Discover a revolutionary approach to church leadership with Dr. JR Woodward in this eye-opening episode of the Pivot Podcast. Author of "The Scandal of Leadership," Woodward unpacks the crisis of discipleship facing the church today and offers practical solutions for creating a culture of authentic spiritual growth.

Learn about the four spaces of belonging, understand the hidden powers influencing church leadership, and gain insights on how to lead your congregation into a more faithful future. Whether you're a seasoned pastor or a new church planter, this episode will challenge and inspire you to reimagine leadership in the way of Jesus.

Don't miss this opportunity to transform your approach to ministry and discipleship. Like, subscribe, and share to join the conversation on pivoting towards a more vibrant and missional church.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• J.R. Woodward website
• "The Scandal of Leadership" by J.R. Woodward
• The V3 Church Planting Movement
• "The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill" podcast on Christianity Today

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iVPBCZ63ixs

JR Woodward: I mean, I'm something to God, but what does it mean to become nothing? Does it mean I'm. Because nothingness feels like death and there is a type of death, a self dying. But what are we dying to? Exactly. I think we're dying to. How do we develop our sense of identity? The world gives us one way to measure who we are, what our significance is, what it means to be successful. And if we buy into that, and whether it's a Christian world or the wider world, like we have these things that are there that are not oriented around what Jesus kind of talked about. I think that's what we die to.

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 I'm joined by Terri Elton.

Terri Elton: Well, most everyone recognizes that leadership is critical to the flourishing of the church. We have seen a series of prominent church leaders fall in scandals in recent years. There are a variety of models of leadership operating in the church right now. Not all are helpful or faithful. How might we understand leadership biblically, theologically, faithfully, and effectively in today's church?

Dwight Zscheile: Yes, Terri. That's why we are so excited to welcome to the Pivot podcast today, doctor JR Woodward, who is a church planter, author, scholar, and educator. JR is the author of several books on mission and church planting, including, most recently, The Scandal of Leadership. He's national director of V3, which is a church planting movement and a leading thinker on discipleship and mission in contemporary culture. JR, welcome to the Pivot podcast. Thanks.

JR Woodward: Thanks for having me.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, so tell us a bit about your own journey in ministry. How did you get interested in church planting mission and disciple making.

JR Woodward: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I came to faith right before my senior year in college. Uh, I there was a couple guys in my fraternity. Not not many people come to Christ through a social fraternity in college, but I do.

Terri Elton: Know some.

JR Woodward: Actually.

Terri Elton: So.

JR Woodward: And I was kind of paying my way through. So I couldn't really afford summer school and an apartment at the same time. And so one of the guys at the fraternity was my older brother, and he was a Christian and roomed with a Christian. And so they they said, would you like we can give you a place to stay for free. I said, okay, sounds good. And I think it's, you know, through their witness that made me kind of interested in, in understanding this Christ fellow a little bit more, because I really didn't have any religious upbringing. And reading through the Gospels, I would just say Jesus became my hero. And but he was also saying he was more like he was Lord. So if this to me, I guess for me is like, I believe that I kind of had my sinner's prayer moment, but I also was kind of optimistically skeptical in the sense of like, is this actually transformational for my life and other people? So I was an RA in the dorms and, um, which was like two kind of bad things for college in the dorm. In the school. Wow. Yeah. So being a Christian and an RA, uh, trying to enforce things and create social spaces of fun and but, uh, so I remember my, my goal that year was to share the gospel with everybody in my hall and then share with the other RA so they could reach our hall. So I already had like a multiplication type of idea. Wow. And by the end of the year, I think I, I looked at, I probably shared with everyone except for seven people. And so I wrote a letter to my whole hall just kind of sharing my story. And it was it was very interesting. I mean, it, you know, I think people didn't know what to make of me. Exactly. Um, I remember waking up one morning at two in the morning. I heard these bangs that woke me up. And I see these lights now. Oh my gosh, Jesus is coming back. And, like, come to find out, someone threw fireworks under my door.

Terri Elton: Jesus or fireworks, you know?

JR Woodward: And you know, everybody was telling me who it was. I mean, I didn't see that night, but like, uh, so the next day, this guy was totally drunk, comes and knocks on my door, and he's like, oh, what was that noise last night? And like. And I basically said, oh, yeah, I woke up, I heard these bangs, I saw these lights. I thought Jesus was coming back. I was so excited. And he's like his floor. Just his mouth just kind of drops to the floor. And eventually, maybe a month later, he kneeled his. He was the first Christian that I saw. And so I started to see how it was transformational for people's life. I mean, there's so many different stories that come from that. And and so I was a part of a church plant, so I just thought church planting was a norm. Uh, it's not necessarily. No. Yeah. And even in our group, kind of a new movement of churches, I would say, you know, the apostolic, prophetic and evangelist were the heroes, the pastor teachers, not so much, which I think was unhealthy because you need all of them. But like, you know, they started like 50 churches in one year, just sent two people to 50 different campuses around the country. So just, I would say very missional, but the theology was kind of poor. So missional theology makes a great correction to all of that. But like living life, discipleship, uh, social spaces, personal spaces, all of that was kind of part of it. So I found myself like, uh, you know, leading my first church at a campus four years after becoming a Christian. Well, that was a good idea. Or not. That was the case. But it's probably being on campus. It's kind of like more like a youth group in sports. So which is where a lot of people get their start, I guess. And so I would say my first five years, there was only one word to describe it. It would be hell. Uh, if you ask me if hell exists. Yeah, I've been there. I believe it exists. But the next seven years were just the best word would be heaven. Because it was so fruitful. We probably saw over 600 new Christians. We multiplied these mid-sized groups over and over again. Had a, you know, public space, all of that. And we went from the 24 to about 1200 people, with about 400 people coming into full time ministry through raising their own support. And by that time we knew we had to plant. So I went to LA. We planted three churches simultaneously. Again, whether it's a good idea or not.

Terri Elton: Wow.

JR Woodward: And yeah. And then after that, like, uh. And by the way, even with that, my, my whole family without any Christians, me and my aunt became Christians right around the same time. And she she had close to OD'd on some drugs and just kind of called out for Jesus and made it. And so she kind of gave her life to Jesus. And so we would pray for our family every morning very faithfully. Um, and now all of my immediate family, a lot of my extended relatives, it's kind of like so and so and his whole household come to believe. It's like, yeah, you know, it just kind of went carried out through our whole family, which is kind of from northwest Ohio. So yeah, it's I think all of those things I couldn't I was a psych major. I couldn't think of anything more powerful and more transformative than to be in these concrete churches where you have genuine community, which was very different from what I experienced before, and just wanting to multiply that and see, I mean, probably my first month as a Christian, I was I saw myself helping to plant just multiple churches. That was the what was amazing in me. Yeah. And so yeah. And now like through V3. So I was uh, through a long set of circumstances. I wasn't sure if I should stay in LA and go to San Francisco and plant or give myself over to helping church planters. And so I went to San Francisco and met up with ten planters, from the smallest to the largest, from things that are three months old to 20 years. And the last guy I spoke with, he just asked me questions the whole time, which was very different, and he was very present to me and had a presence about him. And then after the questions, he's like, so like I noticed when you said this, like your face really lit up and he would, you know, make mentions of that. And then he shared a story about Saint Francis, which I haven't been able to verify. But, uh, apparently Saint Francis was trying to discern his future. What should he do? Should I be an itinerant preacher or go like or stay in one place? And so instead of making the decision himself or with his community. He he gave it over to his friends and said, like, you decide this for me. And so they went and they prayed. They came back, he said, they said, we think you should be an itinerant preacher. He says, thanks be to God. And that's what he did. And so through that, I felt like God was saying, JR, I don't want you to make the decision of what you do next. So find some people you know. And it was a little bit scary. I'm always develop my decisions in a communal nature, but never kind of fully gave it to somebody else. And so they said they and I figured I'd, you know, I'd get seven people, at least one contrarian thinker by the name of David Fitch and figured if they all agreed on it, then I will take it as from the Lord. If they didn't, we'll go back to my old ways of deciding decision making. So at that point, I decided, yeah, I'm going to give myself over to helping church planters. That's because that's what they had said. And I thought at first it would be in a network that I helped, well co-founded. But about a month later, I get a call from the Virginia Baptists, and they were looking for somebody. Well, the guy was saying, I could tell he was going to offer me something. And I was like, well, like, I'm getting ready to go to Miami. I've kind of just a week ago made this commitment. And so I hung up the phone without even hearing what his offer was, and I felt a little bit rude and felt the spirit say, maybe you should at least, you know, pay attention to what he has to say. So I called him back up and said, hey, I'm sorry. Tell me what you were going to say. And they were looking for someone to head up their church planting efforts. And what I liked about it is like, I think they, uh, there was really no, there was like, a whiteboard or do whatever you want. And so and it wasn't even about, like, just getting churches for them, but it's like very kingdom oriented. And so, um, after I didn't come from a Baptist background, so I wasn't quite sure if I want the Baptist doesn't have a very good name, in my opinion, from an evangelistic standpoint. I mean, my you know, there's many different types of Baptists today, so I don't want to I think there's a lot of good. But I like the Free Church. I definitely was a part of that tradition. And so I took me two months. I knew I was in the top three. So once I said they wouldn't offer me the job, though, until I felt that felt called to it, which I really liked to the moment I said yes, they they I had to go to Miami and make sure, like I made a commitment. Can you, would you release me from this commitment? And they said, yes, as long as you come back and, you know, they kind of roll out the red carpet trying to get me to come down, but they understood and appreciated. So that's how V3 got started. I was really the first full time person. There wasn't really anything developed yet. I think there was an assessment about it. And so I realized, you know, every church planting movement needs to have what we call carts, you know, coaching, uh, uh, assessment, recruiting, training and supporting. And so I figured, like, where we would start with is the coaching and training where we could build a sense of community and doing it by cohorts. And I always at that point, I feel like the primary mode of training church planters was these 4 to 6 day boot camps, and that didn't feel like a lot. Uh, so what it would be to have like a longer nine month, you know, week to week meet in person one time and then do zoom because we wanted everybody to be in place where they're at with at least a small team. And so yeah, that was the that's a little bit of my story. And we've got allowed us to train like 900 leaders over the last ten years. And we have a goal to train another 1000 by 230, 20, 30.

Terri Elton: That's a wild story. Like like I can't just jump past that. And like, you had me at the dorm, right? And I'm thinking of a college student saying, I'm going to like, share the gospel with with not only my whole floor, but the whole you got a system right with the RA and the whole building. And then to be the big party dorm, like, there you go. JR put the bar up high. Right. And it seems like from that early experience, discipleship just got woven into church planting. And your view of mission like those three. Yeah.

JR Woodward: Yeah yeah.

Terri Elton: It came together and.

JR Woodward: It I don't think it was anything of me. It was kind of the what I inherited. And it was a church plant. So yeah, that was just kind of discipleship. Strong community was just a huge part of it.

Terri Elton: And and I think there's I want to wonder more about how discipleship is the foundation of leadership. But I want to say something first is I think the interesting piece is many of our congregations assume that the majority are already discipled, and there's just a few on the edges that might come that need discipleship or or it's a deepening of basic understanding. Your assumption was everybody needs it. Is that correct? Oh, yeah.

JR Woodward: Yeah. I mean, I feel like in some ways the crisis of the church is a discipleship crisis, right?

Terri Elton: Yeah. And so I'm curious about, from your experience, what were the key elements for creating a culture of discipleship, and is there any bridge or advice you would give to congregations that that's not in their DNA, and how they might put it in their DNA?

JR Woodward: Yeah, I would say, you know, after, you know, when we were getting ready to train planters, I brought on Dan White Junior and I got him Tim Ketchum, and we together was trying to think through our own experience a little bit more reflectively as we're developing this training. And what I realized is in those church plants. The first church I was a part of, and what I lived into was without being able to name what sociologists, you know, name the four spaces of belonging. And so Edward Hall, he kind of the sociologist who discovered these spaces in the 60s. And these are spaces we all live in to, you know, there's like intimate space that 3 to 4 people that were closest to most vulnerable with. There's the 5 to 12, which is more personal space. And certain things happen there better. And each of these spaces, some things happen better than other things. Social space more 20 to 50, maybe up to 70. And then public space would be over 70. And what I realized is that what sociologists discovered in the 60s, Jesus lived into in his time. You know, he confided with the three, train the 12, mobilize the 70, and spoke riddles or parables to the crowds. And so I think a big part of what for me was understanding, like, okay, like if Jesus did that, how might that inform our approach to discipleship and mission and so forth? And so what we realized, I mean, how did Jesus used spaces like personal space was for discipleship? And I think at that time, I probably because we were influenced by as a campus church, you know, CRU, Navs and and Plymouth Brethren, which is kind of where the bad theology came from. But, uh, the Navs you know, more look at discipleship a little bit more, one on one. But Jesus seemed to want to take a group of people. And I think the 12, you know, it had some symbolic understanding of the 12 tribes, but I think it was also the group where discipleship best happens. And I think a thing about like, you know, I think about at that time, you know, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels were kind of the, you know, the, uh, models that a lot of people look to and, and that structure, you had public space and you had personal space, but personal space was more like a small group, and usually unless it was a recovery small group, it was open to new people. You have a seat for Jesus, right? Yep. The problem with that is like a small group. If you're have a seat open, you've got new people coming all the time. If you're hospitable, you cater to the new person. Therefore like it's kind of Christianity one on one continuously. Whereas I looked at Jesus, it was by invite only. It was more of a bounded set or a closed set. And uh, and I think it has a different social contract. It was a place of high challenge and high support, but it wasn't an isolated set. There was the 70 that were around them, and the 70 were usually more on mission, whether it was two by two or whatever. But so in in our context, I think about that social space is really ideal space for mission. And we kind of use that in that way. People came to our social space because they hungered for community. And and so having a space where Christians and non-Christians or my Christian friends could meet my friends that didn't self-identify as Christian. And when you give people a place to belong, what we find is they start to behave differently. They start to mimic in some ways the the core of that group, which is the disciples. And then they start to believe different. And when we have baptisms, you know, like, oh, should I get baptized? Like, well, yeah. Tell me about your life. How is Jesus entered your story? And like, you know, and so it was just very organic in that way. And so that's kind of how we've, you know, designed things. And even since then, I was looking at when's the last time we've had movement in North America. And some would say, like, I think Ed Stetzer would say it was probably during the Wesley's time. Now, what was the difference between George Whitefield and John Wesley? It's like, uh, you know, I would I usually ask audiences, pastors like, you know, which of these two people do most people know better? It's always John Wesley. However, studying at the University of Manchester for my PhD, I'm around a lot of Wesley scholars, a lot of George Whitefield scholars. Everybody agrees that George Whitefield was the best, better preacher. He had a little bit bigger crowds. But why do we remember John Wesley? Well, it came to a point where he would only do a public space if they had set up bands, which is intimate space classes, which is personal space and societies, which was social space. So it's interesting, like wherever you find it, it's like, I'm guessing he got that from Jesus, right? Because that's how he lived it out. So I feel like these spaces really need to be understood and explored better, because for us, social space has one social contract. Anybody is invited. It's a place of welcome. It's a place to experience a taste of the community. If that discipleship core is learning to live into that. Well, that contrasts, I like to say contrast is as opposed to, uh, countercultural because counter is often a reaction to what is there as opposed to something that is very distinctly different. And so, yeah, that's so for us, intimate space is kind of going from being unknown to known. Personal space moves from small groups to equipping disciples. That's what it's for. And we need to have a discipleship pathway, a set of concrete practices and, uh, competencies that were were learning. And then for us, social space is moving from communities to communities on mission. And then when it comes to public space, I think this is the least explored in how Jesus used it in particular, because, you know, he only spoke in parables. Uh, he seemed it didn't seem like he was meeting, you know, on a rhythmic basis. It just kind of happened spontaneously, uh, often with questions and some dialogue. And so. And he never had a problem in gathering a crowd because he was always giving comfort to the, you know, the people's lives, who was disrupted and he was disrupting those who were quite comfortable. And so that might be a little bit of a different take on. So I think with public space, it's not idolizing it like I think some megachurches might. Not demonizing it in reaction like a lot of house churches might, but reimagining what that could be. And maybe we start with how Jesus used it might not be a bad place to start.

Dwight Zscheile: Mhm. So it seems like in American society today there is a crisis of belonging or lack of belonging. Um, I want to just explore with you a little bit more, thinking about how many churches function right now, which is if they're not very small, they'll have a public worship experience that is public. Anyone can come, maybe they're welcoming or not, but they're welcoming into a very particular kind of thing that's very focused. Then maybe there's coffee hour or some sort of social time after that. Both of which are pretty high barriers to entry for people who aren't already Christian. Right. And then a lot of churches then have. That's all they have. Yeah. You know, so maybe there's a women's group or a men's group or something, but but not what you're describing in terms of the personal space. So so think clearly for our listeners or viewers who are, you know, stewarding, leading inherited churches that are kind of designed for that and struggling around this question of belonging, let alone belonging, that connects with the neighbors who are hungry for belonging. Like what are some some ways to reimagine or to think about that? Yeah.

JR Woodward: Well, I think maybe I want to say first that these spaces, these four spaces are structure. And structure to me is a medium. And so, like Marshall McLuhan says, a medium is a message. And he defines medium as an extension of ourselves. So like the foot is an extension or the car is an extension of the foot. The phone is an extension of the ear in the mouth. The book is an extension of the eyes, and there's other authors that talk about, and he would kind of be a part of that. But like whenever the primary medium of the day changes, everything changes how we interact with it and how we understand things, all of that. And if you think about in our world, we've really only had four major changes when it comes to the primary medium of the day. Most of history has been an oral society. And I you know, I we started a micro grant for businesses in the northern part of Kenya. And when I visited there six times and we go, it's a very remote area. The town that we went to is Lodwar about 20,000 people. But when we went to the outskirts, the Turkana people are very nomadic. They travel in groups of 2 to 300 and they're only oral society. They don't read. And when I met pastors there, it's kind of like they would remember the text and the stories of Jesus, like it was just living in them, the word richly dwelling in them as the Bible talks about. And I was thinking like, you know, like when we get, you know, I remember what it was like not to have a smartphone. And I probably knew 25 to 30 phone numbers, you know, now I can hardly remember my own, you know, because when we when the medium changes, like, you know, even what we have to remember and what lives in us also can change. And so and living in LA, for example, which was really looking at the history, you know, that examined it was really made by the car. You can look at a car city and you can look at a walking city like New York or even San Francisco. Being older, it's more of a walking city. One medium changed everything about the way a city operates. And you know, when your church planting and you know someone you know lives, works 40 minutes away and their workers live another 45 minutes. That creates a lot of complications and discipleship. But all in all, I want to say with that, if we understand these four spaces as a medium, that that very, very powerful medium and and so I think it's critical to understand what they do well, what they don't do well. And so for us, if you have that personal space for discipleship now, you can where do churches have a place for mission where they're really connecting. Not with I mean, yeah, low hanging fruit might come to a gathering of some sort, but what's a place where instead of asking them to come somewhere that we're kind of being in a place that they already feel comfortable with, um, that's incarnational, you know, going into where they're at. So for us, probably a third space of sorts, maybe even a house, they might be open to that. Because, you know, we get we sometimes visit each other's houses and stuff like that. It might depend on the context, but actually third spaces that where it feels like the home field for those who don't self-identify as Christian often is quite a good space for us. And you know, for us, those spaces can either be like a like a connecting space or a sharing space. When I say connecting, it's just we would when we started, one of our churches in LA was at UCLA and we would have this dollar dinner. So if you want to get home cooking for one buck, come over, eat. The most spiritual thing we had was prayer, you know, before the dinner, like nothing big. And then it was just social. We connected. This was, you know, very low key. And it's just a way for us to connect with those that don't know Christ yet. And and then there's other as we've been training planters, there's some that set up more sharing spaces. So maybe they pick something that's been meaningful to them, a quote or something, and they share ten minutes. We eat at a table, talk about it. And eating always is central to these things. You know, the table, I mean, Jesus, right?

Terri Elton: Yeah, we got a model for it.

JR Woodward: He got nailed to the cross, partly because of his table manners and how he operated and who he ate with. So, you know, when have we been, you know, accused of being a friend of, you know, tax collectors and sinners? Um, that's a positive mark in Jesus life. And so and it was at the table. And so food is a substantial part of any of these social spaces. And again, when it's not in your territory, not at your church or in whatever in their space, people feel comfortable coming in. And so for us, you know, I look at all. What are the primal needs that everyone has in all of humanity. And I think there's like, we all hunger for purpose. We all have some sense of justice. We all have a desire to belong. We all want to have healing and wholeness in our life, becoming something that we're not quite yet. We all desire the truth, at least as it corresponds to reality. We don't know what is real today. You know, through social media and stuff. And then I think we all have a hunger for beauty. And so if those dynamics are understood and you have a social space that touches on some of them, I mean, it could be around a social justice in your neighborhood. I had atheist, I had all kinds of people in LA who weren't Christians, who still wanted to be involved in something that dealt with these primal human needs. And so the creativity and the freedom of what that looks like is unlimited. But that is a place that really connecting or sharing or doing something happens. And I like to set up a different formal bridge for more of a challenging where we kind of go through the gospel, and it would be for those who are ready. You know, it says in the Gospels, like or in the one of the epistles, to share the gospel at the right time. And so not everybody is ready. And so you don't want to disrupt that social space by creating a challenge and changing the social contract on the midterm? No. You invite them to another space, and this is what we're going to do in this space. Would you like to come and. And then a lot of people will become Christians through that space. And at that point, you know, they can enter into a personal space for discipleship. Now, do you want to grow and become more like Jesus? What does that look like? What does that mean? You know, look at the Beatitudes. Look at the fruit of the spirit. There's so many beautiful pictures of what it means to be Christ like.

Terri Elton: So I'm curious about the centering of those are really different than normal church organizing. We're going to center on evangelism or children's ministry or whatever, centering on beauty or justice or meaning. That's a whole different kind of orienting. So that's that's kind of I think that's fruitful. Yeah. Yeah. Right. For people to just. Huh I wonder. Yeah. Yeah. What if we tried. Yeah.

JR Woodward: And I kind of get five of those from the five fold intelligence. So you look at Apostle, I think he's he or she is helping people find their purpose. A prophet for justice. Evangelists like belonging. Pastor. Healing and wholeness. Teacher. Truth. Beauty is like. Where else can you find all of these things? Except for the Church of God?

Terri Elton: Well, the creator. Yeah, right. I mean, you know. Yeah, it's very much.

JR Woodward: But concretely, where do people find it if they want to see that embodied in a concrete community?

Terri Elton: Oh for sure. Yeah. So as a professor of leadership at Luther Seminary, I'm really interested in your book. Can we talk about that for a minute? So why did you write it? Yeah. What's the central argument that you're kind of making in that? And why do you think it's important for the church today?

JR Woodward: Yeah. So I told you that early movement I was a part of, and we had like a leader, a national leader of sorts, and I noticed that the national leader would change every nugget, but we'd never know why. But I think there were some things happening that were unhealthy in the leadership. So when I became a part of the national team, as our church was growing and they wanted me to be more of an influence to the other churches, um, I was at that time planting in LA, but everybody else was in the city where the our main leader was. And, you know, he was getting a little bit controlling, not not overly the not really horrible like we have seen in some places. Yeah. But like enough where they weren't comfortable with him being in that space. And so um, before he resigned, um, I was asked to speak on spiritual warfare at, at a pastor's gathering. And, you know, like in our campuses, for whatever reason. I mean, people aren't casting out demons every week. So, like, how do we talk about this, you know, in our current plausibility structure? Um, and I it was there that I started to realize that the powers and how we use power, that there is kind of this commonality. And I remember at that time I had already kind of been acquainted with wink, and I shared some of his understanding of naming and unmasking the powers so that we can engage them in a way that, to me, just seems very real. And and it was at that point, like I it affected the people so deeply. You know, they would remember years later. And I remember that talk. And I always knew that I wanted to study out more about these powers. And so that's when I decided to do my PhD on that, because I have, you know, I was leading V3 at the time and you got all these demands screaming at you. And so, like, I needed somebody to scream at me. As far as education.

Terri Elton: Pretty much describes a PhD there, JR, you got that done.

JR Woodward: Okay. Yeah. Or, you know, just kind, kind of man. I had a good supervisor. And so I realized, like, I wanted to have a deeper diagnosis to the problem of domineering leadership in the church, you know? And who's the most Domineering, uh, person in the world. Probably. You know, Satan would be that. But what's my concept of Satan? How did I get that? And how do I make sense of Satan today? I mean, this one that supposedly, you know, influences the whole world, like, uh, uh, so, you know, looking at the powers and particularly you have Satan, the demonic and the principalities and powers. And what's interesting with the powers of what I realized is that it wasn't really something studied very deeply from, uh, I mean, some people trace it back to, like, uh, all the way back to Constantine, where the church and state kind of went to bed, which that makes a lot of sense. Some people may be back to some aspects of, uh, the, uh, the Reformation, but I would say a very academic approach to the powers was really during the rise of Hitler and the fall of Hitler. And the church had to say like, how do we explain this type of evil? And we're kind of in a similar space today. It feels like. But how do we, you know, this kind of how could a dictator arise? How could like 70% of the Christians vote for him to be in office? Like what was happening and why? Why were we not able to name and unmask the powers in that time? And so people started to, you know, go through the text and looking at in particular the principalities and powers at that time. And so you had some early people and then I would say Jacques Ellul and William Stringfellow were kind of more middle of time and starting to identify them. And then I think Wink kind of then took built upon all of that and developed probably the most academic work that a lot of people try to interact with. And, and I think he does a great job, and I think I have some questions for him as well. But like what I, what I begin to I guess the what I realized is that we need a theology of the powers in order to kind of overcome this kind of because what I realized, too, is like studying René Girard and understanding that we're like mimetic creatures. We just were. We are captive to imitation. We cannot help but imitate other people. Not just other people, not behavior as much as their desires. And, you know, James K.A. Smith would say, you know, you know, yeah, we're thinking people and our thoughts are important. Ideas shaped things. Sure. But that's not primarily what shaped things. Yeah, we believe things and that's super important. But what he feels is most central, and I think I would agree with it, is our desires. Um, because what we love is what we become. And so what I, I would say, if you want to put it down in a sentence, you know that we will either imitate the powers in submission to Satan, which leads to idolatry, uh, dishonoring God and dehumanization. Or we will imitate Christ in submission to his father, which frees us from idolatry and leads to honoring God and human flourishing.

Terri Elton: Well, we could use some of that today. Wow. Thank you. Yeah.

Dwight Zscheile: So let's just dig into that a little bit more. Kind of. How does this land on the ground for church leaders and their practices? Um, and just tell us a little more about okay, that's pretty high level. Like, so what then for people trying to lead local churches?

JR Woodward: Yeah. I think like, uh, one of the I like how, uh, William Stringfellow defines a principalities and powers in particular. Uh, he talks about image, institution and ideology. And, and by the way, I think they correspond to what a leader is. I describe a leader as our identity, our praxis, or how we use power in particular. And then our, uh, uh, telos, like, where are we and where are we leading people, you know, which should be life in God and the kingdom of God. Right. So image Stringfellow would say that it's a very the most common principality. He likes to use the analogy of Marilyn Monroe. There's Marilyn Monroe, the person, and there's Marilyn Monroe, the image. And in other words, two distinct entities that go by the same name and the principality demands that the person of that name give up their life in person to the service and homage of the image, to the point where we become possessed by our image instead of possessing our image in God. I mean, if you want to take a, you know, I guess, an easy example, someone like Mark Driscoll. I mean, I think he got possessed by his image. I mean, all the evidence and what he's admitted to, you know, paying $200,000 to get his book in the best seller list. Every. Everything was about the image of Mark Driscoll. I am the brand. You know, like all, you know, the rise and fall of Mars Hill. Um, I think he was just unknowingly, uh, kept, you know, captive to his image. But then there's institution, you know, and like any, any principality basically demands ultimate allegiance. And many people I think we look for meaning in life. We all usually it's in some type of institution of some sort. And so, according to Stringfellow, the guiding moral principle of any institution is survival. And and then whether it be a university, a corporation or a union. And when that is kind of the end, it becomes demonic. Everything else kind of must eventually be sacrificed to the cause of preserving the institution. And again, like in this case, in the church, uh, concern for church growth or survival can lead to tactics of fallen powers such as competition, pressures for success, reducing the gospel for the sake of marketing, whatever. And so I think these are pretty concrete ways that we're unknowingly, um, influenced by the powers. And then maybe the most well-known would be ideology, um, All of the isms, you know. And I think we're familiar with communism, fascism, nationalism, but we're not as familiar with like thinking of the powers as democracy, as capitalism, as rationalism. And so the thing about ideologies is they have their own accounts of sin and redemption. A well, a well developed ideology has their own creation accounts, their own, you know, fall and redemption. And so and when we're captive to that, like, you know, Gerard would say, you know, you're captive to an ideology when you demonize the other, when you can no longer have conversation. I think we can probably see where some of those bases right now.

Dwight Zscheile: Well, that's that's so important. Just to linger on again a little bit in this moment, because it seems like in the absence of a more faithful, compelling theological narrative, a lot of parts of the American church, left and right, particularly on the extremes. Yeah, yeah. Have fallen prey to ideology as the really where the energy is. The sense of purpose. Yeah. And then of course, boy, if you don't share that ideology you are othered. You're demonized, you're canceled, etc.. So yeah. So this is an interesting analysis for us to keep in mind in this particular moment.

JR Woodward: Yeah. I mean, even last night I was watching the DNC. I know you don't necessarily saw that, but, you know, one of the things that was interesting in Obama's kind of talk last night was, you know, one, when people when he, you know, he's going to mention Trump a little bit, but and when he, you know, people start saying no or acting negative. No, no, no, don't say no. Just vote. Um, and I noticed even with Kamala, like, you know, when people start chanting like they do in Trump's rallies, you know, lock him up. You know, they really tried to steer away from that. But what Obama did is he he really said, like, you know, like you have to look at your fellow Americans as Americans. In other words, he wasn't using these words. But you can't demonize them, you know, do something to, you know, for everybody. I just thought that was a very interesting thing. Like in the midst of, like where hype would be easy to do, he really calmed them down and said, like, you need to look at your fellow people as fellow Americans and fellow human beings, and we've kind of demonized people in the current time. And so I thought that was a pretty wise approach.

Terri Elton: Well, I was I was just thinking, I pastor part time in a church and was just talking last week with somebody after church. And we're in we're going through the book of First John. There's a lot about loving your neighbor when you don't get along. And that's that's the point of the whole book. Yeah. So every week you kind of have to talk about it somehow.

JR Woodward: Yeah.

Terri Elton: So but this person was saying, I said, how are you doing? And, and he said, I'm just I'm just all aggravated. I looked up in the paper and I just saw the pictures of these two rallies and and I and there they were, the extreme that you were talking about, Dwight. And they literally held them. And it's this othering. And I just it just brings up all this stuff in me. And the interesting point that I want to make here is, what does it mean for me as a church leader to help this guy? It doesn't matter which side, which types of ideas he resonates with. He saw the othering and and it was driving him crazy. I want a different future.

JR Woodward: Yeah.

Terri Elton: Like he has a he has a lot of political ideas. But what was interesting said so what did you do? I said, I went for a walk to calm myself down. And then I knew I was coming here and that sermon spoke to me. It says, you got to love your neighbor, and your neighbor isn't the one that thinks like you. Mhm.

JR Woodward: Yeah.

Terri Elton: And I have to see the people that think like me and don't think like me as my neighbor and love them as Jesus would. Yeah.

JR Woodward: Yeah, yeah. That's right.

Terri Elton: And and and and this is the place that I want to touch in with you for a second. And you also said when we discern a way forward, we ask Jesus questions. Mhm. How are the least of these being treated. How are we tending to the the unseen. How are we putting our wants and needs on the back burner and seeing the world as Jesus does, beauty, meaning, purpose, those things. And, and so it was both a reframing and a discerning kind of set of questions. Yeah, yeah. So my sense of one of the really key things that you've highlighted, which we talk a lot about in this podcast and in our own work here at Luther. How do you discern? Because the spirit isn't going for the thing that's far away. The spirit can often be the thing that is dressed up in all the churchy stuff. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And so if we have our focus off just a bit, we can think we're discerning the churchy things. And what we're doing is the institution not Jesus. Right?

JR Woodward: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's great observation.

Terri Elton: Have you, like, think I think about how important discernment is in what you just said. Yeah.

JR Woodward: Yeah. Because I mean, you know, you talk about the extremes. I think there's a point that each group has to make that is bringing to the table that we need to pay attention to, that we need to listen to. And, and again, if, if I'm in a, if someone if I find myself in a demonizing the other, I automatically know that the powers have captivated me. So which one of these powers you know? Is it an ideology that's driving it? Yeah. I can no longer converse. I can no longer compromise. I mean, you know, we've lost that sense of things. And so the moment we do not believe that people are made in the image of God, no matter what their ethnic background, no matter what their, you know, people they love or whatever. Like, I think that's when we run. That's one way to discern, um, you know, I need to encounter people where they're at. I have I have people on both sides of the aisle, and, you know, it's a very difficult time to live when you have that. But I want to understand, like, what's valuable to you. Why is that valuable? And where does this align with Jesus?

Dwight Zscheile: Part of what you're talking about, um, brings to mind for me the fact that in our culture at this moment, people have a hard time imagining obedience, which is one of the key themes you've described in around discipleship or submission to Jesus. That is a there's a liberating submission, right? But we live in a culture in, in the modern West that sees the self as its own savior. Right? And so the thought of submitting is something people bristle at. It seems unnatural. It seems wrong, it seems oppressive, and it can be oppressive. Right? Say more a little bit more about how the kind of obedience that you are describing frees us to be, to live differently and into a different kind of different type of patterns and maybe even why, if you think this, the focus on the self right now is actually partly why things have gone so haywire.

JR Woodward: Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, I love that question because even like, you know, what does it mean to be like Jesus? What does it mean to imitate Jesus? I think for me, like in the book, I in the last two chapters, when I'm hitting the remedy, I'm kind of looking at the book of Philippians through a lens. We haven't talked about jihad yet, but like but basically we were captive to imitation and we have the freedom to decide who we want to imitate. And if we imitate Jesus, then and you look at Philippians two is probably, you know, it's a complex passage. I realized when I studied it, like, there's so many things just on two, but you have to kind of broaden it out to the whole book before you kind of understand what's happening in two. But let's just take two. Jesus, who was God, you know, did not consider some, you know, equality with God, something to be grasped or he did it in misuse his power but became nothing. Well, what does that mean? You know, he became nothing.

Terri Elton: That's not really popular these days.

JR Woodward: I'm just saying. But what is it? You know, but I thought about. What does that exactly mean? Because, like, I mean, I'm something to God, but what does it mean to become nothing? Uh, does it mean I'm. You know, because nothingness feels like death, and there is a type of death, a self dying. But what are we dying to? Exactly. I think we're dying to. How do we develop our sense of identity? The world gives us one way to measure who we are, what our significance is, what it means to be successful. And if we buy into that, and whether it's a Christian world or the wider world, like we have these things that are there that are not oriented around what Jesus kind of talked about. I think that's what we die to. I think, you know, in Philippians, the greatest commodity was honor. If you had money, you used it to buy honor for you and your household. You know, they found 7000 different concrete edifices that were dedicated to the honor of this person or that person. It was the number one thing. I think it's still the case for today. Like, how do we feel? How do we find honor? So it's a nothingness in the sense that Jesus was self-emptying of anything way, that the world gave him a sense of significance. His significance came from the father before he even started his ministry, before he was propelled into the wilderness by the spirit. You know what happened, you know. He was baptized and and the voice came from heaven. This is my son, in whom I am well pleased. And it's with that sense of identity that he went to encounter Satan in the wilderness where he encountered the temptations. By the way, like when it comes to leadership, if we don't understand what these temptations you know, are about and we don't have some wilderness experience before you get there, we will fall. It seems like in John, as you were talking about earlier, you know, you know, if you're a babe in Christ, you learn about love and forgiveness in that sense of significance. But the very the young men and women have learned to overcome the evil one. I don't think that we have have enough theology, the powers to even know what that means. And so how do we expect us not to get our sense of self from the way that the the world dictates or the way the church might today dictate. So becoming nothing. That's not an easy thing. But one of the measures is like where he starts it before, when he's talking to the congregation, is like to consider others better than yourself. Well, that's probably a good start, you know. Yeah. But then he kind of like, became nothing, you know, to the point of becoming a human being. Not just a human being, but a slave. So he basically became the lowest in that current context of what we're honored like that was considered super honor and then became obedient even to the point of death. Um, you know, you talk about so there was this sense of identity and praxis and telos that allowed him to construct his sense of self on a very different dimension than any of us tend to. I think, you know, that's wired into us from birth.

Terri Elton: Yeah.

JR Woodward: And so I think unless we understand that that journey and I take a, you know, like Paul. We see it with him, but he feels distant. You know, I don't know his diaries. I mean, we get a little bit, but like. So I go like, to someone like Oscar Romero who encountered the powers as the government is killing his people. And when he had, you know, he had a lot of people would say, I mean, he was kind of like he was kind of like a writer of their newsletter for a long time. And then he became a pastor again, and the government were killing some of his people there. And then they became he became the archbishop because they thought he would be a safe bet, like the oligarchy in the government. Let's take Oscar, you know, but something like 18 days after he became archbishop of San Salvador, one of his priests, a Jesuit priest who was starting these base communities by the poor, for the poor, who was really living out of Jesus oriented way. Yeah. You had some Marxism included in all of this, but, like, not for him. And and when he was killed by the government, along with a 92 year old man and a teenager. That changed his life. And he started naming and unmasking the powers to the point where literally, when he was in a hospital breaking bread, he was assassinated. Yeah. He was. He knew he was going to die, too, but he was willing to do that for the sake of the people that he loved.

Terri Elton: So it's what's so remarkable to me is the timeliness of this material as both within the church and within, how Christians publicly show up in the world. Right. There's a sense of leading now in, in our context for everyday followers of Jesus. Right. To ask these kinds of questions.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah. Well, JR, thank you so much for sharing this glimpse of your wisdom and for our listeners and viewers. Um, definitely check out The Scandal of Leadership, a very timely book indeed. Thanks for being with us on today's Pivot podcast.

JR Woodward: Thanks for having.

Terri Elton: Me. To our listeners, thank you for being with us today and joining us for this episode of The Pivot podcast. You can help us spread the word by subscribing if you're watching on YouTube, or if you're on one of our platforms for podcasts, please leave a review. We really appreciate that, and it helps us know who's out there and what's helpful.

Dwight Zscheile: Finally, the best compliment you can give us is to share pivot with a friend. Until next time. This is Dwight Zscheile and Terri Elton signing off. See you next week.

Faith+Lead voiceover: 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.