They Don’t Want Cool. They Want Fire with Ted Coniaris

Summary

unSeminary Podcast
Episode: They Don’t Want Cool. They Want Fire with Ted Coniaris
Host: Rich Birch
Guest: Ted Coniaris, Lead Pastor, Community Christian Church (Chicagoland)
Date: June 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode reunites host Rich Birch with Ted Coniaris to follow up on Community Christian Church’s major leadership transition, discuss the church’s renewed vision, and dive deep into their vision for authentic disciple-making and a thriving microchurch movement. The conversation centers on spiritual vitality, the relevance of old and new ministry methods, and how the church is adapting its structures to meet the spiritual hunger of today’s generations. The key message: The next generation of believers isn’t looking for “cool”—they are hungry for spiritual fire.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Leadership Transition (03:17–08:55)

• Ted reflected on his 18-month apprenticeship under Dave Ferguson, sharing deep appreciation for the intentional, prayerful, and transparent leadership transition.
  • “It was quite a long process… at the highest level, just like we do at every level of leadership as a church.” (04:17)
• New vision was launched while Dave was still lead pastor, creating broad buy-in and a sense of unity before Ted officially transitioned.
  • “It’s not so typical to launch a new vision for the church before the transition has even occurred… but it's just what the Lord was leading us to do.” (06:18)
• The process led to a surprisingly peaceful and empowered congregation, rather than anxiety.
  • “There’s almost like a sense of exhale that I’ve been experiencing, which has surprised me in the church.” (07:32)

2. Vision Reboot & “Renovating the Disciple-Making Ecosystem” (08:58–17:41)

• The church’s new focus is: build on its 37-year history of being a radically welcoming place, but answer “now what?” after welcome.
  • “Everyone’s welcome. Now what? ...We’re not starting from scratch. Like, we got a great house, a great church, things are great—it's time for a renovation.” (09:00)
• Aims to move people decisively beyond assimilation, toward a process where every believer discovers and lives their calling as a “pastor.”
• Introducing a clear discipleship pathway—“Growth Track”—to move attenders from seekers to equipped disciple-makers.
  • “We want to see people finding their way back to God, which has always been the core of our mission, and then released as pastors in the world and equipped to do that.” (11:55)

3. Four-Part Vision: Layering Fire, Calling, Equipping, and Mission (13:14–17:41)

The Four Parts:

1. Every Heart on Fire:
   • Not about being “cool,” but about authentic, passionate engagement with Jesus.
     • “They’re not looking just for a place to blend in… they are looking for fire. They are looking for passion.” (13:31)
     • “We don’t want to be a place where everybody’s buddies with Jesus. We want to create a place where people are consumed by him.” (13:49)
2. Every Person a Pastor:
   • Priesthood of all believers: Everyone has a ministry context.
     • “If we actually took the priesthood of believers seriously, how would that change our disciple-making process?” (11:36)
   • “I’m not the pastor. You all are the pastors… you function as a pastor in whatever context God has placed you.” (14:25)
3. Every Child and Student Equipped:
   • Next-gen ministry must evolve, and students should be deeply engaged and empowered.
     • “Our student and youth ministry looks almost identical to what it did 37 years ago. Why is that?” (15:13)
   • Calls for deeper relational investment and innovation.
4. Every Neighborhood a Thriving Church:
   • Long-term aim: local Christ-following communities within reach of everyone.

• The sequence matters; hearts on fire and calling precede effective outreach and equipping.

4. The Growth Track—Practical Discipleship Pipeline (17:41–21:51)

• Three Steps: One Life. Go.
  1. Alpha: Entry-level, seeker-friendly forums for finding faith.
     • “Alpha is probably the single greatest tool available to help my friends and neighbors and family find their way back to God.” (18:26)
  2. Disciple: Contextualized group experience (drawing from Rooted, but adapted) that includes commitment to community—no formal membership, but “committing to belonging.”
     • “There’s a layer of transformation that only can happen in a committed relationship.” (19:51)
  3. Pastor: Drawing from Brian Sanders’ Calling Lab model—help participants discern a specific personal calling.
     • “We want everybody in our church to be able to say, 'I exist to help blank find their way back to God.'” (20:36)
     • “Thousands and thousands of pastors released into every arena of life.” (21:10)

5. Spiritual Vitality: Increasing the “Heat” in the Church (22:36–24:36)

• Ted described a tangible rise in spiritual hunger, especially among students.
  • “Our services… there’ll be a group of students come and sit in front of the stage, have their Bibles open with their notebook… during worship, it’s like they’re in the pit of a concert… they’re leading us. Nobody asked them to do it.” (23:32)
• The church is “pushing the chips in” on ancient practices (prayer, fasting) over trends.

6. Rhythms: Corporate Prayer and Fasting as a Spiritual Reset (24:36–27:06)

• New “Ignite Week” experiences at major turns in the church calendar: a full week of church-wide prayer and fasting, capped with all-campus gatherings.
  • “If you can build some rhythms, you can actually build some roots… Our most valuable real estate is our calendar.” (24:53)
  • Describes powerful communal experiences and a sense of God’s move.
    • “The environment of that space is so different—there's such hunger for the Lord and honestly, a true actual physical hunger after all that fasting.” (26:41)
  • Integrates spiritual disciplines communally, e.g., restyled liturgical calendar.

7. The Microchurch Movement: Low-Control, High-Impact (28:35–33:58)

• Since COVID, Community Christian has fostered a microchurch planting network—now at 350+ microchurches globally.
  • “It’s a simple, simple, simple strategy… Is there a way for us to just see [micro and macro churches] as one thing instead of competing things?” (28:40)
• Key principle: Provide coaching, training, resources—no financial ties or imposing heavy controls.
  • “It's purely coaching, training, and ongoing support. We find that just keeps the relationship very clean.” (32:47)
• Vision: Equip a million disciple-makers worldwide through this model, not via traditional megachurch expansion.
  • “I think we legitimately can see a network of these… I legitimately think in 10 years time, we could easily reach a million people and have a church of a million people, but not in the traditional sense.” (30:51)
• Relational network, not coercive control, is the key to scaling.
  • “We’re not going to try to stop them… We want to be dancing with the people who want to dance.” (33:40)
  • “Scaling that coaching system and network is how you reach a million people.” (33:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “They don’t want cool, they want fire.”
  Ted articulates the shift in what today’s spiritual seekers crave: authenticity over surface-level relevance. (13:31)
• “Every heart on fire, every person a pastor, every child and student equipped, every neighborhood a thriving church—if we can do that, we can accomplish the Great Commission.” (16:02)
• On boldness in transition:
  “In hindsight, what felt a little crazy—launching the vision—now feels like if we hadn’t done that we would have missed a real amazing opportunity.” (08:29)
• On student leadership:
  “We talk a lot about students being the leaders of tomorrow’s church, but I’ll tell you here, they’re the leader of today’s church.” (23:32)
• On microchurch philosophy:
  “We’re not doing any of that [tight governance]… We want to coach, train you, and set you up with a cohort… See what the Lord does.” (29:35)
• On personal leadership:
  “The strategy is your soul and your own passion and hunger… that is the key strategy, the most important thing.” (34:30)
  “Loneliness is a choice, and I think you can choose not to be lonely.” (34:45)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [03:09] Ted’s leadership journey & intentional transition process
• [06:18] Launching new vision pre-transition; impact and buy-in
• [09:00] Vision explained: From welcoming to disciple-making
• [13:14] The four-part vision: Fire, calling, equipping, and multiplication
• [17:41] Growth Track: Practical pipeline for disciple/pastor development
• [22:36] Spiritual vitality: Students leading the way, churchwide passion rising
• [24:36] Prayer, fasting, and corporate rhythms—Ignite Week explained
• [28:35] Microchurch network: Philosophy, growth, and logistics
• [32:47] How coaching and relationship drive the microchurch movement
• [34:25] Final encouragement—The soul of the leader as strategy

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Final Takeaways

• Every generation—especially the next—longs for authenticity, deep passion, and a sense of missional calling.
• Churches must move beyond assimilation to clear, actionable disciple-making processes.
• Serious spiritual rhythms and ancient practices are more compelling than ever.
• Multiplication happens rapidly when control is relinquished and support is relational.
• For pastors: “The strategy is your soul… Tending your flame makes the work of ministry lighter.” (34:30)

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Further Connection

• To find out more about Community Christian Church and their resources, visit: communitychristian.org

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Summary provided by unSeminary Podcast Summaries – "Stuff you wish they taught in seminary"

Transcript

[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.

[B]

Maybe you've hesitated in the past few

[A]

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[B]

You know I'm passionate about this.

[A]

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.

[B]

Again, one last time.

[A]

That's portablechurch.com rich today.

[C]

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 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.

[B]

Hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. Super excited to have you listening in today. I gotta be totally honest, I asked this person to come on today to have a bit of an update conversation from a conversation we had just over a year ago. Really excited, excited for this because it's kind of fun to follow along with this story and this is an area that really is applies to all of our churches and I want all of us to lean in and so pay attention. Whether you're cutting your grass or whatever you're doing for the next 30 minutes. It's going to be a great conversation. We've got Ted Canaris with us. He is the lead pastor at a fantastic church, multisite church in the greater Chicagoland area called Community Christian. They have, if I'm counting correctly, seven physical locations as well as microchurches that mean homes throughout the week, week and online space, plus community freedom locations which meet in correctional facilities across the region as well. Ted, welcome to the show. So glad you're here.

[D]

Thanks, Rich. Really glad to be here. Great to see you again. We get to cross paths a few times a year, so it's always great to connect. Appreciate the time.

[B]

I appreciate you, you taking time to come on and connect. Friends that are listening in. Just kind of bringing you up to speed. We'll link to the previous episode if you want to go back and check that. But the last time we talked, you were apprenticing as the lead pastor at Community Christian under Dave Ferguson. And I think that was a year ago. And you're, you know, there's all the steps. I think you were step three, step four somewhere in there and there was this handoff on the horizon and now we're on the other side of that. So that's part of why I wanted to get you on. Here we are a year later. Let's talk about those things. You're still there, so that's a good thing.

[D]

I mean, as far as you know, this could be a fake backdrop. Who knows?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you know what you were. It takes a lot of time. Talk to us through, you know, what's happened since then. Tell us, talk to us about that transition. Kind of bring us up to speed.

[D]

Absolutely. So as you said, we went through an 18 month apprenticeship, but before that we had about six, eight, probably eight months of conversations just Dave and I before we went above ground with elders and everything else, maybe even a little longer than that. So it was quite a long process walking through our apprenticeship process as a church and really wanting to do that at the highest level, just like we do at every level of leadership as a church. So that was an amazing process. Dave is an incredible leader and an even better man and somebody that it was a great privilege to spend more and more time with him. He and sue, his wife Melissa and I spending time with them. And then John and Lisa, his brother and his wife. We spent a lot of time together. So it was great. And then since then, May, they're still around. They're still part of our church. Dave is Now a CEO exponential, spending full time doing that. And John is leading something called the Chicago Collective, which is a network of churches, networks of churches throughout Chicagoland working to plant more churches, which we desperately need in Chicago area. So if you're listening, you're like, man, I'm thinking about planting a church in Chicago. Please reach out to me. I would love to help you do that. We desperately need more churches here. So since then, it's been great, honestly. There's been so much change, so many things going on, but it's truly, truly been really, really good. I think I'm tired in the right ways and probably also tired in some of the wrong ways, too. But it's been a great. It's been a great transition.

[B]

Yeah, that's cool. You know, when we were on last time, you were talking about really stewarding the mission of the future while also chasing new vision, which is. Is at that phase, kind of easy to say. You're like, okay, we're looking forward to the future. Now you're in the seat, and it's like, you got to keep doing that now that you're sitting there. You know what's become clearer for you as you've thought about the next chapter and as you think about the future, what are some. Maybe some questions you're wrestling with as you're thinking up over the horizon? What are the things that are bubbling in your brain on that front?

[D]

Yeah, great question. I mean, so much has become more clear. But one of the great gifts that I felt like the Lord gave us as a church and in this transition on the very front end, was a real clarity and unity around our new vision as a church. It's not so typical to launch a new vision for the church before the transition has even occurred. And I would recommend that in other situations. But it just. The way that it went with us, this just felt like what the Lord was leading us to do. So we actually launched the new vision for the church while Dave was still the lead pastor. And he stood right there beside me in full support with our elders and everyone else. And so it was actually unique in that way. But that's just really been confirmed. Honestly, that's been one of the biggest things that I am grateful for through this process is just the Lord's gift of clarity on the front end and just giving me a real clear direction to run. And I would say, too, that there's a big difference between a transition that's been prayed over for years. It just lands differently than a transition that's just like been negotiated in some back room somewhere.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[D]

This has been prayed through and put above ground and has been a really healthy visible process that I think resulted in the church just being wide open, saying, yeah, this feels right, this feels good, and we're in. And so almost it's like a sense of exhale that I've been experiencing, which has surprised me in the church. I thought there would be more anxiety in the transition, but there's really been like a quiet permission giving that's happened. Almost like, you know, just the family knew the transition was healthy so they could just sort of relax into it and say, okay, what's next? And in hindsight, what felt a little crazy. Launching the vision now feels like if we hadn't have done that, we would have missed a real amazing opportunity because people were really bought in right from the get go, which has been great.

[B]

Well, and what. Yeah, that's great. In hindsight, being able to look back at that moment and saying, like, no, like, yeah, maybe not the kind of thing that you write in a book and say that's the way to do it, but it's like, we did that. And there's in hindsight, man, amazing to have kind of both of your endorsements on the future direction and like, hey, we're excited to be going in this direction. There was a mutual support there that ended up accelerating, pointing things to the future. That's incredible. That's great. Yeah.

[D]

And so now it's really. Go ahead. Sorry.

[B]

No, you go ahead. You go ahead.

[D]

Okay. Yeah. Now it's in the season where it's, how do we take that vision, that sort of North Star for the future and building on their 37 year history as a church that's been so rich in. Good, good. And move in this new direction, but also be aligned with our past. You know, it's not about tradition, but it is about, you know, God has been doing a unique and wonderful thing here that we want to continue in, but also kind of build on what's next. So I felt like as a church, one of our great strengths as community, and this is really a reflection of Dave and John, is we're a community where everyone is welcome like that. That's without a doubt. Anybody and everybody can walk through these doors and probably tens of thousands of people have over these last last 37 years and found their way back to God. It's incredible. I mean, when it comes to that, 0 to 1, those people finding the Lord from a really hard spot, man, God has just used this church in such miraculous and amazing ways for so long. And we want to keep that, like, we love that about this place and just think it's an amazing, amazing strength of this community. But now we want to answer sort of the next question, which is now what? So everyone's welcome. Now what? And so we want to build on that past towards what's in the future. And the way we're talking about it here is sort of renovating our disciple making ecosystem, which is a big mouthful, but, you know, it's renovating and it's certainly a lot of, you know, jargon, but bear with me for a second. You know, we're renovating because we're not starting from scratch. Like we got a great house, a great church, things are great, it's, it's time for a renovation. And what we're renovating is a very clear, focused outcome, which is disciple making. And I think that's an area where we have not been as strong over the years. It's like that first part of the journey and we have a lot of evangelists here and we're passionate, we want to keep that, but we also want to answer that, that now what that disciple making ecosystem. And it's an ecosystem because not any one thing, this program doesn't make you a disciple making church or just a good teacher, doesn't make you a disciple making churches. All of these things kind of together create an environment and a path for that to happen. And so we're just renovating all of those things with the vision, the teaching, creating new rhythms as a church, and also creating for the first time for us at least, a clear disciple making process which we're calling a growth track. And a lot of churches use that term. But just trying to say, okay, our vision is to see every person step into their God given calling to be a pastor. Every person is a pastor. It's like, what if we actually took the priesthood of believers seriously, right. And how would that change our disciple making process if that was the end result? Right. I think a lot of times we can slip into being really like our disciple making becomes more about assimilation or more about collecting a certain level of information or knowledge or even practice. But we're trying to have a different output. We want to see people finding their way back to God, which has always been the core of our mission, and then released as pastors in the world and equipped to do that. And so what's our process for taking someone from a seeker to a pastor? We really didn't have that. And so we're in the process right now of just building all of that out, aligning all of our teams and creating just a clear answer to that now. What question?

[B]

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, that makes sense for a church of this age. You know, people have changed. You know, what we used to call seekers, or the people that were arriving, they're different. That's like the most obvious thing to say. But people are different today than they were 37 years ago when this ball got rolling. And what are some of those early changes that you've made to renovate? What are some of those things that do look a little bit different or are, you know, kind of pointing in a new direction? What are you learning on that front?

[D]

Well, obviously, the first one is the new vision, and I'll just share that really, really quickly. But it's. And they all build on each other. That's really the key for us. And while this is unique to community Christian church, it's not a vision that's unique to community Christian church. Like, I think this is really, like a biblical thing, but it starts with every heart on fire. And it talks about. When you ask the question about what's different, I think one of the things that's really different, if people aren't looking just for a place to blend in the background, be like, oh, this is cool. You're cool, Jes followers. I'm cool. We can be cool together. You know, this is cool. That is. That is not what the next generation is looking for. They are looking for fire. They are looking for passion. And rightfully so. Rightfully so. Thank God for that. And so we want to lean into it. We don't want to be a place where everybody's buddies with Jesus. We want to create a place where people are consumed by him, just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus talked about. You know, we're not. Our hearts beating with our burning within us. When they talked with Jesus along the road, that's. That's the kind of community we want to be, a consumed community. And that's the starting place for everything else. Everything else. And that's not just emotionalism. It's. It's a passion for. It's. It's a focus on the second part, which builds on that. It's not even worth going to the second part if you don't do the first thing. Second part is every person a pastor, Right? Because if you start with every person a pastor, but the heart's not on fire. There's not a passion and a consuming focus. You know, what kind of pastors are you raising? Right, right. It's not the kind that the world needs. And so it's every hard fire, then every person a pastor just really taking seriously the priesthood of all believers. I'm not the pastor. You know, you all are the pastors. I function as a pastor in this context, but you function as a pastor in whatever context God has placed you. And if we could do those two things, if we can have every heart on fire and every person released into their God given calling as a pastor, then maybe we could accomplish the third thing which is every child and student equipped. Because that's going to take all hands on deck. You know, what our kids, what my kids, I have 16, 14 and 10 year old, all boys. So please pray for us. But what my boys are facing today, it's like the challenges I faced have been weaponized and placed in the hands of every single kid. And yet our student and youth ministry, our kids and student ministry looks almost identical to what it did look like 37 years ago. Why is that? I mean there's different strategies, practice and those things. But if you look at like the form even of itself, we're like, it kind of looks the same. It looks sort of like the youth group I went to as a kid.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And I think we need to be doing a lot more and investing more in the next generation in relational deep ways. But it can't happen without every heart on fire and every person being a pastor. And if we could do that, every heart on fire, every person, pastor, every child and student equipped, then we can accomplish the Great Commission. Right. And that's really the last part of the vision which is every neighborhood a thriving church. Because the way you change the world is by having, you know, a community of Christ followers, place where Jesus is king. We're on mission together within arm's reach of every person on the planet. You know, that's, that's the plan. And so that's what we're targeting and going after. So that's different. And so for us to do those things, there's things we're trying to change and layer in behind that, really renovating our teaching ministry. We're kind of going old school. We're going back through like long series books of the Bible, just walking through scripture, teaching people the Bible. Just like the disciples on that road to Emmaus, you know, that was when Jesus opened the scriptures to them. It's lit this fire inside of them. I think that's even more necessary. 37 years ago, basically A Christian culture ish today, not so much. So nobody's walking through the doors with, like, this biblical knowledge. They're walking through the doors with nothing.

[B]

That's so true.

[D]

And so, you know, we need to do that. So we're doing that, creating rhythms in our calendar years. A lot more, I could say about that. Spiritual disciplines communally, not just as individuals, feels maybe like a little spin on liturgical calendars of old where. Embracing some of that in a new way for us. And then this. This growth track is a big part of that. And then there's. There's more beyond that, but that's just a few of the things.

[B]

Dude, I love it. I love. I love how those four layer on. I love the focus. I think it tonally just feels right on with where, you know, culture's at. Could you unpack a little bit of what you're doing with Growth Track? What. What does that look like? That particular tactic in the. You know, I think the idea of every person, a pastor is a very compelling. That's like a lean in. What did you just say? Kind of thing. And then what are you. You know, help us. Help us understand, you know, a little bit of that, what you're doing with Growth Track to kind of point towards that.

[D]

You mean, like, the mechanics of it or.

[B]

Yeah. How does it work? What do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's.

[D]

What is it? How does it work? Yeah, we're getting ready to launch it all this fall.

[B]

Great.

[D]

And, yeah, we're really excited about it. But essentially it's three steps. One life. Go is kind of how we talk about the growth track. And the first step is tried and true. It's Alpha. I think Alpha is probably the single greatest tool available to help my friends and neighbors and family find their way back to God. I love Alpha. I'm running an Alpha right now at an office with a buddy and his partners, all the partners of his business. We're doing Alpha together over the years. It's amazing. Love it. So Alpha's step one, step two, we call disciple because disciple is both a noun and a verb. It's who you are, and it's what you do. And so it's, you know, we've used Rooted in the Past as a church, and Rooted is fantastic. We love Rooted. It's been helpful tool for us, but we felt like there were ways in which we wanted to adjust that to our context a little bit more and also have an opportunity for people to make a commitment to the church. We don't do membership but we do ask people to commit to belonging here. And honestly, I think that's a big missing step in the overall discipleship of a lot of, like, churches like ours. Because if you don't have a commitment and there's just kind of growth that happens in your life, that only can happen in a committed relationship. It's not about you committing to me. It's really about us committing to each other. And when we do that, it opens the door to a different layer and level of transformation in your own life. Committing to that unity on the front end is really important. And so we want to do that. We also do several other things a part of that, but that's kind of a general idea. And then the third step is pastor. That's the goal. That's where we're going. It's also a noun and a verb, right? It's who you are, and it's what you do. And this is designed to do that. So we took some learnings, actually, from Brian Sanders, and he has something called the Calling Lab. He does the Tampa underground down in Florida. He's done some great work on that. And it's essentially a similar process of triangulating your true sense of calling. We want everybody in our church to be able to say, I exist to help Blank find their way back to God. Like, who are you called to reach? Because that's cool. What's the starting ground for someone to be a pastor? You know, like, is it education? Is it more this, more that? Well, I think the journey of learning and growing and honing your gifting, it has to start with the calling. And I think there are so many people who just. They don't know how to finish that sentence, even if it is your kids or your neighbors or your coworkers. Have you really done the work? Have you invested to say no? These are the people, like, names and faces that I'm called to reach, and then I'm released into that context as a pastor. So when I show up to work, I want to show up. I'm the pastor of BMO Harris bank today, because that's where I work. I'm a teller there. You know, I'm the pastor of, you know, my neighborhood in Downers Grove, in my part, my north, you know, little west quadrant there. That's what I want to show up. That's what I want our whole church showing up as thousands and thousands of pastors released into every arena of life. And so a lot of churches have growth track or something like it. We're really trying to say, okay, what's. What is the unique thing that. That we're feeling the Lord's calling us to produce here, and that's it. And so we've designed these steps to work together to produce that. That thing in us.

[B]

Yeah, that's very cool. Oh, it's super helpful. I love. I love what you're doing there. And that's. Thanks for taking the time to unpack that. Pivoting in a slightly different direction. We were together at Exponential at Dave's event, and. Well, it's not Dave's event. I understand that. Exponential Conference. And we were having a breakfast together, and you mentioned about some. Just kind of in passing, some stuff that was going on at the church that was. And part of it was some of this around spiritual vitality. You're seeing that increase. I'm assuming that some of these, you know, pieces of these puzzles coming together. But then you also talked about the kind of growth of your microchurch, you know, planting movement that's connected to community. Could you unpack that a little bit more? Tell us a little bit about, you know, that. How does that fit into the whole story that God's writing here?

[D]

Yeah, I think the spiritual vitality. I'll start there. The way we talk about it a lot is it just feels like everywhere you go, the spiritual temperature is just increasing in kids and students. Adults are small groups in our services. It's just across the board. There's just like an increased heat or passion around our faith. I think a part of that is, truthfully, in a season of transition, there's always an opportunity to be open to something new. And we've been trying to really place our focus on, well, what's the new thing? Like, what is the condition of your heart? Are you on fire? Truly on fire? I think putting that question, that vision in front of us as a church has been refining that in and of itself. But we've also just seen. I mean, there's so much I could speak to on this. But one of the things I'm just really excited about is what's happening with our students right now. We talk a lot about students being the leaders of tomorrow's church, but I'll tell you here, they're the leader of today's church. I mean, they are setting a tone with passion and desire, like our services. I'm at the yellow box location right there, Naperville Church here, and, you know, teaching here on Sunday. And there'll be a group of students that will just come and sit on the ground in Front of the stage, have their bibles open with their notebook, taking notes. And then during worship, it's like they're in the pit of a concert. You know, they're at the stage, hands up.

[B]

Yeah, it's true.

[D]

And you've got a room full of thousands of adults watching this, and they're leading us. Nobody asked them to do it. Nobody told them to do that. So I think some of it, I point to that other parts of it is really kind of pushed our chips into the middle on some of the ancient stuff instead of new trendy stuff, specifically prayer and fasting.

[B]

Oh, that's cool. Tell me more about that. I'd love to hear about that.

[D]

So, yeah, earlier I talked about, you know, we're embracing a calendar rhythms as a church. I really believe that, you know, rhythms are so much more powerful than events because, you know, an event is just a drop in the ocean. But if you can build some rhythms, you can actually build some roots. And, you know, our most valuable resources are people, and our most valuable real estate is our calendar. And so we've said, you know, three times a year as sort of the calendar turns. And that's sort of the rhythm of our community. There's sort of three seasons. There's winter, there's fall, and there's spring, summer. So to launch those seasons, we do what we now call an ignite week, where we ask the whole church to commit to a full week of prayer and fasting. And then we have intentional programming in that week to do, like, a full spiritual reset to say, okay, God, what are you saying to me right now? For the individual, we have, like, prayer and fasting guides to help guide people through that experience. For the groups, we do these discipleship conversations where we want everybody in each group to say, okay, what is God saying to me right now? And what am I doing to say yes to him? And then for our locations, we take a break from all of our regular series stuff, and we do a Hearts on Fire Sunday. And we just say, okay, God, what are you doing here? What are you doing today? What are you doing right now? And it feels very different than our regular Sundays. And then for the whole church as a whole, all of our locations together, we do what I call our night gathering on Saturday morning. It's actually coming up this Saturday. And we just gather the whole church together. And what's happened in these ignite gatherings is really exciting. It feels like a catalyst for the rest of the church. It's like the church we're going to be a Year from now, we get to see in that room on Saturday morning, after a week of prayer and fasting, gathering the church together to worship, to break the fast together in communion. It's, it's powerful. I mean, it is powerful. The environment of that space is so different. There's such a hunger for the Lord and honestly, a true actual physical hunger after all that fasting. But it's really changing the whole, as I said earlier, this ecosystem of our church, those are some of the real important pieces of that ecosystem.

[B]

Yeah, I love that. And isn't it interesting? So we're seeing lots of that kind of things or echoes of that across the country where there's been a shift that we'll probably understand better five years from now. Look back and be able to put all the pieces together and understand what God's doing. But it does appear like, you know, the spirit's on the move. They say, what is that? Aslan's on the move. Right. Something is shifting in people and, you know, we're trying to keep, pick up, keep up with it and do what we can to continue to steward what's here. And my experience with, you know, our churches would have similar backgrounds, similar history. You know, we're hard for people who don't. And your church has a heart for people who don't follow Jesus. You know, we're trying to create a space for those folks, but my experience has been those people are different today than they were 20 years ago. That people are coming much more. It's like they're farther along in the process. They're, they're much more engaged than, than, than they have been in the past. And so they're willing to jump into the deep end of the pool on some of this stuff, maybe even more quickly than our long term people. Yeah, that's true of whatever God's doing in their life. That's, that's, yeah, that's really interesting. That's a cool thing to, you know, to be a part of, to hear, you know, a part of that. What about on the microchurch side? What's happening there? What is that? Yeah, what's that? What's happening with that?

[D]

So in, during COVID we just sort of began dipping our toe in the water of starting microchurches under this belief that, you know, the micro macro church movement, even megachurch, doesn't need to be at odds or in conflict with the house church and microchurch movement. Like, is there a way for us to just see that as one thing instead of competing things reaching all different Kinds of people. And so we've just kind of dipped our toe in that. And a couple. Here we are a few years later. Took us a few years to kind of figure out what we wanted to do. We've been doing it for about three years now. We have, you know, somewhere around. I was just texting the guy for the Today number because it's growing so fast. Somewhere around 350 microchurches all around the world. And it's, it's a simple, simple, simple strategy where you're just basically saying, anybody in the world, anybody on planet Earth feeling called to planet church, or maybe you already have, and you don't know what to do with it. And what's interesting is that there are, I don't know how many people, but there are a lot of people on this Earth and a lot of people are asking that exact question. And they just need someone who's going to say, we can help you, we can help you. We want to help you do that. We want to coach you, train you, and then set you up with a cohort of others doing the same thing to help you do it in a sustainable fashion. It's very low investment, it's very low control, but it's super high results. And so it's sort of a little mind shift because a lot of times we want to have everything controlled. We want to have everybody's theology statement. We want to have all this stuff. We want to know it's going to be successful. We want to da, da, da, da. It's like we're not doing any of that. We, we obviously do teach some theology, but what we do is just keep, like, what are, what are these sort of ecclesiological minimums? And how can we just center on those things and launch as many people as possible and see what the Lord does? And he's been doing some remarkable things. And I think, you know, our world has a giant need. We need to see millions of people find their way back to God. And a lot of us have strategies where the wild success is. If we had thousands of people come and find their way back to God over decades, this, this is a strategy that could reach millions. Like, I think we legitimately can see a network of these, and people down the chain will have no idea kind of where it came from, and they don't need to. But I legitimately think in 10 years time, we could easily reach a million people and have a church of a million people, but not in the traditional sense, but through this.

[B]

Well, I love that because man That's a great vision to cast because you can't build enough or a big enough yellow box for all of even Chicagoland. Right. Like that's just not gonna, you know, you can't. And, and that is a, you know, it's a, just a resource intensive, you know, that's been my life's work. I've spent a lot of time on that. It's not, I'm not downing that. Friends, save your cards and letters. I still think that's a piece of the puzzle. But how do we, is there a way for us to work together to find solutions? How, how does the. I appreciate the, you know, we're not trying to be high control. We're trying to, you know, we're not, you know, we're trying to really foster something that's already in happening. We're going to, we're going to get behind it, do what we can to support it and we're not going to try to over control it. But I'm going to ask the control question. How do you, what is the kind of level of interaction that you're, you're finding is kind of the appropriate. It's the, you know, not too little, not too much. Where have you found that's like, hey, this, this is the kind of good sweet spot that we've found so far with these, you know, 350, you know, microchurches.

[D]

Are you asking like, what's the relational rhythm?

[B]

Yeah, what is, yeah, what is the connection, what's the relational rhythm between or even connection between community and those 350, like, are they, how are they, how do they relate to you and your team, your people, your volunteers and then vice versa. What does that, you know, how does that, what's that look like? What's the connection there?

[D]

Yeah, it's purely coaching training and ongoing support. And we also make it clear there's no financial arrangement them to us or us to them. And what we find is that just keeps the relationship very clean. We're here to coach, support, train launch, walk alongside. It's a relational currency and it's an expertise currency and a material and resource, the currencies. And so that's really what we're doing. So when it comes to, you know, what is the relational controls or how do you keep tabs or, you know, whatever might be behind the question. For us, it's more about that thriving coaching relationship and that this is a journey and, you know, if somebody is unwilling or unable to connect, I mean, they just go do their own thing. And yeah, we're not going to try to stop them.

[B]

No.

[D]

You know, we want to be dancing with the people who want to dance. We're not, you know, spending our time or energy on that. And so it's really that coaching system and network that's the key in scaling that coaching system and network is how you reach a million people.

[B]

Yeah. It's amazing. That's great. That's a huge vision. I love that. That's. That's super inspiring. Well, Ted, this has been a great check in, man. Lots of good stuff. Just want to encourage you in your leadership at community. Appreciate what you're doing there. Thanks for letting us kind of pull back the curtain a little bit and get a sense in there. Any kind of final words you'd have for leaders that are listening in today. You know, we've covered a lot of ground, but anything, you know, you'd want to kind of remind us just as we close off today's conversation.

[D]

Yeah. You know, the thing that's just sort of striking me in the moment is just to encourage the pastors who are listening in particular to, to really remember that, that the strategy is your soul and your own passion and hunger and thirst for the Lord and your integrity and walking that out. That is the key strategy. That is the most important thing. And you can't do that alone. A lot of times we talk about leadership being lonely. I kind of have a different view. I think loneliness is a choice, and I think you can choose not to be lonely. And so I know there are people who feel discouraged and that discouragement leads to isolation, and that isolation feels like loneliness. And it just becomes this downward spiral. There are different choices you can make to change the direction of that. I know a lot of people are struggling. Ministry's hard. It's really hard. But I think that if you can really focus on your passion, your fire, tending your flame with the Lord, it will make the work of ministry lighter. It will make the successes and failures less impactful on you. And to find some people who you can really be vulnerable with who are sharing the same kind of load that you carry. That would be. If I could just say one thing to a group of, you know, 5,000 pastors, that's probably the thing I just say right now.

[B]

That's so good. So good. Well, Ted, I appreciate you coming on today. Where do we want to send people? If they want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them? Online.

[D]

Communitychristian.org church website. Probably the best place you can find us on socials and stuff like that. I don't really do social media stuff. It's not my thing. Yeah, but you could go to the church. You can find all that. So it's Community Christian Church in the Chicago area and you'll find everything.

[B]

That's great. Thanks so much, Ted. Appreciate you being here today, sir.

[D]

Thank you, Rich. Appreciate you too.

[E]

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