The Rusty George Podcast

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Rusty George
As a pastor, I'm constantly concerned about how to create connections beyond just the weekend services. And one of the valuable tools that we have found for achieving this at our church is our app powered by Sub Splash. It's one thing to have an app. It's another thing to have an app that has the ability to allow your community to access messages, resources and even give and sub splash created that for us.

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Rusty George
It's become our go to platform for connecting with our congregation in ways we never could have before. Subs, splashes so much more than just a platform or even just an app. It brings people together, empowers giving and transforms lives. If you're interested in learning more, I encourage you to visit their website at Subsplash.com. That's sub S-P-L-A S-H dot com. sub splash dotcom.

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Rusty George
Following Jesus isn't always easy, but it's not complicated. Join us each week as we work to make faith simple. This is simple Faith.

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Rusty George
Well, hello, friends. My name is Rusty George. Honored to have you listening today and honored to get to share with you a little trip down memory lane. Recently, my wife and I am now our two kids over the last 20 years have completed 20 years of ministry here at Real Life Church. And what a blessing. It has been filled with all kinds of highs and lows.

00;01;27;17 - 00;01;49;20
Rusty George
And our good friend, Michael Hinton, fellow teacher, co-leader and also podcast, who has sat down with me a few weeks ago and asked me what are some of the things that you learned? And our team wanted to share those with you. So today we're going to do a little bit of a what did you learn in 20 years conversation between Michael and myself.

00;01;49;29 - 00;02;21;26
Rusty George
I hope you get something out of it. If nothing else, you might get a laugh as we talk about some of the good, the bad and the ugly of our 20 years here at real life and just basically the faithfulness of God through it all. I also want to thank Sub Splash for sponsoring this podcast. Before Sub Splash, we had content, we had an app, we had a website, but they found a way to pull it all together and they were able to give our people messages, resources, extra videos, extra services, things that they need, but also to create a great giving platform as well.

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Rusty George
Now giving is not just a once a week thing. Now giving is not just a please go to our website, but it's right there in people's pocket and they can participate in generosity all throughout the service and all throughout the week. So make sure that you check out sub Splash dot com. Well, I'm excited for you to hear my conversation with Michael.

00;02;39;17 - 00;02;59;12
Rusty George
Hope you get something out of it. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can hit me up on Instagram at Rusty El George on Twitter, at Rusty, El George, and also through my website. Pastor Rusty George I want to thank Michael Hinton for being a part of not just this interview, but a part of the real life story and a part of my life.

00;02;59;23 - 00;03;19;07
Rusty George
He's become such a great friend and such a trusted voice in my life. And if you're in the Florida area, you may want to check out Summit Church. What a great, great place that is. Thanks to his new leadership up there. He's also got a great podcast called Simply Christian, and that is reaching its next season very, very soon.

00;03;19;07 - 00;03;28;28
Rusty George
So make sure that you check that out. Well, here's my conversation with Michael Hinton, or better yet, his conversation with me. Here we go.

00;03;29;02 - 00;03;41;07
Michael Hinton
Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the leading Simple podcast. This is Michael Hinton. A little bit different than Rusty George. I'm joining him today to talk about the 20 year celebration of you being at Real Life Church.

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Rusty George
Wow. 20 years. Two decades.

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Michael Hinton
Two decades.

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Rusty George
Unbelievable. That's crazy. Yeah, it's a long time, man.

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Michael Hinton
I mean, especially in this day and age where a lot of leaders don't last five years leading a church. You have 20 years here.

00;03;55;24 - 00;04;16;10
Rusty George
Yeah, I think, you know, I've been around guys that have had tremendous longevity, especially the church I worked at in Kentucky. They had a guy that was there 40 years, you know, and I've known some others that have lasted 30 or 40 years at a place and had tremendous success. Obviously, there are situations where they overstay their welcome.

00;04;16;14 - 00;04;34;19
Rusty George
Yeah. And I always thought, you know what, I want to stay as long as I can, as long as the Lord allows. But I also have friends that have been places for five or seven years and then and then move on. So I'm just I feel really, really blessed to be able to be in the same place for this amount of time.

00;04;34;20 - 00;04;40;15
Michael Hinton
Yeah. Well, when you look back on 20 years, did it did it turn out how you thought it would?

00;04;41;24 - 00;05;03;25
Rusty George
No, no, not at all. I remember I was serving a church in Kentucky as their associate pastor, working with Mike Bro, and I was having a great time. And, you know, I sensed God might be doing something. My wife and I had been talking about, you know, we probably need to think a little bit about what what is next for us.

00;05;03;25 - 00;05;25;00
Rusty George
As far as I knew, I wanted to be a lead pastor one day, much like you knew that in your life. And I just didn't know where or when. And when California called, I thought, I am not moving to California. It's a place you visit, not a place you live. And I just thought, That's crazy. And my wife, as soon as I told her, she started crying and she said, I just know that's where you're supposed to be.

00;05;25;09 - 00;05;43;22
Rusty George
Wow. So it's odd how much the Holy Spirit, its voice sounds a lot like my wife. You know, it was she likes to remind me that as well. But you know what? I think the way I expected it was, first of all, it was great fear, because the only thing as Midwesterners know about California is, you know, gangs and surfing.

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Rusty George
And I thought, boy, I don't want to raise my kids, you know, in a gang. So I was nervous about that. But then we visited, fell in love with the people of real life. I'll never forget, you know, talking with the elders of real life when I first got here and just hearing them talk about their relationship with Jesus and what God had been doing in their life and the heart for the church and church was about two years, two and a half years old at the time.

00;06;07;24 - 00;06;32;20
Rusty George
So you ask, you know, what did I think it would become? I really believed that we would always be in movie theaters. Wow. Because we were in a movie theater at the time. I was tracking what Mark Batson was doing up in DC, where he was just slowly taking over movie theaters that were close to the subway up in D.C. And doing campuses that way was tracking what Larry Osborne was doing down at North Coast and near San Diego.

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Rusty George
And they had created multi venues, different styles of services on one campus, but multiple locations still on the same property. And I just thought, boy, it's cheaper. We don't have to raise money for a building. We don't have to go through the heartache of building a building. And then when things break and all that. Yeah, and movie theaters are great because people know what to expect when they walk in.

00;06;52;29 - 00;07;15;00
Rusty George
So I really felt like we're just going to grab movie theaters all over the place. And I even had the slogan Real Life Church coming to a theater near you. Ooh, yeah. So I just thought, Boy, this going to be simple. Well, I got out here and I quickly figured out that because of the high Catholic population, as far as, like, their past, they didn't view anything as legit till you had your own cathedral.

00;07;15;03 - 00;07;37;27
Rusty George
Yeah. And they didn't view anything as real until they could actually physically walk into a building you called your own. So when we finally did build a building about, you know, eight years later, the amount of people that showed up and said, yeah, we saw the sign and we thought we'd show up. When you guys finally opened, they were stunned that we had been around that long in a movie theater and a high school.

00;07;37;28 - 00;07;47;22
Rusty George
So how did I think it would start or be? I just assumed to be a bunch of movie theaters and we'd be piping the message everywhere and it would be a lot of fun that way. But God had other plans.

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Michael Hinton
He did great, and thank goodness he did. I think one of the one of my most favorite stories that you tell about the beginning is is not actually about the building, but is actually about when your family moved into the neighborhood and you guys are headed to the pool. Tell that story for you.

00;08;04;22 - 00;08;22;29
Rusty George
Oh, man. Yeah, I've told that a lot of churches around the country, but it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. But now it's become the favorite story that I tell. You know, we just we just moved here from Kentucky. Nobody had pools. We didn't swim, you know? I mean, you know, you've lived in Kentucky, has swimming creeks.

00;08;22;29 - 00;08;38;04
Rusty George
Yeah, that's right. Or as I say, creeks. So we get out here and we thought we got to get to know the neighbors and they had a community pool. So let's go let's go swim with them. And Lindsay was nine months old at the time. We thought, get her a little suit and she can float around with us.

00;08;38;04 - 00;09;00;10
Rusty George
And so we went to the the mall and it was June. So by June, all the swimsuits had already sold out and I found I found a suit and it was bright orange. And I thought, okay, whatever. So we go down to the pool and people are coming out and I'm in the water with Lindsay and Laurie and people are, you know, kind of filing into the community pool.

00;09;00;10 - 00;09;13;13
Rusty George
And I thought it's a great chance to meet people. So I hand Lindsay over to Laurie and I said, I want to go meet people. So I get out of the pool dripping wet, walk around, say hi to people, tell them a little about, you know, who I am and the church and all that. Get back in the water.

00;09;13;13 - 00;09;30;18
Rusty George
And Laurie looks at me and says, What is wrong with your suit? And I saw you talking about it. And there's all these blue images all over the suit. It's one of those. But when it gets wet, these images appear. And it was topless women to all over the suit. And I was like, oh, my goodness. You know, And here I am walking around a new pasture in town.

00;09;30;22 - 00;09;47;24
Rusty George
That's how I realized. Real life church clothing optional. So it was it was an epic moment. And usually every time I tell that story, I have two reactions. One is that was hilarious and the other is, do you still have the suit? Yes, and I do not. So I think somebody around here wanted to buy it from me, but it's not going to happen.

00;09;47;24 - 00;09;59;07
Michael Hinton
Well, I don't care what anyone says. I think that's a win. And it's honestly, it's indicative of just real life church just being this place where you can be real and authentic and however you show up and.

00;09;59;20 - 00;10;02;07
Rusty George
Yeah, very come as you are. Yeah, as you are. Yeah.

00;10;02;19 - 00;10;13;24
Michael Hinton
Speaking of of winds like so looking back on the 20 years that you you've had the privilege to lead this this beautiful community, what would you say where someone just the just the things that God just blew your way with.

00;10;14;14 - 00;10;48;06
Rusty George
Well I would say wow and there's so many. I mean, in the early days, I just never thought anybody would come back. So every weekend people would show up. I would view that as a miracle right up there with the parting of the Red Sea. But being able to get land in a in a place where it's so difficult being able to raise the money to to buy the land and build a building was just, you know, just a God story in and of itself.

00;10;48;06 - 00;11;08;26
Rusty George
But then the, you know, the life change stories of people getting baptized and people put names on rocks and put them in the ground where the baptistery would sit and to have people come up to me, you know, after a baptism service and say their names on a rock. Wow. Or now they have bricks, their names on a brick, and they hear some of those kind of stories is so cool.

00;11;08;26 - 00;11;28;22
Rusty George
Beach baptisms. You know, that was always just one of the highlights for me of, you know, seeing so many people. I'll never forget talking to a guy on the beach and he had a he had a British accent. And I said, How are you? You know, why don't you move out here? And he said, Oh, I still live in London, but I watch online and I flew out here to get baptized.

00;11;28;22 - 00;11;30;11
Rusty George
Wow. I haven't told you that.

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Michael Hinton
No.

00;11;31;00 - 00;11;38;03
Rusty George
Yeah, it was it was really cool. And I would tell people all the time how you think you live far away, you know? Come on.

00;11;38;09 - 00;11;38;21
Michael Hinton
Right.

00;11;38;21 - 00;11;58;28
Rusty George
So he got baptized. Just a really cool story. I remember our first rooted celebration, you know, about pretty much the whole church went through, rooted together. And then we had a big party to celebrate and the life change stories from that Easters where we did cardboard testimonies, you know, and people would share their life transformation stories. And you know how it is.

00;11;58;28 - 00;12;15;03
Rusty George
There's just, you know, life on life. You get to hear some of these these these stories. And then when it becomes personal for you, you know, I got to baptize my kids here. You got to baptized neighbors here. It's just some some really powerful moments that I don't think I'll ever forget.

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Michael Hinton
Yeah, man. I mean, that's a life for that's a that's a life full of moments that that not many people get the chance or opportunity to to be a part of.

00;12;23;25 - 00;12;25;24
Rusty George
Yeah. Yeah. I'm really blessed.

00;12;25;28 - 00;12;36;16
Michael Hinton
But at the same time, I'm sure you would. You probably think about some of the things that how you wish had gone differently had had been done differently. The different decisions. Some regrets.

00;12;36;27 - 00;13;02;07
Rusty George
Yeah, definitely. I think back to when we first moved in the building, you know, we were a staff of about eight people serving about 1200 people, which they say you need one person per 100 people. So we were already understaffed and then we grew to like 3600 and about six months. Wow. Still with eight people. So we had to start hiring quickly, which we didn't really have money for.

00;13;02;07 - 00;13;26;15
Rusty George
But God was good and provided resources at the time, and we started hiring people quickly and it became really apparent that the people that had been here before the building really didn't like the people who were here since the building. You know, as far as on staff, there was this kind of competition. And you know what, I, I was here before you and the new people saying, Yeah, but you don't know how to get to the next level.

00;13;26;15 - 00;13;51;06
Rusty George
And there was all this animosity. So we had to do a lot of work on that and really create better culture. We've had, you know, staff tragedies as many churches have, where, you know, people had made bad decisions, just horrific events that I wish and I wish I could get another day before those events and try to try to stop that or fix that in some way.

00;13;52;09 - 00;14;09;15
Rusty George
And we've just had, you know, a church staff is just a bunch of broken people, you know, trying to do ministry together. And and not everybody always sees that. They just assume, hey, if I joined the church staff, it's you know, it's it's Christian camp every day. You know, a lot of Bible studies and prayer and everybody gets along.

00;14;09;15 - 00;14;13;10
Rusty George
But man, we're all people. We all have our issues. And so sometimes those come out.

00;14;13;15 - 00;14;31;18
Michael Hinton
Yeah. Yeah. I love what you said, that there is this misconception. You know, people look at the church staff and from the outside, they assume that, you know, pretty much all day, all we're doing is reading and praying and saying Kumbaya together. Right. You don't realize that there are imperfect people trying to lead this this beautiful, imperfect bride of Christ.

00;14;31;18 - 00;14;39;23
Michael Hinton
And so we're going to bring all our baggage and luggage in there. And then you being at the top of the of the leadership chain, you're having to lead through all of that.

00;14;40;05 - 00;14;59;16
Rusty George
Yeah, it's this weird dynamic. And somebody told me this years ago and I've talked about it before on the podcast about the the, the weird, the weirdness for someone who's in the church that comes on staff, which if you're on a church staff, you always want to hire from within because they have the same DNA and they came to Christ here and all that.

00;14;59;16 - 00;15;15;03
Rusty George
But the problem is, is now the place they worship is now their place of business. Perhaps their pastors, now their boss. You know, you get to kind of see behind the curtain and people are people and they make mistakes. And so there's a lot of boy, I didn't you know, it's like getting to see the wizard, you know, in the Wizard of Oz.

00;15;15;03 - 00;15;33;06
Rusty George
I didn't realize that they're just as broken as me. And so I think we had to do a lot of rightsizing there as to this is your how your expectations should be. But the other thing is that somebody told me years ago, you know, the enemy wants to stop what it is you're doing. And if he can't get to you, he'll go at the staff.

00;15;33;06 - 00;15;33;29
Michael Hinton
Yes.

00;15;33;29 - 00;15;49;02
Rusty George
And I told people early on when they came on staff, well, you need to go ahead and enlist three or four people that are just praying for you all the time, because this is not like you're working at Costco, Right? You know, the enemy doesn't care if you hand out samples and, you know, in a great way or bad way.

00;15;49;07 - 00;16;08;25
Rusty George
Obviously, God cares about your spiritual formation, but the enemy is not trying to necessarily derail Costco, but he is trying to derail the church. And so I would tell people all the time, have people praying for you. And I could always tell the ones that would make the mistakes or have the issues were those that did not have that prayer support and the enemy got to them.

00;16;09;04 - 00;16;29;08
Rusty George
And as you know, we typically say ministry is like a vice and it just keeps cranking up and whatever's in you will come out of you. And that could be anger issues, that could be PTSD from an abusive relationship. You were in that could be your own insecurities, that could be an addiction, and that can be just stuff you haven't tended to.

00;16;29;08 - 00;16;45;04
Rusty George
It will come out. And unfortunately, you know, when you're the lead guy of a growing staff and a growing church, a lot of your time pastoring as the pastoring of the staff. Yes. As they try to pastor the church. And sometimes I don't know. I know I didn't do a very good job of that.

00;16;45;25 - 00;17;04;18
Michael Hinton
Well, I did test, too. I think you did as best as you possibly could. I even remember coming on staff and one of our first conversation was around that very topic of who's in your life, who, what relationships are you making? Because they're going to be the most important people for you as you serve. In the role that I was serving in, it was a very stressful role.

00;17;04;18 - 00;17;31;02
Michael Hinton
And and so I would say that, yeah, I think you did the best you could and the leadership capability. Now you are a leader, but you've also had leaders in your own life. And so what I want to know is over these last 20 years, what has been maybe the most important leadership lesson you've learned as a leader of a person who's leading people and being led by other people?

00;17;31;02 - 00;18;00;07
Rusty George
Wow, There's so much good stuff that I picked up from other people, and I just so value the leadership wisdom from people like Jean Apple and Mike Breau. Some of my closest friends Marc Wyatt, Rob McDowell, Justin Moxley, Shane Philip, Dave Dermott, these guys have really poured into my life. Larry Osborne has been just a gift to me, but I always come back to a few things.

00;18;00;07 - 00;18;15;20
Rusty George
I remember asking a guy, This is one of my favorite questions to ask guys that have been in ministry longer than me. What do you know now? You wish he'd known you known earlier, you know? Yeah. And I remember this guy from here in town, here in Santa Clarita, a great pastor. He said, Well, a couple of things.

00;18;16;12 - 00;18;50;23
Rusty George
One, no one's ever going to write a book about me, okay? So stop living like, you know, you're you're you're going to be, you know, deified when you die. I mean, it's just you know, you live, you die and you're forgotten. That's it. So preach the preach the gospel, and then that's it. But he said, when people call you because they have a problem in their life, he said, it's like they've called you over to their house and they've taken a two liter bottle and shaken it up and opened it all over the living room of and they want you to put it back in the bottle.

00;18;51;04 - 00;18;54;16
Rusty George
And he said, You're never going to fix anybody.

00;18;54;17 - 00;18;54;26
Michael Hinton
Hmm.

00;18;55;09 - 00;19;12;13
Rusty George
Only Jesus can. And I, I remember just kind of being struck by that this early on in ministry, and I thought, Oh, yeah, I'm paid to fix people. Yeah, that's my job. Job. And he said, You're not going to do it. You can walk with them, you can help them yield to Jesus and he can fix them. But you're not putting that two liter back in the bottle.

00;19;13;00 - 00;19;29;25
Rusty George
And that was really helpful for me. It was very freeing to know that I'm going to walk with you through some of the darkest days of life, but I can't fix it, you know? You know, when you stand beside somebody who's just lost their child because of a school shooting or because of cancer. Yeah, you can't fix that.

00;19;29;25 - 00;19;52;10
Rusty George
Yeah. And you can't have that perfect little quote you say. And then I go next. Total sense. Thank you. You just get to walk with them through it. The other piece of wisdom that I, I hold on to is every church crisis last two weeks. You know, it's I think I got this from from Ed Young Jr okay he said you just watch the calendar.

00;19;53;10 - 00;20;12;10
Rusty George
Every crisis no matter how big it is, will be gone in two weeks because people are so selfish, they get back to their own problems. And he has been right. Every flare up we've had, every Oh, we're never going to get over this every somebodys railing against us on social media. The way the news feed works now, it goes away so quick.

00;20;12;22 - 00;20;26;19
Rusty George
And that doesn't mean that you just get to be, you know, crazy and do whatever you want. But in those dark nights of the soul when you're thinking, Man, I don't know if we'll ever overcome this. I don't know if I can bounce back from this. I don't know if the church will ever, you know, move beyond this.

00;20;26;19 - 00;20;27;11
Rusty George
Give it two weeks.

00;20;27;13 - 00;20;49;12
Michael Hinton
Yeah, man, it's so good. There's a lot of nuggets in there that you can just pick apart. I mean, I specifically just think about, you know, the idea that you can't fix people, you know, as a Enneagram three myself, there's this notion, there's this, there's this misconception in my head that, oh, I am the problem solver. I can do all things that.

00;20;49;12 - 00;20;50;14
Rusty George
Are crazy straight.

00;20;50;14 - 00;20;53;16
Michael Hinton
To me, which is, by the way, a misinterpretation of that verse.

00;20;53;16 - 00;20;54;05
Rusty George
Just, Yeah.

00;20;55;12 - 00;21;19;11
Michael Hinton
But what one of the things that based on that premise, one of the things that has really stuck out to me about knowing you, Rusty, and knowing your leadership acumen, what has the one leadership thing that has stuck with me this whole time is this idea of asking more questions, making fewer statements. And I think that pans out in almost every aspect of of ministry, in being a pastor, going back to fixing people.

00;21;19;15 - 00;21;39;02
Michael Hinton
I don't have there's no magical statement when somebody sits down across and says they just lost their child or their mom just died unexpectedly of a brain bleed when they were just going in for a normal surgery. Right. Like there's nothing I can say in that moment. And so one of the things that I always come back to is, was sitting in our our team meeting, our executive team meeting.

00;21;39;03 - 00;21;48;13
Michael Hinton
And you were telling me you said, you know, hey, it would be great. Ask more questions, make fewer statements at a when you more chips along the way, explain that.

00;21;48;21 - 00;22;10;28
Rusty George
Yeah, and that comes from one of my early mentors and still a very close friend. The guy I worked with in Kentucky named Monty Wilkinson, been a guest on the show. He he just taught me the value of asking people's opinions. He said, you never value people more than when you ask for what they think. And I thought and I would watch him do this with people that I would go, They're not important.

00;22;11;10 - 00;22;34;10
Rusty George
They're not on the, you know, the org chart. I mean, why are you asking them that? Right? But the way they would light up and he'd always glean something from it. But it just taught me, man, that everybody's clamoring to be heard and none of us are listening. So if you just stop and listen, you may actually find a nugget in there and you may not, but you add value to that person when you ask questions.

00;22;34;10 - 00;22;53;20
Rusty George
And so, you know, we started using a statement around here of questions go down, statements go up. So, you know, when we would have meetings, I'd want to know the statements from what you're hearing or what we're learning or what I need to know. But when you're leading a team meeting, be the most curious person in the room because the answers are usually sitting out there.

00;22;53;20 - 00;23;13;26
Rusty George
But it usually takes two or three questions to peel back the onion far enough to get to the real issue of the problem. Yeah, and then there's usually somebody on the team that that can make a decision and figure it out. I've been reading this book I was telling you about called American Icon about the the Alan Mulally who fixed Ford Motors, rescued it.

00;23;13;26 - 00;23;34;19
Rusty George
And it's fascinating. He comes in to work there and he said every meeting we get together, everybody would just read the positive stuff. And he said it was killing me until finally one day somebody said, okay, I got a problem. And so when he did that, then it became a chance for him to say to the team, okay, who can help Bill with that issue?

00;23;35;01 - 00;23;43;26
Rusty George
And now it became a rally around that person rather than a, Oh, you're in trouble. So I just think questions help you get at that. And I attribute that all the money.

00;23;44;02 - 00;23;49;22
Michael Hinton
Yeah, man, that's good. I've tried to use that a lot more. I wasn't really good at it when you first told me about it.

00;23;50;23 - 00;23;51;15
Rusty George
Well, you're a three.

00;23;51;16 - 00;23;53;23
Michael Hinton
I was. I'm a three, so I like to make statements.

00;23;53;23 - 00;23;54;04
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;23;54;12 - 00;24;14;16
Michael Hinton
But the more and more I've grown in my leadership, the more and more I'm trying to be more curious, because you're right. I mean, you, you when you ask good questions, you know, Andy Serwer talks about asking the right questions. When you're when you ask the right questions, you're able to actually get down to the root of what the issue is, is what is actually going on.

00;24;15;09 - 00;24;39;18
Michael Hinton
And so I've learned that very much. One of the other things I've learned from you is, you know, real life has real life has this moniker that the inside moniker of RLC stands for real likely to change over the course of the 20 years, you know, where life has never been afraid to take risks, to explore, to say, hey, what are ways that we can continue to reach people, right, to help people find and follow Jesus?

00;24;39;27 - 00;24;48;07
Michael Hinton
How have you, over the course of the 20 years balance that, hey, we want to be risk takers, but we also want to be wise stewards of what God has given us?

00;24;49;08 - 00;25;16;10
Rusty George
Hey, let me interrupt for just a second. If you're a church leader and your church does not have an app or your app seems to be a little bit limited, check out sub splashnews.com as a great resource to really give your app all the horsepower that it needs. You can connect people, you can help them get access to messages and you can help them set up recurring giving, which is a game changer when it comes to resourcing your ministry sub slash Bcom.

00;25;16;20 - 00;25;39;23
Rusty George
Okay, back to our episode. Yeah, I think that's there again. We've had a a board of elders that has really helped me on some of that to kind of pull the reins back. I mean, in the early days that I know in a lot of days it was always the craziest idea wins. You know, we had the slogan of No church is doing this, you know, and and I love that there's something really energizing about that.

00;25;40;09 - 00;26;05;22
Rusty George
I remember and early on, we were we didn't have a building. So to do Christmas Eve service, we had to rent out a hotel ballroom. And I remember at the hotel ballroom telling everybody we were going to do Easter on top of the parking garage at town center. Yes. Did I have approval for this? No, but it came up in a brainstorming session and I thought that would be so cool.

00;26;06;00 - 00;26;27;13
Rusty George
You know, the sun's coming up and you're on top of the tallest building in Santa Clarita, and we know we're going to have a worship fest and it's going to be awesome. Well, there was no way they were going to let us do that because somebody could fall off the edge and now the whole mall's liable anyway. So, yeah, I learned really quickly that just because it's an idea doesn't mean it's a good idea, you know?

00;26;27;28 - 00;26;45;06
Rusty George
And, and, you know, we've taken some big swings on things. Our first Halloween party we ever did. You know, we had a guy on staff named Steve, who's probably been my longest friend ever, and he was on our staff for a long time and he was doing student ministry. He said, I think we need to blow it out for Halloween.

00;26;45;06 - 00;26;56;29
Rusty George
And I said, What do you mean? He goes, Everybody wants to do something that's safe for their kids. They don't know where to go. And we got to get them in our building. Our building, It just opened, right? They need to see what this place is. I never been inside. That was the beauty of the movie theater. Yeah, Everybody knows what it looks like.

00;26;57;06 - 00;27;13;16
Rusty George
I said, Okay, what are you thinking? Is said, Let's do a big Halloween party. And he goes, And we're not going to call it Hallelujah Harvest, you know? Love that. Yeah. In that great. We're not going to call it, you know, Fall Festival or something. We're going to call it Halloween at real life and we're going to attract a lot of unchurched people.

00;27;13;16 - 00;27;32;02
Rusty George
And we did. And, you know, it was insane. The amount of people that showed up. And every year it got a little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger until we began to, you know, figure out, okay, I don't know if we're reaching the end. Church people as much as we thought we were. So we did surveys and figured out we're really just hosting a lot of people that go to other churches or our church.

00;27;32;02 - 00;27;45;28
Rusty George
So we stopped it. Yeah. So that was one of the things where we thought, that's not good stewardship of the resources we have. Yeah, you know, there was a time where, you know, we were animal crazy, where we would have an animal at every large event because I really believe if you attract the kids, you attract the families.

00;27;45;28 - 00;28;02;09
Rusty George
So let's have a big animal. We'll put it up on the post card and you know, mail it all over town. I took so much heat from other churches and eventually PETA got involved and threatened to picket. And these are working animals. Yeah. That work in movies. Yeah. It's not like they we just stole one from a safari.

00;28;03;07 - 00;28;05;08
Michael Hinton
But the church gets a hold of it, and now we're bad.

00;28;05;08 - 00;28;24;07
Rusty George
Now we're bad, right? But we. Man, we had a giraffe. We had a lion, you know, it was just so not together, but it was so it's just fun, you know, We took some big risks and I think over time, we just began to tell people, Hey, we're going to do anything. As Rochelle says, short of sin. Yeah, to reach people.

00;28;24;16 - 00;28;47;21
Rusty George
And some of these ideas will not work. And that's okay. We try to a service we were doing Sunday night service. We tried a second Sunday night service called Last Call, which was very aggressive music and kind of more experiential. And it didn't work. You know, it was fun for those that liked it, but it didn't really work.

00;28;47;21 - 00;29;04;00
Rusty George
So we so we killed it. We tried an acoustic service and in the coffeehouse and that was cool. But again, it wasn't worth the resources we were putting into it for the amount of return we were getting. So I think we just learned early on, let's be willing to try anything. And when you're portable for so long, you learn that anything can happen, right?

00;29;04;14 - 00;29;05;13
Rusty George
And give it a go.

00;29;05;13 - 00;29;24;28
Michael Hinton
Yeah. And I love that. I love I love churches. That and especially real life because I worked here that I could say, okay, God, you've given us this idea. We we feel like it's feasible, so we're gonna try this, but we're not going to be married to this strategy, right? Andy Stanley would say, you know, you marry the mission, you date the strategy.

00;29;24;28 - 00;29;41;01
Michael Hinton
I think that right. I may have messed that up, but something of that nature and I always love that real life that you particularly work were was like that that hey, this strategy, this is just this just what we have right now. This is what the Holy Spirit has let us do right now. Our mission is we're going to do whatever we can to help people find and follow Jesus.

00;29;41;01 - 00;29;53;21
Michael Hinton
That's never going to change how we go about that. We're always going to be open handed to that. Right. And so when you look back over the last 20 years and you look at some of the things you did and didn't do well, what would be some of the things that you would say, okay, yeah, I would have.

00;29;53;28 - 00;30;03;13
Michael Hinton
I wish we would have started that. I wish we would have stopped this and I wish we would have changed this thing.

00;30;03;13 - 00;30;04;03
Rusty George
Wow.

00;30;05;22 - 00;30;07;09
Michael Hinton
So start, stop change.

00;30;07;09 - 00;30;12;18
Rusty George
Yeah, I wish we would have started Alpha a lot sooner than we did.

00;30;12;18 - 00;30;14;17
Michael Hinton
Oh, man, I'll take it off.

00;30;14;17 - 00;30;29;28
Rusty George
Has been unbelievable. And I. I saw it work at the church in Kentucky, and for 20 years I sat on that idea. I bring it up every now and then. We never had anybody that was going to own it, and I knew I couldn't do it. And it took us 20 years to pull it off and I wish we'd done it for the last 20.

00;30;29;28 - 00;31;00;25
Rusty George
It's just been amazing. I think there were times when we worked so hard to be really like creative or, you know, we did a musical one time in the coffeehouse. We we took a big swing and renovated a building down in Newhall to do a secondary campus. And here again, it was a good idea, but it wasn't where people were coming from.

00;31;00;25 - 00;31;21;28
Rusty George
Yeah, and so it was a lot of sideways energy to get people to go down to it. But, you know, in Santa Clarita, you take the building you can get, and that's the one we got. And I wish I wish we hadn't done that. And I even think campuses, you know, I think that we've tried campuses multiple ways and multiple times and they've had some success and some not.

00;31;21;28 - 00;31;44;02
Rusty George
But the one thing that has worked constantly is online. Yeah. And as we've talked about before with the hybrid church model and James and Ray White and an incredible book. Yes. I wish we had just really gone in a lot more into online and less into how do we multiply ourselves. And I love our church planning effort, you know, just being able to create and launch more churches.

00;31;44;02 - 00;31;54;25
Rusty George
So, you know, there's a few things I guess I would change. I guess I wish that we would have started doing more churches a lot sooner because I just see the fruit from all of that.

00;31;55;06 - 00;32;15;29
Michael Hinton
Yeah, yeah. Real lives online presence. I mean, that, that honestly, that's a DNA. Once you guys started online, it it has taken off it has been a a DNA part of real life forever and multi-site. You know, I was at a conference once and I told some I was speaking and I told the audience, I said, you know, there is no there's no wrong way to do multi-site until you do the wrong way.

00;32;16;29 - 00;32;18;10
Rusty George
But I found many.

00;32;18;11 - 00;32;45;09
Michael Hinton
Yeah. Yeah. And so you have to try all kinds of different avenues for that, but. Mm. Okay. Well, behind the man, the myth, the legend of Rusty George and your 20 years of your life, We all know that you're not just lead Pastor Rusty George, but you're also husband Rusty. You're also father. Rusty. Father, meaning dad, right? It's 20 years of leading a church that was small in its infancy.

00;32;45;23 - 00;32;56;15
Michael Hinton
And it, you know, grew the Holy Spirit, blessed it. How did you balance or how have you lets death stop parsons's present tense. How do you balance being pastor, husband and father?

00;32;56;22 - 00;33;24;26
Rusty George
Yeah, we've quoted him several times today. But Andy Stanley's book Choosing to Cheat, which I think is now renamed as something else, was huge. You know, you're going to cheat work or you're going to cheat home, choose to cheat work. Yeah. And when I first came out here, you know, we had one daughter, nine months old, and I just decided and I learned this from Mike Breau because he was so adamant about going home at a certain time, being at all of his kids events.

00;33;25;13 - 00;33;43;14
Rusty George
Bro was epic for forgetting Elders meetings because he was at kids, his kids events, and we'd have to call him. Oh, I didn't know, you know, because obviously he was more focused on home and I loved that about him. So one of the things that has helped me is Lori's love language is quality time.

00;33;43;14 - 00;33;43;23
Michael Hinton
You know.

00;33;44;05 - 00;34;04;07
Rusty George
I think if her quality if her love language had been, you know, acts of service or gifts, I would have stayed at work a lot longer and just brought her a gift. But because it was quality time and because we were all we had, you know, we didn't have any family out here. We we just made a priority.

00;34;04;07 - 00;34;30;23
Rusty George
I was going to be home by 430 every day. And I was going to I was going to treat my days off as sacred. Now, I've definitely violated that. I've definitely gone home, but still been on the computer or then the phone. But I think, you know, having that hard stop time was not only good for my family, but it was also really good for my soul because I had a time I shut things off.

00;34;30;23 - 00;34;57;18
Rusty George
I even stopped reading ministry books at home because it felt too much like work. So I started reading business books or sports books just as a way to to relax. But one of the best compliments I've received from my kids was my daughter. My oldest daughter, Lindsey, has been in school now for a couple of years in college, and she met somebody who was a pastor's kid and and he was talking about how his dad was a workaholic.

00;34;58;05 - 00;35;18;13
Rusty George
And Lindsey said, Oh, I don't even know what that's like because my dad was home all the time. And I was so honored by that because I thought, wow, that that that is what I was trying to achieve, you know? So I think, you know, having those hard stops and, you know, the commitments that I'd make, was there more I could do?

00;35;18;13 - 00;35;37;15
Rusty George
Absolutely. You know, could I have made another phone call or written another message instead of going home, sit on the couch and watch an American Idol? Yeah. Yeah. But it'll wait. And God's bigger and he'll take care of it. And what I learned is, you know what? It's. I'm just here for a little while, so that's the one mission I have to be good at.

00;35;37;28 - 00;35;51;26
Rusty George
So the other little thing that I picked up on and I owe Allen Smith a tremendous amount of gratitude for this because he taught me this when I first got here. He said, You got a daughter. I said, Yeah, I only had one at the time. He said, She gets to kindergarten, you start doing overnight daddy daughter dates.

00;35;52;14 - 00;36;10;18
Rusty George
And I said, Tell me more. And he said, You just put on the calendar and she gets to pick where and you're going to go somewhere and do something fun. And by the time she's 16, 17, 18, she'll be the one planning them and so excited about them. And that was true. I did that with both girls and they each had different tastes and what they wanted to do.

00;36;11;01 - 00;36;28;17
Rusty George
I said we wouldn't get on a plane until junior high, which I think turned into high school, but just really fun things that became a We're always going to do this. Yeah. And obviously, you know, try to take them out to lunch once a week and all that. You know, the daddy daughter dates during the week, but having two daughters, that was that was a big thing for me.

00;36;28;21 - 00;36;48;08
Michael Hinton
And that's so good. I think about all the things I got wrong as a dad trying to be a pastor and husband at the same time and it has been an absolute privilege and honor to watch you lead your family in the years that I've known you and incredibly grateful for, for the example that you set for the staff.

00;36;48;08 - 00;37;09;25
Michael Hinton
And I think that's the most important, is that if you're not doing it, then the expectation for the staff to do it is hard to keep. And so I think I speak on behalf of all of former and current staff for Life to say thank you so much for loving and leading your family so well. And I'm sure if Lori and Sid and Lindsey were here, they they'd have great stories to tell about the good times and the bad.

00;37;09;27 - 00;37;11;23
Rusty George
How I failed epically. Yes, definitely.

00;37;12;06 - 00;37;32;01
Michael Hinton
So. Rusty, 20 years you've been in ministry a lot longer than that, but 20 years as a lead pastor, probably 30, 40 years as a as a pastor and general young leader sitting across from you. What's the what's the what's the one piece of advice If you only had one advice to give him or her, what would that be?

00;37;33;11 - 00;37;37;05
Rusty George
Hmm. You're a Christian first.

00;37;37;13 - 00;37;37;21
Michael Hinton
Hmm.

00;37;38;15 - 00;38;00;06
Rusty George
So love Jesus. You know, you should love Jesus more today than you did a year ago or ten years ago. And as much as I hate the really dark times we've been through in seasons here at real life and in ministry, it was during those times I felt closer to Jesus, you know. And those are the things that I that I reflect on.

00;38;01;02 - 00;38;29;29
Rusty George
And I got this great piece of advice from Dave Stone the other day. He was talking about his, you know, 30 years at Southeast Christian Church, and he said, I saved every negative letter. Wow. And I thought, Not me, man. I regretted those things. And he said, No, I saved it and put it in a file, because then, like after, you know, a couple of times a year, I'd go back and read them and realize, Ha, God brought me through that.

00;38;30;00 - 00;38;47;08
Rusty George
Yeah. Wow, we survived that. Everybody didn't leave. The church, didn't fold. That person came around or, you know, they never told me their name or whatever. You know, you just begin to see you lived through it. And I wish I'd done that because I'd have a file full as well. But just to be able to say, you know what, God is faithful.

00;38;47;08 - 00;38;55;16
Rusty George
And if you're if you're a Christian first and a pastor second, I think that that will save you a. World of hurt, man.

00;38;55;25 - 00;39;13;13
Michael Hinton
That's good. Okay. Be a Christian first. I got to remember that that's my first job. Mentors, families, just people who have meant so much to me or these last 20 years of leaving real life. What would you what would be one message that you have for them?

00;39;14;23 - 00;39;40;07
Rusty George
Well, I mean, I think about the people I've worked with very closely Fred Gray, Jeremy van der Linden, Debbie Rowe Bear, you know, Erica Watkins, Michael Hinton, all of our campus pastors, the team that I do videos with from, you know, Clayton and Curtis and Carlos and you pretty close with those guys, especially during COVID. I felt like I saw them more than my family.

00;39;40;07 - 00;40;03;28
Rusty George
You know, Boy, I know I'm missing some people, but our board of directors, I'm just so grateful for their patience. I know there were times that I would come up with the most ridiculous idea and they would just look at each other like, just let him talk. You know, he'll forget about it tomorrow. But learning how to just give me grace and know when to have the hard conversation with me.

00;40;05;02 - 00;40;26;26
Rusty George
They have been so, so helpful and very rarely have I had like a I mean, there's been a couple of times there's been like a coup, you know, mounting from from somewhere. But those guys have always had my back and always encouraged me through everything. And they just they've just been great. And I'm so grateful for them all.

00;40;27;03 - 00;40;27;13
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;40;27;21 - 00;40;58;15
Michael Hinton
Wow. Well, I say this on my behalf, and now that I don't work for you, it actually means more when I say it now, because I used to say it and I always thought, Well, people just think I say it because I work for you. But in the scriptures, I think in the Book of Matthew, Jesus talks about his parable of the Five Talents and, you know, the one who takes the little and produces much more is a five talent leader, five talent passer, five talent person, five talent of integrity of trust.

00;40;59;12 - 00;41;21;02
Michael Hinton
And I've since the day of the coffee shop in Palmdale, California, I have admired your leadership. I admire your posture, your integrity, your willingness and grace to talk to people, some people who we know didn't deserve it. But yet you were just extended an extended extended you extended grace to me. You allowed me to come on this team.

00;41;21;02 - 00;41;33;04
Michael Hinton
You allowed me to fail. You allowed me to mess up, and you had my back the whole way through. I tell people this all the time. I'll say it to take my last breath. I'll say it long after you're gone. If I write a.

00;41;33;04 - 00;41;33;26
Rusty George
Book about you.

00;41;34;05 - 00;41;57;00
Michael Hinton
You have been not just a leader, not just a husband, not just a father, but a person worth following you Have you mean that much to our family? And I know on behalf of all of those who've previously served here in real life, thank you so much for your for the faithful. 20 years that you've given this place.

00;41;57;00 - 00;42;08;05
Michael Hinton
And thank you for what comes next. Whatever comes next, how many more years you continue to lead here that the Lord have you here? We're we're so grateful for that. The city is so grateful that the kingdom of heaven is so grateful.

00;42;08;05 - 00;42;08;16
Rusty George
For your.

00;42;08;20 - 00;42;09;10
Michael Hinton
Faithfulness.

00;42;09;10 - 00;42;11;22
Rusty George
Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate that. Means a lot.

00;42;12;03 - 00;42;19;21
Michael Hinton
Yes, sir. All right. Well, thank you for listening today. I would love for you to subscribe to the podcast and if there's anything else, see you later.

00;42;21;09 - 00;42;42;09
Rusty George
Well, thanks so much for listening. I don't know if you got anything out of it, but I certainly was blessed by the memories, but more importantly, the remembering of how God was so faithful. I made a lot of leadership gaffes, but he is so faithful to advance his church because it's always been his long before I ever got to take the helm.

00;42;42;18 - 00;43;05;15
Rusty George
I'm so grateful that will be his long after I am gone as well. God has been so faithful and I know He'll be faithful to you as well. And I'd love to hear from you if this podcast helped you out. You can hit me up on Twitter and Instagram at Rusty George and go to my website Pastor Rusty George and dot com thanks to Sub Splash for their participation in the podcast and sponsorship.

00;43;05;15 - 00;43;28;27
Rusty George
Make sure you check them out at Sub splash dot com next week back with brand new content where I get to interview once again one of my favorite authors Pastor Mark Batterson. He was on a couple of years ago with his new book Win the Day, which was fantastic. And now he's got a brand new book, Simplifying Life, into three basic statements that you got to know.

00;43;29;12 - 00;43;50;06
Rusty George
It'll be awesome. I'm not sure if that's good English, but I liked it. So we like things that are simple and we're going to simplify all of that next week in my conversation with Mark Batterson. Well, thanks for listening. Hit subscribe, Share it with a friend. And as always, keep it simple.