Simple Faith with Rusty George

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Rusty George
This episode is brought to you by Serve HQ train your ministry, volunteers, leaders and new members online fast and easy with Survey HQ.

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Narrator
Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

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Rusty George
Hey. Welcome to Episode 223. I am so honored that you're back with us as we continue our conversation about how to lead in more of a simple fashion. Well, today we're going to talk with a pastor that walked into a situation where it was a great church. They'd had a long legacy of a great pastor. And he came in to take over and he decided to go a different direction.

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Rusty George
You've probably heard some of these stories before of churches that decided to change the music or change the style of service, or even change the carpet color. And it can create a lot of disarray and disruption. Well, he had to walk into that because of a personal conviction as to how he felt he could do church best. And by that, not just pull off a service, but how to truly make disciples.

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Rusty George
I've been fascinated with Pastor Drew Moore's story for some time now, and I've learned so much from him about what it means to make disciples. And I think you're really going to learn a lot from what he has to say in our conversation today. I want to thank our sponsor, Serve HQ. They are an incredible organization that helps churches to train their volunteers and make disciples online and easily.

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Rusty George
This is a great, great resource for you and your church. Go to serveHQ.Church for more information. Well, here's my conversation with Pastor Drew Moore. Drew, it is great to have you on the podcast for our listeners who are not aware of who you are. Tell us who you are. And you're from Illinois, so does that make you a U of I fan or is that are you are you Notre Dame fan?

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Rusty George
Walk us through this.

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Drew Moore
Listen, right in the middle of the state, in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Chicago and Saint Louis. So you have a Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs. I'm loyal to local and I don't follow them closely because when you struggle that much, blind loyalty is just easier. And so my brother early on decided he would go cardinals.

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Drew Moore
He went south, so I decided to go north and went cubs. But being in Vegas now, I love the Raiders. And the Golden Knights have our hearts here for sure. It's it's a lot of fun to have some multiple loyalties.

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Rusty George
So you went to Lincoln Christian College and Seminary. We have mutual connections there. But tell us about you got out of seminary, you went into ministry. Where was your first gig and how did you get to Vegas?

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Drew Moore
Yeah, for sure. Out of high school, I was torn between youth ministry and teaching. I went to college and made all the freshman year mistakes you can make. And so I decided, you know, I'm going to do a madea education. So I went into high school math teaching and football coaching, did that for seven years, but never left volunteering in a local church, a couple of small churches, and then eventually Eastview Christian Church alongside some friends.

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Drew Moore
And they put some trust in me and I got to step into student ministry there from 2005 to 2012. I got to pick up a master's from Lincoln Christian along the way, which was really kind of redemptive thing, was cool, and then came out here to Vegas in 2012.

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Rusty George
So you coming out to Vegas? I mean, currently you are the lead pastor of Canyon Ridge Community Church. Did you come out to do that job or did you come out to do another job on their staff?

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Drew Moore
I came out to lead student ministry, middle school and high school. My years at East View were all in high school ministry and it just came time for a fresh season. So much love and gratitude to the folks at East who wouldn't be with who I am without them. No, just time to step into a different space. And so the folks at S.Y. and others helped us make a connection out here.

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Drew Moore
And we came to the student ministry. So I really had no view on the horizon other than to say, you know, culture change doesn't happen in less than 7 to 10 years. So I said, Hey, I'll be here for 7 to 10. I don't know in what role or what capacity, but I'll be here for that run likely in student ministry.

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Rusty George
Was your family okay with moving to Vegas?

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Drew Moore
It depends on which part you ask. My dad affectionately calls it Satan's backyard, so, you know, both of our families were within an hour and a half of where we were in Illinois. So it was a massive change. And and while we included them, some of the decision, we probably could have done better in honoring along the way.

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Drew Moore
All that to say everyone is on board and a fan and see what God's up to. My wife and I were married. I was 23 years and we we were in agreement. We wanted to do something challenged. We wanted to go somewhere we had never been. And we didn't quite know what that meant. But we said yes to come in here.

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Drew Moore
And it has been really great.

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Rusty George
Now, obviously, when we think of Vegas, we think of the strip, we think of the craziness that happens down there. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But as our mutual friend Shane Phillips likes Chain, Phillip likes to say, you know, the people that come to Vegas are people that come from, you know, my church out in LA and other churches that come.

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Rusty George
They're not his people because they they might work there, but they live out in the suburbs. What are you seeing? I mean, what is life like in Vegas? Who are the people you deal with?

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Drew Moore
You know, it's not radically different from what we experienced in the in the Midwest in terms of suburban culture. Everything is affected by the strip and by the hospitality industry. There's definitely different values, just like each city has. But people are hyper real here. They just are who they are. There's not really a sense of should or should not.

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Drew Moore
There just is a sense of is. So you kind of get to meet people in the real ness of life all the way along the way. And then of course, it's really transient city between the two Air Force base is on our side of town and just Vegas in general. People are coming through all the time, bringing their culture from wherever they came from.

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Drew Moore
So it's quite a hodgepodge. And we don't we don't live in the thick of what you see on the strip, but everything is definitely, you know, rises and falls with people coming to town.

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Rusty George
Yeah, absolutely. So you guys come out there to do student ministry. How is student ministry different in Vegas versus Illinois?

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Drew Moore
You know, in Illinois. In Illinois, there were a number of stabilizing factors. Even though families, of course, have struggle everywhere, there was often support systems for multigenerational families. There is kind of the Bible belt mentality where even if there isn't necessarily a firm spiritual foundation, the spiritual awareness, that's good. But on the downside in the in the Midwest, you've got to dig through some of the pretense of people pretending to be what they should be to get to what is real.

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Drew Moore
It's kind of flipped on its head here where, like I said earlier, people are who they are, which is great. You can build from scratch, but you literally are building from scratch. Where in the Midwest, the family may have one kind of struggle, whether it be financial, relational, or any number of other struggles here. It often came in compound factors.

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Drew Moore
You would kind of reach for one, stabilizing place to start building from in people's lives. And they were hard to find. Yeah. And so but you know, it's ministry, ministry. You meet people where they are as they are and help them forward in the direction of Jesus from there. So yeah, we had to relearn some things, but it's been great.

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Rusty George
Yeah, I think one of my big learnings was, you know, having come from the Midwest, certainly in Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky, people were very conservative with their lifestyle, at least on the surface. But progressive with their faith. There was always a new church starting to do it a little bit more different or creative, or we're going to do it liturgical or have incense or whatever it is.

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Rusty George
I came out here and I just assumed that it would be like that, but it's it's the opposite. They're progressive with their lifestyle, but conservative with their faith because either have none or they grew up Catholic and they just need you to make it a little bit more relatable to what they grew up with. Yeah, but they're really honest about what they're dealing with, don't you think?

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Drew Moore
Yeah, 100%. Like everything. Where in the Midwest people will have opinions like about church and the way it's been done or even, you know, various theological things that don't really matter. On a Thursday afternoon, people just if it doesn't matter on a daily basis here, people are just aren't that interesting. So it's really fun with people to take that deep and meaningful, thoughtful things of our faith and walk them into the most daily aspects of life.

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Drew Moore
It's really energizing.

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Rusty George
Yeah, that's so well said. Okay, so student ministry today versus 15 years ago? Ten years ago. I mean, it's it used to be if you build it, they will come. You just need a really cool program and kids start showing up and you know, it's just a little bit of a Pied Piper syndrome. It's different now. What were you seeing before you exited out of student ministry and maybe still seeing the day with kids yourself as to how student ministry is doing or what the challenges are these days?

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Drew Moore
Yeah, you know, I'm seeing it more from the parents side these days. We have four kids. Our oldest is going to be a sophomore or a couple of middle schoolers and one about to finish elementary school and listen from a student ministry program side. I am so out of the loop. It's crazy. From a parent side, I watch the challenges that my kids are experiencing.

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Drew Moore
You know, I exited student ministry where it was still okay to tell people not to bring their phones, places that's not even in people's past world of possibility now, much less what's happening in terms of sexuality and things and the things that our kids are kind of constantly faced with and asked in terms of dealing with is so, so challenging, right?

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Drew Moore
I think I think that what I'm seeing in student ministry or what we're experiencing some is is really what we're trying to experience across our whole church is really equipping, not just gathering and answering. I think there was a time where giving people a space to come together and like you said, kind of Pied Piper. People love to belong a lot of ways to belong and virtually belong these days.

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Drew Moore
That didn't used to be true. And so now, wherever we belong, really has to have meaning and helping us become the sort of people we want to become. And so that's that's what I see our student ministry right now exploring pretty deeply in the kind of questions that are at least our kids are asking as well.

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Rusty George
So you followed a a legend of a lead pastor. And for those that don't know the context.

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Drew Moore
Absolutely.

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Rusty George
You know, Mike Breau, who's a friend, a real life and a friend of mine and all of ours started Canyon Ridge and got it up and going. And I think two years into it went back to his home city of Lexington to take over the church that I was a part of and got to work with him. And but when he left, a guy by the name of Kevin Oduor, very unfortunate last name, but I'm sure he's weathered it well.

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Drew Moore
He's got jokes.

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Rusty George
Oh, I bet he does. So. So Kevin takes over, and I don't think Kevin really ever fancied himself as a lead guy, but he did it and he did it well for 20 plus years. And then he decides to retire. And you're the guy. How do you follow a legend? Because a lot of our listeners are having to do that right now.

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Drew Moore
Yeah, well, a guy like Kevin makes it pretty easy to to step in behind him like he was so honoring and empowering. He shared so much leadership. Early on, I had the luxury of being around Canyon Ridge for seven years before stepping into the role. And so he just he just handed things so freely and so well that it makes it at least the transition side easy.

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Drew Moore
You know, there's always the wake of people's expectations. Kevin's greatest strength, he would be the first to tell you and everyone experiences this way. He is a pastor's pastor. He he shepherds first. He meets you right where you are. And he's just deeply, deeply personal. And so, you know, following in the wake of someone's extreme gifting is definitely a challenge.

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Drew Moore
But anything he could do as a leader, it's to hand things off. He did and he did well.

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Rusty George
So you not only have to follow a legend you are sensing and God's wired you differently. You're not supposed to just be Kevin 2.0. Which boy Kevin had to deal with that too, because Mike Bro is a very energetic, charismatic leader from stage and Kevin is a lot more in the trenches, one on one over a cup of coffee.

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Rusty George
So hats off to him for being who he was and is.

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Drew Moore
Yeah.

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Rusty George
Yeah. But now you have to do the same thing and you're kind of wired differently and you feel like the church needs to go in a different direction, certainly. And these these, you know, times in which we live. Tell me a little bit about just the the some of the key changes that you were sensing the church had to go on and how you led through those.

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Rusty George
Give me a picture of what it was before and what it is you're trying to head to today.

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Drew Moore
Yeah. You know, Kevin did a phenomenal job leading and definitely he would say, I think came into his own over many years of ministry. One of the things that people often forget in a transition is you are taking someone from a very seasoned part of their career and self-awareness and hand it to someone who's just stepping in. So it's not even just a difference of giftedness, it's a different of longevity in your own giftedness.

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Drew Moore
And so he stepped out at the high end in a season where his kids were had already stepped out. It's a very different season of life. And they to his credit, he went away on a sabbatical, which is a high priority for us around here, and came back and felt like it was important to hand the church the next generation.

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Drew Moore
And so even the way that he began that process was really sharp. He just sat me down and said, Hey, Drew, we're both football guys. Do you imagine yourself eventually being like a Dean coordinator or a head coach? And I said, Well, my history has said I usually function better as as the head coach. And he said, well, let's get you ready to do that.

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Drew Moore
And if that's here, awesome. And if it's not, we'll. Have you gotten you ready to do it somewhere else? Wow. And so he spent a year and a half doing that meeting on a regular basis, investing in me and helping me see how he was wired, how that affected the church and all that, and did such a great job walking that end.

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Drew Moore
And then eventually, as we went through a pretty extensive process of vetting me because we didn't want an internal candidate to just experience assumption, we didn't want to get on the other side of a transition and be like, Wait, maybe we didn't think this through. Now we thought it through. So he did all of that really well as well.

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Drew Moore
One of the things that people said along the way is that the church really did function as a family, as a place to encounter other really great people. We were launching into groups and doing a lot of things that generally megachurches do pretty well. But one of the things they hired me to do a little bit differently was to deepen what they called discipleship along the way that we felt like we were helping people meet Jesus and come as they are really well.

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Drew Moore
But we weren't always seeing a lot of maturity on the other side, and there were a lot of reasons and challenges for that very transient city. And on that scale, that's a really hard thing to do. Yeah. And so the assumption with me coming in was that was a value of mine and a big part of my experience.

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Drew Moore
And so that was actually a request coming in. We need to we need to help turn the ship in that direction.

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Rusty George
So tell me some of the. Well, first of all, let's let's back up to that moment. You're going to turn the ship in this direction. Give us a picture of of, you know, the destination. What's it going to look like? What's your goal? And then let's back up to see some of the moves you made to get there.

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Drew Moore
Yeah. So that probably would have been better to agree on a little bit with more specificity at the beginning. You know, for me, our destination has has a finer point on it than it used to. Yeah. I don't think it's radically different per se. It just has a finer point. We've zeroed in on the target a little more sharply.

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Drew Moore
I don't think anybody's anti discipleship. I don't think anybody's anti disciple making even. But our our pinpoint that we're going after at this point is a movement of disciple makers with too many generations to count. And that's different than just helping people grow up in their faith. Not that there's anything inherently bad about that. It's just we're aiming a little bit beyond that and with a little more specific city.

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Drew Moore
So a lot of people use the language of movement, and that's kind of a word that's been maybe cheapened a little bit. But what we hope is that multiple generations, disciples who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples is counted outside of even just the centralized church context. The opportunity of a transient city like we are in right now is that people are leaving all the time.

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Drew Moore
And so the question we are asking is how do we hand them skill sets and capacities that help them go begin movements everywhere they go? That's good. And so, you know, if what if our target before was engagement, which I do think is a better marker than attendance. Right. This is something that new and other people have really helped sharpen the language around engagement in and of itself doesn't necessarily drive disciple making unless what they're engaging is is focused on that.

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Drew Moore
And so we've tried to sharpen more and more around that when we see movements, multiple generations of disciple makers popping up in other places, we'll know we're centering in on our target.

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Rusty George
What does that look like? There's so many different styles of what we would consider to be disciple making. Yeah, and it's easy to kind of put it into a model like here's the, you know, the playbook to go back to the football terms. We're going to go West Coast offense on this or the run and shoot or whatever it is.

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Rusty George
What is it that you think, okay, if we do these five or six things, this puts us in the ballpark of making a disciple.

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Drew Moore
That's really been the exploration for the last couple of years of trying to deconstruct some of the things that maybe have become too institution centric and not really replicable in the lives of everyday people. You know, we were saying earlier how important it is to walk these things into our daily lives. Well, it's hard to walk a massive mega, mega church service into a daily life.

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Drew Moore
It's hard to take a really skilled preaching which is still valuable and important and walk that into life. It's not something people can easily replicate. And so what we've really been trying to do is dial back to specific values of simple, shareable tools, making sure that everything we do, especially outside the weekend service, has an every believer, a priest quality to it, meaning that everyone has contribution.

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Drew Moore
They're not just receiving, they're not just being informed. They're actually contributing and participating in the training experience so they can actually walk away and do it. Not just be aware of it. And so, for example, just a specific example, we have got a man named Ryan who got he's got a year deployment in Korea, but after a short season of walking through some of the training tools that we handed him, he's got a small group of people who he is multiplying and inviting people in Jesus direction.

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Drew Moore
They're looking into the word together. They're obeying well, they're sharing with their coworkers. We had some other Air Force folks redeployed over there who have jumped in. So that as well. And so the win would be that the surrounding area at that Air Force base a year from now after Ryan has left and Russell and the others have left, there's still a movement of people looking into the Scripture, doing what Jesus said, sharing it with others in a way that call people alive, and Jesus.

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Drew Moore
So that's kind of center of the bullseye, multiple generations down the road.

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Rusty George
Okay. So does this happen in a small group study? Is this happened over coffee? Does this happen large group setting? You're going to say yes to all. But give me some specifics here.

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Drew Moore
You know, what we've explored most is taking everything we do from engagement in groups and making it about stable make it okay. So eventually in the life of an individual, what we're doing is we're mapping all of the places that they go and the places that they see with simple questions like, Who do you know that you're close to?

00;20;35;17 - 00;20;55;14
Drew Moore
But they're far from God? Then how could you invite them? How can you share with them both your testimony? How do we we're training people in 15/2 testimonies and how to share the scriptures in a way that invites them to discover who Jesus is from the Scripture with them, and then handing them simple tools like discovery, Bible study or some people use.

00;20;55;14 - 00;21;19;21
Drew Moore
Three thirds are very similar that are replicated will easily learn the tools that help people engage people in the scriptures outside of the church context. So it could happen over a coffee break. We've got a group popping up at Creech Air Force Base. We've got people doing this on their break at the hospital, or they're just looking into the word and obeying their way in Jesus direction together.

00;21;20;06 - 00;21;47;26
Drew Moore
So, yes, it looks like small groups, but not in a like small groups, ministry model. When we do engagement at our church, we don't do here's how you get involved that can reach we do two straight weeks of like a basic disciple making toolkit in a highly relational context. And what we're finding is that people find both the relationship they're looking for and begin down the road of disciple making that we really want to call people toward.

00;21;48;22 - 00;22;14;18
Rusty George
Okay. So, all right, this is really good. Let's say I am Joe Vegas. I got you know, a couple of really strong addictions I'm dealing with. I got all kinds of questions and issues of my life, a history of abuse, divorce, all these things. And I wander into Canyon Ridge because somebody invited me. Sure. And I you know, service is great.

00;22;14;20 - 00;22;16;08
Rusty George
Yeah. What's my next step?

00;22;18;01 - 00;22;40;15
Drew Moore
Our hope is that the person that you invited, that invited him along with steps into you and is equipped to walk them through the scriptures together. Okay. We do not expect that person to provide all the care. Someone struggling with multiple addictions and other things need. There's always going to be a need for care ministries and a certain amount of expert support, whether it be counseling, recovery ministry, that sort of thing.

00;22;40;29 - 00;22;59;20
Drew Moore
But what we don't want to do is take over the disciple making of that individual from the person that connected them to our church. Okay. What we want to do is equip the person who has already connected them, already has trust with him, already has knowledge of that with whatever we can to support them, to support their friend.

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Drew Moore
There's really not a lot that we need to do as an organization that that individual, if they were even if they were a well-trained novice, couldn't do without us. And if we can do that, if we can equip them and support them to support in their friend. Now, we've not only supported their friend, but we've equipped this person to do that again in the future with other people.

00;23;20;21 - 00;23;40;14
Rusty George
Hey, let me interrupt this podcast for just a second. Every church leader knows that having trained and engaged volunteers is essential to successfully accomplishing your mission. But if you're like most leaders, you also know how tricky it can be to onboard and equip people for your team. What if there was a resource that made it easier? Let me recommend Serve HQ to you.

00;23;40;19 - 00;24;16;18
Rusty George
Serve HQ is simple video training courses that help you equip volunteers and develop leaders. You can create your own training or use their video library. You can even automate next steps to onboard new people. Check it out at ServeHQ.Church. Now back to our conversation. Okay, so let's get into org chart because so much of our of our church staff thing is to provide for the the the care of our people, our parishioners, all of that our Bible studies are classes.

00;24;16;18 - 00;24;22;20
Rusty George
Those can go way back to Sunday school days, that kind of thing. Mm hmm. Do you ever need that anymore?

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Drew Moore
Yeah. Well, this is the dichotomy we're living in. Currently at Canyon Ridge, at least, is one I don't think that's going away in its entirety any time soon, partly because at least here we live in a rotational place where people are showing up with that expectation all the time.

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Rusty George
Right.

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Drew Moore
Our hope is not just to meet people and satisfy that expectation, but rather to shift that and empower and equip them to be the kind of solution for their friends that that God has really invited them to be elsewhere. Our staff needs to think multiplicative all the time. A lot of times we're designed to add more and more people into ministries where trained and vetted leaders and staff members kind of oversee and in a worst case scenario, are kind of heroic leaders where all roads lead to them and their leadership, which is fine and great because some people really do have massive capacity to to help people.

00;25;22;24 - 00;25;52;23
Drew Moore
But they are going to hit a ceiling no matter how high their capacity is. That capacity increases exponentially if they're actually equipping others constantly to do what they're able to do. And so we try we are trying as much as possible as a staff to stay out of any sort of heroic position and stop trying to be an answer or a solution for people, but rather be a support and an empower of those two to help their friends along.

00;25;53;12 - 00;26;16;16
Drew Moore
We're always going to need, I think, in an organization, going to be able to meet people where they are and oversee kind of the process and any sort of movement that's coming about. We're always going to be meeting people with their expectations for sure. Yeah, it has to take a training and equipping and multiplying others mentality and everything that we have if we're really going to have substantial impact, I think.

00;26;17;03 - 00;26;33;07
Rusty George
How does a weekend service tie into this? Do you do any kind of questions based upon the weekend teaching that help people in discussion? How how do you teach differently now than maybe you would have ten years ago? Yeah, walk us through that a little bit.

00;26;34;10 - 00;27;02;26
Drew Moore
Rusty, we have so many questions. Honestly. Our weekend team and this is hard and I've been acknowledging our weekend team for this. They spent multiple hours wrestling through what assumptions have we made about the role of the weekend service as they relate to creating cycle makers? That's good and that's hard. Those tentacles run deep. We've made a lot of assumptions for a lot of years about what should come out of a weekend service in the life of an individual.

00;27;03;05 - 00;27;29;18
Drew Moore
And they're really well-intentioned and they're really high hope. I think one of the things that inspired some of this change for us is people asked us, you know, where how many how many people can you point out that have multiple generations of disciples made? And it was really hard to find them. It was really hard. And so I think unintentionally, some of the unintentional consequence of the excellence culture we have around some of our weekend stuff to engage people is it's demotivating to people.

00;27;29;18 - 00;27;48;07
Drew Moore
It takes away some of their agency. One of the downsides of even like I love Andy Stanley's investing invite so many people have users and I think that matters. I don't think that's in any way bad at all. But the unintentional consequence is that when COVID hits and there isn't a place to invite people, people are ill equipped.

00;27;48;07 - 00;28;12;21
Drew Moore
They're not quite sure what to do. Yeah. And so we just have to wrestle that to the ground. Some of the changes we've made is I've really this is going to get been so many people. I spend way less time working on teaching than I ever have. Yeah, I've been in ministry 17 years. I've been in cultures where the expectation is, you know, 15, 20, 25 hours of teaching prep.

00;28;12;21 - 00;28;37;01
Drew Moore
And I've sat in meetings where people talk about, you know, study teams and that sort of thing. Listen, I sent Ben a very small amount of time doing that. Not because it's not important. I just have been experimenting with. How important is it, really? Yeah. If we're teaching biblically faithful. I got plenty of eyes on that. We're not phoning this thing in.

00;28;37;01 - 00;28;59;02
Drew Moore
We're not repeating other people's sermon. It's original, it's meaningful. But I just don't spend as much time as I did in our weekend team. With worship and things we're exploring. What if more and more excellence isn't actually what's needed now? Because there's any lack of heart. We have the purest of hearts and most amazing people who do things with the deepest kind of authenticity.

00;28;59;16 - 00;29;09;24
Drew Moore
But we've made the assumption that sharper and better is going to have more benefit. And we're trying to explore maybe that's maybe that's not as true as we've always thought it has.

00;29;09;25 - 00;29;11;19
Rusty George
What are some other assumptions we've made?

00;29;12;04 - 00;29;17;01
Drew Moore
Who? That's a risky question. Come on.

00;29;20;10 - 00;29;53;05
Drew Moore
We have assumed that a well-trained expert is more potent than a well-trained novice. We have assumed that a certain amount of longevity and expertize is needed before people can multiply as a disciple. Hmm. We have assumed that getting people within the proximity of staff or approved leaders at the church is actually their best foot forward in following Jesus.

00;29;53;23 - 00;30;29;13
Drew Moore
Hmm. We've assumed that someone that that discipleship. And by that, I think people usually mean growing up in their faith is required before disciple making. Hmm. Like inviting other people in Jesus direction. Like helping shape helping participate in them. Being shaped like Jesus. This is a lot of those assumptions and I'm wary of. We've assumed that engagement will lead to disciple making, and I don't know if that has actually proven a kind of engagement, I think, but I'm not sure that's true.

00;30;29;28 - 00;30;30;29
Rusty George
Hmm. That's really good.

00;30;31;12 - 00;30;31;21
Drew Moore
All right.

00;30;32;13 - 00;30;35;16
Rusty George
Man. This is good stuff, Drew. Thank you for being so honest.

00;30;36;01 - 00;31;02;02
Drew Moore
Yeah. You know, you asked me earlier about things that we've changed. And honestly, man, I really just think we're trying to recalibrate the soil in which we're living. Like, how have our behaviors taken away the agency or confidence of people unintentionally? How have we tried to help so much that we've actually limited their ability to to take an active agency and being a disciple maker?

00;31;02;19 - 00;31;23;01
Drew Moore
How how have we put the church at the center of things with the fullest of heart and greatest of intentions, but sometimes less helpfully than we meant to? And how can we explore taking just a step back, not imploding? Like, let's not get fatalistic about this. I don't think the local church, our weekly gathering is going anywhere, anytime soon.

00;31;23;01 - 00;31;47;07
Drew Moore
Nor do I think it should. But what has to change about it to help elevate the if we really believe every believer is a priest, are they really experiencing or finding the kind of support and discomfort and us not stepping in to rescue in ways that make that really likely to come about in a in a large portion of the people that we get to encounter.

00;31;48;02 - 00;32;07;06
Rusty George
Which is so counterintuitive, especially out on the West Coast or certainly where I live, I'm assuming Vegas is a little bit like this that has such a high Catholic population. They just assume the priest as the all knowing. Yeah. And so they assume that I'm the all knowing. So I mean yeah it is you always totally you always get asked to pray at every meal and yeah.

00;32;08;00 - 00;32;09;29
Rusty George
Looked at in every small group you're in.

00;32;09;29 - 00;32;12;02
Drew Moore
So totally. It's a blast.

00;32;12;02 - 00;32;14;29
Rusty George
Yeah, it really is. It's very it's a first.

00;32;15;00 - 00;32;35;04
Drew Moore
Of urgings like is like light up like when they when you push them into that role. Right. Exactly. This is this is so simple, I'm sure by is already doing this. But one of the ways we really like visibly lived out every believer priest in a different way is we all we like do anything we can to avoid a pastor.

00;32;35;04 - 00;32;53;27
Drew Moore
That's kind of a big term here in Vegas, in the Midwest, it was minister yeah. Pastor Means, Elder and Shepherd and I was a very Baptist, whatever. But here it's like the pastor is the word and pastor is like the like they're not Catholic priest. Right, right. And so we just try to keep pastors out of as many roles as possible.

00;32;53;27 - 00;33;05;23
Drew Moore
So when we push family members and we say, hey, what would it take for you to baptize your friend, you know, your family members getting baptized? That's amazing. Who's been part of that story? What would it how could we help you? What how could we stand behind you?

00;33;06;00 - 00;33;06;11
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;33;06;13 - 00;33;27;10
Drew Moore
And this visible expression of people stepping in to even that simple act of ministry, such a powerful moment that feels so sacred. Like you said to especially, we have a high Catholic population as well, that the honor to the priest and to the pastor is so high, it's actually one of the greatest opportunities to push others forward and try to melt that paradigm just a little bit.

00;33;27;22 - 00;33;37;21
Rusty George
I completely agree. That's one of our our greatest joys is when we tell people you can baptize your own family. Yep. And it just blows their mind that they can do that. And yeah. And it's so.

00;33;37;21 - 00;33;47;17
Drew Moore
Fun. And then how do we follow that up with like, here's the next thing you thought I was supposed to do that it's actually you get to do exactly. I actually train and equip you and support you.

00;33;47;22 - 00;34;03;08
Rusty George
Yeah. Now make sure you're here every Sunday for the rest of your life so I can train. Yeah, totally. I have to laugh when you said the whole thing about we didn't use the term pastor back in the Midwest. That was such a foreign I mean, you're right. The only the Baptist said that. So we weren't allowed to say that.

00;34;03;22 - 00;34;15;29
Rusty George
And then I come out here and people not only use the term, they call me by that name, Pastor Rusty or Pastor. And I tried for years to get them to stop and now I just okay, whatever. And we'll roll with it.

00;34;16;08 - 00;34;35;18
Drew Moore
You know, man, I've got a young I mentioned him earlier. His name's Russell. He's a young airman and he just refused to stop calling me that. And part of it is Air Force culture and respect and rank. Yeah, that sort of stuff, which I deeply regret. So I've just started calling him that and we're going to melt this thing one way or another.

00;34;36;06 - 00;34;52;00
Drew Moore
We've got a guy on our safety team, too, who runs security at one of the casinos here in town. A real strong guy, but just such a shepherding pastoral heart. Yeah, I'll just call on Pastor Richard because he is doing such powerful, impactful ministry to everyone he encounters. This is amazing. Watch.

00;34;52;12 - 00;34;56;05
Rusty George
That's awesome. Yeah. All right. I want to ask you this because you brought it up.

00;34;57;02 - 00;34;57;13
Drew Moore
Oh, boy.

00;34;57;25 - 00;35;02;17
Rusty George
How how do you train people to share their testimony in 15 seconds?

00;35;03;02 - 00;35;21;21
Drew Moore
Yeah. Well, listen, we have stolen so many tools from different places. And if you all look across anyone who's working on disciple making movements, tools abound, and you have to have the right soil to plant them. And so just adopting tools is not going be a mechanical solution. You got to recalibrate the culture and taking down hero culture and other things.

00;35;21;21 - 00;35;41;01
Drew Moore
But on the flip side of that, it's pretty simple. I think we stole it from the no place left. Guys, it's two words to describe your life before Jesus and then Jesus. Two words that describe your life after Jesus. And then this is the most important part. Do you have a story like that? Because what we want to do is open conversations, not close them.

00;35;41;19 - 00;35;59;28
Drew Moore
All we want to do is invite exchange, not not deliver information. Yeah. So, you know, this is a super well, but here's a version for me. There was a time in my life this is how we would start. There was a time in my life when I thought competition and winning over is how I established my identity. So I competed with anyone and everyone, even inside the church.

00;36;00;16 - 00;36;10;24
Drew Moore
But then Jesus taught me along the way and showed me through some really important people how powerful it is to partner, support and lift up others. It's completely changed me. Do you have a story of change like that?

00;36;11;04 - 00;36;11;15
Rusty George
Boom.

00;36;11;29 - 00;36;26;19
Drew Moore
And so I don't know how long that took, but it wasn't too far off and it adjusts based on the conversations I'm in at my coffee shop or at the gym or wherever I might be. But it's just an invitation to talk about change in our life that we've been training pretty widely across our church.

00;36;27;08 - 00;36;34;05
Rusty George
That's so much easier than if you die tonight and you sit before the pearly gates. Yeah, yeah. I mean.

00;36;34;12 - 00;36;51;23
Drew Moore
Good time for that, I guess. You know, proclamation evangelism. Is it is what it is. This is, you know, more on the relational evangelism side. I think that's part of why we've been exploring discovery Bible study as well, because one of the practices within it is to retell the story in your own words as if you were telling your neighbor.

00;36;52;06 - 00;37;08;04
Drew Moore
And when we practice that together, actually comes way more naturally. When we show up on base or show up at, like I said, the coffee shop or the gym or the grocery store or wherever we are. Yeah. Just trying to become sharers. Not to direct anything, but just to invite curiosity. Yeah, you.

00;37;08;04 - 00;37;28;06
Rusty George
Know, not so good. Okay. I got to imagine there are some people out there that are leading churches thinking, I'm in, I want to do this. I've been thinking those for some time. You did this. And I mean, it's it's not always easy there. I mean, there's the challenge of tending the soil, but then there's the challenge of changing people's paradigm.

00;37;28;06 - 00;37;34;21
Rusty George
What kind of pushback did you receive and what were some things you didn't expect that you had to weather through this transition?

00;37;35;23 - 00;38;02;03
Drew Moore
You know, a buddy of mine will say that your past success is the best predictor of your future failure. I imagine that's a quote from somebody, but I don't know who it's from, so it's from my body. Okay. Your past success is the best predictor of your future failure. The things that we're really effective in, like investing by investing in by it really did help people find their way to inviting their friends to church.

00;38;02;18 - 00;38;38;10
Drew Moore
This important in matters. And yet on the flip side it also the unintended consequence for a lot of people is that it deferred making to the church once you've invited them. And so we learned that people had a lot of success in the past. It was really hard to set down. We had a lot of leaders, including staff members, who were used to trying to provide answers and train leaders and and do what we would call somewhat heroic leadership and to try to step back and create discomfort that other people can step into and to stand behind them instead of staying out front was really hard for some.

00;38;38;26 - 00;38;39;05
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;38;39;20 - 00;39;01;27
Drew Moore
It just wasn't a kind of leadership they were used to, accustomed to trained in, and they weren't particularly interested in. There were some along the way who both staff and lay leaders, who felt like it is the church's job to be the answer for people rather than to support them and train them and equip them to to follow Jesus with their people.

00;39;02;29 - 00;39;22;12
Drew Moore
And so it felt really unloving at times to not try to be the answer or try to be the rescuer for people along the way. So like a specific example would be, well, it's the church's job to get people in groups. Well, I mean, that's one way to do it. It does presume that people have ended up at church before they get into a group.

00;39;23;07 - 00;39;44;29
Drew Moore
And it leaves everyone who's not attending a church inside people's relational networks out of luck. And so you get them to the church. Yeah. And so how do we help people form groups within their natural relationships rather than wait for them to arrive at a church so the staff can put them in groups? I don't know which is better, I just know which one feels like it leads more to agency.

00;39;44;29 - 00;40;05;15
Drew Moore
Every believer, a priest and multiplicative disciple meeting. So that's why we're exploring it. I did not expect sitting in an elder meeting where someone said it is not every believers job to make disciples. I didn't expect that and I think it just comes from where there's just a lot of there's a lot of difference in what people mean by that.

00;40;05;15 - 00;40;25;07
Drew Moore
Yeah. You know, I think early on we were really clumsy in our communication and it sounded a lot like everyone is a rogue and lone disciple maker. And, and so in that sense, I would totally agree with that. Elder It is not everyone's job alone to make disciples. Jesus didn't ask anybody to do that. We were called to do it together.

00;40;26;10 - 00;40;50;25
Drew Moore
All of us are called, I believe, to be disciple makers in the context of community and in the context of friendships and partnerships with people. And let's not flip the script all the other way. And it's not either all by myself alone out there or only in the institutional church. Those aren't the only two options. Hmm. Creating partnerships and relationships prayerfully go in together in the places that we go, the fixes that we see.

00;40;50;25 - 00;40;52;22
Drew Moore
That's really what we're shooting for these days.

00;40;52;22 - 00;41;05;26
Rusty George
So if you could rewind and did it all over again, give me a couple of things you would have done differently. You mentioned being a little bit more clear, less clumsy. Anything that comes to mind that you think, I wish I would have said that.

00;41;06;22 - 00;41;32;00
Drew Moore
Oh, my goodness, I made a huge rookie mistake. I you know, there are things that you learn and then a whole new level of context of the same thing shows up in you in your budget. And I did this in the middle of the urgency and crisis of a global pandemic. I chose to lead how I like to be led rather than offer the leadership that different people needed at different times.

00;41;32;03 - 00;41;32;14
Drew Moore
Hmm.

00;41;32;22 - 00;41;33;15
Rusty George
That's really good.

00;41;33;15 - 00;41;55;19
Drew Moore
So I'm a frontier, cutting edge. Let's explore. Burn the ships kind of leader. And if in crisis, you become your true self. I definitely you know, a lot of people in the pandemic, shepherds are like, let's get people together and make sure everybody's good. And I'm just like, I'm a coach. I went right back to my football coach years and said, Hey, I got a whistle, everybody get on the line.

00;41;55;19 - 00;42;01;10
Drew Moore
Let's go. And you know, there's a time for each of those. It's never always time for one or the other.

00;42;01;13 - 00;42;02;03
Rusty George
So good.

00;42;02;09 - 00;42;26;13
Drew Moore
And so I definitely overshot change and sacrifice continuity. And you always have to hold both. You have to show up like a leader that people need, not just the leader you want to be in and you got to offer the right delicate blend of continuity and honoring what has been and change in the direction of what what could and should be.

00;42;26;13 - 00;42;35;28
Rusty George
You know, I hope we never go through another pandemic like that. But on the other hand, I'd hate to waste all the things I learned the first go around, you know.

00;42;36;01 - 00;42;36;17
Drew Moore
Oh, my goodness.

00;42;36;18 - 00;42;59;05
Rusty George
Because the things that I mean, I keep telling people, I'm sorry, it's my first pandemic. So, yeah, you know, we just we live and learn. Okay, so for our listeners out there, I'd love to know more. Give us a couple of resources, maybe books, podcasts, websites that have been really helpful for you and just shaping your thinking when it comes to disciple making.

00;43;00;12 - 00;43;29;02
Drew Moore
Yeah, you know, it's a blend of a lot of different things. I think honestly best thing we have done is rub shoulders with people working in dispersed movements. So whether that's no place left for tea, some of the international movements going on, one particular resource that's pretty accessible is the starfish in the spirit from the KC Underground folks really solid book to explore this blend.

00;43;29;11 - 00;43;55;14
Drew Moore
It's not exactly a traditional church turned movement model, but it will help you explore kind of the other end of things. I did appreciate several chapters from Future Church. I thought his model of upper room and lower room was it really gave us some common language to share from. I know seven laws were solid, but really more of the thing I appreciated was the upper and lower room and the and honestly eras of church.

00;43;55;24 - 00;44;17;23
Drew Moore
I think there are some things around the way church has formed in every era. The church has served really important purposes, but we're stepping into a different kind of era which are going to require different kind of approach. Yeah. So just that kind of mindset I thought was really helpful from him. There's a book called The Beautiful Constraint, which is not a ministry book at all.

00;44;17;25 - 00;44;36;17
Drew Moore
But I really love. Oh yes. There's just going to be so many can't the causes that come up when you think about taking the traction or legacy church and turning in the direction of a disciple making movement, a lot of camp because it's in the can if frame from the beautiful constraint which is honestly what shaped a lot of this for us.

00;44;36;26 - 00;44;50;07
Drew Moore
The movement excuse me, the pandemic became the beautiful constraint. Yeah. This creates an opportunity for creativity and space, maybe like nothing else. And so what is it that God has for us in the midst of this? So those are some that we couldn't.

00;44;50;07 - 00;44;50;24
Rusty George
Agree more.

00;44;50;26 - 00;45;20;05
Drew Moore
As are some that we point people to. Oh my goodness. I almost forever. My favorite one. It's called The Other Half of Church by Jim Wilder. It's not about movements, but it is about culture and soil. And this kind of change and shift has everything to do with relationship, joy, connection and connection. And all of those are visited really deeply in Wilder's book, if you haven't encountered him in the Emmanuel lifestyle practices, to stay relational with God and with one another through change.

00;45;20;05 - 00;45;23;05
Drew Moore
It is is the most formative book I've read in the last year for sure.

00;45;23;26 - 00;45;43;27
Rusty George
That's awesome. That's great stuff, man. I got a ton of stuff to read. Beautiful constraint. I've been banging that drum for months now because I heard about it from another podcast guest and I read it and I thought, Oh my goodness, this is amazing. And just the stories alone are incredible. Like painting the chickens blue and stuff like that will blow your mind.

00;45;43;27 - 00;45;48;27
Rusty George
But he's right. It's that Apollo 13 moment of this is all they have. What do we do?

00;45;49;01 - 00;46;09;09
Drew Moore
Yeah, it's mindsets that need to shift too many times. I think in the church, we're trying to change mechanics. Yeah, this is not a technical solution we're heading into. I don't think it's an adaptive solution that requires change within us. Yep. And so while wilder and the beautiful constraints really help shift some mindsets in us that really create the context for this to happen.

00;46;09;13 - 00;46;14;23
Rusty George
Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Drew, this has been awesome. If people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

00;46;15;01 - 00;46;34;28
Drew Moore
You know, the best way. I don't spend a lot of time writing or promoting or anything like that. So really it's just Instagram email Canyon Ridge dot org is our church's website. We're just trying to be faithful with what God has with us here. And if there's ways we can co learn with others, we want to. We've got a lot of young church plants, a number of young church plants and some ministries that we're just learning alongside.

00;46;35;19 - 00;46;53;24
Drew Moore
We're always looking to grow that community. I'm also connected a little bit with Bobby Harrington over at Renew. We've got a little cohort of people trying to do this, what they're calling Hybrid Church, where meeting people in an attraction, role model expectation, but walking them in the direction of a disciple making movement that has been really interesting. So you to reach out to those folks as well.

00;46;54;04 - 00;47;04;10
Rusty George
Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Best of luck to you with four kids and three girls and one boy.

00;47;04;10 - 00;47;09;06
Drew Moore
Right? Actually, the opposite. So the opposite is made me very nervous. No.

00;47;09;29 - 00;47;16;21
Rusty George
Oh, well, I see you dress. Oh, yes. Okay. We love them. That's so great. Right. Well, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much.

00;47;16;27 - 00;47;17;17
Drew Moore
Yep. See him as.

00;47;18;09 - 00;47;46;07
Rusty George
Well. Thank you, Drew, for being on the show. And thank you so much for your input into our listeners lives. I would love for you to pass this along to somebody who you think might be appreciative of this content. Make sure you share it with somebody else. Leave a review. That would really mean the world to me. And next week, we'll be back with a leadership guru that's on a seminary staff, a pastor and a professor by the name of Todd Balsinger.

00;47;46;11 - 00;48;06;26
Rusty George
He's written a great series of books on leadership. You're definitely going to want to read and hear from. He'll be with us next week, so make sure you check that out. Also, our leadership through crisis course leading through crisis without becoming one is now available. You can just go to my website pastor rusty George dot com to find out more.

00;48;06;26 - 00;48;11;29
Rusty George
We'd love for you to check that out. Well, thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep it simple.

00;48;12;08 - 00;49;05;09
Narrator
Take a moment and subscribe to the podcast so you'll get it delivered every week and subscribe to the Rusty George YouTube Channel for more devotionals, messages and fun videos. Thank you for listening to Leading Simple.