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Coronavirus and the Church

EPISODE 055: Tuesday, April 21st, 2020

Chris is a co-founding pastor of Kaleo Phoenix a church centered around the idea of “Table Gathering” - before meeting in sanctuaries, church buildings, or cathedrals, followers of Jesus met in homes around tables, practicing the ways of Jesus by eating and drinking together. In this episode,  we talk about how he structures Kaleo Phoenix, COVID-19’s effect on the Church, and The Unique Leadership Style of The Trinity.

TIME STAMPS

1:00 - How did you get into full-time ministry?

4:02 - The culture of Kaleo PHX Church.

14:50 - The Value of Conversation

19:25 - The leadership model of The Trinity

31:01 - Coronavirus and the Church

ABOUT CHRIS TOWNLEY

Chris and his wife Kate moved to PHX five years ago as Kate began medical school. He previously served as the Teaching Pastor of Journey Church (Bozeman, MT) in the town where he was born and raised.

Chris graduated with a BA degree in Elementary Education from Rocky Mountain College, but was lured into student ministry and coaching high school basketball shortly after graduation. He went on to complete his Masters in Ministry Leadership from Portland Seminary and is currently working toward a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Chris and Kete have been married since 2007, and Kate is currently a resident physician in Emergency Medicine at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix.
In his role as a pastor, he loves engaging with Scripture via story, crafting contemplative sermons, and all the books! In his free time you can find him playing basketball (draining 3's), hiking with his wife and dog, or drinking coffee somewhere only a bike ride away.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM CHRIS

LISTEN TO THIS CONVERSATION IN CONTEXT BY CHECKING OUT THE PODCAST.

How did you get into full-time Ministry?

I always had a desire to teach or a desire to influence. When I went to college I did I did go to college to play basketball. I wanted to have a positive impact on lives. I was a part of a couple different Ministry opportunities within our College Community and then I worked with high school and middle school students.

Something starting stirring in me at that time that maybe this would be something I would want to give my life to. After I graduated college I got married and my wife and I moved back to the hometown just trying to figure out what we're going to do with our lives in Ministry. I got involved and connected with some people in the community there and and I had an opportunity to work with middle school and high school students to preach. I had never preached before and something started to come alive in me in the context of preaching over time.

Then one thing led to another and I was kind of presented with this opportunity that confirmed maybe what was happening in my spirit and the things that God was inviting me into. So said yes to being a youth pastor without having any idea what I was saying.

Talk about the culture of Kaleo Phoenix and how you and Chase became co-pastors.

So when I was working with students food was always a big part of that. Not like your typical youth group food cliche thing. It was more like how can we get around the table and experience something meaningful and connective with one another. It has always kind of been in me, I guess to figure out how to eat together as a community. That started way back when I was in Montana doing ministry. stop the Phoenix doing some Ministry stuff in transitions have it and I met Chase my co-pastor in the midst of all of this a mutual friend put us on one another.

Because the things I was always talking about, apparently Chase was always talking about the same things to his friend, so he hooked us up with one another and we just kind of got to know each other. Even as friends this common theme of eating together (maybe even table theology) kept coming up. What does it mean to be at the table with one another? What is it mean to eat the elements? Jesus didn't say take and sit, He said take and eat. So how do we come fully together and eat those things as a community? I think we see that modeled in the in the Book of Acts in the early Church. Jesus leaves us with a meal as of the end of that and a lot of things happened when you start to eat around the table and you identify Jesus as the Host of that table.

Jesus is present in the elements still - in the bread and the wine that are representative of all of that, but also Jesus's is present as that the community gathers in that place, too.

How is that practically implemented in a service?

Kaleo has crafted our gatherings around this concept of essentially the climax of what we do together is we eat. We have our own liturgical elements -- every every church has some sense of a liturgy (the things they follow and why they do what they do). So we intentionally conclude our Gatherings with a meal. So even with language, we don't have a meal afterwards. We have a meal as a part of our gathering. It just is right outside in a different location

We shape our Gatherings around to a couple different things. One is just the following the rhythms of Jesus and the way that we try to implement that is as we watch Jesus humbly seek the presence of God to be formed as the family of God, to join in the mission of God. So those elements are are tied into all of that. I think you see all three of those in the table: you can take the presence of God, you can be formed as the family of God there, and it can be a missional experience as well.

Then our Gatherings are geared around practicing the ways of Jesus together. So what does it actually look like to practice those rhythms? I think both Chase and I have had experiences in the past where we where we would watch ourselves say to people that we were pastoring, you should do these things and be about these things and then we realized maybe they didn't always know what that even looked like.

They didn't have a practice or a habit or a or a rhythm to live into that. So we try to incorporate those things into the way we gather as well. So there's a participatory element to what's happening when you when you come to a Kaleo Gathering. All of these things that happen during a church service where you where you pray, you hug a friend, you hear a word, then you're convicted by the spirit, you sing and praise and come alive with joy -- and all of those things that we're all experiencing individually, but together, in the more traditional Gathering since we bring all of that to the table together.

We want all of that sings to the table. So maybe you're in a period of lament and and there's opportunity to cry out to the Lord. so one who's who's full of joy and one is full of lament now, they meet each other at the table. One who is experiencing homelessness and one who just got a promotion, they meet each other at the table. One who is suffering on the ends of racism and one who's never acknowledge their privilege, they're at the table.

It's murky, it's messy, it's all of those things but it's shaped towards this beautiful participation together.

Six months ago before gathering publicly, but we spent a year before we launched eating in homes together. That was the groundwork for the root system that would then influence how we actually practice that in public.

Can you describe the unique leadership model displayed in the Trinity that you're writing about in your dissertation?

I'm still I'm gathering all the information but my doctorate program has an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit as it pertains to just leadership in general. I set out in this doctoral program three years ago with this idea in mind but it is kind of in response to things I keep experiencing myself.

In the world of church, I see a lot of solo leadership that ends in some form of hurt for people involved and so I just found myself often dreaming of another way of how do we lead and maintain health for ourselves as church leaders, but that it also trickles down through the body as well.

Then I just started to see how that's modeled in the relationship of the Trinity. I have to figure out how to say that but I'm taking my cues from the way the Trinity interacts while being careful not to say it's simply a model for leadership. I'm trying to take my cues from what we see present in the the godhead Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I'm working on unpacking and all of that but we've got Father, Son and Spirit moving together as one. The word given to that is parakeratosis and it means dancing together moving together in unison. The invitation that the trinitarian God gives us is always the invitation to be one with the Father. So we see three moving together as one.

What does that look like in leadership? We see that most played out in Philippians 2 where Jesus emptied himself of his divinity. So we have that picture that each member of the Trinity is continuously emptying themselves out for the other while simultaneously being filled by the other.

So how do we lead then in a way in which we are continuously empty ourselves and being filled? If you're sharing leadership, you're essentially building in on purpose places to practice the humility necessary to empty yourself out but you're also practicing the humility necessary to receive from someone else and I think those two things are really important to just balance and in church leadership. So there's this movement together like Chase I at this point in time, sharing leadership, and we're trying to move as one.

We're trying to build in a certain Paradigm that almost the forces us to stay true to that.

People tend to want to lead something by themselves because you get the final say, you can go a little faster, etc. In shared leadership, you can't actually be in a hurry because you need to make sure you're in movement as one together and I think that's a model of the way Jesus lives his life. Jesus is never in a hurry. So how do we model our leadership after that? Jesus walked in step with the Spirit of God informed by a sign of the Father. So there's this whole dynamic at play that essentially slows us down. And it also then means that are our vision, our picture, the way we Implement and practice is being refined by other voices.

A decision can't already be made and then other voices are invited in (which is sometimes a challenge that we find). Which again, isn't all bad. I think it bears saying that within the Trinity you have diversity within Unity. The distinct persons -- Father, Son and Spirit have unique roles but there's oneness there.

How do you think Coronavirus is affecting the Church at large?

Let's say this up front. No one has previous experience on how to lead a church during a pandemic. I don't believe that God sends coronavirus to teach you something. I think that the coronavirus can teach you something though. I personally am seeing this is a unique opportunity to to retrain ourselves do to grow Our Roots down in the God's love why Paul says in in Ephesians 3, hear from God, refresh ourselves and then bring that to the community. My hope is that we would have wakened each person's individual capacity to hear from God.

I hope that people are drawn to let their roots grow deep into God's love and to hearing God's voice afresh. Then perhaps, in this time, the American Church or the western church breaks down the model that we've actually kind of swung back towards where it's almost like Moses has to go up on the mountain and hear from the Lord and he comes down and he tells the people what God said.