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Why Every Church Needs a Better Story with Joel Thiessen · Future Christian

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  Martha Tatarnic (00:05) This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church. Loren Richmond Jr (00:18) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Dr. Jewel Thiessen. Dr. Thiessen is professor of sociology, chair of the Social Sciences Department, and Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is a sociologist of
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  religion who specializes in religion in Canada, religious nuns, congregations, millennials, and more recently, death and death. Dying. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Lauren, Martha, and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email at Lauren at ResonateMediaPro.com with comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes. Your support means a lot to us in
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  making this independent podcast possible. Loren Richmond Jr (01:22) Hey, this is Lauren Richmond Jr. and I'm pleased to be joined today by Dr. Joel Thiessen. Hello and welcome to the show. Joel Thiessen (01:29) Thanks, Lauren, great to be here. Loren Richmond Jr (01:31) Yeah, looking forward to having this conversation. Joel, do you want to share just a little bit about ⁓ where you find yourself today? ⁓ yeah, we shared already, like, we're in the same time zone. Joel Thiessen (01:46) This
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  is true, yeah, I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, though our provincial government just announced this week that they may be not ⁓ gonna change our times moving forward. So maybe we won't be in the same time zone permanently moving forward. But yes, up here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Loren Richmond Jr (02:03) Yeah, that's a good debate is springing forward or not. I get confused, but ⁓ yeah. Share if you would just about your faith journey, what that looked like in the past and what that looks
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  like today. Joel Thiessen (02:17) Yeah, I was ⁓ raised in a pastor's home. My dad was a Baptist pastor, so attended church regularly. I'm a drummer as well. I started playing the drums at a young age and so was nurtured in my local church. I'll never forget my first time I played the drums, I think it was after a church service and someone came up to me and told me that drums were from the devil and they should never be included in worship. And so I had that kind of experience through, yeah,
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  Noah's quite- Loren Richmond Jr (02:43) Wow. Joel Thiessen (02:45) quite intense, you can imagine as an 11 year old what that might be like. And then your father as the pastor who caught wind of that. ⁓ But no, I had great young adults who really invested in me then at that critical phase of my own Christian journey, both as like drummer and musician and learning those kinds of things, but more broadly faith formation and involvement in youth and so forth. So yeah, grew up in the church,
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  deeply committed to the church through to today and actively involved in different forms of leadership and still playing drums and so forth. Loren Richmond Jr (03:21) That's wild, I grew up Baptist and heard the same thing as a kid, so I can't imagine that being your first experience doing that in church and then hearing that. wow. Joel Thiessen (03:25) you Yeah, yeah, it was pretty wild. yeah, very different experience over the last number of years. Loren Richmond Jr (03:38) How does one
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  then be like, I want to become a religious sociologist from church. What does that look like? Joel Thiessen (03:43) Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So I initially wanted to become a youth pastor and I went to kind of first year of kind of Bible school and then I quickly realized that, no, this would not be good. Not because it's not a great profession, it's fantastic, but it's not good for me and the right mix. But one of the things that drew me into that area of interest was I wanted
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  to... Loren Richmond Jr (03:50) course. Right. Joel Thiessen (04:08) better understand how young people made sense of their religious beliefs and practices. And I took a course in sociology along the way. It just made sense. within that kind of broad sociological exposure, started to take some other courses related to religion and culture and society and really captured my sociological imagination and started to explore those topics and themes thereafter. Loren Richmond Jr (04:13) Hmm. Any
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  spiritual practices you're willing to share. Joel Thiessen (04:42) Yeah, I mean the Christian calendar is really, really important to my own faith formation. I mean all the different seasons of the Christian year, but Advent and Lent in particular, of fasting, of intense prayer and scripture, and just kind of a greater attentiveness to the Spirit of God and daily life on top of kind of an ongoing posture of worship and attending services. So yeah, I would say. Loren Richmond Jr (04:47) Mm-hmm.
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  Joel Thiessen (05:10) Fasting and prayer and scripture, particularly through Lent and Advent, are especially meaningful for me. Loren Richmond Jr (05:18) Let ask this if I may. In the States, most Baptist groups are very non-leturgical, wouldn't follow the calendar at all. Like, is your attention to the church calendar, like, is that different in Canada? Do Baptists tend to be more leturgical, or is that just something you've picked up along the way? Joel Thiessen (05:28) Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, sorry,
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  I skipped a number of steps along the way. So while I was raised Baptist, I'm now part of the Church of the Nazarene, which is where through my wife and married into that context. But I would say whether it's personality or my interactions through the university here at Ambrose University, that ⁓ I'm probably more of like a high church person at heart. And so... Loren Richmond Jr (05:42) That's okay, that's okay. Hmm. Joel Thiessen (06:07) ⁓ So my own local church does follow the Christian
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  calendar. ⁓ It's still, I would say, fairly low liturgy in some respects, certainly not the smells, bells, and whistles that you'd find with, say, the Episcopalians and so forth. But that's where I find some of those connections then. Loren Richmond Jr (06:18) Sure. Right. Well, thanks for sharing that. So, Joel is one of the editors of the book, The Stories Congregations Tell, Flourishing in the Face of Transition and Change. And I heard about this from, I think, a mutual connection of ours.
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  I'll give a shout out to John Hawthorne, who mentioned this book to me, and I was immediately intrigued because I've seen the importance and the power of stories in shaping organizations, certainly churches. Joel Thiessen (06:41) Yes. Loren Richmond Jr (06:55) I'm thinking back to an interview I had with, gosh, I'm blanking on his name now, David Anderson Hooker, I think it was, who talked about the power of narrative in shaping and framing communities and congregations. So this was a joint
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  project. You're an editor with a couple other people. How did this project come to be? That's what I would really like to hear. It's like, what? What convinced y'all like, ⁓ we need to make this a thing. Joel Thiessen (07:27) Sure, sure. ⁓ So yeah, a little bit of backstory. This arose out of a new research institute called the Flourishing Congregations Institute here at Ambrose University. launched around 2016 and we wanted to understand, you know, where are there signs of life and vitality
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  and flourishing in Canadian congregations in particular. There's a lot of data on congregations in the United States especially, very little in Canada with Canadian specific data that sort of is attentive to Canadian cultural dynamics and so forth. So we launched this institute. ⁓ We did a number of different research studies, some national survey work, a bunch of ⁓ interviews and focus groups with pastors and church leaders across the country that helped us to both define and measure, you
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  know, what does a flourishing congregation entail? so I won't go through all the different kind of ins and outs of that here, but that laid the seeds in for this book project to ⁓ bring together a number of scholars across Canada to do some case study research with about a dozen churches across Canada, different theological traditions, different Canadian regions, and so forth, to understand, you know, what are the mechanisms and processes that contribute to congregational life? It's one thing
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  to ask a survey question and you hear from church attenders and pastors and so forth, but when you actually get on the ground and you spend six to 12 months attending services and attending midweek events and doing interviews and focus groups and those kinds of things, you get a different ⁓ sense of what's happening on the ground in some of these flourishing congregations. So this whole project came about from an attempt to get that deeper understanding of congregational life and as we started
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  getting into the data we thought okay I mean you when you start a project you always have hopes of what you could do with it but you don't know exactly what's going to come about in the project and the data but a number of things started to really stand out the storytelling narrative being one of them where we thought okay Loren Richmond Jr (09:21) Right. Joel Thiessen (09:31) We're going to take a selection of that larger group of case studies and try to develop a project in a book that would
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  be helpful for church leaders, ⁓ building on some of those narratives that were emerging from our data collection. Loren Richmond Jr (09:45) Yeah. So I think one of things that really fascinated me amongst the different stories told within the book is the importance of churches identifying past, present, and future. So do you want to talk about what that looks like? Joel Thiessen (10:03) Yeah, so one of the markers of a flourishing congregation, we look at 11 of them ⁓ through our research,
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  but one of them is a clear self-identity, that a congregation is clear on who they are and who they are not. What are the things that kind of bind them together? And just because you have a clear self-identity doesn't mean that you'll be a flourishing congregation. Like you can be clear about your identity, but it can be a really poor identity, right? So it's like one of these necessary but not sufficient Loren Richmond Jr (10:28) Right. Joel Thiessen (10:33) contributors to congregational
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  flourishing. But one of the things we saw then in these congregations on their identity is the stories they told had a clear linkage between the past, present, and future. So they understood where they've come from. So one of the really interesting parts of our data collection is we did a timeline exercise and we'd have 30, 40, 50 members of a congregation together and we put up on the wall a big map of like here's when this church was started and here's here's we are today, and then we had
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  members of congregations identify some of the high points and low points along their journey. And it was interesting to see and to hear congregations reflect upon where they've come from and how that contributes to where they currently are. And the subtitle on our book that looks at the transitions and changes that congregations experience, it's an important part of where they are today, that they've had to navigate different transitions and changes. to contribute to where they currently find
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  themselves in. But this then links to looking forward of, well, where are we going as a congregation? You don't start with a blank slate. You're starting from where you currently are, which of course is shaped by where you have been. And so one of the things we talk a lot about within this research is this ongoing linkage between where we've come from contributes to who we are today that collectively helps to shape the kinds of decisions and next steps we take toward the future. that
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  storytelling links those three elements together in congregational life. Loren Richmond Jr (12:10) Yeah, I'm fascinated by this idea of like past, present and future, because I think in so many churches there's this sort of over emphasis on the past and an inability to think about the future. But I've also seen churches where they disregard the past, if that makes sense. And I think I'd be curious if this mirrors to like, I think the different theological or traditions can lean toward one or
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  the other to that track at all. Joel Thiessen (12:45) Yeah, I mean, you're right. There are different theological traditions that pay a bit more attention to tradition and history as a good thing. And there are others that are bit more dismissive of that, who feel restricted by the past. And ⁓ I think there's a beauty in bringing those together. I mean, I think in here, I'll cite a good friend and colleague who talks about some churches who have the go back to Egypt committee, like it was
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  better the way it was before. And when you do that, sometimes that's actually problematic, especially when you have a changing social context that you're ministering within. And I this is one of the central ideas. Loren Richmond Jr (13:00) Right. Right. Right. Right. Joel Thiessen (13:23) that we talk about within the book is you don't just have the culture of a congregation that's shaped by the past, present and future, but you're in a ⁓ changing social context and environment in society at
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  large that can make it difficult if we always just want to go back to the way that things were. But it also doesn't mean you should throw out the baby with the bathwater and we should just chase whatever's next or the latest greatest thing. There's a lot of nuance and careful attentiveness that's needed both sociologically and would say theologically too. Loren Richmond Jr (13:56) Yeah, let's talk about that because in the book, y'all say that the stories congregations tell operate within a
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  larger cultural system and set of assumptions, both internal and external to a local church. And y'all say to think or practice otherwise is problematic for congregational flourishing. So I'm thinking of like, certainly I can't speak to Canada, but in the States, it's very much of, or it has been, you know, depending on the context of like growth and mirroring depending on the community. if it's an up-and-coming community, if it's a growing suburb, you know, it's growth, it's trying to be
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  trendy and elite where if it's a declining, you know, it's a declining small town, for instance, it sort of mirrors that trend, the attitudes. Talk about maybe how you see that happening or what it Joel Thiessen (14:37) Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (14:55) What do think a church could do if they're trying to resist that overarching narrative? Joel Thiessen (15:01) Yeah, yeah. One of the things I love about my work as a sociologist of religion is it ⁓ helps us to take a very careful and nuanced
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  look at what happens in organizations and how organizations are impacted and shaped. And so a lot of times when we're inside of, say, a local church, we often think that what happens in ministry is primarily driven by internal or institutional dynamics or variables. You know, the programs we offer, the leaders we have. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (15:13) Mm-hmm. Joel Thiessen (15:31) These are certainly important things, the theological tradition we come from, et cetera. And that in part contributes
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  to what happens in congregational life. But then we also look sociologically at the external or contextual dynamics and factors. What's happening to demographics in the environment, as you've noted? What's happening in your neighborhood? What's the broader political and economic structures and these kinds of things? And so when you study a congregation, you have to look at both of these things. And they're working ⁓ sometimes in tandem, sometimes they're working in opposition to one another.
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  And so when we talk about the stories that congregations tell, yes, they are a reflection of what's happening inside of a congregation, but they also reflect what's happening around them. So for example, we have a few congregations who are ⁓ multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural and so forth. And in some respects, that was of no doing of their own within the congregation. happen to be at the right place at the right time. They're in an urban center, you have high immigration from the
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  global south and east, which is the center of Christianity worldwide. ⁓ But that fundamentally changes a congregation's experiences. And so the stories that they tell are not just a reflection of those inside the church, but they now reflect what's happening with, say, immigration policies, broader approaches to and perspectives of different racial and ethnic groups and so forth that contributes to how congregations emerge. So now this brings us to... you know, the changing neighborhood
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  demographics that you noted of, know, churches who are trying to grow because they see their neighborhoods are changing. have, whether it's younger demographics or whatever those shifting patterns are. And I would say that most sociological research on church growth shows that churches that are growing numerically and some of the largest churches, not just in Canada, but in the United States, that most churches are growing primarily due to transfer growth and not due to conversion or evasion.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (17:33) Yeah. Joel Thiessen (17:36) evangelism per se and that doesn't mean that evangelism or conversion is not happening in those churches. But if you look at a church that say has 2,000 or more weekly attenders, ⁓ maybe 10 to 15 percent of those members are converts so to speak, but most are coming from neighboring churches or they've moved into the city, they attended a church in the former location and now they've been looking for a new church. And that's not inherently
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  right or wrong, Loren Richmond Jr (17:42) Mm-hmm. Right. Joel Thiessen (18:06) better or worse. But I think descriptively from a sociological standpoint, it's important for congregations to ⁓ know what is it that we're all about? What is that identity kind of question? And to not necessarily mistake, like if we're big into outreach and evangelism and so forth, that we shouldn't necessarily assume that our church growth has been due to those kinds of things. And to call a spade a spade if that
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  is the case, and to identify where the growth has Loren Richmond Jr (18:34) Mm-hmm. Joel Thiessen (18:35) happening and then to ask the real tough questions of are we okay with things as they are? Are we okay if we're growing through these other metrics that might not be some of the central things that are important to us? And I think that's where sociology can help us look at those different stories together. Loren Richmond Jr (18:52) Yeah, because I'm thinking about, least in the churches
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  that I have in mind, there can be this story. And this is, again, where I'm curious, like, for your perspective here on the power of stories, because there can be this story of, externally, it seems pretty odd. Like, you're in a growing suburb. There's lots of people moving in. There's no churches in the area. What you're offering is big and dynamic and attractive. And the story that's being told is, look at God moving. And I don't necessarily want to discount that, but I'm also curious, like,
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  what are the implications of those kind of stories being told? Joel Thiessen (19:23) Yes. Yeah, I mean those stories have a lot of traction and currency within congregational spaces and we certainly take that seriously. We give attention to that, the role of spiritual formation, the movement of the spirit and so forth. Loren Richmond Jr (19:40) Mm-hmm. Joel Thiessen (19:49) But I think as a sociologist, there's a number of other factors and variables that are also in play that it would be, I
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  think it would be naive and incorrect to simply reduce it to the movement of the Spirit of God ⁓ as helpful and as important as that is or prayer and so forth that, I mean, you need clear systems and structures. For example, we talk about this throughout the book that churches need systems and structures to know how to get from A to B to C, that it doesn't just kind of happen magically. There's certain things that Loren Richmond Jr (20:04) Right. Joel Thiessen (20:19) do in terms of leadership
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  structure, terms of communications and marketing, in terms of the narratives and messages that they're encouraging their members to live by with their neighbors, with their community, with their co-workers, with their family and friends and so forth. And so that can sometimes be hard for churches to hear because we're far more familiar and probably comfortable with the language that this is the Spirit of God, this is kind of beyond us. ⁓ But if we take kind of a sober moment to think about it,
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  are we then saying that churches that are not growing, that the Spirit of God is not also present in those contexts? And that's part of how we talk about flourishing. Like flourishing isn't just numerical growth. In fact, a church can flourish if it's not growing numerically and there are other markers of flourishing that we have to also pay attention to. Just as much as a church that could be growing numerically could be an absolute mess and disaster and call Loren Richmond Jr (21:04) Yeah.
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  Joel Thiessen (21:19) all kinds of other ways and we all, I'm sure, could think of anecdotal stories, we see them reported in the media. So I think we call for a more granular thinking about and understanding of flourishing then. Loren Richmond Jr (21:19) Right. Right. This makes me think, do we need to be better about broadening our stories? I'll say it or how, what data we use to construct our stories. Cause like you just said, the story of, at least in the States over the last 20 years has
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  been numerical growth means flourishing. that's A plus B equals story C. Joel Thiessen (21:59) Yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (22:00) Do churches need to be more explicit or more aware of looking for signs of flourishing or different data points that speak to flourishing and to tell a flourishing story? Joel Thiessen (22:15) Yeah, I think that's really important for churches to do that. I understand why the numbers narrative is a dominant one for many groups. And I would say this isn't exclusive to
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  the United States, but I would say this is probably one of the cultural differences between Canada and the United States where there's almost an aversion in Canada to the bigger is better narrative on many aspects of social and cultural life. And churches are no exception to that. But I think this broader understanding of flourishing, these different Loren Richmond Jr (22:24) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Joel Thiessen (22:45) metrics and data point give us, I would say, a truer, more
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  realistic and a more nuanced understanding of what's happening on the ground ⁓ that I think is just a bit more faithful to human experience and human and social dynamics within ⁓ churches and denominations. And it doesn't mean we disregard numbers. And I want to say that, like, if you don't have numbers, you don't have a church or an organization. Eventually it dwindles down, right? So those things are all in play. Loren Richmond Jr (23:11) right right right Joel Thiessen (23:15) but there's a
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  lot of other things worth paying attention to as well. Loren Richmond Jr (23:19) I want to mention a book that's coming to mind here, Thriving Church by Aaron Cash and Corey Wilcoxen. I don't know if I can find the quote here, but they talk about churches and I can't remember which language they use. Churches that are thriving, but also like are going to probably close in 10 years just because of demographic trends in the community, which is sort of like, again, I think from an American
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  perspective seems like illogical, but by what you're saying, like makes perfect sense, right? Joel Thiessen (23:51) Right. Yeah, yeah. And I would say early in our research, this is even before we started this book project and some of earlier work at the Institute, when we were interviewing pastors across the country, different denominations, large and small churches, that one of the things that they shared with us about how to think about flourishing and how to define flourishing is in these
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  smaller communities where you have smaller congregations that might eventually close and die because demographic circumstances around them. And they talked about what does it to die well? And what does it mean to birth something new out of those experiences? And those kinds of questions reveal a different aspect of flourishing that's very different from the bigger is better. And so think that's part of what we're trying to do is to paint, you know, you have these different experiences to
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  flourishing and how can we capture the multitude of ways in which we might think about flourishing. And I think the example you've given is just one dynamic to that larger discussion. Loren Richmond Jr (24:55) Well, it's front to mind for me right now because I'm thinking also I'm reading Andy Root's new book, gosh, don't have it for me, Bail and the Gods of Growth or something, which really is quite critical of this growth at all costs conversation in church and this idea that like that's the
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  only he uses the word dynamic stabilization. This idea that like the only way to be stable as an organization in modernity is to grow. Joel Thiessen (25:08) Yep. Loren Richmond Jr (25:24) So it's really counterintuitive, this idea that a church can be flourishing but also quite clearly like headed to closure. I mean like, I'm saying it like I'm trying to wrap my head around it, even though I've heard it before. Joel Thiessen (25:32) Yeah. you Yeah, yeah, I mean, Andrew Root builds
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  extensively on a German sociologist Hartmut Rosa. And this dynamic stabilization is this idea that ⁓ modern society has accelerated so much that we're seeing so much social change. We're trying to go faster and faster to the point that if you're standing still, you're actually falling behind. And how we've embraced that narrative in many aspects of our personal and institutional lives. And I agree with Root. And actually, we have a chapter in this book Loren Richmond Jr (25:43) Yeah. Yeah.
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  Joel Thiessen (26:07) that builds on some of that work that talks about the challenges for congregations on this front and really for individuals. I you think about spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines if this is part of what churches are there to help foster and nurture spiritual growth among its members. In some respects churches aren't helping themselves in the bigger is better narrative when you make it more challenging for connecting with fellow members for example to actually
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  slow down for quiet contemplative prayer and to be attentive to the Spirit of God personally and corporately. Those are some of the things we heard within a Chinese evangelical church, for example, here in Canada that we feature in the book on some of these experiences and attempts to slow down. Loren Richmond Jr (26:58) This is where I find this really interesting because if the narrative is that flourishing means growth, then that tracks to congregations or participants in the individual
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  congregations of like, you you probably see this in some church context where it's like, especially evangelical church, so we'll have like the growth path. And it's, which I'm mildly supportive of, mostly supportive, I would even say. But then it kind of like inherently perhaps the unsaid, the unwritten story is like more. It's always more like doing more. And again, that's super counterintuitive to like the American Christian story of like, I always have to be doing more. And I feel like what
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  you're saying, and this is perhaps, I suppose, a theological question is like, Joel Thiessen (27:36) Yep. Loren Richmond Jr (27:58) that one can flourish without having to do more. Joel Thiessen (28:03) Yeah, I mean throughout Scripture you just think of a theology of Sabbath for example, ⁓ a theology of right rhythm, of an attentiveness to the Spirit of God where you know Jesus leaves his disciples and he withdraws away to pray. Understand this is the anchor of his ministry. ⁓ Loren
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  Richmond Jr (28:08) Yeah. Joel Thiessen (28:23) with others and how this is increasingly difficult in late modern society and there's lots of different factors that are coming at us as a recent book by sociologist Christian Smith that talks about ⁓ why religion went obsolete and it's a really helpful read that talks about some of these dynamics but I mean as you're sharing again in an American context and we're not immune to these things in Canada and much of modern Western society but that
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  bigger is better and always need to be doing more is a really good example of how the contextual and environmental factors that I talked about earlier outside of local churches impacts how we shape and tell and pursue a kind of narrative and story within the congregation and that we can't separate these two things. They're constantly interacting with one another and I think that's a it's a descriptive fact whether you like it or not that it is and then part of the question is what do we do with
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  those narratives as we build and establish our habits inside of Loren Richmond Jr (29:00) Hmm. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (29:22) congregational life. Loren Richmond Jr (29:24) Yeah, I'm thinking of what's coming to mind is the book by Gerardo Marti and Mark Mulder, blanking on the title, right, about Robert Shuler. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (29:31) Yes, yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, on the Crystal Cathedral. Yeah, the Glass Church. Loren Richmond Jr (29:40) Is this, I mean, is this just saying then
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  that churches have to be really intentional, like really intentional about the stories that they're telling? Joel Thiessen (29:51) I mean, yeah. Loren Richmond Jr (29:51) Because if not, we're just repeating those cultural narratives. Joel Thiessen (29:55) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's always the case that churches have always had to be attentive to the story that they're telling and different stories resonate with different demographics and with different, I mean, this is where
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  the past, present, future discussion comes into play because the story we tell as a distinct congregation, wherever you're located, is a reflection of where we've come from. But we still have to be attentive to how that interacts with the changing society around us and the social pressures that we experience. Loren Richmond Jr (30:07) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (30:26) so forth. yeah, the story is critical and it's not a universal story. ⁓ Every church will have its own dynamics there. ⁓ What
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  is universal, of course there's lots of variation across theological traditions, is how does that ⁓ Christian-centric, triune God, ⁓ redemptive story ⁓ funnel through and factor into the overarching narrative that we tell of ourselves and embody within congregations. Loren Richmond Jr (30:48) Yeah. Since we're on this trend, I'm thinking again of this church growth story that's been the dominant story, at least again in America and as I'm hearing from you, has influenced Canadian churches. I'm
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  thinking of Saddleback Sam and gosh, Rick Warren, I forget the title of the book, Purpose Driven Church book and how much that was a story. I'm thinking of how neatly that story kind of latched on to the suburban story of Americana, white suburban Americana? So maybe this is my question, like how hard is it then for churches to tell a story that's different than or contrasts those wider cultural assumptions? Joel Thiessen (31:45) Yeah, well, it's both difficult and not difficult. It's
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  difficult in one respect because unlike even 20 or 30 years ago, we're increasingly in a globalized context where we're connected not just through technology, you like the the book and movement that you cite here, it grows more rapidly because now we're all seeing it and reading it and it's being talked about and there's conferences and all those kinds of things. So it takes on a life of its own that then that becomes the reference point. And this is everything from the church growth movement
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  to the songs we sing, ⁓ et cetera, et cetera. So on that hand, it's different. ⁓ And I'll just say kind of parenthetically that is broadly speaking an evangelical Protestant subculture, right? That's not the same kinds of stories or narratives in Catholic or Orthodox communities. ⁓ What makes storytelling easier at a local level is when groups are very attentive to their own history and they are very attentive to the particular experiences of this church and this Loren Richmond Jr (32:35) Mm-
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  hmm. Right. Joel Thiessen (32:55) place and the ministry we believe we're called to do ⁓ for this particular period of time. And I think when you have local church leaders who are asking those kinds of questions, who are framing things in those ways, ⁓ then that almost takes us a new sense of ownership over what is our story within the larger story. And that's not to disparage churches that aren't doing those things. That might work very well in other contexts. But I think that's where you'll
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  find the more unique attentiveness to those dynamics and that's where every church has its own transitions and challenges. It might be specific to its denomination, to its neighborhood, to an unexpected challenge. We talk about some of these in the book, like one of the churches ⁓ burned down and like that dramatically transformed how they thought about themselves, the story they told. We share the story of ⁓ the charred cross from the building that had burned down and how that became an
• 4:32
  important symbol in the new building. Loren Richmond Jr (33:44) Hmm. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (34:00) that was eventually erected for how they told their story and how they tied their past to their present and where they're going in the future. So those kinds of distinct experiences then shape more distinct stories to those congregations. Loren Richmond Jr (34:14) let's stay on this story cause I that was a fascinating point y'all raised about that church and hopefully I'm remembering it correctly
• 4:36
  myself of the church who the building burned down and they really cause I feel like that could have been such a pivotal moment and I think this is true or in other contexts or church context as well where folks kinda like gosh I mean I think we all do it right individually or organizationally of like In a moment of challenge, a moment of crisis, like how we write that story from then on can be a real pivotal point of like, things just always don't work out for us. our church burned down. I
• 4:40
  think, like I feel like in the main line, at least in my context in the States, it's just been this concept like, woe is us. That's our story. And for this church you described, like it clearly was not. Joel Thiessen (35:11) Yeah, yeah, this is probably one of my favorite chapters in the book and this is from my colleagues Katie Steeves, Michael Wilkinson and Jason Burt and in their chapter on this congregation they talk about the concept of repertoires of resilience and this is a concept that
• 4:44
  very much in the face of transition, in the face of change, your church has burned down and so forth, that there were these repertoires of resilience that said this will not defeat us. and that this can actually make us stronger in a number of different ways. And they frame that kind of theologically, they framed it in practical ways. As I mentioned, they use the charred cross as an important symbol to kind of ground the community through this kind of wandering in the wilderness phase. so
• 4:48
  drawing on repertoires of resilience is both a reflection of maybe what they have experienced and how they're trying to navigate it, but it's also aspiration all in a You put a story out there that isn't quite fully achieved or realized, but this is the thing that we are taking hold of and trying to pursue. And when you keep that in front of people, again, this past, present, and future linkage, it draws us toward the thing that is uniting us together, that again, has those theological, those
• 4:52
  cultural, those personal ways that all interact in helpful ways. So yeah, I just love that chapter and that concept that I think can help congregations that they're dispositional Loren Richmond Jr (36:17) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (36:41) And it's not just wishful thinking, it's not just being kind of naively optimistic. There's a healthy dose of realism within that, but there's a way in which a community responds to those circumstances. And leadership matters to that as well, of how leaders
• 4:56
  can help frame and bring people along. Loren Richmond Jr (36:45) Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, let's stay on this leadership thing, because I had that as a question and then I took it off. But since you bring it up, I do want to ask about that. Because I've been in organizational context where it's like, things are tough and the leader is telling a good story. I know it's baloney. I know what he's doing. And I'm still like, yeah, OK, I can get on board. Talk about. Joel Thiessen (37:24) Yeah.
• 5:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (37:27) Because there has to be this dose of like, can't be complete pie in the sky. Like there has to be some naming of reality. And I'm thinking of this leader that I worked with, like he named the challenges, but also like he gave like a realistic, what I felt like was realistic, but also a hopeful future. So talk more about why that's so important. Joel Thiessen (37:48) Yeah. We talk in the book about ⁓ storyline consistency and the importance of having consistent stories
• 5:04
  across different aspects of the organization. And you're right, a leader can puppet a particular story that no one else is really buying. ⁓ that's, I mean, you'll know it because people aren't going to follow along with you. There isn't a culture. And so a key part of the leadership dynamic is leadership development and equipping and empowering other leaders. And we build on the metaphor Loren Richmond Jr (38:09) Right. Joel Thiessen (38:19) we borrow from others at the Fuller Youth Institute,
• 5:08
  they talk about the idea of keychain leadership. And keychain leadership is basically if you're in a position of leadership, you hold the physical keys to the building and that represents power, real power. And the question is always who are you handing the keys onto? And who are you passing leadership on to others within the church? And that if you're in a position of leadership and you're not handing keys over, This is probably the first sign that you probably shouldn't be in a position of
• 5:12
  leadership. And we consistently saw in these case study congregations and stories that there was kind of a hands wide open disposition towards leadership development of wanting to bring other people in, of being transparent, being open, of allowing others to potentially fail and to try new things and that it was a safe place to do that. Why that matters for storyline consistency Loren Richmond Jr (38:54) Hmm. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (39:19) then is you're handing in a sense the congregation and
• 5:16
  its ministry over to the people, to the laity. And when you create more of opportunities in those ways, you also can create greater buy-in to a sense that I belong here, I'm valued here, and that these storylines resonate with our experiences individually and collectively. And all those things together can help a congregation to then say, Loren Richmond Jr (39:27) Mm-hmm. Joel Thiessen (39:49) embracing these repertoires of resilience in the face of these transitions and changes and so forth
• 5:20
  to move forward. It's, won't say impossible, but it's far more difficult to do that when you aren't creating space for others to get involved across a church. Loren Richmond Jr (40:06) Yeah, yeah. Let me ask one more question here before we take a break. Y'all talk about four ways congregations tell their stories. Descriptive, empirical, interpretive, normative, pragmatic. Talk more about those and like is one better than the other, I guess is what I'm asking, or are they meant to be together?
• 5:24
  Joel Thiessen (40:28) Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so this work comes from Richard Osmer, practical theologian. This is in the final chapter of the book. I would say all of these should work ⁓ in tandem. So the descriptive empirical basically asks the question of what is going on here. This is the descriptive reality. This is, I would say, the strength of sociology and data collection that you can describe what is or isn't happening within this space. And then this leads to the second of form of
• 5:28
  storytelling and this is the interpretive. Why is this going on here? So we've described what it is now we're going to explain why it is as it is and this is where you can begin to unpack and again sociologically we have different conceptual and theoretical tools at our disposal to help explain you know what's happening in society overall what's happened in the congregation's history and so forth. And so when you bring the descriptive and empirical together with the interpretive this dovetails
• 5:32
  with with the normative, and this is the third dynamic, the normative, what ought to be? And these are the questions that churches and kind of theological settings are far more. oriented towards, right? How ought we to behave theologically? What do we learn through scripture and so forth? And how that frames, in some ways, the aspiration of who and what it is we're trying to be. And then this culminates in the fourth and final aspect, which is the pragmatic. What do we actually do with all
• 5:36
  these different things? We know what's going on. We've explained what's going on. We've thought about those relative to the normative. And now the pragmatic is how do we bring those together to structure our Loren Richmond Jr (41:41) Yeah. Joel Thiessen (42:09) next steps in light of those things and you really can't have the pragmatic until you have the earlier stages of that process. ⁓ So I think all of those work in tandem and really it's been in our attempt in this book is to draw on
• 5:40
  social scientific research in ways that are ⁓ easy to understand and accessible to practitioners, but then practitioners can find a way to move forward based on the combination of the descriptive and the analytical and so forth. Loren Richmond Jr (42:41) Yeah, I'm thinking of Jeremiah, like the biblical prophet Jeremiah. He said what was going on, I think. Like, I'm thinking he made some points why he thought it was going on. He said some things what he thought ought to be going on, and then he
• 5:44
  offered how they should respond. So, that's fascinating to think about, you know, in a church context too. Joel Thiessen (43:09) Yeah, yeah. And one of things we try to be cautious about in this book is as social scientists who are all sort of deeply committed to the local church, and we also think theologically, but ⁓ aren't necessarily theologians, there are some practical theologians, is ⁓ we do really well as sociologists of describing and interpreting, but shouldn't necessarily... Loren
• 5:48
  Richmond Jr (43:23) Sure. Yeah. Joel Thiessen (43:34) be in that normative space to say what ought to be because there's so many variations based on theological context and historical dynamics in local churches. And so what we try to do is provide readers with resources to help them do some of that work, to say, okay, if you have some of these descriptions and you have the tools to do that, then in some respects, you're the local experts to bring that together with some of the normative and
• 5:52
  pragmatics. We provide some stepping stools for doing that. Loren Richmond Jr (43:37) Yeah. Joel Thiessen (44:04) without saying, know, here's the five things you ought to do because there's so much variation from church to church. Loren Richmond Jr (44:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's a really helpful framework for churches to consider. So, if I'm reading these four steps, then if a church is asking and answering these four questions, and in some ways that can shape their story, then yes.
• 5:56
  Am I understanding that correctly? Joel Thiessen (44:27) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. mean, part of shaping the story is understanding the story and then figuring out, okay, how do we tell that story? And I mean, it sounds much simpler than it is. One of the things we talk about early on in this text is who's telling the story and who's not telling the story and who's invited to shape that story and who's on the outside or margins because ⁓ stories always reflect ⁓ proximity to power to determine
• 6:00
  the answers to those questions. Loren Richmond Jr (44:57) Yeah. Joel Thiessen (44:59) And so I think congregations, again this comes back to that consistent storytelling, congregations who have consistent storytelling have broadened the scope of who's contributing to that storytelling, to the identification of what the storylines are. The more refined and narrower that becomes, then the less likely it is to be ⁓ embraced across a congregation. Loren Richmond Jr (45:26) I'm glad you raised the
• 6:04
  point about making sure, if I heard you right, enough stories, enough voices are contributing to that story. Joel Thiessen (45:37) Yeah, super, super important there. ⁓ this is, I mean, yes, we're talking about congregations here, but this is about storytelling across many aspects of society. We could all think about how stories are told in different aspects of our daily lives and whose voices are not captured in those. And the church is just one example where that is or is not present. Loren
• 6:08
  Richmond Jr (45:46) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the book is The Stories Conrogations Tell, Flourishing in the Face of Transition and Change. It's definitely worth a read. You know, about 150 pages, so I encourage folks to check it out. Let's take a quick break, and we'll come back with some closing questions. back with Dr. Joel Thiessen. So. Thanks for this questions. We encourage folks to take these as seriously or not as you'd like to. But if you're Pope for a
• 6:12
  day, what might you want to do with that day? Joel Thiessen (46:30) ⁓ like how would I spend my day as a pope or what would I enact on the world on behalf of this? Loren Richmond Jr (46:36) Yeah, we leave it wide open on purpose. Joel Thiessen (46:39) my goodness, that is a great question. ⁓ I probably attend a sporting event. The Pope seems to ⁓ be gathering a fair bit of public notoriety in a sporting event context, so why not? Loren Richmond Jr (46:58) I don't know if you followed as a
• 6:16
  baseball fan, you can see behind me, not for, obviously the listeners can't, but you know, sorta wanna try to get to Chicago for the Pope Hat giveaway, but it's a little unrealistic probably, those are gonna be hot commodities. Joel Thiessen (47:01) Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, is true. Maybe we can get out to Canada and maybe the Blue Jays can find their way there again. Loren Richmond Jr (47:20) A theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life. Joel Thiessen
• 6:20
  (47:26) ⁓ you know, I've read some stuff from Fleming Rutledge and she actually spoke here at Ambrose play eight or nine years ago and I wasn't familiar with her work at the time and I wish I was and I've read a number of her work since then. ⁓ So there's many others too, but Fleming Rutledge has been pretty influential in my own thinking and formation of late. Loren Richmond Jr (47:46) Okay, what do you think history will remember from our current time and place? Joel Thiessen (47:52) ⁓ I
• 6:24
  think it will remember sort of this quest for power and dominance, ⁓ regrettably, kind of on a global scale with little regard for one's neighbour, and I think there's many examples of that. I can't say it outright as a Canadian, can I? But we all see and experience this, and ⁓ there's no doubt that this is a watershed moment of epic proportion here. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (48:06) What could you be talking about Joel? have no idea. Joel Thiessen (48:20) you can't escape that in this historical
• 6:28
  moment. Loren Richmond Jr (48:24) Well, I did this in a past conversation with my co-host Martha, who is Canadian herself, and I'll repeat it again as an American, like, I'm sorry. And I say that somewhat seriously because I think it's important for too long in the States. Speaking of stories, I think there's been this like, it's not my problem attitude. And I think that's just the wrong attitude. think I've become a believer in communal confession. Joel Thiessen (48:33) Yeah. Loren Richmond
• 6:32
  Jr (48:53) If only for that reason. So. Joel Thiessen (48:56) Yeah, well thank you. It's a tough road for many and certainly in other regions of the world maybe even more so than here in Canada. Loren Richmond Jr (49:04) Yeah, yeah. What are your hopes for the future of Christianity? Joel Thiessen (49:11) Yeah, ⁓ I hope there's vibrant intergenerational communities where there's important roles that are played by both young and old, where all generations are deeply valued and experience kind
• 6:36
  of life-giving ⁓ community and that those communities are rooted in spiritual formation. That's the thing that brings different generations together. So, would love to see that and see pockets of that already and we see it as researchers, but love to see more of that. Loren Richmond Jr (49:40) Yeah. Where can people connect with you? Find the book, all that stuff. Joel Thiessen (49:45) Yeah, so my own website, JoelTieson.ca, and you see about this book and others, as well as our website,
• 6:40
  flourishingcongregations.org, and a lot of free resources based on a number of different studies and projects related to congregational life, and you can access those on our website there. Loren Richmond Jr (50:06) Well, I look forward to perusing those sites and ⁓ folks really want to recommend the book and check out more. So thanks so much for your conversation. Appreciate your time. We always leave folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you. Joel Thiessen (50:20) Great,
• 6:44
  thanks, Lauren. Great to be with you and peace with you as well. Loren Richmond Jr (50:24) All right. Thanks.