In this episode of the Pivot Podcast, we dive deep into the world of church planting with Nick Warnes, founder and executive director of Cyclical Incorporated. Nick shares his expertise on developing leaders for new Christian communities, challenging traditional notions of what it means to start a church. From discernment processes to financial sustainability, from adapting to diverse contexts to embracing a truly missional approach, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom for anyone interested in the future of the church.

Whether you're considering planting a church, supporting church planters, or simply curious about innovative approaches to ministry, Nick's insights will inspire you to think differently about how we can participate in God's ongoing work in the world. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that reimagines church planting for the 21st century.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• "Starting Missional Churches" by Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes
• "Deconstructing Church Planting" by Nicholas Warnes
• Cyclical Incorporated website

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/w74h69LNOpA.

Nick Warnes: How do we surround people with the right types of people to do the hard work of discernment? I mean, it's hard enough to pastor as it is. It's hard enough to start a church as it is. But if you try and start a church without discerning a clear calling to start a church, then most likely the life cycle of that church is going to be shorter than maybe it could have been if some proper discernment was going to roll out. So when it comes to this multi-tiered relationship, we love surrounding people with therapists and with spiritual directors and with coaches and with mentors and with practitioners. And then I think, most importantly, the fruit that's come from those discernment conversations I was talking about with Bobby that he was a part of realizing that you don't need you're not alone in this. It can be such a lonely place. It's within the broader culture. If you were to tell the average person, I'm discerning starting a church. I think people look at you like you're a little out of your mind. So to be surrounded by mutuality with other people who are also discerning is a really key piece to that.

Dwight Zscheile: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Pivot podcast, where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Dwight Zscheile and I'm joined by Terri Elton.

Terri Elton: One of the key pivots we're exploring on this podcast is the pivot from one size or shape fits all, to a mixed ecology of inherited and new forms of Christian community working together to reach people in today's world. And one of the key elements of that mixed ecology is church planting.

Dwight Zscheile: That's right, Terri, which is why we're so excited to welcome Nick Warnes to the show. Nick specializes in church planting and developing leaders for new Christian communities. Nick is himself a church planter and the founder and executive director of Cyclical Incorporated and director of cyclical LA in Los Angeles. His books include Starting Missional Churches Life with God in the neighborhood with Mark Lau Branson, and Deconstructing Church Planting. Nick, welcome to the Pivot podcast.

Nick Warnes: Thanks for including me. Good to be with you all.

Terri Elton: Nick. It's been great to get to know you, and I'm excited to have you talk about your work. But let's start back in the beginning. Tell about how you started your journey into church planting and then this leadership development.

Nick Warnes: Well, let's go personal right away. I like this. Okay. So, um, so I'm married to Whitney, and she comes from a long line of innovators, her parents, her grandparents, and I also, my dad was an entrepreneur. Uh, my grandpa, both grandpas were entrepreneurs. So we just come from this long line of people who started things, and it just so happened that the things that we wanted to start were a little more christocentric. And I'm not saying that theirs weren't. They also had some of that going on. But yeah, we fell in love with starting new ministries early on, and then that just grew into all these other things that we've been fortunate to both start and help other people to start.

Dwight Zscheile: Why do we need church plants, on the one hand? That may seem like an obvious question, but if I look across the landscape of the church today. Church planting gets a lot less attention than you or I might think it deserves. So tell us a bit about why we need church plants.

Nick Warnes: Oh, I don't know about you all, but I've never been to worship at that first church in Corinth or that first church in Galatia. I've never been to worship at any of those seven churches from the Book of Revelation that are named. And the reason that we haven't been able to do that is because those churches no longer exist. Um. We are here. Uh, thanks be to God. Because those churches cared about church planting. So, as I mean, whatever, we mimic you all a lot and a lot of our work and a lot of our mimicking is centered on biomimicry. Like we we try and take all that God has created and how how things grow and reproduce. And we implement that within the within the overarching structure of the church. So the reality is, is that all churches start and grow and hopefully achieve some homeostasis where they can prioritize generativity and reproduction, and then eventually they move out of homeostasis and then end their life cycles. So I'm biased, but I believe that we need new churches because all churches eventually die. And if we don't start new ones, then there's not going to be any churches. There's all the old like research too, on more people come to faith at a higher average. And in new churches, a deeper discipleship has the opportunity to take hold in new churches, that kind of stuff. But I guess from 30,000ft, I think that's just the logical answer.

Terri Elton: So I want to follow up on that. I think I'm an ELCA person. I think a lot of mainline churches kind of just assume somebody planted a church, and it's going to be around for centuries. And I'm not sure, like, what would you say to that kind of thinking? Today? I'm not sure. That's always helpful for us. Right. As we think about new church planting. So say a little bit more about, as you understand church planting, how it fits as we think about like what's a life cycle of a church? What should we expect or, or what would what would be healthy to expect?

Nick Warnes: Sure. I mean, certainly some there's a ratio of churches, right? They're going to be around for centuries. I just think that ratio is quite a bit smaller than Then what most people intuit. So, you know, thanks be to God. The. My first home church is Glendale Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California, and they've been around for like 125 years. Amazing. What a cool thing. Um, but realistically, I think that's less of the norm and more of the outlier than, again, what we intuit.

Terri Elton: Yeah, I grew up in Glendale. You and I have had this conversation, and I have gone back to Glendale, and it doesn't look like it did when I was four. Yeah, that's just a few decades ago. We don't have to do all the math. Right. But part of it right is being attentive to the context.

Nick Warnes: So Glendale, I mean whatever. Go ahead. Have you been to that fancy pants new mall there called the Americana? I mean, quite a I mean, some people think it's monstrosity. Some people don't. I might happen to be in the monstrosity mindset on that one. Um, but yeah, I mean, church in Glendale looks different than it did even 20 years ago, and missiology looks different than it did 20 years ago. And so, full disclosure, I just got off a different podcast that I did right before this, and we were talking about, um, the if churches want to have a long life cycle like Glendale Presbyterian Church, they need to go through the really difficult work of adapting and changing. Uh, if if we think we're going to not adapt and change to a dynamic world around us and still be quote unquote successful, whatever that looks like in any particular context, then I think it's a little silly. So credit to Glendale Presbyterian Church and all the various iterations and the way they've discerned the breadcrumbs of the Holy Spirit and how they've changed and moved for 125 years plus.

Terri Elton: Now, talk about church planting over the last, let's just say, 100 years. That too has changed a bit. What are some as you think about main movements of church planting? Name some of them. And then what have been kind of the the promises out of some of those movements and maybe some of the perils as well.

Nick Warnes: Yeah, I love how you all do that. You do this well and you're leading faithful innovation book that you all did. You know the strengths and weaknesses of the the age of association and the age of authenticity? Got it. Um, so I appreciate how you do the strengths and weaknesses on Dualisms. So, you know, I go right away. We call it the post-World War II church planting industrial complex that many of the mainline churches planted a lot of their churches through after World War two. So growing suburbs buy a piece of property, put a church building on that property, put a professional Christian in the middle of that building, have Sunday worship services and Wednesday night Bible studies, and essentially lean on denominational allegiances to gather people in growing suburbs. So in the judicatory that I'm a part of, many of our churches were planted with that sort of frame and it was, you know, quote unquote, successful. Uh, lots of churches were birthed. Lots of those churches still exist and are participating in ministry to this day. Uh, some of the weaknesses is we take that sort of mindset to today. Um, the glaring most obvious one is the decline of denominationalism and people identifying less and less with a certain tradition. So, I mean, I was fortunate to be a part of a group of people that started a Presbyterian church in Northeast Los Angeles. And do you want to take a guess at how many people connected with our church because they identified as Presbyterian?

Terri Elton: I'm guessing a small percentage.

Nick Warnes: Zero is the right answer. Ding ding ding. You win. Um, so with that as a central strategy for a decreasing ratio of humans who identify with certain denominations doesn't necessarily make sense as much as it used to. And then a second one, the one that I was trained in is the old launch large model. So launch large models. You know, we worked with the Evangelical Covenant Church. They were so gracious to work with some lowly Presbyterians who were trying to figure out how to start churches again. So I went through all their training, and it was it was tight. I mean, it was like, you do this and then you do this, and then you do this. So you gather at least 50 people, you're going to be a full time pastor, and you do three preview services before your big worship service, for sure. Try and launch in the fall because that gives you the biggest runway up until summer. But if you need to launch at the end of the year, or you need to, or the beginning of the year and you need to or you need to launch at Easter, you can do that too. But do three preview services worship services on the in between do like parties in the park where more people will get to make some, make some chicken and hand it out of the park, and then do these three preview services, and then have the big public launch, where hopefully you'll gather enough people to justify a full time salary for a pastor. And then ideally, you're going to want to be at 150 committed people, because that can most likely sustain a budget for a church. And away you go. Until kingdom come, you can have a thriving ministry, right? So that was really effective and helpful for me because, you know, my idea of what a new church looked like was largely formed by Rob Bell and Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That was the first church that I saw launch. So the extent of my leadership chops at the time was like, throw a worship service and have a tall white man stand in the middle and say a great sermon, and then all the masses are going to gather. Um, so to have some broadened imagination was helpful. Um, but then the downside of that which has become increasingly evident, I think the SEC has even been changing as of late. Um, the the priority of following a given equation for multiple contexts by people outside of that context for how to start a church will force people to follow the equation over and against the Holy Spirit. And with encyclical, we always want to prioritize helping people discern the Holy Spirit in community. And we found that to be much more effective as we've participated in, you know, we call it post-industrial church starting. So starting house churches, starting megachurches, whatever the leader feels called to start, we're going to accompany them and helping them to achieve their calling that they've discerned God has placed on their life.

Dwight Zscheile: So, Nick, I'd love to just explore that a bit more, because I think a lot of mainline denominations still have assumptions around, for instance, professional clergy leadership and a certain size of what constitutes a like a legitimate church plant and things like that map a little bit more. The the landscape of some of these maybe smaller, more organic, non-professionally LED models of church planting that are emerging as well. As, you know, obviously we see megachurches that are doing a lot of planting themselves and are probably the most effective mother church, you know, kind of sources of new Christian communities in the American landscape, at least. I mean.

Nick Warnes: For us, it's just it's what the ECC taught us. You all need to shift your mindset from location, location, location to leadership, leadership, leadership. And from what we've been learning, starting with the leader who's discerned a defined calling within community to start something, or with a group of leaders as well to to define a discerned calling. So if that's a house church then we support that. And for, you know, all of our mainline siblings, I think there's there's increasing hope there as whatever the data is coming in on what they've been doing, and the data is not slowing down and overarching understandings of needing to adapt and shift. So, for instance, I'm really excited right now, our friends at Trytank with the Episcopal Church are working at starting an ecosystem for starting new churches for leaders who primarily speak in Spanish, for smaller expressions, to hopefully widen the plausibility structures of offices that can be accomplished in the Episcopal Church, to give really good leaders access to leadership in places that they wouldn't have previously thought possible. So with that, as a practical example. I hope that one works, and I hope it goes through because, I mean, I care about these traditions and I want to see them thrive. And the I mean, whatever you all are in conversations all the time with these folks as well. And it can be a pretty desolate, desolate landscape. Um, so yeah, whenever we can widen the imagination for how the church can be the church and actually make it work within a denominational structure, I think it's quite hopeful, not only for the church, but for the denomination as a whole.

Dwight Zscheile: So what might be a good step for someone, maybe, who's listening or watching, who might be feeling led by the spirit to start a new Christian community? Where would you encourage that person to turn, or where would you encourage that person to begin?

Nick Warnes: I would start seminary at Luther. Obviously, he's the first point. No, I mean, that is a great option.

Terri Elton: Um, we would welcome them, but it's not the only step.

Nick Warnes: Yes. Right, right. Uh, you know, there's things like training, reading, um, that kind of stuff. But I think probably like the primary lens and priority needs to be surrounding yourself in relationships with folks who have done this before, with people who are doing this, um, surrounding themselves and discerning conversations with trusted family and friends to see if this if this lines up. And yeah, trying to find the alignment between all those things to see if there might actually be a calling, calling so nebulous it can be hard to to figure that out. But I think if you can get alignment in relationships with trusted people and trusted practitioners, I think that's a pretty good first step in the discernment process.

Terri Elton: I'd love to hear some stories that you might have. I love and have used actually, your book starting missional churches in in classes because their stories, right. They're making points of learning and context as you think about in today's context? Just like the the one you were just talking about? That's all in Spanish. It's a contextual thing, right? Give us some different contexts and some different leaders that have kind of launched and they're going well, at least at this point.

Nick Warnes: I'll stick in Los Angeles because I'm the director of cyclical LA. I'm well acquainted with all the stories here. Um, one that stands out is this church called the church we hope for. I love the story on multiple levels. One one of the originating co-pastors was named Bobby, and Bobby joined a cyclical LA ecosystem. He joined the discernment portion of it, and he was coming off of a rough like megachurch experience and was kind of hurting and hopped in. We do these monthly meetings where we eat good food and drink good drinks and have intentional, uh, intentionally framed discernment discussions. So he did that for a while. He healed. He discerned that he wanted to co plant with another pastor, so his long time friend Inez joined him and then away they went into starting, you know, they started right as Covid was starting to take hold. So they had to adapt quickly from in-person things and then adaptation to online things and then really proud of them adapting out of Covid into, you know, a wider missiological opportunities and broader priorities on Sunday worship spaces. And then Bobby has since discerned that he is no longer called to be the co-pastor of the church. We hope for and has transitioned out. And the church keeps moving, keeps moving forward with energy and excitement. So I guess, yeah, it's interesting that theme came up earlier, the ability of new churches to adapt seems to be taken a hold in this conversation. Um, another one that I love, that we're starting right now in Los Angeles is called Sojourners Church. So we're we're really fortunate here to be, um, within the circles of some highly gifted leaders. So Pastor Yochum, um, has found himself in Los Angeles. Um, and he didn't think he would be staying in Los Angeles. But God has called him to start a church in Los Angeles. And Joseph jumped right in with our starters group and has been doing a lot of work on how to create a culture for an internationally diverse community and intergenerationally diverse community on the north side of Los Angeles County up in Granada Hills. So he found a partner church. He's gathered a bunch of folks, and he's focusing tightly on college students who are away from home and are homesick and want to experience home. The sojourners, if you will. And they just launched a couple weeks ago, and they have all this energy and excitement around them. And I suppose on on pace with this conversation, we'll see their ability to adapt as they learn. He understands they have a romantic ideal of an intergenerational, inter-ethnic, international church. And man, I hope they can accomplish this goal and mindset. And if anyone can do it, it's Yosef. He's got like a he's got a MDiv, a master's, an MBA, and he's finishing his PhD like this, this guy. And he's also like the most thoughtful, kind, humble, gentle pastor I've met. So if anyone can do it, it's Yosef. loathsome. But yeah, I'll. I can't wait to see how they continue to learn and adapt as this thing moves forward.

Dwight Zscheile: So one of the main words you've been using in this conversation so far is discernment. And we'd love for you to share a bit more about how do you help leaders discern how God is leading them in this whole process of developing new, contextualized Christian communities? What is that discernment look like in practice?

Nick Warnes: So full disclosure I'm a I'm a flaming extrovert. So my answer is, uh, is is padded by that frame. Um, but I believe that discernment is done in community, um, within cyclical incorporated. If you hang out with us enough, you'll hear this weird term multi-tiered relationship network. So this is one of our primary lenses that we put on our, our discerners. So how do we surround people with the right types of people to do the hard work of discernment. I mean, it's hard enough to pastor as it is. It's hard enough to start a church as it is. But if you try and start a church without discerning a clear calling to start a church, then most likely the life cycle of that church is going to be shorter than maybe it could have been if some proper discernment was going to roll out. So when it comes to this multi-tiered relationship, we love surrounding people with therapists and with spiritual directors and with coaches and with mentors and with practitioners. And then I think, most importantly, the fruit that's come from those discernment conversations I was talking about with Bobby that he was a part of realizing that you don't need you're not alone in this. It can be such a lonely place. It's within the broader culture. If you were to tell the average person, I'm discerning starting a church. I think people look at you like you're a little out of your mind. So to be surrounded by mutuality with other people who are also discerning is a really key piece to that. And then from that deconstructing church planting book, we talk a lot about interior and exterior call. It's Dwight's favorite theologian, John Calvin. Dwight calls him the real JC. So John Calvin talks about interior and exterior call. And that's the old intersection of, you know, when in your own prayer life and your own spiritual disciplines as you engage with Scripture, uh, how how is God interacting with you and what you ought to do? And then if you intersect that with your exterior call, which is back to that, you know, trusted family and friends, um, maybe a cyclical discerners group, if you intersect your interior, call with the exterior call in relationship. And if you're finding an alignment, that can be a real helpful thing. So let's just say Terri was going to be in her prayer closet, and she was coming out of her prayer closet. And she was saying in this podcast, you know, Nick, I've been watching Caitlin Clark play basketball. And Dwight, I think God is calling me to join the WNBA right now. I'm pretty sure the Dwight guy would ask some questions that would then lean toward, oh, maybe that's not where God's calling you right now.

Terri Elton: You were in my college. I was a minor. And so I had all these sports and the one on basketball that they looked at me and said, okay, you're in it forward. And I had to literally ask somebody to make sure I was in the right position. Clearly, that's the wrong sport for me. You are right on on that.

Nick Warnes: So yeah, that's a that's a gross oversimplification. But that sort of motif, I think can be helpful for people as they just discern this potentially nebulous call from an invisible god to start a church.

Terri Elton: Well, and actually like that, it doesn't mean you're not called to ministry, right? It means church planting is one type of ministry leadership. So we talk a lot in faith, lead about spiritual practices. And man, it is hard with I just think of our students that are many going into full time professional ministry to really ground them and say, this is not optional, right? And then you think add church planting where you maybe don't have a team. All the things are yet to be done, right. There's there's nothing set up. You're starting from zero. What how do you talk about spiritual practices with the leaders that you're working with, and which ones have they. Do you find most helpful in this work?

Nick Warnes: I mean, yeah, just step one. Make sure that they have them. Um, I mean, I was a Young Life kid. I heard about Jesus at a Young Life camp, and I got back from Young Life camp and immediately jumped in on the, what do we call it? Campaigners, I think is like the Bible study version of I don't know if it's that way with Young Life anymore, but jumped in the campaigners group and right away it was prescribed to me. Oh yeah, you need to read your Bible and you need to journal. So I was like, okay, I guess that's what Christians do. So I started to read the Bible, which I enjoyed, and I started journaling, which I did not enjoy. Like, I don't want a journal, I'd rather be doing something else. Um, so quickly, I came to understand that there's a huge toolbox, obviously, of spiritual disciplines and what we can participate in. So step one that we encourage is have some spiritual disciplines. Step two understand the breadth of the toolbox of spiritual disciplines. Step three experiment with the spiritual disciplines. And then step four choose some. And I suppose step five adapt as you're being invited to adapt those spiritual disciplines moving forward. So again, as a flaming extrovert, like I doing like a 24 hour silent retreat, um, you know, we might say, oh yeah, pull up your bootstraps, discipline yourself, do it. It'll be good for you. Like, sure, maybe ish. But would I rather one of my disciplines is I go up into the mountains with other church planters and we collaborate on projects together, and I find that to be very invigorating for my relationship with Jesus. Uh, Cyclical Publishing wrote a book called oh boy, I forget. I forget what it's called, but it was it was a really good book, and it was about the spiritual discipline of, of, uh, of fiction writing. So I'd never thought about that as a spiritual discipline, but holy cow. Um, I started writing fiction. It's been, first of all, so relieving to write fiction compared to another church planting book. Second of all, the things that I've learned in fiction writing about myself and my relationship with God has been really revealing for me and very helpful in my life. So yeah, figure out, do some disciplines, figure out the breadth of them, try them and and see where the spirit takes you in them.

Dwight Zscheile: So I do want to circle back to the first book that you did write, which is starting missional churches. And I want you to unpack with us the difference that that word missional makes, right? Because often we think about church planting, the paradigm is very attractional. And it's often, you know, leaders will have visions of what kind of church this is supposed to be and then try to sort of market sell that vision to the neighborhood and get people to come and participate. But but you're talking about something different. What difference does missional make?

Nick Warnes: Well, I mean, y'all are the experts on this. Come on. I feel like I'm. I'm like the double A team here. Why? You should answer this question, Dwight. No, I mean that that book was helpful. Um, and working on it with Mark was a transformative experience in my life. Um, I think, I mean, it means we have to take our capes off. Like our superman capes. Our superwoman capes. Like, if if we think we're the ones that are going to start a church and then go, like, save the People through our meager efforts of, like, a Sunday centric ecclesiology. Um, that's the likelihood and ratios of successes on that are going to leave people disappointed most of the time. Um, but yeah, if we can achieve a robust and decentralized practice of communal discernment of the Holy Spirit and context, Uh, that's going to go a long way. Uh, it also might not lead to more people participating in worship services. Right. Um, so I don't know. I don't want to go off on the going from reading the Gospels to how we got to Sunday centric ecclesiology. Like, it's it's a remarkable feat of human achievement, or lack thereof. Um, but, you know, church planters, I think, as a whole, are increasingly understanding that God's already at work as a whole and, uh, actually paying attention. Uh, not going on that next Netflix binge, not doom scrolling all the time, but actually paying attention to what's happening in the particular parish or context. Uh, looking for stories of God's abundance and then joining in on that? Uh, it can take so many different forms. And quite frankly, I think it's the most exciting part of church planting. Um. What's the the Roxboro thought of becoming detectives of the divine? That's some fun work. And it's fun work on as a point leader, doing it yourself. But then the work of leadership in helping other people to also become detectives of the divine, and then collaborating with folks as you're all doing that. And when that alignment comes, what's that Michael Binder story of the bus thing they did I forget I forget the actual details, but that bus story of how they worked together to figure this out, and then they really became detectives of the divine, and lots of good fruit came out of it. Right? I mean, as cool as it is to write another sermon or whatever, um, the, the actual hard work of figuring out together how you're going to join God in any particular context. Um, for me, and again, I apologize for people who love writing sermons, but the that that work is the is the really robust work that kept me going in church planting and has kept me going long term.

Terri Elton: Yeah, I think we talk about it theologically and theoretically at Luther Seminary and in this podcast and in different places. What is so fun for me, as I've engaged with you and with the stories of the people in your network, is they've really like it's the primary paradigm, right? God is already at work, and there's some pressure that comes off when God's already at work. We can take the cape off and we're just paying attention, right. And then you're not doing it alone. And I think that's what's exciting to me about the stories and the people, because God is so big. I need other detectives, right? I need other folks looking and watching and discerning. Right. Helping me say, no, I don't think that's of God. I think that's all about you, Terri. You know, that's your ego or right? Because I think there is this determination and humility that has to come with this work. And sometimes it's hard to know, is this me pushing this forward or is this really of God, you know?

Nick Warnes: Yeah, the accountability there and the humility that comes from it, um, feels really important for healthy leadership.

Terri Elton: So I know that cyclical has been doing all kinds of helping network church planting across the whole US. And maybe even beyond that, we have people on this podcast that are in urban areas, suburban areas and rural contexts. What do you what are you seeing as you look bigger scale of some of the differences between those different contexts when it comes to this kind of work?

Nick Warnes: Sure. I mean, just an inverse on that question. The similarities, which I think is another string through this conversation is the importance of relationships. So regardless of suburban, urban, rural, the importance of relationships and discernment of the Holy Spirit for the purposes of faithful innovation feels essential. But the particular differences, I mean, some things come to mind. One is like realistic expectations comes to mind. I remember having a conversation with this rural church planter, and he he was adamant that he wanted, um, to to start a diverse church in a rural context. And I love and appreciate the diversification of rural contexts. But I just asked him the simple question, is your context diverse? And he quickly realized, no, there actually isn't a ton of diversity here. So being realistic about the expectations of your particular context seems like a pretty obvious answer to this question. And then, you know, my friend Lorenzo Lebrija from Trytank, um, he, he did this big, uh, teaching for cyclical LA on finding the abundance, um, you know, pushing against these scarcity mindsets that I know we all spend a lot of time on, especially in today's dynamic world. But he talked about abundance. And then he told the story of this, uh, of this existing church that was very excited that that like, 400 new units were going to be going in right around their church building and how excited they were to finally achieve the intergenerational ism that they had been longing for for decades. And they are getting all prepped and planned up for how to engage with this community, which is kind of cool. Not all churches have that instinct, right? So they're prepping themselves for it. And then they found out later that this is actually going to be a retirement community. So the wind was taken out of their sails and they felt quite sad about it. But then the pastor had the instinct to say, this is the abundance that has been presented to us. So we got to make a pivot on on the type of church that God's inviting us into. And they made the pivot and were able to engage with the retirement community, laying aside their expectation of intergenerational ism. So I suppose, uh, these discerning, decentralized eyes around where's the abundance? Where's God at work? Um, and how that looks different in different places, and then making moves based off of that.

Dwight Zscheile: Along those same lines around, um, sustainability, adaptability and things like that. Talk with us for just a moment about financial sustainability and the kind of business models for new Christian communities today.

Nick Warnes: Well, I think we all know the ratio of like passing the plate, and that's going to be enough for a full time job is going down. Um, so, I mean, my snarky thought on that is congratulations. You can find, uh, actually generative income stream besides passing the plate. So, um, decentralizing income streams is something we spend a lot of time on, a lot of time on, uh, helping people find pathways for, um, decentralizing their income stream also. We spent a lot of time on, uh, how do we lower the expense side of new churches. And so that and oftentimes that leans into the pastor's salary. So I remember in this church that I helped to start, I asked to go by vocational, uh, in year two, and the leadership of the team said, no. I was like, man, I live in an expensive city, so I live in Los Angeles. This is expensive. Rent is expensive here, and I'm at a minimum salary trying to get by. Like, I actually need to find a job where I can make it work financially in this city. Um, so, uh, that expense side, I think can be a gift if we allow for bi vocational/ co- vocationality . Non-paid vocationality for pastors. So there's a bunch of good resources on this. We use the experience economy a lot. Um, that's been very effective for us. Uh, like the we just we just had I'm actually having lunch with him after this podcast. Um, this guy came out of our network. He started this church. He wanted to do a launch. Large kind of model, church start. We were like, uh, I don't know if that's a good idea, but he did it anyway, which is fine. And it didn't go all that great. And then they downsized their ecclesiology into a house church model, which was really fitting and lovely for him. But he wasn't making enough money, so he wanted to start a little side hustle. So he's researching how to start a side hustle. He figures out he wants to start selling dice. Like the things that you roll that have six sides. And his goal is to bring in $500 a month on the side hustle from selling dice. And within a year, he had to stop the house church because the dice company had grown to such a level where now he's not moving $500 a month, he's moving $120,000 a month and selling dice. And that has then allowed him and his proper Christian reflection is now. He doesn't have to work as much so he can spend more time doing ministry with his church. Right. So he achieved his goal and that sort of like capitalistic way, which, you know, obviously strengths and weaknesses there. Um, but yeah, I'm teaching people, teaching point leaders How to generate money so that they can better participate in ministry. Feels like something we spend a lot of time on. Now, within cyclical circles. You know, I have another note here I want I wanted to like one other thing here too is early on, like in this discernment process, one of the first questions we train our directors to ask is, what's your desired vocation as you start this church? Like, if you want to start a church where you're a full time vocational pastor, like, Amen, great, let's do it. Let's be realistic. Let's start with number one. How much money do you need? And that's different for different people in different life situations. And the answer, whatever they say is fine. And then we typically take that number and we multiply it by three and we say okay, that's a good target number for the amount of money you're going to raise. And then you divide that number by $2,500. And that's the number that will give you how many people, how many full time jobs you'll need from people who are committed to your community. So while I don't oftentimes like equations. Equations like that can be really helpful for at least putting some parameters around being realistic for people on how much money they're going to need to raise to get something like this started. Obviously, depending on what neighborhood you're in and depending on the likelihood of people being able to give money, the likelihood of people being able to have bandwidth to create other diversified income streams, that changes context to context. But being realistic about your vocational need is is really important. If you if you want to be non-paid vocational on a demonetized church plant, that sure makes it real easy with how many people you need to gather like you can. It can be you know, where 2 or 3 gather in Jesus's name, there it is. But if you want to be full time vocational and you want to have a house church like that's going to be a tricky endeavor that's going to require some nuance to work through.

Terri Elton: Yeah, I was just going to say I love the way you flipped it from saying the side hustle. Actually doing well could free up ministry, right? There's there's different ways to look at this. That one's not a burden for the other, but there's opportunity and and different framing, I think at least in my denomination, um, there's been a challenge to think of bi vocational, whereas other denominations, it's been their lifeline and it's been their main gig for a long time. So framing it differently, right? Totally.

Nick Warnes: We're the minority in this stuff. Yeah.

Terri Elton: So let's end with this question. If you're looking ahead based on what you're seeing right now, what trends do you see emerging as you think about developing leaders for new Christian communities?

Nick Warnes: Yeah. Wide and plausibility structures widen. Imagination. More people can do this than we would have ever thought possible. And, you know, full disclosure, if it was 1950 right now, there is not a chance that I would be doing this work. Zero chance that I'd be focusing on, uh, a primarily Christian vocation. But the excitement that comes around people beginning to understand that, uh, it doesn't just have to be ENFP. Enneagram threes that can do the work of faithful innovation is really exciting to me. And then helping entire denominations begin to understand this and how this isn't like a threat to their systems, but this is an opportunity for them to achieve the goals that they've set for themselves. So yeah, the hard work for folks like you all and for Cyclical Incorporated is how do we make this work within existing denominational structures that can oftentimes be a little bit rigid. But the good news for folks who never thought that they could do this. Like, you can do this. There are a lot of these skills are learned skills that you can learn, like technical skills that you can learn how to achieve. And if God is calling you to do this, then please pay attention to that. Take this seriously. Even if you never thought in a million years you'd be here. Like, you can do this and there's hope in this. And even if your thing that you end up creating doesn't quote unquote work, the the flourishing and the ripples that come from people practicing faithful innovation, even when it doesn't, quote unquote work, goes far beyond the particular the particular project that anyone's working on. So let's go. The next five years, we're going to keep pushing the edges on that until people tell us to stop. Um, but yeah, that gives us great hope right now at Cyclical Incorporated.

Terri Elton: I love it, and what a great way to end with hope and energy, and I'm hopeful that somebody listening today is feeling the nudge to to take something that maybe they haven't moved on and ask some more questions, find community and be in discernment. Thanks, Nick, Nick for sharing your insight and your wisdom today. It's been really fun to just hear about the work you're doing developing leaders for Christian communities.

Nick Warnes: Thanks for including me. Appreciate it.

Dwight Zscheile: And to our audience, thank you for joining us on this episode of pivot. To help spread the word about pivot, please like and subscribe. If you're catching us on YouTube or if you're listening, head to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. It really helps, and the.

Terri Elton: Best compliment you can give us is to share this pivot podcast with a friend. So until next time, this is Terri Elton and Dwight Zscheile signing off. See you next week.