Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1022: #1022 - Rethinking Church through Micro-Churches as Missional Communities: Lucas Pulley

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Lucas Pulley is an executive director of the Tampa Underground Network, a network of around 100 micro-churches in the Tampa Bay area. Lucas has a master’s degree from Fuller Theological seminary. In this episode, we discuss all the ins and outs of the Tampa Underground–the pros, the cons, the challenges, and wins.  https://www.lucaspulley.com 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 guest today is Lucas Pulley. Lucas is one of the executive directors of the Tampa Underground Network, which is a collective of about 100 microchurches or missional communities. And we explain a lot more what any of that means, all that means. And Lucas also works alongside Jeremy Stevens, who I had on a couple months ago on the podcast. And so we get into all things church related, talk about the kind of rather unique and innovative ecclesiology that they are operating out of there at Tampa Underground. And just really love the candid and honest conversation that I had with Lucas. He's a really good dude and love what those guys are doing down there.

So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Lucas Pulley. Lucas, thanks so much for being on Theology of the Raw. I'm really excited about this conversation. Of course. Happy to be on. What is your relationship? Were you one of the founding members or did you come on later or what's your association with? Yeah, I found a back door into the underground, you know, later on. So I started following Jesus a month before I went to college. I was born and raised up in central

Illinois, outside of Champaign-Urbana where the University of Illinois is. I was a farm, I was a farm kid and grew up in a rural community and went to Southern Illinois University. And right before I went to college, I had like a train wreck. My life went into a train wreck, you know, carpet pulled out from under everything. And so in that place, I started following Jesus and then landed in college and was trying to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus and trying to figure out how to be an independent adult individual in the college world at the same time. And in the midst of all that carnage, got connected to a campus ministry. And from the earliest moments of my faith was discipled by an older guy in his 40s that was doing campus ministry his whole career. And so was really invested in and started really early in my faith, started

like Bible studies in dorms, started doing sort of like missionary posturing and thinking about how to incarnate and how to do discovery Bible study, how to reach my friends, how to reach my classmates, that kind of stuff. And so I was just trained to think that way from very early on in my faith. And our campus fellowship was like trying to plant Bible studies in apartment complexes and dorms and all that kind of stuff. And so from the very early outset, it was like, yeah, this, like when we're studying the book of Acts and then like trying to like reach 17 story apartment complexes with Discovery Bible Studies and just trying to like invite people to investigate Jesus and take a look at scripture. we'd go to Sunday morning stuff and I'd just be like, I cannot get, I cannot understand how my Sunday morning experience as like a really immature early believer just did not make sense to me. And so I tried to get over those hurdles and like, because it felt like a thing that we

were supposed to do. But late in college, I was a senior at that point. And then right after graduating college, we just started grassroots ministries. We didn't have the language of microchurch or decentralized network or anything like that. We were just trying to follow Jesus and listen to his voice and pursue the margins and be among the lost and the poor and pursue what he was doing in the city. And it looked like a decentralized network of these little grassroots ministries. But we were making – I felt like we were making mistakes that were preventable, but we just didn't have leadership. We didn't have people mentoring us in that way of being the church. And, um, we had a lot of questions. So I started looking for help up in that we were still in that

college town. And, uh, I, and I stumbled into connection. This was way back in 2009, 2010, stumbled into connection with Tampa underground. They were at that point, they were two, three years old. And, you know, I, I moved, uh, I spent about a month with Tampa underground, just like, you know, embedded myself in the community and was like, oh gosh, this makes so much sense. Like the, the language upgrade, the theological underpinning, the philosophy, all that kind of stuff was like, oh yeah, this is like how, this is describing our experience up in Illinois. It's just like, we weren't there theologically and with some of the frameworks. And, and then, um, uh, they, some of the leaders from Tampa came up to that Illinois community and spent time with us.

And, and, uh, after that, after kind of forming our relationship like that, it was just kind of like, Hey, you guys are like us. We're like you. Let's formalize this. And so we became a sister movement of the Underground Network, one of the first ones. In Champaign, did you say? It was, it's technically Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. So it's like this little college town, earliest kind of iterations of the Underground trying to do that, like trying to figure out how to multiply in other cities. Again, the Underground was never really trying to like be this international fellowship. So it, the underground was just trying to figure out like, how do we not necessarily, how do we like replicate ourselves in other cities, but like, how do we help people like us who are trying to do this?

And, uh, so we became like a sister movement and we kept doing that for another five years. I directed that movement. And, uh, it was around was around 2016 that the guy who was leading and directing Tampa Underground asked if my wife and I would consider coming down to Tampa. He was experiencing kind of a shift in his own leadership, and the movement asked if I would consider it. And so we ended up moving down to Tampa and leading this movement ever since 2016. and leading this movement ever since 2016. So we've been here in Tampa now for almost seven years, directing the Tampa movement for several years and then eventually becoming the executive director of the broader organization.

For my listeners that might not recall everything that Jeremy said a while back, can you unpack kind of just what is the, for somebody that has no clue what it is, like what's the basic ecclesiology of the underground? I think I even asked Jeremy, like if somebody came, hung out for a month with the underground, like what would that look like? What would that concrete way look like for them? Yeah, so we've really tried to reform the imagination that people have around the word church or phrases like church planting,

that like what is conjured in their mind when they hear those words. And so we have a, what we call a minimal ecclesiology. It's like a theologically formed stance that what we believe the church is, is worship, community, and mission. And what we mean by those things is a community of, like an intentional community, like an extended family of people who are under the leadership of Jesus and trying to pursue a piece of his redemptive mission in the city together in some way. And that is the church, and it doesn't require buildings or budgets or paid leadership or programs or anything like that. That stuff can be good and it can be desired, but it's just not required to be the church. And so essentially what that's done is it's embedded in our community an imagination for church planting that feels and seems accessible to anyone.

and seems accessible to anyone. Just about anybody who's a disciple and a follower of Jesus could listen to the voice of the Lord and hear some inkling of clarity about to whom he is sending them to be a witness, to create a witnessing community. And they really believe that they could actually go and plant a creative, simple, potent, effective expression of the church among those people because their imagination isn't entangled with a stage and a to 100 of those expressions across Tampa Bay. Half of them are what we call mission-specific microchurches, which are microchurches that are gathered around a specific pocket of people or purpose that that community feels called to. And then the other half are what we call incubator microchurches, which are communities that are formed around missionary life itself and like accountability and connection around values and commitments. But the people who are committed to that community aren't all reaching the exact same group of people there. It's like a commissioning support space as they embed as missionaries where they live, work and play and elsewhere.

Oh, that's interesting. So roughly half the communities have a concrete mission. Can you give me a quick, just a quick example of one that just so people have an idea of what that means? Yeah. Urban Fellowship. F-E-L-L-A and then ship. Urban Fellowship. It's a microchurch that's really trying to incarnate and be the church among gang youth in a specific area of Tampa Bay. It's called The Box. It's a certain geographic place where gang violence is the highest. And so it's a microchurch that's made up of previous gang-affiliated people reaching gang-affiliated and at-risk youth. And they do it very creatively. Some of the stuff they've done is convert a,

what used to be a food truck into a mobile recording studio that they can just go and park in places and kind of hang out with music together. Like they, you know, so that's the thing, contextual missionaries, they think of ways to be the church among their people that nobody else will think of, you know. Now that that's helpful. So, so if you're not into like reaching gang members, that's probably not the community you're going to be. Totally. Totally. So then you have other types of communities that aren't mission focused. It's a gathering of people in all walks of life. And, you know,

so you have a businessman, a tax accountant, a stay at home mom, whatever. And, and it's more discipleship-oriented to help people follow Jesus in whatever individual sphere they kind of are in. Would that be a good way to describe it? Yes. Yep. Yep. And those might look like house churches and people might call them house churches. But technically, a house church might be a mission-specific microchurch or it might be an incubator. church might be a mission-specific microchurch or it might be an incubator. It totally depends on what they're doing because there might be a house church that says, we exist to reach this four block radius of the city. So that's very specific. You can't join that house church if you're not

going to move into that area of the city or if you're not going to try to be engaged in ministry work in that area of the city. But yeah, several of our house churches function more like incubators. An example would be mine. I, you know, I, my wife and I live in a neighborhood called College Hill, an 894 unit section eight housing village. It's the largest saturation of subsidized government housing in Tampa Bay. And we live in that neighborhood and we feel very, we've been there for the whole time we're in Tampa now. so going on seven years. And we feel very called and motivated to the neighborhood, asset-based community development, kinship, mutual community collaboration. But we convene a house church made up of people who are doing all kinds of things. There's a couple that lives three doors down from us that is intentionally trying to do microchurch, disciple-making and microchurch stuff in their CrossFit gym.

So they go to a specific CrossFit gym. They started doing a discovery Bible study on Thursday nights that they call Faith and Fitness for any of the people that are in their gym that just kind of want to like connect and look at the life of Jesus together. There's another couple in our microchurch that do a, every other Friday night, a board game night. Uh, and they're doing, they're playing board games that I've never heard of. You know, it's not like Monopoly or something. It's like, uh, you know, there's like a subculture in the board gaming world, I guess, you know, that I didn't, I was not aware of like these very, is there a board gaming world? Is that a thing? There's a whole board gaming world, man. There is a board gaming community. Yes. And they feel very committed to, uh, uh, their friends, you know, it's a, it's a world that they've been connected to for a long

time. And so, um, they, they host a board game night at their house every couple of weeks. A lot of people in our house church help can help put on that board game night or participate in it, but they're really trying to reach their friends. And there's another couple that comes to our house church that does campus ministry at the University of South Florida. There's another woman in our community that is doing a very intentional workplace ministry at her office. She works downtown in one of the towers. And, you know, my wife and I do neighborhood stuff, very intentional neighborhood stuff. I run a handyman repair service for my neighborhood. And I only take jobs that are within like a four or five block radius and any jobs outside of that, I hand off to a sober

living community of guys that just need work. But it's the way that I get in the living room and, and spend time with families on the block. That's what an incubator might look like. We're just one of them. But there's almost a dozen of these kind of incubator-type microchurches around Tampa Bay that are made up of people that have different senses of calling. They're trying to live out their citizenship in heaven in different places. That's just what ours look like, looks like. The word incubator makes it sound like there's, there's a further goal that you're trying,

like this, you're not staying here, you're getting somewhere else. Would that be true? Yeah, that would be, that would, it is exactly right. Yeah. It's like, so we would say, um, and I don't know how much Jeremy, I don't know what you talked with Jeremy about, but there's, there's sort of like four phases and microchurch development and phase one and phase two are phase one is like, you haven't, you have an idea, you have a dream, you have an aspiration, you have a clarity of calling, but you haven't quite yet started experimenting. And phase two would be experimentation. So you're like trying things, you're trying outreaches, you're trying ideas, but you maybe haven't figured out what works and what doesn't work yet.

And we've kind of realized over time that people who are doing phase one or phase two microchurch planting, it's really helpful for them to actually be incubated in one of the incubators because they, they don't have yet a fully formed community. So, and they shouldn't go very long without having that. Essentially what's happening is those incubators are full of new microchurch plants, but those, the people who are doing the planting might not even, might not even be self-aware that that's what's happening. Like they might not say, oh, I'm trying to plant a microchurch. They're just trying to be faithful, like among their own. So the people who are doing like CrossFit gym planting, I don't think they would say right now, like we're planting a microchurch. But if there

are a few people in that, in that gym that start to follow Jesus, and then they start to form like a little, like really discipled community. And then those people catch a vision for like, what if we could do this in a more intentional way in the gym or in other gyms, that's going to become a microchurch, you know, where they wouldn't necessarily have to be a part of our incubator anymore. Is there screening or parameters of what can become kind of like the mission? Like if I want to start like a pizza eating community that watches Major League Baseball, it sounds so funny.

This sounds amazing. Part of the pizza eating community. I mean, is there any kind of like criteria or is it just kind of like yeah we're not sure that's really yeah the mission i mean you could make a case i mean lots of people are really in the pizza and maybe there is a subculture pizza eaters that need to be reached or i don't know yeah so it's a great question and we we do have some screening, but we basically have a process where we talk with people both in written forum and in like a little face-to-face orientation. It's not really like an interview or something like that, but we're basically helping that person discern either the thing you're already doing or the thing that you want to do. Both happen.

Like people either already have something going on and they need help or they have a dream and they need help getting off the ground. We'll basically just help them talk out how does currently or you aspire to incorporate worship in this thing? How are you currently or aspire to incorporate mission? How are you currently or aspire to incorporate community? So that's us just talking out, is this really a church or is it something else? And the other piece of clarity is just like the center point of every microchurch is calling. It's like, is the Lord asking you to do this or not? But to your point, we just had a – I don't know if conference is the right word. We had like a summit over the weekend this last weekend.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And part of that gathering was having like acknowledging publicly like, hey, a microchurch is not an opportunity for you to just justify your hobbies. To just like stamp the Holy Spirit on your pre-existing interests or something like that. You really need to like discern how, like what the Lord is leading you to do and listen to his voice. And if he is calling you to do that, you really have to discern if, if your intent is to plant and potentially even eventually be an overseer of like a witnessing community among those people and to talk through

that, you know? So yeah, we're very conscious of people who love eating pizza and watching baseball. Just thinking like, I want to do that as much as possible. Full time, full time. I got a buddy who's a baseball scout and I'm like, that is my dream job. Yeah. Yeah. This just going around a game.

You're just getting paid to watch baseball going around to watch. Yeah. That you could actually turn that into a mission. I'm sure he has. And he's a believer and probably the baseball scouting community. I mean, I'll be the chaplain. How about chaplain?

Just kick me down some tickets. But in fairness, in fairness, if you were to convene on a regular basis, a pizza eating, baseball watching community, and you felt like called by God to do that, you better believe there'd be a bunch of people who are coming to that who would never

walk through the threshold, the door thresholds of a church at any point in their life. You know what I'm saying? Here's one in all seriousness. And I've written a blog called Dive Bar Church. Um, I have way more, um, natural conversations when I, every now and then. So Boise, where I live is very, very Christian, very religious, you know? So where do all the Christians go? They go to coffee shop. So when I go to a coffee shop, which I do, I usually work in my basement here and then I'll go and go to a coffee shop. Then I go to a coffee shop and everybody's having Bible studies and stuff. I'm like, okay, where are any non-Christians in here? So there's a uh this is the second time i've done this where i find kind of a local dive bar where i go and you know usually like sometimes like late afternoon i just

need to answer some emails or whatever i'll go have a beer and just you know just be around i want to be around like i want to hear people swearing i want to be around people that you know it's just good for my psyche to sit in my basement filled with Christian books, doing Christian stuff. It actually makes you a lazy theological thinker because you're not actually. Anyway, there's something about just the atmosphere. Anyway, so this dive bar I go to, and every time I've done this, I have, and this is not, I don't know what to make of this, but I i have to shoo people away from conversation whereas when i go to church it's the opposite it's the opposite you're trying to oh 100 if i try to talk to somebody they look at me like i'll even say this i would say this happens probably 70 at least 75

percent of the time at church when like i'll say hi oh hi my name my name's Preston. And they say, hi. And they shake my hand. And I'm like, and what's your name? And then we stare at each other. And sometimes if I'm in a salty mood, I'll just stare at them. Yeah, right. But I can't take it. I get all embarrassed. I'm like, so I start asking questions. What do you do?

And it's one side and I get exhausted and I go home and it's fine. It's church. That's what church is. It's just weird yeah social interaction i go to the dive bar and i'm beating people away with the stick totally capable of conversation yes because here's what somebody told me this years ago who was it it was um oh that famous sermon from like the late 70s anyway he said people don't go to bars to drink drinks are expensive in a bar. They want a drink. They can get a six-pack for the price of two beers.

They go there because they want to be around people. Yeah. And you go and you feel people are just looking to make eye contact and talk. And you see if you go late afternoon, they're not hammered yet. So, I mean, you can actually have, you know. Yes. All that to say, I think that could be an untapped, get a few Christians where there's a bunch of humans that gather all the time at these local kind of dive bars that are eager to talk. Yeah.

That will ask you questions that, it's fascinating, dude. Some of our best, like, you know, we get in these environments where all these microchurch leaders get in the same room, and if we kind of create an environment where it's like, hey, just swap some stories of some of the things you've seen or experienced over the last year. It's testimony time, and you're kind of building faith in the room. Some of the best stories or experiences that we've kind of shared across network over the last few years have come from a handful of microchurches that are doing dive bar stuff. One of them was called Beer and Bible. Yeah. One of them was called Beer and Bible. And it was, you know, started a couple that started like looking at stories in the life of Jesus at a kind of a cheers type bar on the first floor of an apartment complex. Right. So it's the same people there every time. Yeah. And they would basically, they just created a relationship with the manager who was like, hey, what if we, what if we every Wednesday came in here

seven, eight o'clock with just like a little paper that we print out that's just a story from the gospels. It's just a story. And we're just, and everybody gets one beer and we sit at the community table in the middle of the bar and we just have an open conversation like about this, this story. There was so much fruit and so much like spiritual vitality that they started doing that in multiple bars. There was like at one, at one point in time, there was like four or five different beer and Bibles happening, um, or before COVID. Um, and and there was another another guy over in brandon that started now it wasn't beer and bible it was called something different i think it was called

bible at the bar or whatever but he but it was a harley davidson it was a bar attached to a harley davidson dealership i i could picture every single member in that bar right now and he worked at the harley davidson dealership oh yeah and he like you're saying, he started realizing like I'm having the best spiritual conversations with people at the bar. And he basically was just like I don't need to go to my Sunday morning shift at the dealership that nobody else wants because I can actually have like really great spiritual conversations with people at the bar that aren't going to go to first Baptist or whatever. Um, so worship community and mission, when you say worship, what do you mean by that? We always use, you would think like, so you have singing. Well, I'm assuming it's probably includes more than just singing. Yeah. Yeah. We always have to

clarify it with people. What we mean by community is not like see each other once a week and then never talk anymore. It's like interdependent, life on life, spiritual family, extended family. What we mean by mission is to proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom to the lost and the poor, not like advance your political cause or to try to convince Christians of your thoughts and beliefs or something like that. And what we mean by worship is not banging on a guitar or something like that, but it's like Romans 12, living sacrifice all unto Jesus, surrendered to his reign, like hoping to extend his reign together. So it does open, it does like open up the imagination of what worship can look like. So it does open, it does like open up the imagination of what worship can look like. So it's basically just like in the rhythms of your community,

do you consistently acknowledge and surrender to the reign of Jesus? And that can look like, it can look like singing. It can look like saying a quick liturgy before you have dinner together, like a breaking bread sort of liturgy before you have tacos or something like that. It can look like kind of a group, Lectio Divina, kind of listening prayer, contemplative prayer together. It can look all kinds of ways. Do you have groups that, I guess my next question to that would be like, what's, like, I don't want to use the word to use because it's going to sound more traditional, but like Bible study, theological discipleship, all that whole world. Like, what does that just differ from group to group to group?

I would imagine for, you know, 100 microchurches, you probably have a decent number, maybe a small handful of people that are just really want to dive deep theologically. Is there space for them to do that with a guide that can help them? Right. Is there space for them to do that with a guide that can help them? Right. Yeah. So the way that microchurches are engaging the scriptures and theological development is-county radius, the way that they're doing a Bible study or, you know, some people do topical, some people are doing kind of like exegetical, let's just pick a book and train the people

we're working with to really do like good inductive Bible study. Some people are doing like Dio Divina and more contemplative Bible study like listen for the Lord through the Word and encounter the Lord in the Word. Some people are doing very missionary like discovery Bible study forms. But in terms of those leaders and their own theological development, that's part of how the network – like the centralized services of the network can benefit them. So the underground is a dual operating system. It's simultaneously two things. That's why sometimes it's hard to explain. On the one hand, the underground is this grassroots network of microchurches. But on the other hand, the underground is a nonprofit platform of services that exists to come alongside and serve and meet

the needs of those microchurch leaders. So I'm the, I'm the executive director of that organization. So I'm not paid or anything like that to lead. I'm a microchurch leader and I'm just one of a hundred. Um, and I'm not paying for that. It's not part of my job, anything like that. That's all off time or whatever. My job is to lead a nonprofit that has 20 staff and a budget and a coworking facility that's entirely designed, all the

resources, all the decisions, all the programs, entirely designed to serve the network of churches across Tampa and what they need. And one of those needs is training and theological development. So we do have like a training director and a training department and a coaching department department that creates both resources and platforms like events or intensives or cohorts to do more kind of theological development for the leaders in the network that are like, I really want to develop in that area. That's really interesting. I mean, Jeremy explained that to me. It's starting to make more sense now. So yeah, 20 staff. So this is like a pretty decent-sized nonprofit. Yeah, yeah.

So we have... Technically, it's independent of the microchurches, technically, on paper. But it is founded to serve the microchurches. So you do have, in a sense... I guess this is another question I had. You do have... Your paid staff is not people involved with the microchurches. Nobody gets money to do anything there, right? No. But the centralized network

is people. There's 20 people that are paid. Yes. Yeah. And so right now we have five departments and five directors of those departments. Those departments are some of the core needs that we've discerned right now are really helpful to a lot of those microchurches. The training department is one of them that I've mentioned that, again, it creates resource, training resources, Bible study resources, and platforms for those leaders. A coaching department that helps connect with microchurch leaders, at least on a monthly basis, to just see how they're doing to, and it's reactive coaching. It's like, what do you need right now? We're not trying to like tell you what to do. We're trying to like help you discern what's up right now. The other departments are sort of organizational development. There's a media department.

There's a financial services department. So it's like any microchurch that gets to a situation where they want to take in donations or, or spend money on ministry or something like that, or hire independent contractors or even part money on ministry or something like that, or hire independent contractors or even part-time staff or something like that. We have a finance department that can do all of that for them instead of every individual microchurch needing to create their own financial solutions. So the same with the media department, like if any microchurches have the need for graphic design or video work or website development or print materials, instead of every microchurches have the need for graphic design or video work or website development or print materials, instead of every microchurch having to grow those proficiencies, we can create one

department of the best people that we have and everybody can share it. And we kind of give it away to the network. How is the nonprofit funded? Is it donor supported or? Yeah, it's, it's in part, it's a complicated economic model. Um, it is every year. We just kind of duct tape it together right now. It, the, the revenue for the movement comes from three, uh, funding sources that are almost equal thirds. One of them is what we call the common purse, which is basically people who consider the underground home, their spiritual family, and they want to give to help the family exist so essentially they're tithing we don't call it that but they're like giving monthly to help the thing exist the other uh piece is external support raising like you just mentioned basically everybody on staff with the underground has to

contribute in some way to helping raise support from outside of the common, outside the network. So not common person, friends and family networks, trying to do fundraisers, that kind of stuff. But I will say just real briefly, we've, we have tried to, um, disconnect people's salaries from their personal ability to raise money. Um, so it's kind of like the team has a funding goal as a team, and we try to raise it together. But your ability to raise money is not connected to what you get paid. So some people actually raise way more than they get paid, and some people raise way less than they get paid. But a lot of times those factors into how fundable you are have nothing to – it just weren't your choice. It just weren't your choice. And then the third revenue pot is in revenue is subsidizing their existence for microchurches. Same with

the finance department. They're functioning as a financial services company for retail clients 30% of the time to subsidize their existence for the exempt purpose that we have to serve microchurch leaders. That's really interesting. Yeah. Same with the building. We have like a big co-working space for microchurches to have a place to work, private offices, conference rooms, but that space is accessible to have co-working memberships or reservable event space by retail clients that have nothing to do with our network. So all of the combination of all of those revenue generating enterprises is about a third, maybe a little bit more of our total economic model. About a third is kind of self, the business ventures that people are. Yeah. Yeah. Could you get towards a hundred percent or would that take

too much time from the. Yeah, that's hard. And it's all very adaptive. Even that whole revenue generating stuff that we're doing was in reaction to the common purse money and the, us wanting to serve more than we could provide and resources. So it was like, well, how do we adapt? How do we get a little bit more money? And so the, so we've been doing the revenue generating stuff for four or five or six years, but it was always in reaction to like, we just need to serve these people better. But it has been a dance to try to figure out, like there has been times when some of those departments start doing retail client work at more of like a 50%, 55% clip of their time and attention. And it's

like, well, at some point that's inappropriate, you know, like not, not just to the mission of the organization, but inappropriate to the, to, to the IRS, you know, it's like, we're, we're, we're basically functioning as a, uh, that's laundering money. You know, you're, you're, you're, if you're, if you're basically charging retail money to serve a purpose that you no longer have the time to do because you're only spending the time getting the retail money. Right. So there's a tricky dance there. And I think always trying to pay attention to it. So I guess my other question is if you took a traditional church with 20 staff members and, uh, yeah, a hundred micro churches, let's just say, what is that? Probably a couple thousand people maybe?

Yeah. Let's just say 20 staff members, 2,000 people. Sure. That would be similar to like a large church. Is your financial model at the end of the day, I mean, there's so many little things are so different, but at the end of the day, is it the same kind of monetary need to pull off this church thing? Or would you say yours is way more efficient, streamlined? Way more efficient. I mean, our total operating budget this year for a hundred microchurches and operating with 20 staff is $600,000. It's actually, it's closer to like 550. and a 2000 person church with 20 staff.

You're talking over a million easy. You're probably closer to two. I mean, I mean, depending on the facility you're in or whatever facility situation you figured out. Is that, is that in tech? You guys are, I would assume I'm putting your words in your mouth, but I mean, you're intentionally trying to make the church thing be less financially dependent. Totally. Yeah. Yes. We give a lot of our money away in grants year by year to microchurches. We try to put actually like percentage caps on how much we give away versus how much we can spend on facilities and that kind of stuff. And that's where our co-working facility is inside of a dying mall

in the university area of Tampa Bay. That's actually been a great solution for us, but it wasn't our choice. It was just like, who would give us the space at the dollar, at the unit cost that we could afford? Because we have to be, like you said, we have to be really efficient and we're giving money away. So it's actually decreasing our ability to make some of those decisions. So, you know, we're paying pennies on the dollar on square footage. All of our staff are very sacrificial. I mean, I think the average full-time salary right now is like between 35 and 40, uh, for, for our staff team. And, you know, the cost of living in Tampa, well, the cost of living everywhere has gone up the last six months to a year, you know? So, but the staff kind of like embrace that, like they don't feel

taken advantage of. They're very like happy to serve for as long as they can make it, you know, with their, the way their family is set up. And so the way we operate is like, it's value engineering. It's trying to get everything out of a penny. And it takes a lot of people who are very creative and sacrificial. It sounds like the average person that's part of the Tampa Underground, they're part of a microchurch on some level, very active. Nobody comes and just kind of sits and receives and goes home. Is everybody kind of like, is there just kind of in the DNA, the air you guys are breathing? Or, hey, what are you doing in your sphere of the kingdom? You know, like it'd be odd for somebody to not have any kind of mission built into their way of life.

Yeah. In the air is a good way to say it. Like if you show up to the underground and you just kind of find ways to be around the underground a few times, after about a month, ground a few times, after about a month, if you aren't like a part of a microchurch or going to a calling lab or actively trying to discern your calling or experimenting with something, you do start to feel a little uncomfortable. So that intuitive sense of discomfort, that would be called like culture or DNA or something like that. So it is like a culture that is our – it's helping us. It's helping them. It's like this intuitive, unspoken culture that's collaborating with our purpose instead of undermining it.

I do think there's a lot of – there can be a lot of church environments that really want to push towards something, and they have all the right words, and they say it in all the right ways, but they don't get traction. And after a couple of years, they're kind of like, what's happening here? And a lot of times the answer to that question is culture. Like you, you're trying to push, but you're not kind of creatively and in a discerning way addressing how culture is built. Been a culture here that's been built a long time ago. And so, yeah, we do have like, like it is normal for people to be around for a few weeks and they start to wonder, I wonder if the Lord is actually wired me to for something in the world. And, and I wonder where my place is in his mission in this city and for, for honestly, for good and for bad, you know, because it, it's great. But I, but I

think maybe every, every, there's no perfect church system, right? Everything has its pros and its cons. And I think on our side, we're always having to try to consider how to make sure that people are engaging in mission as an extension of intimacy with the Lord and an extension of their own adoption as his beloved. So that's one of the maybe the shadow sides or the edges for our community is that we have to be aware of and we have to be intentional about because it could be really easy for somebody to come and feel it in the air and like start to discern it. But they have not yet been grounded in their identity and their adoption and their belovedness. And they could actually start to feel some sense of like a heavy burden

or suddenly the gospel requires some work and it's not good news anymore. And I feel a lot of guilt or shame because I don't know what my calling is and I'm not a part of a microchurch or something. So, yeah. I could see if somebody is in a stage of life, say they're working through stuff with their teenage kids, they're having to work 50 stuff with their teenage kids they're having to work 50 hours a week yeah you know maybe their spouse is like i need you around more and one of the kids is in therapy and they're just they're just survive they're like yes okay neighbor

i can't talk to you right now i've got so much going on that i'm just trying to survive would they not would they feel almost like not at home at the Tampa underground? Like, would this not be kind of the vibe for them? Because yeah, there's always that chance. And, and, um, we've basically internally like embraced the possibility of that happening with certain folks. Right. Because like, we're always wanting to try to communicate, design for and communicate to the audience that's like willing to give everything and do everything and reach the world and needs inspired and that kind of stuff um and basically people who are in that season of life they don't actually need input from the tampa underground they need the might they need a microchurch they don't need tampa underground

they need a microchurch does that make sense need Tampa Underground. They need a microchurch. Does that make sense? Yeah. So they're not looking for the chaos of their life to be addressed by the underground. They can actually be really well stewarded and pastored by a strong— Well, they would need community, worship, discipleship, 90%. Exactly. Maybe they have 5% left over from mission, but like right now I just need to like not kill myself tonight, you know, like. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And so there are,

there are people who, who like, they stay faithful to a microchurch for a long, long, long time, but there'll be seasons where we might not see them at like a Tampa underground function as much because they're in a season of life where it's like that, that messaging around like equipping and empowerment and like all that kind of stuff. Like it's not quite what I need right now. It's not that I'm, it's not that I'm never going to do it again, but like right now I'm so tapped out, but they don't step away from their microchurch, you know, because it's like that they're like, this is what I need. I need these people.

I need these conversations. Well, that's when they become – this is a bad way of saying it, but almost they become the mission in a sense. You have a stay-at-home single parent, three kids struggling to survive working three jobs. Then they become – the church comes around them, not like, hey, what are you doing for Jesus? But like, how can we be Jesus and serve you? Yeah. Wow. the church comes around them not like hey what are you doing for jesus but like how can we be jesus and serve you and yeah wow um do you what are some other uh kansas city underground is that the right yep are you guys connected they're a sister yeah they're a sister movement in the network yep okay yep so basically we had some of those first few iterations, like way, again, way back in 2009, 2010 of basically people from the underground moving somewhere or like friends from friends from out of town that got really

connected and started to try to figure out what does it mean for people to plant things sort of like the underground and other cities that want a connection with a broader movement. So yeah, today we have like what we call a network of sister movements. And I think we have about 20 of them and Kate Kansas city underground is one of them. Um, but most of them don't actually carry the underground name. You know, there's, there's a community called the table. Um, in, uh, in Indiana, there's, we have a community in, uh, Texas. That's not called the, Portland. It's called Catalyst Network, Northeast. Actually, there's a crew right there in Boise that is really connected to KC Underground, and they've started a kind of like network of microchurches thing.

It's called the Syndicate, I think is what it's called. Right there in Boise, yeah. Syndicate. Yeah. called the syndicate i think is what it's called right there right there in boise yeah um syndicate yeah so i it's basically a collaboration through from several church leaders i think they're maybe it's a pastor of like redemption hill and there's another church okay um so there's like three or four churches that are kind of collaborating together and then trying to get like a movement of microchurches off the ground so So that's the thing. It's, but for us, the bullseye is not necessarily like, Hey, let's get as many sister movements as possible for us. The bullseye is always like anybody around the world, church leaders or teams, or even preexisting churches that are trying to figure out how to shift or

transition a little bit. We just want to serve folks and be really open-handed with our ideas and our story and, you know, help them try to figure out what it means for their own context and their own moment. Um, and for us, it's just a win to like serve and come alongside people. And the people who are sister movements are just the friends that we have that like asked, like bothered us enough times. Like we want to be more connected. We want more, want more, want more. And that's when we're like, yeah, sure. Like can be part of the family. And we just agreed a shared set of values and covenants together. It's good to have some kind of relational connection where people doing something similar can lean on somebody else who has a lot more experience.

Yeah. Yeah. And even us, I mean, we've been at it now for, I mean, 15, 16 years, but we think some of these brand new movements are going to, are going to stumble upon things that we need to learn, you know? So it's good. Like even, even Casey, there's certain things that Casey underground is doing right now that we're, we're kind of monitoring. Like, yeah, I think they're going to stumble upon something there that we need to adjust towards.

So, yeah. Okay. I want to ask you an honest question here. This is theology well let me ask it this way are you or do you find it hard not to be critical of traditional church models um and i know the right answer is this is one model not you know it's all there's no one model or whatever. But let's just be honest. I mean, you don't start something like Tampa Underground that's really pretty different unless there's some level of,

oh, I didn't fit this other model and I think there's problems with that other model. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how do you... And yeah, most people listening might be pastors of, you know, traditional models. I, as I talk to people in traditional models though, they, most of the people I talk to kind of like put the hand over the mic saying, you know, saying like, yeah, they, they're starting, it's starting to become more, they're like, I can't get out of it. I see value in what they're doing ever. But like, man, if I could just snap my fingers and like be able to create something from ground up, like overnight, I wouldn't do exactly what I'm doing now is what most pastors would tell me.

Like, I don't think they're just 110%. This is the absolute best way to disciple people is through a traditional kind of church service oriented model. I don't think I've ever heard a pastor say that. And yet for many practical reasons, it's just, it's so hard to, you know, just. Yeah. I mean, I totally, I think, um, I think it was maybe Alan Hirsch late, late 2000, 2007, 2008, they put out a book, it's called on the verge.

And that, that was the first place where they published some research that was saying, and it's way different now. That was such a long time ago, but that was the first place where they started to publish some of that research that was like 60% of the population at that time would never in their lifetime consider the idea of crossing the threshold of a church. It doesn't matter if you've got like Lecrae and fog machines or something like that, like no level of production or attraction is going to get them across the door. Like at that point, it was like 40% will consider the possibility of crossing the threshold. But even that 40% of the population that would, if you just looked at it generationally, like 50 plus

higher percentage, 30 to 50, little bit lower percentage, 30 and less, very small. You're getting down to like 10, 15% of the population when you're getting to like, you know, 20s. So I just think it's like a, it's a model that has a shelf life. And as we are moving more and more toward, um, and I don't, I don't see time as like linear forever. So even if we're on a trajectory of like downward in terms of like Christian morals, ethics, worldview, that kind of stuff. I'm not under the belief that it's going to like stay on that trajectory forever and ever, but it's definitely like we're in a post-Christian culture and we're,

we're functioning now as exiles, you know, to your, to you guys' conference, you did a few weeks ago. And the way that the attractional model of church was, was discovered and has had its heyday in a cultural moment that was like so different. It doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't exist anymore. That cultural moment is gone, and therefore the effectiveness of that model is going to be gone too. Now, right now, I do think that that model is going to reach some people that the microchurch movement kind of thing might not reach.

But that sliver of the population that it's going to be effective for is so small and it's shrinking every year. So why are we giving millions of dollars and training all of our leaders and dominating the imagination of church planting for a model that's only going to be effective for such a small sliver of people. Um, so I think like people who are future oriented and we're trying to think about what are the, what are the difficulties or troubles in a post-Christian culture? What are the models of the church that are going to be effective in a post-Christian environment? Um, how do we be the church down the road? Even now, by the way, now, not, not, it's not terribly far down the road. I mean, it's kind of happening now. So it's not necessarily, I would say a large part of the traditional church or prevailing

church model. I wouldn't say it's morally wrong. It's just like in a, in a largely ineffective and growing more so ineffective every year. Now, I would say there are pieces of it that you could say, I think some of the financial excesses, I think you could make a case are morally wrong. Like if you just read what Paul is saying in Corinthians, when he's basically like telling one church, I want you to give a bunch of money to the famine happening in Jerusalem because your plenty is meant to satisfy their needs so that in the future, their plenty

would satisfy your need. And that we function in like a global body of shared resources existing in God's abundance. Man, we should not be spending our money on lights and fog machines and that kind of stuff when that money does not belong to us. It belongs to impoverished Christian communities across the globe. Our plenty is meant to satisfy their need, and one day they're going to have plenty and we're going to have need. So I have strong opinions about like the resource management maybe of the church in the midst of that attractional model. But mostly it's like an effectiveness thing, you know, like, why do this anymore? You know? Well, that's especially like reaching the next generation. This is both my wife and I, we have four teenage kids and we're

around teenagers a lot. And just in the same way that we were living in a culture, that's just very radically different than the pre-internet, you know, culture. Our kids, Gen Z is just, it's almost like cross-cultural ministry in the way they're wired. And when I see methods that worked extremely well in 1989, they're wired. And when I see methods that worked extremely well in 1989, they really did. They were exactly what should have been done in 1993, 94, late 90s. When what we're doing now looks almost identical to then, it's well-int well intentioned i can think of names right now people have invested in discipling people under those models so yeah there's no their hearts are hard to hold i just yeah i think we should have to step back and say the the the way in which that

the form in which we're sort of using to reach this next generation. Yeah. We really need, for the sake of that generation, we really need to rethink some things. And even, I think even some of the stuff we're doing with microchurch and the imagination for microchurch is going to have a certain amount of effect for the generation that's like coming up right now and within the next five years and that kind of stuff. generation that's like coming up right now and within the next five years and that kind of stuff. But I even think there's certain versions of microchurch and ways that people are going about microchurch and the assumptions that people are bringing into microchurch that actually need to be retooled for the generation that's like 15 to 22 right now because of the digital stuff. Like there's just a whole generation of people that have spent so much of their social and relational formation and not just social media, but like even like gaming or, or digital environments.

And so much of our imagination around discipleship and learning and community formation has baked into it assumptions about people's level of like social skill and formation. Like even your – some of your comments at the very beginning that were like I'm at church. I'm trying to have a conversation. And like people almost don't know how to have a conversation. I do think there's a generation coming that so many of our tools assume a level of like social skill and social interaction and social competency. And if you come into an environment where all those assumptions aren't true, you kind of have to rework those tools to kind of be like, well, how do we – like how do you deal with social anxiety and like how to have a conversation, how to have a conversation, why to have a conversation, face-to-face interaction, a reason for community, face-to-face, person-to-person community, all that kind of stuff. What would you say is the biggest need or the thing that Tampa Underground is doing worst at?

That's a terrible way of putting it. What are we bad at? What are we bad at? What are some things like oh this model i mean we've already kind of throughout this conversation seeing things it's like man it seems like it's fostering this fostering that this is great but what are some things you're like yeah we're kind of not doing this really well yeah in some ways like you could say that we were we're like people are always asking like COVID happened, churches are decimated. I bet Tampa Underground is doing awesome because everybody kind of assumes like Tampa was in some – the underground, not just in Tampa but everywhere, was sort of ready-built for a situation like COVID, which is true. Like our microchurches were fine, all that kind of stuff.

Like they kept going. There's not a were fine, all of that kind of stuff. Like they, they kept going. There's not a whole lot of pivoting that had to happen, but we had a really hard time during COVID, not just because of COVID, but, but largely because of the, how volatile politics and social narratives and all that kind of stuff became. What we were discovered that we were bad at is that we had overcorrected toward decentralization and empowerment and kind of just like releasing people to go do their thing. And didn't, we didn't really help them understand the need for like being in close relational, investing in close relational connection with other leaders. Um, you know, it was classic for us to be like, you know, we're going

to provide this leadership summit or this like, this like network wide convening for worship and prayer. But if you don't want to come, don't come. If it's not helpful for you, don't come. It's meant to be a service to you. So if you don't see it as a service or perceive it as a service, or you don't think it's helpful, don't come. We don't want to bother you. You're the church. We're not the church. Like this is just designed to help you. So we, we were sort of, um, uh, almost overreacted. Yes, correct. Yeah. Yes. Overcorrecting a little bit where like we just so minimized the corporate environments of like cross connection between microchurches and so prioritize their microchurch. Like we don't want to do anything to disrupt your

microchurch. We don't want to ask you to do anything that would get in conflict with the needs and demands of your microchurch. And what that, and that's fine to do that. And it was fine from 2005 until 2015, because we existed in a high trust environment. So you don't need a lot of like connection to people to maintain a trusting relationship. You can see them once every six months. And when you see them, it's like, I still love you. You still love me. I still believe the best about you. You still believe the best about me. But from 2016 on, we've been in such a low trust, um, social environment. And we had, we had devalued for 10 years, all the environments that would help in that situation, you know, like for people to communicate with each other,

have connection, dialogue, humanize one another, hear each other out, all that kind of stuff. So we did have a hard time during COVID. We lost like, we lost several leaders, several leaders kind of burned out and quit. And a big part of that had nothing to do with COVID. It had to do with some of the narrative and sort of the division that was happening in broader culture and us getting so impacted by it because we had not prioritized places for the priesthood of all believers to be in connection with each other and maintain enough connection and relationship to be able to persevere some of that stuff. I could, I could tell that totally makes sense. Yeah. And even,

you know, I, I, I think this smaller gap, not just small gatherings per se, but small gatherings that are intentional, um, that, that foster deep, intimate, authentic, uh, relationship and belonging. I, I, that's, that's kind of where i'm bent i don't typically need kind of the large gathering and yet there there is a set like when you get a big group of christians together you get a sense that you're part of something much bigger than your living room you know yeah i think i think france i don't know if he still does it out at we are church but you know it's kind of like yeah they used to do like once a month everybody comes together yeah so your main christian identity is in your local community or local neighborhood, what you're doing.

But they still did have kind of a, for lack of better terms, a traditional big gathering to know that like this movement is – God is on the move. So I like that kind of balance. I don't know. Yeah. And the big thing is like I think in the ongoing work of the microchurch and leaders, they don't – they – most of the time, they're having some kind of crisis or their, their team falls apart or they, they, their ministry becomes less fruitful. They get really discouraged. And it's almost like you need those bigger environments when you're in a crisis, not because you need the environments, but because you need the peer to peer leadership relationships who you can call when you're like about to quit and they can kind of walk you off the, off the

edge or, you know, you, you've got people to kind of talk out and depressurize, you know, when you, and, and yeah, we just ran into a situation where people didn't feel like they had that with each other. And so they just held their crises inside and dealt with, you know, mental health and broke, broke and burnout and all that kind of stuff alongside the believing the worst about each other, having a hard time kind of reaching across difference and all that stuff. Wow. Well, Lucas, thanks so much for being on the show. Um, where can people find you or the, so Tampa underground is what is it? Just Tampa underground. Yep. Tampa underground.com, or you can go to underground network.org. Uh, if you want to see some of the other sister movements or some of the resources or things that we're offering at like a

national international level but yeah if you just want to learn about the tampa movement the microchurches we have here it's tampa underground.com and i'm i'm just lucas at either of those uh web addresses i barely have a pulse on social media but every once in a while i lob a joke or a picture of a child out there you know did you just give us your email that's crazy yeah yeah of course yeah yeah i'm not gonna get my email is the same actually it's lucas all the hate mail man hey good meet uh yeah meeting you and getting to know you more and uh yeah just i'm a i'm a fan from afar so keep keep keep doing it i what you guys are doing. I appreciate you and the platforms that you're creating to serve church

leaders everywhere, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.