Ep. 003: IS ONLINE CHURCH ACTUALLY CHURCH? w/ Chris Throness

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew Marcus from the INDOUBT Show. We got a great show for you today. We have Chris Throness, who’s the pastor of Kamloops Alliance Church. You guessed it, in Kamloops. And then we’re talking about something very important. We’re talking about Biblical community. What does Biblical community look like? I think you’re going to really enjoy it. Some stuff that’s a little hard to hear because we’ve had a new reality, but enjoy the show. Tune in every Monday. We hope you enjoy it. God bless.

All right, Chris Throness, thank you so much for joining us today. Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve last seen you. When’s the last time I saw you? Oh, no, not that long. It was December.

Chris Throness:

It was that first weekend of December, but before that it was way too long-

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Throness:

Since we saw each other, yes.

Andrew Marcus:

Way too long. I think it was when I slept over at your house.

Chris Throness:

Yes. Yeah, right. Probably.

Andrew Marcus:

Like a long time when I led worship at your church. That was so fun, man. Such a great time.

Chris Throness:

That was so great to have you here. When you said you slept over at my house, it’s like we were teenagers playing Super Mario Cart together. But it wasn’t like that.

Andrew Marcus:

No. We were adults and we’re playing NHL. Okay. So just figure out your life. No, I’m just kidding. That’s amazing. It’s so good to see you. For the people who are watching or listening, tell us a little bit about your journey in your ministry life, your family life, what are you doing now, and how you got there.

Chris Throness:

Okay. Yeah. My name is Chris, Lead Pastor currently at Kamloops Alliance Church. As far as vocationally, I’ve been in leadership in churches for 16 years. I know, man. It’s been really good though. But started at Vernon Alliance Church here in the interior of B.C. Just youth… Not just, but served as youth pastor there. Then really, I cut my teeth and spread my wings at Coquitlam Alliance Church in the lower mainland with you at CA, which was a great season of leadership together. I started as I think what would go down to be the worst junior high youth pastor of all time.

Andrew Marcus:

Why would you say that? Why would you say that?

Chris Throness:

Well, you know what? I realize that junior high kids don’t really care about structure and leadership and stuff. They just really want to have fun, and I like having fun, but I was not good. So anyway, I moved into young adults’ ministry for five years and led a great ministry called Ethos through Coquitlam Alliance Church. And then I served as the executive pastor there for five years. Five years. And then in August of 2018 became the lead pastor here at Kamloops Alliance Church. So yeah, so that’s my vocation.

I went to Ambrose University for my undergrad degree and went to Knox Theological Seminary for my seminary work. And then currently I just started actually a Doctor of Ministry from Talbot School of Theology in California. So yeah, that’s a side gig that I’m putting my attention to.

Family-wise, married to Krista for 12 years. Krista’s a nurse in labor and delivery, so she’s working one day a week doing that. I got three kids, Hannah, Micah, Mattea, nine, seven, and five. So man, my life with church and family and school is very, very full, but I’m so grateful. So many great things going on. So there’s a bit about me.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow, that’s amazing, man. Well, I did lose my hair, but I feel I would’ve have lost it earlier if I had your life. You still got it though, man.

Chris Throness:

Dude, I have hair, but it’s like it’s going gray at an alarming rate. I actually blame it on COVID. I fully blame it on COVID that I was okay before COVID, but COVID came and man, my hair has turned… I call it Arctic blonde. So it’s the Arctic blonde.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. I blame mine on COVID too. It just all fell out. It wanted to stay six feet apart from me, I guess. I don’t know. It was socially distant from my scalp.

Chris Throness:

I think this is just life at middle age now, Andrew. This is just us, man.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s just how it goes.

Chris Throness:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay. So speaking of COVID, so you were at your church for two years before the pandemic hit. So you got a little bit of… You got your feet wet, you were able to be grounded. I know some people who started ministry and then a week later pandemic hit and they had to refigure everything out. So you had a couple years. What did you notice in your congregation and in your community, some of the changes that happened pre and during and now post? Have you seen community change a lot? I’m noticing there’s just a lot of changes.

Chris Throness:

Yeah, no, for sure. I think it’s true. Well, I think one of the things that the pandemic taught us was how vital it is that we go through life together. So you think about high moments in people’s lives like a wedding, and I officiated a few weddings through the pandemic that were just me and the couple and a Zoom, like this moment. And it worked, but it wasn’t great. And then also in the tough moments. And so as a church, our church has been around for over 75 years, and we’ve had people at our church going to our church for over 50 years, some of them up to 60 years. And we had some of these people pass away during the pandemic. These are matriarchs and patriarchs of our church that they just passed away and nothing happened. There’s no gathering spot to grieve together.

And so when you don’t celebrate and when you don’t mourn together, I really think it takes the meaning and beauty out of those moments that just in our culture, we need to do together. And so I think that was really, really painful for people. I also noticed with the lack of community that people became way more tribal than ever before because they were left to a lot of time, and their phones or YouTube. And so you saw that politically through the pandemic, the people who just really camped in on these different sides of the issues. And also theologically, where people started to really become tribal and started to major on minors. And I think without the gathering of the people of God every week, it was just so sad to see the division and not having the reminders every week, especially when you come to the Lord’s table.

And the thing about the Lord’s tables, what unites us at this table is actually bigger than what divides us. And without having that weekly reminder of community, I just saw so much disintegration and what one of my friends says, a gentleness deficit come to the church community. And so instead of being curious and gentle with one another, we were really angry and we were really tribal. And so all of this reminds us that we are embodied people needing to be together, not online. It was okay, we’ll probably get into that. Online was okay. But yeah, there was just so much disintegration of the meaning and the unity and I think what we are able to give and receive through the pandemic. So man, as a pastor, I always told people I didn’t get into this to be a YouTube sensation. I got into this to love people and to journey with people in weddings and funerals and at the Lord’s table and all that stuff. So it was hard for everybody, especially pastors, I think.

Andrew Marcus:

And I do see a lot of pastors just burning out or retiring, resigning, and some of them seem like quite early for them to do that. And I wonder… Even my own journey, doing music ministry online and the YouTube stuff, same thing. I don’t want to do this. I want to be with the family of God and they lead me in worship. So now I’m just leading to a red dot flashing on the camera. It’s just really, really hard. But that took a toll on me, and I think that was a big part of my clinical burnout, but it’s been really hard. So fast-forward, pandemic is over and we’re gathering again physically. I want to ask you a question and then I want to ask what we see biblically as far as church community. But when I say church community, what’s the first things that come into your head?

Chris Throness:

Yeah, honestly, one of the first things that comes into my head is the idea that church community can actually be really painful for people. We’ll get to the beauty of it and how it’s necessary. But I think there’s been so much hurt that we have… We’ve given friendly fire to each other in church. And so especially in my context here in Kamloops with a high population of indigenous people, and as a church we’re trying to reach out to and befriend indigenous people, there’s a lot of skepticism when it comes to church and church community and Christians. And so the first thing that comes to my head is that it’s not always a beautiful picture for all people. Whether you’re indigenous or not, there’s just a lot of sad stories. And I’ve been pastorally working with people who have had horrendous experiences with the church. And so we’re going to get into, and I will absolutely be biblical in my response for what community is, and its necessity in the life of a believer, but it’s not always that.

And so I think there’s some disappointment that people have that pastorally and even as a church, we need to recognize, we need to say there has been a lot of unfortunate stories and experiences that come from the church and to recognize that people don’t approach this with always a positive attitude. So that’s the first thing, is I think we need to recognize how messy the church is, how broken it is, and how people’s experiences of it are very, very vast. And some of them are horrendously hurtful. The second thing though, is that it is beautiful. It is a beautiful thing when we understand it biblically and theologically, that man doing life with Jesus, with a group of people, properly understood with proper expectations is the best parts of actually following Jesus, is following Jesus together. So one of the things that we’ve done post pandemic as a church is we’ve said, “Okay, our plans, our hopes, our dreams before the pandemic, we’re in a new reality. We’re a different church than we were in 2019.”

So we’ve actually come up with a new strategic plan for our church that really is going to guide our next three to five years. And one of our strategic initiatives that we’re really emphasizing over the next three to five years is community. And so our hope is, and our call is this, as a response to Christ’s call to intimate community with him and others, we desire to be a self-sacrificing and embracing community to all people. And we believe that’s actually in a contrary experience to our divisive culture, to our tribal culture, to our lonely culture, to our angry culture, to our disintegrating culture. We just see life together actually biblically as we do this together is actually what our world desperately needs coming out of the pandemic. And so the thing that comes to mind is that there’s hurt, but there’s so much beauty and so much need for it that I think the church can offer our lonely, distracted, tribal world, something that’s deep and beautiful and authentic and intimate. As Christ has called us, we get to call other people into those places. So yeah, it’s hurtful, but it’s also beautiful.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Wow. So that’s such a beautiful answer because I think most people try to just push the beauty and ignore the fact that we are all a mess and we all fall short. And so the church is filled with broken people. I was talking to a buddy and he was just talking about his experience with church and how he was surprised when a pastor admitted to addiction with pornography or whatever, and then he got let go. And he was like, “Wow, pastor?” And I’m like, “Dude, the church is people.” People fall short, which means it’s messy, which means people get hurt. And oftentimes we shy away from those realities and just say, “Oh, it’s a beautiful place. Everything’s beautiful, everything’s perfect.” It’s like, “Well, not really.” So that was a perfect answer to see that they both can exist and we just have to admit that. So walk us through then, when we say from a biblical perspective, what would you answer then? And do you think sometimes the hurt that happens in people’s lives is because of churches who maybe aren’t acting as biblical churches?

Chris Throness:

Yeah, totally.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow.

Chris Throness:

Yeah, absolutely. So this is not going to be a complete answer, but I think what does a Bible say about community? Here’s a few things. I think first, it is necessary. It is absolutely necessary. I pointed this out as we preach through our new strategic plan, that in Matthew Chapter 4, as Jesus calls the first disciples to himself, he calls them unto himself, but not by themselves. He actually calls them in groups of two. Matthew Chapter 9, he calls Matthew unto himself the tax collector. Matthew Chapter 10. It’s like the final roster of these disciples, and they are together. He sends them out together, which I think you actually see Jesus’ vision for community is that it is necessary that we do this together. And I think the impulse, especially after COVID, and the myth that people have bought into is, “Oh, I can just sit at home in my pajamas eating my waffles and watch church online.”

And I actually said, “If you believe that, that is a myth.” I said that online and to our… Because it’s true. It’s actually not a biblical idea that you can do this. So there’s a great story from DL Moody and Moody, one of his parishioners came up to him and Moody said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll come to your house.” And so this guy welcomed him to his house and the story goes that he was talking with his parishioner, and this parishioner starts to have this big long list of why he doesn’t really like the church and how he can actually just do this as a solo mission with Jesus. And so they’re talking in front of the fire, and as this guy is talking, DL Moody pulls a coal from the fire. And as the guy’s talking, the coal goes from red-hot to completely out. So this guy finishes talking, and Moody doesn’t say a word, he just looks at the coal and looks up at the guy. And the guy says to him, “Sir, you have made your point.”

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing.

Chris Throness:

Which is great. And I think that’s the image, right? The coal has to exist in the fire. If you take it out, it will… It’s only a matter of time actually until that red-hot coal goes out. And I think it’s true for the people who just love, I love waffles in my pajamas on the couch. It’s like, it’s necessary. You actually have to do this together. So it’s difficult. I think we already talked about that. Every one of the New Testament letters, we have this picture like, “Oh, the church is beautiful and everything’s going to be great, and we get to do all these things together.” And it’s kind of this utopian vision of the church. But we forget that I think every New Testament letter is written to a place going through some sort of conflict. And so the church has always been a little bit of a mess.

And so what is the church biblically? It is necessary. It’s difficult, it’s diverse. It is diverse. I looked through Ephesians 3 for this, Ephesians 3:6. “The mystery is that through the gospels, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel.” Paul’s just as a Jew, trained rabbi. It’s like, I can’t come to grips that this mystery is that somehow the Jews are now welcomed in. And so the New Testament is the outworking of that vision of Jew and Gentile together. Paul talks about that in different places. There is no Scythian or barbarian slave or free. This is a diverse group of people. And I think that is such a beautiful… Not just an idea of our culture, because our culture loves the idea of diversity, but this is actually a great example of how to do it because we don’t have great examples. Our culture has great ideas.

It doesn’t have good examples. And I think here the church actually is not just the idea, but the example of us doing it together. And so as a church, we’re actually trying to embody that way more, not in some, I’m hesitant to use the word, but some sort of woke cultural fascination, but rather biblically. We get to do this as the rich and the poor and the indigenous and the non-indigenous and the black and the Filipino and the old and the young. And we all come to the Lord’s table waiting for the bread and the juice like beggars waiting for food. And we do this together. So, I love that image of a true… Not a culturally fascinated, but a true diversity. And then finally, and there’s way more, but I think for the sake of our time, I’ll just say it’s all about Jesus.

He is the one who calls this unto Himself. And so much of communities and groups, we talked about tribalism. The difference of a biblical community is the instructions that Jesus gives to the community of how to do this together. So instead of the anger of our tribal culture, Jesus is going to say, actually love your enemies. If someone asks you to walk a mile, you actually walk two. If you get slapped on the cheek, you turn the other one. So the very ethics of a biblical community represent Jesus to the world. And that’s what Paul gets at in later on in Ephesians 3:10 (NIV) He says, “His intent was that now through the church”, not through you and me soloing with Jesus, but through the church, “the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.”

That I think is the image and the vision that gets people’s rear ends off their couch into church on Sunday because that’s the vision. Through the church, the manifold wisdom, it’s like the diamond of the beauty of the gospel is being represented to the heavenly realms as we just gather on Sunday and sing out a tune together and eat bread and juice that are a little bit stale and have bad church coffee. Actually what’s going on is that the manifold wisdom of God in His grace, the mystery of the plan of salvation, the atonement of Jesus, the coming together of sinners becoming saints by Jesus, that’s the vision. It’s all about the manifold wisdom of God together. And I think if that doesn’t fire somebody up, whether you’re a Christian leader or church leader or just a parishioner, we need to recapture that, the manifold wisdom of God through the church. So there’s a few thoughts.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow, man, that’s so huge. And even when you’re talking about love your enemy, or walk two miles instead of one, or give the other cheek, it’s just the opposite of what you’d think. I remember in elementary school, I was a kid, but I remember hearing something at church about giving the other cheek, and a kid actually slapped me in the face and I said, “Oh, do this one too.” And he slapped me again. I’m like, “That’s terrible.” I didn’t like that.

Chris Throness:

It’s not fun.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s not fun.

Chris Throness:

No, it’s not fun.

Andrew Marcus:

Why did he say that? No, but it’s just opposite of culture, opposite of what we think is right and good. And you had so many good points about that. So just going back a little bit to this idea of church online, because I know a lot of people and probably people who are listening right now who think that is just the only way that they want to do it these days. I know a lot of people personally who just would rather just sit at home, like you said. I don’t know if they have waffles specifically, but I know PJs are involved, and they just watch church online. And so what warning would you give to someone who’s doing that and thinks that that suffices for their weekly community?

Chris Throness:

I think as I talk about a gentleness deficit through COVID, my first approach to people like that is actually gentleness, to have some empathy for maybe their experience and their reality and their world. We have been clear with our online engagers that we really desire them to be in person. But there’s a vast variety of reasons of why they’re not. I think about shut-ins who are just physically unable to come. I think about people who are hurt by the church, some of our indigenous friends here who really want to keep the church at an arms distance. So I think my first approach, Andrew, I would just want to be very gentle. And I think to be clear that I think Moody’s illustration is just right. Eventually, eventually, there will be a cooling of the soul because it’s about the giving and receiving in the community of faith that is a necessary part of discipleship.

I think eventually what will happen is the change that they so long to see in their own lives won’t happen because change is actually a community project. It’s life in the community, the one anothering of the New Testament. So a cooling of the soul, I think a lack of change, a lack of missional engagement because we take and receive communion together, but we also shoulder to shoulder go serve together, serve our neighbourhoods, serve each other. So I don’t think the trajectory of somebody who stays on their couch long term when they are able to go to church, and they’re doing it just for convenience sake, convenience and growth are not compatible together. They’re just not. Show me anybody in the Bible, in the Hall of Faith, Hebrews 11, show me anybody through church history who had convenience and comfort and also had impact and growth.

It’s not possible. And so I think we would do well as church leaders and just, I think people in community with one another to encourage each other as hard as it is to make a commitment to the body. Because I’ve said this to people, if the bride of Jesus was worthy enough for Him to die for, it has to be good enough for you and me. If He felt like you and I and the church was worthy of His death, the manifold wisdom of God, it has to be good enough for you and me. It has to. So gentleness and I think maybe a gentle nudge to get back into community,

Andrew Marcus:

Which sounds like the balance of grace and truth. You want to be gracious, but that gentle nudge of, “Hey, it’s really important and we won’t thrive in life without being with others.” I think that analogy of the coal is amazing and I feel like I’ve seen many people cool down in this last couple years.

Chris Throness:

Yeah, and I think we see it with church attendance patterns too. We’re 70, just maybe 70 plus percent of where we were pre-pandemic and where are these people? We don’t know, and that hurts. And I think that’s the cooling of the soul that I’ve seen, which is really sad.

Andrew Marcus:

It is really sad, but it’s just such a clear picture of what happens when we’re not in the body. So what would we say then to someone who physically is unable to get to church? Because I feel like if we just pick them up, drop them off, they heard a sermon, you drop them back off again, is that even community? So it must be more than just sitting and engaging with a sermon or not even engaging, just sitting for a sermon. What do we say to the people who physically can’t come? What does the church need to be to them and how can they be a part of biblical community?

Chris Throness:

Yeah, I think we saw this actually through the pandemic. One of the initiatives our church did is we just said to people, phone each other, phone and check in. And I think that was actually maybe a positive thing that came through the pandemic that we realized, what is the point of the weekend gathering? What is the point of the Sunday gathering? Is it just to hear a sermon? Because you can hear way better preachers than me every single weekend by just going online. What is the point? And I think the point is it’s actually life together during, yes, for sure that weekend moment, that Sunday moment, but actually apart from that as well. And so this is where we’ve really tried to actually take ownership probably as church leaders, that we probably focus too much only on that Sunday service and our age appropriate gatherings through the week, whether that’s a life group or that’s… And actually say people long to be a part of something that’s 24/7.

And so for the older folks who actually still… There’s a lot of people that still come who are older, but we have tried so much as paid staff of course, and pastors, to be reaching out to those awesome people in our church that we need, but also for the church to be the church together. And I think it blows up the compartmentalization that we have in our culture that I have my church thing then, but rather I wonder how this person is doing. Let’s go for a walk at a park, or I’ll bring some food over and surprise them, or whatever that looks like. And the people that suffered the most through the pandemic were our seniors in our church, the ones whose shoulders that we stand on. And so that was really sad for us and we tried to do as much as we could to reach out and love those people. But I think the short answer is the church needs to be the church. We need to care well for one another and carry each other’s burdens with one another in an age of distraction and disintegration.

Andrew Marcus:

Awesome man. Well, I really appreciate your time, man. This has been so much good. I hope those who are listening and were just blessed that they took notes. You might have to go back and take some notes cause there’s just lots of good stuff here. But I appreciate your time. All the best for you, your family, your ministry, man. We love you guys and we’re praying for God’s best for you as a church and your family.

Chris Throness:

Thanks Andrew and everybody at INDOUBT and Back to the Bible Canada.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out the INDOUBT show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcast. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.