Announcer: 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations podcast sponsored by the Accel Leadership Network. On each episode, jd Paring will have conversations with church planting pastors and leaders from around the country. You can learn more about how to connect with Accel at the end of this podcast. Let's join JD now and listen in on this leading conversation.

J.D. Pearring: 0:29

Welcome to another edition of Leading Conversations with the Accel Leadership Network, and today we are shocked to have on the second most elusive guest we've ever efforted before. I'll tell you the most elusive if he ever comes up, but the second most is the great and mighty Sean Arisco from Sacramento, california. Sean, thanks for finally coming on with us.

Sean Arisco: 0:56

Hey, I'm glad we were finally able to make our schedules work out.

J.D. Pearring: 1:00

And I guess part of that is you're just not a podcast guy.

Sean Arisco: 1:04

I don't. Yeah, I don't really know much about podcasts. I haven't been on any podcasts. I'm definitely more of a book guy, but I'm not really a podcast consumer. I think our church is on a podcast, but I've never seen it.

J.D. Pearring: 1:22

Okay, good, hey, before we get into it I want to ask you about your skating career. Weren't you a professional?

Sean Arisco: 1:29

yeah, tell us about that. Yeah, so, um, when I was young, uh, I was born in phoenix. My family moved to the bay area when I was young and, uh, we lived on a private little street in Concord and a gravel road and so one year we got roller skates for Christmas but we didn't have really anywhere to to go with them. So my mom says, well, let me take my kids to the skating rink and went through some lessons and got recruited into the whole roller figure skating world for the next 10 plus years of my life. So that was right up until I was about 18. So yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 2:21

What was your claim to fame in that?

Sean Arisco: 2:22

Yeah, what was your claim to fame in that? Okay, so primarily it was about five years in they started allowing people to skate on blades, you know so, instead of the four-wheel two-axle skates. So I started on those and, for whatever reason reason, I was able to make the transition really well and ended up pretty much just like winning all the all the competitions um in um in the country for that, and I got to travel and and do some uh, represent our country at the world championships a few times and I took a silver medal um in germany in 2015. So that's my time to fame wow, are you do still skate?

Sean Arisco: 3:11

uh, from time to time I think you know like a lot of folks maybe relate to that have been in what you might call like, uh, competitive sports at some point, especially in your teenage years. For me, my late teens sort of stopped enjoying it. It was more like a chore, um, and that's sort of why, one of the reasons why I hung them up but um, so every once in a while I'll get out there and see what I can do, um, but it's maybe once every couple of years.

J.D. Pearring: 3:43

Well, we have to see this sometime, so send us a video.

Sean Arisco: 3:47

We did a volunteer party a couple years ago and I had the whole staff do a whole choreographed program together. I'll send you the video if I can find it.

J.D. Pearring: 3:59

Well, hey, tell us about growing up Other than skating. How did you come to Christ?

Sean Arisco: 4:08

Yeah, so I was a church kid, um, my parents are both, uh, first generation followers of jesus, um, and so that's not totally true. I think both their parents had some faith background, um, but uh, but it was kind of spotty. So my parents met in a church in Phoenix and got married there, and so we've always attended church. I was very passionate about Jesus from an early, early age. I would preach to people in the grocery store, to my mom's chagrin. So I would just be, you know, going to the store and standing in line and I would turn to the person behind us and say, hey, do you know Jesus? Because if not, you know you're going to hell. And so I think I read once about the circuit rider preachers and I came to my mom one day and said I'm going to take my bicycle, I'm going to ride around preaching about Jesus. She said, well, you better get off your training wheels first. So that was sort of young age, you know, young experience of faith, just very passionate.

Sean Arisco: 5:13

But I think in my teenage years definitely got distracted, wanted to do my own thing and sort of, I guess, kind of identified as an agnostic or a christian agnostic like, believe in jesus, I believe what he did on the cross, but I don't really think that needs to apply to like what I do on monday.

Sean Arisco: 5:35

Um, there's over two billion people at the time. Now there's more on the planet. Uh, I don't think he cares too much about what I do, so it's kind of a convenient way to do what I wanted to do. But about 15, almost 16 years old, I was invited to a youth revival meeting by some friends and I got just rocked by the Holy Spirit, just rocked by the Holy Spirit, and for the first time really knew that I was loved, that my Heavenly Father cared for me, that he was intimately involved in my life, and that sort of set a new trajectory for me, started to engage in a lot of things with our youth group at the time and started to pull away from the figure skating thing because it was sort of competing with the time that I wanted to do youth ministry stuff. I got involved in youth ministry leadership as a college kid and so that was sort of yeah, just the early days and the early journey.

J.D. Pearring: 6:47

That's amazing. How did you get involved in ministry? Was there a call or was it a natural thing?

Sean Arisco: 6:54

Yeah, I credited it to my mentor at the time, my youth pastor, who's still very involved with what we do with our church as an overseer and mentor to myself and my wife. But yeah, I think he met with me and said what do you think about being in ministry? And I laughed and told him I would never do that. My intention was to go to Regent University in Virginia and get a law degree and go pursue like politics or something I was. I'm so glad I didn't do that. I would have been a terrible politician. So he convinced me to do a gap year after graduating. I graduated a year early.

Sean Arisco: 7:38

Part of a part of my journey is I was also homeschooled. Not because of like, for political reasons or whatever. It was mainly because my brother, my oldest brother, is disabled. He has cerebral palsy so, but he's also very high functioning mentally. So my parents were really trying to give him the best chance he had physically. So multiple times a week we would go to physical therapy and stuff for him. So we were always on the go. My mom could not handle that and also school schedules, so we ended up homeschooling.

Sean Arisco: 8:09

So somehow, through all that, I ended up graduating a year early. So he was like, why don't you burn that year with us, get some biblical foundation? And I took Bible college courses in this program, started serving even more intently in ministry and during that year is when I finally accepted that calling it was actually on a mission trip to India. So we're out in the sticks of Southeast India preaching to thousands, probably 4,000 people there who have come from miles all day to be there, from all the surrounding villages, and I was asked to just share a brief exhortation and I think just something, you know, that grace of God, what some may call the anointing of God, just kind of like comes and you realize, like man, I was made for this. So, ironically, like preaching isn't my favorite thing. But in that moment I knew like this is something that is more than just a gap year program for me. This is something that may be a lifelong vocation.

J.D. Pearring: 9:15

Well, that's interesting. We've talked a lot on this podcast about how so many people have a camp experience that either leads them to Christ or sends them into ministry and we have kind of you know backed off the whole camp thing. People get busy, they don't take a week or weekends anymore. But one of my friends told me recently he says I think the short-term mission trip is the new camp experience. Yeah, because you can get people to consider that sometimes above going to a camp for a week. So that's crazy. You went to India.

Sean Arisco: 9:55

Yeah, I love doing the short-term mission trips. For me, I love using them as almost a discipleship opportunity. So we're going to take a team. They got to spend, spend, you know, 12 weeks pairing, praying, memorizing scripture, learning how to administer different ways, and so they kind of get this like um really intense. You know few months.

Sean Arisco: 10:15

Uh, discipleship um accelerated discipleship yeah accelerated discipleship, um, and you know, the reorienting back into normal life after that, like any kind of intense program, could be tough, because you kind of go on this spiritual high for several months and then it's kind of like, oh, now what? So we're always trying, we're always we're trying to figure that piece out, but it's always been something that I love doing. So, jd, if you ever want to plan a trip, I'm in, let's do it. Okay. That's great, I'm in, let's do it Okay that's great.

J.D. Pearring: 10:45

My wife just told me yesterday we went out to lunch and she said yeah, I was thinking about it, I want to take this big missions trip To Mexico or whatever. I was really excited, but I think I'm over it now. We got a lot going on right now. Hey, so you're in India, you? You get this like sense of call. Then what happened?

Sean Arisco: 11:10

yeah from there, uh, just kept serving. I ended up getting roped into a second year um at the church. So they kind of designed this second year program. First year was for anyone coming out of high school, one to sort of prepare themselves for college. Second year was hey, these are folks that we believe are potentially called to vocational ministry. So in the second year you kind of choose your focus. So I chose youth ministry and I was basically the youth ministry intern that year so did a lot of preaching, leading teams, stuff like that for my youth pastor.

Sean Arisco: 11:42

So about a year after that. But at the end of that year my wife and I were both interns for both years. So I highly recommend Bible college or internship to find your spouse. Is that how you met her? Yes, I mean, we were part of the church together. We didn't really know each other until we spent some time in those programs. So yeah, so we started dating right after the second year. We had no dating rules so we had to, you know, not date. But we really kind of did yeah for the second year and then started dating immediately following. So, but yeah, so we started dating.

Sean Arisco: 12:29

We, I think a year after that, so about 2000 and gosh, this must be eight, it doesn't eight. I was asked to come on as an associate youth pastor, but basically just continued being the intern but get paid, so that was nice. And then, a couple of years after that, our youth pastor moved into executive role and so we started leading youth ministry in our church. So it's really a homegrown thing. During that time I went to college at Patton University in Oakland, but I got a business degree. Patton, yes, you know. Patton George, yes, seriously. No, no, no, patton, bb Patton, she's an evangelist from Oakland.

J.D. Pearring: 13:16

Okay, not George. No, not George Patton.

Sean Arisco: 13:20

No, it's a little Christian college in Oakland and yeah, it was just close to home and they accepted my Bible college credits that I had already taken as sort of like the biblical requirements for their undergrad stuff. So yeah, so it's just kind of a convenience thing. So yeah, so it's just kind of a convenience thing. But my dad didn't believe necessarily at the time that I would continue on the track towards ministry so he sort of told me I had to get a real degree. So I got a business degree but it actually came in handy because they had a program called Organizational Leadership and you could emphasize your study in nonprofits. So it came in handy probably as much as my later seminary training to learn sort of just the basics of how to lead a nonprofit, how to follow the laws and basic HR stuff like that that you need finances, marketing. All that stuff comes in handy when you go and start a church.

J.D. Pearring: 14:27

So yeah, wow, so you're a youth pastor. And then what happens?

Sean Arisco: 14:36

Um, yeah, so we did that for about six years there. Um, went through the ringer a little bit there. Uh, just um, you know, I think some personal hardship, uh, that was not necessarily brought on by external factors, but more just what was happening inside of me. So, um, but they're a tough season there and tough season with my leadership there, um, and they were also going through a lot personally. So just kind of like this mix mash of people going through difficulty and not really aligning, so we finally feel released from the Lord to leave. That was in 2015. So we didn't know where we were going, we just knew that the Lord said it's time to go. So I was actually on the bus coming back from youth camp speaking of camps and things had actually gotten much better. Things were finally in a good place after years of sort of difficulty with our role there and just even our personal life as it was affected by our role at the church, and so we finally kind of turn a corner there. Things have gotten much better.

Sean Arisco: 15:48

And then I'm on the bus, I took a nap. I don't know about you, jd, but the Lord speaks to me Just as I'm waking up from a nap, oftentimes, or even while I'm sleeping, and I I don't know if that's because I'm getting old. You know, scripture says old men will dream dreams, but I find that I don't listen well enough when I'm fully alert. So the Lord has to like catch me right as I'm waking up and speak to me. So I'm just waking up from my nap and the Lord says, ok, now you can leave. I'm like where are we going to go?

Sean Arisco: 16:25

So, long story short, we end up in Stockton doing a youth young adult running our own internship program, similar to the one that I had been raised and gone through as a college kid for a few years. But while we were there this is in Stockton. We had this conversation early about how Jen and I felt like there was this call to a church plant. We weren't super sure of it, but we felt like that might be our following next step. And the good news about the church we were partnering with and serving pastors we were serving is they were really looking for a short-term thing from us. They wanted somebody to structure their youth ministry and young adult ministry of a growing church, raise up some young leaders to sort of take over. They already had their eye on some folks, um, and so we really just came in for three years serve train some leaders, and then they sent us out to plant and we ended up coming up to Sacramento.

J.D. Pearring: 17:18

Wow, that's interesting. Tell me something good about Stockton. Tell me something good about Stockton. Stockton, california, is just kind of a weird place and I talk to people about Stockton Usually it's like ooh, so what's something good about Stockton California?

Sean Arisco: 17:36

Okay, the good thing about Stockton California is the police have other things to do, so you can drive however you want. That's it folks. That's the problem. Yeah, Excuse me, when we got up here I had to relearn how to drive. I got a couple of warnings in the mail with pictures of me breaking laws. I was like I guess I need to relearn how to follow the rules. So that was probably the best part about Stockton just to do whatever you want on the road, Nobody cares.

J.D. Pearring: 18:23

That's hilarious, that's like, okay, that's good to to know, it's good to know when I drive through stockton. Yeah, so you move up to sacramento, to the wonderful metropolis of elk grove, california, which is a great place to live yes, sir a church. Talk about that experience.

Sean Arisco: 18:43

Yeah. So you know, young, dumb and crazy a little bit. We decided we're going to parachute into SAC. We knew nobody at the time except one friend that had recently moved up here, and I had one pastor friend in town who was Tim Biddle from Society Church Not Tim Biddle, sorry, Tim Coburn. So yeah, Tim. Biddle is Society Church, not Tim Biddle, sorry, Tim Coburn. Oh, so yeah, Tim Biddle is my buddy in San Francisco, anyway.

J.D. Pearring: 19:10

So you knew Tim. I know a lot of Tims.

Sean Arisco: 19:13

You knew Tim beforehand. Yeah, so we had met at different church conferences that we had attended together, just kind of rolled in loosely connected circles together, um, from time to time. So when we first moved here, uh, he was one of the first people I uh messaged and met with um for coffee and just said, hey, we're here in town and they were super supportive and, yeah, so we need nobody other than that.

J.D. Pearring: 19:46

You should check out Tim's podcast interview. We did that. Oh yeah, yes, I will check it out.

Sean Arisco: 19:55

Yeah, great guy, so yeah. So we moved up here. Let's see, that was in 2019. So Easter week of 2019, we moved to SAC and we're ready to go and we got this launch large strategy. We're going to go big and I think before launch we'd already spent something around $40,000, $50,000 just in like pre-launch activities, marketing events, just trying to get anybody who would listen to us to coffee out here, did a lot of family events to try to attract young families and then present to them what our church was all about. And so, let's see, we got maybe a launch team of about 40 or so, a ragtag bunch. A few came with us from Stockton, a handful, and some are still with us, which is great. Some still doing the drive. So I'm still doing the drive.

Sean Arisco: 21:13

So we launch the church on January 26th 2020. So it's four weeks before the pandemic. So great launch day. I think you know exceeded our expectations of the attendance and we're excited. Of course, that always gets tempered. For most search planners once they see the offering from that launch day, they're like, oh, we had all these people, but we can't afford to pay our bills. So thank you for people like Excel, who will come alongside you for the early days and to help, and so yeah, so thankfully, I remember even that morning or that afternoon counting the offering. I think over at Journey Church you guys had sent a check in the mail that helped us cover our rent for that week. So I don't think it was, I think someone came and dropped it off actually.

J.D. Pearring: 22:09

Yeah, yeah At the service.

Sean Arisco: 22:11

Yeah, Jeff. Yeah, we we've we've adopted that. We try to pay that forward as much as we can, whatever new church comes to town. So thank you for that. That was really meaningful.

J.D. Pearring: 22:22

Huh Now, so your launch right before COVID, because you didn't really get the, didn't get any advance notice.

Sean Arisco: 22:30

Yeah, didn't pray enough to get that prophetic insight.

J.D. Pearring: 22:35

How was it during COVID?

Sean Arisco: 22:38

Well, yeah, it was tough. I don't think our journey is any more difficult than others, but it was definitely not an easy season. One of the benefits is that we didn't have a bunch of set expenses we had to worry about, like a lease or a bunch of employees to pay, so on that front, it was probably less stressful than a lot of the other pastors I know. On the other side, we had no built-in relational equity with anybody. Yeah, so we tried everything we could online small groups the first few months, online sermons we actually had really high production value just to try to keep people's attention during that time Calling people, trying to check in on them, trying to hold some semblance of this community together. I think the weeks leading up to COVID, our community averaged maybe about 150 a Sunday, other than the launch day, which is always, you know, exaggerated. Other than the launch day, which is always, you know, um, exaggerated. So, uh, by the time we returned for outdoor services in the summer of 2020, uh, our church was about 35, 40 people. The same launch team we had started. Um, yeah, so launch a large yeah, that worked for us. So, launch large yeah, that worked for us.

Sean Arisco: 24:15

So, just blew a bunch of money, but we didn't know, so just started building slowly from there and God was faithful, and I think we felt like we relaunched the church about three or four times during the first three years. It was coming into outdoor services and then we first got to do indoor and then we had to go outdoor again and then we got to go indoor again. And you know, at the time there were people that didn't want to do one or the other, so it was like you're almost starting over again. And then there was that the California exodus. That happened in 2021. And then again in 2022, in summer of 2022, we had four large families leave all in the same two week period, all going out of state. And so our church is whatever. It was 75, 80. You know that was a quarter of our congregation. So it was just kind of one of those up and down, up and down, just stay at it kind of seasons, and so, just by God's grace, we came out on the other side, uh, barely, you know.

Sean Arisco: 25:35

So, um, yeah, it was a tough season, I think, uh, very formative though too, for me as a leader, um, I think even for the church, um, just in our nation, you know, I think, coming in before COVID, I think there was this play, at least in my mind and the people I talked to, there's this playbook of like how to do church that everyone's kind of following.

Sean Arisco: 26:01

And you know, this is what Bill Hybel said, this is what Rick Warren said, and we're all sort of like following these these different, uh, methods, and then covid comes and it's like just throw the whole thing out and go back to just following the cloud and relying on the spirit, and some principles still apply. But um, and I think that's that's really helpful for us, because now, kind of coming the other, we really are just trying to be ourselves and do what the Lord asks us to do. And if someone has an idea that seems to fit that a little bit that we can tweak, we'll use it. But yeah, I think it was in many ways, even though it was tough, it was very formative time for us.

J.D. Pearring: 26:45

Well, I mean, it's good to hear you're seeing the perspective there. And then Tim Coburn comes back on the scene.

Sean Arisco: 26:52

Yeah. So we had hung out periodically. Him and Vanessa had been really great. They'd invited a bunch of other church planners to their home right in the middle, right in the heart of the pandemic, and just said hey, we know our rules about this, but we would love, if you want to come over, we'd love, to just provide a space for you to unburden and know that you're not alone in this. So that was a really meaningful little dinner that we had with several other church planters and their families, scaring our wounds and our pain. So we had some connection and I knew that they had a desire to go plant in Portland at some point or do some sort of ministry in the Portland area.

Sean Arisco: 27:39

Prior to even the pandemic. They were trying to discern that and then the pandemic hit and they were just like, well, we're going to stick this out, we can't abandon our church right now. So, uh, in the middle of this, so at the other side of that, he reached out to me in the fall of 22 asking if we could, um, merge our churches together. Um, so how did that happen? Tell that story, okay, um, like I said, I I had sort of had some conversation with him about like, hey, we feel like maybe we're going to leave and I'd be like, no, bro, don't, don't go. And so, um, uh, when he texts me on a Monday morning and said, hey, bro, what do you think about merging our churches together? I had a feeling it had something to do with their um, just, sense of calling towards a new direction.

Sean Arisco: 28:31

So I think maybe I can talk them out of it again kind of a random text.

Sean Arisco: 28:35

Yeah, random text on a monday morning, I like maybe he had a rough service on sunday, you know. So my response to the text was hey, let's meet for coffee tomorrow. And my thought was by tomorrow he he'll change his mind. Maybe I can just encourage him a little bit. And, uh, and you know, we'll be all right. Um, so we met together at uh, uh, what's the coffee place? It's now masked coffee, I forget the name of it before that. And so we met together and he said, hey, I've already informed the elders. We feel a call to the Northwest and we don't have someone to. You know, kind of take the reins and our lease is coming up. So basically, we've got a few weeks to figure this out, otherwise we're going to shut the church down. And I said, uh, good luck with that man, I'm praying for you.

Sean Arisco: 29:35

Um, at the time I just felt like, you know, we were in Elk Grove, so that's it's not crazy far, but it's definitely not close to Midtown Sacramento, where they were. So we're about 20 minute drive If you happen to hit all green lights and no traffic on the freeway. So, yeah, so that was it. I thought. You know, I'll pray for you. I hope you find somebody here, maybe reach out to some other folks. But when I got home and starts talking to Jen, at first both of us were like man, I don't know what they're going to do, but it's not going to be us. And then we just started kind of talking through hey, what would that look like? Like you know where are our people coming from. Anyways, we started to sort of like take a map and put some pins down and realize actually most of our church is not going to be driving any further than they already are. There are a few people that live near our church, but there'll come a day. If we were to, we were meeting at a community center. So if we ever moved to another facility, they're going to have to move anyway. So why not now? So we just started okay, we're interested, let's have more conversations.

Sean Arisco: 30:46

And so eight weeks later, um, we were one church. Um, so we, we, we got the book better together, uh, which recommends an eight to ten month process to discern and move forward with um a merger. We just did every month in a week, yeah. But it's just amazing what happens when there's a grace on it from the Lord and every kind of like thing that you bump into. That would normally be a roadblock, just like, seems to not be one at all. It kind of a green light. Instead, you get to the next sort of stopping point and it's a green light as well. We just kept going, one step at a time. Um, there was never a time where we were like, yeah, for sure, we want this is the lord's will. We were just saying like, is it we're trying to discern? Is it the lord's will for us to take the next step? So every week, it was like okay, we'll take another step, we'll take another step until we got to the point where we were signing documents to make two churches one. So that was December of 2022.

J.D. Pearring: 31:56

How has it gone?

Sean Arisco: 31:58

Great, yeah, really well. I think there's a bunch of reasons for that. Number one we really did feel like the Lord has been in it. Number two Tim and Vanessa are just incredible leaders and so gracious and loving and just made it easy. Them and their team created a really great runway for us to sort of um land on, if you will, um, and made it easy for us to come in, and they supported us and stayed. They stayed on for a few months to kind of assist in the transition. Um, give me a lot of advice, um, with their knowledge of the people that are part of their community. So um, community, so um.

Sean Arisco: 32:46

Yeah, it went really well, um, by the end of, by the end of year one, uh, I was being challenged. We needed to move to two services, but I just felt it was too early. So we waited another six, eight months, but then we had to move to a second service last year, um, and continue to see steady growth, um, but, uh, I think, more than just numerical growth, there's just a lot of encouraging spiritual hunger in the community for deep community, for deep discipleship and spiritual formation, and so that's really encouraging. So, you know, I don't know about you, but as a pastor, there's only a few seasons that I can recall where I don't have. I feel like I have to like fire people up or light a fire under them to go serve Jesus. They just want to do it, and it's been like that for a lot of our community the last couple of years. Just, people really want to serve Jesus and that's encouraging, so yeah. So then, brady's smooth, almost too smooth. We're just waiting, still waiting, for the shoe to drop.

J.D. Pearring: 34:01

Well, shoes always drop, but keep going, keep pushing it, that's right. Well, hey, thanks for telling your story. Let's end with this. Give us a leadership tip. You've been around the block and skated through quite a few things in your life. What's your leadership tip? I?

Sean Arisco: 34:19

was thinking about this, as you mentioned, we may be talking about that, I think, if I was to give a leadership tip to church planners, something that I did not realize for the first few years. Now going back and realizing some things I had neglected and probably would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had known that our calling is a sacred calling. Our calling is a sacred calling, but it's not as much about the type of church we're building, it's about the person we're becoming, and I really believe the primary call for a believer is to the character of Christ first, and so the Lord will put you in different settings, whether it be a church plant or elsewhere, and you think oftentimes well, I'm called to this, but actually this is just a facade for the Lord to do the real work, which is to form you into his character and his nature, and I neglected that, I think, for the first couple of years. I got pretty head down in church planting and I realized at the end of 2021, we're in a good sort of at the end of that year we're in a really good, strong place before the next California exodus. We've finally seen a few Sundays in a row where over a hundred people were like, yes, we finally made it again and I realized that I was, my soul was not in a good place, that I had I was further from Jesus than I had been.

Sean Arisco: 35:56

I was not a great husband or father in many ways during that season and I realized I can't keep doing this or I'm going to lose.

Sean Arisco: 36:07

I could gain a whole big ministry and lose my soul.

Sean Arisco: 36:11

And so that sort of started a journey for me to realize and recognize that what's more important is what's happening inside of a person and that's what sustains your ministry for the long haul and and it sustains your family as well through it. You know, I want to get to the inside of this and have my kids love the church and love Jesus and have a healthy, strong marriage and a great environment for grandkids potentially to be raised. And so, yeah, what he's doing in you is more important than what he's doing through you, and I think it took me a while to figure that out. So I would encourage church planters in that. And then, if I had to add one more thing, I'd just say be yourself, let what he does through you just shine through, and people who are the Lord's calling to join, you will be attracted to that thing. Usually it looks different than what everybody else is doing in town, and so I don't feel like you have to follow some playbook or pattern that everybody else is following.

J.D. Pearring: 37:13

Good stuff, good stuff, really appreciate it. Hey, I appreciate you, sean, your perseverance, your openness to merge a church from a text. I've never heard of that before. Hey, let's merge our churches. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, I was not expecting that either, and you can write the book Accelerated Better Together, or something like that.

Sean Arisco: 37:40

I don't know about that.

J.D. Pearring: 37:42

Thanks so much for being on with us today.

Sean Arisco: 37:45

Yeah, thank you, jd. Thank you for all the support you've been for us over the years and love you and what Excel is doing and looking forward to what God's got in store for the future. God bless, cool, all right, man.

Announcer: 38:46

Thanks for joining the Leading Conversations podcast. We hope that you found it both helpful and encouraging. At Excel Leadership Network, our focus is on the church planter rather than the church. If you'd like to find out more about us, visit our webpage at excelnetwork. org. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. See you next time with another leading conversation.