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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris and Brian welcome Pastor Greg Surratt to the podcast. Greg is the founding pastor of Seacoast Church, which was planted with the goal of reaching unchurched people in the Charleston area. Greg led Seacoast as it grew from one campus to many, as Seacoast became one of the first churches to pioneer the multi-site approach to the weekend experience. Greg is the president and co-founder of the Association of Related Churches (ARC), which is a global church-planting initiative that has established 804 churches worldwide since its founding in 2000. He is the author of the book IR-REV-REND, as well as a contributor for Outreach Magazine, Ministry Today magazine, and Charisma Magazine. Greg is married to his childhood sweetheart, Debbie, and together they have 4 children and 14 grandchildren. He enjoys photography, fishing, golfing, and rooting for the Cubs,Broncos and Gamecocks.

Questions:

• Your latest book, Re-Visioning, is kind of a story about the life of Seacoast Church. What led you to write it at this point?
• You were able to do something that seems extremely rare these days, pass off the leadership of a mega-church successfully without any kind of scandal. What do you credit that to?
• How important were small groups through the years of evolving ministry at Seacoast? How important is it for you personally to be in community?
• For all of the small groups and discipleship point people that listen to our podcast, how can they best support their senior pastor?
• Through your work with the ARC now, you have the opportunity to spend time with and pour into the lives of a lot of young pastors. What is the biggest advice you give them about successfully making it to the finish line?

Quotes:

The book is about keeping your vision fresh through every stage of the journey. Life, church and sheep will knock it out of you.

These are lessons and principles that have been accumulating through a lifetime of ministry. It’s the right time to share it.

There were some fun times, but there were also some incredibly painful ones.

The story is still being written for all of us. My prayer every day is I want to finish well.

Around year four, the first couple with gray hair showed up at church.

You can’t build the church for the next generation, but what you can do is build the leaders for the next generation. – Chip Judd

Small group was a part of what we did from the beginning, but became even more important as we grew.

Seacoast was the slowest growing mega-church on the planet.

The best thing you can do for your leader is be a low-maintenance, high-impact person.

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The Group Answers Podcast is a weekly show designed to resource, train, and encourage small group leaders. Each episode considers current trends and resources as well as timeless truths and methods of discipleship. It is hosted by Brian Daniel, a Bible study and discipleship expert in LifeWay’s Groups Ministry, and Chris Surratt, the small group and discipleship specialist at LifeWay and author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us.