Announcer : 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Perry 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.

JD: 0:30

Welcome to another edition of Leading Conversations with Excel Leadership Network. And today we are very happy to have with us the wonderful couple, the awesome Alens, Chris and Shelly from uh is it Loveland, Ohio? Is that where you are? A little north of there. We're in Dayton. Dayton. Okay. Dayton, Ohio. Everybody started Dayton, Ohio. Yep.

Chris: 0:53

Good old Dayton. What is Dayton known for? Dayton is known for flight. Though that other state tries to say that they're known for flight. Which one?

Shelly: 1:02

Is it Philadelphia? Nope, that's Pennsylvania.

Chris: 1:05

So can't remember. Somebody else claims flight as well. But the Wright brothers, it's them. They were born literally five minutes up the road. Their house is there. So that's right.

Shelly: 1:14

They're right shop.

JD: 1:15

Yep. Did they fly there? Is that where Kenny Hawk is?

Chris: 1:19

No. Kitty Hawk was in is it South Carolina, I think?

Shelly: 1:22

Is it?

Chris: 1:22

I think that's the other state. That does the flight thing. Yeah. They uh they built it here and then they took it there. Yeah.

Shelly: 1:28

Can't remember if it was weather related or so technically flight happened not in Ohio, but it was it was uh brainstormed and created in Ohio.

Chris: 1:37

Yes.

JD: 1:38

Okay, they put the they put their craft on a southwest flight down to South Carolina. Well, great. Well, hey, um you guys have been planting for a while, um, been sticking to it, but let's go back to the beginning. Uh tell us how you came to Jesus, how you came to Christ.

Chris: 1:59

Well, I grew up uh in a Christian family, and it was central to our family for as long as I can remember. My grandparents were pastors, uh, and they planted a church probably just a couple of years after I was born. And then uh I grew up in that church, and my dad was very, very serious about faith. Uh, he fasted and prayed on a regular basis and would read the Bible with us and would tell us stories. And one day he led me to being a Christian in our kitchen and in our house when I was, I don't know, five or six years old, something along those lines. And I've been uh just all about that, and it's been central to me ever since then. I'll never forget something my dad said to me uh as a young person. He said, You can do anything you want in life and go do, you know, go become anything you want. Uh, but the one thing that if you ever do it, I will literally go crazy and never stop bugging you about it is if you ever abandon Jesus. And uh I've never forgotten that. And that's just something that's been a big deal for us um for for our whole family, all the way up three generations and uh is to this day. How about you?

Shelly: 3:12

Um, well, um my parents became Christians in college where they met or at the end of their college life. And um, so they were kind of looking for a church once they had their kids, which was just a few years later. And so we all uh it was a Lutheran church, and we all kind of um got baptized when I was four. Um, but then I ended up going to summer camp um as a young elementary kid, I think first grade. And uh I think that's where I uh officially um, you know, became a Christian and follower of Jesus officially, minus my parents' own faith, you know. So that was at uh summer camp and what we called the chicken church, which was a church down the street. So my family always went to church. Um my mom always encouraged us to uh do memory verses for our youth group on weeknights, and we never missed um on Wednesday nights when we had our church and sometimes we hopped places, but my mom liked to be part of the music ministry. So we've just kind of always been in it, and that's actually how I met Chris was at church.

Chris: 4:14

So yeah, at what event?

Shelly: 4:16

At Chick Bash.

Chris: 4:18

Yes, we had a youth event at at a church down the road uh where we all thought, let's give chick Chick-fil-A sandwiches out to everybody. What should we call this? And at the leadership meeting, we said, you know, let's call it Chick Bash because it'll be funny.

Shelly: 4:32

And I got a flyer for this event and went to it.

Chris: 4:36

So I met my wife at Chick Bash, and uh that's a story I continue to tell over and over because it I think it's funny.

JD: 4:43

There's a lot of different directions we could go with that. But let's let's uh let me let me ask you, Shelley. Do you remember your four-year-old baptism?

Shelly: 4:51

I do actually. I remember doing it. We were at that particular church for a long time. My parents actually were the youth leaders for that church. And so uh I remember doing it, but it was a Lutheran one, so they just kind of wet your head and and all of that. But um, like I said, I it wasn't necessarily my decision. I wasn't obviously against it, but I think I kind of came down a couple years later at church camp.

JD: 5:16

Okay. Well, where did uh ministry come from? You guys stepped in ministry. Where did what happened there?

Chris: 5:22

Well, I growing up in church my whole life, had been involved in helping um with whatever was going on, starting out with the basics and eventually picked up an acoustic guitar. My dad had an acoustic guitar that as a child I heard from them that I sat on and cracked it. And so he he pretty much stopped playing it after that. But it was still usable because some years later, when I was 12, I picked it up and started playing. And I started a terrible youth band at our church uh that we we uh we all kind of were starting out just in the beginning of our music ability, but we grew together and uh eventually our little youth band was um playing on different churches in Dayton. Uh, when I was 13 and 14, we were being invited to some large churches to come and play there, which is pretty cool. And then I started leading worship as a worship leader at our church when I was 16 years old. And um eventually, as my grandmother, who was the main worship leader there, was experiencing some medical difficulties, I started becoming the primary worship leader while helping with the youth ministry. And then shortly after that, our youth ministry. And this is when you were like a teenager? Yeah, this is when I was a teenager. So I was very involved in the church and was constantly trying to get everybody to give me rides there because I didn't have a driver's license because I kept failing my driver's test. What's this now? I I failed my driver's test over and over. So I was getting rides.

JD: 6:51

How many times did you fail?

Chris: 6:52

Three times I failed it. I've heard a worse. So so it was uh it wasn't too long um after that that uh we there were some things that happened in the youth ministry and it kind of went down, got involved at a church up the street uh that was very large. Our our church that I grew up in was smaller, about 150 or so. And um probably more like 80 or 90 back then. It grew to be bigger, but the church up the street was a couple thousand people. And so I went there and got involved in the youth ministry there, and it was exploding. It was vibrant. It was, I think the youth ministry while I was there went from 80 to 300 high schoolers on Tuesday nights. And there was, I don't know, 150, 200 baptisms while I was part of that. And that was a transformative time. That's where I met her, was at that church, and we picked up what we learned there and brought it back to the church I grew up in. And at that church, her and I had just met each other, and we were just acquaintances at the time, I would say pretty much acquaintances, but we were both there right at the beginning of launching a brand new youth ministry at our church. We only had five of us or so that started that out. And within 20 weeks, I remember it was 20 weeks because we had a 20-week plan. And at the end of the 20 weeks, we went from five to 118 on a Wednesday night uh for a student side of things, and which exceeded the weekend attendance. And it was such a short-term thing that happened so rapidly, uh, it was it was unbelievable. And we had so many baptisms and so many life transformations. And it actually caused the weekend to grow because there were so many students coming to this youth ministry. And while we were there, uh, one of the things that we started realizing was that the way that church was being conducted for the weekend was a very different style than what we had envisioned for us. Nothing wrong with it. In fact, I would say the church we grew up in was, or that I grew up in, was very genuine and very real, uh, but very charismatic and um not always secret-minded, which is something I consider to be, some people think it's bad. But for me, I think being secret-minded just reminds me of, you know, James when he says, Let's let us not make it difficult for those turning to God. Um, you know, so I wanted to turn that direction. And so I started just kind of mentally thinking, what would we what would it look like if we created something new? And so that was the beginnings of ideating towards uh a change in the future that we might step out and plant.

JD: 9:23

Did you sense some call to ministry or was it just natural?

Chris: 9:27

You know, I don't know that there was ever a day that I felt like there was a call. I just knew it was who I was. I've known it so long that it fades into history. Like into my mind, there was never a time where I thought I wasn't going to be doing it. So I started so young that it's almost difficult for me to recall it. I think that I think that as we started to move out into um into church planning, we definitely did experience a different kind of faith than we previously had encountered. Everything we had done it up to that point had been very strategy-oriented and creativity-oriented. When we went to church plant, we realized that faith was integral in a way that we didn't necessarily realize before then, um, especially when it, you know, when it was such a difficult journey going through having nothing. You know, when you go to having everything provided for you to going having nothing, you have to rely on God.

JD: 10:30

Where did the church planting bug come from?

Chris: 10:32

The church planting bug really mostly was us thinking maybe we could create something that's very seeker-driven and very uh, you know, leaning into uh just any idea that we can think up that would be helpful in drawing people towards God rather than um I don't I don't know how to explain it necessarily. Our church that we were at previously would sometimes just not be totally programmatic. And I'll give you an example. Sometimes they would have announcements, and during the announcements, it would just sort of get it a life of its own. And then there would be people giving testimonies and that weren't planned necessarily, and then it would take sometimes 45 minutes, sometimes they'd cancel the message because it just went on and on. And that was something that really got under my skin because I was very, I was very programmatic, very uh, you know, resolute. We'd like to think through things ahead of time, plan out message series, plan out um, you know, special events, all those things. That was my mindset. And so we started thinking, I'd like to do what we're doing here at the church I was at, which is Vineyard Church, and take it out of the vineyard um and do something new that was leveraging all of the um, you know, the spiritual components of that through the lens of organization and planning and thinking. And that's what that's what really generated our excitement towards that. Later on, we would realize the value of of leaning in, leaning on God and trusting God in a way that was supernatural. I think in the early days, it was like I said, we were young. I was 23. We started this our church when we were 20. When I was 23, how old were you?

Shelly: 12:14

Uh put me at 21, 20, probably. 20, yeah.

Chris: 12:18

Yeah, 20 years old. I was 23. We didn't know what we were doing. We had no idea.

Shelly: 12:22

We were we were as just well, I think that we didn't even necessarily um want to start a church and be the main people. Um, as Chris was the worship leader at our current church that we were at. Um, I think he was we were kind of leaning towards we want to be in leadership, but it wasn't that we necessarily had to be the lead people. Um, and then we just every time we were like, oh, here's a person, here's a person, it just didn't really work out. And it was like, oh, God's telling you it's your job.

Chris: 12:50

You're making me laugh because I forgot about that.

Shelly: 12:52

Yeah.

Chris: 12:53

I forgot that we we thought maybe I wouldn't be the lead guy, maybe we would just be the catalyst for doing something else.

Shelly: 12:59

Yeah. But it just uh kind of was like, no, it's you, you're doing it.

Chris: 13:04

Which is funny because that seems so silly to me now. If somebody came to me with that saying, I have this plan, but I'm not gonna do it, I would just be like, Okay, that's not gonna work. We were young, um, we were passionate, we meant business, we we loved the Lord, we loved serving. Um, we had no idea what we were doing. That's how it started. So we just went and we did with 12 people. We had 12 people and an infant. So, how has it been? It's been a very difficult road. Um, it's been a road filled with God being there, which is interesting because we've not experienced the growth we wanted. Um, everybody wants to grow, and I know that to be true. And for us, it was no different. And we have worked unbelievably hard to see that happen in our space. And so we have, you know, been very creative and done events, and we have connect processes, and we have a youth ministry, and we have a worship team with rotating members and planning center, and we've got different kids' classrooms on Sunday mornings, and we uh we'll have a harvest festival with 800 people that come to it in the fall, and we um we'll we'll do like a Mother's Day breakfast where we cook stuff for uh for people to order, and we'll have all the all these cool you know details that are thought through, and and and and we're very detail-oriented, and we very, very systems-oriented, and and we've worked very hard, and we we will raise money and take our team on a retreat once per year, and think through the whole next year and plan the whole thing out and and put it all together. And for some reason, we've been trapped at around 70 people forever.

JD: 14:54

I don't know, 10 years, 11 years through the process chick bash. Have you tried one of those?

Shelly: 15:03

In our early days, we did do a couple of different ones. It wasn't chick bash, though.

Chris: 15:08

We did give Chick-fil-A out. What do we we did the Chipotle one? That was um, I don't remember what we called that. Um something like life with integrity or something. That was back when Chipotle had the integrity. But yeah, we we gave away Chipotle, we gave away, we did give away Chick-fil-A, we gave away Subway, we gave away Smash Burger, we gave away Buffalo Wild Wings, we did a bunch of different events like that. Um we've had lots of baptisms this year. We had six baptisms. There's another one coming up this weekend, um, you know, for a small church. I mean, that's like 10% of our church size, uh, just in the first 45 days of the year. We've uh you know, we've been on a journey. The the strange part about it is even though we've struggled to grow, we've seen God so clearly. The building we're in is a miracle, which I won't get into the details of that, but we shouldn't be here. Um, that was from God responding to prayer. And Shelly and I, we we decided that I would quit my role as a full-time technical engineer and become a full-time pastor. And so I do some side contracting, but we've relied on God. And when we pray for resources, the Lord responds in miraculous ways over and over. That since 2017, I'm still not receiving a regular paycheck, and I still have to pray.

JD: 16:23

I I believe uh, Chris, you gave up a pretty lucrative job and opportunities with your family, correct?

Chris: 16:31

I did, I did. We we gave up a full-time role as a technology person. Um, and I do a little bit for them now uh on some things that that uh a lot of times related to YWAM, because they they have a big customer, um, which is youth with a mission, and they thought it would make sense that I help them with that customer since it's related to the Christian space, and so I do a lot with with YWAM uh through that. But aside that, I work here 45, 50 hours a week, uh, maybe more, and then do a little bit with them, probably 18 hours or so on the side, just uh some contracting work. This has been my main gig, and where we get the bulk of our resources is from here, because which is funny because we have like I think we have like $1,300 in our account right now at the church. Church hasn't paid me um in 2026 yet. Um and we we rely on we rely on God doing things. I prayed last November, Lord, I need you to do something. We're running out of money and it's getting ridiculous, and I can't have somebody walk up to me and give me a thousand dollars. Like that's not that's not the kind of money I'm talking about. I need I need tens of thousands. Three days go by and Sunday morning somebody hands us a check for 20,000. That's the kind of stuff that happens. It's just it's it's miraculous, it's unthinkable.

JD: 17:58

I I know Shelley, I know you are the queen of specific prayers. Can you tell the story about your car? How you're praying for your car?

Shelly: 18:07

Yeah. Um, well, so Chris and I had what? We had two two kids. We had three kids. We had three kids at the time, and we were going for four because our whole plan since we got married was four kids. And I was like, it's time we have to have child number four. And then I said, We need a bigger car, Chris, because the fourth one's not gonna fit in this car. And he said, Well, that's too bad. You need to talk to God about that. And I said, Fine. Because we were broke, I'll do that. So we had three kids at that time in car seats, all shoved in the backseat of my Dodge Avenger, so not very big. Um, but I decided for a long time that I wanted a Dodge Durango and that I wanted it to be at least a 2011, so the newer body style.

Chris: 18:56

Newer at that time.

Shelly: 18:57

Well, yeah. And uh um and so I started praying for it. I wanted at least a 2011, I wanted it to have leather interior, um, dark leather interior, uh, and I wanted it to be a dark colored car. And um, so every time I'd see a Durango drive past me on the highway, I'd just pray right there. So I see one, I pray, so you know, I could pray for it multiple times as I'm driving somewhere. Um any given day, where a kid would be bumping their head getting in the car, and I'd they'd say, We need a bigger car. I said, Yeah, pray for that. And then I'd pray for it again. And so I had many reminders to pray for my car. And eventually I started getting like really creative and putting a nice time constraint on God. And I said, Hey, um, if I could just get confirmation that I'm gonna get my new car um by my my daughter's birthday, if I could get confirmation of forward movement by her birthday, that would be great. And um I was like, because I would like to have my new car by Christmas. And so I just kept praying that. That was a little addition I put on there. And um, so then um one day Chris was meeting with um a fellow leader uh in town, and he pulled up in our Dodge Avenger and he went to get out, and the air was coming out of the tire, and he saw the guy he was meeting with. He says, Hey, um my tire has a nail in it, I gotta go take it to go get it fixed, or I'm gonna be stuck here. The guy says, I'll follow you over there and we can still grab lunch while they fix it. So he drops the car off and then comes on back. And then eventually the guy brought Chris back to the car shop to get the car. And um Chris is like, This is a really nice car you got. He's like, He's like, Thanks. You want to buy it? And Chris is like, huh, no, but my wife really wants one of these. She's been praying for one. He's like, Oh, well, you know, think about it. I'll be willing to sell it to you. And then he says, By the way, here's some money God told me to pay for your tire. And so Chris calls me right away after that, and he said, Well, at first I thought, thanks. Thanks. Why would you pay for my tire?

Chris: 21:07

Well, I got my car and I thought, God, why would you make him pay for my tire? Like you could have just not had me get a flat tire in the first place. And that's when the when the bell went off. I was like, Yeah, oh, this is something to do with Shelly's prayer. And that's when I called.

Shelly: 21:26

Yeah. So he calls me and he's telling me about this Durango and this whole story. And I said, Hey, I said, Well, what year is it? And he's like, Well, I don't know. I think it's it's the newer body style. And I said, Okay. And I said, Well, what color is it? And he goes, Is it dark green? I was like, All right. He goes, I said, Well, is it like, what's the interior? Is it leather? He goes, Yeah, it's black leather interior. And I was like, That's my car. And he says, No, it isn't. We can't pay for it. And I was like, All right, well, that's my car, so I'm gonna pray for that. So we kept praying for it, kept praying for it. And uh uh at my doctor's. Daughter's birthday party.

Chris: 22:01

Oh, there's one more piece about this.

Shelly: 22:02

Oh, okay. What is it?

Chris: 22:03

That week, I have a small group. Uh, it's on Friday mornings. So I think it was the next day. That was Thursday. This now Friday. I'm driving in uh to the small group. And uh on the way in, I asked the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to act on this? Like, do you want me to do something? Um, but I know Shelly's been asking for you to take care of all the resources. I uh you know I don't have the money, but I this is clear to me that there might be something happening here. You know, what would you like me to do? And um the question really was like, Do you want me to act or do you want me to do nothing? So I get to the small group and uh a good friend of mine, Dave, who's part of our church now, wasn't back then, but he's part of the small our he was part of our small group, and he decides to tell this story about this orphanage where there's this crisis that came up. They had no food, and all these orphans they didn't have any food. And it was something like back in the 40s or 30s or something. And they the staff came together saying, What are we gonna do? We don't have any food to feed these kids. And and the the person who was leading the orphanage said, We're gonna do nothing. We're simply gonna pray, and God will answer. And that's what they did. They got together and they prayed, and out front, a truck broke down that was filled with bread on a hot summer day, and they came and knocked on the orphanage door and they said, Hey, our truck broke down. We've got all this bread. Do you guys want it? Because it can't sit out in the hot sun too long or it's gonna go bad. And uh the moral of the story was that the prayer could answer. And I was driving away and I thought, ah, you want me to do nothing? I called her up. I said, The Lord says, do nothing. And so we did nothing. This is in July.

Shelly: 23:38

Yeah. So um, so then at um my daughter's birthday party in October, uh, when I had asked for confirmation of forward movement on getting my car, um, we had uh Chris's parents came up to us and said, Hey, um, his dad said, Your mom and I were looking at cars and thinking that you and Shelly really need a new Durango.

Chris: 24:00

Which they knew nothing of any of this. Yeah. Which I thought was funny.

Shelly: 24:03

I said, You're right. I do need a new Durango. Um, but then they said, Um, what was it? Was the offer that they could tell you about it?

Chris: 24:10

He said, you know, we were talking, we could use a few extra hours a week. We know you've been working full-time at the church. Maybe you could use a few extra hours and use that money to pay for your Durango. We'd be willing to front the down payment for it. And I thought, this is it. This is what the Lord is sending. This must be the Lord's favor on this because it came on the 2nd, which is the birthday, October 2nd, was at the birthday party. I knew that she had said it was supposed to be by that day. And now here it was presenting itself the financial resources. Yeah, I texted him and said, I'm gonna do it. By the way, it was a secret from her.

Shelly: 24:48

It was a secret from me, and Chris also did not know that I was praying to have this car by Christmas Day.

Chris: 24:54

I did not know that.

Shelly: 24:55

Um, and so I came outside on Christmas morning, and my 2011 dark green Durango with black leather interior was sitting in my garage with a Christmas bow on it. So um, yeah, well, I did nothing but pray and got the exact car that I asked for in the time frame I asked for it.

JD: 25:17

So there you go. That's the that's the story of specific. So what are you praying for now?

Shelly: 25:23

Um, well, right now we are praying for a house. Um, Chris and I have a very specific house that we want to build, which Chris has a picture of on his phone's lock screen. Um, we designed one, we want to have it. I can't afford it. My kids are all sharing rooms, which is not a huge deal. The biggest deal is that my kitchen is too small for six people. So we are praying for a very specific house at this moment.

Chris: 25:52

Yep. We're hoping the Lord will deliver.

Shelly: 25:54

We'd like to not only have a bigger place for us to live, but we want to move into the community where we're doing ministry because we've always viewed ourselves as Daytonians, but I think that we've begun to understand as we've gotten older that it matters that you're actually in the same suburb um as all the people that you're serving are living within in the same school district in the same church is in our church is in Vandalia, and and my kids are not in the Vandalia school district, and I like to do PTO and volunteer at everything and chaperone field trips, which I just did this morning. So we want to do that so I can get more into the community, and Chris can get more into the community and um get people to come into the building.

Chris: 26:36

Yeah, we've we realize that's more important. I was kind of just a Daytonian in my own mind, grew up in Huber Heights. My family uh was from Dark County, which is kind of a little bit in the country on the other side of the city, went to church in Inglewood, which is another suburb, worked in downtown Dayton. Shelly and I lived first in Kettering, which is another suburb, and then we moved to Moraine. So I never really considered the fact that living inside of a specific community actually builds momentum. Uh, and so we've been asking the Lord, Lord, help us move into the city that we're ministering at. We you know we don't have enough resources. And we build a house in a town, it was a brand new house that we built in a town that was a little bit lower land value than the one where our church is located. So it's not like a one-for-one trade. You know, if we sold our house where we're living, it would not buy the same size house where we're going. And we need to get something a little larger, not even the same size, let alone smaller.

Shelly: 27:31

So it's another Durango situation. We can't do it. There you go.

Chris: 27:35

And we refuse to accept just moving down. I told the Lord, I'm not doing that. You're gonna have to provide a different way. And uh, I think he finds that funny, you know, because the scripture says you don't have because you don't ask. And so we've put that in front of him um repeatedly over and over.

JD: 27:50

Is it a dark green house? Leather and two. Wow. Well, thank you for the uh testimony of just specific prayers. You know, I don't know if I told you that, but um I I started praying for a specific car as well. I had a car God miraculously provided it, and um it was time to get rid of it and I didn't want to sell it, so it's like, oh let me see if Daniel then and uh T Wanda might be interested. So I sent him a note. I'm thinking about donating this car, and he said, I'll be there Sunday to pick it up. So I was within the car, and I'm like, okay, what do you do? Well, I'm emotionally prayed specifically. So I prayed specifically, and God came through, and um yeah. Uh I that's just a good reminder. Sometimes we think, well, that's selfish, that's you know, telling God what to do. But I I think it's childlike faith.

Shelly: 28:56

It is. I say that to people all the time. I mean, why not? Why not do it? I've got so many stories like that. They're not even huge, huge deals, but lots of things like that happened. So why not do it? I keep telling people you're not asking. So we're doing that with our kids now. They want it, they should start asking. And not not asking me, but asking God.

Chris: 29:14

Yeah, they recently prayed for a trip to Hawaii. And then all these things fell into place, and our we're getting a trip to Hawaii paid for. Uh, that's we need to get them to pray for the church finances.

Shelly: 29:29

Absolutely. We thought of that one yet.

Chris: 29:35

So many stories where God has done things so specifically that are just unreal. Uh the number of stories are are mounting to so significant, I can't remember them all.

Shelly: 29:44

Yeah, we gotta start start a journal.

Chris: 29:45

We need to start a journal because they're just they're just it's it's just an unending list. Scroll is a good idea.

JD: 29:51

You you could write a uh like a daily devotional.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Yeah.

JD: 29:56

Or a weekly devotional, come up with 52 stories.

Shelly: 29:59

I mean, that would that's a great idea. I love it.

JD: 30:02

Hey, um we have that many. Uh let me ask you this. You've you've talked about the specific prayers, but how about a leadership tip from both of you?

Chris: 30:09

I think the leadership tip for me is faith is the most central thing in this kind of work. And it seems cliche, but I think that faith is more than just having a big vision. I think that faith is stepping out where there is no platform and you're going to fall unless God comes through. Um, that is really the thing that has been the difference maker for us. I think that praying for things that seem silly to pray for. If it seems silly to pray for, that's probably the category of faith we're talking about. Where it's a little embarrassing to tell people what it is you're praying for. If it's not a little embarrassing, it probably doesn't qualify as the kind of faith that that I think is required for the work that we do. Because really the the thing that that I want to be more than anything for the church here is not some theologian, although it's useful to teach and it's useful to preach and it's useful to do those things and they have a place. But I'd like to I'd like that people that come here to see that God answers prayer and that if they lean in on God, they can see and experience the same things we have seen and experience. And if that happens, it changed people's changed people's lives forever. That's mine. What about you?

Shelly: 31:30

Um, I don't know. See, that one would be probably my main one as well. But I think um uh being helpful to your fellow leaders and um like our word for the year is being hospit like being hospitable, so hospitality and so um not only to people who are coming in the door, but to your own team, because the more that you are serving your own team, the more that they're gonna serve everyone else around them. So I think that is a big deal.

JD: 31:58

Well, great. Well, how's the car running, by the way?

Shelly: 32:02

Cars running great. Well, actually, the the my Jesus car, as I called it, got totaled. Um, unfortunately. But um, I said, you know, maybe there was something that was wrong with it. And so it got totaled, so I was able to get a newer model of my Durango.

Chris: 32:16

So we have a Durango, all right.

JD: 32:22

That was yep, that was wild. Well, thank you so much for what you're doing. Thanks for um hanging in there, sticking with it, and plugging away. That's ministry.

Speaker 1: 32:34

Yep.

JD: 32:35

Yep. Still here, we're gonna be here, we're not going anywhere.

Shelly: 32:39

That's right.

JD: 32:39

Will you come back on when you get your house?

Shelly: 32:42

Absolutely, we're gonna get it.

JD: 32:44

The Lord's gonna do it. Well we'll do it then. So hey, thanks so much.

Shelly: 32:50

Yeah, thank you.

JD: 32:54

Okay, how is that for you? Good.

Chris: 32:56

Good from our standpoint.

JD: 32:58

Yeah. Great. Well, hey, um, we've talked about this.

Chris: 33:04

How can I pray for you guys? I think that really the thing that we're asking for prayer on right now, kind of universally, is um that the Lord provides for us a means to move to Vandalia. I think that's pretty much the big the big thing.

Shelly: 33:17

And then also just our next our next steps for the church, like what's what's the next best move for us? We have as far as like uh encouraging growth goes.

Chris: 33:28

I've I've mentioned it to you the last couple times we've been together that we are currently spinning our wheels that we don't understand why we're stuck. Um we cannot grasp it.

Shelly: 33:40

Some of our elders have talked of selling our building and moving locations and um just different things, and so uh we're just trying to decide what is the best option.

Chris: 33:48

Yeah. We've th we've thought about uh pitching a partnership with Rivers Crossing as a campus. Um but we've held tight because we've waited to hear what the Lord has to say. We want to know what his thoughts are before we just go to do something um that is difficult to reverse. So we've we're just kind of hovering that space. So uh two two things on that front, really. Like one, pray for that, and two, if you have any thoughts for us, JD, we are open ears.

JD: 34:19

Yeah. Um is are you are you maxing out the building?

Shelly: 34:25

No.

Chris: 34:25

No, that's the issue that we're facing, is we cannot seem to the gravity is not forming. We cannot figure that out what the issue is. We have hypothesis of what could be causing the problems, um, but we cannot figure out why it is not cumulative. So what what does it hold? This building probably uh for a service, you probably could do 250 in a service, one service. You could probably do seven or eight hundred person church here without changing anything. That'd be tough. Oh, really?

Shelly: 35:05

That'd be quite full of evening. Because the kids the kids' rooms aren't quite big enough for that.

Chris: 35:09

Yeah, if you have three services on Sunday and an evening service, um yeah, like you could you could do it. But it's just a matter of we can't fill one service. And it's been tough.

JD: 35:23

What's your uh marketing?

Chris: 35:26

Um we're online, we're on Facebook. Um, we'd like to do more of that. That every time we advertise there, people show up to church, but we don't have money.

Shelly: 35:34

We get lots and lots of uh traction from our community for community events, but not a lot of people sticking around from them. We like every community event we do, we have hundreds of people.

Chris: 35:47

Hundreds. I think that there's a couple of filters happening. Um, I think filter one is that our building looks traditional on the exterior, and so people who might be interested in what we have pass us up. And people who are right be interested in something more traditional give us a shot and then come in, and we are not. And then they think, I don't know that this is for me. I think that that might be one of the filters happening. I think another filter that could be happening to us is that we're located in Vandalia, which is a higher, higher income community. However, we're on the very far southern edge.

Shelly: 36:24

Like across the street.

Chris: 36:25

Yeah, we're it's like we're talking like 1,500 to 2,000 feet away from being completely differently placed. It's hard to understand unless you live here. Uh, to where there's another community called Northridge, which is a different kind of community. It's uh, you know, I don't mean any disrespect, but it's more impoverished, um, tends to have uh a little bit higher crime rate, tends to where are your people coming from? We are having they're coming from all over Dayton in large part, plus some Northridge students.

Shelly: 36:57

Um we're right on the exit to 75 at the 70-75 interchange, so that's like really really well located for as a regional church.

Chris: 37:07

So we do have people coming from all of our main suburbs, but like people who come through our church from very local, which would be Northridge, they come in, and it is no surprise to me that I have a harder time connecting with them because I tend to come from a more white-color background, and they a lot of them do not. And I think again, there's a filter mismatch there. And people from Vandalia, because we're not that big down here, I think that there's just we're just not punching through, and they think of us as being Northridge, and Vandalia is not going to go to a Northridge church, and they are probably the ones that would connect most with me as a leader, and and so it's kind of precarious if our church is a little larger and our church had a little more presence and people knew about it in Vandalia, like we're not even living there, so they don't know us, they might be willing to try that out. And there might be some catch that happens and we start collecting and building. But because Vandalia people don't even really have, you know, want to give the time to go south into a Northridge church, I think that we just have like a geographic mismatch. If we were a little bigger, we'd probably overcome that. And in fact, our location would become a strength because we're so well located for Dayton. You really, there's hardly anywhere in a whole in the whole region that it that's probably 20 minutes. Yeah. 20 minutes from a million people in all directions. And so like our location is a weakness and a strength. Um, I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what to do. We have been so intentional. We plan these retreats, we create these custom, these custom retreat retreat books where we assign our team to read a book and we uh go through a strategy session and we review all of our events and we walk through what worked, what didn't have you had people from the outside come in and look? Yeah, from big churches like Christian Life Center. Um we paid people to come through.

JD: 38:58

And what did they say?

Chris: 39:00

They said service is excellent, uh, hospitality is top-notch, um, exterior signage could be better. And so what we did was we took uh we went and we bought a bunch of A-frame signs and we deployed them all around the property every Sunday morning where it shows you where to go and what to do. And we even have signs that are silly that say things like what are some of the things, signs that say out there.

Shelly: 39:23

Oh gosh, it depends on the season.

Chris: 39:25

I know we change it up. We have one for every holiday that's funny. They're just jokes, they're joke signs that says, um, yeah, I can't think of a single one that's escaping me. There's some personality out there and all this signage, then we pull it back every week. And and that was the thing that they said. My buddy Dustin Smith, who has been on staff at many mega churches, uh Christian Life Center, 2,000 people, and then Cincinnati Vineyard, 8,000 people, and then Ginginsburg was 5,000 people. And and the other day we were hanging out, and he said, Man, I watched your services and I just don't I don't see what the issue is with what you guys are doing. And I said, I don't know either, Dustin. This is unhelpful advice.

JD: 40:05

And who's coaching you right now?

Chris: 40:07

Nobody's coaching us right now.

JD: 40:12

I would I would encourage you to uh to get a coach. Um uh you know you know what I'm thinking of, it might be different, but Steve and Katrina Bentley.

Chris: 40:25

I don't know that I know them.

JD: 40:27

Yeah, they came to the last uh connection we had there. Steve's the guy with a big long beard. They're from Flint, Michigan. Maybe I do know them. Oh, yeah, yeah, we know them.

Shelly: 40:36

Yeah, yeah.

JD: 40:38

He is a you know, Flint's a little different. Um they're definitely blue-collar, but he has been a great coach for some people.

Chris: 40:51

Yeah, we we are open to it. Yeah, I know we had one coach um named Mark Crenz. He planted two churches that grew to hundreds. We still hang out, and he and I have had many sessions where we cannot figure out why we're stuck.

JD: 41:07

Well, I know traffic patterns are a huge thing that um you know we had this when we were in the Bay Area. Uh there's a town called Vallejo of uh a couple hundred thousand, and then right next door is this town called Benicia, 25,000. And we planted in Benicia because people from Vallejo will come to Benicia, but people from Benicia would not. And it's yep, it's just classism, is basically what it is.

Chris: 41:40

It is it's classism, and the thing is, is one of the reasons I like talking to you, JD, is you do understand this. You understand that there's realisms you have to just face. Yeah, and that's what we're facing.

JD: 41:51

So, you know, and and I mean, what if you just uh targeted that blue car?

Chris: 41:58

That's hard. We had been targeting them, eight or nine hundred of them show up to our events, but they they cycle through and they just don't stick. In fact, the funny thing is the ones that do stick, like James and Anna, they work corporate jobs. Yeah, it's just it's funny to me. I'm just like, well, of all the people that stuck around, we've had a few that have come through and have stuck around for a little while, like Brenda. Um, you know, uh obviously completely world of difference. And she was here for a while. Ashley, uh world, our world's totally different, but she stuck around, got baptized, been here. She's struggled, she's got a lot of struggles and challenges in her life that are just wild and crazy, but been here. But like for the most part, people do not stick from Northridge. And I don't, I just don't know if I don't I don't really know if it's just because my background, I don't understand them as well, which might be part of that. And I don't see the world the way they see the world. Um, but the ones that do stick are the ones that have had backgrounds similar to ours.

JD: 42:59

Well, if you were gonna if you were gonna plant, if you found somebody to hand that to and you would go plant somewhere new, where would you go?

Shelly: 43:10

Good question.

Chris: 43:12

I don't know. I mean I I'm fine with Vandalia. I like we're really close to where we prayed to be here on Miller Lane. Here we are.

Shelly: 43:21

I don't know. I don't yeah, because we've talked about people just looking looking in this area-ish, but more towards Vandalia for a different building just to see, but I don't know that I'm I don't know that we have any other thoughts as far as like actually just planting somewhere else.

Chris: 43:39

Yeah, we've m yeah one of the advantages here is that it's so accessible. We we've talked about moving up the road to an office depot that's gone out of business.

Shelly: 43:52

But as far as a different town or something, I don't know that we've thought about that.

Chris: 43:55

We've not really thought about it because we've we've been pretty satisfied being here. Yeah. Um, I know Crossroads is encroaching down south, but they're massive. They just built their campus, $26 million, no, $22.8 million campus that they built there.

JD: 44:12

Is that a site from the Cincy Church? Yeah. It's epic.

Chris: 44:18

It is epic. It took over half of them all.

JD: 44:21

Yeah. And you don't want to move anywhere else.

Chris: 44:24

I've not felt called to do it. Um, I've not felt like a strong inkling to do it. I do believe that we that we are in a state here where we should probably be thinking about some strategic moves. You know, we need to do something, whether it's physically moving or just making a partnership with somebody. You know, one of the things that Shelley and I have talked about probably for three years straight now is what what would it look like if we did if we became like a campus with Rivers Crossing, became part of them, became their identity. Um, and then at the end of it all, they released us as an independent campus once we were stabilized. Uh, but through that process, adopt all of their systems and structures and and we just became an extension of everything they're doing. They're so similar to us, actually. Like they have not done well with campuses. I know. Actually, when they first did their campus, I was a little confused by it because there were some things they did that I just did not understand, other than the fact that they inherited it. Yeah, the fact that they inherited it was the only reason why, because it was too close and became a filter where all the people who wanted a small church gathered in one location. And it it just was weird to be eight minutes down the road from them. I feel like that was one of the main issues that happened. All the issues they encountered there, because I went through like an autopsy with Jeff, um, would be things they would not be encountering in this situation. Uh, I just don't know, though, what that presentation would look like. You you probably know them better than us. But like from our standpoint, they told us they couldn't figure out how to spin up a youth ministry, they couldn't figure out how to spin up leadership structures. They had two different pastors um that they actually had to let go prior to the opening of the campus, and Jeff had to take it over. Um, all those things would not be the case in this matter because it would have been a good thing.

JD: 46:12

Yeah, that was a mess there. It was it was a mess, um, the leadership piece.

Chris: 46:19

I think it has left them with a bad taste in their mouth. So we know that going in. We know that, which doesn't necessarily mean I wouldn't present it anyway, but we've been pondering it. We know they're one of the few ones we trust to do this. We've had offers to combine with other churches before, but we did not trust it.

unknown: 46:35

Yeah.

Shelly: 46:36

My biggest, I mean, for me, I'm I'm a feelings, feelings-led, I guess, person. So like I think it's spiritual. Yeah, like the uh discernment. Just listening to what yeah, what the spirit's telling me to do, whether I feel good about it or bad about it. And I was telling Chris that I am kind of feeling off because I don't actually have a feeling for yes or no for any of the options of things to do that people have been throwing out. So I'm kind of just like feeling in limbo because I don't feel like I have an answer of what it is we should do or not.

Chris: 47:09

Yeah, and we didn't want to start down a road to do something like Rivers Crossing unless we had a really clear concept there that made sense. We would understand it's a takeover. I understand church mergers, I know how that works. Um which would probably make it possible from their standpoint because we do understand how that works. That it would be it would that our identity would diminish greatly. Um I don't know. JD, these are things that we are thinking about. We need smart people like you to help us walk through this stuff. I don't know what to do.

JD: 47:42

I would just say have Shelly keep praying. I think you know consistently talking through stuff like this with a coach would be really helpful.

Shelly: 47:52

Yeah.

JD: 47:53

Um and I'll I'll connect you with Tim, who's the coaching lead, and with maybe Steve and Katrina. That sounds great. Well, thanks for your story. It was fun.

Chris: 48:05

Um biting us. We appreciate it.

JD: 48:08

Yeah, and uh I'm I again I apologize for last time.

Shelly: 48:12

So that's all right.

JD: 48:13

Don't worry about it. Cool meeting. Hopefully, we'll we'll see you soon.

Shelly: 48:18

Absolutely.

Announcer : 48:19

Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Shelly: 48:20

Bye.

Announcer : 48:23

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.