Should Pastors Have Podcasts?

[00:00:01] Speaker A: We're rolling. [00:00:07] Speaker B: From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message. In this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming. That's Lindsey Parnell. And way over there in our new video setup with a couch all yourself, you could lay down as Evan Earwick. [00:00:31] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. Is this saying something about how I use my space? I need extra, double the size. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Little love seat. You would have to dangle your legs. Obviously. You could lay down. [00:00:42] Speaker A: You could. [00:00:43] Speaker B: You guys do that. You do that in the living room. Like, love seat. Dangle the legs over the side as opposed to just laying down into the. Into the regular couch. [00:00:52] Speaker C: Do you intentionally have the legs? [00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, are you going and choosing. I'm gonna take that love seat because I can put my feet up and all that. [00:00:58] Speaker A: I'm a knee bender. I don't do it over the. That feels like it would just put pressure if you're actually sleeping. Pressure on the back of your calves. [00:01:05] Speaker C: Are you choosing a love seat to sleep? [00:01:07] Speaker B: Talking about lounging. [00:01:08] Speaker A: Oh, lounging. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, lounging. Choose that in the lounge. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I always like an ottoman out front. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Sideways thing. I don't know. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Out front. How do you feel about people using the coffee table for the. Their feet? [00:01:19] Speaker A: It's fine. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Okay, great. [00:01:20] Speaker A: It's great. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Same Lindsay. [00:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah. I have no issues, Honestly, Truly. [00:01:26] Speaker A: When we. When we bought our couches, they're technically both love seats, and the couch came in a size that was, like, I don't know, a few inches wider, but very, very subtle. The difference. Yeah. And it was going to be a little bit wider. It would have fit, but it would have been a little too wide. So we did two love seats, and it's just too short to sleep on. So now if I can't sleep, but I'm downstairs, sleep on the couch, I wake up just feeling horrible because I'm just a little too long. How often does this happen? Every night. I try to avoid it because it's not good sleep. Do you sleep well on the couch? [00:02:01] Speaker C: Have I ever slept on a couch? Not in my adult life, I don't. [00:02:04] Speaker A: You've never slept on a couch? [00:02:05] Speaker C: I don't think so. Wow. I kick Eric to the couch, I get the bed. [00:02:11] Speaker B: But you haven't just ended up at, like, somebody's house. It's the holidays. It's, you know, whatever. That doesn't happen. [00:02:16] Speaker C: I don't think so. Not in my memory, which doesn't mean much. I have a terrible memory. [00:02:20] Speaker B: So in your adult Life. [00:02:21] Speaker C: I don't think so. [00:02:22] Speaker B: I'm amazed. That's something. [00:02:23] Speaker A: That's wild. [00:02:24] Speaker C: I think girls are normally prioritized to get like the comfier sleeping. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:29] Speaker B: I probably slept on 100 couches on [00:02:31] Speaker C: the floor or like an air mattress, but not like a couch. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's way different. Couch is way different. I would far prefer the air mattress if it can hold air to the couch because I. I'm a leg bender too. Like you're talking about. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah, you gotta be able to spread out. But let's talk about this new arrangement, because for the life of the podcast, since you've been a part of it, Lindsay, you've been off in your own world, off in the corner, which started to seem a little weird. So now. Now you're right in the center behind the master. [00:03:02] Speaker C: I'm really in the middle of it all. [00:03:04] Speaker A: How does that feel? [00:03:06] Speaker C: It feels a little weird. I feel a little vulnerable. Not gonna lie. I. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Vulnerable? [00:03:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I am. I am very much in the center. When I was in my little corner, I could hide a little bit. Even though. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like we're gonna actually talk to you a lot more. [00:03:20] Speaker C: I think so too. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Because normally we would get going, talking to just between the two of us and then we cut to. [00:03:24] Speaker B: You're right, though. I think sometimes you liked that though. I think you like. You're like, oh, today I can stay out of it a little bit more. Solitaire. Nice. You could tell we were really on a roll. That's amazing. [00:03:38] Speaker A: No, I figured like we talk for 40, 50 minutes. Like you're just sitting there, only taking notes. Please. Yeah. No way. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Not a chance. [00:03:45] Speaker C: Doing a grocery order. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Wow. So how are you feeling about losing some of this efficiency time in your life? [00:03:51] Speaker C: It's fine, I guess. [00:03:54] Speaker B: You could still play. [00:03:55] Speaker C: I could. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's right there. [00:03:58] Speaker A: So you guys. We went to San Antonio last week just before they went to the Western finals. [00:04:04] Speaker B: They won the Western finals. They won the finals Saturday. Okay. Yeah. We missed the big celebration. I'm sure the celebration. Oklahoma City. [00:04:12] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Cool. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But San Antonio is cool. You guys like it? [00:04:17] Speaker C: I did. I liked it. I was surprised. I didn't know what to expect. I don't have a lot of experience with Texas, but yeah, it was a super cute little area. We were in downtown with the riverwalk and delicious food. [00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:29] Speaker B: I've only been to Dallas and Dallas was lame. San Antonio was pretty cool. Very vibey, I guess is I guess what you would say. They do public spaces better than Most any city I've ever been in. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, some cool. Many cool spaces. We were there for our Four Square, which our denomination, our annual convention. That happens. They kind of move it all around the country. And, Ben, you and I have to go as senior pastors, but depending on the year, we'll take the leadership team. And so we went to the conference, and I wanted to talk about one moment at the conference that very much speaks to this. So Becky Johnson, who's the lead pastor of Jesus Culture Sacramento, was talking about. And she was talking about a lot of things, but one of the things was don't use AI to preach, which. Amen. And then the second thing was, not everybody needs a podcast. And if you produce a podcast and only 75 people listen, you should probably be spending that time, like, pursuing Jesus instead of recording podcasts. And then she came after those who decorate podcast spaces. How did that make you feel, Lindsay? [00:05:35] Speaker C: I felt so attacked, especially because we had just finished this space where I spent a chunk of time decorating this space. And she literally brought up people who decorate and podcasts who don't have a very big listing. But you know what? I'm secure. [00:05:52] Speaker A: Well, she did say 75, and we have at least 85. At least a week. Yeah. [00:05:56] Speaker B: So we kind of need you guys to listen. Make sure you keep listening or else Becky's gonna come after us from. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Well, and honestly, I agree. Like, not everybody needs a podcast. We probably don't need a podcast. But I would put this out there that for us in our church with a shared leadership model. Oftentimes people, for you and I, Ben, they never hear us interacting with each other except, what, Easter and Christmas when we're on stage together. And then every once in a while, we'll do something together on the stage other than that they're getting one or the other of us throughout a service or week to week or who's preaching. And so I. I felt like it's important to have some space where people, if they want. Not everybody wants to, but wants to hear how we interact together. That's important so that people can understand the dynamic between us and not just see it as like, who's scheduled to be here today, but that we do have a camaraderie in the work. Yeah. [00:06:53] Speaker B: And I think it's good for me to do this with some kind of intentional conversation where we're heading in a bit of a direction. I know we like to wander around. And that's part of the fun. Fun too. To have a point in not every week but most weeks where we're sitting down and we're talking through something that we preach through, I think it's not even just important for the listener, but important for us. I really enjoy this time, I guess, is what I'm saying. And I think we could sit down in here and not record and talk the way that we talk. And it would be life giving for my time in ministry. Not that we have to prove anything to Becky at Jesus culture, but yeah, there's something to it. And I do. Like, I just don't love the idea of churches getting in the habit of this one person monologues to us and then we receive that and then we try to do something with it. I like at least having something available where the preacher or the leader is in a dialogue situation that is observable because I just don't like the idea that that's how we talk to people, is we stand up on a stage of the microphone and we talk at them. And this is a great way to express a conversational, even debate filled form of communication because we just don't get to do on Sundays. [00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I've heard that someone said theology is best worked out in conversation. And I think there is truth to theology for sure. In isolation is never good. We're placed in community. Jesus set up a church, he didn't set up a theological system. And so that's where good theology happens, is in conversation and community. Not that there's no community when it's just a preacher preaching at you. But this, I think is like a pilot project or a scale model of where good theology should develop and be wrestled with and challenged and called out and discussed is in conversation. And not just one brilliant preacher coming up with things by herself or himself and then delivering that kind of the Moses model of ministry. But in the New Testament Church, we are given to each other and Christ is found in our midst. And so I think it's a model. And whether, whether it's a successful podcast or not, maybe a secondary successful enough [00:09:10] Speaker B: for people to talk about it with me on most weekends anyway, especially when we're recording, I don't know. And then that one person counts as 20 in my mind. So the math is good. [00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pastor math. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Right, Pastor math. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Well, we had three views on the live stream and you got to figure out each family has probably 12, 13 [00:09:28] Speaker B: kids, 175 scrolled past the video. So that counts for something. [00:09:33] Speaker A: I remember the early days of like live streaming and count, trying to count. And you'd have these astronomically high numbers. Like we reached 30,000 people with our livestream on Sunday. And then you drill down in the numbers, it's like most of those were less than three second views. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Literally going past it. [00:09:50] Speaker A: And you can imagine if you had that kind of volume of people in person, but they only saved for three seconds, it'd be very, very sa. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So much movement. [00:09:59] Speaker A: How bad is your church that they stay for less than three seconds walking through the worship? Running. Just running through. Yeah. You'd have to barely catching a corner of the back of the room. [00:10:09] Speaker B: And credit to Becky in that teaching, by the way. Like, the point is spot on in pastors temptation to be distracted by something that is busy work and kind of gives this illusion of accomplishment or an illusion of pastoring and giving ourselves into those things instead of the hard work of pastoring, I think is the overall lesson. And that's 100% true. And that comes in all kinds of forms. It's certainly not just podcasts or posting videos. It's easy to get away from pastoral work because it's hard, man. If you really want to get back to the core of it. And you know, I've had issues with authors and speakers and whatever people like, well, this is pastor, so. And so I'm like, I don't know if they've been a pastor for a long time. Are they spending time with people one on one? Are they in the nitty gritty of life with people? Is there like a real shepherding or. Or again, is their only existence in this space really just from this really high mountaintop of. I'm going to write this book, spend time in isolation and send it out to the masses. And I'm going to end. Great, go ahead and do that. But that's what I'm saying is so right about what she's talking about. Pastoring is a very specific job and we should think about it in a pretty holy way. Not that we're all exactly the same, but there's some things that come along with that job that we can't just ignore and get distracted by something else. So that we might just kind of medicate a little bit and do an easy, quickly accomplished job and feel good about ourselves, you know? Yeah. [00:11:34] Speaker A: And with resource, I think, comes the ability to insulate ourselves from the real pastoral work. And maybe that's the biggest danger of pastoring in settings where there is staff. Right. Is that you can kind of delegate anything you don't want to do to different departments or different volunteer teams. And if you're not careful, you end up just kind of crafting a very cushy, comfortable pastoral rhythm. And there's nothing inherently wrong with creating space and margin in your life. And we're not saying pack your schedule to where you never rest, but this idea of, oh, yikes, I'm uncomfortable in that scenario. I'm uncomfortable at a funeral. I'm uncomfortable in, you know, marital pastoral counseling. I'm uncomfortable. So I'm actually never going to enter into that side of this, and I'm going to stick with. And some. For some people, it's preaching, and some people it's, you know, study. For some people it's whatever, fill in the blank. But you insulate yourself from the stuff that actually is the office and the work of if that's the case, it's like, well, find the correct title, I guess. Don't call yourself a pastor. Call yourself whatever that is, and that's fine. And I think some have done that where they're not calling themselves pastors anymore because they're actually the CEO of an organization. We'll call it that. Don't call it pastoring if you're not actually pastoring. [00:13:04] Speaker B: That means a lot to me. The pastoring is a job. It's a specific thing. It's not leader in a Christian space. That's not what pastoring is. Something that comes along with it that we have to hold onto and understand really well. [00:13:16] Speaker C: You know, Rich Velotis said, I was watching a little teaching he did on preaching and teaching, and he said, one of the most important things as a pastor for your church is to be in touch with people in your church who are suffering once a week, be in relationship, make contact, have a conversation. Put yourself in close proximity to these people so that, you know, you have your pulse on where your community is at, where your congregation is at, what they're dealing with, how they're struggling, the pain that they're feeling. Because I feel like that's the work. Yes, we can say, rah, rah, follow Jesus inspiration all day, but to sit with someone in their pain, that is going to affect how we lead and teach, etc. But also I feel like that is. That's being a pastor, you know, it's so important. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what separates us from maybe kind of the influencer community. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:08] Speaker B: That's like, if I can tap into the algorithm and get the largest group, then I will have accomplished my goal. And this is about tapping into a very specific context with actual people that are around you and shepherding the group, understanding what's in the room with you, and then even teaching in that direction. And so we might say some things that might not pop on Instagram, but they're deeply meaningful in the room. Right. That we have to grip that so tightly. That's where pastoring really happens. And I think that's why even some of these incredible speakers and pastors and leaders, you know, you scroll through some of their YouTube stuff and it's like, yeah, Rich Lotus got 450 views on whatever. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And I think it's that. I think that actually hits the nail on the head is because he's talking to his room. There's a lot of things that he can craft and he writes books that are for the mass consumption. Right. There's a way to do that, but that's really just not our job week in and week out. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. FLOTUS is one of us. Just hundreds. Not thousands. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Hundreds. [00:15:08] Speaker A: Hundreds and hundreds of. It's been a little while since we [00:15:11] Speaker B: reported this podcast, by the way. I was looking it up right before this, and we. It was avocado hands. [00:15:17] Speaker A: That was the last one. [00:15:18] Speaker C: Was the last day I have here is the 16th of March. [00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Too long ago. [00:15:22] Speaker C: Well, we had west side one, right? [00:15:23] Speaker B: We recorded those. Yes. [00:15:24] Speaker C: We had all the west side One videos that were released each week, which kind of took the place of this. But, yeah, it's been a hot minute since we've been in this room. [00:15:31] Speaker B: So what are we going to talk about? What is. What's on the list? [00:15:34] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:15:34] Speaker B: We're going to cover everything that we covered in the last seven weeks. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Well, we're not going to rehash our podcast. I mean, if people were really with us, they were watching the Sermon on the Mount videos that we did with Brandt. [00:15:44] Speaker B: No, people were really with us. They were just refreshing our podcast feed, waiting for something since March 20th. [00:15:49] Speaker A: Today is the day. You're welcome. Yeah. No. So we're back in the Old Testament in our Sunday school. Speaking of Rich, Phil Otis. We lifted the idea for this series last year from what they were doing. Is it New Life Church in Brooklyn. And we're revisiting it because we really found a lot of richness in the Old Testament stories and revisiting some of those, what are, I think, familiar if you were a church kid and probably unfamiliar if you weren't. But last year there were like the, you know, the. The big ones, David and Goliath, Joan and the whale. Others, Daniel and the lion is dead. I could go on and on. So this week we're gonna. Or this month we're going kind of the layer two. Right. So you did Naaman. This going to be talking about the Tower of Babel, which is, I guess, a big Sunday school story, but I [00:16:40] Speaker B: feel like a lot of people know that one. With how much depth? I don't know. But people recognize the name. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Ruth, Samson, some of the judges. But what are we looking for this time? I know last year we were really focusing on how we look for Jesus in the stories of the Old Testament. We're always doing that. But is there a thread this year that's going to kind of lead us over these next five, six weeks? [00:17:00] Speaker C: I thought the sentence you said, you brought it up this morning in our meeting. I can't remember what it was, but it was so good. [00:17:07] Speaker B: We're looking at the nature. [00:17:08] Speaker C: There it is. [00:17:08] Speaker B: The nature of ourselves. [00:17:09] Speaker C: Yeah, say it again. [00:17:11] Speaker B: The nature of God and the nature of ourselves. Exploring those two ideas through the Old Testament. [00:17:15] Speaker C: Yeah. I think especially with the characters that we've chosen and the stories that we've chosen, I think the humanity of the people in these stories is really gonna stand out. And I'm so thankful for that because I think at least growing up, me, I idolized these Bible characters. Like, oh, they did it right. They loved God. They're who I want to emulate, and that's just not the case. Like, yes, sometimes they had big wins and great successes, and sure, I want to follow that example. But they had big failings and their humanity was on display with their weaknesses and shortcomings out there. And that is, you know, we learn from that and we learn. You know, I think the question we ask ourselves is, who is God in this story? Who is God trying to show himself to be in this story? And not like, oh, Naaman was the greatest, because he wasn't. He was kind of the worst, actually. So I think that's gonna be. I don't know, fun is the right word, but very interesting. [00:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Wanna explore these things without turning everyone into a hero and thus see ourselves in the stories right where we're at. Because it's not just about, all right, let's see what God's doing and how he's going to save the people or how he's going to show up in these miraculous ways. It's watching the people and not just making fun of them and then not idolizing them, but empathizing deeply with them. David's complexities and Incredible acts of courage and Noah and the ark. And then Noah's plastered, drunk on the other end of it, incredibly depressed because of everything that he's been through. If you really look at these stories, it's actually all there. Like, I used to think, like, the Bible can kind of whitewash these people, and it's. You know, actually, the Bible's brutally honest about all of them. And if we're willing to teach it in a brutally honest way, I actually think that pastors the church really well. And then we. We actually understand ourselves. And then the sneaky bit is that you kind of learn to read scripture in a way more helpful way. [00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:20] Speaker B: Than maybe kind of the way that was given to many of us when we were children. [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's not a diss on. On children's ministries. We need. We need heroes. We need stories. But there's a point where I think you have to look really honestly at the whole of those stories and the. The details of it. I would compare it to, like, you know, the lore surrounding, like, Abraham Lincoln. You know, was he the one that didn't chop down the. Or he. He didn't lie about chopping down the cherry tree. I cannot tell a lie. Was that George Washington? I don't know. But you have those stories that create kind of the myth of the person. But then if you're a serious historian, you're not just like, nope, Old Abraham, George Washington, whoever couldn't tell a lie. That's all I need to know. Of course not. You're reading their letters, and you're seeing the correspondence, and you're reading the correspondence from those that knew them, and you're piecing together, and you're looking at the time and place that they lived in, and it's a much deeper dive. And hopefully you come to appreciate those characters all the more when you break out of the caricature. And so we believe the Bible is true. We believe David and Goliath happened. But if we stop at that as the caricature of David and don't actually honestly dive into the mistakes he made when he was leading his men against Saul and the mistakes he made with Bathsheba and the mistakes he made as king and the ways he ended well and the ways he didn't end well, you're going to actually, I think, have an opinion or a view of that character that leads us away from the hope we have that when our lives aren't heroic, that God can't still work in us and through us. Right. [00:21:04] Speaker B: Part of the difficulty That I feel in this is the getting us, myself and people away from the prescriptive tendencies that I think we're led into. When we read through the Old Testament, even what we talked about with Naaman this last week, you know, Elisha tells him to go dip in the Jordan river seven times. And I think how our minds work is. It's like, oh my gosh, water. And seven times. This is how this is going to work. I need to go do it seven times again. We get stuck on the number and even the methodology of a lot of things. And we. We get fascinated. And I'm sure there's a lot of things to be fascinated by within some of the numerology of it, but it's still. It tells the same story that so much the New Testament tells us about obedience and humility, being open to the way of God and trying to understand who we are in that struggle of trying to be open and obedience. And it draws us back to these really great foundational, purposeful truths. If we don't get bogged down necessarily in every single little rabbit trail of what. Because I don't know what that is in us. We like that. It's like treasure hunting or something like that. They did it seven times. Maybe we should do it 10. Because this character did that. And then there was 12 tribes and then it's like, o. I think we're missing the point a little bit here. While that can be kind of fun too, I guess. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Has, has it changed how you've preached it? I think you mentioned you've preached Naaman over the years quite a few times. Some of that kind of like, maybe the numerology isn't as important. Maybe the formulaic nature of this. How. How has the preaching of that story changed since you were in your 20s? [00:22:39] Speaker B: No, that's true. I've preached it and connected it to other stories that their only connection might be the number, I guess, and the fact that God is involved. And, you know, you can. I remember connecting to Jericho at one point and, you know, I was talking about this is how God works. And maybe there's something in there. I'm not as bullish on those things that feel just at best, more loosely connected to me now and trying to again delve down into what is the real foundational principle and understanding of how God works and how we work inside of that. So it has changed. I would like to think it's a more mature way of looking at it. And sometimes maturity just kind of looks like simplicity. I'm not trying to make scripture something that it's not necessarily. But even in that, you know, I talk about, like, what was name and feeling on dip number four compared to dip number one or seven, you know, and. And projected some things about all of us being in the middle of a process that we feel like will yield something good, but we don't have any evidence of that when we're halfway through. But yeah, overall, that's been the biggest change, is I'm not going out of my way to try to make all these different connections to other stories. And I'm kind of keeping the main thing. The main thing, at least in my mind. Maybe I'll loop back around and I'll start preaching it that way 10 years from now, too. I don't pretend to understand how I'll be over then. [00:23:58] Speaker A: And I find myself, I want to fall into that trap a lot, probably of being too cute, you know, like, check this out, guys. Watch how I tie a thread from this story to this thing. And everyone's like, we don't care. The stage, whatever, you know, but that might be fascinating. I think that's. That's really good in, like, study. Yeah. Classes, all of that. Like, do a deep dive. And I think there is a job to be done when we're preaching to the congregation on a Sunday to elevate the person of Jesus as our, you know, highest and most central thought and hope and worship and all that, and announce this good news. And so when we get into this, like, how clever we are, it's maybe adjacent to the self congratulatory nature of this podcast, but it's kind of like, wasn't I awesome at how smart I was with that point? And I don't think that's the job. Isn't to be smart enough for people to be like, whoa, mind blown. But it's really to speak to the spirit, Right. Spirit birthing spirit. And otherwise we get intellect impressing intellect. I think that's. That takes us away from what we're there to do. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Have you felt some push and pull on that, Lindsay, since you've increased your speaking load? I. I think all of us go through some of what Evan's talking about. Like, I really want to be seen as smart. I want to be smart. Teach you something. [00:25:27] Speaker C: Yes. [00:25:27] Speaker B: And I also want to be really simple, you know, like, have you been feeling that? [00:25:32] Speaker C: I think it will be the tension we all probably hold forever. You know, maybe when we're older and wiser, we won't struggle with it so much. But I think for Me too. I. I spoke on this a couple weeks ago. I desperately want to be impressive. I want to be seen as smart, and I have it together, and I want to be admired, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which I think much of us feel that within our own nature. And so you put me on a stage with a mic, talking to a large group of people. Yeah, that is gonna be a tension I wrestle with. But I think in my older age, I do have this sensitivity of, like, what does this room need right now? Or I hope to have that sensitivity. Of course, I don't get it right every time, but there's. You know, I'm here right now on this day with this group of people for a reason. And I believe that for, you know, our whole church as, you know, you guys are leading it, et cetera. And I want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in that, and I want to be able to make space for the Holy Spirit to minister to the people right where they're at. So it's definitely a tension I struggle with, especially coming out of a master's program where I feel like I got a lot of those tricks up my sleeve to try and navigate. Is this helpful, or does this make me look cool? And you gotta discern the difference between the two. [00:27:00] Speaker B: It's funny. It's really easy to tell that to me when I'm in. I can see that when I'm in the seats, and I'm like, whoa, good job, guy. Like, amazing. You just did a little kickflip on the stage for us, and it's really appreciated. And I have a hard time seeing it when I'm the person talking. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:19] Speaker B: And you're right. I think it's a constant wrestle. And I can't remember if I've shared this before. It's funny. I'm meeting with Jim Stevenson, like, 10 minutes from right now. He told me one of the first messages I ever preached in Westside. I made some reference to the Greek translation of whatever. And I came off, and he was like, that was great. Nobody cares about the Greek part of that thing that you just explained. And I was like, jeez. And he's right. Like, I'm pretty sure. Looking back, I remember feeling like showing everyone the Greek translation. That didn't help anyone. It didn't help me. It didn't move the thing forward. Not that we should never do that, because sometimes it is helpful. But I think we have this idea of, like, I'm going to do this for the sake of doing this, because it seems right. And that's not. [00:28:00] Speaker C: This is what you do. You talk about the greed. [00:28:02] Speaker A: Webster's Dictionary defines church. [00:28:04] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. How many sermons did we start by saying? The Webster's Dictionary? [00:28:10] Speaker A: I hope it was early on. I hope that's not still happening. Yeah, no, it's real. It's real. And that desire to be impressive and I. You know, it's interesting. When I started in ministry, it was always like, I want to prove that I'm smart enough for the next level of leadership in ministry. Now, Ben, and you and I are at the top of this organizational chart or whatever, and so that kind of goes away. I don't have any aspirations to, like, go beyond this in some impressive level of leadership, but then it's still there in the sense of, like, I want you to know that I can handle the thing that is already on my plate. And I never want you to feel like I'm incompetent or a fraud in the role I've been given. And so you assume, well, once I get there, then I can just chill out and be only focused on the needs of the congregation. But then it's still like, don't worry, guys. I got this, and I will prove it by walking you through. And, yeah, it's just insecurity masking, as, you know, impressive research or whatever. But, yeah. [00:29:17] Speaker B: My main motivation is that I want everyone to know that I'm being honest. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [00:29:21] Speaker B: And that's it. And so sometimes that translates itself to being on the stage of being like, yeah, well, what I'm presenting to you sucks. [00:29:29] Speaker A: I'm being honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:29:31] Speaker B: I was being real up here. That's the dark, the shadow side. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Sure. [00:29:34] Speaker B: I think you can't hear someone say that and go, well, that's really admirable. I'm like, yeah. But sometimes I like to stick my head all the way beneath the surface of that and just say, look, I'm not listening to you because I'm just an honest person. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I've seen that kind of you, and I think you play. You can play dumb in a comedic way. That's gold. So never stop that. But it's this. I'm not gonna pretend to be as good or smarter or as with it as I actually am, because I want you to know how authentic I am. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:30:08] Speaker A: And that's. That's the same trap, just with a different. [00:30:10] Speaker B: The same trap. Yeah, it is the same trap. And it. It makes me, on purpose not be as good of a leader as I could Be. And that's something that I'm wrestling with all the time of, like, because I don't want to pretend to be everyone's answer for everything. I don't want to be someone's sage or someone's czar or someone's whatever. And I can fly myself all the way to the other side and say, and so what do you guys want the church to be? Because whatever, you know, and, and that's, that might be honest for how I feel right in the moment, but it's not good leadership. And ultimately, if it's, if that's the kind of honesty I want to sit in, then I probably shouldn't have the job that I have. [00:30:48] Speaker A: Sure. [00:30:48] Speaker B: And so trying to figure that out all the time. I'm. I can be very hands off person. I say all the time around the house or with people or whatever, just let them do whatever they're going to do, you know, and drives my wife completely insane. But I genuinely feel that so often and getting onto a platform and having a pastor say, you know what, you guys just like, I don't know, you can figure it out. You're smart folks. It's not a great way to grow [00:31:13] Speaker A: a church or keep a job, you know. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:16] Speaker A: But we came here today to listen to what you have to say. I know. Yeah. And to some degree we're pushing back against this. You know, dad knows best. Your senior pastor is king and he knows he's certain about everything. And so you just do exactly what he says. And we've seen, you know, generations of bad leadership, obviously not in every church, but in plenty of churches with that kind of mentality of, you know, my word is gospel. And so you listen to me. And so I think we, and maybe we do this in too many ways. We push back against unhealth we see elsewhere and really want to actually signal like, hey, we're not. That we're not going to be so certain and lead us off a cliff because we're too insecure to realize that we might have been wrong or admit that we were wrong. But sometimes we stay there in the. We're going to keep proving that we can be wrong. I'm going to prove today that I can be wrong. And it's like, okay, we get it. Yes, you can be wrong. Now tell us something like, give us an opinion about something like, tell us about Jesus or whatever. Whatever, you know what I mean? [00:32:22] Speaker B: Oh, there's so many things. And I've been saying this in other, like, that's a good thing to have in a good place to be, and you can't stay there. Maybe that's the biggest thing I'm learning as I get a little bit older. Like a lot of these things, the depression or the frustration or angry against the global church or nationalism or whatever, all great things. You can't sit there forever, and you certainly can't lead from there forever. Yeah, I think you can for a little while. There's real beauty to it. And that's. I think that's how we learn about grief and the massive spectrum that we experience in life. You can't just sit right there forever [00:32:59] Speaker A: as ultimately, yeah, every. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Everyone will leave you and you will be a shell of. Not even just a leader, but of a person that you were hoping to be laying down on the. On the stage and just saying, I don't know. And I'm going to prove it to you by not even preaching. Today is wild. It's how it should be done. [00:33:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And there's all sorts of traps we can get into with that mindset. And then you start, you know, living in this comparative, like, how are we doing compared to other church? Or how is our. How do people's opinions about us surface online? And then before you know it, like, you're not actually leading anything. You're just trying to maintain what you have. And when that doesn't work, you're getting resentful and angry. And I think that's true of pastors, probably leaders of any kind of community organization. You have to lead from a place of vision. And that rarely looks like trying to prove yourself that we're not this or we are this. It always is from this is where we're going. And I think that's what people come along for. It's not. Maybe they first check you out because they know you're not that. But that is not why people stay. No, that is never why people give their lives. To be in this community and go somewhere. [00:34:13] Speaker C: You know, as you guys are talking, I'm thinking of pilots when they fly airplanes. It's just a sequence of tiny little corrections all the time that get you where you're going. And I think that's. I think we're probably experiencing that in real time as we're navigating, like, oh, here's my limitation in this way. And I'm gonna. I need to course correct. And, you know, you're experiencing. You know, I don't want to do this this way anymore. I want to grow into this. And I think it's just our journey as Pastors, leaders. But even as humans, like, humans can't stay where they are forever either. Like, it always needs to be a constant growth and learning and evolving and becoming, hopefully, the person Jesus has made you to be. But. But, you know, just. You don't want to stay in the same place forever. You know, you want to continue. And so I just see us in real time, like, you know, we're going to stay on course and we're going to do these little corrections as we figure this out together, you know, and [00:35:13] Speaker B: there's little vulnerabilities in those little corrections. [00:35:15] Speaker C: Totally. [00:35:16] Speaker B: I mostly had that. [00:35:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:18] Speaker B: And. Oh, I didn't really have that at all. And I'm gonna try to course correct on that. And it does. It actually comes back to Naaman, because I prayed the prayers that Naaman is essentially saying of, like, I want to be healed, or God, we want to heal the church. Can we help the Whatever. And then God presents this opportunity through teaching and leading and vulnerability in a very certain way. And it's like, well, no, but I'd like you to heal it with me being able to criticize it and keep it at arm's length, too. You know, can you do both of those things? It's like, no. The invitation is for you to obey and to walk into a space where you actually have some influence and use that influence well and discover what it means to dunk in the river seven times, to go to dirty places and muddy places that you don't necessarily want to go to. That's. It's the same kind of thing. It's. It's. You ask for healing, and God gives you so often, like, this little opportunity to show up and be humble, and that's what we're in. But it's also not humility to a point where we just don't even care. That's the funny thing, humility. Eventually, if you just keep pulling on that thread, it turns into pride somewhere in that circle. It's its own kind of arrogance. [00:36:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of a clip I saw of Tim Keller talking about, [00:36:37] Speaker B: I [00:36:37] Speaker A: don't know which generation Millennials or Gen Z in New York City Christians. And he was saying there's this real preoccupation with social justice. And he said, thank you for that. Thank you. Amazing work. And then he said, that's not the same as following the gospel to the margins. He said, everybody in New York, they just want to be with the Inn Club. They want to find places that are in and cool and have good reputation. He said, the Gospel always push us towards the least and the most uncomfortable and the poor and genuinely poor. Not programs for the poor that are also filled with the cool club, but these places that push us out. And. And speaking of that Naaman thing, I think a lot of us in our Christian life is like, well, we want to be healed of our pride. What's the formula? To get there where I can stay clean and in the nice river. And the instruction is always the same, like, go in the muddiest river we got and keep dipping. And you're going to find something there that you don't get anywhere else. I think that ties in, you know, what we're talking about with pastoral ministry and trying to avoid this stuff that's the most uncomfortable and crisis always compelling us to the margins and to the muddy places of the dirtiest rivers. [00:37:58] Speaker B: Yeah, you want forgiveness? It's confession. Confession. Good for the soul, bad for the reputation. Muddy nastiness is all involved in the healing process. Somehow. It's good. [00:38:09] Speaker A: I. And I want us to always get better at, I guess, surfacing the stories of like on the ground gospel, doing things within our community. I think about that story was it last week we had one of our safe housing folks that was living here on site for a very short time, and then someone in our community found out about this person and then actually has given her an adu. And this was shared by the organization publicly. So that's why I'm sharing it now. But now she's living in her own ADU because of the ministry and the community of this church in partnership, you know, with Mountain View Community Development and all that goes into that. I think about that. I think about the story this morning that Josh Cordell, our youth pastor, told about a kid getting invited on Christmas Eve for the very first time to church. Never been to church. So compelled by it. He's been every single week since and just has found a home here. I just, you know, there's story after story and I think if we forget to pay attention to those, this can become an exercise in all of us improving incrementally throughout our lives. While that is happening in our discipleship, there has to be an outflow of our discipleship that looks like mercy. And I think we're doing a better job, better and better at getting those stories out of just, you know, the air and being told. But how can we do better at that? I guess otherwise we just like, how are you being formed? Well, how am I being formed? How are you being formed? It's like, what Is this doing, like, what is this doing for our city? What is this doing for people who are hurting? Because the answer is, it is just sometimes we don't tell the stories. [00:39:59] Speaker B: No, you're spot on. That's exactly right. That's a real danger that we could kind of build this thing that has the appearance of depth, but really once we move on, it could just disappear into the ether. You know, if it's that conversation, it's like, how are you being born? I'm being born. You know, these are the eternal things that have like generational reverberations, you know, not that our formation doesn't, but yeah, we can't lose sight of that because that just seems like a lot of the real work is what you just described. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it reminds me of in high school, you know, high school Bible studies and guys groups and you go around, ask for prayer requests and on any given night there'd be like, unspoken. Unspoken. It was always something sexual, you know, Unspoken, unspoken. And I'm glad everyone would get in prayer and working out, you know, our morality and our life and Jesus, all that's great. But I feel like sometimes there's a version of that, you know, in our Christian life where it's just like I'm just kind of circling the same six issues or three issues in my life, you know, it's fine and I'm trying to get better and I'm trying to do the right things. And at some point I just feel like Jesus compels us to like, just get pushed off into the deep of like, this has to be something more than just slowly solving my problems with Jesus, right? [00:41:22] Speaker C: Yeah. It makes me think about the motivation, you know, self improvement versus, like loving your neighbor. And this is not a fully formed thought, but just, you know, if my motivation is to get better, that it's going to be. That it's going to be very navel gazing, introspective. This is me and my quiet time with Jesus. I feel like that's very isolating. But I think if we have eyes to see and if we have ears to hear, loving our neighbors actually forms us in a way. And those things are important, you know, being aware of our spiritual temperature, all that, like. But I do think, I don't know, I think it all goes hand in hand and one should hopefully inform the other and vice versa. And it's the correction, tiny little correction, you know. Okay, yeah, here we go. I see this here and all that. But I think the motivation can never be. I just want to get better and better and better and better, you know, because that's. That's pride. And I don't. I don't see that in the life of Jesus at all. So. [00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the imagery that you spoke about, Evan, a few weeks ago. Just, this has to expand our capacity. If we're actually being formed and discipled, then the idea isn't that we go to therapy and we do such a good job with it that we always make sure that that awkward uncle, we never have to see him again at Christmas, you know, and the idea is that we can live our lives and be formed in a way and be strong enough in a way that we can expand our capacity so we might love our neighbor and embrace the world around us at a different way with a different depth. And. Yeah, spiritual formation just can't look like. And I feel like I've seen this in some cases, like, man, spiritual formation for you sounds like a really great curated room with nice wine, you know, and that's about it. Like, that's as far as it goes for you, right? You know, it's solo. It's my kind of music. And. And we can't stay there. I guess that's. That's not bad. Yeah, I like that, too. We can't stay there. That's. That can't be the last of it or the depth of it. You know, it's funny, when you say unspoken, Evan, I can, like, smell the carpet. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:37] Speaker B: From, like, the house we met in. When you say unspoken and go around the. I can see the furniture. Like, I can feel the environment, [00:43:47] Speaker A: you know, this is pre Internet, and somehow these phrases just became everywhere. Everyone was saying, yeah, unspoken, unspoken. [00:43:53] Speaker B: How did it happen? [00:43:54] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:43:54] Speaker B: Went viral. [00:43:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Now this is good. And anytime we talk about formation, we got to realize, like, there's more to following Jesus than just formation. We talk about justice. There's more to following Jesus than just justice. We talk about learning scripture and, you know, doing that deep dive into God's word. Wonderful. There is more than just study in our Christian life. And it's when we follow Jesus into the holistic discipleship that we touch on all these things, and all these things flourish and developed, and you get in trouble. We've seen weirdos in all three of those camps that only do one thing, you know, And I think Jesus calls us something. Yeah. Better. It's good. Good. All right, so let's rate the room. Justin, you're switching over there. Gwen's here. Thumbs up, thumbs down on the five stars. Wow. [00:44:48] Speaker C: Out of five. [00:44:49] Speaker B: Five stars. It's not even finished yet. [00:44:51] Speaker A: Justin. I wasn't. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about no table, but this is working. This is working well. [00:44:56] Speaker C: Yep, it's working great. [00:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good. [00:44:58] Speaker C: Laptops on the lap. [00:45:00] Speaker B: That. [00:45:00] Speaker C: That's my one. I don't know what to do with my hands. [00:45:02] Speaker A: You need one of those TV tables for your laptop. [00:45:06] Speaker B: I look way better with these cameras, by the way. [00:45:09] Speaker C: Yeah? [00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:10] Speaker C: Aren't they the same? Oh, no, they're. [00:45:12] Speaker A: Well, before these cameras, you had a beard that went, you know, a good [00:45:16] Speaker B: 9 inches longer than your current one. [00:45:18] Speaker A: So you look pretty sharp. Oh, that's great.