Nobody Hungry

[00:00:02] Speaker A: 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 that's Evan Earwicker. And I think we're all a little punchy today. Is that true? It is Monday. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's all good. You know, we had had a dinner here at the church last night that the staff hosted for new Westsiders. So anytime we run a evening event late into the night after a long Sunday. I don't know about you guys, I feel a little edgy, so don't mess with me today. [00:00:47] Speaker A: I'm kind of excited about it, honestly. I think it's going to make for great podcast. But the thing, we used to only work evenings for the most part, right? Youth ministry two nights a week, man. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Is that just a muscle thing? Like, we've lost the muscle to come back after Sunday morning to run more services? Because I know our youth team is here every night. They don't complain. Pastor Josh, he does Sunday morning services with youth, comes back for high school Sunday night, and then he's here, like, at 7am for his men's Bible study. I mean, just a round of applause for Pastor Josh. I can't do that. I'm not that brave. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah. A week and a half ago or so, we did the men's conference, and I was doing a Friday night, and it felt so familiar. I was, like, buying propane to put in the fireplaces out on the patio. I'm asking Evan how I get music going in the atrium. I'm setting up chairs. And, like, before anybody's there, I'm like, wow, I'm tired. You know, this is. I think it is a muscle. That was every single week for over a decade. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, but you were. You were 22 at the time. I was young. You had a lot of energy. [00:01:53] Speaker A: It's true. [00:01:54] Speaker B: And a lot to prove. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Probably really true. Two weeks. Could spend the rest of five minutes talking about that. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Now you're hauling a propane tank back to your truck and you're thinking, I don't have this to prove. This is not something on my list of things I need to prove right now. [00:02:09] Speaker C: Mumbling under your. That's [00:02:11] Speaker A: true. I'm better than this. [00:02:13] Speaker B: It's amazing. Yeah. What's the. What's the most ridiculous thing of, like, your youth or young adults ministry days of things like, you just had to pull off or where you're scattered in multiple directions or early mornings? Did you have any like, crazy stories. [00:02:29] Speaker A: We did a fundraiser in which we did volleyball outdoors at a sand volleyball pit for 24 hours. [00:02:36] Speaker C: Why? Oh, to raise money, [00:02:39] Speaker A: you guys. You raised, like, $200. [00:02:41] Speaker C: Not worth it. [00:02:42] Speaker A: And all I remember about it is that, like, we even did, like, a radio hit on a station during the day. I don't know how we got that, but it was like me and one of my leaders talking about this fundraiser that we're doing for a church. It wasn't even a Christian station or anything like that. I don't know why they let us on. What benefit did they get? And then we were at, like, the YMCA outdoor volleyball pit that we rented for 24 hours. And I just remember laying in the sand at like, four in the morning and somebody kept the game going. But I was like, I really want to go to sleep right now, but I'm afraid I'm going to inhale sand along the way. So that was crazy. I remember doing a worship practice and then hanging pallets on the walls immediately after that, too. Such a product of a very specific era of ministry. And then we were like, attaching lights to the pallets. Man, those two might not even be the worst, but they're the first that come to mind. [00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's [00:03:36] Speaker C: funny. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I remember just in the day that I got up on the lift to adjust a light on the ceiling, like, as the service was starting and I was preaching that day. That was weird. That wasn't great. [00:03:49] Speaker C: That was before service on a Sunday. Yeah. [00:03:51] Speaker B: This is only a couple years ago. [00:03:52] Speaker A: Months ago. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. It was not long ago, but. So because of my youth ministry days, I've just been on the lift, like, probably 100 times more than the person closest to me in lift use. Cause our big student center, that ceiling, you're on the lift all the time. So Sunday morning, a light was strobing, so it had to be dealt with before service could start. And I'm like, I don't want. I don't know. You weren't around, Ben. I didn't want anybody else driving heavy machinery into the worship center with people there just for safety. But it's a bad look when your senior pastor's like, oh, hop onto the lift here while worship starts. Anyway, not my proudest moment. I want to get off that lift so quick. [00:04:33] Speaker C: Are you not going to talk about the time you got stuck up on the lift and had to call for someone to come? It [00:04:37] Speaker B: might have been the same day. No, it wasn't, but, yeah. So this was after services on Sunday, and I'M up on the lift again. These strobing lights are a huge problem, Justin. We need to figure this [00:04:50] Speaker A: out. They strobe this weekend. [00:04:51] Speaker C: They did, they did. [00:04:53] Speaker B: I know, but I got up on the lift to fix it and everyone had left, so I'm the only one in the building. And there's a stop button on the bottom of the lift, like a punch button. So if you had an emergency, you could just hit that. It would shut down the lift. There was a chair and the leg of the chair was up at an angle just right. And I drove the lift straight forward and it hit that stop button. And so I'm 30ft in the air, fully extended on the lift, and the lift is dead. And so then I'm like, oh, no, [00:05:23] Speaker A: amazing. [00:05:23] Speaker B: Now I'm just up here and I had the thought, do I climb down the scissors and. No, that's a really stupid way to go. Just climbing down your lift in your church. You [00:05:33] Speaker A: could do that. I feel like that's. Well, [00:05:35] Speaker B: it's kind of under, though. How [00:05:36] Speaker A: extended were you, though? [00:05:38] Speaker B: All the way. So the very [00:05:39] Speaker A: top ceiling of the worship, the diamonds are kind of vertical at that point. They're not as horizontal. Right. [00:05:44] Speaker B: So I would have had to like hang off the lip and then climb down under towards the scissors. So [00:05:50] Speaker A: this is an evening. [00:05:51] Speaker B: This is like mid afternoon. But the youth team wasn't there yet, so I started texting people. And Sam, one of our team, he lives real close. Just a gorgeous day out there. So he came over and saved me. It was a gorgeous day. [00:06:04] Speaker A: How far down the survival road did you get, like, in your mind, were you like, you know what? I could sleep up here and I'm not too hungry. [00:06:13] Speaker B: I didn't go too far down the road because I did have my phone with me. It was probably similar to when Justin got trapped in the elevator, our elevator, on Christmas Eve night, after everyone had left, literally trapped. And luckily, could you not use your phone or you just started yelling? I [00:06:31] Speaker D: used my phone. [00:06:31] Speaker B: You used your phone. [00:06:32] Speaker C: Was there also yelling [00:06:34] Speaker D: initially? [00:06:37] Speaker A: What were you yelling? Help. Help. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Help. In either of those situations, though, not having the phone, then it would have been like, oh, no, I'd be up here for hours. Or you could have been. You can be overnight in the elevator shaft on Christmas Eve. [00:06:54] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:06:55] Speaker C: Julie would have sounded the alarm [00:06:56] Speaker A: Christmas Eve. Can you imagine? [00:06:58] Speaker C: What a story. Now that's a story. [00:07:00] Speaker A: It's great. [00:07:01] Speaker B: That is crazy. [00:07:02] Speaker A: I feel like I have probably 10 stories just associated to lifts in church work. Yeah, like I. We had kind of this auditorium style in Klamath Falls. And there were. Up toward the front were the projectors and obviously a lot of lights and stuff like that. But the only way to get down to the front, there were stairs. So you gotta get this lift up there. And somebody, before I got there, had handmade these wooden ramps to. No, [00:07:27] Speaker B: to. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I did it so many times. Definitely tipped it over once [00:07:31] Speaker C: while you were on it. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Giant lift. And it's a little older than the one that we have. So it's like just like a lot of think about, like, an older car, how heavy and big, you know it was in comparison. Yeah. And it was like tipped over onto our chairs. Scary. Yeah. I had to, like, jump out of it and crawl over the top and get [00:07:52] Speaker C: tired. Oh, my gosh, you guys. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Sketchy. And these are the motorized ones because we used to have to get to the very, very top of the student center. Our current lift only goes like 30ft. And so we had a non motorized bucket lift that's just hydraulic. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:09] Speaker B: So you would just physically move it into place, lock it down, and then it would just go up and down. But really lightweight, but it would go 40ft in the air. And so once I was up in the bucket lift with just like sweaty palms just getting in it because it sways. It just sways the whole time. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Weight is not the descriptor I want. [00:08:28] Speaker B: And Greg, our other youth pastor at the time, he got up in the scissor lift to support while I was up in the bucket lift working on a light. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:08:37] Speaker B: And a light fell on me in the bucket lift, so it's like resting on my neck. A big, heavy light and a cable pulled. Weird. And so the scissor lift that Greg was in hit the side of the bucket lift 40ft in the air, and then it starts swaying. [00:08:54] Speaker C: Oh, my God. [00:08:57] Speaker B: I think I developed a fear of heights in that moment. It was so scary. This [00:09:01] Speaker A: is probably how you and I just fell in love with each other. You had Greg. I had Chad. Chad at the bottom of every lift going, no, it seems right. Yeah, I think so. You've gone too far. That's amazing. [00:09:17] Speaker B: And chad was probably 30 pounds lighter than you. He should have been in the lift. [00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Chad was probably like £80 for sure. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Very, very slight. Man. [00:09:27] Speaker A: I'm not. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Oh, it's amazing. [00:09:29] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Oh, you don't have any of these lifts. Not a single one gets you on the [00:09:33] Speaker C: lid. Women's intuition and, like, sensibilities are sound like there's A reason why I don't have any of these stories. [00:09:41] Speaker A: Who's going to fix the strobing lights? [00:09:42] Speaker C: You, you dumb dumbs. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Do you feel cursed, Evan, by how long you've been here? Because [00:09:51] Speaker B: you just pick up tasks? [00:09:53] Speaker A: Well, but that there's so many. You just know so many things. So we could be like, hey, this thing is going wrong. Why don't we get Sam. I don't know, whoever. But it's always a shortcut to be like, Evan knows that. Evan may have installed it. Evan was probably here when it got put in. And troubleshot at. [00:10:10] Speaker B: What is that terrible, poorly put together thing? I bet Evan installed that. So let's get him back to fix. [00:10:15] Speaker A: But if you took another church, you would probably be out of these. It's [00:10:19] Speaker B: the institutional knowledge, right? Yeah. They always talk about, like, if you have to hire somebody new, you're losing potentially decades if someone retires of. Of knowledge, which it's a blessing and a curse because it's the only thing keeping me here. You guys. You guys would have me replaced by some young, you know, other person. Where's he going with this? Where's he going? [00:10:48] Speaker A: I want to hear the [00:10:49] Speaker B: young other person. But he knows where the circuits run in the worship center, so I guess he can stay. Just have this list and it's all your insecurities in my mind. If you could see my mind where he was. Like, the list got longer and longer. I'm like, nope, can't go there. I'm gonna CR A good cook does hyrax competitions. Oh, gosh. Please continue. Oh, my goodness. Favorite intro ever. [00:11:26] Speaker C: Oh, man. Ben is crying. I don't know if we're gonna come back from this. [00:11:30] Speaker B: I don't know. Sorry. We're a little punchy. A little punchy. We're having a great time. Wow. All right. So cruising towards the holidays with the church. Always a busy time. We've been talking vision for a couple weeks. We'll do one more. And we're going to talk together on the stage this week, which I think we enjoy because it feels a little bit like what we do right here. [00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:52] Speaker B: Which is fun for us. I hope it's interesting for the church to hear us talking together about the vision of the church. [00:11:59] Speaker A: When you made the joke that you said we're going to be talking together on the stage, which never happens or whatever. [00:12:04] Speaker B: The thing we never do. Which is talk to each other. Yeah. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah. The thing we never do is talk to each other. To each other. Yeah. And which is funny. And also, like, I'm sitting there, I think the second time I heard it, and I was like, I guess people don't see us talk to each other, right? Like, they never. They never do. We're on the atrium greeting people, and then we teach separately. One of us hosts whatever. One was on the front row. But, yeah, funny that that dynamic is so rare if they're not watching this. Actually, this is kind of the one regular outlet that we have. So. Yeah, I hope that's interesting to people. Maybe we're overthinking and people are like, no, we get it. You guys work together and talk to each other. [00:12:40] Speaker C: Shared leadership. Got it? [00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah. The fourth time we say no, we talk to each other. Yeah, we get it. Say something else. I feel like that sometimes actually envision in general that by design. I think when we talk about the vision of the church, it's going to be a little repetitive. We're going to talk about the same core values of the church, the mission that God has us on as a church in the city, all this stuff. It feels a little repetitive. But I do think coming back to these things at least once a year is actually really necessary. Otherwise, you do get drift. And that's what I felt like yesterday. I'm not saying anything new. Right. We talked about we're a church for the city. We're here to serve the city, not dominate the city. We're not here to overtake culture and input, you know, our control over our community and then only love it if it looks like us something else. And none of this is new. We've been talking about this for years and years and years. And yet if we don't keep coming back to these values, there's a thousand other voices I think that will pull us into saying, well, actually, maybe. Maybe control over all the civic areas of the city is the way to bring the kingdom of God here. So we kind of got to come back to these values. [00:13:54] Speaker C: I think, too, culture and context changes. So, yes, our mission and vision are the same, but I think how we apply them and how we say them in this current moment, that matters a lot. And so I don't think it's the same message every year or whatnot. Like, the. The. The core of it is still true. That's not changing. But to apply it to our moment in time, like that is gonna shift and evolve a little bit. I thought. I thought it was so timely post. Midterm elections and a good reminder for everybody. So it didn't feel like all this again. It still felt Fresh and. And timely for where we're at as a culture and a church. So [00:14:33] Speaker A: do you think that's something that we battle just more than everybody? Because I do feel the tension of like, I gotta preach the same thing again. Because there is that feeling of like, I want this to feel a little bit fresh. But then also, if your pastors, I think, are coming up with this quote, unquote, brand new vision all the time, I'd be curious if you were in a cult. You know, like, that's not the idea. We didn't all of a sudden have this brand new revelation. We're actually trying to do this really old thing. But I wonder if we feel that maybe more than most, just because we're prepping the messages and in these conversations all the time. And that refresher, that reattaching to foundational principles of why we exist is just maybe it's nice and refreshing for people more than I give credit to. [00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think we just got to not apologize for sharing our values and vision. Yeah. And we do it a lot. Yeah, that's the job, actually. Yeah, sure. You know, and we've talked about it a lot. Like the Eugene Peterson in the forward to Burning in My Bones, where was like, dad only had one message and he felt like a scam artist because no one ever picked up that he only had one message. And it was just this very clear vision of what the gospel looks like for people. And he just preached it over and over again. And some would argue he was a brilliant author and not a great preacher. Maybe that's why he should have freshened it up a little bit. But I love the idea that actually we are preaching the same thing, which is. Is all the stuff we talk about, but it's, it's at the heart. It's the Gospel of Jesus. And it doesn't, it doesn't have to look novel every time we gather to be fresh. You know, I think there's a big difference. Chasing novel is it'll lead to a shallow. I think a shallow gospel. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:16:14] Speaker B: for sure. [00:16:14] Speaker A: I thought you created a sense of freshness yesterday with just a little bit of different framing. You, you presented us one of two choices. Right. It was to completely assimilate to culture and be. Just blend in or completely dominate the culture. It does feel like those are the choices. Right. And I think the other side always cast the other one as that and then quickly kind of blew that entire thing up and decided to say it's not even like both and. But it's even, like, it's more and it's better. And I think that's always a really compelling way to look at what is usually a dichotomy of how we exist within the neighborhoods that we're in, the cities that we're in, and the regions that we serve is that there's probably a better way than all that. So, like, can you just give a quick refresher on maybe how that came into your mind and why you use that framing? [00:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think what came to mind after I decided to use that story of my very religious friend who came to Westside 25 years ago to an MXPX concert that Westside was hosting to protest it because he felt like MXPX wasn't adequately holy to be inside a Bend church. And so that got me thinking, like, the. The false dichotomy that we were wrestling with back then was, which side are we going to be on? The assimilators of culture or those that, like, take control of it and change it, you know, and it's. It was the same impulse that me and my brothers would go into the Shopco and change all the stereos to the Christian station, you know, like, yeah, that's going to do it. That's what's going to bring the kingdom of Go. But really pushing back against that dichotomy, like, no, that is not the question. Those are not our options. And the Jesus way. And I think that's what the early church, using it as a model, it falls short really quick because it was 1.0. It was church 1.0. And the Spirit's been at work in his church since that day. So that means things have changed for the better because God has been moving us forward until that day right when Christ returns. And so you can't look back at day one and be like, if we could just get back to church 1.0, everything would be great. No, you talked about it first week. The first early church was a mess. Read the whole New Testament. It's just Paul being like, this is a mess. This is crazy. We gotta fix all of your problems. So we don't look to the early church as the model for all things church, but we do look what the Spirit did on day one. Because I believe what the Spirit did on day one is what the Spirit wants to do in us. And it's to move us into places where hurting people are not to dominate it, not to assimilate into it, but to be the scale model picture of heaven on earth, the rightness of God, the shalom of the city being infused because we're there. The shalom, the peace, the prosperity of the city. It wouldn't be as good except that the church is there. And when the church stops being that, I think we've just lost our, our way, you know, [00:19:18] Speaker A: and it's funny because I think this is a really strong message and I think it's a really hard line on who we're going to be. The criticism that we get sometimes after teachings like this is like, well, when are you guys going to like, really stand up for the way of doing and draw some hard lines and really make some decisions? This way of living that you're talking about is a hard line. It's a. We actually won't compromise off the line of loving our neighbor. And why does that get the reputation for being so soft? You know, that that's the hardest thing to do according to scripture. And what we learn overall is like to continue to love and to sacrifice and to care for and serve the people that would be your enemies or that would be on the other side of whatever line from you. That's. That is such a hard line way to live, to not compromise on love. And it's just funny how it gets the reputation from being something else. [00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would say the moment in yesterday's message where I felt the strongest, like, prophetic urgency, if you can call it that, with the church was when I was talking about what it looks like for the prosperity of the city, you know, and it's not, we're all going to get rich together here on our corner of town in our nice church. It's, you know, no kids are going hungry on our watch. And that point I made and kind of threw out there wasn't even in the notes. But like, and you look at that kind of statement with such skepticism and like, that's unrealistic. And who do you think you are that you're going to solve housing crisis or solve hunger and poverty and inequality? And my response to that, the message yesterday was just try me. We're not out of resources yet. The day we run out and we have to close our doors, you can say, I told you so. Until then, let's see where this goes. And I feel like we start talking in that way and I would challenge anybody to say, oh, that's soft and that's weak and that's wishy washy. No, I think that's prophetic clarity and I think that's moral clarity of who we're supposed to be as the church. And it is the easiest thing in the world, I would say, to pick a camp and then stay huddled in our comfy little offices and lob our opinions at a culture that we can paint as the enemy. It's good for business, it's good for money, it's comfortable. This is the harder way. Following Jesus is always the harder way. But that's what I think. [00:21:46] Speaker A: I like the prosperity gospel, is you buy me a plane and you'll be able to afford the nicest car on the lot. But the prosperity you're talking about is that we're paraphrasing you, but we're unwilling to let anybody in the city go hungry on our watch. That's really great. Clear. I just thought it was really clear yesterday. That was great. Front to back, hard to argue with. Which, again, I think that's why I think about it, because I know people argue with that. And I go, that's amazing how you can even try to make an argument against this being the gospel and what should be the vision and the direction of the church, you know? [00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, you know, there will always be room, even not just our message, anybody. Message, you can say, okay, yeah, that might be true, but what about. And then fill in the blank of your pet project or what matters more to you than what you're hearing. And I just think unapologetically, we're leading the church in what we feel that we're called to be. And so we don't need to dunk on a church that really focuses on, I don't know, fill in the blank. There's a lot within Christendom, the gospel, that, yeah, that's not going to be our focus. And I don't know what's a good example of that. Like something that we're not necessarily focused on, but we don't hate. You know, there's plenty out there efforts or humanitarian work or specific ways in evangelism or, you know, like street crusades. They work in places and people come and find Jesus. That's not going to be our thing in Bend, Oregon. That's not going to be what we're about. And that's okay. So I just think, yeah, the idea that churches look at each other and be like, you need to be all things that we think are good, it's not true, you know, and we got to give room to focus on some things. I think that is what vision looks like. But [00:23:41] Speaker A: what makes it hard sometimes is the visual things are kind of easier to cast vision for you. And I tell the story all the time about how we had joined the leadership team, or I was the newest. You had been on for a while and there were these blueprints for the new worship center that, you know, had been designed. I think even when Ken Johnson was still around or something like that, [00:23:59] Speaker B: 2007, 2006, [00:24:00] Speaker A: we were looking through these blueprints and kind of making decisions. All right, this is how much it's going to cost. And it's supposed to attach to the atrium. And I remember you and I being like, what is happening? This is, we're doing this, we don't want this. Yeah, yeah. And, and I grew up in a church where we built a building, you know, or added on and did all this stuff. And, and it seemed like, and again, like, like you said, we're not dunking on people for, for doing that. That seem like a product of a specific time and place for some people. And it's so compelling. You can actually get people to give to a building project fairly easy, especially wealthy people, because it's. We started right here, we ended right here, and here's the product and you can see it. That's, I think, one of those examples of something that we're just not sure. We're not looking to build a bigger box. We're not trying to do all this stuff. We're just trying to use really well what we have. And then our expansion is a bit more into how we serve and care for the community as opposed to how can we gather people in larger numbers within the room. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And for Bend, Oregon, I think it's contextualized. Right. If you're in a major metropolitan area and your church is bursting at the seams and in a square mile around your church, there are plenty of people and you're running out of space, that's a different conversation. Here we are in Bend, Oregon with an auditorium that seats a thousand. I would say thousand is enough for Bend, Oregon. Before then, you need to look at like, hey, we should probably plan another church or we should probably move to a few services or something. But this idea that, yeah, we need to have 2,000 people together under a roof as a church, it feels like the wrong size church maybe for this neighborhood. And if you look, you can even see, I think it's still online. The Source, which is a newspaper, local newspaper here, did a write up when our church was planning on doing that expansion to build a 1500 seat auditorium. And it was just framed as like, does the west side of Bend need a megachurch? Is that what we need. Wow. And it's interesting. It's still online almost 20 years later. Look it up. Yeah, we put it in the show notes, but it is a fascinating perspective on, like, oh, yeah, what are we actually here to do? It isn't just to build, build, build, but I would say this, too. If our church could only seat 250, you better believe we'd probably be looking at building a bigger box. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You can't. We can't take that out of the picture. We're lucky to have the property that we have and the building that we have and. And all of that. Yeah. I think it's just. And it's not just a building. You could probably stamp this out over a lot of different things. Like, okay, that's something that we're interested in doing. But why are we interested in doing that? Because it's visual and it's compelling and inspirational, or because it actually gets the job done in the vision. And I. I guess that's what I'm trying to get back to is this. This teaching that we have to. The church is trying to get back to that foundational why and who we're supposed to be, as opposed to just whatever we could throw at the wall. Because maybe we're bored or we're. We're antsy. Like, we've all probably felt that as leaders, like, well, we should do, like, the next big thing because we're done with the last big thing. And that's just such a way to get yourself in trouble as. As a Christian. But I would say, especially as leaders of church, you end up with this really just, like, disfigured version of something that started off with a great intention. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Sure. [00:27:21] Speaker C: I think we should probably bring up what you talked about on the first week of Vision bank, because we didn't podcast last Monday, and it is, you know, we're not interested in you inviting all your friends and everybody, you know, to come here. Like, sure, that's great. Whatever. Exactly. Like, but that's not what we're saying. Seeking after. Why? Because we trust Christ in you. The hope of glory, to go be the church. The hands and the feet of Jesus into your context. And so I feel like that's at play a little bit here when we're talking about bigger buildings and more seats and all this, like, more butts in the seats is not our goal. People encountering Jesus through the lives of people who come to our church. That's the goal. And, like, sure, come. We'd love to meet you. We hope you find A home here in belonging. And, like, that's really beautiful. But that butts and seats is not our goal, and more seats is not our goal. Because we trust Jesus in you. And that's your job, community. That's your job, Westside. To go out to where you are in your context and love people really well. That's really important. [00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah, and I'm glad you brought it up. I believe in that. And I'm also so cognizant of how it might sound on the other end of me saying it from a platform, because you're right. Exactly what you said. I want. I want people to feel like they can invite anybody here, and I hope they feel encouraged to do so. But, yeah, that can't be. I think sometimes we just get lazy and we're like, you know how I'm gonna encourage this person? I'm gonna send them a recording of a podcast from Archer, like, what they might need, like a hug or like a conversation from you. You know, I appreciate that we have the resource for them. I appreciate that you can invite somebody to church, but maybe the best thing for them right now is just that you're a good neighbor. You know, they don't necessarily need an invite or feel like there's something on the other end of their care treatment of you that you just. Just want to love him. And that can turn into a church invite down the road or whatever. I just don't think the purpose of the church is to continue to gather the church underneath a roof. It's to build an empire. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And [00:29:24] Speaker E: it's quite possible to get all the butts and seats and to [00:29:27] Speaker B: have, you know, packed houses for your services. And in the end result, you get a bunch of people that are not actually getting discipled or finding Jesus. It's just pure entertainment or whatever, pure consumerism or empire building or nationalism or whatever. And obviously we would never want that. But I would say to remove the. We just want to grow. That's the end goal. It has to shine the light on it. Then what do we want? Well, we want people to know they're loved and in their homes and workplaces and where they hang out. And then as a church, when people do come to us, we hope that we're offering something that is substantive enough and good enough to where, yeah, of course you want to invite your friends. Is it so bad that you don't want to invite your friends? We're not saying, like, stop inviting. We're just saying, like, our whole goal is not to see how Many people we can cram in this room. I hope it's good enough to where you want to show up. Like, so it's both. It's a little nuanced, but it [00:30:31] Speaker A: totally. [00:30:31] Speaker B: The bigger picture is, yes, we know we have a large church and we want to keep growing. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah, we do. [00:30:36] Speaker B: And also, that's another point of our lives. Yeah, Right. [00:30:39] Speaker C: And Ben communicated that well, me saying it in a nutshell here on the podcast. [00:30:43] Speaker A: No, I think you did great. I think you did great. [00:30:46] Speaker C: Don't come to our church, you guys. [00:30:49] Speaker A: No, you did great. It's. It is nuanced. Maybe the best way to put it is I just think the growth is, like, downstream of other things, you know? And, you know, I bring everything back to sports, but I tell kids, especially in baseball, I'm like, winning you. We cannot go and try to win. You have to go and make the next good decision in an at bat or how you pitch or how you're mentally prepared for the next little thing. You're going to get crushed by the idea of, we're going to show up, we're going to try to win, because that's six innings away. That's nine innings away. It's. You have to make all these little decisions, and then, especially in baseball, if the process is right, the goal will happen down the road. But the thing is, is that sometimes you'll do everything really, really well or right. And you'll still lose. And that's why I just. I. Getting caught up in the wins and losses can't necessarily be the thing. And for churches, getting caught up in the growth can't necessarily be the thing, because I think sometimes you abandon things that are beautiful and gospel and necessary to your community because they don't generate growth. That's where we have to be so careful. And so we have to do all these things that we believe are a part of the process. And then when growth happens, amazing, we make space. And when it doesn't, we don't automatically throw out all the gospel that we've been functioning. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Maybe a good example of this. I was talking to our friend Mary yesterday after one of the services, and she was. Her and Cliff pastored this church in the 80s. Right. And she was very proudly sharing how they were the ones that purchased the land that we're on right now. So she's reminding us of their very influential role that they played back then. Right. But then she told a story how she was buying a refrigerator and going back and forth with the salesman. So they ended up talking for a long time. And she invited him to come to Westside. And he quickly was like, listen, I grew up Catholic. I'm actually part of the abuse lawsuit because I was abused as a kid by the priest. And so heartbreaking story of his experience with Christianity and religion and the Catholic Church. And he said, so I'm not gonna go to church with you. He said, but my co worker, I know got helped by Westside, so if there was any church I would even consider, it would probably be Westside. And so she shared that. And I was so moved that Westside could be the thing that maybe keeps people who will never maybe walk through the doors, that keeps them from being able to put all Christians and all religious people in the same bucket of an experience they had that was not right or that was abusive or was terrible. And I do think there is something to that of like, yeah, the. The only win isn't when someone walks through our door and becomes a member and starts giving. And that's not the only win. The win is also when something that happened through the ministry of this church leaks out into the city to where someone who's like, I'm never going to church, but I do appreciate what your church has done for my friend. Like, that's gospel work, too. And all of it counts. All of it counts. And even when we can't count it or like, on a spreadsheet that we send into our denomination to count things, like, this is actually the work. Right. And I think this is what we're talking about. Talking about. Yeah, the shalom of the city. You [00:34:09] Speaker A: can't throw that out. You can't measure it. You know, I think you can. If you're winning and you're growing, you might not do a lot of things that you should be doing because you're distracted by your quote, unquote, success. And I think you could throw out a lot of good things because you're not winning by growing. And I just. The church work has to be different than so many other things. Our bottom line is so difficult to understand and to grab a hold of. And so maybe that's why vision matters even more, because we have to have conviction around these foundational things that don't always necessarily create some kind of version of up and to the right that everybody else has. And the three of us, I think, would be concerned if we just started losing people left and right. Right. Like, there's something to that. There's a funny. There's a funny balance in here that I think for the rest of My career in ministry will, will probably drive me as insane as it has over the last 16 years, but it's worth the fight. [00:35:03] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:35:04] Speaker B: I'm reminded of these vision weeks too, that, you know, we're stewards of this moment for this church, but we're not this church, like this never belonged to us. Never. It, you know, it's not a product of our brilliance or our skills or our, you know, individual callings. Like we all as the staff, as leaders, down to volunteers and just members, we're all stewards of a moment in a church that God planted through an imperfect denomination and mistakes have been made along the way. And yet, like we, we hold this thing and we hold as best we can, but it's gonna succeed because we gave it over fully to Jesus, or it will fail because we held onto it too much for ourselves. And I really feel that in these vision weeks, the best we can do is to surrender control and ask everybody to do the same. You know, it's that territorial thing and we see it, you know, when a volunteer kind of goes rogue and wants to do their own thing, we're like, that's horrible. But it goes all the way up to you and I, Ben, when we become territorial, I'm going to do it my way. It arguably is far more damaging to what we're called to be, which is completely surrendered to Jesus and following him and letting him do what he wants with the church as our good shepherd. So I'm reminded of that these weeks. Some [00:36:24] Speaker A: of the most feedback I got from my lesson a couple weeks ago was using the phrase of we don't own anybody at Westside. Which is so funny. It's no duh. But so many people just clocked that and were like, I'm so thankful that you said that particular thing. And I think that's kind of what you're speaking to is like, this can't belong to just Ben and Evan, which means none of you belong to us. I hope we make the decision to belong to each other, you know, and I would. I'm curious about your guys view. I decided to use the word family in my message, which made my skin crawl. [00:37:00] Speaker B: But you told everybody that your skin was crawling as you said, so that was good. [00:37:03] Speaker A: I told everybody how much I hated myself for saying it out loud. That's. I think what we're asking people [00:37:10] Speaker B: into is like this family. And I know, I know the word is so I do want to belong to each other. Yeah, I don't want to lose that. And, and wherever you're coming from your nationalism or deconstruction or your whatever, don't lose that. Like, family is kind of what we're made for and we don't control everybody. You know, I don't know, it's even hard for me to say right now. We have to belong to each other, though. There has to be a connection that's more than just. I kind of like [00:37:37] Speaker A: the programming here. If we're gonna do what we wanna do. [00:37:40] Speaker C: It reminds me of, I don't know, the phrasing the kids use these days, but, like, when your friends become your family. Like, this is my chosen family kind of a thing. Like, that's what think of when you say the word family. I don't think of the dysfunction or the baggage, which I know we all have with all, you know, families are weird. But I think we. We choose this. We choose this community. We choose each other. And your encouragement with the family imagery is we keep choosing each other, even when it gets a little sticky or hard, fully acknowledging, like, you don't have to stick around, like, you don't know, you know, we don't own you, et cetera, et cetera. But. But it's like, no, there's really. There's so much beauty in continuing to choose each other and belong to. And it's that, like, chosen family. [00:38:24] Speaker A: Yeah, there's something. If there's something in, like, what they attribute this to Gen X a lot. Like this kind of really quiet, sad loyalty of. Well, they gave me a job all those years ago, and here I am 40 years later, and I've been semi miserable the whole time. But, you know, I just kind of put my head down and I guess this is how my life is going to be. There's like something toxic to that. And then, you know, let's skip the millennials for sure. But, you know, if there's something about the younger generation, this, like, so easily ghosting, you know, loyalty is almost no tomorrow I'll just stop with this group of friends and I'll start completely over again with the whole new thing. That's crazy. And neither one is what we want. Right. We don't want anybody stuck here forever and what they feel like is a terrible relationship. We also don't want you to feel like the back door is super huge and wide open and easy walk out of. You know, that that stinks too. [00:39:12] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:39:13] Speaker B: yeah. The. The commitment phobia, I think, is real, probably for millennials down, but millennials, you know, it's like we all grew up believing that our passion was the most important thing, and that was our North Star. And so, like, whatever you're passionate about, that's all you should ever have to do. You should never do anything you're not passionate about. That's [00:39:35] Speaker A: true. That's our toxic job. [00:39:36] Speaker B: That's so toxic. Right. Good luck with that. How's that working out for you? Are you passionate about everything? I don't think you are, Millennial. I've talked to you. You're sad about a lot of stuff. So that's not it. Right. And then hopefully the younger generations maybe are finding that balance between where we're not just blindly obligated and we live these lives where we're just sludging through because we decided to, but also, we're not just driven by this what makes [00:40:06] Speaker A: me feel good today [00:40:07] Speaker B: kind of life, because there's no way to live. Man. [00:40:11] Speaker C: I do wonder. I wonder how we'll see that start to play out as they age. Because the pendulum swings, you guys. The pendulum swings. I'm very curious. The [00:40:21] Speaker B: difference between the Gen Z and Gen Alpha, right? That's two new generations that are figuring it out as they go. With the Gen Z teenagers in their 20s and early 30s now. And then the Alphas, which are the young, young kids, which are. I think my daughter's, like, right on the line between Z and Alpha. And then, of course, all of our kids besides that are Alpha. But there are those pendulum swings where. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:49] Speaker B: You know. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel. I feel a little jealous of that, like, easy to ghost kind of thing that I've seen from kids that even I've heard my son, like, talk on his watch to some friends. And friends were like, oh, man, we were going to go do this. And I've heard Joel just be like, oh, yeah, I'm changing my mind and do something different. Bye. And they hang up. And I'm like, that was so rude. [00:41:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:11] Speaker A: He's like, no, I decided to do something else. Am I going to just do something else? I'm like, oh, I guess the math works out. Yeah, that makes sense that you would do that. [00:41:19] Speaker B: It is the attitude, though, that's shocking because Jack has all these friends in the neighborhood that come quite frequently, like, multiple times a day to ask if he can play. And he'll play one time in the day, and then he's kind of over it. And so then they'll come back and be like, can Jack play? So we're like, jack, come talk to your friends. And so he'll run down the stairs, he'll crack the door, he'll say no, and he'll just shut the door and then run back upstairs. And we're like, dude, that seemed harsh, but it's just like, that's. You know, he's straight to the point. [00:41:49] Speaker C: I do envy that. [00:41:50] Speaker B: Me too. [00:41:51] Speaker C: I do. I do envy that. [00:41:52] Speaker B: No. Slam. [00:41:54] Speaker C: All the niceties and obligated things I do. All the millennial. The [00:41:59] Speaker B: millennial flair that we have to use in our conversations. [00:42:03] Speaker A: I feel like commitment is, like, the best attribute anybody can have, you [00:42:07] Speaker B: know? [00:42:08] Speaker A: So I watch Joel do something. I kind of grip my chair. Like, don't you believe in anything? You're a part of this. [00:42:15] Speaker B: Coach Fleming. What? Do. Coach? [00:42:17] Speaker A: Seriously? No, but I think overall, I'm a little jealous. [00:42:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Probably have a [00:42:22] Speaker B: healthier view of it. [00:42:24] Speaker A: I can see Jack doing that, man. [00:42:26] Speaker C: Me too. [00:42:26] Speaker A: I can see him. [00:42:27] Speaker B: He's got no qualms. [00:42:29] Speaker A: It's so [00:42:29] Speaker B: fun. And he's a very sweet kid, so I. I feel like he knows the difference, cuz, you know, he's. He's very conscious of not being rude to, like, his teachers and adults and. And us as parents and stuff. But, like, if it's his friend, he's like, I don't know. I don't owe you any extra words. Just gonna Just kind of shut it off. Which. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Good [00:42:51] Speaker B: for him. [00:42:51] Speaker A: I love that he knows the spots, [00:42:54] Speaker B: but. All right, so we should. I think you're gone next week, Linds. Are [00:42:58] Speaker C: we gonna podcast after we do that? [00:43:00] Speaker A: You're gone too, Justin. [00:43:02] Speaker B: Okay, we'll come back. We'll come back in two weeks. It'll be Thanksgiving week, but we should do one. Yeah. To wrap up vision and talk about [00:43:09] Speaker A: vision, [00:43:09] Speaker B: what will be an interesting weekend with both of us [00:43:11] Speaker A: podcasting through Advent. [00:43:13] Speaker C: Yes, that is the plan. [00:43:15] Speaker A: Okay. [00:43:15] Speaker C: Yep. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Busy time. I. I love Christmas at church. It's coming. It's so. It's magic. Just [00:43:21] Speaker B: a couple weeks away. [00:43:23] Speaker C: Oh, geez. We're not ready. We need more time. Back to [00:43:27] Speaker B: it. Back to it. It's.