Envisioning the Church of Tomorrow | Church Off the Map | Lenten Series

Transcript

00:00:00:07 – 00:00:29:45
Clint Loveall
Great, great way to end our Lenten study. And in some ways, I think this this session was, at least for me, it is some in some ways, this was the most fun to think about because this is the least based in any kind of actual evidence or there’s a lot of tonight that is informed guessing. And you could I mean, I guess you could talk about how informed it is or isn’t.

00:00:30:12 – 00:00:55:04
Clint Loveall
But tonight we want to look forward. So we spent several weeks thinking about where the church is, what the church is struggling with, where the church has been, how where we are might be different than how we’ve been. And that leads to the question of sort of where are we going? Where might the church be decades from now?

00:00:55:04 – 00:01:28:22
Clint Loveall
You know, what do we see out there that may inform the path of the church? Where is it headed? And I would say I think of this in terms of the next 25 to 50 years. I you know, there’ll be some of this toward the end. We’re going to talk out maybe a little further. But I think some of this is not the distant future, some of this is is not far in front of us.

00:01:28:22 – 00:01:54:18
Clint Loveall
In fact, we’re going to start with some speculation about things that we think we see happening already that we believe will continue and increase. And so that, for instance, the first one will jump into I think the Church of Tomorrow will be more local than national, for instance. Now, what do we mean by that? To some extent, that’s always been true.

00:01:54:36 – 00:02:30:39
Clint Loveall
But as the larger structures of denominations break down, as Presbyterians merge, as synods fold, as the General Assembly lays off people, as that happens for Presbyterians and Methodists and Lutherans, things are inevitably going to shift to be more local. We’re going to be less cohesive with Presbyterians in California or Colorado. We’re going to be almost of necessity, more concerned with our own problems in our own context.

00:02:30:39 – 00:02:54:57
Clint Loveall
And that’s not new. That’s kind of always been true, but it’s going to be increasingly true. For instance, about ten years ago, the denomination decided we didn’t really have the resource and the need to meet annually. So now the Presbyterian Church at our national meeting, it happens every other year. I think at some point that’s going to be three years and five years.

00:02:55:28 – 00:03:15:01
Clint Loveall
And at that point, well, fine, go do your thing, but it’s not going to have a lot of impact. So one of the things we think perhaps we see coming is that the church is going to be more local. In other words, not just do its ministry, more local, but really kind of be more on its own.

00:03:16:06 – 00:03:40:28
Michael Gewecke
So there’s this thing that some of you, if you be a lifelong Presbyterian, you know, of the Book of Order, any one book of author, yeah, I see some heads nodding. So the Book of Order when I came in, this is different. When Clint did his ordination exams, the Book of Order used to be very robust, almost. It’s like encyclopedic in some of its mandates and dictates.

00:03:40:28 – 00:04:02:20
Michael Gewecke
If you’re going to be Presbyterian, you have to do this and this and this and this. And when I took my ordination exam just a couple of years before, they had significantly revised the book, they had gone and cut entire sections. And they had essentially said that section in the book now has to be approved by the local congregation.

00:04:02:33 – 00:04:26:04
Michael Gewecke
It has to be in your bylaws instead of being a national dictate to come down. And I’ve I’ve watched that pattern happen in less concrete ways. But I think that you you don’t need to look harder than the Presbyterian Church to find that kind of distilling of what used to be national conversation, to now be the expectation of congregations.

00:04:26:04 – 00:04:46:48
Michael Gewecke
And I think that there is actually an odd struggle, an interpretive gap there. And I know that Clinton answers questions about this all the time, especially when it relates to some of the national issues that the denomination makes statements about. People will come in and say, well, what about first presence here? Like, what’s our stance on this and this and this and this?

00:04:47:36 – 00:05:19:05
Michael Gewecke
You know, there’s a fascinating kind of gap there between what the national denominations talking about and the freedom that a local congregation and our leadership has to make decisions, which wouldn’t have been the case even 15 or 20 years ago. And so I think to Clint’s point, we already see this process happening. What I think is going to be fascinating is what happens for a congregation in the Presbyterian way in the next ten or 15 years when they are looking for a new pastor.

00:05:19:08 – 00:05:55:26
Michael Gewecke
Just concretely, hypothetically. Right. It’s unlikely all of our seminaries will exist as they exist today financially, that that seems like that would be naive. And it’s possible that our press batteries are going to be unable to have the same kind of access and kind of walk alongside ability because of the time and energy and resources. And if that’s the case, how will then congregations then adapt to that and build partnerships so that a congregation can find a pastor?

00:05:55:26 – 00:06:10:17
Michael Gewecke
And, you know, this isn’t a central question. We’re going to come to it later in the section here this evening. But just to give you context, in our presbytery, which is I’m going to say 32 churches, it’s I don’t know what it is, something 30 churches.

00:06:10:40 – 00:06:12:43
Clint Loveall
We have, by the way. 52 when I got here.

00:06:13:37 – 00:06:44:29
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, it’s it’s done down. We have zero candidates for ministry under the care of our presbytery. There is no one in process of seminary or discerning a call to ministry. So there there is no one currently in track to take congregational leadership in our presbytery. Right now. And so this is a pressing need of how congregations will adapt and build bridges to one another to enable leadership transfers in the future.

00:06:44:29 – 00:07:04:21
Michael Gewecke
And I think that it’ll be fascinating because I think we’ll remain connected in meaningful ways, but we’re going to rely less upon the institutional structure to do that, because right now it’s not functioning in a way to provide what the churches need. Is that fair? I’m not trying to be cynical, but I think that’s the trajectory.

00:07:05:29 – 00:07:26:31
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’ll be one aspect of this idea of sort of increasing congregational ism when when people come in. And this isn’t a value judgment, it’s just the reality of who ask the question when people come into first press and if they’re older, they generally want to ask, what does the Presbyterian Church believe about A, B or C?

00:07:27:03 – 00:07:55:40
Clint Loveall
And increasingly in in my time. Well, we don’t have a I mean, there’s just less and less that you could say this is Presbyterian ism that’s gotten pushed further and further down, who we ordain, who we marry. Those questions that 15 years ago were our knockdown, drag out arguments. We’re now telling Presbyterians and churches, you guys figure it out.

00:07:56:16 – 00:08:25:04
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s going to continue. I think we’re going to see in the short run at least we’re just going to see less guidance and and less direction from national bodies. I think that will be true across the board. The other thing that I think we’re going to see, I think we already begin to see it. I think churches are going to emphasize less their historical and traditional roots.

00:08:26:07 – 00:08:56:54
Clint Loveall
If you look right now, one of the most interesting things that’s happened in the last 30, 25 years of things getting renamed, we did it with the Presbyterian camp, which now doesn’t have the word Presbyterian in the title Churches. Nobody’s changing their name from living waters to first press. It’s all going the other way. Churches that have been fourth or first or they’re they’re now saying we’re grapevine we’re you know community we’re whatever Singing Rainbow.

00:08:57:55 – 00:09:19:32
Clint Loveall
But the idea is people are very firmly moving away from those kind of anchors that we I mean there’s a reason half the church is in our denomination our name first that was an institutional that meant something. Well, it doesn’t. In fact, not only does it not mean something in a lot of cases, it hurts you a little bit.

00:09:20:00 – 00:09:52:51
Clint Loveall
And so we’re minimizing those connections in worship. I think we see a general trend to follow the community church model. I think churches are becoming, to some extent less formal, less liturgical, and I think that’s going to be true for a while now that the abstract on this is that, you know, things tend to swing back and forth, and it may be that some of our younger people in this day and age, it may be that they get tired of everything changing.

00:09:52:51 – 00:10:13:57
Clint Loveall
And at some point they may say, you know, I just want to go somewhere where they sing old songs and do old stuff and have old patterns, and that may come back. I don’t think we’ll know that yet for a while, but I’m not sure that one is lost. But it’s not. It’s not it’s not necessarily.

00:10:16:09 – 00:10:43:46
Clint Loveall
Hmm. You could advertise yourself as a formal liturgical church right now, but I. I don’t know where that helps you. I don’t. I don’t know why you would. You could, but I’m not sure that. I’m not sure. That’s great marketing right now. I think people are much more interested in the idea of personal connection than they are historical or theological or denominational ties.

00:10:43:46 – 00:11:12:07
Clint Loveall
And and the danger of that going forward is that churches are going to be a temptation to make them sort of personality driven versus content driven. That model is leadership heavy, which is why they start. They grow really fast, they get huge, they blow up, somebody gets in trouble, they think they disappeared. The next one goes. So there’s a danger in that model that I think we have to be aware of.

00:11:12:07 – 00:11:26:15
Clint Loveall
But I do think that is the gravity right now. The gravity is pulling that direction away from the sort of historical stuff that most Presbyterian type churches do and towards a little something different.

00:11:27:23 – 00:11:52:10
Michael Gewecke
Just a small spin on that. I think we as the church used to think that our job was to educate people with the best of the resources that our tradition has generated over the years. I think we’ve thought of it as handing off the baton. I think we very much are inheriting an age where the church’s goal is to evangelize believers, where where people don’t come in with any faith conviction.

00:11:52:31 – 00:12:13:13
Michael Gewecke
And so you’re less interested in, well, are you? What’s your thought on predestination? People don’t have a sort of predestination because they’re not sure about this Jesus thing. I mean, they don’t know a hymn from prayer of confession. And so some of it is teaching the very fundamentals of the faith in a way that’s inviting.

00:12:13:13 – 00:12:39:39
Clint Loveall
I actually think and I think it even goes a layer down from there. Michael and I, I mentioned we had a presbytery meeting last weekend. You realize how quickly you’ve gotten used to some things. They they were it was very old school. They went in with candles or they went in with the candle lighters, lit the candles, came back in at the end, put them out, marched the offering down, did all that stuff.

00:12:39:55 – 00:12:58:30
Clint Loveall
We haven’t done that for a while. And I remember just thinking, oh, yeah, they can. We do we need to do that? Stop. What? Why are we doing this? Let’s go and yeah, so you get used to it fairly quickly. I think we’ll continue to move away from some of that stuff.

00:12:59:34 – 00:13:25:03
Michael Gewecke
One quick note on that. So worship is always an expression of the community, right? Worship is always an expression of the gathered people and I think one of the radical questions of hospitality in the future is going to be what are the practices of this worshiping community that connects with our people? And some of those will be things that we’ve done for a long time.

00:13:25:24 – 00:13:56:01
Michael Gewecke
And some of those things may be new expressions. And I think that’s a fascinating thing, conversation. And unfortunately, we often get trapped in this kind of distinction between should we do what we’ve done or not. But I think the right conversation and that’s not a wrong conversation, but I think a another helpful conversation is what are the practices that that communicate a connection to a living god for these people And that helps generate an idea.

00:13:56:02 – 00:14:12:57
Michael Gewecke
So some of our some of our young people that live in the media driven age and they they’re you know, we we often lament all of the screens and all the attention stuff, right? All that. Now we can all admit there’s stuff in there that we know is bad, right? But we can admit that on the front end.

00:14:13:17 – 00:14:39:05
Michael Gewecke
But we might also know as a church that’s going to affect how they will connect with their living God. And so we, as we seek to pass on the faith, should be thinking, what’s the most faithful way that we can provide the richness of our tradition in a context that speaks their language? And I don’t know the answer to that, but I think those conversations will be essential in a thriving church and in a growing church.

00:14:39:05 – 00:15:06:09
Clint Loveall
Well, and to our point, that is a lot less likely to come from the ground up than the top down. Whatever that congregation decides is us is likely not going to come from Louisville. It’s going to come from trial and error and experimentation and conversation and moving forward. The next trend, I think this one’s big for Presbyterians and we’re not we’re not good at it.

00:15:07:30 – 00:15:31:58
Clint Loveall
I think congregations are just going to have to be more nimble, more flexible. They’re going to have to make decisions quicker. They’re going to have to adapt faster. They’re going to have to accept change more readily. So it’s a little bit of a story and then a little bit of example. My wife is is up with Emma this weekend.

00:15:31:58 – 00:16:00:34
Clint Loveall
Emma had some volleyball today, so Jane went upstairs talking to Emma. Emma said she’ll be home this week, I think maybe Friday. And Jane says, Hey, Emma wanted you wanted to know if you could save some of Thursday’s communion bread for because she loves Thursdays Communion bread or Maundy Thursday bread. And I said, No, I’m not. You know, the pastor kid wants she thinks the bread.

00:16:00:34 – 00:16:22:12
Clint Loveall
And then I was giving them a hard time about that. And she said, You remember that? You remember that bread we made at home for communion during COVID? That was really good. We should make that. And I had forgotten that. But you all might remember Rochelle helped with it a lot. We had a very simple bread recipe for people to make at home and then do home communion.

00:16:22:12 – 00:16:53:52
Clint Loveall
Well, the reason I’m telling you this is about, I’ll say, four months. I think it was six months. I was I’ll say four months at the four month mark of COVID, we got an email from the denominational headquarters that said, We’ve been working on a theological guidance for whether you can have communion at home or not. It should be ready in the next few weeks.

00:16:54:39 – 00:17:18:45
Clint Loveall
Well, we’d already done it ten. I mean, we don’t have time to hang around for a year in the middle of COVID for a bunch of theologians to write us an email whether we can have communion at our house or not, we don’t. The idea that the Presbyterians think we have the time to hunker down and study and there’s there’s something there’s something good about that because we’re not jumping off cliffs.

00:17:19:42 – 00:17:46:42
Clint Loveall
But you can’t we we can’t. We just we got to be we have to be a little bit more mobile than that. And and I don’t want to beat up the denomination too much. But but at that point, for to six months into the pandemic, there had been no national broadcasts. There had been no, hey, send us your stuff and we’ll put together a weekly worship service.

00:17:46:58 – 00:18:13:58
Clint Loveall
You know, we could have been collecting material from all over the nation. There was no website of resources. There was no kind of national sharing. The the stated clerk made a statement and they did. They ended up doing some stuff, but it was not stuff we were we were slow to that. And I don’t know that we’re going to have the luxury of being that slow in the days to come.

00:18:13:58 – 00:18:22:55
Clint Loveall
I think we’re going to have to. Yeah, if we’re going to make it. I just think life is going to have to move faster than that.

00:18:24:03 – 00:18:57:57
Michael Gewecke
I think that some of our conversations moving forward in the leadership of a congregation like First Presence Spirit needs to recognize that we live in a different time in the institutional life of the church than what we’re used to. And so we used to rely upon the folks who were delegated, equipped and paid to do work for us in regards to our missionaries, for instance, or we we trusted them to hand down the best policies in practices.

00:18:58:13 – 00:19:33:36
Michael Gewecke
Well, the reality is today a majority of the policies and practices that we implement here at first prayers are done with our lawyer or our insurance people. They’re not they’re not given to us in a booklet that are usable in this place. And that’s going to happen more and more and more. And some of our congregations goal then in that is going to, I think, be to equip the membership to recognize that we we are going to need to rely upon the skill set of this body in ways that we’ve not had to do before.

00:19:33:36 – 00:19:58:26
Michael Gewecke
And I think that some of that is actually an opportunity for engagement and good. But we did we have built into some of our assumptions that that things are going to come down and will benefit from them. But we have to recognize that some of those things will eventually that that fountain head will dry. And then we’ll have to find ways to resource that on the way down.

00:19:58:58 – 00:20:28:33
Clint Loveall
Yeah. The next thing I think we’d say is, is counterintuitive. You would expect that in a period of decline the church is going to get smaller. And I think in some ways that’s true if you talk about raw numbers. But I think the congregational experience may be the opposite. Churches that are going to make it are churches that are bigger, small churches are going to fade out, they’re going to close.

00:20:28:57 – 00:20:56:47
Clint Loveall
And most people, I think, in the coming generation who go to church are going to likely be in churches that are that are bigger. Right now, the average Presbyterian Church has something like 100 members. Most of those churches won’t be with us in 40 years, 30 years, 25 years in some cases. So what does that mean? That means most people are going to be in churches that are probably a little bit bigger.

00:20:57:37 – 00:21:18:09
Clint Loveall
And I don’t mean the churches growing. I just mean the congregational experience is likely going to be places that have the resources to kind of weather some of those storms and offer people some things. And so I think that’s what we’ll see in congregations. Now. We may see some other things in regard to people’s experience.

00:21:18:09 – 00:21:47:20
Michael Gewecke
I only I don’t quote me on this because I can’t cite this, but I believe I just read that the average Presbyterian church worship attendance nationally is 40 people. If you if you’re counting small congregations but I don’t quote me on that but it’s it’s smaller than you think because a lot of the small rural congregations feel an obligation to keep very high membership rolls because of what it might mean if they removed you from the rolls.

00:21:47:20 – 00:22:05:58
Michael Gewecke
You know, that spreads pretty quickly that the you know, Sister Betty has not been in church for 20 years, but we took her off the membership rolls that mean something and you don’t. So some of our membership numbers are even worse than what we’re willing to admit because of the social influence there. And so just to emphasize Clint’s point, I agree with that.

00:22:05:58 – 00:22:39:25
Michael Gewecke
I think that the question for small rural congregations will be, if they grow into help, how will they resource and connect with other small rural communities and congregations? And I suspect that we may at some point in the future, I hope I’m not skipping out our sheet here, but I think at some point in the future we’re going to see shared leadership models, much like the frontier models that were the first leadership models used out in the Midwest where where you may have ordained leadership, but they’re serving multiple contexts.

00:22:39:25 – 00:22:57:12
Michael Gewecke
And the leadership in those places, I can envision that what used to be different buildings of different congregations become different gathering places for congregations managed in a far more collaborative way. I could envision small places adapting in that way.

00:22:57:39 – 00:23:25:58
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and we’ll certainly talk about that in a minute. The one the one aspect I want to put on the idea that churches may be bigger to survive is that in some of those places, I think you’re going to see a kind of a redefinition of what a church experience means. They’re not going to have a building, but there’s going to be eight or ten people that get together in someone’s home and they pray and they watch a video or they share devotions.

00:23:26:13 – 00:23:50:22
Clint Loveall
I think you may see and it’s too early to tell. But as the small church breaks down in areas, I think you may see it replaced by a kind of Christian experience that isn’t congregational in the traditional sense, but is is communal. And and again, that’s an old pattern in the church. We’ve we’ve had that we’ve seen that before.

00:23:50:43 – 00:24:10:06
Clint Loveall
But I think you may see something like that along those lines. You know, the is kind of moving this direction right now. I think you’re going to see the church become more urban, more of the people who go to church are going to be in larger areas. That’s just that’s just math. What impact that has on the church.

00:24:11:15 – 00:24:33:30
Clint Loveall
We will take some guesses about later, But I think that’s one of the realities. As Michael said, I think you’re going to see a shift in leadership training. I think you’re going to see a lot more of an apprentice model. I think you’re going to see ordination. We’ve already seen this in our area. There are almost as many non or deigned leaders in our presbytery as there are ordained.

00:24:33:50 – 00:25:03:50
Clint Loveall
I think the traditional track of go to seminary, get a degree, go through the process, is not going to hold up. So you’re seeing more and more, hey, this person has a lot of skills and let’s train them up and see if they’re willing to preach on Sundays. Let’s help them do that. And I think that idea of the sort of trade school mentality is going to be replaced with an apprenticeship in a lot of ways, which is going to increase nonprofessional leadership, lay leadership.

00:25:03:50 – 00:25:25:12
Clint Loveall
You know, there there’s an upside to that. There’s a downside to that. It’s actually you could argue that that’s the original pattern of the Christian church that that was how we did things at our inception. But we Presbyterians haven’t done that in a while, really in ever.

00:25:25:12 – 00:25:50:06
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. So one of the ways that this is already happening is our denomination, our presbytery, at a smaller level, has for some time had variations of a program that you could go through as a lay person and out the other side of that you would be equipped and sent into a congregation to do preaching How that’s changed in the in my time here.

00:25:50:06 – 00:26:20:16
Michael Gewecke
So in the ten years that I’ve been here, I served on that committee that oversees people going through seminary and going up into ministry. So I kind of had a inside that track view for for quite a while for six years. And even in that time, it’s fascinating. We’ve built two other tracks in addition to that. So now we’ve built a partnership with a seminary who has online classes, and we have this thing that our presbytery puts on in conjunction with other Presbyterians.

00:26:20:31 – 00:26:42:52
Michael Gewecke
And then there’s also this like twice a year intense of program that you can go to a place and you can you can get this training in this place. And you know, the reason why we have three tracks, right, is because no one is going to any of the tracks. We will keep building new tracks because we need to find a mechanism that might work.

00:26:43:22 – 00:27:06:30
Michael Gewecke
And I don’t say that to be sarcastic. I just I want to emphasize, I think Clint’s point is exactly right. I think there will be there will be congregations who will be well positioned to do teaching ministries, sort of like a research laboratory model. You’re right, after you go through school, you’ll go for some time and you’ll serve in the laboratory.

00:27:06:30 – 00:27:31:33
Michael Gewecke
You’ll be taught by people doing their job, and then you leave that place to do whatever your generative work is somewhere else. I can envision that happening in the church where a church makes it a part of its ministry for people to come through, to experience ministry, to do maybe even some generative work in that place, and then you send them out to go do that work in another place to be multiplying the skill sets of that.

00:27:31:33 – 00:28:09:50
Michael Gewecke
And I think to use Clint’s language, that’s, I think, a factor of quantity. In other words, we only have so many ordained leaders literally within our bounds. So where where would these people get field education training, but in a very small variety of congregations. And I think that why is congregations in the denomination will will build some of those ad hoc networks so that when a church of health and growth and vitality is looking for leadership, they they’ll know who to be talking to and calling to say, have you had a person through in the last few years?

00:28:09:57 – 00:28:30:30
Michael Gewecke
You know, I think some of that will happen organically where we’ve really trusted committee structures to harbor that. But here’s the problem with committees. There are only as good as the input, right? A committee can run a great process, but if you have no one in the process, it doesn’t matter how good it is. So fundamentally, I think that congregations are going to find ways.

00:28:30:46 – 00:28:56:33
Michael Gewecke
And by the way, maybe this may just be me preaching a sermon to myself, but I think you all realize that First of Spirit has already done this. I think you realize not in the ordained sense, but we’ve had several youth of this congregation spend time working here in this place, and they’ve gone out and they do different kinds of ministries.

00:28:56:33 – 00:29:13:33
Michael Gewecke
But I do think we’ve seen some of that internship language. We’ve seen some of that equipping in interesting ways, and we have benefited from that. And I think some of our youth have as well. So I don’t think all of this is speculation. I think we’ve seen some of it in small form already.

00:29:13:33 – 00:29:43:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah. I think one of the greatest gifts that healthy places are going to offer the church as a whole is to say, send us somebody who has the capability to get it and let them hang out here and learn. And then they’ll take that somewhere else. I think that’s going to have to be formalized. This is taking nothing away from Michael because he’s gifted for ministry and ultimately they made a wise decision.

00:29:43:21 – 00:30:03:54
Clint Loveall
But it tells you a little bit of how the denomination does something. I think you were in your first year here when they asked him to be on the committee. That helps people prepare for ministry in the year. He’s learning what ministry in a church is. And it is like I remember when they asked and I thought that is completely unfair.

00:30:04:13 – 00:30:24:19
Clint Loveall
But he of course, did it well. And they were. Yeah, but it’s a it’s a ridiculous thing to ask somebody who hasn’t had a year of church under their belt yet. Hey, by the way, can you help other people get ready for that? Which is nearly impossible. The church is we see this already. The church is going to be more collaborative.

00:30:25:08 – 00:31:00:14
Clint Loveall
Smaller churches are going to have to partner churches, towns and churches where there have been three churches. They’re going to have to. And we see this we see Lutherans and Presbyterians and Methodists sharing pastors, sharing buildings. That’s going to continue. They’re going to share programs, They’re going to share facilities, leadership. I think we see a version of this when we pursue some interfaith dialog, some initiatives, you know, right now that hasn’t extended those bridges haven’t really extended to, say, the nondenominational church.

00:31:00:14 – 00:31:26:22
Clint Loveall
We have a lot to learn from them. They hopefully have a few things to learn from us, but those conversations aren’t real prevalent yet. We’re not. There are some high end theological conversation with the Catholics. There’s not a lot of practical day to day kind of conversations. I mean, that’s not in the foreseeable future ever going to look like ministry sharing, but it will look like support, it will look like encouragement, I think.

00:31:26:56 – 00:31:55:12
Clint Loveall
I don’t know. I’ve never bounced this off many of my colleagues, but my first year here, one of my first weddings, involved the Catholic priest at the time who came over here. And then a couple of years ago I got to go over and be a part of Lexi’s wedding. And so I feel like I’m a relatively rare Presbyterian pastor in that I’ve shared two weddings with a Catholic priest, one at my place and one at their place.

00:31:55:49 – 00:32:22:42
Clint Loveall
And I don’t think that happens real often that I’ve never, but I consider it a good sign. And I think this idea of collaborative ultimately is a really good thing. You know, it’s a hard thing and and we’re getting there. We’re being forced in it to some extent, but we’re just not in a place where you’re Lutheran and I’m Methodist matters much anymore.

00:32:23:00 – 00:32:45:37
Clint Loveall
We’re getting past those boundaries and we’re getting to your Christian. And I’m Christian. Can we can we work together? Can we figure some stuff out? Because you’re struggling and we’re struggling and and is there any way we can make this work? And I think I think that’s happening. And I think there’s some it’s it’s painful because of why it’s happening, but there are some upsides in it.

00:32:47:13 – 00:33:07:46
Michael Gewecke
That’s very positive. So I’m sorry to bring a downside. I, I think there is a downside, though. And I’ve actually seen this in a congregation that I’m helping, you know, the danger of collaboration is that you keep doing the thing that you’ve always been doing, but you just get other congregations to do it with you without ever thinking, Should we be doing this at all?

00:33:07:46 – 00:33:30:21
Michael Gewecke
I mean, that’s a danger, right, that you think, here’s a program we don’t have enough people for, but if you do it, you do it and I do it, then we can actually keep running the program. But nobody ever has the conversation, but none of us have people doing this. And so why? You know, I think that is the danger is that we begin to think of collaboration is just simply continue ing to do the same ministries we’ve always done.

00:33:30:21 – 00:33:58:26
Michael Gewecke
And I think vital collaboration is essential and will happen out of necessity. But some of those collaborate will be will be new. I mean, there will be new there will be new understandings of people who the church is called to serve. And then these churches will work together to serve those people. I think we’ve just got to be careful to not get locked into trying to get more people to do the same thing and just reaching out to other congregations to enable that.

00:33:58:33 – 00:34:00:05
Michael Gewecke
So I think that’s the down that’s fair.

00:34:00:07 – 00:34:25:19
Clint Loveall
That’s that’s fair. If, if by collaborative, we just mean, you know, how long can we all stay on the same sinking ship? That’s not it’s not a good plan. The next thing in the queue where we’re beginning to use this language, there’s this word in the church missional. Nobody is exactly sure what it means. Most people who think they know what it means don’t really understand what it means.

00:34:25:24 – 00:34:52:35
Clint Loveall
And I say that because Michael and I had the experience of both studying under one of the professors who kind of coined the terms and when if he would hear how it’s normally used, he I know it would hurt him because he would explain it’s not it’s not what you think it means in many cases. What I mean, in this instance is I think churches that are going to do well in the coming generation are going to be evangelistic.

00:34:52:58 – 00:35:18:46
Clint Loveall
They’re they’re going to be they’re going to pursue outreach. They’re going to go get people this idea that there are just people out there looking for a church and you just have to be good when they show up. That’s That’s largely gone and fading fast. I think churches that are going to grow and do well are going to be attractive and they’re going to seek people out.

00:35:19:08 – 00:35:38:38
Clint Loveall
They’re going to send members to be ambassadors. They’re going to talk, have those conversations with coworkers and neighbors. They’re we’re going to put where do you go to church? Do you go to church? Would you like to go to church? Kind of back in regular conversation if it hasn’t been made in if it’s never been in conversation, it’s going to have to get there.

00:35:39:34 – 00:35:59:24
Clint Loveall
I don’t see I don’t see any way around that one. I think that one is yeah, I, I often my wife would tell you, I often think I’m right, but I really think I’m right. I really think I’m right on that.

00:35:59:24 – 00:36:30:46
Michael Gewecke
So and I don’t want to toot the first press horn, but our last or close to last one on this section, I do think we already see how the church is adapting to the digital realities of the 21st century. You know, the idea of reaching out to people, connecting with them, even when they’re not physically present. You know how much we have benefited from the ability for our remote members during the winter season to get to continue to be engaged with worship and education.

00:36:30:46 – 00:36:51:34
Michael Gewecke
So we’ve begun to see that there’s a way that we can stay connected with people even as they’re mobile. But I’m very proud of first presence here because we I think we’re also we’re seeking to always ask some of those questions. And so let me give you an example. You know, our young families are in a really tough spot, as you know, especially I’ll just to claim one group of them.

00:36:51:34 – 00:37:04:03
Michael Gewecke
The hockey families are really in a tough spot because for a couple months of the year, they feel bad that they’re just gone from church. And I’ve talked with these families. They see that that’s a tough decision, that.

00:37:04:37 – 00:37:05:34
Clint Loveall
They’re in church.

00:37:06:09 – 00:37:21:32
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re here as often as they can. No, this isn’t a slight. It’s to say that they’ve got a kid who’s doing this really good thing, but that really good thing happens on Sundays, right? And so one of the conversation, our Christian Education committee is working on a plan for this that’s going to roll out in the fall.

00:37:21:32 – 00:37:53:56
Michael Gewecke
Actually, if all goes well, we’re we are actively thinking our educators are actively thinking, okay, so we have families that want to be in church. We have families who, for reasons are not here, What what can we do to supply education and worship for them? So we’re beginning to think about what does it look like for them driving to hockey to get to do worship on their phone and then for their kids to have the Sunday school lesson available to them on the way to hockey?

00:37:54:16 – 00:38:16:03
Michael Gewecke
Now, will we come up with a great answer that I don’t know. But the point is we’re having those conversations about how can we utilize tools to make sure that folks understand that when you can’t be here, we want to be with you. And of course, people may choose to not do that. Right. And we don’t expect that everyone’s going to find that to be compelling.

00:38:16:03 – 00:38:37:44
Michael Gewecke
We don’t expect you to want to do that. But I do think that growing church and and the vibrant church is going to continue to think about how will these tools enable us to enrich and to to pass on the faith to to folks in situations where they’re currently they’re not able to engage as much as they would like.

00:38:37:53 – 00:38:58:08
Clint Loveall
So one of the one of the gifts and I know that’s a weird way to speak, but one of the gifts COVID offered the church is it forced us to move that direction. It really pushed us into the corner and said, how could you utilize these tools to connect with people to reach out to people, to provide stuff to people?

00:38:58:24 – 00:39:22:21
Clint Loveall
And that’s a that’s a hard way to get there. But I think what it may have done, the pandemic might have moved us years forward in that idea because the churches that are going to end up doing it well found themselves doing things and said, hey, there’s some upside to this now. But even after pandemic, even after COVID, these are tools that can help us.

00:39:22:44 – 00:39:43:39
Clint Loveall
And I don’t know that I think maybe we would have discovered them sooner or later, but I think it would have taken longer. Now, the downside of that is when we’re in a digital age, not only the church or society is asking what does community look like on the computer? Because I keep asking my youngest daughter, have you gone and found a church in Mankato yet?

00:39:43:39 – 00:40:03:10
Clint Loveall
And she says, I just I go, I’ve come to church with you guys on Sunday morning. And I tell her that aren’t good enough. Go find people. Go find real people who are following Jesus and hang in with them. And she says, Well, I just like our stuff. And so, I mean, it’s great that she logs on, right?

00:40:03:19 – 00:40:25:01
Clint Loveall
That’s wonderful. I’m glad she’s doing that. But I worry. Is it is it community? Is it you know, and that’s going to it’s going to take years to sort out what it means to offer people Christian community in a digital context. I don’t think we begin I don’t I don’t think we begin to know that answer yet.

00:40:25:13 – 00:40:49:22
Michael Gewecke
I have people you all know. You all know my propensities and the digital nerd stuff. So I’m not going to, you know, but because of people knowing that I’ll have people come to me and want to engage in conversations about technology and church and these things. And it’s one of those situations where I find myself repeatedly a person comes up and starts telling me, But this is bad and this is bad and this is bad.

00:40:49:44 – 00:41:18:09
Michael Gewecke
And I say to them, Yes, and it’s worse than that. It’s worse than what you think. That’s the reality is, if we wait for the denomination to get it figured out and for our best theologians to ruminate on this, we might have an answer in a decade, but nobody using smartphones anymore. So it’ll be fine. We have to live in the messy middle.

00:41:18:45 – 00:41:45:09
Michael Gewecke
We have to live in the place where life is lived and we have to try some of these things. I’ll tell you, I also think that we we are responsible to share the good news wherever the people are and to whatever extent we can have a part in that. I think we’re doing good work if we are humble enough to recognize when we miss and I’m sorry to say we’re going to miss, we have missed and we’re going to continue to miss, but hopefully we can be God honoring in the process.

00:41:47:54 – 00:42:33:09
Clint Loveall
The last one. So we’ve kind of divided this into things that we’re relatively confident about. I think things that we think we could back up and then some things that we’re going to guess on. And this one is somewhere between the two, the Church of the next era. The interesting question is in terms of the polarization we see happening right and left, conservative, liberal, whatever, whatever terms, and I don’t like terms, but whatever terms you want to use, what will that do to the church?

00:42:33:09 – 00:43:01:55
Clint Loveall
And one of the things it may do is that right now it seems very uncomfortable to be a place that tries to be middle, to be at a place that tries to let people from right and left interact and sit together and pray together and wrestle with issues together. But right now, that’s a tough that’s it’s a tough moment for that.

00:43:03:37 – 00:43:32:36
Clint Loveall
But I but I think I think that as we continue with this, we’re going to find a larger and larger group of people who don’t want noise on one side or the other and want a place that is less volatile and, more I think people are going to be able to live with the mass to kind of be in the middle.

00:43:32:36 – 00:44:04:13
Clint Loveall
And and I don’t have any way of I don’t have any way of documenting that yet. I, I think, though, that there are going to be an increasing number of people who appreciate nuance and gray, which is not the case right now, but I think one of the things Presbyterians offer is an opportunity to be that kind of place.

00:44:04:13 – 00:44:25:33
Clint Loveall
And I do think that may be attractive in the in the years to come. But but we’ll see. Let’s stop there before we get into the the more big picture, longer picture stuff, comments, questions. But anything you’ve heard doesn’t make sense. Don’t agree, follow up, anything of interest.

00:44:25:57 – 00:44:55:37
Michael Gewecke
That’s really helped. That’s a helpful distinction. Thank you. Yeah. So let me name my point on that. So I think that what we’ve learned or what what we’re learning is that the church can have micro extensions and into people’s lives that serve differing purposes based on the person. But I don’t think that any of this is firmly rooted within the idea of a congregational vitality.

00:44:55:37 – 00:45:34:57
Michael Gewecke
So I don’t foresee a future in which real that’s not helpful language, physical people gather in physical spaces to do physical worship that that’s going to happen. I think what what I meant to talk about and I’m sorry if I was unclear, is I think the church that the church is seeking to find ways to do Christian education in an era where people walk, where people think that the way that you do things is by clicking the play button and then skipping to the next video and skipping the next video.

00:45:35:07 – 00:46:04:42
Michael Gewecke
In other words, I’ll tell you this For the longest time, we were we were I was vexed by the idea, why can’t we get our 30 to 50 year old people? I’ll say 25 to 50 year old people in Sunday school classes. Why can’t we do that next? Next, Maybe it’s topics. So we tried different parenting topics. So we tried different this topic and we thought, well, maybe it’s the teacher.

00:46:04:42 – 00:46:33:43
Michael Gewecke
So we tried a teacher thing and we we could not get that age group. In my experience in Sunday school. And it it just bothers me because I think that matters. And we should you should be here. So then we tried this podcasting thing then and then I side of the basketball game. We’re about three or four podcasts in and I had like four parents of those people I was trying to get in classes come up to me and say, You know, I’ve been listening to that every time I go to work and it’s great and I love it.

00:46:34:03 – 00:46:55:58
Michael Gewecke
And I thought to myself, I would love to have you there, but I’ll take it like that. Those are the compromises. I my hope is that that we will continue I my expectation will continue to do these physical things. But the example I mean, I’ve mentioned hockey families before. It’s the same with softball families. You just name the thing.

00:46:56:24 – 00:47:14:56
Michael Gewecke
My hope is that if there’s a time frame where you’re down south because you’re a snowbird or you’re you’re a you’re a hockey family or a softball family or you’re whatever family. And for some reason there’s a time you can’t be here. The church is available to you in a meaningful way. That’s all that. I mean.

00:47:15:18 – 00:47:45:48
Clint Loveall
I think those things will continue to be supplemental. And, you know, I think the thing that they offer Roslyn and again, I don’t she might not be comfortable. She wouldn’t be comfortable. So let’s not tell her we have this conversation. But but mentioning Emma, if if Emma didn’t come to church online. Mm. I don’t know, 5050, she’d go somewhere.

00:47:47:04 – 00:48:11:42
Clint Loveall
Probably more like 2080. So I do think our choice with some of those people is to provide something or I, I don’t think, I don’t think if we stop sending it to them they all of a sudden show up here I guess is what I mean. I think it really is. This is going to be our connection with them for for whatever reason in the immediate future.

00:48:11:49 – 00:48:32:29
Clint Loveall
And maybe it changes, maybe it doesn’t. And I you know, that’s a real issue there. There’s a guy in Lincoln, Nebraska, doing this instead of going to a church in Lincoln. Well, I I’m glad he’s doing this. I wish he’d go do that. But until he does, maybe it’s maybe it’s good that he you know, I don’t know.

00:48:32:29 – 00:48:45:36
Clint Loveall
I think those things are going to take us a while to sort out. And as we go through and we have the conversations and we meet the people, we struggle with the issues, it will get revised, you know, But you have to steer a moving ship.

00:48:46:22 – 00:49:26:07
Michael Gewecke
And yeah, one last thing and I’ll be really brief and another aspect of that, Lynn, that’s really, I think, interesting it’s been generally for me is just imagine all of these rural communities in Iowa surrounding us, our fellow Presbyterian churches, we as we continue to close them, there will still be Presbyterians there. And I do have this burden that says that some of the things that a healthy, vital congregation generates is not just for our people, that there may be a day in which the stuff that we’re making together as a body actually serves those Presbyterians.

00:49:26:07 – 00:50:02:56
Michael Gewecke
So if they’re getting together in someone’s home that they might have a place that they could turn to with a sermon in the reformed tradition, that they might have a Sunday school class with discussion guides that they could have in their living room. So like beginning to think that it’s not just for the sum total of our people, but also thinking because these tools don’t cost us anything for them to participate, that surely we have our members who are in the building, we have our members who we’re reaching in an ancillary ways, and we have people who we don’t even know who they are, but we can offer what we have out of our riches

00:50:03:19 – 00:50:09:34
Michael Gewecke
that if they can use it, thanks be to God. So I think like keeping all that straight difficult, but I think all that’s in play.

00:50:10:04 – 00:50:49:24
Clint Loveall
Other question. Yes, both I think I mean, our context does not do well with 18 to 30 year olds, pre kids and singles. Those are if you look at the groups we’ve struggled with in in the mid-size Midwestern smaller town church, those are the groups we part of it is it’s not as many of them here. Part of it is the sort this sort of whole way of life is geared toward marriage, family, you know, those pillars.

00:50:49:24 – 00:50:56:02
Clint Loveall
But yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s for sure. That’s a I think that is dead on.

00:50:56:02 – 00:51:22:48
Michael Gewecke
And we we have had some efforts at, um, that young adult ministry and um, some of that, some of that got hit pretty hard by COVID. But, but I think that Tony, that that point is, is clear. And I do think it reaches the how do we as a congregation equip people with hospitality. Yes. To do that also that we need to raise.

00:51:22:48 – 00:51:33:10
Michael Gewecke
Hey, there’s a whole group of of young people that we can reach out to. I think that we should have conversations about what looks like to programmatically do that in a meaningful way. Yeah, 100%, Tony.

00:51:33:10 – 00:51:51:45
Clint Loveall
I think that’s a place will be more collaborative. I think that’s a place where we don’t have it. The Methodists don’t have it in the Lutherans don’t have it, but all together we’ve got 12, so let’s get them together. I mean, I think that’s a place that kind of conversation might bear some fruit. Um, okay. Very quickly, a couple of guesses.

00:51:51:45 – 00:52:20:31
Clint Loveall
These these are some things. These are sort of big meta things and we’ll go through them quickly. It these are these are things, interestingly, that I could see going one of two ways. Michael and I, I’ve had a little bit of conversation right now, particularly if you look at midline of the church toward actually, you know, what is probably fair across the spectrum, right and left the church is increasingly issue driven.

00:52:20:54 – 00:52:41:45
Clint Loveall
The church is big on hot buttons. The culture comes up with the thing and the church jumps all in on it, whether on the left. That’s something like race on the right. It’s something like abortion or homosexuality. It it’s the same mechanism. It’s a different way of getting there and it’s different issues, but it’s it’s kind of issue driven.

00:52:41:45 – 00:53:13:48
Clint Loveall
And the church feels compelled right now to weigh in on most issues and does so all over the board loudly, sometimes not very pastorally, sometimes not very wisely. But there’s sort of cultural cues. And the church is largely taking its lead from things in the culture. And it will be interesting over time to see whether the church navigates more issue driven or less issue driven.

00:53:13:48 – 00:53:39:21
Clint Loveall
I can imagine a time in which that pendulum swings and the church says we don’t have answers to all of the issues in the culture, nor are we going to try. We’re we’re going to make space to be patient with those things and not hit people over the head with them upfront. I think the same is true of more or less cooperative.

00:53:39:21 – 00:54:07:21
Clint Loveall
I think you’re going to see some churches become more collaborative. I think you’re going to see other churches sort of isolate. I think you’re seeing some of that. You could say it again in terms of globalists, you know, we live in a world that is increasingly global, and I think some churches will lean and embrace that. Our other daughter, Bailey, and her husband, Peter, they’re up in Minneapolis.

00:54:07:33 – 00:54:41:45
Clint Loveall
They’ve intentionally sought out a church that is multiethnic. They’re going to a church that is essentially a black church trying to be a mixed church. But the roots of that church are African-American. And Bailey and Peter did that intentionally. That was important to them. And I think in our younger, you, the millennials, find stuff like that appealing. And I think in places where the context allows it, we may see more of that.

00:54:41:45 – 00:55:02:27
Clint Loveall
And then there will be other churches that I think shy away from that very strongly. They’ll dig in and kind of be more like one thing. This is our thing and our way of doing it. And I don’t know. Ultimately those things may just run side by side or we may see the church tend to one direction or another.

00:55:02:27 – 00:55:20:18
Clint Loveall
I think it’s too early to tell, but I think we see the beginnings of both movements or at least we see movement in both directions. I don’t think it’s the beginning, but that that one I think will be interesting. I don’t know if I’ll be around long enough to see where it goes, but I’m curious about that one.

00:55:21:57 – 00:56:08:34
Michael Gewecke
You know, for all this talk over this whole series, we talked about, you know, how difficult things are, how the church is changing, declining, etc., etc., you know, where the church, where this conversation’s irrelevant is Africa. This conversation’s irrelevant in South America, where the Protestant is growing at remarkable rates across the board. I do think there’s a time in which some of our greatest thinkers and theologians, some of our greatest leaders, maybe southern hemisphere people that the church may lead, churches that we used to consider mission fields may be centers of Christian thought and life, and we would be very wise to be open to those perspectives and to that light and that vitality.

00:56:08:34 – 00:56:42:19
Michael Gewecke
We we may one day host missionaries from their countries, which I think would be an incredible kind of gospel turn that God would be able to to make entire fields grow. And then those fields can plant other fields. I just think that that’s a beautiful idea. And I do think that the future of Christianity is is going to have the music and the books and the leadership and all that stuff that we we’ve enjoyed and some of that we may get to hear from different voices.

00:56:42:19 – 00:56:44:06
Michael Gewecke
And I think that will be interesting to see.

00:56:44:07 – 00:57:04:12
Clint Loveall
I hope I agree 100%. I think there’s a very strong chance that the Church of the Future is less Western. If you’ve traveled Europe, you’ve seen what happens when a kind of place that used to be Christian declines. And now they have buildings, but they don’t have congregations. They don’t have a strong faith life, though they have the remnants of it.

00:57:05:00 – 00:57:31:25
Clint Loveall
We’ve seen some of this, you know, coming out of Nazi Germany. We had men like Carl Bart and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who were foundational thinkers of the 20th century, wrote in German, which we’ve translated and have guided generations of pastors. I think in the next 50 to 100 years, that may be somebody who writes in Korean, that may be a dialect in Africa.

00:57:31:42 – 00:58:01:42
Clint Loveall
I think there will be a day when some of the most prominent, prominent leadership in the church at a theological, thoughtful level, I don’t mean pastors. There are already wonderful pastors of all kinds of stripes. But but I mean, the kind of names like Bonhoeffer and Bart, maybe Kim or some other, you know, an African name, I think that’s I think that’s likely in our future.

00:58:01:42 – 00:58:35:36
Clint Loveall
I, I think it will be interesting to see where that goes. Global influence is is going to matter in the in the next generations. I really believe that. I think that I think we’ve covered, you know, maybe one other one. Again, it will be very interesting to see. I mentioned racial stuff. It be interesting to see if the church is more or less segregated in the years to come, if it gets bigger, if it gets more urban, it’s likely in many cases to be more diverse.

00:58:36:01 – 00:59:05:31
Clint Loveall
I’ll tell you, the nut that no one has cracked yet is age the strongest? The strongest barrier right now in terms of getting people together is to find it. There are churches that are doing great with 35 year olds and there are churches doing great with 65 year olds, not always doing great with both. And it’ll be interesting to see if there’s a way to navigate that.

00:59:06:34 – 00:59:38:18
Clint Loveall
I don’t I don’t know of anybody who is really, really sort of got it figured out up and down the whole spectrum yet that that’s a tough one and we’ll see where it goes. I mean, to some extent, to some extent that’s harder than some of the other issues. I don’t see anything else. Michael, Comments. Questions kept you longer than we need to.

00:59:38:18 – 01:00:07:41
Clint Loveall
All right. Hey, thank you. Holy Week. Thursday will be back here. Friday will be in the sanctuary. Both of those 7 p.m. to services Easter. A few other things going on. So hope at 530 is recharge late on Wednesday. Bible study for the ladies is moved to 11 on Tuesday. Men, you’re still at 930 on Thursday. Yeah there’s it’s a busy week so lots of chances to be involved.

01:00:07:41 – 01:00:10:06
Clint Loveall
I hope you take advantage of some of them. Thanks for your time.