Latest / Future Christian / Deconstruction Isn’t Discipleship: Tara Beth Leach on Rebuilding Faith and the Church

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Deconstruction Isn’t Discipleship: Tara Beth Leach on Rebuilding Faith and the Church · Future Christian

0:07
>> Loren Richmond: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your
0:12
church in the 21st century. At the Future
0:15
Christian Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors and
0:19
other faith leaders for helpful advice and
0:21
practical wisdom to help you and your community of
0:24
faith walk boldly into the future. Whether you're
0:28
a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member of
0:30
your faith community, this podcast is designed to
0:34
challenge, inspire, and equip you with the tools
0:37
you need for impactful ministry. And now for a
0:39
little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
0:47
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation with
0:50
Tarabeth Leach. Tarabeth is a pastor, preacher of
0:54
the Word and a writer. She formerly served on
0:57
staff at Good shepherd as a youth minister and
1:01
most recently as pastor of Servant Ministry and
1:03
Missional life at Christ Church of Oak Brook.
1:07
Pastor Terabeth is the author of Emboldened
1:10
radiant church and 40 days on being a six. Outside
1:15
of her home church duties. She speaks widely at
1:18
conferences, retreats and universities, um, across
1:21
America on church leadership, women in ministry,
1:25
and the call to be a radiant witness. Tara Beth
1:28
has two beautiful and rambunctious sons and has
1:32
been married to the love of her Life, Jack, since
1:34
2006. A reminder, before we start today's
1:38
conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to
1:42
the podcast, leave a review and share Future
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Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren,
1:48
Martha and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us
1:51
an email at, uh, lauren resonate media pro.com
1:56
with comments, questions or ideas for future
2:00
episodes. We appreciate your voice and how we
2:03
faithfully discern the future of the church.
2:15
>> Loren: Hello and welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
2:18
This is Loren Richmond Jr. You and today I'm
2:20
pleased to be joined by Tarabeth Leach. Hello and
2:23
welcome to the show.
2:24
>> Speaker D: Hey, thanks for having me, Loren.
2:25
>> Loren: Yeah, thanks for being here. Is there anything
2:27
else you'd like our guests to know about you?
2:29
>> Speaker D: Oh, goodness. Uh, I'm a mom of two boys, Caleb and
2:34
Noah. They're 13 and 15 years old. Been married
2:37
for almost 20 years and for fun, I ride horses.
2:43
>> Loren: Wow, that is a fun fact. Yeah, fun fact. Uh,
2:48
what's a good horse question I could ask you then,
2:50
like, what's your favorite? I don't know, kind of
2:53
horse riding? Horse?
2:55
>> Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. So I own a 7 year old Dutch warmblood
3:00
named Sapphire sky and we, uh, compete probably
3:06
about six times a year in the hunter jumper world,
3:08
which is we jump courses and get judged off of the
3:13
jumping and uh, it's a really great outlet for me
3:17
as a pastor who does not just ministry in a local
3:20
church setting, but also nationally. And, uh, it
3:25
is one of the few places that I can go where I am
3:28
not thinking about work.
3:30
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff.
3:33
Uh, share, if you would, a little bit about your
3:35
faith journey, what that's looked like in the past
3:37
and what that looks like today.
3:39
>> Speaker D: Yeah. So I grew up in a cultural Christian family
3:43
where we went to church a few times a year. You
3:45
know, the important days, Christmas and Easter and
3:49
throwing a Mother's Day there. And around, uh, my
3:54
sophomore year of high school, I started attending
3:56
a campus life outreach, uh, through Youth for
3:59
Christ. And it was there that, uh, Jesus, really,
4:04
I. I became more aware of the grace of God and
4:08
Jesus and Scripture, and I started reading my
4:11
Bible regularly. And it was while I was reading
4:14
the Gospel of Luke that everything really began to
4:16
make sense. And while reading the Gospel of Luke,
4:19
I got down on my knees next to my bed weeping. And
4:21
just the only words that could come out of my
4:23
mouth were, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
4:26
Thank you, Jesus. Not long after that, God called
4:29
me into ministry, though I had no idea what that
4:32
meant or what that looked like. This was the 90s
4:35
when I had no examples of women in ministry except
4:38
for Mother Teresa. So I thought, oh, my goodness,
4:41
does that mean I have to become a nun? But I
4:45
didn't allow that to really hinder me. I really
4:48
was pretty driven towards ministry since the late
4:51
90s as a teenager and never looked back, never
4:55
considered anything else. And went to Olivet
4:58
Nazarene University, studied youth ministry, was
5:00
in youth ministry for a long time, and, you know,
5:04
did a number of different roles within the church.
5:06
And now I serve as a senior pastor at Good
5:09
Shepherd Church in Naperville, Illinois, which is
5:12
just west of Chicago.
5:16
>> Loren: Awesome. I appreciate you sharing all that.
5:18
What are some spiritual practices that you found
5:20
meaningful or that you're willing to share?
5:24
>> Speaker D: Yeah. So for me, morning prayer is one of the most
5:28
sustaining things. Uh, my husband and I, we rise
5:32
early in the morning together and we practice, uh,
5:37
uh, just a prayer practice that we call the great
5:39
morning, which, uh, great is an acronym that
5:43
stands for gratitude, reflection, exaltation,
5:46
asking, and trusting. And so those are very
5:50
sustaining rhythms for us in our relationship with
5:52
the Lord, but also even for one another, because
5:55
we find that's just our greatest time to connect
5:58
also with one another as we're connecting with
6:01
God. And for. For both of us, you know, that
6:04
morning hour, while our minds are still a blank
6:07
canvas, his mercies are new in the morning. Being
6:09
able to offer up our first fruits to the Lord in
6:11
the morning. Is. It is. I mean, it feels like a
6:15
matter of life or death for us. Like that's how
6:17
important those morning practices are for us.
6:20
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Thanks for sharing that.
6:22
So give me that G R E A T again.
6:25
>> Speaker D: Yeah. Gratitude, reflection, exaltation, asking
6:29
and trusting. And if anyone wants to learn more
6:31
about it, I, uh, just released a book called the
6:33
Great Morning Revolution that is out at your. Any
6:37
online favorite book reteller.
6:39
>> Loren: Okay, yeah, absolutely. Let's, uh, I'll make sure
6:41
I see book in the show notes. Make sure to have a
6:45
link in the show notes for you.
6:49
So, Tara, you're one of the, one of the few guests
6:52
where I feel like I know nothing about you because
6:54
most guests I have on the show tend to be authors
6:57
and you're just someone like, I think is going to
7:00
become more and more the trend who I've found
7:02
you're writing on Substack and love what you had
7:04
to say. Really appreciate what you had to say. And
7:07
today we're going to be kind of talking about a
7:10
post you made on Substack called When the Wounded
7:13
Take the Mic. And, uh, it's a conversation that
7:16
I've been, I suppose, less gracious and thoughtful
7:21
as you were in your writing. And certainly a trend
7:26
that I've seen again and again, if only because,
7:28
like, I feel like I get so many books sent to me
7:31
that are like, deconstruction based and I'm kind
7:33
of like, maybe it's because I'm getting older or
7:36
impatient or whatever, but I feel like I'm getting
7:39
worn out of this kind of deconstruction thing. Um,
7:43
so, uh, you're. You're still like, you are. You're
7:46
in front of people every, every day, every week.
7:48
You're in church ministry. Like, what is, what are
7:52
you seeing when it like, is deconstruction as big
7:55
a thing, I guess to start off, like, as we tend to
7:57
think it is online?
8:00
>> Speaker D: No, not locally. Uh, I mean, I believe me, the
8:04
church that I serve, we do attract a lot of young
8:09
people, particularly, um, within this kind of
8:14
church hurt world. We do attract a lot of
8:16
millennials who are kind of dismantling some of
8:21
their kind of maybe evangelical systems that they
8:26
have come to realize maybe is not the framework of
8:30
Christianity or the telos of Christianity. And so
8:32
we do kind of attract a lot of those. And I think
8:35
maybe because we're a sacramental church and, um,
8:39
you know, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. We do attract
8:41
A lot of those. But the deconstruction that we're
8:43
seeing online is very different. And I think it's
8:45
because it's been monetized and it's because it's
8:49
become its own little cottage industry. It's
8:52
become, uh, something that people can, can write
8:57
books off of and listen like that. Like, I have no
9:00
problems with authors. Um, I've written several
9:04
myself and I'm grateful for the opportunities that
9:08
I have with that. And so it's not that it's that
9:12
it's writing books that is a problem. It's that
9:16
the motivation, I think, um, for continuing to
9:19
deconstruct is because it has become monetized and
9:23
people have created a, a whole, entire identity
9:26
with it. And it is causing incredible, I believe,
9:30
damage to Christians who are maybe freshly wounded
9:38
and it's maybe striking a chord. And um, I think
9:44
that it's oftentimes a deconstruction without
9:48
hope. I think to a degree that every Christian
9:53
needs to go through some sort of form of
9:55
deconstruction, you know, uh, of maybe things that
10:00
we once imagined about scripture or believed or
10:04
were taught about scripture. Um, because when
10:07
we're young, like we see things really black and
10:09
white and so we're going to be taught scripture in
10:12
a way that is simple. And one of the things that
10:15
I'm so concerned about is, um, what ends up
10:19
happening is I see people then turning like angry,
10:26
like at the church because maybe they were taught
10:29
something that was simpler. But I, uh, wonder if
10:32
they weren't quite ready for it. But I think that
10:36
deconstruction to a degree is important. My
10:38
concern is when it becomes monetized and then they
10:43
begin taking people with them.
10:45
>> Loren: Yeah.
10:45
So one of the things you write about is this idea
10:48
to caution that people are making or mistaking
10:52
deconstruction for discipleship. And I think it
10:54
certainly gets at to what you're saying, like this
10:58
idea that like the faithful thing to do is always
11:01
to deconstruct. And I think you kind of named that
11:04
point. Like there's, in some ways we do need to
11:07
like make faith our own. Um, we do need to
11:10
understand like the simplistic probably things
11:13
that we were taught as five year olds. There's
11:17
more complicated or complexity I suppose than
11:19
that. So how do you discern or differentiate
11:24
between this idea of like, what is discipleship? A
11:29
real healthy kind of like making faith your own
11:32
versus just like a pure deconstruction?
11:35
>> Speaker D: Yeah, Well, I think part of making faith your own
11:39
is being able to reconstruct something New, uh,
11:45
rather than just dismantling, because oftentimes
11:48
this dismantling becomes a spiraling without end.
11:52
And, you know, I think if we can begin with.
11:55
Because a lot of people who are deconstructing
11:56
will say, okay, Jesus, Jesus is really great.
12:00
Like, I really love Jesus and love this. You know,
12:03
I love the Sermon on the Mount and I love the
12:05
teachings of Jesus. And so if we're going to
12:09
deconstruct, we at least have to begin there. And
12:11
we have to then ask ourselves, well, what are the
12:15
things that Jesus cared about? What was Jesus
12:17
vision for the church? What was, uh, Jesus's
12:20
theological framework for the disciple? And we can
12:24
begin to build there. And I think that, I mean,
12:28
and I. And I think that there are a lot of
12:29
churches that are living that out and are calling
12:31
people to live that out and, uh, with great amount
12:34
of fear and trembling as both sinner and
12:36
simultaneously saint. And, um, and I also think
12:42
that, uh, if we can. If we can begin with the
12:46
premise that Jesus loves the church and Jesus
12:50
believes in the church, and Jesus still believes
12:52
in this project called the church, then ought we
12:58
not to also believe in the project of the church?
13:01
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
13:03
I'm curious because I suppose this is kind of
13:06
getting off track from what I really wanted to ask
13:09
you, but these are how these conversations always
13:11
tend to go. So I'm curious, like, do you think
13:15
part of it stems from, I don't know if you're
13:19
familiar with the, uh, author of Theologian Nandra
13:22
Root, who works out of the Charles Taylor idea of
13:26
the imminent frame?
13:27
>> Speaker D: Yep.
13:29
>> Loren: This idea, like, um, when we've kind of
13:33
deconstructed Christianity, we've kind of limited
13:37
faith to the imminent frame. So we're cool with
13:40
the idea of Jesus being like a moral teacher or,
13:43
uh, a social activist or an inspiring guy. Uh, so
13:50
that has practical implications. But in my
13:53
opinion, it tends to always lead to, like, I don't
13:56
really need church. And I wonder, have you seen
13:59
the same? Do you feel the same? What are your
14:00
thoughts there?
14:02
>> Speaker D: Yeah, I have certainly seen the same, um,
14:04
primarily with millennials and younger Gen X. Uh,
14:09
Gen Z, we are not seeing that at all. Um, Gen Z is
14:13
not even aware of the conversation on
14:16
deconstruction. Uh, Gen Z is, um, hungry for
14:23
something real. And what's amazing also about what
14:27
I'm seeing with Gen Z is they are a pretty blank
14:30
slate. Um, they know that they're hungry for
14:34
Jesus. They know that they want to be part of the
14:38
church. They know that they want to be engaged and
14:39
active and involved in the church, and they just
14:43
do not have the same kind of baggage that
14:45
millennials have.
14:48
>> Loren: So this leads me again to another question. I just
14:51
finished reading the Anxious Generation Jonathan
14:54
Haidt because my daughter's middle school was
14:55
given away and I had to. How to read a free book.
14:58
But, uh, what struck me about, like, it was like,
15:00
to me, like, it was just like a moral panic book
15:04
and this kind of like, obsession with behavior
15:06
modification. And it. What struck me, and I'm
15:09
curious again, your thoughts here, like,
15:10
especially around Gen Z, is like. Like Gen Z and
15:14
younger kids, like, they're. They're neat. They're
15:16
hungry for purpose, they're hungry for meaning.
15:18
>> Speaker D: Yes.
15:20
>> Loren: Yeah.
15:20
>> Speaker D: And they're hungry for an embodied experience.
15:23
>> Loren: Yeah.
15:24
>> Speaker D: Uh, I mean, it's incredible. Our church is. We
15:27
have just been seeing new, fresh, young Gen Z
15:30
people every single week. And I'm just like, where
15:33
are y' all coming from? Like, how'd you hear about
15:35
us? And, you know, they are just so craving
15:39
community. They are so craving, uh, spirituality
15:43
and meaning and purpose. And I think it's because
15:47
they've grown up on devices and they are ready for
15:54
an embodied, communal, experiential faith.
16:00
>> Loren: Yeah. Everything that social media is not. Right.
16:04
So I want to go kind of go back to this idea of,
16:06
like, this deconstruction of this reimagination of
16:11
what faith looks like, which I think when we've
16:13
kind of taken out, like, the transcendent, there's
16:16
this idea, at least, as I see, and I'm curious,
16:18
your thoughts here, that like, really,
16:20
faithfulness really just comes down simply, like
16:24
political activism. Like, how do you navigate
16:28
that? Because I'm thinking of. And again, like, I
16:31
want to respect your. Your boundaries here because
16:33
this was such a controversial topic, but
16:35
certainly, I think we saw that, what, in the
16:38
summer at the. The awful killing of Charlie Kirk.
16:41
Right. This idea that, like, he was lifted up as a
16:43
martyr in some circuses, some. Some contexts.
16:47
Certainly I don't want to, like, diminish it all.
16:49
Like, apparently a strong and vibrant faith within
16:52
him and the absolute awfulness and tragedy of this
16:55
young man's life being taken. Um, but it was
16:58
startling to me, as someone not really running in
17:01
those circles, how much he was lifted up as a. As
17:05
a religious martyr figure.
17:07
>> Speaker D: Mhm. Mhm. Absolutely. And I think even more. That
17:13
was incredibly concerning. And even more
17:15
concerning was just the even heightened, um,
17:20
response, um, with, well, to Christian
17:25
nationalism, um, Christian nationalism became more
17:29
normalized within Christian spaces and more
17:32
embraced, and the church became more polarized.
17:37
And when, I mean, Church, I mean Big C church, the
17:40
church across America became even more polarized
17:42
around this. And um, I didn't know who Charlie
17:48
Kirk was. Uh, I'd heard of Turning Point usa,
17:52
maybe heard of Charlie Kirk. I had not listened to
17:54
him. And uh, it was absolutely wild to me once I
18:00
started to dig into some of his stuff as to that
18:03
he was seen as a Christian martyr. Um, he was
18:07
assassinated wrongly. Um, but the ways that he
18:12
became a figurehead for many Christians was uh,
18:16
wildly concerned concerning to me.
18:18
>> Loren: Yeah.
18:20
So I think this gets into something else you wrote
18:22
in your substack. This idea that like we need, we
18:27
don't need to be. Let me get this right. You say
18:31
that we don't need to be louder, we need to be
18:33
truer. And I suppose I shouldn't like, I don't
18:38
want to just criticize like a person who's
18:41
deceased here, but that certainly, like there's
18:43
been those kind of people who, of all stripes who
18:47
are, I feel like just obsessed with yelling at the
18:49
other side, those we disagree with.
18:52
>> Speaker D: Mhm.
18:52
>> Loren: Yeah.
18:53
>> Speaker D: Because politics has become idolatrous. Um,
18:58
they're willing to lose family members over it.
19:00
They're willing, uh, to cause damage, uh, to
19:04
relationships over it. And um, I think that when
19:09
we are living for something to that degree, uh, is
19:14
when it becomes idolatrous. And in particular
19:17
parts of partisan politics is what has become
19:20
idolatry. It's uh, not just politics in general,
19:23
although I do think some people are pretty
19:25
obsessed with politics in general. But I think
19:27
what we're seeing is the idolatry of partisan
19:30
politics.
19:31
>> Loren: Yeah, I wrote a subset to that point a while back.
19:35
I think on the same wavelength, this idea
19:38
certainly I, uh, think it'd be foolish or even
19:41
unfaithful to suggest that Christianity and
19:43
Christians should have nothing to do with
19:46
politics, which as its basic sense is how we
19:49
enter, interact with one another in society.
19:50
Right. But I think there has become this, I think
19:53
you say it well, like this idolatrousness of like
19:56
what it means to be a faithful Christian is to, in
19:59
some circles to vote Republican, in some circles
20:01
to vote Democratic. And I mean again, I, my
20:06
thought is I kind of bang the same drum all the
20:09
time. It's this like this loss of sense of
20:12
transcendency of faith that like that really, it's
20:16
in God's hands. And I know that can be trite and,
20:20
and you know, almost in some ways.
20:23
>> Speaker D: Yeah, go ahead. And I also think that there's,
20:25
there is a belief that the kingdom of God can
20:30
somehow be legislated.
20:31
>> Loren: Yeah.
20:32
>> Speaker D: That the kingdom of God can be um, enacted through
20:38
a political leader. And I think that's just an
20:42
incredibly dangerous view and framework to have
20:46
among Christians.
20:48
>> Loren: Yeah. Really good stuff. Sorry to write that down.
20:55
I feel like we're all over the place. So, um, I'm
20:57
hoping this is making sense to our listeners.
21:00
I do want to ask you. Right. About fresh wounds
21:03
making terrible teachers. And maybe, maybe this is
21:07
too harsh of a judgment on my end, but I feel like
21:11
in the last decade there's been this idea like the
21:15
ones who are the most wounded, like are the most.
21:20
I'm not sure how to say this right. Like they're
21:23
the most, um, they have the most offered. I want
21:27
to, I don't want to like dismiss or disregard like
21:32
challenges and suffering, like have a lot to teach
21:34
us in life. Uh, you write that healed scars can
21:38
bear witness. So certainly, like challenges and
21:40
suffering in life have a lot to teach us. Like I'm
21:42
thinking. I don't know if you've seen this quote
21:44
before from Nadia Bolt Weber. She always talked
21:47
about like preaching from her scars, not her
21:49
wounds. And my sense is. And tell me if I'm wrong
21:55
here or I'm m. Misinterpreting this. Like we've,
21:58
we've elevated like people who are just wounded
22:00
and they're spitting out from their trauma to use
22:03
a word rather than wisdom from learning from their
22:07
scars.
22:08
>> Speaker D: Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, for sure. And oftentimes it's
22:11
unprocessed pain. And uh, oftentimes they're
22:15
taking the mic as a form of therapy without any
22:20
sort of self awareness of how that is shaping and
22:24
forming the people that are around them. You know,
22:27
you think about one of the things I ended up
22:28
taking out of the article because it was just
22:29
getting way too long. I have a problem of being
22:32
way too long winded on substack.
22:35
Uh, but is I had a bit in there about family
22:38
systems theory.
22:39
>> Loren: Yeah.
22:40
>> Speaker D: Because I think family systems theory, um, is an
22:43
interesting thing to think about in this
22:45
conversation. You know, the idea of family systems
22:47
theory is that uh, if one person uh, is angry,
22:52
they can often, if they're unhealthy, often look
22:56
for the other people in the community to match
22:57
their anger. And others are afraid to say, you
23:01
know, maybe, um, there's a different way to look
23:04
at this. And so there's. There's a feeling of
23:07
unsafety, that if you don't match that person's
23:09
anger, then you're not empathetic, that you're not
23:11
caring that you're. And so what we see is we see
23:15
this incredible contagion of anger happening in
23:18
culture. And, um, this is bleeding out into call
23:21
out culture and cancel culture, which I often say,
23:24
like, a lot of people think they're being
23:25
prophetic. I often feel like, um, call out culture
23:30
and cancel culture has hijacked the prophetic
23:32
voice. Um, people think they're being prophetic,
23:35
but I actually think that oftentimes they are
23:37
being more shaped and formed by call out and
23:38
cancel culture. And again, a lot of this goes
23:41
into, uh, an incredible binary way of thinking
23:46
that there's always a victim and there's always a
23:47
villain, and there's no nuance to that. And, um,
23:52
that it's either evil or it's either all good.
23:56
And, uh, we've lost the inability to think through
23:58
the nuance, uh, because we're just so obsessed
24:01
with a clean binary way of thinking. And so in
24:04
family systems theory, if one person has hurt and
24:07
they're loud and they expect others to match their
24:09
anger, well, that, that's contagious. And I think
24:11
that's what we're seeing happening on a really
24:12
large scale on platforms, on podcasts. Um, and
24:16
it's spreading and it's. It is malforming our
24:19
culture.
24:21
>> Loren: Obviously, some of this is like we talked about
24:23
with Jonathan Haidt book, with what you talked
24:25
about about deconstruction being monetized. Like,
24:28
the algorithms, like, they reward this kind of
24:30
thing. Like they reward the anger and the vitriol
24:33
and the canceling and the call outs and
24:35
everything. Like that gets. That gets promoted.
24:39
Like, these are the times, like, I'm thankful.
24:42
Like, in the height of, like, in the height of
24:49
like 2021, 2022, or at least 24 election. I'll say
24:53
like the height of the 2024 election season. Like,
24:55
I was not leading a church. Um, so, like, I. I
25:00
can't imagine, like, having to navigate some of
25:02
these spaces. And I even remember, like in. In
25:05
2020 when I navigating Covid and some of the
25:09
things, um, among some of my staff who I was
25:12
leading around, like, the challenges of, like,
25:14
hey, we don't have to say anything about
25:17
everything or everything about anything. I mean,
25:21
m. How do you even. Like, this is one of the
25:23
things that's always flummoxed me about pastoral
25:25
ministry and why I have such high regard for
25:31
people like you who are like, the leaders in
25:34
ministry. Like, what. How do you counsel other
25:37
pastors? How do you navigate these tensions
25:40
yourself when, like, there is the sense of, like,
25:42
every Sunday a crisis has happened that week and
25:45
the pressure is like, I gotta say something.
25:48
>> Speaker D: Mhm. Yeah. And oftentimes saying something can
25:51
become pretty polarizing and it can become pretty
25:55
easy then to create a, um, in the echo chamber
26:02
kind of church because you, you end up
26:04
marginalizing thoughts and ways of seeing things,
26:09
um, for people that might see it differently. Uh,
26:14
and I listen, I do think that pastors and churches
26:17
need to respond to things in culture. I think we
26:19
need to speak into injustices. I think that we
26:21
need uh, to always side with, with the
26:25
marginalized and the victimized. And like I'm so,
26:28
so I'm not like saying, saying that, you know, I'm
26:32
not saying that, that we ignore the voices of the
26:34
abused and the hurt. And that's one of the things
26:36
I kept trying to bring back up in when the wounded
26:39
take the mic is you know, I'm not saying that um,
26:43
at the same time if you become a statement church,
26:47
you're going to become either a red church or a
26:51
blue church. Like if, because your statements are
26:54
going to sound um, very uh, one sided. And um, so
27:01
for me like in the church that I pastor, we don't
27:03
make statements. What we do do is we give people
27:09
language to pray through our liturgy. And so I
27:12
think that, and this is, I wrote about this in one
27:14
of the substacks is um, uh, pastoral response in a
27:19
divided age through pastoral subversion. I think
27:23
that we can subvert um, some of the horrible
27:28
things happening in our culture, in our world
27:30
through different kind of practices rather than
27:32
making a statement. And that can happen in the
27:34
liturgy, uh, that can happen uh, in smaller
27:37
settings. Ah, because really what we need, because
27:40
when we make statements, all we're doing is
27:43
addressing the tip of the iceberg. And we're not
27:46
addressing all that has led to this like a really
27:49
terrible kingdom theology or an idolatry to
27:53
partisan politics or um, an incredibly um,
27:58
individualized view of my faith and my
28:02
Christianity that it's just about what happens
28:04
between God and I and my salvation is just me and
28:07
God and someday I'm just going to escape. You
28:09
know, there's just so many things like beneath the
28:10
iceberg that have to be addressed. Whereas if all
28:13
that we do is address the tip of the iceberg,
28:16
we're just going to polarize the people that are
28:18
lead, that are, that we are leading. And we're
28:20
never going to really address the terrible
28:23
theology that led to this atrocious thing that's
28:27
happened in culture. And so pastors have got to
28:30
find more creative and slower ways, uh, to address
28:33
these Things. So one of the, you know, there's, I
28:36
mentioned that we do that through liturgy. We also
28:37
do a school of theology here at the church that I
28:40
lead on Thursday nights. We, we do three semesters
28:42
of theology and two hours every Thursday night of
28:45
teaching. And that is, that is a way for me to get
28:48
at what, um, is what's happening. But what's the
28:51
thing beneath the thing, right, that's, that's
28:53
leading to these horrible things happening in our
28:55
world. Because we've got to dismantle that. And I
28:59
do think there needs to be a dismantling. One of
29:02
the things that I often talk about, and this is
29:04
kind of a heady freight or a meaty phrase, is the
29:09
work that churches and pastors need to do is we
29:11
need to do the work of dismantling the demonic
29:14
malformation of the Christian imagination.
29:16
>> Loren: Love it.
29:19
>> Speaker D: And it's demonic, all right. Because we see it in
29:22
the ways that people are reacting and the vitriol
29:25
and uh, and we've got to dismantle that before we
29:30
can really even get to the tip of the iceberg.
29:33
>> Loren: Okay, give that to me again so I can write it
29:35
down. Dismantle the demonic.
29:38
>> Speaker D: Dismantle the demonic malformation of the
29:40
Christian imagination.
29:46
>> Loren: You know, as you're talking here and I'm writing,
29:49
I'm thinking of, since we've already mentioned
29:51
him, uh, Nandra. And I think it's the, I don't
29:54
know if you read the congregation in the secular
29:55
age.
29:56
>> Speaker D: It's been a long time, but yeah.
29:57
>> Loren: The speed of time, this sense that like, we just
30:00
gotta keep. And I think there's so much here that
30:02
we're talking about this kind of like keeping
30:05
pace, keeping up, um, where if I'm hearing you
30:09
like this theology, the school of theology, I
30:11
mean, that sounds just like so counterintuitive to
30:14
what we're all trained to do in pastoral ministry.
30:16
Like, it doesn't sound hip, it doesn't sound
30:18
relevant, it doesn't sound cool at all. Like a two
30:20
hour commitment on a weeknight. Like, who's got
30:22
time for that?
30:23
>> Speaker D: Mhm. And we give them homework and it's in a
30:26
church basement with bad church coffee. But man,
30:30
it's incredible. It's one of my favorite things
30:33
that I'm seeing happening in our congregation
30:35
because it's just absolutely incredible what's
30:36
happening, uh, in these two hours every week.
30:41
>> Loren: Yeah, I mean, that's really, uh, incredible. And
30:44
I'm just thinking about again, how do we shift
30:48
this from just trying to respond badly to culture,
30:53
to grounding people in faith and theology. So I
30:58
love that idea. I'm, uh, thinking too of.
31:01
You talked about liturgy as kind of equipping
31:04
people. You talked about your school of theology
31:06
as equipping people. I'm wondering how do you
31:10
frame sermons or messages to really try to.
31:17
>> Speaker D: To.
31:17
>> Loren: Leave room for the Spirit? I mean, I'm a part of a
31:20
preaching cohort now and one of the things that
31:22
the leader talks about is like to leave out the
31:24
lettuce sermons. Like, let us, let us go and do X,
31:28
Y and Z. Um, because obviously I believe and you
31:32
can correct me for if, if I'm wrong here. You feel
31:34
like you want to try to say something, but also
31:37
don't be too prescriptive. So how, how do you, uh,
31:41
how do you try to, how do you try to balance that?
31:44
>> Speaker D: Yeah, well, first of all, I think that preachers
31:46
need to be really, really, really aware of the
31:49
language that we are using. Um, people are looking
31:54
for the gotchas. They're looking for, you know,
31:57
the phrases, the words that we're saying where
31:59
they can try to categorize where we might be
32:02
politically. And, um, we've also got to train our
32:06
people to think and non binary ways. Um, because
32:13
oftentimes, like if we say something, people
32:15
think, well, if you're saying that, then you must
32:17
not be this. Um, but oftentimes many things can be
32:21
true at the same time. And so, um, if we can stay
32:27
in the nuance and very particular issues while
32:31
also leaving room for the spirit while also not
32:34
trying to say, okay, here's now your marching
32:36
orders and here's your next three points that you
32:38
need to do. Uh, I think, think that that can
32:42
happen through a plate, through landing the sermon
32:46
in a way where it causes the listener to walk away
32:49
asking themselves a question. Yes, right. Um,
32:54
where they're pondering. Okay, so what does this
32:57
mean for me? What does it mean for me to move
33:00
forward in faith in this kind of way? Uh, so that
33:04
way the Holy Spirit can then begin to do that
33:06
work.
33:07
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, I love that.
33:10
When we're thinking about speaking well,
33:14
communicating well, this, this gets back to
33:16
something that came up in your substack. And I
33:18
want to, want to talk about, you know, this in
33:21
this age of, like you said, virality or gotcha
33:24
clicks, like when it feels like people are
33:27
crafting sermons to, to really just have a bunch
33:31
of good, like clips, uh, for social media. Like,
33:35
how do we, how do we ensure that we're promoting
33:39
character rather than charisma? Like, this is,
33:42
this is one of the things that drives me crazy,
33:45
frankly, in ministry. This, this platforming of.
33:48
Of charisma rather than character.
33:54
>> Speaker D: Yeah, that's a great question. How do we do that?
33:58
Um, well, I think it's gotta begin with modeling,
34:02
right? Like who. Who are the. Who are the
34:04
exemplars that were lifting up in our sermons? And
34:08
you know, oftentimes the exemplars that we're
34:11
lifting up in our sermons are those with. With the
34:14
charisma. They're those who are the larger than
34:16
life personalities. And, and oftentimes they're
34:20
usually men. Um, and I think that, you know, one
34:26
way that we can subvert that is in our preaching.
34:31
And also, who or what are we celebrating? Right.
34:36
I, um, mean, unfortunately, at conferences we are
34:40
platforming the people who have the charisma, who
34:43
have the platform, who have the notoriety. And
34:47
then I think even we as pastors are being shaped
34:49
and formed that. And we're tempted then also to
34:52
platforms form those voices to the people that
34:54
we're leading. But how might we instead begin to
35:00
amplify the voices of maybe people who aren't very
35:04
well known, but are living out the gospel with
35:08
boots on the ground, not in the auditoriums, not
35:12
in the platforms, but in their everyday, ordinary
35:15
neighborhoods?
35:16
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
35:18
I do want to ask you one more question before we
35:20
take a break here. You talked about, you know, so
35:23
often in the ministry we elevate the men. Uh,
35:26
certainly. Certainly ministry, historically
35:31
speaking, at least in America, has been dominated
35:33
by men. What is something that you'd like to lift
35:37
up, if I can ask you. So, like, as a woman in
35:40
leadership, as a woman in ministry, that men, uh,
35:43
especially like myself, could do a better job of
35:45
encouraging women in ministry or supporting maybe
35:48
a better way to say it.
35:50
>> Speaker D: Yeah. So I think a huge thing is, um, we often
35:54
will call out people, um, who look like us.
35:59
Meaning, like, if we see potential in someone,
36:03
potential, ah, to preach or lead, uh, we look for
36:06
people that look like us. And so one of the many
36:10
reasons why we're, you know, see more, um, of the
36:15
voices that are in ministry and in leading
36:17
churches today are men, is because men tend to
36:20
call out men, um, and to mentor them and to, um,
36:27
lift up their gifts and to tell them that they see
36:30
something in them in a ministry. And so one thing
36:33
that men, m. In leadership could do would look
36:36
out, seek out those gifts in women as well.
36:38
They're there, um, for as many men as there are
36:42
with gifts to lead and to teach and preach, there
36:45
are also as many women to lead and to teach and to
36:48
preach.
36:48
>> Loren: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. Um,
36:52
let's take a quick break and we'll come back with
36:54
some closing questions.
36:59
All right. We're back with Tara Beth Leach. Really
37:01
appreciate the conversation here. So some closing
37:04
questions. You're welcome to take these as
37:06
seriously or not as you'd like to. Okay, so first
37:09
question. If you're Pope for a day, uh, what might
37:13
that day look like for you?
37:14
>> Speaker D: Oh, if I were Pope for a day, what might that day
37:17
look like for me? I think that I. I would
37:24
absolutely preach a biblical theology for women in
37:28
ministry.
37:29
>> Loren: Love it. Love it.
37:31
>> Speaker D: And advocate for women in ministry.
37:33
>> Loren: I guess there was something. I just saw something
37:36
that there's. Supposedly there's some movement on.
37:38
And again, I don't mean this question to always
37:40
be, like, specific to Catholicism, but I guess
37:43
there was something recently I saw about some
37:46
movement toward married priests, but still nothing
37:49
towards female, uh, priests. Yeah, yeah, we gotta
37:52
get you. We gotta get you there for days.
37:54
>> Speaker D: Yeah.
37:55
>> Loren: To do that, um, a theologian or historical
37:58
Christian figure you'd want to meet or bring back
38:00
to life.
38:02
>> Speaker D: M. I would love to meet Christopher Wright.
38:07
Christopher J.H. wright. He is an Old Testament
38:10
theologian, biblical theologian, and he has so
38:14
transformed, um, my thinking and understanding of
38:17
the Old Testament and really enlivened just a
38:20
passion of me through the years for Covenant
38:22
theology and missional theology.
38:24
>> Loren: Interesting. I'm not familiar. I'll have to check
38:26
him out. What do you think history will remember
38:30
from our current time and place?
38:33
>> Speaker D: I think history is going to remember how divided,
38:38
uh, and angry we are.
38:42
>> Loren: Yeah. What are your hopes for the future of
38:46
Christianity?
38:48
>> Speaker D: My m. Hopes is for a genuine Holy Spirit renewal
38:53
and revival of the church. The kind of revival
38:57
that is unifying, that impacts the culture around
39:01
her, and, uh, not just an emotive one, but one
39:06
that transforms and changes lives and raises up a
39:09
new generation of Christian leaders for impact.
39:12
>> Loren: Yeah. Awesome. I hope so, man. I hope so. Like,
39:16
uh, it seems like. And I'm getting off track here,
39:18
like, I suppose, like there is some, like, legit
39:21
data, it seems like, coming out around. So I
39:25
imagine, like, you just. Just pray that. Pray that
39:27
hearts would be open, I guess, right?
39:29
>> Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
39:30
>> Loren: Pray for the Spirit's spirit, uh, to move and our
39:33
heart to be open. Share if you would. If, uh,
39:36
anything you want us about, say, about, um, your
39:39
book, your substack, how folks can get in touch
39:42
with you, check you out, any of that stuff.
39:45
>> Speaker D: Yeah, I'm on substack. It's just Terabeth Leach
39:47
Um, so you can find me there a number of books on
39:52
Amazon. If you just do a quick Google you can find
39:54
them there. Ah, anything from women in ministry to
39:59
books about the church to uh, morning prayer
40:02
routine.
40:03
>> Loren: Awesome. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate your
40:05
time. We always leave folks with a word of peace.
40:08
So may God's peace be be with.
40:09
>> Speaker D: You and also with you.
40:18
>> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian
40:20
Podcast. The Future Christian Podcast is produced
40:23
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