Patrick Scriven (English) - Listening First: How the Church Should Speak Today

0:28 Welcome, welcome, welcome, friends, to our new and, yeah, in the new year, first episode with me as your host at our Holy Club. Welcome, every Methodist, not Methodist, or wannabe Methodist. We are happy to have you here. And I have a special guest today from Washington State. That is Patrick Scriven. I hope I pronounced the last name correctly.

0:53 You got it. You got it. Awesome. Good to have you here. How are you today, Patrick? Doing okay. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. People don't know you, and that's why we have some questions to figure out who is this Patrick. I really appreciate him a lot. He doesn't probably know about this, but what I read and what he does in our conference is cool.

1:16 But before I get in some trouble with my co-hosts, I have to ask our most important question, because German Methodists love hymns and they want to hear what is the favorite hymn of all kinds of people in this world. So Patrick, what is your favorite hymn from our United Methodist hymnal? Well, German Methodists may hate this answer or they might like it.

1:42 Okay, now we're curious. Now we got us. We don't sing this very often in the Methodist church, but whenever I hear a mighty fortress is our God, I love it. Because I grew up Lutheran. And that was like almost a, it probably wasn't weekly, but it was a monthly staple probably in the church I grew up in.

2:02 And so there's something about that childlike, or that stuff you encounter as a child that just kind of sticks with you. Now, I don't think I was really up on the lyrics as much, but so I looked at those after getting your question. I was like, oh, you know, theologically I'm not quite there, but I still love the song.

2:23 So are you saying that the melody is great? Yes, let's go with that. Let's go with that. I don't know. I'm not a music snob, so, you know. Just for our German listeners or Swiss and Austrian listeners, the German title is Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott von Martin Luther. I never liked this song, to be honest. It's funny, but you've probably tried it.

2:48 There's probably two camps, Lager in German, that would say, I love this song, when others are like, this one. Because I think the way I grew up, and I went to Lutheran church first too, it was always very slow. It was... And I was like, I'm going to die if you have to sing more than two verses. But yeah. Yeah, no, no. I've encountered it both ways.

3:19 And you're making me think of my wife served a church once where the pianist was very gifted but played really slow. And it's like, what's going on? And eventually they had a conversation and he started playing faster. Because I think he just thought that's how people liked it. Maybe that was the pace.

3:46 And so it's been much better. It was much better after that. So you can take any song and make it into a dirge. And is that interesting? I feel like it is with a lot of songs and hymns that... Wenn die Leute sagen, ich liebe es, ich will immer fragen, warum? Was ist der Grund? Ist es der Text? Ist es der Melody? Ist es vielleicht sogar der Pace? Und depending auf wie du gelernt über das Song, es könnte der Grund, warum du nicht mag es.

4:13 Es ist nur die Weise der Organist oder der Musiker played es. Now, mein wife suggested a different hymn. Oh, okay. Und das ist Nummer 622 in den United Methodist Hymnal. There is a fountain filled with blood. I don't know about this. Let's put this on for Sunday. 622, there is a fountain filled with blood. Yes, it's a lovely one.

4:42 And it made me, as we were talking about it, made me think of... New Testament studies and the early Christian church, how people outside the church didn't understand the sacrament of Holy Communion, and so they made accusations about Christians as being cannibals. And this song would not have helped that case very much at all. Very true, very true.

5:08 Wow. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Es ist schön. Ja, sehr, sehr. Es ist in der Categorie für Holy Communion. Ja, vielleicht ist es Influenced by a Catholic. Ich weiß nicht. Es ist ein bisschen interessant. Okay, ich habe eine Note, weil die Melodie sind, es sind so, also vielleicht wird das auf die Sonne, wir sehen.

5:38 Also, vielleicht ist es, vielleicht ist es ein Tinktion zu der nächsten Limit. Du bist nicht in die Blüte, du bist in die Blüte, du bist in die Blüte. Ja. Okay. I'm glad you chose the Luther one. Now I feel better about this one. But yeah, you said you grew up Lutheran. Can you tell us a little bit about the story? How did you become a United Methodist?

6:01 Yeah, well, when I kind of talk about that, the short version is I think I'm well covered for the afterlife. I was born to a... My father was Catholic. My mother grew up Lutheran. So I was baptized Catholic, and they got divorced when I was young, and it was a long time ago, it's okay. I was more like, wow, Catholic, that's an interesting journey, yeah, okay.

6:29 Yeah, so then most of my upbringing was in the Lutheran Church. Missouri Synod at first, and then ELCA. And there's a little difference there. Can you say something to that? Because that is something Europeans don't really know about. Because for us, there is the Reformed Lutheran Church. Oh, and I just delivered my first acronym, too. Yeah. So here, Missouri Synod is probably one of the more traditional conservative branches of Lutheranism.

6:57 It's probably the largest one that I would term conservative. And then the ELCA is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and it is the closest theologically or socially probably to United Methodism, and I believe we've got some relationships back and forth between the denominations, so clergy can move back and forth between them, or at least serve in each other's churches without major issues.

7:25 Wir do, even hier in Chene, we do a campus ministry together with the ECLA they always say the liberal Lutherans and the more conservative Lutherans as a distinction But as Protestants do, we like to break up and so there's the church so how I got out of the Missouri Synod was my mother was a strong woman who wasn't a big fan of being told what to do.

7:58 And there was a time where our church, the church I was attending at the time, had a discussion about whether women could serve in any capacity beyond basically Sunday school classrooms in the kitchen. And ultimately the church decided to just, they basically decided like, well, we don't really have a choice here, this is how our denomination works.

8:21 And the conversation ended my mother was not happy with that so we went somewhere else but what I found most interesting is when I heard years later that, Just the fact that they had the conversation split part of the church off to join an even more conservative synod where they'd never have to have that conversation, which was the Wisconsin Synod.

8:44 So a smaller one, but this is what happens. Sometimes when we disagree, we split. Yes, I mean, we have experienced that too as United Methodists, right? Yeah, yes, we have. Und just the word Synod real quick, because that's something I had to learn in German, it's called Synode. If someone's listening and like, I don't know this English vocabulary, Synode, yeah, that helps.

9:10 Yeah, so then Lutheran and then my mom was continuing to seek, so they kept going to different churches. They eventually became Pentecostal, and that's kind of where their journey ended. I tried that. I really just couldn't make it work. I live in my head way too much for that so but I you know it was an interesting thing to see and experience first hand and yeah so then I was you know really devout Methodist years probably should close but I was re-baptized at that stage my journey in a river of all places and you know got dunked, and that was in the Pentecostal church Yes, that was in a pathosal church.

10:00 And then, you know, that was right in that just post-high school college phase, trying to figure out the world. May I ask, Patrick, because right now, I don't know if you follow this, but I see on Instagram or social media in general, a lot of young revival, what they call it. That there are so many students singing for hours and getting baptized at high schools and blah, blah, blah. Um...

10:29 Would you say this is a new phenomenon right now? Or were you sort of in a similar experience at that time? A lot of your friends in high school just, this is cool, let's get baptized. Yeah, I don't know if at either stage, whether today or then, I would say it was the cool thing everybody was doing.

10:49 But there has always been that kind of activity happening. I grew up in Wisconsin, which is kind of in the center part of the United States. And it tends to be a bit more conservative than the coasts of the country. So this wasn't really out of the norm, but it wasn't, I would say it's always been a 20-30% of the population kind of thing.

11:15 Like I had, most of my friends growing up went to church, but it's just because their parents went to church. And so people really kind of digging in deeper. I just really quick comment on the, Today, I haven't seen any statistics that bear that out. I've heard a lot of smoke coming from some folks, some of whom may benefit from being able to say, oh, look, we're driving out young men in particular.

11:44 There's been an interest. We're getting all these young men into the church. But the serious companies that do that research haven't seen anything to suggest there's a trend. So I think until you start seeing numbers in Pew, even Barna had a report that kind of threw some, sprinkled some water on that.

12:07 And Barna's very conservative-leaning polling. Is it specifically for Christian polling? I mean, they operate out of the evangelical church. So I wouldn't trust them for poling, beyond the Christian Church. And I also, sometimes I question their polling within because they have some, definitions that are based in their beliefs that don't always align with mainline Christianity. Yeah.

12:46 I just, I'm. Das ist so funny, wie ich es changed. Weil da war ein Zeit, probably, wenn sie sah, dass die Leute in der Publik gehen zu coffee shops hier. Ich weiß nicht, ob die Seattle-Ariere. Aber hier, wo ich bin, in Chino, Spokane, da ist kein coffee shop wo ich kann, wo es nicht ein paar Leute sitzen da mit ihren Bibles, und reden und reden.

13:11 Und da war ein Zeit, wo ich war, oh, das ist cool. Das ist toll. Und jetzt bin ich annoyed. Und jetzt bin ich bei mir. Because I don't know it's sad in a way because I feel like maybe they are genuine and maybe they are really just you know, love their God and their faith and just want to talk about it over a coffee but I feel I don't know seem so performative so much lately and it's probably because of all the politics involved as well but then I see the videos of people worshipping for hours oh the high school generation will be, there's a new revival and I'm like if you look into the history revivals were not about worshipping revivals were about like serving the poor changing the community to the better and then the pews filled up as well but,

14:01 I'm just like what are you even talking about Jesus never said go and worship me for hours that's not a command but they act like this is the thing yeah it's just many thoughts Und, especially in the Prophets, there's a number of different places where it says the exact opposite. Like, don't worship me when you're not doing the things I'm asking you to do. Stop.

14:25 Your music hurts my ears. Yes, I love that. Which gets us back to those songs. Yeah. So you got baptized in the Pentecostal context or re-baptized about high school age. So, how did you then end up in the Methodist Church? Yeah, yeah, so... I married a planner, which is a really good thing. You married a planner? A planner, because my wife, she's type A.

14:56 She likes to know what's happening. She stresses out when we go on vacation before, because she needs to have a good sense of what's happening. And if there's things she can't control, that's the worst thing. So I operate the opposite almost. So I don't plan out things. I just kind of follow along. So I ended up in college, and I was still exploring his questions.

15:22 I was more on the evangelical, conservative side of things, and... Wirklich, wirklich, just searching ist wahrscheinlich die beste Worte zu beschreiben. Und die Girlfriend I hatte an der Zeit war, so I had taken a lot of religion courses und enjoyed not just Christianity, but learning about Buddhism, and that was a particular interest.

15:50 And started to make that intellectual journey ahead of the rest of it. And so I figured out I wanted to study more of that. So I decided, I'm gonna go to seminary and learn more and figure this out. And the girlfriend I had at the time was babysitting for a professor for a seminary. And I was like, well, that's just a God thing. So that's where I'm gonna go. So that's where I went.

16:15 Ended up in Boston at Ann Ever Newton Theological School, which was the oldest theological school in the country. Oh, whoa. Affiliated with the American Baptists and the United Church of Christ, which are both mainline, again, equivalent to the ELCA and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the United Methodist Church, kind of in their social stances.

16:43 So that was progressive for me, and that was very different. Was that challenging? Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah, because I come in with this sense of truth. I know these things, right? And everything is questioned, right? Oh my gosh. And probably maybe the second large, I think the largest number, so the school is supported by the Baptists and the United Church of Christ, but its student body is diverse.

17:14 But the second largest group was Unitarian Universalists. Oh, wow, okay. Which they're even further to the left. So yeah, it was an eye-opening experience. But, Und ich denke, das ist wie man lernen. Wir lernen, wenn wir in den Kopf haben, oder wir erleben, wenn wir Ideen und Gedanken sind, die sind anders als ours.

17:44 Aber das war der Zeit, ich war einfach so, ich war einfach so. Es war ein viel. So du hast die ganze drei Jahre von Maths? Ich habe die ganze drei Jahre, ja. Ich habe ein M.A. in New Testament Research. Ich habe viele der Basic-Courses du für ein M.D.V., But discerned somewhere along the way, I didn't want to be a pastor.

18:03 So I kind of followed more what my interests were, which was really interested in New Testament stuff. I still hold that interest today. I'm in some random Reddit groups and Facebook groups, occasionally like manuscripts. Oh, they found a new manuscript. What are we going to learn? That's cool. I just talked yesterday at the church.

18:25 I do a series right now, starting with Lent, giving up bad theology for Lent. And one is about the biblical inerrancy. And so yesterday I did a talk about how did the Bible even come to what we have today? And people heard for the first time that there were manuscripts showing up even in the 1900s. And it changed how we see some things, right?

18:48 And so that's cool. Yeah, I love that. That's very nerdy, but cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, just like the first time I saw a picture of a manuscript where, you know, there was debate over a particular word and you see like how somebody scratched that word into the side of like into the extra space.

19:08 And you're like, oh, that wasn't there originally. Like, at least in that manuscript, it wasn't there. And that one's older than the one we're using for this translation. And oh, my gosh, how do we know anything's real? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it really pops a hole in inerrancy, which is something I probably did.

19:25 I don't know if I had the concept in my head, but I certainly brought some of that thinking with me into seminary. So that was mostly gone by the time I left. I met my first gay people. Well, there obviously were gay people. In fact, I had a friend who was gay who came out a few years later growing up. But it wasn't something people talked about in the Midwest of the US, of the United States.

19:55 And certainly a lot of stigma, shame, all that kind of stuff. So that was an experience as well, just getting to know people. And honestly, growing up in Wisconsin, the majority of people there are white. Und so Diversity, all of that kind of at the same time Diversity of ideas, diversity of cultures, perspectives Yeah, again, great stuff So, shot out of there, not wanting to be in the church at all, Were you attending a church though at that time at the seminary?

20:30 Yeah During seminary. I got married and even before, we would kind of just pop around to different churches. One of them was United Methodist Church. And that was fine. It was probably my first real impression of United Methodism and I didn't come away scared. It just felt okay. I wasn't impressed. I wasn't scared. It was different, but it was comfortable.

21:01 Und ich habe das von anderen Leuten über die Jahre, und ich bin nicht sicher, dass das immer eine gute Sache ist. Aber es ist nicht schlecht, zu fühlen, auch manchmal. Ja, so das war die erste Methodist-Geräusche. Aber in Seminärer, part of my approach war also, ich war in der urbanen Area, und da waren alle diese verschiedenen Religiös-Expressions.

21:26 So I tried out a lot of different things those years, but I attended to be in church because I'd grown up that way. So I probably had a few Sundays where I didn't go, but most of the time I was somewhere, but I didn't have a real church home. Und Ihr wifte an der Zeit war also nicht affiliated mit einer bestimmten Kirche?

21:49 Ja, so sie war wirklich Catholic, all die durch, um, you know, until sie nach Hause für college. Und dann sie eigentlich kind of hat eine andere journey. Sie kind of went und got involved mit einem sehr, sehr conservative group on campus with some mild cult type behavior. So that was kind of her journey. So she was feeling out her own spiritual journey as well.

22:23 So she wasn't opposed to church. But we haven't talked about this in years. I don't know So I don't know if I can surface exactly how she felt about the different places we went. But I ended up finishing seminary, and she really wanted to move somewhere else. And she had spent a summer in the Northwest, somewhere in Oregon, and loved it, thought it was beautiful out here.

22:55 So we decided we're going to move to Portland, just there for about five years. But the first few months were interesting because we again landed without really, we had an apartment and we decided we're going to get jobs. And I got in like a job, maybe a month in at like a pizza place, you know, just something to, you know, and both sets of our parents, you know, had talked to us in one way or another about, oh, well, you know, things don't work out.

23:29 You can come live with us if you have to. Kind of that terrible conversation. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. But we got pretty close. And... But I was still looking for work, and Caro was looking for work. And I applied for, I had not been looking to work in a church. But I saw this job opening at Vancouver First for a youth director.

23:56 And I was like, eh, why not? Like First United Methodist? Yep. Yeah, okay. And I was like, why not? You know, I've got some experience to bring, and, you know, this could be interesting. And so I applied and didn't think a lot about it. Applied for other things, too. Then I got a call back and I did an interview.

24:19 I was like, oh, okay. I did the interview and they shook hands. I left and didn't know how it went. My wife and I went to go see a movie that afternoon. Hollow Man, which I don't recall all that much of because I had a panic attack during the movie. Is that the one with Kevin Bacon? Yeah, I think so. Like he's invisible or something, right? That's the one with Kevin Bacon. It's like the invisible band remake.

24:47 But I have a panic attack during the movie. I have no idea why. Because again, I don't plan my life out. And so I don't always analyze everything that's going on. So my body tells me like, oh, too far. But all I can figure out is like, I actually wanted that job. And I didn't even know I wanted that job. My body knew I wanted that job.

25:09 Somewhere in my head it knew, but I hadn't caught up yet. And so I got a call back, and I was super nervous about that, and went in, and it was actually like, no, no, no, Pastor just wanted to meet you. We were already, did nobody tell you? It really got that vibe. Like, yeah, you know. So I started working there, and that was my first time I became a Methodist, was probably A year after starting that job, I joined the church.

25:38 Did you go through a membership class or did that pastor just let that slide? I think I did do a membership class, but I wouldn't put any money on it. But I hope if they did let me slide that there was some awareness already that I was a good fit. in the sense of my commitment. But I was there for about five years.

26:10 And during that time, I really became attached to the church, and grew in knowledge of the bigger church because I really didn't have a concept of denominational structures and general conferences. And you're lucky you. Yeah. At that time. Yeah. But it was still like, I went one year as a young adult representative to annual conference, which was its own interesting experience.

26:45 And, you know, back then I was young. And so, of course, you know, the bishop sat at the table I was sitting at and we had a meal together and I had no idea who this person was. And people were like, that's the bishop. And I'm like, okay, cool. Anyways, he was a nice snowman. What brings you here? You like the question of the bishop.

27:08 Yeah. So while we're there, though, both Cara and I started to flirt with different, ministry possibilities and, Kara, growing up, and I tell her to her this way, that I'm glad she didn't follow her call earlier, but she felt her call first when she was a young person in the Catholic Church, and the options, really, to her there were minimal.

27:32 And if she was a nun, my family would be a nun as well. So glad that she didn't pursue that. But this church that we're now a part of, where they have an associate pastor who is a woman, starts to open the door for her. And she starts to realize that. And then the church gave her opportunities, let her lead some Sunday school classes, and then supported her as she started her own journey to seminary.

28:06 And I was encouraged in a similar fashion to explore ordered ministry of some type. And so I think I was about three or four years in, and I had met with the DS and was encouraged by one or two, I'm trying to remember when the DS switch happened, but encouraged to pursue the Elder's Orders because I was a young man.

28:36 Und they'd heard nice things about me and that's all great and at that time I was working in youth ministry but I was also starting to pick up some of these communication related things like I was the young person who knew how to create a website. And the church had an email and a domain and these things that I'd kind of May I ask which year was that?

29:01 Like 2003-ish? Okay I mean it's hard to I remember that it was hard to find people who could do that at that time. It was really... Ja, und ich denke, was das war dann, und wie weit die Technologien kam. Es ist toll. Aber ich habe immer einen Interesse in Art. Ich habe immer noch nie gemacht, aber es war eine der Dinge, ich habe in der Schule auch gespielt.

29:34 So, starting to sense that kind of calling, and the church had invested in and put in a screen, which was all the rage at the time. And we were doing some emergent worship stuff. And so, I was seeing communications kind of starting to be something I wanted to do longer term. But I read our books and it looked like that was what deacons did so that's, kind of the path I started to pursue and then when I got to DCOM they were like no you should be an elder, and I'm like but I don't want to preach I like that pastoring stuff sick people.

30:23 There's people really good at that and that's not me but I think there was kind of like a reverse sexism going on if you know like because they couldn't see like a young, man oh okay as a d and and and i i and and there were several other people and i don't like you know want to make anybody feel bad and some of them are still alive but you know who would say things like well you know.

30:51 You don't really have, you know, like, you know, really pushing, like, this is the way you go. So I just kind of, you know, I was still kind of deacon tracking and, you know, I got as far as taking my, the really weird tests they make you take, psychological evaluations or whatever. There's some questions in there. You're like, am I supposed to answer this honestly?

31:15 Or am I supposed to give the religious answer that I think some people might give, but I don't really believe. You know, but apparently I did it right and I did test okay for everything. But, you know, I have to say for the there's a big difference in Germany when you want to become a pastor, you have to do a psychological evaluation, which is up to a doctor you talk to and they and they can just sign you off sort of. Yeah.

31:45 Und das ist genug. Und du hast es nicht pay für das, weil es ein Teil von deinem healthcare plan ist. Aber hier, die Leute wissen, most conferences haben specific psychological people, who you have to meet with, oder sie senden Sie etwas, und Sie haben zu fillen, wie ein Lot. Und dann wird es beurteilen. Und es kostet Geld, right, als auch.

32:07 Du hast du pay für das selbst. Ja, ich glaube so. Although es war 20-some Jahre alt, und ich weiß nicht, ob die Details ist. Aber es ist still so, ja. So, wir haben tatsächlich established, was du gerade für die Konferenz. So, wir haben zu erklären, wie wir da enden. Ja, so wir in, In Denver, my wife was finishing up seminary, and we knew we wanted to come back to the Northwest, and so we were kind of starting to look at positions.

32:43 And not being an elder, but wanting to work within the church, you know, there aren't a lot of great lay positions in local churches. Und dann war es vielleicht sogar noch schlimmer, in ein paar Worte. Denn diejenigen, die du find, die waren voll-time, eigentlich nicht mehr haben. Es ist ziemlich schwer zu finden, dass du dich responsablieren kannst, wenn du ein Kind mit einem Kind mit einem Kind mit einem Kind hatte.

33:13 So eine gute Fortune war. Bad circumstances, but good fortune, there was an opening in the conference office that several people reached out to me about, because they knew we were looking. And it was in youth ministry, because ministries with young people position in the conference office. And I was like, hey, I've done some of that.

33:38 And I was working for a church in the Denver area at the time, in a position supporting youth ministry as well. And had served when I was at Vancouver first on the Conference Council on Youth Ministries as one of the adults. So I was familiar with the portfolio and had met the person who had previously held it.

34:01 And so I applied. And I got the position and then ended up coming out, let's see, 2008, I believe was the year. And served in that role for. Six, seven years, somewhere around that time. And again, the communication stuff started to kind of come in and overlap. Then when we got to really, I mean, we were kind of discerning this already, but when COVID happened, it was just, there really wasn't a lot of youth ministry stuff going on.

34:33 And there was a lot of communication stuff that suddenly popped up as everybody was trying to figure out how do we keep church going when we're being told that we can't meet in person. And so, you know, now we got Zoom and online worship and live streaming and things that, you know, we were... Hoping a lot of churches would or a number of churches would do for years, but there just wasn't the thing to push that over.

35:07 The pandemic is not something I hope anybody would ever have to experience. It could have been much worse, of course, but it was not good, and there were people lost, and lives changed in negative ways that we're still reeling with. But there were some good things that came out of it, and I think churches kind of getting past some of the barriers of what they, you know, kind of the things we get stuck in around what we believe worship can only happen this particular way.

35:40 This may still be the best way or the way we prefer, but now we know it can happen in other spaces, and that's not a bad thing. Ja, und ich wirklich, wenn ich mit Schatten in die Leute haben, dass sie zu Hause oder in die hospital sind, eine meiner hat sich gerade an, hat sich ein Teil von seinem hat, aber er hat eine TV in his hospital room, und so er konnte uns online, an Sunday, und was part of es, und was sehr important to them, so ich feel like das ist something, das ist great, das kam aus und pushed uns in that direction, und es gibt Menschen die Chance, zu bekannten zu der Church.

36:19 Cool. So, was ist Ihr Job Description? Der Titel ist Kommunikation Director? Director of Communications. Director of Communications. Okay. So, was ist Ihr daily thing? Du, ich sehe, Ihre E-Mails. Du kommunizierst. Ich werde Leute wissen, was du, was du? Ich würde sagen, mein primary task ist listening.

36:42 Und das starts, I have a daily rhythm of, um, the daily rhythm is kind of like keeping track of, um, So why I say it's backwards is all my Google Alerts hit in the evening, so it catches all of the things that might be happening in the area. So whenever United Methodist something is mentioned in one of the major metros and I try to pick up a few little small independent papers as I can, whenever there's a story, I usually get an alert and I get a lot of false positives, mostly in the form of obituaries.

37:18 But I can also see when there's a connection, like this church is holding a bazaar, or they're hosting an MLK Remembrance Day, or they're involved in the Pride Parade, or whatever they might be doing. And just kind of keep an eye on that and to try to give a little extra attention to this to inspire other churches to be involved in the community.

37:41 So that's one thing, kind of a daily ritual. Another is just kind of trying to keep an eye on the social medias, which is difficult because the algorithms are not designed to help us in that, you know, so I get to see like 90% ads and random things and, and these, these, you know, churches, what the churches are up to and try to, again, you know, is there something here that, you know, we can either, you know, support or like or reshare or help to tell a story.

38:15 And then the other real crucial thing in the listening is just reading and responding to emails. It sometimes feels like a lost gift with some people, but I feel like that's a practice. I don't like firing off an email to someone and waiting for a week to get a response. So I try to be pretty responsive. I've tried to get better about not doing that on the weekends, and when I do it in the evenings to schedule it so it shows up in people's boxes in the morning so to try to keep those work life balance things going okay but um, Ja, so that's the start, is just trying to listen.

39:01 And the other places I do that is I try to keep a sense of what's going on in denomination, because part of my role is to help the different parts, levels of our church to stay in contact, right? So I can trickle things down that might be helpful for a local church from a general agency, for example.

39:23 Und dann, vice versa, try to help tell the stories of our local churches so they can be inspirational within the conference and sometimes beyond through the United Methodist Connection. So, that type of listening as well. So I sometimes have, especially as we get into run-ups to general conference, like way too much information about what people are thinking and talking about around the upcoming thing.

39:56 Then it's healthy for any person to have. So yeah, you know, just yeah. And it kind of leads to interesting conversations along the way. So that's one piece. Pretty much everything digital, I've got some hand in. There's a team of people helping, of course, but the websites, our social media platforms, our email platforms kind of work collaboratively with other staff to make sure records are up to date.

40:29 Thankfully, that's the primary task of our folks in the District Service Center, but... Trying to make sure we're keeping everything moving. Yeah, so writing, photography, videography. I haven't done a lot of podcasts, but I support that as well. Yeah, that's all kind of just part of the communications thing today.

40:57 And trying to stay on top of things like AI. Und dann mit diese, von an Ethical Stand because I I'm a lot there's a lot of gifted communicators in our connection, and but not not a lot of them some of them some of them are elders but a lot of them are also just folks who their degrees were in communications, and so they don't have always the same depth in the church and in theological thinking.

41:34 So that's one thing I try to bring in sometimes. And other times it's not helpful. Yeah. It doesn't matter. You need a... This is a circuit board. It doesn't care what theology you're bringing to it, right? But some of those conversations around artificial intelligence and social media today I think are huge things that the church should be wrestling with.

42:02 Pros and cons in each case and they're not easy things to think about or to have a clear like this is exactly what Jesus would do. It's way so far off from that time so it's hard to just say this is the right answer. Right, right. So, So I see you once in a while send out, like, with the conference newsletter, some thoughts or updates.

42:35 And with all that's going on right in the U.S., and I know that the European listeners are pretty interested in this, how do you navigate what's going on? I mean, do you feel sometimes the urge to, I just want to write something and people should know this, this is crazy? And how neutral do you have to be because you're writing in the name of the conference but you put your name under it so it's a bit of a, yeah it's a great question it's one I wrestle with a lot, and I feel like I feel like leaders have a lot of trust in me I've been around a while and I've been very supported and David Valera you mentioned before our director of connectional ministries, A lot of trust in me gives me a pretty long leash and I try to respect that

43:30 and not do any damage as he does. There certainly have been things that have happened even within the last couple months that have had me wanting to rage tweet something, but this might be age um, at this point, but I don't ever really think about neutrality. Okay. Because I don't think anybody is served by neutrality.

44:07 So I try not to hide what I think, but I also try not to bleed all over everybody with my feelings about it. Because I don't think that helps. and I think there is a gift and a blessing sometimes we can give to the world with being clear about what we believe and what we think about but I don't when we haven't processed it completely I'm not sure it's much of a gift, so those rage tweets never happen, good for you yeah yeah.

44:44 And sometimes another part of the portfolio is crisis communications and sometimes it's dealing mit den Konsequenzen von einem Pastor oder einem Church zu tun, in der Moment, spontanément reagieren zu etwas, dass sie dann, wenn sie es oder nicht haben, nicht mehr gemacht haben, haben sie einfach mehr als ein Problem gemacht.

45:10 Weil jetzt sie haben, die sie gesagt haben, die sie gesagt haben, Church people or whatever group it is that they're trying to critique, they kind of walk into a trap. So rage tweets are traps. But neutrality doesn't serve anybody, So I think it's fair for people to know what we believe. I think trying to lie or fit in doesn't help either.

45:45 But I try to do it in a way where I don't assume the worst of the other people. I work hard to make sure I'm not arguing a scarecrow. And that's probably an idiom. Yes, it is. I was just thinking about, what does that even mean? So I'm not creating a false, you know, a conveniently. A convenient, partner in the conversation that isn't real. In German it's called a Strohmann argument.

46:23 Also Strohmann is a man made out of hay. And we say it as a Strohmann argument. Yeah, so Oh, es works. Ja, ja, okay. So, I don't think that's helpful. And I like to make some space for people who do, you know, so they might be able to find, like, I work under the idea that if I respect others as much as I can, dass das ein opportunity, to pull up to the table and encounter something that's different and I think that's ground in me from my experience growing up like um.

47:11 Going to seminary and even college and encountering this world that was very different than my small town really helped me to become, I don't want to say a better person, but to be able to see the world in different ways that weren't possible to me when I was growing up. So it's hard for me to then judge people who may be still back where I was.

47:44 Without the privilege of all the experiences that I've had and, and, and just write them off as an ignorant bigot. They might be both of those things, or they might just be absent all the experiences and opportunities. So, if we are constantly closing the door by just condemning people we haven't tried to take a moment, a beat to understand, or to try to explain to them, then we're not going to see what the thing that I think the church should be about, which is development.

48:20 We want to see people grow. We want to see people move. We want to see ourselves move. I mean, we all got work. Yeah. Ja, so that's my goal with it, is really just to, you know, sometimes I'm doing some processing. You know, we all do that. But my goal is really to try to create places where people can.

48:44 Encounter things, and even if they don't agree with it, at least don't feel like they've been disrespected in the process. Yeah, and I have to say, from what I read, or I have read, I feel that you navigate that pretty well. Because sometimes I'm like, ooh, he's going to talk about this. Let's see where this goes.

49:04 And because I always have like in my mind people here in the east of Washington who are some more conservative and still in the church. And some of them read those newsletters, right? So I always have them in mind and think what they say or think about it. And so I think you're doing a good job in this case. Aber ich auch möchte, wie mein eigenes Advokat.

49:31 Ich sit da und... I feel I'm tired of being that person that you just described, being the ones I understand why you're behaving like a bigot because you didn't have the experience or maybe not a theological education that might have opened you up to those things. And I'm sometimes just tired of always feeling like being on the side that is trying to understand and trying to help and trying to make you work.

49:56 And from the other side, it's just like, you are an atheist or you are not a good Christian or you're a false prophet. You just get attacked all the time for trying to be the bridge builder. Sometimes just tiring in a way. Well, Damien, I don't have much to say to you because I have not been effective at this.

50:20 So Karen and I have two 16-year-old girls, twins, obviously, and they have times where they don't get along very much. Probably more rare than other siblings normally I would say because twins can get they can go they're fire and ice sometimes, the other day in fact I caught them on the couch in the morning they had day off of school and they were just they were both playing a game and enjoying each other's company and I mentioned to my wife in fact I said I don't have any wood to knock on but, They're getting along today, it's great. And then later in the day.

51:07 They had a big blow up and I was all caught up in the middle of it, playing, trying to play ref and I'm not good at that. Right. But one of the things we try to tell them is you can't control the other person's behavior. But Jesus tells us, and they love Jesus being quoted in the house, you know, PKs or pastor's kids, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think we've got to stick to that.

51:35 Und auch wenn es um. Siblings in faith that sometimes have a faith that we can't recognize because it's so, so very different. And I'm not sure it's the same faith tradition at all, really. But I don't know. So for me, it comes down to change theory. Like, how are we trying to change the world that we're in? And I know it doesn't happen on social media.

52:07 I know people's hearts and minds aren't changed there. We only reinforce what we think. But I do think about where can change happen? And where are the places that can happen? And how does it happen? And for me in my life, it's been in situations, relational situations. So sometimes it's been in places where I've been stuck with people, like seminary, that I wouldn't have put myself with. But I had to be there.

52:37 Und ich denke, die nur die Grunde ich bin, weil ich das war, ist weil es da waren, dass Leute in das Haus hatten, die nicht mehr grace für mich, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun, um mich zu tun. Und ich habe mich dafür, um mich zu halten, um mich zu haben, um mich zu einem gewinnen und meinen My heart and mind were transformed to some degree.

53:06 Not perfectly, but that's a Methodist thing too. We're always onward to perfection, not there. So I mean, people can have their own theories of change, and not all change is the same, right? Some people are working on societal change, but I think the church, I think, not everybody has to think this again, Aber ich denke, die Church sollte sich auf die Leute beschäftigen, und wie wir, wie wir.

53:38 Everyone who comes through our door to their next step, and then to the next step after that, and to the next step after that. And that's where I think we sometimes fail, because we're really focused sometimes on, der erste Schritt, die ist in die Tür. Und das ist die Good Church, wo sie willkommen sind.

54:02 Aber manchmal haben wir genug Energie zu tun, die Steppen, die Nurturing und Formen und Shaping Discipleship, Leadership within die Church. Und das ist ein viel Arbeit. Aber ich weiß, wie ein Rage Tweet oder ein Angry Sermon um, every Sunday really moves that forward. There are times and, um, you know, I don't think there are as many times as when, you know, like on social media, you might see something bad happens.

54:37 And then I see a post from a pastor that says, if you don't mention this on Sunday, um, you're not a real pastor or you're a, you know, you're a charlatan. I mean, nobody ever uses words, but that's the inference, that there's only one way to approach the situation. I know what it is, and everybody else is wrong.

54:56 There are a couple occasions where maybe that's true, but it's really interesting when I see those, because sometimes they're coming from the same people who scream context is important in other situations. I think context is always important. I think the pastors today have such a, you all have such a difficult job of navigating the roles of being a, pastor and a prophet and when do you choose to be one and when do you choose to be the other, the advantages of and it is totally fair that maybe for a season or for a decade or two the church leaned one way too hard but.

55:45 Going the other way might not be the thing you need either. It might be a continual process of always trying to figure out what's the temperature that is necessary in the situation, to help people to know that this is important, um but also to still make space for them to not get just get back um because if they get there then they're not they're not processing either no if they feel not understood or seen at least a bit and you just scream at them maybe not with the voice but like with the words you use it's es hilft.

56:35 Ich habe das als parent, auch. Sie nicht immer respond zu screaming. Aber es ist an occasional time where you need to get people attention. I get that. I think I am not a pastor again. Most pastor things I have learned from being a pastor spouse. Just watching my wife struggle with all these things. Because I hope and expect that or suspect that most pastors do.

57:11 It's not a binary, it's a constant. I can do this, I can do that, I can do this. Nobody's telling me exactly what to do. I say this, I'm going to make some people happy. I say this, I'm going to make other people happy. And I can tell you. I can make somebody unhappy. Yeah, totally. Und ich will sagen, ich bin nicht afraid of sagen das out loud aber ich, There was a specific weekend, so when ICE agents killed Rainer Goethe, and then a couple of weeks later Alex Preddy, besides all the immigrants that already abused and died under their care.

57:57 I wished our bishop would have sent us pastors a message. Um before sunday saying um i see you i know this will be hard tomorrow um here's some guidance or just some some nice words yeah because that sunday was rough um because it took a new turn and it was already terrible but it took a new turn and then knowing that there are still a couple people in my church probably were okay with it or had explanations why this happened, and the pain like what to say and feeling, yeah that was something I felt like I would have loved some leadership and help and support in this endeavor I hear that I hear that, so one thing that is not in my communicator's role is speaking for the bishop yeah.

58:55 I was not expecting that but I will say just in general terms that I think bishops have a similar challenge to local church pastors. And I don't mean to suggest in any way that I'm pretty sure the bishop didn't have fear about speaking out on those particular things. But there is constantly, you know, like, how often do you talk? When do you talk?

59:26 Knowing every time you talk, you're going to make some people happy, und machen viele Menschen oder angry. Und was ist es das du sagen, das ist neu oder das ist und ich, nicht verraten deinen roll. Ich nicht verraten den verraten. Wir leben in ein really complicated time where there ist a lot going on.

59:54 There ist always something that somebody that honestly deserves some recognition, You do kind of get me into a space, though, that... I wonder if we are, like, I feel like, so one of your questions coming up, I leap ahead, I'm sorry to reveal that I do know some of your questions. Yeah, sure, that's normal.

1:00:23 Sorry, was about, you know, the role of the church today. Und wenn ich wirklich begann, die ersten paar Stunden in der Annual Conference, wenn ich ein layperson aus der Conference Staff bin, und dann als der Conference Staff ist, wir hatten eine reale Sprache, an der Zeit, der schreiben, Petitions, Das war die Sekretärin der Konferenz, die eine Lette, sternly worded oder was nicht, um, ein bunch von verschiedenen Congressionalen Menschen, um, um, zu let sie wissen, die United Methodist Church war either happy mit oder nicht happy mit, um, was sie vielleicht in den nächsten sechs Monaten.

1:01:15 So, es war dieses Idee, dass was die United Methodist Church, die Machen war. Mm-hmm. Und ich denke, wir haben einen Punkt, wo wir wissen, dass das wirklich nicht interessiert ist, Externally. Und ich denke, und ich bin nicht für den Bishop, und ich weiß nicht, dass das nicht gehört ist, aber ich bin nicht sicher, dass die Kultur beyond die Church wirklich interessiert, much about what the bishop says either.

1:01:52 There's maybe a small amount of interest in the public on what the pope says. And he leads the entire Catholic Church with members around the world. And we're living in a time where a good portion of the population either won't, notice that or will immediately write it off if it isn't already affirming something they think. Yes.

1:02:22 So I think we're in this kind of liminal space between a time when what institutions said on behalf of the people within it including institutional leaders mattered and a time where that no longer matters. And so then the next question I get to is, well, what matters? And I think it's collective action.

1:02:49 Um which means we all have to be a part of it so it it's you know how do we as leaders within the system you know push back to our people that it's their responsibility um and without not supporting them along the way because i think we we have to recognize we are in a space of transition and it could transition back you know we've seen a lot of dramatic kind of shifts from trump one for example in the united states where people were freaking out about the norms that he was violating and all of the political kind of chaos and and then that shifted to biden which was like, here's Grandpa who's going to tell us it's all okay and remind us of the World War II and his son died and he understands all grief because his son died.

1:03:54 All grief because Bo died. But he's just going to make us feel better. And then we're back. Even harder. Even harder. Und ich würde sagen, aber ich weiß, dass Europa und Leute in der Welt die Menschen verstehen, was die mit den USA war, Sie wissen, dass sie heute nicht verstehen, dass sie es heute nicht verstehen, dass sie es heute nicht verstehen, dass sie es heute nicht verstehen, wie sie vorher hatte.

1:04:39 Aber ich denke, in den USA und den USA, dass wir das in den nächsten nächsten Jahren in der nächsten Reihe von Elections werden. Und get us back to a more normal place. For the good of the folks in the United States. And for the good of the people in the world. And that probably gets this podcast marked as. I don't know.

1:05:02 Socialist or communist. I don't think so. But yeah. It's funny. I realize things I think and say. Seem to be socialist or communist sometimes. And I'm like. That's like standard in Germany. I don't know. 28-30 vacation days for everybody, no sick days when you're sick, you're sick universal healthcare, I feel like this is standard in my experience but okay, apparently it's socialist, yeah, so culturally it's sometimes very interesting for me to be in those different spaces and hear people say things I'm a Marxist you don't even know what that means apparently but okay, Okay, the time is running, Patrick. We're in for an hour already.

1:05:53 So that's why I want to ask still the last question. And you went maybe a little bit in this direction once in a while already. But what gives you hope in all that's going on right now with the church? I mean, we also have our struggles, the country, the world. What gives you hope with your fighting teenagers? was you hope I think I'm a few years away from teenagers being hope but I think we'll get there, so within the church I've often found it easier to find hope on a local level.

1:06:32 But structurally I think we made a really good the last general conference and the ratification of the constitutional amendments, particularly the ones pertaining to regionalisation, I think, gives us hope, because it allows us to, again, move more decisions closer to people, so that we're not binding the entire world by one set of cultural norms or understandings of how things work.

1:07:08 We're not expecting everybody to be on exactly the same page. We're just hoping people can be in the same book. Und ich denke, wir sehen uns über die nächsten Quadrennen, als wir Methoden wie zu counten, gut changes von dem. So, das gibt mir eine Hoffnung, und ich hoffe, dass es auch mit, einem weiteren Reformation in der Church gibt, so wir können nicht nur ein Decline, But bottoming out, maybe some growth.

1:07:48 Let me say this in a different way. I think there is ample evidence in the world around us that we need places where people are being shaped and formed to be moral citizens and moral citizens. Good human beings. And I don't think that's uniquely the United Methodist Church's role, but I think we could do some of that work.

1:08:15 And I think other faith groups along with the United Methodist Church, hopefully we can pick that up and help people to be better. Because I don't think by default we are. I don't know that we have that in us, and that's a whole other conversation. Aber dann wieder, ein locales Church. Ich bin ein Jahr und ein halb into Interim Pastorate an Auburn First United Methodist Church, die ist eine halbe Stunde in der Stadt.

1:08:48 Und es ist eine Church, die nicht aus COVID-19, hat sie sich in den letzten 100 Menschen und kam aus dem 50er Jahre in der 50er Jahre. Und wirklich struggled. But in the time we've been there, we've started to see them kind of turning, and leaning into values they'd already had. They were just shy about sharing, about being an inclusive place.

1:09:15 And membership is picking up, although she's cleaning books too. So she gets 10, she loses 10. But Sunday morning worship attendance is up. Each year, giving is up, although they were in quite a hole. So, seeing those kinds of things, but even more importantly, seeing people who need a church home finding a church home and feeling like they can be who they are and be safe there.

1:09:47 Und es macht mich denken, dass wir wirklich haben eine Möglichkeit haben, weil ich das liebe, dass wir eine Administration haben, dass wir eine Administration haben, dass sie nicht mehr Menschen fühlen, dass sie nicht mehr sind. Aber das bedeutet, dass sie sie nicht mehr sind, dass sie sich nicht mehr fühlen und mehr sind.

1:10:08 Church, you're up. It's time for us to do that work of finding places to be alongside people to not only help them to feel safe, but to help them be seen. And to work alongside them to make the world a better place. Our country first, but everywhere else we can make a difference that we do what we can to do so. So that gives me hope.

1:10:37 Ja, awesome. Und ich kann jetzt join in der Mount hier in Spokane. Wir jetzt mit den Regen von verschiedenen denominations zu wirklich denken über wie wir können, wie wir senden different messages als Christians und wie wir create safe spaces, especially für unsere immigrant brothers und sisters. Und das gibt mir hope, dass wir jetzt nicht denken, oh, ich bin Episcopal, ich bin Methodist, aber wir denken über jetzt, wie wir können, wie wir als eine Christian force hier in a positive way.

1:11:08 That's fantastic. Awesome, thank you Patrick. It was very interesting. I could have gone on for a while but maybe we continue the conversation at the conference because you guys are coming to Spokane this year. That's right. So we'll see you there. And then thank everybody for listening. If you have any questions, I think Patrick, you're on Instagram or something if someone wants to text you directly.

1:11:31 Yes, I am. Okay. At Patrick Scriven. Patrick Scriven, okay. I will put your link in the post and they can just reach out to you if you have any questions or just want to call you a socialist whatever, they can just reach out. Ben, thank you very much for listening, share this episode and then until next Monday on the Hosea.