Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep884: Facing Burnout in a Post-Covid Church: Dan White Jr

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

In this episode, I talk to Dan White about what it’s like burning out of ministry and how to cultivate healthier rhythms to prevent this from happening (again). Part of the problem is the internet and social media. Our prefrontal contexes never rest! We’re constantly bombarded with stuff to process. And COVID only exacerbated this problem. During COVID, many churches played into the consumeristic mindset of people by producing MORE content, more sermons, more stuff for people to consume. But now that the COVID dust has settled, many people aren’t coming back to church. Why is this? How can we “get people back?” Or--is that even the right question to ask?  Dan has planted and pastored in rural, suburban, and urban churches for the last 20+ years. Currently, Dan and Tonya are in the starting and building stage of opening The Kineo Renewal and Retreat Center in Puerto Rico. Dan White Jr is a church planting strategist with the V3 Movement, coaching cohorts through an 18-month missional training system. Dan has coached over 200 new innovative faith communities across the country. He co-founded the Praxis Gathering, a yearly conference that equips practitioners in the hands-on work of following Jesus deeper into our local places. Dan graduated with his B.A. in Counseling from Davis College and his M.A. in theology from Capital Seminary and is the author of Church as Movement and Love Over Fear. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today Dan White Jr. Dan White and his wife, Tanya, they run the Conejo Renewal and Retreat Center in Puerto Rico. And Dan has been a church planning strategist with the V3 movement for quite some time now. He also co-founded the Practice Gathering, a yearly conference that equips practitioners in the hands and work of following Jesus deeper into our local places. Most famously, Dan was on the Theology in a Row podcast a couple of years ago, I think. about and maybe even coined the phrase the church industrial complex and talked about how he had been engaging in the church industrial complex for quite some time. And it led him to a season of burnout and just rethinking what it means to be the body of Christ. And so Dan is one of those

guys that I think has a lot of great wisdom that comes from not just thinking and reading, but a lot of experience on what it means to be the church. And so he has a lot of maybe different ideas of what the church should be and look like. And so I love talking to Dan about how to think and rethink church, especially in what we are now in, you know, this post-COVID world. And Dan is just a super thoughtful guy. You're going to enjoy this conversation. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw, support the show for as little as five bucks a month, get access to Patreon-only Q&A podcasts, blogs, where I spout off my thoughts once a month to my Patreon-only audience. So again,

all the information is in the show notes if you would like to support the show. Also, if you have enjoyed the show and would like to leave a review, I highly encourage you to do so. It really does help people find out about the podcast when people leave reviews. And also, please consider sharing this episode and others that you have appreciated on your social media platforms. All right, folks, without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Dan White Jr. Hey, welcome back to Theology in the Raw with Dan White Jr. Dan, thanks for being a returning guest on Theology in the Raw. Preston, thank you. It's good to be with you.

So for those who, I think it's been a couple of years maybe, so for those who don't know who you are, give don't you just give us a quick catch-up, get us up to speed, and I want to jump into this whole post-COVID world that we're living in because I think you're just the type of person that I think you understand the intersection between church culture.

And also, I don't know if you would use this phrase about yourself, but almost like a bit of a futurist, not in the weird way, but I feel like you have this ability to kind of foresee through a church lens kind of what's coming. I don't know. I don't know if you would even describe yourself that way, but in just like, I feel like you have this ability to kind of foresee through a church lens, kind of what's coming. I don't know.

I don't know if you would even describe yourself that way, but when I read you and listen to you, I get that sense. But who is, who is, uh, Dan White Jr.? Uh, well, he's had too, too many cups of coffee at this point. Uh, so he's, he's a little amped up. coffee at this point, so he's a little amped up. You know, I've been working with, I've been a pastor for 20 plus years, local church pastor and planter in megachurches, in small missional type churches, and for the last seven years, I think it is now, I've been working with the V3 movement and the V3 movement helps start and sustain movemental churches. And when I say movemental, I mean discipleship centered, multiplying midsize communities in that focus on particular issues and places in a neighborhood.

and places in a neighborhood. And so I've been, I helped build that with JR Woodward, and we've been running cohorts for, I don't know, a few hundred planters have gone through that training. And so that's really my sweet spot. I love the possibilities of breaking open space for a new community in a neighborhood. And so I've been doing that. And then I've written a few books. My recent one is Love Over Fear, which is about the polarization in Christian communities

around the progressive conservative divide. And you can take a look at that if you get a chance. But my recent significant shift in my life has been I moved to Puerto Rico about a year ago to start the Cuneo Center, which is a place of healing for wounded and weary leaders. My wife and I have bought an old hotel and many resort with the help of many denominational organizational partners that come around this. And it's a training ground development space for pastors who are flaming out, burning out, lashing out, hiding out because of the work of local church work. So it's a new season for me and my wife, but we're really excited. God has drawn us into this work and that, that's just, yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, why, why Puerto Rico? Well, I had a significant, uh,

melt down, uh, four years ago. Uh, I had a physical ailment that showed up in my body because of burnout in being a local pastor. And I came to Puerto Rico for a season as a sabbatical. And this is actually where I encountered God and some level of healing and self-awareness. And so later, years later, when we were considering our next shift in ministry, you know, Puerto Rico just came back to mind because it was the ground of healing for us. And plus, it's beautiful here. It's exotic. It's beautiful.

It's a mashup of cultures with those who speak English and those who don't and speak Spanish. And it's just a beautiful space. It's a raw space, using your language from your podcast. It's not a highly developed island, which is what I love about it. It's very beautiful. The culture is still very present. And so when we were considering a space for leaders to get away, that's where Puerto Rico kind of came into the picture. And, yeah, I had so many other questions I wanted to lead with,

but just so we can round this out. So leaders, do they pay? Is it funded? How long do they come for? Are you involved with their quest and pouring into them? Or is it just, hey, come and hang out. And if you need me, I'm here. If not, we don't need to see each other. Give us the elevator pitch.

Yeah, we have a few different pathways for entering. But I'd say that the primary path for entering into Cuneo is our 24-week cohort, which launches at the end of the year. And so if you apply to be part of Kineo, you'll be partnered with six to eight other leaders, with a coach, and online you'll walk through this renewal process of looking at your injuries and injustices and your wounds and your ego. And then it culminates what we call the crescendo with five days here at the Kineo Center with a coach, with a therapist, and with my wife and I and your cohort. That's the primary way we're addressing this problem. But we also have personal retreats and group retreats.

And actually, we haven't even formally opened and we're booked for the entire summer with people who are coming for a personal treat, like a hybrid vacation, but also three or four sessions with Connie and I to work through pain and possibilities. Like where's your acute pain in your life and what are the possibilities of resurrection? So and then we have group retreats that are,

are, you know people bringing a whole team or coming with their friends and uh addressing their the wounds in their life and the weariness that's taken over uh you know for most of the day they'll enjoy uh the pool and the beaches and the setting and have a lot of quiet time, but there will be a few sessions scattered throughout to, uh, work through that part of your life. So those are really the three pathways. Yeah. You, you, Bert, you said you had, you hit the wall four years ago, but you left the mega church or so for my audience, they might remember this phrase. I got it from you. I think I've used it a few times. I try to credit, I think I've credited you, the church industrial complex. It's such a brilliant phrase. I remember that was, I remember,

I still remember, I still have people say that podcasts of Dan White Jr., church industrial complex just captured so much of what I think a lot of pastors are in with this kind of mega church, whatever. All that to say, my question is, that was like seven years ago when you left that. I was expecting your kind of burnout to be in the wake of that, but you said four years ago. Can you unpack a little bit what happened four years ago? Certainly. Sure. So I, just for a kind of timeline sake, I left that megachurch. I had a significant pivot and shift in deconstruction around ecclesiology 11 years ago. So that megachurch departure was 11 years ago. And then I planted a missional church that multiplied and my inner life had a significant

burnout four years ago. So I was about eight years into that plant and started to, well, what happened was I was diagnosed with CTSD, which is cumulative traumatic stress disorder. I'm not a, I'm not a therapist. I'm not a professional. It was a shocking, you know, to hear that from my physician and a neurologist. And the reason it was discovered was because my hands wouldn't stop shaking. And we thought it was Parkinson's for a little while, but my hands just tremored. a little while, but my hands just tremored. And it was because I was really responding to the stresses and rejection and abandonment and betrayal and loss that local pastors typically

stuff under the carpet of their lives. And it was coming out of my body. And so four years ago, that was the first time I started to pay attention to how hurt and sad and lonely I was. And it still took me two years to feel like I had the freedom to step down from leading our church. I was in denial, actually. I was fighting and resisting, letting go. I was in denial, actually. I was fighting and resisting, letting go. And it took my wife's prophetic voice to say, you can't do this any longer. You're going to kill yourself. So and so that's that's the journey I've had. I've had two significant places. this is normal, you know, for leaders to go. It seems like every 10 years, um, God wants to do a deeper work in my life and disrupts, uh, something I'm attached to. So probably because my identity is attached to it. So, so that's what, you know, that's what occurred a few years ago.

What, what, uh, for, for those who are kind of teetering on burnout and i've had a few yeah my season one was a year ago um which led to the first sabbatical i've taken in 20 years 20 years of um ministry i mean before that was non-stop um yeah just like man i i could see a healthy healthiness and taking a sabbatical like every two or three years, which is probably, you know, there's a Southern Baptist Seminary. I think it's, I think the professors like every three years get a sabbatical, every six years get a full year off or something like that. Now it's a writing, like they're supposed to be writing and stuff. But at first I was like, man, that seems like a lot. But I'm like, oh, that might be a healthy pace. But for those who are maybe teetering on burnout, you don't have to be a pastor. You could be just in life.

No. What are your recommendations? I mean, is it just basically, yeah, take time off? Or how do you cultivate? I guess there's kind of two questions. One, how do you recognize it? And then two, how do you cultivate healthy rhythms that prevent it from happening again and again and again? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, that's a deep dive to really unpack all that. But I do think that just resting is not enough to address burnout. That's a part of it. The interesting part is that in my own story, I had a pretty strong rhythm of Sabbath and rest in my ministry life. And it was the unaddressed hurts.

And it's that underworld in your life that goes unaddressed. You accumulate, over a period of time, anger and bitterness and loss. For me, how I knew I was burning out was that, first, I had that physical ailment, but I started to hide out. I started to retreat from people and detach. Um, I don't know if you're in the Enneagram, but as an Enneagram five, I, that's how I deal with, uh, not being able to face reality is I start to, uh, disappear. And, um, for other people, they lash out and they start having anger issues and bullying. And for others, they just indulge in entertainment. And so burnout shows itself differently in our personalities.

It's all ways of coping with burnout is really I just can't carry on. I'm too exhausted. But we don't know why. We just know we're tired. And so we find different ways of coping with that. So I would suggest anybody that's feeling, it's funny, I really wanted to talk about exhaustion post-COVID, but a little later, is when we're sensing we're exhausted, it's really a signpost or a signal that there's unaddressed hurt and loss and grief in your life that hasn't really been unpacked. It could be people that you've lost. It could be the loss of a dream. It could be the grief of something that you thought you were going to be that you're not. And so it's really, it's really important to rest, but it's also really important to do that deeper work of unraveling that so that you're not just jumping back in with the same, uh, underlying issues that you took or started taking rest for.

Wow. Well, that's, man, it's awesome that you have a, that you've, that you can see like, well, what I'm trying to say that you're able to kind of self analyze and pursue and be willing to get the help that you need. Cause I think a lot of people, right. They just don't either recognize it or even if they do, they don't address it. They don't know how to address it. They don't want to address it.

That's probably the majority, I would think. They're probably just slugging through life, carrying all this with them. And, man, I bet you probably have tons of stories. I mean, just through your own, through Cunejo now, I mean, probably a lot of versions of you that you're seeing come in, you know. So true. Yeah. I mean, burnout is happening across the board. It's happening with pastors and planters as well as congregants. There's an existential exhaustion that we're collectively experiencing, but we don't know why. So I have conversations with megachurch pastors. I have conversations with small church pastors.

I have conversations with people who just served in the church. And everybody is saying the same thing behind closed doors. They're tired. They're weary. They don't know if they want to keep applying energy to whatever's in front of them. And so I think COVID is revealing some of that. Well, that's a good segue to the COVID. I was going to ask the question, and this is related, I think, but how much of that's due to social media or the internet? Like I just,

I think of my life pre internet or at least pre like tied to the internet. Not, you know, obviously it's been around for a while. Um, but even like back in, I think of like, let's see,

set my seminary PhD day. So we're talking like 2000 to 2007. So the Internet's around. E-mails are around, but social media is not really around yet. And I just felt like I'd wake up. During my studies, I could focus. I would be in a book for like four hours and wouldn't look up. I'd be typing, taking notes, doing research, and then take a quick break for lunch go back and there's no i don't know it just seemed it just seemed different i just wonder there's obviously the profound distractedness of having your phone and internet but even the stress and i think this is where covid or all of 2020 between politics and the race stuff

flaring up and covid yes and just waking up every morning and wondering if the world is still here just that stress and then another riot breaks out and this another shooting and yes yes all of that you're you're just absorbed well i guess that's a question really are we absorbing so much more through the internet that we just didn't before like if you just live in embodied local life and fight the injustices in your neighborhood in your city and pay attention to your neighbors and your community and you're not absorbing all this stuff out there i don't know is that is that do you think that's causing it's part of the massive stress yeah i mean sure i'm not sure if you're familiar with sherry turkle's work i have not read it

yeah yeah oh so good yeah her alone together and her recent book, Reclaiming Conversation, she does a lot of work around neurology and the psychology of how technology is depleting us and rewiring our brains. Brains are not conditioned to constantly be captivated by stimulants, constantly having to have our attention grabbed. And there's no rest in our brain. We're not able to relax. We're not able to not have our attention grabbed. And so 24-7 News, Twitter, Facebook is constantly fighting for our attention, and we're submitting to it. We're giving it away. And so we're unable to actually recover, specifically in our prefrontal cortex, a sense of contentment or centering. It's just buzzing all the time. And so that's

exhausting. Um, just on a real blue collar level to just constantly be someone appealing to your attention and look at me, see this, there's a problem in the world. Uh, you're not doing enough about it. Um, can you believe so-and-so said this online today? You need to chime in about it. I mean, it's just all day long. And so we're more connected to the – really to our kind of a global world than our local world. And I think that's also creating some sense of destabilization in our character and and how we feel uh we we're not really living in our bodies we're living more um in our in this kind of cyber technological uh embodied place so sherry turkle's work really addresses that um one of the things that she brought out which i thought was the probably the most illuminating piece, is that with three plus hours online a day for an adult, not just for kids, this thing called cocooning happens.

Cocooning, she called it. And it's showing that cocooning is this closing down of our prefrontal cortex like a darkening or a tunnel. And this is what creates depression and anxiety. And cocooning happens when you observe people's brains that have taken their own life. Their brains had cocooned where they have no sense of reality and everything closes in. If you can think about being in a cocoon it closes in on you and she's saying that the internet is actually changing our brains for more cocooning and so i think that we're gonna have a uh i don't know just a harvest of depression and um and people unable to kind of find reality and stabilization because of how much we're consuming online.

And, you know, and I am online. So this is not just a, you know, I'm not acting. I'm trying not to act Amish here and just say get rid of everything. But I don't think that we have a good handle on the information age and how much consumption is affecting our ability to find peace and rest and recover. We don't have any recovery time. So, um, so. I, gosh, well that, I mean, do you, do you feel like this is, that seems like such a pervasive and profound problem. Do you feel like it's being addressed by the church as aggressively or urgently as it should?

Because I mean, if you think about what you said, if you are online for three hours a day, the adult average, you're probably, most of us, if we're honest, we're like, it's probably more than that. Sure. If your brain is cocooning, so I'm just... Brand new concept here. Sure, sure. But that's like, if your prefrontal cortex isn't functioning well,

that's kind of a big deal. You can't do anything. Yeah. As a homo sapien. So it seems like if this is a problem way more severe than COVID or something, where, man, lots of people are being affected. Well, this is like everybody besides the Amish are going to be negatively impacted by this on some level, perhaps even profoundly negatively impacted.

So your depression, suicidality, or even just, I don't know, indifference, apathy. And sometimes I feel that, you know, like where it's not, I don't, I'm not bent towards depression enough, but just that kind of just, just that, just exhausted mentally. And not because I studied all day, although that might be added to it, but it was just like, man, I just, when am, when do I get to watch Netflix tonight? Because I'm just kind of spent, you know. I'm glad to. I don't know. I think that the church has built some kind of like symbiotic relationship with technology or with any medium that's going to deliver content or information.

And so to help disciple people out of just constant consumption would actually shoot the church in the foot in a way. So this is what happened during COVID, Preston, was when COVID hit, we saw so many churches pivot towards creating as much content as they could to deliver to their congregants. as they could to deliver to their congregants. More sermons, more midweek pep talks, more produced worship services. I mean, just I talked to a small church pastor who has one staff and a laptop to a mega church that has a production team, and they all pivoted towards just having to create as much content as possible to get people through this

hard time. And that's, that is revealing kind of, I think, a broken relationship we have between, you know, the church and congregants. There's this provider-consumer dynamic relationship that has taken over, and that's why that was our answer for COVID. I know there's exceptions. I know there's exceptions. But for most, that was how we pivoted. If we can get more content, more information to people, they'll be able to get through COVID. And we're exhausted from it.

It did not feed us. It actually depleted us. We're exhausted from it. It did not feed us. It actually depleted us. And pastors are burning. You know, they've burnt themselves out over this last year. I can't of people are not going to come back to their church and are not coming back. And even though they were given so much to consume, they did not feel attached to their local church. And so to critique technology and to start to discern how technology is shaping us for a disembodied life, how to start having some kind of tension and resistance around how much we consume actually doesn't work in the favor of the modern church, because that's how the modern church thinks it is. I think they think that's their bread and butter.

And I completely understand this part as a leader and as a pastor, because I did this for 25 years. If I don't produce good stuff weekly, sermons, worship, Bible studies, nobody is going to come. Nobody's going to like me. Nobody's going to stay and stick. Nobody's going to like me. Nobody's going to stay and stick. Nobody's going to join me. That was working in my subconscious all the time. And if you think about that dynamic, it's exhausting. It's exhausting to live in that mentality. And I think it's unrewarding for people who want to be part of the church for that to be the primary way they relate. And that's why I think COVID has lifted the lid. It's showing us that we were more transactional in our relationships than we were covenantal. We were more

fans than family. And I think it's the medium, the way that we have tried to relate with one another is primarily through content delivery and then content consumption. No critique on your podcast, you know, cause you know, that's a content delivery, but I just know so many pastors right now who are turning, turning all their sermons into podcasts. And I just no longer were whipped. What do you, let's go back to that. That's it. If a pastor is listening and thinking like, yeah, that's exactly what we did, but what could we have done differently?

Like what, if you were going to coach people through that, what are you did coach people? Like what, instead of just delivering more content or the same content or more sermons or more, whatever, like what could they have done during COVID? Yeah, that's, I mean, how does, I'm trying to figure out how to say this gently without, you know, throwing everyone under the bus. I mean, I was honestly disappointed that that was the first pivot, was to create more content, rather than galvanizing peoplerophy around believing that Christians can teach each other, that they can get, helping them gather together rather than helping them come to us for gathering or come to us for correct teaching and doctrine. So there are some exceptions. Again, there were

some churches that pivoted towards, okay, let's release the priesthood of believers here and move out of the way. I think that's where the shift should have been. And this is what you see, you know, this is where you see any place the church is highly persecuted. It has to pivot towards the priesthood of believers out of necessity, which is good. And because the professional clergy gets either arrested or killed, I was hoping that the pandemic would have revealed that the priests aren't as necessary for our walk in Christ. We have what we need for life and godliness together. And so helping to train and galvanize people in smaller communities, I think, would have been the—now, some did do that.

And the now some did do that. I think there is some awakening around that because I'm just now starting to have those conversations with megachurch pastors who are starting to evaluate, you know, the habit they've been building of just creating so much content and trying to get everybody to come back to the building is did we miss something here? So I think that's what should have happened. If that makes any sense. Yeah. Yeah. I still maybe a bit more on what does that practically look like? So it's COVID's hit, nobody's showing up. It's Sunday morning. What should the pastor be doing to facilitate that? Like there still is a pastor who's doing, like he's not slipping in or saying, all right, I'm done. You guys just get it from, like he's, what is he doing is 50 hours a week during COVID, you know? I hear you. Yeah. Well, I did write a whole book about this. So in the church, the book, The Church's Movement, which is a really practical kind of guide to this way of being the church. But ultimately, if I can just simplify, is the pastor, the pastoral role or even ministry leaders hover around the communication act on Sunday. That's like the primary gravitational pull is the act of preaching and even worship has become a communication act,

come see what we've put together. I think that pastors and ministry leaders need to deconstruct that dynamic, because I think it's exhausting. I don't think it's all that faithful to the first early DNA of the Jesus movement. And I also think that congregants, this is what we're seeing, I think congregants are detaching from that because it's actually not bonding. It's a very transactional relationship. So pivoting from that to a discipler who is helping or a community organizer to help the church gather in small ways, in small places for mutual edification, liturgical formation, local mission. So a pastor rather than provider is one of coach and discipler so that they can release a decentralized movement.

Everything right now, even—and I don't always want to critique the modern megachurch, because it's both in the liturgical mainline church and in megachurch. Mainline Church and in Mega Church, both of them have a come-and-see approach to whether you're participating in a liturgy or participating in modern worship and preaching. There's still a we-have-something-here-come-and-partake. That's a very consumptive relating, and I think that's wreaking havoc right now with why people aren't coming back to both of those spaces. So consumption, just to kind of define what I'm going to keep using this language, consumerism is the primary posture that people in places and things exist for my good. And I am the judge about their quality, and based upon that judgment of whether it's quality, I will commit.

And so it's this succession of how I relate with people, places, and things. I'm the judge of its quality. Do I like this? Do I not like this? Is this good for me? Is this not good for me? Does this reach my standards? Do I like this? Do I not like this? Is this good for me? Is this not good for me? Does this reach my standards? Do I like this style? Do I like this culture? And if I do, then I'll commit. If I don't, then I won't commit. And the moment that I don't like something in that environment, my commitment wanes. I mean, think about it. That's

how we relate with TV shows and restaurants and Amazon and products and clothing. I mean, all day long, that's the way that we are relating with everything. So it's really hard to turn this off when we're talking about the local church, because that's the way we're relating with local church, as primarily in a consumptive posture. So pastors need to break that codependent relationship. And honestly, as a pastor, I like that relationship because I like to produce content and I like the sound of my own voice and my own sermons. And so when someone wants to, you know, download my sermon, or back then it was actually by the

CDs, I got an emotional release. It felt good. And so when people say they loved worship that Sunday, there's an emotional return on that. So I think that it's actually a codependent relationship that needs to be broken around galvanizing people for their own care and mission and development. and development. So do you think that that's a bit of maybe a blind spot, like recognizing the profound consumerism that the consumeristic society that we're living in, the negative effects of that, and then being able to analyze our own church structures and rhythms to see how much of our church rhythms are basically feeding into that kind of transactional consumer kind of mentality and how that could potentially interrupt or stifle one's discipleship journey. I mean, would that be something,

a takeaway, again, a leader listening to this, like, you ever get a parent or anybody who's in a disciple-ish kind of relationship to help people to recognize what aspects of their faith, their church rhythms are really mirroring our consumeristic society, which hopefully we should recognize some problems with that. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I tend to think that this is just where I'm calling it. I think consumerism is the greatest idol in the West. I think it is the thing that we bow down to and we worship. I think it's our biggest export around the world. You know, any society that people want to come to the U.S. because of the consumerism that is here. And so the church is to be, in Stanley Howe Ross's words, a countercultural prophetic community. And I would start to, planting a church or being the church here in the West, I would say, what's the biggest idol that we're all bowing down to? And how is the church baptizing that idol in the way that we're

being the church? This is attention-filled work. It's not an either-or. It's a both-and. And so we're never going to get away completely from just partaking and receiving. But I do think that the church has been quite, I mean, leadership 101 and church growth 101, and even in, I'll just say this, even in the ancient future movement, which is about recovering liturgy, and I went through that 15 years ago, we did have this MO that if we just created a really moving liturgical experience, people are going to want to come to church. And even that is a consumptive approach and a very kind of spectatoritis way of designing the church. So I think we need to interrogate how

this is filtered into the way we follow jesus the way we relate with the church um i don't think we need to be afraid of what it reveals um i just to kind of just go back to something real quick is it's already revealing and this is what covet is revealed um people related with their church a good portion the more stats are coming up, but more people related with their church. I just was talking to a couple here at our retreat center, a married couple, and they said this. They said, we've been attending our church for 10 years, and COVID revealed to us how little attachment we actually had to our church. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's what COVID is revealing for people is that they have been fans consuming everything that they liked about their church. But COVID broke that, broke something there and exhausted us. And now we're reevaluating. Do I really feel all that attached to the church so it's already being revealed i think consumerism is already uh so we either here's the thing we either break this attachment because it's going to break the backs of pastors priests and planters or people are going to continue to break away from the church even though they still want to follow jesus we i i think that this is um this is my kind of summary of this situation is that you know 500 years ago the reformation was about a reformation of beliefs

um i think right now the rumblingslings that were just starting to feel, some people think they've been feeling for a long time, but I think COVID is bringing them into the clear, but that there's a new reformation. I think it's a reformation of ecclesiology, how we gather. That wasn't addressed in the last reformation. It wasn't addressed in Christendom, you know, Christendom, uh, you know, it, it all stayed intact except the beliefs changed. And so I think we're at that place right now that we need to, you know, we need a new reformation of how we come together. Can you advise the idols of consumerism in this?

Go ahead. Well, you mentioned something, and you're kind of coming back to it now, that people, I forget the percentage, 30%, 40% of people aren't coming back post-COVID. Coming back as in coming back and attending a church slash church service. And I wanted to ask, why is that? But I think you might be answering that now. Is the why that not having gone to a church service for a year, they haven't, they've looked and maybe haven't missed,

like they're like, I don't feel like I've missed much. If it's just coming to receive a sermon and watch, like engage in worship, maybe. I've been able to do that online. Or maybe I didn't do it online, but I went fishing and I kind of had a good day. I don't feel like a major void in my life that I didn't get to go to a church service three or four times a month. I'm trying to... Is that part of the, are the issues more to it than that? Well, I think that there's, you know, I think there's two things going on.

I think that COVID has revealed that we don't really miss those goods and services. We can get them other places. When I say goods and services, everything that the church provided for us, we can find somewhere else at our own convenience, on our own timing, laying on our bed or couch. And, um, I, I, I think the church kind of revealed that we don't miss it that much. I mean, this is, I'm speaking obviously anecdotally here, but, um, you know, everyone I talked to is, is evaluating how much they really valued that, that dynamic. And I think COVID has put a, you know put a light on that. I think the second piece is back to, I think we're exhausted. I think there's an existential exhaustion

settling in. It reminds me of this. Years ago, I had this job that was like 75 minutes away from my house. And I really wanted the job. I was so excited about the job. And so I was willing to make that drive. And but I had to get up at 5 a.m. every morning to make it. And then when I came home, the drive was even longer because of bumper to bumper traffic. I mean, within four months, I started to ask the question, do I really want this job? I'm so tired. I hate the drive. I come home.

My nerves are shot from. And I eventually realized I didn't want the job that bad. You know, something I was so excited about that I thought was just the pinnacle of arrival for me really wasn't worth it because of the toll it took on me. And I think that's what's happening with exhaustion. That's what exhaustion does to you. You start to evaluate, do I really want to work this hard for Christian community? Do I really want to work this hard to be fed spiritually? Do I really want to work this hard to show up and go through the motions on Sunday? You might have been excited about it at one point and really excited about the prospects. But I do think it's making people evaluate whether it's worth the energy.

And so that's I mean, that's I think that's what's going on. I know it's I know it's kind of cliched now. It might be revolutionary in some circles, but it seems to me that when I look at my own soul, when I talk to people, when I just look at what relationships or maybe a larger setting, but you have some kind of like you feel like you come when you gather, whatever that looks like. You're like, man, I am a piece of this. And if I'm not here, this thing does not look the same. And if that person is not there there's a there's a there's a sadness you know like the whole puzzle is not there is a missing piece um it's a family gathering where you know your favorite uncle couldn't make it and you're like oh this this isn't the same

and then he he shows up out of nowhere hey i made it back early and everybody's so excited because he's there like it's the um i just maybe just turn a very different direction it's yeah you know no this is good one of the yeah one of the really discouraging thing i think for christians when they have a heart for like the lgbt community it's like oh i want to reach the lgbt community i'm like what what kind of community do you foresee them stepping into? Because they're stepping out. You're asking them to step out of a pretty tight-knit community. And I know it's got its own issues or whatever, but what are they stepping into?

Or even I think Francis Chan shared a story about a gang member getting saved. shared a story about, you know, a gang member getting saved, you know, and you know, what is in the gang? It's like, his mother's taken care of, his kids are taken care of. If he needs anything at four in the morning, seconds away, people were like, it's just that tight knit and he gets saved and he shows up to church. He's so excited that this is my new kind of gang. And he's like, Oh, yes. Wait a minute. Yes, yes. Wait a minute.

I just left the most like family, like true community, like a piece of me was embedded in this community. I don't know. For me, this is purely anecdotal now. That's good. Like for me, to me, that if I don't, I can't, I've had a, you know, I've shared this publicly many times, you know, really hard time just landing at a church, had a really hard time just, you know, finding a church. People are like, what are you looking for? You know, there's no perfect church.

And I'm like, well, I'm not, I don't think I'm looking for a perfect church. I just, I want to, the sense of I belong here. And if I'm not here, I'm missed and people recognize that. And if I'm not here, I'm missed. And people recognize that. And when other people are here, I recognize that. And I don't think that's not a perfect church at all. I just want a profound sense of belonging. Is that oversimplified?

Is that, I mean, is there more to it than that? Is that, I don't know. I feel like in my circles, we talk about belonging a lot. So I feel like I'm kicking a dead horse, but I don't know. I feel like in my circles, we talk about belonging a lot. So I feel like I'm kicking a dead horse, but I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that that belonging is at the center of the early magnetism of the Jesus movement of the early church. In contrast, at that point you had had the Jewish synagogue, and then you had Greek mystery cults who were all around rituals, and you had to do this to participate.

And then you have this Jesus community that stripped all of that away. I like to call it minimalism. They embraced a minimalism, and minimalism—actually, I mean, that term is only about 40 years old now, but minimalism was a movement in art and in music to kind of simplify and pare things down in order to make space for the most beautiful things. has just embraced excess and so much ritual and so many cultural idiosyncrasies that there's not enough. We haven't made space for the potent centering of belonging to each other in Christ. And I know that every pastor would say, no, that's what we're about. We're about belonging and community. But you can't say that and still pad everything with resources. You can't say you're practicing minimalism in art and just glut up the canvas with everything you've got. And something's got to go. And I something's got to go.

Something has to give to make space for belonging and tethering to one another. I think that that hasn't happened. And that's why people's relationship with the church is more fan than family is because belonging wasn't the primary attachment. So, you know, I'm hoping that community kind of moves out of being a fad or a buzzword we put on our mission statements and starts to make us pare down and embrace, you know, a missional minimalism, a simplicity so that our life together together using Bonhoeffer's language, uh, uh, under, uh, the leadership of Christ in the world becomes like the primary beauty that like, that's, that's all we need. That's all we need to be together. So when we have discussions on race or discussions on pandemic stuff, I don't split and leave you that quickly because I'm more family than fan.

Right. And this is what's happened because of the political stuff that's happening so much. We're not loyal to one another in those conversations because we have to we you know, we're choosing affinity over family. Because we have to, you know, we're choosing affinity over family. And so I think that that's, I think the foundations are really, really thin for belonging. I don't know if that's, so I'm with you, Preston, on that. What are some things a church can do? Let's just pick a fictitious church, like a 500 size, maybe two services. You know, just your kind of bigger than average average, but you know, not mega church church. And I, yeah, just to acknowledge as you've done, and I think when we're kind of unpacking and analyzing and critiquing

ecclesiological structures, I just want to acknowledge, I mean, most pastors that I know, at least are like, dude, a dude 100% but I got a sermon to prepare I got two people to bury next week my marriage just blew up and I don't know if we're going to make budget because our biggest giver just left because I preached on race and he didn't like what I said and this is all I've known

so I don't even have time or space to kind of reimagine what my ecclesiology is going to look like, what it could potentially just destroy the church and I've got to fire four people or like, you know. So I, acknowledging that, that I think the heart of most pastors is I want to see people grow. I want to see them belong. I want to see them, you know, even if I want to see them come to church, not just because it's a good worship service, but because they are engaging people.

So what are some, again, real practical things that you would recommend, maybe not mandate, but say, hey, here's some ideas for a church that is in that kind of rhythm of doing what they've done for 25 years, but are willing to like say, Hey, all right, what are some things we could do differently just practically to help people cultivate a more genuine discipleship and sense of belonging? Yeah. I hope I worded all that right. Yeah. That's good. I'm picking up what you're putting down. You know, I come at this with a little bit of trembling because I was and am that pastor who felt like I'm doing everything that I can do. And now you're just asking me to do more.

And that can feel like shame and guilt, right? I think that there's two approaches to this. There's the approach of, like, burning it all down and just saying, you know, we're canceling this, we're canceling that, we're done with this, we're done with that. You know, this is the new structure. You know, this is the new structure. And I know that some pastors, they're so fed up and in their prophetic desire to see God do something new. That's what they want to do. They just want to burn it all up. I think that that would be a mistake. I think the best way to start, the best place to start, first, read my book, Church as Movement. Say it again, Church as Movement? Church as Movement?

Yeah, Church as Movement. I'm sorry about the self-promotion there. Dude, no, no, no, no. I'm a huge fan of putting good resources in front of people. So, no, go for it. Yeah, I mean, the book was written for this very purpose. I mean, but the best place to start actually is to start the way Jesus started and to start small. You know, Jesus could have arrived at a Greek Colosseum and announced his divinity and said the kingdom of God is at hand and created an unbelievable, undeniable moment that something supernatural is happening.

And instead of doing that, he just chose a small ragamuffin crew of disciples to take on mission, live in the community with each other, and then teach them how to commune with the Father. communion with the Father. So any pastors who's feeling this, I would say, why don't we just start a small discipleship band of people in a local neighborhood, five to eight people, and orient around communion with God, community with each other, and commission into our neighborhood. And do that out on the edge as a renewing work. Do that out on the edge of the empire, out on the edge of our programs. Don't promote it. Don't preach it from the pulpit.

Don't put it on a pamphlet in a program. You don't have to put it on your website. Just you need to practice this. We need to embody this. We need to work. We need to experience the bumps and bruises of living with other people on mission in a in a with minimalism without needing an excessive resources to do it. That's where I would start. Um, I think that that's probably the most prolific and renewing force to the larger church is when we have prototypes. Everybody's talking about it. Very few people are doing it. And this is what

we need people to see a living prototype of this smallness that is actually sharing the way of Jesus in a local space. So I don't know if that helps. No, it does. And I like your emphasis on not overnight changes or just drastic things. This could be a very slow kind of process. I mean, quick changes usually last quickly. But as you're talking, I was thinking, what if...

I'm just thinking out loud. So, but yeah, what if a pastor got his elders or maybe they're not even officially elders, but just a few leaders together, five, eight, 10, and just shared his heart saying, hey, look, I know we're doing this church industrial complex thing and all this stuff, but I just really want to, we're living in this post COVID world. The internet's been around for a while. There's all kinds of just new issues presenting us. And yet we're using the same ecclesiological structures we did before the internet was invented. I just, I want to, can we spend a year? We're going to get together, read some books, pray, talk, discuss, and just kind of just slowly, I just need to start thinking out loud about what this church could look like

in the near future in a way that's going to better deepen discipleship. I don't know, like that. And I've often been, I don't, this, I feel like so much, I don't know, again, thinking out loud, a lot of what is stifling people's discipleship does have to do with cultural issues. Let me just throw a few out. Sexuality, gender, politics, race, social media. Sexuality, gender, politics, race, social media. Is there anybody who would say, no, no, no, no, nope, nope. My discipleship basically is unrelated to any of those issues. Probably a small, you know, and yet, I don't know, like, could churches have more open forums and discussions about these issues and help people engage. Not just a sermon,

not against a monological sermon on sexuality. I've done them. I continue to do them. But what if you had an ongoing Sunday evening, two hour, where people can ask questions and it's a discussion to help people engage these really tough issues that at the end of the day, they might have questions about the ending of Mark 16 and whether it was in the original manuscript, or they might really want to know, be confident that Paul wrote 1 Timothy. And there might be some traditional issues, but I think that there's, I don't know, in the age of the internet, it's a lot of these cultural things that do seem to be at the front and center of people's minds when they wake up

every morning i don't know and this is the world i live in so i don't want to project my world on everybody else but like that's good i don't know i yeah i do think there's i do think we've uh there's not enough space well partly is partly what we're facing is like is the tyranny of speed that the church feels to become relevant and to produce. That eliminates space for conversation. And so most churches approach discipleship, they approach it as a microwave rather than a slow cooker. They want to put together a free class on sexuality, and when everything's done, boom, you know, everybody's on the same page, or at least they know where the church stands. We need to develop these slow, long development process where conversation, conversation, learning, conversation, reflection is unhurried and is safe.

And so most people have so many questions about what's happening politically and sociologically and with sexuality, but there's not enough space to talk about it, and it's not very safe to talk about it at church because you either get on board with the class or you don't take the class. And so I think that a church that wanted to develop people would mark out like a slow cook discipleship space. And when I say discipleship, it's not just one way, you know, it's Jesus was, it was highly midrash interactive. And so that is a, you know, that's a, that's a developed, that's a divine experiment to, to give people space to explore with the guidance of careful shepherds. And even, even helping people to live unhurried lives, right? Cause that's a great point you brought up. I mean, if people are living unhealthy, hurried lives, then to say, hey, we're going to open up this class on Wednesday evening or whatever,

like, dude, I don't got space for that. It sounds great. I would love to, but I just can't. And this is my own. I've got four teenagers right now. We are in the thick of potentially living that kind of life. We try, I would say, pretty well to war against the kind of American dream and rhythm and sports every second of every day and all that. But it's still very, even for someone who's somewhat aware of that, it's still very, yeah, it's tough. So helping

disciple people into the ruthless elimination of hurry to quote a mutual friend's book. Yes, that's good. Love it. Love it. I don't know. You know, Preston, anytime you offer these possible ways for the church to begin a corrective or to embrace whatever God's doing, they just add it into the mix of what they're already doing. And, you know,

if you're going to start something, you got to stop something. So you're going to have to clear out space for this. It can't just be added on to your small group ministry, your Sunday school in the morning, preach, sermon. Something's got to go in order to make, this is again, minimalism. something's got to go in order to make this is again, minimalism. You've got to create space for something to breathe. Um, so, um, yeah, so I wouldn't want a pastor to hear this and to be like, Oh man, I got to start another Friday night meeting. Um, you know, cause in some sense your medium is your message.

So now you're just endorsing the same problem that you're teaching against, right? Yeah, totally. I just had a great conversation with a couple of pastor friends of mine. Well, they don't care if I... Shout out to Evan Wickham and Matt Larson down in Southern California. And they both were expressing this. Well, so my buddy Matt, church planter, planted a church over 10 years ago, and now it's an established church. They've planted, reproduced probably a total of, I don't

know, maybe 10 or 15 churches that they reproduce a church, and that church reproduces, and it's fantastic. And his dad is a retired pastor, but doesn't believe in retirement from ministry. So the dude like travels the world teaching pastors in remote areas. And then also when he's not traveling, doing like kind of like teaching overseas, he's like just pouring into guys. And he's like pouring into like 10 or 15 guys, you know. I'm like, man, how? Okay, he's a retired pastor. He's got all this knowledge and wisdom and like that's golden, but that's,

that's pretty unique. But what, what, like, what would it look like? This is more of my buddy, Matt sharing his heart. Like how can we help empower the older people to pour into the youngers? You know, um, sure. Evan was, Evan's got a young church. He's like, man, I would give anything to have a few seasoned, just Christians who are intentional with just walking one-on-one or one-on-three or one-on-five or something.

And I know this is, there's nothing new in what I'm saying here. But I mean, I don't know if that was more of a higher priority. Like how can church leaders really empower, equip the priesthood of all believers, which you brought up earlier. leaders really empower, equip the priesthood of all believers, which you brought up earlier, like, but, but more specifically the older pouring into the younger, more mature pouring into the less mature. Um, I don't know, is that, I'm sure it's happening, but. Yeah. Well, it's, it's certainly happening, but I think it's, it's kind of, it's become secondary and peripheral to most churches.

So to me, it's about, you know, a re-emphasis and a decluttering in order to make space for that discipleship relationship. And this is not because it's a sexy fad or because this is where the publishing industry is, right? This is what Jesus – this is how Jesus did it. So Jesus had the ability to create a mass movement, and he was given that temptation by Satan multiple times, three times in the desert. We can fast track this thing. And Jesus resisted that for something super small, a seedling of discipleship. And so the church has to come to terms that I think that's the center of the gospel is not just the truth of God's grace, but also the way God embodied bringing about the kingdom of God. So that's also part of the gospel.

It's not just a message. It's also the mode that we operate in. So I think that that has to be brought back into the center of the room. And I know the fear, Preston. I know the guttural instinct is if we do that, nobody is going to want to come. Do you think that's – I was going to bring this up earlier. I'm glad you brought it back up. Do you think that that is a driving motivation to bring and keep people? And do you think that that creates a lot of unhealthy ecclesiological patterns?

Totally. I think fear is at the center of our decisions around ecclesiology. Fear about being irrelevant. Fear about numbers. Fear about what will I, you know, you said earlier, what am I going to do with my job as a pastor? You know, I mean, I think fear is at the center of why we can't have this conversation. So, yeah. Which I get.

I mean, I get if I knew that I was going to make a ministry decision that could have major financial ramifications on me, my family, my family, whatever like that. I could, I could, as much as I'm like, no, you know, do the right thing. You know, when that's, when it's you, what I love about you, Dan, is you're not speaking theoretically, you know, you, you, you've been, been there, done that. This ain't your first rodeo. You've been in various different ministry contexts and have made tough decisions that have had ramifications but um so yeah i i i get that i just wondered yeah i just wonder though like i just wonder if there's there is a simmering hunger for the very kinds of things that we're talking about that I, I just, I mean, it depends on the congregation, but I just wonder if you would actually end up ironically, if you

cared less about drawing people, you might end up drawing more people. I'll never forget church here in town. Um, I think they got this, this, uh, the whole serve Sunday thing. I think, I think Brandon Hatmaker first started doing that, you know, every six weeks or every four weeks, there's no church service. They just go out and serve in the community. Like that's,

and he, you know, we're not canceling church. We're being the church. It's not, we're not, you know, and a buddy of mine started doing that here in town.

And he would always be shocked as like, he's like, that was always our biggest turnout. Every six weeks, we don't do a church service we go out and serve and there's more unbelievers that show up to like go serve a needy person go help muslims or whatever in this neighborhood like i'm all about that it's always the biggest attendance and usually the most non-believers would show up so because you would think like gosh if i canceled church service like people are gonna be so upset no one church service, like people are going to be so upset. No one's going to show up.

People are going to start not coming when we do have church service. And I don't know. I just wonder if you started doing things that were a little more outside the box, unpredictable, authentic, and fostering belonging, you might actually. Yes. But that still can't be your motivation. Like I'm going to be raw and different so that that i yeah audience or i don't know yeah i i do think pressing this is what what i think back to our kind of original uh thing we were kicking out on earlier was co i think covet has revealed or um

maybe maybe tuned us in to a deeper hunger, like a, like a tectonic groaning, um, that we, we, we, and this, you get a pastor or a planter in a space, you know, behind a closed door and they can be honest. They're often hungry for something different. They're a bit tired. They're exhausted and more than a bit tired. I mean, that's why the Kineo Center was started because we're exhausted from the rat race and kind of this tyranny of the industrial complex. But I think the hunger is there. I think we're becoming more attuned to that hunger. I think the hunger is there, and I think we're becoming more attuned to that hunger.

I think that the next precipice is to address the fear of letting go. You can't experience resurrection. You can't experience renewal. And I know this on a personal level. Anything new God wanted to birth in my life required kenosis, required some kind of self-emptying. in my life required kenosis, required some kind of self-emptying. There was something I was attached to that I was glued to that I thought was a part of my identity vocationally, was part of my security financially, was a part of my relational belonging. God said, you have got to let go if you want me to do a new work in your soul. And so I think that's the same,

you know, on a church structural system, ecclesiological level. Something's got to die in order for new life to make way. Man, that's a good word. Well, dude, we should wrap this up, man. There's so many. I just look at the we should wrap this up, man. There's so many. I just look at the time and I'm like, man, there's so many. We could just keep talking for hours. But let's let people simmer and digest some of the convoluted, open-air thoughts that you and I have been bantering around. But just to repeat what I just said earlier, what I love about you, Dan, is a lot

of things I'd say when it comes to church are really theoretical. I mean, I've been in church my whole life. I've been a leader, but I haven't been a full-time pastor for a number of years. So when I say, hey, we should do this, we should do that, maybe try this, it's like, well, yeah, it's nice for you to sit in your basement on your podcast and throw out these ideas and then go, you know, you don't have to reap the... so, and I totally get that. I totally get that. Um, but what I love is, um, I don't think I'm totally crazy cause you and I, I think are on very similar pages and yet you've done,

you've been in the grind for so long and have coached other pastors. So anyway, I just, I love, I think you bring a level of authority and legitimacy to your ideas because you're speaking out of experience. So thank you, Dan, for being alive, for existing, and for coming on the show. Thank you. I'll carry that with me today. I appreciate that. You've mentioned a couple books, so Church as Movement and then Love Over Fear. And you've written, have you written a couple others? Or I'm blanking on.

I wrote a book called Subterranean almost 10 years ago. That's right. I've got a little e-book out called Dialogical Preaching, which is how to include dialogue in your preaching. Cool. I've got a lot of stuff floating out there. And where can people find you? You have a website, Dan White Jr.? Yeah, danwhitejr.com.

And my primary planting work is with the V3 Movement. A great collection of men and women who are doing really cool things in the neighborhood. And then the Kineo Center, the K-I-N-E-O center.com, which is a recent and new work for my wife and I and a team around healing and renewal for wounded and weary leaders. So if that's you, maybe that's a good space to start. Yeah, maybe you'll see me soon. I'd love to have you, Preston. We'd love to host you. Hey, Dan, thanks so much for being on.

Appreciate it. Take care. Yes, peace, friend. Thank you.