#43: Fresh Expressions: Michael Beck and Jorge Acevedo
Been around the church for awhile? You need to listen to this episode! Michael and Jorge share their thoughts on what it means to launch new communities to reach new people.
Links:
A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions
Check out the entire podcast transcript below!
Tony:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast. I'm so excited today to have a heartfelt and deep conversation about fresh expressions with two leading thought experts, Michael Beck and George Acevedo. Good morning, gentlemen. [inaudible].
Tony:
So I'm, I love to just jump right in. Uh, you guys are writing a brand new book called field guide to Methodist fresh expressions. And I guess the question I have for you, Michael first is why is this right now in the churches time in history, the time for this book to come out?
Michael:
Yeah. Um, well, partly it's because Methodists have forgotten our story. Um, Leonard sweet says, you know, Methodism is the greatest story never told. And we've kind of forgotten this, uh, this apostle prophet, evangelist named John Wesley, who went out to the fields and started preaching the gospel to people who never heard it before and forming church with them where they were. Um, and we're in a time where we're, you know, the United States is the third largest mission field in the world, land of the nuns and the dones, the no church, the D church. Uh, and we have to find ways to be church with people who are never going to come into our Sunday morning worship services, even if we have George. So Vito is the preacher and, um, the most amazing worship team and all of that. There's a large of the population
Michael:
that's just never going to come. I'm so fresh expression is really church for people that don't go to church. Um, and, uh, tethering that together with inherited churches. So we're not leaving one behind in the rear view or kind of, it's a both and approach.
Tony:
I love that. George w what are your thoughts? Why is this, uh, why is this the right time for a book like this? And how would you define fresh expressions?
Jorge:
Hmm. Uh, let me get a little autobiographical first, Tony. Um, so I've been at the same church for 24 years,
Tony:
which is unusual in the Methodist denomination that that's for those of you that aren't Methodist and listening, most often people stay there three to five years if they're lucky.
Jorge:
Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and I can't, you know, explain how or why it's just, you know, rolling the dice. I don't know. Um, I, I would love to believe it's God's sovereignty in there somewhere. Um, [inaudible] at least it is great. So for 24 years, been in the same church and what I discovered, I started sensing it about 10 years ago that what had worked marvelously for us for the first 15 years or so, quit working and we were getting better at doing it, if that made sense. And to use kind of broad categories, uh, we were doing attractional church meaning come to us church. Nothing wrong with attractional church come to us church. Uh, it, it, you know, it was good music, good worship, good preaching, good children's ministry, great hospitality, got to have good coffee, you know, all of those kinds of things. And, and what I noticed starting about 10 years ago is the air started to come out of that balloon.
Jorge:
Uh, things started shifting in the spiritual atmosphere of, of my community. And I found out later, really the entire United States is this whole emergence of the nones and dones came about. And, and so, um, you know, we started hearing as the years went by that there's just large portions, particularly of young adults, uh, that said, it doesn't matter, uh, how skinny the pastor's genes are. It doesn't matter how cool the lights are, we don't care what you do. You can bring in monkeys, you can bring in, you know, whatever. We are not coming. And, and so, um, you know, I mean, I'm passionate for reaching people and for my community. And so for me it was a pragmatic, um, to engage in what I started hearing about on the margins. Uh, this new movement that was birthed out of England, kind of a partnership between the Anglicans and the Methodist, uh, called fresh expressions of church.
Jorge:
And, um, to your second question, I guess the, the definition I would give a fresh expressions of church is, um, new places, uh, for reaching new peoples, um, who aren't likely to walk into the front door of our Saturday night, Sunday morning attractional only church. Um, and, and it's creating enough space. Um, it's thinking innovatively enough, um, believing deeply in, out of our tribe, out of our Wesleyan tribe, believing in prevenient grace. Um, uh, I run around what I call terrorizing a United Methodist, um, persecuting them. Uh, and one of the things I say when I speak in, in our United Methodist circles is we Methodist believe in prevenient grace. We just do ministry like we don't wow. Um, [inaudible] you know, so all of what that looks like, cause I think a prevenient grace is often one of those really big kind of scary church words. Super practical.
Jorge:
What does that look like? Okay. Yeah. Uh, I'm a preacher, so I'll just tell a quick story. Good friend, good friend of mine in Louisiana. Uh, he's a grandfather like me and, uh, he, his grandson was born prematurely and they had to put him in one of those kind of, uh, incubators and he had to dress up in a hazmat suit to hold his grandson. And I asked him how it was going and he said his grandson's name is PacSun and he says it does not satisfy my grandfather's sensibility as the whole PacSun in this plastic suit. And uh, and he said, but I have learned this about PacSun. He is crazy about me. He just doesn't know it yet. And the truth is that every person who doesn't know Jesus is crazy about Jesus. They just don't know it yet. And prevenient grace is trying to create enough space where we can help people who aren't likely to walk into the front doors of our church, discover that there is a Jesus who's crazy about them.
Jorge:
And then if they would give him a shot, they'd be crazy about him too. And, and so, so, so for, for us, um, uh, there's a community four miles from our church. This is the second largest trailer park in the Southeast of America. And if you from the Southeast, like Michael and I am, there is a lot of trailer parks and it's the second largest in the Southeast, uh, a pocket of poverty. We're a school that we've been in for 20 years doing reading, mentoring, those kinds of things. In a school partnership, we discovered that there's just no church there, there's nothing there. So we launched what's called a dinner church, eat, pray, love dinner, church in a community center as an experiment. And that's one of the beauties of French expressions is they're cheap and you can experiment with them. You don't have to build a building, hire a staff.
Jorge:
It just, if you can get a few folks together who are willing to think and dream it can, it can happen. And so we created this space on Thursday nights and it's quickly turned into church now. It doesn't look like Grace Church at 10 o'clock with the band and the lights and the hazers. Uh, and clearly the pastor does not wear skinny jeans. Let me just be clear. Um, but it would be an ugly site, but, uh, it's, it's become a place where on any Thursday, and it's every Thursday for 40 to a hundred people gather in this community center. And, uh, we've done baptisms, funerals, weddings, Christmas Eve services, Easter, sunrise services, breakfast lunches, dinners, Bible studies, recovery groups. I mean, it's become, uh, it's own faith community. It's not branded as Grace Church. It's eat, pray, love dinner, church. And it is church for those that community, uh, primarily, uh, uh, white folk stuck in generational poverty and drug addiction. Michael, how did you fall into this idea of fresh expressions? And do you have anything to add to George's definition of it?
Michael:
Yeah, so let me, let me give a little bit of a biography too. Um, so I was a Methodist my whole life. Um, my, my mother struggles with drug addiction and prostitution. So my biological father's unknown. I was raised by my grandparents and they died when I was young, but I was brought to this Methodist church. My whole life was baptized as a Methodist. Those folks rallied around me at my infant baptism and committed to raise me in a community of love and forgiveness. Prevenient grace of God was at work and they did that. Um, so I had some formation and I came to know Jesus at a young age through the people that loved me into that. Then I took a turn, you know, went prodigal, uh, alcoholism, drug, drug addiction, raised in juvenile state facilities, um, incarceration. Uh, and then when I got out, um, uh, of, uh, last time being incarcerated, I heard about George, this pastor who had a history of recovery and alcoholism and addiction.
Michael:
And here he was this pastor of this large thriving church recovery ministries, part of that. So I started kind of following him from afar and, um, just getting to know him a little bit. Um, and so I grew up with this tension of like, my experience in formation and with the church was, was positive and good. And I experienced that as a good place. But most people my age and the people that I associated with were very far from the church, had no really, um, orientation towards God or the church at all. So I've lived in that tension of, you know, um, here, these churches that I've been sent to pastor as a, as a, um, you know, elder in the United Methodist church, but also knowing there's a multitude of people out there that there's no way they're ever going to come to my church on a Sunday morning.
Michael:
So how am I going to reach those people and what am I going to do? So I started kind of instinctually just doing fresh expressions. My first couple appointments, I wouldn't have called it that, but we started a recovery church basically called CPR. We had all these different, you know, rappers and speakers and stuff come in. It was just a church for people that didn't go to church. Um, and, and very quickly at the little church where I was at st Mark's, that church grew, outgrew the normal church. There was a, you know, a hundred people come in there on a, on a Wednesday night. Then I went to a little church called LA Calusa. We started a church in a barbecue restaurant cause it was the only thing around where there were people, no Walmart, no. Uh, post office. No. I was, my first appointment was in the middle of a swamp basically.
Michael:
And so how do you be missional in the middle of that? Um, so we went up to the next town and kind of met with the, the Diane's diner girls and planted a little church there with them. And then I went to Wildwood and like George, I've been at Wildwood for eight years. I have no intention of ever leaving. Uh, one of my other mentors told me, find the smallest church in your denomination. Serve it with all you have and you'll be faithful to Jesus. So that's been kind of my approach and we just started planning these fresh expressions. We have about 14 of them now where the, um, primarily lay folks like how Wesley released the whole people of God, the lay preachers. Um, and in that prevenient grace thing. So he kind of had this figured out a discipleship process, which amazingly, I kinda, I get to talk to Methodist a lot now ask that question.
Michael:
Like, so our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for transformation in the world. How do we do that? And there's usually crickets like, Oh yeah, that's our mission statement. But there's not a clear understanding of how we would even do that. So if we look back to Wesley, the society's classes and bands and connecting people at the waves of grace, you know, convenient justifying sanctifying grace. So in that prevenient grace stage, he's creating those societies where the only requirement for membership was a desire to flee the wrath to come. Um, very similar to what we say in AA. The only requirement for ever, she was the desire to, you know, get sober. Uh, and literally anybody could come into that space. So that grace that goes before us, before we're even aware of it, people were, you know, connecting in the fields and then coming in.
Michael:
And then he was bringing them through a life of holiness and sanctification through those groups where they're asking how it goes with your soul. So if you look at some of our first expressions, um, they're in these different stages. Some are like really prevenient grace, just people just really getting together and do a practice, uh, and maybe are not aware of a need for God yet fully. Um, then there's folks that are kind of just wrestling with what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? Then there's others that are really saying, you know, I think I want to be Holy. I'm, I'm all in on this. I want to live my life for Christ. And we have different fresh expressions and all those stages. So what I see is people say, well, how are disciples being made in these fresh expressions? And my response to that is a lot better than they're being made in our attractional churches.
Tony:
I'm on with ed.
Michael:
Really? No, no clear process for, for discipleship. So, yeah, sure.
Tony:
Well, I, so, uh, the disciple-making is my number one passion. It is by far the thing that we talk about the most at restoration church where I pastor. And um, one of the questions that I have for both of you is how are you seeing fresh expressions?
Michael:
Mmm, yeah. Being used to,
Tony:
to make disciples. I mean, Michael, would I, could you possibly share a kind of a story about how this is working on a more practical level?
Michael:
Sure. So let me, let me tell you about Denise. So I was there and Rita's and Bibles, this is a church that happens in the most Southwest girl, fully church. We have communion, open table communion. People in the space are invited to come to that. We dump out the chips and salsa basket. We passed the collection plate. Um, we have, you know, we take the tortilla and high C and the chalice and we serve, we talk about Jesus, we worship Jesus. Um, so all that's happening. So Denise prays and burrito's and Bibles for the first time in our life out loud to a group, just this beautiful, honest, compelling prayer. And she's in that group, just asking really good questions about, wait a minute. So you know, Jesus has God, what does that mean? This things that we kind of take as a, uh, assumptions. She's really challenging and asking the questions.
Michael:
So within a year of that time of her just coming into faith through this fresh expression, she starts her own fresh expression called church 3.1 where she's a runner. So she runs these marathons and five K's and 10 Ks and all of that. So she has this group, um, that she's the person, that piece really with that group of runners. They go around and, and run these marathons together. So she turns that into a form of church from a time of her praying for the first time out loud in front of a group of people in a year's time. She's essentially pastoring her own church. So she takes out her screen, she shares a little bit of scripture, they have a conversation around that. They pray, they run, they go back to work. Thanks for some of them. That's the only form of church they have.
Michael:
Hmm. So when we're talking about how Paul went in and raised up indigenous leaders very quickly, gave them the spirit, uh, you know, an understanding of Jesus as their Lord, then he moved on and planted the next one. So we're seeing in fresh expressions that same idea where people indigenous to their practices and their culture and their places where they already do life are quickly becoming disciples, learning to bend their life to the truth of scripture and very quickly starting to teach others. So rather than living in a kind of a learned helplessness, attractional ecosystem, which some, some of those can be quite unhealthy, they're actually having an opportunity to explore their gifts and their passionate and their calling and use those to connect other people to Jesus very quickly. So there's lots of those stories. Yeah, go ahead.
Jorge:
No, and I was going to say the other thing that I've observed as, uh, a shepherd teacher who's trying to release the Paulson profits and evangelists. Now for those who don't know, those are all kind of titles for different roles for people in the church. Right? Right. In Ephesians four, Paul talks about, uh, the, the gifts, uh, the offices, if you will, of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. And there are some really smart people out there, uh, outbursts being probably the primary leader, thinking about what he calls a pest apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. And that the apes, the apostle prophet, evangelist have either been domesticated by the attraction church or kicked out and that the church is primarily run by shepherd teachers. And, uh, I would categorize myself as a shepherd teacher with eight propensities. Um, and somebody who just through the hard knocks of ministry has learned, don't domesticate or runoff release the apes.
Jorge:
But Michael Beck's, uh, of my church. So I think about a guy in my church cause, cause Len sweet says the second largest group of people that need to be converted in America's the over church. Amen. And, um, and so we have these, you know, this large group of overfed, uh, underserving, you know, tippers. Uh, you know, they're not fully vested. They'd been lulled asleep by kind of a Luke warm invitation to religious life, maybe not necessarily a dynamic abiding relationship with Jesus. Call it whatever you want. Uh, I know that for me, uh, in year 42 of following Jesus, my fear is that I'm more like the older prodigal son than the younger one. So I'm not throwing stones. I have my own prone to wander. Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love propensity myself. But, uh, I'm thinking about this guy in my church who came in through our recovery ministries on Friday nights.
Jorge:
We have a huge recovery ministry that reaches hundreds and hundreds more than a thousand people every week. And, uh, and he came in and, you know, the God who was understanding turned into Jesus. I mean, if we believe in prevenient grace, uh, again, another way of putting Provine graces that AA believes in prevenient grace more than the United Methodist church. Um, and, uh, so, uh, you know, it turned from the God who own understanding to Jesus to, um, uh, two days he began to grow as a disciple. He started coming to the weekend worship services on, at our Saturday service. His wife was serving a cause on Sunday mornings. He loved BMX bike riding. And, uh, he loved his friends who loved BMX bike riding. And, uh, so we're experimenting right now and he's leading, uh, what we call dirt church, uh, on. And he's, uh, he's, uh, a missionary, a pioneer, uh, who's being mentored, uh, from the inherited church, resourced from the inherited church and released from the inherited church to go out and do this.
Jorge:
And I would say this guy was a guy that was sitting in church on Saturday nights, kind of bored, kind of bored. And Heather, uh, who leads our first expressions, had the wisdom to see the Wesley's, to talk about the lights in the eyes, see the lights in her eye, in his eyes, and his wife's eyes and say, how can we connect your passion for Jesus with your passion for BMX, dirt biking? And, uh, so, uh, you know, the verdict's not out that it's going to work. It seems that it's working. And, uh, and so I think there's this, there is a lot, there are a lot of kind of load into complacent C uh, followers of Jesus sitting in attractional churches that are, that their lights are on in their eyes and they just haven't been released to connect Jesus with the other passions of their life.
Tony:
So, uh, one of the questions that I have for both of you guys, just, uh, you guys don't know this, but I've also been in recovery six years sober. I did recovery ministry at Ginghamsberg. It was amazing stuff. And, and as I sit here and I listened to the recovery kind of like, uh, it's just weird to me that there's three of us on this call that all kind of have experienced
Jorge:
recovery. Do you think that,
Tony:
well, what are your thoughts on that? I, I, it's really just a reflection
Jorge:
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on, do you think people in recovery are just more open because we've been more broken down? I don't know. What's the, what do you think?
Michael:
I'll go ahead and Mike. Okay, I'll start and then let George bring the ring up. Wisdom. Um, I think that the maybe a, an a a celebrate are probably the most Wesleyan, um, things in the world today cause there's just this very clear pro, like I was not discipled in the United Methodist church, right? Um, I was discipled in alcoholics anonymous. They took me through a process that said I'm powerless. I need to come to believe. I need to make it, see I need to inventory, I need to confess my sins, I need to go make amends for all the wrongs I've done and I need to carry that message to everybody. Right? So there's a real clear, and at Wildwood
Tony:
there's a discipleship pathway, right? Like it's a really clear pathway.
Michael:
It is. And I, I struggle with this because I have people in my church that I love dearly and I try to visit with every person and get to know them, hear their story. The story that I hear most of all, it's a beautiful story is that, you know, I came to church Sunday school, came to faith. My parents brought me there and I just kind of, you know, have gone to church my whole life. That's a beautiful, that means the church is doing our job, but a lot of times there's no clear. And here's the moment where I said yes to Jesus and this happened and it made me really lean into God. Um, and that, that moment happens to all people in all different ways. Um, but it's really clear with us in recovery. Like there was that moment I was totally desperate and I cried out to Jesus and he came. So, yeah.
Jorge:
Um, I have, uh, another one of my, uh, uh, statements that I use when I try to persecute our tribe is that, um, spiritual malpractice is offering Jesus the healer without offering the people, the places and the processes for Jesus to heal. Um, and I would say that the vast majority of our churches are guilty of that. They stand up and they say, Jesus can really fix your life. So that was my story. Uh, addicted to drugs and alcohol. Uh, at 17, a few days before my 18th birthday, 42 years ago this week, I said yes to Jesus. And, uh, and the night I got saved, I went out and smoked a joint and to celebrate the fact that I'd become a Christian. Um, why wouldn't you? I mean, if you're a complete pagan, that's what you do. You know, you smoke a joint to say, Hey, I love Jesus now.
Jorge:
And, um, and I added Jesus to the Pantheon of my life, you know, I mean, he just was, you know, now he over time became Lord. But, uh, as much as you give as much of yourself as you can do as much of God as you understand, that's all I did is open the door. Um, and so I went to a church, I landed in a great Methodist church, uh, going through charismatic renewal in the, in the mid seventies. And that churches only disciple-making process was, you know, go to a Sunday school class. And there was, there was no people, places or processes for me to heal. And so I went all the way through seminary and into my first appointment as a pastor, an elder, then deacon, and later an elder in the church as a white knuckling, dry drunk, uh, raging on my two children and my precious bride.
Jorge:
And I was, uh, had enough sense to be in therapy to try to work on it. What I didn't know is that a therapist who was in recovery himself from sexual addiction and he was walking me through the 12 steps. Wow. Uh, and so I kind of, I'd say I came in the backdoor of recovery, if you will. And, and I, I think that the, uh, you know, out of our tribe, the three of our tribe, the Wesleyan tribe, you know, brother Wesley created these things called penitent bands. They weren't just the, the societies, the classes and the bands. There was this fourth group of penitent vans that, uh, uh, Michael Henderson in one of his books on Wesley describes as a space for people who struggled with addictions, mostly alcoholism, um, that were stringent in their disciple-making. Much like he says, current day, alcoholics anonymous. He says that in the text.
Jorge:
And so this is a part of our spiritual DNA that I would say, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but I imagine it's in the 90s. Uh, most United Methodist churches that I'd visit have kicked out alcoholics anonymous because they don't want those cigarette butts in their parking lot. They loved their parsonage or their, their parlors more than they do broken people. And, and so they don't want to deal with that crap, you know? And so they just kind of kicked them out. So this is, this is who we are and it's what Michael says. Um, the 12 steps is, in my estimation, the simplest and the best disciple making process there is out there because it deals first with my relationship with God. Then it deals. Secondly, with my relationship with myself, I've got to deal with my crap and I gotta get that in order. Thirdly, then it gives me how to deal with my relationships with others. And then it gives me a whole bunch of maintenance steps. And it ends by saying, you can't keep what you don't give away. And you better go to meetings to help the first time or get in the door. And we don't do that in the church. We say, please join my church, you know, or you know, we soft sell following Jesus and then, and then we wonder, you know, you get what you ask for.
Tony:
Yeah. Let me, let me ask you guys this. Um, I, I'm going to get super practical here just because I have you here and I can, um, at, so when I got to the church where I'm appointed, it was Centerville United Methodist. Uh, we renamed it about, uh, uh, a year and a half ago, almost two years ago now, um, to restoration church. And what's happened is, is that there's been through the fresh expression, there's been kind of a sense of revival, right? So, but now I'm, I really have two communities and I, I hear that George and your story and I see it like there's, there's not one United community at a location, but rather there's different pockets of community. Um, how do you guys live in the tension of what was and what could be? And in terms of the people connecting with each other.
Jorge:
That's good.
Tony:
That's a, that was a big question. That's a big question that clearly I've been thinking about for a long time. It's the biggest, it's the biggest struggle in my pastor right now. Like as a pastor, it's the biggest struggle I have that I have this incredible eight 45 service. It's full of amazing saints who I love dearly and I know their names and their grandkids. And then I have this, uh, kind of like outpouring of a different worship space in place and types of people in this other service and the two don't know each other at all. And I, I feel sometimes like, uh, well I don't, I don't know what to do honestly.
Michael:
Yeah. I'm glad that you asked that question. Cause um, in our book that's coming out field guide to Methodist fresh expressions, we try to hit that really intentionally because that, that really is kind of the major tension with the missional church and attractional church kind of living together that the same of, and George is doing this on a big level with a big church. And lots of staff and people all over the community. Um, it's probably easier for me in a, in a small church. So my wife and I came to Wildwood. There was about 30 people there our first Sunday. So we have eight kids in a blended family. So we doubled the congregation our first Sunday.
Tony:
Praise 'em that'll look good on the report.
Michael:
Amen. That was on the, we beat Grace Church that year. Highest.
Tony:
Okay.
Michael:
So I, I have to care for those folks who've given their prayers, presidents give servant witness to care for that church. They've given their lives. So I am their pastor and I have the obligation to love and care for them and teach them. And at the same time, knowing that there are no amount of that is going to revitalize that church ballad of just doing that. So it has to be both. And so I always try to say care for the center, experiment on the edge. And so as the fresh expression is really starting to emerge, um, we started talking about how do we, how do we now create community between these things and how do the people back in the inherited of starting to have some ownership and, and a sense of pride in what's happening with the emerging church. Cause what we would hear a lot of is, all right, that's great.
Michael:
You're having a tattoo parlor church. What are those people going to come to real church, right? Um, and yeah, that's nice that you're doing the thing in the dog park, but how's that going to put money in our collection plate? Um, and so we started to, to do what we call grafting, which is, um, there's this really awesome plant called ketchup and fries. So you know, you can, you can, you can grow ketchup and French fries on the same plan. You wear this through grafting. So you graph together. This uh, plant has got potatoes, bone and the ground tomatoes up top. It's called ketchup and fries. And on the new missional frontier, every church is going to have to be like a ketchup and fry plant where we care for the roots and we fertilize and do all of that and we plant the new things and graph them together.
Michael:
So we created this thing called a fourth place because folks in our fresh expressions when they would matriculate back, and that's not the goal of a fresh expression, is to get people to come back to your heritage church. But they do. And it's great when they do because they actually figure out, Oh, you know, these Christians I had all these stereotypes about are actually not that bad. They're pretty amazing people. I think I will go see what Sunday morning worship looks like, but they would never come back to our traditional service because their experience was just not, um, generative or w it was not good. So we created this thing that's in between a fresh expression and a in a traditional church is called new life. Um, and we encourage people from both those worlds to come in and participate in new life. And it's a, it's a worship experience.
Michael:
But it has, uh, some traditional elements like communion and the Apostle's creed and then a lot of like social media moments and coffee toasts and dance breaks and secular music plays for worship, music and those kinds of things so that it's comfortable for people that are, you know, on the edge, nuns DUNS. But also it's, we're worshiping Jesus quite clearly. So that's been a way for us to bring everybody together to share the stories and to tell our traditional folks, Hey, you'll never believe Nick was baptized in the tattoo parlor last week. And because of your faithfulness and what you do here and your prayers, presence, we have service, a witness. Nick came to faith. And you're part of that because your faithfulness here enables what we're doing out there and we'll show pictures. And so that they understand that they're part of this whole thing and their church churches, not just really what's happening there at 11 o'clock on Sunday, but it's all over the community.
Speaker 5:
It's beautiful. My approach has been, cause remember we're an attractional church. That leaves them the fresh expressions, uh, where I would, you know, Michael, it probably comes from the other side. Um, and, um, I, I think there's, I think one of the most unused places in the inherited church, the attractional church, uh, is the pulpit. Yeah. And, um, so you can fight with me in board meeting, but when I stand and read the word of God and say, this is the word of God for the people who've got thanks be to God, it's like, you know, game on game over you. You know, it's like, take it up with Jesus. I mean, and, and so, uh, one of the things, and Michael has been preached at my church and he's, um, uh, he, he's listened to some of our messages. You know, you can roll the dice and about half of the time we're talking about what does it mean to move from the seats to the streets in Sunday morning worship.
Speaker 5:
And so I don't want to let the inherited church the hook. And so, you know, if you ain't, I just, you know, and this is why I say I'm a, I'm a shepherd teacher with strong a propensities. Uh, and, and it's been that way. Even when we were an attractional church only, we were doing these huge outreach events with five, 6,000 people coming to them. And, you know, all those kinds of things. We were, we were drawing people to our church really well. That's why we've grown. So I don't think we can let the inherited church off. It's not like, I mean, and Michael would tell you this too, it's not like fresh expressions gives the inherited church a pass on being a Epistolic. And so, um, so that, that's one thing. I think it's in the preaching office and we just, we just gotta you know, Rick Warren used to say that that vision leaks and so you gotta hammer it.
Speaker 5:
I mean, and, and for us, it's every single week we have, so last weekend the attractional church did a, our oil change ministry. We do it once a quarter. Our car care ministry and we served 60 single bombs, single women and widows in our community, primarily people that we're reaching in our fresh expressions of church, so they're on our church parking lot. They get their, our Kairos outside ministries there to sign them up because most of them have incarcerated loved ones. Our prayer teams are there. Our hospitality, our food bank is there. We are loving the snot out of our neighbors, changing their oil, their air filters, blessing them, praying with them and all the rest. What do you think we did that night and the next morning in church? Hey, ministry moment. Let me show you pictures guys out there doing it so we're not letting the inherited church off the hook that it's got to be passionately Epistolic to draw people to the corner of Hancock bridge Parkway in Southeast 21st place.
Speaker 5:
They're not off the hook for us. Expressions isn't like a pass on being evangelical and evangelistic and outreach oriented at the same time. Then the other thing I would say is that we have to celebrate the fresh expressions in the inherited church. And so for us, w w w you know, we're regularly sending video teams out to videotape and guests where we show them on Sunday morning when the big crowd is there. So we're building bridges of Goodwill and, and then regularly about once every four months, uh, it's a big fresh expressions push for those kind of board saints sitting in church. And we really push and we pick up four or five, six, 10 new people. It typically filters out to about two or three, uh, that we then are able to take through some pioneering training and release them in some experiment to fresh expressions. So this is the symbiotic relationship between fresh expressions
Michael:
and the inherited church. And we do see some people, I've never used the term matriculate from fresh expressions to the inherited truth. We do see some of that happening, but, uh, I w I would say the vast majority of that is not happening. It's, it's that space, that place, and those pioneers become their pastors and their churches. Yeah,
Tony:
I love that. I love that. Michael. One of the questions I have as I listened to all of these different examples for a fresh expressions is, uh, it's, it's simple, but probably pretty deep. How do you define church?
Michael:
Yeah. Um, that's a great question. What we, what we do in fresh expressions is, uh, kind of strip it down to, you know, the bare scriptural minimum. Um, I mean, I would say for me personally, church consists of really two key ingredients. It's people and people are a mess. So there's going to be that element and it's a community of people that's life is derived from the life of God. So if you don't have people, you don't really have a church, you don't have people deriving their life from the presence of the Holy spirit. You don't really have insurance either. You have, you know, a corpse, not really a body of Christ, but fresh expressions. We talk about that one of the ways to say how, how do we say, say, is this a church that's happening in the tattoo parlor? So we look back to the folks that put together that nicey and creed and the 300 words a D and they came up, you know, they said a lot about God, the son, a little bit about God, the father, the spirit.
Michael:
But when they got to the church, it was just those four words. The church is one Holy, Catholic and apostolic. So we take those words and kind of remix them a little bit and we talk about the inward, upward, outward and upward dynamic of the church. So at church at some point has to be worshiping a Holy God. And our lives are being transfigured by that orientation toward God. So God's tested his Holy law. We're trying to reflect that character is unfailing love. Uh, there's a, there's an inward dimension. So there's a community there. It's a place where people are going to actually confess the things that are going on in their life and grow out of those and grow through those things. Um, so there's that inward dimension. There's an upward dimension. So the way that the blended ecology sustainable is those fresh expressions are tethered in a relationship to the inherited church.
Michael:
So they're not just these little islands floating around on their own. They're part of this greater one. Holy Catholic and apostolic church, the universal church. And then of course there's the outward orientation. So in a fresh expression, fresh expressions are born pregnant. And as soon as people start to see, Oh look, well Larry, the 80 year old pioneer started church in the dog park. So as George was saying, there's pioneer sitting in our, and they've been there for decades and they just need to be released out into the community to, to be in mission. Um, so there's an expectation and fresh expressions where we're talking about, so now what's, what are you going to start? Or how are we going to serve this community? Or what's our, what's our next step? So that's that outward Epistolic dimension. So when, when you have all of those, so people are worshiping Jesus there, there's community that's formed, there's an outward, how are we going to share this with others? There's an upward, some relationships being sustained with the larger church, we'd say that's a mature fresh expression. Um, so that has all the marks of what historically has been called the church of Jesus.
Speaker 5:
No, that's, that's good. I like that. George, any anything to add on that? That was pretty extensive. Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is just reminding people. Just some good church history, you know, that, you know, ax was not, they didn't have buildings. You know, I mean, we have an edifice complex, uh, particularly in North America. We love our buildings more than we love maybe even people in our community and, and, and you know, to really, again, in the preaching teaching office now this is why I am a shepherd teacher in the preaching teaching office to really hammer home the reality that it's not the bricks and mortar, the properties, the things that we, that that are endearing to us. And you know, I don't, again, I don't think this is where sometimes I want to poke Mike in the eye, Michael and UI.
Speaker 5:
Sometimes when he, when he gets a little Punchdrunk with the, with the inherited church is, is to recognize that I think people's affection for their buildings comes off and out of a very good place. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you've got any apostle prophet, evangelist in you, you'd like to take shots at the, at the inherited church. And, and I, I like to do it quite honestly myself. Sure. It's such low hanging fruit and um, it's made so easy these days. But, uh, the reality is, I mean I'll never forget, a guy told me he had built a new sanctuary, a bigger sanctuary, cause they were one of these growing mega churches. And I was listening to him talk about it and he said a guy made an appointment with him during that season when they were getting ready to open the new place, which was right next door to the old sanctuary.
Speaker 5:
Much like a lot of old Methodist churches, you know, the chapel was the old sanctuary kind of. Sure. I pass her in that exact church as a matter of fact. So this guy, you know, made an appointment with the senior pastor and he said, Hey. And when he showed up, he said, Hey, let's walk into the old room. And he took him into the old room and walk up to fourth row, third seat in, and he said, it was right here. He said, what? You said, it was right here that you were preaching right there. And I was right here and I gave my life to, and then he said this, he said, you've been a little cavalier about talking about the move from here to there, but you need to know that that seat will always be precious to me because that's where I found Jesus.
Speaker 5:
And so I think we need to have a kind of a pastoral sensibilities as we do this kind of work. It, it, one of the things that I love that Michael has done well is he really has held the tension between the fresh expressions of church and the inherited church. And, uh, and I, I think he leans a little more fresh expressions. And again, I think one of the reasons we're a good team is Eileen, a little more inherited church. And between the two of us, there's kind of this equilibrium that's found, uh, or, or, or is I'd say between the two of us, we make one really good pastor. So one really good spiritual leader. Yeah. I think we have to, we have to recognize that, that those buildings are important to people because they were married, they're buried, their loved ones. There's baptized their friends there.
Speaker 5:
And so if we can affirm all of that and yet say at the same time that lost people really matter to God, it really, really mattered to God. And, and, and, and, and hold those two things. Intention. I'm a big believer in, um, uh, Jim Collins's in his book built to last, uh, he talked about the principles of the difference between the a plus companies and a companies. What's the margin is really thin and what's the difference? And he said a plus companies practice the genius of the, and not the tyranny of the or. And by the way, that's our Wesleyan theology, faith and works. You know, it's that tension. It's works of mercy, works of piety. It's that tension. It's, you know, that we live in as followers of Jesus. It's grace and truth. It's that tension that we live in. Um, and, and it's, and, and in this case it's inherited church and it's fresh expressions of church.
Speaker 5:
It's the tension. And Andy Stanley has said, you know, we manage tensions and we solve problems. And a lot of people want and want to make the inherited church attractional, the inherited church and fresh expressions of church, a problem to be solved. And in he's tall, it's attention to be managed some. And there will be seasons when it is really appropriate to lean into the inherited church because of what's going on in that inherited church. And then there are going to be other seasons where you're going to lean heavy into the first expressions of church. We're in a more of a releasing season, do all of that with almost reckless abandon because things are fairly stable here. So,
Tony:
yeah, if I, if I could give myself one piece of advice going back to when we kind of started this transition in, at, at restoration, it would be to give the, um, give more space for people to grieve the loss of the consistent thing in their life because the pastors were so itinerary, right. Especially in a smaller church. Right. And so they were itinerary for a lot of years. And, um, meaning that the building was the only consistent thing. And then you start messing with the building and you start messing with what was, and there's a natural response and the response is grief. Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I would certainly walk someone through grief if they had lost a loved one. Why can't that loved one be this space?
Speaker 5:
Yeah. Ron Heifetz says it's not, it's not, uh, it's not changed that people grieve. It's lost that people grieve. And we think that it's, again, I'm an inherited church guy. And so we think that it's just those inherited church people and they're there. They just don't like change. Uh, and I, I would say there are some that that's true, that there are some, but for most people, if you can acknowledge the loss and just acknowledge it, you know, uh, to sit. Yeah. Colin Powell said, uh, people don't have to have their way. They have to have their way considered. Hmm. And so I think I've become a bit of an expert, if you will, on how to navigate change in a local church because our church has morphed and continues to morph. Um, you know, over the 24 years. And what I wish I knew at 36 that I've learned at almost 60 is that it, that people grieve, loss, acknowledge the loss.
Speaker 5:
Say I get it. I get it. Church, as you knew at 1950s, it ain't never coming back. You know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, this is a new day. You know, we got to put it as Ron Crandall taught me at Asbury seminary when I was in his evangelism class. My very first class, my very first day. It has very, so when you go fishing for fish, you put on the hook with the fish, like not what she was like, I'm going to. And so you know, if it's tattoos and Bibles and burritos, if it's, we have a pizza thing, if we, you know, whatever it is you put up, you put on the hook, the fish life, not what you liked necessarily.
Tony:
Michael, I know that there's going to be some people listening who, um, who are resonating with this fresh expression idea. What would you say is the number one thing that a fresh expression planter needs to have in their heart?
Michael:
Man, that's good. I would say the number one thing is you have to love, um, the people that you're trying to reach, like genuinely love them. It can't just be an idea. It can't just be the next cool thing. You have to really pray and, and ask God and work it out with them. That who are the people that I really love in this community that are not represented here. Um, and, and the, the first stage of fresh expression that this can't be overemphasized is so listening to God, listening to our community that double listening. And I think a lot of people make a mistake. They have this brilliant idea of this thing that I want to do, but it can't start with that idea. It has to start with real people in a real need and something that God's actually calling you to. And if that's the case, then whether you use succeed with it or fail, uh, and learn from your failure, it's going to be a kingdom victory.
Michael:
Um, and I would say just for, for pioneers, um, it's been really important for me to have relationships with people like George that are mentoring me and keeping me. Um, what, when my heart orientation toward the inherited church, um, where, where I'm not going off the deep end, the Epistolic edge, uh, for instance, um, I've stolen a lot of George's ideas. Okay. So we took when we started at, wow, what a lot of people have. So we're all guilty of that. But, um, we took in that prayer, Lord send us the ones that no one else wants or sees and help us love them when they come. Um, George pioneered that prayer and then we changed the orientation of that Lord send us to the people. No one else wants her scenes and help us love them and then we'd get there. Um, so having, having people, uh, that I'm in a continuous discipleship process and they're watching over me and helping me when I'm, when I'm probably going too far, uh, out on to the edge, um, is really important.
Michael:
And so the, the, the French expression approaches people say, well, it's really kind of a, um, a remix of Donald McGavran like homogeneous unit principle stuff where he realized that our very, uh, individual Western approach of Christianizing one person at a time and bringing them back to the compound, it's not a very effective missional strategy. People become Christians and communities and groups, um, through these kinds of people movement things and really fresh expressions is bringing that approach back. So there's communities of people, yeah, they gather around the practice. Uh, and it's not the practice, it's not the tattooing or the burritos or the pizza and verbals or whatever. It's, do I love that group of people enough that I'll risk, you know, be an incarnation of, with them being in relationship with them over an extensive period of time and helping how the Holy spirit helping just point to how the Holy spirit is already at work in their lives and in that community and, and helping them, you know, see how Jesus has already there.
Tony:
I love that. Um, so you guys have a book coming out April 1st a field guide to Methodist fresh expressions. Um, uh, my prayer for this book is that it gets in the hands of so many pastors and we continue to see this bill. The if, uh, if somebody wants to pick up a copy the book or they want to follow you, two very wise men on the interwebs, where would they go to find you?
Speaker 5:
Uh, well, uh, I'm at, uh, our church website is E grace church.com. And, uh, that's the primary place to get, uh, our worship services, our videos there. A lot of the videos of our fresh expressions are there at our ministry with special needs. Uh, those kinds of things that we have. Um, our eat, pray, love dinner, church, those kinds of things. And then I'm on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Michael:
Yeah, same here. I'm, I'm a, you can of course find our church while wood, uh, FLQ MC, uh, also fresh expressions, U S um, I write and blog for them and have a, have a presence there. And of course I'm on Facebook and Twitter and, um, this book it'll be, it's, uh, through Abbington publishing. So it'll be on Amazon, Abingdon, and
Tony:
we'll link to all of that on the, on the, uh, show notes and we'll make sure everybody gets a chance. And, uh, for those of you that are listening locally in the Dayton area, both of these incredible speakers are coming to United theological seminary on, uh, April 24th fresh expressions. Uh, they're doing a day from nine to three, united.edu. Uh, again, we'll link to that in the show notes. I'm going to be there hoping to bring some of my leadership team there. I'm super excited for the day. It's going to be a great event. So gentlemen, uh, the last question that I always love to ask my guests is, uh, if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice and I'm going to take you guys back since you, you both have similar, a similar moment, but in different spaces. If you could go back to when you were both finishing, um, or getting ordained as an elder in the Methodist church, right? So you guys both go. Now George has a little bit longer for you than it is for Michael, but that's fine. That's fine. As you could give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? Uh, Michael, why don't you kick us off?
Michael:
Oh, and [inaudible]
Michael:
I guess my, my greatest failure as a leader has been, there's been times where I haven't loved my people the way they deserve to be loved. And I've been frustrated as, as I'm trying to help them see this vision of, you know, people outside the sphere of reachability. And there's been times where I've, I'm held hostility and anger in my heart and I've had to repent for that. Um, so if I could go back and tell myself to be more patient, um, to be more loving with the people that I've inherited and to try to understand their perspective more thoroughly,
Speaker 5:
that would be, that's what I would do.
Speaker 5:
George, what about you, sir? Um, I, I would say, um, I wish I knew to the core of my being as I think I'm beginning in the sixth decade of my life, to, uh, actually, uh, actually live in this space that people, uh, are not a problem to be solved, but a people to be loved. And that begins with myself. Um, I'm not, Oh, I've often seen myself as just a problem to be solved instead of as a person to be loved. And so I, you know, uh, I got awards and accolades for growing a big church and I did it at a huge personal cost. Uh, and if my wife and sons were here and they were honest, they would say, you know, I mean, I've been a good husband and father, I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to beat myself up, but I miss, I miss too many ballgames.
Speaker 5:
Uh, I didn't go to the gym enough, you know, I didn't take care of myself. So I'm not a problem to be solved. I'm a person to be loved. And if I could live in that sweet space of knowing that I'm loved and that other people, the people in the pews of my church are not a problem that I have to solve. They really are a people to be loved. And the people in my community, it's not just about reaching them, it's about loving them. And, uh, so yeah, I wish, and I, I would say that again in the sex six decade of life, in the fifth decade of fourth decade of love and Jesus, it's starting to come around,
Tony:
praise God to give the rest of us hope. Well, thank you guys so much. I really enjoyed this conversation and appreciate all of you and can't wait to see you guys in Dayton on April 24th. And uh, I hope so many of our listeners will come up and say hi and uh, pick up a copy of the book. It's going to be a great event. Thank you guys.
Speaker 5:
Thanks. Thank you, Tony. Thanks for having us. [inaudible]
Speaker 2:
what a great conversation with George and Michael. I know that you've found their thoughts and their process just so incredibly life-giving as I did. I think that they have so much to offer the kingdom of God as they continue to build out what it looks like to be the church in today's world. And I know that that's hard. It's hard to follow Jesus today because the world is telling us something so different. So check out what they're doing. Check out their book, check out the April 24th event at United theological seminary and uh, and follow them on all the socials. I think you'll really enjoy it. Michael is super active. He just got back from a trip to the Holy land and it was a, it's fun to watch that play out on social media, so hit him up wherever you do a Instagram, Facebook, tell him that you appreciated them being on the podcast. It would mean so much to us. Thank you for being on this journey with us. Our hope today is that this conversation maybe strengthen you a little bit, helped you on your journey, and as always helped you reclaim good practices for faith and life.
