podcaststrategy

Daniel Im on Small Shifts That Will Transform Your Ministry

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast! I’m thrilled to have Daniel Im with us today from Lifeway Christian Resources. He is the founder/director of church multiplication for NewChurches.com, an author, and a teaching pastor at The Fellowship in Nashville.

Lifeway offers church resources, from books and curriculum to other supplies used in church operations. In addition to that, Lifeway now resources church planting, church multisite and multiplication. Daniel works in that area of Lifeway with NewChurches.com. Today Daniel is with us to talk about his super practical new book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts That Will Transform Your Ministry, why he wrote it, and how it can help you in your own church.

  • Do self-analysis. // It’s easy to go to a conference, read a book, see what another church slightly bigger than you is doing, and come back with advice on what to do. Often in the church world and leadership circles we tend to focus on what other churches are doing instead of discerning: WHY do I disciple the way I disciple, lead the way I lead, and teach the way I teach? You can’t import what works at another church and expect it to work at yours without doing self-analysis. In his book Daniel provides a number of self-assessment tools to help you understand the shifts he talks about.
  • Making discipleship your goal. // We are taught in seminary to devote our time to studying and acquiring knowledge instead of serving and hands-on experience in a church. We spend so much time focusing on sermons, apologetics and knowing scripture that we don’t spend much time actually making disciples. Daniel’s book challenges: what if instead of making maturity our end goal, we made becoming a missionary our end goal? When acting as a missionary and making disciples who make disciples is your goal, maturity will be a byproduct.
  • Normalize mission at your church. // Mission isn’t something that just the pastor should do. Making disciples who make disciples is the primary job of every follower of Christ, no matter what they do to earn a paycheck. It’s important to understand where you’re at and how you see the world, so you can integrate the shifts Daniel talks about in his book into a discipleship pathway for your church. Taking these steps will help to normalize living on mission at your church, which ultimately helps people live out the call to be disciple-making disciples.

You can learn more about Daniel’s book at his website www.danielim.com.

In addition, Lifeway has a Pipeline Conference for church leaders October 11-13. You can learn more at www.myleadershippipeline.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! 

Lightning Round

Helpful Tech Tools // Vyte.in

Ministries Following // Mark Jobe and New Life Chicago

Influential Book // Bivo: A Modern-Day Guide for Bi-Vocational Saints by Hugh Halter

Inspiring Leader // Patrick Lencioni

What does he do for fun // Squash, Golfing, Playing with legos and cars with kids

Contact // DanielIm.com

2 Comments

  1. I couldn’t agree more. The missionary mindset I believe is the best strategy for disciplining new people. People want to experience community and since our culture is communicating more than ever through images many will learn more by being with us and watching us live out our faith every day. I am reminded what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. (NIV)

Leave a Response

Rich Birch
Rich Birch is one of the early multi-site church pioneers in North America. He led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 5,000+ people in 18 locations. In addition, he served on the leadership team of Connexus Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. He has also been a part of the lead team at Liquid Church - a 5 location multisite church serving the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. Liquid is known for it’s innovative approach to outreach and community impact. Rich is passionate about helping churches reach more people, more quickly through excellent execution.His latest book Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church is an Amazon bestseller and is design to help your church reach more people in your community.