The Church Lobby

Karl Vaters interviews Darryl Dash, a long-time pastor in Toronto, Canada. Darryl recently wrote the article, Advice to New and Aspiring Pastors, for The Gospel Coalition, Canada in which raised several issues that are helpful, not just for younger pastors, but for anyone who wants to be a better pastor for the long haul.
Links:
Advice to New and Aspiring Pastors
DashHouse.com
Gospel for Life Podcast
PrayerMate App
How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to All of Your Life
8 Habits for Growth: A Simple Guide to Becoming More Like Christ
Preach Well: A Short Guide to Making Even the Average Sermon Much Better

Bonus Content
8 Habits to Become More Like Christ, with Darryl Dash
Karl Vaters interviews Darryl Dash about the content of his helpful discipleship book, 8 Habits for Growth: A Simple Guide to Becoming More Like Christ. The habits include: the importance of spending time with God, daily Bible reading, involvement in a healthy local church, and more. This is a great book for discipleship in the local church, and this interview with Darryl will give you an idea of what it’s about and how to use it.
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Karl Vaters talks with Kurt W. Bubna about what to do if you’re a Christian leader who has betrayed people and broken trust. This conversation was sparked by the Facebook post, An Open Letter to Philip Yancey Regarding His Extramarital Affair, that Bubna wrote in early January.
So many have opined about Yancey, and understandably so, but most of them know little if anything about his situation, including Karl and Kurt. So, while this conversation was triggered by that news, it’s an attempt at a measured approach from a perspective that we need to hear—a pastor who broke trust and is rebuilding it again. This conversation focuses on practical help for anyone who is walking through a similar time of sinful behavior, by talking through Kurt’s helpful article, How to Rebuild Trust After You’ve Broken It.
Links:
An Open Letter to Philip Yancey Regarding His Extramarital Affair
How to Rebuild Trust After You’ve Broken It
Kurt Bubna’s Amazon author page
KurtBubna.com

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Karl Vaters talks to Laurie Graham about some of the big ways volunteerism has changed, and how we, as church leaders, can respond to these trends.
Laurie runs smallchurchministry.com, an online ministry that provides resources and support for volunteers and ministry leaders in smaller churches.
This is Laurie’s second time on the podcast (the last time she was known as Laurie Acker), and in this conversation she and Karl talk about how church volunteerism has been affected by people’s changing schedules, their desire for deeper meaning, the need to restore their trust, and more.
Links:
Website: https://smallchurchministry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallchurchministry/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smallchurchministry
Creative Solutions for Small Churches Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry
Small Church Network & Academy: https://smallchurchministry.com/membership/

Bonus Content Summary
Rethinking Church Programs for Volunteer Flexibility, with Laurie Graham
Karl Vaters talks with Laurie Graham of SmallChurchMinistry.com about different ways we, as church leaders, can start to change church programs that were originally designed for the way people used to volunteer, into ministry that works for the more personal, seasonal way people live and commit today.
Website: https://smallchurchministry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallchurchministry/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smallchurchministry
Creative Solutions for Small Churches Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry
Small Church Network & Academy: https://smallchurchministry.com/membership/

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Karl Vaters talks through some helpful guidelines with Dave Ripper about how to read, meditate, and teach from the Bible in a richer, deeper way.
Dave is the lead pastor of Crossway Christian Church, a multicongregational church in southern New Hampshire, focused on spiritual formation, and is the author of Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus: Reading the Bible like Dallas Willard.
Karl and Dave explore who Dallas Willard was, and what his way of reading the Bible can do for us, including:
Willard’s four steps on how to read the Bible
A five-step outline for meditating on a text
The IMMERSE method
Preaching out of the overflow
How to let God speak to the church instead imposing your ideas into the text or onto the congregation

Links:
Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus: Reading the Bible like Dallas Willard, by Dave Ripper
The Dallas Willard podcast
DaveRipper.com
Deeper Experiences with God Podcast, with Dave Ripper
Dave Ripper on Instagram
Dave Ripper on Facebook
Contact Dave Ripper

Bonus video summary
Three Warnings from Dallas Willard about How Not to Read the Bible, with Dave Ripper
In this subscriber-only bonus material, Karl Vaters talks with pastor Dave Ripper, the author of Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus: Reading the Bible like Dallas Willard, about why Bible readers should stay away from:
Bible roulette
The “It’s all in the Bible” View
Bible deism

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Have you ever gone to a church growth conference and been told “all healthy things grow?”
Karl Vaters talks with Jeff Hoglen about what’s happening behind that idea, and why it can be a problem for a lot of pastors and churches. The conversation is based on an article Jeff wrote, called “The Church Growth Lie No One Talks About.”
Karl and Jeff talk about what that lie is, why we keep believing it, and what to do, instead.
They also discuss alternative ways to look at church health and growth, including:
How growth feels more like farming than fireworks
How most real growth is slow, often invisible, and always hard
How the slow seasons don’t have to discourage you
How to deepen before you broaden
How to pursue health over hype
The importance of celebrating the small stuff

And more.
Links:
The Church Growth Lie No One Talks About
ChurchPlanting.com
Canva
ChatGPT

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