Welcome And Jeff’s Background

Announcer 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Perrin 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 the Leading Conversations Podcast with the Excel Leadership Network. And today I'm really excited to have with us the great, the wonderful, the marvelous Jeff Crandall.

Jeff Crandall 0:42

Well, I hope I can live up to that.

J.D. Pearring 0:44

Well, we'll see. We'll see, Jeff. Jeff's from uh Arizona, but we're talking, he's in Southern California today. So beautiful weather down there, or no?

Jeff Crandall 0:55

Yeah, it's great, man. It has been raining, but but the last couple days have been beautiful.

J.D. Pearring 1:00

Good, good, good.

Growing Up With A Famous Father

J.D. Pearring 1:01

Well, you've got a uh pretty good story and uh like the the uh long and winding road. So hey, uh tell us how you came to Christ as as a kid growing up, what what was happening there?

Jeff Crandall 1:18

Yeah, I get a crazy, pretty crazy story. I was um I'm kind of right in the middle of six kids. Um my uh dad was a baseball player and uh 11 time all-star with the Milwaukee Braves. And so I grew up with a famous dad. I didn't know he was famous, I just knew he was gone a lot and uh played. Well, I remember manager dad. So my older brother remembers baseball player dad. And uh it's funny how six years uh makes such a huge difference in the memories.

J.D. Pearring 1:50

So did you grow up primarily in Milwaukee then?

Jeff Crandall 1:52

Uh I was born in Milwaukee, but we moved when I was three. So I just have pictures of me in the giant snowsuit, you know, with my arms sticking straight out because it was so filled with fluff because it was so cold outside. Um, but we moved when I was real little, so I don't have much memory of that. But my dad did the, you know, traveling on the team plane with all with you know Eddie Matthews and Hank Aaron as a player. Um I actually, when my dad was managing the Brewers, they did a an exhibition game with the Atlanta Braves um at an all-star break. And my dad gave me two big old boxes of baseballs, and I think there were two dozen balls in a box. And he said, Hey Jeff, would you take these to Mr. Aaron in the visitors' clubhouse and ask him to sign them for me? And so I actually took, I think, four dozen baseballs to to Hank Aaron and asked him to sign them for my dad. And uh when my dad passed away, um, I still didn't have one.

J.D. Pearring 3:01

Oh no.

Jeff Crandall 3:03

So I ended up getting one when my dad passed away, but um I was the only one at that point that didn't have one.

J.D. Pearring 3:10

Uh four dozen baseball signed by Hank Aaron, but it's worth uh quite a bit of money right now.

Jeff Crandall 3:16

Yeah, he had given them all away by the time he had passed, but except for the one. And I ended up with that.

J.D. Pearring 3:21

Oh, good.

Jeff Crandall 3:22

Yeah, yeah. He was a good man, my dad. But he had a uh he was in professional baseball until he was 72 years old. And uh he passed away when he was 92, so he was a good baseball man. Yeah, so I I was that kid, you know, I grew up in this family that um had uh it was a tough, tough growing up with dad being gone. And my mom had lost three three kids, and so we had three. One died when he was like seven, and then we had two, one died when he was like three minutes old. They knew he was gonna pass away because he had a tough, tough um, you know, being in utero, he was tough, and uh they knew he had problems. And then there was another one who had uh miscarried. So my mom had a tough time. Um so with six kids, it was a tough, tough time growing up. Um, but I was that kid in in in the neighborhood who was always trying to find somebody to take him to church, and uh so I'd find somebody, some family. This day and age, you couldn't do that because everybody's so protective of their kids, which justifiably so I was pretty fortunate. Um but I remember some some wonderful ladies that would

Early Faith And Baptism

Jeff Crandall 4:36

take me with their families and uh found Christ at a pretty young age. My brother actually accepted Christ when he was 16 and took me to what was then First Baptist Church in Fullerton, which is now Wilshire Avenue Community Church.

J.D. Pearring 4:49

Oh, really?

Jeff Crandall 4:50

Yeah, and I accepted Christ when I was 11 and um was baptized the Sunday before Christmas in 1972. So um, yes, I'm just that old. I'll be 65 in January.

J.D. Pearring 5:04

Just a kid, just a kid.

Jeff Crandall 5:06

Yep. Um, but we're trying to use my age now to my advantage to help people, so we'll talk about that.

J.D. Pearring 5:12

Medicare, that's the thing.

Jeff Crandall 5:14

Yep, I'm all signed up, ready to go. Yeah, so I accepted Christ at that age, and at that same church, um, I met my wife, and uh, she was the wonderful age of uh of 14, believe it or not. And I was 16, and we uh we started dating and and uh been married for for uh we got married in 83, so we've been married a long time, and it's been great. We've been done ministry together, and she's stuck it out for with me. So I accepted Christ pretty young and five.

J.D. Pearring 5:50

What caused you to want to go to church? I mean, were you raised in a was it a Christian family, or what was it that's had you roam in the neighborhood looking for hitching a ride to to some church? What's the deal there?

Jeff Crandall 6:04

You know, it's hard for me to know. I know when my when my dad passed away, you know, you start ruffling through all your papers. My dad did have a um, my my dad had a really um, he was a good man who who I knew had a faith in Christ. And in the early in his in the in the 70s, he was discipled by a man in Fullerton who met with him regularly to help him understand Christ. But he was never a regular churchgoer. And um that frustrated me. Um after I accepted Christ, it frustrated me that dad didn't go. So I'm not I'm not direct, I'll answer your question in a second. Um I after he passed away, I talked to the um the chaplain for the angels. And um I asked him directly, I said, How come, how come my dad didn't go to church? Can you help me? And he said, Well, uh being a chaplain to the angels, I can kind of help you. So these guys are celebrities at every church they go to, and I can imagine it was the same thing with your dad. And I said, It was. Every time he went to church with me, the pastor would say, Hey, Del Crandall's here, because he was a celebrity in Fullerton. And um, and he didn't make the kind of money that they make today. I mean, he not in anywhere close. And um these guys just want to be a regular person, you know, they want to just go to church and sit in the seat or the pew, or they want to be like like everybody else and not be noticed, just be hey Dell, you know, or you know, but everywhere they go, somebody recognizes them. And nowadays pastors probably see them as a as a tithe, as a giver.

J.D. Pearring 7:47

Yeah.

Jeff Crandall 7:48

And um, and so it's hard for them uh to go. And this uh chaplain said, you know, I don't even know any of the guys that are

Why Church Was Hard For Celebrities

Jeff Crandall 7:58

really strong Christian believers on the team for the angels at the time that are regular church attenders because they have the same problem. They're just they just are not treated like regular people.

J.D. Pearring 8:12

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Jeff Crandall 8:13

Yeah, yeah. So so to answer your question, um, I think I picked up that, and my dad, my mom and dad did make um uh a profession of Christ early in their marriage when they started having children, but never really started attending church regularly. So I think I must have picked something up. I was the responsible child. I wanted something better than what I was getting at home because we weren't getting any Christian stuff at home, but I knew there was something good and I wanted something better. Um, and I I knew enough to know there was a God, and so I wanted to go to church. And so when my brother accepted Christ, I was like, Yeah, I'm in, take me, please, you know, and so the other kids didn't go right away. Um, but I was I was let's go. And so I had a chance to share Jesus with my siblings and was able to lead um some of them to Christ.

J.D. Pearring 9:12

Oh, that's that's really cool. Which was there a call to ministry in there?

Jeff Crandall 9:17

Or yeah, when I I always felt, you know, like I was in the leadership team in junior high school, and when I got to high school, I was included in on the leadership team. Um Richard Cathers, my youth pastor, um, included me in um the leadership team in high school and discipled me throughout my high school years. And in 1978, when I went to to um youth camp up at Forest Home, um on the on the Thursday was always like traditionally on Thursday night of that summer camp, it was hey, hey, youth people, before you get to college, you should consider being a missionary.

J.D. Pearring 9:53

Yeah.

Jeff Crandall 9:54

And um, so I was sitting there listening to the message that night. And it's like JD, it was like it was yesterday. You know, God made it so powerful in my life. He made it so I would never forget it because he knows I'm forgetful. And so I was sitting there. In fact, Jenny and I were dating at the time, and I remember that day. I'm I'm 17 and she is 15, and we get in a fight. You know, it's a stupid teenager fight, like they all are. But God knew that if I was sitting with her, I would be tickling her and flirting with her, and I wouldn't be paying attention. And so he made it so I would be pouting in this in the third row all by myself without any youth people to distract me. So I was sitting up in the front, um, just really listening, feel sorry, feeling sorry for myself, really listening to what this guy had to say. And he was telling a story about a guy who was in the hospital who had cancer. And um, this guy was 66 years old. And I remember thinking, gosh, he's old. He's about ready to die because he's 66. And then he told he was telling us about how he had cancer, and they had done all the treatments they could do, and so there really was nothing else he could do. He was about to die, and um, all his family had left. This pastor was alone with him, and so he asked the guy, he said, um, he said, now that it looks like you know you're about ready to go to heaven and be with Jesus, is there anything

Call To Ministry At Youth Camp

Jeff Crandall 11:24

that you've been holding on to that you just feel like you need to let go um before you go meet with Jesus? Something that you just feel like, hey, I just need to tell somebody. And so he looked at this pastor and he said, you know, when I was in college, um, I really felt a call to missionary service. And I didn't, I didn't go. I um was afraid. You know, I was afraid of all the things that you know missionaries are afraid of. I was afraid I was gonna live in a grass hut and have to go minister at pygmies and you know have my head shrunk or something, you know, all the things that most missionaries don't do, you know, most missionaries live in a regular house and you know, do regular things. And but he said at the time I didn't know that. I was just afraid, I didn't want to raise my own salary and you know, all the stuff. And so I just told God no. And I went and finished, got my my uh business degree and lived in a big house and had the the whole American dream. And um, at one at some point in time, I thought I could do it when I retire. And now instead of retiring, I'm gonna die. And so I just really messed up. And God somehow told this guy when he was um you know a 17-year-old kid, God told me, Um, Jeff, you're gonna be a minister of music. And uh, because they didn't have worship pastors back in those days, they were all ministers of music for the most part, um, wore three-piece suits to work and wore robes to lead worship and had choirs and used hymnals. You know, I'm I wasn't from a Calvary Chapel tradition, I was from a Baptist tradition. And I just told God that night, I said, You know, God, I'm not even sure I could go to college. I'm not a good student, and I don't do three-piece suits, and I don't do robes, and I don't even think I want to do hymnals. I'm not your guy. I mean, I felt like Moses having this conversation with God. And um, and I was waiting for him to say, that's okay, Aaron's gonna come help you. But he didn't say that. He just said, No, you're gonna do this, and when the time is right, don't be that guy. And um you're gonna you are the right guy. Uh you just have to wait for the time. And when the time is right, don't be afraid. Do it. And so that night, I promised God that I would do it. And um, I knew that the path would be windy and it wouldn't be normal, but it would happen. And so um that that don't be that guy theme was imprinted like a tattoo in my brain. And uh so I went on from that night and I told Richard and I told Jenny, because we knew even at that young age that we were gonna be together somehow. So God, that night I committed to full-time ministry service, and um, it happened. It was just a really weird, weird path.

J.D. Pearring 14:29

What what happened when you told your parents?

Jeff Crandall 14:31

I'm not sure I told them right away. I think it took some time.

J.D. Pearring 14:36

They don't know yet.

unknown 14:39

Yeah.

Jeff Crandall 14:40

Well, because my path was really strange. I mean, I went I went to Cal State Fullerton, and the first challenge of education. I mean, I really wasn't a good student. I mean, even to stay, I was to say I was a solid C student was an exaggeration. I mean, I got I kind of got through high school on personality alone. Um, I really was not good. My study habits were horrible, um, partly because my family my family life was really bad. Um, my mom's issues, the multiple kids, my dad being gone all the time. I mean, people think it's glamorous to have dad as a famous baseball player, but it's difficult. Um, and so I didn't have good habits. And plus, I found out later in my in my late 20s that I had a learning disability. So I went, I became a drummer in a punk rock band. That was my first music education. I went to Cal State Fullerton for three semesters, took three semesters of music theory, and then a few other classes that I some of them I dropped out of before I got an F. Um, so I watched the calendar real carefully and went, oh, I better get out.

J.D. Pearring 15:54

I remember those days.

Jeff Crandall 15:55

Yeah.

J.D. Pearring 15:56

I don't drop by Friday, I'm in trouble.

Jeff Crandall 15:58

Yeah. And so, excuse me, my cousin and I, Mike, um, Mike Stand, everybody knows him by, but um, we started the Altar Boys in 1982. And um, we had a band called Image Before That, but we started Altar Boys, that's the one that most people would know. Um, and we we toured and recorded uh the it's really one of the first Christian punk rock bands, and we were together for 11 years.

J.D. Pearring 16:22

Where's the punk rock haircut?

Jeff Crandall 16:25

Where is this? It uh became gray and um it's it became thinner than it used to be.

J.D. Pearring 16:33

Did you have a punk? Do you have a punk haircut?

Jeff Crandall 16:37

Not anymore. Anyway, I was like this for a while, but I had a I had like a like a flock of seagulls for a while. All right. That came up front, but yeah, we had the we had the 80s mullet, the big hair giant thing. Yeah, but we we did that for in fact we actually released our last album in 2018 called No Substitute. So played for our last what what will most likely be our last time so at House of Blues in Anaheim. That was fun.

J.D. Pearring 17:10

Oh wow, wow, yeah. So you're in this punk rock band, yep, Christian punk rock.

Jeff Crandall 17:16

Yeah, and we we toured all over the place and um

College Struggles And Learning Disability

Jeff Crandall 17:20

just really saw a lot of kids come to know Jesus and um did uh had a really good ministry, and and the ministry continues on because dads are sharing it with their kids, and we still get messages and you know about the difference that we made in the lives of high school and and uh college kids, and um thankful for that time. And I think the church that God had called me to to minister in and with it aligned with the theology that that I've really lived by and that God had had uh that I believed in was not ready for a guy like me to lead worship. And so we ended up in the high desert and uh going to Tom Mercer's church, High Desert Church, it was High Desert Baptist Church at the time. And um, they needed a worship pastor. And um I I had heard God, and that's this is this is a big time when that theme, Don't Be That Guy, came back. I went to uh their church and I heard uh um Pat Neemeyer, who was uh intern at the church, was going into the International School of Theology, and uh he was doing uh a Sunday school class there back when they had still had Sunday school for adults. And I heard him teach, and I heard that the International School of Theology, which is no longer there at Arrowhead Springs, is part of was part of Campus Crusade for Christ.

J.D. Pearring 18:46

It's in Orlando, isn't it?

Jeff Crandall 18:47

Now yeah, I think they have a remnant of it. I'm not sure what it looks like in Orlando, but I think they do have it in Orlando. But he's they had a certificate program there, so I could go there even though I didn't

Founding The Altar Boys

Jeff Crandall 18:58

finish college. And um God said, Hey, this is your time. Go do it. And I said, But I can't do that. I don't have a bachelor's degree. And he said, Hey, I told you I'd be with you. Don't be that guy, the chicken's out. Don't do it. And I went, okay. And I did it. And I graduated and I did pretty, I did pretty darn uh good in that in that program, and and then I became the worship pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It was unbelievable what God had done. Um yeah, it was pretty, pretty amazing. So I was there for 18 years.

J.D. Pearring 19:38

You know, I've tried to get Tom Mercer to say something bad about you. But he he just doesn't do that, you know. He he speaks uh v very highly of of Jeff Crandall.

Jeff Crandall 19:52

Tom's a good man. Yes. Yeah, I enjoyed my time with him. It was um it was good and You know, when you're a family, um, families do have hard times, but families don't dwell on those hard times, they get through them. Um and um and there were bumps. I mean, you you don't have you don't go from 900 people, which is what it was when I started. Um, believe it or not, I was a children's director there first, and I'd never done children's ministry at all, but before that, but they believed in me and they wanted me on their staff. And uh then I made the trans trans transfer. I remember when I when I first went in there, I was their children's director at the time, and I they needed a worship pastor, and I went in and I said, Hey, Tom, I I would like to be considered um as the worship pastor. I think I I think I'm your guy. I I can do it. And he said, What are you gonna do? Lead worship from the drums? And I said, Hey, I could do that if you if I need to, but I play guitar too. Now, mind you, I was a lousy acoustic guitar player. Whore. I'm still not great, but um, but I but I can do it. And um, and he said, I told him, I said, Look, I can lead worship from the drums, but I can't, I can do it from guitar and I can be fine. And and he said, Well, let's put you up there and see how you do. And um, and then my son, years ago, the years like when he was 13, he said, he likes to knife me in the back one day. He said, How long have you been playing acoustic guitar, Dad? And I said, uh, I don't know, 30 years or something, you know, and he said, Well, how come you're not better? And I said, Well, you know, because I'm a pastor who plays guitar. And I said, There are guitar players who who are pastors, and they're probably not as good at at being a pastor as they are being a guitar player. Um, I'm the I'm kind of the other way. People are what I do, and uh that's my main thing. And I play guitar on the weekend to lead worship. Oh well, but I'm not I'm not nearly as good as a guitar player as I am, a people person.

J.D. Pearring 22:02

So you're there for 18 years then what?

Jeff Crandall 22:05

Well, I left there. Um, there were a lot of reasons um why I had some health issues, and it is very difficult. The ministry that I grew, the ministry that I started from 10 people uh when we were 900 grew to be 150 people, um, and included multiple bands, uh, a choir, a horn section. Um, I had an arranger on staff with me, uh, plus a part-time worship leader. Um became hard to manage, and I had some health issues. I developed lung disease and immune system thing and some other issues. So, with all those things, it became pretty hard to manage. And um it just became, they hired somebody else to do that position because of the size of it. And um, I I left for Tucson for a friend of mine needed a worship leader. And so I thought, well, let's go try a smaller church and see how that works. And um, it worked well for close to five years. And um, I found out that the management skills you learn at a really, really big church don't necessarily work at a small church. Um, and so after four years, I left there and started focusing on mentoring worship leaders. And I helped a couple of a couple of church plants um get started. Um, and I loved that. Um, I was with worship catalyst, mentoring worship leaders, and I mentored um like 70 worship leaders across the country that were specifically for church planting. And um that that was a great experience. Um, some of these guys I was pretty sure weren't believers yet. And um, because some of church planters, I mean, you know, you that's what you do, right? You you do church planting, you know, and some of these church planters, they're just trying to get somebody to do music. And sometimes it is a matter

From Punk Drummer To Worship Pastor

Jeff Crandall 24:06

of, hey, I would need a guy who has at least a heart that's open, and they're leading somebody to Christ who can do music and is willing to do it. And so it gave me a chance to to share the gospel with some of these young guys, and they were willing to learn and um they had a good heart, and I would do it in threes, and a lot of that was during the COVID time. So um we were on Zoom anyway, which is was convenient because we were in Boston or Miami, San Diego. I was in Tucson, so they were all over the country, you know, Seattle and Kansas City and Salt Lake City and everywhere. Um so I love doing that. Um, 70 different guys in groups of three over Zoom. And some of those guys I'm still uh good friends with, and we we contact each other by text usually every week, and uh just encourage each other and pray for each other and and just commit to stay accountable in the best way we can over text messages. You know, it's good to know that somebody's praying for you when you need it.

J.D. Pearring 25:12

Sure, sure, sure.

Jeff Crandall 25:13

Yeah, so I did that, and then after COVID broke, I I actually took a position in Phoenix that was at a church um that was looking for a worship leader. And before I they at first they just needed somebody's sub at Easter time. They um they lost their worship leader, and their team was volunteering, and it opened my eyes to a whole new issue in some of these small churches, and um their team was getting tired, and um, their pastor knew it. And um I went up there just to kind of give them a break for a month, and uh when I was going up there, I was 60 years old, so I know that 60 years old for a worship pastor, that ship has sailed, right? Nobody's nobody's chomping at the bit to hire a 60-year-old worship pastor. So I figure, hey, I'm gonna go up and help this guy for a month. I could use the money, he's gonna put me up in a hotel, he's gonna pay me a couple hundred two fifty a week to drive up to Phoenix, then I go back to Tucson. It's easy. Well, the first week I go up there, he they look at me and say, How are you getting these people to sing? You know, and I'm thinking, well, you pick songs they know, you put it in keys they can sing. I don't think it's that hard, you know. Um, but I realized, you know, that the this is something that a lot of worship leaders don't think of because they're they're picking songs that they know and then keys that they can sing instead of the keys that the people can sing. So what I think is not a no-brainer, worship leaders aren't even thinking of. So they ended up offering me a job, and um, I wasn't looking for a job. And I I was real clear with them. I said, now you sure you want to hire a six-year-old worship leader? Because I don't want to move up here and then because it's a two hour, two hours away from Tucson. I don't want to sell my house that I love and move up here that's more expensive, and then find out in six months that you and your church don't want a six-year-old worship leader. You really wanted a 30-year-old worship leader, and so I stayed there for three years, three and a half years, and then um then I had ramifications from COVID caused me to have to leave there. So I wasn't there for very long. I knew I wouldn't be very there for very long anyway. So that was in the calculations for Jenny and I. Um so then I ended up leaving there. I left them in better position than when I got there, which was my goal. Build up their team, get them healthy. Every church I've been to was way healthier than when I got there. So um that was the goal. I hit my goal, and then I was able to leave. Um, so but what it opened up to me was the real need for small churches um to be cared for. Almost every ministry that ministers to worship leaders is designed to minister to big churches. Um, there are a lot of great ministries that put on conferences, national conferences, or do um, you know, I'm intentionally not mentioning them because I don't want to, I don't want to burn any of them because they're all great. Um, that have mentoring programs, you know, they're $500 a month, $300 a month. Um, well, if you're if you're worship, if you're volunteering or getting $50 a week at a small church, you can't afford to go to those things. And a church can't afford to send you. The 68% of the churches in the country are um

Building A Mega-Church Worship Ministry

Jeff Crandall 28:56

under 100. Well, they can barely afford to pay a pastor and barely afford to pay a worship leader a small amount of money just to say thank you for leading worship every week. So, how do they send people to things or bring in a consultant to help them to do better? So my wife and I have had a ministry for a number of years called Arizona School of Worship. So that kind of brings us to the now, you know, what we're doing. So that's kind of morphed into a ministry that focuses on these small churches. And I take my 34 years of worship leading experience in the mega church, the small church, the church plant, and I'm now focusing on these small churches to help these small worship leaders feel um seen, feel important, feel like they know what they're doing, and help build the basics into their lives so that they know what they're doing and help take the pressure off of the pastor to equip them. Because pastors are busy equipping their boards, preparing their sermons, putting out fires, you know, that of church members that go rogue, you know, all the things. I mean, you've been a pastor, you know all the things that pastors do. Last thing they have to worry about doing is corralling a creative worship leader that wants to do something crazy. Um it's a lot of talking, I know. So no, no, no.

J.D. Pearring 30:21

So and uh for a while there you're thinking about doing a church plant yourself.

Jeff Crandall 30:25

Yes.

J.D. Pearring 30:26

Where where are you at on that?

Jeff Crandall 30:28

Yeah, we we Jenny and I um years ago took the Blackabee Experiencing God study, and one of the things that is really powerful in that is to see where God is working and go do that. So we moved when we moved to the Phoenix area, we uh moved to Sun City. Sun City is a 55 and older community, and um, what we noticed when we moved there is that there are a lot of people that um have been wounded by the church, whatever that means. I mean, you and I both know that sometimes that could be nothing, you know, sometimes it's a big thing. Um, they also are afraid of germs after COVID. Um, some of them are sick and can't don't leave the house very often. Um so what we have what we have come into contact with late lately is a whole idea of a house church. And um, what we've really been praying about and have decided to do is do a house church in our home. And um so we've been praying about it and we've been researching it, and it's really becoming a really big movement. And so we've partnered with a friend of ours who's actually in Jacksonville, uh, Florida, and we've started um the very beginnings of a house church. We had a gathering, um, including Jenny and I, there were there were seven people there um on the 16th of November. We just had a dessert, we got together and just had good time of talking together, and then let them announce to them what we're gonna do, and we're gonna get together in December, and then um then we'll decide at an actual start time. The goal is just to meet in the afternoon on Sunday um and then do uh a house church meeting in the afternoon Sunday, invite the people from uh starting with the people on our block and our street. And then as we grow, we'll we'll train a leader to start another house church

Health Challenges And Transition

Jeff Crandall 32:20

nearby. Um uh in Sun City, the way that the community works, it it grows in this in the wintertime, and then people go to their summer homes.

J.D. Pearring 32:30

Right.

Jeff Crandall 32:31

Nobody, no, nobody wants to live where it's 120 in the summertime. So, but the idea is to is to provide a house church community for people um who don't who won't go to a legacy church, a brick and mortar building for whatever whatever their excuse is. Um, some people you're just not going to convince to go. And these people need the gospel. I mean, they're some of them are very old and they're convinced that that they're not gonna go to a church building, but they'll come to our house.

J.D. Pearring 33:01

You think your dad would go to something like that?

Jeff Crandall 33:04

Would have I think he would have. Yeah. Because in a neighborhood, he's just he was just Dell in our neighborhood. He wasn't the famous paypal player. Right.

J.D. Pearring 33:13

Now, are you are you still doing the Arizona School of Uh Music?

Jeff Crandall 33:17

Yeah, yeah. What we're doing right now, we have we have four. Well, the way we're doing Arizona School of Worship is we're scheduling four um worship leader gatherings. And we did one of them in October, and then we have four of them scheduled that get us to April. And uh we haven't decided what we're gonna do in the summertime because in the summertime in the Arizona, especially in the Phoenix area, just everything changes. And um, so we'll probably do something, but um, either we'll just go out with a big bang and then wait until the fall, or we'll do one thing in the summer. Um we're gonna meet with our board and kind of figure out what the summer is gonna look like. But I know we're gonna meet one time until April, and then we'll we'll figure out what May looks like and then go from there.

J.D. Pearring 34:06

And are you still coaching worship leaders?

Jeff Crandall 34:08

Yes, yeah.

J.D. Pearring 34:09

So if somebody wants to be coached, how do they contact you?

Jeff Crandall 34:13

Yeah, the best way to go is to go to Arizona School of Worship.com. And uh there are there's a phone number there, and um and uh there's a form you can fill out on there, they can email me through the website. Great, right? Yeah, and I I definitely would coach them through there. And we, by the way, I don't um right now charge for that because people working in that kind of situation are not paid normally. And so to charge them is there's I'm charging them for something they're not getting paid for. So um the best thing to do if you really believe in small churches, and you know, like I said, 68% of the churches in the country are small, um, and you want to support this kind of ministry, you can go to the website, Arizona School of Worship.com

Mentoring Worship Leaders For Church Plants

Jeff Crandall 34:56

slash give, and you can donate to our ministry if you want. Um, don't change your giving to Excel, however. But if you want to get something extra, you can give to ours.

J.D. Pearring 35:08

There you go. Hey, uh thanks for sharing your story. Give us uh, and you you've given a couple, but give us a leadership tip. You've been doing this for a while.

Jeff Crandall 35:16

Yeah, you know, most of my ministry, in fact, God has only really called me to be a worship pastor. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give um this this worship tip, uh, this ministry tip actually go or leadership tip actually does bleed over in everything. But good worship comes from good relationships. And um, worship ministries have been um going towards the easy and they've been taking rehearsals out of the week and just been going to let's rehearse quick on Sunday and do church. But um I I believe that churches know when the worship team has have relationships together. And if you shortcut, if you shortcut your relationships as a worship team, people can tell. And if you if you build relationships with your team, your worship in church is better. And um, so I I've always believed that that um more short shorter rehearsals is better than one long rehearsal because you can have better relationships that way. So I hope that makes sense.

J.D. Pearring 36:24

No, that makes sense. That's great. That's uh uh I I believe that I agree with you, but uh I hadn't thought about that before. Um and when when anybody in the ministry, when they're getting along, when they love each other, when they like each other, or you know, when you know that hey, they're working together, it shows no matter what it is. But uh obviously in something like worship where you have people on stage. So yeah. Well, thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for um your long and winding road, and it's not done. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what's gonna happen with this house church in the future.

Jeff Crandall 37:04

So thanks for your time. Yeah, God's got great things. And thank you, JD. I appreciate what you do. And man, it seems like you're you're posting a new church every day almost. So I'm excited about that.

J.D. Pearring 37:14

God's doing great things.

Jeff Crandall 37:16

He certainly is. Thank you for letting us be a part of your ministry.

Announcer 37:22

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.