Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: On this episode of Code Red, we are honored to have Bob Bumgarner. Bob is a leadership coach, he's a mission strategist, and he's one of those guys who is not afraid to make the difficult decisions when leading an organization through challenging times.
So lean into this one. Get a pen, take some notes. Welcome to Code Red.
So, Bob Baumgarner, welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Thank you. It's good to be here.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: It's. We, we've, we've known each other, I guess, since we came down. I didn't know you before I came to Florida, did I?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: No, I don't think so. I think I met you through the staff consulting I did in them calling you.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: And you had that relationship with our church at Fernandina before I got here. And so I owe you a measure of gratitude just for the good work you did there.
But how did that, did they hire you to come in as a consultant?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah. What happened? The interim pastor, Dr. John Boone, was here and they, I don't know how they arrived at this decision, but they wanted to do a staff audit and just kind of see where they were in relationship to whom they had on the team and what they needed. So I came in as the outside person, the strategic outsider and helped them think through that. And they actually made some good, but some tough decisions out of that.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And you, at that time, were you at Chet's?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I was, I was at Chet's Creek Church as the executive pastor. I had just left 17 years with the Florida Baptist Convention where I, that's kind of what I did. I started the Office of leadership development with Dr. Sullivan. There's. And I was leading a team that was really responsible for church development across languages and, and within Anglo churches as well.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Now I want to go back and talk about, you know, how you got into ministry and all that. But, but your, your official title, Lead mission strategist.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, they, they, the organization knows me as a lead missional strategist. Wells Fargo knows me as a CEO. But, but most of the time I just say that I'm the executive director. That's what people get. They understand that.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Well, it's one of the, it most successful and well thought of associations. And I want to talk about in a moment exactly what that means because so many of our people and our viewers didn't come from a Southern Baptist context.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: So they're, they're not certain what we mean when we talk about the convention or, you know, any of those things. So I want us to unpack that A little bit. But when were you calling the ministry?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: That is a wonderful question. When I was.
I had a sense I was saved in a church in Maine. My dad was in the military, so we were stationed in Caribou, Maine and we went to a mission church. We'd call it a church plant now called Calvary Baptist Church. And I was a third grade. I was a third grader and I jokingly say I was bribed into the kingdom.
My Sunday school teacher said if I memorize John 14:1 6, she'd give me my very own tube of peppermint patty chocolate candy.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: So those are hard to come by.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: That's quite a gift.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: So I did, I memorized. And in that God really stirred my heart and I understood salvation and what God wanted for me. And out of that I told somebody I'm going to be a preacher someday. But that really just kind of laid there until my high school years.
And it was really probably my youth pastor Charles Goza, that helped me to understand that God had called me to ministry.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: You have a unique toolkit when it comes to ministry. And I'm curious how there's a couple of lanes at least back then that you could go into. You could be a pastor, maybe an evangelist, maybe a missionary. But help me understand kind of how you went from back in the day we would think of as call to preach or call to ministry to doing what you are doing now, which is kind of. I think of it almost as a de facto staff member for all of these churches to help them figure out and problem solve.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: What I tell my sort of network is 200 churches. What I say to people is think of me as your on retainer kind of executive pastor, coach, consultant. But how I got there was when God called me to ministry. I was in my senior year of college and Wichita State University. I had an HR degree. So that's. I was going the business direction. And out of that God called me into ministry and I really couldn't see myself as a preacher and so didn't sense that's what God. So I actually went to Seminary Southwestern as a.
I was in the counseling program.
I got into it about two semesters and said this is counseling is amazing and people need to do it. This is not who I am. And so I finished with an mdiv. I was so popular that I went back to live in my mother and father in law's basement and painted houses. But anyway, a replant church in Ohio in Cincinnati or actually Middletown, Ohio called me and asked me if I would come and pastor there. So I did. I felt like God wanted me to do that. God used that three and a half years. He did some amazing things. Middletown at that time was a steel mill and paper mill town. And so half of the city was management and the other half were the mill workers. I pastored the mill workers. It was an amazing, amazingly rich experience for me. They were so glad to have a seminary pastor. They had never had one before. And so when we were there, though, I actually led a group of men, millworker men, through experiencing God. It was brand new at the time, and I thought it was going to change them, but it changed me. What happened is I.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: What year was this?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: That would have been 89.
And what ended up happening was God. He clarified my call.
Basically what I heard him say to me is, Bob, you could preach, you could do the senior pastor thing, but your unique contribution to the kingdom really is the second chair. It's the guy who, if the pastor can see it, you're the kind of guy that can help it become real.
And so that's when I started pursuing.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: The toolkit that I was experiencing God. Brand new in 89.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: It was pretty close. It was young. It was for sure young.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: It was still being taught. It was. Had a lot of momentum when I came to Christ in 94. So everybody, you know, you always wanted the next crop of people to go through, you know, talk about what God showed you through it. It was an amazing study.
Do you remember by any chance what in that study kind of helped you get clarity there?
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it was the crisis of belief. You know, it was. What I realized is you said it the. So I grew up in Kansas largely so you could be a student pastor or a pastor or a youth minister. And I knew I couldn't sing, and I didn't feel necessarily called to preach. But what happened? So I kind of put a limit on what I wasn't willing to think broadly about what could be like what God could do. And so.
So I really just started that crisis of belief. Kind of just challenged me to say, trust me, that your job category may not even exist yet.
Just follow me. And so that was really. I mean, that was really it. Even in the name, experiencing God. I guess that's really what happened. I experienced God as a.
Relationally, like he was actually leading me. I mean, and so I just kind of took the step of following him. What actually happened was after that, I had a. Who lived in Jacksonville at the time. He asked me what I was doing. I said, I'M actually going back to school to work on a doctorate in leadership. Because what I want to do is develop leaders. It was way before pipeline conversation. I want to help pastors discover and do what God has called them to do. He says, I can't confer the degree, but if you will come and serve on my team, we'll call you executive pastor. I never heard of that before, but he said, we'll call you executive pastor and you can do what you want to do to help do that. So that's what I did. And I was Arlington from 91 to 97. It's an amazing story and it was a great team. But we saw over 20 young men surrender to ministry and go to seminary. It was a church in a transitioning neighborhood, but it went from 400 to 1100 in worship. I mean, just a lot of cool God stories. And that's kind of where I cut my teeth on this new way of thinking about ministry for me. And Dr. Sullivan was a member of that church and so he invited me to his team out of that. He was the director, the executive director.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention at that time. I know you employ a lot of different toolkits and assessments and that sort of thing. Were you using those with these young preacher boys to help them?
[00:09:29] Speaker B: No, this is just God's generosity.
It really, we were just preaching the Bible loving people, being intentionally evangelistic. My pastor is Lee Sheppard. Dr. Lee Sheppard was a bold preacher. I mean, so there was no off limit topics to talk about. And what we would say to each other in staff meetings is, guys, we're not sure exactly what's happening. We're not sure how this has happened other than God's favor. So stay clean, stay clean and stay close. And so we really didn't have tools out of that. Looking back, of course, God is sovereign and he gets people where he wants them to be. But we certainly could have been more helpful to them if we'd have had some of the tools that are available now.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we're kind of, we're kind of in that same kind of season of unexplained, you know, growth at our church. And we had, we had a record business. We really look at business as usual Sundays, because Easter can throw a loop, you know, and. But if it's a business as usual Sunday, which for us Palm Sunday has never been a big bump, it's pretty business as usual. But we had a record attendance last Sunday. And so, you know, going into Easter, we set an aggressive goal, hoping to have 2,000 there on campus, not counting our beach service. Typically we'll have that at the beach. So to get that many more on campus is a challenge. So, you know, we're hoping, hoping this year that maybe we could hit that.
You mentioned going from the staff position at Arlington.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: And going to work for the Florida Baptist.
Help our listeners and our viewers to understand how a.
Not every denomination, but how the SBC is sort of put together, how it functions.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: The strength and the challenge of the Southern Baptist Convention is that every church is autonomous and they voluntarily cooperate through what's called the Cooperative Program to do missions globally and nationally. And so there are three, they're not really levels, but there are three organizational types that serve Southern Baptist churches. There are things like the seminaries and the International Mission Board, the North American Mission board. So the IMB. The International Mission Board supports our 4,000 plus missionaries overseas. The North American Mission Board plants churches all over North America. I think they planted 11,000 churches in the last 10 years.
And then local. So then there's state conventions. State conventions are usually defined by a state territory, but there's a few that are not. So for instance, Florida has, I think 2,700 churches of all colors and stripes that are the Florida Baptist Convention. And then there are 41 local associations in, in Florida.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Does every, does every piece of real estate in Florida have an association?
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: I didn't know if we covered the maps with all of our associations.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yes, they do. Now, they're not all equally strong.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Right. And they all have full time.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: No, they. No, they don't. Several of them. Like there are somewhere there's a senior pastor of a church, like even in our, even on the coast. Tim O'Carroll is a senior pastor of a vibrant church and he also is the AMS, the associational missional strategist for a group of probably 60 or 70 churches. But I have no authority over any of the churches.
When associations were formed, they were formed, think about it, in the 1800s. So we were responsible for theological alignment. We were the ones that vetted churches to say yes, they believe fundamental things. And then the state convention was how you gathered money. I mean, there wasn't electronic checking at that point. And then the national agencies were really for the bigger things that a state couldn't do. So there are three layers that all try to serve the local church and the cooperative. They're all fun. So the national and state agencies are funded through what we call the Cooperative program.
My network of 211ish churches, they're funded through donations straight to us.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Now, as far as the hierarchy goes, which is really not a hierarchy, does the state convention have authority over what you're doing?
[00:14:00] Speaker B: No, no, we are totally. I don't have to ask anybody's permission.
The only people that can fire me are the people that are my board.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: And so there is no hierarchy like that.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: So is it a 501C3 or how is it set up? Not politically, but yeah.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: So We're. We are 501. We're a nonprofit. 501. And so is the Florida Baptist Convention, and so are all the other agencies as well.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: You know, and I totally agree that there's this autonomous. You know, the churches within your association are autonomous, but there is a real cooperation that takes place. And I would assume that you guys are consulting back and forth before you take a major initiative. You're going to find out if maybe the state has something planned or.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. So the way that I talk about, about it is, you know, organizations can coordinate, which means I'm going to stay out of your way. You can cooperate and says, hey, we're going to do this. You want in on it, or you can actually collaborate and say, hey, there's a need. And this need, if we bring our resources to it, we can do it. The, the State Convention of Florida has six regions and Patrick Coates, Dr. Patrick Coates is our east region coordinator. It's an amazing partnership we don't get. He helps fund projects.
He gives us some money at times, but we are always going to him and say, hey, we're going to do this. Would you like in on it? And he'll come to me and say, hey, this church in your association asked for this. Do you want to do it together? And we usually do.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: So for the average person at our church, we've got the minority of our people are Southern Baptists, historically. And I'm probably more acclimated to the convention than most of our people. Most of our folks, they really don't know how it works. So you have autonomous Southern Baptist congregations and then local associations. So we're dually aligned. We have the Northeast Florida. Chris Reynolds. I need to have Chris on as well. Have you seen this social media stuff?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: It's really good.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: It's really good.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: It's like, dude, I had no idea you had those, those gifts. But he's doing some, some great stuff and he's leading well in our association. But as a church, as we're growing and Going multi campus, we wanted to both kind of keep our roots in our, you know, geographic association, but at the same time find the partnership of what some of the churches over in first coast were doing. So we're dually aligned there. We give equally between the two associations and then we're part of the Florida Baptist Convention. So Stephen Rummage, Dr. Stephen Rummage is your equivalent to them.
And then we have the North American Mission Board we work closely with. So in the same way, when we're trying something new, like our campus in Central Nassau, we sent our campus pastor through the North American Mission Board's assessment. But he's also benefited a lot from what you guys are offering. And we reached out to James Peebles for a grant. He's going to put $10,000 toward what we're doing over there and trying to communicate as much as we can to collaborate, I guess, is the word that you used to solve a problem of a lack of churches in Central Nassau.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Our thread is don't pastor alone. So what you're describing is how you as a growing, vibrant church in your community is not pastoring alone. It doesn't mean that you're having coffee with a pastor every day. What it means is there are people who can add value to you. I guess the thing that is changing in denominational life is there was a time when I would expect to be at your table, like another and actually 60s, 50s, 60s, maybe even the 70s.
There wasn't the cottage industries of church consulting and church coaching and networks and those kind of things. And so if you are a denominational church, you were kind of. That's where you went for resourcing. Well, the world has changed and, and I think it's for better. I think that it's almost like a free market economy, like, so people who are adding value to us. And based on your opinion, not on, on my opinion, whether I'm bringing value, that's. That's what we're seeing. Pastors like you are building their own network of who are we going to trust for church planting information and pathway, who are we going to trust for missiological engagement and those kind of things. And so it actually, I think it's a more integrated approach versus just outsourcing your missions.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Does that make sense?
[00:19:15] Speaker A: It totally does. And I was thinking through how we came to the conclusion to do Central Nassau and really we had an internal problem of space and our space is mostly parking that was extremely limited, that we knew we could do endless services, but our parking is full on Two services now. And so we knew we had to alleviate some of that. So that's the problem. And in a conversation with the state, Tommy Green was the executive director at the time, they were talking about central Nassau and the wildlife development. And so very under church, very underserved. 40,000 people moving into that region with just a handful of churches around there, most of them are smaller churches. So we knew that there was a need there. We knew that we had a need. We began to collaborate to see what are our other sister churches doing in our association. And so we found out Callahan had to work there and not a lot of other strategic planning going toward that. And so all of those things together, solving our problem. Larger need in the county.
But the information, I think we want to hedge our bets a little bit because I'm aggressive by nature and growth, but I'm constantly in need of information so that I don't reinvent the wheel. I can learn from other people's mistakes and get as much data as we can so that when we're going to go out and take a risk, any church plant is a risk.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: It is a risk.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: But to take the risk, you want to mitigate as much of that risk as you can. And so that's where all the different divisions, as it were, have helped me personally.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Sure. Like even talking about your campus that they went through sen. North America or NAM to do what they did. What's interesting, and this doesn't make the press, but 80% of the people that I'm like, I was in his assessment. So in other words, it's actually pastors and leaders from first coast that inhabit and populate the assessment center that they go through. And that's a contextual thing. So that, in other words, instead of bringing people from Texas to do the assessment who understand Dallas but not Jacksonville.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Good point.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: So that's how that collaboration. That's how the collaboration works. So anyway, that's how it's a good thing.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: We're preparing right now to send Gabe Zavala. You know, Gabe is our student pastor currently, but we're preparing going to send him through that same assessment. And so, you know, a pastor goes through it with him typically. And so this time we're going to let Josh go through it with him.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Then I'm going to come in at the end, hopefully to celebrate a good assessment. But yeah, and it's really been helpful and it's connected. I think other churches who've had a similar model to ours and allowed us kind of have somebody to call on, you know, when it comes to like the model of doing church, how many different expressions of church would you say in the first ghost do you work with?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that is.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: And tell us what they are.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So there are extremely traditional churches. Like if you were parachuted in, other than the cars in the parking lot, when you walk in the building, you would think you're maybe in the 60s.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: What percentage would you say are in that book?
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Probably 15%, 10 or 15%. And it's working for them. I mean, they're reaching people. It's very. They still have the sign up at the front saying attendance and giving, you know, and those kind of things. And then there's a. I don't know if you call it a resurgence. There is a surge of young conservative sort of reformed leaning pastors in our network that are pastoring. A lot of them are pastoring campuses and church plants. They are very Bible centered. In a good way. Very Bible centered. Want to make sure that their phrase is gospel centered. They want everything to be gospel centered. One of the things I love about them and that model is they're very mentorship and residency related, very relational.
Probably some of the. And that's not always a size. Like for instance, First Baptist Jacksonville downtown. It leans is sort of in that they're kind of a flag church for that. There are some churches like Chet's Creek Church is an Apollo. That's my home church. But Spike Hogan's the pastor. He's been there for over 25 years now. And they would say they're a purpose driven church. Not in the sense of the Acts 2, not necessarily trying to copy Saddleback, but just in the fact that there are five purposes. And if you will go after those five purposes, then God will bless and honor that.
And then there are some churches that are celebrative in their worship style. They're not totally banned or rock edge driven. They're a little bit. There's a choir supplement, there's praise groups. And to me, I think the thing that I'm loving, that I'm seeing is there's a missiology in church leadership.
So in other words, thinking of a mission field like a foreign missionary does, and then creating the components that fit that like Fernandina, like when I worship with you, it feels very different than when I go to Chet's Creek Church.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: That's surprising.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: I wouldn't have thought that your music style is. It's wonderful.
But there's more people on the stage. Chets will have six or seven people on the stage.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: More band driven.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: More band driven. And again, here's what I think we're getting here. That there's not a right or wrongness to it. It's what serves the community where I'm at. I mean, so when I worshiped with you, it's a happy experience. I mean, it's like, in other words, I can lean into that worship. And here's how I always tell Are the people singing? Are the people that I'm around? And I'll stop. And. I mean, I'm a church nerd. I can't go to a church without doing it.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: It's hard to go to a church without. When Julie and I visit, if we're traveling on a Sunday, we always go to, like, a Presbyterian church. That's so different.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good idea, you know.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Because if I don't, I'm the same way. You've got to go by your nature of your job. But when I go, it's like, oh, I always want to have church. I just want to go and be a church guy.
And so we went up to Charleston and went to a friend's church that was PCA church. It was liturgy and so different. And I loved it. I loved every minute of it. But I didn't analyze it because it's like, no, we're not doing any of this. But I love it, and I benefited from it.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
Again, I don't know what the model would be, but I'm seeing a lot more scripture reading.
Not just the preacher, but other, like, worship leaders reading scripture, even somebody else reading the scripture before the pastor preaches.
So that's when God's word is lifted up. Genuinely. It's always an amazing thing. Yeah.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: When it comes to, like, campus models versus planting home churches, do you have home churches that align with the association?
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah, well, actually, there's a new network that's trying to be birthed. They're going to call it the Redemption Family of churches. Redemption Church, which is a replant, is looking at doing a home church model that would scatter across the city. It's the only SBC home church model attempt. I'm actually helping them create their visioning process. I think it'd be pretty helpful, actually, because what they're thinking is if one of the home hubs outgrow, like, if God does something in it uniquely, that that could actually then become a core group for a church plant. And so that's one expression of that. What we're seeing right now is probably, at least in Jacksonville, is more campus planting than church planting.
Partly because.
So when a church, when a property becomes available because there's 11 people left, you know, or whatever, those people approach us and say, can you help us? They've heard about Chet's Creek or Aspire or First Fernandina or whatever. And so they say, we would like to enter into a conversation with them. So it's like, I'm not the one who says, well, we need a church here, so let's put a church. There's. I've got to help our people understand where churches are needed. And then I help facilitate that transaction. So, for instance, district church, which is a little over 10 years old, they're running about 400.
I jokingly say they're kind of a hipster church.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Where is it at?
[00:29:00] Speaker B: It's now meeting in the old Lake Shore building. They've been a mobile church. They've been in Riverside. They've been at Lee High School. But for the last five years, they have been at Lakeshore sharing that property. Early on, they thought they were going to get that property. And then through some circumstances, it wasn't going to happen. But then it was going to happen. And so two weeks ago, they signed the paperwork. So now on Blanding, that's their home now. And so the reason I bring that up is because we're not a broker, we're a concierge. We try to make things easier since we get to do it multiple times. We kind of know how it happens and how it works. And so we try to bring together, hey, church that's declining. What do you think? We go back to their original mission statement. What were you trying to do?
Here's a church that's trying to do that in your area. Can we at least have a conversation about that? And so we've done probably four or five of those in the last year.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Do you think?
You know, you mentioned with Chet's purpose driven model, there was a day mid-90s, everybody wanted to be purpose driven. Okay. And right now, as you said, there's a lot of campus driven models. Do you think it's a fad that's going to run its course, that these campuses will become their own congregation, their own churches? What do you think's next?
[00:30:25] Speaker B: I don't think it's a fad.
It's too practical to be a fad.
Now there are some like nine marks. You know, they don't theologically, ecclesiology, ecclesiastical.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: They reject the model.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: They reject the model. But for those who don't reject the model, it is a helpful way to keep a kingdom asset vibrant. So let me give you an example of two different ways that it can work out.
During COVID I was meeting with the pastor and elders of New Berlin Road Church and they wanted to replant.
The pastor got Covid and died.
So the elders came and said, we don't think we have the strength now to replant. Is there anybody who can help us? So I checked the network and prayed and Paul White at FaithBridge felt like God was calling their church to replant. So here's how he did it differently.
He came and he, FaithBridge became the authority, the decision maker. But they never assumed the property ownership. So there was a five year model that they thought they could get New Berlin back up and running. Well, within two years it was back up and doing well. And so they cut loose. And so that's.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: We call that breathing life into them.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we call that fostering. So in other words, you're not going to live in my home forever. But it is a version of campusing because they had to, because Paul had some health and some wisdom on how to do that. And their missions pastor actually became the interim pastor there. And he stayed and kept going. On the other hand, Palm Valley, which is on the border of Ponte Vedra and Palm Valley, they're a church that's well over 100 years old. And they had gotten down to in the teens of people and they tried three different times to bring in a pastor, do the things, and it just didn't work. They had a noble attitude and heart, but just the curve was too far down here. And so they said, bob, who could adopt us? And so I knew of three churches that, that would fit. And I said these three churches would do well. And so we kind of rank ordered them and Chet's Creek was the first. And when I went to Spike and the advisory team at Chet's and explained to them, they decided to do it well, it worked. It's working.
They might have 200 at Easter this year.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: And so, so, so that, so, but, but, but even in the Chetz constellation, the reason we were able to do Palm Valley is because the Nocatee campus, which is only six or seven miles from Palm Valley, spun off. So it got. So in other words, it's now called River Rock. It got to a place where Spike and that pastor, we were going to raise some money that would have made it so they could never spin off. I mean, it was such an. It was, I think it was a $7 million nugget to put a first unit building down there. And basically Spike said, if you ever want to be autonomous, this is the time for you to do that. So this is a great story. We had a benefactor in our church that bought a million dollars worth of property, 20 acres, and now it's worth well over 5 million in the Nocatee area. And so we gifted river rock the 500 people that they had. Several hundred of them came from Chad's.
We gave them the $5 million worth of property and they had acquired about. It was several hundred thousand dollars worth of overage of budgets we gave them and we sent them on their way. So that's awesome. Yeah. And so there's. So. No, I don't think it's a fad. I do think there are a variety of expressions. There are strategic reasons for somebody to disconnect.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: It seems like what we're doing, an intentional expansion to our goal. We're central Nassau, but we're building it in a way. We're going to put a structure there. We've purchased property. We're building it in a way that we can reproduce. So our goal is next to look at Brunswick, St. Mary's look down Heckscher, where there's not a lot of churches. You know, there's communities there that aren't. That are underserved and, you know, look toward, like, River City and different places so that we can quickly reproduce.
Are you seeing a lot of that? Because it sounds like most of these are assuming other congregations or replanting. But are you seeing churches that are intentional, intentionally starting campuses, or is that not as frequent as it once was?
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Well, I think 1122 is doing it.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: And I want to talk about them as a separate topic, but other than 1122, I don't know of another group.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: In Florida that is doing that. There's the Calvary Chapel of churches in Denver, Colorado. It's a Southern Baptist church. Mark Halleck. They're doing it. They're up to 30 some campuses now.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: And then you brought Mark in, didn't you?
[00:36:04] Speaker B: I did, yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Introduced us. Because that was. It was good to see a model, because 1122 is its own thing.
I compare it to Costco. I mean, it's going in big everywhere it goes. Not every church can do that, Mark.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Alex is small. I mean, they are small. And here's the thing, the thing, the way he does it, I believe they stay the churches, keep their autonomy. They buy in with 3 to 5% of their budget on branding. And resources and those kind of things.
But it feels like they're part of this family. Andy Addis in Hutchinson, Kansas, I believe it is what he's done. Like the way you're talking about it, you're thinking of coastal cities, which I love that. I think that's genius because I don't know of anybody else doing it.
But what Andy Addis is doing is what you're talking about, but with small rural towns in Kansas and Nebraska. So he's found an under resourced group, if that's the right way to say it, where I think there are 11 campuses now, and both Andy and Mark are not the.
They're numerous, but it's not a Costco.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Let's talk about. Let's talk about 1122, which is one of those generational type churches that's grown that seems like for whatever reason, God has just blessed that movement and that church. And they've grown extraordinarily in a short amount of time. And they're. Correct me if I'm wrong, they're not aligned with the denomination currently. Are they?
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Well.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Or has that changed?
[00:37:53] Speaker B: It's changing. So they are part of the SEND network now.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: And so Matt Chandler is. Was he at Austin Stone? Is that.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: No, Matt was at Village Church.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: It's not. It's Matt. It's. Who was at Austin Stone.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Matt Carter.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Matt Carter. Thank you. Matt Carter is on their. So Matt Carter's at the North American Mission board as a VP, but he's also a teaching pastor at 1122.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Now, 1122 was affiliated with Acts 29.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Yes, they're a big Acts 29. Yes, they are.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Okay, so they're Acts 29. And Acts 29 churches can be Southern Baptist. They can be.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Yes, they can.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: And so what you're saying is they are, I'm assuming, contributing to the North American Mission Board, that entity?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: I don't know that, but I would have to believe. I mean, that's the. That would make sense to me.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: But there's some sort of cooperation between the two.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Yes, officially there's official cooperation.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: So cooperation between 1122 and NAM, but either we don't know or you do know that it's not broader than that. So like IMB Cooperative program.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Yeah, what I. Yeah, what I do know is that they're very much. And they're very much in the SEND process and it's their residency. So you had Benji on a few weeks ago. Benji is in their residency. And it is a robust access to all things that are happening at 11:22 for skill development support and those kind of things. And sometimes, like, I haven't heard if Benji's going to get supported from them or not, but that oftentimes, if you go through the residency, there is financial support on the other side. Yeah.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Okay. So I'm going to ask a couple of things more. I mean, seriously out of curiosity, because I don't know how. How it's developed with 1122. If they go and they baptize 100 people, do we show those numbers? Do we show it? Do we show it with first coast churches? First of all, no. Okay.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: Unless. So like Refuge Church, where Josh Glymph is.
We started it, but 1122 gave them some money.
If he baptizes people, we do count it.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: I have no idea if 1122 counts it or not.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: Okay. And I know a lot of this is semantics. I'm just curious. When I see reports in the SBC, are those inclusive of, let's say, what 1122 is doing when it comes to planting, is it inclusive of baptisms?
[00:40:41] Speaker B: I don't know about baptisms. What I would say is, my understanding is that it will be, if it's not already, it will be included in church planting.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: As far as the theological alignment and all of that, as far as I know, I don't know of anything that would be at odds between what 1122 holds and what is developed in the SBC. And kind of the controversies.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: No, that. Yeah, the current controversies about women in ministry and those kind of things. That is not an 1122 issue.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Not an issue there.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
I mean, I have confidence in the North American Mission Board leadership that if they've taken this step, that it's about their. That they have agreed to Baptist faith and Message 2000 standards is what I would have to believe.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: As it grows, it's been interesting. It's fun to see because as far as just a missional guy who wants to see churches grow and people reached. My background's in evangelism, so I'm a cheerleader for what they're doing. I really like what they're doing. That's why we had Benji on knowing his affiliation with those guys.
At the same time, especially working with other local pastors, it's been interesting to know what to do with them.
They're putting in a campus close to where we're at right now, and they've got resources and funding that nobody can really compete with. And so what have you observed there? I mean, I think there's a temptation to get adversarial. And what could you speak into that?
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So just anecdotally, their Food lion on the north side, they're in the Food lion there. Chet's Creek Church. We purchased the property while the Food lion was empty.
14 acres right on the corner there. When they moved in, we said, we're not going to. We ended up selling that property. It turned out to be a really good thing, but so they are. So I don't think we should curse what God seems to be blessing.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: Certainly.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: And they have been on an individual basis. I know Ryan, I've met Joby, but I know Ryan, I know Trey, I know Adam. All wonderful godly guys. Their passions are similar as far as reaching the community. They're conservative theologically. They've been super generous. They don't support us financially in any way, but they're kind and generous. When I'm asking for things for church planters and those kind of things.
The downside, if there is a downside or the side that a pastor could say, if somebody wanted to be critical, they're probably the church that if you lose members too, that's where they're going to go. And now here's the thing.
I can only speak for Chets, but there are people that have gone because they like the preaching or whatever, but then they've come back because they liked the groups at chats. And so this is what I always say to the guys on our network.
It is a scheme of Satan for you to get distracted by what 1122 is doing. Pray for 1122, that God will let them reach who they're supposed to reach. At the same time, if you know what you're supposed to do, be good at what you're supposed to do and you'll be able to accomplish what God wants you to do. There.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: That's been our approach to it is.
And I'm going to put it in market terms, but we can't compete. And I've never been to a service of 1122. I need to go and just kind of see what they're doing. But I'm assuming their worship is just like off the charts, that it's great worship. Ours is great, but it's a totally different type of solitude.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: It's a different type.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: They generally.
Not in moral, ethical type terms, but in political terms or more politically agnostic or at least Acts 29 has been. So they're not going to speak up about those kind of things.
Whereas we will. We will step into that we'll mobilize and organize for change locally and in the state.
So the way that I as a pastor responded to it is as they've moved in, rather than trying to compete with them, we've kind of zigged where they've zagged.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: I think it's the way and it's worked for us. It seems like we lose very few people to what they're doing. There are people that we would like to reach, that they reach better than we do. So we just have to be okay with that. But we haven't tried to just go head to head and outpace them or whatever.
And just from a higher level, looking at the whole movement, I've always seen when God does something like this, it really causes the churches in a community or in a state to go, okay, there's things we've been kind of fighting about internally. We're going to have to wrap that up or we're going to lose. We're going to lose a lot of people over this.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: I do think that's the benefit of this. It's much easier to talk kingdom than to do kingdom. And so part of what I love your zig to their zag illustration, because I think that's our only option. I mean, I think you have to be at a high level, who God has called you to be. And I think you have to do it unapologetically. So, like whatever God has placed you, your only responsibility is to be the best version of that, that you know how to. That you know how to be. I have an interesting seat in this because my daughter goes to River Rock, which is the Chet's Creek campus that we spun off. My daughter and three grandchildren, granddaughters, my son and three grandsons go to 1122. They go to the Durbin Creek campus or the newest site. They're going to open soon. And my son is a drummer for the worship team. Not an every week drummer, but very often. And he is in a. And I can say this, both of my kids are experiencing transformation, you know, in their families and. But particularly when it comes to my son. He's a Jacksonville sheriff's officer. He's in a community group that when they. And we don't have time, I don't have. If we had 90 minutes on that, we don't have time. But there have been just critically amazing events that have been. That have happened in his community group group that they're not 1122 brand. How can I say this? It's not because it's 11:22, it's because a group of similarly of young adults have decided to do life together vulnerably. Does that make sense?
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: So it's not a secret that 1122 doesn't have a secret.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: If there was one, I would say that they figured out how to make that happen and facilitate that.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Allow it to happen.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Because we have it. You know, when it comes to singles in particular, our, our home tour, our main campus, island campus reaches a completely different demographic than the Central Nassau does. But Central Nassau reaches young couples like crazy. But neither one like we, we have singles attending, but we can't build a tribe around them really well, you know, so that's the one thing that I look at and go, I wish we could figure that out.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: My observation is in a geographic area, there's one church. There's always one church. It doesn't, and it doesn't necessarily stay at church forever, but there's a church that figures out the singles.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and the singles are thinking, not wanting to be singles forever and they're wanting to meet each other. So that's kind of part of that too, I'm sure.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: What are your, if you look at, how do you set a goal from your seat? Like what, what kind of goals are you looking at? What are you measuring?
How do you know if you're successful or not?
[00:49:15] Speaker B: You mean the organization that. Yeah, first coast churches. That is a great question. Our mission statement is cultivating partnerships that connect the mission force to the mission field every day. That's what we do. And so what I look for is where are, where are existing partnerships flourishing? And when I say that, I don't even mean officially.
Just like for instance, when I introduce you to Benji, that is what it is. Whatever God does in that, it's a win. Just that you and Benji know each other. Right. There are times when I make those. Like the other day, there's an Arabic speaking pastor who comes in who has planted an Arabic church through First Baptist Orlando. Now he is, he wants to come to Jacksonville. He wants to come to Jacksonville and he has 40 people already in a core group.
So we did some demographic work and Arabic speakers in Jacksonville live about in a two mile radius of San Marco. So I went to Aspire Church and I said to Gary, Gary, would you like to sponsor this? Well, come to find out, they've been praying to start two more language campuses. So they have a family, they, they have a, it's a campus model.
And so I was able to broker that. Well, here's the thing like the network may not find that out. So. So my success, we do four collectives a year that are kind of the big ticket things where we, we brought in Mack Lake, we brought in Daniel Henderson, we're bringing in Daniel M.
And we'll have well over 100 people at those events. So there's a level of momentum we try to build through that. But we really believe our real success is in these partnership connections that we do in trying like. So, for instance, we have groups of church planters, we have groups of ministry wives. So those smaller community type things where people can build relationships.
For instance, if you and I go to lunch, that's a win.
If you connect me with somebody on your staff and we actually go.
I know that I have the trust of a pastor when I have access to their staff, because I'm not going to give you access to my staff if I don't, or my volunteer team or whatever. So there's a variety of metrics.
It's different than a church. So this is not a church. And so my metric is how do I add value to local pastors?
[00:51:50] Speaker A: I would think the biggest challenge would be fundraising.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: It is. Yeah.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: And what is the nature, what is your primary model of fundraising?
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Right now the only model is donations from local churches.
What we're finding is that's going to be a lid on the things that we could do. So my team right now, we're putting together our first.
Let's go to donors and talk to them about what we're trying to. What we're trying to do. This economy this year, it's really pinching the smaller churches. That inflation piece and just the uncertainty of things is really showing up in our giving.
It's not going to stop us from doing what we want to do, but it's causing us to see that I'm going to need to do intentional fundraising outside of local churches. And there's.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: There's nothing in your charter or anything like that that would hinder that.
[00:52:50] Speaker B: Yeah, not at all.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: Yeah, we looked at. I've advised some other entities to do the same thing because it, it, you know, if you're, if your only source of income is churches that can develop their own anxiety about what's coming next.
Yeah, you're always going to be limited and I think a few, like One More Child has been very successful with that model. But, but many that I've talked to, they have charter issues.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So last year when we had, at the end of the year, when I showed you our, what we Call our Backstage Pass. And you offered to help, you know, to make us part of the offering. I mean, you already support us generously, but then you went the extra mile. That. That last gift pushed us over. Like, that was the gift that pushed us over to making budget last year. And so part of the whole. That Backstage Pass is the talking piece for me to be able to explain what we're trying to do.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Well, we believe in what you're doing, and I believe in you personally.
I've benefited from your ministry and your influence, your friendship. And we just wanted to put our money where our mouth is and say, if we're going to be on the team, we're going to help.
Let us know how we can do that in the future. We're excited. If somebody says, hey, I want to learn more, maybe they want to be a donor, how would they go about that?
[00:54:12] Speaker B: Well, if you go to firstcoastchurches.com and above the banner, like right at the very top of the website, the Backstage Pass is there. If you click on it, download it, take a look at that. It explains our ministry pathways. It talks about our intentional kingdom relationship. It talks about everything that we do, not from an ROI perspective, but from a hey, this is what we do perspective. And give me a call. My information's on there. Email me. I would love to sit down and talk to anybody who has an interest. If you want to help the next generation of pastors do better, what God has called them to do, and in northeast Florida, that would be a great way for you to do it. As a matter of fact, it's actually becoming somewhat national. Last week I was in Ohio at a church that runs 3,000 in Columbus doing working genius with them because of a partnership with Florida Baptist. And so there's a. I mean, God's given us all kinds of opportunities to be able to do that.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: Well, and let me say a warning to the people who are going to check it out. It looks like a $50 million operation. It's branded. Well, you obviously have some expertise that it makes it come across like this is a really big budgeted type thing. Truth is, you've done a lot with not a massive, massive operation. And some of that's just been the network and the people that have come alongside you.
But I think your time in Jacksonville and in the state of Florida helped you build that. Yeah, absolutely. That partnership that you have.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: I love the quote, if you see a turtle on a fence post, you know, somebody put him there, there. So I've had some people put me on the fence post.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: Well done.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Well, thank you.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: Thank you for coming on the show today.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: My pleasure.
