August 16, 2023 • 57 mins
What if the church was more about relationships than institutions? This is the thought-provoking question we pose to our guest, Josh LeBorious, a new pastor and inquisitive father. In our enlightening conversation, we discuss the need for a transformative shift in our church focus, veering from an institutional perspective to a more relationship-centered approach. We grapple with the limitations of virtual worship and ponder on the church's proclivity for relying heavily on the power of position. We argue for the value of local, life-on-life ministry, advocating for a church culture that elevates connections over politics and legality.
Josh LeBorious shares some intriguing insights from his church's successful strategies for cultivating and maintaining attendance. This involves the unique tactic of scheduling employees with their friends, which fosters an environment conducive to spiritual growth. He emphasizes the importance of having a close-knit circle of people in a discipleship relationship, drawing inspiration from 'The Other Half of Church' by Jim Hendricks. This book sheds light on the pivotal role character development plays in discipleship.
Our conversation extends to the hurdles encountered by young pastors and the centrality of discipleship in the modern church. We dig into the process of identifying potential leaders within the church, assisting them in nurturing their leadership skills, and maintaining a healthy church culture. Josh shares his journey of self-discovery and the role it plays in conflict resolution, reminding us of the essence of a community focus in the church. Join us for this eye-opening discussion and let's rethink the way we approach ministry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and welcome to the brand new American
Reformation Podcast.
We long to see the widerAmerican Christian Church fall
more in love with Jesus bylearning from the practices of
the early church and other erasof discipleship multiplication.
We want to hear from you, makesure you comment and leave a
review, wherever you're watchingor listening, to tell us what
God is doing in your life or howyou feel about today's
(00:25):
conversation.
Lord, have your way in us.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast.
Tim Allman here and I am pumpedfor you to get to meet a newer
pastor and a newer friend ofmine and of the United
Leadership Collective, joshLabourius.
Josh is a brand new.
We got it at First Things First, josh, a brand new daddy.
Just a couple of days ago, hisfirst son, ezekiel, was born,
(01:01):
and praise be to God for newnessof life.
It is an absolute miracle,isn't it?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Josh being a first-aid dad it is.
And if any of you guys arelistening and you're like, wow,
this guy's not as cofier as Iwould expect, well, that's why
we're really excited and babyand mom are both healthy.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Amen, Amen, Praise Jesus.
So Josh is a pastor atEdgewater Lutheran.
They worship in a school andwe're going to hear a little bit
of his story, but let's stayhigh level.
To begin the normal questionhere how are you praying for
Reformation of the AmericanChristian Church in 2023 and
beyond there?
Josh, thanks for hanging by.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So you sent me this question and I my immediate
thought was I want a cop outanswer.
If you were to give me amillion dollars because you want
a straight answer to thisquestion, I think my prayer
would be that God would move usaway from our what I would say
(02:02):
is too much of a focus oninstitutions.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
I'm not saying thatinstitutions are a bad thing.
I think institutions they do alot of good things and they
support the proclamation of thegospel.
But I think that there's kindof this, a myriad of things that
(02:22):
are playing into maybe ourfocus getting too far that way,
I think a big one.
I think social media has givenus an inflated sense of our
impact and widened our selfperception of our sphere of
influence.
We think, oh, I'm really goingto influence people with this
post on Twitter or on Facebookor.
(02:43):
But the reality is, if you'regoing to sway someone with a
post on social media, they'rejust going to remain swayed
until the next post on socialmedia.
And I think, from inside thechurch, kind of looking at the
church as an entity on its own,I think there's this temptation
(03:04):
to focus on institutions outsidethe church, like political
engines and cultural movements,and then there's also this focus
of like.
We have institutions within thechurch that we get almost hyper
focused on and, like I said,these aren't necessarily bad
things, but when they become thefocus of what we're doing, I
(03:25):
think they become antitheticalto what we're trying to
accomplish.
My prayer would be is not justthat we shift away for the sake
of shifting away, but that wefocus more on kind of relational
ministry and impacting thepeople who are around you.
I'm increasingly convinced thatthe way God calls His people to
(03:47):
be together is embodied, andthis isn't something that I'm
dead set on yet, but I'mincreasingly convinced that a
virtual community is it's lessthan what we're called to in its
fullness because it's by naturecurated Now virtually.
(04:09):
I think that's a great way toresource people.
I think it's a great way to putout stuff like devotional
content and things that helppeople in their own walk.
But I'm pretty skeptical aboutthe fullness of church being
expressed virtually.
For this reason of I think weneed to move toward, or back
toward, a relational approach tothis kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That's so good.
I agree we have and I thinkCOVID did a number there too
right, because virtual enteredin and is virtual the entire
thing.
I like technology because I getto hang out with a guy like you
across states, but where therubber hits the road is the
(04:54):
people that I'm doing life inministry with that are seeking
to be faithful to the call ofChrist and to spread the gospel
here in our local communities.
I think the more we you knowhuman beings are also, josh
hardwired for this kind ofbigger, this more I think Jesus
when he sent the 12, right, andhe sent then it was a
(05:16):
multiplying movement.
They had that call fromJerusalem, jai Esmeralda, to the
ends of the earth, but thatalways pulled them back local or
pulled them into the mission,which was always local, life on
life, of planting churches,multiplying disciples.
But they didn't have this.
Because I guess let me go downthis direction for a second is,
(05:38):
I think, when I hear peoplesaying let's take a stand, like
the church has to take a stand,like I'm going to stand on the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and alot of these and this is just a
broader perception, a lot ofthose let's take a stand
movements, especially astethered to preachers and
pulpits and churches, kind ofmoving in a political direction.
(06:00):
I don't think there's any endto the legalism and I think we
can have such this posture ofmaking the world, you know, and
those people in positions ofpower, bringing them to
repentance.
I think the church does have aprophetic role but I think we
may be in balance maybe a goodway to say it toward the
(06:20):
cultural stands of the day.
Any thoughts and comments there.
It's easy to get sucked in thatdirection.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Josh, right, undoubtedly because everywhere
you go something is pulling, soI am probably a bigger user than
I should be of YouTube shorts,like I'll flick through those
videos in my spare time and whatI'm looking for in those videos
(06:47):
is essentially comedy, like Iwant 60 second comedy clips.
I'm looking for funny stuff andinevitably different political
clips get pulled into my feed.
I am not looking.
I promise you this.
I'm not looking for thembecause I've been in that place
where I watch a lot of thatstuff and it puts me in a really
(07:08):
bad space as far as am I stillbeing faithful in what I think
saying do so I try to avoid thatkind of stuff and it just gets
pulled in and no matter whereyou go it seems to get pulled in
.
So I don't really fault peoplefor this temptation to get
sucked into it.
(07:28):
But you go back to the disciples, these 12 men who following
Jesus, obviously but we can'thold ourselves up to that
standard because we're not Godbut these 12 men who changed the
world right, who ultimately,like the Roman Empire one of the
greatest you know, governmentpolitical entities to ever
(07:51):
beyond the face of the planet,was completely changed by
Christianity.
And it started with these 12men and even though their
ministry spanned much of theknown world, it was still very
personal ministry it was.
We're going to go to this newplace.
We're going to buildrelationships with these people
(08:12):
and we're going to multiplythose relationships.
And I think what's crazy isbecause I'm a math guy, I'm a
numbers guy.
If you take, if every Christianso Christian, everyone who on a
census says I'm Christian ifthey share their faith with one
person, you have doubled thesize of the church.
Right, this is this is math.
This is pretty simple math.
(08:32):
If that group, then that thatdoubled size group, shared their
faith, again, you've quadrupledthe size.
If that happens one more time,every single human being on the
planet is now Christian.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Now, that's not to say if you share your, share
your faith with someone, that'snot to say that they're boom,
they're going to come to faith,right.
But if you oversimplify it, ifevery single Christian shared
their faith with four people andwe multiply that four times out
, at very least everyone hasbeen touched by this message.
(09:06):
And when we say, oh, thisrelational approach, where
you're just talking to thepeople at your friends and
family and close to that's notenough, I disagree strongly
because if everybody did it andI I have, with the exception of
some, like clothing purchases,I've never made a serious life
(09:27):
decision based on strangers onthe internet.
However, if my close friendcomes to me and says, oh, you
got to try this restaurant oryou got to try this thing or you
got to try this TV show, thechances of me trying it go up
astronomically higher.
So I'm all on board.
And I think something that theinstitutional church gets caught
(09:48):
up on is the relationalapproach is not a fast one.
Right, your church isn'tnecessarily going to explode
from 50 to a thousand peopleovernight relationally, but what
I am convinced is that thegrowth is going to be much more
sustainable and much moremeaningful.
And not to brag too much on thechurch that I'm at now, but I'm
(10:12):
really proud of them because wehave this kind of relational
approach and since I've beenhere, our average worship
attendance has probably gone up.
When I got here, maybe 50, wemay be hitting 50 and now we're
up near 67.
And it's been just over twoyears and that's not exponential
growth.
But the people who have joinedus are in church 75 to 100% of
(10:37):
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
That's awesome dude.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So, and I believe that's because it's a relational
approach, and this is somethingif you were at best practices
last year there were a fewpeople who went.
I did a presentation on this,but I used to work for
Vanderbilt Campus Dining, whichis not a good job, right it's.
The hours were long and notgreat because you were working
(11:01):
through dinner time and throughevenings and the job conditions
were okay.
The pay was minimum wage, whichin California, if you say that
you're like minimum wage and sobad, well it's 10 a seat, so
minimum wage is still 725.
And our retention rate wasterrible, like from the
beginning of the first year Iworked there to the end.
(11:21):
25% of the employees say thatwas it?
Anybody else who got a betterjob?
Who got any other job left?
So I had a manager come up tome and said we got to fix this.
Do you want to help?
And I'm like I can try.
And the biggest change we madeis we said we're going to try
and schedule people with theirfriends and we're, as long as
(11:43):
you're still like because you'reyou're spooning food on one
plate for most of these roleslike you can talk with someone
next to you while you're doingthat.
It's not super complicated.
And we said as long as they'restill doing their job, put them
on.
We talked to our studentmanagers.
We said put them on lines withtheir friends.
And then the student managerswhat we said is for every
student employee on your shift,have during the shift.
(12:06):
You need to have at least oneconversation with them that is
unrelated to Rand campus dining.
You can talk about classes, youcan talk about hobbies, you can
talk about the family, whateversomething that is not related
to work.
Build that relationship and ourretention went up I think
something like 50%.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And my, as I apply that to ministry.
I'm like if just having friendsand having relationships can
make people stay aroundVanderbilt campus dining.
Yeah church is a whole lot morepleasant than Vanderbilt campus
dining.
So surely by adding, byfocusing on these relationships,
we can benefit how, howinvolved people are with this
(12:48):
community.
That is then discipling themand pushing them forward.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I mean not to get too simplistic.
I love the story, josh, greatanalogy that's what Jesus did
and did live deeply with 12.
And then it expanded out.
There's something about theinner circle, like if everybody
had this inner circle of peoplethat they were in a discipleship
relationship with, that Jesushad Peter, james, john, right,
that kind of inner circle.
(13:13):
And then it expands out to 12.
Like this is kind of a coregroup of people.
We lock arms, diverse gifts, youknow, within that set of set of
12 personalities, et cetera.
And then there's a wider kindof thing which human beings
really can't be tethered to muchmore and know deeply the story
of much more than 100 people.
Right, that's, that's the size.
But if that kind of church ispivoted, arms in rather than
(13:35):
arms locked in, closed, you know, but arms locked in love and
care and relationship, with arhythm of eating and sharing
life together, sharing the upsand downs, but then are
consistently holding one anotherlovingly accountable toward hey
, let's have Jesus conversationswhere we work and play, and
obviously in our, in our homes,like how much more fun is that
(13:59):
than, hey, you just come here,you listen to me, and then you
get, you just get dispensedright back.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
You check the box, check your boxes and go home.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's not.
We have long since passed atime where that is acceptable,
and I think then that's where itgets into the theological
conversation of the priest ofall believers and the role of of
the pastor.
As you conceptualize the roleof the leader, you know how does
that shape then your work as alocal pastor, josh.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So I'm going to, I'm going to geek out for a second
here.
There's, there's a book thathas been incredibly formative to
how I look at ministry.
It's called the other half ofchurch.
It's by Jim Hendricks, and I'vegot a forget the two sides of
the brain book dude.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I've referenced it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I've referenced it yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
It lives rent free in my head.
And what this guy talks aboutand what I pull out most from it
is, he says, our character.
So when we're talking aboutdiscipleship, I mean you can
parse definitions, but reallywe're talking about character.
We're talking about,consistently, how you think, how
you act, how you, how you lookat the world.
And he says it is, it is mostprofoundly shaped, not by what
(15:19):
we know, yes, but by who weidentify with as our people.
And I mean this.
This is something that veryeasily, if you're listening to
this, you can experientiallykind of know this to be true,
because how often does life giveyou a chance to stop and think
what should I do in thissituation?
Right, our life moves too quickfor us to be able to do that,
(15:42):
and the reality is we just don'thave time.
And if you look back on thingsyou've done wrong in your life,
you knew what the right answerwas more times than not.
But we don't react like weshould.
And what this book, which iswritten by a theologian and
neuroscientist working together,he's like we have to form that
(16:07):
group identity, because that'swhat shapes these more reactive
emotional responses that really,whether we'd like to admit it
or not, define most of what wedo and what we say.
It's kind of the knee jerkresponse and this, this is
exactly what.
This is how Jesus did ministry.
This if you look in the OldTestament, this is how God was
(16:27):
commanding the Israelites to doministry.
Like we talked about all thesefeasts and festivals in the Old
Testament, let's translate thatwe're having meals and parties.
God is commanding them aroundthe clock, around the year have
food and parties and whileyou're there, think about what
I've done for you, like that iswhat God is commanding the
(16:48):
Israelites to do.
So this has been veryconsistent.
And then neuroscience iscatching up and realizing this
is how we form each other.
So, in my role of discipleship,am I going to still try and
give the best sermons I can?
Certainly I love preaching.
I love putting everything I caninto into curating messages.
But I realized that themajority of discipleship isn't
(17:12):
happening there.
It's happening from theconversations that are happening
before and after worship.
It's happening in the smallgroups in people's homes, where
they're talking for 30, 40minutes before they even start
doing a study thing.
And that's even I've written itlike when I recruit group
leaders.
I'm like if, if you're talkingabout life and you're catching
(17:35):
up for an hour before you do astudy, that's great, right, I'm
thrilled with that kind of stuffhappening, because that's where
formation is happening.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And the core of it is you're.
You're being with theseChristians and you're being
formed by.
This is how we behave as peoplewho are conforming to Christ.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So good.
But a relational depth is thegift of the local church, the
big seed church.
When the world feels disjointed, we're unraveling, people are
angry, anxious, fears onoverdrive.
The role of the church.
Right, it starts with ourrelationship with God in Christ
(18:18):
Jesus and then our a depth ofrelationship with one another.
I don't think we pause longenough to have vulnerable
conversations, josh, that's kindof where you're going to say.
I've kind of been thinkingabout this both theologically
and philosophically.
All of life is confession andabsolution.
I confess that I need the mercyand grace of God.
(18:40):
I confess, josh, that I needyou and others like you in my
life.
I confess I can't, I can't goalone.
And then I confess that Istruggle with certain things and
I need your love and care andsupport and prayer, and you
probably need the exact samething for me.
There's mutuality there.
Any thoughts about theconfessing role of the depth of
relationship and how we ought tobe ambassadors of
(19:02):
reconciliation, both between oneanother and in bringing
absolution that flows from thecross of Christ?
Any thoughts there?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Well, this is and I would say Ihate to do this, but that's not
true.
I'm okay with doing this.
I want to go back to that bookbecause what he does is he talks
about this group identity andthe fact that shame is a really
powerful part of that, and we'rekind of we're nervous around
the word shame.
We're like oh, no, no, no, no.
(19:31):
He says like if you look at aneurological perspective,
nothing changes the brain quiteas fast as shame does, except
for, maybe, traumatic events,which we're not.
We're not in the business offostering traumatic events.
But shame is a powerful but,and here's where the kind of the
theologian comes in.
(19:51):
Christian shame is different.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Because if you come in, say, say you come in and I'm
sitting, we have this group andand someone comes into the
group and they say, hey, Irobbed a bank today and they're
excited about this.
Everybody else in the grouplooks at them like, um, that's
not acceptable behavior.
Christians shouldn't rob banks.
Like, don't do that.
And there's shame.
And even if it's not verbal,like you look around the group
(20:16):
and you see facial expressionsthat communicate nothing but you
shouldn't have done thatthere's shame and your brain
starts to change.
But what's really importantabout Christian community
because there's this, thisthere's two ways that shame can
go right.
The one way is this group thatis shaming me.
They're in the wrong and I'mgoing to depart from them.
(20:38):
And then the other way is I'mgoing to change as a result of
this, to conform more to thisgroup identity.
And what's unique aboutChristian community is that
Christians, I'll step into thatrelationship and I'll say you
shouldn't have done that.
You should not have robbed thatbank.
(21:01):
Robbing banks is not whatChristians do.
I still love you and theforgiveness of Jesus Christ is
there for you and theforgiveness of me.
Like you are still part of thiscommunity.
Right, we forgive you as well,for whatever extent we Are, have
been impacted by this behavioryou shouldn't have done, but you
(21:23):
are loved and forgiven and youare still a welcome part of this
community and and what thatdoes is that puts you in a place
of learning where you say, okay, we're not going to do this, we
shouldn't do this, but thiscommunity still loves me and
still cares about me, and that'swhat the church is called to do
, and I this is something JoelBierman at the seminary loves
(21:45):
the word tension.
He loves the word tension and Um, and I love it because this is
another place where we're calledto walk that line of yeah,
we're going to hold people'sfeet to the fire.
I'm never going to lie to youand tell you that behavior, that
wrong behavior, is okay, butI'm also never going to tell you
that that is going to ruin ourrelationship.
(22:06):
That is, that that is going todistance you from christ, um,
and it shouldn't distance youfrom your brothers and sisters
in christ.
I realize that the church isn'tperfect either, and sometimes
we we put more distance than weshould, based on based on sin,
but, um, that's, that's ahundred percent.
(22:26):
Our role is correction withlove and forgiveness, and, and
always having both of thosevoices present in our
conversations with each othersinner and saint josh at the
very, at the very same time.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Uh, that is the tension filled role, recognizing
it Within ourselves.
That is self-awareness.
Uh, I recognize I have gifts.
I also have a lot of gaps and Ineed community, I need christ
and then any community to helpme see those To grow up into
jesus, who is, is the head.
So this is a lot of fun, man, Iyear You've been a pastor.
For how long now, josh?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Uh, just over two years, two years and 14 days.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
That's.
That's so good.
Thank you for answering thecall to serve the body of christ
.
So what are some negativepresuppositions that you've
heard some within the churchtalk about young pastors that
you'd like to speak to.
I remember so I'm 41, now justabout 42.
I don't get this as much as Iused to, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Who's a?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
pastor around here Like a?
Who's a young guy up there kindof talking with passion about
jesus.
What are some presuppositionsabout young pastors that you
just like to speak to the widerchurch about, bro?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
um.
So I do want to say, from acongregational perspective, um,
I don't get too much actually Iand I found that was true here
and that was true on my vicarageit was there was still, I guess
, um the respect of like, oh,you're, you're doing your thing.
Um, when I was in st Louis,there was a little bit more of
(23:58):
oh, you don't know how thingswork, like you're gonna, you're
gonna get it.
I just kind of nodded my headand I was like, okay, whatever,
um, but I think and this issomething that drives me insane,
and part of this is is probablymy arrogance.
Okay, so hear that.
Um, I'm Maybe more confidentthan I should be in my own
(24:22):
intelligence.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Um, but it's good.
Self-awareness, yeah, good,good, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
There is this assumption and I think I I see
it more from older pastors thanI do from congregation members,
but that there is a lack ofwisdom or knowledge and they
assume that the wisdom orknowledge isn't there, and then
there's an assumption that weare gonna make the same mistakes
that you did.
(24:49):
Speaking to an older generation, um, I, I remember very
specifically I was at a circuitmeeting not not in the circuit I
am now, but I was.
I was present at a circuitmeeting and this dude started
lecturing us about putting moneyaway for retirement and I was
like, um, I didn't say anythingbecause I'm respectful generally
, um, but I thought to myselfI'm like, oh no, we know how bad
(25:14):
a financial situation that theworld has been left in.
We know that we have to putlike.
We have no confidence thatsocial security is going to be
there for us when we are aretirement age.
Um, and that's not to say thatI don't appreciate wisdom coming
from people who are moreexperienced than me.
But the matter of approachingit as assuming I'm gonna need it
(25:37):
, versus saying, hey, do youhave an awareness of this kind
of thing?
Like it's as easy as changingthe approach, but oh man, it
grinds my gears any generalassumption of a lack of ability
or competence because I'myounger or for younger pastor
like I, how do I, how do I saythis generally enough that
people don't know exactly whatI'm talking about?
(25:59):
Um, I have a friend who, in awhen a public venue approached
and he had some questions andsome very valid questions about
to say to the church, and anolder gentleman shot him down
and essentially said like youhave no idea what you're talking
about, sit down and shut up.
And I was like and I know thisguy, this the guy who was asking
(26:22):
questions, I'm like he is, heis bright, he is wise, he is
perceptive.
That was a good question,speaking to a reality that the
church is facing, whether youwant to acknowledge it or not.
But because he was younger andI'll admit the guy does kind of
have a little bit of a baby faceright, but because he was
(26:42):
younger, he just his it wascompletely disregarded and
that's unacceptable to me.
Um, and I think part of thatstems from there is this
assumption that Younger pastorsshould look just like older
pastors did, because there's anassumption that things are going
to go back to the way they were.
I don't think that's possible.
Um, I mean, I would rejoice ifit did, because I think there
(27:04):
there were definitely someadvantages to the way things
were 50, 75, 100 years ago.
But there there are too manyPandora's boxes that have been
opened and a lot of thequestions that have been asked,
a lot of the ideas and theconcepts that have been put out
into the world.
You can't put back they're.
They're out there now.
So we have to deal with them,we have to adapt and and reach
(27:27):
people where they're at with thegospel.
And I think this is this is theissue that I've seen is there's
a generational gap Betweenpeople mourning the loss of
Christianity as the dominantforce in the culture and guys
who have never experienced that.
And I think when we talk aboutnegative presuppositions about
(27:50):
young pastors, there's thisassumption that if you just keep
doing things the way we've donethings, things are going to go
back and it's like, no, we haveto pivot, not radically, but we
have to pivot because I've neverexperienced a world where
Christianity was the dominantforce in the culture.
(28:11):
It's never been.
I was discipled by my familyand my church.
I was not discipled by theculture which I think used to be
.
Something maybe you could relyon is that some Christian values
would get there just by beingin this cloud of witnesses.
That maybe a society used to be, but we're not, and I don't
think we're going to see thatagain anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I agree, that's awesome.
I think the core of followingJesus, connected to his word,
must govern our time together asthe people of God, around the
simplicity of discipleship.
So the reason I bring updiscipleship is I think there's
(28:56):
a generation or so when thechurch was in the majority and
the culture was basicallyJudeo-Christian, a lot of values
that we could kind of just setit and forget it.
We lacked intention, I wouldsay for a generation or so, of
actively going beyond maybe myfamily to be in these mutually
(29:17):
beneficial discipleshiprelationships.
We could coast as the verygeneral statements here, but we
could kind of coast as thechurch in the majority, where
there was a church on just aboutevery square block or five
square blocks you could find itand that generally worked until
it didn't.
And so we didn't for ageneration or so establish or we
(29:38):
lost maybe some of the coreconcepts of discipleship.
As I follow Jesus, so you followme, and that is a generational
thing I mean as a young personhere's where humility comes in
is I need someone parents,spiritual fathers and mothers to
mold my character in thoseyounger, formative years.
(30:00):
I need people to speak truthand love to me, who I know, care
for me or integrating me intothe family.
But I think when the lady kindof lost that kind of sense of
urgency, because in the earlychurch we're all in this.
I interviewed Jeff Chloa andlooking at the 50, 60, 70 people
who made up the church inCorinth, in the midst of the
(30:22):
chaos of that culture, like theyare all locked in together,
character content, like theheart and mind of Christ.
As we go our hands and feet arecarried into the culture, like
it was just embedded there.
But I think now we have to kindof reverse engineer
discipleship.
Look at how Jesus did it.
So how do you talk aboutdiscipleship of all of the
(30:44):
baptized at Edgewater?
Josh, so good.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So my and there's room to grow here.
I want to admit that because Iknow there's room to grow.
But my big push and I love itbecause I'm starting to hear it
back to me and like is spendtime together.
Like that's really all I'masking for.
Spend time hanging out withother Christians.
(31:10):
And I actually just a couple ofweeks ago one of the guys in my
congregation he texted me apicture of he and his wife and
another couple from the churchthere at a concert and he was
like Christians hanging outtogether and I'm like that's all
.
And it wasn't Christian.
I think it was like a journeycover band or something, but it
(31:31):
was Christians hanging outtogether.
And that's when I talk aboutdiscipleship.
That's what I talk about Now.
To roll into that, because thecontent the community surrounds
itself around matters.
I love to put my people intoBible studies but and I thought
this was normal because this ishow my dad did Bible studies,
(31:53):
for my dad was the DCE fordecades.
This is how my dad did Biblestudies.
So I was like, oh, this is justhow people do Bible studies.
It's not discussion focusedBible studies.
When I lead a Bible study, Iintroduce the topic maybe and
(32:14):
ask questions for people todiscuss Like that's, that's it.
Because what that lets you dois that lets you break down the
Scripture that you're readinginto your life and to talk about
.
What does this mean for me?
What does this mean for myrelationships, for my family,
for my different vocations?
And what that discussion doesis it way slows down how quickly
(32:38):
you can move through stuff.
You cannot pound through a tonof material if you're stopping
to talk about how it applies toeverybody.
But that's kind of.
So my core of like, if you'regoing to say what is my starting
point for discipleship, is justget together with other
Christians, it's good enough.
If you want to look to kind ofcontinue to grow, let's take
(33:01):
some time and set it apart andsay we're going to dive into the
word in kind of this discussionfocus, and that's kind of.
If you're going to say, well,how are we going to jump that up
, I would say, well, let's startto implement it.
If you're in this group thatyou're doing this Bible study
together with, take a week everyonce in a while and go do a
service project somewhere.
And that's as specific as I'llget, because, right, it depends
(33:25):
on who's in the group and whattheir capabilities are and what
their talents are, what that'sservice might look like.
But serve, go out and serve thecommunity, serve your brothers
and sisters in the church, butnever forget that fellowship
either.
So this is something I remindmy group leaders of frequently.
(33:45):
If you're in the Word andyou're getting in the Word,
that's great.
But take a week every once in awhile where you're just getting
together to spend time together, because that's still
discipleship.
It just it maybe doesn't looklike what we picture when we
think of what is discipleshipwith them.
So that's what I push atEdgewater, for better or for
worse.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Seems to work.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I mean, I've been here two years.
I can't tell you anything morethan that.
But no one's calling me aheretic yet.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's it, dude.
It is as simple as that.
And learning to ask goodquestions.
The church again going back ageneration, I think.
As you looked at pastors, wewere sages on stages, both in
corporate worship and then inBible study.
I was looking and I think I wasalmost taught to run Bible
(34:39):
studies like that.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's 60, 70, 18 years, like a lecture Like a
lecture.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I found some notes from an Exodus study I did at my
fieldwork church at one hour.
I was at seminary for a secondyear and I had so many I mean
there were all questions butthen I had to write down because
I'm just learning how to dothis.
I had to write down theparagraph or two paragraph kind
of answer.
I'd written really small font.
(35:06):
It's really funny to look backat really small type.
So I made sure I got it.
I got it exactly right and Ithink on the developmental
journey there is that focus oncontent like the good theology
matters.
So, as we're learning to dosomething, if you're asking
questions for the group I hopethere's a good theological
answer to those questions.
But then the way we enter intothe group is we're going to let
(35:29):
the Holy Spirit move, connectedto the Word, amongst all of the
baptized here and we're going tolearn together.
That's a different posture aguide by the side rather than a
sage, and a sage Josh isn't thatright.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah Well, and what I would say is I think it's worth
distinguishing different kindsof content, and what I mean by
that is.
There are some concepts that arejust you.
Really you've got to nail themright on the head and for those,
if someone like say, someonehas some questions about a
(36:05):
concept like the interim state,something that is kind of really
technical and it's kind of hardto get there on your own
without relying on the wisdom ofpeople who have gone before us,
I'm happy to do a lecture stylelesson for something like.
Or I had a guy recently in oneof the small groups that I'm a
(36:25):
participant in and he was like,can we do Revelation next?
And I told him I don't likedoing discussion on Revelation.
I think Revelation is one ofthose books.
At least the first time youtouch it, you kind of just need
the lecture because yeah, no, Iagree.
There's weird stuff in therethat you right.
Unless you're an expert in theOld Testament, you're not going
(36:47):
to catch it.
But then for and I would saythis probably goes for 95% of
the material that we have.
I just pulled up one of myBible studies here.
Here are the questions that getasked and I don't answer that.
Well depending on what my rolein is the group, I don't answer
them.
So this is the genealogy ofJesus.
(37:12):
This is from that first part ofMatthew, 1-17.
And here are the questions.
There are some getting to thepoint, questions that kind of
get you thinking in the rightkind of area.
But then here are the questionsthat regard the content.
How many names do you recognizefrom the list?
And of the names you recognize,do you remember any of their
(37:32):
stories?
Because some of those names arereally recognizable and what
that does is that draws yourattention to different parts of
that genealogy.
And those are pretty easycontent questions.
And then it moves to a questionhow many women does Matthew
include on the list?
Summarize the stories of thosewomen, if you need to refresh
yourself Genesis 38, joshua 2,and Ruth.
(37:53):
So there's some scaffoldingthere.
If you aren't super familiarwith the Old Testament, that
gives you the touch points forthese women.
And then the question is whatstands out to you?
And that becomes a verysubjective question of like what
parts of these stories are mostnoteworthy for you?
And that's going to reallydepend on what's your life
(38:15):
experience, what kinds of thingsstand out to you.
And then the final question forthe content is what do these
stories tell us about God?
And there's not really a righttheological answer for that.
There are probably some wrongones.
There are almost definitelysome wrong ones, but that's
(38:36):
really well.
What do you see in this andwhat does it tell you that God
saw fit to include these people?
And I actually I just kind ofpublished part of this because I
had a small group who wanted itin a book format and I'm like
I'm not going to pay to print itin a book, so I'm going to self
publish on Amazon and then youcan just buy the book.
I think for the author's printI can get it for 230, which is a
(38:58):
lot cheaper than Stables isgoing to buy it, and that's all
it is.
It's a series of these kinds ofquestions.
Where it's there, you have totry almost pretty hard to get
them wrong, but it gets you intothinking about well, what is
this teach about God?
What is this teach us about?
What do you expect from hispeople?
And it's something you don'tneed someone lecturing at you,
(39:19):
you don't need someone answeringthese questions, you just you
got to take a second and thinkabout them and then the
scripture is going to be yourguide, and then the these
studies conclude with likeapplication, specific questions.
And it's this kind of thingwhere, if I can just have you
find the answers on your own,that's what.
As a leader, that's animportant skill that I think I
(39:41):
can.
I can give to you much morethan any bit of knowledge I'm
going to pass on.
It's that whole.
If you teach a man to fish, youfeed him for the rest of his
life.
If you give him a fish, he'shungry at lunchtime, I don't
know.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Exactly, exactly.
So I mean you lean intoreleasing leaders this is a
podcast, united LeadershipCollective and are you
intentional about bringing othermen and and maybe future
pastors, leaders, women, forvarious roles too, like are you?
Are you actively identifyingfolks that you're starting to
(40:16):
theologically meet withconsistently and go another
level of depth and then givethem the opportunity to practice
leading one of those sorts ofsmall group interactions, bible
studies, whatever you want tocall it?
Are you doing that right now,josh?
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, so we have five regular small groups at
Edgewater.
I lead one of them and Iparticipate in another one, and
this is this is something Ithink I I build up leaders to
(40:49):
some extent, but I think what ismore important is identifying
people, especially because thesepeople in the congregation who
have all this life experience,many of them are leaders in some
way or another already.
You just have to find a waythat they can comfortably
transfer that.
So with these small groups, Ikind of I divide the leadership
role up and I say I need, if I'mstarting a new small group, I
(41:15):
need someone with the logisticalleadership to say we are going
to meet at this time in thisplace and connect with everybody
.
So everybody knows, okay, we'remeeting at this person's house
at this time.
Here's the address.
So I need that kind of leader.
And then I need a leader who isgoing to be willing to read the
(41:35):
sheet out loud, who's going tobe able to, if necessary, maybe
guide the conversation.
And this is something I taughtand this is this is something
I'll intentionally kind of guideleaders on if they need.
It is the reconciliation part,because sometimes, sometimes
(41:56):
conversations can getcontentious.
So I want to make sure someonein the room has the capability
to either bring aboutreconciliation or diffuse the
conversation until they can sayhey guys, you need to talk to
Pastor Josh and work throughthis.
Ideally the reconciliationhappens there.
(42:18):
But sometimes I understandwe're going to pass this off and
I can deal with it.
And then the last leader that Ithink needs to be in the room
is someone who is who's going tokeep the conversations grounded
in good theology.
So this can be an elder.
If your church does elders inan appropriate way and your
(42:40):
elders are well grounded intheir faith, have an elder in
the room.
I have a women's group and wedon't have women elders.
So you say, well, is the elderthere?
No, I just make sure that thereare women there who are well
grounded in their scripture andwell grounded in their theology.
So that's kind of those are thethree different kinds of
leaders that for me so far ithas been more identifying than
(43:04):
anything else.
But you kind of mentioned thisalso listing guys up to be
pastors.
We have one guy who justfinished his first year at the
seminary and I don't I'm notgoing to take credit for getting
him there right, because Ishowed up and within a year he
was headed to the seminary.
All I'm going to take creditfor is kicking him out the door
(43:28):
Because he was kind of goingback and forth between a couple
of different options and I said,dude, make a decision.
And what I told him is, if youmake a decision and the Holy
Spirit and that's the wrong callthe Holy Spirit is not going to
leave you alone.
Right, that's going to sit inyour gut the wrong way.
So he ended up he's at theseminary.
(43:49):
And then I have two moregentlemen.
One is pre-Sem right now andhe's headed that direction.
And the other guy he's still inhigh school and he's going back
and forth between he knowsprofessional ministry, he knows
he wants to do professionalministry.
He doesn't know if that's goingto look like a pastor or not.
My, because I'm just two yearsout, right, I don't know that I
(44:12):
have any sage wisdom for him.
So what I do is I just try tohang out with these guys and if
they have questions I do my bestto answer them or put them in
touch with someone who can helpthem with that.
And this is something that mymentor on Vick Ridge imparted to
me, steve Coreto, is just thismentorship of we spend time
(44:32):
together and as far as like thepastoral thing with the guidance
at seminary.
Now, before he was making thisdecision, I said, just because I
worked from home, I said, justcome over to my house a couple
days and see what I do and seewhat it looks like to do this
kind of stuff.
And we go to the best practicesconference the past couple of
years.
That's a nine hour drive toPhoenix, so I've invited these
(44:54):
guys.
I'm like you're going to ridein the car with me because we
can talk for nine hours and youcan't escape me.
So that's kind of my for youngleaders is because I don't feel
like I have, like I'm not goingto stand up on a pulpit and
lecture.
Well, I will obviously onSundays, but but I'm happy to
(45:15):
just hang out with you and tolive life with you.
And for a while those guys wereworking out with me in the
mornings.
But when you have school andeverything else to deal with, 5
30 in the morning can becometough.
So, just living life together.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I want to see this is you're doing so many, although
the Holy Spirit has given youwisdom and you're you're leading
in such, a, such a faithful andintentional way.
I really, really commend you.
You know, when I started heregosh, 10 years ago now, and it
was within six months or so ofthat start that we did a weekly
(45:52):
gathering.
It shifted eventually to Sundaymornings at 6 am.
I know that sounds kind ofnutty, but it's.
There's no excuse.
Shows a little bit ofdiscipline.
It's the Lord's Day, let'sgather together and we're going
to read.
We're going to read some sortof a leadership theological book
and then we're going to walkthrough various books of the
Bible, about 30 and 30, from sixto seven.
(46:13):
Church starts at 7 30.
And it is the best way to start.
And there's it's fluctuated.
Guys have come, guys have gonedifferent seasons of life and
moved into even morebivocational, formal, full time
Ministry, many of them.
But there's a core of five toseven guys that that gather
together, that ladies can cometo, they come and go as well,
and it's just so, so fantastic.
(46:34):
So if 6 am Listeners, not yourthing on a Sunday, just find a
time to consistently gettogether and those people.
In my experience bothcongregations I've served less
15 years though there are peoplein your, in your midst, who
would love to get closer, tolearn to do what you do Maybe
not full time, maybe it's notseminary, but they want to lift
(46:54):
up your hands.
I think it's restoring the oldschool understanding of of elder
or a group, a group of ofelders within our churches.
You also there was a lot ofwisdom around the way you are
discipling and looking to formand and launch a small group
ministry.
You basically, without you,just did the GSE model dude the
(47:16):
gather, shepherd, elder typetype model.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I was like, oh, I kind of do that, I want to
because I'm, first of all, I'mreally I appreciate your kind
words, I'm trying to get betterat accepting compliments but I
still am uncomfortable with it.
And I want to give credit, likeI have to thank my parents
because this is how they didministry.
(47:41):
They're there and even now,like they have college age kid,
they have young adults fromtheir church in Georgia over
their house every Sunday nightand they hang out and they get,
they get in the word, and myparents are still doing this and
I grew up with that.
So for me it's not, it's justlike oh, this is, this is how
minister.
And I have to thank my VicRidge mentor, steve and and
(48:04):
Andrew and I was the other whowas the other pastor down there
for all of the gifts that theygave me as far as different
approaches to ministry and thewisdom of mentorship, because
I've been really blessed byhaving those voices in my life
showing me here's a way we cando ministry that that reaches
people where they're at, withthe gospel.
So I want to I want to give ashout out to all those people.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Well, yeah, you won the global lottery.
You won the Jesus lottery there, Josh.
And that and that sort of afamily and that environment and
the best learning is is caught,it's not taught, it's just in
the, it's in the water, it's theair that we breathe and it's
the Jesus discipleship airs, theair of the Holy Spirit that's
been around you your whole lifeand I pray for many, many years
(48:49):
of faithful service, multiplying, multiplying disciples of Jesus
, the slow grow of ofrelationship You're.
I think there's going to be alot of churches like Edgewater
there are right now and I praythey're pastored by leaders like
you and you should just saythank you to that.
I pray there's a lot ofinfluence.
So how?
Last question, how do you walkthrough?
(49:12):
Because there's in the church,there's inevitably going to be
conflict.
You know what is your processfor keeping a healthy, jesus
focused, mutually beneficialculture at Edgewater.
How do you even talk aboutculture and how that is impacted
?
Maybe by, maybe by conflict.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
So, as far as as culture there's, there's kind of
the old adage don't talk aboutit, be about it, because and
this, that book that I talkedabout earlier, has formed this,
and just my observations in theworld have formed this you can
talk until you're blue in theface and people might not agree
(49:52):
with you, but that's not goingto, that's not going to change a
culture.
Exemplify that culture, model,that culture.
My wife and I, we, as far asthe relational culture, we try
to have people over asfrequently as we can, kind of
logistically speaking.
We try at least once a year toinvite people from the
(50:15):
congregation over to our houseand waves, because we do live in
an apartment and everyone can'tcome at once, we wouldn't off
it.
We have a volunteer thank youdinner once a year where we just
say, hey, come over, we'regoing to grill out, we're going
to thank you guys for everythingyou do for ministry.
I'm not going to get on apulpit and say you know, here's
(50:36):
what our culture needs to be.
I'm just going to do my best toexemplify it and then to
encourage other people when Isee it happening.
I have one member he's reallyawesome he loves inviting people
over to his house just to hangout, and I do my best to give
him props for that whenever Ican, because that's kind of
culture we're about.
So the more you model it, Ithink, the better I do.
(50:59):
I mean, I do talk about it.
I frequently will say hang outwith other Christians, get
together, be together.
But I think, more than anythingelse, you model what you want
to see.
And in the face of conflict,this is a weird question for me.
This is something overVickridge.
(51:21):
I did a personality inventorywith the staff at the church we
were at and I don't evenremember which one it was, but
what it pointed out is that Iwill have a tendency to
recognize undercurrents ofconflict and to do things to
(51:42):
mitigate that conflict beforemaybe even the people who are
involved even realize that it'sthere.
So I and it's hard to pin downbecause I just do things, but I
think to some extent there'ssome of that where kind of I try
to get out ahead of it and if Isee people who are struggling
(52:08):
or who are about to be inconflict, to try and deal with
it before it becomes what mostof us would recognize as
conflict, I think once itbecomes inevitable.
I think Matthew 18 has to be ourguideline, like if someone
comes to me and they say, oh, Ihave an issue with this person,
I'm going to say, then go talkto them about it.
And if you've already talked tothem about it, then all of us
(52:31):
need to meet and I'm happy to bethat kind of that witness, that
third party, that kind of says,well, here is where scripture
would lie on this issue.
But I really haven't had todeal with that yet and I think
if you really push therelationship aspect of church,
(52:54):
I'm not going to.
You're still going to haveconflict, right.
You still have conflict withyour friends and family.
But if the relationship hasbeen that focus, I think
reconciliation it becomes a loteasier, because it's not just oh
, that's another person of thisorganization that I'm a part of.
It's that is my friend who hasdone something that I didn't
(53:15):
like, but they are still myfriend and I want to make sure I
retain that friendship right.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but you're
answering it, I think it does,it does.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
You said you worship 60, 70 people and for this
season and who knows how longthis season is it's definitely
manageable for you to recognizethe undercurrents right as the
Lord gives you growth, because Ibelieve the Lord wants to grow
his church more people.
You're going to need the threeand the 12, who also are
(53:50):
relationally excellent atrecognizing those undercurrents
for you as you get two or threerelationships removed from the
depth that you've had.
That's my biggest struggle now,josh.
In a congregation that's largerand all that, it's normally I'm
two or three steps away.
So how do we train quality inaddressing, in a Matthew 18 type
(54:13):
of way, leaders and coaches inour church?
That gets a little bit morecomplex because a lot of times
people want to put me in atriangle and it needs to go back
two or three relationships away.
So how do I lovingly, kindly,say no, here's the boundary.
And then here's the next stepfor you in resolving that
(54:36):
conflict.
And it often is with leadersthat I have been able to do life
with and differentiate intentand impact and all the different
things that we need to learn,the tools that we need to learn,
because conflict is normal.
You have a behavioral.
I can already.
I already know this about you.
You're okay entering intodifficult conversations.
The vast majority of people arenot, and so how do we even
(54:58):
teach a lot of those generalskills so that more of our
leaders in our churches becomeall the more adept at moving
people back toward one another,Having the vulnerable confession
and absolution type of aconversation and then drawing
people back to one another?
Because the worst thing thatcan happen in churches split man
.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
The undercurrent they disengage.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Right, the undercurrent comes and people
disengage, friendships arebroken and, ultimately, people,
many of them may lose their walkwith the Lord because they look
at how poorly the church modelsconfession and absolution.
So good stuff, dude.
This has been so much fun.
You're so bright and the Lordhas wonderful work in store for
you.
And I'm not just throwing stuffout just to flatter you, bro.
(55:42):
The Lord has given you greatgifts, so parable to talents,
Josh, To whom much has beengiven.
Much is required, right.
What are you going to do?
Are we going to bury it?
Are we going to multiply?
Are we going to invest it?
And my charge for you is I prayyou invest it for decades, God
willing, decades of fruitful,faithful pastoral service.
Any final comments, bud?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
One final comment on your last thing.
If you're listening to this andyou're wanting to get some help
in dealing with conflict,dealing with reconciliation, I
would recommend Ambassadors ofReconciliation to any of your
listeners.
Their programs aren'tnecessarily cheap, but they are
(56:24):
worthwhile, so there's sometraining available if you so
desire.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
That's so good.
How can people connect with you, Josh, if they want to?
Speaker 3 (56:35):
So if you want to reach out to me, pastor Josh at
Edgewaterlutheranorg has theemail.
You can also text 4789196187.
If you call that number.
Me picking up for unknownnumbers is about a 50-50 shot,
but if you text that number I'lldefinitely see it and we can
connect that way as well.
(56:56):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
This is fantastic.
This is the AmericanReformation Podcast Sharon is
carrying.
Please, like, subscribe,comment, wherever it is that you
take this in.
We are honored to continue tohave conversations both within
the Lutheran Church of Missouri,and I get to talk with a lot of
people who are outside of ourchurch body but are connected to
the one Holy Christian andApostolic Big Seed Church as
well.
We'll see you next week on theAmerican Reformation Podcast.
(57:18):
Thanks so much, josh.
You're the bomb, thank you,thank you.
Hello and welcome to the brand new American
Reformation Podcast.
We long to see the widerAmerican Christian Church fall
more in love with Jesus bylearning from the practices of
the early church and other erasof discipleship multiplication.
We want to hear from you, makesure you comment and leave a
review, wherever you're watchingor listening, to tell us what
God is doing in your life or howyou feel about today's
(00:25):
conversation.
Lord, have your way in us.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast.
Tim Allman here and I am pumpedfor you to get to meet a newer
pastor and a newer friend ofmine and of the United
Leadership Collective, joshLabourius.
Josh is a brand new.
We got it at First Things First, josh, a brand new daddy.
Just a couple of days ago, hisfirst son, ezekiel, was born,
(01:01):
and praise be to God for newnessof life.
It is an absolute miracle,isn't it?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Josh being a first-aid dad it is.
And if any of you guys arelistening and you're like, wow,
this guy's not as cofier as Iwould expect, well, that's why
we're really excited and babyand mom are both healthy.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Amen, Amen, Praise Jesus.
So Josh is a pastor atEdgewater Lutheran.
They worship in a school andwe're going to hear a little bit
of his story, but let's stayhigh level.
To begin the normal questionhere how are you praying for
Reformation of the AmericanChristian Church in 2023 and
beyond there?
Josh, thanks for hanging by.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So you sent me this question and I my immediate
thought was I want a cop outanswer.
If you were to give me amillion dollars because you want
a straight answer to thisquestion, I think my prayer
would be that God would move usaway from our what I would say
(02:02):
is too much of a focus oninstitutions.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
I'm not saying thatinstitutions are a bad thing.
I think institutions they do alot of good things and they
support the proclamation of thegospel.
But I think that there's kindof this, a myriad of things that
(02:22):
are playing into maybe ourfocus getting too far that way,
I think a big one.
I think social media has givenus an inflated sense of our
impact and widened our selfperception of our sphere of
influence.
We think, oh, I'm really goingto influence people with this
post on Twitter or on Facebookor.
(02:43):
But the reality is, if you'regoing to sway someone with a
post on social media, they'rejust going to remain swayed
until the next post on socialmedia.
And I think, from inside thechurch, kind of looking at the
church as an entity on its own,I think there's this temptation
(03:04):
to focus on institutions outsidethe church, like political
engines and cultural movements,and then there's also this focus
of like.
We have institutions within thechurch that we get almost hyper
focused on and, like I said,these aren't necessarily bad
things, but when they become thefocus of what we're doing, I
(03:25):
think they become antitheticalto what we're trying to
accomplish.
My prayer would be is not justthat we shift away for the sake
of shifting away, but that wefocus more on kind of relational
ministry and impacting thepeople who are around you.
I'm increasingly convinced thatthe way God calls His people to
(03:47):
be together is embodied, andthis isn't something that I'm
dead set on yet, but I'mincreasingly convinced that a
virtual community is it's lessthan what we're called to in its
fullness because it's by naturecurated Now virtually.
(04:09):
I think that's a great way toresource people.
I think it's a great way to putout stuff like devotional
content and things that helppeople in their own walk.
But I'm pretty skeptical aboutthe fullness of church being
expressed virtually.
For this reason of I think weneed to move toward, or back
toward, a relational approach tothis kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That's so good.
I agree we have and I thinkCOVID did a number there too
right, because virtual enteredin and is virtual the entire
thing.
I like technology because I getto hang out with a guy like you
across states, but where therubber hits the road is the
(04:54):
people that I'm doing life inministry with that are seeking
to be faithful to the call ofChrist and to spread the gospel
here in our local communities.
I think the more we you knowhuman beings are also, josh
hardwired for this kind ofbigger, this more I think Jesus
when he sent the 12, right, andhe sent then it was a
(05:16):
multiplying movement.
They had that call fromJerusalem, jai Esmeralda, to the
ends of the earth, but thatalways pulled them back local or
pulled them into the mission,which was always local, life on
life, of planting churches,multiplying disciples.
But they didn't have this.
Because I guess let me go downthis direction for a second is,
(05:38):
I think, when I hear peoplesaying let's take a stand, like
the church has to take a stand,like I'm going to stand on the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and alot of these and this is just a
broader perception, a lot ofthose let's take a stand
movements, especially astethered to preachers and
pulpits and churches, kind ofmoving in a political direction.
(06:00):
I don't think there's any endto the legalism and I think we
can have such this posture ofmaking the world, you know, and
those people in positions ofpower, bringing them to
repentance.
I think the church does have aprophetic role but I think we
may be in balance maybe a goodway to say it toward the
(06:20):
cultural stands of the day.
Any thoughts and comments there.
It's easy to get sucked in thatdirection.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Josh, right, undoubtedly because everywhere
you go something is pulling, soI am probably a bigger user than
I should be of YouTube shorts,like I'll flick through those
videos in my spare time and whatI'm looking for in those videos
(06:47):
is essentially comedy, like Iwant 60 second comedy clips.
I'm looking for funny stuff andinevitably different political
clips get pulled into my feed.
I am not looking.
I promise you this.
I'm not looking for thembecause I've been in that place
where I watch a lot of thatstuff and it puts me in a really
(07:08):
bad space as far as am I stillbeing faithful in what I think
saying do so I try to avoid thatkind of stuff and it just gets
pulled in and no matter whereyou go it seems to get pulled in
.
So I don't really fault peoplefor this temptation to get
sucked into it.
(07:28):
But you go back to the disciples, these 12 men who following
Jesus, obviously but we can'thold ourselves up to that
standard because we're not Godbut these 12 men who changed the
world right, who ultimately,like the Roman Empire one of the
greatest you know, governmentpolitical entities to ever
(07:51):
beyond the face of the planet,was completely changed by
Christianity.
And it started with these 12men and even though their
ministry spanned much of theknown world, it was still very
personal ministry it was.
We're going to go to this newplace.
We're going to buildrelationships with these people
(08:12):
and we're going to multiplythose relationships.
And I think what's crazy isbecause I'm a math guy, I'm a
numbers guy.
If you take, if every Christianso Christian, everyone who on a
census says I'm Christian ifthey share their faith with one
person, you have doubled thesize of the church.
Right, this is this is math.
This is pretty simple math.
(08:32):
If that group, then that thatdoubled size group, shared their
faith, again, you've quadrupledthe size.
If that happens one more time,every single human being on the
planet is now Christian.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Now, that's not to say if you share your, share
your faith with someone, that'snot to say that they're boom,
they're going to come to faith,right.
But if you oversimplify it, ifevery single Christian shared
their faith with four people andwe multiply that four times out
, at very least everyone hasbeen touched by this message.
(09:06):
And when we say, oh, thisrelational approach, where
you're just talking to thepeople at your friends and
family and close to that's notenough, I disagree strongly
because if everybody did it andI I have, with the exception of
some, like clothing purchases,I've never made a serious life
(09:27):
decision based on strangers onthe internet.
However, if my close friendcomes to me and says, oh, you
got to try this restaurant oryou got to try this thing or you
got to try this TV show, thechances of me trying it go up
astronomically higher.
So I'm all on board.
And I think something that theinstitutional church gets caught
(09:48):
up on is the relationalapproach is not a fast one.
Right, your church isn'tnecessarily going to explode
from 50 to a thousand peopleovernight relationally, but what
I am convinced is that thegrowth is going to be much more
sustainable and much moremeaningful.
And not to brag too much on thechurch that I'm at now, but I'm
(10:12):
really proud of them because wehave this kind of relational
approach and since I've beenhere, our average worship
attendance has probably gone up.
When I got here, maybe 50, wemay be hitting 50 and now we're
up near 67.
And it's been just over twoyears and that's not exponential
growth.
But the people who have joinedus are in church 75 to 100% of
(10:37):
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
That's awesome dude.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So, and I believe that's because it's a relational
approach, and this is somethingif you were at best practices
last year there were a fewpeople who went.
I did a presentation on this,but I used to work for
Vanderbilt Campus Dining, whichis not a good job, right it's.
The hours were long and notgreat because you were working
(11:01):
through dinner time and throughevenings and the job conditions
were okay.
The pay was minimum wage, whichin California, if you say that
you're like minimum wage and sobad, well it's 10 a seat, so
minimum wage is still 725.
And our retention rate wasterrible, like from the
beginning of the first year Iworked there to the end.
(11:21):
25% of the employees say thatwas it?
Anybody else who got a betterjob?
Who got any other job left?
So I had a manager come up tome and said we got to fix this.
Do you want to help?
And I'm like I can try.
And the biggest change we madeis we said we're going to try
and schedule people with theirfriends and we're, as long as
(11:43):
you're still like because you'reyou're spooning food on one
plate for most of these roleslike you can talk with someone
next to you while you're doingthat.
It's not super complicated.
And we said as long as they'restill doing their job, put them
on.
We talked to our studentmanagers.
We said put them on lines withtheir friends.
And then the student managerswhat we said is for every
student employee on your shift,have during the shift.
(12:06):
You need to have at least oneconversation with them that is
unrelated to Rand campus dining.
You can talk about classes, youcan talk about hobbies, you can
talk about the family, whateversomething that is not related
to work.
Build that relationship and ourretention went up I think
something like 50%.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And my, as I apply that to ministry.
I'm like if just having friendsand having relationships can
make people stay aroundVanderbilt campus dining.
Yeah church is a whole lot morepleasant than Vanderbilt campus
dining.
So surely by adding, byfocusing on these relationships,
we can benefit how, howinvolved people are with this
(12:48):
community.
That is then discipling themand pushing them forward.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I mean not to get too simplistic.
I love the story, josh, greatanalogy that's what Jesus did
and did live deeply with 12.
And then it expanded out.
There's something about theinner circle, like if everybody
had this inner circle of peoplethat they were in a discipleship
relationship with, that Jesushad Peter, james, john, right,
that kind of inner circle.
(13:13):
And then it expands out to 12.
Like this is kind of a coregroup of people.
We lock arms, diverse gifts, youknow, within that set of set of
12 personalities, et cetera.
And then there's a wider kindof thing which human beings
really can't be tethered to muchmore and know deeply the story
of much more than 100 people.
Right, that's, that's the size.
But if that kind of church ispivoted, arms in rather than
(13:35):
arms locked in, closed, you know, but arms locked in love and
care and relationship, with arhythm of eating and sharing
life together, sharing the upsand downs, but then are
consistently holding one anotherlovingly accountable toward hey
, let's have Jesus conversationswhere we work and play, and
obviously in our, in our homes,like how much more fun is that
(13:59):
than, hey, you just come here,you listen to me, and then you
get, you just get dispensedright back.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
You check the box, check your boxes and go home.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's not.
We have long since passed atime where that is acceptable,
and I think then that's where itgets into the theological
conversation of the priest ofall believers and the role of of
the pastor.
As you conceptualize the roleof the leader, you know how does
that shape then your work as alocal pastor, josh.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So I'm going to, I'm going to geek out for a second
here.
There's, there's a book thathas been incredibly formative to
how I look at ministry.
It's called the other half ofchurch.
It's by Jim Hendricks, and I'vegot a forget the two sides of
the brain book dude.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I've referenced it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I've referenced it yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
It lives rent free in my head.
And what this guy talks aboutand what I pull out most from it
is, he says, our character.
So when we're talking aboutdiscipleship, I mean you can
parse definitions, but reallywe're talking about character.
We're talking about,consistently, how you think, how
you act, how you, how you lookat the world.
And he says it is, it is mostprofoundly shaped, not by what
(15:19):
we know, yes, but by who weidentify with as our people.
And I mean this.
This is something that veryeasily, if you're listening to
this, you can experientiallykind of know this to be true,
because how often does life giveyou a chance to stop and think
what should I do in thissituation?
Right, our life moves too quickfor us to be able to do that,
(15:42):
and the reality is we just don'thave time.
And if you look back on thingsyou've done wrong in your life,
you knew what the right answerwas more times than not.
But we don't react like weshould.
And what this book, which iswritten by a theologian and
neuroscientist working together,he's like we have to form that
(16:07):
group identity, because that'swhat shapes these more reactive
emotional responses that really,whether we'd like to admit it
or not, define most of what wedo and what we say.
It's kind of the knee jerkresponse and this, this is
exactly what.
This is how Jesus did ministry.
This if you look in the OldTestament, this is how God was
(16:27):
commanding the Israelites to doministry.
Like we talked about all thesefeasts and festivals in the Old
Testament, let's translate thatwe're having meals and parties.
God is commanding them aroundthe clock, around the year have
food and parties and whileyou're there, think about what
I've done for you, like that iswhat God is commanding the
(16:48):
Israelites to do.
So this has been veryconsistent.
And then neuroscience iscatching up and realizing this
is how we form each other.
So, in my role of discipleship,am I going to still try and
give the best sermons I can?
Certainly I love preaching.
I love putting everything I caninto into curating messages.
But I realized that themajority of discipleship isn't
(17:12):
happening there.
It's happening from theconversations that are happening
before and after worship.
It's happening in the smallgroups in people's homes, where
they're talking for 30, 40minutes before they even start
doing a study thing.
And that's even I've written itlike when I recruit group
leaders.
I'm like if, if you're talkingabout life and you're catching
(17:35):
up for an hour before you do astudy, that's great, right, I'm
thrilled with that kind of stuffhappening, because that's where
formation is happening.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And the core of it is you're.
You're being with theseChristians and you're being
formed by.
This is how we behave as peoplewho are conforming to Christ.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So good.
But a relational depth is thegift of the local church, the
big seed church.
When the world feels disjointed, we're unraveling, people are
angry, anxious, fears onoverdrive.
The role of the church.
Right, it starts with ourrelationship with God in Christ
(18:18):
Jesus and then our a depth ofrelationship with one another.
I don't think we pause longenough to have vulnerable
conversations, josh, that's kindof where you're going to say.
I've kind of been thinkingabout this both theologically
and philosophically.
All of life is confession andabsolution.
I confess that I need the mercyand grace of God.
(18:40):
I confess, josh, that I needyou and others like you in my
life.
I confess I can't, I can't goalone.
And then I confess that Istruggle with certain things and
I need your love and care andsupport and prayer, and you
probably need the exact samething for me.
There's mutuality there.
Any thoughts about theconfessing role of the depth of
relationship and how we ought tobe ambassadors of
(19:02):
reconciliation, both between oneanother and in bringing
absolution that flows from thecross of Christ?
Any thoughts there?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Well, this is and I would say Ihate to do this, but that's not
true.
I'm okay with doing this.
I want to go back to that bookbecause what he does is he talks
about this group identity andthe fact that shame is a really
powerful part of that, and we'rekind of we're nervous around
the word shame.
We're like oh, no, no, no, no.
(19:31):
He says like if you look at aneurological perspective,
nothing changes the brain quiteas fast as shame does, except
for, maybe, traumatic events,which we're not.
We're not in the business offostering traumatic events.
But shame is a powerful but,and here's where the kind of the
theologian comes in.
(19:51):
Christian shame is different.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Because if you come in, say, say you come in and I'm
sitting, we have this group andand someone comes into the
group and they say, hey, Irobbed a bank today and they're
excited about this.
Everybody else in the grouplooks at them like, um, that's
not acceptable behavior.
Christians shouldn't rob banks.
Like, don't do that.
And there's shame.
And even if it's not verbal,like you look around the group
(20:16):
and you see facial expressionsthat communicate nothing but you
shouldn't have done thatthere's shame and your brain
starts to change.
But what's really importantabout Christian community
because there's this, thisthere's two ways that shame can
go right.
The one way is this group thatis shaming me.
They're in the wrong and I'mgoing to depart from them.
(20:38):
And then the other way is I'mgoing to change as a result of
this, to conform more to thisgroup identity.
And what's unique aboutChristian community is that
Christians, I'll step into thatrelationship and I'll say you
shouldn't have done that.
You should not have robbed thatbank.
(21:01):
Robbing banks is not whatChristians do.
I still love you and theforgiveness of Jesus Christ is
there for you and theforgiveness of me.
Like you are still part of thiscommunity.
Right, we forgive you as well,for whatever extent we Are, have
been impacted by this behavioryou shouldn't have done, but you
(21:23):
are loved and forgiven and youare still a welcome part of this
community and and what thatdoes is that puts you in a place
of learning where you say, okay, we're not going to do this, we
shouldn't do this, but thiscommunity still loves me and
still cares about me, and that'swhat the church is called to do
, and I this is something JoelBierman at the seminary loves
(21:45):
the word tension.
He loves the word tension and Um, and I love it because this is
another place where we're calledto walk that line of yeah,
we're going to hold people'sfeet to the fire.
I'm never going to lie to youand tell you that behavior, that
wrong behavior, is okay, butI'm also never going to tell you
that that is going to ruin ourrelationship.
(22:06):
That is, that that is going todistance you from christ, um,
and it shouldn't distance youfrom your brothers and sisters
in christ.
I realize that the church isn'tperfect either, and sometimes
we we put more distance than weshould, based on based on sin,
but, um, that's, that's ahundred percent.
(22:26):
Our role is correction withlove and forgiveness, and, and
always having both of thosevoices present in our
conversations with each othersinner and saint josh at the
very, at the very same time.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Uh, that is the tension filled role, recognizing
it Within ourselves.
That is self-awareness.
Uh, I recognize I have gifts.
I also have a lot of gaps and Ineed community, I need christ
and then any community to helpme see those To grow up into
jesus, who is, is the head.
So this is a lot of fun, man, Iyear You've been a pastor.
For how long now, josh?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Uh, just over two years, two years and 14 days.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
That's.
That's so good.
Thank you for answering thecall to serve the body of christ
.
So what are some negativepresuppositions that you've
heard some within the churchtalk about young pastors that
you'd like to speak to.
I remember so I'm 41, now justabout 42.
I don't get this as much as Iused to, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Who's a?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
pastor around here Like a?
Who's a young guy up there kindof talking with passion about
jesus.
What are some presuppositionsabout young pastors that you
just like to speak to the widerchurch about, bro?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
um.
So I do want to say, from acongregational perspective, um,
I don't get too much actually Iand I found that was true here
and that was true on my vicarageit was there was still, I guess
, um the respect of like, oh,you're, you're doing your thing.
Um, when I was in st Louis,there was a little bit more of
(23:58):
oh, you don't know how thingswork, like you're gonna, you're
gonna get it.
I just kind of nodded my headand I was like, okay, whatever,
um, but I think and this issomething that drives me insane,
and part of this is is probablymy arrogance.
Okay, so hear that.
Um, I'm Maybe more confidentthan I should be in my own
(24:22):
intelligence.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Um, but it's good.
Self-awareness, yeah, good,good, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
There is this assumption and I think I I see
it more from older pastors thanI do from congregation members,
but that there is a lack ofwisdom or knowledge and they
assume that the wisdom orknowledge isn't there, and then
there's an assumption that weare gonna make the same mistakes
that you did.
(24:49):
Speaking to an older generation, um, I, I remember very
specifically I was at a circuitmeeting not not in the circuit I
am now, but I was.
I was present at a circuitmeeting and this dude started
lecturing us about putting moneyaway for retirement and I was
like, um, I didn't say anythingbecause I'm respectful generally
, um, but I thought to myselfI'm like, oh no, we know how bad
(25:14):
a financial situation that theworld has been left in.
We know that we have to putlike.
We have no confidence thatsocial security is going to be
there for us when we are aretirement age.
Um, and that's not to say thatI don't appreciate wisdom coming
from people who are moreexperienced than me.
But the matter of approachingit as assuming I'm gonna need it
(25:37):
, versus saying, hey, do youhave an awareness of this kind
of thing?
Like it's as easy as changingthe approach, but oh man, it
grinds my gears any generalassumption of a lack of ability
or competence because I'myounger or for younger pastor
like I, how do I, how do I saythis generally enough that
people don't know exactly whatI'm talking about?
(25:59):
Um, I have a friend who, in awhen a public venue approached
and he had some questions andsome very valid questions about
to say to the church, and anolder gentleman shot him down
and essentially said like youhave no idea what you're talking
about, sit down and shut up.
And I was like and I know thisguy, this the guy who was asking
(26:22):
questions, I'm like he is, heis bright, he is wise, he is
perceptive.
That was a good question,speaking to a reality that the
church is facing, whether youwant to acknowledge it or not.
But because he was younger andI'll admit the guy does kind of
have a little bit of a baby faceright, but because he was
(26:42):
younger, he just his it wascompletely disregarded and
that's unacceptable to me.
Um, and I think part of thatstems from there is this
assumption that Younger pastorsshould look just like older
pastors did, because there's anassumption that things are going
to go back to the way they were.
I don't think that's possible.
Um, I mean, I would rejoice ifit did, because I think there
(27:04):
there were definitely someadvantages to the way things
were 50, 75, 100 years ago.
But there there are too manyPandora's boxes that have been
opened and a lot of thequestions that have been asked,
a lot of the ideas and theconcepts that have been put out
into the world.
You can't put back they're.
They're out there now.
So we have to deal with them,we have to adapt and and reach
(27:27):
people where they're at with thegospel.
And I think this is this is theissue that I've seen is there's
a generational gap Betweenpeople mourning the loss of
Christianity as the dominantforce in the culture and guys
who have never experienced that.
And I think when we talk aboutnegative presuppositions about
(27:50):
young pastors, there's thisassumption that if you just keep
doing things the way we've donethings, things are going to go
back and it's like, no, we haveto pivot, not radically, but we
have to pivot because I've neverexperienced a world where
Christianity was the dominantforce in the culture.
(28:11):
It's never been.
I was discipled by my familyand my church.
I was not discipled by theculture which I think used to be
.
Something maybe you could relyon is that some Christian values
would get there just by beingin this cloud of witnesses.
That maybe a society used to be, but we're not, and I don't
think we're going to see thatagain anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I agree, that's awesome.
I think the core of followingJesus, connected to his word,
must govern our time together asthe people of God, around the
simplicity of discipleship.
So the reason I bring updiscipleship is I think there's
(28:56):
a generation or so when thechurch was in the majority and
the culture was basicallyJudeo-Christian, a lot of values
that we could kind of just setit and forget it.
We lacked intention, I wouldsay for a generation or so, of
actively going beyond maybe myfamily to be in these mutually
(29:17):
beneficial discipleshiprelationships.
We could coast as the verygeneral statements here, but we
could kind of coast as thechurch in the majority, where
there was a church on just aboutevery square block or five
square blocks you could find itand that generally worked until
it didn't.
And so we didn't for ageneration or so establish or we
(29:38):
lost maybe some of the coreconcepts of discipleship.
As I follow Jesus, so you followme, and that is a generational
thing I mean as a young personhere's where humility comes in
is I need someone parents,spiritual fathers and mothers to
mold my character in thoseyounger, formative years.
(30:00):
I need people to speak truthand love to me, who I know, care
for me or integrating me intothe family.
But I think when the lady kindof lost that kind of sense of
urgency, because in the earlychurch we're all in this.
I interviewed Jeff Chloa andlooking at the 50, 60, 70 people
who made up the church inCorinth, in the midst of the
(30:22):
chaos of that culture, like theyare all locked in together,
character content, like theheart and mind of Christ.
As we go our hands and feet arecarried into the culture, like
it was just embedded there.
But I think now we have to kindof reverse engineer
discipleship.
Look at how Jesus did it.
So how do you talk aboutdiscipleship of all of the
(30:44):
baptized at Edgewater?
Josh, so good.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So my and there's room to grow here.
I want to admit that because Iknow there's room to grow.
But my big push and I love itbecause I'm starting to hear it
back to me and like is spendtime together.
Like that's really all I'masking for.
Spend time hanging out withother Christians.
(31:10):
And I actually just a couple ofweeks ago one of the guys in my
congregation he texted me apicture of he and his wife and
another couple from the churchthere at a concert and he was
like Christians hanging outtogether and I'm like that's all
.
And it wasn't Christian.
I think it was like a journeycover band or something, but it
(31:31):
was Christians hanging outtogether.
And that's when I talk aboutdiscipleship.
That's what I talk about Now.
To roll into that, because thecontent the community surrounds
itself around matters.
I love to put my people intoBible studies but and I thought
this was normal because this ishow my dad did Bible studies,
(31:53):
for my dad was the DCE fordecades.
This is how my dad did Biblestudies.
So I was like, oh, this is justhow people do Bible studies.
It's not discussion focusedBible studies.
When I lead a Bible study, Iintroduce the topic maybe and
(32:14):
ask questions for people todiscuss Like that's, that's it.
Because what that lets you dois that lets you break down the
Scripture that you're readinginto your life and to talk about
.
What does this mean for me?
What does this mean for myrelationships, for my family,
for my different vocations?
And what that discussion doesis it way slows down how quickly
(32:38):
you can move through stuff.
You cannot pound through a tonof material if you're stopping
to talk about how it applies toeverybody.
But that's kind of.
So my core of like, if you'regoing to say what is my starting
point for discipleship, is justget together with other
Christians, it's good enough.
If you want to look to kind ofcontinue to grow, let's take
(33:01):
some time and set it apart andsay we're going to dive into the
word in kind of this discussionfocus, and that's kind of.
If you're going to say, well,how are we going to jump that up
, I would say, well, let's startto implement it.
If you're in this group thatyou're doing this Bible study
together with, take a week everyonce in a while and go do a
service project somewhere.
And that's as specific as I'llget, because, right, it depends
(33:25):
on who's in the group and whattheir capabilities are and what
their talents are, what that'sservice might look like.
But serve, go out and serve thecommunity, serve your brothers
and sisters in the church, butnever forget that fellowship
either.
So this is something I remindmy group leaders of frequently.
(33:45):
If you're in the Word andyou're getting in the Word,
that's great.
But take a week every once in awhile where you're just getting
together to spend time together, because that's still
discipleship.
It just it maybe doesn't looklike what we picture when we
think of what is discipleshipwith them.
So that's what I push atEdgewater, for better or for
worse.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Seems to work.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I mean, I've been here two years.
I can't tell you anything morethan that.
But no one's calling me aheretic yet.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's it, dude.
It is as simple as that.
And learning to ask goodquestions.
The church again going back ageneration, I think.
As you looked at pastors, wewere sages on stages, both in
corporate worship and then inBible study.
I was looking and I think I wasalmost taught to run Bible
(34:39):
studies like that.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's 60, 70, 18 years, like a lecture Like a
lecture.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I found some notes from an Exodus study I did at my
fieldwork church at one hour.
I was at seminary for a secondyear and I had so many I mean
there were all questions butthen I had to write down because
I'm just learning how to dothis.
I had to write down theparagraph or two paragraph kind
of answer.
I'd written really small font.
(35:06):
It's really funny to look backat really small type.
So I made sure I got it.
I got it exactly right and Ithink on the developmental
journey there is that focus oncontent like the good theology
matters.
So, as we're learning to dosomething, if you're asking
questions for the group I hopethere's a good theological
answer to those questions.
But then the way we enter intothe group is we're going to let
(35:29):
the Holy Spirit move, connectedto the Word, amongst all of the
baptized here and we're going tolearn together.
That's a different posture aguide by the side rather than a
sage, and a sage Josh isn't thatright.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah Well, and what I would say is I think it's worth
distinguishing different kindsof content, and what I mean by
that is.
There are some concepts that arejust you.
Really you've got to nail themright on the head and for those,
if someone like say, someonehas some questions about a
(36:05):
concept like the interim state,something that is kind of really
technical and it's kind of hardto get there on your own
without relying on the wisdom ofpeople who have gone before us,
I'm happy to do a lecture stylelesson for something like.
Or I had a guy recently in oneof the small groups that I'm a
(36:25):
participant in and he was like,can we do Revelation next?
And I told him I don't likedoing discussion on Revelation.
I think Revelation is one ofthose books.
At least the first time youtouch it, you kind of just need
the lecture because yeah, no, Iagree.
There's weird stuff in therethat you right.
Unless you're an expert in theOld Testament, you're not going
(36:47):
to catch it.
But then for and I would saythis probably goes for 95% of
the material that we have.
I just pulled up one of myBible studies here.
Here are the questions that getasked and I don't answer that.
Well depending on what my rolein is the group, I don't answer
them.
So this is the genealogy ofJesus.
(37:12):
This is from that first part ofMatthew, 1-17.
And here are the questions.
There are some getting to thepoint, questions that kind of
get you thinking in the rightkind of area.
But then here are the questionsthat regard the content.
How many names do you recognizefrom the list?
And of the names you recognize,do you remember any of their
(37:32):
stories?
Because some of those names arereally recognizable and what
that does is that draws yourattention to different parts of
that genealogy.
And those are pretty easycontent questions.
And then it moves to a questionhow many women does Matthew
include on the list?
Summarize the stories of thosewomen, if you need to refresh
yourself Genesis 38, joshua 2,and Ruth.
(37:53):
So there's some scaffoldingthere.
If you aren't super familiarwith the Old Testament, that
gives you the touch points forthese women.
And then the question is whatstands out to you?
And that becomes a verysubjective question of like what
parts of these stories are mostnoteworthy for you?
And that's going to reallydepend on what's your life
(38:15):
experience, what kinds of thingsstand out to you.
And then the final question forthe content is what do these
stories tell us about God?
And there's not really a righttheological answer for that.
There are probably some wrongones.
There are almost definitelysome wrong ones, but that's
(38:36):
really well.
What do you see in this andwhat does it tell you that God
saw fit to include these people?
And I actually I just kind ofpublished part of this because I
had a small group who wanted itin a book format and I'm like
I'm not going to pay to print itin a book, so I'm going to self
publish on Amazon and then youcan just buy the book.
I think for the author's printI can get it for 230, which is a
(38:58):
lot cheaper than Stables isgoing to buy it, and that's all
it is.
It's a series of these kinds ofquestions.
Where it's there, you have totry almost pretty hard to get
them wrong, but it gets you intothinking about well, what is
this teach about God?
What is this teach us about?
What do you expect from hispeople?
And it's something you don'tneed someone lecturing at you,
(39:19):
you don't need someone answeringthese questions, you just you
got to take a second and thinkabout them and then the
scripture is going to be yourguide, and then the these
studies conclude with likeapplication, specific questions.
And it's this kind of thingwhere, if I can just have you
find the answers on your own,that's what.
As a leader, that's animportant skill that I think I
(39:41):
can.
I can give to you much morethan any bit of knowledge I'm
going to pass on.
It's that whole.
If you teach a man to fish, youfeed him for the rest of his
life.
If you give him a fish, he'shungry at lunchtime, I don't
know.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Exactly, exactly.
So I mean you lean intoreleasing leaders this is a
podcast, united LeadershipCollective and are you
intentional about bringing othermen and and maybe future
pastors, leaders, women, forvarious roles too, like are you?
Are you actively identifyingfolks that you're starting to
(40:16):
theologically meet withconsistently and go another
level of depth and then givethem the opportunity to practice
leading one of those sorts ofsmall group interactions, bible
studies, whatever you want tocall it?
Are you doing that right now,josh?
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, so we have five regular small groups at
Edgewater.
I lead one of them and Iparticipate in another one, and
this is this is something Ithink I I build up leaders to
(40:49):
some extent, but I think what ismore important is identifying
people, especially because thesepeople in the congregation who
have all this life experience,many of them are leaders in some
way or another already.
You just have to find a waythat they can comfortably
transfer that.
So with these small groups, Ikind of I divide the leadership
role up and I say I need, if I'mstarting a new small group, I
(41:15):
need someone with the logisticalleadership to say we are going
to meet at this time in thisplace and connect with everybody
.
So everybody knows, okay, we'remeeting at this person's house
at this time.
Here's the address.
So I need that kind of leader.
And then I need a leader who isgoing to be willing to read the
(41:35):
sheet out loud, who's going tobe able to, if necessary, maybe
guide the conversation.
And this is something I taughtand this is this is something
I'll intentionally kind of guideleaders on if they need.
It is the reconciliation part,because sometimes, sometimes
(41:56):
conversations can getcontentious.
So I want to make sure someonein the room has the capability
to either bring aboutreconciliation or diffuse the
conversation until they can sayhey guys, you need to talk to
Pastor Josh and work throughthis.
Ideally the reconciliationhappens there.
(42:18):
But sometimes I understandwe're going to pass this off and
I can deal with it.
And then the last leader that Ithink needs to be in the room
is someone who is who's going tokeep the conversations grounded
in good theology.
So this can be an elder.
If your church does elders inan appropriate way and your
(42:40):
elders are well grounded intheir faith, have an elder in
the room.
I have a women's group and wedon't have women elders.
So you say, well, is the elderthere?
No, I just make sure that thereare women there who are well
grounded in their scripture andwell grounded in their theology.
So that's kind of those are thethree different kinds of
leaders that for me so far ithas been more identifying than
(43:04):
anything else.
But you kind of mentioned thisalso listing guys up to be
pastors.
We have one guy who justfinished his first year at the
seminary and I don't I'm notgoing to take credit for getting
him there right, because Ishowed up and within a year he
was headed to the seminary.
All I'm going to take creditfor is kicking him out the door
(43:28):
Because he was kind of goingback and forth between a couple
of different options and I said,dude, make a decision.
And what I told him is, if youmake a decision and the Holy
Spirit and that's the wrong callthe Holy Spirit is not going to
leave you alone.
Right, that's going to sit inyour gut the wrong way.
So he ended up he's at theseminary.
(43:49):
And then I have two moregentlemen.
One is pre-Sem right now andhe's headed that direction.
And the other guy he's still inhigh school and he's going back
and forth between he knowsprofessional ministry, he knows
he wants to do professionalministry.
He doesn't know if that's goingto look like a pastor or not.
My, because I'm just two yearsout, right, I don't know that I
(44:12):
have any sage wisdom for him.
So what I do is I just try tohang out with these guys and if
they have questions I do my bestto answer them or put them in
touch with someone who can helpthem with that.
And this is something that mymentor on Vick Ridge imparted to
me, steve Coreto, is just thismentorship of we spend time
(44:32):
together and as far as like thepastoral thing with the guidance
at seminary.
Now, before he was making thisdecision, I said, just because I
worked from home, I said, justcome over to my house a couple
days and see what I do and seewhat it looks like to do this
kind of stuff.
And we go to the best practicesconference the past couple of
years.
That's a nine hour drive toPhoenix, so I've invited these
(44:54):
guys.
I'm like you're going to ridein the car with me because we
can talk for nine hours and youcan't escape me.
So that's kind of my for youngleaders is because I don't feel
like I have, like I'm not goingto stand up on a pulpit and
lecture.
Well, I will obviously onSundays, but but I'm happy to
(45:15):
just hang out with you and tolive life with you.
And for a while those guys wereworking out with me in the
mornings.
But when you have school andeverything else to deal with, 5
30 in the morning can becometough.
So, just living life together.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I want to see this is you're doing so many, although
the Holy Spirit has given youwisdom and you're you're leading
in such, a, such a faithful andintentional way.
I really, really commend you.
You know, when I started heregosh, 10 years ago now, and it
was within six months or so ofthat start that we did a weekly
(45:52):
gathering.
It shifted eventually to Sundaymornings at 6 am.
I know that sounds kind ofnutty, but it's.
There's no excuse.
Shows a little bit ofdiscipline.
It's the Lord's Day, let'sgather together and we're going
to read.
We're going to read some sortof a leadership theological book
and then we're going to walkthrough various books of the
Bible, about 30 and 30, from sixto seven.
(46:13):
Church starts at 7 30.
And it is the best way to start.
And there's it's fluctuated.
Guys have come, guys have gonedifferent seasons of life and
moved into even morebivocational, formal, full time
Ministry, many of them.
But there's a core of five toseven guys that that gather
together, that ladies can cometo, they come and go as well,
and it's just so, so fantastic.
(46:34):
So if 6 am Listeners, not yourthing on a Sunday, just find a
time to consistently gettogether and those people.
In my experience bothcongregations I've served less
15 years though there are peoplein your, in your midst, who
would love to get closer, tolearn to do what you do Maybe
not full time, maybe it's notseminary, but they want to lift
(46:54):
up your hands.
I think it's restoring the oldschool understanding of of elder
or a group, a group of ofelders within our churches.
You also there was a lot ofwisdom around the way you are
discipling and looking to formand and launch a small group
ministry.
You basically, without you,just did the GSE model dude the
(47:16):
gather, shepherd, elder typetype model.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I was like, oh, I kind of do that, I want to
because I'm, first of all, I'mreally I appreciate your kind
words, I'm trying to get betterat accepting compliments but I
still am uncomfortable with it.
And I want to give credit, likeI have to thank my parents
because this is how they didministry.
(47:41):
They're there and even now,like they have college age kid,
they have young adults fromtheir church in Georgia over
their house every Sunday nightand they hang out and they get,
they get in the word, and myparents are still doing this and
I grew up with that.
So for me it's not, it's justlike oh, this is, this is how
minister.
And I have to thank my VicRidge mentor, steve and and
(48:04):
Andrew and I was the other whowas the other pastor down there
for all of the gifts that theygave me as far as different
approaches to ministry and thewisdom of mentorship, because
I've been really blessed byhaving those voices in my life
showing me here's a way we cando ministry that that reaches
people where they're at, withthe gospel.
So I want to I want to give ashout out to all those people.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Well, yeah, you won the global lottery.
You won the Jesus lottery there, Josh.
And that and that sort of afamily and that environment and
the best learning is is caught,it's not taught, it's just in
the, it's in the water, it's theair that we breathe and it's
the Jesus discipleship airs, theair of the Holy Spirit that's
been around you your whole lifeand I pray for many, many years
(48:49):
of faithful service, multiplying, multiplying disciples of Jesus
, the slow grow of ofrelationship You're.
I think there's going to be alot of churches like Edgewater
there are right now and I praythey're pastored by leaders like
you and you should just saythank you to that.
I pray there's a lot ofinfluence.
So how?
Last question, how do you walkthrough?
(49:12):
Because there's in the church,there's inevitably going to be
conflict.
You know what is your processfor keeping a healthy, jesus
focused, mutually beneficialculture at Edgewater.
How do you even talk aboutculture and how that is impacted
?
Maybe by, maybe by conflict.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
So, as far as as culture there's, there's kind of
the old adage don't talk aboutit, be about it, because and
this, that book that I talkedabout earlier, has formed this,
and just my observations in theworld have formed this you can
talk until you're blue in theface and people might not agree
(49:52):
with you, but that's not goingto, that's not going to change a
culture.
Exemplify that culture, model,that culture.
My wife and I, we, as far asthe relational culture, we try
to have people over asfrequently as we can, kind of
logistically speaking.
We try at least once a year toinvite people from the
(50:15):
congregation over to our houseand waves, because we do live in
an apartment and everyone can'tcome at once, we wouldn't off
it.
We have a volunteer thank youdinner once a year where we just
say, hey, come over, we'regoing to grill out, we're going
to thank you guys for everythingyou do for ministry.
I'm not going to get on apulpit and say you know, here's
(50:36):
what our culture needs to be.
I'm just going to do my best toexemplify it and then to
encourage other people when Isee it happening.
I have one member he's reallyawesome he loves inviting people
over to his house just to hangout, and I do my best to give
him props for that whenever Ican, because that's kind of
culture we're about.
So the more you model it, Ithink, the better I do.
(50:59):
I mean, I do talk about it.
I frequently will say hang outwith other Christians, get
together, be together.
But I think, more than anythingelse, you model what you want
to see.
And in the face of conflict,this is a weird question for me.
This is something overVickridge.
(51:21):
I did a personality inventorywith the staff at the church we
were at and I don't evenremember which one it was, but
what it pointed out is that Iwill have a tendency to
recognize undercurrents ofconflict and to do things to
(51:42):
mitigate that conflict beforemaybe even the people who are
involved even realize that it'sthere.
So I and it's hard to pin downbecause I just do things, but I
think to some extent there'ssome of that where kind of I try
to get out ahead of it and if Isee people who are struggling
(52:08):
or who are about to be inconflict, to try and deal with
it before it becomes what mostof us would recognize as
conflict, I think once itbecomes inevitable.
I think Matthew 18 has to be ourguideline, like if someone
comes to me and they say, oh, Ihave an issue with this person,
I'm going to say, then go talkto them about it.
And if you've already talked tothem about it, then all of us
(52:31):
need to meet and I'm happy to bethat kind of that witness, that
third party, that kind of says,well, here is where scripture
would lie on this issue.
But I really haven't had todeal with that yet and I think
if you really push therelationship aspect of church,
(52:54):
I'm not going to.
You're still going to haveconflict, right.
You still have conflict withyour friends and family.
But if the relationship hasbeen that focus, I think
reconciliation it becomes a loteasier, because it's not just oh
, that's another person of thisorganization that I'm a part of.
It's that is my friend who hasdone something that I didn't
(53:15):
like, but they are still myfriend and I want to make sure I
retain that friendship right.
So I don't know if that answersyour question, but you're
answering it, I think it does,it does.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
You said you worship 60, 70 people and for this
season and who knows how longthis season is it's definitely
manageable for you to recognizethe undercurrents right as the
Lord gives you growth, because Ibelieve the Lord wants to grow
his church more people.
You're going to need the threeand the 12, who also are
(53:50):
relationally excellent atrecognizing those undercurrents
for you as you get two or threerelationships removed from the
depth that you've had.
That's my biggest struggle now,josh.
In a congregation that's largerand all that, it's normally I'm
two or three steps away.
So how do we train quality inaddressing, in a Matthew 18 type
(54:13):
of way, leaders and coaches inour church?
That gets a little bit morecomplex because a lot of times
people want to put me in atriangle and it needs to go back
two or three relationships away.
So how do I lovingly, kindly,say no, here's the boundary.
And then here's the next stepfor you in resolving that
(54:36):
conflict.
And it often is with leadersthat I have been able to do life
with and differentiate intentand impact and all the different
things that we need to learn,the tools that we need to learn,
because conflict is normal.
You have a behavioral.
I can already.
I already know this about you.
You're okay entering intodifficult conversations.
The vast majority of people arenot, and so how do we even
(54:58):
teach a lot of those generalskills so that more of our
leaders in our churches becomeall the more adept at moving
people back toward one another,Having the vulnerable confession
and absolution type of aconversation and then drawing
people back to one another?
Because the worst thing thatcan happen in churches split man
.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
The undercurrent they disengage.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Right, the undercurrent comes and people
disengage, friendships arebroken and, ultimately, people,
many of them may lose their walkwith the Lord because they look
at how poorly the church modelsconfession and absolution.
So good stuff, dude.
This has been so much fun.
You're so bright and the Lordhas wonderful work in store for
you.
And I'm not just throwing stuffout just to flatter you, bro.
(55:42):
The Lord has given you greatgifts, so parable to talents,
Josh, To whom much has beengiven.
Much is required, right.
What are you going to do?
Are we going to bury it?
Are we going to multiply?
Are we going to invest it?
And my charge for you is I prayyou invest it for decades, God
willing, decades of fruitful,faithful pastoral service.
Any final comments, bud?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
One final comment on your last thing.
If you're listening to this andyou're wanting to get some help
in dealing with conflict,dealing with reconciliation, I
would recommend Ambassadors ofReconciliation to any of your
listeners.
Their programs aren'tnecessarily cheap, but they are
(56:24):
worthwhile, so there's sometraining available if you so
desire.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
That's so good.
How can people connect with you, Josh, if they want to?
Speaker 3 (56:35):
So if you want to reach out to me, pastor Josh at
Edgewaterlutheranorg has theemail.
You can also text 4789196187.
If you call that number.
Me picking up for unknownnumbers is about a 50-50 shot,
but if you text that number I'lldefinitely see it and we can
connect that way as well.
(56:56):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
This is fantastic.
This is the AmericanReformation Podcast Sharon is
carrying.
Please, like, subscribe,comment, wherever it is that you
take this in.
We are honored to continue tohave conversations both within
the Lutheran Church of Missouri,and I get to talk with a lot of
people who are outside of ourchurch body but are connected to
the one Holy Christian andApostolic Big Seed Church as
well.
We'll see you next week on theAmerican Reformation Podcast.
(57:18):
Thanks so much, josh.
You're the bomb, thank you,thank you.
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