Confronting Scandalous Leadership with JR Woodward

Join us as we welcome our distinguished guest, JR Woodward, the author behind "The Scandal of Leadership". In this episode, we navigate the maze of issues surrounding domineering leadership in the Church, a problem JR insists needs immediate attention. We discuss how these leadership styles align with worldly powers, in stark contrast to Christ's submission to God.

With the Church hemorrhaging from leadership scandals, we discuss the importance of understanding the root cause instead of dismissing these incidents as bad apples. JR shares how his book, "The Scandal of Leadership," explores systemic issues of domineering leadership, in which mimetic desires and rivalry become obstacles to Godly humility.
 
This episode is for anyone who feels dismayed by the predictability of church scandals! Those seeking hope for the church's future will benefit from JR's discerning robust theological work.

The solution, as JR Woodward put it so eloquently, lies in humble obedience and imitation of Christ. As the church embarks on this canonic journey, it holds the promise of reformation and growth, leading us closer to the non-rivalous Father and fostering a healthier leadership model.

We're so thankful for JR Woodward!
Check him out on https://jrwoodward.com/

You can purchase The Scandal of Leadership on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Scandal-Leadership-Unmasking-Powers-Domination-ebook/dp/B0C356M3YT/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MKNLZQA7JA68&keywords=the+scandal+of+leadership+jr+woodward&qid=1698447080&sprefix=the+scandal+of+leadership+%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-1

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

You're listening to the Reconstructing Pastors podcast. I'm Ruth Lawrenson.

Speaker 2: 0:11

And I'm Kirk Romberg. We're recovering pastors talking about what it looks like to make sense of our calling and community expression on the other side of deconstruction.

Speaker 1: 0:22

Our hope is to create a safe space to explore the bigger picture of the church, both the present state of the American evangelical church and what the future may hold for those who are searching for a better way.

Speaker 2: 0:35

We're really glad you're here. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:40

We are so excited to be doing this episode of the Reconstructing Pastors podcast, kirk, because today we've got a very special guest that we're super excited about having in this space, jr Woodward, who is a catalyst. He's an author, teacher, he co-founded the Misiola Alliance, you're also a national director for the V3 church planting movement and you've just brought this incredible book out called the Scandal of Leadership, and we really want to spend some time talking about that. But first, jr, we just want to say thank you for being so kind. We know you're really busy and you've decided to spend this next hour with these two random recovering pastors to talk about your book, so thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3: 1:29

Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you guys.

Speaker 2: 1:31

When Ruth first brought your book to my attention I think it was shortly after it came out I was immediately interested, obviously because the subject matter is so relevant and is addressing a problem that is probably one of the most publicized, internationally publicized problems that the church is facing. It's not the only one, obviously, but it certainly is a big one and you don't just address it from a surface level, but it really seems you get to the root. In fact I think you even use that language in the book as getting to the root. But one of my curiosities as I was reading through your book was wondering if, for those who aren't familiar with your book or haven't had a chance to read it yet, I'm wondering if you could just kind of kick us off a little bit by telling us what is domineering leadership and why is it a problem that needs to be addressed.

Speaker 3: 2:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I would kind of define domineering leadership as kind of this command and control approach to leadership, which kind of can involve bullying, coercion, manipulation, the desire to be first, maybe using one's own status to push an agenda, and a sense of self-importance. And I think it exists because leaders, either unknowingly or knowingly, imitate the principalities and powers, and submission to Satan instead of imitating Christ and submission to his father. And so, in a lot of ways, when we don't take the temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness as both are typical and meaningful we are likely to fall captive to the domination system and therefore become domineering leaders, which is kind of why, in the words of Wink, we need to kind of name, unmask and engage the powers, because the powers ultimately shape the social and personal. So if we only hit it from a psychological or sociological viewpoint, we're not going to get to the heart of the problem.

Speaker 1: 3:36

When I spotted the fact that your book was out, I remember thinking, like you know, there's a number of big cases, right of people, of scandals right now and even in just very recent times we've seen that and I remember just observing some of those cases.

Speaker 1: 3:57

There was one very recent in the UK that came out, but anyone in the UK understanding what happened with Mike Palomavacci was really difficult to go through and but I remember some of the response from that particular incident that's still unfolding actually, and the response from a lot of prominent Christian leaders was that that's awful. But you know, there's just one bad apple and I remember that being around kind of Instagram and Twitter and all the rest of it. And I think the thing that was very appealing to me about the scandal of leadership was it was. It was it was like actually no hang on a minute. This isn't about one bad apple, this isn't just a random thing. There is a, there's a system, systematic issue here and that's a cause of domineering leadership. So I'm just curious if you can talk to what led you as you studied for this book, what led you to that approach? What were some of the things that led you to that space?

Speaker 3: 4:59

Yeah, so really kind of initially, what in? The reason why I kind of focused in and studied on this is probably back in, you know, just before 2000. So the end of the 1990s this has been a book in me for a while that probably just comes out a particular cultural moment. But within our larger organization it feels like the when when the leader became the top leader, president or whatever. It seemed like there was a good leader that became just a little less good as a result.

Speaker 3: 5:32

And I was asked one time to speak to to the Pastors Gathering, which I did quite often, but they were asking me to speak on spiritual warfare and and I. That was really where I started to link domineering leadership and that problem with kind of understanding the powers. It was. It was somewhat, you know, just serendipitous moment and from that point I realized I needed to focus on this more. So that's that's where I eventually kind of worked a PhD on it. Because I did, I needed something to kind of scream at me to say invest in this, focus on this a little bit more to good understanding. So that's a little bit of the beginning of that.

Speaker 2: 6:20

I appreciate your holding the tension between what's happening in the culture and what's happening in your media context and your sensitivity.

Speaker 2: 6:32

It seems like in following the Holy Spirit, even in pursuing a PhD candidacy, in your work, which, which is fascinating, at some point in the, the early part of the book, you, you, you give a an analogy that I found to be very helpful for the entire work by maybe, maybe a loose comparison between domineering leadership and the Lord of the Rings and the idea that the Ring of Power was this enticement, this temptation that you know, if I just put this on, then you know everything is going to go the way that I want. It's going to be, you know, cleaner, more efficient, more productive for me to reach my ends through these means, and I'm guessing that's probably not the thought process of someone who is moving into a position of power, but I'm guessing that there is some, some morphing that takes place in the heart and I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit more. You referred to it a moment ago, but, but at some point you talk about memetic theory, which was fascinating to me, by the way, and the idea of memetic theory not just being the example outwardly portrayed, but the idea of mimicking desires. And then you connect the dots between memetic theory and the powers and church leadership, which which combines to create a system of dominance. And I'm reading that and I'm thinking how did he, how did you connect these dots?

Speaker 2: 8:14

At what point? Was it? One light bulb moment Was it? Did it? Did this idea just kind of evolve slowly or through interactions with people? I mean, it's a brilliant connection of dots that I find to be super helpful and enlightening and I'm just wondering how did that?

Speaker 2: 8:28

begin to emerge for you.

Speaker 3: 8:31

Yeah, yeah, you know so the the initial time when I was speaking on the spiritual warfare, that's really where I kind of connected with Wink and Wink kind of gave me really a, you know, a new perspective at that time.

Speaker 3: 8:45

And then, you know, I had always heard a lot about Gerard from all different angles and it was probably more as I started my PhD that I started reading him.

Speaker 3: 8:59

But what I think, before Gerard, I, you know, I read the kind of like James K Smith on Desiring the Kingdom and there was this kind I would say it's a journey as I look back, you know, seeing the, the importance of desire, you know you got Sarah Coakley who also speaks highly of the importance of desire in her work. And so when I, yeah, when I started the read Gerard deeper, it just really grabbed me and and and, for the fact that this whole memetic cycle that I can, you know, I can give you a little bit more detail on for Gerard is kind of the deconstruction of Satan. Well, that, you know, that was kind of the thing that really pulled them together, because you could say that Gerard's work is really kind of all all about Satan, because it's all about the memetic cycle and his understanding of Satan, who's been the murder from the foundation of the world. That was a little the journey, the journey I can. I'd be glad to kind of get into memetic theory a little bit, if that's helpful.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Yes, please do Give us some. Give us some examples so that we can kind of access it.

Speaker 3: 10:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, gerard, he discovered Gerard met Exire really by looking at some of the best novelists, and so his first book, in the French title, was the romantic lie. And the novelistic truth and, and and what he was saying is, like the romantic lie is that we generate our own desires. So if you want to kind of put it like on a straight line, you, you know, there's the person, the object of their desire, and there's just a straight line. And what he found in the best novelist, what was most common with them, and it was usually at some point in their life they became a great novelist, not the, not all of their work, but he kind of studies both the, the, the life and the work of the various people. He engages five different novelists in that first book and what he realized is what's common with all of them is desire is not self-generated. But the novelistic truth is that we desire the desires of our models and so whoever we look up to, we, we imitate their desire, and so that's what memetic desire is, which is kind of foundational To his whole project. You know he wrote over 20 books, scores of articles. There's really three Basic themes that it come. You know it can be really simple. There's the memetic desire to scapegoat mechanism and the uniqueness of the Bible. All of his work just goes to the greater depths, to those kind of simple truths.

Speaker 3: 11:49

So memetic desire, like you could kind of I Mean again, it's something that happens subconsciously. Think about. You got Madison Avenue, what. What does what does it operate off of? You know it's kind of we're desiring the desires of whoever is in the Advertisement right, they're trying to create those to be our heroes in some way. They're, they're, they're sharing some type of life. Usually advertising is not super direct. Now right, it's kind of indirect and you could say the market, most everything in life. If you kind of look at internationally right now, you know, think about the China and US, you know a lot of things are kind of still those are the two big countries behind a lot of. You know the current wars and rumors of wars and you know there's this memetic desire to be number one, if you will, from a nation-state standpoint. So you see it everywhere.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Yeah, I think one of the things that I was struck by was that this is a mimicking of desires, not just behavior, and, as just you know someone who's like a general reader here, that was like a little bit of an our home, our harm moment of like oh, hang on a minute. Actually our desires gets changed or Distort or can become distorted, because actually I think what's hard when it comes down to the Scandals of Christian leadership is that most people, I'm sure, don't start out that way. You know there's, there's something that happens in the course of that Trajectory, and so when you mention the fact that actually we can mimic desires, I think that that for me was like ah, okay, I can see how that very slowly and surely, our desires can become corrupted or aligned with Desires that are not the desires of Christ. Is that? Is that a good Representation of what you said?

Speaker 3: 13:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and maybe a way to kind of think about.

Speaker 3: 13:57

Let's just say that the three of us were part of a congregation. We weren't the lead pastor, but maybe we're on staff, right, and let's say the lead pastor Wants to be the lead pastor, desires that title, not necessarily the work of, but just the title. If we happen to look up to them Subconsciously, we will also desire to be the lead pastor. Now, in this case, if, when somebody, when the model, has a desire that they're, they either can't share like a spouse or won't share like a position, this will create mimetic rivalry, right and so Because now there they become an obstacle, literally, to us getting the very desire that they gave us. Does that make sense? And so rivalry. All the sudden we become an antagonistic toward them, we don't even know why, and they sense that and they desire the say, in this case the title, even more. And so this, when, and let's say there's three of us, they're all kind of desiring now the same thing, the this Gerard kind of basically points out how that that is the scandal. The scandal is literally means an obstacle. So in this case, the lead pastor become an obstacle to each of us getting the very desire that they gave us.

Speaker 3: 15:21

So as these scandals multiply in a congregation, it eventually leads from a medic rivalry to a mimetic crisis, and the way that the human societies has resolved that in particular is your arch kind of looks, studies, anthropology, mythology, and so ancient societies, you know, prior to there even being a judicial system, the way that they would resolve this crisis is that the all against all became the all against the one. Mimetically, they landed on a scapegoat and they killed them and this created a temporary tranquility. It basically it was a cathartic release of the violence that was building in the community. And and then Gerard would say, you know, eventually, you know rituals and and Even the law was kind of built to hinder, you know, this mimetic rivalry from happening, and so, or the in the case of the rituals, it was to reenacting through rituals. You know this kind of cathartic experience until it didn't work anymore, in the process repeated itself.

Speaker 3: 16:31

And I think today we don't necessarily kill people, but we probably just as much do because we kind of kill them in our mind and Jesus kind of equates that with murder as well. So we just, you know, and you kind of see this with Mark Driscoll, right like his. He's kind of captivated by himself. He kind of says I am the brand and and Along the way, a lot of people get scapegoated when they are really trying to disrupt that whole system. And he talks about proudly how he kind of throws people off the bus, runs them over, and Probably about this big pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Well, he's kind of to me very clearly talking about scapegoating people and he does, you know, and he did that because that's what A very unhealthy desire leads to and I think, if I can just interject there, one of the things for me, jr, when I you know I think the whole of the Christian nation Listen to the rise and fall of Mars Hill and most of us did, and it was incredibly, it was incredibly pivotal for me I was in pastoral ministry at the time but I think one of the things and in its, I mean, you know, there's obviously giant church and big personality and it's almost like again this like one bad Apple approach, but I remember listening to that and thinking, actually the same things happen on smaller levels all around the country in some of these spaces, because they're we've almost mimicked Mars Hill, but on smaller levels, and so it's.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Maybe it's not, maybe it's wrapped in different packaging, or you know, there's some nicer personalities in the mix. But actually me and Kirk right now we're working with pastors all over the US who are in that Reconstructing space and a lot of them feel like they have been scapegoated, or you know that there's this kind of cost, there's this, this price that those systems Pay, and often it's people, often it is that trail of dead bodies that have left, and I would, I would argue that that happens far more on a local level than we'd like to. That we don't. We don't see those things as much as as the big Scandals that like like Mark. So yeah, what? What do you think about that?

Speaker 3: 19:00

I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think what you know, the whole memetic cycle for Gerard is Satan. So think about Satan is the God of this world. When you kind of have a Theology of the powers, you kind of realize they operate at this kind of mythological space which shapes the social and the personal. None of us are kind of outside of the influence of the powers. None of us are outside the influence of kind of this Negative memesis. It's a part of what it means to be human. We're captive to imitation and and we don't always know and understand maybe how are Even I was talking to a guy recently who you know he asked he's preparing his dissertation, kind of writing the last few chapters on shared leadership, which I think is a super good thing, and and he kind of what about a person who's in the church?

Speaker 3: 20:00

And? But they don't necessarily look up to their pastor as a model, as if that somehow keeps them from absorbing the potential of the desires that they have. I think that what I kind of said is like, even if somebody doesn't like their model, they're influenced by them, by pure position and and and Subconsciously none of us want to usually admit to the fact that our desires are mimic from others, that that would be a big discovery, and it would be Somewhat of a humble stance to recognize that I'm ultimately shaped by other people's desires. I am not an island, I am. My identity is socially constructed through the lives of those that are closely, most closely, around me, and so none of us can leave that space. In fact, I would say that the group that we choose to be a part of most closely not only shapes our desires, but our rationality, what we can believe and not believe, our kind of plausibility structure of what we think about reality in the world.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I mean, it really is fascinating because I think we all like to think, and myself included, that no, I am the captain of my ship, I am the master of my own desires, and yet Jesus has cleared that the wheat and weeds grow together, that, yes, I've got some pure desires. But you know, I'm deceiving myself to think that there aren't some impure desires at work at the same time, and awareness of that is probably a really good friend to me and I could probably stand to be more aware of that and how impacted we are by the desires of those around us, how much more so in a culture like an organizational culture where desire gets mimicked. And I think it's fascinating to consider the fact that I think you mentioned at some point in your book that a leader ultimately has two choices that we either intentionally mimic the self-empting ways of Christ, which include his desires, not just the outward actions but what's going on in the heart, or by default it's not like you know we accidentally will stumble into mimicking the desires of the powers which are ultimately destructive and dehumanizing, which we see outwardly in, at least in the evangelical church, with. I imagine that has a maybe not the only reason, but a good percentage of the reason has to do.

Speaker 2: 22:47

You know that affects 40 million people leaving the evangelical church over the last 20 years and a lot of that maybe not all of it is maybe connects back to this domineering, you know, command control model which ultimately is dehumanizing and people look for value worth, life and other sources than maybe the institutional church. So you talk about that and you go a little bit deeper into how those desires of the powers tempt us to subvert our leadership. Of three contours of leadership, you talk about identity and praxis and talos, and I think you connect the dots to Jesus' temptation experience in the wilderness. So I've just covered a lot of ground there and I'm wondering if you can lock onto a part of that.

Speaker 3: 23:44

Yeah, yeah, and you know the way I put that is, we're captive to imitation, and this is true for every human being on the earth. So if we don't imitate Christ, we will ultimately imitate the powers. Maybe a way to concretely bring in how the powers seek to subvert us, stringfellow kind of talks about image, institution and ideology, as you know, trying to subvert our leadership. Or I tie his ideas and principalities to the identity, praxis and talos of the leader. But image is kind of this idea. We're all accompanied by an image, and Stringfellow gives the example of. There's Marilyn Monroe, the person, marilyn Monroe the image. There's two distinct identities claiming the same name. And so while Marilyn Monroe the person is long dead, her image is probably more alive today than ever. And so public image is a principality, that in that, while it bears one's name, it exists independent of the person, and our public image lies beyond our control and is in conflict with us until we give our selves over to the image. So the principality of image, like any principality, desires full devotion. It seeks to possess us instead of us possessing our image in God. You can kind of see with Drisco, for example, when the Marcel paid $210,000 to result to this firm that basically gets your book on the best seller list, because it's not about how many books you buy, but they have to be bought from every different part of the country to get on the best seller list. But then you have institutions, which they seek our ultimate allegiance right From everybody that lives in its domain. And so the dangers of institutions, where we all tend to work, is that when it exists for itself or its own survival, Stringfellow said it becomes demonic and it seeks all who live under its domain to surrender their lives so that the institution lives on, and while promising benefits, it leads to bondage. And then ideology, which is probably the most recognizable principality today, the many isms that take people, and sometimes whole groups of people captive. But you have communism, fascism, racism, nazism, nationalism, but you also have humanism, capitalism and rationalism. And what's interesting is, mature ideologies have really developed their own sociology, their accounts of sin and redemption, as well as their own eschatology. And ideologies claim sovereignty, and so you can apply those to Margriskell, to Arlize.

Speaker 3: 26:27

These are concrete ways, and I do tie these to the three temptations, which I think are typical. We could talk about how they're tied to there, but essentially you could say this our deepest temptation. You find it at the end of the Lord's Prayer. You know the Lord's Prayer is like lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one or the evil. And then, after that, what does it say? You know, for thine is a kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen. I think our deepest temptation is to seek our own glory or, excuse me, to build our own kingdoms by our own power, for our own glory, and in a lot of ways that would be one way. I would sum up the temptations as well.

Speaker 1: 27:12

That's fascinating. I just, you know I'm applying this to all of so much stuff right now in my own experience of church, but I think you know, thinking about the, especially the evangelical church in America, you know, when you're talking about these principalities of image, institution, ideology, it seems to me that is pretty rife, you know there's there's some strong elements of those things. You know, even when you think of, like you look on Instagram on Sundays and it's full of lead pastor preaching or the worship leader, I mean that's pretty much boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's what I say on Sundays and I guess it's like, well, we've got to get in the game to. You know that's as part of our world.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And I guess what I'm asking JR is like, how do we learn from this in the, in the leadership right now for the evangelical church? What are what, what are some of the lessons? Because how do we apply this stuff so that we can see some change? Because we are seeing scandals left, right and center. So we all know that this is an issue now and I think that I think a lot of people are giving up on it. But is there hope? Is there a way? Is there a way of changing, and what does that look like?

Speaker 3: 28:36

Yeah, yeah, so you know, in the book I take nine chapters to really diagnose the problem because I think if we don't have a proper diagnosis it's hard to have a robust remedy. But as I go into the remedy, one of the things I do in the last two chapters which I think are really the best chapters in the book but could only be understood if you have the knowledge ahead of time is I look at the book of Philippians through a Zyardian lens, because I do think that what we see happening in Flip-Eye is kind of what we see happening in any church. That's kind of where division and kind of some leadership rivalry is kind of cultivating an unhealthy space. And so when and here's kind of my, you know again it was kind of fascinating to build this study, this book, more through with with a Zyardian kind of a medic theory in mind. Right, I think what's important to understand with Flip-Eye which is also true for our context but what people wanted more than anything was honor and prestige. They wanted honor for them and their household. If you had money, you used it to purchase honor for you and your household. It was a very stratified culture. There was a big gulf between the elite and non-elite. That couldn't be bridged, but you could move up the social ladder within those spaces. And so archaeologists have found over 7,000 inscriptions that were purchased to give a person and their household honor right, and those inscriptions had a pattern they always started with the ascribed or inherited honor and then they moved to their achieved honor. So this is important to remember because when we're, what we're talking about, I think, is how we construct our sense of self, our identity, and I think keep in mind that our identity is foundation to our practice. Our identity and telas will, in my understanding, determine our practice or how we use power.

Speaker 3: 30:36

And so if you look at the book of Philippians, it's a book where Paul's he's addressing many things, but one of the important things is this division that has developed within the congregation. Most commentators rightly put a heavy weight for this division on the leaders of the church who were battling with each other. Yudia and Sintika were leaders in the church of flip I, likely co-founders of the church with Paul, and so this conflict and rivalry that they were having, like any leadership conflict, created division and rivalry in the church. And so we're we're not given kind of the nature of their conflict, but I kind of. I kind of presume that it's memetic rivalry, maybe a very innocent rivalry.

Speaker 3: 31:18

These were, you know, women, but that Paul appreciated right, and it's very rare that he names people he appreciates for some type of you know Negative things. So let's just say that you do it, wants to be the best leader. Nothing seemingly wrong with that desire. But then imagine that Sintika subconsciously imitates this idea of wanting to be the best leader, and so such desires often happen without our awareness. So Sintika does nigh's her imitation of Yudia, but as she desires to be the best, yudia in turn Desires to be the best even more, and there's a snowball effect that takes place as they enter into this memetic rivalry with each other and Then through their mutual imitation, each one believing their desire to be unique. So I think the paradox that starts to occur when two people become rivals is that the object of their desire in this case let's just say to be the best leader Disappears and they become memetic doubles where they're both repelled by each other and attracted to each other at the same time. And so maybe one of the reasons Paul doesn't point out the details of their conflict is because when people enter memetic rivalry, the object of rivalry disappears and the focus becomes on being the very being of the other person. In other words, they desire to be the other person.

Speaker 3: 32:42

And so when Paul is addressing Yudia and Sintika which, by the way, were again his friends and correcting them in tire, the whole kind, in front of the whole tire congregation, this letter he says I plead with you, yudia, I plead with you, sintika, to be of the same mind in the Lord.

Speaker 3: 33:02

And what happens when we get in memetic rivalry that George talks about, is we become memetic doubles of each other. And so I think the Paul's first task is to actually separate them by naming them individually. And then he points them to Different models. You could say that the whole book of Philippians in my Jardin reading is about positive and negative models. Paul is wanting them to get their eyes off each other and put them on the positive models and be aware of negative models. He first gives them the ultimate model, jesus Christ, then he gives Timothy as a model, then a Papaditis, and then he talks about the negative model of the Judaizers who were trying to use their circumcision to exclude others. And then Paul gives himself as a model. I'll kind of stop there. That's a lot to digest.

Speaker 2: 33:47

And it's fascinating as well, and, as I'm listening to that, it's not, it's not too difficult to you know, connect the dots to today and environments that I've been in over the course of However many number of years that have been in pastoral ministry, and it's also not hard for me to connect the dots to myself. So, which is the humbling part of reading your book I can't just read it and say, wow, this is about so-and-so. It's a book about me. It's a book about how I'm hardwired and what my pitfalls are and, consequently, what my correctives need to be. Which, which you say in, you know, in what you call the best part of your book, you know, but you have to do all of the legwork to get there is talking about the canodic way of Jesus, the self-emptying way of Christ, and I got to admit.

Speaker 2: 34:44

Obviously you know this is not a that's a new idea, and yet it's not a new idea. Obviously Paul introduced it. When I was a younger believer, we talked about being Christ-like, but I think the idea of being canodic or self-emptying really gets to the heart of what it is to be like Jesus. It's not just to be nice or kind or serving those. Those are manifestations of the self-emptying way of Christ. But what is it? What would it look like for me as a leader To actually, in a practical sense, follow the the way of Christ in my desires, and what would that look like outwardly, in practice?

Speaker 3: 35:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you know there's so many books that you know and, like said, none of us are unaware, necessarily, of Philippians too. I do think that, like that, this particular reading and getting concrete on what it means, this canodic journey, is important, and I do. I I, while not kind of entering into the all the academic arguments of the book, I obviously take a stand by the my own interpret you know the way kind of interpreting this. But you know, we're kind of given Jesus as this model, right, like he, even though he was God, he didn't reckon it to be, you know, he didn't use it to his own advantage, right, he became a person and so this kind of, in fact that not only became a person but he became a slave. So he, he's particularly Talking about like this kind of social space, right, this class, and in fact it says I became nothing. Now, when I kind of think about that, what does it mean? And what's Paul? You know, what does it mean when Jesus became nothing and then God made him something? Are we supposed to be nothing? But I think, when I normally think about that, does that mean like I have no sense of values, no sense of worth? I don't. I don't think it's saying that because Jesus, in his Right, before he went to the temptations right and to the wilderness, we see the baptism and the father saying this is my son and whom I'm well pleased.

Speaker 3: 37:02

Jesus found his sense of identity, his full sense of, and the way he was constructing his sense of self was ultimately Through his father, and that was what was uppermost in his mind I and so he could, with that kind of understanding of the love and security and the approval of his father, he could become the lowest in society. You know what the world kind of creates as this lowest in society become nothing. Because inevitably, like how society determines what's great and not great, meant nothing to him, and so he had to let go. I think of, like all of the social pressures of growing up in a Jewish context, of what's honorable, what's dishonorable. He had to let go of that and to hold on to Christ, and so he not only did he kind of not refuse to exploit his status as God, he regularly emptied himself, letting go of trying to construct an identity in the way of the world, but there was this revolutionary humble obedience where, even to the point of death, and death on the cross, he was able to follow the Father. And so it's not just about, like, washing the disciples feet, which he was easy able to do, which, by the way, like, if we can't do that type of you know work in some way, that's you know, relatable for today, then that probably shows that we still have a high view of ourselves. Being emptying ourselves is different than the opposite would be full of ourselves, right, having a sense of self importance where we exalt ourselves above the other, based on our ascribed or achieved status.

Speaker 3: 38:49

And the way that I think this, this kind of interpretation, makes sense is because, ultimately, I see Paul doing this as he's kind of describing his own conodic journey. We see this when he's giving his autobiography in chapter three, you know, to the Judaizers he says, well, hey, I was circumcised on the eighth day, I'm the part of the tribe of Benjamin. He starts with his ascribed honor, those honors that he was born with, and then he kind of moves to his earned honor. Right, his achieved honor, you know, as a result of the law, is faultless. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. As with the church, I persecuted it, but this is a way he gained his, his sense of identity in the Jewish culture that really made him a hero, right? These are all the details. He's ascribed and achieved honors, and what does he say? I consider all of that garbage. I consider that like nothing compared to knowing Christ, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.

Speaker 3: 39:56

And I think we see here is that Paul has is saying I am trying to reconstruct my identity in a totally different way and it's nothing like I grew up with. It's nothing like like that. You know whether it's a culture of large or the Christian culture. Now you know who we honor and how we honor who we honor. It's a totally different system and it is quite a job to live in that different domain. But that's what we're called to. So I just think that a big part of this canotic journey is a radically different way of self, of kind of constructing our sense of identity. And it starts with, you know, the very, the very words that he gave the union, sintika's leaders, to have the same mind of Christ is this way he starts the passage in Philippians 2. And so maybe a very practical way for us to live. And, by the way, I don't think this is something that can be done individually because, again, we're all shaped socially and so he's speaking to the whole community.

Speaker 3: 41:01

You know to consider others more important than yourself. That might be a good place to start. You know to celebrate others when we want to be celebrated, to encourage others when we might want to be the one that courage. In fact, you know you could say the whole golden rule. You know love others. You know do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think most of us, if we think about what we would want somebody to do to us and we do that to them, that's probably a great start. And if you do that as a community, I think there's some hope to becoming the people of God that are not divided and torn up by envy, which is a root sin, but we are able, with the mind of Christ, to really kind of imitate Christ. And, by the way, as we imitate Christ, we'll fall in love with the non-rivalous Father as well.

Speaker 1: 42:02

I love that and I'm just curious. I have a curious question here because I know that what you've just presented to us is this way towards the way of Jesus, to walking in a way where we regard ourselves as nothing. So it's very different from you know the ways of those powers. But I'm just curious, jr, about how I might be rewinding here a little bit in terms of getting back to the problem. But I'm wondering about how much of this is the system of church where we've got a lead pastor model, we've got celebrity culture, we've got all of these things.

Speaker 1: 42:48

I remember, you know, like in England back in the day, to go into the priestly ministry you took a vow of poverty, I mean, it was really about that. But now you kind of you've got young people who were going into ministry and they think their imagination is like oh, I get to go around conferences and fly around and have this nice little bubble. If I can make it, if I can make it as a leader in the Christian, maybe I can have a book out, maybe I can do this and maybe and I'm not saying that all of those things are necessarily wrong but I'm curious about how much our system almost doesn't give us much of a chance for that kinetic journey. You know Like how much of it is so stacked against us when we have these models and systems where in some ways it's like, without some of those structures coming down, those systems coming down, do we really have a chance to kind of go against that? I'm just curious what you have to say there.

Speaker 3: 43:50

Yeah, no, and now I appreciate that question and I think you can only have that question if you understand how bad it is right. And it's not just bad for the church, it's bad for the world. The church exists for the sake of the world, but I think if we cannot figure out as a church, as a people of God, with the Spirit, with the guidance of the Scripture, then the world doesn't have much hope. So, number one, I think we need to find it and figure a way out and I would say, just like there's always been a remnant, that we're able to stay faithful, right and remember who was it? Like Elijah, or which one of the prophets where he felt all alone, like nobody is kind of standing for God except for me, and he's reminded that there is this kind of remnant and I think it starts with a few people. You just need a small number of people, even understanding that we might mimic each other's desire. We really want to follow Christ.

Speaker 3: 45:00

I think we have the talents, the current status quo of the church that we've inherited. I can talk about probably where and how, but I think both in the way we approach leadership. I'm a big proponent of polycentric leadership or shared leadership and, I think, the methodology of what it means to be the church. I think we need to move discipleship from the peripheral to the center and that means there's different structures. A lot of our training at B3 is just a whole other way to be the church and I think we have to look at the message. So the message of messengers and the method, I think all need to be challenged in our current space and even that again doesn't guarantee anything. But I do feel I do have a hope, knowing that it's possible, but it's going to be super difficult.

Speaker 2: 45:55

So I appreciate even just listening to how you're responding to Ruth's question with just a real level of depth in your thought process, which I feel like we can. If you had the time, you would keep going in answering that question, knowing that this is a multi-layered, multi-tiered, complex problem and that our current model of the prevailing model of church, if you will, and leadership is not presently disposed to the self-emptying way of Christ and it takes maybe a complete, as you say, naming of and then redirecting of a different model that encourages not self-promotion but the promotion of Jesus and the service of others and a better, healthier way of the heart that trickles down to the desires of other people. So I love the word hope. I think what Jesus always offers is hope. That clearly I also hear work and intentionality that we don't just launch out, start a church and mimic, to use your word, what we have seen before, but intentionally doing something different at the core. That our practices on the outside need to begin with a strong theological base, which I feel like a lot in the modern church. We just start with what we're doing and maybe we work backward to a theology that supports what we're doing.

Speaker 2: 47:38

When I read your book I hear let's start with theology and work our way forward to practice, which sounds hard, but it also sounds. It rings true, it lands well on the heart. Let's start with a well-founded theology of the heart of God for the world and for people and work our way out to what that looks like in practice and community. It's super refreshing. My mind goes to the person who might be sitting on a church staff somewhere. They're hearing this conversation, they're reading your book, they're connecting to the dots to command, control, leadership and might feel powerless to do anything about that. What word of encouragement would you give to that person? Or maybe you already have, in multiple settings, given that word of encouragement to people.

Speaker 3: 48:28

Yeah, I do think it's important to understand the things we've been talking about with a greater depth.

Speaker 3: 48:37

I do encourage people to really read through the book, maybe together with a community within the community that they're a part of, because I think we have to build a name and unmask what's happening in order to engage.

Speaker 3: 48:54

By the way, I should have been finished with this already, but kind of like a book club guide that will not only kind of say how to have a good book club but also provide some potential questions that could be used in dialogue and also willing to kind of jump in in a Zoom way near the end if we can find a common time that meets. Again, I would say that it's not an individualistic journey, it's a communal one. We have to, number one, find good models ourselves, whether both distant and local, because we're ultimately going to become like the people that we're closest to. We have to really need a community of people that we're willing to take this kinetic journey with us so that we can figure out ways where we can communally imitate Christ together. That can happen within a congregation, it can happen in a church plant, but I think fundamentally we have to know how the powers operate, so that if we can't name them well then we're not going to unmask them and engage them.

Speaker 1: 50:12

Yeah, I love that, JR. Thank you for sharing that. As we're wrapping up, I just want to ask how long has the book been out for now?

Speaker 3: 50:24

I guess close to six months, maybe six months, yeah, close to now.

Speaker 1: 50:34

You've already shared that this is a developing space, so there's going to be some more resources there for church staff teams, for leaders. We, as myself and Kirk, we just want to speak to our listeners right now and just say we highly recommend this book. We feel like this is. There's a lot of books out there and I always appreciate people who spend the time writing, but I think this seems like just such. I mean, obviously it's just thoroughly researched, but it's at a pivotal time, I think, for us in history. We just want to encourage our listeners to go out and get it. I love the idea of reading it together in a team. I think that that could be so useful, so helpful. Jr, we just want to thank you for being with us. It's been a rich, rich conversation. Thank you for your time and we will keep tracking with you.

Speaker 3: 51:31

All right, thank you. I appreciate being able to hang with you guys. I appreciate what you're doing here with this podcast as well.

Speaker 1: 51:40

Thanks for listening to the Reconstructing Pastors podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review.

Speaker 2: 51:54

If you're interested in leaning into this conversation further, we'd love for you to be a part of a special online community coaching space called Reconstructing Pastors Cohort. For details, visit our website at bridgeandrinocom. See you at the next episode.