Our Story and Our 3 Priorities

Why does the Redeemer Network exist? What are we actually trying to accomplish? And how do we grow without losing sight of what matters most?

In the first episode of Season 3, Jordan Elder sits down with Dusty Thompson and Brandon Barker to revisit the story behind the Redeemer Network and unpack the three priorities that have shaped its mission from the beginning: training, funding, and supporting healthy churches.

Along the way, they discuss:

• How a vision for church planting became a network of churches
• Why healthy churches are the goal, not organizational growth
• The importance of training church planters and church replanters
• Why funding matters for gospel multiplication
• How caring for pastors and their families strengthens the mission
• The challenge of scaling without losing culture, conviction, or focus

Whether you're a pastor, church leader, or church member passionate about seeing the gospel advance, this conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at the convictions driving Redeemer Network's work and a compelling vision for collaborative church multiplication.

Resources & Links

• Redeemer Network Conference: redeemernetwork.org/conference 
• Learn more about Redeemer Network: redeemernetwork.org 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Redeemer Network Podcast, where we talk church planning, church health, and multiplying churches for the sake of the gospel. To learn more about the Redeemer Network, visit RedeemerNetwork.org. All right, well, welcome back to a new season of the Redeemer Network Podcast. My name is Jordan Elder. I serve as pastor of Preaching and Vision at Redeemer Church here in Round Rock. And I also have the privilege of serving the Redeemer Network as president and podcast host. And I'm excited. We're launching a third season of this podcast. We've upped our games a bit and we've added some video. So not just audio, but we have some video now. So you can check that out if you are inclined. And you know, when we started this podcast maybe a year and a half ago now, our goal was to resource and encourage our churches. And so that's what we've been after. Season one, we walked through our health metrics, our 10 health metrics that mark our training and uh saturate our coaching in the network. In season two, we shifted our focus a bit to telling stories of how God has worked in different ways in the churches in our network. And in this season of the podcast, we're going to really focus in on our mission as a network. We're going to talk about what do we do? What is it that we actually do as a network and why do those things matter? And what is it specifically that we're laboring for at this moment in time? So to get us started with season three, I'm joined by Dusty Thompson. Dusty's the lead pastor of Redeemer Lubbock, and he serves as the chairman of our network board. Dusty, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

What's up?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Also got Brandon Barker here. Brandon's the executive director of the Redeemer Network. And Brandon, I just want to say this, man, you've done such a great job over the last few years of helping us uh scale and steward this network of churches without losing sight of our mission and our values. So thanks for jumping on and helping us kick off this new season of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

All right. Hey, before we get into it, it's springtime. We just finished up Easter at the time that we're recording this. Summer is right around the corner. I thought maybe we could start by just a real simple question, but what's got you excited right now? Springtime, summer is around the corner. What are you looking forward to?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

DC, you want to go first? I've got two things that come to mind. One on a personal note that it's baseball season. Mine will be pretty similar to Jordan on this. So my youngest JJ is in full swing. Like this is the home stretch of district baseball. And then summer. Summer's going to be bonkers. We'll be in Atlanta, Alabama, Oklahoma, Houston, Dallas a couple of times. It'll be bonkers. But it's kind of go time over the next two summers for him for recruitment. He'd like to play in college. So we'll see what happens. But love baseball and great time. And the second thing is that we're in full swing with uh our South Campus with Redeemer. Yeah. And like we got ground turning and are, you know, in the late stages of hiring a campus pastor as well as uh you know reorganizing our staff to get that done along with a couple of other hires that we've made, college director, my dude Jarek, that we are bringing in. I'm really fired up about. So yeah, I mean those things are all really exciting to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, I know that's been a long time coming for you guys. You guys have been working towards the South Campus for a bit now. So that is really exciting to actually see some progress and it that thing's coming to fruition. What about you, Barker?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Well, my my first one is similar to Dusty's. Uh summer's coming up. My son's a freshman in high school playing high school golf. This summer's a big summer for him. It'll be a lot of fun. I'll get to caddy at a few tournaments, which I'm excited about. Uh on a ministry front, uh, we have our our network Pastors and Wives retreat uh leaving Sunday, Sunday to Wednesday for that. Uh could not be more excited for that, but uh I I've got to confess this. Uh I am responsible ultimately for the calendaring uh of that event, and I scheduled that to start on Masters Sunday. Uh so as we're driving there, I'm gonna be trying to watch the Masters, which is one of two days a year where I want to be left alone on my couch watching golf, but I'm gonna be driving to our retreat.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, you gotta make sure you put that on your calendar for next year.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

It will not be a mistake we make again.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah. Hey, it you know, Brandon's worth a follow on social media just to be able to see the videos of his son's golf swing. It is incredibly impressive.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

I'm biased, but I agree.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, incredibly impressive.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

And I do bet we can arrange a meet with Brock connecting you to Aberg for your kid. That would be kind of a cool meet, maybe after a tournament's over.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

So that guy might win the Masters this year. Yeah, it might. Yeah, we'll see. I think this might come out after the Masters is over, but I think I think that Red Raiders get a chance.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

This will definitely come out after the Masters is over, but he definitely does have a chance.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Always comes back to the Red Raiders here on the Redeemer Network podcast. So all right. Well, hey, we've got some great stuff queued up for this season. I'm really excited about the episodes to come, but what I wanted to do to begin as we start this series uh of episodes talking about what we do as a network, what is our mission? I wanted to start by backing up and talking about our story. Where did this network even come from? How did God give birth to a network of churches? Uh, and then our three priorities, the things that that we stay anchored on, our three pillars. And so let's start with that. DT, we'll kick it to you. Uh we'll start with the story of the Redeemer Network. Like when you tell the story of how the Redeemer Network came to be, uh, what do you say?

SPEAKER_02 5:18

I love this question. That I think so much of it was as unintentional as can be, and that's part of the beauty in it. That intentionally, Redeemer Lubbock wanted to plant churches. That was part of our vision. We had something called the 2020 vision that we had no idea how we would do. We planted in 2008. By 2020, we wanted to plant 20 churches domestically. We wanted to send 20 missionaries to the unreached. We had no idea how we how to do that. It was an idea just like any good church planter, right? We have this incredible idea in our head that none of it's real yet, but but it will be, maybe. And so, you know, by God's grace, you know, you were the first one of that, Jordan, that you and Josh went to Round Rock. We actually, I remember at a Redeemer member meeting, Cade Wilcox, who was on staff at that time, just announced in a member meeting that we had a thing called the Redeemer Network. And I was like, Oh, really? I didn't know. That's cool. What isn't that? And he didn't know either. We just kind of pronounced it into being we have some church plants out there. Yeah. Yeah, we do. And they're and what else are they besides the Redeemer Network? And you know, we belonged to another church planning network, Acts 29. I still love those guys so much and wish them well. Um, there is it was such an important network for us in those days. How huge, but really important for um almost all of us, you know, at least those early era, you know, Redeemer Network church planners. And so we had this relational affinity. And um, so the story is that you had just a handful of church plants, and we started to get together every once in a while. And I remember one up in Cedar Canyon, and then um I another one, at least at least one or two in Brady. And then there was an incredible conversation where you know we had just a, you know, I don't know, five or six churches, and we were wanting to pull money to plant churches, but it was pretty much the way I would describe it. Redeemer Lubbock, we were the lead vocalist. All the other churches were kind of background vocalists, maybe providing, you know, some other kinds of help and support while effectively while Redeemer Lubbock planted churches. And Jordan and I had a gigantic series of conversations really over coffee in um Round Rock when I was there speaking at another event. And um, where it was like, hey, we'd like to actually really be involved in planting churches, not not as a background, you know, vocalist, but you know, part of the choir. You know, we all together planting churches. What would that look like? And so, you know, one thing led to another. And before long, you know, really effectively the Redeemer network actually took shape into something. And under Jordan's leadership, that he had a lot of vision for it and an idea, like a good church planner in his head of a shared residency that we could train future church planters. That was not something that uh, you know, had been done up till then, and um something that we could participate in together. And so that was that was a lot of it was it was a concept, but hadn't been proven. And then so where it went from there was a uh proof of concept is what happened is that residency began to that it wasn't perfect, but it it had a lot of things that hit. We're still developing it now, but you know, that we we did some things, and then uh the really cool part about it is then we're cooling cash together where everybody could be part of planting churches every year, the churches that were a part of it. So that to me is so much of the story is you know, Redeemer Lubbock, knowing that we wanted to plant churches, but kind of falling backwards into something that would be a network, we didn't even know what it meant. Jordan was really big on providing some definition, Redeemer Lubbock moving more into the passenger seat to many regards in this conversation of we still were very committed to planting churches, but Jordan was providing so much of the vision for what the network would become. And then I would just say that continued to we got to a uh a real serious crossroads right around COVID time with look, do we just need to, you know, let the Redeemer Network go and you know fold into Acts 29 or whatever, you know, like that was a real conversation back then. Or do we need to really you know put fuel to this? Do we feel like that there's something to steward? And with all of our gratitude for what Acts 29 had been to us over the years, that you know, was there something that needed to catalyze among us and these and so that's that's where it really took off at that time. And you know, the Brandon getting uh becoming the um executive director that hire was critical to just even more fuel and more purpose and intentionality. So that's my story. Intentionally church planting, unintentionally Redeemer Network, but then here we are with this incredible thing to steward um that God's at work in.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, really good. Brandon, you came into this a few years ago uh when you came on our staff as the executive director of the network. From your angle, what what would you say is unique about the Redeemer Network story?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, so I did. I came in in 2022. The summer will be four years with uh with Redeemer. Yeah, which it's four years, but it feels like 40 to me. Uh it just feels like I've known all of the guys from day one uh and uh and love them. Uh but the but what was unique coming in? There were there were some things that stood out up front. I want to tell you guys, I apologize ahead of time. Um I only do outlines. The world for me is one big outline, it's one big equation. Uh, and so you've got three questions on here for our script, and I've got outlines for each one of them. And so here's my outline for the first one. Uh, what was unique? Uh, one, how our network was formed, two, our residency, three, our culture, four, the depth of care that's provided uh in Redeemer. Uh so the first one, how our network was formed. Uh, Dusty, you just got to it that uh the vision wasn't an organization, the vision was collaborative church planting. Uh it was leaning in, planting churches together, and the organization formed and flowed out of that vision. Uh, it wasn't let's start an organization, and that organization would then plant churches uh together. And so the the the way it formed uh was organization flowing out of vision, not the other way, uh not the other way around, second. The quality of our residency. Uh Jordan, you built an exceptional residency. And I know you don't love complimentary stuff all that much, makes you a little bit uncomfortable. I get that. Uh, but you really did. Uh I I am biased, uh, but I really do believe our residency is second to none uh and you built that from the ground up. I know you got input from other guys, yep. Uh, but but you really did build an exceptional residency, and now we've got Reed Monahan um on the team who uh who I believe really is one of the handful of people out there who could take what's exceptional and make it better, and we're excited about that. Um third, the culture. Uh Redeemer is a network full of humble, unimpressed people. Um it's not to say there's not impressive men and women in Redeemer Network, it's to say that nobody's impressed by one another. Uh it's just a group of people who love Jesus, who love the church, who want to see the gospel advance, who want to do that that that low to the ground, diligent, often dirty work of seeing the gospel take root in people's lives. And then fourth, the the depth and the honesty of the of the care within Redeemer, which um I experienced when I was interviewing. Uh when I was interviewing with Redeemer, I was coming out of a difficult season on my first Zoom call with the board. Uh, and I think it was two days later, I got a call from Jeremy Buck. Uh Jeremy, open the call with I'm not I'm not calling in any official capacity with Redeemer. I just wanted to call because not what you said, but how you said it. I just want to see if you're okay. Such so Jeremy. So Jeremy Buck. Yeah. But I we and then we talked for 90 minutes. I hung in the phone, told Amanda, my wife, um, man, that really is a group of guys who who want to pastor pastors, and I want to be a part of uh a part of that. And so that that call is a microcosm and a little snapshot at what I've been able to watch get played out over and over on repeat uh throughout our network. So what's unique as I came in, um how we were formed, our residency, our culture, and the depth, and I would just add the honesty of our care uh within Redeemer.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, really good. Yeah, I love that. Uh, maybe the way I would say it for my seat is uh there was like you guys are saying, there was never a strategy to build a network, but there was a real commitment to collaborate together to plant churches. And it was uh, hey, we love you, you love us. Um, we're trying to plant churches, you're trying to plant churches. Uh, why are we not doing this together? Let's work together and um let's train our guys together, let's pull our money together. And uh and that just got catalytic. It really was just a collaborative residency with some shared resourcing. And and uh Dusty uh was doing such a great job of pulling uh lead pastors together and and it just got really catalytic. And next thing we knew, we looked up and it was as you said, Dusty, I think there's something to steward here. That was probably around 2020 after four or five years of our shared residency program. And there's something to steward here. God's done something unique here, and we don't really know exactly what that thing is, but we think we're supposed to steward it and continue to multiply it and lean in. And and man, it's been such a joy. It's been it's been such a fun ride. I think now we're over close to 40 churches across Texas and uh a couple in New Mexico and uh one in Tucson, Arizona, and just so much good gospel ministry that's flowing out of our churches. And um, and so that's a bit of our story, and I love I love telling the story, and and buried within that story, there are three clear priorities that we've been about from the beginning. We define these from the beginning. Like what what is it that we do together as a network of churches? And those three priorities are training, funding, and support. Train, fund, support. And it that's you know, it's even kind of um buried in our logo. Uh if you see our Redeemer Network logo, it's a leaf which represents health. We want to plant healthy churches, and we've defined health with our 10 health metrics, and that leaf is divided into thirds to just a reminder, a visual reminder for us of the things that we are committed to, training, funding, and support. So what I want to do is I would love to just break each of those down. Brandon, would you would you do that for us? Just like a high-level overview. What do we mean by train fund support? And why are those things important to us in the work of establishing and multiplying churches?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Everything that we do in the Redeemer Network aims at seeing the gospel advance and churches multiply. So when we plant a church, we don't just plant a church. We we want to plant a church that aims at that church multiplying and multiplying and planting new churches. And then we don't just replant churches. We we don't want them just to become healthy and vibrant, we want that. We want them to become a multiplying church. That's the aim of all that we uh the all that we do. And so if you look at our multiplication chart, which is on our website, um, you'll see 41 churches, and nine of them are more like replants than traditional church plants. Um and we train toward both. So we train, we fund, we support, uh, and we train toward church planting, and we train toward replanting. And so we we train our church planters in a two-year immersive cohort-based residency. So our churches, our church planters are immersed in a local church, they're not pulled out of the local church. Uh, we want them in that context gaining experience, oversight, chances to lead, and we believe it's churches that plant churches, and so the commissioning and the sending comes from the local church. Uh, but then our residents are placed in a cohort with other church planters for two years where uh they're trained in particular competencies and skills. We we say it this way that our residency it's divided into three broad buckets conviction, character, competency. Um conviction, we we want our residents to leave our residency deeply grounded in the Bible about not just uh the the why but the what and the how even. Uh we want them to look into the scriptures and go, okay, when it gets really, really hard. And when you hit that day, Dusty Jordan, I know you guys experienced it. When you get that day three years in where it's like, what in the world did I do with my life? That you can open up the Bible and go, This is what I'm doing with my life. And you can keep going. And then character, and and character may not be the best term for this, but we uh we we have units built in where we want them to just experience the love of the Father for them. And we wanna want to work toward healthy lives and healthy marriages. We we want our residents to know, our church planters to know that if they go into their town, if they go into their city, and that city blows up in the best of ways. And I mean, thousands of people have eternity rerouted, generations upon generations uh are changed, ten churches are planted, they are not loved one ounce more by the Father. And if they get in and three years in, they are unemployed, it is crashed and burned, and they're trying to figure out what to do with their lives. They're not loved one ounce less. What that built into our residency. So we got convictions, we've got character, we want them to know and experience that they are loved by God, and then competency. There are particular skills uh that you need to plant and lead a healthy church, and so we want to train toward those competencies. So our church planting residency, two-year immersive cohort-based, focused on conviction, character, competency. But then we also have a replanting residency, uh, which is a one-year immersive cohort-based residency focused on conviction, character, competency. It's the it's the same broad bucket, the same it's just the content is focused on replanting versus planting, and it's one year with a little bit more focus on coaching because you the the circumstances are so uh divergent and unique. Uh Marco de Leon, I know you'll have uh uh an episode with him. He's our director of replanting. He's beta tested this residency this past year, just establishing that proof of concept went really well. Uh, and we're we're actively ready to take on new residents uh who uh who are leading renewing efforts in their church and want to be coached and trained toward that end. Um so same residency, the difference is content uh with a little more focus on replanting.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

One of the things about our training that I have seen so much fruit from over the years is just the the community that that is created, uh, then by the nature of doing residency training and uh collaboration is that you've got residents from different churches that are all being trained together. So they're going through content together, they're getting to learn together, um, they're forming deep bonds and relationships, so are their spouses. And those relationships stay together. They they stay in community even after they've gone through and moved on and are planting or wherever else God has taken them, those relationships remain. And so there's just so much built-in uh community there that, man, it's one thing to learn. It's a whole nother thing to learn together with a band of brothers, yes, and to be able to challenge each other and sharpen each other and learn from the churches that that the other residents are at. And so it's just so much opportunity for collaboration and community in our training. Um, so we we train, we also fund so that's our second priority is funding. Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, so we fund each one of our church plants uh over two years. It started at 60,000, then became 70, and then 80. Right now we're at 85,000 per church plant. We want to get that up to 100,000. Uh Dusty, this this past year we had a fundraising dinner in Midland, and you did a little promo video for us to show as an intro, and this is what you said. I think I'm quoting you. I'll do my best here. But you said the research is clear. Church planting is the most effective strategy we have for reaching new people with the gospel while building up the church, and yet church plants tend to remain woefully undercapitalized. Um, we we want that story to be different in Redeemer Network. We we believe it is different right now. We want to continue to see it be different. We we want to fund more church plants and we want to increase our funding for our church plants. And uh our churches all give generously, our churches give sacrificially to be uh part of the network financially. Uh and then we're also trying to raise up an army of uh men and women who believe in church planting, who want to participate in the work we we we call donors multipliers, uh, because we really do believe that when you are giving and supporting Redeemer Network, you you are sowing into multiplying the gospel, seeing the gospel advance as churches multiply. And so no, we that's what we do. Right now we're at 85,000. We want to get that to a hundred thousand. Yeah. Uh and I'll say this we're we're not trying to remove the necessity of fundraising from our church planters. Um, fundraising is a skill that church planters need. We want them to hustle and grind. It's a great way to grow and learn and cast vision and inviting people to be part of what you're doing. Uh, we're just trying to give them a head start.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. So okay. So the Network is providing stipends for residents to help them while they're in training. Um, we are providing uh uh financial support for the church plants that we're sending out over a two-year window, trying to grow that. Um so yeah, it's a big part of of health, of working toward health is that churches need resources and they need funding. Um and so that's a big, big piece of it. If we're gonna plant healthy churches, we need to train well, we need to fund as well as we can. And then finally, support. What what do we mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, when we talk about support, we we define it as the coaching and care we provide our pastors and their wives. Uh that our pastors matter to us and they matter to us without a so that, they matter to the Lord without a so that. Uh, they don't matter to us so that they can pastor a church, so they can uh lead a healthy church, they just matter to us full stop without qualification. Uh some tangible examples to what I mean by that uh is that if any of our pastors, if Jordan, if tomorrow you came and said, Hey guys, I'm out. I just can't do it anymore. I I want to go pursue some other I'm I'm done with ministry, I want to pursue marketplace. Uh we found an organization that we will pay to equip you to be resourced to go get a job in the marketplace because you matter to us because you matter to us, not just because Reima Roundrock matters to us. Um we also had two churches closed this past year. Um both pastors and their wives were invited to our network retreat next week because they matter to us, period, and without qualification. Uh, but so does our mission together. They matter to us, and so does our mission together. Uh, that the aim of all that we're doing is to multiply healthy churches, and healthy churches are led by healthy leaders uh with healthy marriages, and so we put a lot of resource into and a lot of manpower into our support team, which has being led by Jeremy Buck, it's got Kyle Ogle, it's got Kate Ritchie who leads our uh wives care. And I know that there's an in-depth episode coming uh with them, and they're gonna walk through all that we do care for our pastors and wives. Um, but but from my seat, I I I want it said this way that this is as high a priority as anything in our network. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

It's good. Love it. So, so um it the the wraparound support is so encouraging to see it. I've experienced it. Uh, I've seen other people in the network experience the support, whether it be the equipping, the training, the care, uh, their events that we do. It's such a blessing. And so, yeah, I'm excited to talk more about that with those guys and upcoming episodes. Um, Dusty, I want to come to you. I mean, you you've been a part of other networks, you've been a part, you've seen and experienced up close other church denominations. Uh, I'm not by any means trying to say that we're exceptional in any way. Like I do think I love what God's doing in our in our network. I think it's amazing. I see it, I get a front row C to the fruit, to the fruit of what he's doing. So I do think it's awesome, but I'm but I'm not trying to say that we're amazing or better than anyone else. But I do wonder um what how you see these three priorities of training, funding, and support, how it makes the Redeemer Network unique from other networks or denominations that you've been a part of.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Well, the short answer, which of course I won't, you know, stick with, short answer is that I don't think that most organizations are, you know, laser focused like that, trying to do like so many different things that um, and you know, it's it's member churches and pastors don't probably know why they're a part of it when it comes down to it, other than it's kind of the sticker that's on the back of their truck kind of deal. Um, I think that's just in general what what can happen. Here'd be my analogy. That's the the short version is I do think that there's just a lot of intentionality about why we exist. But I one thing I learned over the years of of being a part of network leadership is there are so many analogies between life as a network and or denomination, um depending on what somebody's in, and life in a church. It's it's so many of the same dynamics. What I mean is that if you think about the the basement for the church, that it's the gravitational pull that you feel anyone that's leading a church is it's conservatism. And I'm not talking politically or ideologically, I'm talking more relationally and organizationally that the gravitational pull of any organization is that look, I I want, don't mess this thing up, you know. Don't don't go blow up this church that I love and you know, that you see everything as a threat. You know, more people coming in the doors means we may have to have another service, and I may not be with my friends. And I wonder if, you know, the kids worker that I like isn't going to be at the other service. And, you know, we're gonna have to multiply groups, and we've just made community now. And I'm not saying that those are not like legitimate concerns, but this is the everyday thing for church, is that your average church person, without thinking about it, is going to be like, man, let me just bed down with my people, preach the Bible, and let's do our thing. That's the gravitational pull. I would say the same exact thing happens in network life. The gravitational pull is hey, let's have the same 15 pastors meet in Brady every year. And that's where we had had done our our lead pastors uh retreat for years and years, still do it every other year. But let's let me just keep my people and you know, where I'll have my buddies to see whenever we do things, and I'm not really interested in having to, you know, break into new relationships and maybe not get to have a lot of quality time with some of them because there's so many guys that are there and no, I'm not really interested in these different layers and things uh to do and go into an event and my wife doesn't know half the wives there. So I would rather, I mean, again, this is the gravitational pulls, I would rather just kind of have my people do my thing, belong to a group of buddies, and just move along our way. And so I think that that is what's unique about to answer that question of those three things that I just think are so unique because they the support, the funding, uh, the the training are just laser focused around uh what why we exist to be. And it it directly counters the gravitational pull of yeah, but the mission, you know, the mission necessitates it. And we need to be healthy. Yeah. I mean, one of the shocking things that happened for me for years is you'd have annual events, you know, in networks or denominations and see these guys that you really liked, and then before you saw them the next year, their live life and church completely blew up. And you're like, wait, we had a great time hanging out after the session. But just because you've got buddies that are at conference doesn't mean that you know you're walking in health, uh, godliness, that your marriage is healthy. And so I think these things just push us to the things we really value and are truly unique.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Okay, good. Yeah. So I'm hearing a few things. Okay, so you know, what we've been about from the beginning, all the way back to the beginning of our story as a network, is uh training, funding, and support. We're gonna work together, we're gonna lean in together to train together, to fund together and to support toward health and multiplication of churches so that more people would uh come to know the good news of Jesus and grow in and grace. We've been about that from the beginning. And yet over time, uh it has gotten catalytic and we've grown. We've gone from a network of six churches to 12 churches to 20 churches to we've added new initiatives. Uh we uh we we've we've started an annual conference, we created a church adoption process, we are now doing replanting training in residencies, um, where the network is growing, in other words, and I think people feel it. People feel it, many, many people that are listening to this have felt it and will continue to feel it. And so here's the the the thing I want to talk about now is what does it look like for us, you know, Brandon from your seat as executive director, Dusty from your seat as many ways a founding leader and the chairman of our board uh for this network. What does it look like for us to scale these same three priorities that we've always been about, training, funding, and support? We're gonna scale those things as the network as we're continuing to bear fruit, but we're gonna try not to lose what's most important to us. And so how do we do that, Brandon? How do we scale our impact without losing sight of our three priorities? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

So anyone anyone who's ever led uh any kind of growing organization knows that the outline I'm about to give, which I'm about to go back to an outline again, uh, is easy to say, hard to do. Um so let's just say that up front that this is gonna take discipline, diligence in the years to come to do this and to do it well. Uh but how do we scale without losing? Uh I think first uh we remain laser focused on our original mission by maintaining discipline in our yeses in what we say yes to and guarding our culture as if our life depended on it because it does. Uh so first remaining laser focused on our original mission. We've already talked about this, but we uh we exist to advance the gospel by multiplying healthy churches that mission produces the need for organization, not the other way around. Right. So it's not organization that creates mission, organization fuels the mission and it flows out of mission. That's easy. Uh it's easy. Pastors know this. Leaders of all scope know this, that it's easy to scope creep into treating the organization as the mission when it's not. Amen. Um we do not exist to put on conferences. Yeah. We do not exist to run a residency.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Or put out a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

That's right. Yeah. We advan We exist to see the gospel advance through multiplying healthy churches. We gotta stay laser focused on um on that one. More men, women, and children being encountered with the hope of Jesus. Through churches multiplying healthy churches. That's what we're about. Um so how do we stay laser focused on that original mission? We maintain discipline in our yeses, uh, in what we say yes to. That mission drift doesn't typically happen by what you say no to. It typically happens through undisciplined yeses by what you say yes to. I I'm stealing this line from somebody, but I tell our pastors all the time you are six months and six yeses from becoming a church you never wanted to be. The same thing is true for us. We are always six months and six undisciplined yeses from becoming a network we never wanted to be. So true.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

We we stay focused on our original mission, we stay disciplined in what we say yes to, which doesn't mean you say no to everything. It means you have a disciplined process for determining when it's time to say yes. And so we stay disciplined in our yeses. And then third, we we guard our culture like our life depends on it because it does. Um, Herb Keller, do you guys know who that is? Southwest Airlines, founder of Southwest Airlines. Uh, 10 years ago now, 2016, he was on one of my favorite podcasts uh out there, how I built this. Uh, and he he said when he was retiring, he wrote a letter to Southwest that was my 10 hopes for Southwest Airlines. Uh and I'm gonna paraphrase him from the podcast. And but he said this is this is what he said. One of my hopes is that we keep thinking and acting small. If we continue to think and act small, we will continue to grow large. But if we start thinking and acting large, we'll grow small. Um, that that line has been like a formative leadership line for me in ministry, both in the local church and now in Redeemer Network. And that line is sitting in the back of my head and the back of my heart when I'm sitting at Blue Corn Harvest, uh, one of the better Mexican restaurants you will ever find. It's debatable. It's debatable. Um, it shouldn't be, but it is, fair enough. Having dinner with Jamie Wallace, one of our elders at one of our churches in Brady, and I asked him, Man, how do we scale Redeemer Network? And he sat back and he leaned back, he put his hand up to his chin. Um, I don't think he's got chin hair. I don't know why I did that, but he did that and he said it's easy. You double down on health. Uh and I remember sitting there going, Well, feeling silly for asking the question. That seemed like such an obvious answer that if we want to continue being focused and guarded and clear about what we're doing, we need healthy people leading. We need healthy leaders leading healthy churches. Um, and so this is we continue to think and act small by doubling down on health, on the health of the person right in front of us. Um our culture matters and our life depends on it. We if if we stop becoming a group of unimpressed people, we're going to drift. We are gonna make poor decisions the minute we try to impress one another or become impressed with one another.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Um that's good. I you know, both in the the Herb Keller thing that you mentioned, the Southwest guy. At first I thought you were gonna say one of the things he wrote was let's get let's do a science eating, let's get rid of boarding groups.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Oh, he's rolling over right now.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah. No, I think that's good because I think in both of those things, that and then the the comment about health that Jamie Wallace made, you you hear the the value of relationships and that we we care about people and we care about the people in our churches, we care about the pastors in our churches. I think that even goes back to our desire to want to train church planners and community. Yeah. And that we want to stay connected and we want to walk with each other and we want to do this together, which goes all the way back, Dusty. I think even to your heart, you know, there was never a strategy or a vision for a network, but there was a heart to uh stay connected to these guys you were sending out and to track with them and to love them, support them, encourage them, be in their be their corner guy, you know. And so I think really if you had to boil it all down, it's that value of relationship uh at every level. The people we're trying to reach, that's why we want to plant more churches because there we care about people that are lost and far from God. We care about the people in our churches, that's why we want healthy pastors, and um and I love that. I I love just to say, you know, that this thing's gonna grow, it's gonna continue to scale, uh, Lord willing. But uh the that passion and commitment to being a relationally driven network uh must remain.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Dusty, anything you'd add here on how we scale, anything's coming to mind at thinking about scaling without losing our side of our priorities.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Well, you know, I loved everything that Brandon said. He can speak with so much more clarity on he thinks about this every day about how this network is gonna go from where it is to as we all continue to multiply churches and planting and replanting and a few that'll be adopted in and like what that looks like. And I loved everything he said. I think he's just the right guy to lead the charge on it. My uh other thought was in line with what I was talking about earlier about the gravitational pull, about you know, how we overcome that, you know, with these three areas scaling. Well, again, it's the same question of how do we overcome that with our churches. And I was just going to share one quick story about Redeemer uh related to something I've already mentioned here with our South Campus. So here's what's interesting is whenever we began to cast vision for this South Campus to our church about three years ago is when we were doing that. Began to talk about it, began to talk about even the generosity would be required to do it, the why behind it, all that. What's interesting is there was, you know, a lot of people that were really excited about the first time they heard it. But there was a certain number of folks from Redeemer that like were not about it initially, that there was a lot of recoil. And um a lot of it was fear for some of the reasons I mentioned earlier that you know you're about to mess up this church. I love this church has been really significant, and now are my friends gonna go there or I'm gonna go there and they're gonna be left behind, and a pastor that I love, is he not gonna be my preaching pastor anymore? And whatever, you know, like all these fear points, they were all valid. And um, and also this was interesting, but there were some some like prejudices against South Lubbock that I had no idea. To me, it was just a different part of town. I hadn't thought of it one way or another. But there's a lot of people that are like, I don't like those people, even though we had a lot of those people at our church. But there was Don't you live there? Yeah, well, I mean, the those people were South Lubbock, you know, that that, and you're like, man, that is just like you know, 10 minutes from your house, man. What do you talk? Your kids go to the same spot, whatever. But the uh, you know, so here's what's interesting though, and this is what I think about network life, and again, all the parallels is that as we just continue to listen, first of all, and continue to cast vision for the why, the why behind it, is that we're not just you know putting this together um as a growth solution or market share or something like this, but you know, this incredibly fast growing part of our city, and almost no one is going to be able to afford to go plant a church out there. The land is sky high, and there's no blockbusters or hastings that you can go remodel. Like that doesn't exist. It's all cotton fields and brand new build-outs. And there's you can count them on one hand of churches that could be out there if they wanted to. So as we just continue to cast this vision, what was interesting is so many of our members, whenever we would follow up later, we're like, you know what, I've come around on this that I really do want I want people in South Lubbock to be reached with the gospel. I want them to hear it from us. I'm willing to give whether I go or not, I don't know. But I'm I think this is a significant. And I have the same thought about what we need to be is that there's going to be a flexibility that's gonna be needed and uh foregoing of our own comforts and including new guys and their teams and churches into the network and structures that'll be new and unique and ones that we can't even foresee now. But um, the reason why it's worth it is because if Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, and uh we want to be part of making disciples of all nations, and what a gift that uh we get to play in this space. And that that why is so significant that we really must like steward this and scale it.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah, really good. Well, I I'm I'm really excited about what God's doing in our network right now, more than ever, and excited about uh being able to have some more conversations over this season with uh the folks that are working on the ground to train church planters and for to get to share the stories of some of our church planters and exactly what they're experiencing as they're going through our training and what God's doing in the replanting space and why that's so strategic and so important right now, and and how we're trying to get after that uh with um resourcing and supporting replanters. And we're gonna talk about uh what we're doing to care for pastors and just dig more into the need for pastors to sustain and kind of the state of the pastorate right now in America. Um I'm excited to have Chris Mellanie on to talk about some of the stuff he's doing for the network with worship leaders and how he's training, equipping, resourcing worship leaders of all different uh stages, whether it's church plant worship leaders, bivocational guys, full-time people at some of our larger churches. So we've got a lot of great stuff queued up that I'm really excited about. Retreat coming up. We've got a conference in the fall uh here in Austin. Uh so a really exciting time in the life of our network. So excited about it, guys. Thanks for jumping on today. Appreciate you jumping on and joining us, Kyler. Thanks for producing this one. We appreciate you. And appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Thanks, Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

All right, until next time.