November 12, 2023 • 54 mins
Prepare yourself for an enlightening journey as we sit down with internationally acclaimed missiologist and author, Mike Frost. Embrace an intimate narrative of his spiritual transition from a Catholic background to a life-changing evangelical conversion at 19, which carved his leadership path.
Through a plethora of diverse experiences and insights, Mike Frost illuminates the evolution of the church and the essence of its mission. In his new book 'Mission is the Shape of Water', he explores mission through the ages and around the world, pointing out that context is everything and will help us shape our mission expressions today.
Transcending the past and present, our conversation ventures into the future. By addressing the challenges of our time, we shed light on how the Church can respond. The discourse unravels the need for the Church to address key issues such as racial reconciliation, women's inclusion and the climate crisis - all while striving to shape communities in a world that is increasingly hybridized with technology.
Join us for this heartening conversation with Mike Frost. We navigate the complexities and challenges of faith, leadership, and mission in today's world.
If you want to purchase Mike's book (which we highly recommend) you can purchase is here https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Shape-Water-Learning-Inform/dp/1955142408
Thanks for listening!
Follow us on
Instagram
Facebook
Leave us a review & subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Support Us
Join the Reconstructing Pastors Cohort
Check out the Bridge & Rhino Coaching Website
We're super grateful for all of you!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Reconstructing Pastors
podcast.
I'm Ruth Lawrence in.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Kirk Romberg.
We're recovering pastorstalking about what it looks like
to make sense of our callingand community expression on the
other side of deconstruction.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Our hope is to create a safe space to explore the
bigger picture of the church,both the present state of the
American evangelical church andwhat the future may hold for
those who are searching for abetter way.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We're really glad you're here.
Let's get started Well, we aresuper excited to have with us as
our guest Mike Frost.
Ruth, you and I have beenfollowing Mike now on social
media for a bit here andenjoying his posts and enjoying
reading his material.
So Mike is an internationallyknown and recognized
(00:57):
misciologist and author and heis the co-founder of Forge,
along with Alan Hirsch, andperhaps maybe Mike and Ruth's
favorite description of you,mike is an agitator and to me
that sounds like the part of thewashing machine that makes the
spin cycle go back and forthreally fast and shake everything
(01:18):
up.
But so welcome Mike.
We're super glad that you'rewith us today and we recognize
that you're coming to us fromSydney, australia, so it's
tomorrow for you.
So welcome from the past.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Thank you, yes, and I'll let you know that tomorrow
is fine.
So far Nothing has happened.
That's terrible, at least inthe Southern Hemisphere anyway.
So, and I'll try to be asagitative as possible in this
conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's awesome.
So we're one of the things thatwe really want to talk about on
the episode is this book thatyou've just brought out.
That Mission is the Shape ofWater, and we're going to get to
that.
But we would love just for youto share a little bit about your
leadership journey.
I mean, what part of the reasonfor us doing this podcast is to
(02:04):
engage with pastors andministry leaders and the
journeys that they findthemselves in in this time that
we find ourselves, especially inAmerica.
So would you kind of just sharea little bit about you know,
your leadership journey, yourcall.
Did you start in a conventionalchurch setting?
(02:24):
How did that change?
That's more than one question.
I'm real, I realize that.
But yeah, if you could share alittle bit about yourself, mike,
in that space, that'd bewonderful, sure.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I mean, I grew up in a nominally Catholic
suburban family, so I would saywe were probably more kind of
nothing much at all culturallyCatholic, I suppose.
But I was a very spirituallyinquisitive child and so by the
time I became a young adult Iwas very.
I was exploring all kinds ofreligious perspectives,
(02:57):
including my, my families, ofAugustinian Christianity.
But I ended up really beingquite overwhelmed by some
evangelical friends who talkedto me about the grace and love
of Jesus, and I had a veryprofound conversion experience,
I suppose we used to call itwhen I was about 19.
(03:18):
And this might not sound like aleadership journey, but this is
the kind of roots of all ofthis.
I was a young, white, confidentboy, articulate, pretty smart,
studying at university, and I'dhad this kind of profound
experience that I found kind ofoverwhelmingly beautiful and
(03:38):
freeing, and so I just toldeverybody about it.
I mean, it's just, it's likeanything you discover something
that's marvelous, then you starttalking about it.
But I ended up in anevangelical church where that's
actually encouraged, like that'saffirmed, and so I, unbeknownst
to me in a way, just ended upon a kind of a leadership track,
(04:00):
a leadership pipeline.
It's like you're young whitemale, articulate, confident,
loud, and you can string like afew words together.
You end up putting, being putinto situations of leadership
and, in particular, preaching.
And then eventually you're told, like you're cut out for
ministry, you should studytheology.
(04:20):
So I'd been an English andhistory teacher, but I went back
to university and did atheological degree.
I ended up going through anordination track and so by the
time I got to my mid-20s all ofthat happened very quickly I
ended up as the pastor of apretty large Baptist church in
the Hills District of Sydney,where Hillsong comes from,
(04:43):
without even, I think, having agood hard think about whether
this is what I wanted, or evenif this is what God wanted.
I think I just assumed that allthe affirmation and all the
success, if you like, of variouskind of challenges I was
embracing indicated well thatGod must be behind that.
But these were the 80s and thiswas the heady days of church
(05:06):
growth theory, which is veryinfluenced by market theory and
the social sciences, much moreso, I think, than theology or
ecclesiology.
And so I got to a point in mymid-20s, mid to, you know,
around 26, something like thatwhen I could see all the levers
that were being pulled behindthe curtain and I was pulling a
(05:30):
lot of them and I recognizedthat a lot of what we were doing
was just seeking to kind ofout-attract other kind of
attraction churches in ourneighborhood.
So we had to have the bestmusic and the best children's
ministry and the best youthministry and the best preaching
and the best this and the bestthat.
And I came to a point where Irealized a lot of what this was
(05:55):
drawing from me was not HolySpirit power and it wasn't even
kind of a theologically directedkind of energy or impetus, it
was ego and competitiveness.
I was having to kind ofoutshine, you know, other
pastors and other churches and Ijust became kind of sick about
that, ruth and Kirk.
(06:15):
I just I couldn't, I couldn'tunknow what I was knowing and
seeing.
And at this particular point intime my path crossed with
another young guy who'd gone ona similar journey but ended up
in a different setting.
His name was Alan Hirsch.
He'd ended up going down thetrack of revitalizing small or
(06:37):
dying churches.
I was probably more in the kindof attraction or suburban
church growth kind of thing.
But we were both, even thoughin different settings, going on
the same kind of journey andasking ourselves you know, is
this all there was to it?
I mean, I've just become like aChristian kind of performing
monkey in a big Christianbusiness.
In a sense.
(06:57):
I was very young and I was abit immature and I just didn't
know how to think throughprocesses of change management
or anything like that.
So I said that I wanted toresign and just get out.
It wasn't for me.
And my deacons were like no, no, no, no, no, things are going
great, the church is growing,god is blessing you.
So I kind of staved that offfor a while.
But then this experience I'mabout to tell you about is not
(07:20):
particularly dramatic or or orinteresting, other than it was
the last straw for me.
I was standing outside ourchurch and these are the days
before the internet guys said noone could look up online who
was preaching in my, my churchon any given Sunday.
A little convoy of cars pulledin.
Someone from the first car ranover to me and said are you
(07:41):
preaching tonight?
And it so happened that Iwasn't.
No, no, I said, but we've gotthis guest speaker and you know
she's awesome and it's great.
It'll be all you know, or I didall the kind of sales routine
and it's like okay, no, no, no,but you're not preaching, right.
Okay.
So he jumped back in the carand the convoy turned around and
they would have gone toHillsong or Castle Hill
Presbyterian Church a littlecircuit of these churches that
(08:04):
young adults would kind of tryand my first impulse was right,
I have to preach every Sunday.
We can't let that happen again.
And immediately after that Irealized that was not from the
Holy Spirit.
That's not God telling me.
You know, you and only you canpreach in this church on Sunday.
That was just sheer ego.
That was like don't let them goto the church down the road.
(08:27):
And as I said it's not aparticularly dramatic experience
, but I just clearly rememberbeing the last straw For me.
I was like I can't do this.
I can't play this game.
This isn't what I imagined likechurch and church leadership
and a faith community inspiredby the gospel of grace and love
and justice and peace making.
I can't see it.
(08:47):
And so no disrespect to thatchurch and the people in that
church, but I just had to resign.
And then Alan and I just startedlike reading Leslie Newbegin
and Stanley Howell-Wasson andDavid Bosch, and we just started
conspiring.
We became a little readinggroup, the two of us just trying
to re Well, we would say now,kind of deconstruct our
(09:09):
ecclesiologies and reconstructit around mission.
I ended up getting a jobteaching ideology and sociology
at a community college and wentthrough this whole process of
unraveling, as he and I thenworked through ways in which we
might rebuild.
What does it mean for us to becalled by God?
What is the church?
What should the church be?
(09:30):
And that ultimately led us towriting a whole kind of
curriculum around that andcreating a little course to help
other people who are exploringthe same kinds of questions,
which ultimately became theprogram that you introduced
earlier, kirk, which was theForge Mission Training Network.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Wow, that was a beautiful job summarizing your
story.
I found myself so caught up init, identifying with some things
, with a lot of things actually,you know, changed the
circumstances, but maybe theparticulars I don't know that I
ever had a convoy show up at mychurch to hear me preach, that's
(10:07):
.
But maybe that's a good thing.
And I love the heart and theresistance, I would imagine, to
the potential temptation thatyou could have gone and didn't.
So, wow, we applaud you forthat and for the work that
you've done since then to take adifferent track.
(10:29):
And that's kind of what youknow before we jump into your
book, which I thoroughly enjoyedreading and talking with Ruth
about in Vice-Versa.
What you just explained and youeven used the words
deconstruction, reconstructionof what you're doing feels like
it's about maybe 20 years ormore earlier than what we feel
(10:50):
like a lot of people are goingthrough now, maybe prompted by
COVID, with circumstances, thecultural climate in America, the
evangelical church being incrisis, you name it.
We started this podcast,reconstructing Pastors Podcast,
in response to the very thingsthat a lot of pastors are going
through, similar to your story.
(11:11):
Again, different circumstances,but something is rising up
within that is wanting to behonest with who it is and what
it is that God's calling them tobe and do, and that means
somehow I can't do what I'vedone before and I can't go back.
But I'm not sure what the wayforward is.
And it sounds like not onlyhave you been there, but maybe
(11:33):
in your spaces you've connectedwith a lot of people in that
similar journey.
So wondering if you can tell usa little bit more about that
journey and, specifically, whatare the challenges that you feel
like pastors are facing todayin that journey, especially
maybe here in the United States?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, I mean for me I don't know how that journey
would have unfolded if I hadn'thave met someone like Alan and
we hadn't have found that kindof camaraderie, as initially two
of us and then our wives weredrawn into that, and then around
us a gather, a number of otherkind of pastors or ex-pastors,
but definitely at that heart ofthat, doing it alone,
(12:14):
particularly when there's sortof disillusionment or maybe
anger or disappointment at least, that things hadn't worked out
the way you wanted or theyweren't what you had thought
they should be, it's done a goodplace to be alone in that kind
of setting.
And so, and having someone likeAlan and I hope he would say
the same of me for him was justpermission giving.
(12:38):
It was like there was like okay, someone else is going through
this.
He didn't have the same kind ofjourney as I did.
He came from a Pentecostalbackground, having been brought
up in South Africa, I guess thesimilarity to us we were both
brought up in largely secularhomes had a very profound
conversion experience.
He meant Pentecostalism, me andevangelicalism, and then it
(12:59):
ended up in ministry before wekind of knew it.
And so there was a common kindof journey there, although there
were some differences, but he'sa non anxious kind of presence.
That guy is just like what Iwould be, like who are we?
Is this like we doing somethingwrong here, or is is thinking
this inappropriate or westepping outside the bounds of
(13:19):
orthodoxy here, or you know, hewas just a very warm, non
anxious presence and that's whatyou need in a setting like that
someone just to hold your handas you're going through it,
because you kind of the groundthat you've got a built things
on now has kind of shifted outfrom under you and it's
difficult to figure out when istheir solid ground here?
That I can kind of find somebalance in which then allows me
(13:43):
that sense of balance to thenExplore the future.
You can't explore the futurewhen everything is Is off kilter
, and so a community in thatcase it was just one person
which developed it, as I said,into more people who gathered
around us, a non anxious kind ofpresence, and then the freedom
to explore, like the freedom tobe daring enough to explore.
(14:05):
But I mean also have toacknowledge that both of us were
confident white men and sothey're also Around that.
There are the resources,there's a kind of fearlessness
that can come from people whoare privileged in that regard,
and I don't underestimate that.
It's far more difficult, Ithink, for for people of color
and for women who are seeking tokind of find their way through
(14:28):
this maze of figuring out, youknow, what is my ecclesiology or
my theology or what do Iunderstand about leadership when
there is an already kind ofaffirmation of you being the
kind of person of leadershipthat you are, which is why both
our land, I, have had like avery strong commitment to
wanting to support and encouragewomen in leadership generally,
but also in a process ofThinking through alternative or
(14:52):
new ways of being church.
So I Don't know if thatanswered your question.
I forgot where that questionwas going there for a minute,
but I think there are lots ofplus.
Also, you did mention yet youdid mention that kind of the,
the Current or peculiar issuethat related to the kind of
world of post COVID, and it'sextraordinary.
They're gonna write, you knowthey're gonna write gazillions
of books and PhD thesis on this,just like just what did a
(15:16):
global pandemic do Like tobusiness, to culture, to the
arts, to education.
I mean, it's just, it's had,it's had an extraordinary and I
don't think yet fully realizedeffect on culture and that
includes, as you were saying, onthe church, on On church
leadership and its confidence inchurch and church life.
I feel like what we were goingthrough in the 80s was like a
(15:39):
real sense of beingstraightjacketed by a Model of
church, church growth theorythat was working.
For a period of time it wasactually attracting people,
often from other churches, butthere was a sense in which
people would say to me back inthose days what are you
complaining about?
It works, it's good, it's great, my church is awesome.
And so it took a real sense ofRestriction and kind of a
(16:04):
busting out.
That was how I felt, what Ifelt I was doing back in those
days, whereas today I don't feellike anyone's thinking well,
it's really working, it's great,everything's awesome.
And there's a general sense ofon.
We kind of like Like, I don'teven enjoy it myself, how am I
expecting anybody in my churchto enjoy this?
(16:24):
And there's a sense of kind oflistlessness and a sense of
which we feel become anduncertain about the way forward
if lots of things have collapsedaround us.
There is no overarching.
Hey, this is the model ofchurch and it works.
No one's found that and noone's presenting that we're all
seeking to discover our ownunique Callings within our own
(16:47):
particular settings, and that'sa much more difficult kinds of
thing because it doesn't comewith the energy of breaking out.
There's a listlessness in that.
It requires a Resolve to moveforward in rediscovering what
might be the next steps for usand, I think, actually a much
more difficult challenge thanthe one that we were going
(17:09):
through back in the day.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, I, first of all , I just want to thank you for
mentioning the inequality inthis, in this space, of it's
different for women and peopleof color, and how, even back in
the 80s, for you and Alan, justthe fact that you were together
and you were White males thathad resources was helpful, and I
(17:33):
thought that what you said,kirk, was really interesting,
though it's always like you guyswere early, early adopters of
this and obviously there werethere were more people in that
space too, but it feels likethere's a surge right now of
like we're all catching up and,like you say, I'm not sure what,
what were the triggers of that?
Covid was certainly part ofthat, but as you describe your
(17:57):
journey with Alan, it makes me.
It makes me laugh a little bitbecause it feels very
descriptive of my journey withKirk, and you know, we both came
out of church ministry and setup a coaching company because,
honestly, we didn't know whatelse to do, and so you know,
we're both pastors of 25 yearstrying to make sense of our
calling With all of thesequestions, and I think, as we
(18:19):
would meet once a week inStarbucks To like talk about our
business, but we'd have like anhour before even our business
meeting, where we're like, canwe just like talk about this
question and just having theliberty and the companionship To
, and the safe, the safety toknow that someone knows you,
you're not being disloyal, youlove God, you love the local
(18:42):
church, you're passionate aboutit.
I mean, for goodness sake, wegave our lives to this thing,
you know, like this, but thenthe disillusionment that comes
with that and all of that stuff.
So it just, it just is verywarming to hear You're an Alan's
journey, because it feels likeit's is very similar.
It obviously in very differentcontexts and different time, but
(19:03):
I think that the advice of findpeople to journey with and
sometimes, if you're going to bea pastor or a ministry leader,
that might need to be outside ofyour space, your current space,
because Not all of thesequestions are going to be
accepted or, you know, it mightnot be okay to have this, the
(19:24):
space to really Questioneverything.
So you know, our heart here atReconstructing pastors podcast
is to try and provide some ofthat space for people with the
podcast and we've got a cohortthat we run with these amazing
pastors across America who arein that space and we're trying
to provide that type of table toprocess.
(19:46):
But one of the things this isthe thing that I wanted to ask
you, one of the things that Iknow we had like a, a bunch of
bucket questions around thechurch.
But one of the things that bothme and Kirk really were aligned
on was this question aroundmission.
Like we were like hang on aminute, what are we doing?
Everyone would say themissional language.
(20:07):
But I think deep down and thiswas applied to the big sea
church that we were seeingaround us we were like, actually
, are we really being missional?
What is the purpose of thechurch here?
And like, I think, the desirefor me I had a big conversion
experience too the desire for mewas always to share the love of
(20:31):
God in society, to bring theseamazing elements of kingdom
God's kingdom, god's rule andreign in a way that changed the
world.
You know, that was like mystarting point and I think we
were in our Starbucks meetings.
We were like, oh my gosh, isthis even happening?
(20:51):
So that was kind of where wewere at.
But that leads me to this bookthat you've just brought out,
because it's all about missionand obviously that's a massive
part of what you've beenunpacking in these years and
teaching.
But can we start that?
I'd love to talk about yourbook about mission is the shape
of water, and I know it'sgetting some really amazing
(21:12):
response right now across theglobe.
But could you tell us a littlebit about that?
The book Like.
Why write it Like and why now?
Was there anything about thetiming of now?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, can I pick up on something you were just
saying, ruth?
I think that I think we used toquote back in the I don't know
if anyone ever said this or it'sjust like a kind of a trope but
we used to say, oh, jesus camepreaching the kingdom and what
we ended up with was the church,as though somehow, like,
kingdom was magnificent andchurch was like a poor
(21:48):
reflection of that, and somechurches have been poor
reflections of that.
But the link between kingdomand community is absolutely
essential and I would say anycommunity of faith which is
seeking to alert people to thereign of God, which is not just
about the fact that you can geta heaven when you die, but this
unfurling of God's reign, whichis actually about joy and peace
(22:11):
and healing and justice and animmediate experience of the
presence of God and deliveranceand salvation and new life that
has to be embodied by acommunity of people, a family of
people.
And so for a lot of what wewere doing back then was like
discovering kingdom, like for alot of us, like the kingdom
(22:35):
language was used byPentecostals to describe
speaking in tongues or kind ofwords of knowledge or miracles
and the like, and I think thathealing is part of the reign of
God.
Some kind of progressives orliberals will talk about it as a
kind of a social justiceinitiative, but it's and it is.
It includes all of that and somuch more.
And I think one of the thingsthat I went through in the 80s,
(22:58):
in that kind of rediscovery ofwho am I and what am I doing, is
my job isn't to grow the churchas an institutional or an
organization or an event in aparticular place on Sunday.
My job personally is to alertpeople to the reign of God and
to equip other people to do that, that we might do it
collectively, because noindividual can manage it by
themselves.
(23:18):
So discovering mission wasrecognizing actually the mission
of the church isn't to growlike brand Jesus or brand
Baptist or brand Anglican orPentecostal.
Our mission is to let peopleknow a new world is coming and
there's a whole new way of beinghuman that's being made
available to us through Christ,the Jesus birth and teaching and
(23:41):
death and resurrection andascension, not just His birth.
All of it actually kind ofpoints to this whole new way of
being human under the kind ofreign and rule of the glorious
and beautiful triune God.
Now, that was kind ofbreathtaking to me when I
discovered that, and the twopeople that really helped me
most were David Bosch, a SouthAfrican Missiologist, and Leslie
(24:03):
Newbegin, a British formermissionary, retired missionary
and both of them were just ontoit.
It was just like wow.
When I would read their work Iwould be like I want this world.
I want a world where there's nosickness or disease.
I want a world where there's,where everyone has enough, where
no one goes hungry, and I wanta world where there's joy and
(24:25):
the presence of God among us andfreedom and peace and
reconciliation between peopleand a whole new way of being, a
kind of a redeemed society, likea family, in which all are
welcome and no one is excluded.
Like these things are beautifulways of thinking about being
human and that's what we'remeant to do, because it's not
(24:46):
just like hey, come to church onSunday, we have better
preaching than the church downthe road, or we have an awesome
children's ministry that yourkids are going to enjoy.
Like there's nothing wrong withmeeting on Sunday or having
ministry to children, don't getme wrong, unless it's all in the
context of wanting to let theworld know this is what the
world is like.
(25:06):
We're not Americans, we're notAustralians, we're not British,
we're not.
We're not cleaving to any kindof kind of cultural interests.
We're not trying to generate aparticular brand or a particular
ecclesiology.
We're wanting you to know a newworld has come and is coming.
And so to the book.
(25:26):
It was like well, listen, ifyou think that all you've got to
go on is a few examples youmight have heard of around the
place or that you've read of arehappening in various places in
the world.
Now why don't you take a lookat the last 2000 years of the
history of the Christianmovement, and what you'll
discover there is that whenChristians are committed to
(25:47):
alerting others to the reign ofGod, wherever it might be Europe
, africa, south America, youknow the South Pacific they've
done extraordinary and in somecases incredibly diverse kinds
of things.
So the title Mission is theShape of Water is my way of
saying.
You know, mission is alwaysmission.
It's alerting people to thereign of God.
(26:09):
It's anchored and rooted in theidea of the coming reign of God
.
That doesn't change.
That's always been whatChristians have been committed
to for the last 2000 yearsletting the world know that what
Jesus said and did andunleashed, is unfurling and
history is moving to the endthat God had intended from the
very beginning.
(26:30):
But the shape it takes is verydifferent in different settings
and different places and amongdifferent people and at
different times in history.
So just like water is alwaysH2O but it could be shaped like
a bottle or it could be shapedlike a lake, in the same way
mission is always mission but itgets shaped differently, very
differently, like radicallydifferently, in different places
(26:52):
, in different contexts and atdifferent times.
And so in the introduction Italk about how I'm just trying
to kind of develop a kind ofhealthy Christian memory which
kind of frees us to imaginemyriad ways that mission could
look today.
It's not got to look like thechurch that you grew up in.
It doesn't have to just looklike you know the stories you
(27:15):
read about from what Christiansdid in the 20th century Like boy
.
When do you discover what theydid in the 10th century or the
3rd century or the 19th century?
So I know history can be a bitboring for some people, but, man
, I always say this is churchhistory, but only the
interesting bits.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You know, again, as I was listening to you talk, I
found myself I could sit andlisten to you for a long time.
I'll be a part of the convoy.
How's that?
I'm just joking about that, butI think what I felt, something
happening in me as I waslistening to you talk about
whole new world coming, and anew way of being human is
(27:56):
available to us in Christ.
That feels a lot different thanwhat I've grown up to or
observed as a believer to betraditional evangelism Believe
this set of principles and youget to go to heaven when you die
.
And what you're describing,though, feels attractive.
It feels like something thatnot only I desire, but the world
(28:20):
desires at once and longs for,and actually there's hope for
that, and that hope is availablein Jesus.
So thank you for offering thatas well as how that's been lived
out by the church over thecenturies.
In your book you explain aboutten different areas, and you
recognize that there's multipleexpressions oftentimes in these
(28:41):
areas, and but you you highlightsome that it was fascinating to
read the shape that missiontook and the adaptations that
people made in order to be goodnews people and sent people in
their generation, and for us tonot repeat it but be inspired by
it and to ask similar questionsin that process, you, you, I
(29:08):
felt like you did a great job.
Speaking to our human tendencyI'll say my human tendency to
maybe pinpoint particularperiods in history or
individuals in history that wemight be aware of or admire
especially, and think that'swhat mission looks like.
So I'm just gonna repeat thatwhy is it that we have that
(29:28):
tendency to think, and whatwould it look like for us to
embrace God's mission as beingin the shape of water and to
bring his mission, his kingdom,what it looks like to be human
to our generation, in our worldtoday?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah well, context is absolutely essential.
The simple answer to that is tounderstand the cultural context
in which mission is beingpresented.
Because you're right, I meanpeople will look back and think
that person's doing somethingI'd like to do, so they become a
champion.
So, like, a lot of people havebeen really taken by the whole
(30:05):
orphanage industry, like let'sfund orphanages around Africa
and Southeast Asia and the like.
It it seems like and feels likeyou're doing something really
important and good, like you'rerescuing all these children and
you're providing them with acaring environment.
And often they will reach backand I say, look, this is what
Amy Carmichael did in SouthernIndia and this is what Mary
(30:26):
Slesa did in the Niger Delta.
But in both of those casesthose women had orphans foisted
upon them by their context.
I mean Mary Slesa, I mean gosh,mary Slesa was this red headed,
wild Scottish woman who wentbarefoot through the jungle and
went up rivers that people saiddon't go up there, they'll kill
(30:48):
you, but she just took canoes upthese like tributaries up into
the Niger Delta.
I mean she was just apowerhouse woman, but there was
a context in which twins wereconsidered to be cursed and so
if you gave birth to twins, youjust left them out in the jungle
to be eaten by wild animalsLest they bring the curse upon
(31:09):
the village.
So she starts happening upon adiscarded children.
What's, what is a woman to do?
She gathers them up.
I mean always picture her like,like writing a canoe up some
like some remote tributary ofthe Niger Delta, with six or
eight kids.
I mean literally, she wouldwalk with children on a hip and
(31:29):
three or four toddlers followingbehind her, where she would go
to preach.
And so in the end, sheEstablishes what else could she
do?
She establishes effectively anorphan, she orphanage, she kind
of builds a facility and startsrescuing these children.
Now, that was the context thatshaped her.
She can go there to startorphanages.
It was simply this was a needthat she needed to respond to.
(31:50):
Today we would say orphanagesare the worst place for a child
to grow up in.
There's disconnection fromextended family, from culture,
from language.
I mean, you do anything, youshould do anything today not to
raise a child in an orphanage,but often what we'll do is we'll
go check this out.
Amy Carmichael did this insouthern India, was incredible.
(32:10):
Let's like, let's repeat thathere and now, which is not the
way it ought to be.
I reckon Mary Slesser and AmyCarmichael would be the first to
tell us not to so in thatrespect.
It's like wait, wait, wait, lookat what's happening now.
Let's let's not just pick ourfavorite missionary stories and
(32:30):
then say they're thejustification for doing what
they did, in the same way as wehave this kind of nostalgic
notion about the church inJerusalem.
You know, if only we could getback to Jerusalem.
What?
Why wait a second?
Like Jerusalem and all sorts ofproblems.
You know, the Greek speakingwidows weren't being fed.
No one was leaving Jerusalem togo to the other ends of the
(32:51):
earth.
There are all sorts of ways inwhich that church was great at
has limitations.
We learn from those.
We learn from mistakes.
We learn from what's good anduseful.
But to your question, the mostimportant thing is to explore
our own contexts in order tofigure out well, what does the
reign of God, what does peace orjustice, or joy, or healing, or
(33:14):
the presence of God?
What would it look like?
How might it be shaped in thisparticular place?
Okay, I tell you another story.
One of my favorite stories outof this book is about a woman
called Alice Silly Harris whowent to the Congo believing that
she was just going to go and bea conventional missionary,
which is a preaching missionary.
She was a British Baptist shehad a husband went to teach the
(33:36):
Bible, convert people, plantchurches very conventional
conversionist type Christianmission.
When she gets there, what shediscovers is that there's a
genocide unfolding in the in theCongo base of the king Leopold
from Belgium I'd go set up thewhole of the Belgian Congo as a
(33:57):
concentration camp and that theCongolese were being forced to
provide quotas of rubber to hiscompany.
And if they're quota didn't why?
Enough, they had to pay or makeup the tear by having a hand or
an arm removed to make up thewhite as punishment.
So she encounters this when shegets there and then she has
(34:20):
this new fangled contraptioncalled a personal camera.
This was the late, like the1890s, into the very early 1900s
.
As she starts photographingportraits of these amputees
these people are victims Of thecriminal activity of the king of
Belgium and then goes on aspeaking tour to 30 cities in
(34:41):
the United States, right acrossthe UK and Europe, and showing
like slideshowers this wasunique, no one had said anything
like this.
They're called magic lanternshows.
She was showing horriblepictures of people who were
disfigured by the force publicwhich was King Leopold's private
army and created so muchoutrage in just five years of
(35:02):
doing this that the whole of theBelgian Congo was unraveled.
The parliament of Belgiumrebute to the king.
The Belgian Congo wasdismantled, set free, like she
set free, millions of people whowere suffering under
unspeakable privation andatrocity.
Now did she go to Africa tobecome an advocate for social
(35:25):
justice and freedom?
No, but mission shaped thecontext, shaped her mission in
in real time, as she was thereand I love the story of the way
she utilizes like a new fangledversion of technology and her
incredibly indomitable spiritactually changes African history
(35:46):
.
I mean, it's an astonishingstory.
Context is the most importantthing.
What does joy, or peace, orjustice or or healing?
What does it look like here andnow?
How might we alert people tothat in this particular place
and time?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I love that, mike, and the contacts, and I think
that there's just this fromlistening to you does.
It seems there's this fine linebetween being inspired by
history of mission and beinginformed by it, and so I guess
we should be informed by thepartnering with the Holy Spirit
(36:26):
in the context that we findourselves in, to figure out what
is our response.
You know what is our response,what are our ways and be and
still be inspired by what's beenbefore, but understand that we
have our unique contribution tobring in partnership with the
Holy Spirit.
And I'm curious as well I knowthis is a little left field
(36:49):
question, but I know that lastyear around Was it last year, no
, this year, this year, februaryand we had the Aspiri revival
and I just you know, I thinkthat it.
I remember watching all of thereactions around that and it was
(37:09):
so confusing, it was like itfelt quite polarizing some of
the reactions on social mediaand, and I think that there was
a sense of you know, issomething happening again?
And I think there's a tendency,even with revival and whatever
we think revival is, to have thesame thing.
(37:31):
It's like, well, that happenedback then and we want it to
happen again in our time and I'mjust curious I'd love to hear.
Before we started this episode,I said if I can get Mike to
talk about revival.
I know it's not your the mainthing that your books about, but
this is just for me.
But I would love your thoughtson that, like how we tend to
repeat something, how we canform a lie, something, and and
(37:55):
yet you know, within that spacethere is God at work to.
And how do we like, how doesrevival blend with mission?
Could you speak to that space?
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Well, I know you're not American originally, ruth,
but I think Americans, generallyspeaking, are haunted by
revival.
It's kind of endemic to theirculture.
America has been shaped byrevivalism.
I mean not only shaped byrevivalism but the great
awakenings they're just, it'sdraped over the Christian
(38:30):
experience even to this day thestories of widespread
conversions, incredibly deepconviction what widespread mass
conviction of sin, the embracingof holiness and holy lives and
a puritan culture, and thesekind of flare-ups of deep, deep,
(38:53):
deep, extraordinary experiencesof the presence of God.
And I would say, yeah, that'sthe reign of God.
Conviction of sin, a call toholiness, a new way of living,
conversion, experience of peoplewho've been outside the kingdom
, and so there's this sense ofwow, these things have happened
(39:13):
since the 1700s.
This flares up regularly.
So I wonder whether some of thekind of almost obsessive like
get to Asbury and check this out, is alike.
As to your question is, likeit's happening again, like here
we go again.
This is a very American versionof Christianity and it didn't
(39:33):
turn into that.
It turned into a, I guess, arelatively short but kind of
deep experience of the presenceof God.
I mean, I wasn't there but atleast what I've read about it,
there's an incredible sense thatstudents felt about the
presence of God and convictionof sin and an extraordinary
sense of the grace andforgiveness of God.
(39:54):
But the thing that I loved aboutit and I mentioned it only
briefly in this book is the factthat nobody was running this.
There was nobody in charge.
There was no Jonathan Edwards,like from the first grade
awakening.
There was no DL moody from thethird grade awakening.
There was no celebrity, therewas no committee.
No one was running this orpromoting this or generating
(40:15):
this.
I'm not suggesting those peoplewere generating anything, but
there was no one who became kindof the headquarters of this
sort of movement.
And I think I quote a woman whowent from a Baptist seminary
from Kentucky.
She went to Asbury to check itout and she was seeing
organization, like people werewheeling in whiteboards and
writing up prayer requests andfood was arriving.
(40:36):
There was some form oforganization to maintain this
kind of worship service thatjust seemed never to end.
And when she said, well, who'sin charge?
The answer was no one.
Like we don't even know.
Like someone just thought weneeded food, someone just
thought we should write prayer.
Like there was no centralorganizational structure.
And the point that I make aboutthat in the book is it seems as
(40:58):
though movements are happeninglike that in this day and age.
There's no central office forBlack Lives Matter or for the Me
Too movement or the 24 7 Prayermovement, so these things
spontaneously emerge and theyare decentralized and widespread
and they're often, at theirheart, kind of moved by women
(41:26):
and people of color in order tokind of call people to an
awakening, to a newness, to anew perspective.
And whether you agree with allthe goals and aims of Black
Lives Matter or Me Too or any ofthose kinds of movements is
immaterial to me right now.
The primary thing to recognizeis they're not being led by a
small committee of well educatedwhite men, and I think that we
(41:51):
need to be open to thepossibility that God might very
well be bypassing what we thinkof as conventional or recognized
kind of leadership structuresand personnel and generating
newness in life.
This is what happened in India,which was really extraordinary.
A lot of Christian mission workwas among the elites or the
(42:11):
upper class in India, believingif we can convert lots of people
who become future politiciansand business leaders and what
have you, it will trickle downand India will become
Christianized.
But it didn't work.
But actually where Christianrevival has broken out in India
has been among the Dalit people,the so-called I hesitate to
(42:33):
even use this term, but theso-called untouchables, like the
poorest of the poor, have seenlike remarkable movements of God
happening among them and itfeels to me as though this is
God's way of operating.
I just step around what youthink are the kind of
conventional or recognizedunderstandings of leadership and
I work among a wild redheadedlady with no shoes in the middle
(42:56):
of the Nojir Delta or among theDalits in India or among a
bunch of kind of student punksin Asbury.
This is where things bubble upand I think probably have always
happened that way.
It's just that we often kind ofget we get become enamored of
what look like really muscularand dynamic expressions of
(43:18):
leadership that aren'tnecessarily the kinds of things
that God is at working.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I love that because it speaks to, I think, what
seems to me to be a realpredominant theme throughout
your book, and that is thealmost, the
deprofessionalization of mission, the decentralization, the
de-clericalization I'm not sureI got that word right but the,
(43:45):
where our tendency oftentimes,at least as Americans, is to see
what's going on in the worldand the problems of our country
and to say things like we needanother Billy Graham or we need
God to do this or God to do that, and Billy Graham's ministry
was wonderful for its day, butit's not necessarily for this
(44:07):
day, otherwise God would raiseup someone to do that.
And you respond to thattendency of ours, maybe to kind
of take a passive approach tomission.
And well, if God would just dothis and raise up that person,
then all this would be better asopposed to maybe taking
(44:27):
ownership for myself that I amto be a person through whom the
kingdom of God can move forwardin my own context and I think
you say something like and itconnects back to the idea of
water wouldn't God rather usemillions of nameless, faceless
(44:49):
people I'm not sure use thatlanguage but unknown people to
move his kingdom forward and themessage of Jesus forward in
their own context.
And so, with that in mind, youclose out the book in the
epilogue, with some idea ofwhere the water is flowing.
And you admit you're not afuturist, you're not into
(45:14):
prognosticating and predictingwhat's going to happen next.
And yet you do have somethoughts that, as I read them
again, I feel this surge of hoperising up in me and thinking my
goodness, I hope he's right,because this sounds beautiful,
this sounds like what I want tobe a part of, and I'm wondering
if you can speak a little bit towhat you sense is or maybe
(45:37):
could be next for the church,for mission, for church.
What would your advice be forchurch planters?
I'm guessing it wouldn't be gorent a school and buy some
chairs and rent a band as afirst approach.
It might be something different.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, and, as you say , I say that I'm not a futurist.
But to your previous question,I think, where you're asking
about context, all I'm doing inthat chapter is saying well,
what are the challenges that ourcontext throws up at us?
Because they will be a clue towhat mission should be shaped
like, and one of them I'vealready talked about and that is
(46:14):
the emergence of grassrootsmovements, of so-called
unqualified people.
That seems as though we'reliving in an era where these
things bubble up regularly andslowly shift culture in a
particular direction.
They don't build institutions,they don't build central offices
or employ people.
They become kind of well water.
(46:37):
They kind of lift something andjust move it gently in a
particular direction.
Even if some of the kind ofvoices in groups like Black
Lives Matter or whatever itmight be, seem strident and some
people's minds are fencing, allthey are doing is highlighting
for us the importance ofexploring.
(47:00):
Are there better ways to lookat policing?
Are there better ways for us toexplore the issue of race?
What does it mean for us tounderstand genuine
reconciliation between races inour culture?
Similar to with me toomovements, no head office, no
imposing of any particular kindof rules or laws.
(47:21):
All they're doing is sayingwhat would happen if we just
believed women, if we justlistened to the voices of people
who have been and obviouslythis is effective churches
significantly who have beenbullied or assaulted or unheard
or misbelieved or unbelieved, Ishould say what would happen if
we actually took these thingsseriously?
(47:41):
I see movement in thosedirections.
Slowly but surely that is to bemuch more movement in those
directions, but listen to what'shappening among kind of
movements that are emerging.
I think that the church has totake seriously the issues of
racial reconciliation, theissues of inclusion of women in
(48:03):
the life of the church andsociety.
We should be leading in thisrespect.
I mean it ought to have beenthat when people are like, oh my
gosh, how do we deal with thesechallenges that are being
called for us now in this kindof post-post civil war civil
rights movement, oh, the church.
Look at them, they'rereconciled.
That's what they ought to havesaid.
I mean, here we are hearingabout women from Hollywood and
(48:27):
women from business beingassaulted, being bullied and not
being believed.
Where is there a group ofpeople that believes women,
where women are equal andincluded in community, where the
organization isn't just led byme?
Oh, the church.
Let's go to the church.
They've got some clues.
That's what they ought to havebeen saying for us.
What does it look like for us tolisten to each other and to
(48:48):
develop a genuine community ofinclusion and love and grace?
Our society is calling forthese things to happen.
We're not foisting them on oursociety.
That's the society saying howdo we do this, and we ought to
respond to that as one of thethings I say.
We ought to recognize thatleadership needs to be humble,
decentralized and moverelationally through the
(49:12):
organizational structure we'rebeing called upon to explore.
What does it look like for us torespond to the climate crisis
in this time?
And I'm just way past evenworrying about how much of the
climate crisis that we'reencountering is as a result of
human-centered activity, and I'mjust much more concerned about
(49:32):
asking why don't we say that ourtask is to love the things that
God loves?
And who does God love?
God loves the poor and Godloves the planet.
God loves the planet, andactually what we find in
scripture is the planet lovesGod, like the stars and the sun
and the sky are worshiping.
(49:52):
They're singing worship to God,like there's this deep
connection between God andcreation.
So if God loves the planet,then ought not to we love the
planet and to respond to it asan act of worship to God?
That we ought to be the mostenvironmentally conscious people
, that we are most focused onissues to do with justice and
(50:15):
peacemaking?
Surely we ought to be, and I'mso tired of people telling me
that, oh, this is what thechurch to be woke and beyond any
kind of simplistic agenda thatyou can critique in those terms,
it's actually about saying thisis what the kingdom of God was
about, don't you remember?
It's all about the mission,which is about learning people
to the reign of God.
(50:35):
What does the reign of God looklike?
Our God loves the planet.
Our God loves the poor.
Our God loves worship.
Our God loves peace making.
Our God wants to bring healingand joy into our lives, and so
look at the context what'shappening and what ways do we
need to consider akingdom-shaped response to it?
(50:57):
One of the other things Imentioned in that chapter is we
are actually dealing with issuesnow that have never been dealt
with before.
I'd say the climate crisis isone, and the other one would be
the so-called digital revolution.
What will it look like for usto fashion communities in a kind
of hybridized world, whichincludes really deep connection
(51:17):
digitally as well asface-to-face, and how might they
complement each other?
And I don't think old guys likeme have the answer to those
questions.
I think digital natives willexplore that for us.
But at least old guys like mecan say no, this has to be taken
seriously.
We have to figure out what doesit look like for us to use the
(51:42):
internet and artificialintelligence and virtual reality
and those sorts of things inresponsible, kingdom-shaped
kinds of ways that foster thevalues of the kingdom that I've
been talking about all morning?
So in the book I don't haveanswers to that, other than to
say that's going to be anessential question for the way
forward.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Mike, thank you so much for sharing all of that.
I feel absolutely stirred andfull of hope, like Kirk, as is
interesting for me in my ownlife, because, as someone who's
been a pastor for so many years,I find myself studying an MBA
in sustainability and have areal passion for trying to bring
(52:24):
my leadership into a solutionfor the planet, the crisis that
we're facing and sometimes I'vehad people comment like that's
so random, Ruth, how come you'rekind of going in that direction
.
For me, it feels like thisnatural trajectory of
purpose-driven leaders,kingdom-driven leaders, to go OK
, there's a problem here.
How can we bring God'ssolutions into this place and
(52:47):
care and love the planet just ashe does, and be a good steward?
So you're speaking my languageso much.
We just want to just thank youfor being here on this podcast.
I mean, wow, you've given us somuch in just a short amount of
time and, like Kirk, I feel likeI could listen to you forever.
(53:08):
But we want to encourage ourlisteners.
If you've really enjoyed thisepisode, we really want to
encourage you to go and grabthat book.
Mission is the Shape of Water.
It is hopeful, it's inspiring.
I think it gives us some goodhandles on what to do and what
not to do and a lens to kind ofreally listen to the Holy Spirit
(53:31):
and get envisioned about how wecould be the hands and feet of
Jesus in our time.
So we just want to encourageyou to do that and, Mike, thank
you so much.
I don't know what else to say,but thank you Now.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
I really enjoyed talking to you guys.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
Yeah, and enjoy the rest of your morning in Sydney,
and we will for sure keep intouch.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Peace to you both, thanks.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Thanks for listening to the Reconstructing Pastors
podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating andreview.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
And if you're interested in leaning into this
conversation further, we'd lovefor you to be a part of a
special online communitycoaching space called
Reconstructing Pastors Cohort.
For details, visit our websiteat bridgeandrinocom.
See you at the next episode.
You're listening to the Reconstructing Pastors
podcast.
I'm Ruth Lawrence in.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Kirk Romberg.
We're recovering pastorstalking about what it looks like
to make sense of our callingand community expression on the
other side of deconstruction.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Our hope is to create a safe space to explore the
bigger picture of the church,both the present state of the
American evangelical church andwhat the future may hold for
those who are searching for abetter way.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We're really glad you're here.
Let's get started Well, we aresuper excited to have with us as
our guest Mike Frost.
Ruth, you and I have beenfollowing Mike now on social
media for a bit here andenjoying his posts and enjoying
reading his material.
So Mike is an internationallyknown and recognized
(00:57):
misciologist and author and heis the co-founder of Forge,
along with Alan Hirsch, andperhaps maybe Mike and Ruth's
favorite description of you,mike is an agitator and to me
that sounds like the part of thewashing machine that makes the
spin cycle go back and forthreally fast and shake everything
(01:18):
up.
But so welcome Mike.
We're super glad that you'rewith us today and we recognize
that you're coming to us fromSydney, australia, so it's
tomorrow for you.
So welcome from the past.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Thank you, yes, and I'll let you know that tomorrow
is fine.
So far Nothing has happened.
That's terrible, at least inthe Southern Hemisphere anyway.
So, and I'll try to be asagitative as possible in this
conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's awesome.
So we're one of the things thatwe really want to talk about on
the episode is this book thatyou've just brought out.
That Mission is the Shape ofWater, and we're going to get to
that.
But we would love just for youto share a little bit about your
leadership journey.
I mean, what part of the reasonfor us doing this podcast is to
(02:04):
engage with pastors andministry leaders and the
journeys that they findthemselves in in this time that
we find ourselves, especially inAmerica.
So would you kind of just sharea little bit about you know,
your leadership journey, yourcall.
Did you start in a conventionalchurch setting?
(02:24):
How did that change?
That's more than one question.
I'm real, I realize that.
But yeah, if you could share alittle bit about yourself, mike,
in that space, that'd bewonderful, sure.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I mean, I grew up in a nominally Catholic
suburban family, so I would saywe were probably more kind of
nothing much at all culturallyCatholic, I suppose.
But I was a very spirituallyinquisitive child and so by the
time I became a young adult Iwas very.
I was exploring all kinds ofreligious perspectives,
(02:57):
including my, my families, ofAugustinian Christianity.
But I ended up really beingquite overwhelmed by some
evangelical friends who talkedto me about the grace and love
of Jesus, and I had a veryprofound conversion experience,
I suppose we used to call itwhen I was about 19.
(03:18):
And this might not sound like aleadership journey, but this is
the kind of roots of all ofthis.
I was a young, white, confidentboy, articulate, pretty smart,
studying at university, and I'dhad this kind of profound
experience that I found kind ofoverwhelmingly beautiful and
(03:38):
freeing, and so I just toldeverybody about it.
I mean, it's just, it's likeanything you discover something
that's marvelous, then you starttalking about it.
But I ended up in anevangelical church where that's
actually encouraged, like that'saffirmed, and so I, unbeknownst
to me in a way, just ended upon a kind of a leadership track,
(04:00):
a leadership pipeline.
It's like you're young whitemale, articulate, confident,
loud, and you can string like afew words together.
You end up putting, being putinto situations of leadership
and, in particular, preaching.
And then eventually you're told, like you're cut out for
ministry, you should studytheology.
(04:20):
So I'd been an English andhistory teacher, but I went back
to university and did atheological degree.
I ended up going through anordination track and so by the
time I got to my mid-20s all ofthat happened very quickly I
ended up as the pastor of apretty large Baptist church in
the Hills District of Sydney,where Hillsong comes from,
(04:43):
without even, I think, having agood hard think about whether
this is what I wanted, or evenif this is what God wanted.
I think I just assumed that allthe affirmation and all the
success, if you like, of variouskind of challenges I was
embracing indicated well thatGod must be behind that.
But these were the 80s and thiswas the heady days of church
(05:06):
growth theory, which is veryinfluenced by market theory and
the social sciences, much moreso, I think, than theology or
ecclesiology.
And so I got to a point in mymid-20s, mid to, you know,
around 26, something like thatwhen I could see all the levers
that were being pulled behindthe curtain and I was pulling a
(05:30):
lot of them and I recognizedthat a lot of what we were doing
was just seeking to kind ofout-attract other kind of
attraction churches in ourneighborhood.
So we had to have the bestmusic and the best children's
ministry and the best youthministry and the best preaching
and the best this and the bestthat.
And I came to a point where Irealized a lot of what this was
(05:55):
drawing from me was not HolySpirit power and it wasn't even
kind of a theologically directedkind of energy or impetus, it
was ego and competitiveness.
I was having to kind ofoutshine, you know, other
pastors and other churches and Ijust became kind of sick about
that, ruth and Kirk.
(06:15):
I just I couldn't, I couldn'tunknow what I was knowing and
seeing.
And at this particular point intime my path crossed with
another young guy who'd gone ona similar journey but ended up
in a different setting.
His name was Alan Hirsch.
He'd ended up going down thetrack of revitalizing small or
(06:37):
dying churches.
I was probably more in the kindof attraction or suburban
church growth kind of thing.
But we were both, even thoughin different settings, going on
the same kind of journey andasking ourselves you know, is
this all there was to it?
I mean, I've just become like aChristian kind of performing
monkey in a big Christianbusiness.
In a sense.
(06:57):
I was very young and I was abit immature and I just didn't
know how to think throughprocesses of change management
or anything like that.
So I said that I wanted toresign and just get out.
It wasn't for me.
And my deacons were like no, no, no, no, no, things are going
great, the church is growing,god is blessing you.
So I kind of staved that offfor a while.
But then this experience I'mabout to tell you about is not
(07:20):
particularly dramatic or or orinteresting, other than it was
the last straw for me.
I was standing outside ourchurch and these are the days
before the internet guys said noone could look up online who
was preaching in my, my churchon any given Sunday.
A little convoy of cars pulledin.
Someone from the first car ranover to me and said are you
(07:41):
preaching tonight?
And it so happened that Iwasn't.
No, no, I said, but we've gotthis guest speaker and you know
she's awesome and it's great.
It'll be all you know, or I didall the kind of sales routine
and it's like okay, no, no, no,but you're not preaching, right.
Okay.
So he jumped back in the carand the convoy turned around and
they would have gone toHillsong or Castle Hill
Presbyterian Church a littlecircuit of these churches that
(08:04):
young adults would kind of tryand my first impulse was right,
I have to preach every Sunday.
We can't let that happen again.
And immediately after that Irealized that was not from the
Holy Spirit.
That's not God telling me.
You know, you and only you canpreach in this church on Sunday.
That was just sheer ego.
That was like don't let them goto the church down the road.
(08:27):
And as I said it's not aparticularly dramatic experience
, but I just clearly rememberbeing the last straw For me.
I was like I can't do this.
I can't play this game.
This isn't what I imagined likechurch and church leadership
and a faith community inspiredby the gospel of grace and love
and justice and peace making.
I can't see it.
(08:47):
And so no disrespect to thatchurch and the people in that
church, but I just had to resign.
And then Alan and I just startedlike reading Leslie Newbegin
and Stanley Howell-Wasson andDavid Bosch, and we just started
conspiring.
We became a little readinggroup, the two of us just trying
to re Well, we would say now,kind of deconstruct our
(09:09):
ecclesiologies and reconstructit around mission.
I ended up getting a jobteaching ideology and sociology
at a community college and wentthrough this whole process of
unraveling, as he and I thenworked through ways in which we
might rebuild.
What does it mean for us to becalled by God?
What is the church?
What should the church be?
(09:30):
And that ultimately led us towriting a whole kind of
curriculum around that andcreating a little course to help
other people who are exploringthe same kinds of questions,
which ultimately became theprogram that you introduced
earlier, kirk, which was theForge Mission Training Network.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Wow, that was a beautiful job summarizing your
story.
I found myself so caught up init, identifying with some things
, with a lot of things actually,you know, changed the
circumstances, but maybe theparticulars I don't know that I
ever had a convoy show up at mychurch to hear me preach, that's
(10:07):
.
But maybe that's a good thing.
And I love the heart and theresistance, I would imagine, to
the potential temptation thatyou could have gone and didn't.
So, wow, we applaud you forthat and for the work that
you've done since then to take adifferent track.
(10:29):
And that's kind of what youknow before we jump into your
book, which I thoroughly enjoyedreading and talking with Ruth
about in Vice-Versa.
What you just explained and youeven used the words
deconstruction, reconstructionof what you're doing feels like
it's about maybe 20 years ormore earlier than what we feel
(10:50):
like a lot of people are goingthrough now, maybe prompted by
COVID, with circumstances, thecultural climate in America, the
evangelical church being incrisis, you name it.
We started this podcast,reconstructing Pastors Podcast,
in response to the very thingsthat a lot of pastors are going
through, similar to your story.
(11:11):
Again, different circumstances,but something is rising up
within that is wanting to behonest with who it is and what
it is that God's calling them tobe and do, and that means
somehow I can't do what I'vedone before and I can't go back.
But I'm not sure what the wayforward is.
And it sounds like not onlyhave you been there, but maybe
(11:33):
in your spaces you've connectedwith a lot of people in that
similar journey.
So wondering if you can tell usa little bit more about that
journey and, specifically, whatare the challenges that you feel
like pastors are facing todayin that journey, especially
maybe here in the United States?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, I mean for me I don't know how that journey
would have unfolded if I hadn'thave met someone like Alan and
we hadn't have found that kindof camaraderie, as initially two
of us and then our wives weredrawn into that, and then around
us a gather, a number of otherkind of pastors or ex-pastors,
but definitely at that heart ofthat, doing it alone,
(12:14):
particularly when there's sortof disillusionment or maybe
anger or disappointment at least, that things hadn't worked out
the way you wanted or theyweren't what you had thought
they should be, it's done a goodplace to be alone in that kind
of setting.
And so, and having someone likeAlan and I hope he would say
the same of me for him was justpermission giving.
(12:38):
It was like there was like okay, someone else is going through
this.
He didn't have the same kind ofjourney as I did.
He came from a Pentecostalbackground, having been brought
up in South Africa, I guess thesimilarity to us we were both
brought up in largely secularhomes had a very profound
conversion experience.
He meant Pentecostalism, me andevangelicalism, and then it
(12:59):
ended up in ministry before wekind of knew it.
And so there was a common kindof journey there, although there
were some differences, but he'sa non anxious kind of presence.
That guy is just like what Iwould be, like who are we?
Is this like we doing somethingwrong here, or is is thinking
this inappropriate or westepping outside the bounds of
(13:19):
orthodoxy here, or you know, hewas just a very warm, non
anxious presence and that's whatyou need in a setting like that
someone just to hold your handas you're going through it,
because you kind of the groundthat you've got a built things
on now has kind of shifted outfrom under you and it's
difficult to figure out when istheir solid ground here?
That I can kind of find somebalance in which then allows me
(13:43):
that sense of balance to thenExplore the future.
You can't explore the futurewhen everything is Is off kilter
, and so a community in thatcase it was just one person
which developed it, as I said,into more people who gathered
around us, a non anxious kind ofpresence, and then the freedom
to explore, like the freedom tobe daring enough to explore.
(14:05):
But I mean also have toacknowledge that both of us were
confident white men and sothey're also Around that.
There are the resources,there's a kind of fearlessness
that can come from people whoare privileged in that regard,
and I don't underestimate that.
It's far more difficult, Ithink, for for people of color
and for women who are seeking tokind of find their way through
(14:28):
this maze of figuring out, youknow, what is my ecclesiology or
my theology or what do Iunderstand about leadership when
there is an already kind ofaffirmation of you being the
kind of person of leadershipthat you are, which is why both
our land, I, have had like avery strong commitment to
wanting to support and encouragewomen in leadership generally,
but also in a process ofThinking through alternative or
(14:52):
new ways of being church.
So I Don't know if thatanswered your question.
I forgot where that questionwas going there for a minute,
but I think there are lots ofplus.
Also, you did mention yet youdid mention that kind of the,
the Current or peculiar issuethat related to the kind of
world of post COVID, and it'sextraordinary.
They're gonna write, you knowthey're gonna write gazillions
of books and PhD thesis on this,just like just what did a
(15:16):
global pandemic do Like tobusiness, to culture, to the
arts, to education.
I mean, it's just, it's had,it's had an extraordinary and I
don't think yet fully realizedeffect on culture and that
includes, as you were saying, onthe church, on On church
leadership and its confidence inchurch and church life.
I feel like what we were goingthrough in the 80s was like a
(15:39):
real sense of beingstraightjacketed by a Model of
church, church growth theorythat was working.
For a period of time it wasactually attracting people,
often from other churches, butthere was a sense in which
people would say to me back inthose days what are you
complaining about?
It works, it's good, it's great, my church is awesome.
And so it took a real sense ofRestriction and kind of a
(16:04):
busting out.
That was how I felt, what Ifelt I was doing back in those
days, whereas today I don't feellike anyone's thinking well,
it's really working, it's great,everything's awesome.
And there's a general sense ofon.
We kind of like Like, I don'teven enjoy it myself, how am I
expecting anybody in my churchto enjoy this?
(16:24):
And there's a sense of kind oflistlessness and a sense of
which we feel become anduncertain about the way forward
if lots of things have collapsedaround us.
There is no overarching.
Hey, this is the model ofchurch and it works.
No one's found that and noone's presenting that we're all
seeking to discover our ownunique Callings within our own
(16:47):
particular settings, and that'sa much more difficult kinds of
thing because it doesn't comewith the energy of breaking out.
There's a listlessness in that.
It requires a Resolve to moveforward in rediscovering what
might be the next steps for usand, I think, actually a much
more difficult challenge thanthe one that we were going
(17:09):
through back in the day.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, I, first of all , I just want to thank you for
mentioning the inequality inthis, in this space, of it's
different for women and peopleof color, and how, even back in
the 80s, for you and Alan, justthe fact that you were together
and you were White males thathad resources was helpful, and I
(17:33):
thought that what you said,kirk, was really interesting,
though it's always like you guyswere early, early adopters of
this and obviously there werethere were more people in that
space too, but it feels likethere's a surge right now of
like we're all catching up and,like you say, I'm not sure what,
what were the triggers of that?
Covid was certainly part ofthat, but as you describe your
(17:57):
journey with Alan, it makes me.
It makes me laugh a little bitbecause it feels very
descriptive of my journey withKirk, and you know, we both came
out of church ministry and setup a coaching company because,
honestly, we didn't know whatelse to do, and so you know,
we're both pastors of 25 yearstrying to make sense of our
calling With all of thesequestions, and I think, as we
(18:19):
would meet once a week inStarbucks To like talk about our
business, but we'd have like anhour before even our business
meeting, where we're like, canwe just like talk about this
question and just having theliberty and the companionship To
, and the safe, the safety toknow that someone knows you,
you're not being disloyal, youlove God, you love the local
(18:42):
church, you're passionate aboutit.
I mean, for goodness sake, wegave our lives to this thing,
you know, like this, but thenthe disillusionment that comes
with that and all of that stuff.
So it just, it just is verywarming to hear You're an Alan's
journey, because it feels likeit's is very similar.
It obviously in very differentcontexts and different time, but
(19:03):
I think that the advice of findpeople to journey with and
sometimes, if you're going to bea pastor or a ministry leader,
that might need to be outside ofyour space, your current space,
because Not all of thesequestions are going to be
accepted or, you know, it mightnot be okay to have this, the
(19:24):
space to really Questioneverything.
So you know, our heart here atReconstructing pastors podcast
is to try and provide some ofthat space for people with the
podcast and we've got a cohortthat we run with these amazing
pastors across America who arein that space and we're trying
to provide that type of table toprocess.
(19:46):
But one of the things this isthe thing that I wanted to ask
you, one of the things that Iknow we had like a, a bunch of
bucket questions around thechurch.
But one of the things that bothme and Kirk really were aligned
on was this question aroundmission.
Like we were like hang on aminute, what are we doing?
Everyone would say themissional language.
(20:07):
But I think deep down and thiswas applied to the big sea
church that we were seeingaround us we were like, actually
, are we really being missional?
What is the purpose of thechurch here?
And like, I think, the desirefor me I had a big conversion
experience too the desire for mewas always to share the love of
(20:31):
God in society, to bring theseamazing elements of kingdom
God's kingdom, god's rule andreign in a way that changed the
world.
You know, that was like mystarting point and I think we
were in our Starbucks meetings.
We were like, oh my gosh, isthis even happening?
(20:51):
So that was kind of where wewere at.
But that leads me to this bookthat you've just brought out,
because it's all about missionand obviously that's a massive
part of what you've beenunpacking in these years and
teaching.
But can we start that?
I'd love to talk about yourbook about mission is the shape
of water, and I know it'sgetting some really amazing
(21:12):
response right now across theglobe.
But could you tell us a littlebit about that?
The book Like.
Why write it Like and why now?
Was there anything about thetiming of now?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, can I pick up on something you were just
saying, ruth?
I think that I think we used toquote back in the I don't know
if anyone ever said this or it'sjust like a kind of a trope but
we used to say, oh, jesus camepreaching the kingdom and what
we ended up with was the church,as though somehow, like,
kingdom was magnificent andchurch was like a poor
(21:48):
reflection of that, and somechurches have been poor
reflections of that.
But the link between kingdomand community is absolutely
essential and I would say anycommunity of faith which is
seeking to alert people to thereign of God, which is not just
about the fact that you can geta heaven when you die, but this
unfurling of God's reign, whichis actually about joy and peace
(22:11):
and healing and justice and animmediate experience of the
presence of God and deliveranceand salvation and new life that
has to be embodied by acommunity of people, a family of
people.
And so for a lot of what wewere doing back then was like
discovering kingdom, like for alot of us, like the kingdom
(22:35):
language was used byPentecostals to describe
speaking in tongues or kind ofwords of knowledge or miracles
and the like, and I think thathealing is part of the reign of
God.
Some kind of progressives orliberals will talk about it as a
kind of a social justiceinitiative, but it's and it is.
It includes all of that and somuch more.
And I think one of the thingsthat I went through in the 80s,
(22:58):
in that kind of rediscovery ofwho am I and what am I doing, is
my job isn't to grow the churchas an institutional or an
organization or an event in aparticular place on Sunday.
My job personally is to alertpeople to the reign of God and
to equip other people to do that, that we might do it
collectively, because noindividual can manage it by
themselves.
(23:18):
So discovering mission wasrecognizing actually the mission
of the church isn't to growlike brand Jesus or brand
Baptist or brand Anglican orPentecostal.
Our mission is to let peopleknow a new world is coming and
there's a whole new way of beinghuman that's being made
available to us through Christ,the Jesus birth and teaching and
(23:41):
death and resurrection andascension, not just His birth.
All of it actually kind ofpoints to this whole new way of
being human under the kind ofreign and rule of the glorious
and beautiful triune God.
Now, that was kind ofbreathtaking to me when I
discovered that, and the twopeople that really helped me
most were David Bosch, a SouthAfrican Missiologist, and Leslie
(24:03):
Newbegin, a British formermissionary, retired missionary
and both of them were just ontoit.
It was just like wow.
When I would read their work Iwould be like I want this world.
I want a world where there's nosickness or disease.
I want a world where there's,where everyone has enough, where
no one goes hungry, and I wanta world where there's joy and
(24:25):
the presence of God among us andfreedom and peace and
reconciliation between peopleand a whole new way of being, a
kind of a redeemed society, likea family, in which all are
welcome and no one is excluded.
Like these things are beautifulways of thinking about being
human and that's what we'remeant to do, because it's not
(24:46):
just like hey, come to church onSunday, we have better
preaching than the church downthe road, or we have an awesome
children's ministry that yourkids are going to enjoy.
Like there's nothing wrong withmeeting on Sunday or having
ministry to children, don't getme wrong, unless it's all in the
context of wanting to let theworld know this is what the
world is like.
(25:06):
We're not Americans, we're notAustralians, we're not British,
we're not.
We're not cleaving to any kindof kind of cultural interests.
We're not trying to generate aparticular brand or a particular
ecclesiology.
We're wanting you to know a newworld has come and is coming.
And so to the book.
(25:26):
It was like well, listen, ifyou think that all you've got to
go on is a few examples youmight have heard of around the
place or that you've read of arehappening in various places in
the world.
Now why don't you take a lookat the last 2000 years of the
history of the Christianmovement, and what you'll
discover there is that whenChristians are committed to
(25:47):
alerting others to the reign ofGod, wherever it might be Europe
, africa, south America, youknow the South Pacific they've
done extraordinary and in somecases incredibly diverse kinds
of things.
So the title Mission is theShape of Water is my way of
saying.
You know, mission is alwaysmission.
It's alerting people to thereign of God.
(26:09):
It's anchored and rooted in theidea of the coming reign of God
.
That doesn't change.
That's always been whatChristians have been committed
to for the last 2000 yearsletting the world know that what
Jesus said and did andunleashed, is unfurling and
history is moving to the endthat God had intended from the
very beginning.
(26:30):
But the shape it takes is verydifferent in different settings
and different places and amongdifferent people and at
different times in history.
So just like water is alwaysH2O but it could be shaped like
a bottle or it could be shapedlike a lake, in the same way
mission is always mission but itgets shaped differently, very
differently, like radicallydifferently, in different places
(26:52):
, in different contexts and atdifferent times.
And so in the introduction Italk about how I'm just trying
to kind of develop a kind ofhealthy Christian memory which
kind of frees us to imaginemyriad ways that mission could
look today.
It's not got to look like thechurch that you grew up in.
It doesn't have to just looklike you know the stories you
(27:15):
read about from what Christiansdid in the 20th century Like boy
.
When do you discover what theydid in the 10th century or the
3rd century or the 19th century?
So I know history can be a bitboring for some people, but, man
, I always say this is churchhistory, but only the
interesting bits.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You know, again, as I was listening to you talk, I
found myself I could sit andlisten to you for a long time.
I'll be a part of the convoy.
How's that?
I'm just joking about that, butI think what I felt, something
happening in me as I waslistening to you talk about
whole new world coming, and anew way of being human is
(27:56):
available to us in Christ.
That feels a lot different thanwhat I've grown up to or
observed as a believer to betraditional evangelism Believe
this set of principles and youget to go to heaven when you die
.
And what you're describing,though, feels attractive.
It feels like something thatnot only I desire, but the world
(28:20):
desires at once and longs for,and actually there's hope for
that, and that hope is availablein Jesus.
So thank you for offering thatas well as how that's been lived
out by the church over thecenturies.
In your book you explain aboutten different areas, and you
recognize that there's multipleexpressions oftentimes in these
(28:41):
areas, and but you you highlightsome that it was fascinating to
read the shape that missiontook and the adaptations that
people made in order to be goodnews people and sent people in
their generation, and for us tonot repeat it but be inspired by
it and to ask similar questionsin that process, you, you, I
(29:08):
felt like you did a great job.
Speaking to our human tendencyI'll say my human tendency to
maybe pinpoint particularperiods in history or
individuals in history that wemight be aware of or admire
especially, and think that'swhat mission looks like.
So I'm just gonna repeat thatwhy is it that we have that
(29:28):
tendency to think, and whatwould it look like for us to
embrace God's mission as beingin the shape of water and to
bring his mission, his kingdom,what it looks like to be human
to our generation, in our worldtoday?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah well, context is absolutely essential.
The simple answer to that is tounderstand the cultural context
in which mission is beingpresented.
Because you're right, I meanpeople will look back and think
that person's doing somethingI'd like to do, so they become a
champion.
So, like, a lot of people havebeen really taken by the whole
(30:05):
orphanage industry, like let'sfund orphanages around Africa
and Southeast Asia and the like.
It it seems like and feels likeyou're doing something really
important and good, like you'rerescuing all these children and
you're providing them with acaring environment.
And often they will reach backand I say, look, this is what
Amy Carmichael did in SouthernIndia and this is what Mary
(30:26):
Slesa did in the Niger Delta.
But in both of those casesthose women had orphans foisted
upon them by their context.
I mean Mary Slesa, I mean gosh,mary Slesa was this red headed,
wild Scottish woman who wentbarefoot through the jungle and
went up rivers that people saiddon't go up there, they'll kill
(30:48):
you, but she just took canoes upthese like tributaries up into
the Niger Delta.
I mean she was just apowerhouse woman, but there was
a context in which twins wereconsidered to be cursed and so
if you gave birth to twins, youjust left them out in the jungle
to be eaten by wild animalsLest they bring the curse upon
(31:09):
the village.
So she starts happening upon adiscarded children.
What's, what is a woman to do?
She gathers them up.
I mean always picture her like,like writing a canoe up some
like some remote tributary ofthe Niger Delta, with six or
eight kids.
I mean literally, she wouldwalk with children on a hip and
(31:29):
three or four toddlers followingbehind her, where she would go
to preach.
And so in the end, sheEstablishes what else could she
do?
She establishes effectively anorphan, she orphanage, she kind
of builds a facility and startsrescuing these children.
Now, that was the context thatshaped her.
She can go there to startorphanages.
It was simply this was a needthat she needed to respond to.
(31:50):
Today we would say orphanagesare the worst place for a child
to grow up in.
There's disconnection fromextended family, from culture,
from language.
I mean, you do anything, youshould do anything today not to
raise a child in an orphanage,but often what we'll do is we'll
go check this out.
Amy Carmichael did this insouthern India, was incredible.
(32:10):
Let's like, let's repeat thathere and now, which is not the
way it ought to be.
I reckon Mary Slesser and AmyCarmichael would be the first to
tell us not to so in thatrespect.
It's like wait, wait, wait, lookat what's happening now.
Let's let's not just pick ourfavorite missionary stories and
(32:30):
then say they're thejustification for doing what
they did, in the same way as wehave this kind of nostalgic
notion about the church inJerusalem.
You know, if only we could getback to Jerusalem.
What?
Why wait a second?
Like Jerusalem and all sorts ofproblems.
You know, the Greek speakingwidows weren't being fed.
No one was leaving Jerusalem togo to the other ends of the
(32:51):
earth.
There are all sorts of ways inwhich that church was great at
has limitations.
We learn from those.
We learn from mistakes.
We learn from what's good anduseful.
But to your question, the mostimportant thing is to explore
our own contexts in order tofigure out well, what does the
reign of God, what does peace orjustice, or joy, or healing, or
(33:14):
the presence of God?
What would it look like?
How might it be shaped in thisparticular place?
Okay, I tell you another story.
One of my favorite stories outof this book is about a woman
called Alice Silly Harris whowent to the Congo believing that
she was just going to go and bea conventional missionary,
which is a preaching missionary.
She was a British Baptist shehad a husband went to teach the
(33:36):
Bible, convert people, plantchurches very conventional
conversionist type Christianmission.
When she gets there, what shediscovers is that there's a
genocide unfolding in the in theCongo base of the king Leopold
from Belgium I'd go set up thewhole of the Belgian Congo as a
(33:57):
concentration camp and that theCongolese were being forced to
provide quotas of rubber to hiscompany.
And if they're quota didn't why?
Enough, they had to pay or makeup the tear by having a hand or
an arm removed to make up thewhite as punishment.
So she encounters this when shegets there and then she has
(34:20):
this new fangled contraptioncalled a personal camera.
This was the late, like the1890s, into the very early 1900s
.
As she starts photographingportraits of these amputees
these people are victims Of thecriminal activity of the king of
Belgium and then goes on aspeaking tour to 30 cities in
(34:41):
the United States, right acrossthe UK and Europe, and showing
like slideshowers this wasunique, no one had said anything
like this.
They're called magic lanternshows.
She was showing horriblepictures of people who were
disfigured by the force publicwhich was King Leopold's private
army and created so muchoutrage in just five years of
(35:02):
doing this that the whole of theBelgian Congo was unraveled.
The parliament of Belgiumrebute to the king.
The Belgian Congo wasdismantled, set free, like she
set free, millions of people whowere suffering under
unspeakable privation andatrocity.
Now did she go to Africa tobecome an advocate for social
(35:25):
justice and freedom?
No, but mission shaped thecontext, shaped her mission in
in real time, as she was thereand I love the story of the way
she utilizes like a new fangledversion of technology and her
incredibly indomitable spiritactually changes African history
(35:46):
.
I mean, it's an astonishingstory.
Context is the most importantthing.
What does joy, or peace, orjustice or or healing?
What does it look like here andnow?
How might we alert people tothat in this particular place
and time?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I love that, mike, and the contacts, and I think
that there's just this fromlistening to you does.
It seems there's this fine linebetween being inspired by
history of mission and beinginformed by it, and so I guess
we should be informed by thepartnering with the Holy Spirit
(36:26):
in the context that we findourselves in, to figure out what
is our response.
You know what is our response,what are our ways and be and
still be inspired by what's beenbefore, but understand that we
have our unique contribution tobring in partnership with the
Holy Spirit.
And I'm curious as well I knowthis is a little left field
(36:49):
question, but I know that lastyear around Was it last year, no
, this year, this year, februaryand we had the Aspiri revival
and I just you know, I thinkthat it.
I remember watching all of thereactions around that and it was
(37:09):
so confusing, it was like itfelt quite polarizing some of
the reactions on social mediaand, and I think that there was
a sense of you know, issomething happening again?
And I think there's a tendency,even with revival and whatever
we think revival is, to have thesame thing.
(37:31):
It's like, well, that happenedback then and we want it to
happen again in our time and I'mjust curious I'd love to hear.
Before we started this episode,I said if I can get Mike to
talk about revival.
I know it's not your the mainthing that your books about, but
this is just for me.
But I would love your thoughtson that, like how we tend to
repeat something, how we canform a lie, something, and and
(37:55):
yet you know, within that spacethere is God at work to.
And how do we like, how doesrevival blend with mission?
Could you speak to that space?
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Well, I know you're not American originally, ruth,
but I think Americans, generallyspeaking, are haunted by
revival.
It's kind of endemic to theirculture.
America has been shaped byrevivalism.
I mean not only shaped byrevivalism but the great
awakenings they're just, it'sdraped over the Christian
(38:30):
experience even to this day thestories of widespread
conversions, incredibly deepconviction what widespread mass
conviction of sin, the embracingof holiness and holy lives and
a puritan culture, and thesekind of flare-ups of deep, deep,
(38:53):
deep, extraordinary experiencesof the presence of God.
And I would say, yeah, that'sthe reign of God.
Conviction of sin, a call toholiness, a new way of living,
conversion, experience of peoplewho've been outside the kingdom
, and so there's this sense ofwow, these things have happened
(39:13):
since the 1700s.
This flares up regularly.
So I wonder whether some of thekind of almost obsessive like
get to Asbury and check this out, is alike.
As to your question is, likeit's happening again, like here
we go again.
This is a very American versionof Christianity and it didn't
(39:33):
turn into that.
It turned into a, I guess, arelatively short but kind of
deep experience of the presenceof God.
I mean, I wasn't there but atleast what I've read about it,
there's an incredible sense thatstudents felt about the
presence of God and convictionof sin and an extraordinary
sense of the grace andforgiveness of God.
(39:54):
But the thing that I loved aboutit and I mentioned it only
briefly in this book is the factthat nobody was running this.
There was nobody in charge.
There was no Jonathan Edwards,like from the first grade
awakening.
There was no DL moody from thethird grade awakening.
There was no celebrity, therewas no committee.
No one was running this orpromoting this or generating
(40:15):
this.
I'm not suggesting those peoplewere generating anything, but
there was no one who became kindof the headquarters of this
sort of movement.
And I think I quote a woman whowent from a Baptist seminary
from Kentucky.
She went to Asbury to check itout and she was seeing
organization, like people werewheeling in whiteboards and
writing up prayer requests andfood was arriving.
(40:36):
There was some form oforganization to maintain this
kind of worship service thatjust seemed never to end.
And when she said, well, who'sin charge?
The answer was no one.
Like we don't even know.
Like someone just thought weneeded food, someone just
thought we should write prayer.
Like there was no centralorganizational structure.
And the point that I make aboutthat in the book is it seems as
(40:58):
though movements are happeninglike that in this day and age.
There's no central office forBlack Lives Matter or for the Me
Too movement or the 24 7 Prayermovement, so these things
spontaneously emerge and theyare decentralized and widespread
and they're often, at theirheart, kind of moved by women
(41:26):
and people of color in order tokind of call people to an
awakening, to a newness, to anew perspective.
And whether you agree with allthe goals and aims of Black
Lives Matter or Me Too or any ofthose kinds of movements is
immaterial to me right now.
The primary thing to recognizeis they're not being led by a
small committee of well educatedwhite men, and I think that we
(41:51):
need to be open to thepossibility that God might very
well be bypassing what we thinkof as conventional or recognized
kind of leadership structuresand personnel and generating
newness in life.
This is what happened in India,which was really extraordinary.
A lot of Christian mission workwas among the elites or the
(42:11):
upper class in India, believingif we can convert lots of people
who become future politiciansand business leaders and what
have you, it will trickle downand India will become
Christianized.
But it didn't work.
But actually where Christianrevival has broken out in India
has been among the Dalit people,the so-called I hesitate to
(42:33):
even use this term, but theso-called untouchables, like the
poorest of the poor, have seenlike remarkable movements of God
happening among them and itfeels to me as though this is
God's way of operating.
I just step around what youthink are the kind of
conventional or recognizedunderstandings of leadership and
I work among a wild redheadedlady with no shoes in the middle
(42:56):
of the Nojir Delta or among theDalits in India or among a
bunch of kind of student punksin Asbury.
This is where things bubble upand I think probably have always
happened that way.
It's just that we often kind ofget we get become enamored of
what look like really muscularand dynamic expressions of
(43:18):
leadership that aren'tnecessarily the kinds of things
that God is at working.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I love that because it speaks to, I think, what
seems to me to be a realpredominant theme throughout
your book, and that is thealmost, the
deprofessionalization of mission, the decentralization, the
de-clericalization I'm not sureI got that word right but the,
(43:45):
where our tendency oftentimes,at least as Americans, is to see
what's going on in the worldand the problems of our country
and to say things like we needanother Billy Graham or we need
God to do this or God to do that, and Billy Graham's ministry
was wonderful for its day, butit's not necessarily for this
(44:07):
day, otherwise God would raiseup someone to do that.
And you respond to thattendency of ours, maybe to kind
of take a passive approach tomission.
And well, if God would just dothis and raise up that person,
then all this would be better asopposed to maybe taking
(44:27):
ownership for myself that I amto be a person through whom the
kingdom of God can move forwardin my own context and I think
you say something like and itconnects back to the idea of
water wouldn't God rather usemillions of nameless, faceless
(44:49):
people I'm not sure use thatlanguage but unknown people to
move his kingdom forward and themessage of Jesus forward in
their own context.
And so, with that in mind, youclose out the book in the
epilogue, with some idea ofwhere the water is flowing.
And you admit you're not afuturist, you're not into
(45:14):
prognosticating and predictingwhat's going to happen next.
And yet you do have somethoughts that, as I read them
again, I feel this surge of hoperising up in me and thinking my
goodness, I hope he's right,because this sounds beautiful,
this sounds like what I want tobe a part of, and I'm wondering
if you can speak a little bit towhat you sense is or maybe
(45:37):
could be next for the church,for mission, for church.
What would your advice be forchurch planters?
I'm guessing it wouldn't be gorent a school and buy some
chairs and rent a band as afirst approach.
It might be something different.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, and, as you say , I say that I'm not a futurist.
But to your previous question,I think, where you're asking
about context, all I'm doing inthat chapter is saying well,
what are the challenges that ourcontext throws up at us?
Because they will be a clue towhat mission should be shaped
like, and one of them I'vealready talked about and that is
(46:14):
the emergence of grassrootsmovements, of so-called
unqualified people.
That seems as though we'reliving in an era where these
things bubble up regularly andslowly shift culture in a
particular direction.
They don't build institutions,they don't build central offices
or employ people.
They become kind of well water.
(46:37):
They kind of lift something andjust move it gently in a
particular direction.
Even if some of the kind ofvoices in groups like Black
Lives Matter or whatever itmight be, seem strident and some
people's minds are fencing, allthey are doing is highlighting
for us the importance ofexploring.
(47:00):
Are there better ways to lookat policing?
Are there better ways for us toexplore the issue of race?
What does it mean for us tounderstand genuine
reconciliation between races inour culture?
Similar to with me toomovements, no head office, no
imposing of any particular kindof rules or laws.
(47:21):
All they're doing is sayingwhat would happen if we just
believed women, if we justlistened to the voices of people
who have been and obviouslythis is effective churches
significantly who have beenbullied or assaulted or unheard
or misbelieved or unbelieved, Ishould say what would happen if
we actually took these thingsseriously?
(47:41):
I see movement in thosedirections.
Slowly but surely that is to bemuch more movement in those
directions, but listen to what'shappening among kind of
movements that are emerging.
I think that the church has totake seriously the issues of
racial reconciliation, theissues of inclusion of women in
(48:03):
the life of the church andsociety.
We should be leading in thisrespect.
I mean it ought to have beenthat when people are like, oh my
gosh, how do we deal with thesechallenges that are being
called for us now in this kindof post-post civil war civil
rights movement, oh, the church.
Look at them, they'rereconciled.
That's what they ought to havesaid.
I mean, here we are hearingabout women from Hollywood and
(48:27):
women from business beingassaulted, being bullied and not
being believed.
Where is there a group ofpeople that believes women,
where women are equal andincluded in community, where the
organization isn't just led byme?
Oh, the church.
Let's go to the church.
They've got some clues.
That's what they ought to havebeen saying for us.
What does it look like for us tolisten to each other and to
(48:48):
develop a genuine community ofinclusion and love and grace?
Our society is calling forthese things to happen.
We're not foisting them on oursociety.
That's the society saying howdo we do this, and we ought to
respond to that as one of thethings I say.
We ought to recognize thatleadership needs to be humble,
decentralized and moverelationally through the
(49:12):
organizational structure we'rebeing called upon to explore.
What does it look like for us torespond to the climate crisis
in this time?
And I'm just way past evenworrying about how much of the
climate crisis that we'reencountering is as a result of
human-centered activity, and I'mjust much more concerned about
(49:32):
asking why don't we say that ourtask is to love the things that
God loves?
And who does God love?
God loves the poor and Godloves the planet.
God loves the planet, andactually what we find in
scripture is the planet lovesGod, like the stars and the sun
and the sky are worshiping.
(49:52):
They're singing worship to God,like there's this deep
connection between God andcreation.
So if God loves the planet,then ought not to we love the
planet and to respond to it asan act of worship to God?
That we ought to be the mostenvironmentally conscious people
, that we are most focused onissues to do with justice and
(50:15):
peacemaking?
Surely we ought to be, and I'mso tired of people telling me
that, oh, this is what thechurch to be woke and beyond any
kind of simplistic agenda thatyou can critique in those terms,
it's actually about saying thisis what the kingdom of God was
about, don't you remember?
It's all about the mission,which is about learning people
to the reign of God.
(50:35):
What does the reign of God looklike?
Our God loves the planet.
Our God loves the poor.
Our God loves worship.
Our God loves peace making.
Our God wants to bring healingand joy into our lives, and so
look at the context what'shappening and what ways do we
need to consider akingdom-shaped response to it?
(50:57):
One of the other things Imentioned in that chapter is we
are actually dealing with issuesnow that have never been dealt
with before.
I'd say the climate crisis isone, and the other one would be
the so-called digital revolution.
What will it look like for usto fashion communities in a kind
of hybridized world, whichincludes really deep connection
(51:17):
digitally as well asface-to-face, and how might they
complement each other?
And I don't think old guys likeme have the answer to those
questions.
I think digital natives willexplore that for us.
But at least old guys like mecan say no, this has to be taken
seriously.
We have to figure out what doesit look like for us to use the
(51:42):
internet and artificialintelligence and virtual reality
and those sorts of things inresponsible, kingdom-shaped
kinds of ways that foster thevalues of the kingdom that I've
been talking about all morning?
So in the book I don't haveanswers to that, other than to
say that's going to be anessential question for the way
forward.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Mike, thank you so much for sharing all of that.
I feel absolutely stirred andfull of hope, like Kirk, as is
interesting for me in my ownlife, because, as someone who's
been a pastor for so many years,I find myself studying an MBA
in sustainability and have areal passion for trying to bring
(52:24):
my leadership into a solutionfor the planet, the crisis that
we're facing and sometimes I'vehad people comment like that's
so random, Ruth, how come you'rekind of going in that direction
.
For me, it feels like thisnatural trajectory of
purpose-driven leaders,kingdom-driven leaders, to go OK
, there's a problem here.
How can we bring God'ssolutions into this place and
(52:47):
care and love the planet just ashe does, and be a good steward?
So you're speaking my languageso much.
We just want to just thank youfor being here on this podcast.
I mean, wow, you've given us somuch in just a short amount of
time and, like Kirk, I feel likeI could listen to you forever.
(53:08):
But we want to encourage ourlisteners.
If you've really enjoyed thisepisode, we really want to
encourage you to go and grabthat book.
Mission is the Shape of Water.
It is hopeful, it's inspiring.
I think it gives us some goodhandles on what to do and what
not to do and a lens to kind ofreally listen to the Holy Spirit
(53:31):
and get envisioned about how wecould be the hands and feet of
Jesus in our time.
So we just want to encourageyou to do that and, Mike, thank
you so much.
I don't know what else to say,but thank you Now.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
I really enjoyed talking to you guys.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
Yeah, and enjoy the rest of your morning in Sydney,
and we will for sure keep intouch.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Peace to you both, thanks.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Thanks for listening to the Reconstructing Pastors
podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating andreview.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
And if you're interested in leaning into this
conversation further, we'd lovefor you to be a part of a
special online communitycoaching space called
Reconstructing Pastors Cohort.
For details, visit our websiteat bridgeandrinocom.
See you at the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.