Rob & Jason Discuss Leadership Lessons from Exponential 2025

In this episode of the Church Talk Podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson reflect on their experiences at the Exponential Conference, discussing key leadership lessons learned. They emphasize the importance of creating spaces for leaders to grow, the value of authentic community, and the significance of having a multiplication vision in church growth. The conversation also explores the barbell principle in church strategy, advocating for a balance between conservative and risky approaches, and highlights the importance of learning from failures in leadership. In this conversation, Jason Allison and Rob Paterson explore the themes of discipleship, leadership investment, and the importance of embracing failure in ministry. They discuss the need for churches to challenge their members to take risks and step out in faith, rather than playing it safe. The conversation emphasizes the significance of investing in leaders rather than just church programs, celebrating failures as learning opportunities, and living with a sense of urgency in ministry. They also touch on the importance of identifying and addressing underlying issues within the church, and keeping a focus on Jesus as the central figure in their work.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Reflection on Exponential Conference
02:57 Creating Space for Leadership Growth
05:55 The Importance of Authentic Community
09:06 Multiplication Vision in Church Growth
11:56 The Barbell Principle in Church Strategy
14:51 R&D Mindset in Church Planting
18:10 Learning from Failure in Leadership
21:49 Discipleship and Risk Taking
22:51 Investing in Leadership Over Programs
24:20 Celebrating Failure and Learning
26:18 The Importance of Early Opportunities
29:13 Impact vs. Longevity in Ministry
30:46 Living with Urgency and Purpose
34:13 Identifying and Addressing the Stink
39:26 Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01.577)
Welcome back to the church talk podcast with Rob & Jason. It's been a full week since you have heard from us and I'm sure you've missed us, but we were very busy last week. And so yeah, Rob and I spent the entire week together and we didn't kill each other. Like it was amazing. You know, don't you think Rob? mean, it was pretty impressive.

Rob Paterson (00:25.688)
Yeah, you know, I actually think maybe we should have like a listener poll that, you know, if there was ever going to be like a murder suicide with the two of us, who's going to do the murdering? You know, that would be fun to see what our listeners think about.

Jason Allison (00:42.991)
Yeah, because I could see both ways on that one. Yeah, so you and I spent last week with a group from your church at exponential. And I just thought today we just reflect not necessarily on exponentials specifically, but maybe some leadership lessons and so forth that we gleaned that we could easily share with our listeners because

Rob Paterson (00:45.651)
that's funny.

Jason Allison (01:09.623)
You know, we exist to engage, equip and encourage pastors and leaders. And I know I learned some stuff. I think you learned some stuff. I mean, you're already so full of knowledge, Rob. I just never know if there's any more new knowledge that you could glean. But still, I think there's probably a couple things.

Rob Paterson (01:28.194)
Yeah. And you know, just as, an overall thing that I think would apply to every single listener is I think, you know, whether we're, you know, a pastor of a church or whether, you know, you just maybe lead a ministry area of your, in your church, or, know, you might just be like highly involved in lots of ways, just thinking about how you can create spaces.

you know, for people to kind of break away from the normal routine, to, to see a bigger vision, to understand that, you know, Hey, you're not just a cog in a machine, you know, who, you show up or don't show up a new, a new cog could be subbed in no big deal, but no, you like, you are an important part of this church and the kingdom of God, you know, all for all of us thinking through how to do that.

And you know, we have a couple of examples. So actually the Saturday before we left for exponential, you actually came up and helped facilitate, just a day with my elders, that Saturday before. And it was great. Right. And it, I mean, it, it didn't, it didn't take a ton of time. it, mean, other than for you getting ready, you know, it wasn't like, we just used our space, you know, it's not like we had to go somewhere or rent space or whatever.

Jason Allison (02:32.959)
Go ahead.

Jason Allison (02:47.035)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (02:53.996)
So literally for the cost of lunch, we were able to create space for, you know, some of our leaders just to have, a change of pace, kind of a different experience. And the whole point wasn't to talk shop or figure things out. It was really just to, to refuel spiritually. And, and I loved that. and then, you know, which is something we prioritize and we kind of scrimp and save all year long to be able to, to, you know, we pay for things.

Jason Allison (02:57.084)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (03:12.254)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (03:24.244)
over time leading up to you. by the time we get there, it's not super expensive. I mean, it's it's an investment to actually take 10 people to Florida for a week. You know, with the airfare and rental vehicle and food and Airbnb and all that stuff. But we've literally and I guess and the tickets for the conference. But over time, we've just like developed connections and resources and we do it as cheaply as possible. But man,

Jason Allison (03:34.878)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (03:54.122)
It's so cool to see what happens because we bring new people every year. This year, you were one of our new people, right? And we also try to take people from outside our church, like one person every year, just to invest in the broader kingdom, whether it's a pastor from another church or a high level leader. It's not a recruitment strategy. It's literally like we want to always make sure we're investing time and resources in people that benefit the kingdom, but not necessarily our church.

Jason Allison (04:23.357)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (04:23.448)
And then we always try to take new people as well, just to expose them to just a bigger vision. And so again, like people are just, you know, excited and thinking new thoughts and have a different perspective on our church and why we do what we do. And you really almost can't put a dollar value on that. But I just want to say that out loud, because I just think all of our listeners figuring out how to do that, you know, whether you have

Jason Allison (04:46.962)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (04:51.968)
extra resources or not, figuring out how to make space where your people can just have a different pace and see things differently is super important.

Jason Allison (04:59.527)
Yeah. I agree. A hundred percent. Anytime you can take more than three people to a thing, you know, like a substitute conference or a retreat or, you know, whatever for a thing. And you can help them see beyond just the four walls or the current dumpster fire that you're dealing with. You know what I mean? Like when you can take them and expose them to something so much bigger.

I do think it's just a great experience and you can't live there. That's part of the issue. People want to get that feeling and then just stay in that feeling. no, part of the reason that it is so special is because it is different. It was, like you said, a change of pace. It's a chance to see things from a different perspective. And that's something that we as leaders need to

kind of step back and be able to do for the people that are following us. And so I love the way you value that and the way you, you actually embody that. You don't just say we want to do this. You actually, as you said, save and scrimp all year to, you know, make sure that you can have that experience. So I, yeah, I think as leaders lesson number one, before we even dive into anything that was said, you know, at the conference is, you making this kind of thing a priority?

for your team because it matters and it will help you as well as them. Yeah, and I do love your kingdom vision in that as well. That's one thing I've always enjoyed. I think why you and I get along so well, because I just see that lived out in so many ways. And so it's fun to be around people who aren't just about their little fiefdom. know, like they really want to see the kingdom of God grow.

Rob Paterson (06:27.245)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (06:53.535)
in multiple ways. And so that's always fun. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (06:58.71)
Yeah, yeah, sure. And you know, I would I would say just one other thing here, because I know, I do this too, when people talk about things like that, you know, for most of us, because we live every day and every week, just under the stress and pressure of keeping all the plates spinning. And you know, what comes next? And how do we, you know, hit payroll? And how do we, you know,

make the mortgage payment if you have one of those or whatever. There's always things. And so the first thing that pops to everyone's mind is, that would be real nice, but there's no way we could ever afford that. And again, maybe you can't afford that, whatever that is, but do something, figure it out. All of us have constraints. All of us have those pressures.

and you can either be the victim, right? And, we could just never do whatever, or you could figure it out, you you could, and take steps in a direction. And I think a lot of times, I mean, we all just get surprised by what is possible when we have, when we put in a little bit of work, a little bit of prayer, and a little bit of effort over time usually makes more of a difference than we think.

Jason Allison (08:12.254)
Yeah.

Well, I think it also exposes what we actually prioritize. You know, it's actually important to us. It comes out. And if being safe and not spending money on people is a priority, think that's just going to be, you're going to see that. I don't care how little money you have, you can prioritize people in the way that you plan things. And so, yeah, I think that's really important.

So as we got there to the conference, mean, and I got there slightly early because I had some meetings, you had some meetings, you know, I had to the conference. But once the thing started, I was blown away by, I'm just going to call it the authenticity of the people who were there. I honestly don't know what the attendance at this thing. I know there had to be two, three, four thousand, six thousand. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (09:06.99)
6,000.

Jason Allison (09:09.503)
You know, so, and they had, of course, streaming. don't know how many people were, you know, we're streaming the conference, but, um, I've been to enough of these kinds of things over the last few years, especially that you've got the celebrities who kind of make the rounds, you know, and, the conferences and they kind of fly in, do their little thing, do their little dance, uh, pick up a paycheck and hop on a flight home. And they're not really engaged in the community of people that they just.

came in to bless, right? They're just there to show off their talent, do their thing and whatever, which there's a place for that. I don't mean to totally diminish that, maybe a little bit, but not totally. But there was something about the people there that they really saw the whole thing as a community. They had a common mission of planting churches, of making an impact for the kingdom.

and, it wasn't, I don't know, it just, it, wasn't a show for the sake of having a show or to show how big we are or how great or, know, there was an authenticity that honestly I did not expect. So I was, I was pleasantly surprised, in that, I know even in talking to you, you kind of said, well, duh, that's why I've been going for the last 20 years or whatever, cause I, you can't handle it. That inauthenticity just.

drives you nuts as well. So I know that bothers you.

Rob Paterson (10:38.316)
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I mean, I guess just to give a plug for exponential, every year, whatever the theme or the focus is, is different. Like I remember one year, just Bethany and I went, and it was, it was all about pastoral health. And so the health of your, you know, personally, your health and your family and your marriage and all those kinds of things. And so Bethany and I went more as just a

a deep dive for the two of us. And it was, it was great. It was a blessing. You know, this year, just the whole idea of good, great, greater, where, you know, Jesus literally said, you know, for those of us who follow him, that we will do what he did and we will even do greater things. And we see that almost immediately after, he dies, you know, and, and, and, comes back to life and his sends into heaven and then man.

look at all the powerful things his followers did. you know, every year the theme's different, which is great. I love the fact that there's so many people, but it's great space. You don't feel like you're always being herded around. I remember going to Andy Stanley's conference one year and...

Jason Allison (11:48.329)
Right.

Rob Paterson (11:56.366)
And I love the content. I love the speakers, you know, but it just there were so many people in the big stadium it was in. I just I always felt like at the breaks I was walking around like a cow being herded from one pen to another. It just was not an enjoyable experience outside of sitting in my seat listening to whatever exponential is awesome. And here's here's something that actually at one of my meetings Monday morning, the day before the conference started.

Jason Allison (12:04.212)
Mm.

Yeah.

Jason Allison (12:16.713)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (12:24.974)
I was part of the church planting leadership fellowship group, which is basically network and denominational leaders who are responsible for church planting. Cause I know a lot of people you're like, yeah, isn't exponential church planting thing. And we're not really a church planting church or we don't want to plant churches or whatever. Cause we need to like figure out our own stuff. A couple, a couple stats were shared Monday morning as part of that group that were really powerful. And, and so just two quick things.

Jason Allison (12:44.873)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (12:53.56)
Churches that have a multiplication vision. So if it's not just, we want to do a better job of seeing more people show up at our place on a Sunday morning, but man, we want to multiply spaces. We want to plant churches. We want to give to church planting, whatever that is. Churches that have a multiplication vision reach 50 % more people for Jesus than those who don't. So if you just, you're like, I don't want to plant churches. I just want to reach people for Jesus. Awesome. Just know you'll be 50 % more effective on average.

If you think beyond just your thing, you the greater thing. And then the second stat, which I thought was great, the annual growth rate of churches who have a multiplication vision is 10 % higher than those who don't. So if you just focus on your own thing, even if you're successful and you grow that thing, statistically speaking, you'll be 10 % less effective than if, if you, your vision expands to multiplication in the broader kingdom. So.

Jason Allison (13:26.375)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Allison (13:52.541)
I wonder, yeah, mean, and yeah, that is really good. I wonder if some of that is a little bit of kind of you know, Jupiter principle, right? Where if you aim at Jupiter, then you may actually hit the moon in the process. But if you aim at the moon, you may not even do that. And so instead of just thinking of the one next thing, the next person that you want to reach or whatever, thinking broader and bigger,

Rob Paterson (13:52.875)
Those are great things.

Jason Allison (14:21.437)
You do end up also reaching those people right around you on the way to reaching bigger things, you know, or, more people. I don't know if that's, you know, if there's a correlation or causation and any of those statistics, but it does seem like the principle is there that, you know, if I, if I just think about reaching two houses, then I'm the most I'm going to reach is two houses. If I think about reaching two neighborhoods, then I could reach.

way more houses and still have more to go. You know, and so I don't know, it's, it's a mindset, I think as much as a strategy. And so that, yeah, I think that's part of it. let's see, what, what, what else was I going to ask about? Cause there's so many good things that we could talk about. so one of the first things that I, one of the workshops that I went to, this guy was talking through

denominational stuff, like, because I, as a, you know, since I work for a network slash denomination, I'm, thinking in those terms and I'm trying to learn more about what that means more than just local pastor it, because that's, I've done that for so long. I'm changing my, my mindset a little bit, trying to grasp that and understand what that means. it was interesting because one of the things that he mentioned, he called it the, the barbell principle.

And some of this came from the book Black Swan by Nassim Tlaib, I think is his name. I didn't try to spell it, so I'm doing that from memory. the idea is that if you think about your organization and the resources that you have, whether it's a church or a network, a denomination, even a business, this is really written for businesses and even personal investing. The barbell principle is one of the barbells should be

you know, about 85 % of your resources should go towards, you know, what he called radically conservative strategies. But then 15 % should be aggressively risky, is the way he put it. And I like that because, you know, it of makes you, it challenges you to think in terms of, yeah, it's okay to do some things that are a little safer, but are we doing anything?

Rob Paterson (16:30.317)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (16:44.915)
that is pushing the limits. the principle behind that is kind of, know, you're going to invest that 15%. You're going to invest it in a hundred different, if it's a portfolio, a hundred different stocks. And honestly, 99 of them probably won't hit, but the one that does is going to so far exceed the loss. And it's going to be on the cutting edge of the next big thing, the big, big wave, whatever it is.

and so you gotta be willing to risk a little bit for that one. You then take that and he, translated it into a network or a denominational setting. And he basically said, listen, church planting is the R and D of a denomination of the church, right? Because you get these church planners and let's be honest, and you and I both have planted churches, church planners are a little odd, right? I mean, they're thinking about things in ways that other people aren't.

Rob Paterson (17:37.943)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (17:42.697)
They're not safe. I mean, if they were safe, they wouldn't plan a church. And so there's all these things that you have to think there. And so they're trying the things that maybe, you know, that haven't been tried yet. They're on that cutting edge and they become that research and development part. And as a local church, how do you translate that to, Hey, what are some of the things we're trying that probably won't work? You know, I mean, like the

The odds are against them working in the first try, but we're willing to risk it to, because we like the, as you know, to keep the theme of the conference going, right. We weren't, working towards the greater thing, not just the good thing that we already know works. that to me was, was that really got my brain, got my brain cranking on that.

Rob Paterson (18:31.054)
And Jason, just a couple things kind of to piggyback off of that. In my meeting before the conference, Ed Stetzer said this great thing, because, know, mean, a lot of networks, I think, converge, we're kind of up there, right? I think 90 % of our churches that we plant, you know, are still in existence, whatever, three, five years later, you know.

Jason Allison (18:50.719)
That used to be the case. We haven't updated those since the pandemic.

Rob Paterson (18:56.142)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But one of the things he said, and he kind of said it like he was rattling everybody's cage, because think about that. I mean, that could be a golden calf, right? When you're like, man, pretty much every church we plant, we figured it out. We do great assessing and great coaching and great this and great that. And we have great funding strategies. And so everybody that we deploy pretty much succeeds. He said, if you have a 94 percent success rate, I would encourage you to try some fresh stuff, you know.

Jason Allison (19:25.428)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (19:26.43)
which I just thought was so good, right? Because again, like, and I know like you don't want to deploy leaders. You don't want to invest resources in something that doesn't fail. But if we start to think with more of that R &D mindset, like that's some of the stuff we heard, right? Like, so OK, so you invest in a church planter. A if they fail, like if five years later, 10 years later, that church doesn't exist. Think about.

Jason Allison (19:28.852)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (19:43.153)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (19:55.086)
how much more seasoned that leader is. Think about the lessons that they have learned, the things they've tried, some of which obviously failed, but some of which they've learned things about, here's a way that we can engage people and see transformation in lives that we haven't really thought about before. And then even over the years that that church existed, think about all the people who grew, who stepped

Jason Allison (19:57.311)
Yes.

Jason Allison (20:12.436)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (20:23.858)
out who came to faith who were baptized you know just because the church the organization doesn't exist anymore does not at all detract from the good work and the good ministry that took place at that and so i think even just for like pastors you might this might not have you know a direct impact on you from the standpoint of church planting but i would say you know what like for all of us

I preached from the NIV or the NLT this Sunday and I had someone come up because they were like, you know, it should be the King James or it should be the ESV or it know, people have strong opinions about all that stuff or, ooh, you know, we were talking about replacing the carpet because it's threadbare. you know, the carpet, the color of that matters. Or what do you mean we should put chairs in here? You know, we've had pews forever and everybody knows that the Bible and God are pro pew, not a chair.

Jason Allison (20:57.14)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (21:13.214)
Haha.

Rob Paterson (21:19.98)
Right? So, you know, we just have so many people with strong opinions about all kinds of garbage that doesn't even matter that fill churches in general. And I think sometimes as pastors, we just we get, you know, and I'm not suggesting like blow all those people up and just change everything and split your church. No. But like, how can we push a little bit? How can we test some things? You know, how how can we be a little bit riskier?

for the cause of Jesus and to reach more people for the kingdom.

Jason Allison (21:49.94)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (21:53.693)
And I think that is a discipleship issue as much as anything else, because we have discipled our people to be safe and we have not discipled them about the joy of taking a risk, of stepping out. I mean, that's what faith is, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So if we're only doing what we see,

and we're not stepping out beyond that, then I would say we have a discipleship issue because we're not stretching our people. We're not challenging them in ways that they're not used to being challenged in. And yeah, there's going to be a few people that are going to get a little ticked off about it. And quite honestly, maybe they need to, you know, like that's, and I love the way you talked about, we invest in a church planter who, you know, try some things and maybe in three years, it just doesn't take off.

Rob Paterson (22:40.952)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (22:51.465)
But with a difference in the mindset, and this was a big lesson for me as I was going, listening to some of this, we invested not in a church plant. We invested in a church planter who may exactly. that's the, that's the difference. We invested in leadership, not in a local church plant. And sometimes a local church plant takes off as we invest in that leadership. Sometimes it doesn't.

Rob Paterson (23:04.692)
and or future leader.

Jason Allison (23:21.523)
But if we're investing in the leadership, then that leader, that church planter, that team, right? The launch team has permission to fail without the repercussions being, well, it's clear. God didn't call you. I guess we screwed that up. You're, you're on the sidelines. You know, it's like, wait, wait, no, that that's, don't sideline people just because they, you know, this didn't work. Let's figure out what we learned from it because they probably tried some things that we haven't tried before.

And maybe with a little tweak or a little twist, all of sudden that is a whole new way of reaching people we never thought of. Yeah, I love that. kind of you and I talked a little bit too about that concept of celebrating failure. I love that idea and I'm really working to see how we can do that as a denomination even just, Hey, what does it look like to let's get a church planner on stage in front of a huge audience that didn't make it.

Right? That launched and you know what? Three years in, we had to shut the doors because it just wasn't working. But what did they learn? And what can you do to come around that person and say, wait, we still believe in you and that God has called you, but let's figure out a new way. Let's learn from this and let's see what you learned from it. And let's all of a sudden move from, well, they failed. Let's not talk about them. You know, we don't want any

We don't want any bad marks on our reputation. We want that nine out of 10 kind of,

Rob Paterson (24:53.858)
Yeah, we're now at 78%. How much of a bummer is that? It's like, no, no, no, no. That's not.

Jason Allison (24:58.781)
Yeah. Who would ever want to plant with us now, you know, but instead let's turn into, no, no, we invest in leaders and the development of leaders. and let's see, and, and, you know, translate that to the local church. What does it look like for, for you to, you know, let that high school kid work on a sermon and actually present it. Yeah. It's going to be terrible. Like, you know, I mean, we know that, but man, what if you had a congregation that embraced that?

and said, you know what, that kid put everything he had into this and he is a long way further in his journey because we were willing to listen to a terrible sermon, but man, he's not going to deliver one that bad ever again. It'll get better every time. Well, we hope, I guess he may, you never know, but that's the point, giving him space.

Rob Paterson (25:49.132)
Yeah, and it's and it's like it's the 10,000 hour principle, right? Like you can become world class at something if you put 10,000 hours in. Well, if you start when you're 151617, the likelihood of you investing enough time and energy to actually get there in an area and I I actually attribute you know a lot of the things that are good about me in terms of my skill set, my ministry to growing up and and

Jason Allison (25:53.374)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (26:18.806)
actually a pretty tiny, know, usually quite a bit less than a hundred, you know, Wesleyan church in Bruce mines, Ontario, Canada, that just, when I was a teenager, you know, even fairly new to faith, they gave me opportunities. And so I preached my first number of sermons there and man, they cheered me on and celebrated me and believed in me and all that kind of stuff. And

So when I got to college, you know, and was in like a homiletics class, learning how to preach and even had some non-traditional students who, you know, were part of that, um, preaching their first sermon sometimes at 20, 30, 40, you know, I'd already preached a couple dozen times and it gave me a foundation and a headstart that, that was a huge blessing to me. Uh, Hey, I just want to say one more thing about that, uh, that failure and celebrating failure thing.

Jason Allison (26:52.061)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (27:16.43)
Because again, I think in the church, for whatever reason, we just were like afraid of that or we like pretend or we hide it. And gosh, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years ago here at New Hope, we did a series on spiritual disciplines. And it was the last week of the series. I talked about fasting and that month I invited whoever wanted to like we were going to go on this journey together and we're going to do a 30 day juice fast to start the year.

And I don't know, I had maybe 10, 11, 12 people sign up to do that. And everybody made it except for one. And a lot of these people, again, were doing like a 30 day fast and had never really fasted before, maybe a meal or something like that. And so that I just thought was just wild, you know, but the one guy who didn't made it about two weeks.

Jason Allison (28:05.395)
Right.

Rob Paterson (28:15.166)
And at the end, during that message, we were all on stage and there were some questions that we all reflected on and just shared about our experience with the rest of the congregation. so, you know, when this one guy said, I didn't, mean, everybody else made it 30 days. I didn't, I only made it 14. And I just asked everybody else, think about this, couple hundred people sitting there in each gathering. And I just said, hey, so let me ask all of you.

Jason Allison (28:34.239)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (28:43.938)
for someone who's never ever fasted before, if they told you that they, they actually went through two weeks of fasting, would you think that's a success or a failure? And people just erupted in applause, right? And for most of them, they're like, I don't know that I could ever do a couple of days, let alone a couple of weeks. and, and it was such an affirming moment for someone who felt like they had missed the mark and, and

Jason Allison (28:56.859)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (29:04.254)
Right?

Jason Allison (29:07.636)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (29:12.75)
I just think back on that and I think it's the same thing like stop. We need to stop looking at. I wish this would have been this that or the next thing and start looking at the the good, the development, the fruit that came out of the time, the investment and the effort.

Jason Allison (29:21.022)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (29:30.335)
Yeah, no, I agree. 100%. Yeah, so I'm trying to remember anything else that jumped out at you from our time down there that maybe you wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about.

Rob Paterson (29:49.71)
Yeah, I mean there's I there's 10 things that I could spend a couple minutes talking about, but let me just give one that was from the very first day and just kind of gripped my heart a little bit. And there was a number of things. Actually, if you want to see more things, you can go to my Facebook page, which is just Robert Patterson, one T in Patterson, and it's Robert Patterson, because a that's I guess my birth certificate name, even though everybody calls me Rob.

Jason Allison (30:06.355)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (30:17.152)
and Rob Patterson was not available. that's why. Right, which you wouldn't think that one T in Patterson. So again, I posted a bunch of things that I loved, but the very first day someone talked about what if Jesus like we just we don't know. We don't know when he's coming back. But what if Jesus was coming back in exactly 10 years from now? Like how would that change?

Jason Allison (30:19.807)
Yeah, there's like 42 Rob Pattersons.

Jason Allison (30:25.502)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (30:46.36)
how we thought, how would it change how we lived, how we did ministry? You know, I think, you know, for so many people with some of the downward trends in terms of church attendance and giving and all those kinds of things, man, you know, and I know like sometimes I can even these thoughts can creep in into my mind and my heart, like, man, I only need to make it another 20 years and then I'll, you know, and then whatever can happen with the church, you know, it could.

And so I think we think those things. And so we start again, going back to what we just said, we start playing it safe. We start thinking about how to, you know, get longevity instead of impact. You know, how can we make the biggest possible difference in people's lives, in our community, for the kingdom of God? And so I guess as part of that, the one sentence that just

I mean, to this day, you know, it's been about a week now. What was this? What if we are the generation that's holding the ball when the time runs out? And, you know, I just I think about how I live life and how, you know, how I never ever, ever used to sleep hardly at all. Probably a good thing I do sleep a little bit now, but it's like I get older.

And I don't know if I'm just like going backwards because the older my dad got the less he slept. Maybe I just didn't sleep at all in my teenager years, twenties and thirties. So now that I'm at the end of my forties, maybe my body's like, if you don't sleep a little bit, you're probably going to die. But I just think, I mean, it's almost like that, that scene from the end of Schindler's list, right? Where he's looking at his ring. He's looking at his car. He's like, how many more lives could I had saved if I didn't care about these things that I have? I didn't care about.

Jason Allison (32:32.446)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (32:40.856)
kind of the luxuries that I'm afforded in my life. And man, like what if, know, like pop goes the weasel, right? What if like now's the time Jesus is coming back and I'm thinking of my friends and my neighbors and my community and my family members who are still far from God. And, and, you know, I was, I was busy doing all these great things for the kingdom and yet they might not make it to eternity now. And the time is up, you know, just,

Jason Allison (32:43.743)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (32:49.812)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (33:10.562)
Just a crazy thought that I think is a great centering question for us to ask a lot.

Jason Allison (33:15.251)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which will either drive you to be inspired or to become a universalist. I'm not sure which, but, and I'm not a universalist, so I guess I'm going to have to actually be inspired. cause that, that is, right. mean, who are we and what do we need to be doing to actually make a difference? And it's not that God is relying on it. Like, you know, God isn't going to get his will if we don't do our part.

Rob Paterson (33:24.969)
Ha

Jason Allison (33:44.659)
God's gonna have his will done. The question is, are we gonna be part of that? Like we can choose to basically sit on the sideline and God's gonna do what God's gonna do with or without us. So why not join in? Why not be part of it? I think it's, absolutely. So I have one more little lesson that actually came when I got back from traveling.

I walked into church Sunday morning and, and I was back in my office doing some stuff, catching up from being gone all week. and the lead pastor, your Sean walks in and he goes, well, we found it. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he goes, well, we started smelling something on Friday. And then this morning I walked into the auditorium and it was overwhelming the stench. I was like, what are you talking about? I hadn't been up there, you know,

Rob Paterson (34:41.666)
This is right before church starts and the smell was still there.

Jason Allison (34:43.539)
Yeah. Yeah. Cause they didn't know what it was from. So he and the tech guy were digging around and back in a closet right off the stage. There was a drop cloth laying on the floor and Sean kind of picked it up and a tail popped out and he like jumped back, you know, didn't know what it was, but finally he looked and a squirrel had gotten in and burrowed in there and died and just the, was nasty.

And so I was, he, you know, they took it out, whatever. And, know, we sprayed stuff and did what we could open to all the doors, had fans going, just trying to get the air out. But it just made me think, cause I was sitting there, you know what? know, basically until you find the source of the stink, you can't get rid of it. You can cover it, but it really isn't changing it. There is a stench. And I wonder how many of us, if we were honest,

If we started sniffing around the way we do church, that there isn't a stench here and there. There's something dead that we refuse to look at or to look for. And so I was thinking, wow, no wonder so many of us are struggling with the way church is going or the way we're doing stuff or wondering where God is. It's because we've got all this dead stuff laying around that we won't get rid of. We won't take out. And so we just keep spraying it with Febreze thinking that's going to fix everything.

but it doesn't change the fact that there's a decaying corpse right there that is just emanating this right in so many ways. so that just in my mind, was like, wow, I go to a conference where there's big and bright and all this stuff and I'm learning all this stuff and I come back to a dead squirrel in a drop cloth that's stinking up the church. And I wonder if sometimes we need to get back to that.

figuring out what's causing the stink and not worry about adding five more programs, right? Or six more of this. Let's figure out what's rotting and let's start dealing with it. And let's have the courage, right? To pick it up and take it out to the dumpster and get rid of it.

Rob Paterson (36:54.67)
That's so good. That's so good. And going to a fancy conference is not going to remove the dead squirrel that's causing the stink in your church, right? So Jason, that reminded me of a story that really I don't like have a lesson tied to it, but it's just such a great story. So there's a guy in our first church plant in Indianapolis. And he actually not that this matters, but had Filipino roots.

Jason Allison (37:04.563)
Yep, exactly. think.

Rob Paterson (37:24.232)
and so he at the time was living with his grandma and, his car had, you know, kind of come to its end. And so before he figured out, you know, what next car he was going to get or whatever, he, he was borrowing his grandma's car. She was older, retired. And so he was using her car. And as part of this, you know, I mean, he'd use it. And then on Saturdays he'd clean it, you know, like clean out the inside, wash it all up, vacuum it out.

all those kind of things. one, and this is in the middle of the summer. And, uh, and so he was doing this on a Saturday morning and, uh, and, you know, made the car perfect. It was awesome. Well, what he didn't realize is when all the doors were open, cause he was vacuuming and cleaning and all that stuff. Uh, a cat got into the car.

Jason Allison (38:10.429)
now.

Rob Paterson (38:14.521)
And it was like, you know, 9095 degrees for a couple days and he didn't really go anywhere. And so when he got in the car next, whether to go to church or, you know, go to work on Monday or whatever, he's like, what? I mean, it just cleaned this and the cat kind of got under the seat and it was just like, you know, it was, I mean, we all died laughing because like, what a, what a weird, strange, know, you don't hear that happen every day kind of story, but,

Jason Allison (38:22.726)
yeah.

Jason Allison (38:32.826)
Ugh.

Jason Allison (38:36.793)
Hahaha!

Rob Paterson (38:44.514)
Yeah, getting the dead thing out is super important.

Jason Allison (38:47.731)
Right. Yes. Yes. And with that, we will sign off for the week. Bring this plane in for a landing.

Rob Paterson (38:57.954)
Well, well, as as we land, maybe just one more thing, because you know, we like to kind of give an encouraging word to to pastors to leaders. And and I think this even could tie, because this could be one of those things that's creating a stink. And you might not even know because of, you know, how you how you were taught or or whatever. But one one other statement that I got from exponential, I jotted down is this.

Jason Allison (39:00.179)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (39:26.572)
The church tries to be sin managers instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus. You know, we want to create rules and policies and structures to do our best to make sure people don't like, you know, fall into sin. where if we were to keep our eyes more on Jesus, I think how much more effective would that be at actually keeping us from this, the stench of sin.

And so just an encouragement, not only for you maybe, as opposed to beating yourself up about this mistake or that failure. Man, how about just spending more time with Jesus? How about opening your Bible not to prepare for your next teaching, but just to encounter streams of living water? How about you pray, just to have a conversation with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jason Allison (40:09.769)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (40:22.214)
And then you help others to do that as well, especially as you in new and fresh ways start to realize just how powerful doing that for those reasons and those ways is. And then you can say to all your people, hey, listen, as opposed to all these rules and regulations, if we just lived these ways, if we just, this is a quote I've been just loving recently.

What if we all tried to follow Jesus so closely that we got the dust of our rabbi all over our lives? You I think if we did that, if we were that close to Jesus, if we kept our eyes on him, we wouldn't need all those rules and policies and whatever's, you know, we would be different. We would be changed.

Jason Allison (41:09.469)
Yeah, I love it. Well, if you have any questions or maybe you were at exponential and you didn't say hi to us and you want to now, feel free to reach out. love hearing your feedback. We love hearing what's going on and any questions that you might have. Rob and I would love to spend some time addressing them and helping in any way we can. We're excited for what's coming up over the next few months and weeks and years even. This is episode 140.

And we were glad to get through the first 10. So I'm excited to see what God is gonna be doing and how God can use this as well as all of our listeners to truly impact the kingdom. So Rob, any last words before we say goodbye?

Rob Paterson (41:56.012)
Yeah, that goes back to the very first thing, right? Like, I can't afford that. I can't afford that. Listen, we have for almost three years now been doing a podcast every single week. We've, we've, you know, like we've never made a doll. It's all, it's all cost us, right? Like there's, there's been no ROI from a financial standpoint. It's cost us time. It's cost us money in order to do this.

Jason Allison (42:16.006)
No.

Rob Paterson (42:22.072)
There's always a way to figure things out. And guess what? It's been a blessing, not only to us, it's given life to us and to others. So man, you can do it.

Jason Allison (42:30.143)
Yes. Yes. We'll see you next week. Have a wonderful week.