Announcer: 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations podcast sponsored by the Excel 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 Excel 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 thrilled to have Spencer and Sarah Green with us from the Orlando, florida area. Thank you for being with us.

Sarah Green: 0:42

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

J.D. Pearring: 0:48

Yeah, you live in Orlando so do you have Disney passes?

Spencer Green: 0:49

Actually, yes, we were gifted a free year of Disney passes, so we actually became Disney people this past year.

Sarah Green: 0:58

All right. I mean, we think our parents said we both went when we were young, yeah, um, but we, neither of us even had memory of it, and so, yeah, we were gifted a year and uh, it was fun.

J.D. Pearring: 1:10

It was fun how often do you go in a year when you get the pass?

Sarah Green: 1:15

I mean it depends on how hardcore you go. I mean, you've got straight up disney adult parents who they'll go there to exercise or they're going to walk, or, but you know, when you have littles, and we're in that season, we have a six-year-old and a three-year-old, and then currently pregnant with the third.

Spencer Green: 1:35

Uh, at a certain point, I mean summer hits what like may april I mean it's in the 90s, in the 90s, by april, yeah it's, uh, it's a lot and you know it's I mean it's in the 90s.

Sarah Green: 1:45

It's in the 90s by April. Yeah, it's a lot and you know it's expensive even to just get a meal there.

Spencer Green: 1:52

So all that you have to take in too, so that's a lot of preparation if you're going to go with all your family, do all those things and not spend a ton of money.

Sarah Green: 2:00

Yeah, but where we live it's so common. I mean, every car. When you become a pass holder you get a little magnet for your car and they're all over and people put them on their cars like bumper stickers. We passed one the other day and it had to been over 10 years worth of magnets on the back of their car and I'm like thinking to myself that's probably like a down payment for a house Easy.

J.D. Pearring: 2:29

Well, hey, let's get to your stories. Tell us, growing up, how you came to Christ, how you turned your life over to Jesus.

Sarah Green: 2:38

Yeah, definitely you can go first.

Spencer Green: 2:39

Sure, I'll start Mine's much different than Pastor Sarah's and so I didn't grow up in church. My parents got divorced by the time I was four and so from that moment on I experienced like a ton of brokenness in my family and in school and friends and and all that. Like I fast forward a little bit and then I rewind. But when I was I'm 34 now I've lost 33 close family and friends in my life to drugs, suicide, alcohol, gang violence, old age. So when people see me they don't see the Spencer that was pre-Christ and what my family has continuously struggled with.

Spencer Green: 3:21

Even right prior to church planning, right before we opened our doors, sarah had her youngest sister pass away, who I was her PE teacher for several years, and that was three months before launch. And then, three months into launch, I lost my stepsister to a cocaine, fentanyl, overdose. Um, so I grew up, you know if you will, in the streets, like around gang violence, drug addiction, all of those things. And starting my eight, when I was eight years old, I lost my Yikes, by the way, yes.

Spencer Green: 3:55

I say it all like normal now but it's not and I know that. But when I was eight years old, my best friend actually attempted and ended up committing suicide by shooting himself in the head, and I know that's a little graphic, but that was really the starting point to a lot of my brokenness and my mental health struggles that I had personally. And so over the next four summers my sister and I lost a best friend in back to back to back summers, literally. People that were over at our house sleeping the night, you know, spending the night over, playing sports with whatever, growing up, and then they're gone you know the next day and we're encountering such grief and we have no concept really of God. I believe that there was something, but I didn't know God. My family didn't take us to church. Like I said, they were divorced when I was four, my mom and dad and then my dad remarried when I was 11 to a woman who was, for much of my upbringing, very abusive emotionally and physically. So I grew up in that setting.

Spencer Green: 4:59

She was abusive to me, my sister, my step-siblings, my step-nephews, and then my mom remarried a year later to a gentleman that now I had other step siblings in my, in my picture, and then they got divorced two years later and so I then didn't have that family and so my whole upbringing the best word was chaos. Yeah, I had no semblance of what was normal, and because of all of that and all of that loss and all that hurt, I actually attempted suicide three different times, and it was my senior year, actually on a bed of suicide, that I remembered a youth pastor who would come to our middle school and I don't know. You know now I believe it was the Holy Spirit dropped his name into my heart and into my spirit. Then I had no idea.

Sarah Green: 5:51

Just remembered him yeah.

Spencer Green: 5:52

But my friends and I would call him the more than enough guy because, you know, I was an athlete, I played basketball, all these things. So we would go over to his table and we called him the more than enough guy because he had more than enough pizza for every kid in that lunch period. Whereas every other leader, any other youth pastor or person that was able to come to the schools in those days. They brought enough for their five or six kids and literally like two kids away.

Spencer Green: 6:18

And so I remember those people. Or they would say, hey, you have to take this card and you have to be my youth group on Wednesday and that's how you'll you know, then I'll give you a piece of pizza. And this guy was the exact opposite. He remembered your name, he remembered your story, he remembered your struggle and what you were going through. And month to month, he would come in and he would say hey, spencer, how are you doing? Like no, really, how are you doing? How is X, y and Z that you were dealing with?

Spencer Green: 6:43

And yeah, so I believe my senior year, when I was on this bed of suicide, his name was dropped into my spirit, I believe, by the Holy Spirit, and I just felt something saying like this guy was larger than life, he was Jesus with skin on, he was kind, he was gracious, he loved well, he remembered stuff. It was the first encounter I had with a man of God that actually cared about me, and so in that low moment in my life, I started searching for his church. As I got healed and was able to go back out in public, I started searching for his church and I literally searched for about six months.

Sarah Green: 7:24

To every church, the Catholic Church the Presbyterian Church.

Spencer Green: 7:25

I started searching for his church and I literally searched for about six months, church hopped.

Sarah Green: 7:27

Yeah To every church the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church.

Spencer Green: 7:30

He didn't know his name. I didn't know his name. We called him the more than enough guy.

Sarah Green: 7:34

So yeah, Finally found him.

Spencer Green: 7:36

We found him and literally three months after that it was Father's Day. I gave my life to Christ and his church, after coming every Sunday for three months and just breaking down crying on the front row every single Sunday. I'm sure a lot of people thought I was crazy or something, and some probably still do, but that's OK and I just know that.

Sarah Green: 7:56

He found release for all that pain.

Spencer Green: 8:02

I found a God that was never going to turn his back on me. You know, I heard the gospel preached for the first time that he was never going to leave me or forsake me. I had people that would come against me in that season from you know my previous life and what I was doing. And they said you don't really know Spencer, you don't really know what he's done or what he's been through. And leaders in that church became like family to me and I didn't even have to defend myself. They would step up and say things, like it says in scripture, that love covers a multitude of sin, and that's all I needed. All I needed to see was that this was my God and that church was family. And in that moment I was like this is what I've got to do the rest of my life. So it was Father's Day 15 years ago. I gave my life to Jesus. Yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 8:49

That's amazing. That's an amazing, amazing story. Is yours like that, Sarah?

Sarah Green: 8:54

No, it's very different. My story, like you said, my story my parents actually were high school sweethearts from upstate New York. My dad joined the military, got stationed in Panama in like 88 89 in wartime, and then, after wartime, they opened up for families. My parents did not grow up in church but they were a young 18, 19 year old couple living in Panama and they were saved by missionary family to Panama. Not knowing this missionary family was from the States, they didn't know that the war was going to happen, and so my mom and dad were saved in a missionary Bible study and were just on fire for Jesus. At that point my dad was baptized in the Panama Canal and they did missions trips into the.

Sarah Green: 9:55

You know the rainforest and they were just on fire for Jesus. So I was born there and then we moved back to the States. My dad got out of the military. We moved back to the States, to Florida, when I was probably two or three, so I don't have any recollection of living in Panama. But yeah, I've been blessed to have never known a day without Jesus and I loved him. My parents were the. You know the like you can't listen to anything but like positive hit radio and I grew up you know watching them do small group. You know meal trains from house to house. They, my dad did Royal Rangers and my mom volunteered in Daisies and then I was in Awana and yeah, I was. I was blessed to always have a relationship with the Lord.

Spencer Green: 10:47

I'm the oldest in my family Of your siblings.

Sarah Green: 10:49

Yep, my siblings. I accepted Christ in elementary school. I remember asking him into my heart, probably when I was about in the fourth grade and being baptized in a friend's pool, and I mean, my testimony kind of comes a little bit later. I had a big wrestling period, as Christianese talk would say, in middle school because my youngest sister was severely disabled and my mom had a pretty rough pregnancy, had her early, she had a blood clotting disorder, and then in a pretty major hospital in Orlando, in the NICU, my sister contracted bacterial meningitis and it got into her brain and it destroyed her brain.

Sarah Green: 11:41

So then her life was set on a course of a lot of suffering for many years brain surgeries, you know all the diagnosis and nothing had to do with the fact that she was premature. It was what had happened to her in the hospital. They ended up saying they did investigation, it was some kind of water contamination, contamination, but the hospital wouldn't release if it was a nurse who improperly washed her hands or if it was like a bad IV line, um, but it almost killed her. She survived it but she never lived past the mental or physical capacity of a four-month-old, like she never developed past that, and so she physical capacity of a four month old, like she never developed past that, and so she was kind of a medical anomaly. They told us that she might live till six, but she actually lived till she was 20. And she had hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, any kind of disorder that had to do with brain because of her brain injury, my goodness, yeah, and so we.

Sarah Green: 12:50

My parents' life, literally day in and day out, was her care, and I was eight when she was born. So I remember everything and it makes you grow up fast. It gives you a different perspective on life and health, and because we were so involved in church, a lot of well-meaning people would surround us and to my nine, ten-year-old brain, they would try to be comforting, but they would say things like you know, god gives special needs kids to special families. Or everything happens for a reason, or your family was strong enough to handle this and that's why God made her this way.

Sarah Green: 13:48

And it totally warped my view of the character of God and I never I never doubted he existed by middle school. I hated his guts. I thought he was evil. I thought God was evil and I was watching my sister suffer and my parents suffer and I was just sitting back processing it like I will never, ever fall, like this is a God I cannot trust, and so I don't know why. But my parents kept dragging us to church and we moved, ended up in a small town so that my sister could go to a public school for special needs kids and ended up 10 years before Spencer in the church he's talking about, and they were amazing. The first time we walked into the church, a greeter knelt down on his knees and touched her arm and looked her in the eyes and spoke to her. That never happened in church before the next week. A chair was taken out of the back row so that her wheelchair could sit there. They just loved us. And I was put into counseling because of my struggles with the youth pastor, pastor Rod Windham.

Spencer Green: 15:27

More than enough guy, more than enough guy.

Sarah Green: 15:29

This same pastor and for years he walked me through scripture and they would preach about this good God who loves us. Every good and perfect gift comes from above. Disease and cancer and sickness is not from God. And I was like y'all are a bunch of liars. And they would say we live in a fallen, broken world and accidents happen, happen and people have free will. That's not his design. His design was Eden, it was heaven, and in heaven we're all going to be healed and whole and set free.

Sarah Green: 16:12

And so it took me a long time but eventually the youth pastor found out that I loved reading and, as controversial as it is, it's a part of my testimony. He asked me to read the book the Shack. He told me he thinks that that would help me. And I read that book and one scene in it completely changed my life. I know it's weird, but it changed my life and I was able to just see like something unlocked, spiritually, supernaturally. I was able to see that God was always with me. He was always with my sister. They probably the Holy Spirit probably had a relationship with her that I couldn't even understand. You know, he was probably such a comfort, such a peace she was a lot more still than we are yeah, such a, such a presence in her life and I was able to really shook my foundation.

Sarah Green: 17:10

I was able to really step into okay, god is good and this life throws a lot of terrible things at us, but he's with us. Scripture says he makes beauty from ashes and he is working. He's always present and he's always there. And so I was able to just relearn the character of God, who he was in my life. I was able to trust him again, god who he was in my life. I was able to trust him again. And, yeah, that, you know, set me on a course to back to loving Jesus, having a personal relationship with him in high school, on fire for God. And then, you know, a few years later, I met Spencer there. We actually met in a college class. He sat next to me. We shared that, our testimonies to each other the first day.

J.D. Pearring: 18:05

Was it over pizza.

Sarah Green: 18:06

I said what church do you go to?

J.D. Pearring: 18:09

What did you say? I said was it over pizza that you met?

Spencer Green: 18:13

It was in a social problems class.

Sarah Green: 18:14

It was, and so we exchanged testimonies and I'm like wait, you go to family Bible church in Eustis. He's like yeah, I'm like so do I. We go into completely different services, didn't know each other, but our lives had been radically changed by the, by the same exact local church Like, so that I mean that really leads us into that planting that we didn't ever plant out of a place of we don't like. That church does this and this. We never had this long.

Spencer Green: 18:50

We're better than.

Sarah Green: 18:51

We never had this long list of why we don't the things we don't like, so let's plant a church. It really came down to the local church saved us. Yeah, and it is family and there has to be more. There has to be more churches like that because the world needs it yeah, the world just needs it yeah, that sounds like your call to ministry was just pretty clear there for both of you. Yeah, very.

Spencer Green: 19:26

Yeah, I mean, I would say almost within the first year of being saved, I felt a call to plant a church, start a church.

Sarah Green: 19:34

You didn't want to be anywhere else but in church. Full-time ministry.

Spencer Green: 19:38

I mean, I was second in my class academically. I had two full ride offers for different sports. I went for a summer to play a sport and just hated the sport that I used to love with everything in me because I saw a lot of the pain and the hurt that I had experienced in a previous season coming back into my life. And this was right after I got saved and I go back home and I just felt like I'm going to serve 40 hours a week in this church because I finally found family. So part of my story I didn't share was is that when I started serving in this church after I got saved, I got kicked out of my dad and my stepmom's house, where he was living.

Spencer Green: 20:18

Where I was living, they said I could have free room and board Essentially when he was living. Where I was living, they said I could have free room and board Essentially I could sleep and eat there. Yeah, if I paid all my other bills.

Sarah Green: 20:24

And was in college.

Spencer Green: 20:25

And was in college full time, working to pay my other bills. I was doing all that, kept my end of the bargain. And I came home one day to write a paper on the couch. And I was, I put my jacket on the couch and you, florida, you even need a jacket. And so my stepmom comes in the door and she slams the door and I'm like, oh okay, great, I know how this is going to go. And I'm sitting there writing the paper. She didn't say hello, she didn't say anything. She comes over to me, stands like three feet away from me and is like put your jacket away right now or else. And I said can you give me like five minutes? I'm trying to finish this thought on this paper. As soon as I'm done, I'll get up and put it away. She comes back over in 30 seconds and she lifts her hand at me and she says no, you'll do it now or else. And I stood up, I put my laptop down, I said I'm six foot two, 200 pounds. You're not going to lay a hand on me again out of anger, ever again in my life. I finally have self-worth in my life and you're not going to hit me ever again.

Spencer Green: 21:26

And so little did. I know that that was the breaking moment for her and for my dad and they got in a fight. When he got home and at 3 am he comes in my room, rips me up out of bed and says either you apologize to your stepmom or you're out of the house. And I said, well, I have nothing to apologize for. I guess I'm out of the house and I ended up packing my bags.

Spencer Green: 21:47

I had a class that morning at 7 am at UCF and got a speeding ticket for the first time in my life going to UCF because I'm late. I'm grabbing all my stuff trying to get it, you know, just frantic. And I show up to class like 15 minutes late. My teacher's like what's wrong, like what's going on, like you're never late, like you're one of my best students, and she's like I just start. I broke down crying to her and she she's like you know, if you need a place to stay, I've got a spare house on camp. Like you know, she was one of like the top education professors in Central Florida and she's like you can stay here. And so I ended up not accepting her offer.

Spencer Green: 22:29

But the church, like Sarah, said, this is why we planted, or at least one of the reasons why I did the church literally for the next two and a half years, while I finished my undergraduate degree, saw the call of God on my life and I had five different families. While I was homeless, let me sleep on their couch or in their spare bedroom, eat their food, do exactly what my dad had promised me. God fulfilled through the people in the church. And so I graduated with no loans. I have a master's degree with no loans, like because God had his hand on my life the whole time.

Spencer Green: 23:03

And so when people asked us, why do you want to plant a church? I'm like how many other Spencers are out there, right? How many other broken kids are out there? How many other young adults are out there? How many other people that aren't loved or don't feel loved by their family and they're just wandering in the world alone and they have no one, and the local church can easily step in and solve it by introducing them to Jesus. And so that was my why for a long time.

J.D. Pearring: 23:30

So were both of you on the church planting page. You on the same page with that, Sarah.

Sarah Green: 23:36

Yeah, for sure he was really involved in serving started in youth, as a lot of pastors do, and so when we got engaged he was, like what do you think about being a pastor's wife? Because I'm for sure going to be a pastor.

Spencer Green: 23:54

Like I'm called to this.

Sarah Green: 23:56

We started dating at that season in his life, when he was homeless, was living with people from church and on fire for God. And because he didn't grow up in church, he wanted to be educated in the Bible. And so he got, like you said, a master's in theology from Liberty, because he wanted to learn what he didn't growing up. And so I was like I don't know, I don't know what that means. Pastor's wife means a lot of different things. To some, it's you know, you sit on the front row and you support your husband, and to others it's you're in there with them and doing the daily thing. And and so I was like sure I was just in love. I'm like I love Jesus, sure, if that's our call. And so yeah, I mean he's that, sure, if that's our call. And so yeah, I mean very quickly, we just there, I don't know. There wasn't a, there wasn't a place. We served a church we were staff at.

Spencer Green: 24:58

There was never a moment where I wasn't full force in it, usually behind him doing the admin stuff, until he kept, other than that first year volunteering. Yeah, she didn't want to do anything not praying out loud.

Sarah Green: 25:05

I'm not preaching, that was just my introverted side at that point.

Spencer Green: 25:08

Yeah, but I slowly, I slowly worked her in and I was like, hey, I really think you should pray over this. Like we're in this relationship series, you should pray. And then a few weeks later I'm like, hey, really, the girls would love to hear a female perspective, and so it kind of began that way. And now I'd say, you know, she'll even tell people that if I were to be dead and gone, she would love to remain in ministry in some capacity.

Sarah Green: 25:32

So yeah, yeah, I preach regularly at our church. We co pastor and it's a joy in my life. I absolutely love Jesus and, yeah, I love the church.

J.D. Pearring: 25:46

Talk about how the church plants has gone.

Sarah Green: 25:48

Yeah.

Spencer Green: 25:49

You can start with that one.

Sarah Green: 25:51

Roller coaster. To be honest, you know, we were young, like a lot of planters are 27 and 28.

Spencer Green: 26:03

Yeah, I was turning 29 when we started the process.

Sarah Green: 26:06

Yeah, we had left a position in Virginia Beach as youth pastors and really felt the call. It was the year 2020, and we had really felt the call. They had approached us to be their next campus pastors in North Carolina. I worked at the church as well. I did admin and got to learn some amazing things. We had a youth group of 150 kids and all the campuses came together for youth and we do it in the main sanctuary and it was a great training ground for us Church of about 1800. So we've worked in the main sanctuary and it was a great training ground for us.

Spencer Green: 26:42

Church of about 1800. So we've worked in all size churches.

Sarah Green: 26:48

And so we really felt like we had a specific name. We knew, always knew, we wanted to lead pastor. Didn't know if it would be, you know, if we would campus pastor, if we would take over a church eventually or if we would plant. We were open leading up to that. But then we really, as we began to pray about it together, we really felt a strong name for the church, mission and vision like just really really clear. We knew we wanted to go back to florida, um, because we were doing mission or ministry out of state um, so we started pursuing that. We were never part of a denomination and, um we knew there are some. You know, it's kind of easier to find a church to be a pastor of if you're in a denomination, and so he started researching like some networks and a pastor of if you're in a denomination, and so he started researching like some networks and larger networks also have large church planning organizations.

Sarah Green: 27:48

Yeah, and so we kind of pursued that. We took a certain model to heart and put that in place and ran the play and it wasn't exactly what we expected. We expected, you know, big numbers and this exciting big thing and for him to be full time right away, and that was not our story. That was not our story. Launch Sunday we had 80. 78, yeah, yeah, 80 people and then you know, next Sunday, boom, you're down to like 45. And we were like what happened to the mailer we sent out for six grand?

Spencer Green: 28:28

So 45,000 people's houses and you get two people.

Sarah Green: 28:33

And so then, really, it just became a long walk for us. As he mentioned, we both lost family. We were in a big spiritual battle. To be honest, there was a lot of flesh involved where we were like this isn't successful because we haven't reached this certain amount um, we were told that by the network we initially launched with.

Sarah Green: 29:04

Yes, and we were told we were suffering a little too hard, we shouldn't have to be bivocational, and that was hard, but we never had a piece about stopping ever Right, even though it was hard. I mean, one summer sunday we had 12 people one person came beside our setup team we set up the whole church for one guest but we were like at least yeah and um, but we never. We never were like it's time to lay it down and take.

Spencer Green: 29:40

We got so many offers in that time, amazing offers from great churches and great pastors and leaders.

Sarah Green: 29:48

And we never felt a piece.

Spencer Green: 29:49

We were offered, you know, quite possibly like my dream city to go live in and be a campus pastor and do all of those things, but we never felt a piece about handing, giving over what God had put in our hearts.

Sarah Green: 30:06

Because, even though our numbers weren't what looked successful from the outside, the call that we had felt in our hearts by God to create a church with the mission and vision he gave us we were literally watching it happen in people's lives. It was just a few people at a time.

Announcer: 30:29

Yeah.

Sarah Green: 30:29

Literally watching people transform, hungry for the word. God still, to this day, keeps bringing really unchurched or de-churched people. We really don't have a ton of people in leadership who like have loved the.

Sarah Green: 30:49

Lord their whole life, yeah, and have served in church before, and so we just see this repetitiveness. And then God doing what he said he wanted to do and we said, okay, about a year or two in, we said we're gonna take this time to heal and grow ourselves. We both entered therapy. We had a lot of stuff that we had been through.

Spencer Green: 31:16

From our childhood or otherwise.

Sarah Green: 31:18

Yeah, that maybe was spiritually healed, but in the natural were real things we were still struggling with, real things we were still struggling with, and so we started taking the time to say, okay, if God, if you're going to do this slow, if this is going to be different, we're going to become the best leaders we can be.

Spencer Green: 31:39

But around that same time we did meet another church planting network that was willing to walk alongside us and reaffirm the call that we had when we were questioning. Yeah, and we had to fly all the way from Florida to Portland Oregon for that, oh yeah.

Sarah Green: 31:53

And I was so pregnant, I was like seven months pregnant.

Spencer Green: 31:58

I had a broken foot. I don't know if you remember.

J.D. Pearring: 32:02

I remember, Sarah, that you were pregnant, but I don't remember the broken foot. I had a boot and she was pregnant when it came in.

Spencer Green: 32:08

I don't remember the broken foot. I had a boot and she was pregnant when it came in.

Sarah Green: 32:10

He broke his foot with a road case one Sunday morning oh no, Pulling it behind him on a ramp.

Spencer Green: 32:18

Trying to get in and get everything done for my team so they didn't have to do much.

Sarah Green: 32:22

Uh-huh and it pulled it. It caught his heel, sucked his foot under, broke his foot, yeah, and we were just literally at our lowest, yeah, when we ended up at at that first, that first event, to sit there and to go through everything and we just felt like failures and, uh, we were given a green light and they were like, you know who was the couple? I cannot remember the couple. It was like Joel and yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 33:00

Joel and Casey. Yeah, joel, and.

Sarah Green: 33:02

Casey. I'll just never forget sitting with them and them saying like, no, you heard from God. It's just, it doesn't have to look like what you think it's going to look like. You have a strong mission and vision. God is moving in your church. You just need some better tools and you kind of just have to believe in yourself. And of course, there was much more than that. But we were like, okay, we can do this. We're finding our people. We're finding the people to come alongside of us and who don't care that something as silly as he's bivocational and he's teaching, but he's also pastoring, and yeah, we found that and that really helped. So I mean, we've slowly grown. We are still not a large church by any means.

Spencer Green: 33:54

We've had our largest summer and we're you know in the mid 50s, low 60s on Sundays, but I mean last summer we were 30, 35. So God is starting to grow the church.

Sarah Green: 34:07

Open up the doors for our first building building, our first leased space with an amazing like price, an amazing, a perfect size for us room for us to be able to do two services. We're hoping we'll need to do that this fall with an opportunity to expand the facility.

Spencer Green: 34:26

There's a literally the same footprint we have and where we're at now the landlords told us when we get large enough and we need to expand, there's another 3,000 3,200 square feet right beside us yeah, that we can build out and make ours also, so the church is set to expand and be able to do that.

Sarah Green: 34:45

It's in a great location. We've've just had like just all summer long. We've had Sundays just full of first-time guests. And then people staying and coming back, and that's all new for us 18 new guests within the last two weeks and so you know we're asking them how they're coming, how they're finding it.

Spencer Green: 35:04

They're like we just moved here. So, they're not leaving another church. We just moved here. Yeah, so they're not leaving another church. It's even, you know, the type of person we literally prayed for, because we don't want to just subtract from another church yeah, to build either, but we also are praying that god would send some mature season leaders more of them yeah, we need some seasoned saints well, I'm I'm just really glad that you guys have continued, persevered.

J.D. Pearring: 35:28

Yeah, hung on. That call from god and you're making a big difference people. Well, I'm just really glad that you guys have continued to persevere. Yeah, hung on that call from God, and you're making a big difference. People are coming to Christ because of you, too, and lives are being changed. Hey, you've mentioned some stuff, but how about a leadership tip from each of you?

Spencer Green: 35:43

Yeah, I'll share first. I mean, I've always been super community-oriented and so when it comes to church planting or any type of ministry even when I was in youth ministry, partnerships, make or break what you're doing. And what I mean by that is like even today, literally before I jumped on this podcast with you, Sarah was like you can't do it, there's not enough time. But we got a call from this brand new charter school that's seven minutes from our church, that's going to put our banner up this year for free and to their 600 plus students, you know, and all their parents, all their family members, they the one of the principals text me at 10 o'clock this morning was like hey, can you provide lunch for my fan or for my church? Not my church for my staff.

Spencer Green: 36:28

Yeah, and I was like you're giving me how long to get this done? And I was able to call partnerships that I already had in the community, because I've always been like, hey, we don't have a lot of money. Do you want to be a blessing to a nonprofit? Can we serve our people this way? So we've blessed our team with free gift cards to Chick-fil-A and all this stuff from people that have donated stuff to us, and so it's these partnerships that when someone calls on me and says I have a need, I'm like, yeah, I know somebody, let me call them. It's not, no, I can't help you.

Spencer Green: 37:02

And so those are the partnerships and I feel like creating those strategically and listening to God.

Sarah Green: 37:08

There's so much wisdom in that You've got to be knee deep in your community and networking businesses, restaurants, chambers of commerce. It's invaluable. You don't have to be outside the walls of your church.

Spencer Green: 37:19

We did a serve team party the first month after getting in here, because everyone worked so hard to help prepare the building for the first Sunday and all of those things and we wanted to say thank you the building for the first Sunday and all of those things and we wanted to say thank you and I was able to get over $30 worth of like free sandwiches and different items to just bless all of our team with. And so just a little bit of effort goes a long way when it comes to community partnerships. And we've had people from those businesses come to our church and now I'm able to extend that like, hey, we've got a little bit of money now as a church, not a bunch. But I'm like, yeah, what do you need? How can we do it? And so I told this business I was like I've got 120 bucks I can spend. Can we feed 40 people?

Sarah Green: 37:58

Yeah.

Spencer Green: 37:59

And they did.

Sarah Green: 38:00

Yeah.

Spencer Green: 38:01

In a matter of an hour, and so we just got done doing that right before jumping on here.

Sarah Green: 38:05

Yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 38:07

How about you, Sarah?

Sarah Green: 38:11

Oh man, I would say leadership lesson. I don't know if it's cliche, but it came to us really on a hard lesson. But it's just to hold people open handedly. Whether they're leadership team that come into your church, whether they're just members, they serve for a season. Just members, they serve for a season. We've just learned that in our insecurity. In the beginning we would be like what is it about us? Right, that people won't stay. But then the more you get in rooms and conversations with other pastors, people just come and go and it's a season sometimes. Sometimes they're there for the long haul. Sometimes it's nothing that has to do with you, sometimes it is your church, just isn't their church.

Spencer Green: 38:58

And you don't have the ministry they want or their family needs, or whatever.

Sarah Green: 39:03

We just learn that over time. Okay, these are God's people, they're not our people. Okay, these are God's people, they're not our people. And while he's called them to our church, we're going to plant the seeds that he's asking us to. They might not have a radical life change they may, but what he's calling us to do in their lives, we're going to step up. We're going to do it while they're with us and if they're moving on somewhere else, okay, that's for the Lord and them, not for us. And so at this point, you know, we've learned to be grateful for the season that he does call people to our church and, yeah, it's about the kingdom. He doesn't detract from one church to add to another. He's in the business of making sure everybody's where they're supposed to be for that time and for that lesson or for that discipleship, whatever it is.

Spencer Green: 40:00

Yeah, I had Pastor Greg Surratt sit across from a table with me at a retreat I went to and he looked at me and he said, spencer, if I can tell you anything and it's right in line with what Sarah's saying he said I would love to teach pastors to have hard hands but a soft heart, because most pastors have the opposite they have a hardened heart and soft hands and then they bleed all over everyone.

Sarah Green: 40:25

Yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 40:27

That's a good word. Those are two really good, really wise tips. I appreciate that, Appreciate you guys being on telling your story when you look at Spencer and Sarah, you don't realize the depth and all the stuff that you guys have been through, but you do realize, hey, the future that God has for you is just really good. He's doing something wonderful there and I just pray you guys keep going. Thanks so much for being here today.

Sarah Green: 40:55

We appreciate it. Thank you so much for the time.

Announcer: 41:00

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.