Reimagining Church - Part 2: A Conversation with Taylor Rogers, Executive Director of Wildfire Network

Thank you for tuning in to Part 2 of our conversation with Taylor Rogers, Executive Director of Wildfire Network. Wildfire Network is a community that exists to help the dreams of Jesus come true— in and through His people.

In this episode, we'll continue our conversation about reimagining the church as we know it. We'll begin to dive into not only alternative metaphors and ways of understanding the church we are striving to be, but why it's important to have these conversations in order to connect with one another and with Christ. It's in those spaces of unity and connection with the body of Christ, that we really experience healing, justice, and restoration.

This episode wraps up Season 3 of the Returning to Joy podcast. Thank you for journeying with us, and stay tuned for our comeback in August with some exciting episodes in Season 4.

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Music by AG (Affirming Grace) @agmusic4god

Transcript

9:53:06

Welcome to the return to joy podcast. I'm your host, Gabrielle Michel Leonard. Here we're leading people to cultivate joy through storytelling. We hope listening will reveal pathways to unlocking the healing power of connection so that you can see your relationships and the world around you transformed from fractured into flourishing. Welcome back Beloved's. If you joined us for our last episode, then you know, we started a conversation with Taylor Rogers, the executive director of wildfire network, about reimagining church. If you haven't yet listened to part one, we highly recommend that you do so. In the episode we unpacked the value of reconsidering the language we use to describe the people of God when gathered. In this part two, we'll be jumping right back into that conversation with Taylor, as he offers advice for discovering new language that faithfully reflects the experiences of God's people. Is there any any new language that you propose? You know, that's another option if people go man, I do want to be faithful to describing what it is that I'm bearing witness to and participating in. That is reflective of what the apostles were bearing witness to in the in the New Testament? What language could be given to describe what we're experiencing? The first thing that comes to mind is the beauty and simplicity of when the the man who was blind and who was given his site is called into question by the religious authorities. And just the leaders, and they're like, what's going on here? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. All I know, is that I was blind. And now I can see, yeah, it's very clear, descriptive language of what's actually happening in ways that would be understood by anyone, regardless of your awareness of, like, religious language, or technical language. So I hesitate to just put a positive substitute for the word church. Because we just don't have Ecclesia doesn't function as a modern way of gathering and assembling. That's not how our government works. It's not. And honestly, if you were to take modern analogies, there'd be more of you might say, Legislative Assembly for some, okay, you might say war party. Okay, for others. There, you might say Task Force, right? There's different types of metaphors or analogies, for which Ecclesia is a little broader than that in our modern equivalents. So I think if I were to speak to the heart of it, I think saying, a missional community, maybe gets at the heart of it. But to be honest with you, I don't, I would hesitate to just put a replacement there for it. Yeah. And I would say, rather than trying to just replace that as a term, try to just testify and bear witness to what you see and hear. You know, God doing. Yeah. And I think that it's okay to, you know, so So I mentioned the word church, because that's English. Spanish says iglesia, right and iglesia is just kind of a transliteration of Ecclesia. Yeah, you can almost hear it. Yeah. When I say that, right. But in glazier was just as off track in terms of the concept that they had in their mind. Right? When they said in Glacia, they really did most of the time. Most writers, most thinkers, certainly those ones in power. They were referencing the same things that the English rightly called church. Yeah. In terms of that's what they were describing. Right? So so even if the word is fixed, right, and you're saying English here, which is basically just saying like, ecclesia, right? But you have the wrong metaphor that you're pointing to with your language. So I regardless of what language you would choose for it, I would say fix the metaphor. That makes sense. Okay. No, that makes sense. And there's no here's why that matters. Because there is power and there is authority. The gates of hell cannot stand against this thing. Yeah, that was powerful for me when you were talking about Jesus's statement back to Peter, referencing like a hay and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and in real and looking in that of like, oh, yeah, that's what stagnant that's what's like not is not moving. But the, the body of Christ, the people of God, like filled with the power and presence and authority of Jesus. They move and they take ground and they run they like run into the to places where there's this false authority trying to operate and bringing the authority and lordship of Jesus, we look for the gates of hell, not to run from them, but to storm them. varices maybe having not fixing, like just expanding? I think I heard you say at one point, that the reason why how we talk about who we are, as this gathered community matters. And the reason why church sometimes can be like not quite efficient enough, is because it limits our imagination for what it means what it could mean, what the possibilities could be for a people gathered under the Lordship of Jesus that are connected to one another and are responding to the issues and problems of our day. We want to expand our missional imagination, we want to expand for what could be possible. Yeah. And so I thought that that was really helpful because it can feel like is this just a semantics is just like a argument about language? And you know, and I, I would say like, yeah, if this is all about just an argument about language, then that's like futile and, and ridiculous. But if we're talking about the importance of us not limiting what is possible, when Pete when the people of God are gathering, that that matters greatly. It matter does matter greatly. It can't be just like, okay, yeah, I do church, I go to church, I invite people to church that's just very connected to this physical building, versus something that's much more miraculous and mysterious. Yeah, that resonates. To wrap up our time, I'm thinking about, like, if someone's been listening to or turning to joy podcasts, and maybe they have some sense of okay, I know this is about connection. And, and our mission, if you will, is there's a desire to cultivate healing, Justice restoration by revealing pathways to transformative connection. How would you say that this conversation relates to that there's a lot of talk of, like, unity, or even connection. And oftentimes, for those who are seeking to follow Jesus, and even do so with a way that's anchored in Scripture, is often find themselves, you know, anchored in like the prayers of Jesus in John 17. And, and just the numerous biblical passages that speak to unity, and connection, right. And there's a very real sense in which the mutual connection that you can have, when you are mutually connected to Christ. If that's real, and if it's, you know, surrender to Jesus, but in a way that just acknowledges him as Lord, right, that the power of that connection to open you up to experience healing, and restoration is incomparable in the universe, in my opinion. But that power to reconcile and connect you with others, is equally incomparable. I have had so many experiences where I don't even speak the same language as someone who have completely different cultures from different places in the world. And yet they are brother, their sister, and in the deepest dearest sense of what I can understand that word to me, to recognize is limited, but in a way that sometimes feels even more so than those who I share every similarity with, but who are not connected to Jesus as Lord, and who don't, who aren't experiencing the life, His Spirit at work in them. So in terms of connection with people in terms of the experience of, of healing, I think, I think Ecclesia when it's experienced by someone has the power to usher in reconciliation and salvation for you has the power to demonstrate a justice and a connectedness that is absolutely incomparable in the world. And I think that because I want to see more of that and I want to see more of that in future generations. I think that the instruments that We use for teaching and for encapsulating those ideas matter greatly. So that they might be purified. And in being purified, have more value more power, more clarity, able to be used. So, that may be a attempt to say, Okay, how does this connect to that? It connects to it on the side of if you're going to share this, if you've experienced it, that's one thing in terms of just connection in general. But how do you share connection? Right? And at some point, how do you talk about it? Yeah. Yeah, I, for me, I think why this conversation matters greatly. And it's one I know that, you know, we usually have more in depth, ly in separate moments, but when I think about that heartbeat, in that, that desire for the cultivation for the reveal, for like, healing, justice, transplant this like restoration repair, those are, those are big words that are thrown around quite a bit. But I, for me, when I think about the way the ecclesia is described in Scripture, when I think about moments that have I've borne witness to where I've saw people having this deep level of understanding of who they are, who created them, who they belong to, who is their Lord, and their, their place of identity, they're in connection to Christ. And then there's this purposeful, fulfilling, and hole connection to other people, that people of God that gather on mission, sent out to engage the world, engage the culture, I see the truest demonstration of the cultivation of Healing Justice. Yeah. And restoration. Yeah, like that, like I see like, no, no disconnection there of like, Man, I in the same way, I think of John 15, of God, of Jesus, referring to him being the vine and speaking to a collective body. He wasn't speaking to just one in saying, You remaining me, but he was speaking to them, saying, when you remain in me, it's going to be impossible, actually, for you to not bear fruit. Then in that I see the signs of the kingdom, I see miracles. And in our English language, the best attempt, that that we even get it in our mission statement and trying to articulate what some of those miracles could look like. That would be our is healing, justice, restoration. Yeah. But even in that of like, man, it feels like such a miss, where there may not be a language. A word to fully describe. Yeah. This majestic miracle that is almost unexplainable. I think that's why so many times in the gospels, you had people going, would you just come and see, would you just I think about I think, I think John garland mentioned it earlier in his episode of Philip, when he was talking to Nathaniel knotch. He wasn't he didn't give the annual hey, here's all the reasons. Here's the my three point, you know, sermon on the reason why, like, this is the Christ obviously, like, there's also places in the gospels or in the in in the letters, where there is this teaching and instruction about who is Jesus in the message of Christ. But you also see so many times when people were encountering Jesus having no word truly to describe him, but just being like, I just all I know is, yeah, this happened, I think of this Samaritan woman that went back running through the town, come and see, come and see a man who told me everything about myself. Could this be the Christ? Like? Yeah, yeah. Where people are almost like, they have no words. I where there's where they did give words like, right, but there's almost this, like, how do I? How do I describe what just happened? Like, I just want you to experience it. I just want you to wit and bear witness to what I, what I've seen with my eyes what I've experienced, like what my heart has, has just encountered? Yeah, I think that if instead of saying, will you come to church with me, if you could say, I believe Jesus really is the king of the universe, and I'm among the people that bear witness to that as a fact, not as an idea. Like, come see, and that you would invite that person and that the way that you are together regardless of where you meet, or under works with circumstances or is that the way that you are together. And the way that you are in response to Jesus, when you gather, actually is evidence of his Lordship and his will and that, like, that's the kind of community where debts are paid as the kind of family where there's just beauty, there's like, reconciliation is possible, like, miracles happen. Yeah. You know, there's there's things that happen. provision is made, like, I mean, we often talk about, and it's oftentimes it seems with this like, elusive, almost like wistful longing for the church of x, right, broke bread together in one another's homes and shared among them. This is often spoken to with like, such like, Oh, right. And it is that beautiful, it is that beautiful, that's deserving of all. But they were operating under the idea of Ecclesia as their primary metaphor for how they were to operate in the world. Right. So if we want to get closer to that, it helps for us to have more of an understanding of how they thought of themselves. Right. So which, from what I'm hearing you say, one of the primary ways they were thinking of themselves, if they were adopting that metaphor of ecclesia, it was, Okay. We've got this common Lord, we're believing Jesus, Jesus is Lord is the declaration that we're making together as a collective group of people. Yes, he's the one in authority. He's the one with the power. And he's the one with the love, and he's the one with the really good ideas for how to deal with problems. Okay. So with wildfire network, we say wildfire exists to help the dreams of Jesus come true through people, okay. It's because we don't feel like we have the vision for solving economic disparity in our city, or for saving everyone from addiction or for, you know, like all the things that are all the problems. We know that Jesus does. We trust that Jesus cares. And we want to try to organize ourselves in such a way, that it's the most efficient way for those dreams and desires of Jesus to be activated through his people. So Ecclesia there is a sense in which we talk about the church. Okay, right. And when we say the church, normally we're meaning like, all the people of God, right, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, is what we're meaning we're meaning the whole body. Right. But there is a sense, when Jesus said to Peter, you know, I will build my church. First of all, he was taking ownership. All right. So yeah, I am the one who's calling this yes, there is a very real sense in which that clay sia is like, infinitely, like contextualized, like Ecclesia can be very small. Right? Welfare network owes much of its structure and innovation to the micro church movement. Right? Because it's this idea that like, ecclesia, is more contingent on the authority of the Lord, the authority of the head of it, right. And then it is on any particular size. Got it? Yeah. So yeah, or, and then yeah, it can just, it's very flexible, like you can talk about the ecclesia and Rome, which might be like seven or eight expressions of gathering that irregular, you know, and it's a flexible term that can talk about the smallest gathering, it can talk about all of those in the city, that are the ecclesia. Of of Jesus. Yeah. And we can talk about everyone in the world that has that. I almost wonder if, if Ecclesia if we were to try and make an attempt at language that would be culturally appropriate for us today. How was one sometimes I wonder if like community organizer, organizer, would be a similar word choice in the in the in the nature of like, what happens when there's when you have community organizers who come in? I mean, it's probably like, and it's probably a stretch in some ways, but you have community organizers that come into community and usually what they're doing in that case, one they're probably not, they're actually trying not coming as an authoritative figure. They're, they're actually coming of like, they're trying to empower the voices of the community to gather and for them to band together to address like a felt need within their community that could be Hey, this community organizer comes in and tries to help the people organize As because there's a lot of kids that are getting hit by cars and recognize, hey, we can organize our voices and approach our city government. We can get sidewalks here. Yeah. And so it's like there's a, there's a level of a gathering happening there among people with a group of people that have a problem in their area or region that collectively band together to get that problem fixed. But even that, Paul short, some, but that it makes me think about that a little bit. I think that's, that's great. I think that what's wonderful is that, like, as cultures merge, as there are new technologies that develop, we can borrow new metaphors. Right? So even the metaphor of network networks speaks to, like, with it networking, it has more to do with the protocol, like, how are we going to relate to and connect to each other so that we can have a mutual strength that's greater than individual strength? That's really just contingent on the nature of our connection. That's what a network is. Right? It's not like, yeah, its strength is determined by the strengthen of its connections. Right? That's how in the network, yeah, it's a metaphor. But the key differentiating piece that even the both of those fall short in, is we're saying that the ecclesia, part of the strength of it is it has an identifiable and it Lord, who actually does have the power that's keeping them connected together. Yeah. So when you were talking about just putting out there community organizing as a concept, feel like Christ gang feel like a gang. It's pretty good. I mean, most gangs are organized, and they operate in ways that probably don't have the kingdom of God as the central concern as to how they do things. But if you think about why they're formed, how they're formed, how they operate, you know, there's some things and then the, even the clear identity piece that's associated with, like, when you join a gang light, I mean, Jesus said, like, hey, if anybody wants to come after Me, you gotta like, join my gang. You know what I mean? And there's also a sense of like, you don't get out of the game. Right. So there's the element, you know, it's my desk. Yeah, I've so let him so I think, I think that there's maybe a yet but there's a real sense in which, like, the identity piece connected with gangs, the idea that the same gang, you know, can pop up in different places, and all have a shared sense of identity and purpose. Right. A gang exists for a purpose. Right now great purpose. No, but yeah, but but it is a purpose. Yeah. And yeah, so some of the origin stories of gangs are even more towards a version of protecting your community or certain assets. So I feel like gang is maybe you know, Christ gang. Right? Is a is a is a metaphor, that maybe is challenging for some people to think about. But in terms of just the fact that it is a people that are doing a thing for a purpose. And then it's, you know, there's some identity connect piece might be a helpful one for us to think of, you know, like, what does it mean to Christ colors? Yeah. What is that? What does it look like to join his gang? You know, how do we operate? So so maybe that's a creative stab at like, Hey, that's a metaphor. So tailor to which as we wrap up, which uses speak a blessing to all those that would gather as the people of God. Yes. without reservation or hesitation, I would say to all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to all those whose hearts are huddled in the upper room, longing for the presence and power and lordship of Jesus to be made known in this world, may you know him and the power of his resurrection. May you receive the calling that He has for you and for community around you? May you in some very specific, very beautiful, very Hellgate bashing way, say of yourself. I am anointed to preach good news to the poor, and bring freedom to the oppressed to give sight to the blind release for the prisoner and to declare this says the year of the Lord's favor. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Taylor. Hope that was blessing to you all. This conversation with Taylor concludes season three of the return to joy podcast. I am moving and I am preparing to go on sabbatical in the month of July. So excited about that. So subscribe to the podcast and follow us on social media so you can get word of our comeback in August and be right back with this for season four.