Theology in the Raw - 861: Politics, Pandemics, Race, and Pastoring Multi-Ethnic Churches: Rich Villodas

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Rich Villodas is the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large multiracial church with more than seventy-five countries represented in Elmhurst, Queens. Rich holds a Master of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary. He enjoys reading widely, preaching and writing on contemplative spirituality, justice-related matters, and the art of preaching. He's been married to Rosie since 2006 and they have two beautiful children, Karis and Nathan. His first book, The Deeply Formed Life, is now available wherever books are sold. In this conversation, we talk about what it was like pastoring a church that is located at the epicenter of the pandemic in Queens, NY. We also discuss the beauties and challenges of pastoring a church where 75 different nations are represented, especially when they are all over the map on political and racial issues. We conclude by talking about Rich’s first book, The Deeply Formed Life, which focuses on the personal and public practices that contribute to our spiritual formation.  Read more about Rich Villodas here: https://www.richvillodas.com  Purchase Rich’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Deeply-Formed-Life-Transformative-Values/dp/0525654380/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=a+deeply+formed+life&qid=1618348231&sr=8-1  Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 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.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is the one and only Rich Valotis. Rich is a Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large multi-racial church with more than, count this, 75 countries represented in Elmhurst, Queens. Rich holds a Master of Divinity degree from Alliance Theological Seminary. And he has been, I mean, I would say a growing leader in the evangelical church, especially when it comes to conversations surrounding race and conversations surrounding spiritual formation. He's the author of A Deeply Formed Life. And we talked about that towards the end of this podcast where our spiritual formation should be the primary focus of our ministry as Christian leaders. Our ministry should flow out of

our walk with God. And what I love about the book is he talks both about our inner spiritual formation and spiritual practices, like spiritual disciplines, but also our public social spiritual life and our concern for things like racial and social justice and so on. Like it is not an either or, but a both and. Our faith is both personal and it is public. And Rich has done a fantastic job promoting that. And I've never had an actual conversation with Rich until this podcast. And this guy's just a delight, super humble, super wise. Just, yeah, we talk a lot about race and politics and kind of the last year and a half of ministry. I mean, he's a pastor right there

at the epicenter of the pandemic in Queens, New York. And we talk about that as well. So yeah, I'm excited for you to check it out. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This is a listener supported podcast. If you missed that reference, you can go down to the show notes and click on the link and support the show for as little as five bucks a month. Without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Pastor Rich Valotis. All right, friends.

I am so excited about this conversation. I am here with, I mean, I don't want to say friend, dude. I don't know if I've earned that yet, but I feel like, yeah, I feel a sense of camaraderie here. But Rich Valotis, man, you just have done so much great work for the kingdom. So I'm super excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for taking, I'm sure, much valuable time in your busy ministry to talk with us here. Preston, so good to be here with you. I look forward to a good conversation and the feeling is mutual. Your ministry and writing has been a gift to me and to our local body here. So great to connect. I'm always blown away to hear that, man. Seriously. It's yeah. Especially in the world of

pandemics and stuff where there's a lot of isolation. And I mean, I'm right here. I'm in my basement. It's unfinished. I can hear my kids doing something up above. And it's like, is anybody out there? You know, it's just kind of it's joyfully strange to hear that people are out there receiving what you're saying. So lots of directions we can go, man. Why don't we start with I mean, you're in New York, you're in Brooklyn, right? Brooklyn. I'm from Brooklyn. Our church is in Queens, but I live first 34 years of my life in Brooklyn, the last eight years in Queens. Okay. Okay. What's the last year and a half been like, man? I mean, I'm sure challenging and yeah, let's start there. Well, I mean, where we're at in Queens was for a number of months the epicenter of the pandemic. CNN and New York Times and all these news outlets were focusing on Elmhurst, this Elmhurst hospital, where there were many dead bodies out in trucks outside the hospital because of that's one mile from where I live and a mile and a half from our church.

And so it was incredibly intense because throughout the course of a given day in March, April and May of last year, I heard the sound of sirens from the ambulance nonstop in a given day. And so while some folks in different parts of the country are wondering if this thing is real, we heard nonstop sirens for weeks on end. And so that was pretty intense just in terms of our proximity to that level of pain. And then, of course, there were a couple of months in which I was, it felt like I was on the phone every two to three days with someone who had lost a loved one, you know, whether through, you know, whether it's a mother, a brother, a father. So being in those

conversations was pretty intense. And but then after that, you know, there was the whole George Floyd situation, which led to a lot of challenges within our congregation because our congregation is incredibly diverse. And because of that diversity, there's a lot of people who think very differently on matters of race. So you have a pandemic, you have racial unrest and injustice, you have political hostility. I mean, it's the perfect storm of nuttiness and craziness. And I was in that whirlwind as a pastor trying to hold a congregation together. Very difficult, very difficult, but God has been very gracious to us in the process. Yeah, why don't we start with the race conversation? Because you are in one of the most ethnically diverse churches I've known from a distance. I mean, how many nations and languages

are represented in your church? Yeah, we have over 75 nations represented in our congregation. There are 123 languages spoken in the neighborhood. Queens, if Queens was to give you the size of Queens, if Queens was to be taken as an independent city, it would probably be the sixth most populated city in the United States. With Brooklyn being before it, there's about 2.2 million people who live in Queens. And 50% of Queens is foreign born. So incredibly diverse. It's not just any kind of multi-ethnic ministry. It's multi-ethnic plus the immigrant reality as well. And so it's very complicated leading through the racial realities of our country.

Yeah. So being ethnically diverse, so it wasn't like, it's interesting that there's, there were differences of opinion on how to respond to the very sensitive and volatile race conversation. Can you, yeah, what, I mean, did you have people on the, I don't even like the right, left, conservative, liberal categories, especially with race. I mean, I don't even like the right, left, conservative, liberal categories, especially with race. I mean, I don't know what other categories, but like, what were the tensions, I guess, that you had to deal with?

Well, I'll give you the categories, at least in my context. There are at least four kinds of people at New Life. When it comes to the conversation on race or the conversation on our nation's history, there's the conservative, the progressive, the grateful immigrant, and the indifferent Christian. And what I mean by that is the conservative Christian in our context and elsewhere, of course, has a hard time naming the sins of our country. The progressive has a hard time seeing anything good about this country. The grateful immigrant very much aligns ideologically, socially, and politically with the conservative, but it comes from a whole different set of experiences. For example, there've been times where I'm having a meal with someone who immigrated from China, and they'd say, you don't know what it's like to be in a communist country. I'm so grateful to be here.

And so they might land in the same place as the conservative, but it's coming from a whole different narrative, a whole different set of experiences. But that's a person within our congregation. And then the fourth person is the person who says, can we just focus on the gospel? within our congregation. And then the fourth person is the person who says, can we just focus on the gospel? Can we not just talk, can we not talk about race and not talk about politics and not talk about the larger issues of our society? Can we just talk about the gospel? Those four people are often sitting on the same row at our church, unbeknownst to each other, probably, because if they did know, they probably moved their chair. But that's the reality that I have faced over the past eight years being the lead pastor at this congregation. I've been at New Life for 12 years, but for the past eight been the lead pastor.

So you can imagine when we're talking politics, when we're talking matters of race and racism, people are all over the spectrum. matters of race and racism, people are all over the spectrum. Some people seeing racism as something that's just promoted by and inflamed by the media. Others who that's the only thing that they see the world through. Immigrants who don't understand the nature of racial realities because this is not their experience growing up. And so those four groups of people I've had to navigate various spaces with and conversations with around politics and race, and incredibly difficult, yet at the same time, we saw glimpses of God's grace over the past year. the same time, we saw glimpses of God's grace over the past year. In particular, when the election season came about, besides me doing maybe five or six-week sermon series on the gospel politics in the church, which many of my pastor friends said, why are you doing that? And I just

decided to dive into it, and it turned out pretty well. We hosted a number of conversations, a few conversations to talk through politics. And there was one conversation had by we hosted it for as many people wanted to come. And we had someone who was going to be voting for Trump and someone who was going to be voting for Biden. And we said, let's get you both in conversation with each other. Now, this was not my idea. I want to just say that that was it was one of our pastor's ideas. And I thought it was a terrible idea. And then she said to us, she said, well, we should be trying to model something with our values that we can do this. And so I said, all right. And I showed up. It was a Zoom thing. I was anxious. Some of the meeting was awkward. But the two folks who were interviewed, and listen to this in terms of dynamics, the Trump supporter was a Korean-American guy

and the Biden supporter was a Puerto Rican guy. Two of them who happened to be elders in our congregation engaged in this conversation. And more than anything, it showed that we can actually have conversations that are shaped by grace and truth and mutual understanding. truth and mutual understanding. And yes, it was awkward at times. And there were times where I just wanted to just, you know, get out of that Zoom conversation. But I stayed there. I took deep breaths. But I think we're trying to let at least our congregation know we can live a different way than what the world is offering us. Yeah, because I imagine pastors listening to that, what you did, thinking, oh no, oh, I could never have done that in my church. And you had a similar response, but did you see that conversation in all its messiness promote a stronger sense of unity around the gospel across political divide? Did it raise some more attention, or what was the result of it?

divide? Did it raise some more attention or what was the result of it? Yes and no. So for some folks, I think for the vast majority of people who participated in it, who were there as observers, saw something beautiful, that we can have conversations without demonizing one another. We can have good conversations without misrepresenting and having straw man arguments. We can't have a ways that we are incarnationally being present to one another, asking good questions. And even if the answers are not satisfactory to what we believe is our good answers, we're still going to stay there. For some, for the vast majority of people, they received it. But for others, they had a really hard time with it because, again, and this is what makes new life very challenging. There are some people who think to even vote for Biden was a vote for abortion, a vote for all this stuff. And they could not be in a congregation in which that gray was possible.

It's black and white for that person. And on the other end, there were some people who say to even be in a church in which someone could be okay voting for Donald Trump. I don't know if I can be in this church. So some people left. At the beginning of every politics sermon I gave, I would begin by saying, no matter who you vote for, you're welcome in this church. At the same time, my hope is that you would listen deeply to why members of our community vote differently, and that you would open yourself to the gospel in such a way that challenges perhaps some of your preconceived notions about how the world is supposed to be ordered. That's how I began every sermon. Most people loved it. Some people had a hard time with it, but I think that's,

for me at least, that was the way forward and the way that I was going to go. It sounds beautiful to me, man. This is why I've really appreciated, I wish you would write a book on it. I don't know if you have one in the works, but something on either politics or race or whatever, because you just, and maybe it's because you're nurtured in this kind of context where, in a sense, as a pastor, you're not allowed to be super one-sided. Even if you yourself had certain views, you're pastoring people who are all over the map, and to do that well, you've got to be wise and humble. And so I love your approach to these questions. Can you just pastor us for a few minutes right now? You can take it any direction you want, but how should gospel-centered Christians

think through questions of politics and race? I'm keeping that really broad, but those are just, you know, between CRT and voting and the election and masks and no masks. And there's so many things that are interwoven in that conversation. Help us to see Jesus in the midst of this chaos. Yeah, and these are things that I feel very deeply in terms of the anxiety that comes through these conversations. Masks and no masks. Voting this way.

How much should I talk about race? And maybe I can get to it a little later. I had a community Q&A time this past Sunday where I invited anyone from our congregation who wanted to ask me any question they wanted to on anything related to our finances, our theology, whatever it was. You could ask Pastor Rich a question and I'll be there for an hour to respond. And it was great. Awkward at times, but great. But for me, I think more than anything, in terms of navigating through this particular moment, before even having theological convictions, I think the best gift that we offer the people we lead in these tumultuous, anxiety-filled moments is our own transformed lives and our own non-anxious presence. I think if we can be a non-anxious presence, deeply listening, not easily triggered in these moments of high anxiety, that within itself is a great witness to the gospel,

that there's something deeper at work, something more stable that's keeping us rooted and grounded. So I think for me, before we even talk about theology around this, we need to talk about formation. What kind of life do we need to cultivate in order to navigate well these high, intense, anxiety-filled conversations? So I'm working on myself a lot to be present, present to myself, present to God, present to those who see the world maybe a bit different than I do. But that's probably, Preston, that's my number one goal week in and week out, day in and day out. How can I be a non-anxious contemplative presence offering something of Jesus to the world around me in moments of high anxiety? Out of that point there, I think to navigate the complexity and the divisiveness and fragmentation, let's just talk politics, for example.

for example, I think one of the things that I preached about and reflected a lot on was the amount of enmeshment that people carry when it comes to big issues like politics. And being able to name some of that enmeshment goes a long way in at least helping to understand why there's so much resistance, polarization, and anger. And so for me, the domino effect of enmeshment, of political enmeshment, often begins with this here. To critique a candidate that I'm supporting is to critique a set of issues that I think are very important. To critique the issues that I think are very important are to critique particular values that I hold dear. To critique the values that I hold dear is to critique a particular way that I read the Bible. To critique the particular way that I read the Bible is to critique my vision of God. And to

critique my vision of God is to critique me at my deepest center. That's the domino effect. So most people don't see that. But I think that's what's happening inside someone. So when someone says something about Biden or Trump or whatever it is, and they get so triggered, the question is, why are they so triggered? It's often because they've become so enmeshed with these political figures that they can't separate themselves from the people that they're supporting. Some of that language has gone a long way for us in our context to name idolatry, to name points of fusion and enmeshment where we don't know where one person ends and the next person begins. And so I think some of that helpful language from an

emotional perspective needs to lead the way, even before we talk about theology, because we can talk about theology to where we're blue in the face, but if we don't have the emotional capacity and the interpersonal capacity to remain present, our theology is going to go right out the window. Yeah, that's good. Wow, that's super wise, man. I'm curious about your multi-ethnic church. My assumption is, correct me if I'm wrong, that part of that is simply where you live. You live in one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. But are there things that you have done as a church, maybe even before you were there or while you've been there, that has further cultivated that? And if so, what are those things? Because that's just, I'm still, I'm just like that.

Your church is a slice of heaven. It really, I mean, that's, and I don't want to overly glorify it. You're like, Preston, you don't understand. We have our issues, trust me. But like just the fact that you have 70 nations represented is, that alone is intrinsically beautiful and very much it's a slice of the kingdom, you know? So what are there things you have done besides just being in your neighborhood that has cultivated that? I think one is theological in nature.

We have preached the gospel at New Life. My predecessor is a guy named Pete Scazzaro. Most of your listeners probably know who he is, emotional and spiritual spirituality, all that there. We have had a particular understanding of the gospel that has led to the level of not just diversity, but the kind of work we want to do for justice and reconciliation in the world. And so we have seen the gospel as more than just an atonement theory. We've seen the gospel as something more than just a postmortem experience. We've seen the gospel as more than just forgiveness of sins. We've seen the gospel as more than just forgiveness of sins. We've seen the gospel as the good news that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus Christ and that in his life, death, resurrection and enthronement, the powers of sin and death no longer have the last word. And in that process, he's creating a new family.

This is the wall of hostilities coming down. So our articulation of the gospel is one that doesn't make racial matters ancillary or a footnote to this gospel. It's core to what it is. There's a new family that Jesus Christ has created in his death and resurrection. And so at the core of what we see at New Life is a theological foundation that you're going to hear in our service, in the classes we teach, in the kind of mission that we do. So that's the first thing. The second reason, though, that I think we have what we have, in large part, again, it is the neighborhood. However, I think the way that we, who's on staff, who's singing, who's in power, who are the people who are making decisions? Is it a diverse community of people that are making decisions? Who's preaching? Who are the people who are making decisions? Is it a diverse community of people that are making decisions? Who's preaching? Who's leading worship? What are the fears and values that we're

naming on a regular basis? And so there are plenty of churches that, you know, all the anti-Asian violence that has taken place in the country the last few months that's been reported, for some churches, they can go weeks without even bringing that up. Yeah. For us, I mean, we cannot exist as a community without naming the fears, the pain, and the values of the vast majority of people who attend New Life Fellowship. So from our theology to our staff, to the songs we sing, to the fears and values that we name, it's all through that particular lens of multi-ethnic, reconciled, justice-informed ministry. Do you think a church that, let's just say, is predominantly, we'll just say white, um, in a neighborhood that is maybe, maybe not as diverse as yours, but you know, is not just white. Um, a church, a church that is white, that is largely publicly, uh, uh, I don't want it to sound overly negative,

but tone deaf to maybe some of the social concerns that are affecting people of color. the social concerns that are affecting people of color, will that help that church to remain largely white? Because you're talking about a congregation that already is multi-ethnic, so that's going to kind of feed into like, man, we have to address these because these are discipleship issues that our people are wrestling with. A church that is largely white might say, well, our people aren't really wrestling with this, or half of them are maybe unaware of Asian hate crimes or whatever. But like, would you recommend a church that, hey, even if these aren't the immediate discipleship needs of your specific people, they are global, they are across the big C church, something that we should talk about. So we need to cultivate that conversation now. Yeah, absolutely. I think, and I actually, there was an article I wrote that Fuller Seminary

turned into a course on what your predominantly white church can do, because I would hear that on a regular basis. What happens if, you know, I don't have any black folks who live in the neighborhood or live in the church or Asian folks here, how do I do it? But I do think churches that recognize that they're more than they there's a larger body that they're a part of. Yeah. And number one, if we can think beyond our local body to our global historic body and that will that that would inform the ways we speak about particular things. And what I've discovered, Preston, is even in monocultural churches like what we're talking about now, there are lots of folks who they're not asking the pastor to be an expert on all matters related to race. on all matters related to race. They're not looking for expertise. What they're looking for is empathy. They're looking for someone, a leader is going to get up and say, I don't have all the answers, but this breaks my heart and breaks the heart of God as well. And we need to be praying. That goes a really long way. So there's a lot of pastors who say, I don't know what to say.

I don't know if I should say it at all. I think more than anything, recognizing that we're part of a larger global historic church and that what is really desired of me as a leader is empathy, not necessarily expertise. That could go a long way in embodying these values of the kingdom of God, whether or not the context is diverse. That's super good. I'm curious. Yeah, what are some of the challenges? Pastoring in such a multi-ethnic church. Yeah, what are the challenges? I'll say maybe pros and cons. We can even start with pros. What are some of the ways that you have been spiritually formed and pushed further into the presence of God in the position you're in? And then what are some of the challenges that you look back and say, oh, man, we made some mistakes here?

Oh, yeah. Well, food brings me into the presence of God very quickly. So the level of food that you get in a pre-COVID world on a Sunday, we have three services. There are probably about 1,500 to 1,800 people who are part of New Life. And so to give you a sense of the scope of it, after each service for many weeks, there are different rooms with different flavors, whether it's the Filipino community, the Indonesian community, the Puerto Rican, you know, just Puerto Rican, whatever it is. So number one, food has brought me to the presence of God on many occasions. Also, there is something about hearing the stories of people from different parts of the world and how they come to understand the scriptures in different ways. For example, I remember preaching a sermon

on Abraham and Genesis 12, and the Lord tells Abraham to leave his country, leave his family, all that there. I've never had that experience of having to leave anywhere. I mean, I went from Brooklyn to Queens. That's where I went, which is about 20 minutes away from each other. That's been my life. And I remember someone coming up to me, a South Asian immigrant, and said to me, this was the first time that I've heard my story preached because I see myself in Abraham. And I was able to have maybe a 10-minute conversation in the lobby about her own experience. And her own story helped me to see a picture of the story of Scripture in ways that I would not see otherwise. I think that's the gift of diversity. on the vantage points, the perspectives that I would not have that gives me another glimpse of

who God is and the story of Scripture. So those are some of the pros. And just, I mean, just the richness of cultures, it's been beautiful. Some of the challenges, well, number one, whenever there's a Christmas service, we usually have three to four different languages that we do readings in. Every every year, there's someone who says, how come you didn't get my language in there? You know, and I'm thinking there's one hundred and twenty three languages in this neighborhood. Get in line, you know. And so we're always disappointing someone in this context. And so we're always disappointing someone in this context. There's always someone who's not happy. And there's always someone's story who's not being fully represented the way they would want it to be represented. That's an ongoing tension that I don't know. I don't think there's a there's a solution to it. When you get this level of people in a room together, someone's story is going to be highlighted. Someone's is not.

And that's probably one of the greatest challenges, generally speaking, of trying to pastor a very diverse congregation. I've often thought about that with congregations that have some level of diversity. It's like it's hard to represent it all equally and well. And it's through no ill intention, typically. it's just like, man, it's just a lot. Yeah. In your church, I don't know how you would end up doing that. I mean, there's only so many Sundays in the year, but what would be the most dominant

ethnicity in your church? Do you have one or is it like, I would say the, the, the, the ethnic breakdown of our congregation, I would say is, uh, 30% Pan-Asian. And so we're talking about folks from East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia. Okay. Uh, being, being a pastor here has helped me with my geography significantly. So I've had to learn where particular countries are, which country hates which other country. I've learned a lot.

But I would say 30 percent Pan-Asian. I would say another 30 percent U.S., Latino and Latin American. And so you figure all most of the countries of of Latin America, uh, then you have, you know, the Caribbean represented in that. I would say, uh, about 20%, uh, African American. Uh, I would say, um, 10%, uh, what we consider racially white, uh, and maybe another 5% just, you know, other, um, but it's pretty, uh, it's quite diverse. Most, most churches, uh, metrics of multi-ethnicity, uh, it's like the 80-20 rule. It's like, there's no, there's not one ethnic group or racial group that's more than 80%. And they call that, that's a multicultural church, multi-ethnic church.

It's a bit different in our context. Yeah, I bet. Do you ever run in – especially since you have so many first-generation immigrants, do you run in with really challenging just cultural tensions? I'm thinking like honor-shame cultures coming in or even like clock time versus, clock time versus event time, you know, people that are very clock driven and probably a lot of cultures that you have are just like the clock is really not that relevant to dictating today, you know, and, um, has that been challenging? All of that. The challenge in our context is those things usually get worked out and the tensions we usually, those tensions usually manifest in smaller community groups um not necessarily lots of folks who come to new live

know what they're going to get they're going to get a service that's pretty tight uh uh they're they're going to get a vast majority of different preachers from the stage so i probably preach maybe 30 to 35 sermons a year. And we have a preaching team. The one that we have right now is comprised of a South Asian woman, a Korean woman, a Filipino guy, an African-American woman and a biracial guy, black, white guy. So there's like five of us on this team. I preach the vast majority of it, but they're getting different voices and different experiences. But we see all of that, whether it's honor, shame, culture, event versus time. There are tensions all over the place. And that's what I've discovered. Some of these tensions are not going to be solved at all.

We just have to do our best to be aware of them and be as gentle as we possibly can with each other. I didn't even ask up front. I should have started with this, but what's your ministry journey? Were you raised in a Christian home? And when did you feel the call to go into pastoral ministry? Well, I'm 42. I'll be 42 on Saturday, actually. But I became a Christian at 19 after my parents would send me to church as a five year old in Brooklyn with my grandparents because it was a Latino Pentecostal church, four hour services, good, good child care. childcare. And so my parents had four hours to do whatever they want while I was in church. And so I would do that for a couple of years and stopped attending, found myself attending again as a 17 year old because I started dating a pastor's daughter that got me back into church very quickly. And that ended after a couple of years. I went home very depressed, walking from Queens to Brooklyn, came home on August 1999, Sunday evening to see four of my siblings at this church that I used to attend as a kid, my father coming off of a hangover, my mother cooking in the kitchen. I decided to go to church that day because I'm so

broken. I walk into the church that's having a little revival. My father and mother walk in 15 minutes after I do, which was very strange because they never went to church. God evidently had told him to follow me to go to church. So he got up and followed me into the church. Preacher got up, preached from Ezekiel 37 and 15 family members, including myself, said yes to Jesus. 1999, August in New York City. From that point on, after being rescued by Jesus, I went to a Christian college to study theology and pastoral ministry. Soon after, heard of an opening of a large church called the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, started overseeing their college young adult ministry for a few years. And then as a 28 year old, found myself at New Life where I've been for the last

now 14 years. So by 28, I came here, not looking to be the next lead pastor, but found out a year into it that my predecessor was going to be stepping down into another role. And they asked if I would be willing to go through a process to take over. Uh, and so, uh, that began as a, I was 30 years old when that began and I took over when I was 33. So, and I've been doing it for the last now, um, eight, nine years. You still, you still won't have a gray hair on you, man. You've been, you're over 40 and you've been in ministry. I don't, you know what? There was one, there was one right here. I shaved the yesterday, Just one solitary gray hair. I shaved it off. I am jealous, man. The second I wrote a book on sexuality and had my four kids, I got a hat on now, but I'm just going gray, especially the sides of my beard. I'm like, man, what happened, man? I used to look 29 perpetually, and now I actually look my age. Well, at one point in my life, I did have curls, really nice, thick curls.

All that's gone, so my age is manifested through thinning hair. Let's talk about your book. I don't have it in front of me. The title is A Transformed Life? Wait. The Deeply Formed Life. The Deeply, yeah, okay. Now that, from what I know, comes out of a really deep passion of yours for this inner spiritual formation of the Christian leaders. This is from which everything flows, which seems like a no-brainer, but obviously it's not. You had to write a book on it.

But walk us through, what's the gist of that book, and what do you hope that people would get out of it? Yeah, in many respects, it sounds maybe a bit overreaching to say this, but I see the deeply formed life as an ambitious paradigm of spiritual formation for this generation. Because what I am attempting to do in this book, or have attempted to do, is to hold together aspects of spiritual formation that are often compartmentalized and segmented from each other. And so the book at its core is trying to resist formational compartmentalization. And through that, there are five particular values that I write about that I suggest are not to be separated, they're to be held together.

And the five values are contemplative rhythms, racial justice, interior examination, sexual wholeness, and missional presence. And so those are the five values that make up our congregation. We call it different names in our own local congregation. So the language I just use now is for a larger audience. But those five areas, what I write about is the theology of all those areas, and then various spiritual formation practices so that we can live into them. It's often the case that some folks say, you know, that racial stuff here, that's great for those who are in urban, multi-ethnic environments. And I'm saying, no, it's for everyone. Or they say, you know, that interior examination stuff, that's for people who are into

like psychology and all that. And I'm saying, no, this is for everyone. And so it is at its core, an ambitious reframing of spiritual formation for this generation. I like that. I love that, that it's a combination of both kind of internal, more personal stuff, I love that, that it's a combination of both kind of internal, more personal stuff, but also more public holiness as well, right? I mean, most people emphasize one or the other, and it can never—I mean, gosh, I think that's to the detriment of our spirituality. It is a both and, not an either or, right? Yeah, and what the book does is it brackets both of those. So I begin talking about contemplative rhythms.

I've been shaped personally by monasticism. I go to pray with monks in Boston every year. So I've been shaped by traditions that embrace silence and contemplation. At the same time, I became a Christian in a Pentecostal church. So I have a high theology of the Holy Spirit and gifts and the power, all that. So I'm trying to hold that together. But I have a big contemplative side to me. But the book ends by focusing on justice and focusing on ministries of mercy and how we are to publicly give expression to this gospel. So I am trying to hold together that interpersonal, the individual, as well as the institutional ramifications of what it means to proclaim the gospel and follow Jesus in this world.

That's good, man. Yeah, you look around and it's, maybe this is true of every, every generation, but it just seems like, it seems like more and more leaders, you know, are falling, right. Or just, it makes you, part of it is just sin. I mean, that's a huge part of it, but also the, I just wonder how much of our church industrial complex or even celebrity-driven culture has created rhythms, ecclesiological rhythms that war against the spirituality of these kind of, especially high-profile or super gifted pastors. You throw in a type A personality, an Enneagram 8, give them a platform, no time for friends, but just ministry or whatever, and no one can really speak into their life. And we create structures that are only going to exacerbate the sinfulness of the human heart, it seems like.

Do you see, I mean, an increase in leaders kind of falling? Or is this always the way it is? Or what can we do to minimize that? It's always going to happen. But I mean, it just seems like it's a little much these days. I do think that that kind of celebrity impulse that's only exacerbated by things like social media. People have an audience like never before. And I think if we're not on guard

against that and doing our best to create important boundaries, we can go beyond our limits, for sure. We can find ourselves not rooted locally, but everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And so I have seen, sadly, an increase of that level of whether it's moral failure, whether it's burnout, whether it's disillusionment. And I think it comes out of many, many things, cultures that embrace this or enable these things here, but also comes from a particular kind of life that sees our spiritual growth and spiritual formation personally as secondary. The invitation that I have as a pastor and the call that I have as a pastor is to say, like Paul said in first Corinthians, we just follow me as I follow Christ. That's, those are terrifying words. Uh, at the same time, I think those are words that we must take very seriously. Uh, and so the best gift that I offer

my congregation off of the world is my own transformed self. And I'm not sure if that's often the priority, um, which is why it leads to a lot of unfortunate decisions and the things that you just mentioned. What can churches do to help make that a priority for pastors? Obviously, again, there's always this tension of if you're called to ministry, you need to take it on yourself to make this a priority. But also, what can churches do maybe to give pastors that space? I mean, between like, I don't know, like more pure, like intentional sabbaticals or don't preach as much. I mean, are there structures that we can do that would help enable the spiritual formation of our leaders? Yeah, when I became a pastor at New Life, I'm incredibly grateful that I came into a culture that had worked a lot of this out already in my predecessor. And so I never forget when I was interviewed for the position as a 28

year old, my predecessor, Pete said to me, now, Rich, the only way you'll get fired here is if you don't take time to keep Sabbath, a 24hour period where you're not doing any work. And I thought, man, I think I heard that wrong. He said, you'll get fired if you don't keep Sabbath. And he said, the reason is because you won't have the kind of life with God that will sustain the work you're doing for God. And that's the kind of culture I stepped into, one that took very seriously the rhythms and the life of the pastor, that I could only give what I've received and I'm nurturing. And so, yeah, I mean, sabbaticals, I mean, our pastors get sabbaticals every seven years. We expect our staff and our pastors to keep a weekly Sabbath.

We inspect it. We ask questions around it. When it's time for annual staff evaluations, one of the questions we're asking is not how much XYZ did you produce, but how's your soul? Did you give your soul the kind of attention that it needed? That's what we're measuring. the culture that we're trying to establish, it creates an environment, number one, where people want to work at, number one. But number two, my soul gets exactly what it needs for the intense kind of work that I'm engaged in. But that's some of the ways that we try to create a structure and a system around this kind of health for the sake of ongoing leadership. That's super good. We need more of that. We need more of it, but I feel like I am seeing more and more people, especially younger leaders.

They seem to be, again, it's hard to, I don't have a statistic, but they seem to be a little more self-aware of that. There does seem to be, maybe because we've seen kind of some of the fallout with kind of work 80 hours a week in ministry and you don't have any real friends and half your kids hate you because you prioritize ministry over them. I tell people I've never met a pastor or a Christian leader on the other side of ministry, you know, mid-60s, late-60s, early-70s, to say, you know, looking back, I wish I had spent less time with my family and more time doing ministry. That's my one regret. You know, I did too much

family time and not enough ministry. I've never met that person ever. I haven't either. And you know what? And I know my tendency, I mean, if it wasn't for the strength of my wife, honestly, who says we are going to go on vacation, we are going to do this. I mean, I could very easily put my head down and work and work. And I know myself. I know my false self. I know all the weaknesses I have. And I thank God for an incredibly strong wife who says, no, we're going to do these things here. So, but I get it. I'd never heard a pastor in his sixties or seventies or her sixties and seventies say, I wish I had more time. I wish I didn't have more time with my kids. My wife is the exact same way. Cause I, I could fall into just, I could easily, if I was single

or whatever, I'd be just be a workaholic, you know, or if I had a wife that just kind of didn't address it, but she's like, no, like we, I, I, I mean, I don't know. I hardly ever work on like a Saturday, uh, or even a Sunday. Um, although sometimes, you know, depending on my church involvement, Sunday could be a volunteer work day, you know? Um, yeah, it's, and in vacations too, like when we didn't have any money, it was tent camping, you know,, just going somewhere. And, and, uh, now since I rack up sky miles and stuff, we'll go on a trip somewhere. Cause you can almost go for free. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, and I, and I, man, I'm so thankful for that, you know, because, um, yeah, I probably would have destroyed myself by now if I didn't have that accountability,

whether it's a spouse or a leadership team. I don't think you need to be married to have that, but just to have people that are caring for your holistic spiritual formation, it's huge. One more question and then I'll let you go, Rich. We're kind of coming out of the pandemic a little bit. The church has been through tumultuous times, just kind of rethinking even its church rhythms and having to do ministry through Zoom and all these different avenues. We've had many racial tensions, political upheaval, and that just seems to keep lingering on. How should Christian leaders today reflect on the last year, year and a half, and how should we move forward in a way where we can learn from the past and maybe instill different rhythms or, I don't know, like what are some things we should

weed out? And what are some things we should establish as we move forward in a really different world now, you know? Yeah. You know, I think about this question a lot. And one of the, I don't know if it's possible solutions, but directions that I tend to go in, the last year has revealed the inner fragmentation and the outer fragmentation in ways that I don't know if we've seen it on this level, how everything converged politically, racially, global pandemic, economics. I mean, across the board, there was a level of intensity to the fractures. And I think what Christians and churches must begin to intentionally cultivate even more so is how do I remain close to myself

and remain close to others in times of high anxiety? For me, that's the language of differentiation out of family systems theory. And I think that is one of the most important areas of growth and learning for the church. What does it mean to stay close to myself? How do I pay attention to what's happening? You see what's happening now. Over half a million people died, and lots of people have not taken the time to grieve. And part of it is because of lack of proximity. Part of it is because of lack of the theology around grief. But most folks don't know how to remain present to themselves and close to themselves. I think we have an invitation by God to teach us what does it mean to remain close to ourselves and all of that means, but at the same time remaining close to one another, especially in times of high anxiety.

And so I think what we desperately need are cultures of curiosity, cultures of self-compassion, cultures where we're able to navigate the anxiety that courses through our body and do it well so as to be non-anxious presence in the world needs, a group of non-anxious, prayerful, loving people who are going to demonstrate this good news with their lives, not just with their words. But I think it's part of that is how do I remain close to myself and remain close to others, especially in this time of high anxiety? So it's something I've been thinking about a lot, writing a lot about, and trying to figure out within my own community. And so I mentioned that one of the ways I try to do that is this past Sunday, we hosted a community Q&A time, where I said, whoever is in our church, you could come and ask whatever question you want of me. My preaching, why haven't we opened yet for in-person worship, critical race theory, whatever you want to talk about, you can ask the question. We're going to do it for an hour because I'm not crazy. I'm not going for two. I'm going for one hour.

I will do it for one. And I was anxious. I was nervous. I was wondering, this is going to be a train wreck. It's the first time we've ever done something like this. I took a deep breath. I logged on to Zoom. You know, maybe 60 people showed up or so. I was like, thank God it's not 600. And they asked great questions. What were some of the questions? I'm curious. And they ask great questions. What were some of the questions? I'm curious. Oh, how's this one? You know, after the after George Floyd's killing, we you know, I participated in a prayer protest. I was you know, I opened up the prayer protest and with kind of a spoken word, kind of a prayer, Pastor Rich, why are you holding Black Lives Matter signs? And not only why are you holding Black Lives Matter signs, Pastor Rich, I saw a picture of your six-year-old son holding a Black Lives Matter sign as well.

So now they're bringing my son into this here. Why is your son holding that? So that was one I had to respond to. A lot of it had to do about racism. And again, you would think multicultural, diverse, we're all on the same page, not a chance. And so the vast majority of it was, why, when are we going back to in-person worship and why has it taken it so long and then why are you saying black lives matter so for an hour there was a

bunch of those questions here and there uh i was i was anticipating and i didn't get it this time around uh questions about the lgbtq community and what's your stance there. We usually get that at our newcomer gatherings, which we have tonight, where we have an open Q&A forum for those who are new and they want to ask anything of us. I didn't get that. We usually get those in other contexts. But those are a few of the questions that came down this past Sunday over an hour. First of all, hats off to you for doing that. I think giving...

I'm trying to model something. You know, Press, I'm trying to say, we can be a non-anxious presence. And yes, my heart was racing on the inside. But I showed up, and we're trying to model something here, which is very difficult. I think, I'm going to assume,

knowing nothing about your congregation, that they appreciated that you made yourself available to that. That just says a lot that you want to hear from them. And to open yourself up like that, that's courageous. It's humble and it's courageous. And I think it just established, it breaks down that kind of barrier, too, between leader and congregation. Because a huge part of my speaking ministry is always Q&A, man. down that kind of barrier too, that between leader and congregation. And, um, yeah, I, cause I, but part of my, a huge part of my speaking ministry is it's always Q and a man. And, and, um, I, I always encourage pastors. You guys got to do more. It's scary. It's frightening.

You mess up, you say something wrong. You get questions that are, you know, you know, why do you, you know, hate gay people so much? Or why do you hate the Bible so much? I'll get like a, a weird, like, you know, far left, far right kind of assumption about who I am or whatever. It's like, first of all, premise of the question is even humanizing. But yeah, it's, but it's, I, we live in a culture where most informational avenues, the people have a chance to respond, whether it's YouTube or even a news article or Facebook. So church is one of the last stands where there's somebody talking and there's no like response. And I don't know what that should look like in a healthy way, but I think exactly what you did, like opening up opportunities for people to do that. I think it's awesome, man.

Yeah. And I'd say, I think I gained a whole lot more folks who say, I trust Rich. I believe in what this church is about. Even if it was a train wreck and it was super awkward, which I'm so glad it wasn't, I think opening up that space communicated something of value to those folks. And they articulated that during the meeting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Rich, thanks so much for being on the show.

Again, the book is A Deeply Formed Life. Where can people find you? You got a website, right? Yeah, if they went to richvalotus.com, they could learn there. And then I'm usually testing out stuff for sermons and articles and books on Twitter. So at Rich Valotus or on Instagram at Rich Valotus as well. All right. Thanks so much for being on Theology and Rob, bro. Appreciate it. Thanks Preston. you