, I’m a Brethren pastor. So we’re very much level leadership. I don’t think I know more than anybody. So like, everybody gets to do something. And there’s that Ephesians passes, right, like the pastor’s job is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. And so I would, as a congregant, I would, I would still approach my pastor or the leadership team or whatever, but maybe instead of, again, instead of saying, Hey, y’all should or it would be neat if this happened. As a pastor, I always would hear those things and be like, yeah, it would be great. Do you want to leave that because I have all of my own things, right? And so it’s, I would go to the pastor and say, Hey, a thing that I’m really feeling called to and passionate about is, can we gather people in the church and have these listening or whatever part of this whatever the thing is that you feel called to invite yourself into the work right now.

I can’t speak for all pastors, there are some pastors for whom that might feel weird. But if you ever find yourself in My Church, like asking me if you can help them, the answer is, yeah. And then if you aren’t familiar, you don’t feel equipped. Ask your pastor to help you to help equip you for that. Right? So a pastor Jenny, I would love if, if we could talk about this thing because I feel called to answer some needs in the community by this. But invite yourself to take the lead and build yourself a team, you know, just good leadership structures, in general, have have people that can be allies in this with you. But yeah, invite yourself to do the work. And my guess is most pastors would be like, Oh, that sounds really great. What do you need for me? And if the answer is just a phone list or some, you know, some training, sure we can we can talk about that.

Laurie Graham 35:16
Yeah. And if your pastor says, no, please don’t do it. Like, we’re not about that. We’re not about like saying, hey, like, call your pastor over with your ideas, because I do believe that God has put people in leadership and as a body, like, sometimes we’re supposed to go slower. Like, sometimes our dreams are a little bit further down. But I really would invite anyone listening to this episode, which is taken a totally different, different angle than Myles and I were even talking about but like, just start the conversation with someone, like play them this episode, say, hey, what do you think about this? And start the conversation? Because too often, we think, Oh, that’s a cool idea. Yeah. Next week, we hear another cool idea. Tonight on TV, we think, Oh, well, that’s a cool idea. Tomorrow, we think we don’t do anything. So let’s like start the conversations, get our feet in motion, and watch where God’s working because He is.

Miles Larson 36:07
yes. And I’m as guilty of that as I can come up with ideas all day. And I think they’re super fun. And I play with them until I get them about ready. And then I’m like, I don’t know what, what the next step is find. So I always try to find people that like are good at executing, right. Find some people that are good executors, to make sure those people are on your team too. And as you design things, you know, everybody’s got different gifts, make sure you’re using the whole body.

Laurie Graham 36:33
Yeah, yeah. So really, we’re talking about outreach, we’re talking about creative ideas, and having a plan of no looking at your church, look at the skills that you have. Because every small church is so unique. It’s so unique. And then, you know, like exploring this idea of listening sessions and making a plan to respond. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn’t get simpler than that. Like it’s simple, but might not be easy, but simple, correct?

Miles Larson 36:59
Yeah. Because you do, you do have to? I mean, there’s some organization, but again, going to the experts, when I interviewed for the church out in, in California, they asked me, what’s your vision for the church? And I said, I don’t, I don’t know. I’m not even here yet. You, I’m the expert on these things. You guys are the expert on your community, your neighbors, or you’re the expert on the community, your elected officials and teachers and firemen and mental health professionals, those are the experts in your on your community. So go hear from them don’t think I know. I have no idea.

Laurie Graham 37:32
Yeah, yeah. Well, and this just takes us back to instead of, you know, coming up with one more outreach idea, right, actually finding out going out into your community building relationships, and finding out what is needed. So let’s start meeting needs instead of just having another program.

Miles Larson 37:48
Yeah. Yeah. Jesus didn’t feed a leper and heal a hungry person, right. Like he knew what the person needed, right? Like, he addressed the actual needs, the things that people wanted and needed to be hold. So yeah.

Laurie Graham 38:02
So before you go, since you work with pastors and help support their vitality, and their congregation and all of that, how do you think we could support our pastors better?

Miles Larson 38:12
Yeah, I think in. I think one thing that we do as Christians and as churches is we, we just think we’re really good caring for our pastor, because we’re good people, right? We love them. She’s a great preacher. He’s a great preacher. And we know that we love them, and we know that they love us. But I’m a I am a guy who likes intentionality, and a plan. And so I often talk about the value of really building a series like a system to care for your pastor that you know, simple things, like knowing their love language is important.

Having a prayer team that supports them. If they need a coach or a mentor, or mental health professional, like get them the things that they need to be resource, but really, at the end of the day, have a plan so that it’s not just every October, they get a $50 Amazon card, and twice a year somebody bake some cookies, but, but really get five people who maybe have the gift of generosity and administration and hospitality together. And maybe lay out a plan for the year to say, you know, we’re gonna love pastor Jenny, better this year than we ever have. And then next year, we’re gonna love her even more because it is a lonely job.

Some of the statistics are just haunting, you know, 57% of pastors. families feel like they’ve been neglected because of the ministry. Like these 80% have passed 90% of pastors that start in the ministry, don’t make it forget them. I mean, mental health issues and all these things. It’s a really it’s a tough job. And so any way that you can kind of systematize it The way you support and love on your pastor, some people think that like takes the romance out of it. Right? When I first got married, I remember one of my mentors said, You need to plan date nights. I was like, what? Now we’re just gonna do it right? And then I was like, oh, life gets in the way. And I think the same thing is true. Like, yeah, maybe it gets rid of the romance, but it at least makes sure that we have a date. And in the same way, like planning these things may seem like it undermines the like, the real affection, but it doesn’t it make sure that it happens.

Laurie Graham 40:32
Well, and let me just go back to listening sessions. Like what if some intentional people from a congregation had a listening session with the pastor and maybe even the pastor’s family? I think, how are you doing? What do you need? What do you see that would help your spouse? What do you see that we could do to support your children like to ask the questions and listen with curiosity? Not with I know what you need out already. But really kind of build? I think that would even strengthen some relationships don’t.

Miles Larson 41:01
you think? Yeah. Well, you know, some of our pastors struggled to say those things that Oh, no, no, no, I’m fine. And if that’s the case, okay, then go to their spouse. I can guarantee you, my wife, when I was pastoring, knew better what I needed than I did. She just, she just could tell. And she would tell them if anybody asked, she would have been like, I got a list. This is the thing. Yeah. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.

Laurie Graham 41:26
Yeah, sometimes their children too. I was gonna say.

Miles Larson 41:30
to the whole family, right, not just the pastor, but take their kids off their hands for a couple of days. You know, take him to the playground. Let mom and dad be mom and dad. I think that’s,
or ask their children what their parents need. Yeah. Hey, how do you think we could serve your dad? You know, what do you think we could do? But they’d have tons of ideas.

Laurie Graham 41:47
So well, miles, it has been a total joy to be with you today. We have to have you back. We could do a whole podcast on pastoral care, like, how we can support Oh, we have so many, so many
things to talk to you about.

Miles Larson 41:59
Laurie, this is great. This has been a great time. I appreciate it.

Laurie Graham 42:02
So awesome. Hey, for anybody listening, if you are looking for more support, more resources, more skill, more networking, come visit us at smallchurchministry.com Want to join the network, just add a slash network after that small church ministry.com/network We’d love to have you we are just a place where we are connecting people in small churches all over the globe. Because we are finding strength in that encouragement, hope, ideas, creativity, support. So when you’re feeling alone as a small church, you don’t need to. Sometimes we got to reach out and find our own support systems. And we’re kind of becoming one of those for many small churches globally. So any last words, Miles? I saw you kind of take a breath there. I’m like, does he want to say one more thing?

Miles Larson 42:46
Oh, just thank you for giving me the opportunity. I was listening to a podcast and people say man, I’m just honored to be here. And I was like, Are you really? I can tell you I honestly am honored to be here. Thanks for asking. This has been great.

Laurie Graham 42:56
So fun. All right. Well, until next week, we’ll talk to you all later. Be a light.