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- [00:00]
A
Hey friends. Rich here from the Unseminary podcast. You know we often talk about churches not doing well, but maybe your church is doing really well right now and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep the momentum going. It could be the time to start a new location. Maybe you've hesitated in the past few years, but now, now is the time for you to step out in faith again and launch your next location. That's why I've partnered with Portable Church Industries for a new resource called Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Portable Church has assembled a bunch of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum in a new location by sending part of your congregation back to their neighborhood and on mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step by step plan to launch your next or new location and a five minute readiness tool that will help you know if your church is ready to go. Listen, I really want you to drop by portablechurch.com rich that's portablechurch.com rich to get this free resource Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Listen, if your church is growing, now is the time for you to step out and launch a new location. You know I'm passionate about this. So I want you to drop by portablechurch.com rich today to pick up this brand new resource. Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Again, one last time. That's portablechurch.com rich today.
- [01:34]
B
Welcome to the Unseminary Podcast, the place where church leaders get practical insights, tips and strategies for ministry growth. Today you're stepping into something bigger than just a conversation. This podcast is part of a bold mission to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. Whether you're dreaming of increasing your impact in your community, empowering your team or or reaching more people with the message of Jesus, you're in the right place. We're here to bring you the stuff you wish they taught in seminary. Ideas and tools you can put into action this week to see transformation in your ministry. Let's dive in.
- [02:13]
A
Well, hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. Man, I am super excited for today's conversation. This is one of those conversations that's got in the middle of it a common tension that it's a misnomer that that lots of people have that we're going to bust today. We've got some myths we're going to bust. Plus it's going to super helpful for you. Super excited to have Adam Ader with us. He is the groups director at Parkview Christian Church. It's a multi site church in, in Illinois and church online. They're repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Super excited to have you on the show today. Adam, welcome. So glad you're here.
- [02:49]
C
Hey, thanks Rich, Appreciate it.
- [02:51]
A
This is going to be wonderful. Thanks for your time. Really appreciate that. Give us a sense of Parkview. Kind of tell us the story if you know, if people were to arrive this weekend. Kind of give us a sense of that and then tell us a little bit about your role.
- [03:01]
C
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I had the good fortune to land at Parkview as my first job out of college. Landed as a student ministry intern in 2005. Actually had a little bit more hair growing up top at the time than I do now but, but I got lucky. I didn't know a thing about the church and landed there to find out that they were one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And I was like, oh what, what have I gotten myself into? But Parkview has been through like an incredible journey really over the last 20 plus years of just explosive growth. And we're in the south suburbs of Chicago. Our original location is at Orland Park. We've grown to the point where we have three locations and they're all kind of within a 15 minute drive of each other in a little sort of Bermuda Triangle of Parkview campuses and you know, our.
- [03:53]
A
But in that Bermuda Triangle good things happen, not bad things happen.
- [03:56]
C
Yeah, thanks, that's great. But yeah, so the church has just been growing incredibly fast. We've seen God breathe incredible life just in people being kind of drawn into the church. We're in a heavily Catholic and ex Catholic area and you know, and that brings all kinds of exciting and interesting challenges with it. But, but God has just used what we're doing and blessed it in incredible ways. And you know, there have been times where we've been white knuckle in it and just trying to hang on for dear life as more and more people showed up. And we've tried a lot of different things and, and God has seen, seen fit to, to bless some of them in, in some really powerful ways. So it's been an exciting place to kind of cut my teeth doing ministry. I'll hit my 20 year mark in June.
- [04:43]
A
Congratulations.
- [04:44]
C
Thank you much. Thank you much. I'm waiting on that gold watch. I don't think I'm gonna get it but nice. But yeah, I met my, met my wife like my third day at Parkview and you know, had my kids here and I couldn't imagine a better place to get to do ministry and just feel incredibly blessed every time, every day I get to do this.
- [05:02]
A
Oh, that's so great. So fun to hear. You know, we often talk with leaders in fast growing churches and that's definitely kind of a substrate of, you know, kind of under all the different people that we talk to. And one of the things I want to kind of pick apart today and understand from your seats, your seat as the, what's multiple seats, is you do lots of different things in this area, that's for sure, in groups is how are you getting people connected? Two groups at Parkview. So maybe let's start with kind of an overview, kind of talk us through. Let's say you're talking to an executive pastor or maybe another groups pastor. You're at a conference and they're like, tell me about groups at Parkview. What's up? What's all your shorthands? Open, close, seasonal, you know, you know, how long do they stay together, all that kind of stuff. Give us a framework for what they are and then we'll dig in a little deeper.
- [05:47]
C
Yeah, that's, that's great. I'll, I'll talk you through kind of our current strategy and then there's like some history that's going to have to go, go into this a little bit.
- [05:54]
A
Sure.
- [05:56]
C
But where we're currently at, we, we focus largely on term based, free market small groups. Okay. So we, you'll hear more about this down the road. But we, we have leaned heavily into rooted in the past and we have a handful of sort of core content pieces that we will offer groups for each of these terms. Three times a year we'll offer 10 week groups terms and people can kind of opt into the group that seems best to them through a group finder tool that's kind of housed on our website. Kind of a common thing. A lot of churches do that. We're not reinventing the wheel by any means in any of those areas. But really we lean hard into leveraging like the passions of our leaders. Right. We think that at the end of the day, a great leader is going to outweigh content. And really what it comes down to, you know, our belief is a great leader can make average, mediocre or even substandard content work really well. But a poor leader can take just about any content off the tracks. So we lean hard to raising up good leaders and helping them identify who are they trying to reach with their group. What kind of people along the road of faith do they want to invite in the community and help them just take at least one step forward. So, you know, we do, we do have long term groups that run and you know, they kind of do their thing and we love them, but most of them are closed groups. Whereas we lean really hard into these term based semesters, 10 weeks usually. And again, that's kind of a rhythm that we picked up from rooted along the way. Seems like a sweet spot for us to help people get into good community, but give them an off ramp before it gets weird, you know what I mean?
- [07:42]
A
Okay, that's good. Well, tell us about, Give us a sense of. When you say free market, you talk about. And I definitely want to drill in on that, I think is a huge insight. Great leaders outweigh content. We're going to definitely come back to that. But give us a sense of what some of those kind of free market groups, what would be some of the passions if, you know, if I was attending Parkview will be some of the things I would see on that tool to pick for the kinds of groups.
- [08:03]
C
Yeah, great question. We kind of drop them into five sort of buckets, but there's some flexibility with them. The first one would be that rooted. We would offer rooted groups and we see those as being kind of like a foundation point. People who are, you know, early on their journey can step into really starting to gain a foundational understanding of who we are, what we believe, how we practice faith. We offer shared interest groups. This one is kind of our newest deal and this is if we have a leader that has a passion that's not even a Bible study based content, but they want to gather people in the community around that hobby. We allow them to launch a group through our finder with our, with some tools and support from us. And you know, we see that happen and we've seen some really great fruit from it. Especially around a phenomenon that I don't even understand yet. But it's pickleball, man.
- [08:51]
A
I, I was gonna ask, are there pickleball groups?
- [08:54]
C
There are.
- [08:56]
A
Love it. So good.
- [08:58]
C
Yeah. The first pickleball group we launched, man, we had to close at 40 registrations.
- [09:03]
A
Oh, sure.
- [09:04]
C
Yeah.
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A
That's great.
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C
Love the pickleball. They love it.
- [09:08]
A
That's fun. That's fun.
- [09:09]
C
So, so we get those available and, and we've seen some great stuff there. And we set, we try to set the understanding that, you know, this is about community, but we want to help every person, even in those groups, take some step towards Jesus. Right. We offer what we would just call a general Small group type, which is for leaders that are choosing their own content that is still discussion based, Bible study based group type. Support groups are an important leg for us as well. Groups that are just available for people who are going through difficult circumstances or common times in life. And then we also have Alpha groups available. And Alpha is, you know, Nikki Gumbel in England's content. This is stuff that is exists for skeptics, people with big questions about faith. It's a great content to invite people who maybe aren't all the way on the bus, maybe have one foot on, one foot off. And we've done some, some creative things in the past with launching Alpha in bars and restaurants and things like that. And we have those groups now available as well through our finder tool. So.
- [10:09]
A
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. I love that. So, so we've got rooted, shared interests, small, typical kind of small, not typical, but small group kind of content support groups. And then Alpha. Love those. 5. Talk to me about 10 weeks. I'm going to pretend to be the devil's advocate. Don't know that I should say that on a church podcast, but there I just did 10 weeks. Like I, you, I, you, I understand the like, okay, we can opt out before it gets weird, but what about on the other end? Is 10 weeks long enough to actually accomplish the kind of, you know, community goals, faith goals, talk, Talk us through that.
- [10:44]
C
Yeah, that's great. And I do think that it's easy to look at this and say, how can we really, how can we really get into it and grow together? Short time frame. I was one of those people who was skeptical of that model. If I'm being totally honest, I'm like, yep. But you know, what we've seen is that under, under the right circumstances, people open up really quickly. This is something we learn not to immediately. And I think coming out of, out of COVID out of lockdown, out of having to learn to use tools like zoom and teams meetings to do school and all these things, man, I don't think people take as long to break walls down because they, there's just a sense of maybe an unspoken desperation for real, real community and real relationships out there. And we don't think that 10 weeks is the thing that's going to take person from A to Z. But we do believe that 10 weeks is enough time for a person to take one solid step forward in their face.
- [11:41]
A
That's good. That's good.
- [11:43]
C
And so we feel like if we get people through 10 weeks and we can point to that and say, here's the way that God has shaped or changed you in this time period. Oh, man, that's, that's a win worth celebrating. And there's something that happens, I think, when, when small groups stick together too long. Right? Yeah, it's true, you know, where, where you end up in this awkward sort of like double Dutch routine where everybody feels like they kind of want out and they're no longer putting the effort into it, but nobody wants to be the one to say that the marriage is over, sort of. And what we see, we were seeing a lot of these groups that would, they would fizzle after a certain amount of time and then they wouldn't be able to make eye contact with each other at church. Right, right, right.
- [12:26]
A
Okay.
- [12:27]
C
And suddenly they don't know if they're welcome to try a new group. They don't know if it's, you know, acceptable for them to try something different or if they've failed somehow.
- [12:36]
A
Right, right, right.
- [12:37]
C
So I feel like by having an open ended long term strategy, you're setting a lot of your groups up to end and fail failure. And I believe that how you end things is almost as important as how you start them. And by giving groups a solid end date, you give them the chance to end well and also to recommit going forward. You know, we get the end of the 10 weeks and we're like, man, this group, we're going places together. We love each other. Like, let's recommit to each other for the next X X period of time.
- [13:06]
A
That's good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. I can, I'm a huge fan of Alpha I. At my church, outside of my job, I volunteer as an Alpha host. And so I get, I've often said, like, it's amazing in 10 weeks. It's actually kind of like the beginning of it because it's like, these are all people I don't know. And I'm like, I know by the end of these 10 weeks, we're not only going to see some great progress happen in people's lives, but we're also going to see, you know, they're going to form some friendships, which is incredible. So, like love that. Well, let's loop back. Great leaders outweigh content. That's a huge saying. I think that's true. Huge learning. So talk to us about that kind of philosophically and I'd love to get in. How do you find leaders, you know, doing these term based? I feel like, man, aren't you on a Treadmill all the time, trying to get new leaders, training them. Let's talk through all that.
- [13:52]
C
Yeah, that's, that's great. You know, I, I like, like every guy who goes to Bible college, I ended up playing some guitar, right? And you know, and you know, I went through a period like, much to my wife's horror, where I spent way too much time and money trying to find like the, the perfect guitar and the perfect, you know, amp and pedal and all these things. And, and a quote from a, from a jazz musician named Polonius Monk stood out to me at the time. He said, you know, he said, he said gear is important, but he said you got to figure that stuff out early and fast so that you can focus on things that are more important. And for me, I think that that holds true with content, especially in group settings where we can sort of get so focused on finding the perfect content that is going to do, you know, everything that we want it to do and that's going to, you know, create these, you know, these saintly, fully discipled, you know, fully. And, and I think we can get so bogged down in the weeds that we miss out on the stuff that is, that is truly important because I think that man, people, people are the, they're the thing that make the engine go. Right, right and right. And if we're, if we're helping people become people who can disciple, who can help others grow, right? That's kind of the, that's the money spot. That's where, where we need to be pouring gas on the fire if we want to really make a difference. And, and I've seen it play out time and time again. You know, we've had, you know, we, we had a long period of being heavily invested and rooted and in fact, for years it was almost our only group offer outside.
- [15:20]
A
Okay, just kind of pushing everybody through. Rooted.
- [15:23]
C
Yeah, everybody all in. And it was a, it was a beautiful season of like top down investment from our, from our church and our leadership that, that helped a lot of people grow. And I was one of those again, early naysayers who was like, you mean to tell me we're just going to keep shuffling out the same, same content over and over again? Right. How's that going to work? And, and then you start to see it in action and you see it snowball, gain momentum and you see people who, who participate multiple times and yet come out of it looking a little different each time and then you see step up and come out of it looking a little bit better and a little Bit stronger and the fruit is a little bit more visible each time. So that was enough to kind of break me of my, my obsession and focus on content and instead say, you know, what if we can find something that aligns with where we want to go, where we want to see people go, who we want them to become? Right. That's enough. Right. Because if we put good leaders that we trust on guiding people through this content, we can feel very confident that good things are going to happen.
- [16:25]
A
Yeah, I love that. Let me challenge a little bit, though. Where do you find all these great leaders like that? That sounds amazing. I think our. Maybe it's just me, but I've leaned on the crutch of content in the past because I literally have thought. I probably haven't articulated like this until you said it, but I'm like, yeah, but if we just get some good content, we can kind of take a mediocre leader and make it work. But, man, if I'm putting more weight on finding leaders, how are you finding them? What are you doing to. To extract these leaders out of, you know, your community? To find them?
- [16:56]
C
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's really good. I think for us, you know, I think a big key has been. Has been clarity about what we want from a leader, first and foremost.
- [17:06]
A
Okay.
- [17:07]
C
Yep. You know, when you. When you say, you know, hey, I have a stack. I have a stack of mediocre leaders, and I'm going to try to let the content, you know, be a champion. I think we, we have leaned hard instead into saying, what do you actually need to lead A good experience through this season. Right.
- [17:22]
A
That's good.
- [17:23]
C
And trying to set the bar for people to help them understand. We don't need you to be a preacher, a theologian, you know.
- [17:30]
A
Right.
- [17:30]
C
You don't need to be on seminary certificates to lead a good group, man. You just gotta have some relational chops and care enough to go in on this and, and then reframing group leaders as, as guides. Right. You know, sometimes we'll use the term Sherpa, but now I think according to my daughters, that means that's a clothing item more than it is right now.
- [17:54]
A
Nice. That's funny.
- [17:56]
C
But, you know, but if we can reframe what we actually expect from them and sort of like remove some of the terror, that's good.
- [18:06]
A
That's good. Yep. For sure.
- [18:07]
C
Yeah. I mean, that, that helps us get people on the bus. And then, you know, we like to say that, you know, we can take a willing heart with some relational skill and a Love for Jesus. And we can, we can get them to the place where they can lead a great group. I think we've been guilty in the past of kind of saying, you know, hey, here's, here's your stuff. Right? Here's, here's, here's your content. Here's, here's a, here's a one hour training and good luck, you know, go forth and, and change lives. And I think that both through the way Rooted was structured and through the lessons we've learned around that over the years, we've learned that having, having a robust investment in helping those leaders figure it out, walking alongside of them, not just in a, in kind of a vague abstract sense, but, you know, weekly. We're connected to these leaders and helping them troubleshoot issues.
- [18:56]
A
Right.
- [18:57]
C
In that sense. Right. We are able to get leaders there. The second part of this is, this is another lesson learned from, from Rooted for us. I swear I don't work for the Rooted network.
- [19:06]
A
No, it's good. We're fans of Rooted. We've had, we've had the Rooted guys on. We've. It comes up for sure. Like it's, it's a substrate. And particularly, you know, fast growing churches, people across the country. It's really had a huge impact. We, we love, I love the guys at Rock Mariners and love, you know, their gift to all of us through Rooted. It's amazing. It's great. So, yeah, no, that's good. What's the other lesson you've learned through that?
- [19:26]
C
Absolutely. Is that the, the best recruiters of Leaders are leaders for us. Right, right. So yeah, and that's, that's a rooted foundational principle and we've been able to sort of transplant that from Rooted to all of our group types. We start with that end in mind where we're asking leaders to, from week one be considering who's, who's the person that can step up and do what you're doing right now.
- [19:47]
A
Um, that's good.
- [19:48]
C
Most of them have come from this place of, hey, we got shoulder tapped by our leader.
- [19:52]
A
Right, right, right.
- [19:54]
C
But I took a step out and, and I received what I needed to, to lead a good group experience. So that, that has been really helpful for us. And then, you know, our groups, pastors on the ground are just, man, they're really good at casting vision and making, making compelling asks. So that's kind of the secret sauce. That's good.
- [20:13]
A
Talk to me about the support and training just a little bit more. Kind of flesh that out. If, if I, if one of those Great groups. Pastors came to me and said hey, we, you know, you'd be interested, we'd be interested in you leading a group. How, how do you provide some training and support for me for you know, a term or multiple terms? What's that look like?
- [20:30]
C
Yeah, for us it really comes down to we, we do have an initial, about a 90 minute training that we're going to take all leaders through and that's where they're going to gain base level understanding of our mission, our vision, our values and our systems groups. You know, that's, that's the starting point. But then from there once we sort of, we get the yes, we seal the deal, you know, we close the sale. We get them connected to a couple things. The first one is we get them connected to a coach and that's a volunteer leader for us who leads leaders. Not a, not a crazy concept, but that's just one more voice in their ear kind of telling them hey, you can do this and, and I got your back. Right? All that good stuff. And then we're really committed to 10 weeks of ongoing training that happens around the first 10 weeks that their group meets. Okay, Yep, that's been really helpful for us. We've, we've just kind of developed some pieces in house that can be delivered in anything from a 10 minute bite size video message to an hour long discussion. So it's kind of, that's cool. Kind of modular for us. And for groups that meet on our site locations during those short term, those 10 week terms they're going to receive from one of our group staff members or coaches weekly guided training through those 10 topics. And they're just around, you know, basic vital things you need to do to lead a group. Well, things like how to, you know, create community from the start, how to serve together, how to you know, deal with conflict, how to help people grow, all these things. And for our groups that generate, that meet off site in homes or locations, we have that content in video format and it can be sort of administered by their coach or by a staff member. Hey, watch this video. Let's have a back and forth conversation about it. Let's see how your group is doing in this area.
- [22:13]
A
Yeah, that's great. I love that. And you know, both from Alpha and from Rooted, there's, there is some power you can see in the like, hey, we're leading this together. We're all together. We're of kind, kind of doing some sort of pre huddle thing, you know, a little bit of training, a little bit of Even like, hey, I'm having the trouble with this person, or I'm not sure how to draw them out. It's amazing how that kind of on site, in person feedback really helps leaders grow and step into, you know, something great. So you can see how taking similar lessons and then applying them to the rest of your group system. Yeah, I can totally see how that is. Is working for sure. Pivoting in a slightly different direction. I know when, you know, over the years, sitting in the kind of executive pastor seat, the communication seat, trying to kind of, you know, we got a lot of different things we need to communicate. And I'm thinking three terms a year, group stuff. Like, that's a lot of talking about groups to get people into groups. What does that look like for you guys? How do you actually communicate? Like, how are you, you know, promoting groups? What does that side of it look like? And then. Yeah, let's start there. That's a starting point.
- [23:19]
C
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's great. And you know, it can, it can kind of feel like a. Let's just keep shoveling coal onto the same fire.
- [23:26]
A
Right?
- [23:30]
C
But, but what we found is actually kind of the regularity of it has really helped us kind of create some rhythms throughout the year that have like, created a sense of expectancy in our people that have been with us for a while and kind of helps even with things like, hey, when we're talking teaching calendar, promotional marketing things, the, the good thing is we, you know, we lean hard into celebrating wins of all sizes and hard into gathering stories. Right. If you've got the numbers and you've got the stories, then that's good strongly, like, you're winning. So if we're, if we're gathering those things and we have a bucket of those stories, those testimonials, it makes marketing a little bit easier. Right. And, you know, and then when we have a marketing and communications team that has bought in with us and when our upper leadership is also bought into the vision and the approach for groups, those conversations do become quite a bit easier. Right. Obviously, we all have one sandbox to play in. Right. And we know that, you know, the weekend announcement, you know, is kind of the thing that we all vie for. And the sermon topic mentioned is, you know.
- [24:35]
A
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the holy Grail. Yeah, for sure.
- [24:40]
C
So, you know, but thankfully, you know, it doesn't turn into a game of who can butter up the senior pastor. Best to, to get a toss in. You know, it's when that, when the vision is there, from the top, it makes that stuff a little easier. And so when we can go back and say, hey, this is the thing that, that is both moving and growing. Right. And we're seeing life change happen in it for, for us, in our context, it's not really too hard to get the buy in for the mention we need. The other thing that's been really helpful for us is that we've learned, because we now have multiple group types available on this group finder, that trying to create a sense of fomo, a fear of missing out for people, is a real thing that can lend some. That can give us some kind of heat going into a group season. Because when we can say, hey, we've got a group for you no matter where you're at on your journey, but they fill up fast. And there's not an unlimited set of spots for just the one big thing we're all doing.
- [25:33]
A
Right.
- [25:33]
C
You need to get, you need to get up on that group finder on January 4th when those.
- [25:37]
A
Right.
- [25:38]
C
If you want your pick of a litter. So.
- [25:40]
A
Right.
- [25:40]
C
That's all, you know, that, that thing, I think, has been able to replace some of that. Oh, man, we have got to get the main stage announcement every week.
- [25:50]
A
Yeah, that's good.
- [25:51]
C
You know.
- [25:52]
A
Yeah, I love that. That's good. Well, and you can see the. As somebody who's mildly interested in marketing stuff, you can see how that kind of open window, hey, enrollments open, jump in, you know, a couple times a year. You could build some serious insight, excitement around that. We kind of, we kind of, you know, joked about it, but loop back on a lead pastor. Think of a lead pastor's listening in and talk to us, you know, what would you say to a lead pastor about the, like, random throwaway comment in their message about groups, something they're learning in a group, you know, how important is that to the, you know, the group's culture at, at your church?
- [26:29]
C
Yeah, yeah. You know, for us, what it comes down to is that's the most trusted voice in our organization for our people. Right? Yeah, we know that. And sometimes, you know, you get the sermon. Right. Okay, we're going to do the one big. This is about community sermon this year.
- [26:46]
A
Right.
- [26:47]
C
If and when you get that, you know, that's gold. We know that. But people are listening to the, to the things that are sort of in between the big points. Right. So if, if your lead pastor can say, you know, I did rooted this fall, you know, in my rooted group. This is something that happened in my rooted group. Here's something I learned or here's a way we connected or in my prayer experience during rooted God, you know, I felt God speak to me in this way, man. To me those, those reinforced the importance of the big announcements and they turn people's ears because we have to battle constantly the idea that all of our ex Catholics, a lot of them don't have a strong context for just the things that your mainline denominational churches do. Right. The idea that somebody came to us from the, maybe the Methodist church down the road that they probably have some idea what a small group is, we can't assume those things.
- [27:42]
A
Right.
- [27:42]
C
We can't take those things for granted. So to hear personal stories, impact stories, or have stories shared of life change from those things, those are, those are invaluable to us. You know, they're also not things that we can count on at every moment because like, like you alluded to earlier in a church that is growing rapidly and whose decision making is filtered through the lens of how are we going to reach the prodigal right? You know, we have to, we have to fit in and align with that or you know, we're, we're just pulling sideways energy. Original mission. And that's something we never want to do or be.
- [28:17]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's good. Um, do you do in any of your types of groups in that maybe be in that kind of small group, the kind of more typical small group content kind of group? Do you do sermon based groups? Like groups that follow along and generate questions or maybe do you guys generate questions based on, you know, what you guys are talking about on the weekends?
- [28:37]
C
What?
- [28:37]
A
Tell me about that.
- [28:39]
C
Yeah, great question. We, we have a weekly sermon study guide that's developed in house and it goes out via just an email subscription list that can be accessed through our website. Goes out weekly every sermon over the course of the year and we make that available to any of our long term group types that want to engage that way. It's not a primary push for us, but it is available in an option. Right. Last data for us was that out of groups that are not meeting just in a 10, 10 week window, those long term groups, about 25 to 30% of them are using that weekly service study guide.
- [29:13]
A
Okay. Okay, that's cool. Well, you've given us. Then we'll link to this in the show notes. You've given us the Parkview Group's leader guide, which is a fantastic resource. I would encourage people to pick this up and you know, take a look through it. It's a, it's a great resource even to inspire you. But tell us a little bit about where does this work in the training process? How are you using this tool? Talk to us a little bit about this.
- [29:37]
C
Yeah, that's great. So all of our leaders, regardless of group type that they're leading, even if it's a group type like Alpha or Rooted, that would have some of its own distinctive training elements, is still going to get walked through this handbook by a member of our team. As their courses step into groups, you know, we feel like it's really important for them to start with the overall mission, vision and purposes of. Of our church. And then how. How groups fits into that. You know, the last thing we're trying to do is create offshoots, right. Or little, little parachurches that meet in people's living rooms, you know. Yes. And. But this handbook tool is meant to just give them grounding of, you know, what a group leader is, what we expect from. From them. You know, the. We have four traits listed in there that would factor into what we think the successful group leader even is. And then it introduces them to our kind of our systems and processes, which, you know, are essential to keep people on track with all that. So that's really the point of the hand.
- [30:35]
A
Yeah, it's great. I'd encourage people to take a look what the. There's a bunch of it that I loved. I love the clarity of the language is clearly you spend. Have spent a lot of time to, hey, let's get to something that's like super practical later in the book there's a whole. Or in the booklet, there's a whole conversation around, hey, you are not alone. And it clearly outlines what a coach is and what a coach isn't, which I loved. I love that language particularly. I think it frames that discussion very well. And then also which I think is so important because I've seen too many group members kind of die on the vine on this issue. It's when to refer. So like, if there are things happening in your group that are going sideways, like, because these people want to help folks, they just keep taking it. And it's like, no, there are times where we should, you know, refer to other people. Let's. Let's escalate this stuff. I thought again, what, what a. Helpful. Even just downloading that and ripping it off. Sure, give them credit. But, you know, using that kind of language would be helpful, you know, for you friends that are listening in. It's a great resource. Thanks for providing that for us.
- [31:30]
C
Oh, yeah, no, Problem. You know, it's like every, every group leader's worst nightmare, right? That rogue, rogue group member that you don't know what to do with. And man, we, we feel like the quicker we can put those fears at ease for people say it's not your job to, to manage people in crisis through these things. You can support, pray and love, but man, send them where they need to go. That's important.
- [31:49]
A
Yeah, it's so good. Great, great, great resource. Thanks for, for sharing that for us. For us as we kind of look to the future. What are, you know, when you think about groups down the road, what are the questions you're asking, things that are on the horizon, stuff that you're thinking about, you know, that we're, you know, you're wrestling with or maybe some stuff you're experimenting with, that kind of thing. What, what are you thinking about for the future for groups at Parkview?
- [32:11]
C
Yeah, you know, I mean one of the things we're thinking about is how to help people sort of self select into the right group for them.
- [32:19]
A
It's good.
- [32:20]
C
And you know, we, we want to be able to offer, with each of these open groups terms, we want to be able to offer something that can catch people no matter where they're at, along their spiritual journey. Journey. Right.
- [32:30]
A
That's good. Yeah, that's great.
- [32:31]
C
That's where content's helpful, but it also means when you have more options, you have more, more potential for confusion. Right. More opportunities to sort of lose people in the weeds of what do I do? Right. And we've also, you know, we've all seen what happens when somebody gets in the wrong kind of group. Right, right. And right. So figuring out ways to help people gain a greater understanding of what's available. But also, um, we're having conversations about what maybe a short assessment tool for people might look like through, through our app or our website to help people, you know, maybe if they can answer a few questions and we can spit back some group suggestions, maybe even alongside some personal like growth resources and serving suggestions, you know, that's, that's the kind of tool that really has my ears perked because we all know that there's no one size fits all group, group type or even personal growth tool, that's going to be exactly what everyone needs along the way. But trying to help people find the right avenue and the right step. We want simplicity, but we also want enough flexibility that we can, you know, really help people take sort of a custom made step forward.
- [33:38]
A
That's great. I love that idea. Of, you know, you could imagine a survey that's five or six questions that kind of helps get a sense of that and then it spits out a likeliness score or something like that. Here's a couple different types of groups that you could try. Yeah, I could see how that could be really helpful paired with then your online group selector. That could be super helpful for sure for helping people. Self sort. Yeah. The upside of self sorting on a, you know, menu is wow, there's lots of option. The downside is wow, there's lots of options, you know, and so, you know, helping people with that is you can see where that'd be helpful. Well, this has been incredible. Super helpful. Adam, anything you'd like to say kind of in as we close today's conversation? I really appreciate you being here today.
- [34:20]
C
Yeah, no, no, I would just, I just like to say that, you know, the, the real journey for me has been people, people, people. And you know, through my whole time in student ministry here, where I was kind of running programming and doing all of your standard student minister stuff, you know, over, over that 13 year stretch, it really became about, man, all these hours spent in front of the computer planning and writing, are they impacting people as much as. As the leaders that we're pouring into? And the answer came back to me, no, over and over again. So when I had an opportunity to, to jump into group's world, it made, it made perfect sense to me. And man, every, every hour spent pouring into a leader, pouring into people, man, that's not one wasted. And yeah, that's good. That's where I want to continue to pour my, my energy and I hope others will too.
- [35:05]
A
That's so good. Well, I appreciate you being here, Adam. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them?
- [35:11]
C
Online? Yeah, absolutely. Parkviewchurch.com is our church's website. You can see what we're doing, see what we're doing to try to continue reaching people in the south suburbs in the south side of Chicago. And you know, my contact information is also available on the website. So that's great.
- [35:28]
A
Thanks for being here today, sir. Thank you so much.
- [35:30]
C
Hey, thanks, Rich. Appreciate it.
- [35:31]
B
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the UN Seminary. If you found today's conversation helpful, I'd share it with a friend. In ministry, it's a simple way to spark new ideas and grow together. Also, don't Forget to visit unseminary.com to sign up for our email list. You'll get exclusive resources and practical tools delivered straight to your inbox to help you lead your church more effectively. Most importantly, take what you learned today and put it into action this week. Ministry in Impact starts with small, intentional steps. See you next time.