Tag Archives: authenticity

88: Church Isn’t Working

In this episode John and Gregg discuss an article from Relevant magazine, concerning an interview with Rachel Held Evans on how Millennials feel alienated from most church settings, and are looking for a committed community rather than for a church with “the right” programs or music.

John notes, despite not being in the Millennial age bracket, that for a long time he’s had similar feelings to Rachel’s. He explains that the worship music has never been that important to him and that he too feels more comfortable in the Episcopal church.

Where the article also focuses on church attendance declining, John notes that when his lack of church attendance comes up with others he is most often asked simply whether he is attending (and never about the deeper, more causal issues such as how he’s thinking or feeling about God, where he is in terms of his spiritual journey, etc.). Yet he finds this line of questioning assumes too much, such as that if you’re attending a church then it must be a good one (or good enough) and that ‘truth’ is being spoken there.
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81: Pushing Without Being Pushy

In this episode Gregg and John discuss John’s mission statement and how it relates to the podcast. Gregg begins by reading John’s mission statement: “John brings order to chaos and clarity to a confusion so that owners can effectively communicate their truth and thrive.”

John explains that “owners” are people who not only take charge of but take responsibility for their own lives. John contrasts his focuses on owners with having worked in past with people whom he describes as “victims” of their lives. These people seem to focus on all the reason why something would fail or why attempting to fix a broken / non-functional situation just wouldn’t work. Trying to encourage or help these people takes a tremendous amount of energy and typically shows very minimal results.

John’s focus on dealing with chaos and confusion is because these are the typical obstacles that owners face, and he finds that bringing order and clarification in such situations is extremely gratifying. John also links this to the genesis of our podcast, where his confusion while reading of Not a Fan prompted him to seek Gregg’s help to clarify matters.
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