Taking Over After a Great Leader: Lessons in Leading Through Transition with Scott Worthington

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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Scott Worthington, Lead Pastor of Hope Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. After serving on staff for over 15 years, Scott stepped into the lead pastor role in 2022 following founding pastor Vance Pitman. In this conversation, Scott shares candid insights from that transition—what he learned, what surprised him, and how he’s helping the church move forward in a new season.

Are you navigating a leadership transition—or preparing for one? Wondering how to honor the past while leading into the future? Scott offers practical wisdom on succession, culture, and leading through change with humility and clarity.

• When transition happens faster than expected. // Scott’s transition didn’t follow a long, multi-year succession plan. While there had been informal conversations about the future, the actual handoff happened in a matter of months when Vance stepped into a new national role. Moving from a worship/creative role into the senior pastor seat required rapid adjustment. One of Scott’s biggest realizations was that strong personal relationships don’t eliminate the complexity of leadership transition. Even with deep trust, there were moments of tension, especially when his leadership instincts differed from the mentor who had shaped him. Learning to lead without feeling like he was disappointing his former pastor became a key internal challenge.
• Hold tightly to mission, loosely to strategy. // As Scott stepped into leadership, he quickly identified what could not change: the church’s mission, vision, and core discipleship philosophy. For years, Hope Church had emphasized abiding in Christ as the foundation of ministry, rooted in John 15. That DNA remained non-negotiable. However, strategy was a different story. Scott embraced the idea that while the mission is fixed, methods must evolve.
• Ask the hard question: are we making disciples? // Early in his leadership, Scott gathered his team and asked a deceptively simple but weighty question: Are we actually making disciples? While there were encouraging stories of life change, the broader picture required honest evaluation. The disruptions of COVID had reshaped engagement, and the church needed to recalibrate. This question became the catalyst for new strategic direction, pushing the team to rethink how they measured spiritual growth and engagement.
• Introducing “spiritual cartography.” // One of the key strategic shifts Scott led was helping people identify where they are on their spiritual journey – a concept he calls “spiritual cartography.” The church began consistently communicating that everyone is somewhere spiritually and every Jesus follower has a next step. This language became embedded in sermons, staff culture, signage, and communication. To support this, they developed a simple “Discovery Tool” that helps people assess their current spiritual stage and identify next steps.
• Listening before leading. // In the early days of transition, Scott prioritized listening over directing. Rather than immediately implementing changes, he met with every department on staff, asking questions about culture, strengths, and areas for growth. Importantly, he resisted the urge to defend or explain, focusing instead on gathering insight. These conversations provided valuable data that shaped future decisions. His posture of humility helped build trust across the team during a potentially fragile season.
• Growing into the role. // One of Scott’s personal challenges was preaching. Having only preached 37 times before becoming lead pastor, he knew this was an area for growth. He joined a preaching cohort, studied extensively, and committed to getting reps. Over time, he began finding his own voice and learning not to imitate his predecessor but to lead authentically while still reflecting the influence of years under his leadership.
• A final reminder for leaders. // Scott closes with a powerful encouragement: ministry flows from intimacy with Jesus, not activity for Him. Leaders can easily drift into busyness and neglect their relationship with Christ. But as he reminds us, apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. True fruitfulness comes from abiding in Him.

To learn more about Hope Church, visit hopechurchlv.com or follow @hopechurchlv on social media. Plus, don’t miss Hope’s spiritual cartography Discovery Tool.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those issues that literally thousands of churches across the country are at some phase of working on. And so I know that this is going to be a practical conversation for you. Excited to have Scott Worthington with us today. He is the lead pastor at Hope Church, a church in Las Vegas. It’s a multisite church with three locations, if I can count correctly, in Nevada. They were founded in 2001 by Vance Pitman, and then he passed the baton to Scott, who stepped into the senior pastor role in 2022. Super excited to have Scott on the show today. Welcome. So glad you’re here.

Scott Worthington — Thank you so much, Rich. It is a privilege. Grateful to be here with you today.

Rich Birch — I’m honored that you’re you’re here and taking some time out. I know you’ve lots going on. Tell us a little bit of the Hope Church story, kind of cast a bit of the picture. If we were to arrive this weekend, what would we experience, that sort of thing?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, Hope Church is an incredible church here in Las Vegas, as you said, three locations, three congregations what we call them. And yeah, I began to attend Hope Church right out of college in 2006, 2007, and been here for, I guess, 20 years now.

Scott Worthington — And Vance Pitman, you mentioned his name. He was my pastor. He is the founding pastor here. He planted this church in 2001. Three dudes from the South moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, and 18 people started in his living room. It’s an incredible story of just church planting, and I don’t know how much we’ll get into that, but obviously that’s not my story to tell. That’s his, but it really is a miracle of God of what he’s done here.

Scott Worthington — And then, yeah, Vance was my pastor for 16 years. I started as an intern in the student ministry and kind of just as God opened doors, walked through those doors, and eventually, I was the most surprised guy in the room when when Pastor Vance tapped tapped me on the shoulder in 2022, and he was being called to go lead a church planting organization here in North America. And yeah, he said, I think you’re supposed to be the senior pastor.

Scott Worthington — And so we walked through our whole process, and it has been such a privilege now going on four years of leading the church that I’ve loved for 20. So it’s been a it’s been a wild, amazing, ah grace-filled ride, man.

Rich Birch — Love it. I am looking forward diving into that today and helping people understand kind of what you learned through that process a little bit. I wonder if we could start, what’s your like, you know, you’re at a conference or you’re talking to somebody and they’re like, explain to me how the transition went. What’s the kind of the two minute version? I know it’s like, there’s a lot there, but how, how, how did that from that initial conversation through till, okay, you know, you’re now the lead pastor. What’s that look like?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, the transition in the beginning, I would say it was it was really great. And and and the things that I’ll share publicly here is they’ve all been dealt with and things have been reconciled.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Scott Worthington — I’m so i’m so grateful. Pastor Vance is actually coming—our 25th anniversary is this September, and he is coming to preach our 25th anniversary. I’m so, so looking forward to that.

Scott Worthington — But you know In the beginning, there’s there’s multiple ways to do transitions. Of course, there’s so many. Some people, especially when you got a kind of larger than life guy like Pastor Vance, they they’ll bring in another kind of larger than life big name somewhere. And we just felt like, and I say we, that was our whole lead pastoral staff, our stewardship team, which is our board. We just felt like um that that wasn’t the that wasn’t the move for us, that God wasn’t leading.

Scott Worthington — I wasn’t so much a part of those conversations because my name was the leading name. And Vance just said, I think God has raised up the next leader right from within. And so that’s already a little different in that sometimes it’s like a five-year run or a six-year run and it’s like there’s a whole plan. This was this was a matter of months. I’m going from being one of the worship pastors here to being the lead pastor. And it was it it was very healthy in the beginning. And even even throughout the hard, it was good. And God’s grace has been all over it. But man, we just didn’t know what we didn’t know.

Scott Worthington — One of the things we took for granted, I think, is that because of the relationship between Vance and I—I mean, he was my pastor for 16 years. We had a podcast together. I mean, we traveled together. I was the student pastor to his kids. I mean, it’s one of my really, really good friends, my mentor, my my pastor.

Scott Worthington — And some of the advice that many people have written books on and done podcasts on and what what you should do in transition, frankly, we just thought, I don’t know if we need to do that. I mean, it’s Scott and Vance. It’s it’s it’s all good. And and there was just things that we didn’t know. I didn’t know how to handle. I don’t know if he knew how to handle. And again, I want to be careful. I don’t want to put words in his mouth. We’ve talked a lot about all this. I can speak for me.

Scott Worthington — When Vance had an opinion that may have differed from mine in the way I should be doing something, I didn’t realize how hard that was gonna be for me to feel like I was disappointing my pastor. You know what mean?

Rich Birch — Interesting.

Scott Worthington — And really, really good, deep conversations have been had since then. But yeah, of course, you know we all know theologically, Joshua isn’t called to be Moses. You know, Joshua had to do things differently. And and it was harder for me to do that than I realized, Rich.

Scott Worthington — It was it was harder for me to go right when I’ve been trained so long to go left by Pastor Vance, but I really felt God leading us right in some ways. And that was actually more difficult for me than I than I anticipated.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to double click click on that part, because I think that that the core of all of these transitions, right, is this tension of like, hey, there’s some stuff that’s essential to preserve. And then by definition, like I think that’s a really apropos, you know, Moses to Joshua, I think is a really good, vivid example. There’s also things that need to evolve and change. How what helped you distinguish between those two as you think about, hmm, here’s some stuff we should really keep. And then here’s some stuff we should maybe start thinking differently about.

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I would say to start with the what I needed to keep, I mean, I’ve been discipled here. I didn’t give my life to Christ at this church, but I joke and say, I wish God would have saved me at this church. So would have literally been, you know, the entire story. But I got saved here in another church in town and and quickly kind of made the transition through some circumstances here to Hope.

Scott Worthington — But everything I know about ministry, I learned from, from, this church and from pastor Vance. And, uh, I mean, my wife and I were married to this church. We began having kids in this church. I’ve I’ve, joked that my entire adult life has been lived in the context of discipleship at Hope Church. And so all of the things, I mean, our mission, our vision, our values, everything has shaped me as a husband, a father, a Jesus follower, a pastor.

Scott Worthington — You know, I’m so grateful that God’s given Vance, such a platform around the world. I mean, he he literally travels all over the country and all over the world preaching about this idea that of John 15, right? Apart from him, we can do nothing. That our our primary call is to intimacy with Jesus, not ministry for Jesus. And I mean, these are things that I just rattle off because they’re so in me. And and that was what was so embedded in the culture of Hope Church from the very beginning when it was 18 people in his living room, now to thousands. And I knew there’s no way I could do anything other than that.

Scott Worthington — And so, you know, our mission, our vision is hasn’t changed. We we exist to connect people to live life with Jesus follower. And we believe a Jesus follower abides in Christ, connects in community and shares in the mission. I mean, these are things that I’ve heard for years 20 years and I’m still preaching to this day because they’ve changed me.

Rich Birch — Right. Yep.

Scott Worthington — Those were things that were, I mean, they, those were not changing. But I think it’s that old Andy Stanley line, you know, you, you marry the, the, the mission and you date the strategy. And so there were some ways that we were—and I might’ve butchered that. I have no idea. Sorry, Andy, if you listen…

Rich Birch — It’s fine. Exactly.

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I knew there were some things strategically that maybe we could start to play with that would help people deeper abide in Christ, connect in community and share in the mission.

Scott Worthington — So those were the things that we started as a team. And that’s what I’m I’m also grateful for, the tracks that Vance laid down of of doing things together with with a plurality of elders. And so this isn’t me on a mountain, you know, coming up with the ideas and and and saying, this is this is what the Lord says.

Scott Worthington — There’s an incredible team of pastors around me, especially as I’m I’m younger in the pastorate here, helping me make those decisions and helping me understand what what we should be. And of course, I’m I’m driving with vision, but man, they are such gifts to me. And and that was all stuff that I I picked up the baton from Vance. He led that way. And so I’ve tried to to continue that and and really tap into the guys around me.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’d love to double click on that around some strategic decisions that you’ve sensed with your team. Hey, there we need to maybe to go in a new direction. What led you to that? What was kind of the data? What were you seeing? What what was the the thing that kind of precursed even making those decisions? And then if there’s an example of one or two, that’d be interesting as well.

Scott Worthington — Yeah. So of of course, every person listening this podcast, they know, man, COVID was just such a shakeup for everybody.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Scott Worthington — And we were interesting because not only do we have COVID here and, you know, I know depending on where you’re listening, you had different restrictions and all that, but we, we, we had a lot ah here in in Vegas. We we had really taken a lot of our cues at that time from California. And so if you know what California did, we were, we were kind of right behind them.

Scott Worthington — And yeah, we, so we, going into kind of reopening, if you will, we also just built a new building. And so we had a new building, reopening, the shakeup that COVID brought all of us. Then it sounds like a long time, but we know one or two years of ministry goes by in a flash. And so within one or two years of kind of reopening and reestablishing who our church really is, not just, you know, watching on YouTube, but also in the room and really the the core of the community, that’s when the transition happened. So it all happened so fast. So we really had to take a step back and go, okay, who, who is our church? Are we making disciples, right?

Scott Worthington — That’s just our our mission to connect people to live a life of Jesus follower is just a contextualized version of the Great Commission, right? To make disciples. So are we doing that? And that’s a that’s a hard question to ask because you you got to be prepared to really deal with the results, right?

Scott Worthington — Like when you ask your leadership team, and that’s what I did that very first lead team retreat we took two months after I began leading Hope. um I said, guys, I’m gonna ask a question that sounds silly, but it needs to be asked. Are we making disciples? Are we making, ah helping people abide in Christ, connect to community and share in the mission? And of course we have stories of like, yes, this person that just recently got saved, you know, out of the harvest, into the harvest kind of thing.

Scott Worthington — But when you really started to drill down kind of on this new, I hate to say new church, but I mean, out of COVID, we all know…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Scott Worthington — …man, it was, they were like, you’re making new people, it’s growing. And then you’re going, wait, where’d all those other people go? That they got used to Sundays by the pool…

Rich Birch — Right.

Scott Worthington — …you know, like, and we’re we’re just asking good, hard questions that I think leads you to start making strategic choices that, that pushed the mission forward. And so, yeah, we’re we’re asking those hard questions and then we’re saying, okay, does the the does the strategy we used to have, does that accomplish the mission now in this season and this time?

Scott Worthington — And of course, we we saw some fruit there, incredible fruit, but new leader, new season, in some ways, a lot of a new church. Let’s move forward with maybe some different strategic initiatives.

Scott Worthington — And that’s when we started to to kind of ask the question, which will lead to maybe some practical stuff, where are people spiritually? That’s kind of where we’ve been leading over the last few years. Asking a question, you know, the the super nerdy form of this is is spiritual cartography. It’s really nerdy. But like really helping people understand everyone is somewhere spiritually. We want to so help you see where you are spiritually and then help you take a next step. And really just like putting it on the bottom shelf. How do we help people grow in their faith and take next steps? And that’s basically kind of the strategy we’ve been operating off of for the last couple of years. And it’s it’s been incredible.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I love that. I wonder if you could, you know, give us a little bit of detail around that spiritual cartography. Love that. That’s a great turn of phrase. But how how are we how are you helping people see more clearly where they are and then provide those steps that maybe looks a little different? It’s been a shift than, say, 10 years ago kind of thing as a church.

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I’d say, you know, everyone, again, leaders listening know this, but it starts with language. So we just started very strategically saying a couple of things. Number one, saying, hey, we believe everyone is on the spiritual journey somewhere or everyone is a certain place on the spiritual journey.

Scott Worthington — And we believe every Jesus follower has a next step. I like that language because it connects our mission to the strategy, right? If we exist to connect people to live the life with Jesus follower, we say, hey, every Jesus follower has a next step. If it’s about following Jesus, I joke with our church, not to insult your intelligence, but following Jesus implies movement. It implies you are taking steps. You cannot be following if you’re standing still.

Scott Worthington — And you know this, but I mean there there are people in churches that have checked all the boxes: I give, I serve, I got baptized. And then they think, I’ve checked all the main assimilation boxes. I guess I must be done growing. And we know that is not the case. There’s always more of Christ. There’s always more of of his movement in our lives.

Scott Worthington — And so that was language that we just, I mean, I end every email with that. We we talk about that in staff meeting. I mean, we are constantly using where are people on the spiritual journey and how do you take your next step? Or their staff, I’m I’m encouraging what’s, what’s your next step?

Scott Worthington — With me, I’m always saying, Hey, I believe God’s leading me in my next step to this. And so language, I think starts it. And then of course you’ve got to give people handlebars. You’ve got to, and of course, including language, by the way, is is signage. I mean, there’s signs all over our campus now that, Hey, we want to help you take your next step.

Scott Worthington — And then we developed what we call our Discovery tool, which I think has been really helpful tool that we’ve given people. It’s it’s very simple. It is, I think it’s 20 questions that just gauge to help people understand where they are on their spiritual journey.

Scott Worthington — And I know some people might be thinking, well, that sounds like you’re labeling folks. And that is the number one pushback that we get on this. And I get it. I get it. People think if you tell people that where they are on the spiritual journey, they’re gonna feel like they’re labeled and they they can’t, you know whatever it may be. And I think Dallas Willard said, I’ll probably butcher this quote too, but he said, the only thing worse than helping people see where they are spiritually is not helping people where they are spiritually.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Scott Worthington — Like it’s one of those, like, yes, there are dangers, if you will. Because you know, on the wrong hand, somebody could weaponize it and be like, well, you’re this way spiritually and I’m this way spiritually. But at the end of the day, as a church, we want to help people take next steps in their faith.

Rich Birch — Yep. That’s good.

Scott Worthington — And so that tool has been really helpful. So there’s like wayfinding signs all over our campus where they can scan a QR code and and take that tool. And we do that in our services. And we’re trying to help people just take a next step.

Rich Birch — That’s great. I love that. That’s so good. Maybe we’ll link to that. I think I’ve seen that actually on your site or I saw that somewhere when I was poking around to even give people a sense of that. Don’t take the test though, friends. Just look at it because we don’t want to stuff your system with a bunch of you know bad data. But yeah, that’s that’s fantastic.

Rich Birch — Pivoting a little bit to your team. So one of the interesting dynamics when any you know there’s a kind of lead pastor transition is obviously there was a team there when when you joined and they’re amazing people that God’s been using them, done great things. But a part of your early job is to assess kind of where things at and staff health and try to gain actual kind of insight from them and to think about the future.

Rich Birch — When you think about those early days, what were you doing to to kind of establish yourself and and assess where things were at with your team?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I, again, because of the nature of our transition, I was not a new guy, right? That was, ah that I think is a lot of of transition leaders. They’re going, all right, need to establish myself and people need to get to know me. I’ve been here, ah there’s one other guy that’s been on staff longer than I have at this point. He’s one of my best friends. He’s still on our staff. He’s incredible. He’s been here 20 years. I’ve been here 19.

Scott Worthington — And ah so I’m a known… it wasn’t like, hi, my name’s Scott. Let me let me get to know you. But now that I am the leader, what I wanted to do is I wanted to get to know the culture. I wanted to get to know what, What is really happening on our staff level, especially through a transition? You know, people people get all kinds of feels. And some people are like, uh-oh, what’s going to happen? Or some people may be excited or what it may be.

Scott Worthington — So actually sat down, I recommend, depending on your size of or scope, whoever’s listening, this could be really helpful or maybe impossible to do. But you know, we had at that time probably a staff of about 80. And I literally brought every staff team in. You know, so you got small groups and worship and you know whatever it may be, break up with your departments. And whether it was the lead pastor of that ministry or the intern, I invited them all in.

Scott Worthington — And I had them, I asked them five questions and I said, the point of this little 20 minute meetup is for me to talk less and you to talk more. I’m just going to take notes. And I asked, they were all culture questions. Where do you feel you know where do you feel most motivated for the mission right now at Hope Church? Stuff like that. Very much like, where do you feel like we have a strong culture and where do you feel like we need to grow as a culture? And I tried to be true to my word. I gave the questions and then I shut up and let them talk.

Scott Worthington — And man, to hear, you know, the intern right next to the lead pastor of that ministry, just share honestly. And I didn’t give feedback. I didn’t defend. And there were things that you wanted to, right? You wanted to go, well, wait a minute, let me tell you why that is. And I just knew I’m getting data right now that will help me make decisions to help shape the culture that we want here at Hope.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Scott Worthington — And not to say that the culture was bad. Of course, I’m not saying that.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Scott Worthington — But again, new leader, I need to see kind of what we’re dealing with it as you go forward and where people’s hearts and minds are as we as we walk through a major transition with our founding pastor. And so that was super, super clarifying and helpful for me as the leader. Then I can make decisions with my team to help um you know drive that culture to a better place.

Rich Birch — That’s cool. The church has continued to grow and impact people, which is incredible. And that’s, you know, I think both to you, you know, to both of you guys’ credit…

Scott Worthington — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …to that you, you handled this transition in a way that it wasn’t like, Hey, things collapsed. So, you know, you just honor you for that. That’s, that’s incredible.

Rich Birch — When you think about those early, you know, maybe year or two, what were some early signs that you felt as a leader, okay people are with me. Like this is, because there’s the like, there’s the someone’s going to take over, this is being foist upon you, but then eventually people decide are they going to follow you or not.

Scott Worthington — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What were some of those signs, where you’re, oh no, I think I think that’s going to work; people are going to follow me.

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I think, man, it was just, it’s, it’s all God’s grace because, yeah, I know looking back now I was, I made some mistakes. You know, there’s that balance and anybody who’s, who’s led a transition knows this. Like there’s the balance of wanting to, you know, wanting to continue to do what, what God has been doing here at Hope. But then, you know, okay, I think I have this idea. And, you know, we, we did a couple ideas that were like, those are great. And then a couple ideas that were like, that was horrible. Let’s never do that again.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Scott Worthington — And even even through those, you know, some hard conversations with some longtime members that that had some questions. By the way, I think that’s another great tip. Like invite those in. And when somebody’s been at our church for 8, 10, 12, 20 years, and they request a meeting, it’d be really easy for me to be like you know, Come on, old timer. No, man, these are gifted saints who have given so much to this church. Like I would relish a meeting and and a lunch with them, even if it’s hard to hear.

Scott Worthington — There were some, there were some like, hey, I got i got some questions on what we’re doing. And ah yeah, I would say, man when when even through some of that, God was continuing to save people here. Our baptism numbers are are higher than they’ve ever been. And I know, you know, I’m pretty hard on myself. So I know the mistakes that I’ve made. I know that, I mean, gosh, anybody who’s listened to this, who knows who Vance is, I don’t say this because I’m on a public podcast. I’ve said this behind closed doors. He’s one of, if not my favorite preacher of this generation. I mean, the dude can preach the paint off the walls. And up until this, this a funny little nugget up until, you know, I wasn’t the preacher here. I wasn’t even the secondary preacher. I was, I preached six or seven times a year. I was the one of the worship guys. I led the creative ministry. And when I began to lead Hope Church, I counted them because they’re all on one file on my computer. I had preached 37 times to adults in my whole life.

Scott Worthington — Which, even if you hear that, like, that’s kind of crazy that Vance would hand off the baton to somebody who preached 37 times. So I knew, listen, I need to grow in my preaching. I’ve preached, you know, less than a few dozen times and I’m taking over for one of the greatest preachers ever. And a guy that I’ve sat under is preaching for 16 years and just grown so much. So all of that, and still God’s growing our church. Still people are getting baptized. It shows a couple of things, Rich. It’s not, it has nothing to do with me. It’s all his grace. But also they they do they do trust me.

Scott Worthington — There were there were there were elements and and and initiatives we did and things we we we tried and and people showed up and and people were encouraging. And it was like, man, there there are glimpses of God’s grace that they’re with us. Not just me, my my leadership team. And and ah those were pretty evident really early on. And and I praise God for that, man, because those were those were wind in our sails.

Rich Birch — I’d love to hear more about what you were doing to grow your preaching. That’s incredible. i think there are oftentimes in a transition like this, the the person that people are looking for is the like, who’s the person that’s been up 20 times a year or whatever.

Scott Worthington — Yeah.

Rich Birch — So what have you done to grow that side? What’s what’s that development track look like for you?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, right in the beginning, I jumped into a I jumped into a preaching cohort that was a kind of a national thing that I that I got a part of. And I got to be a travel a few places with a group of guys for eight months. And and we just we just learned how to be better preachers from some of the best in the world. It was awesome.

Scott Worthington — And I’m just a natural learner. And so I’ve just devoured the preaching books. And and then I knew everyone, you can do all that. At the end of the day, it’s reps, it’s reps.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.

Scott Worthington — So as I look back at like those first couple months of sermons, I could tell I was I was trying to be, not trying to be Vance. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. But you know trying, it was just a little outside of me. And I praise God for the grace that our church has given me. But I feel like now I’m I’m finally a few years in finding my voice and finding what I’m good at and what I’m not.

Scott Worthington — And and and so, yeah, it’s just it’s reps. But then also just learning from the pros, man. dDoing preaching cohorts and, you know, doing, you know, online modules and and and then listening to a ton of preaching and eating the meat, spitting out the bones. And I think all of that maybe just kind of contributed. And and I praise God, I’m still 39 years old and I have more than 37 reps under my belt now, but it’s still not a lot in comparison to many guys listening to this. And I can’t, I joke, I was like, I can’t wait to see the preacher I am at 50 years old. Another 11 years, man, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well, and that is, you know, there’s an interesting tension there I’ve said. So I’m not, um I used to think I was a good communicator and then I worked for some really great communicators. And so then I was like, oh man, I’m not very good at this. But, and so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this part of what we do. And there is an interesting thing where, um like I’ve said to people, when we would have someone come and guest speak, you know I would say, listen, you you can’t ignore the community. The fact that the community has been developed under Vance teaching…

Scott Worthington — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and they’re they’re used to that. And so it’s not that you you don’t need to imitate him…

Scott Worthington — Yeah.

Rich Birch —…but you would you would be dumb to not at least consider that as you’re preaching, right? You need to think through, you can’t be like, oh, maybe something’s totally different because it’s just hard to make that transition. And so you’ve got to at least consider that in the in the transition.

Scott Worthington — And the thing with that is, again, because of the nature of our transition, some things just naturally come out, not because I’m trying to be Vance, but it’s because I’ve sat under his teaching for 16 years, right?

Rich Birch — Yes, 100%. 100%.

Scott Worthington — Like it naturally comes out of me

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Scott Worthington — And it’s not like, oh, he’s copying Vance. It’s like, no, I’m i’m actually being the disciple that God raises up…

Rich Birch — I’ve been influenced. Yeah. yes

Scott Worthington — …in churches that you are in for a long time.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, 100%, which is great, which is fantastic. So think I want you to put on kind of the theoretical hat. I want you to think about two different groups of people. First, the the successor is kind of the heir apparent sitting in a church today. They’re waiting in the wings. They haven’t been identified maybe even publicly, there’s been some conversation. What would you say to that person to be working on? I know that wasn’t your situation. It was kind of jumped quickly, but I would love to get your thoughts. What would you say to a leader that reaches out to you and asks, you know, hey, what what advice would you give them?

Scott Worthington — I would say, yeah, and and just to to rewind real quick, it’s funny, there actually was, when Vance and I were doing our podcast, you know before and after a podcast, there would be these kind of these kind of statements of like, man, one day in eight or nine years when I retire, I think you’re the guy. But again, that was eight or nine years. So there was definitely kind of talks and it seemed like Vance kind of knew at some point, but then when he got the call to go lead the church funding organization, it was it just kind of got you know shifted into into…

Rich Birch — Accelerated. Yeah.

Scott Worthington — …yeah, accelerated, yeah. So, but I would say, man, in those in those moments, I just I just tried to remain humble and like, God, if if this is if this is what you want, awesome. If if it’s not, I also love what I’m doing.

Scott Worthington — One of the things that I think, again, kind of feels weird saying this, but I’ve been you know told this and I do I do affirm it. I think one of the reasons why God opened the door and and put it on Vance’s heart and the leader’s heart at the time to to ask me to step into this is this was not something I was like shooting for.

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good

Scott Worthington — And and you know I got one of my best friends got back to plant a church in New York, New York City next year. We’re sending them out in in a couple months. Like he knew from a very early age that God put on his heart to plant a church. I’m not saying that’s bad. I think there are guys listening, people listening to this right now that are like, I am called to plant a church. That’s awesome. Or or called to lead a church. That was just not my story.

Scott Worthington — I, whether I was a student pastor or the worship pastor, like I was grateful to be a part of whatever God had me doing. And it’s it’s that idea that Jesus says, right? Being faithful with little and then maybe being entrusted with much. And that doesn’t mean you’re always gonna get the top seat on the organization. But I was just like, okay, Lord, if that if that’s what you have for me one day when Vance retires, awesome. Prepare me now for that.

Scott Worthington — And we know, again, back to Joshua and Moses, we know, man, Joshua shows up way back in the story. And he’s just the he’s just the dude that sent out to be a spy. Nobody at the time knew that he was going to be the leader, but God knew. And Joshua was faithful with what he had in front of him.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Scott Worthington — Because I also have heard of transitions getting weird where like it doesn’t happen. Right? The heir apparent is like behind the scenes. It’s it’s it’s stamped and then five years come and go. And it’s like, hey, I don’t think this is it. And so if you put all of your eggs and like, I am the guy, rather than just holding it open to be like, Lord, this is what right now seems to be the plan. But you know many are the plans of a man, but the Lord directs the steps. So um yeah, I would say remain humble, remain dependent and ah be faithful in what’s put in your hands now. And if he opens that door, joyfully walk through it because his grace will sustain you.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. And the the other person I’m thinking about is somebody is in like the first 90 days, this transition has just taken place. When you look back to the early days of your transition, either what did you wish somebody said to you? Or maybe here was something that went well. Or, you know, maybe here’s here’s a pothole that I want you to avoid, and particularly in that first window, the first couple months, as you’ve started to walk into that.

Scott Worthington — Yeah, it’s kind of the, I feel like pretty, pretty age old advice, but, you know, be careful with how fast you try to change things. I don’t think there’s a couple of things that I did that I definitely would go back and go, hey, that was, that was not, not wise. But I got some, some great advice. I had some great guys around me. And I think you have to listen more than you talk in those early days. You’ve you’ve got to learn, and again, it depends on if you’re the new guy or you’re like me, you came up in the organization, but you’re still now the new at the new seat. There’s still just a lot of learning.

Scott Worthington — I mean, I remember the first time I sat down, it was it was before the official transition, of course, but it was it was right right around the summer of ’22 when I first sat down with like the the financial books for the first time. And I’d never seen any of that. And I just knew in that moment, I have so much to learn. That was an area that I just had never even even been in a back room in. And so um it was just, again, that humble posture. Like I have so much to learn here and I need to ask a lot more questions than I need to give directives. I need to ah I need to listen more than I need to talk.

Scott Worthington — Of course, there’s moments when I’m leading my staff and all the things where I need to give vision and direction. And I’m not saying abdicate your responsibility as a leader, but um man, you don’t know what you don’t know, especially in those first 90 days. And I would even say six months to a year…

Rich Birch — Right.

Scott Worthington — …where you’re just learning things. And then I just took a lot of people out to coffee, lot of people to lunch in our church. And I just, I started to ask questions about how they feel about the culture of Hope and how we can grow and how we can get better.

Scott Worthington — And yeah, I gave my staff a lot of access. Some people will be like, oh, that’s dangerous. I literally put a glass door in my office and I said, hey, at any point you guys want to swing by if you got questions about what you see. I’ve called them just softball tosses. Like what are those softball tosses that you can do, you know, eating lunch in the break room, if you if you have a break room, or taking your staff to lunch. Because people are looking for you to become now the bougie senior leader that doesn’t have time for the staff.

Scott Worthington — At least that’s been in my spirit. Like people are looking like, oh, now, you know, now Scott’s the the top guy. And I just was like, I’ve never been that guy. I’ve never been the the guy that isolates. And so I’m still going to eat my lunch in the break room. I’ll never forget. We had a staff member come in and it was like three weeks after the transition. She said, what are you doing in here? And she was genuinely shocked that I was eating lunch in the break room. And I laughed and I said, I’ve been eating lunch in this break room for 15 years. And and that was an easy win. Like that created a culture.

Scott Worthington — And now I eat lunch with our staff in the break room. And I know, you know, depending on the the scope this scope and scale of whoever’s listening, that could be different. But a large church like us, like they they didn’t expect that from me. And so um it was an easy win. So man, look for easy wins. Listen more than you talk and and just be humble that that you’re going to learn a lot in those those early days.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I think the the posture of humility goes a long way. And it’s interesting how those, it’s like a relatively small thing, but like something as simple as like, hey, you know, eat in the break room, I think can can speak volumes to people and earn you chips…

Scott Worthington — Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Birch — …for then, you know, other things that are coming. Scott, this has been a super helpful conversation. Any last words as we wrap up today’s conversation?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, I would just, I think I want to encourage the listeners with what the discipleship that I’ve learned here at to Hope for so long. Because I know, I know, I know, even this morning, ministry leaders can can get so busy that they they start to think, I can skip out on my time with the Lord. And again I just honor Pastor Vance for teaching me this for so many years. It really cannot be said enough that your primary call on your life, if you’re listening to this and you’re in ministry and you got a big role and a big title and a big church, and you’re even a small role, a small title, small church, you have responsibility over people. Jesus was not lying when he said, apart from me, you can do nothing. But if we abide in him, we bear much fruit.

Scott Worthington — Dude, it’s crazy as the enemy deceives us into thinking, well, we can skip that part so that I can go make much fruit. You can’t. It’s a dead branch cut off from the vine. You can’t bear any fruit. But connected to the vine, spending that time with Jesus, really cultivating a true, deep relationship with the Lord actually is what produces the fruit. And I don’t know maybe somebody needs to hear that this morning like I need to hear that.

Rich Birch — No, that’s fantastic. Scott, thank you so much for being here today, for taking some time to spend with us. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?

Scott Worthington — Yeah, hopechurchlv.com, hopechurchlv.com. That’s got all our stuff. And we’re on the socials with all the the same handle, hopechurchlv. And any way we can serve the the greater kingdom, man, we’re down for it.

Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much for being here today. I appreciate that.

Scott Worthington — Thank you, guys.