Jesus Unbranded with Mike Elms

In this episode of the Church Talk Podcast, Jason Allison and his co-hosts engage with Mike Elms, an experienced ad man and author, discussing the intersection of faith, storytelling, and church leadership. They explore how reimagining biblical parables can make them more relatable to modern audiences, the importance of storytelling in teaching, and strategies for retaining and regaining church members. Mike shares insights from his background in advertising and how it informs his approach to faith and community engagement, emphasizing the need for churches to recognize and utilize the diverse gifts of their members.

Get Mike's Book "Jesus Unbranded" (Volume 1 & 2)

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Introduction
02:11 Introducing Mike Elms and His Work
04:03 The Concept Behind 'Jesus Unbranded'
09:35 The Power of Storytelling
10:45 Faith and Profession: A Personal Journey
13:42 The Importance of Real-Life Stories
14:44 Becoming a Better Storyteller
18:29 Elements of a Great Story
20:18 Challenges in Reimagining Parables
21:38 The Dramatic Night of the Oscars
26:27 Exploring Accents and Cultural Connections
27:25 Strategies for Church Retention and Engagement
33:01 Utilizing Gifts for Kingdom Purposes
38:50 Encouragement for Pastors and Leaders
43:49 Outtro

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Well, welcome everybody back to the church talk podcast with Rob and with Courtney and with me, Jason, we are so glad that you have joined us for another episode. This has been, we've had some really good episodes the last several months. Like we've had some great interviews. had some great conversations and I'm just excited. I've enjoyed just some of our stuff we've talked about, but a, Hey Rob Courtney.

Mike Elms (00:02)
Whoa.

Jason Allison (00:30)
we have actually haven't talked in a couple of weeks because of travel schedules and stuff. you guys doing okay.

Courtney (00:37)
I'm doing fine. I have nothing to report. That's been exciting. So yeah, did get to go to a hockey game last night, went into overtime and we won. So it was super exciting. So yeah, we beat Rob's Canadians, I guess, the Calgary Flames, not your actual team, but you know, they were Canada. We beat Canada. Go America.

Rob Paterson (00:57)
Nice. Yeah. You know what, Courtney, is that just, like a little bit of salve in the wound knowing that team Canada beat, the Americans in the final of the four nations cock hockey thing? Yeah.

Mike Elms (00:59)
No.

Courtney (01:11)
Yes, that was

Jason Allison (01:12)
Yeah.

Courtney (01:12)
that was a little bit. Yeah.

Jason Allison (01:13)
Yeah, that made up tournament that no one cared about. It did matter. No, it was good. It was good.

Mike Elms (01:14)
Yeah.

Courtney (01:17)
Hey, they fought like it mattered.

Rob Paterson (01:19)
They did all of them both sides. Yes. You always want to win

Mike Elms (01:21)
from it.

Rob Paterson (01:23)
the first one, right? Like whenever there's a first, it's nice to win the first one. Yeah.

Jason Allison (01:27)
That's true. Yeah. Well,

and my daughter was at a hockey game last Saturday night. they had one of those outdoor, hockey games where it was at Ohio stadium. and she had student tickets cause she's a senior there and she ended up getting picked to go onto the field because 21 pilots was doing the intermission entertainment. So she got to be up right next to the stage, with Tyler and, and, and Josh.

as they were doing the big huge 21 pilot, whatever, but we were a little jealous, but that's all right. but yeah. And the blue jackets won, which is rare. Well, not this year, they're not terrible, but you know, anyway, and that chit chat. mean, nobody cares about any of that. the people have tuned in because they want to hear what's going on in the world of church and pastors and leaders. And that's, know, as a podcast, that's

Mike Elms (01:58)
it.

Rob Paterson (02:04)
That's cool.

Mike Elms (02:04)
and it's

Jason Allison (02:22)
It's what we're all about. We're about equipping, engaging, and encouraging pastors and leaders. And today we do have a special guest. I know Rob and Courtney, we previewed the book that he co-wrote or he wrote and then had some other people contributing to it. And I don't know about you, but I personally loved every bit of it. I have actually used it in Bible studies where I've talked with people. I have used it in conversations. Like it has been amazing to me.

so I want to welcome to the church dog podcast, Mr. Mike Elms. Thank you so much for taking time to be with us.

Mike Elms (02:59)
Hey, good morning to your time and good afternoon for mine.

Jason Allison (03:03)
That's right. You're on the other side of the pond, aren't you?

Rob Paterson (03:03)
Hahaha

Mike Elms (03:06)
I am, yep.

Jason Allison (03:08)
Yeah, well, just so everybody

knows, Mike Elms is an author and you were an ad man for decades, basically. And you basically have some experience in leadership, in the industry of ad advertising and so forth. You've been the head of two different United Kingdom advertising agencies. And so you definitely know a little bit about advertising and marketing.

But I also would say this podcast, this episode is not about how churches can be better at marketing. We actually have, I think, a better conversation where we are gonna talk about the book that you and Ivan Philby, as well as the artist involved was Jason Moore. And Jason was actually on our podcast back in November of 2024, but he didn't tell us about this, because he's, I guess, selfish, only wanted to talk about his book. Ugh, I know, but whatever.

But yes, I have the book here for anybody who's watching this. If we ever go to video, they'll see it, but it is a Jesus unbranded stories without spin. maybe Mike, just to get us started, like, tell us a little bit about the book and then we'll dive in from there.

Mike Elms (04:25)
Hey well, and there's volume two as well, is Jesus Unbranded, Stories with Bite. Yeah, so let me tell you about, well, tell me about, I'll tell you about myself first. Once an ad-map, you're always an ad-map. Can't get away from that. It's what I've done, what I still do.

Jason Allison (04:28)
Yes.

Yes, I'm looking forward to I've got to order that one. I haven't gotten it yet.

Mike Elms (04:54)
The great thing about advertising is you stand in other people's shoes and you look at products and services through their eyes and you try and talk to them in an interesting, relevant, persuasive, engaging way. So that's essentially it. That's the pitch. Those are the skills that you take and you take forward and you apply them wherever you are. So I'm an ad man, but I'm a Christian ad man.

gave my life to Jesus half a lifetime ago, fact. so along the way I developed and I got into church leadership. I've not been a pastor, I haven't been called that way, but I've definitely been part of a leadership teams. And in fact, I've pastored two or three pastors along the way. So the books.

Jason Allison (05:48)
Okay.

Mike Elms (05:53)
It's a fairly simple concept. It all started quite a few years ago when my pastor said to me, Mike, hey, we're up and we're doing a couple of parables. I've done it so often I'm stumped. Can you take this one, please? So I said, And the first one up was the

Rob Paterson (06:13)
Hahaha

Mike Elms (06:23)
the Good Samaritan. And I looked at it I thought, we just know this too well. And then this thought just went flashing through my mind, yeah, but what if Jesus were here telling it to us today?

And I thought, well, the one thing he wouldn't do to me at the time I was over in England, he wouldn't come and talk to me about a good Samaritan, because I wouldn't know a Samaritan if I tripped over one. Nor would I know that in Jewish culture, there's no such thing as a good Samaritan. It's a complete oxymoron. The only good Samaritan is a dead Samaritan.

Rob Paterson (07:02)
Mmm.

Mike Elms (07:07)
I they loathe them with a passion. I thought well who do we have? Who do we not like so much? And what would be an oxymoron for that? Now there is, we play soccer in England and there's one team over here, they're not a high flying team but they're Millwall, they're an East London team.

and their supporters have gathered a bit of a reputation. When Millwall come to town, it's time to board it up and lay it out on there, nail down anything that can be moved. So I found myself writing the story of the compassionate Millwall fan. And as soon as you said that, people looked at you and thought, are you crazy?

Rob Paterson (07:48)
Ha

Jason Allison (07:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (08:03)
Is there any such thing? And immediately the story then wrote itself or shall I say rewrote itself because the one thing I knew was that I might change the way the story is populated but the storyline had to be, had to maintain its integrity. The reason Jesus told it in the first place, the underlying messaging that he was trying to put across had to come through.

Jason Allison (08:12)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (08:31)
strong and clear. By the way, when we come to look at that one for the States, think, know, noble fans don't really resonate over this. So we recast it as the caring Russian ultra. Right, if you think of Russian ultras, they are pretty villainous type. again, and the story sort of flows from there.

Jason Allison (08:48)
Right.

Rob Paterson (08:56)
.

Mike Elms (09:00)
In another one, lost sheep. I don't know many shepherds, but there's not a lot around, so there's not a lot I know about sheep. But I do know a lot of teachers, and my daughter is one, and she's taken pupils on ski trips. And she told me the story once of how one of the pupils got separated from the rest of the bunch. And I thought...

Rob Paterson (09:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (09:30)
Oh, there you go. That'll do it. So the lost sheep became the missing pupil. One who gets, who wanders away on the mountain and gets himself lost and caught in a white egg. I don't know if you, if any of you are skiers, but a white egg is when you can't tell the bottom from the top, the side from the side, you find yourself skiing back up the hill when you, it's, you know, you can't see more than a yard. You can't see your own feet, virtually.

Jason Allison (09:36)
Mmm.

Mike Elms (10:00)
a big white ape. So I told that one and one of the members in the congregation came up to me afterwards and said, wow, I'm a skier, she said, and that really spoke to me because for the first time I really thought about that parable from the sheep's perspective and I know how in a white ape

Jason Allison (10:01)
Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

Hmm

Rob Paterson (10:24)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (10:27)
It's disorientating. You feel lost. You feel alone. You feel cold. You feel scared. And I guess that's what a spiritual whiteout feels like. I said, yeah, that's it. That hadn't occurred to me, but I took it, I took it willingly. that, that I think we're going to talk about about storytelling. That's the power of storytelling.

Jason Allison (10:35)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (10:39)
Mm-hmm. That's that's so good

Jason Allison (10:39)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Courtney (10:47)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (10:53)
they saw that they develop a life of their own and they put messages across. Sorry, I've wang the line off there. was a simple question.

Rob Paterson (10:59)
Yeah. No, Mike, that's that that's so good. And

Jason Allison (11:00)
Thank you.

Rob Paterson (11:05)
it gives us some context and some understanding, you know, just for our listeners who might be also interested in your work and picking up these books, because again, they're they're awesome. And just an aside for a minute, this is kind of special for me. I was born and raised in Canada and my mom

was born in England and immigrated to Canada as a young girl with her family. she, was born in Sheffield, England and my dad immigrated to, to Canada from Scotland. So they both since past, but you know, it's just, I always love talking to people from that part of the world because you know, all my family's from that part of the world. So this is, this is awesome. Hey, but you know, as you were, you were saying, you know, Hey, you've been an ad man for decades.

Mike Elms (11:45)
is a home thing from that point of view.

Rob Paterson (11:56)
You have an impressive resume there, but you, you said the words, but I'm a Christian ad man. And we talked to us just for a minute about how your faith has impacted your vocation and how your vocation has impacted your faith. Cause I think that's, that's pretty awesome.

Jason Allison (11:59)
Thank you.

Mike Elms (12:15)
Okay, yeah, yeah. So how has my faith impacted my profession? I think it made me more observant, more caring of other people. It taught me the great gift of self-control and of patience, of listening before you speak. It taught me the value as well as of

standing in other people's shoes. I mentioned that earlier on but that's such a great thing to do. You have to do that in advertising. I think when I learned that lesson and that came through the Christian face and what I was learning about it, really listening to people and really understanding people and relating to them.

So it impacted upon me professionally and it impacted upon me in the way I manage people. Because the way it made me see that my job in managing people was to enable them to get the most out of themselves. A Christian friend of mine once said, management is rolling the rocks off the runway.

so that people can fly. And that developing talent, if you can develop talent, particularly in an ad agency, that whole agency will fly. So I sort of mixed the two questions up there. How is it affected? How has my faith affected my trade? And my trade affected my faith?

Jason Allison (13:57)
.

Mike Elms (14:07)
It's certainly impacted the preaching because if you want to get a point across, you have to be relevant to people. You have to engage with them and you have to make them curious. Because the point about advertising is you can't sell a product off a page. It's not it's a fairly weak force when it comes to selling.

But what you can do is excite people's interest and encourage them to find out more. So that's, you like, where advertising my faith sort of come together, exciting people, getting their interest, encouraging them to find out more. I've been involved in Christian advertising campaigns as well, where the two come together and you cannot sell faith off a billboard.

But you can get people to think about faith off a billboard. And if you encourage them to think, then you let the spirit take over from there.

Jason Allison (15:19)
That's great. Yeah.

Courtney (15:20)
Yeah, that's

really good. And it reminds me of like when you you finished telling the story about you preaching about the white out in church, they were unintended consequences. You're like, well, I didn't think about that. But that is a really good point that like stories like are able to embed more meaning than even we intend. And they resonate with people in different ways. And so why do you think stories are just such a powerful teaching tool in a way to kind of, again, bridge that meaning gap between people?

Why are we so compelled by stories?

Mike Elms (15:52)
I think it's because stories talk with people, not at them. So stories invite people to get involved and to become the good stories get you to become part of that storyline.

Rob Paterson (15:56)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (15:56)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (16:15)
you'll hear brands talk about creating their storylines. Companies want to create their storylines. Storyline is so on trend at the moment across the whole of the marketing, advertising profession and particularly with the addition of all the digital media tools. You're just trying to create and expand and multi-format your storylines. So they they cross over and they weave their way into everything else.

Rob Paterson (16:27)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (16:45)
and so as you weave a storyline you're weaving people's interest to it as well and it allows them as we say to take things out of it that you hadn't consciously put in there and that's quite a you know that's something that only stories can do.

Jason Allison (17:03)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (17:03)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (17:10)
So, and I'm just curious, like, if you have any suggestions, any, you know, teaching points, I don't know about how pastors could become better storytellers. Because, I mean, I just, I've listened to some pastors tell stories and quite honestly, it was really boring. But then I've listened to other pastors that I was on the edge of my seat, you know, and I was excited, I was anxious to hear what they were saying.

Mike Elms (17:12)
If you have suggestions and teaching points.

through that.

Jason Allison (17:40)
I don't know, can pastors get better at telling stories? And if so, do you have any suggestions or ideas that may be helpful to them?

Mike Elms (17:46)
suggestion.

Wow. I'm sure there are some passes around who could get better at telling stories, and I'm sure there are some around probably loads who are better at it than I am. All right, so I can only talk from my experience in this. So what I would share is I think the best storylines come out of real life experience. So

Rob Paterson (17:53)
Hahaha.

Mike Elms (18:21)
We all go life, we all encounter different people, different situations. And that gives you the material you need. So if you can route it in real experience, but then give it that twist, you're on to a good footing. So that would be my observation. In writing these books, a lot of the people...

in that most of the characters are based upon characters I have known because then when I write about them they are real people and the situations, the storyline if you like was given to me by the master storyteller Jesus but I had to rewire it, reset it a lot of those there are based on real

Jason Allison (19:00)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mike Elms (19:18)
real storylines. There's a story about two punters, are two hospice nurses who go on a weekend to Vegas and get into a pile of trouble at a casino, inadvertently. That was based on my wife and her friend.

Jason Allison (19:21)
Yeah, and I think that came through.

Rob Paterson (19:36)
haha

haha

Mike Elms (19:44)
They didn't quite go that far, but it gave me a real context to develop that storyline.

Jason Allison (19:49)
Yeah.

Well, hopefully she doesn't know you're sharing that.

Courtney (19:57)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (20:00)
That was one of my favorite

stories. I mean, I, that one was, it just stuck in my brain and I remembered it. and it, just, cause it connected in such a way that, mean, like you said, Jesus, the master storyteller told a story about, you know, a master and two servants and giving it, and one was in debt, et cetera. But man, when, when I thought of it in terms of Vegas and it just all of sudden was like, wow. They came to life, you know, in a new way. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (20:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney (20:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (20:29)
I had

a little cry at the end of that. I I wrote it and I cried.

Rob Paterson (20:29)
Well, he...

Courtney (20:34)
you

Jason Allison (20:34)
Hahaha!

Rob Paterson (20:35)
that's good. That's so good. Mike, you know, just like Jason said, there, there are good storytellers and then there maybe aren't, aren't so good storytellers, but man, there are also really, really, really good stories and not so good stories. you know, I think even a not, not so good storyteller can tell a great story and everybody's going to be moved and inspired by that. And, and I think you've already given us some information about this, like,

it being personal, you know, matters, and making sense. Like sometimes people read a parable in the Bible and they may have no idea what Jesus is really trying to say because, know, it was written a long time ago. And so, like you said, we don't have shepherds. So contextualizing it's important. What are some other things that make a story a great story, you know, just from your vantage point?

Mike Elms (21:33)
All right. I think that.

Storylines without a cut and dried ending. The great storylines. So I'll leave it open for you to take it further.

So yeah, I would say that they are layered. Great stories. So that as you dig it, you peel off one light, you hit another light, and then you peel that other light and you hit another one. And that's what makes the classics. If you look at the classics of storytellers, JD Sanders, H.G. Wells and Mark Twain and so forth.

They're a cut above the rest of them because there is just more depth in them. It's like films as well, some of the great storylines. The Lord of the Rings that's worked on so many levels. The Harry Potter stories work on so many levels. That's what turns them into

film classics and we all get involved with them. We all get involved and we all abuse on the different characters and we talk about them to each other and we decide whether we're going to be in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, which house would you be in at Hogwarts? So they just, so yeah, that's I just go off here?

Rob Paterson (23:11)
Yeah.

Courtney (23:11)
Yeah, they like invite you into a

world and you can imagine yourself being there. Yeah.

Mike Elms (23:15)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (23:17)
Yeah, yeah. Well, like even as you said that it made me laugh because some good friends of ours who go to our church, they have Hufflepuff on

like a sticker on their Subaru Outback and I chuckle because it's the first and only time I ever saw someone put a Harry Potter house sticker on their car. So, but hey, that's good.

Mike Elms (23:29)
Thanks.

That's good.

Courtney (23:38)
Mm.

Jason Allison (23:42)
So.

Courtney (23:42)
Were there certain

of these parables, like at least we only have volume one, so you can advertise volume one or volume two here, whichever one you prefer, that were like harder to reimagine, harder to find that through line as you were thinking through the story.

Mike Elms (23:56)
Yeah, there was one story in there which was like it was the iceberg lying in front of the Titanic. Because most of Jesus stories were based in the here and now real life. Real life storylines. But the rich man and Lazarus is is is like a tales from the supernatural. It's you know it's set.

in the hereafter. I don't have any experience of that yet. So how was I going to sort of grab that one and bring it to life? can't remember that. Well that's in of Involubon. you must get it. In which case I won't plot spoil.

Jason Allison (24:44)
I think it's in volume two because I don't remember it.

Courtney (24:48)
Yeah, it's not ours.

Rob Paterson (24:52)
Ha ha.

Mike Elms (24:56)
But it was a challenge and therefore one of the most satisfying ones to write with the help of a certain Charles Dickens. You may have heard of him. I'll tell you what, how about I do something now? You can tell me not to if you want. Last night was the Oscars.

Courtney (24:56)
You

Rob Paterson (25:08)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (25:11)
Yeah.

yeah.

Mike Elms (25:24)
and one of the parables he wrote, as in volume one, was the dramatic night of the Oscars. It'll take about two or three minutes to read. Shall I just read it now? It'll give people a taste of it. So this one is based on the parable of the Place of Honour at the wedding feast, which I'm sure we all know.

Jason Allison (25:31)
Yeah.

Courtney (25:31)
Yeah.

Go for it.

Rob Paterson (25:37)
Yeah, let's do it.

Jason Allison (25:37)
Please.

Yes.

Mike Elms (25:52)
So it's been redone as a dramatic night at the Oscars with some great art by Jason there. It's subtitled, right, When hubris and humility looked each other in the eye, who blinked first? Here's the story. We all know people who are overly full of themselves. Jesus told this story, especially for them.

Rob Paterson (26:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (26:23)
At the very front table in the room, the famous young actor smiled, held court, savoured the atmosphere, sipped the fine champagne, smiled at the cameras, relished the attention, graciously acknowledged those around him. How he loved being centre stage, how he loved his admirers, and they him. This was going to be his moment and his alone.

The Oscar for Best Actor goes to He Rose. He froze. At the very back of the room sat an aging Slav actor. He froze. He rose. The spotlight swivelled. The cameras hunted. The old man walked the length of the room. As he reached the front, he glanced left. Two pairs of eyes engaged.

Humility met humiliation. Humiliation blinked.

Jason Allison (27:32)
Love that.

Mike Elms (27:32)
That's my publisher's favourite.

Courtney (27:34)
It was really good.

Rob Paterson (27:35)
Yeah.

Courtney (27:37)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (27:40)
Yeah.

Courtney (27:41)
Yeah, it's got great turns of phrases in there, too. We can imagine. We can put ourselves in there. Maybe not the Oscars specifically, because I've never been there, but something similar.

Jason Allison (27:55)
Close enough.

No, that was, and I mean, once again, your British accent just adds a layer of amazingness to the story. I, every time, honestly, when I was reading them just to myself, I was trying to do it in a British accent just cause it sounded better. And most of them, you know, you do have some, it's obvious that is your context because of,

Courtney (28:14)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (28:21)
the two punters. Those are British phrases that we don't necessarily use in the States. But yeah, those are great. mean, that was so good.

Rob Paterson (28:31)
Yes, in your British

accents way better than Jason's mic.

Jason Allison (28:35)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Courtney (28:36)
Meh.

Mike Elms (28:38)
Actually, my wife and I have done a heck of a lot of road trips in the States. And I've been over there on business lots and lots of times to most places. But we found that as we on our road trip, as we traveled around, we'd sort of go into a cafe or a restaurant and we start talking and they go, oh, gee, we love your British accent.

Courtney (29:03)
Yeah

Mike Elms (29:05)
And suddenly all the best food and the service would come out. yeah, seems to be a passport and travel.

Jason Allison (29:09)
That's funny.

Courtney (29:13)
Yeah, it's the

Jason Allison (29:13)
Yeah, well, I so I

Courtney (29:15)
secret weapon.

Jason Allison (29:15)
was I grew up. I grew up in Kentucky, which is kind of southern and I had a southern draw until I was 15 and at 15 we moved up to Ohio and on the first day of school, all the girls were making fun of me. And so I quickly lost that accent because I did not want to, you know, be made fun of by all the girls. So.

Now I, now that I, you when you're preaching, sometimes you can use that Southern drawl to, you know, to, really hold people's attention. but I lost it. So now I'm just boring. Rob's heard me preach. knows I'm boring.

Courtney (29:53)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (29:54)
Not true.

Courtney (29:57)
Some preachers actually put on a Southern draw because they do think it sounds better while preaching. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (30:02)
well, and you know, since since we've all kind of shared, well, Courtney, you haven't maybe but Mike, you were kind of sharing some dirt on your wife. One of the things about my wife and she's actually within earshot of me right now. So I'm like taking my life in my hands by sharing this. But you know, like when we visit family up in Canada or when we go, you know, down south or whatever, she just has this tendency where she very quickly kind of picks up.

Jason Allison (30:03)
That's true.

Rob Paterson (30:31)
you know, the local things. So she starts talking Southern, she starts talking like a Canadian. mean, she just, it's kind of like Paul, you know, be all things to all people. She does that she just engages and, kind of picks those things up very, very quickly. So that's fun.

Courtney (30:46)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (30:47)
Hey guys, can I pitch something else at you?

Rob Paterson (30:52)
Absolutely. Is this like

a world exclusive, like a big reveal? Ooh, we like that.

Mike Elms (30:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is,

Courtney (30:58)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (31:00)
this is so hot. It's not even on the other one yet. We talked about the last, like, I saw your audiences, pastors and leaders, and I had three audiences in mind when I wrote this book. One was pastors, because I wanted to give them like fresh insights that they could use. The second was, was Christians.

Rob Paterson (31:05)
you

Mike Elms (31:25)
I want to give them fresh inspiration. And the third was fence-sitters, faith fence-sitters, where I just wanted to engage and interest them and intrigue them into perhaps taking it further. But here we're mainly about pastors and leaders. So I've been thinking about that. And let me just run through this. We've been talking about the lost sheep, right?

As I said, in Matthew's account, we're told that the sheep just wanders away. In Luke's, we are told that the shepherd loses one. Now, according to Church Track, they say churches should expect to lose 10 to 15 percent of their members each year. So across the the states, that's three and a half thousand per day, one point two million per year.

Newcomers offset some of those numbers, but that's still a lot of churn. Now from my marketing and advertising experience, I know if a brand starts losing users, it does a heck of a lot of research to find out why. Is there a problem with the product or the custom service? Are lax buyers going to a competitor or just dropping out of the category? And when I led an ad agency,

we do an exit interview with everyone who left. Were they leaving because they were dissatisfied? If so, what was the problem or problems? Or were they leaving because a competitor had offered them something better? If so, what was the attraction? So that just led me to thinking that every church should operate a retained strategy to prevent people wandering.

and they should operate a regain strategy to bring back those who have wandered to bring back into the fold because it seems to me all the time most of the time in evangelism we're directing it at fresh people new people being on board but there's a heck of a lot of folks out there who have just dropped out of the system right so we should there should be a strategy that has been developed as I say

First of all, to stop the bucket leaking. Why is it leaking? So if you do some work in the church with people who have sort of just wandered away, you can find out what it was and then you can develop a strategy. So that's the retain strategy. And then you can also go on to build a regain strategy. How do you find them again, reconnect with them, bring them?

back in. And telling me, the experience shows that unless they're moving location, most members leaving a church don't go because they've found something better. They certainly don't switch to another faith. The faith stays unchanged. They just sort of wander away. So that's one thought. I'll you a second one. Then you'll see how this idea is

Jason Allison (34:50)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (34:54)
potentially developing. Moving to the talents, we've not talked about the power of the talents but it's a really important parable. I think it can be summed up in five words, use it or lose it. Two of the characters were left with a gift, put those gifts to good use and consequently they were promised more. The third buried the gift in the ground and the gift was taken away from him.

Rob Paterson (35:07)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (35:22)
Every Christian would have been blessed with a gift, courtesy of the Holy Spirit, but many don't realise what that gift is. The tendency is to think of the classic nine spiritual gifts, nothing wrong with that, or the greater gifts, the prophecy, the healing, the leading, the discerning and so forth.

Jason Allison (35:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (35:48)
Again, nothing wrong with that, but if that's where it stops, the danger is that the more practical, everyday gifts can be overlooked. Like techie skills, or gardening, or cooking, or sports of all types, or electrics, or DIY, or sewing, or writing, painting, photography, languages, chalk, all those sorts of skills, they're all God-given gifts. But people don't necessarily see them.

as such, and your possessions from your house to your car, from your electric drill to your electric blender. They're all, everything's, all gifts come from God and can be used for God. But if they're not used, they get lost, not physically, but the opportunity gets lost. So the thinking is, how can churches, can they encourage members to

Jason Allison (36:36)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (36:46)
First of all, think about their gifts in a much more open way. It's not just about the spiritual gifts, although it is hugely about those, but think of them in a much, much more lateral way, whether or not God is calling them to use them for kingdom purposes. I've got a skill at cookery. I'm a lousy cook.

My wife is a great cook. We've all seen ways in which people have used that to bring people together at the dinner tables or picnics or whatever. But if you can get people to start identifying and appreciating and using their gifts, can also then put them into the church, can put them into a database or a spreadsheet, enter the guy or with the techie skills to do that.

and to set up like a register of gifts. And then when people are encouraged to use their gifts, in my being, combine them with gifts that other people have, then whole new ministries will develop and the whole church gets involved in gift utilisation. So those are two ways in which

Jason Allison (37:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Elms (38:13)
For me, the parables are now spoken to me specifically in terms of this audience of pastors. I've given the concept a name, because I'm an ad man. I've called them pastoral rebels. That's the concept. I think it's bang on with what Invite are about as well, which is equipping.

Jason Allison (38:16)
Yeah.

I like it. It's like Lunchables, but...

Courtney (38:31)
That's adorable. Yeah.

Mike Elms (38:42)
pastors, right? I'd be fascinated to know, you can throw this, your listeners, is there something in that? Is this something we should press ahead with? Because in addition to the books, there's a church kit, which is available to churches, which will have within it, amongst other things, will have a set of sermon notes, St. Andrew in Plano are running.

Jason Allison (38:45)
love it.

Rob Paterson (38:52)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (38:53)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (39:12)
running that. So those notes will be in there. There'll be two sets of Biosix part Bible studies, which I put together. But I'm also thinking that we could be putting some of this together as well. I'm sorry, my publisher will kill me if I didn't say this. There are also deep discounts on the books for churches who buy in bulk to give to their members of the congregation.

done that plug but yeah we could also put we could also develop this and put it into the into the kit we could point people to towards other resources if you like or reach out and get ideas back from churches about how they've put them into practice i think it could it all driven all driven from parables so yeah

Rob Paterson (39:44)
Haha

Jason Allison (39:44)
Yes.

Right. Well, I love that. Yeah,

we, so I'm, I'm connected with an organization called clarity house. and, and we're doing, I've gone through some certification with them, whatever. And they talk about, you know, creating a discipleship pathway, et cetera, and so forth. But one of the things they have just, it's, just being released is this idea of helping your people discover their handcrafted calling.

Mike Elms (40:17)
and we're.

Jason Allison (40:35)
And the idea is how do you, because so premise of this is the role of the church is to connect people to their purpose and then connect their purpose to the disciple making vision of the church. And so the idea is, you know, what do you need to do to help someone discover all those things you just listed? Like, I mean, you're right. I think you're spot on in what the goal of what pastors and churches need to do.

Mike Elms (40:41)
shit.

Jason Allison (41:03)
What I love is the twist of using the parables to be the thing that cues the ideas, right? That gets people thinking, not just in terms of, here's a spiritual gift test, or here's you know, a profile, a disc profile or a personality test or, you know, name, there's a hundred of those tools out there. But instead it's like, no, no, no, I'm, I'm the sheep that wandered or I'm, or I'm the shepherd that, you know, quit paying attention to the sheep.

Mike Elms (41:24)
I'm.

Rob Paterson (41:26)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (41:31)
I'm the one who wasn't connecting the sheep to their bigger calling. And so they wandered off. so like that's a, I love that as a teaching tool to really get the attention of some of our leaders to say, Hey, this is something you need to think about in that. One other quick thing and Rob, I can tell, I can see it in your eyes. You have a comment. And Rob, you and I talked about this probably two years ago, I think in one of the episodes.

Rob Paterson (41:50)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (42:01)
But you talked about the sheep wandering off and it made me think about how this illustration that we use the centered set versus bounded set as a way of thinking about church and in Australia, the way that they keep the cattle in a herd together and close because there's so much land, there's no way they can build fences. It's just impossible. So instead they dig wells and that a well that produces good water

the cowl are going to stay. They're not going to wander off because it's a source of life. And I wonder how many churches are instead of instead of digging good wells where they can create a life giving source of information, of connection, of engagement, they're trying to build fences to keep people in. you know, and, usually that involves guilt and shame and things like that. But what would it look like if churches saw themselves as, you know, digging wells that would engage people and help them?

And that's when you were talking, that's what came to my mind about the wandering, the wandering sheep. Yeah. So Rob, I'm sorry. I knew you were about to say something, so go for it.

Rob Paterson (42:59)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mike Elms (43:06)
like that.

Rob Paterson (43:09)
No, no, that's good. Mike, I think another one of the things that's so great about your idea is that in churches, you know, I think we have tons of people who think thoughts like, well, I could never teach like that or preach like that. I could never lead worship like that, or I don't, I'm not musical. And so, you know, if you don't, if you don't hit sort of certain things in certain categories, you feel like either you're useless or even you're just not as useful.

Mike Elms (43:33)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (43:37)
as some other people might be where if we can help people to understand, Hey, if you're hospitable and you are a good cook, God wants to use you and your gifts and your skills and your wiring in, just as significant ways to be connectors, to influence people, to build relationships that have redemptive purposes. and I think if we could get everybody understanding that you don't have to be the world's best leader.

You know, you could be a great cook or a great, you can have a vehicle and you're hospitable. And so you're happy to like give people rides places, you know, just as a, as a kingdom endeavor. and man, if, if, if we could really get everybody in the church to see what they have and what they're good at as God given gifts that can be used and serve a great kingdom purpose, man, that is a powerful, powerful tool.

Mike Elms (44:10)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (44:37)
Yeah. So Mike, as we kind of wrap up, do you have any last words of encouragement that maybe you could offer to pastors and leaders? I will say, for those that are listening, Jesus Unbranded is just a great two-volume set. I've got to get the second volume now. I know.

Mike Elms (44:42)
you

Thank you.

Rob Paterson (45:03)
Yeah, if nothing,

if nothing else came from today, it's that he's going to have three orders this afternoon. Cause he kind of right out of the gate enticed us with, the second volume is even better. So now we all got to order it this afternoon bait. got, we got hooked.

Courtney (45:07)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (45:09)
Ha

Courtney (45:14)
Right. Yeah. He's like, you're missing out.

Jason Allison (45:17)
yeah.

Mike Elms (45:17)
I got you now.

Jason Allison (45:19)
Right. So that's coming for sure. And I will obviously put links in the show notes so that our listeners can order them as well. And I would encourage all of them to get this. It is worth every dollar and it's not like it's that expensive, but it is worth every penny because it it blessed me. Mike, anything you might want to offer to pastors in closing, just a word of encouragement or anything like that.

Rob Paterson (45:22)
You

Mike Elms (45:47)
Well, the first thing I'd say is Amen to what you just said, Jason. I think that this book is not about me or I. This book is all about Jesus, about his stories. He told me I called it Jesus Unbranded because in my experience, companies and products

Courtney (45:50)
Hmm.

Mike Elms (46:16)
can lose their way as they go along. They develop different brand strategies, have different marketing managers and owners. And I've been involved with more than one of these where you say, look, what we're gonna do is go right back to the beginning. What made this brand great in the first place? And how do we reinterpret that?

here and now today. Let's go back to the core. Jesus has been added to and detracted from and amended and sometimes hijacked along the way. Let's go back. And what better way to go back than look at the words He spoke. So as you listen to these,

You get to hear Jesus speaking directly to you here and now today. And it's the original, authentic, unbranded Jesus that comes through. So I would just say to pastors, hey, if you get the opportunity to do that with your folks, then I think that's a great thing to be able to do.

Jason Allison (47:46)
done.

Mike Elms (47:46)
Let's

get back to the real unadulterated, unbranded Jesus. That sounds like an odd thing for an Adnan to be saying.

Jason Allison (47:50)
I love that.

Well, I, tell you, so I have one

suggestion that just came to mind and that is if you could release the, an audio version, I know that takes Jason more out of the artistic side of it. get it. And I love Jason and I don't want to do that to him, but, there's something about hearing the parables and especially the rewired versions that, man, that, that could be a really, really amazing addition. If you got, I know you got so much extra time.

Mike Elms (48:08)
station.

Okay.

Jason Allison (48:22)
on your hands that that's just something else you want to do, but still.

Mike Elms (48:27)
Jason, we're on it. That's the next thing we want to do. We want to find people with good, distinctive, recognisable voices, people that people know and trust and get them to do it. And then we're thinking a step beyond that to say, are quite, these are like mini film scripts.

Jason Allison (48:29)
Okay.

Courtney (48:31)
They're already thinking that way.

Rob Paterson (48:52)
Mm.

Mike Elms (48:53)
Where might that take us? the audio one is the easy next step. Thanks for saying that, that endorses our thinking.

Jason Allison (48:56)
love it.

good. Well, yeah.

Courtney (49:05)
Well, they were originally heard, right? They were always

originally heard. So, heard first.

Rob Paterson (49:09)
Yeah.

Mike Elms (49:11)
Yeah, if you have got well-known pastors out there who are authorities and trustees and have good voices and distinctive voices and would care to participate in telling some of these stories, delight. Get hold of Len to invite.

Jason Allison (49:31)
Okay, I will. I will. And I'll call

my friend Morgan Freeman. I think he probably has a distinctive...

Courtney (49:36)
Thanks.

Mike Elms (49:36)
We... what

would I give? What would I give?

Jason Allison (49:40)
Probably it would take a lot.

Rob Paterson (49:41)
Hahaha

Courtney (49:44)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (49:46)
Well, thank you, Mike, really for your time. It means a lot to us. The time you spent in writing this, it is a blessing. And I do really encourage all of our pastors to grab a copy of these amazing stories. They will bless you and they will. You will be able to bless your congregation with them. So, Mike, thanks.

Mike Elms (49:47)
Wow.

Jason Allison (50:10)
To all of our listeners, thanks for tuning in once again to another episode of the Church Talk Podcast. We will see you again next week. Have a wonderful week and blessings.