Ken Fisher, Executive Pastor at Church of The Mill in South Carolina, spent 25 years in financial services and healthcare (CVS) before answering a call to ministry later in life. He joins James Forrest fresh to talk about leading one of the fastest-growing churches in America — from 1,200 in weekly attendance on a single campus in 2016 to roughly 6,000 across three campuses today.

Ken walks through what it's taken to scale: growing staff from under 20 to nearly 100, building a robust Biblical counseling ministry that now serves over 100 people a month, and making a deliberate, costly pivot to over-invest in next-gen ministry even when it meant lower per-family giving. He's candid about the tension between two types of executive pastors — lifelong vocational ministers and business-background transplants like himself — and where each tends to have blind spots, along with how AI is starting to show up as both a helpful tool and a stewardship question in ministry work.

The conversation turns personal as Ken reflects on the corporate-world "grind culture" he's had to unlearn, his church's decision to intentionally slow down every July to let staff recharge, and why he considers himself an "extroverted introvert" who recharges at a cabin in the North Carolina mountains. He closes with advice for the next generation of XPs: surround yourself with smart people, resist the urge to control everything, and remember that ministry growth isn't about chasing numbers — it's about executing well and letting God do the rest.