Lead Time
Lead Time
Challenging Institutions with Grace, Love, and Humility with Rob Kelly
What if transformation isn't just about self-driven change, but a divine journey that starts from within? In this episode of Lead Time, we sit down with Rob Kelly, co-author of "Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms People, Churches, and Organizations from the Inside Out," to explore this profound concept.
Find the book here: https://www.metanoia-book.com/
Rob shares his unique theological path from Pentecostalism to a more sacramental and missional approach, drawing from the works of NT Wright and Alan Hirsch. Together, we unpack the true biblical meaning of metanoia and its potential to deeply transform individuals and the church, uniting us in Christ's eternal love.
Our conversation also ventures into the transformative power of metanoia as experienced by biblical figures like Paul, Peter, and the woman at the well. These narratives illustrate how encounters with Christ lead to irreversible shifts in understanding and being. We emphasize that such transformation is ultimately God's work, fundamentally altering our perception and connection to the Creator. This reorientation leaves no room for pride, instead highlighting the role of humans as receivers of divine revelation.
Lastly, we tackle the complexities of organizational change within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and beyond, discussing the challenges posed by entrenched structures and vested interests. Rob and I explore the necessity of renewal through sound biblical theology and understanding human behavior, advocating for a grace-filled approach to institutional critique. We reimagine church structures, proposing a shift from hierarchical control to influence-driven systems inspired by Jesus' original design. Tune in to discover how embracing metanoia can foster genuine dialogue, transformation, and unity within our faith communities.
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. Pray, the joy of Jesus is your strength as we lean into a fun conversation today. It's getting fiery down here in Phoenix. I'll tell you what it's June in Phoenix, Arizona, but we get the privilege of having the fire of the Holy Spirit be present today as we get to hang out with Rob Kelly. Now let me tell you about Rob. Rob has deep experience with Movement Leaders Collective that's the name of the organization he's been a part of and with a focus on platforms, a role in networking for movements that seek scale. You had me at scale. Rob seeks scale across cities and regions and here's how I got connected to him. He is the co-author with missiologist Alan Hirsch. Alan has been, I think, on the American Reformation podcast about a year ago or so and he has a new book that he co-authored with Alan called Metanoia how God Radically Transforms People, Churches and Organizations from the Inside Out. Rob, how are you doing today, man?
Speaker 3:Thanks for hanging with us on Lead Time. I'm doing great Tim. Thanks for inviting me on the show. Glad to be here, excited to dive in, and it's a fun topic, so hopefully it'll be a fun day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be so fun. I really believe this concept has the ability to change churches, organizations, even a church body like the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. To be sure, rob, what's your kind of before we get into it? Kind of your denominational background, what tribes have you kind of rolled in? I know you've worked kind of across the spectrum too. So, yeah, tell that story a bit.
Speaker 3:Bit of a theological mutt, but raised in. I was born and raised out in Seattle and I came up actually in Pentecostal denominations, assemblies of God, foursquare, kind of walked away a little bit during college, like many people do, went to University of Washington and when I graduated, moved out to Charlotte for a job that I'd be there for a year. Here I am, 24 years later a couple of kids, a couple of mortgages. The Lord had different plans and I started just being discipled by a guy that was in a Bible church and was a part of that for a while, worked at a Baptist church as a pastor, as a mission and teaching guy in a Baptist church for a better part of a decade. My theological journey has probably brought me more to a place of a kind of a sacramental missional place of ministry.
Speaker 3:If you were going to pigeonhole me I don't know what you'd put me in, but maybe an NT Wright Anglican meets Alan Hirsch missiology meets Alan Hirsch missiology and with a you know, just a deep love for Jesus and certainly are the beautiful truth that, hey, we just met, the three of us just met what we're perfectly united to God and each other in the person of Christ Jesus that we've been united to Christ.
Speaker 3:I'd like to stay there, and so a lot of the secondaries I'm not overly worried about, but just deep love for Jesus. And just my mind continually is blown, as we will talk about today, by the fact that we've been brought into this eternal love relationship that resides within the Godhead, father, son and Spirit, and that's the perichoresis right. This is this divine dance of love from eternity past. Divine dance of love from eternity past. And Jesus says may they be in us so that the world may believe that somehow, right now, present tense, as Paul would say that we are hidden with Christ in God, and that blows my mind every single day and that's where I want to stay. So if you want to know my tradition, it's in, it's. As Paul would define his theology, it's I'm in Christ, that's, that's my, that's my tradition.
Speaker 2:Oh, snap, agree, and uh, we got a lot of Lutherans. We have a hard time and we can sprinkle a little Lutheran today too. Uh, you had me at sacramentalism. You know I love, we love the sacraments in the Lutheran church, to be sure. I think that is an olive branch to the wider church conversation, the, the heightening of, of a mysterious awareness of the presence of Christ, through word, to be sure, through the sacrament, through his bride, the church. I mean. Jesus is just like everywhere, right, and may the scales of unbelief fall from our eyes and may our hearts and our minds just be open to everything he wants to reveal to us today. So let's get into the topic about metanoia. How is metanoia, repentance, most often described in the church? This is going to be fun.
Speaker 3:Probably incompletely, it would be my first it's not described. The English word is oftentimes very unhelpful, actually, and that's why I think a lot of this book was trying to recapture what actually are the biblical words and what do they mean and how, in essence, the English word repentance, which we typically talk about as saying I'm sorry, or like you have contrition or regret for wrong that you might have done to someone, which isn't, it's not wrong. I don't want it Like. That's the thing that people say. It's like, oh, we're wrong. It's like, no, that's not wrong, it's just not complete, I think, is the thing that I don't want to dig into. It's like and what does the actual words mean? And like. I think that's where I think the more fun conversation is, which is where I think, tim, that you're wanting to go and so so yeah, just you know, saying trying to make amends for wrong. Again, not wrong, but definitely not complete, and that's typically how it's used when we think of English language.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that that is a.
Speaker 4:that's kind of the story of the church that we're walking through right now, kind of going back to the Reformation time. Right, I would say that really what spurs on the Reformation is a reevaluation of what are the words of the Bible actually mean, everybody's context, going back to Luther, really saying, hey, how do we understand these letters, these words, in the context of the people that actually wrote them, from the lens of the Jewish people that were writing them and the actual, you know, ancient Greek languages that they were being written in? 100%.
Speaker 4:You know, like, what does that mean to these people, so that we can apply that meaning to us right now, because that's very important to understand in the context of how they? You know, like, what does that mean to these people, so that we can apply that meaning to us right now, because that's very important to understand in the context of how they are writing. What this meant is actually how scripture speaks to us today 100%.
Speaker 2:That requires continual humility. Go ahead, Rob yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I just think this is where Luther did us a huge favor. I would just say that it's like we, I mean you know the, the word if we can just dive in real quickly because I think it'll set the stage maybe a little bit for the conversation why we use the word. The way we use the word now comes from not actually the biblical languages, but actually comes from the Latin Vulgate languages, but actually comes from the Latin Vulgate, and that's where I think it's really important. So when Jerome translated back in, you know, 1600 plus years ago, the scriptures into the Vulgate, the word metanoia from the Greek New Testament, which we'll dive into, is actually translated into the Latin word penitentia, which and penitentia is actually where you get the, where the connotation of penance comes from. It's like that's why we now think of like you're, you're making amends for a wrong.
Speaker 3:Ok, that's where, and and again in fairness, that's not wrong, it's just not complete, Like that's the thing that you really want to dive into. There are instances within the New Testament a Testament of it being used that way, of people making it. But what does the actual word mean and I think that's where it's better to go back to the Greek and try to get a little bit of a more of a holistic understanding of the word is it's? It's a compound word in Greek, Okay, and let's actually talk about both the Greek and Hebrew, Cause I think they both apply to this conversation. So we'll just do super quick and then we can dive in on whatever else. So metanoia is a compound word.
Speaker 3:In Greek, Meta means above beyond or overarching. Okay, we actually use the word a lot now in, uh, in in English, right, you know Facebook's now named meta, right, when they get this idea of. Okay, but metamorphosis, like you use meta a lot. So meta, above beyond, overarching, noia comes from the Greek word nous, which means mind. Okay, so the idea of metanoia when Jesus would say it which was, by the way, the first word he said when he began his preaching ministry, Matthew 4, 17. He says what Metanoia in that tense, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He wasn't saying you should say you're sorry, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He was saying metanoia is translated as repentance. He's saying repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He's saying it's a time to rethink and change your mind.
Speaker 3:Metanoia has to do with this. We like to say. It's about blowing one's mind. It's about, probably the best English, rendering apples to apples is a paradigm shift. It's shifting your mindset. It's a reorientation, a radical reorientation of your mindset, which makes far more sense when you think about how Jesus brought, began his preaching ministry. Hey, shift your mindset from the kingdoms of this world, because I'm ushering in inaugurating this new kingdom that's coming that plays by radically different rules. Okay, Like this is. And now what's? The whole, like nature of his ministry is talking about this new kingdom and this new expression of a kingdom that is that we're going to live in, that is so counter to the kingdoms of this world, Right, that operates so differently from the kingdoms of this world.
Speaker 3:So again, so metanoia, you know, reorientation of your mind, shifting of your paradigm versus, in the Hebrew, repentance is taken actually two different words the word shuv means to turn and teshuva means to return. And so oftentimes people and I've heard this preached many times and it's not again. Not wrong, just not. The New Testament rendering is that pastors will preach hey, when you enter the kingdom, I'm turning around and entering the kingdom. Pastors will preach hey, when you enter the kingdom, I'm turning around and entering the kingdom. Correct in the Hebrew rendering of that phrase there's an actual physical movement that it kind of connotes. But the New Testament has more to do with our minds.
Speaker 2:So that's fascinating. Could you tell the story of how? I mean yeah, I've heard it both and now I like metanoia, jesus using that word. How would the Greek hearer and the Jew have understood this thing in a different way, based on Jesus coming? I don't know if I'm asking the question right, but I mean it is a new paradigm now. The metanoia, because the Jew was going this way, it's the turning, and now Jesus is going kind of above. Setting your mind above. Would they have made that kind of logical jump to the paradigm shift, away from kind of the directional shift? Does that make sense, Rob? That would have been hard for the Jew, wouldn't it have been kind of hard, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was a new concept to understand. Yeah, Everything about Jesus' life and ministry was going to be difficult and a hard concept. Right For uh, um, for people to hear. I mean, like he jumped right in, let's think about it Like, how did he start using it? I think this is probably where it's just like let the he begins by saying, like think of the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 3:You've heard it said this but I tell you this, right, you've heard it said this, but I tell you this Like constantly, what is Jesus's ministry doing? It's reorienting people from what they thought was right to what actually God had desired for them, right, and so, like, this was how they so. So how did they receive it in there? Well, I don't know, I wasn't there, but many, many of them not. Well, through the scriptures, I mean he was crucified for what he said and so, but yeah, I mean he was inaugurating a completely new way of living, a new way, and so how do we receive it? Right, I mean it's hard, like I mean that's why it's, that's why this is God's plan for how he transforms people and transforms organizations, organizations, like. You know. What I also think is helpful and I just referred to it once in the Sermon on the Mount, I think, if you really want to see how God uses this to transform people, look at all the ways in scripture.
Speaker 3:Metanoia is used without it ever being stated Like. This is actually, I think, where it's more fun, and it kills me that we did not directly put this in the book. We kind of reference it a few times. But I can probably just I bet I could list out four or five instances that are pure metanoia and the words not used, and you'll get all. On the road to Damascus, he encounters Christ. He would he what he changes from the great persecutor of the church to the great apostle to the Gentiles. Peter at cornelius's house yep, we call that the entire trajectory of the church changes.
Speaker 3:His mind is blown the woman at the. Well, we call yeah, we call that being apocalypsed, yes, like instantly their mind is blown and and it's these, all these instances of like, once they see it, they can't unsee it, right. It's like your mind is blown, you can't go back. It's true conversion in that sense, because it's like there's no, there's no going back to it, right?
Speaker 4:and so paul's, paul's radical shift he is, he is like the absolute description of finding righteousness in the law. He is a ph Pharisee, he is committed to obeying every single letter, just as it should be based on the rabbinical traditions, right. And all of a sudden his whole universe falls out from underneath him. As Christ reveals himself to him on the road to Damascus, the entire way that he sees the universe and his place in that universe has been radically transformed.
Speaker 3:What does Paul himself say? Be transformed? How? By the renewing of your mind. Like that, his whole person was transformed. But it happened when he came to realize he had the aha. He had that moment of revelation, a true apocalypse, as you say, right, when you just can't go back. There's no going back and it's not just a paradigm shift and this is where I think it's really important too. It's not just shifting paradigm, any paradigm. It's reorienting and shifting our paradigms to the mind that created the universe. It is, it is, it is taking on the mind of Christ. So, like when Paul calls us to set our minds on things above, like it is where we are, we are reconnecting to the mind that created the universe and that can't not change you. Pardon the double negative, my third grade English teacher wouldn't appreciate that, but like it's true, Right, you know, it's just like it can't not change you. And so that's when you see Thomas, you know, when he sees the resurrected Jesus and he's, what's his, what's his immediate response? My Lord and my God.
Speaker 3:Right, it's just like like you can go just like the instances they're, they're everywhere, and so it's like, when you see, when we, we and all of those aren't just any again any paradigm shift, it's a. It's a. It's a shift to the person of jesus and this beautiful truth that people come to see him for who he really is and that forever changes us too.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is so awesome. Two things are standing out. One, it's god's work's work. Like God descends, jesus speaks, like I am, and in Lutherans we kind of start in our relationship with God. I'm very passive in this endeavor. It's like I've been hit upside the head and my mind has been, oh, and something outside of me, extra nose has done its work on me, and then I have this. There's no room for pride in this conversation, like if you're, if you're, like wow, I've really mastered. I think about the words we use. Do you have an M div? Well, yes, I have mastered the divine. I mean, this is ridiculous. You know, I'm being mastered. I think it's a silly, silly degree.
Speaker 2:Title to be honest, honest, yeah, so there's no room for pride, there's a maximum humility. And then I think this is where we have to, as pastors, as institutional leaders, wherever you are we need to lean into our exegetes. I'm reading a book right now on the tensions in the LCMS, the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod. Over and against. This is geeky, geeky stuff. Over and against the story of the Iowa Synod in the 19th century, and the author, dr Aaron, made the statement that the way the church was held together was through the exegetes. Why? Because they understood the middle way they were able to.
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the scriptures. Hey guys, you guys are becoming phraseologists, you guys are being married to the phrases and then your kind of narrow theologies that you've built around saying it this exact way. Let's go back to the scriptures. Let's go back to metanoia. Let's set our minds above. So why do we, individually and collectively, need to consistently experience metanoia's? Set our minds above, so why do we, individually and collectively, need to consistently experience metanoia? This is the daily repentance, the daily invitation to repentance, and I'd love for you to go, both individually and I. This is where the conversation is going to transition now and collectively, that's where it gets a little messy, a little messy go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's stay in the text for a second here, I mean the well, we can stay longer than that too, but it's me. But I mean look at the story of Israel. Right, this is where you just like look at. Sometimes we want to like get like real didactic and Paul or whatever. And then sometimes I find like the narrative just is very helpful and there was a constant movement of like forgetfulness in Israel. Right, you go back and what does God do? He sends another prophet to call people to what Repentance to call people back. Why is? Because we're super forgetful, like right, Like just individually, like I am and maybe I don't speak for you, but I mean I know, I know me and I know my own heart and it ain't good most of the time, and so it's like I need constant reminding. Right, I am.
Speaker 3:It is a present, active tense that I need to consistently always be transformed, constantly renewing my mind, because, if not left to my own and our own devices, we know what the human condition will do Right, and so, like this is, so it is a. It is not like just that once off, hey, we're transformed and we're good. Now we're good. No, it's like this is.
Speaker 3:Look at the story, look at the narrative of Scripture, look at like this is everywhere in the text People in Christ will consistently still sin and still make a mistake, and so we are in constant, always need of being transformed by God in Christ. And so, like that one, I feel like we, we can just just just pin and say like that's, that's the human condition. We always need it collectively. This is where we actually spent a good bit of time in the book and we have a kind of a few points, and I think the the biggest and first reason that we need consistent experience of metanoia and repentance is because we generally just suck at it. We're terrible at it, we are bad, forgive me, can I say?
Speaker 2:that on the podcast.
Speaker 3:We're, we're, we're it is, it is a spiritual problem collectively and honestly you think about it. Collective is a collective of individuals who are all fallen individuals and we're so each of us individually needed. So multiply that by a collective of people, right, and so it's like now you're just multiplying the need, for it is what it is, what I would argue, and what are institutions? Whether it be a local church, organization, denomination, whatever it is, it's a collective of individuals, all of whom need to be transformed regularly by Christ, which therefore means, and just purely logically, that the organization itself needs consistent metanoia. And organizations, and especially when you bring in sociology into it and anthropology, how people, groups work, we hold on to things um like deeply and so um.
Speaker 3:So we would say that like collective metanoia, you know, and individual metanoia is required because, uh, every move towards god requires repentance. It requires this is where I think the, this is where the Hebrew text actually is helpful that turning away from this world to the world of God. It requires it, if we. Another reason because if you want to learn something, oftentimes you have to unlearn first, and this really speaks to the metanoia journey is that we like to start and just start where we are and it's like everything is that perfect line up this way, when the reality is is that you're starting here and you need to go. There's a, there's an unlearning that needs to happen before a learning, and that's just a huge part of how we're made, we're called and this is interesting. Go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, we got to talk the metanoia journey. I have it later on, but since you brought it up, let's just dive in the deconstruction that has a liberal connotation in our world today, a deconstructionist or the way, the via negativa to reconstruction, via positiva. So talk about the metanoia journey, and if you have the book, that's on page 92. And it's so, so helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we're not talking about deconstruction as people deconstructing faith and if that's a problematic word, you can use the word unlearn before you relearn, deconstruct before you reconstruct but it's the idea of our systems, especially organizationally, can be so entrenched that at some point we have to realize we can't take it all with us, right? And? And if we love our systems so much, we'll never be able to change them. We will lose the ability to change them, and so we need to be honest.
Speaker 3:And this is what I love about the metanoid journey. It, like, promotes truth and honesty. It makes you step back and have an open mind and see things in a new way. And so this via negativa, like this downward journey, like if you're familiar with the hero's journey, this downward journey would be where, first and foremost, you let things begin to unravel and you start to see the issues that might exist in your paradigm. You see the dysfunction that lives inside your system, that you know things that you thought could never, that shouldn't ever change. You start to realize, well, why are we doing it that way? Why have we been doing it that way for generations? Like, what is like? Why, like you, begin to be open to even asking that question when, let's be honest, there's many systems where you can't, you're not even allowed to ask that. You can't, you'll get in trouble, right, the system will, will police you, if we're even asking.
Speaker 2:So just pause right there. There are pockets in the Lutheran church Missouri synod where you will lose your job If you ask certain questions, where you will lose your job if you ask certain questions. For sure and probably in any organization right, there are unasked questions. Why? Because it's painful. No one likes to really address the systemic problems that sin and selfishness have created, and so it's easier, in the short term at least, to just kind of hey, and we're going to get it. While I bring this up, I got to share this quote from your book because organizational change is very, very difficult. Again, this is the podcast Unite Leadership Collective. We're both, Jack and I, members of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Put on your LCMS kind of hat as you listen to this.
Speaker 2:Upton Sinclair said it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it. And then you write in the book certain people become captive to the demand for loyalty that many organizations require over their adherence or employees. Change becomes difficult precisely because stakeholders and power brokers in the system are often still able to benefit. Yes, we got a lot of drama going on right now in our Concordia University systems and the church worker conversation. In general. These are very, very difficult conversations to have, because it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it. Anything more to say there, Rob, it's not just their salary, it's not just their salary.
Speaker 3:It's really hard when your livelihood's at stake, their livelihood and so if the structures that are in place are that which you derive your livelihood and identity from, you have a high motivation to not change them. Right? Your motivation is preservation, right, and if preservation is the motivation of an organization, say that 10 times fast. It's really going to be a difficult journey. That's why we have to be able to open ourselves and say like is like.
Speaker 3:What does God actually want to do in and through me as one of his sons or daughters?
Speaker 3:What does God want to do through this, this ministry, this denomination, this church?
Speaker 3:Like what? Like? What does it look to for me to be renewed? What does it look like for our church and denomination to experience renewal, to experience new life? Right, this is, I mean, like, this is this is so important, and and that's why that that's the journey is in there, because it's kind of a mixture of what we hope is like really sound biblical theology, mixed with good anthropology and sociology too. It is part of like how God designed people to to learn and adapt, learn and adapt. And so, as we begin to have our eyes open, as we begin to be able to question, as we begin to uncover you know what issues we're experiencing in, in, in our, in our churches, denominations, whatever then he, it opens our minds to be able to, to, to, to learn new things and to set new structures, to set new paradigms for the future, and that's where life is experienced. And so typically what I'll just encourage people with is like man, I know it's hard, I know you may be in a system you can't change, but I want to just encourage people that there is life on the other side, like and I'm listen, I run a network of networks.
Speaker 3:I work with hundreds and hundreds of pastors and churches and typically what I my experience some Lutheran too, in our context here in Charlotte, and I typically will refer to most pastors I know You've probably heard the term functional alcoholic, right, like it's someone that can drink too much the night before. They pull themselves up by their bootstraps the next day and can keep going. Most pastors I know are functional burnouts and it's that they can. I mean it.
Speaker 1:And it breaks my heart because they're my friends. It's not a judgment thing.
Speaker 3:They're my friends. And when you get up every day and you're operating in a system that you know is broken but your livelihood and identity is tied to it, it's really hard, but I'm saying, like man, take the step, begin the journey. It it's really hard, but I'm saying, like man, take the step, begin the journey. And there is life on the other side, and one of my favorite things to do is walk with pastors and leaders who are my friends and seeing them begin to experience that life because they were willing to take that first step on the journey. And so it's like that's my encouragement, if you're listening to this like it's not going to happen, happen overnight. It is a process and it can be painful.
Speaker 4:It will be painful actually, but it the other side is beautiful, man, it is beautiful and rob you, you said a trigger word for me that I think needs to a little bit more depth to it. You said the word identity because to me, metanoia is all about identity. It's like this radical transformation that we have in seeing things differently, seeing things from above, being turned around. It is a transformation of an individual's identity. You know, again in our own context, luther wrote tremendously about that. To him, right, metanoia is about completely changing what your identity is. Right? The big debate back then is what does it mean to you? Know what is works, righteousness and all that kind of stuff? And what he would say is like hey, you, this is who you are. You've been redeemed by God. God is your provider. You can count on him for everything, all of your provision, you know your daily bread, all this kind of stuff. If this is truly who you are, if everything about you has been secured by God, then why would you feel the need to hold on to anything? Why not give every single thing away? Right, and that is true for the institution. You can hold the institution with an open hand, knowing ultimately, I'm trusting God and I'm just doing the best I can to steward this.
Speaker 4:And what happens is we create these institutional identities rather than having the identity just purely held in that relationship with God. Right, and this is. This is something that we have to think a lot about. Like, I love my Lutheran identity, I love our theology, but Luther encouraged us not to use that word, you know, to identify ourselves. He's like you should be Christians. Don't call yourself Lutheran. Right, that is your true identity, right, not necessarily the institution that you align yourself with. And so the institution can disappear tomorrow, and it's still. That relationship that we have with God does not change. It is an eternal relationship that God puts on us, so it should result in courageous decisions and a willingness to experiment with different ways to reach new people and like and just have that bold trust in God's provision as we're doing it. Amen.
Speaker 3:Thoughts on that. I mean this. Sorry, this is my, my, my, my cheesy sense of humor. I was about to make a Calvin quote and I realized I was on a Lutheran Calvin was, you know, say the, the, the heart is an idol factory, Right, and I think this is where the importance of worship matters.
Speaker 3:Right and the idea of of like, right worship matters because we become like what we worship. Right. This is the um, and if we worship the organization that we founded, or if we worship the church that we lead or the denomination we're a part of, we need recalibration and reorientation and true metanoia to realign our worship to center in the person of Jesus. Right and like. This is why it matters, and so and it's so easy even for those of us in Christian leadership to lose that it's like. I don't say that with a judgmental heart, I think it's is a. It's here that, with just the utmost grace and as someone who desires to be recalibrated daily myself, is that we need to be, we need our minds realigned to the mind that created the universe, and that's where right worship really does matter. And um, and that's that maybe goes doubly for those of us in leadership, just because of the influence that we can have on others, uh, to lead them astray.
Speaker 2:So for those of you who like to summarize and and integrate, that's the goal, I think, of learning um is is the journey, is hearing. So I hear, wow, there's some gaps, we got some blind spots. Confession, absolution is a major part. The word confronts me and both individually and collectively, we confess, we have sinned and thought, word and deed, and we've got to hear that. That moment of metanoia is I love you, you're mine, you're in Christ, you been baptized in in my name. And then it's a move toward now, come and follow, come and do life, see life, have your mind blown right alongside me. I'm carrying you, I'm at work through you. And then the second half of the journey, you kind of have this unravel, uncover, unlock, understand. So that's a lot of the hearing journey. You got that defining clarity, conviction, eureka, aha moment. And then you talk about paradigm, platform, practices and perform. So it kind of moves into, as I've heard now I holistically get engaged right Heart, mind, hands. You know we're starting to follow after Jesus and I'm going to move to the critiquing of, maybe, institutions, starting at the local level. We're then moving above. I like the metaphor of the balcony to the dance floor that comes from leadership on the line, right. I can actually look at things above because my identity is not, wow, I'm the pastor of this place, I'm just Tim. Just as Tim, I'm looking at different things that are going on and it changes the tone in which I talk about the things because my identity is not on the line. That's right. I could lose my pastor call. I am not defined by my role. I think if there was one thing we could pray for with leaders is that you are not your role. You are a child of God, first and foremost, and that allows you to get above.
Speaker 2:But let's talk about challenging, critiquing institutions and or denominations from the church. You know, for the pastors that are listening or critiquing institutions maybe in a leadership role at a university or you're leading in a denomination you say this is really, really hard to do because it feels like we're criticizing God. This is what Jesus did with the institution of the Pharisaical tradition or the Sadducee tradition. So what words of wisdom? It was very hard. It's what got him killed, by the way, right? So what words of wisdom do you have for challenging institutions from within the institution, the way I like to talk about it, especially as we're talking to folks in leadership roles. We need the kind adversary. We need the Eve to Adam role. Her job was to show his blind spots. Who in our world is able to be a kind adversary? You're in the system. You love the people in that community. You love them enough to say the hard things. Any words of wisdom for challenging institutions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think what I would encourage people to do and what you typically see within the church are not congruent. Typically, people will immediately reference Jesus turning the tables in the money changers and you know that tends to be like the norm. It's like, well, jesus did it Right, so it's like I'll do that too. It's like, well, what's the more normative? Like broader, like you know, scriptural narrative. And this is where.
Speaker 3:I would say. I don't know if it has to go straight to criticizing, but what if not looking at it as criticizing? We look at a way of like, challenging and critiquing the institutions we have in a way that honors God, that glorifies God, that reflects the character of God, and I feel like so much in the world, and not just in the within the church, um, like there's been so much civility lost, um, and so much um. I think posture matters. That's the uh, the, the. Your attitude should be that of Christ Jesus, who'd been being in very nature, god did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself right, like there's this posture, this we're supposed to take on this, that the kingdom that we've been brought into, that Jesus inaugurated is, uh, looks, is an inverse hierarchy of the kingdom to the kingdoms of this world, and I think the way we approach this work should reflect Jesus's kingdom.
Speaker 3:Where you said that like, where we love people well, like, even though we may disagree with them, do you love them? Like this is where grace leads right, where I feel like we've just lost the ability to have open disagreement and dialogue and actually walk away. Loving each other when the reality is is like truly loving someone, and pointing out something that could be hurting them is a deeply loving act. It could be hurting them as a deeply loving act and if they know that they're loved and they can receive it. You know what's? What's Paul say? Romans two you know it's God's loving kindness that leads us to repentance. Yep.
Speaker 3:I find it interesting that the next line is and I think what we put we want to include in the text, or I want to include in the text not my condemnation. It's God's loving kindness that leads you to repentance, not me telling you like you suck Right. It's this like how do I become? If that's true, if Paul's right, you know, and if, when people experience grace and love and they can do, they can see, you can help them see the dysfunction that they're experiencing within their church, denomination, organization, whatever it is, and they do it in a way that's from someone that actually loves them, then God uses that and it's like man, let's not just go in there and turn the tables, which is so, especially within the church today.
Speaker 3:You see it all too often, and is there a place for that? At times, sure, but it's certainly not the norm. It's not every time, you know. And so, yeah, I mean so. I just loved whenever I tell people step into this metanoia journey. I was like man, please, like, if you're walking with them, do it with like extra loads of grace in the process, like it's a journey with them hand in hand, and know that it's going to be hard, know that it's not easy to confront generations, that of tradition that was started long before you were ever here. That's going to take time, and to me there's a grace for that, and so that's my encouragement as people begin this journey just a whole lot of grace and love. That it's God's loving kindness that leads people to true metanoia.
Speaker 4:Yeah, good, jack. Relationally speaking, I remember this is a proverb, I guess I would say, not from the Bible, but from kind of an older Lutheran who I got some mentoring from. He said hey, you know, back in the old days, we're just the people that like to fight. So we'd fight during the day because we have passionate opinions about things, and then at the end of the day we'd go have drinks and we'd hug and we'd make up. He said the problem is, is we quit drinking together?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:You can, we'd make up, he said. The problem is, is we quit drinking together?
Speaker 3:oh wow, well, you can take that one a little too. You can look too far. Uh well, I'm irish, so I know exactly what you mean. If you can't tell by my translucent skin and the last name, kelly, I'm irish and so that's my, that's my heritage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah well let's hang there just for a second. We've lost the civility in the marketplace and social media YouTube, I mean, it's not the sole thing to blame, but it's really easy to depersonalize criticism and and that's one of the aims of this podcast is to build civility and understanding and to disagree agreeably and to be able to speak well of those that you have maybe said. You know, you've been in triangles, you've you've sinned against your brother and it's, it's really, really easy to cast stones at people, at institutional leadership. I have to, like you, try to step out of your skin, empathize. So, like I know this is complex, I know there are multiple competing factors and factions that are, you know, trying to tell you to do this or that. So I get it and frankly, I get it to the nth degree, because that's what the local church is Like. There are different opinion leaders and different factions of people who want to bend my ear and the ability that I have to stay emotionally, relationally connected to people that have different opinions, the better. And I don't even like keep your enemies close. They're not my enemies, they're just a kind adversary that has a diverse opinion. Like I have to listen to them. It'd be very unwise for me. I'm going to use the fictitious character, grandma Schmittke. Every church has a Grandma Schmittke. It'd be very bad if Grandma Schmittke became an enemy of me in the ministry here.
Speaker 2:So leading the middle way is well, we're trying this now. We're testing this now Some things are going to stick. There are certain values that you have that we want to honor and cherish and we want to live with respect for the grandma Schmitt keys in our community. But oftentimes it can be that you know the pole. I'll just look at the generations, the generational pole, to stay tethered to the young, right, tethered to the young. If you go far in that direction, that's heresy, right, that's heresy. If you go too far in the Grandma Schmittke direction, that's legalism.
Speaker 2:Jesus helps us walk that middle road where the word is treasured, our traditions are treasured, but we're experiencing that paradigm metanoia shift. Why? For the sake of the mission of God, to seek and save all who are lost today, to keep the main thing, the main thing God's love for me, for the church, most especially for the world, those who are lost. So talk about how repentance. I like the paradigm, I like concentric circles. It's a helpful way you define the heart as this combination in the metanoia journey, a transformation of mind, soul, and will Talk about. Those words get thrown around a lot. I found your definitions really, really helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I find like, when we're transformed, we're a whole person made up of many parts, right, and I think that that's important. We're created in the image of God, um, who is, uh, one being three persons one God and three persons that has multiple like. So, like this, this shouldn't be a surprise to us. And so as God renews us, he can renew every part of us, and I find that when you see yourself, your whole self, it also it becomes a helpful diagnostic on parts of you that may need more addressing transformation than other parts. And so the mind has to do more with truth, more with orthodoxy, more with like, literally being renewed in your thought, and this has to do with learning and unlearning. The soul has more to do with beauty, like if you think, if you think of the transcendentals, right, like the idea of orthopathy and that's this idea of renewal, and like that, that that that is, is, is the beauty of who we are.
Speaker 3:And then the willpower has to do with really orthopraxy, and this is like, has to do with what we do every day, and like how we operate and are we going to be faithful, and when we look at all of them and when all of them are being addressed. Typically, we find people are typically good at one or two but really bad at the other. Right, and they, you know the soul. They might be really passionate people, they may be, they may love to learn and to be good on the mind side, but they have no, you know, willpower. You know they're not consistent and so, like their habits are or it need to be redone, and so so to me and actually that's kind of me, by the way- it was just like I need help.
Speaker 3:I need regular rhythms in my life. We talk about rhythms and algorithms later on in the book, just because those are so formational. Like, if think about it this way, is that like we're all created and every single human being is the image of God. Like we are God's image in the world. Okay, but the movement of our life is being transformed from the Imago Dei into the Imago Christi. Like this is the clear to the image of Christ that could be transformed, to be conformed right Into the image of the sun he loves. Right, this is the what the scriptures say, and so like for that to happen. Like what parts of us are constantly being renewed, and so the idea of the whole person, to be wholehearted, to have our mind, soul and will all transformed, um, uh, is allowing us to become more like Christ, and like this is like the goal. Like even your, your, uh, forget her name the grandma whatever thing is like, what if?
Speaker 4:what God's?
Speaker 3:putting her in your life for your own sanctification right. This idea of, like you know, people and difficult circumstance and structures that are broken, like these, can actually be redeemed when you see them as how you navigate them are conforming, they're part of your own discipleship, they're making you more and more like Jesus, and so to that comes as like understanding self. Right, like this is, you know, it's hard to understand God without understanding self. It's hard to understand self without understanding seeking to understand God, and so it's like this is the idea of trying to understand truly who you are and how you can be more conformed into the image of Jesus daily.
Speaker 2:This is so good, so a little, I have to make a connection point for all of you listening right now. This is why I love competency-based theological education, because everything you just said from the mind what is that? That's content, that's, that's truth. This is how evaluation takes place in competency-based theological education. Shout out to Kairos University and the Luther House of Studies. So content soul is, is your character, the, the passions that are within you being molded more and more into the, your loves, what you worship, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Um, the way you show up and then the will is the doing of the ministry, the habits of the way of Christ, and evaluation takes place in all craft. Uh, content and and character are the three kind of interlocking evaluative tools in that, in that formation. A number of people criticize it, but that is why I love it, because it's very, very holistic. If we miss from a leadership, pastoral perspective, if you miss on character, if you're a bull in a china shop, yeah, game-ending flaw, fatal flaw for you in your leadership. So, anyway, so much fun, we're coming down the homestretch. Last question we got to lean into your specialty, your ministry specialty. Talk about why churches locally, regionally, nationally should care about platforms and scalability. I'll give this in our context Anytime you say leadership, platform, scalability, you're selling out to corporate America, you're selling out church. So help us open up our minds, expand the paradigm shift to see why, well, maybe leaders locally, nationally, regionally should care about platforms and scale.
Speaker 3:Rob, yeah, Sometimes I feel like I get invited to things because like a network platform guy or whatever, and I just would love to go back and say, like, how did Jesus design his church to function? Let's just start there, and what does it look like today versus how he designed it? And what I find helpful is that we can actually learn from adjacent streams and in this case, I really do feel like in like. For instance, technology is a very helpful adjacent stream to see like, what does it look like for how things can operate and live in a democratized, decentralized ecosystem? That is where there's openness and connection. And in the church, we typically see steep hierarchical structures, and so to me, it's like thinking of like, like. I like it to talk a lot about, of like, kingdom or platform paradigm shifts that are really kingdom paradigm shifts. I believe Jesus was the greatest platform architect that ever lived. Actually, because what we see in scripture is like, like in the world today we see more hierarchical institutions, so that from a centralized thing, and think I think Babel, right, we're here. Whereas, how did Jesus design the church? Well, let's look at Pentecost it's decentralized, it's democratized right, it's like it's it's. It's flat, it's, it's held together by DNA it's from, it's the idea of we.
Speaker 3:We design structures that are focused on I hate to say it, but consumerism, when the scripture is all about contribution. A lot of times I'll juxtapose, you know. You think of Philippians 3. Paul uses this crazy language. He says their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame. He uses the organ of the body that consumes to describe the people when Ephesians Paul says but no, we are his workmanship, his poema, created in Christ Jesus to do good work. So it's like how do we design our systems and structures to move people from consumers to contributors? Because we have a consumption mindset. So to me it's like okay, so what did Jesus design it to? Like we, we, we have control structures that are hierarchical. Well, what did he do? He had more influence structures that were about like these are, these are like, so, like how we design. What we do actually matters. And when we look at some of the principles that platform, that govern platforms like, you start realizing that they're actually just reflecting something that Jesus already designed. He was the actual architect of it. They just applied them and made it work in other spheres. So I'm like how can the church actually learn from other spheres to see like that's actually, look, look, look at how well it works when people apply what Jesus designed, you know. And what if we did the same but actually used and powered it by the gospel, the dunamis, the power of God into salvation? It's like this is where things just your mind starts to get blown. And so, like Jesus is designed for, the church is that we would multiply this DNA of of his kingdom everywhere we go. You know that it's.
Speaker 3:It's not just about the local church. Think about this one. It's about what's the most common expression of the church in the new Testament. It's not the local church, it's the city church. Like far and away, you know how many times a local church is named in the new Testament, for Gaius, archipus, nymphus, priscilla and Aquila, the city church, a third of the new Testament's written books, the seven churches in Revelation, the book of Acts, could be renamed, taking the gospel from city to city. Like, really, that's what it is.
Speaker 3:And so it's like how do I think of myself? Not as thinking that my church is the church in the city, but it's one beautiful expression of Christ's church in the city. Now I start seeing myself as part of this broader ecosystem where I don't see myself as being the end, all be all. I see myself as part of a whole and like these design principles and these, the way Jesus designed this church is like that is just straight from the text, like you see, applied outside of the church more effectively than in the church, and it's Jesus's design. So it's like to me, it's like that's where I just I think that it's it's helpful for us to look and it's like what? And if you want to scale something, what are you trying to scale? It's like we're trying to. We use the word, and the technical word is fractalize something. It's taking something that's the same design, but it's the, but it's the same at different scales.
Speaker 3:So it's like what starts in me can turn into a local church, into the city church, into the regional church, to the global church. It's like these are, like we want to take this and multiply it in ways that, if Alan were here, say, the gospel is sneezable, right, it's like you get infected by it and then you sneeze onto someone else and that DNA gets into them and then it infect, affects them and they have to sneeze it as opposed to. You know, build it and they will come, as opposed to hey, just invite your friends, so a professional christian can win them for the gospel. We don't plant churches anymore, we plant pulpits, right? So it's the idea of like what would happen if we took away from just that I became a pastor. This way, say, I became a pastor 22 years ago and if I'm reading Paul right, then that's the day I left the ministry.
Speaker 3:Like, if, that's if, that's if, if I'm just a plain reading of the text, if Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, how am I designing what I lead? To equip them to do the work of true mission ministry, so they would come to the unity of the faith, the full knowledge of the son of God, so they wouldn't be tossed back and forth to and fro by the waves of cunning, deceitful and scheming men, but in all things, speaking the truth in love, they may grow up into him who is the head that is Christ. And like that's ministry. And like are we going to start designing our churches, ministries, mission agencies, organizations that reflect the design that our Lord Jesus set out for us? And so I just think we should be open to learning from streams that have have, quite frankly, done a better job at applying Jesus's principles than we have than we have dude for those in our context, like the lutheran context.
Speaker 4:If you want to understand, like a real example, what I call a church is a platform, right I? I point towards, uh, luther's catechism like his whole purpose is. He said I want to equip families I want to equip parents to teach their kids and I want to equip pastors that wouldn't normally have.
Speaker 4:Like you know, back then seminary wasn't the same, as it is now Like he was appalled by the condition of the theological training of many local pastors, so he wrote the larger catechism for them. So he's like I'm just going to, and his technology was the printing press. This was a brand new thing and he saw the power of it. Let's distribute this. I don't you know, we don't need to create a hierarchy anymore. Let's just distribute this content to people and give it away to them and equip the priesthood of all believers right.
Speaker 2:And get it into people's hands. It is amazing, rob any businesses, business leaders, that you would invite church leaders to just watch with curiosity for this distributed model.
Speaker 3:Man, I think Uber Lots of of platforms, that that you can lead. The greatest platform mind in the world is a man named Sandgeet Paul Chowdhury. Sandgeet wrote the book. He's a Christian. I actually got to spend an afternoon with him last year in Dubai, which was so fun. He his father is a pastor in India and he now travels the world. He wrote the book Platform Revolution and Platform Scale. He wrote Platform Revolution with a couple of MIT profs. It's a fantastic book and what I'll encourage people often to do, and this is a guy that loves Jesus. By the way, he's amazing. It's not a Christian book, but it's an amazing guy and if you read a book like his and look at it through kingdom missiological eyes, your mind, you will experience more metanoia in one book, I'm telling you, it will just blow your mind consistently. And there's I mean there's a lot of great platform thinkers out there that have impacted me, probably no more than Sangeet.
Speaker 2:So good man. This has been so fun. Thank you for blessing us, for entering into and allowing us to just kind of take some excursions to comment on where we find ourselves in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Rob, if you would pray for our church and her leaders, our theology is really great. It's really great because it's I mean, it's rooted in the scriptures and it's tension filled. We got a number of different paradigms that point us to our need for confession, absolution, the Satan center, tension. It's just. There's a lot of parts of us that are just so, so beautiful.
Speaker 2:We're just struggling with collective metanoia right now. Satan is having a heyday and leading us toward prideful, fear-based paths rather than love and humility-centered paths. And that's our prayer today, and may it start with each one of us, day by day, individually, and then change the posture. There's very little I can do ultimately, to change all of that. It's God's work. It's God's work in the height of individual leaders who shape synods and churches and districts, regions, et cetera. So the book is very, very helpful. It's called Metanoia how God Radically Transforms People, churches, organizations from the Inside Out. Alan Hirsch and the one and only Rob Kelly If you want to connect with you, rob. How can they do so, brother, you and your ministry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, City leaders collective dot org with a lot of city movements globally to that really focus on the unity of the church in seeking the Shalom of the city together. And so if you, if you want to connect kind of with what we're doing there, city leaders collectiveorg.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Sharing is caring. Like, subscribe, comment. If you've not gotten over to YouTube, check out the comments there. Well, maybe you don't want to check out comments from time to time on our podcast. There shouldn't be much that's negative on this one, though. Very, very Jesus-centered. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be seated above where Christ is and recognize your primary identity in Him. Thanks so much, rob. Thanks Jack.
Speaker 1:God bless. You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective in him. Thanks so much, rob. Thanks Jack, god bless channel. Then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.