PODCAST | Surviving Your First Year As A Campus Pastor (Feat. Sam Yoon)

Resources:

https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Yoon/e/B09ZXCB5D7

https://www.samuelyoon.com/

https://www.vanderbloemen.com/culture-wins-book

Transcript:

Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership podcast. I'm your host, Christa Neidig, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, William talks with Sam Yoon, author and campus pastor at Saddleback Church, South Bay. He has a heart for helping people know Jesus and helping campus pastors grow and develop. In this conversation, Sam talks about his book, Your First Year As a Campus Pastor, where he shares practical leadership guidance to help campus pastors create an intentional plan and strategy for their campus and church. We hope this podcast is a resource for anyone starting a new position in ministry.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, hey everybody. Thanks for being here today. I'm in not even business casual, but I am representing the Republic and glad you're with us in a summer episode of Our Leadership Podcast. I'm super excited to have Sam Yoon on the podcast with us. Sam has been with Saddleback Church for quite a while. I want him to tell his story, but super excited. This is a little bit of a niche. I think it's applicable to more than just campus pastors, but Sam's written a book about his first year as a campus pastor in one of the best churches in the world, really, not even America. Excited to dive into that, but also some leadership principles that are transferable really for anybody starting a new anything. So, Sam, welcome. Thanks for being here with us.

Sam Yoon:
Thank you for having me, William. So glad to be here.

William:
Yeah let us know your story. I mean, I love introducing my friends to other friends. It's kind of [inaudible 00:01:41].

Sam Yoon:
Yeah. So I've been doing ministry for about 17 years. I know I look like I could be still in college, but much older than that, but been around. I started at a Korean church, worked at Mariners for a couple years, and then I've been at Saddleback for about, almost seven years. And at Saddleback, I started out as an associate pastor kind of like the number two guy and then the past five and a half years I was a campus pastor for one of the campuses here at one of our locations. And I've actually just shifted over to a new role, the leadership development pastor for our church. So how to develop leaders and overseeing our leadership program at our church. So, yeah.

William:
Yeah. Well, I've written a few books. I'm actually writing one right now as part of my summer project. And every time I do this, I'm like, you've either got to be crazy, everybody thinks it's cool to write a book, but you've either got to be crazy or have something inside you that's got to get out. So what was the something inside you? First of all, give us the elevator pitch of the book itself and then the why... Why take all the time to write that?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So I was a campus pastor five and a half years, I loved it, got some training and learned a lot. And I had a really difficult first year as a campus pastor. And so out of that pain, I learned a lot. I failed a lot and made a lot of mistakes and I realized as I've now been doing it for so long and talking to other campus pastors, it's just there's not a lot of resources out there, there's not a lot of books. There's some articles, there's some things that people have talked about, like leadership network and different things. But there's just not a ton of stuff out for campus pastors, which is kind of a niche market, but there's about 5,000 campus pastors, I think there's some studies that were done about that. And it's growing, multi-site strategy is one of the fastest ways to grow your church, at least before COVID.

Sam Yoon:
And so I thought, you know what? I've learned a lot. I've been able to grow from this awesome church and have a lot of leaders speaking to me and help me develop my own philosophy and ideas of leadership. And so I wanted to write this book to help create a healthy team and healthy culture for the campuses. And I think what you said is absolutely right, this isn't just for campus pastors. I think it's transferable to any pastors because it's just a strategy of how to think through your first year to start off well, because I think how you start off really, it doesn't determine how you're going to finish, but it's a really good indicator of where you're going to be and how you're going to finish. Yeah.

William:
Totally agree. A great book for anybody that's starting a new anything is your First 90 Days.

Sam Yoon:
Yes.

William:
Fantastic read, nearly every job I've had in my career, I sit down at the desk the day after I got hired and I'm like, now what do I do?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
And it's a lot to figure it out and I don't know about you Sam, but like so many things and if you pastor through the pandemic, you did this more than I did. But when I was pastoring, it's like I would sit and work on whatever it needed to be worked on and I'm like, and where are the class notes from seminary where we studied because it's all new. On the other hand, nothing's new. I remind my, my Catholic friends and clients you guys were the first multi-site church. Yeah.

Sam Yoon:
Oh yeah.

William:
Thousands of years. So let me, let me start here. You said that your first year was really hard and I don't know I'm prying, but yeah. Tell us about the struggle. What was it? Where'd you fail? I mean, what made you go? Oh, and then of course, how'd you get out of it?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah. So I didn't start the campus when I first got there. It was six months. I knew a guy started it, launched it, and then they, he actually stepped out because he got called somewhere else. And while that happened, we got moved, we got kicked out of the high school we were meeting at and we had to go to a different location. And so for nine months they had no campus pastor. There was no leader there and no one really, they were having a hard time finding a position to fill that. So I finally got in involved into that role and asked to do it. And during that time, it was nine months. Imagine nine months without having a leader. That's just tough. Right and on top of that, the campus, we had to move nine times out of the year.

Sam Yoon:
We weren't in one location, we're a set up tear down church and we had to move nine times. So that's like 20% of the year, like one in every five, six weeks we would be in a different location and so one of my first things, when I got there was, Hey, we have to go, where are we going to meet first in church in a month? Because we don't have a location where we're going to do it. And so I was stressed out about that. We only had one staff member there that was overseeing our campus at the moment. And she was doing a lot, a million different things. A lot of volunteers were they were kind, some of them were burning out and just overwhelmed and not a lot of vision and direction, we moved around. And there's just a lot of questions of like, would our campus survive?

Sam Yoon:
Would we be able to handle all these challenges that we were presented? And especially with the move, like it's hard enough just to do one location. So every location we would literally be, we've been around like nine different locations around the city, in this area, like hotels. We had our Christmas services on the Queen Mary in Long beach on a boat, it was super cool, but a huge logistical nightmare just to get like, every place is different. Like our tech director was stressed out all the time. Our worship, like it's just a massive logistical challenge to move to just one location. And so we were bringing these people out.

William:
It'll wear people out. Sorry to interrupt but like the only time retirement's mentioned in the Bible is the priests. I don't know if you know this, but like in, when they're wandering through the desert yeah. In, I forget where in the Pentateuch it is, but there's a rule that says at this age, the priests need to step down and it's like, is that because they're no longer relevant and say, no, they were in arguably the worst setup, tear down situation in the history of the world.

Sam Yoon:
Yes.

William:
They had candlesticks and tapestries and all the ornaments and everything. And you know, those guys set up the tabernacle and then they look up and it's like, oh man, the cloud just moved, break it down, set it up. But, and it led, it led Moses say, okay guys, sooner or later, this is going to wear you out. I mean that whole loading mode is still true today.

Sam Yoon:
Oh, absolutely. And we felt that's kind of the running joke for the south bay, our campus was like, we are like Israelites in the wilderness, just moving around. And so did that for the first year. And when you asked what mistakes I made, I made mistakes of like hiring and firing and bringing on the right wrong people and just a lot of communication issues and just a lot of challenges that came. But even in the midst of all that, like every year we actually grew, our attendance was actually more people were still coming. When we went to different locations, we actually picked up more people and they were some sort of energy where God was doing something amazing in our campus. And so even in the midst of that, it was, there were some cool things that were happening.

William:
That's great, so in the book you walked through things. Let me see if I put you on the spot.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
Tell me a principle that you learned for first year at campus, pastor that anybody listening could take into whatever their next assignment is.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah, you mentioned it before, about the 90 day plan, Your 90 day plan. I read that book that was influential for me. So one of the things I did that I think is applicable to anyone is before you actually start your role, talk to a lot of different people, but create a 90 day plan of what you're going to do to start your, or your new role in, and really make it methodical, intentional, like who are you going to talk to? Who are you going to meet and not necessarily you have to do a lot of stuff, especially if you're starting a new role, I would highly recommend build relationships with people. Find the key influencers, find the people that are in the organization or volunteers or leaders or staff members that you need to talk to and make it a point to plan it all out.

Sam Yoon:
And so in the book, I talk about how the 90 day plan should be relationally based, especially the first couple months. And then also kind of assessing the health of a campus, assessing the health of your ministry. So you're doing those two things together, building relationships, hearing what's going on, how things are going with and connecting with people, all different types of people. And the second thing is just assessing how healthy is our ministry, how healthy is our church or campus, and really being able to dive deeper, but making that plan before you actually start so that when you actually start you aren't just like wondering what should I do? You already have a plan and you can always change those plans and adjust it. But the more intentional you are, I think the better outcome you're going to have and more, abilities to pivot or change rather than trying to make it up on the fly.

William:
That's good. I thought we made everything up on the fly. I've been doing it for the whole, my life. Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
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William:
Hey, so let me ask you this. There are probably people we could do this from either side. There're probably pastors at multi-site churches listening.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
There're probably also people who are saying, I'm thinking about becoming a campus pastor. It's a job, right out of seminary for a lot of people. What should a candidate who's thinking about becoming a campus pastor, what should they ask themselves about the job they're looking at to see if it fits? Does that make sense?

Sam Yoon:
No, absolutely. So in the book, I actually talk about that the first two chapters, like before you become a campus pastor, like what is that process to consider or think through? And, and there's four things I mentioned is first check your heart. Why do you want to be a campus pastor? If I was honest, I wanted be a campus pastor, obviously we are all going to say the same thing. I want to do it for God's God's kingdom, I want to have more influence, I want to lead more and those are absolutely true and honest, but the deeper motivation behind it is also something that you need to check your heart. Because there's another part of me that was, I wanted it for the status I wanted a sense of pride, a sense of ownership, a sense of like, it was almost this sense of like, it's about me, even though I knew it's not, but I think if we're honest with ourselves, why do you want that promotion?

Sam Yoon:
If for some places, right? Or why do you want that role in that position? And Patrick Lencioni talks about the motivations where people are motivated more by these external things, maybe a bigger paycheck or status and a sense of significance in the organization. And that's okay to a certain point, but I think you have to really know what is going on and the motivation behind it. And so I wanted to be a campus pastor for so long, but I had the wrong heart and God didn't give me that position until a year later where my heart was actually in a much better place and in a more character filled place where or more humble place. So the first thing I would say is check your heart. Why do you want to do this? And really be honest with yourselves, there's some questions I outlined in the book.

Sam Yoon:
The second one is obviously check with God. What does God want you to do? Whatever God wants you to do? You just got to do it. But being able to hear his voice and know what his voice sounds like is really important because you got to distinguish your voice versus God's voice. And sometimes we merge those two together and it's important to distinguish that because God's word is very clear and sometimes it may not be clear like audibly, like God's going to say, Hey, go do this job. But if you are able to hear the shepherd, he will speak to you and lead you and guide you, especially in a big moment like this. The other one I say is check with your family because as a campus, pastor, as we all know, pastoring is not just going to be about me, but your whole family's in this too.

Sam Yoon:
And so your wife, your kids are going to be impacted by this. So having the conversation with your family. Me and my wife, when we were asked to for this opportunity, we had 48 hours to decide. And so we prayed and fasted for those 48 hours. And we were like, God, if you're going to want us to do this, give us some Bible verses and make it very clear that you're leading us to this the first time my wife and I, we came and we're like, no, we got nothing. The second night we came back, we're like, oh, we got some verses. And she had some verses. I had some verses and we're like we really feel like this is where God is leading us too. And so check in with your family, check with your kids, making sure that they're part of the process.

Sam Yoon:
They understand that this is not that you're asking them to do it, but you're part of a team to do it together. And the last one is just check with the church, like some churches, there's different types of models of multi siting out there. And so you got to really know like, is this fit me? If I'm a teacher and preacher, maybe this video venue is not going to be for me and that automatically discounts you. But if you're like, man, I want to teach. Then you got to go check out a different church. And so knowing the position that's out there, but also the values in the culture. Right? And so I encourage people to interview the church, former staff members, interview current staff members, interview former campus pastors or people that are doing your role and get as much information as possible.

Sam Yoon:
So you're not walking in with this pie in this sky thinking, oh yeah, the church is great. I heard great things about it. Everybody loves it. That may be true. But sometimes a member has a very different experience from a staff member and really understanding the culture of the church before you get into it, will help you distinguish is that role right for me? And is that church culture, right for me and my family, because some churches, they demand a little bit more from their wives or your kids and their work hours are very different and you don't want to go in naively thinking, oh yeah, it's going to be this great experience. Where in fact, every church is a little bit different there's a different culture. As you know, you wrote a book on culture wins. I love that book by the way I quoted it in the book. But yeah you just have to know what the culture is because, it's more than just your job that you're thinking of.

William:
Well, I tell candidates and clients, whether it's a church or school or nonprofit or whatever, the whole hiring process or an interviewing process, if you're interviewing, if it's done well, nobody walks down the aisle with Rachel and wakes up next to Leah.

William:
And that means to get that done, you got to ask the hard questions. You got to find honorable ways to do it. Right. Like for instance, help me with this. Cause I don't know the answer to this when I sit down and start a search and we'll use the church and we do lots of things besides the churches, but let's use the church as an example, I'll sit down with the hiring agent, right?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
The, the Steve Johnson or whoever it is at Saddleback. And I'll say, listen, let me ask you this. We're looking for a campus pastor, these roles, they're very few campus pastor for life people.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
It's a developmental role. Okay. And that's not a bad thing. So Steve, or if it's you, if it's Sam, the leadership development guy, how much time has to pass for me to be back here doing this search again, and you're not in a bad mood.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
So it's a nice way of saying what's an acceptable tenure for this, is it three years, five years, seven years. So if you're a candidate, you're the leadership development guy. You're going to have to interview people. How should a candidate ask that kind of question without sounding like they're gunning for the next job? Does that make sense?

Sam Yoon:
No, absolutely. And I think part of it is also knowing what is your shape? How you, what's your skill sets, your passions, your experience. And then what does this role really entail? And you could obviously ask the interviewer, but also ask former campus pastors. They're like, man, like some seat campus, pastors are not teachers they're not ever going to teach and they don't never want to teach. I know some of our campus pastors are like that. And that's a great thing that they're just gifted to manage to pastor, to lead in that way versus, and this role, if that fits your role, you can be in there in a long time. And I think asking those questions, what is this skillset and the gifting that you want in this role.

Sam Yoon:
I think asking them, Hey, like tell me how, how long campus pastors who have thrived in those roles, how long have they lasted and what is their satisfaction level with this role? And I think that's gives you a window insight to, we want people here longer, but as long as it fits their shape, as long as it fits their passions and they know what they're getting themselves into. I think you're right, sometimes it is seen as a developmental thing. And so it's just more like, well, let's just see how you do and go from there rather than putting people in the right place in the right bus and saying, no, we don't expect you to be here forever, but we know that this is something that you're called to, you're good at and we want to and honor you and reward you accordingly.

William:
That's beautiful. I love this make, maybe you say, Hey, think of the three campus pastors you'd put in the hall of fame. How long were they in that role?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
That's great. Yeah. Super helpful. So as you're looking out in the future at multi-site right, and this is a bit off topic with the book.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
But what have you seen in the seven years you've been doing that seem to be trends that are changing and may stick around for a while within multi-site?

Sam Yoon:
Yeah, I think, well, COVID has obviously changed everything and a lot of people are thinking through everything. So even for us how you do, multi site what that looks like. I'm no genie or I don't know anything in the future of yet, but it sounds like, I think multi-sites still going to be an effective strategy to reach people, especially if you have a good culture and a good brand as well as a good developmental program. I am hearing more and more churches, especially bigger churches start to have a leadership development emphasis, whether it's a role, a position or more intentionality. And so I think that's something where, especially with Gen Z, they're wanting more of that hands on mentorship and guidance, and there's a different generation and culture that relational piece that I think is missing. And so I think that's something that's going to be huge need and value as we look to the future generations.

Sam Yoon:
And I think that's going to shift the culture of the church where we necessarily can't do everything we've done in the past the same way and I think that's something we're looking at and evaluating, how do we use technology as well as using the strategy that we have used and has been effective. What does that look like in the future? I think some of the core principles of just authenticity and just some things that I know, like Clay Scroggins has written a book about The Seven Aspiring Things and I totally agree with that. I think just, it's going to have to be contextualized in your church as well as your city, because every city's a little bit different. Like in California, we're very different from Texas and just understanding those differences is going to be important to be well and succeed well in the multi-site world.

William:
That's excellent. This has been super helpful, Sam. I really appreciate you and what you're doing and talking about the future here we are at a handoff at your church.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
Got a new pastor coming in. And I imagine that means everybody's like how we do multi-site everything's kind of okay let's see what the next chapter holds. So yeah.

Sam Yoon:
Yeah.

William:
Appreciate you. You say you're not learning on the fly. I know you, I know you're intentional, but we're all learning on the fly. You just happen to be very good at it. And appreciate you writing the book. Title of the book is...

Sam Yoon:
Your First Year as a Campus Pastor -Practical Guide to Build a Healthy Team and Culture.

William:
And it's on Amazon and all the things, right? Yeah.

Sam Yoon:
Absolutely. Yeah.

William:
Thank you. Hey Sam, your website for your blog.

Sam Yoon:
It's samuelyoon.com

William:
Sam, thanks for being with us today. I really appreciate absolutely.

Sam Yoon:
Thank you.

William:
Take care.

Christa Neidig:
Listening to the Vanderbloemen leadership podcast at Vanderbloemen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen leadership podcast. Wherever you listen to a podcast, keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.