Theology in the Raw - 794: What If Church Centered on the Table Not the Stage? Chris Wienand

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Chris Wienand is like the master Yoda of church planting. From planting churches in South Africa to Los Angeles, to mentoring dozens of leaders around the globe, Chris has gained much wisdom about church and the gospel over the years. In this episode, we talk about what it means to be the church and the role that meals and organic gatherings should have in the life of the community. Chris believes that the table should be the heartbeat of our churches. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. In case you don't know, I have a YouTube channel, Preston Sprinkle is what it's called. You can just go to Preston Sprinkle on YouTube and find it. And I am producing all kinds of content there, as I said in my previous podcast episode. Not only am I putting a video version of this episode and many other episodes that you're going to hear on Theology in the Raw, Not only am I putting the videos up on YouTube, if you want to see our mugs talking to each other, you can go there and see it, but I'm also producing other content like my recent Old Testament in the Raw series that I've been working through. At the time of recording,

I have, I believe, six episodes, maybe seven episodes of Old Testament in the Raw. I'll keep producing those about once a week. And I've got other things that I'm putting up on the YouTube channel. So go check it out, Preston Sprinkle under, I almost said PrestonSprinkle.com. It's not a.com. It's just put in my name and YouTube, you'll find it. My guest today is Chris Venon. Chris Venon is a name many of you will not have heard of. He is kind of like this, you know, I don't know. He's like the master Yoda of church planting. The dude has been everywhere and done it all. I remember when I first met Chris, I was like, I want to be him when I am his age. He's a little bit older than I am. Not too much, a little bit. Well, I wouldn't say older. He's much more experienced than I am. How's that? Yeah, he's also older. Anyway, Chris, as you will

see, is just a wonderful, wonderful human being. He's loaded with wisdom, with wit, with kindness. If you are a church planner or, I don't know, an aspiring church planner, I would highly recommend getting to know Chris Venon. He is absolutely exceptional when it comes to understanding the church. In this episode, we talk about why he has, I would say maybe more recently understood that the table, the physical table, like the dining room table, the place where people come together for meals three, or in my case, seven times a day, this table has something really sacramental to it, something really special to it. And the table should be the center of our community. It should be the center of our churches. It's kind of a counterintuitive idea, I guess, but I think he's

right. I don't know. What do you guys think? Well, you'll check it out here in a second. So please welcome to the show, the one and only Chris Venon. All right, friends, I'm here with a friend and a mentor, Chris Venon. We met, gosh, it was about five, maybe six or seven years ago. I don't know. It was in California when I was an elder at Anthem Church. And you came and kind of placed your hand of blessing. Yeah, you kind of introduced our eldership team to the congregation, had kind of an apostolic, for lack of better terms,

stamp of approval or kind of sending off of us as elders into the life of that church. And ever since then, I've just been a huge fan of you, and we've become friends. And I consider you a mentor in my life, even though we've never really had the opportunity to actually do church together. But yeah, why don't you tell a little bit for our audience that doesn't know who you are. Give us just a brief backstory of who you are, what you've done. And then I want to talk about church in a post-COVID world and have you kind of help us think through that a bit.

Yeah, we've got so many posts, haven't we? We're in post-modern, post-Christian, pagan, and now we add the other C word into it. Well, hi, everyone. I'm delighted to be here. These are happy spaces for me to talk about Jesus and his church. I find that so completely compelling. A brief backstory is that I came to faith, a living vital faith in South Africa, which is where I'm from. In 1976, December of that year, I was a freshman out of college and not a very

successful freshman. I hastened to add way too much partying and kind of living what I thought was the good life. And but it was at the end of that year that I just lay on my bed in my parents' room, in my parents' home, and I just said, Jesus, I need to know if you're real. That was a pivotal question because I came from a quasi-cultural Christian background. And it was the beginning of a remarkable journey, Preston. And I think my mentor said to us many years ago that what you saved into is more important than what you got saved out of. And I know what I got saved out of, but thank the Lord I got saved into what became known as the Jesus People Movement in South Africa. It was super radical, super passionate.

We lived communally. Barry McGuire and Larry Norman told us that Jesus was coming back soon. So we had no time for materialism. We preached on the streets. We had these big concerts in the park. I didn't even know it was happening here in Southern California until I met Lonnie Frisbee some years later. And I was like, whoa, this is happening with you guys too? That is crazy. But part of that radicalism also gave me a sense of church planting, because we wanted to establish these little communities of love and light all over South Africa and then abroad. And then unfortunately, the wheels came off. They kind of imploded like a pack of cards, but my heart was seeded by this notion, if Jesus came, left the comfort, beauty, wonder, and harmony of heaven to come and incarnate

himself and live amongst us, and then die the most dastardly death on the cross, surely the life I can offer him in return is a radical life. And it was in those times of making that mediocrity and a kind of a white picket fence style Christianity just didn't seem palatable when you contrast it to the amazement of the cross and the resurrection and the ascension. And so church planting was seeded into me as I was probably 20, 21, 22 by then. And then after a stint in the army, which I had to back in the day, came back, was a high school teacher, and then a group of us planted a church under the guise of

let's plant a church, how hard can that be? And I think there was joy in ignorance. We were gloriously foolish and loved it. There was no one peeping over our shoulders saying you can, you can't, you should, you shouldn't. It was this book of Acts. Let's live it. Let's do it and see what happens. And that was the beginnings. That was about 1983 of what has been since then this incredible journey of affection and intimacy with church planting and with church planters. I just love, love, love, love seeing little communities established that reflect Jesus beautifully, even if they're vulnerable and uncertain. And so after a stint of leading a church in South Africa for 13 years, I had a pretty radical encounter with the Lord in Hong Kong in 1990, sufficient to say I realized I'd spend the rest of my days abroad. I thought it would be Asia, and the thought of planting churches around the Asian Rim was just alive inside of me.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the West Coast of America, California, would be my base for now almost 25 years. But we did. We came here, longer story, and replanted a church. So having planted one, i now replanted one a broken pentecostal church and i'm not pentecostal by theology or culture but but but she's beautiful today and we planted 12 churches out of that in 14 years and now for the last decade we've been on a journey of reimagining church. What could church look like? What does church need to look like in the days in which we live? So that's about as rapid fire as I

can. I'm married to a beautiful woman, 40 years this November. Love, love, love, love his bride, but I love my bride as well. And three kids, all of whom have been involved with church planting. So I guess, you know, it's in the blood. Yeah. Tell us just briefly about the Genesis Collective that you started, kind of a loose network of churches. Yeah. Well, you know, being African, firstly, and then secondly, being by personality an extrovert and highly relational. And then I see it all over the text. You know, Jesus saying,

I used to call you servants and I call you friends. And this high end relational value that Jesus in the text puts on friendship, that I think we underplay and undervalue friendship as a glue. I think when I came here 25 years ago, Preston, I was shocked by how businesslike the American church was. I knew it conceptually. But when I got here and I saw almost every decision by instinct goes to business for the answer, I was truly kind of awed by it. Now, my hermeneutic is familial. I think of the family. When I'm a little uncertain on something, I kind of go to the scriptures and then look at it through the lens of family. And most times, I think I'm going to find my answer

that way. But when I saw the American church's instinct towards business, what is the answer in business? Let's set up a hierarchy. Let's set up an org chart. Let's set up, you know, this CEO, CFO, and we just give them cooler, sexier ecclesiological titles, but it's fundamentally driven by that. And then I saw how quickly people change churches and change jobs in churches to get a higher paying job, a larger church. I was honestly astounded because I came from a journey of a highly relational world. Now, for 25 years, I was initially helped form and then was in leadership of a global church-granting movement called New Covenant Ministries International, and I loved it. Found myself drifting a little bit when in conversation with a young guy who

became the emerging leader, where there was more of a defense and a continuation of what the church did historically. Let's just do more of the same. I just said, you know, I don't think I can stay in this because I'm too prophetically curious. I think there's a lot of fun things God still has for us. But out of that, that was about 2008, I just kept partnering with others on a global stage, planting churches and working with church planters. But it came to a place, eventually, we realized it actually needs some shape, some form. And so we tried to find a relational solution with the least amount of administration. Open-handed, open-hearted, get on, do it. I mean, I think of the early church with much affection, no phones, no fax machines, heaven forbid, no Wi-Fi, none of that. There had to be

an overwhelming sense of trust and spiritual collaboration to get the gospel into the four corners of the globe. If we are committed to defining and multiplying our brand, we have to control the narrative. But if we are committed to proclaiming Jesus, then we can open our hands and then we can proclaim him. Isn't that what Paul said? He said it doesn't matter if some people talk about Jesus with all the wrong motives. It doesn't matter as long as Jesus is preached. If we don't have to control the brand, we can then open our hand and we can let people get on with these great kingdom adventures that lie before us.

The Genesis Collective really is a group of friends who have been friends a long time. My oldest friend I met in 1980, we ran ultra marathons and marathons together. So we've been friends for, gosh, 40 years or something crazy. And then others, the kind of collective leadership crew, the youngest friendship is about 10 years, but it's out of our relationships that we are committed to global church planting initiatives. I just want, Preston, the gospel to go to the four corners of the globe.

That's what wakes me up in the morning. I think every day of the X billions of people who've never heard the precious name of Jesus, you're kidding me? What a privilege it is to be part of that initiative globally. So that's who we are. That's the heart that drives us. What I love about, I mean, you've mentioned several times that what holds the collective together is this idea of friendship, genuine friendship. And it is really unique. I mean, you don't try to promote, you don't spend money on big conferences. Nobody really knows about it unless they're kind of part of their friendship. It's truly organic, not just, you know, organic is not just a brand. It is truly the DNA, the thing that drives it. Um, and, uh, I, you know, I spoke at it a few

years ago and just, uh, I just, I remember walking away from that, both my wife and I thinking like, I feel like I found my tribe. I mean, especially I must say your, your South African friends, gosh, I just resonated so much with, with them. And, um, yeah, I just, gosh, I just resonated so much with them. And yeah, I just love what you guys are doing with it. Well, you guys, I would hope like to say us people. Yeah, for sure. You've talked about that church should begin around the table, like your idea of around the literal table with actual food and drink and fellowship. And that's kind of the center of a church community. Can you expand on that a little bit? Because I hear people kind of talking about it, but you're actually, you've been doing that for a while. Can you unpack that kind of ecclesiology?

impact that kind of ecclesiology? Well, you know, we did church well as boomers. I mean, the 80s and the 90s, we got it down tech. We got our little formula, and we got our little school hall and our band, and we got all that. And I realized when the statistics started shouting at me that the millennials were tapping out of church, that there's a whole emerging demographic called spiritual refugees, I think one sociologist called it, who are now not just millennials or Gen Zs, but my age, who are tapping out of church, they'd fallen out of love with the church. And Preston, I can't understand that. I absolutely love the church. But again, my African roots had nurtured in me certain cultural realities and friendship and time together and doing life with friends is very much part of who we are. But about 10 years ago or so, maybe even a little more than

that, I began to feel like God was stirring something in me. And I felt like God said, I'm going to put you on a journey to reimagine church. And instantly, my attention kind of spiked a little bit. And I felt God say, go into situations I send you, but go in with the heart of a student, not a teacher. Now, for those of us who are older, especially if you're a boomer, man, we've got answers for everything. We've got answers that you haven't got questions for, you know? So it was a very intentional moment of saying, okay, Lord, I'm going to go in. And it was from 12 people in the lounge in the beginnings of a house church, we went all the way to 6,000. I felt God say, no judgment, not even a critique, just a point of learning. At the same

time, I went back to Acts 2, 36 to 47. And I said, Lord, what have I missed here? I've been walking with you for 42 years now. I know that passage almost verbatim, but what haven't I seen? Well, what am I reading through my now 60-year-old white male lenses? What is it possible that your spirit can reveal stuff to me that aren't immediately obvious? And of course, we start out with Peter getting up and talking about Jesus as Lord and Messiah, which is beautiful. But then he goes on to say, but this is for you, your children and those who are far off. And I thought, wow, I know how to do Boomer Church. There's a little formula, you do it and you'll get a measure of success. But for my children and my kids are 33, 31 and 20.

That is a losing demographic. In America, we are not just a haste and tear hat because part of the privilege that we have is to go around the nations of the world. And I realize that this generation is tapping out. They don't want to look in the back of the heads of the person in front of them. They don't necessarily. I mean, my son who goes to concerts in L.A. and loves his music and is a surfer and so on, he just said, you know, dad, I'm not that impressed with smoke machines and lights. He said, I can go to a concert in LA

and he's been to Coachella. And he said, I can see it way better. He went to Kanye's Sunday service at Coachella last year. And he said, I can go to places and see way better than that. He said, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that's authentic, real and true. And so as I was mulling over that, this is for you, your children, those far away, I thought, what is the secret in the text? And the secret in the text was, and they had a meal together, and they ate together, and they broke bread together. And we all know, every theologian will agree that that was not then a nip and a sip, a little piece of wafer, and you dunk it horribly into some red grape juice. And this is the body and blood of Jesus. How nauseating. What a great climactic moment in our faith journey. And we have

to have something squelchy and messy and say, this is the body and the blood. It's neither. Forgive my sarcasm or my cynicism. So off we go. And I just keep seeing this. So then I went back to the old covenant. Isn't it amazing, Preston, that the old covenant, every high point is a feast. God didn't say necessarily, just come and worship me. He said, come and eat, come and celebrate. I look at the great moments when David and Solomon were made king and what they did there. There were massive feasts together. Then I went to the life of Jesus. And one theologian said everything Jesus did, he did on the way to a meal, at a meal, or on the way from a meal. And I thought, okay, God, you are onto something. Then I looked at the church, Corinthians. Paul says, I have this against you. Your meetings do more harm than good.

What's the next line? Because when you eat together, I thought, wow. And he doesn't say stop eating. He doesn't say stop getting drunk. He's adjusting them to keep eating as the central focus of the gathering together. Then I went to church history, which I love. I'm a historian. And instantly, people like Starks, Books, and others, they just leaked this narrative of the church eating together all the time. John Mark Comer, who's a dear friend with whom I discussed

this at length, he's the kind of thinker, theologian guy. He actually did a talk at our community from the table to mass. And he went architecturally through the six stages that the church went through to get to where it is today. Now, Preston, isn't it interesting? One, when the early church, the archaeologically, when they measured the early church, for the first 250 years, it was the church in a house. I'm not espousing house churches. I think they lose mission. But wasn't it amazing that small communities of faith were robust enough to change the Roman Empire? Small communities that ate together, worshipped together, prayed together.

There was enough togetherness there. They didn't have big churches. They were killed and slaughtered. But they transformed history because of this life of doing their spiritual journey around the dining room table. And so I can carry on. And I mean, it was the reformers in the 1500s that actually replaced the table with a pulpit. The good was bring the Bible front and center with good, solid teaching. The bad was sacraments became a nip and a sip. So I'm passionate, man. It was one of those things, Preston, that God kindly just evolved his sense of understanding. So when Meryl and I planted our little community here in Costa Mesa, we said, okay, we're going

to do it around the table. We didn't expect it would grow that quickly. And I'm not talking mega church. I'm talking about we had 40 people for dinner on a Sunday night. And most were young. That was what completely confused me. I thought, wow, this is for you, your children. And it's this group of people between my kids who just fell in love with us. And I would say to them, look, I'm an old guy. I'm a grandpa. Why don't you find a cool, sexy, hip pastor? There are lots of them in Orange County. But they wanted to do life around the table because they've seen and they heard. Their voice matters. Their perspective is valuable.

Their doubts are validated. Let's wrestle through these things. You're not stupid, silly, or foolish. Let's wrestle with the things that you are trying to come to terms with. And the table affords that for us as a family, Preston. That's what we've done from the beginning, from when we started having kids. We would eat together almost every night. And I realized how silly not to translate that into our spiritual family. So we still do it. I mean, there's more to say, but we

still do it. When we gather together, we eat, not now during the pandemic, although when we have our Zoom call, like we did last Thursday night, everyone ate around their tables and we kind of spoke to each other while we were all having dinner together because it's such a high value. There are little side benefits. For example, very few people grow up cooking with mom or dad or granny or grandpa. What have we done? We've given people a love for the kitchen. Let's take them away from fast foods. Let's take them away from unhealthy eating. Why don't we teach them? We have an Instagram from the kitchen live on a Friday afternoon from the kitchen table where someone in our community teaches a very simple something that others can learn from. We had people who didn't know how to make a salad, didn't know how to boil an egg,

and now they are so proud. Look at what I can cook. Look at what I can bake. And then lastly, and I'm sure there's more to say, but one of our staff came to me after one of the Sunday nights. She said, you know, Chris, you know what I noticed tonight? I said, yeah. She said, every single girl around my table as we were eating together has an eating disorder except one. We are re-educating them on how to celebrate food as a gift from the Lord and not an enemy against their

well-being. And I just thought I could never have imagined that story ever told. So I am absolutely believed a healthy church. We say of churches family, and that's not coffee and a donut and a slap on the back. It's a meal that we share together, Not a potluck. A meal. We sit down and we share together. Anyway, I can carry on. This is exactly what I wanted to talk about. You made a passing comment distinguishing what you're talking about from the so-called house church movement. How would what you're talking about be maybe similar to or overlapping with house churches and maybe different from house churches?

You made a comment that they could tend to lose sight of vision. Yeah. Yeah. And when everyone makes comments like this, obviously they're generalizations because there are certainly exceptions to the rule. But generally speaking, in those smaller communities, what happens is there is a price that gets paid. I'll give you some examples with specific churches in mind. One, they lose a sense of mission. We live for the benefit of others. We live for the benefit of others. That, I think, is one of the true Christian testimonies. When Christ comes into someone's heart and life, into a family's heart and life, into a community's heart and life, is we, I think, our instinct is to live for the benefit of others.

You think of the two great plagues that were part of the downfall of the Roman Empire. Well, what happened there was that they, the Christians Empire. Well, what happened there was that the Christians stayed. When everyone else pushed the sick out the door, the Christians stayed and opened their door and let the sick come in and they fed them. And many of them died as a result of that. That is our instinct. When the Holy Spirit dwells within us, we want to open our front door. We want to invite people in. Rosario Butterfield, what the gospel comes to the front door key or something. I mean, that is so magnificently told a story around her understanding and journey to faith. So that would be one of my critiques of the of many, not all, many a house church model is that they lose their sense of mission.

Secondly, sometimes they lose their sense of mission. Secondly, sometimes they lose the power of teaching. God has raised up teachers because we need teaching. God has given us the text to be explained. The world around us, and you know this more than I do, is bombarding our minds with everything that is contrary to the beauty and wonder of the text. And so we do need times, and not just, and I love it when we have a good conversation around it, but there is an anointing, there is an insight, there is a revelation that teachers have that open it up. It's like Jesus with the two men on the road to Emmaus.

They said, you know, when he revealed himself to them, their heart was strangely warmed. Something happens when a teacher teaches. It's one of my favorite things. I'm not a teacher. I'm far more a preacher, motivated, catalyst person. But when I sit and listen to a teacher teach, whether it is a John Strott of days gone by or a Tim Keller or a John Marcomo yourself, I am so inspired. I want to get to the Bible. I want to read the Bible. I want to study more because your gifting is infectious. It stirs me up.

And when we forfeit or replace the gift of teaching with all of its anointing and revelation, we invariably end up with non-teachers exchanging ideas around the text. And quite honestly, that's a little danger. Think, for example, if I say, okay, tonight we are going to do a lemon chicken dish family, and everyone just comes in and throws in whatever they want to. The chances are it probably isn't going to be that good. It's fun. It's creative. It's exciting. You're probably going to come back and say, too many lemon pieces in there. There's, there's not enough chicken or whatever.

We benefit so enormously from people in their anointing, in their space, doing their thing. Now, has the church sometimes overly dependent on that? Of course. Absolutely. But it doesn't replace that. And then I think thirdly is that that smaller kind of house church does drift towards an us for no more. Meryl and I helped a group of house churches for a while and a small church up in the LA area. And there was, Preston, a kind of spiritual Darwinianism, you know,

when someone visited, they would check them out. And if they fitted a subconscious set of categories, they would invite them in. If they didn't, there was no follow up. And I spoke to them about it. There wasn't judgment or harsh criticism. But I think house churches can, in their quest to remain small, offer a Darwinianism of keeping certain people away. So those are three concerns that I have with that approach. And that certainly, I mean, Francis Chan and what they did doesn't fit into those categories at all. Yeah, his is more, it's not a traditional house church model. It's more like a very strong sense of we are all part of this greater mission. strong sense of we are all part of this greater mission it's just that the bulk of the the rhythm of gathering happens in small groups and like once a month they get together as a large group so they kind of just inverted the whole traditional church system while maintaining a more grander vision of we are all part of this big kind of movement. It's not perfect. I think it's really good and healthy.

How do you maintain – so with the emphasis on the table and yet your church is growing and what if it really grows a lot? How do you keep that emphasis? Is it just meeting a lot in smaller groups within the larger church? Because the table is typically really small and intimate, and yet you are advocating for not keeping it just small and intimate. Sure. What does that look like?

Yeah, well, again, I find my joy and my passion in the early church. I mean, they had a global mission, Acts 1, Acts 2, that sense of the – and then, of course, Acts eight, we got scattered them. And so for me, the global mission has to be kept before us all the time. When we lose the global mission, we silence it. You know, if I can take a half a step back, Preston, when I was a young church planter, I mean, honestly, I'd never read the Bible through. I was a high school teacher. And when we said, okay, we're going to plant this church. And I went before the Lord one day and I saw all these pictures of the church in the scriptures and I loved them.

But I said some of them are really just outside of my world of understanding. Can you give me a modern metaphor that will help me understand why we do church and what's supposed to happen? And I just come out the army. And so in South Africa, they call it basics. In America, they call it boot camp. And I felt God say, would you plant a boot camp for me? And if you will train people up and release them, I will keep sending them. But the moment you want to keep them, I will dry up bringing people to you. And I realized our lane, our kind of spiritual lane, was, amongst other things, to take this raw recruit, whether they are brand new to this faith, whether they

are angry, resentful, and bitter at the church, whether they are confused with doubts and uncertainties, take this whole collection, this collage of new recruits, take them through a journey. And my hope and my dream was, Preston, to empty the church every five years. Every five years, we get a whole new crop of people in, and we do the same to them, and we send them out. And that's still very passionately in my heart. So I have no angst about our church growing. The Bible says that's God's business. I have no angst about our church growing. The Bible says that's God's business. My job is to sow the seed and water it.

God's job is to grow it. So I am expecting it because it's in the very nature and character of God as seen in Genesis 1. Increase, multiply, fill the earth. And so I want that matrix and mantra into the soul of our church under the expectation that everyone's going to be recognized, raised up and released. Everyone is going to go on a global adventure, including me. We're all going. No one's staying here forever. So I've got to create a church that celebrates goodbyes. And now that we are doing it around the table, it isn't less so. It isn't my dream is to grow the church and go the church, grow the church, go the church. And so people say, well, what happens when it gets too big? I really don't live in fear of that because my prayer is to multiply it out. Some of it will be church

planting. Some of it will be doors of economic opportunity that open somewhere in the world. Others will be that churches come to me and say, look, Chris, we really need a worship person. You've got five, six, seven, eight of them. Can you send one to us? Whatever. It's that through flow. It's the through draft of the dining room table. You know, when we set out on this journey, Preston, and I hope, I mean, I can talk about these things for hours. I hope it helps. But I asked myself five questions. I said, is it biblical, whatever we were going to build?

Is it relational? Because God, the Holy Trinity, is the epitome of harmonious community. Is it relational? Is it reproducible? Can we take it anywhere in the world? I'm involved with global church planting. I think that way. I've just been in Istanbul and that whole Near East realm with 400 million people, more people in the stuns in that Near East area than in America.

And the crazy thing is there are only 2,000 Christians and Christian workers for 400,000 people. So any megachurch on any given Sunday, pre- and post-pandemic, will have more people there than those serving the whole of 400,000 people. Can you imagine trying to reach all of America with 2,000 workers? It's impossible. So that beats inside of me. So we looked at something that was biblical, relational, reproducible, affordable. I can't send someone to plant. We're busy planting a dining room table community in Hyderabad, India. We can't put $50,000 on the table. I can't send a band and rent a school hall, aka that's how you plant churches. We can't do that. But this is

affordable. Maria is 28, American girl, beautiful Jesus lover. And she's got a dining room table that can see her 20 people for dinner the other Sunday before the lockdown. It's reproducible, and it's affordable. And then fifthly, it's missional. So yeah. No, that's super, super exciting, really. I mean, we talked about that offline a bit, what's going on in the Stans. And I just love you. You said you're 60 years old. I didn't know you don't look 60.

And you still talk about this adventure of Christianity, and you still seem to have that youthful zeal of going global and taking this message to the ends of the earth. I want to ask a specific question about finances in the church. Do you have any strong opinions or views about church finances, paid pastor, buildings, percentage of budgets going certain places? i would love to hear your i think i know a bit of i don't i don't know actually exactly what you're about to say so this is this is uh uh fresh for me yeah by vocation on those another big one people are saying and in 2020 we got to get off our 1980s model of these big church budgets.

As boomers die off, giving is dying off. We can't sustain the kind of high-budget ministries that we had back in the 80s. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Let's start with the text. Scripturally, there are five ways of giving. There is the tithe, which is most spoken of in the Old Covenant, but there is evidence in Jesus' teachings in the tithe. And quite honestly, I've been tithing for 42 years. I missed one month once, and I regretted that. I believe in it fundamentally because you cannot

outgive God. I mean, I can tell you story after story of God's sovereign provision that makes me more convinced than ever before. But tithing is like the introduction. It's the beginning. It's putting your toe into this world of financial generosity. Secondly, the offerings. Offerings are for things biblically. So when you look at them putting up the temple or whatever, they say, bring the offerings in. So for me, offerings are for things. Thirdly, almsgiving, which is the poor. And, you know, that we take care of the poor because it's part of us representing the Lord in a very broken world and society.

Fourthly, it's what we would call apostolic giving, but it's money given. As Paul said, you've sown into my life and ministry. We've partnered in the gospel, Philippians 4, and you've given me that opportunity to get out there and to do what needs to be done. And then fifthly is a life of generosity. So there's four different ways to me, five different ways biblically

that I think God calls us to an adventure of faithful financial generosity. Whenever people debate me on tithing, for me, the sadness is the lack of revelation of how generous God is. Because I think when we fight about should Christians tithe or not, I think oftentimes it's less about that and it's how much can I keep for myself. I mean, Meryl and I were laughing the other day. My neighbors just bought a super fancy car. And Meryl said, how can they afford it? And I said, well, you know, if we take our tithe and we spent it on ourselves every month, that's a fair amount of equity and capital that we can just blow. And we laugh together. But there is this adventure, Preston, and I want to put those values into our community and my kids

and our family and our community. Wow, my kids hear me say, you can never outgive God. So even if you fight me on the theological framework that I've presented to you right now, well, at least trust him that you give more than that, because you cannot out-give God. Now, in the church, I do encourage people to tithe. We've, as a community, we've planted for, we've been going for two and a half years, and I haven't taught on giving. I think it's such a yet. I've leaked in God's generosity,

but I've never taught on that. We haven't taken one offering because I want people to fall in love with Jesus before they have to adjust to his practices, rightfully or wrongly, and people can criticize me, I'm sure. But I think when Jesus grabs our heart and he truly flips us inside out and right side up. I think part of what we surrender is our need to control, need to control our lives, our time, our energy, and our finances. So I love people discovering the wonder of it. One of our young guys said to me the other day, he lost his job. So he just said, you know what, he said to his wife, I want to give X amount, which was just a large amount for them. And about a week later, he called me said, you can't believe what's happened. I've just got a check of $1,000

from someone. Now he's got a story. He's got a story. And I want people to get stories. My kids, I want them all, you know, when we went through a rough time as a church many years ago to the point where I couldn't get a salary. And so because I believe this, Preston, I tied what I should have earned. So for X months, I didn't get a salary, but I just went to my savings and tied them what I should be earning. I just believe it. just went to my savings and tied to what I should be earning. I just believe it. And my daughter, who's at Biola University, then goes to study CS Lewis at Oxford for a year. She doesn't know that I'm not getting a salary. So we get there and we go to the American kind of residence where they're all staying. And the head of the residence, he says, look, there's been a bit of a botch up here, but what you've paid does not cover food. And Dana looks at me a little bit like, are you okay with that, Dad?

And I'm saying, baby, we know God provides. Now, I'm not earning a salary. So I set her up. I drive back to Heathrow, my rental car. I get a call, and it's one of the church plants I work with in London. And they said, Chris, we heard you were in town. I said, yeah, I'm sorry I didn't say hi. I situated Dana, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he said, no, no, that's fine. He said, I hope it's not awkward, but as an eldership, we want to give Dana 300 pounds a month spending money. Are you okay with that? Now I start weeping. I mean, in fact, I'm snorting more than weeping. And he says, Ryan says to me, are you okay? Are you okay?

And eventually I kind of muster up my emotion. And I said, right. And I tell him the story. He's weeping. Then I called Dana and she happens to be walking past the call box in her residence. And she didn't have a cell phone yet. And I tell her the story.

She's weeping. But you see, she has an anchor story now. She knows God provided her food when she was studying abroad from a random church. Now, that's what I want all of our people to have, these great God stories of God's sovereign provision. And that's what I want to try and put into our churches, too. And I can, again, tell many stories. But here's the driving mantra. You cannot outgive God.

Yeah, so good. Oh, my gosh. We have a little bit more time here. I would love for you to, well, I finished Phyllis Tickle's book, The Great Emergence, at your request. It's been a book that's been on my mind for a while because I've often thought in terms of these not quite 500 year marks, but similar things. So Phyllis Tickle says, you know, every 500 years, the church cleans out its attic and has a rummage sale. That there's these great social upheavals and ecclesiological upheavals that lead the church leaders to kind of revisit what it means to be the people of God. And oftentimes there's different denominations, trajectories that are created. And her 500-year markers are Gregory the Great, which led to the monastic movement, then the Great Schism of 1054, then the Reformation,

and then the 20th century, culminating in probably the internet. And I've often thought, the way I framed it is, you know, my great social ecclesiological upheavals are the conversion of Constantine when the church went from being a people of oppression to people of power overnight.

The marriage of church and state, I think that fundamentally changed the shape of church from being a persecuted minority that are oppressed and now a position of power i think that changed the church significantly um the great schism i would i would say that was a great people as well um and then i would say the printing press more than reformation and tickled draws that out as well and then i would say the the internet or maybe the yeah i would say i would agree with tickle the the advancements in the technological age from the automobile to the radio, the television, the internet, massive spread of information. So I've often, I don't want to say declared, but just wondered, you know, the world that existed before the internet does not exist anymore our

world is socially economically relationally psychologically i don't chemically i mean it's just it's it's the pre-internet world does not exist anymore and yet i i'm wondering if some of our ecclesiological model structures were born in and thrived in a pre-internet world that doesn't exist anymore. I am not at all advocating for online church as a permanent thing. However, I am saying, I just wonder, and I don't have the answer really, just a question. I just don't know if it's the most effective discipleship to be using older models and expecting those older models to work in a new world that is very different from the world that those old models were born in. So I don't have, I need some help here. So as you – and then COVID-19, okay, just kind of exacerbates this whole thing that I'm talking about. By the way, I never said this, but I'm using a new technology here that if there's some speediness in my movements or whatever, I think it's because there's some glitches going on.

We'll see how this turns out. are some glitches going on. We'll see how this turns out. All that to say, what do you hope, what are the things in the attic that you hope the church cleans out after COVID-19, assuming there is an after? And maybe what are some things that are worth holding on to? Does that make sense? Is that a good way of framing it? Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I mean, that's the million-dollar question. I think, Preston, you know, the Bible uses the simple idea of new wine, new wineskins, and we've all used it and preached in it and probably butchered the text to help us define our ecclesiological transformations. But I do think that what happens is we create a scaffolding. What are we to build? We call the church, which is a temple, which is a bride, which is an army,

which is a nation, all these beautiful New Testament metaphors, but we call to build that. And around that we use scaffolding to put up the structure. I remember being in Hong Kong many years ago, and they were putting up these huge skyscrapers with bamboo scaffolding. I mean, I went nauseous just looking at this place. But the thing with scaffolding is we know it's got to come down. The scaffolding is not the building.

The building is the building. And the scaffolding comes down. But what happens is we love our scaffolding. We kind of bronze our scaffolding. We put gold around our scaffolding and the scaffolding comes down. But what happens is we love our scaffolding. We kind of bronze our scaffolding. We put gold around our scaffolding. I mean, these pastors in certain parts of the country that still we're going to we're going to do our Sunday meetings come what may. But meetings are scaffolding. That's not the church. That's scaffolding to help us build the church, the church's people. It's not buildings. I mean, you know, you and I know that it's not actual buildings or institutions or denominations or organizations or brands.

And so we miss it when we try to make our scaffolding the big piece. Scaffolding must go. Was the church as a business helpful? I think it was. I think when the church was kind of staggering its way into the 20th century, we needed some fresh scaffolding to help us understand it. We were vulnerable. We were weak. We were insipid. God raised up some great voices who introduced the idea of big, strong, robust churches. And it was a good thing. I certainly, as a young church planter, was challenged by that. was a good thing. I certainly, as a young church planter, was challenged by that. But it's scaffolding. It's not the building. And I think we have to continuously review our scaffolding. Am I discipling? Discipleship is the building. The scaffolding is what I'm allowing to help me put up the building. Am I mobilizing the many? I was reading in 1 Peter this morning that we're a royal

priesthood. Every move of God, Preston, you and I know this, mobilizes the many. Take them. I've been through four or five in my lifetime, and every one of them, the charismatic renewal, all of its weaknesses and clunkiness, the many felt empowered. I can have gifts, and I can have words of knowledge, and I can prophesy and empower people. And people felt like they can hear God and they can declare God. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But within no time at all, we surrender the beauty of mobilizing the many. And we again return to the celebrated few.

Let's put the few, the glamorous on the stage. Let's come and rally and watch them perform like dance monkey dance. And that was never, I don't think, in the intentions of God. When you look at Paul, his writings, and he said, I can't wait to get with you so I can impart my gift to you. These are the things that we must review. So when we talk about what has to kind of the attic or the garage sale that we would have in California here? What needs to go? The things that are scaffolding that were helpful in yesteryear but are now counterproductive.

Unhelpful. Buildings, for many, are unhelpful. I mean, we're all questioning how many buildings we really should be building. Large staff is questionable because we're investing vast sums of money that could be used for mission, keeping staff, massive groups of staff members together. Anything that disempowers the many from being mobilized, we've got to remove. So those are the things that I think now, I mean, just think for a moment. Worship pastor, where does that come from? In church history, that's a really new phenomenon.

It was scaffolding. It helped. I wonder, I think it might need to go. Youth pastor, executive. I mean, all these phrases that we're so comfortable with as if they're in the Bible, but they're not. And if they're not in the Bible, they have seasonal value. But then when the season changes, they have to be removed. You asked me early on about bivocationality. I do think that in the last of the last days, we're going to see more and more bivocational ministry because God's empowering the many. And not only because the money is going to shrink, for sure, we're already seeing that. I think someone said recently 39% of Americans are now

evidently evangelical Christians. In the 25 years that I've been here, that's shrunk significantly with shrinking budgets with that. So I think to review all that we do through the lenses of what does the future look like, the future is not that mysterious. I think we're going to rediscover the beauty and wonder of the first four chapters again. We're going to do church that way again because it's temple courts and it's house to house. It's the empowering of the believers to participate together in a spirit of generosity and surrender and kindness. And our homes will once again be flooded by people who want to do life together. And our carpets filled with the tears of the broken and the hurting and the limping.

That will be the picture of the church again. We will move away from the structure and the system called church into the family and the relationships that do church. Wow. Gosh. That's beautifully said. It gets me excited. I hope that's the case. I'm a little nervous that some church, not churches, like individual churches, but just some, I don't know, yeah, maybe some churches, I don't have any in mind, but they're so focused on everything is centered around the Sunday service and I have nothing

wrong. You know, if, if a Sunday service is effective at producing disciples and mission, then so be it. Some are, some aren't. Um, so I have nothing intrinsically against Sunday services, but when Sunday services become just to kind of knee jerk, this is all we know how to do as churches, is pull out Sunday services. And now they're online and we're racing to get them offline and back. I hope that churches do reflect on exploring more effective, creative, sustainable avenues for discipleship and mission, that there are some things in the attic that do need to go. And asking the hard questions of what are those things so that we can be more effective and efficient even at producing disciples for a new age.

Because that old age that we thrived in back in the 80s and 90s and maybe the whole 20th century. That world doesn't exist anymore. It was a great time. Lots of babies were made. Lots of effective things for the kingdom. I'm a product of that era. You are too. But that world doesn't exist anymore.

Most of our 13-year-olds are walking around with the entire world in their pocket. Most of our 13-year-olds are walking around with the entire world in their pocket. That's socially, psychologically, spiritually unprecedented in the history of humankind. The whole library of Alexandria, you know, in the pocket, in the mind of a 13-year-old. The discipleship challenges that creates, if we're not, and this is one off the top of my head example, but I mean, it's like there's so many unique discipleship and missional challenges that we need to really think through. So I really, I hope that COVID-19 and all of its suffering and misery is allowing us to maybe rethink some of these things. So thank you, Chris, for helping us do that.

It's one thing for me, and I'm 44. I'm not a pastor. You're 60. You have all this church experience. So when you say things that are in my mind saying, yeah, I think that's right on, you carry a lot more authority than I do. So I really appreciate you joining me on my YouTube channel and my podcast. Yeah, thanks, Christian. I have loved this.

YouTube channel and my podcast. Yeah, thanks, Prish. I have loved this. I want to share what I have, the passion of my heart and the things, the toolbox that I've accrued over these years, these four decades of walking with Jesus. If I can empower people to love Jesus more, love His church more, and be open to the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit, we are in for a great adventure. It's not always going to be easy. There's going to be some costly pieces, and we will see martyrs in our time, certainly in the younger generation's time. But what a privilege, what a gift. So thank you for the invitation. I've loved the time with you and hope it's been helpful. All right. God bless, bro. Take care. Thank you, man. you