Transcript
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and welcome back to pastor flex podcast.
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So glad all of you are joining us as we talk faith, culture and everything in between.
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And joining me in studio is none other than machine gun nick.
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Welcome, machine gun nick hello folks, how you doing today and also uh former f-18 fighter pilot, eric creekmore welcome back.
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What's up?
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What's up play.
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Good to see you.
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Yeah, good to see you, man, this is so fun if you didn't know, eric is the up-and-coming executive director of the association hill country churches and that's right when we talk about that.
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What exactly does that mean?
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yeah.
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So over the years of our network here in austin, as we've added more churches, we've realized the need of better organization, like how do, as a group of individual churches, band together, work together to see more churches planted?
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And so as a network, as an organization, that organization needs leadership.
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And so we've figured out over the past couple of years like, okay, what does that need to be?
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Executive director, who's going to lead that charge, liaison with the board and the member churches, in order to say, okay, here's where we're going, here's what we're going after, here's what the ask is of the member church, here's what the network, the association, is going to do, and to marry those resources so that we can go further, faster together.
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The way I look at it is you're kind of like the new roger goodell.
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All right, yes, all right.
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So each church is like a, like a franchise team 100 and we make trades and stuff.
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But like you gotta have some sort like we have draft picks when yeah you know the, you know the the 2024 25 season's coming up, that's right and uh, we know we just did our draft day and we're picking up the new church planners and who's going to draft those guys?
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And there has to be some organization to that or it's just complete chaos.
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Right.
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So like, for example, two things that we do as a network one in the fall is a church planting conference one day here in Austin, and the second is our assessment in the spring, which we'll talk about here in a minute.
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And no member church can pull off a conference on church planting on their own, but the network can, does have the bandwidth to organize that, leverage the capacities of the member churches to contribute to that, and then we can do that together, to contribute to that, and then we can do that together.
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And so to your point, using the NFL analogy, you need that organization in place to bring all those resources together so that we can do so we can have a combine and a draft, we can have a 40 yard dash.
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We're going to get Nick out there and sprint.
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It's going to be fantastic.
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Does he have it?
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That is the question.
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Well, let's talk about that because not everybody is meant to be a church planter and one of the things that Keith Ferguson, who's a pastor at City View, Bible and I guess he's the current executive director and we're going to be shifting that because he's going to become like the chairman of the board to allow, because managing a church full-time and then managing the association full-time is impossible.
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But one of the things he said, dang it.
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We lost where I was going to go with that.
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Oh yeah, there's about a hundred things that you can do in ministry and church planning is just one of those things.
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And I think sometimes, and especially in an association that has a focus on church planning, we can think that the only thing especially if you're a type A person you're like I just want to do the hardest best thing.
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And it's not the hardest best thing, it's a thing Because all hundred things are valuable.
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Now it might be the sexiest thing.
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It's just like if you were going to go be an airborne ranger.
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Not everybody can be an airborne ranger and not everybody should be an airborne ranger.
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And there's a hundred other things you can do in the army, and not everyone's called to be an airborne ranger.
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But we need airborne rangers and sometimes they get a little bit more glory because they're at the tip of the spear putting lead down range, and so everyone's like that's what I want to be.
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But if you're, if you're not an airborne ranger, I mean if you're a guy that's, you know, getting beans and bullets to the front, they're just as necessary as the guy firing those beans and bullets that's very true because, uh, so I don't know if you're familiar with the term pogue yes, personnel other than grunt.
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well, they changed it around and they're like a protector of of grunts and I was like huh.
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That's an interesting take on it.
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Like you know everything but physical security.
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Basically that's what you know.
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The support personnel is like you know, if I didn't have somebody giving me bullets and fixing my boo-boos and making sure the admin stuff, the paperwork wasn't done right, I couldn't do paperwork in the Army Right.
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I could teach you how to shoot things, yeah.
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Right, that's right.
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And, like you know, other things that we probably shouldn't talk about here.
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But yeah, exactly, but all that other stuff that had to happen, right, those other ten people that, just so I could do my job.
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Right it.
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10 people.
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That just so I could do my job.
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It takes about 10 people to get one instrument.
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Yes, right, yes.
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And, and you know, and oh gosh, I I never, never, really did tell them my appreciation for them, Cause I really didn't appreciate it.
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I was just like, yeah, whatever, get me to the front, Let me do my thing Right, like, and you had the pleasure or unpleasure of knowing me back then.
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Thank you, the unpleasure.
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I love it.
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I love it All right.
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Okay, good, All right.
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So let's talk then about an assessment.
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Yeah.
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What did we do?
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Because we just did an assessment, and let's just talk about that in layman's terms for all of our people out there who have no idea what we're talking about when we talk about an assessment, but I kind of call it the combine.
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Would that be a good way to put?
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it.
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Yeah, it's a big, in-depth, thorough interview for the planter and their spouse if they're married, run by other planters and their spouses, to really do an A to Z on that couple to see if they have best, as you can tell on the front end what it takes to be successful planting a church.
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Because, like what you were saying a second ago about those hundred things that you can do in ministry, that church planting sliver arguably has the highest level of gifting needed, the biggest clarity of calling, the most individual and family alignment as to what we are stepping into.
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The number of boxes that you have to tick off in order to step into church planting in ministry is probably one of the longest lists.
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Ministry is probably one of the longest lists and so to do a good assessment interview it takes some thoroughness to really dive into that.
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Okay, so let's talk through.
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Really, there's three primary areas that you need to have, and within those three prime areas, there's like four subcategories, and so we I call them starting skills.
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Well, I call we call them starting skills, sustaining skills and self-awareness.
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Yeah, and so, uh, machine gun nick.
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This is one of the things I want you kind of think of as you're looking at this.
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You might look at what are the things you see in me, because it's like you're asking these assess these assessors to see through a lot of questions, through a lot of hours of interviews, to make an assessment over really a 36 hour period which probably is near impossible, but once, if you've been doing this a while, which you know you and I have, you can like.
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one sentence tells us a whole slew about somebody without you know what you're saying by not saying it is this.
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So let's just talk through starting skills for a second.
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Um, this probably is.
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I don't want to say all of these skills are essential, but you have to have some degree of all these skills.
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And so we talk about starting skills.
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We're talking about relationship building, the ability to emotionally connect with other people, and usually we're saying, in a quick, short period of time that can last over a long haul, okay, right, so let's just talk about let's just it's relationship building, personal evangelism, ability to contextualize and catalytic leadership.
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Let's just talk relationship building for a second.
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As we were looking at candidates this weekend, what were the things you were looking for in relationship building?
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Yeah, it's, it's the basics of can you build rapport with someone?
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Where it's like, man, I just met Nick.
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Seems like a great guy, love talking to him.
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It's like one of those things where you'd walk away from the interaction going man, I'd love to grab a beer with Nick and hang out again.
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Right Versus, like maybe, someone who you walk away with, like that dude just talked about himself for an hour or more of a non-person where you, you walk away.
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You're like, yeah, we talked about something, but they're kind of forgettable, they're an NPC.
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Yeah, they're an.
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NPC, A non-playable character.
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That's exactly right, and so you're just trying to see is this the kind of person that can build rapport, build relationship, build friendships easily and quickly?
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It's like man.
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I'd love to hang out with that guy.
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Okay, check, you probably can, in the church planning context, gather a diverse group of people in order to be the beginnings of a church.
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You kind of need the guy to be fun At some level.
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I don't want to follow the non-fun guy.
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So are you the life of the party?
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Not necessarily, but that's a plus.
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It's a plus if you are, but can you at least, at the party, hold your own and not be the wallflower in the corner going?
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Dear God, get this party over with.
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Hold your own and not be the wallflower in the corner going like dear God get this party over with yeah or the or the idiot who's doing idiot things where you're?
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like bro, you got to put a governor on that man you can't say that the fool yeah.
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Can't say that Right yeah.
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Knowing your audience Right.
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And when can you, you know, you know, be another difference between the two, right, right?
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So, um, that's the uh relationship building ability.
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All right, let's go to the next one Personal evangelism.
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Yeah, like, let's talk through this as far as personal evangelism, um, like, how, how, what were you looking for when you were looking for a personal evangelism stuff, as we get into the church planting endeavor.
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If you are not able to, or have the courage to, engage people, not just at a relationship, friendship level, but get to the gospel right, you are not fit to plant a church.
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Because and what we say in the, in the network, in our network here, is, if you're not reaching new people with the gospel, all you're really doing is shuffling Christians around the deck and not impacting culture, you're not really impacting lostness.
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And so, absent an evangelistic, not just, but conviction right, like I have to do this man, that is a non-starter if that's not there for a potential plan and that's kind of why we don't like single out or shoot for people that already go to a different church.
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Right, right, yeah, you don't exactly yeah, the kind of goal isn't that you just hey there's everybody at that other church.
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They're weak sauce church, let's get them to come to our church like you know, like that's, yeah, that's not the goal, that's the wrong answer it kind of creates like and that's why we can work together, like if church players all they were doing was like going like they'd show up at wells branch to take 50 people that show up another church, take 50 people.
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Well then, we just move people around as opposed to reaching people far from god.
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We can all come together to reach there's enough lost people to go around but when you start like you know, kind of go in the other direction.
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I'm just like let's just move membership around.
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That doesn't help anybody.
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So kind of like what I was.
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Like does this person demonstrate a deep passion for sharing the gospel with unreached people?
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So people that are in your neighborhood and there are, there's enough to go around.
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It's not like we live in like the.
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You know I live in the Christian cul-de-sac where everybody loves Jesus.
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You know you live in a place where people are probably far from God and your name.
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If you haven't talked to your neighbors and said, hey, I am a follower of Jesus, or threw up the flag at some point, invited them over, had dinner with them, then you're probably not going to be a great church planter.
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Right.
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That is just the route.
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Yeah, that's just facts.
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Or if you're not intentional at work with non-believers, right, if you're not intentional now with non-believers, then you're probably not going to be a good church planter.
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Yeah, now with non-believers, then you're probably not going to be a good church planter.
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If you kind of turn off people because you have a caustic personality, you're probably not going to be a good church planter.
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We're just over the top with it, like the caricature Bible thumper kind of individual who, like there is a genuine care that you have to have, like I'm not just, I'm not just getting into a conversation with nick because my sole purpose is to get him into romans and make sure that he knows that he's going to hell or not, but it's like no, actually like nick's a good dude, god loves nick, and how do I get him the only message that is going to reconcile him to that?
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God, that's my heart, I care about you as a person 100%, and because I care about you as a person, I'm going to tell you the most important thing I need to tell you.
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I'll probably just cut you guys off from saying it.
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Not just do I care about you as a person, god cares about you as a person, 100% Like God, cares about you, as a person, 100% like your father in heaven, is here to give you love that you've never even experienced before.
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And I mean, I have to remember that, that realization, when you were telling it to me, and the way I felt, and that's what you know we're talking about, like when you when I, when I, when I like, first met you and first started coming, yeah, yeah and just all the things with that.
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Right.
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Like oh, this is serious.
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Yeah yeah, oh, this is real.
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This isn't just, we're not just putting on a phony face to be like to do recruitment.
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No, this is like there's a God above, there's a Father above that loves me unconditionally and you know, especially when you haven't felt that ever.
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It's like whoa, yeah, that's right, it's powerful.
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And so the other thing we're looking for is do you, do you know how to share the gospel, right?
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And I think one of the things that over all the assessments I've done, usually I go, hey, we share the gospel with me and I'm not just talking about this specific assessment, but in general for the last 10 years or so, I go, sure, how would you?
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Hey, I'm like I I'm like I'm a sinner.
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What must I do to be saved?
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What happens with a lot of guys who want to be church players?
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They get stuck there, right, and that can't be a place where you get stuck.
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That's like the softball.
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Right, and it should be one thing that you could, should be able to do.
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Right, it's go circles if it's the three circles whatever the thing is you got to know it by heart and then train people to do it as well because, when you don't, you, whatever you, whoever you are and whatever you do, it's what's going to be replicated.
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So if you don't know, well, then your people won't know, and the best hope you have is church transfer.
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And we're not interested in church transfer.
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Nope, okay, um, yeah, I think that that, to me, was one of those things that I was sort of surprised by it.
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Not just when I've gone through the hiring process of pastors, I come across that question all the time and it's like if all the gospel was was a seminary class for you, then you're probably not going to be a fit in one of the Association of Hill Country Churches.
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No then you're probably not going to be a fit in one of the association hill country churches.
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No, in fact, we weed out in the pre-assessment process, I think, more guys on the question.
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Hey, just tell me the last time you shared the gospel and how it went.
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Yeah, and how recent that story is right, and if there is more than one right, right so and and it's hard sometimes like I, I feel like.
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So, if you were to ask me that, the last person I shared the gospel with last week a guy that came to our group because sam tyfkey tag teamed he said, hey, I'm sending.
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I met this guy at the gym, I'm sending him to your house.
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The guy came, which was wild nice, uh, did you meet drew?
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yeah, yeah, so drew shows up I'm like, hey, drew, what's your story?
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He's like I don't know, I guess I'm looking for god.
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And then I'm just like, bam, easy, you're here.
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Yeah, romans 3, 3, 23 for all have sinned fallen shortly go away.
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God, what does that mean to you?
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And he's like uh we're all sinners good for the wages of his death.
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What's that mean to you?
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And he's like you die when you sin right and the opposite, or the opposite or the other part of that verse is but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
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What's that mean?
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You go to heaven.
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Yeah, you just kind of walk it through with him, and so we did Romans 5a, Romans 10, 9.
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And then I was like is there anything preventing you right now from accepting Christ as your Savior?
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And he's like no, I guess not.
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And so we prayed, you know, prayed the prayer of salvation.
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Now that's like step one of like a gazillion for him of, you know, taking the next steps to kind of really own his own faith, but, like, at some point he's got to receive it.
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And so that's one of the things that I always challenge church players If you're not, if you don't have a, if that's not on the edge of your lips at all times, when someone says I'm here to grow spiritually, right and you go hey, is you ever accepted christ?
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No, would you like to learn about that?
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Yes, right, bam.
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I mean that that's like softball type stuff that guys need as a church planner, right, because when you tell that story of how you got to lead somebody christ, they're like that's all you did, yeah it was that easy and so.
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But yeah, I think having a plan for that is but yeah like it really is that easy, because I remember when you brought me to that prayer, yeah, like I was on the phone, I was, you know, inspecting drywall and paint on a house, right Working, and like it's it was like six o'clock on a Thursday or something like that, or Friday, and you're like are you ready?
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And I was like, yes, I am, and I'll never forget that moment like ever, and it you know it was life-changing, yeah, it's and and so that's, it has to start somewhere, otherwise what happens is people kind of they think they're a christian but they're not sure right and they don't know.
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And then what happens?
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Like over time they don't act like a christian and there's never a point where you're like, well, you, you said that you wanted to fall, you prayed for Jesus to be in your life, and if you don't have that, to kind of start people off with as far as it's hard to hold them accountable to do the next step, yeah.
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So that's good.
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Um, okay, so let Personal evangelism obviously huge.
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How about the ability to contextualize?
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Talk to me about what that is.
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When I say the word contextualize is that.
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I'm at a loss, okay, good, very much so I hate to admit that.
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Explain what contextualization means.
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Yeah, so we all know that in any city there are different pockets where people are different, right?
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So you may have like an artsy district, or you may have like the downtown business district with the high rises, you may have the cool hipster section of the city and then you have the suburbs with the you know, 2.5 kids and the lawn, and then you have, outside of that, more rural areas where each of those contexts have different people who think differently, who use different language, who have different sets of values.
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And there is a necessity on the part of the church planter to take this same gospel message and contextualize it to that particular person in that particular geography.
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Because the same way, like I don't talk to a drywaller, the same way I talk to a surgeon, right, I use different phrasing, I bring up different examples and illustrations.
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It's that kind of thing as it pertains to like okay, I'm here in an area where it's young singles that are all trying to climb the corporate ladder.
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Okay, well, how does the gospel show up here?
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What kind of church would appeal to them?
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And to be able to think through and be nimble with what you do for the person you're trying to reach versus the person who's less able to contextualize, who's like I know one method and I do the one method and this is the only method.
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I use Right.
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So like you know, especially here, like Wells branch is a super diverse sort of place.
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And so to be here in Wells branch, the thing you have to contextualize is you've got the urban, poor sort of living in subsized housing, in the apartments next door, and then you've got the suburban world right across the street, uh, which is, you know, young families, starter homes, excited about, you know, starting a family, and you've got both of those.
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And to be able to talk to both those types of people at the same time is really hard to do.
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And so to be able to talk to it's like it's like talking to an e2 who's been the army for three years, uh, and then also talking to a tenant colonel.
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You've got to be able to kind of talk to both at the same time and sort of help them understand how the gospel penetrates their life and it's important.
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So for some person you might be talking to their stock portfolio and the next guy you're going to talk about the best ways to work the system to get some size housing.
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You've got to be able to kind of like go down both roads to kind of help people wrap their head around, that you can trust me and I want to.
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I want what's best for you and here's how jesus is going to meet the, the, the needs that you have in your life, and in fact you were designed for him, not him for you.
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So like that's a huge shift in someone's mindset.
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But you have to start where, like I become all things to all people, so I might win some, and that's that's kind of the.
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That's where that comes from.
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Yep, well, and that's right now where I'm at.
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That's really hard for me to to embrace, because I'm really good with say you know, you're gritty cowboys, soldiers, probably motorcycle riders, like those kinds of people, yeah.
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But then you go over here to the group at the coffee house in the hipsters and man purses, yeah, in the man purses.
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We won't get into that yet.
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But yeah, and then I'm at a loss.
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Right now I'm just like, well ah.
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So probably for you what I would say is like hey, you need to plant a cowboy church, and that would probably be the that's a great idea, but I think there's so much more that I could.
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I think there's a little growth that needs to happen.
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Sure, and a cowboy church, I would love it.
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I love those guys.
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They come to church.
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They got their guns on the outside, not concealed 100% bro.
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They take their hats off when we pray and then they put them back on.
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That's and pray and then they put them back on Because we wear hats.
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I love it, I do, and that might be a thing, but also I kind of feel like the temple Killeen area is where.
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I'm feeling called right now.
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It's to go back to my roots, the army.
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And you know those guys and ladies and they need Jesus.
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Nick.
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They do, they really do, and that's where I was going with that is they need God, and who else can talk to them but somebody who's walked that walk?
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Right, that's exactly right.
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You're not going to get.
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I've even come to find out that there's like a whole group of rough men out there.
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Oh yeah.
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That.
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Just want a pasture.
