“Wrestling With Growth” with Matt Miofsky
Show Notes:
We hear a lot about the rapid decline in church attendance across the country, but there are many churches who are experiencing growth. So what, exactly, are these churches doing to attract new members? Matt Miofisky has a few ideas.
Matt is the founder of The Gathering, a multi-site United Methodist congregation in St. Louis, Missouri. As the founder and leader of a consistently growing urban church and the co-author of Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches, Matt is more than qualified for today’s conversation.
Matt is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, where he majored in mathematics before earning his Master’s of Divinity at Emory University. He founded The Gathering in 2006, which was recently named the third fastest growing large United Methodist church in the US.
Resources:
Learn more about The Gathering here
Buy Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches here
Buy The Methodist Book of Daily Prayer here
Buy Matt’s other books here
Listen to The F Word, Matt’s podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Follow Matt on Instagram or Facebook
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 00:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 00:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 00:03
Today we're talking to Matt Miofsky.
Eddie Rester 00:06
Matt Miofsky is United Methodist pastor in Saint Louis. He is the pastor of The Gathering, a
multi-site church that he founded in 2006. It's almost 20 years old. And we're really talking to
him today about the lessons he's learned, particularly a book that he and a couple other folks
wrote seven years ago about, how do we begin to move our churches towards growth again?
Chris McAlilly 00:29
Yeah, so his church was growing rapidly, and instead of writing a book about his own rapidly
growing church, they looked at common characteristics across churches and denominations,
things that hold together, churches that were growing. This is pre-pandemic, but the list, I
think, is kind of evergreen. Here are the few of the things: believing in miracles and acting
accordingly, integrating new people quickly, preaching effectively to skeptics. We talk about
these and others. Great conversation about leading in a Christian context, leading a church,
leading a group of people. What were your takeaways, Eddie?
Eddie Rester 01:06
Well, I think one of the things that he holds so well is just a connection to where people are in
the world. We talk a lot about skeptics. We talk, one time he says,
"normal people," the people who maybe are on the fringes or who struggle to understand
what the good news is about. And he does such a great job of weaving that conversation throughout
our time together today. And that's one of the things I think, for me. How do I begin to listen and see
and understand the folks who don't see and hear and understand the gospel the way I do?
Chris McAlilly 01:43
Yeah. I was... I mean, there are a lot of practical things in this conversation about, you know,
maybe what to do. I think I'll take away from this conversation the need to be bold, in terms of
believing that God is still the subject of active verb, something that I've said before on the
podcast, and something that I do believe, but I'm grateful for the reminder. And then also just
continuing to lean creatively into the work. You know, maybe at times where things seem
desperate or hard or even hopeless, or things seem to be breaking apart, those are
opportunities for God, to do something new in a particular place.
Eddie Rester 02:26
So share this like it. Let us know what you think. We would love to hear from you. Enjoy.
Chris McAlilly 02:31
[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to
navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and
unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.
Eddie Rester 02:48
As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all
carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
Chris McAlilly 02:59
But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of
wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
Eddie Rester 03:09
That's why The Weight exists to create space for the conversations that challenge our
assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
Chris McAlilly 03:19
Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition,
and responsiveness to a changing world.
Eddie Rester 03:27
So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a
nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of
Christ centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Eddie Rester 03:43
We're here today with Matt Miofsky, who is the pastor of The Gathering St Louis, and a ministry
peer, friend, all those kinds of things through the years. Matt, welcome to the podcast.
Matt Miofsky 03:55
It's good to see you guys. Thanks for having me.
Eddie Rester 03:57
Yeah, so we were talking earlier. Baseball's had a good start in St Louis. Are you expecting a
championship this year?
Matt Miofsky 04:03
You know, we got off to an unexpectedly good start the Cardinals. This is one of those seasons
where they they said, beforehand, hey, this might be a rebuilding year, which people in St Louis
do not want to hear. They're booing the owners. And yet, we were off to a sweep of the Twins.
So things are so far, so good.
Chris McAlilly 04:23
Hope springs eternal.
Matt Miofsky 04:24
We'll take it. That's right. That's right. Right now, everything's looking hopeful.
Eddie Rester 04:28
It's not June yet.
Matt Miofsky 04:29
Check back in July. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 04:31
Are you a native of St Louis?
Matt Miofsky 04:33
I am. I was born here, raised pretty close to St Louis, in a rural, like a small town in Missouri,
and went to college here. So I've been here a long time.
Chris McAlilly 04:43
And what did you study in college? What college you go to?
Matt Miofsky 04:46
I went to Wash U here in St Louis, played football and studied math. So I was a math major.
Chris McAlilly 04:54
And it was in math that you heard the voice of the Lord say,
happen? What was your sense of calling?
"go into ministry." How did that
Matt Miofsky 05:06
Well, you know, it's funny, you get philosophical and talk about how math and faith at some
point sort of meet, but honestly, it was more football than math that led me there. I mean, I
grew up in the church, grew up Methodist and Catholic and liked church. It was important to
me. But in college, I got invited to Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which I'm sure you guys
have heard of, a lot of people have. And my junior year of college, got asked to lead it, which I
was somewhat resistant to, but I said yes. And I led that my junior and senior year, and I did
not have any idea what I wanted to do with my life.
Matt Miofsky 05:46
I loved math, but I was majoring in theoretical math, which I was, I didn't want to become a
professor, and I knew I needed to work with people. And meanwhile, over here, I was leading
this Bible study that was kind of growing and beginning to thrive. And I thought, well, maybe
there's something to this. So that's sort of the short version of how a football guy who studied
math got led into ministry.
Matt Miofsky 06:10
You planted a church, The Gathering.
Eddie Rester 06:12
So tell us about...
Matt Miofsky 06:13
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 06:14
How that happened. Give us just a thumbnail sketch of how that happened, the early days of it,
and you're still there, so, yeah.
Matt Miofsky 06:22
Yeah. Well, it actually kind of... The idea for it ended up kind of starting in college. And just
really quickly, you know, Wash U, I loved the school, but it's a pretty fiercely secular place. It's
not a place where people talk a lot about religion. Which, I'm actually glad I went to a school
like that, because I was kind of swimming in waters where people weren't necessarily hostile to
faith, but were skeptical. Didn't believe. Faith conversations weren't happening very much, and
yet, what I discovered is, if you could kind of pull back the curtain, a lot of people around me
were wrestling with deeply spiritual questions. They wouldn't call them spiritual, but that's what
they were. And yet they were doing it kind of all by themselves, without any real wisdom
outside of themselves. And I thought to myself, Wow, Jesus has so much to say about some of
these things that people are wrestling with. And yet, in a space like that, so few people saw the
church as a place that might be relevant to them.
Matt Miofsky 07:20
So kind of fast forward, I went to seminary, got appointed back in St Louis as an associate
pastor. I'm in my mid 20s, and kind of same thing, reconnecting with friends. Some of them
graduated. Some of them are still in school. Some of them, you know, working, doing different
things, but still kind of that same environment. People really didn't go to church much. A lot of
people in the city didn't see church as something that'd be relevant to them anymore. And yet,
what I was noticing is that a lot of people were wrestling with spiritual questions, and if you
could kind of pull back the curtain, that's what was going on, and they were doing it alone and
without any wisdom outside themselves.
Matt Miofsky 07:58
So I just really started to feel this kind of nudge to start a community in the city of St Louis that
was compelling to new generations of people, that maybe introduced or reintroduced the
church to people who'd been burned by it or bored by it, saw it as irrelevant. Increasingly, there
was this bifurcation between churches that were vibrant in worship and kids ministry, and
evangelical in their approach, but also really kind of conservative theologically, or these
churches that were open theologically, but kind of dying on the inside. And I thought, wouldn't
it be cool to have a church that was both those things? Kind of passionate about Jesus, wanting
to share Jesus with others, and yet doing that with a more open perspective towards the world
and other people. So that's like the thumbnail sketch of all that was kind of stirred around in
me.
Matt Miofsky 08:51
And so then, at the time, nobody was really starting churches in cities, per se, at least not
Methodist. We were looking at fast growing suburbs. But St Louis isn't that. It's an old city that
was kind of declining, population wise, and yet there were all these people who weren't going
to church. And so I started The Gathering in 2006 I was 28 years old. We started in an old,
closed down United Methodist Church in the city of Saint Louis. And by God's grace and a lot of
work and perseverance, I'm grateful that I'm coming up on the end of year 19 of being here. So
it's been a it's been a wild journey.
Eddie Rester 09:31
Give us a little thumbnail sketch of The Gathering now, because y'all worship in multiple
spaces, and tell tell us a little bit about that. And then we're going to dive into kind of some of
the underpinnings of all that for you.
Matt Miofsky 09:43
Sure. Well, you know, when we started The Gathering, it was one of those churches, like I said,
we're in the city. We started in an old United Methodist Church building, which I probably don't
have to describe for a lot of people listening to this. Like, you get it. There was nothing
remarkable about it. It was kind of a, you know, dumpy old building, but it just happened to be
in a pretty good location in the city. And I think a lot of people thought like, oh, well, this
probably isn't going to grow very much, but good job on you for starting a church in the city.
And we need things like this.
Matt Miofsky 10:15
And then all of a sudden, this thing started to grow. This community started to grow with a
pretty different, diverse group of people, and we started having to wrestle with growth really
early on, which I always tell people I was so scared of failing in those early years. I was so
scared of failing, and I was so obsessed with not failing, but I spent very little time thinking,
what happens if this thing actually works? And so all of a sudden, when we started growing, we
had to, like, rapidly, start responding to growth. So we started a second site in another United
Methodist church that was struggling and ended up closing. We ended up starting a third site in
a school. We built a new site in the city to replace that old church building. And of course,
COVID kind of put a damper on some plans.
Matt Miofsky 11:12
But now here we are a church in three physical locations around St Louis, and just this year,
we're preparing to launch two new sites, one over in Illinois to our east, one out in suburban St
Louis to our west. So like I said, it's been a been a really exciting journey, but a lot of rapid
change over those 19 years. So even though I've been in the same place, I've kind of served
probably four or five different churches, even though it's all been The Gathering.
Eddie Rester 11:41
What a great way to think about it, too, that every pastor should think I'm going to serve a
different church. You should. That should be the hope, so.
Chris McAlilly 11:49
Yeah, I wonder if so... For... And this is more of a technical question, rather than a kind of a
vision question, when you're getting ready to start a new site, how do you decide that's the
thing that's going to happen? Is that something that is being asked of you, is that something
that you have a team working on at all times, thinking about kind of expanding the footprint of
the church? I that something that you're laser focused on while other people are thinking about
caring for the people in one location, while you're thinking about other locations? How does
that work for you?
Matt Miofsky 12:23
Yeah, it's a great question, Chris, especially now that I would say multi-site. When we first
started doing multi-site, there weren't really any other Methodist churches that we knew of
doing it, maybe Resurrection in Kansas City, but not many models of it. Now it's sort of very
popular. People are always talking about it. And I always tell people, like, even though we're a
multi-site church, be careful. There's a lot of bad reasons to go multi-site.
Matt Miofsky 12:48
So for us, starting new sites is we've always done it when we needed more space to grow and
we felt like another site would help us to grow, more than not doing another site. And so in the
early days, we started a worship service in that old building, started a second service, a third
service, a fourth service. We just were running out of space. So starting a second site was a
response to that. I would say, like the two new sites that we're working on right now, similarly,
post COVID, we're starting to outgrow our spaces. We have some time, but we see that coming,
and we don't want to just build bigger buildings where we are. We don't think that's the right
answer for a variety of reasons, and so second, more sites is really a response to growth.
Matt Miofsky 13:43
So for us, we look at like, how are we growing? Would another site give us an opportunity to
reach more people for Jesus? Are there people that probably would come to our church if we
were a little closer to where they lived? So we do some things, looking at, where do people
come? People who come to The Gathering, where do they live? We have some people who
drive quite a distance, but we know that there's other people in in those places that would
probably come if we were closer.
Matt Miofsky 14:13
And but what we're, what I'm very careful about, is not doing it because people ask us to do it. I
get asked all the time by denominational leaders,
"Hey, I have this dying church over here. Will
you guys go and start a site there?" Or people,
"Hey, I'd love to have a site where we are." I
love that. I'm so honored that people want it, but you have to be careful not to... I don't want to
respond to every person who says that, and I certainly don't want to use multi-site as a kind of
a savior strategy for the denomination. Like, we try to make wise decisions around that.
Chris McAlilly 14:48
That makes sense. You said,
Spell out.
"We don't want to build larger buildings for a variety of reasons."
Matt Miofsky 14:54
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 14:54
Two or three.
Chris McAlilly 14:55
I think is that... Are those theological reasons or those practical reasons? Kind of how do you
think about it?
Eddie Rester 14:55
A variety.
Matt Miofsky 15:01
I would say they're more practical. I mean, we probably get into theological reasons, but for us,
a couple of reasons why. I mean, one, our original sites in the city, there's not a lot of land
around, and so just practically, it's expensive. It's relatively expensive to try to buy land in the
city and expand a location. It takes a long time. I would say, sort of, you know, socio, politically,
economically building right now, it's like you get a bid, and six months later, when you break
ground, it doubles. I mean, there's just a lot of unknowns, and I think it's fiscally tricky, and it's
very expensive.
Matt Miofsky 15:42
It's a lot cheaper, relatively speaking, to think about sites, and that model has worked for us.
And so for us, starting sites makes more sense in that way. Also, I would say something I love
about it is it leaves you very flexible as a church. So for us, while our original site is our largest,
it's not so massive that we don't have resources to share at the other sites. And so I think, with
the changing nature of a city, you know, we might come along in 10 more years and say,
"Hey, this place that we thought was the place to be, it's okay, but there's this other place that now
we have a lot more people coming from. Let's..." Multi-site model allows you to say, that's
great. We don't have to necessarily close this thing, but let's push resources over here and
reach people in this area. You know that's different, that if you dump $25 million into one spot.
I mean, you're kind of stuck there.
Eddie Rester 16:47
You're there.
Matt Miofsky 16:48
Whatever your strategy is going to be, it's going to be there. And multi-site lets you
geographically have some flexibility at where you want to push resources.
Eddie Rester 16:58
One of the things I've always admired about you, Matt, is that you're strategic, but you're
thoughtful, and you really have this eye to here's how the church can reach, here's how the
church can be in the world and where it is in its context. A few years ago, you wrote a book. It
was before COVID, called "The Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches." And it's been, gosh,
seven years. Now I'm looking at the publishing.
Eddie Rester 17:26
So it's been a bit and so I want to read what those eight virtues are. And I think what we want
to, what we'd love to discuss is, which of those are you like, yeah, I'd stick with those, or double
down those. Which ones might you replace now? Just kind of, where are you all these years?
Just in your mindset of as churches want to think about revitalization, or thinking about other
sites, or thinking about, how do we grow again? How do we reach the people around us who are
looking for those spiritual conversations yet who may be skeptic? So here are the eight virtues:
Believe in miracles and act accordingly. Integrate new people quickly. Love the local. Exist to
reach the next person. Elevate the practice of giving. Work in teams. Preach effectively to
skeptics. Make friends with the denomination.
Matt Miofsky 17:26
Yeah.
Matt Miofsky 18:17
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 18:19
Great list.
Matt Miofsky 18:20
Thanks for the reminder.
Chris McAlilly 18:20
It's an awesome list.
Eddie Rester 18:21
It's a great list.
Matt Miofsky 18:22
So really quickly, Eddie, thanks for bringing it up. I mean, that book was... My coauthor, Jason
Byassee, kind of came to me at a conference once and said, "Hey, Matt, there's five United
Methodist churches that have grown to a thousand in worship in their first 10 years of
existence. And The Gathering is one of them, and I want to write a profile of the five churches."
And I told him,
"Jason, that's a bad idea. Nobody wants to read a book about these five
churches that grew fast." I mean, that makes other people... You know, people get ticked off of
that sort of thing, and I don't think that's going to be effective. But I said, what could be cool is
not just looking at those five, but let's look at churches that grow in an uncommon way. And I
think all of us know a church around us that kind of wow, that's experiencing some uncommon
growth. And what's happening at that church that we could learn from?
Matt Miofsky 19:17
And what we decided to do is to throw out all the unique, contextual things and say, what do all
these churches have in common? Are there any principles, virtues that is present in all these
churches that are growing? And we started with, like, 20, I'd say, a list of roughly 15, 20,
thoughts. And then we interviewed all these pastors, rural, urban, you know, led by men, led by
women, predominantly Black churches, probably white churches. What we found is, hey, there
were sort of eight virtues that all these, regardless of all the unique contextual things they did,
they all did this. This was true in all of them. And so that's how we got to the eight virtues.
Matt Miofsky 20:02
And so I kind of look at the list, and you asked me, you know, post COVID and everything,
what's changed? I don't think I'd change a lot about it. One of the beauties of the list is, you
know, when you read them, you kind of think to yourself, those make sense. Yeah, that sounds
like ministry. But what's often true is, in our existing churches, we find that, even though we
know some of this stuff, we've let a lot of it slide in our churches. I have to revisit this list. So a
lot of churches now that I know use this with like their leadership team or their staff, or, if
you're not a large church, they use it with their council or something to say, let's go back and
look at some of the basics. And are we still doing this stuff?
Matt Miofsky 20:44
So some of the unique ones, like rapidly growing churches believe in miracles and act
accordingly. That that's really about, are you doing anything big at your church? That unless
God is real, you almost certainly fail. And that's really about sort of God sized boldness. Are you
trying bold things? And, you know, a lot of our churches that are stuck or in decline, have
stopped doing bold things. You know, you think about some of those things you talked about,
like rapidly growing churches try to reach the new person, integrate new people quickly. I think
those are still things that are essential, and yet over time, it becomes easy to sort of neglect
evangelism as a central practice, or to to let our connection system grow stale. I mean,
probably the one that is people laugh at the most is to make friends with the denomination.
Eddie Rester 21:45
Yeah.
Matt Miofsky 21:46
Anybody who's United Methodist knows it's been a kind of a tumultuous past seven years for
the denomination.
Chris McAlilly 21:53
Seven or 25 or 50...
Matt Miofsky 21:55
Or 25 or 40.
Eddie Rester 21:56
It's been a minute, yeah.
Matt Miofsky 21:58
I would actually, but what I actually argue is, this one's even more important now, and here's
what I mean. I don't know if the listeners are mostly United Methodist or not, but in our
denomination... I'll just be kind of blunt. You know, desperation actually gives rise to a lot of
opportunity. Right now there's a lot of conferences that are saying we are... There's a lot that's
happened. We've had churches disaffiliate. We need churches in so many different areas. We'll
try things that, maybe 10 years ago, we didn't want to try. We're open to new ideas in a way
that 10 years ago, we were super cautious and kind of bound up in anxiety over what was
going to happen.
Matt Miofsky 22:48
So those people, those leaders and those churches that actually see the denomination as a
partner, you can unlock resources, buildings, money. There's a lot of conferences now that are
saying, hey, we've got, still got a little bit of money. We've got these buildings. We've got
locations. We're looking for creative ideas. That wasn't true. You guys know this because you've
been a minister, that wasn't true 20 years ago.
Eddie Rester 23:14
Right.
Matt Miofsky 23:14
They weren't just saying, Hey, bring your creative ideas. You had to, kind of...
Eddie Rester 23:18
They were saying,
"Here's the creative idea. Go do it." You know.
Matt Miofsky 23:23
Yeah, that's right.
Eddie Rester 23:24
Yeah. I think you're right. I think that in what we're seeing in a lot of places is that, yeah, people
are bringing these ideas on, how do we reach people? What do we do? And desperation is a
great teacher.
Chris McAlilly 23:35
So let's just, assuming there are people out there that are listening to this podcast. They're
actually trying to lead in churches. Eddie's gonna be leading like you Matt, in an urban context.
I'm leading in, you know, smaller college town in a mostly rural state. So when I look at your
model and think, man, multi site, it feels like an urban kind of model for the most part. And so I
wonder, what... I don't want to get into is a conversation about urban versus rural or whatever.
But I do think, running down this list real quick, each eight, if we could all think of things like,
what's an idea that you think of for each of these? So like believing in miracles and acting
accordingly. Give me a practical example, either of you guys, like that. Where does that play
out now, for you, like, as you're thinking forward? Would it be starting a new site, or would be
something else?
Matt Miofsky 24:30
Yeah, so for me, I give in the book kind of different kinds of examples. What I say in the book is
when, if you look back these churches that grow rapidly or do something uncommon, almost
always they they can tell you stories of instances where they had these miracles. That's the
only way to describe it. Somebody left them a million dollars, gave gave them a million dollars.
Somebody gave them 10 acres of land. Somebody said, yeah, you can use my building for free.
A person walked through the door who is a professional musician, and they just said,
"Sir, I'll help you. I'll give time to be in the band." And it was like these amazing things.
Matt Miofsky 25:19
And at first, I was kind of disheartened. I was saying, Wow, well, how do you reproduce
miracles? Like, how do you get somebody to give you a 10 acres of land? And what I realized is,
all these pastors, they made a lot of bold asks that I think most of us don't make. Or a different
way of saying it is we say no before we even try. So what these pastors did is they were almost
outlandishly silly in the sorts of things they asked for. And I say this, a lot of them got told no, a
lot.
Matt Miofsky 25:53
So I have a story in the book of we were looking to build a new building. It was going to be
expensive. We couldn't afford it. And I realized, you know, I think I need an uncommon gift of
generosity. So I started stabbing in my mind, I need somebody give me a million dollars. Now,
eventually, I had a man write me a check for $1.25 million. It allowed us to buy our land, build
our church, and accelerated our growth. People are like, Oh, that's amazing, but disheartening.
I say but hear this. I got told no about eight, nine times. I got laughed at. I had someone say to
me, are you crazy? But I just kept asking. I believed God was gonna do something big. And it
just so happened that a guy who came to the church one time ended up being the one who
wrote that check.
Eddie Rester 26:44
Wow.
Chris McAlilly 26:44
That's amazing.
Matt Miofsky 26:44
And so I say, wherever you are, rural, urban, it doesn't matter. How many times in the past six
months have you asked for something that seems a little crazy? How many times in the past
six months have you prayed for and then worked for something most people look and say, I
don't know if that's ever going to happen? That could be starting a new site. That could be
asking every band that you hear on a Friday night at the bar, hey, do y'all happen to be
interested in church at all? I need some musicians at my church. I mean, that stuff's not
inaccessible to most of us. It's just, you know, who's that pastor who's going to, you know, go to
the bar every Friday and Saturday for six months and ask every single band,
"Any of you happen to want to play in church?" And all of a sudden you got your great musicians in church.
It's that kind of stuff that I'm talking about.
Eddie Rester 27:36
So this past year, I've worked with lots of churches all over the United States. I stepped outside
leading the local church. And one of my favorite stories is a church coming out of COVID that
had been in about 90 to 100 people before COVID, and they're sitting there with their
leadership. They'd lost their primary pastor, and some of the core leaders of the church during
COVID had walked away. They're like, what do we do? How do we? What's God calling us to
next? And so they looked at their community, and somebody said, we should offer a free meal
for families on Wednesday night.
Matt Miofsky 28:07
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 28:07
Free. And I talked with one of their elders, he said,
"I told him no. I voted on that. I thought that would never work out."
Two and a half years later, three years later, they were averaging 350
in worship. They were having 250 kids show up on Wednesday nights from their community.
And people were giving their time every Wednesday to cook the food for free. But it was this
ridiculous idea for this church. Why? Why would they do that only God could.
Matt Miofsky 28:09
And I don't want to spend too much time on this, Chris, but one other thing that we did again, it
was not a big... I mean, it didn't require any sort of context to do. But we said, we're going to
do an Acts. We called it an Acts 2 Sunday. You know, at the end of Acts 2, the snapshot of the
early church, everybody bringing what they had and giving it to others as any had need. And
this was kind of right during COVID, in the wake of COVID. And we just said, let's do a Sunday
where we say, if you have $100 give it. If you need $100 fill out this form, or we're going to
mail it to you, which people thought was a nutty idea. It's like no restrictions. There were no...
You didn't have to explain yourself. If you needed $100 fill this out. We'll mail you 100. If you
have $100 give right here. And, let's see what happens. Let's practice Acts 2. And we had
$45,000 given, and at about $37,000 requested in the wake of that Sunday. It was wild. It was
awesome. We used the leftover 8000 to bless people who needed bigger help. But it was, it's
things like that. But it was like this accelerant of excitement in our church at a time when
everybody was kind of, you know, really down about things. So it's just a cool story.
Eddie Rester 29:45
Well, it makes me think, and we've mentioned this book a couple times recently. Kavin Rowe
wrote a book about Christianity's surprise, and that Christianity's gift in its early days was
surprising people with grace and generosity and forgiveness and love. And it's this tiny, little
book, so incredible, but it's that. Be bold. Just be bold.
Matt Miofsky 30:26
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 30:27
You don't just sit back.
Matt Miofsky 30:27
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 30:28
Be bold.
Matt Miofsky 30:28
So that's really that first virtue. I want to circle back Chris, just because I appreciate, I grew up
in a small town. I grew up in a rural church near a small town. That was my upbringing. And I
know you made a comment about, you know, as multi-site, sort of an urban strategy. I actually
think it might be more relevant in rural areas than urban areas. And I'll share kind of why for
Methodists, at least, is I think there's some really creative things that we could do. It would look
a little different. But we all know that one of the biggest struggles in rural communities is
finding pastors to serve churches. A lot of churches can't afford a full time. Forget staff. They
can't afford a full time pastor, or they're having to link up with other charges in order to pay a
pastor, and as a result, they often feel like they get the short end of the stick in some
ministries. You know, it's hard to have a youth ministry if you have two students.
Matt Miofsky 31:26
And so I think there's some, there are some emerging, creative models of a full time pastor who
oversees three lay pastors and has a has six churches that decide, instead of all working on our
own thing individually, maybe we can be kind of one church in multiple locations. We could
have a student ministry, if together, we could have 15 students. We have a student ministry
that, you know, we work together on. I mean, some of this is like historically Methodist. So I do
think that multi-site, thinking more multi-site--one church, several locations--could be an
answer in some rural areas as well.
Chris McAlilly 32:10
Yeah, I think that's helpful. I mean, I think it kind of combines the idea that the decline of the
church, particularly American Protestantism, and the the breaking down, the breaking open of
different denominational structures, whether it's Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, it can
give rise to some creative thoughts and ideas, if you believe that God does miracles and you
act accordingly. And I mean, there's a boldness to it. There's also kind of strategic vision and
creativity to it. But there are opportunities that you can lean into. And I appreciate just, you
know, saying that that's not, it's not just an urban set of possibilities. They could be more
broadly applicable.
Chris McAlilly 33:00
I do wonder, you know, I do think there are communities where people are actively moving to
though, there are new people coming to places, and those people have to be integrated in
certain ways. And that's the next practice that you talk about, is just integrating people quickly.
We've done, you know, at our church, we've done various versions of this. And, you know,
being in college town, it is a transient community. We do have a lot of people in and out, both
college students, but also retirees. And we're constantly trying to figure out, how do we
integrate people quickly?
Chris McAlilly 33:29
One thing that we've landed on is just immediately following the service, you know, just the
service happens, immediately following that up with an opportunity, and then connecting them,
whatever the next thing is that's happening. And so this is something, it's just a simple Explore
event. It's not something... We find that people don't come out in the afternoon, right? They
don't come back. You set something up in the afternoon, another day of the week. People don't
do that. I mean, people give you an hour, maybe they give you an hour and a half. And so, you
know, we found in our context, that doing something immediately is the way to do it, whether
it's a free meal or gather with the pastors or whatever, and then you can connect them to an
ongoing fellowship, or ongoing discipleship opportunity, or an ongoing service opportunity. I
think that that's something that people, just in general, in our context, give us less time. And so
really having high value around those times where they are giving you time seems to be
something that is important for us. I wonder for you, what are you noticing? And I think this is a
post COVID type question too, because I think for us, we see some different patterns of
behavior. What about for you? What's changed?
Matt Miofsky 34:44
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. This was, I think we all noticed it was happening before
COVID, but COVID accelerated this idea that people do not give us a ton of time. Before COVID,
it was like, you know, are they going to be two hour Christians on Sunday morning or one hour
Christians? Are they going to do Sunday school and church? Or do you need to kind of say, hey,
look, kids can go to Sunday school. Adults can go to church. Maybe, in a perfect world, we'd
love them that come for two hours in the morning and one hour back at night. But they're
probably not going to do that.
Matt Miofsky 35:17
I think post COVID, it's not even two hour, one hour. It's like, can we get them to come to
church at all? Forget two hours or coming back. And so I think that, and they're going to come
less frequently, right? They're just not going to come as often. And so you have to be really
intentional and flexible. And I think always working on like, how are we helping people to stick?
How are we connecting people in our? And that can look simple in a smaller church or more
refined and polished in a larger church. But what I think is important is that, A) you know
exactly what it is that you hope to do when a new person visits your church. I still talk to a lot of
churches that, when I say, hey, what do you do when a new person comes? They kind of are
like, well, we kind of, you know, I don't know, we greet them and hope they come back. You
know, there's not really any intentionality there. So I think it's really important. What are you
going to do if a new person comes to your church?
Matt Miofsky 36:18
What are you going to do if a new person comes back to your church? When I ask people that
they're like, well, I don't know. I mean, that's kind of the goal. They come back. How are you
going to help people to grow at your church? I mean, these are just basic questions, but I find
that churches aren't, haven't thought intentionally about this in a while. One encouraging thing,
if you're at a church where you're struggling with some of this, one commonality between some
of the best churches that we can think of, whatever you think of as the best church, I guarantee
you go talk to that pastor and they will say,
"Man, connections. We're still trying to figure out
the best way to do it. We used to do it this way. Now we're doing it this way. We're thinking
about going back to this other way." Like, they're constantly working on this to make it better.
So you're never going to have a perfect system, but I think the important thing here is having
some system.
Matt Miofsky 37:12
And I love what you said. I do think it's really important that we're always thinking of inviting
people to the next thing. That whatever they come to, some churches have these amazing
events, whether it's a Wednesday night dinner or a trunk-or-treat or a Vacation Bible School.
And I ask them, what do you do with people who come to that? And they it's amazing to me,
the number of churches, say,
"Well, I don't know. I thought that the win was getting them to the
trunk-or-treat." And I always say, I always say, that's great, but next year, make sure when
they get to the trunk-or-treat you have an invite to a next thing and then the next thing and the
next thing. So
Chris McAlilly 37:46
And some people do that. Some people do this just brilliantly, and they think about it's not just
one person, but one person to an event, and from that event to an ongoing way of engaging.
Some people, I find, really love to be a part of a group where they're talking about their feelings
and they're talking about the Bible. Other people just want to serve together. They just want to
be friends while they're doing a thing. And, you know, whatever it is, I think that's helpful.
What's the...
Eddie Rester 38:14
And...
Chris McAlilly 38:14
Go for it. You had another thought.
Matt Miofsky 38:16
Well, I was just gonna say, I like that you said that, because in all these what I was really, what
Jason and I were doing is like, kind of raising this is something you need to figure out, but
there's lots of ways that you can figure it out, not giving people the way to figure it out. But
whatever you do, you have to have a plan to integrate people quickly.
Chris McAlilly 38:34
Yeah, I wonder. I wonder if we could skip over a couple of these that are kind of standard.
Chris McAlilly 38:37
I think preaching effectively to skeptics.
Matt Miofsky 38:37
Yep.
Eddie Rester 38:40
Yeah. That's the one I was going to focus on.
Chris McAlilly 38:42
I think that's when Eddie was picking up on that. I think that's something that the three of us all
love to do in different ways. And I wonder kind of how you think about that. What does that look
like for you and your preaching?
Matt Miofsky 38:54
Yeah, you know, I think that what realized when we're looking at a lot of these pastors and
places that grow is there was a quality to their preaching. And we were trying to figure out, how
do we describe this quality? And we finally landed on, you know, they're effective at preaching
to skeptics. But another way that I thought of it is like these pastors, are just... They remember
it. It's easy for them to remember a time or to preach from the perspective of a person who
doesn't believe this stuff, or maybe is unsure about this stuff. They just have a quality of being
able to preach to people who are searching, wondering, skeptical, maybe even in some cases
antagonistic, and they were thinking about that person as they preached, as opposed to people
who are good preachers, but their preaching sounds very Christiany. Like you have to live in
the Christian worldview to understand their preaching.
Matt Miofsky 39:54
And some of them, it's almost like it's, you know, if you don't believe this stuff, then there must
be something wrong with you. But much more often, it's just people who preach beautiful
messages that really only makes sense if you already believe this, already, even from the
language we use, and we all know what I'm, you know. So as opposed to people who are able
to talk about gospel truth, but talk about it in a way that a skeptic could maybe appreciate, and
I think that's become even more important as the world gets messier, more divisive, as
Christianity has all sorts of stereotypes that are being put on it--sometimes deserved,
oftentimes deserved.
Eddie Rester 40:39
Oftentimes deserved. We've earned them, sometimes. Yeah.
Matt Miofsky 40:44
There's a lot of people, even people who've gone to church for a long time, who are like, I don't
know about this anymore, or I'm just not sure.
Eddie Rester 40:54
And I think COVID opened the door for some folks to say, I've been skeptical a long time.
Matt Miofsky 41:00
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 41:01
I've been six months without it, quality of life didn't change. I'm kind of okay. And they're like,
I'm okay. And so one of the things for me, there's a guy in a Bible study, First Church in
Hattiesburg. He had married a young woman in the church. I didn't really know anything about
him, except he was from a northeastern state, and one day he messaged me on AOL
messenger. That's how long ago this was. And he said,
"Hey, you keep talking about the
Gospels, the Gospels, the Gospels. Can you tell me what that is?" He didn't know that the
Gospels were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And it was one of those early moments of
realizing I had been so Christianized and that there are so many people who are not. It's just
hard to remember that.
Matt Miofsky 41:48
I do an exercise with our pastors. I just did it a month ago with our site pastors. I'll say, tell me
the good news. What's the good news? Just what is the good news? Just share it. And share it,
in, you know, a minute. I don't need a five minute thing. And try that as pastors, it's really hard
to do that without a bunch of really Christian words that you have to unpack. To just try to say
what the good news is, and our pastors gave all sorts of answers, then we just kind of talked
about that. Like, would that answer make sense to a 17-year-old guy who hangs out with his
friends? And does that make sense to a woman who's 35 and just went through a divorce?
How's that going to sound? I mean, we just go through a thought exercise, and who's that going
to make sense to and who's not going to have any clue what you're talking about there?
Chris McAlilly 42:48
I think it's helpful. What would you say?
Matt Miofsky 42:50
Well, I said a few different things. You know, I said that for me lately, the good news is you
don't have to live defined by your past, but your future can be one of hope. I think that's good
news. I think "defined by your past" is a phrase we don't often use but kind of, there's a lot of
people in my context wh,o whether it's people in recovery, whether it's people who've kind of
made a lot of mistakes, whether it's people who are going through the dissolution of a marriage
or something like that. I don't have to live defined by my past, but there's a future that can be
more hopeful.
Matt Miofsky 43:44
I've simplified the good news at times to,
"life with Jesus is better." I've said that to some
people. Here's the good news. And you know who that... I try to appeal to people. We have
some suburban folks who have good jobs. They make fine money, they have families that are
pretty good. They're kind of like, they're fine, you know. They're complacent. And I said, that's
good, but I'm telling you, there's, like, a level of life that you haven't unlocked yet. Life with
Jesus can just be better than that. There's more.
Chris McAlilly 44:14
How would you say...
Matt Miofsky 44:14
So that's a way...
Chris McAlilly 44:16
Sorry, sorry to interrupt, I was looking at Eddie and asking, how would you describe it, Eddie?
Matt Miofsky 44:20
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 44:20
Yeah. I think the one thing that has grabbed me that I think about is Frederick Buechner,
"The resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing for you." So whatever that worst
thing is, it's not the end of the story. The Gospel tells you there's more. There's more to your
story.
Chris McAlilly 44:41
Yeah, what you guys are saying, particularly, you know, I think, like thinking about a person in
recovery, or thinking about a person going through a divorce, or thinking about a person who is
middle class, upper middle class, and maybe their life's good and they're basically good, that
helps you frame the Gospel in a particular kind of way. I was, there's a book on preaching,
Augustine's preaching in Hippo. He was a bishop in the church, and he was in an urban context,
and it was in a cathedral where, like, there would be, you know, visitors that would come. So he
would talk, and he would talk to people that are younger. They called them catechumens, and
so people that were getting ready to be baptized. So he talked to the catechumens, and he
turned and talked to various people around the cathedral, and that has been just a great image
for me in thinking about you have to communicate the good news to different people in
different ways.
Matt Miofsky 45:32
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 45:32
Who else do you have in mind? I mean, like the skeptic is one person, a person who's going
through a divorce, recovery, kind of a person that's kind of good. Anybody else that you have in
mind as kind of a person you're trying to preach to?
Matt Miofsky 45:44
Yeah, I would say, I've updated it a little bit. The nice thing about skeptic is, I think there's lots
of reasons people get skeptical about faith, right? I mean, that person going through a divorce
and thinking,
"Man, I thought marriage was God's hope for me, and I don't know, maybe God's
and thinking,"Man, I thought marriage was God's hope for me, and I don't know, maybe God's
not real. This sucks." There's skepticism, like academic skepticism that some people have.
We're right by Wash U. A lot of scientists and all you know, people who are very well educated.
There's skepticism for people who are in grief. They've just lost someone that they love, and
they don't understand why. So that even that word skeptic makes room for lots of different
kinds of people. There's the indifferent teenager who's grown up in church, but now they're
beginning to wonder, like, is this stuff real? So skeptic comes in a lot of different forms.
Matt Miofsky 46:37
So those are some of the people you will... When you asked some people that I have in mind, I
will say, Chris, and this is maybe a little bit of a longer answer, but I'll make it brief, but it could
open up the door to some stuff. Our church, from the beginning, has welcomed LGBTQ people
into all levels of leadership. I think we've done a really good job to speaking to people who feel
like they don't belong in church, who've been skeptical or burned by the church because of
that. We're in a progressive city, so us being progressive sometimes meets people in a way
that's pleasantly unexpected. That would be different in the rural town I grew up in, but it works
here.
Matt Miofsky 47:25
But sometimes we have to... What I challenge our people, we have to think about, how do we
speak to the Trump voter in our context that's different from the majority of people who come?
How do we speak to men? Because I don't know that the United Methodist Church is always as
good at speaking to young men. I have a son who's 17. Another one is 22 and they'll often say,
like,
"Dad, I don't connect with the way, you know, the images we use, the way we talk." Like it
doesn't... It doesn't always connect with them.
Matt Miofsky 47:58
And my son. I'll just share this in full disclosure. You know, he came to me and he said,
"Dad, my friend group," he's like, "Every one of them, they kind of listen to the manosphere podcasts,
and they're really influenced by this image of what it means to be a guy that I'm just not quite
sure about." And I I think, how often are we thinking about and speaking to my 17-year-old son
and that group of friends in church? And I'm not sure we always do. And so I've kind of been
challenging our pastors. And this is contextual. I get it. It's going to look different, like I said, in
different places, but challenging our pastors, like, hey, let's think about like, how are we
speaking to that? As well as to those people who've traditionally been marginalized by the
church? How are we speaking to some of these people that are sort of little aimless right now,
and they're finding some, some weird connection to some of this stuff that you know... There's
people online in podcasts talking about what it means to be a man. This really kind of conflicts
with what we believe, but we're not really offering an alternative to it. So they're listening to
that as an example.
Chris McAlilly 49:12
Yeah, I see similar things among some young men that I've recently been in conversation with,
folks that would have grown up in progressive families. Folks that may have left the church,
have tried a whole range of things that the world has to offer, but recently, a few of them have
been exploring faith, but they've been not doing it through our church. They've been doing it
through YouTube, and they've been doing it specifically, and interestingly, in my view, with the
Roman Catholic Church. So they've been going back to ancient spiritual practices and
frameworks, routines, rhythms, and structures that are life giving. And to me, it's opened up
some incredible conversations, and it's given me something to think about. This conversation is
great. I know that Eddie has maybe one more question before we wrap it up.
Eddie Rester 50:03
Well, I think you've just gotten me there, when you talk about ancient frameworks and ways of
being, you've got a resource that you are revising. It's been out. It's coming out again. You're
expanding it. The Methodist Book of Daily Prayer. So I want to make sure you have a second, a
minute or two. Help us understand, why is that important? What is it? Why is it important?
What do you hope it offers to folks?
Matt Miofsky 50:23
Well, that was actually kind of came out of the pandemic. You know, during COVID, a lot of our
churches were closed in-person worship. Ours was closed for a year to in-person worship in St
Louis because of restrictions. And I had during that time, so all sorts of people saying, hey,
without the like rhythm of going to church, I'm kind of unmoored. I don't want to watch online,
or I'm not good at watching online. D you have anything? lAny kind of daily devotional or
something that would help me? And I, you know, we all have a few of those. There's a lot of
daily devotions out there, but not a lot of them that had kind of Methodist theology, or
Wesleyan theology, or theology I felt good about.
Matt Miofsky 51:04
We have some resources in the church, but they were a little bit complicated. You needed to...
They wanted you to sing a hymn and have a book over here and a Bible over here, and it was a
little bit unwieldy for people. So I thought, you know, there's not great resources that I always
feel good about giving to people and so I just decided maybe it's time to write that resource for
the church. I worked with a team of people to write an accessible daily devotion and prayer
book that would help people who want to connect with God have a way to, a very simple,
practical, accessible way to do it, but also something that was deep enough for pastors and
leaders and people who've been Christian a long time to... We know as pastors, sometimes
we're the worst at having any kind of daily. We say it all the time: connect daily with God. Pray,
start off your day with the devotion. But we don't necessarily have resources to do that.
Matt Miofsky 52:03
So the Methodist Book of Daily Prayer is meant to be that. It's meant to be a resource for lay
people, I call normal people all the way up to leaders, slash pastors, to give structure to like
anybody wants to try to connect with God daily. And I always tell people, it can be done in as
little as three minutes in the morning. Or you can stretch it. I mean, there's plenty of ways in
which you can make it longer. It's all right, there in the book: scripture, a devotion, a prayer
practice that you can do. I wrote all the morning devotionals, and then in the evening, it's a
mixture of other writers and historical pieces. It comes from a Wesleyan framework.
Matt Miofsky 52:43
So, yeah, we're writing a revised edition. So a lot of churches are using it. They're giving them
to confirmands, to new members, to new people who come on their board. I know a lot of
annual conferences have used it to give out to pastors, recognizing, also, this reality that we're
all tired. We've all, in some ways, probably overworked or over functioned the past few years,
and that's left a lot of us feeling a little disconnected from God or dry. And so this can be also
part of self care, sabbatical, rest, reconnecting for us as leaders as well.
Chris McAlilly 53:21
I think that's helpful. I appreciate the reminder that you need not only to work but also to rest.
And with that in mind, we'll let you end the day and go into your evening and pray and rest.
Matt, thank you so much.
Eddie Rester 53:38
It's been great. Thank you.
Chris McAlilly 53:39
Thank you for the conversation. This is fantastic.
Matt Miofsky 53:41
Hey guys...
Chris McAlilly 53:41
Great to talk.
Matt Miofsky 53:42
This was fun. It felt like we could have talked for hours.
Eddie Rester 53:43
We could have. I looked down a minute ago, I was like, Oh, we've got to let him go.
Chris McAlilly 53:47
Yeah. Well, we'll have to do it again.
Matt Miofsky 53:50
Thanks, guys.
Chris McAlilly 53:50
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Matt Miofsky 53:51
It's always good to see you.
Eddie Rester 53:54
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like,
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Chris McAlilly 54:01
If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you
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