Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

Back to the Audio Episode

Jay 0:00

The only point I'm trying to make is like, man, we have to be aware of how these technologies are affecting the way we participate or do not participate in worship. So for example, the very fact that our song lyrics don't have notes to them and the fact that our people because we don't use Hmynals we don't, most of us don't know even how to read notes. Because we've never been taught. It's not a value. The only way I can sing the song we're gonna sing on Sunday is if you told me about the song beforehand, and I listened to it again, on Spotify, or Pandora, or whatever, I have to consume the song, you know, and that we have to be aware like that in and of itself, is communicating in a subversive way. This is like a song written and recorded by a professional band called Hillsong or Bethel or whatever, you know, and it's really great.

And then you have all sorts of other psychological things happening because when you show up to your church on Sunday morning, chances are no matter how great or awesome the worship leader at your church is they're not going to sound like the recording you listen. Oh, and the volunteer lead guitar player is not going to shred that solo quite the way that Hillsong dude did it who does this professionally, you know, towards the world or whatever. So, then you've got to reckon with like, what that does to us is, you know, are we consuming or participating? How many times have you heard people say like, oh, worship was so good today, which was what they mean is like the music sounded good or that I knew the words.

Seth Price 1:51

Hello there. How are you doing? I am Seth you were you. This is a podcast in times are crazy. Those of you that have listened to the show for a long time you know I work at a bank and can't tell you how walk away each day just so I don't know what the word is. sad, sad doesn't quite fit. Times are crazy when I sat down with today's guest, Jay Kim, I'm pretty sure it was right at the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak. And many states had not yet made decisions on what they wanted to do. And we talked about church but church in a way that isn't the way that we normally do it. The name of Jays book is called Analog Church. And that word analog means a lot of different things like so many visions come to my head. But I hadn't really put that word with the church before. Jay and I talked about the meaning and the intention behind how we do church. And why community matters. Not the building, not the bricks, not the music, not the U2 cover band upon The stage. And honestly, I've thought back on things that Jay wrote about, as I've watched people do church differently over the past few weeks, and honestly, I don't know when we won't do church differently over the coming weeks. So I find this conversation with Jay just timely, really timely. I hope you're well. Hope you enjoy this episode. Here we go.

Seth Price 3:35

Jay Kim, welcome to the show, man.

Jay 3:37

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on, thrilled to be here.

Seth Price 3:42

Well, we'll see thrilled is a big word, so we shall see.

Jay 3:50

That's true.

Seth Price 3:53

Yeah. I'm assuming you probably haven't listened to any of the past ones. Right. Or maybe you have some people have some people haven't.

Jay 3:56

I've gone back and listened to little snippets just to get a feel for how it goes.

Seth Price 4:00

I just want to make sure we levels for “thrilled”

Jay 4:05

I'm pumped to be here. I'm looking forward to.

Seth Price 4:08

Perfect. I always like to start with a similar question into just a different way, because I'm not really interested in your CV or your resume. But when like someone says, Hey, Jay, so who are you? And you're like, yeah, these are the important things that you need to know about me. Like, what's that answer?

Jay 4:23

Yeah, I'm the son of an immigrant woman who came all around and raised me on her own. And so I am I'm, I'm hybridity, right. I am the hybrid of South Korean roots and an American upbringing. And that was a tension for me as a kid, but it's a gift for me as an adult now. I love it. And so that's one thing about me. 2: I am a husband and a father. I mean, that's kind of the most pertinent daily realities of my life being home right now. My two littles are right outside this door. If you hear a little bit of I apologize. That's my mic pick it up in the background and then my wife who is the high school teacher, and yeah, my best friend. And then thirdly, I would say I serve and lead in a local church so people call me a pastor, I don't think Biblically I do the work of pastoring most of the time, I'm probably more of a teacher and reader of books and regurgitate tator of ideas. That's probably what I do most, most of the time professionally. But you know, the technical title I guess, for most people would be pastor. So I do that. And I love all of those things. So there you go. That's me. I think

Seth Price 5:50

Is hybridity a word? I've never heard that used in a sentence.

Jay 5:53

Uh, you know, the guy who wrote the foreword of my book uses that word. He's a pretty smart guy. Thanks. That's where I got it from Scott.

Seth Price 6:01

Scott….Scott. Definitely. He made that up. It's fine, though, because he's Scott. Yeah.

Jay 6:06

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's real now

Seth Price 6:10

because it's in print. And he. Yeah, it's definitely. So I want to I want to pivot to something you just said, although, Yeah, why not? So you said you wouldn't, you wouldn't necessarily call yourself a pastor, like, what do you see as the role of a pastor versus what you do? Like, how would you delineate between those two?

Jay 6:28

Yeah, well, I think what I meant was biblically, when we look at first and foremost, the word pastor and to sort of the functionality of what pastors did, at least in the early church, you know, the word itself implies a sort of shepherding and a relational journeying, and almost a fathering of a community of people in a very intimate, tangible way. Certainly that's a part of my life, on relational levels with some people, but I think in the modern evangelical world, when we hear the word pastor, most people are thinking about, you know, at least somewhat charismatic, sometimes not so much, but somewhat charismatic, dynamic sort of personality who stands on a stage that talks and monologues for 35-40 minutes a week, and they're supposed to inspire us and help us in pragmatic ways, and maybe entertain us a little bit and all those things. And some of that is Biblical some of it isn't. But for all intents and purposes, all I mean is I fit into that classic modern evangelical role of pastor I just don't know that that's like the actual Biblical act of pastoring.

I do that a little bit sometimes in my life for certain people. But that's not really I wouldn't call that like my day job. My day job is all sorts of things. They don't really biblical pastoring they're important for sure. And I love them and value them and important for the life of the church.

Seth Price 8:08

Well, you said it. And I was like, I hadn't really thought about that. Because for me pastoring is not necessarily the person that preaches ever. Because a pastor for me, is like going to a pastor for me Should I don't I'm saying this bad. I'm actually not saying it at all. I haven't figured out how to say it badly yet, but I'm going to try. Like, like someone that's going to come down into the congregation and just ugly cry with you. And nothing say nothing at all while someone else preaches if that makes any sense, like preaching. I don't know. Feel like I'm still not saying it well.

Jay 8:41

Absolutely. Well, that's a great dichotomy. I'm probably more a preacher than I am a pastor. That's all.

Seth Price 8:45

So what's your favorite thing to preach on? Like, the go to text. Everybody's got like three, three things like what's the one that you like? I didn't have time to write this one. Here's where I'm going.

Jay 8:53

Oh, yeah, dude, probably anything in Leviticus. Just..just any verse.

Seth Price 9:01

Really?

Jay 9:02

No, not at all. Give me that here. Um, yeah, you know, I don't know, man, I love Genesis 1 and , that I do mean, seriously. Genesis One, two, I think, frame the rest of the story and Genesis to Revelation 21-22. So the book ends I love.

And then you know, the Gospels, Jesus all the way. So if you're asking favorites, there you go.

Seth Price 9:33

Yeah. Well, there's at least my pastor, like, he's been our pastor now for a little over five years. And there's at least a few of the stories of Mike, I've heard this one before. Let's see how he does this. Yeah, I know where he's going. Let's see, I like this, but you did it better as a little more conviction in this one. And if you're listening, Barrett, I'm sorry. That's true. You know, it's true. He knows it that it's true.

So you wrote a book called analog church, which I do want, elephant in the room, the fact that we can't do things in analog ways because we're recording this at like, day 17 of the world exploding because of the Coronavirus, which by the time people hear it will not be true. But nothing really is analog anymore. But I don't really know how to ask questions about that. If we get there, we'll get there.

But I do want to ask about that, a bit. But moreso when you say the word analog church, like what do you actually mean? Because I think people hear that and like, at least when I read the cover before I read anything else, I had a picture in my mind of like high church, like the church that you go to not with your kids, the church that you sit in the uncomfortable pews. So what do you mean when you say analog church?

Jay 10:44

Yeah, that's a great question.

Well, I think just analog the word in and of itself, has some elasticity of meaning, but primarily, it means tactile, physical, tangible realities can mean lots of other things. But it's all based on that sort of the baseline. So by analog church, that's essentially what I mean and, and more Christian ways to say it might be what I mean by analog churches, embodied physical, tactile, present, real space, real time, church. A church where people actually continue to physically gather, show up, share life with one another and real, again, embodied tactile, physical, tangible ways. That's primarily what I mean. And, and yeah, you know, I've heard that several times from people that when they saw the title, they thought I was the book was about essentially high church, you know, high liturgy, that kind of thing.

And it's not not about that, but it's definitely not primarily about that specifically. And, I think I'm using the word analog in sort of a broader, more baseline sense. Another way to say it would be like non-digital, (I’m) talking about a church that is non digital, which is so interesting because our church like most churches have gone totally digital on this COVID-19 reality that we're in. So yeah, by analog church, that that's what I mean physical embodied, you know, the Christian theological idea behind it might be the incarnation. You know, I'm talking about an incarnational, in the flesh, flesh experience of what it means to be two people.

Seth Price 12:26

I do want to be real clear. So I have read the book from front to back. So I'll feign ignorance for the remainder of the conversation. Because those listening have not. So how, why? I can't see. So here we go. So you're a pastor, Minister, priest, I don't care what the word is, in a church, you get paid by a church that most likely has fancy music and all that stuff as well. I don't like I didn't Google your church, and then stream a sermon or any of that, but that's just the way church happens.

So what makes someone on a staff with an inherent need for things To work the way that they normally did work to go, you know what we need to talk about a way to do church differently? Like, how is that like what happens on a Sunday that you're like, you know what now I need to write this like, kind of how did that happen?

Jay 13:12

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, yeah, you know, the church where I serve now is we're I don't know, I guess you would call us a medium sized church. I don't know; if you include kids and babies and everything, all new ages. Yeah. We're probably like, you know, about 600 people on a Sunday. So that's a pretty big church now in terms of relatively speaking, but we're certainly not like a mega giant whatever. We gather in 1938 Presbyterian, red brick, building in a sleepy, eclectic little beach town called Santa Cruz, California. And our building, our sanctuary, actually is small and only seats about 200 people max that's like shoulder to shoulder so we gather three different times on a Sunday typically, but it feels pretty intimate because there's rarely more than 150 to 175 adults in the room at a time.

So that's big, but it's small enough where we can see each other and know each other and get familiar with one another over time, so that's where I serve now however, I've been on staff at that church for about four years. But before that, I served for several years at like the largest one of the largest mega churches, multi site mega churches in town and it was like total multi-site video venue, the whole thing you know, and and it was really and they're wonderful church not bashing them, but it was really around that time I served as a teaching pastor there when pretty regularly I was getting up on a on a big giant stage with big lights and I was preaching to some people in the room but then I was also looking at this like little camera in the back of the room. room, because I was told that I had to look at the camera because of hundreds of other people that I couldn't see or hear or touch were going to meet in other rooms across the city. Not even on that day on the next day, and watch this video me. So I had to talk to this camera.

And I remember that one experience being really fascinating. I was like, this is strange, like it feels what it felt, you know, on the surface disingenuous a little bit. And to just like I really struggled to make that connection. And more than anything, I just had this deep innate desire to be with those people. Like if I was going to share some thoughts and ideas with them, I felt like man, I'd love to see their faces and their reactions. And I'd love to talk to them after I'm done talking and I'd love to stand next to them and sing with them. And I'd love to take the bread and the cup of Eucharist with them, you know, all these things that just kept bubbling up inside of me.

So that's really when it started and when I got to the church where I serve on staff now Yeah, as a church, we've just tried to again, same word, we've tried to embody some of these things in just small ways. And so that's where the book came from. It wasn't, again, any sort of like anger or bitterness. It was just questions and things I was feeling inside, from my own experience, and then seeing some of that stuff, I think move in healthy direction with the church, where I'm on staff now. And so yeah, that's kind of what gave birth to this thing.

Seth Price 16:30

I have a question about mega churches. So I went to Liberty which if you go to Liberty, and you go to convocation, from what I've been told, it's like the largest Christian gathering every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, in the Western Hemisphere. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's like 11,000 people and one place, I don't know how big churches get so but it's not really church. Either. You show up because they make you or you can't graduate. And and yeah, so it's compulsory attendance. Yeah. So that's, that's everybody really wants to be there.

But those mega churches don't really to me seem like they require much commitment. And they allow people to not have to have to know people. There's you're not elbow to elbow in a 200 seater in a 600 person church. So do you think that churches will continue to trend that way or the other like the opposite? Like the no, we really should have like 50 member churches and just deal with it like, and those are both extremes. I'm well aware of that. Like, just Yeah, not really related to the book just genuinely curious, because you've been on both ends, like, in your experience, what do you what do you think?

Jay 17:41

Yeah, I mean, I don't to be honest with you. I don't know. You know, my, my friend Andy Crouch. He has this he just recently told me this about six months ago is really fascinating. He says he thinks that the future of that sort of church, the big giant, over 10,000 people sort of mega church, that they won't go away, but that there will become less and less of them. And he's sort of prophetic with this stuff usually. But his guess is that, you know, in most major cities and urban centers across America, right now, a lot of them have like three or four of these types of churches. He thinks in the future what will happen is most cities and urban centers will have like one. There will be one giant hub of like the 10,000 plus giant spectacle show type of thing.

But he thinks that they will gather probably a fairly aging community. And what we will then see as, as other large churches like that in those towns and cities, sort of change and evolve. We'll see not necessarily only like house churches or anything like that. I'm a big fan of churches of all sizes. But he thinks we'll see more like medium size to smaller size and maybe even some, like sort of big churches but not a mega, like several of the mega whatever. And I tend to agree with him: 1: just because he's really smart, but 2: the way he's he's sort of mapping it out in terms of the trajectory of younger generations.

I mean, I think we're seeing that at our church for one and we're seeing, you know, I live in the Silicon Valley, the epicenter of digital technology, and we're definitely It feels like we're seeing that amongst, especially amongst, younger generations, even here. So I'm not against large churches. In fact, I actually think the future for large churches won't necessarily to get small, I think it'll, it's more about creating warmth, rather than trying to be cool. And I think if we can do that, then even in churches that maybe represent thousands of people, you can lean in to creating spaces that feel warm, and intimate. Some of that does have to do with the size of the room. So it might demand more gatherings than less, you know, rather than 4000 people in one giant room, it might be 400 people in the smaller room 10 times over a weekend or something. So I think we can, you know, I think there is a future for large churches. I hope there is because I think there's a lot of good that comes from churches of all sizes. So, yeah, those are some thoughts.

Seth Price 20:27

I began reading your book while my daughter tried to do gymnastics, she's really struggling for the back handspring. She could do it. She just doesn't know she can do it. But she bounces 19 times after that huge cartwheel and I’m like “just keep going over”. So in between watching her and reading your book, I highlighted so many different spots, and I kept highlighting a different keyword. But early on in your book, you say something, Is it fine if I quote your book back to you, please? You say

since its earliest days, the Christian Church has been marked by its invitation to transcendence, not relevance

and relevance makes a lot of sense especially In today's culture, but what do you mean by transcendence? Because I think people hear that and they're going to go a million different places the old reptilian part of my brain that was beat into me I immediately think rapture, but I know that's not what you're saying. So normal it's what nor is that what I think now it's just that's the trigger. That's…that's what happens to post traumatic stress. So what do you mean when you say transcendence there?

Jay 21:24

Yeah, well, I guess most simply what I mean is that which transcends the ordinary, normal, mundane, everyday, expected, unsurprising reality of life. So that's a big sort of way to say it, but that is genuinely what I mean that which transcends the stuff that we expect and the stuff that we know and are familiar with. And the reason that's important to me is because when we see transcendence against the backdrop of relevance, if you take away the words and you just go based on data definition. You know, I thought that that would be a helpful dichotomy because it's, it's pretty clear to me that in so many of our churches, if you take away the words, it seems like by their definition, what so many of us in so many of our churches are trying to do is be relevant.

You know, it's one of the reasons why there's an entire industry of companies that, you know, help your church get into the latest and greatest of, you know, like the furthest edges of digital technology, and the latest and greatest and lightning and sound and I'm not bashing those things. I think there are tempered, tasteful, ways to maybe use some lighting and sound and all of that and I'm definitely grateful for skilled sound techs who make things sound good, you know, I think that's great. But we we churches put so much of an emphasis on that stuff. And I I'm just I'm just trying to make the point that when we do just know, we're running hard into irrelevance, we're just trying to look sound and feel like everything else, you know, we're trying to keep up with the technological spectacle Joneses, essentially. And when we do that, I think we miss out on the very gift of what it means to be the church, which is the opportunity to create transcendent spaces.

Spaces that don't look sound and feel like everything else, and everybody's over digitized life, but rather invites people to take a deep breath in a space that feels so other and so unlike everything else, and the way to define that is just to ask what is everyone's lifelike and what is the Christian called creates spaces that aren't like that. So in the digital age, everything is fast and everyone's in a rush. So a transcendent thing is not necessarily to do like magic. It's just what if we just created space that was slow and that took its time? That's transcendent in the digital age, you know, or yeah, so there you go. I could go on and on.

Seth Price 24:07

I want to ask a question about that. So being that many people church hop or they have their own expectations about and I think you actually use I don't remember what page it is invited me to use the word church shopping, or church hopping or turn some of that and it's a chop it's Yeah, it's in italics, I think as well. Anyway, I can't remember page like 872 there's not that many pages in there. But you know what I mean?

So, I think most people come to church with an expectation of minimal participation, like watching an NFL game at my couch, like I'm going to participate, but I'm going to participate tomorrow when I'm comfortable participating (on) Monday morning quarterbacking, your sermon or music or whatever. So as a pastor or someone reading the book, or maybe a pastor reading the book or whatever, how do you do that at a church wide level without the membership falling apart so the church doesn't sustain? And preparing people to do that, especially because unless you're a church intentionally built to do that, I think the people that are already there, the people coming have a different expectation of what to expect. So how do you pivot a church into that?

Jay 25:19

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would, you know, and I think what you said earlier is, like, is so important that how do you do that without essentially ruining your church? You know, like, how do you do that without thumping them over the head with a Bible, you know, and doing it, right? It's like, all of a sudden, they show up and you just turn the tables on them. They're totally not used to it. So I think that's a great, that's a great, really important point. And it gets back to pastoring.

What we started the conversation with earlier, you know, to pastor our people, well, it doesn't mean that we have to, you know, that we just sort of like that moment we see we recognize some shortcoming or whatever. You know, we go crazy. just expect people to change overnight. You know, we have to pastor them, we have to journey with them. So if we are currently leading, serving and leading, in churches were really the expectation of our community is to show up and consume a product rather than participating and creating worship together as the family of God, then I think we have to do the hard work of just saying, “Okay, what is the very next step we could take to take our people in that direction”, and then take a step further after that, and after that, and there was such a wide variety of ideas there.

But you know, for example, like, communion to me it's one of the most accessible and yet deeply participatory reminders of what it means to be the church. You know, I would argue if you're doing like, you know, “quarterly communion Sunday” or whatever my opinion is, that's not nearly enough. You know, Jesus leaves us a meal, the bread and the cup by which to remember him. And I cannot fathom why we wouldn't do that break bread and drink have a cup to remember the risen Christ. I can't even fathom why we wouldn't do that as much as possible every time we gather. And it is every time we gather it is by its very nature, a communal exercise now. So that's one idea.

You know, I think a lot of it sometimes like music is a easy example. Because we so in the digital age, especially, we are so accustomed to think about music as something we consume. So I talk to worship leaders and worship pastors all the time, who gets so incredibly frustrated because they're like, “man, our band practices and we sound so awesome. Then we lead worship on Sunday and the people just have their hands in their pockets and they're kind humming along and swaying back”. And I get the frustration. But I would say two things. One, maybe it's the very fact that your band is so professional that communicates, inadvertently, that this is music to be consumed, because that's the way most people think about music.

And this is like a recent phenomenon, right? We went from 1000 songs on a little device called the iPod in 2001 to less than, you know, two decades later, I could find over 50 million songs on Spotify.

Seth Price 28:31

Yeah…

Jay 28:32

So like, I mean, when we think about music today, most people are thinking music is something I consume. They are not thinking music is something I create and yet the invitation of the church week after week is to come and create. So if our bands are leading toward relevance, just we're just going to sound like Spotify every all the bands on Spotify or whatever, then no wonder people are like, oh, is another piece of music I consume, you know, and I'm not saying bands should not practice and be excellent. I absolutely think they should be because it’s distracting if they're not. But I think they've got to do you know, worship leaders have to do the hard work of Okay, let's sound excellent. But craft and cultivate this space in a way where it's very clear, we're inviting participation. Yeah. And as a worship leader, I'm not just leading the six musicians up here, leading that 200 people out here like I am the worship leader for the entire community. Yeah, there you go. I think there's little steps we can take in that direction.

Seth Price 29:27

I want to stay on worship for a minute, but I want to say something for so I actually do lead the worship for our church, and I don't know how big our church is maybe four or five 600 members, it really probably, you know, I don't know how many people four or 500 a week, um, yeah, but I find the weeks that I'm trying to make the music sound good-I don't personally worship and the weeks that I get the most feedback of people saying, you know, I really, like that was helpful. I got really Yes, today was because I like when people give me feedback, though. I don't usually respond, because my wife will tell you (that) I don't accept praise or criticism. Well, I just kind of cool. I just keep right on rocking and rolling. But the weeks in this, maybe I'm doing it wrong. But the weeks that I honestly don't care if like you were in the in the congregation, I don't care if you worship, but I know that I'm worshiping. Those seem to be the weeks that everyone else is also able to worship with me if that makes any sense. And I'm aware of how selfish that sounds. I know, especially as I say it out loud.

But I find if I'm not worshiping if I'm too worried about the notes, the rhythm, the tempo, oh, shoot, we slipped into 3/4, it's fine, it's fine. But the weeks that I'm able to actually worship and forget that I'm on a stage, are the weeks that everyone else actually also works those as well. At least, that's what I've been told you. Staying on worship you talk about whole body participation, and there's a part in here. Where is it? Nope, I can't find it. Yeah, so what Yeah, Where's it at? I thought I highlighted it and I didn't You, whereas it,

Do you know where I'm at?

Jay 31:11

No, I don't have my book in front of me.

Seth Price 31:13

Yeah, hold on, I'll find it. Now, so you are, it's alright, I'm gonna pivot away from that because I can't find that I thought I had it highlighted in the page number written down. Apparently I don't. Instead I'll go to the other part of that chapter that I want to talk about. You talked about it a minute ago, have you have 90 bajillion songs in Spotify and worship being something we consume? You talk in here a bit about in the 18th century you know, Charles Wesley wrote basically all the hymns, and that what it did was it focused the collective gaze of the community downward. And so I like

Jay 31:52

the hymnal. Yeah.

Seth Price 31:54

I like the visual of that but I'm curious as to how that would break worship?

Jay 31:57

Oh, yeah, I wasn't trying to make a strong point about that. I think I was in that section of the book, I'm just trying to paint a trajectory of how we got to where we are in terms of, you know, and what's funny is like, I should have included the Spotify stuff and sort of the ephemeral nature of music previously, I touch on it, but I've done a little more work on it since then. So I'm like, a little bummed that, you know, the books done.

Seth Price 32:23

You could amend it, I guess, make version two

Jay 32:26

Yeah, but um, yeah, I'm just trying to paint a picture, you know, before hymnals. And such, our song choices were limited, right? Because like any song or everything together has to be stuff that's committed to memory. And then once we got the hymnal, that's when hymnalty exploded, essentially. It's when Charles Wesley just started writing thousands of songs because we could keep them all we could keep track of them all in this book, you know, and not only do the books have words lyrics, the books also had a no purpose and most people know it's a pretty simple to learn once you learn it. And most people you know you can say him number 426 and everybody could sing it because the notes are there and the words are there and the tempo is there. So if you have like a basic leader, you're not performing you're not humming along everyone's just kind of jumping in because you've got it right there in front of you. But also, like you're visually your your gaze is fixed down below but a book you know, because you're looking at the lyrics and reading notes. And then you know, when we got to the 20th century, late 20th century, we had the the overhead projector, you know, transparencies, I used to run those of youth group in the 1990’s

Seth Price 33:37

Where the pastors kid just switches the thing out and hope you don't get it upside down.

Jay 33:41

Yeah, totally. Exactly. So um, yeah, that fixed our gaze upward. But we also lost something right. We lost several things, but one of the things we lost was like transparency slides as such, unlike hymnals, don't have notes. So even though we're not looking down at a hymn book anymore, we're all sort of looking up, we can sort of just peripherally see one another, you only see the lyrics, you know, I don't know how to sing that song and, and that's been taken further now with like, you know, pro presenter and all those things. Which we use, and it's super helpful. But you know what, the only point I'm trying to make is like, man, we have to be aware of how these technologies are affecting the way we participate or do not participate in worship.

So for example, the very fact that our song lyrics don't have notes to them and the fact that our people because we don't use and most of us don't know even how to read notes. Because we've never been taught it's not a value. The only way I can sing the song we're going to say on Sunday is if you told me about the song beforehand, and I listened to it again, on Spotify, or Pandora or whatever, I have to consume the song you know, and that we have to be aware like that in and of itself is communicating in a subversive way, this is like a song written and recorded by a professional band called Hillsong or Bethel or whatever you know, and it's really great. And then you have all sorts of other psychological things happening because when you show up to your church on Sunday morning, chances are no matter how great or awesome the worship leader at your churches, they're not going to sound like that recording you listened to. The volunteer, lead guitar player is not going to shred that solo quite the way that hill song dude did it Who does this professionally, you know, towards the world or whatever. So then you've got to reckon with like, what that does to us is, you know, are we consuming or participating? How many times have you heard people say, like, oh, the worship was so good today, which what they mean is like the music sounded good.

Seth Price 35:47

I knew the words is what they mean.

Jay 35:53

Yeah! So it's just the fascinating thing.

Seth Price 36:12

Oddly enough, when I sing music, the ones that I enjoy doing the most are the ones that nobody knows the words to. But I think it's because it's not on K-Love and so I don't have to compete with it

Jay 36:22

Oh, interesting.

Seth Price 36:24

Yeah, yeah. Like what really about it? So there's like a countdown timer sometimes in our church and I told our pastor this like, I'm like, “Don't play the song that we're about to play, right before we play it. Because that's disrespectful. That's hateful. It's unrealistic expectations. None of this is okay!”

You touch on the Tower of Babel. I believe you touched yet you do touch on the power of Babel. And there is again, see I'm not as prepared as I should be here where's it at? That? Yeah, so you use the word “babbling”, which I think is this third word. We're going to make up today's conversation. I can't remember the third one but hybridity but babbling and its effect on community. And I want to find where I highlighted it. Yeah. So you say

one of the most dangerous things about our babbling is its propensity to radically lower our expectations of one another, as our interactions are mostly comprised of our shallowist articulations, we begin to see others as only superficial characters. And this has in turn has a toxic effect on our understanding of community.

And so I wondered if you could set some context of when you say babbling, what do you mean? And I will say the story at the beginning of that chapter, like I read it a few times, and I'm like, every two days I do that, like I show that to your daughter saying, no more email, daddy. That's the story. And I'm like, ah, I do that all the time. But can you kind of contextually say, like when you say babbling, like how does Babel and by that we're gonna talk about the Tower of Babel a bit like how does that comprise to a digital animal Long way that we do church and the way that we do in just the digital age overall.

Jay 38:05

Yeah, well, yeah, we could talk more about the Tower of Babel story found in the tail end of that opening section of Genesis, Genesis 11, which is all sort of one overarching narrative to tell us how the human story went so awry. But, you know, that whole section culminates in the story of the Tower of Babel, where people all over the world, every person actually, and their core idea is we have to build this tower to reach the heavens to make a name for ourselves so that we we are not scattered. And so their fear is to be scattered, right. They don't want to get scattered and essentially in their pursuit of making a name for themselves to sort of solidify their place on the planet. God undoes the work and he It says he essentially confuses their languages. And that's that's sort of the origins of these differently, which is, at least in the Biblical narrative telling of the world.

And what's fascinating is, you know, God in undoing sort of their selfish ambition he basically take some sort, he scatters them, which was the very thing they were afraid to, like they were afraid of. And I'm just I'm using that story as a parallel for what I think is happening in the digital age, we have these digital technologies that we think, we've been told, are supposed to connect us create one global village and make us one and connect us with everybody and a deeper sort of connection than we could, you know, we've ever experienced before and all those sorts of things. And what all of the data is actually showing us as with, you know, with the rise of the Internet parallel to the rise of the internet has been arising feelings of isolation, anxiety, illness, a sense of isolation. So the very thing we were afraid of the very thing we thought these tools and technologies were going to create for us. They turned us into just these babbling sort of people who don't know how to really deeply connect with one another. And that means all sorts of things. I'm not attacking, you know, particular mediums like, I love Twitter, I'm on Twitter all the time, and I get a lot of, I don't know, I get a lot of laughs from Twitter and some good information from time to time from Twitter.

But also, let's be honest, there's a ton of babbling on Twitter, and we have to, you know, like, if I want real depth, I don't go to Twitter.

Seth Price 40:51

Definitely go to Facebook.

Jay 40:53

(laughs) yes… or I read a book. No, it's on Facebook or Snapchat for the real depth. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, you get what I'm saying. So I think we find ourselves in really similar situations.

Seth Price 41:09

Yeah, your story at the beginning and I'm not gonna say the story just because people should buy the book and read the story themselves. For those keeping score. I think it's on like page 90 or 86, something like that. Um, but it reminded me of a song for one of my favorite musicians. Maybe it's not a song, I think it's spoken word from Propaganda. You have to know who propaganda is, I think. Yeah, he talks about his cheating on his wife with his black wife, but by that he means like his iPhone, and I don't know if that's what it's called. But it's I think it's spoken word. And yes, just powerful. It's like a powerful for six, seven minutes there. Yeah. So I have a couple questions that I want to end with but I have another question for so you have a chapter literally called How to Read a book. And so I intentionally skimmed this chapter, but two questions just because I'm a smartaleck. Why would you not begin with a chapter called How to Read a book if you bought a book that you're about to read and then By that, I'm assuming you mean the Bible and then so how do I read a book? But first question first, like, why would you just not begin with that chapter on How to Read a book?

Jay 42:09

I don't know, man, maybe I should have…I don’t have a good answer (laughs). No, I wanted to set the you know how to read a book. It is about reading the Bible. So I felt like starting with analog, yeah, just the digital analog stuff was important to set set the tone first. And then you know, I thought worshiping community are actually more primarily the things people sort of viscerally feel in their own lives, like digital age is affecting worship and tech community. I don't think too many people think like, think about how it's affecting the way they read, and particularly the way they read the Bible or so I saved that sort of for the end, because I thought it was a little bit more niche specific. But it's actually a funny thing you asked that it's probably personally the parts of the book those two chapters were the parts of the book that I had the hardest time writing but enjoyed writing the most.

Seth Price 43:07

Why had the hardest time writing what about that? Because I get like I agree with a lot of what you're saying here so why why had the hardest time writing that what was also difficult?

Jay 43:17

Yeah, I just hadn't thought about it as much. It actually the first two sections or first three sections about discipleship to Jesus in the digital age and then worship and community. The the was it things along time for several years, but the sections on how to read the Bible and how the digital age is sort of undoing the way we even think about reading and ingesting information that was much more recent. So I felt like I was like, writing on the fly, to be honest. One of those chapters, my editor came back to me shout out to my editor, Ethan McCarthy, brilliant man, je came back to me, and he's like, just cold and brutal. He was like, Hey, man, he put some edits in at the end of it. He said, Hey, man, be honest with you. This entire chapter makes no sense. You’re gonna have to rewrite the whole thing and here’s why. So actually, I have two versions of that chapter because I just had to read, but really hard to do, but I enjoyed it. And I think it's important, I think we need to re-engage.

Seth Price 44:24

Yeah, there's a part in here, which literally made me laugh out loud where you're talking about, you know,

at the earliest New Testament manuscripts are written in Greek, and all caps with no space in between the words and minimal punctuation

and then you literally just have like a sentence yelling at me. Have you think about reading like, just like a run on yelling? sentence? I honestly just want to type that on Twitter with no context. Just take that, put it on Twitter, hit Send and be done with it. I might do it tonight. Why not? I wanted to ask you a bit about what you said at the beginning. So why Genesis one and two like if I sat down at your church where you came mind you're like, here's where I'm gonna lean on. I could do this from memory like what am I gonna walk away with where I'm like, huh? Like what what approach Do you take to Genesis one and two because you could go about a lot of ways like we could go young earth creationism we could go everything's a metaphor, we could like we could go so many different ways. So what what's your approach there? I'm genuinely curious because I was expecting you were going to get a Pauline epistle or the Gospel of John or you know that the you know, the Patron at the top shelf but most people don't go with the Genesis.

Jay 45:30

Yeah, yeah. Then Genesis is Jose Cuervo or something. Well there are lots of fascinating conversations you know, like you said, the science conversation and all that you know, all that stuff. I think for me, I just Genesis wanting to our, almost everything you could trace back Genesis one as you know, there's so much happening throughout what we call the Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures. And then much more emphatically in the New Testament, there's just all of these callbacks to Genesis 1 and 2, by Jesus himself and then especially by Paul and others, and that's not an accident. You know, Genesis 1 and 2, I said, Genesis 1-2, because I believe Genesis one two gives us the picture of what he intended for his own glory and for the good of humans for the flourishing of humankind. And those two things are intrinsically linked which is made clear in Genesis 1 and 2 and then throughout the scriptures in various places. So I think for me, you know, the beauty of Genesis 1-2 has a lot to do with a good God ordering a disordered worlds, you know, the, there is debate about this, but my reading of Genesis pointing to when it's tells us that, you know, God creates he speaks to creation into being.

You know, the Jewish scholar Everett Fox, he translates the words of the beginning of Genesis one. Not that God creates out of nothing, but that God creates that of wild and waste. And he's trying to capture the poetic language language, the poetic linguistic power of the original language in ancient Hebrew, which is Tohu wa-bohu, which is very poetic sounding. So he translates a wild and waste. So it's not that there's like nothing it's that everything is disordered. And so the creation narratives for me are not about the Big Bang, necessarily.

And I'm not saying one thing or another about the Big Bang. I'm not a scientist. What I am saying is what I think the story is telling us is that a good God creates an ordered beautiful world at a distance. ordered chaotic world, or you might not even call it a world a disordered, chaotic, unreality, he creates a beautiful ordered reality. And the reason Genesis 1-2, based on that reading of it is so important to me my favorite place to preach, I think, is because that's the entire human story. Every moment of the Bible from then, culminating the resurrection of Christ, and the promise of new heaven and new earth is that same motif. It's a good God, creating, ordering and creating a beautiful reality out of a disordered, chaotic unreality, which is the fallout of sin. And we're seeing that even now, you know, we're we're feeling in visceral ways.

Seth Price 48:47

So I do want to ask because I would be remiss and I would kick myself if I didn't ask you about Coronavirus. So, in a church where we're structured around intentionally being in the presence of one another and I'm aware of how weird that sounds when we are talking a continent away over the internet. But, hey, technology is the thing. How does a church, if you've accustom people to that, so say it's 15 years from now, and that's the way the churches and it's arguably more healthy because we genuinely do life together. And I don't disagree with that at all. How does a pastor come alongside people to prepare for the loss? If something like a pandemic ever happens again, or like what's happening now? Because there's like a retraction of community, which is depressive. So what word would you say to that? Because I mean, it's happening now, although churches necessarily happened not like that, but some do. So how how would you protect against that? Because that I think that could be dangerous.

Jay 49:44

Yeah, well, I mean, from giving me a little bit more frame the question because I thought I thought I was tracking with you, but then you were asking about the dangers.

Seth Price 49:52

Yeah, so I can so the way that church to me works now is I could show up at any service any Sunday, anywhere and could participate, quote unquote, and I could leave and nobody would ever know that I'm there. But if we can reframe things in a more analog way, everyone knows that I'm there because it's such a small body and it's so deeply integrated. And then as I find a church I can plug myself into, that's your family like it becomes your family, at least I would hope so. And then something like what's happening with the Coronavirus happens, and I am removed from my family like I'm currency and I'm restricted, I can't commune with them. I can't be with them. I can talk to them on the phone.

But we both know that that's not the same because long distance relationships don't work. So as a pastor, if a church is modeled around a more analog style, which isn't really what you write in your book, like how do you protect against the feeling of grief and loss or should you even protect against that? That the people in the church are going to be like, Ah, it's been a month and I haven't been with my people!! This is church for me and now I'm no longer getting that. You know what I mean?

Jay 50:57

Yeah. That's great. I will would not protect against the feeling of grief and loss, I'd actually lean into it. And for us at our church today, and at so many churches I have friends who serve and lead at churches in town there is tremendous grief and loss and the grief and the loss is painful. But for me as I think about the future of the church, it's beautifully helpful. You should be feeling grief and loss.

First of all, let me say in you know, COVID-19 reality, I believe, the wise and responsible thing to do, at least in our part of the world where we live now, not just based on government mandates, but the wise and responsible thing to do is because of Jesus, driven by love of neighbor and seeking of the common good, the wise and responsible thing to do, I think is to bless the world with our absence, and to do the right thing, you know, particularly for the most part memorable amongst us.

And so it's hard. And it's a sacrifice and I have cabin fever and I've only been in my house for 48 hours. But you know, when I get out and but that's even, you know, that's small potatoes to what so many others are dealing with when it comes to like the loss of income. The jobs is like such a disruption, but it's the right thing to do.

But when it comes to analog, you know, I think the grief and the loss is a good thing. It's helping us understand. I mean, think about what's happening, right? I've actually gotten some messages, Seth, recently, from people that I've like debated about the whole digital online church thing. I've actually recently gotten messages in the last few days. And they're good hearted and these are good people who love the Lord. But I've gotten these little jabs at me you know, on social media like “Hey, man, hope the digital online church thing is working well for you”, you know, as if they've won some arguement. And you know, their friends and I love them and we have to agreements on our ecclesiology. But my point back to them would actually be like, actually, dude, this is you're just, we're on the front end of the conversation. But what I'm seeing is that when we get to the back end of this thing, what's going to be very clear is that the heavy leaning into digital and online realities as church and I'm using air quotes here, for those listening, it's going to be exposed by this strange time that we're in.

Because we're just like, a couple of weeks into this thing, and really a couple of days into the most intense parts of this thing. And already what people intrinsically are feeling is, even though I have my Facebook Live and FaceTime and Instagram, and we canZzoom and we're doing all of this, even though we can do all of that something is missing, like this isn't quite human in the most beautiful and meaningful, deepest sense.

And so I think we're To get to the back end of this and the grief and the feeling of loss, we lean into it. And let people know as those leaving and serving in local churches, we cannot, this is what we have to do for the common good for love of neighbor right now. But when this is over when it's wise and responsible to do so, we cannot wait together with you again, face to face, as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians.

So I think it's a good thing to feel this pain to be responsible, but to feel this pain and lean into it in a way where when we can gather again, I think there's just going to be this incredible celebration of like, Oh my gosh, I took for granted. Yeah, how meaningful and important it is that we're, we're embodied with one.

Seth Price 54:42

So I've been asking this question to everyone and I'm going to try to frame it differently for you because I'm trying to frame it differently for everyone. It's a challenge that I've kind of challenged myself through so you're getting coffee, and someone that you don't know is like, oh, you're a pastor tell me about God. And I don't mean the trice response like, I mean, the one where you're like, yeah, you know, they're like, yeah, don't tell me I don't want to hear Jesus, you say the word Jesus, I'ma throw this coffee in your face like, so when you say the word God, and I do want to be clear, you can say the word Jesus, it's fine. It's fine. I'm like, What are you intending to say? Because I'm well aware that they're all metaphors, like when we're trying to talk about God, like the best that we can come up with is not enough. So when I say the word God, or the divine, or Yahweh, or whatever you want to say, What are you actually trying to mean?

Jay 55:30

Well, I'm, I'm going to break your rule, man, because for me, it's hard to talk about. Yeah, it's hard to talk about God, apart from Jesus. Yeah, you know, without getting into the details of my own faith journey. I grew up being told a lot about God and not necessarily even like God, the Father, just God and have went through a whole deconstruction process and my faith that the So many go through. And what brought me back was the compelling, undeniable story of this, you know, first century Jewish rabbi. So it's hard for me to talk about God without talking about Jesus.

So I think my honest answer is that that's probably where I'd go, you know, that as a, you know, you can call me whatever, like, I rarely call myself, I rarely self identify, like as a Christian, not not to say I have a problem with that, or to deny that I am a Christian. I am one—but that word has such baggage, particularly today 2020 in the western, modern Western world. So what we say a lot at our church is not necessarily like as Christians we say, a lot, not just me, but many of our folks will say, as followers of Jesus, and then whatever, you know, yeah. And so it's hard for me to talk about God without talking about Jesus and I'm not denying the Trinity or anything, I don't want blogs to go out saying that I'm a heretic or anything like that.

You know, God the Father, that Jesus is the son of the Holy Spirit totally. But it's hard for me to talk about any any one of those without the other. For me, I think Jesus of Nazareth is the one who most compelling lately and beautifully is that, I think my and my answer would be to break your rule would just be to want to talk about Jesus of Nazareth and why he’s such a compelling figure.

Seth Price 57:40

Yeah, it's a loose rule. So it's fine. Yeah. Yeah, I'll give a little more context to that in a minute. So point people to the places like you your books, like 200 pages. We didn't talk about most of this stuff in there intentionally. I like to hit some of the things that just speak to me because I'm not a huge fan of usually questions that the publishers put together? Because, yeah, I feel like those questions are for people that didn't read the book maybe they're not and if any, it doesn't matter. So where would you point people to if they're like, Alright, I got to hear this sermon on Genesis, or I want to get a hold of the book, or whatever. Where would you send people to?

Jay 58:18

Yeah, well, for the book, you know, you can just find the book. It's called Analog Church, and you can find that anywhere. They sell books, little boutique online store called Amazon might be a good place, you know, a little niche. And then, yeah, I have a little website, JayKimthinks.com. I'm not saying I'm the only one who thinks it's just the stuff I'm thinking about. And I have stuff up there about our church.

You know, teaching stuff, my book stuff, our podcast that I co host with a friend Isaac Serrano. So it's all up there. So my website, probably a good place to go.

Seth Price 59:00

Well, those will be in the show notes. Jay, thanks for coming on. Thanks for your time. I did hear kids a little bit now. And then I'm gonna leave them in they’ll be guests on the show. Yeah, but I'm aware of the time commitment. And so thank you to both you, your family and your wife as well. So appreciate you coming on. I enjoyed it.

Jay 59:17

Absolutely Seth, that was thrilling. I just want you to know it loved up to the billing. I was thrilled an hour ago and it was thrilling!

Seth Price 59:24

(Laughter) See, that's why your a professional orator, you brought it all full circle.

Jay 59:31

No, I enjoyed it. I appreciate it so much. Appreciate what you do.

Seth Price 59:45

I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but this show is a free podcast like you don't have to buy it. But there are some amazing people that do help created and those are the patrons of the show. If you go down to the show notes, click on the link or just Google it. Can I Say This At Church and Patreon. I mean, there's so many different ways to get there. I want you to become part of that community.

Now, I'll be honest, the last few weeks with the increase at work that I've had my attention to that community has waned. And so for the patrons listening, I'm very sorry for that. But I hope that you hear me and know that, that will not be a long term thing. It's just been a crazy few weeks for us all, hasn't it.

But I'm so thankful to those of you that helped create this show. And I would ask a few more of you to pitch in to that tent. If you're able. If you're not able, just tell a friend about the show, share your favorite episode. Maybe in that episode, you find the transcript for it and let people know that it's there. So many different ways to connect with each other and I love it.

Very Special thanks to the Salt of the Sound again for the use of their music. You do need to check them out. They are fantastic. I pray that you're safe. Pray that you know how blessed you are. Ill talk with you next week.