22. Pastor Joe Graves (United Methodist) – The Progressive Planter: Finding (and Building) the Church You Wish Existed

🎙️ 22. Pastor Joe Graves (United Methodist) – The Progressive Planter: Finding (and Building) the Church You Wish Existed

When so many are walking away from church, Pastor and Author Joe Graves (@josephdavidgraves) is reimagining what it can be—clear, inclusive, justice-rooted, and grounded in grace. From launching free stores and violence-reduction funds to writing The Progressive Planter, Joe shares how “clear is kind,” why progressives must move from gatekeeping to organizing, and how we can all help build the kind of faith community we’ve been longing for.

Together, Alexis & Joe dive into:

• Why “clear is kind”: finding churches that state values up front (no bait-and-switch)
• How the United Methodist Church holds a wide umbrella—largely contemporary, liturgical, and LGBTQ+ affirming
• Deconstruction diversity: when one person still prays with hands laid on, and another has stopped praying altogether
• Mental health as ministry—covering therapy sessions, normalizing care, and breaking stigma
• How City View Church became an incubator for justice through Little Bottoms Free Store and the Columbus Violence Reduction Fund
• The Methodist theology of prevenient grace—God’s love already everywhere
• Why progressives must stop gatekeeping and start organizing around shared values

💡 Key Takeaways

• Grace is everywhere—before, within, and beyond the walls of church.
• Empathy is the heart of the gospel. The incarnation itself is “cosmic empathy.”
• Progressives can disagree theologically yet work together for justice.

⛪ About Our Guest
Rev. Joe Graves, (he prefers Joe) is pastor of City View Church in Columbus, Ohio—a progressive United Methodist congregation formed through an innovative merger. He has helped launch or support 10+ new ministries across the Midwest and founded justice-centered initiatives including Little Bottoms Free Store and the Columbus Violence Reduction Fund.
🌐 Website: joegraves.org
🏛️ Church + sermons: cityviewcolumbus.org

📚 Resources Mentioned

• God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us — Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail | IG: @rev.lizzie
• The Bible for Normal People (podcast) | IG: @biblefornormalpeople @peteenns, @jaredbyas
• The Progressive Planter:  A Handbook for Ecclesial Entrepreneurs — Joe Graves (Abingdon Press) https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781791040116/
• New Interpre

Transcript

Alexis (00:00)
that is where a lot of the disillusion and the disorientation, I think, comes from, people who grew up in church and then literally left or are not in church space currently right now is because of this thing, is because it was like, wait a minute. We were raised with unconditional love, agape radical your enemies. It's not like we don't know this stuff.

Joe Graves (00:16)
Yeah!

Alexis (00:21)
that's why I think a lot of us were just in shock of the leaders that people are uplifting that are not espousing, you know, these types of treatments towards others. so what can we do? I feel there are so many in the progressive side of things that I don't like to talk about binaries because the world is so much bigger than that. But I do think that

on the progressive side of things, we have a lot of agency to get up and to say, we are Christians, and this is not what we believe about how to treat other people. what's a call that you have for, progressive pastors, priests, leaders, Christian leaders, and just regular people, whether they identify as Christian or not, but they were raised with those values, and they care, and they see what's happening in the world right now. And they're saying, this is wrong. Jesus would

be weeping. Jesus is crying right now. And we are the people that are supposed to be caring for the least of these.

Joe Graves (01:13)
I think, conservative, and once again, binaries are only helpful in the way that they're helpful, but to be conservative is to agree to the same There's a doctrine there's a creed that you agree to, there's a particular practice you agree to, part of it, it's a tradition, you're protecting what already is.

Progressives by definition deviate from that and one of the things that I've learned as I've become more progressive in my faith is that people are progressive and they deconstruct in Wildly different ways, so one fun example is in the same week in my church someone asked They wanted a church that was LGBTQ inclusive But they still love laying on hands and praying for people and asked me if that's something we could do at our church I'm like, I mean, I don't know. Tell me more what you think

Same day, someone was like, I just overheard a conversation or someone made the comment. And that's why I stopped believing in prayer. So here you have these two people have deconstructed in different ways. One person still loves praying for people and prayer is powerful. And another person is like, I don't even believe in prayer. That's the diversity of progressive and deconstructed spaces is we don't agree. but we as humans are deeply tribal. And so I've never met more gatekeepers.

In the church than in progressive spaces progressives are very careful about who they let in and who they let out And for good reason because they're trying to protect the vulnerable. So they're very careful about who they associate with even more so than even some of my evangelical friends And so my call is this is institutions Ask the question who do we let in Community organizing ask the question. What do we have in common that we can work towards together? and the call for me is

We need affirming justice oriented Christians to accept the fact that we don't all agree. Some of us believe in the resurrection, some don't, some believe in prayer, some don't, whatever. I mean, there's just great diversity of progressives. some believe the Eucharist is this or that. I mean, there's just an immense amount of diversity, but willing to say, okay, yeah, we don't agree on everything, but what do we agree on that we're willing to work together? And until we're able to do that, because conservatives don't have that problem.

They just like, well, we all agree, you know, like that's what it means to be conservative. we signed on the dotted line. We already agree this, this, and this, and we've got our talking points. Progressives have to be willing to say, okay, we have to find what we have in common and we have to find a way to work together. that is my hope is that we can do more of that. And then of course people are doing that every day in every city around the world. trying to ask the question, what do we have in common? How can we work together? And I would love to see, more.

Joe Graves (03:36)
Ex-vangelicals join that conversation, as well as any other progressives that are sitting on the sidelines, like get involved, find an organization that's doing work in your local community. you might not agree with everything, but find something you do agree on and figure out a way to work together.

Alexis (00:00)
Hey friends, I'm on vacation. I'm out of the office this week, having some R and R with my family in paradise on earth, heaven on earth in Hawaii. so that's what you're hearing in the background. forgive the casualness here, but I found it get on here because I really am excited to share this episode with you. this episode is with

United Methodist pastor, Joe Graves. one of the things I love most about hosting the Sacred Slope is meeting pastors who live out the gospel in such tangible and beautiful ways. And Joe is one of those people. He's a community organizer and a social justice worker at heart. In Ohio, his ministry has taken him far beyond church walls. he partners on initiatives to reduce violent crime,

joined the fight against infant mortality, which is way too high where he lives. He helps families get mental health support his church literally raises money so that people in their community can access therapy. So that's the kind of love and action that reminds me what the church can be at its best. Joe also wrote a book

called the Progressive Planter, a guide for pastors and innovators, which helps faith leaders learn how to do this work with more creativity, compassion, and courage. I was just inspired by the way he's dedicated his life so tirelessly to Jesus and to the people around him. As I said, he's a United Methodist pastor, and I love how he explains what that means. So this balance of tradition and progressive theology, liturgy

and inclusion. can I just say, if you live in Ohio, you are so lucky to have Joe, leading in your community. Also, his wife is a pastor. Love that. So if you've ever left what you thought was church, but you're still by listening to this episode.

if you like what you they post their sermons on podcasts every week. And if your heart's ready give church a new try, maybe check out his.

Alexis (04:39)
Welcome back, friends. Today I'm so excited to introduce you to a United Methodist pastor, consultant, and entrepreneur. This is Reverend Joe He holds a Bachelor of Biblical Studies from Taylor University and a Master of Divinity from United Theological Seminary in Ohio and has helped launch or support more than 10 new ministries across the Midwest.

currently pastors City View Church in Columbus, Ohio. that is a progressive United Methodist congregation. And it was created through the innovative merger of Central City Church and St. Luke's also the founder of several justice centered ministries, including Little Bottoms Free Store, Columbus Violence Reduction Fund, and the Ohio

Writers Association. Joe has a new book. It's called The Progressive Planner. I'm so excited about this book. It's a handbook for ecclesial entrepreneurs. It is a practical and visionary guide for building sacred spaces rooted in justice, imagination, and inclusion. Joe, welcome to The Sacred Slope. Thanks for being here.

Joe Graves (05:42)
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk and to share and I love what you're doing.

Alexis (05:46)
Thank you. I wanted to start by learning a little bit more about the United Methodist denomination and what that means for people who have maybe never been in a United Methodist church. I know that I went to one in Texas, and I thought it was so fun because it had the music that was contemporary that I was used to in my evangelical background.

And then there were just little rainbows all over the place. so there was this combination of some liturgies, some tradition and some progressive theology. And it was so felt at home, but then it also aligned with my values. And so I wasn't constantly triggered sitting in church, but I'd love to hear about your church and your denomination.

Joe Graves (06:26)
Yeah, well, United Methodist Church is huge and it's a really big umbrella. So if you visit United Methodist Church, there's just so many different kinds. And the United Methodist Church exists around the world and it tends to be very contextual. there are particular styles of worship that are traditional, like that you'll find in Methodist churches and

I like to call it sort of more folk traditional is probably the most common Methodist church experience in the sense that it's not high church, but they have a tradition. but there's a lot of freedom in the United Methodist church to kind of express worship in the way that makes sense. And there's a real celebration of that diversity. So yeah, you'll find contemporary churches like ours is contemporary and we merged with a more traditional church. So now we are contemporary with a little bit more elements of tradition. We throw in hymns and the organ occasionally. In fact, sometimes

we'll do a really upbeat praise and worship song and then the organist will play with it as well, which is always kind of unique and fun. So we play with the genre a little bit, but the United Methodist Church allows it, you know, lot of flexibility in how it expresses ourselves. I think denominationally, we're like, yes, let's have worship that's contextual. When you talk to individual congregation, Every congregation has their own sacred worship.

And if you talk to any Methodist pastor for any extended period of time, you can hear the stories of trying to change that, which is really, you know, like in any probably traditional environment, if you try to change the worship that people are used to, you can get yourself into quite a mess. yeah, I've been United Methodist my whole life. My dad was United Methodist pastor and I grew up in a Methodist church that was older and traditional and quite frankly didn't want anything to do with reaching new people or connecting with people my age.

very much an older social club. And so, I kind of gave up on church for a while and I felt like sort of real ministry happened in nonprofit world. And so, I was in the nonprofit world through college and after college, working for a prison ministry and a few other Christian nonprofits. But it was really experiencing and diving into nonprofit ministry where I was longing for a community. And I remember this question that brought me back to the Methodist Church where—and this is what forced me to become a pastor—

was this question, was what if there was a nonprofit that was doing work in the community and making a difference in the world, but all of its volunteers and its donors got together on a regular basis to celebrate and to be in community and to encourage one another? that's when like the Holy Spirit kind of hit me and was like, you know, what if that was the church? And I was like, okay, I could get behind that kind of church, like a church that's operating like a social justice agency doing work in the community. But yeah.

Some of us get together on Sundays or whenever and are community together. So that brought me back to being a pastor and sort of way God worked brought me back into the United Methodist Church, which made sense because that was my origins and I've been a United Methodist pastor ever since for the or 13 years.

Alexis (09:09)
a lot of our listeners, would say, they are somewhere between like faith and church, in the last decade, I would say a lot's going on. A lot of people are leaving and a lot of misunderstanding, I think, about why people are leaving. I think a lot of people are actually leaving maybe were in a local church their whole life.

never been exposed to other denominations, other places in the world, other ways that doing the work of Jesus that might actually more align with their values. And so there's like this space between where it's like, well, I would love to maybe check out a different kind of church, if it aligns with, welcoming all kinds of people truly and, lifting marginalized and the oppressed.

So what would you say to people who are, they're really still drawn to the divine and the sacred and to the story of Jesus, but are like pretty traumatized and they know they don't want to go back to where they came from, but they would like to return to some sort of space. what would you say to them?

Joe Graves (10:07)
I mean, it's just such a huge conversation. I I would say the majority of our congregation represents the people you just talked about. when I think of the stories of how they found our community, it was really, wanting something different and looking online and listening to podcasts and doing the research because it just takes a while. Thankfully, you know, a good church is going to have who they are up front. And if the church doesn't have its values up front, I talk about this a lot

in my book and in other places like clear as kind and so if the church isn't very clear about what they stand for it's probably because they don't stand for it and it's very popular in certain religious spaces to have a bait and switch is a sort of Viewed as a valid way for evangelism where it's like we're gonna get you in the door by being super nice And then we'll we'll trick you into believing what we believe So if you can find a church that's just upfront about who they are. That's like the first step, right? That's just like

basic human dignity is to let people decide for themselves. But for me, the first thing I would say to people who are somewhere between faith and church is, I hope you know that that's really normal. Most of us pastors live in that space. Well, because pastors, you know how the old saying goes, watch how the sausage is made? mean, that really disillusions you. When you work,

Alexis (11:04)
Hmm, tell me more.

Joe Graves (11:13)
behind the scenes and you're spiritual community you have to interact with an institution, the institutional church, which might happen to be United Methodist, and I love the United Methodist institution in a lot of ways, and I hate it in a lot of ways, but that's just, I think, how everyone feels about any institution, so I don't think that's weird to say. And whenever you navigate all of this space, it's not uncommon for pastors to be deeply disillusioned. In fact, I only probably trust the pastors who are a little bit.

The ones who are like very, very certain that what they believe and how they live in it is like absolutely divine appointed. I'm a little like, I don't know. Like you seem to be brainwashed and not thinking about the bigger picture and all of the nuances. I think, my first response is like, it's normal to live in this space between faith and church. I want to believe in God and I want to experience spirituality, but I'm not sure where I fit. And one things that I found is just,

Encouraging people to take a deep breath and say like right where you are is okay. You can't be anywhere else. Just be where you are and Find a community that lets you be there You know for us It plays out in a lot of ways I was reminded of how you asked, whether I should be called Reverend graves or rather Reverend Joe and I choose to just go by Joe and I I grew up as Joey I've actually thought about going back to Joey because it's like even more informal

But for people I'm connecting with, that's really important because religious authority is really powerful. And it's nothing against anyone who wants, I think especially minorities and use titles because they don't have the privilege that I do as a white male. And I think that's really important. And so I always try to be respectful of that. But for me and what I represent and the power that I represent as a white male upfront,

minimizing that authority or letting it chill out a little bit by just calling me Joe is really small way to just hopefully create a slightly more safer space. two things that we do that we work with people in our community is mental health and spiritual direction. And when you talk about being traumatized by church, it's serious. am a big fan of mental health services. I currently take anxiety medication.

Alexis (12:56)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Joe Graves (13:05)
I've talked openly with my community, about depression, anxiety. We talk very openly about it. We de-stigmatize it. We de-stigmatize the trauma that people have experienced in church, so much so that we have a fund for members of our community that if they want to go see a therapist, we'll cover the first five sessions. Pick any therapist you want. Yeah, because you need it. it's such an easy way. Look, mega churches create counseling centers, right? And then you can go for a discounted rate.

Alexis (13:20)
Wow.

Joe Graves (13:28)
We're a small church, we can't do that. And I don't even want to because then you end up with these weird Christian counselors that kind of like do weird stuff in the sessions. Yeah, exactly. And not every Christian counseling center is that way, but what I love about what we do super accessible. We're a small church so we can raise a couple thousand dollars. then, someone wants to see a therapist, usually when someone needs to see a therapist is because they're in crisis.

Alexis (13:35)
Well, and didn't get the full credentials, right? Yeah.

Joe Graves (13:53)
We're really bad at going before the crisis hits. And so all of that trauma builds up and all of this anxiety. And now next thing you know, your marriage is falling apart and your jobs on the line. And I mean, just life falls apart because it all builds up. Well, that's the worst time to try to figure out how to pay for a counselor, especially for people who are minimum wage or middle-class it's, it's an unexpected bill. So

What we have found if we can cover the first five sessions, that gives them enough time to get out of the crisis. And most of the people we've served in our community have figured out how to continue paying for it because they're out of the crisis. We do a similar thing with spiritual direction. If you want to go see a spiritual director, which is not counseling, but it's a great place to process your faith, a lot of really good questions, spiritual coaching. counseling and therapy is a proven way to help people work through their trauma. And so,

Alexis (14:38)
Yes.

Joe Graves (14:39)
We're a big fan of that. And I think people just need to know that what you're experiencing is normal and there is hope and there's resources that are available to help you take steps in the right direction towards healing.

Alexis (14:48)
I have a spiritual director myself. I've also had a ton of therapists, from postpartum depression, all sorts of things that just happened to me. so I understand the difference between a therapist and a spiritual director. And they're both really, really helpful for different things.

So I love that you're helping to health and talking as a man. That's really important right now. I think that's a beautiful ministry.

Joe Graves (15:11)
it's so important and people are just really hurting and there's all of these preachers in their heads and this bad theology and things their parents said, their conservative parents who belittle and minimize the real struggles that people are experiencing. And just to be able to say that like, Hey, we're all struggling. I'm not okay. You're not okay. And that's okay. What do you need to help? And it created a community like

Not just mental health created a community where people actually care for each other. You know, when people go through life crisis and they lose their job, we do a lot of personal fundraising where it's like, if you're in our church and you lose your job, whatever, like we'll ask people in our community to give directly to a fund that we can bless you with sort of like our own go fund me stuff, because quite frankly, that impacts mental health. when things like that happen, it can really impact us. it's not just one thing it's creating that.

ecosystem of care. It's really important.

Alexis (16:03)
Yeah, definitely. I think that's what a lot of people right now that are typically in spaces, maybe they left their local church, specifically because they were like, I'm so tired of the fact that I can't bring my gay friend here and that person feels safe or my friend who's a person of color wouldn't feel welcome and safe in this place or I'm so sick of a woman who can't be in leadership.

Joe Graves (16:16)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis (16:26)
I'm tired of a church like this, so I've just got to split, definitely community in so many ways, but like, man, there's nothing like a church community, just the care for each other. And so it's really nice to talk to you and hear some of your stories and ministries. CityView is known for community centered ministry, like you said.

can you share a little bit about Little Bottoms Free Store? I'd love to hear about that.

Joe Graves (16:47)
Yeah, absolutely. my wife and I, so first off, I gotta say the fact that there's still churches that don't let women be pastors. I'm like, what in the world's going on? I'm married to a pastor. And she's a church planter as well, Alyssa Graves. And so we planted Central City, which became City View together. And when we planted Central City, we were assigned a neighborhood denomination. And then we decided to buy a house in a different neighborhood. It was one of the neighborhoods we were considering.

And we decided not to plant there, but it was put on a radar. So we moved there and it's an underserved neighborhood. So we planted a church in a slightly more affluent neighborhood, but then we ended up living in an under-resourced neighborhood that was just separated by a river and an interstate. So very typical urban environment. got an inner suburb and you got an under-resourced neighborhood that was literally known as the bottoms. So it's Franklin 10. It's the original downtown of Columbus. And then there was a flood because it's a floodplain.

why it was called the bottoms. It was also under resourced. You couldn't even fix up houses because of insurance until about 2001 when they built the flood wall. So I mean, this is hundreds of years of neglect. And we moved there, bought this fixer upper and, fixed up this house and knew that while we were planning a church in the affluent neighborhood to our north, that we wanted to be good neighbors where we lived. So we started getting to know what was going on in the neighborhood. And there was this citywide

effort around reducing infant mortality. Our infant mortality rates, especially in our under-resourced neighborhoods, were ridiculously high, which means infant mortality being the rate at which a child dies before they turn one. And children were dying in our neighborhood and in other neighborhoods in our city at an unacceptable rate before they turned one. And so there were some community stakeholders involved in

Alexis (18:10)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Joe Graves (18:25)
holding these community baby showers and community first birthdays as a way to raise awareness and stuff. they're exactly as they sound. They are a baby shower for like hundred moms who wouldn't otherwise get a baby shower. They're a first birthday party for like a hundred one year olds who otherwise wouldn't get a birthday party. and we showed up and one of the best ways to get involved as a new church and people don't realize this, but one of the easiest ways to get your foot in the door and just.

become a legitimate partner was we offered to be the fiscal agent for these parties, which means the city gave us money and then we spent it. You know, that's it. that opened up a lot of doors and opportunities. And next thing you know, we had people giving donations of baby clothes. We had two diaper banks that had access to diapers. And we had a church that was kind of on its way of closing in our neighborhood, not where we were planting a church, but another church building that was kind of struggling.

And, we had volunteers from the church that we planted. So this is basic asset based community organizing, right? You're, not creating anything. You're just organizing it. the resources already exist. And so we had baby clothes, we had diapers, we had a building and we had volunteers. So we're like, okay. So we opened up a little bottoms free store, little bottoms, of course, being a playoff of our neighborhood, our neighborhood, if you can imagine a nickname, like the bottoms, some people love it. Some people hate it. ⁓ but,

Enough of our volunteers loved it who were stakeholders in the community. We went with that and we launched Little Bottoms Free Store probably about six years ago and it outgrew our church and it's its own nonprofit and doing phenomenal things. serve thousands of mothers and families throughout central Ohio And it's as simple as pulling together the right pieces and building the thing.

Launching a free store, launching a violence reduction fund, it's all the same thing. It's okay, what already exists? How do we bring it together in a creative way? Done. Now this thing is making a difference in the world and it wasn't before.

Alexis (20:15)
man, as a mom of two daughters I grew up, my kids grow up with privilege and so didn't need those resources, But I understand what it would be like had I not had them. They're so expensive and man, I mean.

Joe Graves (20:25)
All that stuff's expensive. And you can't use

WIC. You can't use WIC. can't use Medicaid. Like some of the stuff that you think you'd be able to use, you can't for some of that stuff. Yeah. I can't, at least last I knew and someone else research it, cause it might've changed. This stuff changes all the time And it's been a couple of years since I've been directly involved. Cause like I said, it's its own nonprofit now. But you know, same with feminine products.

Alexis (20:32)
Really, you can't.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Graves (20:50)
You can't use some of that stuff because it doesn't qualify. So diapers, baby clothes, things like that. Yeah, and diapers are ridiculously expensive.

Alexis (20:57)
That's incredible. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the Columbus Violence Reduction that?

Joe Graves (21:01)
absolutely.

Little Bob's Free Store started, it blew up, it's its own nonprofit, there's a whole store there. And so I was like, okay, well, what is our church gonna do now? Like we gotta do something. What's the next thing? Because it's so important to me that a church is not just a gathering of religious people, but a catalyst. I think churches have the opportunity to be a really

interesting incubator for justice movements, nonprofit work, et cetera. So as I was pondering this, people were emailing me from my church and saying, hey, have you looked at the homicide rates? COVID was really bad for homicide. I don't know if you know this, but homicide rates went up during COVID for a variety of reasons. And in Columbus, they went up, I think, past 200 or close to 200 homicides in a year, which I don't know if it had ever been that high.

And so people were talking about it. People in my church were emailing me about it. And then I get an email across my desk from the city. I was on the city list because of our infant mortality work. And they said, Hey, we're bringing in this evidence-based violence reduction model. And I said, okay. I want to learn more. This is, this could be the next thing. So I meet with them what it is, is it's called group violence intervention. It's been launched in Boston. It's been launched in Detroit, Miami.

It's like a dozen major cities and it's evidence-based out of the national network for safe communities. I'm going to oversimplify the model, but this is the over, this is the lay person's interpretation of the model. Traditional policing says, we know who's most likely to commit a crime. So we'll watch and wait for them to commit a crime and then arrest them. That's traditional policing. This model says, Hey, if we know who's most likely to commit a crime, what if we went and talked to them and like,

offered to help. And that's what this model does. So the police, yeah, I know it's like pretty simple. So the police identify people who are most likely to commit group group and gang violence. And then they say, are you willing to talk to this other organization? So the police have already, they're the ones who identify them whatever and say, hey, here's why you're on our radar. We know you're getting associations, blah, blah, blah. We have an organization that will help you. Do you want to talk to them? And most of the time they say yes.

Alexis (22:44)
Imagine that.

Joe Graves (23:07)
And then the organization says, Hey, if you're willing to stay alive, safe out of prison, not engaged in gang and group violence will help in any way you can. So that's the model. And it's a lot more than that, but that's part of it. Well, a piece of that is we'll help you. know, if you want a job, if you need steel-toed boots to get that factory job, if you need to move neighborhoods because of your associations, we'll help you with down payment, you know, whatever. Well, the city can't pay for any of that. And this is a city run program.

So early part of the model is, is you form a nonprofit. And when I got involved with the, I was learning about it, said, Hey, I mean, we can, we can create a fund and our church was in the middle of a fundraising campaign anyways. So without really even telling the city, added 6,000 to the goal for the violence reduction fund, to meet them. so next thing you know, we raised $6,000, not a lot, but you know, something. And I reached out to the city and say, Hey, we got $6,000. We'll use it.

for the program, if you have a participant who needs something. And that's everything from bus passes to an Uber ride, to an interview, to steel toed boots, to we fixed car windows that have been shot out, because it's their only car. mean, just anything that would be a barrier to taking the next step in life. eventually we put together a board and we just got our nonprofit, so it was under the church's umbrella and now it's its own nonprofit.

And we have a board of directors made up of stakeholders in the violence reduction space. It's in collaboration with the city of Columbus and the office of violence prevention. We've distributed probably 12 to $15,000 in micro grants to participants who are connected with gang and group violence and their family members who will serve any of them in that, their ecosystem, anyone they care about, we care about. And, if it's all done through this evidence-based program and the requests come from the intervention specialist.

And so yeah, now it's his own nonprofit and probably in a year or so it'll stand on its own and we'll be asking the question, What do we do next?

Alexis (25:00)
I just feel compelled to say, hey, there's a lot of people out there that have money, but they don't have time. And they may not be connected to Ohio in any way. But if they hear about ministries like they're like, I've got $15,000 lying around. I've got $15 lying around. And they're just like, that's really know their money is going to something that is safe?

Joe Graves (25:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alexis (25:24)
and is it is going to go to like the right thing and then how could they potentially support some of these types of initiatives from afar?

Joe Graves (25:32)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, with the Columbus violence reduction specifically, it's still under the umbrella of our church. we were approved for our 501C3. So like that's what I talk about church being an incubator. The church already has all the financial processes in place, create a fund. So we have a specific fund on our website, cityviewcolumbus.org/give There's the general fund.

There's different funds you can pick from. One of them is Columbus Violence Reduction. 100 % of that goes to this work. And it goes to supporting participants who are making the decision to leave behind gang and group violence. And what we know, and this is why this is so important. This is why it's evidence-based. This is why multiple major cities are doing this work. We know that more than half of the violence in our city is committed by 0.05 % of the population.

People talk about dangerous neighborhoods or dangerous cities. Statistically in most major cities, majority of the violence is being committed by 0.05%. It's a very small group of people committing the violence. And this is one of the few programs that identifies that group and says, how can we help you move in a different direction? so a hundred percent goes towards that or the various, uh, frameworks. we host,

community event once a year and things like that, but all of it's supporting the program. eventually we'll have our own website and donation processes probably later this fall. But cityviewcolumbus.org is where it's currently housed ⁓ and people can give. Absolutely. We'd welcome it. And we'd love to have a conversation. There's probably similar organizations in their city and I'd happily look them up and try to make some connections.

Alexis (27:07)
Let's talk about your can I see the cover again,

Joe Graves (27:10)
So my brother designed this cover he's a professional graphic designer. he was gracious enough to, Abington decided to work, was willing to work with him. And yeah, it's called the Progressive Planter, handbook for ecclesial entrepreneurs. And yeah, I'm pretty proud of it.

Alexis (27:24)
what inspired you to write this book? I assume in order to take the time to actually write this book, there was something that really moved you, that you feel like you identified a need needs to be communities right now, in church communities.

Joe Graves (27:36)
I feel like evangelicals have a market on church planning, quite frankly, and they plant four or five thousand churches in the United States every year. And majority of them aren't inclusive of LGBTQ, but they won't tell you that up front. Many of them don't let women be preachers, but they won't tell you that up front. majority of the resources, the practical how-to's on how to do a church are written from that perspective.

Alexis (27:38)
Yes.

Joe Graves (28:00)
I just think there needs to be more churches that are wanting to make the world a better place and not just trying to give people a ticket out of hell. You know, like it's just all about the afterlife and forget this world the way it, know, but actually, you know, new churches that are actually concerned with neighborhoods but how do you do that? one of the problems with progressives, and I hope I don't get in trouble with progressives for this, but progressives tend to be intellectual. And so a lot of the progressive church planning books that do exist.

are beautiful theological reflections on what it means to be the church in a progressive way. And they're great, and they're brilliant, and they're beautiful, and they do not tell you how to do it. but people need to know, like we need more churches. So we planted, my wife and I planted a church together, then she left, and there's a whole story there. Now she's planting another church that's different than the one we planted. So we planted a church that's centered around the Sunday morning experience.

traditional church, traditional in the sense that we gather on Sundays. We're doing stuff in the community. We try to do it differently, blah, blah, blah. But it's still, we're centered around the Sunday morning experience. And she's launching a church right now. she's like year two or year and a half in, a network of fresh expressions, micro churches, she has a Sunday morning experience, but it doesn't center around that. It's just one of the places you can go to church. she started that church the same year, about a year and a half, two years ago.

when our first church plant sort of reached a place of sustainability. And I remember the moment where I was like, I'm not a church planter anymore. Which basically means my whole world isn't consumed by the church. Because that's what church planning is sometimes, depending on your model and what you're trying to do. It's all consuming. And we had staff and board and volunteers and leadership, people engaged in leadership, you know. And so kind of the weight of the church was just kind of like,

lifted off my shoulders and I was like, I'm just a regular old pastor. This is kind of interesting. It was interesting, you know, cause like you invest seven years into something and now you're just kind of like, people talk about it going from the church planner to the founder. Like I'm no longer the church planner at city view. I'm the founder of city view.

I'm like feeling the release of not having to think about every, know, about how to stay open another year anymore. And my wife's in the process of planning something different, but applying the principles. And that's really where the book came from was what are the deeper principles underneath what we did in both of these contexts? What does it look like to plan a church when, whether it's on Sunday morning and you've got small groups and children's ministry and a worship leader, like that's what we have or something that's different where it's like you have a recovery service.

on Wednesday, you've got a second chance worship service on Sundays, you've got an artist community on Thursday, you know, I mean, like, it's just different. What are the underlying principles of what it means to gather people and be in a relationship together? So the book was really birthed out of that, of trying to think through the deeper principles of starting faith communities unique. And I'll also add that I just love to write. So I've mostly written fiction and I have quite a few short stories published.

So I just, you know, I can, I can write pretty quickly. And so, yeah, I'm a little busy, but I enjoy writing. And once we reached that place, it just felt, it just felt right. What I didn't expect to happen was for a publisher to want to publish it. Cause that's not a given, you know? but I sent it out to places thinking they were all going to tell me no. And then I'd probably self publish it and make it available to people. I coached, know, like, read this before I start working with you. because it'll tell you what I'm actually thinking.

But then Abington out of the United Methodist Publishing House said, no, we'll run with it. So I was like, oh, okay. So that was pretty exciting.

Alexis (31:35)
I assume there's different people who could read the book or take something from it. One group would be pastors or people who want to be pastors or priests or whatever you want to call them, reverends. they want to plant something what you've kind of advice would you have for get started?

Joe Graves (31:50)
I'll add lay people as well. Anyone who wants to do something different. my hope is that the book doesn't just lay out a particular, you can do church like us, but it really does try to offer some practical advice rooted in evangelical experiences, as well as the best practices of community organizing, which is like out of the social sciences. And really, what does it mean to like build a community from scratch and lay that out?

So anyone who wants to build a community, I would also add anyone who wants to have a different vision for church. Like when you talk about people who have experienced churches where women can't lead and LGBTQ aren't included and where there's toxic leadership and where are forced to work until they're completely burnt out because it's not about them as humans, but the mission of the church. Like all of these, if any complaint you have about the it even possible for a church to be different? This book is the suggestion, yes.

It is, and there's some healthy practices of what it means to be a community and to

I don't know, treat church like you would an art project, like create something new. Your version, allow God to use you, whoever you are, to imagine something new. So I guess the big thing I would hope for people to walk away from is you know, I tend to be neurodiverse, so I don't think inside the box. I'm not even sure where the box is sometimes. And yeah, it is, except for when it stresses people out.

Alexis (33:00)
What a

Joe Graves (33:05)
then it's like, sorry. Because, you know, people are like, that, and so I do hopefully, I'm offering some analysis that I think challenges the church as it is. I heard from an established pastor just this week who's reading an advanced copy and said, I'm not planning on planning a church, but this has been really helpful for what it looks like for our church to engage in new ministry or to envision a new future. Like a whole chapter on analyzing our motivations behind why we do what we do.

Alexis (33:05)
You

Joe Graves (33:34)
that we can operate it. I have a whole chapter on how power dynamics work out within denominations and institutions so that you can be aware of the landmines and the conflict that arises. And so all of these are useful whether you're planning a church or trying to do anything new within a religious setting. You're going to run across these same challenges. How do get people on board? How do you deal with the fact that institutions say they want to plant churches but then don't like the church that you plant? how do you deal with like all of these dynamics?

I do hope that it'll give people permission to be courageous and to try some new things.

Alexis (34:07)
I think what's really helpful is some of the things especially as a reverend you just laid out, are a lot of things that I hear from people I know who don't go to church anymore. And it's specifically because of the things that you mentioned, right? So really clearly, you said LGBTQ plus people are not included. And that doesn't mean tolerated. It means celebrated and affirmed as they right.

Joe Graves (34:29)
And in

Alexis (34:30)
and in leadership.

Joe Graves (34:30)
their voice heard. If they're not serving on the board, then don't even tell me. Same with women,

Alexis (34:38)
same with women. Also, you mentioned the ticket to hell

totally resonate

raised in non-denominational spaces in the end, that was the whole point of church in many ways. And there's so much to church as well. But ultimately, it was about saving souls, And that's the fear behind like,

Joe Graves (34:55)
Yeah, yep, saving souls.

Alexis (34:58)
everybody's going to go to hell if we don't have them pray a sinner's prayer. And what I've loved about my time, call it deconstruction, reconstruction, call it faith audit, call it studying, maybe seminary, what some people get to do, like you can now do in public spaces, is learning about, for example, that the sinner's prayer is a relatively new thing.

Joe Graves (35:18)
yeah.

Alexis (35:18)
you talk a little bit about that? Because sometimes I think that some people are like, well, it sounds great, but am I really okay if I don't believe those things anymore? can I really be Christian if I don't have that lens anymore? So can you just tell us a little bit more about this is not like a new fad that people are jumping on in order to try to get people into church again? how is this rooted in our Christian history?

Joe Graves (35:31)
Hmm.

when church becomes an institution which it became pretty quickly in the early church you know when it becomes an institution institutions are designed to ask the question who's allowed in who's not allowed in so everyone doesn't matter if it's evangelical institution the Catholic institution the United Methodist institution it is impossible for an institution not to ask the question who do we let in it's just the default evolutionary tribalism that makes us human it's just we default to that Jesus I think pushed against that

and said, hold on, that's the wrong question. We have to push against our evolutionary tendency to want to think about who should we let in. And Jesus often asks the question, who's missing? who needs to be see that in the person of Jesus and I see that in expressions of the church throughout history, pushing against the institutional tendency to ask it. So at the heart of the Christian message is this, it's God's grace. And.

In the United Methodist tradition, traditional understanding of grace is sort of the justifying grace. So if you think of it, what John Wesley, founder of Methodism, would describe it as like a house and justifying grace is that threshold where you enter the house. So that's like the sinner's prayer, right? Or there's other ways to enter the house, I would say, but it's that threshold. It's a defining moment. You're like, you know, maybe it's not a defining moment. It's a period of time. Maybe it's just how you were raised. Maybe you were born in the house.

But it's the threshold that you're like, you're in the community. And then sanctifying grace is this grace that works on your life once you're in the house. You're in the family of God, God's working. These are common theologies in most Christian traditions, justifying, sanctifying. In the Wesleyan tradition, we're like, wait a second, there's a third one. It's called prevenient grace, preventing grace. And it's the grace that exists everywhere outside of the house. It's the grace that's in our lives before we ever knew it was God to begin with.

And you talk to anyone who's a follower of God or a spiritual person or a follower of Jesus or however they want to identify, and they will be able to tell you moments before they were aware of how God brought them to that place. And so we believe as Methodists that God's grace is everywhere. As scripture says, there's nowhere you can go to separate you from God's is something special about being welcomed into the family of God and growing in that, like we still hold onto that.

God's grace isn't limited to the house. It's plain, God's grace is all over the place and we can't control it. And so ultimately the question that I wrestle with is like, okay, sinner's prayer, whatever. I don't think it's about what you say. I don't think it's about what you believe. I think it's about, do you trust in God's grace? Do you think it's big enough? And my answer is like, yeah, I can't put a limit on it. How could I put a limit on it? What right do I have?

to put a limit on the grace that is being poured out on everyone at all times and in all places. Who am I to say that there's some places God can't go? There's some people God can't love. how arrogant would I be to say such a thing? So, yeah, I don't think it's about saying the right prayer. I don't think it's about even like putting your name at the bottom of a list. I think scripture would defend this, to be honest with you. I think it's actually biblically based.

that it's not about believing the right thing, it's about trust. In other words, faith isn't a doctrine, it's an attitude. And as soon as you're like, no, I trust God's grace, I trust that God loves me, of course God loves me. I've just been saved. And I mean that in a practical way I feel about myself changes. I feel delivered. The fact that a God of the universe would love me and accept me even with all my mistakes,

that delivers me, that liberates me. There's a liberation there. And I think that's at the heart of it. And that can happen anywhere in a hundred different places, but ultimately it comes down to just accepting that God's grace is there already.

Alexis (39:31)
because there's just a lot of people who are in the LGBTQ plus community who I think can really identify with that in terms of like, you are not hard to love as you are. And I know they have lots of people in their lives who tell them that, but they're often not Christians and they're often not pastors. They're certainly not pastors.

Joe Graves (39:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alexis (39:50)
Fortunately, there are people who have found churches like you who get sanctuary, but can you talk very specifically to what you've learned from people in this community

Joe Graves (40:00)
So much hateful theology comes from those first couple chapters of Genesis and it talks about how God made humans male and female and blah blah, know, night and day. And it was a United Methodist pastor who pointed out to me that, you know, of course God made night and day and land animals and sea animals, but it's not just night or day, you know, there's dusk and there's dawn.

not just land animals or sea animals, there's like amphibians, you know, and those are the most interesting kind of animals. And I just feel like we live in a society where people wanna say like, you have to be one thing or the other, you're not lovable. And I'm just like, that doesn't reflect the biblical narrative. That doesn't reflect the heart of God. That doesn't reflect the beautiful generosity that exists. I'll say a world that tends to hate the things that fears, first I just say, I'm sorry.

Alexis (40:44)
Me too.

Joe Graves (40:45)
The church has done a lot of harm.

But I know from my very limited context and I'm thinking about the people in my community, which we're just a small church of like, you know, like a hundred people, which means we have like 50 people on Sundays. You know what I mean? Like we're not, we're not a mega church. But when I think about my community, LGBTQ and you showed up, we'd love you. and I know there's other churches that would as well and they exist.

And we need more of them. that's why I wrote the book, but

Take care of not feel the take up space where you're not welcome. sometimes that means cutting people off in your family. Sometimes that means not going to church. Sometimes that means avoiding certain friends. you know, if I have any religious authority, I'd say set those boundaries, you know? It's okay. You'll be okay. You gotta take care of yourself. And you gotta do what's gonna be best for you. And to find those people,

who love you, in church planning, we talk about persons of peace. And so you start a church and it's out of Luke chapter 10 and you just meet with people and you find people who are excited about what you're doing. You have to find a lot of these people to start a church. I almost feel like that's how you start a church. I almost feel like that's what you have to do when you're looking for a church. It's like, you'll know it. meet with people and I can tell from a church planning experience, you're gonna meet with people who are like, ooh.

They clearly didn't like that and they don't get it. And it's really tempting to hold on to that rejection, these little micro rejections. Jesus says in Luke 10 to shake it off, like shake off the dust of the town that you left behind. And it's really hard to do that because whenever we're rejected, even in the smallest ways where someone like isn't as excited as we hope they would be about something, like that's a micro rejection. it's easy to carry that, but Jesus is like, no, you're gonna run into those people, move on with your life.

Keep looking for the people people of peace, which means when you talk to them, there's this energy, there's this compassion. And so the same principle I would give to someone who's starting a church is to look for those people is the same advice I'd give to someone looking for a church. It's like, look for those people. You'll know when you find it. Don't force it, but just keep looking. And when you kind of cross somebody that's just gonna create that space for

gonna be healing and it's gonna be beautiful.

Alexis (42:53)
Yeah, something I tell my kids you know, when somebody says something to you that's hurtful, you don't have to believe them. And you don't have to be around them.

Joe Graves (43:04)
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you shouldn't be.

Alexis (43:07)
Yeah.

Joe Graves (43:08)
There's an immense

amount of pressure for people to, and even Christians, a love your enemies and I'm a big fan of love your enemies. Okay, so that's a whole nother conversation. But I think we love our enemies from a place of agency and not from a place of being belittled.

Alexis (43:21)
into it. Let's get into

let's get into loving your enemies. I think that's that's really good.

Joe Graves (43:25)
when Jesus invites us to love our enemies, it's from a place of agency. you are making the decision to do it from a place of safety, privilege, power, you are loving somebody, but you're choosing for it. You've made the decision. Even Jesus dying on the cross, like he had agency. He made that decision. He could have said no.

is what we think about it theologically. For somebody in power, like a pastor or a small group leader, to tell somebody who's marginalized that they have to love their enemy to be a good Christian, now they're being religiously forced to do it and not from a place of agency where they're choosing to. The power of loving our enemies is that personal decision. That's what transforms our heart, because we're at a place to.

and have to get to that place where we want to. But when someone forces us to it, then it's just fake and it causes more harm. And it forces us to relive that trauma. So I had this personal experience. I had a falling out with somebody in church and they did a lot to harm me. this was when was actually required to go get an autistic diagnosis. There were some hurt feelings because of my autism. I'm on an autism spectrum. And there were members of my church that were still...

You know, they were ex-vangelical, but they were still pretty evangelical. And that's the funny thing, you know, we're all in our own little journeys and we deconstruct some things and keep other things. And they basically said, Hey, you can't be my pastor unless you reconcile with this person and are friends with them again. And sort of this gotta love your enemy pressure. And I was just like, I'm not ready to do that. this is really traumatic for me. And they had no respect for that space. And I said, this isn't appropriate.

Alexis (44:41)
That's right. Yep.

Joe Graves (44:59)
You can't just pressure someone, even a pastor, I'm still human. And this person causing an immense amount of harm and I'm not ready to be in a relationship I will forgive them, but forgiveness doesn't always mean reconciliation. It doesn't always mean I have to be in a relationship with someone I forgive.

Alexis (45:12)
of the things I really loved what you said about, you know, not necessarily just being a ticket to hell and focusing on the afterlife and really focusing on the here and now. I've heard that described as bringing the kingdom of heaven.

earth, the kingdom of heaven and hell can be what we create on earth as Is that correct? So here's the trigger, I think, for lot of evangelicals or ex-vangelicals or people raised in this type of lens and I've heard this from people they'll say, well, then what's the point? What's the point? If it's not about getting saved and praying to Jesus so we don't go to hell, right?

Joe Graves (45:24)
absolutely.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Alexis (45:47)
If that's not the point of ultimately Christianity, why do it at all? And I'd love to ask that to What's the point?

Joe Graves (45:55)
Here's the ultimate question. Okay, so let's say the point is to get to heaven. All right, well, what do you mean? What's the real point then? What's so great about that? why is the point to get to heaven? It can't be just to get to heaven. I think the assumption is that heaven is gonna be a place of justice and peace and you'll be happy and that people won't get killed and that people won't be drug addicts and.

There won't be oppression. Like heaven is a picture of paradise, right? So the point isn't even heaven in that evangelical lens, it's paradise. And progressives are like, why not now? I mean, yeah, in the future too, like I still believe in the afterlife. Like I'm not believing it. Some progressives might not, to each their own. But why not heaven to earth right now? Why would you wait? And I think that the person in work of Jesus is that example.

We live in an under-resourced neighborhood and my wife works with people who are homeless, sex workers. am here to tell you that this is America in 2025 in a major city.

And people are living in hell. And I mean that in the most sincere way. The trauma of homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution, solicitation, all of the things that go along with it. there is hell not far from where you live, whoever's listening, I promise you.

And so, yeah, I believe in a heaven in the afterlife, and I happen to believe that it's big enough for everyone. I can't look at a world where there is actual hell on earth and not say, well, what can we do to bring a little bit of heaven to earth

God, so I don't know how all this is gonna work out. I'm just saying it's been 2,000 years, okay? So as far as we know, could be another 2,000 years before Jesus comes back or whatever you believe about that. So it does not logically make sense to wait around and we need to be doing the best. And even evangelicals, like sincere evangelicals would say justice and mercy are important. Sadly, the state of the country, that's probably less true than it's been in the past, but in the past, evangelicals have been

significantly invested in making the world a better place, leading poverty and justice movements. Of course, with the state of the world right now with white Christian nationalism, where they would have a different I fear that's not as true. I'd say, look.

If the point is to get people saved, let's do it. And let's actually save them. And by save, I mean not just spiritually, like the whole person. Why not? Invite them into your home. Care for them. Be the good Samaritan.

Alexis (48:19)
So you talked about how even in evangelical spaces, and it's true, like we were raised with like justice and mercy and like

caring for others that were not like us and empathy was like a big deal. And now online, there's a lot of men bros who are not only out of a Christian place, not advocating those values of Jesus, but trying to convince other people, especially other young men, that a sin. There's saying going around called the sin of empathy.

What does the Bible actually say about these types of themes if we identify as Christians how we are to show up in the world

Joe Graves (48:59)
foundational elements of Christianity. One is grace, that God loves us exactly who we are and accepts us and it's unmerited and it's not based on what we've done. All right, so I don't know how that's possible without empathy. Hebrews talks about that. And then the second one is the incarnation, which is by definition cosmic empathy. It's God literally

coming down into the pit. like Brene Brown talks about empathy is like going into the pit. and we don't need to stay in the pit. We want people to get out of the pit, whatever they're suffering, we want to help them out. But we do that by going down and the incarnation Jesus coming to earth, which is kind of what makes Christianity Christianity, makes Christianity different than Judaism even is this cosmic empathy where God is meeting us. Empathy is essential to the Christian faith.

Anyone who would say otherwise you have to understand that, and this gets into politics, but if you can convince people empathy is bad, then you can do whatever you want to harm people. And so it's political mechanism. It's not theologically rooted in any way, in my opinion. It's not what it means to be a Christian, but if you can convince Christians of a certain experience that empathy is evil, then when they find out about what's happening to immigrants or what's happening to LGBTQ,

you've already given them permission not to care. And so now you can get away with whatever you want. It's really horrible is what it is. And it absolutely needs to be combated. But I completely agree with you. I was raised to be a Christian and I was raised to love people who are marginalized. Like my parents raised me as conservative Christians. They raised me to care for people who are hurting. And I grew up to do that. And now they're like, wait.

But not like that. I'm like, you raised me this way. Like I am living out the values you taught me. And I'm grateful for my parents because we disagree theologically and politically,

and they still want to be in a relationship. So kudos to them for not being toxic about our differing beliefs. Because I know a lot of people in my community, and I'm sure your listeners who have conservative parents, well, I have people who just cut off their parents entirely.

because it's what they need to do. But I'm grateful that my parents, we have a great relationship and we disagree. they even congratulated me on my book, which, you know, has a rainbow flag on it. So I know how they feel about it, but they're like, so exciting, son. And I'm like, yeah, they're really great even though we disagree. but yeah, I was raised to be compassionate.

there's books and there's articles around toxic empathy, and I think generally speaking, I'm not a fan.

Alexis (51:25)
that is where a lot of the disillusion and the disorientation, I think, comes from, people who grew up in church and then literally left or are not in church space currently right now is because of this thing, is because it was like, wait a minute. We were raised with unconditional love, agape radical your enemies. It's not like we don't know this stuff.

Joe Graves (51:42)
Yeah!

Alexis (51:47)
that's why I think a lot of us were just in shock of the leaders that people are uplifting that are not espousing, you know, these types of treatments towards others. so what can we do? I feel there are so many in the progressive side of things that I don't like to talk about binaries because the world is so much bigger than that. But I do think that

on the progressive side of things, we have a lot of agency to get up and to say, we are Christians, and this is not what we believe about how to treat other people. what's a call that you have for, progressive pastors, priests, leaders, Christian leaders, and just regular people, whether they identify as Christian or not, but they were raised with those values, and they care, and they see what's happening in the world right now. And they're saying, this is wrong. Jesus would

be weeping. Jesus is crying right now. And we are the people that are supposed to be caring for the least of these.

Joe Graves (52:41)
I think, and this is more of a challenge than even a call, but conservative, and once again, binaries are only helpful in the way that they're helpful, but to be conservative is to agree to the same There's a doctrine there's a creed that you agree to, there's a particular practice you agree to, part of it, it's a tradition, you're protecting what already is.

Progressives by definition deviate from that and one of the things that I've learned as I've become more progressive in my faith is that people are progressive and they deconstruct in Wildly different ways, so one fun example is in the same week in my church someone asked They wanted a church that was LGBTQ inclusive But they still love laying on hands and praying for people and asked me if that's something we could do at our church I'm like, I mean, I don't know. Tell me more what you think

Same day, someone was like, I just overheard a conversation or someone made the comment. And that's why I stopped believing in prayer. So here you have these two people have deconstructed in different ways. One person still loves praying for people and prayer is powerful. And another person is like, I don't even believe in prayer. That's the diversity of progressive and deconstructed spaces is we don't agree. but we as humans are deeply tribal. And so I've never met more gatekeepers.

In the church than in progressive spaces progressives are very careful about who they let in and who they let out And for good reason because they're trying to protect the vulnerable. So they're very careful about who they associate with even more so than even some of my evangelical friends And so my call is this is institutions Ask the question who do we let in Community organizing ask the question. What do we have in common that we can work towards together? and the call for me is

We need affirming justice oriented Christians to accept the fact that we don't all agree. Some of us believe in the resurrection, some don't, some believe in prayer, some don't, whatever. I mean, there's just great diversity of progressives. some believe the Eucharist is this or that. I mean, there's just an immense amount of diversity, but willing to say, okay, yeah, we don't agree on everything, but what do we agree on that we're willing to work together? And until we're able to do that, because conservatives don't have that problem.

They just like, well, we all agree, you know, like that's what it means to be conservative. we signed on the dotted line. We already agree this, this, and this, and we've got our talking Progressives have to be willing to say, okay, we have to find what we have in common and we have to find a way to work together. that is my hope is that we can do more of that. And then of course people are doing that every day in every city around the world. trying to ask the question, what do we have in common? How can we work together? And I would love to see, more.

Alexis (54:48)
Right, you're in or you're out. you're out.

Joe Graves (55:06)
Ex-vangelicals join that conversation, as well as any other progressives that are sitting on the sidelines, like get involved, find an organization that's doing work in your local community. you might not agree with everything, but find something you do agree on and figure out a way to work together.

Alexis (55:20)
I've heard when you're struggling with your mental health, start with service. Start by serving someone else. you're struggling, like put your energy, whatever is left to serving others and doing that in a church community that aligns with your values is a great place to

Joe Graves (55:24)
You

Alexis (55:40)
what kind of...

books podcasts people online scholars have shaped you that maybe could help people in our community.

Joe Graves (55:47)
are so many great progressive spaces. I know you interviewed Reverend Lizzie and I'm a big fan of her and her book. We did a book study on her book. God did not make us to hate us. I'd recommend that. course, you do any sort of search for, yeah, there you go. See, that's great. It's great. Any sort of the progressive ex-evangelical movement, there's lots of resources out there just by searching.

For me, I happen to just really love, I know this is gonna sound strange, but I just really love good commentaries. And that's really what's helped me shape my faith is I go back and I study these scholars that are really smart, who've studied this passage, this book for years. And it allows me to leave behind some of those assumptions that were brought to my faith by really studying the original text. And that's probably the biggest thing I learned in seminary was let the scripture speak for itself.

And I became progressive by letting scripture speak for itself and refusing to bring my assumptions to the text. And so really studying that and understanding it. And of course there's Bible for normal people and other Bible texts that have been really meaningful to people in our know, it's community. It's talking to people in my church.

Alexis (56:37)
Yeah, same.

Yes, with Pete Enns

Joe Graves (56:51)
that's where I'm fed mostly is just listening to stories and approaching life with a deep curiosity. The biggest reason I've found that evangelicals become inclusive is because they became friends with someone who's LGBTQ. This is a perfect example of how your theology is actually shaped by your community. So go get out and meet people and listen to their stories. Trust that people are the experts of their own experience and let them speak for themselves. that's where we learn, a lot of stuff.

Alexis (57:14)
you mentioned a commentary. Is there a favorite commentary that you one?

Joe Graves (57:17)
I really love

new interpreters Bible commentary. It's out of Abboten. It's on Ministry Matters as well. And you can get it, but I mean, it's the full volumes, like a bookshelf worth and it's like four to $600 depending on if it's on sale. So it's massive, but it's really dense. would say that it gets credit for most of my a fan of that level. My seminary professor,

who wrote the book on Deuteronomy in that series, Professor Dosman, I think is the one who said it, you can measure a commentary's worth based on how many years it took to write. So like a really cheap commentary is going to be like a year or two. And like a pretty good moderate commentary is going to be 10 years of research. And then like the really dense ones are going to be like not to the 20 year level of research because that's not usually practical.

But I do try to avoid the one or two year really basic commentaries and really dig into the deep stuff.

Alexis (58:05)
So as we close today, there are people in our community who are listening or watching that have not had anyone pray over them in a long time. And I was wondering if you could just end with prayer

Joe Graves (58:17)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let's pray.

God, we give you thanks that your presence is here, that before we ever showed up, you were already amongst us. And that your grace is never ending.

God, we just ask that your spirit would work in our hearts and our minds and that to each person listening that you would remind them that they're deeply loved, that they're not hard to love, and that they are known.

Strengthen us, encourage us, you know, those places where we need it even convict us. I solve this in Jesus' name, amen.

Alexis (58:55)
Amen. Reverend Joe Graves, Joe, thank you so if people want to come to your church, how can they find your work?

Joe Graves (58:58)
Joe, course, yeah.

Cityview columbus.org is our church's website always post our sermons on podcasts. if you liked anything you heard, you're welcome to catch all of our series on podcasts. A lot of people listen to that. and then my website is joegraves.org my book and coaching and consulting and a few other projects on there that you can check out. have some church assessments and stuff. So if you're a pastor, there's some useful tools on there that you can check out.

Alexis (59:22)
Joe. Thanks so much.

Alexis Rice (59:24)
Thank you for being with us today on the Sacred Slope. If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest or reverend, send me an email at Alexis@thesacredslope.com. Music was by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin and Sean Spence. I'm Alexis Rice, may the fruit of the spirit guide you this week.

Go in peace, friends.