Theology in the Raw - 635: A Joint Catacomb in the Raw - Josh Stump and Jay Newman

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

Today on Theology in the Raw Preston is talking with Joshua Stump and Jay Newman for a joint Catacomb and TITR Podcast. Today they are talking all about church. Why do we go to church? What should church look like? What is Preston doing now that tries to "do" church a little differently?  

so who's starting uh i'll start you're going to start okay you start no you do it no you question me i'll start okay what's it called catacomb yes how about we how about you introduce our podcast and we'll introduce yours okay cat. Catacomb? Yes. Okay. Let's do it. Hello, friends and listeners. You are here at the Catacomb Podcast. My name is Jay Newman. I'm here with my good friend, Preston Sprinkle from Theology in the Raw and my wannabe pastor, Josh Stump. So thank you for joining. This is going to be a wonderful episode of conversations about church, about God, about people, about the world and everything else. So, Jay. You know what?

Already our podcast is a thousand times better. It is. Maybe we should just keep that intro for every week. As soon as you started talking, the level of professionalism just. But he's, Preston's got like what, a thousand of these under your belt? Do you have that many? I think I'm getting close to seven or eight hundred maybe. Yeah, so this is number two for me, Josh.

Man, well, we did a bunch before. We did. We did eight before, so we're almost to a dozen. And I make a podcast every Sunday when I'm preaching. I guess technically. I just don't introduce it well. You need no introduction. That's true.

To your own church. That was very humble of me. Preston, thank you for being here. It's great to be here. In the Catacomb Studio. Thanks for inviting us to Theology in the Raw podcast. Do we explain that? This is both podcasts. Yeah. So why don't you introduce Theology in the Raw podcast. Do we explain that? This is both podcasts.

Yeah. So why don't you introduce Theology in the Raw? Oh, I don't listen to enough of them. What? That is so insulting. Even I knew there was a podcast this morning when I walked in after he told me. So welcome to Theology in the Rock. Where Preston Sprinkle hits every hot button issue in the church and makes everyone angry from left to right.

I like that. All right. Wow. Is that accurate? Yeah. Yeah. Staking out the middle ground. I do have some fans, but maybe the everybody was a little much, but yeah. You know.

Sometimes it feels like everybody. Let me just say this because we do joke around too much when we're around. A couple years ago at audio feed jay pulled one of his normal jay things or just like one of my buddies uh i want you to meet my buddy you know which he's got literally thousands of friends of buddies of people he knows people way more than i do probably he just so anyways i kind of was like in that place where i'm like i don't really want to meet anyone and especially if there's like a theologian because i argue theology at times with jay and it's not enjoyable for me i don't like it so why would i want to meet his friend and have yet another argument? But I agreed to go.

You remember we had barbecue at that really horrible barbecue place. It wasn't that good. Well, it was in Illinois, to be fair. It's not the South, right? And instantaneously, I realized that God must have put you in his life to fix him. And so it was such a great honor to meet you that day. That was a fun way to talk on stage.

Was that with Shea Clayward? I think that was right. Oh yeah, we had a debate. It was called a debate. It was more of a dialogue. And I don't know why. I was afraid that it would be a debate. And then I think we all pretty much agreed on a lot of the same stuff.

I mean, there were some things Shane said that we kind of went, huh? Or I went, really? But then when you read his books and get to know him, it's like, okay. Yeah, of course. That makes sense. Those are fun. Yeah, it's a fun conference. Yeah.

Good discussion. Good times. What are we talking about today? We thought you would have something. Let's talk about church. Okay. Yeah. What is church? So I've been doing this series on my podcast called what is church. And, uh, as, as you guys both know, we were just talking about this. I've recently, uh, co-planted. I like the term plant. I call it more of a church experiment because we, and I really mean that like, it's not everybody. I know that plants a church. They, they kind of,

there's like a year prep going into it. There's a rewrite in their vision statement. Like it's kind of comes in with this momentum of what this thing's supposed to be. And we actually kind of woke up when we were praying together with another family for a few Sundays. Then we just started inviting other people into it. And that was kind of like, and so we're kind of woke up when we were praying together with another family for a few Sundays, then we just started inviting other people into it. And that was kind of like, and so we're kind of, it's kind of like fixing a flat tire on a rolling car. We're kind of like figuring, we're literally writing kind of our vision and values as we were meeting and breaking bread every week and more people and more people were coming. So it really is kind of a church experiment. But then through that, we've been talking about like our different values and trying to shape who we are.

And there is, I mean, I've been, me and my co-pastor named Rock Brown. This is a real name, a real name. Rock Brown. And he is a stud. And both of us, I mean, for, gosh, 10, 15, 20 years have been thinking about what is church? You know, what could it be? And kind of in and out of different churches and, and thinking, man, what if we did it this way? What if we did that way?

What if we can, you know, start with the, the, the slate totally clean and just build it from the ground up. What would that look like? So we've had these thoughts for many years going into this. So, but now we're starting to seeing if it works on the ground. And the answer is, I'm not sure if it's going to, I think it is and it isn't. And we're constantly kind of revisiting, revisiting our kind of ideas of what it, what it can and should be. So, but this is based on, uh, what Francis

Chan's doing in San Francisco. It is. Yeah. So if, if, uh, so the, we are church model, it's called, we are church in San Francisco. It's Francisco. It's a network of, for lack of better terms, house churches. And they've been doing it for about four or five years. And we're loosely somehow, yeah, somehow connected, whether it's just, oh, that's a model we like. We're going to kind of follow them or some sort of more official kind of relationship. We're not sure what that's going to look like. But I talk to people all over the place and it's like, oh, yeah, we're doing to, you know, kind of follow them or some sort of more official kind of relationship. We're not sure what that's going to look like. But I talk to people all over the place and it's like, oh, yeah, we're doing that, too. Oh, yeah, we're doing that, too.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of this stuff going on. That's kind of the hyper simple kind of unconventional church for the D church. People that are love Jesus or faithful Jesus followers and literally haven't been to a church service in years. And they, they say, I just cannot, for whatever reason, I just cannot even physiologically like go inside another church again. But then they're out like feeding the poor, loving Jesus, doing the devotions, like raising, discipling their kid. They're doing all the Christian things. What is it? So what, what is it that is different for people? Like their experiences or? Yeah. I can talk in just my context. I can't talk to everybody that's in that boat,

but I mean, for us, we have several people that have been through some pretty serious church trauma, um, leadership stuff that blew up and they've been really hurt. They may be personally involved in that other people. Um,

I'm just thinking of some people in particular where it's just like just kind of the i have some really thoughtful people that are just the kind of goofiness of youth groups and church and right just never go do you never talk talk about anything that's like a substance or even controversial or just intelligent and you know um some people like i just i just can't sing the songs anymore. Like I don't, or I need to raise questions. I'm doubting God. If I'm not allowed to struggle with doubt in church,

then why am I even going to church? Or just, I think it really comes down to why are we going to this hour and a half on Sunday when I smile superficially at some people, I do this, but I'm not, there's nothing really contributing to my discipleship. And so at the end of the day, they just kind of throw up their arms and say, I can do something more profitable to contribute to my discipleship, like hang out with my unsaved neighbor. Or, you know, I can always find a better, if it's all about just listening to a sermon, I can find a better sermon online.

I don't need to leave my house. Well, it's about the fellowship and it's about the community and everything. But like for a lot of churches, a Sunday morning, it's not really happening there anyway. It's like you go, you kind of absorb a really good service, you know, and you may have some kind of conversation. Again, this isn't everybody. I'm just saying what people, their experiences have been, but they're not really getting deep community on that hour and a half. So then they're like,

so at the end of the day, if I really lay it out, why am I doing this? Because I'm told I have to. But do you have an answer for that? Because I mean, that's just, I think I ask that all the time. I've been in church my entire life.

Josh, the church that I attend, that he pastors, I've described it in many ways as a as a misfit church yeah you know it's like the what's the what's the christmas movie where they got the island of misfit toys or whatever it feels like that you're all broken in some way they weren't used how they were intended to be used and there's like this whole gathering of people who had just haven't had just have brokenness in some way or another but then oh but we want to come together but why are we doing this yeah and i guess you know it's an ecclesiological question and it's difficult to

answer but in our context it seems the same but how you're doing it uh aesthetically at least looks very different than how we're doing it, but seem to be meeting the same problem. I don't know if it is. I haven't seen your contacts. To be clear, you're usually the one saying, why are we doing this? Okay.

Well, maybe I'm the only one. Okay. So in a little bit in our story, I had an established church and was doing well, was planning on moving to England to plant a church. I handed my church off to my associate. And it was probably to date the most successful ministry thing that I've ever done. And then we ended up not getting immigration.

I took a year off. Things went crazy. I had people that asked me to come back to plant a church for them so i did it reluctantly but then i was like well this is who i am so i'm going to do it we call that church the keel which is a gaelic word that means simple chapel because everything you just said i was like that's that's the future of the church very Very simple, non-complex, doing life. And it was, for the most part, a pretty tough existence. It was awful. So I actually came to the conclusion there's no such thing as a simple church.

There's no such thing as, I mean, I don't want to attack you because you just haven't been there yet, but simple, simplistic church without the bells and whistles and the drama and the fake smiles and all that stuff. I don't know if it exists. I don't know if any version of church is easy. Not that you're looking for easy. You're looking for different.

I wouldn't equate easy with simple because I would agree with the easy. No, not easy. Relationships are not easy. Relationships are not. Anything that has a genuine relationship is bound to suffer. Yeah. suffer. Yeah. And so, um, and, and I think for my whole life, I've always been the guy who was looking at what's next and what's different. I mean, even in Nashville, I was in the first, like two or three churches that had rock bands and t-shirts and that's how old I am. So,

I mean, when we first started out just doing Come As You Are and we're playing loud music, there wasn't anybody else in the city doing that. I mean, that was cutting edge. I was the cutting edge. What a 90s way of saying something. The cutting edge. Is that a 90s thing? I think so. You are 90s.

Well, I'm a 90s guy. I love the 90s. How old are you? 43. I'm 42. There you go. Okay. So I've been doing this a long time. I'm in my 90s. Well, I'm a 90s guy. I love the 90s. How old are you? 43. I'm 42. Yeah, so. There you go. Okay.

So I've been doing this a long time. Right now, I'm gambling that pews and altars are going to be cool again. I don't know. I think they are. Because the church building we're renting, we're renting from Lutherans. And it is funny because since Christmas Eve, we moved into this new space from a gym in the y which used to be so trendy now forget that i want good acoustics so now we're renting from a lutheran congregation that's very small and older and we have like probably one of the most beautiful chapels in the city.

That's gorgeous. It's a beautiful chapel and these people take very good care of it. There's so many altar furniture things and stuff that we barely can fit our music there. And when people first come into the church, they were like, oh my gosh, a pew. And I can't pray for people. My chest hurts. I have anxiety. Literally, people had anxiety for being in there.

Just being in that space, it freaked them out. It triggered whatever. Air quotes, triggered. You saw the woke jeans thing? Oh yeah, that was funny. That was so funny.

Yes. I've seen it like 50 times. I don't know what I was trying to say, except for the fact that... People were triggered by pews, you were saying. Yes. Which I hope you're embellishing a little bit. I'm really not. I literally got...

No, no, I've seen people say the same thing. This is literally true that I had phone calls and emails, me and our worship pastor, we both. In this first week we were there, people were so stressed out about the building. Now, I can say that that has diminished and people are starting to feel comfortable being there. I think what I'm saying is I have tried everything and I don't know that anything necessarily works. And so we have to invite God to whatever the expression is that we're doing. Yeah. Whether there's pews or in a barn or in a bowling alley, we have to invite the Lord to that and,

and have a genuine experience of worship with him and teaching and interaction. And then, then we have to have that church expression go through the entire week as we're woven into each other's lives. And I will say that for our community, we're pretty woven into each other's lives. So like by the time church rolls around,

we've seen each other four times that week, you know? And that makes, I think that makes a big difference. And so I think we're achieving that aspect of it. So I'm going to make a couple of, can I give a couple of qualifications? Sure. I've done it on my podcast several times, but just for this one.

First of all, when you do something that's different and kind of this, I don't like the term house church, but house churchy, it typically is seen as kind of a reaction against all these other models, or you don't think those models are good. And I've made this, I have to make this qualification every time I talk about this, that I am not at all saying this is intrinsically the best model. I don't know what this model is. We're really exploring it. Nor do I think that the sort of de-church type people that maybe like this model, that's not the majority. I'm not saying people can't go to another model and really flourish in their faith at all. And I'm not, I've got tons of pastor friends that are doing amazing

stuff in all different models, all the way to like the highly programized, whatever, you know, megachurch type stuff. And I've seen really amazing things come about through that. What I do know is there are some Christians who don't fit those other models. And I think it's like what I think we're providing is a different kind of model

for the people that aren't going to flourish in those other models. It's not an intrinsic attack on those models, nor is it, I really mean this, it's not an elevation of this model either. Because I think for me that the huge things are, are you, as a Christian, are you engaged in authentic, and these are all going to be kind of cliched buzzwords maybe, but I'm just going to say them anyway, because I don't have an alternative. Are you engaged in authentic, life-giving, communal, challenging relationships with other believers? When I ask many Christians that, if they say yes, and I say, oh, so is that like at church? They say, oh no, no. Like I go to church and if I'm, if I'm marriages on the rocks, nobody at church knows about it.

You know, I'm like, right. Then you're not doing church the way it should. Like, I think if, if I don't care about the model, really, I'm saying, because when you said they, you, people have seen each other probably four times before church. I can care less. You could say I pastor a mega church and it wouldn't even matter to me if that's happening. Dude, that's, are the one another's happening? Are you in life giving relationship? Because discipleship cannot, it's impossible to be a disciple.

It's incredibly difficult to be a disciple of Jesus by yourself. Like you need, it's Christianity is designed to be interdependent upon other people. And church has to be the place where that happens. I'll go impossible. Why not? It's impossible. You can't be a Christian by yourself. That's a scholar in me.

I never say 100%. I think of this Eugene Peterson quote. Do you follow Peterson daily on Twitter? No. It's a good follow, but it's... I do follow it, but not actually like look at it every day. I think it's just quotes from his books.

So it's not original content, but there's one, he says something something like there's no uh i'm gonna get the quote wrong but he basically says that all the things that are wrong with church and then he says but there's no other place to be a christian yeah yeah there's there's no other context which you can be a christian except for church right right that's just how it works and so the our i think our there's several values in our model. And simplicity, I don't want to say that makes it less messy or less easy at all. I'm saying that there's a lot of things in, for lack of better terms, a traditional church model that can attract a lot of our attention, energy, money as leaders or whatever, um, that aren't really contributing to people's discipleship. Sure. And that's a lot in that. So that I'm saying,

let's strip, strip away everything that's absorbing time, energy, money, talents, personnel, just get rid of it unless it's directly affecting discipleship on some level. So that's all I mean by simple. I think there's so many things to say. Yeah. There's all kinds of things that are important that at some point that are contributing, to use your terminology, contributing to someone's discipleship and then give it a generation

and it is actually in the way and can be stripped away. So whatever, I just think whatever model you come up with, it probably worked for our parents or our grandparents or whatever. But then what happens is it becomes engraved almost as a tradition. It's like, well, this works. Well, no, it did work. Like we're not, the stripping away, like every time someone's a buddy of mine wants to go plant a church,

this is probably more when I was younger, like in college or whatever. And it's like, well, what's your end game? What do you think is going to happen? I'm like, you think you're doing something different, but by the, by the end of your life, wherever that church is, if it lasts that long, it's going to look just like first Baptist, whatever, you know, because that's just, you're solving problems. Yeah. I think what you just said is a conversation that we were having in 2000 okay

okay i was definitely having that conversation in 2000 i wouldn't say that it is even about tradition or the new expression it's changing weekly so the needs of the congregation change from week to week now it's not like well we ran with this for 10 years and now it's, you know, now we try this new thing. Oh, we have t-shirts and we have music, we have band. And we're going to do communion up front instead of passing it out in plates. Like all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore. And the needs of what people want at a church

changes so quickly that it's, you're almost reinventing yourself every week. So you have to find the things that are going to stabilize you, that you build on. And for you, it sounds like discipleship, but even if a thing that you would cut this week, because it causes expenses and headache.

Well, for somebody in that congregation, they're going to need that element. And then so you cut it and then you realize that you've actually overlooked something they need because people, and here's why, people come to church for different reasons. I have people, for example, that I will start a sermon and there are hundreds available, maybe thousands at this point. But I start every sermon with scripture and I read a section of scripture. I try to be contextual to that scripture, but I will speak whatever. And then there's always that group of people that go, I just wish you had more value for the Bible.

It's like you made a point in the middle that this isn't the only place that's written in scripture. It's also written here, but you didn't give us the exact location of that. And it's like, well, I don't make five point outlines either and have every single note that I can spill information to you because I'm, I preach more from a heart context of like, here's a passage that we need to look into. Now let's explore what's the spirit speaking to us in the context of today, where you're at, the experience you had with your wife at breakfast.

Like, let's apply it there. So I realized that, and I'll have people come and say, good grief, that sermon was so amazing. It just really was connecting where I'm at. And then the next guy come and says, good grief, that sermon was so amazing. It just really was connecting where I'm at. And then the next guy come and says, man, I just need more. I need something different. That what you gave me was nice, but it wasn't enough.

And the worship deals with that. And the children's professors work with that. You have to call them professors now. They don't like childcare workers. That's an insult there to the thing. Is that a real thing? Are you kidding me? I've never used the term before.

Let me just say this. Preston. If you don't have a PhD, I'm not calling you a professor. We miss good. Well, I'm saying nowadays, though, if you say our church has childcare, you've just offended people. Because it's not childcare. They're teaching scripture. They're teaching theology. Okay. So you can because it's not childcare. They're teaching scripture. They're teaching theology.

Okay. So you can't say we have childcare available. That's an insult. See, here's why I said, when you walked in and you told me you're pastoring, what did I say? I said, I haven't been praying for you when you were taking on the whole theological world over hot button issues. But now that you're a pastor, I'm going to have to pray for you daily.

So here, I guess, and push back on this. So our church model is there's no money goes into the ministry. It functions at cost. There's no, nobody gets paid anything. No money gets, it all gets redistributed to physical needs in the body and needs in the community, missional ventures, whatever.

We also have a model of, we will never grow bigger in our gathering than what would fit in like a living room or whatever. Meaning you add those both together and I have zero desire to grow numerically. So there's a tremendous amount of freedom in offending people. Like if somebody said, I wish your sermon, I was like, then this might not be the place for it. There's nothing. I don't have a salary that hangs on it. Like whether we dwindle down to eight people or grow to 80 people at three different living rooms or whatever, there's nothing that really, all those kind of nitpicky stuff that people do with church service and worship and child, you didn't say childcare, you did say child care to us it just doesn't we just kind of shrug our shoulders

and say there's hundreds of churches within five miles over here that have all that stuff so this might not be the place for you. Are you saying the only reason though is because like there's a salary riding on it? Well there's nothing like I think there can't push back

if yeah your salary or if there's if there's. If there's some need, some subtle need for that person to stay at the congregation to meet their, I would say, felt needs. I don't think being called a professor versus child care is a real need. I would say it's a felt need. It's not really whatever. Yeah, I think there always is in the back of your mind, even people that say, I'm not a church growth guy. I don't really care.

No. Reality is when if they preach a sermon, half the people leave, including the big givers, their salary might be on the fence. This may not be. This is probably different for you because I know you guys have a different. Well, absolutely. I would say that those yes there's all the bigger an institution the more opportunity for corruption absolutely i mean absolutely i'm i'm 110 on board with that

and i mean i've done your model too yeah i did your model for a couple of years. I've gotten so many people say that. They pat me on the head saying, yeah, I did that. And I'm not insulting you. I'm saying for me, it didn't work. It didn't meet my needs either. Right. And I think also. And I'm not saying mine won't work either.

But think about calling for a moment. I mean, you're doing a lot of things in your life. It's not like you're just pastoring this group of people. You're busy. You're a busy guy. And you're making a, you have outlets as well to fulfill your call. Yes. And so it may be that this model really works for where you're at in life and what God has asked you to do.

Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And so, and God equips people differently and then our personalities as well connect that we have the ability to do different things. And one of the things I believe God has called me to do is to help, very similar to what you were saying, help people that have been hurt by the institution of the church

and show that there's still value in the community, that we don't have to completely run away from it. You know, it's like I have had, and here's how I equate it. I love barbecue and I feel that barbecue, and this will offend some people, but I believe that barbecue has an essential contribution to my life, right? Amen. It's going to have a contribution to my life in about 45 minutes, too.

But I've had barbecue that gave me diarrhea. I have. That was not where I thought this was going to get me. I have. I have eaten barbecue that made me sick. I've eaten pizza that's made me sick. I've had barbecue that made me sick. I've eaten pizza that's made me sick. I've had tacos that made me sick. But I didn't leave tacos, barbecue, or pizza.

I like where you're going here. That's good. That's good. And what I'm saying is the church can hurt you and make you sick, but it doesn't mean the whole thing should never be consumed again. Sure, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we, look, if we took people's excuse for why they've left community of the church and i'm not saying the institution but i'm saying they've left the

community of church whether they're going to house that's a good distinction if if we took their excuses and applied it across the board you know it's like i ran out of gas taking my kids to school, so I got rid of my car. You know, my boss was being a jerk, so I just quit, and now I don't work anymore. In any other part of life, it wouldn't make sense. Even in the fact that I still use the terminology of marriage, which I hate because marriage is tough. because marriage is tough. There's a lot of rewards, but dude, you have to be just a little bit messed in the head to commit to marriage, right? I mean, seriously, it's hard, right?

You're married, right? It'd be hard for you, man. Mine's a cake log. Okay, good. Marriage can be hard. You know, it's like nowadays I talk to young people that don't want to be inconvenienced by having children. And it's like, well, you don't have to pay for babysitters and you're going to be, you have all this free time on your hand, but you're missing the blessing that comes with having kids.

You know, you don't get to see the joy on their face when you take them to an As City's Burned concert like we did last night. I took my son for his first All Aid shows, and he was so happy, and he loved it. And you miss this stuff. And so anyways, I'm saying, what is it about the church that is so expendable that when we have a bad experience, we can justifiably say that I'm not going to ever do this. Yeah. I think, um, I think there's people that have, I think it's a whole spectrum of people that, you know what? Church isn't a problem. You're the problem. Like you're, you're too narcissistic and too self-centered and, and haven't actually tried to pour into anybody or whatever. And you blame everything on everybody else. And there's absolutely people on that spectrum all the way to legitimate,

like spiritual trauma or, or just being, you know, really, I mean, emotionally and maybe physically, but I mean like really, maybe spiritually abused by power dynamics. I mean, some of the stories I hear from people, it's like, Oh my word, I'm surprised you're still a Christian. But I think most of the time when they have, let's just say somewhere in the middle, some kind of mild spiritual trauma, they probably played some role in that and probably the church or whatever.

Maybe just this hyper jadedness by going to church for 20 years and at the end of the day, waking up and say, none of this is really meaningful anymore. I was trying to make it work, you know? So, so yeah, I think it's a whole spectrum and I think people need to be kind of called out if, if, if they're coming at it from a real narcissistic place or whatever, you know, they, they need to be rebuked for it. But I mean, at the end of the day, I think we all, and I think we're all would agree. I mean, we, we all need some spiritual community and the model is

really secondary. Some models just aren't really conducive for some people. It's conducive for other people. And all I know is there are, um, I think I would say, I would say this to, to our defense. I think there is a need for more, not exclusively, but more models like, like this. Cause I think there's a lot of people that, for whatever reason, they just need something really stripped down and really, really simple. Would you say more models like that in particular? Yeah. Or ish? All different kinds of models.

More diversity of models. I think we have a glut of models that are increasingly not reaching people in discipleship. This is a result of the book. This is Josh's whole thing on consumer Christianity. It's a common rant he gets on is that people shop for church like they shop for blue jeans or whatever. It's all about what you get and not investing in a community. Right. The core of the consumer is what am I getting out of going?

Right. And it's like. But part of that's the model that feeds that though. Right. No, I mean, absolutely. I've just,

it's a, it's a dial. It's a back and forth. It kind of feeds back. And then we have that mindset when we go to people's ask, how was the Dodger game? Good. How was church?

Good. And it really is almost the same answer, the same type of thing. The worship was good. It, you know, I had a good experience. The teaching was clear. It impacted my life, but it still is this kind of transactional professionalism.

Have you ever, you've been around more than I have, you know, more people, I think, than I do. Have you been to a big church where people are being made disciples and are growing in there? Yeah. Yeah. Again, I've got friends that are mega church pastors and they're honestly doing, I think the best they can and people are flourishing in their faith. You know, I still would say there's probably a decent number of people attending the service

that are not being discipled or not, whatever. And we have a small group program and all this. And, and yeah, it's a great, that's a great step. Did you say, and I love you. I'm not arguing with you. You can love me and argue with me. He does it all the time. You said in your congregation, at least I thought this was said earlier, that you have a couple of people that keep it real surface.

No, not, not in our church. Oh, not in your church. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I guess what I'm saying, I guess, I mean, I, yeah, I guess what I've come to and I, and this is shocking that I'm saying this. Okay. So I'm just not, if you, if you, you've known me for a little bit, but this is really shocking for me to come to this conclusion, whether you have a house church model like yours or your churches. I mean, I had a guy

last night who went on a 20 minute rant on why God is such a jerk. That'd be the best way to edit it. And he's my friend and I love him him and he would rant for like two minutes and then turn to me and say sorry josh i'm not talking about you and then he would rant about the church and say i'm not talking about your church and then he would rant about god and he'd say i'm not talking about and then eventually he says he said um he was he told another guy yeah josh is my pastor so i'm like dude i'm not your pastor like we you don't come to church and we won't we usually don't even have exchanges back and forth because he just rants and then goes out the door like yeah so i asked him to break that down and he's breaking down like well the

reflection of god that i get or the challenge is to be a disciple are in this cigar shop and they're with you. So I'm like, okay, in that context, I'll be your pastor. And so church can literally in our culture be translated from that interaction up to like a mega church. And the common thread between all of them is you have disingenuous, disengaged people who don't want to be discipled and leaders that don't care about discipleship. And I, you know, I've had friends that left the church to do the house group thing for authentic discipleship. And they came back to church because they said, literally, all we do is talk about our jobs, our kids, and we eat food and we leave.

It's like, you know, they deconstructed to the point where there's no, no conversation about faith. Hashtag deconstruct. So I think what. So let me, so I don't think that the model, even this model can guarantee discipleship at all. Oh yeah. This is why I don't know of any model guaranteed.

That's what I'm saying. I'm saying the model... You can have a house church that's incredibly cultish, superficial, power. You can have all the same problems. And there's another factor. I think some are typically more conducive. I mean, if you have a house church of 30 people,

it is going to be more conducive for authentic relationships. It's not going to guarantee it. But rather than a megachurch, you show up at 10,000 people, it is going to be more conducive for authentic relationships. It's not going to guarantee it, but rather than a megachurch, you show up at 10,000 people, of course, the living room with 30 people, there's going to be more opportunity and likelihood. And megachurches make them smaller. Like they have to break things down for different events. That's the way that they work. They don't just have one service with several thousand people with nothing else going on. Yeah. I mean, most megachurches are going to try to break it down. You have to make it small to some degree. Yeah. And, but then I would, you know, on the, I would challenge every

megachurch, you got to make it small somehow, but I would challenge every small church. You got to make it big somehow. Yeah. You know, you can't stay, there has to be a continuity between, you know, the small group and the large group, the small discipleship, whether that's one-on-one or a few people to corporate gatherings. Well, that's why I love the We Are Church model. And I'm not that we're like, you know, a hundred percent, like this is perfect, whatever. And they wouldn't say that it's perfect, but, you know, it's a network of home communities to where once a month, they all gather together, big gathering, worship, serve all the, all

the stuff that, you know, good 40-minute sermon, 50-minute sermon, so that you realize that you're part of something that's bigger than your living room, you know. But the primary rhythm of the gatherings is in the small group because they believe that the primary thing that should be happening when you're gathering is one-on-one community, breaking bread, looking each other in the face.

Right. Which I like. So they basically just kind of, they kind of inverted the whole system. Yeah. I love that. I was just sitting here thinking like, so our church compared to yours would be considered like bigger and traditional or,

but I, like I literally, traditional is not a word. I know you don't have to tell me we're traditional i make up words a lot i do too i love it such freedom in the english language so but you know i had i had a friend really recently say hey when i left your church over a year ago i i want you to understand it isn't because I don't like you. And I'm like, oh, my emotions went away a long time ago.

It's sort of like cooks. You know, a lot of good cooks, they don't have any feeling in the end of their fingertips. I don't know if you know this, because they've burned the fingertips so many times that now they can actually touch hot stuff without it hurting them. And that's the way my heart is.

You have a calloused heart. No, I'm saying I'm from, not from my church experience, but from like just the stuff I do. Yeah. I mean, and this is what the purpose of our podcast has been. And what our dream is, is that the truth is Jay and myself, we are, we are jaded and we struggle to feel all the time because it's hard. Life's hard. And so the podcast in a way is forcing us to bring something encouraging to our world. But anyways, my friend, he said this. He said, the reason I left your church is simply this.

I'm not emotionally ready to have the level of intimacy and vulnerability that you have in your church. That's a great critique, compliment. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, I mean, that's cool. Thank you. Like, it's interesting though, because I'm wondering, is this really about model? Is it really about structure? Is it really about size?

Or is it about like, what is your intention when you gather as a church? What are the things you're hoping and wanting to accomplish? And people just want different things. So I guess for me, some of my opinion today has come from a place of, I've given up. Like I've been looking for a solution for so long that I've given up, and I'm just going to go after God or wherever it is. And whatever kind of financial and programs, whatever comes, we have to deal with it.

Then we'll just deal with it. And I guess maybe when I sat down and you guys wanted to talk about church, I was like, hmm, that does not sound fun to me. We can change the subject. No, it's good. I mean, it's really great. Let's talk about the rapture. One thing I think we haven't mentioned that, and this would be maybe not worth more than just a mention, but I think, and not just the three of us, when I say we, I mean like anybody who talks about this and cares about how we do church, we may give too much power to the model or the method.

And really, when I think about, and I told this to someone in a conversation, almost legitimizing, I was saying this in my mind legitimizes church. The 2,000 years with the most sordid history you can come up with of Christians acting in the world, doing church, and it's still here? It's almost as if there's some invisible force sustaining it despite its attempts to destroy itself. And so that the reason the church exists is because there's this Holy Spirit that is present, that is binding the parts together

in ways that they are trying to pull apart. And so there's a spiritual warfare aspect to I think how we do church or whatever. I know every day of my life, I have not, or every Sunday, I should clarify, every Sunday of my life, I have not wanted to go to church. Like there is an opposition to it. And the only thing I can compare it to is going to the gym. There's that sense of dread, like, oh my gosh, I got to do this again. But you know how good you feel after you've gotten a good workout in. And so you go because you have the memories

or you have the hope of future fitness or whatever that you may not see immediate results, but you know it's a long term. And church is like that for me. It's like the fact, almost the fact that I feel opposition makes me go. Because if there's something that doesn't want me to go, I need to go. I have the same, I've had the same experience for many years in many different contexts.

But I didn't have the positive outcome on the back end saying, oh, I'm glad I went. Usually I come home exhausted, tired. I'm like, why do we do that again? Right. And now I have kids asking us, why do we do that again? Right. And now I have kids asking us, why do we do that again? Well, my answer is because the devil doesn't want you to. And sometimes that is, for myself, that's the best answer I have for myself as a grown man. I told my kids Jesus didn't want us to.

We should have stayed home. No, check this out. So a few years ago, we actually took a break from attending church and we actually did many different things on Sunday morning. Uh, we went and we'd visit like a church of refugees. It was in three different languages. Went to, uh, um, we had a barbecue or a breakfast or whatever with all our neighbors and just said, Hey, come over and hang out and just get to know you guys. And, um, we spent a few weeks bringing in, it could get really cold in the wintertime. And there used to be a homeless community before the cops broke it all up.

But like a little tent city, we went and brought a big vat of hot chocolate. It's not like that's going to whatever. But it was just a gesture of like, you know. And we brought the whipped cream and then made it really nice, big cups, you know, and passed out hot chocolate, huddled around the fire, and just talked to the homeless community. And our kids, I remember, said that was the first time that they really felt like they experienced Christianity and Jesus on a Sunday morning. And like, yeah, that really kind of threw me for a loop.

Part of me is like, how do I argue against that? Like, do you think Jesus would be here on Sunday morning? And I didn't know how to answer that because I didn't want to say yes because he hates the church. I'd be like, I couldn't say no, like no, no. And literally the homeless community was like under the freeway where for many Sundays we'd drive over to go to church, have superficial conversations, hear a message, just kind of the typical hipster, you know, whatever. And music that I don't like. And nothing's really that meaningful.

I try to talk to people and they kind of go the other way and go home and like, why do we do that again? And then when we started to take the exit under the overpass and meet with the homeless community, my kids are saying, this feels like Christianity much more than what we've been doing. I feel like you're like talking like an idea of your next book.

You're like, take the exit. Take the off ramp. This is my book, Go. Take the off ramp. Oh, that is. So this was in the process

of writing my book on this, which kind of crystallized some stuff leading to what I'm doing now. Available on Amazon.com. Thanks, Jay. Yeah. Josh,

you've mentioned Josh. Yeah. You mentioned all my friends. You never mentioned me in that book. I don't know if my audience knows. So a lot of people... Wait, I got mentioned in. You mentioned all my friends. You never mentioned me in that book. I don't know if my audience knows. Wait, I got mentioned in a book? In his book. Come on, man.

You write books? It's a color book, man. The Abbey is a, yeah. Yeah, he talks about the smoke shop. So I don't know, my audience might not know that I'm hanging with the people that talk about and go, the smoke shop where the, at that time that talk about and go, the smoke shop. At that time, you were kind of full-time smoke shop owner and part-time pastor. Now it's kind of flipped.

Yeah, now I'm full-time back at church because I don't know what my problem is. You gave up smoking or what? No, I have not. Josh, concluding thought. I will say this. I agree that Jesus wouldn't be in church that's why the local church

East Nashville 430 430 on Sundays is it called the local church? it's called the local church that's the name of it TLC man it started out as a joke

because I freaking hate every kind of thing that's been used and in my new ideas I mean I had a church I don't have a I had a church named... We don't have a name for our church yet.

We're trying to figure out what we're called. Well, you've got to get a website, so you have to have a name to have a website. We will never have a website. You can call it The Barn. The Barn Church. That just sounds like the shack. Jesus.

It could bring up some... No, no, no. You're thinking about it the wrong way. The Barn. Jesus started here. Sorry. What about the catacomb? Can I jack your title uh when you guys mention your podcast we'll ask our lawyers we'll see how we can figure that out okay so um wrap us up josh okay

here's a wrapper so we live like i said we're renting from the lutherans and we have there's a brundy speaking church they're african but i'm not very brundy brundy church that meets in in the fellowship hall sunday well they meet like saturday afternoons for three hours and sunday afternoons for three hours so when we're setting up stairs they're still going and there's i cannot understand anything they're saying but you can tell that they are loving each other and loving the Lord and going crazy. And I guess I don't understand their model at all because I don't want to be in church six hours a week. Okay.

So the model doesn't make sense, but they're getting something out of it that is inspiring to me, even though I can't understand it. It's a really beautiful expression. though I can't understand it. It's a really beautiful expression. So if you could sum up, and I think you maybe started to tell us these things, regardless of the model, what should people be looking for in church? I think it does come down to discipleship and community. I think, again, something that has been very much lost on American Christianity, because we're incredibly consumeristic, independent, right? And yet Christianity is incredibly non-consumeristic and interdependent. of getting into life-giving and life-sucking and challenging and joyful and messy and complicated discipling relationships with one another.

But if you're in church, you go to church, you're at church, you're a member of a church, and you're not practicing the 52 one another's, I don't think you're doing church the way it's intended to be. So yeah, megachurch, house church, barn doesn't matter to me. It's your rhythm of church, mega church, house church, barn doesn't matter to me. It's, it's, is your rhythm of church, not just your Sunday gathering, but your rhythm of church forcing you to engage in those discipling relationships as a, as a receiver, giver, taker, whatever, you know, where you're helping others, you're receiving, you're, um, engaging in that. So, um, and again,

I just go back, like most Christians I talk to, this is anecdotal, but most Christians I talk to say, I'm nowhere near that at my church, my rhythm of church. I hear great messages, great messages, love the worship. Most of the time, the pastor's not preaching this week, so I'm not going to go, you know. But if your marriage is on the rocks, do you show up at your church gathering and say, my marriage is on the rocks, need help, need prayer. They say,

what are you crazy? Like, no, no, I can never do that. And I'm like, I don't think you're doing church the way God's intended. That's awesome.

It's awesome. You hear the, uh, the outro music. Oh yeah. There it goes. It's really interesting because we have different outro music than you. I wonder if you're hearing yours and we're hearing ours.

I'm not hearing anything. Is it coming into this side? Because I'm deaf in my left ear. I'm joking, man. We're going to add that later. Hey, if I lived in Boise, I want you to know I'd be at your church. There you go. That's right.

That sounds wonderful. Well. Good times. It was. It was good. It went quick. Well. Good times. It was. It was good. It went quick. Yeah. Good stuff, man.

Thanks for flying all the way to Nashville just to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you pay me well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So well.

I had to buy my own cigars, man. It was only because I wasn't there yet. I would have given you some. Well, thank you guys Alright You've been listening to Catacomb and Theology in the Raw In a once in a lifetime joint podcast Join us next time on the show In separate locations

Goodbye I was so proud Man you are so good You are are so good. You are really so good at this