The Church Reimagined: Remembering Our Missional Roots with Rowland Smith

Are you ready to redefine your understanding of church and ministry? We bring you an intriguing conversation with Rowland Smith, National Director for Forge America, Director of Pando Collective. We delve into Rowland’s fascinating journey from a musical background, sought after worship leader to a seasoned voice and teacher in missiology and fresh expressions of the church.

This episode presents a thought-provoking discussion on the need to rethink our understanding of success in ministry and the importance of staying true to our calling. Rowland reminds us that in reimagining the church, we must remember who we are as missional people as part of this journey. It's as much about returning to something old as finding something new.

We’re so grateful to Rowland Smith! We'd love you to check out more about him, his ministry, books and more.
https://www.forgeamerica.com/
https://thepandocollective.com/

Chapters

• 0:07 Transition to a New Expression of Ministry
• 11:48 Navigating the Journey of Pastoral Ministry
• 20:31 The Shifting Landscape of the Church
• 32:59 Church Reform
• 45:51 Pando Collective

Transcript

Ruth Lorensson: 0:07

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

Kirk Romberg: 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.

Ruth Lorensson: 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.

Kirk Romberg: 0:35

We're really glad you're here. Let's get started. Well, hey, ruth, I am excited about our guest today, roland Smith. I'll tell you how we got connected really quickly. I was, for some reason, I woke up with some thoughts early in the morning and I was lying in bed surfing the internet for discovering whether or not Forge had an expression in America. And I found Forge America. And then I clicked a little bit more and is there something in Colorado? And I found Pando Collective. And I found Roland Smith. I sent an email hey, would love to grab some coffee. And I was super excited to get an email very quickly back. And so Roland and I grabbed coffee several months ago.

Kirk Romberg: 1:24

I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and wanted to bring that conversation a little bit into this space. So, for our listeners, if you don't know Roland Smith, roland Smith is the National Director for Forge America, also the director for Pando Collective. He's an adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary. He has a master's program that he leads on Missiology, working on a doctoral program as well, and I just learned a few minutes ago that he is also working on a partnership with Denver Seminary on a degree in Missiology. So I feel super pumped about that and in addition to that I don't know where he has the time he also is a missional pastor of the church in Colorado Springs, helping, if I understand right and maybe, roland, you can correct me a little bit later on lead the church through transitioning from to a new expression in their community, and I feel excited about hearing a little bit about that. And if you as if that's not enough, there's also some writing that you've been doing and we'd love to hear about your book. So welcome, roland Smith. We're super glad to have you today.

Rowland Smith: 2:34

Well, thanks, kurt, it was fantastic to connect with you. After that list of things, I feel like I need an intervention, probably to slow down, but that is my. I mean for people that are into, you know, tests and that kind of stuff. I'm a definite like seven with an eight wing enneagram, high apostolic. You know I love to start things and and have a lot of fun doing new things. So I don't know if it's a good thing or if it's an illness, but I do have a lot of irons in the fire. I try to try to keep a lot of irons on the fire.

Ruth Lorensson: 3:13

Well, it's so good to have you here, roland. We really appreciate your time and we know that there's a lot of alignment with what we're talking about in this podcast. And I think one of the first things I'd love to hear from you a little bit is that I know that from from your journey in ministry has has really encountered this big transition from, you know, leading in much more traditional institutional settings to less traditional experimental settings, and could you tell us a little bit about that? I mean, I know that's a giant question, but a little bit about that transition of of ministry, like where you've come from, where you are now.

Rowland Smith: 3:55

Sure, yeah, and I'll. I mean it's. It is a. It is a large question because it has to do with my, I guess, kind of my path and my, my story, and so I'm going to try to do this really fast.

Rowland Smith: 4:09

Part of my what I'll term my missional posture, or my interest in church outside the walls or, you know, viewing church differently, comes from not growing up in church, and so I don't. I came into Christian faith in my 20s with, I think, without a lot of institutional memory or, you know, some might say, baggage. In different ways I didn't have things as much to unlearn and I was more comfortable with kind of rough around the edges people. But my music backgrounds opened doors for me as a worship leader into the church once I came to faith. So I came off tour with big concert tours and stuff and and do all about lights and sound, you know rock music and all this kind of stuff. And so that was when passion you know Chris Homlin was taking off. He was a young kid met Redman and those guys, and so I was. I was sought after, you know, as as a worship leader because I had all this knowledge about contemporary worship. So I found my entree into institutional church and the productions, kind of settings, of the stage that we're kind of familiar with in churches today and embraced that as, oh, this must be Christianity and I'm a new Christian. And so I started down that path and, you know, over time I read more, went seminary, studied more. Missiology was kind of I didn't know it at that time but that was kind of my heartbeat Read some books by now friends of mine, like Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost and some others, that kind of wrecked my view of you know maybe, how the church was being built, the methods of the church and but continued in that, that direction in worship.

Rowland Smith: 6:25

And then I fast forward like several, several years, you know a couple of decades, and my wife and I actually made a decision to kind of leave that setting, to go experiment more. We were in Colorado Springs and left the institutional setting or prevailing church model open to and started a coffee shop, planted a missional community in the coffee shop and, and that was really I was not going to go back into a prevailing church model. I was determined to stay out on the edges of ecclesiology and I was continuing my own studies, working on my doctorate and stuff at Fuller while I was doing this. So all of it kind of would weave together really well. The practice part and the learning part came together really well.

Rowland Smith: 7:26

And I met a church, some guys at a church in Colorado Springs who had lost their worship leader and they just wanted to hire me as a consultant to help them hire a new worship leader. I had a new coffee shop, wasn't paying very much, and so I said, sure, I'll take a consulting gig. I'm not doing anything on Sunday mornings anymore. And as I was talking missional kind of language around the hallways of their place, they said, oh, that's the language we've been looking for. And so I found I really felt like God was saying you know this, you know, I mean this sounds a little, you know, churchy, but like this is my church, you know. So don't critique it but help it. And I had experience in that. That had a heart for practice outside the church and discipling people to be sent, you know, to be everyday missionaries.

Rowland Smith: 8:31

And so I really felt like God was saying I want you to live with the foot in both worlds, and so I have actually worked through my own kind of you know the emotions, the thinking of that, the leadership of that, like how, how I do that and and very comfortable now being in that position as kind of like I'm very comfortable being in an R&D department for the church, but I'm also I also see the church as a beautiful thing, obviously with a lot of flaws and, I would say, things that pastors should look at and question. Why do we do that?

Ruth Lorensson: 9:17

you know, and if there's a good reason for it.

Rowland Smith: 9:20

There's a and there's a good reason for it. So that's been. That's the quick part of my journey. There's a lot of gaps that could be filled in, but but I feel, at 61, I feel like my life experiences, my experience in ecclesiology and then my heart for what I would say missional posturing, has really come together in place that I love.

Kirk Romberg: 9:48

So yeah well, thank you for sharing that, roland. I just found myself entering into your story and and hearing some, some similar things and also some hopes that it ignites in me as well. So thank you, as you were sharing. I thought you know that that was a. That was a very brief overview of what sounds like quite a journey, and, of course, journeys like that when we are involved in one type of community or structure and we make a transition into something new or different, a lot of that journey involves people and relationships, and was that a smooth journey? Was that celebrated by the people around you? Did you feel well understood or what was that like for you?

Rowland Smith: 10:38

Oh, kirk, I am the, I am the borer under the saddle of many pastors in that journey and even today. But I try to do that gracefully and not be, you know, I wouldn't call myself, you know, necessarily prophetic, but a lot of times the things that we talk about in Forge America, the things that I train and teach and do, can feel very kind of edgy, prophetic, irritating, you know, to existing systems. So if there's a system that feels comfortable with what it's doing, I can, you know, even unintentionally, you know, be a bobber, a little bit of a bobber, to that, even when I don't mean to, because the, you know, the pathway or the goals or where we want to get to is just very different.

Ruth Lorensson: 11:44

So you talked about it being an emotional journey as well. I'm just curious about how, like I've spoken to multiple people you know I'm reaching out to different people as the weeks go on and even around the globe, of people who've made those similar transitions. You know that they've come from an institutional leadership and given their lives to it, because I think anyone in, usually anyone in pastoral ministry they throw that lot because it starts at least with this strong calling and passion for the church, right. And then I've spoken to some people who've come out of that and the language that they use is that even like three, four, five years on, it's still very impactful for them, like the transition and the making sense of that. You know the making sense of throwing yourself into something and then thinking, oh, hang on a minute, like I've got to readjust and how do we even I make sense of my calling.

Ruth Lorensson: 12:46

I think that's one thing that we brought up in our last episode was just because you leave an institution or more of a traditional model maybe doesn't mean to say you're leaving the ministry. I'm just curious, like if you could speak into that a little bit, if you've had some similar experience, or what would you say to people who are journeying that long journey of wrestling with calling and emotions. And am I going crazy? And is it okay? And rejection and missing, to be a misunderstood, possibly. I'm wondering what you've got to say about that.

Rowland Smith: 13:24

Yeah, yeah, a couple of, couple of thoughts.

Rowland Smith: 13:29

I mean. First, I think that that journey I like to use the word journey I think oftentimes we try to get rid of the journey or we try to not take the journey and find a shortcut, you know, so we do that through, you know leadership books or you know whatever it is, and but I think the journey, you know, at someone my age now I'm looking back I think the journey is very much needed and I don't anymore think there's an arrival point, like there's a place out there where I'm gonna arrive and have it figured out, and so I'm taking a journey to the arrival point. I think the journey this sounds a little mystical or whatever, but the journey is the thing. That is the thing. That's walking with Jesus, that's living with God, that's figuring out your calling and all of that is that is the process, that is the thing. So that's one. So the answer is yes, you're okay. Yes, you should do all this stuff, yes, you should have guides and community and all those kinds of things. But I think we all go through the struggles.

Ruth Lorensson: 14:47

Am.

Rowland Smith: 14:48

I doing what I'm supposed to be doing, or I feel depressed, or I have anxiety or whatever it is, and it's just part of it. We just shouldn't do it alone. The other thought I was having, as you were asking, that is, I think, the. You know, I don't wanna sound overly critical, but I think that this service that we have done to pastors in particular and people in ministry is the lens at which we have had them look at their calling and so and I try to talk to my students about this, because a lot of times they're getting their masters, they're wanting to lead a church or they're going to prayer church ministry or something, and the calling, I would argue, is not leading a church or the calling is not the prayer church ministry. The calling is to know God and the calling is to walk with God. And when we give them a lens, a worldly lens, to look through, of leading a church, a lot of times the leadership that they learn, all of the things that they form themselves with, turns them into a CEO. In other words, the metrics of the world, the metrics of business, success, growing things, that becomes the driving force in their leadership and their calling. And so they start measuring their calling with metrics of the world.

Rowland Smith: 16:26

Now, if you and Alan Roxborough is a genius at talking about this stuff and JR Woodward just put out a book, the Scandal of Leadership, where he cites a lot of Alan's work but if you look at it through a lens of the kingdom, in other words, the telos of your leadership, is the kingdom not growing something? Then all of a sudden the metrics change. The metrics are low, right, the metrics are servant building, others up, humility, all these kinds of things, and I do think I don't have all the answers, but I do think that this is one thing we're seeing in the church today with when we talk about like celebrity pastors and that kind of thing, we're seeing a misbalanced telos of leadership where there are metrics of the world or metrics of the kingdom, and so a lot of times when I talk to pastors and I'm not a coach like you guys are, but I often that's what I'm trying to pivot back to is like are you caught up measuring the wrong thing? Is that why you're so depressed about what's going on in your church, or whatever?

Kirk Romberg: 17:48

Yeah, I love hearing that and thank you for giving us some additional language.

Kirk Romberg: 17:54

I love the imagery of the telos because I think that and I'll speak for myself I think it can be easy, when I don't have any other metric and the other lens through which to look at my calling to confuse kingdom for empire, and I think what I have been doing myself for the last X number of decades is embracing the values of empire, which actually are competing values with those of the kingdom, so that you have given me some really good language to hold on to.

Kirk Romberg: 18:28

I appreciate that. But it leads me to another question is as you have been going down this journey and I thank you for A saying that it's a journey, and B saying you don't have all the answers, and for C saying you're still getting there and there's not a destination. It's the journey with God and is walking with him. So thank you as you do that. Where are you on that journey right now? Where has your walk with God led you to this juncture? You're involved in several things, but I would love just to hear you speak your heart with where that journey has led you today and what that looks like.

Rowland Smith: 19:11

Yeah, that's hard to answer, but I am still on it. At 61, fairly new grandchild entering a new season of life, I am trying to transition my own leadership into a different type of posture or a different type of voice. In the past I have been very much been a get it done, do or dream it up, make it happen kind of person and very entrepreneurial, love risk, medium risk and and I think that I am trying to shift to having more of a voice to what I have observed, rightly or wrongly.

Rowland Smith: 20:10

You know it's not that I know everything but to be there in community with younger leaders. That's why I love teaching to just say, well, here's what I've observed or here's what I see happening. Here's my addition to the conversation or the co-learning that we're doing. Brian Sanders, who started Tampa Underground and is a great thought leader, good friend, he wrote a little book on the seasons of life, the six seasons of life, and there's a lot of books like that that are out there, but I loved his framing and his terminology. And coming out of COVID I grabbed on to this phase that he calls the mystic and that would be some of us call it a sage or not that it's the smartest person in the room, that it's the person that's lived more life, it's the grandfather in the village posture.

Rowland Smith: 21:22

And so I did some leadership coaching during COVID myself and it was a great time because I was feeling the weight of everything. The coffee shop we sold it during COVID and I was like this is a good time to do it. So I've got a friend who's a leadership coach and went through a Berkman assessment again and talked through a bunch of things. So my journey has. I'm glad that I did that because I think it put me in a healthy spot to have an intentional shift of what I do. And so, even with being the national director for Forge, that title assumes that I run everything, but I don't. I basically support a team that does everything. So I've got a bunch of young folks under me women and men that they're the ones that run Forge and I just provide a compass and a visionary voice for it. So that's what I'm trying to shift into, and at 61, it's like I want to work till I'm maybe 75. So how do I set myself up to be the most impactful?

Ruth Lorensson: 22:39

Thanks for that, rowland. How do you think that we are in this? It feels like we're in a very pivotal time for the church right now and I'm very grateful for leaders like you in that stage that you're actually at, because there's a contribution that you can only bring, having gone through your journey, to what God is doing now within the church. And obviously I'm also aware that that's just a again a sweeping statement, because I'm sure God's doing multiple things in the church and I'm cautious of making statements like that. However, I do think that there is this sense among a lot of people right now that there is God is doing something new. We feel like there was something that happened in COVID. There was something that shifted. Maybe it sped up time or something, but it, or maybe it put a pressure on things that or a spotlight on things that were already there and we saw them more clearly.

Ruth Lorensson: 23:45

So I think that there are there are people on a bit of a pilgrimage right now. Some are pastors, some are people who've cared deeply for Big C Church. Some people are, you know, have been through this, through their own journey for a long time. I think the sense that I'm getting from the conversations I'm having with people is that they are, they want to do, they know that there's a brokenness to what we currently have and not obviously. There's good things in the mix, actually, and there's a pull from God's spirit to journey towards something new, but they don't know. They don't know what it looks like and there's a caution about going towards it. There's a caution about trying to come up with some new, cool version of fresh expression.

Ruth Lorensson: 24:41

And I'm speaking from a place where you know I was in England during kind of the emerging church stuff. I did nightclub church and cafe church. We did all of these different expressions and there was some really amazing and they were mission driven because we just felt like people, those people aren't going to come to. The common C model isn't going to hit those people. So there were these fresh expressions that went out in my time in England in that time and I'm sure, like with plenty of others around the world.

Ruth Lorensson: 25:15

But I just I'm curious about where we're at right now like with with expression of what's new, because I think there is a little bit of hesitancy of actually we don't want to just like we've got to get to this root system somehow, because I think some of the stuff that I've done in in that emerging church timeframe was great and it was missional, but it didn't get to some of the rotting aspects of our structure. That that I think there's a there's an appetite in people to say how can we lose that? Not like lose the whole thing, but how can we love the body of Christ, but how can we lose some of that and then embrace what's new?

Rowland Smith: 26:00

Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're exactly, what you're saying. Yeah, a lot of thoughts around that. I mean one, one thing I would say is I? Well, the first thing I want to say is Jesus's church isn't going anywhere. So so the the messages of the sky is falling, christianity is going away in America, kind of thing. I don't worry about Jesus's church, it's fine. You know.

Rowland Smith: 26:34

Now, I do think when we get, when we get overly focused on methodology, when, when we lose contextualization if that makes sense, I can talk through that a little more and I think we get into trouble. Because I do think, I do think at our core, I do think we are a called missionary people and so, obviously, someone that teaches Missiology, I'm gonna say that. But I could spend a couple of hours and we could talk about the thread of mission throughout Scripture and the way God has continuously called people forward in his mission to participate in what he wants to do, whether that's, you see that, in what we call the Old Testament or the New Testament, and we obviously we focus on Matthew 28,. But there are these callings to us John 20, 21,. Jesus appears to his disciples in a room with a locked door. Ironically, good metaphor there for the church and says it's like he's saying, no, unlock the door, as the Father sent me, so I send you. That word sent is this word mission apostolous? And so we are, at our core, supposed to be this participating people with God, constantly contextualizing and being sent out. You know, and that's, when I say contextualizing I mean what does your neighborhood look like? What does your workplace look like? If you're a pastor of a church, what does the neighborhood around your church look like? And how are you contextualizing what you do to be good news to your city and your neighborhood and to those people?

Rowland Smith: 28:34

And I think it's in those kind of postures that then we say, oh, we're not getting called to a new thing, we're getting called to remember the thing that we've been given, which is this missionary calling. And so a lot of work that I do with prevailing churches that are kind of feeling the pains of COVID and people didn't come back or giving down or whatever it is. It's like, well, it's not like, hey, let me show you all the new micro church stuff or fresh expression stuff. You can do it's. I mean, maybe they do some of that, maybe they don't, but it's.

Rowland Smith: 29:20

Let's remember who your church was called to be and how do we disciple people from the pew to the pavement? How do we help them see that they are everyday missionaries too? And there's an energy in that. That happens because people feel like they're participating not in what the senior pastor and the elders came up with as a vision, but they're participating in the story of God. And things do happen that all of a sudden, I mean I've got videos and testimonies of people that are just like I started loving my neighbors and making cookies for people and man the faith conversations I've started having. You know, those kinds of things.

Rowland Smith: 30:04

If you can get 200 people doing that, you forget about metrics of growth. It's just like because the kingdom is movement, it's movemental, you know. So I don't really see it as new. I see it as remembering who we are, you know the core of who we are. And maybe how do we return to that? And sure, let's experiment with methods, let's experiment with I love fresh expressions, I love the micro church movement. I'm involved in all those in different ways, but I mean, I'm part of a church of 800 with kids, and we're extremely missional, you know. And so there are ways to do it.

Kirk Romberg: 30:53

I love, Roland, that idea again of not so much moving towards something new as much as returning to something old and remembering and isn't that a word that we see continually throughout scripture?

Kirk Romberg: 31:09

I mean, there's some repetitions that we see Old Testament and new, and one of them is fear not, and another one is remember, remember who you are, and that there's something that resonates deeply with them.

Kirk Romberg: 31:24

And yet, at the same time I know this from my own journey, I know this from conversations with others and I also observe it there's a lot of layering that I think cultural layering, historical layering, denominational layering that just kind of gets stacked on top of what you're describing is at the core of being a sent people and the remembering can start breaking through those layers. But it can be slow, it can be painful, there's maybe even some inner resistance when I start thinking about the costs involved in some of that, whether that's with friends or finances or job or position or titles, and when those things start to get weighed, it seems like it can be easy then to stuff the memory of who we are because there's too much at cost. And I'm wondering if you can speak to that for a second. What would you say to the pastor, or even to the person, the spiritual leader or a Christ follower who cares deeply about the bigger sea and who feels that sense of for lack of a better word clash between the bubbling up of remembering and the layering of cultural expression and the resistance there. And what word of encouragement might you give to someone who's in a space like that?

Rowland Smith: 32:59

Yeah, I mean I'm seeing this more and more and see it all the time, especially with pastors that are in denominational structures, and we all are kind of seeing denominations break apart in different ways, things coming to the surface that are causing pain in different ways, and I do think there's a huge cost to many pastors that want to get back to the business of what God called them to do. That's the way I sense it. They have gotten tired of 20 hours of sermon prep, trying to grow an organization, keep everybody happy, doing all the HR and hiring kind of stuff, budgets and all the things that really running a company requires a view, and then remembering, oh, when I was 20 something or 30 something or whatever, god called me to take good news to people that are broken and lost and fighting the cultural battles of their own life. And so those pastors do have a cost question because oftentimes letting go of what they've kind of been caught in is gonna require something, and usually it's financial, sometimes it's going to a thinking about their life by vocationally or really my friend Brad Briscoe talks about co-vocational calling and so your work and your ministry or leading in a church work together and they always work together.

Rowland Smith: 35:02

So you're not working so that you can do church. You're actually living a ministerial life and part of it is incarnational in the community and so a lot of times there's questions like that and that's really difficult. It's like, am I gonna go do real estate and insurance and then also kind of pastor, a small community Bye, if you, if someone can get to the other side of that I have seen more often than not there's just incredible freedom. It's like a weight off of their shoulders and it's like this is what I got into ministry for. I'm able to do.

Rowland Smith: 35:43

You know what I got into ministry for and I and I know I know several people going through that, even someone that you know, kirk. You know who just who had to ask those hard questions and Gave back their building to a denomination, and so now they're in their meeting in a coffee shop and they have a little bit of money to you know for a runway to get the church going, started and stuff. But the future is not Certain, you know the structure is not certain and so but they are free from those confines, you know. So I Don't have an easy answer, but but I totally understand Pastors that that are really wrestling with that.

Ruth Lorensson: 36:30

Thanks, roland. I think that's so such helpful Vision and advice and Wisdom for people in that's. In that situation, I'm curious also about there's. There are, you know there's? There's a, there's a displacement of a lot of people right now, and again I think from covert that I mean there was already a displacement before covert, but that has like propelled that. I think it.

Ruth Lorensson: 36:59

What is it that 40 million people have left the US evangelical church over the last 20 years, and I'm sure that I mean that's 20 years, so it's not a, a short amount of time, but it that's a lot when you think about him, if you do the math. And Obviously some of those, some of those will have found different expressions, but there's possibly quite a lot of people who find themselves displaced and you know they, they are on a journey towards Trying to figure out how they live their lives Following Christ. But there's a distanciation now with with the evangelical church at least, and, and you know I would imagine there's there's dealing with loss, change, isolation, is there any? I mean it again, it's. It's very difficult to know what to say, but I'm as a sage, is there an encouragement you could bring to to people on that journey right now?

Rowland Smith: 38:01

Well, thanks for the title. You know what I think of is what a great and this kind of comes from my entrepreneurial Bet or spirit, you know is what an opportunity we have right now. So, yes, there are methodologies of the church that are kind of crumbling before our eyes. Again, the church is not in trouble, the methodology is in trouble. Jesus's church is great, you know, there are a lot of people kind of wandering and and there's a lot of sifting going on.

Rowland Smith: 38:42

I mean, my wife and I we held a, a deconstruction group in our living room for a while last year and for better, year-and-a-half, and it was really interesting. A lot of these were 20 somethings, 30 somethings, to kind of hear why they weren't comfortable with the church or you know, and when I say the church in that I'm talking about kind of brick-and-mortar Traditional American church, and so there's a lot of that kind of sifting where they're not losing their faith and they, they're not atheists, they just don't like the church, you know institution and they're trying to figure out so how do I have a faith journey? To me that is a huge opportunity and a lot, of, a lot of leaders have kind of heard, they've kind of seen, different versions of red and blue ocean, kind of talking, where, you know, my friend Alan Hirsch I just kind of my mentor, you know he talks about Two things. He he says if you want to see the future of the church in America, look at Europe. And he said that years and years ago and and I think COVID has accelerated us toward that. So some of the big buildings, that kind of thing or so, are going to be echo chambers. Unfortunately they're not as beautiful as cathedrals in Europe, so we're not going to visit them. You know, look at the architecture and then you have this idea of red and blue ocean.

Rowland Smith: 40:20

Where, you know, maybe we don't have a firm statistic on this, but you know, I would say it would be generous to say that 25% of of American population is even Attracted to a theater style Church service. They would even be attracted sitting there where one person preaches from a stage and there's a band and all the cultural nuances of that, and a lot of the people that are attracted to that are already Christians. And it's even smaller in Australia. So they did, they did a thing in Australia and it was like 2% of the population was even attracted to a Kind of brick and mortar in a box, think of a theater kind of set up. And so if that's the case, if 25% is America, or let's just let's even say 40% I don't think it's that high, but let's say 40% of the population, that means 60% of the population on the other side of that pie Is not attracted to that. Yet we have conferences and seminaries and stuff that are teaching young planters to go plant these little boxes that look exactly like that and become CEOs.

Rowland Smith: 41:46

Now, as an entrepreneur, if I want to be successful, let's just think strategically. Why would I focus on the 40% model, where everyone is going? That's why that's red ocean, that's where sharks are all eating on the same, they're feeding on the same thing, and it's just red, it's just bloody. The blue ocean, it's fairly clear, and that's where things like that I mean, that's the, that's the good impetus behind things like fresh expressions, the things you're involved with, ruth, those kinds of things. They're, they're out here experimenting with things that are catching People that are not attracted to that.

Rowland Smith: 42:31

Now, you know, like you said, if they're focused just on the methodology, that's not enough, that's not deep enough. There are no roots to that. You use the word roots, and so I do think we still have to have this missional call as God's people. But then that's when those experimentations and it may be a brick and mortar church that meets Once a month and three weeks a month. Your people are in home groups on mission, you know. I know churches that are they're doing different versions of that, and so my push to church planters is always Don't just haul off and go find a middle school and buy chairs and smoke machines and projectors and stuff is like think about the blue ocean and plant mission first and let ecclesiology follow the contextual questions that you ask about mission. So I'm called to this place, this people. What is it that this people need as good news? Now, let's plant an ecclesiology that fits that or helps to answer that.

Kirk Romberg: 43:42

I Love that, that contrast, because what I think I hear you saying is it's not and I don't mean to be cliche, I've heard this before. You have to. So, as Ruth, it's not that the church has a mission, is that the mission has a church, and that church needs to be different to suit the mission, not in the other way around. And and so it's a complete reversal of thinking. And, as as we move towards closing, I I'm curious If you could share a little bit about Pando collective here in Colorado or forge in America Either one or both as well as the, your most recent book, because what I'm hoping to do is leave the listeners with with some kind of trail to follow.

Kirk Romberg: 44:36

Somebody might be listening to this and thinking I would like to take some steps to remembering and then expressing that remembrance as a sent one, and I've had multiple conversations, and so has Ruth, with individuals who know they can't go back to one thing, but they don't know the way forward, and what would it look like for them to, to explore, like, how can they connect with you or Pando or forge? Not that we're saying this is the way, but it certainly is a different way and a Remembering way back to our roots of sent ones, if you can.

Rowland Smith: 45:24

Sure, yeah, yeah, pando came out of just a realization that you know apostolicky type people and pastors. They need community. They're often walking alone and some people we keep saying pando and some people are probably like what's there? Are they saying panda? Or like what? What does that mean?

Rowland Smith: 45:51

So pando is real, quickly is this Latin word that means I spread out, and the largest living organism on earth, which is about six hours west of us in Utah. It's called pando the clone, or pando the trembling giant, and it's an aspen grove, and those of us that live in Colorado we understand that aspen's don't spread out by dropping you know, they don't have pine cones and all that kind of stuff Seeds. They spread their roots out underground and then new things pop up. And even as trees are dying off, new things are kind of coming up through the soil. And so pando is this grove of 55,000 aspen trees, 106 acres.

Rowland Smith: 46:41

This is a great time of year to go see it because they're everything starting to change up here in the mountains. But it's amazing because they've DNA tested a lot of these trees and they're the same tree. So it's a clone, it's one organism. It looks like 55,000 trees above ground, but it's all. It's got one root system underground, so it's a. To us it's like oh, what a perfect metaphor, not only because we're in Colorado, but it's just a perfect metaphor for the church and the kingdom and the way that we want to see things. You know, and so and there's a lot of cool things about that metaphor, where the older trees help feed the newer trees and you know as they're dying, and so there's, there's a lot of great metaphors in there.

Rowland Smith: 47:29

So pando collective is in Colorado Springs and there's also kind of a tribe, I would say, up in Denver that has started Jeremy and Monica chambers and are kind of curating that. Jeremy and Monica are also on our national team for Forge and so we say the pando collective is a network of missional practitioners and it's powered by Forge. That's kind of how we speak. So rather than having Forge Colorado, we have the pando collective, but it's very much has. Forge is kind of a foundational. You know, those are the pavers underneath us. Anyone could be part of pando and we welcome anyone to come into the conversation. Denver has meetings, colorado has meetings. Sometimes we'll do trainings. We're gonna have Mike Frost here in November I'm sorry in January and you know. So we'll do a big pando gathering. So sometimes we'll do trainings or cohorts or those kinds of things.

Rowland Smith: 48:36

Pando was launched out of a brick and mortar church. The one I'm at, kind of like a tugboat to pull our church, continue pulling it to be missional. And as we disciple people and they say, hey, I have an idea, that's our R&D department, that's where we send them to incubate ideas fund. We can even fund them with Kingdom grants like get them started. So there's a lot of networks kind of like this or different forms of it around the country. But that's what pando collective is and the the pandocolectivecom is the website. There's a couple of videos on there that explain what it is and there's a connection form. So love, love to have you connect. Forge America is a larger national missional organization. It's part of a worldwide organization. We actually do more structured resourcing and coaching and training and we do invite a lot of churches and pastors into that community to just help navigate some of these things so they don't feel alone and we have different levels of that and there's a connection form on there and then.

Rowland Smith: 49:58

I have a personal website, which I should be doing more blogging and stuff, but I don't. But it's still the connection form, still active, and it's info at Roland Smithnet. So, yeah, I'd love to connect with people. I'd love to grab some calls, love to help, resource and point people where they need to go. So for where I think they need to go.

Rowland Smith: 50:26

Early last year or the end of the year before, we released Red Skies Ten essential conversations for the future of the church and I mean that was kind of funny because I had listed all of these things that need to be addressed. You know that I felt like needed to be addressed in the church and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm either going to be the most arrogant writer that has ever put out a book or it's going to take me 20 years to write this thing. And so what I did? Because you know I've been blessed to network with some great people, a lot of people, voices that people know, and so I invited other authors into this and they each took a chapter and wrote on.

Rowland Smith: 51:15

You know, the question was what does the church need to pay attention to for the next 20 years in order to be good news? That was the thesis question given to every one of them, and so then they submitted a chapter and we published it through a hundred movements publishing, which is Alan Hirsch's part of one of Alan Hirsch's network, and it's a fantastic book. And you, you get little snippets from different people, you know that are all in different contexts. You know women and men, people of color, and kind of talking about the future of the church and the things we need to pay attention to. So it's called Red Skies and it's also, you know, on Amazon. It's a good way to get it.

Ruth Lorensson: 52:01

That's awesome, that sounds amazing, and just want to encourage our listeners to you know, pick up those books. I think that they can be really useful. Roland, thank you so much we got. I don't know how to thank you enough. It feels like this conversation has been so rich, like I mean. I feel like we could carry on chatting for hours because of what you, what you're bringing to the table, is so rich, so wise. We really appreciate you. We're so excited that you're in Colorado too, so you'll be seeing us, whether you like it or not.

Rowland Smith: 52:35

Well, I love Fort Collins so I'll make a trip up and I've spent some time together and love to see you again, kirk, and thanks for having me. It's been. I mean, I love talking about this stuff, but you know, I love dreaming with other people about how we can, you know, how we can be a community of church leaders together and not, you know, and not just sit in our depression and brokenness and what am I going to do, you know, in the future. So really encourage any of your listeners. Don't, don't walk in stuff alone. Get a coach, get a community, something you know.

Ruth Lorensson: 53:10

Yeah, that's absolutely right and that's that's the whole emphasis of this podcast is to is to be real, but to be hopeful. 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.

Kirk Romberg: 53:40

And 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 bridge and rhinocom. See you at the next episode.