Theology in the Raw - Church Planting 101: Brad Sarian

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Brad Sarian is the lead and founding pastor of Restored Church LA in Los Angeles, CA. He is married to his wife of 13 years, has two children, and a passion to help people experience the love of Jesus so they can enjoy and obey him in all of life. Check out Restored LA here: https://www.restoredla.com -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. We are living in some interesting political times to say the least. We've got a little election coming up, lots of, uh, volatility happening in our culture and in the church. Well, I've been using the phrase exile in Babylon as a way to describe what I think is a Christian political identity. And I tease out this identity in my book, exiles, the church in the shadow of empire. I actually think the Bible has a lot to say about politics. Not so much like who to vote for or which candidates better, which political party we should support if any.

But it does talk a lot about how Christians should view themselves in light of the various empires living in. So if you haven't read it yet, check out my book, exiles, the church in the shadow of empire. I think you'll like it. My guest today is my good friend, Brad Sarian. Brad is the lead and founding pastor of restored church LA in Los Angeles, California. He's married to his wife of 13 years, has two children and a passion to help people experience the love of Jesus so they can enjoy and obey him all of their lives. I wanted Brad to come on the show because he planted a church, I believe nine years ago. And it's just a, I mean, he's a stunning preacher,

a very gifted person loves Jesus. Like crazy is super humble. He's just, he's an amazing, he's an amazing guy, amazing pastor. And he's done a really, really good job at planting a church. So for all you church planners out there or aspiring church planners, I think you will love this episode. Brad has just a wealth of wisdom and humility that I wanted him to share with you all. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Brad Saria. So, Brad, how old were you when you planted the church now called Restored LA? I don't know if that was the original name at the beginning or... Yeah, it was Restored.

We knew we were going to be up in the San Fernando Valley, which is North LA. We didn't know where we would land, so we just called it Restored LA. But yeah, I was 25 when we were sent out to plant this church. Okay. How did you prep for the church plant? Yeah, so we had... I'm a part of a family of churches, the Restored family. I think you know Andy Rogers. Yeah, of course, yeah. Chris Vienen was very, very helpful in that. So my wife and I, we got married when we were

about 22. We were 22, and we moved down to San Diego to help Andy and Jackie Rogers plant a church, restored church down in San Diego. And so I was, I think it was 23 at that point. It kind of came on as like an associate pastor, if you will, which is very backwards because we had a church of about 20 people. With 20 people, there was an associate pastor and like a staff team.

And so, but it was there that I really like a staff team. But it was there that I really like learned church planting, what does this look like? And so, the way I've described it is I'm really grateful for my buddy Andy who kind of led the charge. And in leading the charge, I feel like I sat in the passenger seat while watching him just get punched in the face over and over and over again. And I got to take notes. I'm just like, all right, don't do that. Okay, do that. That's really good. Don't do that. And so, it was a very much learning as we're going. And so, by the time we planted a few years later, by God's grace, we had a ton of like, hey, we had a vision of what we wanted to be. I think when we started San

Diego, it was more like, we're figuring this thing out. And by the time a few years later, it was like, I think we have a pretty clear vision based on where we've landed in San Diego of what, um, we want to see happen in, in Los Angeles area. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I met Andy Ross, shout out to Andy Rogers in San Diego. Andy's amazing. He's such a great, I spoke at a church, I think a couple of times and, uh, just, just always blown away at the kinds of just raw, authentic ministry that guy's engaged in. And I think that's the thing that I think is really important to me is that I think it's the fact that I got connected. It was because I think I preached at Anthem one time while you were there. And then we ended up chatting a little

bit from there. You didn't preach at Anthem, bro. You crushed it. Okay. No, no. I think you were probably 23, 22 at the time. You were young, dude. And I'm like, you walk up on stage and like, man, how can we put all these kids up in the pulpit? You know, like what the heck, what the heck. And you, that sermon, like there, there's bad preachers. Then there's a wide spectrum of like decent preachers. I feel like it's like most people are like, yeah, they're good. You know, like I can understand most of it. Actually Jesus is a pretty good, you know, it's not, it's not bad, but you know, I'm, you know, my mind's checking out. I mean, no, no, no. You know, bring my mind back in focus, you know? And, and it's good. That's it. I would say most

preachers I hear are in that category. Then there's like that upper tier where your, your mind doesn't check out if, if, if you tried and that was you at 23, bro, my wife turned to me and we sat under Francis Chan for a couple of years. You know, we've been under, we've seen really good preaching. She turned to me afterwards in tears. She literally said, I'm not kidding. That was the best message I've ever heard. And my wife is not, she's, she's not interested in preaching. She, she is. Yeah, it's very, it takes a lot. So that was 10 years ago, dude. And I, and I was like, wait, I think he's better than me. I was like, he's better. Anyway. So that was, so how,

wait, how long, what year was it when he planted them? So how long are you? It's no longer a church plan. It's just a church church. Yeah, yeah. So it's been nine years this month for us that we moved back to...so my wife and I are both from the San Fernando Valley, Northridge. We both graduated at Cal State Northridge. And so we moved back from San Diego nine years ago. And so like our official ninth birthday will come up later in the early next year, but we're nine years into this journey. So we don't really call ourselves a church plan anymore, but because of our family of

churches were connected with church. I preached at a restored Rancho just launched a couple of weeks ago and I preached there on Sunday. And so we're still connected with church, but it feels weird to call ourselves a church plant after nine years, nine years, a long time. Was there that, is it the three year, the honeymoon lasts about three years. I hear when I talk to other church planners or like a couple of things, always here is like the first three years are great. But at that three year mark, all of a sudden, like all the chaos starts happening and the honeymoon's over. And a lot of people, I don't know, I don't know the date on this, but anecdotally

seems like some people just kind of ditch it after, after three years. Like I can't do this. And also another thing I hear from church planners is the overwhelming majority of your team you plant with will be gone after three years. Have you heard that? And is, was that true in your case or? It is bro. I mean, it's, it's been, it's painful. I actually have a, I have a picture of like one of our first, I think it was our first Christmas. We had like a restored Christmas party and there was like 23 people in our living room. That was like the church. It was like just a handful of people and I have a picture of that.

And there's like four, five people still from that. And so, yeah, it's like a painful... Not everyone... You know, some people are different churches following Jesus to move out of state. What there's different reasons. But it is, it's painful. You're like, Oh man. But it is, it seems to be the reality. So Speaker 0 4.50 is there a way to change that? Is that necessarily a bad thing? If you had to go back and do it over again, is there, is there something maybe different things you would have done to keep the majority of the people? Not, not that it was your fault for them leaving. But you know what I mean? Like, or is that just like, Hey, this is just going to happen. Just expect it. And it is what it is. Or yeah, it's, I

think it's, Oh man, there's so much there because there are dynamics. I can't encourage anyone church planting to, to read a Tim Keller has an article, Leadership and Church Size Dynamics. Have you ever read it or heard of it? Okay. It should be worth a thousand dollars and it's free online. And basically, Keller goes through different sizes of the churches, house church, small church, medium-sized church, large church, all that, and kind of looks at pros and cons of each of those seasons.

And he talks about how it's often easy to moralize the size of the church, right? So, we moralize, like, the house church is the godly way to do it or the mega church is the right way, God's blessing it. And he says, there's no right size. And so, when it comes to planting a church, we start in our living room, there's a group of people that are very excited that they have access to the lead pastor. There's 20 of us. If excited that they have access to the lead pastor. There's 20 of us. If they want to get lunch with the lead pastor, it can happen tomorrow or the next day. And so, there's this tight dynamic that generally happens with 20 people

that once it grows to 30 and 50 and 70, something like that, all of a sudden it's like, wait a second, we aren't...I think that three-year number is real because there's some people...and again, it's not evil necessarily, it can be, but I think some people jump into a church plant going, I'm going to be on that team. You know, it's almost like the disciples of Jesus, like, okay, we're going to sit at the right hand. And sometimes those people aren't the healthiest people and they're not mature. Some of them don't know Jesus. I mean, a good chunk of people that are joining a church plant don't know Jesus

They weren't a part of a church So the odds of them being helped if unless they were sent out from a healthy mature church with their elders Sending them the odds of an early church planting team being really healthy is very low It's kind of a ragtag team of people who are just wandering Non-christians never been in the church. And so, that's why I can't encourage people enough to like plant with a team. You need a few people. And so, we actually had three people from Restored San Diego move up with us, Paul, Nicole, and Jamie, and they were just foundational, just pillars in the church family for us because it was like, it was lonely early on. It was just like, okay, no

one knows our culture, no one knows what we're up to, except for these three that have been with us from the beginning and know what we're up to. And so, so yeah, it's a bummer, but it is to some degree a reality that as churches grow, some people are looking, people want a certain size church. They want a 30 size church in a living room. As soon as you move to a new spot, they're like, this isn't for me anymore. And then you have people that visit from a mega church and they're like, you guys are awful. Your music's awful.

Everything just is. Where's your junior high ministry? It's like, we don't have a junior higher. We don't have a ministry. We have nothing like that. And so I think there's some natural realities to it. Could I have led better to try to keep them probably. Um, but it, it just feels like a natural reality. Is there any looking back,

is there anything that you would have done differently to try to keep people or no? Cause yeah, if the church is growing and you're not against it going to 150 or whatever and people want the intimacy of a 30 person church, there's not really much you could have done. I mean, but is there anything? Yeah, I guess the only thing I'm thinking of it now is like maybe setting expectations a little bit clearer. It almost sounds arrogant.

Like, hey, if we're at church at 20s, like, hey, when we're at 100 or 300, then it's gonna be harder to do this one-on-one stuff. But I think, so I don't think I set any expectations like that, so it just kind of normal is I'm fully accessible to you at any time. I'm, you know, anything you need, I'm there for you. And then as things grow a bit, and again, we're talking slow growth, we weren't like

rapidly growing. But as we're growing, just setting expectations and probably having hard conversations with people, you know, like, like, all of a sudden that one person doesn't show up for three Sundays in a row, and you're very aware of it because there's a handful of people and you just kind of like don't move toward them. You kind of get bitter or jealous or angry. You're just like, oh, what were they doing? You know, and I think it would have been,

I tried with some people to move toward them. And I think other people, it was like, and it wasn't great to have them on the team anyways. So it almost is like a blessing in a weird way. And so, yeah, so be able to do that. And so I'm going to be able to do that. And so I'm going to be able to do that. And so I'm going to be able to do that.

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And so I'm going to be able to do that. And so I'm going to be able to do that. And so I'm going to be able to do that. And so I'm going to kind of like, this is what this community is going to be and we're going to strive to be this or let the people that God brings to your community in a sense, kind of determine the shape, the genre, the tone, the posture, the emphasis of the church, you know, which one comes first. But anyway, yeah, I would love to speak into that. What were your values and how did that come about? I think, again, going back to, because we were a part of Restored in San Diego, we had worked out a good... When we started Restored in San Diego, we were in the process, what are our values? What are we going to... On the ground learning. I remember sitting in a restaurant with Andy one of the first days, like, are we going to do small groups?

Is that like a big look? We're just like, we're trying to create from scratch. What do we think? But after the three years down in San Diego, we felt pretty, our values are gospel, family, dependence, mission, multiplication, and renewal. And so, we felt pretty confident with those coming up. We actually added renewal a little later, but the other five were kind of just a part of who we are. This is what we're up to. And so, I do see what you're saying. Like, there could be a value of kind of, hey, let's see what God's bringing us. Now, maybe that'd be more realistic.

I mean, San Diego to Los Angeles isn't a drastic shift. You know, there are plenty of differences. But I think if you're moving to a completely different country or something like that, that would make more sense to kind of like, hey, let's get on the ground. Let's see what's happening here. But our values are generic enough. It's like gospel, the church is a family, dependence on the Holy Spirit, living on mission. It's like, I don't know how much we want to change those depending on where we're at. It's kind of like this. This is what drives us. Now it's on the Holy Spirit, living on mission. Those, you know, it's like, I don't know how much we want to change those depending on where we're at. It's kind of like this, this is what drives us.

Now it's going to be contextualized, obviously. What is, what is Church of the Family going to look like if we're in India or if we're in Los Angeles? It's going to look different. What does mission look like? That's going to look different. But I think as, as values for us, we're like, this is what we're, what we want to see happen.

Yeah. Has, has, I'm just curious, and I hate asking this question because I don't care, but just to get people a picture, like how many people would attend your church now? You started 25 in a living room, nine years later, but you've also sent out, you planted some churches too. So we're a part of church plants. We at LA haven't actually sent out anyone officially. So we kind of partner with... Andy's more the apostolic Godfather who's constantly sending people out. And so, we're right now on a Sunday, like about 300 adults and like 100 kids. And so, in that Tim Keller article, we have transitioned

from a small church to a medium-sized church, which is this funky thing in between where we're, you know, you're not a mega church by any means, but we're not that small house church anymore. And I think it creates a lot of challenges because, yeah, you're like that middle stage of, you know, and I'm not trying to like, oh, we need to get to this next thing. There is a piece of like, I love where we're at. I'd love to honestly keep seeing people come to know Jesus and growing in a healthy way, but it's an odd place to be. Do you care about numerical growth? Like honestly, don't give me the,

I want the honest Brad, like if all of a sudden next year you had 500 people, would you feel super energized and excited about that? Or if next year you dropped down to 150, would you care super energized and excited about that? Or if next year you dropped down to 150, would you care? Would that be disappointing? Or how do you think through the numbers? Yeah, I care about numbers. I care about numbers, obviously, because they're about people. But I really do. I think if we grew to 500 by next year, I think a big question would be,

where did these people come from? If they're all getting saved out of nowhere, I am stoked out of my mind. If a church nearby shuts down and we just got 200 hurting Christians that don't trust leaders, I'm not stoked. It's what God's doing and okay, but it's gonna be hard. And I would say if we're down to 150 next year, but it's because we sent out a church plant five miles away, I'm celebrating that. And so, I think to me, it really does come down to why are we where are we? And that's far more important than what number we're at.

But I do think, you know, Spurgeon always, is it one of his books? He talks about that it's always... He says a couple things, but one thing he says like, if we're called to fish for men, he's like, what kind of fisherman doesn't care about how many fish he counts? You know, it's like there is some reality. It's like, I care, man. I don't think I'm there just to be, you know, just to preach a couple sermons. Like, I want to have big expectations for God to save and for God to grow. I think generally speaking, healthy things grow. Are there situations where that might not be true? Yes.

I mean, COVID was just, you know, gnarly. And so that was quite a shakeup for all the churches that I know. But yeah, I do care about numbers, but we don't have like numeric... Some of my friends have like goals. We need to get to 500 or we need to see 400, you know, baptisms this next year. It's like, I'm always cautious about... It just makes me nervous. Like, maybe I'll have

them mentally, but I don't know what that looks like to have numerical goals in the kingdom of God. But I want more people knowing Jesus. I love that answer. You know, when people ask, like, it's kind of like, this is, I mean, not exactly the same at all, but maybe just analogous, like, you know, like if I have a book that sells a lot, I'm like, well, you know, I spent, I usually put my heart and soul into a book. So do I want lots of people to read it? Yeah. I want millions of people, you know, whatever, but like, that's not, I would rather have fewer people read it and do what I do. What it says, whatever kind of impact I wanted to then lots of people to buy it and just have it sit on the shelf or just like, Oh, that was nice and easy. And they go back to

their routine. So I do a meaningful quote unquote sales, whatever. But yeah, of course, of course I, I mean, if five people read a book I wrote, which has happened, I'm like, gosh, like I spent like two years of my life pouring into this thing. And that's, you know, I want more people to engage it. Yeah, that's good. It's got to, I mean, it's gotta, when you look out and you see more and more people, I'm sure there's just that initial like excitement, you know, something they're coming for a reason, but I like what you said, like, why are they coming? So if they just were, were like, Hey, you know, I'm leaving my church every year. I'm kind of moving around from church to church. And I heard, you know, restored LA is good preaching. I'm going to go there like, Hey, you know, I'm leaving my church every year. I'm

kind of moving around from church to church. And I heard, you know, restored LA is good preaching. I'm going to go there. Now, like people are just kind of church hopping. I'm hearing you say that doesn't necessarily get you super excited. No, it doesn't. I mean, it can't from a perspective like, you know, we're growing. It's like, okay. Now I do think God has, it is, it. Now, I do think God has... It's fascinating. I've seen God grow people in our church in a way where He didn't when they were other places.

And I know that's probably true if they leave our church and go to another church. So there is something to that. But yeah, I care why they're there. I don't want to pretend we're the only church that's doing it right. There's so many beautiful churches in the San Fernando Valley. But there's almost two million people in the San Fernando Valley. So like just in North LA, the Valley, there's two million people. So it's like, how could we...

I mean, that was funny. When we were planting back up in the Valley, people were like, why are you guys planting a church? There's a couple of mega churches in the Valley. It's like, guys, praise God for those mega churches. But even if we're rounding up, those two mega churches maybe have 15,000 people altogether. Like 15,000 out of 2 million people.

Until all 2 million people know Jesus, love Jesus, and are following Jesus, we need more churches in this valley. And some aren't gonna go to the mega church, some aren't gonna go to the house church. We need all different types. What's the advantage of planting more churches rather than strengthening the churches that already exist? Because this is kind of the core foundation of church planting, right?

We don't just need more people coming to church, we need more churches. Why is that? I want to be careful here. I'm down with strengthening dying churches. I think, and we've seen this by God's grace, I've seen a couple of instances of this where for a church that's dying, whatever we want to say, the humility required of that leadership team to really, I think, hand over the reins to a new leadership team is almost required, maybe not every single time, but most of the time. And what I've seen in a lot of, just my own experience, what I've seen in a lot of churches that are dying that, hey, come help us. It's come help us, but we're going to keep doing exactly what we're doing. We just want more people here. And it's like, again-

Help us not to die. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, that'll work. It won't work. It'll work for a little bit longer. And so I think that if I've had friends who have had stories where they come into dying churches and they want to revitalize, and I think it takes a very special gifted godly leader to revitalize a dying church because I think the errors that I've seen are... I think there's wisdom in waiting a little bit. I think you come in week one and you bring the sledgehammer to the organ, it's not gonna go well. But the temptation I see in too many of other pastors is they wait too long. They're like, I'm gonna wait five years to make any

changes. I want to like have them trust me first. And I'm like, dude, five years, no. Like you know, and you become a part of the problem, I think. And the dynamics of power, the dynamics of all this stuff, of the culture that you're walking into, I think it takes such a strong leader and the humility of a leadership team. And so, the odds of both of those things happening, it can happen. I've seen it on a rare occasion. But I think that, yeah, if there's a church that's struggling and going, hey, we're struggling and we want to see the kingdom of God advance and God's doing that through you guys, can you help us? It's like, yeah, if you mean help us, like I can honestly

say everything that I'm thinking and feeling, then sure. But if you just want me to come alongside you and applaud you in where I'm seeing things that are significantly detrimental to health and maturity. We can't revitalize this thing, you know? And so, it could happen. And I think that, yeah. So that's why planting churches... Like I do think to some degree planting churches is hard, but it's easy in the sense of creating

a culture. I mean, like you get to start day one and you're like, here's who we are, here's what we're doing, here we go. When you step into a church that's 60 years old and, you know, there's 30 people there who go, we've always done it this way and we'll always do it this way. It's like, well, the reason you're dying might be because you're always doing things like this. And so we have to just go, hey, I love you. We honor that. We're honoring that. And yet if you want to see things, things have changed.

One quick story. Oh gosh, I'll be careful. But neighborhoods change, you know? And I was talking to a person in a church whose neighborhood is primarily a white church, and the neighborhood has changed over the last 40 years. And so, I was talking to them as the church is dying, and they said, you know, our solution is we need to move to another area. Oh, gosh. And I was like, no. I mean, if God's saying that, okay,

but I don't think that's the solution. I think you're actually supposed to meet people where they're at and change, you know, not their doctrine with the changing neighborhood, but if, you know, so anyways, I think you know where I'm going with that. But yeah, I think it demands a humility on the leadership team and a strength and leadership

in the leadership team coming in. So as a parent, one of my greatest desires is to help my kids understand the Bible. But as your parents know, this is no easy task. Okay. So this is why I'm so excited about the Bible Recap for Kids by Tara Lee Cobble. Oh my goodness, this is an awesome resource. The Bible Recap for Kids is a young reader's edition of the bestselling, The Bible Recap,

and it's adapted for kids ages eight to 12 years old. It follows along the same 365 day adult reading plan, but the recaps are adapted to this younger age group. Each recap only takes about three minutes to read. And although the book is set up to read the entire Bible of the year, but it's okay if your child goes at their own pace. So if you have kids or know of parents with kids

or preteens, this book is a great way to help them to read, understand and love God's word. Okay, so the Bible recap for kids releases November 12th, but I wanna encourage you to pre-order your copy before November 12th. This will give you plenty of time to get it and then maybe even make a family plan to be going through the Bible together come January 1st.

But I want you to order it from bakerbookhouse.com. Okay, so don't go to Amazon. Let's avoid Amazon for this one. Go to baker book house.com because there you will receive 40% off the book and free shipping and you'll get a free downloadable set of 50 scripture memory verse flashcards. So just click on the link in the show notes to get the Bible recap for kids. What were some unexpected challenges you faced in the last nine years of your church plant? I mean, COVID or not COVID. That was certainly just, I mean, I know there's plenty of podcasts out there that talked about that, but- Let's go apart from co-op. I, I, I mainly wanting like early, you know, younger church planners or aspiring church planners to, you know, just

some of the stuff, like, is there anything they can anticipate that there may, might not be anticipating currently? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I, I tell every church planter, don't plant alone, plant with, plant, plant with a team and then plant with a family of churches or a denomination of some sort that's gonna come alongside you. Like I just, we'd be dead if I was trying to do this alone. Like it just, I can't imagine. There's so much weightiness to it.

It's hard to have a bunch of, we just had our restored family churches kind of retreat weekend this past weekend. So I'm coming off feeling fresh because I'm with my best friends who are all leading churches and just so grateful that I'm a part of something like that. And I don't feel alone because oftentimes church planners feel alone. And by God's grace, I don't feel alone in that sense. And so I can't encourage anyone wanting to plant a church. Like find a like, it doesn't even need to be official. Just find some church planters that you can do life with. There are dynamics of being a lead pastor that are just unique, you know? And I think that sometimes we don't want to address those things

out of, like, a false humility. It's like, no, we're all the same. It's like, yes, we are all the same in God's eyes, obviously. But when I'm in a small group or a gospel community, and my biggest issue that week is an issue with someone who's on my staff team or one of the other elders, I don't get to share that. Not because I'm afraid of being honest, like, because it's gossip and it's slander. It's not fair to the church. And so, there are dynamics that make it difficult. And so, yeah, there's challenges all the way through. And I think that's why I referenced that Tim Keller article because he kind of names them in a way it's like,

oh, I'm not alone. Like, thank God I'm not alone, you know? And so when we kind of launched publicly our gatherings on Sundays, you know, I remember the first Sunday there, a woman comes up and she's like, where's your junior high ministry? It's like, we had, As of last Sunday, we had two children, they're both mine, they're two and three years old. We don't have a junior high

ministry, we don't have a high school ministry. We're going to get there eventually. I don't know how you plant with all those things in place. And I don't know if you can or should, depending on how big of a church you're... It's just interesting. But it's painful to watch a family come in and then go, all right, then we're gonna leave. And it's like, oh man, but if you leave, then we're never gonna have a junior high ministry because we're never gonna have junior high. So it's like this constant chicken and the egg question of like, do we start a junior

high ministry? Well, one, do we even have a biblical conviction that junior high needs its own ministry? Should they be in the gathering? Those kinds of questions you have to wrestle through. But if you get to a spot where you're like, I think it's valuable for a sixth grader to be in his own spot and then just try to figure out like, okay, how do we do this well where we're starting something with one kid? I mean, it's just awkward.

And so challenges like that, I think staff is always challenging, like just in the sense of usually finances are not just overwhelming, so you're kind of scrappy in the early days. And so, it's, I'm, we fundraised our salary, kind of everyone on staff is fundraising their own salaries. So, most people on staff are part-time. I've been full-time, by God's grace. But then you have a bunch of part-time people that are stretched thin, you know, it's a mom with three kids, she's part-time, and she's also worked. I come from mega church background. So, I'll be like, mega church, you've got a full-time pastor of the fifth grade students. There's such specialization. There's something beautiful to that that they can give their

entire week to that. But church planting, man, you're just generalists. You're, hey, you're in charge of birth to 40 year olds and you're in charge of 40 to 80 year olds, even though we don't have any, you know, it's just like, it's such a generalization. And so those things are hard and yeah, it's, I mean, to watch people leave when you're 40 people, it feels more painful in a way than when they're, you know, there's, it should always feel painful to see people leave. But, you know, I'm sure when churches are 500 people, they don't even know when people are leaving.

And when you're at 40 and a family leaves, whether it's just even to move or whatever it is, it's like, it hurts, man. It's just, it's painful. And so, yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of expectations on, you know, people just don't know what you're doing. And so there's, yeah, I can name probably a hundred more, but why I'm going to ask you for some like top dos and don'ts and church planning. But on the youth group thing, I've always wondered the chicken and egg situation, um, heart,

you know, as more and more people are coming, maybe you have a couple of junior hires, a couple of high schoolers. It's hard to see almost well, it's hard to attract for lack of a better terms. I know neither you and I are probably big on that word, but it's, it's hard to attract families with junior high kids, high school kids when you either don't have a youth group or you got four people in the youth group. Is that that? I mean, what do you do when you have just a couple, you know, three or four people in the youth group, do we start, I mean, what do you do when you have just a couple, you know, you have three or four people in the youth group. Do we start a youth group? Will anybody come to a four person youth group? I mean, there's certain, there's

certain kinds of kids maybe, but that's, that's tough, right? Yeah. And yet if you don't have a youth group, there's a lot of families that will go elsewhere. Yeah, no. I mean, over the years we we've had different attempts. And so we've had some leaders that have just gone, hey, we don't even have an official ministry, but I'm gonna help lead junior high. Like if we see them, I'll sit next to them, I'll pursue them for coffees, or you know, got coffees, Jamba Juice,

or go to their games, things like that. Which is, you know, it's like, at the end of the day, I'm pretty convinced a junior hire really wants that, you know? There's a lot of junior hires that don't wanna walk into a room of 300 strangers and hear a concert and all that kind of stuff. Now, I think kids want to be seen, they wanna be loved,

they wanna be known, and so there's something beautiful that a small church can offer in that sense. And so we've had different attempts over the years. Some have gone well, some have not. We, like right now, we have a youth ministry, and it's small, man. It's, again, it's junior high to high school, and so it's not even ideal by any means. But there's probably like a dozen kids in there right now on Sunday mornings. Yet the reality is we have a hundred kids from birth to about fifth grade. So as you just start looking down the pipeline,

it's like, in a few years, we're gonna have 70. It's like these numbers are coming and this just keeps growing. So it's like, we need something more clearly in place now than we've ever needed it. And so, yeah, so we're constantly working on that. By no means do we have this like, we have it figured out. I mean, I was a high school pastor and a junior high pastor. So, I...at larger churches. And so, I know the importance of that age group, you know? And so...but I've gone back and forth on even just like, should high schoolers be in the Sunday gathering? You know, I don't think I've changed my preaching much since I was a high school pastor. You know? So, it's like, I think any high school kid can hang...my son is sixth grade, he sits in on Sunday mornings. And then he goes into the youth at the 11

o'clock gathering. And I talk to him every week. I'm like, hey, dude, how'd that go? He can tell me what I said. He like, God speaks to him through that. So it's like... Wow. Sixth grade. You know, I think that if you can speak to a sixth grader and a 70 year old, then great. But I still think my sixth grade son needs it's good for him to have peers his age that are trying to follow Jesus with some intentionality there. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Youth groups can be hit and miss, man. My kids have been in and out of various ones and you can have a good leader

and just bad kids or just kids are just, it's so disruptive and it's so clicky. And it's just like, I just want to be here, you know, or you can have the opposite, you know, good kids and a bad leader or a good youth leader as a person who's just not good at leading. Like he might be a, she might be a great, great godly person, but it's just, there's so much more potential they can, you know, I just might, my kids, it's sad, man. They've, they've gone to so many different youth groups and youth events and this, that, and they come home and just like, dad, I just want to have a meaningful conversation and know what the Bible says. Like it's like, they're starving. They're starving for that. And, and, and less somebody think, well, yeah,

they're precious sprinkles kids. I, I rarely talk theology. I do my own fault. Like it's not what you think. Like none of my kids are going to go into ministry. None are going to be academics. Like, you know, so it's not like we're waking up every morning, two hours going through scriptures. We, we live a very normal, almost life, but they, they just, they want meaningfulness and a mini, not every, but many youth environments. It's just, they just don't, they're just not getting it, man. So I agree that the one-on-one kind of, man, they would give anything for an older person to reach out and say, Hey, I would love to get to know you more, hear your story. My kids would lose their minds if an adult came to them and said that, you know, that would be

mind blowing. I just had a buddy, my buddy Dustin in Texas, he was talking, I don't remember the name of the church, but they have a youth ministry. I think it's a larger-ish church, but they have mentors for every kid that signs up. And he's telling me this, I'm like, what a dream that there are volunteers in the church who are going, one-on-one, I'm going to meet with every single week and just take them out, have fun, talk life, talk Bible. If it comes up, try to disciple them. Well, I'm like, dude, that's, I mean, that's way better than a public talk. And you know, like, so yeah, we have a lot of room to grow desires and we'll see what happens.

I just think, and like, I'm not a, the youth leader, you know, so I, I don't know what I'm talking about. So these, you can, he can skip this part. I just, I, not at the youth leader, you know, so I don't, I don't know what I'm talking about. So you can, he can skip this part. But I just, I, when, when youth groups simply mimic like a mini church service, just a monologue sermon worship, whatever, none of those things are intrinsically bad. I just think there's so many other creative and effective ways to engage students. There just has to be conversations, listening to the given space to, to talk and ask hard questions and be able to say, I don't know, let's walk together on that. You have to be talking about all the tough topics that are on their minds every day.

If you're not talking about sexuality and stuff and youth group, it's like, what are you doing? Or many other things, you know, guys, my, my kids have lit my, my, my, especially my, my third daughter, just, she keeps a list of all the hardest theological questions I've ever faced. And we sit down and we'll go through them like, Oh my word. But I, it's not, I think we have a very honest open relationship. I think every kid has that though. They've had a mental list somewhere of things they're working through. And, and, you know, I can't stop masturbating to my, and sin, you know, how do you, can someone walk with me through this or whatever? I mean, there's

so many challenges that, yeah, anyway, I, you know, there's a lot, man. I would say that I used to work at a church in the valley, rocky peak, and they had for their youth, it was like, um, kind of a, a more traditional Sunday. And I think they've changed things a little bit, but kind of sermon and musical worship, which was great, but they also had their small groups. And when I do that, man, you put eight, seventh graders or eight 12th graders in a small group with a qualified leader loves Jesus. It was power, man. And so I think there is a beauty to, to see, we saw a lot of life change happen in those, in those smaller groups. And so I think a balance of both of those to some degree, but yeah. All right. Top dos and don'ts. I want you to talk to a, either somebody who

is, gosh, you're getting ready to plan a church. They're all excited and a little nervous, you know, they have maybe have a, it's got kind of planned out a little bit or maybe some of this, maybe six months in or early in the church in the stages of church planning top dos and don'ts. You said number one plan with a team. So let's, you know, we've already covered that other top dos and don'ts of church planning that you've learned. There's so many, man, I guess I'll start here. I'll go so much of it hinges on your heart and where you're at with Jesus. You could read all the right books.

You could hit all the right numbers. I think, you know, as we just keep seeing just moral failure after moral failure in the church, like it just seems like Jesus is just cleaning house in this church. The biggest, I don't know if it's a do or a don't, but just like, man, you, your soul matters more than a healthy, successful church. And a healthy church is gonna generally flow out of a healthy leader. You know, God can do whatever he wants to do, but I think there's such a temptation, especially in those early days, I think just in pastoral ministry and just being a Christian

of like focusing on the external stuff and losing track of your own soul. And I think that's why Paul tells Timothy like, hey, keep a close eye on your life, man. And I don't think, you know, when you're in the grind of it all, it's just so easy to be like, okay, I got to prep a sermon. Okay, I got to fundraise. Okay, I got to get the youth ministry going. I think maybe the best thing I've done is I have just once a month, I call it my day away, where it is one day a month, unreachable email phones off, and I just am with Jesus alone. And man, I can't tell you, like, I wish I could pretend like every month that's my, that's the best day of my month. That's this amazing, and I hear

from God. It's like sometimes it's awful, awful and I just feel exhausted and I didn't hear from God and And I feel restless in my soul But but it still is a benefit because it's acting as like a really a gauge for me Like one if I can't find one day a month to block off for just intentional time alone with Jesus Something's really wrong Something's really wrong. Something's really wrong. And so I've missed, I think I've missed two in the last nine years. And those two times I've missed, it's like a red warning siren for my soul.

Like you're not, you're not okay right now. And so, so I think that, man, if, if, if I could beg church planters, like, be healthy, man. Like, your marriage matters way more than your sermon on Sunday. Your parenting matters way more than how many gospel communities or small groups you have. And I think that, you know, like, I think some people, like, there's definitely a trend toward talking about spiritual formation and all these things, which is good. But I just know, I have a lot of church planning friends, you know, and I think it's so easy to get caught up in the externals rather than who am I. And so, I'd plead, like, I would just go, hey, do an assessment of your soul. Like,

are you in a good spot? Like, if you're not, get help. Like, who do you need to talk to? Like, you have to have friends you can confess sin to. um, constant time with Jesus. And so, yeah. So, I mean, that would be like my, my major do be healthy. Don't be unhealthy as, as best, you know, like, and don't skip that and be like, all right, now let's get to the practicals. Like the practicals don't matter at all if you skip this, you know? And so, um, yeah, does that make sense? Absolutely. No, absolutely. Um, do you think, uh, is there a certain personality type that is drawn to church planting? I would imagine there is right. And can that sometimes get

the best of you? I don't know. Or, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know what it like? Like certain personality types are have certain weaknesses. And it's like, if there is a certain kind of personality type that is drawn to church planning, what are some of the potential dangers when you get in the rat race of planning the church that this personality type, you know, some challenges that they'll face, you know? No. And I, I think I've, you know, I've read a little bit about narcissism in the church and there are...there's realities around how dare anyone think they can just start a church, you know, who is so crazy or arrogant to think that.

Excuse me. It's like, well, first of all, I think I see it as a New Testament command, a New Testament reality. And so, is there a general personality? Yeah, I think most church planners are to some degree, you know, I'd even move away from personality. What I would love to say is gifting. Gifting, yeah.

And it should be like leadership. Like when I'm talking with somebody about like the potential of planting, the number one, apart from when we talk, are you healthy? The number one question I have, are you a leader? Do you have a spiritual gift of leadership in the sense of, do people follow you? Do you have any bit of a track record of you start something and there's no one there and then some people are deciding, hey, we're going to trust you, we're going to follow you? Because to me, church planting, it requires... I have some friends who are really gifted shepherds and are incredible counseling,

one-on-one. And church planning is just harder for them because church planning isn't just counseling. It is casting vision. It is telling people, here's where we're going. They're like, who are you talking about? I'm like, all the people that are going to join eventually. You know, it's like you're talking into the dark so often. And there has to be a sense of, a strong sense of leadership that I think is really important. So personality wise, is that type A, you know, whatever we want to say it is. But I also, yeah, I don't want to boil it down to personality because I have some friends who are not type A at all. And they're godly and the churches are beautiful and healthy and they planted. And I think it's just their leaders. They're either introverted leaders

or extroverted leaders. But at the end of the day, you sit with them and you're like, I want to follow you. Wherever you're heading, I'm down, you know you an honest question. I mean, not that my other questions weren't honest, but no, I want to, like you, as I said earlier, and now just, it is what it is. You've got an amazing gift of preaching, speaking. I, I, you seem like you have a magnetic personality. it is what it is. You've got an amazing gift of preaching, speaking. I, I, you seem like you have a magnetic personality. I would imagine it could be easy for this church plant to become, you know, an attraction to Brad Syrian. Have you faced some of that and how have you dealt with that? And how do you encourage other church planners if they also have kind of a, because most church planners, they aren't going to have that type A magnetic personality. People want to be around them.

That's why they're planning it. You know, how do you guard against the church becoming so focused on this one leader? Yeah. I mean, I think if you would have asked me this nine years ago, I would have been like, what are you talking about? That's not true. Like, you know, They're here for Jesus. And I think I've had to just acknowledge some part of the reality to that. There can be an ugly side to that. I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, first Corinthians 3.

There can absolutely be an ugly part of that. But then I think then there can be a neutral reality to that. Like, why do I listen to your podcast? Like, I don't know, because I just like listening to Preston. It was like, why do I listen? I don't listen to every preacher in America. Like, there are specific preachers I listen to. Why? Because I like them. And when I listen to them, I generally feel more excited to follow Jesus, trust Jesus. And so, I don't think it's a bad thing in and of itself that people are drawn toward like, oh, like, I like when that person speaks. The problem is when we build churches in such a way that if Brad's not preaching, half the attendance goes down on a Sunday.

Now we're talking about a really unhealthy church, you know? And so, my wife and I in kiddos, we just did a three and a half month sabbatical this summer. And I talked to some friends, they were like, oh, we could never leave our church for three months, you know? Like, who knows what would happen? And again, there was a tiny bit of fear of just like, what is gonna happen? And by God's grace, everything was the same. And so, like, the numbers were the same. You know, so it's like, thank God, even if people like my preaching, that's great. But the church, we're doing our best. I'm not everywhere. I'm not everything. It's not all hinging on me. You know, and I think that we just have to acknowledge that people have preferences and it's okay.

But we also have to be able to rebuke those preferences when they become... And this is where when Andy and I were... He was the lead pastor in Restor at San Diego, and I was the associate pastor. But he's such an encouraging and... He just empowers leaders so much. So there were many seasons I would preach more than him on a Sunday. So people thought I was the lead pastor, if they were newer. And now what would happen was, depending on the Sunday, if I had the face mic on or Andy,

every once in a while I'd have the face mic on and somebody would kind of like pat me on the back and be like, excited, you're up today. But the reality is other people did that with Andy. People have preferences. Andy is a different communicator than I am, but some people resonate more deeply with him. And so, we have multiple preachers up. I'm not the only guy.

We're doing our best to build a church where it's not about me. But I think you look at some of these very gifted, very influential pastors, and it's like, oh, they're all coming for me. It's like, I don't know. I don't... Yeah. Good luck. You know, I mean, that friend's a champ. I've never met him, but it's like, the dude preached. It's like, I want to hear him. I used to drive. I was working at another church. I would drive to Simi Valley and listen to him preach because when he preached, man, God just did something. He's incredible. and listen to him preach because when he preached man, like God just did something. And it just is like, okay, it would be silly to pretend that there's, you know, it's just,

you know, I think that's, I was just talking to a friend. He was like, how do you, how do you receive compliments, you know, when people say great job preaching? And it's like, I think you just say, hey, thank you so much. I'm really glad to hear God use that. Praise Jesus. You know, something like that, because, you, because the false humility to me is always like, oh, it was all God. Don't even thank me. You know? It's like, dude, if it was all God, it would have been way better than what you just did. And so we have to be able to acknowledge... That's awesome. There was, I prepped that sermon. I spent 15 hours on that sermon. Like, that wasn't

just anything, you know? And so now, can it get dangerous? I think planted a church. Well, actually I did plant a church. Lasted about six months. I don't, I probably just the basic stuff everybody knows about. I mean, I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church.

I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted a church. I've never planted it. Well, actually I did plan a church lasted about six months. I, I probably just the basic stuff everybody can kind of assume. Like just don't like share the preaching load. Um, have a team that's leading. So it's not just you doing everything and, um, don't try to do everything to like, let other people step. I mean, it's, it's all, if you're taking care of it, all these things that doing way more than you should, then you're preventing other people from stepping in. And if, and if something falls through the cracks because you didn't do it, nobody else stepped in, that's not always a bad thing. I don't think, you know, like, yeah. So I don't, yeah, I don't know. How do you, do you have like a certain, like a number, an artificial number of like times

a preacher should preach in any given year? Or is it, I'm assured there shouldn't, there shouldn't be like one number of everybody should follow, but do you have kind of a basic like, Hey, I'd recommend 40 times a year. Don't go beyond that. Or half the half of the time. Yeah. I was just talking to everybody about this. He, he, he was, he was saying he's, he's down to 50% and he thinks that's pretty healthy and good for him. I'm probably more at 75, 70%. I think you need a break. Just for your soul, I think you need a break.

It is taxing preaching week in and week out. If you're preaching every Sunday, it's probably way too much. I think so much of it depends on teams. You know, like if you're the only guy or the only gal, it's like, what are you gonna do? You know? And so there is a piece of that, but it is soon, you know, one thing I've done decently well

is getting new preachers in our church. Like I love getting first-time preachers up there. So, I've not done a great job of like consistently other, like my other guy or my other gal that's consistent. But I think we've had 20 people in our church preach their first sermon over the last nine years. And so, that makes me happy. And so, that always helps. Now, the hard thing about that is when I'm helping someone prep their first sermon, it's more prepped for me than it would be for me to prep my own sermon. So from a time perspective, it's not great.

But because we are a part of a family of churches, and five of them are in Southern California, I am... Yeah, like this past Sunday, I preached at Restored Rancho, and they're a brand new baby church. And so, and one of our churches from South Africa, Durban, Jamie, he preached in our church. And so, there's a good chunk of Sundays I'm not preaching, but I'm still preaching somewhere else. So, I think I'm wrestling through that.

Like, how many Sundays do I actually need off, just sitting in the front row? But yeah, I think at least having once a month off is a good thing to be moving toward. Others would say even that's too much, which is fair. And I think again, part of it's gifting. I feel like God's gifted me in teaching. Me moving to 30% of the Sundays just feels weird to me. But for other pastors like Andy, who's more apostolic and more shepherding, he loves sharing that pulpit like he does. And so I think a big part of that's going to be gifting. He's such

a church planner, dude. Every time I preach at his church, I feel like I get smaller and smaller. It's not because he's, I mean, I always get them on the tail end, like where they just like a gru gru gru that he launches. He just keeps sending people out. Last time I was there, I'm like, this church has been there for like eight years. And it was like, there's probably like 40 people or something. It's some like upstairs upper room and we're crammed in. I'm like, dude, last time I was here, you had like 200, but he's like, yeah, we played it like three churches between the last two times you came. Yeah. Most people don't want to do that because it looks, it looks like a failure. And yet

I think in the kingdom it's, it's the biggest success ever. So if you don't want to do that because it looks like a failure. And yet I think in the kingdom, it's the biggest success ever. And if you don't, Andy, he can care less about how many people are showing up on this. He just wants to see more and more plants go out. What are some distinctives in your church? Like what I mean is like, if somebody showed up at Restored LA, what are they going to experience that might be unique to Restored LA that they might not experience at other churches? Not that you guys are doing something radically unique or whatever, but yeah, what are some distinctives? Are they going to, you know, is fellowship super strong?

Is the worship extra vibrant? Or what are some things, yeah, what are the distinctives? And also, did you work to create that or did these things come about just through the people that God brought? Yeah, man. I think each church has their strengths and weaknesses. I think one of our strengths right now is like community, church is a family. It's one of our values and it's still generally one of those things. Again, every once in a while someone's gonna be like, ah, I don't feel that.

I get it. But generally speaking, like, people feel pretty welcomed in pretty quickly. And that's huge for us. And again, that's something I struggle with, church-sized dynamics, you know? I mean, that's getting harder as the church continues to grow. And so, but it still feels like it's a reality. Yeah, man, we have our distinctives. I think word and spirit are together for us as a church. And so, we do our best to preach the scriptures and then they'll generally be a prophetic word or, you know, like we're trying our best to listen to the spirit.

And so, I think for me, and Southland's church in Orange County was a huge...they kind of discipled us as we were planting in San Diego. They were the first church I ever heard of that was word and spirit in the sense...I have a background in Bible churches where the Spirit is just...I mean, we don't ever talk about the Holy Spirit. And then, you know, the Charismatic churches of some sides, where the scriptures are a little looser. And so, one of our deep desires is like to be a church that's deeply rooted in the text. And then also, we're listening to Spirit. I mean, our family churches retreat this past weekend.

I mean, there's like an hour of like prophetic sharing and praying, you know, and it's like, I think for some people, like, wait, what just happened here? And so, for us, yeah, a deep desire to see both of those things happen. So, you have a prophetic word after every message? And what does that look like? Not every Sunday. So, we definitely don't try to force it, but it's one of the things that our leaders know, like, hey, if you feel like the Spirit has given you a word, you bring it to one of the elders and we weigh it, usually during the third set, or it could be during a prayer meeting beforehand, it could be whenever, and we weigh

it and we just start asking basic questions like, one, is this true? It's not true. It's out. Is this for everyone or is this just for you? Sometimes people share prophetic word that's very personal and sometimes it's like, hey, I think God just wants to minister to you, like sit in that. And then is that for now or later? You know, it's like, hey, I think God just wants to minister to you, like sit in that. And then is that for now or later? You know, it's like, maybe it is like, sometimes a heavy word is like, whoa, we're gonna chew on that for a little while. So I actually think the last probably month

we've had prophetic words probably shared almost after every Sunday. And again, some of them are very specific. I actually wasn't here this past Sunday, but one of the gals got up and just had very strong sense of, the sermon was on identity and she just felt like very clear that women who had been sexually abused had just allowed that to become their identity. So she's weeping on stage, sharing this, like, and come pray with me afterwards.

I think she went outside the building just for the sake of privacy. are, you know, to some people it's like, wait, what just happened there? You know, it's like, hey, we believe God speaks to us. And so we're make room for Him. But we also are, we're not getting up there sharing things that contradict the scriptures. And so... Have you ever had a, have you had like a really awkward moment with the prophetic word where you're like, oh, that didn't go the way I wanted it to? I remember I was talking to Alan Frow and Nick Salthus when they were at Southlands. I was learning all this stuff, this is a decade ago, and I was like, why doesn't other churches

do this? They're like, because it's messy, man. Like someone would come up to me like, hey, I got this prophetic word. They'll share this like beautiful 30 second thing that you're like, that is power. I feel like that's going to resonate and just help people. Yeah, here we go. You know, you get up there on stage, you're like, hey, you know, Billy's going to come up here and share a prophetic word. We don't even usually word prophetic word. We just say, hey, Billy felt like God's said something to him and so different language.

And then he comes up and he starts talking for minutes and he's adding tons of things that he did not share with me in your life. Oh my God. You know, so I'll like, you know, I can't remember specifically if anyone said anything like heretical, but there's definitely times I like,

I kind of hear the four minute prophetic word and then I take the mic. I was like, thank you, Billy, for telling us this. I kind of reshape like, this is what he meant to say. This is what he said the first time. But yeah, it's messy in the sense that people get up there. Somebody just recently came up and shared a word with me that just it wasn't helpful at all. And I just was like,

thank you. And my job as an elder is to weigh it. And so I'm not going to be like, oh, now that's a battle. Fear of man is like, oh, and now this person is going to feel awkward. And it's a conversation. And that's why it's difficult. Yeah. You've had to tell people, thank you for sharing that. And they're like, all right, can I share it in front of the church? And you're like, yeah, actually, no. Like, is that, you had to say say? Yeah, it happens for all... Because some Sundays, three or four people come to me. I'm not going to share all of them. Sometimes we've shared multiple, but yeah, I'm just weighing it. And so I just say, they share it with me. And I just say, thank you so much. I'm going to sit and pray on that for a minute. And then that's it. And so

there's a culture in our church where it's like, they know not everything's going to sit and pray on that for a minute." And then that's it. And so, there's a culture in our church where it's like, they know not everything's going to get shared. But again, this has gotten more difficult as the church grows. There was one Sunday, there's like four or five people pulling me to, hey, I've got a prophetic word. It's like, ah, you know, and it's why you probably can't do this in a mega church. You have 4,000 people coming up for a prophetic word. And so, things like that, I think we're still wrestling through. like, okay, as things grow, as things change, you know, we have two gatherings. So there's, there's smallish enough gatherings to where it still works. But yeah, so that'd be one of our distinctions. We are, we just transitioned to mutualistic. I was gonna ask about this. Yeah,

but you're okay. Go ahead. Yeah. So that's, that's, you know, that's definitely a distinctive. That's definitely a distinctive. Wait, you don't use the term egalitarian? You mutualist? Like here, I don't care to say, I don't really care. I think egalitarian can have enough baggage that it just is like, oh my goodness. And so you just would make up a new word that other people have used like mutualist.

They're like, what's that? It's like, let me tell you. And so it's been make up a new word that other people have used like mutualist. They're like, what's that? It's like, let me tell you. And so it's been easier to use a word like mutualist. Are there differences? I think there's differences from extreme egalitarianism to mutualism, but, and yeah. So I mean, what's distinctive right now is like our family of churches,

some churches went mutualist egalitarian and others didn't. And we're still cool. Like we still are in fellowship together. We're still part of the same family of churches. And so, I think an issue that's often divided, we keep as a secondary issue and go, this is not something that we need to fight over and divide over. And so, yeah, so I think that's, not to overgeneralize, but we are, you know, I think some egalitarian churches

can become pretty liberal and we're just not that. And so, when we went mutualist, I wrote a whole book, Biblically Unpacking, like this is why. And so, again, it's rooted in the text. We're not doing this because of culture. We're not doing this because of, you know, all that. So, but yeah, we're like a weird... And every church has their unique stuff. But I think when people are like, wait, so let me get this right. You guys believe in the prophetic, but you preach the scriptures and you're a Galatarian and you want to plant multiple churches and all these things. It's like, yeah, this is our best understanding of the scriptures. Obviously we don't have it all figured out, but... What led to the change? I imagine a

theological journey for you personally that were other leaders on a similar journey or yeah, can you take us back to when you started going down that road or? Yeah. I mean, it was probably like a, I mean, in some sense you could say it was like a seven, eight year journey in other ways, like more like a three-year pretty intense journey. I was getting my master's degree at Western with Dr. Gary Breshears, who I love deeply. And I mean, he is not an egalitarian by any means. And one of the books though that was on the syllabus for one of

the first semesters was Two Views of Women in Ministry. I think it's Shriner, Moo, there's like four, two egalitarians, two complementarians. And so, I come from... I mean, in high school, I went to John MacArthur's church. So, I have a deep complementarian, like, for me specifically, an unhealthy... There was unhealth in my complementarian leanings of... Like, even viewing my egalitarian friends as like, these guys are weak on the scriptures. Like, they just, they don't like, yeah. So, but reading that book, I remember it was, it's like page one of the introduction and

all four, two egalitarians, two complementarians agree on one statement that says, we agree that both sides of this debate are within the bounds of orthodoxy and both can hold a view of inerrancy of the scriptures. And I just remember like, putting the book down, I was like, wait, what? Like Schreiner thinks that egalitarians are like within the bounds of orthodoxy and can hold an inerrant view of scripture? Quite frankly, my first question was like, then why is anyone a complementarian? I didn't know that was...and that's not a great leap, but that was my thought.

I thought this was just...every complementarian I know seems to be like, we hate it, but we just got to obey the scriptures. This is what it teaches. And obviously, I don't know if that many complementarians. But yeah, so anyway, so that kind of kicked me off down the road. I ended up reading like 23 or 24 books on the topic, both complementarians, egalitarians. You and I texted quite a few times around some of that, you know?

And I got to a spot for a season, I was kind of like, okay, I think I'm 50-50. This to me has gotten so gray and neutral that I begin asking missiological questions of living and planting a church in Los Angeles, if this is really gray, does it make more sense to have women elders? And so, I was wrestling through that. But then as I kept studying, I got to a spot where I found the complementarian position more problematic biblically than the egalitarian position. And as soon as that happened, I was like, all right, I can't do this anymore. So, wrestling with texts like 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Timothy 3, 1 Corinthians 14, all of them just going like, wait a second,

my mind and what seems to be the best complimentarian answers out there, they're just not very convincing anymore. And not to pretend that the egalitarian mutualist perspective is like crystal clear and obvious, it's like, man, there's still challenges I wrestle through. But I think it makes more sense comprehensively of the story of scriptures and the specific texts that address that.

Pete I didn't bring you on to talk about this. So, you know, maybe you haven't prepped it, whatever. So, I hate to put you on the spot, but I'm curious. When you started to see the Complementarian position as more problematic, what specifically are you thinking about there? Do you have anything off the top of your head. Yeah. I will say I'm a little rusty because of my sabbatical. We did this all in April of this year, but I think, I mean, 1 Timothy 2 has just always been like, it's the silver bullet. This is clear. I don't have to look at anything else. And then when you start diving into it, you're like, wait a second.

How do we apply it? The reason why 1 Timothy 2 is so, I mean, it's so, anything else." And then when you start diving into it, you're like, wait a second, how do we apply it? You know, the reason why 1 Timothy 2 is so clear is because it's rooted in creation, right? Like that to me was like, oh my gosh, you can't mess with this. If you mess with this, anything becomes cultural. The problem with that was not understanding how far the complementarian should go then. If this is truly rooted in creation that women cannot teach or exercise authority over men, and it's rooted in creation,

this isn't just talking about a church gathering, which I think most complementarians try to argue, 1 Timothy 2 is about the church gathering, and Andrew Bartlett in Men and Women in Christ, he compelling arguments that this is not specific. I mean, 1 Timothy, I'm rusty, but let me do my best. I think it's verse eight, it says like, in all places, men are to lift their hands with holy hands. Verse 12, it talks about women giving childbirth. It's like, these are not church gathering scenarios. And so, and this is where I think guys like

John Piper, where they hold to like to like hey women can't be police officers Deeply but I go he's he's consistent and and so I Think if you read first Timothy 2 and go it's it's rooted in creation It can't be touched then you can't ever believe that a woman could teach or exercise authority over a man And then that word authority in the Greek is wild believe that a woman could teach or exercise authority over a man. And then that word authority in the Greek is wild. But ever in schools, in government, in education, like in any way, and most complementarians I know aren't willing to go that far. And so, in small groups, this is what cracks me up. It's like I have a couple of friends where like women are allowed in

a small group to open the Bible and kind of share from it. And I'm like, wait, what are they? It's like, well, it's not on a Sunday with a stage. I was like, where in the New Testament were they preaching on stages with a microphone? It would have been more like a early church, probably small group setting. And so I think that to me, the issues with that and then, and again, sorry, it's not just like, oh, I don't want to be as consistent as Piper is. It's like, no, no, no, no. If God wants that, then I'm down, man.

If women can't be police officers, and that's what God says, okay. The problem with that is other pictures of women like Deborah or Priscilla seeming to teach and exercise authority in the very own scriptures that are not prohibited or rebuked. And it's like, wait a second, so clearly Paul, I don't think Paul's contradicting scripture. So there's something bigger going on here, and that's where I do think the cultural conversation makes sense in Ephesus and all that kind of stuff.

And so that's one example, but yeah, I think the inconsistencies where, you know, I mean, I come from a crew that women can preach on Sundays, just in the last decade. I used to think women couldn't preach at all, but about 10, 11 years ago, I got to a spot where I was convinced, you know, I think women can preach on Sundays, but it has to be under the eldership's approval and all that kind of stuff. And then, I mean, that stuff starts breaking down so fast.

It was like, wait a second, how does this make any sense? And so, yeah, to some degree, I felt as I kept studying forced, you either need to get more intense like Piper in this. But as I studied that, I go, I don't actually think that's consistent with the rest of scriptures where women are teaching and exercising authority or the egalitarian mutualist perspective makes more sense. And I'm not nervous of the slippery slope because I've studied that LGBTQ conversation, radical feminism.

Like, I'm not nervous about that slippery slope. It can be a thing. But generally, I think it was Craig Keener I heard say those slippery slope denominations that got there, they got there not by looking at the text. They didn't say, oh, we should become egalitarian because the Bible says that it's oftentimes we should do that because of culture. It's like, at the moment you do that, you're in trouble. But if you get to the egalitarian position and there are godly, NT Wright, it's like there's godly brilliant scholars on the egalitarian

perspective. And so anyways, I could, I could probably talk about it a lot longer, but I did a whole lecture on it. I did all the stuff. So how, how did that go with the church? Like, first of all, did you have all your leaders on board or did they just trust you as kind of the main theological voice? And then how did the rest of the church handle the change? It is hard. It is hard. I definitely spearheaded it. At the time, we now have six elders. We only had two elders at that time.

So it was me and Steven. And so that was probably a year and a half process of him and I wrestling through, like, hey, I'm not going to strong arm you into this. Where are you at? All that. So once he got to a spot where he was like, look, I'm not fully like, yeah, like you are tomorrow, but I'm in a spot where it no longer goes against my conscience. And I see how it is gray. I think that it would benefit the church as well. So, when we got there, then we rolled it out to our gospel community leaders. And I'll say this,

I made some mistakes in the process that I regret. I did pretty well with our leaders. I didn't do great with our members. And so, I rolled it out. We had about 30 gospel community leaders and I ended up just kind of... I was trying to figure out how to do this well. So, I ended up just texting each of them individually. Now, half of them I had talked with because just friendship or whatever it was, but I

ended up texting everyone and just saying, hey, look, here's what's happening. It's going to be happening in the near future. I'd love to sit down with you and just process. If you want to sit down as long as you want, let's just chat. All of our GC leaders, some of them obviously disagreed. We were complimentarian. And so there were several that were like, wait a second, and hour long, we're in the text, we're at multiple meetings. And so, which I wanted, you're in a really scary spot where you're like, we're switching our theological position. Everyone's

like, yay. So there's this like challenge of going, I don't want everyone to go yay. Now, some people were like, we're already there. Fine. But I love that there were leaders in our church that were like, I'm nervous. What about these texts? And so we did that. One of the biggest mistakes I made was once leaders were all pretty much there, just throwing out to the members like, hey, we're going to have a three hour lecture and I'm going to talk about this from the text. And I, the biggest mistake I made was forgetting, not knowing, whatever it was, that we as humans are far more emotional than we are theological with biblical. That a lot of people, I thought if I could just

handle first Timothy two, everyone will be like, oh my gosh, this is it. And the vast majority of people that wanted to meet with me didn't care about the text as much as I wanted them to. It was just like, I'm scared, I'm nervous, this is a big change. I was at a church that did this, and then four years later this happened, those kinds of things. And again, those are valid concerns. And so, and again, not to say that they didn't care at all about the Bible, but they'd already

heard me do a three-hour lecture. So, a lot of that was settled, but it was still giving... Honestly, I wish I would have, as big of a headache as it would have been, I think it would have been better to have texted all of our members. Just been like, hey guys, I'll meet with you. Like, let's just do this, you know? And so, but yeah, by God's grace. Like when we were in the process of it, I remember some of the leaders were like, the church is going to split in half. It's going to like, it's not going to exist. And I was like, I don't think so. And so by God's grace, I think one or two families have officially left. Oh, that's it? Wow. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's been,

it's been, it's been incredible. There's a couple that are still on the fence and may very well still leave. Now, again, we've only transitioned theologically. We're planning on bringing hopefully a couple of women on early 2025. I don't know if that's going to change anything of like the, the official now there's women here. Like they all know it's happening. Um, so it's a slow, it's been a slow transit. I mean that, which I would, I, I, I would probably recommend not having gone through it like you did, but I would say a significant theological change like that shouldn't just happen over a couple of months and all of a sudden, you know,

um, the whole Elgoborz, Alfie or half and half or whatever, like that slow transitions. I think why? That was huge. If it was me, I would have been quicker. There've been parts of me that's like kind of bummed. We haven't been quicker. But honestly, Steven, one of our other elders who is just one of my best friends,

he was really wise in that. He was just like, hey, I think it's, it would be too much to kind of announce to the church, hey, we're changing theologically and starting this Sunday, you're under the care of women elders when some people was like, wait a second, I need to wrestle with my conscience and my biblical convictions around this. Like, almost like would push people out quicker of like, I can't, so I'm out.

And so I think to give people nine months, it'll probably be almost a year of wrestling through that. And I think at the end of the day, what people are going to generally realize is like, oh, not much changed. Like we're still like, we've had women preach, we've had women on staff, women on staff, women in leadership rooms, like all of it. And so I don't think there's going to be significant changes with that. So we'll see. There's things that, you know, I wrote a little book because I was like, I

want people to know this is a biblical teaching, not just Brad's ideas. I watched a podcast. That was one of the people's main concerns. I'm like, did you read a book that changed your mind? I was like, well, I read 24. And I wrote a little thing too, just to kind of help me crystallize my thinking and all this. And so, this was not a light decision by any means. I know it's weighty. I mean, for our family of churches, the lead pastors all went to Denver for a summit to

talk through with an egalitarian and a complementarian scholar, wrestled through just kind of like, hey, where are we at on this? And then we had our own time of just prayer and discussion and just realizing, hey, we can disagree on it. Most of these guys are my best friends. And so we love each other. I trust them. I don't think they're hierarchical, awful people. And so, you know, so I know they love Jesus. They love women. They love men. And so... You already had women preaching. So that

public face of it all wasn't a big shift anyway. Correct. Correct. So there have been people in the past who have left because of a woman who's preached, you know, which, but I, yeah, I mean, to me, women preaching for the last decade was just like, if we have to, I mean, yeah, biblically, yeah. So anyways, it seems like just practically, so I've only thought about it like theologically, not only, but I mean, that's my, my, my mind is primarily just knee deep in the ex of Jesus, but it seems like just practically, if you're already soft commentary and women preachers under the authority of the elders, I can say like, what does that, what does that actually mean?

Like is she, are they reviewing her manuscript? I mean, are, are male preachers under the authority of male elders? Are they, see, it seems like that wouldn't be a big shift. Yeah. Women preachers and women elders. That's where we practically, in a sense, I would say soft complimentarian is a slippery slope toward mutualism in a sense. And yet I think soft commentary makes sense. I don't think it's crazy.

But I think, you know, one of the main arguments for soft complementarians that I was running across, and Gary Beshears, who I respect deeply, I was wrestling with him on some of these things. One of the things I kept hearing from complementarians, especially soft complementarians, was like, yeah, women can preach. It was this idea of the weightiness of of the eldership is just, it's like, it's just for men. And we need to like lovingly protect and serve women by men holding the mantle of this thing. Which, I mean, like Roman 16, when Paul is talking about, you know, Junia and Priscilla and these women who risked their own lives for his sake and were imprisoned for the gospel, I'm like,

I don't think Paul's like worried about too much of a weight. He's praising that she risked her life to save Paul. It's like, I don't think he's worried about putting too much pressure on a woman to carry a weight. It's like, I think that if elders are the fathers in the church, which I think to some degree they are, why wouldn't it make sense? We also have mothers in the church. Like a healthy family has mothers and fathers.

And again, this isn't the biblical argument for it. But from a practical perspective, it's kind of like, wait, why are there only men making these decisions? Like, I think it makes sense for men and women with different gift sets, different, you know, I believe men and women are generally different. And so I think that it helps to have both them in that room. So it's crazy to think places like Iran, where, um, crazy to think places like Iran where, um, during gray, the conference I was just at, um, he gave this statistic that I forget how long ago, but like, I think at the Iranian revolution in 79, there was like 500 Christians or something really, really small number. And now there's over a million Christians in Iran. Most, but the house, the house church movement is led mostly by

women in a patriarchal culture makes zero sense, zero sense. And I, a friend of mine is I, a female Iranian who's one of the early catalysts of that movement. And she just says it makes, it makes zero sense, but, but to think anyway, that the women are intrinsically biologically or whatever unfit for the challenges of eldering. Whatever you think about the exegesis, that argument just doesn't hold the weight practically. No, for sure. And I think I had to challenge some friends, the argument around that is like, well, women can plant churches over there.

Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Feels a little racist. Yeah, I mean, it's like, wait, this is really funky. Like again, consistency is so important to me. Either they can, either this is wrong or it's right. And if it's wrong here, how can it be right over there? And so, yeah, I really had to wrestle with a bunch of this stuff.

I mean, yeah, I think that maybe if you believe it's sin, okay. We could use any sin example, but let's just, drunkenness. Drunkenness, if a guy is a drunk, abusive husband, and it's like, well, he's the only one who can plant a church over there in Southeast Asia. We would go, nope, he's not planting that church, he's disqualified. But if it comes to gender, it's like, well, she can, it's not ideal, but we'll do it for now until men can be raised up. We would never use that same logic with things that we know are sin. And so, at that point, well, it's so gray. If people will admit, okay, well,

it's gray. That's why we can do it. It's like, okay, then what are we doing? Like, if it's this gray, why are you holding so tightly to this? Where I think, and I do think there's contextual pieces in Los Angeles. It makes sense. And so, yeah. So biblical first, but there is a missiological framework. I think we need to chew on as well. Well, Brad, man, this has been so fun catching up with you. We should do this more often offline or online. I really appreciate you and your ministry. And yeah, it was fun seeing your, your progression over the years, texting back and forth in this conversation, but man, I didn't want to bring you on to invite people to come to your church. But if somebody was in the area, they don't have

a church home or whatever. Do you want to give an invitation to check out restored? Come on, come on through. Yeah. We're restored la.com. We're in the North LA San Fernando Valley. We're in Chatsworth right now. And so, yeah, if you're at a healthy church, stay there, please. Yeah. But if you got no home, you want to come hang out, we'd love to have you. And yeah, bro, I'm really grateful for you. I text you, I feel fairly regular to say thank you, whether it's a podcast or a book I'm reading. I'm just like, thank you, Jesus, for pressing Sprinkle, the voice that you have in the church that you're constantly challenging us, encouraging us, and you are a gift to the church. So, thanks man. I appreciate you man. Thanks man. We'll see you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.

Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast. It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation. And we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself. And we don't have answers or solutions, but I think the power is actually

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