Steve Pike has been at the forefront of church planting for thirty years. He served as founding director of Church Multiplication Network (CMN) for the Assemblies of God (USA) denomination. Seeing a need for more church plants in cities, he founded Urban Islands Project, which exists to “increase the presence of the Church in the Urban O.” We’ll ask Steve to tell us about the Urban O. He’s also released a book entitled ‘Next Wave: Discovering the 21st Century Church’.
Grateful to have a few friends hosting together in this episode: Brian Egert is the director of PAOC's Mission Canada, which focuses on reaching the gaps in Canada with the Gospel; Kevin Rogers leads the Urban Ministry Guiding Group for Mission Canada, pastors a church in Windsor, which is focused on those in the community with the greatest needs, and is the primary host of the Sidewalk Skyline Podcast.
Steve Pike has been at the forefront of church planting for thirty years. He served as founding director of Church Multiplication Network (CMN) for the Assemblies of God (USA) denomination. Seeing a need for more church plants in cities, he founded Urban Islands Project, which exists to “increase the presence of the Church in the Urban O.” We’ll ask Steve to tell us about the Urban O. He’s also released a book entitled ‘Next Wave: Discovering the 21st Century Church’.
Grateful to have a few friends hosting together in this episode: Brian Egert is the director of PAOC's Mission Canada, which focuses on reaching the gaps in Canada with the Gospel; Kevin Rogers leads the Urban Ministry Guiding Group for Mission Canada, pastors a church in Windsor, which is focused on those in the community with the greatest needs, and is the primary host of the Sidewalk Skyline Podcast.
Welcome to the Multiply Network Podcast, a podcast created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple-making communities across Canada. Hi there, welcome to the Multiple Network Podcast. My name is Paul Fraser. So glad that you tuned in today. We have got a special episode for you this month. We did a collaboration with Sidewalk Skyline Podcast with Kevin Rogers. He does this podcast every month, focusing on urban ministry in Canada. We also bring in Brian Egert from Mission Canada, who jumps in on the call, as well as myself. And the three of us interview our friend, Steve Pike. Steve Pike, I know personally. He's a coach for me as I work in this national role of church multiplication. He helped start the Church Multiplication Network in the Assemblies of God in the U.S. Currently he's with Urban Islands Project, which helps bring ministry and church planting to the urban core of the cities across the U.S. and, I think, has some influence in Canada as well.
Has written a book, Next Wave:Discovering the 21st Century Church. You're going to love what he has to talk about when it relates to urban ministry and church planting and the shifts that need to be made. Folks, you're going to love the podcast, going to love the the conversation that comes up. And it's starting right now. Steve Pike, welcome to Sidewalk Skyline Podcast. And you're on with three guys that love, love Canada and you're somebody that we've been watching from a distance and we've had you up for a conference. And so today we want to talk about a couple of things. One is the Urban Islands Project. The other is the book that you just put out, Next Wave. But I'll start the first question and then we're going to take turns and pick your brain. OK. (laughter) So thanks. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Tell us what the Urban O is and what is the Urban Islands Project. Yeah, thank you so much, Kevin. So good to be with three folks that I consider to be friends. Definitely, Paul and Brian. I've met Kevin at the conference, and so we're new friends, basically. But, man, it's good to be with you guys and love what's happening in Canada through the ministry of the church there. And yeah, the answer to the Urban O question is it may - that imagery - may apply more in the US than in other places. But where it came from for me was just the way that American cities have -- The story of American cities is basically they they kind of emerge as manufacturing centers. And all the people that worked in the manufacturing plants were housed, so to speak, in communal housing. And that's how the cities sort of got densified. And then the people started moving out of the cities. The manufacturing economy shifted to more of an information economy. And back in the 70s and 80s, there were sort of a movement away from the city in terms of a lot of people moved out that could afford to, but people who couldn't stay there. And then the prices of everything kind of fell. And the developers moved in, bought up all the cheap property in the city centers and started redeveloping it. And the prices started going back up and people started moving back in. And all of that sort of, generally speaking, is happening in this center; centered around the core central business district of cities, where the skyscrapers are, where the tall buildings are. And that's -- So, it sort of looks like an O, and so we just called it the Urban O, because it's this complicated place that's got this complicated history. And yet -- and honestly, before I became sort of familiar with what's going on in the Urban O, I used to look at city skylines and think that those were just buildings that were empty at night and full during the day because people came in and worked and they went out to the suburbs to live. That's just what I thought. But now that I live in the city and I live in the heart of the city, I realize most of those building, many of those buildings, are full of people all the time because people live here and the density is so high. And basically one of the things that's happened is, as the density of the population goes up, the presence of the church goes down. And one of the reasons for that is our model; sort of the conventional model of starting churches isn't really designed for a highly dense place. It doesn't really work there very well. And so anyway, that was the problem that sort of drove me to start asking the question, What do we do about that? Because I just don't think it's right for us to look at that and go, oh, well, no big deal. And so I started thinking about what can we do to address the problem of the Urban O, which led to the creation of Urban Islands Project, as one little effort in the direction of trying to address that really big, complicated challenge. So the O is kind of like the hall on the door on it. Yeah. If the churches are sprinkles, they're all on the outside of the donut, but not so much in the middle. That's kind of -- Yeah. I mean it's -- Obviously there are churches in the cities but the number of them is significantly less per capita and all that. Yeah. So that's a yeah. You can think of a donut with the hole in the middle. The letter O has a hole in the middle, there's a hole in the middle of our cities when when you think about the spiritual presence of the church and you know, I think God's Jesus is building his church and he's calling us to do something about that. Yeah. So the Urban Islands Project. What is that? Yeah. So as I was evaluating and studying why the church wasn't going back to the cities - Because actually, when the churches were in cities, before the information economy started kicking into gear, and they basically followed people out to the suburbs because they saw this big migration of people out there. So they followed people where they were going. But they haven't followed them back. And so I said, Why is that happening? And what I realized was - again, it's a complicated thing, but one of them is an economic factor. It's just the cost and all that kind of stuff. But another one is the model factor coupled with the loneliness factor. So let me just -- I already alluded to the model issue. Is most church, conventional church planting models, are designed kind of with the assumption that you have a typical suburban environment that you're coming into. And so it's possible to go in there and find the critical mass of people necessary to bring the finances that will support a church together in a relatively short period of time. The problem with the urban is that it takes longer for that critical mass to be found and to form. The costs are higher and the income is lower. And so the numbers don't really work. And then on top of all that, you've got people who are called to the city and they go to a traditional conventional church planting conference and they hear about models that are really well suited for the suburbs. And they just kind of turn their head sideways and go, It doesn't relate to where I'm going. And so they feel kind of alone, even though their organizations are trying to support them. I know that's not, honestly, it's not the case for you guys. I know you guys are doing a good job of supporting people. But in many cases it's not the case. Many organizations don't do that very well. And so you have these people going into cities, feeling very lonely by themselves. And I saw that. And I realized, at any given moment there's probably 10 to 15 sending organizations -- Because it's not like I'm the only person who figured out that we should go to the cities. A lot of people are figuring that out. But, you know, the sending organizations kind of said, OK, well, let's start sending people to cities. And they did what they knew, which is the conventional church planting approach. So they're sending these people sort of on a suicide mission, to be honest with you. Because they just, you know, they're saying, OK, here's how you plant a church. Go do it in the city. And people are going, whoa, you know, we're not going to have two hundred people in six months, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And so they feel very lonely. And so the idea of Urban Islands Project was to create -- to find those people. Baptist, Assemblies of God, Nazarene.It doesn't matter what they are. Find those people sent to the city who are trying to figure it out, sort of, by themselves. And their organization is kind of making demands on them that feel overwhelming. And get them together and say, Hey, let's figure this out together. Let's try to find the new norms. Let's trying to find the urban norms - And and create this - we call them cohorts - of people in the same city at the same time. That's the idea of Urban Islands Project. Now, honestly, just to give you the quick history. We did that in four cities. We did that in Denver. We had seven projects in Denver. We had six projects in Minneapolis-St. Paul. We had four projects in New York City. We had three in Nashville. And you could see those numbers are going down. And one of the things I realized was the sending organizations were having a harder time wrapping their brain around what we were doing. And so the effort I was putting into talking to the sending organizations about how this would be a complementary aspect of their ministry, that was just taking so long to just put together a cohort that was in that same city. At the same time. I'm getting calls from people all
over the country:Hey, we heard about you guys. We'd like to be part of a cohort. And so we pivoted from a face to face approach to a online approach, which we did this like two years before Covid. So we we were ready for covid. And so we started doing online. We called them clusters to begin with, but now we're calling cohorts again - where again, we're just gathering people who are in a place that is generally not, sort of, well by the conventional deal. And we help them figure out how to do well and not be alone in that endeavor. This is so needed today in our cities, including Canada. I know in the States this is something that, you know, you're starting to see a bit of a rise in. And certainly we need to see it in Canada. But, like every other organization, any network that needs people, recruiting and calling people can be difficult. So why don't you, maybe, give us some thoughts on how you're recruiting and calling people to participate in the Urban Islands Project, and then how do you determine who should be in those cohorts in the particular cities? Those are great questions. And to say that I have really clear, concise and great answers for all those questions would be an overstatement. But it's more of an art than a science in terms of how do we find the people. I think it's -- I like to say anything that you do in ministry is one part strategy and one part miracle. And so strategy is what we do, and miracle is what God does. And if you don't have both of those going on, then you're not going to be successful. And so, you know, to start-- And so, when you think about where do these people come from - That's sort of the million dollar question, isn't it? Everybody wants to know where do we get these people? And that was what I wondered about to begin with. So honestly, the
first thing I did was just pray:God, we need somebody to start with. And I had never even heard of anything like this. And I didn't know it could be done. But again, I think we were benefited by a miracle of God. We found seven projects, seven people and projects that were all coming to Denver at the same time. And we said, Would you guys like to go on this journey together? And they said, Yeah, let's do it. So that first one was more of a miracle than a strategy, because I don't -- I still don't even know how that happened, honestly. But then, you know, once you have something that people go, Oh, that's what it is, then it made it a little easier. And we just -- we've posted stuff on Facebook for every day for years. We just did everything we could on a low budget to get the word out. And we just -- you know, word of mouth was the biggest thing. And when people started -- You know, what happens is people go to conferences sometimes and they'd say, Man, this is so good. But yet a lot of it's not going to apply. And somebody would say, Have you heard about Urban Islands? And so they'd call us up. And so, it's gone from, I really had to beat the bushes, so to speak. Now it's more referral based. We're starting to develop relationships with sending organizations who send people. They figured out, Wait a minute, we don't have to become experts on urban. We can support these people in a way that we can support them, and then we can put them in an environment where they're going to get specific support for their unique context. And so that's kind of how it's working. And it's still --- We're still, I think we're still at the very beginning of this process. But with -- We'll talk about the book in a minute - But one of the reasons I wrote the book was just it's another way to get the word out. And so what's starting to happen is we're getting opportunities that are going to put us in front of a lot more people. And I think that'll help church planters that are interested, and other people. We'll talk more about that too. But anyway. And then your other question about How do we, sort of, screen the people? You know, again, it's a little bit more of an art than a science. But I start with an interview. I interview everybody that is interested. And what I'm looking for is-- One of the things that we learned from City to City - our friends at City to City, which is the Redeemer -- Paul-- Not Paul, is it -- Tim. Tim Keller. I was going to say Paul Keller, but that's Paul Fraser. Tim Keller's organization has been doing city church planting for years. And I talked with Robert Guerrero, who at one point was the city director for City to City in New York City. And he said one of the things they learned is that in cities, they don't take, they don't believe - or they don't consider - a church to be firmly established or even something that's going to last unless the planter has been there for seven years. And so one of the things I try to do is figure out, as I listen to people in an interview, is how strong is their commitment to this? And, you know, is this-- Are they just-- Is this a fad thing or whatever? And so that's a big, that's a big issue. I also -- So a lot of times, the interesting thing is people feel commitment to the cities before they feel a commitment to a particular neighborhood of a city. And so I'm actually- I've found that those individuals are often more...They stand the test of time, if you will, than somebody who comes to me and says, I'm supposed to go to this particular neighborhood and start a really cool church with all this cool stuff going on. If they start with that idea before they start with, like, My heart is broken and God's called me to go to the city, those are signs. So I'm looking for a broken heart. I'm looking for a long term commitment, those kinds of things. And once I'm convinced that that person is somebody who's going to be in it for the long haul, then we invite them to be in the cohort. Yeah. Steve, hey, welcome. Mission Canada does have a priority of urban, in our major centers in Canada, and so this is right in the stream of one of our key priorities. You mentioned the Next Wave book. And you give a great example at the beginning about a wave hitting and the response of the church to that wave. And maybe -- You've also talked about how to make disciples and hard places. So maybe just talk a little bit about where that book came from, and the picture of this wave, and then a little bit of what you're thinking about how to reach disciples in hard places, like our urban cities. Wow, OK, you've got about two hours for me to answer that question? (Laughter) Well, we'll put in the chat where the book's available for everyone at the end. So -- That would be great. Yeah, we'll make this into a 12 part series.(Laughter) Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Well, so -- Give us a picture of the wave. What were you thinking with the idea of the wave? Yeah. Well, to answer that, yeah. The book came -- So the book. So what happened was, I go to the city - Deep, deep dive into the city. I mean, for six years, I was just eating, breathing, nothing but the city stuff. And what I realized was, culture in general, is being created in the cities. Like everything that's happening in the city right now is going to be happening out in the suburbs and in the rural communities, you know, one to two to three - how many years it takes. But it starts here. This is where culture is being formed. And so, with that realization, I thought, Wait a minute, the stuff that we're figuring out in terms of reaching people in the cities is going to be applicable to everybody. And every place, eventually, is going to become a hard place. Because there's -- You know, the enemy is not, like, clueless to what's going on. And so he's going to put in effect countermeasures and stuff to stop the church from spreading and moving forward. And so, you know, I felt like - I started to write a book on urban church planting, and I said, Wait, this - I'm writing a book, what this book really is, is about addressing a 21st Century culture that's being born in the cities. And these principles that we've found to be helpful in cities are going to be helpful anywhere. So the wave metaphor came when I was watching people's response to Covid. Because I'm writing this book during Covid. And I realized that people basically had three responses to Covid. One was, they were just going to just pretend like it wasn't happening. And I'm afraid that they're going to get blown over by the change that's happening, and so they're going to get obliterated by the wave. And that's how the wave - If you if you see a wave, if you're surfing, and you see a wave coming, you have three options. You can either just stand there, and it's going to it's going to knock you down. Depending on size of the wave, it might even kill you. The other option you have, though, is you can sort of dive through it and come up on the other side. And everything's calm and everything's peaceful, but you're not going anywhere. And that's the second response I
heard people saying:Well, we're going to relaunch. So what they really did, what they're really saying is, We're just going to reintroduce ourselves and we're not really going to change that much; It's not going to be that painful; We're just going to come out on the other side of the wave and everything's going to be fine. But the funnest way to encounter a wave is to ride it, is to jump on that wave and ride it in. And I've actually done that. I live in the mountains, but I've surfed. And so I know there is - I'm telling you, there's nothing like getting on that wave and feeling the power of that wave underneath the board, and riding that thing in. And that is a very dynamic experience. It is not a static experience. It's a very intensive, dynamic experience that you're paying attention; You're very much in the moment, in the zone. And that's what I think we have to do. There's a cultural wave coming. It's either going to obliterate us, or we're going to dive under it and come up on the other side and miss the wave completely, or we can ride it. And that's what the book is about. And so your question about the discipleship thing. I think that is -- I mean -- So the first the first shift in the book, is I talk about the shift from seeing the church as an institution to seeing the church as a movement. and the movement is making disciples, because that's what Jesus said to do. And we kind of - again, oversimplification - but church starting, church planting, whatever label you want to give it, sort of became about the institution. And, you know, the goal was to get to a certain place where we had the right number of people assembled the right number of everything, and good income coming in to support the pastor and support the work of the church and blah, blah, blah. That's sort of an institutionally focused thing, was if we've got services going on and people are
gathered, then boom:success. But the Jesus picture
is:he said, Go make disciples; Go make disciples. And so the second chapter is about reimagining discipleship. Because the problem with the word disciple-making or discipleship, is that, in the 20th century church, discipleship sort of became- it was reduced down to a program or a course or a small group or - it was something institutional. It was something that you did. And it was primarily focused on people - Literally, the idea of what disciple-making was, was that - or is - is that it is what you do with people once they have decided to follow Jesus. And so, you know, that's a real problem when you're trying to start a church in an urban context where nobody's following Jesus. Jesus said to make disciples. So if you're supposed to make disciples, but you've got to start with people already know Jesus. OK, well, that means evangelism, right? Of course. So, but again, even our concept of evangelism is kind of, Let's get everybody together and preach at them. That is what a lot of people think of. Or let's give them a tract or given them this and that. So, you know, I ran into this head-on when I was trying to start a church in Utah. Nobody there was looking for a church. They'd already found their church. It's called the LDS Church. The Mormon Church. They were happy with that. And so if I was going to make disciples there, I really did have to help people become followers of Jesus. I still is thinking about discipleship in the 20th century way. So I thought, I got to get them saved, then I can make disciples of them. So, you know, we just did the best we could. We went out and started meeting people. I literally just knocked on doors and had conversations with people. And little by little, over a couple of years, we got a handful of people that started following Jesus and we were making disciples of. And I went back and we started thinking, wait a minute, what did we do? How did those people end up deciding to follow Jesus? And we went back and looked at what we had done and realized, well, first, before they started following Jesus, they kind of were hanging out with us. And so we sort of broke that down and realized that's how Jesus made disciples. He invited people to come hang out with him. And it caused us to ask the question, when did the disciples become Christians?(Laughter) And I've asked that in a bunch of places now. And the answer is all over the map. Nobody knows. The scholars, you know, regular people. Everybody has a different answer to that. So which makes it clear to me that it's not clear when the disciples became Christians and the Bible doesn't even seem to make a big deal about that. But they started following Jesus. We know that. And so we think it's pretty safe to say that they were disciples before they were Christians. And so we have decided that evangelism actually happens inside of discipleship. The movement, realizing you just start following somebody who's following Jesus, you start becoming interested in Jesus. And so that's part of disciple-making. And that was a revolutionary idea because all of a sudden, people that were headed to these urban communities where there was literally nobody was following Jesus could say, OK, wait, I can start making disciples right now. The first step is just go meet some people and so on and so on. And so once you start thinking of discipleship as something that covers the whole thing, with evangelism contained within that, it makes a lot more sense to start a church by, you make disciples and the church comes out of that. You make disciples who make disciples and church comes out of that. I like the illustration that you use in the chapter, too, where you talk about, You know, I don't care if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. Right? Like, this idea that I don't care what methods or what models are being used as long as disciples are being created. Right? Exactly. That's the 21st century kind of model. It is. It is. Yeah. So, yeah, that was the question that I had asked George Wood, the Superintendent of the Assemblies in U.S., you know, what's your definition of a church? And and I described this very, you know, non-conventional church. And he said, well, I don't care what color the cat is as long as it catches mice. And his point was, real churches make disciples. And that can take a lot of different shapes and a lot of different formats. Yeah. You're definitely preaching to the choir today.(Laughter) Thanks for those thoughts. Steve, you've journeyed with me, helping me to understand what it takes to be a national leader. Sometimes we've celebrated the joys. Sometimes we shared our frustrations. You've taught me a lot. So obviously, you learned something from those years at CMN- Church Multiplication Network - planting churches with AG. But it's different planting in suburban, so the question I have
for you is:What did you learn about church planting when you were at CMN, and what did you need to unlearn so that you could plant -- so that you could help disciple-making community start through the Urban Islands Project? That's a great question. Yeah. When I was leading CMN, of course, it's -- I was-- Because it's part of the general counsel of The Assemblies of God. We were there to serve all church planters. And one of the things that drove me to the place I'm at today is the fact that most of our church planters were going to suburban places. Flat out. They weren't going rural and they weren't going to urban, mostly. But there were a handful that were. And when I started, this conviction started growing me about the cities, I started thinking about -- I mean, I thought, Well, wait a minute, I'm the Director of Church Planting for the Assemblies of God. I should be able just to say, OK, we're going to all go to the cities now. But I really couldn't do that, because God's not just calling people to the cities. And that's not fair. And that's one of the things about being a denominational leader, is that you are there to serve the whole group, you know, not just one group. And so for me, it grew to the point where I felt like God had put this burning in my heart that I couldn't fulfill remaining in this more generalist position, as wonderful and as great as it was a great place to be. So there was there was nothing bad or evil that happened. It was just -- I just realized, I need, for me to pursue what God's calling me to do I can't stay in this role. Because I'm at the place where I just care about cities.(Laughter) So anyway, what I learned about being in that kind of a leadership role is, when I first went there, I just went there out of obedience. I mean, that's another thing, if you're going to be a denominational leader, you better do it out of obedience to God. It better be a calling for you, just as much as a calling to go plant a church somewhere. And that's what it was for me. I felt called to go. At the time I went, it didn't make any sense. I had a great job. And so - But what was interesting was I found that, as the organization -- I really started Church Multiplication Network -- I realized that's what I was called to do. That's why God brought me there. I had a vision for it in my heart I didn't know I had. And so I was able to figure out how to do that within the context of the broader organization. And, you know, it looks like it's working out pretty good. But then, I felt the need to pursue this calling. And one of the reasons was
because of what you just said:There is a dramatic difference between suburban planting and urban planting. So I think one of the -- There was an article a couple of years ago in The Atlantic, which is an online publication. And it's really -- I love it. It's a very interesting-- You get stuff there you get nowhere else. And this was an article about planting churches in cities and why that wasn't happening. They actually had picked up on this. And it came out of a research project that had discovered that the most - the way they put it was - that the places with the lowest level of religious involvement were the under-served urban communities. And I, when I read that, I just thought, Wait a minute- no, no, no, - You know, the people that are that are financially disadvantaged, that's where the church thrives and flourishes. But that isn't the case. And so they actually dug deeper to see why that was. And it was the economic model, the economic model. And what they actually said in this article was the economic model, the conventional church planting economic model, de-ncentivizes people from going to hard places, because the math just doesn't work there. And so that's a huge, big difference. And so it's really frustrating for somebody to be sitting in a meeting and you hear the guy up front talking about how they gather all these tithe-paying Christians from wherever they gather them from - from other churches or just deactivated people that were sitting in their homes looking for a better church or whatever - and assembled this critical mass of tithe-payers together. And you know that's not going to happen if you're going to a place where people are really -- Even if you do get a bunch of tithe-payers, their tithes are not adequate to pay all the bills and stuff like that. And so, that's one huge, huge difference between suburban and rural - or, I'm sorry, suburban and urban, and suburban and rural - there's actually more commonality between urban and rural than there is between Suburban and the other two. Because the rural actually have, often, economic challenges. It's tough when you only have 50 people in town, to get two hundred people to come to your church, which is sort of the magic number for the, you know, the conventional model. And so anyway. So, I hope I answered your question. I'm trying to cover --- Yeah. I've noticed that sometimes pastors that are rural or small town do very well when they come to pastor in the urban core because they are so used to being people of relationship, rather than people of organization and structure. Right. Right. But you need need a little bit of organization and structure too. Yeah, you do. I want to dig in a little bit on the cohort aspect. So that we'll use Denver as the premier model, of seven projects. Now, when you say projects, that's seven different expressions coming from sending organizations? Is this seven church planters? Or is this also people that are looking to engage in community development, people who are more interested in, you know, some kind of nontraditional church piece? Yeah, yeah. Well, so the seven -- Yeah, you're right. The projects represent seven different -- So, let me back up and say the reason we call it Urban Islands Project is because one of the things that we realized about cities is that cities are like a thousand islands mashed together. Or a thousand small towns mashed together. And so Denver has seventy eight identifiable, named neighborhoods. It's one city of about 730,000 right now, but there's seventy-eight named neighborhoods, and each one of those has its own ethos, you know. And so, what the idea was, these seven went into seven different neighborhoods. And the idea was to raise up a worshiping community - Our definition of church is a community of disciples, with Jesus, on his mission. Now, that mission, in some cases, may include -- you talked about community development --that may include that, as part of the way they manifest themselves in that community. But at the end of the day, what we're looking for in the cohorts, are people who -- We want to see that worshiping community emerge. And it doesn't mean it can't have other things going along. But but we want the ultimate goal to be that worshiping community. And so, in the case of the seven -- And what I continue to do is I want to work with the catalyst leaders. Whatever, whoever the catalyst leaders are, we want them to be meeting with other catalyst leaders. So what I mean by catalyst is it's the person that has, if they go away, the church is going to go away, kind of a thing, you know - usually it's a couple, but it can be a single person. And so, then they, out of their meeting with the cohort, they meet with their team, whatever that is, that is leading that project. And they process what they're learning in the cohort. Because we felt like it would be too much. In fact, we limit the size of the cohorts to about five to six projects, which would be 10 to 12 if they're all couples. And that keeps it compact enough that we can have great interactive conversations and discussions and really learn from each other. If everybody is allowed to bring all their team members, then it turns into, you know, 50 or 60 or 100 people, and that changes the whole dynamic of the thing. So the cohorts are deliberately kept to, at the most, 10 to 12 individuals and five to six projects. And however, here's the thing. One of our current cohorts right now, just to-- I think you asked this, and if you didn't, I know where you're going with it -- we have a current cohort right now - or I'm sorry, a member of our cohort right now - that's starting a church. He and his wife are engineers. They graduated from CSU and they are both professional full time engineers. And they just graduated about two years ago, I think. So they're young. They're really young. And they came - They contacted me and said, God's called us to come to Denver, move into a neighborhood and raise up a worshiping community of disciples. Can you help us do that? And I said, Well, you guys are engineers. Yeah, we know that. But we're going to do that. We're going to do that in an honorable way. But we feel like there's more to our life than just being engineers and we want to raise up a worshiping community. So they ended up recruiting a bunch of other professionals from CSU, who were all graduating at the same time. They all moved into the same community at the same time. None of them have any kind of ministerial credentials, but they are all passionate followers of Jesus. And there's this incredibly beautiful community of followers of Jesus beginning to form and emerge in that neighborhood and in that community. So that, in my opinion -- And we've, by the way, connected them with a church that's kind of their, we call it their sending church, and there's a relationship there. So they're not just out there floating on their own, completely disconnected. They've got some accountability and stuff like that. But it's -- So that's -- I think the future looks way more like that than what we've seen in the past, in terms of churches that are structured around complicated, complex organizational structures and big expensive buildings and all this kind of stuff. We're going to have both/and going forward. But I think the future, the cutting edge, the the blue ocean strategy, if you will, is going to be these communities of passionate followers of Jesus, who the church is empowering to say, Go do it, man. Go raise up a worshiping -- by the way, that group is already spun off another neighborhood group, because that's just-- they can do it. It doesn't cost anything. Just, bang, it just goes. Yeah, that's awesome, and we're seeing that co-vocational model even more developed in some of the hard places here as well in Canada. I love what you said when you talked about intentionally and tangibly and patiently, your strategy to help those around you walk in the ways of Jesus. I thought that was a really good definition of what it means to be a disciple-maker. You talk a little bit about this engagement with people outside of faith and you call it a little bit of a pre-conversion. If I use hands, right? Right hand and left hand, one hand being there pre-conversion stage and the other hand being their post-conversion stage - or as you put, the Seek and the Save hand, right? Yeah. Right. I kind of like that illustration in the book. But talk a little bit about this whole changing of the awareness, changing of the steps moving forward in this. You talk about awareness and levels of connectivity and what's your relator factor. Right? And how do you actually move towards spiritual conversations? So, maybe talk a little bit about what that Seeking stage is looking like, especially in the hard urban core. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So, yeah. So yeah, that's a great -- The hands are simple, because most of us have two hands and five fingers on each hand. So it's easy to kind of you've got the illustration right in front of your face to remember, and you just did a great job of summarizing that. The thing I want to mention is if you think of -- I don't know which hand is...This is my left hand and this is my right hand. I don't know what it is to you guys. But anyway. -- If you think of my, let's say my right hand over here, as the pre-conversion side of disciple making, and this is the post-conversion -- Most churches have focused on the post-conversion and they're very intentional about that. And so, you go to a typical church and say, what's your discipleship process? And they're going to say, Well, you know, 101, 201, 301, 401, whatever...And they know what those are. They're, Well we teach people what Christians believe and we teach them about gifts and we teach them about shape. And they have all these different things that we d,o which are great. Teach them about the Bible. That's actually extremely important to be intentional about post Christian. You want people to grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus, no question about it. But I've noticed that there's not as much intentionality over on the pre-conversion side of disciple-making. We often, again, call this evangelism, but it's real sporadic. And so, I mentioned earlier our our experience in Utah, and what we noticed - We actually went back and talked to some of the people who had come to faith and tried to figure out is there, are there actually, sort of, stages of moving towards faith in Jesus on this side that we can identify and be intentional about? And so we sort of reverse engineered. We talked to people who had come to faith and say, Okay, what was happening in your life just before you started following Jesus? Well, I knew somebody who was following Jesus. OK. OK, what was -- How did you meet that person? Because again, in Utah, there's a little bit of isolation, if you will. The culture is so dominated by the LDS church that most people in Utah never even encounter a person who's a Christian. So how did that happen? And that was usually through some kind of relationship, based on something that - they either lived, they were a neighbor or they were on a sports team together or they worked together - So there was something that created the opportunity for relationship that was unrelated to a spiritual conversation, you know. And then how did that happen? Well, they met that person, through some kind of introduction, again, depending on the circumstance. So that's the connection. And then what what preceded the connection was positive awareness. You don't want to be connected to somebody who you feel who you're afraid of or irritated by. And so we realized, wait, there's a pattern there and it seems like it's universal. All the people we talked to, their journey toward faith in Christ went through those four categories awareness, making people aware of you in a positive way, connection, knowing somebody's name and praying for them - so you're bringing in that miracle part of the equation into the strategy when you when you pray for somebody - and then relationship where you start -- Again, we've been taught that evangelism means that you're telling people what they need to believe, or preaching to them and telling the truth. Whereas again, if you follow the picture of Jesus, he hung out with these guys. There's a lot of stuff that's not recorded that they talked about. They're walking down the road together and they're having these conversations anyway. So relationship is sharing of story and being more interested in that person's story than you are in your own story, because you're caring about them as a person that is uniquely created by God. And then that leads to - inevitably, in relationship with people - it leads to spiritual conversations. And it's out of the spiritual conversations that the salvation moments can can emerge and can happen. So that's-- In an urban context, where you have-- So, of one of our stories is of one of the planters started going to a hairstylist. I'm going to change the names of everybody, just to protect the innocent here. But this a hairstylist -- You know, the pastor, we'll call him Mark, went went to the hairstylist to get his hair cut, or styled, or whatever. And just -- So, positive awareness, he's coming there as the customer, found out his name. And again, we'll just call him John. And John - they started having a conversation the first time. And the first time it was just real general stuff, getting to know each other. But then, by the second or third time, John had discovered that Mark was a pastor and Mark had discovered that John identified as an Atheist and he identified himself as gay. And he identified, he also mentioned that he was dating a Muslim man. So he was he just had a lot of things going on in his life that were really complicated from a spiritual context. And John was just blown away that, as he began to share the reality of who he was, Mark kept coming back to him to get his haircut. He's like, why are you coming back to me again? Well, you know, I just really care about you as a person. And I love these conversations we're having. And so it turned into a spiritual conversation. So you see the progression, awareness, connection, relationship, spiritual conversations. And what ended up happening was, eventually, John was so curious - because he realized this guy was starting a church - He was so curious about the church that Mark was starting, that he came to see what that was about. And so that night - I actually happened to be there in the night this happened - And John came up to Mark at the end of the service and he says - and he used some language with which I'm not going to say here, because that's just the language he used - But he said, what in the world is is happening to me? And Mark said, What do you mean? He goes, Well, I can't I can't stop crying. And John said, Well, that's - You're experiencing the presence and power of God. And he said, and so John said, Well, what do I do now?(Laughter) And Mark is a smart guy. He'd been around people that profess to be Atheists well enough to know, this isn't the time to jerk the hook and pull the guy out of the water. He just said, Would you like me to disciple you? And he said, what does that mean? He says, Well, that means I want to help. You're interested in knowing more about Jesus and I want to help you follow him or know more about him. And he said, Yeah, that's what I want. OK, meet me tomorrow at this coffee shop and we'll have our first discipling session. And I think it was three or four weeks later, Mark actually ended up -- or John actually ended up crossing the line of faith, you know. So that's-- and actually, but by the way, it took two years. Yeah. From the first time. I think the time allotments are going to be one element, that we're going to have to be very patient in the time allotments, for sure. And by the way, that same guy has a lot of stories to tell of atheists who he's friends with that still haven't crossed the line of faith. And that's -- we're talking years. So, yeah, we're going to have to be more patient and trust the work of the Holy Spirit in people's lives. And so, anyway. You talk about the sending networks, the sending -- you know, churches or organizations. You worked at one. You get that. You get denominational life. In our conversations, I think you're understanding a little bit more about Canada as well. Just some of the differences. You've been here, you've been around. You've experienced some of the culture. And so, if you could -- if you could get back into denominational life, but you're in Canada now. Maybe you're -- maybe you and I have switched roles and you're now overseeing church multiplication. Do I have to shave my head?(Laughter) Yeah, you do. And grow a beard. Ok? OK. But you look at Canada now as your mission field and you're-- and there'd be those out there that would be listening that work in a denominational field or connected to or part of a sending organization. If you can wave your magic wand and change culture, how would you change it in and what would you do if you were given that opportunity to lead into that again? I know you probably don't want to, but I've just maybe speak to that. What can we do as organizations to be more urban-focused and effective? Yeah, OK. Well, first of all, I just want to mention, just to get a little street cred with my Canadian friends, I have been to Tim Hortons. Just so everybody knows. I have drank from the cup. Have you had an iced capp yet, though? I don't think I have, I guess--. Alright, alright. OK, I'm sorry, I just blew it. Next time you and I are together, I'm buying you an iced capp and it will change your life. (Laughter) OK, so that's great. Well, I think it was Brian that introduced me to Tim Horton's the first time. And I actually, when I was flying back from being in Canada for some reason, I actually got a Tim Hortons in the airport. So, I think that makes you a real Canadian if you do that. So anyway. So, what would I do, if I'm denominational. So Number One, I would take the urban challenge seriously. Like, I just -- It's not economically efficient to think about it - from a denomination, like if you're thinking, Well, we've only got so much money, where can we put it to get the most bang for our buck? Definitely not urban if you're thinking traditional ways. On the other hand -- So Step One is take it seriously. And don't just say, Oh well, you know, it's just too hard. Nobody's doing a good job of it. Why don't we be the generation that figures it out? Why don't we be the organization that goes to the hard places? Let's be that one. Let's be known for that. But it doesn't mean - Going to the hard places doesn't mean just powering through with conventional methodologies that are going to bankrupt you and not be effective. So that means Number Two is be flexible - Is realize that there is, there actually are significant differences in going to hard places, and try to do the best you can to exegete the cultural reality and understand what approach is needed here. Because sometimes a conventional approach is the right thing to do in some places. So you don't just automatically write that off as that's bad and this is good. On the other hand, increasingly, the opportunity for advancement in urban places is going to require creativity. It's going to require people that have a pioneer spirit that are willing to go without a map and cut through some underbrush and stuff and get there. And so that's- I don't know if I'm Number Two or Three here - but as an organization, support those people. But not just, by supporting, I'm not just saying throwing money at them and saying go do it, but step into it with them and say, OK, you feel called to go to this really challenging, difficult place. Let's work together to figure out a financial strategy that is realistic. You're going to have to be co-vocational. In the book, I talk about five revenue streams that have been cultivated. Those may or may not be applicable in Canada, but but you're going to have to figure out a way to generate or to make the church sustainable on more than just tithes and offerings alone, because that's the case. And so the example I just gave is pretty good, of a group of people who are all professionals, have a job. They don't need income from the church for the church to be there. You know, figuring and making a place for them and treating them - putting them on a platform. I mean, I'm going to start telling the stories of people that are doing it. I mean, I loved it when I was at your deal at the urban conference that you guys, that I was at a couple of years ago. I was just - I went away, blown away by the amazing stories of these people that nobody's ever heard of. And they're plugging away faithfully. And I know, again, you guys do a good job of putting -- but do a better job. Put these guys on a platform. You know, we tend to platform the people who have the numerical success and we've got to start the platform the people who have the missional success as defined by -- So, I remember I heard a conventional leader, well-known leader in the Assemblies in the United States. He was at a district conference and he stood up and he said, Let me ask
you a question, which is better:one church of a thousand or ten churches of a hundred? And my immediate thought was 10 churches of 100, every day. But he came back and said, Obviously, it's one church of a thousand. Well, that -- I just disagree vehemently with that idea. I'd love to have 10 churches of a thousand, that's wonderful. But ten churches of one hundred. How about two hundred churches of twenty five? How about a thousand churches of fifteen? Because the niche that they're serving, just, that's the way it works. And so, as an organization, figure out how to celebrate that, how to identify -- Which is why one of the things that I put in the book was some thinking about metrics and how you measure missional progress, so we're not stuck with just measuring noses and nickels. That is killing us, man. Because that still is such a strong driver in people's minds about whether they're successful or not. It all comes down to how many people are sitting there watching you on Sunday morning -- Either, before covid it was present, and now it's how many clicks or how many views are you getting online? And the whole thing has just been blown up. The more important metric is How many disciples are being made? Or how are disciples..? Or how many disciples who make disciples are being made? And so if you make ten disciples who are making disciples, that's way more of an impact than having a room full of a thousand people, sitting there passively listening to a message and not doing anything about it. Now, that's an extreme. I know that. I'm not saying a church of a thousand is just filled with a bunch of people who aren't doing anything. But just to make the point, if I've got 10 activated disciple-makers, that's setting in motion the kind of movement that Jesus set in motion that's going to change the world. If I have a room of a thousand people that are sitting there passively listening to a message and do nothing with it, which one would I rather have? I agree. Yeah, thanks, Steve. Celebrate that. Yeah. Yeah. I think you get what you celebrate, right, Steve? Like, I mean, to celebrate a certain type of model, you're going to want to -- people will want to replicate that. Absolutely. So, you know, I think underlying all of this - and in your book, you also talk a little bit about this. Unashamed and intentionally dependent on the pursuing and ongoing empowerment of Holy Spirit. You talked about a one part miracle and one part strategy. But talk a little bit about how we as leaders need to up our game on dependency in the Holy Spirit, and what does that really shape and look like in our urban centers? Yeah, yeah. Well, let me start by saying I don't think I'm -- I don't think I've arrived as the Exhibit A of the great person who knows how to pursue God. I think I'm on a journey. And that's part of it right there. Start with an attitude of humility. And I think pastors, it's really easy for us to kind of think, you know, my job is to help these people follow Jesus. And I think it's really important to keep in mind that our our job is to follow Jesus first. And out of that is where our best ministry is going to come from. And so it's -- and it's really easy for pastors and ministers to sort of make their devotional part of their lives a duty that they do because they want to be able to have God's anointing so they can preach a sermon or something like that. Or even just so they have credibility. I was in my devotional time this week and God said this or that. And honestly, when I was living and working in Springfield, Missouri, you know, I found myself in this place. I lived in a community that all my neighbors either went to James River Church or Second Baptist Church, kind of a two megachurches in town, there may be a few others. But they all -- For Easter, it was hilarious, because everybody had these signs in their yard saying Come to James River Assembly or Come to -- And they're all"Christians". And then I went to work at a place where you have to sign a thing that you're a Christian to be able to work there. And then when I went to speak places, when I traveled, the only time I got around people who weren't Christians is on an airplane. And most of them don't want to talk to you. You know, they got the earphones on. And so I just didn't have -- And you don't have a relationship with people on an airplane, You're just there. So I just -- I was so isolated. But I kept doing my devotions, you know. And I did my devotions, meaning I was reading scripture, I was praying, I was I was kind of going through - in some ways it felt like the motions. And I, honestly, was kind of doing it so I could say You know, this is what God said to me in my devotions. Because I wanted to be a good example for the leaders. But what happened was when I came to Denver, and all of a sudden it was completely reversed. I didn't know anybody who was following Jesus, except me and my wife. We live in a high rise apartment building, and all of our neighbors are not people who are following Jesus. And some of them were even very opposed to that idea, or at least to the church. And, man, I found myself very suddenly thrust into these situations where I'm having questions posed at me from people privately and publicly where, Man alive, I needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to know what to do and say, you know. And so my devotional experience shifted from being something that I was doing out of duty, to something I was doing that desperation. And so it opened something in my thinking that, you know, if I get on a mission with Jesus, then I really understand why I need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. And it's not a duty. It's something out of desperation. I've got to drink from the Lord's Cup. And, you know, I guess if I was talking to a pastor today who was struggling, I would just say, you know what? Start hanging out with some lost people. It's going to be so uncomfortable for you. And, you know, ironically, that drives you closer to Jesus, you know. Because you you find yourself way beyond yourself really fast and you've got to depend on the Holy Spirit for everything. And so I guess that's my answer to your question, Brian And that's a great that's a great response. It is a necessity rather than just something you tack on to your professional status. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Steve, this is my last request for the episode. Of Canada- Canada's population, we're probably in the neighborhood of 10 percent of the US population, with the larger land mass. And so our, over 80 percent of Canada's population live in about 15 major metropolitan areas from coast to coast. Over 80 percent of our nation lives in the city or in the immediate orbit of the city. And we talk about being led of the Spirit and the importance of that. We've had a lot of great discussion today. But I want to ask you if you would pray for us, if you would pray for the cities in Canada. And, you know, when we talk so much about urban, that's not to discount small towns or rural, because people are people wherever you go. Right. But yet you hit on something really important in your book and in the discussion today. And that is that that cities are where culture is shaped and whatever happens in the city is going to emanate outwards to the rest of the population. So would you pray for Canada? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Lord, thank you for my brothers and for the organizations and the churches and the people and the places that are represented in this circle of friends and this circle of conversation today. Lord, we just sort of step back and ask us to help you -- help us see Canada from your perspective. And, you know, I think about Jesus standing and looking over Jerusalem and being heartbroken for the spiritual condition of a place that he loved. And we stand over these 15 metropolitan areas of Canada. And we-- I pray you break our hearts for these places. And, Lord, we know that, based on my understanding of some of the spiritual challenges that Canada has, perhaps a higher level of resistance to the idea of following you and being part of a church and those kinds of things than we've ever experienced here in the US. And I think even a higher percentage of the population, perhaps in Canada is associated with an urban place. And so God, I just pray -- You said to pray that the Lord of the Harvest will raise up laborers. And that's really, that's really what is needed, is faithful men and women who are heartbroken for these cities and these places. And they're willing to step into extremely challenging, difficult places where there's not going to be quick overnight success. Where are they going to be trying stuff that may or may not look effective for years. But, God, I just pray that you'll help those people, help them to be identified, help them to identify themselves. And I pray that you'll help the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada to be a great home for these pioneers, to be a place where people are embraced, that step up with ideas that sound kind of crazy or different, but yet are being birthed in their hearts by you. And I just pray you'll give discernment to Brian and Paul and Kevin and the other leadership of this organization, God. And help them to create structures and habits, organizational habits, that will make it possible for these pioneers and these creative-thinking folks to go into the nooks and crannies of culture and raise up worshiping communities, communities of disciples on mission with Jesus. And Lord, I just pray that going forward, the -- maybe the picture of what success looks like will begin to shift so that it lines up better with what your picture of success looks like. And we'll move away from from seeing success only as how many people are gathered to, maybe, how many people are sent. And how many people show up for this or that to how many disciple makers are being made. And God, let this organization figure out how to help that change of emphasis come to be so that these 15 cities and the millions of people who live in them can know you and the power of your fellowship and the glory of your presence. And we give you the praise and the honor and glory in Jesus name. Amen.