Transcript
Dan Hurst (00:03):
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.
Mark Clifton (00:20):
This is Revitalize and Replant, and I am Mark Clifton. And on these very special episodes, I’m the host and Dan Hurst is the one we’re interviewing. We kind of switch the script, flip the script here so that I’m doing the interview and Dan’s doing the answers. Hey, we are in Independence, Missouri. My hometown, I grew up here and Dan has just become the pastor of the first Baptist Church of Independence. If you haven’t heard about that, go back and listen to previous episode. The church in 1985 averaged about 2,100 in attendance, was on television, had just built a brand new, beautiful building. And when Dan shows up seven weeks ago, they are averaging about 70 in worship and going through many of the challenges that many First Baptist downtown churches have gone through in the last decades. And so Dan is now the pastor here as this church undergoes a revitalization, replanting, and we’re going to get to experience this in real time with Dan.
(01:20):
But Dan, before I came here, I was late today to the podcast. I was 20, 30 minutes late because I was actually at the drive-in. There’s a drive-in restaurant that’s been around since I was a kid and it’s called Mugs Up.
Dan Hurst (01:33):
Oh, were you there?
Mark Clifton (01:34):
When I texted you and said-
Dan Hurst (01:36):
Home of the $6 burger. What is that?
Mark Clifton (01:41):
They still have car hops, right?
Dan Hurst (01:42):
Yeah,
(01:42):
They do.
Mark Clifton (01:42):
So she came out and I texted Dan. I said, “I’m going to be late.” That’s all I said. I’m running late.
Dan Hurst (01:47):
You
(01:47):
Didn’t explain it all. I’m running late. No, I know. I was
Mark Clifton (01:49):
Sitting at the … If I’m driving all the way over to Independence, I live in Baser, Kansas, so it’s about an hour to get over here. I’m going to drive all the way over here. I’m going to Mugs uUp.
Dan Hurst (02:00):
Did you get the cheese wiz burger?
Mark Clifton (02:01):
Yeah, I got the cheese whizburger. It’s great. I got two of them. I did. It’s a little crumbly burger is what it is. It’s got all that crumbly meat and then they actually put cheese whiz on it. And onions, oh man. It was like manna from heaven. It was like being in high school all over again. If you’re ever in Independence, now it’s not open during the winter. It’s only open in the summer in the winter. But you go to Mugs Up, it looks just like it always looked. They have root beer, obviously. That’s the name, but they also have the cheese wiz burger and you can get it. But you know what? I have lost weight. I have lost 48 pounds.
Dan Hurst (02:40):
Good for you, man.
Mark Clifton (02:41):
I am. But I was at Mugs Up.
Dan Hurst (02:44):
Not today you didn’t.
Mark Clifton (02:45):
I didn’t. So today I got two Cheese Whizburgers. I got fries and I got a large diet Pepsi because you got to …
Dan Hurst (02:54):
You got to come back where you can.
Mark Clifton (02:55):
It
(02:55):
Was 14 bucks.
Dan Hurst (02:57):
I know, right?
Mark Clifton (02:58):
She says 14 bucks. I think what? It’s a cheese wiz burger and fries. It’s a new world.
Dan Hurst (03:04):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (03:05):
So here we are. Anyhow.
Dan Hurst (03:08):
Well, they have
(03:08):
To charge that much because they’ve only got 12 stalls.
Mark Clifton (03:11):
That’s true. That’s true. And they’re only open 14 weeks a year. Okay. So here we are at Independence, Missouri sitting in this wonderful … Used to be a television studio of First Baptist Independence. You’ve been here seven weeks and you’ve learned seven things-
Dan Hurst (03:26):
Seven things.
Mark Clifton (03:26):
… in replanting, beginning, beginning.
Dan Hurst (03:28):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (03:29):
So guys, listen up. This is a guy who’s doing it on site right now. What have you learned in your first seven weeks?
Dan Hurst (03:36):
I started writing these down on day one. I said, “I’m going to keep kind of a journal of what I’m discovering and how I’m learning this and what I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right.” And so each one of these things that we’re talking about, these are things that I’ve learned or discovered or became clear to me in this kind of a setting. And the first one, the very first week, and it comes back to the book that you wrote, Mark, on Reclaiming Glory, you made a statement in that book that captured me. I mean, it just captured me and I may be kind of paraphrasing this, but you basically said that a dying or a declining church suffers from two specific things. Number one, they stopped loving what they used to love and they stopped doing what they used to do.
Mark Clifton (04:20):
It’s
(04:20):
Absolutely true.
Dan Hurst (04:21):
And so in that first week, I went back and started looking. I know what they used to love. I mean, we’re taught that in the Word, but how did they love them? How did they love them in the past? And secondly, what did they used to do that they’re not doing anymore that actually had kingdom value? That’s what I really wanted to find out. And it was interesting to go back and make a list of some of those things that I knew that they used to do and to hear them talk about that. And we’re setting up, we’re calling it Second Saturday Fellowships where every second Saturday we come together and we just spend an hour or two-
Mark Clifton (04:58):
Where do you go?
Dan Hurst (05:00):
They have a room upstairs and this building is so huge and they have this very large room upstairs called a fireside room and actually has a fireplace in it.
Mark Clifton (05:09):
Wow.
Dan Hurst (05:09):
Kind of like the church that you and I were built had a fireplace.
Mark Clifton (05:11):
Yeah, they don’t know that, but you and I planted a church and we built a fireplace.
Dan Hurst (05:15):
Had to have a fireplace, right?
Mark Clifton (05:16):
That’s another
(05:16):
Story.
Dan Hurst (05:17):
So this room has a fireplace in it. They do fireside, they call it the fireside room. And so we’re going to meet in there and it’s just going to be a time of fellowship, sweet fellowship and let them share their stories, their testimonies and the young people and the older people. I want to get them together.
Mark Clifton (05:32):
Now do you
(05:32):
Mean the daytime or evening?
Dan Hurst (05:34):
It’ll be in the evening, early on a Saturday.
Mark Clifton (05:36):
To every other Saturday evening.
Dan Hurst (05:38):
That’s great. And so it’s pretty interesting because when I told them that’s a wall, there’s another church meeting here. Well yeah, but not in that room. Okay. So we can go do that.
Mark Clifton (05:46):
Because they do share this building with three other churches, three other ethnic churches and that’s been great. Go ahead.
Dan Hurst (05:51):
All right. So that was the first week. That was that really understanding that principle of what did they used to do that they’re not doing anymore? What did they used to love that
(05:59):
They don’t know anymore?
Mark Clifton (06:00):
And guys, if you’re writing these down, in terms of that principle, that principle is biblical. It comes from Jesus. It comes from Revelation chapter one where Jesus tells the church at Ephesus, you need to remember how far you’ve fallen, repent and return to those things you did at first. And that’s where that came from. And so that’s all you’re asking this church to do is exactly what Jesus asked the church in Ephesus to do. Remember how far you fall. Remember what you used to do and then realize we can’t keep doing that, repent, but then return to what you did at first. What was it that made this church really impact its community?
Dan Hurst (06:38):
Right. And they did.
Mark Clifton (06:39):
And they did. So we got to go back to what we did at first. The problem with that is it’s not the same community it was then. So the same activities won’t work now because the community has changed.
Dan Hurst (06:49):
So it’s like we’re starting a new church.
Mark Clifton (06:51):
Exactly.
Dan Hurst (06:52):
And we already have the building.
Mark Clifton (06:54):
Exactly.
Dan Hurst (06:55):
So it’s like, this is kind of exciting.
Mark Clifton (06:57):
Go
(06:57):
Ahead.
Dan Hurst (06:58):
All right. The second week, what I began as I started talking to people and visiting with people and doing one-on-ones with people and going to lunch and just doing stuff like that I began to discover that hurting people are easier to love than hurtful people. But here’s the thing about all of that is that they both need a fresh infusion of God’s love and grace.
Mark Clifton (07:21):
And I would say one of the things I think in our wisdom, Dan, of our combined age of 150, and that’s not an exaggeration almost, one of the things we understand is that many times in a declining church, you can almost put people in two categories, almost hurting people and hurtful people.
(07:40):
And brothers, if you don’t know the difference, you’re in a world of hurt.
Dan Hurst (07:43):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (07:44):
So how did you determine the difference?
Dan Hurst (07:46):
I listened to their pain. I listened to what it was that hurt them half the time, in fact, more than half the time it was somebody else in the church that hurt them. Somebody said something, somebody did something, somebody treated them some way. And is it interesting that we’re the only, who was it that said that we’re the only army that shoots its own? Sure. And that was the case here. And we talked about this in the last podcast. The reason it happened was because the church was declining and they were losing and they knew it and they started pointing fingers.
Mark Clifton (08:23):
Yeah. It’s like
(08:23):
A losing … Dan was a stadium announcer at Royal Stadium for 25 years and some of those years were some of the worst years that the world had ever had.
Dan Hurst (08:32):
And I got blamed for it!
Mark Clifton (08:33):
And you got to blame for it because the way you announced it.
Dan Hurst (08:35):
Because of the announcer!
Mark Clifton (08:36):
But you understood that when the Royals were the worst team in baseball losing over a hundred games a year, the locker room was not a happy place.
Dan Hurst (08:43):
Horrible place to be.
Mark Clifton (08:44):
And people were always pointing fingers.
Dan Hurst (08:45):
And they blamed each other for it. That’s right.
Mark Clifton (08:47):
And that’s the same thing in a declining jury.
Dan Hurst (08:49):
Exactly what’s happening in a … And it was happening here. It’s happening here to a degree, but we’ve started dealing with that. The third week, what I began to discover was, and I began to teach this to the people, is that it’s not my job to change anything.
Mark Clifton (09:02):
Oh, man. And you know what? Young guys want to be the guy to change. We think we need to come in. I say young guys and old guys think that too sometimes. So I got to be careful about that. But I think the very nature of a young man is, “Man, we got to make some changes here. So I’m going to make some changes.”
Dan Hurst (09:19):
And we got to do it quickly.
Mark Clifton (09:20):
We got to do quickly. And I’m going to make the changes. And yes, you’re going to be the one the Lord’s going to use. There’s no doubt about it. I don’t deny that, but talk to them about how you phrased that.
Dan Hurst (09:36):
It was interesting because I knew that I wasn’t going to be … I couldn’t make the change. If there was going to be any changes made, they had to make the change themselves. They had to acquiesce to it and my job was not … And I told them this, “My job is not to make the changes. My job is to point to you with the changes that God is making.” And God is not telling them, “You got to paint the nursery this color.” He’s talking to them about their hearts and where they need to be and their relationship with Him. That’s the most important thing.
Mark Clifton (10:10):
Their relationship to the Lord has to change.
Dan Hurst (10:12):
That’s the critical part.
Mark Clifton (10:13):
You can’t do that.
Dan Hurst (10:14):
I can’t do that.
Mark Clifton (10:15):
You can pray, you can preach, you can lead, but they’re responsible for that and the Holy Spirit is the one that makes the change.
Dan Hurst (10:22):
Because they’re not going to change until they’re ready to follow God.
Mark Clifton (10:25):
Exactly.
Dan Hurst (10:26):
Even if they’re ready to follow me, they’re not going to change. No. You see? It’s not going to be a permanent, useful change unless they’re really following the Lord.
Mark Clifton (10:36):
Yeah.
(10:36):
I realize because of Henry was so important. And in fact, in my life, Henry Blackaby, we served at the Home Mission Board together when I was a very young man and he lived in the same cul-de-sac that I lived in there in metro Atlanta. And so Henry’s always been influential and his son Richard’s one of my closest friends. And really what you’re talking about here is helping people understand, as you say, God’s up to something. Well, as Henry always said, the Lord’s at work all around us. Our job isn’t to do His work. Our job is to discover what that work is and join Him in it.
Dan Hurst (11:06):
And get in on it.
Mark Clifton (11:07):
But an important part of experiencing God is it requires of me a crisis of faith, because now I’m going to have to … I can’t stay where I am and go where God wants me to be. This church can’t stay where it is and go where God wants it to be. So I have to make some changes and that’s a crisis of faith. Am I willing to make those changes? Am I willing to pay the price of those changes? And as a pastor, you and I we can’t guilt them into that change. We might guilt them into that change for a month or two, but they’re changing their behavior and they’re not changing their heart.
Dan Hurst (11:44):
One of the questions that I’ll ask people every once in a while, and I haven’t done it with all of them, but every once in a while, they’re key people that you use different languages, different terms with them. And I’ll ask them, I said, “Do you have a comfortable faith or a desperate faith?”
Mark Clifton (11:57):
What do you mean by that?
Dan Hurst (11:58):
That’s what I asked them. I asked them, “How do you interpret that? Do you have a comfortable faith or a desperate faith?” “Well, I’m pretty comfortable.
(12:05):
“Why? What makes your faith so comfortable?” “Well, you know…” Tell me about it. Because what“ I want them to have is a desperate faith. See, I want them to be so desperate that if God doesn’t do something, they’re going to drown. I want them to feel that way. And so as they begin to understand, and I define faith as trusting obedience to the known will of God. And so it’s not a faith of I hope God’s going to do this. It’s a faith of this is what I believe God is doing and I’ve got to get in on it. There you go. So it’s desperate to get in on what God’s doing or is it I’m just comfortable that things aren’t really going to change and I’m just going to stay the way I am.
Mark Clifton (12:43):
And frankly, when you have a church primarily as this one is not entirely, but primarily made up of older adults, change is just harder.
Dan Hurst (12:50):
Yes. And it’s a comfortable faith.
Mark Clifton (12:51):
We want a comfortable faith. There’s nothing else in our life comfortable anymore. Our knees aren’t comfortable. Our back isn’t comfortable. Our children and the grandchildren, that’s all sort of sometimes up in the air, our medical bills and financial, all that. Nothing’s comfortable anymore. But man, the church is a comfortable place and we want a comfortable faith and yet we’re not called to a comfortable faith. We’re called to take up our cross daily. We’re called to really live a life of following Him at all costs and that brings immense joy, but not necessarily the comfort that people are looking for.
Dan Hurst (13:28):
Fourth week, I learned something really interesting. I got to thinking about, my brother used to raise sheep and I spent a lot of time watching him and I was always fascinated by it because I always thought, why did Jesus compare us to sheep? I mean, he was the sheep that was sacrificed. I understand that principle, but what about us? And I began to realize we are a lot like sheep. And then I began to realize I am not really the shepherd.
Mark Clifton (13:57):
No.
Dan Hurst (13:57):
Jesus is the shepherd.
Mark Clifton (13:59):
You’re the undershepherd.
Dan Hurst (14:00):
But what am I then in this role? And I began to understand something in every … It depends on the size of the herd, but in every herd there’s at least one bully sheep.
Mark Clifton (14:12):
Is that what you are?
Dan Hurst (14:13):
No.
Mark Clifton (14:14):
Oh, okay.
Dan Hurst (14:14):
That better not be what I am. There’s one sheep that goes around butting all the other sheep and he’s just a bully sheep.
Mark Clifton (14:22):
I’ve seen some pastors that do that.
Dan Hurst (14:24):
Yes, you have. But as you talk to the shepherds of these herds, you’ll find out that they’re also lead sheep. Okay. Lead sheep are the sheep that the shepherd will key in on to help lead that flock. If he wants to take them to go get water, he works with the lead sheep to lead them there. If he wants to take them to go find new pastor, he works with the lead sheep because they’ll follow the lead sheep. They trust them. They know the lead sheep or is it going to steer them wrong, I guess. But here’s the key. Sheep will never follow a bully sheep.
Mark Clifton (14:58):
Wow.
Dan Hurst (14:58):
They never will. They will never follow … Now the bully sheep will fight the lead sheep every once in a while, but the sheep themselves will still follow the lead sheep. They will never follow the bull sheep.
Mark Clifton (15:10):
So your role is to be-
Dan Hurst (15:13):
Might be to lead sheep. That’s my job. I’m to be here. I’m to be a lead sheep because the shepherd is telling me where he wants to go, what he wants to do.
Mark Clifton (15:20):
I always say that we’re not the shepherd. Jesus is the shepherd. And whether you want to use … I like the term lead sheep. I think on that, I always use the term undershepherd. We go where the shepherd tells us to go.
Dan Hurst (15:31):
Yes.
Mark Clifton (15:32):
We don’t go where we want to go. And that gets us into trouble. The shepherds the one … He better lead us. Just like if you’re the lead sheep, the shepherd leads you
Dan Hurst (15:40):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (15:40):
And then the people follow you. Good word.
Dan Hurst (15:43):
But the bully sheep and you’re going to have them and if you have a large herd, you’re going to have more than one.
Mark Clifton (15:49):
How do you deal with them?
Dan Hurst (15:50):
And you know what? It’s interesting. You lead with them and here’s how the sheep do. They ignore them. Really? I know it’s so weird. Now you can’t ignore all of those things from a human standpoint, but what happens is the bully sheep may still be a bully, but he doesn’t have the influence over the herd as much as he thinks he does.
Mark Clifton (16:12):
Well, you’re bringing up some things that I’ve always said. I’ve often said one of the best things you can do with disgruntled angry church members is to marginalize them.
Dan Hurst (16:21):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (16:22):
Now it doesn’t mean we don’t do church discipline.
Dan Hurst (16:24):
And love them.
Mark Clifton (16:24):
But the reality is in most of your Southern Baptist churches, most of you guys listening to us, you can’t do church discipline,
(16:30):
Because you can only do church discipline to the degree that you have the full cooperation and the full agreement of the church to do it. And most churches just aren’t going to … They don’t want to kick people out. In some ways the cure is worse than the ailment. If you’re in a really strong biblical church with a high understanding of covenant membership, yes, you can conduct church discipline and that’s the way you should. But most of us are in dysfunctional churches and right now we can’t conduct church discipline in a biblical way. In other words, we have very few cards to play when you got bullies and the church just not going to vote them out, what are you going to do? I think at that point you find ways to marginalize,
Dan Hurst (17:11):
Absolutely.
Mark Clifton (17:11):
Which is what you’re talking about.
Dan Hurst (17:12):
And here’s the other thing,
Mark Clifton (17:14):
Excuse me. Instead of marginalized, if you fight them, you empower them.
Dan Hurst (17:18):
Yeah, you empower them. That’s exactly what they want. That’s what they want.
(17:20):
Yeah, that’s exactly what they … You become a bully.
Mark Clifton (17:23):
I see pastors getting drawn to these conflicts with these nutty people and they go, “Why are you wasting time and energy?” Just love this flock you’ve got and turn the other cheek. And I realize there are times we’re going to have to draw a line and say, “Well, that’s unbiblical. You can’t do that. ” But again, if you’re a pastor in a declining church that doesn’t have a good understanding of church discipline and doesn’t have a good understanding of a covenant membership, you have very few options with bullies. They’re not going to kick anybody out of the church
Dan Hurst (17:55):
No.
Mark Clifton (17:55):
And the bully knows that.
Dan Hurst (17:56):
And your role is you can’t ignore them.
Mark Clifton (17:58):
No.
Dan Hurst (17:59):
That’s the wrong thing to do, but you do have to connect with them and find out why they are bullies. And as I’ve done that here with bully sheep, what I’ve understood, some of them are just mean, but some of them are just-
Mark Clifton (18:14):
And maybe not regenerate.
Dan Hurst (18:15):
And maybe not regenerate. Others are just passionate. They want the church to be some way that they’ve already decided it should be. Now it may be wrong, but they’re passionate about it and so they’re holding-
Mark Clifton (18:28):
And that’s just a misguided passion.
Dan Hurst (18:29):
And they’re holding their position basically. Okay. And here’s the other thing about that whole principle though is that the sheep, even though the bully sheep are there, even though the bully sheep are causing problems, they will still follow the lead sheep to the new pasture and to the creek. So that’s a key principle.
Mark Clifton (18:45):
That’s a good word.
Dan Hurst (18:46):
The fifth thing, the fifth week-
Mark Clifton (18:48):
Again, I’m interrupting you.
Dan Hurst (18:49):
That’s all right.
Mark Clifton (18:49):
But maybe spend less time on the bully sheep and more time on the other sheep.
Dan Hurst (18:52):
You have to.
Mark Clifton (18:54):
Because otherwise, if you spend all your time on the bully sheep, you can’t do that.
Dan Hurst (18:57):
You’re not taking them anywhere. Exactly. You’re going to lead them anywhere. Good word. So the fifth week, this is what I learned. “They say”: put quotation marks around that.” They say” is not a quantitative statement. It’s an opinion with questionable substantiation.
Mark Clifton (19:16):
When someone comes to you and say, “People are saying-” I’ve heard it say it. They say we shouldn’t be doing this. Repeat that. How did you define that?
Dan Hurst (19:24):
“They say” is not a quantitative statement. It’s an opinion with questionable substantiation because “they” can be one person or it can be 20 people.
Mark Clifton (19:36):
You don’t know.
Dan Hurst (19:37):
See, you don’t know. So when “they sa,”y it’s like you take it as a quantitative statement or that it’s not a quantitative statement and just go on. Well, what is it that they’re saying? Let’s deal with that. Number six, the responsibility … Oh boy, this is so critical. The responsibility of redemptive work is greater than any personal agenda. Wow. You’ve got to smoke that one. I mean, you just have to dwell on that. The whole role of what you do as a pastor is redemptive. And if you’re not doing redemptive work, the responsibility of that redemptive work is falling by the wayside.
Mark Clifton (20:15):
And sometimes when guys confuse redemptive work, which is basically leading people to Jesus and leading people to renewal in Him, they confuse that with changing the worship structure, changing the church governance, changing the look of the sanctuary, changing the church’s name, all these changes that are not redemptive, right?
Dan Hurst (20:37):
They’re more structural.
Mark Clifton (20:39):
They’re more structural. I mean, and they may need to be done. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting they don’t need to be done, but that’s not your primary task. You can change all that structural thing like we talk about, but if the work of redemption is not taking place in the hearts of people and you’re not seeing people … Basically the bottom line is when lost people start coming to know Jesus, all that other stuff will change eventually anyway.
Dan Hurst (21:01):
It’s amazing how it does.
Mark Clifton (21:02):
It does.
(21:03):
That’s going to change.
(21:05):
Just do that work of redemption. That’s a great word. It truly is.
Dan Hurst (21:09):
I know. I remember going up to one of the bullies and said, “Isn’t it exciting that this young lady got saved last week?” And you celebrate that and even a bully better celebrate or they realize they’re really being a bully.
Mark Clifton (21:24):
Yeah. I don’t want to take too much time here, but a few years ago we had a dying church very much like this one, down to about 60 people that had been very large and a church plant that was going to adopt this dying church and the church plant was about 150 people and there was tremendous resistance. There was a tremendous number of bully sheep in the dying church. No, we’re not going to give over this building to a bunch of young people who have a band and want to bring coffee in the sanctuary and don’t want to have Sunday school and all the reasons we’re not going to do it. And to me, it looked like it was a fate of complaint. This was not going to happen. I was working with both groups trying to bring them together and man, that older group wasn’t going to … But the younger group did something.
(22:07):
They said, “Well, let’s have a fellowship dinner after church one Sunday.” So after church one Sunday morning, the younger group all came over to the building. We had a potluck dinner and the younger group showed a video of baptisms, I don’t know, eight, seven baptisms that had taken place in the last couple of weeks. And the older people sat there and watched the baptisms, but then something happened. The people who had been baptized in that video, they got up and they spoke and they talked about how this church plant changed my life and brought me to Jesus. And you saw these older people begin to weep and it was an instant change. I haven’t seen an instant change like that ever. It’s like, look, maybe we don’t want coffee in the sanctuary, maybe we don’t want to change the music, maybe we don’t want to, but that’s what we do want.
(22:56):
We want to see lives changed. And it was like the gospel warmed their heart again and that’s what you’re talking about,
Dan Hurst (23:03):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (23:03):
Focus on redemption, redemptive stories. That’ll change them far more than any of your creative strategy, your guilt or anything else. Get people to love Jesus, get people saved, get them baptized. And I think if people are truly regenerate, that’s going to warm their hearts to change.
Dan Hurst (23:18):
Absolutely. Which brings me to the final point that I wanted to make. And that is never confuse vision with mission.
Mark Clifton (23:25):
Okay. Tell me about that.
Dan Hurst (23:27):
The first thing that I heard is, “Pastor, we need a new vision.”
(23:31):
And it was all about vision. “What’s the vision? What’s your vision? What are the plans?” We confuse and we confuse vision with plans. That’s the other thing. Oh yeah. What’s the vision? But the problem is you can’t have a vision if you don’t have a mission. The mission is what you do, who you are, what you’re all about.
Mark Clifton (23:50):
The vision’s how you dDo it.
Dan Hurst (23:51):
The vision is how you get there. Gotcha. So if you don’t know who you are and what you’re all about and there can be no legitimate vision until the church understands its mission. And if you ask the people, “What’s the mission of this church?” Oh, they’ll come up with all the platitudes and the old ways of things to do. But what’s the mission of this church?
Mark Clifton (24:09):
At this hour.
Dan Hurst (24:10):
In this community, at this hour, at this place, at this point in history, what’s the mission of this church? And until they can tell you that, they’ll never have a vision.
Mark Clifton (24:17):
That’s great. And you help them. You got to help them over time. And I love what I heard someone say the other day and it’s so powerful, so powerful. You can’t love a community that you don’t understand that you don’t know.
Dan Hurst (24:29):
Right. So true.
Mark Clifton (24:30):
You cannot love a community that you don’t know. And even though this church has been here for almost 200 years and many of these people in this church have been here for decades, they don’t know this community the way they think they know it. Right. They don’t. Because this community is dynamically changing. It is churning. You mentioned in a previous podcast that this community where this church is located now has about a 50% rental rate. So about half the people in this community rent. And when this church was at its height in 1985, that would have been a fraction of that.
Dan Hurst (25:02):
Yeah. In fact, I don’t even think they allowed rentals.
Mark Clifton (25:03):
Probably didn’t. And so in a rental community like this, it’s always churning. All kinds of new people. You’re going to have old people, young people, people who speak English, people who don’t speak English. You’re going to have all kinds of ethnicities, all kinds of political backgrounds, all kinds of worldviews. It’s going to make it very challenging because it’s not a homogeneous community. And frankly, when this church was at its height, it served a homogeneous community.
Dan Hurst (25:28):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (25:28):
It was pretty simple to figure out. Everybody in here was pretty much like everybody else. But unless you love a community, you can’t serve the community and you don’t know the community. And so obviously guys, one of the first things you have to do when you come into it, Dan made it clear, you’re planting a new church here. You got a core group you didn’t select of 70 people who’ve not been trained to be a core group. They don’t understand what that means.
Dan Hurst (25:54):
Very few of them even live here.
Mark Clifton (25:55):
That’s right. And you got a building that’s 10 times bigger than it needs to be. And that’s your church plant canvas. But it’s a church plant.
Dan Hurst (26:04):
It’s exactly what it is.
Mark Clifton (26:05):
You can’t come in here and try to recreate what John Hughes did in 1985.
Dan Hurst (26:09):
No.
Mark Clifton (26:10):
And part of them, they have to release that memory because to them, that was success.
Dan Hurst (26:16):
Yeah, that’s how they identified it.
Mark Clifton (26:17):
2,100 people being on television, we were success. But what’s God want them to be in 2026 in a declining neighborhood in a building that’s way too big for them, but God’s not done with this place. So I love your idea of “What is our mission?” Hhere today, not “What was it years ago, what is it tonight? What’s our mission?” And get them to understand that. Those are seven great things. We’ll put them in the show notes and they’ll be good things for you no matter how long you’ve been at your church to go through that. Let me ask you a couple of quick questions as we quit. Final four. Ask your final four questions.
Dan Hurst (26:55):
Oh, here we go.
Mark Clifton (26:55):
All right. Look at the final four. All right. Have you had a moment of regret since you came here in seven weeks ago?
Dan Hurst (27:01):
Not one.
Mark Clifton (27:02):
Really?
Dan Hurst (27:02):
Not one.
Mark Clifton (27:04):
That’s awesome.
Dan Hurst (27:04):
I have had a whole lot of imposter syndrome.
Mark Clifton (27:08):
What’s that mean?
Dan Hurst (27:09):
It means they think I know what I’m doing and I don’t.
Mark Clifton (27:12):
Yeah, we all do that. I live in that world. Okay. I do. Ever since I wrote a book, it’s like, I don’t know. I wrote a book. Yeah, okay, whatever. Okay. Number two, your wife, how is she handling the transition?
Dan Hurst (27:28):
Awesome.
Mark Clifton (27:28):
Okay, great.
Dan Hurst (27:29):
Awesome. She wants to know more. She knows some of these people better than I do already. That’s great. And she’s very much behind the scenes. The only thing that she really wants to do here is work in the nursery.
Mark Clifton (27:44):
Okay.
Dan Hurst (27:44):
That’s what she really wants to do, but we haven’t been here long enough for that to happen yet. But she is there and she is getting to know people little by little. The interesting thing is she draws, she especially draws single women to her. I don’t know why, but she just has this kindness, this heart. So young moms or widows or they’re drawn to her.
Mark Clifton (28:07):
Dan and I both haven’t been involved in revitalization and replanning. We can’t overstate the importance of spousal perseverance and spousal cooperation. We’re going to talk about another video, another podcast about the importance of that and how that’s different in every spouse. There’s not a template.
Dan Hurst (28:25):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (28:26):
There’s no template. How God has wired and gifted your spouse is how she should behave, not how some other church pastor’s wife behaved.
Dan Hurst (28:36):
Yeah. It’s all based on her spiritual gift and the calling of her ministry.
Mark Clifton (28:39):
Exactly.
Dan Hurst (28:39):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (28:40):
Number three, what’s been your most exciting discovery since you’ve been here or one of the most?
Dan Hurst (28:45):
One of the most exciting. Wow, that’s a great question. I know this isn’t what you’re asking, but the thing that’s been most exciting is to watch a light bulb go on somebody when they finally see, “Oh, we could do that. ” Or, “Yeah,” I brought, for example, just yesterday, last night as a matter of fact, we’re starting a thing that we’re calling the Weekly Devotional Prayer Line and all it is, it’s a phone number you call and you listen to a devotion and then if there’s a prayer request, you leave your prayer request.
Mark Clifton (29:21):
Is it your voice? You do the devotion?
Dan Hurst (29:22):
Yes.
Mark Clifton (29:22):
Awesome.
Dan Hurst (29:24):
And so you call that number and so I played, I asked some people, I said, “Call this and tell me what you think.” The light went on. It was so great to see them respond like, “Wow, we can do this.”
(29:38):
So yeah, I think that’s the big aha moments.
Mark Clifton (29:42):
That is awesome.
Dan Hurst (29:43):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (29:43):
That is really great. And then I guess the last thing is your age, do you ever get bothered by the fact that I’m too old to do this?
Dan Hurst (29:50):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Not physically. I don’t feel that way physically. It’s that sense that when I realized that I’m older than most of the people in this church…
Mark Clifton (29:59):
Uh-huh.
Dan Hurst (29:59):
And that sense like I realize that they’re trusting me and they’re depending on me or they’re learning to, let’s put it that way. I’ve only been here seven weeks, but that sense that here’s a great way to explain it. I was in this very room that we’re in right now is also our prayer room because it’s so quiet in here and there’s nice chairs and we have a group of women who meet here every Monday morning at 10 o’clock. Well, I came in the second Monday that I was here to pray with them and I sat in the exact chair you’re sitting in and one lady was sitting right here on this couch right over here and she’s in her upper eighties I think.
(30:42):
And she says, well, she says, I’m just going to be honest with you. She says, “I don’t know what to call you. Now our former pastor, he was called so and so and then before him it was Dr. Hughes and how am I supposed to call you?” ,And I said, and her name is Marge. and I said, no, her name is Pat. And I said, “Well, Pat, you and I are brothers and sisters in Christ. Tell me how you call your brother.
(31:09):
Do you call him by his title or by his name?”
Mark Clifton (31:11):
Yeah.
Dan Hurst (31:11):
Because everybody around here calls me Pastor Dan.
Mark Clifton (31:15):
Sure.
Dan Hurst (31:15):
But I said, “I’m not my title, I’m Dan. I’m your brother.” “I’m your sister in Christ.” And that basically opened up this whole new sense of … She said, “Well, I can do that.” And it was a connection point. It wasn’t like, “I have a title and you should treat me with great reverence and respect.” For one thing, I should never be treated with any kind of reverence. Yeah, I would agree with that. But I’m your brother. And I think that sense that we can connect and that we’re on a journey together and that we’re focused on making a difference in our own lives. And as we make a difference in our own lives, we’re going to make a difference in this community.
Mark Clifton (31:57):
It’s a good word. That’s good way to end because I mean we always say when you go to a church that needs revitalization, you got to love the remaining members. They’re not an obstacle to your ministry. They are your ministry. You got to get their hearts to return to the gospel. You got to love the church you have, not the church you wish you had. You got to love the community, but you can’t love the community if you don’t know the community. And those are the ways we start and that’s the way you’ve started.
Dan Hurst (32:18):
And they have to know who you are.
Mark Clifton (32:19):
They have to know who you are. I know a lot of you are called, a lot of people call me Pastor Mark. When I was at Linwood, that sort of caught on as Pastor Mark. And I think they mean it as a term of endearment. I don’t think they mean it as a term of like immense respect. Or a title. A title. It’s like Pastor Mark. But you know that all of my dad’s 50 years of ministry, everybody called him Brother Harry.
Dan Hurst (32:43):
Brother Harry.
Mark Clifton (32:44):
Nobody called him Pastor Harry because he was a brother. He was like my brother.
Dan Hurst (32:48):
And that’s the way he acted.
Mark Clifton (32:50):
And it wasn’t like brother like that was some title. It was like that was a relationship.
Dan Hurst (32:53):
Yep, exactly.
Mark Clifton (32:54):
That’s my brother Harry.
Dan Hurst (32:55):
It was all relationship.
Mark Clifton (32:56):
And I thought, you know what, maybe it’s, I don’t know. People don’t call me brother Mark. And I’ve often, now they’re all going to start doing that. But I thought they called him that because it was relational. He was my brother Harry. He was my brother, Harry. Everybody loved him and that’s what you want to be as a pastor. You want to be love your people and love them. So that’s great. Hey, this has been wonderful. Now we’re going to come back and do another podcast because Mark Hallock, he’s actually in Alpharetta doing some really important work for us there the last couple of days.
(33:25):
And so Dan and I-
Dan Hurst (33:26):
Is he painting this time?
Mark Clifton (33:27):
He’s painting. They’ve got him painting. They got him painting Kevin Ezell’s office.
Dan Hurst (33:31):
Oh cool. Oh great.
Mark Clifton (33:32):
We all have to take turns working in Ezell’s office from time to time. So he’s painting Kevin Ezell’s office. So without him here and without Kyle here, we found this cassette recorder here in the church library. And I know all you got to do is push play and record at the same time and you can record. So we’re recording, he’s on a cassette recorder from the church library here and we got one more we’re going to do and we’re going to do one on really what it means to be grow up in the home of a pastor’s kid.
Dan Hurst (34:02):
And that one I can tell you it’s going to be better because we’re using chrome tape for that one.
Mark Clifton (34:05):
Ooh, you found a chrome tape. Chrome tape. All right. We’re good to go. All right.That is this edition of Revitalize and Replant. If you haven’t liked it, well that’s because this isn’t the normal vision and the normal ones are a lot better. Yeah, good point. Don’t let this be the way you judge our podcast.
Dan Hurst (34:21):
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.
