5 Big Ideas for the Future Church (Future Church Conference Night: Joyce Tangi, Jessica Morthorpe, Karen Pack, Mitch Forbes & Joel Hollier)

Well hello again my friends! 

If you’ve been listening in recent weeks I hope you have enjoyed these talks from Future Church Conference. I am excited to share that a few of us met this last week to start planning the next one — it’s going to be great. Follow New City Church or Spiritual Misfits on Instagram for a date announcement soon.

This will be the last piece of content for now from the inaugural Future Church Conference — and it’s a little different. On the evening of the day we asked 5 different speakers to give a 7 minute pitch for an idea they think is vital for the future church. So now   you have the opportunity to hear these fantastic talks — micro in length, but each one packs a punch.  

Keep listening and you will hear:

JOYCE TANGI on anti-racism

JESSICA MORTHORPE on climate justice

KAREN PACK on LGBTQIA+ Inclusion

MITCH FORBES on the place of tradition as we move forward

JOEL HOLLIER on being trauma-informed

And to round it there are a couple of songs at the end from Marion St — you may remember Gabi and Mikali who have previous been on the podcast (if you didn’t catch that one go back and listen to those legends). 

So there is a lot of good stuff jam-packed into this episode. 

Before we jump in my dear friends, listen up. I’m about to have a couple weeks off after a very big start to the year. Normally I’d line a couple of replay episodes — but as I mentioned last week we are just about to launch a Spiritual Misfits rebrand. And so, here’s what’s going to happen. For the next 2 or 3 weeks there will be a Spiritual-Misfits-shaped-hole in your podcast player. But make sure you’re subscribed — because after that we’re going to pop back into your feed with a new look, a new website and plenty of amazing and important new conversations coming your way. 

Between now and then, hit up our extensive back-log and catch up on any episodes you haven’t heard yet. Some recommendations: as we continue to witness and grieve the horrendous genocide the Israeli government is committing in Palestine, can I suggest listening to my friend Sara M. Saleh’s episode if you haven’t? Or if you want to participate in non-violent love and resistance in this world listen to the episode with Jarrod McKenna. There are so many others I could suggest, but those both feel timely.

We’ll be back in a few weeks! Until then, big love and remember — you are not alone.   

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Transcript

Will Small: [00:00:00] Well, hello again, my friends. If you've been listening in recent weeks, I hope you've enjoyed these talks from Future Church Conference. Something a little bit different on the podcast feed. I'm excited to share that a few of us met just this last week to start planning the next Future Church Conference.

in January 2025. It's going to be great. Follow New City Church or Spiritual Misfits on Instagram for a date announcement soon. This will be the last piece of content for now from the inaugural Future Church Conference, and it's a little different. On the evening of the conference, we asked five different speakers to give their seven minute pitch for an idea that they think is vital for the future church.

Now you have the opportunity to hear these fantastic talks, micro in length, but each one packing a punch. Keep listening and you will hear Joyce Tungey on anti racism, Jessica Moorthorpe [00:01:00] on climate justice, Karen Pack on LGBTQIA plus inclusion, Mitch Forbes on the place of tradition as we move forward, and Joel Hollier on being trauma informed.

And to round it out, there are a couple of songs at the end from Marion Street. You may remember Gabby and Macaulay, who have previously been on the podcast. If you didn't catch that one, go back and listen to those legends. So there's a lot of good stuff jam packed into this episode. Before we jump in though, my dear friends, listen up.

I am about to have a couple weeks off after a very big start to the year. Normally, I would line up a couple of replay episodes, but as I mentioned last week, we are just about to launch a Spiritual Misfits rebrand. So, here's what's going to happen. For the next two or three weeks, there will be a Spiritual Misfits shaped hole in your podcast player.

But make sure you're subscribed because after that, we're going to pop back [00:02:00] into your feed with a new look, a new website, and plenty of amazing and important new conversations coming your way. Between now and then, hit up our extensive backlog and catch up on any episodes you haven't heard yet. Let me give you a couple of recommendations as we continue to witness and grieve the horrendous genocide the Israeli government is committing in Palestine.

Can I suggest listening to my friend Sara M. Saleh's episode if you haven't yet? Or, if you want to participate in non violent love and resistance in this world, then why don't you listen to the episode with Jared McKenna. There are so many others I could suggest, but those both feel really timely to me if you haven't listened to them yet.

We'll be back in a few weeks. Until then, big love, enjoy this episode, and remember, you are not alone.[00:03:00]

Joel Hollier: Once again, welcome to Future Church Conference. It's brilliant to have you here with us this evening. Thanks If you've just wandered in, my name's Joel, pronouns he, him, and it is a privilege to be in this space. I'm going to take a guess and say that most of you are here because you have had something somewhere along the line to do with the church.

Safe? Yep. And somewhere, somewhere along the line, you've discovered that parts of the church are a little bit shit. Am I right? I'm not wrong! I'm right! In fact, some of us come along where I imagine that there is some people in this room who are on the brink of giving up on the church. And if that's part of your journey, welcome.

I hope that tonight is encouraging for you. I imagine that there's also some people in this room who who hear me say that sometimes the church is a little bit, you know, and you're like, wait, what? In which case, [00:04:00] listen up. Have we got a story for you. The church has a long history of causing harm. Let's just call it.

The church has a long history of not quite getting things right. But the church also has a long history of doing some remarkably wonderful things. And the church has a long history of creating the most beautiful moments, of giving the most generous gifts. Ah, and so we're stuck in this tension. For many of us, we love the church.

It hurts us. But we can't go anywhere yet. And so, we're here. We might as well get our house in order. Do I have my finger on the pulse? I'm right. Okay, so we're in the right place. If you aren't aware, like if you just wandered in off the street, welcome. This might not be what you were expecting tonight.

But [00:05:00] gosh, with singing like that, I already have hope for the future of the church. Today, as pastors and leaders gathered, we thought about our posture for how we have discussions. And there were three L's. There's going to be a few acronyms tonight, I think. Three L's that we wanted to just sit with.

One was we wanted to lean in to new conversations. And tonight, some of these conversations might be new to you. They're not new. Some of these conversations have been happening for thousands of years, but they might be new to you. And so we're wanting to lean into them. We're wanting to listen. That's a second L.

We're wanting to listen to say, well, what is going on for people at the moment? And maybe what it may be, what is the Holy Spirit doing in this instant? Where is God moving and breathing new life at this point? That's a second L. And the third L is look up. Amen. Amen. We all agree that it would be very easy and really quite [00:06:00] satisfying to bar those doors, not let anyone else in, and tell each other how crap we have it.

That would be quite cathartic, wouldn't it? It'd be really quite lovely if we could just share horror stories. Like, to be clear, it wouldn't be healthy at all. It would be disastrous. It'd be like just gaping open wounds. It'd be like, look at mine. We're not going to do that. Instead, as a group of people, Well, we're hoping to do tonight as as Will and Christine and Brad and I were chatting through what do we want out of our night together?

We want people to get a bigger vision, look up towards Jesus, look up towards a better future, look towards where heading. And Safina reminded us today, really beautifully, that in order to go forward. We need to ground ourselves in truth and look [00:07:00] backwards. And so there's going to be times where we do gently tonight, dig up some of those harms, but I hope we can do it in a safe space where it is a source of healing and not a source of reopening wounds.

Does that make sense? Wonderful. As you came in, you would have received on your chair, a bookmark. For those of you who read. Uh, the bookmark says the future of the church is. I'm going to lead you in a grounding exercise right now. If you're comfortable to join me, I'm going to invite you to, to take some deep breaths.

And I want you to think about what do you have in your vision for the future of the church? What could it possibly be? Bearing in mind that there is. Some stuff in the church at the moment and in the past that isn't great, we recognize it, but what could the future of the church be? I want you to take three [00:08:00] deep breaths, lower your gaze if that's comfortable for you, feet on the ground if that's helpful for you, three deep breaths.

And as you ground yourself in this space and breathe deeply, you recognize that you are in a room full of people who are full of love.

You ground yourself here in this present moment with all the stories that have led you here. You can probably bring some of those stories to mind very easily. You acknowledge those stories and now we say, what's next? What is a better future for the church?

Take a few more deep breaths and when you're [00:09:00] ready, we'll come back into the space.

Tonight, we have five different speakers bringing their vision of what the future of the church could look like. They're big ideas. I'm excited for them. They're, I think, going to reshape the way that we see the future of the church. But I also want to give you a moment to think through what is your vision for the future of the church.

I also recognise that some people have come here alone and know nobody in this space. Why, that takes guts. Well done to you. Can I get you, spend 30 seconds, turn to the person next to you, left or right, I know that's always awkward, somebody, just form a little, form a little huddle and answer that question if you can.

Is there hope for the future of the church? Gosh, that's a big question as an icebreaker. [00:10:00] Is there future? And where do you see a little bit of hope at the moment? Go for it, we'll come back together in just a moment. Okay, friends, let's gather back together.

Come on back into the space. We could probably discuss this all night. But unfortunately we have to come and head into where we're going. We have an important tool that I'm going to introduce to you in just a moment. Each of our speakers, as I said, has seven minutes to present their idea. It's a tight night tonight.

And so I brought a tool. This, this, this was provided by my mother. My mother was a primary school teacher for many years. She's a kindergarten teacher. She's in the room. Give it up for Heather. Yeah. And here's the tool. Shh, shh, shh.

At the six [00:11:00] minute mark, I'm gonna give you a gentle bell reminder to say, it's time to start wrapping this up. And then at seven, I'm just gonna no, I'm joking. We have some big ideas and I'm going to introduce to you our first one, Joyce Tangi is going to bring us, yooo, Joyce, incredible, is going to be speaking to us about the idea that the future of the church is anti racist.

Gosh, that feels important, doesn't it? Let me tell you about Joyce. During the week, Joyce can be found growing faith in faith formation, sharing hope and advocating in all things ministry with young people alongside the Pulse team with the New South Wales ACT Synod of the Uniting Church, as well as ministry across cultures as the children's and family lead.

That's not a small role. That's huge. That is huge, Joyce. Joyce is passionate about being a Tongan Australian woman. She finds [00:12:00] passion in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue that promotes listening to different voices, bridging gaps, and finding common understandings as we journey forward together. Ah, yes.

Thank you, Joyce. Joyce, do you want to start walking on up as I finish this off? Most importantly, she finds her passion in being a self confessed Yes, I am. Yes, you are! I'm going to take it you mean us, tonight, to find the thing that makes our hearts sing. Joyce, the future of the church has to be anti racist.

Has to be. Can you tell us about it? 

Joyce Tangi: I will.

Yes Thank you so much for a great intro. Malolele everyone, my name is Joyce. Second generation Tongan and I am super proud and privileged to be here. [00:13:00] My sister, it is great to see you here. As I start talking about being anti racist, anti racist. We need to get more sisters up in these kind of conferences.

It is a blessing to be here and I am here to agitate and to share what it means to be passionate about being anti racist. One of the best sayings that the church says is everyone is welcome and everyone has a seat at the table. Whether it's a boardroom table, meeting place, committee table, or even at the communion table.

I bear witness that that hasn't been the case. Not everyone has been welcomed or invited. Or maybe it's been a time where people have come to the table after others have had their fill. If everyone is loved and cared for as we should in the ideal world, then there would not, there would not be a need to talk about racial stereotypes and [00:14:00] prejudices.

And I wouldn't been, I wouldn't need to stand here today. Accepting that there is a problem is just the first step, but it's such, it's the important one. We don't just have racism, but we need to acknowledge the less visible, more subtle forms of racism and privilege that occurs and hinders us from being the best part of God's family.

We might start by recognizing this within ourselves. Friends, we have privilege, as well as ingrained racial stereotypes and prejudices. And as we look to identify structural inequality and systematic discrimination in our communities as well as in our churches. As people of the living God and hope and justice, no one should ever be held back, targeted or disadvantaged in any way because of the color of their skin or where they came from.

It would [00:15:00] benefit everyone to see power imbalances gone, right? Australia will truly be a place of. Inclusive society, valuing equality for all, and all of our churches will be thriving and full to the brim. But that's not the case. Racist incidents remain too regular, an experience for myself and for many.

We don't enter the world without inbuilt prejudices. Rather, they are something that we learn in society in which we live and in our own experiences. And at times we don't even realize the power that we hold ourselves. from ourselves and from others. The responsibility that sits with all of us is to do something is to change our mindsets in our communities and to advocate for change so that we can all benefit and journey together as a healthy body of Christ.

Everyone has a part to play. Let me say that again. [00:16:00] Everyone has a part to play. Importantly, it's not just about doing something. It's about knowing what we hold. How we can be advocates, and to do the best thing. How to challenge racism, and do it in a considerable way. Anti racism should be a way of life.

Like starting a new habit, it requires a conscious decision to pursue it as one of our goals of life, and the way of being. Being intentional brings mindful presence and awareness of what we do, and what we hold, and how we can equip those around us. Time for story. When I was fresh 18, Finished school and the mindset I had, I could change the whole wide world.

I just completed HSC and being part of a church my whole life, I decided like many before me, I was going to be a youth leader. It was there at [00:17:00] my first seminar that I was, we were talking about the synoptic gospels. A well known leader from our, from our wider church, he had, well, he held esteem, white privilege.

He asked how my day was going. I said, yeah, it's going fine. After our chat, and by the end of our chat, he said to me, all right, Joyce, well, I see the food's coming out. You should go serve because it's your job. I had come to share the wisdom with him. I had come to do the learning with him, but he didn't realize that since that's the, since the interaction in my life, it has been my duty to advocate against discrimination of such behaviors and it, and as it occurs, especially with young people, it's time for girlfriends.

Rick Hansen, a psychologist, said, Whatever you hold [00:18:00] and has your attention has a special power to change your mind. It's time for church to bring attention and to deactivate the trace of autopilot. It is time to agitate and renew and to tap into the internal motivation to be an anti racist. If I can have my next, the next slide,

and then, yes, wonderful. There is a gift to be had, and there is a gift to be shared. Paul wrote that the value of having different gifts and abilities, he wrote, is not about offending a person from different backgrounds, but it's when we're looking at all these examples that God did not intend for churches to be racially, oh, God intended for churches to be racially and culturally diverse.

And yet somehow this hasn't really happened. I don't think Christians have intentionally tried to maintain cultural and racial [00:19:00] divide, but the challenges of fellowship and the integrated church are significant. And I have one more minute. Okay, let me go all the way down, down, down. As a whole church, we can do better.

The whole reason why I'm here today. This movement to be anti racist isn't just for migrants, first peoples, but for everyone to share their stories. Where we hold power, you have solidarity. Where can we make difference? And when can we sit and listen to different perspectives and traditions that's not ours?

When will we allow voices to speak before us? And how can we equip others with knowledge of another culture to empower and inspire the church? How can we teach and equip those coming under us to be courageous? It reminds me of a scripture verse from Paul. If one part suffers, every part suffers. And if one part is honored, [00:20:00] every part rejoices with it.

Anti racism is intentional. Gloss over band aid solutions are in the past, friends, and it is time for us to be leaders, to drive forward authentic solutions. and deliver results. We must refine the status quo through leadership and practice to be inclusive and to be anti racist. I feel passion in my heart, my fun in the room today, inspiring energy to push and be courageous.

Let's make it feel alive that the possibility is there for change. Mahalo.

Joel Hollier: Well done Joyce. Ah, I want to start a revolution with you. Let's do it. Storm the barricades. I say that was fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank [00:21:00] you. Hi, everyone. Take a breath. One down, four to go. Our next talk is from Jessica Morthorp. And this talk, are you ready for it? The future of the church has to be urgently climate conscious.

Yep, it's huge. Throughout the week, Jessica can usually be found trying to finish the day in her paid role so that she can work on all the projects that she's passionate about, but doesn't get paid for. Gosh, we need to change that. Jessica, do you want to start coming on up? Jessica is passionate about endangered species conservation, climate action, and climate mental health.

Gosh, that's huge. That is massive. The environment and the church's call to act in all these spaces. Jessica, you've got seven minutes to convince us. Over to you.[00:22:00]

Jessica Morthorpe: Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'd like to also add my acknowledgement to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and to thank Safina for the wisdom that she shared with us this morning. Okay, a quick show of hands, if I may. Can I get your hand up if you're worried about climate change? Leave your hand up if you think your church community is doing enough in response.

Great. For me, the future of the church rests on how we respond to climate change and the wider ecological crisis. It rests on whether we matter in people's lives and whether we matter in the face of the greatest challenges that our communities are facing. And we can make a huge difference. Churches are very important centres of community, intergenerational relationships and skills to not only help us [00:23:00] fight climate change, but to start building the groundwork for a better future.

This is a huge opportunity for the church. So how can we be urgently climate conscious? Firstly, talk about climate change in our churches and communities. The research shows that too few people are doing this, especially from the pulpit. And don't just talk about climate change as a social justice issue, or another problem that we might choose to care about.

Talk about it as a faith issue, and as an issue of either following Jesus, Or following our wider culture, bring the conversation constantly back to what it means to follow a creator God, a cosmic Christ, and the spirit that moves within creation in the context of an ecological crisis. What does this mean for our discipleship?

Can people see that we love God and God's creation in the decisions that we [00:24:00] make every day? Integrity. Can I get the next slide please? Taking the logs out of our own eyes, being sustainable in our churches, our homes, our communities. I've been very lucky over the last 15 years as the director of the Five Leaf Eco Awards, an ecumenical environmental awards program for churches, to work with churches around Australia doing amazing things to care for God's creation in their churches and communities.

And also to raise their voices to governments and church hierarchies to demand the urgent action needed. Churches with solar panels and solar crosses, water tanks, community gardens, repair cafes, skill sharing and bike repair workshops, community pantries, bees, worms and chickens, and so much more.

Churches knitting climate scarves for politicians. Meeting with MPs, marching in protests and passing synod [00:25:00]resolutions. Climate change is already harming so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Pacifica peoples, farmers in India who are being driven to suicide, poor communities everywhere, rental communities and those in inadequate housing, which is half of Australia, people being impacted by floods, bushfires, heatwaves.

If this isn't already you, it soon will be. Our love for our neighbours needs to be real and active. And one of the most important ways to do that is by being prophetic. By speaking truth to power and holding governments accountable and insisting on systematic change. Because we need large scale solutions.

Not everyone can afford an electric car, but with decent, sustainable public and active transport systems, everyone can still get where they need to go. And as Christians, we must speak up not just for sustainable [00:26:00] transitions, but for equity and justice in those transitions. And we need to be looking at non Western and non mainstream perspectives.

The way Western mainstream culture and Christianity see our society and our faith are not the only ways. My eyes have been opened so much by Eastern Orthodox, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Pacific, metaphorical and queer theologies. And they give me hope that we can reconnect with the best parts of our traditions and communities if we follow their lead.

Support your community with their emotions. Not only is climate change the greatest moral issue of our time, but it has people really scared. 95 percent of Australian youth believe that climate change is a serious issue. A global survey of climate anxiety in 10, 000 children and young people around the [00:27:00] world, including Australia, found that 56 percent of young people believe that humanity is doomed due to climate change.

And tier research confirms that 86 percent of 18 to 14 year old Christians also want climate action now or in the next five years. The younger they are, the more urgently they want action. This level of fear can be completely paralyzing without the support of community and safe spaces to talk about these feelings and realize that you are not alone and that these feelings are both normal and even positive.

in the sense that they show that you have empathy for the earth and other people, and you are paying attention to the reality of the situation that we find ourselves in. And finally, placing creation care at the core of how we understand the gospel, of how we [00:28:00] live, of our churches and communities. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew from the Eastern Orthodox Church says, How we treat the earth and all of creation defines the relationship that each of us has with God.

It defines it. Caring about climate change is not some optional extra for Christians. It is the very heart of who we are and who we need to be. So some tools to help. Next slide, please. If your church or community is doing great things for the environment, but you don't have one of our five leaf eco awards yet, please go to our website and fill out our action survey.

If you need theological resources, Common Grace has been mentioned a few times. Next slide.

And as I indicated earlier, our leaders desperately need to be ready to help people with their climate distress. They need to be equipped to recognise and normalise it and to help people cope. So I've been collaborating with the U. S. Spiritual Ecology non profit Water Spirit to [00:29:00] offer church leaders of all stripes a self paced online course on the basics that they need to know about climate psychology and climate pastoral care.

We'd love to have you enroll for the course and maybe even we could have a church futures cohort to learn and study together. Thank you.

Joel Hollier: Thank you, Jessica. It is the most pressing moral issue of our time. You said, and I can't agree more. Imagine if the church was known for being on the absolute forefront of climate action. It's not. But it could be. Imagine that. Can we work towards that day? Take a breath, everybody. Ground yourself.

Our next speaker, some of us have heard her [00:30:00] today. Karen Pack. The Reverend Dr. Karen Pack is going to be speaking a similar theme to today, but from quite a different angle on the future of the church has to be. Radically LGBTQIA plus inclusive. Okay, that was less of a response than I was hoping. Never mind you don't have this room on your side.

Um, come back, come back, we need you, we need you. Thank you. Through the week, Karen is a lecturer in history, has specialised in religious history, particularly in digging up the stories that have been forgotten about religious women and how they've shaped the church. In no particular order, she's passionate about coffee.

Yep, her wife Bronte. Yep, and reminding people that they start loved. Reverend Dr. Karen Pack.[00:31:00]

Karen Pack: Thank you very much. There are people in this room who laughed when they heard that I had been given 7 minutes and expected to stick with it. So come with me people. Yep, there we go. Yeah, your husband laughed the loudest. Thank you Thomas. Hey, I live on Barramattagal land in Darug country, and it's really good to be here on Gadigal land.

Land that was never ceded. What does a work of history have to do with an art gallery? What do these two things have in common? A work of history and an art gallery. What the heck? I'm going to tell you. They're both heavily curated. If you go to any art gallery in the world, if you go to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which we've got in the next picture, you would actually find that there are way more works in the storage facilities of those galleries than are actually displayed in any of the public [00:32:00] spaces.

The same is true of our works of history. There are far more stories that have never made it into those works. then we are able to discover in the histories that have been presented to us. One of my favorite historians, Anna Clark, says history is subject to the very change it seeks to document. It's something we do as well as something that happened.

How is history something that we do? Because we are making choices about the stories that we include in the histories that we write. We are making choices about the voices that we listen to and the people that we center. If you've listened to me before, if you've listened to me today, you will have seen this graph.

That's one example of the way in which Australian history has been curated. That there is an example of a whole bunch of different religious histories in Australia, and the representation of the number of women who are named in those volumes in comparison to the number of [00:33:00] men who are named. At worst, it's a ratio of 1 to 63.

The very best, it's a ratio of 1 to 5. These same histories express concern about the feminization of religion in Australia because it's, there's so many women in the churches.

getting a voice. You might've also seen me show this graph. We're going to skip ahead a little bit. I talked about this earlier today. It's a massive study that was done in the University of Texas in 2018 college students, which demonstrated that people who hold a high value for religion or faith.

If you are heterosexual, it decreases your chance of recent suicidal ideation or suicide attempts by 17%. Because religion is good for you, right? Except if you're gay, in which case your risk goes up [00:34:00] 38%. And if you're a lesbian woman like me, it goes up by 52%. Why? Because we haven't seen ourselves in the story of the church.

We haven't seen ourselves represented in the picture of the beloved that has been shown to us.

Oops, my computer's just gone cray cray. There we go. It's, yeah, stop the clock. All right. I'm going to ask you to just go with me on this one and because we're short on time, you just have to stay with me. I need everyone to stand up and this is going to really mess with you, especially if you are from an evangelical background like this and you really like rules and order.

I need you to wander randomly around the room. Yes, randomly.

I'm going to go on the stage and hope that this doesn't ring. It's probably better on the stage. They say, all right, stop. Some of the best research between the [00:35:00] connection between religion and queer people is actually happening in Australia out of La Trobe University and University of Tasmania.

And the research that they've collected and done looking at stuff all over the world has conclusively shown, next slide, That LGBTQ that it is LGBTQA plus people's experiences of discrimination that leads to poor outcomes, like increased suicidal ideation, not the fact that they are queer. My experience in my lifetime of struggling with depression and suicidal ideation for 30 years is not because I'm queer.

It's because I was told my whole life that if I allowed that to be a reality, if I admitted that to myself, let alone anyone else, I would never ever again belong in the body of Christ. So we're going to spend our last what, two and a half minutes, two minutes and ten seconds, doing a little exercise together.

In which we talk about two ways in which we [00:36:00] can understand Christianity and the body of Christ. Yes? Alright, for the purposes of this exercise, I'm looking for someone I know and can name. I'm going to go with Joyce. Awesome. Can you put your hand up, Joyce? Alright, for the purpose of this exercise, Joyce is Jesus.

Thank you so much. One way of understanding Christianity is as a boxed set. A boxed set says you're either in or out. You're either in or out. If you believe what I believe the way that I believe it, if you hold to the doctrines that I consider to be important, then you're a part of my tribe. You're a part of my denomination.

There are some denominations that don't believe correctly, some branches of the church that don't believe correctly. They are not true followers of Christ. But if you believe the way that I believe that my box says is correct, then you are in Christ. And if you don't agree with me, you're not. So for the [00:37:00] purposes of this exercise, I'm going to go with everyone from Joyce to Joel, and up to, I'm going to include my father in law and not my mother in law.

Now I'm in trouble. Up to Colin, down the middle here, or blue shirt. It's, it's you come to Jesus moment, you've made the right decision. There we go. If you're on this side of the room, congratulations, you are in the box. If you're on this side of the room, you're in all sorts of trouble. Now, I don't know what the problem is.

Maybe you were not baptised correctly. Maybe you do communion incorrectly. Maybe you include people that shouldn't be included. Maybe you vote for the wrong political party. I'm not sure, but the problem is you are not in the box. And we all know, like, it's life and death, people. You're either in the box or you're out of the box.

And that's one way that we have traditionally, particularly in evangelicalism, understood Christianity. You're in or you're out, black or white. Quick little random [00:38:00] walk again. Joyce, head towards me. Press stop, Thomas.

All right, and stop. Joyce, put your hand up again. I think this is a better way of understanding Christianity, personally. Here's another way. Instead of thinking about Christianity as a box where you're either in or out, what if we thought about Christianity, this is radical people, as a movement that was centered on Jesus,

where you're either moving towards Jesus. Or away from him. And the reality is that sometimes people on the very outskirts of Christianity, people who look like they're far, far from Jesus, they're irredeemable because they have tattoos, oh crap or because they're gay, or because they baptise adults and not infants, or whatever the case [00:39:00] might be, people who look right there on the outskirts of Christianity, when we actually look at what's happening in their lives, we go, well, wait a minute.

But you're actually facing towards Jesus, you in the very back corner. Give me a wave. As far away from Jesus as you can be at this moment in time, and yet look, she's facing towards Jesus, and attempting to move towards Jesus, and yet right there, I met you earlier, and I forgot your name. Jane, that's right.

Jane looks like she's right next to Jesus with her NIV study Bible under her arm and yet right at this moment she's actually not focused on Jesus. What if the question is not am I in the box or out of the box? Am I believing the right thing that gets me included? What if the question is right now at this moment am I moving towards Jesus or away from him?

And what if the question is right now am I helping people to move towards Jesus? Or am I putting obstacles in the way that are preventing [00:40:00] people from reaching Jesus? Am I telling people you will never be able to be included in the body of Christ because of something you can't change about yourself?

That's my question for you. We need a radically inclusive LGBTQI plus inclusive church because we need a church that's about Jesus and not about boxes.

Joel Hollier: Thank you. Have you heard the saying drinking from a fire hydrant? Drink from a fire hydrant? You take a sip and BAM! There it is. Well folks, we're three talks in. Take a breath, ground yourself. Our next speaker is Mitch Forbes. Whoo! And Mitch is going to bring us perhaps a slightly different talk to what [00:41:00] you're expecting tonight.

Mitch is bringing us an idea. The future of the church is connected to tradition. Yeah, yeah, I think that might divide the room a little bit. Mitch, you've got to convince us of this one. Through the week Mitch can be found sipping cups of tea, eating biscuits with people typically over 75, drinking coffee with anyone who will join in, necking a few bevvies.

I love this language. Thank you for writing this. With friends from church, the kids school, soccer, and the community, you might also find him reading, thinking, listening, writing, or talking. Come on up Mitch. Mitch is passionate about thinking, reading, questioning, listening, running, swimming, which I believe to understand means playing in the water, not lap swimming.

No, just play. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Splashing. Call it splashing then not swimming. He enjoyed, I'm joking. You can call it whatever you want. Mitch loves finding good wherever and in whoever God brings across his path. He's passionate about God as transformative love, his [00:42:00] family, the church, craft beer and coffee.

Is the church, in its future, going to be connected to tradition? Mitch, convince us that it has to be.

Mitch Forbes: I feel like this is really unfair, to be honest. Like, having to flow Karen for, for, for starters. But also, everyone else gets these cool, like, sexy, progressive topics. Anti racist and climate, LGTBIQ inclusive. And then, I'm like, I get up with the brown suit wearing, you know, cis, white, middle aged, straight, male, topic of tradition.

And then I fit that category perfectly. I was a white, bald, middle aged man. But I think Joel's right. I imagine that this is probably the hardest sell for most of you. And I get it. My hunch is that probably most of the other stuff that was spoken about today, like you agree with and probably passionately agree with.[00:43:00]

That's why you're here, right? But I also am taking a guess that probably you feel much more ambiguous about the Christian tradition. Is that true? Perhaps even the word tradition makes you feel uncomfortable because of the way that it's been used. The tradition has never allowed it. The weight of tradition is against you.

Even the word traditional marriage, right? Probably put shutters down your spine, for good reason. There's probably bits of Christianity that you love, but there's also bits that you hate. Maybe even bits that you despise, like that you genuinely hate, like to the depths and the core of your being. And my hunch is there's so many of you here, have felt potentially excluded from the tradition, or on the outer of the tradition, or oppressed by the tradition.[00:44:00]

I don't want to minimize any of that, and that's why it's so shitty that I got this talk. But here's my pitch.

There's something interesting about the fact The reason we can even talk about our tradition like this is a unique gift of Protestant Christianity, I think. Does that make sense to you? The fact that we can sit here and go, I grew with these bits and not those bits. This bit doesn't fit with my lived experience.

This bit makes sense to me and this bit doesn't. To me, and I could be wrong because I'm not an expert on, You know, or a scholar on religion. But that seems to me almost uniquely Protestant. Am I right? In a whole bunch of other religious traditions and cultures, as far as I can tell, no random individual gets to change or shape the tradition to suit them.

You can be a dissenting voice in the tradition, this is true, right? You don't have [00:45:00] to follow it completely personally, and you can work really hard to change it, but no individual gets to change it.

It seems kind of unique to Protestant Christianity that we even get to have a conference like this, I wonder, I think. In some kind of traditional religions, not even, not even everyone gets to learn the tradition. There's like keepers of the tradition. And they are under no obligation to tell you all of it.

Actually, you have to reach a particular age, or a particular stage, or a particular level of spirituality, potentially, before it's even passed on to you, if it is ever passed on to you. I have mixed feelings about this. I genuinely do. I kind of don't know how to unpack it in some ways. I want to say two contradictory things.

The first is, the best thing about Protestant Christianity is that anyone and everyone gets to choose how to change it, and it can still be called Christianity. This is a unique gift of Protestant Christianity and our tradition that we [00:46:00] should own. The tradition says you can find your own way. You have agency.

You can decide for yourself. God speaks to you, not just to the intelligent, not just to the spiritual, not just to the wealthy or the educated, but to ordinary people like each of one of us sitting here today. And I love that about our tradition. Come on, you like, that's, that's a good point. That's a good point.

You should be with me at least on that one. This one, not so much. But I want to say the trickiest thing about the Protestant Christian tradition is that anyone can choose to change it, and it still remains Protestant Christianity. This tension was driven home to me during Lent last year. I'm going to go, like, ring my bell, how am I going?

Oh, I've got plenty of time, don't worry. My church, I've done Lent for a number of years. And yeah, my church when we were doing Lent, I always give up meat. I've given up meat for ages. I tried to do alcohol last year. Didn't work, but I give up meat every year, but I have friends who are giving up chocolate I have friends that were giving up [00:47:00] like social media.

I had one friend who was giving up chess, which seems fake I like Genuinely, he was giving out chess and he does a lot of a lot of chess And I was chatting to my the Muslim owner of the cafe down the road and I was explaining that we were doing Lenton She asked what that was I was like, oh we all give up these random eccentric different things and she looked at me like I was really weird Yeah And I imagine for a moment you're, you know, a local Muslim person.

Even that sentence, Oh, I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna observe Ramadan this year. Don't know whether that sentence would come out of any single person's mouth, right? Because what is it to be a Muslim is to, to observe Ramadan. I couldn't imagine someone going, Oh, well, I'm going to give up. I will eat during the day and drink during the day, but I'm going to give up social media during the day.

Can you see the tension and the trickiness? I both [00:48:00] love it, and I find it really tricky. The older I get, there's something in me that feels like shared belief and practice. Please don't do that to me. That form, and the form and content of traditions, and the inability of any individual to change them, it makes perfect sense to me.

And maybe because I'm coming to terms with how gullible and naive and stupid and selfish and unwise I can truly be, I am not that smart. Who am I to change? things. I think like the only new tradition or new traditions that I'm capable of creating that would be like beneficial was just for me and for a couple of my friends, to be honest, because I don't think I'm particularly creative.

So how do we hold these two things in tension? Is there some way of bringing it together? There better be, otherwise you guys are going to hate me and boo me. What would it look like to embrace both of those things? [00:49:00] Here's my pitch. I don't think anything we're talking about today is fundamentally changing the tradition that we're a part of in any meaningful way.

Everything we're talking about can fit perfectly well with the Apostles Creed, the biblical witness, and the form and content of I know you might not like that language, but I'm saying it anyway. Because who gives a fuck?

The belief that gay, lesbian and trans and queer people are loved and should be embraced and treated as precious children of God and listened to is not a departure from the tradition, but it's completely in line. with the central tenets of the Christian faith and the Biblical witness. The idea that same sex relationships can be a beautiful expression of self given, life affirming, mutually beneficial love is not a departure from the tradition, but the logical inference of the traditional and Biblical, another dirty word, belief that there is no male or female Jew or Gentile, slave or free, but all are one in [00:50:00] Christ Jesus.

I'm uninterested in starting a new tradition because I'm not that good, but I would like to see the one that I'm a part of continue to move towards its fullness. As Paul says, for now we see through a glass half dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know even as I am known.

I don't want to start a new tradition, my friends, because it would be shit. But I am interested in discovering the depths of the tradition I'm a part of, and I think everything spoken about today fits perfectly within that. Amen.

Joel Hollier: Mitch Forbes, you may have just won us over. Take a breath, ground yourself. We've got one final talk tonight.[00:51:00]

And I've taken it.

Hey! That's not the plan! Okie doke. Let me just find my notes, let me find my notes, I'm still looking, I'm still looking. Don't start yet, don't start yet. Okay, I've found it. Yeah. Friends, I want to convince you that the future of the church has to be Holistically trauma informed. I spoke about this a little bit today, but I want to take it from a slightly different angle.

Sticks and stones may break my bones. You know that, yeah? Stick and stones. They actually might. And they can cause serious trauma. Sticks and stones can break your bones. They can cause a lot of damage. But words, we all know, they will be far more destructive. They will cut us to the bone. Exclusion? It will destroy you.

We don't like being destroyed. Like that, just be clear. That's a bad thing. [00:52:00] Loneliness? Did you know loneliness will kill you quicker than smoking a packet of cigarettes a day? Loneliness is a form of trauma for people. What is trauma? Today we spoke about it as hurt that just keeps on going. You know that feeling when you're stressed and your heart's beating and you're sweating?

It's that, but at the worst possible timing. When you're trying to sleep. When you're trying to prepare an essay. When you're getting ready to give a seven minute talk, we've all been hurt. We've all been hurt. And I dare to say that if I asked you to recall a painful memory, you could do it at the drop of a hat.

You could do it so easily, probably easier than you could recall a happy memory because we are wired to protect ourselves. And that means that so many of us are moving through the world with [00:53:00] pain embedded in our bodies. Imagine if you spoke to people on the street and you said, What do you do with the hurt that you have in life?

What do you do with the pain that you've experienced? What do you do with the childhood mistreatment? What do you do with the anger that you feel with everything? And they say, Ah, the church has been really helpful. Imagine if that was the case! I can think of a small handful of testimonies where that has been the case.

But by and large, most people that we speak to on the streets will grit their teeth and say, the church, yeah, that went through a royal commission, didn't it? The church is not a place of healing for trauma. But what if it could be? What if that is what we were known for? Through the week, I work as a researcher and some of my research moving into this year is looking at harm and healing, particularly at religious harm.

And I don't [00:54:00] need to convince anyone in this room that religion can be a source of harm. So many of you have experienced that, but I also want to convince you that religion can be a source of deep healing. And so I want to offer a framework that I use That's come through so many conversations through a fair bit of research around how I want to approach trauma informed care in the future of the church.

And it has an acronym. CARE. C A R E. C A, that could have been bad, what's the I? C A R E, care. The first one, connection. Trauma by its very definition, I said today, disconnects us. It disconnects us from our bodies. It disconnects us from our relationships. It disconnects us from God. It disconnects us from the land.

So what does it mean as a trauma informed child? as we move into [00:55:00] the future to be all about connection. I dare say you crave it. You crave connection because we live in a lonely city. You crave connection that is deep and real and honest and authentic and hopeful. You crave it particularly when you don't have it.

Loneliness is defined as a gap between what you need as your social input and what you currently have. Loneliness is disconnection. People who have been traumatized by life, gosh, life sucks sometimes. People who've gone through that, they struggle to connect. What if the church was a place of connection?

What if the church was a place where you could walk through those doors, let down that guard, take off that mask and say, I've had one hell of a life to this point. Can I tell you about it? And we don't balk. We don't shudder. We don't [00:56:00] nudge them back out the door. We look them in the eye and say, you are welcome in this space.

Not just you are welcome, but you belong. No, not just you belong. You're needed. You're needed. in this space. We need you. That is connection. And we need that in the future of the church. C. A. Affirmation. The world is going to knock out of you any illusion that you are loved. I hate to break it to you. And that's then compounded by theologies that tell you that you are a filthy sinner.

That nothing that you can do is ever good enough. That you are evil and unworthy. It takes an external voice at that point for someone to look at you and say, actually no, you are good. You are loved. [00:57:00] You have dignity. You have worth. You have gifts.

We connect. We affirm. Ah. Regulation. This is more of a medical term in some ways. Because it means we come in and we have calm bodies. It means we create a space where I'm not going to set you off by the way that I act. I'm not going to walk up to you and say, give me a hug, if you're not a hugger. Because that sets you off.

There's an idea of co regulation. And this is a wonderful thing. If somebody is stressed out And I come to, this is what we do in the schools where I work, where young people are really struggling with their regulation. They come in, they're stressed, they're hyper. I match their energy. I come in, I bring myself up.

I say, oh, wow, wow, wow, and slowly I bring myself down. And as I bring myself down, and I start to manage my own [00:58:00] experience of that moment, we watch them start to come down. We can be calming presence. A calming presence in people's lives. We connect, we affirm, we help people regulate, and the E is expression.

We give people the chance to express what is going on for them. Trauma is harm that has not been observed. Trauma is harm that is left to fester. And it goes rotten, and it gets disgusting, and eventually you have to cut the whole limb off. But what if we could observe that wound and tend to it far sooner?

What if we could let people say, I'm hurting? Here's why. Here's what's happened. What if we could actually create spaces where people feel like they not just can, but want to explore in safety, talking about their harm. Not trauma dumping. But with care and [00:59:00] safety, discuss what's going on for them. Imagine if the future of the church, just imagine if the front page of the newspaper didn't speak about the harm of the church, but spoke once again about how healing the church is because the church is a place of connection.

Where people are affirmed in their love, where people are taught how to regulate their bodies as they experience harm and where they express what's gone on for them in deep love. I think I'm preaching to the converted here. The church has to be trauma informed as we move forward, otherwise pack up and go home.

Done! Oh, seven minutes is hard. I apologize. Okay. Well, we have heard Five different talks you have sat and very willingly been spoken at and drunk [01:00:00] from that fire hydrant. It's probably a lot of information to take in. This is your chance now to sit and reflect.