Cross-Cast with Two Rivers Church Podcast - “Strays, Orphans, and Exiles”
Summary:
In this special cross-posted episode, John joins the podcast Strays, Orphans, and Exiles from Two Rivers Church in Guelph. The conversation explores new and creative approaches to church in the 21st century, focusing on the use of online spaces, social media, and alternative models like home churches and virtual communities.
John shares his experience starting The Abbey, a virtual ministry born during the COVID-19 pandemic to support spiritual practices and ministry leaders through webinars and hybrid engagement. He discusses how virtual spaces can lower barriers to participation, create new forms of community, and connect with those hesitant to enter traditional church buildings.
The discussion also dives into the challenges and opportunities of hybrid and online ministry, the role of social media in building authentic relationships, and the future of diverse and flexible church models that meet people where they are. Throughout, John emphasizes the need for creativity, risk-taking, and openness to reimagining what "church" can be in today’s world.
Quotables:
So, you know, the building itself becomes that barrier for people, even just to access the message that you want to share. There's so much around that, and lots of research says people have made a decision about being a part of your church community within the first minute, it's that quick. And if it's that, then it's likely not what's actually happening, say, from a pulpit or from the front. They've already decided based on how they access the building, how they experience those first few moments. - Rev. John Borthwick
But when we think about translating the Gospel message out into those spaces, I think what was important for me, was this eliminates some barriers of people needing to be in a space or come to us to do this. It was more like, here's the door, it's open. All you have to be able to do is click and you're here. - Rev. John Borthwick
Social media is designed to be relational. And so, people, if they're going to engage in social media and be a presence, a Christian Gospel presence, out in social media, need to make sure that they're actually trying to build relationships with people and actually amplifying other people. Amplifying other things, telling stories about other stuff, celebrating other things that are happening. - Rev. John Borthwick
The one stat they were drilling down on was, are, is everyone going to virtual church, and since we had had our conversation before, and this is, this has been ever present in my mind. Ryan said, in the US, the stats are that 5% of people are actually going to church, virtually, just 5% most people, the majority of people, still want if they're going to experience church, they want to do that in an in person kind of way. And so that was that's interesting. If you follow the data, it's actually showing us that, well, we think everybody left and went virtual. That might not be the case, but, but what is the case? And what Brady, again talked about, and what Ryan talked about, and I've read in other spaces and places, is I think churches still need to be really intentional about how they use that virtual space - Rev. John Borthwick
So, a living room for some people is going to be an amazing, intimate way of engaging with the gospel message for other people, some massive Cathedral is going to be the way that they engage in that. And they would never want to do living room. And there's people in living room who would never want to do cathedral. So, I think it's thinking through and celebrating, and what we're really going to need in the Church of the future is all these different iterations of what being church is. Church could be three guys sitting around a table talking about the Bible and praying and caring about each other's lives. That's church. - Rev. John Borthwick
But again, I think all those things, are going to fall away when there aren't as many church buildings left, there aren't as many people connecting to church, we're gonna have to find different ways of being church, not just going to church. - 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.
Additional Resources:
Stray, Orphan’s, and Exiles - Two River’s Podcast
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Transcript
[Introduction]
Welcome. Welcome to the ministry Forum Podcast coming to you from the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College, where we connect, encourage and resource ministry leaders all across Canada as they seek to thrive in their passion to share the gospel.
I am your host, the Reverend John Borthwick, Director of the Center and curator of all that is ministryforum.ca. I absolutely love that I get to do what I get to do, and most of all that, I get to share it all with all of you. So thanks for taking the time out of your day to give us a listen. Whether you're a seasoned ministry leader or just beginning your journey, this podcast is made with you in mind.
[John Borthwick]
Well, today, you are in for a treat. We've got one of our cross-cast episodes. I'm not sure if that's what they call them, but I like calling them a cross cast. Over the summer of 2024 I was delighted to be invited to be a guest on strays, orphans and exiles, a podcast of two rivers church in Guelph, where their mission is inviting all to come alive in Christ. They do this through inhabiting vibrant micro communities within an integrated network to participate in God's mission for followers of ministry forum, you may remember some of the representatives from this church at our creative ways 2024 conference held in June at Laurier University. It was there where Peter and Ian, the technical producer and the host of the podcast, along with the fellow two rivers member David Cupp, hosted a panel discussion about their experience in this decade long ministry that has existed very well without a church building. And not surprisingly, we talked so much that they had to split our recording into two episodes. And I thought a way of encouraging you all to check out their podcast that I'd let you listen to part one of ministry Forum's guest spot on strays, orphans and exiles.
Ian, the host, got me talking about my vision for new kinds of church communities, and a little bit about the Abbey, a virtual ministry that I started when I was serving at St Andrews and Guelph during COVID 19. It was a great conversation. You'll have to subscribe to hear other episodes of their podcast, and certainly if you want to hear part two. But I think you'll actually really, really want to check out their podcast, since they've had some quite fascinating guests talking about discernment, spiritual practices, as well as, in my opinion, a really, really special GUEST, Terry Wildman, the lead translator for the First Nations version, indigenous translation of the New Testament. This has been my version of choice over the last year or more, as I approach scripture, as I share in worship, or as I just participate in my own personal devotions, I'm glad to have had the chance to be on their podcast and now share them with the Ministry forum audience, and I hope that we'll have the opportunity to connect with other Presbyterians who host podcasts in the future. Maybe more of these kinds of cross casts will occur.
So let us know if you or someone you know host a podcast that you think we'd be interested in. Drop us a line. We'd love to reach out and do another cross cast.
And now here you go. It's episode 19 of strays, orphans and exiles, with a very special guest, Me.
[John Borthwick]
I think what we're really seeing is the notion that Jesus talked about around the body of Christ. So, it's a body, it's all the different pieces and parts of the body. So, a living room for some people, is going to be an amazing, intimate way of engaging with the gospel message. For other people, some massive Cathedral is going to be the way that they engage in that. And they would never want to do living room. And there's people in living room who would never want to do cathedral. And what we're really going to need in the Church of the future, is all these different iterations of what being church is.
[Music]
[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 a two-part series with our guest John Borthwick, he is 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. On this episode, part one, we discuss John's vision for new kinds of church communities, including his exploration into how social media and virtual spaces can help foster and create them.
[Ian Van Harton]
Hey, John Borthwick
[John Borthwick]
Hey
[Ian Van Harton]
Welcome to the Podcast
[John Borthwick]
It's an awesome opportunity to be with you.
[Ian Van Harton]
So, do you want to kick us off and just tell us a little bit about who you are and how you're connected with Two Rivers?
[John Borthwick]
Sure. So, I'm John Borthwick. I am the director of the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College. The curator of something called ministry forum.ca and this role I came into just we're almost at a one-year anniversary. So started in August of last year with Knox College. But for about 21 years before that, I started in ministry at St Andrews in Guelph and have served that community for almost 21 years before that, I was at Rexdale Presbyterian Church, ordained and inducted into that congregation in Toronto. And I guess the connection with two rivers started a really, really, really long time ago, in the sense that I met Glen solder home, probably, gosh, 23 or 24 years ago, we used to get together for breakfast at a little place called the Mohawk inn off the 401 along with another minister, and when he was serving in Campbellsville. And so, Glenn came to be in our presbytery and started two rivers as a ministry maybe 10 years ago now, and so I was part of those conversations and encouraging him to do that kind of thing. And I guess the other connection point would be as Two Rivers has evolved as a community, they've all have found a little home in St Andrews, where I served, and we were happy to open the doors to make that happen on Sunday afternoons.
[Ian Van Harton]
So, we are going to talk a bit about what you're doing with ministry forum, but before we do that, kind of want to start a little bit earlier with something that I think maybe germinated some of the ideas that you're doing now with ministry form. And that was with something you called the Abbey. So, can you talk a little bit about what that was?
[John Borthwick]
For sure, yeah. I actually have notes in note paper and books and all sorts of things. For a long season in my ministry life, I would take a silent retreat every year. I would go to the Genesee Valley, the Abbey of the Genesee. And part of that silent retreat was I found it was the only place I could go and participate in their worship, which was on the hours, kind of the monastic sort of style, and not filter, be filtering stuff. Sometimes ministers have a challenge where they go to churches and they're thinking, well, I would preach that sermon differently, or why they pick that music, or I don't like this, or I don't like that. It's hard sometimes in ministry to be just in a space and be connected with God and in that spirit.
And so, I found monastic worship and the monastic life a really interesting connection point. And so, it was in those spaces and places where I just started to find this inspiration for an idea of, how could you create kind of a monastic experience within a church community? What would that look like? And so, for a number of years, I kept thinking how to do this, how would this happen? How could we create this? And the barriers were things like, I don't think people would come to the Abbey—and that's what I called it, way back when—if it was in the church. And so, I was always thinking about, we need a third space to be a part, to attract people to something different that isn't in the church, because of just the barriers of an old institutional church stone kind of church building. And then the other challenge I had was, if I was bringing people in, you know, you have to be hospitable. And you have to feed them and do all this other kind of stuff. And I wasn't sure how all that was going to happen.
And then, as we know the pandemic happened, COVID 19 turned up. And as we started to see what was going on around virtual ministry and hybrid ministries, I started to have this inspiration again, of, oh, we could do all this virtually, and what would that look like? And so, the abbey was basically born. Many of the things that I was thinking I would do, and what we would be a part of doing, came together in that. The mission of the abbey was to was to encourage people in the area of spiritual practice and spiritual things, and to tend to those who care for all things spiritual. And as the pandemic rolled out, a lot of my passion was in supporting and encouraging my peers, other ministers. And so, a lot of what we focused on was basically things to take care of ministers as they did their ministry. And so, we offered webinars on how to do hybrid ministry, because a lot of churches were trying to figure that out. We offered things around burnout and compassion, fatigue, boundaries, conflict mediation and management. And so, we offered those kinds of things and that was really where we focused. We never got to the spiritual community piece that I was looking to get to. A lot of our barriers around that were just capacity. How do we do that? What are people looking for? Is virtual church even possible?
And so, yeah, yeah. Ministry forum came out of, in a way, the work I had done on the Abbey. It sort of came naturally to me, and I really loved doing those kinds of things. And it was great that St Andrews and Guelph was really supportive as this being another kind of ministry that we did on a regular basis.
[Ian Van Harton]
So, was this meant to be something for people who were outside of the church and not affiliated with Christianity?
[John Borthwick]
So ,the original dream of the abbey was that this would be a way, that this could be a space for people who would want to tend to their own spirits and their own things. So yes, it would be sort of another doorway, another entry point for people who weren't connected to the church.
But as I say, we never really got off the ground. The dream was, you know, how do you create the gospel message for a community of people who will never come into the church? What are some of the things that you might do? And so, you know, I didn't know I was going to be leaving St Andrews, but as I was, as that was percolating, I was thinking about, you know, what are the things that really make the Christian church different or unique? What is it about what we do? And the two areas I was really leaning into were a community that still believes that reading an ancient book is meaningful and life transforming and all those kinds of things, and were a community that prays. And so one of the focuses I was going to experiment with, was what would it look like to do, you know, Bible study, or conversations around the Bible almost like a book club as an accessible way for people to sort of go, have you ever wanted to open this book and have conversations about it, ask hard questions, things like that. And then, from a prayer perspective, talking to people about what prayer could be, how that could be meaningful in their lives. And again, all that would be done in a virtual kind of community. So, zoom meetings and social media that kind of engagement. But like I said, we never really got there.
[Ian Van Harton]
You mentioned how you saw the church building as a barrier to that. Can you flesh that out more why you think that is true?
[John Borthwick]
So having worked in congregational ministry for most a quarter century or so, or a little more than that, we need buildings and spaces to gather people together, but the building itself often becomes a barrier because people don't know what happens behind the walls of the building or when you open the doors of a building. And as the generations have gone along, so many people have never, ever walked into a church. Or know even what a church is or what it looks like. It's often fascinating to see people talk about the walk by a church for years and years and years and not realize it's a church until maybe there's a construction project. People will be like; I had no idea there was a church there. But these people inside the church, they believe it's obvious; we've been here for years. You know St Andrews and Guelph, that building itself has been there over 160 years or something, as a congregation that's been there for 190 or something. So there's an assumption that people just know we're here, and all you gotta do is come.
And I used to say to my leadership, especially at St Andrews and Guelph because that as a congregational building, it's one of these old stone buildings with lots of wood and lots of history, and so for anybody to turn up who's never been in our church before—I used to say to our leaders, that's an incredible act of courage to not know what you're getting into, what's going to even happen in this building, but even just across the threshold and get through just even a couple of pieces of our sanctuary, you know, opening up these big wooden doors coming in this sort of space, and then going through another space, and then this, this huge building with pictures on the walls of stained glass windows and a giant organ, and you know what's going to happen, and then stuff starts, and you have no idea what's going on.
So, you know, the building itself becomes that barrier for people, even just to access the message that you want to share. There's so much around that, and lots of research says people have made a decision about being a part of your church community within the first minute, it's that quick. And if it's that, then it's likely not what's actually happening, say, from a pulpit or from the front. They've already decided based on how they access the building, how they experience those first few moments.
So, you know, it speaks to, how do we do welcome in the church and how do we do signage? How do we make sure that people who've never been in the building know how to access it all? And so, I guess that's where, for myself in ministry, I also heard from community members often that even being in a church didn't have positive memories for them, or there was a lot of baggage to just accessing or being a part of a church building. And so those were some of the reasons why, if we could take all that away and just be able to access the message in a pure sort of, you don't have to worry about all these trapping. Just turn up on a zoom link, let's open a book and let's have a chat. That seemed to maybe a way of accessing the message in a different way.
[Ian Van Harton]
It's interesting how just changing the space that you're in and the context, that you can change so much of what the experience is. And I think it makes me think of home churches, and we call them living rooms too, where you're meeting in someone's house, around the table, having food together. And it just creates a different context, that's all of a sudden, you're approaching everything in a different way, right?
[John Borthwick]
Yeah. And part of the gift of being able to do the work I do at Knox College and with Ministry Forum, is I'm a part of so many of these different conversations right now, in the in the church, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, for sure, and basically, most churches in North America, there's these constant questions of; do we keep the building? Is the building pulling a nerve with the cost of maintaining a building? Is it, is it good stewardship to have a building that's taking up lots of space and square footage, and there's only like 10 of us who use it on a Sunday morning, questions around, how could you use the building differently, either to bring in income of a financial perspective, or to do ministry in a new and different way? Is the building working for you?
But I also hear people saying, if there wasn't a building, how would people know? The one thing we don't recognize, I think as much, is in some spaces there was definitely a massive diversity of opinion related to those people who just saw the building as a building, and it didn't mean anything. It was just a space to meet. We could meet anywhere. What's the big deal? And then other people who would say, this is the building where my parents brought me when I was a kid. This is the building where I got married. This is the building where my kids were baptized. This is the building…So, it's not just a building, and so that emotional baggage related to it.
I remember often there was a gentleman in the church I served who when those conversations would come up about whether or not we should even keep this building, or should we amalgamate, or should we do something different? He would often say, you know, I wouldn't be here if this building didn't exist, like even commenting on Two Rivers, sort of saying, I know they mean any living rooms, but I'm not sure I would go to somebody's living room. That being a barrier in some way.
So, I think there's lots of conversations around the spaces we occupy. So, we hear people having Cafe ministries or pub ministries, and living rooms, ministries in church buildings. I think all those spaces and places play a part, and as the as sort of the people of God, I think people are going to find the places that work best for them. I think the fear is, we have a lot of buildings, and people aren't coming to those buildings and a lot of people have never been trained or haven't had a sense of how do you even do church if it's not in a building with all the trappings that church has? The game plan as it were, right? It can be, I would assume, like in a place like Two Rivers for some maybe in the early days, or even just some newcomers. It would be, you know, what's the game plan here? Who runs this show, or how does it work? Or what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. How does it go down?
[Ian Van Harton]
Well, and you mentioned online spaces, and I guess it was because of COVID that spurred you to kind of focus on that, right? Because that was what was available. But it seems, and a lot of churches were sort of forced to be thinking about that. But it seems that you were interested and saw this more as an opportunity than as okay, I guess we're limited to this. So can you talk a bit more about what interests you about exploring the online space, the opportunity you see in that.
[John Borthwick]
For sure, I think what I found fascinating in the virtual space and have found interesting even on online spaces like social media, maybe Facebook and other places like that, how quickly people will build relationships with each other, how vulnerable people are on those spaces, sometimes, how open they are. We also know that there's a extreme dark side to all that stuff. People are clearly too open in some of the things they might want to share, or how they share things, or some of the really negative stuff. But when we think about translating the Gospel message out into those spaces, I think what was important for me, was this eliminates some barriers of people needing to be in a space or come to us to do this. It was more like, here's the door, it's open. All you have to be able to do is click and you're here.
People talk a lot about, you know, the “attractional church.” So the church model for a long, long time was, you know, we've built it, and now you just have to come. And if people just came on Sunday morning, that would be perfect.
So how are the ways that we can connect with people at different times of day, at different in different ways, where they don't have to, it sounds silly, but they don't have to dress a certain way or act a certain way or present themselves in a certain way or do certain things. It's like, you can just turn up, and some people took that pretty far during zoom world of the years in the pandemic, even to workplaces. But you can just come, you can turn your camera off if you want, and just be and listen or participate as you want.
And so yeah, the pandemic was really the impetus for that, and I saw the way that opened different opportunities that we didn't have before. So, some of the beautiful things that we found in our own congregational ministry was there was a woman in the church who hadn't been in church for three years because she'd had an injury. And every Sunday morning, every morning, but Sunday mornings in particular, she has PSWs, and people have to come, and they get her dressed, and there's a whole process. Church was at 1030 she could never make it to church when the pandemic hit. During the pandemic, she was on virtual church the entire time, so we invited people who were on the screen while some of us were in person to read the Scripture. We'd put them up on the screen. We could hear their voice. They could do things. So, the moment the Sunday that she did that several times throughout our time in COVID, but the opportunity for her to participate in worship, not just sit there, but actually to participate, was never a possibility for her. Forever, she'd never she'd never read scripture in church before. Yeah, but for some reason, during this virtual time, she felt more comfortable and was able to be there and not just be a spectator, but also be a participant. We found that with other people who if you'd asked them to read or to participate in worship in some way on a Sunday morning in church, they could never do it. But for some reason, online, they could and so those were some of the things that we found were profoundly different from a hybrid or virtual experience of church than was the same in our in-person kind of experience.
[Ian Van Harton]
What about social media and having a presence through that.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah. I mean, we, we all went to a conference hosted by Ministry Forum, just to a quick plug. Creative ways to 2024 we're looking forward to creative ways 2025 in Hamilton on June 1, last Sunday. We're going to do an afternoon anyways. That's our quick commercial.
Yeah, so we had a keynote speaker, Brady Shearer. He talks a lot about social media and how you engage in that forum as a way of sharing the Gospel. The challenge, I think, that for the church is not all of us, not all of us should be on social media from a church perspective, pushing out messaging that's not helpful.
So let me explain
so, most times when churches get on social media, So Facebook or Instagram, the way social media is designed is not as just an advertisement that it's all about you, and so what most churches put out there is come to Sunday morning worship. Come to our event. This event is happening. Come, come, come. It's all about you again, their attractional model, or it's all about themselves, celebrating. We did this. We did that. We're doing this. Look at pictures of us. We did these things. And social media is not designed that way. Social media is designed to be relational. And so, people, if they're going to engage in social media and be a presence, a Christian Gospel presence, out in social media, need to make sure that they're actually trying to build relationships with people and actually amplifying other people. Amplifying other things, telling stories about other stuff, celebrating other things that are happening.
This is not to toot my horn, but I got onto Twitter, when Twitter was pure and beautiful and just a lovely space. It was just a beautiful space in the city of Guelph. And when I got on there, I just did what I did. I would talk about other folks that were doing great things, or I'd celebrate other people, or I would connect relationally. So not using social media to reach the world, but using social media to reach my neighborhood, I began to have, like, coffee meetups with people I met in on Twitter. I'd be out in the community, and someone would be like, I know you from somewhere. Where do I know you from? I said, I think it's Twitter. And they're like, yeah!
And what people said to me, at least, how I presented on Twitter, because I didn't hide that I was a minister. They said, What we appreciate, what they appreciated about me was that it wasn't all about me, like you would mention your church sometimes, but most of the time, you were like, look what's going on here, celebrating with this person, what's happening in their lives, telling stories, amplifying stuff, retweeting things that were more positive, and putting out a good and positive message of the world. So those became relationships.
We actually have a story of one guy, you know, it's not huge, massive success, but one guy who's an elder at St Andrew Guelph. He came during the pandemic, and he says he came. He'll tell this story to almost anybody. He came because he connected with me on Twitter, and when the pandemic come, he was looking for a space to be. And he's on our tech team. He's an elder at our church now, and the connection point was, I originally got to know John on Twitter, and there were some meetups, and that's how that's how I connected.
So, if we're using social media to connect with folks and to share life together, I think that's okay. Too much of church presence in in social media, I think is more about, how do we get people to come to our church? And it’s not going to work the algorithms. It's not going to work the way the thing works. People stop listening after a while.
[Ian Van Harton]
Yeah, I feel some trepidation about venturing into this so deep. But I mentioned to you before how listening to Brady's talk, even though it was very well done, and I thought he had, you know, if you wanted to follow a plan like that, that was the one to follow, like it was very well done, and he's a good teacher and a good speaker.
But there was something about the message of churches need to be on social media and getting their message out and connecting with people, and that just triggered me, almost, and I felt this is not what we should be doing as a church, and I admit that this was just kind of a visceral reaction, probably not rational, and like you're saying, you know, there's good opportunities for exploring these things. But there is this aspect of social media that almost encourages people to be fake or to be disingenuous, or to kind of do whatever they can to get attention and to pose that they have so many friends, or they have so much influence, or that they're such a good person. And not only that, but you know, I'm going to invoke Marshall McLuhan a little bit in here too, of the medium is the message in that transforming your message to repurpose it for social media kind of turns it into something that's superficial and, you know, consumeristic even. So, there's a lot of things that just made me think, listening to Brady's talk that this isn't what churches should be doing, and they should be focusing on personal relationships in the community, and that that's really what people need. If I didn't say that we don't need more social media, we need more community and relationships. So anyway, that that's kind of my rant on the topic, but I don't want to respond to that aspect of it.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, no, I think it definitely comes across that way. I think Brady would be the first to say, not every church needs to be on social media. Not every church should be trying to do this. It's whether or not it's authentic to you. So, I remember someone telling me about social a social media platform, and I was like, should we get on that? And they were like, well, are you on that? And I said no. And they said, no, don't go on that. If it's not who you are, like, if that's not their the medium that you would actually be present in as a person, then don't try to fake it like you're saying.
I know that some of what Brady talks about is really about, how do you how do you get the next steps? It's all about, how do you get folks to that space of wanting to begin to have a relationship with somebody? So why would you frame a message on social media that is really about getting that sort of click or like or engagement? It doesn't always feel genuine. I totally respect where you're coming from. You know, even the language of how, how that's even used, like, what's the hook? And it feels like, Oh, you're manipulating people. But sorry podcast land, but the church has been manipulating people for 1000s of years. I mean, that's just what we do. We used to tell them they were going to burn if they didn't do this, that or the other. And people came in droves because no one to burn.
But I think in a social media kind of way, the hook is, if it's Brady, will talk about this all the time, and social media people talk about the time. We eventually are going to turn I don't know if these thumbs are going to turn into something evolutionary. That's going to be much more effective to flip through screens, but what you're trying to do is stop the flip like stops the scroll. People are sitting there mindlessly flipping, flipping, flipping, and I, in its purest sense, if you could flip to something with somebody delivering a short, because that's all the people's attention span is really short, engaging gospel message of love, care, concern, whatever that might be, it might get them to stop click and go deeper. I'm pretty sure I'm putting words in Brady's mouth, but I'm pretty sure that Brady would be more about, it's not that's not where it ends. It doesn't end with, Hey, I got, we got 50,000 likes, or a million likes, or something we did went viral. That's nice. But if people aren't actually going towards the journey of connecting with Jesus and people who follow Jesus, then what's the point of that? That's not what we're about.
So, it is about pointing people to a community. It is. It is about pointing people to becoming in relationship with other people who share a message of hope and love, a Gospel message that's going to be transformative. But I totally get you. All of it feels really kind of manipulative. And I think that's what some people get caught up in. They're too worried about creating the right thing that's going to get people to follow them, or get more likes, or somehow we're going to have more attention. People can see right through that. No one wants that, and we've seen that in other iterations that weren't social media, you know, you're just trying to what is this like? It's not genuine. It's not authentic. In a world of social media that is pretty dark and pretty negative and pretty conflictual, if people who follow Jesus can put some more stuff—because there's lots of people who follow Jesus that put out stuff on social media that may not be a message of love and grace and concern and justice and things like that—If there can be more people online doing that, maybe, maybe that can balance out a bit of the other kind of messaging. And as we know with algorithms, once you click on that, or once you stop on that, maybe you're going to get the next one that's connected in some way to that similar and that's you're going to start hearing a message that's different, hearing a story that's different, a way of seeing the world even.
[Ian Van Harton]
Yeah, it's interesting. It kind of comes back to what we were talking about, the context and the space of a church, and how changing that context really changes and reshapes what the experience of church is, and that exploring the online space is really putting us in unknown territory. We really don't know what does church look like on the internet, I guess. And we're just kind of figuring that out.
[John Borthwick]
So, funny enough, I saw something today from a guy named Ryan Burge, he does a bunch of stats and things related to, basically religious graphs, or graphs for religion. He's a statistician and a guy who, in the US, who does research on church and religion, and so he creates lots of cool stuff. Brady sure happened to have him on his podcast recently, just a day or so ago. The one stat they were drilling down on was, are, is everyone going to virtual church, and since we had had our conversation before, and this is, this has been ever present in my mind. Ryan said, in the US, the stats are that 5% of people are actually going to church, virtually, just 5% most people, the majority of people, still want if they're going to experience church, they want to do that in an in person kind of way. And so that was that's interesting. If you follow the data, it's actually showing us that, well, we think everybody left and went virtual. That might not be the case, but, but what is the case? And what Brady, again talked about, and what Ryan talked about, and I've read in other spaces and places, is I think churches still need to be really intentional about how they use that virtual space.
So, some churches did it during the pandemic and then turned it off once the pandemic was sort of over for them. Some churches never did it. Made intentional decisions, saying, Yeah, we can't meet in person, we won't do it this way, we're not going to do the virtual thing and everything else. Some churches have continued to provide a hybrid option. So, there's a virtual space and there's an in-person community. You have to be really intentional about how you do that to make sure that you're— I mean, you don't have to, I think you do if you really want to do it well—that the virtual community still feels a part of in some way, that they're still connected, either with each other as a virtual community, or with somehow the people that are in the pews. And there's ways of doing that, again, through technology, having somebody who's online read the Scripture. Meeting as a zoom community, so at the church I served, they always met as a zoom community 15 minutes before the church service started. So that's zoom community could chat with each other, engage, check in with each other, how you doing? Great to see you, all that kind of stuff. And you had the people who just kept their screens blank, never spoke, but they were a part of that community. And then they participated in church. They also stream via YouTube. So, some people would do the Zoom community, go to their television, watch the church service on YouTube, and then they would come back at the end of the service and sort of say goodbye and all that kind of stuff.
There was a season in my ministry where I was doing like a hello before the service, I seemed strange. I was looking at a laptop at the pulpit. And then afterwards, I'd do a little stuff that became really problematic when more people started coming in.
So, if you're doing it really intentionally, I think that can be really good, but you can also, if you're just providing it for people. From an accessibility standpoint, I think it's a beautiful thing. If you can have a live stream that people can tune in and feel a part of, that can be helpful. But what Ryan Burge said around the data, basically, people who are consuming online church are people who are already going to in person church. They go to in person church, and then they watch some of the best church services that exist on the internet. So, from a resources perspective, or from a intentionality perspective, there's lots of churches that shouldn't spend a ton of money or a ton of time on creating an online virtual church. They don't have the skills, the gifts, the investment, the money that all the things to make it, to make the big show, because that's what some people are looking for from an online church.
The data also shows that in the online experience people are saying isn't the same as an in person one. I think there's still some people that would say online experiences I good enough for them, I guess might be the way of grasping it, and maybe that's where we can land, because some people will argue. We had arguments all through the pandemic, in person is the only real church, like you're not a real church if you're not in person. And again, I wouldn't want to discount someone's experience saying, No, I actually connect with this is my church home. I can't be there physically, or don't want to be there physically, but I feel connected to the church through this. You just again, have to think about the intentionality around some of that
But whether in person, whether in a stone building, whether in someone's living room. I think what we're really seeing is the notion that that Jesus talked about around the body of Christ. So, it's a body, its all the different pieces and parts of the body. So, a living room for some people is going to be an amazing, intimate way of engaging with the gospel message for other people, some massive Cathedral is going to be the way that they engage in that. And they would never want to do living room. And there's people in living room who would never want to do cathedral. So, I think it's thinking through and celebrating, and what we're really going to need in the Church of the future is all these different iterations of what being church is. Church could be three guys sitting around a table talking about the Bible and praying and caring about each other's lives. That's church.
At some point, someone defined church as your own—and even our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, has some definitions of what churches are—You're not a real church unless you have a leadership that's called a session. You're not a real church unless you have, for some people, unless you have a building. When are you going to be a real church? And I'm sure, possibly, I know Glenn has heard some of those stories just around what he's been doing with Two Rivers for years. Some people be like, oh, when are you going to start a real church? It's like, we're doing church, and we've been doing it okay. We're fine. But again, I think all those things, are going to fall away when there aren't as many church buildings left, there aren't as many people connecting to church, we're gonna have to find different ways of being church, not just going to church. I mean that definition, especially in a culture and world that we live in where the majority of people, for probably the last two generations, have never stepped foot in a church and have no concept of what that might even be or why you'd want to do that. So, it's finding different access points and being open to that and celebrating that as that's church too.
[Ian Van Harton]
Yeah and I think it's worthwhile to explore and take risks to see what does church look like in this space. And I think too of our mutual friend Jim class. A shout out to Jim, who started this little Bible reading group using the YouVersion app. And so, every day, a few of us check in on our phone and read a chapter from the Bible and then post a little thought. Yeah it's a great way using technology. It's a purely online connection, but that's church too. And so, there's so many opportunities out there. And so, it's going to take us to be more open minded and entrepreneurial a little bit to explore “hey, what about this? Why not try that?”
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, and I think the challenge within a denominational structure, like, say, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the challenge within a system like that is, systems like to continue to be systems, and we continue to want to feed the system and do all the things that we've done forever. The challenge in all that is what happens when you when your Human Resources decline to a place in space, and financial resources decline to a space in place where you can no longer keep the system going, keep the structures going? And sometimes systems get anxious when that starts to happen. And so, people push a little harder around it has to be this way, it has to be that way. I think a lot of that is all falling away in its own way. And like you say, denominations, church, congregations themselves, have to be more open to this notion of risk taking, thinking about different metrics for understanding what is success look like. We've spent a long time, decades, all about concerned about numerical growth, getting bums in seats, making sure that we're you know, how many members does your church have? How many members does your church have? I think it looks a lot different.
The church of today and into the future is small. It's nimble, it's it's freed from a lot of those trappings. The challenge around some of that comes around, you know, things like accountability, like who's overseeing or who's looking out for these little structures that exist, and do they need that maybe they don't, but, but in some spaces and places they might. And so, how do we be church in a different way, that can celebrate those things, but also not be so fixated on what the metrics used to be. Because, again, the metrics are really driven by things like, if we want to be a real church, we have to have a full-time paid minister. Well, these things that I'm talking about, I'm sorry that, like the three of us probably can't afford to pay a full-time salary for somebody to teach us about the Bible. And then we also have to let go of things like, well, only certain people could perhaps teach us about the Bible or preach sermons or lead us in worship or pray. And that's that that pulls apart all the structures that we, for a long time, have thought is the only way. So, that becomes a challenge and a barrier along the way, but I think a real opportunity as well.
[John Borthwick]
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