November 20, 2024 • 51 mins
Join my discussion with guest Dr. Andrew Root, author of "When Church Stops Working." Together, we dissect how the relentless drive for growth impacts pastoral health which then leads to burnout and and the threat of early departure from ministry. Discover how pursuing resonance over acceleration can breathe new life into our spiritual communities.
Our discussion takes a reflective turn as we explore the powerful act of waiting, a rare but transformative practice in today's fast-paced world. Delve into the primal sin of outpacing God (isn't that a nice way to say "avoid burnout") and learn how living within our human constraints can lead to profound spiritual renewal.
Finally, Dr. Root shares experiences of those who've faced burnout, often unaware until it's too late. We offer tangible resources like a free burnout questionnaire to help leaders assess their well-being. This episode is an essential listen for anyone navigating church life, seeking to maintain authenticity and spiritual integrity in a world that demands constant acceleration.
Link to When Church Stops Working by Andrew Root.
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Margie
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Margie (00:01):
Hey there, it's Margie Bryce, your host of CrPastor
Pastor podcast, where we talkabout all things sustainability,
whether it's sustainability inministry, in your personal life
and we acknowledge that thechurch is in a transitional time
, so we hit topics there toothat are going to stretch your
(00:22):
mind and the way you lead,especially how you lead yourself
, so that you don't become thecrabby pastor.
Hey there, this is Margie Brycewith the Crabby Pastor Podcast,
and I have a guest here todaythat I heard speak recently at
(00:46):
the streaming conference atRochester Christian University
recently, and before then I hadgotten his book and trolled
through it.
It's called when Church StopsWorking.
Now, this really doesn't have alot to do with the
functionality of your church.
Exactly, Sort of the subtitleis A Future for your
(01:16):
Congregation Beyond More Money,Programs and Innovation.
So I have Andrew Root here, DrAndrew Root here with me, and we
are going to talk about hisbook.
The contents and some of thethings that I think are
definitely tie in with yourself-care and your
sustainability in ministry asyou seek to live into God's call
for you and as you serve thepeople God has given to you to
(01:41):
serve.
Andy (01:54):
Sure, well, first, thanks for having me.
It's great to be on here.
Well, as you're talking to me,I'm in St Paul, Minnesota, so I
live in the Twin Cities and Iteach at Luther Seminary here.
I've been on the faculty ofLuther for almost 20 years.
This is my 20th academic year,so I don't know where time has
gone, but it has gone somewhereover these last nearly two
decades.
But yeah, I have written forthe last 20 years or so on
(02:18):
really the practice of ministryand thinking about it
theologically but trying to kindof lace together the
philosophical elements, thetheological elements, and then
the practical elements of thepractice of ministry really.
So I've written for youthpastors and thought about youth
ministry law, but then alsothought about pastoral practice
and congregational life.
And my project the last gosh,maybe seven years or so has been
(02:42):
really writing on ministry in asecular age, and so I have
multiple books kind ofaddressing that.
And in this book that youkindly referenced is a kind of
well, I mean a synthesis of alot of those thicker books, a
book that's trying to distillsome of the major ideas, and I
had a lot of pastors who readthose books, were kind enough to
(03:03):
read those books, and thenwanted to take some of those
ideas into church councils andbroader conversations across the
congregation and just needed alittle bit thinner synthesis of
those ideas.
And so that's where when ChurchStopped Working comes from, and
so, yeah, really happy to talkabout it today.
Margie (03:22):
Sure, so is this like the cliff notes of all your big
volumes?
Andy (03:29):
Well, kind of sort of.
I mean, in some ways it is sortof the cliff notes of it.
I'll say this it's stripped ofa lot of the footnotes.
I happen to be addicted tofootnotes and anyone who's read
my other work knows that there'salways a ton of footnotes at
the bottom of each page and soit's getting rid of that.
(03:49):
And yeah, cliff notes maybe.
Yeah, I guess sort of I I don'twant to, I don't know.
I don't know how people feelabout cliff notes, like, if it's
no, no, I mean, that's how Iuse cliff notes in high school
is it was a way to keep me fromactually.
Yeah, was it cheating?
I don't know if it was cheating, but it was the lazy person's
(04:12):
way out.
Margie (04:13):
So I don't think the book is bad for folks.
All right, all right, all right.
I stand corrected?
Andy (04:19):
Well, no, I think that's fair in the sense that is a
distilling a more kind of directkind of articulation of the big
points.
Margie (04:26):
So I guess at that level it's cliff notes, yeah.
Okay, so all right, what Iwanted to say I'd just start out
.
Having listened to yourpresentation at the conference
recently, I mean you reallyarticulated well our current
(04:49):
situation in the church, that weare really swimming.
This is my distillation of whatyou said.
We're swimming in thick soupfor sure, Because I listened to
what you said and I thoughtsurely this is a very
transitional time for the church, big C, and trying to figure
out what next steps and I knowwe're in a secular age, I know
(05:13):
where some people freak out whenyou say post-Christianity in
this culture.
But what you presented aboutacceleration was I came away
thinking, oh my gosh, we're inworse shape than what I thought,
and maybe some of that's fromhanging in the Christian bubble,
(05:34):
I don't know.
But talk to us some about theacceleration.
Andy (05:40):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, I think that itwould be crazy and your
listeners would probably think Iwas crazy if I were to say
we're not in a crisis like that,everything's fine.
It's true, we are in a crisis,but I think my larger point is
well, I mean, maybe this is justcommon when you're in a crisis,
it's hard to really know what'sgoing on.
(06:01):
You know, like the crisis of acar accident, you're like what
happened?
What hit me?
You know, you feel a kind of adeep sense of disequilibrium in
the midst of the crisis, and soit's not uncommon for us to feel
very dizzy that we're in thiscrisis, and I think that leads
us to misinterpret what thecrisis is, and we tend to think
the crisis is that we've lostpeople, that there are fewer
(06:24):
people, therefore there arefewer dollars, there are fewer
resources, that everything isdeclining, and I do think that
you would have to be prettynaive or have your head in the
sand and not recognize thatthat's a fact.
You know, like our institutionsare weaker, but I don't know
that that's the heart of theissue.
I think what the crisis is isthat it becomes much more
(06:46):
difficult to talk about a livingGod in this cultural context.
And what makes that much moredifficult is not even that
people deny it or there's thisincredible wave of kind of a
militant atheism going on.
I just think that a lot ofpeople, the way their lives are
organized, they don't even andthis gets the acceleration point
don't even have time to reallystop and think about whether
(07:10):
there's a deep metaphysicalreality at the center of the
universe or whether you knowthere's the living God of Israel
could still speak and move.
I mean, if they get themselvesinto a religious space, they may
do that, or if they're thrustinto deep levels of grief, they
may at times feel God callingfor them, but in the kind of day
to day before the deepinterruption, god as a living
(07:32):
reality becomes harder forpeople to hold on to.
So one of the dynamics thatplays out within this, or one of
the realities that makes itpossible and I think I said this
to the group at the event youwere at that this is a weird
kind of time, because you canhear people say things at coffee
shops like you know, I'm takinga break from God for a while,
(07:52):
you know like or you can hearpastors people have gone through
seminary and ministry trainingand they'll say you know, I just
left this position and I justthink I really need just to take
a break from God for a whileand, you know, just figure out
what's going on.
And I think that makes sense tous.
Oddly, I think that that makesa lot of sense to us, that, oh
yeah, that that seems coherent,that seems culturally coherent.
(08:14):
And yet my point is,historically, if a medieval
person would hear us say that,they would think we're saying up
is down and down is up.
or you know that you could takea break from breathing, that you
just couldn't do that.
So what allows that possibilitythat across our cultural
reality, people could perceivethat they could forget about God
(08:35):
or they could decide to take abreak from God and then their
lives could go on?
And one of the dynamics thatallows for that, I think in that
eclipsing of the sense thatthere is a divine actor in the
world, is the way that themodern project continues to
speed us up and ask us to gofaster and faster, for multiple
different reasons that asks usto do this, but this just
(08:56):
imposes this kind of sense wherewe don't even have time to
reflect on what's the meaning oflife or what's the point of my
existence.
You just got to get on from onething to the next.
And we tend to feel like wereally have to do that because
the winning strategy and thesense that we have to win has
the sense of trying to do morewith less, trying to try to
extract more value out of ouractions, and it does lead to
(09:20):
this kind of what I've called atime sickness, where we feel
like the kind of transcendentqualities of life aren't there.
Or the great social theoristMax Weber, who talks about the
disenchantment of the Westernmodern world.
Well, part of the way that thisworld becomes disenchanted is
we become so fast within it andthe acceleration becomes so all
(09:43):
out that we don't even have timeto reflect on the deeper, more,
more kind of even mysticalrealities that exist within our
world.
And who's got time for mystery?
Margie (09:53):
You know, you just yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you know
.
And then one point you weretalking about feeling like we're
in crisis, and I would say toothat you know, as the sense of
crisis and your anxiety goes upalong with that, you know the
thinking department definitelyshuts down, which is really less
(10:18):
than helpful, and you'redescribing us operating on a
scarcity mindset and feelingunder the gun.
Meanwhile, I've also read a lotin magazines like the Atlantic
and places.
People are not having childrentoday because there's no meaning
to life, and I thought, oh mygoodness of all things, the
(10:38):
birth rate is declining becausepeople don't have a sense of
meaning in their lives, but yetthey have cut themselves off
from the very place wheremeaning is given out.
Andy (10:55):
Yeah, I mean it's very dystopian in some sense that
people feel like the future isso bleak broadly, like the
future is so bleak broadly thatand then I think they I think
it's a dual thing, that theyfeel like the future is so bleak
that there's not much meaning,but also their lives don't feel
like there's there's muchmeaning within it.
So why would you want to sharethat meaning with someone else,
(11:16):
or that meaninglessness withwith someone else?
Hence the reason not to havehave children.
I mean, it is a.
It is a very interestingdynamic that you lose the sense
of trying to give life tosomething else when you feel too
exhausted.
I don't know.
It's an odd kind of moment thatwe're in that you need to
(11:38):
somehow breathe in the goodnessof life, to want to pass it on.
And yeah, what does that mean?
I mean, we've thought aboutthis.
My wife and I have thought agreat deal about this.
We have two budding youngadults, a 20-year-old and a
17-year-old, and there used tobe the presumption that your
kids would have you would havegrandkids.
(11:59):
That was a pretty good bet, andnow it's not.
You know it's.
Who knows if that will willhave that opportunity or not
have that opportunity and, yeah,it's fascinating that that this
younger generation is making,making that choice out of senses
of great despair, but also outof competitive advantage, and I
think we miss that either, likeyou know, you may have
(12:21):
competitive advantage to succeed, or to harvest all the
resources that will make yourlife meaningful.
or the experiences.
Can you really experience thefullness of life, like all the
trips and all the parties andall those experiences, if you're
tied to a child child you know,like how can you really, in
(12:47):
this odd way, how can you reallysuck the marrow out of life if
you have to give all your moneyand all your attention to, to
someone else, though there havebeen deep traditions that that
that's exactly where you findthe good life, you know yeah,
that's where.
Margie (12:57):
Yeah, you certainly come away with a different focus and
appreciation, like a focus likeoh, it's not all about me, you
know when, if it is all aboutyou, you know, like.
Andy (13:10):
If that's the only way to find meaning, no wonder we have
a generation.
That's just like.
I don't think that I want tohave kids.
First of all, maybe the earthis going to implode ecologically
and secondly, it's got to beall about me, you know like, and
that doesn't work.
Margie (13:28):
So well, I was looking through your book and talking
about the acceleration and howthat even impacts the church,
the sense of you know you got tokeep running on the hamster
wheel to keep all the programsand everything going all the
time.
And that's an area of compassionfor me where I just look at
(13:52):
ministry leaders, having beenone for a number of years myself
and thinking about theacceleration and the sense of
it's never broadly stated ascompetition, although I did sit
in a meeting once among pastorsand they said, oh, we always
gripe this is a well-knownphenomenon among clergy we
(14:16):
always gripe about stuff, butlet's start the meeting out this
time and let's share somethinggood that's going on.
So we go around the room, we getthis one guy and he says you
know, well, I'm just thankingGod for the million dollar
expansion that we just did.
And I just was like, okay, youwould have been good, but you
didn't have to say the number.
(14:37):
And so there is, you know, somecompetitiveness and some
churches deal with, you know,the mega church down the corner
or down the street or whatever,and and just trying, feeling
like you're doing everything youcan to keep your head above
water.
And that's where in your bookyou started talking about a
(15:00):
different way of doing church.
You want to start us off withsome of that.
Andy (15:07):
Yeah Well, I think that you're really right that there
is a deep, whether we want it ornot, there's a deep level of
competition that plays in andmaybe sometimes that always is
in fronted.
But we kind of feel like Ithink pastors feel a lot like if
things go wrong with theirchurch it's their fault and so
when someone else just says wedid, like you're saying, a
(15:28):
million dollar capital campaign,the reflex response is we could
never do that or I couldn'tpull that off, and therefore
that person's in a better spot.
And I think part of it is thatthat competition is just there.
But one of the things I don'tthink we've taken enough
consideration in is that, youknow, part of this has been with
(15:50):
us for a long time, but therewas a lot of well, there was a
lot of growth available.
You know like, especially inthe middle of the 20th century,
people could there was stillprobably competition, but you
could succeed, you could haveyour church grow.
But now I think we're at a timefor different economic reasons,
that's probably a much longerstory where there's not a ton of
(16:11):
growth out there.
And when there's not a lot ofgrowth out there, then you enter
into a much more competitivesituation and growth becomes,
oddly, the main measure of value.
Like, how are you growing yourcongregation, whether that's
financially, I mean there's somesense.
You have to grow the capitaland it leads to competition.
But really what I think makesthat competition I mean there's
(16:34):
a sense of who's best that makesit intense that competition.
I mean there's a sense of who'sbest that makes it intense.
But the other level is that ifyou fail, it's not even about
you not making your church intoa mega church or something.
It's about you fall right offthe hamster wheel, right off the
treadmill.
So part of it is you have torun faster and faster just to
stay in the same place.
Like the inertia of the wholekind of cultural reality is that
(16:57):
if you don't work harder or theassumption is there if you
don't work harder, then youwon't be able to keep what you
have.
You know you won't have as manyyouth and youth group, you
won't have as many members asyou have, your budget will be
smaller.
If you don't work 10 percent,20 percent harder next year, you
won't stay in the same place,you'll be sucked back and that
(17:19):
is incredibly despairing andcreates huge amounts of burnout.
I mean, just burnout becomesthe real existential crisis, I
think, for many.
So the response to this is likehow do you get this accelerated
mode, this competitive mode,this well, this scarcity of just
(17:39):
trying to even keep what wehave?
How do we get that out of ourconsciousness, how do we get
that really out of our moralimagination of what is good?
And the issue is that it won'tjust be the absence of that that
will do it.
We're going to need somethingactually productive or something
that reframes us, more thanjust saying let's all not work
(18:03):
so hard or let's all take abreak.
We're going to need a differentway of relating to the world,
and both the accelerated kind ofinterpretation and the response
of it I take from a Germansocial theorist named Hartmut
Rosa, who's, I think, reallyquite a genius interpreter of
our cultural context.
And Rosa's point is slowing downis necessary and we should take
(18:25):
everything we can do to slowdown, but in the midst of
slowing down, you can't justcreate a vacuum.
If you just create a vacuum, itwon't do it.
These structures are tooinsidious.
The way that this speeding upworks, the way this competition
works.
They're just too insidious thatyou could just say I'm going to
take a break from them.
They'll reach for you, they'llgrab for you.
(18:46):
So you're going to need adifferent way of relating to the
world.
And he says we have this, thoughI mean, we do have experiences
in the world that don't feelaccelerated, that we still do
have these experiences where wedon't feel like time is using us
but we're being pulled into thefullness of time, where time
isn't racing through us but wefeel almost he doesn't he uses
(19:07):
this kind of analogy as a socialtheorist that we have these
kind of sacramental experiencesof time too, where it feels full
, it doesn't feel like it'saccelerating, but it feels like
it's drawing us into somethingdeeper.
And he says you know, thesekinds of experiences we have are
like looking at a beautifulpainting or having a long
conversation with our grandchildor our child, where we feel
(19:30):
like there's this deep sense ofbeing alive, of resonating, and
he calls this kind of action ofresonance where we feel this
deep, deep form ofating.
And he calls this this kind ofaction of resonance where we
feel this deep, deep form ofconnection.
And this is the ultimateproblem that takes us back to
the beginning of thisconversation is that
acceleration alienates us.
It ends up alienating us fromourself, it alienates us from
(19:51):
our congregation.
It ultimately and tragically,dangerously alienates us from
the world where we feel likewe're not in the world.
We feel like nothing in theworld speaks to us.
We're too exhausted to have anexperience where we feel spoken
to, whether directly by otherpeople, or spoken to by the
(20:12):
beauty, by the fullness of life.
We're just too exhausted forthat.
We're moving too fast to havethose experiences.
So his point that I really quiteagree with and have tried to
build on is is how do we createspace for these resonant
experiences?
How do we look at really churchlife as congregational life, as
a school that teaches peoplehow to relate to one another in
(20:36):
the world and then ultimately asGod, in this cadence of
resonance over acceleration, andthat may start to infuse us not
with a bunch of resources thatallow us to win the market, but
it may infuse us with life.
And I think ultimately what thechurch is after is living
(20:58):
inside the life of Jesus Christand therefore the life of the
Spirit, which means that life isreally a connotation, the real
marker of what it means to befaithful, not growth or
expansion, which too often weassume.
Margie (21:14):
Right, right for sure.
And the acceleration justpushes us, like you said, to the
place where you can't even makethose kind of connections.
I was just talking to a friendearlier today and said something
about a tragic incidence thathappened in her town and she was
out of town at the moment andshe goes oh no, that happened
(21:36):
right in my neighborhood.
And I said, oh really.
And she said, oh yeah, rightaround the corner.
And I said, oh, so you knowthese people?
And she goes well, no, I don'tknow these people.
And so I thought you know, andI thought that many times you
can live in a neighborhoodsetting and be close to people
and still not ever connect, andsometimes it's because you don't
(21:58):
have time.
The North American work ethicand the press, press, press has
pressed its way into the churchand we forget that we need to be
making connections with people.
It is more about relationshiptoday than ever before.
That is the gold, the gold key,if you will.
(22:22):
But we're running too fastsometimes to even to even do
that.
That's horrible implications foranything you know outreach or
yeah, yeah.
Connect yeah.
Andy (22:34):
It's even really the news cycle.
I mean, you know, you think ofthe stuff that's happened in the
last my gosh, in the last fewmonths that if you would have
saw it in a like 1990s, early2000 movie you would have been
like this is not realistic.
And now it's like in our news.
You know you would have thoughtthis plot of this movie, this
(22:55):
would never happen.
And now it's there, like, forinstance, you know, I mean just
to raise one.
Like you know that Israel getsbombs and beepers that blow up
in in the you know, blow uptheir enemies.
Years ago you would talk aboutthis all the time.
How did this happen?
How did this occur?
It was in the news cycle forlike two or three days and now
(23:22):
it's just kind of gone and youkind of think to yourself did
that happen or did I make thatup?
And it is so surreal.
You think that, like, thingsare moving so fast we can't even
reflect on.
What does this mean?
How did this happen?
What kind of world are weliving in?
We're just on to the next thing, and maybe it has a lot to do,
or it's encapsulated in how wetend to entertain ourselves,
which I hate to admit this, butmy wife, kar, and I do this.
(23:45):
We just, you know, eitherTwitter or Instagram.
You just watch two minute videosover and over and over and over
.
You know, like you just keepscrolling through them and at
the end of an hour of doing that, you haven't really watched
anything.
You've distracted yourself, butyou haven't.
It's not like you're moreinformed or you saw something
beautiful, you laughed, maybe.
Or that was another you knowcute dog video, but it's all
(24:08):
episodic and it all ends upfeeling really foggy and like
you didn't really have any well,you didn't have any coherent
experience.
There was no narrative arc toall of those two minute videos
for the most part, no, thereisn't, there isn't.
Margie (24:22):
And I know in my small group there's a guy that is an
ER nurse and he said he said Idon't think our physicality is
meant for all that we are takingin.
He said I just I don't think wecan handle it.
I don't know, maybe in you know, 50, 100 years, our DNA will
(24:43):
shift and change and something Idon't know.
I have no idea.
But he said you know when someof these things happen, like you
brought up the pagers andexploding pagers and that, and
you know, back in the 50s youwouldn't have learned about that
, for you know a couple weeks,maybe you know, or when the Pony
Express came by or something.
But today there's such animmediacy, and I think that does
(25:06):
contribute to this acceleration, which is its speed that keeps
on increasing and increasing andincreasing.
You and your book, though, talkabout a different church model.
You connect it into Acts withActs, and I really I appreciate
that a lot.
I love Acts.
(25:27):
Acts is just it's a fun ride,it really is, and I thought you
rightly ascribed it.
It's mistitled.
It should be the Acts of God.
And you talk about quote thismoment with these people.
Can you unpack this moment withthese people as a way that we
can help.
I don't know if it's mitigate,maybe that's even too strong,
(25:50):
but work against theacceleration.
Andy (25:54):
Yeah, reform ourselves in some way.
I mean, I do think we are thesestrange creatures us, you know,
middle class, late modernAmericans that we tend to always
be projecting ourselves intothe future.
I mean that becomes a hugeissue of you know, we rarely are
where our bodies are.
What's next?
What do I have to get preparedfor?
How am I going to get thisperson here and that person
(26:17):
there?
I mean, you know, we're alwaysthree days ahead of ourselves
and I think that's really whathappens when most people come to
church that they're sittingthere and now it's supposed to
be a moment of reflection andreceiving and hearing and
engaging, and usually I think alot of people like when it's
time to hear the word preached.
They have to do a lot of workto just be there, to just
(26:39):
receive.
Margie (26:41):
To be in the moment.
Andy (26:42):
To be in the moment is really, really hard.
And yet I think one of thegreat gifts of all religious
communities, and particularlyChristian communities, is this
invitation to be in this moment.
But to be in this moment, youhave to be with these people.
So the gift of actually beingwith these other bodies here in
this time, in this moment, is anincredible gift.
(27:04):
I mean, it is reallyregenerative and forming.
To just try, even if it's for45 minutes or an hour and 15
minutes or however long yourservice is, to just be in this
moment and accept the gift ofbeing with these people.
And the gift may be that youcan't stand the person across
the sanctuary for whateverattention you might have, but
(27:25):
here you are with these people.
And what does it mean to be inthis moment with these people?
And really what that ultimatelyis about is how do we become?
Instead of churches, I think,instead of Protestant churches
are always thinking how can wedo more with less?
How can we get more out of this?
That really the gift of eventhe Protestant imagination is to
(27:45):
stop and receive something isthat you actually can't do
anything really here.
You really have to receivesomething and all you're doing
will come out of what youreceive, and to receive the
gifts of God, to receive theword of God, to receive the life
of this community in thismoment, with these people, you
have to learn to wait and, as Ithink, late modern people we
(28:07):
hate waiting, like we've beenformed to think that waiting is
wasting and if we areparticularly in a crisis, the
worst thing you should do isnothing and just wait around.
I mean, what a waste that wouldbe and how horrible.
And yet there may be a kind ofparadoxical renewal that will
happen here, that what thechurch needs to do is, instead
(28:30):
of trying to optimize andaccelerate its way out of this,
trying to even innovate its wayout of this, is that we should
wait.
And my guess is real significant, theologically inspired,
adaptive innovations will comeout of learning to wait.
But we have to wait.
That happens at the end of Lukein Acts 1.
That Acts 2 and Pentecost onlycomes when the community gathers
(29:04):
with the command from Jesus tothe men on the road to Aramaeus,
where they're told to go backto Jerusalem and to wait.
Really, what gathers the church, what starts the church, is the
command to wait, to wait on thespirit, to wait on God to move,
and I think that dispositionmay be a healthier one for our
leaders, that our job as apastor is to help their
(29:25):
communities.
Wait for God by rememberingthat we're these people in this
place, that it's this moment,these people, that that might be
more renewing than trying tothink what do we do, how do we
get more out of this, how do wework harder, that we actually, I
think, should learn to wait onGod.
Margie (29:46):
Do you think, then, that that infers that we have just
been running on ahead of God?
Andy (29:57):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting statement because at
one level, you know,theologically, we would want to
say how could you ever run aheadof God?
I mean, when we say God, we'retalking about something that's
nothing greater can be thought.
But at another level, in thesense of the way God acts and
the way that God's revealedGod's self in Jesus Christ and
through the incarnation, there'sa great book written by a
(30:18):
Japanese theologian that wastitled the Three-Mile-an-Hour
God, because the three miles anhour is basically how fast you
can walk so that God moves atthis pace of three miles an hour
, moves at this pace of Jesus ofNazareth, moves at the pace of
a human who walks.
(30:38):
And so there is something aboutthat that we can kind of race
beyond the pace that God desiresto move in.
And you know, the God of Israelis a God who really calls
Israel over and over again towait on this God, with no sense
of like, wait 10 minutes or wait10 days, or you just have to
(30:58):
wait for this God to appear,because this is a God who
arrives.
This is a God who enters intocircumstances, and particularly
enters into circumstances ofdeath and loss and a brokenness,
and brings healing and bringsnewness, and you have to wait
within those experiences toexperience that.
(31:19):
So, yeah, I do think there'ssomething theologically
legitimate in the full breadthof the Christian confession to
say there's a kind of primal sinhere that we try to get out
ahead of God.
I mean, in some ways that's whatthe serpent tempts Adam and Eve
with, which is you know.
Did God really say how aboutyou get out ahead of God here
(31:40):
and you have the same knowledgeof God?
In other words, it's a lot oftheologians would say that it
becomes this temptation to notbe creatures, to not have to
live in limit, to not have towait and live inside the
relational well, we could callit the relational residence of
word and response with God, butto kind of take control of your
(32:01):
own destiny.
And I think that's a reallyinteresting correlation to this
moment.
I think most denominations andoften a lot of pastors feel like
we have to control our owndestiny.
We have to take control here.
Instead, remember, who we'retrying to take control from is
God.
Maybe God calls us to wait andfind a renewal in this waiting
(32:21):
and in this suffering and inthis celebration of joy with
each other and being togethermore than trying to have more
resources to survive.
Margie (32:32):
Sure, sure, but meanwhile, meanwhile, many
people are functioning, you know, in anxiety and they can't seem
to very well control it.
It's tricky.
It's tricky to control it in areal accelerated kind of culture
that we live in.
So we're fight or flight, youknow, and the anxiety goes high.
(32:54):
We don't do our best, thinkingthen, but that's some of that
survival mode.
We're concerned about oursurvival, and I think in your
book what you're saying is thatwe are not the center of our
story, that God is to be thecenter of our story and that God
(33:15):
, ultimately, is the author ofthat story.
Can you unpack that a littlebit?
Yeah?
Andy (33:22):
Well, I mean, it's an interesting moral assertion.
I agree with you completelythat most of us feel this utter
anxiety that we have to surviveor that we're on the precipice
of destruction or something, andwe feel a lot of weight of that
and maybe even feel deep levelsof shame.
(33:43):
If that, if that's happening,you know that we feel my watch
on my watch, you know exactly,you know, on watch.
This is all coming undone.
Maybe we don't say thisdirectly, but or maybe even it's
more tacit or in the back ofour minds, but we have this
sense that it's our fault thatthis has happened, you know.
So, first of all, to say ifwe're in a crisis, it makes a
(34:06):
lot of sense that we don't havethe anxiety, that we don't have
the attention to wait, that wedon't have the pull to wait, and
so again, going back, I don'twant to say we're not in a
crisis, but I do want to reframewhat the crisis is, and I do
think that we become so confusedin the midst of a crisis that
what's actually occurred here,if we think about this
(34:29):
theologically, is we've takenGod's responsibility and somehow
we think the church isdependent on us and not
dependent on God.
And so part of I think the onlyway forward is not to let
ourselves off the hook by saying, well, we never have to worry
about this, there's no sense ofresponsibility, I can be
(34:49):
irresponsible.
But it's also really to remindourselves that the church is
God's responsibility.
And, yes, it is very true thatour denominations may disappear,
that I teach at a seminary.
God forbid.
Some of our seminariesdisappear.
There's no guarantee that theseinstitutional structures will
survive and that will be painfuland we should grieve that.
(35:11):
We shouldn't act like that's nobig deal.
That's a big deal.
But when we catastrophize thatinto saying if we don't do
something, christianity inAmerica will disappear or the
church will no longer exist,that is fundamentally
catastrophizing because it's abig theological problem, because
(35:33):
it says that the church is moredependent on our action than
God's action.
And I think one of the things wecan remember is that God is God
, and when we talk about God,we're not talking about an idea
that we have to somehow get theword out about.
We're not talking about an ideathat we need to market for.
We're talking about a beingthat acts and moves in the world
(35:57):
.
We're talking about a God whois God, a God who is in, that
this is all, that God hascontrol of all of this, that God
is, like we just said, that ofwhich nothing is greater.
And I think sometimes we feellike, well, because we feel like
the church has become so oldand can't can't really take care
(36:17):
of itself.
So we therefore think we haveto parent the church instead of
the church being our parent.
You know, then we inject thatinto our, our views of God, and
we tend to think like God needsus, not that we need God.
So I think a big piece of thisis for us to remember who it is
that has called us, who it isthat we serve.
(36:38):
And we are talking about theGod of creation, we're talking
about the God of salvation,we're talking about the one who
frees Israel from Egypt andraises Jesus from the dead.
I mean that's very different.
Margie (36:55):
And I like the fact that you said you know who is the
star of the story?
Is the church the star of itsown story?
And even the way sometimes wearticulate faith, we'll say I
accepted Jesus as my Savior, andI'm not saying that you can
never say that.
But what I am saying is it's amisrepresentation.
(37:17):
Like you said, theologically,technically, what happened is
God knocked on your heart andyou responded.
And that is what thetransaction really is.
And it's the same thing if webecame a waiting church, waiting
on God's direction and waitingfor us to discern what our next
(37:38):
steps are instead of chargingoff, and then we respond to that
.
That's, as Blackaby would say,is joining the work in the world
that God is doing, but we'rejoining what God is doing
instead of setting the tone.
So it's kind of an interestingway that we talk and speak well,
(37:58):
same thing about our faith interms of what is technically and
theologically correct, and itreally does make a big
difference.
It absolutely makes a bigdifference.
I like that.
You then go on to describe thewaiting church and you say
there's tension in church lifeand you're alive if there's
(38:24):
tension there.
But we tend to mirror all theanxiety of the culture.
We like to think that we'reseparate and apart, sanctified
and separate and apart, but weactually carry many of the ills
of the culture and then, likeyou said, we sit in a worship
situation and we don't receivevery well.
(38:46):
So I think you're right thatthere needs to be some new
thinking reframing done.
So I think that I think you'reright that there needs to be
some new thinking reframing done, and I always like to quote
Oswald Chambers here at thiskind of thing.
Am I more attached to my ideasabout God?
Yeah then I am attached to God,so that's kind of where some of
(39:11):
that, some of that lie.
And I did like to the sectionwhere you talked about God being
a pet.
Andy (39:18):
Yeah.
Margie (39:19):
Yeah, that's some of that, can you?
Can you bring that to ouraudience here?
Andy (39:23):
Yeah, well, especially when we mix up, who's the star
of the story?
That when we mix up, who's thestar of the story?
We usually think I mean, andthe point of that is in a
competitive environment.
Back to our competitiveenvironment.
Most often churches are toldthat they're in a competitive
market.
They're in competitivereligious marketplace, so they
better find what distinguishestheir church over others.
(39:46):
So therefore find your story,you know, find what sets you
apart in the market, and thatdoes I mean.
I get that from just a brutefact of thinking about how you
relate to your community andthings like that.
But it does open up a bigtheological problem, which it
says that your church's story ismore important, or is the
primary story, to God's ownstory.
(40:07):
And theologically, what we callin the midst of our
ecclesiology is that the churchhas no story of its own.
The only story the church hasis the story of God's act within
the world, of God's bringingsalvation to the world.
And so the issue becomes thenif we put our story, the
church's story, above God'sstory, then what ends up
(40:29):
happening is it becomes a bitlike you watch these biopics
about companies like Apple orwhatever.
Yeah, there's been these moviesabout these things and what of
course you get is these end upbeing stories about
personalities.
They end up being stories aboutthe company and they're framed
to us as stories about a product.
(40:50):
But they end up becomingstories about a company and that
becomes framed to us as storiesabout a product.
But they end up becomingstories about a company.
And that becomes very similarto when we think of our churches
, that it becomes the story ofthe church, and then the only
thing that God can become withinthat is the product we sell.
So God becomes our kind of petor product that we end up
selling, because God becomes anidea.
And that starts by getting thestory wrong and thinking.
(41:11):
The survival of the church willbe dependent on us finding our
own unique, creative,church-based story not that the
church could be renewed byremembering again, rehearsing
and living out God's own storyof how God comes into the world
in the person of Jesus Christand brings salvation and
(41:33):
continues to move the worldtowards its culmination.
That will be the fulfillment ofGod's act.
Margie (41:39):
Sure.
So if you could say a couple ofwords directly to ministry
leaders, what would youencourage them with leaders?
What would you encourage themwith?
Andy (41:51):
Yeah, I think I mean I would ultimately encourage them.
I think my big word would be tothem well, it'd be maybe a
couple things.
I mean, the first thing wouldbe something that I've already
kind of been dancing around ortried to say directly, which is
that the church is bigger thanyou and it will survive, that
(42:13):
the church does not need you tomake sure it can survive, you
can go off duty, that your jobisn't to keep this thing alive.
That's God's responsibility.
And you will be pulled intothis in a big way and, I think,
in a life-giving way.
But don't over, don't, don'tover, don't catastrophize, don't
(42:33):
over assume.
What's needed here and toremember the church is one word
I would really say is the churchhas had, there's been, more
difficult times than this andand it's gotten through by god's
mercy and god's grace likethese are not golden period.
This is not a golden period.
No one's going to look backhistorically at the first three
decades of the 21st century andsay, oh, this was a golden era
(42:55):
of Protestantism or justcongregational life.
But there have been worse times.
There have been far worse timesand God has been faithful to
see the church through.
So remember God's faithfulnessand then make the payoff of this
, or remember that the greatprivilege of this calling is
(43:18):
really the gospel itself, thatit is utterly beautiful and,
instead of making it what youcan build, that your value will
be on.
Did you bring the numbers or didyou make some kind of
difference?
You will make a difference, butyou will make a difference as
you become more and moreinfatuated and in love with the
(43:41):
gospel itself.
And so to remember the utterprivilege that you spend your
life reflecting on thisincredible story and trying to
help people prepare to trulylive in it and die with it, I
mean that is an incredible task.
To be a pastor and by pastor Imean really broadly to be in
(44:03):
ministry is an incredibleprivilege.
To walk with people as they tryto make sense of their greatest
joys and their deepest, deepest, heart-wrenching pains and
suffering and grief, and topoint to something bigger, to
point to the redemptive work ofthe triune.
(44:24):
God is an incredibly beautifulthing and it will not leave you
without bruises and withoutheartache, but it will renew and
it will make your lifewell-lived.
Margie (44:38):
Yeah, what was coming to mind for me when you were
speaking there is we need toreturn to our first love and
recapture that and wait on Godfor our next steps.
Yeah, amen.
Well, I will for sure put alink to your book in the show
(45:02):
notes and I really appreciateyou coming on.
I'm going to ask you one lastquestion, and I always apologize
to people every time I do thisbecause I say, oh, and I should
have warned you that I'm goingto ask you this question.
I guess I'm consistent.
So anyway, the title of thepodcast being the Crabby Pastor,
(45:26):
I need to ask you what makesyou crabby.
Andy (45:32):
I need to ask you what makes you crabby.
You know, what makes me reallycrabby is meetings.
Meetings yeah institutionalmeetings at my school make me
kind of crabby, especially whenthey feel like we're spinning
around stuff.
So, yeah, that makes that makesme crabby Having deep
(45:53):
conversations about things Ilike, but sometimes I get a
little crabby when I yeah, whenI when I'm in too long of
meetings.
So, thinking of institutionalmeetings I have coming up this
week, oh boy.
Margie (46:09):
Well, high marks for honesty there for you.
Thanks again for joining me onthe Krabby Pastor podcast.
Andy (46:17):
Thanks for having me.
Margie (46:22):
So how do the pieces of your life fit together?
Do they fit together well andthings are humming along just
fine, or are there some piecesthat are tight or absent or just
not fitting the bill?
This is your invitation to joinme in my glass workshop for a
(46:55):
video series, where I am goingto do a stained glass project
while I talk to you aboutsustainability and building
sustainability into your heartand into your life.
So I am going to be doing myart, which is a form of
self-care, and I'm going toinvite you into that space with
me and I'm going to chat.
I'm going to chat aboutself-care and I'm going to show
you how I create, and there's anifty, nifty analogy Stained
(47:18):
glass seems to be a very goodmetaphor for what I want to talk
about.
So I'd love for you to join me.
To do that, to opt in, I'llneed you to email me at
crabbypastor at gmailcom.
That's crabbypastor at gmailcom.
So you won't want to miss this.
(47:39):
You definitely won't want tomiss this.
So make a plan to join me inthe glass workshop.
In the Glass Workshop, are youwondering whether your fatigue,
your lack of motivation, yourlack of interest is burnout
(48:17):
maybe?
I just wanted to let you knowthat I have a resource on the
website, margiebryce dot comthat's B-R-Y-C-E MargieBryce dot
com, and it is a burnoutquestionnaire free for you to
download and kind of self-assessand get a sense of where you're
at.
There are questions that notonly ask about what you're going
through but maybe how oftenyou're experiencing it, and
that's kind of a key to whereyou might be, because you have
(48:37):
to know where you are in orderto chart a course forward.
Pastors and ministry leaderswho experience burnout rarely
know that that's where they'reat until they're well into it.
(48:58):
And if you're unsure about thatlittle statistic, so far,
everybody that I've interviewedon this podcast who has
experienced burnout, when Iasked that kind of question,
they're like, yeah, I didn'tknow that's where I was at.
So again, go to margiebryce dotcom.
It's on the homepage of thewebsite and you can get your
(49:20):
burnout questionnaire and kindof see where you're at.
Hey friends, the Crabby Pastorpodcast is sponsored by Bryce
Art Glass and you can find thaton Facebook I make stained glass
as part of my self-care andalso by Bryce Coaching, where I
(49:43):
coach ministry leaders andbusiness leaders, and so the
funds that I generate fromcoaching and from making stained
glass is what is supportingthis podcast and I will have
opportunities for you to be apart of sponsoring me and, as
(50:04):
always, you can do the buy me acup of coffee thing in the show
notes.
But I will have some other waysthat you can be a part of
getting the word out about theimportance of healthy self-care
for ministry leaders.
Hey, thanks for listening.
(50:26):
It is my deep desire andpassion to champion issues of
sustainability in ministry andfor your life, so I'm here to
help.
I stepped back from pastoralministry and I feel called to
help ministry leaders create andcultivate sustainability in
(50:48):
their lives so that they can gothe distance with God and
whatever plans that God has foryou.
I would love to help, I wouldconsider it an honor and, in all
things, make sure you connectto these sustainability
practices you know, so that youdon't become the crabby Pastor.
Hey there, it's Margie Bryce, your host of CrPastor
Pastor podcast, where we talkabout all things sustainability,
whether it's sustainability inministry, in your personal life
and we acknowledge that thechurch is in a transitional time
, so we hit topics there toothat are going to stretch your
(00:22):
mind and the way you lead,especially how you lead yourself
, so that you don't become thecrabby pastor.
Hey there, this is Margie Brycewith the Crabby Pastor Podcast,
and I have a guest here todaythat I heard speak recently at
(00:46):
the streaming conference atRochester Christian University
recently, and before then I hadgotten his book and trolled
through it.
It's called when Church StopsWorking.
Now, this really doesn't have alot to do with the
functionality of your church.
Exactly, Sort of the subtitleis A Future for your
(01:16):
Congregation Beyond More Money,Programs and Innovation.
So I have Andrew Root here, DrAndrew Root here with me, and we
are going to talk about hisbook.
The contents and some of thethings that I think are
definitely tie in with yourself-care and your
sustainability in ministry asyou seek to live into God's call
for you and as you serve thepeople God has given to you to
(01:41):
serve.
Andy (01:54):
Sure, well, first, thanks for having me.
It's great to be on here.
Well, as you're talking to me,I'm in St Paul, Minnesota, so I
live in the Twin Cities and Iteach at Luther Seminary here.
I've been on the faculty ofLuther for almost 20 years.
This is my 20th academic year,so I don't know where time has
gone, but it has gone somewhereover these last nearly two
decades.
But yeah, I have written forthe last 20 years or so on
(02:18):
really the practice of ministryand thinking about it
theologically but trying to kindof lace together the
philosophical elements, thetheological elements, and then
the practical elements of thepractice of ministry really.
So I've written for youthpastors and thought about youth
ministry law, but then alsothought about pastoral practice
and congregational life.
And my project the last gosh,maybe seven years or so has been
(02:42):
really writing on ministry in asecular age, and so I have
multiple books kind ofaddressing that.
And in this book that youkindly referenced is a kind of
well, I mean a synthesis of alot of those thicker books, a
book that's trying to distillsome of the major ideas, and I
had a lot of pastors who readthose books, were kind enough to
(03:03):
read those books, and thenwanted to take some of those
ideas into church councils andbroader conversations across the
congregation and just needed alittle bit thinner synthesis of
those ideas.
And so that's where when ChurchStopped Working comes from, and
so, yeah, really happy to talkabout it today.
Margie (03:22):
Sure, so is this like the cliff notes of all your big
volumes?
Andy (03:29):
Well, kind of sort of.
I mean, in some ways it is sortof the cliff notes of it.
I'll say this it's stripped ofa lot of the footnotes.
I happen to be addicted tofootnotes and anyone who's read
my other work knows that there'salways a ton of footnotes at
the bottom of each page and soit's getting rid of that.
(03:49):
And yeah, cliff notes maybe.
Yeah, I guess sort of I I don'twant to, I don't know.
I don't know how people feelabout cliff notes, like, if it's
no, no, I mean, that's how Iuse cliff notes in high school
is it was a way to keep me fromactually.
Yeah, was it cheating?
I don't know if it was cheating, but it was the lazy person's
(04:12):
way out.
Margie (04:13):
So I don't think the book is bad for folks.
All right, all right, all right.
I stand corrected?
Andy (04:19):
Well, no, I think that's fair in the sense that is a
distilling a more kind of directkind of articulation of the big
points.
Margie (04:26):
So I guess at that level it's cliff notes, yeah.
Okay, so all right, what Iwanted to say I'd just start out
.
Having listened to yourpresentation at the conference
recently, I mean you reallyarticulated well our current
(04:49):
situation in the church, that weare really swimming.
This is my distillation of whatyou said.
We're swimming in thick soupfor sure, Because I listened to
what you said and I thoughtsurely this is a very
transitional time for the church, big C, and trying to figure
out what next steps and I knowwe're in a secular age, I know
(05:13):
where some people freak out whenyou say post-Christianity in
this culture.
But what you presented aboutacceleration was I came away
thinking, oh my gosh, we're inworse shape than what I thought,
and maybe some of that's fromhanging in the Christian bubble,
(05:34):
I don't know.
But talk to us some about theacceleration.
Andy (05:40):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, I think that itwould be crazy and your
listeners would probably think Iwas crazy if I were to say
we're not in a crisis like that,everything's fine.
It's true, we are in a crisis,but I think my larger point is
well, I mean, maybe this is justcommon when you're in a crisis,
it's hard to really know what'sgoing on.
(06:01):
You know, like the crisis of acar accident, you're like what
happened?
What hit me?
You know, you feel a kind of adeep sense of disequilibrium in
the midst of the crisis, and soit's not uncommon for us to feel
very dizzy that we're in thiscrisis, and I think that leads
us to misinterpret what thecrisis is, and we tend to think
the crisis is that we've lostpeople, that there are fewer
(06:24):
people, therefore there arefewer dollars, there are fewer
resources, that everything isdeclining, and I do think that
you would have to be prettynaive or have your head in the
sand and not recognize thatthat's a fact.
You know, like our institutionsare weaker, but I don't know
that that's the heart of theissue.
I think what the crisis is isthat it becomes much more
(06:46):
difficult to talk about a livingGod in this cultural context.
And what makes that much moredifficult is not even that
people deny it or there's thisincredible wave of kind of a
militant atheism going on.
I just think that a lot ofpeople, the way their lives are
organized, they don't even andthis gets the acceleration point
don't even have time to reallystop and think about whether
(07:10):
there's a deep metaphysicalreality at the center of the
universe or whether you knowthere's the living God of Israel
could still speak and move.
I mean, if they get themselvesinto a religious space, they may
do that, or if they're thrustinto deep levels of grief, they
may at times feel God callingfor them, but in the kind of day
to day before the deepinterruption, god as a living
(07:32):
reality becomes harder forpeople to hold on to.
So one of the dynamics thatplays out within this, or one of
the realities that makes itpossible and I think I said this
to the group at the event youwere at that this is a weird
kind of time, because you canhear people say things at coffee
shops like you know, I'm takinga break from God for a while,
(07:52):
you know like or you can hearpastors people have gone through
seminary and ministry trainingand they'll say you know, I just
left this position and I justthink I really need just to take
a break from God for a whileand, you know, just figure out
what's going on.
And I think that makes sense tous.
Oddly, I think that that makesa lot of sense to us, that, oh
yeah, that that seems coherent,that seems culturally coherent.
(08:14):
And yet my point is,historically, if a medieval
person would hear us say that,they would think we're saying up
is down and down is up.
or you know that you could takea break from breathing, that you
just couldn't do that.
So what allows that possibilitythat across our cultural
reality, people could perceivethat they could forget about God
(08:35):
or they could decide to take abreak from God and then their
lives could go on?
And one of the dynamics thatallows for that, I think in that
eclipsing of the sense thatthere is a divine actor in the
world, is the way that themodern project continues to
speed us up and ask us to gofaster and faster, for multiple
different reasons that asks usto do this, but this just
(08:56):
imposes this kind of sense wherewe don't even have time to
reflect on what's the meaning oflife or what's the point of my
existence.
You just got to get on from onething to the next.
And we tend to feel like wereally have to do that because
the winning strategy and thesense that we have to win has
the sense of trying to do morewith less, trying to try to
extract more value out of ouractions, and it does lead to
(09:20):
this kind of what I've called atime sickness, where we feel
like the kind of transcendentqualities of life aren't there.
Or the great social theoristMax Weber, who talks about the
disenchantment of the Westernmodern world.
Well, part of the way that thisworld becomes disenchanted is
we become so fast within it andthe acceleration becomes so all
(09:43):
out that we don't even have timeto reflect on the deeper, more,
more kind of even mysticalrealities that exist within our
world.
And who's got time for mystery?
Margie (09:53):
You know, you just yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you know
.
And then one point you weretalking about feeling like we're
in crisis, and I would say toothat you know, as the sense of
crisis and your anxiety goes upalong with that, you know the
thinking department definitelyshuts down, which is really less
(10:18):
than helpful, and you'redescribing us operating on a
scarcity mindset and feelingunder the gun.
Meanwhile, I've also read a lotin magazines like the Atlantic
and places.
People are not having childrentoday because there's no meaning
to life, and I thought, oh mygoodness of all things, the
(10:38):
birth rate is declining becausepeople don't have a sense of
meaning in their lives, but yetthey have cut themselves off
from the very place wheremeaning is given out.
Andy (10:55):
Yeah, I mean it's very dystopian in some sense that
people feel like the future isso bleak broadly, like the
future is so bleak broadly thatand then I think they I think
it's a dual thing, that theyfeel like the future is so bleak
that there's not much meaning,but also their lives don't feel
like there's there's muchmeaning within it.
So why would you want to sharethat meaning with someone else,
(11:16):
or that meaninglessness withwith someone else?
Hence the reason not to havehave children.
I mean, it is a.
It is a very interestingdynamic that you lose the sense
of trying to give life tosomething else when you feel too
exhausted.
I don't know.
It's an odd kind of moment thatwe're in that you need to
(11:38):
somehow breathe in the goodnessof life, to want to pass it on.
And yeah, what does that mean?
I mean, we've thought aboutthis.
My wife and I have thought agreat deal about this.
We have two budding youngadults, a 20-year-old and a
17-year-old, and there used tobe the presumption that your
kids would have you would havegrandkids.
(11:59):
That was a pretty good bet, andnow it's not.
You know it's.
Who knows if that will willhave that opportunity or not
have that opportunity and, yeah,it's fascinating that that this
younger generation is making,making that choice out of senses
of great despair, but also outof competitive advantage, and I
think we miss that either, likeyou know, you may have
(12:21):
competitive advantage to succeed, or to harvest all the
resources that will make yourlife meaningful.
or the experiences.
Can you really experience thefullness of life, like all the
trips and all the parties andall those experiences, if you're
tied to a child child you know,like how can you really, in
(12:47):
this odd way, how can you reallysuck the marrow out of life if
you have to give all your moneyand all your attention to, to
someone else, though there havebeen deep traditions that that
that's exactly where you findthe good life, you know yeah,
that's where.
Margie (12:57):
Yeah, you certainly come away with a different focus and
appreciation, like a focus likeoh, it's not all about me, you
know when, if it is all aboutyou, you know, like.
Andy (13:10):
If that's the only way to find meaning, no wonder we have
a generation.
That's just like.
I don't think that I want tohave kids.
First of all, maybe the earthis going to implode ecologically
and secondly, it's got to beall about me, you know like, and
that doesn't work.
Margie (13:28):
So well, I was looking through your book and talking
about the acceleration and howthat even impacts the church,
the sense of you know you got tokeep running on the hamster
wheel to keep all the programsand everything going all the
time.
And that's an area of compassionfor me where I just look at
(13:52):
ministry leaders, having beenone for a number of years myself
and thinking about theacceleration and the sense of
it's never broadly stated ascompetition, although I did sit
in a meeting once among pastorsand they said, oh, we always
gripe this is a well-knownphenomenon among clergy we
(14:16):
always gripe about stuff, butlet's start the meeting out this
time and let's share somethinggood that's going on.
So we go around the room, we getthis one guy and he says you
know, well, I'm just thankingGod for the million dollar
expansion that we just did.
And I just was like, okay, youwould have been good, but you
didn't have to say the number.
(14:37):
And so there is, you know, somecompetitiveness and some
churches deal with, you know,the mega church down the corner
or down the street or whatever,and and just trying, feeling
like you're doing everything youcan to keep your head above
water.
And that's where in your bookyou started talking about a
(15:00):
different way of doing church.
You want to start us off withsome of that.
Andy (15:07):
Yeah Well, I think that you're really right that there
is a deep, whether we want it ornot, there's a deep level of
competition that plays in andmaybe sometimes that always is
in fronted.
But we kind of feel like Ithink pastors feel a lot like if
things go wrong with theirchurch it's their fault and so
when someone else just says wedid, like you're saying, a
(15:28):
million dollar capital campaign,the reflex response is we could
never do that or I couldn'tpull that off, and therefore
that person's in a better spot.
And I think part of it is thatthat competition is just there.
But one of the things I don'tthink we've taken enough
consideration in is that, youknow, part of this has been with
(15:50):
us for a long time, but therewas a lot of well, there was a
lot of growth available.
You know like, especially inthe middle of the 20th century,
people could there was stillprobably competition, but you
could succeed, you could haveyour church grow.
But now I think we're at a timefor different economic reasons,
that's probably a much longerstory where there's not a ton of
(16:11):
growth out there.
And when there's not a lot ofgrowth out there, then you enter
into a much more competitivesituation and growth becomes,
oddly, the main measure of value.
Like, how are you growing yourcongregation, whether that's
financially, I mean there's somesense.
You have to grow the capitaland it leads to competition.
But really what I think makesthat competition I mean there's
(16:34):
a sense of who's best that makesit intense that competition.
I mean there's a sense of who'sbest that makes it intense.
But the other level is that ifyou fail, it's not even about
you not making your church intoa mega church or something.
It's about you fall right offthe hamster wheel, right off the
treadmill.
So part of it is you have torun faster and faster just to
stay in the same place.
Like the inertia of the wholekind of cultural reality is that
(16:57):
if you don't work harder or theassumption is there if you
don't work harder, then youwon't be able to keep what you
have.
You know you won't have as manyyouth and youth group, you
won't have as many members asyou have, your budget will be
smaller.
If you don't work 10 percent,20 percent harder next year, you
won't stay in the same place,you'll be sucked back and that
(17:19):
is incredibly despairing andcreates huge amounts of burnout.
I mean, just burnout becomesthe real existential crisis, I
think, for many.
So the response to this is likehow do you get this accelerated
mode, this competitive mode,this well, this scarcity of just
(17:39):
trying to even keep what wehave?
How do we get that out of ourconsciousness, how do we get
that really out of our moralimagination of what is good?
And the issue is that it won'tjust be the absence of that that
will do it.
We're going to need somethingactually productive or something
that reframes us, more thanjust saying let's all not work
(18:03):
so hard or let's all take abreak.
We're going to need a differentway of relating to the world,
and both the accelerated kind ofinterpretation and the response
of it I take from a Germansocial theorist named Hartmut
Rosa, who's, I think, reallyquite a genius interpreter of
our cultural context.
And Rosa's point is slowing downis necessary and we should take
(18:25):
everything we can do to slowdown, but in the midst of
slowing down, you can't justcreate a vacuum.
If you just create a vacuum, itwon't do it.
These structures are tooinsidious.
The way that this speeding upworks, the way this competition
works.
They're just too insidious thatyou could just say I'm going to
take a break from them.
They'll reach for you, they'llgrab for you.
(18:46):
So you're going to need adifferent way of relating to the
world.
And he says we have this, thoughI mean, we do have experiences
in the world that don't feelaccelerated, that we still do
have these experiences where wedon't feel like time is using us
but we're being pulled into thefullness of time, where time
isn't racing through us but wefeel almost he doesn't he uses
(19:07):
this kind of analogy as a socialtheorist that we have these
kind of sacramental experiencesof time too, where it feels full
, it doesn't feel like it'saccelerating, but it feels like
it's drawing us into somethingdeeper.
And he says you know, thesekinds of experiences we have are
like looking at a beautifulpainting or having a long
conversation with our grandchildor our child, where we feel
(19:30):
like there's this deep sense ofbeing alive, of resonating, and
he calls this kind of action ofresonance where we feel this
deep, deep form ofating.
And he calls this this kind ofaction of resonance where we
feel this deep, deep form ofconnection.
And this is the ultimateproblem that takes us back to
the beginning of thisconversation is that
acceleration alienates us.
It ends up alienating us fromourself, it alienates us from
(19:51):
our congregation.
It ultimately and tragically,dangerously alienates us from
the world where we feel likewe're not in the world.
We feel like nothing in theworld speaks to us.
We're too exhausted to have anexperience where we feel spoken
to, whether directly by otherpeople, or spoken to by the
(20:12):
beauty, by the fullness of life.
We're just too exhausted forthat.
We're moving too fast to havethose experiences.
So his point that I really quiteagree with and have tried to
build on is is how do we createspace for these resonant
experiences?
How do we look at really churchlife as congregational life, as
a school that teaches peoplehow to relate to one another in
(20:36):
the world and then ultimately asGod, in this cadence of
resonance over acceleration, andthat may start to infuse us not
with a bunch of resources thatallow us to win the market, but
it may infuse us with life.
And I think ultimately what thechurch is after is living
(20:58):
inside the life of Jesus Christand therefore the life of the
Spirit, which means that life isreally a connotation, the real
marker of what it means to befaithful, not growth or
expansion, which too often weassume.
Margie (21:14):
Right, right for sure.
And the acceleration justpushes us, like you said, to the
place where you can't even makethose kind of connections.
I was just talking to a friendearlier today and said something
about a tragic incidence thathappened in her town and she was
out of town at the moment andshe goes oh no, that happened
(21:36):
right in my neighborhood.
And I said, oh really.
And she said, oh yeah, rightaround the corner.
And I said, oh, so you knowthese people?
And she goes well, no, I don'tknow these people.
And so I thought you know, andI thought that many times you
can live in a neighborhoodsetting and be close to people
and still not ever connect, andsometimes it's because you don't
(21:58):
have time.
The North American work ethicand the press, press, press has
pressed its way into the churchand we forget that we need to be
making connections with people.
It is more about relationshiptoday than ever before.
That is the gold, the gold key,if you will.
(22:22):
But we're running too fastsometimes to even to even do
that.
That's horrible implications foranything you know outreach or
yeah, yeah.
Connect yeah.
Andy (22:34):
It's even really the news cycle.
I mean, you know, you think ofthe stuff that's happened in the
last my gosh, in the last fewmonths that if you would have
saw it in a like 1990s, early2000 movie you would have been
like this is not realistic.
And now it's like in our news.
You know you would have thoughtthis plot of this movie, this
(22:55):
would never happen.
And now it's there, like, forinstance, you know, I mean just
to raise one.
Like you know that Israel getsbombs and beepers that blow up
in in the you know, blow uptheir enemies.
Years ago you would talk aboutthis all the time.
How did this happen?
How did this occur?
It was in the news cycle forlike two or three days and now
(23:22):
it's just kind of gone and youkind of think to yourself did
that happen or did I make thatup?
And it is so surreal.
You think that, like, thingsare moving so fast we can't even
reflect on.
What does this mean?
How did this happen?
What kind of world are weliving in?
We're just on to the next thing, and maybe it has a lot to do,
or it's encapsulated in how wetend to entertain ourselves,
which I hate to admit this, butmy wife, kar, and I do this.
(23:45):
We just, you know, eitherTwitter or Instagram.
You just watch two minute videosover and over and over and over
.
You know, like you just keepscrolling through them and at
the end of an hour of doing that, you haven't really watched
anything.
You've distracted yourself, butyou haven't.
It's not like you're moreinformed or you saw something
beautiful, you laughed, maybe.
Or that was another you knowcute dog video, but it's all
(24:08):
episodic and it all ends upfeeling really foggy and like
you didn't really have any well,you didn't have any coherent
experience.
There was no narrative arc toall of those two minute videos
for the most part, no, thereisn't, there isn't.
Margie (24:22):
And I know in my small group there's a guy that is an
ER nurse and he said he said Idon't think our physicality is
meant for all that we are takingin.
He said I just I don't think wecan handle it.
I don't know, maybe in you know, 50, 100 years, our DNA will
(24:43):
shift and change and something Idon't know.
I have no idea.
But he said you know when someof these things happen, like you
brought up the pagers andexploding pagers and that, and
you know, back in the 50s youwouldn't have learned about that
, for you know a couple weeks,maybe you know, or when the Pony
Express came by or something.
But today there's such animmediacy, and I think that does
(25:06):
contribute to this acceleration, which is its speed that keeps
on increasing and increasing andincreasing.
You and your book, though, talkabout a different church model.
You connect it into Acts withActs, and I really I appreciate
that a lot.
I love Acts.
(25:27):
Acts is just it's a fun ride,it really is, and I thought you
rightly ascribed it.
It's mistitled.
It should be the Acts of God.
And you talk about quote thismoment with these people.
Can you unpack this moment withthese people as a way that we
can help.
I don't know if it's mitigate,maybe that's even too strong,
(25:50):
but work against theacceleration.
Andy (25:54):
Yeah, reform ourselves in some way.
I mean, I do think we are thesestrange creatures us, you know,
middle class, late modernAmericans that we tend to always
be projecting ourselves intothe future.
I mean that becomes a hugeissue of you know, we rarely are
where our bodies are.
What's next?
What do I have to get preparedfor?
How am I going to get thisperson here and that person
(26:17):
there?
I mean, you know, we're alwaysthree days ahead of ourselves
and I think that's really whathappens when most people come to
church that they're sittingthere and now it's supposed to
be a moment of reflection andreceiving and hearing and
engaging, and usually I think alot of people like when it's
time to hear the word preached.
They have to do a lot of workto just be there, to just
(26:39):
receive.
Margie (26:41):
To be in the moment.
Andy (26:42):
To be in the moment is really, really hard.
And yet I think one of thegreat gifts of all religious
communities, and particularlyChristian communities, is this
invitation to be in this moment.
But to be in this moment, youhave to be with these people.
So the gift of actually beingwith these other bodies here in
this time, in this moment, is anincredible gift.
(27:04):
I mean, it is reallyregenerative and forming.
To just try, even if it's for45 minutes or an hour and 15
minutes or however long yourservice is, to just be in this
moment and accept the gift ofbeing with these people.
And the gift may be that youcan't stand the person across
the sanctuary for whateverattention you might have, but
(27:25):
here you are with these people.
And what does it mean to be inthis moment with these people?
And really what that ultimatelyis about is how do we become?
Instead of churches, I think,instead of Protestant churches
are always thinking how can wedo more with less?
How can we get more out of this?
That really the gift of eventhe Protestant imagination is to
(27:45):
stop and receive something isthat you actually can't do
anything really here.
You really have to receivesomething and all you're doing
will come out of what youreceive, and to receive the
gifts of God, to receive theword of God, to receive the life
of this community in thismoment, with these people, you
have to learn to wait and, as Ithink, late modern people we
(28:07):
hate waiting, like we've beenformed to think that waiting is
wasting and if we areparticularly in a crisis, the
worst thing you should do isnothing and just wait around.
I mean, what a waste that wouldbe and how horrible.
And yet there may be a kind ofparadoxical renewal that will
happen here, that what thechurch needs to do is, instead
(28:30):
of trying to optimize andaccelerate its way out of this,
trying to even innovate its wayout of this, is that we should
wait.
And my guess is real significant, theologically inspired,
adaptive innovations will comeout of learning to wait.
But we have to wait.
That happens at the end of Lukein Acts 1.
That Acts 2 and Pentecost onlycomes when the community gathers
(29:04):
with the command from Jesus tothe men on the road to Aramaeus,
where they're told to go backto Jerusalem and to wait.
Really, what gathers the church, what starts the church, is the
command to wait, to wait on thespirit, to wait on God to move,
and I think that dispositionmay be a healthier one for our
leaders, that our job as apastor is to help their
(29:25):
communities.
Wait for God by rememberingthat we're these people in this
place, that it's this moment,these people, that that might be
more renewing than trying tothink what do we do, how do we
get more out of this, how do wework harder, that we actually, I
think, should learn to wait onGod.
Margie (29:46):
Do you think, then, that that infers that we have just
been running on ahead of God?
Andy (29:57):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting statement because at
one level, you know,theologically, we would want to
say how could you ever run aheadof God?
I mean, when we say God, we'retalking about something that's
nothing greater can be thought.
But at another level, in thesense of the way God acts and
the way that God's revealedGod's self in Jesus Christ and
through the incarnation, there'sa great book written by a
(30:18):
Japanese theologian that wastitled the Three-Mile-an-Hour
God, because the three miles anhour is basically how fast you
can walk so that God moves atthis pace of three miles an hour
, moves at this pace of Jesus ofNazareth, moves at the pace of
a human who walks.
(30:38):
And so there is something aboutthat that we can kind of race
beyond the pace that God desiresto move in.
And you know, the God of Israelis a God who really calls
Israel over and over again towait on this God, with no sense
of like, wait 10 minutes or wait10 days, or you just have to
(30:58):
wait for this God to appear,because this is a God who
arrives.
This is a God who enters intocircumstances, and particularly
enters into circumstances ofdeath and loss and a brokenness,
and brings healing and bringsnewness, and you have to wait
within those experiences toexperience that.
(31:19):
So, yeah, I do think there'ssomething theologically
legitimate in the full breadthof the Christian confession to
say there's a kind of primal sinhere that we try to get out
ahead of God.
I mean, in some ways that's whatthe serpent tempts Adam and Eve
with, which is you know.
Did God really say how aboutyou get out ahead of God here
(31:40):
and you have the same knowledgeof God?
In other words, it's a lot oftheologians would say that it
becomes this temptation to notbe creatures, to not have to
live in limit, to not have towait and live inside the
relational well, we could callit the relational residence of
word and response with God, butto kind of take control of your
(32:01):
own destiny.
And I think that's a reallyinteresting correlation to this
moment.
I think most denominations andoften a lot of pastors feel like
we have to control our owndestiny.
We have to take control here.
Instead, remember, who we'retrying to take control from is
God.
Maybe God calls us to wait andfind a renewal in this waiting
(32:21):
and in this suffering and inthis celebration of joy with
each other and being togethermore than trying to have more
resources to survive.
Margie (32:32):
Sure, sure, but meanwhile, meanwhile, many
people are functioning, you know, in anxiety and they can't seem
to very well control it.
It's tricky.
It's tricky to control it in areal accelerated kind of culture
that we live in.
So we're fight or flight, youknow, and the anxiety goes high.
(32:54):
We don't do our best, thinkingthen, but that's some of that
survival mode.
We're concerned about oursurvival, and I think in your
book what you're saying is thatwe are not the center of our
story, that God is to be thecenter of our story and that God
(33:15):
, ultimately, is the author ofthat story.
Can you unpack that a littlebit?
Yeah?
Andy (33:22):
Well, I mean, it's an interesting moral assertion.
I agree with you completelythat most of us feel this utter
anxiety that we have to surviveor that we're on the precipice
of destruction or something, andwe feel a lot of weight of that
and maybe even feel deep levelsof shame.
(33:43):
If that, if that's happening,you know that we feel my watch
on my watch, you know exactly,you know, on watch.
This is all coming undone.
Maybe we don't say thisdirectly, but or maybe even it's
more tacit or in the back ofour minds, but we have this
sense that it's our fault thatthis has happened, you know.
So, first of all, to say ifwe're in a crisis, it makes a
(34:06):
lot of sense that we don't havethe anxiety, that we don't have
the attention to wait, that wedon't have the pull to wait, and
so again, going back, I don'twant to say we're not in a
crisis, but I do want to reframewhat the crisis is, and I do
think that we become so confusedin the midst of a crisis that
what's actually occurred here,if we think about this
(34:29):
theologically, is we've takenGod's responsibility and somehow
we think the church isdependent on us and not
dependent on God.
And so part of I think the onlyway forward is not to let
ourselves off the hook by saying, well, we never have to worry
about this, there's no sense ofresponsibility, I can be
(34:49):
irresponsible.
But it's also really to remindourselves that the church is
God's responsibility.
And, yes, it is very true thatour denominations may disappear,
that I teach at a seminary.
God forbid.
Some of our seminariesdisappear.
There's no guarantee that theseinstitutional structures will
survive and that will be painfuland we should grieve that.
(35:11):
We shouldn't act like that's nobig deal.
That's a big deal.
But when we catastrophize thatinto saying if we don't do
something, christianity inAmerica will disappear or the
church will no longer exist,that is fundamentally
catastrophizing because it's abig theological problem, because
(35:33):
it says that the church is moredependent on our action than
God's action.
And I think one of the things wecan remember is that God is God
, and when we talk about God,we're not talking about an idea
that we have to somehow get theword out about.
We're not talking about an ideathat we need to market for.
We're talking about a beingthat acts and moves in the world
(35:57):
.
We're talking about a God whois God, a God who is in, that
this is all, that God hascontrol of all of this, that God
is, like we just said, that ofwhich nothing is greater.
And I think sometimes we feellike, well, because we feel like
the church has become so oldand can't can't really take care
(36:17):
of itself.
So we therefore think we haveto parent the church instead of
the church being our parent.
You know, then we inject thatinto our, our views of God, and
we tend to think like God needsus, not that we need God.
So I think a big piece of thisis for us to remember who it is
that has called us, who it isthat we serve.
(36:38):
And we are talking about theGod of creation, we're talking
about the God of salvation,we're talking about the one who
frees Israel from Egypt andraises Jesus from the dead.
I mean that's very different.
Margie (36:55):
And I like the fact that you said you know who is the
star of the story?
Is the church the star of itsown story?
And even the way sometimes wearticulate faith, we'll say I
accepted Jesus as my Savior, andI'm not saying that you can
never say that.
But what I am saying is it's amisrepresentation.
(37:17):
Like you said, theologically,technically, what happened is
God knocked on your heart andyou responded.
And that is what thetransaction really is.
And it's the same thing if webecame a waiting church, waiting
on God's direction and waitingfor us to discern what our next
(37:38):
steps are instead of chargingoff, and then we respond to that
.
That's, as Blackaby would say,is joining the work in the world
that God is doing, but we'rejoining what God is doing
instead of setting the tone.
So it's kind of an interestingway that we talk and speak well,
(37:58):
same thing about our faith interms of what is technically and
theologically correct, and itreally does make a big
difference.
It absolutely makes a bigdifference.
I like that.
You then go on to describe thewaiting church and you say
there's tension in church lifeand you're alive if there's
(38:24):
tension there.
But we tend to mirror all theanxiety of the culture.
We like to think that we'reseparate and apart, sanctified
and separate and apart, but weactually carry many of the ills
of the culture and then, likeyou said, we sit in a worship
situation and we don't receivevery well.
(38:46):
So I think you're right thatthere needs to be some new
thinking reframing done.
So I think that I think you'reright that there needs to be
some new thinking reframing done, and I always like to quote
Oswald Chambers here at thiskind of thing.
Am I more attached to my ideasabout God?
Yeah then I am attached to God,so that's kind of where some of
(39:11):
that, some of that lie.
And I did like to the sectionwhere you talked about God being
a pet.
Andy (39:18):
Yeah.
Margie (39:19):
Yeah, that's some of that, can you?
Can you bring that to ouraudience here?
Andy (39:23):
Yeah, well, especially when we mix up, who's the star
of the story?
That when we mix up, who's thestar of the story?
We usually think I mean, andthe point of that is in a
competitive environment.
Back to our competitiveenvironment.
Most often churches are toldthat they're in a competitive
market.
They're in competitivereligious marketplace, so they
better find what distinguishestheir church over others.
(39:46):
So therefore find your story,you know, find what sets you
apart in the market, and thatdoes I mean.
I get that from just a brutefact of thinking about how you
relate to your community andthings like that.
But it does open up a bigtheological problem, which it
says that your church's story ismore important, or is the
primary story, to God's ownstory.
(40:07):
And theologically, what we callin the midst of our
ecclesiology is that the churchhas no story of its own.
The only story the church hasis the story of God's act within
the world, of God's bringingsalvation to the world.
And so the issue becomes thenif we put our story, the
church's story, above God'sstory, then what ends up
(40:29):
happening is it becomes a bitlike you watch these biopics
about companies like Apple orwhatever.
Yeah, there's been these moviesabout these things and what of
course you get is these end upbeing stories about
personalities.
They end up being stories aboutthe company and they're framed
to us as stories about a product.
(40:50):
But they end up becomingstories about a company and that
becomes framed to us as storiesabout a product.
But they end up becomingstories about a company.
And that becomes very similarto when we think of our churches
, that it becomes the story ofthe church, and then the only
thing that God can become withinthat is the product we sell.
So God becomes our kind of petor product that we end up
selling, because God becomes anidea.
And that starts by getting thestory wrong and thinking.
(41:11):
The survival of the church willbe dependent on us finding our
own unique, creative,church-based story not that the
church could be renewed byremembering again, rehearsing
and living out God's own storyof how God comes into the world
in the person of Jesus Christand brings salvation and
(41:33):
continues to move the worldtowards its culmination.
That will be the fulfillment ofGod's act.
Margie (41:39):
Sure.
So if you could say a couple ofwords directly to ministry
leaders, what would youencourage them with leaders?
What would you encourage themwith?
Andy (41:51):
Yeah, I think I mean I would ultimately encourage them.
I think my big word would be tothem well, it'd be maybe a
couple things.
I mean, the first thing wouldbe something that I've already
kind of been dancing around ortried to say directly, which is
that the church is bigger thanyou and it will survive, that
(42:13):
the church does not need you tomake sure it can survive, you
can go off duty, that your jobisn't to keep this thing alive.
That's God's responsibility.
And you will be pulled intothis in a big way and, I think,
in a life-giving way.
But don't over, don't, don'tover, don't catastrophize, don't
(42:33):
over assume.
What's needed here and toremember the church is one word
I would really say is the churchhas had, there's been, more
difficult times than this andand it's gotten through by god's
mercy and god's grace likethese are not golden period.
This is not a golden period.
No one's going to look backhistorically at the first three
decades of the 21st century andsay, oh, this was a golden era
(42:55):
of Protestantism or justcongregational life.
But there have been worse times.
There have been far worse timesand God has been faithful to
see the church through.
So remember God's faithfulnessand then make the payoff of this
, or remember that the greatprivilege of this calling is
(43:18):
really the gospel itself, thatit is utterly beautiful and,
instead of making it what youcan build, that your value will
be on.
Did you bring the numbers or didyou make some kind of
difference?
You will make a difference, butyou will make a difference as
you become more and moreinfatuated and in love with the
(43:41):
gospel itself.
And so to remember the utterprivilege that you spend your
life reflecting on thisincredible story and trying to
help people prepare to trulylive in it and die with it, I
mean that is an incredible task.
To be a pastor and by pastor Imean really broadly to be in
(44:03):
ministry is an incredibleprivilege.
To walk with people as they tryto make sense of their greatest
joys and their deepest, deepest, heart-wrenching pains and
suffering and grief, and topoint to something bigger, to
point to the redemptive work ofthe triune.
(44:24):
God is an incredibly beautifulthing and it will not leave you
without bruises and withoutheartache, but it will renew and
it will make your lifewell-lived.
Margie (44:38):
Yeah, what was coming to mind for me when you were
speaking there is we need toreturn to our first love and
recapture that and wait on Godfor our next steps.
Yeah, amen.
Well, I will for sure put alink to your book in the show
(45:02):
notes and I really appreciateyou coming on.
I'm going to ask you one lastquestion, and I always apologize
to people every time I do thisbecause I say, oh, and I should
have warned you that I'm goingto ask you this question.
I guess I'm consistent.
So anyway, the title of thepodcast being the Crabby Pastor,
(45:26):
I need to ask you what makesyou crabby.
Andy (45:32):
I need to ask you what makes you crabby.
You know, what makes me reallycrabby is meetings.
Meetings yeah institutionalmeetings at my school make me
kind of crabby, especially whenthey feel like we're spinning
around stuff.
So, yeah, that makes that makesme crabby Having deep
(45:53):
conversations about things Ilike, but sometimes I get a
little crabby when I yeah, whenI when I'm in too long of
meetings.
So, thinking of institutionalmeetings I have coming up this
week, oh boy.
Margie (46:09):
Well, high marks for honesty there for you.
Thanks again for joining me onthe Krabby Pastor podcast.
Andy (46:17):
Thanks for having me.
Margie (46:22):
So how do the pieces of your life fit together?
Do they fit together well andthings are humming along just
fine, or are there some piecesthat are tight or absent or just
not fitting the bill?
This is your invitation to joinme in my glass workshop for a
(46:55):
video series, where I am goingto do a stained glass project
while I talk to you aboutsustainability and building
sustainability into your heartand into your life.
So I am going to be doing myart, which is a form of
self-care, and I'm going toinvite you into that space with
me and I'm going to chat.
I'm going to chat aboutself-care and I'm going to show
you how I create, and there's anifty, nifty analogy Stained
(47:18):
glass seems to be a very goodmetaphor for what I want to talk
about.
So I'd love for you to join me.
To do that, to opt in, I'llneed you to email me at
crabbypastor at gmailcom.
That's crabbypastor at gmailcom.
So you won't want to miss this.
(47:39):
You definitely won't want tomiss this.
So make a plan to join me inthe glass workshop.
In the Glass Workshop, are youwondering whether your fatigue,
your lack of motivation, yourlack of interest is burnout
(48:17):
maybe?
I just wanted to let you knowthat I have a resource on the
website, margiebryce dot comthat's B-R-Y-C-E MargieBryce dot
com, and it is a burnoutquestionnaire free for you to
download and kind of self-assessand get a sense of where you're
at.
There are questions that notonly ask about what you're going
through but maybe how oftenyou're experiencing it, and
that's kind of a key to whereyou might be, because you have
(48:37):
to know where you are in orderto chart a course forward.
Pastors and ministry leaderswho experience burnout rarely
know that that's where they'reat until they're well into it.
(48:58):
And if you're unsure about thatlittle statistic, so far,
everybody that I've interviewedon this podcast who has
experienced burnout, when Iasked that kind of question,
they're like, yeah, I didn'tknow that's where I was at.
So again, go to margiebryce dotcom.
It's on the homepage of thewebsite and you can get your
(49:20):
burnout questionnaire and kindof see where you're at.
Hey friends, the Crabby Pastorpodcast is sponsored by Bryce
Art Glass and you can find thaton Facebook I make stained glass
as part of my self-care andalso by Bryce Coaching, where I
(49:43):
coach ministry leaders andbusiness leaders, and so the
funds that I generate fromcoaching and from making stained
glass is what is supportingthis podcast and I will have
opportunities for you to be apart of sponsoring me and, as
(50:04):
always, you can do the buy me acup of coffee thing in the show
notes.
But I will have some other waysthat you can be a part of
getting the word out about theimportance of healthy self-care
for ministry leaders.
Hey, thanks for listening.
(50:26):
It is my deep desire andpassion to champion issues of
sustainability in ministry andfor your life, so I'm here to
help.
I stepped back from pastoralministry and I feel called to
help ministry leaders create andcultivate sustainability in
(50:48):
their lives so that they can gothe distance with God and
whatever plans that God has foryou.
I would love to help, I wouldconsider it an honor and, in all
things, make sure you connectto these sustainability
practices you know, so that youdon't become the crabby Pastor.
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