Episode 45 of The United Methodist People Podcast, with Rev. Dr. Brad Miller, features a conversation with Rev. Dr. Roger about his book “Comeback: Returning to the Life You Were Made For”

Roger is the Director of Church Excellence in the Missouri Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church and former pastor and church planter in Illinois. 

In this conversation, Brad and Ross talk about the factors which lead to the disaster of a fall be it personal or something out of our control like a worldwide pandemic or dissension in the church and respond to the fall in such a way as to find a way to come back better than ever.

Brad and Ross discuss five elements crucial to having a comeback and in particular, he advocates five transforming practices which when applied to your life can give you a practical and doing pathway to find your way to come back after a fall.

This conversation is a great foundation for using the book and the accompanying workbook to apply to your personal life and to teach in small group settings in the local church.

The book “Comeback: Returning to the Life You Were Made For”

 is available at Cokesbury, Amazon, and is published by Abingdon Press.

https://www.cokesbury.com/Come-Back-2?refq=roger%20ross

Roger Ross blogs a www.rogerross.online and is available for speaking, coaching, and consulting.

The United Methodist People Podcast is published by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller with the purpose of strengthening the connection in The United Methodist Church through conversation and commentary.

Reverend Dr. Roger Ross, who is an author of a

couple of books. A few years ago, he had meet the good

people, which describes people in the church. And today we're

going to be talking with him about his new book called

comeback, and he'll get into the details of that book in a

minute. Roger is a director of congregational excellence, in

Missouri annual conference, a United Methodist Church

responsibility with revitalization, revitalizing

congregations in Missouri, but he's also a pastor in Illinois,

and a former church planner, and my good personal friend, Roger,

welcome to United Methodist people podcast.

Thanks, Brad is great to be a part of this

again.

Awesome, awesome, my friend. Well, you I've been a

person who has been involved with the life of the church for

some time and in different ways and helping get things

responding to the needs of the church. And one of the needs of

the church is helping people to understand their personal

relationship to God and their personal relationship to the

church, and to deal with things that are happening in their

life. And it just seems to me that you've been doing a lot of

them. But we're going to talk today about this new book you

have come out that's just come out called the comeback. So tell

me, why did you write come back?

I gotta be honest with you, Brad. It really caught

me off guard. In January, actually. Now in July of 2019. I

went on a Friday, silent prayer retreats. And about three days

in, God whispered something. There was no audible voice, just

an impression, write about comebacks. And instantly, I knew

that that was not because I was an expert. But because I needed

one. I was on that retreat, because I had had some hard

falls in my own life. And even though by our appearances, it

may have looked as if I'd recovered. During that time

away, I realized how much further I had to go. So just as

a spiritual exercise, I took about an hour and jotted down a

few ideas on a legal pad, but how to come back. Now I wanted

to figure out what that whole journey might look like,

especially for my own sake. But the more I thought about it, I

was drawn to my favorite passage in the Bible, which is Jesus

story of the prodigal son, because that's an epic comeback.

And that was good. You know, I kind of had the initial

framework of the journey and left there went on to other

things. But it didn't leave me. You know, about a month after

the retreat, I took out that legal pad, reviewed a few things

I'd written made some changes, put it away again, month later.

Now since September, did same thing took it out, played with a

little bit. At this point, I began to realize, you know,

this, this could be a book. But I also realized at this rate, it

could take me 10 years to write it, you know,

writing so goes that way, I know those for me,

sometimes you're lucky. You get that initial burst in it. Oh, my

gosh, he drags on. So

absolutely. So I I had a little come to Jesus

moment. Right, then actually, it's like, well, if I'm gonna

take this command that I heard on that retreat seriously, I'm

going to have to talk to somebody about this. And I'm not

kidding, you register. Like within days of that little

moment. My editor of the former book at Abington, Connie Stella,

sent me an email I hadn't heard from Connie in over two years.

And that was about Thursday, Thursday afternoon about 430.

And I just took that as a sign. So by 525, I replied to her to

say that I wasn't going to be at the event that she was emailing

me about so that we could maybe catch up. But I did have this

idea for a new book. And I threw it out to her. I mean, all five

paragraphs, short paragraphs, and I'm thinking she is never

going to go for this. I mean, this this was not an elevator

pitch. This was like a revolving door pitch. I mean, it was in

and out, boom, just scalp. And tomorrow, almost

a reaction type of thing. It sounds like,

yeah, yeah. And so to Mike will total surprise. She

liked it. And by October, I was writing the book.

Here you go, man.

So I couldn't plan that really. And it was so

different from my first experience of trying to get a

book published. I mean, this was just like, falling off a lawn. I

thought maybe somebody had drugged her. I did. I did. I

didn't know how all that could have happened. So but I realized

that, you know if, if I needed this, maybe they're reasons I

don't understand that God must really want me to write about

comebacks.

You think that you mentioned how you had your own

issues or setbacks and other have a comeback. You got to have

a setback? Do you think that the setbacks that you experience are

resonate with the setbacks that other people are experiencing,

especially as we are dealing with the ramifications of the

pandemic, which we've been experiencing? And all the things

come around with ads? Are there some ways that your experience

can resonate with the experiences of other people but

having?

Yeah, I really think so. Because that's just the

nature of life. I mean, one night, I remember a number of

years ago, when our son was young, we read a little league

baseball game and, and he was in the batter's box, and they had a

full count, you know, three balls, two strikes. And as we

waited breathlessly, for that next pitch, his young friend was

sitting next to me said, Well, one thing's for sure. Something

is gonna happen.

Well, there you go.

Yeah. And my wife and I have laughed about that

for years ever since, you know, you don't have to live very long

to know that something is gonna happen in your life. Right? And

oftentimes, those are good things. Sure, right. I mean, you

can go through stretches a life that things are going so well,

you begin to think it's always gonna be like that. But sooner

or later, a fall occurs. And that may be due to forces beyond

our control, like you were talking about it is a pandemic,

disease, racism, a natural disaster? Or it could be because

of missteps of our own making. Yes. Either way, when something

like that happens when a fall comes, we have a choice. Are we

going to allow that fall to define and fetus? Are we going

to choose to dig deeper ignite hole and mount a comeback? Yes,

I think add adversity is a given in my

research and my thinking and the book, I'm writing it, I kind of

break it down into five DS, which are depression, and debt

as an financial issues, divorce as a relationship, issues of

disease, like the pandemic, things like that. And then

death, either your own impending death or death of a loved one,

those one form or another, those all happen to all of us, but how

we deal with it makes all the difference in you had something,

some things happen to you that, that I'll that you chose to

process by going on a five day retreat, and started to write a

book. So you took some action. Tell me a bit about the actions

that you think that some people get stuck, you know, when

adversity ism, they get stuck, and you took some action? So

tell me about the process about what you are advocating that

maybe you did or others do to speak to the fall to what are

you going to do about it now?

Yeah, that's that was what was helpful about

looking into the scriptures, in particular into the prodigal son

story. And just looking at it from the perspective of someone

who had a fall now with regard to the prodigal son, that was a

fall of his own making. Yes, you know, but that's what, that's

what's common to all of humanity, that, as I mentioned,

moment ago, sooner or later, everybody's going to have a

fall. So then the only question is, what are you going to do as

a result, so that really the first, the first step in a

comeback journey is you have a fall. And you know what, this is

the one that nobody likes, nobody wants, but it's just

going to come sooner or later. And we have to figure out what

we're going to do as a result. The other steps on that journey

just to hit there just for a second, we'll go too

far. And some people have already kind of prepare

themselves. It says that yeah, that's the life reality. But

some people when they have a fall, he hits him so hard. It is

a total a complete shock, isn't it? It just takes them off to

the wheels of memory.

Oh, absolutely. You know, it's it's, it's like

following the wrong way and having the breath knocked out.

He you know, he's when you're gasping for breath. And, and you

don't know why all of a sudden, you can't breathe when just a

few seconds ago, you could. It's it's a very painful and

disorienting experience. And in fact, what what I decided to do

in the book was not just talk about the steps that a person

would take after they have a fall, but also put some kind of

transforming practice, in connection with each of the

steps to help people to know what to do when that happens. So

when when you have a fall and it just knocks the breath right

out. You don't know what to do next. And you're disoriented,

you're confused. You have a myriad of different emotions.

The the transforming practice of that first step is simply to

listen to your emotions. There's all kinds of things that are

going on inside of you. And oftentimes, they're kind of a

jumbled mixed up mess. But if you don't spend some time just

quietly listening to your emotions, they're going to take

you on a ride that you don't want to go.

Well, it's very interesting that you say that,

because I've been reading a lot of stuff recently about things

like flow and about focus, and how there's so many distractions

in the world right now, that tend to help us get into denial

of dealing with feelings and dealing with this stuff. And a

lot of people try to get them to jump into all these

distractions. And what you're saying is you got the action

step, the act the the poor point of application is to pay

attention and listen, not tonight.

Yeah, that's, that's really the transforming

practice. One of the things I discovered as I was looking at

these different comeback steps is that there are ancient

practices that have been a part of the Christian faith, and in

some cases, some other forms of faith, for centuries, that

people have put into practice to help them to be able to deal

with these inevitable falls that are coming our way. And one of

them, that is fair, I mean, it's all through the Scriptures.

Jesus is a classic example of someone who was very attuned to

very aware of his feelings, and able to express them

appropriately in the moment. And frankly, most of us are not like

that. Most of us are unaware of what we're feeling at any given

time. And we do our best to numb our emotions to try to escape

the pain, or just ignore them for fear that they might slow us

down.

And that is where we have to then continue to

apply these other processes that you have mentioned, or the

practices of connecting to other people, mentors, and such who

can help us and tell us what about maybe some of the things

you did, or maybe you advocate in terms of connecting to guides

or other people who can speak into our life?

Yeah, so after the fall, really, the next step is

to kind of come to yourself, that's the thing that you see in

the prodigal son story. I mean, he, you know, he was off

marching to his own drum beat, and he was on a great journey of

self discovery. And then all of a sudden, he realized, Oh, my

gosh, I've gotten myself into a much deeper water than I can get

out. And he had a little, which call it come to Jesus moments

where he came to himself and realized, you know, what, I, I'm

in deep doo doo here, and I don't know what to do next. I

just know that I can't stay where I am. You know, it's what

some people talk about with regard to hitting bottom. Yes,

you know, and, and once that happens, you have to make kind

of a deep internal decision, like I'm not staying here, I

refuse to wallow in this amount, emotional slop for the rest of

my life. I was made for more than this. And, and just

grasping that one truth sets you on a new course. So the

transforming practice for that is simply to engage in solitude

and stillness. You know, it's, it's taking time to be alone

with God, because one of the things that we are exceptionally

good at in American life, American culture is doing. We

are not good at being. And I'm like the chief center with all

this. I mean, I've I've realized that in my own life, and one of

the one of the truths that I've been embracing in recent years,

is that beam proceeds doing. And if you get that out of water,

then you're very unlikely to have the kind of self awareness

necessary to take the steps that will bring you back to the life

you

were meant for. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And then the, but it's interesting, you know, you've

kind of got some self reflection there about what you do or don't

do. And yet, what seems to be really transformative to you was

taking that five day Silent Retreat, which would be just out

of the realm of question for so many people. And so what are

some things that you think people can do they need to quiet

but what are some of the practices? What are some of the

disciplines that people can apply their lives in a regular

basis? That is a doable thing that that they can do, or maybe

people or resources that they can connect up with?

Yeah, so with regard to to solitude and stillness, we

solitude is simply being alone via taking kind of taking

yourself away from others and away from other distractions so

you can be alone with God and Jesus practices all through the

Scriptures and you You see other great leaders of faith. Now

through the Scriptures that do this as well, I mean, politics

off on a journey for like three years all by himself. I mean,

it's just, I mean, they're they're kind of extreme

examples, in some cases. I mean, Jesus starts out as ministry by

going on a 40 day, not just fast, but a journey by himself

out into the wilderness, which, you know, here's the desert,

yes. And not, not surprisingly, he gets tempted by the devil

during that time. So all kinds of spiritual things happen,

sometimes good, sometimes not so good. When you put yourself in

position where you are in solitude and stillness, you

know, silence before the Lord. Now, you don't I mean, those are

kind of extreme examples. And I don't recommend anyone to start

out that way. You know, occasional joggers, don't go out

and run marathons, it's not a good idea. But what anyone can

do is take their phone or the timer that's on their watch,

instead of pretend minutes, and go in a room by themselves

without any other distractions, and be alone with God. That is a

powerful discipline, just 10 minutes. And, and if you're like

me, naturally, what people are going to experience is they'll

start having all kinds of distractions hit their minds,

you know, all the things that they have to do that day, people

need to call emails they need to send on and on. But one of the

things I found to be really helpful in those times for

solitude is just pick a word, or a phrase, and say it over and

over silently to yourself, like other, or father, or Jesus, or I

received your grace, or, or the one on one of them I use today

was, have mercy on me, have mercy on me. And mercy on, you

say that same little phrase or word over and over again, just

as a way to focus your mind and heart so that you can call them

and still yourself on the inside, to be able to be present

to the presence?

I think one of the things that if what you're

seeing there, Roger, is that an author of your book, he talked

about the practice the application of this. And so for

instance, where you're talking about with stillness, and

meditative techniques, is, oftentimes the more you do it,

the better you get at it, you know, the first several times

you try it, you do it, you know, it is that chaos in the mind,

the emails and all the things to do. But if you you know, if you

do it more on a regular basis with breathing, or a mantra, or

a word or a phrase or breathing, exercise then becomes more part

of who you are. And you become much more productive as well. At

least that's what a lot of the productivity coaches are

teaching these days.

Yeah, I mean, something that's really popular

in our culture right now is mindfulness. You hear people

talk about that quite often not mindfulness is another way of

talking about meditative prayer. Yes, I mean, mindfulness is just

Christian meditation has been going on for many centuries.

They're just kind of a secular, a secular framing

of that practice, I believe I've been reading some mindfulness

type material recently. And yeah, I agree with you.

So I found that to be exceedingly important for me

to be able to, again, kind of not only put being before doing,

but also to be in the presence of God. Because it you know,

that there's not Jesus said, we are to abide in him. Right? Not

not to do things for him necessarily, but we starts by

abiding in him, you know, and when we're abiding in him, when

we're connected to the vine, that's when the fruit can be

born in our lives. But when we're off doing and frantically

going in one direction or another 100 different directions

at one time, there's very little binding going on. And so small

wonder that there's not very much fruit that's being born.

Speaking of the fruit and success and or

whatever you want to call it, their the productivity. I would

notice that Roger use a lot of sports analogies and analogies

from the lives of people who have had, you know, basically

hit a bottom had to come back and what they experienced on the

way back our experience, once they came, came back, and then

the theme of your book is come back and of course, you know,

one analogy is for us where there's been some body behind it

a basketball game or whatever it would be had come back and the

exhilaration, the focus it takes to come back and the

exhilaration of the victory and you also image about some, some

people that you have had experiences with who have had

that as well, some pretty tough situations and come back. So

tell syllabus more about examples of how this is out

there, whether it's some sports analogy or some person about how

the focus that they had to take in order to turn it around, and

the exhilaration of the victory.

Yeah, so there are several examples of people that

use them the, in the book that are, you know, famous people

that most of us would know, somebody like Tiger Woods is a

great example of someone who had a disastrous fall, very public

fall back in 2009. And how over essentially a 10 year period, he

clawed and scratched his way back to finally then eventually

win the 2019. Masters, which was in, in many sports writers,

minds and sports experts minds, probably the biggest, if not one

of the biggest about the biggest sports turnaround in history,

because this guy, he had gone through, I think three different

back surgeries before that. He had basically said, Look, I'm

done two years before that, he had told people at the Masters

in 2017, I'm never gonna play again. Certainly not playing at

a professional level. But he just kept coming back. And part

of that was, you know, he, he had to listen to his emotions,

he had to engage in solitude and stillness, for sure. But he also

had to seek wise counsel. And that's the third step, you have

to find a guide. And he had a whole team of guides in his

life, that would help him to be able to make the journey back,

you know, on a medical level, on an emotional spiritual level, on

a relational level, he had a whole team of people that were

kind of desert dedicated to helping him make that turn. But

you know, even with wise counsel, at some point, you'll

have to just make a plan and start taking action. You know,

you you have to realize this isn't going to happen all by

itself.

You got to work, you got to get out.

Yeah, you have to get after it. Absolutely. So,

like anything in life, I mean, you know, the the things that

are most important to us, we invest in, yes. And I, you know,

this book didn't write itself. You know, it may have been

inspired, initially back in July 2019. But it took a lot of

hours, a lot of time, you know, when I could have been doing

other things. But I sense the need to do this, even if, even

if just my mom, my sister wrote it, or read it better. I knew, I

knew that I needed to write it, because I needed to work out

some things in my own heart in my own life. And part part of

that was making a plan and taking action. Because, you

know, basically, the two kinds of people in life, you know,

there are people that like to plan their people like to act.

And oftentimes they don't go together, right. But a plan

without action is just as ineffective as action without a

plan. You you need them both. There's a healthy balance

that ends up in effective planning without

action is entertainment are an intellectual exercise, you know,

it's just not getting anywhere.

Right? So I can't remember exactly the quote, but

it's something like a dream without a plan is a nightmare.

You know, it's just

you have your moment of clarity, clarity of

decision, do you decide to do something, write a book, come

back to when the Masters but then you it doesn't happen

instantaneously. You don't choose to do this, you don't

choose to have some great accomplishment in life. And it

just doesn't happen instantaneous. You got to work

at it. And oh, by the way, it doesn't stop or I mean, but as

you know, I just use Tiger wizard example. Yeah, he won the

Masters a couple years ago. But now we're recording this. And in

March of 2021, just a month or so ago, he had a terrible

accent. And if he wants to come back, he's gonna have to come

back again. Right, Fred?

Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, Tiger, I

mean, I've been praying for Tiger Tiger went through a

terrible fall, so to speak, in his car accident. And once

again, there are grave questions as to whether he's ever going to

be able to play golf again. So he'll have to, you'll have to

climb this mountain again, so to speak. But but the last part,

which I think is the part that most people don't have

Appreciate, to come back journey is trusting the process. Once

you've gone through these other steps, you've made a plan, you

need to take action. This is the part that derails most people,

frankly, they choose to make this come back then. And then

they get about halfway there. And they get stuck. And they

start to struggle, because they start to doubt whether they can

actually come back or not. And, and doubt creeps in. And, you

know, the thing that I've found in my own life is a doubt is the

leading edge of faith. And it's faith, this the unseen secret of

turnarounds, you have to believe in things that you can't see yet

to be able to make it all the way back. And, and, frankly,

without struggle, there's no comeback.

Wow. And I think it's very, very true. There's

been lots of evidence about people in the middle of whatever

they're doing, and just don't make it they give up, I think,

you know, during this COVID crisis, we've seen some people

who just kind of threw up their hands and said, you know, it's

over with, I can't do anything about this and other people, for

instance, the medical scientific community, put their put their

mind to developing the vaccines and came up with it in a year or

so. Whereas what you usually have been a long process and,

and I know that there have been some writers who've talked about

this, the nature of that, of that draw that will just draw

you down, kind of that will that grief, and that will take you

down the middle of the though I called them a lazy mediocrity,

you get stuck in the middle, and we'll just kill you, which is

kill you. And I've tried to think of the word that some

writers have used, but we'll just kill you. But you got to

get through that time. But what gets you through that time is

hope and faith.

Right? So I mean, with writers I talk about

writer's block, well, you know, writer's block comes right at

this time, when, when you've got the plan, you're taking action,

and you get, you know, partway there, maybe halfway there, and

you just get stuck. And that's when you have to take this final

step, which is simply trusting the process. And trusting the

process is to say, you know, I can't see the progress I'm

making today versus yesterday. I'm not sure that what I do

today is going to make that much of a difference by tomorrow. But

I just have to trust the process and keep putting one foot in

front of the other. And that's what faith is about. Hmm.

One of the writers I've read recently about this,

he calls a trust of soup, which is where you put all the

ingredients into what you're working on. And it's got to come

out, but you got to trust the process. You got to keep it

still want to keep it going. And trust the process, you're going

to come up with something good. Exactly.

Yeah,

exactly. And really the the transforming practice

for trusting and processes is doing something that's very

counterintuitive, especially in our very active mystic American

life. And that is embrace patient trust.

Factor. I think my bed same writer sets up like

embrace the suck, you know, it's going to stay.

Yeah, actually, I just read an article about that.

I think that was Bernie brown that says that.

Yeah, yeah, that was one of the writers I've

written, I wish. I wish I could think of this guy that I'm

thinking, who is what is what books are called do the work. I

can think of the book title though I can't think of the

author's name. But he has to do with this process who we're

talking about here. But here's what I want to come around to

this with you here, Roger is come back where you come back to

you're coming back to a good coming back to a good place. So

what's the best thing about a comeback? What's the best thing

about coming home or coming to that better place?

You know, this is the thing that probably

surprised me the most about writing to me about writing a

book read, because to to, to come back to return to the life

you were made for does not necessarily mean that you're

going to win the game. Or that you're going to come back out on

top with whatever it was that you were, you know, initially

shooting for a comeback, you know, really truly understood

is, is coming home to who God made you to be. It's realizing

that you've been on this long journey when you finally come

back home. You're seeing it now with fresh eyes. Like you could

never see it before. I mean, think about the prodigal son.

When he came back home. He saw home in a way that he had never

seen it before and he lived there his whole life. And that's

the beauty of a true comeback because it transforms you from

the inside. And now you see life in a different way. It

tenderizes your heart It provides when a comeback works

the way it's supposed to, provides a level of compassion

that you could not have had previously, it enables you to,

to actually practice humility. I mean, think about the tiger

woods that we knew before 2009 and the tiger woods that we know

now. I mean, he's really a different man.

making a contribution, much more

approachable, things like that. So

yeah, and really, frankly, much more humble.

Because he's faced some of his own inner demons. He's, he's

realized some of his limitations. And he's embraced

some of his own humanity, some of which was not, you know,

particularly a pretty thing to look at. But he's allowed that

to kind of be absorbed into who he is now, more fully as more

mature, man.

Yes.

Well, I've just would, I think we're really what

we're talking about, ultimately, here is transformation. You

know, transformation, we, we have this point where we're

cruising along, and everything seems to be going in one way or

another, okay, then we hit a fall. Well, whatever your fall

was impacted you greatly. Everyone, many, many people had

a fall with a pandemic, other people have a financial issue or

moral issue or a issue with health, whatever it is, or with

something else, maybe death in the family, and what are you

going to do about it? So, but the idea here is to come back

home to where you were exactly that place that was where you

left, because may that may not be, where God wants you to be

the best place to transform to something renewed. And I'm

reminded of the biblical stories of emerging to a good place, the

promised land, you know, to the 40 days in the wilderness, the

40 years in the wilderness, all these stories about

transformation takes place, you left something at home, and you

come through the storm, you come through the wilderness, you come

through this, and you come to a better place. And what you're

doing here is helping us to do this through identifying the

problem. Getting some mentors along the way, getting to know

yourself going into that those quiet places, embracing the the

trust, trusting the process, and then celebrating it so good. How

to tell if there's one more thing and then we'll let you go

here just a few bit, just a minute or two here. Tell us

about how you've seen this happen. In others, either in a

person you've worked with, or perhaps an organization, you

work with an a party, your role is to work with churches, many

churches that may be struggling, and we live in a world right now

in our United Methodist Church with a lot of churches, and even

our denomination is having its share of falls and struggles and

dynamics, which are just, you know, painful. It's evolved in

many ways. What is your suggestion? Or what is your

example of some individuals or organizations that have chosen

to do a pass on what what you're what you're talking about here?

Well, there's

lots of individuals. You know, we've, we've mentioned

a couple on the way here, but with regard to an organization,

I mean, I know a number of churches that have realized, you

know, what, we're in some part of this process that I just

outlined his comeback journey that I just outlined. And having

an idea of where you are in that journey is hugely important for

you to be able to make whatever the next step is for you. I just

talked with one of the supervisors of our churches in

Missouri, and she told me that there's a church that has had a

terrible fall, I mean, terrible financial mismanagement. by half

the congregation has left lots of hurt feelings, and you know,

just difficult things going on in life that congregation but a

new pastor has just been appointed to that church. And

for the first time in yours, the people that are left in that

church actually have a sense of hope that they could instead of

being on a kind of a March, toward decline, and then

ultimate death, they now realize you know what, this thing could

turn around. We have the possibility of, of taking the

fall that we all recognize has happened in our lives

collectively as a congregation. And embracing a different

journey that would take us to a different destination. So, I

mean, that's just that happened just today, I see all kinds of

churches that that have that kind of light comeback in their

lives, which represents hope listener heart, you know,

what I said, you mentioned that I see that as an

inflection point, you know, rather than tipping the tipping

point of, you know, if we keep going, allowing the demise or

allowing the fall to crush us, then we will continue down that

slide and the momentum will take us out. But if, in this case,

inflection point, a new pastor, but our own lives, we can have

our own inflection points to choose to do something about and

of course, hurt our own beloved United Methodist Church, we have

our own chaos we have our own dilemmas to deal with. And my

hope and prayer is that I don't think we're going to ever go

back to what we were not too many years ago. And some sort of

sensibility of us all getting along, or else on the same

track. Something new will emerge in the process the next year or

two. But I hope that it's a good thing and hope it's a good thing

that we can all emerge to some better place. Do you have any

thoughts? you have any thoughts about that at all, before we

conclude our conversation?

Well, I I do think that we're moving as a United

Methodist Church in different directions. And that's not

unusual. If you look at our history, we've done that for

generations. Now, for the last couple of 100 years, we've been

doing that, in the United method, what is now the I love

the church, what is Methodism over the course of last couple

100 years, 250 years in America. So that that shouldn't be a big

surprise to us. What's hard is the the relational changes that

will come as a result of that, there, there'll be people that

we know and love, that go in different directions, and we're

not going to be seeing them near as much are working with them

near as closely. And that part's gonna be hard, you know,

that's the grief, that's the pain,

there's going to be that's, that's that will be the

fall for us. Figuring out how to, to process that in an

emotionally healthy way, instead of kind of throwing hate bombs

at each other, which is what we have had a tendency to do. And

you know, I'm at the church, I think will be our biggest

challenge and potentially our greatest victory if we can do

that.

Yes. Well, that's the hope and prayer is having a

great victory. And we've been talking here today about having

personal victories and victories and local churches and or other

organizations and, and your book is all about that making a

comeback and getting through these falls and coming to a

better place. And it's available at cokesbury. And at Amazon and

anyplace else, the books are sold, it's by Abington press.

And I commend our folks to check that out. But part of checking

out that book is some resources that you have, they're

specifically designed for study groups or perhaps for developing

lessons. So would you tell us what about the supplemental

resources that are available

for the book? comeback?

Sure. Thanks, Brad. Actually, as soon as I brought

the book out, I had pastors start to ask me, well, could we

do this in our church? And would you like also provide a study

guide for that? And I said, Well, I hadn't really thought

about writing a study guide, but I guess I could. And so a few

months after the book came out, the study guide came out as

well. And it looks a lot the same, I mean, all you can, you

can tell, at the bottom, it says Participant Guide, that's the

only difference between the two. But the Participant Guide is

based on the ability to kind of take the process the five

different steps we've been talking about, and put them into

play in a person's life. And they're the study guide can be

either used, or the placement guide can be used either as a

small group, or it can be done on an individual study basis,

either one of those work. And so there's a small group component

that kind of leads you through what you would do if you're

together with, you know, six 810 older folks. But there's also

things that can be done individually by persons, five

days out of the week in between the group sessions. So if you're

doing say a six session, six week deal, there's plenty of

stuff that you can be doing in between for individual studies

and to really drive the transforming practices into your

life. That's the idea.

So there's an implementation and application

process for the individual as well as for a group And I

assumed that if a pastor Swati wanted to use this as a resource

for building a sermon series or something along this line that

is perhaps could be helpful in that regard, as well.

Absolutely. Yeah, that that was really kind of the

idea behind it. I actually had a church, one of the larger

churches in Illinois that took their church through this in the

fall of 2020. Because that was when they were bringing people

back for in person worship. And I thought, well, what a good way

to do that. We'll just talk about come back, as we are

coming back for years and listen,

yes. Awesome. Well, tell us how that went. If you

have any reports about how that when that was applied in a small

group or church setting, how did it go? How do people respond?

Well, I can share with you what my friend Andy

Adams, who's the senior pastor there talked about, he said, it

really kind of served as a gracious way to invite people

back to God, as well as providing a unifying theme for

their church in the midst of a time that had been very

disconnected due to summer months in the pandemic and the

like. So they found that the church wide study provided an

easy step for their members to be engaged in community. As they

got into journey groups into subsequent groups that they had

available, and use the Participant Guide for that

process

was an awesome, awesome resource. And that's

available as a separate resource from the book itself. Is that

also available at cokesbury? and Amazon and so forth?

Yep. All those places. Awesome, awesome.

Well, Roger, anything else you want to say

either about the book or the resource or anything else? If

people want to be in contact with you, for instance, do you

have How can people knows more about Roger Ross and his writing

his ministry, what you're up to how you can have how they can

learn more about the ways that you can input input have input

in their lives?

Well actually just put together a new website

called Roger Ross online, Roger Ross dot online. And that's

where the doing my blogging and providing other little tidbits

here and there, you can kind of see where I may be speaking of

might be a time that I'm speaking in somebody's their

area. And there are other things that that might be of interest

on the website.

Awesome, awesome. Roger Ross dot online is where

you can find any blogs and some other resources there. He's the

author of come back and come back study guide resources. Few

years ago, he had to book beat the good people, which is a

great book as well. You can pick up all those books that have

cokesbury, Amazon and other places books are available. And

we continue to be thankful to our good friend Roger Ross,

author of come back. Thank you, Roger.