Exponential NEXT Podcast Episode 125

Series: Church on the Frontier

Description:

Some of the Church’s most important innovation is happening in neighborhoods and congregations that rarely receive the spotlight. Dhati Lewis of MyBLVD and Doug Beutler of Seeds of Change Network discuss contextual discipleship, urban mission, and the untapped potential of smaller churches. Together, they challenge the assumption that multiplication requires a large platform or extensive resources. This conversation explores how churches can move from survival to mission, develop leaders from within their communities, and rediscover a disciple-making identity rooted in the places God has already called them to serve.

Host:

Tom Planck, Innovation NEXT, Director

Guests:

Dhati Lewis – MyBLVD, Founder and President

Doug Beutler – Seeds of Change Network, Founder and CEO

Category: Innovation NEXT

Links shared in episode:

MyBLVD

Seeds of Change Network

We cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and assume that the way the gospel is communicated must never change. Think about the methods churches used in past generations. Well into the mid-80s, many churches were still delivering hellfire-and-brimstone sermons followed by an invitation. It seemed that one or two people would respond every week. What has happened since? 

Why do we not see churches giving hellfire-and-brimstone messages every Sunday, followed by an invitation? The reason is simple: People stopped responding.

Generations ago, the broader culture functioned as a tailwind for the church. Schools, government, communities, and the culture at large generally supported the church. Biblical knowledge was far more common in public life, and almost anyone you asked on the street knew who Jesus was and that He died for our sins. Invitations to salvation on a Sunday were like picking low-hanging fruit from a tree. But culture shifted, and so did the people living within it. 

Now, an entire generation has grown up without foundational scriptural knowledge, and to some, the person of Jesus feels as distant as a fable. Today, we must begin the process much earlier because so little low-hanging fruit remains. We must begin by planting and watering, allowing God to grow the tree itself before the message of salvation can be presented.

Scripturally, we can compare the two presentations of the gospel in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 and Paul’s sermon to the Athenians in Acts 17. These messages were completely different, yet both were appropriate for their respective cultures. 

Peter presented a direct message, quoting from Joel and David. His Jewish brothers and sisters knew the Scriptures and, much like those who responded to our traditional Sunday invitations to salvation, were ready to receive Christ. 

They were low-hanging fruit, eager to meet the Messiah for which they had longed. Paul’s approach to the Athenians, however, was completely different. He did not quote the Old Testament; instead, he quoted Greek poets. And instead of thousands accepting Christ, only a handful responded. Yet some believed, and the gospel took root in Athens.

The mindset to understand the different contexts takes more intentionality than ever before. “The way” the gospel is presented must be adjusted so that the message remains relevant to our rapidly changing world. Thus, cultural intelligence is needed more than ever to navigate this challenge. Pastors need to ask if they are preaching in Jerusalem or Athens, and use cultural intelligence, accordingly.

Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is the ability to function and relate effectively in culturally diverse situations. For Christians, however, CQ should be more than a leadership competency. It should help us become more effective at seeing, loving, understanding, and reaching the wonderful but different people God has placed around us.

We define culture simply as “the way we do things around here.” Notice that this focuses on “the way,” not “the why.” In other words, culture is expressed through forms, and those forms should not be confused with the unchanging mission they serve. As culture changes, the forms of ministry must also continue to adapt. Yet many churches have not paused long enough to define culture clearly or to identify the particular culture that has evolved to shape their own organizations.

When a church does not know how to think clearly about culture, invisible boundaries begin to form. Some are stronger than others. These boundaries are created by “the way we do things” repeated over time until they become part of the church’s structural identity. These unseen structures tend to communicate belonging in one of two ways: either you’re in or you’re out. Though unspoken and unwritten, they strongly shape whether first-time visitors feel a sense of belonging.

Some of the invisible, unspoken boundaries include:

• Ethnic and cultural sameness. People notice who is visible, who is revered, who has authority and responsibilities, etc. Who’s not included communicates more loudly than who is.
• Dress and appearance. Everyone is dressed in a similar style and/or brand of clothing. Do people look polished? Professional? Beautiful? All of these communicate what it takes to “fit in.”
• Socioeconomic assumptions. The cost to attend events, for meals, and retreats, childcare for small groups, quietly communicates an expectation and an assumption about the amount of disposable income required to belong.
• Family definitions. Have the families within your church changed over the last 20 years? If so, how? Has ministry adjusted to account for these changes?
• Political cues. Many times, everyone who is “in” knows exactly which side of the political aisle the church stands on. Keywords, jokes, and even applause reveal these boundaries over time. Those who disagree will eventually feel outside of the “in” crowd.
• Worship expressiveness. Is everyone expected to raise or not raise their hands during worship? How are visitors who do the opposite of the majority made to feel by those surrounding them? 

These are just a few ways invisible boundaries can appear to those walking through your doors. We might call these front-facing boundaries. Yet there is an even deeper invisible layer connected to the “we” who decide the way things are done. This layer is harder to see because the root decisions (and the people making them) are not as visible as ministry forms to most congregants.

Over time, the culture shaped by these decisions becomes harder to recognize and even harder to change, because of the necessary systems and processes built to support it. Many systems contribute to this, but the one with the greatest consequence is often tied to “the way” a church defines leadership.

Leadership looks different from culture to culture, and a church’s preferred leadership style is often culturally bound, shaped significantly by the past experiences and preferences of its founding pastors. Leaders who fit that preferred style are often identified early and empowered, while leaders with different characteristics may be overlooked or excluded.

Leadership styles, in particular, must be examined through a culturally intelligent lens so that a wider range of leaders can be recognized and empowered. Think of the many diverse leadership styles mentioned in Scripture. Rarely, does a church prefer more than one style of leadership.

With CQ, identifying invisible boundaries is only the beginning of the journey. The ultimate goal is not simply making outsiders feel more comfortable within the culture we have already created. It is to expand the culture itself.

Every church begins with a “we” who establish the original ways things are done. That is unavoidable. The problem comes when that original “we” quietly shapes what becomes THE permanent definition of who belongs and whose preferences, experiences, leadership styles, and perspectives matter.

A culturally intelligent church begins asking a different question: How can the “we” include more perspectives?

This does not mean abandoning theological convictions or allowing every preference to determine the direction of the church. The gospel itself does not change. However, the way the gospel is communicated, proclaimed, and demonstrated should change as the culture changes.

In Mark DeYmaz’s first book, Building a Healthy Multiethnic Church, he states that there is an important difference between assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation says, “You are welcome to join us, if you like to ‘do things’ the way ‘we’ already do them.” Accommodation says, “You are welcome here, and your presence may actually change the way we do some things around here.” The latter being much more difficult than the former.

As new people become part of the church, they are not merely invited to participate in an existing culture; over time, they are also given the opportunity to help shape it. Their perspectives begin to influence ministries. Their leadership gifts are recognized, even when they do not resemble the styles that have historically been valued. Their experiences begin to inform decisions. Their voices become part of the conversation about how the mission is carried out. Their voices are not changing core values, but instead are expanding the mission.

In other words, the goal is not to erase the culture of the church. Every church will always have a culture. The goal is to develop a culture flexible enough to continually make more room for the people God brings into it.

One of the clearest indicators of whether a church’s culture is actually expanding is this: Who gets to shape “the way we do things around here?”

When the people shaping the culture are largely homogeneous, the culture itself will naturally tend to reflect and favor their shared experiences, preferences, and assumptions. When the people shaping the culture come from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, the culture is more likely to expand in ways that make room for a broader range of people.

Hopefully, you can begin to see that the invisible boundaries created by culture are difficult to identify, and even more difficult to reshape so that they include a broader constituency. Here are some questions you can ask to help identify areas in your own church that may discourage diverse others from joining your mission.

• Who traditionally fits in? Who traditionally does not fit in? When you say, “they just didn’t fit in around here,” what does that actually mean? 
• What do those who are consistently elevated into leadership have in common?
• How do we define a committed member of the church? Time? Giving? Consistency in attendance? Volunteering?
• What happens when someone questions the way things are done?
• When those not of the dominant culture succeed, is it because our culture expanded, or because they had to assimilate to ours?

The message of the gospel should never change! However, the way that gospel is lived out, demonstrated, and proclaimed should continually evolve to reach the ever-changing world around us.

I have contributed plenty to that conversation. Six levels of adoption, agents that run your operations, sermon prep workflows, policy frameworks. All of it points toward more capacity.

This piece points the other way, and it is overdue.

The 2026 State of AI in the Church Survey found that 31 percent of church leaders are not comfortable using AI for pastoral care at all. Most people read that number as hesitancy. I read it as instinct. A third of the leaders surveyed are sensing a boundary that nobody has given them language for yet.

So let me try to give it language. Eleven tasks, then the single test underneath all of them.

Ministry tasks that should never go to AI

Task #1: Writing a message to someone in crisis.

A person texts you in genuine distress. Whatever you send back needs to come from a human being who knows their history and stopped what they were doing to answer.

Task #2: Drafting a funeral message for someone you knew.

Use AI to organize your notes. What you say about a person’s life in front of the people who loved them has to be yours.

Task #3: Any counseling note, ever.

What a person shared in confidence does not go into a chat window, summarized or anonymized or “just to help me think it through.”

Task #4: Discipline and restoration conversations.

Working through sin, betrayal, or removal from leadership makes the words and the timing pastoral judgment calls. A model does not know what this person can hear today.

Task #5: Deciding who gets benevolence.

Use AI to organize the application process. Weighing a family’s situation against a limited fund is a judgment about human dignity, and it belongs to people who will look that family in the eye.

Task #6: Public statements during a church crisis.

Moral failure, a lawsuit, a tragedy in the congregation. Your people read those words looking for evidence that leadership is present and honest. Generic language registers as exactly what it is.

Task #7: Personal apologies.

If you got it wrong, own it in your own words. An AI-assisted apology is a second offense.

Task #8: Anything involving a minor’s private situation.

A student’s disclosure, a custody complication, a mental health crisis. Write this into your policy as a hard boundary.

Task #9: Discernment about a person’s calling.

Whether someone is ready to lead, to be ordained, to plant, or to step back. That requires knowing a person over years, which is exactly what a model cannot do.

Task #10: Prayer offered as if it came from you.

Exploring language for a corporate prayer with AI is legitimate work. The problem begins when you send a congregant a machine-written prayer and let them believe you prayed it.

Task #11: The final theological call on what you teach.

Research it, outline it, pressure it with objections. The doctrine you put your name on in front of your congregation has to be something you have settled in yourself.

The one test

Every item on that list fails the same question, and it is short enough to use in real time.

Does this task require someone to be known?

Work that depends on relationship, history, private trust, or the presence of a person who will still be there tomorrow stays with a human. Production, organization, research, and drafting that any skilled person could do without knowing the individual goes to the machine.

That test does more work than a 20-page document, and a volunteer can apply it on the spot without calling anyone.

Writing eight small group discussion questions from Sunday’s text is a production task. Responding to the woman in that group who just disclosed her husband left requires knowing her, which puts it back in your hands.

Putting your building use policy into plain language is production. Telling a family their loved one’s memorial cannot happen on the date they wanted requires knowing them, so you make that call yourself.

Once the test is in your head, the 11 items above become obvious.

Why the boundary is theological before it is practical

The reason these tasks resist automation is the same reason the church has something to say in this moment.

Being known is close to the center of what we believe about persons. Scripture opens with a God who names things and closes with a promise that we will be fully known. In between, most of what happens is presence.

A model has read more about grief than you ever will, and it has never been in the room with a widow who cannot finish her sentence.

So the boundary describes what people are for, and it will hold after the next model release. Your congregation, whether they have words for it or not, is testing whether anyone is actually there. Every time you hand a moment of being known to a machine, you answer that question in a way you did not intend.

Give the production work away. Guard the presence with everything you have.

Put the line in writing

An instinct held by one leader is not a standard a team can follow. The 31 percent who feel this boundary need it written where every staff member and volunteer can find it.

That means a restricted-use section in your written AI policy naming these categories explicitly, along with a shared understanding of the data privacy risk inside your staff’s daily AI use.

It also means putting governance on your next elder agenda: who approves a tool, what happens to congregant information once it goes in, who reviews output before it reaches the congregation, and who is accountable when something goes wrong. Working through those AI governance questions together is how you protect trust before you need it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should pastors use AI for pastoral care?

AI is appropriate for preparation and research. The care itself belongs to a human being who is present with the person, because it requires knowledge of their history and their trust.

What should a church AI policy prohibit?

Counseling notes, crisis communication, minors’ private situations, benevolence decisions, discipline conversations, personal apologies, and any confidential congregant information entered into an AI tool.

Is it wrong for a pastor to use AI at all?

No. Research, drafting, administration, scheduling, content production, and organization are all appropriate uses. The boundary falls at any task that requires a person to be known.

How do I know if a ministry task is safe for AI?

Ask whether the work requires someone to be known. Anything depending on relationship, history, or private trust stays with a human. Production and organization that any skilled person could handle without knowing the individual is safe for AI.

One question for your own week

Look at your own week. Find the moment you were tempted to let a tool handle something that required you to be present.

What was it? And what would it have cost the person on the other side?

Exponential NEXT Podcast Episode 124

Series: Urban Missions 101: Why America’s Cities Need Missionaries Too

Description:

In this closing episode, Dhati Lewis and Missie Branch reflect on the biggest themes from the series and explore why urban missionaries need intentional investment, coaching, community, and care to thrive for the long haul.

This conversation is part of a collaboration between Exponential NEXT and MyBLVD, working together to equip and encourage leaders serving on mission in cities across the country.

Host:

Dhati Lewis – Urban Missions NEXT, Director

Guest:

Missie Branch – MyBLVD, CEO

Category: Urban Missions NEXT

In recent years, a quiet shift has been unfolding: House churches, micro-communities, and simple gatherings are rising alongside more traditional congregations. This isn’t just a decentralization trend – it’s a diversification movement.

In the Anglican Church in London, they’ve begun to call this kind of environment a “mixed ecology” – a term written about by Ed Olsworth-Peter – to describe a landscape where multiple forms of church can flourish side by side. This mixed ecology might be one of the most hopeful signs of renewal in our time.

At Dwellings, our mission is to help people cultivate communities and house churches around the presence of Jesus. These expressions resemble the early Church in their simplicity. We’ve helped a lot of ordinary people find confidence and tools to lead new communities in their living rooms or local spaces – we are thrilled to see so many stepping into their identity as a part of the priesthood. But what has surprised us most is how many traditional church staff have come our way, also expressing a hunger for something new.

Pastors and ministry leaders are sensing a deep stirring – a longing for a simpler, more participatory, Spirit-led way of doing church, with more distributed leadership and deeper relational connection. In many cases, these leaders are exploring house church models quietly – planting new communities outside of work hours, or simply holding a vision that doesn’t yet have a place in their current role.

Whether you serve in a megachurch, a neighborhood parish, or a living room community, this moment is an invitation. Instead of being a time to defend “the way we’ve always done it,” it’s a time to dream. This is a moment to move past binary thinking and embrace a more creative, more nuanced vision of what you might not have considered as a possibility.

There are a few practical ways traditional churches can begin to engage this longing – not by replacing what exists, but by expanding what’s possible.

1. Launch Your Pioneers

Across the globe, entire denominations are beginning to embrace both traditional and house church expressions – not as competing strategies, but as complementary parts of a bigger vision. Baptists, Pentecostals, Churches of Christ, and many nondenominational networks are launching house churches alongside traditional congregations, often under the same organizational umbrella. Even the Church of England, with its centuries-old liturgy and parish structure, is planting house churches across the U.K. – a sign that new forms can emerge even within deeply rooted systems.

This growing movement is based on the belief that a mixed ecology – where multiple forms of church exist in mutual support – might actually be one of the most faithful responses to our current moment.

Zooming in, many local churches are beginning to live this out. In Australia, for example, congregations are planting house churches as extensions of their church family. These smaller communities stay tethered to the broader church’s identity and leadership but operate with significant freedom. They meet mostly in homes, scattered in neighborhoods or around shared missions, and occasionally rejoin the full church body for worship and vision.

This model creates space for a specific kind of person: the pioneer. These are the people in your church who are wired to start something new. They often feel like misfits in traditional structures – not because they’re rebellious, but because they’re built for building. They’re longing for deeper discipleship, more mission, and simpler gatherings that center the presence of God.

Instead of stifling their instincts – or losing them altogether – what if we released them on purpose?

My friend Bree Mills from Australia spoke of a phrase that captures this beautifully: the missional tithe. Just as individuals tithe a portion of their income to God, churches can tithe a portion of their people – especially their pioneers – to launch new expressions of church outside the walls.

This doesn’t mean you’re “losing” them to somewhere else. It means you’re sending them intentionally – commissioning a few families to start a house church, releasing a staff member to pilot a new micro-gathering, or backing a lay leader to reach a network that wouldn’t walk into a sanctuary.

The missional tithe reframes what looks like subtraction as multiplication. It’s not shrinking – it’s strategic sowing. It’s recognizing that what you give away often grows faster than what you try to keep.

Of course, this requires courageous leadership. Leaders who are humble and secure. Leaders who don’t idolize their systems or equate success with how many people are in the room. But for those willing to let go, launching pioneers can bring fresh vision and momentum – not just to those sent, but to the entire church.

And it’s not just theory. On a recent Dwellings cohort trip to London, we visited traditional parishes where renewal is happening in both the sanctuary and the living room. These leaders aren’t choosing one model over the other – they’re holding both.

For churches that are full on Sundays or feeling a bit stagnant, launching pioneers might be the best next step. It doesn’t require abandoning your current form. But it might help you recapture your missional edge – releasing people into the kind of leadership, discipleship, and innovation your city and church need.

2. Change Your Entire Rhythm

Some churches have taken things even further – by re-centering their entire rhythm around smaller gatherings.

At River & Way in California, the weekly structure shifted from a large weekly service to a model centered on house churches. Small communities now meet in homes three Sundays a month, led by trained leaders who serve communion, invite prayer, baptize new believers, and carry the spiritual weight of shepherding their group. Then, once a month, everyone gathers in a rented venue for a shared time of worship, vision, and celebration of all God is doing in the small.

The shift reflects a deep conviction: that discipleship – not production – should be the beating heart of the church. Scholars estimate Jesus spent over 80% of His time with His 12 disciples. Churches like River & Way are aligning their structures around that same priority – moving energy away from the stage and toward spiritual formation.

This more drastic shift requires prayerful discernment, robust leader training, and high levels of trust. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t come without cost – some people may leave. But others will lean in more deeply, drawn by a model that prioritizes presence, spiritual depth, and shared life.

This hybrid approach is especially helpful for churches sensing that God is inviting them into something more relational and sustainable. It can also be a lifeline for congregations navigating financial strain – offering a way to stay together while adapting to the reality of releasing staff, selling buildings, or reimagining overhead. For churches ready to realign their primary form, this model opens a powerful path forward: one centered on people, presence, and multiplication.

3. Interrupt the Ordinary in Small Ways

Not every church is ready to restructure or release pioneers. But almost every church can experiment for a week. One of the simplest ways to introduce house church expressions is to interrupt the ordinary – inviting your community to try something different, even just for one Sunday.

Imagine pausing your regular Sunday gathering for one week – or for a short stretch of time like Advent, Lent, or the month of July – and scattering your people into homes. It doesn’t require a structural overhaul. It just takes some vision, preparation, and a willingness to let people experience church in a different context.

We’ve seen churches call these House Church Sundays or something similar. These Sundays are framed as sacred experiments, not permanent shifts – giving people a taste of deeper community, shared meals, Spirit-led conversation, and simplicity. People who’ve never led before are invited to host. Less trained worship leaders have to rise up, and people realize they can serve communion or lead a Bible discussion on a Sunday morning.

This interruption allows pastors to model trust in the priesthood of all believers, even if just for one Sunday. Some churches provide a simple guide like our Gathering Guide – or they make their own. It’s participatory, relational, and powerful.

You might be surprised how many people come alive in this setting. For some, these smaller settings spark new relationships or even give birth to more permanent gatherings down the road. Others return to the large gathering with a fresh sense of vision and ownership.

Some leaders designate entire months – like July, when rhythms naturally shift – to scatter the church into homes, parks, and neighborhood spaces. Some churches open extra homes for people who aren’t in small groups, expanding connection points and giving people a chance to find belonging in a new way.

These kinds of “interruptions” aren’t just calendar decisions. They’re formational moments – where people get to experience a different kind of church and carry that experience forward. They help normalize alternative models without requiring everyone to adopt them. And they remind the whole church that we are the church, wherever we gather.

Interrupting the ordinary in this small way is helpful to churches who want to experiment without long-term commitment – especially those who sense that God is inviting them into something new, but need a low-pressure first step.

Conclusion

What if we didn’t have to choose one model over another – but could cultivate ecosystems where different forms can play their part? When we honor both the heritage and the hunger – when we make room for structure and spontaneity, tradition and innovation – we create space for something vibrant and Spirit-breathed to emerge.

What if we’re being invited into a moment where imagination gets to take the lead? This isn’t about abandoning the old or idolizing the new. It’s about weaving them together – faithfully, prayerfully, and creatively – for the sake of a church that’s alive, adaptable, and deeply rooted in the presence of God.

So if you’re a traditional church leader, consider this your invitation. You don’t have to overhaul everything. But you can try one of these three ways to begin incorporating the best of the house church model into your leadership – right now.

Because the question isn’t which form is right – but how can we all respond to what God is doing now?

The wind that turns the turbines provides the energy that offers electricity for businesses, schools, and homes. There is something so captivating to my heart about knowing that I can have great impact and still be unseen, hidden, and free. I want to be like the wind.

Servant leadership is the model for ministry that Jesus gives us to follow. It’s a leadership that sets up the other for greater – sometimes greater than what I can do, and other times, greater than what they believed they were able to do.

One of my greatest joys as a mother was seeing my sons take their first steps. What a magical moment. To see your baby take wobbly steps toward you as you smile and cheer and celebrate. Watching toddlers as they start to feed themselves, elementary-age kids learning to put their toys away, and hopefully, by the time they’re in college, learning to make their beds. Once they have learned all the things we can teach them, our expectation, our hope, is that they will find their own path in life and take with them all the things we taught them and grow beyond.

Discipleship and mentorship for leaders are similar to raising kids. At some point, we need to find joy in the sadness of seeing them go and, on many occasions, outgrow us.

There are more than 300,000 Christian churches in the United States alone, and less than 1 percent are megachurches. For those of us who are leading smaller churches, the assignment is not different. We too can have the kind of impact that develops great leaders, and I would say we have the possibility of offering a stealth-like impact that doesn’t draw attention but deploys people of faith into all the spheres of society.

Who Wants to Disappear?

I have been pastoring for over 20 years and in the last decade, Barnabas’ example of leadership has become the kind of leader I aspire to be. Can I be the leader who embodies wind-like qualities, where those who come under my leadership become a source of light and hope to others?

Barnabas understood his assignment. He was willing to disciple Paul. Imagine having to walk alongside someone who would seemingly be a know-it-all, to the degree that he was willing to kill those who disagreed with him? Many leaders have quickly dismissed those who come with experience and arrogance, with too many opinions and questions. But Barnabas opts out of the bright light and becomes a steady mentor to Paul, and then again to John Mark.

Barnabas is not the author of the letters we see in scripture the way Paul is, but the effects of his faithful leadership and mentorship are still igniting hearts as we read the epistles of his mentee Paul.

What would it look like for us as leaders to reimagine what the win actually is? What if we begin to count the number of people who have come through our leadership and have moved on to other assignments and opportunities to serve in the Kingdom? What if developing people in the local church is the training that is necessary to release these individuals to plant a church, to join a church-planting team, to serve in a church-adjacent ministry, to work in corporate spaces, education, medicine, or union labor? Wouldn’t we want to disciple people to have a healthy, grounded, and anchored faith that is now made available to the world outside of the church?

Our Christianity can become naturally self-serving. We want to build the dream we have for our ministry, and we are convinced others are called to build our dream. The question for me would be, what if God has given others gifts, abilities, and dreams of their own? What if joining us for a season is how God will strengthen, sharpen, and reveal more gifting in them? What if their dream is developed, and their skills are strategically expanded because they step into building with us?

This means that their dream and my dream are meant to build each other up, not to prop up myself and my vision. Often, as we build in our areas of ministry, we want others to become beholden to our vision, and when they leave, it feels like abandonment or even betrayal. What if they are no more meant to stay than our kids are once they have become adults?

In Pete Scazzero’s The Emotionally Healthy Leader, he says, “One of the ways we know we are intentionally using our power to come under people is when we do something difficult and hard for us because it will benefit someone.”

Are you feeling the pain? Are you familiar with this sense of loss? Did we forget that wind is only a part of the strategy God uses? Yes, wind is a powerful and invisible source. As leaders, we have the opportunity to use our wind abilities to help others light up cities, to be the wind in someone else’s sails, to be the wind that blows strong enough to create seed dispersal so that pollen and seeds are carried to new areas.

Saying this may sound hyper-spiritual, like I know how to do this really well. You should know I am familiar with the sadness of seeing people I thought would build with me for a lifetime go on to what is next. I have cried. I have brought my sincere frustrations to the Lord and invited Him to sit with me, to hold my bummed-out heart.

How I Redirect Feelings of Loss

We all have feelings that emerge when people transition out. For some of us, what we feel when people leave can range from sadness to disappointment and even anger. I have felt all of those feelings.

There are so many resources and great articles that can help you navigate this sense of loss, and for today, I will share some of the ways in which the Lord and I have processed these moments of transition. I hope that the following can be helpful to your leader heart.

When an individual comes through the leadership of my church, I want them to encounter the way God is telling His story in our community of faith in Long Beach, California. Family systems communicate specific values that are taught or transmitted through love and conviction, and when you encounter family members outside of the house, those lessons can be evident.

In the Chavez household (mi familia), when there are people visiting, you don’t stay in your room the entire time. You are expected to come out and say hello and engage, even if only for a short period. If my sons know you and they see you at the grocery store or the beach or the mall, you can be sure they will approach you and say hello. That’s what we Chavezes do. Our family says “I love you” easily and often. Our boys say “I love you” to their friends, their cousins, their grandparents, and to me and my husband all the time.

As people come through our ministry, there are traces of how you lead that stay with them, for better or for worse, but hopefully more of the better part. When someone transitions out, I ask myself, “Did they leave better?” In other words, are there lessons they have learned they have permanently marked their lives and meaningful ways? 

Are there things they learned in our community of faith that have changed them? In other words, does this individual have an understanding of the Gospel and the mission that looks more like the heart of God because our paths crossed? When I know their life was enriched in some way, then my hope is that they will continue to be faithful followers of Jesus wherever they go.

When someone leaves, I ask myself, “Did their experience under my leadership give them a view of our faith that transcends culture and politics?” Are they able to love others and not disparage them because they think differently? This is so foundational to the witness of God’s people and the Gospel in any era. Our love for others ought to confound the world as God’s love for us confounds us. I would love to know that the people who transition out of my leadership have an allergic reaction to sitting under any teaching that would encourage hate, dissension, or bigotry.

Another question I ask myself is, “Did they feel loved beyond their assignment?” Did they experience the presence of God through His people in seasons that were difficult in their heart, family, marriage, career, etc.? This is important to me because I know what it feels like to walk through challenging seasons feeling accompanied by the Lord and His people.

Then there are the individuals who exit because of their calling. So, “Are they leaving because they are saying yes to a new invitation from Jesus?” Is their transition out happening because they have decided to follow Jesus beyond the comforts of our leadership? Are they saying yes to planting a church, starting an outreach, or going to live on mission within or outside of the country?

In these instances, I often feel sadness and a deep sense of pride. I feel the weight of praying for them with a new passion and even a new tenderness because I know the faith and courage it takes to follow Jesus beyond what is safe.

If I can get a yes for all three of these, fantastic! But sometimes it is a yes for at least one. My question to you would be, what are your three questions that could potentially help you release others more graciously and kindly – to your own leader heart, to your own soul? So that when they leave, you have a clear sense that your assignment in their life is complete, at least for this season, because many times, they have returned.

We are invited with the Savior to have a front-row view into the lives of people He is transforming. There are individuals, marriages, and families that will be forever changed because we committed to serving, leading, and shepherding.

The impact that we can have, like the wind, will go beyond anything we could have ever dreamed or imagined.

Exponential NEXT Podcast Episode 123

Series: Urban Missions 101: Why America’s Cities Need Missionaries Too

Description:

What does contextualization actually mean, and why does it matter in urban missions? Daniel Yang brings theological and cultural insight to the conversation, helping listeners understand how cities shape Gospel ministry today.

This conversation is part of a collaboration between Exponential NEXT and MyBLVD, working together to equip and encourage leaders serving on mission in cities across the country.

Host:

Dhati Lewis – Urban Missions NEXT, Director

Guest:

Daniel Yang – World Relief, National Director of Churches of Welcome

Category: Urban Missions NEXT

By urban, I do not simply mean downtown skylines, trendy neighborhoods, or inner city. I mean dense and diverse communities, particularly majority-minority contexts where cultures, socioeconomic realities, and worldviews collide every day.

Today, more than 80% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, and that percentage continues to grow. Our largest cities are also some of our most ethnically diverse. The nations have literally come to us. What once required crossing oceans now often requires crossing neighborhoods. The Great Commission has not become easier, but it has become closer.

Cities have always played a strategic role in the advancement of the gospel. The Apostle Paul consistently planted churches in influential urban centers like Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth because he understood that when the gospel takes root in a city, it has the potential to spread far beyond it.

This conviction has also been shaped by Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. He writes, “I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22, CSB). Throughout verses 19-23, Paul describes a missionary posture marked by intentional cultural engagement. He willingly adapted himself not by compromising the gospel, but by contextualizing his ministry so more people might encounter Christ.

That passage has become the lens through which I think about church planting, urban ministry, and missionary strategy.

Urban Missions Deserve the Same Support Given to International Missions

For decades, the global church has understood that international missionaries need more than calling and courage. We commission them, pray for them, raise financial support, provide coaching, create accountability, and foster relational communities to help them remain healthy and effective for the long haul. We recognize that cross-cultural missions is demanding work, and we expect those missionaries to need intentional care if they are going to thrive.

Yet many urban missionaries serving in America’s most complex mission fields are expected to endure without that same level of intentional support.

They live in the communities they serve. They navigate rising costs,  cultural fragmentation, spiritual skepticism, political polarization, community trauma, and increasing ministry demands, often with limited resources and few opportunities for support. They are expected to plant churches, disciple leaders, serve neighborhoods, address community needs, raise financial support, and often maintain additional employment all without the support systems we have come to consider normal for international missionaries. 

If we are serious about reaching our cities, we must become equally serious about sustaining the missionaries God has called to them.

Urban Ministry Requires More Than One Expression

While urban missionaries are expected to engage some of the most complex mission fields in North America, they rarely receive the one thing that international missionaries are intentionally given: the privilege of focus.

When churches send missionaries overseas, they recognize that ministry itself is the assignment. Those missionaries are expected to spend their time learning the language, building relationships, making disciples, developing leaders, and establishing healthy churches. We intentionally remove as many distractions as possible because we understand that mission requires focus. Yet urban ministry often requires its leaders to carry more than one expression of mission.

Urban missionaries pastor churches while leading nonprofits. They organize community development initiatives. They oversee budgets, manage staff, navigate fundraising, write grants, develop partnerships, and often maintain outside employment simply to remain financially stable. At the same time, they are responding to neighborhood crises, mentoring emerging leaders, counseling families, and faithfully proclaiming the gospel.

None of these responsibilities are unimportant.

In fact, many of them are necessary because urban ministry demands a holistic witness. The gospel speaks to both spiritual transformation and the tangible realities people experience every day.

As Mark DeYmaz argues in The Coming Revolution of Church Economics, churches can no longer rely exclusively on tithes and offerings to sustain ministry in today’s changing landscape. That observation is particularly true in urban environments, where economic realities often require ministry leaders to think beyond traditional church structures.

In complex urban environments, leaders often have to think across three spaces at once:

• The Church:  discipling, shepherding, and forming people in the way of Jesus.
• The Nonprofit: addressing the tangible needs of the community.
• The Marketplace: creating sustainable models that help fund and support the mission.

This is not a distraction from the mission. It is an intentional adaptation to the realities of urban ministry.

The Sustainability Crisis

While healthy urban ministry increasingly requires leaders who can think missionally across multiple expressions without losing sight of the gospel, the ministry models have evolved, but the support model often has not.

Eventually, the weight begins to show.

Burnout increases. Families become exhausted. Financial pressures mount. Leaders become isolated. Churches plateau. Missionaries quietly leave ministry. The challenge before us is no longer simply planting churches.

The challenge is sustaining healthy urban missionaries for the long haul.

Urban missionaries need coaching from experienced practitioners who understand the unique pressures of their context. They need relational communities where they are known rather than merely celebrated. They need financial partners who see their ministry as missionary work worthy of long-term investment. They need rhythms of rest and renewal that protect their souls before a crisis arrives. They need collaborative networks where wisdom, resources, and encouragement are shared.

We Must Rethink How We Send

Urban missionaries need the same kinds of support we have long understood international missionaries require.

Because they minister in the United States, we assume they have access to everything they need. Because they speak our language, we forget they are navigating radically different cultural realities. Because they live nearby, we overlook the fact that they are serving on one of North America’s most strategic mission fields.

Imagine what could happen if churches adopted urban missionaries with the same intentionality they adopt international missionaries. Imagine if they received consistent prayer, financial partnership, coaching, care, and relational encouragement. Imagine what would happen if our greatest concern was not merely how many missionaries we commissioned, but how many remained healthy and fruitful twenty years later.

A Call to Sustain the Mission

The future of urban mission will not be determined simply by how many leaders God calls. I believe God is still calling faithful men and women into our cities every day.

The question is whether the Church will build the kind of ecosystem that allows those missionaries to flourish.

Every follower of Jesus has a role to play. Pastors can identify and commission urban missionaries. Churches can budget for their long-term care. Partners can invest in sustainable ministry rather than short-term projects. Networks can provide coaching, collaboration, and encouragement. Together, we can create environments where urban missionaries remain healthy enough to serve faithfully for decades.

Because the greatest need facing urban missions today is not a lack of calling. It is a lack of sustained support.

If we are committed to advancing the gospel by all possible means, we must expand our view of missions. We have learned to send missionaries across the sea. Now we must care for the missionaries God has already sent to our cities with the same commitment.

We’ve all heard the proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

I have always known this to be wise advice, but I have never experienced it to be truer than when I started working with youth. 

In our desire to see the next generation of Christ followers raised up, we began to experience that it always takes more than evangelism and discipleship to see someone truly surrender to Jesus. Yes, building relationships and trust is absolutely necessary, good gospel presentations are important, and discipleship is an essential vessel to growth… but none of these things alone could solve the problems that were haunting our students each day. 

Getting students to a Bible study felt almost irrelevant when they were on the verge of expulsion from school because of low attendance and needed groceries at home because they didn’t have enough for two meals a day. 

A gospel presentation could get them to pray a prayer to Jesus, but it wasn’t keeping them from getting in fights every other week which led to suspensions every month. 

Doing weekly discipleship got our students in the Word, but it wasn’t helping them get hired at jobs to make enough money to meet their basic high school needs because they didn’t have any financial support from family. And all of this also meant that graduating from high school was going to be almost impossible to accomplish with the challenge of getting to school every day, not getting suspended or expelled, and completing everything they needed to in order to be successful. 

We know the gospel is powerful and transformative! But we were experiencing a lack of transformation that could actually help our students graduate and enter into the world as functioning adults. We weren’t seeing the transformation that could break cycles of poverty and joblessness and change the trajectory of an entire family.

Making whole-life disciples

When we are working with students, we are actually working with a web of life complexities that interplay with each other and affect the person as a whole. The way I often talk about it with adults is that we want to develop whole people, our mentorship has to be “whole-life discipleship,” developing students who are physically, mentally, emotionally, socially AND spiritually strong. What that means is, it’s not enough to focus on one of these areas solely. 

But as a minister of the gospel, my natural bent and desire is to pour into the spiritual aspects of their lives; to introduce them to the one who makes broken things beautiful, redeems them, and restores all of creation to the way it was meant to be. I want to make disciples who will follow Jesus for a lifetime. And yet, to be faithful to our calling to these precious ones entrusted to us, we must be committed to the flourishing of all the parts of their lives, not just the spiritual ones. 

So while we’re teaching them to be dependent on Jesus through prayer, we also need to teach them how to have a boundary within an unhealthy parent relationship while still honoring them. While they’re learning how to spend time with Jesus in the secret place, they also need to learn how to interact with people in a professional setting, learning soft skills like eye contact, greeting people, and asking good questions. While they’re reading and studying the life of Jesus in the gospels, we need to also make sure they are creating resumes and learning how to interview so that they can be hirable and able to work hard and follow through with commitments even when it’s hard. And this is where Kingdom eco-systems are birthed and cultivated: we can’t do whole-life discipleship well by ourselves. It’s not possible to be the one who can develop a young disciple physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually on our own!

Humility, partnership and collaboration

In our humanness, we love to be “the sole discipler.” What I mean by that is when our students are asked who has impacted their lives the most, we love to be the one they share about. But these students don’t belong to us alone and interdependent relationships can only happen when we acknowledge that it takes much more than just me and my gifts to make healthy disciples. 

Making disciples is a mandate from scripture. But to make disciples within a Kingdom eco-system, we have to take our independent heroism out of it. We have to begin to see our work and mission within an interconnected network of relationships that all serve the purpose of making whole-life disciples who can change the trajectory of families and communities. 

This is going to require a posture of partnership and good partnership only happens in relationship. It will be the collaboration of several churches, para-churches, and lay ministry leaders partnering together to pursue, equip, and mentor youth that creates a Kingdom eco-system. 

It will be the contribution of local business owners, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, and artists that expand the eco-system and help train the next generation of the workforce doing excellent work that is a part of the mission of God, pushing back against the fall, and contributing to the flourishing of humanity. 

It takes redistributing resources and connections to open up relationships that will impact our students in all areas of their development. As our students cultivate relationships within our networks, and get trained and poured into by people leading well in every sector, their world is opened up in ways it would not have been if it was just a singular discipler or church. This is the power of a Kingdom eco-system.

What this looks like for us

We lead an organization that works with under-resourced youth called AZ Reach. We are on campus at a few under-resourced high schools as a civic organization running support programs to come alongside students and the administration at these schools.

The student support team calls us their “teammates.” All of our staff and volunteers working with students are a part of local churches because we know the power of healthy adults who love Jesus, mentor students, and create natural pathways to faith communities. 

We had a student transfer into one of our schools and she got connected to every program we lead, as a result she began to follow Jesus and now goes to our church, leads in youth ministry, and started a justice and advocacy group on campus. 

We want AZ Reach to be a platform where churches can wrap their arms around local public schools, students, and teachers! 

We also pastor a church plant and we own and operate a coffee shop that our church meets out of on Sundays. We do an internship where students work at the coffee shop to learn soft skills. As an intern in that program, you have mandatory professional development and work readiness training where they’re doing resume building, character development, professionalism, and soft skills and also assessments to learn more about who they are as they decide what they want to do with their lives in the future. Those workshops are led by volunteers from other churches in our city who partner with us. 

Our volunteer teams are staffed with people from churches in the community, close to the schools they serve at. Many of our students have the grit and drive to make money, but not training or knowledge to make it happen. 

So, we started leading a young entrepreneurs program for students to learn how to start a business, financial literacy, branding, marketing, etc. We pay them for each session so that it’s like a real internship and they get to meet with local business owners each week to ask questions and learn from a real entrepreneur’s journey. In our six-week faith and work internship, we partnered with two other parachurches to do theological training on vocation and also work experience in different sectors of labor. 

We partner with businesses and organizations for our students to get work experience with them. A group of artists and non-profits in the community have helped us raise money to give scholarships to seniors headed off to trade school or college. We got to give a chunk of money for school to eight seniors, investing in this next season of their lives. 

We have Young Life staff who are members at our church, making it possible to introduce many of the students to them. This past spring, we watched a senior student who we have mentored since he was a freshman and not connected to faith at all, teach a Bible lesson to the Young Life group. We started an apprenticeship program in collaboration with another non-profit working with youth to develop youth workers who will raise up the next generation. They’ll go through a year of deep discipleship, formation, and practicum hours serving youth in both our organizations. 

Almost everything we touch is in collaboration and partnership with someone else because we’ve seen the life-changing impact of working in interconnected Kingdom eco-systems. My prayer is that you begin to cultivate the collaborative soil of partnership where the rich environment of transformation begins to take root. It takes a village, friends. 

Exponential NEXT Podcast Episode 122

Series: Urban Missions 101: Why America’s Cities Need Missionaries Too

Description:

What does it take to sustain ministry in today’s cities? In this two-part conversation, Dhati Lewis is joined by James Hobson and Pete Contreras to explore the realities of urban mission beyond traditional ministry models. From entrepreneurship, nonprofits, and creative funding strategies to serving across multiple ministry contexts at once, they discuss why many urban leaders are embracing a both/and approach to ministry. These episodes offer a candid look at the challenges, opportunities, and mindset shifts required to build lasting Gospel impact in the city.

This conversation is part of a collaboration between Exponential NEXT and MyBLVD, working together to equip and encourage leaders serving on mission in cities across the country.

Host:

Dhati Lewis – Urban Missions NEXT, Director

Guests:

James Hobson – Hill City Community Church (Lynchburg), Pastor

Pete Contreras – New Vision Church (San Diego), Pastor

Category: Urban Missions NEXT