The Marred Community

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of the Stumble, where we're having meaningful conversations from a Christian perspective about faith, doubt, and how the heck those two things can live together in your life. My name is Sam Tennell. I'm your host. And before we get too far into this, I want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's episode, Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville, Missouri. Emmanuel Fellowship Church is a church that believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for all people. This is because we believe that Jesus loves us exactly as we are and also loves us enough to make us more than we are. Hey, if you live in the St. Louis area and you're listening to this in 2025, I want to give a personal invitation to you. I'm setting aside time to meet with people in the community who are wrestling through their own doubts and stumbling blocks. Not to try and record an episode of a podcast, but just to give a safe place for people to process their doubts, to see what it looks like to make faith a core of their person. If you're in the area and it's still 2025 and you're interested in that kind of conversation, feel free to reach out to me. You can email [email protected] Again, if you are in the St. Louis area and you'd like to meet with someone to talk through your own doubts or stumbling blocks, Please reach out hellofcstl.com and we'll schedule a time to grab a coffee and talk about faith. In today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing Mike Bird. Mike Bird is a church planner here in St. Louis, as well as the missionary mobilizer for the North American Mission Board for the city of St. Louis. And we're going to be talking about the reality that Christianity has just a public perception of being hypocritical and overly marred in politics and those sorts of things. If you're, if you're the kind of person who has wrestled with the seeming connection of evangelical Christianity with politics over the last few years, I think you're going to find this episode interesting. So let's jump right into this conversation. Thanks. All right. I am here with Mike Bird, a good friend of mine. I've known Mike for, gosh, coming up on 10 years. Is that, is that 10 years, Mike? [00:02:33] Speaker B: It's about right. [00:02:35] Speaker A: One of my favorite dudes in ministry in the St. Louis area. You'll do it better than I do. So, Mike, why don't you take a minute and just tell us about your role at Faith Community and your role at North American Mission Board. And we'll go from there. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Really good. So, as Sam said, my name is Michael Bird. I have been married to the Tracy Bird for a little over 20 years. We have four kids, one grandbaby. And nine years ago, we planted Faith Community Bible church in North St. Louis, where we exist to make Christ known in the community by caring for the community, y'. All. I love my church and the people that go there. I also get to serve as the Sin City missionary here in St. Louis with the Sin the Network. And my role there is really to help churches not only develop leaders, but help them catalyze to multiply so that we can reach the lost in our city. So I love what I get to do. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Come on, dude. I know I've told you this before, but I wish I was a member at Faith Community Bible Church. You guys are great. You guys doing amazing. Stinking. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Hey, you can be a member of Faith Community. [00:03:46] Speaker A: Well, don't tell my pastors that. Okay, so I shared with you a little bit of the premise of what we're doing with this podcast. And so we've been having this discussions with faith leaders all around St. Louis, talking about some of the real doubts and struggles and stumbling blocks that people in our community have brought up with regards to faith in Christianity. And the one I want to tackle with you today, Mike, really focuses specifically on the Christian community itself. Many observers inside and outside the church, I think, look at Christianity or the Christian community, at least in North America, and they just see it as marred. It's stuck in politics and infighting and apathy and hypocrisy. And just like, it just feels like these are kind of a lot of the defining factors in our culture around Christianity. And I think it just leads a lot of people to genuinely question, like, okay, if that's what it looks like to be a Christian, how does Christianity actually transformative? Like, how does it actually make a person or a community better? And so I know that's kind of like a cultural hot take right now, but what are kind of just your initial thoughts on that perspective? [00:05:04] Speaker B: Well, man, I'm gonna speak if you allow me to. Just specifically about St. Louis, if I can. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Just looking at it from that aspect. And I think that as we really think about, you know, the politics and infight and as you said, apathy, hypocrisy, that's just really manifested in St. Louis or within the church, just specifically within St. Louis, like, here's what I'll say is a big thing about St. Louis is that St. Louis is extremely fragmented. Right. Meaning that when I say fragmented, I mean in that, you know, in St. Louis City proper, there's somewhere around, give or take, 79, 80 neighborhoods within St. Louis City. Okay, wild. However, within St. Louis county, give or take, there's about 88 municipalities in St. Louis County. Now, that fragmentation within city and in government and all of that, I would suggest, bleeds into the church landscape as well. [00:06:15] Speaker A: Yep. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Because depending on where you are, where your church is, all of those different things, people can pretty much tell where your church struggles. The kind of people that you reach in, who will and won't go to your church, all of those different things, which also allows politics and infighting and all those things to play a part within the church. And if I'm honest, I would say that many of the tensions that we see within the church, the church's identity, we kind of see it shaped in. And if I'm honest, more by political loyalty or cultural tradition or even denominational affiliation than we see gospel. Right. Oh, yeah. And I think that in some spaces, we see where even politics have began to overshadow mission, which is making it harder really, to even partner across not only racial lines, but even denominational lines. And I think that infighting happens when. When there's all of these differences over strategy or style or fractured relationships. Really, you know, the fragmentation, again, really begins to overshadow collaborative gospel work. Right. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:32] Speaker B: And I think that really, that apathy or even that hypocrisy that, for whatever reason, those two words just jumped out to me, I think it really shows that. That churches. This has caused people to really lose. Like, churches lose the urgency for mission and content. Mission content and just living on mission, causing them to maintain rather than multiply. Right. And I think that because of that, we see, like, hypocrisy more visible than ever, even when public statements about love and justice aren't matched in the actions of everyday people who profess to know Christians. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Come on, dude. [00:08:15] Speaker B: So, yeah, man. I can kind of lean into that for a long time. I think that we're just in a time where people are, okay, professing to be a Christian when their actions don't show it. Because Christian has become something that we say, but not something that we ought to be. We are comfortable going to church and not being the church. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Oh, dang. You're getting. That'll preach. I mean, like, yes, dude, you are hitting on exactly the issue. I think that people are identifying. And, you know, it is. I mean, St. Louis is an incredibly divided community. And I mean, there are documentaries on it, right? Like the Del Mar divide issue, like that. That's something that's literally been studied with people who are in the world of sociology and things like that. But I think. I think that at the same time, St. Louis probably isn't that different from most big metropolitan communities in our country in terms of this exact critique. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:19] Speaker A: In terms of people hanging out in their silos and connecting their political and sociological ideologies as primary or even putting them over the top of their faith. I guess what I'm hearing, what you're saying, I'm rambling at this point, but what I'm hearing, what you're saying is this is a fair criticism, right? Like, a lot of the American church is overly political and is apathetic and is living a hypocritical life where they attend church and claim Christ, but their life doesn't actually look like that. So I guess to me, the question then is why? Like, right. Like, why is that so seemingly visible and prevalent in the Christian community if the biblical gospel so obviously calls not just for unity and love, but for personal transformation? Right. Like, the gospel should be changing us, making us better people. Right? Like, so what's. Why does it work out that way. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Man? You know, I think that you pose a very interesting question, right? Because I think that one of the things that we just really can't deny, man, is that the gospel calls us to be new people, right? [00:10:35] Speaker A: Yep. [00:10:35] Speaker B: We see in 2nd Corinthians 5:17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away, all things are made new. Right? And I think that one of the reasons why we wrestle through that tension is because most of us are defined by our experiences, by our experiences in this life, and not really by the God who saved us in this life. Right? Yeah. Because, like, think about it. We lean into our experiences. And now my experience becomes my truth. And now as I deal with Sam, now I see Sam not from a gospel lens, but from a lens of my experiences. And I make Sam out to be somebody who he never has been to me, right? [00:11:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:27] Speaker B: But my experience isn't the truth. It's just my truth. But as a follower of Jesus, my responsibility is to ensure that because I'm new in Christ, my experiences now been redeemed by gospel truth. While that doesn't erase my experience, it just says I'm not defined by that. I'm now defined by the finished work of Jesus. [00:11:53] Speaker A: You know, dude, So a couple episodes ago, I was talking to Another pastor in St. Louis, Alex Lee, and he had this line. We were talking about deconstruction. And he had this line where he said, you know, I think part of the problem is that more of our theology is caught than is taught to us. And so whatever context, theologically or in this conversation, sociologically, whatever context you grow up in, you're just going to end up with all these assumed lenses through which you look at the community around you. And so if you grow up in a siloed, monocultured church that is more politically motivated than biblically motivated, there's a whole big chunk of people who are just never going to question that. It's just going to be absorbed into how they understand their selves and their faith. And what I'm hearing you say is that it's really natural to use our history, our upbringing, our culture as a primary lens through which to look at the world and the way we live. But you're saying, hey, listen, once we encounter Christ, it's not that that goes away, but that can't be our first lens anymore. Now the gospel of Jesus has to be the first lens through which we view our experience. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I totally agree with that. I'm gonna tell you, man, like, one of the things that I've just been thinking about lately, you know, is you've heard about the three circle evangelism tool, right, where we talk about God's design and need for the design of God and how he leans into brokenness, right? Yeah, but I think that for whatever reason, we've unintentionally been preaching a partial gospel. Like, and here's what I mean when I say partial gospel. I mean that we have been culturally addressing gospel only from the lens of spiritual brokenness. Right? Which I think is accurate. However, there's more brokenness that we see in our culture more than just spiritual. We got economic brokenness, we got social brokenness, we got emotional brokenness, right? And here it is. We're trying to address a spiritual brokenness, but it's hard for people to see their spiritual broken if they haven't eaten in five days. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Come on, dude. [00:14:16] Speaker B: It's hard for people to see, right, that they're spiritually broken if they don't know how to handle their emotions. Like, you think about. Think about Jesus. Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread. He got about, like, he shared with them the gospel after he gave them some food. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Right. So he acknowledged economic brokenness before he even addressed the spiritual brokenness, Right. And I think that, again, the gospel calls us to be new people. So if we really want to reach the people around us, we have to. We have to address the holistic issue of just leaning into where people are. Right? And I think we gotta be super careful that we just don't preach a partial gospel, but address the whole issue. [00:15:10] Speaker A: It's almost like a modern Gnosticism, right? Like to take the gospel message of Christianity, of Christ, and to separate it from people's physical reality. It's just a spiritual, abstract reality. That's. That's not the biblical gospel. That's not the biblical story. It makes me think of. I don't know if you ever listened to him back in the day, Mike, but the late Tony Campolo had this line where he said he was talking about his missions agency in Haiti. It was some speech he was giving for that. And he had this line, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but it was something to the effect of, it's a tragedy to tell a kid about the bread of life when what he really needs is a loaf of bread, like if he's starving, right? But it's just as much a tragedy to send a kid happy and full on his way to hell. You have to. They go together. It's one unified gospel. I use this example when I preach and I don't know if you're gonna. Do you like Star wars at all, Mike? Is that your thing? [00:16:16] Speaker B: No. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Perfect. Okay, so. So I use this example, but I think it's actually helpful. You know, the original Star wars movies from the 70s and 80s, there were three of them. It was a trilogy. And when I was a kid, we only had the third one. And I did not know there were three Star wars movies. I lived my entire childhood with the VHS of Return of the Jedi. And I watched it over and over and over. I thought it was so cool. Space wizards with laser swords, you know, like Little Boy's Dream, right. I thought it was awesome. But looking back on it, the third movie, it picks up in the middle of the story. Like it makes no sense. If you haven't seen the other two movies, it doesn't explain who the characters are. You have no idea why anything's going on. And I had no clue there was more to the story. And I will never forget the time I was at a family member's house and they had the whole trilogy. And I had this. This like mind blowing moment of going, there's two other movies, you know, and then I watched the other two and realized, oh, my gosh, there's all this story that gives context to what I've been watching. And I feel like it's really easy for us as Christians to do the same thing. We give a piece of the gospel without giving the whole story. [00:17:34] Speaker B: But, man, like, you just gave an accurate description of why community is marred. Let me ask you a question, so I'm gonna interview you. Right. Here's my question. When was the last time you went into a blockbuster? [00:17:53] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, I don't. It had to be 2012. [00:18:00] Speaker B: When was the last time you watched a VHS tape? [00:18:06] Speaker A: Probably 2012. Probably right around the spine. The blockbuster around here closed. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Now, what's interesting is that the Christian community, like, here's why we struggle today. And people don't see the church as real anymore because the church has moved on to streaming platforms, and we still trying to go to Blockbuster. Yep. Instead of us going out and meeting our neighbor, we constantly inviting people to church. When the reality is. When the reality is, if we're just inviting people to church and not sharing the gospel with them, we're not evangelists. We're event promoters. And I think that that's why the community is so marred, because all we're saying is, oh, your marriage is falling apart. Oh, listen to this song. Come hear my choir sing. Come hear my worship team. Oh, you're a man and you having manhood issues. Okay, you need to come meet my pastor. How about we just begin to deal with them right where they are? You know what I mean? Our gospel, for whatever reason, doesn't have an answer to stuff like that because we're too busy trying to change their mind and not change their heart. [00:19:20] Speaker A: It's such a good image you're given there, Mike, of just. And I think that's probably true. A lot of individual Christians, I think, don't feel equipped to step into. Their friends and neighbors and coworkers lives in that way. And so they end up just going, well, I'll just invite him to church. And that's not necessarily effective in a cultural moment that sees the church the way it does. Let me kind of back us up, maybe, and let me ask this. If we think a lot of what this critique about the Christian community really is accurate, and the issue, what I'm hearing you describe is a lot of Christian communities aren't actually allowing the biblical gospel to define their community. They've got these cultural and ideological things that are circumventing the scripture. Why don't we step back and can you talk about what actually is a biblical vision for the Christian community? How does the Bible describe the way Christians are actually supposed to interact with each other and with the world? [00:20:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think that when you think about that, I think Scripture says you will know them by their fruit. Now, when he said you will know them by their fruit, that fruit was not how well you sang. That fruit was not how great you drive a car or how great you dress. Right. However, like, I think the elements that foster Christian community is genuine love and humility. John 13. Right. I think commitment to reconciliation. You know, I think Paul in 2 Corinthians talks about this ministry of reconciliation. I think that also Hebrews 10, mutual accountability, not only the scripture, but to one another. I think if we want to see true biblical community, we have to ensure that the word of God is our metric and not our thoughts and ideas. Because for whatever reason, we've placed preference over principle. Well, if you think like me, if you dress like me, if you live like me, here's one that'll get us canceled. If you vote like me, you're going to. Yeah, right. And there's assumptions made because I'm in the inner city, I'm a Democrat. Or because you're in a suburban area, you know, you're a Republican. But, like, but we don't endorse elephants or none of that. We endorse an empty cross. Right. And we have to lead out in that. You know what I mean? That way. So, yeah, man. Yeah, I think, man, there's lots of. Lots of different biblical pictures that display genuine community. I think we just ignore it because it's absent in our lives most of the time. [00:22:30] Speaker A: But I even. Dude, I want to zone in on the three you just said because it's such a good contrast. If there's this. This cultural stereotype that how we understand Christians in the church is, oh, they're politically obsessed, they're apathetic, they fight with each other, and they're hypocrites. And you go, well, what the Bible actually describes is that they radically love one another. They operate out of radical forgiveness and reconciliation, and they hold each other to deep and loving accountability. It's like, oh, my gosh, could you create a more stark contrast to what is actually being seen by so much of the world in that idea of reconciliation? Man. Like, I know that probably the way that translates in terms of, like, cultural hot button issues is we think about racial tensions and things in our country and our society and in the church, Right? But just the fact that reconciliation speaks to so much more than just that. The pure idea that if you're in Christ, you have to figure out how to walk in forgiveness and how to seek reconciliation with anyone and everyone. And that is so countercultural. That is such a radical idea. [00:23:47] Speaker B: But think about it. Think about this, Sam. When McDonald's ice cream machine is broken, do we stop eating ice cream? We don't stop eating McDonald's, we find another one. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:04] Speaker B: Or, you know, or we not. We either find another McDonald's or we go to another ice cream spot. Yep. But when the church is broken, we say, you know what? I tried church. It don't work anymore. Like, we run because the church is exactly where what it is. A body of broken people. You know what I mean? And it's like. And I think what that really reveals is that our discipleship is shallow. We know gospel information, but haven't fully embraced gospel formation. [00:24:39] Speaker A: Woo. Yes. I'll tell you, dude, you're tapping into. I got two thoughts here. I want to make sure I don't lose them. You're tapping into something that I'm really passionate about when it comes to the church and when it comes to biblical community. And it centers around this idea of reconciliation. You know, I think what we see in the New Testament, especially in Paul's letters, is this huge emphasis on unity in the church. You guys gotta figure this stuff out. You gotta figure out how to love each other. You gotta figure out how to hold each other's, hold up each other's sins. You gotta figure out how to walk in grace. I think of Philippians 4 or I think it's 4, when he's like, when he literally calls out two church ladies by name and he's like, hey, plead with them. Plead with them to reconcile. This cannot be. And when you look at the way the New Testament treats conflict resolution in the church, it's just so different from how most American churches, in my experience as a Christian, as a pastor, actually deal with it. And I think the reason it has to do with our different context. If it's the year 75 and you're a Christian in Corinth, what church do you join? You join the Corinthian Church because there's one. You know what I mean? But in our context where we've got all this amazing religious freedom and we've got all this freedom of practice around religion, if I show up to church on Sunday and you talk bad to me and I get angry and I don't want to do the hard work of Forgiving you and confronting you and reconciling with you, I can just get mad and leave and go two blocks away and find a different church. And we're not forced to deal with reconciliation the way the early church was. Because we have options. [00:26:30] Speaker B: Yep. Man, tell me, do you remember that passage in scripture that told us how to leave a church? [00:26:39] Speaker A: No. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Because there isn't one. Exactly. We were never told in scripture how to leave a church because we were never supposed to leave the church. Gives us this picture of family. Like, you can't. Like the only time we see in scripture where you supposed to leave and cleave is when you were married. But you still never lost connection with your family, who you are accountable to. Just changed. Right. And I think that because we, for whatever reason, in our culture, embrace this consumer Christianity, we treat the church like we treat Target. Yep. You know, if they don't have my size here, then let me go over here and get my. Let me go over here because they gonna have my size. Yep. You know, there's a friend of mine who loves to go thrifting. And he says to me, he says, man, listen, I love going to thrift store. Cause I find good deals. I don't go to that thrift store over there because this thrift store way out there have better stuff. So I'm gonna go there. That's kind of what we do with the church. That's consumerism. You know, we can't look at the church any longer as what can. Like a biblical view of how we ought to view the gathered church. Not what can I get from them, but how can I help them? What can I bring to the table? [00:28:12] Speaker A: Yep. It's looking at your religious community like a service that you're paying for. It's using the same mindset. The way I think about this idea of consumeristic faith is, you know, you pick your church the same way you pick your cell phone service. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:28:31] Speaker A: Where can I get the most perks for the least amount of personal cost? And the minute I don't like the perks I'm getting versus the cost, I'll drop it and go pick one that's a better deal. I don't feel any loyalty to my cell phone provider. I just pick the one that's cheapest, that gets me the coolest iPhone, you know, And. And we would. I would never consider my family that way. Yeah. I have three brothers, and they're some of my closest friends. But we get in fights and we hurt each other and we get rowdy and I would never have a moment where I would just go, well, you know what? I'll go find a different brother where I don't fight with him as often. [00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:14] Speaker A: Let me do this. Because this was the other thing you brought to mind, and I want to make sure I don't miss this. You talked about this idea that the people who are drawn into the church are sinners, like all of us. Like that's part of the gospel teaching, is that all of us are broken and we are bringing with us our sinful baggage. And I think that's one of the pieces of this conversation that's really important. Yes. Obviously, the biblical description of the gospel is that it is transformative, that encountering Christ changes you, and it should actually affect the, the way we interact with the world, with each other. It should affect our sin patterns and all these things. But in the same breath, I think it's really important to remember that the gospel is for sinners, right? Like, the invitation of Jesus is for all of us messed up people to come as we are with our brokenness and baggage and receive grace. And so when we step into a church or when we look at a church from the outside looking in, every single person there is somewhere on this process and journey of sanctification. Can you talk to me a little bit about how maybe that speaks into this whole issue, right? Like, if we have people from the outside looking in saying, well, look how nasty and selfish and hypocritical and apathetic that church is, on some level we have to go, well, that isn't what the Bible describes. But the flip side of that is going, yeah, honestly, like, my church is full of angry, overly political, lazy, apathetic people because that's all of us, because we're sinners, right? [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Like, what do we do with that tension, man? [00:31:01] Speaker B: So, Sam, I don't know if you know, I got a twin sister. I don't know if you knew that I was a twin, but me and my twin sister used to always go to the skating rink, right? And whenever we went to the skating rink, they used to have these glow sticks, right? And we would always get the glow stick. And I remember the first time I got the glow stick, I didn't know how to make it glow, right? So my sister grabs it and she says here, what you have to do before it'll glow is that you have to pretend like you're gonna break it. So you. So you're gonna, you're gonna break it. You hear it click. And as soon as you Hear it click, you shake it, and then it starts to glow to whatever color you purchased it as. Okay. I think that that's a great example of how we wrestle through the tension of today's church in order for us to glow. You know, scripture says, you know, that we are the light of the world, or Jesus is the light of the world, but he says that like, you know, a city on a hill or like, you know, you can't be hidden. Right? Yeah. I think that as today's church, we have to understand that we are a bunch of glow sticks, number one, that have been broken, number two, that has been shaken. And because of that, that's how the light of Christ shows through us. Right? So none of us are better than anybody. Like, none of us or, or our lights are not brighter than the other. None of that, man. We are all messed up people. We are all messed up people. We are all marred fruit at best. Come on. But, but in the hands of the Lord, we are, we. We are mature daily, you know, to, to chase after him, to walk after him. All of us, man. Like, honestly, you know, like, if I could say anything to anybody who see someone, like, maybe they are disillusioned or hurt by the church, I would say, hey, don't give up on the church because Jesus hasn't given up on the church. [00:33:14] Speaker A: Come on, man. [00:33:15] Speaker B: You know, you mentioned earlier about deconstruction. You know, I think that, like, we spent time deconstructing our faith, but we don't deconstruct ourselves, you know, because the faith that we deconstruct is actually what built us. But whatever tore down our faith, we chose to put ourselves in that environment. Right? So it's just easier to put it off on somebody else because we don't have to look at our own selves. But the church is made up of broken people, just like our workplace is made up of broken people, just like the playground is made up of broken people. But what we have to do is look for a church where the gospel is central. And because we're broken, we want to be at a church where repentance is normal and love is lived out like hope, man, I'm going to tell you, is absolutely possible, really, because our unity is not built on culture, our unity is not built on politics, but it's built on Christ. [00:34:18] Speaker A: Come on, man. Yeah, See, I think that's the beautiful thing is that the gospel of Jesus draws together in not just friendship, but like, deep familial bonds. People who would never connect by normal societal means. It makes us, like, have this real, genuine oneness. I loved your glowstick example. It made me think of this illustration I heard in a sermon. And I'm going to get this terribly wrong, but there's this. I want to say it's Japanese art. I think it's Japanese. But this art form where they take pieces of pottery that have been broken and they rebuild them. But they rebuild them by using gold solder in all the joints. And so what you end up with is this rebuilt vase might be black or white or tan or whatever, but it has these gorgeous golden veins running all through it because they use rare metal solders to put it back together. And what I love about that, and you made me think of this just now, is that the brokenness that individual Christians experience, that collectively comes together in the life of the church, it can be easy to look on that and say, that's why Christianity doesn't work. Look at all these hypocritical people. But I think the flip side of that is when you sit back and look at the church and go, look at all this brokenness and look at the way God is redeeming it, look at what these people have experienced, what they've been through, what they struggle with, and look what God is building out of that. That it is even in our weakness and brokenness on display, like, out in the open, that people can see that, like, God is actually glorified through the church. You know, I love that idea, your role not just as a church planner, but also as, like, a missionary and church planner mobilizer. It gets you in a lot of different communities, faith communities, around the country, around our city, man. Can you give me some examples of just what are some things you've seen in the church that gives you hope, but also, like, what are some things you've seen in the church where it's like, hey, this is what you should look for? Mm. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Man. Man, that's a loaded question in so many ways. But, man, I think goat name names. Oh, I won't. They might hear it. Or I won't say I won't, because, you know, I will. But, man, I think where I get hope, man, really, is that, like, I see Churches in St. Louis across denominational and racial lines. I see them working together to encourage people, to plant people, you know, to serve neighborhoods together. I'm even watching suburban churches invest in urban partnerships, not as charity projects, but really mutual gospel partnerships. Like, I'm seeing it, but I'm also seeing churches where, like, man, I got a call not long ago, from a church that was partnering with us, I guess it's been about a year or two ago, they say, hey, is your church woke? And I said, I think I would hope we not sleep on the job, you know. And they said, well, thanks for being honest. We're not partnering with you anymore. Wow. Really? Because of what they define as woke, you know what I mean? And I'll tell you, I've seen some stuff within the church that honestly, if it wasn't for the personal work of the Holy Spirit, no way I would be a part of it. [00:38:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:15] Speaker B: You know, just because, like, I mean, people. People are cruel, man. People are cruel. I'll tell you. Because I firmly believe in the person and work of the Holy Spirit, man. I'm excited about the future of the Lord's church because I know whose hands we're in. [00:38:35] Speaker A: See, that's the thing I feel like I experience, man. I never want to be when people give this criticism, when they say, oh, I don't want anything to do with the church. They're all overly political. They're all, you know, they're all mean, they're all hypocrites or whatever. I don't, I don't want to dismiss that because I'm like, I get why people feel that way. I'm. I'm a pastor and I've been in church planning world, and I'm a Christian. And so it's like, I've seen that stuff and I think the critique is a valid critique that we need to hear. But I think the flip side of that is I have seen how the Gospel of Jesus takes politically obsessed people and helps them see how the kingdom matters more. And I've seen how the Gospel of Jesus takes people who are apathetic and lights a fire in them to make the world a better place. And I've seen how the gospel takes people who are hypocrites and helps them become confessional and other centered. And I feel like I just. Maybe it's confirmation bias. Right. But I feel like I just see more hope and more beautiful gospel change to the church than I see. And maybe it's, you know, some. Some facet of the cultural moment we live in and the way Christianity is presented in most of our popular media and social media. But as someone who's in the middle of it, I'm like, I feel like I just see more beauty in our community than destruction, you know? [00:40:01] Speaker B: Yeah. But you know what, though, man? I think that it's easy to see beauty and not destruction. When you view life from a gospel lens, you know, and. Because I think that the gospel pushes us to see things that were naturally broken as something beautiful. Absolutely. Because if we really believe in the sovereignty of God, it pushes us to see past what's right in front of us. You know, like, think about it. If you've, like, think about the finished work of Christ without a gospel, view a man who's beaten and bloody with a crown of thorns, you just like, that's gross. [00:40:49] Speaker A: Yeah. He lost, Rome won. [00:40:52] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:54] Speaker B: But when you realize that, you know what, there's an old song, Just for Me. Just for me. Jesus came and did it just for me. And when you fully embrace that in your heart, it causes you to see a bloody cross as a beautiful cross, an empty cross, right? And because it's so beautiful, because the tomb is empty, it fuels me to want to go tell somebody else. It fuels me to want my next door neighbor who don't keep his grass cut to see it. Right. It pushes me to go to the family across the street to say, listen, you gotta try Jesus, he changed my life. Right. [00:41:37] Speaker A: I love that. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Because again, the gospel pushes me not to see everything is broken, but to see the beauty and brokenness. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Confessionally, I do have to tell you, Mike, I am that neighbor who has not cut his grass. And so I apologize. [00:41:58] Speaker B: There's a company out there that can help you. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Let me land us with this question. Thinking about that listener who picked this episode because of the prompt, right? That person who does want to live with faith at the core of their person, but they're just disillusioned by at least what they see as the state of the Christian community, or maybe even having been personally affected and hurt by those things. What advice do you give to that person? Like, what are the steps? How can they find a healthy church or engage in Christian community in a way that can actually foster hope and transformation in their life when they're sitting in this, right? Like, can someone even do that in this cultural moment? [00:42:49] Speaker B: Man, I totally think they can. You know, if there's somebody listening who just feels the weight of that, you know, I. I would encourage them with Ephesians 4 and let them know that there is one body and one spirit, just as we were called in. One hope at our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who's above all through all, he's all in all. Right? I would want to encourage them in that, to know that, like, you know, Romans 3 is real. We are all broken. However, second Peter is real, too. We're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood created in Christ Jesus for good works. Right? [00:43:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:37] Speaker B: And that even in the midst of all of that, like I think I said it before, but hope is possible because our unity isn't built on what we see is built on Christ. And I think that Paul really kind of said it best in First Corinthians, where he tells us that we ought to be rooted in Christ. There's no other foundation than that of Christ. And Jesus Colossians, he talks about being rooted and built up in him. Paul talks about how Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of all creation. All things were created by him, and for him, he holds all things together. And because of that, you know, we don't have to allow what we see to hinder what we believe. And while our hurt is real, like, healing can be real, too, like the pain that we experience. Man, that's real. That's real. But I've heard it said this way. Feelings are a great thermostat, but a bad compass. Yep. You know, so acknowledge the pain. Acknowledge the feelings that are there. But if we're not led by that pain and we're led by the Spirit, that's where we get the strength to pursue reconciliation even in the midst of pain. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Come on, man. And even to tap off that, you know, thinking about the image I used earlier of the pottery and the gold solder, Your pain and your hurt is real. It's real. But also, that may be the exact thing that God is going to redeem in your story. That may be the voice and the ministry you have in the church, in the community, which I think really brings me, and I'll land us here. One last question, Mike, and I think this one is pretty important for the person who's listening to this right now, who is just your average church member. Right. And they're sitting here going, I don't think that's me, but I get why people see the church as a whole that way. How can individual Christians actually work to counteract these destructive cultural aspects and structures in the faith? How can they work to counteract this. This accusation and instead cultivate a community that, like, reflects Christ accurately to the world? [00:46:06] Speaker B: That's really good. I would say that they would need to look for ways to embody the gospel, not, you know, not only just share it, but live it. How can we be tangible expressions of the gospel? [00:46:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Like, hey, that's saying hi to people. That's saying Men, like, if you see a woman walking in the door, open the door for them. Ladies. If you see a woman overwhelmed, show her that you care. Look for ways to be a tangible expression of the gospel. Yeah. [00:46:43] Speaker A: And the Bible calls us the hands and feet of Jesus. Right? Like, he's not hanging out here right now. He's at the right hand of God. Absolutely comes back. And until then, Christians get to be the ones who show the world what Christ is like. This is. This is so cheesy, Mike. But you're gonna have to indulge me because, you know, I was a youth pastor for more than a decade, and I remember once being at this youth camp, and it was like. It was like, you know, that Thursday night at youth camp where they got to get the kids all emotional, and this was. This was a thing. I don't know if you've ever seen this. This was like, a thing. In youth group for a while at events and camps, they would have someone on stage paint a portrait of Jesus live while. While we're in worship. Have you ever seen those before? [00:47:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:47:31] Speaker A: So they were doing one of those, and I kind of had this, like, okay, I've seen this before. But while they're doing it during worship, the camp speaker comes up and he basically. He does this little thing where he goes, here's the thing. You're the hands and feet of Christ. As a Christian, if you claim Christ, you're the hands and feet of. You're the hands and feet of Christ. You represent him in the world, which means most of the people in your life, like, what they'll know about Jesus, they'll know through you. You are going to be painting the picture of Jesus in their mind. And while he's saying this, the artist on stage changes what they're doing and gives Jesus this, like, angry, hateful face, like, is changing it while the guy's talking and just goes. And he just goes. You have to decide if the way you're going to live your life is going to. You don't get to decide whether or not you're going to tell them what Jesus is like. If you claim Christ, you will be telling them what Jesus is like. When you get to decide is whether or not you'll show them what Jesus is like. Accurately. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Will your picture of him be a real picture or will it. Or will it look wrong? Will it have your sin mixed into it? And Wally goes to that bit, you know, they, like, wipe off the face and redo it and make it like the Jesus we're looking for. But it was really powerful. Like, it stuck in my mind of just going, man, if we are claiming Christ, then we are his ambassador. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:48:55] Speaker A: We are representing him, which means if the world is looking at the church and they're seeing us being apathetic, being hypocritical, being unkind, then there's just no avoidant. Like, that is what people are gonna see Christ as. And the only way you change that is bit by bit, exactly what you said. Like, every choice we make to show Jesus accurately to our friends and family and neighbors and co workers is gonna. It's gonna be one more piece of sand on the pile of changing that. That picture. [00:49:29] Speaker B: That's so good. Absolutely. That is so good, man. I love just the imagery of that, you know, you thinking about an old saying, we gotta be the change we wanna see. [00:49:41] Speaker A: Yep. [00:49:41] Speaker B: You know, I've heard it said a different way. We teach what we know, but we reproduce who we really are. Yeah. You know, so that's. Yeah, man. That's some really good stuff. [00:49:52] Speaker A: Well, dude, thank you so much for your time. This has been such an encouraging conversation for me. I feel like every time we chat, Mike, you just, like, challenge me. Challenge me in the faith. Challenge me to grow as a leader, as a man of God. I'm really grateful for you, dude. I know you got a lot going on, so this has been good for my heart. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Sam, you the real deal, man. And, man, I appreciate just your heart, man. You know, I was thinking about you and your wife today and just started praying for you guys and just thinking about how ever since I've known you, a couple things that you've just done, you pursue humility over pride. You always quick to listen and slow to speak. And I just appreciate you, man. And my prayer is that all of us can just learn from the example that you set, man, and just be who God has called us to be. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Thank you for that, man. I appreciate it. [00:50:47] Speaker B: Hey, and don't edit that. The world needs to know Sam Tenell's number. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Dude, that's a wrap, man. Thank you for doing that, man. [00:50:57] Speaker B: I appreciate you, brother. Hallelujah. You have saved Leave the throne. The ones that we love. Hallelujah. [00:51:26] Speaker A: And what a great conversation. Hopefully that challenge and encouraged you as much as it did for me. As we end out today, I want to remind us of our sponsor, Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville, Missouri. You can check them out online. Emanuel fellowshipstl.com please. Also, if you're in the St. Louis area, remember my invitation to you. If you're listening to this in 2025 and you live in the St. Louis area and you'd like to meet with someone in person to talk through your own doubts or stumbling blocks. I want to make myself available to you. You can reach out to me at hello fcstl.com and we can schedule a time to grab a coffee and talk about Faith again. Not for the purpose of making a podcast, but just to have a person to process what you're going through. Big thank you to Travis Page for the use of our theme song family. You can find them wherever you stream music. Travis Teal Page in the Capitol Club. I think that's all for now. We'll see you guys soon. [00:52:32] Speaker B: But the biggest step of faith I've taken say I don't believe. Well, I'm sorry to say I'm back. I've got some questions for you. If it weren't for that girl, I'd be nowhere near you.