The Church Renewal Podcast
The Church Renewal Podcast
Can We Really Hear God Together?đź‘‚
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56 churches a day closing while Jesus still calls the fields “ready for harvest” should make every pastor and church leader stop and ask one question: are we actually listening to Christ? We’re Matt and Jeremy, and we dig into why church decline is not only about culture, budgets, or attendance, but often about a deeper failure of spiritual discernment and missionary focus.
We talk about Jesus’ real-time evaluation of churches, from Romans through Revelation 2-3, and why a congregation can be doctrinally “sound” yet still drift into self-preservation. Along the way, we challenge a common reading of Matthew 28:20. The promise “I am with you always” is precious, but we argue it is tightly connected to the Great Commission itself: as we go and make disciples, Jesus is with us. When a church stops going, it should not assume a blank-check assurance.
From there we get practical. We draw a clear line between discernment versus decision making, explain why leaders often fail to switch modes, and show how tools like honest evaluation and strategic planning only help when they are paired with prayer, humility, and a missionary lens. We also share the personal formation behind this approach, including lessons from team dysfunction, biblical teamwork, and what changes when our identity is secure in Christ so we do not need the conversation to go our way. We point to Acts 15 and James 1:5 as anchors for community spiritual discernment that is biblical, testable, and not driven by vague impressions.
If you care about church renewal, church revitalization, and leading healthier elder boards and staff teams, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a leader who feels stuck, and leave a rating or review so more churches can find the help they need.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni, The Table Group
Decision Making and the Will of God — Garry Friesen and J. Robin Maxson, Multnomah
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Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.
Welcome And The Big Questions
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast.
SPEAKER_02I'm Matt. I'm Jeremy.
SPEAKER_00In the last episode, we established the basic claim that the church belongs to Jesus and must remain responsive to his leadership. But that immediately raises difficult questions. What does discernment mean? How is it different from ordinary decision making? And are we actually justified in believing that God gives specific wisdom to churches today?
Harvest Hope Versus Church Closures
SPEAKER_02Matt, jumping into this, part of the energy behind this project is your assessment that Christ declared the fields ready for harvest and taught us to pray that the Lord would raise up harvesters.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02You contrast that with the closure of approximately 56 churches every day and conclude that the church is seriously lacking spiritual discernment. Yes. Tell me more about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I think that there is a mismatch, if you will. So if Jesus declares the fields are white for harvest, if Matthew 24, 14, which should be absolutely in play, that the gospel go be proclaimed to all peoples, and then the end will come, right? The end is not come. And so the gospel must be need to be proclaimed to many more people. And we have to remember that we're part of the nations. We're a long ways from Jerusalem. You are the nations, you were drawn from the nations, you live among the nations. And so that same thing that the Lord said to the apostle Paul in Corinth, right? Paul's having a bad time. And the Lord says, Stay, I'll protect you. I've got people here. And so that trust that we have, the Lord's been working his providence in those people's lives. That if we came into their lives uh with the gospel and as loving people, the Lord would use this in their lives. That we ought to have that confidence that that is what he's about. And so it's what we should be about. But churches don't often think about that. Congregants think about, you know, I have the church I always wanted. And so what would be wrong with my church? Why would I, why would anything need to be changed? Leaders go, hey, the philosophy and ministry of our church is exactly what I've always wanted. This is great. The doctrine of our church, it's what I've always wanted, right? The preaching that I get here really feeds me. This is great. Right. You know, and so we're evaluating our church in ways that differ from the way that Jesus would evaluate our church if he were here, evaluating it. Um, which he is, by the way. Jesus has an evaluation of your church. All you have to do is read the New Testament from Romans 1 until the end of Revelation 3. All of that, huge chunk of the New Testament is that Jesus has an evaluation of all of those churches. And he has an evaluation of your church. Whether you're a congregant or a leader, uh, whether you lead a nonprofit uh or a Christian business, Jesus has an assessment of you and your leadership and of how you're going about this and why you're doing it. And it it'd be better for you if you understood Jesus' assessment and were willing to hear it and respond to it appropriately.
SPEAKER_02And your premises, if you don't, Jesus will take the light and walk away. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's what he threatens to church.
SPEAKER_02Okay, but I want to put I want to push back on that. And I want to ask you and I want to challenge you. Isn't the are isn't this you know closure cycle that we're seeing 15,000 this year?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Isn't that properly attributed to spiritual deadness, accommodation to culturalism, um, theological unfaithfulness?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, some of those churches uh should have closed, some of those churches Jesus closed. He made good on what he says in Revelation 2 and 3 to some of those churches.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And the churches they could have, you know, drifted away doctrinally, they they could have been about themselves and not about the Lord. But I think that for churches that are um within lowercase orthodoxy, now I've seen creed, you know, the kind of the great creeds of the church for that are evangelical, a church like that that closes many times. The reason is that the church lost its missionary spirit. Tom Rayner's stuff on this is absolutely great. So if you've not taken in autopsy of a deceased church or anatomy of a revived church, if you're in leading in revitalization, those are necessary works because Rayner's done the work, he studied it. This is how a church dies. And one of the main ways the churches die is they don't pray and they're no longer interested in going out into the harvest field that Jesus says is ripe for the harvest.
SPEAKER_02So if if the issue is we've lost a gospel fidelity, we've lost an evangelical gospel sending, gospel-bringing fidelity. Yep. Why do you make the central issue here one of discernment?
SPEAKER_01Because I think that what discernment makes you do. So if you stop, um I teach uh church's annual strategic planning. And one of the things that we do is we stop first and we do swats, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We force the church to stop and evaluate. We I want them to put everything on the table, not their orthodoxy, not their beliefs, but the way that they're going about ministry, their orthodoxy applied, their orthopraxy, right? And is the current application of their orthodoxy wise through a missionary lens? Does it still make sense to do ministry that way, given the people to be reached? To me, that's the that's the major thing that's not happening is that people are not stopping and evaluating that and leading courageously when adaptation is needed to reach people, not to keep the people in the church happy, but to reach new people with the gospel and to teach the people in the church, that's what we're here for. That's what I don't see.
SPEAKER_02Okay. This brings
When Churches Lose Missionary Spirit
SPEAKER_02us back to something you said in the first episode. Probably the most controversial statement that you've made so far. You say that the promise that Jesus made in Matthew 28, 20 is dangerously misunderstood if we understand it as being universal and not as being conditional.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think that for an individual person, Jesus says, Um, yes, I say the same forever. I'm with you, you're in my family. If your heart's been changed, then Jesus is going to be with you as uh an individual, including your father disciplining you when you get off the path and you need change. But I think that we we take that assurance, you know, it was the way one guy's put it is that um eternal life is promised to individuals, not to churches.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Right. And so I think that just like an individual is disciplined by the Lord when they get off the path, um, so are churches. And some churches are disciplined out of existence.
SPEAKER_02But this is foundational Great Commission language. So why is Matt Bowling challenging what many Christians are going to assume have been the the received interpretation for 2,000 years of the church?
SPEAKER_01So I think that if you read that promise in context, it's that it's the as you're going making disciples, I'll be with you. But if you're not going and you're not making disciples, I don't think you can hold on to the promise part if you're not doing the beginning part. Okay. I think that's what Jesus is trying to say in Revelation 2 and 3 is he's trying to say, you're not about my program, I'm gone. I'm out of here.
SPEAKER_02This is this is goes back to when you were 12 years old. I must be about my father's business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. And you as the church, you need to be about your father's business. And if you're not, you shouldn't have a misguided assurance that Jesus is going to stay with you. And the 15,000 churches that close a year are evidence that some of the time, because of unfaithfulness, Jesus leaves the building.
SPEAKER_02And we can even look at passages where Jesus, you know, the disciples come to Jesus and say, Hey, you know, we rebuked this guy because he was casting out demons, but he wasn't one of us. And Jesus said, When you it, you're either with me or for me. And if you're doing what I'm doing, you're for me.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02If you're not doing what I'm doing, you're against me. It's that simple. Yep. And then Jesus also warns us there's gonna be many on that day that say to him directly, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, I cast out demons in your name, I raised the dead, I healed the sick, and Jesus is gonna look at them and say, I didn't know you. I never knew you.
SPEAKER_01Very scary. Yeah, I never knew you. Yeah, which is why knowing the Lord personally intimately in a in a one-to-one relationship is so important. In order to participate in community spiritual discernment, you have to first be a spiritually discerning person yourself in your personal life. Or else you bring you bring something when you come into community to try and spiritually discern. You just don't bring um a you just don't bring a spiritually discerning heart with you. You bring something else.
SPEAKER_02And so you would say too that this does not cut against the grain of Jesus' promise um to Peter and to the disciples that Jesus is going to build the church on this rock, and against it, the gates of hell are not going to prevail.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I think that we're talking about the difference between big city church and small c small city church, right? Jesus is going to build his church. I was in a church a couple of weekends ago with a client and a missionary presented during the Sunday school hour, and I think his quote was that 85,000 people a day are coming to Christ around the world. I think that's right. The gates of hell are not prevailing. It appears in the West and less so um now than when I started doing this, because there's uh spiritual interest is now ticked back up again in the States, which is fascinating and wonderful. You know, in the West, where so many churches are closing and where interest is declining and there's a shortage of pastors and things like that, um, it feels like the gates of hell are prevailing. Um, but Jesus says they won't. And part of the way that we well, we do our part is by being about our father's business, right? The very thing that Jesus wanted to do with his life that we ought to want to do with our lives. But many times we won't do that if we don't pause and and discern in community by the spirit.
SPEAKER_02So I had this question listed first and I skipped over so we could jump into the conversation, but I want to come back to it. What is the difference then between discernment and decision making?
SPEAKER_01Whether this decision needs to be discerned or not is the difference. Um, so they both actually have decisions at the end. And there's a lot of things in leadership, whether it's a business or a nonprofit or a church, that don't need to be discerned. They can just be decided. They don't need wisdom beyond the humans at the table. But I think that at the end of a discernment process, you've made a decision. But it's a spiritual discipline to reflect and go, is this something that needs to be discerned? Like that ought to be reflected on, that ought to be prayed about, that ought to be talked about in a certain way, and that we discipline ourselves to have that kind of conversation before we make a decision. And I think that's the major flaw. And I see it in leaders who I coach a lot, where they don't realize, uh oh, we just walked into something that ought to be discerned, and I haven't helped the team slow down and switch modes.
SPEAKER_02So, what's led you to
Is Jesus’ Presence Conditional For Churches
SPEAKER_02this in your life? How has your perspective, your understanding of discernment been shaped through your experiences, through your study? What are the things that have developed this in you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think a number of influences, but I'll trace a few of them. Um one, I think my early formation uh with um the Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ gave room for the ministry of the spirit. And I think that that was very significant and helpful. That we were taught early there was this ministry of the Holy Spirit, and that it was important to be filled with the Spirit. And so there was room that was given there for it. I think even my seminary training, because I was trained in a reform of the Presbyterian sort of background, the ministry of the spirit wasn't something that was brand new in the new covenant. It was present in the old covenant in very significant ways. And so there was um certainly there's discontinuity, uh, but there was continuity as well. The spirit was very much at work, uh, hovering over the waters and um filling people and working in them and through them, um changing them even in the old testament, right? And so this ministry of the spirit, I was taught through my seminary education as well, was full and rich and significant. I would say that where this candidate up a lot for me was um, and I give credit to the acknowledged this guy in the book, uh, Sam Granada II was a congregant of mine uh where I ministered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. I he had a Catholic background and came to Christ, very common in that area to go from Catholic into independent charismatic, both kinds of experiential religion, but on different ends of the spectrum. And then Sam had moved from there through Calvary Chapel and eventually to us in a Presbyterian church. And he just had a much more robust view of the role of the spirit in the life of the believer than I had been exposed to. And he just gently pushed on me. Uh, another congregate in that congregation who's now on our board at Flourish, uh, who also came from a kind of a torturous journey to get to being uh a ruling elder in the in the PCA. Right. And he had a more robust view of the work of the spirit in the life of the of the believer and in community. And so some of these influences are what pushed me towards thinking about this much more carefully for myself, for my own life, and then as a leader. I think that as a coach, uh the way that I ended up developing a lot of this was so I ministered for six years in Western Pennsylvania and then 10 years in West Seattle. In the time when I joined the church in West Seattle, the leadership had some really significant challenges. And it was the first place that we built on the work of Pat Lancioni and Five Dysfunctions of a Team and created this biblically rooted version of biblical teamwork that we'll talk about as the season goes on. But it was in that setting where we're trying to help that leadership come together in their crucible of trying to lead. And then it was in my not only my application there as a pastor, but then in my work with Flourish that we started doing a lot of it because we saw that staff teams, nonprofit leadership teams, business leadership teams, elder boards, staffs of churches, that they were dysfunctional teams, but we wanted to coach them towards something better out of scripture. Lynchone's five dysfunction of a team. He's a serious Catholic, and you can see his faith, but he's not quitting scripture as he does it. It is sanctified common grace, and it is not hard to root it biblically. So we did. We just rooted it biblically. And then the Lord seemed fit, as I've taught it to hundreds and hundreds of people through these years now, to really use that biblical teamwork to distinctly change the way that teams think about, particularly how they treat each other in the conversation as they're trying to discern. So that's the that's the the path you want to trace it.
SPEAKER_02So you were looking at in your experience was not just team dysfunction issues, but it
Discernment Versus Decision Making
SPEAKER_02was also, I guess, what I would call math specific issues, yep, in your leadership, in your personal development, and your spiritual sensitivity, and your understanding, yep, your leadership qualities, all of those things. Yep. But also the way that your leadership as a group was walking through and leading the congregation to Christ, all those things are in play. And what came out of this for you through those pain points, through that reflection, through the that work of what's going wrong and how do we improve this, right? You settled on we're not hearing the voice of Jesus very well. Exactly. We don't know how to.
SPEAKER_01We don't know how to. And I think that if you're not a gospel-shaped person, relying on the spirit, absolutely dependent upon Jesus, like you actually believe apart from me, you can do nothing, then you're not the kind of leader that can do discernment well, because you're not the right kind of person to be discerning. That's where the gospel shaping, I think, is also very, very critical. Because I think you're shaped by something. If you're not shaped by the gospel, then you're going to bring a very crooked person to the table when you come to do discernment. If you don't have an identity that is firmly based in Jesus, when you're participating in a group, if you're trying to somehow squeeze an identity out of what happens in that group, you can't participate freely in the conversation because you really need it to go a certain way. So you can feel okay about yourself. And that is a different kind of crooked. What's that? Deep statement right there. Yeah, and that's a very crooked. I mean, that's that's a different kind of crooked person. But if my identity is in Jesus, and my way to bottom line it for myself when I feel this way is that I'm not at stake. Um, I couldn't possibly be at stake because I am firmly held in the Father's hands. He's not letting go of me. I'm accepting of the family, not because of what I've done, or whether I have the wisdom in the situation or not, or whether my viewpoint wins out. I'm not in the father's family because of any of that, but because of what Jesus has already done. And that's solid and sure. Uh so I'm not at stake. My identity is secure. That means that the initial idea that I had about a topic doesn't have to win. If the initial idea that I have about a topic
Learning To Hear Jesus Together
SPEAKER_01has to win, um, that instantly tells you that I've come in crooked, I've come in distorted. And a distorted person walks into a room and distorts the conversation. And we'll talk about what that looks like. But the goal is if you're the kind of person who doesn't need the conversation to go a certain way, that you can live with a group finding the Lord's wisdom in conversation and dependence uh via prayer, then you are actively trusting the Lord. You're you're gonna work here, Lord. And I trust you for that. And I just want to participate well. Yeah. You know, I I understand that it is unfamiliar to some groups to think that they could hear from Jesus together. I acknowledge that. But what I'm trying to make room for is that the Lord invites us into that reality, He invites us into that possibility. Right. Even if we've not experienced it before, even if it's unfamiliar to us. If y'all lack wisdom, ask me. The Lord invites us into this, and we're turning down the invitation. Um, and I'm trying to make room to say the Lord invites us into this, we can trust him that he can work. We see the people of God doing this in the book of Acts, and we see that invitation in James. It's modeled very clearly in Acts 15. We'll do a whole episode about it. You can walk out at the end of it and you can go, Wow, the Lord worked. I I've experienced it. Maybe I'll tell that story at some point. We experienced it in our leadership group several times where it was just it was like, wow, okay, there it is. And I've helped groups experience it. I think that because it's unfamiliar, it feels impossible. But if the Lord says it's possible, then it is.
SPEAKER_02I've been uh obviously I've been reading through what you've already written and assimilating it myself and trying to make sure my understanding is both clear enough to be able to, you know, guide the conversation here, yeah, but also anticipate the questions that others are going to have. And I mean, this is one of the big ones, right? Because you sit around the table with a with a bunch of capable guys who earnestly love the Lord, right, earnestly love the church, yeah, want to see God's will walked out in their local expression of the congregation of the church that God's called them to, where he's planted it, and yet we fumble on this regularly. Yes. I don't want to say it's the majority of the time. I I I can't say that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
SPEAKER_03But it's regularly. Yep.
SPEAKER_02Right? And we can't impugn their character, we can't impugn their spiritual maturity. There's something else at play here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, many times they've just not been taught. They've just not been taught that this is good, it ought to be used, and that it's possible.
SPEAKER_02You know what this reminds me of, Matt? And this just came to me just now. Real-time this is inspiration. It reminds me of pilots. When they're in the air and something goes wrong, what do they do? They pull out their their notebook, right? And they flip to the page that says checklist for this event. Right. What's the event? This is the event. All right, go through this checklist. Yep. Not because they're not trained, not because they're not prepared, not because they haven't done it, not because they're not proven. But this is what you do when you encounter this. Right. You turn to the guide. Right. And the guide will then tell you, here's what's important, here's how you make this decision. Yep. And that that, like you said, that's something that we are needing to do.
SPEAKER_01We're not turning back to the guy. Like we're not realizing, oh, this is a big enough thing that we ought to admit we don't have the wisdom right off the bat.
SPEAKER_02And really should be our first question. Yeah. Whatever we come into, is this something that we need to stop and pause and say, Lord, but is this something that we need to hear directly from you on? Is this something we need to stop and come to you? And You know, shockingly, the answer is probably almost always gonna be yeah. Because God is a God of relationship. God's a god of relationship and he invites us. He says, If you if y'all lack wisdom, come to me. You think do you think Jesus was going in his morning morning quiet time just being like, I gotta get prayed up today? God, you know, I know, I'm gonna spend a few more hours here. There's an example that everyone else is gonna come after, but you know. Was it was it just performative that Jesus was doing?
SPEAKER_01Jesus needed to pray, spend time alone with the Father. Uh, there's a possibility that we need to be the kind of discerning people that that that the Lord would have us to be.
SPEAKER_02Won't I won't beat that horse much more right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I think we don't realize that there are instances where we are, you know, good-hearted men, good character, appropriate leaders, yeah, but they've never been taught, oh, hold on, we should pause here and engage a different mode because this is something that needs to be discerned. I think that a reason why sometimes people are challenged by this is that there was a movement in my years of my early Christianity. So I came to Christ in the fall of 89, and in that time frame there was a teaching that was you know afoot in the church that basically said, um, you know, you really need to try and figure out how to be as an individual in the center of the will of God. Do you remember? Do you remember this?
SPEAKER_02There's the good, the perfect, what is it? The the good, acceptable, and the perfect will of God. And I don't want to be an acceptable, don't even be perfect.
SPEAKER_01So um, and this was capably um this this this uh way of teaching was capably demolished in a book that's now out of print, unfortunately, by Gary Friesen, but it's still entirely worth your read if you can find it used. And it's actually a book that I went back and and referenced as I began to think about how I might write on this topic, because I do think that we can mistake uh that this kind of thing is is that. And so people can resist it because they're like, they know they don't want that, gotcha, right? Okay, they don't they don't want to feel like until we have a sense as a group that we're in the center of God's will, we're not gonna move, right? They they don't want that because I think that that is actually can lead to a kind of paralysis. And Freesen talks about this personally as an individual, right? Like the the Lord gives you the freedom to marry if both Sue and Jane are Christians and of good character and compatible with you, you have the freedom to marry Sue or Jane. One of them might be it might be wise to marry one over the other, but you're free to marry either one of them. So Friesen gives a wisdom model, I think, for personal decision making. Um, I'm trying to resurrect a wisdom model for group decision making that is of a certain character and takes place in a certain way. That's what I'm trying to resurrect. But I can understand how people might resist it because they're like, oh, so you think that we need to somehow get a word from the Lord. And in a cessationist context, that is very much going to be resisted. And I don't think that when you look at the examples in the book of Acts, when you look at the invitation in James 1, that that is what they were looking for. They were looking for wisdom from the Lord that he invites us to ask him for. And they knew when they had received it. And that's what I'm trying to plead for. That we seek wisdom from the Lord, trusting that he wants to give it. He tells us he wants to give it if we'll only humble ourselves. That's another reason I think that people sometimes object to this, is they're just like, oh yeah, so you think like we need as a group to get a private revelation from the Lord. And I'm like, no. I think that the Lord invites you to ask him for wisdom. And that if you do this in a if you do this in the way that's scriptural, um, that the Lord will give it. Because he invites you to it. So of course he wants to give it. Um, but it will be unfamiliar to groups that haven't done it this way before.
SPEAKER_02So the alternative is
Misusing Spiritual Language And What’s Next
SPEAKER_02treating God as if you have fully understood everything that he's about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that you already have the wisdom that you need. Yeah. And then and then and then I think the conversation becomes much more of a power play. Sure. Right. And that I speak not to just put my pieces of the puzzle on the table, but I speak in a way to produce a certain reaction in the group, instead of not feeling the need to have to do that, just feel free to just put my pieces on the table. So that that's what makes it difficult, and why it can happen in five minutes, like that story that I told. Um, it can happen very quickly and easily with a group that's mature and knows how to do this. You can also never get to something.
SPEAKER_02And it can be the same question.
SPEAKER_01People hold the group hostage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right? Yeah, which again, we've talked about. We're gonna talk more about this, listener. Please, please know there's a whole lot here that we intend to unpack.
SPEAKER_00Community spiritual discernment cannot rest on vague spirituality or an appeal to personal impressions. It must withstand biblical scrutiny. But the promise of wisdom does not mean that every request is faithful. In the next episode, we'll examine what happens when a church asks out of curiosity, seeks confirmation for a decision it has already made, or uses spiritual language to control the outcome. 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 there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawn, 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 wherever 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. Thank you to Redeemer Anglican Church in Annapolis, Maryland for the use of their facilities to record this episode. We are humbled and grateful for your partnership. And special thanks to each of the guests who joined us this season. Flourish Coaching is proud to partner with and learn from all our colleagues where the spirit is being sought and followed. We are privileged to receive the gift of their time, experience, and expertise and to share it to strengthen the body of Christ. 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.