SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome back to the Build the Church podcast, where we help you gain momentum, grow your church, and go the distance in ministry. I'm your host, Josh Robrie. My goal of this podcast is simple: that each episode would be a quick resource for you, offering practical advice, best practices, and encouragement in your mission as a pastor. Today's episode is about as practical as it gets. I'm sitting down with Pastor Roberson Pierre, who planted Freedom City Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and launched with over a thousand people in one of the hardest regions in the country to plant. You might be surprised to find out he didn't bring a large team with him to plant. In fact, almost everyone he planted with was someone that he met in the area. One of the things we talk about in this episode is how too often leaders don't address things until after it becomes a problem. That's true for a lot of churches when it comes to the area of teams. On Sunday morning, you're looking for a volunteer and wondering why they didn't show up or you don't have enough people in a certain area. That's where your team.church can help. Your team.church is a digital assessment that helps you place your volunteers on a team that best matches with their personality. When someone takes a disc or spiritual gift test on the yourteam.church platform, they get shown what it's like for their personality on that team, leading to more retention down the road. You also get a team dashboard where you can search profiles and see what people are matched to. So when you meet with volunteers, you can make a suggestion on which team they should join and why it's a good fit based on how God created them. You can find out more at your team.church, book a demo, or start your free trial today. Now let's get into this great conversation with robe. Robe, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. What's going on, Josh? I'm excited to be here, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're one of my favorite people to talk shop with. Stop it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know, and uh because I like talking strategy. I'm a strategy person. It's where I live, it's where I'm most comfortable. Most pastors are like, you know, people experts. They're so emotionally intelligent, they're so good. And you have none of that. No, I'm just kidding. You have all of that too. I don't have any of that. You have all of that. Uh, but I love talking to pastors who are not only good with people, but just great with strategy, principles, systems. And, you know, you you excel in that area. So I'm looking forward to chatting. Appreciate that. I'm excited. Let's get into it. Yeah. So uh a little bit before we jump into that, you were pastoring a great church. You're about a year and a half old, right, as a church. Yeah. And so what are you excited about that's happening at Freedom City right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Man, I'm so excited because after a year and a year and a half, your culture is kind of set and you've gotten a chance to kind of see some people rise up. The most exciting thing for me right now is to see people that got saved at our church rise up to leadership. Uh, people that got saved, they got baptized, they're being discipled, and they're rising up. So it's it's just it's been beautiful to journey with people and see what a year can do in people's lives. So I'm excited for that. And uh, we have some incredible leaders that are rising up right now, and they just have some incredible ideas. And so uh we're really being innovative and doing so many different things to really serve our community. So I'm super excited for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

That's great. And you are already doing so much to help us at ARC. You are coaching for us and teaching and giving us examples of what you've done. You've been one of the greatest resources to me in the past six months. And I want people to learn from you in this episode and hear what you have to offer in the area of systems, SOPs, and learning how to put some traction to your values. Um, but one of the things that I think that sets you apart is that you launched in Hartford, Connecticut with a thousand years. Hartford, baby, with a thousand people, uh, which is crazy. 126 salvations. You're in the Northeast, which is hard ground. How does something like that happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

You know, I've I've there's a lot that I've been putting putting into perspective a year later of how how did it happen? I think it's a couple things. There's the spiritual side, and then there's the practical side. If I were to give credit to one side, it's definitely the spiritual side. So a bit of our story is we've been in ministry since we were 15, 16. My wife and I were high school sweetheart. We met at youth group, and uh we've we're youth leaders, youth leaders turned to college campus ministry leaders, um, turned into youth pastors, young adults pastors. And so we served our church, Jubilee Christian church. We were there for about nine years, literally a year after we got married. We were there. We had all our kids there, and we served that church in Boston, Massachusetts. In that church, we weren't were youth pastors, young adult pastors, creative pastors, executive pastors, operations pastors, campus pastors. Those nine years we spent there, there was a lot of exposure. There was a lot, it was our training ground. And it was a pretty large ministry in the Northeast, three campuses, over 6,000 people a Sunday. So it was, it was definitely where we kind of got our stripes. And in the middle of really the of the peak of that, the Lord kind of laid on our hearts to plant a church and in a way that we could not ignore and made it very clear to us that it was time. And we had to uh pretty much sell our house, that our our dream home that we worked hard to build and do all that, sell our cars, sell everything, and 5,000 square foot house and move to uh West Hartford, Connecticut into a 1,700 square foot house with three kids. Mind you, I'm pretty big. So I'm like 6'2. I'm 6'2. My wife is pretty much six, six feet tall. My kids are like giant. So it was a sacrifice. It wasn't easy. It was something that was definitely difficult for us to do, leaving our hometown, leaving our family, um, leaving our a church that we loved, pastors that we loved to kind of follow what God was saying. And that sacrifice was what fueled that launch. We were all in. We were all in. We we sold everything and we pretty much said, we're gonna, we're gonna be as cheap as we can with our lifestyle so we can build God's church and we can give 150% to the Lord's church. And that's what we did. And so the spiritual side of that thousand launches sacrifice. Um, it cost, it cost us, it cost us comfortability, it cost us um, you know, closeness to family, it cost us money. Literally, it cost us. We had two cars go down to one. Yeah, like it literally costs in all the ways. And that that that sacrifice paved the way for that. So that's the spiritual portion. The practical portion, listen, we we worked, we, we, we grind, we gave everything we had, and we weren't gonna let the fact that we didn't have a million dollars stop us from launching big. We set out with the intention to launch with a thousand people. We knew that we didn't want to launch any smaller than 800. And so what we decided to do is get around guys that had launched with a thousand. I was on the phone with our guys that I had launched a thousand or above, probably every day for five months. So Brian Bullock, Hollis Thomas, Matt Davis, if like all the guys that were launching that would like I was trying to get in their minds, like, what about it? Because I refuse to believe the lie that New England couldn't do it. I refuse to believe that, you know, this only happens in the Bible belt. I believe that there are people that are hungry for Jesus, that need Jesus in Connecticut as well. And I, and I wanted all the strategies, I wanted all of the systems, I wanted everything. And so um we, we, we grind, we met with as many people as we could. Um, we had we did all the launch parties, we ran the art play. Um, my wife and I, we personally called the first probably 150 to 200 members of our dream team. We, we had, we, we had lunch coffees with over 50% of the team that launched our church. We were working every single day to get that. We were hungry. And the greatest blessing to us, Josh, was being under-resourced. In the middle of it, in the middle of it, I was I was like so frustrated. I'm like, man, I'm not raising enough money. I'm not, I want, we need more. I don't have enough money for mailers, the amount of mailers I wanted to send out, etc. But being under-resourced was our greatest strength to being, and it was our greatest tool towards innovation. So it was like, hey, I don't have $25,000 to spend on mailers. I can spend $5,000 on mailers, and then I can mobilize my whole dream team to get out there on the streets and talk to people every weekend for four weeks straight before we launched. And that energy, that grit, like is what attracted a thousand people to our church. I mean, we were at every mall around the area, we were at every plaza and everything. And so being under-resourced definitely gave us a grit and a grind that that helped attract people. And it showed, it got us out of a comfort zone. It got us out from the platform to behind the scenes. It was just like, let's get out, let's get, let's get on the road, let's, let's, let's shake some hands, let's help people, let's, let's share. That's all we got, you know? And so that in a nutshell, those are the two things that I think I would give credit to.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Man, I'm so fired up after hearing that. I'm just like so just jacked up thinking about all the things that you just said. What I like about what you just said is you gave probably 10 excuses that would have caused most people just to throw up their hand to say, we can't do it. Yeah, well, we we don't we're under-resourced, we don't have this, yeah. We, you know, we can't do that. We don't, we're we're going to uh hard it's hard ground here. And uh the you gave about 10 different reasons that most people would have just said, hey, it's different for us, we can't do it. But instead you persevered. The first thing that you did is is you burned the boats. And I think when people don't burn the boats, they have a different level of commitment to what they're putting on the show. So good.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

So good.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

When Elijah called Elisha, he had him slaughter, he slaughtered the oxen and then he burned the plows. He was never going back to farming again. And when I look at the early church planners in ARK that have done well, and those guys, so having a thousand people is not normal. It's happening more frequently in ARC. I did a research this week on it, and there's five percent of our planners over the last two years have launched with a thousand people. So just because you come to ARK doesn't mean you're gonna launch with a thousand people. Right, right. The people that do that are the people who burn the boats and are willing to make a sacrifice. And then the the second thing that you did was you boldly believe that God's promises applied to your city. Absolutely. You said this is gonna happen in Connecticut, this can happen in the Northeast, this is not a southern thing. Uh, so many people say, oh man, ARK's just a southeastern conference thing. If you don't root for Alabama, you know, Georgia, or LSU, it's not gonna happen. It's just not true. All of our thousand launches, for the most part, have happened outside of the Southeast, which is crazy. Miami, California, right, um, Minneapolis, the Northeast, and of course Hollis holding it down for us. Thank you, Hollis, you know, uh, and then a couple others uh in the Carolinas. And so, you know, I think you just have to boldly believe, you have to believe what Jesus said. And I'm I saw this quote, and I'm not gonna quote it correctly, but it's like basically, you know, if you believed hell is actually real, would you would your life be any different than it is? If you believe hell is a real place, you can't ignore what's happening around the world. You have to get involved. Absolutely. And then the third thing that you guys did, and I really want to say you busted your tail, but I'm gonna try I'm gonna change it to another B-word, make it a little bit more spiritual. You you built the wall, like Nehemiah. You got to work, and they did something supernatural, something that should have taken 52 years. They much less, it couldn't even happen in 52 weeks, it did in 52 days. And they had the the the scripture says that Nehemiah told them to have the hammer in one hand and then the sword. And you you've you've preached that message before, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and and I think that's one of the things that's that that was key for us. I we have a saying in our in our church that you pray like it's all God and you work like it's all you. And so it's like when you enter prayer, it's not a time for for your works. It's like you're believing God. And when you're working, it's like, man, I I'm believing in the work that I'm putting in. And when those marry, that's when you have kind of like a space for a miracle. I think one of the things that I would not allow myself to believe is that these churches that we're launching was only reserved for a specific area in the country. I needed to believe that it was possible for us, but I also wanted our team to believe it. And I wanted our launch team to believe it. So I shared it boldly. I mean, it would have been tragic if we didn't, but I shared if we didn't launch with it, but I shared it boldly and I let them know like, hey, this is not, we're not going to launch under this. The work that we're putting forth is that. And our city is in need of that. And uh, you know, we kept putting um the re the reality of our city before us, like, hey, here's the rate of homelessness, here's the rate of divorce, here's crime in our city. Our city needs a church that is passionate about the loss, that wants to see people's lives change. Our city needs a church that is passionate about freedom. And the more that we focused on vision and sharing that, the more people uh grabbed a hold of it and they believed it and they work towards it as well. And so, I mean, it's possible wherever, man. I have this crazy idea that anyone can do this. And I know me and you get you like, no, this is I know 5% is so, but I'm like, man, anyone can actually do this. You gotta be all in, you gotta you gotta completely be sold to what what God is saying, and you gotta have the right intention when you gotta do it for the right reasons. Right. So God can bless it.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah. And, you know, it's I've I've had the opportunity to be around so many great men of God over the years. I was basically the pastor that hosted the guest pastor. So I've hosted Reinhard Bonkey, Evangelist Steve Hill, John Bevere, you know, Ron Luce, all these people over the years that have done these amazing things. And I'm just gonna tell you sitting in the car with those guys and driving around, having dinner with them, they're doing it for the right reasons. They genuinely believe that Christ is returning, hell is real, heaven is forever, and they want to see people say. I wish I'd have known you before you launched. Uh, I talked to people, I'm like, did you know that Rob was gonna like, bro, did you not know that guy? Of course I knew he was gonna have a thousand people.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Uh no, it's it's you know, to that, to that man, it it was personal for us. Like to any pastor that's like like that wants to launch, it's like it has to be personal, and dare I say it has to be emotional. Like, like planting this church, it's like it and seeing people people get saved and seeing people get free, it has to hit you somewhere that goes beyond money, that goes beyond fame, clout. It has to, it has to it, it has to be personal. And so it was personal for us. Like, uh, I can't talk about my church long enough without crying because it's like this is like when you're all in and you burn the boats, it has to be personal. You can't like it has to be, it has to be for a reason that's bigger than yourself, and it has to be uh something that carries such a great conviction within you about what people can become and where people can actually go. And so that that fueled us as well, how personal it was for us, how much we really wanted to see people get get saved and free. That level of uh care pulls in our heartstrings daily and it fuels us to keep going.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Well, I also was thinking about while I was listening to you being in the seat that I am, I get to assess church planners and review their applications and help them receive feedback on their readiness to plant. And one of the misconceptions that people have is about ministry is that that upper 1% that sell books and speak all over the place, they're living a different lifestyle than nine, and really it's not even one percent. It's like less than one percent. It's like the one percent of the one percent are living like that. The other 99.9% of us, we don't go into ministry expecting a pay raise. We don't go into ministry, you don't plan a church to fix your finances, yeah. You know, and I remember you know, years and years ago, no one would ever know who this is, but this, you know, someone put in their uh their application, like what they wanted to be making. And I'm like, you CEO of Chase Bank. And so we kind of called him about that, and he was like, Well, listen, I gotta have this, I gotta have that. And I'm just like, this it's not gonna work. Where I think about or think about Pastor Chris Hodges, who cashed in his 401k, sold everything he had, gave his retirement to his church, and we have Church of the Highlands as a result. And so you you don't you don't you don't get into ministry because or plants? You want to get rich because you want to get rich, you want to pay raise. Um, you know, it's it's a race to the bottom. And then God blesses obedience. We have no problem with God blessing somebody, and and he does, but we need we need to get in this for the right reasons. So for sure. Man, that was good. I almost feel like that could be its own episode right there. You know, it's good, it's really good. So let's let's change gears a little bit and talk about some of the systems that you've built because obviously you talked about having the hammer doing the work, but you've created some ways to make the work go a little bit more efficiently, which I'm a huge fan of. Go easier, work smarter, not harder. And a few months ago, I made an all call. Do you have any files? Does any church planner have any files I can share with more church planners? And what you shared was with me blew my mind. It was the greatest set of SOPs I've ever seen. In fact, in our file library, we have everything categorized, and then we have our own category, Freedom Church. Has your own category. It's just go to Freedom. Actually, before you look, just go there first. If you can't find it, then go back and search the other box. Oh man. And so, you know, when's when some pastors hear standard operating procedures, their eyes glaze over and they totally tune out. And so kind of talk to that person of why they need this and why it helps your teams.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

For sure. We started our church from day one with multiplication in mind in every way. Um, we wanted to make sure that we could easily multiply our values, we could easily multiply our wisdom, we could easily multiply our leaders and just our thoughts and ministry philosophy. And that does not happen without SOPs, it doesn't happen without systems. So, what we did is that we wanted to make sure from day one that everything we did was documented. The how was documented and the why would be documented. So the idea that I say to all of my leaders is if a stranger who's never been in a church before in their entire life finds our drive, they should be able to go build a fast-growing church that loves the Lord and all, and they should be able to go run a service. They should be able to do all of that. I know that's kind of a lofty kind of thing to say, but it helps put them in the mindset of everything that they do to make this successful has to be documented. So for our church, everything is documented from setup and takedown, how we do it from a from a huddle before service for how we run our growth track to how we do prayer on Wednesday mornings, 30-minute prayer, how do we do it? So here's what that does it actually saves us time. So when a leader is rising up in our ranks and we need them to take another responsibility, it does not, we don't need to spend 45 minutes in training with them. We said, hey, read the SOPs and let's let's talk about the SOP after and all that. And so, and it actually sets people in our culture and in our church, it sets them up to win because they know what the win is. And so every SOP in our church is very clear. Hey, you're if you do this, it'll be done well. If you don't do this, it's not gonna be done well for us. This is what winning looks like at Freedom City. This is how we do baptism, this is how we run life groups, this is all of that. We want to make sure that we're very clear on it. And what we've found is when people can clearly identify the win, you just have winners all over. Like you just, it just compounds. Everyone's winning in a department. I have less hiccups. I have less. If I have a surprise, if somebody's doing something in a department that is outside the SOPs, it's a huge red flag. And it typically can can bottle down to, hey, you didn't read the SOPs, or this just not a good fit. It's just one of the two. It's just one of the two. But once we started growing so fast, in order to maintain excellence, we had to be a stickler to the SLPs. Because once you launch, it's like it's come one, come all. But if we're being real, you're lucky if you launch with people that you you've known for years. For us, we didn't. 98% of our launch team, we met when we moved to Hartford.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

That's incredible. And I I think people might find that like would assume the opposite because you had so much. But because of those SOPs, it was to multiple. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

We had one couple that moved, and um, against our wishes, they were just like, We're gonna we're gonna come. But after that, everyone in our team we met at launch parties, all of our directors, worship leaders, everything we met, we met as we kind of was pushing for it.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So it sounds like to me, if you want to create winners, you have to make the steps obvious, the standards clear, and the spirit repeatable.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah. For my leaders, I don't want them guessing what the win is. I want them to know for sure. I don't want them to think, man, is Pastor gonna like this? Or is this the Freedom City way? I don't need them to be questioning that. If they question that, it's my fault. At any department, if a photographer Does not know what a good culture is, for us, it's my fault. If a video editor does not know what a good Sunday recap video is, that's my fault. We have to give them examples. We have to make sure that it's very clear and so that they can opt in all the way or be like, I can't produce this. I think I need to go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

There's people out there who would say when you write things down like that, or you create systems and you're you're squashing people and it's not sensitive to like the different things that people experience. But I believe this is how you love people well. And this is actually how you take care of them.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

To that thought. As a church planter, in year one, it is not the year for me to have people come in and be completely innovative and bring up all these new ideas because there's still a culture that I need to set, and one year is not enough for it. There's still a standard that I need to set that most likely, if these are 98% new people that's been around me, they don't know what that is, even though they've heard it, but they haven't fully seen it yet. And so it's not that we don't necessarily have space in our church for innovation and and for folks to kind of not feel boxed in. However, we all have to start at one level. We have to start on what the base is first and teach that. And then when we're strong in that, we create spaces in our leadership for there to say, well, how can this be better? For us, that's even systemized. So feedback is systemized. We we give feedback on all of our systems every three months. Um, every quarter, every director is systemized. Uh we systemize feedback, we systemize kind of evaluations and all of that just to look, is this working? I know this is how we've always done it, but is this working? Are we seeing good results or should we consider something else?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And you said earlier, you said if it's not clear, it's my fault, where really the leader, it's your responsibility to make it clear to them. And so when there's not policies, when there's not procedures, when there's not standard operating ways of doing things, then people are scared of being corrected because they don't know, even when they did something right, and when they are corrected, the correction feels a hundred times worse because they didn't know they were doing wrong. Exactly. Where if it's clear, it's easier for them to take responsibility because it's right there on paper. You can't argue with it, you know? For sure. So in line with that, what the other thing that standard operating procedures do and having things clear is that it models for people what they should be doing so that they can grow into a role instead of being thrown into something, which is never a good idea. And the first time I've heard this principle was from Doug Ferguson in his book Exponential. But now I've learned that he's not the one that came up with it. There's a lot of people that have done this, and that's the five-step delegation process, which is what I do with every intern, with every employee, uh, with anyone that I'm training to do, and even my kids, is it's you know, first you watch me do it, right? And then I do it and you participate. We do it together, you do it and I participate, and then I watch you do it, and then of course you multiply it down the road. Is that a system that you guys use as well?

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Uh absolutely. I think it's so important to train. I think it's one thing to read something on paper, but it's another thing to actually see it. And so the way that uh our leadership pipeline is structured, so a dream teamer can serve in a certain team in the church, but then once they rise to leadership, they from a dream team, there's a team lead. From a team lead, there's a coordinator. From a coordinator, there is a director. So there's about three levels of leadership that someone can actually watch how to do one thing or another from. So the dream teamer is watching the team lead, the team lead is watching the coordinator, the coordinator is watching the director, the director is watching me. And so those, those are kind of like the for where we are right now in our org chart. And so anyone can kind of matriculate to different levels of leadership or different levels of expertise in one area or another within that team structure. And that has allowed people to kind of grow. So we've had just people rise up in leadership over the year in that way.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

I think it's important for things to be modeled to people and just throwing people into it. That's I just don't think that's a great way to really get the best out of people. And I think the problem with that is that to get in and model it and work with someone requires more time for the leader. And so leaders don't want to do that. So they don't pay the price up front. And so just like a credit card, yeah, they pay 10 times the price on the back end when they're having to replace someone and pick up the message.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah. Do the work and do it in a way that you don't have to do it multiple times, is what I would say. So for the first six months of our church when we launched Josh, I did set up and taked down with the team and preached two services. So I would come in at 6 a.m., like sweats, pants, and hoodie, and I would go set up, help the stage set up, help the lobby set up, parking lot set up. I'll go out and do that. I did it for six months. Uh, the reason why is that because I wanted to model and establish what that set up and takedown culture should feel like. I wanted to make sure that my guest experience director knew, hey, music needs to be out there while they're while we're setting up. Like, don't make setup something that's not fun. I wanted to make sure like hospitality knows no. We need donuts. When they're coming in at 6 a.m., like it needs to feel fun. And I needed them to understand that that was a priority for me. I wanted them to also understand, like, hey, we need to be set up at least 45 minutes before doors open. And and that's a serious thing that we never waver on. It's so all of that reminder, I had to exemplify it. And I had to kind of like do it and then preach two services after, you know, and then do takedown. That was the first six months. It did, it did so much. Uh, my leaders respected me way more because they didn't feel like I was just a pastor that was coming in and it going in the green room and coming out. They felt like, yo, no, we're doing, we're in this together. It also helped me establish a culture that now I don't even have to be there until 8:15 and do huddles with the team and then 9 a.m. service starts. But the culture is still there because I was able to teach the culture. I was able to exemplify the culture, right? So not only did were they able to watch me, but they were able to read it in SOPs. And then there were key people that I now give responsibility for the culture. And not just one person, like all of my directors, they're responsible for that. And that wasn't easy for the first six months. You know, it wasn't easy to kind of jump out of setup mode, to jump into pastoring mode and preaching and all that. But that's what it took. It takes that. It takes being able to kind of not be in an easy space, not being a comfortable space, to really, really teach culture the right way. And so that's, and I did that in so many different ways. I went to, I went to worship rehearsals with our worship leader and kind of modeled, hey, this is how the team, this is how you should look on stage, and this is the energy. This is the, this is that. Like huge feed. We have a huge feedback culture in our church. Um, still to this day, a year and a half in, right now we're seeing on a low Sunday, 1200 1300. On a high Sunday, we are over 1,500 people. Still to this day, we have a feedback huddle after every service. You know, hey, what can be good? What can what what can we change? What can we shift? And our team expects that because we know that it's not personal. It's about us giving God our best and us giving the people that coming the best as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

You mentioned culture in there, and one of the things that we've talked about is how you emphasize culture. And for some people, culture is just something that's written down on a paper somewhere or on a computer. It might be hung from a banner, but it's not taking traction in the church without values being clear, without them being repeatable, without them being in front of people. They don't do what they're supposed to do, which is build culture. So, how have you guys been able to use your values to build culture in your church?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

I love that question. We have 12 core values. And my wife and I, we were intentional when starting our church on identifying 12 values that really we have a strong conviction for when it comes to a healthy church. And those 12 values, we've assigned each value to a month in the year. 12 values, so I could name prayer is our lifeline, joy is our attitude, health is our legacy, excellence is our DNA, and it goes it goes on, you know, everyone is family, all of that. What we do is we look at our ideal calendar for the year and looked at all the activities that were happening. We looked at kind of some things that we really wanted to lean in as it relates to teaching, and we assigned a value to each month. So, for example, we're in the month of July right now, as recording it's serve day is coming up. That's really big. I'm preaching on servanthood, like I preach on the Good Samaritan on this past Sunday. I'm preaching on serving the city, I'm preaching on really showing up. And we have serve day, so we're on servanthood is our identity right now. That's one of our core values. On January, we do 21 days of prayer. I'm teaching on prayer all January. So that is prayer is our lifeline. February, we do relationship series, all that. You know, we do singles nights, we do married couples' nights, all that. The core value for that is growth is our destination. It's about growing as a single person and growing in your marriage. And so we really lean into that in all areas, by the way. So our kids' ministry, we have a curriculum that we created that follows that. So they're learning about growth, they're learning about servanthood in July as well. Uh, December, joy is our attitude. You know, we're focusing on joy in December. So they're learning scriptures on joy. And so, same thing, we're getting ready to launch our students. That's gonna be the same model. So, our goal was if a family comes to church and they are part of our church, and in that family, you have a grandmother who is a widow in her 80s, you have mom and dad who's in their 40s, working a nine to five, they have two teenagers, right? That's in the youth group, and then they have their little one that's like in fourth grade, that's in our kids' ministry. When they leave church for the week, all right. The teenagers, they've come to students. The grandmother has been at church on Sundays, parents come, they're part of a group, they do all these things. When they're done with church for the week and they go to dinner, they should all be speaking the same language. Um, they should all be learning the same thing and it shouldn't be diluted, it should apply to them where they are in their life. That was the idea of like, what does that Sunday dinner table sound like for the families that attend our church? Can the elementary school student talk about servanthood while mom and dad is getting ready to be a part of Surf Day and lead a group? While the grandmother is like, I'm going to homeless shelter with her group. You know, can we actually really focus all areas on one thing? And that was key for us. And so that's how we pretty much have all of our values. We're with that church, our lobby, all 12 of them are displayed. Our values is talked about at every huddle. We choose a value, we go over and we kind of like, you know, shout it out and all that. You'll hear it from platform. I sneak it in there in my sermons every time. Our transitions have it. It's a weekly thing. But the thing about it is, Josh, my wife and I, we wholeheartedly believe that if our values are actually honored in our homes, we would be better people. This is how we want to live our lives. You know, it's like one of our values is Jesus is at the center. You know, prayer is our lifeline, worship is our lifestyle, health is our legacy, like us going to the gym, us eating right, us like all of that is a part of our values. So we wholeheartedly believe in this. This is not just to have things to say and for a website to look good and for the pamphlets to have great words and sayings in there. No, this is our life. This is how me and Nima, this is how we live our life. And this is the conviction that we have on us on how the Christian home should be, how how someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ, how they should live and what they should prioritize. And because we believe it in it so much, this is why we are able to stick to the script. This is why we're able to kind of talk about it. This is why we're able to preach about it. This is why we're able to have it be a part of every single sector of our church. And so that's kind of how our values fit into culture.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

I so enjoyed hearing you share in that last part. I think listening to you speak is like hearing a symphony of strategy and systems for church leaders. It just wanna inject it in my veins and be a better leader. Uh, so I'm really glad to have this episode to share with other pastors. If people want to stay in touch with you on social media or freedom church, how can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yes, you can follow me on all social media, uh, Instagram, TikTok, all the at Rope Pierre, R-O-B-E-P-I-E-R-R-E. It's the same everywhere. And you could follow our church, Freedom City. So we are Freedom City on Instagram and TikTok and all that. Check out our website, we are freedomcity.com. Um, and we could stay connected, man. I love church planters. I love talking to leaders, pastors. I believe that we are better if we stick together and if we share resources, ideas. So I'm always down to share the wealth. So many people shared it with me, so I'm always open to share it with others.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Thank you so much for joining us, and uh, can't wait for next time we get to hang out. Let's do it. I'm so grateful for robe being so generous with what he's built. Here's what I love about this conversation systems aren't the opposite of the spirit, they're how you steward the growth God gives you. When you build good systems, you protect your culture, you free your leaders, and you make room for people to be reached. That's not bureaucracy, that's faithfulness to what God has called you to do. Go follow robe on social media or connect with Freedom City Church at wearefreedomcity.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, I hope you go to wherever you get your podcast, leave us a review, let people know that this podcast is helping you and making a difference. I appreciate it so much. It's one of the greatest things you could do for the show. I want to let you know about the BuildTheChurch Instagram account. It's at buildthe.church. It's a great place to get clips from the show, stay in touch, leave comments, interact with me, and also get free resources. So go follow that account today at buildhead.church and let me know that you're listening to the podcast. Also, this episode was brought to you by your team.church, the digital platform that gives you a unique URL for your church to give your volunteers a disc and personality attest so that you can place them on a team where they can thrive. So go check out your team.church and get your free trial today or book a demo and see how it works. Thank you for being with me today. I can't wait for you to join us next time. Until then, keep building and believing strong.