We Train Church Planters

Why do church planters need training? What makes a healthy church planter? And why is a residency model so important for long-term church health?

In Episode 2 of Season 3, Jordan Elder sits down with Redeemer Network Director of Church Planting Reid Monaghan and Redeemer Brady Pastor Paden Berens to discuss the philosophy, structure, and impact of the Redeemer Network Church Planting Residency. Drawing from their own experiences in church planting, they explore why preparation matters, how healthy churches raise up healthy leaders, and what it looks like to train church planters through immersive, church-based discipleship.

Along the way, they discuss:

• Why church planting requires more than passion and gifting
• The biblical model of training leaders before sending them
• How the Redeemer Network Residency combines theological formation, character development, and practical ministry experience
• The value of collaborative training across churches of different sizes and contexts
• Why church planting is a responsibility shared by the whole church, not just a few leaders
• How churches can begin praying for and raising up future church planters

Whether you're exploring a call to ministry, considering church planting, or simply want to understand how healthy churches multiply, this conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Redeemer Network is investing in the next generation of church leaders.

Resources & Links

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 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 the Redeemer Network Podcast. This season we're talking about what we do as a network. Last week we discussed our three priorities. We train, we fund, and we support. And today we're going to dig into the most central part of our work together over the last 10 years training church planners. As a network, we train church planners in a two-year residency program that is both immersive and intentional. And so excited to talk about that today. I'm joined by Reed Monahan, who serves as the director of church planning for the Redeemer Network. Reed, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

It's great to be with you, Jordan. And uh as always, uh the Redeemer family always makes uh my day a little bit brighter. So it's good to be with you guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Well, you've made our network brighter uh since you came on our team this year helping us lead in our church planning residency program. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Also joined by Peyton Barons. Peyton's the pastor of Redeemer Brady. He planted Redeemer. And uh I wanted to bring Peyton on for this episode because uh Redeemer Brady has planted two churches. When did you guys start, Peyton? What year did you start Redeemer Brady? 2014. Okay, so since 2014, they have since planted two churches and they have trained their church planning residents through the Redeemer Network residency. So that's right, uh Peyton has a unique perspective as we talk about training church planners today. So Peyton, thanks for jumping on.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Love it, man. Love to serve the networking way I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Love this place, love you guys. All right. So here's where I wanted to start. I was thinking about the two of you guys. And Reed, you have a background as a college wrestler. Um, and you I know you still do stuff uh with uh with wrestlers. You do uh some ministry to wrestlers. Um, and Peyton, I know you have a background wrestling goats. I've heard some stories about yeah, yeah. I've I've heard some stories uh about how you know it in in Brady, Texas, you've had some run-ins with some goats. So here's the wrestling question to start with. Uh, is there a guy in the network that you a pastor, church planner in the network that you want to get on the map? Who would it be? You gonna call anybody out? You got any beef with anybody?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Um, I have a particular set of skills, Jordan, that was helping me over many years that even though I'm in my early 50s, is it's still a pretty high level compared to the average guy on the street. And so uh I know Dusty Thompson has tried to step a little bit, and I didn't I didn't even try. So I mean he was very easy to like dominate. And so I don't know, man. There's a few guys in the in the church world, you know, a friend of mine named Leon's Crump down in Atlanta, he's got the same skill set and he's bigger than me, so I don't know what I don't want to be of him, but everybody else, you know, Peyton's probably the one I'd be most nervous about because he's like wildly strong and athlete. That's right. Hey, younger than me, listen, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

So I'm like nine years in jiu-jitsu too, right now, man. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, the guys that I hate the most is not the tall guys, it's the dudes that are stronger than me and about two inches shorter than me. They wear me out. They just they so read, you got me, brother. And I'll tell you another dude, we're just playing basketball, Jordan, is Joe from Huddo. Oh, yeah, Joe's strong. He's strong, and he's like just paint wise in the paint. Boy, don't mess with the guy. So I'm guessing some of that goes to the mat. He would, but nah, Reed, no one can touch you, my man. All right.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Well, uh, with that, you know, stepping into church planning uh is a lot like stepping onto the mat. All right, see how I did that? You like that transition right there? I like how you did that. Um you when you step into church planning, you better be prepared. You better be well trained, you better have developed some skills and most importantly, some grit. And that's exactly what our residency program is designed to do. And so um, I'm excited to talk through that today. Like exactly what is the residency? How does it work? How do we train people? Why is it important? And we're we're gonna get into all that. But before we do, Reed, I would love for you to share some of your story, man. I I said this earlier and I really mean it. You have been such a blessing to our network. You served on our board for a bit and then came on our team at the beginning of this year to be our director of church planning. And really what you're tasked with is leading our residents, leading our church planners through this two-year immersive and intentional process. And then also you're doing great work taking our training and retooling it and reworking it so that it continues to be effective into the future. So um glad to have you on the team. Uh tell us a little bit of your story, man. How'd you meet Jesus? Uh, how'd you get into ministry? What's your journey been like?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, man, it's uh it's been a ride. Um, my wife and I, Casey, we will celebrate 30 years of marriage in just a few weeks. And so we've got older children now, 24, 22, and 19, and we feel like we've been in the game a bit. And so I actually became a follower of Christ uh as a college athlete. I went, I grew up in Virginia. My dad's an ex-Irish Catholic atheist guy, hardcore, no religion. And I went to UNC Chapel Hill uh on a wrestling scholarship, and so they played basketball there. They also wrestle. And so it was during that time, I was studying physics and computer science, that uh a man named Mike Exencaper, God bless, and we just uh did his funeral in in February, uh, led me to Jesus, man. And so I came to Christ as a college student. My wife grew up in the church, but she was a soccer player there, so we kind of connected in that way and were very involved in sports ministry for eight years. We worked for a group called Athletes in Action, uh, a little bit at University of Kentucky for training. They worship basketball more than we do, I think. Um and then uh and then uh most of that time we spent at Virginia Tech, also a regional director of that organization. And the Lord just called me to the local church uh through reading his word and just seeing the centrality uh of the church and the multiplication of churches in the Bible. And so I kind of got headhunted by a church called Fellowship Nashville, went over with a college and young adult pastor for a little bit and just had a wonderful time there. But I just was called to skeptical lands, so to speak. And the Lord uh graciously uh we had five single men, two uh young married couples kind of quit their jobs, moved from Nashville, Franklin, Tennessee area to New Jersey on purpose uh to plant churches. And so we, by God's grace, uh my my farm girl wife lived in New York City Metro for almost a decade, and we planted a church called Jacob's Well. Uh, I'll be preaching there this summer. God, God, God bless those guys. I love them, and then helped plant about 10 other churches in the state of New Jersey. I was involved in network leadership with Acts 29 in the Northeast. Um, and then in 2016, uh the Lord led us to start our own organization called the Gospel Underground. We exist to advance the mission of God in the borderlands between the church and culture. So we really want to support and strengthen the church, uh doing well and effectively in mission. Um, and church planting is central uh to that. And so I've had kind of a connection point uh since that time, the last 10 years, uh, both serving with Dusty, uh Acts 29, U.S. South Central, and you two guys, uh doing assessment of church planters and then building forward uh in training. The last three years I spent with the Harbor Network as a consultant, uh, group out of Louisville, Kentucky, about 120 church network, and uh helped build a team that built a residency kind of from scratch from the ground up. I had the opportunity to write a lot of that content, training for that, and then roll it out at multiple locations around the country. And so that's kind of a little quick vision now. Came on the board of Redeemer, and then you guys sent a job description, and I was like, oh, that kind of looks interesting. And so I feel like the new guy at work learning the system. I have such a high respect for Redeemer Network and its residency that I don't want to move stuff that doesn't need to be moved, uh, but definitely want to serve well and uh offer anything I can uh to the multiplication of churches until Kingdom Come.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Well, I love the work you're doing with Gospel Underground. Your podcast is awesome, so people can go check that out. And uh and we just I just got off a call with you where we were with our church planning residents doing some training on preaching, and you're doing such a great job with that, man. So um thankful for you. All right, so let's talk about why church planning residencies matter. Let's start with that. Uh Peyton, we'll kick it to you here. I mean, you planted a church and then you have uh helped develop, you've developed and sent your church has sent two other church planners from from your seat. Why do residencies matter?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Man, there's a there's a whole host of reasons. I mean, I I think one if you just start like this a biblical idea, you know, you got Paul writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy, and he's like, hey, what you have heard from the presence of many witness and trust of faithful men, then and then from there who will be enabled to teach others, right? And so you get this model like Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and then others. And so we, you know, we as people that love the church, the local church, we desire to serve her, we desire to um to train and to test and approve men that love the local church. And so that that's just like this an easy biblical idea, right? It's like, well, this is what you see, this is what we do. Some practical thoughts is um, man, I was a 25-year-old dude that had never been in a healthy church today in my life, had some ministry experience in parachurch, and knew nothing about the local church, and a call to plant happened to me. And if I didn't have some some men that that at first they told me, hey, listen, there's lots of ideas out there, pick a voice. And um, Dusty said, You need to pick a voice, brother. And so uh went with Lubbock at the time, and man, what what they did above all else is they just they just put me in rooms, rooms with faithful men, faithful pastors, and I just need to see what it looked like, how how men handled the room in any situation. So day one, uh, when I was there in 2013, and I I I uh do a preaching lab, I get hammered. I mean, just brutal. It's terrible stories. I don't even want to go in here. I know, don't stop talking about it. All my credibility would be lost right here. So just get hammered. And then I go into the room with Caden Dusty, and it's like, and I don't even know these men very well. And they have like an intense, hard conversation right before me at that very second. And um, it was godly men handling the room, godly men inviting me into the room. And and I I can't tell you how how it changed me. I actually fell in love with the local church through it. I said, these are faithful men that love the body. There's no weird stuff behind the scenes. These are men and women that love Jesus that are trying to press forward. So let me give one more reason, just in sense for our two men that we got to plant. Man, we had the just some of the best guys ever. Justin Smith, capable, trustworthy with the vessel church in San Angelo. Love that dude. Um, Zach Tharp with Redeer and Brown with it, just planted like three weeks ago. These men were studs from the very beginning, capable, strong, loved their family. We knew from the very beginning they were the they were the real deal. They were the dogs, man. We would go anywhere with them, do anything with them. Uh, but both of them would just need a little rest. I mean, they they came in just a tad bit, had some ministry experience, and family was a little bit busted up um from ministry experience, they were a little busted up from ministry experience, and just said, hey, what we were able to do is we don't need anything from you, men. Come and sit with us. Man, rest in Jesus. He is good and he is faithful, and you get to be a part of everything we do and come rest. And so some of it was just a place of rest at the time for us. So good.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah. What about you, Reed? What would you add? Why is it important?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Well, I mean, I just think back to my own experience in planting. I was a little older than Peyton and had been on a lot of different parachurch leadership teams, and I was at a 4,000-person church. Um, but I was thinking about going somewhere very hard. There were very few Christians, and I just was confused, didn't know what to do. And you go out there and you start, this is when you're starting to hear podcasts, MP3s, you had books, you have all this stuff swirling around. Uh, but to have a wise guide with you, like a Paul, right? It's thing you've seen in me, put into practice, right? Um, was something I really lacked. And so I was just cobbling together all this whole training, but eager to do it. And I think church planters, they have to have this desire, right? You got to go want to do something different. You got to want to reach people, you want to stick something in the ground. Um, but to be patient, to be equipped well alongside others, not only wise folks, but you know, Timothy and Titus type level, you know, where you have a crew, um, it's just super wise. You're gonna do better in the work, you're gonna be healthier in the work. Um, and then you have some folks that have sorted through some of the some of the cloud and decided, hey, this is this is a mysiological vision of how to plant churches biblically and let's let's do this. So you don't, you're kind of not on your own with it. And so um I've developed now some residency training. I'm looking at obviously I've looked at you guys' residency training from afar with admiration. Um, and I just think that's it's just worth a a guy's time to slow down, be trained well with others. Because when you get out planting, you're gonna have this wonderful connection with those who help train you, but also your brothers that you're kind of in your kind of your pledge class or your recruiting class, so to speak, that you can just say, hey, hit up on their cell phone. Hey, what do you do with this? How do you train kids workers? There's just so many things that doing in a community is better uh than doing doing it alone.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

That's really good stuff, guys. I mean, yeah, it's biblical. Uh the apostle Paul uh immersed with the church in Antioch and he spent time there learning and being trained and being tested before the the spirit uh called him out to to go with Barnabas. Um, then Paul follows that same model. He he trains up Titus and Timothy and Silas, and so good. Yeah, it's biblical, it's wise. Um and in the end, I I just I don't know a single church planner that's ever told me said, you know, I I really wish in the beginning I had gone faster. I don't know a single guy that said that. And so that there's something about taking time to patiently prepare to walk in the calling that God's put on your life that just in the end is gonna bear better fruit. So yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, there's all Jordan, there's a lot at stake, right? I mean, uh a church that you run into too fast and try to plant too fast and crashes and burns, man, you're gonna have the wake of hurt that other men will be picking up for decades. And so, man, it's uh just too important work. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

The book of Titus, you know, Paul's exhorting him to in on the island of Crete to put into order what remained. And that is a skill. You can go out and start some you know stuff and church planting, maybe even see some people getting converted and wonderful things, but to be able to form a church uh takes wisdom and skill. And and Paul, you know, he trusted Titus to do it because he had trained him and he he knew what to do.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Well, let's let's talk about the Redeemer residency. I I really want people to have a good idea and understanding of what our residency is. Um, once it will serve our churches so the pastors and ministry leaders in our churches will better understand the residency program and use it, utilize it to train leaders. And also for others that might be listening that are interested in church planning, that they can get a good sense of what it is. And so, Reed, what from your seat, especially as you've come in and you've assumed leadership of our uh of our church planting residency, what what would you say makes it unique? I know you've been around a lot of other uh church planning networks. What makes our residency unique?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

You know, one of the things, Jordan, that um you guys did was that you began um working together on training uh men for the work. And so the the residency really gave birth to the network, which I think is very unique because the intuitive collaboration that you that you all do with each other is really good. In fact, I've talked to residency consulting groups that say, hey, you should just do a residency at your church. You don't want to do a bunch of stuff, nobody gets along, it gets complicated. And I'm thinking, no, no, I've seen this done. It's been done beautifully by the Redeemer Network. And so there's a unique desire to collaborate together on the work rather than any sort of competitive spirit or you know, the residency is something a large church does only. There's churches of various sizes working together to train church planters. And I think that's very, very beautiful. It also, the the two years of our residency, it begins with a theological vision from the Bible, right? From the book of Acts. This is what uh God called his people to do in his mission. And then we go do that to people with people in place and in culture, right? Uh, so there needs to be both a clear biblical vision, but also wisdom of how to do it in Brady or in Round Rock in these different places that God calls and send us. And and and I and I've seen other residencies that are just finishing residencies. You take a seminary graduate who's, you know, has his Bible theology down, and you teach him how to run an organization or come up with mission, vision values, and go lead. Um, ours really takes time to set that biblical vision, care about the church planter's own health, his own walk with Jesus, his, his, his wife and his kids, right? We're not just doing these kamikaze missions. We really want them to flourish in their own walk as they do it. And so I love the patience. I love the vision of the Bible being centered for first and foremost. And I just love the collaboration and the the spirit of hey, we train together, we send together, we fund, and we support together.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

At the top of the episode, I said that our residency is both immersive and intentional. Reed, can you unpack that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah, and I think Peyton, you know, obviously with his residence, has lived this. The immersive aspect is our residency isn't run simply by the network, it is church-based. It's immersed in the life and ministry of the local church. So our residents are going to be in staff meetings, they're going to be in elder meetings, they're going to be in uh going to a complex pastoral situation, maybe wrestle goat uh with Payton out there, or you know, we got one pastor who's you know in branding calf season right now. You just get to do everything in the context and life of the church because you're immersed there. Uh, you're not just a trainee hidden from all the intricacies and complexities of the church, you're doing it with them uh as as you train. And then of course there's the uh coming together with the other residents, see residents that are at other churches uh where you're you're you're praying and planning for your particular work. Um, but that immersed nature is that's hey, this the local church sends the planter. Um, and so the training is done in that context.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yeah. Peyton, how have you seen kind of that both immersive, you know, your guys are embedded in your local church and being trained by you and your elders, they're getting hands-on uh experience, but also intentional, collaborative with the network. How have you seen that bear fruit in your guys?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Oh man, the the localized part of it is is and I think that what's really makes it special and sweet for a couple of reasons is one is small churches get to be a part of planting, man. I I don't have all the resources in the world, but I do have some things uniquely gifting to help a man that that has a calling. But the localized part, man, is our people get to love this man. I mean, Justin and Zach, they are dearly missed and loved. We grieve when they left. Um, our people love them. And it also helped your regular guy that's working in a nine to five. He goes, Man, I'm a part of church planning. I mean, he he he's he said knows Zach. He knows Justin. He he loves those men. I mean, he probably gives money to them on this, on, you know, on his own. And that's a it's a beautiful piece, is the entire organizations, our localized people, they they get to be a part of it. Yeah, and they get to know these men on the ground. Uh, but the the gift of the network, I mean, there's one is we asked Zach, we said, hey man, will you go to as many churches you possibly can? I think he might have preached at eight different Redeemer Network churches. And we just said, hey, there's different context that you need to know about that's not Brady. And by the way, some of these churches are doing it better than us, and they do a better Sunday service than us. They do a lot of things better. You will not hurt our feelings if you come back and go, dude, y'all are messed up. These guys got it going on. Like, you need to see that. You need to see what you want, you need to live in that. You need to, and so we're we're doing, hey, there is men in this network and and churches and women in this network that you can learn a tremendous amount of insight in. And um, that's the beauty of it. I mean, I I can't imagine thinking that uh we send a guy off on our own uh without them not without them knowing Jordan or Reed or Kyle or Joe. Like, that'd be crazy to me. Um there's some of the best dudes around.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

So yeah, I love what you said too about like, hey, we we can we can we have a residency, we can plan a church. You know, you uh one of the things that we realized as we were first building the network, or really the residency program. You said that earlier, Reed, the residency program was first, the network came second. As the residency program started to bear fruit, then all of a sudden we looked up and said, I think this is a network now. But one of the things we started realizing early on is that uh as our collaboration grows, our kingdom impact grows. Now it takes humility and it takes unity and it takes love uh for collaboration to take place. But if you're but as our collaboration began to grow, it it it really that really began was true, it proved true. Our kingdom impact grew because you know you have larger churches, more established churches with more resources who have who have strengths. But one of the weaknesses of some of our larger churches is that they they didn't really have a very good lab. Uh so they're trying to train a church planner for church planting in a large established church.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Hey, hey, Jordan, our my man Dusty never let me have a mic one time. Yeah. When he finally is like the day I'm leaving, he's like, I'm gonna let you preach for five minutes and I'm taking it from there. I'm like, all right, thanks, brother. So yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

So I mean, you're there and you're probably learning a lot of great about ministry programs and um procedures, and you're learning so much about hospitality and connections processes, and but then you're like, ah, I'm starting to lead a core team in a living room, you know. But our smaller churches, on the other hand, they don't have the resources and they're not very attractive to recruit leaders, but they have the right lab. Um and so what we started to realize was I think if we work together on this, we can train better leaders. We we can get uh we can get uh some guys, some reps in the right lab, and we can get some resources to to smaller churches that don't have it. And and it just began to get really catalytic. And so I'm I'm glad you mentioned that. And I do think that's part of the secret sauce of our residency program is the exposure uh that residents are getting from many different churches.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Absolutely, Jordan. It's um when I was about to go plant a church, I had a staff team of five people uh in my young adult department, and I had a full-time administrative assistant who I just say something in a meeting, they do it, right? And there's so much resources around. And I'm thinking I'm going to a place that's very expensive, very lost, I'm not gonna have any help. And so I remember having to discipline myself to say, I'm not gonna use my admin for the next six months because I'm gonna be on, I'm gonna be out of this Disneyland, right? Um, and and and really had to go raw. And uh, I just really think that uh small churches, large churches, medium churches working together is a secret sauce. But here's the thing I've talked to some we say the preeminent residency funding organization in America, probably today, and they recommend against collaborative residencies. Why? Well, it's hard. You have to have humble leaders who want to defer and want other people's voices in their residence life, and they're not just trying to do it all or take all the credit. Um, and and Redeemer Network does this very, very well. And it's one of the things that attracted me to continue to work with you guys over many years is that everyone's valued. There's a place for our large church and a small church together, um, and we can all plant churches and and and man, Hayden nails it. That gives the vision for the mission of God to everyone in our congregations, uh, which is what we're trying to do when we tell them to plant anyway. This is the way the church multiplies and flourishes in the mission on the earth.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Well, we've talked about how the residency is immersive, and so it's not just like um, you know, a guy off by himself reading a bunch of books in a room, but they're really you're really immersed in one of our local churches, and that's determined either based upon where you want to plant or context or you know, uh type of church, that that sort of thing. But the residency is also intentional. It it's a two-year program. There's a real intentional move between year one to year two. Reed, could you talk a little bit about that, the intentionality and how we train?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. Um the the things you begin with the main things, right? The make the main thing the main thing, which is God's the glory of God, the work of Jesus on the cross, the resurrection, sending the church by the spirit into the world. And so we're very intentional in the first year of our residency, making sure convictionally we understand the mission of God in the Bible. So uh we focus in the book of Acts, which is the sending of the church by the Spirit, right? Uh in the multiplication in the early days. We're looking at the patterns that take place there that are reproducible, eternal, that will then need to be contextualized, local and geographical. And so that's uh where we start. And now developing those convictions, we want to develop them the man's character and his wife, that they're strong in their faith, they love one another well, they know how to uh be married as they plant, right? Um, so care, you know, convictions and then character. And then certainly uh in the second year, there's an intentionality moving towards you know necessary skills or competencies or churches. I've gone away, guys, from the word best practices because, like, who knows what's the best? But I think uh learned wisdom in our practice, right? Hey, we did this, this is why we did this that way. Um, and this is the fruit that it bore so we can share those skills and competencies necessary for church planning. Not not uh every elder qualified person ought to plant a church. Uh, a person has to like a little bit of uh ununderformed things, right? You have to love talking to people, you have to uh share the gospel with lost folks, you have to be able to train someone from a new believer to a leader in the church. And that's a particular skill set that we want our planters to have and that we want them to develop and learn how to do well so that the church will have longevity, set up healthy and good structures at at the beginning that can bear the weight of growth, um, and then uh by God's grace, multiplication in the future of the seed beds for that as well. So that doesn't end with just the cul-de-sac of one church, how however large that might be, but our churches by nature uh have the the the birthing and multiplication desire in them as they begin.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Yeah, good. Yeah, you know, I what last thing, and then we'll move on to to the next discussion point. But while we're just talking about what our residency is, you know, I I don't want people just to know kind of the methods of what we do, the net symbols that I mean really what our residency is to some extent too, is the the men and the churches that are actually involved in it right now. And so, Reed, would you give us a snapshot of of our current residents? How many do we have? Um, where are some of them looking to plant? Maybe even anything you've observed about this residency class.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, it's been fun. I I've told them, I've jumped in with them as a newbie with them. So their beginning and orientation was my orientation, and so I'm learning with them as they go, and it's been a lot of fun. Before I get to them, Jordan, I just want to say, yes, the residency isn't just the practices and the the knowledge and the transference of training, it's the people. And that includes like the the people that give time to our residents. This is something that I've been observing is that we have our pastors throughout the network who invest in various parts and places in the residency. Um, so it's not it's not that you just have like, you know, me and Jordan are trainers, so we're doing training. It's multiple people connecting in the lives of these folks. And so the there's a symmetry to the people aspect uh of the relationship between the established pastors and planters and the new folks coming in each year. And so right now uh we have several that several that are doing the residency, and I know this has been a practice in the past as well, Jordan, that may not sense a direct call to church planting yet, but they want uh to explore a call to ministry uh and deep in in their training. So we have a few uh guys like that, uh Jordan Hart, uh James Riggle are doing that, Chase Stubblefield, who's at your church, who's also a software genius, we found out, um, who's building stuff for us. And then we have those who are really clear on a church planting call right away. So we've got a tag team going to Norman, Cody Carroll, and Jesse Cheney, uh Norman, Oklahoma, uh college town there, uh up in Oklahoma. And this is something I've seen throughout uh North American church planning. There are young young guys who want to plant together. And so we're gonna try to work with them to see here, here are the strengths of that, here's things you got to watch in that as you kind of tag team it going forward. Uh, we have a guy looking to go and uh focus on college students in San Angelo, uh another down in uh El Paso area, uh, and then certainly in DFW also. So uh Aaron Wagner, uh Austin Cottingham, and John Allen Archard. So those are some of the guys. And then uh we got a guy from Big Lake, Jake from Big Lake. That's how he introduced himself to me. My name is Jake from Big Lake.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

That's easy to remember from State Farm and Jake from Big Lake.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

That's right, that's right. Jake from so he's he's moving into a residency with Redeemer San Angelo and still looking forward to God leading him in what city that that that will be. And so they're hungry and eager, they're interacting with each other so well, they're all contributing uh to each other's training in such a really fun way. And and literally we have a guy that's built a software system to help him go through the thing. And we're so all the other guys are beta testing that for him now uh because he made a tool for himself to use to check off his assignments and things, and that's been really, really fun. And so uh it's it's uh all you know, most of the guys are fairly young, but some some age diversity as well, which is fun because look, uh you don't know when God will call you, right? You could be in your 20s, you could be in your 30s, 40s, 50s, uh 60s to plant churches and multiply them in the ministry. Um, and so that's really fun to see guys at various stages of life uh interacting with each other.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Yeah, it's really it's really cool to see. I mean, you've got the diversity, is what I love. You've got not only the diversity and our sending churches, so so you've got some of our smaller churches, larger churches that are all uh training, housing and training residents and preparing to send them, but you've got you know, Nathan Young that's planting in Abernathy, small town. You've got Jake from Big Lake who's trying to discern God's call in a rural small town. You've got some collegiate churches both in San Angelo and also Norman, Oklahoma. Uh, you've got uh Cole Kirby planting in San Antonio, maybe a little more suburban parts of San Antonio, Mitchell Johnson going urban in Austin. So there's just yeah, there's just such a diversity of the types of churches that flow out of our network because of the collaborative nature. Yeah. I just love that. I love that representation of the King King.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

We got our friend Clint, who's uh with Redeemer Pampa, who's just who's a pastor who's just getting more training. And so he had to miss our preaching uh QA seminar this week because he had to go after the calves with the with the ranchers. And I thought I was being relevant and contextual. I was like, Yeah, you know, I once banded a calf once. I'll tell you the story. He's like, Well, you know, some guys banned them, but most just cut.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I'm like, Oh, oh, oh, well, you're I've I've never felt like such a wimp when the the most difficult thing in my week was firing up my uh you know battery-operated lawnmower to cut my to cut my yard, and he's out there branding calves in between ministry assignments. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Um well, uh maybe we could talk about uh a little bit of like kind of next steps. So I you know, I was thinking about who might be listening to this. So we hopefully obviously we hope it's folks in our churches, Redeemer Network leaders and pastors and staff members and church members, but also I know that there are folks who are not in the network who might be dropping in. And Peyton, we'll start with you here. I mean, what would you want folks both from our churches and outside of our network maybe to know or do like as a call to action? Like, okay, we have this residency program, church planners need training, churches need help with training church planners. Like, what's what what's a call to action?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

And I would say the first one is and it sounds like a you know, oh an answer you're supposed to give, but I this is for real. I I would pray. And we we we saw Brownwood and we prayed for Brownwood for eight years. Lord, would you bring a guy? Lord, you bring a guy. And strategically, I try called Howard Payne multiple times. And in my head, what I keep thinking about is if you're willing to go to a small town for a college, you'll go plant anywhere, man. You'll go plant in every little small town in this country, right? And so um, but I'd call Howard Payne. I wasn't a Baptist dude, so they wouldn't ever let me, you know, they didn't even call me back at the time. And so just pray. We just pray and um and then we talked about it a lot. You start start trying to talk to people about small town planting. For us, it's that's kind of what our heartbeat of it is. And so, man, we just uh wanted to be um strategic in our prayers. Lord, would you do it? Ask big prayers for the Lord. Um, and see if you're listening, you go, man, how do I like what else that look like? I have a heart to plant a church or I have a heart to do a part of it. Man, that the beautiful part of the Redeemer Network is um and we're a small church. You you're you're not too small to be a part of this, you're not too small to get in the game and plant churches and and to not just plant them, but to have a like a real relationships with the guys around you and to use the um the network for um for for real for real help in all those areas. And so take swings. I'm a I'm a man that believes it takes swings for the Lord, man. Just take big swings. Um, I I have brought guys into the network that um there's one man that I I asked him if I can go to the the retreat with us. Hey, can you can I take this do the retreat? And it wasn't long and they're like, hey brother, I don't know if you don't know if your man is gonna make it. So and he didn't, he didn't, but just taking swings. I find a guy, man. What I want, I find a guy, and I want some guys faithful men. I want the reeds of the world walking next to him and going, hey, hey, I see something, or hey, let's just love this brother well and tell him to stay at his his church that he's at right now.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah, so that might have been the guy I was we were talking about if he was gonna do the residency, he had to get uh slack on his phone and on his computer, and he was just lost. Like, what's a slack? I don't I don't know if this is gonna work. What's that?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

What's that? I don't know if this is gonna work for me, man. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's good, man. I and I love what you said about prayer. Um, I think that's so critical. We talk about this with churches, with some of our lead pastors about like, you know, recruiting a resident. You have a residency program, and so start recruiting a resident. And a lot of that just starts with regularly praying, just regularly praying, God, we want to plan a church in this particular city or this town, or we want to plant a church in the next five years and send us, bring us a leader, or give us eyes to see a leader within our church that we could read. And if we're not praying about it, it's it's it's uh we're not gonna like very likely, unlikely that we'll stumble into it. So good. What about you, Reed? What would you say to anybody that's listening as a as a next step?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yeah, I I love what what you guys are on here because I I think it was Spurgeon talking about spiritual disciplines like prayer and scripture reading and solitude as as ways to get into the river of where God blesses. And I think church planting, there's a similar metaphor, is that um when you're asking God, like Peyton said, you're praying, oh Lord, help us reach Brownwood or another town near you. Um, you need to start getting your life around folks that really want to multiply the gospel and the kingdom. And and there's an infectiousness, you know, come to our conference, utilize our residency training. The Redeemer Network is very uh open to folks that want to train folks to involve them in our residency. Uh, even if you're not part of the network, we have some scenarios where that's possible. And so uh we want to say if you've got someone in your church, begin to associate your life with them, cast vision with them, walk with them, uh, get them around other people at a conference or a training or a retreat uh with a network of folks that are going in that direction, and then see what God can bloom in time. Uh and they might land in a residency training situation or they may need to go to another church that's planting churches uh so that they can be around and equipped by a pastor who believes in that vision and not just sees it as problematic or something. And so um, if you're if you're a church that feels like, oh, what can we do? We all can give, we all can start training people wherever they are now. Pipelines in the local church are are tremendously fruitful, sometimes though, five, 10 years from now. And so if you're investing in men and women in your church with a vision of the gospel, uh there might be some really fun fruit down the road. And the investment now is worth it, right? Because we're making disciples. This is what we're supposed to do anyway. This is the Great Commission to make disciples of all peoples. That's right. Uh, and then send them. Yeah, send them across the world, across the street, um, in the name of Christ with the good news of Jesus. Empowered by the Spirit, that's what we do. And so um, we're here to help as a network layer. Um, we love to coach, train, believe with, and uh be brothers. And and uh, you know, if you want to step, we'll wrestle you, you know, test your metal. Uh one of the one of the more fruitful things I did in New Jersey, I wrestled some Jersey guys in a pub parking lot uh with the guy and his friend, and they showed up at the core group the next week. Right, we're gonna get out there.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Well, if we've learned anything today, it said I don't wrestle anybody. Peyton wrestles goats, Reed wrestles people in parking lots, and I I I listen to my grass with a wimpy lawnmower.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah, that's right. What I learned is Jake from Big Lake, you better pack a lunch for that one, man. I don't I don't I don't know who he is, but I got a feeling he's the guy, man.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

He's fun. Yeah. I'll tell you guys a story of how I fought a guy in a Seattle bathroom one time and and with a bunch of church planners. It's a real story. I'll I'll just do the 10-second version of it, but we were with a bunch of church planners who were training, and I went to the bathroom and this guy had tattoos all over his head, and he saw my cauliflower ear, and he goes, Hey, let's go! And I'm like, Hold on, let me finish going in the bathroom, we can go. And so he wanted to go. So we went and I you know threw him around on the dividers of the bathroom, took him down on the ground. It was all fun, but a little violent. And I came out of the bathroom, winded. And the director of the church land there, where guy named Scott Thomas was there. He goes, What are you doing for so long? I was like, Oh, I just beaten this guy up in the bathroom. And he said, What? So dude comes out uh of the bathroom, he's happy about it. I mean, we were both happy about it, and he's like, Let's go! He goes, You're awesome. And he was, you know, he I think he was a little drunk, let's be honest. And we just took off, and everybody at the table said, You weren't kidding, man. You were really fighting that guy in the back. I'm not really fighting, but we had to go a little bit. So sometimes, you know, you gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

There you go. Well, I love it. With uh with that, I think that we'll we'll wrap this episode. Um, you know, let's let's go. We started with wrestling, we end with wrestling. Um no, we want to plant churches, we want to train church planters, and we want to do it together. And so next episode we'll talk about what we're doing with replanting and how we're working to serve churches and train replanters. And and I know that maybe one question that some folks might have is even just well, how do you do funding with residencies? And we'll we'll have another episode coming up this season on funding. That's one of our three priorities. And so, how we do funding, how we fund residents, how we fund church plants, and so got a lot of good stuff coming this season. Uh Reed, Peyton, thanks for jumping on joining me today. It's good to see you guys.