An Interview with Bob Russell

The following is an interview by John Chandler with Bob Russell, pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky conducted on July 6, 2000.

Chandler: Bob, could you tell us a little about the Southeast story and some of the trends and growth patterns you've seen while you've been pastor here?

Russell: "Our church was started in 1962 by the South Louisville Christian Church. It had about 50 members who were living in the East End. Seven or eight miles was a long way to drive at that point. And that congregation was in the habit of starting new churches. Olin Hay, the minister at that church, asked the people to stand who would be starting the new church. When they stood, he said his heart sank, because standing was his brother-in-law (who was also the choir director), and the organist, and one or two of the key leaders in the church. That's one of the reasons this church has done well--it was started right. It was started with talented, dedicated people. They began meeting in a school, in a basement of a house.
I came here in 1966. They had a guy preach the first two years who was a church starter, a church planter. When he left they thought, "we have 125 people, a lot of potential; we ought to be able to persuade somebody with a good track record to come." And they came right up to the edge with a couple of really good ministers, but those ministers backed off. So, they were a year without a preacher. They said, "well maybe the Lord is leading us to a younger man." They contacted me. I was 22 years old, fresh out of Bible college. I look back now and say, "How in the world did that happen, other than God making it happen?" Anyway, I was 22, came in 1966, they were still meeting in the basement of a house, but they had already started a building. From that, I've been here 34 years now.
If you're talking about growth patterns for us, there's been consistent growth over the years, sometimes dramatic, sometimes just a little. But every year, the average worship attendance has increased some degree from the year before. I couldn't say the same about the Sunday School attendance. One year, maybe it was the 1970s, the increase was just eleven one year, and twenty-some the next. That wasn't dramatic growth, but there's been consistent growth. But two or three times, there's been dramatic growth, and each time it had to do with a building. When we completed our first building and moved from a basement into a building, that year we jumped about a hundred people. And then we relocated in 1987, and in a couple of years' time we increased 2,000 people. And then in 1999 we moved into this facility, and in one year's time we jumped almost 3,000 people.

Chandler: As a 22 year old, what sort of vision did you have for the church and how has that vision evolved?

Russell: I was not just 22 years old; I was 22 and from the country, coming to a city environment. I didn't have much of a vision for the church. I grew up in a church of 60 people. I anticipated that I would probably go back to my home area of Pennsylvania and preach in a country church. And God has a sense of humor. I would say we have, for the most part, reacted to growth, more than we've planned for growth. I have a friend here in this church, Butch Dabney, who is now 82 years old. People say, "Butch, when you started this church, did you in your wildest imagination think it would grow to 14,000 people?" And he responds by saying, "Well, we're a little behind schedule." Butch is hilarious because nobody dreamed that this would happen. We have tried to teach and preach the Bible and make it as applicable as it can be, and minister to people's needs. And we have responded to the growth that has happened.
We had a long range planning committee about ten years ago, and in about three months time they changed their name to the "short-term crisis committee." Because it was just catching up with growth all of the time. We're trying to do better now; we have just completed a strategic plan for the next ten years and it will be interesting to see how that contributes to our future. I'm not saying that's the way most growth should take place, because I think where there's no vision the people perish. But, we have reacted to growth. There has been a willingness on the part of the leadership here to take a risk all the time and that's made a big difference. When we had growth, we said, "we need to go to multiple services." Or we had growth, and said, "we need to start shuttling people from a parking lot some distance away." "We need to think about relocating" or "we need to take a big step and have a big fundraiser." They were willing to take those risks. Or "we'll start Saturday night church." There was that willingness to stretch, in order to accommodate more people. And I think that so many times there's not that willingness on the part of church leadership to let that happen, and we get in the way of growth.

Chandler: Was there a certain point in which vision began to form in your mind as to what Southeast could do and become?

Russell: I just scrambled to stay alive for the first few years. I would go home on Sunday night and say to my wife, "Judy, I might as well resign. That's as good as it's going to get. We could never do any better than that, this is the peak, it's going to be all downhill from here." And it would keep getting better and better. And when we got to be about 500 people, which was a large church at that time (we're talking mid-seventies or so), I went to a convention in California and visited three different churches that were running probably over 2,000 people. One was Los Gatos Christian Church, where a guy names Marvin Reccord was. The Evangelical Free Church, the place where Charles Swindoll was, and Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, where Ben Miller ? was. Now, I had always been skeptical of large churches. My wife had taken me to a church that had 500 people when we were dating and I came away saying, "That's too big, they don't know the pastor, they don't know each other, how could that be a church?" (If you'd have told me that this was going to happen here, I'd have never believed it!) But at these churches, in 1974, I was stunned by the dedication of these people. A higher percentage of their people were carrying their Bibles, and were into the sermon. The choir was singing without any music in front of them. They had practiced harder than our choir had, and they were doing more, there was a deeper spiritual thrust in their church than in our church. And I realized you don't have to compromise the truth in order to grow; sometimes it's just the opposite.

Chandler: So sometimes the larger your church becomes, the more excellent it is, even in the quality of its spiritual life?

Russell: Oh, no question. This was a stunner to me. But I also said, "you know what, there's nothing that they're doing that we can't do. We're in the Midwest and this is California, but we can do those things." And I came back and I shared what I had seen with our leaders. And they didn't say, "oh, the preacher's gone off and gotten these big ideas, we'll have to squelch him;" they were receptive. I have not been a great visionary in this church, but, from the beginning, I'm surrounded by lay leaders who encouraged me and wanted me to grow and wanted the church to be what God wanted it to be. And so from that inception my vision started to get bigger and bigger about church growth. Chandler: Can you talk a little about that process of getting lay leaders on board with this new glimpse of future reality you saw for Southeast? Russell: Well, I have been blessed here because I've had those kinds of leaders from the beginning. You asked about what's the easiest part of church growth for you. The easiest part for me has been leadership training, because I haven't had to do very much of that. The friends that I talk to, who are in churches where they're frustrated, this is frustration number one. They can't get leaders on board with the vision, or they don't have leaders who are leaders. If someone goes to church two or three times a week and tithes, they're considered a "leader." But the Bible talks about those who are gifted for administration, those who are called to be pastors, and churches really need to win and then to put into positions of leadership those who have leadership skills. Henry Ford was asked, "who should sing tenor in the quartet?" He says you don't just put anybody in the tenor section; the tenor sings tenor. The person is gifted to do that. And who should lead the church? It should be people with leadership skill. So, I was blessed when I came here to have people with leadership skills and who had a real dedication and commitment to the cause of Christ.

Chandler: What does a church do when it has people in leadership roles who do not have leadership gifts?

Russell: That's a tough situation. First of all, he's got to be patient. The pastor and the lay leaders have to be on the same page for it to happen or you're going to create all kinds of disharmony and not be able to climb the mountain together. Sometimes it takes a while to get there. So he's got to be in it for the long haul. Secondly, I think he's got to work at winning some leadership-type people in his church; either converting them to Christ, or looking at the leadership people that he's got and saying, "we need you!" And trying to deepen these people. But the most effective technique that I've seen in winning people over is for the preacher not to go to seminars or church growth conventions by himself! So many times he goes, he comes back, he's fired up, he's got ideas … and it serves as a point of alienation. When he goes by himself, he needs to come back and be quiet, be patient. He needs to take key leaders with him, let them see, let them talk, and let them get fired up when they come back. I think leadership is kind of like a magnet. With a magnet you can stay just a little bit ahead and you'll draw … you get too far ahead, they drop out. If they sense your enthusiasm and your goals are too far beyond what their goals are, you'll alienate them. I've got two friends right now who have been terminated from their position, though the church was growing and doing well. The leaders of those church said, "we just don't share your vision; your goals for church make us feel uncomfortable." So a preacher has to sense how far ahead his vision is from that of his key leaders. And if it's too far ahead, he's got to slow down; he's got to gear it down until he gets them on the same page. And the best way I see to get them on the same page is to take them with you somewhere that is the next level or two levels ahead of where they are. If you go someplace that's too big, that's too dramatically different; they're going to be frightened by that.

Chandler: Talk about a time when you got out too far ahead of the "magnetic range" of your folk. What happened, how did you get back in range, and what leadership lessons did you learn?

Russell: Well, let me speak to the opposite first. There have been times when their vision has been bigger than mine. For example, we had a building committee on our first relocation project--we were in a building that seated 500--and I said to that building committee, "I would like for our building to seat 1,500. With two services, we could have 3,000 in the morning. But I'm concerned about Wednesday night and Sunday night; if it gets much bigger than 1,500 we're going to rattle around in there. I just want 1,500 people." The building committee, chaired by an elder who is a good friend of mine, said to me, "Your vision is too small. You preach; we'll build the building. We're going to build this building to seat 2,500." They were far ahead of me. I mumbled and grumbled, but I liked it at the same time. I liked the fact that I was not the one pulling them out there. I would say that more times their vision has been bigger than mine.
There have been some ideas that I've had that have been screwy and that were wrong. I had an idea for Sunday School one time--I thought that quality in Sunday School is what we needed--so we said let's have all of our teacher specialize in a 13 week series and let's rotate the teachers. This doctor who specializes in evolution versus creation will come into this class and they'll just gobble it up and then move on. And it was disastrous in our Sunday School, which is more fellowship than an identification with the teacher, who is the "pastor" for that class. So, I had to say, "I made a mistake here, my idea didn't work." When we moved out here, we had this huge parking lot. My vision for the parking lot was, "you know what, it's a long way from one end of the parking lot to the front door. We'd better have some way of shuttling people." And I said, "let's buy thirty of these golf carts, that seat six or eight people and drive people--see, your reaction (laughter) is the same as our elders' was--I said, let's pick people up in golf carts and let's transport them to the front door." They said "who's going to drive the golf carts?" I said, "that would be a great role for teenagers, teenagers would love to do that." They laughed me out of the door. So when my ideas get screwy, I have these lay leaders who will say to me, "that's a goofball idea. " If I have five ideas, I want them to be able to shoot four of them down. I try to create the atmosphere where they can say "no" to me, they can tell me the truth, and I'm not threatened by it. I don't put my head down, I don't pout, I don't go out of the meeting and refuse to speak to guys or bad-mouth guys because they don't go along with my idea. Because I don't want to be out there by myself. I want the input from those people. And there are times that I've disagreed with them and later they were proven wrong. And times I've disagreed with them and later they were proven right. But when we come out of there, I want us all to be on the same page. So I feel like they can say what they want to say and they don't have to worry about hurting Bob's feelings; that's been one of the strengths of the harmony of our meeting. I can have Jack Coffey, who's an elder and a good friend of mine, look at me in the eye and say, "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard you give. " And I'll say, "No, its not, Jack" and we'll walk out of there saying, "where does everyone want to eat?"

Chandler: So when I'm willing to admit that I may be wrong, and create a climate where people can tell me I'm wrong, and where I develop a culture where leaders can be cultivated or brought on board alongside of people who may be in leadership roles but may not have leadership gifts, I can eventually begin to reshape …

Russell: I think that's a great summary, and I would add one thing. These leaders have to feel like they are leading. It's not just the preacher who is leading. They're out there on the point, with the preacher, we're doing this together. If you've got five or six key people with leadership skills and you're on the same team, you're going to have eight or ten in that same group who maybe aren't as strong with leadership, but they're good secondary-level people, they're good followers, they'll help you to follow through … then you've got a good team. But there's never this feeling of, "here's Bob Russell and here's three or four guys around him and they're following his lead and they're strong and they're "yes" people." We're doing this thing together.

Chandler: What have you had to let go of as a leader that's been hard for you to let go of?

Russell: I have a list! I've had to let go of a lot. I started here as a pastor, my model for ministry is a pastor. So I had to let go of hospital visits, and I let go of them slowly. We finally got an associate and instead of me going four times a week, I'd go twice. And then we got two associates and I'd go just once and eventually I hardly ever go to the hospital anymore. I let go of almost all committee meetings, it's an old thing called delegation: you can stop and tie their shoe or you can teach them to tie their own shoe and let them go tie it. I let go of participation in a lot of extracurricular activities of the church like camps and athletic events.
Two other things I've released: I've released a lot of preaching and teaching responsibilities. That's the hardest thing for preachers to release, that pulpit. Right now, we have a preaching associate who preaches a third of the time. We also have guest speakers on Wednesday nights as well as Sunday morning. And it's healthy for me: I love those weeks when I don't have that sermon hanging over my head. I love it until it gets to be service time … and then I wish I was preaching. But it's healthy for the congregation--they're hearing somebody else--and its healthy for me; they're not hearing me all the time. I don't know how you can have a long ministry when you're up all the time. When I relinquished a lot of preaching responsibilities, I relinquished a lot of worship leadership. I don't get up and make announcements anymore; most of the time I don't get up until it's time for me to preach. I've relinquished planning worship. Most of the time I go to worship and I don't know what's going on except a brief perusal of what's on the text sheet.

Chandler: Do you give sermon themes to a worship committee and they'll design a service around that?

Russell: Yes. Another thing I gave up that a lot of people have a hard time giving up, and that's saying "no" to individual requests. I still have people come up and say, "Will you go to bat for me?" I want to say yes; I love pleasing people; I have a hard time saying no; but I've had to learn to say "no" to people. I heard John McArthur say one time that if he said yes to an hour's counseling on Thursday to a couple, he just said "no" to 8,000 people he was going to preach to on the weekend. And I had to have an adjustment in my thinking. So one of things I cut out was all marital counseling. Praise God, I don't do any more marital counseling. I can do it adequately, but nothing drained me like that; it was not a passion of mine. Even before we had a counseling staff, I learned to give referrals and to say to people who say, "I've got to talk to you, can we see you about this marriage?" I learned to say to people, "I want you to have the best counseling you can get and you know, I'm not it. I have a friend who is a counselor and I'm going to give you his name, I'll talk with him about the situation, I'm going to stay in touch with him about the situation, I want you to go to him." And I am surprised at how receptive people were to that. But it's tough learning to say no.

Chandler: A number of pastors of congregations of 100 would say, "But I don't have someone to whom I can hand off worship planning or marital counseling or hospital visitation. How do you get started with delegating ministry?

Russell: You know, I've been in that church of 100. I understand that these pastors wear so many hats, and there's an awesome amount of pressure of what's expected of them. And to some degree that's true--there's too much expected of them. But I also think, looking back, there are people in the church who are gifted do those things. And if we would go to them and say, "you know, I go to the hospital three times a week, and I would like for you to go once or twice in my place. Would you be willing to do that? And here's what I want you to do…" And then we go to the church and say, "I want you to know the decision that we've made," and that you've gone to the leaders and the leaders agree. Not so much is expected of the preacher when you've got someone in the church who can actually sit and talk with people about marital problems and they are as qualified as you are. Almost every preacher is way out of his league, pretending something that isn't real, if he thinks he's a marital counselor. And you've got people to whom you can say, "would you be willing to counsel with people if I could channel them to you?" They would be willing to do that. I think the resources will often be available in a small church. Many times we hold on to those responsibilities because it makes us feel needed. The genius of this church right now is the involvement of the lay people. We don't have a program where preachers go to visit in the hospital. We do have people in the church who love to go visit in the hospital, that's what they're gifted to do. So when somebody goes, people used to say, "Bob, when I was in the hospital, you were really good to me." Now, people say, "Bob, I was in the hospital for a week and a half"--and I kind of still brace myself for the 'where were you?'-"and the church was really good to me." And they'll tell me, "When those people from church come by, they're not in a hurry, they don't just try to leave a card--'sorry, you're sleeping'--they really want to be there." We do the same thing with a lot of our counseling sessions. We have a care ministry where if you've been through a particular problem, you're matched up with somebody who had a similar problem. You know who's happiest? The people who are serving in those kinds of capacities. Now, in some ways it hurts the preacher because all of a sudden the whole world isn't revolving around you.

Chandler: If you have a co-dependent bone in your body, you feel that ache in it.

Russell: That's exactly right. One year, I did 37 weddings. You know, that's a lot of weekends. And I was maxed out and thought, "I can't do this many." So, I went to my secretary, Barbara, and said, "next year, I'm going to do just 15 weddings--first come, first serve. You channel the others to other people and staff people." Well, it went pretty well … until one Saturday morning, I was walking through the church and they were setting up for a wedding. I asked the custodian, "Who's getting married?" He told me, and I was crushed, because it was a family I'm really close to. So, I said, "Barbara, I know I made this rule, 15, but if someone like that asks me, make an exemption." And she said, "they didn't ask for you!" (laughter) That hurts. You're saying, "it's not all about me." The preacher has to be willing to get his ego out of it, whether he's in a church of 125 or a church of 3,000.

Chandler: Has there been anything that you let go of prematurely? Any mistakes that you've made and lessons you could share from your experience?

Russell: I backed off of leadership of the staff too early. When we would have staff meetings, I'd have somebody else on the leadership team run the staff meetings. I did that for about a year, and there was this sense of aimlessness or disorientation on staff. And several key people on the staff said, "Bob, we need you up front; it's okay to relinquish some of those things, but when it comes to a building program, some treacherous waters here, we need your up-front presence in the staff meeting. We'll prepare the agenda, but you stand up front, because there's a sense of being without a leader."

Chandler: Where are you most "at home" as a leader? On the flip side, what areas of being a lead pastor are still the "pay-the-rent" areas that you have to do; they may not be your passion or your calling but you still have to do them? In other words, where are you happiest, and where are you most workman-like?

Russell: I'm happiest at two extremes. I'm happiest in the small leadership group of six or eight, where I know the agenda is being set, the tone is being set, where I can let my hair down and be completely unguarded and if I want to gripe a little bit, I can gripe a little bit, and if I want to praise, I can praise… without having to worry about it getting out and being multiplied three times more than its significance. And then I'm happy in front of the whole congregation, where if we have a mountain to climb, I can get up and I'm fired up, because I sense that these people believe in me because of the long-term pastorate. They feel confidence in me because I've been there before. I can say, "this is what we're going to do, we're on the same page, this is where we're going to go." I feel comfortable doing that.
This sounds really egotistical--I'm not happy in meetings I'm not leading. I get impatient, unless they're really well led, then I'm okay. But, if we're lingering and lingering and hashing and rehashing … I try to stay out of those meetings. And I'm not as effective as I would like to be with the large staff on retreat. Every year we have staff retreat and I have to get up and address the staff. When it's done, I'm glad I did it. Last month it was "Ten Commandments to a staff member of Southeast Christian Church." But I'm not as comfortable in that setting. I can't tell you why.

Chandler: So, in a way you're most comfortable in the cell size and the celebration size, but that middle congregation-size group you're not as comfortable...

Russell: I wish I could analyze myself and say what it is … but that's what it is.

Chandler: Many Virginia Baptist churches are very traditional, not only in the sense of theology, but they have a sense of congregational history and heritage. While that provides a certain kind of rootedness for the church, it also makes change very slow. What kinds of encouraging words would you say to pastors and lay leaders in very slow-moving churches to help them work where God is working and reach kinds of people they have not reached before?

Russell: First, I don't think it's a gimmick that's going to reach people. Sometimes we go to a place that is reaching people by the hundreds. And we think it's because they don't sing hymns or because they have a band and they don't have an organ. Those may be contributing factors. But probably the reason they're growing is something significant other than that. Maybe they are in an area that is ripe for receiving the seed of the Gospel, and it's going to grow 30, 60, 100-fold. Or other areas can be pretty hard ground. Or maybe they are growing because of excellence. Many times it is a commitment to excellence more than it is a methodology. Whatever you're doing, do it with excellence. If you're singing traditional hymns, do it with excellence. You still have that opportunity to get up there and preach; do that with excellence. I still think preaching is so important. That's your opportunity to feed people; people sit there and listen to the word of God. If that is done with excellence, you can make a lot of mistakes in other areas.
I think you have to make changes slowly in a traditional church. I once heard Fred Craddock say, "You don't rearrange the furniture in the room of a disoriented person." People are disoriented today. They want some stability in their lives. If everything is changing and decaying around them, and if they come to church and all of a sudden they have nothing to hold on to there, they're real frightened. If you're going to make changes, choose your battles carefully and communicate as clearly as you can. "This is what we're doing, this is why, this where we're going, how do you feel about it?" Be really open. There are several times I've got up in front of the church and said, "We're going to try something different today, I'm not sure I like it, but let's try it and see how it goes. I'd like your feedback afterwards, too." And people settled in a little bit, as opposed to abruptly dropping something on them.
Let me give you an example. Our music guys went to some place and heard the big band sound in Christian music. They thought to themselves, this is great! We love this sound, young people love this sound, and the older people who grew up with Glenn Miller will love this sound. They got a big band together, did three or four numbers (one of which was Amazing Grace, you could hardly tell it was Amazing Grace, but it was Amazing Grace). They didn't say anything to anyone. They just decided they were going to play let 10-15 minutes before the service started on Sunday morning. So, people came in and the big band sound is up there playing swing … and you've never heard such a stir. I mean, people were saying, "are we at Southeast Bar or what?" They got so many calls and letters, you wouldn't believe it. So, we had to get up and say, "You know, folks, we made a mistake with the big band sound. We thought you'd like it but some of you must have grown up in bars because that's immediately your association with it." (and they'd laugh.) But we had to say, "You know, we didn't communicate that well. We're not saying it will never come back, but if it does, we'll tell you so you can brace yourself for it." And we probably won't do three numbers at once. We rearranged the furniture in the room of a disoriented person and we made a mistake. But when we say in advance, "we're going to make a time change here, we're going to do something different, we're going to have this interview, we're going to have this video clip today, we don't intend to do this every week, y'all settle down!" If they know that you're sensitive to their feelings as opposed to coming in like a steamroller, they'll put down the armor. So make the change slowly, one-by-one, and do it well."

 

Bob Russell serves as pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. With over 14,000 weekly adherents, Southeast is one of the largest churches in the nation. He is author of several books, including When God Builds a Church, published this year.

John Chandler serves as Director of Evangelism and Church Growth for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.

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