What if our instinct to manage and control church life is actually holding us back from authentic community building? In this episode of the Pivot Podcast, Steve Aisthorpe, author of "Rewilding the Church," shares how the ecological concept of rewilding offers fresh insights for church renewal. Drawing from his research on changing patterns of Christian community and his years of experience in ministry, Steve explains how letting go of over-management and embracing spiritual discernment can transform congregational life.

Through practical examples and compelling metaphors, Steve demonstrates how church community building can emerge organically when we focus less on fixing problems and more on discerning God's activity. He offers guidance for leaders wanting to shift from institutional problem-solving to spiritual listening, shares stories of churches embracing this approach, and discusses his current work establishing a retreat center on an ancient Celtic Christian site in Scotland. This conversation provides both inspiration and practical steps for leaders ready to embrace a more natural, Spirit-led approach to church development.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Rewilding the Church” by Steve Aisthorpe
• “The Invisible Church” by Steve Aisthorpe
• “Images of Church in the New Testament” by Paul Minear
• Kilmalieu Retreat Center

Mentioned in this episode:

Register for Faith+Lead's School for Lay Ministry Starting May 17th!

Learn more and register at faithlead.org/schoolforlay.

May 2025 School for Lay Ministry Cohort

Steve Aisthorpe: I think one of the big mistakes we make is by starting with church. How do we fix church? How do we build church? How do we grow a church? How do we plant a church? Whereas I guess the idea in rewilding is we respond to that call of Jesus. We learn to do that together. I mean, there's the challenge. How do we do that together? How do we discern together what God's doing in this situation, what it means to to collaborate with that, to be part of that church is something that emerges, grows out of that.

Dwight Zscheile: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pivot podcast, where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Dwight Zscheile, and with me today is my co-host, Alicia Granholm.

Alicia Granholm: On the Pivot podcast, we discuss what we believe are four key pivots that God is calling many churches to make in the 21st century. They are a pivot in posture from primarily fixing institutional problems to listening and discerning where God is leading today. A pivot in focus from membership to discipleship. A pivot in structure from one size fits all model of ministry, to a mixed ecology of both inherited and new forms together, and a pivot in leadership from a predominantly clergy led, lay supported ministry to lay led, clergy supported ministry.

Dwight Zscheile: Today, we're excited to welcome Steve Aisthorpe to the Pivot podcast. Steve's work touches on several of these pivots. He's an innovative minister, writer, retreat leader, educator, and coach who has worked for many years cultivating fresh expressions and renewal in the Church of Scotland. He's the author of The Invisible Church, which explores research among Christians who are not engaged with a local congregation. And his book, Rewilding the Church draws on a fascinating ecological metaphor to challenge our tendency to overmanage and control church life. It's one of the most helpful books I've read in recent years, and I get to read a lot of books about the church. Steve, welcome to the Pivot podcast.

Steve Aisthorpe: Oh, thank you so much. Great to be with you.

Alicia Granholm: Steve.

Alicia Granholm: Can you begin by sharing a little bit about your background and your faith and church life?

Steve Aisthorpe: Sure. Yeah. So my life, you can see is kind of chopped up into some big sections. So the first 20 odd years of my life, I was not a Christian. I wasn't involved with church particularly. I came to to faith in Jesus in my early 20s. And then around that time I moved to the Highlands of Scotland, where I lived in a small village, and I was part of a church, which was a really exciting place to be. It was a vibrant church. It was a growing church. And then a few years after that, I moved to South Asia. I lived in Nepal for 12 years. I was part of churches there that were also really exciting places to be and growing churches. Then I moved back to the Highlands, actually to the same village, to the same church. And it was still kind of a healthy church. But, um, many of the people I'd known 12 years previous had seemed to have disappeared. But then I started meeting some of them, not in church, but at the bus stop in the supermarket, whatever. And, uh, I realized that many of them had disengaged from the congregation, but their faith seemed to be still really important to them. I started at that point working for the Church of Scotland as a mission development officer, and that work took me around the north of Scotland, and I found that that story repeated again and again in other congregations that during that period of time, a lot of people, thousands of people had disengaged from the church. And I wondered why. I wondered where they were, who they were, and why nobody was talking about it. And that's what started me on a journey of of research and then eventually writing. And I guess I've been doing that for the last 15 or so years. And then, um, yeah, more recently, something different again, just the last 18 months, which we can maybe touch on later.

Dwight Zscheile: Wonderful. Well, so I'd love for you to share with our listeners and viewers a bit about this concept of rewilding the church as a metaphor for church renewal. What is rewilding and how does it apply to the church?

Steve Aisthorpe: So first of all, it's helpful to understand what rewilding means as a kind of ecological environmental concept, and it's maybe helpful to contrast it with a traditional view of conservation. So with conservation, we have an idea of, what we want to see. And we, we manage things towards that end. That might be about protection. It might be about nurturing certain things, discouraging other things. Um, but often when we look at conservation, honestly, we're, we're preserving a man made landscape or a landscape that's been heavily influenced by, by our interventions over the years. Rewilding, in contrast to that, is letting nature do its thing. Allowing the the forces at the heart of nature for for growth and diversity to do their thing and see what emerges out of that. And what comes out of it is, is an authentic and a sustainable landscape. And it happened that as I was writing a book about the research I'd done about changing shape of the church in the UK. I was part of a book club which was reading a book about rewilding as as an environmental concept and so on the one hand, I was wrestling with the data. I was looking at about changing shape of the church and wondering what it meant, wondering what the future looked like. And on the other hand, I was reading this environmental book and it was a bit of an epiphany for me. I thought, wow, gosh, there's so many connections here. And of course, pretty much everything we know in the New Testament about what God wants us to be and do as his people together, what the church looks like comes to us in the form of metaphors. And I thought, wow, this seems to be a powerful metaphor for what God is doing in the church now. And yeah, that idea wouldn't go away. And so I started to explore it in my my writing.

Alicia Granholm: Steve, your book focuses a lot on identity for the church. Can you say more about why this is so important and how leaders can engage around it today?

Steve Aisthorpe: Unless we have an idea of what we are talking about when we talk about church and we have a shared idea of that, then we're we're a little bit lost. And so as I mentioned, the main way we come to understand what church is, is through metaphor. And it's book by Paul Mesnier called Images of Church in the New Testament, where he explores 96 different metaphors that we come across in scriptures. And he suggests there's more than that. And with rewilding, it seems that we've come across a metaphor that speaks to where the church is at now in terms of what God is doing in the church, how the church has been shaped and reformed at this moment.

Dwight Zscheile: So I'm curious to just, um, unpack that a bit more as we think about churches in Western contexts such as Scotland or here in the US, where there's this long legacy of, uh, you know, kind of cultural establishment. People know, of course, they know what the church is, right? It's that building down, you know, down the corner, right. And certain things go on in it. But but in Scotland now, I mean, you're, you're generations past any kind of functional, you know, establishment for the church, right? I mean, things are, are quite post-Christian. Tell us a bit about what it's like to be in that missionary context, and then how, you know, metaphors of rewilding are actually helpful to get us back into thinking about what it means to be a community with a distinct identity in what is a fundamentally pagan, or how we kind of describe it secular or sort of certainly post-Christian society.

Steve Aisthorpe: So you've described a concept of the kind of context in Scotland and the Western world there. But one of the things that's challenged my understanding is that research I was doing amongst people who are Christians but not engaged with a church in the traditional way, so not involved in a local congregation, an institutional expression of church. And that is a that is a large group. That's a substantial group. And it was while trying to kind of understand and express that picture of, of the whole church. So the church with a big C, if you like, the Christian community rather than just the institution that the idea of of rewilding dawned on me at the time I was writing that book, The Invisible Church, I was collaborating with a cartoonist, and each chapter I would send him the draft of a the chapter and invite him to to draw a cartoon to express something about it. And the last chapter of that book, I was wrestling with the data, trying to understand it, trying to express how the church was changing shape. And he came back with this cartoon, which is of a large ship sinking, going down. It's kind of halfway down. And the ship has a name. It's called the Church Unchanging, and it's surrounded by all this debris, and there are people bobbing about in the sea, and some are holding on to life rafts. Some of them are using bits of debris from the ship that's going down. There's some lifeboats appearing. And when I saw this picture, I thought, wow, that is actually a pretty good expression of our current context. So the institutional church is still there. It's visible, but it's going down pretty fast. But at the same time around it bubbling up around the edges as all this small stuff. Um, we know that verse in, in Zechariah, you know, do not despise the day of small things. I do believe we're living in a day of of small things. And if you look at that, um, that passage in Zechariah and what was going on at that time, it's described in, uh, in Ezra and Haggai, the the exiles have come back. They're looking at this new foundation in front of them, and half of them were weeping, that they're disappointed. They look on and say, oh, this is this is a bit rubbish. You know, it's it's a bit small. It's nothing like what we've seen in the past. And the other folk were rejoicing. They were absolutely thrilled because they saw in it God was doing a new thing. And so I think, you know, I see those two things side by side. And I see those two reactions from within the Christian community. People who are heartbroken about what they see, they see the church in decline, and others who look at the things that are springing up and say, wow, God's doing a new thing here. This is exciting.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, I want to follow up on that and think about kind of the responses to that reality that we see out there, because I think so often a kind of typical response is a sort of modern Western strategy planning. You know, we can manage our way out of this kind of response versus a rewilding approach. Talk to us a bit about the difference between the two.

Steve Aisthorpe: So I think the difference is that the former you have a pre a preconceived idea of what church looks like, what a healthy church looks like, a desirable church looks like, and you manage things towards that end. A rewilding approach would be more to say, um, we are called to follow Jesus. Church is what emerges as we do that together. There's no preconceived idea of what that might look like. It will look different in different places at different times. It's maybe the difference between a lawn and a wildflower meadow, if you like. We want it to be flat. We want it to be green. We don't want any weeds growing out of it. Whereas a wildflower meadow, you cooperate with what's going on there. And when I say what's going on there in terms of church, we're talking about discerning what God is doing in a particular situation and what it means for us to to join in, to join in that adventure of faith.

Alicia Granholm: So, Steve, I want to follow up on that because it sounds like you are. You're saying that it's not so much about trying to save the church, but more about emphasizing our following of Jesus.

Steve Aisthorpe: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the big mistakes we make is by starting with church. How do we fix church? How do we build church? How do we grow a church? How do we plant a church? Um, whereas I guess the idea in rewilding is we respond to that call of Jesus. We learn to do that together. I mean, there's the challenge. How do we do that together? How do we discern together what God's doing in this situation, what it means to to collaborate with that, to be part of that. And church. Church is something that emerges, grows out of that. Sometimes it comes and goes. I mean, one of the, um, last tasks I did for the Church of Scotland was to do some research into the various fresh expressions, new worshiping communities that have been emerging there. And I wrote this report. It was I thought it was incredibly encouraging, the amount, the amount of activity that was going on, that all the kind of green shoots we could see in various places. But the question I had time and time again about that report was, but are these things sustainable? And the question really was, are these things going to pay their way? Are these things going to contribute to the institution in some way? And of course, the answer is who knows? But it's the wrong question to be asking. Um, because it's an organic thing. It's a dynamic thing. Thing. Things come and go. Um, but if we are honestly, faithfully, um, following Jesus, I mean, that is exactly what we're told to do, isn't it? And church is an outcome of that rather than a vehicle for it, or a kind of a precursor of it somehow?

Alicia Granholm: Yeah, absolutely. And Steve, what would you say are some signs as you were doing your research? What were some of the signs that the church has been has become became too domesticated?

Steve Aisthorpe: The first word that comes to mind is predictable. So when you think about, um, what you might expect in following Jesus, you know, who is this Jesus we follow? Uh, he's been called the wild Messiah, the great Interferer. Um, you know, Walter Brueggemann talks about, uh, you know, we followed a wild, unfettered, free God. Um, and so we might expect our expressions of doing that together to reflect something, of that adventure of following Jesus and and the person he is. You know, the hallmarks of that surely should be the character of Christ and the way he lived, and the way we therefore seek to be shaped and lived to. So if our life together is incredibly predictable and dare I say, boring, um, that would suggest that we've kind of fallen out of step somehow. Um, now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that church has to be, um, super exciting and chaotic. I mean, I don't mean that at all. But, um, we ought to be able to see the character of Jesus and his behavior being modeled in the life of our community together.

Dwight Zscheile: So I want to just explore this from the leadership angle. And so for those leaders who are listening to this, maybe be wondering, well, how might I maybe begin to let go of some control and allow encourage some rewilding within the life of my community that I'm shepherding or leading in some way, while still also being responsible? And so talk us a bit through what is the rewilding, you know, kind of process look like and how do leaders engage it?

Steve Aisthorpe: So at the heart of what is proposed in in the rewilding metaphor is a rhythm of listening and action. Action that flows out of listening. So I'm talking about a prayerful listening, a courageous action that flows out of that. And so the role of the leader in that is to facilitate that. How how does that happen in the lives of individual and the community together? And that is is quite, a quite a turnaround, quite a flip for for many leaders, I think because it's it's very empowering for, um, what we might call lay people, those who are not professionals, religious professionals, leaders. Um, but it can be very scary for other leaders. Um, so, I mean, I said, you know, prayerful listening, courageous action. In some ways it's it's courageous listening, isn't it? Because, uh, when we talk about listening, that's a metaphor too, isn't it? So when we say listening, it's really a metaphor for, um, discerning what we believe God is doing in a particular context. And that is a courageous thing, because when we listen a, we don't know what we're going to hear, and B, we can't unhear it afterwards. And in the same way as environmental rewilding, you know, when you when you let things go. When you let nature have its way, the outcome is actually quite unpredictable. I'm involved in a kind of environmental project now where I'm working currently, and how is it going to be in a decade's time? I really don't know, but I hope it will be a kind of an authentic thing. It will be something that the forces of nature here have created and not something that we've designed, if you like. Um, and so I think, you know, that is the flip for leaders how to engage people in that process of discernment together.

Alicia Granholm: Thank you so much, Steve. Can you share some examples of churches that you've seen, you know, successfully embrace rewilding or examples of church leaders that you've seen do that?

Steve Aisthorpe: Gosh, I can think of quite a few. Um, what I would say is I would hesitate to point to any church and say, here's a rewilding church. Um, because it is about the process. You know, this this metaphor is process, not the outcome. Um, and as I say, the outcome is unpredictable. But yes, I can certainly think of examples of churches where that rhythm of listening and action has gone through some cycles, if you like. So, you know, I think of in England, there's a network of churches in a rural area. Every one of them would be quite different. So, you know, one one group gathers around, um, parents and small children after school gathering for tea and toast and their time of exploring, faith and sharing from scriptures and praying together happened in that kind of context. Another one happens in in a small, um, it's kind of a mix of A food cooperative, I guess, in a in a small village. Another is is based around an environmental project. Yeah, they're all quite different, but they've come out of a group of Christians praying together, listening and sensing. This is something we see God doing amongst these people. Um, this is what it might look for us to be involved. And over time, these things have emerged. Um, and in that context, you know, there's a network of quite a few of these different expressions, and they've come to use a different metaphor. I don't want to mix the metaphors too much, but they they talk about small boats and harbours. So these little groups, each one of them is, is seen as a boat. And as such, everything that's needed is, is in the boat. So the leadership is local, the resourcing is local. Um, and occasionally the little boats get together and they go to a harbour, so they gather together. And if you think about what a little boat does when it goes into the harbour, you know, well, the sailors will talk about their stories, their experiences of being at sea and what that's like and what it's looking like for them. Um, the boat might need some barnacles scraped off the bottom. They might need to resupply a bit. But, you know, there's this kind of resourcing hub as they come together. But that's not a central thing, particularly. I mean, they all they all participate in that. They all they all share in that. So yeah, that's that's one example. Um, another one that comes to mind is actually on the outside, a very traditional congregation in a small Highland village, but over maybe 12 years now Each year they've gone through a process of praying, discerning, a kind of season of discernment and, um, in some cases, modified things they were doing, in other cases, kind of taking some quite bold decisions to let things go in some cases, or to embrace other things. But they've seen that cycle through a few times. For them, it's an annual cycle. I mean, that doesn't have to be like that at all. But over 12 years, you can see the transformation that has happened. Yes, in that, in that traditional church, but actually in that community as well. I mean, in terms of people encountering Christ and and embracing Christian faith.

Dwight Zscheile: So what's a good first step for a church that wanted to take this rewilding journey?

Steve Aisthorpe: So I think the answer to that will be different for different churches, of course. But I guess the question is what does it mean for us to listen. How will we do that together? Um. And the together bit is really important, isn't it? So, um, you know, generally we have small groups in our institutions who are tasked with developing the vision and, and others may participate in that to, to different levels. But the challenge, I believe, is, is getting more involvement at that level from the very start. And I've always encouraged congregations who are embarking on this sort of journey to invest time in getting as many people as possible involved in that process, because so often, um, I've noticed that the ideas, the insights, the the snippets of vision, if you like, which turn out to be yes, this is what the spirit is saying to us. Come from the most unlikely places, the unlikely people. If you like, people who might be on the fringes, who would not be seen as the core of the leadership team and what have you. So I think your first task is almost sell a vision for creating a vision, um, a vision which is genuinely going to come from the the listening, the prayers, the discernment of as many people who are willing to be involved in that. Um, and be clear from the start that, uh, there is a commitment to following this through, that we're actually listening for the spirit here. We're not listening for the next good idea. Um, we're serious about following where this this takes us.

Alicia Granholm: I love that that that image, right of of casting the vision of discerning as a community the vision from God. Um, I think that's such a, uh. It's in stark contrast, right? To the, um, more of the the strategic planning, you know, approach to, um, supporting our institutional churches and trying to to keep them alive and, and or even save them. What are some signs of hope that you have seen in this work?

Dwight Zscheile: So I love that. And it really fits with this whole kind of metaphor that we've borrowed from the UK and been using a lot around a mixed ecology, that we really need many different kinds of green shoots as well as, you know, old enduring oak trees, if you will, of church, um, in order to connect with, with people today. So, so as we wrap up, I'm curious to if you tell us a bit about what you're up to now, you're working on a creative project that's all about tapping into some deep traditions and history, but also in a very contemporary way. Tell us about that.

Steve Aisthorpe: Two years ago, I would have had no idea that I would be doing what I'm doing now. And my wife and I went on a retreat. And long story short, I left that retreat realizing that I'd become quite a cautious person, despite the fact that I was trying to encourage other people to be more adventurous. I'd become quite cautious, and within a week we'd decided we have to leave our jobs now. I loved my job with the Church of Scotland was absolutely fantastic, but I knew I needed to move on, so we both agreed we would leave our jobs. Um, we didn't know what we'd do next. So over the three months or so that followed, we explored various avenues. But the one that, um, took root, if you like to keep to the organic metaphors, was what we're doing here in a place called Kilmalieu, which is on the west coast of Scotland, near Fort William. It's a. It's a remote place. So ten miles to the nearest village, 12 miles to the nearest shop, um, small community, which was an outdoor activity centre but had been mothballed for 3 or 4 years, partly because of the pandemic. And people who had it were wondering what to do with it. And we felt with some other people, this would be a fantastic place for Christian retreat, for people to come and listen, to help them in their listening there. You don't need to go away to a retreat centre to start listening, but it can be a really important part in that process, as we found out for ourselves, can be a life changing thing. So yes, of last 18 months we've been working here, repurposing the place, starting it up and running. We've got got people coming on retreat now. And as you hinted at, yes, it's got ancient roots. So in one sense it's the newest Christian retreat centre in the UK, I guess. But the place name Kilmalieu is the cell of Malieu, who was a Celtic saint, so a contemporary of Columba and an amazing missionary in that era of our history, brought Christian faith to this part of Scotland. So this is the place we believe he had his. He came on retreat. He had his cell, um, he had his main missionary base about a mile offshore from here on an island called Lismore. So we started something new, but we felt we're we feel we're connecting into something very ancient and kind of, in a sense, restoring this place to a place which we hope is a, yes, a place of retreat, but a springboard in mission as well as it was as it was in, in the the ancient past as well. So yeah, exciting developments here.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining us on the Pivot podcast and for this rich discussion.

Alicia Granholm: And to our audience, thank you so much for joining this episode of pivot. To help spread the word about pivot, please like and subscribe us. If you are catching us on YouTube or if you're listening, head to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. It really helps.

Dwight Zscheile: And finally, the best compliment you can give us is to share. Pivot with a friend. Until next time, this is Dwight and Alicia signing off.

Faith+Lead: The Pivot Podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith lead. Faith lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at faithlead.org.