Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1113: Rethinking Church, Discipleship, and Why We Do the Things We Do: David Kinnaman

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

David Kinnaman is the author of the bestselling books Faith For Exiles, Good Faith, You Lost Me and unChristian. He is CEO of Barna Group, a leading research and communications company that works with churches, nonprofits, and businesses ranging from film studios to financial services. In this podcast conversation, we talk about various interesting trends facing the church, including the need to "clean out the attic" of the church; that is, to reassess what it is we're doing and whether we should keep doing these things. 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest is the one and only David Kinnaman, who's the author of several books, including Faith for Exiles, Good Faith, You Lost Me, and Un-Christian. He's also the CEO of Barna Group, a leading research and communications company that works with churches, nonprofits, and businesses. And I love talking to David because he has such a good global look at various trends that live at the intersection of the church and culture. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only David Kinneman. It's been a minute, David, since you've been on the podcast, at least a few years, I think. I think it has, yeah. It's good to minute, David, since you've been on the podcast. At least a few years, I think. I think it has, yeah.

It's good to see you, though. You too, man. I wish we were hanging out in person shooting birds or something. Well, you'd be shooting birds and I'd just be aiming at them and missing. That was the funnest. That was one of the funnest weeks of my life. So we went on this invite- a week-long hunting trip we had known each other right but not we never spent that much time together and like i just remember

you walking around the gun on your shoulder like i don't know how many times you shot it maybe once or something i look natural but i wasn't very uh very good um i think i think i only i think i only pulled the trigger one time i was like dang, dang, that was loud. That hurt. I'm not going to do it again. We had worked on the NAV project before and worked a bit on some research. Oh, yeah. So we had met and interacted, but that was a fun trip. And I remember coming back, having shot no birds and caught no fish, but really trying very earnestly. That's right. That was after the the nav project that's right yeah we spent a bit of time on that i forgot yeah that book i don't i think like six people have read it and i i almost want to like

redo it because it's almost it was at that time it was almost like i i know it was interpreting the data on that you that you guys did on discipleship in the church, namely that we found out it's not really happening. And then I wrote a book kind of teasing it out, but I kind of took some liberties and kind of extended the discussion. And it became almost like this quasi-church manifesto, or at least it could have been. I almost want to rewrite that book now actually but you should do it yeah those six people are are living the true discipleship life double that that number yeah well you so i love talking with you for many reasons um ministry wise i mean you're one of the you're one of the uniquely positioned people in the country, if not the world,

that you spend your time with this global look on what's going on in the church. Most pastors don't have this liberty. They're in their own ministry. Even people that speak a lot, like I speak a lot of different churches, but it's still very anecdotal. I can tell you, yeah, I was at maybe 30 different churches last year, but I, you know, I'm there for a couple of days. I'm talking to leadership. I'm not really getting to know kind of boots on the ground issues, what's going on, but you have been doing this for, how long has it been? Like almost 30 years, right? 28 years. It has been. Yeah, no, it was, I started in 95. So we're 28 years and counting and never had any expectation to, to stick at this and sort of like each month or each

year that goes by, I'm like, wow, I'm still doing this. And I love it. I love it. Um, I thought I would be a pastor. I thought I would do either that or actually an architect. I really, I really have enjoyed, uh, you know, the, the artistic side and the, and the idea of how we build our spaces and our spaces end up shaping us. And so there's something about sort of even the theology of space that I think I've been drawn to, even as I've done this work. And so, yeah, I ended up, you know, sort of getting a job straight out of college and thought it would be an interesting sort of, you know, sort of detour on my way to local church ministry. And as the Lord has had it, uh, that is now 28 years and counting.

Oh, wow. What are some here? I guess here's where I want to go this morning. What, like, what are some either interesting or surprising trends you, you've been working on recently?

I know you do so many different projects. I know you do a lot of stuff with pastors in particular, and I've, I've, you know, paid attention to some of that, but are there some, like some, some, some trends that like wake you up in the morning? Like this, this is really something that the church needs to

either consider or respond to or improve on. Um, yeah, well, I think first it's a really fun time to be a social researcher. And, uh, the last couple of years with the pandemic, uh, were, were actually as hard as they were. And I had a personal tragedy with my wife passing away during that time. She'd been sick a long time, but passed in 2020. As hard as those years were, they were also a lot of fun. And I think there's so many interesting trends that sort of wake us up and get us moving. There's so many interesting trends that sort of wake us up and get us moving.

And some of them is just this great disintegration of the religious connectedness that people have, our society. And I'm a big believer that there's sort of like two things can be true at once. in any way to minimize this, because this is a very, very important finding, is that the church and Christianity in our society, in America in particular, North America, is quite strong and vibrant in ways that I think defy expectation. And so we're not, you know, the church isn't going to close tomorrow. And there's, you know, tens of millions of people that are active Christians. And in fact, one of the most interesting parts of that is that there's a rise of overall spiritual openness since the pandemic. That, yeah, 44% of adults say they're more interested in God today than they were at the start of the pandemic. And that was just a couple, that was late last year, 2022, when we took that poll. And even young people were much more likely to say that was true. And other indicators, too, there's kind of an open spiritual moment.

So at the same time, as there are some really good signs of hope, we're also living in a time when there is certainly less religious activity. I think COVID really showed that there is a huge lack of discipleship. Maybe there are more people that would buy your book today than back almost 8, 10 years ago. There really is almost like this COVID revealed how so many of the ways that we're trying to form people are insufficient to the task. And there's a ton of church hurt. There's a ton of disillusionment, a ton of deconstructing that's happening as people sort of say,

is this the way Jesus told us to do this? Is this the right thing? And so we're living in a very disintegrating kind of time. And we see that, I think, in politics is sort of another expression of that, like how and in what ways does the church show up in the political space. I think you and I share a conviction that we're living in a time of something like exile, that God has taken his people into different times and different periods in a way that is a different kind of dependence on him. And so I've written a lot about digital Babylon

and I know you've really been writing and thinking a lot about the notion of exile. So that's that kind of disintegrative time. It's hard, but it's also like it's a really great, beautiful time when things can bubble up that were unexpected and a new kind of faithfulness can emerge. I'm curious. You mentioned, I mean, there's so many things you could drill down, but specifically the church hurt. Is that related to the pandemic? Or is it just a growing number of people that experience church hurt happen to also sort of blossom around 2020? Or is there something more directly related to the pandemic? first of all, I mean, as long as there are humans,

other humans are going to hurt other humans. And so the Christian community, you know, has since the dawn of time, Paul writes about his disillusionment and his disappointment with some of his fellow, you know, some of his fellow travelers. And it's interesting, like, Paul was such an interesting case study of, you know, the old famous book of

F.F. Bruce, the apostle of the heart set free. And he himself experienced a kind of heart set free. It's actually one of the things that really, in my mind, is such a witness to the reality of the gospel is here's this man who is writing in a very contemporary way around his inner life and his, his connections and his hurts and his, you know, even in second Corinthians, there's this interesting little phrase where he says, some of you think I'm not really that good at public speaking, but you just wait, I'm going to get back there and lecture you like, like no time before. And so, you know, he's, he's bringing his own insecurities and is he's just very self-aware in a way

that just feels, um, you know, like the spirit of God had been alive and active in, in helping to show him things about himself. So, you know, church hurt is as old as time, but, um, there, there is something, I think, uh, about our, our moments about, um, kind of these, um, waves and waves of, of skepticism and cynicism. There's a whole trend we've sort of studied with Gen Zers about the kinds of ways that memes create kind of a little language of humor.

And often that's just funny, but it also creates this, I think, pressure point where as we're up front as leaders and speakers and organizers of humans, there's always been a conversation happening beneath the surface that we're not always fully aware of. But just imagine if people are paying attention while they're at your church service or in your youth group, now there's the possibility of, you know, you stand up and you've got everything you do 99 things right but you do one thing wrong and they're sharing a meme of the doofus from the stage and um again that's if they're paying attention to that's that's that's good if

they're you know they're hanging with you and they can call you on your hypocrisy or your your your little bumble right and um and it's so hard because as communicators, there are words we might choose or ways of communicating or times we tell on ourselves that are really humble brags or not so humble brags. So all those things have accumulated rightly and wrongly. I mean, the adversary of our souls is always trying to remind us, you know, God really say that this group of people could love you unconditionally. Did God really come and tell you this would be a leader you could follow? So there's always a spiritual dimension to this. And we want people to bring their brains and their hearts and their good,

healthy skepticism. But we're finding that, you know, at least half of millennials and Gen Z talk about having been, you know, deeply hurt, deeply disappointed, deeply frustrated with their experience at a Christian church. And that is, and, you know, sort of like, has Jesus left the building or has the church left Jesus? And so I think there's some really good questions. I think the pandemic, for the most part, church has earned a lot of favor and a lot of positivity in our society during the pandemic. People see Christians a little bit less as the problem today than they did six years ago. When Gail Bynes and I did a book called Good Faith, and it was like half of all Americans think that Christian churches are part of the problem.

So that number is not as high today as it was before the pandemic. I think churches did a good job trying to come in and solve and be practically oriented around the issues that people faced. So I think church hurt is accelerated in the digital commons as well. It's much more easy to find and hear and, you know, to tell these sort of minority reports around experiences and then to band together and then to realize, oh yeah, a lot of other people have these sort of expressions of, of, of disappointment and disillusionment. And so I think there's, I think there's some, the good news about that is it's

almost like the mental health crisis and our language around mental health challenges. People actually have the capacity to talk about these things in a pretty open way. And that, that I think is the first step towards healing. You mentioned Gen Z and millennials being frustrated with the church. What are the things they're frustrated with? Would you say, is there some big ones that stand out or is it kind of all over the map? It's a bit all over the map, but I mean, we have prepared this generation for success, but we haven't prepared them for suffering. That's one of the key things we've been learning in the research. And they actually, we did a huge global study called the open generation

with teenagers around the world since the pandemic. And it was a really cool study showing just how much there's still an openness and a desire for spirituality in people's lives. There's a real hope that there's a real belief that Jesus is real. There's openness to scripture, even among non-Christian young people. This idea of the rumors of Christianity's demise among a new generation are greatly exaggerated. It's really a pretty cool story. They're open, and they're open to a lot of things, and they're open to anything. That is part of the challenge. How do we talk about issues of gender or sexuality or any of these things? Because they're sort of like, they're open. And it's like, you know, it's great they're open and it's like you know that's great they're open but do they ever close on anything um this this church hurt then comes i think from

a lot of different places i mean obviously there are always a set of theological questions that come like did jesus is he really the only way the exclusive claim to Christ. A lot of stuff around language and emotional connectedness. And again, this is, it's not easy, but again, I think the reality is pastors and leaders and Christian leaders have to be very, very Christ-like and very, you know, humbly able to talk about the issues that people face and then to do so in a way that doesn't come across as, you know, an arrogant person who's already got all these answers settled. And so I've seen it in my own children's lives as they're young adults now, but just as we go to churches and visit different places and even how they can handle

issues of how churches and church leaders talk about grief or loss or whatever. And it's like, it's very personal to them. So, you know, like you have to be able to speak in a general way to everyone, but realize that people have a lot of accumulated hurts and challenges. And, you know, if this Christian way of life means anything, it's got to be expressed in the real lives and real words of people. But there's a growing, I think, set of questions around kind of the, I would say, I call it histrionics of church, the, you know, the performance side of worship and the kind of the business of church. You know, if we're honest, there is a sort of business of ministry.

I mean, even the Old Testament addresses the Levitical code and the, you know, the tools and techniques and rituals. But I think this generation is sort of, they don't just want a great concert. I heard this line recently that it's like so many churches are, you know, sort of like a cold play concert followed by a ted talk followed by a short cold play concert and uh and it's like they they can get a ted talk and get a cold play concert and i'm i'm i attend a great church and we you know worship more in that style more but you know more of a charismatic style and there's nothing wrong with any of that, but it's just like, how do we really break through? People have to be, the conclusion of the matter for me is this,

that people have to be transformed, heart, mind, body, and soul. And if it's only emphasized around sort of an emotional experience, what we're seeing and hearing from people is they say, I was actually emotionally manipulated to come to this conclusion about Christ. The chord progression, the lights were right. The words were tuned towards a particular thing. And they look back later and they say, I was emotionally manipulated. And so to that is to, you know, use emotion, but also use heads, you know,

our intellect and our physical, you know, bodies and our volunteerism and our generosity and our vocations. And the more we can holistically disciple, back to that theme we talked about the beginning, the more people are actually sort of insulated from seeing this as just a dog and pony show. Well, I'm hearing you say like, you didn't quite say this. Let's let me know if I'm interpreting it correctly. Um, like maybe 20, 30 years ago, like a really good kind of performance. And I'm using that term neutrally, but like the Sunday morning is, is done very well. Right. It's, it's, it touches your emotions. The songs are powerful, the preachings, you know, powerful or relevant or attractive maybe maybe, um, that used

to really drop like that, that attractional model that would really draw people in. And then it was like, okay, now they're in, now we got to figure out how to disciple these people. I'm hearing you say that whether or not that worked with older generations, with younger millennials, Gen Z, they're not going to be as attracted to that any like they're not as impressed maybe with that kind of stuff as older generations were would that be a general no i think that's accurate and i think because two things i mean one um you know performance again to use that phrase neutrally, performance technology has improved greatly. And it's also true that so many of the good ideas and innovations that have come largely from North American Christianity,

some of the megachurch sort of style, worship and communication and tools and programming, and they've found ways to annoy people the least. And again, I think that's actually a good thing. A lot of small churches are, you know, they can have bumps along the road. And again, I think there's something really powerful and beautiful gospel ministry happens in smaller churches. And sometimes that is part of the thing is we actually learn to, you know, be with each other and around each other, even in the things that don't quite feel as polished. But I think what's happening is we could probably have a great conversation around just like the

history of more contemporary worship and worship styles and more clear and compelling communication. And obviously the Jesus movement and the mega church and seeker movement and other things have kind of created this, this moment. And all those things in taking in total have been, I think, meaningful innovations and, and, and, and spiritual moves that have helped to make the church and the message of Christianity even more contemporary to our society, whatever the generation. I think what's happening, though, is we need a new wave of innovation around how we

actually do this, because those are good table stakes. When it's done well, it's done really well, and almost anyone could enjoy and find meaning and emotional resonance. And if their hearts are open, you know, God can work through a hike in the woods. God can work in a contemporary worship service and he can work in a, in a traditional service and he can work in every setting. And he does speak to us in all those different things. So I think we need both. We need to awaken people's sensibility that God is speaking in and through these forms inside and outside the walls of the church.

We also need some new innovations to help people understand how to respond when even for the, you know, like pastors certainly understand the question of, you know, like the routines that we do because they themselves often admit to us in our research that they have a hard time worshiping in church because it's become a business to become it's become part of their daily thing so they have to find other ways to worship that aren't just on sunday at their church because they're thinking about a million other details so if that's true for us as pastors that also can be true for people that have been there for, you know, a year, years or whatever.

So, so they have become, you know, people's minds are become more routine oriented. And I think that's part of what's happening. Our society is like, okay, we kind of got this.

It's not bad. We should keep doing it, but it's the table stakes then for other ways of interacting with people to bring them along on their spiritual journey. And, um, I would be, I would like anecdotally that this is a point where my anecdote really matches, I think, what you're saying.

Like I feel, yeah, especially as I work with young, and I feel like the kinds of people I interact with, they have, you know, they already kind of have maybe a little bit of jadedness with church. Maybe it's healthy. Maybe it's unhealthy. And I think sometimes when people have church hurt, we just think, wow, your church must have been really screwed up. I'm like, well, people are people. And some people have legitimate church hurt. Sometimes they did something bad.

The fault isn't always at the church. So I don't want to put all the blame on the church. I 100% agree with that. I do send just what you said, like, Oh, we got this. We've been doing this like almost like a,

I don't want to say boredom, but almost want to say that, you know, like just that, that, and I do, I do feel like I put my finger on it, but it feels like COVID exacerbated this a little bit.

And I don't know why I don't, I can only identify anecdotal correlation, no actual causation, but just kind of like, all right, we're now back, you know, and we're just going back to the same thing. And almost like this itch for something more deeper, more meaningful that people don't even really know what that is. but I do see, I see a higher number of committed Jesus loving Christians that are just either bored with church or they go out of duty or they're not, they would say, yeah, there was a time when I just couldn't wait to go to church. And when I say go to church, I mean, go to the Sunday service, you know? And I just see it, it feels like an increasing number of people that are super solid, you know, that are so solid number of people that are super solid you know that are so solid jesus

committed people that are just kind of like yeah i go because i kind of you know i feel bad if i didn't go to church you know but you know any chance they get to not go to church they would you know leap at that opportunity is that is that is that i mean again this is purely anecdotal from just random people i've kind of feeling out so Yeah, I think you're really on to something. Even talking about this, I think it's helping me pull some threads together. So, you know, after COVID, I think we all have gone through these questions of like, what do we really want out of life? I mean, to a greater or lesser extent, everyone has sort of had to face certain questions about themselves and about the world and about their work and about their worship that they wouldn't have had to confront about their white supremacy, about their racism, about other things. A friend of mine, Mindy Caliguire, had this really great analogy that, you know, we were all before COVID, we were all skinny dipping in surf. And nobody noticed cause the water was really murky, but then COVID, like the tide went out and we were all like, Oh, we all,

we're all skinny dipping and we all realize we have real issues. Great analogy. And so I think, I think that's happened for work and the workplace for, you know, for how people, I mean, obviously it's like, did we really want to drive to the office every day? Well, no, I don't think some people did. And it's interesting because boomers are the ones that have most, most steeply declined

in their church attendance since COVID. And it's almost as, yeah, I mean, millennials and Gen Z have actually had a bit of a resurgence to, you know, they're not, they're not breaking down the walls, but they're, but they're, they've sort of recovered your attendance and actually slightly higher, especially people of color among younger generations. And so boomers are kind of like, eh, you know, I think we're kind of just, we're just going to ride this one, not all boomers, but they're like,

we're just going to kind of ride this one out. So I, again, for, for listeners, I, I, I love my local church here. I've got a new church here in Texas where I'm living. And I think, you know, every week what men and women do to usher people into the presence of God in this church and in many thousands, tens of thousands of other churches across the United States and around the world is pretty compelling and amazing. And I don't have a better way to do it. I'm just saying that I think, and when I say innovations, I'm not like, hey, we need some new cool trick.

I just, I think there's just a way for us to start picturing the embodied community in some new and deeper ways. And many churches are doing this. They're thinking about it. But we have to recognize that for some people, kind of the hype man mentality is tough. And so we need, one of the ways we've described this is we need churches of contributors, not churches of consumers of gospel content.

And so I have this vision, we at Barna Barn have this vision along with some of our partners. Did you know that only 30% of practicing Christians, which is only six ticks higher than the norm of 24, have ever taken a skill or gifts or spiritual gifts assessment, including StrengthsFinder, Spiritual Gifts Inventory, inventory enneagram i was shocked by this number and i'm not usually shocked by research because i've done it long enough now where i'm usually within a few you know i can guess pretty well where people are going to land um but i thought the majority of practicing christians have done you know what in my circles like everyone's you know any what numbers your enne? What's your Myers-Briggs? What's your whatever, whatever?

What are your strengths? And it turns out that's kind of a particular set of conversations that we have in our set. Yeah, I would have guessed that percentage would have been way higher. Because, yeah, same thing everybody I talk to is like, what's your number or whatever? And I think there's some more. We probably have to measure it again some other ways, but the point is that people are not by and large figuring out who they are, their giftedness, their capabilities, their, who they are in Christ, what kind of a masterpiece they've been made to be. And I just think that is one of the great opportunities of the future is to become this sort of people development organization with

in view how God has wired us i mean when paul writes to timothy and says remember the faith of your grandmother and your mother lois and uh priscilla i think it is uh one of them is lois remember the faith of your grandparent grandmother and your mother which is interesting about it it's not there's no male figure there and then it's like and we don't forget this sort of calling when we laid hands on you, these, these gifts, we fan them into flames. And, and then, and then he says, you've been given a spirit, not a fear, but of power, love, and sound mind, which is, which is a beautiful expression of a non-anxious presence in an age

of anxiety, by the way. And that all comes from this sort of self-awareness and even like genetic and spiritual heritage awareness. And so I have this vision. Again, I think when I say like worship and contemporary worship and some of the tools of how we convene people and communicate in a large venue

or a medium venue or a small venue, there's a reason why human beings, you start to assemble them and then certain particular things come out and that's okay that you know churches are some of the best human assembly uh organizations in the history of humanity uh but but i just wonder if there's other things that could could really help empower and activate people into their god-given capabilities and not just become great volunteers in our programs, in our children's ministries, in our boards. That's fine. There's a place for that. But I think people are—there's a huge volunteer crisis in churches.

Pastors are worn out. Four out of ten said they wanted to quit in the last year, which is a huge number. There's a mental health crisis among pastors. And I think it's because we're trying to do all this stuff on our own. We're not actually activating people to their God-given potential. So, you know, how do we become more like, uh, kind of, you know, vocational and career development and, um, you know, human potential, not just for like, you know, social issues, like, Hey, you know, like you're a good person. We want to know, you know, what you're good at. It's like, no, this is, we have a theology of a creator who's

made us to do these special works in the world. And let's all live into that together and as individuals, a priesthood of all believers. Exiles in Babylon 2024. That's right, folks. We're doing it again. Our third annual Exiles in Babylon conference will be held on April 18th through the 20th, 2024 here in Boise, Idaho. And this one is going to be an absolute barn burner, as we say here in Idaho. The topics we're going to discuss are deconstruction and the church. And we're going to actually hear from people who have deconstructed and others who maybe should have deconstructed, but didn't. We're also going to discuss women, power and abuse in the church, which is obviously a huge issue that we absolutely need to discuss. We're going to talk about faith and sexuality,

specifically how can churches become places where LGBTQ or same-sex attracted Christians can flourish within a traditional sexual ethic? Lastly, we're going to discuss, can't believe we're doing this one. We're going to discuss politics. That's right. Politics and the church where we're going to have various speakers present. We're going to have a right-leaning Christian, a left-leaning Christian, and a, I don't know, what do you call them? A nonpartisan or Anabaptist Christian share their perspectives, share their perspective. And we're going to put them all in

conversation with each other. And of course, we're going to have Evan Wickham and Tanika Wyatt leading us in worship throughout the weekend. I really, really, really want to mix it up this year. We're going to hear from leading thinkers in each of these areas. We're going to be having different viewpoints in conversation with each other. It's going to be honest, it's going to hear from leading thinkers in each of these areas. We're going to be having different viewpoints in conversation with each other. It's going to be honest, it's going to be raw, and you're not going to want to miss out. I really think this one's going to fill up quickly. So if you want to attend in person, Boise, Idaho, April 18th through the 20th, register very, very soon. Just go to theologyintheraw.com. That's theologyintheraw.com. I really hope to see you there. Hey friends, it's Chris Sprinkle here. Preston and I are always looking for ways to

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So here's what I, you're touching on this. I want to frame it maybe differently. I don't know if you're familiar with, is it, I want to say that it was Phyllis Tickle, author, who said, gosh, I'm going to misquote it. I'm pretty sure it was her who said, you know, every 500 years, it's like the church has a rummage sale. Are you familiar with this? Yeah, that's a great concept. Okay, yeah, yeah. And we're on year 500 now.

It's like 500 years ago, the invention of the printing press just revolutionized society like society pre-printing press when most people are illiterate now most people are literate you have information spread among the masses you have just ripple effects right of that societal shift well we're now just barely we're still in the eye of the storm really historically speaking of the internet social media throwing a pandemic throwing you know um globalization and we're we're there we're we're you know so what are what are the if her concept is accurate i think it's it's it's not like a gospel truth but it's like yeah that makes sense you know like we sometimes get in a routine and and we have to like what are the things we're just kind of throwing up in the attic we need we need to all right have a big rummage sale clear out the attic throw out the

stuff we don't need anymore keep the stuff we do you know grandmother's wedding dress whatever take the wedding take the analogy too far um so my here's my question is what have we or what should we take out of the attic what are some things that we just do as a church machine, church rhythm, that's like, why are we doing this? Does this directly affect our mission, our ministry, our discipleship? Is this giving us life? Is it giving other people life? Or is it just stuff in the attic that's just there? I thought the pandemic would have done some of that. Anecdotally, it seems like, and I don't have the answer. All I do is just deconstruct.

I don't do any reconstruction. It seems like we're just so excited. I appreciate you asking. And I say this a lot on my podcast, just so you know, and I'll say it again. People get sick of me. I want to affirm, like you said, my hats off to pastors and church leaders who are waking up every day trying to figure out how they can best reach people, of system, not at all saying like, oh, you pastors, whatever. Pastors have my utmost respect. The ones that aren't covering up abuses and harming women and all the garbage.

But I know so many pastors, their hearts are just absolutely for people. So hats off to you. But having said that, have we weeded out anything from our attic? And if not, why is that? And if we should, what are the things you think based on data that, man, there's some things that we should really at least evaluate whether these are things that we should be focusing on as a big C church. Does that make sense? It's kind of a long question. No, it absolutely does. And what's really, really great about this moment is that pastors for the first time

in a large way have said they're open to new models that they probably weren't open to 36, 48 months ago. We're open to some new models. And again, I really want to sort of really echo the things you said. If any of the things that I am articulating sound cynical toward the work of pastors, churches, leaders, it's not meant to be. It's just really an invitation into a set of questions and a set of cultural understandings that might take us to something that is new and fresh. And Jesus says there's new wineskins. You don't pour new wine into old wineskins. And I think we were absolutely in a new wineskin kind of moment, a kind of rummage sale, as the philistical analogy goes. Where my head went

when I heard you talking was earlier this summer, I listened through 21 Days with Pete Gregg. He was doing a pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne and 300 mile walk. And he would do daily Lectio 365 sort of observations. And Pete is a wonderful and godly man and man of prayer. And he was reflecting in one of the episodes about the Celtic Christians who said, chose not to build congregations, but they built basically prayer houses. He called them artistic studios where they would do, you know, illuminated manuscripts. They were hostels for the poor and for travelers. You know, they built a different kind of ecosystem to help support their vision of what it meant to be part of the Christian community. And we have this today, too. I mean, we have organizations that are doing missions and arts and music and all sorts of things. that are doing missions and arts and music and all sorts of things.

But we have created, I think, sometimes a bit of a vision that, you know, the only way to be the church is to do kind of local church congregational. Here's what we do. And we're all part of something. And when we do interviews, one thing that's interesting is that people will often talk about an experience, sometimes, let's's say as a student at a christian university where it's residential or they'll talk about you know youth with a mission or they'll talk about some experience that they have that they're like man this is almost it feels like what the church should be and and i keep wondering like well maybe that is the expression of the

church and we've been so busy trying to and and some of this comes from actually, again, not to be cynical, but just to be aware there's been a, there's been a good and healthy discussion, like where does the money flow and we don't want, you know, sort of parachurch organizations to be taking resources that might otherwise flow to local congregations. And again, I think those are all really good and healthy conversations, but there's been a little bit of this, like, well, it's,

if it's not the local church, if it's not expressions of what we've come to understand as a congregation that meets in a certain place at a certain time, then it's not really the local church. And that's the purest form of the church. form of the church. And, and so, you know, even in so much of like, let me, let me just kind of geek out with you for a second, but you know, there's a phrase that's the last 30 years has been used. And I don't remember when it came exactly, but this, it's a phrase that the local church is the hope of the world. I'm pretty sure it came from Willow. Um, it might've been someone else said it before that, but the local church isn't the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world. And so this notion that the local church is essential to the mission of Christ, it's the rock on which Jesus builds people. And of course, it's essential. But I just think we've really created an idol sometimes out of what we've come to imagine is the church.

And so I think we're just in a time of real invitation of what could be imagined, like what would it look like for people to create monastic communities? I'm on a personal mission these next number of years to reintegrate the education muscle of the pedagogical tools into local churches that help people not just so so i believe there's different ways people learn and um there's lots and lots of research on this and uh sermons and the oratorical tools of homiletics um are one of many many chords that could be strummed where people learn. And it is a particular kind of pedagogy, rhetorical tools that is spiritual in nature. I mean, Christ walks among us when we are preaching him. Like meals, you don't look back and say, hey, I think this is one of the best analogies of sermons that we don't look back and say

that we can remember every single meal we've eaten, but the sum total of all the meals we've eaten multiple times per day have created the cellular structures of our bodies and we need daily food. And so sermons are a little bit like our daily bread. But no one learned to play a piano. No one learned to do brain surgery. No one learned to do brain surgery. No one learns to, to become a writer. No one learns to write about, no one learns to be fully human only by listening to sermons. I mean, you just imagine someone who's going to like try, try to take piano lessons and you sign up your kid to learn piano, this technical skill of piano. And then, you know, you take them and, and they just they just

play a youtube video or this you know you take them over to the house and the person just like well you know they open let's open up the first book you know first book of bach and we'll just tell you some things we're going to just and you know you just start preaching that person and um again i think part of the experience for people is that you know we have this great tradition in christianity of of understanding humans, how they're made, how they're wired, the psychology of learning, the rhetorical tools, Christian education. I mean, it wasn't like Christian education back in the day. It was just education. And Christians invented, in some ways, the kind of environments where people learn.

So we just need to reintegrate those logical tools into the life of, wait for it, local churches. I actually think churches can be learning communities where there's actually a curriculum, a way of saying, like, we're going to teach you to think about some of these complicated issues in a much more didactic way or experiential way or kinetic way, relational way. And we're going to continue to preach Christ and use that tool because there's nothing like the power of a great sermon to change a life and to bring us, you know, into God's presence and to understand our great need, our sinful need, our sin and our great need for a savior. But those are examples. I think we're in a time

where we have to rethink even how we teach, how we instruct, how we think about learning because it turns out that the rhetorical tools, the pedagogical tools at the ready are actually very I've often kind of thought like, you know, prior to the internet, social media and everything, like, you know, monologue oration for 45 plus minutes was a very natural way in which humans kind of consumed information. Our brains have been kind of rewired. I just read a stat the other day that humans consume more information in a single day than 300 years ago. I'm going to misquote it. It's something like this. Than the smartest person on earth consumed in a lifetime 300 years ago. And the average person is having to process more information in one day. And our brain just can't handle it, right? And so this is maybe one of the more negative effects you know what's fascinating

is that studies show that a way that humans can cope with that much information is we resort to stereotypes like we can't we can't we can't handle the diversity of this person or that person that's this viewpoint that viewpoint we can't talk to you's just all out. So we just categorize people in these little boxes, you know, identity boxes. Yeah, it's fascinating. I was like, gosh, well, that's a problem. Anyway, I think just even like the way we process information, I think it's more beneficial when it is maybe more dialogical when there is questions, you know, you're allowed to ask questions. I mean, right now, the Sunday morning sermon is one of the last places in the information universe where there's no chance for people to kind of respond or, you know, for good or for ill. Again, I'm not even

saying this is like good or bad. I'm just saying we're living in a different cultural moment than existed, than that existed 30, 40 years ago. And yet, I think some of our communication of information, and again, I don't want to dumb down the power of the Spirit and the sermon and all that. I just want to say, I just ask bigger questions like, is there a more holistic way or ways in which the church can foster helping people engage God in a way that would stick in a way that would resonate with kind of how humans are now wired. And Mike, so here's, here's my actual question is where do podcasts fit in? I mean, I don't want to start to think of like a violent turn here, but I mean, there's 40,000 people listening to this conversation right now. Well, when it comes out and it's like,

well, it doesn't sound like meaningful. And you know, people may, maybe they're vacuuming and listening to whatever, but I fed, I mean, loads of emails, people that lost their faith and came back because they listened to a conversation, just a simple, just listening to a conversation. I mean, I could, I can show you loads of people who have been genuinely impacted by simply listening to two Christians talk about just random stuff in a genuine way. Like, what do we do with that? Like, where does this, because right now things like podcasts or YouTube or whatever, like all these other ways in which

people are being impacted, I think positively for the gospel, they're just kind of on the fringes of like, they're not integrated. There's no ecclesiology of podcasting, you know, should there be, maybe, maybe there shouldn't, I don't know. I think, I think there should be. And I think, uh, first of all, what a, what a sacred honor you had with so many listeners. And for those that are listening in, even, even just hearing that reminding, reminding us, reminding me of sort of these sacred journeys that people have been on.

And I just want to say to you, like, if the church has hurt you and if you've been on your journey and if you've, you're just here today to kind of try to put some things back together, you know, we, we don't have answers other than to say, you know, for, for me personally, after everything I've been through, losing a wife to brain cancer and, you know, being now and solidly in the middle ages of my life that, you know, I, I have come to believe that there is a creator of the universe who really, who really wants to walk with us through, through the high highs and especially through the dark nights of the soul. And so, you know, we're glad you're here and these are very sacred conversations. And I think this is partly what I'm suggesting is I think this is an expression of what it means to be the church.

We're not sitting in a church. We're not talking to an official in a clerical way, a pastor. I think these are important expressions of it. I think a church can become a kind of conduit with almost like reading and listening lists and viewing lists and invitations into these deeper and fun conversations. And we do need a mental map and guides for the level of complexity and the amount of information that we are able to take in. And so, yeah, I think there is an ecclesiology of podcasts.

I haven't used this little phrase, the, the, the theology of, uh, sorry, I call it the, um, the gospel according to YouTube. And, um, you know, there is a real sense of which, you know, tons of spiritual content is being consumed on any given moment on that platform, good, bad, and different, you know, stuff that your stomach squirms, stuff that would bring you to tears. Um, and millions of people, tens of millions of people are being discipled every day, you know, towards and away from the truest version of themselves in Christ. And, and so I think, I think the church has to, I mean, one of the great things about COVID, I think, and again, there's a good discussion around, you know, the validity and the

place for kind of virtual worship. But, you know, I think it helped churches grapple with, you know, the semi-permeable lives that people live, you know, the work from home, worship from home. And again, great discussions. I'm not a big, like, hey, you should just sit in your PJs every weekend and make that a habit. But I think it forced churches to deal with the reality of the digital commons in a way that I think prior to COVID it was easy to ignore. And even more now, we have to recognize that people are spending so much of their mental energy and their identities are being, you know, they're sort of immersed in this meta this metaverse in this in this world that

is partly real partly you know partly digital um you know kind of the i was listening to a podcast yesterday about about blood pressure about health and biometrics and you know we we have these smart devices now and like there there's there's there was a discussion like when can a smart watch when will it be able to measure our blood pressure and you, you know, we're not, we're not right there yet, but it's like, it's, it's around the corner and just how essential some of these, these tools are now we're at the dawn of AI. I mean, what an incredible and amazing time to be alive. I mean, we're, we're, we're living in a time that's really like was described in the dystopian fiction of, you know, the last hundred years. And so where's the church show up in that?

And I think it can be as simple as a worship service and a time of breaking bread together and communion and listening to a sermon, but it can be also as complicated and as high velocity as this Technicolor discipleship program that says, hey, we're going to listen to podcasts, we're going to do this like you know what is it what is a what is a course on learning how to think and live as a christian relative to some of these topics um you can't preach human sexuality i mean that's

that's i think something we've talked about before and why i commend the work you're trying to do and others because you know it's it's not just you can't just you know preach on you can preach on the topic but you can't preach your way through all the aspects of that there are books that have to be read there's conversations we had there's training about the heart set that we have towards uh you know people that we disagree with or people who have different perspectives or you know or different orientations. And those are, those are mission critical. And so how do we disciple a whole generation on issues of human sexuality

without, without courses, without thinking, without reading, without talking. And those are not going to happen as effectively on a Sunday morning in a worship service. So it has to be both. So, you know, I did, I did this conference every year, exiles in Babylon, um, shout out to exiles, uh,

April 18th to the 20th, if you're free, David. Um, and so we do a blend of, well, blend of short talks, uh,

extensive conversations on stage, audience Q and a, we mix in worship in multiple languages. We do, uh, some, um, spoken word poetry intermingled throughout. So we're trying to...

The stage has a diverse range of things going on. With regard to... Again, I wish I had data on this, but the actual monologue talks from the speakers, and then after a few people give a talk, then we all sit down on the couch and have a 45-minute-ish conversation. I would say there has been just as many aha to mind blowing to applause type moments in the in the audience during the month of a, I remember asking a Dr. Uh, Sandy Richter,

uh, from what she teaches old Testament at Westmont. Um, she gave a killer talk. It was so good. And then during our Q and a, I was just, just dialogue.

I, and I don't prepare a question. I'm just like, all right, sit down. I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. We're just going to have a conversation on stage. And I remember somehow we got into like what it meant to bear God's image.

And she gave, and anybody who was there remembers this because it was like, you could feel the like, some people were crying. Some people were like, oh my gosh, just like this, this two minute kind of explanation of what it meant to bear God's image and the most beautiful, theologically profound, like in depth, but powerful, like pastorally powerful. And like that just happened because we were just talking, you know, and people were able to listen in. So I, yeah, I, um, I don't know. I would be a, I don't, I think I'd make a terrible church planner because I think I would try to just explore different things. Like how are people being impacted for the gospel? And let's do that. Let's, I don't know. Let's integrate that in way. And maybe, maybe it's, maybe that wouldn't be a good Sunday morning to have a couch conversation. Maybe it would, maybe having a two hour conversational sexuality as part of the Sunday morning worship service would be amazing.

Maybe, maybe it'd flop. I don't know. Maybe people wouldn't jive with that, but I don't know. I guess that's, that's, I just would love to see us rummage around in the attic to try to see, all right, what are some things that, what are, where's, how, is there some fat we need to cut off here? You know, I don't know. Well, I think, I think, uh, I think you're asking really good questions and of course, each listener and each, you know, community has to kind of wrestle these to the ground for themselves. And, and I agree that there could be some really great ways that, um, uh, more like a Q&A format or some other kind of ways of going a bit off script or allowing for the

dynamic tension in a room to be addressed. I mean, we can only imagine that most of human history has included more of that. Certainly in the early church, you know, you sort of see this sort of kind of kinetic experiment of like, what does it mean to actually like follow the apostles teaching? And, you know, that's again, the book of Acts and Paul's writings indicate that there was just all sorts of stuff, good, bad, and, and, and who knows what happening. So I would encourage people to try to do that. And most of all, and not because I'm just a, like a what's new and what's next person. I actually think there's a lot to be gained from traditions that are more liturgical and high church where they're like,

you don't have to figure it out every weekend. You're not trying to be inventive and innovative because there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot to be said for, you know, we've been wrestling with this for centuries. And so people have been writing this stuff and this is what someone prayed the exact day, you know, last year or, you know, on the same liturgical calendar. And so I think there's something to be said about that too. And we should, we should be, you know, honoring these different traditions, not just because they deserve honor, but because there's a reason they

work. One thing I experienced at a church about a year ago, I just was visiting a friend's church in San Francisco area. And one thing that they did that I thought was really cool, and I don't see it quite as often as I think we could, it struck me as kind of a new and fresh way, was that after my friend Dave Lomas preached, there was a pastor of prayer who kind of came up and sort of just talked about what he had been hearing during that sermon. And he even made this kind of a passing reference to the fact that in the first service, we felt like there was something happening, but now I feel there's something different. And it was this kind of real-time response in prayer.

And then praying into that was actually really cool. And there was a real time of responsive prayer to what God had, the preaching of the word. Again, one thing that I could say incontrovertibly from the data is that prayer is one of the, you know, the plain freeway to accessing God. Almost everyone in our society, whatever they believe says that they pray, even atheists are very likely to admit that they pray. And, you know, young and old, male, female, Christian, non-Christian, there's a, there's a real openness, I think, to prayer. Pandemic again, sort of was a high, like people were searching for prayer

and there was a lot of, know energy around prayer uh and books on prayer very are very uh popular at now scripted prayers how to pray and and so i just think this is a good example of something that could be quite intentional in our in our services is is making time to pray and not just in these little kind of like we need a transition so they can move sort of stuff on stage. Cause again, really smart and even just regular observant people are going to be like, Oh, I see what you did there. You know, you, you needed to move the podium. And so like, how do we actually open ourselves up to, you know, like, no, we, we're a community of prayer, house of prayer, Jesus calls the church. so and and i think there are some ways of expressing that and that could be you know and another bottom line here is that people people

just get they get easily into routines and again routine for routine sake like like liturgy is is powerful and should be should should be kept but at the very point when we sort of think, okay, we've kind of got this nailed in the formula, I sort of feel like we've probably missed something really important about how to surprise people in what it is that they're doing in their pursuit of God.

And so I would just keep encouraging leaders not to be innovative. I use that phrase, I probably even take that back. It's like, it's not innovation for the sake of being new and clever and all, but's really trying to be responsive on a on a an hour by hour and day by day and week by week way to a god who walks among us and is asking us not for you know kind of just keep doing it the way we've always done it but to ask him like a new a new moment a new

wineskin why do jesus words echo through the centuries and say to us, a time is coming and now is when it's not contemporary or liturgical or this or another. It's like if you worship in spirit and in truth, that's going to count. That's what God is looking for. And what profound words that a house of prayer and a life Jesus lived that was characterized by prayer. And we have a population that is hungry for prayer and yet,

and it's not cynical, but most churches are like, no, we got to skip, you know, stick to the script. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the next thing. Here's the next thing. And people are just like, no, just like, let us sit in silence. Let us do some things that might not look like the way we've done it in the past, but there might be a God of the universe who's waiting beneath those changes of plans and those moments of silence. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Yeah. A lot of parts in the world, at least in the places I've been to, like in Nepal, the church all praise, but everybody plays,

prays at the same time out loud. It's awesome. And your churches are, you know, 50, 60, 70, 80 people, um, like, all right, we're going to go to a time of prayer and everybody's like, just belt it out these prayers. And it's like, it's not facilitated. It ends when it ends, but people were just like crying out to God, you know, all at the same time. but people were just like crying out to God, all at the same time. I love it. It's just so much energy.

But yeah, gosh, that's funny. You said that so many people pray and yet people, Christians in particular, struggle with prayerlessness. Maybe it's, I know I should pray more and I don't, something like that, right? Or the quality of my prayers are just, I'm distracted. I'm checking my phone every five seconds

while I'm praying to God. Man. Well, one more, I guess, one more question. I'll let you go, David. What are you working on now? Do you have a big project on your plate right now? And do you have any insights you can give us of what you're seeing? Well, first, it's been so fun to talk to you, Preston.

It's been too long. And yeah, we got to fix this and spend more time together. I'll check out the dates, too. be fun to find to come visit your your conference but yeah i mean i'll just say maybe most honestly and not that the rest of this has not been honest but you know i'm uh almost three years now bereaved and uh moved to texas and uh three kids 24 22 and 22, and 19, Emily, Annika, and Zach, amazing young human beings. And what I'm working on is sort of moving forward in my life. I've started a new book this last week, which is really fun to like remember that I,

oh yeah, I really enjoy writing. I've been writing tons of things the last couple of years, but to get back into that and- Can you tell us what the book's going to be about? Not yet. yet. No, okay. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. We'll see where it lands. It's a, you can text me when you're off. Yeah, no, no, it's all good. It's, it's, uh, it's still taking shape. Uh, but it, you know, I've written different projects and a lot of those have been kind of on millennials and Gen Z and the faith journey they've taken and, you know, kind of starting with unchristian

and like the, that's a big book that was about hypocrisy of the church. And, you know, it was a big study that, that took us down, uh, you know, a lot of interesting paths, uh, gave lines and I did that sort of was originally gonna be the brand of Christianity. And that took us on a 10, almost 15 year journey of trying to understand. Would you guys do another one of those like a 20 year later kind of version is that um yeah we've kind of talked we've kind of talked about it yeah because i i love that book is so helpful but now when i cite it it's like well that you know it's 20 years old the data so it's like is it um yeah i'd be curious yeah so you know starting

with that like that's part of what i mentioned the book, not, not to drop the name of it, but just to say, like, I've been on this journey to hear and listen to people who've gone through a lot of, a lot of challenges and hurts. And then the follow-up book called it, you lost me where, you know, again, we're just like, Oh wow. The sacred journey of listening to people who've been, who've been on their own deconversion journey so um i'm sort of with with you and with your listeners in in the complexity of these faith things and then you know for me like where is god in the middle of brain cancer like you know holy crap what a terrible journey that was so yeah i think what i'm working on now is uh is to being what I think God's called me to do as an

entrepreneur and a leader of this company and really feeling as a 49-year-old the chance now to invest in younger leaders and voices and to try to, and in particular, everything I'm about now is around these new wineskins and try to help people think about what does it mean to truly follow Jesus in our time? If that's, you know, six people or 60 people or 6,000 people or, you know, however we can help churches, leaders, parents, young people, I feel like a big shift in me is like a lot of my writing has been to focus on older generations and say, Hey guys, it's going to be okay. You know, the kids are going to be all right,

even as much as we really are concerned and should be concerned about their, their context and their, their trajectory. But now I feel like a real call to sort of help actually stand up and support and encourage, you know, leaders under 40 in becoming the pillars of the church for the future. So those are some just reflections after some time away and being, you know, sort of committed to what God's doing with, you know, with my remaining time on earth, you know, when going through the process of helping my late wife, you know, pass away. Um, again, it's, it sounds so sad and it was, but there was something really, really sacred about that gift of my vows and helping her,

you know, with a terrible and brutal disease. And then, and then I sort of feel like I'm living the kind of borrowed time because not everyone lives as long as, as I like 49 is like, Hey, time because not everyone lives as long as, as I like 49 is like, Hey, that's awesome. I hope I get another year. You know, I think I will, but like only the Lord knows. And so let's, let's get to it and let's have fun. Let's, uh, let's enjoy life. Let's not try to be like too productive to try to change the world. I'm just trying to build a, a sweet business and, um, you know, care for these kids and, um, yeah, just get back into living. There's a great verse. I would have despaired had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And that's been a real theme for me these last number of years. I would have despaired had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. What passage is that again? Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Very last couple of verses of Psalm 27. Oh, that's so good. David, thanks so much for sharing your heart and for being honest and real.

And yeah, I love, love, love the questions you ask and all this stuff you're doing. So thanks for coming on Theology Rob. And most of all, thanks for being an amazing agent in God's kingdom. That's a weird way to say that. Yeah, I love you and Chris and just all that you're up to. thanks for being an amazing agent in God's kingdom. That's a weird way to say that, but you know, I love you and Chris and just all that you're up to. So I'm good to see you today. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.