We’re exploring the innovative ways churches in Northern Virginia are blending spirituality and community outreach–from improv church to affordable housing.
In this episode of Compass, we’re visiting four unique and innovative expressions of church in Northern Virginia and Maryland.
Listen and Subscribe to Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Day-to-Day: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / YouTube / Amazon
See how Central United Methodist Church in the Ballston neighborhood renovated their old church building in order to meet the changing needs of their neighborhood and give life to new ministries. Visit a pop-up cafe with Provision Church, helping provide a community of care and support for those who are often overlooked. Spend a night at Improv Church, laughing a path to community connection. And dig into good work and a hearty bowl of soup with Coop’s Soups.
Episode Notes:
Find more on these unique ministries:
- Central UMC: cumcballston.org
- Provision Church: provisionchurchnova.org
- Improv Church: thevineva.org
- Coop's Soups: coopssoups.com
In this episode:
(00:00) Church: community expressions beyond traditional worship settings.
(05:21) Central UMC modernized facilities for community benefit.
(08:38) Pastor Alyssa leads Provision Church, aiding homeless.
(12:31) Free meals foster community and mutual support.
(15:19) What happens at Improv Church
(16:51) Sermon-inspired skits with impactful dual-role pastor.
(21:28) Improv church attracts reluctant family and friends.
(26:02) Ministry practiced through connections at farmer's market.
(28:25) Coop Soups and Improv Church embrace innovation.
(30:17) Learn more about ministries at umc.org.
Related episodes
- Real church in digital space with J.J. Warren
- Why people are leaving church
- Church rethought with Heather Jallad
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This episode posted on September 18, 2024
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:01]:
What do a pop up cafe, a low income housing project, a soup making business, and an improv troupe all have in common? Well, in one corner of Northern Virginia and Maryland, all these groups call themselves expressions of church. Does that sound a little weird? It might, since most of us hear the word church and we conjure up a mental image that likely includes a mass of people gathered on a Sunday morning and a preacher given a sermon and offering plates and some pageantry and music and nice clothing. And while these images are familiar, the church itself has long advocated for a little different understanding of church. In fact, one of the first songs I ever learned invites us to sing, I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together. The idea is that church is not an event nor a place. Church is the community of faith, it's people.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:00]:
As the song goes, the church is not a building. The church is not a steeple. The church is not a resting place. The church is what? It's it's the people. I know someone out there just did a bunch of hand movements to coincide with those words. The innovative ministries that I mentioned a moment ago, the pop up cafe, the housing complex, the soup makers, and the improv troupe have all leaned back into the understanding of church being a connection of people. I'm Ryan Dunn, and I had the good fortune of participating in these unique expressions of church recently. And in this episode of Compass, I'm gonna share those experiences as well as the thoughts of those who helped to give life to these expressions of church.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:45]:
And I hope we can give you a sense of what it's like to participate in these expressions as well. These experiences may get us rethinking what it is that we think about when we think church. All that is coming up on Compass.
Gene Cross [00:02:04]:
We saw it as a need. We started, trying to work on what it was going to take to be an outreach in the community, and we decided the church is not the building. The church is the people outside. And so we wanted to be out in the community and, have a better impact. So the congregation for a number of years has been, you know, trying to get out and be engaged. And when you go out in the community, you actually see things that you don't normally see, especially if you do it intentionally.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:32]:
That was Jean Cross, who I met while making sandwiches in the all purpose fellowship hall of Central United Methodist Church in Ballston, which is a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia. I know it's Jean and a group of friends, some who are official members of Central UMC in Ballston, and others who aren't, get together early on Friday mornings to make sandwiches for the local homeless shelter. There's a lot of kidding back and forth in this group and a lot of coffee. At different times, the Friday morning group has done different feeding activities. For a while during the COVID lockdown, they ran a bodega out of the back of the church facility. At another time, they did a breakfast cafe.
Gene Cross [00:03:09]:
When you once you get to know and you get to know the stories, you get a better connection with the folks and you can understand what their problems are and what we need to be working on as a, you know, society so that it's, it's it's kind of a it's a way to live out your faith basically.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:26]:
Several years ago Central UMC had a problem. Their building was about a 100 years old and in need of repair, like a lot of repairs.
Sarah Harrison-McQueen [00:03:37]:
And so we recognized that we had a building that was crumbling very literally, and we said, well, what could God do with what we have on this corner of Stafford and Fairfax and what the people need, which is housing?
Ryan Dunn [00:03:52]:
This is Central UMC's pastor, Sarah Harrison McQueen.
Sarah Harrison-McQueen [00:03:56]:
So I'll use the phrase that our lay leader used many years ago when she told the story, because this is a 17 year story that I'll tell you in 17 seconds. She said the congregation went from an attitude of serve us to service. And that at its core is what got this congregation to be willing to say goodbye to their 100 year old building to allow for a multi use building that includes folks who they never would cross paths with otherwise.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:25]:
The church's property sits in a pretty well trafficked area of Arlington. It's a busy street. There's an IHOP across the street and a sports bar next door. The local high school is about 3 blocks away. There's a pretty consistent flow of people walking by and a non stop flow of car traffic whizzing by. There's a lot of people to get to know in the area. All these people have their own unique needs, of course. But one need the church members kept hearing through their connections in the community was a need for affordable housing.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:56]:
Carmen Romero is the CEO of True Ground Housing, a non profit affordable housing developer in Arlington. She summed up the need.
Carmen Romero [00:05:05]:
Really, in the nation, there were 7,000,000 affordable homes behind. Half American renters are rent burdened. Low income renters are severely rent burdened, paying 50 to 80% of their income on housing. In Arlington, that's very much the case.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:21]:
Many churches would balk at blowing up their facilities. But what about when those buildings are old and no longer suitable for the church family or for the community? The leaders of Central UMC made that connection. Their buildings didn't work for the good of either their faith community nor their neighborhood. So they started a project of tearing the building down and starting over. In place of their antiquated facilities, they were going to right size their worship space and fellowship spaces. They also wanted to make sure that their facilities would be multi use. So there are a lot of adaptable features to their spaces, like movable chairs, open spaces, a commercial kitchen. The more traditional church facilities are on the ground floor.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:03]:
On the second level, our classrooms for Kin Haven, a member governed preschool.
Sarah Harrison-McQueen [00:06:08]:
So Kin Haven has reserved 16 spaces for children with the childcare subsidy in Virginia. And so they've already enrolled six students from APA properties. So they're looking for 10 more students that that'll come in at that subsidized rate, and then we'll have room for up to a 100 students total.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:27]:
Above all this is Unity Homes, 144 affordable housing units, community rooms, a business center, laundry facilities, and a really nice terrace that one of my co producers, AJ Thurman, got really excited about using for hosting barbecues. Carmen Romero summed it up.
Carmen Romero [00:06:45]:
It's a way for 2 nonprofits, that are serving the community to amplify each other's mission. Here, we have some tree United Methodist Church who is gonna have a new church facility, a new daycare, and TrueGround is going to be able to develop a 144 units in an area of high opportunity where we couldn't otherwise have access to land.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:05]:
Projects like this always come with a case of nimbyism. That is people who say that developments like this are good, but not in my backyard. Pastor Sarah.
Sarah Harrison-McQueen [00:07:16]:
This process challenged some of our neighbors to be willing to have neighbors they wouldn't have otherwise. And so there was a group who wanted to use historic preservation as a way to stop an affordable housing project, but thankfully, we made it through that process with a compromise where we retained some of the historic elements that we hadn't originally planned to keep. Ultimately, God. There are so many ways that this process unfolded that only God could have foreseen. You know, we have a very small congregation. It's 2017 when we did our capital campaign. We needed to raise $500,000 in order to hire architects and to begin the legal process of getting approval for this project. That's a big ask for most churches, but particularly our church.
Sarah Harrison-McQueen [00:08:06]:
And we worked with a fabulous campaign consultant. And on the day of the commitment Sunday, we had hoped to get, a good response. And we got more than 50% of our goal on that day pledged. And I burst into tears when she told me because that was so far outside of what I expected.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:28]:
One of the features of Central UMC's renovation is a commercial kitchen. This kitchen has helped to give life to another unique expression of church.
Alyssa Densham [00:08:38]:
My name is Alyssa Dintem, and I am the pastor of Provision Church, a new United Methodist church plant here in Northern Virginia. We launched on January 1st 2023. Yeah. So Provision Church is a missional faith community and we live out that mission through Provision Kitchen. We operate what we call community cafes. They're they're basically day centers where folks who are housing insecure can find a safe place to linger for as long as they want, find nutritious and delicious chef curated meals and light snacks, and then they also have access to help to navigate some of those really hard resources that they need to survive. So over the course of the week, we operate 3 different cafes. Right now, we're standing in our Ballston Cafe, which is our only indoor cafe.
Alyssa Densham [00:09:27]:
We're here on Wednesdays, and then we have 2 outdoor cafes that we operate in the Springfield area, so not far from here, but on Thursdays Fridays.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:35]:
Provision Church uses Central UMC's commercial kitchen to prepare food for the pop up cafes. Instead of a worship event being the central point of the community life for Provision Church, the cafes are the central events of their community life.
Alyssa Densham [00:09:49]:
Because Jesus because Jesus I mean, at the end of the day, that's isn't that the answer all the time. That's what we do at Sunday school. Jesus said, feed my sheep. And then Jesus also said, tend my sheep and you kinda have to do both of those things if you're gonna live and walk and try to follow the way of Jesus and so we gather at tables because that's what Jesus did. To have meals with people because that's what Jesus did So that we can learn more about what it means to be in community, not just with God, who we love, but with our neighbors, who we need to know better.
Ryan Dunn [00:10:24]:
Much like Central UFC, as provision church members got to know their neighbors, They asked questions about what their neighbors needed and in listening, they found that their neighbors needed assistance in navigating some of the administrative and social barriers to get what they need. They needed companionship and an advocate In the hierarchy of church staffing hiring, often churches start with hiring a pastor. Provision Church is no different there. Pastor Alyssa was the first employee. But from there, the church might hire an administrator or a worship leader or a youth pastor. Provision Church hired a social worker. Specifically, they hired Jesse Lee.
Jesse Lee [00:11:04]:
My role as director of community connections, which originally was to basically pull, resources from different, organizations within the community, and then it kind of turned more into case management.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:20]:
As I hung around at one of the cafes, Jesse helped 1 cafe participant locate a muffler for his van so he could use it at his handyman business. Jesse also helped another participant get times and locations for citizenship classes. Another participant got help in putting together a transportation plan for getting children home from school while she went to a counseling session. But Jesse notes that the biggest rewards come when it's not just the church staff helping people.
Jesse Lee [00:11:47]:
They help each other. One guy said, you wanted to go to detox. And, another guy said, I'll take you on the bus. And they're both unhoused, and they're, like, using all the resources they can to help each other. And they got so they took him on the bus, and then they got off at the wrong stop. The guy who he's a really huge guy, like, £300, to, like, mostly muscle, carries the guy into an Uber that he pays for, to take him the rest of the way to the detox program.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:22]:
Now in some ways, this begins to sound like a social service. So I asked people, what makes provision church a church? Pastor Alyssa offered this.
Alyssa Densham [00:12:31]:
I think most people come because they think they're gonna get a free meal, and they do. That's that's why we offer it. Right? But what they show up here and they receive, and they then begin to participate in is a community. We have folks who a year ago didn't know each other, like, literally didn't know each other, and right now if there wasn't a cafe, still would have no reason to know each other, but when somebody is in crisis, they come along each other, come come alongside each other in a way that you only do because you feel like you know someone and you trust them really well. And the space of the cafe offers that to people.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:12]:
Once community and connection are established, it quickly turns spiritual. Jesse told me this story.
Jesse Lee [00:13:18]:
I can tell you a million stories, but something that was really special to me was we were just chatting at the cafe in Springfield, and this other guy next to me was having some separate side conversation while I was having some other conversation. He turns and looks straight at me and says, I wanna get baptized right now. I you need to take me to the church, and I need to be dunked. He he used that word. And, that was just really cool to have a community member kind of just have that, like, oh, I need to have this happen right now moment.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:57]:
Speaking of being in the moment, improv comedy is an experience of total immersion in the moment. There is no script. There's only impulse in reaction. One of the rules of improv is that there are no bad ideas. I wish we embrace that ethos a bit more within the church, especially in relation to people. The Vine Church in Dunloring, Virginia lived through that perspective.
Peter Bergen [00:14:22]:
1, 2, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.
Katie Phillips [00:14:26]:
What did you put on top of that?
Peter Bergen [00:14:29]:
What did you put on top of that?
Cara [00:14:31]:
Well, I'll never.
Peter Bergen [00:14:33]:
Well, I'll never.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:34]:
That is the improv church crew getting ready for one of their monthly sets. Here's how the night goes at improv church. This scene is the worship space of the vine church from the outside. The church building looks fairly stereotypical church building. It's a brick rectangle with a steeple, some stained glass inside the sanctuary. The pews have been removed though. Platform serves as a short stage. A cool feature that I enjoyed was the mocktail slash coffee bar near the side entrance.
Ryan Dunn [00:15:06]:
On the particular evening, our team visited improv church. There are about 60 people in attendance. Vine Church's pastor, Katie Phillips, begins the gathering in performance time describing what this evening is about.
Katie Phillips [00:15:19]:
So here's what's gonna happen tonight. We're gonna use a form of improv comedy that's called a long form. It's called an Armando. And in Armando, you go to see it in comedy clubs across the country. Normally, they find a local celebrity who comes up and gives a monologue, tells a true story about their life, and then the improv comedians use that as inspiration for a night of comedy. Right? Partway through the show, the monologist comes back up, gives another short monologue, and the improvisers do a couple of other scenes. Because you're an improv church, instead of a local celebrity giving a monologue, we're excited tonight to welcome a pastor to give a sermon. What? A sermon.
Katie Phillips [00:16:00]:
A sermon and comedy, and one night, you're lucky. You're lucky.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:03]:
A short sermon or homily follows. Tonight, it's given by a guest preacher, Reverend Jonathan Page.
Jonathan Page [00:16:09]:
But, hey. We're gonna, read a scripture today, from the gospel of Matthew. So, Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 through 42. What I wanna preface this with is that for a long time, this has been one of my least favorite passages in the entire body.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:27]:
Then hilarity and hijinks ensues.
Alyssa Densham [00:16:30]:
First up, we have the Chanel model doing their lovely dance down the runway, and we've heard this one is really special.
Peter Bergen [00:16:38]:
Oh, yes. It's giving playtime. It's giving it's giving colors and primary color.
Alyssa Densham [00:16:48]:
Thank you so much, Chanel Model.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:51]:
The skits or acts include some elements or visualizations from Reverend Jonathan's sermon. He preached on the portion of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about how if we are struck on the right cheek, we should turn and offer the left cheek as well. Or if we're forced to walk 1 mile, we should walk another. There's a skit that includes a fight club scene with people being joyfully struck. There's another skit where a family begrudgingly takes on a hike and picks up more hikers on their group as they add on mile after mile. Pastor Katie is one of the improv performers, but she also easily moves into a pastoral role when inviting improv church congregants into receiving communion. This dual role that Katie plays has an impact on the congregation in providing a personal sense of connection to the improv events. It also has a fascinating effect on Katie's fellow performers.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:47]:
This is improviser Peter Bergen.
Peter Bergen [00:17:49]:
It's great to see my friend Katie, who I know is a great improviser, great at something else, and that's being a pastor. And what I think she's great at is making church and religion accessible while not making it stuffy, but the message never gets compromised. Like 1st,
Katie Phillips [00:18:06]:
we wanna invite you to this communion table. This is a worship service. We know it's different probably than other worship services that you have been to, but, this is Vine Church, and we fundamentally believe that God is good, that God calls us and invites us into a community, and that in this work of sharing and learning and growing and caring for one another, that we get to learn and experience more of who God is.
Ryan Dunn [00:18:30]:
The improvisers concluded with one last segment, which included audience participation through suggested lines. The night was fun. I enjoyed getting a look behind the scenes in an event like this. I wondered though, how was this perceived by some of the congregants? Was it a performance for them? Was it a fun night out? Or was it church for them? We spoke with Jeremy Hancock after the event about his perceptions of improv church.
Jeremy Hancock [00:18:59]:
Yeah. I think you still get all the same elements of church. You get a little bit of a a little bit of a sermon. You get communion and a lot of stories in between that all ultimately get connected. And I think ultimately, it's a way to connect with with people, and that's what, you know, what church is all about on Sunday mornings.
Ryan Dunn [00:19:17]:
A congregant named Cara added this.
Cara [00:19:19]:
I think the the upfront mini sermon, kind of grounds what this is all about. And then we we bring it back to that, in the middle with another short, sermon by the an ordained minister. And then the communion, of course, is the way that we remember that we're all connected to God and, that that this is another way that we can worship our Lord.
Ryan Dunn [00:19:46]:
Some people within the larger church may still question whether or not Improv Church is church. I think Improv Church participants might suggest that the event is part of church. It's a way to begin a pathway towards discipleship and belonging in the community of faith. All of the ministries we've explored thus far invite participation without strings attached. In order to receive a meal from Provision Church, there's no requirement that you attend a worship service or hear a sermon. In order to live at Central UMC's Housing Unit, there's not an addendum that you must also attend Sunday service at Central UMC. Improv Church is not for Vine Church members only. The ethos at work here suggests that a pathway of discipleship begins when people start to form relationships with disciples.
Ryan Dunn [00:20:40]:
In one of Provision Church's pop up cafes, I talked with a volunteer named Kathleen. She offered her job description.
Kathleen [00:20:47]:
I have to sit with people. I try to start conversation. I try to smile as much as possible and be welcoming and learn people's names. They really have a philosophy of personhood and value and giving people worth, and I just try to manifest that. I don't actually do a ton. Maybe I'll pass somebody a meal or, you know, go get some extra supplies. But mostly I just try to make a lot of eye contact and make people feel valued and like I care about them.
Ryan Dunn [00:21:12]:
Improv church uses the allure of laughter as an opportunity to hang out with people and invite them to do what disciples of Jesus do. I spoke with pastor Katie at the end of the night after the crowd had cleared and the mocktails had been bust away.
Katie Phillips [00:21:28]:
But I think the things that have surprised me is that this has been a place that members of our congregation have invited their spouse who otherwise is not interested in coming to church, or their teenager, or their young adult, kiddo, or their neighbor. Whereas the people who are bought in, who are church members, but who have not necessarily found the gumption to invite their people to something and or the things they've invited them to haven't been a good fit. Improv church seems to be. So we have a number of folks who this is where they worship with their spouse, or this is where they worship with their kids, and then they come alone on Sunday or to other expressions of worship. The other thing that has been surprising is the comedians. I've, in the beginning, was asking a favor of my friends and was like, I wanna give this a shot. Like, what do you think? And we'll buy you dinner, and we give them a $50 Visa gift card, which is, like, not worth their time, but something. Right? And they were like, yeah.
Katie Phillips [00:22:25]:
We'll we'll do this. But some interesting things have happened. So we have more than one of the improvisers who attend now, Vine Church, one who joined in membership. I've officiated at the wedding of 2 different couples who are part of comedian couples who are part of Improv Church, and just kind of been invited into faith conversations with folks for whom attending church is completely countercultural and seemingly ridiculous otherwise. So that has been has felt really extraordinary to me. We have, one of the improvisers after the 3rd show sent me a text, like, at midnight back home after cleaning everything up. And the text message said, this is the 3rd time I've heard you talk about this Jesus guy. I'm starting to wonder if there's something there for me.
Ryan Dunn [00:23:12]:
In the vein of hilarity and hijinks, here's my transition to our next topic. It takes a number of ingredients to pull church together, but maybe these various ingredients make church robust and exciting. Kind of like a good soup is the right blend of various ingredients. So let me tell you about Coop's Soups. Boom. Transition. As you can see,
Doug [00:23:38]:
it gets a little messy.
Katie Phillips [00:23:39]:
I'm happy
Doug [00:23:39]:
to be here.
Doug [00:23:40]:
We make big shapes like this. And, hopefully, it all comes together. It doesn't matter what every week we do this. All these things get all thrown out and then all of a sudden becomes an awesome soup. So
Ryan Dunn [00:23:52]:
That's Doug, one of the soup preparers who joined us for the preparing of a tomato lentil curry in the basement kitchen of a church in Maryland. It's here that we'll have our experience with coop soups.
Cristin Cooper [00:24:04]:
The way the soup started was it started in a dinner church in our apartment, and I started making soup because it's easy to add a potato to if you hear someone else is coming. It's also pretty relatively low cost. All the ingredients don't necessarily stretch a budget too far. And then now that I've been in the process of making soup a while, one of my favorite parts of that process is when all the ingredients are in the pot and there's nothing else for you to do and they do their own thing and turn into soup as we know it. And I just think that's such a beautiful metaphor for, like, our relationship with God that there's times when we're working in accordance, and then there's times when God is doing something, and we can kinda take a Sabbath rest. And the work will do itself, and there's a moment when we need to step back.
Ryan Dunn [00:24:56]:
That is Reverend Kristin Cooper, the founder of Coop Soups. We spoke just after she and a group of volunteers prepared several gallons of tomato lentil curry soup for a feeding ministry in Maryland. Preparing soup for those in need is part of what Coop Soups does, though there's something more to it as well.
Doug [00:25:13]:
God, grace, thank you for this day, this opportunity to encounter your grace in the soup making process as we interact with tomatoes and cilantro and lime juice and also to encounter your grace in the faces of those we are going to cook with and those that are in spirit here with us that will be eating the soup beyond just today. We ask that we grow more into your love today and beyond. And you say all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:47]:
You don't need to be a member of any particular church to be on Coop Soup's prep team. In fact, I met participants who didn't profess any kind of religious belief. They just wanted to participate in something meaningful that was helping other people and creating community.
Cristin Cooper [00:26:02]:
Probably a central part of our ministry is being at the farmer's market. So this is where we really practice loving God and loving our neighbor. And we believe that in that process of getting to know our neighbor face to face in the farmers market setting that we're that God is communicating to us and, encouraging us to to listen and discern to the spirit, and then we respond in accordance. We have a customer named John who has been with us from the beginning. So we launched in 2019. And in 2020, he, came up to us at the market and he said, I just looked at your website for the first time, and I saw that you're a church. And I have nothing good to say about the church, and I have everything good to say about what you're doing here. And his only experience of us was how we treated and related to our neighbors at the farmers market space.
Cristin Cooper [00:26:57]:
There's all these touch points, like, at the farmers market when we're talking about our week, in the soup making process, in the connecting to, like, our local farmer and what's in season. There's just all these moments of encountering God's grace and being invited, again, into deeper intimacy with God's love. And I believe that can happen in a traditional church setting and outside of a traditional church setting, but God is beyond both settings.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:28]:
The preparation is something of a holy process as well. Provision Church's Alyssa Densham noted that Jesus often met others around a meal. Pastor Kristen noticed that as well.
Cristin Cooper [00:27:38]:
In that process of making soup, it's just a really natural way to get to know one another and create a space of belonging. So I think it's something as practical as, like, when you're chopping a onion, you're not making eye contact. So there's, like, an invitation to kind of be a little more relaxed and a little more vulnerable. There's also the you hear a lot of people's health stories and stories around food and family food traditions. And so it's just this natural way to get a whole picture of, like, who is this person in front of you? And what excites them and what what's their history? And then we always eat the soup. So anytime I make soup with somebody, we always sit down and eat the soup. And that's really important to us because it again is about the like, this is about slowing down.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:25]:
It's worth noting that Coop Soups cares deeply for people, but they also seek a holistic care for the environment. The tomatoes, which form the basis of our curry were all second tomatoes, meaning that they were tomatoes that weren't going to market and would otherwise go to waste. Coop soups has connections with several area farmers who will donate produce like this so that Coop soups gets cheap ingredients and something good comes out of a product that would otherwise be thrown away. In a way, that's a bit of what these expressions of church are doing. Traditional church models can be wonderful, and they work for many people, but they don't work for everyone. It's true that these innovative approaches to church won't work for everyone either. Pastor Katie of Improv Church told me about meeting with her church council and being upfront that Improv Church would include words and scenes many would find startling in a church setting. They gave her the go ahead anyways, recognizing that the culture inside the church was not reflective of all the niches of society.
Katie Phillips [00:29:31]:
We have this incredible opportunity and invitation to be, inviters, to be tellers, to be sharers, to be witnesses, to be community with folks in a unique way around the truth of who Jesus Christ is. So I really thought through, like, what is worship at its core? And so I went back to, like, Seminary 101, like a fourfold pattern of worship. So all of the expressions that Vine does here that are worship services, yoga worship, diner church, dinner church, improv church, like in any of the different things that we've tried in Biblers follows a 4 fold pattern of worship. So we we try to be really thoughtful about this work of inviting and what it means to share the word. Right? And how we, then respond to that and how we send people forth.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:17]:
We're sending you forth with that. If you're interested in learning more about any of these ministries, links are in the show notes for this episode at unc.org. I'd encourage you to reach out to the respective leaders of these ministries. They were all super responsive to me and willing to talk about the strengths and struggles of what they do. If this episode was meaningful for you, we've got a couple more Compass episodes that you're likely to enjoy. Our most recent episode to this one, episode number 140, is a talk with Reverend JJ Warren about church in digital spaces. Or you may also get something out of episode 111, which was a standalone episode I did about why people are leaving churches. Again, my name is Ryan Dunn.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:02]:
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. For this episode, I need to give a big shout out to AJ Thurman who ventured over to Virginia with me and is responsible for all the recordings that you heard. I'm gonna shout out Ricky Barrow too, who's working on pulling all of our somewhat random video clips together into complimentary videos for each one of these ministries. So be on the lookout for those on umc.org. Compass is a production of United Methodist Communications. We do new episodes every 2 weeks. So I hope you'll join us again in 2 weeks time for another journey into the surprising ways we might notice God in our day to day lives. In the meantime, peace to you.
