Podcast
Pivot Podcast
Hosted by Faith+Lead · EN
Over the past few years, church leaders have been forced to respond to several global crises in the blink of an eye. In a moment with little information and lots of uncertainty, churches reinvented nearly every aspect of church.
Season 5 of the Pivot podcast explores the changing landscape of the church. Our co-hosts will dig into difficult questions that faith leaders are asking now, and provide an understanding of the deeper cultural shifts that account for the unraveling of inherited models of church. What are the four key pivots that today's church must make? New episodes post weekly on Thursdays.
32episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
When Did Politics Become More Powerful Than Faith?
Mar 500:32:01Tap to summarizeWhat happens when political identity becomes stronger than faith identity? Dr. Ryan Burge is a data scientist, professor, and pastor who watched his own 150-year-old congregation close its doors in 2024. In part one of this two-part conversation, Ryan brings the data to bear on one of the most urgent questions facing church leaders today: how faith and political identity have become so entangled in American life that millions of people now choose — or abandon — their church based on politics rather than theology.Ryan walks Dwight and Alicia through what the numbers actually show about church decline, the rise of never-attending evangelicals, the disappearance of politically diverse congregations, and why churches that once held Republicans and Democrats side by side may be the most important institution vanishing from American life. If your congregation feels more politically sorted than it used to, this episode offers both an honest diagnosis and a vision for what the church can still be on the other side of polarization.
Transcribe →Setting the Table: When Dinner Church Filled Rooms with the Unchurched
Feb 2600:44:13Tap to summarizeDr. Verlon Fosner's Seattle congregation was declining 14% every year despite doing everything right—improved worship, new programs, upgraded tech. So Verlon stopped trying to fix the decline and started asking a different question: Where is God already at work among people who will never walk through our church doors? His answer transformed his understanding of missional church. In 2008, his team opened their first dinner church in a struggling neighborhood with just tables, food, and Jesus stories. The room immediately filled with never-been-churched people who'd never wanted anything to do with traditional church.In this conversation, Verlon shares how dinner church creates a fundamentally different entry point for faith by recovering the ancient practice of gathering around Jesus' table. He explains why inviting someone to dinner is different than inviting them to Sunday worship, how the first apostles focused on Jesus stories rather than systematic theology, and what happens when tables replace classrooms as the primary environment for discipleship. If your church is declining and you're exhausted from trying to fix it, this conversation offers a different way forward for missional church in a post-Christian context.
Transcribe →What If Lent Wasn't About Giving Up, But Showing Up?
Feb 1700:11:47Tap to summarizeChurch leaders often approach Lent with a familiar script: add a devotional practice, give something up, host a midweek service. But what if this season called us to something deeper? In this special Pivot Podcast Lenten reflection, the Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson invites us into four transformative Lenten practices for church leaders that meet our exhaustion head-on. He offers: 1. sacred honesty about what hurts; 2. holy slowness as resistance to constant rushing; 3. embodied compassion in places where people are hurting; and 4. courageous imagining that refuses to let harshness shape our vision. Willis doesn't turn away from the brokenness around us—he teaches us to stick with it instead.From ashes to service, from truth to tenderness, from fear to faithful love—this is the Lenten trajectory Willis traces through the season. He reminds us that Ash Wednesday is not an ending but a true beginning, that the ashes on our skin clarify rather than humiliate, and that we don't walk this journey alone. Whether you're navigating congregational exhaustion, naming systemic injustice, or reclaiming power that looks like service rather than control, these Lenten practices for church leaders offer both challenge and hope for the season ahead.
Transcribe →The Problem With Trying to Make God Show Up
Feb 1200:35:31Tap to summarizeMany church leaders feel crushing church growth pressure—the constant anxiety that if you don't reverse decline or manage outcomes perfectly, you've failed. But what if that pressure is actually destroying the very connections you're trying to create? Dr. Andy Root and Rev. Kara Root discovered this truth on a 63-mile pilgrimage through Scotland with their teenagers. As they learned to let go of control in parenting, they began to see how the same dynamic plays out in pastoral leadership. When consultants use decline statistics to scare congregations into action, when the main issue becomes lack of growth instead of the Word of God, something shifts: pastors become managers and God becomes subtle.In this episode, Andy (Luther Seminary professor) and Kara (pastor at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis) talk about what it means to create space for God without trying to manufacture the moment. They discuss "semi-controlled experiences" in worship and prayer, where you can create conditions but can't guarantee the encounter. They share what it means to be dialogue partners instead of managers with your congregation. And they reflect on what a 300-year gap in church leadership at the ancient monastery of Lindisfarne taught them about who really holds the story. If you're exhausted from church growth pressure and the weight of trying to control everything, this conversation offers a different way forward.
Transcribe →What If You Stopped Doing Everything? A Q&A on Lay-Led Ministry
Feb 500:31:20Tap to summarizeMany church leaders love the idea of lay ministry in theory, but struggle to understand what it actually looks like in practice. In this special Q&A episode, Dwight Zscheile and Alicia Granholm answer your questions about the shift from clergy-led to lay-led ministry, sharing concrete examples from small congregations to megachurches that are making this work.You'll hear concrete examples from small congregations to megachurches that are making this work, learn how to renegotiate expectations with your congregation, discover what clergy are actually called to do when they stop doing everything themselves, and understand why this shift isn't about working yourself out of a job—it's about recovering the biblical pattern of the whole body of Christ engaged in ministry together.
Transcribe →The Church Planters Hiding in Your Congregation
Jan 2900:46:20Tap to summarizeWhat if the church planters God is calling are already in your congregation? John McGinley, executive director of Myriad in the UK, shares how they're equipping everyday disciples to start new worshiping communities in gyms, schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces. Since 2022, over 100 teams and 400+ people have launched contextual churches led by non-ordained believers. John explains how to recognize potential church planters, why a two-and-a-half-year community journey sustains these fragile new communities, and how ordained leaders can shift from delivering ministry to equipping it.In this conversation, you'll hear stories of a former bodybuilder who turned his gym into a church where over 20 people have come to faith, and a mom who created worship for families with special needs children. John shares practical wisdom on validating callings you might be missing, building small communities around meals and relationships rather than programs, and contextualizing the gospel for the people already in your networks. Discover how the role of ordained leadership is shifting from professional ministry delivery to equipping and overseeing grassroots church planters who are reaching people traditional models can't.
Transcribe →Why Stay Protestant?
Jan 2200:37:42Tap to summarizeWhat does Protestant identity in Christ mean for today's church leaders? In this conversation, theologian Beth Felker Jones explores why Protestant faith still matters in a moment when many are converting to Catholicism, embracing Orthodoxy, or deconstructing entirely. Beth unpacks the unique gifts of Protestant tradition: scripture as our primary authority, communal interpretation led by the Spirit, and the freedom to contextualize the gospel for new times and places. She challenges the myth of a "one pure church" before Protestantism and offers a compelling case for reclaiming Protestant heritage without fragmenting the broader body of Christ.Beth also addresses church hurt with refreshing honesty, exploring how Protestant identity in Christ allows space for both brokenness and hope. From the art of retelling the gospel for new contexts to why justification by grace still speaks to our self-justifying culture, this conversation helps leaders think more deeply about what they've inherited and what they want to pass on. Whether you're navigating questions about tradition and authority or helping people explore their faith identity, Beth offers wisdom for embracing Protestant faith as a gift rather than just a default.
Transcribe →What Happens When Familiarity Wears Off the Edge
Jan 1500:34:07Tap to summarizeDiscover how to read the financial parables of Jesus Christ with fresh eyes in this conversation with Dr. Keith Bodner, author of "Exploring the Financial Parables of Jesus." Keith shares how a moment of panic in the pulpit led him to rediscover the confrontational power of Jesus' economic stories—parables about treasure in fields, workers in vineyards, servants with talents, and rich men who know their neighbor's name but never open the gate. These stories reveal what Keith calls the economy of grace, where God's generosity turns our assumptions about wealth, fairness, and resources upside down.The financial parables of Jesus Christ haven't lost their power—familiarity has just worn off their edge. Keith helps church leaders understand why context matters when interpreting these stories, how a deficient view of God shapes the way we respond to what we've been given, and why the older brother in the prodigal son parable might be about us rather than the Pharisees. Whether you're preparing to preach on the parable of the talents, teaching a Bible study on Lazarus at the gate, or helping your congregation think differently about stewardship, this conversation offers practical insights for letting these ancient texts confront and transform us again.
Transcribe →
Two Pastors, One Vision, and a Merger That Changed Everything
Jan 800:40:25Tap to summarizeIn November 2020, amid a pandemic and national racial reckoning, two congregations in Des Moines made a bold decision to merge. Hope Des Moines, a primarily white Lutheran church, and Elim Christian Fellowship, a historically Black church, became Hope+Elim. This wasn't about saving declining attendance or finding quick institutional fixes. It was about two pastors who had built a friendship over years of sharing pulpits and dreaming together, and who believed God was calling them to witness to church unity in their city.Pastor Brian Brown joins the conversation to share what building church unity actually looks like in real time. From blending worship styles to tackling hard conversations about race with grace, from hosting community meals to creating ministry partnerships that serve their neighborhood, Hope+Elim is learning that proximity doesn't equal community. Real church unity requires vulnerability, resilience, and the willingness to create something new together. If you're wondering where to start in building bridges across racial and cultural divides, Brian's wisdom offers both practical guidance and hope for the journey.
Transcribe →Pastoral Care for Pastors: What That Stable Teaches Us
Dec 1800:09:43Tap to summarizePastoral care for pastors takes center stage in this special Christmas reflection as Steve Thomason offers church leaders a rare gift during the busiest season of the year: permission to let go of perfect. If you've been working nonstop since September with rally days, sermons, hospital visits, and board meetings, you know the weight that builds as Christmas approaches. The pressure to make everything spectacular for people who'll only attend once all year can feel overwhelming. But Steve invites leaders to remember what really happened that first Christmas night—not spectacle or perfection, but the raw, ordinary mess of childbirth in a stable where God chose to enter the world.Drawing from the Gospel of John and Paul's letter to the Philippians, Steve reminds us that Jesus didn't own a home or get worked up about buildings and budgets. He had a simple call: proclaim God's kingdom and invite people to love God and neighbor. This reflection offers weary church leaders a blessing of simplicity, inviting them back to that stable scene where a young couple, displaced strangers finding shelter among animals, brought God into the world through the same painful process we all experience. It was normal, messy, and beautiful—and pastoral care for pastors means remembering that you are too.
Transcribe →