Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1016: #1016 - Rethinking Church-Based Theological Education: Drs. Branson Parler and Jeff Fisher

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Branson and Jeff have been involved in theological education for several years and recently launched an innovative church-based organization for theological education. It’s called The Foundry. Their mission is to strengthen and support church leaders at every level with biblical and practical training.  Branson also just released an outstanding book on a theology of the body and sexual ethics called Every Body’s Story: 6 Myths about Sex and the Gospel Truth about Marriage and Singleness.  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information! 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My two guests today are Branson Parler and Jeff Fisher. Branson is Director of Theological Education, Professor of Theology at the Foundry, and Jeff is also Professor of Theology and Director of Spiritual Formation at the Foundry. Both of them are former professors at Kuyper College. Both have PhDs, one in theology, the other in Jeff's PhDs in historical theology. And I've known Branson for years now. He's part of our collaborative team at the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. And I've just briefly met Jeff in passing many years ago and had a wonderful conversation with both of them. The Foundry is a sort of innovative church-based

way of doing theological education. The mission of the Foundry is to strengthen and support church leaders at every level with biblical and practical training. I remember when Branson said he was starting the Foundry and I was really intrigued, so I wanted to have them both on to talk about what it is, because I do think that there's going to be an ongoing need in the church for innovative forms of theological education. Not, as we say in the podcast, not to replace traditional college or seminary. Not, as we say in the podcast, not to replace traditional college or seminary. I'm a huge fan of seminary, but to come alongside traditional forms of theological education to reach more people with biblical training. So please welcome to the show for the first. I'm here with Branson and Jeff, who are co-leaders of The Foundry.

I don't know if that's the right way to describe it. I should have checked with you before I said that. Is that how you introduce yourselves? Who's the boss here? That's one of the fun things about what we do is, uh, there's not this template for it. And in some ways we're trying to think outside the box a little bit, but I think the two of us, along with our colleagues, Sarah beam are, are together, uh, functioning in different ways.

Each of us has different areas that we're, uh, helping to lead and guide in, but really working as a team, uh, valuing team ministry as being a big part of what we do. Branson, you and I met, I think I told you this story. I was speaking, I think it was at Faith Dyer, actually, out in Indiana. Yeah, I think so. And this was like the first time I was there. I've been there several times. And the first time, after somebody heard me speak on sexuality, they came up and said,

Oh, so you must be good friends with Branson Barler. I'm like, what? I don't know who that is. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you guys got to get to know each other. Everything you're saying is like everything he says, you know? So somehow we got in touch and then ended up hanging out and gosh, it's been a great relationship. I wish we could hang out more, but Grand Rapids is pretty far from Boise, but that's right. Not, not too close. Tell people about your academic journey and then we'll get to Jeff. Yeah. What led you into Christian academics? What was the heart behind that?

And how do you reflect on where God's taking you there? Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was always, I've loved the academic journey. I had so many questions about my faith that in a lot of ways for me, that was what doing graduate work, my master's and PhD was really struggling, wrestling with my own questions about God, about the church, about who we're called to be, but always wanted to use my gifts to serve the church. I love the academic side of things, but grew up in the church, pastor's kid, and again, seeing the good, bad, and ugly of the church, but believe that God has called me to use my gifts to serve the church. And so for me, that was one of the reasons why I connected well with the people in the Bible and theology department at Kuyper College, which was

formerly Reformed Bible College. So being a Bible college had that strong kind of Bible missions, ministry emphasis historically. And so that sense of wanting to dig into the academic side of things, but not just as its own pursuit, but for the sake of serving and equipping and building up the church. And so I think that's where it's kind of a natural fit as I see how God has led us to form the foundry very much resonates with that sense of just always being driven by the question, how are we serving the church? How are we equipping, building up, supporting, and strengthening church leaders with the gifts and abilities that God has given us? We connected because of our common interest in sexuality, and we take almost identical approach to various questions there. I was pleasantly shocked to hear that.

You did your PhD on John Howard Yoder, right? I mean, we would both be probably one of the five people on earth that would come at the kind of nonviolence question from a more reformed perspective. Would that? Yeah. When I heard that, I was like, wait a minute, I thought I was the only one. Yeah, that's right. It's not, you know, being engaging Yoder and looking at Christological pacifism, thinking about it through that lens and studying that in a reformed context where a lot of times you have some of these kind of caricatures of the Anabaptist or, or Mennonite perspective, I think was, it was challenging, but good because I think in a lot of ways, they're trying to forge

connections and maybe help people see things a little bit differently than maybe the standard framework. But yeah, it's a strange mix, the Calvinists and pacifism and putting all those things together. You don't find too many people in that boat. Yeah. To me, it made... You're actually reformed, right? I dabble. Or at least I would say that's kind of my general theological friend. And even Reformed, I don't know if I would – if that's the tradition I come out of. But for me, it's just a very high view of the power of the cross, which is the essence of suffering and as a means of defeating evil. But it's – I guess my Reformed would be more Bardian-ish without a lot of defeating evil. But it's, so it's, it's, I guess my reform would be more Bardian ish, um,

without a lot of bar. I don't know. Anyway, we're getting off, off, off track. Well, yeah.

Once you start, once you start talking, throwing on the labels out, then figuring out what exactly that all means and where you fit in the taxonomy of things can get a little tricky because everybody has their ideas of what they think that means. Yeah. The labels are just, especially today labels. I just try to, I try to avoid them at all Yeah. The labels are just, especially today,

labels. I just try to avoid them at all costs now. People even say, are you a Christian? I'm like, well, what do you mean by Christian? Jeff, give us a background of who you are. Yeah. How'd you get into theological education? Yeah. My journey into theological education is a bit different. I actually have a bachelor of Science in mathematics, so I had no intention of doing ministry or going into theology when I went to undergraduate. But in kind of my sophomore, junior year of college, I really sensed God calling me into ministry. And so I did an MDiv at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and then served as a pastor for a little over five years in a small town, tiny little town in Minnesota. And so that really, I mean, shaped my love for the church and for the people in the

church to grow. My title was actually pastor of teaching and spiritual formation. And so that's been one of the passions I've had is helping people grow in their faith, in their spiritual life and everything. And then while I was there, really sensed that, I mean, similar to Branson, like I got a lot more questions that were not answered when I was doing my master's in seminary. And I have a lot more questions now that I've been serving the church and have these like real experiences and real controversies, challenges, felt that time at the church wrapping up. And we actually moved to Kathmandu, Nepal for about half a year to teach at a seminary there. Both my wife and I taught there.

And then while I was there, I got accepted back to Trinity, back to TEDS to do my PhD. And my PhD is on Johannes Akalampadis, a reformer from the 16th century. I did it on the book of Hebrews. Historical theology is kind of the field I wanted to do academically to somewhat parallel what I wanted to do ministry-wise with spiritual formation. And so then this job at Kuyper opened up. I applied to several jobs. And as you know, in that field, and especially at that time, and currently today, there's not very many that are out there, and everyone's fighting for the few of them. And thankfully, I mean, the Lord brought me to Kuyper, where I got to teach in a variety of contexts, including church history and spiritual formation and Bible and theology. And I actually loved that piece of a breadth of different topics, different matters, and not just one focus. I mean,

the last four years at Kuyper, I also served as academic dean. So I was teaching theology and doing academic dean administrative accreditation work. I really was feeling this, I need to do more back in ministry. And so through a lot of conversations, a lot of prayer, quite a bit of fasting, we ended up discerning that God was calling us out of Kuiper and the three of us to start this crazy new venture that we call The Foundry. Wow, what a journey. I really want to get into The Foundry, but I got a few other questions that I got to get off my chest. Are you both part of the CRC? I forget, Branson, if you're CRC or RCA. Yeah, Jeff is CRC, and I'm currently RCA.

But right now, RCA, as you're probably aware. Yeah, I want to get into the butt there. Yeah, is in the process of splintering into a few other groups. And so including our church is in the process of, of leaving the RCA. Uh, and that's been, uh, you know, something that's probably 20 or more years in the making of, of just churches being on very different pages in terms of theology and ministry, sort of the presenting symptom is human sexuality debates about that. But there's, I think much deeper theological

differences at play there too with some of those churches so you would say that's another whole yeah whole long answer but yeah so within the reformed reformed communities it's funny because we do so much work with well we've done a decent amount of work with both crc and rci i i keep forgetting that these denominations are pretty small, right? I mean, compared to like UMC or, you know, Southern Baptist or something. So for somebody that doesn't really know much about what's been going on, so would it be accurate to describe it? I mean, you said it's kind of a symptom. So the sexuality question of same-sex marriage, it seems like both the CRC and RCA, the majority of members, the majority would be on the traditional side of marriage, it seems, especially in the CRC.

But you do have at the leadership level, I don't want to say 50-50, but there's a decent representative of people who would affirm same-sex marriage and are really trying to make that, trying to basically change the previous stance from both denominations on that question. Is that a simplified way of, or I'm sure you can just like how much you can say publicly. And then there's probably like, we can probably have an offline conversation that would, yes. Well, yeah, I mean that, that, yeah, that's a fair summary. I mean, for people who, who don't know, again, being in grand Rapids, you would think these are like the most biggest influential denominations because they are in Grand Rapids. Yeah, right.

And there are other pockets there. But RCA goes back to actually the 1620s, traces its origin. Oftentimes we'll say they're the oldest Protestant denomination in the U.S. And so you had churches and pastors. This is just a few years after the Senate of Dort that this is rolling. And so, yeah, it's historically ethnically Dutch. There's a good mix of other folks who are part of that tradition, like me, who didn't grow up in it, but who have become part of it. But I think I would say, yeah, that it's an accurate summary that probably the majority of people on the ground in churches would hold to the historic

view of marriage and sexuality. At the leadership level, it might be a little bit different. And part of it is the struggle in the RCA is there's not a real clean or clear way to address the question in terms of the polity of the church. And so basically the denomination has said, functionally, we're just operating with diversity on this topic, even though technically in terms of statements and other things like that, the historic view of marriage has always been affirmed. There's really no mechanism by which there can be any kind of correction or discipline or bringing churches back on the same page. And so it's sort of like the culture of the church is too far gone that you have, you know, some churches, especially

those out East New York, New Jersey, where it's actually part of their bylaws that they are affirming of same-sex marriage. And so you just have churches all over the place. And again, underneath that, I think are some deeper differences about understanding of scripture, authority of scripture, interpretation of scripture, even things like the sufficiency of Christ, questions about the gospel. So the RCA, I would say is a little bit more all over the place than the CRC is. I don't know if Jeff, if you want to go on the record of that. That was my impression that the RCA was just a little bit, and I hate, I don't like these categories, but for the sake of simplicity, like a little bit left of the CRC. And again, not that every individual is, but you would have a greater percentage of more progressive Christians in the RCA.

Would that be accurate, Jeff? I think so. Yeah. I mean, so the CRC is trying to not have that functional diversity. I don't know how much, if you've seen anything that happened in June, this past June at our synod, at the CRC synod, but most of the votes were 70-30 traditional versus affirming with the delegates that were there. And those are representative pastors and elders and deacons. I would anticipate you're right, Preston, that the people in the

pews, the members themselves, it's probably even more traditional than the 70-30 split. But yeah, the CRC is trying to reinforce a position we took almost 50 years ago in 1973 of the historic view, but specifying clearly that the CRC does not view same-sex attraction as sinful, but same-sex behavior as sinful. The big move this summer was to talk about what it means to have confessional status, so that what all pastors and elders and deacons agree that they will hold to and teach about and not contradict. And what was decided was that the word unchastity in the Heidelberg Catechism includes same-sex sexual activity, and therefore that is what is confessional.

And so anyone who's signing with what we call the covenant of office bearers is saying that is the correct interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism's answer to that question that unchastity includes same-sex sexual activity. Okay. So same-sex attraction is not a sin. Did that go over well with the, I guess, with the more conservative side? Did you have issues on the other side of people saying, oh, no, I don't know if I want to agree with that? Yes. I mean, you're right. Because, I mean, one of the fascinating things is in follow up to this. One of the questions was, so can someone actually someone who is agreeing that this is covenantal or this is a confessional thing? If you're arguing that same sex attraction is sinful, you are actually not in line with the confessions either with our interpretation of the confessions.

not in align with the confessions either with our interpretation of the confessions. So you kind of have this like ultra conservative side that is much more like anything same sex. I mean, it's, it's lost or however they're going to interpret it. That is sinful. They're, they're equally out of alignment with the official position of the CRC as those who are, you know, same sex, sex, same sex marriage, same sex activity is, you know, same-sex marriage, same-sex activity is, you know, can be fine in a lifelong committed monogamous relationship. So it sounds like on the RCA side, there's people leaving the denomination for like, it's more traditional churches. Churches that believe in traditional marriage are believing that RCA, whereas the CRC, it

said, no, this is where we're holding to the traditional view. So churches that are leaving the CRC, are there churches leaving the CRC to embrace a more affirming view? Not yet, but it's, I mean, it does, there has been rumbling about it, that there might be some, especially, so Grand Rapids East is our, what we call classes, our regional group that is most is most affirming. That's what our church is actually in, and our church holds the traditional view.

We find ourselves in kind of this weird—we're in alignment with the denomination, but we're out of alignment with pretty much everybody else. Not quite everybody else. A couple other churches are traditional in our classes. So there's only been a couple, there've only been a couple that have made comments about even checking with the RCA, because even though the RCA is still officially traditional as well, denominationally, they see that it's heading more affirming. And so they're like, well, maybe we can go that direction. In my experience, probably in your experience too, when it comes to the educational level, you're going to have typically people in academia are going to lean more left than whatever they're part of. And I don't know much about like Calvin College or seminary. I would assume, I don't know anything about how this is affecting, because Calvin is officially CRC, right?

Yes. Yeah. I would assume there's internal tensions there. What can you say publicly about, is there going to be something that's going to come to a head there? Or is it just kind of like institutions are always going to wrestle with internal tensions and diversity and people signing statements that they don't actually believe? And I'm not assuming that that's happening. Yeah, no. But it probably is. It's a good deduction.

Because it's a Christian school. It probably is happening. Yeah, it's a Christian school and it's a Christian school that's that's denominationally associated affiliated. So like Kuyper College, where we were, was not connected to a denomination. But Calvin is the school, the university of the CRC. And there's a few others that are similarly related, but no one has the same kind of relationship as Calvin. And so, yeah, this is definitely I mean, there's professors that have already left. There were people, they raised a lot of questions at Senate about what does this mean as, you know,

with academic freedom? How does that relate to, you know, what I'm actually teaching in the classroom? I don't always agree with what I'm teaching in the classroom, but I want students to understand it and engage with it and everything like that. So, I mean, there's all kinds of questions like that. If you know, Kristen Kobes-Dumé, the author of Jesus and John Wayne, she's a Calvin University professor. So she's got a lot of, if you want to find out what's going on at Calvin University, Google Dumé and see what she's put on her blog and stuff. She's explained a lot of the kind of the inner tension that's with it and who's wrestling with what. So interestingly, a lot of the seminary professors have much more emphasized the traditional historic view on sexuality than have been pushing for an affirming view. Okay. Interesting. Okay. That's a big difference between in the RCA Western seminary where Jim Brownson taught, There were several others who were very much on the affirming side so that the majority of the people in the RCA felt like they were pushing against their seminary professors. Whereas in the CRC, again, there seems to be more

alignment there with people holding, the seminary professors holding to the historic view in a way that aligns with at least probably the majority of the denomination. And didn't Western just hire, oddly enough, Wes Hill to take over Brownson's post when he retired? Yeah. So that's interesting. Yeah, they've made a huge turn. They've made a huge turn, though. I mean, they're still I think they're trying to represent the RCA of like a diversity of

views on this topic. OK, so they do have people there who are more affirming and people there who are much more to the historic traditional view. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a long intro to the main point of having you guys on. I do feel kind of as a closely connected outsider to both the CRC and RCA. Lots of friends who are leaders.

And talk to bob bauer you know i know he's you know leading one of the biggest churches there and just it's yeah it's a it's it's a mess i mean i won't say a mess i mean it's it's it's what a lot of denominations are going through and even the umc is going through kind of similar stuff but um anyway uh the foundry so you guys were part of, for lack of better terms, traditional theological education, and you decided to launch out. I'm sure this was a big risk to start this, but what was the heart behind leaving traditional theological education and starting the foundry? Or how about maybe just describe what the foundry is. Let's start there and then go back and why you wanted to pursue this. is. Let's start there and then go back and why you wanted to pursue this. Yeah. I think it's actually helpful to do the why part first and then talk a little bit more about what it is that we do. Because I think part of the challenge that we recognized is that higher ed, for a variety of reasons, is less accessible maybe than ever before in terms of

cost, in terms of timing. There's so many shifts happening across the cultural landscape, including the church landscape. One of the things that I think Jeff and I continually, I was always in his office being like, how can we figure out how to make what we do more accessible to people? Because we would hear from pastors, church leaders, I wish people in my church could sit in on this class or be part of this or learn in this way. And realizing that, you know, the college or traditional seminary model is it's this very expensive, highly bundled, highly inaccessible package. And so a big part of our question was, how do you make this much more accessible to churches for leaders at every level from volunteers to lay leaders, you know,

elders and deacons, Sunday school teachers, youth workers, all the way up to people who are preparing for ministry and even pastors who already have degrees but are looking for ongoing education. One of the best, I think the metaphor that maybe best captures this is, uh, used to Gonzalez's, uh, he talks about an irrigation hose instead of a pipeline. Uh, and so historically the educational piece is a pipeline where you have a select few people who go all the way through and they get, you know, they get all the resources, they get all the training and you go all the way from the start to the end. Uh, and instead he uses the idea of an irrigation hose that, you know, you lay in your garden and it's got water coming out of it every, every few feet so that everything along the way is, is getting watered and nourished. And so, I mean, this was

one of the huge challenges as we talked to pastors and other leaders is, you know, they're like, well, I've had seven, sometimes more plus years of training and equipping in Bible and theology and ministry. And many of my leaders in my church have really zero systematic, you know, hey, we want to train people in just Bible knowledge, theological knowledge. How do you make sure as you're, you know, teaching fifth graders that you're well-equipped to talk about who God is, have basic Bible knowledge and things of that nature. Because of that, it puts this huge stress on a lot of our church systems that you have a, you know, very small number of people who've done any kind of equipping and training. And then most others are like, you know, whatever you can get in Sunday school, in Bible studies, et cetera.

And so part of our thinking is how do you, how do you make this more accessible all across, all across the way? OK, Jeff, what do you want to add to that? Yeah, I mean, you know, really what we are interested in doing in some of the language we use is supporting and strengthening church leaders at every level. And that that irrigation metaphor really helps see that show that that we you know, we have we're trying to use the resources that we've been granted and the training that we have to then help train others so that they can train others. And I mean, we're trying in some ways we like talking about this is we're trying to kind of recapture a biblical model of passing on to other people to pass on rather than just having these one entities that like everyone has to come there. one entities that like everyone has to come there, you know, because like Branson said, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 930 to 1030, it's not a very accessible time to go learn about the Bible or theology for most people. So how do we actually make this stuff accessible

to others, not just those who are, you know, have the time or the resources, or it's the point in life that they're doing that kind of study. I think I know the answer to this, but just to make it clear, like I'm not hearing you saying that like this is designed to like replace traditional seminaries, but to come alongside and offer another way of going about theological education that is accessible to a certain demographic where the traditional seminary might not be accessible. So your pastor, say, you know, like, say somebody would love to go to Calvin Seminary or something, you know, but they live in Ohio and they're passing a church and they're, you know, 55 hours a week or whatever, but they know they would love to get more training, but they can't leave that and come here.

And maybe, you know, a lot of seminaries also have online options, but they would still love to have a more in-person model, but based in their actual context, would that be an accurate way of describing? Okay. Like real practically, say there's a church here in Boise listening and they're like, oh, this sounds great, but I'm not exactly sure what this looks like. What would it look like for them to tap into the foundry? Yeah. So part of what we do, like you mentioned Bob Bauer and folks at Faith Church Dyer. We've been partnering with them from the beginning. They were, again, they had, I think, a great vision for what leadership development looks like in the local church.

And so in their case, again, we do a variety of things. But in their case, what we do is a kind of seminary at church model where we set up classes that run a way that be integrated in people's life and ministry. So we connect there every two weeks. Jeff or I actually drive down there. It's about two and a half hours or so if traffic cooperates. But we go down there and they have folks from their five campuses, and we've talked to some other churches in the area as well, who come, they participate in these classes that are, you know, set up in a way that I think they're similar to seminary content, but packaged, you know, the way that one of their leadership directors puts it, packaged in more of an adult education model where, you know, we meet for three hours every other Thursday night. education model where, you know, we meet for three hours every other Thursday night, there's reading, there's assignments. The assignments are very much focused on ministry outcomes. And so less just writing academic papers, but saying, how are you

applying what we're learning right now in your, in your ministry and in your context? And so that's, that's one example, one slice from kind of the leadership development seminary alternative that we're doing. Now, do you do that with, I mean, okay, so that's within driving distance, say a church in North Carolina wanted to tap in, you would fly somebody out there or would you find a local person that could teach or is it, are you, or is that, are you at the beginning stages of figuring all that out? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that's where we're at at this point, you know, when, when we think about it, for me, it's much more, how can we be a platform and model that others can participate in? So if a church in Boise called me, I'd probably call you and say,

uh, Hey, uh, Preston, there's a church here that wants to do, you know, this kind of equipping and training. Um, and you're somebody who has that ability, you're somebody who has the capability to do that, what do you think about doing that? And so as I've talked to other friends, even in other parts of the country, I mean, I'm always kind of have my eye out for semi-recruiting. Like if you're a teacher and you love the church, I guarantee you there are churches in your area who would love to do more learning and being equipped in this way, but have a whole lot of people who just, again, don't fit the typical seminary slice of people who that fits with their life schedule, with their finances and all those pieces. Do teachers need to have like an academic requirement, like at least an MDiv or a master's degree in theology to teach or preferably a doctorate? Or what's yeah, what does that look like?

We haven't gotten that far on the policy end. But I mean, I think that would be preferable. I don't know, Jeff, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, so there's a hard thing here because we're doing theological training to not get degrees necessarily. And so then there's a bit of irony to be like, but in order to teach for us, you have to have a PhD or a D min or something. It's much more likely that we, I mean, at this stage, we'd really only be able to recruit or have teach for us people we

already know. And so a lot of what we're really emphasizing is competency. And so, I mean, if you don't have an MD of, or a, you know or a PhD or a DMIN, but you are clearly a competent teacher who knows the scriptures, who knows theology, particularly who's experienced in ministry, then you're the sweet spot of who we're looking for. So theoretically, it wouldn't necessarily be required, though a lot of people up to this stage in history who have those kind of desires and competencies end up getting an MDiv or PhD at this point. So there, yeah, that makes, I mean, it also depends on, I would assume, what kind, what the topic is, who's teaching it and who's taking the class. So like a pastor with an MDiv who wants to go deeper theologically probably

isn't going to want to be taught by somebody who doesn't even have that level of a degree, you know? At the same time, a pastor with, say, a master's degree, say an undergrad degree with 40 years of experience and has just handled the spiritual formation piece and has demonstrated that in his or her life like yeah they they've kind of they don't need the degree to to like qualify them as an as a as a as a leader in spiritual formation necessarily you know so that's that's how i would yeah i think it's um and i value i highly value i think degrees are fantastic and i always encourage people if you can the more the better, you know, but at the

same time, you know, lots of people with degrees who aren't actual qualified theologians for various reasons and the life, the life doesn't match their, their teaching and so on. So, um, man, I mean, I, yeah, you mentioned, not to keep bringing it back to Boise, but I know a few amazing teachers here that you can easily tap into. And I think there's a huge need here. I think sometimes the broader culture here might not recognize the need, but there is a huge need for more theological education, church-based theological education. And I imagine that's probably true of a lot of different areas, too. Probably there's a smattering of really qualified teachers. There's a need. How do we harness, how do we convince the,

this area that this is necessary? Cause it also takes some camaraderie between churches. I think that would be, I mean, if I could speak freely, I think there's a lot of great churches in Boise and there's attempts to kind of bring people together, but that's, that's, most pastors would say it's kind of hard to bring people together. A lot of people are just kind of doing their own thing or whatever to have kind of a collective kind of like, Hey, we as the church in Boise recognize this need, we're going to get behind making something like this happen. Is that something you, is that an issue you face in other places, like getting churches across denominations to come together for something like this?

Yeah, I think so. Because it's, again, as a different model, you know, historically, again, you think about the denominations that we represent where it's like, well, there's a centralized seminary. And so that is, that's sort of the collective way that churches, I guess, avail themselves of the collective way that churches, I guess, avail themselves of the theological education. So I think it does take key churches and key leaders in those churches to say, hey, we really value this. And I think to recognize that if churches don't do this and commit to it, it's likely not going to happen. Like the old model of somebody somewhere is just going to decide to go to college and then

seminary. I think there are people who are still doing that, but I think there's less of those people. And I think less of them that are actually going into pastoral ministry. And so I think churches at this point, I think we're already a little bit behind, but need to recognize if we as churches don't develop the next leaders, nobody else is developing them, right? And I think there's that mindset that a lot of times we just assume, again, we pick the kid with the Bible knowledge or something from youth group and we're like, okay, you go get trained and then go be a pastor probably somewhere else. And instead for churches to have, again, kind of a good farm system, to use the baseball analogy, is to have that mindset of it's actually our job to be raising up and equipping the next leaders, even pastors of our church.

Again, most churches, I think, would say, well, we don't know how to do that. Or maybe that those, especially those last couple stages, we've kind of outsourced that to seminary. But part of our question is, how do you, again, think about this in a different way, different models with teachers, people like Jeff and I, you, to say, we actually need to partner with churches to provide the avenues for people to be trained and equipped in that. Right. provide the avenues for people to be trained and equipped in, in that. Right. So it's not accredited and you're not, that's not like something you guys are even wanting to pursue, right? Is that right? Well, it's, yeah, it's, it's what we're doing is not accredited. Um, the, the work we're doing with Faith Dyer in, uh, the, their ministry Institute, they do have a partnership with the Kairos university that some of the students can choose

to apply to get credit for some of the coursework that they're doing for us. Because we do have syllabus assignments. We've got all the academic background stuff that you kind of need if that ever happens. And then we've also been in conversation with other seminaries to do something along the lines of a competency-based theological education where they would recognize the work that our students, learners, participants have done and then grant them certain credits toward one of their degrees. But we ourselves are not. This is my pendulum swing from academic dean. We're not really don't really have in the plans that we would create our own kind of degree system um they get certificates that come from us okay um when they've completed a series of courses and everything but nothing accredited by ats or anyone like that have you guys talked to

you should talk to um the people down at denver seminary i feel like they're a lot of institutions there's so much background and hurdles and this and that so to get innovative is just i can only imagine how big of a nightmare it would be especially when you are accredited and they're just like oh my gosh the thought of even trying to create some kind of something else is so overwhelming uh denver's one and i'm sure there's others i don't want to um but i the people at the very top they're very in tune with kind of cultural shifts and movements and are really trying to explore like what does theological education look like in a post internet post pandemic post trump post whatever world we're living in it's just it's very different the world today is very different than when almost all of our traditional schools were created.

And I think, which is fine, but it's like we do have to start to... Like one of the things I asked Denver and other schools is like, okay, we all know that anybody that steps foot in the ministry is going to be hammered with questions about what? Finish my sentence. Sexuality. Sexuality. Gender. with questions about what what what finish my sentence sexuality sexuality gender politics um half our youth group is you know lgbtq um uh race there's riots outside my you know the uh politics our church is divided over you know um abortion the list goes on so it's like okay how much of that is built into our curriculum and it's like, okay, how much of that is built into our curriculum? And it's like, yeah, we have an ethics class that's optional. And we spend a couple of weeks on sexuality. And you can write a paper on it if you want.

It's my cynical. I know there's sometimes more than that. But I guess it's a very long question. Are you guys addressing maybe or helping to prepare people for some of those really immediate and crucial pastoral needs? And what does that, what does that look like? Yeah, I think so. I mean, so one of the ways, like the very first class we did at Faith Church Dyer, and we can talk about the broader spectrum of what we do. We keep kind of coming back to that, but the first class that we did was contemporary cultural stories. And so this is where I feel like for us, we looked a

little bit at what others were doing. One example of this is the missional training center in Phoenix with Mike Goheen and his emphasis on the missiology that, you know, when we think about where we're at in our culture, again, so many people still have the Christendom mindset and doing ministry in a Christendom mindset and shifting to think through how do we engage a culture and even people in our own pews who are very much trained by these stories that are not the Christian story, not the biblical story. And so I think we try to recognize, and that's woven throughout. I'm doing a class on sexuality this year with some folks who are engaging in Grand Rapids and elsewhere.

And so I think that sense of we want to be attentive to the ministry questions on the ground first and let that shape the questions that we're asking and even the kind of the outcomes that we're looking for. So it doesn't minimize those other things, but it says, you know, being able to give the four options for how the Hebrew should be translated in this passage is not the most pressing pastoral question that people are going to face. And I love the languages. I love doing that. But again, sometimes we start with these things that are so academic and abstract that we do need to have somebody in our church addressing them in some way. But if we're thinking about what does ministry look like on the ground, how do we start from there to equip people for where our culture is at, where our church is at, what you have to navigate today? It's such a hard tension for me because I still believe, like you said, that languages are super important.

They are. And to be able to even navigate a good commentary that is dealing with the Hebrew. And if you're preaching through Genesis, you should be able to understand some of the top commentaries that are looking at this Hebrew phrase and this word or whatever. So I don't want to minimize that. I don't want to minimize having a solid knowledge of the Bible, taking OT survey one and two and New Testament backgrounds. You can't understand the New Testament without diving into the background. So as I think through, it's like, oh, as I think through the kind of needs, all I did is recreate the traditional 98 credit hours of a seminary.

But then I'm like, then I'm the one, you know, sounding a horn. Well, we need like three semesters on sexuality and two on gender. And, and we need, but it's like, well, yeah, you can't do it all. So it's such a hard tension. I don't want to ditch the languages. I don't want to say, oh, just go read the Old Testament on your own. And we're not, we're just going to teach on race and politics or whatever. Like, I don't know.

Like, what's the answer to this? Well, I mean, that's where I think the irrigation metaphor is actually really helpful because there are already institutions who will teach you Hebrew and Greek and do Old Testament survey and all that stuff. That part of the irrigation line is getting water. What we're trying to do is look for where are the gaps in this irrigation line that are not getting water. And a lot of that is, like we've said, other leaders in the church. trying to do is look for where are the gaps in this irrigation line that are not getting water.

And a lot of that is, like we've said, other leaders in the church. The pastors may know Greek and Hebrew, maybe, if they've kept up with it, but the elders, most of the elders probably don't, and your deacons don't, and other staff members don't. And they may not be able to do some of this, even the theological work that those who've already received a lot of this watering, a lot of this training. And so that's kind of what what we're again, we're trying we're not replacing seminaries. We're really trying to like water a different parts of the field so that there's, you know, a more saturated field. So this is where just to briefly mention a couple other things in terms of what we do. So part of what we do is equipping for elders and deacons, other lay leaders. We lead several of these per year that are multi-church workshops, as well as going into churches and doing specific workshops for those churches focused on cultivating leaders or addressing tough topics,

you know, going in to talk to them and equip them on matters of sexuality and gender, things of that nature. So trying to provide at that part of the garden, the irrigation stream, making sure that we're providing more opportunities for people to grow. We do ministry formation groups in Grand Rapids that a lot of those are elders or younger, you know, 20s and 30s staff members at churches. Again, people who for different reasons are not going to seminary, that's not really even on the table, but who want to keep learning and growing in community. We're also doing stuff for pastors. And so Jeff

leads a once a month, a pastor's group that focuses primarily on, uh, you know, just, just soaking in scripture, prayer, spiritual nourishment. Uh, and then this year, starting in August, we're going to start a pastor's learning cohort, uh, on gender and sexuality. So get pastors together once a month to really dig in deeper to say how we as pastors and leaders equip our churches, uh churches to do better pastoral care for LGBT plus people and their families. And so I think one of the things we're trying to do is to help churches shift their mindset so that churches see the need and value for churches themselves to be lifelong learning communities. And so I think this is part of the deficiency of kind of the degree system is not

only is it focused very narrowly on a, you know, one part that's getting all the water, but it's also terminal in that it's like, okay, do this, jump through these hoops, get your degree and you're done. And most pastors are continuing to wanting to learn and grow. And they want people in their churches to do that. But many churches don't really have a mechanism, a culture, or a system set up whereby you would see something like that happen. And so I think that's maybe one of the big shifts. Again, it's not to pit sort of practical ministry against the languages or some of those other pieces, but to say, where and how does this fit and see what do people need now, what do people need next as they go along in order to grow.

So you assess... By the way, let me plug your book real quick so it doesn't look like you made me do it. So Branson just finished an incredible book. I mean, Sexual Ethics, Theology of the Body. It's kind of like a Protestant version of JP2's Theology of the Body. I don't know if that's how you want me to pitch it, but it's called Every Body Matters. Is that the... Everybody's Story. Everybody's Story. Everybody's Story. That's what I love about it. That bodies tell a story. Your sexual ethics tell a story. Your marriage tells a story. And that's very much the design, you know, the God is... The thing that God's designed it to do. So when's

that come out real quick? I'm sorry for the detour, but, um, no, that's okay. Yeah. That comes out October 11th. Oh gosh. Okay. So sweet. Yeah. I wrote the forward to it very gladly is incredible book. So, so you're, you assess the need. So I'm, I'm, you know, I'm going to keep mentioning Bob Bauer cause he listens to the podcast. So another shout out to Bob Bauer. But for example, like Bob, you know, probably doesn't need a class on preaching. He's a good preacher. You know, like that's probably not the most pressing need is I want to be able to preach better. Maybe it is, Bob. I don't know. You can let me know. Maybe taking an Old Testament survey class. You know, he's done that in seminary. He's

been reading the Bible for, you know, umpteen years. He's not that old, but he might say, yeah, but we have lots of divisions in the church around race and I need to really get my mind around this. I want my elders to get a handle on, is CRT the Messiah or the devil, or none of the above. So you assess, or you probably talk with the leaders and say, okay, what are your, to use your metaphor, the dry spots in the ground that need some more irrigation? We don't need to keep water in the green grass. We're going to be fine there. But there's some dry spots here that are really wrecking the whole lawn, if you will. Is that an accurate way of framing it? It's very needs-based on the ground, needs-based? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's very needs-based, on-the-ground needs-based.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's where, for us, it's really important that we are, in a lot of ways, in the trenches with the churches and church leaders that we're working with. We want to understand what's going on in their context and be able to provide teaching, training, and equipping that meets those needs, that connects with that, as well as also, at certain times, being able to say, well, here's a need maybe that we're seeing that you're not necessarily seeing, right, to kind of go back and forth in that kind of partnership. And yeah, that's exactly right in terms of pastors. You know, like I mentioned with the pastors learning cohort, that's part of what we want to develop is places where, again, whether it matters like sexuality or I'm already thinking probably next

year, 23, 24, politics, you know, how do you navigate as a pastor? And a big part of what I love about what we get to do is that we're doing this oftentimes together in a way that creates community among leaders of a local church, but also multiple local churches and pastors who are getting together, that I think is extremely valuable to know I'm not alone. I'm not the only pastor who's looking at my Facebook feed thinking, what is going on with people in my congregation? I'm, you know, I'm not the only one who does, it's okay to admit, I don't really know what to do. How do I come alongside this teenager and their family that it's wrestling with gender identity issues. And so to, to even be in the same room with others who are walking that ministry journey, I think is, is incredibly helpful. And I think it's a

piece that we sometimes leave out of the education is the actual formation in and for community, like that, that pastoral ministry. We we've kind of cast that as very much a solo, you know, go get trained solo and you'll be part of the staff, but you're also kind of on your own. And so I don't really think there's, like, I think there's a great deal of connection when pastors do get in the same room because they don't feel alone. But even there, I wonder how can we re-revision, remodel even how we think about that, that churches would say, yeah, it's normal. I would want my pastor to be part of this monthly group where they're praying and soaking in the word and where they are learning with other pastors because that's going to be key for their own life and ministry, sustainability. That's good.

Wow. How do we handle the... I just keep thinking, man, 2016 opened our eyes to people's Facebook feeds and what's really going on in the heart. 2020 put it over the top. 2024 is going to be a bomb. It's going to be... Yes. I mean, on one sense, as somebody who's pretty much you know as an exiled living in babylon it's gonna be a little entertaining on one i mean it's gonna be it's gonna be like i'm gonna i'm gonna cancel netflix i'm just gonna turn on the news and get my popcorn this is gonna be like oh my word this is gonna be that's a little probably too

cynical because people's lives are affected by political movements. But how do we prepare church leaders for what's going to be loads of political divisions in the church? Loads of church divisions and divisiveness in 2024. What do we start doing? Jeff, you're the historical theology. Yeah. Changing the kingdom. What's worked in the past? Anything? Yeah. Oh, I mean, obviously, yeah. In the past, there's lots of divisions and changes of leadership and everything. And I mean, I think, yeah, the exile versus are we Babylon or are we

Israel is kind of one of the key, I don't know, metaphors to look at this, because I think a lot of people, particularly, you know, politically right, have viewed America as this nation that is like Israel. We're God's chosen people. And so, of course, we should have the leaders and of course we should have all this protection. And, you know, I would say, you know, all this protection. And, you know, I would say, you know, a lot of that has waned significantly, and we're not. I mean, we've never been Israel. We've never been the chosen people of the United States. So I think it's kind of recognizing where we are in history and, you know, who we are as part of the Gentiles. And I think the focus now for the church needs to be more on the church and how do we develop as faithful followers of Jesus in community rather than trying to like,

you know, steer things politically. I mean, of course, I'm going to vote and I'm going to make good choices and everything. But I think Christ's kingdom, and I mean, you mentioned suffering in the cross, like the reality of the cross as what it means to be followers of Jesus has to take priority over our political alliances, our political hopes, our political aspirations. I have the solution. I have the solution. Somehow convince Christians to turn off the news or, or, or, um,

to, yeah, I think shut it. I mean, not turn off the news, but most of the news outlets, whether it's CNN or Fox, um,

yeah, that is playing a huge discipleship role in, in the church. Huge. I almost sound like Trump there. Huge. And there are some better outlets. Let me plug the Pour Over podcast. This is a Christian based news outlet that gives you, here's what's going on. They're not going to even bend your heart in this direction. They're not even going to say it in a way that's like makes you like Trump or angry at Trump or whatever.

I can't believe we're still talking about Trump. I thought he was gone. Yeah, they're not going to mock Biden's age. They're just going to say, here's the decision that happened. You make your own interpretive. But if we just had a more neutral funnel from which we get informed on what's going on, because I do think, Christian, we should should be informed i don't want to put our head in the sand but the medium of how we get informed is so huge so driven by propaganda and and and spiritual formation it's bending our

affections in a certain direction and usually it's turned towards anger and bitterness and outrage towards anybody else who is on the other side of this babylonian political aisle which is it's it's a is it a crisis i think it's a crisis i've seen so many families divided and churches divided and not over theology not over i think we should do missions better no we don't you know it's like wait you're wearing a mask you know who'd you vote for it's like oh my word satan is just laughing he's just like i he's just like i'm sure he's just like saying i can't believe i can't believe how easy this was i didn't have to open up i didn't have to like manipulate doctrine or get people to not believe

in them it just i just had to like talk about get them to listen to this outlet or not that outlet you know the whole system is designed to spark that outrage because that's what draws audiences. Yes. So, you know, I mean, social media news, everyone is in this like business of getting your attention. And the way to get your attention is to drive this like polarization and outrage. And I mean, that is you're right. That's totally forming us and shaping us in ways that are not very healthy and also not very christ-like so how do you get how do you convince people to turn it off or i mean have you tried have you seen success of because some people it's like they don't realize that this steady drip of this propaganda news outlet is shaping my heart it's it's when you step back it seems so obvious but like people

are in it it's can we pry them away from that? How do we do that? Well, I like your strategy of just saying, some of it just turned off. In fact, my pastor two weeks ago on Sunday said that. He's like, you all need to turn off the news and just stop taking that in all the time. I think it reveals this discipleship deficit, or maybe it shows we need to name it for what it is, like that it's being, you are being discipled, you are being shaped and formed in a way that I think, again, probably for lack of biblical and theological rootedness, most Christians don't recognize that

this is leading you astray from your calling as Christians. That, again, the way we tell the story, I guess both conservative and progressive, ends up tying our faith so closely to the politics of the country that, again, the church is just eclipsed. There's no theology of the people of God as being somehow distinctive. And yeah, you wonder what would happen if,

if you were to say, okay, you can, you know, you're the hours of, you know, social media and news that you take in has to be equal to or less than the time you spend face to face with other believers from your local body. And if it doesn't, then then then you just need to recognize that you are that you are american first and christian second right like that that one of those takes priority over the others i mean that yeah i don't know that might seem harsh for people like like can you really do that yeah i think so so hard i i love to just play around with scenarios like i and we're kind of largely post-pandemic right or i don't know depends on what state you're living in but um i always wonder like what if trump was like super into masks yeah right well what would that have done i know i

think the same thing yeah is it is it so is it based on like science is it based on hell or is it really you were it became such a tribalistic identity that if he was super into in the map or people that are like you know thinking like if you don't get vaccinated you're immoral i i tell people which is typically that'd be people on the left it's it's the you want to get people vaccinated just start calling it the trump vaccine like oh yeah i totally trust it i don't really like trump didn't vote for him but man he really ran through this vaccine and so thankful for him like i i know i took the trump vaccine i trust the trump vaccine you know i know that i'm gonna get emails for that but i mean just yeah it people are so tribalistically oriented now they just don't realize. I think they don't. It's just like, it's absorbed, you know?

Oh, man. Anyway. Yeah, that's where I think Jonathan Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind, I know we've talked about that before. It's huge. I think that's so helpful in terms of, even though it's not from an overtly Christian source, I think that's actually a helpful source for pastors to read, to have a sense of what's going on with the tribalism in my church. Why is it that, again, people gravitate to whatever political personalities, commentators in a way that they'll do whatever they say. Will they listen to their pastor or their local church? Probably not. But they'll connect with this tribe of people because it just reinforces so many different

things. I've been listening to, yeah, so I do the pour over podcast to get just a broad overview, kind of what are the big things, any big things that happen, you know? And then I just, I try to listen to politically either left of center, right of center, people who just are, they're independent thinkers who are engaged in long form conversations around political issues. So they don't do the sound bites. They don't rely on a tribalistic kind of narrative. They're really thinking through things. So like, I really like, so left of center, Barry Weiss is fantastic in terms of getting an honest, long form, you know, conversation about Roe v. Wade and the reversal, what that means. And we'll have different voices on Andrew Sullivan kind of right of center is good. Matt Taibbi is good.

Coleman Hughes, I don't know where he would be. He's good on the race. Like he'll push on all kinds of different stuff. I don't know where he would be. He's good on the race. Like he'll push on all kinds of different stuff, but these like having long conversation, hearing like an hour long perspective from somebody who might be right of center, left of center, but isn't going to just check off all the boxes of some tribe that they're a part of. You know, I thought I found that to be disorienting because it's like, oh, everything is way more complicated than I thought. YeahT, complicated. The Florida law is complicated. The election is complicated. Every political candidate is very complicated, which at the end of the day, if we can produce

more slow, humble thoughtfulness among Christians, obviously in the political arena, but especially in the theological arena, and how helpful that would be for discipleship so that people aren't just clinging to this voice or this slogan or this, they're actually, when they're faced with something, they're like, okay, let me slow down and really think through this, you know? And maybe it might be a while before I really form my opinion on whatever it is that's in front of me. Like, I feel like

that would, that's not an insignificant aspect of discipleship as a whole. I'm just, I'm thinking out loud here. So feel free to shoot me down or I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think, and with that though, then part of the question for churches is where do you in your regular rhythms of life create space for those kinds of long form conversations for you to sit down with other people in your church where you're going to process. Again, I think that's what I love so much about the academic world is, hey, we're going to be together for 15 weeks. We're digging deep into this.

There aren't any simple answers. And so this is what I think part of my passion for in some ways bringing those dimensions of the academic world to a church context to say, where in church contexts do we actually take the time to read, to be informed, to process? Because what I saw, I mean, as I've led my church through different things, you know, a few years ago, we walked through questions around women in leadership and ministry, you know, that for forcing people to say, Hey, you're going to read this book and this book, and we're going to get together once a month and we're going to have, you know, two and a half hours, we're going to sit and process

this. It was really fascinating because people came in, I think much more kind of firm and, and hard on their stance. And once they start to get into it, they're like, okay, they still hold to a position, but I think they hold it in a different way. They hold it with a different posture, a kind of openness, a recognition of the complexity. That's part of what I love about what we get to do with different foundry stuff is part of what we're trying to do is say, we need to create these spaces as local churches, as groups of churches where it's normal to come together and, and have these longer in-depth conversations, not just, Hey, we're doing a two weeks of Sunday school on racism. And there's your answer. You know, people are, cause that's what a lot of

people want is, you know, just give me the right answer. Tell me who to vote for. Tell me what to think. Right. 95% of like full-time church jobs i don't think i would i would fit into the the one the one little sliver of full-time church ministry i'm like i can get excited about that is to be kind of like a pat i mean i wouldn't call myself a pat like a yeah like a director of like cultural engagement where i would have like yeah so for the next four sunday evenings we're going to spend two hours interacting with the race conversation. You're going to hear somebody maybe present a certain perspective. We're going to sit down on a couch, have a conversation.

You're going to have a chance to ask Q&A. And then the next week, we might get somebody who's going to give a slightly different perspective and just really model humble, thoughtful engagement rather than reaction. And again, I think the preaching of the word on Sunday is absolutely critical. I think obviously the sacraments are critical. Worship is critical. But it's hard when I look around at churches and I see those things happening, everybody's smiling. But then you go read their Facebook feeds and it's like, oh, there's a bomb ready to go off here. Sometimes I get a little worried. We sit at church and I'll look to the person next to me.

I'm like, I wonder if they knew what I believed about a lot of stuff. Would they be appalled or have conversations with people? And I could sense kind of their political commitments or whatever. I'm like, ooh, I hope they don't google me you know well and that's what's so fascinating because it's not these you know you look at the history of the reformation and the things that divided churches you know 400 years ago and now it's not right it's not even like you said biblical or theological issues it's these questions of socio-cultural political political issues that it feels like we just as a church have not done a good job

discipling people to be firmly rooted enough in a way that can address that. Yeah. We got to wrap things up. What's the next step? Somebody who's listening and like, man, yeah, I would love to engage this more. What does this look like?

I mean, obviously they can go to your website, which is... Yeah, the website is would love to engage this more. What does this look like? I mean, obviously, they can go to your website, which is. Yeah, the website is thefoundrygr.org. So it's GR because we're in Grand Rapids. So that's our home base, thefoundrygr.org. So they can go there to see. There's places to contact us there by email. We'd love to connect. And just if people have thoughts, ideas, we're very much on the front end of things as we, again, we're trying to engineer something that really serves the church on the ground.

And so somebody hears us and says, hey, we just want to get together, talk, hang out. We're always game for that. And anybody. I sometimes say we're an act tank. You've heard of think tanks. Yeah. Right. We're trying to be an act tank.

Like we're not right. We think there are plenty of articles out there about how theological education needs to change. We're trying to actually experiment and, and see what happens. Okay, sweet. So they can just say they'll shoot you an email and they go from there. Yeah. Obviously it costs money, right? I mean, they, they would pay you to come in and run a course or a couple of courses and all the info is on the website? Yep. Yeah, that's all there. And again, a big part of what we try to do is, our financial model is to work with donors and churches because we want things to be affordable for churches, for church leaders. A big part of what we do is primarily working

with churches who pay as opposed to individuals who pay. Again, that's the model of education, with churches who pay as opposed to individuals who pay. Again, that's the model of education, usually all on the individual. We try to encourage churches to embrace that as part of, again, the shift that needs to happen to some extent, that that's largely a church focus rather than just the individual. That's great. I'm glad you offset the cost. I will say churches spend money on what they value. I just heard we just heard we had we had a big uh greg lorry crusade here in boise i didn't know that that was still like a thing but um we had a big i don't know how many thousands of people when it's free the event's free but i just found out that like to put it on it costs a million dollars and churches pay half of that so the

churches in boise paid five hundred,000 to bring in Greg Laurie, you know, the show, the gospel for, for a night. Um, I'm sure there's lots of value there, but that, that just, I mean, that's half a million dollars that churches had that eagerly gave for that. So they saw value in it and they, they came up with the money. Um, if you guys had half a million dollars to do theological education in a city, would that be, would you need more? Like, how far would that go? You know, but if people don't see it's a need, they're not going to pay it. They're like, yeah, but we'd rather, you know, have an event, you know, and hear Greg Laurie.

Well, yeah. And I think, I think part of it too is again, shifting our mindset to, as opposed to centralized seminaries with the bricks and mortar, pretty big infrastructures to maintain. What we're doing is a lot more cost effective. And so it, uh, so it, so it does cost less, but you're right there. There does have to be a value there. And I think that's, this is not a knock on churches, but we'll sometimes go and they're like, you know, we don't know why our leaders aren't developing. We wish we had more. And then you ask like, well, how much did you budget for that this past year? And a lot of times it's $500 or $1,000. And so it's like, well, as the saying goes, your system is perfectly designed for the results you're getting. And so that's where

when you think about the kind of investment that it needs, I think there is investment there, but it's much more better use of stewardship to think about maybe some different models than some others that are at play. Yeah, you spend money on what you value. I mean, that's true of my life, your life, Church's life and everything. Sure. Yeah. Well, guys, I'm super excited about this. I'm going to post links in the show notes.

People can go down and click on it. I hope you get a lot of emails and just people that at least are like, hey, I would love to explore what this could look like. Because, yeah, you just said something. It was so perfectly worded that the results of discipleship are what you invested. How did you say it? That was really a brilliantly worded way of putting it. Was it just that your system is perfectly designed to produce the results it's getting? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. results it's getting. And so what you invest in discipleship and theological education,

ministry training, you know, you're going to see the results there based on how much you put into it. And if you're a pastor, I would imagine, you know, if you're putting out all these fires in the church, you have to kind of go downstream and see, I was mixing metaphors, but, you know, people are drowning. Okay. You have to go downstream. Where's this coming from? And there's so much needs in the moment that I got to marry this person, bury this person. I wish I could bury this other person. And this marriage is falling apart. I got to make budget. So there's so much pressure of just the week-to-week grind of ministry that to even explore, oh, this issue

that I'm dealing with now could have been prevented if we, five years ago, we had some robust discipleship happening. Because I mean, most sinful behavior is something that went off the rails early on, right, in terms of discipleship. But I understand that that can be hard when there's so many needs in front of you. Right. And again, we've set up a system where that's not part of – for the most part, that's not part of the pastor's job or it's a small slice of it, which again is where we come in. We're kind of like the – whatever, the traveling missionaries of the New Testament time. You got your local people, but then you need people like Paul and others who are going to come alongside the people in those cities, reinforce, teach, equip good in that way. Thank you for what you're doing. This is awesome. Yeah. Thanks Preston. Thanks for having us. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.