Rich Birch joins Phil and Tyler for a wide-ranging conversation about church growth, executive leadership, and helping churches remove barriers that prevent people from encountering Jesus. Drawing from decades of executive pastor experience and hundreds of conversations through the UnSeminary Podcast, Rich shares the mission behind his work and the insights he’s gathered from one of the largest ongoing executive pastor surveys.
The conversation explores what today’s executive pastors are experiencing, including an encouraging sense of optimism alongside widespread staff exhaustion. Rich discusses why people—not finances or facilities—remain the greatest concern for executive pastors and offers practical ideas for improving staff health and leadership development.
Rich also challenges a common assumption about church growth by arguing that many churches don’t actually have a “back door” problem—they have a “front door” problem. He explains why churches should become obsessed with the guest experience, simplify every step of the first-time visitor journey, and intentionally build systems that help newcomers connect. Rich explains why personal invitations continue to be the single greatest driver of church growth and offers practical ways churches can equip and encourage their people to invite others consistently.
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CHAPTERS
07:55 – Rich’s Mission and the Story Behind UnSeminary
11:20 – Executive Pastor Survey: Hopeful but Tired
20:40 – Why People Are Every Executive Pastor’s Biggest Challenge
27:20 – The Front Door Problem: Helping First-Time Guests Connect
39:30 – Seeing Church Through the Eyes of a First-Time Visitor
42:00 – Building an Invite Culture That Fuels Growth
50:25 – Encouragement for Executive Pastors
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Editing and Support by The Good Podcast Co.
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Ep 12_Rich Birch
[00:00:00] Phil: Welcome to the Backstage Pastors podcast. We bring meaningful conversations to second chair leaders, executive pastors in the church and nonprofit world. I’m your host, Phil Taylor. My co-host, as always, is Tyler Dreitz. Tyler, uh, have I ever mentioned to you that I am Canadian?
[00:00:29] Tyler: Hmm. Mentioned that you’re Cana- I, I think possibly once or twice.
[00:00:33] Phil: Maybe a few times.
[00:00:33] Tyler: I, I might know that a, a few time- Twice … yeah, maybe.
[00:00:36] Phil: So uh, I, I was actually born in Canada. Uh, both of my parents were American, so I’m actually a dual citizen for life. Never have to, uh, choose. I’ve got two citizenships for the rest of my life. And, uh, my parents were born in the United States, I was born in Canada, so I get dual citizen- citizenship.
Pretty cool. I do prefer palm trees over maple trees now. Okay. So, um, you know, I, I’m proud of my Canadian [00:01:00] heritage, but I’ve lived in the United States since I was 12 years old. Um, and today actually is July 1st, the day that we’re releasing this podcast is July 1st, uh, is actually Canada Day. Uh- Okay
which, you know, looks pretty similar to July 4th, Independence Day. Uh, you know, fireworks, barbecues, parades, et cetera. Um- Okay … it’s just, you know, a little nicer, right? Because, um, Canadians are, are, you know, nice people. Fair. They tend to have that reputation. Um- Okay … I, I may not be as nice as most Canadians, but, uh, other Canadians- All right
are nicer. Um, we, we can’t celebrate our Declaration of Independence in the same way that Americans can, because we never had one. Um- Hmm … so instead we celebrate the day when we, um, began to ever so slowly negotiate our- … confederational independence from the, [00:02:00] uh, ailing and, and failing British monarchy. Um- Okay
which was partially granted in 1867 Then a little more was given in 1931. Mm-hmm. And it wasn’t until 1982 that Canada received full and complete, um, constitutional independence from, uh, Britain, which meant that we no longer had to get our laws, like, ratified by, by the UK.
[00:02:29] Tyler: Cool. Now, uh, Phil, that history lesson is phenomenal.
And is it going anywhere?
[00:02:35] Phil: It is. Um- Okay, okay … our guest today, our guest today is Rich Birch. Uh, and he’s a fellow Canadian.
[00:02:42] Tyler: Ah, there it is. All right, perfect. Bring us home.
[00:02:45] Phil: So, okay, so Rich Birch, uh, spent many years in the executive pastor seat in, uh, several different churches, and now runs unseminary.com.
Uh, his podcast, The Unseminary Podcast, is, you know, one of the best ones out there [00:03:00] for just really practical stuff, uh, all the stuff they don’t teach you in seminary, right? And, uh, Rich is out there writing books. He’s speaking at conferences. He’s doing, uh, you know, great consulting, helping churches break some growth barriers.
He’s doing a lot of good stuff in the church world. And, uh, he runs it all from an igloo, uh, an igloo just north of the border in, um, in Canada. It’s really pretty amazing. Um, joking, of course, no igloo involved. Uh, Rich is at Connexus Church, uh, in, uh, Ontario, where Carey Nieuwhof was the LP for many years.
Uh, and, uh, Rich is just a real gift to the church. Uh, his work, all of it, is, uh, one of the top resources for executive pastors that I’m always pointing people to. Mm. When somebody becomes an executive pastor, and they’re asking me for resources, I’m usually saying, “Hey, um, check out Unseminary, check out the podcast, check out what Rich is doing.”
And, uh, that’s why I wanted to get Rich on the [00:04:00] show, um, in our first year here on the podcast.
[00:04:03] Tyler: Well, let’s get to it.
[00:04:04] Phil: Or let’s get to it, eh- Oh, geez. … as Canadians would say. We’re just… I’m just gonna keep on going with this, Tyler. It’s Canada Day, and I’m gonna celebrate it for just a minute.
[00:04:13] Tyler: I, I love it. Good for you, man.
All right. Own it.
[00:04:15] Phil: Let, let’s go with Rich.
Rich Birch, you’ve spent many years in the executive pastor seat, and you’ve been serving pastors and churches all over through unseminary.com and, uh, your books and your podcast and all kinds of great stuff. Uh, and most importantly of all, Rich, you are a fellow Canadian. Uh, Rich Birch- … it’s good to have you on the show today.
[00:04:47] Rich: Well, Phil, Tyler, so glad to be here. Honored, really, to be on the other side of the microphone. You know, I think we’re 800-some odd episodes into Unseminary, and so- Oh my gosh … it’s so fun to be on the other side. Wow. And so we’ll see. I actually was a little nervous [00:05:00] this morning, got up early, wanted to make sure I was a crisp guest for you guys today, but yeah, honored to be here and, uh, to interact with you guys and your audience.
Thanks for having me.
[00:05:09] Phil: The interviewer being interviewed, right? Mm. It’s good.
[00:05:13] Tyler: It’s great. 800, bravo to you. The number of ministry podcasts out there that, uh, l- get launched, have six episodes, and you never hear from again, 800, I’m impressed. That’s great. Good for you.
[00:05:25] Phil: I think at the time of recording, we’re at eight,
[00:05:28] Tyler: Tyler.
[00:05:28] Rich: Yeah, it’s good. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:28] Tyler: It’s good. So we’ve got a ways.
[00:05:31] Rich: No, no, no, it’s great. I, you know, it’s funny, when I started in 2013, um, I thought I was late to podcasting. I was like- Mm … podcasting is over. Like, it’s- It’s done … I missed the boat. I can’t believe it, and it’s actually incredible what the h- this whole format, how it’s just become, you know…
Like, my mom listens to podcasts. I’m like, that’s very strange. I did not anticipate that. Mm-hmm. So it’s, uh, yeah, honored to be here, and it’s, it’s fun to, to be on another show.
[00:05:56] Phil: That’s awesome. Uh, we’re actually recording in, in May, [00:06:00] and today is actually Victoria Day in Canada- Yes … uh, which is kinda like American, uh, Memorial Day.
So thanks for taking, like, time away from the barbecue, uh- Yes … to, uh, to come and hang out with us for an hour. That’s awesome, Rich. We appreciate it. And as a fellow Canadian, I certainly appreciate that a lot. Um, I lived in Canada till I was 12 years old. I’m a dual citizen for life, and so it’s always good to have, uh, fellow Canadians on here.
[00:06:25] Rich: Appreciate that. This is the part of the segment called Obscure Canadian Holidays, where we’ll talk through, like- … you know, that we have one in February called Family Day. There’s one in August- … called Civic Day.
[00:06:36] Phil: Civic? I’m a- Who- … unaware of that one.
[00:06:38] Rich: Yeah, like, who knows, right? Really, but- I think they must have- Yeah, although-
added those … I am Canadian, and I don’t mind. My friend Carey Nieuwhof, he’s, like, Canadian as well. Well, not only, like Canadian, he is Canadian. He is, right. And he’s, like, a much better Canadian. He talks about it all the time, and, like, I always feel bad ’cause I’m like, don’t make a big deal about it. I’ve served on both sides of the border.
Right. Most of the, currently, the churches I serve, most of the churches I serve are in the States. [00:07:00] And so- Mm … uh, yeah, I appreciate that. It’s always fun to connect with, uh, with somebody. You know, the joke I keep making now, which is maybe not a good joke to start with, but I, you know- … whenever I meet somebody new, I’m like, “Ah, I’m a part of the, the advance team for the 51st state,” you know?
And excited to be on the podcast having that conversation, which Canadians don’t like that joke. Americans- They really don’t like it, no … like that joke. Canadians like that joke. Yeah. Uh, don’t like that joke.
[00:07:23] Tyler: I can see that.
[00:07:24] Rich: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Phil: Oh, wow. It’s
[00:07:26] Tyler: fun. Well, Rich, you know, as you know, we’re in our first year of the Backstage Pastors podcast, and one of our biggest goals this year has been to kind of aggregate the key voices speaking into the XP community, and you are definitely one of those voices.
So take us a little bit into the mind and heart of Rich Birch. What drives you to search- Mm … uh, to serve church leaders? And then what’s the bigger overarching life mission behind Unseminary, the podcast, the books, the seminars? You’re doing a lot of stuff, and so kinda- Mm … help us understand what that is and why.
[00:07:55] Rich: Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, looking at it from, like, m- my own background, um, [00:08:00] early on in my ministry career, in fact, it was actually when I was in school, I really got captivated by a question, which is, um, you know, what happens in moments of great revival when tons of people come to know Jesus?
And I, uh, you know, similar to you, Tyler, in, you know, serving in a c- part of the world where just people don’t wake up on- Mm … Sunday morning and feel bad for not going to church. Like, that is- Mm-hmm … Canada. You know, that’s New Jersey. Yeah. Maybe not quite as, as extreme as where you are, but it, it i- it just, just that’s what it’s like.
And I have a concern for my countrymen, the people who I interact with all the time, and so I was captivated- Mm … have been captivated with this question of, like, what is actually happening? Is it- Two, you know, these two different, what I would say are n- unsatisfactory answers. On one end is it, well, God loved those people a lot more in these moments of great revival, and so he stepped in and said, “These people need to take steps towards me.”
Well, that’s unsatisfactory. I think God obviously loves everyone. That’s not a great [00:09:00] answer, although obviously some of that is true. There’s obviously a, a, a move of God that, um, in mo- moments of great revival we can’t calculate on. It’s just got nothing to do with us. It’s all to do with him. The other unsatisfactory answer is, like, those people that were leading those, they were, like, really good at follow-up and were great communicators and, like, f- and were, like, really snappy in the way they interacted with people, and that’s an unsatisfactory answer ’cause it’s, it’s obviously not something we can generate ourselves.
But there is some truth to that as well. It’s like they, there was some things that we can learn. And so really for years I’ve been trying to wrestle with the question, what are those things that are up to us that if we can remove the barriers and try to do them well, um, you know, it, well, those things we can take care of.
Ultimately, what impact that has is up to the Lord. I understand we do our short part. Sure. He does the long part. I get that. But we’ve gotta do our piece of the puzzle. Mm-hmm. And so that ultimately kind of… A- actually my very first blog, [00:10:00] um, people, I’m sure no one read my blog when it first came out- … but was called Killer Church: The Art of Execution in the Local Church, which I thought was amazing.
I was like- … this is incredible. This is like 2007, and I was like- Mm-hmm … I had, like, this skull and crossbones look. I was like, “That’s so- Oh, yeah … edgy and cool.” But you know, not a great brand, and so eventually we pivoted to Unseminary: Stuff You Wish They Taught in Seminary, which is closer. Obviously, if you’ve been around pastors any distance, you know they, they say that all the time, “Well, they didn’t te- teach me this in seminary.”
Right. And that, my own, I am al- have always been in, in either executive pastor or executive pastor adjacent seats for 25, almost 30 years, and so I’ve got a real heart for people who, backstage pastors, people who wake up on Monday morning and think about, “Okay, so what happened yesterday, and how do we make sure that the systems and processes, and how do we get more people connected?
How do we make sure all that stuff is taken care of, [00:11:00] um, in a way that pushes the mission forward?” And so that’s led me to this most recent season where I’ve said, “Hey, I am trying to invest this season,” I focus full time on coaching church leaders. I’m trying to work to see 100 churches grow by 1,000 people.
That’s like a whole kind of different conversation, but, but I am, that’s what I wake up every morning and think about. And so the podcast, the coaching, all of that stuff really is aligned towards that mission.
[00:11:24] Phil: I love that. Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome just to, to kinda hear the, uh, the, the behind-the-scenes. I think we all have that kind of origin story of, of what- Yes
drives us to- Right … to wake up in the morning and, and schedule another Zoom call, and, uh, work with another pastor- … or serve our churches or whatever it might be. Um, you know, earlier in the year, you did, um, a, a survey, kind of a national, international, whatever, survey of- Mm-hmm … executive pastors, and, uh, pulled together a lot of good information from there.
Just do us a favor. Pull out, like, a [00:12:00] few things that you learned from that survey that you think would be beneficial to our mostly executive pastor, uh, listenership- Mm-hmm … viewership here.
[00:12:09] Rich: Yeah, I appreciate that. And, uh, actually I would love people to go to xpsurvey.com/backstage and they can get the whole report.
It’s like 35 some odd pages. We’ll talk about- Yeah … a few things today. A bit of his- We’ll put that link
[00:12:20] Phil: in the notes.
[00:12:21] Rich: Perfect. Uh, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk about a couple of these things, but I’ll give you a bit of a backstory. I’ll take a step back and kind of talk about where the survey came from.
So we, during COVID, um, I was super concerned trying to figure out where, where are things going next. And so, um, I, we started doing this survey where it is essentially the same questions that we’re asking today. We kind of do minor tweaks every year, um, but we’re trying to do a longitudinal study over multiple years and get a sense of kind of what’s going on in the executive pastor landscape across the country.
And- Hmm … um, it’s mostly Americans who fill out the, the, the survey. I think it’s the [00:13:00] largest executive pastor survey. I’m convinced it’s the largest continuous executive pastor survey. And now we’re, now that we’re five, six years in, we’re starting to be able to pick up trends. And so although we do it every year, um, you know, we’re kind of speaking, talking more about it in front of people because we’re starting to see some things that are coming out.
Like for instance, this year, one of the things that stood out to me, I like to call it the hopeful but tired, uh, kind of approach to the church and, or kind of orientation towards the church. And I feel like I bump into executive pastors all the time that would say that, are hopeful, but we’re tired.
There’s all kinds of these stats that executive pastors, when f- self-reflecting on their own experience, are saying, “Hey, we feel more hopeful about the future of our church.” You know, 8– 96% of executive pastors said that. That’s incredibly high. Hmm. 89% said that their spiritual vitality has improved over the last year at the church.
Crazy. So, like, things are trending in the right direction. 97% say that lives are being positively impacted, and all of those metrics are [00:14:00] increasing year over year. So, uh, there seems to be some… And this is happening. We see this across the country. There seems to be something going on. Even most recently, um, I was talking to a bunch- Hmm
of executive pastors post-Easter, and people were talking about increased attendance post-Easter. They’re like, “I’m not sure what happened this year.” Like, people, we see more people coming back after kind of the big bump Sunday. But that is paired with one in four, so the actual number is 23.8, but one in four describe their staff as exhausted- Hmm
um, which is an ext- pretty extreme word, right? It’s this idea that, hey, things are super bi- going well, things are, are, are fantastic, but if there’s 350,000 churches in the country, you know, to have one in four of them, 75,000 plus of those churches who would say, “Man, our staff teams are exhausted. They are wiped.”
Mm-hmm. Um, I think we’ve gotta deal with that as executive pastors. That’s in our corner. We’ve gotta figure out- Right … uh, how to, you know, to w- work with that. Mm. But that, [00:15:00] that would be one of the first trends. W- is that connecting with what you guys are seeing as you’re interac- You guys interact with a lot of churches across the country.
Tell me what you’re seeing on that front.
[00:15:08] Tyler: Yeah, I mean, anecdotally, I literally said exactly what you’re talking about to Phil before you hopped on. Mm. I said, yeah, he asked me how things were going at our church, and I said, “You know, we have just been running for so long that it’s, like- Mm-hmm … good, and I am- Mm-hmm
tired.” So I just find that- I, I support your data.
[00:15:26] Rich: Mm-hmm. That’s, well, that’s good. Data one, that’s amazing. Yeah, right? Well, and I think that’s important. I, as an executive pastor, I think, um, a p- we have to resist the temptation, because I know you d- listen, you, the reason why you’re an executive pastor is ’cause you care for people.
You’re involved in this because, you know, you wanna see the church thrive, and you’re concerned about your team. And I think you’ve gotta name that both of these realities can be true. It is possible for us to be both in a season of thriving, things are going well, but at the same time, man, we’re wiped as a team.
Yeah. And, [00:16:00] and don’t pit them against each other. Right, right. Don’t say, like, “We’re doing something wrong. We’re, we’re unhealthy,” or something is- Sure … is messed up. It’s like, no, no, it, it is okay for those two things to happen. Now, we can’t leave it there. We’ve gotta work, you know, to figure out what we can do t- you know, in the next, say, in the, the next 12 months to figure out a pace that is more sustainable.
We’ve gotta figure out what we can do to kind of align our teams to ensure that we’re not doing frivolous work. You know, if your church has grown, you know, there, there may be things that got you here that won’t get you there. Right. We’ve gotta cut from what we’re doing. But I think, I think I would resist the temptation, uh, to say, “Oh, like, something’s wrong.
Let’s slow down. Let’s slow down the impact.” No, no, no, it’s okay from my perspective. It’s okay that both of those are happening at the same time.
[00:16:43] Tyler: Yeah,
[00:16:43] Phil: that’s great. I almost wonder, like, i- if you’re in a season where you’re saying things are really good- Mm-hmm … but we’re tired- Mm-hmm … uh, is it possible that that’s, like, a, a tension to be managed rather than a problem to be solved in that moment?
Like, in other words- Yes … [00:17:00] if we fast-forward six months or to your next survey- Mm-hmm … will we be in a season where we go, “Things have felt a little slower, but we’re not tired”? Do you know what I mean? Right. Like, or like, you know, our growth has slowed a bit, but we’re not as tired as we were a year ago.
Mm-hmm. So, like, I just wonder, is that a- uh, a nature of- Yeah, I think that’s true … I don’t know, you know? Uh, certainly if you’re in a se- if you’re, like, in a long-term season of growth and trajectory is up and to the right, um, and you’re like, “Man, this, this ship is not slowing down,” then you gotta be like- Mm-hmm
“You know what? You gotta take a two-week vacation even if the sh- the church falls apart while you’re gone. You just gotta do it.”
[00:17:39] Rich: Right.
[00:17:39] Phil: You know?
[00:17:40] Rich: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Phil: Um-
[00:17:41] Rich: That’s true.
[00:17:41] Phil: But yeah. Anyway, yeah, you were gonna
[00:17:42] Rich: say, Chris. Well, I think you’ve gotta resist the temptation the, of, um… And I, you know, listen, it took me years to figure this out.
I used to always think, okay, like, like at this time of year, we’re coming into the fall, and I would be like, “It’s super busy. We’re pushing August. Here it’s, you know, it’s like things are, are, we’re ramping up, so we gotta get everything sorted out.” And I’d be like, “Okay, well, once we, once the [00:18:00] fall gets started-
[00:18:00] Phil: Yeah
[00:18:01] Rich: then, okay, we’ll find some break.” And then, you know, that doesn’t happen, and then I’m like, “Okay, well, once we get past Christmas-
[00:18:06] Phil: Christmas …
[00:18:07] Rich: you know, that’ll happen.” And then it’s like, oh, well, once we get through the new year, and it’s like you do that for a couple years and you realize, oh, wait a second, there’s a pa- a pace here that we’ve got- Yeah
to adjust. We’ve gotta figure out what we can do different with our, our people, our own energy management, how we’re- Yeah … focusing our teams. How do we s- you know, h- you know, even a simple thing, which I’m surprised most churches don’t do, is, like, what are the three big priorities for us in- Yeah … you know, 2027?
This is a great time for us to think about it. Let’s pull back and say, “Okay, we can’t do everything.” Right. “So how do we help our teams understand these are the areas we’re gonna focus on in 2027. Here’s, we’re gonna, this is the year we’re gonna move more people into groups,” whatever it is. You’re, you know, you know what that is, executive pastor.
But let’s give them that clarity to our staff so that when they, you know, wake up on a Tuesday morning, they’re thinking, “Okay, so I’ve got 12 things to do, but I know these three are the top areas, so I’m gonna focus on those first and then [00:19:00] celebrate those and then move on.”
[00:19:02] Phil: You know, I think- That’s good
another thing that comes to mind for me is, this is something I’m always telling pastors that I’m coaching, uh, is wh- when you, when you suddenly have that day where, like, all the stars collide and, or is it planets collide? Is that the right metaphor? The planets collide. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and all of a sudden, like, th- like three or four meetings get canceled.
Like, you know, you have those days- Mm … where like- Yes … man, I had a full day. Mm. Right. I started off with a full day, and suddenly it’s empty. The temptation in that moment is to turn to your to-do list and be like, “What can I get done- Mm … now that I’ve got a day free?” Mm-hmm. And sometimes that’s the right answer.
That’s the most- Mm-hmm … stress-relieving response. Mm-hmm. But sometimes the answer is, “I’m g- I’m going home.” Right. Yes. Like, I’m just taking, I am now taking today off. That’s what I’m doing. Yes. You know? Yes. Yes. Um, and you don’t check with anyone. You don’t plan it. You don’t need to take time. It’s just, “Hey, you know what?
It’s been a [00:20:00] crazy few weeks. I suddenly- Mm-hmm … have an extra day off,” you know? And I think doing that- Yeah … is helpful. I think it was Ruth
[00:20:05] Rich: Haley Barton said, “Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap,” right? Like, uh- Yeah … and which I think is true. Yeah. Right? Like, it’s like, hey- Yeah, yeah
we gotta unplug and, y- you know, f- and find a way to f- you know, find health in the middle of, you know, the craziness.
[00:20:19] Phil: Is that where- Sure … Tim Stevens got that from?
[00:20:22] Rich: I think so.
[00:20:22] Phil: That came up on another episode when we had, uh-
[00:20:24] Rich: Oh, funny … interviewed Tim Stevens. Yeah, he, she… I know she definitely said it, so, uh, I guess, but that’s fine.
Tim can- Hey, you
[00:20:30] Phil: never know- … take borrowing skill …
[00:20:31] Rich: where you learn things
[00:20:31] Phil: from, right? He’s a good guy. Oh, yeah. No, we love Tim.
[00:20:34] Rich: Yeah,
[00:20:35] Phil: it’s good. Uh, cool. Well, what else did you learn in that survey? Talk about some other things you saw.
[00:20:39] Rich: Well, one of the things that’s, uh, I’m seeing in a lot of the churches I’m working with is, like, man, we got building issues.
Like, we’re… You know, this happens in every generation. You know, we build a building around a certain kind of ministry model and approach, and, and then, you know, y- it takes you 15, 20 years to figure out, well, maybe did we build the right thing? I don’t [00:21:00] know. And, you know, you’re always trying to look up over the horizon.
Obviously, I know, Phil, that’s part of what you do is try to help churches think through that stuff. Uh, but and so it’s been interesting to watch the kind of fear and, like, of tension that people are, are experiencing around this. And so- Hmm … one of the interesting things we… So we just asked straight up, “What is your biggest fear for this current season?
In 2026, what is your biggest fear?” Hmm. And actually, one in four listed something that was staff, you know, team, people-oriented, leaders, volunteers. It’s that sort of thing. So 27%, actually almost 28%- Hmm … listed that. So what wasn’t there was finances, uh, facility, and then literally, you know, like, e- everything else is kind of random.
It- people, at the end of the day, are the thing that p- that XPs are lying awake at night and worrying about. Yeah. Um, they’re thinking, “Hmm,” you know, “Do we have the right people on the bus?” You know, you use that old adage, “Are they in the right seat? Are we… [00:22:00] You know, do we have enough people? What’s the leadership pipeline like?
Are we developing them? You know, what am I gonna do with that youth pastor who’s, again, made a- … another boneheaded decision?” Like, you know, s- speaking as a former youth pastor, I can say that. Sure. You know, it’s… The other interesting thing was, in a kind of a correlated one, we found 50, s- uh, 57% of XPs ranked mental health as the weakest area in their- Hmm
development of their staff. Hmm. So that was the weakest of all the areas we gave them. Uh, you know, to say, you know, to say s- almost 60% of church executive pastors saying, “Yeah, like, I don’t know that we’re helping people on that, that front well” Um, this is an area I think we’ve gotta all focus on. It’s easy, and sometimes I think as executive- Right
pastors we can get pigeonholed into the, like, that’s the, like, spreadsheet person, and they’re the, they’re the checklist person, and they’re the, you know, they’re the buildings person. Uh, but actually, man, we’ve gotta own, because we have organizational senior leadership over our greatest [00:23:00] asset, which is our teams, the people, you know, they’re
Most churches, it’s 50% of where you’re spending their m- Mm-hmm … you’re spending your money. So, you know, you’re … Even- Right … the buildings aren’t, you’re not spending that much money on your buildings. You know, even if you’ve got debt, you’re not spending, usually most churches not spending, you know, on that much.
What are you doing? And so, man, I think we’ve gotta get really care- We gotta look at this piece and figure out what are we doing, um, and are, are we ahead on some of these issues? Particularly the … One of the things I’ve f- for years have said, you, you know, there are four loss patterns that you should look for.
Where are we losing key leaders? Where are we losing culture? Where are we losing staff help or where … self-health? Or where are we losing momentum? And those are all people-related stuff. So, like, are, are there, like, places where, like, we used to have a bunch of key leaders but we don’t anymore? Or, like, this is an area where it kind of doesn’t feel like it’s us anymore.
It’s like this is a culture area where it’s like they’re grinding too much in this one area. Or man, we’re over … We’re not … People aren’t taking their t- their [00:24:00] time off . You know, they’re, there’s like something’s happened on the staff health front where they’re, where it’s like people now it’s a badge of honor to be working on Friday if most pe- most people have a Frid- Hmm
Friday off. Or if it just feels like we’re having to invest more in an area to make, to give it more momentum than it has had before, it’s like we’re over-investing to try to generate momentum there. Uh, you know, we’ve gotta look really carefully at that, and I think it’s, uh, really in our purview because we manage kind of o- the widest portfolio.
Uh, you know, what’s happening on the people front? How do we try to improve that in this coming year?
[00:24:36] Phil: Hmm. Yeah, I think that’s good. I, I think some of the things that, that I’ve seen that, that seem to really help with that is, like, one, uh, have… W- first of all, just having that conversation, right? Like, making that- Yes
an open conversation with your staff, and then, like, providing resource opportunities, you know, whether it’s, um- Hmm. That’s good … you know, uh, “Hey, we’re, we’ll pay for counseling if you need it,” or, “We’ll-” Mm-hmm … you know, [00:25:00] “We’ll cover half of it,” or, um, or, you know, “Hey, if you need a, a sabbatical, let’s talk about that,” or having a sabbatical policy in place, um, or, you know, providing a, a solo retreat budget for everybody on the team.
Mm. You know, couple hundred bucks a year- Mm … you know, just to go away for a night and do a solo retreat. You, whatever, like, whatever works in your culture, right? But just creating- Mm-hmm … some of those things, but ultimately, you’ve gotta, you know… You have the ability in, in the second chair seat to put some resources and effort towards it, and I think you’re right.
We owe it to the teams to do that. Yeah,
[00:25:35] Rich: yeah. Hmm. It’s good. Or, you know, and another kind of area, a f- a friend of mine, Dave Miller, with Leadership Pathway, he’s talked in about this area particularly. Um, he, he says, you know, like, lots of executive pastors think that their, the turnover that they’ve experienced in the past is somehow going to end, that it’s like, you know, oh, like, they, w- we, we kind of con- Which I know I’ve done this.
When he said this, I was like, oh, [00:26:00] that’s totally me. You know- Hmm … it’s like we look back, and we’re like, well, that person left, and this person left, and that person left, and I can tell you the three stories behind why of those, and those aren’t gonna happen again. He’s like, “No, no, like, you’re, you’re, you’re thinking la-la land.”
He’s, “What you should do is figure out what your, what your kind of, uh, turnover rate was in the last 18 months and then maybe the last 36 months, and average it out,” and he’s like, “That’s exactly what your turnover rate’s going to be for the next 18 months or the next 36 months.” Hmm, hmm. So the question is, what are, how are you working ahead to, to, a- and fill those spots that are going to come open?
‘Cause we always think, oh, no, there’s gonna be some change. There’s gonna be some th- You know, and it’s, and I was like, oh, that is so true. You know, then we get caught off guard, and we’re like, okay, h- so what that pushes us towards is developing, you know, getting everybody to say, “Okay, who’s, who is your number two?
Who’s the person you’re gonna bring up underneath of you?” It’s all of that Leadership Pathway stuff, the pipeline stuff that we- Yeah … you know, that doesn’t happen overnight. You know, you’ve gotta build. It’s a culture thing. [00:27:00] It, you know, doesn’t just magically happen. We’ve gotta work ahead, and similar, like what you’re saying, Phil, it’s really in our area because, you know, we kind of control the budget and how, you know, the priorities and how we think about these things.
Um, that has been convicting and helpful for me as we’ve thought about this whole area of staff health.
[00:27:18] Tyler: That’s great. Well, Rich, you’ve been talking a lot lately about, uh, the goal of helping churches grow. I think you say 100 churches- Hmm … growing by 1,000 people. So- Mm-hmm … when you look across the church landscape, what are the top two or three things that you see most often holding churches back from that kind of growth?
[00:27:34] Rich: Great question. So most churches think they have a backdoor problem, but they actually have a front door problem. And they, um … Our f- you know, mutual friend Tony Morgan and I used to talk about this, uh, you know, before he passed, that- Mm … you know, a ch- the church consulting world, um, you can, like, build an empire on, “Close your backdoor.”
Like, and the reason for that is because people, you know, people that are in your [00:28:00] small groups, people that are, whatever you call them at your church, people that are volunteering with you, people that are giving to your church, when you stop, when the, when they stop in those areas, when they stop volunteering, they stop being in a group, they stop giving, it shows up on a report somewhere.
Somewhere- Sure … it shows up as like, “Hey, you know, there’s, you know, this person’s not here anymore.” But, and I don’t know, it depends on how much you wanna dive into this. I- if you look at the actual numbers at, at most churches, they have way more first-time guests that they’re not connecting, like I would say four, five, 10 times as many first t- first-time guests that are arriving at their church that they’re not getting plugged in than, like, the worst attrition rates in, like, a church that’s got terrible volunteer retention, terrible groups retention, terrible, uh, you know, donor retention.
There’s, there’s a massive group of people that are floating through the front of our churches- Mm-hmm … uh, that if we don’t pay attention and become front door obsessed and, and put some [00:29:00] numbers to it, if you’re an executive pastor, I know you like numbers, we’ve gotta actually quantify that number. How many of these people are there?
What, what, who are they? And what- Sure … are we doing to try to see them take steps into the community? And so, you know, most churches are way too focused on the backdoor. We think way too much. The, the reality of it statistically, you, people that get plugged into volunteering in our churches, every other volunteer organization in your, in your town, if they had the, the retention rates that you had as a church, they would be like, “That’s incredible.
We can’t believe how amazing that is.” Or every other social group in your … And I realize that small groups are not just about social, but every other social group in town, if they had the retention rate that you had in small groups, they would be like, “We’re killing it. We’re gonna write a book on this.” Or every other nonprofit in town, if- Mm
if you, they looked at the retention rate of what your, what your, you know, what’s going on at your church, they would be like, “That’s amazing. It’s revolutionary to what we’re doing.” The re- And, and this, you know this to be true. There are, I like to call them zombie [00:30:00] churches. They’re churches that are dead, but they do not know it, and the reason for that is because church is an incredibly sticky model.
Like, people get plugged in, and they stick and stay for a very long time. They continue to give. They continue to volunteer. Mm-hmm. They continue to be a part of groups, and it takes … You know, churches are dead for centuries before, or centuries, uh, decades, not centuries, decades before they actually close their doors because it’s so sticky.
Most churches, though, are ignoring the people that are at the front door, uh- Sure … and they’re, they’re missing huge opportunities there.
[00:30:31] Tyler: So Rich, uh, just to kind of continue in that vein, what are some things that you see the churches getting people connected the best? What are they doing? ‘Cause I’ll be honest with you, um, uh, I’m in this space as well, and some of those levers that worked so, so good for so long, like COVID happened, we all, like, got sent home, and then as we’ve come back, um, it just seems like a lot of the tactics are different or people are interacting with them differently.
There are just some things [00:31:00] like that in terms of, like, the class model or a quick after-church lunch or some- to get people to show up is just becoming more and more difficult. And so what are you seeing being really effective out there?
[00:31:11] Rich: Yeah, Tyler, I just totally agree with you. The, um, so post-COVID, uh, across lots of industries, uh, that are like ours, like adjacent to what we, we do, like the human services connecting industries, you see all kinds of evidence that, um, kind of what worked doesn’t work anymore, and, uh, it fits broadly under the category of we’ve got to be more aggressive, I like to say first time guest obsessed.
We’ve got to be more aggressive in- Mm … our interaction with those people, and we’ve gotta f- keep them way more focused. So two things happened. We had the COVID isolation thing. People are freaked out- Mm … about social situations. They don’t, they don’t drop by their neighbors like they used to. There’s all kinds of evidence- Sure
that shows that that’s true. They’re not willing to just kind of knock on the door and show up. Uh, so that’s true, but then there’s also the distracted piece. People [00:32:00] have, carry around in their pockets a, a, you know, a tool of mass distraction, and we, so we, what we used to do is we’d be like, “Hey, if you’re new here,” or, “If you’re a first time guest, do something.”
Well, we c- it’s gotta be way more clear than that. We’ve got to talk about it multiple times in our services. We have to align even simply saying like what the words are we use. We see statistical differences on this. I’ll give you an example. Um, you know, sometimes churches will say first time guest, and which is a terrible language to use because we know that people won’t take whatever your first step is, they won’t do that when you say first time guest because-
they typically, it, they’re there for the first weekend. They’re like, “I’m not sure- Sure … about that.” Mm-hmm. So you gotta say something more like new here. Um, hey, if you’re new here, if you’re new-ish here, but then you’ve gotta use that language across the entire spectrum, and it’s gotta look exactly the same.
The s- whatever’s on the screen, whatever the person on stage says, whatever the banner above the thing where they drop off new here, the card they fill out, the, you call it a new here gift. Every one [00:33:00] of those steps you need to ensure that is super clear. So it used to be that being friendly was important.
It’s, clarity is way more important than it used to be. Hmm. It’s way more important to be clear and obvious than to be friendly. It’s got you’ve gotta make it as dead simple as possible, and I know, so I’ve ended up in, um, you know, I will say aggressive conversations with other church design people, not Phil’s organization-
but other organizations where I’m like, it, the, the new here kiosk has to go in the place where people are- That’s right … going to stumble over it. It’s gotta be the highest priority space. It’s gotta be- Can’t be hidden … it, it, it is, it, you can’t hide it off in a corner, and like lots of times, again, not Phil’s organization, other organizations wanna like make everything look pretty and like put it onto the side and make the sign blend in.
I’m like, it cannot blend in. It’s gotta stick out and be annoying, and why? Why is that? Hmm. Is because we need it to be super obvious for people. Right. I’ll give you one other just super small tactic. [00:34:00] So as dumb and goofy as it sounds You know, with the, I like to call it the ethical bribe. You’ve seen this at lots of churches.
Hey, i- you know, if you’re, if you’re new here, we’ve got a coffee mug, water bottle, insert whatever. We would love to give this to you. How you talk about that’s critically important, um, which we won’t get into, but actually one, one thing that every church can do is too many churches say, “We’ve got a gift for you,” but they don’t tell people what the gift is, and not only do they not tell them what the gift is, they don’t show them what the gift is.
I was working with a church in Florida, and I was … I said this to them, I go, “You gotta show it.” So they do a coffee mug, and I was like, “Put the coffee mug up on the screen- Bring it up. Yeah … and make a joke about it and say, ‘It makes your coffee taste better.'” And, um, and I could see the connections person was looking at me like, “Okay, come on.
That’s no way. That doesn’t, that’s not gonna make a difference.” I’m like, “Believe me, it’ll make a difference.” And so I like this story because I’m the hero of this story, and it was- … a time I was right. And so she got up the next weekend and said, “Hey, I couldn’t get the slide made, but I did just…” Kara and I, she happened to be [00:35:00] hosting, so she took the mug up and carried it up on stage and just pointed at it and said, “This is the mug that we give.”
And she said, “You know what? That Sunday we had four times the normal number of first time guests- Yeah … drop by the guest- Hmm … kiosk than we, than, you know, than a normal weekend just because you’ve shown it. Now, you’ll get maybe… And we’ve s- I’ve seen this at a bunch of churches we’ve done work with. You are probably getting a third of the first time guests that are actually arriving at your church.
So whatever you’re getting and are documenting, there’s a, a, a, a fair likelihood that you’re getting three times as many of those. Hmm. And we don’t have to get into all the stats on that today, but I’m, I’ve run into that time and time again. It’s about a third mo- in most churches, unless they’ve optimized this moment.
And every one of… The thing that takes you from three to, or a third to three X what you’ve given is, is a whole series of small, thin slices ensuring that every part of that transaction- Hmm … is crafted and obsessed over. I’ll give you one other. On the back end, I like to call it the, the law of 7-11. [00:36:00] We’ve gotta contact people seven times in the first 11 days after they first come.
Hmm. There’s asymmetrical risk here. P- churches, too many churches are like, “We don’t wanna offend people. We don’t wanna, like, bother them. They’re busy.” That’s, that is bad thinking. That’s false thinking. Um, I have a family member who long-term has not attended church and just showed up at a church recently.
Man, when that person stumbles into church, I want the church that they stumble into be, to be obsessively connecting with them if they take a step towards the church. If, if, if you, if they raise their hand and say, “I’m new here,” we’ve got to meet that with the intensity that it took to get them to come.
People are freaked out to come to a church. They’re not sure they should. They don’t just stumble in. I, so unfortunately, I’m, like, an age where I’ve been at this long enough, there used to be a time where people would just arrive. They’d kinda show up, not sure why they’re at church. That is almost gone everywhere [00:37:00] across the country.
That just, people are arriving with a real question. So when they raise their hand and do this whole process, we’ve got to really go out of our way to connect, connect, connect, connect, connect in a whole bunch of different ways. I gave you examples of that, but I will stop talking. Don’t get me started on this.
[00:37:16] Tyler: Oh, no. Are you kidding? This is a passionate issue for me. I, I feel like I could sign off. That’s perfect. I got some work to do, so great. That, that was awesome. Thank you.
[00:37:22] Phil: Well, and, and, you know, the, to, to your point, Tyler, about work to do, you know, as I’m listening to this, I’m imagining, you know, some of our listeners going, “Oh my gosh, everything’s wrong.
I’ve gotta fix everything,” or, “I’m failing,” or whatever. And the conversation that I find myself having with a lot of pastors, um, especially when, uh, through my role at Plain Joe Studios, we’re, you know, coming alongside of a church and helping them think through their facility spaces, right? We always talk about, like, what’s the guest journey or the user journey?
Mm-hmm. You know, from I’m driving by, you know, on a s- on a street, or I’ve, I’ve heard about it from a friend, whatever it might be, but what’s that guest journey like as I enter onto the property or whatever? [00:38:00] And I say- Hmm … look, you know, um, there’s, th- there’s 20 things that might be causing people to fall off.
Maybe your monument sign on the side of the street sucks. Like, maybe the printing’s- … too small. Maybe I can’t read it as I’m driving by at 60 miles an hour ’cause you’ve done a weird scripty font on there, uh, you know- … whatever. Like, there’s some weird thing that you’ve done that makes it so that I don’t even notice, you know, your sign.
Maybe the building is really off-putting. Maybe it feels like a giant monolith that I don’t really wanna go in, or maybe it feels super traditional, and it looks like a museum or a funeral home rather than a, a church. Maybe when I actually do get in, you know, I can’t find that welcome table. I can’t find the bathrooms.
I don’t know- Mm-hmm … where the sanctuary is. I’m confused between your traditional service and your modern service or whatever it might be, any number of those things. Look, you don’t have to worry about all of it right now. Pick two or three things that you look around- That’s good … and go, “We know that’s broken
[00:38:57] Rich: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:58] Phil: Let’s fix that-
[00:38:59] Rich: Yeah,
[00:38:59] Phil: [00:39:00] sure … this month. Let’s go after that one. And then when we get that taken care of, what’s another thing that we know is broken? And when you finish fixing all the things that you know are broken, that might be, you know, contributing to people, you know, not showing up or not sticking around- Mm-hmm
then, you know, turn to other people who can see with fresh eyes and say, “What do you see?” You know? Right. That, that might be, uh- That’s good … not working right. So, like, I guess what I’m saying is to the pastors listening, don’t be overwhelmed by this. Um, just pick a few things that you can go after now, and go after those things.
So-
[00:39:32] Rich: Yeah,
[00:39:33] Phil: that’s so good …
[00:39:33] Rich: yeah, good stuff. And I think the thing I say to church leaders too, is you have to think about it- Um, we have to continue to think through all of those changes from the emotional standpoint of someone who hasn’t been to church in a long time or has never been to church. Uh, you know, and you, uh, we just had a b- baptism service, uh, a couple weekends ago at our church, and I, they, you know, I was, they had me volunteering reading baptism, you know, the people’s stories.
And one of the stories, the guy was, he was making a joke. He [00:40:00] said, you know, and you’ve had this at your church if you baptize people and you kind of pull this testimony thing out. You’ve had people say this, but I hear, I’ve heard it enough over three decades that I, I think you gotta pay real close attention to what people are saying.
This per- this guy said, he made this joke. He was like, “Well, you know, this friend of mine brought me to church, and I asked them to chaperone me, to bring me with me because I thought I was going to get struck by lightning when I came in- … the church.” Now, we hear that joke all the time, and we do that. We chuckle.
It’s kind of funny, but this is actually what people think when they come who have not been to church- Sure … in a very long time. They literally think, “The floor is going to swallow me up and kill me.” And so now we, you know, w- we, if people are coming with that mindset, gosh, of course, we wanna make sure the signage, all the stuff Phil talked about there, all of that stuff- Mm
we gotta make sure is great because we don’t want anything to hold them back from- That’s right … from coming. It’s, it, you know, they, they’re already in such a- Mm … wired up, like, kind of, uh, emotionally, “I’m not sure. Should I be here? Am I…” You know, they… I- if you, another way to [00:41:00] say it is, um, there might be a, a synagogue or a mosque in your town, and you’ve driven by that synagogue and mosque every single, every time, you, every time you drive by there.
You drive by, and it’s not in your brain to think, “Oh, I should go in there.” Why? Because you think, “Oh, the, that’s for Jewish folks or for Muslim folks. That’s not for someone like me.” And now think about what it would feel like for you to go to that mosque. You would wonder, like, what am I, what is, am I ev- even allowed to come here?
Am I supposed to be here? Am I supposed to come here?
[00:41:27] Tyler: Yeah,
[00:41:28] Rich: right. Yeah, am I, is this like… That is the framework. That’s the emotional framework that people are at when they come. And so-
[00:41:34] Tyler: Sure …
[00:41:34] Rich: so man, we can’t, we can’t- Or what might happen
[00:41:35] Tyler: to me while I’m there. I mean-
[00:41:37] Rich: Yes … yeah,
[00:41:37] Tyler: all of that, for
[00:41:38] Rich: sure. All of that.
Huh. We, we can’t flub that interaction, and-
[00:41:41] Tyler: Interesting …
[00:41:42] Rich: again, that’s in the context of statistically, you know, you’ve got way more people who are checking, a church of any size, you get up over a couple hundred, three, 400 people, and you know, you are, there are a lot of guests that are coming in or standing at the back.
You don’t recognize that they’re even there. Um- Mm-hmm … man, what are we doing to try to get those people [00:42:00] connected?
[00:42:00] Phil: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:00] Rich: That’s good.
[00:42:02] Phil: Yeah. Well, that’s a good, um, segue, Rich, to, um, talk about something that I know is close to your heart. You’ve been doing a lot of work with this. Uh, you call it invite culture.
Um, you’ve got a, a book, I’ve got it here on my, on my desk, the, uh, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture, and I know you put a lot of effort into this, and I, I love the work you’re doing on this with churches. Tell us a little bit about it and, and kind of how are you helping churches with that?
[00:42:27] Rich: Well, this work came out of, uh, originally one of the churches I was an XP at, we were flagged as one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and so then people started asking, like, what, okay, so what’s happened at your church?
Right. And which is, you know, it’s kind of a long introspective try to understand, okay, well, yeah, I’m not sure. What is, you know, what is God doing and what are we doing that’s different than, you know, than other churches? And- You know, it, to me, it’s like one of the most self-obvious things, uh, but I think we have to come back to time and time again.
Uh, there’s a bunch of studies out there that talk about why do people come to a church, what happens [00:43:00] before people come to a church, and the most pessimistic are them, that six in 10 guests that arrive at your church have come because someone invited them. The more reliable studies are more like eight in 10.
Yeah. You know, some are sh- that show as high as nine out of 10. They come because someone invited them. It’s, it’s a friend, a neighbor across the road, something like that. It’s actually not church marketing. It’s not your website, it’s not flyers, it’s not any of that stuff. It’s because someone says, “Hey, you should come to my church.
You, you know, my, my pastor had this great message yesterday that impacted me. I want you to come next weekend.” That is why that happens. Right. Now, what we’ve noticed is that, that the difference between, one of the major differences between stuck and stagnant churches and growing churches is growing churches train, equip, and motivate their people to invite friends.
They don’t just leave it up to chance. So over time, it’s just sociologically true, churches become more insider focused. Over time, we pay more attention to ourselves than to the people around us. Early on, you plant a church, you’re like [00:44:00] beg, borrowing, and stealing, talking to everybody- … trying to get them in there, and you’re, you’ve got a real rabid, “You should come.
Check it out.” Mm-hmm. “Check it out.” Well, then what happens is things settle out and you’re like at a, get a certain attendance and you stop thinking about it. And so what you have to do is train, equip, and motivate your people. In the book, we talk about five different areas that churches, um, use, we call them the gears of invite, uh, that they use to kind of keep the pressure on their people to invite their friends, to enable them.
Now, I understand it’s like the front end of evangelism. It’s like the fir- very first step. It’s just saying, “Hey, come and see. Come and see what’s going on. Come and see what’s happening, you know, at our, uh, you know, at our, at our church.” And so we’ve built a bunch of resources around it, research and all that stuff, and I’m, it’s, you know, that, that’s like a, oh man, 10-year kind of journey of continuing to study that.
Mm. And the more we lean in, the more we look at it, you just see the pattern time and time again. Mm. Fast-growing churches, they are time and time again, they are figuring out, how do we encourage, how do we keep our [00:45:00] people inviting their friends, inviting their family, inviting those people around them who don’t attend?
Um, we don’t, we can’t leave that up. I come from, uh, I come from the attractional church movement, which I know is like, you know, like you’re not supposed to say that. That’s like a, that’s a s- sinful word. We’re not even supposed to talk about that again. It’s really not that, because the, although the attractional church, they understood that dynamic and understood that, hey, we should talk about church in a way that our, that our people will naturally talk to their friends about it, uh, but it’s so much bigger than that movement.
Uh, you know, it’s so much bigger than that particular slice way of thinking about it because it happens, it’s true in every church. And I think, frankly, if I can be a bit, um, maybe spicy here as we come to the last few minutes- … of the podcast, I think we like to do church marketing- Because we can do it isolated from anybody else.
We can sit behind a desk, make some decisions, send some flyers, f- you know, pay for some Facebook ads, do whatever to try to, [00:46:00] you know, stir, and it’s, like, super inefficient to s- but it stir interest in our church, and we’re hoping that that ca- captures people. But at the end of the day, actually, the most reliable thing we can do, it’s, it’s invite culture, it’s discipleship.
It’s really moving our people to understand that, uh, that being a part of, that being a Christian, a part of what you’re called to do is to engage with your community around them connecting to the message of Jesus. And- Hmm … uh, that’s really, and it turns out that that actually is, like, the mo- the most reliable thing from a, um, you know, from a m- marketing growth point of view, trying to, you know, reach more people point of view.
It also is the thing that actually works, uh, rather than the kind of wasting money on marketing that just is you shouldn’t do.
[00:46:45] Phil: Yeah, we put so much effort into that, that 20%, right? So if we know that 80% of the people that show up at your church came because somebody invited them, and 20% came because of all the other stuff you did
[00:46:59] Rich: Yes.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Phil: And yet we’re putting 80% of our time into the marketing and 20% of our time into encouraging people to invite people. I, I mean, I’m just picking numbers out of a hat here, but that’s what it feels like, right?
[00:47:10] Rich: No, that’s absolutely true, and I see it all the time. I, you know, I … It’s not that I’m anti church marketing, ’cause I do think it has a place, uh, in, in the p- in the, you know, the overall picture.
But- Sure … I think you’ve gotta start with … If this, if I, this is … People are not gonna like this. If we were a business, um, and we knew that this was true, like you have to start with, like if you’re a restaurant, you have to start with do people like your food, and will they tell their friends about the food before you dump money into marketing?
Because if you- Yeah, yeah … if you just get more people to show up to something that they will not tell their friends about, you’re gonna waste a ton of marketing money- Hmm … to get people to something that, that you won’t be able to pass on to other people. You have to start with, okay, how do we do this in a way that will encourage people to tell, to tell somebody, who tells somebody, who tells somebody, who tells somebody?
That’s really what this invite culture stuff is about. Hmm. And it [00:48:00] does, it erodes over time. We see this all the time, where people, um, and, and you can see it statistically. Actually, that number we talked about, documented first time guests, um, what we see is that average across the country, this isn’t my number, uh, our friends at Unstuck have talked about this number for years.
You, if your church is 1,000 people, you should have 1,000 guests over that, over a year. That’s the normative. Hmm. That’s not like accelerating. That’s normal. That’s normative.
[00:48:22] Phil: Yeah.
[00:48:23] Rich: Hmm. And yeah, and that, I like to talk about it as a, in a weekly number, so it’s actually 2% of your average attendance, so that’s if you’re 20- if you’re a church of 1,000, that would be 20.
I’m just picking that number, ’cause it’s easy to do the math in my head. Yeah. It scales up and down. Um, but the, you know, that, that number is the best litmus test of understanding are your people actually inviting their friends? And if you’re not- Hmm … if you’re under 2%, you’ve either got a problem with the collection stuff we talked about earlier- Sure
or they’re not inviting their friends, and they’re just- Hmm … the people aren’t talking about it. And so you gotta fix that other stuff we talked about first, get a good measurement, and then that really gives you … It’s a leading indicator around where your [00:49:00] growth is going long term.
[00:49:01] Phil: You’ve got the book, um, but, uh, but you’ve also got, like, kind of a, I don’t know, a, a workshop kind…
I don’t know what you call it, uh, kind of the invite culture club. What do you call this thing?
[00:49:13] Rich: Yeah, yeah, we do. We have a cohort. So there’s… You can- the book is… You can follow us online at onseminary.com. We’re constantly talking about it there. Um, but the book is, you know, it’s a $20, you know, read for you and your team.
You know, you grab some copies for you. It’s a really easy thing. Churches that wanna go deeper, I do both direct coaching and then cohort coaching in, you know, like, a one year. That’s for churches that are convinced, yeah, this is the thing we wanna work on, and it’s like we wanna set aside a year to say we’re gonna work on- Right
even, like, earlier we talked about this. We talked about the, what are your focuses for a year. It’s like maybe you would say, “Hey, uh, we’re gonna take the next year, 2027, and we’re gonna make it a year just to focus on, you know, one of the three is gonna be invite culture.” Um, but, you know, there’s lots of ways to scale in and out of that.
You know, we do free stuff all the time.
[00:49:56] Phil: Sure.
[00:49:57] Rich: Um, so you don’t even have to, you know, buy anything. Uh, and, [00:50:00] and to be honest, it’s all the same. So even the churches that are with us, we’ve had churches in that cohort for four years because of the results they’re getting. They’re like- Mm-hmm … they love it so much.
It’s fantastic. Mm-hmm.
[00:50:08] Phil: Stay
[00:50:09] Rich: in it. Uh, it’s the same infrastructure. They literally, you could read the $20 book and it’s the same stuff we just keep coming back to with more examples and details- Yeah … and, you know, more specific help obviously. But, um, yeah- Mm … just onseminary.com, or if they, if they want that survey, they can just go to xbsurvey.com/backsl- backstage and get, um, you know, that as well for them.
[00:50:27] Tyler: Hmm. Awesome. Well, Rich, we really appreciate you taking the time to be with us on the show today. As we close out, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience?
[00:50:36] Rich: Well, I just appreciate what you guys are doing. You know, backstage pastors, i- they, to me, in our role as a backstage pastor, like, it’s so critically important.
I know there’s lots of other stuff. You know, you, you are sitting at the intersection of vision and execution, and man, how can you… I, I just wanna encourage you to continue to, to lean in on that and say, “Man, what is God calling our church to, and how can I remove [00:51:00] barriers that are holding us back from that, that vision?”
Hmm. I think, I think you hold such a critical piece of the puzzle, so thanks for leading in the way you lead.
[00:51:07] Phil: That’s good. Well, hey, uh, you, you’ve shared a little bit of the ways people can get ahold of you. Anything else you wanna share on that?
[00:51:13] Rich: Yeah. We’re on the socials, OnSeminary, or I’m, you know, personally Rich Birch on all the, you know, Instagram or whatever.
My Instagram’s mostly, like, uh, you know, my random thoughts on things- … and pictures of my dog, uh, uh, laying on places it shouldn’t lay, so- You are very- … I don’t know if that’s helpful, but- … active on
[00:51:28] Phil: Instagram, Rich.
[00:51:30] Rich: Yeah. Love it. It’s good. It’s fun.
[00:51:33] Phil: All right. Well, thanks so much for being on the show, Rich. Uh, always good to connect with you, and, uh, love what you’re doing with OnSeminary.
You’re serving a lot of churches. Yeah. Thank you. You’re serving a lot of pastors, and, uh, we appreciate, uh, the way that you’re having an impact on the church, uh, in United States and in Canada and probably, uh, a little bit around the globe. So thanks so much, Rich, for being on here.
[00:51:54] Rich: Thanks, guys.[00:52:00]
[00:52:00] Tyler: Man, you know, Rich is involved in so many great things. He’s one of those people who just consistently pours himself out for the church day after day, serving leaders, supporting churches, and helping move the kingdom forward. It’s so encouraging to see the impact he’s having across so many different areas.
[00:52:17] Phil: Yeah, I really wanna encourage our listeners to go deeper with some of what Rich offers on his website and, uh, through his podcast.
[00:52:25] Tyler: Well, that’s gonna wrap up our show for today. Phil, happy Canada Day, of course, and enjoy your annual opportunity to remind everyone you’re Canadian.
[00:52:33] Phil: Absolutely, and happy 250th for America in just a couple of days on July 4th.
I was actually just recently in Philadelphia, and I got to tour Independence Hall and a bunch of other, you know, good, uh, America founding kind of stuff that dates back to the Revolutionary War era. So, uh, uh, putting all of our, uh, Canadian and American holidays aside, uh, listeners, if you’d like to connect with me about, uh, [00:53:00] executive pastor coaching, you can email me at phil@backstagepastors.org.
If you’ve got any kind of building project, master planning, architecture, kids ministry theming, really anything that we would call spatial storytelling, uh, needs at your church, your Christian school, your nonprofit, you can check out some of our past projects at plainjostudios.com, and then you can shoot me an email at phil@backstagepastors.org, and we’ll get a call scheduled to talk about it.
[00:53:29] Tyler: And if you’d ever like to connect with me, you can reach me at tyler@myxp.church. That’s M-Y-X-P dot church. And if you need apparel printing or signage, check out ridgelineprinting.com. Fellow pastor and I started Ridgeline because we saw too many churches overpaying or dealing with poor service. Our goal is simple, to provide high-quality products, great communication, and fair pricing for ministries, businesses, and organizations of all sizes.
So we’d love the opportunity to help with your next project. And to keep up with the podcast on social [00:54:00] media, you can follow us at @backstagepastors on Instagram and Facebook. And the Backstage Pastors pro-
[00:54:06] Phil: podcast is brought to you by the Church Hub. The Church Hub serves pastors, ministry leaders, and their spouses through equipping and training resources. You can check ’em out at thechurchhub.org. Our podcast is produced by Chris Sterrett at The Good Podcast Company. Our theme music was written by Seth K.
And Tyler, we’ll see you on the next show.
[00:54:25] Tyler: See you on the next show, Phil.
