0:01

The Art of Leadership Network. And

0:03

he said, Jeff, I have to confess something

0:05

to you. He said, when you pitched the,

0:08

when you gave your pitch, and

0:10

I said to you, well, let me think

0:13

about it, see if it's a good fit. What

0:15

was on the other side of that is, there's

0:18

no way in heck I would ever work with somebody like

0:20

you. You're a

0:22

mega church pastor in Dallas, Texas.

0:26

You're a part of the problem. And

0:28

he said, the word I would

0:30

use is immoral. It would be immoral for me

0:32

to work with you. Oh, wow. Because you're the

0:34

kind of person that makes our world worse, not

0:37

better. And he said, I know

0:39

how to give influence to people. And if I give influence

0:41

to the wrong people, I make

0:43

the world worse. I can't live with myself. He

0:47

said, but I

0:50

was unfair. And he said, I knew

0:52

Mike was involved. I respect Mike. So we vetted

0:54

your organization and we looked at, we

0:57

listened to what you said, what you say to

0:59

your people in sermons. More importantly, we looked

1:01

at what you actually do in the community.

1:04

And when we did, we

1:07

realized you're not who we thought you were. And

1:10

we had no idea there was a version of

1:12

Christianity like you that exists in the world. And

1:15

I believe I've got to help you because

1:18

the world needs to know there's a

1:20

version of Christianity like you. Welcome

1:23

to the Kerri Neuhoff leadership

1:25

podcast. It's

1:29

Kerri here. And I hope our time together today helps

1:31

you thrive in life and

1:33

leadership. Well, we are going to talk about rebranding

1:35

the church. I think a lot of us realize

1:37

something is wrong. How do you

1:39

make it right? And I'm going to sit down

1:42

with Jeff Jones to have that conversation. Today's episode

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is brought to you by church.tech. Texting

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Jeff Jones is going to talk to

2:17

us today about rebranding Christianity, what the

2:19

Turks can learn from Domino's Pizza. Yeah,

2:21

believe it or not, there's a great

2:23

lesson there, and how to know what

2:26

the community really thinks about your church

2:28

or organization. Since 2004,

2:31

Jeff Jones has served as the lead pastor

2:33

of Chase Oaks Church, a multi-site church in

2:35

Dallas. Recognized as one of

2:37

America's largest and fastest growing churches,

2:40

he loves to play Alabama football,

2:43

and he's hosted a podcast called The Good

2:45

Complex, which he launched in order to create

2:47

a place where the common good is the

2:49

focus and love, grace, and humility when the

2:52

day is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary.

2:55

And he partnered together on his latest

2:57

project on rebranding Christianity with a couple

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of top marketing experts

3:01

from the wider marketplace. I think you're

3:03

really going to enjoy those insights. And

3:05

hey, wherever you're listening from today, welcome.

3:08

If you're new, make sure you subscribe. If

3:10

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That's t-e-n-x-1-0.org. 10

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by 10.org. And tell them I sent

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you. And now my conversation with Jeff

5:00

Jones. Jeff, welcome to the podcast. Thank

5:02

you so much, Kerry. I so

5:05

appreciate your input and the lives

5:07

of leaders like myself. It's

5:10

a real treat to be able to be

5:12

with you. Well, we're all trying to

5:14

figure it out together, aren't we? We are. That's

5:17

the way it goes. And I certainly don't have

5:19

all the answers, which is one of the reasons

5:21

I love in this format being the question-asker. So

5:24

thanks for your contribution to the dialogue,

5:26

too. I want to start sort of

5:28

broadly. How did you come up with

5:30

the idea that Christianity needs a rebrand?

5:34

A couple of things. I mean, mainly as

5:37

a Christian with a lot of friends who

5:39

are not Christians, I work hard to maintain

5:41

that. And I'm from a non-church family. Just

5:45

realizing that the

5:47

perception of Christianity over the last few years,

5:49

seeing it tanking. And

5:51

then trying to run a church, too, that is

5:53

trying to reach people who don't go to church.

5:57

And feeling more like, you know, back in the

5:59

day, if you remember, moonies, you know, in

6:01

the airports. Yeah. And they would hand out

6:03

their stuff and all that. And they were

6:05

so, I mean, to most of us, kind of

6:08

repulsive and weird that you're like, y'all don't care how

6:10

good your stuff is. I'm

6:12

not interested in realizing that

6:15

over the decades, that's, that's where we

6:17

are. As Christianity and culture is, we're

6:19

like that. We're repulsive. And, and,

6:22

uh, and so I realized, man, we've, we've got

6:24

a big problem. We're not perceived

6:26

the way Jesus said that we should be

6:28

perceived. We're perceived as the opposite of that.

6:31

He gave us the responsibility. So

6:33

it's happening on my watch. Let's take it

6:35

seriously. How do you,

6:37

you said something in passing that I think

6:40

is significant. How do you

6:42

work to make sure that

6:45

you have lots of non-Christian friends?

6:47

Because I think that's an occupational

6:49

hazard and one that I have

6:51

to continually struggle to make

6:53

sure that I've got at least a handful of

6:55

people in my life that don't

6:57

go to church, don't know Jesus and

7:00

that I'm building into. And it's just hard,

7:02

man, because as my friend Reggie Joyner says,

7:05

non-Christians never call you Christians call you

7:07

all day long, right? Particularly if you

7:09

lead a church, what do you

7:11

do to make sure that you have got friendships

7:15

outside the church? It is, it is

7:17

so difficult. So for me, uh, I

7:19

fortunately have a couple of

7:21

non-church friends who are

7:23

super magnetic. People have a lot

7:26

of friends. And so they've sort of introduced

7:28

me into their world in a way that,

7:30

and through sports, I, I'm a golfer,

7:32

I'm a ski, I'm a skier. And

7:36

so being part of the club and

7:38

ski and golfing or my Colorado friends

7:40

and skiing, especially my Colorado friends

7:42

are the most helpful because they don't know, they don't

7:44

understand that I am a pastor of a church like

7:47

Chase Oaks. And

7:49

they have no concept that it even

7:52

exists. And so like one

7:54

of those guys when I, when I, I

7:56

was in Colorado writing the book and

7:58

we went to dinner. And

8:01

he said, hey, what are you writing about? I hear

8:03

you're writing a book. And so I told him, you

8:05

know, rebranding Christianity and the perception of Christianity. And he

8:08

said, well, what is the brand of Christianity? And

8:10

I said, well, Jesus gave it to us. He said, this

8:12

is how people know you're my followers. If you love the

8:14

way I've loved. So the way we

8:16

should be perceived as, oh wow, those are the

8:18

people that love in extraordinary ways that you can't

8:21

even explain. Radical

8:23

love. And he said,

8:25

holy expletive. Yeah. You know, that's

8:27

your brand. I

8:29

said, oh yeah, yeah, that's our brand.

8:31

Theoretically. Yeah. And he said, wow. He

8:34

said, you better write a book. He said, you

8:36

know, there's nobody outside your little circle that would

8:38

ever perceive you that way. You realize that, right?

8:41

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I do.

8:43

That's why, that's the problem. That's what we're talking

8:45

about. And so, and they,

8:47

and it's been interesting because it's been

8:49

those friends and non-church people that I've

8:51

talked to have actually been most enthusiastic

8:53

about the book project. And

8:56

it's drawn them into the conversation. It's

8:59

kind of like, hey, we know you stink. We

9:01

don't know, you know you stink. And

9:03

that's interesting to us. And so

9:06

that's been a surprise to me. It's

9:08

pulled them into the conversation about Christianity.

9:11

How do you make sure that

9:13

those relationships don't become or get

9:16

perceived to be projects?

9:18

Because you've seen that too, right? Like, oh

9:21

yeah, I'm gonna go out and build a

9:23

few non-Christian friendships and we'll get them all

9:25

baptized. People can smell that and

9:27

even if they can't smell it, I don't know

9:29

that that's right. What do

9:31

you do to make sure that that isn't

9:33

the approach? I

9:36

think you're right. I mean, people can smell that.

9:38

And I grew up in a non-church home. So

9:40

that's my, so it's kind of my people. So

9:43

to me, it feels pretty

9:45

natural to relate in that world because that's

9:47

the world that I came from. And

9:49

certainly like my brother who is in

9:52

heaven now, he died of cancer very, just

9:54

a few years ago. He

9:57

was the least likely person I would ever consider

10:00

know Christ, you know. And it

10:02

was just over time, a lot of time,

10:04

and a lot of patience. And

10:08

so I think

10:12

just loving people with time

10:14

and patience and no agenda,

10:17

you know, that's

10:19

what I try to do. Yeah. So

10:22

what does that look like? Yeah.

10:25

So, you know, like for this friend that

10:28

I mentioned, his name is Kenton.

10:30

And I really let him

10:32

drive the spiritual part of the conversation. I

10:34

don't, you know, and

10:37

literally he knows that

10:39

I'm a pastor, but he has no idea what that means.

10:42

But, you know, the Holy Spirit's pretty

10:44

good about doing what he does.

10:46

And I don't feel

10:48

like I have to force that conversation. It

10:52

comes up naturally. And so I

10:55

really let him, I mean, my agenda is just to

10:57

be a friend and to love him. And when

11:00

I see things go on in his life,

11:02

he's a very wealthy person who has

11:04

a very empty life. And

11:06

so he might say, hey, you know, you've got

11:09

your religion for me, you know, I prefer to

11:11

drink. And I'll say,

11:13

okay, that's good. I like drinking too

11:15

sometimes, but how's that working for you?

11:17

Or, you know, just in his life

11:19

motto, for example, is I don't

11:21

know what I want to do, but I know I want to do whatever

11:23

I want to do. And

11:26

I say, you know, that's a fun motto, but, you

11:28

know, how's it working? You know, yeah, it'd

11:30

be like, well, not so great, you know,

11:33

huh, huh. Okay,

11:36

anything else on that advice? What about

11:39

church leaders in particular, I'm thinking who are

11:42

caught up in that bubble. And I get

11:44

it. I mean, there are organizational pressures that

11:46

just force you into that.

11:48

Everyone I know says they're a Christian,

11:52

but who want to break out of that mold? What

11:54

are some tips or advice that you would have for

11:56

them? Well, I think mainly

11:58

you've just got to be... You've got to see

12:00

it as job one Because I

12:02

I think maybe one of the biggest

12:05

problems with christianity and culture right now

12:07

is bubble people And

12:10

so we we live in self-reinforcing bubbles

12:12

in a world of tribalism and

12:15

therefore, you know, we just lose sight of

12:17

the people we're called to reach and um

12:20

In an us versus them world. We

12:22

have to model for people that we lead

12:25

So we don't we can't live in an us versus

12:27

them world. We're an us for them world and we're

12:30

all them And so for

12:32

me it i've come to see it as job

12:34

one like I

12:36

can't imagine anything more important Than

12:39

me right now in our culture modeling what

12:41

it's like to live out of the bubble

12:44

And to have broad relationships and therefore

12:46

it just takes a lot of time

12:48

and margin and priority to do it

12:51

Yeah, well, I don't know what

12:53

stage of life you're at but I found my kids are

12:55

in their 30s and 20s now and When

12:59

we became empty nesters, it got 10x harder,

13:01

uh when they were little I

13:03

mean we were around unchurched people all the time

13:06

because you're all the school stuff all the sports

13:08

everything like that And now

13:10

if i'm not intentional it honestly it doesn't

13:12

happen particularly as i've gotten a little more

13:14

reclusive as i've gotten older Yeah, no, that's

13:16

true. So I I grew up playing I

13:18

grew up playing hockey You're canadian, you know,

13:21

but and my kids played hockey so

13:23

I coached hockey so being in the hockey world in

13:25

dallas. I kind of became the Christian

13:28

in the hockey world around here, you know the

13:30

the pastor of the hockey world and

13:33

um But that meant carving out

13:35

that time to I didn't have

13:37

time to coach a hockey team you

13:40

know, but I Again,

13:42

if job one is getting out of that bubble

13:44

then do and so it has an empty I'm

13:46

an empty nester now and it is harder So

13:49

for me sports are the gateway to do

13:51

that. Yeah, or some kind of shared

13:53

interest or hobby Something

13:55

that will get you outside of the

13:57

mold, which can be really good All

14:00

right, well, I wanna talk about rebranding. Let

14:02

me speak on behalf of some of the audience and

14:05

push back a little bit, okay? Yeah, yeah. I know

14:07

you can take it, Jeff. Yeah. The

14:09

idea of branding is definitely the currency of our congregation,

14:12

but I mean, I hear

14:14

from these people all the time who are like,

14:16

hey man, no branding, no strategy is needed. Just,

14:19

you know, we have the ethic of love, the

14:22

outward thrust of the gospel, the message

14:24

of Jesus, that all created the momentum

14:27

we need to grow. We

14:29

don't even have to think about branding. Like, why

14:31

would you ever brand something like Christianity? What do

14:33

you say to people who, I'm sure

14:35

you've heard that, have that kind of objection? Yeah,

14:38

I think when you first hear rebranding Christianity,

14:40

what some people have thought is that what

14:42

we're talking about is some slick marketing campaign,

14:44

you know? Yeah. They do say,

14:46

hey, this 2000 year old brand, it may have

14:49

worked back in Jesus's day, but that doesn't work

14:51

anymore. We gotta get some consultants and come up

14:53

with something new and have this. And we're actually

14:55

saying the opposite. What we're saying is, hey, Jesus

14:57

gave us our brand 2000 years ago. This

15:01

is how people will know you're my

15:03

followers. He gave

15:05

us that brand and that responsibility. And

15:09

we've drifted from that brand in all

15:11

kinds of ways so that nobody outside

15:13

of our bubble thinks of us. I think what

15:16

my friend said is right. Thinks of

15:18

us according to the brand. So

15:20

we're talking about is not being less of who Jesus

15:22

called us to be, but much more who Jesus called

15:24

us to be. And

15:27

he gave us the responsibility of how we should be known. I

15:29

mean, it's on us and that's all a brand is,

15:31

right? It's how we're known and

15:34

the implicit promises that come with it. And

15:36

every person, every organization has a brand, whether we

15:38

know it or not, like you. Like

15:41

if I found out, if somebody told me, you

15:43

know, I listened to Kerry Newhoff the other day,

15:45

a podcast, and he said this, and

15:47

if it was uncharacteristic, if it was against your brand,

15:50

it'd be like, you know, I don't think so. I've

15:54

come to trust Kerry. I

15:56

know what he stands for. I

15:58

don't think there's any way that he's. I'm going to listen because

16:00

there's no way he said that, right? Because you

16:03

have a brand. And

16:05

every organization, every individual has

16:07

that. It's not some

16:09

slick thing. It's just how we're known and

16:12

the implicit expectations and promises that come with

16:14

that. And I believe

16:16

Jesus gave us the responsibility. Why no,

16:18

Jesus gave us responsibility. And

16:21

here's how you're going to be known. And

16:23

that's all I mean. And so, yeah, if you talk about, hey,

16:26

man, the early Christians didn't need all that and they

16:28

just lived an ethic of love and diversity

16:31

and sacrifice and all of that. I

16:33

say, yeah, because they were on brand

16:36

and that brand proved to be an irresistible force

16:38

for good. So the argument is

16:40

we're kind of off brand, in other words,

16:42

why off brand? Yeah.

16:44

Yeah. So and I think that's

16:46

a really good point. It's like people who are like, yeah, we don't

16:49

have any cultural values. It's like, yeah, but you have a culture. Right.

16:52

So what you're arguing is that your brand

16:54

is basically how you're perceived in the

16:56

same way that you perceive Tesla

16:58

differently from say Nike or

17:01

differently than Chevrolet. Every

17:03

brand sort of has a persona. And

17:06

whether you think about it intentionally or not, you

17:09

definitely have a brand. And that's something I

17:11

mean, we have branding in my company, but

17:14

we think a lot about what we say,

17:16

how we say it, because

17:18

it's just such a polarized and charged environment.

17:20

It's not like we're afraid. It's just like,

17:23

oh, I want to wait in the conversation. But if

17:25

I say this, it's going to trigger

17:27

all the explosions on this side. If I say that

17:29

it's going to trigger all these explosions on that side.

17:32

Why don't we try to go a different way?

17:34

So your argument would be just to confirm everybody

17:36

has a brand. Everybody

17:39

has a brand and Jesus gave us the brand

17:41

and the responsibility to manage it. And the apostles

17:43

do too. You know, so Paul said,

17:45

hey, you know, live in a way that

17:47

your daily life wins respect of outsiders or,

17:49

you know, relate in such a way

17:51

that people who have something bad to say about

17:53

you will be ashamed that they ever that they

17:55

ever even thought that way, you know, and, and

17:57

there's, I mean, there's a lot in the New

17:59

Testament. of engaging culture

18:02

in a compelling way that has

18:04

every opportunity to create pull

18:06

toward Jesus and and to

18:08

create curiosity rather than repulsion.

18:11

And so yeah brand is maybe you could call

18:13

it an analogy. It's a modern way of saying

18:15

that same thing but that's all we're saying. And

18:18

I knew that rebranding would would be provocative which

18:20

is why we chose the you know why we

18:22

chose it to get people to kind of say

18:24

wait a minute we don't need that. And

18:27

you're saying no actually we do. So

18:30

Christians and I know you

18:32

know this in the West

18:34

in America in particular are

18:36

seen as and here's a

18:39

partial list judgmental, hypocritical, partisan,

18:41

homophobic, spiteful, sexist, and

18:43

in some cases corrupt right

18:45

like not trustworthy, not

18:48

to mention hateful. So you acknowledge

18:50

that. And in

18:52

many cases the critics aren't wrong

18:54

right like that that's actually that's

18:56

actually honest about some elements of

18:59

the Christian tribe. So

19:01

is this a question of rebranding or is

19:03

this really a question of repentance like really

19:05

like get on our faces and like oh

19:07

how did we become this way? Why are

19:09

we so why we miss the

19:11

mark? Like what's what's at the heart of that?

19:14

Yeah I think it's both. I think

19:16

it is about rebranding and part of rebranding

19:18

is about repenting. And that's

19:21

what I say I wrote this book with two

19:23

marketing experts. One who ran marketing

19:25

for Frito-Lay and GameStop and

19:27

other companies. Another

19:30

considered one of the top one two or three branding

19:32

experts in the world who happens to be not a

19:34

Christian and a nun by the way. So

19:38

that was fascinating part of it. And

19:40

they did case studies throughout the book

19:42

and it was great to write with

19:45

them. But it's really interesting because when they

19:47

talk about branding I tend to

19:49

think about it cheaply. That it's just about

19:51

the marketing campaign or something like that. But

19:53

we need a new graphic, new logo, new

19:56

color. To them it runs really deep. And

19:58

so they would understand either even the

20:00

non-believing Dwight would

20:03

understand repentance and talk about it that

20:05

way. Like to say, hey, if a

20:07

good organization has a strong brand, which

20:10

means that they

20:12

understand who they are and

20:15

what they offer and what their implicit promise

20:17

is, and a good brand, if they're

20:19

off brand, will repent. We'll

20:22

have frank honesty and say, you know what, we

20:24

are off brand. We are not who we are

20:27

supposed to be, who we want to be. We've

20:30

let you down. We're

20:32

sorry. And we're going to fix it.

20:36

And every good brand would do that according to

20:38

Dwight. So I want to come back

20:40

to that. I want to put a pin in that

20:42

and talk about how brands actually do that, like popular

20:44

brands that we would know. One more

20:46

objection as I objection as I was working

20:48

through the material, getting ready for this is

20:51

because I've heard it said, and I'm sure you've heard it

20:53

said that often

20:55

the church, it's not that

20:58

we're bad, we're just misunderstood or the

21:00

media is so biased or everything

21:03

is just so skewed, but we're really good people.

21:05

We just have a bad rap. And I've heard

21:07

that. What's your response to

21:09

that? Yeah, that's

21:12

going to happen. We're going to be

21:14

treated unfairly in culture. We can't control that. I

21:16

mean, as a pastor, you know, you are a

21:18

pastor, I'm a pastor. Anytime

21:20

I watch a movie that's not

21:22

a Hallmark movie or some Christian movie and

21:25

a pastor comes on, I'm

21:27

thinking, Oh boy, here we go. Yeah, exactly.

21:29

It's going to be a pedophile, going to

21:31

be a hypocrite, going to be something terrible.

21:33

Right? Anything. Oh,

21:36

that's not fair. And so I, that's going to happen.

21:38

I can't control that. But what Jesus gave

21:41

us responsibility to do, I can control.

21:44

And that is to represent the brand well, to

21:46

represent Jesus the way he called us to represent

21:48

it. And if we

21:51

have a brand problem, I don't think Jesus, I don't

21:53

believe he gave us the option to just

21:55

play the victim card because we

21:57

have the responsibility. This is how you'll be known.

21:59

Like, you know, it's our, it's on us. It's

22:02

our responsibility. If you think about it, if

22:04

we were really living the way that we were called to

22:06

live. And that

22:08

somebody's watching that movie and culture and

22:10

sees a pastor like that. And like,

22:13

then what would happen over time is

22:15

that, you know, that's not just stupid.

22:17

Pastors are like that. Christians

22:19

are like, I know Christians. I know

22:22

pastors. They're amazing people. It's

22:24

such an unrealistic movie. Right. But

22:26

that's not where we're at. Right. People say, Oh yeah,

22:29

I've, because I was experienced. Yeah. And

22:31

so, you know, a lot of Christians are

22:33

playing the victim card right now, but I,

22:36

I don't, but Jesus gives us the responsibility

22:38

and the new Testament gives us the responsibility

22:40

to manage the brand. I, I like what

22:42

Peter said to the Christians in Rome who

22:44

were facing this onslaught of bad, of malicious,

22:48

you know, PR from the

22:50

Roman empire. And,

22:52

and he said, Hey, look, if you're being, if you're, if

22:54

you're suffering for, for

22:57

doing what's good, well, rejoice, you know, if

22:59

you're being a period unfairly, God will reward

23:01

you and you know, that's great. But if

23:03

you suffer for doing wrong, shame

23:05

on you. And

23:08

it's, I think for us, Hey, if

23:10

we're, that's unfair stuff's going to happen. But

23:14

if we're being misunderstood and

23:16

malign or in, in bad things are being

23:19

said about us because we're actually contributing

23:23

to the vitriol, we're, we're not who we're

23:25

called to be, then shame

23:27

on us. And, and I think that's all

23:29

we have to focus on. So

23:33

from a PR perspective, and I want

23:35

to analyze it through that lens, what

23:37

is wrong with playing the victim card?

23:39

What does that do for you in

23:41

the public eye? When a

23:44

brand claims to be misrepresented,

23:46

unfairly treated, we see politicians

23:48

play the victim card. Yeah.

23:51

We see brands sometimes play

23:53

it. And I definitely would agree with you

23:55

that a lot of Christians are playing the,

23:57

Oh, we're being persecuted. Oh, we're victims card.

24:00

What does that do to someone when

24:02

they play the victim card? Yeah,

24:05

well, it certainly contributes to the

24:07

us versus them narrative. And

24:10

it's so disempowering, right? You're essentially

24:12

and so I

24:16

think people respect authenticity.

24:18

I know people respect authenticity.

24:22

They respect, hey, we're not who we're called to be.

24:26

I think most people, unless they're already in

24:28

that group, disrespect victims.

24:30

Yeah, people who play the victim card. And

24:32

if you're in a group... Yeah, no truth.

24:34

Let me make a distinction. We're not talking about

24:37

real victims here. We're talking about people who claim

24:39

victims because they don't like the way the narrative

24:41

is playing out. And so people who are not

24:43

in your group can see through that. And

24:46

it just, you become a joke. Now,

24:48

in your group, it actually solidifies

24:51

this... It

24:53

ferments the fear and all that kind of

24:56

stuff. So in the

24:58

little bubble, it's actually,

25:00

unfortunately, effective at

25:04

reinforcing, hey,

25:06

we're mistreated. We've

25:08

got to fight these outside forces

25:11

and all of that. But

25:13

outside the bubble, we're just seen as

25:15

ridiculous. And

25:18

I think that's what's happening in

25:20

Christianity too, because if you're in

25:22

the Christian bubble, the

25:25

re-brain in Christianity thing makes no sense. Because

25:27

you think, man, no, we're good. We're great.

25:30

And it's just this outside world. And they're

25:32

the mean ones. And they're out

25:34

to get us and all that. And

25:36

that's why I think it's so important to live outside

25:38

the bubble so

25:41

that we can see ourselves not just through

25:43

a self-reinforcing. You're

25:45

awesome. We can actually see

25:47

ourselves for who we are

25:50

and how we're perceived. Net

26:00

Promoter Score. I think it's something we've

26:03

all heard about, we're vaguely aware of, and we

26:05

think we understand, but I don't think I understand

26:07

it. What is Net Promoter Score? Yeah,

26:10

so the Net Promoter Score has become

26:12

kind of the gold standard of measuring

26:14

for companies how they're doing in terms

26:16

of customer perception

26:19

and loyalty. And

26:21

it started back in 2003 with

26:24

a consultant from Bain who wrote a

26:26

Harvard Business Review article, and then it

26:28

became kind of, it got out there.

26:31

And essentially, it has a

26:33

scale from minus 100 to

26:36

100. Anything above zero

26:38

is considered good. Anything above 50

26:40

is considered stellar. But

26:42

it's very simple. And all

26:44

they do is say, okay, all they do is

26:46

ask people on a scale of one to 10,

26:51

would you recommend this service

26:53

or this product or this

26:55

organization to a friend or

26:58

colleague on a scale of

27:00

one to 10? So that's one question, one question

27:02

for the Net Promoter Score? Okay. And

27:04

so one, if you give one, you're

27:06

saying, I would never recommend that in a million

27:10

years. And 10 is, man,

27:12

I recommend it all the time. I'm an

27:14

evangelist, I'm just this crazy evangelist about this

27:16

product. Okay, so from one to 10. And

27:19

the way it works is there's three categories of people

27:21

that come out of that. So

27:23

nine and 10 are promoters. So

27:26

those are the ones that are motivated enough,

27:29

they love you enough that they're telling their

27:31

friends about it. And they're the evangelists, they're

27:35

spreading your, growing your

27:37

influence. That's

27:39

nines and 10. Sevens and eights

27:42

are called passives. So

27:44

there are people who love it, like they love the

27:47

podcast. They don't love it enough to

27:49

tell other people about it. Or to

27:51

share it. So they're not hurting

27:53

you, but they're not helping you. They're

27:55

passives. And then zero

27:58

to six are detractors. Those

28:00

are people that don't

28:03

like you. And they're

28:06

very willing to share that with other

28:08

people because what he found, which I

28:10

think we all know is true, is

28:12

negative news spreads a whole lot faster than

28:14

positive, right? So people are

28:16

very motivated to share negative experiences much more

28:19

than positive experiences, which is why it's so

28:21

tilted because the only ones that count positive

28:23

are nines and tens. 0

28:25

to 6 is count negative. So

28:28

what you do is you total

28:30

up your nines and tens and

28:33

then you subtract all your zeros to sixes

28:35

and that's your score. And

28:38

so companies like Comcast are

28:41

very negative. And

28:43

you can imagine why, right? Yeah. We'll

28:45

be there from four to six sometime in the next 10

28:48

days. So let me just back up for a second. You're

28:50

saying zero to six becomes a negative. Yes.

28:53

So you subtract it. You subtract

28:55

it, yeah. So that's how you get to negative 100. Which

28:59

is why it's so hard to be positive, right?

29:01

Why, you know, because zero to six, you

29:04

know, all those people and only the nines

29:06

and tens are positive. So that's why anything

29:08

above is zero. Wow. Okay.

29:11

So I want to continue, but I want to break

29:13

that down. I can see a lot of church leaders

29:15

going, you know, if they got a five or a

29:17

six, it's like, no, these people are basically happy. Like

29:19

they're okay. They're not negative. You know, it's not

29:22

like they're all right. It's like moderately

29:24

satisfied, not extremely satisfied.

29:28

Why in marketing language is that a

29:30

negative? Yeah,

29:32

because they're still, they're not only,

29:34

they're not passives because again,

29:36

negative people are more

29:39

motivated to share negative than positive. And

29:41

so that's why fives and sixes are still motivated

29:44

enough, not like a one. They're not out to

29:47

burn you down, but

29:49

they're still when encounter like, so let's

29:51

say in Christianity they encounter, they've

29:53

had enough negative experiences with

29:55

Christians. When somebody

29:57

says, I'm dating a Christian. a

30:00

neighbor moved in next door and they're a

30:02

Christian, they may not

30:05

be, you know, as ruthless

30:07

as a zero or a one, but they'll

30:09

still as a five or six basically say,

30:11

Oh, no, man,

30:13

I'm sorry. You know, or why are you

30:16

dating? You're dating a Christian. You

30:18

know, why are you dating that? So

30:20

they may not be as strongly negative,

30:22

but they're still negative again, negative

30:26

gets passed on a lot more than positive. Okay,

30:30

super helpful. So

30:32

if a church or an organization wanted

30:35

to calculate its net promoter score, I'm

30:37

sure there are ways to skew the

30:39

results. And there's this

30:41

thing I call pastor math, which is we

30:44

always like the best numbers, the exaggerated numbers.

30:46

How do you get an accurate net

30:48

promoter score for your church, business

30:51

or organization? Yeah, I think

30:53

you'd really have to ask. I

30:56

do. I don't think you could just make it up.

30:59

Just do like an Instagram poll

31:01

and say, here's our net promoter

31:03

score. Right. I think and so

31:06

we've done some surveys from time to

31:08

time and culture, you know, so we'll

31:11

go, you know, back

31:13

in the day, I remember one we

31:15

did that we went

31:17

to a mall and gave free food, you know,

31:19

just just, you know, at a restaurant in a

31:21

mall, it's hey, we'll give you, you know, people

31:23

are coming to the restaurant, we'll buy your meal

31:25

if you answer some questions, you know, but I

31:27

think I think you'd really have to do a

31:29

real survey where you're

31:31

asking real people. I'm sure you could

31:33

do it somehow through social media, but

31:36

that'd be tough. And

31:38

so there are, you know, there are agencies that

31:40

will help you do that to find out where

31:42

you're really at. But you can imagine, I mean,

31:44

if I know

31:47

people like Dwight and Mike that wrote

31:50

the book with me, they would say,

31:52

you know, you really don't have to

31:54

work that hard to guess where Christianity

31:56

is at, because all you polling

32:00

data that's out there in terms of the perception

32:02

of Christianity. And it's

32:04

not encouraging, you know, and, uh, and,

32:08

and it's, and it's going in, it's, it's

32:10

gone so quickly, you

32:13

know, and, um, you know,

32:15

like Gallup did a study of the

32:18

youngest generation of adults in 2001. It

32:23

would be Gen Z now, but back then it was probably,

32:25

you know, monsters or something, I

32:27

don't know. Yeah. Uh,

32:30

uh, just your perception of Christianity, positive

32:32

or negative. And

32:34

60 something percent were positive,

32:36

even more than were Christians. So

32:39

that was, you know, they

32:41

did the same study in 2021 and only

32:43

37% of people on

32:46

that age group had a positive view of Christianity, even

32:48

like it was a positive force for good in the

32:50

world, which meant what? 63%

32:53

believed we're negative force for good in the world. Well,

32:55

that's a massive shift of perception,

32:57

you know, and, and that in 20 years.

33:01

Um, and so you look

33:03

at that and think, Oh, wow, you know, we, we've

33:07

got a big problem. I mean, it's, we certainly

33:09

have a significantly negative net

33:11

promoter score. So how do you, how

33:14

do you turn the tractors

33:16

into promoters? Has anybody

33:18

attempted to calculate a net promoter score

33:20

for the church? I forget whether that

33:22

was in your book or not. Yeah,

33:25

it's not. And I would, I would love that to

33:27

happen. You just had David Keneman on not too long

33:29

ago. Yeah. So let's reach out

33:32

to Dave and yeah, let's try to,

33:34

let's try to do that. I think, I

33:36

think I know what the answer is. My

33:38

guess, I think I know, but a little depressing.

33:40

Yeah. But it would be really, it'd be really

33:43

good to see it. It'd be negative. How

33:45

did you connect with your co-authors,

33:48

the professional marketers, particularly the non-Christian?

33:50

That's a fascinating story actually. So

33:53

Mike, who is the Christian is on,

33:55

always like to have on our executive

33:58

team as a church. What?

34:01

I call an outsider insider which means somebody

34:03

who's and our church but not employed by

34:05

our church is a really great leader. In

34:07

does it. Is dog

34:09

and say well we've always done it this way

34:11

or we know he he know somebody is willing

34:13

to be objective and ask really hard questions and

34:16

so. Are Mike has been that person

34:18

over the last twenty years and he. He

34:20

ran marketing for Frito Lay. Super

34:22

smart guy, super helpful. Incredible strategist.

34:24

So you know, Mike. I've known

34:26

for a long time. And

34:29

he's the one that could acted me with to

34:31

I do send to. My. Considers the

34:34

top and of. The. A one, two

34:36

or three branding experts in the country

34:38

needs worked with every when organizations have

34:40

braiding trouble like whether it's Johnson and

34:43

Johnson or a government or whoever they.

34:46

He's. One of the people that you go

34:48

to is a center on political campaigns as.

34:51

Which is an eighth Obama or in

34:54

a different game based on that side

34:56

of things. and I'm so he's He's

34:58

just a well respected person, but a

35:01

very skeptical not Christian. So

35:03

years ago, this was like twenty years ago I

35:06

I saw what was happening in our own community

35:08

as a church built around recent people who don't

35:10

go to church. Saying. That

35:12

decline of perception of christianity of the

35:14

people are trying to reach. It's

35:17

I ask my Kate, how could we. How.

35:20

Can we? Get. Your.

35:22

Two or three layers outside of christianity,

35:24

just in our own community. A

35:26

more positive view of Christianity.

35:29

Expos people to more genuine view of

35:31

christianity a more authentic what I would

35:33

consider christianity isn't they're experiencing and I

35:35

can we change the perception of Christian

35:37

and him. And. He said hey

35:39

I'm going to bring the a friend of my Dwight

35:42

juice and to come and he's the best person in

35:44

the world to answer that question. And

35:46

I just see if I work with us. So.

35:49

He flew down. Dwight lives in Seattle,

35:51

flew down to Dallas, Texas are really

35:53

nice restaurants. i lay out

35:55

what i'm asking him to do with a do i

35:57

can't pay em is way too expensive for my budget,

36:01

but would he do this pro bono? And he

36:03

just said, you know, I'll consider that. Thank you.

36:05

You know, it's, I sure respect Mike more than

36:07

as much as any human being in the planet.

36:09

And I know he's involved at your church, but

36:11

let me just think about it, see if it's

36:13

a good. So it was very

36:15

cold. Well, then he, a

36:18

couple of months later, he called and said, Hey, I'm going

36:20

to fly to Dallas and I want to take you out

36:22

to dinner. And

36:24

he was very enthusiastic, very animated. And

36:28

that conversation was so different. And

36:30

he said, Jeff, I have to confess something to

36:32

you. He said, when I, when you pitched the,

36:35

when you gave your pitch and

36:37

I said to you, well, let me

36:40

can see, think about it, see if it's a good fit.

36:42

What was on the other side of that is there's

36:45

no way in heck I would ever work with somebody like

36:47

you. You're a

36:50

mega church pastor in Dallas, Texas.

36:53

You're part of the problem. And

36:55

he said, I would, the word I would use

36:57

as immoral, it would be immoral for me to work with

37:00

you because you're

37:02

the kind of person that makes our world

37:04

worse, not better. And he said,

37:06

I know how to give influence to people. And if I

37:08

give influence to the wrong people, I

37:10

make the world worse. I can't live with myself.

37:13

They said, but I,

37:17

I was unfair. And he said, I

37:19

knew Mike was involved. I respect Mike. So we

37:22

vetted your organization and we looked at, we

37:24

listened to what you said, what you say to your

37:27

people and sermons. More

37:29

importantly, we looked at what you actually do in the

37:31

community. And when we did,

37:33

we realized we're not, you're

37:35

not who we thought you were. And

37:38

we had no idea there was a version of Christianity

37:40

like you that exists in the world. And

37:43

I believe I've got to help you because

37:46

the world needs to know there's a

37:48

version of Christianity like you that

37:50

is not what

37:53

they think in the best sense of that word. And

37:56

one of the sermons he had heard was a sermon

37:58

I had done and we actually talked about in

38:00

that conversation about the stewardship of

38:03

power and how God always gives power not

38:05

for the powerful but for the powerless. And

38:08

I was just getting people in the church to think about,

38:10

just think about all the influence, all the power you have,

38:12

it's not for you. It's the left after

38:14

powerless. And how are we doing? And he said,

38:16

Jeff, he said, I still to this day

38:18

talk to my blue

38:21

friends and my blue states about there's

38:23

a church in Dallas, Texas having this

38:25

kind of conversation with their

38:27

church, a conservative

38:30

church, and they think I'm lying.

38:34

And so anyway,

38:36

he's the most enthusiastic. In

38:39

fact, he's the one that told me to write the book. And

38:43

he's also the one who he just said,

38:46

why are we thinking just locally? Why don't

38:48

we think nationally? Why don't we rebrand Christianity

38:50

in America? I

38:52

think about Dallas. I mean, that's, you can,

38:54

but why do that? Because

38:57

he does national campaigns and that

38:59

kind of just the way he thinks. And so

39:01

he was really the biggest motivation

39:04

for the book. Wow,

39:06

that's a really cool story.

39:10

One of the challenges we have, okay, no,

39:12

I'm getting ahead of myself. I do want

39:14

to go there, but let's talk marketing a

39:16

little bit more, if you don't mind. So

39:18

you got two leading national experts on marketing,

39:20

helping you with the book, but probably even

39:23

more importantly, helping you think through the whole

39:25

problem. What your church

39:27

and the church is facing.

39:30

One of the case studies you

39:32

outline with your co-authors, Mike and

39:34

Dwight, is the case of

39:36

Domino's. So do you want to take us

39:38

through that? It's a really interesting analogy.

39:42

And if you have at least a

39:45

15 year memory, you might remember this.

39:47

Yeah, fascinating one. So in

39:49

the early 2000s, or actually late 2000s,

39:51

Domino's had a massive problem. Their

39:54

market share was way down. Their stock price was way

39:56

down. They were known for fast

39:59

pizza, 30 minutes. or less, but terrible

40:01

pizza. And

40:04

so their customers would say all these terrible

40:06

things, and they got all this bad feedback.

40:08

And what they could have done

40:11

is denied it. They

40:13

could have said, oh, people are being

40:15

unfair. We actually have great pizza. But

40:17

they chose not to do that. Instead, they

40:20

chose to take ownership. So I think they're

40:22

a great example of where we're at. So

40:25

what they decided to do was choose

40:28

a path of ruthless honesty. And

40:31

so their marketing campaign is they hired

40:33

real, not actors, but

40:36

real customers to just say honest things

40:38

about their pizza. And you may

40:40

remember these ads, and they just put them out

40:42

there. So people would say things like, Domino's

40:45

Pizza is worse than the

40:47

cardboard box it comes in. That's

40:50

their marketing campaign. And

40:52

then they said, hey, we get it, but

40:54

no more. We've changed everything. We've gone

40:57

back to the drawing board. We've changed everything. We've

40:59

changed our whole approach to pizza. And we know

41:02

you don't trust us enough to buy

41:04

one. So we're going to give you one. And

41:07

they did. They gave out, I

41:10

don't have no idea how many

41:12

pizzas they gave away. But

41:16

it's an incredible story because, yeah, they

41:18

actually did change their product and improve

41:20

their whole product. But

41:22

they didn't just do new improved and stamp that on it

41:24

because they knew they didn't have enough trust to do that.

41:27

But they chose a path of ruthless honesty. They gave

41:29

their pizza away. And from 2010 to 2020, they

41:31

more than doubled their market share. And their stock

41:33

price went from

41:41

about $3 to over $300, which

41:44

outpaced companies like Google,

41:47

Amazon, Apple in

41:50

that same time period, which

41:52

is one of the best turnaround

41:54

stories in branding history. But the

41:57

way they did it was... Not

42:00

slick marketing not slick campaign Not

42:04

new improve trust us just

42:06

ruthless honesty, you know our pizza stinks and we

42:08

know it but no more that's not

42:11

who we're gonna be anymore and And

42:15

I think that's where I just I think that's where

42:17

we are, you know as we've had so much

42:19

mission drift toward Politicization

42:22

of the church and vitriol and

42:24

culture wars and and all the

42:26

way realization Yeah, all the ways

42:28

we've gotten sidetracked to say,

42:30

you know, that's just that's not who Jesus called us to

42:32

be and We're

42:35

sorry. I was just in a at

42:37

a meeting with the world evangelical is

42:39

a world evangelical Alliance pulled all these

42:41

national leaders together To

42:44

talk about the word evangelical and can it

42:46

be saved and in our country?

42:50

and And

42:52

one thing was interesting is one of the leaders

42:54

of the wea who's from another culture said hey

42:56

Just so you know, this is an American conversation

43:00

Because in most parts of the world evangelical

43:02

is actually a positive thing There

43:04

they're just people who do nice things wonderful

43:06

things for people in sacrificial ways In

43:09

America, you've ruined it With

43:12

all these ways you've gotten sidetracked. So just know you're

43:15

not speaking for the world You

43:17

know, but you're speaking for America. So if

43:19

that kind of was an eye-opener But

43:22

as we talked about it one of the

43:24

one of the people there His name

43:26

is Darrell Bach who is leads the Center

43:29

for Christian Leadership at Dallas seminary But

43:32

he just said, you know, I think at the beginning where

43:34

we would have to realize where we are is

43:39

We need to apologize to our culture That

43:43

you know, he gets us and campaigns like

43:45

that are great and they show how wonderful

43:47

Jesus is because Jesus is wonderful But

43:50

at some point that's got to be

43:52

connected to Christians being really honest to

43:54

say yeah He's wonderful and

43:57

he's the one who gave us the brand So

44:00

we're not who we're called to be, we're off

44:02

brand and we're sorry. And

44:06

I think people can handle that. Two

44:08

things. Number one, not

44:11

kidding, I'll send you a copy. I just, it's not published

44:13

yet. I think I'm going to publish it. I

44:15

wrote an article about reclaiming the word

44:17

evangelical as a positive term for the

44:19

church. It's called Why I'm Not an

44:21

Ex-Vangelical. And

44:24

I think I'm going to publish it, not 100% sure. I

44:26

hope you do. You can search my website

44:29

to see if I actually did it. But

44:32

yeah, I think it's a positive word that has all of a

44:34

sudden in the last 20 years, 30 years taken

44:37

on such negative connotations. And if

44:39

you study it historically, it is

44:42

such a positive across the board

44:44

word used by people who are

44:47

widely different and actually, you know,

44:49

testifies to the unity of the church, not the

44:51

division of the church. And now it's become something

44:54

backwards in America, North America, the West. I

44:56

would agree with that. Secondly, one

44:59

advantage Domino's has is a

45:02

unified corporate franchise structure. So

45:04

if you're the CEO of Domino's, you get to

45:06

just say, all right,

45:09

no more. We're going to sell everybody we

45:11

stock. We're going to give out free pizza.

45:13

We're going to remake everything at the franchise

45:15

level. And we've had, haven't had Domino's on,

45:17

but like we've had Cheryl Batchelder from Popeyes,

45:20

Louisiana Kitchen, the total rebrand there.

45:22

We've had so many turnaround stories

45:25

on this podcast. And the advantage you have

45:27

as CEO is yeah, it takes

45:29

a lot of persuasion and you get the franchise

45:32

owners on board and everything, but it's

45:34

one organization and the church theologically

45:37

is one, but I

45:39

could apologize. You could apologize. We could

45:41

get tens of thousands of listeners

45:43

listening to the show to apologize. Meanwhile,

45:46

you have a quarter million who are like, ah, no,

45:49

we're not going to do that. Like what

45:51

do you do? Because it's such a diverse

45:53

body. It's like, I always

45:55

say to people. There are more good news stories than

45:57

bad news stories in the headlines. But

46:00

unfortunately the headlines don't particularly enjoy the good news

46:02

story. So you only hear the bad news stories.

46:04

Now, do I think we have something to deal

46:06

with? Yes. I think we have something to deal

46:08

with, but what do you do when you're not

46:11

one organization that can just make a top down

46:13

or bottom up change? Yeah,

46:15

we talked about that in that meeting. Um,

46:18

okay. Because we realized, and there

46:20

were some people there from the national associate of

46:22

NAA, national association to

46:24

be evangelicals to, to

46:26

say, what is the word? I mean, how do, who

46:29

speaks for evangelicals? It's such a broad,

46:31

you know, such a broad word,

46:33

you know, so how do we, how

46:35

could we possibly do that? And,

46:38

um, it's, I, I

46:40

just, I think it's a great challenge and

46:42

a great question. And, and ultimately, you

46:45

know, Jesus is the CEO of the church. You

46:48

know, we're all franchisees of that. And

46:51

I, and I believe he's doing it. Like

46:53

I, I, I really, what I see happening

46:57

right now, and I've been in these

46:59

conversations because of the book and all these different, all

47:02

these different settings of, of

47:04

the spectrum of evangelicalism and

47:06

Christianity is that

47:08

there's two things going on at one time. But

47:10

I think God's bringing correction to his, I think,

47:12

I think Jesus is bringing correction to his church,

47:14

but there, you've got one wing that is doubling

47:17

down on the culture

47:19

wars and the us against them and

47:22

you know, political, you know, all that

47:24

stuff. Christian nationalism and second America,

47:26

all that stuff, right? So they're feeding

47:28

on fear and fear

47:30

creates either fire flight, right? So they're, they're

47:33

doubling down on that. And they're actually growing right

47:35

now. I mean, that segment of the church is

47:37

growing because they're feeding on fear, but

47:40

that's like a role laid boat. You know,

47:42

it's, it's gonna, it's, it's gonna, it's

47:44

not gonna last that, that, that version of Christianity

47:46

is not gonna. Love that analogy, a role-aid boat.

47:50

Yeah. You know, so it's not, it's not going to pass

47:52

on to the nation. Yeah. Which

47:55

is terrible, which is sad to me because they're actually

47:57

doing it because they're afraid because of their kids. And

48:00

they're actually guaranteeing their kids are not going to

48:02

follow Jesus. You know,

48:05

most of them. Many, many. Yeah. And

48:07

so that's, I think that's tragic. But

48:09

on the other side, there's this

48:11

sort of growing sense

48:14

and especially in the emerging gender,

48:16

in the younger generations of evangelicals

48:18

who don't have those same hang

48:20

ups and evidence of mission drift

48:23

who are really saying, Hey, we've, we've got

48:25

to get back on brand and so to

48:27

speak, and we've, we've got

48:29

a culture to reach and like, and so

48:31

I see that happening, you know, and, and

48:33

it sort of a movement of that. And

48:36

when I think of movement, I look

48:38

at, as I look at the culture, if

48:41

there's people who are not

48:44

in the same circle, who are not

48:46

talking to each other, but saying the same thing

48:48

in the church. To me, that's

48:50

a, that's a big clue that the Holy

48:52

Spirit is at work and,

48:55

and bringing a spirit of correction and

48:57

bringing a spin. And I

48:59

see that happening. So I don't

49:02

know what I can do to do what you said,

49:04

right? To, to in evangelicalism,

49:07

but the encouraging thing to me is I see, I, I,

49:09

I really believe Jesus is

49:11

doing that in the American church. And, um,

49:13

and I think there's a movement toward, toward

49:15

that. And so you have all these people

49:18

writing about it now and coming

49:20

out with stuff about it now. And

49:22

I think the conversation is going to change a

49:24

healthier direction, even though it'll be

49:26

turbulent over the next five years or so. Yeah.

49:30

Any other case studies from marketing

49:32

that you think are particularly poignant

49:35

for this moment of time we're

49:37

in? Yeah. You

49:39

know, one of them is Johnson and Johnson and Dwight

49:41

that we talked about actually is the one that worked

49:43

with them on this. So that's a, that's a fun

49:46

one. But, you

49:48

know, in 1982 and

49:50

Chicago, uh, somebody

49:53

tampered with some boxes of Tylenol,

49:56

I remember that. Yeah. And a

49:58

girl died almost right away. And

50:00

then over the next week

50:02

or so, about seven other people got

50:06

sick and died. And

50:08

as these were laced with cyanide. And

50:12

so it was this, in Chicago land, it

50:14

wasn't just panic in Chicago land, it was

50:16

panic everywhere. Tyler Love got

50:19

pulled off all the shelves. They did. Yeah,

50:21

they did. Remember that. Yeah.

50:25

So they, and that was their decision, right?

50:27

And really the panic wasn't just about Tylenol,

50:29

the panic was anything in grocery stores, right?

50:31

Because everything is tamperable. And

50:35

what they chose to do, you know,

50:37

they could have said, well, it's not

50:39

our fault. We didn't tamper with it.

50:41

They could have spent it. They could

50:43

have spun it somehow. They could have made

50:45

all kinds of excuses, but they're the ones who

50:47

decided to pull it. And not just in Chicago,

50:50

they pulled it everywhere. It

50:53

was a hundred million dollars

50:55

worth of Tylenol, which

50:57

that's in 1982 numbers. I have

50:59

no idea what that would be now.

51:02

Multiply that by four decades. Yeah. You

51:05

know, basically we're going to pull it

51:07

everywhere. And

51:10

they also went to the

51:12

drawing board before they put it out. And

51:14

they're the ones that came up with, you

51:17

know, triple sealed packaging, right? So you've got

51:19

the cardboard box and the

51:21

tape over it. And then

51:23

inside over the top, there's a

51:25

plastic thing that

51:27

goes over, you know, that you have to break before

51:29

you can even open the bottle. And then

51:32

when you open the bottle, there's an internal seal

51:34

that you have to then pull out. So

51:36

they went overboard to say, when

51:38

we say safety is the most important thing

51:40

to us, we're not kidding. We

51:43

mean it, right? So much so that

51:45

we're going to pull a hundred million dollars worth of

51:47

product and destroy it, even though

51:49

they could have just pulled it in Chicago, right?

51:52

But they didn't because of that

51:54

perception. And so for

51:56

me, it's another example of an organization that was

51:58

willing to see the problem and own it,

52:01

not see themselves as victims, not, you

52:04

know, whatever, but to say, hey,

52:06

we know we have a problem. It's our

52:08

problem. We're going to be honest

52:11

about that. We're going to take responsibility for it and we're

52:13

going to double down on our brand so

52:15

that they became known as the safest, you

52:20

know, the safest medicine in the world

52:22

as opposed to the least safe medicine

52:24

in the world. And that happened

52:26

really quickly because they took such a radical

52:28

step. And so for us,

52:30

what would it look like to double down on

52:32

our brand to be the

52:34

most radically loving group of people on the planet,

52:37

to love people in unexpected places

52:39

and unexpected ways to, you know,

52:42

and for that to be our focus

52:45

for, I mean, it should be our focus anyway,

52:47

because that's our brand, but to really double down

52:49

on that. In a

52:52

world that's so vitriolic and

52:54

so self-centered. I mean, the pandemic could

52:56

have been that for us. We kind of missed,

52:58

you know, we whiffed that opportunity. That's another conversation.

53:02

But I think Johnson &

53:05

Johnson has, I think that's a helpful, helpful

53:07

analogy to say, yeah, I think

53:10

if we took it seriously, double down on the

53:12

brand in a world where people

53:14

are really hungry for what you can only

53:17

find in Jesus. I think we

53:19

too could make a big impact. So

53:21

what have you done? Because there's a macro

53:23

brand, which we've been talking about, but a

53:26

lot of people who listen to the show, most of

53:28

them are either involved in a local church, work at

53:30

a local church, lead a local church. So

53:33

there's sort of the micro brand of your

53:35

church, right? And your church has a reputation.

53:38

It could be like, I didn't even know your

53:41

church was in the community. That reputation would be

53:43

indifference or oblivion to a

53:45

negative reputation, to a positive reputation. Tell

53:47

us a little bit about your church

53:49

and what you've done to try

53:52

to get on brand

53:54

with Jesus in your community. Yeah.

53:56

So we work really hard to

53:58

stay externally focused. as a church and

54:00

empower people, you know, where they're at. And

54:03

there's all kinds of ways that we do that. And

54:05

just say, how could we be known in the community,

54:08

you know, as and, and so

54:10

one of the ways we did that early on, and

54:14

I'll share some other stuff here in a minute, but if

54:17

we did, you know, you know,

54:19

there are campaigns like North Point does be rich,

54:21

right, that there are easy ways for people engaged.

54:23

But one of the campaigns we did was unexpected.

54:27

It was unexpected love

54:29

and unexpected places. And what

54:31

we did is we empowered people to say,

54:33

who are the people in

54:36

our community who think we

54:38

hate them? And

54:40

let's go after them with radical

54:42

love. And so we gave

54:44

out grants, we gave out money for people to do that

54:47

individually if they needed it. But then as

54:49

a church, we, we chose

54:52

certain projects. So we know that LGBTQ

54:55

plus community right thinks we hate them.

54:58

So how are we gonna love it or felons

55:01

and criminals think we hate them? So how are we gonna

55:03

go? And so, so we

55:07

did some unexpected things that they produce

55:09

buzz in our community. And

55:12

we came alongside the AIDS Association of

55:14

Dallas, because really, the

55:16

only other people who are involved, primarily

55:19

were were LGBT people.

55:22

And we were the enemy,

55:24

or they thought, they thought, you know,

55:26

vice versa in their mind. And

55:29

so they had to vet us before they

55:31

would even let us, you know, serve and

55:34

let us engage or we tried

55:36

to bring in the bail project for,

55:38

you know, and that's a whole

55:41

other that became this big controversy. But

55:44

it did signal something very different in our

55:46

community and culture. And, and

55:48

that was hugely successful. I mean,

55:50

we're very engaged in the community. We

55:53

have think a local goods center, we have

55:56

local get we're starting local good coffee shops

55:58

to connect people to that storm. of

56:01

local good. Our invitation has become not

56:04

so much come to church with us, but come change the

56:06

world with us. You don't

56:08

have to be one of us to do that. And

56:10

we also have hired, we've

56:13

also hired advertising agencies to help get us

56:15

to the people that we're trying to get

56:17

to. Because, you know, Jesus said, you know,

56:20

let your light shine in such a way that people

56:22

see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

56:25

Well, 2,000 years ago, that's pretty easy if you're

56:27

living in a little village. You do something good.

56:29

People walk by, oh, that's so cool. Do

56:31

you see what Carey's family did? Yeah. But

56:34

in our culture, how can people actually see

56:36

good in a way that people who don't

56:38

know God would actually glorify God, they don't

56:40

know. How would that happen? And

56:43

we think, well, the best way for people to see is

56:45

media. And the

56:48

best people to help us do that are

56:50

not Christians, to get to non-Christians, but secular

56:52

media agencies. And so

56:54

we actually hired two secular media agencies

56:57

that we work with to

56:59

help get the story out. Because most of

57:01

our churches are doing tremendous good in our

57:03

communities, but people don't see it.

57:05

They don't know it. And so

57:08

they've been super helpful in

57:11

getting us to the people

57:13

that we could not get to otherwise

57:15

and making that visible in a way

57:17

that people can glorify God. How do

57:21

you deal with the fact that the church is

57:23

really a mixed bag? I was having a long

57:25

conversation with someone yesterday in the church parking lot

57:27

who I guess read one of my books, recognized

57:29

me, stopped me as I was just walking to

57:31

my car, didn't have any role in the service.

57:35

And we got talking about it and his trust

57:38

had been shattered. He was fairly

57:40

new to our church and had been through a

57:42

bunch of life experiences. And I just said before

57:44

I prayed with him, I'm like, hey, what you

57:46

need to know is our church is a mixed

57:48

bag. They're untrustworthy people here.

57:51

They're trustworthy people here. There are, you know,

57:54

good people here. We're all trying to get better. I'm

57:56

probably gonna let you down at some point. So will

57:59

others. But we're all doing

58:01

our best here trying to get to know

58:03

Jesus and we're really really glad you're here

58:05

And what he did after I finished praying

58:07

for me He said the fact that you

58:09

said we're mixed bag really increased my trust

58:11

in this organization And I said well, I promise

58:14

we are gonna let you down at some point

58:16

So, you know, what do you do because that

58:18

is the reality right that we

58:20

say and I said to my wife Tony

58:22

She wasn't feeling well, so she wasn't there

58:24

yesterday, but I said to her, you

58:26

know 20 years ago I think I would have answered

58:28

different 20 years ago I think I would have tried

58:30

to convince him that we're different than all the other

58:32

churches and that maybe we're better than

58:34

all the other churches and Now

58:37

I'm just like, you know what? I'm

58:39

a mixed bag. We're all mixed bag. I think

58:41

you're gonna fit in great here Yeah, what do

58:44

you do with that reality though when you're marketing

58:46

because inevitably we're gonna disappoint people, right? inevitably not

58:48

everybody who listens to all 600 and some odd

58:50

episodes thinks everyone is a great one and Some

58:54

people unsubscribe and they get mad at me

58:56

or you do whatever yeah, that happens So

58:58

what do you do in an imperfect world

59:00

when it comes to branding and making sure

59:02

that the expectation matches

59:04

the reality? Yeah,

59:06

I love your instincts with your friend, you

59:09

know, it because it's all about authenticity And

59:12

I think we can own it I think it's one

59:14

of the beauties of the church is how God uses

59:16

imperfect people to do incredible things, you know and so

59:18

and So

59:20

we talk about all the time, you know, hey, we're a

59:22

bunch of messes on a mission and if

59:24

you're perfect you know, you're not gonna fit in

59:26

here and But if

59:28

you're if you're a mess if you're imperfect

59:30

if you're you know Then that's

59:33

exactly that that's who this collection

59:35

of people is and God loves to use messes on

59:37

a mission because I think and

59:39

I think not take ourselves too seriously, you know and

59:43

Because my experience I've done this a

59:45

long time is that we as Christians tend

59:48

to take ourselves too seriously and our

59:50

mission not seriously enough and What

59:54

if we took ourselves not very seriously, but

59:56

our mission to reach people like your friend

59:59

really seriously And

1:00:02

people can handle authenticity and

1:00:04

they can handle, hey,

1:00:07

I'm not perfect and I know it. Just

1:00:09

kind of like I said, with my

1:00:12

surprise about this book, is the most enthusiastic people

1:00:14

have been non-Christians who've gotten ahold of it. Because

1:00:19

it's a group of Christians talking about, not

1:00:21

saying we're so great and we believe in

1:00:23

Jesus and we're right and you're wrong and

1:00:25

we've got it going on. Instead,

1:00:27

a book where Christians are saying,

1:00:30

yeah, we're really screwed up and

1:00:33

we're way off. You talk about mission

1:00:35

drift, we're like way off. And

1:00:37

if we wanna get back, I've

1:00:43

had more conversations with, again,

1:00:45

more positive conversations with non-Christians

1:00:48

than any other single group of people. I

1:00:51

think they're waiting for that kind of authenticity. I think

1:00:54

they're hungry for it. You

1:00:56

mentioned the LGBTQ community. We've

1:00:59

had a number of leaders on speaking

1:01:01

into that. What do

1:01:03

you find, and again, if

1:01:06

this is an appropriate question, we

1:01:08

can cut it, but some churches

1:01:10

are affirming, many churches are not

1:01:12

affirming. Is that a deal breaker

1:01:14

in building strong relationships with the

1:01:16

LGBTQ plus community? I

1:01:19

don't think so. I hope not. And

1:01:22

let's go from, I think Jesus is

1:01:24

the best model for that because

1:01:28

he was a friend of sinners. And I know, and so

1:01:30

he had the widest of welcomes

1:01:34

of any other person in his culture.

1:01:38

But welcome doesn't mean

1:01:40

agreement or that kind of thing. And so, I

1:01:45

think he's a great, the way I worded, the

1:01:48

way I think about Jesus's way of relating it to

1:01:50

people is he

1:01:52

had a wide welcome to a narrow path. And

1:01:57

it's a lot of times when we're talking about radical love and

1:01:59

all that people get, that Christians

1:02:01

get really nervous saying, well, you're just talking about

1:02:03

throwing away truths and there is no path. And

1:02:05

that's what I was saying at all. That's not

1:02:07

loving, right? To say, hey, there is actually a

1:02:10

path that leads to goodness and righteousness

1:02:12

and good things. We're

1:02:14

just not gonna talk about it. But it's

1:02:17

a wide welcome to our narrow path. And

1:02:19

so for us, we're

1:02:21

a church in the Dallas area that's, we're

1:02:24

not affirming, theologically,

1:02:27

who were known to be very welcoming. And

1:02:30

so for us, that wide welcome to a

1:02:32

narrow path means, hey, we don't hide the

1:02:34

fact that we believe Jesus affirms sex

1:02:37

between, sex and marriage, and marriage

1:02:39

between a man and a woman. But

1:02:42

at the same time, you

1:02:44

can be here, you can serve here, you can

1:02:46

be, and never agree with that. That's

1:02:49

okay. We're always gonna

1:02:51

affirm what Jesus affirms because we love

1:02:54

you enough to do that. And for all

1:02:56

of us, we're all trying to come around what Jesus

1:02:58

affirms in all areas of our life. And

1:03:00

we just invite you to come open to

1:03:03

whatever Jesus would affirm. We're gonna do our best. We

1:03:05

could be wrong. There are good people who disagree. And

1:03:08

we're gonna always point to what he affirms,

1:03:10

but we're gonna give loads of time and

1:03:13

patience in the process. And

1:03:15

I like Henry Cloud, I think

1:03:17

his formula for

1:03:20

spiritual growth is grace plus truth over

1:03:22

time. So you lead

1:03:24

with grace. You do over time point to truth,

1:03:26

but that time is so important. And on

1:03:29

this issue, Christians just give

1:03:31

no time. You know, it's

1:03:33

like, oh, you gotta agree or else, or you can't

1:03:35

be here. And that's not the

1:03:37

way Jesus- That's table sakes, right? Initial question,

1:03:39

not- Yeah, and that's not the way Jesus

1:03:41

related. And so we have more

1:03:44

than our normal share of

1:03:46

LGBTQ plus people

1:03:51

at our church because we're known for

1:03:53

that, which makes Christians nervous, which

1:03:56

we're fine with, just like Jesus, you know, that.

1:04:00

friend of sinners or whatever. And it's

1:04:03

not, please understand, I know it's not a

1:04:05

sin to be gay or

1:04:07

to be, you know, to have gender dysphoria

1:04:11

and that kind of stuff, right? Just how you

1:04:13

handle that. But we've

1:04:17

had a lot of friendly fire in the Dallas area

1:04:19

for that. And

1:04:21

we're fine with that because we think

1:04:23

that's exactly the way Jesus would relate. And

1:04:27

so he was a welcoming but not affirming person

1:04:29

for a whole lot of issues and a whole

1:04:31

lot of different things. And I

1:04:33

think he models that pretty well. Yeah,

1:04:36

if listeners want to drill down deeper on

1:04:38

that, I had a really good conversation with

1:04:41

Kevin Palau, Episode 613,

1:04:43

where we went deep into that

1:04:45

issue about some

1:04:47

of those tensions that we just described right now. Okay,

1:04:49

one or two more questions for you. I

1:04:52

imagine there's, you know, we tend to

1:04:55

be optimistic as church leaders and self-perception

1:04:57

is always an issue for all of

1:04:59

us. There might be

1:05:01

some people listening going, you know, we have

1:05:03

a pretty good reputation in the community, I'm

1:05:05

pretty sure, only to find out if they

1:05:07

actually did the hard work that, it's not

1:05:09

true. So short of hiring

1:05:11

an expert marketer to run a net

1:05:14

promoter score, how do

1:05:16

you assess what your reputation

1:05:19

or standing in the community

1:05:21

might actually be? Are there

1:05:23

any reasonably accurate

1:05:26

ways to get a sense of

1:05:28

what people think of your church

1:05:30

or organization in the community? Yeah,

1:05:34

I think Mike and Dwight, you

1:05:37

know, would say the best thing you can do is ask.

1:05:41

And there are ways to do that,

1:05:43

you know, and so, like,

1:05:47

I remember years ago, I wanted to, we

1:05:50

changed our church name, we

1:05:52

used to be called Fellowship Bible Church

1:05:54

North. That's a handful,

1:05:56

and there's a lot of trigger words in there. And

1:05:59

so, Now we're just Chase

1:06:01

Oaks Church because it's the neighborhood that our main campus

1:06:03

is in and we could brand

1:06:05

it completely. But I had a,

1:06:07

I can't say the name because there's some churches

1:06:09

with this name out

1:06:11

there. So I really

1:06:14

liked it. I thought it was an incredible

1:06:16

name. It expressed our vision and mission. And

1:06:20

so Mike, you know,

1:06:22

on our team said, hey, that's great, you

1:06:24

know, and you think everybody will love it,

1:06:26

especially non-church people. Let's ask.

1:06:29

And so we did one of those things where we

1:06:31

went to, in

1:06:33

that case, it was a Chick-fil-A that was 20 years

1:06:35

ago. Now it'd probably be

1:06:38

too Christian. And we

1:06:40

said, hey, we'll give you free Chick-fil-A if

1:06:43

you just do this short thing. And we

1:06:45

looked at, you know, five different names. And

1:06:48

my name got crucified. You

1:06:51

mean your candidate. Because we asked, do you go

1:06:53

to church? No, and all that. And okay, if

1:06:55

you don't go to church, then those are the

1:06:57

people we count. We didn't count church people with

1:07:00

our name. And they were

1:07:02

like, we don't know what that is.

1:07:04

That doesn't make any sense. What is that? Is that

1:07:06

a hospital? Is that, you know, with this particular name?

1:07:09

And it got shamed out of

1:07:11

existence very quickly. But I

1:07:13

believed it would have been perfect. And

1:07:15

so that

1:07:18

took, we did that for two Saturdays.

1:07:22

And really, you could do the

1:07:24

same thing. And just ask

1:07:27

people, hey, when you think of Christianity, what do you think

1:07:29

of? When you think of this church, what do you think

1:07:31

of? And people love

1:07:33

talking. Like, they will do it.

1:07:35

They will tell you. And

1:07:38

even something as simple as that,

1:07:41

without trying to convince them, or, oh no,

1:07:44

that's not who we are. All you're doing

1:07:46

is just finding the information. And again,

1:07:49

people love doing that stuff. Would

1:07:51

you do that with the senior pastor

1:07:53

leading the conversation? No, no, no, no, no.

1:07:55

No, I'm thinking nobody wants to tell your

1:07:57

baby's ugly, right? Yeah. We

1:08:00

think the church is awesome. Yeah. So

1:08:03

who would you get? What kind of neutral or

1:08:06

objective facilitator would you get? Yeah,

1:08:08

most of us have marketing people in our

1:08:10

church who have done 50 of those. And

1:08:19

they probably wondered why your church has never done anything

1:08:21

like that. So

1:08:23

all we did is get people like Mike and others

1:08:25

to say, hey, would you design a process

1:08:29

where we could get feedback from

1:08:31

the people that are our target

1:08:33

market and that we

1:08:35

could get honest feedback? And it

1:08:37

honestly didn't take them very long to say, oh yeah, we'll

1:08:39

do that. And so it's

1:08:42

tricky for us, but not tricky

1:08:44

for people who do that every day. Anything

1:08:48

else we haven't covered that you

1:08:50

think we should cover before we wrap up? Yeah.

1:08:54

One of the concerns I have right now as I'm

1:08:57

talking to Christians really broadly and

1:08:59

churches really broadly with this project

1:09:02

is that with

1:09:05

the kinds of churches that listen

1:09:08

to your podcast especially, there's a

1:09:10

real gap of nuance

1:09:13

about issues like politics and

1:09:15

culture and our identity as

1:09:17

Christians and how we engage.

1:09:20

There's this huge gap between the

1:09:22

pastor, the level of nuance there

1:09:24

and the staff and the church and the

1:09:26

congregation. And

1:09:28

the reason is because it's really difficult to

1:09:30

push into that stuff. And

1:09:33

a lot of our churches, we're just want to evangelize. We

1:09:35

just want to share Christ. So we just want to teach

1:09:37

her. We don't want to talk about that. We don't, we're

1:09:39

not political. But

1:09:42

there are people talking about it and they're the wrong

1:09:44

people. And

1:09:46

so our churches are ideologically driven,

1:09:48

not biblically driven, are people. And

1:09:52

nobody's really, the only

1:09:54

people who are speaking are at the extremes. And

1:09:57

that's all people are hearing. like

1:10:00

us who are not at the extremes aren't talking. And

1:10:03

I can relate to that. I mean, I understand that.

1:10:06

But if we

1:10:08

don't close the gap, then

1:10:11

we're never going to solve the problem. And

1:10:14

so I think it's a major discipleship issue

1:10:16

that we're going to have to speak to,

1:10:20

we're going to have to challenge ideology that's

1:10:22

in the fear and all

1:10:24

that, all that, that's just animating

1:10:29

evangelical Christians in our

1:10:31

churches. We're going to have to

1:10:33

be willing to push into that and close the gap. And

1:10:37

there are tools that are, you know, we're, we

1:10:39

want to come out, we're in the process of

1:10:42

developing some tools to do that. People

1:10:44

have used the book that way. I've

1:10:46

had pastors at pastors conferences come up and tell

1:10:48

me, hey, thank you for writing a book, because

1:10:51

you're like the bad guy. Like

1:10:53

all I do, I've just had my leaders read your book

1:10:56

and they get mad at you. They're like, well, I can't

1:10:58

believe he said that. Or I can't believe he thinks out

1:11:00

about Trump or I can't believe he thinks out about whatever.

1:11:03

And, and he said, all

1:11:05

I have to do, he said, I agree with you. I don't

1:11:07

act like I just say, you know what? Yeah.

1:11:10

Okay, Jeff. Yeah. He kind of went a little crazy there,

1:11:12

but, but what do you think he, what do you think

1:11:14

he is saying? You know, like, is there

1:11:16

something there that we, he said, we actually get exactly

1:11:18

where you'd want us to get to, but

1:11:20

you're like the bad cop. I'm the good cop. And,

1:11:24

and so we can have the conversation, but

1:11:26

I'm not the one saying, well,

1:11:28

you know, pastor, what have you said this, I'm

1:11:30

not the one doing that. We're

1:11:32

just reading your book and talking about it.

1:11:35

And, and there's some, and we want some more

1:11:37

tools to come out. I just

1:11:39

saw that. I think

1:11:42

it's called the after party. I don't

1:11:45

know that. Yeah. It's coming out. It's actually, it's

1:11:50

actually a curriculum, as I understand it. I haven't

1:11:52

been able to see it yet. It's

1:11:55

coming out to help churches improve

1:11:57

their political engagement. David, French

1:12:02

and who's the Christianity

1:12:04

Today editor that was kicked out. Oh,

1:12:06

Russell Moore. Yeah, Russell Moore, David French

1:12:09

are doing it. And I

1:12:13

think it means it's going to be pretty great. And

1:12:16

it's a six week, from what I understand, a six

1:12:19

week small group conversation

1:12:22

to recapture our

1:12:24

sense of identity as Christians and

1:12:26

in our, in political engagement as

1:12:28

we entered into this season. And,

1:12:31

and all I'm saying is if

1:12:34

we don't do something like that, I think the

1:12:36

damage to Christianity is going to continue to be

1:12:38

done. And as

1:12:40

I wrote the book and we did

1:12:42

a series as a church and pushed

1:12:44

into this stuff, I thought

1:12:46

we'd have this mass exodus and

1:12:48

we kind of already had an exodus and COVID with some

1:12:50

of that. But what I

1:12:52

got was not that at all. It was very,

1:12:55

um, galvanizing for

1:12:57

our church. And the most, and

1:12:59

the most common thing I heard people say

1:13:01

is thank you so much for

1:13:03

speaking strongly from the middle because

1:13:06

nobody's speaking strongly from the middle. Yeah.

1:13:09

People speaking strongly from the extremes. And

1:13:12

I knew that even though some of the

1:13:14

extremes sound, it's like, well, that kind of sounds right,

1:13:16

but there's something not right. And for

1:13:18

somebody just to name it in a more

1:13:20

nuanced position and a middle position gives

1:13:23

me confidence to not bump over there

1:13:25

or bump over to the other side.

1:13:28

Just thank you because there's

1:13:30

just not enough of that part of the

1:13:32

conversation out there. And,

1:13:34

um, so that's the other thing I'd say is I

1:13:37

don't, I don't think we're at a place where we

1:13:39

can not talk about some

1:13:41

things that we're pretty comfortable

1:13:43

not talking about. I

1:13:45

think that I want to underscore that. I think

1:13:47

that's really important, particularly in a year like 2024.

1:13:51

And I think you're right. We have a lot of

1:13:53

nuanced people listening to this podcast.

1:13:55

We have pretty wide tent, but like

1:13:57

a lot of nuanced thinkers and that's.

1:14:00

exactly the argument that's been on my mind this

1:14:02

year, which is that a lot

1:14:04

of the people who might not be at either

1:14:06

extreme are now just, they

1:14:08

feel silenced by this environment. Oh, if I

1:14:10

say something, and it's funny, you mentioned, you

1:14:12

know, people read the book, it's like, oh,

1:14:14

you're the bad guy. That's one of my

1:14:16

favorite pieces of content or feedback I get

1:14:18

from leaders if they're reading

1:14:20

a book or dissecting a podcast or

1:14:22

resource I create or an

1:14:25

article I wrote, it's like, oh yeah, my board was

1:14:27

all over the place on it, but like, I just

1:14:29

put you up there, you're the bad guy, and then

1:14:31

we get to a better place as a result. I'm

1:14:33

like, that's a win, man, that's a

1:14:35

win, and we need more voices sort

1:14:37

of that are not one of the crazy

1:14:40

extremes speaking, particularly

1:14:42

at a time like this. Well,

1:14:44

the book is called Rebranding Christianity.

1:14:47

Jeff, where are you findable online

1:14:49

these days? Yeah, go

1:14:51

to rebrandingchristianity.org. And,

1:14:54

you know, the book's on Amazon. There's some

1:14:57

bookstores too, but Amazon's easiest way, but

1:15:00

rebrandingchristianity.org is a

1:15:02

growing body of work, of

1:15:05

resources that'll be out there, as well

1:15:07

as there's a Rebranding Christianity podcast where

1:15:10

we interview kind of middle

1:15:13

people. We interview nuanced people and

1:15:15

who are doing either thinkers or

1:15:17

people doing incredible work. And

1:15:20

it is challenging. We don't agree. I mean, you

1:15:22

know, it's not necessarily just people that agree with

1:15:24

us. That's not

1:15:26

the point. But in

1:15:29

fact, we want to sort of model

1:15:32

disagreeing well in

1:15:35

a world where we're kind of losing

1:15:37

that ability and not just being in

1:15:39

our own little reinforcing bubble. So yeah,

1:15:41

rebrandingchristianity.org is the best place to

1:15:43

go. Great. Jeff, this has

1:15:45

been a delight. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Gary.

1:15:48

Well, I thought that was a really refreshing

1:15:50

conversation. We have more for you in the

1:15:52

show notes at carrenewhoff.com/episode 639. We

1:15:55

also have transcripts for it. So make sure you

1:15:57

check those out at the same location. And

1:16:00

we got some great stuff coming up, man.

1:16:02

We have loaded up some incredible guests.

1:16:04

Will Godara is coming back. We have Ken

1:16:07

Blanchard for the first time, Scott Galloway.

1:16:09

Those of you who follow Prof. G are

1:16:11

going to love that. John Tyson, Annie

1:16:13

F. Downs, who else? Katie

1:16:15

Cole, Tara Lee Cobble, and a whole

1:16:17

lot more coming up on the podcast.

1:16:19

I think you're really going to enjoy

1:16:21

it. Next episode is Shauna Pilgreen. We

1:16:23

talk about planting a church without a

1:16:25

playbook. It's all things church planting, particularly

1:16:27

in a tough to reach city like

1:16:30

San Francisco. So again, if you subscribe,

1:16:32

you'll never miss an episode. And one more

1:16:34

thing before we go. Do you

1:16:36

know that there is not just this podcast,

1:16:39

but the Art of Leadership podcast

1:16:42

network? I would love for you

1:16:44

to join it. And it's pretty simple.

1:16:46

The easiest way to follow along is to

1:16:48

follow it on social. So just on

1:16:50

Instagram, look for the Art of Leadership network.

1:16:52

When you find that you will get

1:16:54

access and information about shows like Adam Weber,

1:16:57

Chris Cook, Jenny Katerin, Tony Neuhoff, my wife,

1:17:00

who else? We got a lot of people

1:17:02

in that podcast network that I think are

1:17:04

really going to improve your leadership and your

1:17:06

listening. So just give them a quick follow,

1:17:09

the Art of Leadership network on Instagram, and

1:17:11

we'll see you there. Well, I

1:17:13

so enjoyed our time together today. And I

1:17:15

really appreciate all the time that you invest

1:17:17

in this podcast, sharing it with your friends.

1:17:20

I do not take it for granted. I love

1:17:22

getting to do this with you. And I hope

1:17:24

our time together today has helped you identify and

1:17:27

break a growth barrier you're facing.