52 episodes
The Church Lobby Karl Vaters
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- Religion & Spirituality
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5.0 • 24 Ratings
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Karl Vaters interviews church leaders about the important issues of faith and ministry.
It's called The Church Lobby because:
The church lobby is where the church meets and does ministry.
The church lobby moves conversations from the stage to the floor.
The church lobby is a good place to take the temperature of a church’s health.
Karl Vaters is the author of several books, including Small Church Essentials and The Grasshopper Myth. Formerly known as Can This Work In a Small Church?, this podcast primarily looks at church leadership from a small church perspective.
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Post-Pandemic Trends In Small Church Ministry, with Dale Sellers
Karl Vaters interviews Dale Sellers of the 95 Network, which provides resources for the 95 percent of churches that are not large.
In this conversation, Dale and Karl talk about some of the important issues facing small churches as we come out of the pandemic and look ahead to 5-10 years of fallout, including:
The need for rest and soul care for pastors
Why the expected wave of pastoral resignations hasn’t happened
What to do instead of chasing absent members
The importance of accurately defining your congregation’s current reality
Links:
95 Network
Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They'd Be There by Now
The New Very Large Church
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
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Overcoming The Dangers of Elitist Christianity, with Michael Clary
Karl Vaters interviews Michael Clary about the dangers of what he calls Elitist Christianity.
This conversation was inspired by a Twitter thread Michael wrote in which he confessed to an arrogant attitude he had developed as a young, successful church planter. Michael found himself looking down on pastors and Christians who hadn’t had his training, even though they were the people whose shoulders he was standing on.
His vulnerability, confession, and repentance hold great lessons for all of us.
Links:
Michael Clary on Twitter: @DMichaelClary
Read Michael Clary’s Twitter Thread on Elitist Christianity
Read it here if you’re not on Twitter
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
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Team Leadership: Lessons from the Apostle Paul, with Ryan Lokkesmoe
Karl Vaters interviews Ryan Lokkesmoe, a church-planter and the author of a new book, Paul and His Team: What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Leadership and Influence.
Karl and Ryan talk about what we can learn from the way Paul worked with his ministry team, and how those lessons translate to ministry today. Including:
How Paul dealt with conflict, not seeing people as enemies to be defeated, but as people God loves and who can be redeemed just as he was redeemed.
Paul’s Kingdom Diplomacy as seen in a very helpful, eye-opening walk through the short, but challenging book of Philemon.
How Paul’s teaching and life match each other in the way he dealt with people.
How Paul prioritized constantly handing ministry off to the next generation.
Links from this episode:
The NET (New English Translation) Bible
Book: Paul and His Team: What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Leadership and Influence
Real Hope Community Church
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Dealing With Burnout In Ministry, with Sean Nemecek
Karl Vaters interviews Sean Nemecek, author of the just-released book, The Weary Leader’s Guide to Burnout: A Journey from Exhaustion to Wholeness. In this episode we’re talking to pastors who are wondering if they might be dealing with burnout in ministry.
Sean walks us through the following steps:
What is burnout, and why does it seem to be on the rise, lately?
How do I know if I’m struggling with is burnout?
How do I take steps to recover from burnout?
How do I protect myself from future burnout?
Sean also works with pastors through Pastor-in-Residence Ministries (pirministries.org), where his primary focus is on coaching pastors through burnout and recovery.
Links:
SeanNemecek.com
PastorSoul.com
PIRministries.org
@pastorsoul on Twitter and Instagram
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sean.nemecek
The official website for the book is www.wearyleadersguide.com
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Ministry in Today’s Rural Church, with Brad Roth
Karl Vaters interviews Brad Roth, a Mennonite pastor in rural Kansas, a blogger at DoxologyProject.com, and the author of God's Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church.
Brad and Karl talk about four concepts from his book:
The importance of Rural church
Acedia
The importance of Place
A New Way to Measure Growth
They also have an important conversation about replacing the typical metrics of demographics and attendance with what Brad calls “getting weird” as we assess church health and growth. Specifically, Brad raises the idea of using “rule” rather than metrics as our baseline.
This episode will encourage you who serve in rural areas, and hopefully will inspire pastors in transition to keep small towns on your list of ministry options.
Links from this episode:
The Daily Yonder
Rural Advancement
Small Town Summits
Rural Home Missionary Association
Doxology Project
Book: God's Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church
Book: The Hunger Inside: How the Meal Jesus Gave Transforms Lives
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Church Metrics that Really Matter, with Craig T. Owens
Karl Vaters interviews Craig T. Owens, a pastor, author, co-host of the podcast “The Craig and Greg Show”, and a blogger at CraigTOwens.com.
In this conversation, Karl and Craig talk about the subjects addressed in his recent book, Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics that Really Matter.
Some of the important subjects include:
Using biblical metrics for pastoral ministry
The tendency to lead based in confidence or humility
The essential nature of sabbath in a life of ministry
The relationship of wisdom to shepherding
The importance of overcoming guilt as a motivator for decisions in ministry
There’s also an important undercurrent throughout the episode about putting our servanthood into action first, knowing that only then will a servant’s heart follow.
Links from this episode:
YouVersion Bible App
Support This Work:
Visit the Website
Subscribe to weekly Newsletter
Contribute financially at KarlVaters.com/support
Visit our Youtube Channel
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Customer Reviews
Great wisdom
Powerful, practical, and biblical wisdom to lead any church no matter the size. I’m a music leader for my local, small church and these conversations and suggestions will build your knowledge, your humility and encourage you. Just Wonderful! Every church should use this tool and resource.
6 stars… no really
Karl is a gift to small church pastors. I’m sorry to say I didn’t catch this from the beginning, but now I get to binge 2 months worth at once. That means more great moments like Darth Vader wielding a dog brush. Lots of guys have been championing small church over the last 5 years, but Karl was the original. Thankful God has enabled him.
So needed!
Karl Vaters has his finger on the pulse of a small church. Make sure to check out his book The Grasshopper Myth. Changed my view of what the small church is. Great stuff!
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