expositional teaching

Interactive teaching, part 3: Challenges of interactive teaching

/ Curt Parton
Photo by ronnarong

We’ve looked at some of the benefits of interactive teaching. So let’s consider some of the challenges of teaching this way:

“It takes a lot more time.”
This is true. If you’re studying a passage of Scripture, and you have people respond to you and invite them to raise their hands and ask questions, it’s going to take longer than if you do all the talking. You should know that going in. And this is going to frustrate some people, especially those who prefer a short, streamlined service where they can get in, get done, and get out. (Some of my friends refer to this as “drive-thru church.”) So you need to be clear about what your priorities are, and why. What outcome are we seeking? Are we willing to do almost anything to draw a large crowd, or are we focused on what will be most effective at making faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who are continually learning, growing and maturing?

“Overly talkative people will dominate the interaction.”
This is a real, ever-present, danger. This kind of format can draw people who are looking for a soapbox, a platform from which to opine and share with everyone their incredible wisdom on just about everything. Others, in their enthusiasm, may forget any self-restraint and eagerly answer every question asked of the people and pepper the teacher with a barrage of questions. Again, this is something pastors and teachers are just going to have deal with when teaching interactively. And you must actually deal with it.

Part of the way we serve the church is by providing gentle leadership to the whole study process. We’re not just teaching a particular passage, we’re teaching how to study the Bible, and how to interact as we study together as a church. From time to time, I have to begin with a reminder: “Don’t forget, questions are welcome, but only questions. There are just too many of us for everyone to be able to share their views and insights on the passage we’re studying. So you’re welcome to respond—briefly—when I ask you guys questions, and feel free to raise your hand and ask a question when something isn’t clear to you, but please hold onto your comments and insights until after the service. We can discuss as much as we want then.” You’ll be continually seeking balance in this area. It’s a bit like parents finding the balance between being too strict and being too permissive. At times we have to do some course correction to bring us back into balance. But this is another thing an interactive teacher must deal with. (And you’ll have to learn the art of gently and inoffensively interrupting someone who’s having difficulty ending their comments!)

“Someone might say something inappropriate.”
Not only is it a distinct possibility that someone eventually might say something in a less than appropriate manner during an interactive study, it’s very likely! Or at least it should be. Why do I say that? Because we’re trying to reach the same range of people that Jesus reached. He spent quite a bit of time with prostitutes and tax collectors, and I doubt whether their language and manners were the most genteel. What’s more important to us, that everyone act like good religious boys and girls in church—even the non-Christians—or that people are genuinely grappling with, and being changed by, the truth of Scripture at a deep heart level? If a non-Christian is doing this in our midst, and they process some of this out loud in their response or question, sometimes that may be expressed in ways that might make us uncomfortable. And that’s good! We need to be uncomfortable! And we need to sacrifice our comfort in order to reach people, both outside and inside the church.

Of course, there’s a balance to this, too. If someone is repeatedly dropping F-bombs, it might be necessary to have a gentle, respectful chat with them. But an occasional inappropriately worded response or question can be encouraging confirmation we’re actually reaching some of the people we say we want to reach! These are the kinds of problems the church should be encountering.

“But if I let the people ask any questions, they’re going to ask something I can’t answer.”
Good! That shows they’re really thinking about these things. A good question to which we don’t know the answer should never threaten us—unless we’re pretending to know everything! Of course, we need to be “laboring in the Word,” pushing up our sleeves and doing the hard work of studying the biblical text. We need to be prepared to teach a passage of Scripture, not just deliver a message. But, if we see ourselves as fellow students of Scripture who are still learning and growing ourselves, a new and probing question concerning Scripture should delight us! And our enthusiasm will be infectious. The people will see that this isn’t about being self-righteous and assuming we have everything nailed down. Studying Scripture is about the joy of discovering more about God and knowing more deeply his love, truth, life, grace, holiness, etc., etc. (And—notwithstanding the value of models for us to observe and of wise counsel—the best way to learn to answer tough questions is by answering tough questions!)

“This would be hard to do in larger churches.”
The size of a group will obviously affect how interactive it can be. We have the freedom to be much more interactive in a group of 10 or 12 than we do a group of 100 or 200. So the level of interaction will change in a way that fits the group with whom you’re working, but you can still be interactive in your teaching even with very large groups. You just have to think through how you’re going to do it. (Do you use roving microphones? Do you have set times during your study for questions and answers? etc.) If you think your church service is just too large to effectively teach interactively . . . then maybe your church service is just too large.

“I tried to teach interactively, but I couldn’t control the study.”
There are different issues that people confront when they teach interactively. The first is that teaching interactively is, in many ways, a very different process than monologue teaching. It’s like the difference between swimming and surfing. I can swim from point A to point B, and it’s a fairly straightforward process. But surfing is entirely different. Surfers don’t let the wave take them just anywhere, they’re still controlling the surfboard. But they have to ride the wave to get where they want to go. Surfing requires a different skill set, and the same is true for interactive teaching. It’s part art form. Someone who truly loves teaching (not just speaking), who loves to help people learn, who’s thrilled to see that light bulb moment when someone really gets it—these people usually take to interactive teaching pretty quickly because it’s so much more effective at fostering real learning and growth. They also know that new skills (e.g. how to go from someone’s rabbit trail back into the flow of the passage in a way that feels smooth and natural; how to correct someone who’s wrong but still encourage them to keep thinking and questioning; etc.) have to be learned and practiced, they don’t develop automatically.

Other people, though, find it very difficult to relinquish this much control. For some, it’s not a matter of developing additional teaching skills; they just hate teaching this way. For them, it goes against the grain. If we’re honest with ourselves, it can be hard to put all that time and effort into preparing to teach a passage of Scripture, only to have someone steal our thunder by knowing an answer to a question or by seeing something important in the text. It can grate on us when the people ask questions at the wrong time and mess up our outline, or when they don’t word things the way we’d like them to. There may be (at least) a couple of different reasons why these kinds of things bother someone. Maybe we’re struggling with a pride issue in our hearts. This is something that all of must confront in regards to our ministry. How much of my motivation and the way I respond is generated more from pride than a desire to lovingly serve? Does it bother us when we don’t get the credit for something we know, or for a helpful insight into the meaning of a Scripture? These can be warning signs that we’re too focused on ourselves.

This kind of struggling is also an opportunity to take another look at our gifting. Maybe teaching isn’t really our gifting at all. I know people who think they should be teaching, but they don’t really like working with people! (Here’s a hint: that doesn’t work!) Some love the activity of studying Scripture, but they’re frustrated with trying to help others learn. Some love the creative process of crafting something and then presenting it in front of an audience—intending to truly move and inspire them—but they feel ill-equipped to handle any kind of interaction. In cases like these, the individual and the church would be much healthier if these people determine their strongest areas of gifting and passion and find ways to use these gifts to most effectively love and edify the church body. There’s nothing wrong with having gifting other than teaching!

Don’t forget to exhort.
Scripture doesn’t just call pastoral leaders to teach the church, but also to exhort the church. Teaching in the church shouldn’t be merely a transfer of information, teaching should bring about real spiritual growth and life change. There should be an element of coaching in our teaching. As teachers in the church, we should be encouraging and urging people (and ourselves) to take what we’re learning and faithfully live it out in our daily lives.

“But some people won’t like it.”
No matter what we do as a church, we can’t please everyone. If some people are going to be displeased with us, let’s make sure they’re displeased with us for the right reasons! If we’re seeking to be biblically faithful and as effective as possible at helping people come to faith in Christ and helping each other grow and mature in the faith, then it’s much easier to deal with it when people don’t like that approach. Some people will be drawn to interactive study of Scripture, and others won’t. Some will tell you, “I don’t want to hear all these other people. You’re the pastor or teacher, I want to hear you.” That’s when we need to be very clear about what Scripture calls us to do, and the most effective ways to fulfill this calling. We must never fail to consider the input from others in the church, but we also don’t decide what’s best based solely on majority opinion. The fact is, we Christians often don’t know what’s best for us. So we’re continually driven back to the Word, and we seek to live out what the Bible teaches as wisely as we can.

Ministry is rarely, if ever, neat and tidy and quickly concluded the way we see in many books and conferences. Real life is messy, and real ministry to real people is messy, too. Don’t forget: Jesus didn’t disciple 12 units; he discipled Peter; and James; and John; etc. He discipled 12 individuals (and many others, as well). We, too, are teaching very different people with different backgrounds, different levels of knowledge, different levels of spiritual maturity, different personalities and ways of learning, etc., etc. Some may prefer the antiseptic security of what can be neatly contained and packaged, but what is messy can also be organic and thriving and vibrant. There must be order to what we do, of course, but we can easily have so much order—so much of our control—that we choke off the life.

In his excellent book Teaching to Change Lives, Howard Hendricks asked:

Wouldn’t it be great in our churches if people would simply stand up when they didn’t understand what the speaker was trying to communicate, and say, “Wait a minute. I have no idea what you’re talking about”? It would guarantee no one would go to sleep!

As a young teacher, I read this and wrote in the margin, “Why not?” We need to refuse to be bound by the sacred cows of either what is traditional or what is trendy. We need to be willing to take a fresh look at Scripture, in its context, to see how we can be more faithfully biblical, and also be seeking how we can be most wise in applying scriptural church principles in our current context.

In the case of interactive teaching, it can be thrilling to see people become active participants in the study of Scripture, to hear their excited questions as they come to better understand Scripture for themselves—and better know God through his Word. But you should also know this. Once people take some sense of ownership in their own process of learning and growing, and they get used to being able to raise their hand and ask a question when something is confusing or needs to be clarified, it’s extremely difficult for them to return to sitting quietly as part of a passive audience. And once you teachers begin to witness this dynamic process during your teaching, when the people start seeing what you want them to see in the Scriptures (rather than you just telling them), when they get so into the flow of the passage that they’re naturally asking questions that lead right into the next verse or paragraph, when you see the exhilaration of a Christian personally grasping a key biblical concept or understanding a knotty passage for the first time—not only will it be worth dealing with all of the challenges we’ve listed, but you’ll likely find it impossible to ever return to teaching without the interaction!

Interactive teaching, part 2: Why teach interactively?

/ Curt Parton

In the last post, we saw that Scripture doesn’t call pastors to preach, in the familiar sense of delivering sermons, but there is a repeated call for pastors to teach the church. I noted that—contrasted with preaching—teaching has different priorities, a different focus, and different expectations. So we should want to see this kind of teaching modeled for us in the Bible, right? How did Jesus and Paul teach? What can we learn from their examples?

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

I want to focus on a characteristic of their teaching that isn’t discussed very often. If we read the text carefully, we begin to see references to the interactive nature of both Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching. We know from historical studies that the format in the synagogues of the first century was interactive. They even arranged their seating in the round to facilitate this interaction. We see evidence of this interaction in the synagogues in such passages as Mark 3:1-5; John 6:25-59; Acts 17:1-4; 17:17; 18:4-6; 18:19; 18:28; 19:8-9. Read through the Gospels and see how many times Jesus asked questions and answered questions—often answering questions with questions! And we see him doing this in one-on-one conversation, in small groups and in large group settings. He did most of the talking, to be sure; these weren’t large group chats, but they were interactive.

Notice in the passages above how often it says that Paul reasoned with the people in the synagogues. The Greek word used here is dialegomai. From this word we get our English word “dialogue,” and it had the same kind of meaning in the first century. It meant “to discuss,” so what we see happening in the synagogues in these passages was very interactive.

We see Paul teaching interactively in the church, as well, in Acts 20:7-12. We often joke about this being the favorite verse of long-winded preachers because it shows Paul preaching all night long! The problem is this isn’t quite accurate. The same Greek word is used here as above, plus another one with a similar meaning. What Paul was doing wasn’t preaching to the people, he was dialoguing with the people. He didn’t preach all night long, but he did talk with the people all night long.

So what happened to this interactive style of teaching? How did monologic preaching become the norm? Over time, leaders in the church began adopting more of a Greco-Roman emphasis on eloquent rhetoric. This became even more widespread after Christianity was legalized and “the Church” even became seemingly predominate. Huge numbers of people joined the Church (without necessarily becoming truly Christian), churches began building large cathedrals, the bishop had already become the preeminent person in church life, and now eloquent sermons with all the desired rhetorical flourishes took the place of simple, interactive teaching. The Reformed churches, with their intellectual strengths, retained and even intensified this focus on monologic preaching, viewing it as virtually indistinguishable from the proclamation of the gospel and the teaching of the Word. Over the centuries, some groups followed a more interactive teaching model, and there’s been renewed interest in interactive teaching the past few decades.

But why teach interactively? What are some of the benefits of interactive teaching? Here are a few:

It’s a much more effective way of learning.
Studies have consistently shown that the more we’re actively involved in the learning process (rather than just passively listening), the more we retain and apply what we’ve learned. First, people remain engaged at a much higher level when they realize people can ask questions, and that the teacher may ask the people questions—and expect an answer! It avoids the problem of people not understanding something, being frustrated at not being able to clarify what’s confusing them, and then zoning out because they’re lost in the sermon and no longer able to follow. And the truth of Scripture just has greater weight to a person when they’re part of the discovery process. Rather than telling everyone, “. . . and this verse shows again that Jesus is God,” it makes much more of a lasting impact for someone to respond to a question from the teacher with, “Wow, this is saying that Jesus is God!” Rather than truth being something they’re told, they’re now apprehending the truth in a deeply personal way. They now own it, and are responsible for doing something with it.

A monologue is just about the least effective way to teach anyone anything, but strangely it’s the most common model we find in the church. The more people actively participate in the learning process, the more they truly learn, the more they retain, and the more they apply what they’ve learned in their lives.

Interactive teaching also keeps the focus rightly on the text of Scripture.
This is true even in the preparation process. Rather than putting a great deal of time and effort into crafting a beautiful speech, I need to understand as thoroughly as possible the whole passage we’re studying because I can get questions on anything in the passage. Rather than being immersed in my message, I have to be immersed in the text itself. Secondly, the focus during the study time is not on my rhetorical skills, on how funny or moving I am, but on how clearly they understand the Scriptures. This way of teaching helps the teacher become more invisible and draws the people’s attention to the scriptural text, the Word of God.

This form of teaching can also inspire people to study the Scriptures on their own.
Rather than saying to themselves, “I don’t know how he got those points from this passage, but that’s beautiful,” it can cause people to say, “Oh, wow, I’m seeing where the text is making this point! I’m following the flow of this, and actually understanding it! This is great!” To borrow from the old saying, instead of giving them fish, this helps them learn how to fish for themselves. [Side note: using a translation in our teaching that the people can actually understand—without the need for the teacher to translate the translation(!)—helps greatly with this also. It’s wonderful to hear people tell me they’re understanding what they read in Scripture on their own for the first time.]

This kind of teaching also encourages more people to become teachers.
The unpleasant truth is that there are just not that many truly great preachers. Many churches endure preaching every week that is painfully subpar. This reality is even more evident today when we can watch the best preachers online anytime we like. And the pressure is real and somewhat understandable; after all, if you’re doing all the talking, you should be really good at it! But the encouraging thing is that there are a whole lot more people who can be effective teachers than can be excellent preachers! And seeing excellent teaching will often excite them that they can do this, too, instead of concluding that they could never do what the preacher does.

This way of studying the Scriptures seems much more authentic to a lot of people.
To many—especially those without a church background—a typical church sermon can feel canned and artificial. At best, it’s still a presentation, and they already get bombarded by too many presentations. But if people are studying the Scriptures and allowing people to ask any questions or make any challenges they want about the text in question—that feels real. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me something like, “Wow, you really take the Bible seriously. You’re okay with us checking everything out and asking you hard questions.”

For the reasons above (and I’m sure there are more I could have included), this kind of teaching can be a more effective component of making genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. But do we really want active participants . . . or do we actually prefer a passive audience? Do I want them to be moved by my message, or by the Scriptures themselves? Is it more important to me that they appreciate my opening and my closing, that they laugh and cry and are appropriately moved in the right places? Or is it more important that they’re actually learning and understanding more of the Word of God? Do I want them leaving being impressed with my preaching or excited / challenged / motivated by the truth of God we’ve studied together in Scripture? Please understand, I’m not at all suggesting that those who preach traditional sermons have wrong motives! I’m saying that interactive teaching is much more conducive to right motives. It helps get the focus off of us, and it becomes all about assisting the people of God to better understand and live out the Word of God.

So why wouldn’t we teach interactively? In the next post, we’ll look at some of the challenges of interactive teaching.

If you’re thinking of benefits of interactive teaching I didn’t include, please add a comment below and share them with us!

Interactive teaching, part 1: Preaching or teaching?

/ Curt Parton
Photo by Memento Media on Unsplash

The preaching of the Word has traditionally held a preeminent place in most evangelical churches. This is no accident. Young pastors and leaders have been taught how vital sound preaching is for keeping a church faithful and healthy. Quotes from noted leaders reinforce to us the crucial nature of preaching to the life of the church. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote that “Preaching the Word is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church.” John Stott claimed that “Preaching is indispensable to Christianity.” Preaching is often so inextricably linked with the role of the pastor that pastors are commonly referred to as “preachers.” The mountain of books that have been written on the subject of preaching over the centuries could easily fill a library. And not only books, but articles, workshops, seminary classes, conferences, etc. on preaching have been ubiquitous in the evangelical movement. Preaching has become an art form. Most Christians could tell you who their favorite preachers are, and more often than not their preference has as much to do with style as it does substance.

So if preaching is so essential to the life and health of the church, we should have a clear understanding of just what the Bible has to say about preaching and those who preach, shouldn’t we? But this is where we run into a bit of difficulty. The Bible actually has very little to say about preaching as we understand it. English translations of Scripture do often include many passages with the words “preach” or “preaching.” But when we dig a little more deeply, we find that none of these words are conveying the idea of “delivering a sermon or religious address to an assembled group of people, typically in a church.” In fact, there isn’t one place in Scripture where we find our traditional understanding of preaching a sermon. Even what we traditionally know as the “Sermon on the Mount” is never actually called that in the text of Scripture! [Please note: the section headings you may find in big, bold print in your Bible are supplied by the publisher; they’re not part of the biblical text.]

So what are these words in the original language, and what do they mean? The most common word translated “preach” in many (especially older) English translations is the Greek word euangelizo. You probably recognize right away that we’ve brought this word into English as “evangelize.” The word, both in English and in Greek, means simply to share good news. This is why newer translations sometimes opt for words such as “announce,” “share” or “bring” the good news. Unfortunately, there are still many places where this word is translated “preach the gospel” or “preach the good news,” requiring pastors to routinely explain to people that “preaching the gospel” isn’t something that only apostles did or “preachers” do now behind a pulpit (or on a stage); this is simply “sharing the good news,” and all Christians are to be doing that! Another Greek word that is often translated “preach” (and which also has to be clarified) is kerusso, which means to announce or proclaim. This word is invariably paired with another word euangelion, showing that what is being announced is the good news of Jesus Christ.

Many will recall the familiar words of 2 Timothy 4:2: “. . . preach the word; be ready in season and out of season [NASB].” Too many times, though, these instructions are understood in a traditional sense, that the preacher must always be ready to get up behind the pulpit and preach a sermon. Not only is this not what Paul was talking about, it obscures what Paul was actually telling Timothy to do. Remember, Timothy wasn’t a local church pastor, he was part of Paul’s apostolic team. They were missionaries who shared the good news of Jesus Christ, and helped young believers form a new church in each location. Often Paul would leave Timothy behind or send him ahead to strengthen and “coach” the churches. Paul here tells Timothy to kerusso the logos. Kerusso means to proclaim and Paul uses logos to refer to the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Many translations render this instruction: “Proclaim the message.” See, for example, how this verse reads in the Revised English Bible:

[P]roclaim the message, press it home in season and out of season, use argument, reproof, and appeal, with all the patience that teaching requires.

This verse isn’t saying anything about the necessity of preaching sermons.

I should also comment on 1 Timothy 5:17. In this passage, Paul instructs that some elders are “worthy of double honor” or “should be respected and paid well.” This is especially true of those who labor or work hard in logos and in teaching. There are a variety of translations for the word logos here in this verse: word, preaching, speech or speaking are some of the common ones. It’s curious that this is often translated “preaching” in this verse, since we don’t find logos translated as preaching anyplace else. Paul typically uses this word to refer to the content of the gospel message of Jesus Christ (which is, of course, contained in the words of Scripture). This especially makes sense in this verse because it fits his use of both these words (logos and didaskalia or “teaching”) earlier in the same letter. In 1 Timothy 4:6, Paul describes one who is nourished by the logos or message of faith and by sound teaching. It would be consistent for him to be using these words in a similar way just a few verses later. This also makes best sense of what Paul is saying in verse 5:17. These elders who should be supported are laboring or working hard in both the content of the gospel message (which we study in Scripture) and in the teaching of this gospel truth. The NKJV translates this phrase as those who “labor in the word and doctrine,” and God’s Word Translation reads: “if they work hard at teaching God’s word.” Again, there is nothing here on which to base the traditional preaching of sermons.

So, if Scripture doesn’t teach pastors to “preach” (i.e. deliver sermons) in the church, what are they supposed to do? As we see above and throughout the letters to the churches, elders or pastors of the church are to be teaching the Word of God to the people. (Note that even Jesus wasn’t known as “the Preacher,” but as “the Teacher.”) Is this distinction in wording worth emphasizing, or is this just semantics? Well, that all depends on how we’re using the word “preach.” If all we mean by preach is the exposition of Scripture to the people, then maybe there’s nothing here to discuss. The problem is that the word “preach” contains much more nuance and conveys much more meaning than simply biblical exposition. Not only do we understand this word to mean much more than this, but we’re so inundated with descriptions of preaching and instruction regarding preaching that have no biblical basis, that we face a very real danger of distracting ourselves from the actual teaching ministry of the elders/pastors of the church—which is scriptural.

We can recognize some all too common differences in focus and desired outcome between preaching and teaching. The process of preaching is usually focused on the delivery of a prepared speech or sermon. Teaching on the other hand will also be prepared, but the focus isn’t on the prepared message but on the actual process of teaching, helping people come to a deeper understanding of scriptural truth. If I’m preaching, I’m preaching; regardless of what impact my message is having on anyone, I’m still preaching. But, as Howard Hendricks used to say, if they’re not learning, I’m not teaching. Teaching has different priorities, a different focus, and different expectations. In the next post, we’ll look more deeply into this, we’ll see just how Jesus and Paul taught, and why we should teach in a similar way.

A new hybrid model for doing church

/ Curt Parton

Something interesting happened to us during the pandemic. But first, some background: Our church, The Orchard, has two characteristics that make us a little different from many other churches—not unique, but out of the ordinary. We don’t have a senior or lead pastor as most evangelical churches do. Instead, we have a team of pastoral elders who all share in the shepherding of the church. (I’ve previously written quite a bit concerning this leadership model.) We also study the Bible interactively in our church services. We elicit responses from the people and encourage them to raise their hand when they have a question. I’ve taught this way throughout my ministry, but for some reason I’ve never posted anything here about it. [I’m thinking my next blog post should be on interactive teaching.]

When everything shut down last year due to COVID, we began meeting online for our weekly church service the same as everyone else. We met via Zoom so we could continue to study interactively together. I started receiving inquiries from people who had been part of the church we served in Puerto Rico. They were looking for something more interactive than what they had available from streaming church services, and were curious if we were doing anything online. At the time, we were very focused on making sure our online church service felt as familiar as possible to the people here—felt like “us”—so I was hesitant to have large numbers of people temporarily join our service. (Like many others, we were expecting to get back to “normal” in a few weeks or maybe months.) So I started an online Bible study on Sunday afternoons for people outside our area who were desiring more of an interactive study.

This study continued throughout the year, with the repeated disclaimer that it wasn’t a church. A few months ago, a good friend from the study (and one of my former co-pastors in Puerto Rico), challenged me about this. He pointed out the close, regular fellowship we had, and the way we worshiped and studied Scripture together. He asked why this couldn’t be a church. That gave me pause. I had never been impressed with the idea of an online church before. It seemed a lot like passively watching a church service on TV, which is great if you can’t physically get to a church gathering, but really just a temporary substitute. But with this kind of challenge, I needed to have solid reasons why this kind of online gathering couldn’t be an actual church.

This began some intensive discussions. More and more we discussed the possibility of a hybrid church model with a primary gathering online that would include people from many locations. This service would be focused mostly on interactive, expositional study of Scripture. Along with this larger service would be local fellowships, meeting in person in each location during the week, that could better do things such as worshiping through music, sharing in communion, baptisms, eating together, sharing testimonies, deeper discussion of questions, encouraging one another, etc. These local fellowships would likely look very different in each location, with maybe 20 people meeting in a living room in one town, and 4 people meeting at Starbucks in another.

The more we discussed this possible hybrid model, the more excitement grew about the possibility of making this group a church. Most of these people were motivated by a love of interactive study of Scripture (It’s hard for some people to return to passively listening to sermons when they’re used to raising their hands and asking questions!) but also a shared conviction regarding church polity. Many expressed how important team pastoral leadership is to them. One obstacle, though, was the difficulty in me personally being part of planting a brand new kind of church while serving as a pastor of another. I didn’t feel I could do that and faithfully serve both.

But, in The Orchard, we were having a series of interesting discussions of our own. Other than the offices, our building had sat unused for almost a year, and we were getting close to the end of a multi-year lease. We were beginning to discuss whether we should continue leasing the building. We loved the space we met in, with couches and chairs arranged almost in a circle to make it look more like a large living room or coffeehouse. But the pandemic had helped us remember we’re not dependent on any particular space. A building can be a great resource, but the church isn’t a building. So we had been discussing alternatives such as renting some space once a week in which to meet, or buying a house and converting it into a church property. These ideas fit with our “strategically small” approach of limiting the size of our church service, but also planning for multiple services to allow further growth.

One of the things we had repeatedly discussed was how to best get the word out about who we are. We had experienced many people visiting us just because we were another church in town to check out. We wanted to let people in the community know some of the distinctive characteristics that make us who we are as a church, so those who were seeking this kind of church would know about us. In fact, last year we had planned a whole series of mailers describing different aspects of who we are that make us a bit unique in this local area, and were poised to begin sending them out (literally the following week) when everything shut down because of the pandemic. So we had been looking for people who were looking for a church like us, and now there were people from outside our area who were eager to be part of a church like us! We began discussing the possibility of The Orchard actually becoming this hybrid church.

Eventually, after discussions among the church leadership and then the congregation, we decided to take this step. We now have a primary service online on Sunday mornings (10 am Eastern and Pacific) that includes brothers and sisters from mutliple states plus Puerto Rico. We’re seeking to incorporate leaders from other areas into our church leadership team. Our most recent addition to our pastoral team is Jack Foster, a brother from Puerto Rico. We’ve given up our building here in Sacramento, and now lease a small office. Our local congregation is becoming one of the local fellowships. The online group is really melding into a cohesive church family. We recently had one lady who’s been part of the church here for some time move to Grand Junction, CO, and she’s very happy that she can still be part of our church!

This has been a real paradigm shift for me. The biblical model of one church in each town has always been compelling to me. But, then again, there was no way for them at that time to have any larger context for a church congregation. Geography was the natural and necessary division for individual churches. But when we see, for instance, how Paul longed at times to be with the Thessalonians or the Corinthians, if he had a tool such as Zoom that he could have utilized, I’m sure he would have! Especially since we were already to some extent outside of the norm due to our team leadership model and interactive teaching, a hybrid model that includes a translocal congregation actually makes sense. But we’re definitely in uncharted territory, so we are constantly aware of our dependence on God and his wisdom and leading. It’s amazing that we would never have considered any of this if it hadn’t been for the COVID shut down, but that shows how God can use times like this to slow us down and get us to consider new and possibly more effective ways to faithfully be the church. We’re excited to see where we go from here!