How to (Successfully!) Facilitate Change

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So stay hydrated, stay healthy, and without further ado, let's start the show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis, and welcome back to the Clearview Today studio.

Got a great conversation for you guys today, but I'm here surrounded by my best friends in the whole world. You know, you guys are my best friends. I don't know if I really, I really appreciate you guys, but who I appreciate more than anybody else in the whole wide world is our whole wide world is our host with the most, Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr.

Shah, it's so good to see you, Jesus. Thank you. I appreciate it, but I thought you would appreciate most is Jesus. I appreciate it. I do appreciate it.

So, so that's true. Jesus is a person. And you are Jesus right here on the Clearview. Do you mean to say Jesus? I said you were a Christian.

Yes, of course, of course.

So I appreciate Jesus. I appreciate Jesus the most. I appreciate Dr. Abadan Shah. I mean, everybody else in the world.

And my wife, we're here. We're going to edit the list. All right.

So Jesus the most. Yes. Wife second. Yes, yes, yes. Dr.

Abadan Shah. Your children are.

Okay, so wow, this is getting out of hand quick. You know what? All they do is take from me and destroy my house. I'm still going to buy it. Dr.

Shah has never eaten up all my food. He's never ground waffles into my carpet. He's never jumped off your couch and got a big goose egg on his floor. Golly no. Tell us about that.

How it happened?

So, yeah, so last night as we were going home, we had worship team rehearsal. Everything was going great. It was my fault. We were rough housing in the sanctuary. Gavin's knee came up and collided right with my nose.

Oh, my. And I mean, I saw stars. Like, really, it brought tears to my eyes. And, like, the ladies, the vocalists are still around. For the benefit of the listeners, Gavin is my four-year-old son.

Yeah, not another worship team member. Yeah, we're rough housing. He swan-tomp on me. No, this is your four-year-old. My four-year-old.

And the day was done. You were just getting ready to go home.

So he picked him up and you were playing him. He was both wrestling around. Yeah. And his knee, he was giggling, squealing. Boom, right in my nose.

And like, it's like instant. And you've been there before when you're horrible. You get hurt. You're just, you're mad. But.

There's church people around. I can't lose my temper.

So I'm like, and then we get in the car. I'm like, okay, everything's fine. We go out into the, we get home. I'm like, I have to make a phone call.

So I'm like, hey, go in there, sit on the couch. Gavin, just scared to death. He goes. My youngest son, Holden, he's two. He goes, and I'm like, okay, they're on the couch.

I step outside to make this phone call. Then I see Holden come to the door, just scream, just crying. And I'm like, I assumed he just wanted juice.

So I was like, I'm going to just finish this phone call. I finish the phone call, go inside. I see this black goose egg on his forehead. I said, what in the world happened? Gavin goes, he jumped off.

He jumped off the couch. I said, what do you mean? He jumped off the couch. He said, I was sitting on the couch. I was sitting like you told me, but Holden jumped off.

I said, You didn't stop him? He was like, I would have had to get off the couch. Oh my god.

So that was that was our happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. Meanwhile, I can't even complain about it because Ellie's like nine months pregnant. She's supposed to deliver in two weeks.

So all that to say, Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. Welcome to the show to you guys as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, I know Father's Day is past, but we want to wish all fathers, fathers to be a belated, happy Father's Day. That's right. And even those who are fathers at heart. And we want to acknowledge you as well.

And especially the guys in this room who are fathers, which is you two and myself. Yeah, Happy Father's Day to you as well. Same to you guys. Listen, I got a Father's Day gift that I think is really going to help you out. Oh, Brandon, I'm going to give you a million dollars.

Okay, one thing I want to do for you is I want to give you a million dollars. Dr. Shah, one of the credentials I always give at the top of every episode is you are an author, right? You read books. You've written books, still writing books.

Here's the thing. I'm going to give you a million dollars. But from now on, on every single book you write. Every chapter. has to have at least one Star Wars reference.

Sure. What? Absolutely. What if you're doing it on the original text of the New Testament? I'll find a way to bring in the force.

Yeah. I'll do something. Yeah. Really?

So you're like the original methodology of New Testament textual criticism has been purged, much like Order 66 purged the Jedi Order. Thanks that you made that reference because I had the Order 66 references.

Well, what you did. The Holy Spirit, as it was inspiring the authors of the Bible, as they pinned them and then the canon of the Bible started to come together, they executed Order 66 and brought off 66 books of the Bible together. You would do it every single thing. But think about your 30 days devotional.

So I got, look, I got one right here. This is not a shameless plug. I didn't plan it. It's so fun to have those as Easter eggs in the chapter of every book. Oh, man.

So fun. Every book, that's 30 Star Wars references for a devotional like this. Absolutely. Unbelievable. And we would even challenge people to go find them.

If you find them, you win a prize. Right. I don't know. It's a planet. It's a planet.

So you'll, so you'll do it for real. Absolutely. Would you do it? Absolutely. I just want to have to walk.

Watch the all the how many movies are there? Oh, there's nine.

Well, there's nine main movies. There's nine main movies, and then there's other supplemental movies, and there's TV shows, and there's comics and novels that have an extended universe and spinoff, spin-offs.

So there's plenty of material.

So here's my question: Do you, because you could just, you could just. As long as it's published in a book by Abadasha, you don't have to go do it. You could just say, hey, who here knows Star Wars? Put a little reference in there. Absolutely.

So you're doing it? All right.

Absolutely. That's pretty good. Academics in the field of New Testament textual criticism and Star Wars aficionados are not very far in the Venn diagram. Maybe they'll like it. A little bit nerdy.

They might like it. A little nerdy. That's right. All right.

You read the verse of the day. The verse of the day today is coming from Hebrews chapter 13, verses 20 and 21.

Now, may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Now, Dr. Shah, that's how you close a book. That's the ending of the very last passage of Hebrews. But I love how he said that he's the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd, the sheep. Like it just, I think it paints this great picture of who Jesus is.

And talking about being a shepherd, you know, being the pastor of a church, this desire to mirror him in that way. Absolutely. The shepherd of sheep reference is very important because sheep tend to go astray. Yes. When they go astray, they don't stop being sheep.

And so That is a great reminder for us that God values the church, God values his people, and he wants us to do exactly what Jesus came to do. You know, he left the 99 and went after the one that was lost. No sheep was expendable. No sheep was left out. He left the 99 and went for the one that was lost.

It doesn't make sense to us. It may almost feel like, man, you're wasting time over that one when you have 99 over here you could take care of. But he did that. And so also, we are to see the body of Christ, the church, the flock of God, the sheep of his pasture with that sense of respect, love, care, knowing that we will give an account to the great shepherd. That's right.

Peter talks about the great shepherd. We will give an account to him. It is an absolute shame that I went through all of my seminary classes and achieved the master of divinity degree. And I did not hear that once in any class. Not once.

That is wild. Wow. That is wild. Now, I wasn't on a preaching track.

So maybe it was mentioned, but I doubt that it was. I don't think anybody talks about what it means to step into the role of a pastor, of a shepherd like that. And it's a shame. Why do you think? I mean, as an academic yourself, why do you think that is so divorced from?

biblical academics? Uh it it's tragic. Uh and I believe sometimes uh seminaries do a fantastic job in teaching us to exeget a passage, uh but they don't Teach enough. Or even correctly, how to shepherd the flock of God. They don't teach people how to build.

The church, how to reach the community with the gospel, how to merge those two. That doesn't happen. And it's tragic. And it's a disservice to the people of God. It's the same old story.

And we've all heard that story where how on the outside these churches, they look fine, right? The building is there, the sign is there, but inside there's an unraveling happening. And some of us have been through that process.

Some of us are only seeing that process, but it's becoming more and more public these days with the internet and everything. But there's this. It often begins and correct me if I'm wrong on this, it often begins with a really poor decision, which is a catastrophic change in leadership. Yeah. That's usually how it begins, is that someone comes in in a leadership position that is either unequipped Or unfit for ministry.

Or you can even add with an ulterior motive. You know, we've heard some of that recently in the past few days. And it's disturbing, it's alarming, it's tragic. And I don't know how else you are trying to cover it up or make it sound. It is a very, very poor testimony before a watching world.

And you can put it in any guise you want to, any words you want to, and people do that all the time. And it not only is a poor testimony to the lost world, it really discourages and demoralizes the believers. The template that we typically see is the leadership that comes in, they're typically young. They're trained, they're educated, and then they start taking away the things that make that church either distinct or make that church. What it was You know, 'cause modern contemporary churches, a lot of them don't have an Awana program.

They don't even have Sunday school, which I Was floored. I didn't realize that was a popular thing to get rid of. But they start taking away, stripping away all these things that make the church what it is. and recrafting local churches into their own vision.

Well, sometimes it is a move to strip a church of their family traditions.

Now, I will be the first to admit to you: some traditions and some churches need to go. They do not glorify God. They are a hindrance to the gospel of Christ, to the growth of the church. And so they're not good. I'll admit to that.

But then, if you completely strip a family unit of everything that makes them that family in Christ, we're talking about here, then you're trying to. Do to them, in a sense, what often happens in a boot camp, which is completely strip people down to a point where you can now build them with your philosophy. You can build them with, and that's fine in a boot camp setting, you need soldiers to work together for a bigger goal. But if you do that in someone's home and family to strip them down to nothing, the question comes down to why, what for? Mm-hmm.

What is your purpose? Is your purpose really as noble as you're making it sound like? Is it really for the gospel? Is it really for the Great Commission? Is it really for the kingdom of God?

I don't know. And so. I don't know. Dissimilar to a boot camped where you're breaking this entity down in order to remake it in your own. Ideology.

It may not even be the ideology there. It may be your ulterior motive. And so it's tragic. A lot of prayers are needed. And that's where I guess we'll leave it.

Yeah, yeah. And I think what you've done here at Clearview is an. Example of how to do it right. You know, I I like to think that if I didn't work for you If I were just an outside bystander coming in, learning the history of this place, seeing what you've done with it, I like to think that I would still say you've done a phenomenal job of turning the church into something that does fit your vision as the pastor, but everyone in the church is bought into that vision. Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely. It's like transformation done correctly. And just so our list, because some of our viewers have just become acquainted with Dr. Schaab, with Clearview, with who we are. When you first came to the church, Dr.

Shaw, first as a youth pastor, then as a pastor, what was the average church service like? What was a typical Sunday?

So going back to 1998, let's say as a youth pastor, it was a very, very traditional Southern Baptist church. And so we had. Our Sunday school at a set hour, but before the Sunday school, we would have a meeting time where the Sunday school director would go over the lesson for the day, and then the Sunday schools will split and they will go with their teachers to the various classes. And keep in mind, we had no more than maybe 20, at the most, 25 people. If that.

That was a good Sunday. On a good Sunday. And so they would go off to their classes. In fact, in the children's ministry, the only person there was our own daughter, Rebecca, who was in her little preschool class. Right.

And our second daughter, who was born in 1999, she was just a baby in nursery.

So she was the only nursery baby. And here was the preschool class. Other than that, there were teenagers in youth that I was teaching, and they were probably five.

Okay. But they were all getting ready to, no, not all of them. A couple of them were getting ready to graduate. And then two or three were like right there.

sophomores or somewhere there, so it was It was sort of the writing was on the wall. We're we're slowly Not slowly. We're quickly dying. There's probably a lot of young pastors right now who are like, that sounds like me. I'm in that situation right now.

I'm looking to transform this thing. Yeah. Or I'm looking to transfer from this place. Trying to transform or transfer. That's good.

That's good. And so, where we are now is very different. Yes, it is. I wouldn't say it's completely different. It is still at heart the same church because in 1999, I was called to be the pastor of the church.

The pastor left to take care of his family. I preached a few times and they asked me to consider being the pastor, looked at my resume and all of that. Of course, Nicole and I prayed over it. We did. And so I was a pastor in 1999.

I tried to implement some changes. And those ideas didn't go well. The people were not ready for that. They didn't want it, they just wanted me to be there. Learn a few things and then move along.

In a couple of years, they said, We expect you to be gone and go find your better church and do whatever. We're fine with that. We're okay if we're gonna die. That's okay. That's we sort of expect it.

Maybe we'll go along for a little while. We'll see what happens.

So they were not antagonistic towards you trying to change stuff. They were just saying, hey, it. We're not interested in that. And Yeah. Because they have been they were used to pastors coming, promising, using the church's money.

In fact, one of the pastors who was here. He used pretty much the church's bank balance to fund a research that he did to help him do his. Demon At Southeastern. Oh, no. Yeah.

Wow. So. I'm not saying that he used like tens of thousands of dollars, but the little the church had was gone. Wow. And and so they're used to things like that.

Gotcha. And I come along and I have all these ideas, and I'm not even from here. I don't look like people here.

So it was like a very. Uh odd situation for them. But so I was discouraged. I was upset. I talked to my dad and I said, Pray for us.

My father-in-law was already gone by this time. He died in 1998 while I was still the youth pastor of the church. He died with cancer. He was also a pastor in Georgia, but nonetheless, he he passed away.

So my dad was the only one left. And I turned to him and I said, you know, pray for us. And my dad was pastoring in India at the time. And uh he said, Well, I uh wh what's going on. I said, Well, they did not uh appreciate my plan, my strategy to help grow.

And so we're gonna look at some other churches, or I'll go back. Full time in teaching or something, I'll do something. I'm not going to waste my time here. And my dad. said in his own characteristic way, Will you listen to me?

I said, Sure, I'll listen to you.

Well, don't run. Do not run. You need to stay there. and pour your life there. Love the people, preach the word.

And I said, Well, you don't understand. There are not many people here in this church. I'm in twenty, twenty five on a very good Sunday. There is no hope. Or did that shock you?

I knew he was going to tell me something. He's the type who will tell you, but I didn't know what he was going to say. Mm-hmm. But I knew it was not going to be something that I will enjoy. And sure enough, he said, stay there, plant yourself there.

And I was like, ah, you don't understand. He said, no, if you run today, you're going to run all your life. Stay there. Stay there. And I'm like, oh my goodness, he surely does not get it.

And so very reluctantly. We decided to stay. And We began to, and one of the things he said is: like, preach as if you're preaching to. 5,000 people. And I'm like fucking.

5,000 people. There are twenty people sitting in a building that can hold five hundred, and they still sit where they used to sit as children. They are in their late sixties, seventies, some in their eighties. And so one sits over there, two sit over there. Three in the back, one over there in the corner.

I like the way you've put it in the past. You said half of them. Can't understand me and the other half can't hear me. Yeah. And the massive building with horrible acoustics.

Yeah. It's like, what is going on? But I think it's important to note that you didn't kind of like dig your heels in the sand and say, no, these are the changes that we're going to implement because I'm the pastor and I say so. Yeah, no, no, no. And I didn't do that.

We then began, I said, okay, so I am going to spend my time not only praying for the people, but also. Pouring my life into studying God's Word and preaching. the truth to them. Not just expository sermons, but evangelistic sermons. Sermons that are not only biblically filling and wonderful truths on doctrine and application, but also messages that come to a point of decision, invitation, get saved, bring your lost friends.

Let's reach the world with the gospel. Let's support missions work.

So they were very. Biblically grounded, but also very evangelistic and action-oriented.

So I spent my time began to study that way. And I also started my PhD program.

So I was also like, okay, I'm going to focus on this and not. Try to force people into some strategy. Right. And At first it was um it was tough. But I really got into it.

Yeah. And then Nicole, a lot of credit to her. She began to lead the women's the women's ministry. She also began to lead the music, lead the choir. She started a choir there.

There was a choir there, but it was not very good. Right. And so she started doing those kind of things. And so we began to make A difference. But again, I wish we had more time.

It was not until. Two thousand and s and and five. When we finally came to the point where, hey, listen, we need to sell this building and move somewhere else. For those of you who may not know the story of our church, our church was planted. In the heart of the Mill Village in Henderson, North Carolina.

That's right. This was back in the 40s, 1940s. And at one time it was... Pretty big, pretty large. But it did not stay that big very long.

it very quickly began to decline. And it declined because of lack of pastoral leadership. Also liberalism came in from the local seminaries at the time that were liberal. And also There was a revivalistic culture, which is great. I love the revivalistic culture.

That's my heritage. But at the same time, when you have a building that can seat 500, And you know that your membership is only two fifty, then it always gonna look half empty. That's right. So it was all w it it was just in many ways it was it was done poorly. A lot of good things, don't get me wrong, a lot of wonderful things, but also a lot of things that you go, Whew.

How does this work? Yeah. So. Those And the building had sort of began to deteriorate. There was a lot of things wrong with it, and no money to fix it.

Yeah. So it became a problem. And I told the people in 2005 when we lost another member because they felt like the church is not going anywhere. And they were not one of the older charter members or anything. They were kind of people who had come.

over the years Maybe a year before I came, and that person left, and it hurt us. And I was like, ah, you should not leave. We're trying to hold on. We're reaching the community. I mean, we were packing people in for VBS.

We were. Going down the street, giving bottles of water on hot summer days, sharing the gospel. We were packing and wrapping gifts for free at the local department store during Christmas. I mean, we were doing a lot of things to reach people. Yeah.

But the church was not growing. And I said, we need to sell this building because this building is falling apart. Go somewhere else. And So keep in mind I came in nineteen ninety eight. Came as a pastor in 1999.

Not until 2005 that people felt. And I didn't bring it up again. Strategy, whatever, I just left it. It was in 2005.

So, how many years is that? Six years. That's six years. Six years of day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, year after year. loving and preaching the pe to the people and and reaching The best you can.

People agreed to move. Without that six years, do you think there's any chance they would have agreed to sell the building and move? No, I mean, the church went through some massive. uh uh uh fights over Previous pastors suggesting that. Yeah.

Several. Do you think that suggested it didn't go well? Do you think that decision. And I know we gotta wrap up here in a second, but I'm actually really into this. Do you think that that decision in 2005 was the turning point?

Not in what the church would eventually become, but just in the hearts of the people? It was in my heart that people finally were willing to follow me. Because they trusted me, they knew that I was not going to do anything wrong to them. And even then, the church building did not sell until 2007.

So, two more years of just waiting.

So, now added up, so that's what, about eight years.

So, all the changes that would follow, the aesthetic of the church, the style of music, just the look, the visual identity, the auditory idea, all this stuff, those all came. Due to that one critical decision in 2005, where they decided to follow your vision? I would say we started even before that. We started bringing in certain changes like music. We brought in some praise and worship songs and things like that.

We were doing that even in 2002, three, four. We were doing those things, but slowly and it felt more natural. People trusted. And so. That made a big difference.

I think that's the thing that I respect. Of all the things I respect about you, the thing I think I respect most is your patience. I'm. If I had been in your shoes, I think I can say this at this point in my life. If I had been in your shoes, I know what it's like to have a dream and to have a vision and to say, here is what I want, and I want it desperately, and I know that it's right.

And for people to be like, ah. We're not going to do it. But I'm not the type to say, okay. I have faith that this vision will come to pass. I might have to wait 30 years.

Well, there were times that we did get frustrated because we were like, man, the church is not growing. And I would feel like maybe I need to just put my resume out. And a couple of times I did. I was like, maybe I'm not the guy. Maybe I'm not the person to do this.

Maybe we are not the family to help lead this church. But we never would follow up. We had people call. We had a pretty large church in the Atlanta area calling to come and be on the staff to take this church to the next level. And we just never felt good about it.

the reason I felt like, wow, I knew the people now, you know, eight years or so now at this point, or five years at the time. Like, where were these people go? Yeah. Who were they? Who are they going to follow?

And and I said, No, we're good. And we stayed. Keep in mind, we have to do two, three jobs just to survive. All that to say. Where we are today and how we've grown.

I'm not going to say that every person who was there from the beginning was with us till the end. Yeah. But most people were out of those twenty. Yeah. Yeah.

One or two who were not, or maybe three or four, or maybe I would say maybe three, they did not quite understand that A church is to reach the lost. It was not about taking away their favorite things. It was more about. They grew up in a very different understanding of the gospel. It was not a gospel, it was more very liberal.

idea gotcha and so they could never understand that why are we reaching the gospel reaching the community why are we why are we reaching the lost yeah it was not anything else.

So all that to say People trusted People knew that And I saw that. Many times when over the years, when we sold the building and I had to go meet with people and realtor, whatever. They trusted me. They were like. He'll be fine.

He he we trust him. They will look to me. That's not how it was when I first came, for them to turn and look to me when key questions were asked. And that's when you know. They know that they are safe in your hands.

They know that tomorrow you're not going to empty their bank account or the church bank account, or tomorrow you're going to make them do something horrible and terrible. There was a sense of trust. This is okay. This is good. And look at me.

I'm not from here. I'm from India. I mean,. You know, what do you do? And they've seen my dad.

My dad came in and preached at the show.

So there was a lot more over the years that they had learned and grown in that they felt like. This is a good thing. And today, many of the people are still here. Amen.

Amen.

Yeah, but that sense of trust is what enabled you to shepherd the people well through all of those years, through all of those changes. And I think that's what's desperately needed. Church transformation done right. It's church transformation done correctly. That's right.

Guys, write it and let us know what you enjoyed from today's episode. 252-582-5028. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. And you can always support us financially at clearviewtodayshow.com.

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