Power of a Map, Not a Menu: Transforming Ministry Strategy with Mariners Church’s Jared Kirkwood

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jared Kirkwood, the Executive Pastor of Ministries and Lead Pastor at the Irvine location of Mariners Church in California.

A church’s mission isn’t much without a strategy. How are you aligning, training, and equipping people at your church to take their next steps to move the mission forward? Tune in as Jared unpacks Mariners’ “transformational loop”—a four-part discipleship strategy through which they align all ministries and campuses to increase the church’s impact.

• A mission and strategy // The transformational loop, Mariners’ strategy for achieving their mission, is pivotal to discipleship at the church. The transformational loop has four parts, each with their own ministries, programs, events, and teams. The parts of the loop are Follow Jesus (weekend experiences), Grow Together (life groups, care and recovery, and discipleship courses), Serve One Another (volunteer ministry teams), and Change the World (local and global outreach ministries).
• Have a map for the strategy// Mariners wants to disciple people through a “map” rather than a “menu.” By acting as “tour guides” and getting to know people, the team can pastor people through a process, inviting them to join in groups or teams within the church. Identify how your church’s initiatives are connected to your mission and fit into your strategy.
• A year’s worth of planning // Everything Mariners Church does aligns with the mission and connects with the transformational loop. For example, the Senior Pastor maps out the teaching series and key scriptures about a year in advance. The team then uses the teaching to create cohesive planning and alignment for events or programs. By harnessing energy from and building upon the teaching, they create greater momentum to move the mission forward.
• Three tiers of events // Once they see the teaching calendar for the upcoming year, Jared and his leadership team can identify more easily what to say yes to and what to say no to. Their ministry roadmap has three tiers. Tier A are all-church events and are put on the calendar first. An example of Tier A is Rooted. Tier B are all-church but are contextualized at different congregations. These include life groups or deep dive discipleship courses that are open to everyone. Tier C are congregation-specific events and require approval from central ministry leaders to ensure alignment with the church’s overall strategy and effective use of resources.
• Evaluate programs // Evaluate your ministry programs and events as often as you feel necessary. Jared and his team use a framework that categorizes initiatives into four quadrants. The bottom left of the quadrant are the things that are Weeds and need to be pulled. The upper left are Problem Trees, things that have potential but aren’t performing well. The upper right are Flourishing Trees, the high potential and high performance items that are feeding the whole garden. Finally, the bottom right are high performance but low potential. These are Nice Plants that you don’t want to get rid of though they aren’t nourishing to the entire church.
• Address Weeds and Problem Trees // Weeds drain resources from the church, are outside of your strategy, and need to be removed. However, there will still be people who love them. As a leader it’s your job to help people see a more beautiful future and move them there. Similarly, Problem Trees need to be addressed so they can be made more fruitful. Identify what’s not working and take steps to help them become Flourishing Trees.

Visit marinerschurch.org and explore their social channels to see everything they are up to. Plus listen to this podcast episode with Erin Kerr to get the scoop on Rooted.

EXTRA CREDIT // Cultivate a Thriving Ministry with the Ministry Program Evaluation Toolkit

In this week’s episode, we unpack practical strategies for refining your ministry programs to maximize impact and align with your church’s mission. But what if you had a hands-on tool to guide this process? Enter the Ministry Program Evaluation Toolkit: A Garden-Inspired Framework to Assess and Refine Your Ministry Programs—your ultimate resource for evaluating, nurturing, and realigning your church’s efforts.

This toolkit uses the garden metaphor to help you categorize your programs as Weeds, Problem Trees, Flourishing Trees, or Nice Plants. From identifying programs to phase out, to cultivating the ones that are thriving, this resource provides clear steps and worksheets to help you confidently lead.

Take what you learned from this episode to the next level by accessing the Ministry Program Evaluation Toolkit as part of unSeminary Extra Credit. Start transforming your ministry programs today by downloading it here. Don’t miss this chance to create a thriving ministry strategy!

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?

Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.

Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.

Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really excited for today’s conversation. Been looking forward to it for quite a while. Excited to have Jared Kirkwood with us. He’s a part of Mariners Church. If you’re not familiar with Mariners, they have seven locations in California, if I’m counting correctly, and they’re on the brink of launching a couple more, plus an online community. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country for the last number of years. Jared is the lead pastor of Mariners Irvine and the discipleship pastors…he…or pastor. He is has been at Mariners Church for 16 plus years, has served as the junior high and high school pastor, lead pastor for the Rooted Network and as a teaching pastor. Jared, welcome. So glad you’re here.

Jared Kirkwood — Hey, thank you so much for having me, Rich. I really appreciate it. Your podcast has been such a benefit to so many of us and your insights even helping us in the last couple of years has been so beneficial to us as well. So thank you.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s, that’s awfully kind of you to say. I I love Mariners. This is one of those churches—and don’t say this about a lot of church—if I lived in your backyard, I’d be going to your church. And so I just, I just think the world of what you guys do. And, um, you know, you have huge influence as a church, you know, the Rooted Network that come came out of, out of here. We’ve, we’ve talked about Rooted in the past. We’ve you know had multiple conversations, uh, with you guys and just honored that you’d be here today. So why don’t you fill out the picture, tell us a little bit more for folks that don’t know about Mariners, maybe give a bit of sense of that, and then tell us a little bit about your role.

Jared Kirkwood — So I’ve been at Mariners since I was a college student. I had given my life to Jesus as a senior in high school. I moved out to Southern California to go to Vanguard University. And within just a couple of short months, I started attending this mega church. And I thought, I have no idea who this Jesus guy really is. I better get plugged in somewhere fast so I can learn more.