Nancy Beach & Samantha Beach Kiley
Paramount Topics and Must Listen To Insight on the Road to Future Church
About The Episode
“In spite of its brokenness, I still have hope for the local church. And I believe it’s still God’s Plan-A for reconciling the world.” Meet Nancy Beach and her daughter, Samantha Beach Kiley, two influential leaders of the Church and co-authors of Next Sunday: An Honest Dialogue About the Future of the Church. In this episode, Sean Morgan digs deep with Nancy and Samantha on the future of community, the future of inclusion, and the future of the church. Nancy and Sam will challenge our listeners to think differently about the way churches are leading and whether or not we’re actually making an impact on our congregants and our surrounding communities. Get ready to be inspired about what the church can be!
Welcome to Episode 060 of the Leaders in Living Rooms Podcast with Sean Morgan.
Insights From Nancy and Samantha
The Future of Community
“While the virtual world provides us with tools, I’m convinced that our avatars can never fulfill our bodies deepest longings.”
Churches have been fiercely creative on how to connect with people digitally since Covid.
The version of ourselves that we put forward online isn’t always who we are. And it often covers up the harder parts of our lives. We benefit from being in community with people that we wouldn’t seek out normally, and we’re transformed by it.
The Future of Inclusion
Where else in society do you go to be around people of different ages than you? A range of socio-economic resources? Racial diversity? There is a substantive texture difference in being shoulder to shoulder with people than being together on Zoom.
There is a big difference between diversity and full inclusion. Full inclusion is when you actually start paying attention to the cultural differences between people, and your leadership team leans into the different perspectives from those cultures.
Every church is less than a decade away from becoming a country club. Because churches become insulated. Our financial model and our decision making model is all controlled by insiders. Leaders must bring intentionality and focus toward meeting needs that maybe they don’t have, but others in their community do have.
The Future of the Church
What are the primary needs within a certain radius of our local church? A list to begin measuring the needs like (full list found in Nancy & Samantha’s book):
- Decrease in crime
- Food in the food banks
- Shelter options for people with homelessness
- Visits and intentional relationships with the incarcerated
- Response to national disasters
- After school opportunities for kids whose parents are working
- Medical and dental care for those who can’t afford it
If we closed our doors tomorrow, would anyone in the surrounding communities notice?
Listen first: what are the primary wounds in this community? Are there ways we can partner with other ministries to provide resources and volunteers to help make a difference?
“We win on a bunch of different fronts when we serve the community. It’s not only helping the community, it’s helping our hearts grow to be more like Christ.”
There’s a perception that people who we invite to church are a blank slate. My experience is that the people we’d love to take a chance on church, they aren’t a blank slate. They have a lot of opinions because of their own experiences. There’s a series of obstacles getting them to that point. But they all care about the under-resourced in our city.
Let’s hold our theology loosely enough that you might be wrong, and be willing to revisit those challenging scripture passages. I encourage others to do the best you can to open doors for women as wide as you possibly can. Men and women can lead well together in a very healthy way.
“Move at the speed of trust with your community and congregation.”
A leader usually has some level of charisma. What can start to happen is that those that follow the leader, want the leader to maintain a certain image as well. Now I have an image that I have to keep bolstering.
“I think leaders need to get very curious about how it feels to be in relationship with them the rest of the week. Not just when you’re on stage. If we only care about the deliverable, we can get into a very dangerous place of deception.”
Episode Links
Find Nancy & Samantha’s book: Next Sunday: An Honest Dialogue About the Future of the Church
If you want the results no one else is getting, do what no one else is doing. The best work we do, is the work we do in the living room with our cohorts. We encourage you to check out more about our cohort work and how you can get involved at: https://theascentleader.org/cohorts/
Who Are Nancy & Samantha?
Nancy Beach serves as a leadership coach with the Slingshot Group, The Ascent Leader, and on the teaching team at Soul City Church in downtown Chicago. Previously, Nancy served as the programming director at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago. She is also the author of An Hour on Sunday and Gifted to Lead. Nancy and her husband Warren have two adult daughters, Samantha and Johanna.
Twitter: @NancyLBeach
Instagram: @nancyleebeach
Samantha Beach Kiley is a writer and performer, and the creative arts pastor at Austin New Church in Austin, Texas. Samantha’s creative work has appeared in theatres, churches, and non-profit spaces. She has taught at Northwestern’s National High School Institute and Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre, where she is the co-education director with her husband, Will.
https://www.samanthabeach.work/
Twitter: @BeachSamantha
Instagram: @samanthabeachk
Sponsors & Partners
Thanks to our sponsor: Food For The Hungry.
Combine your church’s heart for the poor and Food For The Hungry’s global experience at fh.org/churches.
The Art of Leadership Academy – https://careynieuwhof.com/the-art-of-leadership-academy/
Quotes From Episode
“In spite of its brokenness, I still have hope for the local church. And I believe it’s still God’s Plan A for reconciling the world.”
“We win on a bunch of different fronts when we serve the community. It’s not only helping the community, it’s helping our hearts grow to be more like Christ.”
“While the virtual world provides us with tools, I’m convinced that our avatars can never fulfill our bodies deepest longings.”
“Move at the speed of trust with your community and congregation.”
“I think leaders need to get very curious about how it feels to be in relationship with them the rest of the week. Not just when you’re on stage. If we only care about the deliverable, we can get into a very dangerous place of deception.”
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About the Host
Sean Morgan is a coach and speaker with a national reputation as a catalyst of fresh vision. His passion is to help ministries navigate obstacles and turn them into opportunities.
Throughout his career, Sean has pioneered initiatives impacting thousands of leaders across the country. He started out serving as Executive Pastor and CFO at New Life Church in northern California.
As host, Sean gives you access to amazing conversations, hard-won wisdom, and poignant insights from world-class leaders in intimate “living room” settings.
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Leaders in Living Rooms
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