Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Becoming church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mochler Young. And today we are leaning in just a little bit to people we don't quite understand. My guest today is rich Viodis, who is a pastor at New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York, which is a very diverse church community and a very diverse city. And I don't know if you know this, but with diversity often comes disagreement, and with disagreement often comes division. So today's conversation between myself, Pastor Rich, and Mosaic's very own pastor, Naim Fazel, will hopefully pastor you toward healthier relationships and conversations with people you don't fully agree with or understand.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: All right, well, rich, welcome to Becoming church podcast man. So glad you're here.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: So good to be with you both. Thanks for the kind invitation.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: And I have to actually say, Naim, welcome to the podcast also, because, well, yes, he's not usually here.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So here's the thing, Rich. Yeah. So we started this thing about, what.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: A couple of years ago.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And so if you look at the branding, it's me and her. Right. And then I think after the couple of episodes or so, I peaced out. I don't know.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: It's true.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
Just because she was. She was doing such a great job, and I was like, what am I doing here? What am I doing here? And it just took off. And so she's been interviewing all these amazing guests, you know, obviously. And.
Yeah, and then. So there are some. I'm like, hold on. Did you get? Who did you get? Who did you get? Can I come back? Can I come back?
I think the last one was Marty Solomon from the Bama podcast. I don't know if you're familiar with him.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: I've heard the name. Yeah.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: But, yeah, he's super smart. That was a fun conversation.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: That was a great conversation.
So then when she was like, okay, rich is coming on, I was like, can I come back?
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Honored to have you, naim, here with Rich.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Rich, maybe you and I should interview him.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: We're really excited to have you. And I always like to let people kind of get some behind the scenes, get to know our guests a little bit. So I know that you are a reader and you really like reading, so I want to know who you're reading, maybe right now, who you like to learn from.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, generally. I mean, there's kind of, like, my perennial authors that I go to by the name of Ron Rolhizer is one of my favorite authors because he does some of the best job integrating a deep, contemplative, prayerful life with kind of mental health justice. So he does. I mean, I like to think about the convergence of a lot of different disciplines, and he's been doing it far, far longer than I have. So Ron Rohiser's a guy in the same way Thomas Merton is someone who I read on a regular basis. Okay, so those two guys. But in terms of what I'm reading now, I mean, I just finished the book by Annie Dillard. Annie Dillard wrote a book called the Writing Life. It's a classic book on writing.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:51] Speaker C: The writing life is something great.
A professor by the name of David Fitch, he's out of Northern Seminary in the Chicago area. He wrote a book called reckoning with power on how the church often gets power wrong, which I found to be really insightful. And then I just finished a book called Unwinding Anxiety by a kind of a neurosurgeon who has, you know, who's thinking about the ways that habits and anxieties are interrelated. So that was really helpful. So those are. I mean, they're right in front of me now. The books that I finished so far in 2020, 2024. So that's what I've been reading so far. In 2024.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: I'm sorry, just clarify here.
This is February, right? So you're saying all those books by this year, he's already read them?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: He's already read them. Yeah.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: You know, I've actually read about five, so I just gave you three.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: But, you know, here's the thing. I mean, last year I read about 15 books, which was. This is gonna sound like a real humble brag, and it is. That was, like, the lowest amount of books I've read in maybe 15 years.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay.
[00:05:10] Speaker C: Because it's usually about 30 to 40 books a year that I read.
But. But the reason why it was last year. Here's the reason why it was only 15 last year, I discovered something called reaction videos on YouTube to, like, my favorite shows that I watch.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Yeah. And I have gone down a hole of watching all the episodes of reaction videos. Like, people are crying when I cried to a particular part of the show. And I'm like. I, like, have become, like, fans of these random people on YouTube that if I see them in the airport, like, I'm hugging them because I know you.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: So, wait, what's the show what's the show that people are watching, that you're watching them watch?
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: So there was all the Marvel stuff that I've watched, all the Star wars stuff that I watched. So those guys kind of like Marvel Star Wars.
I mean, I watched the bear, which was great. And the reactions to that was great.
I watched. There's a show on apple called the severance.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm watching it right now.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Really?
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Yeah, really great show. Do you wanna watch me watch it record? So I could use. So when you're crying at the points that I'm crying, it's just like. See, that's the connection. That's the connection.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:06:31] Speaker C: So. And I just finished. See? I mean, I'm already off to a bad song. I just finished monarch. I'm not like, a godzilla. Yeah, but I just watched the Monarch series, which I found to be okay.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: But, yeah, it was a little slow, wasn't it?
[00:06:43] Speaker C: I was like, started off great, then it got slow. I was like, why am I even watching this? And in the end, I was like, oh, this was great. This should have been a five episode instead of a ten episode.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Right? Right? Yeah, get to it. Yeah.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: So funny. All right.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: I'm not watching as many reaction videos, so I'm reading more these days.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I wonder if, like, the suits have a reaction video.
I don't know.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: I'm not sure that's what Naim's into right now.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I am like, he got me into it, too. I'm addicted to it. It's so good.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: I'll check it out.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: So fun.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: So rich. The real question when it comes to reading, because when you say 30 to 40 books, I'm like, do you not? Either you don't sleep, or. How do you feel about audible? Like, this is a real controversial.
[00:07:25] Speaker C: I'm not asking you. I'm asking for this, you know? So here's my challenge with audible. I like. I mean, I need to read with a pen in my hand. Otherwise I don't retain much. My wife, Rosie, she listens to books all the time. She finished last year. All the Lord of the Rings books.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Which basically means she ignores me for the party of a given day. But, like, all the Harry Potter books, like, these are massive books on audible.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: All of them there. So she. She built. I mean, she was building some big project, had a thing going as she's listening to Lord of the Rings, and. But for me, we both listened to Trevor Noah's autobiography.
Brilliant on audible. But I just need to read with a pen in my hand.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, I think I.
Ashley, my wife, you know, she's a huge fan of you and yours. And I know why, because she does the same thing. She's like 30, 40 books every year.
You know, I'm an audible guy because I actually have, like, dyslexia and dysgraphia, so audible just works for me. Yeah. Like, even, like, so, yeah, your book, you know, I mean, that was me walking the streets in my neighborhood at night just listening to you. So, you know, so that's the only way for me to get books in. Cause I tried reading, and it's so tough for me, and so audible just helps me out big time. Yeah.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: Well, I tell you, reading, for me, growing up, reading was punishment. So, especially my parents, when I was beating up my little brother and my father said, go to your room and read a book. That was like.
I did not have good associations with reading until I became a follower of Jesus at 19. So I don't know how I graduated high school. Seriously? Cause I was not a good student, but unlocked in me in terms of just reading.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: That's awesome, man. That's so cool to hear how you got to this point, you know? Cause everybody's got a backstory, and sometimes people just put a different backstory to people that they admire. So. Awesome.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Very cool.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: So, rich, you've got two books. You've got the deeply formed life and good and beautiful and kind. Plus, you have the narrow path that's coming out this summer.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes. Very exciting. Yeah, very excited. I mean, the narrow path is. It's exploring the sermon on the mount, which arguably is the most important set of teachings in the entire Bible.
So, Matthew five through seven, Jesus is laying out the manifesto of the kingdom of God, the constitution of life in God, in ways that are very subversive, redefining values, trying to help people live from a deeper center. So, yeah, I'm trying to, in many ways, present and represent this main set of teachings to Christians and people who are curious about Jesus. Cause what I've discovered is that there are lots of Christians who really have not immersed themselves in that set of teachings of Jesus.
They live in Romans or which I love, but they have not immersed themselves in Jesus teachings and what it means for us today. So, yes, very excited about that project.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: That's awesome, man.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: How does all of what you're reading. I know you just said you just read a book on writing. How does being a pastor inform the way you write sermons or books or social media captions, any of that?
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, my goal, I mean, in my context as a pastor, it's a very diverse congregation. So, you know, over 75 nations represented in a neighborhood where 123 languages are spoken. 50% of queens is foreign born. So there's lots of first generation immigrants that attend our church. And so my first kind of pastoral and writing value is that I can be understood in a place where English is not the primary language for a lot of folks in my church. I just want to make sure that my language is accessible. So when teenagers come up to me, when middle schoolers come up to me after a service and say, hey, I understood what you said. Thank you. That's, like, the highest compliment. I'd rather get that than a PhD person saying, thank you for the message there. So, number one, for me, it's just as a pastor, I want to just be accessible, relatable, in the sense of I understand the world that we live in and what it means to be human. And I want to make sure that God's word, whether in writing or whether spoken, connects with your very real day to day life.
But beyond that, as a pastor, I'm trying to hold together, really, the tension of comforting and confronting.
So it's almost like this priestly and prophet, I think pastors are called to a priestly and a prophetic kind of tension wherever I hard things need to be said at times, and comforting words need to be said at times. And so as a pastor, I'm trying to hold on to that tension in my writing as well as in my preaching, which sometimes I miss.
I think I miss it more in preaching, because in writing, there's lots of time to edit.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Preaching, it's like I said it.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Oops.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: And it's out for the world to see.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Do you lean towards one in particular in terms of being a pastor or prophet kind of deal?
[00:13:30] Speaker C: It's a great question because I think it has changed over the years in that I think I started out more pastoral, and then I just started seeing some of the disruption of the world, the injustice of the world, the racial tensions that exist in the world. And I think something in a particular season, from 2014, I'd say, to 2020, came alive in me, where I think I started leaning more with the so called prophetic kind of edge there. And then I realized I had to swing the pendulum back a little bit. And so 2020 to 2024, I think I've had. I think I've been able to hold together more that tension. Whereas the previous six years, I was probably leaning a little bit more prophetically in terms of speaking truth, uncomfortable truth, truth that I think needed to be heard. But I think in the process, in a church as diverse as mine, I think I alienated some folks because of that in a way that I didn't want to.
I'm fine with people taking offense of things that I say or being uncomfortable with things I say. I just want it. I just want it to be intentional on my end that I know you might get upset with this. I think I was flippant on some things, or I made too many assumptions, which means I hurt some people. And so I don't want people to be hurt because of my own naivete and my own ignorance. I'd rather someone be offended. And I know you're gonna be offended.
I'm going in that direction. As opposed to me just being sloppy with my words and someone take offense by something that I said.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's so wise to have that discernment, to know. You know, there are different seasons that call for different styles of speaking. Not that you lose your voice or you lose your heart or, you know, even the message, but I think it's discernment. It's wisdom to know, all right, right now, the people need to be more shepherded, and then now maybe they're in a season where they need to be challenged.
You mentioned kind of justice and having a heart for justice, social justice, whatever it was. Was there anything in particular that kind of bent your heart that way or said, hey, this is the thing I need to now start using my voice on?
[00:15:49] Speaker C: Well, you know, I think in terms of my own formation, I became a Christian as a 19 year old in 1999, and my introduction to Christianity was oriented around more of the pentecostal experience, um, holiness kind of tradition.
2004, I was in seminary and was introduced to more a global theology. Okay. That took into consideration the challenges of not just where we live in the United States, but across the globe. So I was. I think I was introduced more to a theology of justice that was a bit broader than what I was introduced to initially. So I think I had. From 2004 on, I was introduced to a larger theology of justice. I think something changed in 2014 after everything started happening in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown was killed.
I remember there was one sermon in particular in the summer of. It was either 2014 or 2015, where my. Actually, my preaching, not just my content, but my preaching voice, changed. Where I went from conversational with moments of proclamation to being more proclamation and moments of conversation.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: And I think that proclamation emerged out of my own dis ease with injustice and what I was seeing in terms of the racialized world that we're in. And so I remember one sermon, it was actually in the book of proverbs in the summer, where I preached on the wisdom of justice.
And from that point on, something just changed. The trajectory of my preaching changed.
And then from that point on, as you know, 2015, 2016, and on, it's been pretty challenging in our nation.
And so my bent towards justice, I think, has been more animated. But 2014 Ferguson, I think, catalyzed something in me as a pastor, as a preacher, as a writer, and just set me on a bit of a different trajectory.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's one of the trickiest things, having a diverse church, because. And your church is diverse, and I believe a way that ours is that's not just races and cultures and all of that is beautiful. But you also then have the diversity of thought, and you have diversity of belief and the diversity of the way faith is lived out or practiced. What was the.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: What's that diversity of generation, right.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: What was the response when your style changed, when your voice changed? Were people responsive? Or did you lose. Do you lose some people?
[00:18:34] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I think for some people, I remember a few conversations where I started having. And this was 2016, 2020, I was having exit interviews with people I didn't know they were exit interviews. Oh, gosh. Congregants were wanting to chat about something. I mean, some folks, they saw my addressing of matters of injustice as me being very angry.
They would say, rich, something happened. You're a lot angrier now.
And so they interpret it. Now, what I recognize is that every person is interpreting something through their own family history, through their own personality, through their own traumas.
And so. But some folks, I'll tell you what I mean. I remember one, there were two sermons that I preached in 2017, one on individual racial prejudice and the other on institutional racism. My sermon on individual racial prejudice, oh, everyone loved me because I was basically saying, we all have bias. We all have. Every single person were socialized in various ways to see the world in a particular way.
And so everyone has a bias. It's just some of us are more honest with that bias than others. And so everyone was like, wow, what a great message. Thank you, Rich. And then the following. I said, we're going to talk about institutional racism and how sin is structural and not just individual.
People were not happy about that. And so lots of folks thought that I was muddying the gospel with talks of, you know, politicizing the gospel.
You know, rich, you're more informed by CNN than anything, than the Bible. So I. So there were some that really loved me, and some had really had a hard time with some of the things I was saying. And I think that's been my experience and my 15 years being at New Life Fellowship church, I think that's been my experience, especially the last eight years, that some love it and some. And some don't.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the trickiest part, I think, of pastoring a diverse church is we have to meet people where they're at, you know, but we have to meet a variety of people in a variety of different places, kind of all at the same time.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Yeah. And I'll just say this. I mean, this is what I've learned, because I've learned that to address matters, whether it's race, whether it's politics, whether it's sexuality. I mean, we did a ten week series last year on human sexuality where we addressed the gamut of issues. But I did something different through that series that I didn't do when I was preaching on racism. Even though our congregation is incredibly diverse, I prepared for that series for a year and a half with our staff, with our elders, with our leadership community. By the time I preached one sermon on human sexuality, there was enough conversation, enough investment, the people from our church trusting my heart and then saying, we're going to dive into some of these issues. So I was a lot more careful in terms of how I pastored. So I think I just created more formational spaces for dialogue and conversation. And I think that's what's helped me over the years grow in addressing really sensitive issues, because when I'm preaching about it, it's one directional, and there's not enough spaces for pushback and conversation. And then the pastor gets up there. I have a lot of power, and so can the pastor be questioned? Can there be pushback? If my only mode of training and discipling informing people is in the space of proclamation and preaching, it doesn't leave much for the kind of nuance and pushback and questions and puzzles that people have. So that's what I think we've created over the years to try to not water it down, but I think to wrestle with it with greater integrity from a community perspective.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: How can people do that if they're listening and they're like, man, I wish that my church had this because I feel like what I'm experiencing is what you just said. The pastor gets up there and he talks about things, and I have questions, and I don't have a place to process. I mean, that's honestly part of the reason we started this podcast was because we could have more room for these nuanced conversations. But how would you say people could create that in their churches?
[00:23:08] Speaker C: You know, it's a great question, and I think to the degree that the pastor and those who are in leadership create space for this is the degree to which I think it'll happen in a healthy way. I think people can.
Which leads to all other questions. What happens when the pastor doesn't do that? What happens when the pastor does not have the emotional maturity to create spaces where divergent opinions are going to surface and still can remain, create a context where we can be close to one another that requires a level of, I think, maturity and self differentiation to be a calm presence in the midst of lots of different issues. So when a pastor or leadership community is not creating that environment, I think what ultimately happens is any conversations in that direction can become threatening to pastors and so, and those who are in power. So I think my hope is that pastors are listening to this and are encouraged to say, you are creating and your senior leadership team, whatever you call it, are creating the environment ultimately to have healthy conversations or nothing. Um, for folks who don't have that environment, I think they have to do some good discernment work. In terms of, is this a community where God is calling me to long term?
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Or is, is there something else that the Lord might be inviting me into?
So that's a really hard but I think. Important question for discernment.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, naim, same question to you. We have a similar church with lots of diverse people and thought and, you know, I mean, speak to what we're doing at mosaic.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: I mean, I would say is the difference is that, you know, in queens, for example, the social structure there is where people, they know what they're getting themselves into, into queens. I mean, they're living together. I mean, there's a forced to live together, you know, in a sense.
But in North Carolina, they don't have to.
They have to choose to come together. They can. It's big enough. Charlotte is big enough where you can find your subcultures, you can find your own community and live in your own world. And, you know, on paper, it'll say, okay, it's a very diverse city because they're just. They're just talking about the people, the kinds of people who live there. But that doesn't mean they live together.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: And so mosaic has been challenging for the last 18 years that we've been at. It is that I didn't realize how much of a challenge that would be for people to choose to be together when not being together was an option, where they could choose to maybe work together, play together, but not really worship and live in community together. So I think that's been our challenge. And, yeah, I mean, the last several years, the same similar ears that you were talking about, you know, even mine, my. And, you know, I think the reality was, is that my voice in terms of preaching, I don't know if it changed or not, but I know that I was. I know that I was not necessarily reacting, but, yes, reacting and processing, that's the hard part of being a communicator, because you don't know at what point on stage, yes, you get a word from the Lord, but you don't know really if it is. Like, you really don't. It's like, that's the challenge with being a prophet. For example, I think it's Jeremiah. He had a lot of good things, but there were seasons of his life where he was just mad, sad, angry, and then compassionate, lonely. And all of those you see in his writings, you know, where he's going up and down with emotions. And so, yeah, I think for us coming out of COVID I mean, the church, a lot of people left because we, like, we were the first ones, you know, in our city to organize protests after George Floyd. You know, it was citywide, thousands of people there. And we got, you know, they're wearing all our church's shirts. I mean, these were just volunteers. Yeah, just city. They were not. But, you know, we had a. We had t shirts instead of hope for all. So we're like, we'll donate them. Because this was just grassroots. Yeah, it was organized in, like, four days, but it was massive.
But then, yeah, we got people saying, when did you start becoming.
Stopped becoming a pastor and now a civil rights leader, activist, activist.
The same narrative where it's like, you're leaving the faith, you're doing this, you're muddying this up. Be like, jesus would never do this. And I'm like, I literally had people saying, stop saying diversity. Like, and I'm like, it's in the name.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Our church is called.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: What are you talking about? And besides that, I can't talk. I can't tell any Jesus story then.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Like, all his encounters are, you know, he's not just you gathering and reconciling God and humanity. He's actually reconciling humanity to humanity. And the interactions that he's having, you know, that's why he. The examples of him, you know. You know, talking about someone's faith is always from a different background, you know? Yeah, maybe a gentile or someone else or, you know. So, yeah.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: And along those lines, you know, I think some of the work that I've had to do, especially when addressing some of the larger areas, like what you're saying is, represent the gospel. So much of the resistance that people have is their belief that this doesn't align with what the gospel is, which is always a great question for me. Like, it's when I start asking that question, how do you define the gospel? It's usually oriented around a couple of things. The afterlife, forgiveness of sins, personal relationship with God.
And I think I believe in all those things, but I've had to work hard to say to our church, like, the gospel is the good news that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus Christ, and that in his life, death, resurrection, and enthronement, the powers of sin no longer have the last word. And the powers of sin and death no longer have the last word. And so wherever there's sin and wherever there's death at work in the world, the church is called to respond.
And that hasn't helped everyone, but I think it's helped me to pastor people, at least let's get on the same page in terms of how we're defining terms, and then you can make a decision whether or not you buy into that. But that's been really important for me. Me.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Our vision. I mean, sorry, not even our vision, our mission, the reason why we exist, we had to redefine it and very be extremely clear about why we even exist, because there's so many churches in Charlotte, you know.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: And so when we put it down on paper and began, like, making that our mantra, it was very easy for people to kind of choose, okay, do I want to be part of this or not? Because our mission is to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus.
And so people go, oh, you think there's something wrong with it? And we're like, yes, actually, there is something wrong with it. Not that we have it right, but we're trying to reclaim this. And what that means is, as we continue moving forward, exploring, reimagining, rediscovering who God is and what this movement looks like and actually live out this movement.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Peeling off all the layers of the things that have been added on all of the religion and all of the, you know, extra things.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Most people just defend their tradition, not their faith, you know.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: Right. Well said.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Well, I want to sit in this, actually, but with, like, all of the knowledge that I've got right here, all of the wisdom between the two of you, I want to sit in this, you know, idea of having people coming together, especially in this political season that we're headed into. Right. Like, how do you pastor people to unity among disagreement.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: You quit.
You.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: Quite another profession.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: You know, someone asked me recently, like, hey, what's your plan? And I think in many ways, my plan for 2024 is to do what I did in 2020, in 2020, in light.
I made too many assumptions in 2016 about my congregation, about their political imagination, the way they see the gospel, the way they see the church as relates to society.
I had too many assumptions, which means, I think, alienated a bunch of people.
2020, I think I was a lot more aware of at least the dynamics within my own community. And so before the election, I did about a five week series on God, politics, and the church. And I began every message with the same talking points that I'm probably going to do at some point this year. And my talking points were, if you vote for Donald Trump, you're invited to come to our church. If you vote for Joe Biden, you're invited to come to our church. I only ask that you would see your politics through Jesus and his teachings, and not Jesus through the lens of your politics.
My hope is that you would be curious and humble to ask why different members of our community see the world in a different way, and that you'll be ultimately just prayerful as you think about what it means to follow Jesus in this world. And then I would begin my message. And I think that framing was, I think, really helpful for a lot of people.
That's the first thing. Secondly, we created a couple of spaces where conversation was able to be had with people who had divergent views on politics. And so, I mean, we had one zoom meeting where we had 200 of our congregants show up, and we had two of our elders, one who was voting for Trump and one who was voting for Biden, in a conversation with each other for an hour and was facilitated by someone from our church. And I was there to kind of frame the time.
And was it awkward? Oh, yeah.
I was like, oh, no. So and so showed up and is blowing up the chat, you know?
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:44] Speaker C: So moments got. But at the same time, I think what we. And this is not me trying to romanticize this thing. I think there were some significant differences in terms of policy, and not just in terms of policy. I think in terms of theology. Like, how does someone get to that particular point that has to be theological in nature?
And so the last thing, I mean, that's some of the stuff I've done. And then as a pastor, my biggest responsibility is to grow in my own ability to be differentiated. And by differentiated, I mean remaining close to God, remaining close to myself, and remaining close to others in times of high anxiety.
And if I can do that as a pastor and model that, I think it creates a culture that can do those three things more effectively. We're not doing it perfectly, but we're doing it effectively. We're being curious about our own reactions. We're being curious about other people's perspectives. We're being curious about what God is inviting us into and what it means to follow Jesus. And so my greatest task to kind of ultimately, Colossians 117 says that Jesus is holding all these things together. But my task as a pastor is to regulate my own reactivity to such a degree where I can be present, I can be honest. I don't have to lie. I could speak what I believe is the truth, but I'm doing it in a way that is emotionally attuned. And I think within my church and within your church, and I think human being on this planet, there are some that are more gravitate towards speaking truth in a way that is not really. I don't really care about emotional connection.
And then there are others that emphasize emotional connection to such a degree that they are don't want to speak truth. And I think the question is, how can you speak truth or speak at least honestly in a way that is also about emotional connection. That's ultimately the kind of environment I'm trying to create as a pastor, so that when these moments come, we're not governed by our own reactivity, emotionality and anxiety.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's so good. You mentioned curiosity. I'm actually reading a book right now called curious by Ian Leslie. If you haven't read this one, I feel like you would like it. It's all about, like, how we become curious and why it matters. And, I mean, how it's just a much bigger thing than just, like, being imaginative, you know? But how is that something that you foster within your people? Because I think sometimes we have maybe the assumption that we're like, oh, we can say the things, and we're just going to tell people that they should want to understand the other side, and then they'll do it. But they don't always, you know, I.
[00:37:42] Speaker C: Think what gets in the way of curiosity is not like, tactics. I think we have lots of tactics for it. We have lots of skill. I do think it's our own inability to confront our own fears about what are we, what are we stepping into when I'm curious, you know, as a parent, I have a 14 year old and a nine year old.
I have to practice curiosity with my high school daughter. And to practice curiosity means that I might hear stuff that might be very challenging for me to hear.
And so am I willing to truly wade into the waters of my 9th grader and all the ways that she's seeing the world, or am I going to just say, hey, I'm going to stay at a safe distance? So, so much of it, I think, is our own inability to deal with our own fears and anxiety that keeps us.
Our willingness or our need for control, our need to have the last word on particular matters. I think that's the stuff that we have to pay attention to because I think we have lots of tactics and skills, but tactics and skills without growing in our own self awareness about our own fears and anxieties, I think will only take us so far.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great example. I think when the church world, I think it moves into a different kind of. It even gets more complicated where there are people that are concerned about what a pastor is saying, not because they're fearful or they doubt that they're going to be led astray, but others will be. So it's going back to your daughter. It's like, well, don't teach her to be curious because as soon as that happens, she's going to go off the deep end, you know?
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: And so it's this idea of, like, maybe fear, but then also this idea of trust. Like, I don't trust myself. So you should not trust other people either. And so we should just keep people, you know, quote unquote, you know, conformed to the image of Christ versus really allowing God to transform our lives, you know, in his image. So, like, that whole dichotomy exists because there's no way you're going to step into the knowledge of God without leaving, you know, the knowledge of what you thought he was.
[00:40:28] Speaker C: Yes, yes.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: And the comfort that comes with that.
[00:40:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think part of the reason why curiosity escapes people interpersonally is because I don't think it's a skill that is practiced in our own individual lives. And so to be curious to someone else means I'm growing in my capacity to be curious to my own self, my own internalized messages, my own feelings.
You know, what was that reaction about?
Why did that reaction feel so disproportionate to the moment? And if I'm not on a regular basis trying to wade through my own interior life, I'm going to have a really hard time now extending myself to someone else and practicing curiosity in that way. So I think prayer as a spiritual practice is a means of not just communing with God, but curiosity with ourselves. I think this is psalm 139 with David says, search me, o Lord. I think this is the tradition, the ignatian tradition of self examination and curiosity and what's happening beneath the surface of my own life. And I think the average person, the average Christian does not have that in their tool belt in terms of seeing prayer as a means of curiosity in the presence of God, which then is to extend to curiosity with my neighborhood.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: I think curiosity is when it is tied to self awareness, and it even goes back to what you were talking about, you know, everybody saying, hey, everybody's got a personal bias. Some people are just honest about them, more honest than others. I think some people are in so much denial that they even have them that that's what stops their curiosity, because they're like, I'm afraid to actually self reflect and look in the mirror and consider the way that maybe I do think about other people.
[00:42:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Because then they're going to be faced with the decision of, all right, am I going to actually own up and do the hard work of digging in, trying to listen to the spirit and change and try to follow God's leading? Or am I just going to stay believing what I've always believed? Because it's easier just to stick with what I've already always known and keep those blinders on, which is not right, but it is the easier way to get through life.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about like, how, you know, I grew up muslim, and so I came to Christ when I was 1819, and so that's when I got introduced to the tradition, the just the church and Christianity as a whole. So I've always been the outsider. So I've never been able, so I've been able to just keep asking questions like, why do you guys do this? Why do you guys do this? Why do you guys do that? You know, and it's interesting because, you know, I've always heard this phrase, Jesus is the answer. You know, and to me, I think Jesus is actually the question. Like he is. Like, when you. When you dive into him, you begin asking yourselves a lot of questions about the world, about who you are. And I think.
But sometimes it's just easy for even pastors like me and myself to just give people answers instead of questions, like, make them curious. Ask the right questions to be people who are always asking, like, why are we doing this? You know? And, you know, I heard sermons about don't ask why, ask how.
And I've always thought, well, if it was a real relationship, you ask why.
[00:44:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: You know, you don't ask your wife, like, so how can I learn from what you just did? No. You're like, no, why'd you do this?
[00:44:29] Speaker C: Right?
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Asking questions is so important. I mean, in messages and prep in conversations and, you know, rich, when you. I know you have a legitimate, I will say, online following when it comes to.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: You have a legitimate online following, too.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: Are you talking to me?
Okay, well, thank you, dear listener. Don't go comparing my followers with riches, please.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: You both have real people. That's what I mean.
[00:45:02] Speaker C: Not bots here.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I mean, hey, if anybody wants to come on over, I'll link up my blow. I have no shame. My question, though, is for you, because I'm in your comments, and so I see the way that people respond, and I will just say, everyone doesn't always agree with you. We'll put it that way. And the things that you say, and I'm sure that some of these people that try to engage with you online, maybe they know you, maybe they're from your church. Maybe they've never met you. Do you have specific guidelines when it comes to engaging of things that you do or don't say, especially in those, like, conflict y ones?
[00:45:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it's funny because most of the platforms that I'm on, social media represent so many different audiences.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: So on Instagram, where I have the most amount of activity and followers there, I would say that the vast majority of folks are not from my church. For the folks who commented on stuff that I post on Instagram are not from my church. Those folks live on Facebook or TikTok.
Okay. And I'm not on TikTok, so I don't.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: You're not missing.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: So Facebook is where I do think, because there's lots more relationship on Facebook with the people there.
I am much more keen to getting into good faith conversations with people on that platform because they're people that I know.
If I sense any sense of snootiness, any sense of condescension from something I put out. I don't engage at all because I think that's just a losing battle altogether.
If someone in good faith is asking curiously around certain things, I'm happy to engage there. But. So that's kind of like rule of thumb for me. Once I see someone go down a snark and sarcasm, they're not getting any response from me whatsoever.
In the past, I would engage that, and I realized, and it wasn't my wife. Rosie has cut my sinning in half, I think, on social media, maybe more than that, because I think 2008, when I joined whatever social media stuff, to maybe 20, 1718.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: Ooh, sarcasm. I can be very sarcastic and was biting, biting. And Rosie would say to me, I mean, she's very sarcastic herself, so lots of good banter between us, but she would say to me, you know what? That's beneath you. That's just don't engage people in that way. And so because of that, there have been things that I have that I. That I've said in the past I don't say anymore because I don't want to come across condescending, snarky. I don't want to come across in the same ways that I don't want people to come across with me in terms of addressing those big issues.
In some ways, my social media presence is around two audiences, people who have given up, people who are not followers of Jesus, people who have given up on the church or deconstructing. So that's my primary audience. When I'm posting, I'm trying to. Now, whatever I post might have overlapping resonance for people who find themselves deeply devoted followers of Jesus and go to church.
But in my mind, I'm trying to offer a version of Christianity to people who have given up on the church and people who are exploring Christianity in a way that lets them know Christianity can be thoughtful, can be aware, and not just aware, but have a particular message for the brokenness of our world and the brokenness of our individual lives.
And so, I mean, that's. I'm not sure if I'm kristen, if I'm responding to the question, but that's kind of the filter in terms of how my engagement on social media, generally speaking.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: No, that's great. I actually have a really similar heartbeat when it comes to what I post. I think I have a lot of non Christians, a lot of disenchanted believers that follow me. And so I kind of try to use that lens, too. One thing I did steal a phrase from you, rich, in your comments once. Somebody was asking, I don't know if it was snark or not. I think it depends on how you read it. But essentially you said to them very clearly, you were like, I'm, I can't engage with you to, like, a deep level in the comments, but here are some resources for you to start. And you just like, dropped three book titles. And I was like, that is brilliant. That is so smart.
[00:50:01] Speaker C: Well, I'll say this about my, this is what I know about myself, and I have my, I have what I've written about this in one of my chapters on humility. In my second book. I can often have, like, a soul fragility where I can be extremely sensitive to comments and to criticism. And so this has been an area that I've grown significantly in, I'd say the last four to five years.
But there are times when someone's comment, whether they meant it that way or not, my own insecurities serve as the filter that reads their comments in a particular way. And then my response to them might be out of my own insecurity or it might be out of the limitation that I have in that space. I'm not going to have a series of back and forth with someone I've never met before, but I do want to help the conversation move forward. So that's why I'll maybe post a resource or something along those lines so I'm not just leaving them high and dry.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's brilliant and it's a great option versus fighting back, which is what I genuinely, like, tend to want to do.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: Yeah. It's so tough, though, you know, in a position that we're in as pastors where, you know, there are good people who really want to hear what we think about some deeply discouraging and disheartening things that are happening around the world, you know, and then those issues are also politicized in so many ways. And then there are words that, that, that are triggering to so many people. So it's just so tough to have a conversation, you know, I remember having being on a podcast talking about, you know, the Palestine and the israeli conflict and just talking through, you know, a different perspective on, you know, on it. And, and it's so tough because I don't want to.
I don't want to, I don't want to. I want people to like me, you know what I'm saying? You know, and I don't want to.
Nuts like, it's so hard to communicate your heart and a perspective that you should have.
I don't know. I don't even know if I'm. Know what I'm saying.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: It goes back to that comfort and challenge, right? Like, we want to. We want people to trust us so that they'll listen to us, so that when we're saying the hard truths, they. They believe us and they know our heart and they.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I posted something, and pastor, you know, well known guy, you know, commented on. On Instagram, and I'm like, you should call me. You should not do this. You know? Yeah, I thought, like. And you're. You're just react, like, yeah, I don't know. It's. It's. It's challenging when there's so many reactions that are based off of people's traditional Christianity versus really asking, hey, why. Why do we do this? Like, why are we so fired up about this? Yeah, you know, this side here.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: You know, when was it okay to do this? You know? You know. You know, and just asking deeper questions of the Bible, like, hey, you know, a lot in the Bible is basically, hey, all this stuff, don't do it.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: It didn't work, right.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: You know, not like, hey, see? So God did that and it was okay. No, actually, it wasn't. It was just historians writing what happened and God saying, hey, don't. Don't ever do this again. Yeah. You know. You know, so anyways, I just keep.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: On and then us trying to figure out how to learn from it and, you know, how to apply it to our lives today and.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: Well, rich, since the podcast is called becoming church, this is the last question that I ask everyone. So how can the people listening, not necessarily pastors, but just people that are listening, how can they become the church to the people around them?
[00:54:17] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:54:19] Speaker C: Well, I mean, to be the church, to use the imagery in Corinthians, is to be the body of Christ.
And I think to the degree that our lives are reflecting the character of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the things that Jesus talks about in the sermon on the mount and elsewhere, I think that's the degree to which we are becoming church, which for me, I think the way that I've tried to explain it is that the greatest gift that we give others is our ongoing transformation in Jesus Christ. And that's the greatest gift I give to my children, the greatest gift I give to my wife, Rosie, the greatest gift I give to the community that I have the privilege of shepherding. My ongoing conversion and transformation into Jesus Christ is the greatest gift. And I think that's for everyone. I think. To what degree is our lives modeling and patterned after Jesus?
That's how we become the body of Christ in our individual and of course, our collective lives.
And I think that's, that's the greatest gift ultimately, that we, we give the world around us.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: That's a beautiful thought, bro. That's awesome.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. It's been really fun having you to dig into some of these, you know, harder, a little more challenging topics. So we really appreciate your time. Listen, keep doing what you're doing.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: We are so grateful for just your voice and honored to do this work alongside you.
[00:56:03] Speaker C: A gift to be with you and aim. Thanks for showing up, man. I mean, I honored it.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Whether it was a discussion of race, politics, social justice, or sexuality. My guess is that something in this episode hit a little bit differently. I encourage you to lean in, get curious and flex yourself self awareness muscle to ask why you felt or reacted the way you did as you listened. If you're ready to briefly do the work of learning, I'll link up Rich's books along with some other additional resources on all of these topics in the show notes below. If this episode or any of our episodes have been helpful to you, we'd love it if you would rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. When podcasts have more reviews, they're more likely to pop up in searches for people who just might be a little for conversations like these. I'm not going to tell you what it is you need to write, but I will share this review from KK Indiana 29 that says I love this podcast. Each episode asks great questions about who we are as followers of Jesus, building the church in a world where we want to cater churches to us, or forget them altogether. This podcast looks at what does it mean to follow together. It agrees that we don't have to have have all the answers to be the church. Yes, if you are looking for a pastor without all the answers, you've certainly found the right show. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep becoming the church to the people around.
