“Embracing Relational Discipleship” featuring Stephen Handy

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Leading Ideas Talks
Leading Ideas Talks
“Embracing Relational Discipleship” featuring Stephen Handy
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Podcast Episode 163

Connecting with people and helping them grow as disciples requires a new playbook and a new way of leading. Stephen Handy shares how his Nashville church is reaching and discipling people in unchurchy ways by getting to know their neighbors, forging new missional partnerships, and focusing intentionally on relationships.

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Announcer: Leading Ideas Talks is brought to you by the Lewis Center for Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. Subscribe free to our weekly e-newsletter, Leading Ideas, at churchleadership.com/leadingideas.

Leading Ideas Talks is also brought to you by the Taking Church to the Community Video Tool Kit. Explore strategies your congregation can use to reach beyond its walls with worship, community events, ministries, and service. Learn more and watch introductory videos at churchleadership.com/shop.

Connecting with people and helping them grow as disciples requires a new playbook and a new way of leading. Stephen Handy shares how his Nashville church is reaching and discipling people in unchurchy ways by getting to know their neighbors, forging new missional partnerships, and focusing intentionally on relationships.

Ann Michel: I’m Ann Michel, I’m a senior consultant with the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. I’m one of the editors of our Leading Ideas e-newsletter, and I’m pleased to be the host for this episode of Leading Ideas Talks. My guest today is the Rev. Dr. Stephen Handy, who is the lead pastor of McKendree United Methodist Church in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. He also serves as associate district superintendent of the Urban Cohort District in the Tennessee Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church. And we are proud to claim him as a graduate of Wesley Seminary, where he earned his Doctor of Ministry in intercultural, multicultural, and diversity studies. And he is co-author with Dr. Michael Bowie of a book that came out last year, Dare to Shift: Challenging Leaders to a New Way of Thinking. So welcome to Leading Ideas Talks, Dr. Handy.

Stephen Handy: Thank you, Ann. It is a joy and an absolute honor to be with you today.

Ann Michel: Yeah. So, one of the framing elements for the new way of thinking about leadership described in your book is the biblical story of Jesus’s disciples pulling their fish nets up empty and then being invited by Jesus to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Why is this such an important story and what are its implications for leaders today?

Stephen Handy: I think part of the story for Michael and I, as we were collaborating on this book, was the idea that the disciples retreated back to what they knew. Although they’d been with Jesus three, three and a half years, they literally retreated. They erased all of those days and hours and weeks and years and said, “Let’s go back to what we know.” And I think sometimes the church, when it gets into unpredictable, unexpected episodes of life, we retreat back to what we know. I call it comfort. Right? So, we retreat back to comfort. And here’s what I’m learning about comfort: nothing grows in comfort. So, as leaders, one of the things I tell lay leaders and when I’m talking to other clergy is, you should expect turbulent times. The question is, are you prepared to push through them when they come? Because they will be coming. The other thing is, when I’m looking at this story in the biblical narrative, is the idea that Jesus says, “Don’t do what you’ve done. Cast the net to the other side.” Mike Bowie likes to say, “the right side.” I say, “the other side.” Because that side, at some point in time, you’re going to have to cast the net on another different side, because there’s not going to be any fish there, because fish don’t stay in the same place long.

Ann Michel: Yeah, so we have to do something different than what we’ve done before. So, McKendree Church, under your leadership, has significantly enlarged the concept of what it means to be a church in relation to its neighbors by leveraging its building and developing community partnerships. Can you say a word about your ministry there and how it’s informed your understanding of the kind of leadership that’s required today?

Stephen Handy: Fourteen years ago, and I know that’s unheard of for Methodist pastors. But I often tell people the conference doesn’t know what to do with me. So, they just leave me put. One of the things that we discovered early on in the ministry of McKendree is that we had to give ourselves away to the community. Which simply means we needed to know who our community members were, who our partners were, and we needed to put a listening ear on the ground, as opposed to just showing up on Sunday or Wednesday night Bible study. And so about 12 to 13 years ago, we gave that building away. We said, we want people in the community to occupy the building so we can build relationships. You don’t have to come on Sunday. And so, one of our first partnerships was with a group called Monroe Harding. They were an aged-out foster care division. And I remember sitting in a Sunday school class—because they wanted the third floor of our building—and no one was in that building except on Sunday. And so, I asked that Sunday school class of nine people. There were eight women—this is important in the story—and one man. So, these eight women, after I told them about Monroe Harding wanting to come and occupy this space and be in relationship with young adults—probably 40 to 50 a week—they said, “Absolutely, pastor.” There was a gentleman who said, “No. We’ve had this space for 40 years.” And so, I said, “Dan, do me a favor, go home and pray about it. And when you hear from the Lord, call me.” On a Tuesday, Dan calls and says, “Pastor Stephen, I think it’s a really good idea to have young people on this campus.” I said, “Dan, thank you for being so diligent around praying and listening to what God has for us.”

And so that relationship has been going on for 12 years. Last month, there were 210 young adults in that space where we do mentoring for their young men and their young ladies. They will probably never come to church, but here’s what we discovered: They’re willing to have a conversation about their faith. And so, the beauty of that is we’re trying to create spaces where relational capital can be built because we contend that the building called the church should be a laboratory. It really should be a space of experimentation. And so, if you can build that well, you build out what I call the culture of discipleship in the space. And you don’t have to use churchy language, right? Jesus didn’t use a lot of churchy language. He used metaphors in the marketplace, and so that’s what we’ve been trying to do through the years. And so, since then, we’ve added about five or six other missional partners in that space. And so, the building is being used Monday through Friday at about an 85 to 90 percent occupancy rate.

Ann Michel: That’s fabulous. If a church wanted to reimagine its mission in some of the ways you’ve just described, what are the first steps they might take, beyond prayer, as you’ve already mentioned?

Stephen Handy: Thank you, Ann. I’ll tell people, “Prayer is not a plan.” You’ve got to put some footprints from footsteps on your prayers. Here’s what we discovered early on: We needed to know who was around us. And so, we divided up the blocks. We assigned our lay people to blocks so that they could do—not only prayer walking—but introduce themselves and ask the community members, “If you could do anything downtown, what would you like to do? And how could the church help you do that?” We took that data, and we realized that there were a few needs. One was belonging. People felt isolated being downtown because they worked all day and then they lived in the high rises. They went to sleep. They woke up the next morning and did the same thing. And on the weekends, they stayed behind the doors. So, one of the things we decided to do was leverage our space for community. And we do that in a variety of ways. We’ve got a rooftop where we do weddings and musical venues. We have “Trick or Trunk”—”Trunk or Treat.” We’ve got our biggest one coming up; we’ve got a seven-story garage, and we’ve invited about a hundred cars to be in that space, and you don’t have to be a member of our community to do that.

We say, “Don’t invite people to church.” And I got in trouble the first time I said that from the pulpit. I said, “Invite them to a cup of coffee. And sit at a table because what you want to do is learn how to listen.” And I think—we don’t get grades for listening, Ann. We get grades for talking, right? The first words you utter: we applaud babies. And then we take communication courses, we take theological courses, we take speaking courses. And so all-of-a-sudden, we get awarded for always having the right answer as opposed to listening. So, the first thing was that we listened to the community.

The second thing we did is we said to our church, “What do we have the capacity to do?” We can’t do it all, but we can do a few things well. After we decided what those things were, we decided to reach out to our other, our ecumenical partners in downtown Nashville, which was a tension point because our churches have isolated themselves and they’re scared of shifting members from one church to another. So, it took us years before we could decode what it meant for church pastors and other laity to be in partnership with us. Because homelessness is that one thing that we have in common, we decided to be in partnership about helping each other resource unhoused neighbors.

Ann Michel: Yeah. So, the subtitle of your book is Challenging Leaders to A New Way of Thinking. And you talk a lot about needing to engage in a mindset shift. Can you describe some of the elements of what that shifting mindset needs to be?

Stephen Handy: Yeah. Let me begin by suggesting we’re trying to change behavior, physical behavior. But we can’t change physical behavior without changing the mind. And so, what we’re trying to help people understand is this idea of Sabbath. Sabbath is where you explore what’s in your mind, what needs to come, and what needs to go. And so, we’re trying to change behavior based on physical adjustments. And we’re suggesting that Jesus changed behavior with the mind shift. He says, “We’re called to have the mind of Christ,” right? Paul says, “the mind of Christ.” So, he didn’t say that—I mean, we are the body of Christ—but here’s what we’re learning: You can’t shift behavior until you know who you are. Until you have a deep self-awareness of who you are, where you come from, what your identity is, Ann, and our identity is in Christ Jesus. And what does that mean? It’s a great phrase on a Sunday morning to say, “We have the identity of Christ.” But the question is, do we have the behavior? Do we practice mindfulness? And every day for about 30 minutes, I sit still, doing nothing. And it is the hardest thing for me because I’m an extrovert. I love being around people and I love being busy. I think busyness is a sin, Ann. I’m being facetious of course, but I think we’ve become so busy that the busyness in our minds is productive. As opposed to Jesus, [who]spent probably a third of the biblical text in resting. What he was doing was refocusing his mind on the next assignment that God has given him, so he was creating capacity. And we say, when you have a steady mind of Christ, you have the capacity to do the assignment that God has given you.

Ann Michel: Yeah, thank you. I think that’s a really powerful idea. And I think I’m about the biggest sinner in the world if busyness is a sin. So, you also describe a framework for leadership that’s built around the “Four I’s”: Invitational. Incarnational. Intercultural. And Impactful. Can you say a few words about that framework and those elements?

 Stephen Handy: Yeah. Part of it comes out of the story of Jesus meeting The Woman at the Well. There’s this invitation that Jesus extends that he never should have because it was against the law. Both of them, as you know, could have been stoned, right? But Jesus takes the risk of extending an invitation to a woman who shouldn’t have been there at the same time. And they engage in a conversation. I always tell people; discipleship starts with an invitation. But I’ve narrowed it down: It starts with a conversation. So, Jesus starts this invitation with a simple conversation about, “What do you have there? What do you need? What do you desire?” And he puts the question on her. And so, we have a tendency in discipleship to tell people what we know, right? “Let me tell you about Jesus.” And I say, “Wait a minute. They may not want to know about Jesus.” The invitation simply says, “Tell me who you are.” And I think if we can reclaim the framing questions as opposed to the “right answers,” I think people are more inclined to having a deep conversation with us, a cup of coffee, as I call it. And then after we finish, have another cup of coffee. So, the idea of invitation is critical on this journey of faith.

And then I tell people, when I think about the invitation, I think about what does it mean to be in the world? What does it mean to be incarnational? So, part of that is to understand your community: asset-based community development. You’ve got to ask questions. You’ve got to keep asking questions. You actually have to live into the questions as opposed to saying, “This is the answer. Let’s move on.” It’s what I would probably call an ongoing developmental phase of who we are in community. So being incarnational means to be the embodiment of Christ in the world. Not in the walls of the church. But in the walls of the church, Ann, it’s comfortable. I know everybody and they know me, so I don’t have to do much. But when I’m out in the marketplace, I have to be careful. I have to be self-aware. I have to be other-aware. And that creates a strengthening of my faith because God has to navigate me through these episodes of my life.

Then the third one is this idea of being intercultural. This is my favorite one of the four, by the way. Jesus meets this woman who is culturally different than he is. And he’s showing his humanness by saying I may not know enough about you, but I’m willing to explore a deeper conversation so that I can know. Being intercultural simply means that you’re willing and able to navigate through subcultures that you may not be familiar with, but you have a curiosity about. You’re really wanting to know the other person who’s on the other side of the table, who’s on the other side of the street, who’s in the grocery store. And I think people—I tell people I love going to grocery stores because I get to stand in line. There’s a person in front of me and behind me that I can engage in the conversation as we move towards the cashier.

And then the last one—if you do those first three things well—we say it equals impact. Impact is the evidence that Christ is not only in community, but Christ is active through the hands and the feet of God’s people. Here’s what I think we’ve left out. The heart of Christ. We often say we’re the hands and feet of Christ, but I think we need to be the heart of Christ. Therefore, we can be the hands and feet of Christ.

Ann Michel: Thank you for explaining that. As you were talking through those points, I was really thinking about that story of The Woman at the Well and about how that is the way that Jesus was manifesting his leadership in that moment. It’s a beautiful, beautiful example. So as an associate district superintendent, you’re a leader of leaders. And here at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, we focus on shaping leaders as well. And so, I wanted to ask you, what do you see as essential to helping other church leaders conceive of their leadership differently in some of the ways that you’ve described? How do we cultivate the shifts that you see as necessary, not just in ourselves as leaders, but in others?

Stephen Handy: So, you know, part of our Wesleyan tradition is that the movement was a lay movement. And I contend we’ve become professionals and have taken that movement away from our laity. So that means as clergy or clergy-type, or clergy “wannabes,” we have to simply be embedded in this idea of humility. One of the characteristics of leadership that I see in Jesus that we very seldom talk about is humility. Scripture says he was humbled all the way to the cross, right?

Being humble doesn’t mean that you bow down. It simply means that you are willing to allow people to take the lead and you’re willing to follow. Well, we’re not trained to follow. We’re not equipped to follow. We are trained to lead people all the time. And what I’ve discovered, there are some leaders who are better than I am at this work, and they’re called laity. They’re smarter than me. They’re more courageous than me. They’re more reflective than me. They are actually sometimes more scholarly than me. And if I keep saying, “Follow me …” So, the idea is, if you’re a leader, who’s discipling you and who are you discipling?

We did a survey in our conference years ago, and I honestly was embarrassed by the district that I was in. Out of the let’s say a hundred churches, there was just one church that had a discipleship system. Now, I think they called it a discipleship system but I’m not sure it was. So, if our mission, right, is making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, and our letter grade is not a high letter grade that I want to bring home to my parents so they can sign up on my report card, then we have to humble ourselves and say, “Here’s what we don’t know.”

Number two, I think we’ve got to be courageous. We have to be willing to take risks. And when I say risk, it means to be prudent, right? It means to work through, “What’s the context? What’s the challenge? What do I need to know, and who am I going to walk with?” We’ve developed solo leaders. We send pastors—we send a pastor to a church to rescue it. But Jesus sent the disciples out—and it’s not me, I’m not that smart, Ann—he sent the disciples out two-by-two. What if we were to reimagine leadership as a two-by-two formation, as opposed to one-by-one. So, I think that would be another key.

I think honestly, we are interculturally incompetent leaders. We know about our tribe. We know about our family. But we don’t know about others. And so, we’ve become so insulated in what we know, [that]when someone tells us something different, we disavow it. Right? We devalue it. And so, one of the things I’m learning in my openness around this journey of faith is, I may not agree with it, but it will stretch my theological frame, it will make me a better person. Because if I’m hanging out with just African American men, it’s a boring conversation. If I add African American females, Anglo females, Anglo males, Latino females, Latino males, Korean females, Korean males, you see how the conversation shifts? And we all become better at the beloved table of Jesus Christ.

So, I’m going to add those three as critical in today’s leadership model that for most people, they probably wouldn’t even assert those three. And then the last one, I would probably say four, since you didn’t ask me for only three: curiosity. We have to stay curious about who Jesus is. If we knew that Jesus would put us on a path or pathways to people can help us discern and discover who he is. What God is calling us to do in this season, not as individuals, but as community?


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Explore strategies your congregation can use to reach beyond its walls with worship, community events, ministries, and service. The Taking Church to the Community Tool Kit features engaging videos and presentations and is designed for both self-study and for use with groups in your church. Learn more and watch introductory videos now.


Ann Michel: Thank you for your tremendous clarity around this. I want to pick up on a couple of points that you mentioned. I mean, the first one, I think your point about laity. I’m a layperson. And so, all the time I am in ministry situations with colleagues who are clergy. And I’m sometimes the lone voice in the room saying, what about laity? So, I’m so happy to hear someone talk about a more inclusive paradigm of ministry because it on the model of Jesus. Jesus didn’t do it alone. And I think we sometimes forget that. But I also wanted to pick up the thread in what you were saying about discipleship. Your book reimagines many of the pillars of the church’s collective life. So, you have … You talk about fellowship. You talk about witness. There’s a chapter on stewardship. I was particularly struck by the chapter on recapturing and reclaiming the concept of discipleship. Because I think you are suggesting a different playbook. And so, I wanted to ask how do you define discipleship and how do you invite people into a life of discipleship?

Stephen Handy: I knew you were going to ask me that question, Ann. And so, I was mulling in my head because I only say one thing once. When you ask me to repeat it, I can never repeat anything I said once. So, I’m going to put it out there. Discipleship for me is the understanding of Jesus in his philosophy, in his patterns, in his practices so that we draw closer to a relationship with God through Jesus and we’re willing to share that with others. That’s it for me. It’s not—it’s not curriculum. It’s an apprenticeship of practice. Because Jesus didn’t have a curriculum. And, you know, we’ll build a program, Ann, in a heartbeat. We love to come out with another program.

But what I’m discovering—I’m mentoring this 27-year-old African American male who showed up at our church one Sunday with his grandmother out of the blue. And I said, “Well, what brought you to McKendree?” He said, “On your website, you advertise that you make disciples.” And I said, “Oh, thank you for coming this morning.” He says, “I’m not looking for a church though. I’m just simply looking to be discipled.” Interesting, right? I mean, you assume you come to a church to be a disciple. We’ve got four gospels, and Jesus has three episodes of being in the temple, and none of them turned out well. And we don’t have any indication that he invited the disciples to show up there. So, this young man knows something about the biblical text. And I go, “Thank you!” And so, every Thursday, we get together for a cup of coffee. And we are discerning together, what is the discipleship practice every week that we’re going to say we’re going to do, and then we’re going to hold each other accountable, right? It’s the Wesleyan model. Where’s the accountability in this process? If you say you’re going to follow, where’s the evidence? So, we’ve been at this for two years.

We just launched a new project called Common Unity Gathering. And they’re in coffee shops. No more than 20 people. And it’s by invitation only. We won’t be on social media. We won’t blast it out. You have to know someone to invite someone. It’s theme based. It’s at tables of four to six people, so your introverted works, your extroverted works. And it’s for one hour. And after you finish with that theme, we say, what did you learn about God? What did you learn about yourself? And what did you learn about your neighbor? And we’re launching—I want you to hear this, Ann, this is a dream—we’re launching 10, 000 of these in the next 10 years.

Ann Michel: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well, those three questions, I believe I recall those from my Disciple Bible Study, but they are very critical questions. I mean, and it ties in with what I recall reading in your book about the idea of discipleship being formed around a common table. Which I thought was really a compelling way of thinking about, you know, how we draw people into meaningful relationship as opposed to, as you say, programs. Or, you know, you mentioned a church having an “intentional discipleship system” that is a series of check boxes. There may be some of that to it, but I think you’re talking about something that’s much more relational.

Stephen Handy: I think you nailed it, Ann. Discipleship is relational, right? So, we probably should call it relational discipleship because it helps define it on the front end so people don’t get drafted into something and then say, “Oh, that’s not what I expected.” And so, I think we’ve got to create capacity though, for healthy relationships. And when you’ve not modeled, or seen, or been immersed in a culture of healthy relationships, then this idea of discipleship is something that you don’t want to be a part of because it means you’re going to replicate the negativity or the negative energy of relationships that you’ve been part of.

Ann Michel: Yeah, so, as you’ve described, your building is full seven days a week with lots of community partnerships. And then this idea of these groups in coffee shops where these meaningful encounters are happening. What’s happening on Sunday morning in your church? And how does what happens in that hour on Sunday morning relate to the rest of it? Or does it?

Stephen Handy: So, we tell people Sunday morning is the celebration of the encounters that we had with God and with God’s people. It’s the communion that we have with God and with God’s people. So, celebration is a key word for us on Sunday. So, where have we seen God? Where have we seen God’s people? How have we interacted how have we interfaced? What did we offer? What did we share? Were we present, fully present?

And we may have just been fully present with nothing to offer but our presence. So, you bring that story into worship. And we say, worship is simply saying thank you to God. Now, we have songs, we have an offering, we have proclamation of the Holy Word. We do all those things. But if I’m bored of any of the encounters during the week, I’m going to show up Sunday depleted. And I don’t care what you say, it’s not going to resonate with me because I’ve not encountered anybody or anything. I’ve been isolated. So, when you come in, we have some meditative practices that we help you with as you’re preparing for worship. And it’s something I picked up a couple of months ago from a friend of mine. It’s hand motion and breathing.

And then we invite people every week, we try to have an index card, to write down how they are feeling, and what do they need help in. And they bring those cards to the altar as they are leaving or receiving communion. We do communion every week, because we have to be reminded of the love and grace of Jesus, because if you’re like me, I’ll forget pretty quickly if I’m only doing that, that once a month.

So, the beauty of that celebration is encountering God, encountering neighbor and saying, “Look how God has been evident in my life!” and I bring that. So, we read Scripture on Sunday and then we pause, and we say, “What questions might you have with the biblical text this morning?” It is one of the most daunting things because people have great questions. And so, what we say is we may not answer that question but thank you for thinking about it.

So, our worship experience, we don’t call it a worship service because I grew up with that language, and I always wondered at the end of the worship service, where was the service part? So, we called it worship experience. Because as theologians—we’re all theologians—theologians can always come up with new words for context.

Ann Michel: Thanks for sharing that. Because clearly, you’ve got a vision of a church that’s a lot broader than 10 or 11 o’clock on Sunday morning. And so, you know, I think you’re almost describing the dialectic in it.

Stephen Handy: Real quickly, and I’m sorry for interrupting, one of our core values is discipleship and diversity. It’s a core value for us. We say, if you’re doing discipleship well, there will be diversity. You don’t have to force it. Reverend Dr. Lovett Weems says, you know, “In order for the church to be the church you have to have more people, more young people, more diverse people.” And we’re trying to live into that, that paradigm shift because it’s easy to be a segregated church on Sunday morning. I’m telling you, it’s easy. It’s difficult to bring in a variety of people with a variety of expressions and perspectives and political alignments, right? All of that, and then we can still be the body of Christ.

Ann Michel: Thank you. So as a way of drawing this conversation to a close, one of the important themes that we’ve already talked about in your book is the idea of a mindset shift. But part of that mindset shift is not focusing so much on problems, focusing more on possibilities. I think that’s a real word of hope to churches that are struggling. And so, I wondered if you can speak a bit about that aspect of the mindset shift and how leaders can learn to embody that. That sense of hope and possibility.

Stephen Handy: So, one of the things that is helpful for me is who do I surround myself with? I surround myself with people of hope. And if we follow this this Jewish rabbi who wasn’t Christian, if we follow him, he was always showing us ways to be more hopeful as opposed to getting stuck in the chaos of what our denomination has been dealing with in churches in general in America, right? We have this decline language. And maybe, maybe it’s not so much decline, but a reorientation. See the shift? Some people can see the decline. I see it as a reorientation. I see it as God is saying, “That’s no longer working. Here’s what’s coming.” And so, how am I living in the “becoming of the church.” Which is always—people told me a couple of weeks ago that the church is in transition. And I said, “Have you read your history? The church has always been in transition. The question is, are we willing to be in transition with the church? And to give away what we think we know because it’s not enough?”

The other part of that for me is that hope is not abstract. There is evidence of hope every day when I take another step forward. I get drafted into these communities. I get drafted into these conversations. I get drafted into my family members. And I’m always seeing evidence that God is calling us into those places among the people. That God is already there waiting on the miracles and the movements to happen. We’ve been so stuck on moments that we need to define ourselves as a movement. The church as a movement, as opposed to the church as organizational structure.

Ann Michel: Yeah. That’s a really powerful idea. I like the idea that hope isn’t just abstract. That hope is part of what we do.

Stephen Handy: And it’s the only thing the biblical text tells us that does not disappoint us.

Ann Michel: If people were interested in learning more where might they turn?

Stephen Handy: That’s a great question. Maybe at some point I can put my information up, but let me just put it on, on, in the conversation. You can call me directly at 615 336 4565. And in case you’re slow with the pen, like I am, that’s 615 336 4565. Four, five, six, five. Or you can contact me at McKendree MCK and D R E Stephen S T P H E N. Like the one who was stoned at gmail. com or you can Google me. I’m in several places at several times, but we would love to have a conversation about what’s coming.

And when Mike and I wrote the book. we realized we’d probably have to write another one because things are evolving at such a fast rate. We can’t maintain what we wrote once upon a time. So I look forward to a conversation, a cup of coffee over zoom or in person.

Ann Michel: Yeah. So is it, yeah, you mentioned that there’s a workbook that goes along with the book? Yes. We decided after doing the book I did a missionary Baptist church, a mega missionary Baptist church in Nashville of 70, Deacons. And when we were talking, they were so fascinated by the book. What spurred in my spirit was they wanted something more than just a book. So Mike and I talked about it and we put together a workbook that is in alignment with the book, but it gives you spaces for reflection, spaces for experimentation, and it actually gives you the opportunity to live out of these chapters that we’ve written them in the book.

Great. That sounds like a really helpful resource.

Ann Michel: This has been a great conversation. I not only learned a lot, but I’m feeling quite inspired. Hearing your great sense of clarity and hope about the ministry of the church. And so, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.

Stephen Handy: Well thank you, Ann, for the invitation. I am grateful to be included.

Announcer: Don’t forget to subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter, Leading Ideas, to be notified when new episodes are published. Visit churchleadership.com/leadingideas.


Book cover "Dare to Shift"

Dare to Shift: Challenging Leaders to a New Way of Thinking (Market Square Books, 2023) by Michael Bowie and Stephen Handy, is available at Market Square and Amazon. The Dare to Shift Workbook is available at Amazon.

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About Author

Stephen Handy

Stephen Handy is lead pastor of McKendree United Methodist Church in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. He also serves as associate district superintendent of the Urban Cohort District in the Tennessee Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church. And he is co-author with Dr. Michael Bowie of Dare to Shift: Challenging Leaders to a New Way of Thinking (Market Square Books, 2023).

Ann A. Michel served on the staff of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership from 2005 - 2024 as associate director of the center and later as a senior consultant and editor of Leading Ideas e-newsletter. She also taught at Wesley Theological Seminary in the areas of stewardship and leadership. She is the co-author with Lovett H. Weems Jr. of Generosity, Stewardship, and Abundance: A Transformational Guide to Church Finance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) available at Cokesbury and Amazon. She is also the author of Synergy: A Leadership Guide for Church Staff and Volunteers (Abingdon, 2017), available at Cokesbury and Amazon.