The Coming Revolution in Church Economics with Mark DeYmaz

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson engage with Mark DeYmaz, a prominent figure in multi-ethnic ministry and church economics. They reflect on the recent Easter celebrations, discuss the importance of diversity in the church, and explore the pressing issues facing multi-ethnic congregations today. Mark shares his journey into ministry, emphasizing the need for churches to adapt to changing demographics and economic realities. He advocates for a shift in church paradigms, encouraging leaders to embrace diversity and develop multiple streams of income to sustain their missions. The conversation highlights practical steps for churches to become more inclusive and economically viable, ultimately aiming to reflect the kingdom of God on earth.

The Coming Revolution in Church Economics

Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church

More about Mosaix and the Multiethnic Conference in November!

The Church Economists

Chapters

00:00 Easter Reflections and Community Engagement
02:17 Introducing Mark DeYmaz: A Journey in Ministry
05:35 The Multi-Ethnic Church Movement
12:54 Pressing Issues in Multi-Ethnic Ministry
19:57 Positioning for the Future: Church Economics
29:01 Theological Foundations for Diversity in the Church
30:34 The Future of Church Diversity
37:28 Economic Revolution in the Church
46:36 Stewardship and Asset Management
55:57 Transforming Church Operations for the 21st Century
58:47 New Chapter

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. I do hope that everyone had an amazing Easter celebration a week ago. know Rob, you and I have talked a couple times over the last week or so, and I think you guys had a great time. I know we had a good time here at Press. Any really cool stories that you want to share real quick before we die? Because we've got a great guest today, and I don't want to eat into his time too much.

Rob Paterson (00:29)
Yeah, yeah, no, I would say two things. One is we had hundreds of first time guests, which was awesome, you know, which is a typical, think, for for churches on Easter. ⁓ And it was the first time since Covid where we actually like in real time had to pull more chairs into the auditorium ⁓ just because there were people like in every chair and people standing in the back corners and all that stuff. So.

Jason Allison (00:38)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (00:56)
You know that was a normal thing forever for us even in the middle of nowhere, Ohio ⁓ But you know COVID COVID certainly derailed that and it was fun to see that for the first time in in this many years So it's cool

Jason Allison (01:10)
Yeah, that's really

cool man. That's really exciting, which if you think about it last Easter you had to watch from home.

Rob Paterson (01:18)
No, no, no, no, I, I walkered in in my walker. Yeah.

Jason Allison (01:21)
yeah, that's right. You had your,

that, that, so yeah, big difference, huh? 12 months makes a big difference. did, ⁓ well, I know I'm excited for you. ⁓ we, had a good time here at press, you know, like you said, it was lots of new people, ⁓ checking us out and that's always fun and getting to know new people. And anytime, you know, I think you texted me and said, how was, how was Easter? And I said, well, some guy died on Friday, but he rose again. So everything's fine.

Rob Paterson (01:25)
⁓ makes a big difference.

Yeah, we had a party.

Jason Allison (01:50)
Yeah, we had a party. but yeah, I'm well, I hope everyone else and we'd love for you to send in some stories from Easter. You know, let us know. We love to celebrate with you all the things that God is doing and ⁓ it's just so much fun. ⁓ absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll we'll let's send us stories so we can put that together. That would be awesome. ⁓ well, hey, Rob, today we've got a great guest. ⁓

Rob Paterson (02:03)
Yeah, we could do a whole episode on that, I think. That'd be fun.

Jason Allison (02:17)
I'm so excited. I've had this date circled on my calendar because I was excited. ⁓ We have Mark Demase. Demase, Demase. I've heard it pronounced three different ways and now I can't remember. So Mark, tell us, how do you pronounce your name?

Mark DeYmaz (02:28)
tomorrow.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're the only one who's ever watched it, Jason.

Jason Allison (02:37)
good,

okay. Sounds about right.

Mark DeYmaz (02:40)
Yeah, no, obviously it's a difficult name from site, but yeah, we see Demas the way it's signed.

Jason Allison (02:46)
Okay, but it's capitalized. you you capitalize you highlight the silent. Why that is beautiful. I love that

Rob Paterson (02:53)
It's just

you kind of like tempt people to mispronounce your name. I love that. Yeah, I've always I've always put it E in the middle like that just because of the Y, but now it's I'm glad that I've learned. This is great.

Jason Allison (02:58)
You

Mark DeYmaz (02:58)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (03:05)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (03:05)
Yeah,

we'd be here 15 minutes explaining the background of that name, but I'll just make it simple. Demas, Hawaii is silent.

Jason Allison (03:10)
Yeah.

Nice. Well, I know. our mutual friend, Justin Knapp, who has a silent K in his name, you know, he's been on the podcast a couple of times and I've heard him pronounce your name about three different ways. So, you know, and he gets really excited and talking. I don't think he even knows exactly all the words that are coming out, but that makes it fun. Well, Mark, you, I know you have been in ministry for a very long time.

Mark DeYmaz (03:26)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (03:38)
You've been doing a lot of things in a lot of places, but you know, right now you're in Arkansas. I reading somewhere they talked about the big dream and the little rock ⁓ that you have had and you know some of your biography that I've got here, know, the thought leading author, pastor and recognized champion of the multi ethnic church movement. ⁓ I think that does honestly encapsulate a lot of what you've done and what you are doing. You planted mosaic church in central Arkansas in 2001.

⁓ And you're still there and still part of that, which I think is just beautiful and a wonderful thing. But then you added to that in 2004, Mosaics Global Network. ⁓ And so, you you have added to that some of the things that allow you to not just in one local place, but literally all over the world having influence. And so, you know, I just appreciate all that you've been doing in those areas. There's so many other things that I could list that that you have done and that you were part of.

I would encourage our listeners just to look you up and they can see some of that and then they can dive in. tell you, the reason I wanted you to meet you and to interview you was they call it the groundbreaking work, the book that you wrote, The Coming Revolution of Church Economics, and that came out in 2019. You've written several others and they are really good too, so I don't want to discount those, but ⁓ that's the one that really got my attention.

And especially in some of my work with churches is they're struggling. And so I want to hit on two different things today, Mark. I want to talk about the multi-ethnic stuff and how you're leading that charge and what that looks like. But I also really want to touch on the idea of church economics, which, you know, is it Ron Blue, think said he'd never heard a pastor use those two words in the same sentence when he was talking to you. Like, I love that. So maybe let's just start with him. How?

did you get into ministry and what is it that really got you moving in that direction?

Mark DeYmaz (05:41)
Yeah, well again, Jason, Rob, great to be with you and all of your listeners and watchers today and honored to be with you. I'll make it short so we can get into substance, but I was raised, born out of wedlock, raised in a single parent home.

raised Jesuit Catholic, Catholic educated Jesuit college prep school for high school. ⁓ In college baseball player freshman year in junior college, I ran into some Christ followers and one thing led to another. So by my sophomore year, I had given my life to Jesus. know, growing up a Catholic Catholic schools, altar boy working in the rectories for six years on a work scholarship. I had plenty of head knowledge about Jesus, but I didn't have that heart knowledge. You know, someone once said it's the distance from heaven to hell is 12 inches from your head.

your heart and that's what happened to me when I was 19. instantly the Lord worked it out. I ended up with a full ride to Liberty University on a college baseball scholarship. So I literally went from Jesuit Catholicism to independent fundamentalist Baptist overnight and that rocked my world. I was discipled by Keith Green listening to music from Keith Green, the late Pete Green, but ⁓ I was too slow to get drafted three years later and I had nothing better to do than move home and live with my mom and work for 400-

Jason Allison (06:25)
Mm.

Mark DeYmaz (06:54)
a month as a youth pastor in the church that I gave my life to Jesus. It was a conservative Baptist church in Scottsdale. I didn't even know youth pastors exist, ⁓ but I took a group of about 70, 75 high school kids. We didn't grow in the next year and a half numerically, but God used me. We grew deeper. And at the end of that year and a half, the pastor encouraged me to go to seminary. I thought that was Gregorian chants and robes and candle lighting. And he said, that's not what that is. And so off to the Western seminary.

Rob Paterson (07:22)
Hahaha

Mark DeYmaz (07:24)
In Portland, Oregon, I got a job as a youth pastor right away in 1987 started the first skateboard church in America that Proliferated that movement and other extreme sports movement in the country that ministry skate church is still going on By one of the three of us who are a co-founder. He's still leading it But that was then a couple years in Germany Working for the American military's youth pastor all to say ten years of youth ministry in 1993 a very large church here in Little Rock brought me

to

take over 157 through 12th graders and it's an amazing church. That church when I got there was 2,000 people. Eight years later it was 5,000. My youth group went from 150 to 600. During that time I ended up with 250 volunteers, nine full-time staff, built a three and a half million dollar student center, you know, three full-court gyms. On and on I could tell you of top two percent of paid youth pastors. In America I'm living the dream until 1997. One day I looked around this amazing church and realized the only people of color

were janitors and that began to bother me but I didn't know why in 1997 and so I continued in ministry there but on the side began to re-examine some of the things I heard about the church ⁓ in seminary like for instance that churches in the New Testament were segregated Jewish believers went to Jewish churches Gentile to Gentile I'd been taught that the fastest way in the biblical way really to grow plant-grower developed churches was focused on a single people group or the homogeneous unit principle I began to re-examine

Jason Allison (08:25)
you

Mark DeYmaz (08:54)
that in those next four years and realize neither one of those were true ⁓ and that every church in the New Testament outside of Jerusalem was intentionally multi-ethnic men and women, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor. And it was that good work, Ephesians chapter two, this workmanship that we've been prepared for collectively to reflect the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven to advance a credible message of God's love for all people beyond just our words, but through our work of loving one another ⁓ beyond the

of this world that otherwise divide. All of that got into my bones and belly from a theological standpoint. And then ultimately in 2001, felt my wife and I felt led to stay in Little Rock. I come about 15 minutes away from that church into the inner city, highest violent crime in the city, 67 % of kids growing up without dads in the home, 30 % out of low poverty, determined to live out Matthew 5 16 to do good work. And as Christianity, they would call three years later, a big dream in Little Rock could men and women of diversity

ethnic and economic background will themselves again for the sake of advancing a credible gospel as we say here to walk to work and to worship God together as one and we just turned 23 official years my wife and I are in our 24th year about to start our 25th and I mean I you know I'm so thankful and can't even believe it really looking back on it that we're still here still standing and healthy and growing and looking ahead to next generation leadership they're already in place and but still fighting it out in the inner city every day right outside of

Rob Paterson (10:13)
Hmph.

Mark DeYmaz (10:23)
I'm speaking to you every Friday we open up the doors to the homeless and the low income that live and die on our property 20 deaths in the last four and a half years so they're getting hot needles, showers, laundry service even as we speak in fact if you hear some noise that's what that will be so we're still in the thick of it but you know God has really blessed the effort of course he called it out so why wouldn't he bless the effort he said go do it and my wife and I and many others now have been doing it for a long time and and still trying to do it every day

Rob Paterson (10:46)
Yeah.

That's that's so good. Mark, as I said off camera, I met you 18 years ago in 2007 at exponential. My wife and I were just in the beginning stages of planting our second church, which was a very intentionally a multi ethnic church in Muskegon, Michigan, and someone I didn't even I'd never even heard of exponential. It was like brand new back then.

but, ⁓ someone said, Hey, I think you've been through boot camps and assessment centers and all that stuff. You should go to exponential is your training event. We went to the multi-ethnic track and, you know, your book was brand new. ⁓ and, and, and and I was just captivated by that. And, and one of the things we began to say in our community, because we noticed in Muskegon, Michigan, where we lived at the time that there was this road that went through town and literally on one side of the road, it was like,

80 % black, you know, like median income per household was like 20,000 on the other side of the road. It was 92 % white and the median income was like 70 or $80,000. And, and the thing we just would say to everyone, how dare we tell someone that Jesus can save us for all of eternity, but that he can't reconcile us to our neighbors who live right across the street just because they're in a different tax bracket or they have a different skin color.

And that was just so compelling ⁓ at the time. As we think now, because there's always new kind of issues in general, culturally and in the church, mean, what are some things like, and I know a lot of churches, like the denomination I was ordained in was the Wesleyan Church. And out of that sprung a great ministry that is doing good work called Immigrant Connection that works with immigrants to help them.

⁓ But man, what are some things now that you just see as kind of pressing issues that the church needs to really speak into in this multi-ethnic sense?

Mark DeYmaz (12:54)
Yeah, that's a great question. I'll frame it by saying this. This is a 100 year movement and we are just now finishing 25 years. I marked the start of the movement from the publication of Michael Emerson and Christian Smith divided by faith in 2000. There was some multi-ethnic work prior to that going back to the 60s even 1940s but very, very few and far between works like that. But that book was catalytic and if you think about a 40 year flat line all of a sudden the line begins to climb but it's

slow and steady until about 2013 Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Eric Brown, Black Lives Matter and the line shot up. A lot of folks got into it at that moment, ⁓ almost in the faddish kind of sense. They were sending out stock photos, declaring themselves to be a healthy multi-ethnic church and they weren't and a lot of people of color, particularly African Americans got burned. So by the time George Floyd is murdered and ⁓ you know, in that there's a lot of people quote leaving loud and giving up on all

of

that.

But the fact is there's been a course correction even since COVID and people that are in it it is definitely happening ⁓ But it was virtually nothing then it shot up But what shot up wasn't really what it should be in terms of the popular thing and now it's back to just good people Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, men, women, whatever just building this thing like the turtle ⁓ If you will in the old tortoise and the hare kind of deal So ⁓ actually we do a national conference every three years. It's conference year

November 11 through 13 in Dallas, usually about 1200 folks at that event. But that will mark the end of 25 year of a 25 year journey. And I can tell you all kinds of stats and the things that have happened has been just like any football game, for instance, it's the end of the first quarter. So it's a chance for the movement to gather and look back and see where we put points on the board in the first 25 years and cheer, right? And then also look back and hey, where'd we fumble or where did we have opportunity?

take advantage so we get a chance to assess that and then to set a course for the next 25 years but all to say ⁓ Revelation 7 9 has come and whether you like it or not

standard or not and Christ taught us to pray what's going on up there ought to be going on down here so sometimes people need to pull over like a race car they need to go into a pit stop and get with their own folks but you you know the encouragement is get back out on the on the race get back in the race because the trajectory of the kingdom of God is moving in this direction I say it's a hundred year movement to help frame this that it's not either it is or it's not it's like the stock market it's going to go up some sometimes it's going to go down but the long-term trajectory is up and to the right this is Revelation 7

It's

biblically accurate, it's theologically for the sake of the gospel. It's just a matter of us getting our hearts and minds attuned to the church on earth reflecting the kingdom of God for the sake of the gospel. So with all of that in mind, this is where we are much more healthy as a movement, much more steady and tortoise-like, if you will, versus like rabbit-like, if I can use that as an example. And all of that is building well. We'll be announcing a new 25-year goal at that conference. It's pretty exciting. I don't want to say what it is right now.

Rob Paterson (16:00)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (16:04)
But our first year the first goal was to get the 20 % diversity in 20 % of churches by 2020 We hit that in 2019 23 % evangelical 11 mainline 16 % 24 % Catholic so the Statistical miracles that we've seen in the first 25 years are strong, but we got some great excitement in terms of the next 25 years I won't even live that long. I mean likely out

As a movement, it's a hundred-year movement. Last thing I'll say is why do I think it's not only is it a hundred-year movement? It is the single greatest movement in my opinion the Holy Spirit on planet Earth in the Western Hemisphere certainly if not even in the East In this entire century. There is nothing that the Holy Spirit and the church will accomplish That's any greater to the long-term kingdom of God as long as Jesus tarries That is churches becoming healthy and multi-ethnic. Why do I say that with confidence? If you think about it entire

of church history are summarized in a single word. So if I said to you, what's the single greatest thing that happened in the fourth century to advance the gospel in the church of God on earth? You would likely say Constantine. One word, a man's name in this case, the conversion of Constantine, et cetera. If I said 16th century, what's the word? Reformation. Now think about this. Hundreds of years later, people look back on an entire century and summarize the entire working of the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of

Jason Allison (17:19)
for information.

Mark DeYmaz (17:29)
the advance of the church and the gospel it'll work if god carries that it's 2500 ad and they look back on the 21st century what's that word i don't know what the word is i'm not saying it's multi-ethnic but whatever that word is it will be that's what it'll relate to why

Rob Paterson (17:32)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (17:45)
Because if the gospel was a service we were selling like a business like I'm an iPhone salesman I'm trying to sell you the gospel if the church in a globalized century does not walk work worship God together as one in local churches All you cannot keep telling people God loves all people and expect that message to be believed If in fact it looks like your church only loves people like you So the the gospel would go out of business if this didn't happen

Rob Paterson (18:08)
Mm.

Jason Allison (18:08)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (18:13)
in a globalized century. And of course, God's not going to let that happen. So this is what the Holy Spirit is doing, single greatest for the credibility and the advance of the gospel. And I would just go so far as to say in the next 20 years, as robots come online and AI, you got robots.

living in your house, you got robots on staff and and on and on that's a whole other alternative intelligence conversation. But at that point it won't be, it won't be, ⁓ you're black and you're white, it's going to be you're human and you're a machine. And the very fact of AI is also in my opinion what God is using and will use in this century to drive us together beyond the distinction of this world that otherwise divide all for the sake of the gospel in local churches.

Rob Paterson (18:43)
Mm.

Jason Allison (18:43)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (18:57)
That's that's awesome. Jason, I got to follow up. have to ask. ⁓ So for I mean, anyone who's listening and I'm sure I'm sure we have some listeners who like heard what you just said and are like, wow, like I, yeah, I agree. But but they've still like in terms of their in their minds and in terms of how their ministry has functionally taken place, they have still been living in that old paradigm of

the, like you said, you were, you were told and taught like, you know, back in the day, like, no, like everything's divided and that's the most effective way. And, and so now they're hearing this and they're thinking maybe in their town of different, different groups of people that they have not even thought about or attempted to reach. mean, you know, what, what would you say to someone who, who is maybe being exposed to this concept as crazy as that is for the first time in a ministry sense, like what would be a good next step for them?

Mark DeYmaz (19:57)
Yeah, I'll just answer two ways, Rob. First of all, I believe most pastors in America today, in spite of their good intentions, their heart for God, their heart for the church, most pastors, if you get out there 10, 20 years, the net effect of their activity is managing the inevitable decline of their churches. Now, why do I say that? Well, I could give you a lot of stats in terms of numbers and tithes and giving and people attending. But if I'm right about that,

that in spite of their good hearts and efforts, they're simply managing. They're at a stage in the life cycle of that church that they're managing stagnation, which will ultimately decline. If I'm right about that, the question is why. It's because the entire American church is still pitched towards and chasing 20th century metrics.

If you look up what an operating system is, someone might be listening to Google it or chat GPT or whatever, GROKIT. But what happens when you don't keep your operating system up to date on a smartphone or on your computer? You're more susceptible to hacks, to viruses. You can't communicate well with the latest machines. There's all these factors that require us to keep our operating systems up to date. If we want to think about it like that, so far in the first 25 years,

of the century, the vast majority of churches that I have seen, although there's a change in our movement is helping to lead that. But many, many churches, if not most still are there running a 20th century operating system with this 20th century metrics like how big is your church? Nobody cares how big your church is in the 21st century. It's all about impact and the greater your diversity, the greater impact is going to be in a community. 20th century ties and offerings. Right. We're to talk maybe about that in the 20th century that funded your work and advanced.

your vision. Not the 21st, you better develop multiple streams of income. In the 20th century, one senior pastor, you better have a team-based management or a leadership system in place because no one person can deal, can lead the entire church in the complexities of the 21st century. You have to develop a trinity, if you will, of a visionary, a shepherd, and an operations person. So these are just quick flybys on if pastors are only managing stagnation. Why? Because they're pitched to the 20th century and the

forward is we can play for today as pastors or we can position our churches for what is coming and that's all that we're talking about today in terms of multi-ethnicity in terms of church economics it's not just looking at what exists now and or what you knew or understood from the past we have to look ahead and now make the move

to position for what is coming. Case in point, in January, I hired a couple out of Mexico, church planners, great people ⁓ to come to this church. And without going into all the things they do, the primary reason I hired them is because the man who's 42 is very much like my gifting. I'm 63 years old. It'll take him about two to three years for him to fully learn English. We've been here before with other people on our staff. ⁓ And I've got a ⁓ woman on my staff who

runs our children's ministry. She's very much like me. It's going to take two people to replace me. We've already figured that out and I've got them both here now. And so once Aaron learns English in a couple of years, that's when I'll, you know, I'll move over to another role and let them take up this role. But the reason I'm talking about this guy is because 24 years ago, when I started this church, Hispanics in the city were very few and far between, but it's the fastest growing demographic. They're already over 10 % or more on the census, which means they're probably 20.

20

% because they're not doing census data and the point is there's coming a day in the next three to five years on two fronts as I look at this church that there will be as many Hispanics with our African Americans and white people as well as about 25 other nations who speak English there will be as many Hispanics in the main if you will the English service as there are in our generational services first service and in Spanish and I need to position leadership for that which is why we sent or we blessed

We didn't send her I guess we sent her but our children's pastor was white We sent her to Mexico last February all month to start learning Spanish So we're not just looking at what we have and trying to maintain what we have we're always looking three to five years into the future and Making moves today that are positioning the church for the future. Sometimes people in the pews don't get it and they leave God bless you go in peace Thank you for your contribution. Thanks for being part of a certain stage or season of this church

Jason Allison (24:13)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (24:35)
But if I listen to the people who like it the way it is, that that's the absolute worst thing you can do organizationally. Harvard Business School 1996, the number one worst mistake companies make when they get to the top of an S-curve is to pay attention to their current customers. You have to think not about and listen to who's already here. You have to ask questions and think about who's not here. And then you pitch the church that way. And this is all John 15. The branch has to be cut back every now and again in order to bear the

Jason Allison (25:02)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (25:05)
the next iteration of fruit. And I'm not out there telling people to leave, but I am putting the church to the future, constantly looking to what's next and moving us forward. And that that has some impact, which then gets to the very things like economics. If I've got to compromise my message to keep big givers in this church, which we've had very few and far between through the years, we're an urban inner city church. You may know, but in the inner city, people take money out of the plate. They don't put money in the plate.

And ⁓ you know, so the point is, if I have to compromise my message for big givers in this church, right, I can't do that. So we had to figure out early on for for a number of reasons, including two I just mentioned. How are we going to fund an advanced goal mission? It's not going to be ties and offerings from an inner city congregation. We're going to have to develop multiple streams of income. So even that was looking to the future, recognizing what is what's been what is and not just playing for today or this moment, but in good stewardship of our leadership.

Jason Allison (26:03)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (26:05)
then positioning the church for the future. In second Chronicles it said the men of Izancar understood the times and knew what was right for Israel to do. Three things at least going on, right? Number

Jason Allison (26:12)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Mark DeYmaz (26:17)
Somebody stopped to think Right. That's what it means to understand. They said time out. Let's think about things for a moment And it said they understood their times they discerned their moment and obviously they would have understood the past that is certain their moment But they're looking to the future which is how they came up with here's what we need to do next Because they just weren't doing what had already been always been done Their time was different the future would be different and they didn't just play for today. They position for tomorrow So in our language, you know

They weren't just continuing with 20th century metrics. They were figuring out the 21st century, if you will. They were uploading a new operating system. And this is how they discern what was the best move for Israel to take on the climb. We as pastors got to the courage to do it. And that's called good stewardship of leadership.

Jason Allison (27:05)
Yeah, that's a lot right there. know, in my mind, I'm soaking in, you know, a lot of the things that you just said. you know, you and I mentioned ⁓ before I told you before we even ⁓ hit record that the church that I'm part of, we're in the midst. And by the time this comes out, you know, we will have announced publicly that we are merging with another and actually a way bigger church. ⁓ And we're going to become a campus. Well,

The cool thing about that is I've been thinking of how do you how do we talk about this with the congregation? And you know, one of the big big things what you just said, we can play for today or we can position for tomorrow like it's not. It's not. It's OK to do both a little bit, right? I mean, you gotta exist in the moment, but in the same breath, what does it look like to position for tomorrow? And that's what like with us doing the merger, what we're.

And even what we were talking about is we are doing our best to position ourself for the next 10, 15, 20 years, as opposed to just continuing to do what we were doing. ⁓ You know, another side of that too is my work with Converge. Now that I'm officially like full-time, you know, what I'm going to be focused on. The first thing I want to do is figure out what's the main thrust, right? What am I going to, those first few years, what do I really want to talk about?

And the thing that keeps coming to mind is ⁓ the idea of we gotta change the scorecard, right? It's no longer butts and budgets, right? It's gotta be more than that. It's gotta be something that talks about impact. And so that's why I love what you're doing here. Like, I mean, it just lines up in so many levels. Real quick, let me just ask you, if I'm a pastor and I'm at a church that maybe is, ⁓ you know, it's a regular-sized church, few hundred people, ⁓

Rob Paterson (28:47)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (29:01)
You know, we've been around for a while. We're not exactly diverse in our, you know, in the makeup of our Sunday morning. ⁓ what does it look like? Like in some real terms, what are some like first things that we could do that would at least get us into the conversation, into the, at least starting those practices that would help us begin to think creatively rather than just what we've always done.

Mark DeYmaz (29:26)
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I'll try to be short. you know, think about Simon Sinek, why, how, and what. Most people want to start with the what. Let's start with the why. So the first thing is theology. People need a deep dive, the leadership, the key lay leadership, the staff. People need to think about this from a theological New Testament, by the way, ecclesiology of the church. And Rob, you've read my first book. I'm not trying to sell books here, but in all my books, I put that theology, but the first and the second book particularly lays out that theology. Christ envisioned this the night before he died.

I describe it Paul prescribed it we got to get the theological Ecclesiology in our bones and belly as a why and again, it's not for it's not to be cool. It's not for political recklessness It's not so-called DEI or being woke none of that has nothing to do with that. It's all about being ⁓ Reflecting the kingdom of God on earth this isn't having to advance a credible gospel Beyond our words that it can be believed and we're actually living and experiencing the heaven on earth The church should be an embassy and we're his ambassadors and that's a whole nother

metaphor but the point is we start with the why which is biblical theology and a little bit of a side of that we would also consider sociology right by

Right now, Gen Z is over 50 % non-white, Millennials 43 % non-white by 2042, one in two people in America non-white. So again, looking to the future, churches are going to be like, they're going to be forced to be this way if not, you know, or you're to be isolated in mainstream. So we might as well get with God's program. All that's saved, theology, primary, a little bit of sociology that builds the why, right? Then as I wrote in my first book, there's seven basic hows, right? We have to take, we're to have to be intentional. You can't just sit around and

to pray that this happens. Yes, we pray, but we're going to have to be intentional, which involves empowering diverse leaders when we're looking for leaders, like literally yesterday in our church, we're looking ahead for a couple of leaders. And we were talking about the need in our nonprofit side ⁓ for ⁓ somebody. And I was like, hey, I wonder if we can find somebody who can also do social media. we were another conversation was about recognizing increasing East Indian population in our church. So looking for a leader on staff, a pastoral leader.

in

some role and being very intentional looking for an East Indian leader. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not DEI. That's called intentionality. It's what Paul did with Timothy and I could go on. It's Acts 13.1, two from Africa, one from the Middle East, one from Asia Minor, and one from the Mediterranean. All of this is indirect prescriptions. So empowering diverse leaders, developing our cross-cultural competence or intelligence, building cross-cultural relationships. We have an eight week daily devotional small group curriculum called Multi-Edit Conversation to get us in a room in a small

small group discussing these things from an ideological standpoint with people that are different than us in terms of ethnic or economic background, promoting a spirit of inclusion. So there's these basic hows. So my point is the why and the how is the same for every church. And again, not to be self promoting, but if you want to read my first book or my second book, that'll lay down those tracks for the why and the how.

Jason Allison (32:20)
Mm.

Mark DeYmaz (32:26)
They are the same for every church rural inner city suburban Those why the wine house all the same it's that 20 % what that's contextual, right? And so then we're that that's where you're thinking about in our context So for instance just not number one it would just be recognizing what you have to do is be intentional Right again, so you're going to have to take some steps maybe come to again I'm just using stuff like that come to the most conference expose yourself to that

read some books, get with some people of color and converge, find your way to other folks, John Jenkins and others, and begin to educate yourself. That would be an intentional step. Or like I'm just leaning into, as you think about potential fractional hires or part-time or even full-time, be there is nothing wrong and everything right with looking about who's around the table at the moment and who's not there and thinking about can we find a children's pastor or a youth pastor or a senior, whatever it is, let's start to be

Jason Allison (33:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (33:26)
intentional about the pools that we look in ⁓ in terms of who we're hiring and be very strategic with that. Again, that's not woke. That's not the eye. It's biblical and it's right. And it's smart, right? From a sociological standpoint. So you can be thinking about it from a terms of lay or paid staffing position and being intentional that way. A church could do cultural intelligence through mosaics, global networks. We represent Dave Livermore in the Cultural Intelligence Center. We have an assessment and there's a score and see

cultural intelligence something that you can find out here's where we are in the moment and Here's what here's what we're doing well and here's where we're weak and then we can write prescriptions on how you can improve those areas of cross-cultural intelligence competence Relationship stuff simple simple stuff you live in an area that has a large Korean population for instance Let's say why are all the signs on your street in English? Why are all?

slides in English. Why is all your signage in English? You've got a large Korean population out there. Get those signs and slides bilingual. Put them up and then somebody from your church is going to say, hey pastor, why are we doing that? Why are we spending it? We don't have anybody in our church who speaks Korean and I know.

You see what I'm saying? Like, yeah, I know. That's why we're doing it. Because which comes first, the chicken or the egg, right? So this is called ⁓ promoting a spirit of inclusion. So the signage, right? Just simple stuff. Bilingual signs or slides in a situation like that are.

Jason Allison (34:45)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (34:57)
Or or you know putting out flags that on a roof or in a building that represent the different nations already in the church That then begins to help people understand. This is a church that's for all people not just some so Again, those are all contextual what's but they flow from the why in the house and so as fast as I can say that would be You know kind of the trajectory get the theology in your belly understand the sociology Seven house and then let what can we do in the next 30 days? Hey, take a look at your way

Jason Allison (35:26)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (35:27)
How does your website speak to people that aren't like you right that you can you can make change on a website in 30 days now Don't put stock photos on there In fact when I'm working with churches in this regard one thing you can say is we are not a multi-ethnic church right now We're predominantly, you know, but we want to be this Come help us and come be a come be us and let's do this thing together So just honesty is the best policy on a website but even speaking that language and beginning to lean into it and doc

statements that there are all these you know Trinity and everything great have all that the Bible but also say we believe the kingdom of heaven is for all people not some people Revelation 7 9 and put that in your doctrinal statement and let people know that we want to be a church and continue to move towards corporate sanctification by the way it's not either you've got it right or you've got it wrong you're healthy multi-ethic or you're not think about this as sanctification no church is ever going to be Revelation 7 9 on earth it just won't

Jason Allison (36:09)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (36:09)
Yeah.

Mm.

Mark DeYmaz (36:27)
happen. But just like in our own individual sanctification, if you are my pastor, you go, how are doing with God? I go, I'm doing great, know, right now, Jason. And ⁓ how are you? What are you learning, Mark? How are you growing?

seminar I've been doing this I'm just gonna kind of ride this thing out you know you wouldn't accept that you'd be saying no you got health and breath and life and mind you should be growing well why do we just go well we're just an all-white church that's just who we are

Or we're just an all black church. You don't get away without an individual sanctification. So why would you think in a corporate sanctification? So you need to embrace corporate sanctification. And just like in our own individual sanctification, you're taking one step at a time. You're not trying to change the whole thing overnight. You don't want to split the church in the name of Yuri. But you can take a step. We can hire with intention. We can change our signage. And you make one step at a time, like the turtle, and you keep moving towards a corporate.

Jason Allison (36:58)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (37:23)
sanctification of a multi-ethnic church reflecting the Kingdom of God on earth for the sake of the gospel.

Rob Paterson (37:28)
Yeah, so good. Mark, as we've been having this conversation really about diversity, you know, you've you've kind of alluded a number of times, not just to kind of multi ethnic diversity, but also socioeconomic diversity. And in 2019, you wrote a book called The Coming Revolution in Church Economics. Tell us about that. What's the big idea? Where'd that book come from?

Mark DeYmaz (37:53)
Yeah, well, again.

I came from a very wealthy suburban church where money grew on trees and then all of sudden I'm starting a church in the inner city and I realized that dynamics are totally different and either I'm going to have a nice little church of 50 or 60 people here and preach on a Sunday and get a little paycheck or we're going to aggressively meet the needs of the homeless and the immigrant and the at-risk children and the crime and there's no way we're going to do that on tithes and offerings and so we early on had we recognized we were going to need to develop multiple streams of income which in time

led us to structures where we restructured the church. actually wrote a book in 2017 called A Disruption Restructuring the Church to Redeem the Community, which is the forerunner to that book, The Coming Revolution. And so all that's to say is we created a structure ⁓ by which we could develop and chase multiple streams of income, including generosity, tithes and offerings, if you will, from our membership. So we're not discrediting that. We're just saying it won't be enough in the 21st century ⁓ to advance

mission, mission vitality, make impact, etc. So because at the end of the day, your tithes and offerings at best are just taking care of your church. And that's a big part of the problem, right? Because then, yeah, sure, you're sending some money here and some money overseas. you know, I don't know how many, you know, is it 90 % 92 % of everything we collect goes to the church, right? So you're if you're going to have in scale your missional impact, as well as be sustainable as a church, you need multiple streams of income. So we learned that early on figured out structures, language for

that and then started practicing, if you will, what we preach. the whole economic thing in terms of church economics, developing multiple streams of income by leveraging the assets of your church, primarily your people, your money and your facilities, leveraging those assets as good stewards to generate more was all to support a healthy multi-ethnic church. And then you fast forward 20 something years, right, in the inner city, because of income inequality and wealth gaps, by the way,

Which

leads to this? You know all of sudden the economy shifted a eyes coming people are losing their jobs COVID happened and every church I you know 94 % of churches need to do what we're doing. Frankly. I mean you're not gonna survive sure There's gonna be 6 % 8 % They'll be able to do it without it and you know and all that in some denominations because there's in some denominations They got a lot of money that's been given through the centuries literally they can props things up, but the best

majority of people just hustling the streets and being pastors, you're going to have to learn to leverage assets and generate sustainable income beyond the giving of your members. And so now it's every church, not just inner city or multi ethnic because of again, changing economies, COVID, et cetera. People are going to have to learn to practice this. Now in a word,

And so you heard me say leverage assets to advance your mission, but at the same time generate sustainable income That's basically make money and when pastors first hear me say that our lay people particularly They that's when whoa, wait a second, you know church isn't about making money blah blah. Okay

There in my book in that book. We wrote seven biblical We examined seven passages that are erroneously understood like when Jesus overturned the money changers has nothing to do with fair profit It has everything to do with economic exploitation and so we have to I don't want to say deconstruct But we have to help people think more deeply about this topic than they typically have but abuse if I summarize in a why Why should you do this? Why should you leverage assets generate sustainable income beyond the social

Rob Paterson (41:19)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (41:34)
sociological

factors of changing dynamics, ethnic and economic diversity, growing income inequality and wealth gaps that are several hundred years old in this country, etc. There's one word and it's called stewardship. Now in the American church, stewardship in my opinion is defined as management. People say stewardship, but if you get under the hood, they're talking about management. So what do I mean? They mean, well, God's given us this facility, you know, there's a hole in the wall or there's a pot hole.

Jason Allison (41:57)
Hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (42:04)
fix it, we've got to take care of this building because God gave this to us so we got to make sure we you know manage it well, we steward it well they'll say.

⁓ Stewardship involves like reporting, you know people give money to the church. We got to accurately report all that record it and we also have to accurately communicate to our people how we're spending that money and those three things are typically in Stewardship when an American pastor or in the American church, they say stewardship. That's what they mean Well, all that's well and good and I'm for all that and we do all that but that's not stewardship. That's management Because stewardship is defined by Christ you gave me

five here's your five and I made you five you gave me two here's your two and I made you two I like to say one guy sat on his asset now now think about that the

The one person who out of fear lack of understanding out of fear, whatever he he said I will I'm just gonna sit on this asset and and we won't make any you know But we won't lose anything and that'll be good enough for the master and the master says wicked lazy Stewart Take that asset away from it and give it to somebody that knows what to do with it Right now that lazy stewardship. That's the American Church

Rob Paterson (43:17)
Mm.

Mark DeYmaz (43:23)
We are the wicked, lazy steward. We are sitting on hundreds, the scores I'll say, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of assets that are completely buried in the ground and they are being managed to decline. Why do I say that? Buildings that sit empty from Monday to Saturday. Our good friend Justin's working on that problem, right?

So buildings that sit empty from Monday to Saturday doing absolutely nothing for the kingdom or the community, generating no income, et cetera. Land that's owned by churches sitting there undeveloped. Literally in my own community, there's a church, owns about two or three acres of land. There's been a sign on that yard for 28 years, future sanctuary. Like, just let a commercial developers do a land lease, get something going on that property.

But churches on land, do nothing with it. And then where it's like a church, I know it was a Methodist church, 65 members, two and a half million in the bank. Nobody's getting saved. The community's not being engaged. But to a member, they will tell you how proud they are to have two and a half million in the bank. Wicked, lazy stewardship.

So in a one word summary of the theology of this, let alone all the sociology and everything, we are wicked lazy stewards because nobody taught us business. And we think business is bad. We separate faith from intentionality in this and all kinds of things. And this is true with doctors and lawyers. You go to law school, you go to med school, you go to seminary, nobody.

teaches you anything about business. And therefore, as pastors, we just replicate what's always been ties and offerings, generosity campaigns, you know, maybe you set up an endowment, you know, but that's all 20th century. Yes, do all that. But you're going to have to think differently in the 21st to not only advance mission vitality, but impact to scale it. And so the structure that we set up involves and I'm glad to talk about, I know we're probably moving out of time, but in the books that I've written in

Jason Allison (44:47)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (45:15)
work that we do through the churcheconomists.com that's plural churcheconomists.com free assessments sustainability sprints ⁓ all of this is helping people understand just like an American football team you have offense defense special teams if you want to think about it like that the church in America has an offense it has no defense no special teams and you wonder why we're losing

Your defense needs to be a nonprofit structured differently than the church, doing the justice, compassionate, merciful work in your community by which you attract local, state, and federal grants, donations to that work outside the church. And you're able to scale that work. And you're able to leverage money that's given to also bless the bottom line of the church. And then the third leg is that for-profit leg. You take a facility. The simplest way for a church to make money is rent it space, an event center, long-term leases in your property.

out a mortgage rent your building in spaces enough to pay for the mortgage that's called good stewardship and and when you do that I don't know your mortgage is 15,000 a month you generate 15,000 of profitable income by leveraging assets that means you got $15,000 more ties and offerings going to direct ministry impact and not to a bank so again nobody taught us to think like this but you said how did I get into it 24 years ago planning in inner city church forced me to think deeply about

Rob Paterson (46:26)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (46:27)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (46:36)
of this and then over time it's not just our church or churches like us multi-ethnic inner city is like every church where you're not going to make it and and we saw that with covid churches got killed just like people sometimes people had they were already sick and it knocked them out you know i i have a good friend he was totally healthy he got knocked out so who knows how covid killed people but there were a lot of course people that were sickly and it was just that one thing knocked them out and that's a lot of churches and they

Jason Allison (46:54)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (47:06)
got taken out because they're not good stewards and it doesn't mean they're bad people, but good stewardship has nothing to do you being a good person or bad person. It's just stewardship. And as pastors, you might say, what do I do? You don't have to know all you don't have to do all this. You just have to understand all this because once you understand it, then you can empower equipment, empower and position people to do this work for you, to do the justice work on the nonprofit side. The business

Rob Paterson (47:17)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (47:36)
people to position them to help you leverage the assets and generate income while you focus on the spiritual game if you will. So we don't say offense defense special teams we say spiritual social financial right and so the pastors are focused on the spiritual game the social work types are focused on the justice game nonprofit side and your business types on the special teams if you will the financial game and you put that team together and the coaching room and the players are all in the right positions because you don't take a business

person and you say work in our three-year-old apartment. But that's the American church because we have nothing. don't have, think about a college football player who shows up first day of practice, coach says what position you play in high school? He said I was a wide receiver. He goes great we need a deep snapper on special teams.

That kid is not going to last. That's not what I came for. You listen, when people join your church, it's not just who coaches these games, pastoral types, social worker types, and business types at the coaching level, but it's who plays the game. Somebody walks in your church and they go, man, I just love worship. I just love praying. I just love teaching children about Jesus. That's the language of the offense. That's the language of the spiritual game. Get those people playing the spiritual game. Somebody else walks in and go, I just love the immigrant. I just love the

Jason Allison (48:47)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (48:54)
I want to help I want to do so that's the language of the defense So you structure a nonprofit and get that person playing on the nonprofit side in? That work and same thing with business when you don't ask a business person to be a greeter at your front door You just go I got four thousand a month walking out my coffee shop my coffee area in the form of free coffee You think you could figure out a way to sell biscuits or generate four thousand a month from that coffee shop So we can take the four thousand a month. We're spending out of our tithes and offerings

and use that for youth scholarships to summer camp.

You see what I'm saying or hire a new person. We don't think like that. But again, if you're a pastor, listen, you don't have to do this work at these different levels. So you see what I'm saying? But you have to understand the game of football. So a head coach understands the game of football. And then they hire the coordinators, the offensive coordinator, the defensive. Sometimes a head coach might have experience with offense. So he says, I'll be the head coach and also coach the offense. But no coach coaches the entire team and all three of those

Jason Allison (49:29)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (49:58)
sub games if you will. So again pastors should be understand the game as a head coach which the book disruption tells you about. But then you position you the coaches of these other teams the players of the other team and we move towards away from a 20th century one-dimensional game when it comes to church and economics to a three-dimensional game which is 21st century and that's how you're going to win.

Jason Allison (50:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. One thing in reading the book, you talk about the three different teams. You even use like a three-legged stool or, you know, multiple metaphors there. But what I like about it too, is you talk about establishing each one as its own entity, as opposed to the church and then having these three like boards underneath it. No, no, no. The business isn't its own thing. The nonprofit is its own entity.

And the church is its own entity so that they can do what they do without worrying about the rules that govern each of those. you can actually, you know, I like that head coach model of your job is to make sure the coordinators of those things are on the same page and moving forward, but they got to be free to do their thing and not worry about keeping everything else up. And that was new to me to think of it that way. And I'm, my head's still spinning on what does that actually look like now in my context.

Rob Paterson (51:09)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Jason Allison (51:19)
You know, like, how do I talk about it there? Because I think it's, I think you're exactly right. That is a 21st century way of looking at things. And so we've got a

Mark DeYmaz (51:29)
Yeah, Jason, real quick, that's a great point because...

that analogy where you might have justice, mercy, compassion, and or some measure of business all under the spiritual game, if I can say it, that would be like the offensive coaches and the offensive players also having to coach and play defense and also having to coach and play special teams. And a ⁓ metaphor for that would be enmeshment. So years ago, I went to counseling. My wife went with me. And one day the counselor leaned into some marital counseling. And he said, show me what oneness looks like in your marriage. And we put our hands up like this.

Rob Paterson (51:51)
Mm.

Jason Allison (51:51)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (52:02)
And we put our we clasp our hands like this and he said that's not oneness. That's enmeshment And I go, what do you mean? And he goes well, where where are you and where is Linda? My wife's name is Linda I can't kind of tell you guys are all kind of tangled up like a knot here and then and then he put his hand on us and he Jerked our hands and he said when you're like that It's easy to pull and jerk and push each other around. So he said take your hands apart. He goes obviously this is not oneness

But this is in measurement. So then he said, feel each other's fingertips.

So we put our hands up very lightly to each other, and we felt each other's fingertips. And he said, that's oneness. Here's Mark. Here's Linda. You're individual, but you're connected. And that's what you just said, which is a super important point. We're not going to be like this, three separate teams playing three separate games, completely independent of a North Star, right? But we've got to get away from enmeshment. I've worked with churches in Chicago.

and we're recently somewhere else. They're doing all these three things, but they're all doing it under the offense, if you will. And it's holding them back, and it's muddy, and it's in mesh. So when you have a situation like that, you're just separating. You're separating and getting that separation. So these teams are, there's a separate game plan, separate coaching, separate players, separate metrics, et cetera. And each team plays those games like football, but they are all playing

Under the one sacred game. So I I said the whole thing is sacred. The whole thing is capital s spiritual But then down here one quick thing when we do food distribution largest in the city on tuesday If you come to our church and you said does your church you guys feed people that are hungry in a food desert You guys involved with that every member of our church. yeah. Yeah, we do that Well, technically with a church does not do that technically our non-profit like two sisters in the house Our non-profit does that work?

Jason Allison (53:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Huh.

Mark DeYmaz (53:55)
But everybody feels like it's our work because it's all housed here and all that but but sometimes pastors come and they see And we'll have more people on a Tuesday for food sometimes than on a church on Sunday And and and again, this goes back to impact and sometimes the pastor will say how many of those people go to your church? You know and I pause for a second every one of them like what do mean like?

Rob Paterson (54:18)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (54:19)
Every single

Rob Paterson (54:19)
Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (54:20)
one. Where do think we are? Right now, where does that question come from a 20th century metric? Somehow if you're just feeding people and those people aren't getting saved converted Over your job somehow it doesn't count where it's like it's a less than it. We're like, no, no

Rob Paterson (54:32)
It doesn't count.

Mark DeYmaz (54:38)
Tuesday, like today I was telling you about the people out here getting meals, showers, and laundry. That's the defense. So our defense right now during this time we were talking they just finished it's three o'clock central right now. During this time our defense was on the field. Tomorrow we have a chess tournament here. We have one of our non-profit programs as a chess club and they run chess tournament. Our defense is on the field. Sunday morning the offense will be on the field.

Jason Allison (55:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mark DeYmaz (55:05)
And it's all counts. It's all, you know, so every one of them is coming to the church. But the games we're playing, the metrics, what we're looking for and what we're accomplishing as a team can't be measured by you got saved or you now are a member of our church.

Does that stuff happen? Of course it does. But is that is that like that's the goal? No, the goal is to represent Jesus well by feeding people, praying, giving dignity to people to shower, because that's the good work that glorifies your father, Matthew 5 16. He didn't say, let him hear your good words. He said, let him see your good work. So our defense and our special team does good work and our spiritual team. It does good work, too. But it's more of the spiritual, the typical church stuff. But all this other stuff, it all adds

Jason Allison (55:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark DeYmaz (55:50)
It all counts and again, that's a mind shift that pastors need to make for the 21st century.

Jason Allison (55:57)
That's such good stuff, man. Yeah, I guess we need to bring the plane in for a landing to add another metaphor to our repertoire today. ⁓ I'm loving this. It's so much fun talking about this. I can see our listeners and those pastors and leaders, their heads are starting to spin as they're thinking, okay, wait a minute, this changes the way I approach everything, which I think is a good thing, but it can be a scary thing.

Rob Paterson (56:21)
Mm.

Jason Allison (56:26)
I want to encourage our listeners, hey, reach out. We will help connect you to someone like Mark to mosaics and so forth. Or we'll walk you through some of these ideas because I do think it's that important that we start thinking this way and changing things and the way we approach stuff. was just with a church yesterday and they're in Cincinnati and 25 years ago, they were actually

35 years ago, they were at their height. And ⁓ since then, the neighborhood that they were in has completely flipped in the, you know, just the multi-ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. And they were struggling and dying. And they've got a new pastor in who's really doing some good work and is really working hard in some of the multi-ethnic stuff, as well as some other things. it's, they're seeing a little bud happen, right? They're seeing just, but you know what's a big deal? Finances.

how do we pay for this stuff? Because it's no longer the rich white neighborhood. It's been, you know, those people have moved further out. And so they can't just do it on ties and offerings. And so he's trying to get creative in those things and knowing that there are resources out there like, like Mark, like you have there at Mosaics and some of the ideas and stuff that I really appreciate that. And I'm looking forward to connecting people.

to that. thank you for, mean, just the work you've done. You live out what you're talking about. You're not just in some ivory tower, right? You're actually on the ground practicing. And that just means a lot to me and to Rob. And so we really appreciate you. Thanks for, thanks for taking the time.

Mark DeYmaz (58:02)
You bet, Jason Robb. Thanks so much for having me. And like you said, yeah, we have a ton of practical tools and you can connect people to me or to you and I can help you whatever you want. But yeah, this isn't just a tickle itching ears. We want to help you. It's economics, multi-ethnic. We have tools, resources. These guys do. We can partner on that. ⁓ just thanks for having me today. And I hope it's helpful for pastors listening.

Jason Allison (58:24)
⁓ it will be. And I'll put links to everything in the show notes and we'll make sure everybody can connect to you in any way possible. So for those of you listening, thank you so much for taking some time today. I hope this was helpful. I know it was for me and for Rob, because I took notes. So I don't really care if anybody else learned anything because I got something out of it. So I appreciate that. Have a wonderful week and we will talk with you next week.

Mark DeYmaz (58:41)
I'm