Bonus: Two Rivers Church Podcast - “Strays, Orphans, and Exiles” Part 2
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Bonus: Two Rivers Church Podcast - “Strays, Orphans, and Exiles” Part 2
Summary:
This is part two of John's conversation with Two Rivers Church, looking at how Ministry Forum is supporting church leaders, where the new leaders are coming from, and how the definition of what church is in the 21st century is changing.
Quotables:
“Once you professionalize clergy, it's as simple as things like, you get a gathering of people in the church together, and the Minister is there, who's going to pray? Well, the minister's here. Isn't that your job? Minister should pray.” - Rev. John Borthwick
“I think we're stuck, part of our part of our grief around what's happening with the church today is directly connected with how we define what a church is” - Rev. John Borthwick
“I've asked over the years, you know, what is church to you? And they're like, I don't know. Well, if you don't know, how are you going to tell anybody, hey, come to church. What does it mean for you? How has it changed your life?” - Rev. John Borthwick
“…what we're seeing in our culture today is this push or move to experiencing spirituality, the divine God, even experiencing Jesus outside of these trappings that we put on it.” - Rev. John Borthwick
“I think part of our work is, how do we translate how we talk about Jesus, how we talk about our faith and our spirituality. How do we translate it for a culture that's never cracked the spine of a Bible or looked it up online” - Rev. John Borthwick
About Two Rivers Church
Two Rivers Church (TRC) is a faith community in downtown Guelph, Ontario, connected to the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Established in 2012, TRC began with a small group of friends discerning a call to be the church among their neighbors. Its name reflects its location at the intersection of the Speed and Eramosa rivers. TRC embraces a diverse community, including longtime churchgoers, those cautiously returning to faith, and individuals exploring Christianity for the first time. They describe themselves as a “collection of strays, orphans, and exiles,” highlighting their inclusivity and openness. Rooted in the Nicene Creed and the Reformed tradition, TRC seeks to live out God’s mission of reconciliation through Jesus Christ, participating in the missio Dei to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Their mission is to invite all to come alive in Christ, forming apprentices of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit. TRC envisions vibrant micro-communities as part of an integrated network of faith. Their core practices include friendship, prayer, storytelling, generosity, and celebrating the presence of Jesus at the table. TRC values being faithfully present to neighbors, advocating for justice, and caring for creation, while exploring new models of church that move beyond traditional buildings. Leadership is guided by a team of six individuals discerning growth and change through scripture, tradition, and community voices. Pastor Glen Soderholm and Children’s Ministry Coordinator Ben Robinson lead the church’s mission to nurture faith and connection. TRC exemplifies a dynamic, relational, and innovative expression of church for today.
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Transcript
[John Borthwick]
So I think part of our work is, how do we translate what we how we talk about Jesus, how we talk about our faith and our spirituality? How do we translate it for a culture that's never cracked the spine of a Bible or looked it up online, has tons of baggage of what would religion is and Christianity is, is being influenced by lots of people on social media and in the news. How do you translate it in a different way and put it on display in a way that people might go, Huh? Well, that one doesn't seem so bad. Maybe there's something to this. You
[Ian Van Harton]
Hello, and welcome to strays, orphans and exiles. I'm Ian van Harton from two rivers church in Guelph, Ontario. This podcast explores questions, stories and conversations about what being a church looks like in the 21st century. This is part two of our conversation with John Borthwick, the director of lifelong learning at Knox College in Toronto, and the director of the ministry forum, an online platform that supports and empowers church leaders. In part one, we discussed his exploration into how social media and virtual spaces can help foster and create new kinds of church communities. Now, in part two, we look at how the ministry forum is supporting church leaders, where their new leaders are coming from, and how we can challenge our definition of what church is in the 21st century.
Can you tell us a little bit about ministry forum and how it got started and what it is sure?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, so when I started in August, I was hired for the position the board of Knox College in the fall of the previous year had gone through a process where they wanted to, they really wanted to invest in some way in supporting the Church. Today, the congregation ministry leaders in this, in the things that the challenges that exist, was there a space for the college to be supportive of its alumni, to be supportive of congregations. What could they do? So, they came up with, let's do something around lifelong learning, continuing education, lifelong learning. And the framework they created was essentially what people need today. Of all stripes, ministers, clergy, lay people, others are things like some kind of content, and they saw most of that as virtual. They did a whole bunch of focus groups. They really reached out to people and asked them, what do you need? What would be helpful, what formats would be good. And what they heard from a lot of people was, I don't have time or resources to go to, for example, to go to Knox College for a few days to learn something. I need consumable, easy access of easily accessible, financially reasonable or cheap things that will help me to learn the things I need to learn. I need resources and access to that when I need them, and we need some kind of some kind of support. They called it mutual support.
And so, when I walked into that space, I leaned very much into the mutual support piece and the variety of things I've done throughout my career. So that was an easy one for me, and how that has manifested is really just from the feedback I hear. So, people will say things like, I'm so glad that you're on the other end of the phone, or to know that you're an email away. And I can ask a question, or I can just share something that's happening, and you'll listen. That's awesome. Really appreciate that and how the engine of Ministry Forum, that as we created it, works is those same people will ask us questions, and then we'll take that question, do some research, do some stuff, share the answer to that question. So I'm looking for a resource on I've got some people who want to join the church, and I'm looking for a resource on new members, like, how to do you have any resources, places to look for that kind of stuff? We give them a whole bunch of stuff, and then we also then share that out through the Ministry Forum. That might turn into some posts on our website, some social media posts could eventually it's going to turn into our resource hub, which is coming soon. It may turn into a podcast, you never know. And so it's, it's, it's, and in some cases, some of the things might even turn into a like an E course, where we're on a on a platform we're on called www.churchx.ca is a platform where about 7000 people are now registered users. We're on there where you can put up a course, build out a course, most of them are asynchronous, but you can have live ones as well. All of our courses are free, and you can go through and learn something about two of our original our first courses that we launched are on social media, so understanding all the different platforms.
And then how do you, how do you build out a presence? We've done one on lay worship leadership, building confidence in being a lay worship leader. One of our professors, Sarah Travis, she presented a workshop, and we broke that down into a course that we could put online with some forum engagements and things like that. And then we have just a space for books. We call it “It's Raining Books, Hallelujah.” And so, it's just a space where we can book, book launches, we can put information about books, book lists, recommendations and stuff like that. And so really, how it's evolved. We started it from the ground up. Nothing existed. And then around October, we started our social media presence. We’re on Facebook and Instagram.
Some of that is some engagement with me, just sort of saying where I am. Part of my job encourages me to go and be with be in churches. I preach in churches a couple of Sundays per month. Sometimes I travel. I was in Calgary, meeting with ministry leaders. I was in Saskatchewan, meeting with ministry leaders. And so, you know, I might put a post of like “Where's John, or what am I up to?”
And then a lot of our other posts are basically the resources and, you know, questions that people might engage in, “what do you think of this” and getting feedback that way every single time we send it a weekly email, which we encourage people to subscribe to at www.ministryforum.ca, and that weekly email is just generated by things that are coming up, but also, there's always sort of a topic that sort of generates some interest.
A couple weeks ago, we had one on our denomination, which has said that you have to have a Master of Divinity to become an ordained minister within the Presbyterian Church in Canada. There are other models out there, other pathways out there. What would that look like? And so that generated a lot of feedback, especially being that I work at a college that offers a Master of Divinity, and so, you know that was some interesting engagement. The feedback has been great. We've built our email community to over 500 subscribers so far, the more subscribers we have, the more engagement we hope to build. And the two things that sort of motivate us most of all, and this comes from my own path in ministry, is we, our mantra is constantly, you're not alone, as you serve in ministry. And we define ministry as all sorts of different things.
It's not just ordained clergy, its lay people, it's psychotherapists, it's chaplains, it's Camping Ministry, it could be anything. We're trying to keep a really open mind as to what kind of defines a ministry leader, people offering leadership in their own congregation. And the other thing that drives us a lot is the people themselves. So the different tack that Knox College took in its long history of being a theological college is in the past, the iterations that a college would typically do around continuing education or lifelong learning would be we're going to create stuff and then invite you, just as we've been talking, invite you to come and take our course or take the certificate program. We've built out, one that we think you should have or you should use, or this would be helpful. And so come and see we now, and the college has been very intentional about this. It's driven by, “what are people saying?” What is What are the things that people need. We're trying not to just do what we think people want. We're trying to be responsive to the needs that we're hearing. And so one thing we're working on right now is a lay preaching course, similar to the lay worship course. While we're doing that, because we're hearing from people, we really need to train up some lay preachers, or lay preachers are already out there, and they just would like some, you know, some fine tuning to learn from a professional or a professor around. How can I do this in a really good and even better way?
[Ian Van Harton]
And, sorry, a lay preacher is just someone who doesn't have a Master of Divinity and wants to give sermons correct?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, is not an ordained minister, yeah.
[Ian Van Harton]
So you're seeing more of those and less of people going through to get their full degrees and becoming pastors.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, it's a North American phenomenon. So theological seminaries across North America have experienced a significant drop in people pursuing Master of Divinity degrees. Now, in the Presbyterian Church in Canada we have decided that you must have a master of divinity. There's a few exceptions, but typically you must have a master of divinity to be an ordained minister in the PCC. There are lots of other denominations that do not require that. So even in the city of Guelph, there are people who serve as ministers or pastors, lead pastors, senior pastors of churches in the city of Guelph from a variety of different stripes of the Christian's dream. And they don't, they don't have an MDiv. They don't, they weren't ordained in the same way that a Presbyterian might have been. But even in those spaces, some people will pursue an MDiv as a as a solid theological degree to go and be a pastor somewhere. So, yeah. So they, what they've noticed in North America is the decline has been pretty significant on people taking MDivs. Part of it is about finances. Part of it is about time. Part of is about there's not a lot of people. There's not as many people discerning a call to ordain ministry. And so that's, it's just, it's an obvious kind of thing. It's a question I consistently have from people of like, you know, I saw in the in the Presbyterian connection that Knox had three MDiv graduates, what are you doing about that? It's like, well, we're, we're doing our part. Congregations have to do their part to help people discern gifts for ministry, to serve in the Presbyterian Church in Canada as ministers.
[Ian Van Harton]
So sorry, you don't. You don't interpret that as a decline in people who want to be leaders in a church. You see that more as just people choosing different or looking for different avenues into church leadership. Or how do you see that?
[John Borthwick]
Probably a bit of both, again, the challenge and the barrier within the Presbyterian Church in Canada, although I'm noticing, I'm seeing and witnessing more and more spaces and places across the denomination as I get to travel where lay people are already doing what some people would say is what ordained ministers do in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. So, there are some congregations that have a minister who the word or phrase we use for to the Presbyterian Church in Canada is lay missionary. And so they might not have a theological degree. Maybe they do. They don't have an MDiv. They've never been ordained, but I've met people who are that definition or that designation, who've been serving the church for 20 years, preaching every Sunday, doing pastoral care, caring for people in the community, and doing ministry. What we're finding is, or what the stats show across Canada, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada is a significant number, probably half or more of churches across the country are don't have a minister, an ordained fixed minister, whether full time or half time, or any kind of part time. And so many of those congregations are being led by lay people.
In some ways, because we're as as people age, we're losing those who are retired, who might have served in those places, filling pulpits, doing pulpit supply. And then we're just not seeing the same level of recruitment for new ministers coming in, and then most, many of those churches can't afford to call a full time Minister in any kind of paid position, they can't afford half time. They can't afford full time. And so that's why we're seeing more and more lay people filling in those gaps. We talked about this in ministry forum in one of our posts as well. But one of the challenges around that is at just the time when people are talking more and more about lay people being equipped and encouraged to participate in leadership in the church, is just the time when more and more lay people are getting older, they're getting tired, and they're saying, I don't need this. I don't I don't want this extra responsibility, and are stepping away from leadership. And the sad part about that just around timing, is when I talk to people who've been heavily involved in lay ministry for decades in the in our denomination, they would often say that they've often felt as second-class citizens. It's often women who have served in these roles, but not always and so the way the church has treated lay people who aren't ordained, the church has been wired and designed for guys like me who have an ordination. I can wear a little collar, I can put Sam the reverend. And so for them who didn't have that, they were always sort of seen as well, you're not a real minister. We'd like a real minister. Or when are we going to be a real church when we can call a real minister?
And so sadly, as the timing of all this has worked out, it would seem that the church right now and in the years to come is certainly talking about, how can we, how can we encourage more lay people to step up in leadership? But we're noticing that there could be a huge gap, or people are saying, No thanks, not interested. So as much as we're producing and trying to create things, even in Ministry Forum to support people to be equipped in lay preaching and lay worship leadership, there might not be as many people who actually want to step into those roles and are like, No, I'm I'm good.
[Ian Van Harton]
So as part of what you're doing to try to look for more leaders or to encourage people to step into those roles?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah. It’s, I’m trying to I mean, what we know for a lot of folks, is when, when you professionalize clergy, it becomes, we did this decades ago, but it's not that long. There didn't used to be professional clergy. But once you professionalize clergy, it's as simple as things like, you get a gathering of people in the church together, and the Minister is there, who's going to pray? Well, the minister's here. Isn't that your job? Minister should pray. And in some church cultures, that's been reinforced, that's been accepted, that's just been the way things go. And so what, what worth what we think or what we're trying to do, and what we think we know is that sometimes what people just need is, is it's a bit about confidence. It's like you could do this too. Sometimes it's about resources. Sometimes it's teaching people how to do some of these things that they were never taught before. So, for example, leading worship and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes people will look at ministers who lead worship and think, man, I could never do that, because they use big words and they say all the right things, and they just seem to know how to do it all. It's like, well, yeah, they've been doing it maybe for some time, or they've had some training, or they know the big words.
And so it's, it's teaching people that you know what you don't always have to use the big words. Or here's some, here's some scripts of a prayer. Or here's some, here's what some of these folks use on a regular basis. It looks like it's, it's, it looks so simple from the from the Pew, but there's a bunch of stuff that's gone into that already. So here's ways of preparing to lead worship and encouraging people to take on those kind of things. So it's really about, how can you give people some of the resources and tools that ministers have had access to? How can you share those with other folks and encourage them to try and take risks and do all those kind of things to step into leadership? I don't know how. I don't know how Two Rivers works, but I'm sure over time, because Glen can't just clone himself and be the guy in every single living room. I'm sure there's been some people that have had to be mentored or coached or supported as they've led their own living room, and probably for some it would be like, there's no way I could lead a living room or not like Glen or not like this person. And so it becomes, how do you come alongside people and encourage them and support them and help them to be the leader that you might see in them, or the leader that they think they might be, but just aren't sure that they have the permission to do that or the confidence do that. So that's a big part of what we're trying to do as well.
[Ian Van Harton]
Tell us about what you're exploring with Creative Ways.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, sure. So the conference we had, the first when we did essentially, our dream for Creative Ways is that it would be somehow connected to the things that are happening or the conversations that are happening within the prestigious church in Canada. And we're trying to keep it in close proximity to the General Assembly, hoping that people who are attending General Assembly, who are going to be a part of these conversations might have a little bit of an opportunity before it, to have some to learn some stuff, to hear some stuff, to think through some stuff. So it was beautiful to hear some people at assembly. I don't think they said it out loud too much. I don't think they did not on the floor of assembly, but around assembly, people talking about, oh yeah, I heard these guys talking about Two Rivers. Or I heard this guy telling the story of Royal City Mission. Or I've heard Brady Shearer say this, or that I was in a Presbytery meeting in Saskatchewan and they were the person she was referencing to the entire presbytery who Brady Shearer was about this and that and the other and I thought, well, that's, that's really good, like, that's great that they had that opportunity to hear him and be able to share that. Sorry,
[John Borthwick]
Sorry, can I, can you just explain? What is the general assembly?
[John Borthwick]
Sure, so quick, quick study in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Presbyterians, it will be short. Presbyterians are one of the few denominations that are defined by how we govern ourselves. So Presbyterian comes from the Greek word presbuteros, which means elders. And so every church congregation has elders, who they are ordained to serve in leadership as ruling elders, and then ministers are called Teaching elders. They pick one representative from that eldership team called the session. They go to a regional body which is called presbytery. The Minister goes there as well in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, that's the corporate Bishop, which would be similar to a bishop in the Anglican Church or Catholic church, but it's a corporate one, because it's made up of all the ministers and elders in a regional area. Next Level is a Synod, and it's all the ministers and elders from all the presbyteries in a large geographic, larger geographical area, called a Synod. And then lastly, in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1/6 of the church, ministers and representatives, elders from across the country meets every year to discuss the big issues of the church, to set doctrine, policies, and all those kind of things. And that's general assembly..
[Ian Van Harton]
So back to Creative Ways. So what kind of things are you hoping to explore and talk about?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah so for our first one, the other, I guess, the other percolating themes for Creative Ways as we, as we think about it, is wherever it's located, we want to try and connect with whatever's happening in that local area, just to sort of focus on that, or highlight that. So, some might say, because I'm a guy from Guelph. Hey, man, like all the stuff you did at creative ways was exceedingly Guelphy. You had two rivers that are in Guelph. You had Kevin Coghill from Royal City in Guelph. Like, what's up with that? Well, we were in the press tree of Waterloo Wellington, and I was featuring ministries that are happening in that presbytery.
The overarching theme for our first one was about something similar to what we were talking about. What is being church today look like, and who, who is doing that in different ways? Are there different ways of being church? So one of the one of the aspects of our Creative Ways event was to invite people that we started searching on the internet. We asked people, do you know of people doing creative things in in churches, either in their own church or as what they're calling church? And so we asked people to send us essentially like a social media clip. We were hoping it would could be something that they might use for themselves, like for their own website, or something like that. And could you send us, like, a two minute video? And so, we, weren't sure what we get. We we got a decent amount of of of examples. So things like, there's a guy out west, on the west coast doing a DJ kind of ministry. And so it was featuring that. There's somebody in this area, in Kitchener Waterloo, who has what they call Forest Church where, you know, they get together in the forest and they have church. We featured Two Rivers and other ministries like that. We also featured congregations that are doing some different things, whether it's around there was a congregation doing things for people with intellectual disabilities and celebrating that. And so what we really wanted to highlight in that one as our first was, can we feature, are there different ways of being church today? Because the General Assembly is talking about, how do we be different in how we do church? What are the some of the things we may have to change or may be open to? And so we knew that some of those conversations might be happy at assembly. Our hope for next year, when we go to Hamilton, is connecting with people doing ministry in Hamilton. What are some of the things that stand out for us? And so we're going to probably connect with Presbyterian churches that are in Hamilton, initiatives that are happening in Hamilton, and try to connect that with the wider church. So our hope is every time we do this little conference, we're going to be able to feature things that the PCC is talking about at General Assembly, but also highlight and feature ministries and things that are happening in those in that general area, just as a way of highlighting that we are all different.
It was really meant to inspire hope and encouragement for folks, because so often we go these conferences and we hear about all the ways in which we're not doing church right. Or, you know, if only we do this, we'd be better. Or we hear from, you know, American folks who come in and get imported to tell us how to do church, and it's like, we're not American, we're Canadian, and we do it differently. And so how can we feature Canadian? We're always going to keep it Canadian. We're always going to keep it maybe, very connected to wherever we're meeting in. And again, just highlighting things to be inspirational, hopeful, yeah, encouraging, that's really our goal.
[Ian Van Harton]
I want to try a weird question that occurs to me, just in that where we've talked a lot about exploring the definition of what church is. What is church?
[John Borthwick]
What is church? Yeah, well, funny enough. Again, some of the reading I've been doing and some of the some of the conversations I've been having, I think that really is, I mean, I think that is the question that we have to answer for the future, because I think we're stuck, part of our part of our grief around what's happening with the church today is directly connected with how we define what a church is.
Things have life cycles, the fact that a community of people gathered in the 1950s and they built a building, and they located it somewhere, and they had hundreds of people in the 1950s and then hundreds in the 60s and 70s. And then things started to taper off, and now they're down to 12 people, and some of those people were there in the 1950s that are still there now. And their great lamentation, their great grief, their great sadness, is that somehow, they failed. Things have life cycles. Some things die. And so the more we the more we lock into a specific definition of what a church is, which is what we've done, I think then the more grief we experience, and because we also get locked into nostalgia, the more we want to go back to what church used to be.
So when people talk to me about if I'm visiting a church, and they're like, Yeah, we're not doing very well. We're not sure about this. We just want young people to come. We want this and that and the other. It's like, yeah, you want to recapture what it looked like in the 1960s. It's not the 1960s anymore. And so the challenge for folks who are in the church today is most of us have no concept of what the new thing might be, and that's a hard place to be. So it's in some of the conversations I have is about sitting in discomfort, and none of us want to, but not knowing what that is. And so some smart people are using words like this liminal space the church is in a liminal time. It's a fun word. I'm not 100% sure what it means. Not an academic, but you know, it's in that space of in between. You're in between. I like to use this the conversation of we are, if we're, if the church is in the Gospel story, we're in Holy Saturday, Jesus has died, and we're and we're there with the disciples. Jesus has died, and we don't know how that where the story's going. It looks awful and holy Saturday must have been a Holy, holy day for those original fellas and women and all those folks who follow Jesus, because they might have thought this is it, and then, you know, even to get their minds wrapped around that whole resurrection thing on Sunday, that seemed to take them a while, and I'm not sure they even understood it, even beyond that.
And so for us, we don't know what that looks like. As a minister who served for 25 years, I know for myself. I don't know exactly what that looks like. I've always tried to put myself in spaces where I've encouraged people to take those risks. I've tried to work hard in the systems that we have to not put barriers in the way of those things. I was a part of saying to Glen, Glen, if anybody could do this thing, you've got credibility. Go for it, man. Give it a try, see if it works.
So I think part of our role in the even the Moses kind of journey, part of our role is to make sure that we're taking care of the people who are there that are faithfully coming, have served the church in their own way. That church for them has been this space where they've come every single Sunday for their entire lives, and it's meant something for them. They can't always articulate it, because even in the church, I've asked over the years, you know, what is church to you? And they're like, I don't know. Well, if you don't know, how are you going to tell anybody, hey, come to church. What does it mean for you? How has it changed your life? I don't know. It's just something I do. Okay, fair. What do you get out of it? How does it transform your life?
So caring for those people who are continuing to go and are feeling that sadness, because the sadness is not only profound, related to watching their own church decline, seeing friends of theirs whose church has closed or amalgamated or is gone. It's also that probably their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, are probably not participating in anything of a church, of a church defined way, and that's deeply troubling to them. Now it's possible that their grandchildren, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, are still participating in something. The census tells us some are and most aren't. So it's really how do we how do we capture that those cohorts or people to have conversations about more than just their bodily needs, their mental needs. How do we talk to people about their spiritual needs? And how do we do that in an accessible way that doesn't put the parameters on the only way you can participate in this thing is by going to a church.
And so the definition really comes out of, how do we define church in the way that could be as expansive and open as possible? And maybe, do we even need the word church anymore? I mean, certainly Jesus and the early church didn't have what we had. They called it church, but, but their definition of church was really, I think, about a community of people. It wasn't about a building, the place where they met. It was the Romans that put those kind of names on it all, and we just kept perpetuating it. So I think, yeah, how we whether we need those definitions anymore? I don't know. I think it's more about, how do we encourage people to even just, even just when they're asking those questions, to know where they could access a space, and to have people out into the world of all stripes. Maybe some people who don't have MDivs, maybe people who haven't, you know, studied heavily in these things, but have caught something from following Jesus, helping even equipping them to be able to have those next step conversations with somebody, somebody there they work with, somebody that's in their family system, somebody on this as a friend group, because in a way that can be Church, the way we define it.
[Ian Van Harton]
And I think we're talking about how the definition of church has opened up, and we got to be open to what it might look like. But there is, you know, there is a connected through line, from the disciples to the people hundreds of years ago to our grandparents and great grandparents to now, like there's something that's the same. And so it's not just, oh, churches, whatever it's, whatever it's, anything, you know, it can't be that open either. So there has to be something core to it, of, you know, an intentional space where people are getting together and exploring spirituality in the name of Jesus, or what it means to follow Jesus, or something like that, something simple that connects us to the past and to now.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a that's certainly where the denomination, the various denominational churches would say. So, part of what we lose when we move away from our denominational connectivity, is we lose that sense of tradition, of ancestry. Brian McLaren actually talks about in one of his books about well, the Apostles Creed might be considered outdated, old, not really helpful. It's like there's still a sense that there were people 1000s of years ago who said these words and they meant something. They might mean something different for me today, but I'm still going to say these words as sort of a connectivity like you say that thread that goes through.
I think what's interesting. I was having a conversation with somebody just this week. What's interesting is, when you're talking about the thread, I would say the thread is Jesus, the thread is the Bible. The thread is having care and concern for each other, and that that there's something bigger than ourselves that we want to be a part of together. Congregations didn't exist in the way that they do today a couple hundred years ago. It's a model that came along and said that this is what you had to have, and you had to have members and all this kind of stuff. Before it was there was a church, and you gave money to the church because you were a part of a parish, and that's just what you did. And then you participated in that parish. You went and did all your sort of life journey stuff, through that space and place. And that's where you connected with God. There was a holy place where, if you went in that building, it channeled the holy to you in some way.
I think what we're seeing in our culture today, and I don't know, I say this without not knowing all the answers in all this regard, but what we're seeing in our culture today is this push or move to experiencing spirituality, the divine God, even experiencing Jesus outside of these trappings that we put on it. The caution or the challenge with that is, if there isn't, like you said, intentionality, it's pretty easy to slip out of that kind of stuff, but that's where things like spiritual practices come to play or spiritual disciplines. There were lots of folks who didn't, wouldn't have done it naturally, but, but as part of life became a rhythm. That's how they sort of did those things, and that's what and you also everything that we understand about human behavior is it can be really helpful if you have some companions along the way, you know?
So I think, I think that's what you're I think that's what we're looking for. How do we create some spaces and places for companions along the way to accompany us as even the early gospel stories say things like, I met this Jesus, I think you should come and hear what he has to say, and then you become a follower of him, and, you know, come and see what he's telling us. And so I think that's what we're going to see a little more. I worry that we won't see it as again, it'll be small. And I worry that the larger message that's constantly coming into the world is not a message that's a gospel message. It's and that's going to make it really hard for lots of folks. And so we need those people who are consistently steeped in the word in the Bible, in the stories of Jesus and being able to bring people together to talk about that in a in a transformative way, and then sharing that.
I mean, it becomes much more important to be evangelists, to share the word in a way that isn't going to put people off, that isn't going to immediately have people have a knee jerk reaction. And I don't, I just don't know if our culture is ready for that, in a culture that is severely impacted by social media, you know, we're so divided, we're so reactive, we've already made up our minds. I think we're at some kind of turning point where, you know, all the studies say that we're a very lonely generation. We're a lonely culture. And it's like, well, the church would say we have all the answers to that, and for whatever reason, the culture is saying, Yeah, we're not interested in what you were offering.
And so I think I always used to say in the work I did in congregational ministry, part of my job was the is the work of translating what I do for a different culture, like I speak one way in church a little bit. I actually, yeah, I kept it pretty low key on how I would communicate in the church, but when I was out in the culture, I would speak a different way, that wouldn't, wouldn't immediately have people going, Oh, I don't want to hear from this guys, because I already knew I had the baggage of, if you knew me, it's like, oh, he's a minister. That's going to be scary. And so I think part of our work is, how do we translate how we talk about Jesus, how we talk about our faith and our spirituality. How do we translate it for a culture that's never cracked the spine of a Bible or looked it up online, has tons of baggage of what would religion is and Christianity is, is being influenced by lots of people on social media and in the news. How do you translate it in a different way and put it on display in a way that people might go, Huh? Well, that one doesn't seem so bad. Maybe there's something to this. Maybe I'd want to explore a little more that when you make that invitation of, hey, a group of us get together on a Tuesday night, why don't you join us for conversation? Really low key. Maybe that's the different kind of church that could, bloom or blossom from that.
[Ian Van Harton]
Last question. What is your hope for through the Ministry Forum and other work you're doing? How are you guys going to go about shaping and creating the church and what the church needs to be in the 21st century?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, that's a pretty high calling. Luckily, I've had 25 years of congregational ministry experience, so I don't believe that I'm going to fix things. I don't believe that I, I'm not sure that we can fully shape all of what you're saying there, but I think we're going to do our part, and everybody should try to do their part.
So what I would say in that mix is being a ministry leader today is extremely hard. Doesn't matter what's what definition that might be. It's hard because once you step up and say that you follow Jesus, you're putting yourself up against an entire majority culture that would say that seems weird automatically. If you say you go to church, well, you're even weirder. And then just to serve in those capacities is hard for a variety of reasons.
People are difficult. Being with humanity is challenging, and it'll wear you down. It'll wear you out. And so one of the things that I feel really called to from what I've done my whole career, and what I continue to feel called into, and what I'm so privileged to be a part of at Knox College, is if I can have some part to play in sustaining people in leadership who if there wasn't somebody at the other end of the phone, or there wasn't a space where they could have conversations in a confidential kind of way, or even just space to know that they went to a conference and heard some stuff and met some people, and in those conversations and in that conference, they saw themselves so that they didn't feel alone in that that world that other people think the way they do, And oh, okay, I'm not, I'm not crazy or in any way. We can, we can shape those kind of things to help people stay in leadership. That's what I'm that's what I'm on, on board for.
I've known a number of, let's just say, ministers and certainly elders and ministry leaders who've stepped away from the church almost completely because they got burned out. They got browned off, they got they got frustrated, they got hurt. They were abused, essentially, in some ways, by the church and by their experience in the church, not to mention just how they experienced being a person of faith in the world. And I just, I've always, I always felt if they had some people to be in community with, in connection with, maybe they could be still in ministry in some way. And so part of that drives me, and that's why I keep using phrases like, you're not alone as you serve in ministry, because I know there were times in my career in ministry that I felt alone. I felt I was thinking I was the only one thinking this way, that there was something wrong with me because I thought this way, that I was wired a certain way. And so it's only by my own personal growth that I've been able to expand that to see a different way forward. I served 25 years in congregational ministry. It was not easy. And so when I see ministers who have only served a few years of ministry, and then they're quitting because they didn't think this is what it would be like. I'd love a chance to come alongside them and say, Yeah, it's hard. It's not easy. People are difficult, but we you can get through. And here's some things that would help along the way, and here's a community that maybe you can connect to along the way. And that goes for anybody in ministry leadership, whether you're in psychotherapy or chaplaincy, whether you're in Camping Ministry. One of the gifts that I've been given is this gift of being able to pull people together. So in downtown Guelph for 20 some odd years, I would gather all the old stone church clergy, I would reach out to them every few months and say, I think it's time for an old stone churches luncheon. Clergy luncheon, and we'd get together for lunch. If I didn't organize it. It didn't happen. And so part of my gig is to try and find ways of pulling people together so they can meet each other, they can see each other, they can hear from each other, they can feel listened to and supported in everything they do.
And so I don't, I don't have any I don't have any notion that I'm going to somehow fix the church or create the new church that's out there. But if I can sustain leaders who I think could get us to a new way of seeing the church, I'm all over that. I'd be happy to support people who are trying to do that and take the risks and be encouraged along the way. I was meeting with someone just today who is in ministry, is struggling, is having some challenges, and over a two hour conversation, they at least came away a little lighter, having been able to share where they were at and to recognize that they weren't the only ones who've been down this journey and to make and to encourage them to make connections with some connections that I may have through Ministry Forum, through Knox College, and through the things I get to do.
So that's what we're that's what I'm about. Because again, like I say, when I went into ministry, one of the stories that really what became foundational for me was the story of Moses and leading the people of Israel. It sounds a bit crass, but what I recognized in ministry early on was that the people I was leading were the ones who might never get to the promised land. It was the generation that may need to pass. There were times in ministry where I was waiting for them to pass. You know, that's just what we do as human beings. Sometimes, when I got to the better space of sort of going, your job is to care for these people, and that's your job. That's your calling. The other part of your calling is to create, create lifeboats, create space for new opportunities, to help, to help encourage the people that are going to be the next generation. So you have both those roles, both to be a chaplain or a carer for the people who are there, and you've been faithful all the way along, to carry them to the to the place where they won't get to the next thing, but you're going to do really good and care for the people while they're in the thing, and then prepare the new people for the next thing, not knowing what that thing is, but just encouraging them, creating space, making room, allowing them to take risks and try and experiment, and encouraging them along the way.
The harder send, the harder sand, the harder store. Part of that story is, I also know maybe I'll live long enough to see what it looks like, but I'll never get to the promised land either. I don't get to go in, so I don't know what the next thing looks like. I know it won't look like anything that I've served or done or books I've read in my career. It'll be something completely brand new. My hope is, if I have hope, my hope is always that it'll be something that is life giving, transformative, Jesus centered, something that's actually going to change the world and make it a better place than sometimes it is now. And if that could happen, that'd be really nice for the sake of my kids, my grandkids, for just the sake of the world. Sounds a little Smoltz or sappy, but, but yeah, for the sake of the world we need I don't like I think something will exist. I don't believe the church is going to die. I think something of it will always exist, because God exists no matter what, and Jesus is around no matter what. I just don't know what it looks like 100% but I think there are people out there who are building the new thing, creating the new thing, or open to the new thing. And I just hope that that is something that people are drawn to or attracted to, because we need those foundational stories as much as it's an ancient book that doesn't have, you know, people might say isn't relevant, it's so surprising if you actually steep yourself in at how relevant it is almost every single day, and how it can sustain you in those darkest moments and it can uplift you in those happiest days, and how it can guide you and influence you in ways that you never thought possible. And so if only more people could connect with it, that would be my hope. And I hope that there's ministry leaders out there who are excited to try the new thing that's coming, the entrepreneurial spirit, the innovative the risk takers, all those people, and I'll do my best to support them along the way.
[Ian Van Harton]
Sounds good, yeah. Well, John, thanks so much for doing this. Really enjoy talking to you and really appreciate what you're doing. So thank you.
[John Borthwick]
Thank you. Ian, it's been a pleasure being with you. Appreciate everything I see you all doing at Two Rivers and. And look forward to continuing our connection over the years.
[Ian Van Harton]
And thanks everyone for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure to check out the links in our show notes to find out more on the Ministry Forum and their conference Creative Ways. And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to connect with us. You can email us at podcast, at two riverschurch.ca or connect with us on our website. Two riverschurch.ca I'm your host, Ian van Harton, and thanks to Peter Sabo, our producer, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.