From Nicodemus to Pilate: What Jesus’ Conversations Reveal with Jeremy Norton

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeremy Norton, Lead Pastor of Mountainview Church in Whitehorse, Yukon. Jeremy has led the church through a significant revitalization journey since 2017, helping transition it into a growing, multicultural congregation that now includes both English and Tagalog gatherings.

Are you looking for a fresh way to engage Scripture in your own life or lead your church through it? In this conversation, Jeremy shares the heart behind his recent book Meeting Jesus, and how exploring the relational encounters of Jesus in the Gospel of John can reshape both personal faith and church leadership.

• A revitalization story shaped by people. // Originally founded in the 1940s, Mountainview Church underwent significant change beginning in 2017. Over time, the congregation not only stabilized but began to grow, including the addition of a Tagalog-speaking gathering led by a Filipino pastor. This shift reflects the demographic reality of Whitehorse, where a growing Filipino population now makes up a significant portion of the city. The result is a church that is both culturally diverse and unified around shared teaching and mission.
• Why focus on the relational encounters of Jesus? // Jeremy’s book Meeting Jesus began as a sermon series that explored the Gospel of John through the lens of Jesus’ one-on-one interactions. Rather than a traditional verse-by-verse approach, Jeremy focused on how Jesus engaged individuals, like Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and Pontius Pilate. This relational framing makes the gospel more accessible and personal, helping people see themselves in the stories.
• Why this approach resonates today. // Exploring Scripture through relational encounters connects deeply with modern audiences. People are drawn to stories they can see themselves in, whether as skeptics, wounded individuals, or seekers of truth. In particular, Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” reflects a growing cultural tension where truth is often seen as subjective. By grounding these questions in Scripture, churches can help people navigate complex cultural conversations with clarity and conviction.
• A resource for churches and leaders. // Jeremy sees Meeting Jesus as more than a book; it’s a ministry tool. Jeremy built this into his book by including discussion questions and action steps at the end of each chapter, making it a practical tool for both individuals and groups. Churches can use it alongside a sermon series through John, in small groups, youth ministries, or leadership development environments. It can also serve as a resource for new believers exploring faith or long-time Christians seeking deeper understanding.
• Turning sermons into lasting resources. // Jeremy also offers a behind-the-scenes look at why pastors should consider turning sermon series into books. Many pastors spend significant time preparing messages that are later archived and forgotten. By developing those sermons into written resources, leaders can extend their impact far beyond Sunday. Books can become tools for discipleship, outreach, and even invite culture, giving church members something tangible to share with others.
• A practical framework for pastors. // For pastors considering writing, Jeremy suggests starting with sermon series that span three to six months. That’s long enough to provide depth but not so long that the content becomes overly academic.

You can follow along at Mountainview Church at mountainview.church. To learn more about Jeremy’s book Meeting Jesus and access additional resources, visit leadbiblically.com or find the book wherever books are sold.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We got multiple conversations happening on multiple levels today, and we’ve got a repeat guest, which you know, when we have a repeat guest, what does that mean? This is a person I want you to listen in on and pay attention to. Today, we’ve got the privilege of having Jeremy Norton with us. He is the lead pastor of Mountain View Church. It was established in the 1940s in the Yukon, the Yukon Territory, and went through revitalization here in 2017. It is now both English and Tagalog. Did I say that correctly? Is that close? Close.

Jeremy Norton — Yes, that’s great, which is which is the language of Filipino peoples.

Rich Birch — Which is fantastic. He wrote most recently wrote a book called “Meeting Jesus”, which I want you to check out, which walks through the Gospel of John, highlighting Jesus’ relational encounters and how he crossed boundaries and transformed lives. You’re going to love this. Jeremy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Jeremy Norton — Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be back.

Rich Birch — Always good a chance to connect with you. And, you know, people, when they say I’m from the North, I’m like, no, my friend Jeremy, he really is from the North. You know, that’s a long ways away. Kind of talk to us about Mountain View. Tell us a little bit of the story, how you intersect there. If we were to arrive. You’ve been on in past episodes, but kind of update us a little bit.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, yeah. So I’m going on 11 years as lead pastor of Mountainview Church. Started as Whitehorse Baptist Church, revitalized to Mountainview Church, all sorts of different changes there. Yeah, lots of people are familiar with revitalization journeys. Went through that. It’s hard work, but it’s good work. And I’m on the back end of it and we’ve seen crazy growth. We went to two English gatherings during revitalization. And then about a year and a half ago, we added a part time Filipino pastor and he does a Tagalog gathering as well.

Jeremy Norton — And so same content, same or same theme and passage as the English gatherings, but obviously he writes his own content. So we still go through the sermon series together. His name’s Byron, Pastor Byron. And so that’s been really, really great.

Jeremy Norton — Most people don’t know that in Whitehorse, and I think Yellowknife as well, Canadian immigration about 10 years ago started kind of fast tracking Filipino peoples. And for those of us in Canada, all of a sudden, probably 10 years ago, we started seeing more and more Filipino people in the workforce, amazing people, joyful people, resourceful people. And it got to the point in Whitehorse where we had a lot of Filipino immigrants and And to the point where we’re about 10% of our population in our city is Filipino.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Jeremy Norton — And so there’s actually like there’s a Filipino Catholic, Nazarene. And for us, we’re Evangelical Baptist. So there’s a number of congregations that are Tagalog speaking. And yeah, so that’s kind of where we’re at now.

Rich Birch — That’s very cool.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — That’s, yeah that’s fun fun to hear. And I, yeah and I’m thinking about, man, moving from the Philippines to Whitehorse, that’s a move. That’s a move right there.

Jeremy Norton — Crazy. Yeah. A country that’s constantly what over 30, over 35 degrees Celsius.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — And then now they’re in negative 40 Celsius.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — Which, for Americans, negative 40 meets at Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Rich Birch — Yes. Cold.

Jeremy Norton — So it’s just stuff’s cold and it breaks.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — So yeah, crazy. And it just shows you the the desire of Filipino people to to, I guess, make life better for their family and to take opportunities. They’re willing to sacrifice a lot. It’s pretty incredible.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, we want to talk today about a book that you’ve recently released called “Meeting Jesus: the Transformational Encounters of John’s Gospel”. Why don’t you give us the the big picture first? Why did you write this book? what What’s the kind of story you’re telling here? What are you hoping for? What were you thinking as you were pulling this together?

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, well, it it started as a sermon series in 2018 called Meeting Jesus. And I wanted to walk people through John’s gospel, but instead of in instead of doing a just kind of an expository preaching series, I was like, what would it look like to go through the actual relational encounters that Jesus had with different people?

Jeremy Norton — You know, I guess starting with kind of Philip and Nathaniel and even working to Nicodemus, woman at the well. Anyway, all the way right through to to the to the famous moment of him and Pilate, where Pilate’s like, what is truth? You know so the whole journey.

Jeremy Norton — And then after doing that in 2024, I can only assume the the Holy Spirit led me to like just opening up those notes. And I was like, I need to turn this into a book. This isn’t quite a commentary. And yet it is a commentary, and yet it’s it’s it’s a story because it’s each chapter is the story of Jesus and another person. And in the sermon series, I had expanded on like who this person is in modern culture as well.

Jeremy Norton — Like, this could be you, this person. You know, whether it be the the legalist or the skeptic or like, you know, yeah, again, you have you have Nathaniel, who’s the skeptic, Philip, who’s the evangelist. You have Nicodemus, who’s the legalist. You know, anyway, ah the the woman of the well who’s wounded and and really disowned from culture. So there’s all these people.

Jeremy Norton — And and then so I I started working to put the sermon series into a book. I use a publisher.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — I have a great publisher, Ambassador International, sent it to them in…And then through 2025, it went back and forth to multiple edits.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — They did a lot of work for me.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Jeremy Norton — And, you know, and yeah, then it launched in March 10th. And it’s been really fun.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.

Jeremy Norton — So far, I’ve got amazing feedback from it. So it’s great.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’d love to, I think the framing of kind of the relational encounters of Jesus is interesting way to look at the Gospels. And, you know, the the the incredible popularity of “The Chosen”, I think, is built on a similar premise, right? How do we see Jesus, even if you have a kind of passing knowledge of Jesus, see these stories that maybe we’ve heard of before, but from a slightly different lens, just a slightly different point of view, which is like, hey, let’s think through this at ah at a human level, for lack of a better word.

Rich Birch — Why do you think that that is, an effective way to re-encounter something like the gospel of John? Why is that in a framework that you think God’s used either in your series or when you talk about it here in the book?

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I think and well, I think John’s gospel in itself is, you know, different than Matthew, Mark and Luke like how he writes it. He wrote it later right it’s the gospel that came much later.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — And so and for whatever reason God led him to to focus so much on the conversation Jesus had with people. You know the other gospels just detail things differently. And so I don’t we’ll you know we’ll meet John one day but I imagine he he’s pretty pastoral. I I, from his writing, I I imagine that he’s kind of the, you know, for a modern term, you know, coffee shop pastor just wanting to know people’s stories…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — …and saying like, oh, I remember this one time Jesus had this conversation with so and so and this is how it played out. And this, you know, and so that’s when I did the sermon series, which became the book like that, I just envisioned John like that. And I just thought that John’s like a lot of pastors with their congregations on those like coffee shop meetings, or like trying to help them through life and trying to point back to Jesus and the conversation he’s had. So, um yeah, that’s kind of that’s where where it all kind of started…

Rich Birch — Started. Yep.

Jeremy Norton — …and I just wanted to explain that well. And there is tons of scripture in it, and even going back to pointing back like for context, and it’s not like there’s not theological depth to it, or pointing back to some Old Testament stuff on what what was talked about. Yeah, especially with ah Nathaniel, who Jesus calls the true Israelite. You know, we get this picture that Nathaniel really wanted to follow God’s law. He he really he really was waiting to see the Messiah, but but desperate, you know, to see the Messiah. So anyway, yeah.

Rich Birch — That’s cool. When you went through the series, was there one of these vignettes that seemed to resonate or stick out with your church more than others? Or, you know, we like to think, oh, every every message is like people just love them. But were there any of them that just kind of like, oh, that seemed to to resonate? And why do you think that resonated with your people? Because maybe that’ll continue to resonate even through, you know, the book here.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, there’s there’s there’s there’s two that I that I remember.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — I mentioned them slightly already.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — But coming out of the revitalization in 2017 and then moving into 2018 this was like one of the one of the sermon series that kind of got us in the journey. And so, you know, hashing out Nicodemus as a, as a, as a legalist who, who’s, you know, the midnight encounter with Jesus and, and, and processing like how to be born again. And we were getting a lot of visitors. And so and so that was an important thing.

Jeremy Norton — And it was an important thing, I think, for a church that had been probably like a lot of churches pre-revitalization, they tend to lean towards legalism a little bit, the rules, you know, thus saith the Lord. And to understand, to just see it through Nicodemus’ eyes that that his whole religious worldview was like breaking down at midnight.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — And and you know unfortunately, we don’t really get the end of the story with Nicodemus.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — It’s like I’m always desperate for it. Like what happened in the end?

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — Like, did he just give up his religious position? Did he stay like a Christian spy? Like what, you know, what happened? So that was the first one to, to just really help our church understand that being born again, like that is, that is the, the point.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — And, uh, and all the rules and all the commands like of of God’s law, they’re a beautiful thing, but they were all leading us to the trajectory of Jesus…

Rich Birch — It’s good. It’s good.

Jeremy Norton — …and fulfilling the law, fulfilling the prophets. And that and that we we we need to be dead to self and and born again.

Jeremy Norton — And and then the the second one was, which I already slightly mentioned, was that was Pilate and what is truth. And in 2018 in particular, there was, I’m sure pastors listening will remember that we, we weren’t quite in, we weren’t at COVID yet, but the, it was like, you know, a year and a half before and, and truth was a big thing.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — There was, there was a lot of identity stuff happening in 2018.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — It was just kind of really kicking off, especially in Canada. It was, it was a big deal. And so capturing truth and and what is truth that that’s actually in 2018 was when we started hearing a common phrase now where like your truth and my truth. That was just kind of starting at that time.

Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — And so hearing Pilate…

Rich Birch — Right.

…who is, you know, has so much authority and so much clout and and trying to figure out Jesus and just clearly just so frustrated that he’s in the whole mess of this and that really doesn’t want any part of it. And…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — And for the Greco-Roman world, like they were definitely like in a lot of ways, like modern culture, like

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — you take a little part A, a little part B…

Rich Birch — And blend it together.

Jeremy Norton — …and you just form your own truth.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — God 1, god 2, god 4 – who cares…

Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — …you know.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. yeah Interesting.

Jeremy Norton — So so that really resonated too. And that was like the last, that was the the last message in the series. And we actually saw people come to know Christ and baptized at the end of the series and and ending doing it actually right before Easter. And yeah, it it yeah was great.

Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I love that. There’s, you know, it’s, I think it’s great to relook at a book like the book of John from this kind of perspective. Because I think sometimes as pastors, people, as we, you know, deal with the scripture, and it it can become routine. We don’t want it to become routine. That’s not our heart for that to happen. But I think that can happen. That’s like, I’ve said in other contexts, that’s like an occupational hazard we have with the scripture is…

Jeremy Norton — Totally.

Rich Birch — …you know, we’re we’re constantly just opening this book up to find, you know, I got to find nuggets to give to other people. And, you know, I miss that.

Rich Birch — Speak to a pastor who might be listening in today that this book could help them because I was struck by that. This could be the kind of thing that I think even for us as we’re thinking about our own walk with Jesus, I think this kind of book could help us help us think think about this book from that perspective.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, this for a pastor that wanted to go through John, they could just grab this book and do a like, like for their church, either the whole church.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — Hey, we’re going to be walking through John and we’ve got this book Meeting Jesus and and it’s going to be available in our small groups. Because in the back of every chapter, there’s discussion questions, action items like the the publisher really helped me flesh out the end of the chapter to make it very applicable.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

Jeremy Norton — So you can walk through John’s gospel and meeting Jesus could be a discussion guide. Even for like youth, for like senior high youth, totally doable in that through all your community groups and to for for a pastor to preach through John, but then get more ah more out of it, I think would be would be quite valuable. Obviously I’m biased…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeremy Norton — But but if you’re look if you’re looking for a resource to give your people to get the fullness out of your John series this be it for sure. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Love it. One of the things I love about this is like, sidebar taking that back to school. I did a class on John. Actually, one of my favorite classes in school was on John and my prof was just amazing. And and I oftentimes when I’m reading John I hear his voice you know my prof’s voice…

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and remember he used to make, there’s all those places in John where, maybe it’s not that many, you probably would know because you’re a better preacher than me. There’s those places where John refers to John as the one who Jesus loved.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And my prof used to always make fun of that all the time and be like, you know, here, there he is. He’s like writing about himself saying, or maybe it’s the community writing about him saying, well, you know, the John, the one who Jesus loved, you know, which is just a funny story. But it is, it speaks to your point. It’s a personal text. It’s it has a relational edge to it that I think we can miss we can miss or as an opportunity for us to highlight for our people. Hey, let’s let’s think about this from a slightly different perspective. Love that.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, and even even how John talks about the discovery of the empty tomb…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — …and and who’s with who and who’s running back, like how he how he does it, it’s just, I’m for me, I’m always like, that’s you know, great about the New Testament writings is like God in his, wisdom didn’t take the personality out and yet kept the truths.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — And so you, you see a little bit like, like was John, if he really was the relational guy and, and just the the shepherd, was he also a little bit insecure?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — It kind of comes across a little bit. Like, I don’t know for sure. I don’t, I can’t do the full exegesis of it, but I, I often wonder that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it feels very human.

Rich Birch — That part of the, that part of the the well, and even that whole story…

Jeremy Norton — Yes.

Rich Birch — …well, that to me is one of the most compelling reasons for why I believe the text, because it’s like, if you were trying to make up a story…

Jeremy Norton — Totally. Yeah.

Rich Birch — …about a guy coming back from the dead. there’s a bunch of stuff in there, including the women, including the…you’re telling me that the guys that were the closest were not here. You know, like that just doesn’t make sense. Like you, if we were writing this story, you would be like, Hey, let’s put, let’s put us all in there. Let’s put us that we, we, we stood by and maybe we beat up the centurions. Like, let’s put that in like that. That’ll make us look better.

Jeremy Norton — Totally. Yeah.

Rich Birch — But that to me is one of the, to me, it’s like one of the most compelling. There’s a bunch of that in the New Testament, but that’s one of them that to me is a key text…

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …that speaks to why you can believe this text to be true, because you wouldn’t write it that way if, unless it actually happened.

Jeremy Norton — Totally. It makes, yeah, it makes me think of Mark Clark’s book, The Problem of Jesus.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — He does an excellent job, like, explaining the resurrection and and and from, like, an investigator’s point of view. I’m like, that this is so erratic.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — It has to be true, you know?

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — So, yeah, it’s good.

Rich Birch — When it feels very human, feels very human, right? You’re like, like you say, like that feels like the kind of thing I can relate with for sure.

Rich Birch — Think about it at a church level. You kind of mentioned this because similarly, I thought, man, this could be a great study.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I was actually struck by, I think an interesting context for it might be, hey, you’ve got a group of leaders. at the church that you’re trying to invest in. And, um you know, my friend Dan Reiland from 12 stone said, you know, the core of his leadership development over the years has been find a group of 10 people say, here’s a book, let’s read it and talk about it. To me, this is one of those ones that could be great because it’ll get, it’ll open up all kinds of other conversation.

Jeremy Norton — Totally.

Rich Birch — What are some other contexts that you kind of pictured this being used in the church?

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I think, well, personal devos I think would be great. Like if you’re reading through John just on your own, like the the back sections can, yeah, it can be discussion guides, can also be like a personal journal. I if people went ah into a deep dive of of this book, reading along with John’s gospel, obviously there’s lots of scripture just like right in the book. But, and then let’s say they answer the reflection questions, go through the action items. There’s just so much there’s lots of space in that end of each chapter. And I could see someone, turning it into like a journal and…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I also think, you know, I guess it it could it could also be a great gift. I think if you’re if you’re, you know, you could keep giving people a coffee mug with your church’s logo on. You really could if you wanted to.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — I’m I’m I think I think books are with the pen and the candy bar or whatever, you know, whatever you’re going to do I think a book as a gift is a is a good way to do it. Obviously, it’s my book. I’m biased, and there’s lots of great books out there.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — But this would be a book, whether whether someone’s first coming to know Christ or exploring Christianity, or whether they’re they’ve been long discipled and mentored for a long time as you’re as a first-time guest in your church to give them a little welcome package. This this would would fit, I think.

Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. That’s good. Let’s pivot to actually that, that, ah you know, wants me to pivot to a different kind of a different conversation, but about the book…

Jeremy Norton — Sure.

Rich Birch — …which is even that as a pastor, so kind of the meta conversation, it’s a lot of time, effort, and energy, I can say as a a third time author who’s working on the fourth and is taking time.

Jeremy Norton — Well done.

Rich Birch — It’s like, it’s a lot of time to invest to put this together. As a pastor of a church, talk to me why you would invest the time, effort, and energy in writing a book like this. What how do you see that fitting in to you know the mission of what you’re doing at the church?

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, well I want a lead passion out over a decade and you go through sermon series. You know there are those pastors who will do like two years in Matthew…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — …and they’re doing like one or two verses a time…excuse me. And so you know that i can’t turning that into like that’s going to be a full-on commentary, very theologically deep.

Jeremy Norton — But for a lot of us, we’re doing thematic thematic series or like this, where you’re doing an overview of a book, like catching highlights, encouraging a congregation in their personal study to read through the meat of it and the details. But, you know, maybe one chapter at a time, a highlight. So there’s lots of times pastors do that.

Jeremy Norton — And so you write these sermon series and then they just get archived. And, you know, I I’ve I have them. Every pastor listening has them where you have, you know, your folders and you open your folders and it’s like you have the year and then you got the months…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — …or or maybe you just have the sermon series. And then you open that folder and it’s like manuscripts, notes, and you don’t want to delete them.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — Because you’ve put so much heart and soul and prayer and and work into it. And I just, I really feel it’s a ton of work, like so much work, so much work, but you get better at it. And pastors that you you can, you can let those sermon series live on in books.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Jeremy Norton — And you you can do the heart, the hardest work. You know, I’ve done both ways, having a publisher, And self-publishing, you can do the self-publishing, you know, Amazon has those tools. It gets easier over time, you know, having done a ah number of them now and some of them looking ugly and some of them now looking it’m like, okay, I got it I’ve got it locked in now.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — And with you go a traditional publisher, you know, when you’re first getting started, you know, it it it costs money. But there is something amazing when you see your sermon series in print.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Jeremy Norton — And that you can give it to your, you could give it as a gift to your people, welcome gift, or you could just sell it. And, and you, you’ve got people in your congregation that will support your writing anyway. They love your sermon series.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — That’s why they’re there. The main reason they’re coming. There’s, they may come for different reasons to your church, but they’re staying for the teaching.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — Like we just know that. The the stats are there and can enter consistent. So to have to have your teaching in a book form, they will buy it for friends. They will buy it for themselves, they especially if they really love the sermon series.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — So. But it’s a lot of work.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — I get it. It’s a lot of work.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I like it from, and we said this before we started recording, but from a on the like invite culture, church growth side of work that I do, one of the tactics that I recommend that churches seriously look at is writing a book like this. Take a sermon series, do the work to, and you know, it takes time.

Rich Birch — It’s not a like, you can’t pull that trigger and a month later you’ve got a book. That’s not how that works. It takes time. But it is a great tool. And we’ve seen it with the churches we work with, multiple churches, where it it is, like you’re saying, it’s a great in the new year gift. It’s a great tool for there. But it’s frankly a great tool for your people on the invite side. People will give the book to other folks.

Jeremy Norton — Correct.

Rich Birch — It’s a way to interact in town with other, you know, like other leaders, that sort of thing. And, you know, your people, there is still, there’s like a perceived…prestige is too strong of a word. But there’s like there’s a validation in in putting together a book that…

Jeremy Norton — There is. You are totally correct.

Rich Birch — …you know you’ve you’ve put the work in, and that it probably means more than it should in the culture, but it is a tool. It’s something that you could use. And so I love that you’re doing this. When you think about, if you were sitting across from a a pastor, was thinking about the kind of series that would translate well into a book based on your experience, obviously not all series could could translate well. What would be the kind of thing that you think could translate well for someone?

Jeremy Norton — So there’s a, yeah, a few caveats would be like, it has to be a minimum that you’ve done. It’s gotta be in order to get it to book form, I would minimum two months, but that’s going to be a slim book. So I would say like, I guess if you really wanted to but the sweet spot is three to six months series. In a three to six months series, you’re going to have enough content for a book. But not so much content that now you’ve written a textbook.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — That’s why I was saying like, you’re doing the year in Matthew or the two years in Matthew, which, you know, lots of, that seems to be a thing, especially with Matthew. I hear that more than anyone else is, is doing the deep dive of Matthew, probably because a lot of the touch points to the Old Testament in in Matthew for sure. But it’s too it’s too big. You’re you’re it’ll be too academic. It won’t be accessible. It’ll just be a monster.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — So three to six months of sermon series. And and yeah, just there’s lots of there’s AI tools out there that you can use to to be cautious with the AI tools, because if you lose your voice, you’re done like it does people people will see it.

Rich Birch — Right, right. It doesn’t sound like you.

Jeremy Norton — If your book is full of m dashes, they will know that ChatGPT wrote it, you know.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes. That’s funny. Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — So yeah, it it it. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s something that I think later on I want to help pastors with. I think I really would.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, I do I think there’s a I think there’s an opportunity there for a lot of pastors to think about that and say, hey, what is there a way for us? I like the idea of like, I think that’s a good tangible three to six months. Even if you’re, I’m thinking about even the lead pastor at at our church, we typically do four or five week series.

Rich Birch — He doesn’t, we don’t typically do super long series like that.

Jeremy Norton — Oh right. Yes.

Rich Birch — We’re changing the channel, but he’s done a number of, he’s come back to similar topics over time. So he’s, we just finished up a series on the Holy Spirit. It’s actually the third time in, maybe three years, we’ve done a series on the Holy Spirit. You could see where maybe it’s piecing together a couple different series and say, hey, there might be a, or you could think about that on the front end, like, hey, maybe over the next two years, I’m going to do three or four series together, you know, or over this next couple of years that I eventually am going to pull together into one, you know, overarching kind of idea that we can put together in a book.

Jeremy Norton — And even in that, like hearing, okay, so three years doing the Holy Spirit…

Rich Birch — Yep.

…you could definitely do, just take those three, if they’re like four to six weeks or whatever, a three-part book and actually separate into parts.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Jeremy Norton — and And again, using AI tools, you can upload those documents and say, ah you know, anything that’s duplicate, you know, please categorize for me.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Jeremy Norton — And, you know, put it into co-work or something like that. And, and then go into the docs, pull, pull that out. And yeah, it would, it it could work. It could work great.

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s similar. Like when I wrote the, the, and I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this publicly, but the books I’ve written, I’ve similarly, like I, um, the process I’ve gone through is I write an outline and then I actually, I actually speak the chapters like a presentation. So, cause that’s my most natural form, like is I’m doing, or I do it all the time. I’m constantly like, I’m doing it later today, meeting with the church and we’re going to talk for a bunch of hours about stuff. And so I’m like very used to that. I’ll use then the transcript from that. I’ll take that. And then I write from that transcript. I’m basically editing that transcript to turn it into something that sounds like it’s written. And then I’ve done iterative back and forth processes with an actual editor.

Rich Birch — So, you know, it’s like then it’s like it goes to her and then comes back to me, goes back to her…

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …back and forth over time to kind of get that whittled down into, OK, here’s a text. And, you know, the thing I’ve said to other leaders, even that process gets you started, people get stuck looking at a blank page, right They get stuck at the beginning. So even finding a process to get the ball rolling is is and getting the information down on the page. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said, which stay with me, friends, don’t hang up on the podcast. I think he said, write drunk, edit sober. And you what you should not do as a pastor, but what he’s saying there is like, just get it onto the page, like just get it out.

Jeremy Norton — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like, you know, and if you take forever on that first stage, you’ll never get to a book. Right. And you’ve already done that as a, as a pastor, you’ve spoken these, but how do we get the ball rolling? Thoughts on any of that, except for the get drunk thing. Don’t comment on that, but any comments on the rest of that?

Jeremy Norton — Yeah, don’t write drunk. But so I guess I so there’s some guys out there that like, you know, they’ll have just like a few little notes and they they’re not manuscript preachers. Some guys are manuscript preachers. Nothing against that. You know I’m kind of a both and guy.

Rich Birch — Yep.

I manuscript for like our manuscript and teleprompt for our YouTube channel. And then but then I take that like so that manuscript I just have highlights. And then when I live preach, I just have highlights. And I walk around and talk. So there’s lots of passages in different versions but if you are the guy that’s just got an an outline um you’re probably going to have an audio an audio of your sermon and you can put it into a like Otter AI, or don’t know there’s probably loads of different tools now, and run that transcript, and then just export every sermon as a as, you know, the first sermon in your series you know introduction. Right.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Second one in your series…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — …you know, chapter one. And once you have those documents, now you will you will notice, well, there’s lots of things you’re going to notice when you get a transcript. You’re going to notice how much you say and like and all these different things.

Rich Birch — True.

Jeremy Norton — You’re going to be just like, oh my goodness, is that how I sound like, which can be a good thing when you read that when you’re when you move from the transcript of your sermon into a book, you’re like, oh my goodness, this is would be the most awful thing to read.

Rich Birch — True.

Jeremy Norton — But there’s also tools now that remove all all that for you.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, that’s fun.

Jeremy Norton — Then you go through and you edit it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — And yeah, yeah. And it’s a beautiful thing when it’s done.

Rich Birch — Good stuff. Yeah, that’s great. Well, this been a good good conversation. Where can people i want to get people to pick up copies of this.

Jeremy Norton — Sure.

Rich Birch — I’m assuming they can buy it at Amazon. In fact, I know you can buy it at Amazon because that’s where books come from. But are there other places we want to send people to pick up? I think this would be, even if you’re listening in today and you’re thinking, hmm, I wonder what it looks like to have sermons transformed into a book like hey you should pick up a copy even as just a reference to get a sense of hmm I could see what that could look like even if you’re not going read it that would interesting tool…

Jeremy Norton — Totally. It’s it’s a great…

Rich Birch — …there. so so Amazon, where else do we want to send them?

Jeremy Norton — Anywhere anywhere books are sold.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — I don’t I don’t know if anyone buys books at anywhere else.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Jeremy Norton — Like does people do people still buy books at Indigo or Chapters or ChristianBook.com?

Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yes.

Jeremy Norton — I don’t know who does, but if you do…

Rich Birch — It’s there.

Jeremy Norton — …it’s it’s there. One of the benefits of going with a publisher is they just have access to just…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — …every book distributed. They just can get your book everywhere.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — When you self-publish, you know, with Amazon, it’s locked in Amazon, but then again, people go to Amazon. And yeah, it’s a, it would be a great thing for pastors to, to look through and say, Hey, you know, I think I could do this.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeremy Norton — I see how this works now. So that would be good. And obviously there’s print copy or a digital copy.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Jeremy Norton — You know, if you want more information on the book and stuff like that, you can go to my website, leadbiblically.com. There’s lots of other stuff there. My other books that I’ve written, self-published and published by Ambassador International, they’re all there too. You can have a look. Yeah.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, Jeremy, I really appreciate that. I appreciate you being on the show today and and let us peek under the hood. There’s obviously a lot more we could talk about there, but I want to encourage people to go pick those up and and check out your website, Lead Biblically. And thanks for being here today.

Jeremy Norton — Thanks so much. Love it.