This is Ben and this is Keith, and this is Main Street Lutherans.

So today we're going to talk with Kelly Shepherd Balzar, who has this ministry or has had this thing called Fervor Music and a thing that goes through that band, that music experience called Jesus and Justice Talks. And I think it's on hiatus right now. Kelly's with us right now. We're doing this a little bit different than we often do. So Kelly. Kelly's gonna be here for our A segment if she wants to pitch in. But welcome, Kelly. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Keith. I appreciate you guys tuning in to me and the things that we're doing here at Fervor Music. Really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Happy to have you.

So, to get into this topic, I thought we'd talk about outreach. Now, the way that I part of the reason this is on my mind, and I have warned my churches that I supply preach at that, that sermons are always about what's on the preacher's mind, regardless of what they're actually telling you is going on. It's always something they're thinking about. And so in this case today, I am preparing to start ministering at a church that has some outreach focus. And I'm looking at ways to build on that, to move them forward as we go through an interim process there. And so I'm thinking about outreach to neighborhoods and folks. And so it's a bit on my mind, I'm going to be honest about that. But I wanted to talk about outreach. So, Keith, what kind of outreach do you guys do in York at St.

Matt's it's always such a loaded question for Lutherans, right? We were talking about that a little while ago, about what we do and don't do. You know, for us, a lot of our outreach is simply trying to be present. I mean, if you're talking about, oh, like giving into the community. All right. St. Matthew runs a food pantry. We have a financial assistance program that people can get help with a utility bill or a prescription. We give out bus passes and gas vouchers for folks so they can get to work or get to job interviews. We operate a youth center that is active most evenings of the week, year round. That gets a lot of traction. And so there's a lot of places where, you know, it's happening at our campus, but because of where we're located in the city, we get a lot of traffic through the building. In that way, when you're talking about outreach to, you know, invite people to consider coming to church or to a program or to an event like that. Not a whole lot. Yeah, we do a lot of. We promote a lot of stuff on social media, and we're starting to. The congregation is starting to realize that if they want people to come to things, they have to invite them personally and of their own accord and not just tell them about them, but say, I'll come with you. So, yeah, that's a growing edge for us. But we also. Because St Matthew was a reconciling in Christ congregation, we are trying to lean into that a little more heavily. We did a. Because we hosted the synod assembly at St. Matthew, they had this tent on our property for a weekend, and they weren't using it on Sunday, so we used it for a church service out on our front lawn. And that was the first Sunday in June. And so we also made that our Pride Sunday. And so that was really fun. And we did indeed get a couple of folks that had heard about us online, and so it came out. Try that. And just. I mean, that's only three Sundays ago as we're recording this. And one couple came to me just this past Sunday after worship and said they want to join. So that's really cool. We also did attend two Pride events in York, one at the fairgrounds and one at the local baseball stadium, which was interesting because of some tangentially related political fallout. I'll just say that much right here.

I saw something about that go, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're probably. That's. That's probably our strongest growing edge right now is the RAC outreach because of the number of people that are committed to that. But we also keep reminding folks, and again, it's especially relevant because of where we're located, that reconciling in Christ is not only an embrace of LGBTQIA persons and families and allies, but also racial justice. And so we're trying to, you know, just be mindful that, you know, lifting up one marginalized community is. Lifting up. Is to lift up all marginalized communities and try to be aware of that. Yeah.

As you were saying that, I was thinking about what a church near us, Holy Cross in Livonia, Michigan. They just did their first thing. It's called a Do Good Dinner. They're doing them once a month. They have a food truck that comes in, or a couple, actually. I think they had a couple, the first one. And I think that's the plan is to have multiples, but so they bring these food trucks in. This time they had Samaritas, which is our Lutheran social services organization in Michigan, and they sponsored a dessert, and then they gave a talk about what Samaritas does. And so this was a weeknight, and they invited the congregation in. So they've got food provided. Nobody's having to cook it. People are spending money with the food trucks. And because the church has to guarantee a minimum sale with the food trucks, what they're doing is they're making coupons that church members can pass out to their neighbors.

Oh, nice.

And so the neighbors get mostly a free meal with these coupons. And so they can be invited to be part of this. And whether they stay to listen to the talk about the good that the ELCA essentially is doing through Samaritas and other social organizations that are attached to our church, they're at least coming and seeing what the church is proud of. Right. And so it's sort of a least resistance way of getting neighbors to come and getting congregation members to invite people to come and see the building and be part of this. And so.

Right.

Because handing somebody a coupon saying, here, come in and have a free meal, or a mostly free meal is much more, you know, comfortable. Ask.

Exactly.

For the person doing the ask.

And this is a church that's sort of embedded in that. It's physically in the neighborhood. Right.

So it's good to hear that churches are being creative, innovative about how to engage people. Right. That's something that they've not really done a lot with. So it's good to hear that they're using their prophetic imagination to touch folks. That's. That's what we need in this generation, for sure.

Yeah. So had you heard of that, Kelly? Holy Cross.

I did hear about them doing it. Holy Cross. Because at one point we were. There was some discussion about fervor, singing, but, you know, everything comes with a cost.

That's right. That's right.

So we had to figure out how to temper that. But whenever pastors call me to do anything, we go, so. Yeah.

Well, and I'm curious to see how this will work. I think it's going to be a pretty neat thing to do, and I wouldn't mind stealing it at Good Hope in Garden City, just south of there at some point. But we'll let them break the ice on all this and see where it goes.

Right.

If only you knew a guy that had a pizza truck.

Ooh. Food trucks are popular here now, especially Michigan. Like, people love food trucks.

That used to be my business 10 years ago, so. Yeah. All right. So let's see. Well, I think that covers our outreach stuff. I think there's lots of possibility there, and that connects to fervor music there. So, Kelly, tell us about yourself. Tell us about fervor music.

Yeah. So Kelly is, you know, a former Pentecostal evangelical, converted to the ELCA in 2015. And while I'm here, I have done a lot of soul searching about how to use my gifts. You know, you're a African American girl born in the city of Detroit, Motown Hitsville. You're going to sing. So I've been singing for a very, very long time. And after I came into the elca, sat a few years, learned more about the theology and community. I was like, oh, I'm ready to give back. So we got to singing. Pastor Pastor Rob Zahn said, hey, I want to see. This is like 2020 when Covid hit. And he said, hey, I want to see what an African American LGBTQ diva paired with a Filipino charismatic Catholic does. Because Hope had just hired this Filipino crew. Catholic, but charismatic. And so I'm characteristic charismatic, too. So Christian and I, who is my founding partner, foundational partner, he and I, we sang for the first time, and we were like, oh, my gosh. I didn't know this was even possible. And again, you know, that prophetic imagination, just being creative and seeing where. Where gifts and skills can align in the spirit. And it was just a wonderful connection. And we've been singing ever since. And then we said, that was 2020. And then in 2022, we said, hey, how about starting a band, a worship band? And I was like, sounds like a great idea. So we started a worship band, and then we expanded from a worship band, and now we have a jazz band and then a top 40 band. So we have, like, three houses that runs in fervor.

Oh, wow.

And we were like, well, how can we use the worship band more? And then I was praying about it. We started doing some songs that are out there on Amazon and Spotify. But then I was like, I really wanted to do a matchup between the justice theology that I had come to love very dearly in the ELCA and pair that with charismatic experience, higher charismatic experience. And it was absolutely wonderful. We ran it in 2020, 25. From February to December, we tackled everything and why diversity, equity, inclusion still matters, why women's lives are still important. We. In April, we did Jesus Can Do Better than Christian Nationalism. We talked about how to overcome political anxiety in May because it was Mental Health Month. So we had all these sessions around dei and we. We paired our justice theology with that dei, with our music, and every night was just. We met once a month, only on the fourth Sunday at 4:00'. Clock. And it was absolutely wonderful. But with all of that, we were trying to use our prophetic imagination. Right. We were trying to speak to women and trying to speak to black folks and trying to speak to. To folks that are dealing with mental health issues. Like, we were trying to really speak to a lot of different communities, different marginalized communities in this endeavor. And it was just. I mean, it was just a wonderful experience. And I'll shut up with that.

So was this considered a synodically authorized worshiping community? Is that how this developed?

Or actually, this developed out of a different spin? I mean, it was supposed to be a. We had gotten a congregational grant, and that's what it was called. It was synodically authorized in that the Senate sponsored it because it was funded through the Senate, but only in that context. And we had to have a church that would be our fiduciary and make sure finances were on the up and up, and each project was managed. And we were grateful for Pastor Matt and Zion Lutheran Church that did that work for us. And I was also very, very grateful for the members at Hope Lutheran Church that I had been with a very, very long time, because they were already. I mean, they had already had modern worship services and they knew how to do modern music. And that skill set. Those. Those volunteers came out and helped with that. With that as well. So it took both, really, to pull off that project last year. Yeah.

So what did it take to get a comedy club to let you do this?

A lot of prayer and a good leasing payment. But the comedy club in Ferndale, really, really great people to work with. Even they didn't know how this was going to work out. And on the first night, they were amazed at what we could pull. And they were like, you guys got to do this again next month. I was like, hey, we're here forever if you'll let us be. But it was. It was a really fun time. And they were like, did you guys just sing, you know, the Pink song? Yes, we just sang that. We even did Chapel Rowan's song in Pride month. I can't think of it right now. I sing it all the time. But anyway, it was. It was lifting up gay community in. I gotta think of that title. I gotta look it up on Google while we're talking. But we. We got. We even pulled that. And they were like, how did you do that? I'm like, this is Jesus and justice, right? We Are we're trying to touch people. We're trying to hit every community we possibly can. It's one thing to have a theological premise, but it's another thing to have it applied. And this is the point of Jesus and justice, that people could see the heart of Jesus applied in each marginalized community.

Kel, you told us first, I think that song is Pink Pony Club.

Yes, thank you.

You told us before we started recording a little about what these sessions looked like. Can you describe that, though? Now that we've. Now we hit the record button.

Yeah, they were. They were power, but one hour of power. That's what black churches would say, one hour power. But they would take two to three anyway. But we condensed it down to one hour. So people would come at four and they would come in and have a beer and some drinks or whatever and just kind of loosen up. We would start at like 4:45. We did some instrumentals, we let the band do some instrumentals. Then at 5 o', clock, we would start with one praise song to just open things up. So we could do Brandon Lake, Kirk Franklin, like, stuff you just wouldn't hear in a. In a traditional Lutheran church, of course. And then after that, I would give. Pastor would come up, have prayer. We would give. I would give it 10 minutes on a theological foundation of. Of what we were talking about. So, you know, the imago dei, you know, we're all the image of God, whether you're African American, whether you're women, whatever, you know, just something that gives that theological foundation. And then we would bring in an expert to come and talk about a particular topic. They would talk about, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. We would then do a sermonic solo of a song to capture everything that we've learned so far and how we want God to use us moving forward. We would ask folks if they wanted to make a contribution and then we would close in a more of a secular song. Sometimes we'd have a secular song and, you know, the most important part is to pair the music appropriately in the context. But we did all of this within an hour. And then we would tear all of our equipment down and take it back to our rehearsal studio. Like, it would take at least an hour to set it all up and an hour to tear it all down because the comedy club had another event coming in. So it was. It was a thing. It was fun.

So I'm curious for you, as person behind the scenes on this, like, how much time did you spend kind of planning, writing, rehearsing, any one of these Hour of Power sessions.

Yeah, these. So we would practice. I mean, musically, we would practice every week. So that's just traditional music. Right. And then we had to see what fit. Right. If we're, you know, political anxiety is different than National Hispanic Heritage Month. National Hispanic Heritage Month. We did a lot of Latino music from Izyra Holton, who had just come out with a Christian Latino, you know, album. And so we did as much of that as we could. But so we would rehearse music all the time. But it took at least three, three weeks at least to fight. The biggest thing was the speakers, really, because you had to find an expert who was not just, you know, I wanted to have good experts. Like, I wanted people to think about it like a TED Talk. You know, you go to TED Conferences, you're not just hearing a small thing. Like they're going to give you information. They're going to give you something to really think about that's going to lead you to change your way of living or perceiving a particular topic.

I think one of the things our churches do is we lean heavy into authors. Like we went somebody who's on a book tour to show up at a church and I don't think you were doing that.

No.

Right. You got, you got an executive from Ford, right?

Yeah, we got Dr. Donna Bell, who was an executive vice president at Ford. She was senior vice president of Ford for 20 years and then she moved to Lordstown Motors, who was an executive vice president. Then we got Cheryl. Cheryl Margaret Baxter and Charles. Cheryl Henderson, who came from Kadia. So Kadia was the center for automotive diversity and inclusion, and they sat at the top tier level talking to CEOs and about diversity, equity, inclusion in their organization. So Cheryl had the insight about what was happening when President Trump came in and said, hey, we're rolling back dei. And Cheryl came and had conversations with them about how to change things and evolve with what's happening, but still be sensitive to marginalized communities. Right. Cheryl had to take that on.

When you've got the added challenge, too, I think for experts is to say, hey, we don't want you to come and give an hour long presentation. We want like a ted talk. What, 10, 15 minutes?

Yes.

That's going to move people.

Yeah, I mean, we, that was a. It was so amazing because during Women's Month, women's lives still matter. We had a professor from Wayne State University who was expert in DEI and in women's studies. And she, her PowerPoint was so full and I was like, oh, my gosh. I hope you, you know, this were learning, learning, definitely learning moments. I was like, I hope this professor doesn't overrun Dr. Bell. Right. And because they were mastering together. Yeah, yeah. They were partnering up in the same night. And so Dr. Bell had to cut her talk a little short because they knew that the goal was one hour. One hour power. We couldn't go any longer than that. So she cut her stuff short. But still very impactful. Like, Dr. Bell can. I mean, you know, Dr. Bell was very powerful. She'd been all over the world. She had a lot that she could say. And people, people were like, well, can we get her back? Because, like, we really needed to get that down. You know, especially professionals, young professionals loved her because she gave. Like, how do you overcome in the executive room? You know, like, how do you deal with your fears and your struggles? Going into the executive room? She was really good.

So tell me about the. The folks that were sitting in your audience slash congregation in those moments. We talked about, you know, how many people, like what, like what slice of. Of demographics are we talking here?

Yeah. So when we started now. So I'm just going to lean on some of my research from my olden days. So in my olden days as a Pentecostal evangelical, they tell you when you're going to do a start a church launch, you need at least 50 people. So I was targeting 50 people. I could only pull. I'd say we did 50 people during certain months. Like we did 60 easily with in April when we did Jesus Can Do Better than Christian Nationalism. We did that, but we did that with Christian people. Not enough don't know Jesus yet people. Right. And I really wanted to design a program about how to get to people who, you know, like you Christian. My. My Lutheran brother and sister. I need you to invite your friends. You know, I need you to invite your family. I need you to invite your sister or brother who might be struggling with traditional church. And they're looking for a modern approach. Right. Like, let's. Let me help you warm up to that idea. Right. So, you know, we started, I think the first night we had, you know, 35. We got up to 60 by. By May Juneish. But then, like, you know, you know how my Michigander Lutherans, they go north in the summer.

That's right.

So we had. So our numbers kind of reduced in the summer, but then they picked back up in the fall. So it was, it was. So it was. And it was mostly Lutheran folks. And this is why I said I needed. If you're ever planning an outreach, you need a core team of people who are going to work with you, Right. And I had a lot of skilled people from Hope Lutheran Church because they were modern worshipers. So they knew the, the, you know, they knew how to put up screens and how to do PowerPoint presentations and they knew all that stuff, how to set up music and audio and all that. They knew that stuff, you know, so my volunteer base was very important, but people come through the door. Is, is really. It blew my mind. Sometimes it's, you know, especially April was, it was the highest moment. People were ready for that. Yeah.

All right.

Yeah. So this, this had a one year run, essentially, right?

Yeah, this, this had a one year run. We are trying to figure out, prayerfully trying to figure out how to move into, into like Jesus and Justice 2.0. Yeah. So Jesus and Justice 2.0 needs to be like, it needs, it kind of needs its own space. It needs, it needs the ability to, you know, like I said, we had to set everything up, preach, minister, sing, and then tear everything down. Right. So it needs its own space, its own place where people can just come. There are other things we needed. And our budget kind of increased, as it should, but we also needed to be able to put a plan in for a communication plan or a sharing plan for people in community. Like, you know, it's one thing of telling your Lutheran community, but it's another thing when you say, okay, I need to go out into the height like the Bible said, go out into the highways and byways they are there and ask folks to come in. So we started some, we did start some postcards and did some letters and things like that to share. I think one of the things that I pulled from this experience is it's really important to value making disciples and cultivating a generation of Lutherans that are excited about making disciples. That's not always easy.

And being disciples too, right?

Well, we all have a struggle. Even I do, right?

That's right.

But, you know, when I came in, everybody would say, I'm first, I'm a fifth generation Lutheran, I'm a fourth generation Lutheran, I'm a third generation Lutheran. And I would always say, I'm a next generation Lutheran. Right. I was looking to find a way to get our theology into the streets. But it can't just be one person who's the visionary, Right. You need people to have the heart to do that work and to do it integrally. And that's really what's needed for sure.

Kelly, I've got two more questions that have come to mind as you're speaking that I'm just curious for you to answer out of your experience. And you can answer these whatever order you want. But I'll give you both questions now. First, a simple question up front. Did you do this because you were operating on a grant? Did you. You knew that you were doing this for one year and that maybe at that point you'd be done. There was hope that it might continue, but you were planning for a year, is that right?

Yeah. So we had. We had planned. I knew the sit in wouldn't be able to cover everything, so I put my own financial resources into the project. So we did everything that we were supposed to do, but the plan was to design a program that would attract at least the first 50. Okay. And if. When December came and we had our big concert to close out the year, I knew that I did not have new disciples in the house. And so I wanted to spend more resources on how do we engage new community, not just my community, because that is the point of evangelism. And so evangelism is targeting. How do we reconcile man back to God, Right? How do we help them see the value in Jesus? Why does Jesus even matter right now? Like what? You know, he has to matter. You know, we've got to be able to lift him off the page and put him in a T shirt and a pair of jeans and give him a mic and say, go, right? And so people need that, you know, and we did not have enough in our. In our first budget, even with what we put in our first budget, you know, 40, 50 grand. We did not have enough in our first budget to really put a communication plan together for people who were new saints. I'd also say where we were in the city of Ferndale is very LGBTQ heavy. And that community in and of itself is. Got a lot of church trauma. Yeah, it's a lot of church trauma.

Yeah. How much does that get in the way?

Oh, it gets in the way a lot. I remember Zion was a part of the Pride, Pride parade in Ferndale. And we had hearts, rainbow hearts that just said that were tattoos that said, God loves you. Some people will just look at those hearts and say, I would never put that on me. And. And all you have to say is, we still love you. You know, God bless you. We understand, you know, and sometimes you just have to say, I'm sorry. You know, sometimes when you see that trauma pop out, you. You have to just be humble.

So my other. My other Question. Then what you mentioned about budget got me to thinking, would this. You know, what if you did have, let's say, a local church, maybe it's your own home base, maybe it's not. That would let you use their space. Maybe they've even got a room that you don't have to tear things down. Or at least you can kind of minimize your setup in the corner rather than having to load it onto a truck and take it away. But how would that setting in a church building, would that be more of a help or a hindrance to what you were trying to accomplish?

That is a good question. That is a good question. I would say it depends on the person. It honestly depends on the person for the budget. It reduces the budget for the evangelistic approach that we were trying to take. The question is, would the church allow for all of the ways and means of things that we did, you know, like selling beer and bringing in a food truck and putting up screens? You know, I didn't really realize that for some traditional worshipers, they don't want screens. Multimedia screens.

Right.

I didn't even know that was a thing, but it's a thing. And so. So if the church did not allow us to. To build that space so that it's modernized, then it would still be a problem.

I think Keith has a space for you. How do you feel about York, Pennsylvania,

given that she's never heard of it, never been here. She feels fine. Don't ask her after. Your opinion might change.

It's a bit of a drive.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now, you said that the comedy club was surprised by what you were able to do. How much did they get behind it? Did they advertise for you? Did they include a flyer in any of their, like. I mean, normally they have, like, scrolling ads and stuff. Did they pitch in that way at all for you?

They said they would, so we always sent them flyers. Yeah, they said they would. They didn't have a problem with it. If a problem developed, then we were okay with them taking it down. We never argued about things like that. You know, we're all. We were. We were really grateful that they would take this journey with us. And in Ferndale, like I said, there's a lot of LGBTQ folks with a lot of church trauma, and I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, we couldn't renew our leaves is because there was a lot of church trauma. And you have to be sensitive. You have to know they had to be sensitive. Right. And then they were like, well, we need to drop our times or whatever the thing was, it was their thing. But I was grateful for them taking, giving us 12 months to do it and to see if we could get it done. We learned a lot. We learned a lot. You know, now we just need to figure out what's Jesus and Justice 2.0. So yeah, it would. So this. So the next time we do it. And I'm praying that God would really bring sponsors or resources, however God does that work? I think, you know, we would prefer a steady space. We would like to make sure we continue to, to get those expert speakers, people who have expertise to come and talk about these topics. That was really the most important part. Right. And the music had to be top of the line. We didn't, we didn't spare cost on music. We had drummers, lead guitar, bass guitar, three or four vocalists, and all of, all of them could sing. And all of them played like one of my guitarists played with Genuine, the R B artist, Genuine. You know, one of my guys traveled with him. You know, somebody else played with the miracle, sang with the Miracles. You know, like we had very professional people. So singing and bringing music together was, it was just wonderful, you know, very skilled people. It was a really wonderful moment. And if anybody ever wants to do something like this, I encourage you to go into the highways and byways and preach to people the gospel of Christ. So even though my project had a 12 month stint, it's looking for a 2.0, but you know, other people can do the same. However other people want to evangelize the world for Jesus, do it. Yeah, do it.

So do you have any big lessons of, you know, we call it, I think we sort of call it church entrepreneurship.

Right.

When we're stepping outside of our normal model and do this, do this new thing, is there anything in that line, you know, the operational side of things? Did you learn anything about cooperating with existing churches and doing that?

So two things on that note. You have to know your church. Zion Lutheran Church is a traditional church, it's not a modern church. So Zion functioned in a different way. Right. Zion would invite people, it would. Pastor would help, supervise who I was bringing in and ordering the service correctly. That was their role. Hope was my modern worship people. So I had to get volunteers that had technical skill in modern worship. So, so know your churches that are in your senate that can help you do a project and know what talents you have available. I even had a space team that came in and for every month we did something different in the space. So understand what talent and expertise you have available to you, how much your budget is going to run month over month. Forecast, we always have forecasts, you know, so that's critically, critically important. I'm grateful. My wife is a financial guru, so she does everything from mergers and acquisitions and all that kind of stuff. So I already had that kind of in my, in my wheelhouse. You know, I would, I would also say, you know, make sure you present a quality product. You know, when we have our Sunday morning services, we want our choirs to sing well. We want our pastors to preach well, we want our ushers to ushers well. I remember growing up, we'd have some services we'd go to and the ushers did not usher well. You know, they got mean, you know, mean spirited. Right. All of those. It's important that if you have greeters, your greeters are kind, they help, they contribute, they have the love of God. Yeah, all of these things are really important in the church as well as a parachurch or an outside church, evangelistic kind of, kind of project. Still very, very important to the quality of service you deliver.

Yeah, that sort of fit and finish stuff, right?

Yeah. I mean, you, you can't do. You can't live without it and you can't live without them. And if you're a visionary, every visionary needs a team. So, you know, I'm a ministry entrepreneur. I am, and I will continue to be that for the rest of my life because I love doing ministry for God. I love touching people. I'm a pastor at heart. Touching people, going to the marginalized community, communities. Touching them, hearing them, loving them. And I don't want to hear a story about somebody who was being mean or that there was a conflict in the parking lot. You know, these are the things that we don't want there. There are times that you have to use your diplomatic hat and you need your team members to be your representation in very difficult situations. So visionaries, even if you're a visionary, you have to develop, you have to make sure your team has leadership skills, skills that represent you and the ministry well. But, you know, all of these things and then don't forget that you're going to learn. Every month is going to be a different experience. Every project is going to be a different experience. You're going to learn, learn, learn and get better month over month. And yes, the other last thing is that you won't always have a packed place. But it's not about having a packed place, it's about touching lives. Right?

That's right.

Stay focused on that passion. You'll get there. Those are some of my tidbits. If I had anything to say to the Senate.

Oh, this is, this is gonna be fun.

Yeah.

You know, of one or two that listen, so feel free.

Yeah. So my, my biggest heart and appeal and is to target ministry entrepreneurs like myself, you know, help, help us, help round us out to, to have projects that deliver what they need, whether it's finances, whether it's skill about how to communicate to a world who doesn't know Jesus. Some people who are offended by Jesus, like give us some tools that really help us do the work that we're trying to do for our, our elca. And I mean budget definitely. I mean things just going to take money. Like you can't always do things on a shoestring budget. Sometimes you just need the money and you definitely need more than one year. Ministry entrepreneurs need more than one year. Like no business can get off the ground unless you have a five year plan. So it's the same thing for these new emerging ministries. We need the budget for long term, not just short term.

So along that lines, but sort of going the opposite side. The congregations, you know, the established congregations that are, that are giving their benevolence to the synod. What's the selling point to supporting ministries like this through the synod? When they feel like they're struggling, they might see this as competition. Right. Have you had to deal with anybody and address that with folks?

Yes. So here's what I would say to, to the, to the ELCA at large. I have this often because I'm a modern worship for traditional worshipers think either traditional worshipers think, hey, you guys don't want to, you guys just want to get rid of us or, or, or our way of worship. And, and here is where I have evolved to. I believe in the diversity of worship. However you've heard God in your upbringing, you still need to hear God that way. And I'm not here to offend that and I'm not here to disrupt that. If you're a traditional worshiper and that's how you hear and feel the presence of God, I want you to have that. In the same way I want you to think that way about me. Right. I was raised in a modern worship context and I need the space to hear God, feel God, sense God's presence. It doesn't always come through a traditional worship service. And so that space has to be created. And then the last thing I would say to that is that means you have to grow a mindset of being diverse. Diversity of worship. How do we make space for it all? Not just for me, but for it all? And so that would be my counsel that everybody has to get to this mindset that we have the diversity of worship that's going to make space and room for it all. And I would like to remind folks their grandkids don't come into their house and just, you know, do activities from the 60, 70 or 80.

They don't play Parcheesi?

No, they don't do that anymore. You know. You know how many people have heard about K Pop demon hunters? I've got 3, 8, 9, 8, and 7. They listen K Pop and you know, all kinds of toys I ain't even never heard of. Right. I mean, that thing, that cycle is going to change and, and we have to change with it. We just do. That's not an easy word. I know. Change. Oh, God help us. But. But change doesn't mean throw it all away. It means build upon. It means expand your borders. Right? That's. That's, that's what that means. Expand. That's a little bit of. That's a little bit of Kelly.

There you go.

Well, so, Kelly, you're doing an internship right now. You're finishing up soon, maybe at Luther Seminary, heading toward ordination sometime in the future.

I am grateful that Zion Lutheran Church in Ferndale, Michigan is taking me on as their vicar. I was like, oh, I have a title now. I'm Vicar Deli. That's very sweet. I have to grow into it. It still. And I'm grateful for this. So it'll run for a couple years. I'll be through with classes probably within a year. But my internship will. Will last because I work. I still work, you know, along with everything else.

Well, it's the bivocational model.

Yes.

You know, I think every person that does it pioneers it. And that will probably be how it is forever. Because no bivocational minister is the same as any other. Right?

Yeah, for sure. It takes a lot of work. So for you, for. For the Lutheran folks that know. Knows about this bi. Vocational that's coming in, please be patient with us because it's. It's a lot to do.

Amen.

God has ordained us to do it. We'll. We'll do what we need to do.

That's right.

Right.

Anything else, Keith? I appreciate. I just want to tell you I appreciated hearing your story about how you guys really reached out to the pride community and you took that tent that was already out there and you guys flipped it to the glory of God. I am just grateful for your leadership in that and having courage in that. It's not easy. And just thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

No, thank you for that affirmation. I will happily pass that along to our volunteers and staff that are, you know, feeling the grind and the way the world pushes back. We. We had a discussion about that fairly recently at a couple of different places, so thank you. Yeah, it's. We know it's worth.

Is. And I'll be.

But it's also. Sometimes it's discouraging, though, so I'll be very honest.

Before the elca, I didn't know where I was going to go. I was a PK for decades, and when I came out as gay, I did not know where I was gonna go. And it was breaking my heart because I had no church to go to. I had no church family to come to. I had nobody to walk with. And it's. It's really critically, critically needed. So don't give up the fight, please.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, Kelly, it's been so great to talk to you. I think we're going to get to have conversations off the podcast all the time going forward here, and so I'm. I'm definitely looking forward to that. I'm also hoping that we can find a way to do 2.0 of Jesus and justice because it's necessary. I've been thinking about places, but they're all down this way instead of up near you, so. But I. I hope we get to see it happen in some form. So thank you so much sharing it with us and with our. Our audience here.

Thank you, Main Street Lutherans. Love you.

Thank you, Kelly.

Well, Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fot, and the show is produced by Phote Media Productions. Find all our contact information, links and a transcript in the episode notes. Until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.