Faster Connections, Lasting Community: Effective Church Assimilation with Greg Curtis
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Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. To kick off the new year, we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless topics that are consistent and crucial for church growth in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Greg Curtis, the Director of First Steps and Content Development at Eastside Christian Church and founder of Climbing the Assimilayas. Today we’re talking about how gathering together will still matter.
Wondering how to effectively connect with newcomers in both online and in-person settings? Curious about how assimilation strategies are evolving in this digital age? Tune in as Greg offers valuable insights on successful assimilation strategies following changes in church attendance patterns, and the critical first step of volunteer involvement.
- From the screen to the seat. // Physically gathering together will still matter in the future, however Greg reframes the traditional model of “from the street to the seat” to “from the screen to the seat.” Most people have vetted your church by attending services online before they will ever set foot in the building.
- Your front porch is now digital. // Online platforms are now a critical “front porch” for churches, with websites and live streams shaping first impressions. A user-friendly, guest-oriented website with visuals that reflect the church’s diversity will help visitors understand what to expect at the church. Take time to evaluate what people are seeing on the digital side of your church and make sure it accurately reflects your church and its culture.
- Engage virtual attendees. // Because of your website, social media, and online services, first time guests are also pre-vetted before they visit in-person. They will be warmer leads and more ready to connect when they do attend a physical location. Offer personalized engagement during online worship services, such as addressing virtual attendees directly and offering incentives to encourage physical attendance. Offer them welcome gifts that you can mail to their home.
- Volunteerism over small groups. // In most churches, new attendees are opting for volunteerism now as a primary first step instead of small groups. There are two things that make volunteerism a great first connection point. The first is that belonging is a two sided coin—people want to feel both needed and wanted. The second is that there is a safety zone shift since COVID and people aren’t as willing to go into homes of people they don’t know well. They are willing to serve where they are needed around the church on rotation instead.
- Increase the speed of connection. // To address declining attendance frequencies, churches need to increase the speed of connection. Committed church members now attend less frequently and so assimilation programs must adapt. Greg advocates for streamlining multi-week programs into a single-session experience that encourages the next step of volunteer involvement. This approach accommodates modern schedules while maintaining a focus on connection.
- Three checklists for building experiences. // To support churches in their connection efforts, Greg and his team have developed checklists designed to optimize guest experiences during high-attendance events like Easter. The resource includes checklists for first impressions, guest follow-up, and volunteer recruitment, tailored to maximize connection opportunities on big days.
Complete Easter Engagement Guide
Looking to make the most of Easter at your church this year? Check out Greg Curtis’s Complete Easter Engagement Guide! This resource is specifically designed to help churches connect with their Easter guests through practical tools like first impressions checklists, guest follow-up strategies, and volunteer recruitment plans. It’s tailored to make a lasting impact during one of the most important weekends of the year.
Get your copy today for just $15 at this link. You can also connect with Greg via email. Plus download the unPredictions Team Playbook for this podcast episode here.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. You’ve caught us in the midst of our 2025 Unpredictions episodes. We’re really talking about things that were true last year. I really do believe they’re going to be true this year and for years to come. These are areas that your church should be focusing on and we’re bringing on some incredible experts who are here to help you and help you take steps towards really be it to be more an effective church. I’m excited to have my friend Greg Curtis on and he’s helping us think through this idea: Gathering together will still matter. Despite the rise of digital platforms in-person church experience really does remain irreplaceable. Focus on you know our job is to focus on unique engaging in-person experiences that really can’t be replicated. Ultimately we’re trying to get people to connect online.
Rich Birch — If you don’t know Greg, what what rock have you been living under? ah He’s a part of the leadership team at East Side Christian Church. They’re a multi-site church with six campuses in California, Nevada, Minnesota, and somewhere else I might be missing. ah He is the the Director of First Steps and Content Development. ah He’s also found an organization called Climbing the Assimilayas, which is a a series of tools, some coaching that you’re going to want to make sure you get a connection to because he really is a ninja in this area of helping us help our people get connected. Greg, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today.
Greg Curtis — Oh, it’s awesome. Love doing this with you whenever we get to do it.
Rich Birch — It’s such an honor to connect with you, friend. i’m glad you know I know um you’re so helpful to so many churches, and and i’m just I’m looking forward to helping them today as we have this conversation. Why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit there? For Some people have probably heard you on on episodes in the past, but for folks that don’t, kind of give us the 30,000-foot view of of Greg Curtis.
Greg Curtis — Yeah, well, I’ve been a lead pastor ah for 17 years, and I have been, for since 2012, basically overseeing assimilation and connection, connecting new people at church, at Eastside with ah Gene Appel, ah ah for you know since that time.
Greg Curtis — And since I took on that that ministry, um just what kind of erupted is we became the second fastest growing church in the US for a period of time. It was my job to chase that with a connection strategy. And so as we did so, we saw results that that surprised us and that we were really encouraged by. Ah you know, like one out of four getting a small group, one out out of seven guests becoming a volunteer, one out of three getting baptized…
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Greg Curtis — …and all of crossing a border on an international church. We really had some great connection, stuff that we learned along the way. And so as other churches were asking us, well, how do you do this? I formed something called Climbing the Assimilayas all around the idea that ah new people at our churches, especially as they come physically, as we talk about gathering together physically, that when they come, um we always think it’s a coast because our church is friendly, which usually means we’re friendly to each other, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — The truth is a a new guest, any of us when we’re in a new environment, it’s not a coast, it’s a climb. And all of us use a Sherpa to help us reach that summit.
Rich Birch — So good.
Greg Curtis — And in the case of church, at the summit is connection with this community and with God. So we’re raising what I do is like to raise up and equip church staff to and and volunteer teams to become the best Sherpas, finding the best route for people ah to reach that summit and and experience full connection.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — That’s what I give.
Rich Birch — Well, friends, you’re if you do not know Greg, buckle up. we’re You’re about to have your mind blown on this area, you know, all the time. Literally, it’s close to 100% of the time. I’m doing direct coaching. I’m saying, you know, you should talk to this guy, Greg, ah because he’s just so helpful on this area.
Rich Birch — So I’ve heard you talk about you know this, for years we’ve used this idea that hey assimilation is something like from the street to the seat and then eventually from the seat to the circle. I’ve heard you kind of nuance that, add some new perspective on that. What is that again, remind me, what what what are what are you talking about these days around that?
Greg Curtis — Okay, so if we’re talking about how physically gathering together is still gonna matter in the future, if we’re gonna foster that physical presence of people, we need to expand our vision for connecting so that it doesn’t start from the street to the seat, but start from the screen to the seat.
Rich Birch — Mmm. Oh, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — Because most people, ah and when I say most people, almost all, I mean I’m 95% plus…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — …ah have vetted your church already by attending services…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep.
Greg Curtis — …before you ever come online. So it’s the screen, it’s the website where they find you. And then the screen where they experienced that online worship service.
Greg Curtis — I was working with the church recently. I was doing a cohort on increasing the speed of connection at your church. And in so doing, there was a church that really took the time to study how their guests were engaging with the screen, their screen before they came physically. And in their case, the average amount of online worship service that that a first time guest experienced was four.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Greg Curtis — Had done four online worship services before they came physically.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because before COVID…
Rich Birch — That’s a big deal.
Greg Curtis — Yeah, our online presence was for the for our members who were sick or out of town. Post COVID… Go ahead.
Rich Birch — No, I was going to say so, but yeah, finished with this pre COVID post COVID thing. And then I want, I want to jump back to, so what, what are we, should what should we be thinking about on the screen side to if we’re trying to connect people in? So to kind of, are there some practices there we should be thinking about?
Greg Curtis — Yeah, but those those changes are built on this idea of the shift since the pandemic.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — Is that before?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — For sick and out of towners.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — Since then, there are people who experience church online uniquely. It could be because they’re disabled. It could be because there’s a number of factor, their work schedules that may cause church now to be an online experience for them. But in addition to that, and largely, your your screen now, your screen presence is your front porch.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Greg Curtis — It used to be COVID that it was your church lobby, basically was like your front porch and that’s where people start to make connections and get welcomed and whatever. But your front porch is now digital, it’s virtual.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — And it really means that for the first time ever, I mean a generation ago, that you didn’t find out anything about the church.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Greg Curtis — Not its worship, ah you not its teaching, what it looked like. You didn’t even know what the the the basic demographic was.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — You’d only assume maybe from its denominational thing, but you didn’t know till you physically went. People would would visit physically many churches to see if they could find that fit. And now you’re pre-vetted.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — So that means the first time guests are actually more… to use business terms, they’re warmer leads…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Greg Curtis — …than they ever were because they’re pre-vetted because of that. So also your website, ah is they found you through the website. They Googled for certain things, they started looking, and your website made them want to attend your service online.
Greg Curtis — So the goal of the front porch, right, there’s people who will only come on your front porch, which those are neighbors and people that you may not go deep with. But the people that you go deep with are the ones you’re able to invite into your living room. And then it goes deeper when you get them into your kitchen and you start cooking meals together and hang out in your den and let your kids play, you know.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — That’s the the journey that we’re hoping to get from the screen to the seat, so to speak, in the auditorium. So a couple of things that that we definitely do is we make sure that we’re always addressing ah uniquely ah in the worship service the online people.
Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah.
Greg Curtis — And when we we we welcome all of our campuses, we welcome the online campus.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — We so we we will say, now, if you’re online, we want you to take Communion with us. So go grab something in your… Like literally, we are speaking to them…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — …and as if they are with us because they are.
Rich Birch — Because they are. Exactly.
Greg Curtis — And um that’s that’s really important to do. We also ah offer them a welcome gift. And sometimes there are aspects of the gift, once we send it to their home, that they can only experience if they come physically. So there’s incentive to continue to connect, but in a physical way to experience maybe the last half of the gift. Like if you’re giving a tumbler or something else that there’s a coupon for a free combo meal at your grill or or your cafe or something like that, you know. Something that they can redeem for something else when they come.
Greg Curtis — um And so ah those those things are are super, super important to do. And um so it starts too with your homepage.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — Because even before they experience ah you on the screen of a worship service, they’re experiencing you via the screen on your website. So your homepage, you know, if you go to eastside.com, you can see how we do it…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — …but ah you it’s what to expect if you’re new. This is what the homepage is, it’s geared to them.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Greg Curtis — Your members don’t use your website unless they’re registering for something, you know…
Rich Birch — No. Yes.
Greg Curtis — …you just don’t. It, your website is for your guests.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — It’s for the people you’re reaching that you’re hoping to make followers of Jesus out of. And so you do it for them. So on your homepage, it’s what to expect when you come, where your locations are. What was last week’s sermon topic? What’s the one coming up this weekend?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — We put our first step, our one program, our assimilation program up there. And as as you move to holidays, like Christmas and Easter or fall kickoff, what you’re wanting to do is to say, we we’re you know, you say things like, we’re going to have photo opps for you and your family.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Greg Curtis — I mean, Christmastime, you know, people used to go to the mall and take pictures with Santa.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Greg Curtis — You know, there’s a lot of these traditions that parents almost feel a little guilt of because they barely have time to…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — …buy the Christmas gift.
Rich Birch — True. True.
Greg Curtis — They buy them all online on Amazon and they don’t go to the mall.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — And as all of a sudden your church is kind of filling in this gap of something…
Rich Birch — A hundred percent.
Greg Curtis — …that it can see by going on your website that this is what’s coming. And there’s some free food or there’s a giveaway that kids love, you know.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Greg Curtis — We we were able to have a record-breaking first-time guest identification last Christmas simply because we offered a gift, and this could be done at Easter or fall kickoff, I asked the our next-gen teams what is a a welcome gift that kids would drag their parents to get?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s a great benchmark.
Greg Curtis — And it would their contact info so we could start building a relationship with them.
Rich Birch — I love that.
Greg Curtis — And we we had 10% of the room at all of our Christmas services [inaudible] first time guests.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Greg Curtis — So um being able to do things with your screen, you know…
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — …um you know from the screen to the seat. So…
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s talk about, um so I it’s amazing how many times I’ll be on a church website and they’ll even have maybe a what to expect tab and they’re missing ah photos of their experience. Like it’s all words.
Greg Curtis — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Is that a good practice? Should we be… And it’s the same on social. Like I’m always saying to people, hey, you should have, like a significant part of your social presence should be photos that, so people can look at it and it’s not all there should be some pat pictures of the pastor. That’s fine. And the band, but like, it should be just of the audience and people enjoying the experience and that sort of thing. Is that the kind of thing you’re, you’re talking about here when you talk about what to expect?
Greg Curtis — Oh, totally. I I had a there was a video stream on our first step page for our assimulation program, and it was all stage stuff. And I said, I need a new one.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — I want people in the halls. I want people greeting.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — I want people at table. I I want you know It’s OK to have a expression of that, because they you know but ah we wanted to change that. And here’s why, because you don’t attract who you want. You attract who you are. Okay.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — You for a first time guest, we all have there’s this unspoken question that they’re that they ask themselves that all of us do when we’re in a new environment. And we’re unconscious of it. But the question is, is there anybody here like me?
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s true.
Greg Curtis — And so it’s an uncomfortable feeling, picture this, you know, if you drive it to a church parking lot, ah especially pre-online service where you didn’t know, but you can drive it to the church parking lot and everybody’s got a Beamer and a Mercedes and you drove up in in a truck, or on a motorcycle.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Or you come there and it’s mainly motorcycles, you know what I mean?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Greg Curtis — And you drove up in a minivan
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Or everybody’s hair is gray and yours isn’t. Or everybody’s complexion is darker, or everybody’s complexion is lighter, or everybody, you know, ah it’s there’s a million things. And what this allows them to do in their vetting process is to see the level of diversity at your church, both age and ethnicity and culture and everything else, and and to see, do I is there somebody there like me?
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — And if they see that, the answer is yes, they’re much more likely to come physically and gather with you.
Rich Birch — That’s good, that’s good. Okay, so pivoting in a it is slightly different direction as we’re talking about, again, love this idea of from the screen to the seat, love that. I think that’s ah that’s a good framework for us to be thinking about. I know one of the things that we’ve struggled with is so we do things in our services that actually don’t replicate very well online. And they it’s like they ah you know they’re they’re not um you know you know there I almost feel bad for the people who are are watching online because it’s like you’re kind of missing out.
Rich Birch — What what should we be thinking about on that front? Is that okay? Is that not okay? Is that, you know, how far should we try to go on to try to make that a good experience for them? Or could, you know, I’ve been, I’ll tell you my bias. I’ve been on the side of the conversation that I kind of want that FOMO. I kind of want them thinking like, Oh, I wish I was there. But am I, am I agitating a problem that I shouldn’t be agitating?
Greg Curtis — I think… I I love your concept of FOMO. I think that that needs to be considered. We tend to err on, not i’m trying not to, for lack of a better term, alienate…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Maybe the better term is disengage, the online ah participation.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Greg Curtis — The the truth is, though, ah there is online engagement that the physical people can ah who are there physically don’t get to participate in. We have moderators, like most churches do, that are you know having conversations with people during worship, asking for prayer requests, supporting them, and and linking them to resources that would help them. That doesn’t happen to those who are there physically, right? So um there is a give and take on that. And acknowledging that I think is and leveraging that so that people know that ah so allows it to be okay that there’s a slightly different experience for online…
Rich Birch — Sure. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — …and a slightly different experience physically, but the knife cuts both ways. There’s benefits to both. You know?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — And I another way that we’ve done it is that, you know, we can cut to ah announcements that are they can be done ah certain communications can be done by the online campus pastor, you know, or the person that you have doing that, so that it’s covered in a different way. Otherwise, we make sure that announcements are always ah that that we we understand that there’s something in mind that we have to remember when we’re making that announcement and declare it, even if it’s something that they’re going to have to participate in it differently.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — You know but you just say it. You just say it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So I know one of the things that we talk about all the time is this idea that like, you know, people used to attend, like when I started ministry and I suspect is the same when you started we have a similar generation, you know, we had Sunday morning, we had adult ah Bible study or, you know, Sunday school Sunday morning, but then we had actual like Sunday morning service. We had Sunday evening service where you got to wear jeans. Then we had like Wednesday night prayer service. And then we, when we were doing small groups, cause we had started small groups and we told people to volunteer. And then I was in evangelism explosion on Thursday night. So it was like five or six or seven connections during the week. And now I’m like, if we could just get people to show up once a week, that would be amazing. Let alone seven times a week, right?
Greg Curtis — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How, how how do you think about that? Like, are we, you know, ah what’s your, what what’s your coaching around how, what is the kind of connection model, the commitment model we’re trying to drive people towards and, and are there things that we’re doing maybe in our churches to actually slow people down from, from connecting and coming back time and again. We don’t want to just blame people. I don’t like answers that are like, ah, the stiff-necked people, they don’t know what they’re doing. What are we doing that’s making it so they’re not connecting as much?
Greg Curtis — Oh, that is so huge. You know you you were brought up like I was. For those of us who grew up at church, what you just explained was very typical, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Greg Curtis — But the unspoken drive of that is to spend more and more time at church.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yep.
Greg Curtis — More and more time at a physical campus like in the language we use today. And we need to to kind of step back and go, Okay, our job isn’t to get everybody to… Jesus didn’t say go go into all the world and get everybody to come to church. He said go…
Rich Birch — Build buildings and have them come to them.
Greg Curtis — Yes, go into all the world and make followers of me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — Make disciples. And if that’s the case, I think the question should be how many times a week or how many times a month…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — …does discipleship require? Because if you’re at church all the time, they’re not they’re not that they’re… I think that there is a very real correlation between the amount of times a person spends at church and their evangelistic capacity and their ability to make disciples themselves.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Because all of a sudden all their relationships have huddled around this church and they’re minimizing their connection with neighbors and other people because of this new thing that they’ve discovered that they’re excited about. And so what we’ve done is the the expectation pre-COVID, and now I’ll talk about maybe post-COVID. But where we we chose a simple church format that looks a lot like Acts, you know, when the whole movement launched.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Greg Curtis — Basically, they were at the temple courts on on on Sundays, because, you know, that was a free day, because Saturdays were really the big deal at the temple. They were at the temple courts, and then they were meeting house to house, and then they were helping the poor. So what we do is ah we want them only at our church really once a week, max.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Greg Curtis — And then small groups, a small group experience midweek. And then to participate, um you know, probably two, three times a year in real compassion initiatives for those who have need for marginalized.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — That’s it.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — We don’t want them to go beyond that because they’re they’re losing their evangelistic capacities. And so that’s the way we’ve looked at it pre-COVID. We understand now that we have moved from ah, since COVID, what was a church attendance pattern of people coming two to three times a month, the average, and we’re talking church member now.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Greg Curtis — You know, two to three times a month, now since COVID, it’s one to two times a month.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Greg Curtis — Some places and regions it’s like 1.2 times a month.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — And so with that ability, I’m just finding that we need to increase the speed of connection at our churches because we don’t have as many chances to connect them.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Greg Curtis — And ah many of your listeners, and certainly if anybody’s ah heard my stuff, we’ve talked about that there’s you have to get somebody ah connected in four to six months, or their attendance wanes. And within a year, they’re gone. Even though they didn’t choose to be gone, they just did it. And by connected, ah the industry standard by 2012 was that they know the names of four to six people who know their name, and some general things about them within the four to six month range. Well, that was based on two to three attendances a month.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Well, what if it’s one or two times a month? How does that even happen?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Greg Curtis — And so, um you know, there’s some things that we’ve been doing to help encourage the physical attendance. ah Things like, you know, well, this helps with the the the screen to the seat, is we’ll do “At the Movie” series where we have to show movies that there’s no copyright ability legally to broadcast.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Greg Curtis — So that is our number one series. So people with that’s… When we do that once or twice a year now, we’ve actually done it twice a year now, is that you see our online attendance go down and our physical attendance shoot through the roof. Because they want to experience that and they can’t at home. So that’s one way we do it.
Rich Birch — Good.
Greg Curtis — Another thing we’ve just started doing since summer that’s really worked out good is we have Saturday services and afterwards we will show a movie out on our green.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Now we’re in Southern California You have to do it during a time of year in your locale where you can pull this off.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — We have a huge screen out there that when we were meeting outside ah during the pandemic, you know when we were regathering, we left it up, and we’ll show like some family friendly movies and offer a discount at our grill so but so there’s like food that people could grab.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Curtis — We have half… We’ve done it three times, half of our attendance has stayed with families on this watching a movie, they bring their their their chairs.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — And people online, that’s something that they want to experience. And things like that also allow people to get to know each other a bit…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — …and it increases the opportunity to connect a little bit ah a little bit faster, so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Love that. What about so um ah another piece I kind of want to um and maybe another can I want to open and this is I know where we’re headed here because I’ve heard you talk about this. So volunteerism. How does that fit into this whole thing? You know, we for years I felt like we were saying get get in a group, get on a team, you know like do both of these things. And um like even earlier, I heard you talk about you know differences in connection stats. Are there how do we think about these things? What are you seeing in kind of prevailing churches that are helping people get connected? What are they doing around getting people onto teams?
Greg Curtis — Well, um like you already hinted, the big surprise to me that ah the pandemic did is it shifted from the majority of kids making their first connection step being a small group. You know, their first connection step is now volunteering.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — So ah in 2013, 14, we were seeing um one out of four guests get in a small group within their, yeah that was their first connection point. And then we had one out of seven become a volunteer. So that was, you know…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Now it’s absolutely the flip, whether you’re talking of a church of 35,000 right now. I can think of a church I’ve worked with of 150.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Greg Curtis — And they’re all seeing, ah ah they’re doing it right. And they’re seeing 50% or slightly better of new guests opting for the volunteer thing first. And that, when it comes to regathering, we need to think about that, that people now post COVID coming to gather physically, that’s a ah bigger step.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — And there’s two things about this that I think make volunteerism a great first connection that increases that speed of connection, right, for them. And ah one of them is is that I always say that belonging is a two-sided coin. Belonging is feeling that I’m wanted and that I’m needed.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Wanted is kind of your small group thing. I have friends here, and so I’m wanted. And volunteering says, I have a job here, which means I’m needed. And I think there’s been a shift as to which one of those comes first.
Greg Curtis — So the second thing is that um there’s a safety ah zone change and shift since COVID. People got really cocooned. People got a little bit more stressed out to have people in their home they didn’t know and and go into homes of people they didn’t know. So the big thing is, you know what’s the easier ask to a new person? Is it to go to a house they’ve never been to to meet people they’ve never met who have a history they’re not a part of?
Greg Curtis — Or since you’ since you’ve become familiar with this campus where you’re going, hey, while you’re here, we can tell you have something to give that would bless other people and really make a difference.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Would you be willing to join this team while you’re here or stay in extra service while you’re here or during the service you’re at or whatever and and give that on this team? And that we are seeing, along with other churches of all sizes and all stripes, that that is the easier and even ah better ask. Because what that will do is volunteer rotations, though I think maybe ah a lot of your listeners, including us, have adjusted our rotation so that they’re not every week or nothing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yep, true.
Greg Curtis — With that, you adjust the reasonable rotations, but you’ll see them come more often because they’re needed.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — Because they need to. And people, all of us, you know, want want to know that that um we’re needed.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — We we’re so we have something to give to somebody else. And it really becomes the first ask unless the guest has come to church or is sick of God because ah of of ah addiction maybe that derailed their life. Well then it’s going to be maybe a recovery group. Or or maybe it was a loss of a loved one they need to go into a grief support ah kind of situation. There’s situations where the small group would be better first. But predominantly we have seen a huge shift…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — …to the first ask and the first connection is volunteerism. And if we can pull that off, you’re going to be able to see them more often and they’ll make that connection with other people…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Greg Curtis — …those four to six people, much, much quicker because they’re on a team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well, yeah, and I remember that connects with some stuff that I’ve, you know, been reading on the kind of we know that in our in our culture, there is like an anxiety crisis, a stress crisis, there’s like mental health stuff that is struggling, for sure. And one of the the kind of remedies for a lot of that is people having the sense of being needed or like that they’re required of something. Someone needs their help. Like they that people you know humans need this, like, oh, there is someone that’s depending on me is actually the kind of the the…
Rich Birch — And and if if there is no one, if I have no one in my life that depends on me, that’s like kind of the ultimate sign of loneliness. Like if there’s no one, it’s not the other it’s not the other way around. It’s not like I’m depending on someone. It’s actually that someone is depending on me. Someone needs me to show up and do something somewhere. um And if people don’t have their that in their life, that’s like a huge sign of loneliness and you know creates all kinds of issues. And so, man, we can help people in our community by saying, we need you on this rotation. We need you to help us with this thing. This is, you know, this is an important thing. So love that. That’s, you know, that’s so fantastic.
Greg Curtis — I would love to expand that just a little bit if I could.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Greg Curtis — You list we both just listed some strategic reasons why inviting somebody to serve alongside of you is is a great ask and maybe the predominant ask right now.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — But it’s also a biblical one.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — And by saying that what I mean is that what Jesus invited the 12 into looked a lot more like a ministry team than it did a small group Bible study.
Rich Birch — Mm. Oh, that’s good. Good insight for sure.
Greg Curtis — Yeah, and they, as he did that, what he was doing was inviting them into this thing where they were still even figuring out who he was.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Greg Curtis — They didn’t really understand who he really was, but that’s okay.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Curtis — Because he invited them to serve with him and to learn how to be part of the thing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — And as they did that, um he was able to apply scripture in real time to their challenges.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — And when you think about being on a ministry team it’s the same things. Like how to not compete with each other, how to deal with, say, a person, or in the case of guest services maybe a guest that that just has a bad attitude, it is hard to deal with how do you patiently deal with that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — How do you forgive other people when they step on your toes? How do you ah not power up? How do you, you know, practice servant leadership, but they’re… How do you forgive 70 times seven? All of these lessons came in the context of a ministry team, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Greg Curtis — Now what Jesus had was an edge that we don’t, and beyond who he was, and that’s, he was pulling those fish, so to speak, out of a barrel that where they had memorized huge portions of the scripture.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Curtis — They were biblically literate and he could apply it in real time. We’re living in a culture right now that is that has a pretty high level of biblical illiteracy.
Rich Birch — Yes. Understatement.
Greg Curtis — So that being the case our small groups, so here’s the big shift in my thinking – our small groups are no longer our our primary discipleship pathway.
Rich Birch — Good. Wow.
Greg Curtis — But small the purpose of small groups is not discipleship because that happens in a ministry team. Let’s face it, all your listeners, you and me, we’re on this screen. We’re listening to this podcast right now. It’s not because we attended a small group Bible study on being on staff or leading or serving. We are here because somebody invited us into the game.
Rich Birch — No, that’s so true. That is so true. Yep.
Greg Curtis — I still remember, you know, co-teaching fifth grade boys with the pastor’s son. I got invited into the game ah playing keyboard in the high school band. I got invited into the game and it changed everything. It changed everything.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. That’s so true.
Greg Curtis — And that’s what we have to do with first time guests. Invite them into the game, not just through a small group Bible study. So the purpose of small group Bible studies then, is they’re your pastoral care unit. And they are your biblical knowledge dispensary so that the ministry team leaders who now, instead of just being schedulers, your ministry team leaders are the disciplers, but they don’t have to teach because the small group leaders do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — They’re able to apply it in real time.
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so good.
Greg Curtis — And that yeah that’s the big shift.
Rich Birch — That’s a huge shift. Yeah, that’s a huge shift.
Greg Curtis — What that what that means in how we’ve done volunteerism is two things. One, we need to stop thinking as small group small groups are for the serious christians who really want to be discipled. Serving is of extra credit for those people…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — …man, if they’re really spiritual.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — No, but that serving is what we do as a church. You roll up your sleeves We’re in this together people get to share their unique gifts and that always makes them them feel good, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — That’s that’s the normative experience. And then um ah the second thing I just forgot. What what were you saying just a minute ago because I was trying to key off that is that…
Rich Birch — Well, like ultimately this, this whole serving experience is the front door is the first step is the, is people’s kind of initial integration. Should we point towards teams or groups was where we were headed. I think you covered that well.
Greg Curtis — Well, here’s here’s what it was, is that we now, volunteerism has to look differently, because it’s not just to to get a job done or get extra credit.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep.
Greg Curtis — If this is how we make a disciples. You’re never recruiting a person to a job. You’re recruiting them to a team.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Greg Curtis — And a team doesn’t exist unless there is a team leader.
Rich Birch — Yep. Good.
Greg Curtis — And that team leader now has to have a paradigm of it’s, I’m not just, we’re not just a ministry that’s that’s accomplishing a certain thing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Greg Curtis — I am a discipler of the people are on this team.
Rich Birch — Yep. For sure.
Greg Curtis — Huge paradigm shift. And I just could not be more excited about a future that looks like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing.
Greg Curtis — It’s just not all driven by a Planning Center invite.
Rich Birch — Well, and I think too many churches, listen friends, I, so I’ve worked in and coach fast growing churches. And one of the things I know, and this has been true for a long time, but the part that you’re clarifying, I think so well for us here is we’ve known for a long time that our staff and leaders that can recruit and release volunteers, that they’re like the most valuable people in our organization.
Rich Birch — Like, and and we we looked at it and we’re like, there’s good things that happen in that team because man, look at all those volunteers, look at all those people. And like a telltale sign of a leader that’s not doing well is they’re like, either either I can’t find enough volunteers or they’re like, I have enough volunteers, please don’t send me anymore. It’s like, no, no, no, that’s not the name of the game. The name of the game here is how do we create more opportunity, create more space, draw more people in, raise up more leaders to pass on to the next generation, all of that. That is where this is headed.
Rich Birch — I think that is so good that you’re you know clarifying that on this front. Well, just kind of as we’re coming to land, a couple of things. So first of all, friends, I feel like we just scratched the surface. There’s a ton here around how do we help people?
Rich Birch — You know, well I’m just convinced that the gathered body of Christ means more today than it ever has. I think what we do is so incredible incredibly important. That’s why we’re talking about it in this Unpredictions series and I’ve just loved having Greg with us. I would strongly recommend if your church is thinking about like, man, maybe we’re not doing as well on the assimilation side as we potentially have. um I want to make sure you get connected with Greg. But before we get there, I want to poke a pain point that I know I’ve got. I was standing in our Christmas services hosting, you know, a couple times 3X our normal attendance. Ah you know, literally thousands of people.
Rich Birch — I’m looking out and I, you know, my wife and I host those things and they’re, which is fun. I love doing that, but I’d look out and I’m like, gosh, man, how, how do we get these people connected? I feel like there’s, there’s a lot of these folks come and we maybe missed an opportunity to connect them. You know, but we’ve got another big day coming up here in, in Easter. Is there anything, I know you’ve got a resource that we want to point people towards to help with that. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Greg Curtis — Yeah, the resource is something that we’re just, we’ve just developed and it’s called, it’s really a complete Easter engagement guide.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis —And what this acknowledges is that Easter guests are really different than the guests you have another weekend so similar to Christmas guests is that they’re not there because ah there may not be there necessarily because they’re searching for God because of some event that God has allowed into their lives that caused them to seek Him. That’s really the other 50 weekends of the year. But there are reasons that people might come to Easter, maybe an invite, a family invite, or family traditions…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Greg Curtis — …or the sense that Christmas and Easter is part of what punctuates my year as as somebody who grew up in church and does something like that, right? So they are different. And so we’ve developed three different checklists that allow you to interact with your staff.
Greg Curtis — The first one is a first impressions and guest experience checklist to to be a little bit different, to position different for those weekends like Easter. The second is a guest follow up and engagement checklist because the follow up may be slightly different to these people than it would normally.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yep.
Greg Curtis — And third, it’s a way to recruit you know, your Easter, fall kickoff, Christmas guests, your Easter guests specifically. I’m sorry, to recruit volunteers for just serve that first serve experience. You haven’t served before. We need more people volunteering on these big weekends like Easter. Can you serve on a team for Easter?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — And then even better though, in light of what we we’re saying, how do you how do you then do that in a way that it creates an opportunity and even some momentum to their serving on that team moving forward…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — …and becoming part of that team so they can experience all we’ve been talking about. So that’s what that complete Easter engagement guide we’ve we’ve ah ah we we offer it for 15 bucks…
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Greg Curtis — …and it just it you it allow you for ah for a couple months ahead of something like like Easter to go through all of those things, the from the first impression to how we follow up with them…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — …and to how we were volunteers for that event that will stick. And it’s a really valuable thing that you can use with your whole team…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And 15 bucks is crazy. Like Greg is a Greg and Tommy, they’re these guys are coaches extraordinaire. They they’re complete ninjas on this stuff. I’ve had churches that I work with and also work with with Greg and Tommy, and they are like blown away by how helpful they are. And so the fact that you’ve made this this resource that’s like accessible for everybody that’s listening in. Like $15, you can invest in that. I’d strongly recommend, folks, that you pick this up. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that, but where do we want to send people to pick up a copy of that if if they’re forwarding this to somebody, where do we want to send them online?
Greg Curtis — We want to send them to assimilayas.com/easter.
Rich Birch — Easy. Come on, that’s easy.
Greg Curtis — assimilayas.com/easter and pick that up at we’ve never offered it for $15. This is going to be something that guests get to do.
Rich Birch — It’s crazy.
Greg Curtis — And and I’m excited because it will be very useful to you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s great. Again, friends, I highly recommend it. at You know, anything, Greg’s one of these people, I say to people all the time, just follow him and do what he says. Like it’s just, he’s he’s so good on this front and is and is not, he’s he’s like the triple threat of, he’s incredibly helpful. Like he really loves church church leaders. He’s not in this because he’s trying to make money or whatever. He actually does love you. He he is comes from a practitioner background. So like this isn’t theory, it’s based in like actual, stuff like going on in a real church.
Rich Birch — But then he has that third rail of he’s got his pulse on what’s happening in this area and continues to evolve his thinking. And so you’re getting not just kind of, Hey, this is Eastside’s approach. You’re, you’re getting to learn from kind of the best practice churches across the country. So I would strongly recommend that you pick that up and connect with Greg. Any kind of last thoughts? And then let us know where we can follow along and kind of track with you.
Greg Curtis — Yeah, I think my last thought, this is a big tactic, all right…
Rich Birch — Okay. Great. Love it.
Greg Curtis — …ah in light of everything we’ve been talking about. My last thing is in light of the need to increase the speed of connection at our churches because of the change in physical gathering and how often and everything post-COVID is we got to connect them faster. And um when I realized and finally made the connection to why we were seeing less attendance at our four week assimilation program, then we did pre-COVID, and ah why we had less volunteers, even our church members were leaving their volunteer roles because they didn’t want to be there every week. I never realized, hey, if our church members don’t plan on being at church every week post-COVID, how can we expect first-time guests to come to our four-week assimilation program?
Greg Curtis — And so my big tactic here is, I know a lot of lot of your listeners followed me and other churches probably in their orbit to having these, you know, four-week assimilation programs.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Greg Curtis — But we’ve reduced ours to one week.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Huge change.
Greg Curtis — One week, ask the ask is to become a volunteer.
Rich Birch — Nice. How long is that? It’s one, it’s like a 60 minute, 90 minute kind of experience?
Greg Curtis — It’s an hour and 15 minutes schedule. And if you want to know the details of that and this gets question how to connect, you could connect with me at my website assimilias.com.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep. Yep. Perfect.
Greg Curtis — Or my email’s [email protected]. And um but when you go to assimilayas.com, I have, it’s one of my my last two, I think, posts, is increasing the need for speed part one and two, break down how to change your, the why, the what and the how of changing your assimilation program down to one week and how to do it, what the components are. It’s just all there in the blog and they can get all of that right there.
Rich Birch — Yep. Love it. Well, thanks so much, Greg. Really appreciate you. Thank you for, ah you know, all the work that you do to help churches and looking forward to what you’re going to do in 2025, helping even more. So thanks so much, buddy. Have a great day.
Greg Curtis — Awesome. Thanks, Rich.
