0:00:08 – Barnabas

Hey, welcome to the Curious Curmudgeon Podcast. I’m Barnabas Piper here with my co-curmudgeon, Adam Read, howdy and Adam, thank you for that. That was. That was very uh. What was the name of that show in the? Uh, the old country music show? Heehaw, yeehaw, Heehaw, yeehaw. What Yeehaw, heehaw, yeehaw, what was it? Okay, yeah, I was like I know this Is that Minnie Pearl who did that? 

 

Oh man. Anyway, I’m here with my co-curmudgeon, Adam Read, Minnie Pearl, and on the previous episode we talked about switching churches. The theme for the season is major life transitions, and you know so. In each episode we’re just kind of talking about different big turns that we take in life or things that profoundly affect us and change our lives, and switching churches is one of those things that is both very simple to do, in the sense that you know, if you live in a town with a number of churches, it might be as simple as, like, you turned right out of your driveway instead of left on a Sunday morning. 

 

And so it just kind of looks simple. Nothing is kind of majorly overthrown in your life. But from a relational standpoint, a spiritual standpoint, a community standpoint, a life direction standpoint, it’s really almost cataclysmic to switch churches, or it can be, and it can feel like a real profound loss, and we talked a little bit about that. Why does it feel like such a loss? Why is it such a loss? I don’t want to downplay it by saying feels like it can be for sure. And then we talked a little bit about what are some good reasons to leave churches, you know. So standards we need to have, how we need to self-evaluate some of those kinds of things, and in this episode I want to just sort of further that conversation. 

 

So now we’ve talked about okay, we know we need to leave a church, we have found the good reasons to do so, and so I just want to run through a few questions about leaving, well, choosing a new church, and then how do we land? Well, in a new place, how do we go through this? So this is maybe a little bit more. If the last one was a little bit more kind of uprooting, painful, this one, I hope, is a little bit more practical, just kind of running through some standards we can hold ourselves to. Okay, how can I be a good church member as I leave? How can I be wise in looking for a new church? And then, once I get there, what does it look like to plug in? Well, so let’s just start with that first question, now that we know it’s time to head on we got to leave a church. 

 

0:02:14 – Adam

We made that decision. It’s a tough decision. 

 

0:02:17 – Barnabas

Yeah, and how we answer this question is very much going to depend on what those reasons were, but we know it’s the right time to leave a church. How do we leave that church? Well, what does it look like to walk out the door in an appropriately Christ-honoring fashion? 

 

0:02:36 – Adam

Yeah, that’s a tough one because I think the temptation can be, especially if you’re leaving out of issues of hurt, to like launch a hand grenade right and just kind of turn your back and walk away and there is some sort of feeling of justification, like things were bad and I’m, you know, like they should be known and it’s okay for me to leave it that way. But I think it’s difficult when you have to leave and under tough circumstances, and it’s difficult when you have to leave under good circumstances. But leaving well should always be our goal. I think it’s easy to try and like subvert the ministry you’re leaving, yeah, and that causes damage to other believers. 

 

0:03:10 – Barnabas

Yeah, that’s if you’re leaving for difficult reasons, for sure, If you’re leaving for good reasons, you know well. Here’s a good example when my wife and I started dating, she was getting very plugged in at a church. Meanwhile I was in the midst of going through the ordination process and joining staff at Emanuel, where I serve. So she eventually, once our relationship got to the point of that kind of seriousness, she was going to move to our church. So she left for good reasons. There was no ill will. We both actually both love that church and it’s a church that Emanuel has a good relationship with. 

 

But leaving well under good circumstances is more like a sorrowful goodbye. You know. Leaving well in that case is you want to leave them knowing that they are loved and on good terms. That’s fairly straightforward, you know. So. If you know, if you’re called to ministry somewhere, if you’ve taken a job, you need to move those kinds of things. It’s all of the other instances where I’m leaving because this church is no longer the right place for me, either because of wrongdoing or because of theological emphases that are out of whack, or whatever it is. Those are the instances where leaving well is harder, because the easiest thing to do is to quietly disappear into the night. 

 

0:04:19 – Adam

Right, and that’s certainly the temptation is to just kind of be like well, I can just kind of drop out here and I mean a few people will ask where I’m at, but over time, you know, people will just I’m gone, and another factor is what is your role in the church and the size of the church. 

 

0:04:33 – Barnabas

So you can help me figure out if I’m self-justifying or if I was in the right here. But there was a stretch where I was at a really, really big church. I was really, really disconnected from the church, like, I mean, I was a regular attender. I there was, I had been in a small group, but like there was no relational connection whatsoever, which was one of the main reasons it was time to leave, cause it was a situation where I’m like this is not a place where I can get plugged in, and there was a number of other issues, but that was a main one. And so I just left. 

 

And a year later, a year later, the pastor called me. And a year later, a year later, the pastor called me. He was like, hey, man, we should get lunch and I’m like I don’t even go to your church anymore. And he was like, oh, and so that was one where I made the decision to leave quietly, cause I thought about it and I was like, hey, I’m not even sure who I would reach out to with. 

 

Like normally, what I would want to do is sort of have a conversation with leadership, not to beat them into submission or yell a bunch of criticisms, but just be like hey, I’ve made this decision. Here’s why that seems like the honorable. I’m like I don’t even know who to talk to. I have so many layers removed from the people in charge. So size and dynamic plays a role in that. That’s a great point. Yeah, now if you are like an invested small group leader, even at a really big church, if you are invested in a ministry, you should probably go to your ministry leader and have that conversation. Hey, I need to leave for these reasons, and, you know, maybe that gets elevated. Maybe they just bless you on your way. At a really big church, they probably just bless you on your way because they’re so used to people coming and going on the fringes at a small church. It’s really important to do that, though, because because absence is noticeable and it leads questions. 

 

0:06:12 – Adam

I think about the first church that I had the privilege of pastoring at. I’m not pastoring anymore, but I still remember that when someone was missing, it was a small enough church that you could tell, hey, so-and-so is not here. They’ve not been here for weeks and then, all of a sudden, you might get a. You know, you check up on them and you find out that they left and you’re like, okay, well, you know what’s going on there. Are they okay? What’s you know? Is they having a hard time in life? Is there something I should be doing to reach out to them? 

 

And I think, as a pastor, there’s almost always a feeling of like I should have done better in some way. But if they’re leaving for reasons that they believe are like negative reasons not the you know job thing or things like that like you mentioned but if they’re leaving because they feel like there’s a problem either in the church, with the leadership or what the church is focused on, or with another person in the church, my hope would be that their conversation of, if they ever do come and sit down and say, hey, I’m leaving and this is why, but that’s not the first conversation I’ve had with them Right. 

 

0:07:09 – Barnabas

That’s exactly what I was just thinking, because in the previous episode we talked about reasons to leave and those are occurring like hey, you should, you should try to contribute to an improvement. So if you see, if you have a concern in the church, being silent and then leaving is not good church membership. Think about it in a relational context. If your close friend or your spouse or whatever was mad at you or disappointed in you and never said anything and then all of a sudden they’re just like I guess we can’t talk anymore. 

 

0:07:39 – Adam

You’d be like what the heck? 

 

0:07:41 – Barnabas

Really, we couldn’t have a conversation. You couldn’t have, like, pulled me aside and been like hey, when you do this, it concerns me and address the issue. So, as a member, part of leaving well is the lead up to the departure in terms of how are you addressing these things? Are you going to the leadership both in an appropriate tone, you know so, not demanding, but just like hey? I have these concerns and I will say this I am well aware that there are churches where people go that’s not even an option that leadership will not hear it. Well, they’re heavy-handed. Any sort of criticism is seen as division. I was at a church like that that I had to leave because I had some very significant concerns with the heavy-handedness of the leadership. And I did take it to them quietly, behind closed doors, not making a public stink about things, and was told straight up oh, you’re being divisive. I’m like this is the opposite of divisive, because it’s me and you having a conversation. 

 

0:08:31 – Adam

Yeah, you’re trying to help solve a problem. 

 

0:08:33 – Barnabas

Right, It’d be divisive if I was gathering a group of people like a coalition of people around me, which I’m intentionally not doing, and so I understand that going to leadership with concerns can be a problem. 

 

0:08:45 – Adam

I understand that going to leadership with concerns can be a problem, but it’s hard. I mean yeah in general. Unless you have a close relationship there, it’s always going to be somewhat challenging. 

 

0:08:54 – Barnabas

Well, and so a couple of thoughts on that for just church members. The first thought is a way to go about that that is not contentious is posing questions. That is not contentious is posing questions. I have some questions about how or why. Second, and because questions leave an open door for a very humble response as a pastor, if somebody comes to me and says, hey, I have some questions about why Emmanuel does X or how we do X, I might be a tad on my guard, depending on who the person is, but I’m gonna treat that question like it’s just an honest Right. They’re new here. They’re trying to get their head around something they’re trying to understand because they came from a different background, whatever, and they’re not like this isn’t a trap, this is a Right. 

 

0:09:35 – Adam

So that’s the first Accusations, totally different. 

 

0:09:39 – Barnabas

Right, I think I’m like going to try to respond graciously, but it’s a lot harder. When you took the first swing, like whoa, whoa, whoa, we’re not even like boy, we just jumped right in, didn’t we? The second piece is so if you approach with questions. The second is if you approach with questions, it’s a litmus test for the culture and attitude of leadership. 

 

So, if you’re not close to the leadership. That’s a scary thing to do, but you find the courage to do it. You pose your questions maybe it’s in an email, or you go down front after service and you set up a meeting with one of the pastors and you go with your questions and the response is very defensive or is very aggressive. That’s concerning yeah. That may actually validate the questions that you had If the response is really humble. 

 

0:10:20 – Adam

Yeah. 

 

0:10:20 – Barnabas

And maybe they’re not. When I say humble, I don’t mean like they’re going to cave to all of your questions, but they say you know, we want to be the kind of place where you can bring these questions. We’re really glad that you brought it to us Like, thank you for thinking about these things. We really appreciate the dedication that you’re showing and, like this took courage and they kind of honor and acknowledge that you might not get all the answers you want, but what you have seen is a glimpse of, hopefully, a church culture and a leadership culture that’s healthy. 

 

So, going back to leaving well, starting with the conversation about leaving should be on the heels of multiple other things that have happened, multiple other efforts to resolve the situation. So, even at that church that I quietly left, I had taken multiple steps to engage leadership at various points. I had switched campuses a couple of times to try to find the place where, like my efforts at getting involved would be, would be received. Well, you know where I would just be folded in. So there was a lot of things that I had done. 

 

So it wasn’t just a ghosting, it was more like I’ve tried for three years and it’s not working. That’s. The other thing is it wasn’t like three months, it was three years. So yeah, I would say, in terms of leaving, well, start with trying to resolve, communicate clearly on your way out. And I will also say, if there’s animosity between you and the church and that can happen in part, sometimes because of our sin, sometimes because of the sin on the church side the communicating well doesn’t necessarily mean lengthy, drawn out meetings and stuff like that, and maybe it’s wise not to get drawn into those things. At the end, as much as it is a very clear kind of like a resignation letter in the sense of like, based on previous communications and the efforts here, we’ve deemed it the right time to find another church family and so we’re going to be withdrawing our membership and just something as simple as that, because you know getting into a protracted fight with a church is just unhealthy. 

 

0:12:13 – Adam

Yeah, and there’s a lot of stress that goes a lot of different directions when you get into those things. And not that we avoid hard things, but the goal is, you know, reconciliation, if there can be, and understanding. But sometimes it’s not always possible and I think that’s hard to swallow sometimes because we have an idea of a church that it should be this wonderful thing and it ought to be. But we all have to realize that each of us involved they are sinners, you know. So even though we’re redeemed sinners, we’re still sinners and things are going to be hard at and we’re not always going to agree with things. 

 

And I think you know we don’t need to go back to the last podcast and go over all the reasons to leave. But I think one thing you said is just, you know, like sometimes it’s just a simple discussion, it doesn’t have to be this drawn out thing. I think another simple thing we can do is make sure we’ve taken time especially well, not especially, but if we’re married with our spouse, if not, but just, have we taken time to pray about this? Because I think that’s one of those things that I know my tendency is to think I have things figured out and just run with it and kind of like okay, I got this, I’m going to, this is what we’re going to do, and not really take the time to pray and seek the Lord’s face and make sure that I am handling this in a way that honors him, that I’m thinking correctly about it, all those things the Holy Spirit is able to work in us. 

 

0:13:30 – Barnabas

Yeah, yeah, that’s absolutely right, and the thing about praying is that people often kind of go what should I expect when I pray in this situation? And the answer is not like an audible leave or stay as much as it is. When you pray, you are aligning yourself with God’s desire for you. So it may not be a clear like. The answer may still be difficult, the decision may still be difficult, but what you gain is the confidence that every step of the decision you are submitting it to the Lord and he is working quietly along the way. 

 

One final piece on leaving. Well, that I think is really important, especially in this day and age, because we live in a time when we value exposing sins over love, covering a multitude of sins and that’s tricky because there is a place for. The Bible talks about it. I think Paul wrote about it. Exposing the works of the devil, Like they’re exposing evil. That’s a real category. Sure, within the body of Christ there is also a very real category for forgiving, bearing with and covering the sins of others, which does not mean covering up evil, like if there’s abuse going on in the church, we don’t stand idly by. Yeah, absolutely. 

 

0:14:41 – Adam

I just want to be clear on that. 

 

0:14:45 – Barnabas

However, if there are hurt feelings, if there’s been a mishandling of something, it is not often appropriate to blow that thing up, and you mentioned this earlier sort of the hand grenade on the way out the door type of thing. And so one of the ways to leave well and part of praying will help guide our hearts in this is how do I avoid slandering, disparaging and dishonoring unnecessarily, because what feels good is to leave and be like? These people are all jerks. I got mistreated in this way and so you kind of like I said, gather a coalition around you on the way out the door. And here’s the thing. So I left that one church because of significant leadership issues. 

 

One of my best friends he’s still a good friend to this day. We were in each other’s weddings. This is a longstanding friendship. He and his wife stayed for a decade after I left and I had to wrestle with A why are they still there? Because they knew what had happened and also wrestle with my own heart’s instinct to try to disparage and tear down. 

 

Meanwhile, every Sunday they’re hearing the word of God taught, their kids are being raised in the kids’ ministry where they’re teaching the Bible, and there’s a lot of things wrong with that church, but there was also a lot of things right about that church. It wasn’t fully evil and so had I sinfully kind of thrown the grenade on the way out the door, it would have damaged their discipleship. Yes, exactly. And so that’s one of those situations where, when we leave, appropriately addressing things, yes, but to the right people and in the right way, and then appropriately shutting our mouths or just kind of being appropriately vague, you know. So if you’re a parent, you know what this is like. A kid will ask a question, you know, like you’re not prepared to actually know the whole answer. So I’m going to give you the category of the answer. Like there was, there was some complicated things with leadership, it was the right time, that kind of thing as opposed to. Here’s a laundry list of all the offenses. 

 

0:16:42 – Adam

Yeah, no, that’s totally true, it’s so. You know, we’ve had to be careful at times because people that you are close with generally want to know a reason. Yeah, and so trying to make sure I do that in a way that doesn’t in any way tear down the church, that is still God’s body there, that he’s still working in and that I still really hope God does a great transformation in people’s lives through and even, you know, helps the church to grow and thrive. I still desire those things, even though you’re not there. 

 

0:17:16 – Barnabas

But that category that you just gave of I need to leave because of these problems Also, I hope that the Lord continues to work there. That tension that was holding those two thoughts in tension is only a thing that exists if, like, through a miracle of the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah, it’s not been easy, because that’s not a human instinct, the human instinct, is I need to leave and this place should burn to the ground. 

 

0:17:37 – Adam

I want to justify myself. Nobody should ever attend this church et cetera. In front of others, Like I want them to know. Okay, I was justified in what I did, rather than leaving it saying you know what? God is the justifier? It’s how I stand before him and I’ll let him. I have to trust him with the results of what this looks like to other people, and that’s a tough thing. 

 

0:17:57 – Barnabas

Well, yeah, well, yeah, let’s think about a biblical example real quick, and then we’ll. We’ll move on to the next question. You know, there’s a story, an act of Paul and Barnabas who had they’d gone on one missionary journey together, and then they come to a place I think it’s second mission. 

 

I didn’t realize you were that old yeah, it’s, that’s where I get all my wisdom from. Okay, um, and then they get to this point for the second missionary journey and pa Paul wants to take Timothy and Barnabas wants to take John Mark. Yeah, and Paul has a real issue with John Mark because of a previous—the Bible doesn’t give a lot of details, but it sounds like John Mark left them at a place, so sort of kind of maybe an immature backing out of something Right, and so they part ways. And that’s the last you hear about Barnabas in the book of Acts. Part of that is just because it sort of becomes sort of a ministry biography of Paul. But what you have there is a dissent between people in the church. There was very likely sin that was committed, maybe by John Mark, maybe in their dispute with one another. It says they disputed fiercely. Like this is a real disagreement. 

 

Yeah, it was intense, for sure, they parted ways and the Lord used both of them. Right, it was intense, for sure, they parted ways and the Lord used both of them in their respective ministries. And that same John Mark wrote the gospel of Mark and so, like even his profound failings, whatever they were, in the eyes of Paul, were not so much that God couldn’t use him. So we need to have categories, for I must leave. Because of the hurt and the sin that has been committed, or because of this is just not the right place for me. For all of these reasons we talked about last episode, but also the Lord has not abandoned this church. Now, some churches the Lord will and has because of egregious sin, others no. And so can we have that tension that you just described of I’m hurt, I’m angry, I’m disappointed. I need to leave. 

 

0:19:49 – Adam

Also, I want the Lord’s fruitfulness to continue in this place and hopefully that it flourishes. And that’s not a one-time thing, right. Like those, those issues come up all throughout life. Like it’s not just okay, this one time I’m, I dealt with it and it’s over and I’m forgiven and giving grace and moved on. Like it’s a constant battle when things pop up related to that. 

 

0:20:04 – Barnabas

Yeah, I mean, that’s why Jesus, you know, when Peter asked him how many times should we forgive? As many as seven times he goes, no, 70 times seven, because Jesus is well aware that the human heart will continue to bring up old hurts and so, like yesterday’s, forgiveness doesn’t work for today. Today needs its own forgiveness, right? So now we’re, you know, we’re going to forgive and forgive, and forgive. 

 

And, yeah, and I think about the church where I experienced the greatest kind of hurt and betrayal and it took a long time for me to wish well on them, I kind of moved into like I’m going to not think about them, yeah, but then it came up periodically and I really struggled to not think ill of, yeah, and be bitter about, and then I started hearing stories of the individuals who had caused hurt and the hurt in their lives, and what I found was actually that the Lord was giving me capacity for compassion. Wow, you know, they had real severe ministry issues or family issues, or health issues, and I realized I don’t wish ill on them, yeah, and that’s, you know, that’s probably the Lord’s kindness, but also just that, that ongoing work of the Lord to to complete forgiveness. 

 

0:21:12 – Adam

And there’s so much to other people’s stories that we will never know and and I think that’s one of the reasons that we really have to try and God has to work in us to give that grace because we just we have no idea the depth of issues that people are going through. 

 

0:21:27 – Barnabas

Absolutely so. Thinking about transitioning churches, that’s. You know that was a lot on leaving. 

 

0:21:32 – Adam

Well, I hope it was helpful. 

 

0:21:34 – Barnabas

So then, now that we’ve left hopefully, well, we’ve had good reason to leave We’ve left as well as we know how trust in the Lord to do the work in our heart that needs to be done how then do we choose another church? Well, and I want to kind of put this in a couple of different things to consider here. One is if you’ve come out of a church badly damaged, choosing well is harder because you’re choosing from a place of fear and hurt, and so there’s a much keener sense of avoidance rather than joining. Joining sounds terrifying at that point where you’re like I don’t trust this church thing, and often for very good reason. So there’s that bad aspect, and then there’s also the like. 

 

Another example is if you’re leaving a church that’s the only church tradition you’ve ever been part of. I grew up in this, you know. Let’s say you grew up in a denomination pick any denomination and you’ve gotten to a point where you’re like I need to leave, but I still have a conviction to be part of church. Now you’re heading into, like, the wilderness, like I don’t know anything about these, like are these people crazy? You know they use liturgy, this is nuts and all of that stuff. So how do we weigh those things? And then, just individually, what are, like, the characteristics that we look at in a church that says to us this is the right kind of place to take the risk of joining? 

 

0:22:51 – Adam

Yeah, that’s a tough question, and I think like it’s a super hard question, regardless of who you are a single person, a married couple, married with kids it’s just a tough question. I think, for me, part of the fear in finding a new church when it was time for that, this is going to affect my kids’ lives for the rest of their lives. When we go to a church and we become part of that, for our family, that means a great level of commitment and so this is a huge part of my future, my wife’s future, my kids’ future how they view scripture, how they view the teaching of God’s word, how they view the value of the church. And so choosing well, I mean it’s tough because there are so many fears that are there, like is this church going to help my children love God? 

 

0:23:43 – Barnabas

Yeah. 

 

0:23:44 – Adam

And so that when they get married and on their own, you know, they find a spouse that loves God and loves the church. So there’s all those questions involved there. So choosing well is certainly a very difficult thing. It’s not a thing to be taken lightly. And as we choose well, I mean there are some really basic stuff right, like doctrine. You know, we believe what the Bible teaches. That’s a pretty important one there. That is low hanging fruit that obviously we can say, well, that’s obvious, like that’s important. And I think a lot of times we walk into churches saying, well, what can you know, what can this church do to me? And I even kind of just said that right, and like this is going to affect my life and my kids’ lives, my wife’s life. But as we walk into a church saying, okay, how does this affect me? There’s also the aspect of am I able to find a place to serve and be part of the body. That I think is important as well. 

 

0:24:38 – Barnabas

Yeah, and that that last piece is really important. We you know, Emmanuel, where I serve, is on the larger end. You know, we, we’re, we’re about a thousand people Sunday and we have people who really wonderful members who left with a church plant and this was like a real church plan, not like a church split that we called a church plan probably two years ago now and, uh, what they have been able to do in that church plant is plug in in service in a way that they couldn’t at a manual, cause a big church has a different sort of availability and opportunities and standards, thresholds, different things so like, but they get in there and a church plant has every need. 

 

So knowing the context of the church is a big deal. Like I can put my hand to work here in a way that I might not have an opportunity to at that kind of church. Both of them are Jesus loving, wonderful churches. Just context matters. 

 

Yeah, one of the things that thinking about choosing a church well, that stands out to me is you know, you said there’s just these things that you’re like, yeah, we just kind of run down this list there’s, you know, there’s doctrine, there’s, you know, there’s doctrine, there’s, you know, the preaching of the word, those kinds of things. One thing I will say is the list is both essential and only marginally useful, because what it does is it sets a threshold but it doesn’t tell you if it’s a healthy church. Right, you know, if you have a list, and your list shouldn’t be terribly long, if you have a 20 item list you’re way too picky. If you have a two item list you’re probably not picky enough. It should probably be like two to seven items Kind of depends on your family situation. But like the preaching of the word, yeah, and more particularly the preaching of the gospel. There are churches that preach the Bible that don’t preach the gospel. They go. 

 

0:26:14 – Adam

Verse by verse. 

 

0:26:15 – Barnabas

And what you get is a commentary, but not a greater understanding of the work of Christ, which, that’s a whole separate issue. 

 

If we were to do a preaching podcast, we could get in on that, and there’s people who have already written, spoken much better than me about that. So, preaching of the gospel, the reverence of the worship service and when I say reverence I don’t mean like somberness as much as is Jesus being lifted high in the singing, in the prayer, in the reading of scripture? Is Jesus being lifted high in the singing, in the prayer, in the reading of scripture, in the tone of things? Is this like a holly jolly pep rally where somebody’s jumping up there in their brand new Nikes and they’re like what up, friends, we’re so excited to be together. If that’s the tone. 

 

0:26:51 – Adam

You sound like you’ve done that before. 

 

0:26:53 – Barnabas

I’ve never done that. I have left churches that do that, because I think that that’s like there’s a silliness and a triteness when we treat worship services that way. Now, joy, welcome, humor, laughter, those are all relational things. Those are good. Silliness, triteness, whatever, like that’s not a place for it. So you know, reverence and worship If you’ve got kids you’re going to take real seriously. 

 

How do we disciple kids? You know you might want to look at the kid’s curriculum, you might want to look at the way that they do that. But just like, how are we raising kids? In the word, some families have really particular standards. They’re like no, I want my kids in worship with me, not in a kid’s program. Fine, there’s this church where that works. That matters. If you want to send them to a kid’s classes, you know, kind of age-appropriate teaching, cool, do they do that faithfully? Yeah, and so on, you know. I think another one is sort of like how does the church foster community? And again, that can be very programmatic. If it’s a small church, it doesn’t necessarily need to be. It might be like we do weekly dinners. We all live within two miles of the church, we’re in each other’s homes. Sweet, there you go. There’s your answer, so you got that list and so you need the list. 

 

Yeah, for sure, but you can check that list off and go into a church and still feel that sense of like they don’t welcome people. It’s not healthy. People don’t confess sin here, people are not growing Like. There’s sort of that, like it’s that aroma of Christ piece. So when you’re going to a church and this cannot be discovered in five minutes, sometimes it takes a matter of weeks or months is what is the culture of the place at the soul level, and that starts with the leadership and but it trickles all the way down. One of the things that I discovered when I got to Emmanuel, that was so profound in overcoming my jadedness and cynicism about what the church could offer, was the warmth of people that was profoundly genuine. So I came into this church. 

 

I was several months removed from a divorce, I was there with my kids and it’s a weird thing to walk into church as a dad with two daughters and no mom, and I did that for a few weeks and I kind of had a sense that this, okay, this seems like a healthy, good place. But two, three, four weeks in, somewhere in there, there was a guy at the church named Gabe who just came up to me one Sunday in the lobby and he just said hey, man, we haven’t met. I’m Gabe, our daughters are in Sunday school together and it seems like they really get along great and I’d love to get together like have you guys over for lunch sometime or for dinner or something, whatever works. 

 

0:29:28 – Adam

Also, how can I pray? 

 

0:29:28 – Barnabas

for you. Wow. Now Gabe, by his own admission, was a quirky dude, like he didn’t kind of function in all of the social norms that everybody else did, but what he exhibited in that moment was real welcome. What did we say earlier? Embrace the awkward in the friendship episode. He just cannonballed into the awkward, did not care at all and it was delightful. 

 

It was so good for me because it tore down a lot of inhibitions and he gave me an opportunity to be as honest as I was ready to be. How can I pray for you? It’s a great question, because somebody can say my ankle hurts, or they can say work is stressful, or they can say, as I did man, I’m pretty lost and I’m really confused and I’m not really sure about these kinds of things in the church and I know I need to be here. He just kind of went oh, that’s a lot, okay, let’s pray. And that wasn’t the first time that happened. And so what I’m saying is you go into a church, you look for people taking the risk on you and you take the risk with them to say okay, how do we push the envelope to the place of going? 

 

is this a place that can absorb complicated yeah sinful, needy or just skeptical, right, and if you encounter that like okay, now we are in a place where we can choose. Well. 

 

0:30:45 – Adam

I think I think that’s a great illustration of what the church should be like and how we should be loving one another, even though it’s hard. And I had actually written this down and you were talking about this, so it kind of connects with what you were saying. I don’t mean churches are liars, but I mean they need to be honest like who they are. Yes, like we’re a church of people that are broken, sinful people, and it’s okay for you to bring your broken and sinfulness in too. And I know, growing up, like I hear preachers and they mean well and I know what they mean as in like come and just focus on God. But when you hear the phrase like oh, come on in and leave, you know, leave your problems at the door and I get what they’re saying. Like I think I understand their heart behind that for the most part. But like I want my problems to be addressed by God. Like I want to bring my problems in and I want other people to bring their problems in. And, yes, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty right. Like him reaching out to you meant that it was going to involve work for him. It’s going to involve effort and we need to be people who don’t just sit there and like we’re, we’re, you know, we’re saved, we’re good, we’re redeemed, we look good and we got this figured out and we just sit there soulless on a pew to people who are saying, hey, this person in my neighborhood is broken, or this people that walk in the door. They don’t look or act anything like us, but they need Jesus and we reach out to those people and we love them in a great way. How the church treats people going through difficult life-changing like super hard problems in life, people going through major loss of a loved one or major transitions in life like how the church treats those people says a ton about how that church views God and his grace and understanding of the gospel really, yeah, absolutely. 

 

0:32:41 – Barnabas

And I think you talked about churches. Being honest, I think that’s a really significant category, but again, it’s more than just how we publicly say so. Pastors will get up front me being a pastor, I will number myself among and say like hey, this is a church of sinners. You know, like sinners loving sinners, cool. 

 

What happens when somebody says, okay, this, this sin is what I committed yesterday, right, you know how do we as a church welcome the person who’s like I’m actually caught up in sin and I don’t want to be. I hate it, but I’m stuck Right. Or this sin has destroyed my life and I’m in tatters right now. What do I do? And do the leadership stand up and say this is, you know? I don’t mean like publicly confess every sin, but act as if they are themselves sinners. Not sort of humility, right, yeah, and and and. Honesty, just sort of like. I mean, I’ve heard pastors at our church say from the front things like if you saw every thought that came through my mind in any given week, like you wouldn’t want me to be your pastor anymore, which is true of every single person in the room, if you thought it’d be the lust and the anger and the you know, the jealousy and the pettiness and whatever else. 

 

Right, all of us, we would be profoundly ashamed if our thoughts were broadcast, not different for pastors, but just to say that, so that the person sitting in the pew who feels ashamed goes. Okay, we need the same Jesus, yeah, and so all of this is under the category of choosing. Well, there’s a whole category and I keep using the word culture, but that’s the best word I can think of of that type of honesty, humility, openness at a church that you want to look for and part of it. And this leads us into the second one, because the next question, the next question, is how do we land or join? Well, and I think the first answer to that is you got to give it the appropriate amount of time. Occasionally, you can tell a church is not right very quickly. You can rarely tell a church is right very quickly. 

 

0:34:31 – Adam

You can get a sense. 

 

0:34:32 – Barnabas

Yeah, that’s true, like you can get a sense that, okay, this place might be really good in a week, in one Sunday, but you don’t know, know for a little bit longer than that. And so I would say, so you get a sense of that culture. You run down your few item checklist, you go, man, they check all the boxes, seems like a really good place. Then you have to press in into. All. Right, I’m really gonna listen to the preaching. I might go back and listen to some old sermons, be like has it been this good for a while or is this like an anomaly? You talk about serving. I’m going to figure out like, okay, what are the places for people like us? If we are a family, where do we fit Serving, or community, small groups, Sunday school classes, whatever it is? And so there has to be kind of an investment in pressing in. I think a lot of people come to churches and they take weeks and weeks attending services and doing nothing else, which just means you’re going to learn the same thing every week. 

 

Yeah, interesting About the church You’re going to learn some new things about Jesus, hopefully, right, yeah, but there has to be an extra investment of okay, we know enough to know we like this part. What else? Yeah? 

 

0:35:42 – Adam

Super important to take that time and evaluate. You know, as my wife and I were picking churches at one time, it was challenging, like you go to a place and you have certain you’ve heard different things, or you go there maybe you haven’t heard anything. You’re like we’re just going to try this out and see what we find. And sometimes you’re like, wow, that is clearly you know not where I need to be and you know the focus is on something else, other than other than the Christ, and so that’s, that’s a more black and white, easy decision, right. You’re like, okay, I can see like the focus is on something else. 

 

I think of a time when my wife and I were on a trip and we were out in California and we visited this church and it was a Wednesday night, so it’s pretty low key, right and we were just there and visited this place and the pastor spent the entire well, not the entire of it, but a huge part of the service talking about himself and where you can go to the back and buy his CDs. He was a musician as well. I didn’t know that when we showed up there, but I learned Somebody doesn’t know how to use. 

 

Google. Well, it was a long time ago. It was his whole experience Was it. 

 

0:36:53 – Barnabas

Ask Jeeves before Google. 

 

0:36:55 – Adam

Somebody didn’t know how to ask Jeeves. That’s it. And we just had this whole experience where it was really odd he was talking about himself or his associations the majority of the time. I started actually like ticking off how many times it was mentioned, because I was like it had been a drinking game, You’d have been dead. 

 

I was like this is really odd, you know, and you know left there Like they called up some kid to the front of the church and they were going to camp and he like this kid’s like a police cadet, like training to be a police officer, and he’s criticizing the kid’s sideburns in front of the whole church and telling his mom he needs to get the sideburns cut. I mean, it was just this whole bizarre situation and I’m like what are we doing here? Like we got to get out of here so we like tried to sneak out the back. 

 

0:37:39 – Barnabas

I had questions about how you ended up there and why, on vacation, you were visiting a church on a Wednesday night, that’s all I mean. 

 

0:37:44 – Adam

that’s a whole nother discussion and it’s a great story we could have. 

 

0:37:47 – Barnabas

Sometime we can discuss your decision-making off air. 

 

0:37:49 – Adam

Yes, that was, oh, my word. I look back on this and I was like I cannot believe that we did this, but it made for a great story and there’s a whole lot more to that story that I’d love to tell you sometime. But it was about the pastor and you mentioned it earlier. But you know, whoever is preaching is vital to what the church is about. 

 

0:38:14 – Barnabas

Yeah. 

 

0:38:14 – Adam

And if the leadership isn’t focused on Christ, then everything else is going to get off tracks there somewhere. 

 

0:38:21 – Barnabas

Yeah, and I think this is a bit of kind of a side comment as opposed to you know, I know we’re talking about how to join. Well, but yeah, I got a little off track there. That’s okay, we do this. It’s a podcast, we can do whatever we want. People need to not underrate the preaching. 

 

A church is not entirely preaching. It is the body of Christ, but the preaching of the word in all of its various formats. So that’s primarily the corporate gathering on Sunday mornings, but also the teaching, preaching and other formats. That is the substance of the church. The wind in the sails is the fuel for the movement of the church, cause the I mean the church is a movement. It is the movement of the kingdom, hopefully gathering in souls to the kingdom of Christ. That’s that happens through the preaching of the word. It is what launches us out into our lives, it is what, uh, it is what fuels us, it is what feeds us, it is what encourages us, it is what convicts us. In many ways it’s what counsels us. We’re not even going to get into this, but therapy has replaced the church in a lot of ways, because people are looking for moral authority and spiritual authority and emotional repair elsewhere and in fact the preaching of the word should take care of a lot of that, not the extreme cases, but a lot of it and so forth. And so you know you just talking about the church being gospel centered. Just some thoughts on the importance of that as we’re looking for a church and thinking about it is like, don’t don’t rank that equally to other things. If other things are mediocre in the church in terms of like, the programs are kind of lame and the music is just okay, but man, they, the preaching is substantially honoring to Jesus and wonderful, you’re like 80% of the way there, all right. 

 

So the last thought I had on how to land well and join is twofold, because part of it is part of it is gauging the church and part of it is gauging yourself. The part of gauging the church is is it a church that will give me the space and the time that I need? And then the gauging yourself is how much space and time do I need? So here’s what I mean. I’ll just kind of try to paint an example. If a new person comes into our church and they come up and they say hey, you know, been here a few weeks, really interested in getting more involved. I’m going to give them answers on how to get more involved, some ways to serve. Here’s how you can get involved in the community. And then I’m going to end that conversation almost always with something like we don’t want you to feel under any pressure, take all the time that you need. 

 

I know that people come out of a lot of different circumstances. You know, some people are really worn out. Some people haven’t been in church in a while. Some people have been hurt. So like, don’t, don’t push it, and we’re not going to push you. We are here to. We’re here to help you get welcomed in whenever you’re ready. Yeah, that’s great. 

 

The reason you need to gauge yourself is because, especially for those people who came up in a church environment that was very activity oriented, participating in all of this, serving in all of these ways, like there, there might be a level of like burnout and exhaustion that they don’t even recognize. 

 

You, listener, don’t even recognize yourself, and so realizing that maybe the best thing for you is to receive the ministry, the preaching of the word and getting into community Most people can do that even if they’re exhausted, but in terms of the doing of ministry, man, you get to call time out for a while and you get to rest and that church shouldn’t push you into that. 

 

If a church is pushing, that doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong church to be at, but you might need to do a little conscientious resistance. Part of joining well is knowing I am not at a place to give all of my energy to the church. It also means that if you do that for a while and the Lord is working and healing and restoring you, you also recognize okay, I am at a place, I’ve moved to a place where I can give more of myself. And so I would just say, in terms of joining well, there’s that wisdom aspect and self-awareness aspect of what is the right manner in which I join, meaning I’m cannonballing into the deep end, I’m giving it everything I’ve got right from the get-go, or I need to very slowly wade into this because of where I’ve been. 

 

0:42:44 – Adam

Yeah, and I think in my family we’ve experienced both of those One where we’ve just like, okay, like we were ready, and there was we’re at a healthy time in life and we’re like let’s just, you know, we went head first and got, you know, involved. And then there’s other times. Another time we joined a church where we had come out of a hard time and my wife and I were both going through some difficult hurt and trying to deal with that and it was, you know, we didn’t do anything for at least a year. You know we didn’t. It was probably even longer than that and the Lord really used that time to bring healing to us because we were not ready. You know, if we had gone and gotten to serve, we could have done it, because we’ve done it in the past, like, but it wouldn’t have been the best for us and it wouldn’t have been for the best for the people we would have been serving. 

 

It would have been more of a I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to make this happen out of my own strength than allowing God to bring the healing and us then to be able to serve out of overflow. Yeah, and so we’re super thankful for that time. We didn’t even we had probably had no clue that that was what needed to happen when we joined, but the Lord allowed that to work out and we saw some things where, like okay it was. It ended up being a really healthy thing that we waited. 

 

0:44:00 – Barnabas

Yeah. 

 

0:44:01 – Adam

Both for us as a couple and as well as both for us as a couple and as well, as you know, for the church, Because I think trying to minister out of still dealing with hurts and pains that we hadn’t addressed could have actually ended up damaging some other people. 

 

0:44:15 – Barnabas

Yeah, or you would have. Just when you try to join a church and you’re serving on empty, either emotionally empty because you’ve been hurt, or energy empty because you have poured yourself out in service or whatever it is. I mean it’s like running a car with no oil. At some point you just kind of seize up like everything grinds down. You might not end up hurting people, but you do end up just giving up and stalling out. And a quick word to any pastors or ministry leaders who are listening I know the instinct because I feel it when I say, when we say, like, be patient with people, give them as much space as they need, there is the instinct of yeah, but somebody is going to take advantage of that. Like there’s going to be somebody who, like they don’t need rest, they need to serve Absolutely. Yeah, there are certainly that happening. But that is true, if you do or do not give patience, you are always going to have the sluggish people who are marked by inertia. They don’t need rest, they need to get their butts in gear. Welcome to church. Like that’s just what we do, and rest in which people grow into and are healed into serving and giving of themselves with joy than it is to create a context of everybody must be doing X so that you push the slugs, because what you’re going to end up doing is not gaining much ground with the sluggish people, because they needed a little livening up by the Holy Spirit and what you are going to do is grind the weary people to dust. So let’s swing the pendulum of emphasis toward a context of patience, grace and healing. Yeah, admonish the idol. A person who needs healing and an idol person are not the same and we need a lot of discernment to know which is which. So, end of rant at pastors, two pastors, exhortation for pastors. 

 

Well, that was a lot about switching churches, joining churches. I really hope it has been encouraging to people, helpful, clarifying. But it is that time that we come to in each episode for the curious question of the week, which is when we pose a question that allows our minds to wander, to think back, to think forward, to think far and wide about whatever this random question is. And, Adam, the question of the week is given that early on in this podcast, early on in the season, you mentioned that you were an enjoyer of music. So I’m going to think back to younger Adam. I almost gave away the question, younger Adam, and the question is what was the first album you ever purchased? 

 

And then sub question what do you, what are you enjoying listening to today? So first album you ever purchased, if you can remember. 

 

0:46:53 – Adam

That goes way back. I think the first album I ever purchased was probably. It might’ve been Sweet Fellowship or something like that, but it was by a group called Acapella, not rockapella. That was the. That was the Where in the world is Carmen San Diego.

 

This was just Acapella, but it was like, uh, it was a quartet group, but it wasn’t like barbershop quartet, it was more like street corner quartet and so they did all this cool vocalization and stuff that I loved. I mean, it’s kind of I don’t. Pentatonics isn’t the same sound, cause they have a group of five and there’s a lady in there, but it’s that same and they have instrumentation which is cheating. They do at times have instrumentation. 

 

0:47:31 – Barnabas

There was no beat boxing, also they do terrible covers of great songs. Oh wait, I’m getting into curmudgeon moments. 

 

0:47:38 – Adam

Sorry, sorry, I’m hearing it. 

 

0:47:39 – Barnabas

It’s coming out. 

 

0:47:40 – Adam

I’m crossing segments over so but yeah, it was that the vocal blending like really tight vocals and stuff like that that I’d never really heard before. 

 

0:47:50 – Barnabas

And I really loved it as a kid. All right, so we’ll come back to the second half of the question in a minute. The first album that I remember buying not positive, but I think it was the CD Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Greatest Hits, which is an interesting album for like a 12-year-old to buy. But I have been an old soul for a long time, with thus thus being well-versed in curmudgeonliness at my young age of 40. Uh yeah, so that’s the first one I remember buying, although I couldn’t swear that it was the first, cause it might’ve also been a third day album. Um, there was a stretch in middle school, high school, where, um, I mean, I grew up in the church Christian. 

 

I’d say it was kind of pinnacle years of contemporary Christian music like second half of the nineties, early two thousands Um and and Third Day, the album with the bus on the front you know the old broken down bus was a phenomenal album because it was sort of the Christian version of like well, it was kind of like Pearl Jam and all of that meets, meets, Creedence, Clearwater Revival. So I liked Southern rock and there was a little bit of that grunge sound in there. I saw third day in concert a whole bunch of times but that’s getting off topic. But yeah, I think it was CCR’s greatest hits. All right. 

 

0:49:03 – Adam

Second half the question. The second question half is what do you enjoy listening to today? Now, you’re from Nashville, I am, so does that mean you’re? Do you love country music? I mean because doesn’t everybody in Nashville love country music. Do you ever wear boots on? Let me see, no, no boots I own. 

 

0:49:20 – Barnabas

I own a variety of boots none of which are cowboy boots. Okay, they’re all work boots or hiking boots. 

 

0:49:25 – Adam

No, Viking, Viking boots. 

 

0:49:26 – Barnabas

Did I say Viking hiking boots? Oh, I thought you said Viking. I was like what? No, I don’t know what Vikings wore on their footwear. No, I mean, I do like country music, but mostly not country music that is being produced today. Yeah, the stuff that I enjoy that’s being produced today, that leans countries which you might call more like Americana. 

 

So the Jason Isbells of the world, Tyler Childers, some of those. It leans more Americana, southern rock. A lot of what’s called country today feels very modern pop to me, which I know. Music genres go through iterations, but boy, the current iteration of country I don’t like at all. But this is not the curmudgeon moment. I do love so. Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakam, a lot of the 80s, 90s country I enjoy, even going back older Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, a lot of that stuff. Know for vinyls at our house, yeah, and one of my daughter’s friends, her family, went to an estate sale and got a whole bin of records. Apparently they don’t like country, so I got a whole bunch of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, which was great. 

 

But my go-to music these days and always, ever since I was like 12, 13, is, uh, is jazz I love jazz, like old, older, 1940s, 50s, 60s jazz, so like Oscar Peterson granted, he was like 60s and later but a lot of jazz piano, uh, Stan Getz, Bob Evans and so forth. So that’s my, that’s kind of my go-to because it’s just I enjoy listening to it, but it’s also just great music for the environment of whatever space you’re in. So writing, thinking, reading, speaking, calming the mood down, yeah, that’s not distracting, yeah, and I love the intricacy of it, I love the, you know it’s. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but that’s one that jazz is such a unique blend of delicate musical skill with improvisation, with kind of old school blues and rock kind of blend. 

 

0:51:31 – Adam

So yeah, there’s a lot going on I do love the improv ability of jazz players, like when they can. You know they can all sit there and riff on something you’re like how did that come out? And it’s it’s just the like. It relies on their innate musical training and ability, which is a really cool part of it and a profound understanding of music theory. 

 

0:51:50 – Barnabas

Yeah, Cause what they’re like, what sounds like boy, they’re just making that up off the top of their head is actually all really really structured and they’re they know what to listen for that an untrained ear like mine doesn’t. So it sounds extra super amazing to me. And reality, it’s super amazing for a very different reason. Yeah, but yeah, we’re gonna get super nerdy on music if we’re not careful what are you? Listening to today. What do you enjoy? 

 

0:52:12 – Adam

Uh, if I’m like driving down the road I mean other than the sleep, you know I’m probably gonna put like hopefully I’m not actually falling asleep, trying not to fall asleep. Let’s go there, uh I’m probably gonna put on some oldies, you know like okay, so I discovered that oldies doesn’t mean what it used to. 

 

0:52:29 – Barnabas

Okay, what do you mean by oldies? 

 

0:52:30 – Adam

Like, uh, Beach Boys, Beatles. 

 

0:52:33 – Barnabas

That era some of the earlier stuff too, that’s what I grew up on calling oldies, but I turned on like an oldie station the other day and they were playing like like 80s rock and I’m like this must. Well, then I realized this is exactly what my parents felt like when I turned on 80s, and it was music from their high school days or whatever, and I’m like oh, this stinks. 

 

0:52:53 – Adam

I just like the flair of the music from back then. It’s fun. It’s like for the most part lighthearted, very sing-alongable. Yeah, like it’s, it’s just fun music, more serious stuff, like if I’m just sitting around the house and I’m trying to concentrate or I just want to have my mind drawn to things that are going to be more peaceful, I guess might be a way to put it. I do like folk, americana flair. There’s a Christian artist, Andrew Peterson. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. 

 

0:53:23 – Barnabas

I have. Yeah, he’s a Nashville guy. Yeah, he’s a Nashville guy, Andrew. 

 

0:53:24 – Adam

Peterson. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. I have, yeah.

 

0:53:26 – Barnabas

He’s a Nashville guy. Yeah, he’s a Nashville guy. He’s in kind of the circle that Emmanuel is in. He’s friends of a lot of friends. 

 

0:53:30 – Adam

And so he’s visited our church. 

 

0:53:31 – Barnabas

So a little behind the scenes. On Andrew Peterson his music is not my cup of tea. He as a person is an absolutely wonderful man Like. He’s humble, he’s generous, he’s so gracious, so easy to talk to. Does not big time people, despite being very well known and and have being very influential? So I just like to, when you can sort of toot somebody else’s horn for their character, especially if they’re famous, because a lot of famous people behind the scenes are not so pleasant he’s wonderful. 

 

0:54:00 – Adam

So, yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, I just I love the, the ballad style of a lot of his music where it’s a story. You know he’s telling a story. He’s a brilliant writer and the depth of his lyrics are like the first time I listened to it. I’m like I’m not always like I don’t always get it the first time, you know, and I go back and listen through it. 

 

0:54:17 – Barnabas

I’m like, wow, there are some really great deep thoughts here and I just I yeah he’s when I say his music is not my cup of tea, it’s just, that’s purely an auditory thing. I’m just, I’m just picky, what hits my ear, but his writing is spectacular. He’s phenomenal. 

 

0:54:37 – Adam

I love all sorts of different music, but that’s probably a couple of the ones I go to, yeah. 

 

0:54:42 – Barnabas

All right. Well, that brings us to our final segment of the podcast, our curmudgeon moment. Oh, this is a good one, too, when we relish the opportunity to be grumpy old men and be mad about stuff, but not anything that’s like really contentious as much as just ah, that’s the worst. So today’s thing that is the worst is the thing that you brought up to me yesterday, which is this whole idea of artificial intelligence and our phones listening, and you gave you gave an example. That was disconcerting. 

 

0:55:11 – Adam

This was one of the weirdest like. I mean, I know AI is a thing and I know things are listening and I I kind of laugh sometimes when people are like, well, I’m not going to put an Alexa device in my home, it’s always listening. And I’m like do you have a cell phone, because you had this happen to you yesterday as well on your cell phone Yep, and so I was driving and I had my Apple CarPlay hooked up. So I’m not, you know, looking at my phone and being a distracted driver and I get a message from my daughter and in the message she had sent a photo and some text with it. Well, I didn’t know that. 

 

All I did is, you know, hit listen to message or whatever on Apple CarPlay and it says Maddie sent a image of a blue coffee mug and asked is this ours? Now, nowhere in the text did Maddie write blue coffee mug, like there was nothing even referring to a mug in the text. It was just a photo that she took at our church’s lost and found, of a coffee mug that she thought was ours, and so she sent a picture of it. And yes, it’s blue. So I was like I know, like our phones read, you know can read stuff audibly and all that, but like describing a picture that I hadn’t seen, that it somehow knew what was in the photo by the metadata inside the photo, that kind of creeps me out, man. 

 

0:56:32 – Barnabas

I mean, on the one hand, you’re like, well, yeah, it’s just photo recognition, like that you shouldn’t be able to do that, but it is disconcerting when the lady robot voice is like hey, here’s what your daughter just sent you. You’re like ah, this is uncomfortable. 

 

0:56:46 – Adam

Shortly after that I got a text from a coworker and it said you know, so-and-so has sent you a screenshot of a website and I’m like I mean, I guess that I don’t know. It just feels like it’s a little too personal at that point that it’s describing what’s in my pictures when it starts making recommendations. 

 

0:57:05 – Barnabas

Or or you know, Maddie has sent you a text with a photo of a blue coffee mug and asked is it yours? 

 

0:57:09 – Adam

the answer is no, it’s not yours, you’re like oh, now they’re really up in our business, really for your travel, wouldn’t we? 

 

0:57:15 – Barnabas

oh, my word co-worker has sent you a screenshot of a website you don’t want to visit it. You know it starts making judgment calls. No, the the experience that I had is one that many of us have had, where we were talking and I mentioned a sports team that I liked, and then I open up Instagram, I don’t know. 15 minutes later I’m scrolling through and the first ad is for a hoodie of that sports team and the thing is, this isn’t like. I am a Timberwolves fan. I’m a Vikings fan. I’m a Twins fan. This was an obscure other team that no longer exists. This is a team from the history that I have an interest in, has so wild, and it pulled that in. So this wasn’t like in my browsing history right like I follow all of the current. 

 

You know Vikings, Twins, etc. So of course they’re gonna get, I’m gonna get ads for this stuff all the time. This was those are the Brooklyn Dodgers. They don’t exist anymore. This is ancient history, so so you know it had to be listening. I’m like I mean, or you believe in wild coincidences, right, but yeah, so the the thing about this is it only works on their terms, the, the listening thing. So, for example, the advertising thing like I can’t go to my wife’s phone and start like whispering Blackstone grill, you know, wood pellet smoker Wouldn’t that be nice and have her get all the advertisements for stuff that I want? It just doesn’t work that way because it’s only going to work on the terms of what, like they’re smart enough to be like no, no, she’s not going to buy any of that stuff. So I’m just going to advertise to her what she’s going to buy. 

 

0:58:40 – Adam

Right, algorithms are not working in your favor.

 

0:58:50 – Barnabas

Maybe maybe my phone sitting a foot away from me is going to start advertising Blackstone grills to me. No, I wouldn’t be mad about that, but all right, listeners. Well, this has been the fifth episode of the curious curmudgeon podcast. We hope it has been encouraging and thought-provoking and entertaining, but hopefully more encouraging and thought-provoking, especially thinking about church. I’m much more interested in in building up than I am giving you something to laugh about. Thanks so much for listening and tune in next week. Look out for blue coffee mugs.