Episode Transcript:

Well, hey, friends, welcome to the Life Renovation Podcast.
We're your co-hosts, Glendie Loranger and Elizabeth Morrison.
And together, we're breaking down the walls that divide us through meaningful conversations around faith, family, and sexuality.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
Good morning.
You brought a guest.
We did have a guest, yes.
Our guest today is Nate Meade, local pastor in Spokane of North Church.
How are you doing, Nate?
I'm good.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, we're excited to have you.
This is really fun.
We might be a little biased.
Yeah, just a little bit.
So who we're talking to is our lead pastor at our church.
So we get to hear from you on a regular basis, Nate.
That's just a real kick for us to actually have you in the studio.
Yeah.
And I don't know if you know this, Nate, but you're now known for having like a really good haircut.
The side of the church that I sit on is always like, oh, that's the pastor with a really good haircut.
Isn't it called...
Because you have a side part.
No, it's a hard part.
Isn't it called a hard part?
What's it called?
It's called a fade.
And I actually brought my son to the barber shop that I go to down by Gonzaga.
And he calls it now the biker shop.
Oh!
Because they do men's beards and hair.
And typically men who come in with beards, they got big beards.
So my son calls it the biker shop.
So Nate gets his haircuts at the biker shop.
Okay, someday we'll have video and you'll all be able to see this.
But for now, you just got to imagine a guy with a really cool haircut.
Elizabeth, let's just give a little background.
Like, how do we know Nate?
Yeah, I've been at North Church, I would say like six or seven years at this point.
Joined when I was younger, got plugged in right away and was on staff for a little bit.
We've each worked with each other too.
Yeah, so Nate and I went to school together, actually stood on stage and were licensed as pastors, four-square pastors together.
So that was kind of a big deal.
I want to just interject something here though about church.
You know, if you've listened to us before that we lean into the awkward.
And so it might feel like a little awkward that Elizabeth, Nate and I are all from the same church and coming from just one perspective.
North Church is actually a four-square church here in Spokane, Washington.
You might be listening in Australia or Wyoming, USA and have no context for that.
Just know that our perspective and what we stand on here at the Life Renovation Podcast is not one specific denomination or one specific leader or church.
We're talking about the Big C Church, those people who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and follow Him with their life and want to know and become more like Jesus.
And so when we raise conversations, meaningful conversations around faith, family, and sexuality, when we talk about faith, we're talking about people who are more interested in Jesus and following Jesus.
That's kind of our context for Big C Church.
You'll hear us have lots of different pastors from different backgrounds here.
Today, Nate is North Church pastor here and we are just excited to have him.
Yeah, Nate, I think our first question for you is what has your journey been at North Church?
Tell us about the church and then your journey to become lead pastor.
Yeah, so I grew up in the church.
My parents were pastors and missionaries.
So initially grew up in Costa Rica for the first couple of years of my life.
And we moved back to the States and go into Arizona and planted a church there.
And then up to Spokane, my parents planted a church up here.
So I've always kind of grew up in the church and I always loved the church, wanted to always be a part of the church, but honestly never saw myself in vocational ministry as a pastor, only because I saw some of the stuff behind the scenes, which ministry is difficult.
It is not, you know, all the glitz and glam.
And so I saw a lot of what happened behind the scenes and it's just difficult work.
And so I always loved the church, but didn't see myself probably being in a vocational ministry position.
And it wasn't until I was later in high school and early college years that I started to see some of my friends, close friends, become far more interested in faith.
And all the times that my youth pastor or other people in my life had said, like, you know, send the gospel or invite them to church and do all these things that I started to see more and more people come to know the Lord.
And so people that were very close to me say yes to Jesus.
Then that's where I was like, there's no greater mission on earth to be a part of than the mission of Jesus Christ.
And I was like, how could I not dedicate my life to see more people's lives, hearts transformed?
And that's really my journey into ministry.
And then just as I've been in it for the last 15 years, in a vocational position, it was just natural.
The way God moved in my life and kind of the giftings that he's given me has been one that I love to lead.
I love to preach.
I love to expand that mission of God's kingdom here on earth.
Honestly, it was mainly probably due to me just sticking around for 15 years.
Had no one else to pick from.
I was just there.
But however it played out, God led me into that role.
And I said yes to that just about two years ago.
So I've been a lead pastor for two years.
Yeah.
So if you're doing the math, Nate took over during COVID.
Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that to most people if we could redo that.
But yes, I did.
And real quick, I know we're going to go to a break in just a minute.
But one of those people you led to Christ was your wife.
Am I right?
Yes.
And that has been just a wonderful journey.
We're here with Nate Meade.
And when we come back, we're going to learn more about the state of the church.
Stick around.
Thanks for joining us today.
Life Renovation is sponsored by Life Services Spokane in Spokane, Washington, the Christ-centered organization offering professional medical care, truth and support to anyone impacted by unplanned pregnancy, helping them to choose life and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Life Services Spokane has been bringing hope to life since 1991.
Find out more at lifeservices.org.
That's lifeservices.org.
We're back with the Life Renovation Podcast.
Our guest today is Pastor Nate Meade from North Church here in Spokane.
Nate, just a couple of weeks back, you mentioned recently in one of your messages that the staff had gone through a book called The Great DeChurching, and it really caught my attention.
You mentioned some astronomical number, like 40 million people have walked away from the church.
We know from all the speaking that Elizabeth and I do, just in the last two years, I don't think I've been in a church where all the seats are full, which is so different from the way it was, and the churches feel empty.
And so, Nate, that got my attention.
I wonder if you could just kind of address that, a state of the church as you see it right now.
Yeah, so it's super unique.
And, you know, this book came about, I mean, part of this group that Dr.
Jerry Sitzer here in town leads.
He's a church historian, and he leads a couple of other pastors in this reading group.
And so, this is one of the books he had us read, and then I had our staff read.
But it's this really fascinating book.
There's a lot of brand new research out on it that these gentlemen had done together.
And what they had found is that currently, America is in the largest religious shift in our history of the United States.
So, it's pretty fascinating.
So, prior to the current religious shift that we're in, the largest religious shifting that had taken place in America was right post the Civil War, where the church grew in about 50% in its attendance.
People coming back to church.
The other two were the first and second Great Awakening.
And that was when some notable people had begun to influence the United States colonies and saw this religious shift.
And so, the current religious shift, those were all in gaining attendance in the church.
And the current religious shift we're in right now, they kind of coined it the Great DeChurching, probably playing off of the Great Awakenings.
But it's actually in the opposite direction.
So, this is people leaving the church.
And so, we've seen 40 million people leave the church.
And to put that in the perspective, that's larger than the first and second Great Awakening, along with all of the Billy Graham Crusades combined.
About how many people are leaving the church.
So, the state of the church right now, what is being seen is that a lot of people have just begun to walk away from church attendance.
Most of these people still consider themselves Christian.
Most of these people still hold Judeo-Christian values, Orthodox values, although they have very sparse to little or no church attendance.
I can't imagine what that's like for you, standing up there having stepped in two years ago, right into this lead role into a church where the seats aren't full.
And you and I were both there when the seats were full.
I mean, we were max capacity.
We were max capacity for a long time.
Yeah, it is difficult.
Although, you know, I always rest assured that God is in control.
You know, he said in Matthew 16, he said, I will build my church and not even the gates of hell will prevail against it.
So God is still in control.
This does not surprise him.
And in some ways, I even find comfort in that, knowing that, well, what would be great is if Jesus came back tomorrow.
Let's just be honest.
All right, please.
But I also find comfort in that scripture does tell us towards the end times, the church will suffer and it will go through hard times.
Now, I'm not saying we're in the end times, but anytime that there's been intense persecution in the church or apathy in the church is probably more what we're seeing right now, is that that is when God has done some pretty incredible things within the church.
And so, whether that's just Jesus returning or if that's just Jesus doing another revival, I'm praying for it, expecting it, and believing it because God is still in control.
Yeah.
Nate, one of my questions about this topic is just kind of the expectations that people have.
What do you think people are expecting from churches and the reason why they're leaving?
And then, what do you as a pastor expect for your people that they're not grasping, that they're not staying?
Yeah, that's a big question, Elizabeth.
And there is so much that could go into that.
But I think for a long time, people had expected the church to serve them and fill all of their needs that they may have in life.
And while that there is some truth in that, that, you know, the church has the answer to the biggest questions of life, that when we come into church with a perspective that the church needs to serve me, feed me, I need to get something out of it each and every week, that we actually in turn often leave feeling more hungry than we came in with, because if we're not getting the exact right thing that we wanted, then it still leaves us in a place that we might be confused, might be feeling like the church isn't giving me what I want, and so maybe I'll look somewhere else for that.
And really what we saw during the pandemic is that, especially in The Great DeChurching book, they point to the pandemic as like a big reason why people left, but it is not the reason people left.
They talk about a lot of stuff that was underlying, and that really the pandemic was the catalyst.
It was not the cause.
There was much more other things, but then through the pandemic, people had replaced church because, at least here in Washington, we were considered a non-essential service, the church, right?
And so as people begin to fill that time that they typically would have filled with church, they filled with other things that now as church has come back, and that they don't see a compelling enough reason to drop the things that they filled with that time that they were using church for community, discipleship, and they have other things that have actually filled kind of those seats and have no real compelling reason in their own mind or life that, well, I'll go back because what I remember is that church didn't fit what I want, and now I've found those things that might fit what I want, whether it be recreation, sports, friends, other things like that.
One question, is The Great DeChurching tied to a generation or is it across the board?
It's really across the board, yeah.
And so what you see is with each passing, or with each generation, it gets larger, and that's mainly due to the boomers and Gen X not handing the generational discipleship off well to the Millennials and to Gen Z.
But with each generation, that number grows, although it is not just limited, let's say, to the Millennials.
There is plenty of Gen X and boomers who have walked away, and whether they found Church just online exclusively or occasionally or not at all and have just walked away.
As a Gen Xer, I'm sorry.
We're going to break real quick and then we'll come back.
I would love when we come back, Nate, just to hear your heart as a pastor for the local church.
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We're back on the Life Renovation Podcast with Pastor Nate Meade talking about the church.
Before we broke, we were talking about just the generations and the great de-churching and that it was kind of affecting everyone.
And so I would say that for listeners, if you're typically in the millennial age, you're not alone.
If you're feeling distant from the church, if you have a lot of questions that aren't being answered, you're not alone.
This is happening to millennials.
It's happening to Gen Z.
It's happening to Boomers and Xers.
And so this is the perfect place to come and to be reconnected and to have those questions and those hard conversations.
So good.
Coming from a millennial.
Yes, coming from the millennial, speaking to another millennial.
With the Gen Xer here.
I'm the oldster.
It's okay.
Just don't call me Sage.
I hate that new phrase.
Right.
Is that a thing?
It is.
Oh, yeah.
That's kind of the new word for you can't call us older.
You call us Sage.
I prefer the word seasoned.
Is that where that comes from?
I don't know.
So we're not talking about spices anymore.
We're actually talking about the church.
And Nate, I love what you were just sharing.
Thanks for talking about the state of the church.
I would love if we kind of brought this back home to your church.
Can you just share with us your heart for North Church, for your congregation and why this whole de-churching thing matters to you?
Yeah, great question.
You know, I think what it matters to me is I grew up seeing a really beautiful church, Big C Church and Small Local C Church.
I also grew up seeing a church filled with problems and issues and very broken people and broken systems and saw a lot of people who learned how to just, we'll say, play church.
And it's very easy, you know, as you're in that system, if you've been in church for, you know, over a year, you probably understand how to play church.
And it's easy just to come in with that mindset, like I'm going to go and I'm going to go play church for an hour or two and do that.
And then I'm going to go home and live my different, you know, life that I have or whatnot.
And I think my heart is that I just believe that God has something more for us than just playing church, that He really wants us to be the church.
And being the church, you just have a different heart.
You have a different motivation and a different mindset that I'm not going to come in and play what's expected.
But I want to step into something that is broken.
The church is not perfect
The church is filled with people trying to figure life out.
And it's pastors doing their best often in not having all the right answers.
And that my heart is that the church would know and love Jesus more and more.
That comes with knowing His Word and living His Word out.
And so that's really my heart for people, is that they would encounter the God who loves them in a way that is asking something deeper from them than will you just come and play church for an hour.
He's asking much deeper, bigger questions to come be a part of.
And I just want to see more and more people fall in love with that Jesus.
And the Jesus that says let's go play church for a little bit.
That's a powerful phrase right there, Nate.
Play church versus be the church.
Yeah, and I would imagine that looks like, you know, you have people that are in devotionals or they're in the Bible studies or, you know, churches have different programs that they offer, but there's an investment there of more than just the hour on Sunday.
Yeah, absolutely.
And by no means am I saying that all people go and play church.
Yeah.
I'm just saying as I grew up, you know, that I just saw a lot of that.
You see both sides of it.
You do see just people on fire, passionate for God.
And then you see a lot of people who are just kind of going through the motions and playing it, whether it's in a discipleship group or on Sunday, you see that.
And God wants something more than just that.
I love that.
I had just two quick questions for you.
I would love for you to tell us.
You chose something different than we've done in a long time, going through God's redemption story in 18 months.
And in our church, that's different.
We've done a lot more topical sermons on Sunday, and yet you've taken us deeper in the Word than we've been in a long time.
So can you just tell us what spurred you on towards that?
Where did that choice come from?
Yeah, that came from two things.
One is I just like teaching, expository teaching better.
So that's just one is that just my personal preference.
Topical teaching, some people are great at it.
I am not.
I am a little better expository teaching.
Two, which is probably the more important answer that we are asking, Glendie, is that we see far more and more, especially in, let's say, this conversation, The Great DeChurching, a far more biblically illiterate church.
And the amount of people that I interface with that don't know some of the basic Bible stories, I just have a heart that the more that you know about God, the more that you will love God.
And so I think there's a grouping of people in the church that believe, like, oh, if all you do is read the Bible and you do Bible expository teaching and it's all about knowledge, like, then you're just who you know a lot and you have this big Bible brain, but it doesn't ever sink down into your heart.
And I just, like, categorically disagree with that because I think of, like, if you're with your spouse, the more that you sit down with your spouse or a significant other and you ask them, what is your heart?
What do you love?
Who are you?
And you get to know this other person, you have a knowledge of them.
Typically, the more that you know about another person, you actually are more fond of that other person and you love that other person.
And Jesus is a person that we can know.
So good.
And He wants to know you.
And often how He gets to know you is that He has written you through a collection of authors and people, these 66 books that we see in the Bible, and we get to know our Creator that way.
That's so good, Nate.
If you want to listen to Nate, if you've been inspired, go to northchurch.net and you can listen to any of the messages.
One last question for you, Nate, and it kind of brings us into a little bit of the topical.
Life Renovation Podcast is sponsored by Life Services.
We are a pregnancy center helping people step beyond some of their brokenness that may have led to an unplanned pregnancy or sexual trauma.
So Nate, I would just love your take on how you as a pastor approach some of the topics around those.
How do you tackle those things from the stage?
Typically not overly well, because those are difficult questions.
But I think what I often try and do is be culturally informed while remaining pastorally sensitive.
And what that usually requires is not a one-time 30-minute sermon that's going to answer all the questions of, let's say, this LGBT issues or porn or abortion.
Those are very difficult conversations.
You guys live in relationship in those oftentimes with people walking through very hard times with Life Services.
And we do the same as the church, but it's very easy to just get up on stage and just say 30 minutes worth of Bible says this, Bible says that.
And while that might be good, it oftentimes is not culturally informed, nor is it pastorally sensitive to those who that might be affecting that you cannot answer every topic in 25, 30, 40 minutes from stage.
So usually it requires a longer road than a sermon.
It requires a relationship with a person.
And to say, who are you?
Tell me your story and let's walk through life together.
And while that is not as efficient, it is far more effective.
And with that, I just believe that in the context of the church, whether it be on stage or even off the stage, which is most ministry is not a public delivering of the gospel, it is in relationship with people.
And that's where I really genuinely believe, whether it be on stage or off, that the church should be the safest place on earth to talk about anything.
Amen to that.
And if we can't do that, then that's oftentimes where it leaves people, like especially millennials and Gen Z.
There's issues that I want to be able to address and talk about with my faith, family, or sexuality, but it feels like the church is not a place that I can talk about that.
And my hope and heart is that we would have not only, that would be something that we say that the church is safe, but that's something that we live out, that you can be in church and talk about anything.
We've been here with Pastor Nate Meade from North Church, and what a way to end.
Yeah, and let me just add one last thing too, because it can feel a little depressing when we talk about the Great DeChurching, but let me just remind the listeners too, that God is completely in control.
And what I go back to is not only where Jesus says, I'm going to build my church, and not even the gates of hell will prevail against it.
God is going to build his church.
His focus is on the church.
But then I also think about Paul's words, Paul's words to the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 1, 22, where he says, God put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.
The church is his body.
It's made full and complete in Christ, who fills everything with himself.
Or if I take Eugene Peterson's take on this in the message version, this is what he says.
He says, At the center of this, Christ rules the church.
The church you see is not peripheral to the world.
The world is peripheral to the church.
And the church is Christ's body in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.
Meaning the church is God's focus.
And is the world that is in his periphery.
But it's there and he cares about it.
But the church is Jesus' primary focus.
And Jesus loves the church.
He has not abandoned it.
And it will have a bright and beautiful future.
Thank you, Nate.
Thanks for being here with us.
We'll be back with another episode of the Life Renovation Podcast.
We're going to put resources in our show notes so you can look at that Great DeChurching and some of our other articles that we've looked up.
And we just encourage you to find a church and plug in.
Thanks for joining us.
See you.