They’re Looking for God … Don’t Miss Them: Fixing Your Church’s Assimilation Problem with Greg Curtis & Tommy Carreras

Summary

UnSeminary Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: UnSeminary Podcast
Host: Rich Birch
Guests: Greg Curtis (Director of First Steps & Content Development, Eastside Christian Church), Tommy Carreras (Head Sherpa, Climbing the Assimilas)
Episode: They’re Looking for God … Don’t Miss Them: Fixing Your Church’s Assimilation Problem
Date: March 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode addresses a critical and often overlooked aspect of church ministry: helping new guests assimilate and connect meaningfully with the church—a process that impacts both church growth and individual spiritual journeys. Host Rich Birch is joined by assimilation experts Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras to explore why many churches miss out on effectively welcoming and integrating new guests, and what can be done to fix it. Drawing on real-life stories, cultural trends, and practical systems, the conversation dives deep into how churches can move from transactional to transformational in their approach to guest assimilation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The New Guest Landscape: A Shift in Motivation

• People Are Seeking God More Directly:
  Greg Curtis highlights a remarkable recent shift: people attending church, especially younger adults, are now coming primarily to encounter God—not just for community or self-help, as might have been true in the past.

  “Young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community and about 20% to find God, [but] it’s flipped. It’s 80% God and 20% community.” — Greg Curtis (06:30)

• Anecdotes Illustrate the Change:
  Greg shares stories of unchurched visitors drawn to Jesus through their own spiritual curiosity—sometimes having never attended a traditional service before deciding to be baptized.

• Big Moments Can Happen Unexpectedly:
  One experiment during Christmas services—offering immediate baptism invitations, even to those just visiting—yielded nearly 400 baptisms, far exceeding expectations and demonstrating hunger for spiritual engagement.

  “We thought maybe we get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case. We had 399 people get baptized on Christmas Day.” — Greg Curtis (12:51)

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2. Where Churches Get Stuck in Assimilation

• Not Enough People in the Funnel:
  Churches often overestimate how many new people they are engaging—sometimes missing half or more of actual first-time guests because their systems don’t capture everyone, especially new families coming through children’s ministry.

  “If you’re not treating your new families like new guests, you’re ignoring them ... We have to stop ignoring those people.” — Tommy Carreras (14:37)

• Telling Your Story Over Theirs:
  A common mistake is focusing communication on the church’s story/values, rather than identifying and naming the guest’s journey and needs.

  “Most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest’s story.” — Tommy Carreras (15:10)

• Too Many Options, Not Enough Guidance:
  When churches present too many next step choices, guests often choose “none of the above.” Clear, guided pathways are needed over option overload.

  “If you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E. None of the above.” — Tommy Carreras (18:34)

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3. What New Guests Are Actually Asking

• Looking for Belonging and Authentic Encounter:
  The first questions new people ask are, “Is there anyone here like me?” and, “Can I actually encounter God here?”

  “The number one question when any of us are in a new environment is: Is there anyone here like me?” — Greg Curtis (19:47)

• Experiences Over Information:
  Churches need to move beyond merely providing information or doctrinal content and facilitate spaces where genuine spiritual experiences and connections are possible.

  “There’s a measurable change... people are arriving and they have ... a God question on their heart.” — Rich Birch (10:01)

• Simple Discipleship Questions Resurface:
  Guests are now asking foundational questions like, “What Bible should I get?” and, “How do I pray?”—the kinds of questions many church leaders once wished new believers would ask.

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4. Practical Systems and Relational Touchpoints

• Move from Transactional to Relational:
  Every step—collecting information, follow-up, invitations—should focus on valuing the person, not just capturing data for organizational metrics.

  “We’re not being slick. We’re being honest. We’re being vulnerable. We’re being transparent.” — Tommy Carreras (33:35)

• Ethical Bribes & First Connections:
  Using gifts (like mugs or meals) is effective, but should be framed as a genuine desire to know and welcome new people, not just to get their contact info.

• Redefine When and How to Collect Information:
  Greg notes experimentation with not collecting contact info immediately, but focusing instead on engagement—especially targeting those who take bigger spiritual steps (such as baptism) as “warm leads” for deeper connection.

  “It’s a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what and look at it through the lens of these journeys.” — Greg Curtis (41:12)

• Three Journeys Model:

  • Screen to Seat: Initial engagement, belonging.
  • Seat to Circle: Move from anonymous attendance to relational community (teams or groups).
  • Circle to Street: Equipped to serve and “go”; outward movement back into the world.

• Staff Culture & Volunteer Training:
  Staff should be present and accessible (not hiding in green rooms), and volunteers should be empowered to make personal, relational connections—asking good questions and remembering names, not just selling church programs.

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5. Tools, Resources & Next Steps

• Free Assimilation Audit:
  Climbing the Assimilas offers a comprehensive, conversation-driven Google Doc audit to help church teams evaluate where they are losing people and how to improve their guest pathways.

  “It’s 49 points, 49 stops along the way... You’re going to uncover so much ... The gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and arguments among your team.” — Tommy Carreras (43:20)

• Sherpa Tribe:
  An ecosystem including a video curriculum, targeted learning modules, and access to weekly coaching with Greg and Tommy. The most effective churches commit to a year-long process, treating assimilation as a keystone habit for long-term change.

  “It’s the churches that go, ‘This is the year where things change,’ and they dive in...” — Tommy Carreras (49:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Guest Motivation:

  “They’re wanting God now. And what I mean by that is ... it’s flipped now. It’s 80% God and 20% community.” — Greg Curtis, [06:30]

• Real-Life Guest Story:

  “I grew up in a very non-religious home ... I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided I love Jesus and I want to follow him ... I just googled who would baptize me on a Saturday.” — Greg Curtis (Connie’s story), [08:52]

• On Too Many Options:

  “If you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E. None of the above.” — Tommy Carreras, [18:34]

• On Relational Connection:

  “We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door.” — Tommy Carreras, [33:35]

• Assimilation Is a Sacred Responsibility:

  “Every form response, every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle ... That is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders.” — Tommy Carreras, [51:15]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & Context: [01:56-05:45]
• The Shift in Guest Motivation & Real Stories: [06:30-13:10]
• Where Churches Miss Assimilation: [13:56-19:12]
• What Guests Are Looking For: [19:47-26:03]
• Designing Systems for Personal Connection: [31:43-37:08]
• Collecting Contact Info & Three Journeys Model: [37:08-42:14]
• Tools: Audit & Sherpa Tribe: [42:59-50:34]
• Final Encouragement: [51:15]

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Final Encouragement

“Every single person in a queue or a workflow ... that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders ... How could we not do everything in our power to lean in, meet them there, and steward their next step ...?”
— Tommy Carreras, [51:15]

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For more information and to access the free audit and Sherpa Tribe resources: assimilas.com

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Summary prepared for church leaders who want to make sure no seeking guest slips through the cracks and every God-question gets a chance for a real answer.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

for 20% off 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

[A]

ministry in hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today's conversation. We have got repeat guests on the call, which you know what that means. These are people I love dearly and who I know have so much that they can help you with. You're going to want to stay plugged in. In fact, this is one of those areas that I think many of our churches are stumbling on and are not doing a good job. We're not doing what we should be doing and that doesn't just come from like, it's a hunch. I've literally been in dozens of conversations where what these guys have shared literally illuminates our thinking and helps us take steps towards being a more effective church. So you're going to want to stay tuned for the entire conversation. Super excited to have Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras with us. They're with an organization called Climbing the Assimilas. Greg is the director of first steps and content development, Eastside Christian Church. Fantastic church. Been on the podcast a number of times. They are a multi site church with six locations in all the places that make sense. California, Nevada and Minnesota. Of course, those fit together. And then Tommy is the head sherpa at Climbing the Assimilas. Super excited to have both of you guys on. Welcome to the show. So glad you're here.

[C]

Yeah, it's awesome to be with you, man.

[A]

Always, always fun to connect. Why don't actually before we jump in, Tommy, why don't you tell us about Climbing the Assimilas? How do you guys help church? What do you do to come alongside us and help us get better at what we do?

[B]

Yeah, I'd love to. Climbing the Assimilators was started by Greg back when I was brand new in ministry. I was a groups pastor who had just taken over sort of the rest of the pipeline of getting people into groups because I realized I couldn't get anybody into groups because I wasn't in charge of anything that was happening before that. So I met Greg in like 2013, 2014. He had just taken over the role of assimilation at Eastside. He kind of designed the role himself when his lead pastor. I'm telling your story now, Greg. Usually you get to tell it, but his lead pastor, Gene Apple, said, hey, what do you want to do in this next season? And Greg kind of designed the role based on what he saw was super necessary in the church and also what he was really well designed for. And he was right because it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was just trying to figure out what a replicable and scalable system looked like for making things more personal and more effective at getting people to take real next steps. And it sounded really simple, but it was so unbelievably challenging because I just kept getting it wrong myself. And I had no idea where to actually go for advice on any of this. And he started figuring it out, started universalizing some of the principles that were working for him at Eastside and testing those with other churches. I was at his first ever base camp training at Eastside and so a long friendship began there. And then I just believed everything he said at that point and customized it, contextualized it for ministry. And also Southern California, but a different part. And you know, it's California is like five states total. So.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It was much different than Eastside, but also all the principles held up. And so that's what he's been doing ever since I came alongside him a few years ago to sort of throw gas on the fire. I had transitioned out of my role in ministry and started doing a few things with multiple churches and this was one of them. And it has been a blast to help build these systems in churches that are super hungry for helping people connect, but can't quite build the systems or just don't have the models out there that are able to adapt and flex with the changing culture and the changing needs, because those needs of guests have changed a lot over 12, 13 years.

[A]

Yeah, it's fantastic. And friends that are listening in, both Greg and Tommy are the kind of leaders that I just say you should just do what they say, like just listen to what they're doing and do it. And you'd be amazed at the results that we've seen at churches all across the country. And so you're in for a treat of a conversation today, Greg, since we last talked. So I think that was maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago. What if you continue to notice that's maybe different around how people are engaging, connecting. We're talking about getting first time guests, the kind of people that are arriving, trying to help those people get assimilated, get connected. What, what have you noticed? Maybe something that's, that's maybe different in the way people are engaging right now. That's different than maybe even a year or two ago.

[C]

Yeah. Over a crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards. This is going to sound crazy because we're talking to churches, they're wanting God now. And what I, what I mean by that is prior to we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus. Most growing churches, which there are, and I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture. And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage, or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and what was causing people to engage with church was really what help in my life. How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed. This has shifted. I'll put it in the terms of our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me, he said, Greg, prior to a few, two, three years ago, maybe not even that long, he said young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community and about 20% to find God, he goes, it's flipped. It's flipped now. It's 80% God and 20% community. And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I'll just throw two out. At the end of last year, I was covering somebody, a pastor who was going to baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone. So I said, yeah, I'll cover it. So in our context, I'll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show them where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera. And I met her. She was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we're walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions. How. How long you been coming to Eastside, which is my church? And she says, oh, I've. I've never been to Eastside. I was like, oh, so you're from our online campus? And she goes, no, I've never really heard of Eastside. And I said, well, what's led you to be baptized today?

[B]

Right.

[C]

And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non religious home and I've. I've never been to church and I have. I vowed I'd never even date a religious person. But I had some friends three months ago that invited me to watch the Chosen with them. I didn't want to. I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode. Kept watching, decided to buy myself a Bible. Two months ago, I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided I love Jesus and I want to follow him. And I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But get this. I'm the game day operations coordinator for the NFL, so I work on Sundays and I just googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up and I filled it out. So here I am.

[A]

Wow, that's amazing.

[C]

Yeah. And I'll tell you what she didn't know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.

[A]

Wow, that's incredible.

[C]

Okay. The questions she had, we've remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. I mean, but I'm telling you, I met with somebody. I've had a few of those that are similar. That one's pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They're coming because they're having a God moment before they get to us.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they're coming to us to find God and they're already encountering him in some way and they need help with that and want it, and that's a huge shift.

[A]

Yeah, I would agree. I've seen that in our. In our context, in our church. So my specific home church that I'm a part of connects us. I've seen that at our church. We've seen it in the churches we work with. There is a. A measurable change in the way, kind of the state that people are at when they arrive. You know, that the way I've said echo, similar to what you're saying there, Greg, is like there used to be. You know, you and I are of a certain age. I can remember a time when, you know, people would kind of stumble into church and they, you know, they were there for all different kinds of reasons, and, you know, we had to hold their hand for a long time. But it seems like now people are arriving and they have. It's like a God question on their heart that they're looking for an answer for. It's. They're arriving already asking something significant, and, you know, we've got to meet them there. We can't. We can't just leave that.

[C]

So get. Get this. I've often. I think I've probably said this on your podcast before, but for. For our church, Christmas is our Super Bowl. It's our number one outreach event for the year. Traditionally, we've gotten 18% of our guest leads from Christmas for. For the year. That's amazing. Yeah, but. Yeah, but we tried something in light of this because we're looking at this and trying to meet God in this, and we did something we have never done at Christmas services, and it's so counterintuitive. We invited people. We just shared the gospel. If you want to be baptized right now, we'll do it. And we have never done that because. And you've heard me say Christmas guests are different than other guests of the year. They're not there to find God. They're there because Aunt Sally invited them to a Christmas service before the dinner and gift exchange. So they're on their way someplace, not going to do anything. And we just thought, let's just try it. And it probably. We. We were. We were prepared. We thought maybe, you know, we're a church of, I don't know, 12, 50,000 today. We thought maybe we get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case we had 399 people.

[A]

Wow. Wow.

[C]

Get baptized on Christmas Day by coming to a Christmas service, not knowing that they were going to do that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That's incredible. So that just, that, that just illustrates there's a seismic spiritual shift going on. And I think meeting guests there is going to be very smart for us in this hour.

[A]

Yeah. And I want to. That's a great place to start, I think sets up, tees up the conversation we will be having today, which is friends, I think a lot of our churches could be missing some of these folks as they're, as they're connecting. And I want to really mine from you guys. You guys are the experts on this. You interact with a lot of churches. I want to mine for our listeners some help for them. So, Tommy, from your vantage point, you work with churches across the country where we're asking questions like this, how do we get these people plugged in? How can we help these first time guests take steps towards ultimately groups, teams get plugged into whatever it is that we're trying to get them plugged in? Where do you see that leaders keep getting stuck when it comes to helping people take their next steps beyond this kind of first weekend, where do we keep stumbling? What do you see consistently bubbling up in the churches that you're working with?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. There's a few really specific things. And the first one is, first of all, we always have to move as far left or as far up, however you like to think, left to right, top to bottom. We have to move all the way to the left or all the way to the top. And the problem is there aren't enough people in your funnel in the first place. We've talked about this before, but a really, really popular church that I've been talking to a lot recently and working with. And by popular, I mean it's growing. It's a few thousand. So it's like there's something there, obviously. And really popular online pastor, not super duper 2 million followers, but like quarter of a million. That's a lot, right? And just a wonderful guy.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They announced really proudly recently that they had 1300 new people in the last year and their church of 25 to 2800. And I looked at him, I said, guys, guys, that's not even half of how many new people walked in the door and they just looked so confused. They're like, that's a great number. I'm like, that's a, that's a great number. It's a really bad percentage, though. And it's just Wrong. Doesn't matter if it's good, bad, ugly. It's just wrong. The idea is, most often we're trying to help people take next steps, but we're just looking at half or less than half of the actual people that are there. And so if we can't get the top of the funnel right and recognize who's there, and some of that is just missing the data that we do have, give this one away. If you're not treating your new families like new guests, you're ignoring them. You're not missing them. You're ignoring them because they're giving you all the info. They're giving you all the info besides their Social Security number, right? We need all their info for having their children. And we're just missing that opportunity, usually because we don't treat them like. Well, they didn't go to the new guest table. Well, who cares? Bring the new guest table to them. Right? Just bring it over there and treat them as such. And so that's a huge one. That's 30 to 40% of your new guest leads are actually coming in through kids. And so we have to stop ignoring those people. But also it's all about that invitation. If we can't get that invitation right originally, then we're always going to be looking at less than the actual amount. And then fewer people are going to take next steps because fewer people are being invited to take next steps. And so the top of the funnel is the first problem. We're just not dealing with all the information. The bigger sort of meta problem that I think has been really interesting to watch is that most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest story, that's good. And so if you want to go like the story brand route, and if you're a Donald Miller fan, which I think, Rich, you are a Donald Miller fan. How could you not be right? Like blue, like jazz and story brand. Where does this guy stop? But the idea is we try and play the hero so that they'll choose us. We're trying to make sure all our theological ducks are in a row. We need to tell them the story about the incredible call that God had on this, this church planter's life 23 years ago. And that incredible first moment, and they're just sitting there going, okay, that's really cool, but has nothing to do with them. Yeah, that's super interesting. And that sounds like a great documentary that I would watch the trailer for, but that's it. And what we're not trying to do, though, is name their story, how they might be feeling right now, and how we might play a part in their story. So instead of trying to say, here's the story of our church, do you want to get on board those assimilation environments, whether it's your one program, which is our language for, you know, the program that you invite somebody to, to help them take a next step into belonging and purpose. Instead of trying to name our story as an organization and say, here's where you could fit into it, we're trying to say, here's the story. We believe that God is writing in your life, and we might be able to play a part of it. It's way bigger than us as a church, but we would love to play a part in it. And here's the specific next thing that we would like to try and do for you, because God's writing your story, and it's a really good one, and we think we can plug in right here, right now. And that's the other thing. It's a lot of times we're just trying to go, and here's all the ways you could connect. And Greg's been saying this since 2013 when I met him. But, you know, if you give, if you give somebody A, B, C and D, they'll choose E. None of the above. We're just, we're giving them options. And really they want guidance. And so if we can say, hey, here's the thing that we have found is the best step for most people like you right now, then they can just say yes or no. And yes or no is great because if they say no, we just downsell and say, well, what do you want? What are you looking for? What can we help you accomplish in your story and in your life right now? Not what environment do you want to be in. Because they don't know. They don't know what the deliverable of a group is. They don't know why they would do it. We just have to say, what? What do you want then? And they say, oh, I'm kind of looking for this, this, this. And you go, oh, well, this is an environment that might be built just for you. And so we're just trying to come alongside their story, but most often we're trying to convince them that our story is really compelling. And that's just falling way too flat.

[A]

Yeah, that's great. So much there. Unpack, friends, rewind. Listen to that. There's good stuff packed in there. Greg sticking with this idea of options versus guidance. You know, when we're thinking about a new person that walks into our church this weekend, this season. What do you think they're actually trying to figure out in those first few weeks? What are the kind of questions that are on their minds that we've got to try to guide them towards? What are you seeing in the churches you're working with? How should we be trying to guide those people?

[C]

Multiple thoughts come to mind with that one. I've always said, and I do think that it's still true, that the number one question when any of us are in a new environment is that. And we're not conscious of it really, but we look around and is there anyone here like me? And that's the inner question everybody is asking whenever they go to someplace that's foreign or new to them. And that in a church context that starts in the parking lot and that sounds unusual, but if you've driven in on your motorcycle and every other car is a Mercedes and a Beamer, when you pull up, you start to feel other than. And people just look around. Is there somebody here like me? And I do think, like I mentioned before, they are trying to figure out if this is a place where I can encounter God. So I do think we need to calibrate our services in such a way that they do encounter God. And I think that there's a shift and I can't wait to see how it gets ferreted out. But the shift in worship that needs to be happening is not just singing great praise songs and having compelling announcements and great teaching that is given to you, but having moments where they actually feel like they're encountering God, you know what I mean? In some way. And not that he's not encountered, you know, through his word and, and, and, and in worship, but you know, creating a little bit of space for that I think is gonna, gonna actually speak to what they're trying to figure out, which is can I figure out God here? I, I have so many questions. And when they encounter God, that covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. Like they may have three burning questions, but when, if they actually encounter God, the questions almost go into the backseat because oh my gosh, I just, I sense God here and I'm, and when I say this, I'm not being theoretical. I just met with a gal, another 28 year old yesterday and again, no church background whatsoever. Her father was Jewish, he passed away a year ago and she just feels orphaned and started looking for God and started watching us online for two weeks and then came and got baptized her first Week she came because we happen to be doing one of those baptism things that we do maybe five times a year. And so we sat down, she had her little Bible that we print. It's one of these few dads that we make. We call it a Bible, but we just print out text for the Bible because we're doing an Old Testament survey kind of thing called the Old Testament Jones. But she's. She's like, I think I should get, like, she just figured out that's not actually a Bible,

[A]

right?

[C]

What Bible should I get? Was her first question. Right, her. Her second question. Because I said, you got a real pastor in front of you.

[A]

What.

[C]

What do you have? Which, what kind of Bible should I get? The second one was, how do you pray? This is the kind of stuff that as we were growing up, you said, we're men of a certain age that we used to anticipate and dream that people would ask us these incredible discipleship questions. Like the disciples ask Jesus, Lord, how do we pray? And he gives them the Lord's Prayer. And we were prepared for those questions, but we were unprepared for a culture that was pretty disinterested. And so we've gone to the other paths I mentioned before, but now they're asking the questions that we are very prepared to answer. But I think we just got a little unused to it and we need to put those things right in our pocket again because they're asking. And so those are the kinds of things that they're looking for in their first few weeks. And I think they'll gauge and they are gauging our church by different things than they were a couple of years ago. Yeah, sure. Our kids program needs to be good and safe, you know, and we can't do a sloppy job, you know, as we worship God corporately. But they're gauging it by, is God here? Am I meeting him? How can I connect with him? And that is just a very beautiful thing to see happen.

[A]

That's a great shift, kind of sticking with that. One of the things I've been noting as I've been interacting with churches across the country is something that a friend of mine, Jeff Brody, lead pastor at Connects, has said he talked. He's talked about how we're trying to offer what we've been calling accessible encounter. That it's like we are trying to. So he wouldn't say this next part. I'm saying this, so I don't want to put words in his mouth. But, you know, I'm come from I come from the attractional church movement. That would be my background. Happy to say that. That is my background. I know you're not supposed to admit that, but that's where that's my background. It's like you're not supposed to say that's who it is. And you know, we, what we were trying to do there was trying to connect with people who don't normally attend church. And that's still our heart. That's still what we're trying to do. But what we've realized is people are looking for an encounter with God that is, that does go beyond. It transcends like, here's three great ideas for this week at work or whatever. It's, it's like, hey, I'm coming with real questions. And so people are looking for something in the service that does have a transformational experience or an encounter to it. Sticking with you for a second, Greg. Do you see that trend? So we're doing more, I'm seeing more churches doing more kind of prayer stuff at the altar end of the service experience. Light these candles. If you're praying for that, fill out this card and post it on the cross. More of those kinds of experiences than I've seen before. What do you think about that, Greg?

[C]

No, I, I, I feel that too. But that, do you know what that does is it shifts me into one thing I didn't say is I also think they're looking for a person, a resource that they could talk to.

[B]

Yeah. Also.

[C]

And I think that when we have those after church like prayer moments, like what, what, how that'll look at our church is, is, and we, we've decided for this very recent to increase the frequency of them because we didn't do them often. Now we're doing them a little bit more regularly, more cyclically, but where we'll have a prayer team. And I love being on the prayer team that's at front afterwards because of the content that we were talking about and lines will form of people and we just pray for them and, and talk to them and look in their eyes and sometimes connect them to resources if you know that's appropriate. But we just watch the people just line up for that, you know. And I just think people are looking for also a person or a guide, you know, that they could ask some questions of. And so I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who's, I think he's 31 and his name is Kellen Love this guy. He's a leader on staff at a church in Georgia. And his thing, and I'm not saying this is the answer, but because I don't think anybody knows the answer right now because all of this, there's not. And it's really multiple answers. Right. It's just a bunch of things. But I'll throw this in as an ingredient in the thought soup, you know, that's percolating right now on all this. He was saying, especially with all the younger people returning to church, that he sees a shift in the attractional church model that may be happening over the next five years, where instead of the worship service being the attractional event and then we get them assimilation wise into small groups and ministry teams, that it may be the reverse of that, where because they're looking for God in a person, they end up in somebody's home at something that maybe looked like a small group as we think of them and conversations over coffee and they get so enraptured in it that it starts there and then it ends. Kind of like my friend Connie who came the NFL gal. It ends at your church. It doesn't start there. That's the shift. It starts to end there. And that may mean in the future our attractional church model and worship may shift to something that's unapologetically for those who are following and seeking Jesus, not trying to get them to. Right. And that's a big shift. So the river flow may be shifting. And I just think that's an interesting thought. It's been in my head for a while.

[A]

Yeah, that's good.

[B]

I think it's so funny that you mentioned that people are looking for a person because I was hoping to jump in and say, I think that all of this is like, they're looking for people, not experiences. So thank you for going there. The question that came to mind, because I've always loved your question to remind us how simple and basic the initial need of a guest is. Anybody in any new scenario, is anybody here like me? I think the question that they're asking next, is anyone here worth imitating? Because also imitation, imitation is the way we learn. It's the way we grow. It's why Jesus is a. Is a person we follow, not a doctrinal set of beliefs that we adhere to. That's not the point. The point is the person we follow and the people we're becoming. And everybody wants to become someone better. And that's not actually illegalistic gross. Like, oh, you're just prideful. No, no. We're designed to be phenomenally wonderful people that look like Jesus. That's what our. Our actual heart's desire is. And so if God's leaning into that desire in people, then their first question is going to naturally be, is anybody here worth imitating? And we can't tell people that we're worth imitating. We can only show them that we're worth imitating. And how do we show them? We walk up to people we don't know and say, hey, I don't think I know you yet, and you deserve to be known. I'm Tommy. What's your name? And just take it from there. That's somebody that's worth imitating. That is somebody that's confident and inviting and welcoming and kind and compassionate and interested and curious. That's who I want to be. And so I'm going to naturally say, oh, if that's the first person I met here, what are all these other people? Like, this could be wonderful. And so I think those two questions really build the. The exact desire set, or at least the first initial desires of somebody who's. Who's coming to church, especially somebody who's explicitly coming to get to know God and to be the best version of themselves. And they're actually saying, and I think God defines what that best version looks like. That's like the best news ever for churches. But we tend to miss it because we design for information transfer and not relationship building. And that's just not what they're looking for.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So sticking with that, Tommy, I'd love you to unpack that a little bit. Think of maybe. I'm a church of a thousand. So it's, you know, this thing's got some energy behind it, and I want to design these kind of initial first steps. I want to design our weekend experience and then whatever I'm asking for people to make, to try to get them towards some relationship and get them towards some people. What are some of those initial things that we should be thinking about to try to help them take those first couple steps? What are some of the. These initial steps? Again, picture a church of maybe a thousand. What does that look like? So it's got to be done at scale. I love the idea of, like, you know, I could note people in the room who I don't know. But, like, we all know you get up over a couple hundred and it's like, I don't know. By the time you get to a thousand, you look around your lobby and you're like, I don't know any of these people.

[B]

I don't know any of these people.

[A]

Are so how do we. How do we build a system, for lack of a better word, that helps us move people towards that?

[B]

Yeah. I think that first we have to get clear on our goals as a team, and we have to get clear on every environment's goal and make sure there is an environment for every step of the journey. Nobody's just going to take a big swing. Right. And also, we. I would love to live in a place and be in a church where this is just like, I don't have to design any systems because all the people just naturally do it. And I would say that often, like, I want to. I want to. I want our church to be a church where we don't even need a group connection event because everybody gets invited to a group personally. And that wasn't because I was actually hoping that would be a realistic thing. I was trying to set such a clear picture of my actual goal that we could just move 5% in that direction. We could get 20% of our people invited instead of going through a connection event. That would be awesome. Even 5% is better than zero. And so I tried to set a visionary goal just for the sake of the culture building. But we have to build the systems and be really obvious about it, because people are also walking in with baggage, and they're walking in with a clear picture, and they're asking to be proved wrong in most cases. Well, I don't know about in most cases, but in plenty cases, they're hoping they're proved wrong. Well, church people just like each other. Well, church people are going to judge the places that don't have it together yet. Light lightning's gonna strike when I walk in the door. I'm not actually gonna be useful here. I'm gonna be a burden. All of those things. That's the baggage they're walking in with. Not just because of church hurt, because of life hurt. And that is exactly why we're here, to meet that and say, that's actually a lie. That's actually a lie from the Father of lies. And you're here to meet the good Father that has only truth for you, and I'm gonna show it to you. But we need the systems and the environments that build it correctly and that lean toward those and produce relationships or relational touch points. We just set clear goals, and we need to be relentless in our invitation into those environments. So just having a new here sign on a booth is not an invitation. It's information. But when. My favorite way to announce, for example, which should be an announcement, every single service hopefully twice in the service. Hey, if you're new here or you consider yourself new here, and if you haven't done this yet, we'd love you to go have a conversation at this place. We want to put this gift in your hands or this something. And here's what I would always say. And if you're thinking that the free mug is a bribe to get to know you, you are exactly right. The mug is great. But what's better is that we think you're worth knowing, and we want to make sure that you have every opportunity to have a familiar face next time you walk in the door. Not, we want to meet you, because it's part of our organizational goal to identify this many guests so that hopefully you give at some point. That's not a great message. The great message is you're worth knowing. We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door. And hopefully also there's going to be a next time, and we'd like to ensure that there's a next time. So, yes, it's a bribe. All we want to do is get to know you. If we stop by the place. And that really worked, because also, we're not being slick. We're being honest. We're being vulnerable. We're being transparent. We're saying we're just here to do this and whatever it takes to get you there, that's great. You leave the mug. The point is, we would love to get to know you because you're worth knowing. And so we're trying to make sure those environments exist. And then we also have to follow it up. And that means training people and empowering volunteers to actually accomplish the goal as opposed to accomplish what they think is the goal but never really was. And so if they're like, I got to sell the church. No, no, no, no. You got to remember their name and ask three personal questions about them. That's my goal for you. Just do that. And if they come to the next thing, like, we'll get them to the next thing. You got to mention the program that we want them to come to. That's fine. They're not going to come next week anyway. They're not ready for that. Just get to know them. And so we're setting real goals and making them very attainable for those volunteers. And then we're also doing it ourselves in staff, and we're not hiding in the green room. Just a little note. But, you know, if you're on staff and you're hiding in the green room, you know what? Do you fix that? Exactly.

[A]

Stop doing that. I love that. So super tactically, Greg, because we're taught, we talked. You brought up the ethical bribe. I like to call it the like, hey, we've got a great coffee mug or a water bottle. And, you know, it's one of those things. I love how you framed that, Tommy, because, like, I think that's a. That's a great way even just to, like, unpack this. Exactly what we're trying to do. I think that's fantastic. Greg. You've helped us think and have helped me think so clearly around. How are we collecting people's contact information, which is just the start of the. Of the relationship? Like, we're. I think sometimes we can get that turned upside down. It's like we're trying to hit the metric because for some metric reason. No, no. It's ultimately about trying to start a relationship. What are you learning about the timing, the context of all of that, of that kind of part of the service that we're asking when we're giving them, you know, what is the ethical bribe? All of that. What are you learning these days for this very tippy top part of the transaction? We're talking about the very first step. Is there anything that you're learning there that we should be thinking differently?

[C]

I don't know. I'm always cautious about saying what I'm learning as if it's been learned. I think that we are experimenting with some new things in light of this. And I would say that one of the big shifts is, look, how do I say in light of everything we've said already about them looking for God, right? And not just life help. I think looking at their discipleship, there's an old word, you know, but they're learning to follow Jesus, right? Their discipleship, becoming a follower of Jesus. We. We have always looked at that through just a biblical theological, doctrinal lens. Like, do they know this? Have they done that kind of thing? And I think it's an interesting thing to look at it through the journeys that they experience at a. And when they come into a new church from their angle. Okay, so I call them. I've said this before, I think, to your crowd, but I call those three journeys the journey from the street to the seat, which really became from the screen to the seat after Covid, right. Like I mentioned, the gal I met with on Sunday, she had already attended our church twice online before she had come. And many churches I have talked to, their average is about four Times that they've attended your church online. But that journey from, say, the screen to the seat where they're seeing you on their television, but then it's the parking lot, the greeters, the info counter, kids, check in, ushers, whatever, right? That journey is. Is so important. And that journey is about belonging. But then you get the journey from. That's really the growing journey, which is what they're there for. And that's the journey from the seat to a circle. And that's because the circle is the environment we know works best for somebody to grow, where they're just kind of facetime with people, you know that in Tommy's words, they might want to imitate. Right. And learn from. But it's so important to get that information. We're making a big shift where instead of, like, we're actually experimenting and saying this for the last few weeks at our church, where we're not collecting their information at all at the. At that stage, what we're doing is saying, just come get a free. Come get. In our case, we have like a grill where they could get a free meal. Come get a free coffee drink or a meal or whatever on us. And we're not asking them for anything. We're just creating engagement. But we're starting to shift because we are baptizing. Like, in our case, over the last 15 months, we've baptized over 1800 people. And that's a big shift from targeting what I call cold leads to warm leads. You want to get engagement, start collecting stuff and engaging with people when they've been willing to get wet in front of people they don't know because they made a decision to follow Jesus, that's a warm lead, right? Somebody, you know what I'm saying? And in the spirit of the parable of the talents investing, where you're starting to see results in the fruit and just being strategic about that. That's where we're pouring in some of our best stuff. We're experimenting with that. I'm not telling people to do that yet because we don't know how that's going to work for us. So let me just say that in the get, that's good. But moving them from the seat to the circle through that kind of engagement, you know, through whatever one program you have, inviting them into a ministry team, a small group, and then that third journey is the journey. You know, once it's belongings established, growing established, then it's. It's going. The journey about going. That's the journey from the circle back out to the street. And it's really just equipping people to not just know Jesus, but to be more like him and to imitate him ultimately even through their other people examples. And I just think that there's some great environments that we could talk about later that really equipped them to do that. Because we may look at the Bible and see here's discipleship steps, but from the guest vantage point, it's their journey from the screen to the sea, the seat to the circle and the circle back out to the street. And so what environments are we creating? And like you said, how are we engaging with them? When do we get their contact info? Right. When do we invest in the engagement? And for us, it seems a worthy experiment to shift to because we are seeing so many baptisms in light of the huge God interest is to start, it's a, it's a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what and look at it through the lens of these journeys that guests experience our church with. Right. So that's a little bit about what we're looking at in there on the front end.

[A]

Love it. Well, friends who are listening in, I was really hoping that you'll take steps to get connected with Greg and Tommy. We've talked about a bunch of stuff. The problem with these things is, man, we can just keep going. And like there's so much in this that I find fascinating. And you know, I've always loved when people connect that I do want to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about how you guys help churches. So first, maybe Tommy, talk to us about you've got this incredible free audit that you've made available for folks. Talk to us about the audit. How will it help us? We'll put a link in the show, notes about it. But I really think 100% of the people that are listening today should take this. This would be a great next step for folks coming out of today. Talk us through this a little bit.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things about the audit because it's a brand new tool that we just rolled out because we had a 63 point checklist before and it was phenomenal. I worked through every item on that checklist when Greg initially rolled it out a long time ago. And what we did was we took our own medicine and said, how do we reorganize this? Instead of around an organizational checklist of do we have the features that we think are valu? Instead we said, well, what milestones are going to help a guest on their journey? And so we organized the assimilation audit around the three journeys of the guest, not the environments of the church. Now, the audit does say, well, this is an environment that meets them in this thing that they're looking for on their journey. But do you have the environment? Is it working? Is the main question usually is, is it actually working? And we give you some actual markers around whether or not it's working. Because the reality is you have the programs, you have the ingredients, you have the volunteers, you probably have a great Sunday experience. And yet all the people are still disappearing, or at least most of them. And the problem is they do it quietly. They don't write in and tell you, by the way, I left because I didn't find somebody that I could imitate quickly enough because what I really had was all this baggage from this. They don't tell you any of that. You just never knew they were even there. And so what we're trying to do is look at the experience and go based on all the churches that we've worked with, Greg, for over 12 years, and seeing this happen over and over and over, and seeing the remarkable consistency in the issues and the challenges. We said, here are the leakage points in the system. And some of them are pretty surprising. Some of them are super obvious. But what this will do is actually help you audit the effectiveness of those experiences, organized by what the guests are hoping they experience. They're desperately hoping you can provide for them on their journey. And the best part about it, honestly, like, it's a Google Doc right now, that is. I'm just giving you that admission because also, it's not a fancy tool that I Vibe coded. Like Rich recently Vibe Coded one of his really cool assessment tools. I haven't done that yet. And the reality is, though, it's a Google Doc because also you should write some notes on this thing and you should sit around it as a staff and share it and have real conversations. Because the gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and the arguments. No, I think it's red. No, it's yellow. It's doing okay. But what about this person? What about this person? Will somebody go pull up the numbers? Because the number, that's where the gold is in the audit. And it's. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot of stuff to dig through in your system because it's. It's 49 points, it's 49 stops along the way on those three journeys. But you're going to uncover so much. And then I think that it'll give you a really clear pathway toward, okay, well, here's what we should do first. And that might be the most important thing about it.

[C]

I would just say, too, on that point, that for your listeners, if you're at a point where you are either feeling alone in wanting to see a breakthrough in engagement or you have a team and you guys are just kind of spinning your wheels and you have the same results all the time and wanting to see them increase and they really don't that much. This thing is do it for a few weeks together in meetings. It will invigorate and you'll do it. Do it with a team, even if a team of key volunteers in a smaller context. But make a day retreat or something out of it and really go through it, and you will find that you. Oh, my gosh, you can shake out all of the obstacles, all the pain points and weaknesses. It will be very, very helpful and rejuvenating. And it's free. So there's that.

[A]

So good. Yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. I really do think this would be a great next step for everybody who's listening in. Super helpful. Great. It's crazy that it's free to me. You know, don't, don't trash talk that. It's just a Google Doc. Like, man, there's a lot of intelligence built into that that, you know, we want people to take. And then the second thing, Greg, could you tell us about the Sherpa tribe? Because I think there are people. Well, I know there are churches that are listening in that, you know, you talked about earlier. There was this, you know, hey, there's 1300 guests. Or, you know, sorry, Tommy was talking about the fact there's 1300 guests at this church and they should have had a lot more. That has been my experience with 100% of the churches that I've talked to around these issues. We are missing people. So how does the Sherpa tribe help with that? How does that actually help us find those guests, get them to stay, get them to serve and to start growing? What does that look like?

[C]

Well, alongside of looking at the guest journeys in these three ways that I earlier described, we find that each church, once they do the audit, has a different weakness. You know what I mean? Some of them are common. Right. But they're at their own place and shoring up and strengthening different aspects of that journey. And so what we did is we took our video course, which was one of our mainstays, and we started breaking it up and creating a ton more videos that breaking up around 10 minutes in length and then creating action points for each one and allowing people who become part of our Sherpa tribe, which you can go to some ways.com and click on Sherpa Tribe, find out more to go right where they need it and study the things in action points that they need, go deep in that and then weekly meet with Tommy or I with other people just like them from around the country and beyond that in these zoom sessions where there's no agenda but you and you bring your questions and what you're struggling through in this. And we have the most dynamic and fun conversations that create breakthroughs for teams through those zoom moments. Tommy, would you add anything to that?

[B]

No. I think the other piece of the puzzle that's so powerful is we've seen the best results from the folks who haven't just jumped in to go like, I got to shore up a thing and get some information and then get out and then, you know, milk it for all it's worth and just get in. What they're really. The. The churches who are getting the most out of it are the ones who say, this is the year where we fix this.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

This is the year where we look different at the end of it. This is the year that our staff gets it. There are no more people just sitting around in workflows or process queues. 29, 42, 83 days overdue. That is the biggest crisis that we could have now because we all get it. We're speaking the same language and we're serving each other and we're doing all these things to shore up all of these systems. Because it's not just one person, and most likely it's most people's second or third job on their actual plate. And so we're trying to skip them up to third base on all of these different kind of sections of their assimilation system. And we're trying to give them the people and the contextualization that's going to make it come to life for their entire team. But it's the churches that go, we're going to make it. This year is going to be the one where things change and they dive in and they go, I'm going to commit to this thing. Because they believe that it's a keystone. It's almost like a keystone habit. We fix this, everything else is going to make more sense in our church. And that's. Assimilation is a mindset and a sort of almost a belief system, not just a couple different environments in our church or a couple different process cues. And so those are the churches that are really crushing it inside the tr.

[A]

That's fantastic. And friends, again, we'll link to that. It's assimilas.com where you can, you know, connect more with Tommy, with Greg, with everything that they're, they're doing and, you know, super hearty endorsement from me. You guys do great work and I think it's super helpful for many churches. This is one of these areas that if we don't keep an eye on over time, we're just missing people. We're missing people taking steps closer to Jesus. Tommy, why don't I give you the last word here, Any kind of last encouragement as we wrap up today's episode that you'd like to share with listeners who are, you know, thinking about these issues. Obviously these people are, you know, better part of an hour in. What would you say to them as we wrap up today's call?

[B]

Yeah, I was at a church recently and they, I was working on mostly data with them. Okay. And they said, hey, do you want to talk to the staff for 20 minutes? And I said, okay, sure, random. I'm going to try and convince them that data matters. And okay. They should love their church management software at the end of this 20 minute talk. And by the end of it, they did actually, they believe me. But the whole idea was I led with. There's a whole bunch that got to it. But the crux at the end was every form response, every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle. God has moved heaven and earth since before time began to get them to put their name, email and phone number on that stupid planning center form. And it's a dang miracle. And if that's true, then every single person in a queue or a workflow or a form, you know, submission, whatever you call in your church management software, that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders. And every red light overdue, 23 days, not started. All of those are massive warning signals in our ministry. All because it's a miracle that anybody would say yes to anything. And how could we not do everything in our power to lean in, meet them there, and steward their next step and get them across the gap that they are not going to and may not be able to cross on their own. That's the opportunity ahead of us and it's just sacred. And I hope that we don't miss it.

[A]

That's great. Well, thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate you being on the show again. That's the similes.com, we'll link to all of that, but appreciate you being here today. We'll have to have you on again in the future because this is such an important area, but appreciate you being here today. Thank you.

[B]

Thanks Rich, thanks for tuning in to the Unseminary podcast. Drop by unseminary.com for more helpful resources for you and your team. There you will find articles, online courses, and so much more unseminary stuff you wish they taught in seminary Presented by CDF Capital. Visit them at CDF Capital Unseminary.