Jeremy Smith: Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the making disciples podcast. Super glad that you're with us. We got the one in only Vick green duck hunter extraordinaire. He's even got the duck hunting hat on right now. I've got the duck pictures in the background. ⁓

Making Disciples with Replicate: Hey church leader, I want to take just a moment and tell you about an exciting opportunity for you. Most churches have a passion for multiplication. They just don't know how to do it. Pastors have this disciple making burden, but their vision and strategy for it just aren't working. After 17 years and working with over 4,000 churches, our team has found many ways to help the church better make disciples. We call this our movement ready church.

Vick Green: There is a lot of, now that you're saying it, there is a lot of, and I got the new Doug decoy. We may have tipped over. This may be too much.

Jeremy Smith: Hahaha! ⁓ Vick likes to kill ducks. If you don't know that. All right. There you go. Passion and life, ⁓ Louisiana boy. So, any, you I've never been duck hunting with you. ⁓ but from all the stories you tell, you're super good at

Vick Green: You

Making Disciples with Replicate: process. It helps your church create a disciple-making culture, vision, and strategy that fits your unique context. It fits your church size, your community, your leadership style. If you want more information about our movement-ready church process, you can grab the book, Movement Ready Church, at any place that books are sold. Also, you can join us for any of our movement-ready trainings.

Vick Green: That's right. Mmm. Hey, that's cause I only tell you the good stories. And so if you ask my college buddies, they will tell you that I'm okay at it and that there aren't as many ducks in Louisiana as I may say there are. ⁓ man, we go, we're, we're on the property. It's pretty sweet. It's my dad's land and we love it. ⁓ it's, I don't know. I think we wake up at like five and you got to drink like coffee and have all the like cut up conversations.

Jeremy Smith: Perfect. What time do you have to get up in the morning to go duck hunting?

Making Disciples with Replicate: We host one day trainings all across the country and we have a virtual on-demand course that you can go through as a team. So if you're ready to see multiplication take off at your church, just go ahead and grab the leader notes in this show and you'll see all the links to what I've mentioned and more. Now let's get back to the episode.

Vick Green: And then, and then you can go. so, ⁓ we got to get you there. Like I don't, it's, we need to make this happen. ⁓ and so I'm, I'm totally ready for Jeremy the duck hunter.

Jeremy Smith: Okay. All right. We'll see how good I am. I did play Duck Hunt on the Nintendo growing up a lot, a lot.

Vick Green: ⁓ snap dude, NES, yes, come on dude. ⁓ That was the game right there.

Jeremy Smith: They don't make them like they used to, know, Vick?

Vick Green: ⁓ my gosh, those were those are some good games man. I miss those days. If I found one right now, like I would, I would lose productivity for two weeks for sure.

Jeremy Smith: All right. Now y'all know what to get Vick for his birthday or something coming up. Book release, the new book, Movement Ready Church out everywhere. You know what to get him now.

Vick Green: Yeah. There it is, NES. I would love that. Old school Nintendo. Let's go. I love it.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah. All right, well we're back. We've started talking about ministry myths and over one of those. ⁓ These ministry myths will kind of change the way that you view your ministry, blind spots in our ministry. And today is one that I personally struggle with, Vick. I go back and forth. I think a lot of pastors do because we see all these other churches and pastors out there We're talking about rethinking our definition of excellence.

Vick Green: Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Smith: What do you got for this? ⁓

Vick Green: You're like, I'm just teeing it up wherever you want to go. Yeah. Love that. The, mean, yeah, this one here is the engagement myth. And that's where we started. We actually unpacked with you and Jagger. And so I think people probably love here and Hey, this is the one I stink at, you know? Cause I think sometimes you can hear stories on this podcast or even hear Jeremy's and be like, golly, feels like they're doing such great stuff, you know, like sort of here.

Jeremy Smith: Right.

Vick Green: man, that's the one we struggle at. think we all in these ministry ministers, one of those that you're like, man, I, this is a really hard one, even though I know better now, I still struggle with. This one here is the expertise myth. And it's all about excellent execution equals excellent ministry. And that's the false assumption. And I think, you know, in ministry, we always talk about like work as unto the Lord. And so there's this high value often of doing things excellently. And I totally agree with that. think excellence has to be the way that we lead in ministry. Like, we have to look as everything we're doing, man, how can we do it to the best of our ability? How can we do it with excellence? I think the problem is we use the wrong metric for excellence. I think a lot of times we start to drift and we can think of excellence really more in, how excellently do I execute something? And so if I'm preaching, how excellent was that sermon? where there are no, did I hit all my cues? Did I hit the power lines? Did I, you know, was my charisma where it needed to be? Like all those things. Or if I am leading out and volunteering and it's like, man, did our kids ministry go flawlessly today? Did our services go flawlessly? And whatever it is, we just look, we minimize how many mistakes we had and did we execute at a really high level? But I don't think that's actually the metric that Jesus uses. when he's looking at, man, what he's calling us to and to lead with excellence. And so I think that's the idea is that excellent execution doesn't equal excellent ministry. There's a difference. Like our ministry isn't just to execute things. You're so much more than a program planner and event planner. You're so much more than the sermon you preach. And so I just think about like Jesus. Jesus didn't look to the wait for the disciples to get to a place where they were as good at ministry. as he was. He wasn't like, okay, when these 12, when they get as good at preaching the gospel and healing the sick as I am, then they're ready. In fact, like you look in Luke 9, he gives it to him and he says, all right, guys, go and do ministry. Here's what it looks like. And he gives them all the kind of steps of it. But then immediately a chapter later, he has to go back and like, okay, guys, this is why this demon didn't come out of this possessed man. It only happens through prayer and fasting. And like Jesus, actually in a lot of ways, and Luke 9 has to like slow down because his disciples aren't ready for his ministry, or they aren't as good as he is. And so if this idea of execution was actually the metric that we should be so focused on, like Jesus actually never empowers the disciples if he waits until they're as good at ministry as he is.

Jeremy Smith: And thank God for that. Can you imagine if that was the standard? Hey, when you get to Jesus' level, you're ready for ministry.

Vick Green: That's right. But until then, you can only speak at the youth group. You can only speak in the midweek service, but not the main stage. No main stage yet. Sorry, student pastors. And so you guys are the main stage. The joke was just there for the taking. Yeah. Go ahead.

Jeremy Smith: Hahaha! ⁓ you ⁓ Hahaha! That's right. Well, you said something when you were, when you're talking there, you're like, kind of, you came back and clarified it a little bit, but, I think it deserves a little bit more. You, I'm glad you clarified it. Cause you were like, you know, we always say like work as unto the Lord Colossians three 23. Right. Yeah. I mean, it is a verse in the Bible. Like we do need to take it seriously.

Vick Green: Yeah, I think you're supposed to say Colossians 3 with more reverence than I did, but yes.

Jeremy Smith: ⁓ But this is what you're hitting on is redefining our definition of excellence. And I think that's so good because I know that I can't even, I don't know, I couldn't even count how many times we come out of a Sunday or out of an event. And the first question we ask is how many people were there? That's one of the first things we want to know, like the engagement myth.

Vick Green: That's true. Mmm, it's good.

Jeremy Smith: How many people were there? And then secondly, how well did it go? Like you said, did we execute it flawlessly? Were there any mistakes? Did we have a distraction-free environment or whatever it is? How did it go and how many people were there? These are these first two myths. And we just get locked into that's what excellent ministry is.

Vick Green: Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ That's right, absolutely. Yeah. And so I love it. Like you just think about your last time you evaluated a Sunday service and I like, and I think you should totally evaluate them. Like we're coming off of multiply conference and we are evaluating that whole week. Like it's a good thing to do. The question though, like how often does people development or leader development, how often is that part of your evaluation? How often is, is helping the emerging leader step up? and step into new responsibility. How often is some disciple making happening? How much is that a part of your evaluation? See, I think often what happens is when we get these mixed up and we start thinking excellent execution is the win, which we wouldn't say that, but when we functionally are working from that, what happens is excellent execution becomes a threat to leader development. You don't put the next person in play because they're not as good at it as you are. And what if, if you bring in a new leader, what if you give an opportunity for somebody to grow and they don't do it as well as you. And what it is, you know, too, in that, that I think that my friend Dave Rhodes says it this way, that often what happens in that moment is that we don't want to risk the excellence gap for others. And so we think. Hey, if I risk the excellence gap here and I let an emerging leader take over and be a part of this, and maybe they do the preaching, maybe they lead worship, maybe they lead the facilitation time, maybe they teach the training. If we give this away, if we risk the excellence gap, that man, the Holy Spirit won't show up. Or hey, it's not going to go as well as we thought. And we fear so much of that. But here's the humbling reminder for us. is that often we're so worried about risking the excellence gap from us to the other, ⁓ to the emerging leader, but really if there's an excellence gap that we should be most concerned about, it is the one from Jesus to us.

Jeremy Smith: Wow, that's good, Vick. That's really good.

Vick Green: It's, mean, you think that like if there was ever an excellence gap, it is not from us to the next leader or the up and coming one. It is from the fact that you and I get to do ministry in the first place. And the truth is that all of us, there was somebody, a mentor in our life that they risked the excellence gap for us years ago. And golly, if I look at my first sermons, like I'm ashamed. They are terrible. They are so bad. But thankfully somebody said, hey,

Jeremy Smith: you you

Vick Green: It's not about it being perfect. It's not about it being the best presentation all time. Like I'm going to help you step into your calling. I'm going to help you grow as a leader. And so we as leaders have to get over this small excellence gap between us and other emerging leaders. And we have to risk that just like somebody has done for us, just like Jesus does for us in the first place.

Jeremy Smith: Wow. Yeah, that's humbling. Gosh, that's humbling. And what it makes me think of is like, I mean, that's pride. There's a pride in there. I didn't even know. I've never identified that with this gap. I mean, with this, uh, this myth before, but there's a pride in there of only I can do this at the level it needs to be done. And I don't care how good you are. God's not going to honor. I don't think God honors that.

Vick Green: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

Jeremy Smith: He wants to break us of that.

Vick Green: Yeah. And I think, I think too, to be honest with you, I think in some ways that may not be true. Like, yeah, there's other people that can preach as good as you, Jeremy, on your staff, you know, maybe. Like I said, maybe, I look, wait, wait for the second half of it. You know, I think maybe there's, maybe there, ⁓ that there are people that could do it as good as you, but also maybe there aren't any people on your staff, leaders that can do it as good as you.

Jeremy Smith: ⁓ man, come on. Come on. ⁓ you

Vick Green: At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because the power isn't with you in the first place. It's not with your charisma. It's not with your personality. It's not with your preaching. Like it is through the Holy Spirit and the moment where we think that we have to create some high level of performance for transformation to happen. We think we are what brings breakthrough. We bring the transformation of people and we rob the Holy Spirit of what only He does.

Jeremy Smith: Hmm.

Vick Green: what only he can do. And I think either way, whether maybe that's true, maybe it's not, either way, the spotlight's on ourself and it's not on God. And that's a dangerous place to be.

Jeremy Smith: You are preaching right now. If you're listening to Vick right now and you're not convicted, man, is good. ⁓

Vick Green: Take it back into your world. Where else in this idea of like the expertise myth, where else do you, as a lead pastor, somebody who preaches, like where else does this myth, like do you struggle with that? Because I think it's always a struggle. It's always a tension. And so what else does that, how else does that look like in your life, in your church?

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, I think this was part of my whole transformation and time of repentance. And I still fall into it. When I first got the cross point, I felt like I knew what to do with our creative ministry and kind of revamping all of that. And it was all about excellence and you the whole excellence attracts excellence. That's true. That's like a true principle. Excellence attracts excellence and that does work. ⁓ And so I made it, you know, I brought in plan. This is back in 2010, 2011. So brought in planning center and click track and timers and all the stuff, man. And for probably six, seven years, I spent a lot of time focusing on excellence, ⁓ to the point where, ⁓ in Todd Connett's talked about this last year, ⁓ at the conference when he was like, when's the last time you asked. Did Jesus show up in our worship service? Not just how well did it go? And not just did he show up like we know he's there, but did you recognize him? And not just did you recognize him? Did you call out that he's here and like respond to it? And I'm like, ⁓ I'm just getting knocked down every question you ask.

Vick Green: and Say that again, what question, because I've heard Todd ask that and it's, imagine if this is the evaluation question afterwards. What is it again?

Jeremy Smith: He said, did Jesus show up or where did Jesus show up in your worship service? And then did you recognize that he showed up? You know, cause we know that he's there. then not just, and then I added this last one, not just like you had a feeling, did you respond in some way? Because when he shows up, you're either responding or you don't, you either accept them or you reject them, you know? And so did you respond in some way to that?

Vick Green: Mm. Mm. Yeah. I love that. Just even that question there, which obviously if you know Todd, and he was in a previous episode, he's speaking so much about the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit and setting the stage for that. But I think how much different, just the mental space and your perspective, if that's the question you're thinking about as you're leading your services, opposed to like, okay, man, am I doing everything right? Am I being as effective as possible? Is my communication is clear? Those are all good questions, but man, that's a totally better question to ask.

Jeremy Smith: Mm-hmm. Well, these questions, and like you said, which are so, so good, did we, were any leaders raised up in this? Was anybody else exercising their spiritual gifts in this service? know, asking questions like that, all of them just blow up the excellence myth. And what you said about like the biggest gap being between us and Jesus, I just think about when I stand in front of him one day, when we're all in front of him one day,

Vick Green: Mm-hmm. That's right.

Jeremy Smith: It's going to be us throwing our crowns, us taking the best of our lives, all the excellence we could possibly muster and effort and all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's nothing, it's all glory to him and no glory to us. So, ⁓ man, the excellence myth is, is, mean, the expertise myth, it's really about humility. That's what I'm understanding more and more and not, I'm not the awesome one here.

Vick Green: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It is. Yeah, that's right. It's so good. Well, I think too, I've heard it said that there's a difference between excellence and perfection or perfectionism, maybe the way you think about it. And I think like knowing that difference, like excellent is doing the best with what you have ⁓ to do it with the best to steward it in the best way and the most truthful way. And then

Jeremy Smith: Right.

Vick Green: Perfection is like to be perfect to have no flaws and perfectionism actually is usually a very much a vanity idea. Did I come off a certain way? Did I was a was I flawless and like excellence just looks like do I do everything that I could and did I serve others well? And I think you know this this idea there's there's parallels in our conversation here where of just the idea of like excellent execution gets into perfectionism. Excellent ministry looks like man was God honored and did I serve others and did I do that? The best that I can with what I have which I think what is the definition that you guys as y'all tried to reframe excellence at cross point What is the definition that you guys use?

Jeremy Smith: It's just taking what you have and getting better at it and doing the best you can with it. I mean, that's basically is it's what you just talked about a minute ago. ⁓ that that's it. You only have a certain amount of gifts and that's different from other people's gifts and talents. And so different, ⁓ people have different abilities and, but your responsibility is to take the fullness of what you've been given and live into it. And that's why we talk about your unique role all the time and trying to help people find that.

Vick Green: Okay, give me that definition because that's like great for a Marooj, like good old boy. That's like super simple and I can get behind that. What is the excellence definition?

Jeremy Smith: ⁓ Well, you basically said it a minute, you basically said it a minute ago too, you know, just like taking what you have and getting better at it every day.

Vick Green: What I love about that too, and I think this is worth unpacking as well. We're talking about the church leader that often is maybe fixated and wants to like with perfectionism and excellent execution. I think the other side of this can be man, like we gave up on that a long time ago. We don't have the resources. We don't have this. Like we're not, oh, you can't be like the fancy church down the road. We can't be like long hollow or cross point.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Vick Green: And I think sometimes those leaders can almost like abdicate the, what they're called to steward, like the assets and the resources and opportunities they have. And so I liked the idea of taking what you have, ⁓ taking all that you have and getting better at it. Like the idea of just like, okay, what do we have? Maybe we don't have the budget. Maybe we don't have the resources. Maybe we don't have the extra staff members that the church down the road has. but how do we steward what we do have and how do we continue to grow and improve in it? How do we continue to ⁓ try to grow in honoring the Lord and serving others? And so that even works for that other side that maybe falls into a, we can't even be like the experts, you know.

Jeremy Smith: Well, and I think what has to happen then for the church leader is like you're saying redefine your definition of excellence or what excellent ministry looks like. We have to be coaches and guides, not necessarily experts and gurus, you know, not the person that's up up front doing everything all the time. But, and that's the big shift that we're trying to make here and that I'm trying to make personally is spending so much time focusing on all that we can do to sort of

Vick Green: Hmm. Yeah. That's right.

Jeremy Smith: create distraction free environments or, ⁓ prove that we're doing work during the week that we do something that's worth it during the week. ⁓ to, ⁓ like I've got two guys, you know, like I realized that our church, we don't have a lot of space for people with entrepreneurial apostolic pre preaching and teaching gifts to actually practice their preaching and teaching gifts or their apostolic entrepreneurial gifts, because we're doing all the stuff.

Vick Green: Yeah. Mm. Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: And, and like, just get bloated with staff when you live that way and you under utilize the gifts of the people that are around you. ⁓ and so I'm, I'm walking with two guys right now. They're going to, they're going to be the two guys that preach and lead our good Friday service coming up. Yeah. And they're trying, we're trying to, did kingdom circle, you know, disciple story. We're walking through their preaching style and, I can't wait to see what.

Vick Green: That's cool.

Jeremy Smith: what they do and how God uses that. And I'm just coaching and I'm going to be in the background running the tech booth. That's going to be my job.

Vick Green: Dude, I love that. Well, I think what you hit, you know, as I'm even our conversation today, we kind of almost, hey, here's what excellence is not. It's not excellent execution. It's not perfection. It's not thinking you're the expert. But what is it? And I think you just named it. Excellent ministry. What we're called to as pastors is to be the coach, not the star player. It's Ephesians 4.13 to equip the saints for the works of ministry. And, but that's so hard. Because like, mean, if you think about it, most lead pastors are a lot better at being the star quarterback than the coach. Cause the star quarterback is to be in control of the game, gets to call the plays, the spotlight is on them. And at the end of it, everybody applauds us and says, great job. That was so awesome. You're so good at this. And the moment that that star player, you say, no, I'm a coach. You step back and you get on the sideline and the spotlight isn't as bright on you. The focus isn't as bright on you.

Jeremy Smith: So. you

Vick Green: And now your impact you're having as you coach multiple players and you have others that are succeeding, I'd say that that feeling actually is more fulfilling from the sideline. But the immediate fulfillment of like, oh wow, like if I step to the sideline, like what if people don't think I'm as important as I, as they used to, what if I've realized I'm not as important? You know, it's all these moments, these fear. I think often what churches love to do, they love to blame consumer Christianity when they say the reason why their people are complacent and sitting on the sidelines and are just kind of watching the experts do ministry. Then we love to blame consumer Christianity and point out the window, but often pastors, we need to look in the mirror and realize, hey, maybe the reason that your people won't get off the sidelines is because you won't get on it.

Jeremy Smith: Dang, wow.

Vick Green: Like maybe it is because you won't stop being the star player that gets all the praise and step out to be a coach that says, Hey, I'm going to go and help others. Excellent ministry is not excellent execution. It's not you continuing to be the star of the team. It's getting on the sideline and coaching others up to do the same. It looks like you sitting in a tech booth and saying, Hey, I'm going to help coach you up and dude, I'm going to be the person running your slides.

Jeremy Smith: Mm. Hahaha!

Vick Green: And dude, that's so awesome. Like, I love that. That's excellent ministry. But so often we get fixated and we love the spotlight and we can't step out of it.

Jeremy Smith: But I'll tell you this too, it's kind of like when I did my first D group discipleship group and, we had been trying to get people to engage in all these ways and come to church, come to a worship service and serve and give. And then when these guys actually got involved in loving Jesus and the disciplines of Jesus, they started doing all the things that I had been trying to get them to do pressure them to do the whole time. It's kind of like that. That's what I'm finding with this even. And this sounds so

Vick Green: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jeremy Smith: basics. There's some pastor out there going like, Jeremy, like I've been doing that for 10 years. What are you talking about? You know, but I got so wrapped up in it, but here's what I'm finding. Like, I bet we have the biggest Good Friday attendance that we've had in a while because people want to come here, these two guys, and they're inviting all their friends to be a part of this and their family and they're all pumped about it. Like, I bet we have some of the best Good Friday worship service attendance we've had.

Vick Green: Ha ha! That's so good.

Jeremy Smith: It's amazing when you do the things that Jesus did, the spirit starts moving in ways that you couldn't picture before. I think, again, the repentance, the humbling thing for me is thinking about Jesus and that gap between him and us. ⁓ But the movement couldn't have multiplied, or I don't know, couldn't, but wouldn't have multiplied the way it did unless he did what he did. And I'm the lid to the multiplication of disciple making.

Vick Green: Hmm.

Jeremy Smith: and people living into their spiritual gifts and finding purpose and meaning within the walls of the church and within the ministries of through the ministries of the church. I'm that lid. That's what you just said. And that's super convicting.

Vick Green: Yeah. I love that. You know, I think we think about you're the lid of your organization. We sometimes think about that from our weaknesses, but what if your strengths are actually the lid? What if like your great execution and your great leadership like is just slightly out of place and you're so dependent on that, that you're not actually doing Ephesians 413 and raising other up. Like what if that's the lid for your movement? I love that.

Jeremy Smith: Hmm. Yeah.

Vick Green: And so the man so much here in it. ⁓ Any any final words of encouragement for anybody if they're stuck in that like that expertise myth tension? Any final words?

Jeremy Smith: Yeah, this is something we're dealing with right now because I get pushed back from my staff. They're like, well, Jeremy, you have such a high excellence level. You know, you have such a high expectation of everything. We don't want to let like your expectation down. And so I'm having to, I'm having to go back and undo years of, that kind of culture and just, and just helping them see what I'm starting to see about ⁓ redefining what,

Vick Green: Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Smith: excellent ministry really looks like. But I would say this, like you have to determine what the, or at least we're trying to do this. You have to determine, determine what the minimum level of excellence is for certain venues and for certain places, not just for, ⁓ like your own personal standard, but also because we are trying to reach people out here and there is a certain level of creating distraction or not. Like you don't just put any and everybody on the stage.

Vick Green: Yeah. you

Jeremy Smith: But also, or in a leadership role, but also for the person that's stepping into that role or stepping into that place, there are levels of development that someone should go through that the disciples went through. it's three years. It's three years and they get opportunity along the way. And so kind of defining what your level of excellent production or speaking or whatever it is, or what levels of excellence can be at what parts of your organization.

Vick Green: Okay. It's good. It's good.

Jeremy Smith: I think will help you determine where you can plug certain people into that as well.

Vick Green: Yeah. Man, love that. That's so practical. think it too, one thing just imagine there's somebody listening to this who is in an environment where they don't get to set the culture and they're in a, or I'm sorry, we all are setting the culture. They are not at the, maybe the lead pastor or the worship pastor and they want a more empowering culture ⁓ and they're, but They really in one of those high, high execution, excellent execution. And so if that's you, think a couple of things taken, what you just said, Jeremy, I thought it was really good. What does it look like leading up to say, hey, I want to develop emerging leaders. Like how can I do that within the parameters that you have of your expectations? You know, how can I kind of say that one more time for us? How can I... develop leaders within the expectations you have for me in this position. think leading up in that, I think second is if you can't put them on the main stage there for understandable reasons, what does it look like to have other places where they can develop under with a safety net or where the stakes aren't as high or where it's maybe not as public? And I mean, you just said it with Jesus. Jesus didn't start with the command to go to go make disciples of all nations. He doesn't start there. They built up to that. Luke 9, he like gave them the towns and it wasn't to like go across, you know, national lines and languages. And so I think, you know, there's, how do we bring people along and give them spaces to develop? That's good. So lot here around the expertise myth. ⁓ You can grab all the leader notes here. I would encourage you to grab the leader notes.

Jeremy Smith: Yeah.

Vick Green: Get Ministry Myths, the free assessment is also in the leader notes here. This is gonna allow you not just to learn more about the expertise myth, but all of them and take an assessment to see where are you strong in your church? Where do you need to grow? And as always, if this conversation has been helpful for you, if there is another leader that you think may enjoy, it means the world for us if you'll subscribe and share it. Until next time, we'll see you then.