EP305 - Wait! That's a Church? - Tattoo, Tesla & Dog Park Church Oh My! with Michael Beck

So realize, oh, okay, so we need to like do what Jesus did and not stick up a building and say,

hey, come and meet us here because Jesus never did that. We need to go out with people in the

midst of normal life and cultivate communal life in Jesus with people where they live around things

that they already do. Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast. Through this podcast, we'll

talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than Tech for Tech itself,

we'll address deeper questions. Is disciple making possible digitally? How should we approach the

digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? Oh, and where

does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this? Whether you're a big or small

church, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church

digitally and physically. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed. Hey, welcome to the Church Digital

podcast episode 305. We're in season eight here of, wait, that's a church. Joey, was that inflection

good? Fantastic. Sounds so good. I feel like I'm getting better. Like it's becoming more natural to do

that. So in this season, we're exploring unique expressions of church. Joey Santos, Church at a Bar,

has been the co-host here with me this season. We've talked, we did a deep dive for three episodes or so,

really exploring the idea of church at a bar, minimal ecclesiology, a lot of what church can look

like. And as we're talking about moving away from, you know, the church at a bar and starting to talk

about others, you know, the idea came up, hey, let's bring Michael Beck into the conversation. Michael

Beck has been honestly one of the leaders, if not the leader in fresh expressions and really exploring

unique expressions of church, I guess primarily within the United Methodists, but some other

denominational and organizational work as well. And so, Michael, thank you very much for jumping on this

podcast with us. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. I'm honored to be on. Michael, just to maybe set the stage

a little bit and tell the group here a little bit about yourself. Yeah, so Michael Beck, I'm a follower of

Jesus and a husband of Jill. Together, we have eight kids in a blended family. Just added my eighth grandchild

this week. Juniper Jean was born, healthy little girl. And my wife and I have co-pastored churches,

and we've been doing this fresh expression thing for about 17 years where we plant churches with people

outside the church. So our two local churches are old United Methodist congregations that were in decline

for several decades. We kind of went in and work with the existing congregation, and then we plant new expression of church

out of those. And our two churches are also, we converted the buildings into sober housing. So we have men's

sober housing over at St. Mark's, women's sober housing over at Compassion. And then we have church in a tattoo parlor.

We have church in a dog park. We have church in a burrito place called Burritos and Bibles. We did a

church in VR for a long time called Living Room Church VR. We have church in a Tesla supercharger. We

gathered the supercharger, talk about eco-theology and creation care. We have church in the local rehab,

the substance abuse inpatient detox place. It's called Higher Power Hour. So we go in there every

week and do that. We have church in a senior assisted living facility. So my older saints were kind of

going to live in this one facility called Brookdale. And so we said, "Hey, we're not going to just say,

hey, thanks for the memories. See you in the new creation. We're going to come in and be church with

you." And so we started a little thing in there called Shenanigans, where we gather and have a

little Jesus story and some prayer. So we have a bunch of those. And then I kind of direct that work

for my denomination. So I travel around and help other people do this kind of stuff. And then I teach

you to a couple of seminaries. Oh, so just a little work there. I want to totally get into this,

including Tesla Church. That was intriguing, but let's back up and let's really discuss the important

part. What do you use to color your hair? Because eight kids, eight grandkids. I mean, I got two kids

and I got no hair and nothing but gray. Man, you don't look old enough for eight and eights. What's the secret?

Well, I don't recommend this to our listeners, but I had my first daughter when I was 15.

And my BC life was pretty rough. I was mixed up in drugs and incarceration and lots of trips to

juvenile detention and then later jail. So I kind of grew up in that space. I actually encountered Jesus

in a solitary confinement cell. And that encounter with him kind of turned my life around.

Um, and just funny, quick, full circle. So I went, I got out of jail the last time and I went to this

little church called St. Mark's and became the assistant pastor. I was a youth pastor, all that.

So the church had actually baptized me when I was a baby. It was kind of my orphanage. I was born

addicted and didn't have any parents. And so now I'm back as the pastor of that church.

So I have people that were present at my infant baptism that are now my congregants.

And, uh, I've preached to them every Sunday in the place where I was baptized as a baby.

Wow. So yeah, that I ended up having a big family, very young. So now I get to enjoy grand grandfather

life young. So pre preaching at the church, which you grew up at a prophet does have honor in his,

in his hometown. You've, you've been able to manage that well. Well, typically, you know, I, I more

resonate with the dude that's sitting out, uh, the crazy guy, you know, that has the legion of demons

and Jesus casts them all out. And they go off the side of the hill and the pigs, you know,

and he's sitting there in his right mind and everybody's like, that's that dude that was like

cutting himself and acting crazy. Um, and Jesus, he's like, Hey, I want to follow you. I want to,

you know, join your squad. And just like, no, you go back to your city and tell everybody what I've

done for you. And I feel like that's kind of my calling, uh, is, is to be back in that place where

the city I used to sell drugs in and, and, um, got incarcerated a lot. And now I'm back

telling everybody I can about Jesus. Hmm. So good. So yeah, I want, I want to know this in Joey,

I'll hand it off to you in a second. How, how did you get started in fresh expressions? You rattled

off a bunch of unique expressions. It never occurred to me to do echo church, um, at a, at a Tesla

supercharger. I mean, that's, that's really interesting. Like where, where did the idea to

really explore the space come from? Well, it's the gift of desperation. I, my first church, um,

just kind of failing forward in the Holy spirit. I guess probably it's part of my own experience of

having a season of my life where I was very far from the church. Um, and I, I, I write about this

in a book called painting with ashes that, uh, there's no church in the wild, but we need to

plant churches in the wild. That's a Jay Z and Kanye West song. But, um, so I realized I'm going to

churches where there's seven people, there's eight people and they're like, Hey, you know, go pastor

these things. And, um, just people are not connecting with that and haven't been for generations. So

I try to sustain that and, and nurture people and pastor people in that space. But then that's about

half my work. The other half, I'm out in the community trying to connect with people. So the

first thing we ever started was a recovery, fresh expression. We didn't know that's what it was back

then. We were just like, Hey, there's a bunch of people that are exploring a higher power. Why don't we

get together and explore for those who maybe that could be Jesus, what that could look like and connect

that to the 12 steps. And then we started a church in a rural place where I had like eight congregants

in a barbecue, uh, restaurant because people wouldn't come to church, but they would gather.

And this one, it was like a one town, uh, one diner town up the road from us, you know, no stoplights,

no pasta, no post office. We didn't have a dollar general, which in Florida, that's like, if you don't

have a dollar general, you know, you're pretty, pretty rural. But, uh, so that's where we were.

We started this thing in the barbecue joint. We'd have 30 to 40 people some nights come and eat and

barbecue talking about Jesus. And then I got a church, you know, my 12 people on Sundays.

So realize, Oh, okay. So we need to like do what Jesus did and not stick up a building and say,

Hey, come and meet us here. Cause Jesus never did that. We need to go out with people in the midst of

normal life and cultivate communal life in Jesus with people where they live around things that they

already do. And then I learned about fresh expressions and that there was a language for

this over in the UK. And then I was part of a team who tried to help bring that UK stuff over

here to the United States.

Joey. I'm sure that's something you can relate to.

I know. Right.

I remember, uh, Michael, I was in like in Tampa two years ago, uh, when I first met you and we're

having this meeting cohort on talk about church expressions and you, you, you had this incredible

presentation. And what I remember vividly that your, your, your point was about the coexistence of the,

you know, the inherited church, the traditional church with this fresh expressions. That was,

tell us a little bit about that. Cause I thought that was, that was incredible. Like we've been

talking about this here, Jeff and I, and about this opportunity that, you know, the established church

can see on this fresh expressions to create a connection and then actually expand the ministry.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And Joey, I'm just remembering that, that event that we were together.

Um, it's called, we call that a blended ecology of church. So I guess call me a traditionalist or

whatever, but I'm not ready to give up on the inherited church. Um, the inherited church saved my

life. There's lots of problems with it. There's a lot of colonialist things. There's a history of slavery,

racism, uh, exclusionary practices. There's just a lot of things, but also for 2000 years,

that same bride of Christ has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the stranger and

done more good in the world than any other body of people. Um, so I'm a little United Methodist

church. You know, when I was an orphan born addicted drug addict, um, they gave me food right at their

never ending potlucks. They, they nurtured me, they cared for me. So I have a deep love and appreciation

for that inherited stuff. I, I don't mind putting on my bathrobe and my stole on Sunday mornings and,

you know, having some liturgy and lighting some candles and all that stuff. I'm fine with that.

Um, but also realize that's not going to connect with the vast majority of people.

Um, but I think we, we set up a false dichotomy. If we try to make it an either or thing,

I think it's a both and thing. And I think that's actually most faithful to scripture

because in the book of acts, we see this unfolding thing. There's like Jerusalem and Antioch.

You know, there's the very centered traditional kind of Jewish expression of the church. And then there's

this really crazy Gentile thing happening on the edge. That's very different and weird, but they're

learning how to live together. And I think that applies to the onsite in the online too, that, um,

the, the anchor church or the, the centering kind of inherited brings some value and some benefits to

the stuff that we're trying to do on the edge. I think the problem is a lot of times the center wants

to suffocate or exile or diminish the stuff that's happening on the edge. So learning to live with,

in that kind of tension is kind of my day to day.

And I think, so there's something powerful about that. And tell me a little bit about,

you know, did you face any obstacles from the traditional church, uh, seeing you going,

also giving attention to all these expressions or did they like, we're okay with it? We think that's

great. Like, did you, what was the dynamic there from the beginning?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it continues to be a struggle today.

So don't let me put off this image, like everything's solved. Because like just last

week I had people in my inherited group saying, who's paying for that food? You know, we have

this dinner church at St. Mark's and it's about a hundred, it's a hundred people that come on a

Wednesday night for a Jesus story and a meal. And we do some prayer and then a Bible study after.

And those are a hundred people that don't go to church and they're messy. They, they drop F

bombs. They leave cigarettes, um, in the parking lot. So my church folks, they're like, who's paying

for that? Can they be more clean? Can they clean up better after, you know, those kinds of things

rather than saying, wow, we have a hundred, you know, our church had 12 people in it four years ago.

Now we have these hundred people that are coming to worship Jesus around a meal.

So that's an ongoing thing. But the, one of the benefits I've had, and this may be a rabbit

trail you guys don't want to go down, but I'm, I'm not, the church can't afford to pay me. So

I've always been by or co-vocational in my ministry. When I first became ordained, you know,

when you sign up for that in the United Methodist Church, you have to actually only have one source

of income. So I sold a business that I ran for 10 years and went into ministry and then

got to churches and they're like, Oh, we can't actually afford to pay you. So then I was like,

Hey, denomination, do you mind if I go start businesses again? Cause I have to feed my family

too. Um, so they gave me special permission to do that. And I have lots of different employment

so I can change that social contract with the church. And I can say, Hey, I'm not going to be

in that office sitting there waiting for people to come in. You know, those days are over. Um,

and we, we have in our history as Methodists, this idea of John Wesley, the world is our parish.

And so I can, I can say, Hey, here's the things I can do. I'm going to visit you. I'm going to love

you. I'm going to preach and do all those things. But that is a small part of my job.

Because this community really is our, is our, our parish.

Yeah. A lot of the, uh, planters, uh, and, uh, missionaries we work with are, are bivocational.

And so that's, that's a common deal. And, and, um, you know, there's probably some fundraising

conversations that we could, we could have. It's interesting. You're running multiple businesses.

That's I'm the same way where I've got probably four or five different streams coming in from

different places. Um, and it's like, okay, this contract's coming up.

I really need to find something else, you know, that that's going to cover it. So that's an

interesting life. Um, but one, one that I can relate to. How do you, well, while we're talking

about like relationships with churches and denominations, I, um, I felt like I am, uh,

you know, a lot of what we do with digital is, um, it's different than what a physical church is. Like

you, you did the living room VR for, for a while. And so I know you can't relate and kind of understand

that. Um, um, I find it's, um, you know, there are churches that because I'm doing unique expressions

in digital and not in physical space, churches will assume the worst, uh, of, of that. And, uh,

it's a lot of judgment. Um, or even, you know, I find myself not intentionally disrespecting the model,

but perceived to be disrespecting that, like specifically, how did you manage that tension?

Because I know you're doing so much work denominationally. Um, where did, were they

more open to like, is that something that, you know, the, um, the, uh, they're, they're more

receiving for like, what, what did that, what did that look like? Some of, did you feel that tension

of, of disrespecting what their perceptions were? Like, talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah, there's definitely been some of that. Um, when we, when we started tattoo parlor church

11 years ago. Oh yeah. I mean, I would, that would be a field day. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. One of, one of my key leaders at my church, who was my church council chair. So she's like the

head lady of the church. And she was like, you're going to do what y'all are doing what in the tattoo

product? She says, you know, you're going to go to hell for that. Right. So she was, she was not

super supportive of it, but believe it or not, she came and, um, you know, I just kept saying,

Hey, just come and see this. You know, we got millennials and Gen Z sitting around the tattoo

parlors. Some of them are getting tattoos. Some are not. We're worshiping Jesus. We're

studying scripture. So she came and experienced that for herself. And by immersing herself and

seeing the Holy spirit at work in that space, she actually became one of my biggest advocates.

So my, my thing is if you're going to change the social contract, you have to build healthy

teams and then you have to get leaders in the inherited space that are on board with what

you're, what you're trying to do, that become kind of your advocates for it, that they're

respectable, you know, church leaders in the congregation who can help change the conversation.

So like we have, um, a preaching team that we have six lay people and my wife and I, and

we all share the preaching. We create the sermon series together in a democratic process. Everybody

brings their series ideas. We, we share the care shepherding ministries of the church. So

different people handle visitations on different days. Uh, we have, you know, a team that focuses

on like the administrative kind of stuff. So you can't just say, Hey, I'm just going to do all this

fun stuff out here and you know, whatever. But if you build strong teams that, that cover all those

vital areas of church life, then you create teams that are doing the fresh expression stuff. Then it

gets us out of this heroic solo leader, the pastors, the, you know, the pastor cult, and it becomes a

priesthood of all believers the way that Jesus intended it to. So I can go on vacation for three

weeks. And yeah, some things we've had some stuff over, but for the most part, the church is still

there. Everybody's using their gifts. And, uh, it creates a really different discipleship ecosystem

because people have space to use their gifts and they have space to, you know, explore and realize,

oh, I can do a lot of this stuff. Um, it's not to pastor doing it for me. Um, so yeah, sorry. That

was a long answer. Yeah. You, you mentioned this idea of, of fresh, uh, excuse me, of priesthood of

all believers. Um, and that's, it's interesting. Sometimes that's controversial within, within

established church here in the U S. Um, you know, I, I, I've been kind of, uh, chewed up and down

for, in some context, talk, talking about that. Um, when you, like, what, what is your, uh, take for

that? Like when, when you say, when you say priesthood of all believers, what does that look like? And

I would love, what's your biblical reference, um, for, for why you believe that's, that's in place.

Like, I know, I know a lot of us, um, stand on that line. Um, but what's the, uh, what's your,

what's your opinion? And like, what's your, what's your reason why you believe that?

Yeah. If I can start with the Bible and then go to church tradition, uh, forgive me, I'm a Methodist.

So I'm going to go quadrilateral, quadrilateral here. Um, the scriptures, right? So Jesus wasn't a

priest, um, by any, you know, standard, he didn't go through the, you know, he wasn't part of the

temple establishment or any of those things. So we would call him today a lay person. And most of

the people that he selected or that were part of a church were ordinary, normal, they weren't Levites.

They weren't from the priestly families. Um, he did have some Pharisees and some followers that were

part of the religious establishment. I think it's good to have that mix. So there's that. And then

you get to first Peter and you get, you know, reaching back to Exodus, which was always the plan

for God's people that you'd be a holy nation, a royal priesthood. It would mediate God's presence

to the world. Welcome back, Joey. Welcome back. And then you get, um, you know, that's the early

church's model for 300 years until Constantine. You didn't have priests in the way that we think of

it today. You, uh, you know, Episcopos and Diaconos, and those are more missional functions as the

church grew that certain people had to take on certain responsibilities. It was really a pest. You

know, our friend Alan Hirsch writes a lot about this apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds,

teachers. We've collapsed priests into just one identity, just the pastor shepherd person.

We pretty much have exiled the, the other, you know, especially the apostles and the prophets

and the evangelists. So all of that biblically, that's the church that is expressed in the

scriptures. It is a priesthood of all believers with everybody ordained in the waters of your

baptism to follow Jesus and be a priest who mediates God's presence. Um, and then, you know,

you can get to Hebrews with Jesus, the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek, who

we're all priests and he's the high priest and all that imagery is really helpful. But then,

so I get a lot of stuff from this. I've had Methodist pastors say to me,

my lay people are going crazy with this. You know, they're reading your books and they're

talking about this idea and they're basically just starting things. And, um, they have some valid

concerns like an unhealthy lay person could, you know, go off and do some crazy stuff. But for the

most part, it's about control and it's about an unwillingness to release people. So I always pull

it back to like, whatever your tradition is, whether you're Lutheran, whether you're Catholic,

whether you're Baptist, whatever, embedded in each one of our traditions, those of us who come from

some stream of Christianity, uh, in those that, uh, today we would say the diversity of denominations

there, if you look deep enough, that idea is there. So for example, the Methodist movement in the

beginning was about lay empowerment. Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley started a

fresh expression in her kitchen. Uh, it was the first fresh Methodist fresh expression with a couple

hundred people meeting outside the inherited church. John Wesley was doing field preaching and societies

and classes and bands and empowering lay people, men and women to serve in those functions.

So now if you look at Methodism today, you're back to this hierarchical kind of priestly kind of idea.

So I try to call people back to the origin of our movement. Like the thing that made us distinct

and helped us thrive and flourish was how we empowered and equipped the whole people of God.

Uh, that priesthood of believers idea was deeply part of how Methodism thrived and became a global

movement in the Holy Spirit. So yeah, that's how I try to frame it.

So like the, the, your denominations were open to, um, to it, I think than some, I, you know,

I'm, I don't want to call out my SBC friends, but you know, and, and, and actually I think

denominationally, they may be more open to it, but individuals within kind of struggle to, to see

things kind of outside of that box. Um, it's interesting where it feels like there's just

limitations, you know, it's, it's, um, go with what works, but when it stops working,

well, let's just work harder to get it to work. I don't know. Um, what makes things,

you know, it's interesting. You've talked tattoo church, you've talked Tesla church, um,

for you, what makes a church a church?

Yeah, I, for me, my, my minimal ecclesiology goes back to Jesus. Um, when he said we're two

or more gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. So that's a pretty powerful, you know,

minimal ecclesiology for me where there's a community of people gathering around the risen

Jesus and worship and, uh, growing as disciples. That's a church. I try to think of, um, then I

see in creed to give us a little helpful framework for that. So in that creed, you know, you got

quite a bit about God, the father, God, the son, little tiny bit about the wild child, the Holy

spirit, but then you get to the church and it's four words. The church is one, holy, Catholic,

and apostolic. Those four words really describe for interlocking relationships. So the church is one

koinonia there. There's a in this and a community. The church is holy. So it worships a holy God.

And as we worship and interact with that holy God, we get transformed to love God, to love neighbor,

to grow in holiness. There's a of word mark, the Catholicity. And that's why I feel like some

movements go too far with like, let's just throw the whole inherited system away because that of

this mark is that we're connected to a historical church of many expressions all across history.

And we belong to that little C Catholic connection, universal church. And then there's the apostolic

mark, which is the outward reaching people currently that aren't currently connected. So you got an

inward, upward, outward and upward relationship. If you have those four things, people are connecting

with each other in a deep way, growing in Christ, worshiping God in some way. If we are staying

connected to the larger church, so we don't become some little like cult kind of thing. And then we're

constantly reaching out and new people are kind of coming into the life of that. And I'd say,

you've got a pretty good framework for a church there if you see those four marks.

So tell me this, like, I mean, let's pick it apart here a little bit. Holy,

tattoo parlor. I mean, that's an interesting pairing. How do you get holiness out of a

tattoo parlor? Like what does that actually look like?

So when I use the term holiness, I follow the stream of God's revelatory kind of unfolding throughout

the scripture. So God is chesed, God is unfailing love. The Old Testament talks about God is filled

with rachum. He's filled with compassion. So if you like poke a hole in the heart of God, compassion

pours out. So when I think of holiness, I'm not going, you know, 613 Levitical restrictions,

holiness. I'm going God's essence and nature is holy, that God is love. The New Testament talks about,

you know, that God is agapeo, God is love. And Jesus really summarizes, right? All the law and

prophets hang on these two things that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind,

strength, strength, love your neighbors yourself. Then you get to a bunch of stuff with Paul who's

like, hey, some people eat food sacrificed to idols, some don't. If the Holy Spirit's poking

your heart and saying, don't do that, you shouldn't, right? But we can't hold the Gentiles to the 613

Levitical restrictions that we ourselves have disobeyed for thousands of years, right? So there's freedom

and grace and holiness as a journey of sanctification and growing in love with God and neighbor.

So I feel like holiness is not about, it can't just pour out anywhere, like in a tattoo parlor,

because wherever God's presence is, his holy living self is going to saturate that place and make it

holy, not because of our behaviors, right? So people, just since you went here with the tattoo thing,

like we can look at the people say, the Bible says, you know, Leviticus,

do not tattoo yourselves for the dead or mark yourself for the dead. So right before that statement

and after that statement, it says, do not eat meat, do not eat shellfish, do not trim your beard,

do not cut your bangs, do not wear any clothing with mixed fabrics, don't eat fruit that hasn't laid

fallow for so long. So all these things that we do every day, right? I shaved this morning.

We'd all be walking around males looking like Hasidic Jews, you know, with the locks and the beards and all that.

So we'll, we'll ignore all that stuff, right? But then we get this tattoo thing and we go

that, that one. So when we're sitting in that tattoo parlor with people that have been traumatized by the

church that are never going to come to Sunday morning, the question I'm asking myself is,

do I love those people enough to go and incarnate and be with them in their normal life and their normal

space and try to be the aroma of Christ in that space? And a lot of people consider their tattoos to be

sacramental. So it's an outward sign of an inward grace. So people that are getting tattoos at Tattoo

Parlor Church, they're not getting like, um, you know, uh, random things like, you know, poop emojis or,

or, or, you know, their favorite football team. We're getting scripture, we're getting Jesus iconography,

we're getting Christian symbolism that's meaningful to us. And so we do this thing called Tattoo Talk,

where everybody goes around and they share the story behind their tattoo. And so people will share

about, you know, when I almost committed suicide, I got this Jesus fish over the scars on my wrist

to remind me that God loves me. Or, you know, I got my kid who overdosed on fentanyl. I got their

handwriting tattooed on my forearm. So I can, these are the kinds of things that come out and then we're

just inviting Jesus into that conversation and healing is happening. And people really disconnected

from the church in every way are starting to say, Hey, I think I want to follow this Jesus guy, you know,

tell me how to pray. What is the Bible mean about this or whatever? So it's a little church forming

there in the tattoo parlor and it's God's holiness, you know, transfiguring that space

with God's presence. Yeah.

Is the, is the goal of Tattoo Parlor, and I'm, I'm, I'm picking on Tattoo Parlor and I'm,

and I'm not even picking on it. I'm just, it's, it's an example, right? And so, but is,

is the goal of Tattoo Parlor or Tesla, Tattoo Church or Tesla Church or any of these,

is, is, is, is, are they, are they self-sustaining where it's like, you know, the goal is to see

somebody two, three, five, 10 years still involved in, in Tattoo Church? Is it designed to hand off to

a larger, more corporate, uh, expression with, with other believers that aren't as aligned to,

to tattoo lifestyle? Like what, how, what, what is, what does longevity look like, uh,

with some of these fresh expressions that you're working with?

Yeah. So longevity, the, the beautiful thing about fresh expressions is it kind of recaptures

this, what longevity look like in the book of Acts. So typically when we, we use the word

sustainability, we're like, can we build something that lasts 50 years? When the Bible talks about

sustainability, it talks about, can a group of disciples flourish and multiply in this area and

then move out from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. And so multiplication and

discipleship formation popping up in Jerusalem for a while, then it moves out to Antioch and really

flourishes there, goes underground in Jerusalem for a while. Then it's out in the seven churches in Asia

Minor. And then Philip, the Ethiopian eunuch going down to Ethiopia, the oldest continuously existing

church in the world. So that is what we're thinking about as far as sustainability multiplication.

You don't have to pay people to do these things. They don't cost anything. Most of them, you know,

dinner churches, messy churches have some costs. They're usually lay led. So you don't have to

have a clergy on a salary to start a tattoo parlor church. So in some sense, it's much more sustainable

than our current models of church because it's organic and it's mobile. Now, I did not think

when I started Tattoo Parlor Church 11 years ago that we'd still be doing it. Like, I'm literally

running out of place on my body to get tattoos. But it's still going, right? And it's formed so many

disciples who like spun out and started these new little things all over the place because, yeah,

because it formed them and then they found their calling in Jesus. And then they went and started

this thing like a runner's church. So life is seasonal. Some of the fresh expressions like with

soccer parents, like, you know, we're sitting around while our kids play soccer or whatever. We probably

won't do that forever. But the relationships that we form, we can start a little Christian community on

tailgate of our vehicles while our kids play soccer and pray and study scripture and do those kind of

things. Will that last forever? No. But will it form us? Will it create disciples who will go on and then

start other kinds of things like that in different spaces in season of life? Yes. So that's honestly why

I think a lot of institutional churches and denominations kind of reject it. Or they're like,

okay, we don't really want to invest in this because it's not going to like make our our institution,

you know, financially viable or it may not pack butts back in pews. But they can't get they can't get

past the vision of but it's unleashing people in Christ to share the gospel and plant these little

communities all over the all over normal the normal life. So but we want to see people butts

and bucks and money in the offering plates to sustain this thing we've built. So it's not sustainable in

that way. Like, is it gonna? Oh, now my church is gonna have thousands of dollars coming in because

maybe that could happen. But that's probably not the goal of it. It really is to form new Christian

communities with people outside the church that probably church is not even on their radar and

walking in on a Sunday morning. It's certainly not something that they're even thinking about.

This is so interesting. Where where do you get?

Let me ask this question first. Um, 11 years tattoo

church tattoo parlor church. I'm gonna ask a Southern Baptist number and I apologize.

How many people have have you influenced? Like, um, what do you have any idea? Um,

uh, how many have you spun off? Like, I'm, I'm kind of curious what the ROI is on a decade

plus of tattoo parlor church. Like what's happened as a result of that?

Yeah. Here's, here's, here's the exciting number for me around 300 baptisms in a decade,

not just tattoo parlor church. Um, but, uh, and all the fresh expressions we've done over the past 10

years, all of those baptisms occurring outside the inherited space. So when someone comes to faith

in tattoo parlor church, we baptize them, right? By the way, we take the Lord's Supper and Holy

Communion at tattoo parlor church. We have a movement of confession and repentance. And then

we take the Lord's Supper. I break the bread and give it to everybody. You know, we do that. So,

um, but that's, for me, that's the return on investment. It's new Christians. And then,

you know, all the things that I described, that whole ecosystem that started with like burritos

and Bibles and tattoo church. And then that spun out, you know, connect and then MLK, and then that

spun out, um, you know, Tesla church and all these things. So people get connected in those and they're

like, Hey, my thing is taking my dog to the dog park on Saturdays. So pause appraise was born out of

that dog park church. So dozens of little communities springing out of that. That's the return on

investment. Do, are all of these, um, fresh expressions, are they connected in any way networked

together where it's part of something larger? Or do you try to keep everything? Um, I mean,

I'm saying the word isolated. I don't mean a negative, but like, is there, is there a larger

umbrella connectivity to all of these? Um, uh, like how do you network them? Yeah. Do you network them?

We do. So that's where the, um, inherited church comes in the kind of the center of all this.

So we have a new worship experience we've created called fresh worship. And then we have vintage

worship. So anybody who's open to like, I think I'll check out what a more inherited kind of thing

looks like. So it's very different. Like we have a rap song every week and kind of like a little

poetry slam type thing. We have food at that and dance breaks and coffee toast. So it's not like a church

you would think, uh, conventional. And then we have a monthly gathering in our home. So we get all the

different fresh expression leaders and their core kind of team people that are their team. They all

come to our house. We got a big old table. We get everybody around for a meal. And then we break out

men with men, women with women. And we do these little discipleship groups or what we call band meetings

where we go deep on how it goes with your soul. How are you doing with prayer? How are you studying

scripture? Did you sin since we met last time? That kind of stuff. So we're bringing all those people

together and helping them understand that they're part of this larger thing.

Some people that are in the different expressions, they'll never participate in that, that wider kind

of thing. Like, and that's fine. Uh, but a lot of them are kind of networking, connecting.

Yeah. It's interesting. You, you provide, I'm guessing like a vision at that, you know, uh, reinforcing

that. Um, and then the, the holiness aspect of it, the, you know, did you sin and giving it an

opportunity? Like it didn't, um, to be honest, that's something that hadn't occurred to me kind

of wrestling with this. Um, what is the, like, where do these ideas come from? I mean, tattoo parlor.

Okay. Look, you got, you got tattoos, but like, are you walking around saying, Hey, let's start dog

parlor church. Does somebody come up and say, Hey, or a dog, uh, dog park church is somebody else saying,

Hey, I, there's this dog park over here. Let me do church over. Like how, how does that even like

start? Great question. So now it's kind of like a runaway train where people just have imaginations,

ideas, because they're seeing all these other things that are going. So what's my thing? Like,

who do I hang out with every week? What do I do? So we follow this like Luke 10 blueprint. So Jesus

says, go out two by two, find the person of peace. That person welcomes you. You do life at their

table. They open that neighborhood, that space, that network to you. So we're always looking for

those people, praying for those people. Um, so I can, I can walk you through a couple of stories

of like how they evolved to help put some flesh on it. But so we're looking for those people, um,

that are opening those spaces. And then I'm asking people like, I already know your life is busy.

It's already crazy. Um, you don't want to add anything to your life. So these are the kind

of questions we ask. What do you already do every week? Who do you do that with? What are the things

that you all do together? And then can you think about how those things could become a form of church?

Because the inherited church, it's a lot of, Hey, come serve on the committee,

you know, or join the care shepherd team or whatever. Those are great things,

but this is asking a different question and helping them be a missionary to their normal

coworkers and family and friends. So for instance, the rehab church I talked about,

that is, uh, our person of peace is the director of that rehab. Her name's Megan.

And she had, she asked me to come in and do like a spiritual kind of talk and

try to get the residents open to that. So I did at one time, they were really receptive to it. She's

like, Hey, how regularly could you do that? And we were like every week, does that be, does that be good?

And she's like, yes. She's like, you can't call it church because we're a state facility and some

people are court ordered to be here and all that. So we call it a higher power hour, but she's our

person of peace. She's opened that up. Now we can go in, we do church there every week. Larry was a

70 year old church member who went to church his whole life. Dog park church. I like that you call

it a dog parlor church. That was cool. That was a remix. But it's called, he called it pause of praise.

That's his thing. He goes on Saturdays. He hangs out with his friends. They talk about sports and

the weather, their dogs running around and play. So he started a little church there. Denise,

she started church 3.1 because she's a runner. She does these 5Ks, mud runs, marathons. So we do

church 3.1. We circle up. Denise takes out her phone, reads a little scripture or Jesus story,

ask some questions. We run a 5K. We come back, pray out.

So you can see how those intrinsic motivation questions lead to all kinds of possibilities.

Yeah. When did you lose control of it? I mean, because, cause I mean, something like this,

at some point you said Denise is the 5Ker, right? And so like Denise needs to own the vision to be able to

do that. Um, at what point did you go from you manufacturing vision at tattoo church and others

of those to where it became viral? It became catching. It had a life of its own outside of

you manufacturing it. Yeah. Uh, I, I think a couple of years into it, sometimes you have to start by

modeling the behavior that you want to see. And that whole Jesus model of, uh, I'm going to do,

you watch, let's talk about it. You do, I'll watch, let's talk about it. So there's some of that in

the beginning that you do have to, in my context, if you're coming to a church with, you know, 12,

80 year olds, um, then there's not a lot to work with there. So you have to go outside the camp,

kind of find those person piece, start doing things. And then that opens up every relationship,

opens up possible networks and more relationships. So that's how I kind of start. But once we have a

little bit of energy and a kind of a core team, I start asking those questions. Like, what is your

vision? What is your God dream? Who, who in your life, does it break your heart that they don't know

this precious gift of communal life in Jesus? That God's calling you to be that person that's

going to bring it, you know? So for Denise, that's her runner friends. That's for Larry,

that's his dog park buddies. Um, but yeah, and you're right. It's totally out of control. Like,

and I'm totally fine with that. And that's where there is, there is a different kinds of personalities.

Right. And I love my clergy siblings where we're covenant there. Some of them are beautiful,

amazing people. But if you try to do this kind of stuff like this, you know, with your fists clenched,

holding on, it's not going to work. You have to do this and you have to trust the spirit and you

have to trust people. Like my lay person's going to preach Sunday and I'm not, and I'm totally fine

with that. And you know, she's going to do a great job and I'm going to show up, be supportive,

encourage people. But I'm fine. Like some people are not fine with that. They, they need to be the

person bringing the preaching, doing the, doing the stuff. So it's the shift from growing fruit on my own

tree to growing fruit on other people's trees. I think it's how Jesus did ministry. Cause he was

like, Hey, watch how I do this. Cause next time you're going to do it. Like I'm going to heal these

people, but then I'm gonna send you out to do that. These people are hungry. I fed them last time.

You give them something. What if there are lots of people that, that I work with that want to go from

this, from clenching to releasing, to holding on, squeezing, making, and instead releasing, uh,

releasing, losing control. Like, you know, I talk so much about, you've got to release,

you've got to lose control of, of something, you know, the, the tighter you hold on, uh, the more that

you try to control, the less that you're going to do, um, you're less you're going to see happen.

Absolutely.

Give some advice, give some coaching. Um, how do we go from this to this? Uh, somebody wants to,

they're not able to, or their boss, you know, they're, they're at a, uh, a structured church that,

that isn't willing to, to let go. Um, they've been trained to do this. They've been trained to

clinch. They don't know how to release, like, how, how do we take those steps to actually

release or even the patience to wait a couple of years to see fruit happen? Like there's a couple

of things there. Coaches through that. Yeah. Well, you know this better than anybody, Jeff,

the entrepreneurial mindset is a little bit different than the managerial mindset. Um,

so like there's Sarah, Sarah Svosky has done all this research on how entrepreneurs think and

versus managerial thinking. And it's like effectual reasoning. You just start stuff, you pass it off,

you iterate, see if it works, we'll experiment with it. And then you, if it does, that's great.

But if not correct course correction, managerial thinking is that here's a target vision,

steps to fulfill the goal. We want to see this by this many years. So all I'm a seminary professor,

so I'm throwing rocks at myself here, but all of our seminary education, all of our ordination

processes, all those things are managerial logic. We're teaching people to control. We're teaching

people to manage the system where it's that McDonaldized church, right? Where you're like

the manager of McDonald's, you're serving Big Macs and fries to a consumer Christian culture and you got

a system to manage. It's a total mindset shift of metanoia and repentance to basically unlearn all of

our training. And a lot, a lot, I'm not going to say all seminaries do this. I don't know all of them,

them, but a lot of them do. We're like totally preparing people for that. So there's an unlearning

process that has to take place. And some people are just more wired for that than others. So I say,

go hang out with some entrepreneurs, learn how they think, check out what they do differently,

try to learn from that and bring some of that kind of thinking into your ministry. It doesn't

mean you have to totally like turn everything over and you have no control at all. Like you still have

committees and you still preach and, you know, run meetings and all that stuff. You can do that.

And you can have this little experimental kind of, you know, uh, disruptive innovation department

in your church too. Um, and do that. I think when I have people come to me that it comes down to this,

like I have these questions of, is it a good idea or a God idea? And there is a difference.

Sometimes. So I'll say, first of all, do you have a team? If this person has an idea and they don't

have a team, that's usually telling about the person's spiritual capacities. I say, do you have

a person of peace? So do you just have an idea to go do some stuff in a tattoo parlor? Or do you

know the owner, Brian, who's inviting you to come in and do that? Um, and are, what I'm really trying

to find out is, are they teachable, but can I help shape coach cheerlead, encourage them?

Um, so do I have the relational capacity with them that I can speak into it?

So if it's a person who's like one of those, they always have the best idea in the room

and they don't seem like they're very, you know, you can have a lot of problems down the road.

So if you're going to do this, you have to have some kind of framework of how you're helping people.

So those things like working through team, having actual incarnational presence in the community and

connecting with people, building those relationships, having people that are teachable, coachable,

that you can say, hey, that worked really good. Did you see how this kind of went off the rails here?

I wonder if we tried that next time. And then say there's this co-created process that's happening.

That's how I do the, the open handed releasing part.

That that's fascinating. Um, the idea of, of seminaries teaching managerial and not like,

I mean, it makes perfect sense. I don't know that I had, had put that together. Um,

do you, at the seminary level, do you feel that tension? Like, have, have you had this conversation with, uh,

powers that be in the educational fields? Like, are they, are, do they see that? Are they okay with

that? Is there, is there growth towards fresh expressions, ideas in, in seminaries now? What's

the educational front look like? Yeah. So without, um, putting myself out of a job, um, here.

Yeah. Sorry. I don't want to do that, but no, no, I feel you've got other revenue streams to come.

I got, I got backup jobs. Um, I do, I do feel like there's a lot more openness now.

There's a, definitely a shortage of students, right? Um,

ministers are quitting in drobes, not a lot of people signing up for seminary.

So there is a lot of openness to change curriculum, to rethink, like,

could we do more stuff around praxis? And like, we have definitely prepared people for a

world that no longer exists. So that whole managerial thing is like, you're going to go

to a system. There's going to be people there. If you just manage it well, you know, that's a

Christendom idea, but there's very few churches where you're going into a healthy system. It's

mostly you're a missionary church with eight people, 12 people, 10 people, 20 people. If you're lucky,

you know, you get a 30, 40, 50 and Methodism, you know, you get a 30, 40, 50 people. That's a good

start. And of course there's anomalies. There's a Methodist mega churches. And, but, um, so like we

have a house of studies at United specifically for fresh expressions. We have demon masters and

certifications. I teach a course at Emory on fresh expressions now and Duke, uh, divinity school.

I've got a conversation with going, going with SMU Perkins. So these are a lot of seminary saying,

okay, we think maybe we need to include this kind of entrepreneurial,

fresh expression, missional kind of thinking stuff.

They have not said we'll not do some of the other core curriculum stuff. So we haven't got that far

down the road with it, but as far as it can be electives, it can be specific tracks or focuses

that people take on. So that's happening in seminaries across the country, which I feel is a

really positive sign. Now figure out the economic model and all that. We, we haven't even really,

we haven't made much, um, headway there. Yeah. I mean, the, the economics of all this is, um,

it changes, but, and that's, that's one of the challenges of bivocational ministry. And it's,

you're not paying salaries and you're not paying mortgages. And so like it's, um, money just looks

different. Right. And so at least the, you know, especially in digital space, we can relate to that.

Um, well, well, Michael, this has been, I mean, I always love hanging out with you and

talking fresh expression. This has been so good. Um, yeah, man, Joey has been, uh, Joey had some

tech issues, God bless him. And so, uh, he, he cut, cut bait and, um, was like, I'm going to restart

my computer. And we never heard from Joey again. So I don't know what's going on in his world, but,

um, it's been good. I mean, I always, I always feel like it's, um, you know, somebody who understands

how I think you were actually one of the first guys that, that I talked with that I was like,

oh my gosh, this guy is me. He understands this. He thinks the way that I think. And so like, it's,

it's just been so, uh, I'm so thankful for you and the work that you're doing in this space and,

and carving it out. Um, and so, Hey, but we're going to land a plane because I have another meeting to go

to, Hey, heads up. Um, we've got, um, uh, wait, that's a church is going to be spinning off into

its own podcast and show starting August 7th. And so you can look for that August 7th. I'm sure we'll

communicate out the podcast subscription links and it'll be on the church digitals, YouTube. And so

look for that. Uh, hopefully Joey gets his tech stuff figured out by then. And, um, and we'll be good.

Uh, I don't know if we know this and I don't know that I can confirm this, but my hope was to

interview Whitebeard, uh, on, uh, for that August 7th show and Whitebeard is actually in the audience

right now on discord. And so I don't know that he got that email, but Whitebeard, we got to talk

because I want to interview you soon. And so no, uh, no pressure though. He says Okie's on discord.

So we're good. So we will look for a Whitebeard, uh, coming soon, launching it in the next episode.

But once again, Michael, thanks for hanging out with us today. And we're going to land a plane for

Michael and the disembodied Joey Santos, wherever he is. This is Jeff with the church digital.

Thanks for hanging out with us today. And, uh, we'll talk soon. Have a good one.