ABOUT DAN

Dan and Kelly Matlock grew up in the Midwest but fell in love with Texas when they moved there in 2003. In 2011 they felt called to start a church in Hays County.  Dan loves spending time with his family, being outdoors, playing sports, and driving his motorcycle. He’s an avid football fan in general but a diehard fan of the Green Bay Packers and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
 

BE THE CHURCH

Be The Church:

Build an awesome team around you. 

Before you “have” church, you have to BE the church.


When you look at the life of Jesus, he was not surrounded by “Christians” all the time.  How can we get in people’s worlds and be the church outside the walls of a church?

Get involved in the community.  The church is here to serve people.  

The church exists to show the community what God is like.

Serving the community with no strings attached will open doors for relationships later on.  

Be intentionally close to others churches.  When the church wins, the kingdom wins. 

“What if I bring revival in your city but it comes through a different church?”  Would you still be interested?

Serve along side one another.  It’s easier to do life together and be friends than to compete with one another. 






CONTACT 

dan@eikonchurch.com


SUBSCRIBE to the Creative Sheep Podcast

On the Creative Sheep Podcast, we talk to people who are good at what they do to inspire leaders to get better. Don't miss an episode. SUBSCRIBE now!

#70: Dan Matlock - Be The Church

CHURCH PLANTING 

God will never promote you beyond what your character can sustain.

Church Planting

Birthing a church is like birthing a child.

Pregnancy- this stage is the planting and growth of God’s vision for the church that He wants to birth through you.  It is so important that this “pregnancy” is taken full-term, not birthed prematurely. During this time, it is important to trust the leaders in your life and their wisdom for timing.

It’s one thing to stand next to a leader and feel like you are carrying the weight of that leadership, but you won’t know the full weight of leadership until you get there yourself. 

 

Building a Team

It is important to surround yourself with people that can come alongside you and lift your hands, not hang off your hands. People that bring solutions, not just problems, are critical to supporting a lead pastor.

It’s a privilege to get close to the “spiritual nakedness” of your leader.  It’s in our brokenness that the light of Jesus shines through. 

How do you manage the general weakness of your leader? Do you cover for your leader’s weakness or expose it?

It is often a temptation to judge your strength against your leader’s weakness, and this can easily lead to a critical spirit. Your job as your serve your leader is to reflect their heart and protect them.

Church planting is hard. There are harder places than others, and there are unique battles with every one.

Don’t measure your growth based on comparison of other churches’ growth.

Success at the end of the day is “Did I obey Jesus?”

The focus should be on building something healthy that honors God. 

 

Ride the Natural Waves

There are natural waves that are built into our culture, how can we harness that momentum and ride it?

Example: putting a lot of energy and creativity into reaching the January crowd that naturally comes with the beginning of a new year.

This gives people a reason and tools to invite people. 

 

Learn from Your Mistakes

If you do enough of the right things, God’s grace is big enough to cover the wrong things.

Determine that your family & marriage are not options to sacrifice in the name of ministry.

Learning to say “no” to good things so you can say yes to “God” things.

The greatest sermons are lived out, not preached from the pulpit.

 

Top responsibilities of a lead pastor:

1. Captain of the Ship: seek Jesus first
2. Culture: set & create the culture
3. Coach: pastor first, boss second
4. Communicate: raise up other great leaders
You can’t please everybody, and that’s ok. 

Healthy growth takes longer and is harder, but it’s sustainable.

 

 

CONTACT 

Contact Element Church

 

 

SUBSCRIBE to the Creative Sheep Podcast

On the Creative Sheep Podcast, we talk to people who are good at what they do to inspire leaders to get better. Don't miss an episode. SUBSCRIBE now!

#71: Erik Lawson - Church Planting

ABOUT KARA

Kara Powell, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a youth ministry veteran of over 20 years, she serves as an Advisor to Youth Specialties. Named by Christianity Today as one of "50 Women You Should Know", Kara is the author or co-author of a number of books including Sticky Faith, Essential Leadership, Deep Justice Journeys, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum.


CHARACTERISTICS OF CHURCHES REACHING MILLENNIALS:

The Issue:

“The first job of leaders is to define reality.”

The best research indicates that almost half of youth group grads are leaving the church after they graduate.

The young adult population is grossly underrepresented in most churches.

The vast majority of churches are aging and shrinking.

Kara and the team at Fuller Youth Institute have been researching churches that are beating the odds and “growing young”, engaging the 18-29 year old populations. 


The Solution: 3 Characteristics Churches that are “Growing Young”

1. EMPATHY - It’s important to understand the main questions young people are asking and journeying with young people as they seek answers for these questions. These churches don’t judge young people, they journey with them.  They got to know them and go out of the way to get in their world.  They avoid offering quick advice, but ask them questions so that they can best identify options and solutions.  It requires a lot of patience.

2. KEYCHAIN LEADERSHIP - A large number of young adults identified engaging leadership as one of the main factors for church involvement.

It is key that leadership is willing to hand over the KEYS (position, access, power) to young people.  Young people want the freedom to cause change in a positive way. 

3. FOCUSING ON THE MESSAGE OF JESUS - These churches are re-Jesus-ing.  Christianity can be complicated and religious, but the person of Jesus is always magnetic.  

God’s grace is the heart of the Gospel instead of behavior.  These churches challenged young people to live radically by following Jesus in the here & now by loving and neighboring well. 

 

Questions Millennials are Asking:

1. Who am I?

2. What is my purpose?

3. Where do I fit?

The best answer to these questions is the GOSPEL.  It's  important to help them navigate these questions and answers instead of offering quick advice. 

 

Characteristics Churches DON’T Need to Engage Young People:

1. It doesn't have to be a particular size or in a particular location.

2. There doesn't have to be a huge budget, but the budget needs to be prioritized.

3. There doesn't have to be amazing facilitates or a definite “cool factor”. 


CONTACT 

fyi@fuller.edu

 

 

SUBSCRIBE to the Creative Sheep Podcast

On the Creative Sheep Podcast, we talk to people who are good at what they do to inspire leaders to get better. Don't miss an episode. SUBSCRIBE now!

#72: Kara Powell - Characteristics of Churches Reaching Millennials

On the Leadersheep Podcast we talk to people who are good at what they do to inspire leaders to get better. 

We create custom and pre-made creative media for churches and ministries. Communicating God's love through excellent content.

Leadersheep Podcast

Popular tracks