For Context: Bible and Context Interlude

Episode # 08

🎙️ Episode Overview

Key Takeaways & Discussion Highlights

1. The “Monoethnic but Multicultural” Church

* The Toronto Context: Shu Ling describes his ministry context as a “mom-and-pop shop megachurch” serving roughly 4,000 attendees across three campuses.

* The Cultural Shift: Over the last two decades, the church has navigated a distinct shift from early Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking immigrants to a growing wave of mainland China Mandarin-speaking immigrants, all while the English-speaking ministry assumes a major leadership role.

* Beyond a Monolith: The episode highlights the insufficiency of the umbrella term “Asian-Canadian,” emphasizing that vast cultural, linguistic, and generational differences exist even within a single immigrant church body.

2. Deconstruction and Missional Megachurches

* Peeling Back the Strategy: Heavily influenced by theologian David Fitch, Shu Ling discusses breaking out of standard evangelical strategic “bubbles” (such as following secular corporate growth models or the next “ministry guru”) to look for where God is already moving in local spaces.

* Leading from the Margins: Rather than abandoning the megachurch after his doctoral work, Shu Ling chose to stay, acting as a subtle influence to help decentralize structures and make space for marginalized voices within the church framework.

3. Multi-Site Ministry vs. The “Cookie-Cutter” Approach

* Instead of forcing multi-site campuses into an exact replica or video-venue clone of the “mothership,” Shu Ling advocates for maintaining core DNA while heavily contextualizing the ministry, ecclesiology, and leadership to match the specific neighborhood’s needs.

Shu’s Current Reading List

Looking for your next great read? Here are the books and authors highlighted in this week’s wind-down question:

The Gods of More by Andrew Root: Evaluating the modern church’s entrapment in endless growth cycles and the desire for “more.”Culture Matters by Jenny Catron: Navigating organizational values and team clarity in a changing cultural landscape.

For Context is sponsored by Northern Seminary. To learn more about the Contextual Theology program (or any of the number MA, M.Div, and D.Min offerings), visit seminary.edu.

📚 Resources

* Gino Curcuruto: Following Jesus Into the Ordinary

* Luke Stehr: Faith In Situ

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New Doctorate in Contextual Theology Cohort Starting in June 2027!

If you are interested in studying at Northern Seminary and learning from the likes of Drs. David Fitch, Jonathan Tran, Cindy Westfall, and many more, reach out to Gino: [email protected] for more information.

Transcript

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I’m Gino Curcuruto I’m Luke Stare And you’re listening to For Context A podcast

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about Northern Seminary’s doctorate of ministry in contextual theology.

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Hey everybody on this episode of For Context we have Shu Ling Lee who was in the

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program a few years ago but he is pastoring up at a church in the Toronto area and

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we have a great conversation about his context the dynamics of Chinese church in

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Canada and his work and ministry there Welcome back to For Context I’m Gino and

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Luke is here Hey

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All right.

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I always get Luke to do that every time,

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just telling people that he’s here and then they make him make some kind of

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guttural noise.

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It’s excellent.

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Fitch says we don’t have a radio presence and we’re just proving that week after week.

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We really are.

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But maybe today will be better.

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We are excited to have our guest,

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my friend,

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a pastor in and a graduate of this program,

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Shu Ling Lee is here with us.

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Xu, thanks for being on For Context for taking some time to be with us.

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Thanks for having me, guys.

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Glad to be here.

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Yeah, we’re excited to have you.

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I can see your hat.

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Our listeners won’t be able to,

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but I’m guessing based on your hat,

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you’re from the Toronto area.

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Yes, sir.

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Toronto Blue Jays hat on.

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So Shu,

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tell us a little bit about your context,

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your church,

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your ministry,

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you,

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where you are,

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what you’re doing.

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Oh, man.

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Yeah.

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All right, so I am from the greater Toronto area.

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I live in a suburb called Markham,

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and I work in another suburb adjacent called Richmond Hill,

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and the church that I currently serve in is Richmond Hill Christian Community

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Church,

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and it’s actually where a lot of my doctoral work focused on in terms of the

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specific location and area.

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Our area is...

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I like to joke around at times I call it like new Hong Kong or like now it’s

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becoming I guess new China a little bit a lot of more mainland China immigrants are

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coming in but yeah this area well let’s just say Canada in general Canada

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is a place where there’s trying to be multicultural,

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trying to be a place where people can practice their religion and culture in their

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own pockets of area very freely.

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So in our area, it’s very much...

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Chinese predominantly.

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Of course, it’s a mix of a lot of different ethnicities as well.

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But overall,

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there’s just a lot of Chinese people walking around this area or driving around

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this area.

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We don’t walk, I guess, in Texas too, Luke.

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I know it’s hard to walk around.

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Yeah, we are a commuter, a commuter culture.

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And that was actually part of some of my work as well that I had to look into.

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And

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Yeah, overall it’s been interesting.

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I’ve been at this church now, we call it RH3C, for...

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Over 20 years and I played many different roles and actually through this program

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at Northern through the demon program I actually helped to like we used to plant a

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lot of churches and then we have switched now to multi-site campus planting try not

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to do it in a typical way where it’s only cookie cutter but trying to see what that

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kind of contextual feel will look like a bit more but

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Of course there’s many different people at the table but God kind of nudged me in I

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guess now it’s been a year and a half through a bunch of different people at our

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church to consider taking on the executive pastor position

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And it’s not something I think I originally wanted to do.

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But the more that me and my wife prayed about it, we thought, okay, this is the season for this.

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And I’ve always seen kind of launching multi-site ministry as just kind of a

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stepping stone towards church planting and seeing where that comes about.

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And

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If I could help using whatever meager gifts that I have to help organize our church

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better and do that,

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organize our teams and build some values,

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maybe I could influence our church in a certain direction.

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And I guess I should also mention our church is about 4,000 people.

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So I like to affectionately call it a mom and pop shop megachurch.

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Yeah.

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Is that across the three campuses that...

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Yeah, basically, overall, it’s about 4,000 on a Sunday attendance, at least.

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And we,

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yeah,

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we,

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a lot of Asian churches have a bad rep.

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You know,

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it’s not just Asian churches,

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but in particular,

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tends to split,

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so it never grows that big.

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So our church,

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somehow,

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by God’s grace,

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I think,

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just did not split and has gotten to a certain size and with all of its

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ramifications.

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Well,

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one of the things you talked about that I think is interesting,

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I’ve spent a very small amount of time in the Toronto area,

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but talking to church leaders there,

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especially in the Asian church,

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what has it been like as your church’s area has moved from being like a little Hong

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Kong to more,

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you know,

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with a Cantonese kind of more linguistic framework to a more mainland China,

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Mandarin,

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I’m guessing,

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framework and culture?

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It has definitely been an interesting shift because,

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if I’ll say it this way,

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the Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking immigrants,

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when they came over,

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the English ministries that had to develop,

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because the main language is English in the area,

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that English-speaking group congregation that’s within this Chinese

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It’s kind of like the babysitting service, right?

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You’re just kind of babysitting for these adults, these immigrants who came over.

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And then this English group starts growing and it’s like, oh, wait, we should be involved too.

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And what does it mean for us to be part of this church?

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But because Chinese culture is quite patriarchal in general there is this kind of

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okay just listen to dad or listen to grandpa you know because this is what you got

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to do so in the end that’s why I would say there’s some of these church splits that

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happen or these people that just leave the church there’s a silent exodus in

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Chinese immigrant culture

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And they just leave without saying anything because they don’t want to cause any

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stink because you should be good to the family,

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collectivist kind of mentality.

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But what ends up happening in our context if the English now,

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we’re finally starting to see some churches where the English is becoming the

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leaders of the church.

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There’s more of a majority coming on that.

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And even in our context, even while I’m in this position, by all means, I’m 43 now.

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And I think in,

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I don’t know,

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other churches,

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Western churches,

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43 is not that young,

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but I could still be seen as a young’un,

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right,

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for the longest time.

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So, but our lead pastor currently for our whole church is English-speaking.

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And actually,

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it’s funny,

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both of us,

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his name is Ho Ming,

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my name is Shu Ling,

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and yet the rest of our staff have English names,

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but we have Chinese names,

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go figure.

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But with that,

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just to kind of get to your question With the Cantonese speaking immigrants who

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first started this church And then the English now kind of leading Now you have

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this other group as well So we have three languages in our church Cantonese,

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English,

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Mandarin We even see our youth and children as another group demographic But with

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now English taking the lead of a few things Even though the Cantonese is still the

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biggest group

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We have this emerging Mandarin group That is a different culture Like Mandarin

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speaking And from China Is very different than even the Hong Kong British colonized

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group Cantonese speaking group So we’re in this weird situation Where it’s like

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These guys are immigrating in Trying to be part of a Chinese Almost Cantonese

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speaking group They’re trying to join that But it’s like they have their own

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Mandarin speaking group But if English is leading the charge

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we look culturally very different than they do so I like to say in our Chinese

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church context we are pretty multicultural even amongst in our group and we’re like

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a lot of the lessons we learn we just are able to kind of navigate when we engage

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non-Chinese as well like we’re like and

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What’s been cool recently,

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too,

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has been our next biggest group in our area are Persian-Iranians.

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And there’s a Persian-Iranian fellowship group now that feel more comfortable in a

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Chinese church than in a quote-unquote multicultural church.

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Or if I were just to say, well, sometimes I...

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Well, it depends.

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I don’t know.

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Caucasian man leading that multicultural group, it’s going to be in that direction.

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But some of them feel more comfortable in a more immigrant-based church.

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So that’s been the navigation of it all,

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trying to learn what it means to be multicultural,

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intercultural in that way.

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One of my friends pastors Montreal Chinese Baptist Church and the way he describes

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his church is that it’s monoethnic but multicultural which I think is a you know

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I’m coming from a very different context and so I think for most people who aren’t

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familiar with Asian church and Chinese churches I think it’s easy to think oh it’s

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all the same but really there’s such cultural differences between these groups so

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I’ve dominated the question so I’m going to turn it back to you

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I was just thinking that you just give a really good personal storytelling example

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of how insufficient the term Asian is.

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that like there there isn’t it isn’t a race and there there isn’t like an Asian

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Canadian is not one context not monolithic much less an Asian American or anything

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so thank you just for that insight I’m curious about a lot of things I mean I don’t

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want to move away from what you just shared that’s really really helpful but I’m

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wondering about your like your project when did you when did when were you in the

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program you were you were a little while back right

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yeah i think i would man you’re making me have to remember this no you don’t have

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to give us the dates or anything but i think it was like 2017 i started or

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something that 2017 yeah graduated it was called contextual theology then luke and

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i are learning no it was it was missional leadership like so i’ll tell you guys the

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only reason why i went down this program was because

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Fitch came to this kind of theology pub,

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which is already kind of,

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ooh,

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you know,

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a theology pub,

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you know,

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downtown.

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Edgy.

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And then, yeah, so edgy in our area, right?

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But then we went to hear him.

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He was debating another, you know, kind of reformed dude.

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I can’t remember his name.

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And then when I... Yeah, of course.

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Yeah.

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And then he was...

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A lot of the things that he was saying were very thought-provoking.

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My brother at the time was,

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I think,

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part of the emerging church movement,

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kind of reading a lot of their material.

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And he’s like, hey, you should check out some of David Fitch.

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And I was reading some of it.

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I was like, oh, this is very provocative stuff.

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And I want to kind of read more into it.

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And at the time, I believe like our...

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Our English-speaking side had a very lack of missional fervor, missional identity.

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And what we were doing was just,

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oh yeah,

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we do these revival meetings to get people saved,

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just like our Cantonese parents and stuff we’re doing.

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So what does that look like for us?

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And we don’t do revival meetings anymore.

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What does that look like?

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And yeah, so at that time, it’s listening to Fitch.

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It’s like, oh, this is interesting.

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Okay, let’s check out this program.

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Let’s see what it’s about.

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And

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Then,

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oh man,

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my brain just got blasted to oblivion,

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you know,

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listening to Fitch and being,

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yeah,

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challenged in a lot of ways I don’t think I ever was in any context I’ve been in.

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Wow.

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Wow.

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Do you remember a particular class seminar that was impactful for you?

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I mean,

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if you’re getting blasted all over the place,

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was there a point where it was kind of like maybe coming together for you?

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Well, yeah.

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I don’t know,

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maybe for you guys,

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for the listeners,

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like you might be coming to some other place.

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I grew up in this kind of evangelical bubble where you just did church in a particular way.

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And of course, in our Chinese church side, and I talk about this in some of...

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my thesis,

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but we were super impacted by Billy Graham,

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by whatever’s the popular Christian reading culture at the time.

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So a lot of our influence came from whatever was free,

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John Piper,

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Desiring God,

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Gospel Coalition,

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Mark Driscoll.

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A lot of these things were impacting us at the time.

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So it’s coming into Fitch’s work where he was able to go

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Well,

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let’s peel back the layer here,

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not just because of reform theology or reform thinking,

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but if evangelicalism is doing church in this way,

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is this actually engaging,

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you know,

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are we actually following Christ?

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What are we doing?

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Are we just doing it by our own power, our own strategies?

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I’m in a large church.

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I’m already getting ripped apart.

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Actually, in my class, people kept making fun of me.

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It’s like, oh, that’s megachurch shoe.

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That’s my context.

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I’m like, yeah, I’m eating this stuff up.

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I’m trying to see, is it just because of our strategies following Rick Warren or Bill Hybels?

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We’re trying to follow the next guru.

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Is the next

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Fitch’s work really peeled back the layers to help see,

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well,

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are we actually following in what God is doing already?

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You know, what is God doing in our neighborhoods?

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Are we joining in what he’s already doing?

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And I think

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Part of that was a big realization, wait, why am I trying to control all these things?

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How are we being better at discerning God’s presence and what he’s already doing here?

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How can we join in?

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And that takes a lot of humility.

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And in a larger church strategic world,

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you’re just trying to go to the next thing or be more attractive or getting the

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next cool thing going.

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And that’s a lot of stuff where I...

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I really resonated with,

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I’m like,

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you know,

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I don’t think it’s about finding the next cool thing so that we can attract people

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to because if anything,

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what I realized is what you win people with is what they’re going to start trying

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to win other people with.

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And does that look more faithful to following Christ in everyday life?

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Does that look like being the church that we’re supposed to be?

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And that was at least one of the first formative things that Fitch started breaking

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open in my mind.

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Well, one follow-up before maybe I let Luke back into the conversation.

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No, Luke is listening intently, everyone.

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Was there a crisis moment for you in this?

(00:15:45.087):

Because you’re still in a megachurch, and I think that’s a really important and good thing.

(00:15:52.570):

I’m not coming into this as a critic.

(00:15:55.071):

You didn’t leave.

(00:15:56.211):

This didn’t deconstruct you in such a way where you’re like,

(00:15:59.232):

no,

(00:15:59.412):

we’re going to just go start a group around a table and call that my job.

(00:16:05.436):

Yeah, here it is.

(00:16:08.759):

No, that’s a very good question.

(00:16:10.801):

No, I am still deconstructing.

(00:16:12.582):

Okay.

(00:16:13.503):

I just,

(00:16:14.904):

I think personally,

(00:16:17.287):

I’ve just felt God hasn’t given me the,

(00:16:20.430):

hey,

(00:16:20.630):

it’s time to move on or whatnot.

(00:16:23.853):

There has been something still happening

(00:16:26.437):

For Context for Context for Context

(00:16:41.158):

What does it look like to engage our discipleship more seriously than just going to

(00:16:49.620):

some kind of class or going through only this one-on-one class or whatever kind of

(00:16:56.082):

thing?

(00:16:56.262):

But what does it look like to truly love people in our neighborhood and to hear

(00:16:59.843):

what God is doing?

(00:17:00.723):

And there is an openness to it.

(00:17:03.713):

Now I’m going to throw Fitch under the bus Fitch was like You know what Shu?

(00:17:11.618):

You know Shu?

(00:17:14.539):

I’m trying to do his Stanley Haroist Shu,

(00:17:19.382):

now that you’re in this position Use their money,

(00:17:22.344):

man Use their resources And test things out I was like,

(00:17:27.727):

yeah man I don’t have a

(00:17:33.463):

This is kind of where God has placed me and there is some people that I’m still

(00:17:38.072):

living life with around the table.

(00:17:40.337):

And part of even launching some of this multi-site ministry has been

(00:17:44.323):

Well,

(00:17:44.544):

it’s been part of my efforts in terms of how I got to influence how some of that

(00:17:49.288):

looked like.

(00:17:50.349):

I’ve used some of Fitch’s ways of thinking through the three tables.

(00:17:55.113):

Thinking through how to engage not just on a Sunday,

(00:17:58.395):

but at our tables in our lives and at the world’s table.

(00:18:01.618):

What does that look like?

(00:18:03.600):

And it’s given...

(00:18:05.581):

I think an expanded way to follow Jesus in the neighborhood for our people.

(00:18:12.805):

And there has been some reciprocal things at our church that have given me enough

(00:18:16.607):

to go,

(00:18:16.967):

okay,

(00:18:18.228):

God,

(00:18:18.608):

if you’re still putting me here,

(00:18:19.829):

then I’ll do this.

(00:18:21.110):

And to some degree,

(00:18:22.911):

which has been kind of really weird,

(00:18:24.211):

guys,

(00:18:24.872):

I am doing,

(00:18:26.353):

if I’m doing this executive pastor position,

(00:18:27.873):

I see myself times,

(00:18:28.834):

this is my bivocational ministry right now.

(00:18:31.569):

I’m kind of doing the executive pastor thing 9 to 5 and then evenings and the

(00:18:37.352):

weekends I’m kind of helping with my campus site and I’m trying to expand what that

(00:18:42.735):

looks like for them and that’s kind of my bivocational ministry right now in the

(00:18:48.237):

neighborhood

(00:18:50.297):

I think of a lot of times the people that feel like they have this like great idea

(00:18:56.201):

for starting a new church around the table.

(00:18:59.023):

They’re going to be pure and do it like the right way, quote unquote, and they have no people.

(00:19:05.390):

And then there’s,

(00:19:06.110):

but they might be the,

(00:19:07.111):

and I might be in that group,

(00:19:08.472):

you know,

(00:19:08.732):

I might be from that group and casting stones at the larger churches that they’re

(00:19:13.154):

doing it wrong.

(00:19:13.474):

You’ve never done that, Gino.

(00:19:14.635):

What are you talking about?

(00:19:16.376):

I haven’t.

(00:19:17.657):

Not today, at least.

(00:19:18.757):

And I think that the thing that I love about this,

(00:19:22.239):

there’s so many things that I love about what you’re saying,

(00:19:23.880):

but it’s like,

(00:19:24.580):

there are people and God loves those people too,

(00:19:28.202):

in those large churches.

(00:19:30.163):

And your expression of like, not

(00:19:33.885):

releasing your not leaving just because you got a new idea,

(00:19:37.228):

but loving them because you’re called to be there.

(00:19:40.030):

It’s just so beautiful.

(00:19:41.250):

I think I need to be the one to just make sure that I say that so people don’t

(00:19:44.433):

think like Luke does about me.

(00:19:49.076):

No, I appreciate that.

(00:19:50.478):

I think there’s, like, there’s so much to critique in what we’re influenced by.

(00:19:55.385):

Heck, I’m reading right now, or audiobook right now, The Gods of More by Andrew Root.

(00:20:02.235):

And there’s certain...

(00:20:04.058):

So, you know, it’s written to us, right?

(00:20:07.259):

It’s written to the people in the larger churches.

(00:20:09.639):

And it’s like,

(00:20:10.140):

you’re going through this growth cycle and trying to thinking,

(00:20:13.180):

oh,

(00:20:13.400):

are we doing this because God wants it?

(00:20:15.041):

Or because we’re just trapped in the cycle of wanting more,

(00:20:18.142):

being more creative and thinking these things will be,

(00:20:20.162):

you know,

(00:20:21.182):

solving the issue of,

(00:20:22.463):

you know,

(00:20:23.603):

of following,

(00:20:24.623):

oh,

(00:20:24.843):

these people don’t know Christ yet or they don’t know.

(00:20:26.544):

So we’ll do more creative things and just get more.

(00:20:29.084):

And the cycle just continues to be perpetuated.

(00:20:31.825):

But what does it look like to be sacrificially following Christ in the neighborhood?

(00:20:36.227):

At the table,

(00:20:36.827):

like you were saying,

(00:20:37.928):

it could be,

(00:20:38.848):

and I’ve talked to some of my peers who are not in a large church and who are

(00:20:42.830):

trying some of these things,

(00:20:44.190):

it could look fruitless.

(00:20:46.852):

It could be like you’re banging your head against the wall,

(00:20:49.533):

but at times I’m like,

(00:20:51.153):

but that could be faithful,

(00:20:52.114):

just being patiently with that group.

(00:20:55.035):

But then at the same time,

(00:20:56.236):

I’m also like,

(00:20:56.856):

I see the other side where I’m trying to be patient with this large sucker

(00:21:03.398):

How do I walk with these people and they may not be in the smaller setting but

(00:21:09.740):

they’re in a larger setting they’re influenced by the world influenced by tradition

(00:21:15.102):

of where our church and this kind of sometimes over glamorized way of seeing what

(00:21:20.303):

church is and I’m trying to say hey let’s go beyond this and try to see what has

(00:21:26.225):

God called us to do and how do we actually be faithful in the midst of that and

(00:21:31.865):

I think both processes are hard.

(00:21:33.607):

Yes, absolutely.

(00:21:34.367):

To be honest.

(00:21:36.029):

Well, Shu, you are speaking my language as a fellow.

(00:21:40.493):

I mean, technically my church is a megachurch, but it’s one third the size of yours.

(00:21:46.498):

So how do you make...

(00:21:49.938):

Studied as a contextual theologian,

(00:21:51.739):

even though technically it was missional leadership at the time.

(00:21:54.601):

I got both.

(00:21:55.941):

I got both in there.

(00:21:57.002):

Yeah, I got to be missional leadership contextual theologian.

(00:21:59.443):

You’re a missionally leading contextual theologian.

(00:22:04.286):

In this megachurch context,

(00:22:05.987):

which I think statistically is anything over 1,000 people is what’s defined as a

(00:22:09.769):

megachurch.

(00:22:10.270):

I could be wrong on those stats.

(00:22:12.311):

Yeah.

(00:22:13.127):

sounds like for Canada but for the US it’s more or something for the US I think

(00:22:17.317):

it’s a thousand for Canada I think that threshold lowers yeah

(00:22:21.356):

But how do you bridge this?

(00:22:23.337):

How do you bring in these conversations about contextual theology into the large

(00:22:28.281):

church context,

(00:22:29.922):

which generally is not a contextually oriented organism?

(00:22:36.387):

Because eventually your church hits a size where it just has a certain gravity that

(00:22:40.790):

it thinks it can ignore context.

(00:22:45.633):

So how do you, as a contextual theologian, missional leader, whatever you want to call yourself,

(00:22:51.403):

Start to kind of seed those ideas Live those things out In your context In your day

(00:22:56.449):

job So one thing That’s a great question by the way Luke I think I’m asking for

(00:23:03.537):

myself This is a very selfish question One thing I think

(00:23:08.923):

that are,

(00:23:10.044):

at least in the Chinese church,

(00:23:11.585):

Chinese immigrant church,

(00:23:12.566):

that has a kind of built-in contextual talk.

(00:23:16.289):

Like we are,

(00:23:17.070):

we cannot only,

(00:23:18.892):

you know,

(00:23:19.192):

in a megachurch,

(00:23:20.013):

usually it’s streamline the message and get alignment.

(00:23:24.096):

Everyone has to do this and it has to be,

(00:23:25.798):

you know,

(00:23:26.078):

almost cookie cutter or franchise,

(00:23:28.040):

franchise way,

(00:23:28.640):

all this kind of stuff.

(00:23:30.062):

In the Chinese church,

(00:23:31.144):

you are aching over and over and over to contextualize language,

(00:23:36.735):

framework,

(00:23:37.276):

direction to these different people groups

(00:23:40.856):

And I think it’s just we labor so hard to do that.

(00:23:43.117):

That’s already within what already we do.

(00:23:46.278):

In my thesis,

(00:23:47.758):

one of the things that I tried to bring to the attention,

(00:23:50.279):

well,

(00:23:50.759):

and this was from Chinese church to the universal church,

(00:23:56.461):

but the Chinese church,

(00:23:58.002):

what it has to offer,

(00:23:58.982):

I think,

(00:23:59.342):

to the world to some degree,

(00:24:02.023):

I quote my thesis supervisor,

(00:24:04.524):

Amos Yong,

(00:24:05.964):

He wrote a book called The Future of Evangelical Church and he looked at various

(00:24:10.488):

soundings from the Chinese diaspora in North America and he was talking about how

(00:24:17.274):

we need to think through what a minority report from those disenfranchised voices

(00:24:24.681):

can contribute to the bigger picture

(00:24:27.511):

And I think in the Chinese church,

(00:24:29.212):

we at times,

(00:24:30.052):

many times have this built-in framework where the English was speaking into the

(00:24:34.214):

Cantonese and now the Mandarin is speaking into the English,

(00:24:37.595):

all these kinds of things that are happening all at the same time.

(00:24:41.037):

We just,

(00:24:42.197):

for the sake of even just staying together,

(00:24:44.618):

have to be contextual to how do we listen to each other?

(00:24:48.240):

How do we create space to not just power over someone?

(00:24:52.802):

And

(00:24:53.828):

It’s been an interesting space now that the Western side of leadership is in

(00:24:57.492):

approach because sometimes Western leadership can try to flatten leadership,

(00:25:01.716):

at least try to,

(00:25:02.637):

hopefully not just CEO-style leadership,

(00:25:05.179):

but flatten leadership a bit.

(00:25:07.762):

But how do we talk to each other at the table?

(00:25:09.784):

How do we discern what the spirit is telling us together?

(00:25:13.347):

And I think...

(00:25:15.305):

At least in my context,

(00:25:16.826):

it’s been like a way that I think has been helpful is that minority report coming

(00:25:21.489):

from,

(00:25:21.729):

hey,

(00:25:22.790):

are we listening to some of the grumblings or complaints?

(00:25:26.171):

Are we listening to some of the people talking in this way?

(00:25:28.993):

And can we talk through it?

(00:25:30.314):

Can we still have space for that, provide space to have those conversations?

(00:25:34.076):

And even at our sheer size,

(00:25:36.765):

We still do.

(00:25:37.846):

We still have those conversations.

(00:25:40.147):

And it’s not systematic,

(00:25:42.389):

but it’s like in various places,

(00:25:44.790):

we’re still having these conversations.

(00:25:47.092):

And probably why I still stay here is because we do.

(00:25:50.614):

We still practice that kind of contextual process listening so that we can see,

(00:25:58.159):

hey,

(00:25:58.299):

what’s going on here?

(00:25:59.140):

But

(00:26:00.107):

Theologically is a different story, I’ll be honest.

(00:26:03.248):

Of course,

(00:26:03.988):

we skew to a certain direction theologically,

(00:26:06.808):

but the conversations,

(00:26:09.209):

for example,

(00:26:09.749):

even now having a campus site,

(00:26:12.449):

I can have conversations with people about what is church,

(00:26:16.350):

about what is this different kind of ecclesiology,

(00:26:19.050):

trying to bring in these different perspectives,

(00:26:21.291):

and there’s more space to talk about those things.

(00:26:23.971):

And I think just part of my job...

(00:26:29.191):

at the church,

(00:26:29.652):

what I’ve tried to do is to be a subtle influence to decentralize the church to

(00:26:34.856):

have those conversations.

(00:26:36.817):

And that’s part of the,

(00:26:37.858):

you know,

(00:26:38.138):

I think some people think multi-site campus,

(00:26:41.661):

you know,

(00:26:41.901):

planting is planting a church that just looks like the mothership or just plays a

(00:26:47.806):

video or whatnot.

(00:26:49.547):

And for me, I’m like more, no, we have the DNA of what we want to kind of to birth out.

(00:26:56.393):

But

(00:26:57.232):

We should be contextualizing what that looks like to engage that area and to have

(00:27:01.374):

conversations and build up new leaders,

(00:27:04.135):

build up people and have different conversations at the table.

(00:27:07.657):

I think that’s my hope for some of that.

(00:27:11.058):

So Shu,

(00:27:11.639):

because there’s this,

(00:27:12.619):

it sounds like there’s this built in because of the people that make up the church.

(00:27:18.262):

There’s this built in practice of listening to the quote unquote other,

(00:27:23.944):

you know,

(00:27:24.344):

and listening to the other voice.

(00:27:26.445):

What you were describing as a contextual understanding of leadership and all that.

(00:27:32.226):

Then I hear you say that even in the way that you’re doing the multi-site,

(00:27:36.267):

that there’s now this opportunity to leverage the same kind of listening to other

(00:27:44.549):

voices that you do relationally and probably keeps you guys from having a split

(00:27:49.030):

anyway.

(00:27:49.710):

You do that to talk about

(00:27:51.650):

Methodology, ecclesiology and structure.

(00:27:54.793):

What is the church?

(00:27:57.394):

Am I tracking with you on that?

(00:27:59.676):

Yeah.

(00:28:01.177):

It’s like the...

(00:28:03.164):

Sure, there’s formal sides to the table.

(00:28:07.847):

If I didn’t mention before, we follow in Rick Warren’s purpose-driven tenets.

(00:28:12.730):

That’s where some of our tradition comes out of.

(00:28:14.571):

Our church grew because it hit a baby boomer population that really gravitated

(00:28:19.314):

towards that,

(00:28:19.694):

translated that into Chinese,

(00:28:20.835):

and they ate it up.

(00:28:22.435):

They ate it up.

(00:28:23.036):

But then now this next generation is like,

(00:28:25.748):

This doesn’t relate to me at all.

(00:28:27.690):

What does it look like?

(00:28:28.711):

Who cares about this five purpose stuff?

(00:28:32.314):

Whatever.

(00:28:33.315):

But what does it truly mean to follow Christ in where we’re placed, where we’re at?

(00:28:39.922):

Us, like part of, you know, my job as a leader was getting them to ask that question.

(00:28:44.886):

What does that look like?

(00:28:45.826):

How do you do that together?

(00:28:47.107):

How are you going to pray and discern about that being led by the Spirit together?

(00:28:51.270):

And it’s been,

(00:28:53.291):

like,

(00:28:53.672):

to even have space to talk about that versus,

(00:28:57.294):

oh,

(00:28:57.394):

wait,

(00:28:57.835):

our megachurch has a slogan and this is what you do and we’re all about this,

(00:29:01.918):

so make sure,

(00:29:02.518):

just repeat that and,

(00:29:04.139):

you know,

(00:29:04.579):

go with it.

(00:29:05.080):

I’m like,

(00:29:06.442):

I’m glad our church hasn’t got to that point,

(00:29:09.365):

though,

(00:29:09.905):

of course,

(00:29:10.245):

we do have our own way to communicate what our church is about.

(00:29:14.228):

But there has been openness to talk through those things in various levels.

(00:29:19.433):

And that’s kind of why I appreciate still being in the space of it.

(00:29:22.835):

That’s great.

(00:29:23.656):

Luke, do you have any follow up?

(00:29:24.697):

Did he answer the question for the way that you did?

(00:29:27.339):

Yes.

(00:29:28):

Yes.

(00:29:29.263):

Well done.

(00:29:30.425):

You know, I think, you know, you talked about you’re reading Andrew Root’s book.

(00:29:35.331):

What else is on your reading list right now?

(00:29:36.792):

This is kind of always a fun wind down question.

(00:29:39.776):

Gino and I always come away, I think, with a new thing to read.

(00:29:43.801):

Yes.

(00:29:45.718):

Oh man,

(00:29:46.539):

so okay,

(00:29:47.619):

then here’s the anti-contextual theology stuff that I can tell you what I’m

(00:29:51.621):

reading,

(00:29:51.862):

but as I’m trying to help our church be on the same page to some degree,

(00:29:58.626):

it’s to kind of revisit our values as a church,

(00:30:02.027):

and a lot of times,

(00:30:04.349):

and I have a staff of like 70,

(00:30:06.690):

80,

(00:30:07.531):

and I guess I’m like the XO a bit at the church,

(00:30:10.753):

I have to kind of

(00:30:13.206):

How do you get the troops together to move forward?

(00:30:17.709):

And thinking about that is just how do we...

(00:30:19.831):

So we’ve had to re-clarify our values.

(00:30:22.954):

So our founding pastor, by the way, he retired seven years ago.

(00:30:28.118):

And we’ve only now have kind of gotten to a point where we can start taking steps.

(00:30:34.403):

Because the founding pastors...

(00:30:37.113):

Kind of leadership was so strong and he’s been involved in other ways And actually

(00:30:41.576):

our staff has almost completely turned over from the old guard to the new So we’re

(00:30:46.960):

in a place,

(00:30:47.641):

again,

(00:30:47.901):

this is probably why I’m here too That we’re able to influence and kind of go in a

(00:30:53.185):

certain direction and create culture What does that look like to kind of revisit

(00:30:57.568):

your vision and values at the church?

(00:31:01.990):

What does it look like to do that?

(00:31:04.193):

So some of the books that I’m looking at,

(00:31:06.337):

there’s a book called Culture Matters by a lady named Jenny Catron that she’s

(00:31:12.446):

written.

(00:31:12.746):

She was like an executive in the CCM days.

(00:31:17.012):

For Context

(00:31:32.894):

That’s a book that’s been on my docket right now.

(00:31:41.018):

But if you want to go on the contextual theology route, let me share with you one thing.

(00:31:45.560):

And I don’t know, Luke, you went through the demon program, right?

(00:31:48.982):

We’re both current students.

(00:31:50.203):

Oh, you’re both current students.

(00:31:51.523):

Okay.

(00:31:52.624):

And after Fitch’s program, after the demon program, I did not read a book for a few years.

(00:31:59.748):

Okay.

(00:32:02.717):

I did not read a book for a few years and it’s only like now I’m back into a full

(00:32:09.483):

swing where I’m like okay now it’s time to kind of read and think through certain

(00:32:13.626):

things like again but

(00:32:17.025):

I’ve used a lot of my materials that I was influenced by,

(00:32:22.329):

like the cultural analysis piece by Andrew Root,

(00:32:25.831):

any of his kind of whatever in the congregation,

(00:32:29.213):

the secular age in the congregation,

(00:32:31.715):

in the pastor,

(00:32:32.375):

that has been fantastic.

(00:32:33.996):

material,

(00:32:35.737):

reading some of Nije Gupta’s material recently in terms of his work on the Apostle

(00:32:42.900):

Paul.

(00:32:43.881):

A lot of my influence for my thesis came from Scott McKnight,

(00:32:48.282):

and a lot of his material was helpful for me to re-understand.

(00:32:51.804):

I didn’t even talk about the gospel.

(00:32:52.985):

That was a lot of stuff that I was critiquing in my church context, by the way.

(00:32:56.366):

But yeah, a lot of Scott’s books helped on that end.

(00:33:00.168):

But

(00:33:01.509):

I think recently where,

(00:33:03.390):

and I think I heard from some of your other,

(00:33:04.970):

I was listening to some of your other podcast interviews,

(00:33:09.011):

AI I think is coming in big right now and trying to wrestle with what that means

(00:33:15.173):

for us in a world where people are like,

(00:33:17.633):

when I’m preaching,

(00:33:18.474):

I’m even telling people

(00:33:20.165):

Are we being disembodied because we’re not even, you know, engaging each other anymore?

(00:33:25.691):

That maybe, you know, the loudest voice has become AI.

(00:33:30.455):

It’s not become, like, because it’s just easier, more convenient.

(00:33:34.024):

How do I talk to the other person across the table?

(00:33:36.746):

How do I talk to this person in my neighborhood or in my small group?

(00:33:39.848):

What does that look like?

(00:33:40.889):

And is God speaking on that end?

(00:33:43.051):

And this kind of challenge of AI,

(00:33:45.352):

I think some of you might have saw the Pope Leo recently writing about that.

(00:33:51.617):

That’s a very interesting space for us to be in.

(00:33:53.618):

Will we become a culture that’s formed by

(00:33:56.839):

That’s great.

(00:33:57.359):

Love it.

(00:34:16.212):

Yeah,

(00:34:16.512):

well,

(00:34:18.312):

I do have another whole episode with you in mind now because I want to talk about

(00:34:22.933):

AI.

(00:34:24.034):

I want to get it.

(00:34:24.534):

Let’s have an AI panel.

(00:34:25.814):

Let’s do that.

(00:34:26.814):

Let’s get it.

(00:34:27.274):

It’s you and John Manson.

(00:34:29.035):

Yeah.

(00:34:29.395):

Oh, man.

(00:34:30.495):

John was the biggest, biggest crap disturber in our class, and it was awesome.

(00:34:37.177):

He poked at Fitch all the time.

(00:34:38.537):

I loved it.

(00:34:39.557):

Yeah, I miss that.

(00:34:40.737):

You can’t imagine him doing that.

(00:34:42.538):

You can’t see it, right?

(00:34:43.618):

Yeah.

(00:34:45.097):

Now that’s yeah but we definitely need to get you back on talk more about your

(00:34:48.783):

thesis we only referenced it a little bit but we’re at the end of our time so we’ll

(00:34:53.169):

do it another time but thank you so much for being on with us really appreciated

(00:34:57.435):

your time and your insights really

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