Resources for Further Study:

• Francis Chan's Letters to the Church 
• Mary Harrington's Feminism Against Progress

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The Questioning Belief podcast explores objections to Christianity through in-depth discussions with experts. Drawing from her background as a former atheist and her experience in apologetics, Dr. Kathleen Noller invites you to explore thoughtful responses to serious questions about faith. Learn more.

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Explore written reflections from Dr. Kathleen Noller and get in touch with her through her Substack, The Reformed Gadfly.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Kathleen Noller podcast brought to you by the C.S Lewis Institute, where we interrogate Christianity and see if it can stand up to our toughest objections Today, as contrast to usual, we have a lot of objections to discuss.

Kathleen Noller: These are all going to be revolving around Christian community, the church, so the social aspects of the church, and we're going to have a very in-depth discussion of discipleship so here to address these objections and more, we have Dr Carrier, So he is a pastor He works at the District Church in DC And he's very passionate about making disciples. He really wants to make disciples who love, think, and act like Jesus He's the pastor of discipleship, appropriately titled He's spoken at C.S Lewis Institute before and within his church, he oversees life groups and rooted discipleship classes and retreats and he prays for and shares life with the community He's very passionate about outreach in addition to building up his church He has a PhD in biblical studies from the Catholic University of America, a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell, and a BS in mechanical engineering from University of Massachusetts.

Welcome, Dr Carrier Thank you for joining us

Brian Carrier: Thanks, it’s an honor and privilege to be with you

Kathleen Noller: Thank you so much So I figured we'd just dive into some of these objections and as you know, I've sort of sourced them from a couple of different places They are, I'm going to categorize them as perhaps real or perhaps perceived objections to the Christian church and the life of the church. Some books that I've pulled from Francis Chan's Letters to the Church, Tim Keller's Reason for God, Rod Dreyer's Living in Wonder, where you know these are these are pastors and these are you know devout Christians who are very devoted to the church and are calling out issues that they see in some churches. And then I've mixed this with some objections that I hear from non-believers who perceive the life of the church to be a certain way or even believers who similarly recognize some issues within the church So the first one that I hear the most, and I’d love to hear your take on, is that it sort of goes hand in hand with kind of modern day pluralism, is that Christian community is very inward focused at best, and it can be exclusionary or isolationist at worst. Is this something that you have observed and that you see as a problem, or do you think that this is kind of going hand in hand with the objections coming from the line of sort of pluralistic thought?

Brian Carrier: Well That's a good question to start off on so Thank you for raising it and giving me the chance to speak on it And i guess I just want to start by just saying that if you are listening and you have felt excluded from the church, you felt isolated, that really do apologize And I know that church experience can be really varied from one church to the next and doesn't even matter about the nomination. But I just, I apologize if that is something that you have experienced ah For myself, i grew up in a ah Christian tradition, ah though I wouldn't say I was a believer in it was very high on church liturgy and things like that, but not very alive and people weren't the friendliest actually. And when I went to college, I did engineering, I walked away from faith because my parents weren't forcing me to go to church anymore And I did have some of those experiences where, I mean, I even had a friend in college, somebody I thought was a friend. Sloan invited me to come to church and I did, and then he excluded me from going again because I changed the dynamic of him and his friends when I was there so even on a small level

Kathleen Noller: how go

Brian Carrier: David Sloan, you can experience that type of exclusion and obviously exclusion is horrible, I think we're created as human beings to be in community to be in relationship and so that's one of the worst forms of pain that we experience is exclusion So all that to say that if you have experienced that before, like I really do apologize And I think there is truth to that I can't speak for all churches and it does vary And, and in terms of the, you know, getting more at it from an intellectual side, yes, in some sense, churches are by nature exclusionary. And what I mean by that is i think that, it's really when we think of exclusion, we have to think about even identity And I think that any social institution is by nature exclusionary in the sense that in order to draw a boundary line about this is me and this is not me, there are certain things that you have to hold to and certain things that you can't. For example, I know that I'm Brian and I'm not you, Kathleen, by looking at differences between us, right? And that's every one of us has that individualism about us that distinguishes us from someone else. There are natural boundary lines drawn with us as individuals And I think the same happens with organizations and you see this at all different levels of society and it's not just religion that has to be exclusionary in some way. For example, my family unit, I've been married, it'll be eight years in June ah to my wife, Bianca

Kathleen Noller: So

Brian Carrier: We have two kids, but that is our family And by nature, like we have guests over, but Nobody else is living with us Like we are a family unit and I prioritize them And this is how pretty much all of society is structured is different types of units that way, taking it up a level socially I mean, even think about a, I don't know, a professional basketball team if I would try, I'm about six feet and I'm not good at basketball If I would try out for the and NBA, I would not make it right I would be excluded from that organization because they have certain requirements of what it means to play and they have a certain vision that they're trying to live out and that's to win, to be the very best at this particular game, at this sport And so, in order to live into that vision, they have to draw certain boundary lines And that means that some of us, so the a great majority of us, even if we really want to be playing, we can't And so I think it's just good to even before we get into like the church itself, it's good to just step back and recognize that every social institution has boundaries that it draws. And it's essential to have those boundaries to be able to exist The church is another social institution It's a little obviously different than an NBA team, but it also has a vision of what life is about and who we are as a church And we have a vision for reality of what it means to live, what's the best way to live And we're trying to live that out And of course, the expression varies a little bit from church to church. But it's essential for us to draw certain lines in the sand to be able to live into this vision And so I think with regards to pluralism, you know, yes, there are times that we would say you can't serve in this church at a high level. For example, I am a pastor of a church, a non-denominational, you know Protestant church it would not make sense for me to have at a high level of leadership as a pastor, someone who is not a believer in Jesus or someone who is an adherent of a different religion and vice versa. You know, there is down the street I mean, our church meets on sixteenth street in DC and there is just across the street There is the, ah I mean, we have the Unitarian church We have the Mooney Unification Church We have a Mormon temple We have a Washington ethical society ah There are many different types of religions there, and none of them, I'm almost willing to guarantee, would want me serving at a high level of leadership because i am not them. I don't hold the same vision we're not aligned, we're not moving in the same direction And so there are certain senses in which Christianity would say, yes, if you don't hold to this belief, or if you don't hold to this lifestyle, it doesn't make sense for you to be representing the church and or leading the church in a particular way. And some people will feel the rub ah You know, it's really, where do you draw the line and why?

Everybody is drawing the line somewhere So it's a question of where are you drawing it and why are you drawing it? And if you are trying, what I'm trying to explain here is if you are drawing the line because this is important to who you are and you're trying to live out your vision of reality of the good life, of a flourishing life, you have to draw a line that makes sense. I think where we run into problems with the church is when that line is drawn in places that don't necessarily seem to align with the church's vision or its message that it's preaching. And when a why is not given, people can also feel very excluded And we have seen that happen in in US history, for example, where people were excluded on ah by the color of their skin and they were not allowed to worship And there is nothing in the Bible that says that that should be the case. People would use the Bible as justification But if you really look at Scripture, And I think this is borne out in history Like everything in scripture talks about ah wanting to invite people in from every nation Jesus says, make disciples of every nation, all nations and the picture of heaven ah is people from every tribe, you know, race, tongue are all there worshiping So there's nothing with the Christian message that aligns with that behavior And so it causes a dissonance for people of why are you rejecting me from fellowships? and when it seems like it can contradict your message i think people intuitively get yes if you're an atheist it doesn't make sense for you to be leading a church but it when the church draws lines in a way that are not in keeping with its beliefs that's where it causes problems so and i think you know the last thing I’ll say about it is and then we can you can ask more if you want but...

Kathleen Noller: Thank you

Brian Carrier: I think that the Christian message is the most in inclusionary of any message There is the Christian message is that God desires to be in relationship with every single human being. Every single human being bears the image of God And that is, i mean, there's been plenty of people writing lately about how human rights don't really make sense apart from that Judeo-Christian worldview of the image of God being in a human being and it's saying that every single person has value Every person reflects God's glory in some unique way Every person is fearlessly and wonderfully made, fearfully, wonderfully made and therefore, every person should be invited into Christian fellowship. God desires to be in relationship with every person And the Christian message is gone out and invite everyone in, especially the people that the rest of society would tend to exclude

Kathleen Noller: who

Brian Carrier: people who are poor, for example, the people who are marginalized These are the people that Jesus commands us to go to and prioritize are those who are left out So even if you have a different belief system or you're opposed to Christianity, at least at our church, we really hope that you would be willing to come and give it a try with us just to be present with us, ah whether you ever come to believe in Christ or not, we would hope that we can have relationship with you and do life to some extent with people. We want to share life and connect with our neighbors and so, you know, at some level, yes, you must draw a line to, to you know, preserve your identity, but the Christian faith is open to absolutely everyone and that's really at the heart of the message is that God is inviting everyone into relationship So, yes, exclusionary by nature, as every socialist citizen is But in terms of the message, like everyone really is invited

Kathleen Noller: Oftentimes it's easy to apply a certain standard or burden of proof on Christianity that's then not turned to other, like you said, social institutions, which we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't be asking a mosque or we wouldn't be asking a basketball team, like you said, to essentially change the membership criteria, so to speak, put it in a general way of being a part of their organization And so at the very least, even if you see the church as just nothing but a social institution, it would make sense, similar to other institutions, that it would have certain membership criteria. How would somebody, perhaps somebody who's new to Christianity and is deciding, you know, where do I go? i you know, do i do I pick a church that really doesn't draw any lines and, you know, takes everybody? Do I go to these fundamentalist churches that say that they are following, you know, God's, the truest version of God's truth? and they draw a lot of really heavy lines based on sola scriptura or you know what are they supposed to do and how do they navigate the fact that different denominations often seem to have even within Protestantism often seem to have different lines drawn in different places is there sort of a mere Christianity we can find at the end of the day.

Brian Carrier: Yeah, great question you weren't kidding when you talk about ruthlessly interrogating ah like the Christian faith That's ah that's a great question Yeah, I think to that, I would say a few things and First of all, it is overwhelming to try to find, you know, where do I go and what even is Christianity? I would say that you might try you might try a church and you might find that this is not for me and what I would say is don't reject Christianity if you've had an experience that's not positive with the church. There are, you know, I mean, let's stick with the let's stick with the basketball example If you look at somebody playing basketball, if you watch playing basketball, you're probably going to be turned off from the sport because it's ugly Right But it's very different than watching a true master of the sport And so I would say just that If you've had a bad experience, don't reject Christianity you know Walk away from that church, fine But don't give up on Christianity Don't give up on Jesus himself don't judge him on the basis of what you've seen in that one church And really what you have to do is you really have to go to the source and you have to evaluate Christ himself You have to read who he is in the Bible, especially in the gospels, and you have to make a decision ultimately on what you're rejecting by looking at him he is the one that you're ultimately making a decision. Do you want to be in relationship with him or not? Do you think he's trustworthy? Do you think he really knows what a good life is? Can you trust him with your life? That's the ultimate decision you're making, and you have to recognize that there are, even if people call themselves Christians, there is a range of different spiritual maturities and so some people are going to be more closely ah representing him and some are going to be farther And that that just is the nature of the Christian life is we're all works in progress and, you know, hopefully over time, we are allowing God to shape us into more and more of his image So That's the first thing is if you've if you've tried going to church and you've just been turned off by it, don't give up you know At least go to the Bible and look at who Jesus is and make your decision based on that and then give it a try to go to another church The other thing I'd say is where do you even begin? Yeah, there's such a range of people who would say they are Christian and they're you know and they draw lines in different places And you know our culture today tends to value not drawing any lines and saying, you know, well, if you really love me, you'll just accept me completely as I am and as we've already talked about, well, there have to be lines just by nature of an institution

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: But the other piece, you know, that, you know, and I get this from Tim Keller is just, if you come in telling God what he can fix and what he can't, then you're the one who's really in the position of God and how, how are you possibly going to grow or change if you're never willing to allow anyone to speak into your life?

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And if you're never willing, allow anyone to point out something that maybe isn’t, as healthy as it could be, so you are going to come in

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: Every one of us who is a Christian has plenty of things where there are parts of our life where I would say the Bible says you're, you're not living as, as health leaders in as flourishing a way as you can be So, we have to be open to hearing some feedback and having places where lines that are not really comfortable for us are drawn We have to be willing to do that So I think just going to a place where there is no demand on your life or no, you can never allow anyone to speak into your life Like you don't really have a living faith in that point You just, you're the one who's in control And how are you expect to be any different than where you are now? If you've already been making all your own decisions

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: So, you must be willing to have some lines, but the question is, yeah, where are the lines drawn? How many are there? And I think speaking at a high kind of, I don't know, theoretical level, it's hard to really get into that But I would say that the advice of Jesus is one of the ones I go back to is ultimately, you know, a tree by its fruit and i think that there have to be lines I think those lines should be based on scripture At our church, we believe that the Bible is the, it's truly reliable It's truly trustworthy. It is the voice of God speaking to us and it's what we can ultimately build our faith and our life upon So I think they should be aligned with the Bible they should preach the whole Bible They should try to interpret it as faithfully as they can and submit themselves and their whole church and their lives to it And then I'd say the other thing is, you know, a tree by its fruit, as Jesus would say, and that is are they actually embodying who the Bible says God is? And the Bible says that God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, these type of things so The Bible says God is love, and it defines love as being patient, kind, not envying, not boasting, not proud, you know not dishonoring others, and so on and so on and so Do you see people actually living it out, having these type of qualities in their lives? And of course, it's going to vary from person to person We're all working in progress, but do you see that there? Or do you see even using biblical language and imagery hate being preached? You know, is it constantly a church constantly defining itself by what it's against and condemning things all the time? I would say that doesn't align with how Jesus lived Jesus had plenty of things that he could have chosen to condemn in people, but he prioritized building relationship, extending forgiveness, even while keeping his standards high and so, I think that's some of the things that you can start to trust as you're evaluating churches is, is how are they living it out? Do they, do they really seem to have a life that's worth living, and that's worth living, that's worth following? If they are aligned with, with scripture, they would say.

Kathleen Noller: That's such a tough line to walk as well for the Christians listening to I'd love to take a little sort of rabbit hole dive into the word love, because I find that that comes up obviously all the time in the Bible, comes up all the time in Christian circles, And we actually had at CS Lewis Institute, we had a ah discipleship month a couple months ago, which you spoke at and then followed by a cultural apologetics month and these are just different themed months for those who are not familiar in in a discipleship program that lasts about a year And so we have discussion groups around each topic And in the cultural apologetics discussion group, I would say the understanding of the Christian definition of love really varied between all of the Christians that were sitting there and so that really played out into how they thought a church should be loving and how they thought a church should be reaching out to make disciples of all nations and reach out to non-believers like we're talking about and so i feel like on one hand, you could have sort of what Carl Truman was talking about and kind of like you hinted at in society today Oftentimes, the definition of love is more aligned with not only acceptance, but also celebration of every aspect of a person's selected identity but then you could have, you know, love is just agape and it's how CS Lewis defined it How would you define it as somebody who is a pastor and how should churches be looking at the word love in a biblical way?

Brian Carrier: Yeah, great question and it is a word that we love to throw around, right? Pun intended means, we use it for everything and so it is something that's lost

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And I agree that, as we've talked about, people use love as, hey, you are unilaterally endorsing me for who I am

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And I think as, I mean, I have I'm a parent, I have two young children, a four-and-a-half-year-old and a month old And I think, especially with a four-year-old, I mean, what is love? If I'm loving her well, does that mean I just let her do whatever I want? And do I just rubber stamp everything that she wants? And I would say, no, of course not And I think any parent would agree, you know, that we talk about spoiling children it's just indulging their every whim, And I think that's one place where Christianity really diverges from a modern culture, modern Western culture, I should say, is it

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: Christianity says that the heart is deceitful and that you can't truly trust it as you put all your eggs in that basket of your feelings

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: Because it will lead you astray and whereas society would say, no, I mean, you have to be true to yourself, follow your heart, and it will lead you into the fullness of life And so, you know, Christianity would say that's not the case And I can think of plenty of examples in my life where there were things that i chose to do that I thought would ah would bring me a lot of life and satisfaction, and it didn't actually bring me there I mean, just in college, I wasn't a Christian, right?

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: So I was indulging in in all of the normal stuff that goes on in college that we we see in all the movies And I just felt emptier at the end And there's plenty of accounts you can read of people who are who are pursuing that, doing whatever they think is going to make them feel good, but they don't end up feeling satisfied And so I guess that's the first point I would say is just we can't ultimately trust our heart And what we might perceive of as love is it' not a feeling I think that we have to have a sense, I guess, going back to the parenting example, I have a kind of a sense of what i know life is about and what i hope for my daughter and so I’m trying to direct her there as much as i can ah by drawing certain boundaries and at the moment that doesn't feel good to her but I’m trusting that over time she'll come to appreciate it the same way i have with my parents and so there's that sense in which like a lot of people will come up against church and have.

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: Be put off by it because it's not just endorsing everything that about who they are but it's because, and again, we go back to Jesus, and we go back to the fact that we can trust him because of the way he lived and ultimately the fact that it does, you know, God physically resurrected him from the dead That's a historical event that you can, it makes more sense historically that he actually was raised from the dead than anything else So we can actually put our faith in something that's bedrock and that's why we can trust him And the more that we live it out, at least for me, the more I see like this actually is a much more rewarding life than doing things on my own So there's that side of it But in terms of how do I define love and teach people about love? I mean, I'm still learning by myself. I think one way to look at it is just to want the good of the other And, you know, how do I know what the good of the other is? That's where I go back to scripture and I say, well, God has created us. God designed us to live a certain way He knows what's best for us And, you know, if you, if you're willing to believe that God exists and you should be able to believe that God is able to know every thought you've ever had, that he has, he's known the whole future He's created you in a specific way So we can trust that he knows what he's doing in terms of, teaching us what is the best way to live

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so, you come back to that end, and then, you know the way I tend to think about it, though, in a more practical way of hand hands-on, day-to-day living, I really go back to Corinthians, through

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And we hear this recited at weddings a lot and it is beautiful And I think it is applicable for a marriage, and it is good to read at a wedding for that reason but it was also written originally for a congregation of people that were fighting against each other again, even though they were Christians, they were trying to follow Jesus, they were not doing it very well

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And this was trying to speak to like factions within the church, power struggles, people being excluded even within that one community and Paul, who's writing Corinthians, is just saying, like look, love is patient Love is kind It does not envy It does not boast It is not proud It does not ah dishonor others It's not self-seeking It's not easily angered It keeps no record of wrongs It does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth It always trusts, always protects, always hope, always perseveres

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And I think if you take that and you start trying to live that out, this is what I've been trying to do this year

Kathleen Noller: Oh, yes

Brian Carrier: I'm trying to be a better father And so I'm thinking about, am I a patient? Am I kind? And my daughter is a beautiful, wonderful girl but she's four So she gives me a lot of opportunities to practice patience and kindness, you know, and even if you've had food thrown at you or something like that, do you respond in kindness?

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: I think that's a way for you to start getting a sense of, well, that is what love looks like, So that gives a little bit more of a concrete way And I think we can all, we all instinctively know what kindness looks like or patience looks like We're not dishonoring the other person not, you know, rejoicing in evil, it says Like, do you gloat when somebody actually takes a fall?

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: You know, somebody that's an enemy in the in the workplace who has spoken against you and try to tarnish your reputation do you actually gloat and rejoice if something happens where they suddenly are the ones who get uh who take the fall and uh you know and love would say no like you still desire what's best for them and so maybe you say like okay this maybe this is a good thing that's happened and it might help wake them up to the fact that there's more to life than the way they've been living but you're not actually rejoicing the fact that something bad has happened to them So there's, there's ah i think that that definition of love gives enough, at least for me, of a concrete way ah to start thinking about what it looks like in action and I can think about myself, how am I living and interacting with other people? And then I also think about how God does that with each of us and do we look at God and do we see somebody who is patient and kind, who never dishonors us, who's never self-seeking, who's always looking out for our own good I think when we start to look at God that way, I think we can start to see like, wow, this this actually is someone that i think would be beautiful But a lot of us don't have that image of God We see more, we're projecting ourselves onto what God is like You've mentioned a few times, and we've talked about this sort of idea of communities having rules or having buy-ins or whatever you want to call them

Kathleen Noller: Societal structures where you must sort of give back to the community or you must meet a certain standard and one of and my objections with a lot of churches nowadays is there's not enough buy-in, I think, to a lot of Christian churches I see this with, you know, you read about all these articles that young men are really flocking to the Eastern Orthodox Church and Islam because they see that it seems like it's more of a mountain to climb rather than this relationship where I just love Jesus and he loves me and then we do a Bible study and that's sort of it there's more of a demand on the individual to say, hey, this is but you are a vital member of this community You're part of the body of Christ You have a task It is critical that you carry out this task and it's sort of this, I don't know, this weightiness that's given to it And it's you start on this adventure rather than just sitting is sitting in a lecture hall or being part of a social club or something like that So have you seen that at all and in in certain churches? And how would you sort that handle

Brian Carrier: Thanks

Kathleen Noller: that sort of ah duality between, okay you Everybody has jobs, you know, lay people have busy lives, especially in the DC area, but everybody also cites their busy lives as to why they can't get involved, and you end up having people who treat church like a lecture followed by going home And maybe if they're, you know, extra fancy, they go to one other Bible study or community group during the week And it's more of a consumer-minded mentality than a service-minded mentality And I might be putting it a little strongly, but this is just something that I've observed coming from a non-Christian household and culture into a Christian culture that surprised me a lot

Brian Carrier: Well, I'd love to hear you share more of your story So if there's time, I'd love to but to answer your question, I do think that you're on to something with that

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: I think, you know, we see in general a shortage of men, at least in our church I think it's we have maybe, or even, with women versus men And there does seem to be, not just even in the church, but in American society, Western society, there is, the question is, where are all the men?

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And I think that, you know, not to stereotype too much, but I do think like speaking as a male, like, yeah, you do respond to challenge, And I don't even think that that's just a masculine thing

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: I think that I've learned this from advertising, actually, that every person desires two things primarily And one of them is belonging ah And the other is significance or purpose People want to feel like they matter And if you don't actually have a challenge, if you don't have a purpose, then people don't feel like there's any significance

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And I think even stepping back before we talk more about that, I think just even there's a crisis as well and in our culture about perpetual adolescence

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And what's our church is very global I think we have  plus nations that are represented in our congregation and hearing from people coming from other cultures, there's there are rites of passage that are there to transition from childhood, adolescence into adulthood in a lot of societies And we don't see that in American society

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And there's something significant about going through a test and emerging on the other side

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: There is a sense in which you know for yourself that, okay, I've been able to do this And the community around you acknowledges it too and supports you in that And i think that that's important for people to have that sense of you know of challenge that's given to them for them to be able to have security and even purpose and belonging And I think that, you know, with the church scene, I mean, a lot of people talk about like the discipleship crisis in the church, and it depends also how you even define discipleship

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: For a time, I think a lot of people defined it as they were seen as like, okay, we just need to get people to become Christians and that's where they're putting all their focus on is

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: is reaching people who are non-Christians and so with that type of mindset, it's, hey, let's remove all the barriers, the obstacles that would keep people from coming towards Jesus and getting to encounter him

Kathleen Noller: Whom

Brian Carrier: And that's where you have the whole seeker-friendly model, you know the emergent church, whatever you want to call it And I think what we've been learning over that is, well, one, that's not actually discipleship and we'll talk a little bit about that

Kathleen Noller: Yes exactly

Brian Carrier: But two, it has the reverse effect Because what you're doing is, you know, when you try to make Christianity as much like regular culture as possible, you're left with nothing, right? You're left with just a shell

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And we, when we try to imitate culture, do a far worse job of it than culture does So why would anybody want to join the church when it's just a worse version of what they're getting from anywhere else? And so, you must have something there ought to be something strange about Christianity, I think There ought to be something foreign and if you look at the very early church, I mean, Christians were recused of being atheists because they didn't support like the Roman empires. They didn't worship the emperor as a god They didn't support the Roman pantheon

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so, they were viewed as atheists and people also thought that they were cannibals even, you know, because they, they did this, you're right, exactly

Kathleen Noller: Body and blood of Christ

Brian Carrier: And so, there was this lack of understanding, and the church was okay with that, and it didn't water down its standards. It was still very inviting and it built relationships with people And I think that is the bridge that you need to have as a personal relationship But, um, But it didn't it didn't deny who it was and it didn't feel ashamed of that And so I think when we don't stay true to ourselves and keep a little bit of foreignness, I don't think we have anything different to offer and I think when we don't give people enough challenge, one, we're not going to be able to live into this vision of who we are And two, I think we actually do them a disservice because they're not able to feel like they belong and they're not able to feel like they have purpose and significance

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: I think that Christianity actually asks more of you than anything else in the entire world does Some people view Christianity as a crutch, but the reality is it is harder than anything else you will ever do and we would even say that it's impossible to do That if God doesn't help you, there is no way that you can do it Because what does Jesus say a disciple is? He says a disciple is anyone who is willing to deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me so it is total denial of self It is, you know, you put you put aside your own interests, your own desires, and you try to live as a servant of God at its purest form

Kathleen Noller: Yes, very true

Brian Carrier: And the cross, of course, we're so used to seeing bumper stickers, on necklaces, you know, that sort of thing, tattoos of it. We've lost, just the horror of it in that culture It was shameful It was, you get the word excruciating from crucifixion, painful

Kathleen Noller: Yes, very true

Brian Carrier: It meant death

Kathleen Noller: who

Brian Carrier: And so, you know, at one level, when we think about even baptism, which is the initiation, right? And to the Christian faith, it means you, you know, the way we do baptisms, you go under the water, and you come up and it's, you are symbolizing that you are dying to your own way of life. You are dying to be the master of your own life

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And then you're coming up into the life of God And so at its heart, Christianity is completely denying yourself and living for God, which we believe brings you into the fullness of life that you've been looking for your whole life

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: So, on the other side is all those things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness but the way to get there is you must pass through death ah to come into it and this is impossible for us We're by nature afraid of death, and we ought to be And so we need God to actually help us through that So I think Christianity actually asks everything of you and there's, you know, we could talk about CS Lewis with his quote of God building a house in you, and you think it's going to be this tiny little room that he's remodeling, but then he starts trying to move into everything and next thing you know, he's taking the roof off, he's putting an addition here, and he's totally remodeling your entire person, your entire life

Kathleen Noller: I think we can see that too when even, you know, even an atheist can notice how difficult it can be to be a Christian when they're able to point out all the Christians that have fallen, you know, all the Christian leaders, Catholic church, Protestant church, what have you, who have sinned in perhaps stereotypically male or female ways and, you know, materialistic ways in America and all of that, you see how much sin there is to fight and you see how hard it is to be a Christian, even in very big monumental ways I’d love to go back to the sort of gender specific needs of men and women as they come into a church And of course, you know, God places us as both male and female equal and dignity under himself However, there are a lot of meta-analyses done of personality traits that are clearly very different in distribution and in mean score from male to female and so obviously Christians believe that but there was a man created and there was a woman created and they have different roles So how does that play into the modern church and how can we sort of lean into that in a way that focuses more on building to their unique strengths rather than perhaps being what the atheist would characterize as sexist or limiting rather than uplifting and flourishing and individuality and different gender roles?

Brian Carrier: When you figure that out, please tell me because we are you trying to figure it out ourselves and yes, I think sex versus gender, I mean, that's obviously very debated in our culture today And, you know, I don't claim to have a definitive answer on that either i think that we are still trying to figure it out because like i shared, like we don't have as many men in this church And so we're asking ourselves like, what is it that men are looking for specifically? How can we be caring for men versus how can we do that for women? And I think one of the things, you know, is just, it sounds very basic

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: It's because it is, but like men, I'm not advocating for a totally bifurcated church, but I do think there's a sense in which men

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: need to be the ones caring for men, discipling men in a general level and women doing the same And i think that's, you used to see that in the, especially the early church where women had, you know, some churches, it varies in terms of their view of how involved women can be in church leadership, but...

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: regardless of where you stood on that theological superwomen had very important roles and they were raising up women Men were doing the same with men And so I think there is a sense in which we need to be able to speak to each other We can relate more I agree that it is more of a bell curve than a then a digital, like, you know, all or nothing type of thing

Kathleen Noller: Yeah

Brian Carrier: And so, yes, even though the peaks of the bell curve might be separated by a bit, there is going to be overlap at times and every person is different Um, you know, what I'm learning as a male, we started to talk about this, like men do seem to respond well to responsibility and challenge and so it's, you know, what ways can you can you bring them into that and give them something to actually be working on? what Where can you lay on ah sense of purpose and where can you call them out to count the costs and to step up and show courage and bravery? and yes, some people will hear this and think that I'm just, you know, repeating some of the stereotypes and, and you know, Maybe that's the case But i also think that there is something to it as well I mean, I've been to the type of churches where men gather and, you know, you have to like, you can only talk about sports You can, you know, you have to grill some exotic meat, you know, and drink beer or And it's like, That's, that is an artificial, I think, you know, that's a cultural approach to masculinity

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And I think that men ought to take their model from Christ And so I think women do as well, because Christ is our example, period But I think just leaning into that and teaching men what it looks like, I mean, you want to talk about challenge, again, self-sacrifice for the sake of others that's who Christ is and so

Kathleen Noller: Absolutely

Brian Carrier: Steep into that and That takes courage That takes bravery That takes true strength Meekness is true strength, where you have strength under power and under control and so how do you do that? I think it's building spaces where men can come together, where they can learn what it looks like to be a man, where they can have examples of masculinity that they can look up to Imitation is so important in development And so, and creating some of those challenges, those barriers I mean, to, to go back to your other point too, just, you mentioned like people are so busy in DC and it's true and, We definitely have that in our congregation and there are a lot of good things that people are working for, but we all only have  hours in a day And so we all have more things that we want to do than we have time to do. We only have so many resources, even financially in terms of what our gifts are, our education, our experience So we are limited but the question is what is your priority? And, you know If we never ask, if the church never puts demands on people, there's no way that they're ever going to know if the church is a priority

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: You might think that you're following Jesus, and in fact, you might be following something else There's a perfect story of that in the Bible where the rich young man comes to Jesus and he says, I want to follow you like I've been doing all these things my whole life He's like, what can I do to have eternal life? And Jesus says, keep all the commandments and the guy says, yeah, I've been doing that And Jesus says, OK, well, follow me and sell everything you have, and it says he went away sad

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And I think the point is, like, he might have thought that his God, what mattered most to him in life, was God until that moment when Jesus helped him to see what he was ultimately following was his own possessions and wealth

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And he would do all the things for God as long as it didn't in cringe or infringe upon that And I think that there's a point where we all experience that to some degree, even in terms of time, where we have to be wise We can't you know demand for the sake of demanding, but we do want to ask people to step into something and make it a priority And if they can't, it helps them to see, okay, maybe this isn't a priority and we would say that there are seasons

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: In your life where you just are going to be busy and you know, I have young children, for example, that's a season I'm in but if this becomes perpetual, that's when it really becomes an issue

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: So, you must have wisdom, you must have grace, but at the same time, you also must make an ask for people and one, one way that we do that, and we do it for both men and women as make this a priority. Come on Sunday We ask people to come on Sunday, and we ask people to be involved in like community groups We call them life groups

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: Where doing life together and you're never going to develop relationships It's never going to be worth your time until you commit to it and once you all have that shared commitment, that's what brings a sense of belonging. That's what allows you to start feeling like, oh, wow, we might have a purpose together You can start living into that more, but it takes a commitment to do it, and so we are not afraid to ask people to commit and make that a priority for them So I’m getting a little off man, but I do think that that's part of it with reaching men ah is you have to you have to lay out a vision, an ideal, You have to lay out challenges and boundaries and ask them to step into that And I think we've seen that men start to respond well to it.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's really fantastic to hear I know that my husband has found in most of the local churches, at least that we've toured around, that for the men, typically all they have is the men's breakfast and it's a once a month It's usually at  am or something where none of the young men are going to make it And it's just, it's not giving the impression that, it's it seems to give the impression that either the men in the church are not involved or the church leadership is not placing emphasis and importance on male community. It could be one or the other, it could be both, but that's something that that my husband and I talk about too and sort of you know that the You mentioned the sort of bell curve distributions and differences, as we were talking about, and personality traits between men and women.This is something that I'm really interested in and I would love to see put into play and in any so sort of social institution, any neighborhood, any group of people of mixed gender is that there are there are sociological differences between men and women, and we can kind of capitalize on that There's this one book called Warriors and Warriors, or maybe it's the other way the other way around, but it talks about differences between men and women and how they relate socially to one another, and the women tend to relate and prefer close-knit groups of small numbers of women, And they tend to relate to each other through sharing of secrets I'm oversimplifying But the men are actually the ones that are more comfortable with the bigger group and sort of the more the merrier And it's always been interesting to me to see that in, I guess, maybe just the Western American church, I can't really generalize past that, but we seem to place a lot of the responsibility on women to be the big community builders when that's not maybe their gift and they would be more comfortable in the in the smaller setting and just you know just things like that but it's hard to put them into play because like you said it's a bell curve and you will get outliers and everything but yes I wanted to ask your opinion too on going along with this man-woman track and pulling in this discussion piece that you talked about of just people being busy with life I was reading a non-Christian book, Mary Harrington's Feminism Against Progress and she talks about how most community and societal events are actually run by retired age people So younger women we don't really see as being a key part anymore Even if folks may have this s American impression of the Protestant church, that's really not the way that it is, that it's actually retired age folks because the young women are busy with work. There's a general shortage of young men in in the global church, and so it ends up just being that community is run that way, both in and outside of the church Do you see that as a problem? And how can we how can we encourage a more multi-generational involvement that includes the retired age folks and the working folks, especially given the fact that younger women are working, which is a tough a societal piece to grapple with?

Brian Carrier: Yes, I'd like to read that book I haven't read yet, but I'd be interested in learning from her and what she must share

Kathleen Noller: Yes, it's good

Brian Carrier: Yes, I think and in our church experience, we kind of have had the opposite problem where our church has been the median age for years had been like late twenties

Kathleen Noller: Oh, wow

Brian Carrier: now it's probably early thirties Um, and so we've, now we're starting, we've always said we need to diversify and grow in terms of having more of the, you know, the seniors come into the church and there are, you know, uh, there are more of them now and there, they're starting to, to be more prevalent

Kathleen Noller: Okay

Brian Carrier: But people here have traditionally been on the younger side And, you know, it's I think it's also, you know, stage of life is important to like people who are single tend to have more time than people who are married or parents and then people who are retired

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so, what we've seen is, you know, we still have we really believe that serving in the church is an opportunity and a blessing

Kathleen Noller: who

Brian Carrier: It will help you feel like you belong It will help you to feel like you have purpose because indeed you will belong You will have purpose Like you are doing something for God, for his kingdom to advance good in the world

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And you are doing it in a way that aligns with like your own interests, your own gifting in And so we really see it as we are better together And so we push service a lot in our church and we want people to do that And that is the you know, we have found that people, you in general really do receive something from doing that So we look at as an opportunity and we know that we're all better together So we've always, we've been trying to build that culture and maintain it here And I think even despite that, you still tend to have the - rule is always present in any, I feel like any type of social institution where % the people % of the work

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And it's true to a large extent here, too And so we're trying to make it We're trying to shift it as much as we can But in our case, it was younger people who are still doing that A lot of times it's singles, but then there's also people who have multiple things going on and they're either just much smarter and more gifted than I am or more dedicated I don't know They don't need to sleep as much, but they do like they have serious involvement

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: You know, so I haven't found that in my experience, but it makes sense I think life stage is important And this is where we don't ever want to lead out of guilt or shame and we want to see it like, again, this is an opportunity It's a blessing There is a point which you do have to make a priority, you know, of being involved in in your faith community you know, being a Christian isn't just attending church every Sunday It's being involved in the community So at some point you do have to make changes in your life for that but at the same time, like we don't ever want somebody to feel like they can't come here They're not, you know, they don't belong that we don't want them to feel excluded because they're not serving and so we don't ever want to lead out of guilt or shame

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: We always want to present it as opportunity because we feel like that's how God views it as well And so we're, we're, you know, we just kind of wait and see, but we do have a fair number of people serving in the church and we're actually trying to make it so that, you know, people who are in their fifties, sixties, seventies feel like they really do belong just as much And there's actually a hunger in our church for people who have had more life experience to be able to speak into their life, to mentor them

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And so, you know, yeah, we, we would love to have people of that generation coming in too And at the same time, when you're younger, You bring something, and I mean this both in terms of your age, but your spiritual maturity, you bring something to the people who are older. There's excitement, passion, energy, a zeal that you know a lot of younger people tend to bring too So yes, I'll have to read the book to get a more nuanced response, but you know that's what's the case in our church

Kathleen Noller: That's wonderful to hear But I'd love to get more into the practicality of it as well And, you know, we've alluded to discipleship here and there but a lot of folks, even Christians, don't know the biblical definition of discipleship So could you share that with us and share with us why should Christians really care about this?

Brian Carrier: Yes, I mean, great question I don't know if there is a biblical definition of discipleship And I think that even in the four gospels, it's presented with slightly different nuances And so it's not like there's just one answer People see it differently, do it differently The way that I define discipleship is it's really becoming one with Christ And that's one in terms of relationship with him, but it's also becoming like him You become one in heart one in mind, one in action This is where we say love, think, and act like Jesus Your whole life should start to resemble Jesus more But that's really born out of relationship with him ultimately And so discipleship is becoming one with Christ in greater and greater union and intimacy, but also in in conformity to his image as well

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And So, you know, but again, other people will define it differently ah You see disciples mentioned many times You see Jesus defining things like, yeah, if you want to be my disciple, like we've mentioned, you know, deny yourself, pick up your cross, follow me You see language, especially in Matthew's gospel, that's what I'm most familiar with, is language of following is very clear for discipleship But you also see crowds following Jesus who are not committed disciples So there's a lot of, you know, i think it leaves it a bit open-ended on purpose for what discipleship is

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: But at some level, when you are in discipleship, you should be moving closer to Christ You should be looking more like him, And I do think that disciples should be discipleship should be holistic It's not just going to church It's your whole life

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: It should be, first, your whole person, you know how you how you love like Jesus What are your motivations? What are your desires? What do you will? Do you ask, go back to love, do you will the good of another person, for example? It's your mind How do you see reality? How do you see the people that you look at? How do you see God? Do you see them the way Jesus does? And it should be your actions, your lifestyle, what you say, what you do. This is all how we look at discipleship So it's holistic, it's all of you and then it's every dimension of your life It's not just that there's this religious, spiritual part of your life and then everything else is on the outside It's, well, what about your relationships?

What about your friendships? What about your marriage or your parenting? Or what about your workplace? Everything falls under discipleship And so it's really, i think, I don't know different languages, you know, it's living into this alternate this new reality that Christ came to begin, which we call the kingdom of God and that's encompassing it's at an individual and at a whole societal level that we're looking at things to So that's how I'd kind of look at it, is it's holistic in every sense of the word, which can be overwhelming And you even wonder, like, where do I start? And it obviously looks a little different now than what you read in the Gospels, where the disciples are living with Jesus every day

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: Not even all of them were, but the closest ones were But Jesus is now, he's present everywhere at every time, but it's spiritually, so it looks different So, you know, where do you go there? And I think that's where you can even look at the early church and how they were doing it. One thing I would say is you cannot be a disciple, a follower Jesus, and do it completely on your own Everywhere you see, even if you look, I just read this the other day When you see the word disciple in the Bible, it's almost always, it's in the New Testament, but it's almost always in the plural form versus the singular

Kathleen Noller: That's true

Brian Carrier: Because disciples are always together Even the way Jesus calls them, he calls them together in a group versus doing it one-on-one with each of them And so there's a sense in which when you are looking to be discipled, yes, it can involve, you know, you reading the Bible and praying every day

Kathleen Noller: that's true

Brian Carrier: It ought to, but it shouldn't be limited to that It's not even just limited to you having coffee with somebody once a week, like a lot of people think of It's living in community with other people who are also really seeking after Jesus And that's what you look at the first few chapters of Acts, especially

Kathleen Noller: Thank you

Brian Carrier: That's what discipleship looks like and in the church of people who are who are really pursuing this they're making space in their life They're around other people who are hungry for God and they're doing things like praying They're serving They're giving things away to others. They're worshiping You know, these types of things you do together

Kathleen Noller: Yeah So take us through what your church does for discipleship I think a lot of folks in the Christian sphere might think of discipleship and immediately go to the triad or quad or the one-on-one mentor-mentee relationship, which are both very important, but you've mentioned the whole church involvement You've mentioned some home groups and so what do you guys do and why do you have all these different sizes of groups in your discipleship model?

Brian Carrier: Yes, great question So we do see discipleship as an all-encompassing thing We see that the whole church, our mission, we say, is to make disciples who love, think, and act like Jesus that that is why we exist as a church That's our mission statement, which summarizes what we're about

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so everything that we do ah Whether it be the Sunday service, whether it be one of these home groups, you know which we call life groups, whether it be us being out in the community, it really is about making disciples It's all discipleship And what we've seen is it happens on different levels as well. Yes, you should be we I guess maybe I can make it clearer this way We would call them discipleship spaces, or we say if you want to make this church your home, we recommend four things and we get these out of Acts chapter two

Kathleen Noller: Okay

Brian Carrier: One of them is worship You should be worshiping God by yourself every day Like you should have it your own worship time with God ah where you're present with him, where you're starting to really understand who he is and how he loves you, these sort of things reading scripture, you know, praying So there's your own individual worship And then there's also corporate worship where we all come together once a week And in our services, that looks like singing together to praise God, dancing sometimes Not me, I'm terrible at dancing and I never do it But a lot of people do Hearing a sermon, you know, coming down for prayer, these type of things

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: So, there's worship, both individually and corporately We say being involved in community, like you should be known and you should know others in our church that You read Acts, they're doing life together And so, we have what we call life groups where you're meeting at least you know once a week ah to do different things that Christians have been doing for many years, worship, prayer, you know studying scripture, serving together, sharing stories about how God's at work in your life, cetera, et cetera that's the main space for community, but it's not the only space. We say serving is also something where, you know, you want to be able to learn from giving back to others and giving financially too And we see the early church doing both of these things They bring David Whatever they had whatever experience whatever talents they had David Sloan, Whatever interest whatever resources they had they're bringing them for the benefit of others and ultimately for the glory of God, so these are the four spaces, we say that David Sloan, You should be involved in and we call them discipleship spaces, because the more of these that you're and doing the more you're going to grow And we think that different levels, this kind of incorporates the different levels of discipleship where yes, there's your own individual prayer time, bedrock of everything

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: But then there's also, you know, what type of community are you in? Even the Sunday service where you're gathered with everybody, like these have different pros and different cons to each of them, ah which I could get into if you would like me to um

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: But we see that everything together contributes to becoming more like Christ the more immersed you are in a healthy church environment, the more that you are going to grow closer to Christ and the more you're going be like him

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: I think there are different weights to some of these things I think personally, if you're part of one of these life groups, we call them, where you're really doing life together with people who are serious about seeking God, that's going to have a profound impact on your life, far more than just only showing up on a Sunday morning. The Sunday morning has its own important space, but then you are, as you mentioned, language like consumers You're primarily receiving in one sense, or I should say you could just be receiving

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: You ought to be present and you ought to be praising God and worshiping, So you do actually have an active role, but it's much easier to come in and just receive, especially in our church

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: We meet in a high school auditorium so there's even a stage with auditor style seating, and we've just been conditioned to view that as entertainment where the people up on stage are doing something and we're just sitting back receiving or even critiquing

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And that's not what your posture should be, but it's much easier to do that

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And nothing is asked of you, you never have to make yourself vulnerable when you're in that type of role versus when you're in life together

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: Now you're getting to, you know, to really know people So I think there's different emphases and different weights, but I think that all of them have an importance for us And so that's why we don't just say, oh, you only must go to a life group. Don't ever come on Sunday Well, you're missing a lot of other things that Sunday offers, you know, or, you only must come on Sunday. So, the more of your life that you're devoting to God, you know, the more you're going to have, the more you're going grow

Kathleen Noller: That makes sense and it's very helpful to have it divided like that into these different layers and you mentioned the phrase life together a lot and so for somebody who's in a home group, what exactly does life together look like? And how do you manage to, we've talked a little bit about some of the DC barriers, but I think those might be common to, know, any city probably or any town where there are a lot of professionals, a lot of working folks, just people being busy in general, where it's hard to live life together in a sense because you don't have, this is one problem I find, is you don't have these overlapping relationships. Venn diagrams of life you know Your kids go to different schools Everyone commutes to church from our church, pulls people from sometimes an hour away across the DMV because of just the solid theological teaching. But then you don't run into anyone at the grocery store you never You never overlap in different spheres of life So i call them sort of playdates, which is ah maybe a demeaning term, but maybe it just reveals what I think about a lot of the scheduled events, which are necessary because we all have very highly hyper-scheduled lives, but then we end up relegating life together to you know,  to  pm on a Wednesday and then this other play date with this person and this other event with this person. So how do you balance all those setbacks with the life together concept and what has that practically looked like in your church with the home groups?

Brian Carrier: Yes, great, great question and I mean, that is the reality of our context

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: You know, and I think there's one thing of of talking about it in an ideal and then there's the actual reality of it And I guess what I would say, one thing i have found helpful is, pulled this from Scott Bourne, who is a pastor of of groups for many years he He writes about four different types of groups and I use this even when i when we train our leaders ah who lead these life groups and ways to think about it And the first type, and I'll just summarize very briefly, the first type is like a convenience group where it's like, hey, you know, I know we're supposed to be meeting on Tuesdays

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: I come when I can, if I'm not too busy And it's okay, I get something out of it, you know, but

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: You know, I'm coming ah when it's my when it fits with my schedule

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: The second type of group is more of a committed group where it's like, hey, that Tuesday, to pm is a priority for me and I'm going to do my best to rearrange my schedule around it. And I'm going to be there, And I think that there's, you know, it is yes, you might still have compartmentalization in your life, but it is, you know, this is at least a priority for you to be attending that the third type is where that group meeting starts to spill out into the rest of the week, where the relationships that you have are becoming strong enough, deep enough that like maybe you're texting each other throughout the week Maybe you're picking up the phone to call someone, maybe you actually have somebody over to hang out or, you know, meet up somewhere or you have people over for dinner or whatever it is you do play dates with your kids, you know, that sort of thing That's the third stage where like now this is actually a community group where we're we are starting to approach doing life together and then the fourth type is more of like a missional community where now our life together as a community is spilling out into our neighborhood And so we're going out and serving our neighbors

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: You know, we're holding block parties we're taking care of this widow over here And so there's a progression And what we tell people is, you know, we personally, we don't want to have the first type of group where it's just come whenever you want, because then it's not really worth your time to show up It's usually very surface level You know, it's just boring And it's not really going to impact your life and it's And we are all busy enough that, like, why would we want to waste our time for something like that?

Kathleen Noller: Oh, yes

Brian Carrier: So we discourage that We do ask for commitment and But the other three types, we say all have value And maybe right now in the season, the most you can do is that type two group where you're, hey, you're committing to show up at this time Well, God is pleased with that and God will use it And the reality is like, you know, you say people drive from an hour away, like that could in DC with the traffic, that could be a mile away

Kathleen Noller: oh yes

Brian Carrier: You know, it's, it's terrible

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: I mean, we have so many friends, my wife and I live up in Silver Spring We have so many friends We just saw friends yesterday from Virginia and our church has a lot of people from both, you know, Silver Spring and from Virginia area

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: I never see them Like, it's just too painful to get down there, you know? And so, there's no way ah There's a group of dads who are in one of these, they formed one of these life groups in Virginia that I'd love to be part of as a father, but there's no way I'm going to do it

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: It's just too hard And so there is a reality We must know our limits, and we have to recognize like, okay, ideally when you form one of these groups and we try to help form some of them, we try to get people who live in the same geographic area to make it easier to actually run into somebody at the grocery store or have somebody come over, you know, impromptu, that sort of thing

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: But even then people move so much that you might start off with everybody in the same neighborhood And a year later, people are scattered ah You can go virtual as a way to try to overcome that, But I think that suffers limitations Virtual is better than nothing, but in-person is far better

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And so the reality is like, this may be the best that you can do in the season of your life I think that's okay I think God is still pleased with that And I think you'll still benefit from it But I also don't want to lose sight of the ideal either

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And we do have groups ah Sometimes it's life stage as well, but not always where people are spending a lot of time together outside of these group meetings And they really are like they've become good friends and they really are sharing life And we do start to see, we don't we're growing into it where we're starting to also see the fourth type where we're impacting our neighborhoods That really does require a longer term commitment to be in an area though. If you're moving every year, like it's really hard to build up those relationships long term But we're starting to see that as people stay more rooted and grounded in the city So I would say with that, yeah, it's going always be attention to manage But I think we can maintain our ideal and we can do the best we can in the in the interim And we pray and ask God to help us And i think as long as you have peace in your spirit as a mature Christian, I think that's a way that God speaks to us and directs us

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so for myself, like I have limitations having young children and then my you know the responsibilities I have as a pastor with evening commitments like I can only be so involved in communal life just Because I don't want to burden my wife to an unreasonable degree, as an example So, you know, I'm living it right now And I would just say, just do what you can And God will take that

Kathleen Noller: That's a really good message And, you know, to do it as a cheerful giver as well, which you kind of touched on earlier is really important, not out of, you know, shame or guilt and in terms of the commitment level to the groups, ah you know, it's generally very difficult to get people to be committed to any sort of group, Christian or otherwise and so what are the techniques that you use? I know CS Lewis Institute for its fellow’s program really outlines the commitments and the responsibilities of the whole year. You sign a form that says, yes, I'm going to be committed to finishing this program, and you try your best to follow through with that reasonably And so I'm wondering what you all use and what you think is reasonable And then if you have folks as you're bound to have in a given home group that start to be less committed, how much do you enforce that? And what's the balance in that as a group leader?

Brian Carrier: Great question So what do we do? We don't force anyone through any pathway, but our recommendation is if you're new to our church, the best way to get an introduction to community life and discipleship is through something called Rooted. Rooted is -week experience It really hits at that holistic type of discipleship it's you know you're You have a daily devotional you're doing on your own. You come together once a week as a group to not only to talk through that devotional, but to pray together, to worship God together People share stories, at least of their spiritual journey, their testimony using Christian language. They take turns sharing stories So these are some of the things that you do together You share even like here are areas I'm struggling and I need your help and prayer for So you come together in that way and there's also experiences where like you go and spend a few hours just in prayer You have one day where you go serve a neighborhood So we ask people to come through this to get a sense of like, this is how we envision communal life at this church And when we ask people to sign up for that, we say, at minimum you have to make eight out of the weekly sessions and you should make all three of these Saturday experiences like prayer or service or the last day of the celebration day and we asked for that upfront And we you know we're pretty strict about holding that boundary because we are trying to help people see priorities And the reality is getting back to our previous conversation, if anything is for free, people are suspicious of it anyway Right Like if you put a price tag on something, somebody is much more likely to actually value it

Kathleen Noller: very clever

Brian Carrier: And so we you know, it's just how human nature works And so, you know, what we what we lead with, though, is, you know, the first day when people break, we have a large group talk where one of the pastors will share like this is the vision

Kathleen Noller: Yes, it is those

Brian Carrier: This is what rooted is This is, you know, we hope you connect with God, you build community and you discover more about your purpose Those are kind of the linchpins of it And then people separate into their own individual groups, which might be anywhere from like six, but more on the order of like to And these are again, hopefully geographically arranged um But when you're meeting there, the way that we ask leaders to start with is like, what do you hope to get out of this experience? And in inevitably people will say, I want to grow i want to get closer to God I want to build community. I want to lean in and discover more of my purpose it almost always tends to be those types of things and what we help people to understand is those are all great and God given things, but you're going to get out of this, what you put into it and so we, as staff have been telling people upfront, you have to commit But then we reinforce that in these groups and help people to see that this is an expectation that we're placing, not just randomly or arbitrarily, but because

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: There's something significant that happens when you actually are willing to commit to this group You will, it will bond you together in a way where you feel like we actually have an identity Like we feel like we were part of this community and we're able to see, feel so much more moment We can see God at work. So, we really believe that the commitment is, it's like in a relationship today, in a marriage, right? You're married You know that commitment is what allows your marriage to thrive

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: Even in times where like it's a harder season in marriage, that commitment, which a lot of people in culture don't get, is what brings life, even though it would seem at the onset like the opposite. So, we just try to help them see that there's a reason why we have that and that's our introduction into community life After that, a lot of these groups turn into these life groups that I'm talking about where you're doing life together And you're doing a lot of the same things, worship, prayer discussing scripture, serving, you know sharing about your life, you know your struggles, that type of thing And then in that, though, we don't push an actual commitment. We recommend that you come three out of every four times, or we divide these into -week semesters, and we say come at least nine times out of For, again, the reason is, what do you want to get out of it? If you really want to get these types of things out of it, you've got to put something into it

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And so that's what we recommend, but we also give leaders the ability to use wisdom and discretion to know when to enforce it and when not to Because the reality is somebody may have a health problem come up or somebody passes away or they just have something come up at work and if their heart is in the right place, we don't want to be legalistic or anything like that And so for that person, the conversation is like, hey, you know, how can we support you

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: you know, can we even beam you into the group virtually?

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: You know, what can we do? We follow up with you just to care for you versus a person who's just flaky

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: It's, hey, you know, we have these expectations for a reason Like, if you really want to get something out of it, like we want you to be able to see like, this is what you need to put in And not only that, you are having an influence on everyone else in the group by your own behavior

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: And you have to recognize this is more than just you You're part of something bigger than yourself And so then you're then you're having a different conversation But that's something that I can't see as the person who's over all of these groups I need the leaders to be able to have those conversations to know where somebody is actually at

Kathleen Noller: Sure Okay

Brian Carrier: If somebody is a very new believer or not even a Christian who's starting to come to one of these groups, then we have different you know amounts of grace We still have expectations, but we also give different amounts of grace

Kathleen Noller: sure

Brian Carrier: But that's what we ask for we really ask that people commit to you know, % of the time or more How that works out, you know, we're not we're not at %, but I'd say we’re, % right now

Kathleen Noller: okay

Brian Carrier: So, people are committing to these groups, and we hear a lot of stories about how God is at work and in them so yes, that's what we do about commitment and how we introduce people into it

Kathleen Noller: that's fantastic It really sounds like the Spirit is working in your church, I want to close with what I think is one of the most interesting questions for you as somebody who has experienced in discipleship and pastoring, which is what are some of the roadblocks facing the American Protestant Church's implementation of this discipleship model that we've discussed and what should pastors and just even lay leaders be on the lookout for as roadblocks from the culture or just from human nature, perhaps some we've touched on, that they should be aware of and should sort of be keeping an eye out as they seek to start their own groups and embark on their own discipleship

Brian Carrier: Wow, great question I think some of the obstacles to, I mean, from even the outside of is how people perceive Christianity ah There is a lot of, and I know we talked about this when I was with you guys at CS Lewis, of just the cultural Christianity and the wedding of politics and religion together and in the form of Christian nationalism, that's a major obstacle I think for people who it alienates a lot of people and then even people who are of that persuasion they're getting, in my opinion, a warped idea of what it means to be a disciple, So I think that's something that keeps a lot of people out I think some of the things we talked about before is the perception of the church is exclusionary i think sometimes, we draw boundaries without explaining why. We don't do enough in terms of personal relationships, even to draw people in

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: That's the bridge that you need to be able to draw people in is is just actually investing in people and caring in them and caring about them and building a relationship That is probably one of the biggest obstacles that keeps people out is they perceive the church as one thing and they think they're going to get judged if they come in And in in some cases, they're right They will actually get judged

Kathleen Noller: who

Brian Carrier: So that's a whole different issue but let's say it is a healthy church ah They need to have somebody hold their hand to bring them in because it's a foreign experience and it's intimidating

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: I think that's probably one of the biggest things is people investing in building relationships with their neighbors It's small, it's simple but if you really want to bring people in, that's the best way to do it and you can't view them just as you're trying to make a convert. That's not what it is That's not how the Lord looks at them He values relationship It's a means, but it's ultimately the end as well So building relationship, I think also just even another obstacle is, ah is a lack of, of understanding of, of what church and discipleship is, where people have come to expect, go to church once a week And that's what it is i mean, what's the vision that you are presenting to your people? What are you trying to preach on week to week and how are you creating those spaces and for people to live into the vision if they are? So those are some of the obstacles for people who are like, yeah, in the church and getting involved It is hard I think it will vary in say our context in DC with the busyness that people have And it's a balance of trying to make it accessible, give them places that they can come and get a glimpse before they're asked to make the commitment, but at some point you have to make the commitment

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: They need to see what it's like on the other side, but they also, you can't expect people to have blind faith You have to give them some kind of example of what this looks like to incentivize them to come in

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: And Jesus did that by going out and healing people and preaching and so people could see who he was, what he was about and that's what drew them in There were thousands that followed him because he was meeting their needs somehow. So, what can we do to allow people to come and see? And that can be we go out and serve in our communities That's one thing that you can do, the other thing is storytelling, even within your church

Kathleen Noller: Yes, for sure

Brian Carrier: Like as you think about trying to get people involved in these committed types of communities, well, share stories publicly from the pulpit of how this is impacting people's life. Because I guarantee you if you see somebody else really flourishing, you're going to want that for yourself

Kathleen Noller: yes

Brian Carrier: So those are just a few ways I mean, it's far more complex than that, but those are just a few things that I have found is helpful Don't be afraid to cast big vision and be bold Have people who are your core group of people who are going to really lean in and follow it and then share stories and examples for others to see that there is life here and keep inviting them in and try to give them, you know, ways in that don't demand everything right away, but don't be afraid at the same time to, to ask and to make a commitment.

Kathleen Noller: That's very well said Thank you so much for such a rich discussion here And I think you've given a lot of food for thought for any non-Christians listening, and especially with the first part of our discussion, but also Christians that are interested in community building and strength strengthening in their own relationship with not only God, but in other believer other believers So thank you so, so much, Dr Carrier, for joining us today

Brian Carrier: It's been a pleasure I feel like we're just getting started I have so many questions I want to ask you

Kathleen Noller: I know, me too

Brian Carrier: So, thank you for your time

Kathleen Noller: Yes

Brian Carrier: No, it's been great

Kathleen Noller: Thank you so much

 

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