The Upside of Filling Your Seats

The following content is an excerpt from the eBook Fill Your Seats. Download your free digital version in your favorite format here.

Since you’ve taken the time to read this eBook, you’ve self-identified as someone who aspires to be a valued, respected, innovative, and effective church leader. More than likely, you work in or with a church that struggles to engage its men (because most churches do). When you get the men, in my experience, you get the women, as well. Some days, you probably feel hopeless, wondering if you have what it takes because so many of the things you’ve tried have fallen short of what you had expected. I’m betting you love your church and you hate what’s happening to it; it’s just wrong to you. You desperately want to see your church on fire (not burned out), to see the seats full, and to hear stories of life change all around. Instead, you’re surrounded by fearful people—fear of change, fear of people leaving for the shiny new church down the road, fear of the church running out of givers and money, fear of personal failure.

Maybe your biggest fear is the “fear of same.” You preach to the same people. Your boss is the antithesis of a risk-taker. He doesn’t think the church is broken, so there’s no energy to fix it. Don’t you just hate it when things you’ve planned get put on the shelf in favor of other things you don’t think will work as well?

This comes from the free eBook Fill Your Seats, which you can download here.

We at Radical Mentoring feel you. We understand how it feels to have “alligator arms” when it comes to engaging people in disciple making, especially men. We know how hard it is to get men to move. Many of our churches have struggled with drumming up interest, especially among younger men. Like you, we’re troubled by the way men are afraid of commitment.

We’ve been out there talking with a bunch of people just like you—with our sleeves rolled up. As of April 2018, we’ve helped over 160 churches begin an engagement strategy, and we’re in conversations with 2,600 more. Having seen a 74 percent growth rate in 2016 and a 110 percent jump in 2017, we know how to create a plan for your church to launch a new flavor of disciple making. Our staff stands ready to guide you on how to use our resources, how to start and finish well. We have leaders in churches large and small, who will testify to how men’s small-group disciple making has begun to fill their seats with people passionate about making disciples, transforming their churches and their own work lives in the process.

Here’s what they’ve said about Radical Mentoring’s approach…

• “A blueprint for discipleship and leadership development. Over the last several years of mentoring like Jesus, our church has grown rapidly both spiritually and numerically. As a Lead Pastor, I can declare: there is no single resource that has breathed life into our church and my soul more than Radical Mentoring.” –Brian Moore, Lead Pastor, Crosspointe Church, Anaheim, CA
• “A simple, accessible, flexible means to shape men to be the people God wants them to be… and the mentors get changed, as well!” –Chuck Roberts, Pastor for Congregational Life, Peachtree Presbyterian Church
• “It has kept me in contact with my members and personally grown me to more than a pastor, but also a friend and mentor to many of the men of our church.” –Hale Bishop, Senior Pastor, Park Avenue United Methodist Church
• “One of the most significant spiritual development ministries we have done at our church.” –Chad Stutzman, Campus Pastor, NewPointe Community Church, Canton, OH
• “The tools I needed to step up to my responsibility to demonstrate how a father loves his children, how a husband loves his wife, and how a family worships God.” –Ray Snyder, Lead Mentor, The Church at LifePark, Charleston, SC
• “One of the most measurable and successful things I’ve done. Since implementing, I have had an over 90 percent success rate among the men I’ve mentored. Success defined by my mentees developing as leaders and giving more of both time and money to the church. –Sean Sears, Lead Pastor, Grace Church

That would be a good day’s work! Heck, it might be a whole life’s work!

Written by Regi Campbell

Regi Campbell grew up in a small-town church. He’s belonged to congregations in multiple cities and gotten to know a quite a few pastors and churches. For the past twenty-three years, he’s been a part of one of America’s largest churches, Andy Stanley’s North Point Community Church serving as an Elder twice and in other leadership roles. His first three books—About My Father’s Business, Mentor Like Jesus, and What Radical Husbands Do—speak to business people, mature men, and husbands respectively. Campbell now speaks to Senior Pastors, Staff Pastors, and leaders in the local church, sharing what he’s learned about creating interest in discipleship and disciple making.

Regi is the Founder and Chairman of Radical Mentoring, a nonprofit focused on equipping and encouraging churches to build disciples and disciple makers through intentional men’s small group mentoring. Regi believes the future of the local church is intimately connected to the development of strong Jesus-following lay leaders who will lead their wives, children, businesses, neighborhoods, and churches with God at the center.