In this episode, Lucas Pulley and I have a great conversation around microchurches and decentralized church networks. Lucas shares his story of how he got involved in microchurches and how they operate. We talk about having an "ecclesial minimum" of worship, community and mission, microchurches can be mission-specific around a calling or distributive with people following various callings, the importance of connecting microchurches through area collectives and larger events, the need to move through the spaces of belonging, and insights into preventing heresy and abuse through governance structures while still allowing for messiness and the priesthood of all believers. Join us as we discover what God is doing through microchurches.
Lucas Pulley is Executive Director of Underground Network, an experimental community made up of over 160 microchurches in Tampa Bay and serving dozens of similar decentralized and empowering movements around the world. Lucas has 14 years of experience planting microchurches and leading decentralized networks of grassroots churches, and still leads a neighborhood house church in the projects of inner city Tampa to this day with his wife and three kids. He is driven to see cities transformed by the priesthood of all believers activated in the mission of God.
Lucas' Recommendation:
The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.us
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucas Pulley (00:00):
Even the idea of like church vision, what does
(00:01):
that even mean? If you're tryingto activate the priesthood of
all believers vision is, visionis like one leader, like the
lead mega global pastor Hinahook hearing, they're the ones
that get to hear from LISTEN toJesus about their sense of
calling, or they get to go upthe mountain and hear from the
Lord. And then they they codifythat sense of calling into a
(00:22):
vision statement. And thenthey're just trying to align
1000s of people to that onevision, so nobody else gets to
hear from Jesus. And if they do,and they hear a sense of calling
that diverges, somehow from thisone sense of calling, well, you
got to go find somewhere else.
You know, so even our sense oflike, who gets to have a vision,
how that vision integrates, ordoesn't integrate with the sort
(00:43):
of scope of the community andour our aspirations around
alignment. That all gets thatall gets messy and it has to be
completely rethought. You know,it has to be it has to be, you
got to count the cost and reallynegotiate like, what are we? How
chaotic Are we willing to get?
And what are the things we'rewilling to let go of?
Joshua Johnson (01:16):
Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create, and the impact we canmake. We longed to see the body
of Christ look like Jesus. I'myour host, Joshua Johnson. Go to
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(01:39):
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network? Tell them how much youenjoy it. Let them know that
they should be listening aswell. If you're new here,
(02:02):
welcome. If you want to digdeeper find us on social media
at shifting culture podcastwhere I post video clips and
quotes and interact with all ofyou. Previous guests on the show
have included Alan Hirsch, RobWagner and Bree mills. You can
go back listen to those amazingepisodes and more. But today's
guest is Lucas Polly Lucas isexecutive director of
(02:23):
underground network andexperimental community made up
of over 160 Micro churches inTampa Bay, and serving dozens of
similar decentralized andempowering movements around the
world. Lucas has 14 years ofexperience planting micro
churches and leadingdecentralized networks of
grassroots churches. And hestill leads a neighborhood house
(02:44):
starts in the projects of innercity Tampa to this day with his
wife and three kids. He isdriven to see cities transformed
by the priesthood of allbelievers activated in the
mission of God. Lucas and I havea great conversation around
micro churches and decentralizedchurch networks. Lucas shares
his story of how he got involvedin micro churches and how they
(03:05):
operate. We talked about havingan ecclesial minimum of worship
community and mission. We talkedabout micro churches that can be
mission specific around acalling or distributed. With
people following various Collinstalks about the importance of
connecting micro churchesthrough area collectives and
larger events, the need to movethrough the spaces of belonging
(03:28):
and insights into preventingheresy and abuse through
governance structures, whilestill allowing for messiness and
the priesthood of all believers.
So join us as we discover whatGod is doing through micro
churches. Here is myconversation with Lucas poli,
Lucas, welcome to shiftingculture really excited to have
(03:49):
you on I've been meaning to dothis for at least a couple of
years. So thanks for joining me.
Of
Lucas Pulley (03:57):
course, it's great to be on I have my coffee. I'm
ready to record a six hourpodcast interview. That's that's
the typical mode here.
Joshua Johnson (04:05):
It's difficult.
Yeah, six hours. Go on. That'sgood. I just recommended a
podcast to do with the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. And yeah,
there's some episodes of it ofjust the history of it, like six
hours long, and they're like sixhours what's going on? There?
Like yes, this is what I do leadmy History podcast. But
hopefully this isn't gonna be asix hour long conversation.
(04:28):
Well, Lucas, I'd love to getinto your story of how you
started to get involved in andmicro church and why micro
churches for you?
Lucas Pulley (04:43):
Yes, so, I started this would have been maybe 2000
You know, 2006 2007. I startedfollowing Jesus right before I
went to college, like the monthbefore I went to college, and I
was born and raised in Illinois,Central Illinois area and I've
had a great family, I've gotparents that are believers, and
(05:03):
they had me around the church,you know, for most of my life.
But I was never really committedto the church, I wasn't really a
committed follower of Jesus, Iwasn't thinking about what the
church was or how it operated. Iwas just sort of around it, here
and there. But I startedfollowing Jesus really seriously
right before I went to college,and then in college, got
(05:23):
connected to a campus ministry,and was discipled really well by
an older guy in the faith. Andfrom the very early days of my,
like, spiritual life, was beingtrained as a missionary. You
know, you know, I was like, twomonths a believer, and it was
like, it was like, yeah, whatGod has done for you. And I had,
(05:46):
you know, I came out of a prettyrough life and situation. So it
was sort of like, yeah, like thehealing and restoration that
you've experienced, you canlike, extend that to other
people. So this, even in thecampus world was thinking, how
incarnational Lee and how toplant Bible studies and door and
in dorm buildings, and how tomake disciples and how to share
(06:07):
your faith and all that stuff.
And at the same time, you know,was the that that campus
ministry was encouraging us, youknow, as a good pair of church,
you know, they were like, we'renot really your church body, you
should be trying to plug into achurch, local church body. And
so we would go to Sunday morningchurches, and I was sort of
having a hard time. It felt likemy campus ministry life
(06:30):
experience, felt more true, likefelt more true to the New
Testament than what we weredoing on Sunday mornings, which
felt sort of dissonant, or, youknow, felt a little bit distant
from the pages of the NewTestament. And so we were I was
just sort of like wrestling withthat. And in college, and you
(06:52):
know, and then the, we're notwhen we were seniors, and we
were lead, we'd been leading thecampus ministry for a couple
years and trying to reach thecampus, all that kind of stuff.
We started doing city ministry,like around the campus, we
started doing ministry in thecommunity around the campus. And
by the end of this group ofseniors in college that had been
(07:13):
in this leadership teamtogether, by the end of that
year, we had, we were running adaily dinner kitchen for the
poorest in our city. We're doinga discovery Bible study in that
daily dinner kitchen, differentpeople take turns sort of
leading it, we started just incommunity with the poor. And
then we on Wednesday nights, wewere doing like a prison
ministry. And then there was allthese single moms that we had
(07:35):
gotten connected to that hadtheir own set of needs. And that
sort of became this ownautonomous sort of ministry
thing. And then we were doingStreet Church Bible studies in
front yards. And there was sortof this mess of ministry. Now we
didn't have the language ofmicro church, we didn't have the
language of decentralizednetwork, but you know, it and it
wasn't called anything, it wasjust like this mess of, of it
(07:58):
was barely networked at all. Andbut we all sort of felt
collectively like I, you know,we sort of had this this couple
months of prayer together as ateam, like, what are we supposed
to do when we graduate becausewe were just sort of like, I'm
not sure if we're just supposedto like graduate and go get jobs
and like abandon what we'veexperienced here in this town.
(08:19):
And so that whole leadershipteam decided we just felt led by
the Lord, like we're supposed tostay in this town and get
whatever jobs we can, but we'resupposed to not choose our
occupations, we're supposed tochoose each other. And this
place that we've been doingfruitful ministry, and, and so
so we stayed in, and then webought houses, and then we're
(08:40):
doing house church stuff. Andwe're doing intentional
community and asset basedcommunity development in certain
neighborhoods of the city. Andit just kept getting like more
and more, sort of chaotic andthat of that thing eventually
became a sister movement in theunderground network. You know,
we got three or four years intothe story of that thing, like
(09:00):
around 2012. I just felt like wewere making a lot of preventable
mistakes. But we and we neededleadership we needed we needed
somebody to learn from, butthey're there. We didn't have a
lot of local we had a greatrelationship with local
churches, but those localchurches knew that we couldn't
learn from them, they couldn'treally teach us based on what
(09:23):
we're trying to do. And sothat's how we got connected
through through a myriad ofevents to Tampa underground. And
and I've came and stayed withTampa underground for like a
month and did like an immersiveand then they sent some leaders
up to live in Illinois with ourcommunity for some time to see
what we're doing. And thatstarted our friendship and we
(09:45):
eventually became one of thesister movements in the
underground network. But thatwas just like a software update.
For us. We were like, oh,minimal ecclesiology and micro
churches and decentralizednetwork and call Lean being the
catalyst for micro church growthand you don't really start micro
churches, you plant mission, youplant the gospel through
(10:06):
incarnational missionaries, yousee if the church may emerge in
God's plan and timing and thatwas all stuff that we were
intuitively doing. But weweren't sure if we were heretics
or not, you know, like we, andwe'd have language for it, we
didn't have a lot of trainingaround it, it was just all
intuitive. So hugely helpful forus. So the long story short is
like I just sort of stumbledinto micro church life as really
(10:28):
my first and primary experienceof church. You know, I didn't, I
didn't, I didn't have a lot todisentangle from, I didn't have
to shift something. I mean, my,my, the first guy that I was,
like, a believer for a handfulof months, and this guy was
discipling. Me and I was justasking him like, hey, if I just
wanted to read some stuff, likeif I just got into reading, what
(10:49):
are some books you'd recommend?
And he put forgotten ways byAlan Hirsch in my hands, like I
was, I was like, three months abeliever
Joshua Johnson (11:00):
that, uh, here you go, this is what we're doing
how we go. That's awesome.
Really, what's the the tensionbetween intuition and actually
doing what the Spirit is leadingyou to do? And then knowledge
and understanding language forwhat you have and structure to
get that done? How can we youkeep both of those and hold
(11:24):
those intention? And what's theimportance of both?
Lucas Pulley (11:30):
Yeah, I mean, that that was, we were definitely in
the in the early days, and weeven still see this now, you
know, leading a network of microchurches, but everybody being in
their own place in theirjourney, so that we run into a
lot of leaders that are justdoing things intuitively, they
don't yet have a level oflanguage, a theological
framework for it. Butessentially, what that that
(11:51):
intuition was always for, atleast in our story, that
intuition was always actuallyjust grounded in and an
encounter with the Lord in thescriptures, right. It wasn't
like, I don't know, pragmaticintuition, or strategic
intuition. It was like, we'rejust soaking in the scriptures
together as a community, andwe're really trying to be
(12:13):
attuned to the spirit, you know,both in in our soaking in the
scriptures, but also just inlife, like walk walking in
prayer without ceasing. And insome kind of like listening,
like listening to the whattrying to pay attention to what
God is doing in the city andjoin in like, we don't actually
go do anything, we just try tolook for what God is doing. And
(12:33):
we join in, we look for who he'swho he's stirring and awakening,
we look for what what evils orsocial issues in the city are
our sort of emerging as, like,the kingdom is sort of invading
those things and sending workersto those things. So the
intuition was always actuallylike emerging from an attunement
(12:53):
with the spirit of soaking inthe scriptures. But yeah, I
mean, eventually that that theproblem there the debt, the
downside there is when it staysintuition, maybe another word
for intuition would beunconscious competence. You
know, like you're, you're doinga thing, but you can't actually
describe to another what thatthing is, because you're sort of
(13:16):
doing it unconsciously. Andunconscious competence is gray.
But anything that you'reunconsciously competent in, you
actually cannot pass on toanother, so it dies with your
generation. And so the helpfulthing about language frameworks,
like getting some organizationor whatever, a lot of that
stuff, basically clarifying theintuition. In in language, and
(13:41):
in theological frameworks thatare true to it. A lot of that
work is essentially moving fromunconsciously competent to
consciously competent, like wecan actually describe with words
and frameworks and tools, whatis what's happening here. So
then you can actually pass it onfrom generation to generation,
you know, like, you can actuallytrain toward that coach toward
(14:02):
that share it diffuse DNA, youknow, through through a
community that can live on. Butof course, like you said, That's
attention because if youovercorrect and then you close
your fist around the the toolsand the frameworks and all that
kind of stuff. And people areactually actually no longer
(14:22):
listen to the spirit and soak inthe strip scriptures. they
memorize tools and frameworks,well, then you then the movement
of the spirits gonna die anyway,you're you're you actually
you'll actually go on the tracktoward becoming unconsciously
incompetent at certain things.
You think you're doing it well,and you're really not.
Joshua Johnson (14:42):
So is that something that you can start to
train for as to be attuned tothe spirit to see what God is
doing in an area and to see whatare the problems in our place?
And then how do you structurethen a micro church around those
sorts of things to actually doaccomplish something that God is
(15:02):
doing or join him and what he'sdoing. Yeah,
Lucas Pulley (15:06):
I mean, we definitely we do our best to try
to attempt to train peopletoward. I'm not even sure if
training is the right word. ButBut yeah, yeah help equip people
toward a concern for listeningto Jesus for their sense of
calling. And, and missionarydestiny to Whom have you been
(15:28):
sent? And I think that is it'sboth like, a sense of people
have different words for thatright of sense of passion, a
sense of destiny, a sense ofcalling a sense of purpose, or
whatever. But there's one thingto have a theology of calling
now that that people do need tolearn, like what is that?
Theologically biblically? Like?
What it what what is that? Whatdo we know about it from the
(15:50):
scriptures? It but it is sort ofa little bit of like a skill set
or a competency to listen forthat or wonder or or discern
that, to discern what that is?
Hear from the Lord in that way?
And that question is theobsession of our community which
you know, like, because we wouldessentially say we don't, we
(16:10):
don't multiply a tool, we don'tmultiply a model, we don't
multiply a method. Or, you know,we don't we don't sit and try to
execute our city and map outlike, what what Pete, the people
of God should? Or shouldn't do?
We just want the priesthood ofall believers to listen to Jesus
(16:32):
and have this vertical encounterabout to whom they are sent,
like, what is, what is he askingthem to do? At this time in this
place in in our moment in ourcontext, and yeah, and to end to
land it, land it tro as and havea Macedonia dream, right to to
(16:54):
like hear from the Lord, likethis is where I should go. So we
and we have some attempts attraining toward that, right, so
we have this thing calledcalling lab. And, and that
calling lab we will do two orthree times a year, we usually
do it on a Saturday. And that'swhere we take both sort of
emerging missionary leaders thathave not yet have had a sense of
(17:17):
narrowed clarity about to whomthey're sent. Try to be really
specific with people. It's notlike you don't have a calling
and then you come to the callinglab and you find one for the
first time. It's like you thatyou know, I think her says like
your baptism is your ordination.
And your conversion is yourcommission. So like the moment
you surrender to Jesus, you havea calling whether whether you
know it or not, you're you'recalled to the revealed will of
(17:38):
God and your time and placeyou're called to the Great
Commission, wherever you live,work and play. All the calling
lab does is doesn't give you acalling for the first time. It
just takes that general calling.
And it's like a contemplativelistening prayer retreat with
the Lord to be like, Lord, doyou want to narrow that general
calling to a spirit to land on aspecific people, for me right
(17:59):
now. And that that whole callingLab Day is built around
Ephesians 210. You know, like,you're God's artwork, you're his
masterpiece. And you are createdin Christ Jesus for a for a good
work in the season, which he hasprepared for you in advance. So
it's like, what's the work thatyou prepare? You've prepared in
(18:22):
advance for me? And part of howI can sort of discern what the
answer to that question is, iswondering, how has he made me
how as an artwork as amasterpiece, and so we basically
just take people for a morningand say, let's do some spiritual
gift tests, let's do some someAP tests, like learning about
(18:44):
how you're wired and what yourwhat some of your involuntary or
biases are, let's do somepassion assessment, emotional
inventory, like what gets youfired up what gets you know,
that matters and, and then somenarrative analysis? Like what
are experiences that God hasbrought you through in the past
that actually might uniquelyqualify you to be an effective
(19:05):
witness to people who are inthat same experience now? What
are groups of people that youhave access to that not
everybody has access to thatmatters. So it's like taking all
those fresh insight data pointsfrom the morning and then
basically just having hours inthe afternoon to just have a
prayer retreat? And just lay allthose lay all that fresh insight
before the Lord and say, I seein new ways right now how you've
(19:30):
made me and I think it was yoursovereign and some of this might
have been with intention. So Godspeak to me about to whom I am
sent in this time in thismoment. And so we when we
typically tell leader even ifeven if a leader has been
through the calling lab beforewe usually tell them like it's
sort of like a nice like a likea prescription to do that every
(19:53):
couple years like it's not likea one and done like I figured it
out and move on. And we've gotfriends there in KC that liked
Calling labs not the only toolout there, right? There's like
our friends over there. AndCasey they have like a GPS
assessment or something likethat. And there's there's other
ones that have your, your, yourpurpose DNA evaluation. So
there's a few of those outthere, but and they all are sort
(20:15):
of moving toward the same thinglike you have as a priest in the
priesthood of all believers, Godhas an intention for your life.
And here's a way to try todiscern discern what that is.
But we've also had people thathave had a very clear calling,
and a very end, which has beenverified by fruit that didn't
(20:36):
have anything to do with some ofthe insights that it didn't make
any sense with the insights thatthey emerged. So the voice of
the Lord doesn't have to likesubmit to like our our cool
personality tests, right? It'slike, he kick me he can send
anybody anywhere. Anytime youget this
Joshua Johnson (20:54):
specific calling this more specific than your
general calling the you'removing out? How do you start to
start or implement a microchurch around it? What is a
micro church? And what are youactually galvanizing? Around?
What Yes, is the central tenantof church? So
Lucas Pulley (21:12):
we would, you know, so we have an ecclesial
met what's called the ecclesiaminimum, which is a theological
belief around the what are thewhat are the minimum things that
needs to be in place thatcollide with each other, and
that thing is suddenly calledchurch, you know, and we've
wanted to be able to clarifythat not as a not as a strategic
(21:34):
asset or a pragmatic belief, butas like a really a theological
belief like what is what is thechurch and how do we keep it in
its in its simplest form, sothat it can multiply in its
simplest form. And then they canget more complex as they go. But
we have to have an imaginationfor it in its simplest form. So
our ecclesial minimum herelocally that we've had for you
know, 1520 years now is worshipcommunity mission, and what we
(21:57):
mean by those things, byworship, we mean, Romans 12
worship we mean my life is afully surrendered living
sacrifice as my spiritual act ofworship. So we don't mean
banging on a guitar, althoughthat's totally good and
wonderful and fine, there's alot of micro churches that do
that. But what we mean is likesurrender, like a community that
(22:18):
is in full surrender to Jesusand and and costly and
sacrificial surrender. And bycommunity, we mean intentional,
extended spiritual family, youknow, so not not see each other
once a week, and then have likea group chat, but like a an
interdependent spiritual familylife on life. And by mission, we
mean that every micro church hasto intentionally proclaim and
(22:40):
demonstrate the kingdom of Godto the last and the poor in some
way. And so now, how that howthat works out is there's two
general types of micro church.
There are mission specific microchurches, which means the
community is gathering around acommon people group calls or
place that they feel called to.
(23:03):
So you know, a handful ofexamples of that would be like,
just one called Timothyinitiative that works with men
that are coming out of addictiondetox facilities, and they do
like whole life discipleship,sort of monastic community,
whole life discipleship withthis community of guys. And they
work on a construction companytogether during the days and do
vocational rehabilitation. And,and there's there's one called
(23:28):
Urban Youth Justice, which isplanting micro churches inside a
juvenile detention facilitiesacross five county radius,
there's one called everlasting,which is a micro church that's
reaching Ultimate Frisbeeleagues in Pinellas County.
There's one called Urbanfellowship that's working with
you gang youth up in a certainarea of town north in North
Tampa, close to the university.
There's obviously some microchurches that are reaching
(23:51):
college students, there's microchurches that are adopting
schools to do mentor programs,you know, so those are like, it
would be hard to join that microchurch if you did not feel a
sense of calling to lay yourlife down to reach those people,
or that place or that cause andand it's really clear how the
like the that the those likestart, as a sense of calling
from a leader, they're actuallygoing to try to get proximity,
(24:14):
presence, powerlessness amongthose people. They're trying to
find a people person of peace,they're trying to see if
disciples start to get made and,and eventually a witnessing
community emerges. Then there'sdistributive micro churches.
That's the second kind.
Sometimes we call themincubators. So those are people
(24:34):
that aren't gathering around aspecific people group or place
like a common sense of calling.
They're gathering around.
Accountability and encouragementand commitment to shared values
and mission are life itselfwherever they live, work and
play. You know, so they're,they're not all reaching the
(24:55):
same people. But everybody ithas a is either too trying to
pursue or knows their sense ofcalling and the people that
they're trying to reach. Andessentially, all those faithful
missionaries have not yet seen achurch emerge among those
people. And you can't just liveisolated for a year, two years,
(25:17):
three years. So it's good. It'shealthy for them to be in a
district basically atdistributive house church that's
made up of people that aretrying to be faithful to
different pockets. And so I leada house church right now in in
my neighborhood. And that one'sa distributive, you know, so my
wife and I feel very called toour neighborhood. It's called
Belmont heights estates. It'sthe largest saturation of
(25:38):
government subsidized housing inTampa Bay. So we live in the
projects and and we have a fewother sort of believer families
that live on our block with uswithin walking, like we just
like go to each other's houses.
For a long time, we were aneighborhood house church. So it
was mission specific. It's likeyou can really only join this
house church, if you want toreach the neighborhood. And, or
if you want to live it, you gotto sort of move into the
(26:01):
neighborhood, I guess the onlyway you Jr. has. But then we you
know, after about three or fouryears, we pivoted to be
distributive, because there wereso many people in the
neighborhood that became part ofour house church, but they
actually had a sense of callingto somewhere not the
neighborhood, and we didn't wantto, like, we didn't want to say
no to that we felt like isimportant to, like, support that
(26:21):
and breathe on that and makeroom for that. So So yeah, now,
you know, I, my wife does somehomeschool Co Op stuff in the
neighborhood just as a mechanismto do incarnational ministry and
I run a repair home home repairservice as a way to do
incarnational ministry in theneighborhood. And then there's a
couple on our block that doesCrossFit ministry. So they they
(26:43):
run a discovery Bible study intheir CrossFit gym on Thursday
nights and they've been in thatgym for a long time. And they're
basically just seen as like thepastor's of the gym at this
point. Like every once in awhile they'll be doing a
competition and let's let thempray. Let's let those the ones
over there. They could be theones that pray to start the
competition, you know, and andthere's a couple that does board
(27:05):
gamer ministry because they'rein this like niche board gaming
community that plays board gamesI've never heard of in my life.
And and so they do the twice amonth they do a board gamer
night where everybody comesover. And then they have these
conversation cards that they'resort of like polling throughout
the night that has thembasically having spiritual
conversations around value andworth and life and worldview.
(27:27):
And then there's a couple thatdoes college student ministry,
there's a couple that does work,workplace ministry in the towers
downtown. So the life of ourcommunity is a little weird,
like we we have open tablediscovery Bible study on Monday
nights, and you just never knowwho's going to be in there. And
And then Wednesday nights, wehave like discipled core of our
community like a dinner. Andthen we have some some out we
(27:49):
support each other's outreachesif we need help, you know, come
alongside each other. So that soyou've got the ecclesial
minimum. It's it's rigid enoughthat we don't we don't say
everything's a micro church.
Like it's pretty specific. Likethere's some things that are
nitrogen, there's some thingsthat not that aren't we've,
we've had plenty of people cometo us and say I'm leading this
(28:10):
micro church, can I be part ofthe network, and we're like,
that's not a micro church likebecause it has some definition
to it. But it doesn't, but ithas a just enough definition
that it allows for what we wouldcall expansive, ecclesial or
adaptive missiology, expansiveecclesiology, right. It's like,
there's a little over 160 Microchurches right now, just in
(28:31):
Tampa Bay. And they look allevery single one of them looks
very different. They're usingdifferent tools, they have
different language, they countdifferent things. Because each
of those micro church leadershas the has quite a bit of
freedom to contextualize for thegroup of people that they're
trying to reach, you know. Sowhat they have in common is the
(28:52):
ecclesia minimum, a sense ofcalling that they're doing that
the reason that micro churchesexist is not because a leader
told them they should do it, butbecause Jesus asked them to do
it. And they have just enoughvalues alignment to make sense.
That's the undergroundmanifesto. They have just enough
theological alignment to makesense. That's the Creed's
creedal orthodoxy. But thenother than that, they're all
(29:14):
very, very different.
Joshua Johnson (29:16):
So if they're distributed, and they're
different, you know, you havemission specific, you'd have
distributive micro churches. Howdo you connect one to another? I
know when I was in the MiddleEast, we started a bunch of
simple churches with Muslimbackground people. And because
of our situation, we actuallycouldn't really connect smaller
(29:37):
house churches together likethey couldn't really know much
about each other. So we were theones telling stories about other
churches to say, Hey, you're notalone in this. It's not just
you. But it does sometimes feelwhen you're in a small
community, which you know, are,I'll just give you in Kansas
City. What we do I go to churchcalled Nava church. Casey We
(30:00):
have, we have home churchesthree times a month, and once a
month, we gather all together asall the home churches in the
city, we come together. And itreally says, Hey, we actually
are a part of a bigger thing.
It's not just our community, howdo you connect to each other?
What does that look like? Andhow do you get people to know
that they belong to somethingbigger than themselves? And
(30:24):
what's the importance of largerconnection?
Lucas Pulley (30:29):
The way that the way that it works for us is that
you know, the the underground issimultaneously two things.
That's why sometimes it's hardto explain. It's a we call it a
maybe a dual operating system.
On the one side, the undergroundis a decentralized network of
micro churches. And those microchurches have access to an
ordination process where theycan join the College of elders.
(30:50):
And then of that college ofelders. There's a handful of
governing elders, you know, sothe all the governance and
church discipline andrestoration processes and
oversight and all that kindstuff that exists in the
decentralized network of microchurches. That network of micro
churches is a non entity. It'snot an LLC, it's not a
nonprofit. It's not a it's not achurch. It is just a relational
(31:12):
coalition. On the other side,the underground, what I work
for, I don't work for thatnobody works for that. The
decentralized network of microchurches. I'm not the executive
director of that I'm part of it.
You know, I happen to be a housechurch leader, I happen to be a
sitting governing elder for aseason. But what I work for what
(31:33):
I'm the executive director of isa is the other side of the
underground, it is a nonprofitplatform of services, which
exists, its exempt purpose towhich every dollar employee
squarefoot contract has to besubmitted is to serve that
decentralized network of microchurches, not power over or
(31:54):
control or predict or anythinglike that. It's like we react to
what the priesthood of allbelievers needs. So that's what
he told me Wilkerson and StaceyGaskins and I were a part of
like a leadership team thatovert helps oversee that. And
that's it, they have a bunch ofservices in their financial
services, media services,coaching, training facilities
(32:15):
and events, all those servicesare are shared, leveraged by the
network of churches, whateverthey need, it's like a buffet
come and get it. One of thoseservices that the platform
offers is convening environmentsfor the network. So because the
if the decentralized networkjust sits back, and they exactly
like you said they need togather they need to connect,
(32:37):
they need to convene. But it's,it can be a little bit
distracting for those microchurches, like who decides? Who
does it? And who? And then howdo they take time out of their
micro church to pull it off? Andhow do they secure space? And
how do they secure like, youknow, it's a, it's a big, it's a
huge load to carry. Sobasically, the missions agency
(32:59):
side, basically says will help,like set the table of convening
environments for the sake of thedecentralized network. So the
missions agency is who securesspace, and a coordination,
project management and then sortof plans, all that kind of
stuff, larger conveningenvironments for the movement.
(33:20):
The way that works right now isthat the movement is broke down
into five area collectives,geographic area collectives,
each of those area collectiveshas their own rhythm of
convening. So central Tampa,that's where I'm at. That's
where I'm a part of the centralTampa area meets weekly on
Sunday morning. So nobody hastheir micro churches on Sunday
morning. And that's a time whenthe then we have a moment where
(33:42):
the micro churches can allconvene with each other or just
the leaders can come they get todecide, each micro church
decides if the leader comes orthe whole micro church comes,
it's up to them. But we have aSunday morning moment, which is
basically just like a conveningof the movement. It's not meant
to be this Open Meeting thatanybody can come to it's sort of
like a family meeting. And it's,it's for the sake of coaching
and training. And like you said,helping people get a sense that
(34:06):
they're a part of a biggerthing. Being able to hear what
God is doing in other places,and learn from that grant hear
catch testimonies from eachother be inspired by that learn
from each other, like littlesecrets, tactics, all that sort
of Think Tank style, all that'scritically important. And so
(34:26):
they they convene in AreaNetwork, area collectives, and
then the whole all those areacollectives get together about
six eight times a year forlarger events like a conference
or a you know, a store like abig testimony or storytelling
banquet. We'll do that once ortwice a year micro church
showcase. These those are all sowe do have like a little bit of
(34:50):
a commute a movement, widerhythm of life, you know, where
it's like, you're with yourmicro church most often. But
then you have some environmentswith your Eric collective and
then occasionally you have Havethese environments with the
whole movement. And those arefor the sake of like you said,
inspiration, encouragement,you're part of a bigger thing.
You're relationally connected toother leaders, you're learning
(35:10):
from what what they're doing,you're seeing what God is doing
in a broader way. So we wouldsay that's critically important,
because in the New Testament,the church isn't, the church
isn't just house churches. It'salso city churches. And, and so
so we want we're trying to bethe church at every level,
(35:32):
though, the way that the newthat Paul and the Jerusalem
Council sort of the way thatthey had an imagination for the
church, not just being bigger,just being small, but they had
an imagination for church thatmade room for it to express
itself at every level, in homes,in cities, and capital, see
universal church and unity. Andso we're trying to create to
(35:57):
birth a movement where peopleare walking in the fullness of
the church at every level, wherethey they have home church,
simple church, small church, butthey also have moments to see
the manifest City Church, andwhere they are, they even feel
connected to global church, andcare about global church.
Joshua Johnson (36:20):
So can you talk a little bit about the the
spaces of belonging, in that ifyou're looking at, at what
church can do in these differentspaces? What are these spaces?
And why are they important forus to be involved in and all of
them,
Lucas Pulley (36:37):
you know, in a in a quick way, you could say
they're, they're important to bein all of them. Because we we
see that biblically, the churchis expressed in all those, you
know, small, medium, to largeways, and it's important to live
it. But it's really interestingi I'm sure you're familiar with
this, but the hall and Myers iswhat's in my my mind, they there
(37:00):
was a guy that came out with aforce basis of belongings in
early 2000s, I think his bookwas called the search to belong.
And his he was a Christian thatwas applying some theories that
was written by a guy back in the60s, on the theory of social
belonging, and they came acrossthis, this under this way of
understand sociological way ofunderstanding belonging that
(37:22):
people actually need to belongin for these four different
spaces. And if they only arebelonging in one or two of these
spaces, they'll start to feelalone or isolated, or like they
don't quite fully belong. Andthose spaces where I think
intimate space is the smallestone, two to four, you know, two
to four people where you canactually be totally vulnerable,
(37:44):
totally yourself wide open,fully known and fully know
others. And then they have thisthe one slightly bigger than
that is personal space, whichcan be like five to 12 people.
Where you can be a part of abroader family, you can share
values, you can find the peoplewith whom you can have
(38:06):
vulnerable space, you typicallydon't find vulnerable space
until you until you're a part ofpersonal space. The one slightly
bigger than that social spaceis, you know, around 20 To 4020
to 40 people. And, and then thebroadest spaces, public space,
75 plus space and 75 plusspaces, like you can't, you
(38:28):
can't know anybody and you can'tbe known but you you have a
roomful of strangers that youfeel like you have something in
common with because there's likea, like a stadium of chiefs
fans, I'll do a Kansas Cityreference, because you're in
Kansas City, you know, it's likeyou can you can feel a sense of
belonging when you're in astadium full of 1000s and 1000s
of people and you don't know anyof them, you know, that would be
(38:50):
like public space belonging. Andthey essentially did gobs of
research on helping realize thatyou can be a part of public
space and social space. But ifyou don't have any personal
space environments, or intimatespace environments, you you'll
struggle to feel like youbelong. And you'll actually have
other sort of social anxietiesor social dysfunctions from not
(39:13):
being a part of environmentslike that, in the same way, you
could be a part of intimatespace and personal space. But if
you don't have those otherspaces of belonging, for
instance, a house church that isnot connected meaningfully to a
broader, city wide communitythat can have certain effects on
people's sense of belonging. Ijust think it's hilarious when
(39:33):
sociologists give their wholelives studying something. And
they just discover what's likeplainly stirred true in the
scriptures.
Joshua Johnson (39:41):
Like Jesus said, This is what Jesus did, right?
It's
Lucas Pulley (39:44):
like he had he had this inner three, and then he
had the 12. And then he likepreached and then he had the 72.
And he preached to the crowds orwhatever. And it's like, you can
see that in the life of Jesus.
And then you can see it in theNew Testament church, you know,
that they had house churches andCity Church. And so I think the,
you know, obviously like theprevailing model of the church
(40:05):
and the like legacy models ofthe church that have sort of
helped to solidify an existingimagination of the church as
bigger is better, large, megaattraction, all that kind of
stuff. Essentially, those arelike ready ways to create public
spaces of belonging for people.
(40:30):
And then typically, maybe inthose environments, there can be
like a little bit of visioncasting for, like, we have a
small group network, you know,whatever. So then there's like,
some personal space belonging,but I, you know, a lot, I think,
I think these are generalizedstrokes, right. But a lot of
times in those environments,you'll have a hard time finding
vulnerable space or socialspace, and that has certain
downsides. But in the same way,like you said, earlier, there
can be a lot of house churchnetworks that are that are flush
(40:52):
with intimate space and personalspace, but you don't have any
social or public. And there'sdownsides to that, too. And so I
think we're, we're, we're tryingto capture a, a, a rhythm of
imagination that helps us liveinto all the not just the, you
know, sociological, socialspaces. But the way that those
(41:14):
things actually point to us, thebiblical foundations of the
manifest church and all of itsforms at every fractal.
Joshua Johnson (41:21):
That's teaching other other week, and I was
talking to a bunch of, of legacypastors, and you know, they were
talking, we're talking movement.
And I think I basically said, Ifyou don't really believe in the
priesthood of all believers,it's not going to work. And if
you do believe in the priesthoodof all believers, it's gonna be
messy. And either you, you wantcontrol, and you could have a
little bit of control and you'renot going to actually see any
(41:44):
movement. Or you're going towant some messiness and believe
in the priesthood of allbelievers and go, How can we
enter into that space andbelieve in the priesthood of all
believers? Yeah, be okay withsome mess? Because, well, it's
gonna be messy no matter what,even if we try to control it,
it's going to be messy. So yeah,why don't we just give it to
somebody who just go for it?
Lucas Pulley (42:08):
You know, sometimes we get we use the word
que order, okay, chaotic,sometimes chaos and order. So
you know, we're always trying topursue like a, a chaotic
environment that when you whenyou when you believe in the
priesthood of all believers,and, and the the other side of
that coin, when you believe inthe priesthood of all believers
is that you also believe thatJesus is the proper head of the
(42:28):
church, not us, right, that'sthe other side of the priesthood
of all believers. And so we'reactually restoring whenever
we're trying to pursue theactivation of the priesthood of
all believers, we're also tryingto pursue the restoration of
Jesus as the proper head of thechurch and us in our right
rightful places, you know, undershepherds, or a clippers or
activators. And that's how, youknow, they were just totally
(42:49):
losing grip of any version oflike control or alignment
strategies, or, you know, likeguard rails and that kind of
stuff. And it starts to feel awhole lot like chaos. But there
are ways to have just enoughorder that behind the chaos,
(43:11):
that does keep it healthy. Chaosdoesn't equal healthy order
doesn't equal healthy. What wewant is healthy. So we don't, we
don't want chaos. We don't wantorder what we want is healthy,
and healthy, looks chaotic. Youknow, it's this, it's sitting in
the middle of that tension. It'smerging that tension. But man, I
(43:32):
agree, there's so many thingsthat and I've, you know, we've
got a high level ofcollaboration and partnership
with a lot of local churcheshere in Tampa, you know, so
we're friends with with a, we'rea part of a broader city wide
collaboration of churches, both,you know, prevailing mega
historic micro, you know, so weroll with a lot of these guys
(43:55):
and so I empathize with a lot ofthem the situation that they're
in and, and, and how much needsto shift or change and the and
the difficulty of that it's sodifficult, even for the most
well meaning leader and team,but man, it's worth it's worth
trying. It's worth running afterit. You know, we I mean, we have
(44:16):
several friends that are sort oflike, yeah, I want to do
something that it's essentiallylike you're saying, I don't
think anybody disagrees with thepriesthood of all believers. But
I think so many of them arelike, casting vision from the
pulpit for the act of like theemergence of the priesthood of
all believers and let's take thechurch outside the four walls
(44:37):
and like let's all find ourBlitz, I'll join with God and
what he's doing in the city.
Everybody's like saying it fromthe pulpit or saying it from
classrooms or whatever. But theculture and structure of the
church itself actually competeswith the words you know, and
the, you know, culture eachtribe As you for breakfast, you
(44:59):
know, you have all these termsthat are like, you can, you can
say with your words and try todo technical solutions to, to
the barriers that you're facing.
But but you've got to start toaddress both the structures that
are in place that get in the wayof that there's some of that's
around money where it goes whereit spent. Some of its around
(45:22):
decision making and power, whogets to decide some of its
around like even even even theidea of like church vision, what
does that even mean? If you'retrying to activate the
priesthood of all believersvision is, vision is like one
leader, like the lead megaglobal pastor Hina hook hearing,
they're the ones that get tohear from LISTEN to Jesus, about
their sense of calling, they getto go up the mountain and hear
(45:45):
from the Lord. And then theycodify that sense of calling
into a vision statement. Andthen they're just trying to
align 1000s of people to thatone vision, so nobody else gets
to hear from Jesus. And if theydo, and they hear a sense of
calling that diverges, somehow,from this one sense of calling,
well, you gotta go findsomewhere else, you know, so
even our sense of like, who getsto have a vision, how that
(46:09):
vision integrates, or doesn'tintegrate with the sort of scope
of the community and to our, ouraspirations around alignment.
That all gets, that all getsmessy, and it has to be
completely rethought. You know,it has to be it has to be, you
got to count the cost and reallynegotiate like, what are we? How
chaotic are we We're willing toget? And what are the things
we're willing to let go of,
Joshua Johnson (46:30):
you know, as I've been training, and been
involved in decentralizednetworks for for many years,
there's a couple of things thatI, I get that the number one
question is how do you preventheresy? All right, that's good.
Yes. Right, you know, thepriesthood of all believers, so
I'll let you answer that justyet. But the other one, I think,
is a newer question, becausewe're dealing with it in the
churches, how do you? How do youprevent abuse and smaller
(46:55):
settings, especially when, youknow, it's a family oriented
place where you have youngchildren and families and
people? So how do you prevent orhelp in those situations, when
you have small groups around thecity?
Lucas Pulley (47:12):
Deal with the first one, you know, the, the
heresy question, you know, a bigpart of a non practical part of
that answer is essentially,like, the bit is letting go of
our sense of control a littlebit, because we have to trust
that Jesus can actually, youknow, lead the church, and, you
(47:36):
know, and that, and that Jesusis able to convict and the Holy
Spirit is able to teach and, andthat Jesus can actually protect
his church from heresy betterthan we ever could. And now that
doesn't, it's an abdication ofresponsibility on our part to be
like our just like laissezfaire, and we don't care about
it, but it's essentially us weare on our end, obviously, we
(47:58):
have a college of elders andwithin we have a governing elder
body and that governing elderbody, it is an active body that
that is called into action whenthere are matters in leader in
in the leadership of any microchurch that are a breach of the
Covenant commitments thatthey've made to the relational
network. So that's like moralfailures, or marriage breakdown,
(48:21):
or accusations of abuse ortheological straying, those
would all constitute breach ofcovenant commitments. And those
would all be situations wherethe governor governing elders
can jump in and get involved andhave healthy church discipline
practices and restorationprocesses. So we have strong
(48:41):
governance and we take it reallyseriously. But at the same time,
we're not running around everyweek and checking in on every
micro church, we're sort oftrusting that like God is going
to bring things to the attentionof the governing elders, through
coaching or through training orthrough the or through the
relational network when theyhave gotten to a place where
they need responded to, andplenty of examples of that over
(49:03):
the last 10 or 15 years oftheological strain that required
some dialogue and that kind ofthing. Now, the of the I think
the abuse question is a greatquestion, too, you know, and,
and as a side point on both ofthese on the heresy and the
abuse question, it they'reeasier conversation to have when
it's almost like you canacknowledge on the front end
that like the prevailing ortraditional model of church
(49:26):
isn't like a non heresy, nonabuse setting. And now like,
we're allowing it over here,it's like, no, there's plenty
over here that we have neverbeen able to figure out how to
prevent or something like that.
So, so it's almost like yeah,we're there. It's it exists in
both places, and it looksdifferent ways. But so yeah, we
in the same way we this isanother reason why it's
(49:46):
important for house churches,simple churches, micro churches,
to not remain in isolation. Theythey abuse can be prevalent when
something is advocate aidid as asimple church or house church,
and it's not in submission toanything outside of itself,
there's that didn't you have no,you have no recourse if
(50:07):
something happens inside thathouse church, and there's no
checking or oversight orgovernance, anything that is not
in submission to something elseis already unhealthy. Even Even
if internally, there isn'tsomething that's like clearly
unhealthy yet, if it is inisolation, and not in submission
in any way to something outsideof itself, it is unhealthy. And
(50:28):
so that's why we've tried it,the even the idea of
decentralized network isimportant that these things are
actually a part of somethingbigger. And part of the front
door of being part of thatsomething dif that something
bigger is making very clearcovenant commitments to the
relational network aroundcharacter and conduct and how
(50:50):
you will lead. And so we havethat we have a leaders covenant
that every single micro churchsees and discerns and reads and
agrees to and if they can'tagree to it, they can't be a
part of our network. And inthat, there's a section in there
around like your personalspiritual life, like I'm going
to I'm going to remain, I'mgoing to maintain a vibrant
(51:11):
prayer life I am going to bepursuing, you know, I'm going to
exemplify the characters of theof an elder, as laid out in
Timothy and Titus. But there's asection around how you will lead
it's like, I am not going toexploit my people at any time
for personal gain. I am I goingto lead in radical generosity I
am if I'm ever in conflict withanother person or another
(51:36):
leader, I am going to be insubmission to the Matthew 18
processes and a commitment toreconciliation and restoration
and mediation if necessary. Sowe lay all that out and, and
have people and have peopleagree to it. And there's a line
in that in those documents thatsay, If I am ever found to be in
(51:56):
breach of these commitments, Iwill submit to the leadership of
the governing elders in my life,you know, so if they if they
ever do have an accusationagainst them, and then the
governing elders come and showup at their door and say, Hey,
we're here to talk about that.
And they're like, When did Iever invite you to be a part of
(52:18):
this? We can say, remember, whenyou did we also do I mean, we
live in the year 2024. Right? Sowe also obviously do background
checks for every single microchurch leader we do. We have
child protection policies thatare on file, and we you know,
those are things that are likeimportant for any organization
right now in the world we livein.
Joshua Johnson (52:38):
Yep. Now, that's really good. I think, you know,
we're, I think everybody that isin this decentralized space are
so are starting to realize ifthey haven't yet, oh, we really
have to figure this thing out.
Yes. And so that's really good.
You know, Lucas, I wish we hadat least another hour or so I
could just go deep into whatdoes it look like? How do we
multiply things? I'd love to getinto the multiplication. So
(53:00):
maybe we'll we'll have to dothat. Another time. Part two.
But so the couple of questions Iusually ask the ends, yeah,
yeah. One, if you go back toyour 21 year old self, what
advice would you give?
Lucas Pulley (53:15):
Who 21 year old self? What advice would I give?
Yeah, I think I would tell my 21year old self, to make more to
take very seriously and makemore room for the contemplative
disciplines. Sabbath. Solitude,you know, I went, I went too
(53:37):
long, in my younger years, Ithink, you know, thinking those
things were either optional, orif or if I did pursue them,
pursued them sort of in alegalistic or, like rote way,
you know, you know, if I didtake a Sabbath, it was sort of
like, just lay on the couch andwatch Netflix in which isn't a
Sabbath, you know, it's likejust this like, row definition
(53:59):
of like, don't work. But I thinktrying to trying to figure out
early in my earlier in my life,what is rest for me, what is
restful for me, and trying todiscern that with the Lord and
then have that invade Sabbathrhythms for me. And then, you
know, modeling my solitude andcontemplation, my practices of
(54:22):
spiritual formation a little bitmore around some of my self
discovery around Enneagram. Andsome of that stuff, like, my
spiritual disciplines don't haveto look the same as everybody
else's in the world, but I sortof need to pay attention to the
growth edge of my spiritualformation, and to really press
into spirit to disciplines that,that intersect the structuring
(54:44):
of my soul right now. You know,I wish I would have paid more
attention to that in my 20s.
Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (54:51):
that's really good. That's good. What have you
been reading or watchinganything you'd recommend? I
Lucas Pulley (54:58):
don't I just read I have a book called Art of
Asking by Amanda Palmer I thinkis her name secular book not
Christian a content warningthere is like some stuff in
there that's like not not superChristian. You know, I found it
very fascinating like the youknow, just as an Enneagram three
personally that like wants tolike go out and accomplish and
(55:21):
be interdependent, you know,rural Midwestern family like
dupe, pull it pull yourself upby your bootstraps, do
everything on your own, youknow, I found there was no
totally I found that book but Ihave a really hard time leaning
on people asking for help I havea really hard time to depending
on a team working through a teamand so I just found a lot of the
(55:44):
insights in that book reallybreathtaking just around the the
the art of asking for help andit is actually one of the
building blocks of relationshipand community when you do when
you when you don't ask for helpand you're self dependent in
Egypt things are like selfevident but but the way she told
that that book was laid out inthe in story was really winsome
(56:05):
for me. So that was great. Andwatching I pretty much just
watch the office and parks andrecreation and Ted last Oh, on
repeat that's I don't reallywatch much else. But But, but I
do think Ted lasso you know, theother two are just sort of like
guilty pleasures. But Ted lassois a great show that
(56:28):
demonstrates the systems theory.
If you if you ever look into ifyou listen to managing
leadership anxiety, or read thebook or see any SD of Casa stuff
on how anxiety doesn't justaffect people, it affects
communities and it hijackscommunities. And then what does
it mean for a welldifferentiated leader to bring
(56:49):
health to an unhealthy system?
Ted lasso is just a brilliantexample of, I think
differentiated leadership in ourtime.
Joshua Johnson (57:00):
I agree, as greats. Well, Lucas, thank you
so much for this conversation. Ilove getting into to micro
churches, a little bit of yourstory. How do we believe in the
priesthood of all believers? Howdo we not have things chaotic
but and not have thingscontrolling that we could
actually lead into somethingthat where there's a tension
(57:21):
that could actually birth theSpirit of God within our
networks and movements? And, youknow, I loved the going from
general calling to specificcallings for people and to say,
Hey, these are the people thatGod has called me to, I'm going
to galvanize around that. Andwe're going to have a group of
people say, let's go and bring acommunity of followers of Jesus
(57:48):
into the space and see what Goddoes because he's moving. And
your thing of saying, where'sGod moving, and let's join him
in what he is doing. I thinkit's absolutely critical and
crucial. We don't follow amethod but we actually follow
God and the Spirit as he moves.
So Lucas, thank you for this. Itwas fantastic.
Lucas Pulley (58:08):
Thank you, brother.
Even the idea of like church vision, what does
(00:01):
that even mean? If you're tryingto activate the priesthood of
all believers vision is, visionis like one leader, like the
lead mega global pastor Hinahook hearing, they're the ones
that get to hear from LISTEN toJesus about their sense of
calling, or they get to go upthe mountain and hear from the
Lord. And then they they codifythat sense of calling into a
(00:22):
vision statement. And thenthey're just trying to align
1000s of people to that onevision, so nobody else gets to
hear from Jesus. And if they do,and they hear a sense of calling
that diverges, somehow from thisone sense of calling, well, you
got to go find somewhere else.
You know, so even our sense oflike, who gets to have a vision,
how that vision integrates, ordoesn't integrate with the sort
(00:43):
of scope of the community andour our aspirations around
alignment. That all gets thatall gets messy and it has to be
completely rethought. You know,it has to be it has to be, you
got to count the cost and reallynegotiate like, what are we? How
chaotic Are we willing to get?
And what are the things we'rewilling to let go of?
Joshua Johnson (01:16):
Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create, and the impact we canmake. We longed to see the body
of Christ look like Jesus. I'myour host, Joshua Johnson. Go to
shifting culture podcast.com tointeract and donate. And don't
forget to hit the Follow buttonon your favorite podcast app to
be notified when new episodescome out each week, and go leave
(01:39):
a rating and review. It's easy,it only takes a second and it
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stars. Thank you so much. Youknow what else would help us
out? share this podcast withyour friends, your family, your
network? Tell them how much youenjoy it. Let them know that
they should be listening aswell. If you're new here,
(02:02):
welcome. If you want to digdeeper find us on social media
at shifting culture podcastwhere I post video clips and
quotes and interact with all ofyou. Previous guests on the show
have included Alan Hirsch, RobWagner and Bree mills. You can
go back listen to those amazingepisodes and more. But today's
guest is Lucas Polly Lucas isexecutive director of
(02:23):
underground network andexperimental community made up
of over 160 Micro churches inTampa Bay, and serving dozens of
similar decentralized andempowering movements around the
world. Lucas has 14 years ofexperience planting micro
churches and leadingdecentralized networks of
grassroots churches. And hestill leads a neighborhood house
(02:44):
starts in the projects of innercity Tampa to this day with his
wife and three kids. He isdriven to see cities transformed
by the priesthood of allbelievers activated in the
mission of God. Lucas and I havea great conversation around
micro churches and decentralizedchurch networks. Lucas shares
his story of how he got involvedin micro churches and how they
(03:05):
operate. We talked about havingan ecclesial minimum of worship
community and mission. We talkedabout micro churches that can be
mission specific around acalling or distributed. With
people following various Collinstalks about the importance of
connecting micro churchesthrough area collectives and
larger events, the need to movethrough the spaces of belonging
(03:28):
and insights into preventingheresy and abuse through
governance structures, whilestill allowing for messiness and
the priesthood of all believers.
So join us as we discover whatGod is doing through micro
churches. Here is myconversation with Lucas poli,
Lucas, welcome to shiftingculture really excited to have
(03:49):
you on I've been meaning to dothis for at least a couple of
years. So thanks for joining me.
Of
Lucas Pulley (03:57):
course, it's great to be on I have my coffee. I'm
ready to record a six hourpodcast interview. That's that's
the typical mode here.
Joshua Johnson (04:05):
It's difficult.
Yeah, six hours. Go on. That'sgood. I just recommended a
podcast to do with the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. And yeah,
there's some episodes of it ofjust the history of it, like six
hours long, and they're like sixhours what's going on? There?
Like yes, this is what I do leadmy History podcast. But
hopefully this isn't gonna be asix hour long conversation.
(04:28):
Well, Lucas, I'd love to getinto your story of how you
started to get involved in andmicro church and why micro
churches for you?
Lucas Pulley (04:43):
Yes, so, I started this would have been maybe 2000
You know, 2006 2007. I startedfollowing Jesus right before I
went to college, like the monthbefore I went to college, and I
was born and raised in Illinois,Central Illinois area and I've
had a great family, I've gotparents that are believers, and
(05:03):
they had me around the church,you know, for most of my life.
But I was never really committedto the church, I wasn't really a
committed follower of Jesus, Iwasn't thinking about what the
church was or how it operated. Iwas just sort of around it, here
and there. But I startedfollowing Jesus really seriously
right before I went to college,and then in college, got
(05:23):
connected to a campus ministry,and was discipled really well by
an older guy in the faith. Andfrom the very early days of my,
like, spiritual life, was beingtrained as a missionary. You
know, you know, I was like, twomonths a believer, and it was
like, it was like, yeah, whatGod has done for you. And I had,
(05:46):
you know, I came out of a prettyrough life and situation. So it
was sort of like, yeah, like thehealing and restoration that
you've experienced, you canlike, extend that to other
people. So this, even in thecampus world was thinking, how
incarnational Lee and how toplant Bible studies and door and
in dorm buildings, and how tomake disciples and how to share
(06:07):
your faith and all that stuff.
And at the same time, you know,was the that that campus
ministry was encouraging us, youknow, as a good pair of church,
you know, they were like, we'renot really your church body, you
should be trying to plug into achurch, local church body. And
so we would go to Sunday morningchurches, and I was sort of
having a hard time. It felt likemy campus ministry life
(06:30):
experience, felt more true, likefelt more true to the New
Testament than what we weredoing on Sunday mornings, which
felt sort of dissonant, or, youknow, felt a little bit distant
from the pages of the NewTestament. And so we were I was
just sort of like wrestling withthat. And in college, and you
(06:52):
know, and then the, we're notwhen we were seniors, and we
were lead, we'd been leading thecampus ministry for a couple
years and trying to reach thecampus, all that kind of stuff.
We started doing city ministry,like around the campus, we
started doing ministry in thecommunity around the campus. And
by the end of this group ofseniors in college that had been
(07:13):
in this leadership teamtogether, by the end of that
year, we had, we were running adaily dinner kitchen for the
poorest in our city. We're doinga discovery Bible study in that
daily dinner kitchen, differentpeople take turns sort of
leading it, we started just incommunity with the poor. And
then we on Wednesday nights, wewere doing like a prison
ministry. And then there was allthese single moms that we had
(07:35):
gotten connected to that hadtheir own set of needs. And that
sort of became this ownautonomous sort of ministry
thing. And then we were doingStreet Church Bible studies in
front yards. And there was sortof this mess of ministry. Now we
didn't have the language ofmicro church, we didn't have the
language of decentralizednetwork, but you know, it and it
wasn't called anything, it wasjust like this mess of, of it
(07:58):
was barely networked at all. Andbut we all sort of felt
collectively like I, you know,we sort of had this this couple
months of prayer together as ateam, like, what are we supposed
to do when we graduate becausewe were just sort of like, I'm
not sure if we're just supposedto like graduate and go get jobs
and like abandon what we'veexperienced here in this town.
(08:19):
And so that whole leadershipteam decided we just felt led by
the Lord, like we're supposed tostay in this town and get
whatever jobs we can, but we'resupposed to not choose our
occupations, we're supposed tochoose each other. And this
place that we've been doingfruitful ministry, and, and so
so we stayed in, and then webought houses, and then we're
(08:40):
doing house church stuff. Andwe're doing intentional
community and asset basedcommunity development in certain
neighborhoods of the city. Andit just kept getting like more
and more, sort of chaotic andthat of that thing eventually
became a sister movement in theunderground network. You know,
we got three or four years intothe story of that thing, like
(09:00):
around 2012. I just felt like wewere making a lot of preventable
mistakes. But we and we neededleadership we needed we needed
somebody to learn from, butthey're there. We didn't have a
lot of local we had a greatrelationship with local
churches, but those localchurches knew that we couldn't
learn from them, they couldn'treally teach us based on what
(09:23):
we're trying to do. And sothat's how we got connected
through through a myriad ofevents to Tampa underground. And
and I've came and stayed withTampa underground for like a
month and did like an immersiveand then they sent some leaders
up to live in Illinois with ourcommunity for some time to see
what we're doing. And thatstarted our friendship and we
(09:45):
eventually became one of thesister movements in the
underground network. But thatwas just like a software update.
For us. We were like, oh,minimal ecclesiology and micro
churches and decentralizednetwork and call Lean being the
catalyst for micro church growthand you don't really start micro
churches, you plant mission, youplant the gospel through
(10:06):
incarnational missionaries, yousee if the church may emerge in
God's plan and timing and thatwas all stuff that we were
intuitively doing. But weweren't sure if we were heretics
or not, you know, like we, andwe'd have language for it, we
didn't have a lot of trainingaround it, it was just all
intuitive. So hugely helpful forus. So the long story short is
like I just sort of stumbledinto micro church life as really
(10:28):
my first and primary experienceof church. You know, I didn't, I
didn't, I didn't have a lot todisentangle from, I didn't have
to shift something. I mean, my,my, the first guy that I was,
like, a believer for a handfulof months, and this guy was
discipling. Me and I was justasking him like, hey, if I just
wanted to read some stuff, likeif I just got into reading, what
(10:49):
are some books you'd recommend?
And he put forgotten ways byAlan Hirsch in my hands, like I
was, I was like, three months abeliever
Joshua Johnson (11:00):
that, uh, here you go, this is what we're doing
how we go. That's awesome.
Really, what's the the tensionbetween intuition and actually
doing what the Spirit is leadingyou to do? And then knowledge
and understanding language forwhat you have and structure to
get that done? How can we youkeep both of those and hold
(11:24):
those intention? And what's theimportance of both?
Lucas Pulley (11:30):
Yeah, I mean, that that was, we were definitely in
the in the early days, and weeven still see this now, you
know, leading a network of microchurches, but everybody being in
their own place in theirjourney, so that we run into a
lot of leaders that are justdoing things intuitively, they
don't yet have a level oflanguage, a theological
framework for it. Butessentially, what that that
(11:51):
intuition was always for, atleast in our story, that
intuition was always actuallyjust grounded in and an
encounter with the Lord in thescriptures, right. It wasn't
like, I don't know, pragmaticintuition, or strategic
intuition. It was like, we'rejust soaking in the scriptures
together as a community, andwe're really trying to be
(12:13):
attuned to the spirit, you know,both in in our soaking in the
scriptures, but also just inlife, like walk walking in
prayer without ceasing. And insome kind of like listening,
like listening to the whattrying to pay attention to what
God is doing in the city andjoin in like, we don't actually
go do anything, we just try tolook for what God is doing. And
(12:33):
we join in, we look for who he'swho he's stirring and awakening,
we look for what what evils orsocial issues in the city are
our sort of emerging as, like,the kingdom is sort of invading
those things and sending workersto those things. So the
intuition was always actuallylike emerging from an attunement
(12:53):
with the spirit of soaking inthe scriptures. But yeah, I
mean, eventually that that theproblem there the debt, the
downside there is when it staysintuition, maybe another word
for intuition would beunconscious competence. You
know, like you're, you're doinga thing, but you can't actually
describe to another what thatthing is, because you're sort of
(13:16):
doing it unconsciously. Andunconscious competence is gray.
But anything that you'reunconsciously competent in, you
actually cannot pass on toanother, so it dies with your
generation. And so the helpfulthing about language frameworks,
like getting some organizationor whatever, a lot of that
stuff, basically clarifying theintuition. In in language, and
(13:41):
in theological frameworks thatare true to it. A lot of that
work is essentially moving fromunconsciously competent to
consciously competent, like wecan actually describe with words
and frameworks and tools, whatis what's happening here. So
then you can actually pass it onfrom generation to generation,
you know, like, you can actuallytrain toward that coach toward
(14:02):
that share it diffuse DNA, youknow, through through a
community that can live on. Butof course, like you said, That's
attention because if youovercorrect and then you close
your fist around the the toolsand the frameworks and all that
kind of stuff. And people areactually actually no longer
(14:22):
listen to the spirit and soak inthe strip scriptures. they
memorize tools and frameworks,well, then you then the movement
of the spirits gonna die anyway,you're you're you actually
you'll actually go on the tracktoward becoming unconsciously
incompetent at certain things.
You think you're doing it well,and you're really not.
Joshua Johnson (14:42):
So is that something that you can start to
train for as to be attuned tothe spirit to see what God is
doing in an area and to see whatare the problems in our place?
And then how do you structurethen a micro church around those
sorts of things to actually doaccomplish something that God is
(15:02):
doing or join him and what he'sdoing. Yeah,
Lucas Pulley (15:06):
I mean, we definitely we do our best to try
to attempt to train peopletoward. I'm not even sure if
training is the right word. ButBut yeah, yeah help equip people
toward a concern for listeningto Jesus for their sense of
calling. And, and missionarydestiny to Whom have you been
(15:28):
sent? And I think that is it'sboth like, a sense of people
have different words for thatright of sense of passion, a
sense of destiny, a sense ofcalling a sense of purpose, or
whatever. But there's one thingto have a theology of calling
now that that people do need tolearn, like what is that?
Theologically biblically? Like?
What it what what is that? Whatdo we know about it from the
(15:50):
scriptures? It but it is sort ofa little bit of like a skill set
or a competency to listen forthat or wonder or or discern
that, to discern what that is?
Hear from the Lord in that way?
And that question is theobsession of our community which
you know, like, because we wouldessentially say we don't, we
(16:10):
don't multiply a tool, we don'tmultiply a model, we don't
multiply a method. Or, you know,we don't we don't sit and try to
execute our city and map outlike, what what Pete, the people
of God should? Or shouldn't do?
We just want the priesthood ofall believers to listen to Jesus
(16:32):
and have this vertical encounterabout to whom they are sent,
like, what is, what is he askingthem to do? At this time in this
place in in our moment in ourcontext, and yeah, and to end to
land it, land it tro as and havea Macedonia dream, right to to
(16:54):
like hear from the Lord, likethis is where I should go. So we
and we have some attempts attraining toward that, right, so
we have this thing calledcalling lab. And, and that
calling lab we will do two orthree times a year, we usually
do it on a Saturday. And that'swhere we take both sort of
emerging missionary leaders thathave not yet have had a sense of
(17:17):
narrowed clarity about to whomthey're sent. Try to be really
specific with people. It's notlike you don't have a calling
and then you come to the callinglab and you find one for the
first time. It's like you thatyou know, I think her says like
your baptism is your ordination.
And your conversion is yourcommission. So like the moment
you surrender to Jesus, you havea calling whether whether you
know it or not, you're you'recalled to the revealed will of
(17:38):
God and your time and placeyou're called to the Great
Commission, wherever you live,work and play. All the calling
lab does is doesn't give you acalling for the first time. It
just takes that general calling.
And it's like a contemplativelistening prayer retreat with
the Lord to be like, Lord, doyou want to narrow that general
calling to a spirit to land on aspecific people, for me right
(17:59):
now. And that that whole callingLab Day is built around
Ephesians 210. You know, like,you're God's artwork, you're his
masterpiece. And you are createdin Christ Jesus for a for a good
work in the season, which he hasprepared for you in advance. So
it's like, what's the work thatyou prepare? You've prepared in
(18:22):
advance for me? And part of howI can sort of discern what the
answer to that question is, iswondering, how has he made me
how as an artwork as amasterpiece, and so we basically
just take people for a morningand say, let's do some spiritual
gift tests, let's do some someAP tests, like learning about
(18:44):
how you're wired and what yourwhat some of your involuntary or
biases are, let's do somepassion assessment, emotional
inventory, like what gets youfired up what gets you know,
that matters and, and then somenarrative analysis? Like what
are experiences that God hasbrought you through in the past
that actually might uniquelyqualify you to be an effective
(19:05):
witness to people who are inthat same experience now? What
are groups of people that youhave access to that not
everybody has access to thatmatters. So it's like taking all
those fresh insight data pointsfrom the morning and then
basically just having hours inthe afternoon to just have a
prayer retreat? And just lay allthose lay all that fresh insight
before the Lord and say, I seein new ways right now how you've
(19:30):
made me and I think it was yoursovereign and some of this might
have been with intention. So Godspeak to me about to whom I am
sent in this time in thismoment. And so we when we
typically tell leader even ifeven if a leader has been
through the calling lab beforewe usually tell them like it's
sort of like a nice like a likea prescription to do that every
(19:53):
couple years like it's not likea one and done like I figured it
out and move on. And we've gotfriends there in KC that liked
Calling labs not the only toolout there, right? There's like
our friends over there. AndCasey they have like a GPS
assessment or something likethat. And there's there's other
ones that have your, your, yourpurpose DNA evaluation. So
there's a few of those outthere, but and they all are sort
(20:15):
of moving toward the same thinglike you have as a priest in the
priesthood of all believers, Godhas an intention for your life.
And here's a way to try todiscern discern what that is.
But we've also had people thathave had a very clear calling,
and a very end, which has beenverified by fruit that didn't
(20:36):
have anything to do with some ofthe insights that it didn't make
any sense with the insights thatthey emerged. So the voice of
the Lord doesn't have to likesubmit to like our our cool
personality tests, right? It'slike, he kick me he can send
anybody anywhere. Anytime youget this
Joshua Johnson (20:54):
specific calling this more specific than your
general calling the you'removing out? How do you start to
start or implement a microchurch around it? What is a
micro church? And what are youactually galvanizing? Around?
What Yes, is the central tenantof church? So
Lucas Pulley (21:12):
we would, you know, so we have an ecclesial
met what's called the ecclesiaminimum, which is a theological
belief around the what are thewhat are the minimum things that
needs to be in place thatcollide with each other, and
that thing is suddenly calledchurch, you know, and we've
wanted to be able to clarifythat not as a not as a strategic
(21:34):
asset or a pragmatic belief, butas like a really a theological
belief like what is what is thechurch and how do we keep it in
its in its simplest form, sothat it can multiply in its
simplest form. And then they canget more complex as they go. But
we have to have an imaginationfor it in its simplest form. So
our ecclesial minimum herelocally that we've had for you
know, 1520 years now is worshipcommunity mission, and what we
(21:57):
mean by those things, byworship, we mean, Romans 12
worship we mean my life is afully surrendered living
sacrifice as my spiritual act ofworship. So we don't mean
banging on a guitar, althoughthat's totally good and
wonderful and fine, there's alot of micro churches that do
that. But what we mean is likesurrender, like a community that
(22:18):
is in full surrender to Jesusand and and costly and
sacrificial surrender. And bycommunity, we mean intentional,
extended spiritual family, youknow, so not not see each other
once a week, and then have likea group chat, but like a an
interdependent spiritual familylife on life. And by mission, we
mean that every micro church hasto intentionally proclaim and
(22:40):
demonstrate the kingdom of Godto the last and the poor in some
way. And so now, how that howthat works out is there's two
general types of micro church.
There are mission specific microchurches, which means the
community is gathering around acommon people group calls or
place that they feel called to.
(23:03):
So you know, a handful ofexamples of that would be like,
just one called Timothyinitiative that works with men
that are coming out of addictiondetox facilities, and they do
like whole life discipleship,sort of monastic community,
whole life discipleship withthis community of guys. And they
work on a construction companytogether during the days and do
vocational rehabilitation. And,and there's there's one called
(23:28):
Urban Youth Justice, which isplanting micro churches inside a
juvenile detention facilitiesacross five county radius,
there's one called everlasting,which is a micro church that's
reaching Ultimate Frisbeeleagues in Pinellas County.
There's one called Urbanfellowship that's working with
you gang youth up in a certainarea of town north in North
Tampa, close to the university.
There's obviously some microchurches that are reaching
(23:51):
college students, there's microchurches that are adopting
schools to do mentor programs,you know, so those are like, it
would be hard to join that microchurch if you did not feel a
sense of calling to lay yourlife down to reach those people,
or that place or that cause andand it's really clear how the
like the that the those likestart, as a sense of calling
from a leader, they're actuallygoing to try to get proximity,
(24:14):
presence, powerlessness amongthose people. They're trying to
find a people person of peace,they're trying to see if
disciples start to get made and,and eventually a witnessing
community emerges. Then there'sdistributive micro churches.
That's the second kind.
Sometimes we call themincubators. So those are people
(24:34):
that aren't gathering around aspecific people group or place
like a common sense of calling.
They're gathering around.
Accountability and encouragementand commitment to shared values
and mission are life itselfwherever they live, work and
play. You know, so they're,they're not all reaching the
(24:55):
same people. But everybody ithas a is either too trying to
pursue or knows their sense ofcalling and the people that
they're trying to reach. Andessentially, all those faithful
missionaries have not yet seen achurch emerge among those
people. And you can't just liveisolated for a year, two years,
(25:17):
three years. So it's good. It'shealthy for them to be in a
district basically atdistributive house church that's
made up of people that aretrying to be faithful to
different pockets. And so I leada house church right now in in
my neighborhood. And that one'sa distributive, you know, so my
wife and I feel very called toour neighborhood. It's called
Belmont heights estates. It'sthe largest saturation of
(25:38):
government subsidized housing inTampa Bay. So we live in the
projects and and we have a fewother sort of believer families
that live on our block with uswithin walking, like we just
like go to each other's houses.
For a long time, we were aneighborhood house church. So it
was mission specific. It's likeyou can really only join this
house church, if you want toreach the neighborhood. And, or
if you want to live it, you gotto sort of move into the
(26:01):
neighborhood, I guess the onlyway you Jr. has. But then we you
know, after about three or fouryears, we pivoted to be
distributive, because there wereso many people in the
neighborhood that became part ofour house church, but they
actually had a sense of callingto somewhere not the
neighborhood, and we didn't wantto, like, we didn't want to say
no to that we felt like isimportant to, like, support that
(26:21):
and breathe on that and makeroom for that. So So yeah, now,
you know, I, my wife does somehomeschool Co Op stuff in the
neighborhood just as a mechanismto do incarnational ministry and
I run a repair home home repairservice as a way to do
incarnational ministry in theneighborhood. And then there's a
couple on our block that doesCrossFit ministry. So they they
(26:43):
run a discovery Bible study intheir CrossFit gym on Thursday
nights and they've been in thatgym for a long time. And they're
basically just seen as like thepastor's of the gym at this
point. Like every once in awhile they'll be doing a
competition and let's let thempray. Let's let those the ones
over there. They could be theones that pray to start the
competition, you know, and andthere's a couple that does board
(27:05):
gamer ministry because they'rein this like niche board gaming
community that plays board gamesI've never heard of in my life.
And and so they do the twice amonth they do a board gamer
night where everybody comesover. And then they have these
conversation cards that they'resort of like polling throughout
the night that has thembasically having spiritual
conversations around value andworth and life and worldview.
(27:27):
And then there's a couple thatdoes college student ministry,
there's a couple that does work,workplace ministry in the towers
downtown. So the life of ourcommunity is a little weird,
like we we have open tablediscovery Bible study on Monday
nights, and you just never knowwho's going to be in there. And
And then Wednesday nights, wehave like discipled core of our
community like a dinner. Andthen we have some some out we
(27:49):
support each other's outreachesif we need help, you know, come
alongside each other. So that soyou've got the ecclesial
minimum. It's it's rigid enoughthat we don't we don't say
everything's a micro church.
Like it's pretty specific. Likethere's some things that are
nitrogen, there's some thingsthat not that aren't we've,
we've had plenty of people cometo us and say I'm leading this
(28:10):
micro church, can I be part ofthe network, and we're like,
that's not a micro church likebecause it has some definition
to it. But it doesn't, but ithas a just enough definition
that it allows for what we wouldcall expansive, ecclesial or
adaptive missiology, expansiveecclesiology, right. It's like,
there's a little over 160 Microchurches right now, just in
(28:31):
Tampa Bay. And they look allevery single one of them looks
very different. They're usingdifferent tools, they have
different language, they countdifferent things. Because each
of those micro church leadershas the has quite a bit of
freedom to contextualize for thegroup of people that they're
trying to reach, you know. Sowhat they have in common is the
(28:52):
ecclesia minimum, a sense ofcalling that they're doing that
the reason that micro churchesexist is not because a leader
told them they should do it, butbecause Jesus asked them to do
it. And they have just enoughvalues alignment to make sense.
That's the undergroundmanifesto. They have just enough
theological alignment to makesense. That's the Creed's
creedal orthodoxy. But thenother than that, they're all
(29:14):
very, very different.
Joshua Johnson (29:16):
So if they're distributed, and they're
different, you know, you havemission specific, you'd have
distributive micro churches. Howdo you connect one to another? I
know when I was in the MiddleEast, we started a bunch of
simple churches with Muslimbackground people. And because
of our situation, we actuallycouldn't really connect smaller
(29:37):
house churches together likethey couldn't really know much
about each other. So we were theones telling stories about other
churches to say, Hey, you're notalone in this. It's not just
you. But it does sometimes feelwhen you're in a small
community, which you know, are,I'll just give you in Kansas
City. What we do I go to churchcalled Nava church. Casey We
(30:00):
have, we have home churchesthree times a month, and once a
month, we gather all together asall the home churches in the
city, we come together. And itreally says, Hey, we actually
are a part of a bigger thing.
It's not just our community, howdo you connect to each other?
What does that look like? Andhow do you get people to know
that they belong to somethingbigger than themselves? And
(30:24):
what's the importance of largerconnection?
Lucas Pulley (30:29):
The way that the way that it works for us is that
you know, the the underground issimultaneously two things.
That's why sometimes it's hardto explain. It's a we call it a
maybe a dual operating system.
On the one side, the undergroundis a decentralized network of
micro churches. And those microchurches have access to an
ordination process where theycan join the College of elders.
(30:50):
And then of that college ofelders. There's a handful of
governing elders, you know, sothe all the governance and
church discipline andrestoration processes and
oversight and all that kindstuff that exists in the
decentralized network of microchurches. That network of micro
churches is a non entity. It'snot an LLC, it's not a
nonprofit. It's not a it's not achurch. It is just a relational
(31:12):
coalition. On the other side,the underground, what I work
for, I don't work for thatnobody works for that. The
decentralized network of microchurches. I'm not the executive
director of that I'm part of it.
You know, I happen to be a housechurch leader, I happen to be a
sitting governing elder for aseason. But what I work for what
(31:33):
I'm the executive director of isa is the other side of the
underground, it is a nonprofitplatform of services, which
exists, its exempt purpose towhich every dollar employee
squarefoot contract has to besubmitted is to serve that
decentralized network of microchurches, not power over or
(31:54):
control or predict or anythinglike that. It's like we react to
what the priesthood of allbelievers needs. So that's what
he told me Wilkerson and StaceyGaskins and I were a part of
like a leadership team thatovert helps oversee that. And
that's it, they have a bunch ofservices in their financial
services, media services,coaching, training facilities
(32:15):
and events, all those servicesare are shared, leveraged by the
network of churches, whateverthey need, it's like a buffet
come and get it. One of thoseservices that the platform
offers is convening environmentsfor the network. So because the
if the decentralized networkjust sits back, and they exactly
like you said they need togather they need to connect,
(32:37):
they need to convene. But it's,it can be a little bit
distracting for those microchurches, like who decides? Who
does it? And who? And then howdo they take time out of their
micro church to pull it off? Andhow do they secure space? And
how do they secure like, youknow, it's a, it's a big, it's a
huge load to carry. Sobasically, the missions agency
(32:59):
side, basically says will help,like set the table of convening
environments for the sake of thedecentralized network. So the
missions agency is who securesspace, and a coordination,
project management and then sortof plans, all that kind of
stuff, larger conveningenvironments for the movement.
(33:20):
The way that works right now isthat the movement is broke down
into five area collectives,geographic area collectives,
each of those area collectiveshas their own rhythm of
convening. So central Tampa,that's where I'm at. That's
where I'm a part of the centralTampa area meets weekly on
Sunday morning. So nobody hastheir micro churches on Sunday
morning. And that's a time whenthe then we have a moment where
(33:42):
the micro churches can allconvene with each other or just
the leaders can come they get todecide, each micro church
decides if the leader comes orthe whole micro church comes,
it's up to them. But we have aSunday morning moment, which is
basically just like a conveningof the movement. It's not meant
to be this Open Meeting thatanybody can come to it's sort of
like a family meeting. And it's,it's for the sake of coaching
and training. And like you said,helping people get a sense that
(34:06):
they're a part of a biggerthing. Being able to hear what
God is doing in other places,and learn from that grant hear
catch testimonies from eachother be inspired by that learn
from each other, like littlesecrets, tactics, all that sort
of Think Tank style, all that'scritically important. And so
(34:26):
they they convene in AreaNetwork, area collectives, and
then the whole all those areacollectives get together about
six eight times a year forlarger events like a conference
or a you know, a store like abig testimony or storytelling
banquet. We'll do that once ortwice a year micro church
showcase. These those are all sowe do have like a little bit of
(34:50):
a commute a movement, widerhythm of life, you know, where
it's like, you're with yourmicro church most often. But
then you have some environmentswith your Eric collective and
then occasionally you have Havethese environments with the
whole movement. And those arefor the sake of like you said,
inspiration, encouragement,you're part of a bigger thing.
You're relationally connected toother leaders, you're learning
(35:10):
from what what they're doing,you're seeing what God is doing
in a broader way. So we wouldsay that's critically important,
because in the New Testament,the church isn't, the church
isn't just house churches. It'salso city churches. And, and so
so we want we're trying to bethe church at every level,
(35:32):
though, the way that the newthat Paul and the Jerusalem
Council sort of the way thatthey had an imagination for the
church, not just being bigger,just being small, but they had
an imagination for church thatmade room for it to express
itself at every level, in homes,in cities, and capital, see
universal church and unity. Andso we're trying to create to
(35:57):
birth a movement where peopleare walking in the fullness of
the church at every level, wherethey they have home church,
simple church, small church, butthey also have moments to see
the manifest City Church, andwhere they are, they even feel
connected to global church, andcare about global church.
Joshua Johnson (36:20):
So can you talk a little bit about the the
spaces of belonging, in that ifyou're looking at, at what
church can do in these differentspaces? What are these spaces?
And why are they important forus to be involved in and all of
them,
Lucas Pulley (36:37):
you know, in a in a quick way, you could say
they're, they're important to bein all of them. Because we we
see that biblically, the churchis expressed in all those, you
know, small, medium, to largeways, and it's important to live
it. But it's really interestingi I'm sure you're familiar with
this, but the hall and Myers iswhat's in my my mind, they there
(37:00):
was a guy that came out with aforce basis of belongings in
early 2000s, I think his bookwas called the search to belong.
And his he was a Christian thatwas applying some theories that
was written by a guy back in the60s, on the theory of social
belonging, and they came acrossthis, this under this way of
understand sociological way ofunderstanding belonging that
(37:22):
people actually need to belongin for these four different
spaces. And if they only arebelonging in one or two of these
spaces, they'll start to feelalone or isolated, or like they
don't quite fully belong. Andthose spaces where I think
intimate space is the smallestone, two to four, you know, two
to four people where you canactually be totally vulnerable,
(37:44):
totally yourself wide open,fully known and fully know
others. And then they have thisthe one slightly bigger than
that is personal space, whichcan be like five to 12 people.
Where you can be a part of abroader family, you can share
values, you can find the peoplewith whom you can have
(38:06):
vulnerable space, you typicallydon't find vulnerable space
until you until you're a part ofpersonal space. The one slightly
bigger than that social spaceis, you know, around 20 To 4020
to 40 people. And, and then thebroadest spaces, public space,
75 plus space and 75 plusspaces, like you can't, you
(38:28):
can't know anybody and you can'tbe known but you you have a
roomful of strangers that youfeel like you have something in
common with because there's likea, like a stadium of chiefs
fans, I'll do a Kansas Cityreference, because you're in
Kansas City, you know, it's likeyou can you can feel a sense of
belonging when you're in astadium full of 1000s and 1000s
of people and you don't know anyof them, you know, that would be
(38:50):
like public space belonging. Andthey essentially did gobs of
research on helping realize thatyou can be a part of public
space and social space. But ifyou don't have any personal
space environments, or intimatespace environments, you you'll
struggle to feel like youbelong. And you'll actually have
other sort of social anxietiesor social dysfunctions from not
(39:13):
being a part of environmentslike that, in the same way, you
could be a part of intimatespace and personal space. But if
you don't have those otherspaces of belonging, for
instance, a house church that isnot connected meaningfully to a
broader, city wide communitythat can have certain effects on
people's sense of belonging. Ijust think it's hilarious when
(39:33):
sociologists give their wholelives studying something. And
they just discover what's likeplainly stirred true in the
scriptures.
Joshua Johnson (39:41):
Like Jesus said, This is what Jesus did, right?
It's
Lucas Pulley (39:44):
like he had he had this inner three, and then he
had the 12. And then he likepreached and then he had the 72.
And he preached to the crowds orwhatever. And it's like, you can
see that in the life of Jesus.
And then you can see it in theNew Testament church, you know,
that they had house churches andCity Church. And so I think the,
you know, obviously like theprevailing model of the church
(40:05):
and the like legacy models ofthe church that have sort of
helped to solidify an existingimagination of the church as
bigger is better, large, megaattraction, all that kind of
stuff. Essentially, those arelike ready ways to create public
spaces of belonging for people.
(40:30):
And then typically, maybe inthose environments, there can be
like a little bit of visioncasting for, like, we have a
small group network, you know,whatever. So then there's like,
some personal space belonging,but I, you know, a lot, I think,
I think these are generalizedstrokes, right. But a lot of
times in those environments,you'll have a hard time finding
vulnerable space or socialspace, and that has certain
downsides. But in the same way,like you said, earlier, there
can be a lot of house churchnetworks that are that are flush
(40:52):
with intimate space and personalspace, but you don't have any
social or public. And there'sdownsides to that, too. And so I
think we're, we're, we're tryingto capture a, a, a rhythm of
imagination that helps us liveinto all the not just the, you
know, sociological, socialspaces. But the way that those
(41:14):
things actually point to us, thebiblical foundations of the
manifest church and all of itsforms at every fractal.
Joshua Johnson (41:21):
That's teaching other other week, and I was
talking to a bunch of, of legacypastors, and you know, they were
talking, we're talking movement.
And I think I basically said, Ifyou don't really believe in the
priesthood of all believers,it's not going to work. And if
you do believe in the priesthoodof all believers, it's gonna be
messy. And either you, you wantcontrol, and you could have a
little bit of control and you'renot going to actually see any
(41:44):
movement. Or you're going towant some messiness and believe
in the priesthood of allbelievers and go, How can we
enter into that space andbelieve in the priesthood of all
believers? Yeah, be okay withsome mess? Because, well, it's
gonna be messy no matter what,even if we try to control it,
it's going to be messy. So yeah,why don't we just give it to
somebody who just go for it?
Lucas Pulley (42:08):
You know, sometimes we get we use the word
que order, okay, chaotic,sometimes chaos and order. So
you know, we're always trying topursue like a, a chaotic
environment that when you whenyou when you believe in the
priesthood of all believers,and, and the the other side of
that coin, when you believe inthe priesthood of all believers
is that you also believe thatJesus is the proper head of the
(42:28):
church, not us, right, that'sthe other side of the priesthood
of all believers. And so we'reactually restoring whenever
we're trying to pursue theactivation of the priesthood of
all believers, we're also tryingto pursue the restoration of
Jesus as the proper head of thechurch and us in our right
rightful places, you know, undershepherds, or a clippers or
activators. And that's how, youknow, they were just totally
(42:49):
losing grip of any version oflike control or alignment
strategies, or, you know, likeguard rails and that kind of
stuff. And it starts to feel awhole lot like chaos. But there
are ways to have just enoughorder that behind the chaos,
(43:11):
that does keep it healthy. Chaosdoesn't equal healthy order
doesn't equal healthy. What wewant is healthy. So we don't, we
don't want chaos. We don't wantorder what we want is healthy,
and healthy, looks chaotic. Youknow, it's this, it's sitting in
the middle of that tension. It'smerging that tension. But man, I
(43:32):
agree, there's so many thingsthat and I've, you know, we've
got a high level ofcollaboration and partnership
with a lot of local churcheshere in Tampa, you know, so
we're friends with with a, we'rea part of a broader city wide
collaboration of churches, both,you know, prevailing mega
historic micro, you know, so weroll with a lot of these guys
(43:55):
and so I empathize with a lot ofthem the situation that they're
in and, and, and how much needsto shift or change and the and
the difficulty of that it's sodifficult, even for the most
well meaning leader and team,but man, it's worth it's worth
trying. It's worth running afterit. You know, we I mean, we have
(44:16):
several friends that are sort oflike, yeah, I want to do
something that it's essentiallylike you're saying, I don't
think anybody disagrees with thepriesthood of all believers. But
I think so many of them arelike, casting vision from the
pulpit for the act of like theemergence of the priesthood of
all believers and let's take thechurch outside the four walls
(44:37):
and like let's all find ourBlitz, I'll join with God and
what he's doing in the city.
Everybody's like saying it fromthe pulpit or saying it from
classrooms or whatever. But theculture and structure of the
church itself actually competeswith the words you know, and
the, you know, culture eachtribe As you for breakfast, you
(44:59):
know, you have all these termsthat are like, you can, you can
say with your words and try todo technical solutions to, to
the barriers that you're facing.
But but you've got to start toaddress both the structures that
are in place that get in the wayof that there's some of that's
around money where it goes whereit spent. Some of its around
(45:22):
decision making and power, whogets to decide some of its
around like even even even theidea of like church vision, what
does that even mean? If you'retrying to activate the
priesthood of all believersvision is, vision is like one
leader, like the lead megaglobal pastor Hina hook hearing,
they're the ones that get tohear from LISTEN to Jesus, about
their sense of calling, they getto go up the mountain and hear
(45:45):
from the Lord. And then theycodify that sense of calling
into a vision statement. Andthen they're just trying to
align 1000s of people to thatone vision, so nobody else gets
to hear from Jesus. And if theydo, and they hear a sense of
calling that diverges, somehow,from this one sense of calling,
well, you gotta go findsomewhere else, you know, so
even our sense of like, who getsto have a vision, how that
(46:09):
vision integrates, or doesn'tintegrate with the sort of scope
of the community and to our, ouraspirations around alignment.
That all gets, that all getsmessy, and it has to be
completely rethought. You know,it has to be it has to be, you
got to count the cost and reallynegotiate like, what are we? How
chaotic are we We're willing toget? And what are the things
we're willing to let go of,
Joshua Johnson (46:30):
you know, as I've been training, and been
involved in decentralizednetworks for for many years,
there's a couple of things thatI, I get that the number one
question is how do you preventheresy? All right, that's good.
Yes. Right, you know, thepriesthood of all believers, so
I'll let you answer that justyet. But the other one, I think,
is a newer question, becausewe're dealing with it in the
churches, how do you? How do youprevent abuse and smaller
(46:55):
settings, especially when, youknow, it's a family oriented
place where you have youngchildren and families and
people? So how do you prevent orhelp in those situations, when
you have small groups around thecity?
Lucas Pulley (47:12):
Deal with the first one, you know, the, the
heresy question, you know, a bigpart of a non practical part of
that answer is essentially,like, the bit is letting go of
our sense of control a littlebit, because we have to trust
that Jesus can actually, youknow, lead the church, and, you
(47:36):
know, and that, and that Jesusis able to convict and the Holy
Spirit is able to teach and, andthat Jesus can actually protect
his church from heresy betterthan we ever could. And now that
doesn't, it's an abdication ofresponsibility on our part to be
like our just like laissezfaire, and we don't care about
it, but it's essentially us weare on our end, obviously, we
(47:58):
have a college of elders andwithin we have a governing elder
body and that governing elderbody, it is an active body that
that is called into action whenthere are matters in leader in
in the leadership of any microchurch that are a breach of the
Covenant commitments thatthey've made to the relational
network. So that's like moralfailures, or marriage breakdown,
(48:21):
or accusations of abuse ortheological straying, those
would all constitute breach ofcovenant commitments. And those
would all be situations wherethe governor governing elders
can jump in and get involved andhave healthy church discipline
practices and restorationprocesses. So we have strong
(48:41):
governance and we take it reallyseriously. But at the same time,
we're not running around everyweek and checking in on every
micro church, we're sort oftrusting that like God is going
to bring things to the attentionof the governing elders, through
coaching or through training orthrough the or through the
relational network when theyhave gotten to a place where
they need responded to, andplenty of examples of that over
(49:03):
the last 10 or 15 years oftheological strain that required
some dialogue and that kind ofthing. Now, the of the I think
the abuse question is a greatquestion, too, you know, and,
and as a side point on both ofthese on the heresy and the
abuse question, it they'reeasier conversation to have when
it's almost like you canacknowledge on the front end
that like the prevailing ortraditional model of church
(49:26):
isn't like a non heresy, nonabuse setting. And now like,
we're allowing it over here,it's like, no, there's plenty
over here that we have neverbeen able to figure out how to
prevent or something like that.
So, so it's almost like yeah,we're there. It's it exists in
both places, and it looksdifferent ways. But so yeah, we
in the same way we this isanother reason why it's
(49:46):
important for house churches,simple churches, micro churches,
to not remain in isolation. Theythey abuse can be prevalent when
something is advocate aidid as asimple church or house church,
and it's not in submission toanything outside of itself,
there's that didn't you have no,you have no recourse if
(50:07):
something happens inside thathouse church, and there's no
checking or oversight orgovernance, anything that is not
in submission to something elseis already unhealthy. Even Even
if internally, there isn'tsomething that's like clearly
unhealthy yet, if it is inisolation, and not in submission
in any way to something outsideof itself, it is unhealthy. And
(50:28):
so that's why we've tried it,the even the idea of
decentralized network isimportant that these things are
actually a part of somethingbigger. And part of the front
door of being part of thatsomething dif that something
bigger is making very clearcovenant commitments to the
relational network aroundcharacter and conduct and how
(50:50):
you will lead. And so we havethat we have a leaders covenant
that every single micro churchsees and discerns and reads and
agrees to and if they can'tagree to it, they can't be a
part of our network. And inthat, there's a section in there
around like your personalspiritual life, like I'm going
to I'm going to remain, I'mgoing to maintain a vibrant
(51:11):
prayer life I am going to bepursuing, you know, I'm going to
exemplify the characters of theof an elder, as laid out in
Timothy and Titus. But there's asection around how you will lead
it's like, I am not going toexploit my people at any time
for personal gain. I am I goingto lead in radical generosity I
am if I'm ever in conflict withanother person or another
(51:36):
leader, I am going to be insubmission to the Matthew 18
processes and a commitment toreconciliation and restoration
and mediation if necessary. Sowe lay all that out and, and
have people and have peopleagree to it. And there's a line
in that in those documents thatsay, If I am ever found to be in
(51:56):
breach of these commitments, Iwill submit to the leadership of
the governing elders in my life,you know, so if they if they
ever do have an accusationagainst them, and then the
governing elders come and showup at their door and say, Hey,
we're here to talk about that.
And they're like, When did Iever invite you to be a part of
(52:18):
this? We can say, remember, whenyou did we also do I mean, we
live in the year 2024. Right? Sowe also obviously do background
checks for every single microchurch leader we do. We have
child protection policies thatare on file, and we you know,
those are things that are likeimportant for any organization
right now in the world we livein.
Joshua Johnson (52:38):
Yep. Now, that's really good. I think, you know,
we're, I think everybody that isin this decentralized space are
so are starting to realize ifthey haven't yet, oh, we really
have to figure this thing out.
Yes. And so that's really good.
You know, Lucas, I wish we hadat least another hour or so I
could just go deep into whatdoes it look like? How do we
multiply things? I'd love to getinto the multiplication. So
(53:00):
maybe we'll we'll have to dothat. Another time. Part two.
But so the couple of questions Iusually ask the ends, yeah,
yeah. One, if you go back toyour 21 year old self, what
advice would you give?
Lucas Pulley (53:15):
Who 21 year old self? What advice would I give?
Yeah, I think I would tell my 21year old self, to make more to
take very seriously and makemore room for the contemplative
disciplines. Sabbath. Solitude,you know, I went, I went too
(53:37):
long, in my younger years, Ithink, you know, thinking those
things were either optional, orif or if I did pursue them,
pursued them sort of in alegalistic or, like rote way,
you know, you know, if I didtake a Sabbath, it was sort of
like, just lay on the couch andwatch Netflix in which isn't a
Sabbath, you know, it's likejust this like, row definition
(53:59):
of like, don't work. But I thinktrying to trying to figure out
early in my earlier in my life,what is rest for me, what is
restful for me, and trying todiscern that with the Lord and
then have that invade Sabbathrhythms for me. And then, you
know, modeling my solitude andcontemplation, my practices of
(54:22):
spiritual formation a little bitmore around some of my self
discovery around Enneagram. Andsome of that stuff, like, my
spiritual disciplines don't haveto look the same as everybody
else's in the world, but I sortof need to pay attention to the
growth edge of my spiritualformation, and to really press
into spirit to disciplines that,that intersect the structuring
(54:44):
of my soul right now. You know,I wish I would have paid more
attention to that in my 20s.
Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (54:51):
that's really good. That's good. What have you
been reading or watchinganything you'd recommend? I
Lucas Pulley (54:58):
don't I just read I have a book called Art of
Asking by Amanda Palmer I thinkis her name secular book not
Christian a content warningthere is like some stuff in
there that's like not not superChristian. You know, I found it
very fascinating like the youknow, just as an Enneagram three
personally that like wants tolike go out and accomplish and
(55:21):
be interdependent, you know,rural Midwestern family like
dupe, pull it pull yourself upby your bootstraps, do
everything on your own, youknow, I found there was no
totally I found that book but Ihave a really hard time leaning
on people asking for help I havea really hard time to depending
on a team working through a teamand so I just found a lot of the
(55:44):
insights in that book reallybreathtaking just around the the
the art of asking for help andit is actually one of the
building blocks of relationshipand community when you do when
you when you don't ask for helpand you're self dependent in
Egypt things are like selfevident but but the way she told
that that book was laid out inthe in story was really winsome
(56:05):
for me. So that was great. Andwatching I pretty much just
watch the office and parks andrecreation and Ted last Oh, on
repeat that's I don't reallywatch much else. But But, but I
do think Ted lasso you know, theother two are just sort of like
guilty pleasures. But Ted lassois a great show that
(56:28):
demonstrates the systems theory.
If you if you ever look into ifyou listen to managing
leadership anxiety, or read thebook or see any SD of Casa stuff
on how anxiety doesn't justaffect people, it affects
communities and it hijackscommunities. And then what does
it mean for a welldifferentiated leader to bring
(56:49):
health to an unhealthy system?
Ted lasso is just a brilliantexample of, I think
differentiated leadership in ourtime.
Joshua Johnson (57:00):
I agree, as greats. Well, Lucas, thank you
so much for this conversation. Ilove getting into to micro
churches, a little bit of yourstory. How do we believe in the
priesthood of all believers? Howdo we not have things chaotic
but and not have thingscontrolling that we could
actually lead into somethingthat where there's a tension
(57:21):
that could actually birth theSpirit of God within our
networks and movements? And, youknow, I loved the going from
general calling to specificcallings for people and to say,
Hey, these are the people thatGod has called me to, I'm going
to galvanize around that. Andwe're going to have a group of
people say, let's go and bring acommunity of followers of Jesus
(57:48):
into the space and see what Goddoes because he's moving. And
your thing of saying, where'sGod moving, and let's join him
in what he is doing. I thinkit's absolutely critical and
crucial. We don't follow amethod but we actually follow
God and the Spirit as he moves.
So Lucas, thank you for this. Itwas fantastic.
Lucas Pulley (58:08):
Thank you, brother.
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