Is the Church a Cat or a Toaster?

We would love to hear your thoughts!!

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason, Rob, and Courtney delve into the implications of Timothy Patitsas' book, 'The Ethics of Beauty,' discussing how beauty, truth, and goodness intersect within church practices. They explore the relevance of these concepts for church leaders and congregants, emphasizing the need for a beauty-first approach in ministry that values aesthetics alongside truth and goodness. The conversation highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by different ethical frameworks in the context of church growth and discipleship. In this conversation, the team explores the complexities of spiritual growth, the importance of suffering, and the dynamics of church health. They discuss the differences between beauty first and goodness first approaches in ministry, using analogies like the cat and toaster to illustrate their points. The conversation emphasizes the need for wisdom in church leadership and the importance of nurturing the church as a living organism rather than a mechanical system. Ultimately, they celebrate the diversity of church health and the importance of finding ways to support and care for congregations.

Find Timothy Patitsas' book at St. Nicholas Press.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Conversation
02:15 Exploring 'The Ethics of Beauty'
09:00 Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in Church Contexts
16:02 The Goodness First Approach in Evangelicalism
20:01 The Beauty First Ethic in Church Practices
26:58 Implications for the Great Commission
29:12 The Journey Through Spiritual Growth
30:22 Embracing Suffering as a Path to Love
31:33 Corporate Spirituality and Individual Gifts
32:30 Beauty First vs. Goodness First Approaches
34:22 The Cat and Toaster Analogy in Ministry
37:07 Understanding Living Systems in Church Dynamics
39:38 Evaluating Church Health and Effectiveness
42:12 The Importance of Wisdom in Church Leadership
44:36 Nurturing the Church as an Organism
49:54 Celebrating Diversity in Church Health

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01.178)
Welcome back everybody to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason and Courtney. We are so glad you're here. We got a conversation prepared. Prepared is the wrong word. Planned today that I don't know. We're excited. Yeah, it's the plan.

Rob Paterson (00:15.983)
That was so good. That was so good. We're not prepared, but it's the plan.

Courtney (00:16.49)
Thank

Courtney (00:23.85)
is the plan, yeah.

Jason Allison (00:25.526)
No, we've been talking about this off air for a while and we thought, you know what, it's time to hit record and just talk through some of this because I think the, we're going to talk about today has some just huge implications from 30,000 feet to the way pastors and leaders and even just regular church people approach church, doing church, being part of a church, leading a church, being part of God's kingdom and what that means. so

I'm excited to just kind of throw this out there and see where it goes. some people I know are probably going to hear it and go, eh, it's way too philosophical. I don't care. But I think we've got a, I think personally from the interaction I've had with people who follow the podcast, they are really smart and they are sharp leaders. And I think they're going to get a lot out of this. and so let me just start by saying, Courtney, you are the one who burdened us with this idea, because

The book that you read that you have told us we have to read is called The Ethics of Beauty by I'm going to say it right. Petitces. Right. Did get it right? Okay. Petitces. And here's the thing. It is a 700 page tome and we are not going to go in depth onto everything that is said in that, but

Courtney (01:33.91)
Yep. Yeah, you got it. You got it.

Rob Paterson (01:34.423)
Okay.

Jason Allison (01:48.97)
It introduced a conversation that we've been having for a while, Courtney, and I'm going to ask you to kind of lead the charge. And then Rob and I are just going to sit back and snipe at you and tell you all the reasons it's wrong. Does that sound fair? Okay. Okay. Well, maybe give us, you know, just a brief overview of what the concept is and why then it, you know, it has implications for the church.

Rob Paterson (01:53.987)
.

Courtney (02:01.003)
Yeah, no, that's okay. That's totally cool. Yeah, I'm ready for it.

Courtney (02:15.243)
Yeah, so I read this book sometime last year, about this time probably, and it really just began to really turn my wheels as to how I thought about ministry and thinking about church planting and began to process some of those problems that we as ministry leaders can all identify within the church. But then how do we come about to good solutions and how do we know that that solution is actually like a good one?

Rob Paterson (02:22.574)
.

Courtney (02:40.575)
And so the more and more I just began thinking about it, the more it's like, this is highly relevant. So Timothy Petitsas is a theologian and philosopher. And he wrote this book, Ethics of Beauty. Really, it came out of an organic conversation teaching like a theology of ethics at his seminary and like university. And

And he began to like realize that it had lots of wide ranging applications. And so it's a 700 page book, but this book is written like a dialogue because it came out of a conversation with one of the students and they were just were going back and forth and she would record him and ask questions. And then eventually like those became chapters. And then as he began discussing these things with people in other fields, then those also became chapters. So it starts out talking about the importance of beauty when thinking about ethical solutions to problems.

Rob Paterson (03:15.491)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (03:33.591)
Yeah.

Courtney (03:35.162)
and so it's 700 pages, but it reads way quicker. Like he says tone, Jason says tone, but there are very few footnotes in it. so it's not like you're trudging through footnotes or super intellectual things. but he starts out by applying this, this issue of beauty to like specifically trauma care and post-traumatic stress disorder with veterans. So it's highly like. Practical right from the get-go. And then he applies it to multiple different areas.

as you go throughout the book. So justice concerns or city planning, science, like all kinds of different ethical areas that you look out into the world and you're like, we need a solution to this. And you look at different people's approaches to that and they always seem to be in conflict or like this is the right solution or it's not the right solution. And how do we kind of like break up that logjam and begin to move towards a path of beauty and healing really in those areas.

Rob Paterson (04:03.703)
Courtney, a little bit

Like when people think of beauty kind of as a driver or a solution, what are other options? Like what are the big three and kind of where did they come from?

Courtney (04:37.068)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (04:42.189)
Yeah. So I'm driving this conversation you guys, cause I'm the only one who's read the book. um, yeah, Rob will get it soon and he'll start soon. Yeah. We might do need to do it in a minute recording. Jason read an AI summary.

Rob Paterson (04:46.793)
My book's coming today. You know, on Friday we might need to do an amended recording.

Jason Allison (04:54.478)
Friday of two months. Yeah, I read a summary. It's good enough.

Courtney (05:02.34)
So, like for you guys who are wondering, again, my husband does not read the books that I read like at all. And he read the Ethics of Beauty and now is using it as his like philosophy of science as he's like starting his, hopefully starting his new lab. So this is like very readable in a lot of ways. And if you want to see kind of an overview, somebody else talking about it, Timothy Petitsas has done a ton of different podcast episodes.

And people will bring them on to apply this framework to whatever their subject matter is architecture or politics and things like that. And every single episode is, basically like a new chapter to the book. Cause every chapter of the book is just a conversation applying his framework to different areas of study. Right. So, feel free to go and look up podcasts and don't have to read the book. Like you can find a really good summary of Timothy Petitza's elsewhere. But the way to answer your question, Rob, the way that most people, or throughout.

kind of the history of the philosophical tradition have evaluated ethics is according to what's called Plato's transcendentals, the true, the good and the beautiful. The true, the good and the beautiful. And these are considered the highest aim of humanity. And you can even see Paul kind of writing along these lines saying, God is love, know, I am the way, the truth and the life is Jesus. Like we as Christians eventually notice that within Plato, there's some

easy reconciliation between our conception of God and this true, the good and the beautiful because of how Christ presents himself as love, as the way, the truth and the life. And so, but as we progress throughout time, especially in our like post-enlightenment era, we kind of have allowed the beautiful to fall off in the wayside. Like we don't really know how to fit aesthetics into our ethical category. And so it's really easy to point this out kind of in the secular world. And so Timothy Petitza says,

we either have a truth first approach or a goodness first approach to most issues in our society. And we don't really have a way of accounting for aesthetics of like moral or ethical beauty as we think of problems. So a truth first approach would be science, right? Like, and we have elites, we have a way to talk about that. The elites are the scientists and they give us objective truth and we pursue that objective truth and we pursue those options as solutions in our society, right?

Courtney (07:20.877)
So we have a way of talking about truth first approaches. And then we have a way of talking about goodness first approaches, which tend to be kind of bureaucratically driven and the best possible sense of that where we are developing policy. We're kind of looking at the social sciences to look at different factors. And you can like, you know, kind of put people on spreadsheets and say, well, we can, you know, improve educational results if we do this, that, and the other and put money behind that. And then maybe we'll improve education over time.

So we have a goodness first approach. But Timothy Petitsas comes along and says that really beauty kind of culminates both truth and goodness towards this end that brings about life and flourishing. And there are issues that are not truth first or goodness first, but rather like fit more into this beauty category that aren't like just a one or two variable problem. Because truth first approaches see things as a one variable problem.

Rob Paterson (08:14.751)
Mm.

Courtney (08:18.977)
like cause and effect. Like if we change this scientific result, then we will get, like in this experiment, then we will get necessarily this result. So they tend to see things as a one variable problem. Beauty first approaches, mean, goodness first approaches might see some two variable approach like problems. Like, so we need to break things down in terms of metrics. And once we get those metrics figured out, then like now we can see the solution. Whereas beauty first approaches,

Rob Paterson (08:29.655)
Yeah.

Courtney (08:46.219)
will deal better with things that are complex systems. like living systems where there's multiple approaches and not one is going to fix the solution, right? So that's kind of like a good summary, I think.

Rob Paterson (09:00.031)
That's, that's so helpful. Courtney, I got it. I, I can, I loved how you kind of explained that in a kind of a general sense out in the world. maybe, you know, because we are ministry types and most of our listeners, you know, love the church love Jesus, you know, are also like us. and so like if someone was in a church that did more of the truth first thing.

Jason Allison (09:00.152)
Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney (09:13.27)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (09:27.227)
or the goodness first thing or the beauty first thing. Like can you maybe like take an issue and describe like how in that same issue like three different churches might function if they prioritize each of those things.

Courtney (09:42.092)
Yeah, this is where like once I saw him breaking it down again in terms of science or like a social issue, it was like, I can immediately personally see this applied in the church. And this is where it became really fruitful in our discussions. Like this is Rob was like always telling me to bring this book up, even though he hasn't read it. You know, so he's like, you always got talk about the yet. Right. But like it's been months now and you're like, Courtney, talk about this book. You know, so. We. You're right. I could. You're right. I could.

Rob Paterson (09:59.506)
Yet!

Jason Allison (10:01.133)
yet.

Rob Paterson (10:05.707)
We had Christmas. I you could have just got it for me as a Christmas present, Courtney.

Courtney (10:11.373)
But I immediately saw this like truth first approach, goodness first approach, and this kind of lacking kind of language towards beauty first. Because Timothy Peterson says our culture kind of lacks an appreciation and language for the beauty first. Like we don't have elites that are beauty first elites, know, like the artist.

or someone like that tends to just be considered the poor, starving artists. And it is almost like a dead end career path to want to become an artist or a writer or something like that. But if you want to become a scientist or you want to enter politics, like those are considered good aims, generally speaking. So, when it applied to the church, I was like, man, we really do struggle with that beauty first aesthetic approach, in describing our problems. So truth first would be churches or, solutions where like,

Well, this is the truth. The Bible says it right. And it just is. And no matter how hard that is to apply, like it just is, and it should be applied equally in all places. Like again, that one-to-one correlation that kind of tends to remove the human element. we churches are complex organic systems. this is what Timothy Petitsa doesn't attack or like, you know, not attack, like, list out the implications for the church in his book.

But a church is a complex organic system. It's the body of Christ with people who are complex and there's not one solution for every single person when it comes to dealing with lives lived in the world. So a truth first approach though would say this is that and they would kind of lean into the theological or doctrinal camp. And so we've probably all experienced churches where and we have elites in that area. We have theologians and systematic theologians and we

prioritize academia and academic study. So we have a way of not only talking about it, but we have a way of like having people who could guide us in a truth first approach, right? Like our truth first scientists, our theologians and our systematic, this mutation.

Jason Allison (12:14.786)
What would Courtney, would you say this is kind of a, a fundamentalist approach? Like, I don't want to, I don't want to oversimplify it, but you know, most fundamentalists would say there is one set of truth that we have decided what it is. And yeah. And, and, mean, and obviously this can apply to any organization, you know, a fundamentalist approach. but, and as long as you, those, those things are what determine.

Rob Paterson (12:30.487)
Theirs. Theirs. Yeah.

Courtney (12:31.063)
Yeah.

Courtney (12:37.772)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (12:43.532)
the goodness or even the beauty of anything else. It all has to start with these basic truths. And so is that kind, I'm just trying to summarize it in a way that I'm, can understand it.

Courtney (12:50.679)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, I think that sometimes fundamentalism gets thrown around like in ways that are not helpful. But I would say that generally speaking, if people are thinking of like a legalistic or fundamentalist type of approach, whenever they're using that term, they're probably been in truth first churches. And I think, again, on the good side of that, thinking carefully about doctrine is helpful, right? like it doesn't mean that truth and goodness are not important. It's about their ordering.

Rob Paterson (13:03.607)
you

Courtney (13:22.765)
And so, yeah, I think that, you know, there are Presbyterian churches or Lutheran churches that care greatly about doctrine and catechism, and they might not come across as fundamentalist per se, but they still would be truth-force oriented, But probably in our kind low-church Baptist world, those would be the fundamentalist churches.

Jason Allison (13:43.075)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (13:43.165)
And, and you know, Courtney, before you go kind of to the goodness and what that might look like in the church, I think it's interesting even just to think about this because

You know, when you say it in passing, I think most people would be like, well, you know, maybe truth first does make a whole lot of sense in the church because, you know, we talk about truth, but you know, we see it happen all the time. You know, you pick a famous pastor that all of a sudden, you know, their, their listenership is broad enough that you all of a sudden not only have kind of like fan kind of boy support people or like, I just love everything so and so does. But then on the other hand.

Courtney (14:00.503)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (14:05.494)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (14:17.154)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (14:21.419)
You have other people who are like, no, that person's actually a heretic and nobody should attend their church because here's what's true. And they say this other thing. And so it doesn't take very long in the church to go, well, here's a group of people and they had to go do their own thing. And here's another group of people and they had to do their own thing and never, never the twain shall meet because everybody thinks they're right. And that other person or whole group of people is completely wrong.

Courtney (14:31.201)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (14:49.729)
because our version of the truth is the true truth and their version is at least less true than our perfect best whatever. so, you know, truth seems really black and white, but man, it gets messy quickly when we try to elevate that to the kind of ultimate ethic in the church.

Courtney (14:53.644)
Yeah.

Courtney (15:10.655)
Right. And I think that like, in general, Protestant, like churches or denominations are really susceptible to this truth first approach because of what you said, like, and we came out of arguing largely about doctrine and it was implications of doctrine on the Christian life. But it was then how we continue to work out those particularities of doctrine that gave us Lutheranism and Calvinism and, and a Baptist and other things. So we tend to prioritize the truth first in, in general.

Jason Allison (15:18.895)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (15:35.127)
you

Courtney (15:39.017)
and the propositional, like do we all have the same beliefs, right? Every church, generally speaking, has a statement of faith on their website. And I choose this church based on how it aligns with what I think is also true, right? So we tend to be oriented in that way.

Jason Allison (15:52.918)
So yeah, okay. So I want to keep it moving because I want to come back and then do a summary. The next, the other thing you said was goodness, right? So truth, goodness and beauty. Goodness, I think is going to hit a lot more of us in the evangelical world because really that's in some ways it's basically saying, does it work? Right? I mean, in his bra statement, it's, it's good if it's accomplishing the purpose that it was given.

Courtney (16:02.679)
Goodness.

Courtney (16:10.166)
Yes.

Courtney (16:15.639)
Yeah.

Courtney (16:22.593)
Right.

Jason Allison (16:22.702)
And so if we were given the task of growing a big church, then whatever we do to accomplish that is good. And so we value that and we start with that. Usually truth is right underneath it. And then beauty is only good if it continues to accomplish the purpose. That's what makes it beauty. Yeah.

Courtney (16:40.967)
good. Yeah, it's in service of the good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a great, I would say summary, Jason, of how this applies to the evangelical world. Like you said, like, you know, this is giving an overview of Timothy Petitza's work, but we are applying it in the church specifically. And you're right, that kind of does define evangelicalism over and against previous generations fundamentalism in America was that

evangelicalism was going to de-emphasize those doctrinal distinctives between different denominations to work together for the goodness of evangelizing the nations, right? And so this is where you get those, you know, in essentials unity and in non-essentials charity kinds of phrases is that we're going to de-emphasize propositional truth claims so that we can do good things, right? Charity is not bad.

And so that does kind of define evangelicalism, but as that progressed and we began looking at things like the Seeker Sensitive Movement, which I do think if you look at someone like James Wood's article in First Things on Timothy Keller, that the Seeker Sensitive Movement kind of branched in two directions with kind of like the Young Restless Reform Timothy Keller Seeker Sensitivity and the Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, Willow Creek Seeker Sensitivity.

that is, you know, some people just kind of dogpile on the Rick Warren type, but Timothy Keller was doing a type of seeker sensitive work too in the city. And so those tend to prioritize the goodness first, which is results. we, as long as the method is not sinful, like explicitly sinful, then if it accomplishes the good,

which generally speaking was growing a large church because growing a large church meant evangelism was effective. whatever method worked to reach that people group in that location was good as long as it was not explicitly sinful.

Jason Allison (18:38.894)
Well, that's so like, remember a quote from, think it was Craig Groeschel. He used to say, I will do anything short of sin to reach the lost. And that's kind of a goodness first approach. And here's the thing on, know, just at first glance, I don't see the problem. mean, you know, like it's, it's part of that's because that's America, right?

Rob Paterson (18:38.935)
Mm.

Courtney (18:48.876)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Courtney (18:58.786)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (19:02.303)
It's a compelling statement in a vacuum. Like I'm like, me too. Let's get our squirt guns and, you know, like storm the gates of hell.

Jason Allison (19:05.535)
It is. Yeah.

Courtney (19:05.665)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (19:12.874)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and so there, there's a, there is something about that, you know, that is, like you said, Rob, it's compelling. And I don't know how you, you can't say it's wrong. You know, like it's, it's not like wrong in some weird way. don't know. It's one of those, how do you argue with that?

Courtney (19:13.495)
Right.

Courtney (19:29.366)
Yeah.

Well, I'll make an argument against it. you're right. so one benefit of the goodness first approach is that it wasn't just, you know, truth correspondence, one variable approaches to solutions. It was now multivariable. Like if we change the format of the worship, if we change this and we change that, we can look at our demographic area.

Rob Paterson (19:33.813)
Yeah.

Courtney (19:56.699)
And we know exactly what targets to hit to reach this one demographic area, right?

Jason Allison (20:01.518)
This was the church growth movement. I mean, like by definition, that was what the church growth movement was about, right? Was finding what works in a specific place and doing it and doing it in a way that's repeatable so that other people could do it as well. Again, all about does it work? And if it works, it must be good.

Courtney (20:04.63)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (20:05.022)
Mm.

Courtney (20:20.685)
Right.

Right. And it tends to measure body buildings budgets, right? Like these are the metrics that they're like, tend to say, this is good and it is working.

Rob Paterson (20:24.585)
Yeah. So Courtney, what would, what would a church that tries to prioritize a beauty first ethic? What would, what could, what could, and would that look like?

Courtney (20:42.249)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think that like what Jason was saying, that's like anything short of sin, and it seems really hard to argue with that, that would get people into the kingdom. But a beauty first ethic would say maybe there are some oughts, like some things we ought to do that might not lead to immediate results, but because they are given to us by Christ and conform to who we are as people and who God is and has revealed himself to be in Christ.

that we don't sacrifice those things. We don't eliminate those things just because it would make it more effective in our context. Such as the Eucharist or something like that, or penitential prayer in the midst of the congregation, right? Things like that, like intercessory prayer for the needs of the congregation in the midst of congregation. Those are things that like even Rob and I have talked about before. He's like, oh, we've heard those go so bad and like, you know, 30 minutes.

Jason Allison (21:19.224)
such as.

Courtney (21:39.598)
praying for someone's toenail or something like that. so it's like, but there are ways to do it where you still are mentioning the corporate needs of the congregation in the midst of the church, but you're not like getting bogged down in some of these details, but that people are being mentioned because this is what we're supposed to be doing. Like, you know, we're supposed to be houses of prayer.

Rob Paterson (22:00.267)
Yep. So Courtney, let's go back to that example because I still remember that conversation. you know, I grew up in a church where there was like a pastoral prayer, you know, every, every week. And again, it was a smaller country church. So doing it in a way that was, that flowed and was effective and, and, and, you whatever, it wasn't difficult. and people could, you know,

Courtney (22:07.106)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (22:23.521)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (22:25.619)
right there share aloud and somebody like you know the pastor would write those things down and then pray this pastoral prayer for the felt needs of the congregation and even sometimes the community if people knew things or whatever. And then I still remember going back to a church that I was the founding pastor of and they had really embraced like a significant prayer time like that and it was basically

Courtney (22:28.364)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (22:54.677)
you know, the better part of an hour that they would take. So they'd have maybe a two hour thing all told with snacks and whatever, and a good, good teaching time, good worship time. like prayer was as significant as those other things, which you could say, yeah, prayer support. And that's not bad, but I could literally like sitting there feel like the, people who call that place home, the whatever 40 or so of them, they loved it.

Courtney (23:00.087)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (23:21.195)
But if you were a new person walking in, like I could just tell by the feel in the room that you weren't coming back because you're like, you know, I'm not. And so, you know, when, when you think about these things, it seems like, you know, like you're kind of floating back and forth almost from beauty first to goodness first, because, know, even when we're trying to do these things, we're trying to do them in ways that work.

Courtney (23:25.717)
Mm hmm. Right.

Courtney (23:41.772)
Okay.

Rob Paterson (23:49.683)
And are effective, not just like a blunt force tool that might actually derail kind of our mission, but it's so, it's so important that who cares? There are people in churches that do that too, right? Cause this is just so important. It doesn't matter if nobody comes. so like, know,

Courtney (23:52.481)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (24:06.104)
Well, I would say like, you know, two extremes, but you know, a snake handling church, right? They're about the beauty of faith and they're handling snakes. that, yeah, exactly. so they're, and they would say, we don't care if it works. The idea is, you know, we're showing our faith, whatever, you know, obviously that's a caricature, but, you know, but even an hour long prayer time, there's such a balance between

Rob Paterson (24:17.833)
or the truth that we can handle them and not die.

Courtney (24:19.019)
Yeah.

Courtney (24:27.639)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (24:36.044)
hospitality and the beauty of welcoming people and then doing things that are off putting to people and trying to determine and live in that tension and not necessarily because it works or it doesn't work, but just because there is something beautiful about being a welcoming space. And so I automatically want to create a space that is welcoming. And how do I know if it's beautiful? Well, it's if it works in getting people to stay.

Rob Paterson (24:43.733)
Hehehe.

Courtney (24:45.677)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (25:05.283)
It gets convoluted at some point.

Courtney (25:06.795)
Yeah, and I think that like some of those goodness first approaches that are measuring if it works or not, they're measuring like very external characteristics of it works or not. So like, again, these are metrics and and you're right, like usually the only way you could criticize a Craig Rochelle or Andy Stanley church model was or the way that we heard it was just like, well, they're not sticking to the truth of the gospel. They're not delivering the gospel every single time. That would be a truth first critique of that goodness first approach. Right.

Jason Allison (25:29.432)
Right. Yeah.

Courtney (25:35.436)
But I would say a beauty first critique of that goodness first approach in my mind has been that they de-emphasize things that were always distinctively Christian. Like when you look at their worship spaces, there's not something, generally speaking, like a cross that might catch your attention. There isn't a way to administer the sacraments when they build a new building, right? There is no like natural connection point between the stage and the people. So if sacraments or the Eucharist was important to us, which is...

what Christ has commanded us to do, then there would be an easy way for the minister to commune and to come toward the people to offer them the Eucharist, right? So these are just like very like, you can look at the architecture of the building and see these kinds of things, right? And the building is no longer oriented towards some kind of participatory movement, like where the congregation is gonna be moving forward and then coming back. It's oriented towards like man on stage seating. So those are some beauty first.

critiques, which are not apparently evident that like their theology is off, right? Or like, you know, that I'm not like saying like, well, they've abandoned the gospel. It's, we are no longer looking at this as if it's the body of Christ that is living, moving, where we are oriented towards sharing gifts and participating in the blessing of God, right? And so a Beauty First critique would be oriented to that. And the reason why those oughts

come is because of who Christ is in himself. Christ is the one, the God man who came to earth to minister to us. And so therefore some of these ways of doing ministry that ignore the humanity and the image of God and the people who are coming in the room and see them as something to be measured and metriced to then orient to are we doing effective ministry kind of misses the people aspect of that. Right? So that's where these aughts come into play.

Jason Allison (27:29.518)
So what is this? I have a hundred questions, but I'll start with this one. What does let's talk about the implication of this in terms of, you know, the great commission to go and make disciples. Like what does a beauty first approach look like? I know what a truth first approach looks like. It's a lot of notebooks and classes and, you know, all this and even a goodness first approach.

Courtney (27:49.933)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jason Allison (27:58.51)
There's a sense in which.

Courtney (27:59.554)
There's programs and you're getting out and serving like you're there's. Yeah.

Jason Allison (28:02.602)
Yeah, and neither of those are bad.

Rob Paterson (28:02.975)
Yes, I'll teach you to read. I'll teach a bug. I'll provide you food so you're you're not dying. Yeah.

Courtney (28:08.173)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (28:08.534)
Yeah, right, right. But a beauty first, help me, you know, paint a picture of that.

Courtney (28:16.203)
Yeah, so when like John Mark Comer had a really great conversation with Carrie Newhoff, if you want to see like where I feel like the the pinch point like John Mark Comer is also recognizing this because he's written a book called Practicing the Way. Yeah. And so he's even though he doesn't have this like Beauty First thing, this is why I was like, Beauty First really gives us a lot of language for what we're talking about here.

Jason Allison (28:31.64)
We're preaching through that right now at the church I'm at.

Rob Paterson (28:34.743)
We're gonna be doing that starting next month.

Jason Allison (28:36.973)
There you go.

Courtney (28:43.893)
But in his conversation with Carrie Newhoff, he realized that when we have people who pushing, like, you know, we're getting them into our discipleship funnel, that we tend to think that they've, like, become a quote unquote good disciple and a goodness first approach. Like, this is what I would say, in a goodness first approach, whenever they now start teaching and or leading one of our programs, right, that we've set forth. And like, and once you've done that, like you have now achieved some kind of discipleship.

but that there are these other three kind of, and he's using psychology to talk about this, but there are these other three metrics of growth that are past that, where you go through kind of what might historically have been called like a dark night of the soul, where you kind of feel God's absence from you and you have to push on through that. And then once you reach that dark night of the soul and come through that, then you kind of realize this kind of religious ecstasy where now,

There's almost this sense that no matter what happens to me, I know that God's with me. And now we've reached this spiritual maturity where like kind of our works and our faith are naturally connected. Where we don't think of us doing things for God as something external to me, but it's just natural. I want to love God in all of these ways, right? But if we stop and think, so we have a hard time as evangelicals pitching that to people that like we're gonna have a road of suffering and lament.

that then will culminate in this beautiful life that sees suffering as a part of the love of God and the love of God naturally flowing out of me and into the world. Right.

Jason Allison (30:22.828)
Yeah, but no one wants that. That's a terrible sales pitch.

Courtney (30:26.39)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (30:26.792)
That's so good

Courtney (30:28.935)
So typically evangelical circles that have latched onto a beauty first approach, I would say have really like embraced Richard Foster or Dallas Willard, the celebration of disciplines as kind of like their mode of moving people into the discipleship core. So they don't necessarily measure it by, are you leading a program? Because everybody, like those are specific gifts, right? Teaching and leading are specific gifts. Everybody might not be gifted to be a leader.

But everyone can be growing together in this corporate spirituality, right? Because it's not just individual, it should be a corporate spirituality that is moving into these spiritual disciplines together, right? And so everybody can grow in that way. And they might not have gifts that necessarily directly serve the body of Christ that look like, they're teaching leading on a Sunday morning, but they are out in the world in that, again, that flow between God and them in the world, right?

Rob Paterson (31:08.341)
Okay, so you guys know where I'm going next because I suspect, and this is where this became even more like, for me,

Courtney (31:25.943)
Yes.

Rob Paterson (31:33.185)
Cause I'm sure everyone listening is probably thinking this right in some way, or form. Ooh, you know, on this issue or in this thing, I really, I just, I always default to truth first cause that's important. And, but you know, in this other program or area of focus in my ministry really is a goodness folk kind of first thing. And we want to make sure it's effective and works like, you know, a program that helps feed homeless people.

Courtney (31:47.265)
Yeah.

Courtney (32:01.29)
and

Rob Paterson (32:01.917)
You know, you don't want that to be all just about beauty. It's like, look, isn't that beautiful? Those people starving. Cause we didn't actually successfully give them nutrition. Right. and so I, you know, I think for most people, they, they kind of like, you know, bounce around from one to the other, depending on what they're thinking about or focusing on. But Courtney talk, let's talk about toasters in cats and how the church is totally different than a toaster.

Courtney (32:17.751)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (32:21.165)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (32:25.227)
Let's talk about cats and

Courtney (32:30.701)
Right. Yeah. So, so regarding like the like homeless shelter or food pantry or something like, well, we do need to be goodness first oriented to that. Again, a beauty first approach is not going to say that that's a bad thing, that that's, that's actually, that's a good thing. It's always good. But the way that we do that is, is generally speaking, and this is how it happens in most churches. I think that do it really well is it comes from a beauty first approach, like a pastor or somebody in that ministry just has a heart for that. Right. I can think of.

One of my friends goes to this large mega church and it's just one of those great mega churches that just serves the community like crazy. And the pastor has an adult daughter with special needs. And so he saw this particular need that, you know, adult people with special needs have needs for spirituality that need to be met. Their parents need to sometimes go to the doctor and not worry about their care and all this kind of stuff. So they have an amazing ministry for adults with special needs that help.

Rob Paterson (33:11.255)
Mm.

Courtney (33:28.843)
them gain work job skills, that it's a retreat center. So if parents need want to go on a vacation, their adults with special needs can stay there, but because they've already developed all these friendships and relationships, they see it as a retreat for them, you know, and camp for them and things like that. like this church has this amazing ministry, and it comes from this beauty first approach, like this pastor wanting to love his daughter and love other families well, that also have children like that, right?

So, so it would look externally, goodness first, like we are just helping special needs people in our community, whether, and Christians from all kinds of churches participate in this ministry, not just their church, because it's so unique, right? So we're not against, you know, food pantries. It's just, that's not the metric as to like, whether or not we're a good church. It's, we loving our community well? And these are the needs that are organic in our community, and therefore we're loving them in our community.

Jason Allison (33:57.934)
you

Rob Paterson (34:05.911)
You

Courtney (34:22.807)
So the cat and toaster analogy feeds directly into that. So Timothy Petitsa actually borrows this example from an evangelical urban ministry. He's located in Boston. So this is an urban ministry in Boston. And it's really easy to see in urban ministries, anybody who's done that kind of work for a long time, there are truth first approaches that are like, all we need to do is educate them. And then they will no longer struggle with the issues of poverty and cyclical poverty and all those things that come with it.

Rob Paterson (34:36.503)
Hmm

Jason Allison (34:45.229)
you

Courtney (34:51.917)
And then there are goodness first approaches that are like, well, if we just throw more money at it, we have more nonprofits, we, you know, give them more backpacks filled with food and all that kind of stuff. Then all of sudden they'll be 18 and no longer struggle with all of the things of, um, urban poverty. Yeah. Ta-da. Right. So there are goodness first approaches to that. And so this urban ministry in Boston came up with this analogy that Timothy Petitsa has just thought perfectly encapsulated the goodness first approach. So they use the analogy of a cat and a toaster.

Rob Paterson (35:06.468)
Ta-da!

Jason Allison (35:07.682)
You

Courtney (35:22.279)
a toaster is something that you can, if it breaks, you can identify the problem, take it completely. Yeah. It's a simple system, like, you know, cause and effect, simple system. And even if there are two parts that break goodness, first approach, it's a cause and effect, simple system. And you can take it all apart, fix the one part that's broken and put it back together in the toaster works. Right. That's toaster, but in a complex living system. go ahead.

Rob Paterson (35:29.052)
It's a simple system.

Rob Paterson (35:49.431)
Well, hang on, hang on. Like, and so we do this in the church, right? Like where we're like, Ooh, we're, we're, we're not effective at discipleship or evangelism. So we want to take it apart, figure the missing class, the missing training, the missing, whatever, and put that in and then ta-da, it's going to magically work all of a sudden. Right. And then it doesn't. And we wonder why.

Courtney (35:52.524)
Yeah.

Courtney (36:03.435)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (36:09.933)
Yeah, exactly. It doesn't, yeah, exactly. We've all had that like one class that we were like, oh, we really need to do this. And if we just do it, then all of a sudden people will do evangelism after nine weeks and we train them in evangelism. And then all of a sudden, like, nobody's still doing evangelism, you know? So, yeah, we've all had that experience as pastors where we like, oh, this is our problem. Let me go and figure out the solution. And then it doesn't solve anything. We're still in the same place after two years.

Jason Allison (36:38.318)
And so you're saying basically the truth and the goodness first approach, or those two approaches, look at the system and we're looking at the system of the church as a toaster in essence. the truth, maybe they're saying we need a better part or that part is faulty, so we need to replace it with a pure one, a true one, right? To a goodness, maybe they're saying, the system is broken here. We need to repair this place and then we'll get the output.

Courtney (36:46.07)
Yeah.

Courtney (36:50.443)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Courtney (36:59.872)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (37:07.352)
that we're hoping to achieve. But then a beauty first has more of a, they approach the system like you would approach a cat. So explain that.

Courtney (37:08.683)
Right. Exactly.

Courtney (37:15.337)
A cat. Yeah. So again, with living systems, these are multivariable problems that are unique to the living system. And so this would be a cat. If you identify a problem in a cat. All right. Let's use a dog if somebody's really averse to cats. if you would. Yeah. So, you know, if you identify a problem and you know, your dog has like pancreas issues or something, you don't dissect the dog.

Rob Paterson (37:32.979)
Thank God.

Jason Allison (37:33.546)
Amen. Yes.

Courtney (37:43.648)
and take out the pancreas and say, okay, we'll get a new one and put it in, right? Once you've taken apart the cat or the dog, the cat is dead. And identifying the problem in that external mode doesn't help actually solve the problem in the living system. You've now killed the living system, right? And so the way that you solve a problem in the living system is care and health. So it's more like kind of medically focused than

Again, mechanism focused.

Jason Allison (38:16.046)
Okay, so let's put this into, I don't know, let's put this into real life, okay? And you have Ted on your lap there, Ted the dog. Of course. Yeah, yeah, even though his tongue's hanging out, that's okay. Yeah, yeah. So what does this look like in a church that's, you know, let's take a typical church.

Courtney (38:24.403)
Mm-hmm. I know. Yeah. My dog is immediately made an appearance whenever we start talking about it. Don't dissect it. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (38:29.245)
Yeah, don't dissect Ted. Let's figure out the problem, Courtney. Zip him open.

Courtney (38:35.339)
Let's figure it out.

Jason Allison (38:45.806)
85 to 125, you know, somewhere in that range. They haven't done a baptism in two years, maybe five years, and they're looking around going, okay, what do I need to do to actually be effective in doing what God has called us to do? If I'm going to take a beauty first approach to that question, how am I going to then dive into that? And yes, you have three minutes to answer. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Courtney (38:48.727)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (39:02.871)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (39:11.307)
Yeah, so I have three minutes and I've never applied it to that particular situation before. Yeah, exactly. A real tool that we can use. So again, I would say that this is we are the body of Christ. So this is that body that we're looking at. And this is how we're evaluating health. So just like whenever you go to a doctor, there are going to be a list of diagnostic questions, but a doctor never confuses that list of diagnostic questions with the totality of the answer, which

Jason Allison (39:16.366)
Well, I want it to be a real tool that we can use.

Courtney (39:38.646)
is kind of what a goodness first approach does. It's like, if we just give you the survey and pop it out, then we'll have these kind of six areas that we can evaluate your ministry on. you doing outreach, internal discipleship, like all these things, and you're not doing this, so we'll just fix this one. So a doctor never confuses the list of diagnostic questions with the totality of the answer. He then runs scans and tests, and he looks at the totality of your life, like your eating habits, all kinds of things, to then,

Rob Paterson (40:00.535)
Mm.

Courtney (40:07.755)
begin to prescribe certain things. And then as he prescribes those certain things, the prescription is again, never the end of the answer. It's do you have side effects from this drug that he now prescribed? Now we might need to go and tweak the dosage or find a different medication. Now that it doesn't seem to be fixing the problem at all. So maybe it's a totally different problem that we need to address over here. And so we're gonna get a different scan to figure it out. it really is never.

Like I would say approaching that question of like a church that hasn't had a baptism in two to five years and is trying to figure it out. We could go in and immediately say, there's some things here we could try to fix to get that kind of prescription so that, but that prescription is just honing our eventual response, right? And is not the end in itself. And so you're treating it like in this organic system. Like, you know, you're poking and prodding and seeing where it hurts, essentially.

And so then you're evaluating things based on life and death, right? Like is it leading towards life and health or is it leading in making us sicker? And so, so then whenever we apply something and like now all of a sudden everybody in the church is mad. Maybe we've touched on something that we then need to reevaluate. Whereas I feel like in the past when thinking about becoming a new minister in a church, it's like if you make a change and everybody's mad about it, well, I'm right.

because I know that this works and they're wrong because they're just arguing about the color of the carpet or something, right? Whereas that congregational response is actually important and something I need to listen to, right?

Jason Allison (41:36.952)
Right.

Jason Allison (41:45.039)
Yeah, no, that's good. mean, it's not a silver bullet to fix everything, which is what I was hoping for, but I know that's probably the wrong desire. But I think there is something about being able to approach the church, even if it's the church that you're leading as the pastor, if you look at it not as a system to be fixed, but instead as an organism to be

Courtney (41:49.601)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Courtney (42:02.839)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (42:12.992)
treated, nurtured. You know, and that does change the way you approach things. Number one, it says, Hey, you know what, a big, fast growing thing is not the goal. Because more often than not in your body, if there's a big, fast growing thing, it's called a tumor, right? You know, and so you got to be careful of that. But that's not saying, you know, at certain times, the body does grow really fast. You know, I've got a three year old grandson and

Rob Paterson (42:13.074)
Nurtured.

Courtney (42:14.285)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (42:26.657)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (42:30.039)
Thank

Courtney (42:31.703)
cancer.

Courtney (42:40.749)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (42:42.562)
I think he grew three inches over the weekend. know, it's like just that kind of that happens and that's fine. That's not unhealth. but it also means that, listening to the body is important, in, you go through any kind of diagnoses and then even a treatment plan. And it's just that, right? It's a treatment plan. It's not a fix. And the treatment plan involves both outside things like maybe it's a medication, maybe it's a

Courtney (42:52.973)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (43:02.69)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (43:11.118)
You know, for churches, maybe it's a program or something that would be helpful in the moment, but it also involves the patient participating in the care. You know, like I, I went, you know, I had a knee issue last year and I went to the doctor. He said, well, you're, you're, know, ACL or whatever is all shredded and whatever we could do surgery. But honestly, I think, you know, physical therapy is a better option for you. So I went to the physical therapist. gave me exercises.

Courtney (43:11.223)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney (43:21.057)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (43:39.626)
And the amazing thing is when I did the exercises over the course of, you know, six weeks, my knee got better naturally. You know, I didn't need all the outside stuff. didn't, but I had to participate in the healing process to let my body then do what my body does. And I think if we start approaching the church with that mentality, that's more in my humble opinion, that is more of a beauty first approach to leading.

Rob Paterson (43:45.119)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (44:06.583)
Mm.

Jason Allison (44:08.94)
our churches. Is that, am I even close?

Rob Paterson (44:10.326)
Yeah.

Courtney (44:10.827)
Right. Yeah, for sure. I think you definitely are. Yeah. And like listening, like even when you're going through physical therapy, I'm sure there was like targets that they put out in front of you that you either hit earlier or it took you longer because your body was just taking a little bit longer. And so to heal and recover and all those things, because you're an individual and the physical therapist kind of knows a general plan, you know, but they're caring for you and caring for your body, right?

Jason Allison (44:24.256)
Old.

Rob Paterson (44:25.399)
Mm.

Jason Allison (44:28.942)
Yeah. Right. Yes.

Jason Allison (44:36.482)
Yeah. Then let me give.

Rob Paterson (44:36.646)
Hmm.

Courtney (44:37.713)
and so whenever your body says, I can't do that anymore, you like, you pause, right. you waited that bench.

Jason Allison (44:41.59)
Yeah. Well, let let me give you another example than a physical therapy in this. Like, so, so last year I was having a foot issue. Yeah. I got, I know I've, you know, Rob can compare. Did you hear that? Rob compared to your hip issue. these are minor. Okay. but, but I was doing, so I went to physical therapy for that. They, you know, did a couple of things. Well, in the midst of the physical therapy therapy, had me do this one exercise where I stand on one foot on a, like a pad that kind of

Rob Paterson (44:48.679)
Holy cow, how many issues do you have?

Courtney (44:51.197)
He's hit that age. Everything is an issue. It just depends on when you deal with it.

Rob Paterson (44:59.765)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (45:11.339)
I hate that exercise.

Jason Allison (45:11.404)
You know, okay. And so, but in the process of doing that exercise, they didn't take into account that I had had, you know, years ago, back surgery for a herniated disc. And so in the process of doing that one exercise, it actually aggravated an old wound and made it. So now I heard in two different places. And so the, you know, the therapy, because they didn't take into effect the whole system.

and all the things, the damage, the trauma, whatever you want to call it, it actually aggravated multiple systems. And so I think sometimes, especially, you know, I go in and I coach churches and I do some consulting. I have to listen to the history of the church before I start prescribing anything, because I got to be aware of past pains that I don't want to break open that scab, you know, while trying to treat something else.

Rob Paterson (45:46.967)
you

Rob Paterson (45:56.225)
Mm.

Jason Allison (46:08.302)
But there's a wisdom in that that I think you've got to find. that's where this, that's the difference between a beauty first orientation versus a truth or goodness. Those don't require as much wisdom. They require intellectual, you know, acumen in that, but you're just, you're just, you know, putting one thing in and in place of another. And if you know which one, then you're really smart and you make a lot of money. Right. Yeah.

Courtney (46:15.639)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Courtney (46:23.318)
Right.

Rob Paterson (46:32.535)
Yeah, yeah, I know we're kind of like out of time, but I got I got a quick illustration to since both you guys had yours. So I think it's maybe the difference between your fat, you're not supposed to be. Here's my list of things my truth if you long as you do these things and nothing else, then you won't be fat anymore. Where the goodness first is, ooh, here's this GLP one and you just stick it into your thigh once a week and

Courtney (46:32.641)
Right. Yeah.

Jason Allison (46:36.162)
Yeah.

Courtney (47:00.407)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (47:01.855)
And you don't even need to change anything, but guess what? Boom. You're going to start to be more beautiful. Goodness. First. And, and maybe a truth first is going, you know what? Like, let's actually try to see if you're healthy or not, regardless of what the scale says. And then let's make sure your levels and your joints and just like you're enjoying life and you're, you feel good and you are good versus hitting some specific weight.

Courtney (47:07.617)
Yeah.

Courtney (47:18.806)
Yeah.

Courtney (47:29.281)
Right. And you can, you can actually kind of see our culture beginning to like take these things into account. Cause I do feel like overall health is now something that doctors are trying to evaluate and like, what would it look like for someone at your height, your weight, your age to be healthy. Right. instead of just like the old, you know, truth first or goodness first approaches. And so again, like this applies to like literally we could point at anything and say like, this is how they operate and, and things like that. But Jason, I think you're hitting the nail on the head with wisdom.

Jason Allison (47:36.302)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Allison (47:42.956)
Right.

Jason Allison (47:47.821)
Yeah.

Courtney (47:57.026)
Because some of the pushback are when people try to ask Timothy Petitsis about, if we get over, do we lose truth or goodness if we overemphasize beauty? And it's the beauty first or the wisdom, like you could use wisdom in that category, would say, truth and goodness inform how we're going to deal with the situation. And we know that it's good and wise because now it's leading to wholeness in life. And so that's exactly the image of wisdom in the Bible is that

Rob Paterson (47:57.61)
Mmm.

Courtney (48:27.137)
You you look at something like Psalm one, that the life of wisdom leads us to becoming like a tree planted by streams of water. Like all of this organic imagery, Jesus saying, I am the vine and you are the branches. Like it leads to wholeness in life. And it is wisdom of knowing exactly when to apply that truth or when to apply that goodness program or something like that. And you can evaluate it. And I would say in something like Andy Stanley's church, again, if I were going to say, okay, well, I can see where their architecture now.

actually prevents us from doing certain things in the Christian life, but also their back door often is just as large as their front door. So we need to evaluate why would people leave that church? What are they saying I'm no longer getting in this ministry? Like, you know, we had a similar kind of ministry, like, you know, large mega church ministry that was really good at evangelism, but then a lot of people would end up at our churches after going to that. And it was like, well, they got me in the door, but I wasn't growing there is what they would say, something like that.

Jason Allison (49:24.6)
Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney (49:26.347)
Like there wasn't a way for me to go deeper in the Christian life, you know? And someone like that style of church would say, well, we're not here for you. Like the Sunday morning, they often say Sunday morning is for new people. And if you're a longtime Christian, you need to kind of, you know, take a back seat in that regard and serve. You just need to serve. And the church is no longer there about helping to serve and minister to you. And so they would say eventually like, I had, you know, a major life crisis that I needed help from the church and I couldn't serve.

Jason Allison (49:42.126)
Yeah.

Courtney (49:54.86)
And now I no longer had a place in that church. And so you look at like why their back door is almost as big as their front door. And they're telling you this because they're missing that health factor, right? And that care. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (49:59.041)
Mm.

Jason Allison (50:04.846)
Yeah. Well, and I mean, and I know I'm going to bring this in for a landing here, but there's also a beauty in the big C church overall, where sometimes that big church that's, you know, doing the evangelism thing and quote unquote, getting them in the door. We can pick that apart later, but, um, but then all of the other churches that maybe aren't as big and fancy and good, but are providing that.

Courtney (50:13.836)
Yeah.

Courtney (50:22.337)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jason Allison (50:31.818)
Okay, now how do I grow in a healthy way? Like it from 30,000 feet, all of those churches working together are impacting the kingdom in a positive, in a beautiful way that, sometimes instead of judging that big church or judging that small church, right? We say, wait a minute, they're both, they just happen to be gifted in a different area right now. Things change and evolve and that's okay. Let's move towards health.

Rob Paterson (50:43.787)
Hmm. Yeah.

Courtney (50:49.527)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jason Allison (51:01.639)
on both sides and maybe together then we can see God do some amazing things in that community.

Courtney (51:08.855)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (51:09.003)
Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it? Cause how many times, especially to the little church, you know, talk about the big church, like it's the worst thing ever, but it's because that big church got them in the door and they have a big back door that all those smaller churches are now full. and, I love that Jason, because I don't think that it, mean, as pastors, sometimes we feel the ache and the pain of this, but sometimes what people need is not our special specialty.

Courtney (51:22.05)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (51:38.039)
But there's another church in the area that is super good at that thing that that person, that family really, really needs right now. And so they shift over to that body and really are getting exactly what they need. And I think that's overall something to be celebrated, not something to be demonized.

Courtney (51:54.658)
Yeah. And we've also all experienced the large church kind of, know, integrating the small church too, especially like in the conference circuit. It's like, if, if you don't have a big platform and your local church, you're not never going to make the platform. And so it almost feels like, you know, we've talked about that with Carl, Carl Vader's and the like grasshopper church. It does feel like, well, the small church just isn't being effective at reaching the community if they're not big. Right.

Jason Allison (52:01.792)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (52:03.991)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (52:09.089)
Right.

Jason Allison (52:20.066)
Yeah.

Courtney (52:21.087)
And so, and we've all had enough experiences with churches to know that there are healthy small churches and healthy big churches and unhealthy small churches and unhealthy big churches. And so it's about finding health in whatever ministry God has graced you with to find help and to find ways to shepherd and care for people and look at it instead of like metrics or just truth first, just say, what would it look like for our church to move towards health?

Jason Allison (52:30.412)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (52:49.464)
Yeah.

Courtney (52:49.577)
And we're not going to put everyone into kind of one discipleship box. You know, we're not going to make them a toaster. We're going to look at people like they're people, you know.

Jason Allison (52:52.834)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great place to end this conversation. I think we've got multiple conversations of follow-up that we're going to have to do. And I would encourage you who are listening, send us an email on the, you know, in the show notes, there's a place that says, text us, use that or email us, you know, Rob or Courtney or Jason at church talk project.com email us, let us know what you're thinking. We would love to hear how this is playing out or not.

playing out within your local context and how we could come alongside you and help you in that process. We really are here to engage, equip and encourage pastors and leaders. And we wanna keep doing that. So do us a favor and if this was meaningful or helpful to you, share it with some people, subscribe so that you get this every week, let other people know about it, share about it maybe on your social media stuff. We appreciate it and we are just honored that you would take time to listen.

and to engage with us. So have a great week and we really do hope to hear from you soon. We'll see you next week.