CEP SEASON TWO EP: 25 - WITH GUEST ANTHONY CHRISTOPHER
By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger
The Church Explained podcast is a conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.
Welcome to Season 2, Episode: 25 of the Church Explained Podcast with guest Anthony Christopher
A Short bio
Anthony Christopher is the messaging pastor at Reverb Church in Saint Augustine, Florida. He oversees all things worship, production, digital and communications across the church. He also serves on the executive leadership team, helping drive vision and healthy decisions for the wider church.
In part two of our conversation, Anthony shares some key principles used at Reverb Church to successfully onboard new team members.
SHOW NOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
CREATED BY AI - SO NOT 100% accurate.
David Mckeown 0:00
Hey, welcome to the church explained podcast, a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church. Today, we've got a fantastic guest joining with us, we've got a guy called Anthony Christopher the hallway from Florida. So welcome, Anthony to the show today.
Anthony Christopher 0:24
So we got to root those little boxes up, but you need to be candid with that. And just be like, Hey, is that is that a little box? Or is that actually a good thing? So the CO ownership, Extreme Ownership and the candidness, within our team has been the thing that I've been focusing on, I actually I actively pull my team out when I don't see candidate when I when I don't see ownership, I'll say, Hey, man, don't tell me that. So one of the words that are banned, sorry, I go for it, you'll you'll hear this a lot. If you're in a Church where ownership doesn't exist, I think we should do this. Or lose, we give we a name. Because when you say we you're afraid to say I think such and such should do this, or you yourself are unwilling to do that thing. So I banned the word we have to give a name, and who's in charge of that thing. So those are the things that you know, I'm learning myself and quoting myself out on when I say I think we should, you know, because I'm guilty of that, too. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.
David Mckeown 1:27
Yeah, great, great stuff there. I think I think one of the things that's really common through that is this idea of being all in. And if you describe your role, and some of the stuff, you're saying, there's this idea about being all in, you know, you're able to move around roles, you're able to move around departments. And there's something about having that, I think, in the life of a Church where that becomes the cultural norm, that actually, you know, we're all looking at and, and even if it's not our role, really, it is our role, because we're all serving together. There's something about having that healthy culture that. So you know, because sometimes people will say, Well, I'm not on the host team this week. So I'll just go and do nothing. But really, we're never really off. Right? We're always really still on our way. And that's how to build a great Church, when we're all always looking around whether we're on that week or not. We're still really on day, we've got to give people space to rest and breathe, and that's okay. But like if we see something an issue, I think, as Church leaders, we ought to be able to look and actually think, okay, let's solve that. Nii. We don't wait for someone else to solve it some other day. We got to work on those things now. So yeah, I like that idea of ownership, Extreme Ownership. And all in the gather. I think that's the thing. That really doesn't make a difference. And we can't be thinking of the Saviour around mindset for ministry. I wonder if you could speak into Adalind. But just from your experience, and maybe Nathan, you can drop in as well, just this idea of having the right mindset for ministry?
Anthony Christopher 3:03
Yeah, my, my answer might be a little bit different. So I the truth, and here's the honest truth. I don't deserve to be in ministry. I have no background, and I have no formal education. And I certainly haven't grown up in it. But for some reason, God has me in it. And I think one of the things that has helped me other than the fact that you know, the basics, like you read your Bible, you love the Lord and all that stuff, is, I genuinely think how can I be like, in everything I literally think I can be. And that's helped me. So and I say that because remember, at the beginning of our conversation, I said that we as leaders should be problem solvers. So I literally approached everything I face in ministry as a challenge, and an opportunity for me to grow. So my mindset is, how hard can it be? Because I want to grow because I want to learn something new. Because I want to help relieve something of my boss or from someone else like I, you know, I'm not a production director. But I do have a great one with me. And I will ask him a lot of questions just because I want to grow. I listen to the things that he listens to, because I want to be able to speak, the language that he speaks. To the mindset is a constant growth mindset. I'm constantly curious. Because the more information I have, the more knowledge I have, the better I can talk to people. And, again, tying this to the second seat. Because I oversee you know, things like production. I shouldn't expect my lead Pastor to understand all things production, but I am the person who translate the lingo that comes with production, guys, because honestly, they talk in a language that even I don't understand. I need to understand that translate it into words that my boss can understand, and kind of bring the two together. So you've got to have that mindset of always being curious. So It's no joke. There's a podcast. And I'm sure Sam, your production guy who's listening, knows about this. There's a podcast called MSU, which is dedicated to Church production guys are promising 95% of what they say, goes over my head, I have no idea what they're talking about. But I religiously listened to it. Because I want to be able to communicate with my production director and grow in my level of understanding. Because to be the effective messaging partner that I am, I need to know those things. So in terms of mindset, I think we've got to have a mindset of how hard can it be? I'm constantly curious, I'm constantly asking questions. And I'm constantly coming back to the first question. Wanting to take things off someone's plate, I want to be able to solve problems.
Nathan Benger 5:49
Yeah, I love that. And I relate really well, with the production and the language. We got a great lighting guy, but you ask him about lights. And yeah, it just goes straight over my head. So I leave that one to some so well. But I think as well, for me, it's the mindset of and you mentioned it earlier, we all want the best, we all want the Church to grow, we all want the best. And I think many times we can we sometimes when we come towards issues, or we're talking about issues, or we're navigating change, as we were talking about, sometimes we can be a bit afraid to say things because it's like, you know, but actually, it's a mindset of No, we all want this to work. We all want it to grow. And it's and it's building that. And so, no, I really relate with what you're saying. And, you know, having that mindset of growth mindset, this is an opportunity. You know, even with present problems, this is an opportunity for us. And so yeah, I think that's great.
Anthony Christopher 7:00
Can I add one more thing? I think what I've noticed is sometimes in ministry, we take ourselves to series, like, you know, I've got XYZ degree, I've got a master's in divinity, not saying any of those things along but sometimes bizarre titles, we just take ourselves too serious. And I think, what, what if, when Jesus was talking about, you know, come to me like a child, he was saying, like, stop, stop taking yourself so seriously, just enjoy being appreciated. And I think in ministry, we don't just enjoy the question sometimes. And that's a good mindset to have. And so I genuinely believe that you as a leader and me as a leader can learn from absolutely everyone, and so on. So I would encourage those that have been in ministry way longer than I have. And I've only been in full time for about seven years. Like, just go meet with your interns and say, hey, what can you teach me today? Like, that's a that's, that's humbling, right. But I promise you, one, you will learn something, but to you'll be speaking volumes that entail that you have or that the only first year staff member, you know, everyone has something to share, and honestly, on an on a on a sidenote, feel free to edit this out, feel free to edit anything out. You know, when you go to conferences, I'm at actively seeking those that are quiet, unless you go into conferences and find the people sitting by themselves and ask them their stories. Because the truth is, I could get something out of you know, the person who just spoke on platform I could, and I will. But what if there's a story in the rough? What if there's a diamond in the rough to phrase, like, I've actively gone out in competition and found those people and I still have meaningful conversations with those guys today. And they told me way more honestly, than one of those main sessions. So I would honestly like seek out those that are on the fringes, because you may be shocked and surprised to see the amount of wisdom that that is, they will have a lot more insight then when you really
David Mckeown 9:08
go along some of the stuff you're saying there, Orion, this idea of just seeking people light, and an almost maybe just seeking out not just the most obvious people, but the people who don't look the obvious. And maybe it's a little bit about your story as well that you're sharing on today. You know, you've said already, you didn't necessarily feel called the ministry or you didn't figure you were the one. But God used you and of course that's coming through in your story in your culture. And it's great. It's great to hear that and even for Church leaders to be thinking, Is there somebody there overlooking you could well be that they're just looking around the room, and you're thinking I need God to help me with this. But sometimes I've lived with somebody for so long and they don't think that God can use them. So I want to challenge leaders today to think a little bit out of the box. We can do that. on this podcast, you say, challenge leaders to think okay, well, Who? Who? Here? Are we not using? The God wants to use? Yeah.
Nathan Benger 10:10
Yeah, no really good, really good. So just thinking about those new leaders and people growing what's what is your, like current stock strategy for training new leaders that reverb Church? What challenges do you face in that? What are the opportunities that you get? And how do you create the cohesion in those teams that you work with?
Anthony Christopher 10:29
Yeah, honestly, I think you guys are the experts at it. And let me just let me just brag on IKON Church for just a minute. Maybe in 2015, my Pastor and I, we came up to actually learn from you guys how you do, you can actually make and I think you were the youth Pastor at the time. And one of the biggest takeaways that I still remember to this day, is you literally take your youth leaders on the journey with you, you give them, you empower them. So I just want to congratulate you on how influential you guys as a Church are. And it's, you know, my production team know about IKON Church, they've watched your youtube streams before. Like, that's how I think that's how much of a gift you guys are. And I know that also delta pass the ball. But I know that also down to all you guys, as a leadership team. And I think you model that well. So coming back to your question, which is, how do we do it here, honestly, it's the same principle as you. Like, we literally do the same journey with people. We, we don't, we don't have this long, laborious process of how to become a leader got to sit in this many classes, we just literally hang out with people. I think Jesus did that better than anyone else, you know, he had 12 people that he hung out with the three and a half years of his life, they saw everything from from start to finish. And I think that's how we want to do it here at Weaver like, we want to be authentic, and upfront friendships with one another, first and foremost, and we actually prioritise our faith first, and then it's the tasks that we do. So again, just to be a bit more relatable when it comes to have a specific example. We gather once every four months as a department, and out of the four times two is just the eat. Literally, all we do is eat. We do it, we do a barbecue. That's all we do. And there is no agenda, we literally get everyone's families together, all we want to do is hang out. There's no teaching, there's nothing. We just actually want to be friends first. Because if we find friends, we will actually want to stay in the positions where we will enjoy serving we weren't, we weren't experienced with right now. Because we're actually hanging out with our mates. And something that we do along with our mate is production or photography or leading the kids ministry. In fact, I'm stealing this from our kids Pastor. When people sign up to be on Team, they he asked them one question, and it's what are your interests? And he compiles them together. And he puts people in the rooms with similar interest. It's not what age group would you like to serve? It's what are your interests, he's trying to create friendships. And as a Church, we're supposed to be praying community, right? So when it comes to how we're doing our leadership structure, it's real friendships. We partner people with like minded people, and they just go together, our production team, they're all introverts. I'm sure that's the same across the board, right? It's honestly the quietest room in the world. But if I put them in the same room together with similar interests, they're gonna geek out on stuff and they're going to become best friends, they are going to call each other out, they are going to read the Bible together, they are going to pray together. And they're also going to grow in their skill. And I think the skill is a byproduct of the friendship that they have. So honestly, to be even more practical, if someone says they want to join Team. Within that same week, they're invited to shadowed The following week, they are trained, and the third week they're deployed, meaning they are doing the job that they're supposed to be. And the goal is that, you know, in those three weeks, they'll be met up for coffee, lunch, or dinner. That's a minimum requirement for all team members, we must know that my name we must know their families, we must know their birthdays. So we're hyper intentional about those things. Because we care about the person before we care about the tasks that they do.
David Mckeown 14:20
Well, and so hey, just just share a little bit more about that because that's that I think that will help leaders today. You will think that when new people come in, they want to join team, then the Dennis shadow process, we like that. That's very good. But what about this meeting with with someone who just break that down for for leaders today? Hi, it's not happening yet.
Anthony Christopher 14:45
So I'm very aware that you know, not a lot of churches have budgets, that they can take people out. But I'd encourage you like when you when you hear me say all these things, don't think you know he's in a big Church and they got lots of money. I If I wasn't always in this Church, but I've always done the same principle, it doesn't cost you a lot to bring them over to your house for dinner. I mean, you eat dinner, right? Everyone has dinner, we just have an extra seat at the table. Now I'm in a Church where we actually have, you know, a budget, and I assign a budget to all my team, every week. It's, it's $100 a month, to go and get coffees with people. That's it. That's it. And I, for me, success would be my team being out all the time, meeting with people doing coffees doing lunches. That to me is leadership development. I don't expect them to be in the office 24/7, writing things down or being on their laptop. To me, that's, you know, it's part of your job. But that's not the goal, we're in the people business, right. The things will happen, the things we need to do will get done. And if you invest in people first. I think it's way more powerful. And I'm sure, like, the successes we've seen, and I'm thinking about when I did youth ministry, we always we saw this principle from Hillsong, London, which is they have family, they have fun, they have their pet, there's always food, there's always fun. And they're always family. First, they always talk about the Bible. If I have all three of those elements, and every aspect of the things that I do, I think I'm going to win, because that's what Jesus said. You can argue about the front one. But I think it was fun to be around Jesus because he saw his day after day. That's pretty fun. He wasn't pioneering side of history. He was always hanging out in eat. And he was always teaching them something. That's the family side of things. So really, we're selling this autumn Jesus, who was the ultimate leader of all time. And I just want my team to apply the same principles that the Bible teach. Take them out of the park, like the modernised version is copy now, I guess. But if you can do lunch, it's great. If you can do dinners even better. I remember when we would when Lindsay and I were doing young adult ministry, every single Sunday, after Church, we would have young adults that are chipper at our house. And it wouldn't be the same young adults, there'll be new young adults every week. Over the 52 weeks that we did it, we saw about 175 Different people at our house, we're gonna we have way more success in that than anything we've ever done before. Because you know, I could I could preach, I could do leadership sessions until I'm blue in the face, that people won't really know how much you care until you really sit down with me, you open up your house, and then you open up your life to them. And to this day, those people's relationships and friendships will exist. So I think I think that's what I would do. I know, I know, for a fact you guys do it, because you know, back then I studied you guys, and you guys were already doing. So this is not news to you. But I would really encourage the churches that are thinking, we don't have the budget for that, or we don't have the time for that. I would say that you'll get more out of taking someone for lunch more out of someone's going to party with you, then any sermon you will ever preach.
Nathan Benger 18:01
Yeah, no, it's really good. It's really great. And I'd even encouraged churches on the other side, you might have been in growth. And you might have seen growth. And now it might be like, Oh, we're big. Now I can't keep doing that. But actually, no, keep doing it, because they're the things that keep you moving forward and growing. Which is really great. So I think we're going to head on to our quick fire questions we own the first one, which which ties in with this as I know this, but what has been the biggest lesson you've learned in the last year? Yeah.
Anthony Christopher 18:35
So do you know the whole Enneagram thing. So I'm an Enneagram, eight. So I'm a challenger by nature, which means I usually get to the conclusion a lot quicker than others. And the biggest lesson I've learned is to allow people to catch up rather than being frustrated. Because if I'm frustrated, then they won't want to join me on the journey. But if I allow them to catch up, it feels trust in me. But also it actually elevates their their thinking and they want to grow. So honestly, that's been the biggest lesson that I've personally learned. And looking back, those are the things that my previous classes actually instilled in me and now that the other side is frustrated. I was I was I was ahead of the curve. But the truth is I was there one day, to slowing down and allowing people to join you on that journey rather than being frustrated, irritated. And that's been the biggest thing that I've learned this year.
David Mckeown 19:23
Wonderful. And the next one is What are you most excited and challenged about at the moment?
Anthony Christopher 19:29
Yeah, honestly, being super spiritual here. I really want to dive deep into theology. I think it's I think now more than ever before with the things that are going on in our world we've really got to understand what we believe and why we believe it so I'm, I'm actually studying theology will ever get the basics all the way through to cultural issues and biblical reasons and answers to those types of issues. So that's honestly what I'm excited and challenged about because I'm not a bookworm. I'm terrible at it. I went to college, to university Hello, this is no joke. I didn't open a single textbook. Didn't know how I passed. It was honestly youtube over and over again. So, so pray for me because it's going to be super challenging.
Nathan Benger 20:12
What's your? What's your favourite food? And I'm gonna add to this or what is your favourite dish so that people can search it, find it, find the recipe.
Anthony Christopher 20:21
Alright, here's my challenge to you guys. Alright, because your your your opener, alright, north, you're used to Indian food. But I'm gonna tell you there's a food that way better than Indian food or natural language. So go go and find some Sri Lankan food is the best meal that you'll ever eat at the cleaners know your every. Yeah. And then how do I stay healthy? The truth is, I'm not a clearly as you can see, I'm not a gym, but but I do have a really fast metabolism. That's forgiving. So the truth is, I don't do a lot of things to be healthy, but you have convicted me by that question.
David Mckeown 20:56
Your favourite sort of destination view go somewhere in the world? Where would you go?
Anthony Christopher 21:02
Yeah, I'll really want to go to Southeast Asia, like Singapore or Malaysia, or loads of Malaysia. And honestly, it's purely because if you look into any Malaysian parts of Singapore influence, their Instagram is just full of food places. So as someone who loves to do I want to go and experience those things. And I'm frustrated and jealous by all their posts. I need to experience it myself. So that's
Nathan Benger 21:23
awesome. Well, it's been so good. Anthony to have you with us. What's the best way for people to connect with you?
Anthony Christopher 21:30
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, Anthony, a Chris. But I think that's my instagram or just check out my Church. We've got churches, our website. Yeah, I'm a real open book. There's zero questions that are off the table. So just message me on Instagram or email me like, I want to serve as many people as possible. And if I've got something intelligent to say, I'm happy to say well,
David Mckeown 21:57
thanks for sharing. It's been fantastic. So Nathan, where else can people find free resources, all that sort of stuff we give away?
Nathan Benger 22:06
Yeah, so I conduct Church forward slash open. There's all the free resources on there. And also, let me just encourage you. I know this has been a great episode and you'll definitely want to share this so please share this with people and if you could rate review, subscribe however you consuming the content. That really helps us but that's it for now on the church explained podcast we look forward to seeing you again very soon.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
