Reimagining Church Culture Through Christlikeness

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Ever wondered why modern churches often struggle with embodying the humility and self-sacrificial love that Jesus exemplified? Join Katie, Mac, and Josiah as we navigate the journey of molding our communities into reflections of Christ, questioning how Enlightenment ideals and individualism have reshaped our understanding of selfless love and humility.

As we continue our conversation, we grapple with the tension between contemporary church leadership models and the countercultural way of Jesus. The book "A Church Called Tov" prompts us to reevaluate pastoral roles, contrasting the CEO-like expectations with the biblical image of shepherds committed to prayer and spiritual guidance. We share how others' expectations sometimes clash with authentic discipleship values, emphasizing that true growth and success aren't always measured by numbers but by faithfulness and transformation through divine grace.

Finally, we reflect on the importance of embracing faithfulness over immediate success. Inspired by Jesus' ministry and author Eugene Peterson's experiences, we discuss the temptation to create momentum artificially and the pitfalls of consumer-driven church cultures. Through the analogy of navigating with a compass, we underscore the necessity of aligning our direction with core Christian values, acknowledging the gaps between our current state and where we need to be. Join us as we encourage a collective reassessment of our spiritual journeys, fostering a community rooted in the faithful love and teachings of Christ.

Episode Transcript

Josiah (00:02):
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to
practice and embody the way ofJesus in our everyday lives.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to listen.
We are in a series right nowfocused on cultivating a healthy
church culture.
Every church has a culture,whether they realize it or not,
and while some churches'cultures are reasonably healthy,
others are not.

(00:23):
Some churches' cultures arereasonably healthy, others are
not.
Of course, no church is perfect,but part of the work every
church needs to engage in is tointentionally work to close
whatever gap exists betweenbeing healthy and where they
currently are.
So in this series, that's whatwe're doing.
We're seeking to close the gap,and this involves not only
talking about the marks of anunhealthy church culture, but

(00:44):
casting vision for how we, asthe church, can embody a way of
life together that, while it maynot be perfect, is oriented
towards goodness and kindnessand love.
And today we're doing a deepdive into something that we
would say is one of the primarymarkers of a church centered on
goodness, and that isChristlikeness.
There's a lot of differentideas out there for what a

(01:05):
church should be, but we want tosubmit today that being formed
into the image of Christ andhelping others being formed into
the image of Christ isultimately what the church
should.

Katie (01:29):
Welcome everyone.
My name is Katie.

Mac (01:31):
And I'm Mac

Josiah (01:32):
and I'm Josiah.

Katie (01:34):
All right.
So you know, now that I'm aboutto say this, I feel like I
might have started anotherpodcast this way, so stop me if
I did, but I didn't sleep welllast night.
Sounds like, Josiah, you didn'tsleep well last night.
Sounds like Josiah, you didn'tsleep well last night either,
from the conversation we werejust having.
But I had one of those nightstoo where I woke up at 3.30 and
just kind of laid there for awhile and couldn't go back to

(01:56):
sleep.
So I went downstairs.
I usually put on the news likesomething kind of boring, like
BBC.
I mean I actually think BBC isinteresting, so.
But you know, I usually put onthe news like something kind of
boring, like BBC.
I mean I actually think BBC isinteresting, so.
But you know, and so I watchedcoverage about the hurricane,
Hurricane Helene that's headingtowards Florida.
I watched a story about a bigpothole in Chicago that the city

(02:20):
is planning on fixing but theresidents are advocating to not
have fixed.
So I was like, well, that'sinteresting, I wonder why they
wouldn't want this pothole fixed.
The reason is because so manypeople speed through the
neighborhood and there's thisgiant pothole right in the
middle of this intersection andit's causing people to slow down
.
So there are literallyprotesters with signs saying

(02:41):
save the pothole and marchingaround the city.
So I was like, well, that'sinteresting.

Mac (02:45):
Does the pothole have a name?

Katie (02:48):
Yeah, not that I caught onto but you could yeah it was
big.
It was like almost the size ofthe whole intersection.
It had cones all around it andthe people loved it, Actually
one woman was like I hope we getmore potholes.
So that was kind of funny, butanyways.
So what do you guys do?

(03:08):
Josiah, you had a night lastnight where you didn't sleep
well either.
Like, what do you guys do?
The TV thing Do you do?
Sometimes I read, but then it'slike you have to turn the light
on and that wakes me up more.
So I struggle.

Josiah (03:19):
Yeah, usually, and it usually is just scrolling
through my phone which I knowisn't helpful.

Katie (03:25):
Yeah, the blue light is supposed to wake you up, right.

Josiah (03:28):
Yeah, that's not very helpful.
It's not very often that I wakeup in the middle of the night.

Mac (03:34):
I rarely get up and do something.

Katie (03:37):
You just lay there.

Mac (03:39):
Yeah, typically.
I remember this was years agomy therapist said something like
when you can't sleep, you canstill rest, and I thought huh,
and so now, when I can't sleep,I don't like stress about it Not
that you were stressing aboutit but I just kind of relax and
go okay, well, this is a timejust to kind of be.

Josiah (03:58):
Yeah, that is one of the problems of sleeplessness and I
have dealt with that before, Iguess like difficulty falling
asleep.
If you have something importantthe next day, you have to wake
up early.
You're anxious about not onlywaking up, but then you get
anxious about the fact thatyou're not getting as much sleep
and then that makes you lessapt to fall asleep and you're

(04:19):
like mad that, like oh, and thenyou start counting down how
many hours of sleep you'reactually going to get as you're
laying there.

Katie (04:26):
Yeah, I did that a little last night.
My kids have had cold.
Alex had a cold.
I woke up at 3.30.
I'm like I think my throathurts.
Okay, I need to sleep so Idon't get sick.
And now I can't sleep so thatmeans I'm going to get sick.

Mac (04:35):
Before you know it, your amygdala is firing.

Katie (04:42):
I try that, but I have like a limit on how long I can
do that.
If it's been like, I suppose,for like 45 minutes that I laid
in bed and after 45 minutes I'mlike, right, this is not.

Mac (04:47):
Yeah, and there are some studies that suggest getting up
and doing something, for justlike the right type of thing not
scrolling, josiah.

Josiah (04:54):
Sorry.

Mac (04:55):
But getting up and kind of like change of environment and
then coming back increases thechance of you falling asleep.

Katie (05:02):
Although there have been times when I've done that and
turned on the local news andthere are some terrible stories
that did not help me fall backasleep.
I highly recommend BBC overlocal news.

Josiah (05:16):
I really want to know more about the pothole.

Katie (05:19):
You can Google it.

Josiah (05:21):
Speaking of potholes.
Speaking of potholes, let'stalk about the series we're in.
So, to get started, today,quick recap, we're working off
the book called A Church CalledTov, and we're talking all about
church culture.
So, in order to have a healthychurch, we need to attend to the

(05:42):
culture of the church.
So, in order to have a healthychurch, we need to attend to the
culture of the church, and wedo that by resisting toxins that
can kill the soil and replacethem with nutrients that make it
healthy and allow everyone toflourish.
We've been discussing what wecan do, both individually and
corporately, to promote agoodness or a Tov culture, and

(06:03):
what we're talking about is thatwe essentially all have a
responsibility for creating theculture that exists.
It's not just within leadership.
Culture is the water everyoneswims in, so we all have a part
to play.
Today we want to discuss theimportance of Christlikeness,
and I believe this is our lastone.

Mac (06:23):
I'm so sad about it.
I need to just hang out.
This is our last one.

Adam (06:30):
I need to just you know, hang out in lamentations for a
bit.

Josiah (06:32):
Yeah, so we want to discuss the last nutrient that
you put into the soil, andthat's Christlikeness.
John 13, 15 says I have set youan example that you should do
as I have done for you.
So in order to be a healthychurch or a person for that
matter we must be focused onbeing formed in the way of Jesus

(06:55):
.

Mac (06:59):
Tove churches are churches that are focused on being formed
in the way of Jesus.
I've got a software on mycomputer called Covenant Eyes.

Katie (07:07):
We all do.
It's part of the policy.

Mac (07:15):
Yeah, so it's.
It basically blocks anyunwanted images from popping up
on your computer and it alsosends a report each week to a
few other people of everythingkind of random screenshots of
things you may have been viewing.
Yeah, as a staff, we have it onthere, not because anybody has
a particular struggle, butrather it's just great healthy
accountability and a goodsafeguard against it becoming a

(07:36):
problem for anyone.

Katie (07:39):
So I promise this is going somewhere, adam, more than
the pothole story.

Mac (07:42):
Yeah Well, so here's the every.
Every once in a while, CovenantEyes gets over eager and
they'll report something reallysilly.
So the first time this happenedto me, I had done a search for
a baby pheasant and there's thistiny bird that looked like a
baby pheasant, running throughour front yard and it was

(08:04):
spectacular and beautiful and Iwas like I wonder what that is,
I wonder like a baby pheasantrunning through our front yard.
And it was spectacular andbeautiful and I was like I
wonder what that is, I wonderwhat a baby pheasant looks like.
And so I searched it and, sureenough, like that, all my people
were alerted and it became likethis massive joke Like there's
Mac, I was searching for babypheasants again.
Well, anyway, so I also gotflagged.

Adam (08:26):
Well, well anyway.
So, uh, I also got flagged you.
Well, why did it flag that, Idon't know, was there.
I'm just trying to imagine likewhat image it saw that thought,
hey, this might be I don't know, I, I don't know.

Mac (08:34):
That that's why I said they covenant eyes can be over eager
.
Um I once I I got flagged againone time, some mating pheasants
or something yeah.
PG-13.
Another time I got flaggedbecause I searched quote-unquote

(08:55):
Asian Jesus.
Now there is a reason for thisone too.
I was preaching on our humantendency to create Jesus in our
own image and you can see itLike, for black people, they'll
have a black Jesus, for Asianfolks, an Asian Jesus, hispanic,
hispanic Jesus, and so on.

(09:15):
So everyone thought that washilarious too, because they're
like why are you searching forAsian Jesus?
It flagged it Asian Jesus.
Then, right after that, it wasaround Christmas time and I
literally got a postcard in themail from another church in our
community inviting them to theirChristmas series or whatever.
On the front of the postcard isthe nativity scene and Mary and

(09:40):
Joseph clearly look MiddleEastern and baby Jesus is like
blonde hair, white baby.
It was so ridiculous.

Josiah (09:51):
Okay, interesting.
I really want to know wherethis is going.
Well, what I'm getting?

Mac (09:57):
at is.

Katie (09:57):
He's going to email the customer service of Covenant
Eyes.

Mac (10:00):
Yeah, and this other church in our community.
We're focusing today on what itmeans to be Christ-like.
Toe churches are Christ-likechurches.
Scott and Laura call thisChrist-o-formity,
Christo-formity, to be formedinto the image of Christ.
But here's the thing is, itseems to me that even before we

(10:21):
can set out on the journey tobecome Christ-like, we have to
get clear on what Jesus Christwas actually like.
And this is where, it seems tome, we encounter a huge
temptation to make Jesus intoour own image.
I can't remember which scholarsaid it.
It might have been AlbertSchweitzer or George Tyrell.

(10:44):
It might have been AlbertSchweitzer or George Tyrell, but
something along the lines ofwhen we look down the well of
history, we see our own image.
And they were kind of in thisthing called the quest for the
historical Jesus, where theywere trying to figure out who is
Jesus.
How can we really know whatJesus was like?
And I do not share theirskepticism, those particular
scholars around how little wecan know.

(11:06):
But the point still stands thatrather than being formed into
the image of Jesus, we tend toform Jesus into our own image,
right, we get it backwards.
And so for conservatives oh,interestingly enough, Jesus
tends to be conservative rightand reinforce all your values.
For moderates, Jesus ismoderate and always sees both

(11:27):
sides.
For progressives, Jesus isprogressive and agrees with them
on all the issues.
For peace loving hippies Jesusis a peace loving hippie right.
So so I think we've got to justraise our awareness around this
dynamic that if we're notcareful, we end up with a Jesus
that looks like us, talks likeus, sounds like us, agrees with
us on everything.

(11:49):
You guys kind of fall on thisand yet maybe I'll say two
things.
One I think we can know enoughto establish some clarity around
who Jesus is and what he'sabout, what it means to be like
Jesus and the word that bestcaptures that for me is the word

(12:12):
cruciformity, C-R-U-X, crossand formity shape.
So I would say, at the centerof what it means to be like
Jesus is to live a cruciform orcross-shaped life.
I would also say that growingin our understanding be like
Jesus is to live a cruciform orcross-shaped life.
I would also say that growingin our understanding of who
Jesus is and what he is about issort of a lifelong journey.
You don't graduate.
I mean, I've been studying thelife and teachings of Jesus for

(12:36):
over 20 years now, with acertain degree of rigor and I
still like learn things all thetime that I didn't notice before
.
So my understanding of whoJesus is and what he's about
continues to be filled out.
It's not complete, right, but Iguess I'm just raising our

(12:56):
awareness to go hey, there isthis temptation to sort of
create a Jesus in our own image.
I don't think it has to be thatway.
If we can acknowledge who weare and what we're about and
sort of name some of thosethings and at the center I'm
sort of naming it's a lifelongjourney towards cruciformity
what do you guys think aboutthat?

Katie (13:16):
I hear you and I think it's really.
Yeah, I think it's a goodinsight that it is a lifelong
journey, because I think as soonas we feel like we've got it
figured out, we're settingourselves up to get it wrong.

Mac (13:28):
Do you guys also see the kind of temptation to create a
Jesus in our own image Like?
Have you noticed that at all?

Josiah (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, I'd like that we're starting this whole
discussion by naming howdifficult it is, because it's
really easy to say a blanketstatement of be Christ-like.
That sounds really good, butwhen you get into the nitty
gritty and the details of it,what is it?

(13:57):
What does it actually mean tobe Christ-like?
That people vary on theiropinions and doctrine about that
, and I think that identifyingthat sets us up for yeah,
identifying that conundrum setsus up to have a much better like
, a more humble approach to it,rather than seeing ourselves as

(14:21):
like, hey, this is what it meansto be Christ-like, I have
figured it out and now I'm goingto do this with this ourselves
as like, hey, this is what itmeans to be Christ-like, I have
figured it out, and now I'mgoing to do this with this sort
of like oh, I'm more Christ-likethan you.
It becomes this thing you canhold over others and then look
at other people like, well, thatisn't Christ-like.
I don't know.
I just think it helps to have amore humble approach, to say

(14:42):
this is difficult to figure outand to interpret for us in our
day, and even identifying thedifficulty of identifying those
specific characteristics withoutyeah.

Katie (14:57):
I also hear you saying some people acknowledge the
temptation to do that but thenbecome so skeptical and kind of
throw their hands up and say,well, I guess we can't know who
Jesus really was, because we allhave this temptation to see him
in our own image.
And I also hear you saying, no,we do have enough to know with
some level of confidence whoJesus was.
It's just gonna take some work.

Mac (15:19):
Yeah, this would probably be a different episode entirely
to talk about what's known asthe quest for the historical
Jesus.
There were several phases, butit was kind of like how can we
know what we know about Jesuswith any degree of confidence?
And it was rooted in historicalskepticism that, ultimately,
many concluded we can know verylittle.
I don't share that skepticism,so, on one hand is like nope, we

(15:41):
can't know anything about Jesus.
All we do is project our ownstuff onto Jesus, and I'm going
nope, I don't agree with thatconclusion.
Maybe on the other end of thespectrum, though, is us
projecting onto Jesus and havingno clue that we're actually
doing it, and I do see,unfortunately, many people in
the church today who do justthat.
They've got a Jesus that doesnot at all match the Jesus of

(16:04):
the gospels.
They have convictions thatJesus's teachings flat out
contradict, and they see notension between the two of those
, and I kind of want to go timeout.
We kind of need to attend tothat, and this is a lifelong
journey, but we need to attendto it, so maybe to kind of push
us forward.
Whatever we mean by becominglike Jesus, it's going to

(16:27):
involve I want to submitbecoming the kind of person who
lives a cross shaped life, alife characterized by other
centered, self-sacrificial love.
To me, that's at the center ofwho Jesus is and what he's about
.
And scripture repeatedly callsus into this kind of imitation
about.
And scripture repeatedly callsus into this kind of imitation

(16:47):
right.
In Ephesians 5, 1 and 2, forinstance, it says follow God's
example, therefore, as dearlyloved children, and walk in the
way of love, just as Christloved us and gave himself up for
us as a fragrant offering andsacrifice to God.
Follow God's example.
The Greek is literally mimeti,which means mimic, mimic God.

(17:09):
And how do you do that?
Well, you walk in the way oflove, just as Jesus Christ
walked in the way of love.
You do it by following in theway of Jesus.
Maybe, let's okay, let's breakthis down.
I use that phrase quite a bitother-centered, self-sacrificial
love.
Let's like kind of like, Idon't know, pull that apart a
little bit and talk about eachone of those components, so like

(17:30):
I'll kick us off.
Other-centered when I sayother-centered, I mean not
self-centered Right.
And yet that in and of itselfis so countercultural, my
goodness.
We live in a country foundedupon classic liberalism of the

(17:56):
Enlightenment where there's thisdeep conviction that everyone
has a right to life, liberty andthe pursuit of happiness.
And, my goodness, that was agreat improvement at that
historical moment, coming out ofabusive monarchy where people
were being denied rights andliberties.
So, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
However, the shadow side of this, you know, this 248-year
experiment, is that it givespeople lots of permission to
live super selfish lives.

(18:17):
Right, it's all about me and myhappiness, and it's about me
insisting upon my rights.
You can't tell me what to do,and so on.
In a lot of ways, this is theexact opposite of Jesus, right,
paul says do nothing out ofselfish ambition in Philippians
2, rather, in humility, valueothers above yourself.

(18:37):
And then he goes on to connectthat to Jesus have the same
attitude of mine as Christ Jesus, who took on flesh, went to the
cross, and so on.
So that's what I mean.
Other-centered is radicallycountercultural and it's rooted
in not only the character ofJesus but the way that Jesus
embodied and did life.

Josiah (18:56):
Yeah, I would say that I think it's interesting that
when you form Jesus in your ownimage, it ultimately equals
pride.
And when you're able to liveother-centered, like living in
the way of Jesus is like a curefor that.
It's like it forces you awayfrom holding any sort of

(19:20):
leverage over what Jesus did anddoes and how he agrees with you
on everything.
And when you live othercentered, you take the focus off
of how Jesus could be like meand more like what does it look
like to be Jesus to other people?
And I think that's reallyimportant.
Yeah.

Mac (19:38):
While you were talking, I had this kind of going into
systems theory a little bit withtriangles and I thought, okay,
at the heart of systems theoryis like I can't change someone
else, but I can focus on myself,and I think you're naming
something significant.
A lot of people triangle Jesus.
They sort of use Jesus to dobidding on their behalf.

(19:58):
In other words, they're notsubmitted to Jesus, they're sort
of leveraging Jesus orweaponizing Jesus to accomplish
something in the world aroundthem, and I think maybe the
starting point is to go no, it'sabout me submitting and being
transformed into the likeness ofChrist.

Katie (20:17):
Yeah, like if you're finding that the ways you're
using Jesus is to help you getwhat you want, there may be some
work to do, which we all do,right.
I think one of the challengesor convictions for me in this,
one of the challenges for me inthis, is that you say, okay,
jesus was other-centered.
It's like, well, yeah, ofcourse I've heard that since

(20:41):
Sunday school when I was indiapers, right, like, we all
know that.
But when you really sit backand go, yes, and how am I living
this?
How am I practicing it?
I think there's alwayssomething that each of us can
humbly submit and repent of.

Mac (20:54):
All right, so that's like other centered right.

Josiah (20:57):
Yeah, another marker I would name is self-sacrificial.
So Jesus showed us what the wayof love is, which is ultimately
to lay down your life.
He did so in teaching.
We have lots of spots inteaching.
A couple of verses that come tomind are in Matthew 20, 28,.

(21:18):
Just as the son of man did notcome to be served, but to serve
and to give his life away as aransom for many John 15, 13,.
Greater love has no one thanthis to lay down one's life for
one's friends.
So, like in his teaching,continually teaching his
disciples to do so, laying downtheir lives for others, even in

(21:39):
what it looks like to, when hetalks about loving your enemies.
All that is very muchsacrificing yourself for the
sake of others.
And ultimately he, he led byexample which culminated,
culminated with the cross, jesuslaid down his life for others
consistently in the way he livedhis life, and then it led him

(22:00):
to ultimately die.

Mac (22:04):
Yeah, which is also tricky.
So if you know, katie, you saidman being of course.
I've heard about beingother-centered.
I mean, that's been somethingthat's been taught since I was
really, really young.
But man, how hard is that?
Then you take it a step furtherand go yeah, and it's about
self-sacrifice, like it costs mesomething.
Loving in the way of Jesus isgoing to cost me something.

(22:29):
It's going to require sacrificeon my part, which is really
hard.

Josiah (22:35):
Yeah, and I think, when we set it up this way, to say
that Jesus showed us the way oflove, love equals this and in
our culture we have a very canoften have a very shallow
meaning of love.
Often there's, like this,romantic tension or, you know,

(22:58):
or reciprocal relationships.
Obviously, love is present, butJesus is showing us what love
ultimately is and that's willingto sacrifice of yourself for
the sake of someone else.
And if the way you're loving andliving your life isn't costing
you something, then you couldpose that maybe it's not full of

(23:21):
love if it's only benefitingyou, if it doesn't cost
something, right?

Mac (23:28):
Yeah, maybe one example of this is I don't know.
We live in a fairly affluentarea and I notice a lot of
people who might be willing towrite a check, which?
Is great.
You know what I mean.
They're going to givefinancially.
But it's one thing to givefinancially, you know, out of
your surplus.
It's another thing to like showup for a service project and

(23:51):
sacrifice your time and energy,which seems to be a lot harder
in our culture because everybodyfeels compressed with regard to
their time.
They're living busy lives andso sometimes it's like well
which one?
Both are important, but likewhich one costs more.
It's easy to write a check, youknow.
Yeah, it's a lot harder to givemaybe an entire day, to

(24:13):
contribute in some way orparticipate in something you
sense God's doing.
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Josiah (24:18):
Yeah, or there's like an emotional cost to caring about
an issue that is close to God'sheart.
Right Like I can sitcomfortably in At a distance, at
a distance, and care only aboutthe things that are going on in
my life.
But when I choose to step outand let's just say we're.
You know, one of the things ourchurch is trying to partner

(24:40):
with is the human traffickingorganization.
Yeah, luteo, yeah, yeah, yeah,there's even just like an
emotional cost, a burden youfeel the burden.

Mac (24:51):
There's a burden.

Josiah (24:52):
You're just like now.
I care about something that'shappening around me that I
didn't before.

Mac (24:57):
Yeah, that's good, that's good insight.

Katie (25:00):
So I had a memory Mac as you guys were talking.
At one point, probably a coupleof years ago, I remember
putting like a Facebook postwith the verse John 13, 34, a
new command I give you love oneanother.
And then you commentedunderneath it.

Mac (25:19):
I did.

Katie (25:20):
You did and you completed the verse, which I appreciated.
It said, and the rest of theverse says as I have loved you,
so you must love one another.
And I remember reading that andgoing oh yeah, like love one
another.
Great, but to your point,josiah, we can talk about love
all day.
It's loving in the way of Jesus, as I have loved you.

(25:41):
That's how you are to love eachother, in this carrying each
other's burden, in thisself-sacrificial love, in all
the things that we're talkingabout.

Mac (25:51):
My favorite verse in the Bible is 1 John 3.16.
This is how we know what loveis.
Jesus Christ laid down his lifefor us, and we ought to lay
down our lives for one another,and so it captures, because it
captures what we're talkingabout.
We don't get to fill in what wethink love is with just like
our own ideas.
The New Testament authors aregiving us a definition of love.

(26:13):
It looks like this it's JesusChrist laying down his life, and
built into that verse is a callto do the same.
Yeah.

Josiah (26:22):
And ultimately I think it.
I just want to mention that itdoesn't.
It can sound depressing tothink about, like I guess I
should say some may say that itwould sound sort of depressing
to think about, like if I'malways sacrificing of myself,
then I'm ultimately empty.
And.
Jesus is setting this up.

(26:44):
To say no like, that's likeself-emptying type of love is
actually a very fulfilling thing.

Mac (26:49):
Yeah, that's where you find life.

Josiah (26:50):
It's where you find life .
Like this is like living outlove this way is where you find
life, and I'm thinking of ascripture, but I can't remember
the reference.
Maybe, mac, you could tell me.
But there's a spot in Paul'sletters where he encourages the
people in the church to outdoone another in acts of service

(27:11):
and love towards each other.
Do you know which one I'mtalking about?

Mac (27:15):
No, not off the top of my head.
Dang it, I should have lookedit up.

Katie (27:17):
Mac is like our chat GPT.

Josiah (27:19):
Yeah, maybe it's not, I'll find it.
All right, I'll find it.
I think of that within acommunity of like, I empty
myself.
I think of that within acommunity of like, I empty
myself, but then if other peopleare all doing the same within a
community, then everybody'sneeds are met and we live
ultimately much more fulfillinglives.

Mac (27:34):
One verse that comes to mind is Romans 13, 8, where Paul
instructs us not to be in debt,do not be indebted to one
another except for in the areaof love.
And I often use that in sort ofpremarital counseling context
to say, hey, what would happenif you actually woke up every
day, you know, assuming you owethe other person a debt of love,

(27:55):
and you sought to pay it off.

Katie (27:58):
All right.
A third marker I would say isthat Jesus embodied grace and
truth.
So I did a leadership intensivea couple of years ago with your
wife, mac, with Josie, and oneof the most transformational
concepts that I took from thatyear was on grace and truth how
Jesus looking, love looks likegrace and it looks like truth.

(28:21):
I think as Christians we cansometimes have this idea that
love equals grace, and that'scertainly true, but that's only
part of it.
Like Jesus's grace was rootedin truth, and what I mean by
that is he didn't like saythings just to make people happy
.
He didn't kind of do the peoplepleasing thing where you, you

(28:45):
know, give a lot of nicetiesjust to kind of placate or kind
of make people like you or arguewith you.
His grace was always rooted intruth and at the same time he
extended truth that was rootedin grace.
He didn't bash people over thehead with truth.
He didn't tell them what idiotsthey were.
Like.
His word of truth for peoplewas always rooted in their good.

(29:06):
Like he had in mind the bestversion of who God created them
to be and then was inviting themto live in alignment with God's
kingdom.
And there are tons of examplesof how he does this.
If you read through the gospels, you'll with that lens.
I remember doing this.
One of our assignments for thegroup was to just read through a
section of the gospels and findthe places where Jesus speaks

(29:28):
to people with grace and truth.
And the one that sticks out tome is the woman caught in
adultery in John 8.
When at the end he looks at herand says has no one condemned
you?
Then neither do I condemn you.
Go and leave your life of sin.
And in there it's pregnant withthis grace and truth.
He's extending grace to her andgiving her a vision with some

(29:49):
challenge in it for her good.
He doesn't say no, no, no, youdidn't do anything wrong.
Like you're good, right, likethere's a word of challenge and
truth in that.
So I just think that offers usa, really helps us fill out the
vision of who Jesus was and howwe can be like Jesus.
I can't tell you how many timessince I learned and studied

(30:09):
this that it's come into playfor me, when I've been in
relational conflict or tensionor had anxiety about something,
to say how did Jesus relate withgrace and truth?
And then what would it looklike for me to do that in this
situation.

Mac (30:21):
Yeah, and both of those require other-centered
self-sacrifice.
Right, extending grace tosomeone, I think, is easier for
us to connect the dots, to go.
Oh yeah, that's other-centeredand it's self-sacrificial.
But I would also tell you, inmy life, initiating or being

(30:41):
part of difficult conversationswhere you have to speak the
truth to someone in a way thatmaybe puts tension on the
relationship or is hard, a hardconversation, let me tell you if
I was just thinking aboutmyself.

Josiah (30:54):
There's no way I would have those conversations,
because I don't want to.
I don't.
You know what I mean.

Mac (30:56):
So like even truth telling.
Um, obviously there's a purityof motivation there.
We don't want to just like droptruth bombs in a way that make
make us feel self-righteous.
That's not what I'm saying.
But when you're genuinelyhaving a difficult conversation
with someone else for their good, out of love, there's a
self-sacrifice involved therebecause you're sort of entering
space you otherwise probablywouldn't want to an

(31:18):
uncomfortable space for theirgood.

Katie (31:21):
Yeah, right, yeah, I had to do that just a couple weeks
ago and you helped me.
I had to have a very difficultconversation and I named that
for the person.
The reason I'm having thisconversation with you is because
I care for you.
It would be much easier for meto not be having this
conversation.
Matter of fact, I don't want tobe having this conversation.
The reason I'm having thisconversation is because I
ultimately care about your good.

Mac (31:43):
Yeah, so maybe one.
I love that the people thatgenuinely love you are going to
risk telling you things youdon't want to hear as an
embodiment of their love for you.

Josiah (31:55):
Yeah, and as a caveat, or, I should say, a disclaimer,
that can be taken too far, yes,some people tend towards high

(32:17):
truth, in the sense that they'regoing to be much more apt to
tell you exactly what they'rethinking and feeling, in the
name of love, all the time andfor them the self-sacrifice
could be extending grace and notjust calling things out for the
sake of saying it.

Mac (32:23):
Absolutely All right.
So let's transition.
We've talked about, hey, we cancreate Jesus in our own image.
We don't want to do that.
We want to be mindful of thattendency and we're naming maybe
at the heart of it is thisother-centered, self-sacrificial
love.
Right, right, all right.
So you know, let's transition alittle bit.

(32:45):
We've talked about thistendency to create Jesus in our
own image and to push backagainst that.
We're saying the center isother-centered, self-sacrificial
love, like this is at the heartof what it means to be and
follow Jesus.
And yet it sort of seems to methat this is at odds.
The way we've been talkingabout Jesus is sort of at odds

(33:08):
with the way many churchesoperate right, particularly with
, like, this corporate model ofchurch.
It's a tractional church growthmodel of doing church and I'm
wondering if we could fill thatout Like, let's get a little bit
more explicit about how the waywe're talking about
Christlikeness maybe evenconflicts or challenges some of
the ways that we're tempted todo church.

Katie (33:31):
One thing I thought was interesting in the Church Called
Tov book that we're reading isthey do an exercise where they
look at different jobdescriptions for pastors and
they look at, they kind ofcompare job descriptions for
pastors to job descriptions for,like, ceos or leaders in the
business world and the corporateworld, and there's a surprising

(33:52):
amount of overlap.
And one thing they did is talkabout how many times in
different ways the pastor jobdescription talks about
leadership.
One position description saidhe or she will be a proven
leader of leaders who canmotivate and inspire high
capacity men and women to usetheir gifts to further the
vision.
So none of us would hear thatand go, well, that's a bad thing

(34:14):
, right, like it's not a badthing, but it's also not exactly
what we see represented bythose in the Bible whom God
calls to be in these types ofpositions, be in these types of
positions.
And what the book observes isthat this, like obsession with
leadership in our modernchurches I would say
particularly in evangelicalchurches seems to actually come

(34:36):
from the surrounding culture.
It's something that we areborrowing from the culture and
we are being shaped.
We are allowing ourselves as achurch to be shaped by the
culture rather than being shapedby the countercultural way of
Jesus.
So you just look at that andthen you look at the examples in
the Bible.
You contrast it with someonelike Eugene Peterson, who you

(34:56):
often reference.
Mac was a pastor and he definedthe three most important
pastoral practices as praying,reading scripture and giving
spiritual direction.
That's different from casting avision, creating a strategic
plan, courting donors.
Those are two very differentjob descriptions.

(35:16):
So I just think we have tothink about do we want our
pastor to function as CEO or doI want our pastor to function as
shepherds in the way of Jesus?
Because there's a difference.

Mac (35:25):
Yeah, yeah, and you're right, I love Eugene Peterson.
I've started to read a EugenePeterson book every January to
like kick off the year, justbecause he's good for my soul.
And he resisted a lot of these,I think, malformative cultural
currents around him and namedthose in very helpful ways to

(35:49):
help other pastors resist themas well, I feel this one, you
guys I'll just name it I meanyou just kind of provided a
great example, katie, of how,like hey, the job description of
a lead pastor in many placesmirrors that of a CEO.
And I feel that not so muchfrom the staff or leadership
team, because we have clarityabout what I'm supposed to be

(36:10):
doing, but definitely,definitely from from congregants
.
One quick story was this wasmaybe five, six years ago there
was a guy who said I'm leavingour church and I want to have an
exit interview, and it wasactually me and your dad that
sort of had the exit interview.
And it was actually me and yourdad, um, that sort of had the
exit interview and we decided tokind of make it, um, a less

(36:33):
formal environment.
So we went over to your parents'house and went out on the
pontoon boat and it was duringthe summertime, so it's nice.
It was just kind of like, hey,um, this guy shows up in like a
uh with big biceps, you knoweverywhere, and not that there's
anything wrong with that, butthe tank top says on the front

(36:55):
macho man.
Okay, so for what it's worth,well, the picture is helpful.
Yeah, it's just nothing againstbig biceps or anything like
that.

Josiah (37:04):
Or macho man.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mac (37:06):
All that but the guy shows up wearing a tank top that says
macho man, and it's clearly likehow he's presenting himself.
Now you go.
Why was he leaving the church?
Well, the explanation he gavewas that I'm not a manly enough
leader, I'm not functioning likethe CEO, with sort of the
command and control always atthe center, so on and so forth.

(37:28):
And it's time you start doingthat, because that's what's
gonna draw people to our church,and kind of like what you were
saying well, I'd alreadydeconstructed all that or
thought through all that, as hadyour dad, so we're just sitting
there kind of like internallygiggling Like this is you're
right.
You're noticing a differencebetween how you view leadership

(37:49):
and how we understand faithfulbiblical leadership.
There's a gap between us.

Katie (37:54):
Yeah, I had a similar conversation about a year ago
with someone who was leaving andone of the primary reasons was
that we didn't have like astrategic plan for growth church
growth Like we're not clearenough about what this church's
strategic plan is, and theEnneagram three in me wanted to
be like don't try me, I can makea strategic plan.

Josiah (38:18):
You want a strategic plan.

Katie (38:20):
But it was just like yeah , you're right, like we have
lots of strategy, we're verydiscerning, we spend a lot of
time talking about where we'reheaded, but growth is not our
primary metric of success.

Mac (38:34):
What would you say to those who go?
But what, okay, so no plan.
You know what I mean.
Like well, no.
What would you say to that?

Katie (38:44):
What did?
you say to that yeah, we don'thave necessarily a plan for
growth.
We have lots of thought anddiscernment and intentionality
around how to grow disciples,how to help our people grow in
generosity, how to do life andcommunity in the way of Jesus,
like you want to talk about that.
We have lots of intentionalityand thought around how we're

(39:05):
moving in that direction and ifpeople see that and it catches
and they invite their friendsand our community grows, that's
wonderful.
We don't want to discouragegrowth, but it's not what's
driving everything else.

Mac (39:17):
Yeah, our focus is growing disciples and we have a lot of
metrics and strategy around howwe're doing that, and I would
love for numerical growth to bethe natural byproduct of that,
but we're not going toprioritize numerical growth at
the expense of growing disciples.

Katie (39:33):
Yeah.

Josiah (39:34):
What would you say to someone who says you can have
both.
We should be working towardsboth.

Mac (39:40):
Yeah, I'm not opposed to that.
I'm not opposed to the churchgrowing in healthy ways, but
this whole idea that you canhave a five-year plan,
particularly in this day and agewhere we're increasingly
finding ourselves in a place ofrapid and discontinuous change,
is absolutely absurd in myopinion.
I mean, you put together agreat plan for five years from
now and five minutes from nowit's likely going to have to

(40:02):
change, because that's how fastour world is changing.
And so the new stability forthe church and this is probably
a different episode is notmarked by solidified plans that
you're executing with authorityand command.
The new stability is agility.
You need agile leaders who knowhow to read the room, read the
space and know how to leadpeople into a new future.

(40:25):
It's a different way.
We need a different skill setas leaders today than what
oftentimes the CEO model evenassumes.
So, again, totally differentpodcast.
But I have a lot to say aboutwhat leadership needs to look
like in this day and age and howit actually puts us in a
position to cooperate with thespirit of God rather than assume
we know more than God, becauseoftentimes what happens with

(40:47):
these five-year plans or thesebig, hairy, audacious goals,
these BHAGs is that we'reactually getting out in front of
God or we're imposing somethingon God rather than discerning
what it is God is doing and thenfaithfully joining it?
Totally different way ofoperating.

Josiah (41:01):
Yeah, yeah and it ends up and kind of brings me to this
next point.
But it sort of sets up thisleadership from this super
zoomed out view and then peopleturn into numbers rather than
individuals, who are who God isat work in their lives and
everything else I really love.

(41:22):
I think there is so muchrichness to the analogy of Jesus
being a shepherd and teachingus to do the same, like when he
appears to Peter after he haddenied him right, he invites him
to feed my sheep.
I think that the analogy ofshepherding being the primary

(41:47):
way that we lead people isthere's a lot of richness to
that.
That could be a whole otherepisode too.
But customer satisfactionbecomes the bottom line in a
corporate model because it thenturns out, because then it turns
into equaling success andgrowth if everybody's happy.

(42:09):
That is at odds with livinginto Christlikeness in the way
of grace and truth.
When we prioritize customersatisfaction over shepherding
people, we miss out on a lot ofwhat Jesus may be leading us to
do, because shepherding is goingto involve saying things that

(42:30):
people do not want to hear.
I mean you don't have to.
You could flip a page and pointto a spot where Jesus is saying
something that disruptedsomeone's peace or equilibrium
or made them angry.
So when you're shepherding,you're making decisions in the
best interest of others'well-being, not in, specifically

(42:54):
, their comfort.
As a parent, I feel like if mykids aren't a little bit
frustrated with me, I'm probablydoing something wrong.
Right, I'm probably avoidingsomething because, uh, you know,
kids are going to be testingboundaries and I think you know
this analogy of sheep, likealways, like scattering and like

(43:16):
needing care and concern andprobably some challenge.
Um, I think it.
It lines up a lot in the sensethat, um, Like, I can make
things a lot easier on myself by, like, giving into demands and
making decisions that makepeople happy.
We kind of alluded to thatearlier.
But what's best often isn'twhat's the most popular, and

(43:39):
laying down your life as aleader is going to involve
loving your congregation andit's going to require getting
clear about the things thatmatter and resisting the need
for their praise in the pursuitof becoming like Jesus.

Mac (43:55):
Yeah, I think what I hear you saying, Josiah, is that when
we consider the way of Jesusother-centered, self-sacrificial
love, and then maybe thepredominant paradigms of how we
do church a lot of churches tendto orient around customer
satisfaction as the goal andthen maybe the predominant
paradigms of how we do church Alot of churches tend to orient

(44:15):
around customer satisfaction asthe goal.
I want to keep, I want tosatisfy the religious clients,
so to speak, and make sure theystay happy, because that's what
will ensure that our churchcontinues to grow.
And I hear you creating sometension around that.
To go man, you don't see Jesuslike doing a day of ministry and
then handing out a survey,going, hey, so how did I do?

Josiah (44:33):
Are we still good.

Mac (44:35):
How did you feel about the miracle at 3.30 today?
You know what?

Katie (44:39):
I mean that's funny.
That would have been funny ifyou did that.

Mac (44:45):
Well, yeah, and I just think the bottom line this is
hard because it applies to me,it applies to you, but, like the
bottom line is not making mehappy, you happy or your
congregants happy, that's notthe bottom line.
It's helping you become morelike Christ.

Katie (45:02):
If you have a Jesus that only makes you happy, you might
have a Jesus in your own image.

Mac (45:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm not saying Jesus is opposed to
anyone's happiness.
Like Jesus came to give us alife abundant but, as we named
before, like that abundant lifeis actually found by emptying
yourself.
You know what I mean.

Josiah (45:20):
Yeah, and it is at odds with the part of us that is, you
know, like our flesh that'swanting to be selfish.
So it is at odds with that, youknow.
It's also worth naming that.
It's really difficult becauseif you make a decision that a
lot of people are unhappy with,it's really easy to question

(45:40):
yourself as to like was it theright thing?
To do For sure, Right For sure.
It's like it's very difficult.

Adam (45:49):
Max looking in the mirror, looking at his biceps and
wondering if he made a mistakeby not being more manly.

Mac (45:59):
I just need to do more curls, more curls.

Josiah (46:05):
If you're shepherding people and you decide something
or you say something thatdoesn't equal customer
satisfaction and is at odds withthe corporate model of church
growth and all of these things,you have to.
There has to be a sense ofconfidence in the thing that you
, in the decision you made, butthat confidence isn't so easily

(46:30):
attained.

Mac (46:30):
Yeah, that's why Jesus had an incredible amount of inner
strength in just being willingto say and do things that he
knew would cause disruption.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I wish I had more of that, okay, so we're holding up
here's who Jesus is.

(46:51):
We're looking at the ways weorganize and do church.
We've talked about how thischallenges some of the
predominant paradigms aroundleadership.
We've talked about how thefocus shouldn't be just consumer
happiness or satisfaction.
Maybe can I add a third thingwhich is oftentimes in this sort
of corporate model way of doingchurch.

(47:12):
There's a little bit of missioncreep, and I would characterize
it as the focus then becomesproducing a product versus
producing disciples, which wegot at a little bit when we were
talking about hey, how do yourespond to someone who goes
what's your strategy, what'syour five-year plan?
Well, actually it's clear,we're producing disciples who
can multiply and join God's workin the world, and we have all

(47:33):
sorts of strategy around that.
But in this model, where theprimary goal becomes growing
your church numerically andmaking sure that, which involves
having a happy consumer base,well then the focus for people
in the church becomes producingproducts that consumers love to
enjoy.
Right, and I know we've namedthis in previous episodes, but

(47:59):
Jesus didn't do this.
There's this old axiom that sayswhat you win people with, you
win them too.
So if you win them with sort ofattractional programs and
meeting their consumerpreferences, they're going to
continue.
Your average ordinary person inyour church is going to
continue to expect that, andthis is what we're seeing.

(48:20):
This is why there's so muchconstant turnover within our
churches, where people go tothis church for a while because
they've got all the bestprograms for that season.
Uh, so they go as long as theirneeds are being met, but then
eventually discontentment setsin because the product no longer
is as flashy as it felt before,or maybe the church goes

(48:40):
through a difficult season, aperiod of transition, whatever,
and so then they move on to thenext church that seems to be
having the best programs andstuff for that season.
And so the cycle repeats itself.
And this is the nonstopinfluence of and insanity, quite
frankly, of consumerChristianity, and churches

(49:02):
actually unfortunately play intothis.
They feed this cycle to thedegree that they try to compete
against each other to providethe best religious goods and
services in order to draw thecrowds in.
You're actually competing forreligious consumers, and if
you're currently at a churchwhere you feel like you have
momentum and people are coming,you might feel great.

(49:24):
You may also be on the losingside of this.
You know you may also be on thelosing side of this, where once
that was you and now it's notright, um, jesus, I think,
offers us a completely differentparadigm, um, which is to is to
not focus on the ebb and flowof satisfying consumers, um, but
rather to commit yourself tothe long obedience in the same

(49:45):
direction, to borrow from eugenepeterson, of being a disciple
and making a disciple, and in myexperience, don't take this the
wrong way, but I'll just sayconsumers make really crummy
disciples.

Katie (49:57):
Yeah, one thing that sticks out to me when you're
talking Mac is going back tokind of the pastor as CEO versus
pastor as shepherd is the ideaof controlling outcomes.
Ceos control outcomes, or atleast they try.
That's kind of what they'repaid to do.
What are our sales goals goingto be?
What's our profit margin?
How many widgets are we goingto make?

(50:17):
What's our marketing?
But whatever, they'reconstantly focused on
controlling an outcome, whereasa shepherd loves people in the
way of Jesus, points them toJesus and then, like, releases
the outcome to God and to thatperson, to the extent that
they're going to be open andreceptive to God's work.

Mac (50:36):
Yeah, it's somewhat humbling to admit, and we all
know this, but we just probablydon't hold this reality up
enough.
I can't transform myself.
I'm completely dependent uponthe grace of God and the work of
the Holy Spirit in my life tobring about transformation.
I can't even transform myself,let alone transform someone else

(51:01):
.
Right, we're completelydependent upon the grace of God
to do that Now.
He doesn't do it without ourparticipation and cooperation.
We have a role to play, but itis just to do that Now.
He doesn't do it without ourparticipation and cooperation.
We have a role to play.
But it is just to say that,even when we say, hey, our task
is to produce disciples, it'snot even something that I get to
fully control, you know,because it requires the
intervening grace of God.

Josiah (51:23):
Yeah, yeah.
It sounds like the shepherdingpastor and the corporate pastor
most likely we'll just assumedecent motives want the same
thing right To bring influenceand to, let's say, they want to
create disciples.
They would both say that's whatwe're here to do.

(51:43):
The corporate pastor sees itbeing done through a broad scale
of influence and through crowdsand a shepherding pastor sees
that influence happening on amore individual discipleship
basis.
One is focused on the outcome,on being able to read the

(52:04):
outcome and the amount ofinfluence.
The other one is saying no, I'mletting go of the outcome, I'm
going to be faithful in the waythat I'm present and loving
towards these sheep.
And it's like, if we just don'tassume any of the negative
motives and assume that both thecorporate pastor and the
shepherding pastor want the samething, which is disciples, just

(52:26):
one believes, because of theway we have seen the church be
constructed in that corporatemodel for so long, believes that
that is going to happen bydrawing all the crowds.
And the other one says I careless about the crowds and more
about the individual sheep.
Yeah.

Mac (52:42):
Well, let's maybe take that thought.
And again, if our goal is tolook and live like Jesus, let's
see how Jesus did it right.
Again, I like the idea ofclarifying motives.
Hey, maybe we both want thesame thing, but it's worth not
just constructing a Jesus in ourown image, a Jesus as CEO, for
instance, which Katie said isreally borrowed from our culture

(53:05):
.
It's an enculturated model ofleadership, of church leadership
.
So let's talk about how didJesus embody this?
And one thing I would say ishis primary concern was
faithfulness, not outcomes.
Not to say he didn't care aboutthe outcome, but clearly of
Jesus's strategy was just to getas big a crowd as possible,

(53:27):
thinking that's how I producedisciples.
There's not a whole lot ofscriptural support for that in
the gospels.
I mean almost every time a bigcrowd gathers around him, he
says something really offensivein their presence and it weeds
people out, like in Luke 14,when, huge crowd, he says hey,
unless you pick up your cross,you can't be my disciple.

(53:48):
Boom, thins out the crowd.
We've talked about John 6 withteaching around eating his body
and drinking his blood.
Boom thins out the crowd.
Right, you know this is againgoing back to Eugene Peterson
and you know I'm sure he had hisown faults, but he talks about
this If you know his story atall he planted a church out on

(54:08):
the East Coast.
It was this beautiful thing.
I mean it started small in abasement.
Everybody was super engaged andgradually it began to grow and
you know just this beautifulexpression of a church family
joining God's work.
And eventually they had tobuild a building to support the
number of people who were coming, support the number of people

(54:31):
who are coming.
And he talks about how, oncethe building was built, it
changed the culture of thechurch into sort of that more
consumeristic.
People brought theirconsumeristic expectations and
because before they didn't havea building and it required
everybody to show up and set upchairs and like right, a high
degree of participation wasneeded just to worship.
Together with a building, lessof in, week out sort of service

(54:52):
was required.
And with that came a change ofculture, things felt.
He talks about how the momentumin the community felt like it
stalled out and he shares thisstory where he was in his
backyard doing some gardeningand his neighbor next to him was
like an expert.
He was in his backyard doingsome gardening and his neighbor
next to him was like an expertand he came over and was like

(55:16):
talking to him and giving himtips, teaching him how to garden
, and he had some really harshwords about putting fertilizer
like false fertilizers on inyour garden.
And all of a sudden he made thespiritual connection that here
he is in a church that feelslike it's sort of lost momentum,
and everybody around him fromother pastors in the area who

(55:37):
he's talked to about this, tohis supervisors and his
denomination have basically beenencouraging him to pour some
fertilizer on his church toregain momentum, start another
building project, put a big goalin front of the congregation.
You've got to figure out a wayto like restore that momentum
and in that moment he sort ofmakes the decision to go.

(55:59):
I'm not going to create falsemomentum, I'm going to wait and
be faithful and allow the spiritof God to work and move among
us and I just I learned fromthat, because I think so often
and we talked a lot about thisin our previous episode we want
to be part of something big andwe want to be part of something
significant.

(56:19):
Who doesn't want that?
And oftentimes it does functionas an extension of our ego and
when things aren't going well.
Oh, the temptation is so strongto try to fabricate momentum or
fabricate success so that wesort of can push away from that
feeling that we're insignificantor that we don't matter.
You know, do you guys noticethat?
I mean honestly, do you noticethis temptation, this pull

(56:43):
internally or organizationally,to like create momentum to
offset that feeling, thatinsecurity that we're not making
a big enough impact?

Josiah (56:54):
Yeah, I would add that there's two sides to that.
One is the leadership side.
You feel the need to pushthings.
When not as many people in theseats, you're tempted to get
sort of discouraged.
Um, you know, depending on howworship goes, if you get this
impression that maybe people aresuper into it, um, or if

(57:14):
they're not, um, you can youhave all these temptations try
to pull you there and then youfeel like you need to create it.
Um.
The other side of it is, as amember of that community, when
you sense there's not enough ofthis quote-unquote momentum, the
temptation is to say, well,it's a little more exciting over
at this other church, and Ithink we see that a lot.

Mac (57:36):
Yep, yeah, like I'm going to go where it feels more
exciting.

Josiah (57:39):
Yeah, and assume that, but I'm using these markers of
like oh, there's more peoplegoing there.
There's more this and they'reusing all these markers that
aren't necessarily discipleshipmarkers or shepherding markers.
They're using consumeristic,corporate model.

Katie (57:56):
Yeah, and I think the reason you know, if you listen
to every episode, you probablyhear these themes coming up
every episode, and I think thereason is that because it's a
big part of our story, right,like, we have gone through these
different seasons of being thechurch with a lot of momentum.
That's been really big andthere's a lot that's exciting
about that and there's a lot ofbenefits from that.
And we've also been in seasonswhere that hasn't been our

(58:19):
church and I think, while itmight be easy to go, okay, well
then, what do we need to do?
To get back to what we weredoing?
I think we've been intentionalabout saying what does
faithfulness look like in thisseason?

Mac (58:31):
Yeah, and part of the conundrum reflecting on our own
history is when we were at ourbiggest, we were actually the
most unhealthy, and that's theconundrum is, just because
something's big and there's afeeling of momentum does not at
all mean it's got kingdomcharacteristics or qualities to
it?
Sure, and that's just a soberingreality.

(58:51):
You might be part of a massivechurch and, um, next week you
might find out that thingsaren't as they seem, as we're
seeing on the news every week,like the pastor's having an
affair and created a toxic workinvolved.
You know what I mean.

Katie (59:05):
Yeah, and I would also say just because it's big
doesn't mean it's inherentlyunhealthy either.
I remember when I went toBlackhawk in Madison and someone
who didn't go there made acomment about Blackhawk being an
attractional church.
I remember thinking you knowit's big, but they actually do a
pretty good job of pointingpeople towards discipleship and
community, and so I want to saythat too.

Mac (59:22):
Yeah, that's a great word.

Katie (59:23):
Another thing that comes to mind is that Jesus kept in
mind the long game um, or he healways had in mind like an
eternal perspective.
There are many examples whereJesus could have done something
to get the quick win or thequick the quick W, I guess as
the kids are saying just idea,Kids say that yeah, really yeah.
It's like the the W start usingthat at home.

(59:46):
Yep, yep, jesus didn't always dothe thing that gave him the
immediate, the immediate win.
We look, for example, of thestory of Jesus being tempted in
the desert.
You know, he's been hungry,hasn't eaten for 40 days, hungry
, tired, and Satan comes in andtempts him, saying like hey,
turn these stones to bread.
Or if you bow down and worshipme, I'll give you power over all

(01:00:11):
these earthly kingdoms.
And that certainly feels likeit'd be a win.
Right, like Jesus, why would itbe a bad thing for Jesus to
have more power?

Mac (01:00:21):
It's getting a good thing in the wrong way.

Katie (01:00:23):
Right, right, like I would look at that and go, well,
either, okay, so Satan haspower over something, and he's
saying, jesus, you can havepower.
Well, clearly, I'd rather haveJesus have power over something,
like, in a way, that's what weshould all want.
But he had the eternalperspective in mind to know that
, no, this isn't what I'm calledto do, even though right in
front of me something might looktempting.

(01:00:43):
He had a vision of faithfulnessand he knew that that didn't
always translate into like animmediate, an immediate outcome
or an immediate win.
Second Corinthians 4.18 says sowe fix our eyes not on what is
seen but on what is unseen,since what is seen as temporary
but what is unseen as eternal.

Mac (01:01:03):
I was talking to my friend, jim Harrington recently and he
said something that I thinkcaptures this long game, eternal
perspective.
We were talking about just allthe upheaval and changes that
are happening in the churchright now and he said, mac, I'm
working to plant a tree and Iwill likely never sit under its

(01:01:25):
shade or taste its fruit.
And I just thought, wow, like,yeah, that you're probably right
.
I mean, he's nearing retirementage and the things that he's
giving his life to, the changes,the shifts, the way he's trying
to encourage the church toembody increased faithfulness
it's not gonna happen in hislifetime.

(01:01:47):
He's planting seeds, he'sputting a tree in the soil and
he likely won't sit under itsshade or taste its fruit.
And this was something that yourearly church got.
I mean, you look at the first300 years.
There's a book called thePatient Ferment of the Early
Church and you think about thefermentation process and it
takes time, you can't speed itup, and they got this.

(01:02:10):
The time when the church grewthe fastest was when they
intentionally slowed down andwere careful to reproduce
disciples.
And so the early church.
It's a great book.
The early church had a verystrategic process that was slow
and arduous, that trained peopleto become disciples of Jesus,
and they didn't speed it up,they didn't try to short circuit

(01:02:32):
it and eventually it turned theRoman world upside down.
I think we need to regain someof that.
I think we need to go hey, thework we're doing, I'm probably
not gonna see the full fruit ofit, and I don't need to.
Oftentimes, we want those quickfixes, those what did you call
it?
A W?

Katie (01:02:49):
The immediate W the immediate W.

Mac (01:02:50):
We want the immediate W, and if we don't see it, we're
not willing to do the work.
Well, you're gonna have to ifyou're gonna live into the way
of Jesus.
You're gonna have to engage insacrificial, costly work.
That's hard and difficult.

Katie (01:03:10):
And you may not see the fruit.
Yeah, we've been talking aboutEugene Peterson a lot, so I'm
going to continue that.
I have the book on my desk infront of me Along Obedience in
the Same Direction, and it'sreally what the whole book is
about.
In one part he says there is agreat market for religious
experience in our world.
There is little enthusiasm,though, for the patient
acquisition of virtue.

Mac (01:03:35):
There is little enthusiasm, though, for the patient
acquisition of virtue littleinclination to sign up for a
long apprenticeship in whatearlier generations of
Christians called holiness.
Yeah, that's a great quote andI think it's capturing.
It captures exactly what youwere saying.

Josiah (01:03:44):
Yeah, I would also add that something we've already
been discussing is that Jesusconsistently laid down his life
for others and that ultimatelyculminated in the cross.
He made decisions on theinterest of faithfulness and
love towards others which ledhim to sacrifice himself and

(01:04:05):
that led to him ultimately dyingon the cross for it.
So yeah, again, we've beentalking about this quite a bit
already.

Mac (01:04:16):
But that's the bullseye, I mean, that's the center of the
center is Jesus dying on thecross for us, out of love, and
that's exactly what we're calledto embody in our everyday lives
, individually and collectively,as a community.
We're to live cruciform livesand we're to be a cruciform
community.

Katie (01:04:33):
And all of this becomes evident when we look at the
cross.

Mac (01:04:35):
Yeah, all right, it's practice time.
It's time to name some.
Let's say, someone's listeningto this and they're not tired of
listening yet and they're goingokay, but what do I do about
this?
If you were to tell me what arethe implications, what are some
practices I could do, walkingaway from this conversation and

(01:04:56):
we've been talking a while, solet's kind of do more, maybe a
rapid fire.
Here's some concrete things youcan do to live this out.

Katie (01:05:05):
To praxis this.

Mac (01:05:06):
To praxis this, yeah Praxis .

Katie (01:05:08):
This To praxis this yeah Praxis podcast To praxis, one I
could say might be clarify whoJesus was and what he was about.
So we started the podcast hereand we're basically saying if we
claim to be aboutChristlikeness, then we need to
be clear about who Christ was.
Are we spending time in theGospels reading about him, or
are we kind of just trusting theperspective of others, maybe

(01:05:30):
listening to just preachers,podcasts, reading books, etc.
There's lots of competingnarratives out there.
One thing I've noticed if I canshare just a brief observation,
it's as you listen to differentvoices.
Like man, there's such easyaccess to pastors and
theologians.
Right now, lots of people talkabout God.
Easy access to pastors andtheologians.

(01:05:53):
Right now, lots of people talkabout God but, as I've heard,
like sermons or messages thatstrike me as like not as healthy
or like not the vision of whatwe're talking about, they tend
to not talk a lot about Jesus.
Like I hear a lot about God andmaybe not as much about Jesus.
Or insofar that they do talkabout Jesus, it's usually just
about his death.
Like they'll talk about Jesus'sdeath on the cross but not as

(01:06:14):
much about his life.

Mac (01:06:15):
And his teachings.

Katie (01:06:16):
And his teachings, and I think there have been seasons
even where I kind of grew upsolely focused on Jesus's death,
and obviously that's reallyimportant.
It's like the pinnacle ofChristianity.
But if you're not looking athis life and you're not actually
looking at how to embody histeachings, I think we're missing
something.
So I would just say we have toget clear about who Jesus was

(01:06:37):
and what he was about.
And the way we do that is bylooking at him, going to the
source, reading the gospels andseeing how he lived and what he
taught.

Mac (01:06:45):
So would you say, maybe practice one is just normalize.
You're going to be a lifelongstudent of Jesus.
You need to study Jesus's lifeand teachings while owning how,
while becoming aware of yourassumptions, your projections
and so on, and submitting yourlife to him.

Katie (01:07:00):
That capture, yeah that's a good way of capturing it.

Josiah (01:07:02):
Yeah, and to follow up to that, then, is clarify who we
are as a church and what we'reabout.
So I know that sounds like thesame thing, but this gets into
more of the details.
Like, what does it look likethen to prioritize
Christlikeness and to move awayfrom that corporate model into

(01:07:26):
shepherding, defining the endgoal as a church, being able to
name the goal as the goal ofChrist-likeness, openly,
consistently and fervently?
I think about the person who'slooking for your five-year
strategic plan for growth.
It becomes an opportunity toagain say like, hey, we're not

(01:07:50):
moving towards trying to getthis place huge, we're moving
towards becoming more likeChrist and creating disciples.
I do think when I was growing up, my family hunted a lot and we
would do camping, and my dadreally enjoyed the wilderness,
um, and I remember at a youngage him teaching me how to read

(01:08:12):
a compass and how to use it tonavigate out of the woods, cause
he would often drop us off inthe middle of the woods when we
were hunting and then we wouldand then be there until dark and
then we'd have to find our wayback to the road and, uh, this
wasn't our own property, thiswas on public land, so you know

(01:08:33):
the spots we were in would oftenchange, so your dad would often
drop you off in the wildernessWith a compass With a compass
and be like well, find your wayback to the road.

Mac (01:08:42):
And how old were you.

Josiah (01:08:43):
I'm old enough to hunt.

Katie (01:08:45):
Okay, okay, I guess, and it's not okay.

Josiah (01:08:48):
The wilderness.

Mac (01:08:49):
So your dad would.

Josiah (01:08:51):
The wilderness is a stretch.
Okay, now, there were timesthat it was genuine wilderness,
when we would go way, way upnorth, but often these were.
You know, there's a road.
Yeah.
You know, within like half amile.
The point is, he would drop usoff and then he would go to a
different spot and then he'd beat the car and you would meet to

(01:09:11):
the car, he'd give youdirections and he'd give you a
compass and a flashlight.
And a watch hopefully, and aflashlight, not a watch
necessarily.

Katie (01:09:18):
How do you know what time it was?

Josiah (01:09:19):
Well, you can watch when the sun sets at a certain point
.

Mac (01:09:24):
He gave them a sundial, katie.
He gave them a compass, asundial and some beef jerky.

Josiah (01:09:31):
But yeah, so the point of this is in teaching us to
read a compass.
He was saying that if you pick,you need to pick waypoints as
you're navigating.
So if you're like I need to gowest to get to the road and you
just look down at the compass,all right, west is that way, I'm

(01:09:53):
going to walk west.
And you put the compass back inyour pocket and you just start
going.
Pretty soon you will find outthat it's very easy to wander.
Off course, very easy to wander.
And so what he would say is youneed to pick specific landmarks
that are within eyesight, andthen you pick those and you take
a compass reading and you go tothat point and then, when you

(01:10:15):
get to that point, you're goingto take your compass back out
and then you're going to pick,you're going to make sure that
you're still in the rightdirection and you're going to
pick another point and you'regoing to walk to that.
And eventually you keep walkinguntil oh look, I see the road,
it worked.
And then you had to rememberokay, well, which direction on
the road do I walk, because Idon't see the car, and sometimes

(01:10:36):
you had to walk for a while.
But the point is.
I think this works for this.
This analogy works for thispoint is that, as a church,
you're going to need tocontinually clarify that.

Mac (01:10:49):
That waypoint yes.

Josiah (01:10:50):
You need to pick the waypoint and then move toward it
, and it's not going to be asfar out as you want it to be and
you're going to have to checkthe compass more often than you
think.
And the murkier the waters, orin the analogy, like the thicker
the forest, the more you're indarkness and you don't know
you're going to have to checkmore often.

(01:11:11):
Yeah, like if you don't have aclear landmark across a field
but you're in a thick forest,you may have to pick a tree you
know 20 yards in front of youand then recheck.

Mac (01:11:21):
Yeah, so it's not like once a year you do a waypoint.
Check it's, this is somethingyou got to do every day.
Check it's, this is somethingyou got to do every day.
You're checking your way point.
Am I centered on Jesus?
Where have I maybe deviated ortaken a few steps in the wrong
direction?
What would it look like to getback on track Right?
This is the narrow path, yeah,but one final thing.

(01:11:42):
So we've we've talked, you know,and talking about practice,
practices, praxis.
Um, hey, it's about being astudent of Jesus.
It's about having waywardpoints, constantly checking
those, those way points, andthen finally, uh, I would say we
just got to get comfortablewith naming the gaps.
Um, and that's an individualthing and a corporate thing.

(01:12:04):
I mean, it's probably peopleare sick of hearing it, but
every intro to this series wesaid hey, the healthy not every
church is healthy, but we'reattending to the gap between
where we should be and where wecurrently are.
Right, this is we just got tonormalize this that none of us
have arrived.
There's no perfect church, noperfect Christian at this point.
We all have gaps between wherewe are and where we need to be.

(01:12:27):
We've tried to do that in thisseries on a corporate level.
I mean, we've named some majorgaps in the American church
celebrityism, church growthism,authoritarianism, dogmatism, all
that stuff and we also have toget accustomed to doing that in
our lives.
Here's where I'm falling short,because it's as we get honest
about those things and learn tocome into the perfect love of

(01:12:54):
God revealed in Jesus, with thatbeing true, that we experience
his uncompromising, faithfullove toward us and we start to
experience transformation.
I often get pushback Mac, whyare you naming these hard things
?
It sounds negative.
This and that and I often quoteEphesians 5.11, have nothing to
do with the fruitless deeds ofdarkness, but rather expose them

(01:13:15):
.
Until we can name them, untilwe can expose both in my own
life, here's where I'm fallingshort.
Here's where we're fallingshort collectively.
It's going to remainuntransformed.
So I guess what I'm saying isyes, let's be a lifelong student
of Jesus.
Let's continually check hey,are we still on point?
Are we still tracking in termsof our compass?
And let's just get comfortablenaming hey, here's where our gap

(01:13:38):
exists, and not with guilt andcondemnation, but rather to open
up to God's transforming loveand grace.

Katie (01:13:45):
With grace and truth.
Yes, yeah, love that All right,transforming love and grace
With grace and truth.

Mac (01:13:50):
Yes, ye ah, love that All right.
Well, this was the last episodein our series on creating a
healthy church culture.
There were a lot of them, oh mygoodness, and I've said it
before, but I'm gonna need tocreate some space to grieve and
to lament, because I've likedthis series so much.
I might even borrow a box oftissues.

Katie (01:14:08):
I was gonna say you could do an encore episode of it by
yourself.
You can listen to it wheneveryou want, yeah you could go.

Mac (01:14:13):
I'm sure that we'll continue to some like return to
some of these themes in thefuture.
But yeah, this was sort of thecapstone episode where we're
summarizing everything we'vebeen talking about, which is to
say, the goal is to become likeChrist, and that's a lifelong
journey and will never fullyarrive, but nevertheless we're

(01:14:34):
going to pursue it.

Josiah (01:14:36):
Sweet.
Well, thanks for joining ustoday.
As Mac just mentioned, thismarks the end of our series on
creating a healthy churchculture, at least for now.
Next up is going to be a serieson what is being referred to as
the great de-churching.
Why are so many people leavingthe church, what are they
missing out on, and how can weengage those who are no longer

(01:14:59):
connected to a church community?
We hope you will continue totune in.
We'll see you next time you getyour podcasts.