Transcript
Dan Hurst:
Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving, by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey.
Welcome back to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock.
Mark Clifton:
Hey, hey. That sounds really exciting. Where did that come from? I don’t know. We’ve been here all day yesterday and today and I’m trying to … Ramp me up here. I need to get some enthusiasm going. Let’s try that again.
Dan Hurst:
I’m Dan Hurst. There’s Kyle Bueermann over there. What we need to come up with is an R&R, Revitalize and Replant Energy Drink.
Mark Hallock:
That would be good. I’m down. I’m down.
Dan Hurst:
Okay. Let’s look at this. We’ve kind of discussed this amongst ourselves. Somebody comes to your church, you have a new member in your church, or you have a new Christian in your church. Let’s use it from the standpoint of a new Christian. And that new Christian wants something to do, right? And I have heard them many times say, “What do I do? There’s something I’m supposed to do. I mean, if you join a club, you’re supposed to do something. If you get a new job, you’re supposed to do something. And when you become a Christian, you feel like you’re supposed to do something, or you join a church. How can I get involved? What do I do in my church?”
But if you’ve had members who’ve been there for a long, long time, they’re not always concerned about doing things because they’ve been doing things, but maybe it’s time for them to do something else, something different.
So we thought, how do we bring this all together? How do we bring unity between legacy members, as one of you called it, and newer members? What are some of the ways we can do that?
Mark Clifton:
And back in the day, Thom Rainer used to talk about the berry bucket principle, where you have these two buckets on a scale. And when you first go to a church, the berry bucket is full of established members, and the bucket with new members is basically empty. So, the weight is all on the established members. But as the church grows and more people become new members, then the weight shifts. And before too long, the weight is all on the new members, and the old members find themselves in a place they’ve never been before. They no longer have any control. If things come to a vote, they can’t win the vote. And their voice is not nearly … They’re used to years and years, their voice being the voice, and now they’re not the voice, and that can cause incredible tension.
And so yeah, how do you balance those berry buckets, put them all into one?
That’s what you want to do. You don’t want to have back-and-forth seesaw of “Who’s in control?” And we’ve all been in churches where it’s the old guard and the new guard and “Who’s in control?” And there’s no way that ends up well.
So, how do we put these two things together, Mr. Hallock?
Mark Hallock:
Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s good. Well, I mean, there’s two key areas that we got to talk about. One is that unity of them spiritually, right? How do we do that spiritually? How do we do it relationally? So, worship. And this is one of the things Clifton and I love to talk about, and you, too, Hurst. It’s worship. And worship congregationally—congregational, intergenerational worship. One of the cool things that I want to let you share is the interim that you’ve been doing, it’s been inspiring to me to see at Istrouma, the intergenerational worship between those who have probably been there for decades and newer people and younger people who are coming in.
Mark Clifton:
Yeah, so the first Sunday I was there as their transitional teaching pastor, they have these risers on the stage, and all of a sudden all these people came up, and many of them just came up from the congregation. I mean, they didn’t come from a back door or something. I just know all these people come back, and they all stand on these risers, and I immediately realized there’s some seven year olds and nine year olds, 20 year olds, 75 year olds.
This whole mixture of people.
Mark Hallock:
I love that. I love it.
Mark Clifton:
And it’s a choir, and it’s multi-generational.
And they lead us in singing along with a team of other musicians, but you got this visual of every generation up there singing, and it’s just so cool, and the kids are singing. The other day, one of them looked like he’s about four years old, and he got up there, and he sang one song, and then that was enough for him. So, he comes down, and he comes down, he sits by his dad. And afterward, he came up to me, and I said, “I saw you up there.” He said, “I saw you, too.” I mean, he participated in worship, and this is a big church, okay? I think that’s important. The other thing I want to make abundantly clear is Joe Crider at Southwestern Seminary, the head of the music school there, has said so wonderfully to us that what unifies the church in worship—now, listen to me at this point.
This is maybe one of the most important things you’ll ever hear on this podcast. What unifies the church in worship? We have to be unified. That’s how we get these groups to come together. Isn’t music. Music style is always divisive.
Whatever music they have at the halftime of the Super Bowl, half the country likes it, and half the country doesn’t.
Mark Hallock:
That’s so true.
Mark Clifton:
I mean, if you had country music, a lot of people would be, “Oh, that’s terrible.” If you have weird music, “Oh, that’s great.” I mean, people have such a diverse … If there’s four of us in this room, if each of us took out our iPhone and showed our playlist, they would not be identical. And we’re pretty much identical. We’re all Southern Baptist pastors work for NAMB, but our iPhones have different kinds of music. Totally. But what does unify us isn’t music style; it’s the Scripture.
And so what unifies us in worship is the Scripture, and if the song sings Scripture that, but we have to understand, we come together all based on the Scripture. That’s what unifies us.
If you try to unify the congregation based on music styles, you’re always going to be. Some people are going to like it. Some are not. We’re going to mix it up. We’re going to have some old songs, some new songs. Forget that. Do the best you can with music, but start by understanding we come together in worship, Scripture’s what unifies us. Amen. So, we sing it in response to Scripture.
Mark Hallock:
Yes.
Mark Clifton:
Okay. I’m getting a way off topic here, but it’s my podcast. So it’s nothing.
Mark Hallock:
Come on.
Mark Clifton:
It’s nothing anymore in a Southern Baptist church. I don’t know where this came from. Have some announcements, have some greeting, and then you have 20, 25 minutes of three or four songs in a row with people standing. No Scripture being read, no prayer being said. Happens all the time. All the time. And frankly, the worship team likes it. They get to sing four or five songs in a row, and they like the songs. It happens all the time.
I was on a plane yesterday and I thought, “You know what? There’s this beautiful Missouri-Synod Lutheran church near me.” Gorgeous building, brand-new, big, and I’d heard some good things about it. So while I was sitting there on the tarmac, I went to their website, and I looked at their worship service. Now, I’m not suggesting we want to become Missouri-Synod Lutherans. Don’t get me wrong.
Mark Hallock:
But we love those Missouri. But you’re listening. We love you.
Mark Clifton:
But I’m telling you, there was a corporate reading of Scripture. There was a song, and then there was a corporate prayer, and then there was another reading of Scripture. It’s like Scripture united them, not the songs. You do 30 minutes of songs. Half the congregation’s not going to … I want you to sing, but I want you to sing in response to Scripture. I mean, you really need to read a Scripture and say, “We’re so grateful for this Word, and now let’s sing in response to what we’ve heard.”
Mark Hallock:
Amen. That’s good.
Mark Clifton:
I don’t know why we don’t do that.
Mark Hallock:
No, that’s good.
Dan Hurst:
Well, we don’t do that because we have to have time for the announcements.
Mark Clifton:
Well, I know, and we don’t do that because I don’t know why we don’t. I don’t know why we can go to a church, and nobody reads Scripture until the sermon starts.
Mark Hallock:
Well, dude, what’s crazy is even when you grew up, and I would even say when I grew up, it wasn’t that way. There was Scripture in it.
Mark Clifton:
No, there was Scripture read in there. There were choral responses, or we would sing the doxology, or there was a liturgy, and there is a liturgy now. It’s called “30 Minutes of Uninterrupted Singing Followed By a Sermon.” Again, that 30 minutes of uninterrupted singing, some of those songs people like, some of them they’re not too familiar with, some of them resonate, some of them don’t, but Scripture unites us.
Mark Hallock:
Yeah, that’s good.
Mark Clifton:
You don’t sing in response to a worship team. You don’t sing in response to some guy who comes out and says,” Hey, how are y’all feeling today? We’ll all sing.” No, that’s why the first thing that happens in worship needs to be the reading of God’s Word. And you can do some announcements and say, “Now we’re going to worship.” And God’s Word calls us to worship. Not some person who stands there and says, “Hey, I’m glad you’re all here today. Isn’t the weather great? Let’s all stand and let’s sing.” No, we respond to God’s Word. God’s Word unifies us. I’m not on some kind of a high-horse or a soapbox about this. Joe Crider, who is the head of the music at Southwestern Seminary has made it abundantly clear, as important as music is, it’s the Scripture that unites us.
Mark Hallock:
Yeah, that’s good.
Mark Clifton:
And we sing in response to the Scripture.
Mark Hallock:
That’s right. That’s right.
Mark Clifton:
And so, if you got some diversity in your church, new people and old people. Come make Scripture the center of your service, not the songs you sing.
Mark Hallock:
Okay. So we’re talking about how to unify legacy and newer members. And there’s really two points that we’re saying. The first is unify them spiritually. And the second thing I want to say under that point. So, worship, but the second thing is discipleship. Okay.
One of the strengths that we’ve seen in the history of this church is what we call “intergenerational discipleship groups.”
Dan Hurst:
I love what you guys are doing.
Mark Hallock:
And we’ve talked about this before, but the power of having
A guy in their 60s and a young man in his 20s and a teenager who’s 13 trying to figure out life coming together to learn from each other to get into the Word of God together is a powerful thing. And it’s one of the ways when I look back at this church and what brought us together relationally is for spiritually we were unified and growing together like that. Too many of our churches are so divided, and we’re okay with that, right? So the seniors only hang out with the seniors, the teenagers only hang out with the teenagers, and we’re these silos. We’ve got to fight against that tooth and nail, I believe. And I think if you want to see a unity, especially in replant and revitalization with the whole congregation, you have to help these guys connect spiritually, both through worship and discipleship. Okay? This leads to the second main point, which is this.
We’ve got to unify them relationally. So, we unify them spiritually, but we have to unify them relationally. And there’s two primary ways that I would offer that we do this. One is through fellowship, through being together, through being friends, through just hanging out, and the other is through serving together. The power of serving together is incredible. I’ll just offer this one illustration. For many years, we used to clean, as a church, the school across the street. This was a school, they had two janitors for the whole stinking school. We’re in a lower-income area, and we thought, “How cool would it be if we just gave them the night off?” Give them a date night, and we’ll clean the school. And some of the sweetest memories of walking down hallways just trying to encourage everybody. And you see, I remember my son scrubbing a wall with Dave Elliot, who was the patriarch of the church, and they’re listening to Toby Mac on the radio through the hallways, and they’re cleaning this school together.
And my son was like seven, and Dave Elliot’s 70, you know what I mean? And they’re serving together in the Lord. I believe that’s huge because you’ve got to get them out of the church and focused on the mission together and serving the Lord together.
Mark Clifton:
And that brings me really a story along that line. Growing up, the only time my sisters and my mom and dad and I initially saw each other on Sunday morning was in the car on the way to church and in the car on the way home. Because when you get to church, we all went to our separate places. And then even we came and sat in the worship service. I sat with my friends, my sister sat with her friends, my mom sat by herself. I mean, we got in the car, we were back home again. And I hung out only with the youth. We all sat in the same place. We just hung out with you. And then we started, this is way back in the ’70s, we started a bus ministry
And I wanted to be part of it. So, I go up on Saturday morning, and here’s a group of men. They like buses, they like mechanics, they like driving buses, they like fixing them, but they also, they like Jesus,, and they love Jesus and they want to do … And it’s something they can do. So for like seven or eight years of my most formative teen years, every Saturday morning I was with five or six wonderful godly laymen, Larry Lyde, Jerry Sutti, Gerald Roth, Cliff Lynch. I mean, I know these men well because every Saturday morning as a 14 year old, 15 year old, 16 year old, 17, I was with these guys, and we would go out every Saturday morning, and we’d go knock on every door on our bus route. Then, we’d go knock on doors to try to get new kids. Then Sunday morning, I’d be there, and I’d be with those guys on Sunday morning doing the same thing.
And then Sunday afternoon taking the kids home. One of the most amazing things about that bus ministry was the way I connected to older men, of mature men, as a 14 year old serving together. It is one of the most rich experiences. I knew those names just like that right now. I can see those things. They were so important to me and so meaningful to me, and I think where do we get the opportunity anymore for a 14 year old and a 45 year old to serve together in some kind of ministry setting? And it’s really important to do that.
Dan Hurst:
I’d like to offer one more, one more reason that brings us together, one more thing that unifies us together, and that is crisis. Oh, that’s true. When we serve together, that brings us together. Fellowship, yeah sort of. But I’ve found also throughout the years in my ministries that when we’re going through a crisis that brings us together, and out of that comes an up, it’s kind of like serving together because you have to come together and serve each other in a crisis. And I think about the COVID, the COVID time, that COVID issue, that when we were separated, but it was a crisis, and it really, some of the sweetest times of our studies time together, we’re all online because we couldn’t be together, and it became, and they still talk about it. They still talk about … And there are a couple of times when we can’t meet because of the weather, for example, and somebody will say, “Hey, why didn’t we just bring one of those times, one of those studies back and do it online again?” I think crisis, sometimes we’re afraid of it, but maybe it’s time to embrace it and recognize that God knows the circumstances, and maybe He’s using the storm, the tempest, to get us all back in the boat together.
Mark Hallock:
CanI say one along those lines, as you’re just talking, I’m thinking about crisis. I’m also thinking about suffering. I think about when an older person, for instance, in our church is, say, in hospice, I just think of several examples and bringing our kids to go see them and to pray for them and encourage … I mean, what’s going on there? Where does that happen in our culture where those things shape them? I think about my son’s Sunday school teacher who he loved and who died of cancer, but in those moments of pain and suffering, and bringing a child into that environment where he can pray for his Sunday school teacher, and Sunday school teacher can encourage him, and I mean, that is powerful stuff, you know what I mean? But it’s in the face of crisis and pain and suffering that the Lord brings us not only together, but there’s a depth there of relationship.
Dan Hurst:
And it doesn’t even have to be a crisis for the whole church. There are lots of smaller crises, not smaller, but crisis that just affects smaller groups of people, but man, does it bring them together?
Mark Hallock:
It does. That’s right. That’s right.
Mark Clifton:
All right, man. That’s all good stuff.
Dan Hurst:
Okay. Well, this is a shorter podcast than we normally have.
Mark Clifton:
Is it really? Well, let’s keep going.
Dan Hurst:
Oh.
Mark Clifton:
What do you want to talk about? Huh? Want to talk about something?
Dan Hurst:
Do you want to talk about watches by any chance?
Mark Clifton:
No, I’m not going to talk about watches. I do like watches. Maybe, if you like watches and you’re a pastor, we should start a pastor’s watch group.
Dan Hurst:
You guys, you guys need to hear this. Before this podcast, we got a lecture on the history of watches.
Mark Clifton:
That’s true.
Dan Hurst:
It was a whole lecture about all of the different, what did you call it ADs?
Mark Clifton:
Authorized dealers. Oh, okay. Watch authorized dealers. Dealers who are authorized to carry certain brands. And one of the reasons I like to come here to Denver is there are more authorized dealerships here than in Kansas City. For some reason, Denver is a real hot new-
Mark Hallock:
Who knew? Who knew?
Mark Clifton:
For wrist watches. That’s right. And so I love vintage wristwatches and new wristwatches and all kinds of wristwatches. They tell the time, they’re analog, they’re touch—. You go back to an analog time, so it gives you … And this watch I’m wearing right now came from Germany.
Dan Hurst:
Click. Click. Click. That’s the sound of people clicking the computers off, turning the podcast off.
Mark Clifton:
Alright, we’re done. We’re done. Bye.
Dan Hurst:
Hey, thanks so much for joining us today.
And I hope you’ve learned a lot today about church ministry and watches, and you’ll join us again. Every Tuesday and Thursday, by the way.
Thanks to the North American Mission Board for letting us do this. We really do value this. I mean, my wife calls us “the Pod Squad” because we get together, and we love the Lord, and we laugh at each other and believe, mostly it’s laughing at Clifton, but we laugh at each other a lot, and we enjoy doing these, and we hope that you get a blessing out of them. See you next time.
Thanks for joining us today on Revitalize and Replant. This podcast is brought to you by the North American Mission Board, where we help dying or struggling churches regain health for the glory of God and the good of their communities. If you found this conversation helpful, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform.
To learn more about becoming a replanting pastor or to explore resources about revitalization for your own church, visit churchreplanters.com.
