Today, I will be interviewing Josh Tandy: an old friend/colleague, a blogger, and a pastor.
Chris: You and I met while serving as resident assistants in Smith Hall at Anderson University. Can you give us one good R.A. memory?
Josh: Being an R.A. was a very formative experience. My second year was your first year as an R.A. and the staff happened to balance itself equally from new guys to second year "veterans" so we decided to partner up for something I am sure us veteran guys thought would be really profound. We even called them ManDates, I'm sure you see the pun and how a 21-year old thought this was genius.
As I remember it we met for lunch several times and talked about leadership and life in the dorm, but it wasn't nearly as profound as I had anticipated. What did happen was that I learned the value of intentional relationships and the fact that to mentor someone is an experience in humility.
Chris: I believe you work at a place called Genesis Church in Noblesville, Indiana? What makes your church distinctive?
Josh: Genesis is a church plant that is almost 10 years old and trying to figure out how to remain true to our identity as we grow. The first thing people notice is that we meet in a warehouse. It used to be part of a Firestone factory and while it is a church now at first glance from the outside you might still think it is a place where tires are made. The loading dock is now our cafe and as you enter you walk up a ramp that was once used for fork trucks, in fact you can see the scars in the block wall from drivers who took a turn too wide. We try to be a simple church that is only about a few core ideas in terms of what it means to be part of a church and one that isn't about filling a calendar with activities. We don't have membership instead we ask people to prove it by joining in and contributing.
Even though we added a third service we are running out of room but as opposed to relocating and building a bigger building we are starting a second campus in a nearby community. We love our warehouse, but we don't own it and we won't own the building that our second campus meets in. The upside of being flexible and not tied to a huge mortgage is more fitting to our culture. Multi-site is a change in thinking and practice of which there are specifics left to be fully understood in our context, but it allows us to remain close to our culture that seems to connect with our community.
Chris: What do you think is one huge obstacle for the Church right now? What's one thing that's going well?
Josh: The obstacle for our church is leadership development. We don't have enough leaders and a lack of leaders is going to be the glass ceiling for the impact we can have. These are ministry leaders who serve on a Sunday morning, small group leaders that meet in a home at various times, musicians, technicians, and hopefully apprentices that work with all these leaders. People are excited about what is happening and are getting involved.
Consumerism is, in my opinion, the greatest threat to the church in the West and this plays out when people contract out their spiritual growth to other "professionals". We don't have this completely figured out but the only reason that we are able to open another site is first we are being forced to because people are reaching out to friends and family but also because we have great leaders who are willing to commit to something that is inconvenient for the sake of the Gospel.
Chris: You write for a blog called Rookie Pastor. What kinds of topics do you explore there?
Josh: I have a real passion for coming along side young pastors and those new to ministry and leadership in the church. In my own personal story I dealt with a lot of conflict and loneliness in my first few years of ministry and it was really, really hard. As I forced myself to reach out to others for some support I got knowing looks and nodding heads because the basics of my story were so common. However I didn't find anything that really spoke to this.
So the short story is that I created RookiePastor.com but the longer and more accurate story is that I had been blogging for awhile and as I began to refine my focus to this area of young pastors the original owner and blogger of RookiePastor.com decided he was done with the site and he graciously let me take it on.
In addition to the site I hold periodic meet ups with other rookie pastors in the area for lunch. At these lunch events I try to always provide them with a pertinent resource (usually a book or periodical) and bring a more experienced pastor to share with the group. Beyond just a networking event these are 90-minute micro-conferences.
Chris: Will we ever see a book from you? If so, what would it be about?
Josh: I hope so. The plan for 2012 is to have an e-book for rookie pastors, a survival guide of sorts. Be watching for it at RookiePastor.com.
Chris: Thanks Josh, looking forward to it!
Josh: Thanks for having me on.
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