By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

Welcome to the Church Explained Podcast, where we have conversations to help you grow your leadership and build your church. In this brief episode, David and Nathan reflect on the podcast's purpose and share some highlights from the past season. They also discuss IKON Open, a free resource site where churches can access hundreds of resources on messages, creative/ worship, kids, youth, and leadership.

EASTER GIVEAWAY

We have created an Easter giveaway you won't want to miss to show our appreciation to one of our listeners. Listen to the end of the show (timestamp 8:40) to learn how to participate.

Enjoy!

SHOW NOTES

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

CREATED BY AI - SO NOT 100% accurate.

David Mckeown 0:00

Well, welcome to the church explained podcast, a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church. Good to have you here, Nathan.

Nathan Benger 0:10

It's good to be here, Dave. We've got no guests today.

David Mckeown 0:12

We we've got no guests for this episode today. So

Nathan Benger 0:15

yes,

David Mckeown 0:15

this is a little bit different today. It's it's a short episode. It is few minutes long.

Nathan Benger 0:20

Yes. Because we are in Easter Week.

David Mckeown 0:22

It is Easter Week. So we want to wish all our listeners a Happy Easter. Happy Easter to everyone. And we just thought we'd get a couple of questions go on today, just between us. Yeah, but as a short episode, but we've got some great episodes coming up, haven't we? Yes, we

Nathan Benger 0:35

have we have and you can keep looking out for those every single Friday. Yeah, we're releasing episodes. And so you can look at that. But the week after Easter, there'll be no episode. No, I'm right in saying that correct? Yes. Correct. The next. Yeah. So after this one, there's not one next week, but one that we have.

David Mckeown 0:55

But I thought it'd be good for us to start off thinking about the remind our listeners of the why behind the water.

Unknown Speaker 1:02

Yeah, yeah. Well, our hope and our, our, our kind of vision for the podcast is just, you know, simply we want to build churches, and equip leaders with resources, tools, ideas, whatever it might be. And we always say it in the intro of the church explained podcast that we want to give away. Things that actually will help Church leaders not only in building the Church, but also in their personal lives as well.

David Mckeown 1:31

Yeah. And I think we've done that with many of the guests we've had. And, and so I thought it'd be good for us just to think of one of our highlights over the last season. Yep. That we're still in. Yeah, we're still in season three. We are since January. That's cool from January when you're a highlight.

Nathan Benger 1:47

So I actually loved when we did the episode with Steven Rachel Master. Yeah. Okay. Because we did our staff retreat. And it was they the the whole idea of getting behind the scenes, behind the scenes behind the behind the scenes behind the scenes really have a staff retreat. And, you know, one, what that looked like, but then also, I think, just the impact that that staff retreat had on on AWS as IKON Church. Yeah, definitely. was huge in terms of us as a staff team. Yeah, that it just became a highlight for me. And so when I was looking back through the podcast episode, I just remember that the conversations that we had, and then also the ability to bring people behind the scenes behind the scenes,

David Mckeown 2:34

behind the scenes. Yeah, that was, that was a great one for maybe people have listened that one because that's really fresh. Definitely. Although we recorded a little while ago, and only hit the same last week data. So maybe people need to go and listen to the whole thing. Yes. What

Nathan Benger 2:48

about yours, Dave? Well, my

David Mckeown 2:49

favourite one was actually with our Lead Pastor Paul banjo who heads up the Church, of course, but we are behind the scenes with him as well. And on that one, we talked around this idea of who's next, like thinking about, you know, raising up leaders, different age groups, different backgrounds, always asking the question within our context, and our culture, like who is next? Yeah. We've had some great feedback from a number of people chatted to me, help them think through that maybe they're through for the organisation, but also for their Church. Yeah. So that for me, that's a good one. Just to think of that again. I think the reason why is because lots of churches aren't thinking, who's next? They're thinking of what's next. They are thinking about programme, we're thinking about activity. But the reality is you can't have sustainable programmes, without who's Yeah,

Nathan Benger 3:40

yeah. And that kind of leads me on in terms of a lot of churches, we end up thinking programme and what we're going to do, yeah, what, what, what programme are we going to run next? Or what, you know, what resource are we going to use next? Well, we got a whole load of resources that we hope that will help you on IKON Open and even today in our staff meeting today, we had a great story from a lady who used to be part of IKON Church has moved to another Church, they're starting kids ministry is starting youth. And they're using the resources that we've been able to provide. And so we just love stories like that, and love being able to resource the Church. And so, when you're asking the question, who's next and you think, Well, I haven't got time to ask the question, who's next? Because I've got all this planning to do. Hopefully, the resources on IKON Open can help people out.

David Mckeown 4:29

It's true. And for people who don't know what IKON Open is, let me just say something about that. It's resources B. So we have on our website, IKON dot Church, forward slash resources, forward slash open, forward slash open sources, it's in there as well. Okay. at both places my Church was in but so that's a great set of reserves and hundreds and hundreds of resources on there free for churches to download stuff on messages stuff, creative and worship. Yeah, stuff as you've mentioned on kids and youth, and then some other general stuff we have there as well. Um, yes, ship stuff. Yep. Lots of leadership content, download use that spark an idea. Now the great thing about IKON, we've been running it since 2021. I think it would have been so right. Yeah. Yeah. So so we've got a global audience. We've got people downloading from all over the world, not a continent. Aren't downloading from

Nathan Benger 5:27

Easter. 2021 was so it's two years. Two years, two years this year? Yeah, that's three years. No, no, no, no. 2021 to 23 days. Is it?

David Mckeown 5:36

Was it 2021? Or 2020 2021 2021? Yeah. So two years. Yeah. And actually, we've got, you know, 1000s of people hitting that site every month. What are the top three countries top three countries still at the minute is? Well, over the last 30 days. Yeah, okay. Okay. Last 30 days,

Nathan Benger 5:53

we have of course, the UK Big shout to the UK MasterChef.

David Mckeown 5:57

We love you guys,

Nathan Benger 5:58

USA, USA,

David Mckeown 6:00

I'm surprised that I thought I actually would have been somewhere else but USA. And the third one is the Philippine Wow. So people downloading and using the resources. Hey, thank you for using the we hope they're blessed here. But as you said, we get great stories like that all the time. People emailing in are saying, Hey, thanks for sharing the resources. They're really helping us.

Nathan Benger 6:20

Yeah, let me encourage you, if you are using those resources, and they are helpful that is now and also if there's something that maybe we're missing, and you think or do they have anything on that? Ask us ask us the question, because who knows, we might have something that we've not been able to put out yet, or we've not, you know, formatted or whatever it might be that actually would be helpful to you. So yeah,

David Mckeown 6:41

so I want to push back a little bit to the first question. Yeah, behind the what you've answered one sense, but I want to go a little bit deeper to say, the reason we do what we do with the podcast, with IKON Open, of course, your leadership coaching, is it's the short generosity of Church. Yeah. Because that's part of our values as IKON Church, one of our values is generous, generous. Yep. And we felt really that hey, can we do that? Not just internally. Yep. But how can we show or our generosity the way to Church? And that led us to create these things? Yeah. The podcast, the resources, and of course, the coaching. Yep.

Nathan Benger 7:17

Yep. Yeah. And we have, you know, great prices to support you. It's liaising coaching, so you can get 10 sessions for 600 pounds. I never said 60 pounds. And Dave nearly

David Mckeown 7:32

fell off my seat. Yeah, but 600 pints cheap. It is a global Saturday. Yeah. Well, yeah, we've reduced up right down for today.

Nathan Benger 7:41

I like personally, I've had coaching sessions and continue to have coaching sessions, and they're just great to help you begin to think, on the on a next level, I would say it helps do does do that. It helps you process things as well. And it just lead you to even solutions to some of the problems and issues that you may be facing. That actually feels like you know, I want to increase someone you might feel like, Oh, I feel like I'm stuck. Or coaching could be kind of the thing that brings a breakthrough for you.

David Mckeown 8:15

Yeah. And we would say to like lots of leaders really, you know, get a coach because coaching really does help. We're working with churches and leaders from all over the place. Yeah, with with the coaching and churches of all sizes of all sizes, yet some really big ones, which we don't want to mention their names because we have some very big ones. And of course, some mid size ones, smaller ones, it doesn't matter what size those exact because everyone's got to think through process stuff. So we want to again to show our generals, yeah. And, and I've said that, I'd be happy to give three coaching sessions to somebody. Yep. And what was the deal we say?

Nathan Benger 8:54

So the deal is, you need to email Dave at IKON i K O N dot Church, and you just need to send in your highlights of

Unknown Speaker 9:05

what has been your highlight of the podcast? What's the episode that spoken to you? What have you loved? It might just be something you know, out there that you just love listening to just send that through to Dave D A V. At IKON ik o n dot Church. And if you can't spell check,

David Mckeown 9:23

Google it. We're in. So we will give somebody I think what we've said is the first 10 people will pick somebody Yes. That could be more than people who will send in a review. You do a podcast. We think it's pretty good. Yeah, that's why we keep doing it. That's a so we'll pick somebody out of the firsthand and they'll get three full sessions coaching sessions. No strings attached. No, you know, they don't have to know about afterwards. Now we just want to blast a leader. Doesn't matter where you're from. As long as we can reach you by zoom or internet, then we will make that happen for you.

Nathan Benger 9:58

Yep. Which Yep, Yep. And we want to bless people, we want to bless people. And this Easter, we want to bless people. And so we just want to say, a big thank you to everybody who's listened. I also all to all of our guests who have contributed and we're believing for a great Easter across churches all over the world. And so we want to kind of give an Easter blessing to you and a prayer and so David Yeah, would you lead us in that?

David Mckeown 10:25

Yeah, obviously delegates there. Yeah, come on. We do want to do that. We don't often do this. But actually we want to we do want to pray. Yeah, want to pray for every leader who's connected with us, and maybe leaders who just gonna pick this up, and we are God's blessing over your life. So let's do that. God, we thank you. You have plans and purposes for our lives. We want to declare, oh God today, your goodness into the lives of those people who are listening today. Those who have got Easter services coming up is whether it's good Friday or Easter Sunday. We want to speak God your blessing over all the Divinity thank you for every leader and everyone who is a part of IKON Open community. We just want to declare to God Your goodness and Your salvation of God in the people's lives across this Easter.

Nathan Benger 11:08

Amen. So we want to thank you for listening to the church explained podcast and don't forget, our next episode will be live on Friday the 21st of April. So we look forward to being together then

Transcribed by https://otter.ai