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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Ted Coniaris, lead pastor of Community Christian Church in the greater Chicagoland area. After an intentional and extended succession process with founding pastor Dave Ferguson, Ted has stepped into the lead role during a pivotal season for the church. In this conversation, he shares what it looks like to lead through transition, clarify vision, and build a disciple-making ecosystem for the future.
- A transition built on trust and clarity. // Ted describes a multi-year succession process that included months of private conversations, an 18-month apprenticeship, and a highly visible transition with full support from church leadership. One of the most unique elements was launching a new vision before the transition was complete. While unconventional, this approach created immediate alignment and buy-in across the church. Because the process was prayerful, transparent, and unified, the congregation experienced less anxiety than expected, resulting in what Ted describes as a surprising sense of peace and readiness for what’s next.
- Renovating, not rebuilding. // Ted uses the language of “renovation” to describe the church’s next chapter. Community Christian Church has a rich 37-year history of helping people find their way back to God, especially those far from faith. Rather than starting from scratch, Ted is focused on building on that foundation while addressing a critical gap: what happens after people come to faith? This has led to a renewed focus on creating a clear and intentional disciple-making ecosystem.
- A bold, layered vision for the future. // Ted outlines a four-part vision that builds sequentially: every heart on fire, every person a pastor, every child and student equipped, and every neighborhood a thriving church. This framework begins with spiritual passion—not just participation—emphasizing that people today are searching for something deeper than casual faith. From there, the vision moves toward activating every believer in ministry, taking seriously the priesthood of all believers. The end result is a multiplying movement of disciples impacting communities at scale.
- Rethinking discipleship through Growth Track. // To support this vision, the church is developing a clear pathway called Growth Track, built around three movements: Alpha, Disciple, and Pastor. The goal is not just information or assimilation, but transformation and activation. Ted emphasizes helping every person identify their calling, answering the question, “Who am I called to reach?” This reframes discipleship from passive participation to active mission.
- Ancient practices for modern renewal. // One of the more surprising shifts has been a return to ancient spiritual disciplines. Through rhythms like “Ignite Week”—a church-wide season of prayer, fasting, and reflection—Ted is seeing increased spiritual intensity across all age groups. These rhythms create deeper roots than one-time events, shaping both individual lives and the overall culture of the church.
- A multiplying model through microchurches. // In addition to strengthening internal discipleship, Community Christian is expanding outward through a rapidly growing microchurch movement. With hundreds of microchurches already launched globally, the model focuses on simple, scalable principles: low control, high support, and strong coaching relationships. Rather than centralizing growth in large gatherings, this approach empowers everyday people to lead and reach others in their own contexts—creating the potential for exponential impact.
- The leader’s soul is the strategy. // Ted closes with a powerful reminder: the most important strategy a leader has is their own spiritual health. Passion for God, integrity, and relational support are foundational. Ministry is difficult, but leaders who tend their own spiritual lives and refuse isolation will be better equipped to lead others effectively.
To learn more about Community Christian Church, visit communitychristian.org.
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited to have you listening in today. GI gotta be totally honest. I asked this person to come on today to have a bit of an update conversation from a conversation we had out just over a year ago. I’m really excited for this because it’s kind of fun to follow along with this story. And this is an area that really is, applies to all of our churches and I want all of us to lean in. And so pay attention, whether you’re cutting your grass or whatever you’re doing for the next 30 minutes, it’s going to be a great conversation.
Rich Birch — We’ve got Ted Coniaris with us. He is the lead pastor at a fantastic church, a multi-site church in the greater Chicagoland area called Community Christian. They have, if I’m counting correctly, seven physical locations, as well as micro churches that meet in homes throughout the week and online space, plus community freedom locations, which meet in correctional facilities across the region as well. Ted, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Ted Coniaris — Thanks, Rich. Really glad to be here. Great to see you again. We get to cross paths a few times a year, so it’s always great to connect. Appreciate the time.
Rich Birch — I appreciate you you taking time to come on and and connect. Friends that are listening in, just kind of bringing you up to speed. We’ll link to the previous episode if you want to go back and and check that. But the last time we talked, you were apprenticing as the lead pastor at Community Christian under Dave Ferguson. And I think that was a year ago. And you you know there’s all the steps. I think you were step three, step four, somewhere in there.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And there was this handoff on the horizon. And now we’re on the other side of that. And so that’s part of why I wanted to get you on. Here we are a year later. Let’s talk about those things. You’re still there. So that’s a good thing.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, as far as you know, this could be a fake backdrop. Who knows?
Rich Birch — Yeah, true this is the… Yeah, so you know what? You were…
Ted Coniaris — No, it is true.
Rich Birch — It takes a lot of time. Talk to us through, you know, what’s happened since then. Talk us about that transition. Kind of bring us up to speed.
Ted Coniaris — Absolutely. So as you said, we went through an 18 month apprenticeship, but before that we had about six, eight, probably eight months of conversations just Dave and I, before we went above ground with elders and everything else, maybe even a little longer than that. So it was quite a long process walking through our apprenticeship process as a church and really wanting to do that at the highest level, just like we do at every level of leadership as a church.
Ted Coniaris — So that was an amazing process. Dave is an incredible leader and even better man and somebody that it was a great privilege to spend more and more time with him. He and Sue—his wife—Melissa and I spending time with them, and then John and and Lisa, his brother and his wife. We spent a lot of time together, so it was great. And then since then, May, they’re still around. They’re still a part of our church. Dave is now the CEO of Exponential, spending full time doing that.
Ted Coniaris — And John is leading something called the Chicago Collective, which is a network of churches, networks of churches throughout Chicagoland, working to plant more churches, which we desperately need in Chicago area. So if you’re listening, you’re like, man, I’m thinking about planning a church in Chicago. Please reach out to me. I would love to help you do that. We desperately need more more churches here.
Ted Coniaris — So since then, it’s been great. Honestly, there’s been so much change, so many things going on, but it’s truly, truly been really, really good. I think I’m tired in the right ways.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — I’m probably also tired in some of the wrong ways too…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …but it’s been a great it’s been a great transition.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. You know, when we you were on last time, you were talking about really stewarding the mission of the future, while also chasing new vision, which is, is at that phase kind of easy to say, you’re like, okay, we’re looking forward to the future. Now you’re in the seat. And it’s like, you got to keep doing that. Now that you’re sitting there.,you know, what’s become clearer for you as you’ve thought about the next chapter and, and, you know, as you think about the future, what are, cause there may be some questions you’re wrestling with as you’re thinking, you know, up over to the horizon. Yeah. What are the things that are, are, are bubbling in your brain on that front?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. I mean, so much has become more clear. But one of the great gifts that I felt like the Lord gave us as a church in this transition on the very front end was a real clarity and unity around our new vision as a church. It’s not so typical to launch a new vision for the church before the transition has even occurred. And I wouldn’t recommend that in other situations, but it just, the way that it went with us, this just felt like what the Lord was leading us to do.
Ted Coniaris — So we actually actually launched the new vision for the church while Dave was still the lead pastor. And he stood right there beside me and in full support with our elders and everyone else. And so it was actually unique in that way. But that’s just really been confirmed. Honestly, that’s been one of the biggest things that I am grateful for through this process is just the Lord’s gift of clarity on the front end and just giving me ah real clear direction to run.
Ted Coniaris — And I would say too, that there’s a big difference between a transition that’s been prayed over for years.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — It just lands differently than a transition.That’s just like been negotiated in some back room somewhere. You know, it’s like this…
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — This has been prayed through and put above ground and has been a really healthy, visible process that I think resulted in the church just being wide open, saying, yeah, this feels right. This feels good. And we’re in. And so almost it’s like a a sense of exhale that I’ve been experiencing, which has surprised me…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — …in the church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — I thought there would be more anxiety in the transition.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — But there’s really been like a quiet permission-giving that’s happened.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Almost like, you know, just the family knew the transition was healthy so they could just sort of relax into it and say, okay, what’s next?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Ted Coniaris — And in hindsight, what felt a little crazy of launching the vision now feels like if we hadn’t have done that, we would have missed a real amazing opportunity because people were really bought in right from the get-go, which has been great.
Rich Birch — Well, and what, yeah, that’s great. And in hindsight, being able to look back at that moment and saying like, no, like, yeah, maybe not the kind of thing that you write in a book and say, that’s the way to do it. But it’s like, we did that. And there’s in hindsight, man, amazing to have kind of both of your endorsements on the future direction. And like, Hey, we’re excited to be going in this direction. There was a mutual support there that ended up accelerating pointing things to the future. That’s incredible. That’s great.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so now it’s really…Go ahead. Sorry.
Rich Birch — No, you go ahead. You go. Go ahead.
Ted Coniaris — Okay. Yeah. Now it’s in the season where it’s how do we take that vision, that sort of north star for the future and building on their 37-year history as a church that’s been so rich and good in and move in this new direction, but also be aligned with our past.
Ted Coniaris — You know, it’s not about tradition, but it is about, you know, God has been doing a unique and wonderful thing here that we want to continue in, but also kind of build on what’s next. So I felt like as a church, one of our great strengths as community, and this is really a reflection of Dave and John, is we’re a community where everyone is welcome. Like that that’s without a doubt. Anybody and everybody can walk through these doors and probably tens of thousands of people have over these last 37 years, and found their way back to God. It’s incredible.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, when it comes to that zero to one, those people finding the Lord from a really hard spot, man, God has just used this church in such miraculous and amazing ways for so long. And we want to keep that. Like we love that about this place and just think it’s an amazing amazing strength of this community. But now we want to answer sort of the next question, which is now what? So everyone’s welcome.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Now what?
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And so we want to build on that path towards what’s in the future. And the way we’re talking about it here is sort of renovating our disciple-making ecosystem, which is a big mouthful. But you know it’s renovating, and it’s a certainly a lot of you know jargon, but bear with me for a second.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — You know, we’re renovating because we’re not starting from scratch.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — We’ve got a great house, a great church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Things are great. It’s time for a renovation. And what we’re renovating is a very clear, focused outcome, which is disciple-making. And I think that’s an area where we have not been as strong over the years. It’s like that first part of the journey. And we have a lot of evangelists here and we’re passionate. We want to keep that. But we also want to answer that that: now what? That disciple-making ecosystem. And it’s an ecosystem because not any one thing, this program doesn’t make you a disciple-making church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — Or just a good teacher doesn’t make you a disciple-making church. It’s all of these things kind of together create an environment and a path for that to happen. And so we’re just renovating all of those things with the vision, teaching, creating new rhythms as a church, and also creating a, for the first time for us at least, a clear disciple making process, which we’re we’re calling it Growth Track.
Ted Coniaris — And a lot of churches use that term. But just trying to say, okay, our vision is to see every person step into their God-given calling to be a pastor. If every person is a pastor, it’s like, what if we actually took the priesthood of believers seriously? Right? And how would that change our disciple-making process if that was the end result?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Right? I think a lot of times we can slip into being really like our disciple-making becomes more about assimilation. Or more about collecting a certain level of information or knowledge or even practice.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But we’re trying to have a different output. We want to see people finding their way back to God, which has always been the core of our mission, and then released as pastors in the world and equipped to do that.
Ted Coniaris — And so what’s our process for taking someone from a seeker to a pastor. We really didn’t have that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And so we’re in the process right now of just building all of that out, aligning all of our teams and creating just a clear answer to that, that “now what” question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And, you know, that makes sense for a church of of this age. You know, people have changed, you know, what we used to call seekers or the people that were arriving, they’re different. It’s like the most obvious thing to say, but people are different today than they were 37 years ago when this ball got rolling.
Rich Birch — And and what what are some of those early changes that you’ve made to renovate? What are some of those things that that do look a little bit different or are are, you know, kind of pointing in a new direction? Where where what are you learning on that that front?
Ted Coniaris — Well, obviously the first one is the new vision, and I’ll just share that really, really quickly.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But it’s, and they all build on each other. That’s really the the key for us. And while this is unique to Community Christian Church, it’s not a vision that’s unique to Community Christian Church. Like, I think this is really like a biblical thing, but it starts with every heart on fire.
Ted Coniaris — And it talks about, when you ask the question about what’s different, I think one of the things that’s really different, people aren’t looking just for a place to blend in the background and be like, oh, this is cool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — You’re cool Jesus followers. I’m cool. We can be cool together. This is cool. That is, that is…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. I love it.
Ted Coniaris — That is not what the next generation is looking for.
Rich Birch — No.
Ted Coniaris — They are looking for fire.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — They are looking for passion. And rightfully so. Rightfully so. Thank God for that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so we want to lean into it. We don’t want to be a place where everybody’s buddies with Jesus. We want to create a place where people are consumed by him.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus talked about, you know, we’re not our hearts beating or burning within us when they talk with Jesus along the road. That’s that’s the kind of community we want to be, a consumed community. And that’s the starting place for everything else. Everything else. And that’s not just emotionalism. It’s a passion for. It’s it’s a a focus on.
Ted Coniaris — The second part, which builds on that, it’s not even worth going to the second part if you don’t do the first thing. The second part is every person a pastor, right? Because if you start with every person a pastor, but the heart’s not on fire, there’s not a passion and a consuming focus, you know, what kind of pastors are you raising, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s not the kind that the world needs. And so it’s every heart fire, then every person a pastor just really taking seriously the priesthood of all believers. I’m not the pastor, you know. You all are the pastors. I function as a pastor in this context, but you function as a pastor in whatever context God has placed you.
Ted Coniaris — And if we could do those two things, if we can have every heart and fire and every person released into their God-given calling as a pastor, then maybe we could accomplish the third thing, which is every child and student equipped.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Because that’s going to take all hands on deck. What our kids, what my kids, I have 16, 14, and 10-year-old, all boys. So please pray for us. But what what my boys are facing today, it’s like the challenges I faced have been weaponized and placed in the hands of every single kid. And yet our student and youth ministry, our kids and and student ministry, looks almost identical to what it did look like 37 years ago. Why is that? I mean, there’s different strategies, practice in those sort things.
Rich Birch — That doesn’t make sense. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — But if you look at like the form even of itself, we’re like, it kind of looks the same. It looks sort of like the youth group I went to as a kid.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And I think we need to be doing a lot more and investing more in the next generation in in relational deep ways. But it can’t happen without every heart and fire and every person being a pastor. And if we can do that, every heart of fire, every person pastor, every child and student equipped, then we can accomplish the Great Commission, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And that’s really the last part of the vision, which is every neighborhood a thriving church. Because the way you change the world is by having you know a community of Christ followers, place where Jesus is King, we’re on mission together within arm’s reach of every person on the planet.
Ted Coniaris — You know that’s, that’s the plan. And so that’s what we’re targeting and going after. So that’s different. And so for us to do those things, there’s things we’re trying to change and layer in behind that. Really renovating our teaching ministry. We’re kind of going old school. We’re going back through like long series, books of the Bible, just walking through scripture, teaching people the Bible, just like the disciples on that road to Emmaus. You know, that was when Jesus opened the scriptures to them. It’s lit this fire inside of them.
Ted Coniaris — I think that’s even more necessary. 37 years ago, basically a Christian culture-ish.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Today, not so much.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — So nobody’s walking through the doors with like this biblical knowledge. They’re walking through the doors with nothing.
Rich Birch — That’s so true, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so, you know, we need to do that. So we’re doing that, creating rhythms in our calendar years. A lot more I could say about that. Spiritual disciplines communally, not just as individuals, feels maybe like a little spin on liturgical calendars of old.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — We’re embracing some of that in a new way for us.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And then this this Growth Track is a big part of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And then there’s there’s more beyond that, but that’s just a few of the things.
Rich Birch — Dude, I love it. I love I love the how those four layer on. I love the focus. I think it totally just feels right on with where you know culture’s at. Could you unpack a little bit of what you’re doing with Growth Track? What does that look like, that particular tactic in the… You know I think the idea of every person a pastor is a very compelling, that’s like a lean-in, “what did you just say?” kind of thing.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then but what are you, you know, help us, help us understand, you know, a little bit of that, what you’re doing with Growth Track to kind of point towards that.
Ted Coniaris — You mean like the mechanics of it or like just the overall strategy?
Rich Birch — Yeah. How’s it work? What are you teaching there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What, yeah, what’s, what is it?
Ted Coniaris — Well, it’s all…
Rich Birch — How’s it work?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, we’re getting ready to to launch it all this fall.
Rich Birch — Great.
Ted Coniaris — And yeah, we’re really excited about it. But essentially, it’s it’s three steps. “One. Life. Go.” is kind of how we talk about the Growth Track. And the first step is tried and true. It’s Alpha.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — I think Alpha is probably the single greatest tool available…
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure.
Ted Coniaris — …to help you know my friends and neighbors and family find their way back to God. I I love Alpha. I’m running an Alpha right now at an office with a buddy and his partners, all the partners of his business.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — We’re doing Alpha together over lunch. It’s amazing.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ted Coniaris — So Alpha is step one.
Ted Coniaris — Step two, we call disciple because disciple is both a noun and a verb. It’s who you are and it’s what you do. And so it’s, you know, we’ve used Rooted in the past as a church and Rooted is fantastic. We love Rooted. It’s been helpful to for us. But we felt like there were ways in which we wanted to adjust that to our context a little bit more…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ted Coniaris — …and also have an opportunity for people to make a commitment to the church. We don’t do membership, but we do ask people to commit to belonging here. And honestly, I think that’s a big missing step in the overall discipleship of a lot of like churches like ours. Because if you don’t have a commitment, and there’s just kind of growth that happens in your life that only can happen in a committed relationship. And it’s not about you committing to me. It’s really about us committing to each other. And when we do that, it opens the door to a different layer and level of transformation in your own life.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Ted Coniaris — And committing to that unity on the front end is is really important. And so we want to do that. We also do several other things a part of that, but that’s kind of a general idea.
Ted Coniaris — And then the third step is pastor. That’s the goal. That’s where we’re going.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s also a noun and a verb, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Cool.
Ted Coniaris — It’s who you are and it’s what you do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And this is designed to do that. So we took some learnings actually from Brian Sanders, and he has something called the Calling Lab. He does the Tampa Underground down in Florida.
Ted Coniaris — He’s done some great work on that.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s essentially a similar process of triangulating your true sense of calling. We want everybody in our church to be able to say, I exist to help blank find their way back to God.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Like, who are you called to reach?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Because what’s a starting ground for someone to be a pastor? You know, like, is it education? Is it more this, more that? Well, I think the journey of learning and growing and honing your gifting, it has to start with the calling. And I think there are so many people who just, they don’t know how to finish that sentence.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Even if it is your kids or your neighbors or your coworkers, have you really done the work? Have you invested to say, no, these are the people, like names and faces that I’m called to reach. And then I’m released into that context as a pastor. So when I show up to work, I want to show up. I’m the pastor of BMO Harris Bank today because that’s where I work and I’m a teller there.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — you know I’m the pastor of You know, my neighborhood and in Downers Grove, in my part, my north, you know, little west quadrant there. That’s what I want to show up. That’s what I want our whole church showing up as. Thousands and thousands of pastors released into every arena of life. And so a lot of churches have Growth Track, or something like it. We’re really trying to say, okay, what’s what is the unique thing that that we’re feeling Lord’s calling us to produce here? And that’s it. And so we’ve designed these steps to work together to produce that that thing in us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very cool.
Ted Coniaris —Hope that’s helpful.
Rich Birch — I love that. Oh, it’s super helpful. I love I love what you’re doing there. And that’s thanks for taking the time to unpack that.
Rich Birch — Pivoting in a slightly different direction, we were together at Exponential at Dave’s event. And well, it’s not Dave’s event. I understand that. At the Exponential conference. And we were at a breakfast together. And you mentioned about some just kind of in passing some stuff that was going on at the church that was and part of it was some of this around spiritual vitality, you’re seeing that increase.
Rich Birch — I’m assuming that some of these, you know, pieces of these puzzles coming together. But then you also talked about the kind of growth of your microchurch, you know, planting movement that’s connected to Community. Could you unpack that a little bit more? Tell us a little bit about, you know, that that, how does that fit into the whole story that God’s writing here?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think the spiritual vitality, I’ll start there. The way we talk about it a lot is it just feels like everywhere you go, the spiritual temperature is just increasing. In kids, in students, in adults, our small groups, in our services, it’s just across the board. There’s just like an increased heat or passion around our faith.
Ted Coniaris — I think a part of that is is truthfully in a season of transition, there’s always an opportunity to be open to something new. And we’ve been trying to really place our focus on, well, what’s the new thing? Like, how what is the condition of your heart? Are you on fire, truly on fire? I think putting that question, that vision in front of us as a church has been refining – that in and of itself.
Ted Coniaris — But we’ve also just seen, I mean, there’s so much I could speak to on this, but one of the things I’m just really excited about is what’s happening with our students right now. We talk a lot about students being the leaders of tomorrow’s church, but I’ll tell you here, they’re the leader of today’s church.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, they are setting a tone with passion and a desire.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s very true.
Ted Coniaris — Like we do our services. I’m at the Yellow Box location, right? It’s our Naperville church here. And teaching here on Sunday. And there’ll be a group of students that will just come and sit on the ground in front of the stage…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Ted Coniaris — …have their Bibles open with their notebook, taking notes. And then during worship, it’s like they’re in the pit of a concert. You know, they’re at the stage, hands up.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, it’s true.
Ted Coniaris — And you’ve got a room full of thousands of adults watching this and they’re leading us. Nobody asked them to do it. Nobody told them to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — So I think some of it, I point to that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Others other parts of it is we’ve really kind of pushed our chips into the middle on some of the ancient stuff instead of new trendy stuff…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …specifically prayer and fasting.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Tell me more about that. I’d love to hear about that.
Ted Coniaris — So yeah, earlier I talked about, you know, we’re embracing the calendar rhythms as a church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — I really believe that, you know, rhythms are so much more powerful than events because, you know, an event is just a drop in the ocean. But if you can build some rhythms, you could actually build some roots.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — And, you know, our most valuable resources, our people, and our most valuable real estate is our calendar. And so we’ve said, you know, three times a year as sort of the calendar turns and that’s sort of the rhythm of our community. There’s sort of three seasons, there’s winter, there’s fall and there’s spring/summer. So to launch those seasons, we do what we now call an Ignite Week where we ask the whole church to commit to a full week of prayer and fasting.
Rich Birch — Wow. Very cool.
Ted Coniaris — And then we have intentional programming in that week to do like a full spiritual reset to say, okay, God, what are you saying to me right now? For the individual, we have like prayer and fasting guides to help guide people through that experience. For the groups, we do these discipleship conversations where we want everybody in each group to say, okay, what is God saying to me right now? And what am I doing to say yes to him?
Ted Coniaris — And then for our locations, we take a break from all of our regular series stuff and we do Hearts on Fire Sunday. And we just say, okay, God, what are you doing here? What are you doing today? What are you doing right now? And it feels very different than our regular Sundays.
Ted Coniaris — And then for the church as a whole, all of our locations together, we do what we call our Ignite Gathering on Saturday morning. It’s actually coming up this Saturday. And we just gather the whole church together. And what’s happened in these Ignite Gatherings is really exciting. It feels like a a catalyst for the rest of the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s like the church we’re going to be a year from now, we get to see in that room on Saturday morning.
Rich Birch — That’s very cool.
Ted Coniaris — And ah after a week of prayer and fasting, gathering the church together to worship, to break the fast together in communion, it’s it’s powerful.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, it is powerful. The environment of that space is so different There’s such a hunger for the Lord and honestly, a true actual physical hunger after all that fasting.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Ted Coniaris — But it’s it’s it’s really changing the whole, as I said earlier, this ecosystem of our church. so those are some of the real important you know pieces of that ecosystem.
Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love that. And and um it isn’t isn’t it interesting? So we’re seeing lots of that kind of things or echoes of that across the country where, you know, there’s a there’s been a shift that, you know, we’ll probably understand better five years from now. We’ll look back and we’ll put all the pieces together and understand what God’s doing. But it does appear like, you know, the Spirit’s on the move. They say, what is that? Aslan’s on the move, right? Something is shifting in people. And you know, we’re trying to keep pick keep pick up keep up with it and do what we can to continue to steward what’s here.
Rich Birch — And my experience with, you know, our our churches would have similar backgrounds, similar history. You know, we’re a heart for people who don’t, and your church has a heart for people who who don’t follow Jesus. You know, we’re trying to create a space for those folks. But though my experience has been those people are different today than they were 20 years ago. That people are coming much more, it’s like they’re farther along in the process. They’re they’re much more engaged than than um than they have been in the past. And so they’re willing to jump into the deep end of the pool on some of this stuff, maybe even more quickly than our long-term people…
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think that’s true.
Rich Birch — …because of whatever God’s doing in in their life. That’s that’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. That’s a cool thing to, you know, to be a part of, to hear you know a part of that. What about on the microchurch side? What’s happening there?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What is that? Yeah, what’s that? What’s happening with that?
Ted Coniaris — So during COVID, we just sort of began dipping our toe in the water of starting microchurches under this belief that the macrochurch movement, even megachurch, doesn’t need to be at odds or in conflict with the house church and microchurch movement.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Like, is there way for us to just see that as one thing instead of competing things, reaching all different kinds of people? And so we’ve just kind of dipped our toe in that. And here we are a few years later. Took us few years kind of figure out what we wanted to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — We’ve been doing it for about three years now. We have you know somewhere around, i was just texted the guy for the today number because it’s growing so fast, somewhere around 350 microchurches all around the world.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s it’s a simple, simple, simple strategy where you’re just basically saying anybody in the world, anybody on planet Earth, feeling called the planet Earth or maybe you already have and you don’t know what to do with it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And what’s interesting is that there are, I don’t know how many people, but there are a lot of people on this Earth. And a lot of people are asking that exact question and they just need someone who’s going to say, we can help you. We can help you.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Ted Coniaris — We want to help you do that. We want to coach you, train you, and then set you up with a cohort of others doing the same thing to help you do it in a sustainable fashion. It’s it’s very low investment. It’s very low control, but it’s super high results.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Huh.
Ted Coniaris — And so it’s it’s sort of a little mind shift because a lot of times we want to have everything controlled. We want to have everybody’s theology statement. We want to have all this stuff. We want to know it’s going to be successful. We want to da-da-da-da-da. It’s like we’re not doing any of that. We obviously do teach some theology, but what we do is just keep like, what are what are these sort of ecclesiological minimums?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And how can we just center on those things…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and launch as many people as possible and see what the Lord does? And he’s been doing some remarkable things. And I think you know our world has a giant need. We need to see millions of people find their way back to God. And a lot of us have strategies where the wild success is if we had thousands of people come and find their way back to God over decades.
Ted Coniaris — This this is a strategy that could reach millions. Like I think we legitimately can see a network of these and people down the chain will have no idea kind of where it came from and they don’t need to. But I legitimately think in 10 years time, we could easily reach a million people and have a a church of a million people, but not in the traditional sense.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — But through this.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, I love that because, man that’s a great vision to cast. Because you can’t build enough or a big enough yellow box for all of even Chicagoland, right?
Rich Birch — Like that’s just not going to, you know, you can’t.
Ted Coniaris — Oh, yeah. No.
Rich Birch — And and that is a, you know, it’s a just a resource intensive, you know, that’s been my life’s work. I’ve spent a lot of time on that. it’s not I’m not downing that, friends. Save your cards and letters. I still think that’s a piece of the puzzle.
Ted Coniaris — I agree.
Rich Birch — But how do we, is there a way for us to, work together to find solutions? How what how does the, I appreciate the, know, we’re not trying to be high control. We’re trying to, you know, we’re not you know we’re trying to really foster something that’s already in happening. We’re going to we’re going to get behind it, do what we can to support it. And we’re not going to try to over control. But I’m going to ask the control question. How do you, what is the kind of level of interaction that you’re, you’re finding is kind of the appropriate, it’s the, you know, not too little, not too much. Where have you found that’s like, hey, this, this is the kind of good sweet spot that that we have found so far with these, you know, 350, you know, microchurches.
Ted Coniaris — Are you asking like, what’s the relational rhythm or…
Rich Birch — Yeah. What is, yeah. What is the connection? What’s the relational rhythm between, or even connection between community and those 350? Like, are they, how are they, how do they relate to you and your team, your people, your volunteers, and then vice versa? What does that, you know, how does that, what’s that look like? What’s the connection there?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, it’s it’s purely coaching, training and ongoing support.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And we also make it clear there’s no financial arrangement – them to us or us to them.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And what we find is that just keeps the relationship very clean.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — We’re here to coach, support, train, launch, walk alongside.
Ted Coniaris — It’s a relational currency.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s an expertise currency and a material and resource are the currencies. And so that’s really what we’re doing so when it comes to you know what is the relational controls or how do you keep tabs or you know, whatever might be behind the question for us it’s more about that thriving coaching relationship…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and that this is a journey and you know if somebody is unwilling or unable to connect, I mean, they just go do their own thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And we’re not going to try to stop them.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — You know, we want to be dancing with the people who want to dance. We’re not you know spending our time or energy on that. And so it’s really that that coaching system and network. That’s the key in scaling that coaching system and network is how you reach a million people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s great. That’s a huge vision. I love that. That’s that’s super inspiring.
Rich Birch — Well, Ted, this has been a great check-in and lots of good stuff. Just want to encourage you in your leadership at Community. Appreciate what you’re doing there. Thanks for letting us kind of pull back the curtain a little bit and and get a sense in there. Any kind of final words you’d have for leaders that are listening in today? You know, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but anything you know you’d you’d want to kind of remind us just as we close off today’s conversation.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah. And you know, the thing that’s just sort of striking me in the moment is just to encourage the pastors who are listening in particular to, to really remember that, that the strategy is your soul. And your own passion and hunger and thirst for the Lord and your integrity and walking that out, that is the key strategy. That is the most important thing. And you can’t do that alone.
Ted Coniaris — You know, a lot of times talk about leadership being lonely. I kind of have a different view. I think loneliness is a choice. And I think you can choose not to be lonely. And so I know there are people who feel discouraged and that discouragement leads to isolation and that isolation feels like loneliness and it just becomes this downward spiral. There are different choices you can make to change the direction of that.
Ted Coniaris — I know a lot of people are are struggling. The ministry is hard. It’s really hard. But I think that if you can really focus on your passion, your fire, tending your flame with the Lord, it will make the work of ministry lighter. It will make the successes and failures less impactful on you. And to find to find some people who can you can really be vulnerable with, who are sharing the same kind of load that you carry, that would be if I could just say one thing to a group of, you know, 5,000 pastors, that’s probably the thing I would just say right now.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Ted, I appreciate you coming on today. Where do we want to send people if they want to track with you or with the church? Where do we want to send them online?
Ted Coniaris — Communitychristian.org, church website, probably the best place. You can find us on socials and stuff like that. I don’t really do social stuff. It’s not my thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — But you could go to the church. You can find all that. So it’s Community Christian Church in the Chicago area, and you’ll find everything.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Ted. Appreciate being here today, sir.
Ted Coniaris — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate you too.
