The Rusty George Podcast

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;15;22
Rusty George
This episode is brought to you by Serve HQ train your ministry, volunteers, leaders and new members online fast and easy with Serve HQ.

00;00;16;28 - 00;00;27;02
Intro/Outro
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.

00;00;27;21 - 00;00;52;07
Rusty George
Hey, welcome to Episode 227 with Clint DuPont as our guest today. I'm your host, Rusty George. You may not know who Clint DuPont is, but I'm telling you, you won't forget him. He's incredible. He's an amazing communicator and leader. He led a church plant during the COVID season and leaded to greater heights and through difficult seasons and really gets real and vulnerable about the difficulties he faced.

00;00;52;20 - 00;01;13;08
Rusty George
He and his wife lived in Detroit and worked at a large church there and a great ministry there, and they made the move out to the Bay Area to plant a church. They did so right before COVID and then they got to walk through all of COVID, and now they find themselves on the other side of it a little bit wiser, a little bit grayer, but a lot of wisdom that can help church planners today.

00;01;13;09 - 00;01;28;07
Rusty George
So as some of you know, we are on a mission here at real life to plant 30 churches by the year 2030. You can participate in that by being a part of real life church or go into our app and click give because we are raising money for that right now and you can be a part of that.

00;01;28;19 - 00;01;43;26
Rusty George
So Clint is going to help us out and tell us so much we need to know about church planning. Even if you're not a church planter or a pastor, you're just going to love this guy. He's really funny. He's a lot of fun and he's very real. So here we go. My conversation with church planner extraordinaire Clint Dubin.

00;01;44;27 - 00;01;53;25
Rusty George
Clint Dupin, welcome. So glad to have you on Leading Simple. Tell our audience who you are.

00;01;53;25 - 00;02;19;27
Clint Dupin
Oh, man. Well, that's that's kind of a tough one. Well, I'm a a co-lead pastor at a church in the Bay Area in the East Bay. I have happily married. I have four children from the ages of. This is going to sound really funny. 27 down to nine. So quite, quite a gap. But yeah, that's that's kind of who I am in a nutshell.

00;02;20;29 - 00;02;23;17
Rusty George
And you're from Michigan. Correct?

00;02;24;13 - 00;02;33;06
Clint Dupin
Yeah, I would say I'm from Michigan, but born and raised, grew up in the South, grew up in North Carolina unci rusty tar hill.

00;02;33;06 - 00;02;43;29
Rusty George
Sam So lately so yeah. So I grew up in North Carolina, end up in Michigan where your parents in ministry?

00;02;44;29 - 00;03;14;16
Clint Dupin
Yeah, my grandfather was an evangelist, so he would travel the country, the world. My dad was his director. And so my dad would leave on Monday mornings, come back on Fridays. He's got 280 days out of the year. And he would fly into these cities network with all these churches preparing the way, kind of for my grandfather to come in and do his five day crusade, which they should probably consider changing that name, the crusade, they're taking that part off.

00;03;14;16 - 00;03;47;11
Clint Dupin
But anyways, he came home. When he came home, I remember this. I was in the eighth grade and I remember him sitting us down and just talking about this idea of starting a church. And the reason came out years later. The reason was all of these people would find Jesus at these these huge evangelistic meetings that my grandfather would do gatherings, and then he would try to connect them and plug them into churches.

00;03;47;11 - 00;04;09;11
Clint Dupin
And it just wasn't happening for people that were far from Christ. We're just not connecting into the churches when they would do this research and follow up. So they came home. It's like, I want to start a church that connects with these people. So he got really acquainted with Willow Creek in 1988, 1989 and Saddleback, and that was a huge influence.

00;04;09;11 - 00;04;45;12
Clint Dupin
So it comes home. We're in North Carolina, all our family, all of our friends and says we're going to move to Michigan. I'm like, I didn't even know where Michigan was. I didn't know if it's by Greenland or Iceland. I didn't know. And so we're going to move there. And that was like the only church, the reason that we did that, it was Kentwood Community Church, Wayne Schmidt had a heart for church planting and so they were going to give my dad six weeks in their church and six weeks to recruiting by they wanted and $30,000 for his budget and salary.

00;04;45;24 - 00;04;47;13
Clint Dupin
And that's what we did.

00;04;47;26 - 00;04;55;24
Rusty George
This is in 1988 8989. Wow. Goodness. How old were you when that happened?

00;04;56;29 - 00;04;59;02
Clint Dupin
14. Okay, so great.

00;04;59;02 - 00;04;59;23
Rusty George
Time to move.

00;04;59;29 - 00;05;25;00
Clint Dupin
Know is a great I mean everything you're at your peak in middle school like my head was the size of a watermelon in my body was the size of a pencil. So any strong wind I was blowing over like it was just not. People called me Charlie Brown Rusty because my head was so big. So yeah I think my parents for that lots of therapy, different thing, you know.

00;05;26;21 - 00;05;49;28
Rusty George
So here you have this legendary grandfather, a pastor for a father ministry is in your family. A lot of kids run the opposite direction, but now you're in ministry. Was it a straight line for you or was it a God bless the broken road that led me straight to church planning?

00;05;49;28 - 00;05;50;29
Clint Dupin
Is that a country song?

00;05;51;00 - 00;05;52;28
Rusty George
It ought to be. It ought to be.

00;05;52;28 - 00;06;21;00
Clint Dupin
By the way, I told you last week, your doppelganger, I mean, it's dead on. You could be an actor, country music singer. You've got it all the look, the tone anyways. Yeah, it was. God bless the broken road. Like I really got into some trouble in high school. My dad, you know, like I told you before, he was gone quite a bit, you know, working for my grandfather, but then planting a church.

00;06;21;00 - 00;06;55;08
Clint Dupin
He didn't have the resource that we have today. And so I really I felt like my dad was pretty absent because of trying to get the church of my mother the same. So my identity was all over the place. I didn't really like the church. I went to school to play soccer at a little university in Indiana and didn't really claim a major until I always joke around one of my junior years, I don't remember which junior year it was, but I started realizing there it was.

00;06;55;08 - 00;07;17;16
Clint Dupin
I was 21 and I started realizing there is like, okay, God's God's given me a gift, you know? And that could be used in ministry. I just didn't know how it would be used. And then there are certain people and certain experiences that were very instrumental in my life at that time that showed me like, it could be done different.

00;07;17;16 - 00;07;20;09
Clint Dupin
It doesn't need to be the way that you've seen it done.

00;07;20;09 - 00;07;25;27
Rusty George
Mm hmm. Okay, so what was that way? What did you think? How could I do this differently?

00;07;27;04 - 00;08;04;29
Clint Dupin
I I've always loved humor. I've always loved I believe, like, I've just I've I've come to the place where, like, hey, God, God's given me a different outlook, how I see things, how I think about things. And I, I didn't really think that humor and fun and how my approach to life could be used in ministry. And there was a couple of things that were strategic defining person was probably Larry Mitchell was a professor who came alongside of me in our religion department, which I did not like at all.

00;08;05;20 - 00;08;42;17
Clint Dupin
But he was one of those guys that showed me took me kind of under his wing and helped show me that those gifts that I had could be used. And then the other one was a camp was Springhill Camp up in ever Michigan? Huge. But I started really developing a heart for student ministries and camp ministry. And God showed me a lot, you know, during those summers where, like, I could do this, I could be I could be a part of this for for a long time.

00;08;42;17 - 00;08;42;24
Clint Dupin
Hmm.

00;08;43;09 - 00;09;10;29
Rusty George
You know, humor is such a it's a disarming thing. It's a beautiful thing. It brings joy. But I've noticed, as you know, I incorporate humor into my talks. There comes this fine line and I wish I could define when it is. I'm going to ask you to help me when it just becomes all right. Now I'm just, you know, Jojo, the dancing clown up on stage rather than using humor.

00;09;10;29 - 00;09;22;08
Rusty George
When does humor cease to be a tool and then becomes more of a I don't know. It overtakes the whole thing.

00;09;23;14 - 00;09;52;08
Clint Dupin
Yeah. Yeah. I think just and I don't know if this will answer your question, but I remember a one of the first times that I started realizing that humor was being used for a purpose, that it should not have been used for was Steve Andrews, who was the founding pastor of Kensington Church that I was a part of, and he called me one day and he said, Hey, man, this is me.

00;09;52;08 - 00;10;15;22
Clint Dupin
He was great. He was always gracious with me. And he said, You spend the first 10 minutes of your message trying to get people to like you. I was like, Wow, this meeting starting off really well and but he was so right. And there is a part of me where my insecurity is, where there's two things where I wanted to get people to like me.

00;10;16;10 - 00;10;49;16
Clint Dupin
And it was actually leading people more towards me than to the gospel. And then the second thing for me was sarcasm. Mm hmm. I really feel like, especially in the West, I think sarcasm is used quite often and we make an excuse for it. I always joke with people that it's one of my spiritual gifts, but I remember we had a counselor on site at Kensington Church and I had a meeting with him on a Tuesday and I walked in and he sat across the table from me and he said, Hey, I got to visit your campus.

00;10;49;16 - 00;11;10;27
Clint Dupin
My wife and I started the fourth campus there at Kensington, and he said, I got to visit your campus this Sunday, you know, and I'm I remember sitting and thinking like, oh, he's going to it's going to be like he was moved. I just really worked. And he said, you sarcasm a lot. I was like, Yeah. And he goes, Yeah, you know what sarcasm means?

00;11;10;27 - 00;11;39;17
Clint Dupin
And I said, That means being sarcastic. He said, No, sarcasm means to rip flesh to tear flesh. It's like, Oh. And he goes, Yeah, just so you understand, when you use sarcasm is if anybody has grown up with an abusive person in their life or their family in sarcasm, whether it's non-harmful or whatever or disarming, whatever he said, it's still leaves him there in that moment.

00;11;40;00 - 00;12;01;22
Clint Dupin
And he goes, If you're going to use it, you really need to know how to use it. And I was like, I never had heard that. So those are two things that were really important for me when it came to humor and not bailing up moments. Rusty It's like I could, you know, those moments where you feel like the Holy Spirit is moving and you have something that crosses your brain and you're like, Oh, that'd be really funny right here.

00;12;02;08 - 00;12;07;24
Clint Dupin
And you see it. And it kind of just pulls everyone out of that moment.

00;12;07;24 - 00;12;31;16
Rusty George
That is a great point because people that, like humor, tend to find the humor in everything and that's good. I mean, I see that sometimes I'll be telling a story from stage that I've told it already a hundred times. It's no longer impactful for me, but I look out there and see that it's moving somebody and I want to go, Oh, I gotcha.

00;12;32;10 - 00;12;32;20
Clint Dupin
Yeah.

00;12;33;01 - 00;12;54;20
Rusty George
But that that's not going to help anybody. Right, right. I think the other fine line is when something goes on in the service, you know, like when a cell phone goes off or a baby cries or, you know, somebody drops something or whatever, I have to fight myself from calling those out all the time because I want to make a stupid comment.

00;12;54;20 - 00;13;08;01
Rusty George
Like if that's for me to take a message, yeah, you know, or whatever it is. But I think that the line is if it's disruptive and everybody knows it, you're kind of got to address the elephant in the room, don't you think? Yeah.

00;13;08;23 - 00;13;10;00
Clint Dupin
Yeah, I totally agree.

00;13;10;18 - 00;13;36;09
Rusty George
Well, we had a guy one time on Sunday night service and we were still doing that. He was he was snoring loud. And I mean, it got to everybody around him is beginning to laugh. I can hear it just you know, there's snoring and so finally we're all laughing and then I just begin clapping my hands randomly, you know, and waking people up.

00;13;36;09 - 00;13;40;21
Rusty George
And so it was one of those that you just had to you had to address.

00;13;40;21 - 00;13;43;22
Clint Dupin
Yeah, I've had sleepers. I haven't had snores. Oh.

00;13;44;04 - 00;13;50;15
Rusty George
And, you know, I felt for the guy, but, I mean, come on. It was a real good indicator of how well I was doing.

00;13;50;15 - 00;13;51;05
Clint Dupin
You were killing.

00;13;51;08 - 00;14;18;03
Rusty George
I was. Okay, so here you are at this megachurch. You're leading a campus. Everything is going well. You're learning how to manage your sarcasm. Things are fine, and yet God puts it on your heart to plan a church. How do you know that? It's from God to go rather than it's for you to run?

00;14;19;12 - 00;14;46;20
Clint Dupin
Wow. Can I. Can I take you on? Just. Can I talk a little process that just with you a little bit? It's a great question. The first thing that hits me when you ask that question, I knew it was time to go because I was not angry. It's good. I didn't have a better way to do it. I wasn't in a you know, I've had a lot of I've been in a place places myself.

00;14;46;20 - 00;15;16;07
Clint Dupin
I've I've witnessed a lot with certain people who've left church to plant or to left to leave to church, planned because they're angry at something in their current situation. I knew for me I was at peace. Now the grace had lifted in certain areas where I was like, you know, I kind of had reached that place where I'm like, I had it's almost kind of like my my wife Michael describes it in a way where it's like Jonah, where I just kept I know I'm entrepreneur.

00;15;16;08 - 00;15;38;18
Clint Dupin
I just kept starting things for Kensington. We started an initiative called Hope Water Project. We started these men's retreats, families retreats, and it was all to just subside this this church planting thing that just kept bubbling up. And I did not want to do it. I did not want to do it because I. I saw what it did to my parents.

00;15;38;18 - 00;16;00;18
Clint Dupin
I saw how hard it was. I helped the church start right up, right right out of college. That was tough. And so I was like, No, I'm happy. This is where my family is. My friends, my community, we'd grown this campus, you know, to 14, 1500 people. It was it was awesome, right? So there no way. But then it was just this.

00;16;00;18 - 00;16;21;28
Clint Dupin
It kept coming back. It just kept coming back. And I knew I knew it was time when I had talked to enough of our leadership and our people that man, God's doing something in you. You might need to explore planting a church. And I remember going to Michael and saying, I think God's calling us to plant a church.

00;16;21;28 - 00;16;42;20
Clint Dupin
And she said by us, I hope you have a friend in your pocket because I'm not going to help you. So we just started praying. We just started praying. And one thing after another, God revealed some things in our relationship that needed to be fixed and worked on before there was going to be peace in both. Both of us to plant a church.

00;16;43;01 - 00;16;52;15
Rusty George
Yeah. Wow. Okay, so how long the journey take from? I think we should pray about this to you're now on the ground in the Bay Area.

00;16;52;29 - 00;17;01;24
Clint Dupin
Yeah, we're we're on the ground in the Bay Area in 2000, January 2017 say it was about midway through the year of 2015.

00;17;02;00 - 00;17;19;28
Rusty George
Okay, so you took a little time. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, I often hear the story from somebody. They're just bitter at their church and they think God's calling them to plant a church across the street. I tend to think that's and think you're running. I think you're mad. I think you're going to end up splitting a church.

00;17;19;28 - 00;17;36;25
Rusty George
So it usually doesn't end up going well. Yeah. Okay. You know, there are so many differences between a large megachurch and a small startup, but there's some things you could learn. What did you take with you from your time at a megachurch that's helped you in your time of planting a church?

00;17;36;25 - 00;18;12;09
Clint Dupin
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first of all, I give so much credit to I was there for ten years at Kensington Church and Steve Andrews, like so much credit to Steve, who literally entrusted me, a person coming from the outside with a campus. So I learned right away, like from him, his belief in me, his open handedness was pretty incredible.

00;18;13;01 - 00;18;39;22
Clint Dupin
So, I mean, I could go on for days, probably of what I learned at Kensington, you know, and what I brought with me. A heart for church planting was the biggest thing. Why church planting was so necessary. A global impact like that was another big thing that I really felt like the more impact that we want to have in our city and our world starts with the local church.

00;18;39;23 - 00;19;07;04
Clint Dupin
Like that's where I really, you know, that philosophy was ingrained in me at Kensington Church. How important it is to release control, right? As far as with leaders, you know, that that was that was something that was really big. I think another thing I don't know how this relates, but I just keep coming back to it is and Steve really showed me this was run from the spotlight.

00;19;08;13 - 00;19;30;03
Clint Dupin
There's something about church planting. There's something about being in ministry where every you want to gravitate towards the spotlight. Church planting, you know, is not glamorous, you know, it's like how we think about the Navy SEALs, like everybody. Everybody wants to be a Navy SEAL because what they see. But if you sit down with a Navy SEAL, they say it is not glamorous.

00;19;30;13 - 00;20;01;12
Clint Dupin
You're cold and wet constantly. And so I think what I have learned through that process, from going from Kensington to church, planting it is not glamorous. And if it's about the stage, if it's about any of those things, it's like you're doing it for the wrong reason. And I felt like I felt like I learned that being at a megachurch, which is really weird because people will ask sometimes, like as your goal too, to be back in a major megachurch or to make Easttown a megachurch.

00;20;01;12 - 00;20;23;23
Clint Dupin
It's like, no, absolutely not. My goal is is is not to get to a certain place, but just to be obedient. What is God having us to do and how can we do it? And I use this phrase all the time is like success in the Kingdom of of God is obedience is not necessarily the outcome. And that's something that I've really learned at Kensington.

00;20;23;23 - 00;20;49;02
Rusty George
Yeah, that's really good. Okay. So if somebody is sitting out there thinking, I need to plan a church, give us three pieces of wisdom to consider before they launch. Hey, let me interrupt this podcast for just a second. Every church leader knows that having trained and engaged volunteers is essential to successful 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.

00;20;49;17 - 00;21;11;06
Rusty George
What if there was a resource that made it easier? Let me recommend Serve HQ to you. 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 Serve HQ Dot Church.

00;21;11;11 - 00;21;18;06
Rusty George
Now back to our conversation. Give us three pieces of wisdom to consider before they launch.

00;21;18;23 - 00;21;43;15
Clint Dupin
I wrote some of these things down too, so I wouldn't forget and I don't remember where I put them. No, I'm just kidding. You know, I've thought of a few more of our sitting here, but the three I put down was hold people loosely. You know, don't sacrifice your family on the altar of church planting. Be the keeper of the vision, but generous with leadership.

00;21;43;15 - 00;21;45;28
Clint Dupin
And then there's a lot of stuff when it comes to finances.

00;21;48;15 - 00;21;49;26
Rusty George
Beg, borrow and steal.

00;21;50;20 - 00;21;55;27
Clint Dupin
Beg, borrow. It's the NASCAR philosophy. It's like, I'll put any sticker on that car just to get around the track.

00;21;55;27 - 00;22;18;12
Rusty George
That's right. That's right. Okay. So church planning can obviously be a very difficult thing and a very rewarding thing. We always have a saying in church, we laugh a lot because we cry a lot. Highs are really high. The lows are really low. Give us a few just highlights and a few lowlights from the past five years of church planning.

00;22;18;12 - 00;22;47;04
Clint Dupin
Yeah. You know, one of the things we used to say to our launch team is being in the Bay Area like we chose the Bay Area because it's the most unchurched church. Now I know every church planter says that even if they're in the Midwest anyways, it's the most unsure church, the church population in the U.S. And so we came in with the mentality that, hey, we might not be reaping a harvest in our generation.

00;22;47;04 - 00;23;08;28
Clint Dupin
It could be the next generation, could be our children. Wouldn't that be beautiful? And so we talked about tilling the soil, clearing the land. What does that look like? What does that mean? And so I think when we started experiencing some sort of growth, Michael and I moved out here with three of our four children, and that's all we knew.

00;23;08;28 - 00;23;30;15
Clint Dupin
We only knew one other couple that was in the area. So once people start joining you, even if you have to con them into like, hey, we're just having a barbecue and oh, by the way, we're planning the church, right? It's like you do anything. Once people started joining, like what we were doing, Michael and I would come back to the house and be like, How?

00;23;30;15 - 00;23;57;05
Clint Dupin
How did this just happen? How do people you celebrate the one, right? You celebrate the one all the time. So our first baptism was before, and I think I shared this with you and showed you the picture, but we baptized our first couple before our church launched in somebody else's pool, right in a neighbor's pool. They didn't even know we were in their right, but it was those type of things where you're just like, Oh my goodness, that's incredible.

00;23;57;29 - 00;24;27;00
Clint Dupin
Baptisms are awesome. You know, those were the joyous occasions. I still say to this day when you see somebody that really gets a genuine experience, an encounter with the living God and start seeing themselves as a part of the solution to a broken world, whether it's in their neighborhood or it's in their workplace. Like that's that's the highlight.

00;24;27;00 - 00;24;48;25
Clint Dupin
And that's one of the things that we've seen quite a few times is where people start getting it, because in the Bay Area, it's not just about having a great church. If it's true that less than 4% of people in the Bay Area consider themselves church people, we're going to have to figure out a different way to reach people, to reach the unchurched, because the unchurched are not coming to church.

00;24;49;11 - 00;25;05;28
Clint Dupin
So when you start seeing people live this out in their neighborhoods, those those are the highlights. Yeah. That's that's when you get really excited, right. Lowlights. So is that the next one. Is that. Yeah. Do we have for that. Yes. How long.

00;25;06;06 - 00;25;09;09
Rusty George
We have two days.

00;25;09;09 - 00;25;49;15
Clint Dupin
Oh man. Dude, it comes back to people Rusty. It comes back to people. I love people. I love relationships. I think the hardest things and you've probably experienced this is when you think you have you ride or die. People come and a and they leave. That's the hardest thing. Yeah. And then you try to remember you started this thing and said to everyone, hold people loosely and then the people that you think, oh, it doesn't matter because they're going to be with me either way.

00;25;49;16 - 00;26;18;10
Clint Dupin
Like when they walk away. I think another lowlight is when you see your children not have friends of faith. Yeah, yeah. Can be totally submerged in a culture that is indifferent when it comes to anything spiritual. Those two things are tough. And when you are staring at each other with your your wife and your family and like, why are people leading a lot?

00;26;18;10 - 00;26;42;13
Clint Dupin
You know, I think those are the low moments. And yeah, I think having people and I'm not just saying this because I'm doing this podcast with you, but you've reached out to me in some of those really low moments. And to have some of those people around you that know and have experience that is so important and one of the thing I'd say on this is it's personal.

00;26;43;24 - 00;27;01;28
Clint Dupin
It's really personal. Like when people say, well, don't take it personal, it's just business and church and planting and leading. It's personal. You know, you can't you can't get around it. And once you can accept that, it's like the alcoholic that just comes and says, you know what, I am an alcoholic. Yeah, that's the first step.

00;27;02;09 - 00;27;29;24
Rusty George
Yeah, it is personal. That's really good. Yeah. Oh, so true. And you know, for you and I and other planters and other pastors, we think church and body of Christ and advancing the mission 24 seven and it helps to know we've got a few people walking alongside us and when one of them decides, Yeah, I'm out, it may not be personal in their minds because they think about it once a week, they think about it twice a month perhaps.

00;27;30;09 - 00;27;36;16
Rusty George
And when they bale it, it does hurt. It is a it's a special kind of pain, that's for sure.

00;27;36;16 - 00;27;37;22
Clint Dupin
Yeah. No, that's good.

00;27;38;01 - 00;28;01;27
Rusty George
So tell me this. You know, I think that it's in our darkest and deepest valleys that we learn more about God than we do on the mountaintop. You know, the old cliche of nothing grows on top of the mountain, you know? So what have you learned about God that you didn't know before you planted a church?

00;28;01;27 - 00;28;32;09
Clint Dupin
That I would say what's fresh on my mind right now, what I'm trying to live into right now, and just kind of I, I feel like God is teaching me that and not even teaching me. But I'm watching this. I'm processing this with my family. This question that it doesn't matter, like God is teaching me so much through people that would say I don't even know who God is.

00;28;32;12 - 00;28;56;02
Clint Dupin
Like the Bay Area is a beautiful place and I would say the majority of people that we're around are atheists. They might not be self-proclaimed atheist, but they are children of God and they are created right in the image of God. And it's like, I think I grew up in a way, I'm not saying that anybody told me to do this, but I think we only think we can learn about God and Scripture.

00;28;56;02 - 00;29;22;22
Clint Dupin
We can only learn about God through other Christ followers. But man, those people that are the furthest from God. I've learned so much about God and how beautiful He is and how much He loves people. I think he's really breaking my heart to be more empathetic. You know what? What what is. What is empathy you look like? What does it look like to be empathetic, like Jesus to all people?

00;29;22;22 - 00;29;34;11
Clint Dupin
I think that's I think that's huge for me because I it's easy for me to get a calloused heart. It really is. And so he breaks that down by using other people. I think that's one of the things I'm really learning about him right now. Mm.

00;29;34;28 - 00;29;56;11
Rusty George
That's so true. Yeah. There is something about being out, especially on the West Coast and for anybody out there listening and thinking about planning a church, let me just say go west, young man or woman, we would love to have you out here. There's just something about the raw honesty of people that is so refreshing because in the Midwest, everything's just swept under the carpet.

00;29;56;12 - 00;30;18;19
Rusty George
You know, everything is fine. Everything is, you know, no problem. But out here, there, they're very honest about what they've tried, what hasn't worked, very open to anything, and they'll even give Jesus a chance. So that's a great, great opportunity. Well, I have loved watching you plant this church and lead this church, and you led it through goodness.

00;30;18;19 - 00;30;37;08
Rusty George
The roughest season that any of us ever experienced, which was the COVID season. And how many weekends were you guys online? How long were you unable to meet again because you were meeting in a school and schools all shut down and they have a mineral open to letting people back in. So how long was your stay out?

00;30;38;10 - 00;31;01;22
Clint Dupin
Yeah, we hit our two year mark right when the pandemic started. I still remember thinking, Oh, this is going to be about three weeks and we'll be back in. So we were we were, you know, March. We started March of 2020 and then Easter of 2021. We had our first drive up in person, Easter service or something like that.

00;31;01;22 - 00;31;22;25
Clint Dupin
Yeah. And then we didn't start meeting, we couldn't get back into the school. So we started, we rented a tent and met in a parking lot starting in June 2021. And then we didn't start meeting regularly until September this past September 2021, and we actually got back into a school, in fact, we the school we wanted in the first place.

00;31;22;25 - 00;31;23;25
Clint Dupin
So that's been cool.

00;31;24;26 - 00;31;52;28
Rusty George
Okay. This is a question I did not share with you ahead of time, but I was just thinking about there's a lot of churches out there that, you know, some are actively planting churches and some are not. But they could all help a church planner. And having been a guy that moves to a, you know, a foreign land for you, you had to rely on the generosity of other churches, not just for finances, but also support or a cup of coffee.

00;31;52;28 - 00;32;10;25
Rusty George
Or can we use your parking lot or your building for a large meeting or something like that? What did you learn about other churches, established churches? I mean, I'm sure you had some horrible experiences. I'm sure you had some good ones. What are ways established churches can help the new kid on the block?

00;32;11;14 - 00;32;36;15
Clint Dupin
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say first, is any any church planter consider in that area? The first thing that I did, I met with every pastor that I could meet with. I wanted to make sure that they knew we were here and that we were not here to take people. And I don't know if that wisdom came from you or somebody or I just made it up.

00;32;36;15 - 00;32;52;24
Clint Dupin
I don't remember. But I wanted I wanted pastors to know that we were here because I've watched church planners come in and not network. I just think one of the greatest things we can do as church leaders and pastors is to network with each other and to be on the same. And we had a few churches to do that.

00;32;52;24 - 00;33;18;22
Clint Dupin
We had a few churches to say, Hey, why don't you come and speak that was huge for us. There's a few people in our church to this day who are were a part of our launch team because we spoke at a different church and their pastor was super open handed. I think, you know, any time a church can mention that a new church plant is coming to town, it's huge, right?

00;33;18;26 - 00;33;42;02
Clint Dupin
It's like that. That, to me tells so much more about your character and who you are. And it just frees your people to be like, oh, we're working together. We're not we're not against that church, you know? So and I'll tell you, one of the things that is helping me right now, one of your guys is meeting with one of our team leaders for kids.

00;33;43;03 - 00;33;59;15
Clint Dupin
We're kind of back in a space where we're looking for we had a full time kids person, so curriculum was one of those big needs. We have curriculum, but we have to have somebody to rewrite it and do all that. So the simple offer of your person to say, hey, we rewrite some of that curriculum, would that save you time?

00;33;59;15 - 00;34;17;13
Clint Dupin
And we're like, Yeah, that'd be like 5 hours a week. Little things like that go such a far ways. Money is great, financial awesome, but man, people power, that type of stuff is so key for new churches. Hmm.

00;34;17;29 - 00;34;37;16
Rusty George
That's so good. Yeah, I. We all feel threatened at times, which is ridiculous, because this is all part of God's greater kingdom. But if you think about it, if every church in the Bay Area ran 10,000 people, you'd still have a lot more people to reach. So this whole jockeying over a few hundred people is is a little crazy.

00;34;38;20 - 00;34;56;07
Rusty George
Okay. I want to talk about you have a unique relationship situation because you are co-pastor with your wife that takes a unique marriage to pull that off. Do you recommend that? What advice would you give a couple out there thinking, hey, we could do this together?

00;34;56;25 - 00;35;10;23
Clint Dupin
Yeah, bunk beds. I would definitely invest in bunk beds. Like your first separate rooms. Yeah, I mean, I think. I mean, are you familiar with the Enneagram?

00;35;11;01 - 00;35;11;19
Rusty George
I am.

00;35;12;06 - 00;35;32;01
Clint Dupin
Yeah. So one of the things you'll read, I think what was a what was the one book? They're like eights and ones, you know, really have a tough time together. Well, I'm an eight and every once in a while, you know, I'm a champ and my word is challenged. And then there's Michael, who is a one. She often calls me an eight hole.

00;35;32;05 - 00;35;53;04
Clint Dupin
So you know that, you know, that's become a common language thing in our house. But anyways, yeah, I think, you know, it's amazing if, if you're if your spouse called to it, right. If you're, you know, Michael doesn't fill in the holes like she doesn't fill in like, oh, we have a need there. We know she leads. Right.

00;35;53;04 - 00;36;11;27
Clint Dupin
And So she's soup. She's just as called to this as I am. I think that's a huge thing. I really do. I think I believe in that. There's a lot of things we're doing that we don't necessarily want to do or we're good at doing that we're doing in this season, but we're always looking for ways to distribute that off to others.

00;36;11;27 - 00;36;37;07
Clint Dupin
But counseling. We are in counseling, individual counseling. I go to a counselor, she goes to a counselor. We are hard core about our day off on Friday. You know, we challenge each other. Phones are done, you know, unless I get a text from Rusty, you know, I'm like, I might text him back, but we we're not on social media.

00;36;37;07 - 00;37;00;05
Clint Dupin
We're not doing any of those type of things. On our day off, that was really important. And, you know, is one of the things that's come out lately, the hobby piece of it is really, really important. We have separate hobbies, which I love, but that that's been something really, really key for us to do. And just knowing how to shut the conversation off is so hard.

00;37;00;11 - 00;37;17;22
Clint Dupin
Mm hmm. It really is. Because we got to a point where we're like, all we talk about is ministry. All we talk about is and it's negative, and it's not positive, and it's just like it's not helping our relationship. It just isn't. Yeah. So those are those are things I think are really key.

00;37;18;16 - 00;37;41;13
Rusty George
Well, I appreciate you saying that. And you actually hooked us up with an Enneagram coach who was great. We used her for a few sessions just to learn about our own differences. And for those of you not aware of the Enneagram, no, it is not the pentagram. There's a big difference. It's nine points, not five, and it's actually deeply spiritual in its root.

00;37;41;13 - 00;38;10;01
Rusty George
So anyway, I really appreciate it that that was great. Clint, you are doing an incredible job, you and your wife, Michael. And it's a it's a journey for your entire family. And they even though you find this to be difficult and having, you know, sometimes feels like three steps, four steps back, certainly during COVID, the the welcome party and heaven will make it all worthwhile one day.

00;38;10;01 - 00;38;26;11
Rusty George
And I am grateful because of your spirit of how you do this encourages me. But this will also encourage other planters as well, because it's not easy, but it is worth it in the long run. So hang in there, brother, and we're really grateful for you being a part of the show today.

00;38;26;19 - 00;38;52;17
Clint Dupin
Yeah, well, Rusty, I'm so and I'm not just saying this. I am so thankful for you. I'm thankful for you as a person, how you've invested in me and cared for my spiritual, emotional and mental health. You don't just talk about it. You actually do something about it. I'm also thankful for just your heart, for church planters and leadership growth.

00;38;52;17 - 00;39;26;00
Clint Dupin
I think it's absolutely amazing. And me and if we had more people like that, it'd be incredible. I said this before we started. Is your podcast like if you are thinking about church planting or if you are a church planter, you can literally get something out of every one of your podcasts. Like I just think about the one with Steve Carter and how he's talking about developing his craft and I mean, Steve, he's a good friend of mine and that dude is like the stuff that he was sharing is gold.

00;39;26;12 - 00;39;38;24
Clint Dupin
Is gold the one with Scott Harrison like, there's so many great things that you are you're giving us. And I would just continue to encourage people to be listening to this and helping it out.

00;39;38;27 - 00;39;53;20
Rusty George
Thanks, brother. I appreciate that. Thanks for the shameless plug. And I'll send you your Starbucks gift card when we're done. I don't want Starbucks. Hey, brother. Grateful for you, my friend and I will see you on a boat in Montana sometime soon, I'm sure.

00;39;53;28 - 00;39;55;07
Clint Dupin
Oh, yes. Can't wait.

00;39;56;03 - 00;40;19;26
Rusty George
Well, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed that. Clinton is fantastic. If you have friends in the Bay Area, you can direct them to East Town Church. Next week, we'll be back with brand new content with an incredible wife, mother, teacher, pastor, a woman by the name of Tiana Spencer. And she's going to be talking about personal shame she went through in her own life and how God brought her through that and took her to even new heights.

00;40;20;03 - 00;40;26;23
Rusty George
So I can't wait for you to hear from her. As always, leave us a review, share the podcast and make sure you keep it simple.

00;40;27;03 - 00;40;50;06
Intro/Outro
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 Lessons.