Pastor to Pioneer

Welcome back to Pastor to Pioneer!  Join us as we tackle another week on the road with Britton, who this time around connects with Patti Namazie, a former stay at home mom who felt prompted to join her church's missions department, and then eventually felt led by the Lord to become a pastor. Patti discusses how her vision was initially squashed by her pastor, but that he later apologized and asked...

Hello and welcome to Pastor to Pioneer, On the Road Edition.  This week, Britton connects with Lee Wood, a former pastor in the prevailing American church model from Tampa, FL who has gone through a variety of difficult life circumstances.  Lee shares with Britton some of his painful memories, including being dropped off at an orphanage by his dad as a young child after his mom died in a house fir...

Welcome back to Pastor to Pioneer!  This week we listen in as Britton connects with Jonathan and Cheyenne Phillips, a couple based in Fort Myers, FL who have occupied pastoral leadership roles while in the midst of feeling called to make a change.  Johnathan and Cheyenne share with Britton about the difficulties of realizing a processing that a change needed to happen.  They are open, honest, and...

Welcome to season three, episode eight of Pastor to Pioneer.  This week Britton comes across Tennison and Ginelle Barry in his travels, and garners insight from them as they share about their journey with faith, the Church, and their own identities, purpose, and expectations.  Tennison and Ginelle describe how, despite the very good works they were doing—working in ministry and fostering over 70 c...

Join us for episode seven of season three of Pastor to Pioneer as Britton converses with Kirby Langley in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Kirby has been and continues to be part of the church in a variety of ways and on multiple levels.  From being involved in church software sales to being an elder at Mars Hill Church in Seattle—including the time when things crumbled badly there—to exploring what be...

Hello and welcome to episode six of Pastor to Pioneer on the road!  This week, Britton connects with James Gunnell and Christian Rafetto, brothers-in-law living in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  Both men were staff members of churches; they share how they each respectively came to the conclusion that there were deep, systemically broken issues happening that went far beyond their individual churc...

This week on Pastor to Pioneer, Britton speaks with Delton and Charity Lehman, a couple in the middle of the discernment process regarding what a simple church and discipleship-oriented movement might look like for them in their current life context.  Delton and Charity ended up in Pennsylvania, at the church Delton grew up in, with Delton serving as the head pastor there.  Lately, Delton has been...

Welcome episode four of season three of Pastor to Pioneer!  This week, Britton speaks with Jason Walker, a former youth pastor currently living in the Pittsburgh area.  Jason quit his job as a youth pastor nearly a decade ago when he realized that professional, full time ministry was killing him, his marriage, and his family.  He had planned to take a break, a few years at most, and then head back...

Hello again, all! This week on Pastor to Pioneer, Britton hears from Megan and Zach Duke, who share some of their story of going from super extra—the largest Southern Baptist church in the world—to extra small—stepping into the simple church movement.  After several years in the megachurch universe, they returned to Zach's hometown in Indiana, intent on trimming back and simplifying things.  Megan...

Welcome back to Pastor to Pioneer! This week, Britton talks to Jake Duke, a man who, after years of travel and ministry in various parts of the country and the world, finds himself back in his home town—and feeling called to impact the place in which he grew up.  Jake lived for several years doing ministry in Dallas, Texas, and also spent some time in India, where he had the opportunity to see sim...

Hello everyone, and welcome to the kickoff of season three of Pastor to Pioneer!  In this season's debut episode, Matt and Neal check in with Britton to discuss life on the road.  Britton is two months in to a seven month, whole-family-along-for-the-ride journey, and is exploring what that looks like.  Matt and Neal talk to Britton about the language, context, and culture that are part of life on...

Talking about the practical implication of how churches multiply in a decentralized movement that meets in homes.   Addition vs multiplication Encouraging people to start small with just their family sometimes to start meeting as the church Seeing the people around you as a gift from God to consider inviting in to your home to meet as the church. When we see the church as more than just a weekly g...

We talk about whether hybrid is a good option.  Can I continue doing church as I know it and add disciple making and simple church principles.  Steve talked about how it is a question of if you are talking about changing or adding apps to a phone or if you are looking at changing the operating system.  We share some ways that the hybrid will likely lead to a collision of different principles and v...

What to do about money is a popular question. If you aren't part of church with a 501c3 institutional structure, what do you do with your money?  Chris, Matt, and Neal talk share many stories about how giving can be very simple to meet practical needs in their churches and in their communities.   They talk about reimagining giving in a decentralized way.  There isn't a one size fits all but they g...

This week on Pastor to Pioneer, we hear from Michelle Smith.  Michelle is a leader in the simple church in west Michigan, and wife to Britton Smith who co-hosts this show.  Michelle and Britton share their story of how they began to step into being the church in their home, and all the difficulties, nuances, and new experiences that entails, especially when the whole family is involved.  They open...

Hello and welcome to Pastor to Pioneer!  This week—episode four of season two—we hear from Damian Gerke.  Damian is an elder in the 1Body network of house churches in Tampa, Florida, as well as a leadership and talent development coach.  In this episode, the guys talk to Damian about what real leadership looks like, especially in a decentralized church.  Damian vocalizes that in this type of setti...

In episode three of season two, the guys interview Curtis Sergeant, leader of a ministry in Alabama—called MetaCamp—founded on making disciples and sending them out into their local communities, with special emphasis on small, simple churches.  Curtis lived in Asia as a missionary for several years, and when he returned to the United States was shocked to discover how much more difficult it was fo...

This week on Pastor to Pioneer, the guys talk to Jim Pool, formerly a pastor of a large church in the Detroit area, about his experience leaving that role and stepping into a new, different, pioneering one.  They discuss candidly the shortcomings of the big(ish) church model, and the ways in which they desire and seek the best for its people—who are themselves, the church, after all.  The guys als...

Welcome to the kickoff episode of season two of Pastor to Pioneer!  This week, Britton, Matt, and Neal discuss where the path of pioneering can lead.  The guys wrestle with the ideas of what the church truly is—doing life together—and what it is not—an event we just show up to once (or sometimes twice) a week.  They dive into the concept of empowering people to join a community in relationship rat...

In this round of Pastor to Pioneer, Britton, Matt, and Neal (no guest this week) discuss barriers to pioneering in the Church today.  The guys dive into some of the difficulties they have seen as they have walked alongside other pastors, but also examine hurdles from their own stories.  These obstacles include—among other things—finances, pastoral identity, and the reality that having a deep love...

Everyone knows there's only one way to be a pastor, right? Well…not so much.  In this episode of Pastor to Pioneer the guys talk to Wes Sharp, a pastor in Alabama who began discovering new paths of leadership and disciple making.    Wes shares how his initial understanding of making disciples was that the only way to do that was to go to seminary and become a pastor—to do it the "right" way.  He e...

Transition is never easy, and this week on Pastor to Pioneer, Moy Soriano talks about the challenges of leaving his role as a pastor and stepping into pioneering something significantly more decentralized—in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, but also with a heart for Mexico. Moy shares about going when called, and trusting God in that call.  He discusses the ways in which the church is—n...

Welcome to episode three of Pastor to Pioneer.  This week we hear from John Marshall, a pastor who left a large, successful church in New Mexico to start a church plant in New England.  John discusses how as he attempted to grow this new church, discontent was growing within him as he came to new realizations of what the Bible says about pastors and pastoring. John shares how he became so disillus...

This week on Pastor to Pioneer, the guys talk to Justin Roper, a former youth pastor of a large church on the East Coast.  Justin talks about how he was quickly climbing the "corporate church ladder" and moving to bigger and bigger churches—a hotshot, surefire success of a youth leader.  He was having an incredible amount of what most people would deem success, but no matter how big his youth grou...

In this new podcast, three pastors examine the ways in which the church has shifted, needs to shift, and could be made better.  With insights from weekly guests of various backgrounds, they dive into a subject that is a true passion for each of them—the church. As Pastor to Pioneer kicks off in this first episode, meet the hosts.  Each of them shares a bit of their respective story as they moved f...