(Prayer) Walking In Memphis with Geoff Mitchell | Episode 191

[00:00:00] On this episode of Church and Main, Geoff Mitchell returns to the podcast.

[00:00:05] Geoff is a Disciples of Christ pastor.

[00:00:07] And on this episode, we talk about his ministry of prayer and the effect it's having on his

[00:00:13] Memphis congregation.

[00:00:15] That's coming up.

[00:00:52] Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested at the intersection

[00:00:58] of faith in our modern world.

[00:01:00] I'm Dennis Sanders, your host.

[00:01:02] If you're someone who looks at the world's events in one hand and a Bible in the other,

[00:01:10] well, this podcast is for you.

[00:01:12] So on this episode, in light of the recent events, it probably makes sense that we're

[00:01:17] going to be talking about prayer.

[00:01:20] The recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has led many people,

[00:01:26] especially in the hours following the attempt.

[00:01:30] It led many people across the political spectrum to seek prayer.

[00:01:36] And that brings up those questions.

[00:01:38] Can prayer make a difference in our lives?

[00:01:40] And actually, can it make a difference in the life of a local congregation?

[00:01:48] And if we put that out a little bit farther, can it make a difference in the life of our nation?

[00:01:55] Now, the answer, of course, of all of those, I believe is yes.

[00:02:00] But we always are left with a lot of questions of what does that look like?

[00:02:04] How does that work?

[00:02:06] And so in this episode, I am talking again with Jeff Mitchell.

[00:02:12] Now, Jeff has been a guest on this podcast a few times before.

[00:02:17] He is the pastor of Lindenwood Christian Church, the site of the

[00:02:20] Christ in Memphis.

[00:02:23] In the past, when we've talked, we've talked a lot about the wider church,

[00:02:26] especially about mainline Christianity, about the domination that we are both in,

[00:02:31] the Christian Church of the Christ.

[00:02:33] But in this episode, we kind of focus a little bit on his congregation and his ministry,

[00:02:41] and which became the church's ministry of prayer in the local congregation.

[00:02:47] My hope is that for those of you who are listening,

[00:02:52] we'll look at this episode and take it to heart and see how it might impact your own congregation.

[00:02:59] And you don't have to be a pastor for this to be an important part of the life of your congregation.

[00:03:08] So I hope that you will take some time to listen to this conversation with Jeff Mitchell.

[00:03:50] Well, Jeff, it is great to have you back.

[00:03:52] It's been a few years since we've had you on last.

[00:03:55] So I'm glad you're here.

[00:03:58] Oh, Dennis, I'm glad to be here.

[00:03:59] It's always good to connect with you.

[00:04:01] I listen to your podcast consistently and I'm just honored to be back on here again.

[00:04:05] I think this is the third time.

[00:04:07] So maybe I should get like a jacket or something.

[00:04:09] You're close.

[00:04:10] You still have a few other people that are ahead of you.

[00:04:14] I think five is the magic number.

[00:04:16] So we just need to have you back two more times.

[00:04:17] Okay.

[00:04:18] Okay.

[00:04:20] So I brought you on because I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of what has been going

[00:04:26] on at your congregation.

[00:04:29] And I know a little bit about you just recently finished a doctoral dissertation

[00:04:34] on prayer and evangelism and prayer kind of in the life of a congregation.

[00:04:40] And I think maybe to start it off is to kind of talk about your own prayer life

[00:04:47] and what has that been like over kind of as this evolved over the years?

[00:04:53] And how did that then lead to more corporate prayer, prayer as a community?

[00:05:01] I have said this many times.

[00:05:03] I said this on our friend Lauren Richmond's podcast a year ago that I am not Thomas Merton.

[00:05:10] I do not have the deepest contemplative life.

[00:05:13] I know that I connect with God in Scripture.

[00:05:17] I know that I connect with God through corporate worship.

[00:05:21] And I know that the beauty of God can be found in a variety of ways.

[00:05:25] But when I think about the history of my own spiritual formation,

[00:05:29] I do not want to come across as if a deep contemplative life is what has marked me

[00:05:35] as a disciple of Jesus.

[00:05:36] I don't think that makes me a terrible disciple of Jesus.

[00:05:39] There's just different ways that people connect with God.

[00:05:42] But in acknowledging that deficiency is too strong a word, but where it's not a strength,

[00:05:48] I'll just put it that way.

[00:05:49] Maybe not even a gift.

[00:05:51] I've just been on this journey probably that started in,

[00:05:55] I can put my finger on it in like June of 2019,

[00:05:59] but specifically during the pandemic and post-pandemic,

[00:06:03] which is not how do I develop a deeper prayer life,

[00:06:07] but how do I join in the work God is doing in the world?

[00:06:10] And so I think we've always had this false dichotomy of,

[00:06:14] do we pray about an issue or do we act about an issue?

[00:06:17] Gun violence is the terrible.

[00:06:20] All our bad theology comes out around that.

[00:06:24] We don't need prayer.

[00:06:25] We need action.

[00:06:26] Well, I think we need both.

[00:06:28] And I'm not one of these people that says we just find the middle ground on anything,

[00:06:31] either.

[00:06:34] I'm not even quite sure where to begin all this.

[00:06:36] So I'll just put it this way.

[00:06:37] I'll just give you a snippet.

[00:06:39] I'd rather tell a story than give a lecture.

[00:06:41] I think it was October of 2020 and COVID was, COVID felt permanent.

[00:06:48] We were all preaching to cameras.

[00:06:50] The few churches that had, I mean, the churches that had reopened

[00:06:53] did not, thankfully, get a flood of everyone coming back at once.

[00:06:58] And I'm walking through Midtown Memphis.

[00:07:00] This was, this was one of my spiritual disciplines was a long walk

[00:07:03] during the pandemic because in a sense, I didn't have a whole lot else to do.

[00:07:06] And I found myself praying for my neighbors because I knew what they were up against.

[00:07:13] I knew that they felt as many of them felt as lonely as I did.

[00:07:17] And in a large metropolitan area, you can have high population density

[00:07:21] and somehow that compounds our isolation.

[00:07:23] And then you pile a part of the city that took COVID very seriously.

[00:07:28] On that front, I was very thankful.

[00:07:30] There was high sense of regulation and sheltering in place.

[00:07:35] And I had this grief as I was praying for those folks.

[00:07:38] And it can be some combination of, all things are,

[00:07:43] a combination of ego, of despair, of grief, which was,

[00:07:47] God, how are we going to rebuild our church?

[00:07:50] And I wasn't the only minister dealing with that.

[00:07:53] I wasn't the only minister grieving that, praying that, anxious about that.

[00:07:58] It was, God, how do we begin to rebuild our church

[00:08:02] whenever the pandemic, as we knew it, lifted.

[00:08:06] And so I just started praying for every person that I walked by

[00:08:09] on this two mile journey that I would take almost every day.

[00:08:13] And I found myself coming to a place through that prayer life,

[00:08:17] or through that prayer exercise,

[00:08:19] of realizing that only God can build a church.

[00:08:23] Only God can build the church.

[00:08:24] In anything that I contribute to the growth of the church,

[00:08:28] because I do believe in church growth.

[00:08:30] I do believe in prioritizing that, which shares the gospel

[00:08:33] and invites and welcomes new people in the door.

[00:08:36] It has to be aligned with what God is already doing.

[00:08:40] And so my prayer life, my evangelistic prayer life,

[00:08:43] my desire to pray as a way to reimagine evangelism

[00:08:48] is not a technique.

[00:08:50] It is not, here's five prayer tips for you

[00:08:52] to get 100 visitors in the next year.

[00:08:54] Like all that stuff is just washed over me

[00:08:56] to the point of resentment.

[00:08:58] We can talk about that at some point,

[00:09:00] because I was a practitioner of it for many years.

[00:09:02] It's still baked within me.

[00:09:05] I needed to join with a power greater than myself.

[00:09:09] And in that, I had to reaffirm my belief

[00:09:11] that God is actually active in the world.

[00:09:14] And I had to rediscover what it meant

[00:09:17] that God is the one who brings people to our church.

[00:09:21] God is the one that changes human hearts.

[00:09:24] So it was this odd collision.

[00:09:26] Nobody ever accuses me of being a theologian

[00:09:29] of pushing back against the imminent frame

[00:09:33] that the person we've learned from a lot, Andrew Root,

[00:09:36] talks about that we have essentially,

[00:09:38] secularism is not paganism.

[00:09:41] Secularism is life without reference to God's activity.

[00:09:44] And we often operate our churches.

[00:09:47] I've operated, let me rephrase that,

[00:09:48] I've operated my churches with the notion

[00:09:51] that if I want it to be done, I have to do it myself.

[00:09:53] And I need to be more clever than the church down the street

[00:09:56] and I have to work harder than the pastor down the street.

[00:10:00] That's just a key to burnout.

[00:10:03] I mean, that's just a pathway to burnout.

[00:10:05] And so I have to trust that God is working.

[00:10:09] I've really rediscovered what we talk about

[00:10:12] with Provenient Grace, that God is going ahead

[00:10:14] in the lives of people long before they noticed

[00:10:18] our church sign, long before they got our YouTube fee

[00:10:23] YouTube video in their feed, or maybe God was working in that.

[00:10:27] Maybe God's the one that prompted that Facebook post

[00:10:30] to be in front of them, that God is actively working

[00:10:32] and pursuing people that God cares deeply about,

[00:10:35] that Christ lived and died and rose again for.

[00:10:39] So all of that has kind of,

[00:10:40] all of that kind of came together to, as you said,

[00:10:43] help me form what the congregational project

[00:10:46] that I've used in my dissertation to help look at prayer,

[00:10:51] that will allow prayer to be a pathway

[00:10:53] to reimagine an evangelism within, specifically,

[00:10:58] within mainline churches.

[00:10:59] Because in mainline churches,

[00:11:01] we value the imminent frame more than anybody.

[00:11:03] So we're up against that.

[00:11:05] We are a highly rational people, which I value.

[00:11:09] We are, we do not have the evangelistic,

[00:11:12] the traditional evangelistic gifts.

[00:11:14] We have relied at our time,

[00:11:16] at our best even on church growth,

[00:11:18] which is, is a tool.

[00:11:22] It's not a gift of the spirit.

[00:11:23] It has, we have things to learn from it,

[00:11:26] but it's not what we can camp out and depend on.

[00:11:29] And in that, we created a congregation

[00:11:31] that has begun to dip our toe in the water

[00:11:34] with what it means to be people who pray together

[00:11:37] to reimagine evangelism.

[00:11:41] So one of the things that you kind of noted there

[00:11:43] about reimagining evangelism,

[00:11:46] talking about where God is already active,

[00:11:49] you know, the key element there is

[00:11:53] realizing that God is already active.

[00:11:55] And I think that that is something

[00:11:58] that is hard for us to imagine in our culture,

[00:12:03] because we feel that it's all on us,

[00:12:05] that we're kind of the prime mover of everything.

[00:12:10] So I mean, how difficult is that

[00:12:14] to kind of move from that,

[00:12:17] I guess maybe from the eminent frame

[00:12:19] that we're talking about where we don't really imagine

[00:12:22] God active to a more transcendent view where God is active?

[00:12:29] Well, it's a slow change.

[00:12:31] I have to start with that,

[00:12:32] because there's always going to be a suspicion

[00:12:34] of like, what are we, Pentecostal?

[00:12:37] And you can't take hundreds of years

[00:12:39] of compound interest or rationality

[00:12:42] within the mainline church and change it in one workshop,

[00:12:44] in one dissertation, in one prayer activity,

[00:12:48] one prayer outing.

[00:12:50] If we have to start somewhere,

[00:12:52] I guess I would confess I had to begin that within me.

[00:12:55] And that began with repentance

[00:12:58] more than it did what I actively affirm.

[00:13:01] And so you know this,

[00:13:03] I've been a part of two new churches

[00:13:05] that have started.

[00:13:06] I served a church in Iowa

[00:13:07] that had a significant amount of growth.

[00:13:11] And I was for lack of a better term

[00:13:13] quite an advocate

[00:13:14] for do these five things

[00:13:17] and your church can grow.

[00:13:19] Work hard in these areas

[00:13:21] and your church can grow.

[00:13:22] And again, I look at those as neutral.

[00:13:25] You know, they can be tools,

[00:13:26] they can be helpful,

[00:13:27] they can also become an idol,

[00:13:29] they can also become a cop out,

[00:13:30] and you can be on either ends of them

[00:13:33] where you baptize the sociology of church growth

[00:13:36] and say this is God's greatest gift to the church,

[00:13:39] who needs the Holy Spirit

[00:13:40] when we've got a good ad campaign,

[00:13:42] or you can take the other end of the pendulum

[00:13:44] that I'm sure you have experienced as well,

[00:13:46] which is we need to reject all of that.

[00:13:48] We need to,

[00:13:49] we're suspicious of any church that's growing.

[00:13:51] We're suspicious of churches

[00:13:53] that are reaching new people.

[00:13:55] We're suspicious of anybody

[00:13:56] that's trying something new.

[00:13:57] Innovation is in many ways like church growth.

[00:14:01] It's inherently neutral, I think,

[00:14:03] but it has a real dark side

[00:14:05] that we often tend to fall on the dark side of

[00:14:07] with innovation, with marketing.

[00:14:10] So that had to begin within me

[00:14:12] in a recognition that,

[00:14:14] you know, when I planted in New Church in Chicago,

[00:14:18] I think there were like 14,000 door hangers

[00:14:22] with an invitation to our launch service

[00:14:25] that I personally hung.

[00:14:28] I personally hung 14,000 door hangers.

[00:14:33] You know, I didn't have Apple steps.

[00:14:35] I didn't have an Apple watch

[00:14:36] with how to keep track of my steps,

[00:14:38] but I think that was one of the rare times

[00:14:40] where working hard in ministry

[00:14:41] caused me to lose weight and not gain weight.

[00:14:46] I have no,

[00:14:48] first of all, I didn't need any God to do that.

[00:14:50] I did not need the Holy Spirit to make that happen.

[00:14:52] I don't know that anybody came

[00:14:53] because of that door hanger.

[00:14:55] I never had anybody say,

[00:14:55] you know, I got this door hanger

[00:14:56] and I thought, you know, Lord, I need to go to church.

[00:14:59] But the other part was I was,

[00:15:01] I was damn proud that I did that.

[00:15:04] I look how hard I worked God.

[00:15:06] Look how hard I worked.

[00:15:08] Look, I did this.

[00:15:10] Now you're going to bless me.

[00:15:12] You know, the dark side of prosperity gospel

[00:15:14] shines through in a lot of this.

[00:15:16] So I had to come to a spot where I

[00:15:20] was confessing my dependence upon myself

[00:15:24] and reimagining what it might mean

[00:15:27] for God to be the catalyst for our church to grow

[00:15:31] and contemplative communal prayer,

[00:15:34] intercessory communal prayer

[00:15:36] on behalf of people in need of a relationship with God

[00:15:39] became the first step for me to begin to let go

[00:15:43] of what I had become addicted to,

[00:15:45] which is really good church techniques

[00:15:47] and move forward into trusting the Holy Spirit

[00:15:49] to be the catalyst for the growth of our church.

[00:15:53] It's interesting coming from my background,

[00:15:57] which is more communications and media.

[00:16:01] You know, a lot of what I will hear is

[00:16:04] if you do this on social media or the things for your website,

[00:16:07] all these people will come.

[00:16:09] And I don't want to say that's not important.

[00:16:12] I think it is.

[00:16:13] I think it can have an effect.

[00:16:17] But it's dangerous to try to put that

[00:16:20] because then again, it becomes you.

[00:16:23] Look at what I've done.

[00:16:25] As you said, I've done all this.

[00:16:27] And it's always interesting that sometimes I can

[00:16:30] post something up that I think I've done a great job

[00:16:33] and no one pays attention to it.

[00:16:36] And then something I think, well, this was crappy

[00:16:38] and a lot of people have a reaction to it.

[00:16:43] And I've also seen people who end up at our church

[00:16:48] who may have seen something on the website or something,

[00:16:51] but I didn't do anything really to try to get them,

[00:16:55] get people in.

[00:16:57] They just happened to come.

[00:17:00] And which can be very much of a humbling thing

[00:17:03] that it's not really me.

[00:17:06] And in some ways, that's okay.

[00:17:08] I mean, I think that there is something that the pressure

[00:17:12] is off that you don't feel like you have to do all this.

[00:17:15] Yeah.

[00:17:17] Yeah.

[00:17:20] You know what you had said there triggered a phrase

[00:17:22] that I steal from my brother, Peter Mitchell,

[00:17:24] who's a minister in North Dallas, Disciples Pastor.

[00:17:27] And he says,

[00:17:28] Disciples need to stop trying to be relevant

[00:17:30] and put more emphasis on simply being accessible.

[00:17:34] You know, our desire to be relevant.

[00:17:36] Like, well, he always says,

[00:17:38] almost every town has a big box church that has a better band

[00:17:41] and better coffee and a cooler looking minister

[00:17:44] because we're all dorks as Disciples.

[00:17:46] We are not the relevant congregation.

[00:17:50] But if we stop pretending like we could be

[00:17:53] and put that emphasis on becoming more accessible,

[00:17:57] which I do think is valuable.

[00:18:01] You know, you always come back to the Jerusalem Council.

[00:18:04] We ought not make it hard for people that are turning to God.

[00:18:07] And Disciples, I think, make it really hard for people

[00:18:09] that are turning to God.

[00:18:11] We tend to have more cultural barriers

[00:18:13] that we've put up rather than theological barriers.

[00:18:16] We have no theological barriers

[00:18:18] and we have terrible cultural barriers

[00:18:19] that make it hard for people to come to God.

[00:18:22] What do you think are those cultural barriers?

[00:18:26] I never want to hear somebody tell me

[00:18:28] how long they've been a Disciple.

[00:18:31] You know, my family goes back as far as we can trace,

[00:18:34] you know, into central Kentucky in the early 1800s.

[00:18:38] So like I always say, I can't prove it,

[00:18:40] but we probably had shirt tail cousins at Cane Ridge.

[00:18:43] You know, that's how far back our family did come over

[00:18:46] with Daniel Boone and the Transylvania Company.

[00:18:48] I think it's 1790 or something like that.

[00:18:51] Wow.

[00:18:52] Our family was in that group.

[00:18:55] But how long you've been a Disciple?

[00:18:57] I mean, like how many of us are there anymore?

[00:18:59] We have such an emphasis on our way of being Disciple,

[00:19:03] our way of doing church, our way of worship,

[00:19:08] that those become idols that prevent us from

[00:19:13] in welcoming people that are seeking a relationship with God.

[00:19:16] So where I always come out on,

[00:19:18] and this comes back to your question

[00:19:19] of what are those barriers?

[00:19:21] We have too great an emphasis on outputs, which are valuable.

[00:19:26] Social justice is an output.

[00:19:28] And I believe in that, you know, diversity is an output

[00:19:32] and I do my best to embody that.

[00:19:35] I like to joke that I think our church

[00:19:36] probably has the highest number of gay and lesbian people

[00:19:39] in the denomination.

[00:19:40] And I'm the least likely pastor to serve and bless

[00:19:43] and lead them.

[00:19:44] And that's an output.

[00:19:46] But we don't have inputs.

[00:19:49] We don't know how to Disciple or grow or bring depth

[00:19:54] to someone that comes in the door

[00:19:56] who is seeking something larger than themselves,

[00:20:00] that is seeking something beyond themselves

[00:20:02] to where we understand what it means

[00:20:05] for them to come into this community

[00:20:06] and be intentionally formed by the Holy Spirit in community

[00:20:10] to produce people that care deeply about hunger,

[00:20:14] to produce people that care deeply about being advocates

[00:20:17] for the full inclusion of all of God's people,

[00:20:19] all of whom are made in the image of God.

[00:20:22] And when I like to, I think I stole this from Will Wellman.

[00:20:25] I'm going to probably quote him three or four times.

[00:20:28] Will Wellman is like C.S. Lewis.

[00:20:29] If you don't know who said it, just attributed to him

[00:20:31] and he probably didn't say it.

[00:20:33] So much of the mainline church is like

[00:20:36] beautiful flowers that have been cut off

[00:20:38] and placed in a voss with no water.

[00:20:42] And we have no nourishment.

[00:20:44] We lack nourishment and we're cut off from our roots.

[00:20:49] And we want to look back on the beauty

[00:20:51] and wonder why those flowers are dead

[00:20:53] and how do we make those flowers grow again?

[00:20:55] Rather than recognizing we're cut off

[00:20:58] from the nourishing roots of the Holy Spirit,

[00:21:00] we do not have a deep and abiding intimate relationship

[00:21:03] with Jesus Christ who lived and died

[00:21:05] and rose again for all of us.

[00:21:07] And that that is what grows us.

[00:21:09] That is what contributes to human flourishing.

[00:21:12] That's what creates the kind of disciples

[00:21:14] that are in this for the long haul

[00:21:17] to create a culture and a church

[00:21:19] that reflects the universal human dignity

[00:21:21] that seeks to advocate for those

[00:21:24] that cannot advocate for themselves

[00:21:25] or more importantly moves those

[00:21:27] that don't have a voice to the speaking center

[00:21:29] of the church,

[00:21:31] but cut off from the nourishing roots

[00:21:33] of the Holy Spirit.

[00:21:35] We're no wonder we begin to fade.

[00:21:41] Sorry, I got a little preachy there.

[00:21:44] I think there's something in John 15

[00:21:46] about what I'm talking about.

[00:21:47] I think there is.

[00:21:50] I think there is a lot.

[00:21:52] This also then makes me think about

[00:21:56] just hearing the story of your congregation

[00:21:58] when it comes to prayer beyond Sunday morning.

[00:22:04] You talked a little bit about

[00:22:06] and I've seen some things about your

[00:22:08] the walks in the community,

[00:22:11] but even before that you were doing something

[00:22:13] where either you or maybe a small group of people,

[00:22:16] maybe it was the elders or someone

[00:22:19] would actually go into the sanctuary

[00:22:22] and pray over each chair.

[00:22:27] Could you kind of tell me a little bit about that?

[00:22:29] And what was the reasoning behind that?

[00:22:32] And not to put too much focus on results,

[00:22:37] but what was the outcome of that?

[00:22:40] All right, well, let me build backwards here

[00:22:44] because the big event is what we're still

[00:22:46] participating in right now.

[00:22:49] So let me lean on the book,

[00:22:51] Diffusion of Innovations,

[00:22:53] That Change Always Comes in the Side Door,

[00:22:55] Not from the Top Down in Organizations.

[00:22:57] That's what lasting change often,

[00:22:59] it often begins as an experiment.

[00:23:00] And so as COVID was beginning,

[00:23:04] as we were beginning to live in a world with vaccines,

[00:23:07] that's the way I like to put it.

[00:23:08] There were a few innovations that we began

[00:23:12] to begin to shift our church

[00:23:14] to having a deeper focus on

[00:23:16] prayer as a pathway to reimagining evangelism.

[00:23:19] Our church has an old fashioned prayer list,

[00:23:21] not a apocryphal prayer list,

[00:23:23] but like you fill out a form

[00:23:26] with your prayer list on Sunday morning

[00:23:27] or you can email it into the church at any time

[00:23:30] and Carol, our secretary, God bless her every week.

[00:23:33] She sits down and writes out what those prayers are

[00:23:36] and emails them to the entire church.

[00:23:39] So Monday afternoon, I get a list every Monday

[00:23:41] with 100 plus prayer requests.

[00:23:45] And like any church, it's a wide bandwidth.

[00:23:49] It is often around the health needs of people that are sick.

[00:23:53] We live in Memphis,

[00:23:55] it's often around the safety of our city,

[00:23:57] the economic well-being of our city.

[00:24:00] People concerned, people praying for their dogs

[00:24:02] and everything in between.

[00:24:04] But I noticed a trend that we had no prayer

[00:24:09] bringing that we had no sense of communal prayer

[00:24:11] to put in front of the whole church

[00:24:12] to pray for people that needed the gospel

[00:24:16] or people that lived the way I like to put it,

[00:24:18] people that lived within driving distance

[00:24:19] of our church that didn't have a relationship

[00:24:21] with the church.

[00:24:22] And so it's not just people that haven't been baptized

[00:24:24] but that large group of folks

[00:24:26] that I used to go to church but I don't anymore.

[00:24:29] And so I began with our elders and said,

[00:24:32] for six weeks, I am asking all of you

[00:24:35] to begin to include on your prayer requests prayers

[00:24:39] for people you know that are in need

[00:24:42] of a relationship with God.

[00:24:43] And we have an element of anonymity for our prayer list.

[00:24:45] We don't put first and last names,

[00:24:47] it's just first name.

[00:24:48] So, you know, or you could always keep it anonymous

[00:24:50] if you wanted because that prayer somehow

[00:24:52] God understands all of that

[00:24:54] whether you spell their name out or not.

[00:24:56] And so that began to be the first act

[00:24:58] of reimagining our prayer life

[00:25:01] as a way to engage in evangelism

[00:25:03] by simply putting in front of the church

[00:25:05] from our leadership,

[00:25:07] the names of people that we were praying

[00:25:10] would have a deeper relationship with God

[00:25:12] and that God would lead to our church.

[00:25:14] Now there's always critics that will say to me

[00:25:16] that I've learned I gotta be preemptive

[00:25:18] against my critics already.

[00:25:21] Well at what point does you have to move

[00:25:23] from prayer to actual invitation?

[00:25:26] Like well if you are praying over time

[00:25:29] that door will open.

[00:25:31] If you're praying over time that empowerment will come.

[00:25:34] But if we only begin with I'm gonna go be assertive

[00:25:37] with my neighbor and get him here next week

[00:25:39] without joining in the work

[00:25:41] that God is doing in their lives,

[00:25:44] you know, we never want to make this all about results

[00:25:47] but we do it in our own power

[00:25:49] and not the power of the spirit.

[00:25:50] And so that was one activity

[00:25:53] we used to have,

[00:25:54] we had this for a significant period of time

[00:25:57] probably about seven months

[00:25:58] until we shifted into our prayer walking.

[00:26:00] We met every month for a group called our invitation team

[00:26:04] and this invitation team's sole purpose

[00:26:06] was to gather for a night to pray.

[00:26:08] We would come for an hour

[00:26:10] and there were probably 15, 20 of us

[00:26:12] and we would pray for people

[00:26:14] that we were longing to be in relationship with God.

[00:26:18] We had some unison prayers

[00:26:20] that we would pray together

[00:26:21] for people that used to go to our church,

[00:26:24] for people that had been hurt by the church,

[00:26:26] for people that were suspicious of the church.

[00:26:28] Like we really narrowed our focus

[00:26:29] to what we understood as the needs of the people

[00:26:32] and praying for an hour

[00:26:35] for those in need of the church

[00:26:37] in need of the gospel

[00:26:38] once a month for six or seven months

[00:26:40] that was like nothing I'd ever been a part of.

[00:26:43] And so I found myself asking,

[00:26:45] why is this not normative?

[00:26:47] Because what I bet you are up against

[00:26:49] like I've been up against

[00:26:50] and a lot of your listeners are up against,

[00:26:52] what you do is you get into a board meeting

[00:26:55] and you're talking about decline

[00:26:57] and you're like, well, what are we going to do about it?

[00:26:59] And then it just becomes an avalanche of anxiety

[00:27:02] or we blame the disciples

[00:27:04] or we blame the minister

[00:27:06] because you didn't fix 40 years to decline

[00:27:09] a mainline protest isn't.

[00:27:10] What's your problem?

[00:27:11] And there's just becomes this anxiety

[00:27:14] that gets passed around like a virus.

[00:27:17] What if we put on our calendar every month

[00:27:19] we will come together to pray

[00:27:21] for the health and growth of our church.

[00:27:24] And it was on our calendar

[00:27:25] like our budget meetings.

[00:27:26] It was on our calendar

[00:27:27] like our Christian education meetings.

[00:27:29] I always say, I would love for someone to say

[00:27:31] we want to do this church event

[00:27:33] and we say we can't do that

[00:27:35] because we are praying that night.

[00:27:37] We are praying for God to be at work

[00:27:39] in the lives of people in our neighborhood

[00:27:42] and that God would lead them to our church

[00:27:44] and if the door would open itself,

[00:27:45] if God would open that door

[00:27:47] we would join in that work and invite them.

[00:27:49] So that's the...

[00:27:50] That bleeds over into programmatic life

[00:27:53] where my passion is a congregational mechanic

[00:27:56] kind of shines there a little bit.

[00:27:58] But do you have prayer built into

[00:28:00] the rhythms of your program life?

[00:28:02] That's something that I've been putting

[00:28:04] two churches and conversations with them.

[00:28:07] And then the last one before I dig into

[00:28:10] the spiritual discipline of prayer walking

[00:28:12] is it was the Wednesday before Holy Week.

[00:28:16] So I guess that was 10 days out

[00:28:18] or something like that.

[00:28:20] We met as a church

[00:28:21] and we had about 100 people come to this

[00:28:23] which blew me away.

[00:28:26] And we ate a meal

[00:28:28] and then we had an outline

[00:28:30] of the different spaces

[00:28:32] with a simple prayer

[00:28:33] that one could pray inside of those spaces

[00:28:35] as well as their own prayers

[00:28:36] throughout the entire church.

[00:28:38] We had people that went and laid their hands

[00:28:40] on the front doors and prayed,

[00:28:43] God, as these doors are open

[00:28:45] for someone new to come to our church,

[00:28:47] may you open their hearts to receive God's love

[00:28:50] and may you open our hearts to welcome them.

[00:28:52] There were people that went and laid

[00:28:54] their hands on the pulpit

[00:28:55] and prayed that I would have a message

[00:28:57] that was clear

[00:28:58] and that people would receive on that day.

[00:29:02] We had an emotional moment

[00:29:04] of dedicating our new children's worship space chapel

[00:29:07] which is a whole nother podcast

[00:29:08] of how I didn't get fired

[00:29:10] for destroying the chapel from the 1950s

[00:29:12] and turn into a kidspace.

[00:29:14] But we went into that space

[00:29:17] and prayed that there would be children

[00:29:18] that gathered there for worship

[00:29:20] that would one day be baptized

[00:29:23] and that God would fill this room with children.

[00:29:25] And so we just mingled throughout

[00:29:29] and kind of matched the prayer

[00:29:30] to whatever we were longing

[00:29:32] for God to do in that space.

[00:29:35] And that night

[00:29:36] was one of the most beautiful experiences

[00:29:39] I've ever been a part of.

[00:29:41] The participants affirmed that.

[00:29:43] The participants spoke about it

[00:29:45] in a more powerful way than I did

[00:29:47] and I was blown away by it.

[00:29:50] And so you talk about results

[00:29:51] which we never, you know, prayer is not a form.

[00:29:54] We're not talking about the prayer of J-Bez here

[00:29:56] for those of you that go back to 1999 or whatever.

[00:29:59] It was the largest Easter attendance

[00:30:01] we've had in 15 years.

[00:30:03] We had 700 people here for worship.

[00:30:05] It was the largest Easter attendance

[00:30:07] we've ever had.

[00:30:09] And I lay that at the feet

[00:30:11] of that night of prayer

[00:30:12] where 100 people came together to pray.

[00:30:16] So what did it look like when you...

[00:30:22] I mean, you've told me one experience

[00:30:23] but were there other experiences

[00:30:25] where you kind of weaved prayer

[00:30:27] into the life of the programmatic life

[00:30:30] of the church?

[00:30:31] And what did that look like?

[00:30:36] This was more of a organic ripple effect

[00:30:41] more than a heavy handedness.

[00:30:44] So I said June of 2019.

[00:30:47] I had a sermon series in June of 2019

[00:30:49] called Sharing Your Faith Without Losing Your Friends.

[00:30:54] And it was all built around one prayer

[00:30:57] and I got to give credit to this

[00:30:58] from John and Dave Ferguson

[00:31:00] at Community Christian Church

[00:31:01] in Naperville, Illinois

[00:31:02] which is independent

[00:31:04] but it feels like a disciple suburban church.

[00:31:07] They are committed to justice.

[00:31:09] They had female lead pastors

[00:31:11] at their multi-site churches.

[00:31:13] They would probably have a different answer

[00:31:15] on gay and lesbian issues

[00:31:17] but their posture is better than most.

[00:31:19] I'll just...

[00:31:20] You as a gay man probably understand what I'm saying.

[00:31:23] They do not exist to tell you

[00:31:25] how awful you and Daniel are.

[00:31:27] They exist to love you

[00:31:28] and move forward from that.

[00:31:30] Does that sound fair?

[00:31:31] I'm... you've experienced that more than I have.

[00:31:35] But it was built on this simple prayer.

[00:31:38] Lord put someone in my path

[00:31:40] that I can bless.

[00:31:41] Lord put something...

[00:31:43] And I called it a prayer of availability

[00:31:45] that it was a recognition

[00:31:47] and this is actually what I'm preaching on this week.

[00:31:50] Lord, I am available

[00:31:51] to whoever you put in front of me

[00:31:54] to listen,

[00:31:56] to share a meal,

[00:31:58] to be a person of compassion

[00:32:00] and I'm not offering myself

[00:32:03] as someone that's going to go grab someone

[00:32:05] by the collar and tell them about Jesus

[00:32:07] but God if you put someone in my path

[00:32:09] I will be ready.

[00:32:10] So you asked about how that flips...

[00:32:12] How that has sunk into the programmatic life of our church.

[00:32:16] That prayer took off like crazy

[00:32:19] in the nine months before COVID.

[00:32:21] Elders were praying it at the communion table.

[00:32:25] Board members were praying it

[00:32:27] to close our board meetings.

[00:32:29] Worship leaders were instilling it

[00:32:31] into the faith...

[00:32:34] The liturgy of the people

[00:32:36] that we had leadership

[00:32:38] that had bought into that

[00:32:40] and that they were putting in front of our church

[00:32:42] this simple discipline

[00:32:43] that I re-imagine my day

[00:32:45] as one who is living on mission for God

[00:32:48] rather than that great divide

[00:32:50] which is I go to work

[00:32:52] and then I come to church

[00:32:53] to get a reprieve from all that goes on in the world.

[00:32:56] And I always reframe it as

[00:32:58] people you have such a better opportunity

[00:33:00] to share Christ than I do

[00:33:03] because you have much more access

[00:33:06] to people than don't go to church

[00:33:07] than I do.

[00:33:07] Who do I spend all my time with?

[00:33:09] Church people.

[00:33:10] And who do you spend all your time with?

[00:33:12] FedEx, international paper,

[00:33:14] your investment office,

[00:33:16] your public school,

[00:33:17] the guys you work with on the line.

[00:33:20] They are on the front lines of mission

[00:33:22] much more than I am

[00:33:24] and we use prayer to help people re-imagine

[00:33:26] that God has them where they are

[00:33:29] not like in some Calvinistic sense

[00:33:32] but that God has them where they are

[00:33:34] to serve a greater purpose

[00:33:36] and that they are available

[00:33:37] to share and show the love of Christ

[00:33:39] through that prayer that grounds them

[00:33:41] in a sense of vocation.

[00:33:44] So moving to the talk about the prayer walks

[00:33:48] I kind of want to talk a little bit

[00:33:49] about how did that start

[00:33:50] but I think it would be helpful

[00:33:52] for people to know a little bit

[00:33:53] about the neighborhood

[00:33:55] you are in in Memphis

[00:33:57] and what is that like

[00:33:59] and how are you connected to that neighborhood?

[00:34:03] All right well we sit on Union Avenue

[00:34:05] so if you know the song

[00:34:06] I Saw the Ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue

[00:34:09] which is a terrible line

[00:34:10] because there's not a lot

[00:34:11] I mean I guess some records is on Union

[00:34:14] so maybe that's for Elvis but

[00:34:17] we always say I saw the Ghost of Elvis

[00:34:19] on Union Avenue

[00:34:20] I followed him up to the gates of Lindenwood

[00:34:22] and I watched him walk right through

[00:34:24] that's our joke

[00:34:25] we sit in the middle of what's called Midtown

[00:34:27] which is kind of the economic center

[00:34:31] of the city of Memphis outside

[00:34:33] of the medical district in downtown

[00:34:35] it is an eclectic neighborhood

[00:34:36] it is one of the most racially diverse

[00:34:39] neighborhoods in the city

[00:34:41] obviously our city is stained

[00:34:43] and built through infrastructure

[00:34:45] around segregation

[00:34:48] and Midtown has kind of fought against that

[00:34:50] Midtown has been a common gathering ground

[00:34:54] for the city

[00:34:55] and so we sit at Union

[00:34:57] in East Parkway

[00:34:59] East Parkway takes you straight to the airport

[00:35:00] Union takes you straight out to the suburbs

[00:35:03] and just north of us is Poplar

[00:35:06] which also is the main artery

[00:35:07] thousands and thousands of people

[00:35:09] drive by us every day

[00:35:10] inside of what's called Midtown

[00:35:12] we have Cooper Young

[00:35:13] which is our eclectic neighborhood

[00:35:16] that one of our gay members

[00:35:17] calls the Gabor Hood

[00:35:20] it's historically kind of the heartbeat

[00:35:22] of the gay and lesbian community

[00:35:23] in Memphis

[00:35:24] but it has grown to be so much more than that

[00:35:26] that is where the restaurants

[00:35:27] worth with food I can't pronounce or add

[00:35:32] we have that we have Central Gardens

[00:35:33] which is kind of the original suburb

[00:35:36] that bleeds over into Cooper Young

[00:35:39] where there are these huge houses

[00:35:41] few of them still have the third story

[00:35:42] ballroom at the top

[00:35:45] we sit in Cooper here in Midtown

[00:35:49] we're right up against St. Jude

[00:35:50] we have Rhodes College

[00:35:52] we have Overton Park

[00:35:54] which is the largest park in the urban core

[00:35:57] that is just kind of a gathering area

[00:35:59] one of the first integrated concerts in the city

[00:36:02] was at Overton Park

[00:36:04] made possible by a Jewish man

[00:36:05] that oversaw the arts district there

[00:36:07] and so it's just a real eclectic area

[00:36:10] so you can have

[00:36:11] I always joke

[00:36:12] there's storefronts that have like

[00:36:14] a place to get CBD

[00:36:16] a tattoo, coffee

[00:36:18] in a restaurant

[00:36:20] that'll be closed in a year

[00:36:21] and then you can go to the next block

[00:36:23] and you're like

[00:36:23] you got this restaurant

[00:36:24] that's been here 75 years

[00:36:25] the bar that everybody goes to

[00:36:28] in an ice cream bar right there

[00:36:30] I mean in an ice cream parlor right there

[00:36:32] and it just all bleeds together

[00:36:35] you can get

[00:36:36] you can get a hundred dollar steak

[00:36:37] at Portion Parlor

[00:36:38] and walk a block and a half south

[00:36:42] and run into Section 8 housing

[00:36:43] and it all just intersects there

[00:36:46] so that's the neighborhood

[00:36:47] that we are in

[00:36:49] okay

[00:36:51] and then so

[00:36:53] how did that then lead into the prayer walks

[00:36:57] now we've set the neighborhood to stay

[00:36:59] how did the prayer walk start

[00:37:03] in October

[00:37:04] I had a group of five leaders

[00:37:06] in the church

[00:37:08] that we went to four different locations

[00:37:13] began with a unison prayer

[00:37:15] inviting God to be at work

[00:37:17] through our prayer life together

[00:37:20] and that we would disperse at 8 30

[00:37:22] on a Saturday morning

[00:37:24] through this different pockets of midtown

[00:37:28] and I'll walk you through what they are

[00:37:30] for the sole purpose of praying two things

[00:37:33] that God would be at work

[00:37:35] in the lives of the people that gather here

[00:37:36] in this moment and during the week

[00:37:39] and that the people that gather there

[00:37:40] would be aware of God's activity in the life

[00:37:42] and in their lives

[00:37:43] I bring the theological assumption

[00:37:45] that God is at work in the lives of everyone

[00:37:47] and I somehow in the mystery of prayer

[00:37:51] my prayers contribute to that work

[00:37:52] I don't have a formula

[00:37:54] but I believe that in that

[00:37:55] I am joining and with God

[00:37:57] in the work that God is doing in that person's life

[00:37:59] and then I'm praying for that person to have

[00:38:02] an awakening or a nudge

[00:38:04] or a contrarian thought to the life that they live

[00:38:08] that they would be aware

[00:38:10] that God is pursuing them

[00:38:11] for something greater in their lives

[00:38:13] they may not ever use that language

[00:38:14] but that's the language that we use

[00:38:16] and that we would just disperse in walk

[00:38:19] and so like when we went to Cooper Young

[00:38:21] there's a farmer's market that meets 50 Saturdays a year

[00:38:26] rain or shine, heat or hail

[00:38:28] they are there

[00:38:29] and it's in the parking lot of the UCC church

[00:38:31] in in Memphis that I have

[00:38:33] their minister's great guy

[00:38:35] I love their congregation

[00:38:36] and we strolled down by the bars

[00:38:39] that are in Cooper Young

[00:38:41] through the offbeat art studios that are there

[00:38:44] there's the cat lady that has

[00:38:46] just a huge window with a cat rescue

[00:38:49] it feels like it could be like its own

[00:38:51] one hour documentary

[00:38:53] and walk through the farmers market

[00:38:56] to just pray

[00:38:58] there's a great phrase I stole from

[00:39:00] last name is Hawthorne

[00:39:01] and he has a book on prayer walking

[00:39:03] it says, assembly's a God

[00:39:04] so buckle up

[00:39:05] and he says prayer walking allows us to pray

[00:39:08] onsite with insight

[00:39:11] because what I have discovered

[00:39:13] in my own life as well as in our leaders

[00:39:16] we believe we know what our neighborhoods are like

[00:39:20] but have we gone out and prayed and walked

[00:39:23] with eyes of faith

[00:39:25] to see what our neighborhoods are actually like

[00:39:27] do we go where people gather

[00:39:29] in our neighborhoods

[00:39:31] to just be attentive

[00:39:32] you know, Rue talks about that we have

[00:39:35] what he calls observational blindness

[00:39:37] to the activity of God

[00:39:39] and we experienced that prayer walking

[00:39:42] was a way to erode that observational blindness

[00:39:47] so that people could see

[00:39:48] what our neighborhoods actually were

[00:39:50] and who actually gathered

[00:39:52] I don't want to overuse the term

[00:39:54] but in their third place

[00:39:55] here within our neighborhood

[00:39:57] and so two great stories about going to

[00:40:00] Cooper Young on a Saturday morning

[00:40:02] I'm walking with this woman in our church named Linda

[00:40:05] she is as mainline as can be

[00:40:07] I love her

[00:40:08] she's the kind of woman that keeps mainline churches open

[00:40:11] and she's the one that says

[00:40:12] I don't need to share my faith

[00:40:14] I just need to live my faith

[00:40:15] and people will know who I am

[00:40:16] I'm going to be the best person possible

[00:40:18] I don't like evangelism

[00:40:20] but I put her on our team

[00:40:21] because she's the kind of people that

[00:40:22] make our churches go

[00:40:24] but have kind of an allergic reaction to evangelism

[00:40:27] even though she invites people to church all the time

[00:40:30] she and I are walking down the street

[00:40:32] and we walk by Celtic Crossing Bar

[00:40:34] which is an Irish pub

[00:40:35] kind of easy place to get to

[00:40:37] been there many times

[00:40:39] 8 30 on a Saturday morning

[00:40:40] their porch is full

[00:40:44] I mean packed

[00:40:46] and I'm like

[00:40:47] dude there's nothing wrong with having a beer

[00:40:48] but if you're showing up at 8 30

[00:40:50] to start pounding it back on a Saturday

[00:40:53] at 8 30 you got problems

[00:40:54] and I realize as we get closer

[00:40:56] they're not there to just drink

[00:40:59] they have all of these TVs on for English soccer

[00:41:03] now here's what I love

[00:41:04] this is this is

[00:41:05] I put this in my paper

[00:41:06] I've talked about this in the pulpit

[00:41:07] this is a sports crazed town

[00:41:10] we have the Grizzlies

[00:41:12] everybody loves the Memphis Tigers

[00:41:13] even if they didn't go there

[00:41:14] and then like all of these schools

[00:41:16] Arkansas

[00:41:17] Ole Miss

[00:41:17] Tennessee

[00:41:18] it all collides right here

[00:41:20] it's kind of a sec town

[00:41:21] without an sec team

[00:41:22] as well as all you know

[00:41:24] maybe in a tcu fan

[00:41:25] they they they accept me

[00:41:27] in this sports crazed town

[00:41:29] none of us knew

[00:41:30] what English soccer was

[00:41:32] into like we knew it existed

[00:41:34] but the idea that there were 60 70 people

[00:41:37] that would show up on a Saturday morning

[00:41:39] to seek that kind of community

[00:41:41] around something that

[00:41:43] I'm sure they were just as passionate

[00:41:44] about it as I am about college football

[00:41:46] is that my church members are about

[00:41:47] college football

[00:41:49] but we didn't know that

[00:41:50] we had never seen that

[00:41:52] that opened our eyes to just

[00:41:55] greater truth about what people

[00:41:58] are seeking in life

[00:42:00] by our prayer walking

[00:42:01] we were able to lay our eyes on that

[00:42:03] now what we weren't able to do

[00:42:05] was to say all right

[00:42:07] what's our plan

[00:42:08] and our program

[00:42:10] to get people that love

[00:42:11] English soccer to come to

[00:42:12] Lindenwood on Sunday

[00:42:13] I don't know how that works

[00:42:14] and I don't pretend like I do

[00:42:16] but I know that I have now been

[00:42:18] blessed with that knowledge

[00:42:20] that there are people

[00:42:21] in our community

[00:42:23] who want community so bad

[00:42:25] that they'll go set at a bar

[00:42:27] at 8 30 on a Saturday morning

[00:42:29] to be together

[00:42:31] how do how what

[00:42:32] what does that say to our church

[00:42:34] that's that's what observational

[00:42:37] that's in that I found

[00:42:38] observational blindness eroding

[00:42:40] the other story I love to tell is

[00:42:42] there was a woman in our 80s on our team

[00:42:44] her name is Allison

[00:42:46] and she is kind of low grade

[00:42:49] one of the biggest

[00:42:51] advocates for change in our church

[00:42:53] and so she kind of is

[00:42:54] able to hold some people's hands

[00:42:56] and tell them we're doing the right thing

[00:42:58] when we are treading new

[00:42:59] new ground

[00:43:00] and so I adore her

[00:43:02] she is every church needs an Allison

[00:43:05] she is walking down the street

[00:43:06] for prayer walking with

[00:43:08] the chair of our elders

[00:43:10] and they walk by a guy unloading a beer truck

[00:43:15] and she smells something

[00:43:17] and she goes

[00:43:18] oh that smells good

[00:43:20] what what are they cooking

[00:43:21] in my car elder share says

[00:43:24] Allison that's not food

[00:43:25] that's marijuana

[00:43:28] I always call it midtown incense

[00:43:30] because you know I don't

[00:43:32] you know we're a blue city

[00:43:33] in a red state

[00:43:34] and our cops have

[00:43:36] have this rule that are basically like

[00:43:38] dude we got a thousand problems

[00:43:39] smoke weed in the backyard

[00:43:40] and we don't care

[00:43:41] you know but don't

[00:43:42] don't smoke it on a public bus

[00:43:43] but like we are not here to arrest you for weed

[00:43:47] and again

[00:43:48] I don't know how to turn a program into

[00:43:49] would you like to learn what marijuana smells like

[00:43:52] but it does give us insight

[00:43:55] by praying on site

[00:43:56] in our neighborhood

[00:43:58] we did that in four different locations

[00:44:00] that are all within

[00:44:03] our circle

[00:44:04] that you could you could

[00:44:05] you could drive to our church

[00:44:06] easily from any of these four spots

[00:44:08] and it's where people gather

[00:44:12] it's

[00:44:13] it's like it's always the case in prayer

[00:44:16] the more we pray

[00:44:18] for God to do something

[00:44:20] the more equipped and empowered

[00:44:22] we feel

[00:44:23] to help be part of that solution

[00:44:25] and so

[00:44:26] what we saw with our people in that

[00:44:28] for in that experiment

[00:44:29] for four weeks

[00:44:31] was

[00:44:32] they found themselves

[00:44:33] much more connected to our neighborhood

[00:44:36] they felt themselves

[00:44:37] so much more empowered

[00:44:38] by the spirit of God

[00:44:39] to join in the work

[00:44:41] that God was already doing

[00:44:43] and they began to see people

[00:44:44] as something other than other

[00:44:46] like when you have prayed

[00:44:48] for someone and laid eyes on them

[00:44:50] it changes the way you view them

[00:44:53] they are not the other

[00:44:54] these are folk people to be loved

[00:44:56] and we pray people to be invited

[00:44:59] and people to be welcomed

[00:45:00] into the life of our church

[00:45:02] fast forward

[00:45:05] we

[00:45:05] when our project ended

[00:45:07] we had a commitment to begin to

[00:45:09] share it with the rest of the church

[00:45:11] so those five leaders

[00:45:13] became the facilitators

[00:45:15] for four different groups

[00:45:16] including our elders

[00:45:17] that that invited our elders and deacons

[00:45:20] so we went from one group

[00:45:21] that I was leading

[00:45:23] to four groups led by

[00:45:25] leaders in our church

[00:45:27] that were bringing four or five people

[00:45:28] and they just rotated over four weeks

[00:45:31] so for the four Sundays

[00:45:32] in June this

[00:45:33] what is this Wednesday

[00:45:34] this Saturday will be the last one

[00:45:37] we will have had about 30 or 40 people

[00:45:40] from our church

[00:45:41] out in our neighborhoods

[00:45:44] praying for God to be at work

[00:45:46] in the lives of the people there

[00:45:47] and that they would be aware

[00:45:49] of God's work in their life

[00:45:50] and that when the moment we might come

[00:45:52] we would be prepared to invite them

[00:45:54] we would be prepared to welcome them

[00:45:56] what we have seen

[00:45:58] is through prayer

[00:45:59] is an increased receptivity

[00:46:02] to what God is doing

[00:46:03] in the lives of people

[00:46:05] and again

[00:46:06] it's not about results only

[00:46:09] but we continue to see

[00:46:11] a flood of visitors

[00:46:13] that we never could have captured

[00:46:15] with a really good marketing campaign

[00:46:18] that we never could have captured

[00:46:20] with a really good marketing campaign

[00:46:21] I have this prayer request

[00:46:22] that was shared Sunday

[00:46:24] and I want to be as vague as I can

[00:46:26] not that you know 50 million people

[00:46:28] listen to this

[00:46:29] but it was written and it was shared

[00:46:31] and it said I was invited this Sunday morning

[00:46:35] by my friend

[00:46:36] see if I can get through this without cracking up

[00:46:41] I don't believe in God

[00:46:44] I don't pray

[00:46:46] but I'm still sharing this prayer request

[00:46:48] if I would have known there was a community

[00:46:51] like this 35 years ago

[00:46:53] my life would be so much different

[00:46:57] lesbian woman

[00:46:59] raised in the heart of the Bible Belt

[00:47:00] I don't know hardly any of the story

[00:47:03] other than just the snippets

[00:47:07] I credit the power of the Holy Spirit

[00:47:11] through our alignment in what God was doing in prayer

[00:47:14] to make a moment like that possible

[00:47:17] I mean sometimes we need wins as ministers

[00:47:20] we need something that kind of

[00:47:22] you know gives us more gas for the long haul

[00:47:24] the idea that someone says

[00:47:26] I wish this church had been in my life 35 years ago

[00:47:29] man I am fueled through Advent

[00:47:33] we have

[00:47:34] as ministers meet at 8 30 every Sunday morning

[00:47:39] for prayer in my office

[00:47:40] and we pray much like we ask our people to pray

[00:47:43] and we pray over the services that morning

[00:47:45] and our associate minister has begun this phrase

[00:47:47] that we've all adopted

[00:47:49] which is God surprises by who you send us today

[00:47:53] surprises by who you send us today

[00:47:55] and so I look at people

[00:47:57] that God is sending to our church

[00:48:00] is a way that we can respond as an act of stewardship

[00:48:04] how are we

[00:48:05] have we been found faithful to being trusted

[00:48:07] with the care of their soul

[00:48:09] and I think that prayer has aligned my heart

[00:48:12] to be able to answer that question better than it did years ago

[00:48:17] what do you think when it comes to prayer

[00:48:25] is a message for our our neutral denomination

[00:48:30] for the disciples of Christ

[00:48:34] I think that there are some glimmers of that happening

[00:48:37] and I've seen it a little bit with our

[00:48:40] general minister and president

[00:48:42] that's what I was gonna say

[00:48:43] I give you a big hand for her witness

[00:48:45] yeah

[00:48:46] but you know

[00:48:48] what

[00:48:50] how do you see that happening

[00:48:51] or how do you see that kind of

[00:48:53] spreading out into the denomination

[00:48:56] well you and I have talked about

[00:48:58] and lamented and complained about our denomination

[00:49:00] many times over the years

[00:49:02] and I think we've come to a degree to disagree

[00:49:07] that it does come all change is going to come from the bottom up

[00:49:10] yeah it is

[00:49:11] and not from the top down

[00:49:13] with that said I appreciate the witness of

[00:49:17] Terry Horde Owens our general minister

[00:49:18] that she is committed to prayer

[00:49:20] I appreciate that she's committed to Jesus Christ

[00:49:22] and justice and inclusion

[00:49:25] and that all those things are not contradictions

[00:49:27] but a woven thread of the New Testament

[00:49:30] so I give thanks to God for her leadership

[00:49:33] and modeling by example

[00:49:35] and so in that maybe her example

[00:49:38] is an example for us as ministers

[00:49:41] that we would begin to infuse prayer

[00:49:44] deeper into the lives of our church

[00:49:46] and that we can model this in our own lives

[00:49:52] that we can begin to insert this

[00:49:55] into the lives of our congregations

[00:49:59] what I found is that people are desperate

[00:50:01] to touch the holy

[00:50:03] people desire something transcendent

[00:50:07] if I were to ever write a book about this experiment

[00:50:10] it would be called Good News for Exhausted Churches

[00:50:14] because churches are exhausted

[00:50:16] and the good news is we don't get

[00:50:19] we don't have to fix our churches

[00:50:21] we do not because we can't

[00:50:24] you know we just can't

[00:50:27] and so I

[00:50:28] I think it's going to fit into that moment

[00:50:30] where we're going to begin to pray more

[00:50:32] because we have nothing left to do

[00:50:35] we've done we

[00:50:36] what's the you and I are both similar

[00:50:39] politically who Jonathan V last says

[00:50:41] Americans will always do the right thing

[00:50:43] but only after they've exhausted every other option

[00:50:47] yeah yeah

[00:50:47] you know America will do the right thing

[00:50:49] but only after we have tried everything stupid first

[00:50:52] and I feel like I feel like churches are like that

[00:50:55] churches I've led are like that I'm like that

[00:50:58] but maybe we can model this for our

[00:51:02] sister congregations so that we can infuse prayer

[00:51:06] so like you ask how can we do this in our denomination

[00:51:10] I want our regional events to have time

[00:51:13] where we pray for the health of the region

[00:51:17] not have a two-hour yelling match

[00:51:20] and our business session as to why we can't underwrite

[00:51:23] the positions that we've done in the past

[00:51:26] do we look at prayer

[00:51:27] we have clergy retreats across the denomination

[00:51:30] how much time do we spend praying for one another

[00:51:35] how much time do we spend seeking a power that is not our own

[00:51:40] you know motivation is overrated

[00:51:42] like I can sprint three blocks as fast as I can

[00:51:45] but then I'm going to die

[00:51:48] how do I have an endurance for the long haul of ministry

[00:51:52] it comes from it comes from a power beyond ourselves

[00:51:55] so I don't know if that answers your question

[00:51:57] how do we infiltrate

[00:51:58] how do we how do we make prayer more of a discipline

[00:52:02] I think everyone listening to this podcast

[00:52:04] I'll give you a challenge

[00:52:06] have a night where all you do is pray

[00:52:07] for people to come to your church

[00:52:10] because that prayer will begin to

[00:52:12] lead you towards the right questions

[00:52:14] which is are we accessible

[00:52:15] and then hopefully even more important questions

[00:52:19] theologically what what is the gospel in the first place

[00:52:21] what are we inviting people into

[00:52:24] I think more often than not

[00:52:25] we're inviting people to come join our church

[00:52:27] and join the property committee

[00:52:28] because we're the ones tired of running it

[00:52:29] those are two different things

[00:52:34] yeah you know it's interesting because that is similar to something

[00:52:38] I've always wanted to ask when we're

[00:52:41] you know we talked a little bit about LGBTQ inclusion and

[00:52:46] I'm always

[00:52:47] it's always important for me that's important

[00:52:49] but I always want to say what are we including them in

[00:52:53] what is this inclusion for

[00:52:57] is it just that they can come to a church

[00:53:01] or come Sunday

[00:53:02] or are we inviting them into a relationship with God

[00:53:07] which is really what I think that's ultimately

[00:53:09] what we're trying to do

[00:53:10] is to invite them into a relationship with God

[00:53:12] to become disciples all of that

[00:53:15] and you know again I think it is that cool

[00:53:18] as you talked about earlier

[00:53:20] an excess question of how do we

[00:53:23] make ourselves more accessible

[00:53:25] how do we make ourselves more open to God

[00:53:28] yeah I think I think that's true

[00:53:30] and you know you and I have talked about this many times

[00:53:33] is welcoming for what reason

[00:53:36] welcoming for what reason

[00:53:38] and if it's not grounded in the gospel

[00:53:42] you know I think I think it does come back to

[00:53:44] Genesis 1 and Acts 2

[00:53:46] inclusion is an affirmation

[00:53:48] that every single person is made in the image of God

[00:53:50] as an image bearer

[00:53:51] and that there is an element of grace

[00:53:55] even in spite of sin

[00:53:56] in the in in every single human being

[00:53:58] we've never locked eyes with anyone

[00:54:00] that does not matter to God

[00:54:02] that doesn't matter to God

[00:54:03] and doesn't bear the image of God

[00:54:05] and at the same time Acts 2

[00:54:07] when Peter says

[00:54:08] in response to the question

[00:54:10] what should we do

[00:54:10] repent and be baptized every one of you

[00:54:12] in the name of Jesus Christ

[00:54:14] for the forgiveness of your sin

[00:54:16] that also is for everyone

[00:54:18] that also is for everyone

[00:54:20] and it is my desire

[00:54:21] for everyone to know their inherent worth

[00:54:24] as one made in the image of God

[00:54:25] and know that that worth was extended

[00:54:28] to cover over all that we've done wrong

[00:54:30] and to be empowered to live a life in the spirit

[00:54:34] I think being gay is not one of the sins to be forgiven

[00:54:37] but I do believe that every one of us

[00:54:40] have dropped the ball

[00:54:42] oh yeah

[00:54:42] yeah

[00:54:43] yeah

[00:54:44] I always say being gay is no more inherently

[00:54:47] sinful than being straight

[00:54:50] that's that's how I vote

[00:54:52] that's that's that's the language I've settled on

[00:54:54] yeah well I mean

[00:54:56] yeah being gay isn't the sin

[00:54:59] the sin is a human thing

[00:55:02] and that is the whole

[00:55:04] there's a it's an English

[00:55:07] theologian that basically says that

[00:55:10] the thing about human beings

[00:55:11] is that we have the propensity to f things up

[00:55:14] yeah

[00:55:14] and that's what

[00:55:17] and that's something that we all have

[00:55:19] yeah well let me let me just

[00:55:22] chase a rabbit here in a cul-de-sac

[00:55:24] on the last few minutes

[00:55:25] I think one of

[00:55:28] and because this builds off right

[00:55:29] of what you're saying

[00:55:30] and I think where you and I have an affinity

[00:55:31] politically as well as theologically

[00:55:33] probably our theology does fuel our politics

[00:55:37] to pray for God to work

[00:55:38] is a statement about human nature

[00:55:41] and that our human human nature is inherently flawed

[00:55:45] you know I whenever people say I want to have pure intentions

[00:55:47] I'm like well good luck

[00:55:48] like we never

[00:55:49] there is nothing I've ever done that is not in some way

[00:55:52] marked by sin

[00:55:53] for for the things I disagree with him about

[00:55:56] this is what I loved about Tim Keller

[00:55:57] he could talk about the human condition

[00:56:00] that he had this phrase that I loved he said

[00:56:02] until you've repented of your good works

[00:56:04] you haven't truly repented

[00:56:06] because so much of our good works are driven by vanity

[00:56:08] or affirmation

[00:56:10] and I was like gosh dang it man

[00:56:12] is that not true

[00:56:13] is that not true

[00:56:14] we have to you know I think part of acknowledging

[00:56:17] what it means to be a part of the body of Christ

[00:56:20] is we are inherently flawed

[00:56:23] we are we are born with the curse of sin

[00:56:26] I do believe that I don't want to sound like a gust in here

[00:56:29] but I believe there's something inherently wrong with us

[00:56:31] and even through our baptisms

[00:56:33] and empowerment by the spirit

[00:56:34] we are incomplete

[00:56:35] this is why we need the body of Christ

[00:56:37] this is why you as a pastor

[00:56:39] and I as a pastor need people

[00:56:40] that we surround ourselves with

[00:56:42] and that we surround

[00:56:43] where our gifts are mutually complementary

[00:56:45] and where my blindness can be addressed

[00:56:49] through your vision

[00:56:50] and vice versa

[00:56:51] this is why we need one another

[00:56:54] this is why I'm an anti-populist

[00:56:56] you know give a few people whatever they want

[00:56:58] is or that sounds awful to me

[00:57:01] oh yeah I agree

[00:57:02] I agree

[00:57:04] so if people want to learn a little bit more

[00:57:07] about all of this

[00:57:08] where can they contact you

[00:57:10] and connect with you

[00:57:11] you can contact me

[00:57:13] you can go to blendonwoodcc.org

[00:57:15] my email is right there on the website

[00:57:17] I do have a Facebook page

[00:57:20] I never really do much with

[00:57:21] if you really want to be fun

[00:57:22] I'm on threads

[00:57:23] and I like threads the most

[00:57:25] threads

[00:57:26] I feel like I can be a little snarky

[00:57:28] and really tell truth about church on threads

[00:57:30] maybe because most people aren't on there

[00:57:34] but uh

[00:57:35] I you can track me down on threads

[00:57:37] I think it's pastor Jeffery

[00:57:38] G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y

[00:57:40] but you email me

[00:57:42] I'll do whatever I can

[00:57:43] I would love to be in conversation

[00:57:44] I've spoken at several churches

[00:57:46] in the last several months

[00:57:47] about this

[00:57:49] I would love to

[00:57:50] anything I can do to be a resource to you

[00:57:53] anything I can do just be a conversation partner with you

[00:57:55] I would be honored

[00:57:57] all right

[00:57:59] Jeff Mitchell

[00:58:00] it has been great to have you back on

[00:58:02] I know I will have you back on

[00:58:04] sometime soon so

[00:58:05] I gotta get that gold jacket

[00:58:07] yeah yeah we gotta get you that gold jacket so

[00:58:09] all right

[00:58:11] oh well

[00:58:11] let's look again very soon

[00:58:12] see us before we go

[00:58:13] can I give

[00:58:14] yeah yeah yeah

[00:58:14] can I give us a word of prayer

[00:58:15] of course

[00:58:16] all right

[00:58:17] let's pray together

[00:58:17] wherever you're listening to this

[00:58:21] gracious god

[00:58:22] we thank you for your spirit

[00:58:24] that brooded over the waters

[00:58:26] and brought forth the beauty of creation

[00:58:28] that we are able to be a part of

[00:58:30] we thank you for

[00:58:32] your son our savior

[00:58:33] Christ Jesus

[00:58:35] who came into this world

[00:58:36] to rescue us from ourselves

[00:58:38] and to give us a vision

[00:58:40] of what life with God can be

[00:58:42] we thank you for

[00:58:43] his death on the cross

[00:58:45] that absorbed all that is wrong

[00:58:46] with this world

[00:58:48] including ourselves

[00:58:50] and by rising from the dead

[00:58:51] you and invited us

[00:58:52] into a life that never ends

[00:58:54] Lord thank you for

[00:58:55] the Christian Church Disciples of Christ

[00:58:57] that Dennis and I belong to

[00:58:58] and our unique commitment

[00:59:00] to Christian unity

[00:59:01] and a passion

[00:59:03] to include all people

[00:59:04] at a table of grace

[00:59:06] God I pray for every congregation

[00:59:07] that is in any way able to hear

[00:59:09] this conversation

[00:59:11] I pray that they would be aligned

[00:59:13] with your heart

[00:59:14] and be empowered by your spirit

[00:59:17] to see their neighbors

[00:59:18] as they truly are

[00:59:19] and to be equipped to welcome them

[00:59:21] and accessible to them

[00:59:23] when they come

[00:59:24] so that they can see

[00:59:25] that the bread

[00:59:26] was broken for them

[00:59:28] we thank you for this conversation

[00:59:30] in Jesus name

[00:59:31] amen

[00:59:32] amen

[00:59:34] all right Jeff

[00:59:35] thank you for the prayer

[00:59:37] thank you Dennis

[00:59:38] I appreciate you

[00:59:39] all right

[00:59:40] take care

[00:59:41] take care

[01:00:15] so what did you think

[01:00:16] about the conversation

[01:00:18] what's your prayer history like

[01:00:20] is it something that you do

[01:00:23] actively

[01:00:23] or is it something sporadically

[01:00:26] and there's no shame

[01:00:26] if it is sporadic

[01:00:27] we all don't always have

[01:00:29] the most regular

[01:00:32] prayer life

[01:00:33] and some of us

[01:00:34] definitely fall short

[01:00:36] but it is curious

[01:00:38] what is your prayer history

[01:00:39] and do you think that it makes a

[01:00:41] difference or not

[01:00:41] and can it make a difference

[01:00:43] or not in your congregation

[01:00:45] has it made a difference

[01:00:46] or not in your congregation

[01:00:49] I'd love to hear from you

[01:00:50] so drop me a line

[01:00:51] send me an email

[01:00:52] you can do that by going to

[01:00:55] churchandmainatsubstack.com

[01:00:56] and also if you want to learn

[01:00:58] more about the podcast

[01:00:59] and listen to past episodes

[01:01:00] or donate

[01:01:01] you can check us out

[01:01:02] at churchandmain.org

[01:01:04] and there are also ways

[01:01:07] that you can donate

[01:01:08] those are in the show notes

[01:01:09] of this podcast

[01:01:13] those donations are helpful

[01:01:15] because it kind of allows me

[01:01:16] to continue to produce

[01:01:17] great episodes like this one

[01:01:19] and also remember

[01:01:21] to rate and review this episode

[01:01:22] on your favorite podcast app

[01:01:24] it helps others find this podcast

[01:01:26] and feel free to share this episode

[01:01:28] with families and friends

[01:01:29] that might be interested

[01:01:31] so I hope that this was a helpful

[01:01:33] episode for you

[01:01:35] we will be back with more

[01:01:38] episodes and interviews

[01:01:40] with fascinating people

[01:01:41] kind of talking about where

[01:01:44] the church and the modern world intersect

[01:01:47] so that's it for this episode

[01:01:49] of churchandmain

[01:01:50] I'm Dennis Sanders your host

[01:01:52] thank you so much for listening

[01:01:54] take care

[01:01:54] Godspeed

[01:01:56] and I will see you very soon