Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Thriving.
Thriving is created by the discipleship and advocacy team of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania Uniting Church in Australia.
This podcast is produced on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri people.
Hello and welcome. It's exciting to be joined by Canada and America today. This is a three country podcast on Thriving today. So I'm joined by the writers of Church Together, Dave Sinos and Travis Tracy Smith. Welcome both of you to the Thriving podcast.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: It's lovely to have you.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: It's great to be here. Thank you.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: So I'd like to just start by saying I'm loving this book. It's like my dream book because it explains something of the posture of what it is to be a thriving intergenerational church, what it means to bring all ages together, the posture of how you do it. But then it goes into some really helpful practical stuff for those people who've not done this. And that's desperate, desperately necessary. Tracy, tell us a bit about you.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: So, hi, thanks again, Sandy. It's so, so great to be here. I am a Presbyterian minister, mother of three, and the director of Family Faith Every Day, which is a program that helps families to practice faith in everyday life through simple faith rituals and practices. And this book for me, I feel like faith at home practice is so connected to all age ministry in so many ways. There's so many overlaps in part because the things that we learn at church, we want to practice at home. And then also because the faith practices that I teach at home are often very interactive. And of course like the family is a little all aged unit. Right. So it's not, it's not hard to kind of like extrapolate from that. So I have worked, David and I worked together for a long time and we had been kicking around a lot of ideas about what a book like this would look like. And yeah, it's, that's kind of a short little intro to me.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Thanks, Tracey. And tell us about you, Dave. You've been to Australia. In fact, you've had dinner at my house. So I know you've been to Australia and just, just give everyone an introduction to who you are.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Sure. So I am an ordained minister as well. I have three young children.
But my, my main kind of vocation right now is as an associate professor of practical theology at Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
And one of the beautiful things about that job is that I get to travel quite a bit and learn from all sorts of churches and organizations that are trying to support the, the Formation of all sorts of congregations, all sorts of new things going on. One of the big things that, that has been happening for the past, I don't know, 10 years or so has been the, this greater interest in all age ministry. And so that's become an interest of mine simply because I've noticed that there is a need for a few resources in that area. So I've done a book on preaching with intergenerational contexts and now this, this book with Tracy that's got some theory in it, but all full of all sorts of practices for what worship and ministry beyond worship looks like.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: So fantastic. We might have a go at talking about the preaching stuff in a different podcast, Dave, because that's another passion of mine, how you move between preaching and getting people to do the work themselves. But that's another conversation. Tell me a little bit about the posture stuff, what it is that you have to help a community to understand about who they're being.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Yeah, sure.
So we wanted to make sure that we were very clear about what's underneath a lot of these practices. Right. I know ministry leaders, especially those who were in faith formation and working with different age groups and all age ministry, are very, very busy.
We didn't want it to be a book that people just picked up and used the practices without really knowing what's underneath them. Because there's this foundation of ideas and of principles that really hold it up. I remember once traveling and where I was, they, they built their, their houses were built out of concrete. Like the floors and the stairs and kind of the main pillars were all concrete. And they were experiencing an economic hardship. And so there were these abandoned houses that were just literally like three floors of concrete and stairs and no walls and like everyone had left. And you don't see that when you're walking around a finished house. Right. But that's what holds it up. You see the wallpaper, the furniture, the wainscoting. Right. The whatever it is. Right. But that's all there. So that I feel like is those first two chapters. That's the foundation that we often overlook when we're thinking only about practices, but it really supports it. And so things like play, like participation, like mutuality, these are things that really, really matter. Because otherwise it's very easy to slip into that wider societal and church based idea of adults teaching children, learning adults leading children following adults, you know, acting children responding, that kind of thing. And we really wanted this to be about the benefits that come from everyone, no matter what your age is, that come from meeting together across difference.
Trying things out that might be new for some or all of you, and doing it all for the sake of forming each other as disciples of Jesus.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: I love this idea of mutuality. In fact, I just wrote a piece about this on Monday.
But this idea that we can all learn from one another and even the two year olds amongst us can say something profound that stops us in our tracks and makes us think. Tracey, do you want to say more about why mutuality matters?
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Mutuality is one of the most important principles, I think, in all age ministry. Just to think about.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: So I was thinking about today. I hang out in a lot of different ministry forums and church leadership forums. And somebody had posted on the forum like, well, how. How do we get more kids to our church? You know, and somebody put, well, you should put hot chocolate packets next to the coffee. You know, just like really love them.
Like it was. It's super lovely and inclusive, right? Of course, like that's like great if, you know, grownups love hot chocolate too. But, you know, aside from that. But I thought like I, I'm no shade to that suggestion or the other suggestions which are really lovely, like have children seating. But I thought, wow, like, let's step back a second and, and say like, well, what, what are we, what is this? What is it about like being kid friendly, right? Or it, it almost feels like I. If I were traveling to Australia, Sandy. And you'd be like, well, Tracy's coming. Let's find some Coca Cola and some American snacks. Right? Like, which I would love.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Very easy to find.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: I think the idea is like, well, what, what are we trying to do here? We're actually trying to all learn and grow from, from one another. It's not about like making our space.
It is sometimes about making our space more inclusive for all ages. But to what end is that Louise
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Gosbull last week talking about neurodiversity and she was talking about the floor. Like we have these safety things you have to do that are the floor and I think child friendliness, making the, you know, making things at least possible for kids to be in the room is the floor. But you're probably in Dave's building with no walls and no lots of concrete and no anything else. But if you're gonna make it into a building and a house and an inhabitable space, there might be a whole lot more you might wanna do to make it mutual. Right?
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not, it's not just that children are welcome to be in the space and feel recognized and included. It's that we all have something to, to contribute to the place.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: And we are all learning from each other. And like I said at the beginning, I have lots of stories about this around faith formation in the home, but they're all applicable to the church. You know, parents telling me I did not understand, you know, X, Y and Z about God until my child explained it to me. And then another, I think this might be a good time to slip in. I think a mutual pet peeve of Dave's and mine is when all age ministry is just code for children, including children. You know, like some people are like, I didn't want to read church together. I didn't buy it. We don't have any kids in our church. Well, first of all, start doing some of the practices and, you know, see who comes and stays. But second of all, I mean, some of the, the strongest intergenerational or all age relationships in my life right now, I would say are with older adults or adults in a different stage of the journey. So, you know, my children, just like yours, Sandy, are approaching this young adult stage. That's another thing. So it's not just about young children in worship. It's about the whole span of life.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And that we often hear, we're explaining that it's not children's, it's not code for children's ministry. It's actually about all I keep saying, it's for all the brains, all the people, all the engagement, all the bodies.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: All the body, all the bodies, brain and the rest. Right. And I think that's, that's the thing is when earlier we were talking about like the floor, right. And child. I don't even think I would use the word child friendly. I think I would just say, like diversity friendly.
It's like, you know, the whole thing Tracy said about hot chocolate is, I guarantee you there will be adults there who also want hot chocolate and not coffee. And so it's not just, yes, there might be children there who want coffee, but they probably shouldn't have it. That's a different thing. Right. But the thing is there's such an assumption, I think in churches that what we do, even if we say it's not really, it's not child friendly. Like, even if we can admit and that what we do in a church is geared for adults, it's not even geared for all adults. It's geared for adults of a certain type. And every church is going to be different. Right. That's what makes the great big body of Christ so awesome, is our Diversity, among other things.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: But yeah, but I think that's the thing is we, we have to just recognize the fact that this is not just about ages. This is not just about ages. This is about preferences. This is about people's different abilities. This is about cultural dynamics. All of this blends together. And so, yes, like, we focus on, you know, kind of foregrounding that idea of all age. But all age is easily an on ramp to a whole swath of diversity.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: And this is why people who know me are going to go, ah, I know why she likes this book now.
I know why she's excited about this now. Yes, exactly. You're talking my language. So tell us what it might look like.
Tracy, what have I got for you?
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I would say there's probably no one way that all age ministry is to look, you know, and one of the things I was talking about this week about, you know, how when you're working with lay leaders in the church or other pastors, there's some colleagues that, like, they want a lot of structure. Like, they want to know the exact roadmap, what should I do? What color should it be, how many pipe cleaners do I need? You know, and then there's some people that are like, well, just give me a general vision and I'll march toward that. And so what we tried to do in church together is kind of hit that middle spot where we say, well, this, you know, say, let's just pick a, pick something and let's just pick, you know, a processional. Some denominations are big on processionals. They're very fancy, you know, people bringing in things that smell and bells and all of the things. And then there's other churches that maybe don't, but they could, you could start the service by coming in. So, so we gave an example of like, you know, step one, do this. Two, three and four. And so if you're the type of church where you're like, we don't even know where to start, you could follow the ideas that we gave to a T. You know, just do it. Step one, two and three. Or if you are the type of, of leader or congregation that's like, always see where we're going with this. You know, what would work in our congregation is like this other thing, because we don't work with just one denomination.
We work with lots of different denominations. And so I think our hope is that we give enough structure and idea and vision that you can take it. And either if you're brand new and you're like we have no idea. Then you can just follow it directly. Both just love so much when people will say oh we took this idea to this other thing. Yeah. And then we were like, oh, that could be its own practice too. Right. And we should also mention that. How many contributors are there, Dave? In our book? There's about 15, I think. Wow. Yeah, A number of people contributed and then even more, you know, offered ideas that were lovely and for whatever reason they got cut but they were in all cases they were great ideas. So you know, just so many people out there doing this and I think it's important to say like, just because Dave and I got this book out, pushed out quickly doesn't mean that people haven't been doing this for a long time.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: And there's plenty of people in Australia who now have experience in this and are doing this. And my favourite thing is when I write a resource for something and then someone sends me photos of what they did and it's totally not what I was thinking but it's totally amazing and extraordinary and they've taken it and done something in, you know, gone completely left field with my idea and done something brilliant. And I think that's, that's kind of an exciting place to be in where we can, we can be creative together as practitioners and support one another in our ministry. Dave, what practises would you like to encourage people in the all age space to be picking up?
[00:14:44] Speaker C: I want to share about why we use the term all age because I know my previous book, I use intergenerational all the time and we, all of us on this call are friends with Chris Barnett. We are and I have always found Chris's.
It's quite ironic actually because I did my PhD studying part of it was about interculturalism and children in. Well the main thing was interculturalism and children in the United Church of Canada. But it was Chris Barnett who took this idea of cult different types of cultural interaction from the United Church and translated it into generational interaction. And so it was one of those like things that's like oh my gosh, of course, like that makes like of course it makes so much sense. So I'm so glad that he did that. But you know there's, there are age segregated aspects of churches and multi generational where people are together but there isn't much relationship. There's cross generational where there might be some, some, some, you know, relationships forming but it's not so intentional. And then there's like true intergenerational where it's like all in as much as you can. That, that mutuality. And I have yet to come up to see a church that is inter generational. Right. And the reason is because we are human beings who live in a society that is not intergenerational. Right. And so it's just like a true intercultural church. There are always going to be people who hold certain, who hold power because of the body that they are in, whether it's the, the color of their skin or their abilities or their age. Right. And so intergenerational to me is the goal, but it's the direction is what we're aiming for. So the reason we talk about all age is because some practices, I would say are not intergenerational. They're probably more multi generational. But if you're a church that's used to doing everything age segregated, that little practice that's going to move you slightly closer to being in the same room as each other, that's huge.
That's not that goal. That's not the finish line. But you've taken a step, right?
So I think that that's one thing is like, if you're familiar with that kind of typology of generational dynamics, then you might read some of these practices and be, well, this one isn't intergenerational. We're like, yeah, that's okay. It's not, it's all age though. And so we kind of use all age as this catch all that. Wherever people are on the journey, it's more about the direction you're going, where you're facing, not where you are on this spectrum. So some of the practices.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: Yeah, so, so, so some of the practices are really low hanging fruit. Right. Like one of them, and this is one that Tracy contributed is like somebody's favorite song. Right. And so it's not really about like changing how we sing necessarily, but it's about naming the fact that the song that we are singing is so and so's favorite song. And maybe that person is 85 years old and maybe the next song that we sing in worship is the 6 year old or the 9 year old's favorite song or the 15 year old or the 50 year old. Right. It doesn' matter. But it's just a way of letting people know that there are a diversity of people who have different favorite songs. Right. That's, that's pretty low threshold stuff, but it's so meaningful. It's. It signals a lot. Then there are other ones that are much more geared for churches who are really, really trying to go, you know, kind of starting to experiment, but really want to go further. The first one in the book in chapter three was contributed by a minister from Maine that Tracy and I know, and it is called Liturgy Leader Grab Bag. And essentially, it's the. It's a way of having. It works really well if they're like multiple. If you have a diverse liturgy with lots of different parts in it and people show up and pick what. What they do out of a hat. No, you don't have to. But those who want can be like, pick and be like, okay, I am leading the call to worship today, and here's all the information I need and what I need to do and when I need to get up. And I mean, that. That often leads to a service that is a little more chaotic and messy and less polished. But so you have to get. You have to prepare people for that. But it's. It ends up being one that, you know, you end up. Everyone, including the person who picks it, can be surprised about what they're leading.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: So that's.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: That's great fun. I know people that have done similar things to that in Melbourne, and it is quite surprising how it turns out
[00:19:05] Speaker B: when people have a go at it.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: What's the best way of helping a church that really has never done any of this but has a heart to try? Where would you start?
We just need to do the first thing and get us all comfortable with whatever the first thing is. Try the first thing. What do you encourage people to try?
[00:19:29] Speaker B: I think what I would do is, you know, a lot of times in a church context, there's the leader or somebody that's wanting to do this for whatever reason. And I think over the years in ministry throughout a number of churches, I think I was slow to get the message that the best way is to have some conversations with others first.
You know, I say that with a caveat, because sometimes I would just plow forward and introduce an idea, and people would love it. But then sometimes people were like, I don't get it, or like, this is weird, like, what's going on? And so I think what I would encourage is some just coffee conversations, or if your leadership has a. Has an opportunity to study church together, have it right here, study it together, you know, around the table, and just flip through it. I mean, that's one of the things that I love about church together and not. I'm not tooting my own hornets. The designers that. That helped to make it easy to. To flip through and see, you know, Just kind of flip through it and say like, oh, this looks good, right? You know, so I think that's what I would do is to try to get some buy in and ownership from the team on what exactly? You know, it doesn't have to be everybody, but then you have somebody that's like really owning it. They say like, okay, this is, I have a part in this and I have an interest in seeing how it goes.
So it's hard to be directive about like which practice you would want to start with because I think what is scary and you know, like totally out there type of practice for one congregation might be completely normal for another. So I think I would say just, you know, have a, have a conversation and then I think a couple of other practical tips. One is maybe to take some of the ideas out of the worship service depending on what your congregation is like. But there's so many ideas that are not in the worship service. And sometimes, you know, kind of monkeying around with the worship service can be higher stakes than doing a separate all age event together. And then say everybody has a great time. You say like, well, what about it was so good? Oh, I just loved it when I learned from somebody, you know, I never knew, I never knew Anna and now I know her and she's, you know, a delight. And so, well, what if we brought this into worship or what? You know, so those would be my suggestions.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Thank you, that's really helpful.
What about you, Dave?
[00:22:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent with what Tracy said. And I would add two things. The first is that I always find it helpful to. I mean, one of the questions that Tracy, you know, kind of alluded to is do you do it in worship or outside of worship? And that's why are the two major sections of the book that are full of practices we have worship and outside of worship practices. So that's the first question. I would add two more. The other one is do you, you do it on an ordinary day or do you do it when something is already unusual? So I know you know, there are always seasons in the season of the church life. There are always, you know, Good Friday, there's a baptism from time to time. There might be, you might be a church that practices world communion, Sunday, things like that, right? Those are Sundays or times of the church year, whether it's the church universal or your particular congregation, right? Where things are already a little different. So why not try something all age different? Because it's. People are already expecting something to be a little different.
The second thing is we often use. And Tracy was the first to do this because she's. She has written these books of practices for families as well, and she has often used the metaphor of a cookbook. Right.
And so these are kind of like recipes. And I know when I am looking for. At using a recipe or looking at a new cookbook, there are recipes where it's like, oh, I know how to make that, but this is a different recipe for, like, you know, I don't know. I know how to make lemon meringue pie, but here's a different recipe for lemon meringue pie. I'm going to try that one, right? It's something I already know and, like, but I'm going to try this, spin on it. And then there are other ones where it's like, you know, I've never made beef Wellington, and here's a recipe for it. It might blow up in my face, but I'm going to try this and this. You know, so that's the other question, right? Is do you tweak something your church already knows and does, or do you do something totally brand new and out of the ordinary?
[00:24:08] Speaker A: What happens when you add chocolate to spaghetti Bolognese? My goodness.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: It's a lemon meringue beef Wellington, right?
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Some things we don't mention beef Wellington in Australia.
I don't know if you know about beef Wellington in Australia, but we don't. We don't talk about the beef Wellington.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: I'm. I'm sorry. I should have used a tim tam or pavlova. And even I know that's a little contentious, right?
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Well, that's right, friends, if they're listening, we apologize for the pavlova that we stole from you. That was a major admission. So I find this really exciting.
How did churches that are further down the road pick this up? If people that have been doing messy church or people that have been doing various versions of intergenerational church, are they picking your book up and excited about it, too?
[00:24:52] Speaker C: I'm one of the authors, and I pick it up and use it. Right. That's the great thing is, like, Tracy and I wrote different practices. We didn't write them all together, and other people contributed them as well. So, like, in the time, even before it was published, as we were writing it, if I was invited to do something at a church, I'd be like, I'm going to check the table of contents and see what I can pull. So I think, absolutely, absolutely. People are for. For a lot of people, it's confirming.
And it also gives Them new ideas, right? We always, there are always people who are doing things that we can learn from.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's been really exciting.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Excellent.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: I would say to that, I agree wholeheartedly with everything is if there is anybody that's like, ah, this is, I knew this all already. They haven't told us.
[00:25:41] Speaker C: Yeah, you should have wrote it down.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: They're polite. It's a polite community.
But I will say to anybody that's like, if, if the question is sort of directed in the direction of like, well, what do you do? If you kind of feel like, why? I know this is not new. I'm into creative worship ideas and creative all age things. Like what do I do? What's the next thing for me? I would say my challenge to those listening that find themselves in that category would be to find a way to help others then. Right. Like if you are doing it, if you're crushing it and your church is like really good at this, I, the, the church, the broader church is so hungry for this.
Reach out to your colleagues and host a, you know, joint service or something or have a pastor's lunch where you can share, like, share the good news. I mean, I really do feel a strong calling to tell the church that ideas like this are a way that the spirit is bringing like a vibrant energy. Everybody's obsessed with church growth in the U.S. i don't know, you know, it's okay, you know, everyone's like, oh, you know, I gotta grow. And like if we bring the babies, then there's gonna be more. And it's like, like I keep thinking so much about our work and this book about not addressing that, but more addressing that question of being a vibrant church and being a church that has life no matter what size it is. Because I think there's all this just, oh my gosh, like we're small. Like as if being small is terrible, right? And like how many of us have small families, small communities? Jesus is always the small group. Like there's, it's about this vibrant church. Church, right. So I would say to those that are like, I, I want like, you know, the seminar course, I want the 401, you know, then that, that's the challenge that I have for you is to bring it to others.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: I don't think these things are ever going to be mega churches, I think, but I think many of us live in small towns and small places and many of us thrive more in, you know, not, maybe not family size, you know, two, three people, family, four family People, family size. But many of us thrive in places where we're truly known and truly loved and can actually explore our ideas with people that care about us. And so I think thriving communities that are tiny are great.
[00:28:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. In the first chapter we lay out those definitions that we. And we lean heavily on Chris Barnett's work, but we do it through a story of a church that we made up. And it's essentially a composite of our own churches of churches we've gotten to know that we visited all sorts, Right. And we talk about this church that was once huge and growing in the 60s, you know, the 1960s and stuff, and then started to decline and they, they started to, you know, didn't have enough children to do Sunday school, so they started bringing them into the service. But then they need to adapt the service now that the few kids were in there. And so we actually used the heading at one point in the story accidentally intergener.
And I think that to me, that is the more common story I'm seeing here in the east coast of Canada where we, like, I live in the biggest city in four provinces. It's half a million people if you include all the suburbs, like, it's not huge. And so we do not have megachurches, we do not have churches that tend to be growing. And if they are, it's because other ones are shrinking. And so I think to me that I'm hearing a lot of people in the context I teach in, that I work with. I was, I was in the UK earlier and I was working with the, the different, some different denominations in the US that are very small and likely will not see a lot of growth. And the thing is that these are like, we don't even mention age too much in a lot of the practices. Right. They are for whoever is there.
And a lot of churches are not saying, you know, we have a wonderful large Sunday school with a hundred children and seven classes. We should start doing things intergenerationally. It's more the churches where it's like we have two kids that come with their grandparents once every couple of weeks when they have the sleepover at their grandparents house the night before.
What do we do? What do we do? How do we do, how do we do stuff with them? Right. So it's more about that or. And sometimes, you know, a lot in a lot of my contacts I work with, like, if you're under 60 in church, you're part of the young group.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: And so intergenerational can mean a 55 year old and an 85 year old. Right. Or all age can be. It's, it's not every age. It doesn't mean that everyone from zero to a hundred is, is there. It means everyone who is there, regardless of their age, is invited to participate in this.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: I would say, you know, in my context that I actually do do work with some mega churches. Not to be like weird about it, but one of the things that's true about large, large churches in the US is that first of all they used to be much larger so that, you know, there's decline and it's all a matter of scale. Right. The super mega church has got less mega and whatever, whatever. But if there is anyone in a larger church listening, I absolutely would not want you to get the message that this book and these ideas are not for you. In fact the exact opposite. I would say that you are challenged in some ways in applying some of them. Especially if there are ideas that involve lots of materials. Right. Like some of our ideas are like, oh, you know, you have get a little thing and make a thing or make an art project. And you might think like, oh, well that would be, be pretty challenging to implement in a sanctuary of 500 people. But I have visited and preached at and consulted with churches that, that do these things in those large contexts and the result is the same. And in fact in some ways you can get, you can get really lost in a big church. Sometimes people go to really big churches on purpose for that reason. Right. Like I can just come in, I can worship, I get out. Nobody, I don't have to talk to anybody, I don't have to interact with anybody. And then you have, you know, somebody with this kind of approach pushing on that a little bit or asking you to talk to your neighbor or whatever.
And so I would really encourage, I would encourage the one mega church listening to give it a try.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yay.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: You know, it might be one mega church, but there could be like 400 people from that one church listening.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: So like it's a lot of the rest of us.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: I am finding myself more and more as I go around and teach and advocate for this stuff, talking about neurodiversity and autism and the fact that all of us thrive in different ways, all of our brains work in different ways, all of our needs are different. And I'm hearing.
A lot of what you're saying being that, you know, you could be the 85 year old who has always struggled with the fact that traditional church happens in a very particular way with the person at the front Droning on and on and on. That minister that just doesn't stop talking. None of the three of us obviously would be that minister. But you know, even this is for that 85 year old who just wishes that it would be safe for them to be able to do something with their hands while they were trying to, you know, make meaning about God. Right. It's for everyone and provides a safe space and a, an inclusive space. I've said that in a number of places. You know, how many of you women would feel really happy if you could bring your knitting to church and they'll go, oh yeah, that'd be great.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: And some men.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: And some men. And some. We could teach the men to knit. That'd be great. Although there are men who do.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: But
[00:33:43] Speaker A: safe space for everyone to be who they are. My daughter wears headphones all the time. She has sensory issues and she wears them at church all the time. And I remember one Sunday we had a baptism and a man in his probably 40s came up to me afterwards and said, you know, I'm really, I was really excited to see your daughter wearing her headphones because that meant it was safe for me to put mine on my earbuds in and to be able to wear them in church and have the noise canceling on.
So thank you for, you know, that meant I knew I was safe here.
[00:34:14] Speaker C: Sandy, that's a beautiful story because I think that's one of the things that like, I challenge myself through different, in different ways as well. And part of it is just my experience and experience of other people I know is that we don't know people's needs necessarily. Right. And I think that's the reality of church life. Ideally. I think we are meeting some people's needs, needs some of the time. We're never meeting everyone's needs all of the time. That's impossible. Right, but, but some people's needs, I bet, are being met much more infrequently than others. Right? And so we, like, I can imagine that that man who talked about the earbuds, you know, put the earbuds in. Like, I can imagine someone like that. I don't know his story, but I bet you there are people like that who have been worshiping at a church for 10 years, right?
And wish, you know, is like, why didn't I do this 10 years ago? Like, wish they could have done that. And so everyone has, like, people have sensory needs in different ways and about different things as well.
And that's why to us, invitation is really important as well.
Everything we do in worship should be an invitation. But it becomes more explicit and more important to make the invitation explicit when you're inviting people to do something a little different and to recognize that participation is different as well. Sometimes participation means actively doing something and other times participation means actively watching other people do something but not doing it yourself. And so we need to allow for that breadth of experience.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Does invitation mean that. Actually I really don't want to get up and do your big craft table activity. I really just want to sit here and talk to my friend about the reading. Does invitation mean making that safe as well?
[00:36:03] Speaker C: Totally safe and normative.
Making it a regular thing.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Another funny story, retired minister in my congregation, one of the activities was about writing a poem. So we had people going off and trying different things and allowed to just, you know, explore the readings. And this elderly retired minister is on his phone and he's sitting there on his own on his phone.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: I'm thinking, what are you doing?
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Why are you not joining in? Anyway, he sidles up to me as we're into getting to the time when we're about to share with one another and he says, I've written a fantastic poem, which can I share it? And I'm like, I'm so glad that I kept that frustration to myself and didn't and didn't say, why is he on his phone? He was right, of course. The 80 year old was using his phone to write a poem. I should have realized that. But you know, normative.
He felt comfortable and safe to do that. He was doing something amazing and grumpy minister did make the mistake of saying something stupid.
And we had a wonderful poem from this retired minister that everybody in the community enjoyed. So it is about providing a safe space for everyone.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Have you got one last thing that you'd like to say as we wrap up this glorious conversation?
[00:37:24] Speaker C: I would just love to say that we really want to hear from people who are using their ideas in this book. So you know, please look us up on social media. There's a Church Together Facebook group that anyone is welcome to join. You know, email us through our websites. We, we want to hear about what people are doing because very few people we know are picking these things up and doing them exactly as, as we imagine them. And we think that's amazing and we want to learn about all the different variations people are coming with.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: We also have a feedback form that's just a simple Google form that if you do any of the ideas in the book, we would love to hear just anonymously. I mean, you, it's not an anonymous form, but we won't ever, you know, share your name. We just sort of want to collect stories like this because it helps us make. I think the last word that I would have is just to embrace a spirit of experimentation, you know, within some parameters. You know, sort of like you don't want to, you don't want to put some chemicals together, but, you know, you're not, you're not probably going to mess it up.
So to try and embrace the spirit of experimentation and knowing that some things will land well and some things will fall flat, but just to keep, keep at it and iterate and prototype, we, we have, we say that multiple times in different ways in the book around iteration and prototyping.
I think it's a book that will
[00:38:53] Speaker A: play really well in Australia.
Speaks beautifully into exactly the heart of what people are trying to do in Victoria and Tasmania at the moment. Tracy and Dave, thank you for your book. Thank you for joining us today. It's been a joy to spend time with you.
[00:39:10] Speaker C: Thank you for having us.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Thank you, Sandy.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Thank you. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Thriving.
This podcast is hosted and produced. Produced by Sandy Brodine. If you have enjoyed Thriving, don't forget to like and subscribe. You might also like to share with your church community or friends and talk about how these ideas can help you grow your thriving community of faith. We'll see you next time.
