Classic Intro And Show Setup

Announcer 0:01

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Classic Podcast. We've searched through our early episodes to find some of the best just for you. If you've been with us from the beginning, you may have heard some of these. If you haven't, enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Pering 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 0:45

Welcome to another one of our leading conversations. Today we are privileged, excited, thrilled to have the great and powerful Jim Kennan from Arizona with us from uh Arizona by way of Ohio State, the Ohio State University. Hey Jim, thanks for being with us today. JD, it's great to be with you today as well. And you are in Sun City West right now.

Jim Kennon 1:13

Yeah, Sun City West on the west side of the valley in Phoenix, Arizona.

J.D. Pearring 1:18

You're the youngest person in Sun City West, I hear. Used to be, but no longer. Hey, we'll get into we'll get into that.

A Seventh Grader Meets Jesus

J.D. Pearring 1:28

But hey, let's just start with your story. Tell us uh about growing up, how you came to Christ.

Jim Kennon 1:35

Sure. I love to share my testimony. I um was not raised in a Christian family at all. I was raised, though, in a wonderful family. My mom and dad are still alive, amazing people, a loving family, a moral family, a good family. But Jesus wasn't in the picture. What was was basketball. My dad was a basketball coach, and that was our life. It was our existence. When I was in the seventh grade, my dad moved our family to Cookville, Tennessee. He became an assistant basketball coach at Tennessee Tech University. And in that move, I became friends with the son of the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cookville, Tennessee. So Paul Caps became my best friend. Paul and I would hang out together and he started taking me to uh Sunday school, started taking me to the uh youth group on Wednesday nights. Eventually I started going to worship. And then in the spring of 1970, the church had a week-long revival meeting. And on a Monday night, I went to church by myself. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why a seventh grade boy went to church by himself. Sat there on the first night of the revival meeting, and the preacher gave an invitation. The choir started singing. I'm sure they were doing just as I am. And he called people forward, and I fought God fiercely that night. The idea of giving my life to the Lord scared me to death. And that choir kept singing and they wouldn't stop. And I'm standing there shaking all over, and I was crying, and I fought with God. And at some point I surrendered and stepped into the aisle and walked forward, and it was amazingly instant peace flooded my heart and my soul. Went forward, gave my life to Jesus. And if my story ended there, that would be great. But the cool part is the next night, my sister Diane came to the revival meeting with me. Invitation was given, just as I am, and my sister went forward and gave her life to Jesus. On Wednesday night, I think my mom and dad were wondering what the heck has happened with our kids. So they came to the revival meeting. Invitation was given, choir singing just as I am, and my mom and dad gave their life to Jesus on Wednesday night. No kidding. Yeah, it was amazing. And in that church, the following weekend, then was baptism for those that had given their lives to Christ. So me and my sister and my mom and dad were all baptized together on a Sunday night at the First Baptist Church, Cookville, Tennessee.

J.D. Pearring 4:38

That's an incredible story.

Jim Kennon 4:40

I didn't I didn't know that. That's love to tell that story for me. That uh it's Joshua 24 for me, but for as me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Years that followed, then my youngest sister and my youngest brother have given their lives to Christ as well. So I'm very thankful for that. Just so grateful.

J.D. Pearring 5:00

That's that's incredible. That's amazing. Wonderful. So talk about uh ministry.

Road Signs And A Call To Ministry

J.D. Pearring 5:06

I mean, uh you you played basketball all the way up, but how did ministry happen?

Jim Kennon 5:14

I had the world's greatest job the summer of between my uh junior and senior year at the Ohio State University. Um, I worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation and I counted road signs, if you can believe it, your tax dollars at work. And uh me and another guy, college student, went out for two months and we inventoried road signs on the state highways of Ohio. He quit after two months. So for the third month of the summer, I was by myself every day in this car on the back roads of Ohio. When you're by yourself every day, all day long, there's only two people to talk to. You talk to yourself and you talk to God. And uh that last month of the summer, God started talking back to me and began calling me into ministry, saying that he wanted me to be a pastor, and I totally rejected that idea. No way did I want to go into the ministry. And the reason why was I had had two pastors who were incredibly influential in my life. And for me, these two guys walked on water, they were amazing men, and I'm like, I'm not like them. And I kept telling God, no, I'm not good enough. No, I'm not good enough. And for the whole month of August, every day, God just hammered on me. I hated it, it was horrible. I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. And I'm not one of these people that hear God's voice all the time. But I was in the car one afternoon and God said to me, I said, I'm not good enough. And I heard God say, tell me something I don't already know. And then he said this to me. He said, If you'll trust me, I will make you into the person that you need to be to be a pastor. I said, All right, let's do it. And I made the decision right there on the back roads of Ohio, all by myself in a car. I said yes to God for ministry.

J.D. Pearring 7:18

So that's uh another story. So that's why you you are always counting road signs when you're in the car with that's right.

Jim Kennon 7:28

Hey JD, when we did these road signs, there were 32 pieces of information that we had to inventory on each road sign. Who would have thought? 30, 32, yes.

J.D. Pearring 7:43

Oh so I I get it. It's like uh ministry might be a really tough job. It's gotta be better than counting roadsides.

Jim Kennon 7:50

It's way better than counting roadsides sometimes. So, how did you step into pursuing that call? Um

Seminary And First Pastorate Lessons

Jim Kennon 8:01

just uh made the decision to uh go to seminary out in Berkeley, California, and uh started my education that way, and God just has kept us going for 42 years now.

J.D. Pearring 8:17

So, Berkeley, California. Talk about that uh that graduate school, that seminary. Was it good?

Jim Kennon 8:25

It was an awesome experience. Uh, besides the education, which is like whatever, it was the community that was so powerful and the friendships that were made, and we still have those friends over the years. That was incredible. The relationship was what it was all about.

J.D. Pearring 8:46

And then I I know uh one of your first ministry positions, you pretty much stayed there in the Bay Area, right?

Jim Kennon 8:52

Yeah, I'd gone over to uh the Community Baptist Church in San Mateo, California, just a cool church. It was a Chinese American church. My wife's Chinese, she loved it there, and those folks were amazing to us. I was there as a student intern, and after two months, the senior pastor quit. And um I was invited to stay as the interim pastor. They tried to find somebody else to lead the church and couldn't, and finally they said, We'll take Jim. And I spent eight great years doing ministry there, and it was incredible, it was a wonderful first church experience.

J.D. Pearring 9:30

Well, you were you were in San Mateo for eight years.

Jim Kennon 9:34

Yep. Wow.

J.D. Pearring 9:36

That's I didn't realize it was that long, and and then um I think you headed east, right?

Jim Kennon 9:42

Yeah, we wanted to get it back east where my family was. I didn't know God would take us this far east, but we went out to Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. That was an amazing place to raise our two kids. Um, it was just a great place for them, the schools and the community. And we spent 15 years at Kennet Square. Uh, saw God do some wonderful things there. And then um we took a call to go back to California, Fowler, California. I'll say this: that was my hardest church, probably the worst fit. But of the churches I was in, God did amazing things there, in spite of me not fitting very well. And uh it was a pretty amazing eight years in Fowler.

J.D. Pearring 10:28

So you're uh in these established churches. How

Burnout Then An Unexpected Invite

J.D. Pearring 10:33

did you just like get into church planting? What happened there?

Jim Kennon 10:38

Well, this guy sent me a text message out of nowhere when I was having breakfast at Denny's that said, Hey Jim, are you interested in planting a church? A guy happened to be you, and that text changed my life. Um I've always looked at this thing. I I spent my first three churches in what were called turnaround churches, and while I loved it, it was hard, super hard ministry where we had dysfunctional churches and just slugged it out, worked on it, worked on it, worked on it, and by God's grace, those churches turned around, became healthy, and grew, which was awesome, but it really took its toll on me to the point where one day I stepped out of pastoral leadership. I was just I was empty. Spent a couple of years doing other ministry, and that's when you uh invited me to consider being a uh church planter. And I've always felt for me, planting this church has been God's way of saying, Jim, thank you for those 30-something years of just hard ministry. Here's a church plant. Enjoy your last church. And Inspire has been an amazingly fun church to lead. It has been trouble-free, uh, just watching victory after victory, and I'm like, thank you, Jesus. We're enjoying this a lot.

J.D. Pearring 12:13

That's that's great to hear. I I remember that. I remember um you were doing some other stuff, and you know, and I don't know exactly what, but just at some point it just kind of hit me. Why doesn't why doesn't Jim plant a church? You know, and I think that was one of those little promptings of God. So I sent you that text. I don't text that to everybody. I don't I'm I'm somewhat careful of who I say, hey, you ought to plant a church, um, because I know the the difficulties there. But you started considering it, and then there was this opportunity of uh a church there in Palm West wanted to wanted to help start a church because somebody's helped start them. And uh yeah, I think I think we just kind of introduced you.

Jim Kennon 13:03

How did that work? Yeah, well, like you said, Palm West Community Church here in Sun City West wanted to start a church. Their parent church is over in Sun City, so we had Bellevue Heights and then Palm West, and they wanted to start a church, and so um I think they asked you guys for help in finding leadership.

J.D. Pearring 13:23

I think I I think they had Bellevue Heights and in Sun City had planted Palm West, and it had been 20 years, and they decided to have a little get together to celebrate. And at that, um, I think it might have been the pastor of Palm West. Bruce Schipple. Bruce Schiphol. I think Bruce said it's been 20 years, why don't we do this again? Yep. Um, and uh boy, uh you what what what caused you to go to a uh age-restricted 55 and older, because you were probably 29 at the time, to um step into a community like that. What was that?

A Church Plant Finds Its People

Jim Kennon 14:08

You know, Brian Hitch and I co-planted Inspire, and our original goal was to have a multi-generational church, blah, blah, blah. And so we were outside of our community up in Vistancia outside this area, and uh, we love to tell a story. We started with 125 people and we successfully grew it to 25 in one year. That's remarkable, Jim. That's we were very good at what we did, and that's when we realized we were in huge trouble, and we went back to Palm West with Pastor Bruce Shipple, uh, literally to ask them for $60,000 so we could lease a place. And Bruce said, Why don't you just use our facility? And so we moved into their fellowship hall and began worshiping on Saturdays, and God just took that and we found our identity here in Sun City West with aging with retiring baby boomers. Saturday worship was brilliant, and our church just blossomed when we moved into Sun City West, into Palm West. Spent one year there in mom and dad's basement, if you will. And after a year, mom and dad said, It's been great having you here. It's time to go. So we moved out into the foundation here in Sun City West, and it's just been fantastic. How's it doing now? We're doing well. Um, we're approaching capacity on our Saturday service in terms of the size of our room. We can only see about 140 people. And on and we started a Sunday service this year, and that that group has become a church now. So it's pretty exciting.

J.D. Pearring 15:52

Hey,

Why Senior Ministry Feels Urgent

J.D. Pearring 15:53

what are one or two uh one or two uh uh ideas about what it what it's like to minister to an older crowd? Oh what are what are some things we need to know about that?

Jim Kennon 16:10

Yeah, JD, uh great question. You know, everybody plants churches for young people. And I know I remember when we started Inspire, we got a lot of looks from other people. We're like, are you guys crazy? Um there's a sense of urgency when you're doing ministry with people that are 60, 70, 80 years old. And I just want to tell you, there's nothing like baptizing somebody who's in their 80s. Because the bottom line is we're running out of time, and it's great to baptize a 13-year-old kid, that's awesome. When you baptize somebody who's 85, you know that they're really close to meeting Jesus. So there's a sense of urgency to our ministry that I love. The second thing is we get all these experienced church people that do move into Sun City West. And you know, so like on our worship team, you know, our drummers, our guitarists, everybody, they've been doing it for 30, 40 years. They're really good. And I've noticed we'll bring in young preachers to speak and inspire, and they're like really surprised at the quality of our worship team. You know, I don't know what they were expecting, but our folks are really good. They've been doing it for a long time. So we have folks in our church with a ton of experience and talent. They've got resources, they have time. It's it's a lot of fun. And you know what, Jimmy? We don't have to mess with children or youth ministry. I'm kidding. Well, that's true though, right? Well, it does simplify life, it really does.

Too Old To Plant A Church

J.D. Pearring 18:00

And what would you say to somebody who's uh you know in ministry in their 50s or 60s or something, they're thinking, I'm I'm too old to plant a church.

Jim Kennon 18:12

We are absolutely proof that that's not true. You do have to understand, and this is where Brian and I learned our lesson the hard way. We thought at the age of 58 we could start a church and attract all these young families. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you tend to attract people closer to your age. And I would say we need to embrace the idea of seniors ministry and seniors church. Um like I said, somebody who's 80 and doesn't know Jesus, they need to meet and go. And what better place to do it than a group, a church filled with people who are seniors and love Christ and reach out to their friends and and tell them about Jesus. So if you're in if you're in your 50s, kick around the crazy thought that maybe God wants you to plant a church of seniors.

J.D. Pearring 19:08

Well, there's there are so many in the baby boom generation, and I think the uh I think the next generation's creeping up there as well, right? Yep. Yep. Um but uh somebody in the baby boom generation who are like, okay, um I've I've looked for success, and maybe I found that from a world standpoint, but uh you know there's some emptiness to that now, and I can only play so much pickleball and golf, and um the kids are older older, they're out of the house. Um what do I do? And uh, like you said, that sense of urgency. So yeah, I would encourage you to hey look, God's probably not finished with you yet. Hey, let me ask you this pardon me.

Jim Kennon 19:56

That's for sure. God is not done with you yet.

Sponsor Message

Announcer 20:04

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Lead Without Chasing Approval

J.D. Pearring 20:48

Hey, a couple give us a couple of leadership tips. You've been um you've been doing this for a while. For leaders, what would you say?

Jim Kennon 20:59

I had a breakthrough moment about my 13th year of ministry. It hit me one afternoon, I was sitting in my office, and I realized for 13 years my whole goal had been to win people's approval. And I was leading the church in such a way that I always wanted everybody to like what I was doing. And that afternoon, again, God spoke to my heart in a very powerful way to quit leading for approval. And I came up with a phrase that a lot of people misunderstand, and I don't mean it the way they think. God taught me the phrase I don't care anymore. And I quit caring what people thought. I quit caring about their opinions. And that was the most freeing moment of leadership for me. And I've tried to keep that going. That I'm just gonna do what God wants us to do and not worry about what other people think. Do I still worry about it? Yeah. But I try not to let it control my leadership. So that that's been one big thing, JD.

J.D. Pearring 22:10

Yeah, I know you've shared that with me before. And I appreciate that about you, Jim. Not that you don't care. Um, but uh I've I've heard you say sometimes, you know, this this is happening, this is happening, and I've I'm just I don't care about the approval. I just care about what God wants. Uh give us one more. You got one more in you?

Jim Kennon 22:32

Yeah. Uh again, it came from this wise man named JD, who told us before we planted inspire, he said, here's two words for you smile and be flexible. I guess that's three words. Smile and flexible. And I said, Can you explain that? And he said, Yeah, everything you plan to do is gonna go wrong. So teach your people to smile no matter what happens. And secondly, be flexible. JD, that's been gold for us. We have taught our people over and over, smile and flexible. And you could come to inspire this this weekend and stand before our church and say, What are your two words? And a hundred people would go, smile and flexible. That has been gold for our ministry, is just to help people embrace being flexible. So for that, I thank you. I don't think that was me. Was it yeah? You always say you don't remember it. It was you. We were I picked you up at the airport, we were two weeks from launching, and I was desperate. I said, tell me what I need to know. And you said, just tell your team to be flexible and to smile. Okay, good. I need to write that down. It was brilliant. Write a book about it.

J.D. Pearring 23:46

I need to write it down. Uh that's that's pretty good stuff.

Never Stop Doing What Works

J.D. Pearring 23:50

Hey, I want to end with this. Tell us um, I know you were an athlete in basketball, but at at the Ohio State University, you were you were a star in a particular sport that uh most people don't know about. Uh talk a little bit about that.

Jim Kennon 24:08

Tony, you ask. Be right back. Okay. Here we go. Here's my ep A from Ohio State. I lettered in fencing as a buckeye. I fenced epa. And for anybody watching this, here's the lesson that my coach this is only audio. So is it? Oh, it's okay. It's hilarious. This could be play by play. In my hands is my ePay from Ohio State. I fenced Ohio State, and here's the lesson my coach told me that I would share with everybody. He taught me never stop doing what's working. And he said, if it's working and fencing, don't stop doing it. Because there was one time in a in a meet I got up for nothing on my opponent, thought I was at everything, and started doing something different. And he called time out and chewed me out. And he said, Kennan, never stop doing what's working. So, folks, if you're leading the church and it's working, don't stop doing it.

J.D. Pearring 25:32

I want to end with that. I got a bunch of questions about how you got into fencing, but we're gonna that'll be another time. Um, that's a that's just a great word. Well, hey, Jim, thanks for everything. Thanks for your friendship. Um, thank you for your just example of uh, hey, we're gonna go, we're gonna go do this and and doing something different, but also pivoting. Um, you've had a you know, you had to pivot from outside Sun City back in, in the church, your own place, COVID, which I can only imagine what that was like in a yeah uh 55 and older, but things are going really well. Thanks for that. Keep it up. God bless you. Thanks, brother.

Announcer 26:13

Appreciate it, JD. 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.