← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 787 | Emergency Episode | Pastoring Angry People: When to Speak, When to Stay Silent, and Leading Without Losing Everyone
01:33:19
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- [00:01]
Adam Mesa
The Art of Leadership Network, our social media team basically thought, hey, this was a great prayer. You know, let's clip it because the whole nation is talking about it. We posted that prayer and we went viral. Within three days, I think it had, you know, 5 to 6 million views, tens of thousands of comments, and we got about 3,000 phone calls that if we didn't denounce the prayer that people would leave the church.
- [00:34]
Carrie Newhoff
Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. It's Carrie here. Hey, this is special, what I'm calling an emergency episode. I got so many DMs from leaders, pastors, listeners to this podcast. Just struggling with something we talked about a couple months ago, which was discipleship by algorithm, right? The reason it's so hard for you to win, the reason that you have so much difficulty saying anything about any cultural or, you know, bigger issue in your church, you just get slaughtered every time you say something, is because people are being discipled by an algorithm. People are on their phones 49 hours a week on average. You get about 30 minutes to an hour and a half a week maybe to disciple people. And they're all being discipled by the algorithm, right? Ultra right wing this, or mega this, or left wing progressive this, or whatever it is. They're all being discipled differently and it means that the average pastor can't win. So we are doing this emergency episode and I brought together a panel of people that I think could really speak into this issue. And that's who you're going to hear from over the next 90 minutes. I had moderate hopes for this podcast. I said to them at the beginning, hey, if all we do is get a little bit of empathy, that this is hard right now. Pastors, we're in your corner. We see you. You're not alone. Hang in there. This will be a successful episode. However, they brought so much wisdom. I think you're gonna find a lot more than just empathy. You're gonna find some clarity, some guidance, some encouragement, and some guidelines. So you might wanna check out the show notes. You can find them@carynwhoff.com shownotes and that's where you'll find everything. So who do we have on the podcast? We have Sharon Hoddie Miller. She leads Bright City church in Durham, North Carolina with her husband Ike. She has a PhD, a doctorate on women and calling, and is also the author of numerous books. We also have Adam Mesa. Adam is a pastor, entrepreneur and creative consultant. As lead pastor, he helped expand and establish the culture of Patria, where he currently speaks to a multicultural, multi ethnic congregation of 12,000 members. Additionally, he is the Global Leadership Team. He is on the team for pre.com and serves as a Board trustee for Life Pacific University. And we have Ed Stetzer. Ed Stetzer also holds a doctorate of PhD. He is the Dean and professor of leadership and and Christian Ministry at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Wycliffe hall at Oxford University, where he teaches several times a year. He is a Regional director for Lausanne North America, editor in chief of Outreach magazine, and regularly writes for news outlets such as USA Today, cnn, and also serves in his local church. So with all that said, if you have been struggling with what to say and feel like, you get shot down and every time you say anything because you're not too much this and not enough that. Welcome to the Emergency episode. Here we go. Well, Sharon, Adam, Ed, welcome. Thank you for this. I don't know whether we call it emergency episode, but it kind of feels like an emergency if you're leading a church. It's just so hard to say anything right now on current events and you're all in the thick of it. Sharon and Adam leading churches day to day. Ed leading a seminary, doing a lot of writing and speaking on this topic. So I'm very grateful that you would come and form this little panel. But, you know, here's the problem. You know, if you're a normal, thoughtful pastor who's not trying to be a culture warrior right now, it feels like you've basically been silenced. Like the fringes kind of own the dialogue. What are you seeing out there as far as you know? Sharon, how long have you been in ministry right now with your husband? And how have you seen it change in the time that you've been in ministry?
- [04:29]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
So I've been in ministry for decades. We planted our church a little over seven years ago, and so we launched our church 18 months before the pandemic. You and I have talked about this before on the podcast and really good time. Yeah, yeah, it was great. The learning curve of that. And honestly, we did learn a lot like there. I, I feel better prepared going into this historical moment because we led through 2020. But I do think that the temptation right now, I don't think that the middle moderate, whatever you want to call it, I don't think those voices have been silenced necessarily. I do think the fringe voices are louder. And so the temptation, and I feel this in myself as well, the temptation is to extrapolate the extremes as if they represent Equally, these two sides, when that is not at all the case where most people are actually very complicated, they contain multitudes, their positions are nuanced. But that is not the narrative that social media necessarily presents to us.
- [05:46]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, Adam, I don't know that you want to start there or not, but you're a couple years into your role as lead pastor of very large church. Tell us a little bit about your background. And then you had a moment recently where not even speaking out on an issue, but praying about an issue ended up with a lot of collateral damage.
- [06:08]
Adam Mesa
Yeah. And I'm sure later on give some more context as well. But in short, I've been pastoring, lead pastor for about two years now. 31 year old church that my dad started in 1994. We historically were called Abundant Living Family Church. And then when I took over, me and my dad mutually agreed it was time to simplify our name. And so we changed the church's name to Patria P A T R I A which just means family in the Greek, which that's really what our church is known for demographic wise. Our church is a historic African American church. My dad is a Mexican from East LA and he got saved in the black church, one of the largest black churches in LA in Pomona back in the 80s. And so for the first probably 20 years, our church was 99% African American. We did the whole shebang. Choir robes, my dad wore three piece suit, you know, big wooden podium. And then my dad just really continually had a word from God that said the church needs to look like the city. If you can go to the mall, you know, every person in our church should be able to invite anyone at the mall or any coworker from work and not have to qualify it and say, oh, but we're this ethnic church or that. And that was his call. He felt I have no issues with all one ethnic churches. But that was what he really felt driven to do. And so me and my wife have been pastoring that. And so my wife is half white and half black. I'm half Spanish, Mexican and white. And so multicultural family, multicultural church. Our church nowadays looks like a bag of skittles. You look out into the church, you really can't tell what it is. But I would say the majority is African American and Hispanic, but all types of Latinos at that rate. And so given that context, our largest kind of giving base historically and attendance base, but Covid it kind of changed is our African American community who in September when Charlie Kirk was assassinated,
- [08:18]
Ed Stetzer
we
- [08:18]
Adam Mesa
had a service the night that he had passed. And so I was gone at an event. And I had asked our founding pastor, which was my dad, hey, can you just say a prayer for Charlie and his family?
- [08:30]
Carrie Newhoff
So the service was pre scheduled. It wasn't one especially.
- [08:35]
Adam Mesa
No, it was our normal. We do a midweek service at all of our campuses. And so I just said, hey, at the end of worship, can you say a prayer? And so our social media team basically thought, hey, this was a great prayer. Let's clip it, because the whole nation is talking about it. This was now, we didn't know over the next 24, 48 hours, the media spin was going to be that Charlie Kirk was a racist. There's a lot of things that I think that Charlie Kirk would have not been liked by, but we didn't presume that that would have been the angle. We thought the angle would have just been conservative political activists. And so we felt no issue with a national, really assassination to pastor people who were having a lot of questions and doubts. And so we posted that prayer. And because of our church's multi ethnic demographic, but particularly our African American reach, we went viral within three days between Facebook and Instagram, I think it had, you know, 5 to 6 million views, tens of thousands of comments, and we got about 3,000 phone calls that if we didn't denounce the prayer that people would leave the church. And so basically we made a. We made a public kind of thing that said, Adam is the senior pastor. Pastor Diego is the founding pastor. Wait until the senior pastor hears this weekend and he'll address the church. And so we had a packed house of people who were waiting to hear what I said. And I basically read a copy that I wrote, but I essentially said, we're not going to apologize for praying for someone. Did my dad use language that maybe seemed more honoring for some people that think that maybe his legacy is tainted with racist or. I didn't exactly say racist remarks, but that was the impression. And I said, at the end of the day, this was a national issue. Half the church is hurting right now, and half the church is wondering why anyone cares. And our job as pastors is not to pastor culture and politics. It's to pastor people with their pain. And right now, people are in pain. And I also said, and a lot of you are doubting Charlie's faith. He is a confessing Christian. I hope that when you die that people aren't sitting at the funeral debating whether you really love Jesus or not, even with your flaws. And so I just told the Church, I love you. I will continue to pastor here. And if you leave, I understand. And I want you to know that you're welcome back anytime. And so I basically said that over the next couple weeks, we lost about 900 members. And over two months, we lost about $1.7 million in giving. And so from September to November, that was the case. By God's grace, November and December, we covered the gap of what we lost those two months. And going into January, right now, we're at our highest attendance we've ever been. And so God was gracious in that season, but it hit pretty hard for us. And my DMs and emails and, I mean, it was every week, it was, did you see this? Did you see that? Did you see. And then the next thing that would come out, well, if you talked about. Charlie, talk about this. And it was, you know, and we kind of have a saying at our church that we won't go heavy into politics, but we will pastor you through the season and the culture and stuff like that. And so our church is split 50, 50 Democrat, Republican, for the most part. And so, like, you know, you say one thing, one, one whole side of the church is mad, and I get off the pulpit and have two to 300 DMs, you know, of what they did or didn't like that. I said, that's what happens when you have a truly multicultural church of all cultures, not just ethnicities. And so I face that regularly. Yeah.
- [12:33]
Carrie Newhoff
Well, thank you so much for sharing that. We're going to come back to that, because I want to get into the. Every time you say something, there's two or 300 DMs. Ed, I'm so glad you joined us for this conversation. I mean, you and I are around the same age. I think I'm a year older than you are. So you've been around the block a few times. Has anything really changed or are we just feeling it more like you've been pastoring now for decades? What have you noticed about the last five to 10 years that is or is not different?
- [13:01]
Ed Stetzer
No, Gary, I think there's clearly something has shifted in our culture. And I wrote about this in my Outreach magazine column, I don't know, a few years ago. And I'm kind of building on an earlier article that I read in the Atlantic. But basically, we're in the midst of a cultural convulsion, which is that's unlike anything we've seen in our lifetime. And I kind of explained that about every 60 years, America sort of comes through these cultural convulsions. The late 60s, early 70s, was the prior time where basically we sort of turn on one another and we don't trust one another, and social cohesion collapses and more. And I think we're in the midst of that. And I would say you have to amplify that with the fact that every person, every pastor is now a public figure, because social media and technology creates that. So, you know, when you think back, you know, you know, some of the ministry of DL Moody. I was the interim pastor of Moody Church for about four years, you know, and he would say some things in the midst of the, you know, his ministry, late 1800s, that would be shockingly controversial. But it was more localized. It wasn't something that then could be broadcast, like Adam's story. Like, he said something to a local church, and then they put it online. But then it goes. Millions of people see those things, and I think all of us are gonna get that 15 minutes of fame or infamy, depending upon how it goes. It's just part of the norm today. But I would also say, too, you combine these two things together. The technology, which has elevated everybody's voice, Great flattening of everybody's voice, and you combine that with a cultural convulsion with significantly high levels of distrust, and then you combine that with an entire industry of grievance grifters who are basically spending their time online trying stir up anger so they can grow their own platform. So those three things just create a perfect storm that, you know, I think pastors are probably navigating better in 2026 than they did in maybe 2016 or 2020, but still, you know, and we have whole people. I mean, when I see people on social media, particularly non pastors, saying, if your church doesn't say this, find a new church. Can I just say, don't listen to people with those words. You and your elders. If you're a pastor, you and your elders talk about how to shepherd the congregation. Adam's context is different. I'm teaching pastor at Mariners Church. It's a different context than where we are and then where Sharon is. So what I would say is just recognize these are stormy waters, and we need to have more than just, hey, I feel I should say something about this.
- [15:44]
Carrie Newhoff
No.
- [15:44]
Ed Stetzer
We need to think through what to say, how much to say, how to say it, when to say it. And I think all those things will help us think more discerningly about the kind of waters we haven't been in just historically.
- [15:59]
Carrie Newhoff
This episode is brought to you by our Fund the Future Masterclass. A real quick word before we continue One of the biggest challenges church leaders face isn't vision. It's funding the vision in a healthy, sustainable way. So what do you do if your church finances feel stuck and giving doesn't match the mission you see God calling you toward? That's why I helped create the Fund the Future Masterclass alongside Craig Groeschel, Ashley Wooldridge, Chris Hodges and others. A course that we built to help you move beyond transactional conversations about money and into a transformational culture of generosity. It's a very simple, step by step framework with practical strategies for casting vision that inspires engaging donors in a way that feels healthy and biblical and actually funding your church's mission sustainably. For the long haul, you'll get actual tools and frameworks, not just ideas. And you'll learn alongside other leaders wrestling with exactly the same challenges you are. So if you want to grow the church in a way that lasts, go check out the link in the description of this episode or simply visit carynwhoff.com Fund the Future. That's Carrie newhoff.com fundthefuture this episode is brought to you by Switcher Studio. Do you want to take your church's livestream to the next level, especially as you head into Easter? Switcher makes it simple. It lets you grab your iPhones, iPads, cameras, sync them all together and switch between angles, live without expensive, complicated gear. You can add scripture, lyrics and graphics on screen to help your congregation engage, whether it's a regular Sunday or Easter service with more guests tuning in. And then you can stream to your website and all the major social media platforms at the same time. Plus, Switcher's easy enough for pastors, volunteers, or even students to jump in and run the stream. Probably especially students, right? They're sharp. All in all, Switcher helps you empower your volunteers, produce a polished online presence, and grow your community without a big budget. And you can get an additional $5 off at checkout when you use the code CARRIE5. So visit switcherstudio.com to learn more. That's Switcher Studio. So you mentioned, and this is interesting, you know, you mentioned cycles of history. So I mean, America has been divided before, the world has been divided before. Do you think this is just cyclical and it will get better? Or do you think because we now have social media AI, I mean, we're just dipping the toe into the AI waters where we can make Adam say or Sharon say whatever I want them to say, even if it's not really them. Do you see this as a cultural moment, so to speak, or do you see this as. No, this is our future?
- [18:46]
Ed Stetzer
Well, I think it's. Again, I'd say my opinion is I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I think coming up on the US Midterms, we're gonna see just increasing challenges in and around these spaces. And I would say to you that past cultural convulsions actually had more violence than we've had. If you think back to the late 60s, I mean, as Christians, we might mainly think of the Jesus people movement, but really, you need to read a lot more. There was widespread, you know, late 1800s, early 1900s as well. So I think it's probably gonna get worse. But at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, eventually, I mean, the late 60s resolved into the early 70s and things sort of calmed down again. We got disco. So let's hope that doesn't happen again. So history doesn't always repeat itself. But so what I would say is, and here's the part that, like, probably the worse it gets, the more gospel opportunity there's going to be, the more unmooring that we're having. People are unmooring from their cultural norms and practices, and some of them are turned to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I don't want it to get worse, but I think it's going to get worse. And I think with it getting worse, I really, you know, I describe this time as disrupted, precarious, and opportune. So disrupted we talked about precarious is. I'm not sure. Like, I've been writing a book on the future of evangelicalism, and I'm now nine years late to the publisher. I'm not sure where most of us are either evangelical or evangelical adjacent, at least in this conversation. I'm not sure what's going to happen to our movement. But then I'm also. I just think it's opportune. So, you know, maybe I'm perpetually optimistic because I've read the end of the book and Jesus wins. But I just see historically bad times produce good gospel soil. And so, yeah, so it's a mess out there. And what I would say is probably most pastors who are listening or church leaders who are listening, they didn't know they'd have to be PR experts to navigate the cultural moment. But you need to be able to. You used to just think, what would my congregation think? And that's, in a sense, trying to navigate and shepherd. But now you have to also ask, what are people out there gonna think? Some of whom, and this is key, are intentionally trying to misrepresent you because they have a monetized incentive to do so to grow their social media platforms. And the best article on that is Carl Truman's article on Gig Eva. He's the guy who coined the term Big Eva, which is, you know, unconnected group of speakers, et cetera, et cetera. So he wrote this fascinating and helpful article in First Things called Gig Eva about the rise of. Just like Big Eva was these unaccountable speakers and conference speakers, which he was not a fan of. But giggy Eva, gig as in like a gig economy. Anyone. I'm quoting it, Anyone with the time to spend living online can become a celebrity without having proved himself beforehand in any real service to the church. And I think right now some of the biggest critics that probably end up in your spaces are actually somebody who often not connected to your local church, but has kind of built a platform on. Could be criticism, could be whatever term they want to use, often misrepresenting as well. And I think all those things are just a cauldron of challenge that pastors are walking through.
- [22:09]
Carrie Newhoff
We'll link to that in the show notes. Thanks. I hadn't read that article. I'm going to be very interested to read it. What's the eva? E V A?
- [22:16]
Ed Stetzer
Oh, evangelicalism. I'm so sorry. It's just short form for evangelical, you know, you and I and others would be probably part of what he critiqued under Big Eva, you know, so we speak at these conferences and you know, and there's not really accountable to anyone except one another who you invite. But Gig Eva is people who've built. And again, when I say it was interesting, like all the people who got upset, you could see why they got upset about it because it's like, I mean these are unaccountable people who basically the more outrageous they say, the more people respond and you know, and what they've learned, like we have like, like, I mean I occasionally I've text Sharon sometimes and said don't respond to those people. So because when we do, it actually changes the algorithm and you're just helping build their platform, which is a platform that's again built on often grievance and not facts and reality. I don't misunderstand. I do think there's a time and place, you know, this great flattening social media people can call speak truth to power. But man, people have weaponized it and everyone we know, see it, and pastors see and experience it.
- [23:22]
Carrie Newhoff
Sharon, I want to go into your context. You and your husband, Ike, lead your church. You're on a different coast. And what do you.
- [23:29]
Ed Stetzer
What do you.
- [23:30]
Carrie Newhoff
How is this showing up day to day, like Monday to Friday in your ministry? This, this cultural moment we're in?
- [23:39]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
I would say the primary way it is showing up is actually in anxiety. So less division. And I think that distinction is really important because when someone reaches out and says, why haven't you talked about xyz? Like, why haven't you made a statement about this or this or I don't know if I agreed with how you handled that. I think earlier in ministry, I would have received that solely as a critique of my leadership. And to some extent it is. But what I have learned is to understand what they are really expressing is anxiety, is they are feeling anxiety about what is happening in our world, and they don't know what to do with it. And they are looking to me to pastor them. And so I think that's important. That's an important distinction for pastors to make, is that this isn't necessarily a sign of division. This isn't necessarily a sign of someone criticizing your leadership. This is a person in need of pastoral care. And so being able to receive. Is there anything that they are communicating to me that we have not been clear about, that we actually do need to be clear about? Also, are they highlighting an area in need of pastoral care? So, for instance, we realized that one space that was missing was a space where people could come and process with a pastor what is happening in our world. We realized we needed a space to come and pray together. And so creating some of those spaces, but being able to reframe that, just because you get what feels like a critical email doesn't necessarily mean things are just fracturing into sometimes that is actually a cry for pastoral care.
- [25:29]
Carrie Newhoff
Adam, when you get a couple hundred DMs after a normal Sunday where you're preaching, how do you even begin, man? Like, what do you. What do you do? Do you just ignore them? Do you have a team who looks at them? Do you try to get back to everybody personally? Because I think we all have a category for those one or two emails or DMs that come our way. It's like, all right, I'll call this guy, or whatever. We get two or 300, man. That's a different ball game. What do you do with that?
- [25:55]
Adam Mesa
I mean, for the most part, I kind of have it split up into two frames. Of thinking if. And they kind of go in the same way. But the first one is if it's immediately critical, demeaning, or has no context, you know, look at this video. It'll show you you're wrong. You know, I get sent reels all the time. I'm not watching those dumb things, you know, like, I'm not. So for me, if it's just like that stuff, I don't respond. I leave it unread. If it's, hey, pastor Adam, I'm a member. What patria did this weekend really offended me, really hurt me, or I'm really struggling. You know, a woman just. I mean, we're. We're now months, you know, months and months since Charlie Kirk, a woman, a week ago was like, I went to your church for 25 years. You know, I'm a big. You know, I live in another state now. I watch online all the time. I'm hurting so much because of what you guys did in September. And she's in her late 70s. And I just responded and just told her, like, you know, I'm sorry. And she was specifically trying to, you know, share her thoughts on my dad's prayer. And I just. I just apologized and told her I love her. And, you know, what you think we were doing is not what it's perceived. And, you know, I pray that you can have peace with it. I'm not. If I genuinely made a mistake, I will apologize and I'll even publicly apologize. And we've done some things like that before. Hey, we probably shouldn't have done this this way. We're sorry. When me and my entire pastoral team, which I would view as our elders, all agreed that this is what we were going to do. And we asked the holy spirit if it was the right thing to do. And we felt the holy spirit gave us a green light. I'm not going to now go back just because the horde has started dming me. Because once I do that, now I open myself to a criticism to another horde of individuals because I'm backtracking and I'm a coward, and I can't stand on my two feet. And so for me, I just choose to just make it very simple. I'm sorry that you have that impression. That is not what I meant. I love you. If you stay at the church, it would be an honor if you go somewhere. I'd be happy to make recommendations that may give you peace. I mean, since COVID because we got eaten up in 2020 as well, I've taught my whole team that our response is, we'll respond once. If people keep pushing at us, then we just say, we love you, we would love for you to stay, but we're happy to make recommendations if you would like to go somewhere else. Because we were going on week two with people, just threads, and it was just like, we can't do this anymore because everybody wants to be right. Everyone's going to find a video on YouTube that agrees with them. It just becomes an endless circle that we just don't participate in to that degree anymore.
- [28:54]
Carrie Newhoff
That's fascinating. I'd love for all of you and Adam, you kind of gave us. But if there's more, I want to hear more. But from Free for All, like, responding to critics, I'd love to know, do you have categories? Like, Adam has a couple of categories. And then I guess the second and deeper part is how have you learned to deal with that level of criticism? Who wants to start? I'd just love to know, because you all have slightly different platforms. Ed, you're more like me. I guess we're, you know, gig Eva or something like that. Yeah, big Eva.
- [29:24]
Ed Stetzer
Yeah. So I would say, too. I think one of the things Adam said is really important is that you respond differently to your congregation than you do to, you know, social media, which is, you know, sometimes bots or sometimes not. But. And I think for us, you know, I'm just a teaching pastor at my church, so it's a little different. Whereas Adam as the lead pastor. But I do think you as a pastor, my advice to pastors and church leaders would be that you do owe a different kind of response to people who are kind of trying to figure these things out, trying to walk through these things. And one of the things that I kind of talk about is when pastors ask me, what should they talk about and what should we speak up on? And I talk about speak when the scripture speaks clearly, speak when people are confused. So I think that's one of the things. So it's not just, I need to say something, you know, because I want people to see me saying something. That's what's technically called virtue signaling. But if your people are confused, then you can step into and lean into that. But. But I do think like. I mean, Adams gives example of, like, you get this people. And then the backlash is people. And we all saw this happen in real time with. With our friend David Platt, where, you know, President Trump on the way to his church said, you know, we'd like to come, like you to pray for him. So he Sort of had folks. You had President Trump walk out, you know, unannounced and prayed for him there. And it was. I don't think anyone would take much umbrage with the prayer, but then there were significant number of people who are bothered that, you know, without telling people. Now, to be fair, just the context was, is that they called him on the way to the church. And so then he said he. Then. Then he apologized. So he got people mad at him for praying for President Trump, and then he apologized for not, you know, preparing people. I forget the exact words. And then he had a significant number of people who were mad at him for apologizing. And what I would say is if you kind of think through more intentionally what. And I'm not saying, David, I mean, it's a phone call on the way to the church, it's a whole different thing. But I would say if you think through and kind of don't feel the need to say something first and quickly, and then you can sort of pastor your congregation even through your comment and then their response to your comment, I think that's a way through. But again, we don't live in a culture where we have, you know, we can't rapidly, we can't slow down. We want rapid response. And I saw one social media poster, I actually saved a screenshot of this and basically saying, if your pastor doesn't mention ICE this Sunday, against ICE this Sunday, find a new church. And then on the same thread right afterwards, because it must have been. My algorithm must have been looking at ICE in Minneapolis because I was doing this interview for a news station, and right after it says, if your pastor does support ICE this Sunday, you should find a new church. And I would say to you that I don't think your people are asking you for guidance on how to respond to these things. And if they are, that's a local pastoral, congregational conversation. So you articulate it. I would say that our church, we just did a whole Sunday on biblical teaching about immigration. So I think the wisdom and a slower pace would help us. But then back to what Adam said. You gotta then pastor people through their responses. And, you know, Sharon's written on some of these things, too, about how we approach some of these controversial issues. That I think's really helpful as well. But that would be my exhortation for pastors and church leaders.
- [33:01]
Carrie Newhoff
Today's episode is brought to you by Subsplash, and I have Chris Sharp from Subsplash here. Chris, what's one area you're seeing churches struggle with so far, far in 2026. And what kind of downstream effects are those struggles causing?
- [33:16]
Adam Mesa
Yeah.
- [33:17]
Chris Sharp
Now in 2026, Carrie, churches have clearly said technology is something we're going to use. One of the downsides is we've seen so many churches who have signed up for and are using so many disconnected and disparate tools that they might have five, they might have 10. They're not talking to each other. And what it's doing is it's creating so much wasted time on processes and systems that's taking away from time. The church could focus on discipleship.
- [33:43]
Carrie Newhoff
You know, I think that's everybody's problem online these days with any laptop. Right. You just got too many things going at once. So how can Subsplash help churches with something like this? Right.
- [33:54]
Chris Sharp
Yeah. We've created one platform for discipleship, from knowing your people and groups and forms and communication to your mobile apps and media delivery and so much more and giving. And this is one connected platform. So what that does is it actually frees up time, ultimately saves churches money, but enables them to be spending more time on what matters most and using one connected tool across all teams.
- [34:19]
Carrie Newhoff
So for our podcast listeners, you can go to subsplash.com carrie to get $500 off when you sign up today. That's subsplash.com C-A R E Y. You'll get $500 off when you sign up today. It's time to simplify so you can multiply your ministry impact. Sharon, how about you? I want to know, like, when you know, your inbox or DM start to blow up, what's it like? What are you doing? What are your rules?
- [34:48]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
So I'm with Adam and Ed, like, the criticism that I get online. I give zero time to. That's not my primary calling. It's not to pastor the Internet. My primary calling is to pastor my church. And so I don't give a lot of. Really, my primary posture towards social media is. And. And I would say to the average pastor listening, your role is actually not to show up on social media. Like, I, I just before we got on this call, I got a text from a friend of mine in the area who said they've been getting a lot of criticism for not posting on social media. And I just don't think that that is a pastor's primary call. If you are called.
- [35:36]
Adam Mesa
If.
- [35:36]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
If you feel like this, you. You feel like God has given you influence or clarity or maybe social media is just fun for you. Whatever it is, I think the pastor's primary call is not to post you know this is the right way to think or to show how to dunk on, you know, people who think differently than you. You're the way to approach that is to model a healthy, godly relationship with social media. And so that means not being quick to speak all the time on social media. It means not being reactive all the time. And so modeling for your people like this is actually how to be a faithful witness in this space. So that's just a side note. But going back to dealing with critics, one thing that is actually also very helpful for me and Adam sort of alluded to this already, and I think Ed has alluded to this as well, the importance of having wise counselors. So one. One thing I've been chewing on a lot is how much the algorithm disciples us. In a way, it reminds me of Ephesians 4. So then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming. So if I could describe discipleship by algorithm, that is what I would describe. And what's fascinating to me is the broader context of, like, how we resist that influence is actually not through believing the right thing. The context of how we resist that is by being the mature body of Christ. So this, this appears within a broader treatment of how to be the church. And to me, that seems like that is actually how we lead. Well, in this moment, where even as pastors, we are discipled by the algorithm is really lean into the superpower that we have of the church, of. Of the incarnational community of God. And so, practically speaking, what that has meant for me is obviously, we have elders. I. I also vet things by our staff as well. I also have relationships with other pastors here in our city because we are. Everything we're doing is contextualized to this region. And so I'm going to be reaching out to pastors who are in slightly different traditions than I, who are different races than I am, who have different life experiences, to ask, how are you pastoring your community in this moment? Getting that input? Then I'm also listening to pastors that I have relationships all over the country as well. And so I'm collecting all of this information. And I'm guided often by the proverb that plans fail for lack of counsel, but in the presence of many advisors, they succeed. And so I do all that so that when someone does come to me and say, why did you say this? You know, I think you said it because of this. I don't want to be defensive toward them, but I do want to give them my why. And to say, I want you to understand this is. This is how I am attempting to lead with. With wisdom is by seeking wise counsel and listening to voices that are going to identify my blind spots and help me to see this in a way that I might not see on my own. And these are people that have different perspectives than I do, but they love God's word and they love Jesus and they submit their life to his teaching. And so I'm not always going to get it right, but I do feel like I'm not just reacting to everything that is happening. I am seeking wise counsel. And I want to model that for my people. That instead of you just venting on the Internet, who are those people for you? So that you can be the church in this moment as well.
- [39:34]
Carrie Newhoff
How are you coping with the emotional impact? Because I don't care how many laps around the track we've had, criticism still stings at some level. Adam, you had a whole life in social media before you became a pastor. You ran a very successful marketing, branding company, et cetera, et cetera. But I'd love to know, what does it do to you and how do you get through it? So you live to see another day and say, okay, I'm not going to be one of the people who quit. I'm not just going to go silent. I'm not going to just retire and sell insurance or whatever that is, but I'm going to stay in the fight. What do you do to manage the inevitable hurt that comes when you get criticized?
- [40:19]
Adam Mesa
Yeah, and I think in my circle, in my context at least, people who know me, when people go viral for the negative reasons, if they know of me, I tend to be one of the first calls, like, Adam, what should we do? How should we approach this? Because we've gone viral pretty regularly, and I have a podcast that goes somewhat viral pretty regularly. And so some things I'm proud of what was said, or other times I'm like, oh, I'd probably say it differently, you know, but whatever it is. So, yeah, like you said, you know what people say in DMs, depending on what it is, it hurts. It hurts. You know, I have a marriage podcast with my wife that goes pretty viral pretty regularly. When people say something about my wife, obviously you want to be on a defensive mode, especially if it's something about her appearance, something vanity or whatever. And so that's those emotions, those happen regular. If Someone's talking about my father or something. Obviously, I want to defend as a son, but more than anything, my first approach. And Sharon quoted Ephesians 4, but Ephesians 1 and 2, my first approach is my identity is in Christ. And I confess that. And I remind myself that all the time is that my identity is not in my performance. My identity is not in my influence, my platform or anything like that, that I've already been approved by the Father. And so I gotta remind myself that all the time. Because, I mean, people aren't just in my DMs. People right when I'm done preaching, I go right to the stage. And most weeks I say, hey, if you want to come say hello, you know, come say hello. And not everyone's there for Pastor Adam. Sometimes people are there for, like, Internet, you know, podcaster Adam. And sometimes they want to say really nice things and they want pictures or whatever. And other times they want to share with me their two cents because I'm available. And so sometimes people say things that they do affect me and hurt me. So here's how, just going into practically, then here's how I process it. For me, outside of my wife, I have four tiers of influence. And so I have what I call brothers. And these are three individuals in my life that one's my actual blood brother, but two aren't my blood brothers. And these are guys that know everything about me. They know everything about my marriage. They have my location shared with them. They, you know, like, they know my whole life. Then I have friends. These are eight guys that I spend regular time with that I expose myself to. We have fun together, we pray together. We do a lot of other things. Then I have mentors and fathers. My mentors are about seven or eight people that I look to that I get time on the phone or whatever. And then father figures are about two or three people that I view them as fathers. Whatever they say I do. And I do that mentally for me, my dad being one of them, who was a pastor, who was a senior pastor. So for me, when I'm processing something, a decision I made that maybe went public or something went viral, if it's really affecting me, I'll actually go through those four layers of talking to those individuals. Hey, speak into. Is there anything I need to learn from this? Is there anything I can do better that, you know, what happened with Charlie Kirk? There's two individuals that I got a lot of great wisdom from, one being Gerald Brooks in Texas, and another being Lee Doming from Highlands and Both of them just poured into me and said, adam, this is what I encourage you to do. This is what I encourage you to don't do. Here's where you need it. And I just go, yeah, I'm going to be obedient. I know I'm a young man. I know I'm in my mid-30s. I know I can still make a lot of dumb mistakes. And so I need to make sure that I'm always going. For me, those four filters of influence that help me go, okay. They said, I'm okay. They said, adam, you're good. What do you, like, don't? Or they've said, man, that was a little. You know, that was a little rough. You should probably. And then now I go, okay, I just got to learn and grow. So those are kind of my steps that I'm regularly processing outside of, naturally. My wife. But my wife's my cheerleader. She's. 9 times out of 10, she's going to be like, oh, don't worry. These brothers and others, they're like, no, they really will sharpen me if I need to be sharpened.
- [44:32]
Carrie Newhoff
What about the rest of you? What does it do to the inside of you and how do you respond? Because I think I've been at this for a while. You might say something once a year or every few years that throws people into a fit. And now it's like, could be daily, weekly, monthly.
- [44:51]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
Yeah. So I'm. I'm just going to be a broken record, you know, being the church again. I think. I think that's essentially what Adam was just describing, like, connecting with your people. I have my own set of people that I can text, you know, any time of day and tell them I'm not doing well, and I need you to pray for me. I am reminded of one of my mentors recently. We'd had a number of people leave in succession, and I was not doing well. And I called her, and she said to me, you know, and someone had told her this. This statistic about how the average person in their lifetime loses seven significant relationships. Like, they have seven significant relationship ruptures, but the average pastor loses seven people a year. And that really put things into perspective of the catastrophic effect that this can have on you, especially in times of. Of turmoil, when that. Because it's not always that intense, but when it is that intense, that was that kind of right size, like, oh, this is actually a very big deal. And so I would say, too, if you are finding, like, you're kind of hitting the wall, like you have all the tools, all the spiritual tools, all the resources, like, you're doing everything right. You're Sabbath thing, you're. You're taking care of yourself, and you're still sort of hitting a ceil. Say you need to go to a counselor. Just to add that as well. Like there. There might actually be a mental health piece that needs to be addressed, because this is really, really hard. But then the other thing, and I've mentioned this the last time I was on your podcast, Carrie, and I'm just going to mention again, because I really, really believe in this is forgiveness, that this was such a key piece of Jesus's ministry that he embodied and showed for us to. How we love our enemies, how we love people, is by forgiving them. And for me personally, that has been a necessary regular practice. Like, not everyone who wounds me necessarily wronged me, but in the times where they did, I need to work through that with Jesus. And that has been really important for me.
- [47:09]
Carrie Newhoff
Ed, tell me about you. I mean, first of all, I want to know, does Ed Stetzer have feelings? So that's the first thing. Because you're so intellectual.
- [47:17]
Ed Stetzer
I have feelings. I don't know. What's that cool?
- [47:21]
Carrie Newhoff
No. I mean, you're so scholarly. I mean, really, you write academically, but there's stuff inside of us that hurts when we get criticized. What do you do, Ed?
- [47:33]
Ed Stetzer
Yeah, I mean, part of it is you sort of get used to it. I mean, I've been in this space saying things that people disagree with, I don't know, 15 years. And so I would say that, like, I was talking to one person, you'd actually know his name. He sort of became very well known, wrote a book, and he's like, I just. People are yelling at me all the time. And it's like if you're kind of just emerged into sort of some, you know, national voice this year, you'd be like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. But if you sort of like, it's like the frog in the kettle, I guess it's just been, you know, so it just over time, you know, for me, I do have sort of a framework that I try to use, and I anim. Already mix it. Like I want to put my identity in Christ. So that's kind of where I start. So if people are mad or unhappy, I start there. That's my first concern is I'm in Christ. But then my second level or layer is accountability and community. So this is really important. So I deeply care what the elders at my church think about My leadership, the words, what I write, what I say. I deeply care about what, what my board says. I'm accountable to a board. Like, I'm not accountable to. I'm not accountable to Twitter. I'm accountable to a board of trustees. And so I think that sort of like, all right, and if you don't have any accountability, then it's a little different. So I can say in my case, like, Eric Geiger is my pastor. Like, we've been friends for. Close friends for 15 years. I can say I'm accountable to him as my pastor. But then I kind of have four things. I'll just go through them quickly. Identity in Christ, accountability and community. And then charity and criticism. I want to turn my critics into my teachers. There are things that they are right about. And then part of the challenge is in the last, particularly as social media has gotten so toxic, there are things just that you look at and say, I've looked at that. I've looked at my heart, did the right thing, et cetera, et cetera. And then the last thing is, I just think it's important to have fidelity with courage. Like, I am not, like, right now, because I'm leading a large organization. I actually write less in some of the. I used to be much more of a cultural commentator, and now since I'm here at Talbot and it takes a lot more of my time, I do less of that, but I still do that. And I think at the end of the day, if the end result of all the people being mad is that we sort of. Of don't say important, true things because we're sort of obeying in advance, we don't want critics to get mad at us. And I think that's a bad thing. And so I really think that having some fidelity and courage, I don't want to look back 10 years from now
- [50:16]
Carrie Newhoff
at
- [50:18]
Ed Stetzer
my ministry and say, man, I didn't speak out about important things. Now, again, it's a little important. It's an important distinction. Being a local church pastor and an author and a cultural commentator are different, different roles. But I think there are also times and spaces where we want to say these things really matter to us. And I think in 2026, well, always. But particularly clarity is kindness. But I would just say don't do it in such a way. I'll give you an example. I think that when President Trump's social media account posted the Obamas as monkeys, I think that's worthy of condemnation. Let me be crystal clear now. However, if you. The very first hour Said, I can't believe President Trump posted this. Then you just created a whole conversation. Well, what it was. He said it was someone. At first they defended it, but then it was like, no, it was somebody who. On the team. Okay, so that's bad. So then say, well, someone's from the team didn't do it. They said, well, no, actually it wasn't some team. It was like a loop from another video that accidentally got posted it. But here's the thing. I mean, if you waited a little while and said, as I think many Christian leaders did, I mean, president should take responsibility for this. This is his social media account. We've created a culture where cruelty in social media is the norm, but at the end of the day, I mean, and some Christian leaders said, you know, this is. He should say that we'll make sure this never happens again. It shouldn't have happened on his account, et cetera, et cetera. But the problem is, if you kind of felt like you had to first rush to say those things, you've got now 50 people saying you're two news cycles behind what actually happened. When at the end of the day, it's really bad. When this is the kind of thing that someone doesn't say, I can't believe this happened on my social media account. I take responsibility. I'm sorry, that should have been. But again, kind of when you jump into that. So I want us to have the courage to say things and write times, but simultaneously, when you do it before you have all the facts, you should feel the rush to do it. That rush to do it is not your friend in discerning pastoral ministry.
- [52:27]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
Yeah. You know, I would add, I posted about this recently, actually, I was sort of reflecting on the difference between, like true wisdom and this sort of false wisdom, both of which are slow. One is slow. And the way I kind of think about it is what we are experiencing. Ed called this a cultural convulsion. Imagine that kind of the world as we knew it almost like collapsed the way a building collapses. And when a building collapses, it kicks up all this dust and you're sort of waiting for the dust to settle a little bit so that you can see clearly. Wisdom calls you to, to wait for the dust to settle so that you can see. See, like, which way do I need to go in order to care for this situation. That is true wisdom. That, that being slow to speak. False wisdom is slow, but for the sake of cowardice. Like, it is a way to avoid having to speak. It's. It's saying I need all the facts, when really that's just a diversion to get out of having to be a faithful witness. And so I think that's a question that we all, as leaders need to be really sober minded about. And weighing that in ourselves is, am I being slow in the way that wisdom requires? Like, I think in this reactive culture, the temptation is to run after stuff the way a fish darts after bait. We need to stop, we need to slow down. But that is not then an excuse to kind of hide behind that and never speak.
- [54:04]
Carrie Newhoff
I'd love to know from each of you how you decide. And you've already hinted at this a little bit. I mean, I think it's wonderful what you're saying about how to process the criticism when it comes, how to know different categories for different kinds of responses. Doing this in community, seeking therapy as needed. I think that's like, I don't know that there's a healthier answer on this side of heaven, but we also need to know. And I think that's gotten. Gotten way more difficult. How do you know when to speak? When something comes out from the White House, when something happens with ice, when it's Charlie Kirk and it seems like we're getting them all the time now? What is your personal filter, if you have one on? I'm actually going to. And I think your point about speaking immediately and slowing down and having some wisdom and the news cycle is instantaneous. All that as a given. When do you decide, all right, I gotta say something on this or I'm just gonna sit this one out and be quiet.
- [55:07]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
So I wanna answer this as a pastor and not as someone who is very online, because I think that that is the majority. Again, if you happen to be online, that's. That's great. But I don't think if you're not online, I don't think you need to get online.
- [55:25]
Carrie Newhoff
Well, even if you have a hundred thousand followers, you're still a pastor of specific people, not just the Internet, right?
- [55:33]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
Yeah, that's the thing to remember. Again, I think we have got to get out of this posture of reacting. Like, I think we are being led by the culture because we're constantly pinging off of whatever is happening. And that was one of our primary lessons coming out of 2020, is we were not prepared. Like, we had not discipled our people well to be faithful in that moment. And so we were constantly reacting to what was happening. And so when we saw this election coming around, we realized, okay, we need to actually start discipling our people. In like a robust theology of the kingdom of God, like what does it mean to be primarily a citizen of the kingdom and not a citizen of the United States states, putting into place those networks of wise counselors. So I am all I as a leader am already being formed. And then something else that we have is a rubric for of just questions of when to speak. And this is just something that we put together, not in response to something specific that was happening, but just by and large. And so I'll read. We have five questions. The first is about pastoral care. Are people in our community directly affected by it or grieving and in pain? And honestly, that is going to eliminate us addressing the majority of things because the majority of things that happen in our country are not directly affecting. Now obviously something like 9, 11. That's a very obvious example of something George Floyd that's another obvious example where it affected people all over the nation. But just because it happens in the United States states doesn't mean it is affecting people in your congregation. The next is primacy of scripture. Does God's word clearly speak to this protection? Is the gospel being distorted in some way? Prudence? Can we speak to it knowledgeably? And that goes to what Ed was saying with the recent situation with the Obamas is taking a moment, especially with AI now is you have got to vet everything that is coming across your screen and making sure that you're not just again, that fish going after the bait. And then finally, prophetic hope in our speech, are we guiding people to see Christ in all things? So it isn't just despair, despair, despair, but what is our ultimate hope in Christ. And so that's a rubric that we use to talk with our elders, to talk with our staff about when to speak and when not to speak.
- [58:09]
Carrie Newhoff
Are you good with us sharing that in the show notes? That's really helpful. Thank you, Sharon. Yeah. What about you guys? Adam, how about you? How do you decide what to speak? And I think the other thing too is we all have Internet followers, but you're also tethered to a local church. So it's, I mean, Sharon and Adam, I mean you're both pastoring like lead pastor roles. You have this challenge where you've got the public Persona, but also, hey, this is my church. So how are you making those decisions?
- [58:40]
Adam Mesa
Yeah, I think, I mean, pretty much echoing what Sharon said, we kind of use maybe not that exact same language, but basically that criteria as well, in the sense of is what's happening right now directly affecting the people of our church? And is the noise coming from our church question doubts and pain, or is the noise coming from our church fury and like, you know, anger and all that? Because that's what you're gonna feed into. And I kind of call it the three headed hydra. Like, if you keep going after these things, then 50% of my pulpit ministry on Sundays will just be addressing what's happening in culture. And the moment I start doing that, and I know pastors that do that and they maybe feel called to do that, I really honestly have a conviction against it because I hear a lot of sermons nowadays where half of it is basically half of a message is a newsreel and then it jumps into the sermon and then every verse is being connected into whatever, Fox News and CNN and what was happening on social media, and then those sound clips are being circulated on social media. I may be on the younger side, but I've lived long enough to see that pastors who choose that route at some point, the bear that they've been feeding turns on them and it starts eating them at some point because they've created basically an angry horde of members. And then when you're not feeding that anymore, it's going to come back at you or if you just slip up one degree to whatever you've created. And so for me, we're not trying to build that. I tell our team that my whole staff is minorities. And so we have to regularly talk to our team about, and I'm very transparent with our team about where we're at with politics and things. Like we did a staff meeting in the fall and we did four breakouts. One was like on mental health, another was on finance just for our staff. And then I led one on how does Pastor Adam approach politics from the pulpit? And about 20 of our staff sat and I just talked to them, hey, here's my rationale on why I'm not heavy politics in the pulpit, because a lot of it is, a lot of it is convoluted. And if we're honest, it's a lot more complicated politically because we're not political figures, we're pastors, we're shepherds. You know, we're getting into a battle that wasn't even made for us. You know, we're talking about a kingdom that isn't even ours and we're trying to dissect it every week when we're supposed to be talking about the kingdom of God. And so for me, it's often, to me, I just tell people it's often a losing battle if I just go and jump into that now if I have to pastor people, people through some things, dealing with the pain. And Sharon was exceptionally clear about that. Whether it's George Floyd or Charlie Kirk or you go back to 9 11, those things are important to talk about. But even for me, I didn't really, with Minneapolis and ice, and we have a lot of Hispanics in our church, I didn't address it because it's painful for people in our church. And I know people are looking for me to address it. But just last week, I had to pray over someone's ITIN application because his wife is about to be deported. And they've been waiting for five years. Their paperwork was approved. She just hasn't been assigned a number yet. And so there's 11 million people in America right now that are waiting green cards and ITINs that have been approved. They just haven't assigned the numbers yet, essentially. And so it's way more complicated. Three weeks ago, I prayed with a young man who's 27 years old, doesn't speak any Spanish, was brought to America when he was 2, and he has an immigration appointment coming up soon for potentially being taken out of the country. And he's weeping and he's crying, and we're sitting there, he's like, do you know an immigration attorney? And even that right now is convoluted because some immigration attorneys are taking advantage of people because. Because they have fear that they're going to be expelled from the country. And so some are taking advantage financially, others are doing an honest job. And so if I just went on my pulpit and took two minutes in the sermon, just be like, hey, guys, this is my stance on it. To me, it's not fair to a lot of what's happening right now. And so I do have my podcast where we'll talk a little bit more in depth on this stuff. But if I feel the emotions are high, I won't talk about it. I'm not looking for clickbait. I'm not looking to go viral. I wait until the dust settles, and then like a month and a half, two months later, I'll be like, hey, let's talk about two months ago, this topic that was kind of circuit. And I get it, that's not attractive, and it's not going to get me a lot of views because the news cycle's already moved on. I'm fine with that because I'm not trying to be clippable in that regard. I want influence. I want to see people come to the knowledge of Jesus. I want to see people grow in their faith. I want to see people grow in their marriages and their families. And for me, that's my call and that's my focus. And other people may have a prophetic call to focus on other things, but that's really where I feel led as a pastor in this season, as a millennial.
- [63:58]
Carrie Newhoff
So how are you dealing with ICE then? I mean, it must come up almost every week in your DMs and with your congregation being heavily Hispanic. Is that more of a pastoral thing and an offline thing, or what are you doing? Adam?
- [64:12]
Adam Mesa
Yeah, I approach it pastorally, mostly offline. We were in Ephesians, and so after Minneapolis, there was obviously Ephesians talks about unity and stuff like that. And so people could tell I was basically speaking about, you know, this concept of unity and stuff like that. But overall, basically what I say is I often tell people, if they say, hey, why aren't you talking about this? My honest response is, and it's truthful and it's not a cop out, is there are real people in my church who are really dealing with this right now, and I don't have enough words in a given sermon to be able to pastor people through what they're experiencing. And so that's why after every service, almost every Sunday, I'm standing by the stage so that I could deal with any. And sometimes I'll go into worship, into the next service, and I'll still be talking to people. And I will do that until I run out of my voice, because I'm going to deal with the person. The individual, rather than the pulpit is only one function of the gathering of the church. I'm not going to feel like in a 35 minute time frame, I have to solve all of the world's issues and confront everything. And I think there are great times, like Mariners just did. That said, hey, we're going to dedicate a sermon to talk about this. I wouldn't right now because I just have a lot of people in fear in my church. And I don't want a limited word to cause a person to be like, wow, my pastor thinks that I should be thrown back to Mexico. My Pat, hold on. And I'd want to be able to tell them to their face no when I say that borders should be secure, which I do agree with that. Here's what I'm also not saying. I'm also not saying that you're not valuable, and I'm also not saying that you weren't, since you were brought Here at one that you should be kicked. That's not what I'm saying. I want to be able to look them in their eyes and explain that, then just kind of have a sound bite from the pulpit.
- [66:14]
Carrie Newhoff
Ed, how about you? I know you're speaking out a little bit less with your full time duties, but like, what's your filter? You hinted at it earlier about the Obamas, that White House image, et cetera. But what is your working filter for? I need to say something or I'm going to let this go.
- [66:33]
Ed Stetzer
Yeah. And again, it's tricky because like what Adam just said, I might come to different conclusions than what Adam just said. But I think local churches need to figure these things out and they're in different contexts and different cultures. And so I don't want to bind the conscience. This is why this, if your pastor doesn't say something about so and so is just so. So I think unhelpful, offensive and driven by other agendas than I think the scriptures. So I would say in general, here's where it's tricky. Like because I get called up in people's on a newspaper or a radio show, whatever. So you know, I'm a cultural commentator in a way that a normal pastor generally should not be. So my biggest exhortation to most people in a local church is you do not need to turn your pulpit into an ongoing source of news and commentary about cultural moments. Get out of that cycle because first of all, it's a cycle. Well, why did you say something about this but you didn't say something about this? Because people are keeping score now. And this member from the movie War Games, the only way to win is not to play the game. And so, so I would just say, I mean, and I would say too even that the good game will probably offend somebody. But the point is these are very serious things. But you gotta have a filter that basically says I'm say something about this and I'm also gonna say something about this. And you gotta, like for me, you know, I think one of the things you have to be careful about, like, you know, I've written in the pages of USA Today defending traditional marriage and defending institutions there. I've been in CNN talking about pro life and refugees and immigrants. And so for me, you don't wanna also be just the pastor who speaks about the phrase would be always punching. Right. You wanna make sure that if you're gonna say things. First of all, let me tell you, for most people, they need to not be. Again, let me say it Again, you do not need to be the source of news and commentary on cultural moments in the church. However, if you're already in the habit of teaching and preaching these things, then you've actually been discipling your people. Well. So for example, let's say you're teaching and you're teaching on care for the poor and the vulnerable from James 1:27. You're preaching on sexual ethics from 1 Corinthians 6. You're talking about the sanctity of life from Psalm 139. You're talking about justice and righteousness from Micah 6:8. So what I would say is create an ongoing culture that you're teaching and preaching what the Bible says about these things. So people aren't wondering what you think about this particular incident, but you've equipped them with the word of God to see that incident and not be shaped or discipled by their cable news choices or spiritually shaped by their social media, but instead to say, you know what, Micah 6:8 comes to mind in this situation. Psalm 139 comes to mind in this situation. So I think it's few and far between again. But I would say too, I'm going to bind the conscience of pastors in different traditions. African American traditions are very different about how much they speak about in culture and politics. Right. And what I would say is in all those kind of cases, and now we see some pastors, I mean, in the last five, 10 years, it's been fascinating to watch some pastors kind of move. It's almost the seeker church was, of course, a big thing, and in some ways anti woke has become the new seeker. So it's like, I'm going to say these things. People are going to be attracted to this. And they are, and they are. So we see sometimes young men saying, finally someone's going to say something. I would just say to you, the way you win them is probably the way you're going to have to keep them. And just keep in mind that you're not the only source of these things. And if they go way deep down the rabbit hole, they're going to be demanding more and more and more of you. For me, I just think consistently teaching the word of God, including about controversial issues, helps shape people to know this is how we would think about these things. So, like, it comes to the thing about the social media post on President Trump's thing because some pastors got really pressured to say something about this. And what I would say to them is like, does your church wonder if you are in favor of this. Do you feel the need to clarify this or have you taught consistently that you know that the imago DEI and people are like, well, why would my pastor need to address this in general? Again, a different context, et cetera, et cetera. I get that. But for me it's an ongoing teaching, biblical teaching regimen that doesn't just address the issues that your congregation likes in the Bible, but also the issues your congregation doesn't like in the Bible. And then occasionally when people are confused and they're unsure what you believe and there's a biblical warrant that needs to be expressed, then you do it in that context. That would be my exhortation. And again, I have to say, like I do the theological training for our staff at Mariners Church and I do some of the pastor training meetings and I say to them, don't look at Ed Stetzer's social media and say I should do that because my role is different than your role. And one of the things that we say at our church is this is hard because everyone wants to be a free agent. But if you're a pastor or a staff member at our church, your social media is our social media. Like what you say impacts all of us.
- [71:58]
Carrie Newhoff
I think this is so good. I want to pick up. Adam, you touched on it, Ed, you touched on it. What did you say? Anti woke is a new seeker sensitive. I think that's, it's absolutely true. If you want a really quick way to grow your church right now and you can do it in most places in America and some places in Canada and beyond, it's like, just be Anti woke up and you will see a lot of people show up very quickly.
- [72:26]
Ed Stetzer
And I gotta say I'm happy I'm seeing some of those people trust and follow Jesus. I think there are people coming to Christ in that kind of context. I would be careful about it for the long term ramifications.
- [72:38]
Carrie Newhoff
Yeah, but I think it's like if you get the angry mob all turned on an enemy or a villain, as you said, I think Adam, eventually if you feed the bear, the bear is going to turn on you. What are the dangers you see in that? What are the dangers? If you're like, yeah, I'm going to pick a particular viewpoint and I mean to be fair, okay, maybe it's progressive, you don't see a lot of those churches growing, but let's say it's progressive or you just pick an ideological lane and it's like, yep, I'm going to pick up on this news feed this angle and I'm going to grow my church. And I know, I've heard, heard you know, that there are churches using that to disciple people. It's sort of their. But what are the challenges with that that you see, if any long term?
- [73:23]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
I mean the primary one is that you lose your distinct witness as the church. That's the primary. That's primarily what's at stake. And I think we have actually seen that. You mentioned more progressive churches. I want to say, Ed, you might might know this. Christian Smith's book, Evangelicalism Embattled and Thriving. Have you read that book? He talks about what I think I'm remembering correctly. He talks about what makes evangelicalism, why it has thrived for the long haul and how it threads this needle really well of having this distinct witness that is not so distinct as to become a section that is disconnected from the culture, but distinct enough that it has a clear identity. And if you lose that clear identity, there is no reason to become a part of the church. And we've seen this happen with more liberal churches who are indistinguishable from the Democratic Party. But I think we are starting to see the same thing happen on the right as well. And so ultimately that is what is at stake. And when I look at the church in the New Testament specifically we did a study of the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation and how Jesus does not, in his addresses to them, he does not ignore what is happening around the world. He acknowledges it. But then he his his conclusion is not and therefore, you know, overthrow the government and therefore, you know, change the world in the xyz. Instead he says, this is why your integrity as the distinct people of God is your primary influence in this world. Your faithfulness to Jesus, that is your superpower. And so I my encouragement to pastors who are listening is, is especially if you tuned in thinking, okay, what is the thing? What's the answer to how I lead in this moment? How do I respond the next time something comes across the headlines? And yes, that requires wisdom and discernment and prayer. But my bigger question for you is what is your long term vision at the end of your ministry call? Where do you want to have taken your church? Who do you want your church to be? And to start working towards that because we need to be shepherding our churches to be these distinct people who have a very clear allegiance to Jesus over any other partisan party. And if you criticize a candidate and everyone in your church is scandalized, that is a good indication that that was not Clear. And that there is discipleship work to do. And so I, I think the invitation for all of us is to be doing that, that long term work.
- [76:21]
Carrie Newhoff
Other thoughts?
- [76:22]
Ed Stetzer
Yeah, let me add this as well. I think this is right on. What Sharon said is part of the challenge. Particularly let's say you've now basically you've engaged in the dissident, right or the woke, right. And now you're just consistently going to be attacking anyone that's even slightly not as conservative as you do. And you're a pastor and a church leader. I guess for me, I have a hard time seeing it as a serious desire to call balls and strikes in culture if you would never call out casual cruelty. That casual cruelty is just not something we want our government to manifest as a strategy or the way people speak of immigrants and refugees, just even the way they speak of them. I mean, again, people are made in the image of God, worthy of dignity and respect. And so if you never call out some of those things, on the other hand, you know, if you're kind of so, you know, kind of so wanting to just get along with everybody, particularly in our cultural mood today, that you never teach on, you know, the reality of why the loss of a biblical vision of marriage and what marriage is, is so detrimental to culture or what how the confusion around gender and sexuality. And I will tell you, you get people mad at you all the time. Like again, I mean, I've had the death threats, we had to take security precautions when I defended traditional marriage in response to a USA Today article in USA Today. And it became the number one article for two days, right in the top corner by the number of readers. And I gotta tell you, we had to take precautions at our family. And so I would just tell you that it is easier to critique the people that people like you to critique. But it is biblical if you're gonna be in this space, but it is biblical using the baseball example called balls and strikes. But it's biblical to say we're gonna speak truth, biblical truth. And this is where people get mad, because what people wanna do is they want you to be prophetic about the things that they agree with you on. But the Bible. And this is one of the reasons, for me, one of the reasons I love preaching through books of the Bible, because you get to books of the Bible and it's got stuff in there that you wouldn't normally cover, but it forces you to cover those things as well. And that's. So what I would say is if you're gonna step into this cultural space, which I think to some degree we all have to when we teach on controversial issues. You know, soon after the release of this podcast, I'm preaching at First Baptist. Glen Arden. John Jenkins is the pastor there. I think it's the largest black church in Maryland, one of the largest in. In the D.C. area. And I love the fact that he clearly articulated a pro life biblical ethic in that church, in addition to calling out things that were of perhaps greater concern in his community. But because of a consistent biblical ethic, I think that matters. And so if you only particularly on social media, social media, when you say things, and it's always fascinating me, I'll say something. Something. For example, I thought the Don Lemon connected protest in city's church was egregious and I shared something about it. And then people are like, well, what about this? Well, what about this? What about this? And I'm kind of like, scroll up, bro. It's like I just mentioned this, but this is the whole ecosystems out there. And it's whataboutism. It's actually a Soviet tactic called whataboutism. Every time America would say something about Soviet Union, they'd say, well, what about. Well, here's the thing. First of all, have some courage and speak up. And when you speak up, don't just speak up in the area that your tribe agrees with as well. If the Bible points a different direction, point a different direction and you do that, you're going to speak differently of immigrants and refugees, you're going to speak differently of the unborn at multiple levels and you're going to confuse some people. But I think Jesus is going to be pleased and he's going to be honored by where you stood.
- [80:28]
Carrie Newhoff
Adam, any final thoughts on that? Getting attacked by the bears if you them?
- [80:31]
Adam Mesa
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think just my closing thoughts on it is really the, you know, some of the. What I see as cautionary, more so than a challenge, is that I feel especially kind of my generation and below maybe some Gen X as well, we're falling prey to adopting our argument and answer styles to what culture does. And so I think, I think the past kind of political cycles, you've started seeing that politicians, they don't even debate facts anymore. It's just sound bites and it's just statements that like if you go back 15, 20 years when you saw political debates, I mean, there would be data behind what they were saying and stuff. Now a lot of it has become like a lot of personal attacks. It's become a lot of Things like there's full on organizations that have had to be created to fact check politicians during their debates and stuff like that didn't exist for the most part 15, 20 years ago. And unfortunately, I see a lot of pastors who are garnering that same model of leadership and communication. And what I mean by that is they boiled statements down without any true. It's a TikTok theology with no true depth to it. And so you hear statements to me, if you can't go deeper, then you gotta be cautious. You hear statements like, you know, well, you know, Jesus was an immigrant in Egypt. And so, you know, there's my statement. And you're like, well, but Egypt was a province of Rome, you know, and so was Israel. Like, you got to go deeper. We got to be able to talk deeper about this stuff. Or you hear the opposite. You hear, well, Israel had borders. You know, look, look at the Old Testament. And it's just we make these statements without any true conversation and as pastoral leaders about what's happening. You know, racism isn't real because we got Obama and he was a black president. And so you have these. And I'm hearing pastors say this stuff and I'm going, man, we have to do better if we're gonna help lead people to critically think about the word of God and how it applies to culture. I'm all for it. You know, I do a lot of it on my podcast. I do some of it in the pulpit. But for the most part, for me, I'm trying to do more long form stuff so that I could really thoroughly explain the critical thinking. I mean, I think what Ed said was perfect. It's like, people are always like, well, what about. And he's like, just scroll up. There's so many times people are like, well, when are you going to talk about immigration? Well, three months ago, I did a whole episode with Will Chung on immigration. Go to my content. It literally says it in the well, I don't want to do that. Send me the link. And I'm like, if you're going to approach this lazily, then I don't have anything to say to you. Or I'll talk to individuals who have these strong beliefs on stuff and you'll go deeper. And then that was it. It's like, oh, well, I actually took that from this other pastor that is really well known and I just like the way he says it. So that's why. And then I just regurgitated it and I don't really know why. I think what I just Shared. And so I think more so not the challenge, but just a caution that if you are going to feel led and Ed has led the plow on this and stuff, if you're going to get into cultural commentating, then please make sure that you are well read. Please make sure that you are understanding of what's really going on. Make sure you understand laws and policy. If you're going to talk about laws and policy, do the work. So that I do think we are held accountable, you know, for what we teach and preach at the end of the day. And so for me, the reason why a lot of people are like, hey, talk about this more, I'm like, I'm still processing it and I know the, like, I lose sleep at night knowing that God has put a responsibility on me to pastor and teach the word well. And so until I feel that I can frame and I can always give raw thoughts and I do say that honestly, hey, this is raw thinking. I'm still processing this, but I really treat what I say as something like you say, Carrie, oh, we can edit stuff out. I want to make sure that if I'm talking on here, I don't want to edit really anything out because I want to have showed up thoroughly and thoughtfully that I don't feel like I had any oopsies or ohs, and if I did, I'm human. But I want to make sure that's like, oh yeah, no, I'm good. I just fly off the cuff. I don't want to do that. And I think too many leaders right now are doing that and they should be very cautious because at some point it's going to bite the hand that is feeding it. And I just hate seeing so many pastoral leaders like they were like this, they were on a rise and then now it's just like they're non existent because they were kind of riding this wave of culture. And to me it's, you know, ride the wave of scripture, be consistent as a pastor. I want to make it to 80 and 90. I don't want to be famous at 35, you know, for having a great take on Instagram. It's just for me. And I think we all should get a little bit more sober minded with that approach.
- [85:35]
Carrie Newhoff
I appreciate too, and I think all of you would fit into this category. The desire to teach people how to think rather than what to think. And you can build a pretty big platform right now on this is what you should think about this, that and the other thing. But how to think, I think is an endangered Space. Well, you know, I said at the beginning, before we hit record, I'm like, if all we get out of this hour, hour and a half is empathy, I'm happy because it's really complicated. But we got way more than I had bargained for. This has been really helpful. And honestly, just transparently, this has been helpful to me because I wrestle with these things, too. But I want you to each close with a word to a pastor who's the latest Barna data. Months old, 24% still want to hang up their skates. They're still done. Like, I've given serious, real consideration to quitting ministry, and this is feeding that. Like, what we've talked about today, how hard it is to say something adds to the immense stress of the job. So I would love for you to just speak to that pastor who's thinking of giving it up. I think you've given her or him real hope today. But what's a final word you might say to that church leader who's like, yeah, I can't do this anymore. It's too hard.
- [86:50]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
So I was recently talking. This is like a name drop, but with Beth Moore. And she had said that.
- [87:01]
Ed Stetzer
Who is that?
- [87:04]
Carrie Newhoff
Up and coming writer, teacher.
- [87:06]
Adam Mesa
Is she on Instagram?
- [87:11]
Sharon Hoddie Miller
No, she said something. The reason I'm mentioning her, she said something I've actually been thinking about a lot in the last week. She had posted about how she had a big event coming up and something happened, difficult in her family right beforehand, and they were just sort of running on fumes through this event and how the Lord was so faithful in spite of their weakness. And I had responded to her, and I said, you know, I feel like he actually does a lot of his best work in those moments. And she said, yeah, you know, we. We talk often about this ministry of reliance. And I. I've been thinking about that a lot because I do tend to resent the aspects of ministry that forced me to depend on Him. That's really what it is. And the number of times that I think this would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with this or that. And really what I'm saying is I don't want to have to depend on the Lord in this particular part of my calling. And so that, for me, was a really helpful reframe for the things that I really, really resent and wish were different in ministry, that maybe this is an invitation to the ministry of reliance.
- [88:40]
Carrie Newhoff
I resent the things that make me depend on God. All right, we'll have to edit that out. But thank you so much for showing up, Sharon. Boy, does that resonate. Boy, does that resonate.
- [88:49]
Ed Stetzer
That's gonna be the only thing that people remember from this podcast is that, oh my gosh, that's so good.
- [88:54]
Carrie Newhoff
Autobiographical. Adam, how about you? What would you say to the person who's just hanging in by a thread and tired by it all?
- [89:01]
Adam Mesa
I think it just short. I could probably make it personal and hopefully someone can grab something from it. But for me, I've really just found myself in this season, really just continually reflecting on Psalm 23, really trusting that Jesus is the good shepherd, that God has a care. And I grew up in the black church, so there's always sayings in the black church. And there was the saying, if he called you to it, he'll get you through it. And it's just reminding myself that this thing that God has called me to, specifically pastoring and leading, that it's not my burden to fully carry, that this is something that Christ is leading through me and in me and by the power of the Holy Spirit. So really hoping to dwell with God and in Christ regularly, making sure I have healthy rhythms where I'm being restored, my soul is being replenished. But ultimately, if I can give one practical advice that if someone is thinking of throwing in the towel and I've really focused on this the past 12 months and man, God has just refreshed me in so many different ways. But share the gospel with people who don't know who you are outside of the pulpit in your daily life. Share the gospel with real people that you interact with. And I'll tell you, when you see that as they begin to discover who Jesus is and they light up, that puts such a fire. I mean, cause so much for us as pastors, what we're doing is counseling people that are already like kind of pursuing faith pulpit stuff. We're very rarely interacting with someone who God is, igniting that first entry level flame. And so I think of one guy that I know that's really influential in Los Angeles. He just finally started. He's not even believer, he's an atheist. He just started reading the Bible for the, the first time. And I was with him a couple weeks ago and he said, Adam, when people go into those little wooden boxes to confess to you, do you ever share with other people what they've told you? And I was just like, we just had a fun 30 minute conversation where I'm like, dude, I'm not, I'm not Catholic, you know, and he was like, what's that? What's the difference? You know? And I said, well, you know. And so we just started laughing. I started explaining him, and then I also started sharing, like, you could tell me anything. And as long as it's not these specific legal things, like, I'm a licensed minister. I have to keep it between us. And he was like, no way. You guys have licenses that could be revoked. And so he had this whole light up. And then obviously it leads into questions about Jesus. And I just left, not thinking about the algorithm, not thinking about my sermon. I have to preach on Sunday. Just praying for that friend that God is doing. He just recently got his first Bible. He's asking questions about confession, and his dog recently broke her leg. He asked me to pray for his dog. I mean, just things that for me, that I'm just like, lord, lead me beside. To me, that's still waters, that's green grass, and I'm finding life in that. And so that's where I would encourage a pastor, is, hey, try to get out the four walls and meet people who are hungry for the things of God in this season. Hmm.
- [92:16]
Carrie Newhoff
Ed, I'll give you the final word. Word of encouragement.
- [92:19]
Ed Stetzer
Yeah. I think Adam's comments there just sort of point to the fact that in real life is different than what's going on in social media. And I think that sometimes people. And I think that anxiety is often found in people who are more heavily involved in social media. The anxiety Sharon mentioned and what I would say, you know, I mean, it's kind of weird. The last year, 2025, I spoke to more pastors than probably any year prior to that in my ministry. And I gotta tell you, they're excited. God's up to stuff. Things are. Carrie, we've been at some of these places together. Sharon, we've been at some of these places together, and there are people, like, joining arms to go on mission and to share the gospel and plant churches. And you go on social media, it's like, what in the world's going on? I look at Biola's healthy, Talbot's booming, and yet you go on social media. So. So what happens is, I mean, we've got all over the country churches being faithful, and yet you might think, well, what about these three or four churches that have really sort of lost their way to the right or to the left and become very vocal? Yeah, but there's like a thousand other churches in the city, you know, whatever it may be. So I would say to you is to acknowledge that social media is A warped reflection of reality. I'm not saying there's no reality there and I'm not saying it doesn't bleed over into reality. But the reality is, man, I mean, if you weren't on social media and you were doing what I'm not saying get off social media. Obviously I'm very active on social media and you're just pastoring your church, you might not even be aware because it doesn't come into the reality of your church experience. And the second thing is, I would say we're going to have to just, I mean, just to be blunt, it's, you know, I tell people all the time it's 20, 26, nobody gets to do things anymore without criticism. You're probably somebody's hero and somebody's villain. And if you are not able to be kind of healthy and walking through that, then you need to stay out of the public sphere for sure. And there are ways to do that, right? You don't have to post things online, you'll just navigate with your church. But if you're going to do that, you're going to have to have a thicker skin, you have to grow up, up. You're going to have to just. And it's different, you know, I mean, I'm in my late 50s, I'm in my latest 50s, I'm like months away from not being in the 50s. And I've been doing this for 30 plus years. And yes, it's a lot more angry and toxic than it was 10, 15 years ago. Fine. So this is the reality we find ourselves. If you look at history, this is not unusual in history, even between evangelicals who just went to war with each other on more than one occasion. So my encouragement to you is be faithful, be biblical, have courage and stay on mission. Let me say it again, be faithful, be biblical, have courage, stay on mission. And I think those kinds of framing things will help you make wise decisions on what to say, what not to say and then to navigate the pushback when you say those things don't lack courage, but also stay on mission and have discernment about what to say and when to say it.
- [95:18]
Carrie Newhoff
Well, I was hoping you could bring a little bit of clarity and some sanity into a rather difficult time. And I have so much respect for each of you individually. But man, you over delivered today. So you spoke to my soul. On behalf of everybody watching, everybody listening, just want to thank you. Sharon, Adam, Ed, thank you very much. Well, that was so helpful to me because I wrestle with the same thing you do. I hope it was helpful for you as well. We did promise to link to things in the show notes. You can go to carynwhoff.com shownotes where you'll find everything we talked about in this episode, including the framework that Sharon shared and some other insights and books and articles, et cetera, et cetera. Or you can click the link wherever you're watching or listening to this episode. That's Carrie newhoff.com shownotes so I hope that was helpful. Hey, from time to time we may do these emergency episodes. We just interrupted what we were doing, got this up as quickly as we could and hopefully it was helpful to you. If it was. Please leave a rating and review. Maybe share it with your team, with your friend, with your board when you get the word out. It helps us do more episodes like this next episode. I'm asking a question. Are you marketing revival? Here's the problem with mixed motives in leadership and social media and church leaders. Also coming up, Katie Cole, Beth Moore, who was referenced here, up and coming, JJ and Kate Tomlin, Jenny Allen, Carl Lentz, Mark Lutz and so much more. So again, if you're new here, please subscribe. Maybe hit follow wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening. And I hope that our conversation today helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing.