SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 0:06

I'm Matt. I'm Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Throughout season four, we've traced the deep currents that shape every congregation: anxiety and differentiation, grief and growth, leadership and systems. Each conversation has drawn us closer to understanding how emotional and spiritual health flow together in the life of a church. As we move towards the season's end, the focus turns from tension to transformation. What does it look like when a congregation begins to study? When leaders move from reactivity to resilience, and the gospel takes root as the system's sources. In this conversation, Jeremy and Matt reflect on the marks of a healthy, grounded church. One that learns to rest, to trust, and to respond to change with assurance, born of the Father's love. This is from anxiety to assurance, moving toward health and stability.

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

And we're back, Matt, and here we are. Sitting here again.

SPEAKER_01: 0:55

We made it.

SPEAKER_02: 0:56

We did. We are nearly at the end of season four, the Church Renewal Podcast. If you have been listening with us all season, thank you so much. Really very grateful for the gift of your time. And we honestly hope and pray that this is useful for you. So we've uh we started out the season talking about the fact that we're coming at this from a theological practical standpoint. And we've spent a lot of time through this season unpacking theory and philosophy and some theology and some praxis. With this coming to the end, let's pull back and take a look at this from a gospel perspective. And let's explore that specifically because we've talked about it a number of times. But before we do that though, let me uh the question as I had it there, I think was what does it look like when a system is being governed by anxiety?

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Yeah. Yeah. So uh anxious systems are, you know, imagine the school of fish where uh one fish uh twitches and the whole school twitches with them. So that's that's uh the anxious system. If you're a shepherd and you got your arms and you kind of got your arms on the fence and you're looking to the sheep pen, uh the sheep are are kind of jumpy. They're they're not together, they're disconcerted, they're perhaps they're fearful, but they're they're not in a place where they're ready to be led. And that's the that's the picture of a of an anxious church. Anxious churches tend to overreact. They tend towards the reactive side, is the way it would be put in uh family systems theory is that instead of um sort of adapting like a people pleaser does to a strong leader, uh, they're sort of reactive. Something happens and they they react out of it in a form that's disproportionate. So uh a pastor leaves and so a third of the church leaves with him, right? That's a very reactive kind of response. Pastor leaves and the board should be fired, right? It's very reactive and out of that anxiety, and it's understandable as we've said in previous episodes. Change is loss, loss puts people into grief, and people react to grief differently. But the wise shepherd sees oh, that's a grief response and moves towards the sheep to help them in compassion.

SPEAKER_02: 3:28

How does the gospel inform our response when we are wise enough to see that there is a grief response going on?

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

Yeah. I think um one of the things that happens is um we lose perspective and we think that this thing that has happened is all that there is. It's it's disproportionately large, it's outsized. Things are greatly at risk. That's what anxiety feels like. Things are greatly at risk. But when we get back to base gospel realities, instead, that we're in our Father's hand, and he has us and he cares for us and he holds us and he has plans for us, and he may have discipline for us. Certainly, we see that in the New Testament, certainly we see that in Revelation 2 and 3. That we I very much appreciated what Ken Quick had to say about the fact that God still disciplines churches. And if we can receive discipline as from a father's hand, that this is an act of love, he wants our best in his glory. Even if we're under his fatherly discipline, that's a really good thing to be leaned into, not to run away from. And so anxiety is uh a part of life and will be until the new heavens and new earth, where there will not be any anxiety, thankfully. But for now, we're left to manage anxiety to try and learn how to be a non-anxious presence. As Jack Shatama also in the season talked about, it's not that you don't feel anxious inside, it's that you choose how you react to that anxiety inside in a gospel way for the good of the people in the system and for the good of the system. So the gospel is what gives us the resources, the gospel is what gives us the uh enables us to afford to differentiate.

SPEAKER_02: 5:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 5:59

Um, but it also is the one that gives us recourse to come back to that all is not lost if we lose our pastor. Yeah, it might feel like that in the beginning, but it's just not true. Because you've got Jesus and the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, and you're loved by the Father, and He has something for our church if we'll respond to Him. So all is not lost. That's more of a gospel way of thinking about things. I said a lot there, but is that where you were trying to go, Jared? You want to add to that?

SPEAKER_02: 6:27

What I'm hearing you say is that in an anxious system where we really see anxiety creating a dysfunctional response, a reaction. There's a loss of perspective, which in psychology we we there are some terms we can give to this. One of them would be catastrophization. Okay. Where I look at and because something has happened, I'm gonna start running down all the potential permutations of how this is gonna end. And I go to I only see and I focus on the most extreme ones. This is the you know all is lost for the for the wand of a hammer, the kingdom was lost. Uh you know, possibly. Maybe but unlikely. But not unlikely. Unlikely. And when but it's a fear response, it's an anxiety response. So we move to that catastrophization. The next impulse then is grab the levers of control, grab the levers of power, make sure we're safe, make sure we're protected. And generally, that's going to lead to blaming and scapegoating.

SPEAKER_01: 7:36

Because someone's got to be someone, there's a reason that I feel anxious and it is located outside of me. So I need to find out what it is, right?

SPEAKER_02: 7:46

And I need to make sure that whatever God is is angry gets whatever payment he needs so that this moves away.

unknown: 7:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 7:53

If there's a Jonah in the boat, I need to get that Jonah off the boat.

SPEAKER_01: 7:56

Yeah, get out of the discomfort as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 7:58

Yeah. And this is what you're saying. The gospel says a couple things to us. One, I moved towards you. I, God, took the first step.

SPEAKER_01: 8:14

That's good.

SPEAKER_02: 8:15

By the way, I took all the steps.

SPEAKER_01: 8:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

Like, except the one where you turn around and say hello in response to me saying hello, I took all the steps. Two, I've already taken care of the problem. The problem is we have a broken relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 8:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 8:29

I sacrificed my son for the forgiveness of your sins so that our relationship can be reconciled.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Your biggest issue is solved.

SPEAKER_02: 8:40

And then I've told you I'm never gonna leave you. I'm never gonna forsake you. I'm still God, I know the end from the beginning. Your pastor is not your shepherd. He's my tool to accomplish my will so that we can have a relationship, so that you can demonstrate to the world how great I am, and so that my name will go out and people will hear about my son and be changed. The gospel at the end of this is the answer to all of these things. So let me ask you this from a pastoral point of view. By the way, listener, I don't know if you can hear it. We have a great storm coming through right now.

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

If it feels dramatic, it's because it is. That's correct.

SPEAKER_02: 9:23

If you can't hear it, you know, maybe I'll add some rain sends it, but it's coming down very nicely right now. So I hope we don't we don't lose power, but whatever. God's got it. If we lose power, Matt, I'm probably gonna go bald.

unknown: 9:36

Ha.

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Uh dear listener, uh Jeremy's got a self-fulfilling prophecy going on.

SPEAKER_02: 9:43

So from a pastoral point of view, um, in light of what we said here, what are some rhythms, behaviors, practices church leaders, system leaders can put in place to grow in their understanding and their responsiveness both to be differentiated, but to be differentiated through the gospel.

SPEAKER_01: 10:12

Yeah. So I think um if uh the the anxious presence is incredibly powerful. It's disquieting for some people because they would rather that you come up to their anxiety level. Yes. Um, and when you don't come up to their anxiety level, they become even more anxious because they don't share your willingness to emotionally mature and and to exist as an unanxious presence. For a good number of people, they'll be very happy that you're not anxious and that you're pointing them towards the savior and our father who loves us and cares for us and has good plans for us as we follow him and and listen to him and are willing to be conformed to his the shape of his son. Many people will appreciate leaders having the emotional maturity to be a non-anxious presence. In order to be a non-anxious presence, to be differentiated not only uh from each other, but also from the challenge of the situation. Leaders need to have cultivated their own relationship with God. Um, and that many times is going to be doing their own work from uh will this record with the power off? Still going. Okay. Um many times this will be um that leaders will have done some work from their own family of origin and they'll know when their own reactiveness or tendencies towards adaptivity is. Um many times it's that leaders have developed the emotional maturity to grieve their own losses and that they can move towards sheep with compassion because they're ahead of them a little bit in grieving and in dealing with the difficulty of being uh in an uncomfortable situation. That takes some reflection. It takes uh meditation on the promises of God. It's a willingness to walk through the pattern that we find in the Psalms of Lament. And so there's a few practices at least where we're actually grappling with reality. I think that one of the things that in terms of the gospel that I try and help uh people with when they're going through grief is that people sometimes feel like in grief, well, God's abandoned me. He's not very concerned about what I'm going through. Right. Um, and I think our best writers on this have instead pushed me in a different direction, which is that you need to look at the cross more. You need to look at why Jesus is even on earth. Because he didn't have to do that. There was no obligation on the Father to send his son, there was no obligation on the Son to come. We were entirely uh judgment worthy. In fact, the whole cosmos is entirely judgment worthy. God didn't have to do this, but he did. That's the nature of grace. He didn't have to, but he did. Nothing from outside constrained him. But from inside, he was constrained by love. Why was he constrained by love for the Father, send his son, for Jesus to put his hand up and to say, I'll go? It's because Jesus is not only concerned about your hurt individually and the hurt of your church, but he's concerned about all hurt in the world eventually being vanquished, that all the pain, all the difficult, very hard pain in the dot of this uh existence of broken earth, Jesus came to wipe it away, that the line of the new heavens and new earth that will go on forever forward will be a place where sorrow and sighing flee away. Jesus, the cross shows you that Jesus is absolutely concerned with your pain. That's why he came to take it away forever.

SPEAKER_02: 13:59

So when you're standing there in front of a congregation in the midst of anxiety, the best thing you can do for them is point them to the cross. Absolutely. To the the single greatest sign of our father's love for us.

SPEAKER_01: 14:16

Point them to the Father's heart at the cross. Absolutely. Because that's where I think um so think about when you think about anxiety, um, my mind goes to um to Matthew 6, which has been near and dear to me. I grew up in a very uh worrisome kind of family, so I learned how to worry early. Right. Um, and so this has uh been a you know a growth process for the last 35 years that I've been a Christian. But it's interesting when Jesus diagnoses people who worry, and this is related to anxiety. When people worry, Jesus line basically, this is the Matt version, so don't hold me to it as an accurate translation of the Greek. Yeah, the pagans have a good reason to worry, but you don't, because you've got a father in heaven.

SPEAKER_02: 15:06

That's so crucial, right there. Matthew 6 ought to set off some alarms in our mind. He doesn't say because the creator knows you, he says because our father in heaven. Right. Our father. He came to reveal God to us, not just as creator, no longer as creator, but as father, a fundamentally relational term.

SPEAKER_01: 15:35

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that fatherly care, um, I've probably said this in the season already, but that fatherly care is actually exhibited in uh from Romans 1 until Revelation 4, that the all of those letters, all of the the ink that's spilled, uh all the different people who interject in there, including Jesus in Revelation 2 and 3, all the the um all the influences that God the Father seeks to have on his churches. Why? Because he loves them, he has good purposes for those congregations, he loves those people and wants them to flourish, to use a word. And um, and he has purposes for those congregations to spread the fame of his name. And they won't do that well unless they come to greater health. That's the point of that enormous chunk of the New Testament is Jesus has an ideal for local congregations, right? And he's trying to tell these local, different local congregations with different kinds of issues, all solved by the gospel in different ways, understanding and applying it. Um, but he's trying to say, This is my heart for you. I want you to grab a hold of this and enjoy it and not have these problems that you've got right now, but instead come to maturity and go out. Love people, uh, bring the gospel to them because that's why you're there.

SPEAKER_02: 16:57

There's another idea from attachment theory, which is very related to family systems theory. You discussed in in the previous episode that communication tends to be quite poor in a leadership transition period where there is high anxiety or dysfunctional relationships. In attachment theory, one of the things that we can see um through study, through practice, is that when you have a especially a young child, but a child that is obviously still a child, not a even an adolescent, but applies to humanity when they are in need and they express through intensity their need. Think of crying in a baby, think of wailing in a baby, not just crying.

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

A young baby is hungry.

SPEAKER_02: 17:51

Absolutely. Yeah, one of the ways that a parent provides responds to that in such a way to bring stability, to demonstrate trust, is by meeting that intensity with a mirrored intensity, and then bringing that intensity back down within themselves, which helps the child recognize someone else has this. I'm gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

They learn emotional regulation from the parent.

SPEAKER_02: 18:19

So one of the things, you know, as I think about practices, you said, you know, we've talked about family of origin work. Um, for me, one of the practices I have is I pretty regularly ask myself what's going on inside of me. What am I assuming about other people? Because whatever I'm assuming about other people, I need to take before God because it's uh it's probably actually A, demonstrating what's going on in my heart. Right, sure. Them, and B, I think I'm God and I'm not. So let me go back to him and say, Lord, show me what is I'm missing. That's a regular practice. But one of the other things I have to practice is because it's not natural to me. When people come to me with intensity, it's not just going towards it, but it's going towards it with a commitment to help them regulate by stepping in with a matching intensity. Not a performative thing, not an acting, but a a way that communicates. I see you, I see that this is important to you. It is also now important to me because you're important to me. So Matt, you're way up here. I'm not going to sit here and say, Matt, I understand that you think that, but you're wrong. And if you if you quiet down, I'll explain to you why you're wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 19:29

So this is you're just trying to describe what does it mean to actually weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. That I match what the other person is feeling out of love for them.

SPEAKER_02: 19:40

And that takes practice.

SPEAKER_01: 19:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 19:42

That takes intentional practice because it does not come naturally to us unless we had a caregiver who did this really well, which case we kind of learned it by osmosis, right?

SPEAKER_01: 19:50

Right, right. We saw it exampled and practiced, and you know, we were taught it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 19:56

Um, but I do think that's important because if you go to an anxious sheep, but you're you're an under-shepherd in a congregation, you go to an anxious sheep and you're like, you don't need to be anxious. That that you shouldn't feel that way. How's that work with your wife, guys? You shouldn't feel that way. Well, no, uh, you've got to enter in and say, Well, why do you feel that way?

SPEAKER_02: 20:14

How how does it go over when you get a congregant who calls you and says, My wife was just in a car accident. I I'm I'm on my way to the hospital. I don't know if she's alive or dead. And you say to them, that's okay. They're gonna be in heaven. Unhelpful. Not helpful at all. Like, unless what you're looking for is a black eye, right?

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:35

It's not just bringing truth, it's meeting someone where they are. And this is another practice thing for me. I have to practice saying to myself, I may know the answer, it might not be time to give the answer.

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 20:49

It might be time to simply sit with, to listen, to let this person vent. As you may have done with me. There's there's a time to simply be together, to experience that pain. And then there's a time to turn that corner, and again, as you've done with me, say, So, what do you think God is doing in this? Where is God in this right now?

SPEAKER_01: 21:13

So we think about the theme for the as we wrap up the season is moving from anxiety to assurance. As leaders, our responsibility is to do that first. It's natural to be anxious, uh, particularly in transitions in churches or in tri churches that are in trial, it's natural to be anxious. So, as a leader, I need to do my own work that I have the assurance that the father's with me and that and is with us, and that I walk into those dialogues with people, other people who are very anxious, and I bring the assurance with me. And that that way the assurance gets transmitted, not anxiety getting transmitted through the system. But that as a leader, you act as a circuit breaker for that anxiety, and instead, the assurance that you have, you begin to spread that. And that's how an anxious system moves from anxiety to assurance, is through leaders who have that themselves because of their own personal spiritual practices. They're coming to greater understanding of the gospel, they're doing their own work, they're meditating and reflecting, they're grieving, um, they're praying, their new appreciation for the gospel in ways that they didn't have to know it before and apply it, that they've done that work and so they bring that with them uh where they go.

SPEAKER_02: 22:33

Practicing courage, practicing humility, practicing repentance, practicing saying, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 22:40

Practicing saying, I'll have to get back to you on that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:43

And being okay with it.

SPEAKER_02: 22:44

And being okay with it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 22:46

So kind of the flip-flop of this question, what does it look like? What are some of the practical signs when a ch when a church in particular starts moving from reactivity to responsiveness in this kind of gospel strength?

SPEAKER_01: 23:02

Yeah, I think that they sort of um they become, in a sense, less demanding of their leaders to take away their pain. Um, they're willing to sit in the pain. Uh, they're willing to ask the Lord, don't just take this away, but show us what you have for us. Uh, they're willing to sit in the waiting place. I mentioned this in a different episode. That great two-page spread from uh Dr. Seuss's Other Places You'll Go, that the waiting place is it's uncomfortable, it's disorienting, it's not what you want, especially with comfort as the hidden idol of most Americans. Um, but that we're uh we know that we're moving away from reactivity to receptivity, where we're like, okay, Lord, I I will say how long, but I will wait on you. And that we're okay waiting, because in the waiting, uh, we're trusting. We're trusting the father that we've gotten to know better. That's how you know that you're moving from reactivity to receptivity.

SPEAKER_02: 24:03

Being okay with discomfort, being okay being uncomfortable, not trying to grab the levers, not trying to get the quick fix, not trying to fix it. Right. But my kids who will, you know, they'll watch the chosen with me, they'll turn to me every so often when we're listening to a sermon, and someone will say the word soon, and they'll turn to me under their breath and they'll say, Ask my father about soon. Which, you know, is one of the things that I think the chosen did really, really well in in demonstrating how Christ was submitted to the will of the Father by saying, I'm confident that this is going to be. When it's not up to me. Right. And I'm happy to wait.

SPEAKER_01: 24:48

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's the that's the hard thing for um quick fix. You know, that's uh the subtitle of Friedman's great work on Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, right? We want it quick yesterday, right? We only have three bars instead of five, and we're kind of like, oh, it took five seconds more for that page to load than we wanted it to. And um, yeah, the Lord just doesn't work on the timescale that we want him to. And um it's one of those things to to repent of is to hold the Lord to our standard as to the pace at which he works. Uh he works in his own timescale. It's ours to submit, not to be all huffy when he doesn't submit to our timescale.

SPEAKER_02: 25:32

Sometimes I get huffy.

unknown: 25:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 25:34

He's a good father. He's like, all right, I get you. You're unhappy with that. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 25:39

He can live with that. I still love it. He can bear with it. He can. Just read the Psalms of Lamac. He can bear with an awful lot. He really can. I think sometimes we saw it.

SPEAKER_02: 25:48

Oh, you Jeremy of Little Faith, how dare you question my godness. He doesn't ever do that. I knew that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:56

But he doesn't ever do that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:58

He's a good father.

SPEAKER_02: 26:00

The word that comes to mind is rest. I'm able to rest. A congregation is able to rest. They're able to wait and see the salvation of the Lord. I think of Psalm 27. I would have lost heart if I had not known that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be strong and of good courage and wait on the Lord. That's the call to not just churches, but that's the call to the leader first. That's the call to you, Pastor. Where in your life do you find that call being whispered in your ear, being shaken away by the red dot on your phone, by the call in the middle of the night, by the meeting with the board coming up next week, by the counseling session that you're losing sleep over right now. The call to God is, trust me, I've got it. And that what your church needs is more than anything else, besides the gospel, is for you to grow in that and to demonstrate that kind of faith before them so that they can follow the good shepherd that you're following as well. Anything you want to add to that? Nope. Thanks for coming with us.

SPEAKER_00: 27:33

Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned. Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information, go to our website, flourishcoaching.org, or send an email to info at flourishcoaching.org. You can also connect with us on Facebook, X, and YouTube. We appreciate when you like, subscribe, rate, or review our show whenever you're listening. It can be hard for churches to ask for help, so when our clients tell us who referred them, we'll send a small gift to say thanks. A huge thank you to all our guests for making the time to share their stories with us. We are really blessed to have all these friends and partners. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was directed and produced by Jeremy Sefferati in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you. Bye for now.