September 22, 2021 • 21 mins
Ben Kirby is the founder of PreachersNSneakers, an Instagram account and book, that both ask, “how much is too much” to spend when it comes to presenting a compelling image of the church and it’s leaders? Kirby's got some answers and some solutions.
Solvable is produced by David Zha, Jocelyn Frank, Sachar Mathias and Mia Lobel.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. This is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr. They have
these levitating neon drummer boys at their Christmas service, where
these dudes floating playing these you know, marching snare drums.
According to Gallop, in nineteen ninety nine, seventy percent of
(00:35):
US adults belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. In
twenty eighteen, it was down to fifty percent. In twenty twenty,
it was only forty seven percent. So it's not surprising
that some houses of worship are increasingly going to greater
and greater lengths to keep members engaged. I happened to
be watching this random worship video and noticed a worship leader,
(00:58):
not even a pastor, wearing a pair of Yeasys that
were worth like eight hundred bucks. That's the voice of
Ben Kirby. He's a former marine, a Texan, a devout Chris,
and most importantly, a shoe enthusiast or a sneaker head.
The reason I know about sneakers in general is because
I spent some time buying and selling sneakers for this
(01:19):
so like, that's how I know about this market. And
to me, the shoe is worth what people are willing
to pay for it. And so from the beginning, I've
never said this guy has paid eight hundred dollars for
these pair of shoes. What I've said is that this
guy's wearing a pair of shoes that's worth eight hundred dollars.
Kirby runs an Instagram account called Preachers and Sneakers, which
has a very simple purpose. It runs a picture of
(01:41):
a faith leader in front of their congregation, most of
the time from a megachurch, and next to the picture
is the amount that the shoes that they're wearing cost.
How much is too much? I didn't start off wanting
to be an activist or a discussion leader for a
(02:02):
pretty complex discussion about like money and modern Christianity and
celebrity and that kind of thing. But after doing this
for like two and a half years, I continuously get
more and more validation that it's important. Ben Kirby is
calling attention to what he sees as a problem that
undercuts the intended mission of the Christian Church altruism, and
(02:25):
with over two hundred and fifty thousand Instagram followers, it's
clear that many people agree. Earlier this year, Ben took
another step and published a book also entitled preachers and sneakers,
consumerism and celebrity culture, and faith organizations is a solvable problem.
(02:46):
As a churchgoer, I can understand how the image of
the church is very important. And when I say churchgoer,
I am considered a part of the evangelical community. I
supposed I am Pentecostal, been in church my entire life.
I'm a preacher's kid. My mother's a missionary Sunday school superintendent.
So I am a church boy. I'm an associate minister
at my church. I am a church boy through and through.
(03:08):
When I think about the image of the church, the
issues that you're bringing attention to with your accounts feel
very relevant. How do you look at the work that
you're doing with your Instagram account and with your books? Sure? Sure,
thanks thanks for reading the book. Yeah, thanks for spending
(03:28):
the time with it, and I hope it didn't put
you to sleep, not at all. I feel there are
issues that are more important, maybe than all the things
that come with preachers wearing expensive sneakers. But I think
it's a very in your face issue right now. Trying
to make church cool or a different experience than what
our parents and grandparents did is very much in the mainstream,
(03:52):
especially with guys like Kanye and Justin bringing it to
their hundreds of millions of followers. That kind of thing.
I don't know why I was as a fellow church guy.
I don't know why I was chosen to do this,
but I'm grateful to have an opportunity to help people
hopefully push for a more authentic representation of what Christianity is.
(04:15):
So let's talk about that for a second. So what's
wrong with faith leaders wearing expensive clothing? Like? What, what's
your gut reaction when you when you see this? Yeah,
the in March of twenty nineteen, I had zero thoughts
about this at all, but I happened to be watching
this random worship video and noticed a worship leader, not
(04:37):
even a pastor, wearing a pair of yeasis that were
worth like eight hundred bucks some easy seven fifties, And
there was something in me that I didn't have a
definition for or a reason for, but it stirred something
in with me within me that felt like I had
to say something about it, and so I posted it
on my personal Instagram to like my three hundred fifty
people and just said, like, dude, how are these guys
(04:58):
making this much money, let me get on this payroll,
that kind of thing. What I didn't realize at the
time was that there were hundreds of thousands of other
people that have this kind of internal wrestling with the
image of a guy that's there to lead a church
wearing a pair of shoes that's worth their mortgage payment.
To see the image of someone that apparently is supported
(05:19):
off of the donations of others wearing something that the
donator could never ever afford, it's gross. Why is it gross?
Say more about that, by wearing a pair of thousand
dollars shoes or shoes that command a thousand dollars in
the resale marketplace, you're communicating that, at a minimum, you
can afford to not sell a pair of thousand dollars shoes,
(05:41):
even if it's not fair. And there's all this nuance
and specific situations around each of these guys that are
gifted these shoes or by these shoes or whatever, have
a plug any of that kind of stuff that upsets people.
To just ride off all the people that are upset
about that as haters, I think is being intellectually lazy,
but at the same time automatically getting mad. Anytime somebody
(06:02):
wears a pair of shoes that are five hundred dollars
is also intellectually lazy. I am in kind of the
frustrating position in between where I want to get both
sides to question why they feel so cut and dry
about whether or not it's right or wrong to wear
a thousand dollars pair of shoes, and you receive a
lot of criticism on that. I've seen the comments people
(06:23):
telling you to post the retail value versus the resale value.
What is your intent behind posting the resale value versus
the retail value. The shoe is worth what people are
willing to pay for it, and so from the beginning,
I've never said this guy has paid eight hundred dollars
for these pair of shoes. What I've said is that
this guy's wearing a pair of shoes that's worth eight
(06:44):
hundred dollars. The reality is that pastors are in a
position that is unique, completely unique, and has a set
of standards defined by the Bible that are different than
any other role. And to want to be held to
the same standard as every other random person out there
is not completely understanding what is expected of you as
(07:04):
a pastor. I'm an associate minister at my church, and I,
much like Ben, love shoes. My favorite sneakers are Aramax nineties,
and I have many different pairs in many different colors.
I also belong to a church where we're expected to
dress up when we attend, and that means business formal
(07:26):
full suits, ties, and dress shoes. A lot of our
preachers wear ornate robes or very fancy suits when they preach,
and at times it could be very distracting. I remember
one time, in particular, before I had to preach, that
I was stressing out about what I was gonna wear.
I realized I probably should be spending more time thinking
about what I was gonna say rather than how I looked,
(07:47):
And from that day forward, I decided I would wear
the most basic suit every time I stood up the
preach black. Then I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.
When I think about leadership, whether it's politicians, faith leaders, CEOs, etc.
I think there has to be an understanding that, unlike
regular folk, the seemingly simple decisions that they make can
(08:08):
either compliment or detract from the words coming out of
their mouths. Been convinced somebody who's a non churchgoer, maybe
an atheist, someone you know, spiritual, non religious people who
have never stepped foot into a church, who don't understand
(08:28):
this culture why this should be important to them. Churches
or religious organizations are the most philanthropic out there in
terms of deploying funds, and so there is real tangible
benefit for churches and faith organizations to continue to thrive.
And because they have such a huge profile, such a
(08:49):
huge public media presence, when they do have this moral failure,
it creates this erosion of not only their massive ministry,
but also kind of the greater ministry of Christianity and
the service that's given out into the community by faith
communities that's driven by a commitment to the calling that
(09:10):
Jesus put on our lives. All that seems like good stuff.
And to write off all these organizations that are doing
a ton of good in the world because there's a
select few that are making it look like a clown show,
I think is a detriment and potentially you're missing out
an opportunity to either give or get involved, or you know,
further the betterment of a community or a society. I
(09:34):
buy sneakers that I like that look good with what
I'm wearing, and that literally what it. That's where it ends.
It's like, I like these shoes, I'm going to wear these.
So what about all the people who are just trying
to do that, They're not necessarily trying to portray, you know,
an image of opulence or wealth or detract from the mission.
How would you advise those folks that feel that sort
(09:57):
of a conflict with what you're talking about. Well, one,
I think humility is usually a good thing to default too.
For those people that truly are not trying to flex
or not trying to portray this false narrative that they're
just crushing it in life, I think they should be
secure in what they wear. Like, if you feel good
wearing those air Max nineties or whatever, hopefully you can
(10:20):
be okay with even people saying, hey, dude, those Airbmax
nineties look pretty expensive. The thing for me that's helped
me the most is having people around me that know me,
that can speak into the things that are maybe my
blind spots or maybe lies that I'm believing from people
that are saying stuff on the Internet or whatever. Having
people around you that can say, hey, dude, you're good
(10:40):
to wear those sneakers, man, Like, we know your heart,
we know who you are, we know you're not trying
to flex on people. It will be another thing. I
think if you were posting a pick every day, wearing
a new pair of sneaks, trying to have a super
curated image for whatever reason, trying to impress people. Hopefully
you also have people around you that said, hey, dude,
it looks like you really love yourself right now, or
(11:01):
like you're really you're really into do you set a
lot of money on sneakers that kind of thing. So
like it's on you for person responsibility and to be
okay with the things you enjoy in life. But also
it's great to have people around you you can also
validate it or speak into it saying like, hey, man,
maybe you should reevaluate what you're posting. A couple weeks
(11:24):
ago and a couple episodes ago, for the listeners, we
talked with Molly Burhans, who is the CEO and founder
of good Lands, which is mapping all of the land
of the Catholic Church and then also giving an assessment
of how to use that land for the good of
humanity and for the good of the planet. Yeah, so,
and I bring you that up a little different, a
(11:45):
little more large scale and probably more important. Well, okay,
and I think that's what and I what I would
press you on is to say, like phase one of
you this is that you've brought attention to it, you're
in the mapping phase. But the phase two portion of
it is to go to the church and say, here's
here's our findings and here are some recommendations on how
you could be held accountable. So let's talk about what
phase two looks like for you, like in terms of
(12:07):
the actionable items and the solvability. How do we fix it? Yeah?
I came up with a few things that are kind
of have caused us to deviate, I think from specifically
what we are called to as Christians. My first big
proposal or recommendation would be to spend some time defining
(12:30):
or redefining the mission and vision of their church and
anchoring everything to that based on what the Bible specifically
lines out for churches. Because right now, many of our
biggest churches spend a ton of time on ancillary stuff
that takes manpower, takes attention, it takes money when other
(12:53):
things are being neglected and so if I can get
churches to maybe redefine their priorities and align everything they
do off of those priorities. It's just like running a
company in a way, we're basically saying we're not going
to do anything unless it involves further in the mission
of our church, which should be to preach the word,
make disciples, encourage community, take care of the less fortunate.
(13:17):
And there's a lot of verses around that in the Bible,
but many churches are more concerned with conference attendance and
music labels and branding, all that kind of stuff that
can have a net positive, but as a baseline is
a lot of extra And then on the kind of
as a one a, I would say audit and radically
(13:40):
change your spending like the you know, you vote with
your dollar and everything, and if you're spending millions on
it's this kind of exaggerated, but if you're spending millions
on smoke machines and leather couches instead of taking care
of the widows and the orphans and your immediate community,
that's a misaligned priority. And I would encourage them to
(14:04):
audit how they spend their money, how they deploy their capital,
Like if you're spending eighty five percent of funds on operations,
which are just to raise more funds versus deploying capital
out to the community and into missions. I think that's skewed.
It sounds like you're asking churches as a whole to
open themselves up and to actually give themselves an opportunity
(14:24):
to be the altruistic organizations that we can expect and be,
which is something that's I think is good for nonbelievers
and believers alike. But what about when we're talking about individuals,
Because a lot of the criticism that you have goes
towards either the faith leaders or us as individuals that
are part of the church communities. There's one big one
(14:46):
that is going to just be steeped in irony. But
that's basically where I live all the time, and so
I'm not scared of that. But I would say consider
taking some serious time off social media to focus on
the local church that goes all the way up to
the church leader, but also to the member or even
just like the attendee. Many of the things that are
(15:07):
driving our culture of appearance and production and celebrity and
money and all that kind of stuff are definitely accentuated
by social media. And this is coming from a guy
that the only reason you and I are talking is
because of social media. So like, I recognize that, but
I also think that I probably have a pretty good
credible position to say that social media can also very
(15:29):
much be a detriment, you know, one like from the
mental health aspect, but also it skews perceptions about what
a successful church is. When you see people with you know,
better music or better production or more beautiful worship team
or whatever, it can make you want to strive for
(15:50):
those things. And you can see kind of lower attended
churches trying to copy the esthetic of some of this
seemingly most successful churches. And so I would just say
that's distracting a lot of us, and I would encourage
everyone to take time off social media to focus, Like,
if you truly care about the flourishing of the church
and being involved with your church community, you should care
(16:12):
about the local portion of that. Social media is an
aspirational playground. I spent a lot more time than I
love to admit comparing my life to strangers and friends alike,
celebrities and other influence. There's selling a lifestyle or an
idea of what we can be is part of that appeal.
(16:32):
Whether you're a churchgoer or not. There's no real way
to stop the impact of social media except to unplug
every now and then and remind yourself that this isn't real.
I feel, as a deeply spiritual person, attending church and
being with fellow congregants in person in the moment is
an excellent addidote to all of that. So I asked
Ben what advice he'd offer churches to help keep us grounded.
(16:57):
There is a way to be excellent without being vain,
and even excellent at a large scale, versus trying to
be put on a concert or put on a light
show or whatever. You know, there's churches out there that
have really good worship teams that aren't aren't choking you
with fog and like strobe lights and such, you know.
(17:18):
Or like there's a church here in Dallas where they
had they have these levitating neon drummer boys at their
Christmas service, where these dudes floating playing these you know,
marching snare drums, that kind of thing. It's like, Dude,
you can worship the creator of the universe by using
your gifts that he gave you in a way that
is excellent. It's not distracting. It leads people in a
(17:39):
time of worship while also not being vain or appearing
like you're trying to win the contest of most produced
Sunday service that kind of thing. What does this issue
look like when it is beging to be solved and
when do you feel like, all right, I don't need
to post about this anymore. I'm just going to post
about you know, my sandwich, or like I don't want Yeah,
(18:00):
I'm not going to do this anymore. What is your
work over? Yeah? I think incrementally that not just because
of what I've done, but maybe a shift in the
priorities or narrative on social media about church guys have
seemingly stopped, and I think for the better, have stopped
(18:21):
making as many posts about themselves. Like at a bigger scale,
I think a solved version of this is I mean,
this is very idyllic, but a church that is helping
people grow in their It's like this is Christians, but
their walk, their faith walks or whatever, their walk with Jesus.
(18:44):
That people are happy to congregate and share in every
aspect of community with each other where they're not looking
to gain anything other than just to be mutually encouraged
to share with each other, to share resources with each other,
to really like emulate what the early church did after
(19:06):
Jesus was on the earth. And then I think a
big piece is seeing churches spend an uncomfortable amount of
money on taking care of others instead of just building
platforms for their main guy. There's not gonna be no
perfect churches because churches are filled with humans, and all
humans are imperfect, and so I don't expect that, But
(19:26):
I do expect Christians that care about the flourishing church
to push for a more authentic representation of following Jesus
and also hopefully accountability for their leaders, but also accountability
for themselves. All of that will be a win and
will be closer to being solved this issue of consumerism
(19:48):
and an obsession with celebrities in church. Ben, thank you
so much for being with us. This has been a pleasure.
Thank you, Ronald, this is super fun. Ben Kirby is
the author of Preachers and Sneakers, Authenticity in an Age
of for Profit Faith and want to be Celebrities And
you could follow them on Instagram at Preachers and sneakers,
(20:09):
and that's in not and that's the actual letter in
Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank. Our researcher is David Jah,
booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias,
and our executive producer is Mio LaBelle. I'm Ronald Young Junior.
Thanks for listening. What's the most expensive pair of sneakers
(20:34):
you've ever purchased? A missionary in Jakarta emailed me saying
that he felt like God was leading him to buy
me a pair of Jordan's. And I responded back and
I said, look, I'm not in this for this, but
if you truly feel like God is telling you to
buy me a pair of Jordan's, I wear a size
eleven and a half. And so he sent me yeah, yeah, yeah.
(21:00):
So he sent me this pair of bread black and
red Jordan Fours, which I think resell in like four
or five hundred dollar range now, which I don't wear
as much just because I can't pull them off as well.
But put them all over to you. Most expensive? Yeah,
I got h
Pushkin. This is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr. They have
these levitating neon drummer boys at their Christmas service, where
these dudes floating playing these you know, marching snare drums.
According to Gallop, in nineteen ninety nine, seventy percent of
(00:35):
US adults belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. In
twenty eighteen, it was down to fifty percent. In twenty twenty,
it was only forty seven percent. So it's not surprising
that some houses of worship are increasingly going to greater
and greater lengths to keep members engaged. I happened to
be watching this random worship video and noticed a worship leader,
(00:58):
not even a pastor, wearing a pair of Yeasys that
were worth like eight hundred bucks. That's the voice of
Ben Kirby. He's a former marine, a Texan, a devout Chris,
and most importantly, a shoe enthusiast or a sneaker head.
The reason I know about sneakers in general is because
I spent some time buying and selling sneakers for this
(01:19):
so like, that's how I know about this market. And
to me, the shoe is worth what people are willing
to pay for it. And so from the beginning, I've
never said this guy has paid eight hundred dollars for
these pair of shoes. What I've said is that this
guy's wearing a pair of shoes that's worth eight hundred dollars.
Kirby runs an Instagram account called Preachers and Sneakers, which
has a very simple purpose. It runs a picture of
(01:41):
a faith leader in front of their congregation, most of
the time from a megachurch, and next to the picture
is the amount that the shoes that they're wearing cost.
How much is too much? I didn't start off wanting
to be an activist or a discussion leader for a
(02:02):
pretty complex discussion about like money and modern Christianity and
celebrity and that kind of thing. But after doing this
for like two and a half years, I continuously get
more and more validation that it's important. Ben Kirby is
calling attention to what he sees as a problem that
undercuts the intended mission of the Christian Church altruism, and
(02:25):
with over two hundred and fifty thousand Instagram followers, it's
clear that many people agree. Earlier this year, Ben took
another step and published a book also entitled preachers and sneakers,
consumerism and celebrity culture, and faith organizations is a solvable problem.
(02:46):
As a churchgoer, I can understand how the image of
the church is very important. And when I say churchgoer,
I am considered a part of the evangelical community. I
supposed I am Pentecostal, been in church my entire life.
I'm a preacher's kid. My mother's a missionary Sunday school superintendent.
So I am a church boy. I'm an associate minister
at my church. I am a church boy through and through.
(03:08):
When I think about the image of the church, the
issues that you're bringing attention to with your accounts feel
very relevant. How do you look at the work that
you're doing with your Instagram account and with your books? Sure? Sure,
thanks thanks for reading the book. Yeah, thanks for spending
(03:28):
the time with it, and I hope it didn't put
you to sleep, not at all. I feel there are
issues that are more important, maybe than all the things
that come with preachers wearing expensive sneakers. But I think
it's a very in your face issue right now. Trying
to make church cool or a different experience than what
our parents and grandparents did is very much in the mainstream,
(03:52):
especially with guys like Kanye and Justin bringing it to
their hundreds of millions of followers. That kind of thing.
I don't know why I was as a fellow church guy.
I don't know why I was chosen to do this,
but I'm grateful to have an opportunity to help people
hopefully push for a more authentic representation of what Christianity is.
(04:15):
So let's talk about that for a second. So what's
wrong with faith leaders wearing expensive clothing? Like? What, what's
your gut reaction when you when you see this? Yeah,
the in March of twenty nineteen, I had zero thoughts
about this at all, but I happened to be watching
this random worship video and noticed a worship leader, not
(04:37):
even a pastor, wearing a pair of yeasis that were
worth like eight hundred bucks some easy seven fifties, And
there was something in me that I didn't have a
definition for or a reason for, but it stirred something
in with me within me that felt like I had
to say something about it, and so I posted it
on my personal Instagram to like my three hundred fifty
people and just said, like, dude, how are these guys
(04:58):
making this much money, let me get on this payroll,
that kind of thing. What I didn't realize at the
time was that there were hundreds of thousands of other
people that have this kind of internal wrestling with the
image of a guy that's there to lead a church
wearing a pair of shoes that's worth their mortgage payment.
To see the image of someone that apparently is supported
(05:19):
off of the donations of others wearing something that the
donator could never ever afford, it's gross. Why is it gross?
Say more about that, by wearing a pair of thousand
dollars shoes or shoes that command a thousand dollars in
the resale marketplace, you're communicating that, at a minimum, you
can afford to not sell a pair of thousand dollars shoes,
(05:41):
even if it's not fair. And there's all this nuance
and specific situations around each of these guys that are
gifted these shoes or by these shoes or whatever, have
a plug any of that kind of stuff that upsets people.
To just ride off all the people that are upset
about that as haters, I think is being intellectually lazy,
but at the same time automatically getting mad. Anytime somebody
(06:02):
wears a pair of shoes that are five hundred dollars
is also intellectually lazy. I am in kind of the
frustrating position in between where I want to get both
sides to question why they feel so cut and dry
about whether or not it's right or wrong to wear
a thousand dollars pair of shoes, and you receive a
lot of criticism on that. I've seen the comments people
(06:23):
telling you to post the retail value versus the resale value.
What is your intent behind posting the resale value versus
the retail value. The shoe is worth what people are
willing to pay for it, and so from the beginning,
I've never said this guy has paid eight hundred dollars
for these pair of shoes. What I've said is that
this guy's wearing a pair of shoes that's worth eight
(06:44):
hundred dollars. The reality is that pastors are in a
position that is unique, completely unique, and has a set
of standards defined by the Bible that are different than
any other role. And to want to be held to
the same standard as every other random person out there
is not completely understanding what is expected of you as
(07:04):
a pastor. I'm an associate minister at my church, and I,
much like Ben, love shoes. My favorite sneakers are Aramax nineties,
and I have many different pairs in many different colors.
I also belong to a church where we're expected to
dress up when we attend, and that means business formal
(07:26):
full suits, ties, and dress shoes. A lot of our
preachers wear ornate robes or very fancy suits when they preach,
and at times it could be very distracting. I remember
one time, in particular, before I had to preach, that
I was stressing out about what I was gonna wear.
I realized I probably should be spending more time thinking
about what I was gonna say rather than how I looked,
(07:47):
And from that day forward, I decided I would wear
the most basic suit every time I stood up the
preach black. Then I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.
When I think about leadership, whether it's politicians, faith leaders, CEOs, etc.
I think there has to be an understanding that, unlike
regular folk, the seemingly simple decisions that they make can
(08:08):
either compliment or detract from the words coming out of
their mouths. Been convinced somebody who's a non churchgoer, maybe
an atheist, someone you know, spiritual, non religious people who
have never stepped foot into a church, who don't understand
(08:28):
this culture why this should be important to them. Churches
or religious organizations are the most philanthropic out there in
terms of deploying funds, and so there is real tangible
benefit for churches and faith organizations to continue to thrive.
And because they have such a huge profile, such a
(08:49):
huge public media presence, when they do have this moral failure,
it creates this erosion of not only their massive ministry,
but also kind of the greater ministry of Christianity and
the service that's given out into the community by faith
communities that's driven by a commitment to the calling that
(09:10):
Jesus put on our lives. All that seems like good stuff.
And to write off all these organizations that are doing
a ton of good in the world because there's a
select few that are making it look like a clown show,
I think is a detriment and potentially you're missing out
an opportunity to either give or get involved, or you know,
further the betterment of a community or a society. I
(09:34):
buy sneakers that I like that look good with what
I'm wearing, and that literally what it. That's where it ends.
It's like, I like these shoes, I'm going to wear these.
So what about all the people who are just trying
to do that, They're not necessarily trying to portray, you know,
an image of opulence or wealth or detract from the mission.
How would you advise those folks that feel that sort
(09:57):
of a conflict with what you're talking about. Well, one,
I think humility is usually a good thing to default too.
For those people that truly are not trying to flex
or not trying to portray this false narrative that they're
just crushing it in life, I think they should be
secure in what they wear. Like, if you feel good
wearing those air Max nineties or whatever, hopefully you can
(10:20):
be okay with even people saying, hey, dude, those Airbmax
nineties look pretty expensive. The thing for me that's helped
me the most is having people around me that know me,
that can speak into the things that are maybe my
blind spots or maybe lies that I'm believing from people
that are saying stuff on the Internet or whatever. Having
people around you that can say, hey, dude, you're good
(10:40):
to wear those sneakers, man, Like, we know your heart,
we know who you are, we know you're not trying
to flex on people. It will be another thing. I
think if you were posting a pick every day, wearing
a new pair of sneaks, trying to have a super
curated image for whatever reason, trying to impress people. Hopefully
you also have people around you that said, hey, dude,
it looks like you really love yourself right now, or
(11:01):
like you're really you're really into do you set a
lot of money on sneakers that kind of thing. So
like it's on you for person responsibility and to be
okay with the things you enjoy in life. But also
it's great to have people around you you can also
validate it or speak into it saying like, hey, man,
maybe you should reevaluate what you're posting. A couple weeks
(11:24):
ago and a couple episodes ago, for the listeners, we
talked with Molly Burhans, who is the CEO and founder
of good Lands, which is mapping all of the land
of the Catholic Church and then also giving an assessment
of how to use that land for the good of
humanity and for the good of the planet. Yeah, so,
and I bring you that up a little different, a
(11:45):
little more large scale and probably more important. Well, okay,
and I think that's what and I what I would
press you on is to say, like phase one of
you this is that you've brought attention to it, you're
in the mapping phase. But the phase two portion of
it is to go to the church and say, here's
here's our findings and here are some recommendations on how
you could be held accountable. So let's talk about what
phase two looks like for you, like in terms of
(12:07):
the actionable items and the solvability. How do we fix it? Yeah?
I came up with a few things that are kind
of have caused us to deviate, I think from specifically
what we are called to as Christians. My first big
proposal or recommendation would be to spend some time defining
(12:30):
or redefining the mission and vision of their church and
anchoring everything to that based on what the Bible specifically
lines out for churches. Because right now, many of our
biggest churches spend a ton of time on ancillary stuff
that takes manpower, takes attention, it takes money when other
(12:53):
things are being neglected and so if I can get
churches to maybe redefine their priorities and align everything they
do off of those priorities. It's just like running a
company in a way, we're basically saying we're not going
to do anything unless it involves further in the mission
of our church, which should be to preach the word,
make disciples, encourage community, take care of the less fortunate.
(13:17):
And there's a lot of verses around that in the Bible,
but many churches are more concerned with conference attendance and
music labels and branding, all that kind of stuff that
can have a net positive, but as a baseline is
a lot of extra And then on the kind of
as a one a, I would say audit and radically
(13:40):
change your spending like the you know, you vote with
your dollar and everything, and if you're spending millions on
it's this kind of exaggerated, but if you're spending millions
on smoke machines and leather couches instead of taking care
of the widows and the orphans and your immediate community,
that's a misaligned priority. And I would encourage them to
(14:04):
audit how they spend their money, how they deploy their capital,
Like if you're spending eighty five percent of funds on operations,
which are just to raise more funds versus deploying capital
out to the community and into missions. I think that's skewed.
It sounds like you're asking churches as a whole to
open themselves up and to actually give themselves an opportunity
(14:24):
to be the altruistic organizations that we can expect and be,
which is something that's I think is good for nonbelievers
and believers alike. But what about when we're talking about individuals,
Because a lot of the criticism that you have goes
towards either the faith leaders or us as individuals that
are part of the church communities. There's one big one
(14:46):
that is going to just be steeped in irony. But
that's basically where I live all the time, and so
I'm not scared of that. But I would say consider
taking some serious time off social media to focus on
the local church that goes all the way up to
the church leader, but also to the member or even
just like the attendee. Many of the things that are
(15:07):
driving our culture of appearance and production and celebrity and
money and all that kind of stuff are definitely accentuated
by social media. And this is coming from a guy
that the only reason you and I are talking is
because of social media. So like, I recognize that, but
I also think that I probably have a pretty good
credible position to say that social media can also very
(15:29):
much be a detriment, you know, one like from the
mental health aspect, but also it skews perceptions about what
a successful church is. When you see people with you know,
better music or better production or more beautiful worship team
or whatever, it can make you want to strive for
(15:50):
those things. And you can see kind of lower attended
churches trying to copy the esthetic of some of this
seemingly most successful churches. And so I would just say
that's distracting a lot of us, and I would encourage
everyone to take time off social media to focus, Like,
if you truly care about the flourishing of the church
and being involved with your church community, you should care
(16:12):
about the local portion of that. Social media is an
aspirational playground. I spent a lot more time than I
love to admit comparing my life to strangers and friends alike,
celebrities and other influence. There's selling a lifestyle or an
idea of what we can be is part of that appeal.
(16:32):
Whether you're a churchgoer or not. There's no real way
to stop the impact of social media except to unplug
every now and then and remind yourself that this isn't real.
I feel, as a deeply spiritual person, attending church and
being with fellow congregants in person in the moment is
an excellent addidote to all of that. So I asked
Ben what advice he'd offer churches to help keep us grounded.
(16:57):
There is a way to be excellent without being vain,
and even excellent at a large scale, versus trying to
be put on a concert or put on a light
show or whatever. You know, there's churches out there that
have really good worship teams that aren't aren't choking you
with fog and like strobe lights and such, you know.
(17:18):
Or like there's a church here in Dallas where they
had they have these levitating neon drummer boys at their
Christmas service, where these dudes floating playing these you know,
marching snare drums, that kind of thing. It's like, Dude,
you can worship the creator of the universe by using
your gifts that he gave you in a way that
is excellent. It's not distracting. It leads people in a
(17:39):
time of worship while also not being vain or appearing
like you're trying to win the contest of most produced
Sunday service that kind of thing. What does this issue
look like when it is beging to be solved and
when do you feel like, all right, I don't need
to post about this anymore. I'm just going to post
about you know, my sandwich, or like I don't want Yeah,
(18:00):
I'm not going to do this anymore. What is your
work over? Yeah? I think incrementally that not just because
of what I've done, but maybe a shift in the
priorities or narrative on social media about church guys have
seemingly stopped, and I think for the better, have stopped
(18:21):
making as many posts about themselves. Like at a bigger scale,
I think a solved version of this is I mean,
this is very idyllic, but a church that is helping
people grow in their It's like this is Christians, but
their walk, their faith walks or whatever, their walk with Jesus.
(18:44):
That people are happy to congregate and share in every
aspect of community with each other where they're not looking
to gain anything other than just to be mutually encouraged
to share with each other, to share resources with each other,
to really like emulate what the early church did after
(19:06):
Jesus was on the earth. And then I think a
big piece is seeing churches spend an uncomfortable amount of
money on taking care of others instead of just building
platforms for their main guy. There's not gonna be no
perfect churches because churches are filled with humans, and all
humans are imperfect, and so I don't expect that, But
(19:26):
I do expect Christians that care about the flourishing church
to push for a more authentic representation of following Jesus
and also hopefully accountability for their leaders, but also accountability
for themselves. All of that will be a win and
will be closer to being solved this issue of consumerism
(19:48):
and an obsession with celebrities in church. Ben, thank you
so much for being with us. This has been a pleasure.
Thank you, Ronald, this is super fun. Ben Kirby is
the author of Preachers and Sneakers, Authenticity in an Age
of for Profit Faith and want to be Celebrities And
you could follow them on Instagram at Preachers and sneakers,
(20:09):
and that's in not and that's the actual letter in
Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank. Our researcher is David Jah,
booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias,
and our executive producer is Mio LaBelle. I'm Ronald Young Junior.
Thanks for listening. What's the most expensive pair of sneakers
(20:34):
you've ever purchased? A missionary in Jakarta emailed me saying
that he felt like God was leading him to buy
me a pair of Jordan's. And I responded back and
I said, look, I'm not in this for this, but
if you truly feel like God is telling you to
buy me a pair of Jordan's, I wear a size
eleven and a half. And so he sent me yeah, yeah, yeah.
(21:00):
So he sent me this pair of bread black and
red Jordan Fours, which I think resell in like four
or five hundred dollar range now, which I don't wear
as much just because I can't pull them off as well.
But put them all over to you. Most expensive? Yeah,
I got h
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