26. “After Amen”—What to do when we’re waiting on God (with Rusty George)

VO: This is Equip and Engage, a podcast by Subsplash exploring how ministry technology and innovation come together to equip churches around the world to engage their communities.

Jon Crabtree: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Equip and Engage a podcast by Subsplash. We're here to help you equip and engage your congregants to make more and better disciples. Today. We are very excited to have pastor rusty George of real life church, a multi-site [00:00:30] church in Southern California. Rusty. Welcome to the podcast.

Rusty George: Well, thank you, Jon. It's an honor to be here.

Jon Crabtree: Awesome. Well, we're very excited to talk about what you do there at real-life church, but also last year you came out with a book after amen. And so very excited to dive into that book as well. It's a, it's an exciting read. I've been through it already once. And, uh, maybe the first question. [00:01:00] What brought about your creation of the idea for after? Amen.

Rusty George: Well, thank you, John. Uh, it's um, uh, I think for most of my, uh, books, and there's just a few of them that are out there, mainly all that, you know, my mom has purchased, uh, but it really starts with a problem point. And the problem that I was discovering, uh, for this one was a conversation I was having in the lobby almost every Sunday, [00:01:30] which I think a lot of pastors have, and that is they talk to somebody who's in pain. They encourage them to pray about it and even pray with them then, and then the person looks at them and says, I tried that and it didn't work. And there's this sense that I must have done it wrong. I must have said the wrong thing. I must not have asked the right way. And so I need you to pray for me because you're more spiritual than I am.

Rusty George: And maybe you can get a yes out of God. And [00:02:00] then sometimes I would pray and God would still say no, or it seemed silent. And then they would almost get angry with me or the church, or we've heard people leave their faith because they prayed for their mom who was dying of cancer and she still died or they prayed for their marriage and it still failed. And there's a sense of where were you, God, why did you allow this? Which then begs the question? Should I have done something different? Should I have said something different? Am I supposed to say something or do something after I pray? And it [00:02:30] led me to kind of going back to the scriptures and asking this question, what do we do after we say, amen. I mean, there's a lot of books out there about what to do before you pray.

Rusty George: And a lot of books on how to pray, but not a lot on there, what to do after you pray. And so I decided to go back and research what happened when people would go to Jesus with their questions and which were basically prayers and Jesus' response to them was really unique. It wasn't just yes or no. Most of the, there was work to [00:03:00] be done after the request. And a lot of times the answer for their prayer was contingent upon their action after their prayer. And so I kind of categorize those, um, steps that people need to take into about seven groups and put them in the book and we marched through it as a church. And I think it's been really helpful for our people to know. Yeah, there is a part I play in this, even after I hang up the phone, uh, God is still a wanting to work with [00:03:30] me, not just for me.

Jon Crabtree: That's awesome. One of the things that really stuck out to me from the book is this process that you go through, uh, maybe not so much a process is like you just said, actually categorizations. So without giving away the farm on the book, can you kind of give us a quick overview of some of those different categorizations? Yeah,

Rusty George: Absolutely. I think there's a, there's a few things you have to [00:04:00] think about. One is you have to think about aligning with his why and what I mean by that is, you know, God has a purpose for this world and we're a part of this story that he's telling and the quicker I get aligned with what he's up to, the more likely I am to not only want the things that he wants for my life, but I'm more likely to pray the things he's ready to say yes to. I think Henry Blackaby, uh, kind of got us onto this idea of some 20, some years ago with, uh, experiencing God [00:04:30] with this idea of ask God, uh, what he's already blessing and join him there. So I think there is a part of our prayers that it has to kind of line up with what God already wants to say yes to.

Rusty George: And then another one is, you know, you have to yield to the how meaning sometimes God's going to give us the yes, but it's just going to be different than what we expected. I think for a lot of pastors, we pray really big prayers for our community. We just assume the way that we're going to make an impact in our community is for that to be through [00:05:00] our church. Uh, I remember having a kind of a, I guess you could call it a come to Jesus moment one day in my prayer time, as I'm praying for all the great things I want our church to do in order to be a blessing to our community. And I felt like God said to me, would you be okay if all those things happen for the community, but through a different church? And I had to be honest, my answer was no.

Rusty George: Uh, but, uh, I, it was a gut check for me to realize sometimes, sometimes the way that Jesus would answer people's prayers, wasn't always [00:05:30] the way that they expected. Um, you know, another one is to do the next right thing. You know, a lot of times we pray big prayers for way down the road, when really the next thing we should do is go to our current job and work very hard that day. Uh, I think all of us as pastors, we've had people come up to us and say, boy, I wish I could be a pastor. And what they mean is they think that our job as a, for about an hour on Sunday, once a week, and they think that looks a lot easier. [00:06:00] Um, but then there are some people that come up and they really do want to go into ministry, but sometimes the next right thing for them is not to quit and go try to find a job in ministry.

Rusty George: It's just to keep going to work every single day and working hard until God opens the door, or you put yourself through some leadership opportunities to get yourself in a position to actually do that job. Uh, and, and one of my favorites in the book is one that I simply call remember, and it's this [00:06:30] idea of, you know what, sometimes you do get a no from God. And you just have to remember that he is still on the throne. He still loves you. He's still with you. And he's going to walk with you through all of these difficult seasons of life. I tell the story in the book of a family in our church that went through the horror of having one of their kids as a victim of a school shooting in our community and just watching them walk through that process and walking [00:07:00] through it myself, this was a girl that I knew, well, she was a friend of my daughters and she lost her life in just an instant with a random shooting at a school here locally.

Rusty George: And just trying to remember what it is, we do believe about God to be true, even when the things that we ask for from God, don't come true and seeing where God is and all of that. And Jesus had his fair share of that. He had to wrestle with that as he lost his earthly father, Joseph, he had to wrestle with that after being betrayed [00:07:30] and denied. And certainly the process of walking to the cross of remembering who his father was, rather than just seeing his father as the one who paves the way for all good things.

Jon Crabtree: It seems like with each of those different processes that there's this element of waiting and learning through the waiting and in your own journey as, as a pastor and walking through some of these situations [00:08:00] with families, who've lost children or, uh, family members or terrible things have happened. Uh, it seems like you've had to put some of these things into practice or, or all of them I should say. Yeah,

Rusty George: John, that's a, that's so true. Um, I think a lot about, you know, Jesus' words, that's, as he's talking to his disciples and he says, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I've overcome the world. We all [00:08:30] want to own that second half. Hey, we're on the winning team. Jesus has overcome the world. We went in the end. It's all good. It's all up into the right. And the dirty little secret that pastors don't want to tell is that we all have dark nights of the soul. We all have moments. We question our calling. We all have moments where the easy or the only way we can say, uh, I love you. Jesus is just, just to get out of, um, it's just, it's just hard. And in this world you will [00:09:00] have trouble. And I think about all the listeners of your podcast, and there are guys out there that feel so alone and feel so overwhelmed and they think nobody gets it.

Rusty George: And all they see are the Instagram stories of the church that just baptized 10,000 people and the outreach top 100 and all the other things that they, uh, you know, kind of get a little bit of FOMO from, uh, which sends us to some pretty dark places when the reality is we all struggle with anxiety and [00:09:30] sometimes depression and in, you know, insecurities and a fear of insignificance. And we wonder, you know, if we're good enough and that's why I love the apostle Paul. Who's so honest with us about his struggles with, you know, the things that I want to do. I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do, that's what I get stuck doing. And, and you see the insecurities that he faces and that, that Peter faces and the apostle John, and you just have to remind yourself that [00:10:00] Jesus told us it's going to be hard, but he does overcome the world. And we have to remember that.

Jon Crabtree: Yes, yes. Such a good after reminder, especially during this time, you know, we've had a year of the Corona virus pandemic and, um, and interestingly enough, uh, not that you probably knew this ahead of time, but, uh, the date to launch the book when you originally chose it, you probably knew nothing about the pandemic, but, [00:10:30] uh, just so happened that the launch date fell within it. And so when it comes to even the launch of this book, uh, you know, how, how did, how did you respond and what are some ways that you're actually, um, using the book, uh, to help local pastors?

Rusty George: Yeah, that's, uh, that was one of those great fails in a book publishing. Um, from all of our perspective, we, we, obviously, none of us knew there'd be a pandemic and we totally forgot about [00:11:00] the election. And so you had the election, you had the pandemic, you had everything else blowing up and burning down in our country. And oh, by the way, I put a book out. So I, you know, it's really easy to kind of get lost, uh, which is okay, because the great thing about a book, is it something you can continue to give out? Uh, and so what we did was as a church, we went ahead and did a whole teaching series on it. And what was interesting was I wrote the book before COVID, COVID had come out [00:11:30] and then COVID came out and I thought, oh my goodness, if there's ever a time that our world is wondering, where has God it's right now?

Rusty George: So I went back and I, and I rewrote a lot of it to take into consideration the coronavirus and what many of us were facing and feeling. And certainly pastors, you know, the, the, the sheer frustration that all of us have pastors have felt of seeing people, you know, you'll greet them after a service and they come up and they say, we're leaving the church because [00:12:00] you guys don't wear masks. And then somebody else come up and say, we're leaving the church because you guys do wear masks, or because it seems like your church has far right. Or because it seems like your church is far left. When really all we're trying to do is split the difference down the middle and be non-partisan and loving to all and love our neighbors as ourselves. And people always read into it. And so you have a lot of pastors out there hurting as I was and have been throughout this time.

Rusty George: And so we wanted to do all, we could not just to help our church, but other churches. [00:12:30] So, um, what we did was we created, um, nine messages for the book itself. If, you know, if a person wants to do it as a pastor, and maybe you just need the summer off, maybe UV nine weeks, that you don't have to think about writing a message, maybe it's just four weeks. You want to do that. Basically it gives you an intro message and outro message and the seven steps in between, and you don't have to do all of them. Um, I think we put it down in six, [00:13:00] uh, for our church. You can watch all of our videos at real life, church.org. Uh, but we want to give you the manuscripts. We want to give you, uh, the small group questions. And I even recorded a video that you can have your small group leaders just play.

Rusty George: And then you can basically start groups. They use the book and then I'll lead the group discussion, uh, for your group. And so whether you're a church of 10 people or 10,000, it's just a really easy, uh, resource for you to use. So [00:13:30] just go to my website, pastor rusty, george.com. Uh, you'll have an opportunity there to find out more about this and, you know, buy yourself some books and get all the free resources. And, uh, we really just want to help churches. And I've had a chance to go and speak at a lot of different churches, even when no one was traveling. I got a chance to go a few places that were a little bit more, less, um, uh, Corona, uh, prone, and, uh, to be able to kind of do the kickoff message or the final message of a church that went through this series. [00:14:00] It was a lot of fun and saw a lot of enthusiasm for people that were finally getting some answers to their question of why did God not answer me when I prayed?

Jon Crabtree: That's fantastic. And you know, if they want to preview real life, church is a partner of sub splashes. And you have your app on our platform for anyone who works at a church, or even if you're just someone at a different church, but you want to check it out. You can always download the real life church, uh, app in whatever app store you use and [00:14:30] , uh, take a preview of that series that you guys spent time with last year. Is that correct? Yeah,

Rusty George: Absolutely. Yeah. You can watch all those messages. Um, you can, you know, if you want the bumpers, uh, that we shot for those, let me know, just, you know, contact me through the website and I'll, I'll get all that stuff for you. Um, goodness, I think I, I have benefited enough from other people sharing their stuff with me. Please let me share stuff with you. Uh, so we can all realize we're in this together. Oh, the other [00:15:00] thing is, I know there's a lot of people out there that they don't read physical books, but they do listen to them and I went ahead and recorded it for audible as well. So you can pick it up there and listen to it on the treadmill or at your commute.

Jon Crabtree: Not often is the author also the audio book narrator. So that's pretty cool. Yeah,

Rusty George: That was, uh, that was fun. That's tougher than you think. Uh, reading your own book out loud in a quiet room by yourself. It was a little difficult, but I have some great sound guys that made it a whole [00:15:30] lot better.

Jon Crabtree: That's great. That's great. Well, Hey, we kind of skipped over a little bit, so I want to bring back, I really want to focus on that. Remember chapter, because as I was preparing for this, by reading the book, that was probably the chapter. Um, and it comes almost at the very end that I think gave me the most insight into, uh, in, in all of it into prayer in general, because you're answering the question. What if we get a no. [00:16:00] So how did you approach that? Because that's not an easy thing I'm sure as a pastor, but also as an author to, to deliver. Well, God's going to say no. So here's how you, here's how you should respond. Can you share a little bit about that chapter more in depth?

Rusty George: Yeah, I think that, um, that, that is a difficult thing for all of us. And I think for pastors, especially, we feel like we are we're God's hype man. We're, you know, we're God's lawyer. [00:16:30] We have to constantly defend the actions of God, uh, for people that are angry or mad. And we're trying to constantly talk them into or keep them, uh, from not only just leaving the church, but, uh, leaving their faith altogether. And, um, I just, I spent a lot of time looking at like John himself. Uh, this is a guy that was going to be a fisherman and decided to follow Jesus and gets a front row seat to all the things that Jesus [00:17:00] did. And you know, here he is, years after Jesus has left and he's been through horrific persecution. He's watched all the other disciples killed, including his brother.

Rusty George: He has watched members of his church be martyred for their faith. He's seen bodies stacked up alongside the road of people who were Christians. He's been, uh, many people believe boiled and oil at a point, [00:17:30] and then dropped off on this island of Patmos. And Jesus shows up in this revelation to encourage him. And then there's a lot of debate as to when gee, when John wrote his gospel. Was it before Patmos? Was it after revelation? Was it before? But we do know this it's a good 30 years after walked the earth. I want you to think about that. John has gone through all this persecution and yet when he writes his gospel, he refers to [00:18:00] himself as the one Jesus loves.

Rusty George: Yeah. It's pretty overwhelming. When you think about it, that all the persecution that John went through did not Rob him of his faith because he remembered the heart of Jesus. And he remembered who he really is from the time that he was with him. And then I think it's in the next chapter. I skip ahead to just the life of Jesus and how here Jesus is in [00:18:30] the garden. And he is asking God to come up with another idea for how to save the world other than him being crucified. And I never really got this until I visited Israel. And when you go to Jerusalem and they take you outside of Jerusalem and up the Mount of olives, into the garden of Yosemite, and you see where Jesus would have been standing or kneeling or face down to pray at night, he could have looked over into [00:19:00] the city of Jerusalem. And at the same time, he's asking for God to come up with a different plan. He would be able to see the soldiers, get their torches and their swords and gathered together with Judas and start the March over to get him. He could literally watch. God's saying no, as he's asking for his help.

Rusty George: And I think about how Jesus never once questioned his father. He just kept going because he remembered he's been faithful [00:19:30] in the past. He'll be faithful in the future and he knows what's best. And there are times that in ministry is so hard, whether it's a coronavirus or a school shooting or a moral failure on your staff, a suicide. And you're just thinking I don't have any more to give. I just want everything to be up and to the right and everything to be great. And I, I read a, I read a biography of a, of a missionary who went through far worse [00:20:00] than me. I listened to the stories of people that have, that have gutted it out and underground churches in China. I listened to pastors of churches in small towns who were having to fight the culture of just tradition. And I recognize that God continues to be faithful through all difficult seasons of life that we have.

Rusty George: And sometimes after amen, we, we recognize it's a no, but God is still with us. [00:20:30] John, John, I know it's, it's odd for an author to come on your podcast and promote a different book than his own, but I want to just take a moment and give a shout out to a book. I can't even remember the guy's name who wrote it, but it's simply called width. And his first name is sky S K Y E. I can not pronounce his last name. And I can't, I can't remember for the life of me, but the book's called width. And it's a brilliant book about how most of us spend our lives thinking that God, [00:21:00] that we live life over God under God for God, but yet God has chosen to live life with us. It's a far different way to think about ministry rather than I do it for God to somehow earn his favor, but yet I get to do it with God in some of the greatest moments and the worst moments of people's lives.

Jon Crabtree: Wow. Yeah. That idea of, um, you know, through Jesus, [00:21:30] you actually don't have to earn his, his desire to be with you accomplishing his work together, uh, through Jesus. He accomplished that so that we can be working with him because that's what he wants to do. That's an incredible insight. So thank you for that. And also just to think back on our conversation, uh, just a second ago about what you're doing to help, [00:22:00] uh, churches use the content from after. Amen. Thank you for your willingness to share, like you said, you've benefited from many pastors, uh, before you, but that act of passing it on is, is fantastic. And because you have such a heart, it seems for the, uh, for local churches, you're the pastor of a large multi-site congregation, but, um, you have this heart to help churches of any size, um, w [00:22:30] just kind of want you to talk a little bit about maybe some of the trends we're seeing, uh, as well here at Subsplash of churches that are decentralizing.

Jon Crabtree: We think, for instance of our partners at the village church, down in Texas, who used to be a multi-site congregation, and then each of those sites became their own autonomous churches. We think of pastor Francis Chan and some of the work he was doing in San Francisco that he's carrying overseas, uh, to make more of a house church model. And then [00:23:00] even you can speak to some of the initiatives that you have going on at real life church, uh, a certain goal that you've set recently. Can you speak to just that over overarching trend and maybe how you're joining in with it in a way?

Rusty George: Yeah, I think for a long time, obviously since acts two, we've all been interested in church growth and we've been interested in church multiplication. Uh, I think, uh, many organizations have come out over the last few years and, and brought to mind and brought to light [00:23:30] the fact that there are more churches closing every year. Then there are those that are starting. So, uh, certainly over the last 20 years, church planting has taken off, but so has, uh, church campuses. And I think, you know, it's, it's really, uh, as we like to joke about around here, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. You're going to have pluses and minuses with both. You can plant a church, but you've got to get a lot of momentum and you're the guy doing everything, but you get full autonomy and you can create it yourself, or [00:24:00] you can go the other way of campuses and you get a lot of help and you get sermons that are kind of prepared for you, but you lose a little bit in the autonomy too.

Rusty George: So you just have to decide what kind of leader are you, are you the leader that needs to create and be strategic and integrate, you know, from a teaching perspective, great, go plant a church, or, you know, be at a church where they let you teach multiple times, um, a month rather than just show video. Uh, or are you a guy that man, I want to lead a church, [00:24:30] but ah, just writing a message, just drains me. I need to be out with people and lead teams and cast vision. Well, great. Go be a campus pastor. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, we'd love to talk to you here. Uh, and we actually give a lot of our guys a lot of at-bats when it comes to teaching. So what we're trying to do is launch 30 churches or campuses in the next 10 years by the year 2030.

Rusty George: And the reason we came up with that strategy is as we recognize that some leaders come to you with gift mixes, where they need [00:25:00] to teach great, we'll help you plant a church, but then there's some leaders that come and go, I just really want to lead. That's my primary gift. Great. We'll help you plant a campus and we'll teach for you. And so we're thinking we're probably going to plant 20 churches and do 10 campuses, but it may be the other way around, depending on the leaders that God sends to us. So we've developed a residency program here on staff, where you can come and, you know, spend a year with us and get trained up and we'll help you get sent out with a group of people and some money, uh, to start [00:25:30] your church plant. We've been able to plant, I think about 10 different churches in the last, uh, decade.

Rusty George: And we're excited about them. Many of them are here in California and these next 30, we want to be in California as well, because we just think we have a tremendous chance to not just change California, but also the world as a result of that. Um, so I think what you're seeing right now with the trends in, in churches is kind of a reaction to the way that people have stopped going to church as much. I think you're seeing a [00:26:00] little bit in the rest of the country, what the east coast has experienced for a long time. And that is people are leery of large churches and more interested in smaller because it seems more personal. And so a lot of church planters that try to do work on the east coast, they plant with old names, but small gatherings, uh, whether it's St Anthony or St Andrew or something like that in a way to kind of create some kind of heritage and tradition with a small group.

Rusty George: Um, I think on the west coast, you're [00:26:30] seeing some people try things like house churches and those kinds of things. And I have found that I, and I, and I've been a believer of those things and still am a lot of house churches work really well until you start having kids. And now you've got kids running around and you're thinking, boy, I sure wish someone will do children's ministry for these kids so we could actually have church. So I think there's, there's good things too, to both ways. And, uh, what we try to do here at real life is create great experiences that are downloadable and non downloadable. [00:27:00] And we try to create great stuff for our kids, both in-person and also digital. And we try to have great affinity type of small groups where, Hey, if you guys like to go ride motorcycles, do it, but we want to get you into discipleship groups as well, which are a little bit more like your house church model.

Rusty George: So I think there's things we can learn from all these movements. But now that I'm, I can't believe I'm about to say this on a podcast. It just happened a week ago. Now that I'm 50, I have a little bit more, uh, wisdom for my 25 year old [00:27:30] self who thought there was a silver bullet out there I could find, and it would be the perfect God ordained way to do church. When really there is no such thing. You love, God, you love people, you serve the world and God does that in a variety of different ways. And it's all called the church.

Jon Crabtree: That's a really wise way to answer it, especially I think for our listeners calling out that idea of what kind of leader are you, are you a, are you more [00:28:00] of someone who wants to lead or are you more of someone who wants to teach and kudos to you guys there at real life church for having a pathway for both kinds of, of leaders? So,

Rusty George: Yeah. Thank you. And I think what, you know, my twenties really taught me to try everything. You know, I never thought I would go get a job as a young adult pastor. I didn't know that, that there was such a thing. I thought it was youth ministry, worship ministry or preaching ministry. That was it. And I got a call to go be an intern as a young adult pastor at this church. And I did, and I loved [00:28:30] it. And I think that you just keep saying yes to opportunities and you find what God just, you know, lights a fire in your heart for, and it prepares you for whatever's next. So don't get into this mold of thinking. I gotta be the next Craig Rochelle or Steven Furtick or Andy Stanley or whatever. You just, you try it all. You be you and you'll discover who God's created you to be and enjoy the journey.

Jon Crabtree: That's awesome. Hey, quick question for you on [00:29:00] just that vision for real life church over the next five to 10 years and maybe just church in general. How, how do you see technology? Not only continuing to enable the church, but, uh, you know, perhaps in ways we haven't even thought of you guys have a pretty decent technological set up there at, at real life. So I'd love to hear kind of the way you think about it as a, as a lead pastor there.

Rusty George: Yeah. Um, I, I remember when we, uh, uh, first got our app, [00:29:30] this was, you know, several years ago. And I remember us talking about, should we have people open the app during church? Cause if they open the app during church, they may get on or Instagram at the same time. And we all started laughing thinking about you think they did this years ago when they said, should we put an outline in the program? Cause if they start writing stuff down, they may start doodling. You know? So I think that there's, there's pluses and minuses to everything. And for those of us who are scared [00:30:00] of, of church online, I get it. But there's also a guy in the back of your auditorium. Who's completely asleep or he's on his phone and he's less engaged with the guidance pajama pants in his living room who's watching online.

Rusty George: So there's pluses and minuses. You just have to learn how to embrace it and make sure that it's driving people in, in a direction to help them, for instance, our online campus, uh, we recognized early on that it is primarily watched [00:30:30] by people who are not yet Christians. So if that's the case, let's, don't do 15 minutes of worship up at the top. Let's put that at the end, cause they're not quite ready for that. Let's start off with the message and let's, don't let it, me, me behind a podium as a talking head for 45 minutes. How about I'm out in the woods, walking around, talking about whatever, um, while using the woods as an analogy and let's do it in 20 minutes. I think Ted talks says 18 minutes [00:31:00] is a as the most people can stand. And what if we got even more creative than that?

Rusty George: And we took a message and we summed it up in three minutes and we put it on YouTube and on social media and that pushed people to the online campus and the online campus pushed people to in the room. And now we're seeing that the people that are showing up in the room are there because they want to be there. They want to sing, they want to be around other Christians. So now you begin to target even more of a believer rather than just an unbeliever. So [00:31:30] I think there's great opportunities for the church to even get more targeted than we felt like we'd been able to do in the past. Because as Andy Stanley said in deep and wide, you know, you want to do the, the, the double barrel approach when you teach. And so you're preaching to non-Christians and, and Christians, which I totally agree. Now we have two different venues where they're showing up. So teach them to lead them to the next place finally, to where they become leaders. And now they're helping others [00:32:00] start that journey as

Jon Crabtree: Well. And I could see that being, uh, that online piece, I should say, being that portal into figuring out okay, who is real life church, and what are they all about or insert whatever church name here. Do you think that trend is probably pretty accurate across most churches where your online audience would be composed, much more people who are asking the questions, but maybe haven't committed yet. [00:32:30] Yeah.

Rusty George: I, I think that it depends on your context. I think when COVID first started, it was Avery. Everybody who was going to church is just watching online. Now, I think you have to ask the question, what would your church people share with their unchurched friends? We'd like to use the parable of the lost sheep all the time. You know, the 99 stay in the one, the one has wandered away, who is that one in your life? And now you're creating a service for the one, but you're also creating [00:33:00] a service that, that for all of the 90 nines, one, in other words, who is it that they want to share this with? What are they telling you? You might be in a rural community and they're telling you, none of us have the internet. None of us watch online. We need a, uh, Tuesday morning service because we're busy on the weekends with, you know, chores or whatever it is.

Rusty George: And I'm just spit balling here. This is my Kansas heritage coming out. So like have liberties here. Um, but you know, [00:33:30] just finding out what are your people going to invite people to, because it's probably a little bit different than what my people will invite people to. Um, what we're finding is a lot of our people are really interested in one of the three F's as we call it faith, finance, or family. And so if we meet some kind of a need when it comes to that and put it in some kind of a bite-size form that as a bit of a lead magnet or as a attractional to somebody, our people will share that our people share music [00:34:00] parodies all the time. Uh, we did a song, uh, when Corona, uh, well, I shouldn't say when it was over, but when we started regathering, we called it since you've been gone and it's the old Kelly Clarkson song.

Rusty George: And we just highlighted all the stuff that church has been doing while they have been at home. Uh, cause there's people out there that haven't tuned in once. So it became a fun way to do it. We did 12 days of Corona for Christmas and you know, those kinds of things get shared a lot and they generate it for, you know, uh, interest in your church [00:34:30] and really what you're doing. And you've always done this as a church is you want to be the place people go when they have crisis. I mean, that's the way it was. Even before the internet, you were the church on the corner that was always active in the community and people knew you were there. And when they had a crisis, then they'd show up and then that's when you get to minister to them, serve them, lead them to the Lord and it changes their life. Same thing is true. But how do you get that brand awareness? It's no longer you [00:35:00] talking about your church. It's about your church members talking about their church. And when they do that, when they share stuff, when they use great apps, like Subsplash, then suddenly they're beginning to help their friends come to find and follow Jesus, which is what you've wanted all along.

Jon Crabtree: And that's that Sunday through Saturday piece, or sorry, Monday through Saturday, I should say, you know, where they take that into the rest of their week and you get those other 166 [00:35:30] or 67 hours out of the week. Exactly. That's a, that's a great way to put it. Well, rusty, it's been fantastic having you on here. I want to thank you for spending time with us talking about the book and also just for the different ways your church and your book is reaching people for Jesus. I also want to give you an in, uh, opportunity to just talk to people about where they can find you. I think you mentioned something a little bit earlier, but I know you've got a website, [00:36:00] a podcast, where can they find you across all the different places?

Rusty George: Yeah. Well, well thank you, John, for not just the invitation to beyond, but also that opportunity. And, and I just, uh, I recognize how blessed I've been to have people share stuff with me and pour into my life. And if I can pass any of that along, I want to do that. So yeah, I've got a podcast called leading simple where I just interviewed people that are heroes of mine. Uh, we talk a lot about just how to help the overwhelmed Christian out there. Just kind of navigate all the changing [00:36:30] scenes of life. Um, and then of course the, we do a blog once a week about various issues that we're all dealing with. And sometimes they're, they're sports related. Sometimes they're, church-related sometimes they're fun related. Uh, but then also all of this can be found at pastor rusty, george.com. That's where the book is, that's where the sermons are.

Rusty George: And I also put out this, this little thing that our church needed. And so we, we wrote it together here. Um, I think many of our listeners are familiar with, uh, the, the great book [00:37:00] that Andy Stanley did called how good is good enough. And it's about a 30 page little pamphlet that you give to people, uh, that are just wrestling with, well, I'm a good person and it was a great pre evangelism workbook. And what I found was it was great to get people, you know, to make a decision, but there was nothing out there for them after they made a decision. So we decided to write a little book called a simple path to following Jesus, which just walks through how to act justly, [00:37:30] love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord, your God. And it's a 30 page, little pamphlet, uh, that you can buy really cheap, uh, through the website or Amazon. And by, you know, I think we bought, um, 2000 just to hand out to people on weekends and then when you can buy them digitally. And so people are watching online and they've made a decision, you can send it to them instantaneously. You've just, pre-ordered it. So all those resources are there for you. Hope it helps somebody out. And if they want to contact me, they can [00:38:00] just email me directly at our George at real life, church.org, or hit me up on social media at rusty L George on Instagram and Twitter.

Jon Crabtree: Awesome. Well, once again, thank you so much, viewers and listeners, thanks for tuning into another episode, equip and engage, and we will look forward to seeing you next time.

VO: Thanks for tuning in to equip and engage where we're sharing insights learned from thousands of conversations with leaders and pastors around the world to follow along with these conversations, [00:38:30] subscribe today, or visit our website.