HT: What are pastors talking about now?

JB: Context. Each community has its own distinct features and characteristics. The idea that a church can just be the same everywhere is not reality. No standard way exists of doing church anymore. Some of my colleagues are asking, “When do you reach the point where you are no longer Nazarene?”

Economic factors are not the same in every community and that affects each ministry.

Various languages and ethnic groups now exist together. My daughter goes to high school where over 100 languages are first languages for the students. But in our congregation, English is the prime language. So some of those students’ parents could come to our church but they wouldn’t find their language used, nor would they understand what we are saying.

Every congregation has to tailor its needs to its community and social context. Here’s an example—a community with people employed in the manufacturing industry may find that community is created based on the employee’s shifts. That reality then affects the times and even days that people can meet together in worship.

JA: I agree that a lot of pastors are dealing with economic realities. They are looking for ways to leverage their buildings, their time, and their people’s time. In hindsight, we will see a lot of unintended consequences from this. Most pastors I know have had to react and be nimble with what they have and are creating strategic partnerships with other congregations and affinity groups.

But what often happens is that the necessity is not accompanied by a plan for theological and ethical reflection. So having a sounding board where pastors can discuss considerations for staffing, renting a building, or whatever may come up, gets overlooked.

JB: The one issue that no one is going to talk about publically, but yet everyone is talking about, is human sexuality. It’s far more complex than gender categories and roles that we have been comfortable with for so many years. It’s not as if this is a separate stand-alone issue; it pervades even the way we interact with one another in the workplace, with teachers and students, and who can be clergy.

We write statements about people and groups, but those voices are excluded from the discussion.

HT: How can we engage in relatable and timely conversations?

JB: The first posture has to be that of humility. While I may be talking about someone who may be very different from me, I can’t use myself as the point of reference. I may have on blinders. I may not understand all of the factors. So an attempt at empathy may be the appropriate posture for those coming to the table for discussion.

JA: Whatever the topic is, dialogue has to be a starting point. We have to find a way to interact and listen. But on charged issues, it’s challenging, especially when we take people out of their comfort zones and experiences. So often, troubling topics don’t get the engagement until individuals in our homes or social spheres are dealing with these areas. Can we enter into dialogue and see people as more than their positions on certain issues?

JB: It is interesting how conversation shut downs when someone sees conversation as “my job is to convince you that I am right.”

JA: I agree.

HT: If you could change one element of the today’s church, what would you change?

JA: I’d change me. I have to recognize that everything starts with me. It’s the height of arrogance to think I’ve got it all right and everyone has to work around me. So where do I need to be flexible, loving, more compassionate, caring?

The day I think I don’t need to change is the beginning of the end. So for me, to see change in the church, well it has to start with me. And if we all work on ourselves, and have more humility, then that opens us up for relationships, more dialogue, more openness to people on both sides of issues. It’s like my marriage, when there is conflict I have to think, what do I need to learn out of this?

JB: I’m with Jay. Structurally we could try to modify things. But if I think the church should be shaped in my image, that’s the height of arrogance, the opposite of humility.

The central practice of the church is to welcome others who are unlike us.

It doesn’t have to be our way, but we’re committed to the way of Jesus, to practice hospitality, to give ourselves away just as Jesus did.

HT: Doesn’t our Wesleyan theology call for this?

JA: That was the genius of Methodism. Wesley developed systems where this kind of living was fostered. Wesley systematized things where this could be developed in community, mutual support. Here, a person’s growth is celebrated and encouraged, and grace can be extended when there isn’t victory. This should come to us easily in our theological memory and tradition.

JB: Certainly Wesley’s practices inculcated this way of creating community, but I’ve been going back to the Trinity in seeing how we relate as God’s people. A lot of time has been spent talking about how the persons of the Trinity interrelate. What I have come to see that the Western dream of personal independence is not the same as the Christian practice of interdependence.

My goal in life is not to live for me, but interdependently. I need to be in relationship with others so I can be who I am. I can’t be me without them. I need people to let me know when I’m wrong.

HT: Are we missing out by always looking for the next big thing?

JA: Regardless of what pastors are saying, it’s important for us to be sensitive to the reminder that prevenient grace is always going ahead of us. The Spirit is always at work. I think back to my first church; we were scratching out an existence but they were wonderful people who accepted my wife, Kim, and me. They loved our family. On the grand scale of ministry success, we weren’t pegging on anyone’s charts, but there was so much good there. So even when we face challenges, God is still going ahead of us, working in spite of us, to get the job done. It’s humbling to recognize how God works in what seems so indistinct at the time.

JB: The vast majority of life is lived in the ordinary. I follow the Christian calendar. We celebrate a few high holy days, but the majority of time is ordinary. Life in a family and in a church is ordinary. And I can forget that the ordinary is holy. I might forget that while in a church board meeting, a Sunday School class, doing the dishes, or mowing a lawn. It’s the small decisions we make every day that set the trajectory of our lives and help keep us attune with God’s grace.

God operates in the ordinary. We have been tutored to see God in the spectacular, but it’s often in a small community trying to figure out how to be the people of God that steps into the holy.

We are all called to participate in the holy.

Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.