Listening is the first step in discovering how we can better love our neighbors and God.

In this episode of the Pivot podcast, co-hosts Dee Stokes and Dwight Zscheile are joined by two lay ministry leaders from All Saints Episcopal in Atlanta, Ross Nicholas and Allen King. 

Join us as we explore the essential shift that churches must embrace today—a move away from the predominant focus on repairing established institutional structures. Instead, let's pivot towards a stance characterized by curiosity, discernment, and a willingness to experiment, all rooted in the art of active listening.

Stay tuned for more episodes unraveling the complexities of this cultural shift.

You're in the right place if you're a pastor, lay leader, or simply curious about how faith communities adapt in changing times. Let's embark on this journey together!

SHOW NOTES:

Access the Spiritual Listening Assessment at https://faithlead.org/ebooks/spiritual-life-listening-tool/.

Dee Stokes: Hello, everyone. I'm Dr. Dee Stokes.

Dwight Zscheile: And I'm Dr. Dwight Zscheile. Welcome to the Pivot podcast. If you're new here, this is the podcast where we talk about how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world.

Dee Stokes: In this series, we've been talking about how churches need to pivot today from a posture of primarily trying to fix established institutional structures to a posture of curiosity, discernment, and experimenting, which means listening. Listening is the first step in discovering how we can better love our neighbors and God. It's integral to discernment, and it's the first step in leadership as well. Churches that thrive today are churches that know how to listen to God, listen to the stories and experiences of their own people, and listen to their neighbors with compassion and love.

Dwight Zscheile: In this episode. We are so blessed to have with us some lay leaders from a congregation in Midtown Atlanta that embarked upon some intentional listening, both within their congregation and in their neighborhood over the past year. We invited them to share what this journey was like and what they discovered along the way. So let's jump in. Welcome Ross Nicholas and Allen King. First, tell us a bit about yourselves. How long have you lived in Atlanta? How long have you been at All Saints Episcopal Church, and what do you do most days during the week?

Allen King: Yeah, I'll jump off and get us started. I live in Atlanta. I've lived here my entire life. Um, I'm in my early 50s. I'm married; my wife and will be celebrating our 25th anniversary next year. I have two children, a daughter who's 20 in college, in Santa Barbara, California, and a 17 year old son who is in high school, where we live in Decatur, Georgia. Been at All Saints, really since about 2000. So gosh, coming on, going o n 25 years as well. During the day I work at Pinterest, I'm in advertising sales. I've been in advertising my entire career, um, and probably always will be at this point. So thanks again for having me today.

Ross Nicholas: Well hello everybody. I'm Ross and I can't like Alan say I've always lived in Atlanta, but I moved here when I was one. So I think that gives me an okay, an okay "in". I have been at All Saints for, let's see I was married at All Saints and I married my high school sweetheart there. And so that was 19 years ago and have been a member since then and really enjoy it, really enjoy the church, really enjoy Atlanta. It's a wonderful place. And with that I have three children. So what do I spend most of my time is, you know, dealing with the three children and and my lovely wife and I've got some some other non-profit mission based work that I'm passionate about, that I support and care about. And then I can do some consulting and collaborating as well. I really just look for ways to to grow and serve in the community and with others that are like-minded, wanting to do the same thing.

Dee Stokes: Thank you both for, again for being here. We're going to jump right in. A team of lay leaders at All Saints began last year with some intentional listening to people within the congregation. Tell us what the focus of that listening was and what what it was like. How did you experience those conversations? Who wants to begin?

Ross Nicholas: So, you know, what was the what was the process like? I think All Saints sits in the middle of midtown Atlanta, and it has changed significantly over the years. And so you watch a lot of buildings grow up. A lot of things have happened, and you kind of just wonder, the church has a lot going on. And so it's what's happening in the world around us. Plus, there's been a lot of changes with Covid and a lot of other things. So with all those that are happening, I think it makes sense to to try to step back and understand what God was up to. And I think that was at least how it was communicated and how I began to participate.

Allen King: Yeah. And Ross, excuse me, is exactly right, I think. I think there was a felt sense at All Saints, just like probably any parish driven by the pandemic primarily that everything had changed. Right. And again, it was just felt sort of like verbal sense. But I think very intentionally, the goal of the committee was to to make that, make that hurt. Right. And to better understand, okay, things have changed, but specifically how they changed? And by trying to get a new baseline for kind of where we were, it helps us better understand where we're going next.

Dwight Zscheile: So I'm curious, what are some of the key things that you heard from people within the congregation as they shared stories of times they felt spiritually alive, or things that they struggled with spiritually, or things that they yearned for in their spiritual lives.

Allen King: Yeah, I think the dominant theme that I think we found in all of this, is, was, I'll call it like God and community. So like personal relationships, right? People talked a lot about their small groups. People talked a lot about the core ministries that they were involved in. In the church, people talked about formation practices for themselves or for their children. So I think that was maybe the dominant theme was that God is found in community. And even when you started getting people to talk about how when they felt most spiritually alive, usually it connected to one of those three main categories. Um, and that's what I heard in some of the interviews that I did. But Ross any builds on that?

Ross Nicholas: Yeah, it's funny because when you ask that question, like people's first responses were, "What are you talking about?" There's some hesitation and it doesn't happen or I'm not really experiencing those things. And then they begin to talk, and they talk about the woman they met at the grocery store, or a phone call they had, or an email that they received out of the blue or things like that. And then they start to say, oh, yeah, like I did see that. And I do understand it. I do experience that. And so I think that was part of it was the listening, but also the awakening, the sort of say, okay. God is at work often all the time. And how are we experiencing that? And so I think that was fun for me to see those lights go on and watch the people's really sparks. And, you know, you'd see it individually at a table or you'd feel the the chatter across the whole room around. Oh yeah. And people just sharing their stories. I think that was really, really a cool thing.

Dee Stokes: It is cool when when your conversations moved into the neighborhood outside of your church. Tell us a little bit about that and what kind of questions did you ask?

Ross Nicholas: That was another thing where really, we want to go out to the community and begin to have these conversations. And what if they don't believe, you know, what if they don't? What if they're not a part of the church? Or what if what if they're not engaged at all? And so setting that up was was key and kind of getting through that. And and Dwight inside did an excellent job of kind of working us through and helping us see that. I think the questions were around, what do you yearn for in terms of your community? You know, what? What are your everyday struggles? What are you what are you focused on? You know, any stories, just as we talked about, you know, same question around when are you spiritually alive? Um, and and for me, it was interesting. I mean, the conversations you're sitting in the middle of a, you know, an office lobby in midtown, having a conversation with someone around it, and it's curious to hear their responses and say, you know, it used to feel more community. Or as Allen was talking about small groups and connections, the same themes sort of emerge. Well, yeah, I used to feel more in touch than I do now, or I kind of wish I did, or there's so much happening in terms of politically or, you know, with the community in terms of homelessness or crime. What can we do about that? How can we be involved? I went to a mosque and had a conversation there, and that was different because it was a whole, you know, obviously a different spiritual tradition, but a whole different sort of way of thinking. And so having that conversation was interesting to just to hear different people thinking about the community and what how it impacts them and what what they can, should or should not do about it.

Allen King: And I think the combination of doing both right, the parish conversations, to me, at least in a lot of ways, kind of followed this like, you know, challenging, validation or challenging, right? The vast majority of the conversations simply validated what you would expect. Right? People love small groups. They love the education. They love the music, they love the liturgy. They love the preaching. They love the focus on justice, on equity. They love the core ministries. Right. So internally, I think the vast theme of conversations, we're just in a lot of ways validating what you would expect. Right. Talking to the membership, um, the challenging things that we heard from talking to the parish, like we're interesting, right? People were yearning for more, for lack of a better word, contemplative practice. Right. We heard a lot about yoga and sound baths and, you know, silence and introducing ways to be quiet instead of always speaking so much. And then when you contrast that with the with the non parishioners, right. It was kind of flipped. Right. Like I think what I expected to have validated was true. Right? I heard a lot of people had some very negative perceptions about church, some very negative perceptions about religion, usually driven by experience with any kind of fundamentalist background, whether it was their own individually or their perception of it. We heard a lot about the politics, the politicization of religion and Christianity in particular in this country. And then I think some of the things that you heard that the match things that we heard in the parish were focusing on nature and music and art and meditation and quietness. And again, yoga came up a lot. And those conversations. But the thing that struck me is if you if you took away the dogma out of either one of the conversations, there was actually a lot of common ground. And even people who were very anti religion or very anti church almost, almost across. I never spoke with anyone who consider themselves an atheist. You know, they all would acknowledge a higher power. They would all acknowledge a perception of intelligent design, if you will, but stripped, you know, and again you strip the dogma out and a lot of the themes were actually pretty similar, which to me is was very kind of enlightening. And, um, it maybe drove a little bit more optimism for where we're going as a church. I think we need to do things differently. We need to approach problems at a unique way. But I think there's as much hunger, you know, when people that are in our congregation today is there is for people who are outside of our congregation. And I think just doing both of these experiences helped. A better kind of shine a light on kind of where we go from here.

Dwight Zscheile: So that's really powerful, really. I'm hearing this convergence of themes that people having some similar yearnings for connection and connection and deepening. Share a little more about that experience of listening to neighbors. I mean, that can seem kind of intimidating, perhaps right, to go and and have conversations with people who aren't part of the church, who are in the neighborhood, but to ask them actually about spiritual things, not just maybe a need that the church can can meet, or ways in which the church could kind of fix the neighborhood in some way. But, but, but you got into some pretty deep, deep conversations with folks. And what did it feel like to do those? And what did you worry about when you were maybe having those conversations, if anything?

Ross Nicholas: For me, it felt very different from your typical, I don't know, corporate networking event or neighborhood cocktail mixer or something like that, where it was more about talking and I'm concerned what am I going to say and how am I going to be perceived? And all those sorts of things. And I think it was truly listening. And so a lot of these things and they would come up in a different setting, you might, I don't know, take the bait, I guess. And so an unusual political view or something like that, where you might want to weigh in or redirect or reshape it. And here you're truly listening, and here you're truly, you know, where are you coming from and what are you saying? And, how might God be working? And what should I be receiving from this? And I think that was made it much different. And so you have a sort of sense of spiritual wonder with it that I need to work better in taking with me every day and every conversation where, where is this going? And where are you leading me and really being more of a partner in that? And I think when, when I was able to do that, it was okay. I think when I brought my own other anxieties to it, I think then it became more of a challenge. But if I truly listened and I truly accepted where it was going, then it was, it was fine.

Allen King: Yeah. And admittedly, it was a little awkward maybe at first, but, you know, some of it driven by training, I think just starting before asking any questions or anything, even with the outreach with via email or phone being very clear that no one was there to, you know, proselytize , nobody was there to convert you. Nobody was there to judge you, trying as much as possible to be completely neutral, regardless of what came up, whether there's something I agree with or disagree with that wasn't my role. The role was purely to listen. And I think starting by saying, like, I'm not inviting you to my church, I'm not asking you to come to my church. And you know, I'm not asking you to become a Christian, right? Were really powerful ways to establish trust up front and hopefully get, you know, real answers and true transparency for how somebody felt. Um, but I loved it. In a lot of ways, I found that more, talking to non parishioners could be a lot more powerful than parishioners. And you're kind of left with a sense of like, wow, we need to do this a lot. We need to do this maybe kind of constantly, you know, maybe even having a ministry that focuses on this solely right, just listening to people and hearing from people. Because you got really you got really good feedback and really good ideas. And even if there were things that you had to act on, right, it was just it's helpful for the congregation at large to to better understand our place within our own community, because you have to understand where the community is starting from. So while they were a little awkward, they got very, very rich and very warm very quickly because realistically, people like to talk about themselves, right? And if you show up and you're genuinely interested to hear those stories, people I found, in my experience, to be very, very open and very forthcoming about their true opinions.

Dee Stokes: That's really good. I want to ask a two part question. Um, share without divulging anyone's identity or anything, but maybe share a story about a person outside of your church when you were engaging them and kind of their reaction to this, like, like, I mean, I imagine people are like, "Are you serious? Like, you really want to know about me?" You know, kind of maybe share a quick story and then share with us some themes that came out of your listening. What, like just small themes about what you learned about your congregants and your neighbors.

Allen King: Yeah, I can start because it's really it kind of jumps to my mind immediately. Um. It was a woman, kind of late 20 something woman who lived and worked in Midtown. And when asking about positive experiences or perceptions of experiences of spirituality or God, you know, it just she so quickly lit up, right? With just, you know, when somebody is sharing something that's very deep and very real to them. And like a lot of us, right, when you're asked to talk about a religious experience or a spiritual experience, words kind of fail you. But body language spoke more than the words, right? Just sharing a story of being on a hike and the sun hit a leaf in just a certain way, right. And struggled explaining what that meant. But at the same time, being so obviously impacted and affected by that and how real that felt and that sense, that kind of intelligent design. So that's more of like the positive part of this story with this woman. But the negative side is the one that never will, will leave me. And she was raised, her father was a was a muslim. Her mother was Christian. She was raised in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, a very a generally pretty conservative place. And she just told really painful stories about. Unfortunately, her father died when she was in high school, and she shared the most painful stories about going to high school and having her friends tell her how sorry they were, that her dad was in hell, and he was definitely in hell because he did not acknowledge Jesus. And if you don't acknowledge Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord then you go to hell and we're so sorry, but your dad's in hell. And that just and she was crying as she told me this, and it definitely kind of impacted her and affected her in a pretty major way. Um, but also, you know, carry that even further by saying, I don't feel like I fit in, right? I've been to a mosque. I've been my father was a very devout Muslim, and I went to went to services with him. And she's like, I never felt like people there trusted me because I was half Christian and her mother, she would go to Christian church with her and same kind of thing. But the inverse, right? Like people were suspicious of her because then, you know, the color of her skin and her hair and the fact that she looked different. So she had this really painful sense of kind of longing for a relationship with God, or maybe even a church, but not feeling like she really fits. And some of that, I think, was just behaviors that were learned and were taught to her, unfortunately. Um, and so for me, that was the conversation that stuck out the most and just so genuine and so, so transparent and so thoughtful with her answers. And that's when I did have to stop myself from inviting her to my church or kind of repping our parish or like, well, here's all the things that we do great, you know, because I wanted to be true to that, to that commitment of not doing that. But it was it was a wonderful conversation. And she's a just as I told her at the end, I said, you're just a beautiful soul and I so appreciate your, your time sharing your, your thoughts and feelings with me today.

Ross Nicholas: That's really great. I'm listening, and I'm musing about the matching of people and stories together and the various ways that the Holy Spirit is at work. It's really a really a beautiful thing. I think for me, the interview process, and the people that I met with had agreed to to meet. And so that was the foundation. So talking about spirituality and things like that, were very much present with them and they're very comfortable, comfortable sharing that. I think what resonated was really the comfort that one can get from being in a congregation and being in a formal church setting, and then how that can quickly evaporate when one say, gets on a subway or goes to the grocery store and things like that, and the feeling that that people had around not being connected and just feeling like a part of the machine and not really being seen or heard and feeling alone, even though they are together. And I think that resonated, you know, it was pretty, pretty high. And, um, again, I'm sitting in a, you know, in an office building and talking about this and people saying, I just don't really feel, you know, a part of this. Don't feel connected to it. All this life is happening around me, yet I feel somewhat disconnected and displaced from it.

Dwight Zscheile: So I'm curious how this listening practice might have changed your understanding of church and the church's relationship to the neighborhood. Allen, you referenced, you know, we should maybe have a ministry of just doing this listening. Right? But say more about that, you two.

Allen King: I mean, think, I think for me kind of dividing the, continuing down this path of kind of parishioners and members and kind of non parishioners and non members, right? But for members, I think, you know, our buildings or our liturgy, or music, our physical spaces are pretty important to us, right? To non-members are almost not important at all. Right? It's but what really is important are the values, what we stand for. How do we how do we love and how do we put that love into action? How can we be more accepting and put that into action? You know, how can we take the service that we do and do more of it? How can we do more outreach? And, you know, I 1,000% do not have the answer, right? But I think church as it exists in a parish environment and our environment at All Saints, a very old, very historical, historic church should always stay there. But just this acknowledgement that we can grow what we do, which is hopefully spreading and sharing the love of God without necessarily increasing our membership. Um, and there's, you know, years worth of work to better understand what that actually means and how we bring that to life. But I also heard this from a non, you know, the non member conversations around this concept of don't try to close me. You know, don't try to like, you know, bring me into the church, right? But provide ways that I can be active in your community without having to be a member or active in your community without having to give money or, you know, all those sayings. So I think it brought up a lot of the right questions without any of the answers, but I think it was a really powerful first step to make sure that we are asking the right questions that are approaching a problem the right way, because I think church is different. I don't think it'll ever be the way it was when I was a child, or even as an adult in my 30s, right? It is fundamentally different, but all the core things or that we espouse to haven't changed at all. You know, they're always still there.

Ross Nicholas: Yeah, I'd say it's really interesting because All Saints is very much an urban church, and there are really a number of large buildings around it, and there's a subway station directly across the street from it, and those buildings have grown over the years. And so it, as you sit there and as we go through this process, you realize that, at least I do, that I really don't know much about what happens in these other buildings in terms of the individuals that go through and the work that they do and all those sorts of things, and I don't really feel that much of a connection to that. And then you realize, well, perhaps they feel the same way about me and about us and that something needs to change there. And so there's, there's this need to connect to all that's around you and really participate in it. And, you know, there's a coffee shop in the building next door. And how many times, you know, I just run in the church and hope that I get there on time and then, you know, and then hang around for a little while, and then I've got to go home. And so, you know, how often do I do I really pay attention to what else is going on around me, whether it be on Sunday or some other day? And so I think that's the thing for me, is that it really is more than just what happens on Sunday for those few hours. It's a lot about what's going on and how better to connect. And there isn't like an on off switch for for God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit or whatever in terms of, you know, it starts at ten and when service is over, it's done. And I think we all know that. I don't think that that's like new, but living it, being it, and being quiet enough and listening enough to allow it to be present is the thing that changes. And the thing that is really required to try to connect with it and to be just a part of all that's going around and how important it is for the church to do that.

Dee Stokes: Very important. Thank you for your insights. If you're listening to this conversation and thinking about what it might look like to do this kind of listening in your context, we want to offer you a free resource that may help you. We have created a spiritual life listening tool that has questions like, how would you describe yourself in terms of your religious or spiritual identity? What are some ways you find spiritual meaning in life? If you're willing, can you share a story of a time when you felt most spiritually alive, energized, or engaged? What spiritual questions, if any, are most pressing for you? These could be questions about life's purpose, meaning God, or how to make sense of the world or your experience. You can access our free tool through a link in the show notes for today's episode.

Dwight Zscheile: Ross and Allen: What are some things you would want fellow lay leaders or church pastors or staff to know based on your experience? What are some next steps that you might feel called to take? Or as you think of other churches trying to listen more deeply to their neighbors, what would be your advice for them?

Allen King: I think one, and it came up in some of the conversations that I had with the non parishioners, but this concept about nimbleness and churches needing to be able to quickly do things instead of perfectly do things, and some of this is driven by one of the interviews I had with a woman who was a member of another Episcopal parish down the street from us, and she talked a lot about this concept of nimbleness. And as an example pointed to a liturgy that they put together in like 3 or 4 hours time that coincided with the Supreme Court codifying gay marriage. And she referenced the fact that it was messy and it wasn't perfect, but it was quick. But the church just felt this, like very, very real calling to do something and mentioned that they had more people in their church that night and that ever had before or ever had sense. And, you know, the thing that she remembered the most was, you know, the liturgy was kind of weird and a little wonky and not perfect and not as crisp or as elegant as it could be. But nobody cared. They were literally just there in joy. The doors were flung open and there were people in the yard, people in the streets and parking lots. And so I think just this idea of like being really nimble and then not everything has to go through committee and not everything has to be perfect. It was the concept of not being perfect, but worth it, I think is really critical. Um, and then for me individually, some of the things that we heard from people about, you know, longing for more contemplative practice, I hear that same kind of call myself. And it's really important to me. So for me, I think it was kind of a wake up call, if you will, of because I am familiar with this because I long and in that too that I need to do a much better job of bringing that more into community instead of as an individual in this shed that I'm in right now. Um, so for me, it was a little bit of a tugging back in the church of trying to figure out ways to make this meaningful and, and to use a business word to operationalize some of this stuff, because I think there is a longing for it, there is an eagerness for it. And, you know, I may have something to offer and something to give. So, yeah, it was a really rich experience, both for the church and for me individually.

Ross Nicholas: Yeah, I agree, I think if you start from the premise that God is already active and already working right, and then so then it becomes, how do I connect to that? How do I engage in that? What do I need to do to be a part of what's already happening, and how can I be more of the, I guess, the means, not the end. And so that to me is that whole idea of spiritual wonder and amazement and releasing yourself from doing that and releasing organizations from doing that. So can we send interviews to our parishioners and ask them, you know, about how they feel about God and how God is acting? Like, yeah! Can we ask other individuals and organizations and people around us what they think and what they yearn for in a community? Of course you can. And so I think that idea of, okay, let's, let's go, let's go do that. And to Allen's point, it doesn't have to be perfect in doing that. Let's just follow it and begin to do that. I think is the key. And I think that is kind of what is helpful to be able to do. And I like your point Allen around the committees. I mean, I can't imagine that that's all needed to, in order to fully realize what, what God is up to, because then this whole thing would look a little different without required committees and bureaucracy. And so we know that that's not not the case. So I think how do you tap into that and how to be a part of that. And that's what I would, would, would say that folks should not be afraid to do. Even though it's scary.

Dwight Zscheile: Thank you so much for all of this wisdom and these insights, and for being with us today. Ross and Alan so great to have you on the show. We loved hearing about not only what you learned as you engage your neighbors in the spiritual conversations, but also what impact those conversations have had on you as well. And I think this message of what you've shared is very hopeful that it's not that hard. It's a little risky, but not that hard to actually go and do these listening sessions. But what a ministry of presence and love it is to listen deeply to someone without any other agenda than simply to hear them. And I think that's a very powerful practice, and you've brought it to life for us today.

Dee Stokes: Thank you both so much again. Next week, we'll be exploring the pivot from membership to discipleship with a special guest whom you won't want to miss. This has been the Pivot podcast signing off. This is Dr. Dee.

Dwight Zscheile: And this is Dwight. See you next week.

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