Since their book The Abundant Community came out, John McKnight and Peter Block have sought out those social innovators who are bringing alive the ideas about how neighbors and local institutions can come together to create care, kindness, and welcome. One of those innovators is Father Joseph Kovitch. Peter and John talked with him in June of 2018. They are still in touch with him and what he describes here is still vibrant today. 

Father Joe was a priest of Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Community in Westerville, Ohio, who worshiped in an Irish pub and is currently on a university campus; they are also serving out of a community house nearby. He has been ordained for 30 years and has served in many ministries and missional environments, some of which include serving as leader of a large traditional congregation, leading a redevelopment merger of three congregations into a new mission, and, at this moment, serving as Diocesan Missioner for New Episcopal Communities in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. Here is the conversation we had in 2018.

 

 

Listen to the Full Conversation: 

In this conversation:

  • asset-based congregational development (2-4)
  • seeing the Exodus journey (7:10-8)
  • conversation leads to Neighbor to Neighbor kindness group (10-12)
  • re-imagining sacred space (23:45-24:45)
  • flipping the church budget (31:15-32:10)

Read the Transcript

Peter Block: Just as a start, Joseph, could you give us some sense of what you’re doing that’s innovative? Give us a little context, a little background.

Pastor Joseph: Absolutely.

This has been a five-and-a-half-year journey. I came on the scene to a traditional congregation with a traditional building with pews and stained glass and a history. They had chosen to leave that building. I came on board three weeks after they were told the diocese said it was okay for them to sell the building and go out and be free. We took about 45 to 50 folks that were adventurous and we set out. In essence the world was our parish. In the journey over a two-year process we found ourselves settling into a truly asset-based congregation.

We began to identify what we had on hand and who the community was and why we existed. Once you stripped away the building, all these new questions started arising and it was like scales falling from your eyes –– you all of a sudden begin to recognize a world of assets, of people doing amazing things. I realized how siloed we were. I’ve been in clergy for, at that point, 20 years and this was the first time that I found myself almost in exile. This gave birth to invention, then a pub showed up through a theology gathering over a beer. It was free so we took it because it gave us a place with low overhead. And then a house came on the scene. When the diocese said you’re not investing in a traditional church building, we said how about a house? It’s an asset. We bought the house.

All of a sudden, we started listening to the community. When you sit in pubs and you sit in coffee houses and you sit on street corners and you listen, all of a sudden the community sees a church willing to join them on their terms. And then our narrative and identity begin to change and the gospel comes alive in the lives of humans.

Right now, we’re at a community house that we’re redeveloping into art space, co-space, and we’re worshiping in an Irish pub holding traditional and indigenous community in a hybrid way. Celebrating both. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Peter: That’s great language. I like the way you strip away the building and see what’s left. You said something became clear that you had been living in isolation. Tell me a little about what came clear.

Pastor Joseph: That’s a good question. Within the church you have traditional churches that are doing well. It’s not a matter of leaving a building. You don’t have to leave a building to leave a building. You re-imagine the purpose of a building. We were thrust out into the community and our trajectory speaks and resonates with many other congregations that are facing the same question. I started changing my office to a coffee house, showing up at city council meetings, introducing myself and re-imagining the infrastructure of the church, and letting the community define how we needed to be constructed.

When you’re set free completely from your history, what can be considered Egypt, you’re in the wilderness. You see the Exodus journey. I discovered that for myself, as priest, I’m a meaning maker, I’m theologian, sacramentalist and liturgist, re-imagining how that plays in pubs and on street corners. The church is turned inside out. I start seeing pews appear in alleyways. The altar, all of a sudden, appears right in front of city hall. The baptismal font is right there at the end of the bar.

John McKnight: Sort of a transformation for you. As I hear it. I’m wondering how people in the neighborhood get to know about your church and get to know about you. What do they come to you about? When people contact you in this redefined role, what is it that you see them engaging you about?

Pastor Joseph: We first had to break down some of the presumptions of the spiritual community. We started asking people questions about what the church is. Who is Jesus Christ in the world come of age? We started to resonate with what the church is. We then sat for a summer with community leaders –– the mayor, the parks and rec and zoning people, city leaders, merchants, neighborhood leaders. In one particular conversation we met with the enforcement group within the city. One guy’s job as enforcer was to make sure people were obeying the laws about cutting your grass and having your house painted. If people don’t follow through they would be brought to mayor’s court.

One compliance enforcer was Brian. Brian was struggling. Brian tells us he has to bring up “Aunt Edna” again and again in mayor’s court and fine her for not painting her eaves and not cutting her grass. He then asked us whether there was a way we can enter into that community and talk to the neighbors and ask them if they know who Aunt Edna is. Do they know that she lost her husband five months ago?

He invited us into a conversation about his concerns with the mayor. It gave birth to what’s now called Neighbor to Neighbor –– a collective of community leaders who want to create a community of kindness and neighborliness.

From Neighbor to Neighbor we began working with Brave Young Voices, which is a young people’s drama troupe seeking to give voice to young people on social issues. Our house now hosts Brave Young Voices. In a church world we call it the holy spirit. This is where asset-based community development converges with a community of belonging and the Old Testament call of people in exile to bring prophetic hope.

Peter: Did her grass get cut?

Pastor Joseph: Yes, her grass did get cut, and because when they started recognizing Edna, they also recognized Bob who had a hip replacement three streets over. This is an example –– things started bubbling over and now it is known that if a need arises there is a Neighbor to Neighbor Facebook page. This coincided with an individual in the community, outside of the neighborhood, who wanted to spread kindness. Hashtag kindness is cool. That’s Rick. Then we connected to Otterbein University that is starting a pop-up kindness initiative. We have Table Talk, which has people talking about issues of service and kindness. Aunt Edna is getting her grass cut. She and others are getting their eaves painted.

We have a lot of work to do but we have begun.  Call it Naked Church or Vulnerable Church, it’s an  accessible church, and all of a sudden we’re invited to the conversation. What we are doing now is bringing St. Matthew’s to the people. The world is our parish, the world is our seminary. We have 50 people who would never darken the door of a pub church on a Sunday morning who are now part of the mission. St. Matthew’s is now a name that is synonymous with community hospitality.

It’s a long answer but, yes, Aunt Edna got her grass cut.

Peter: How would you distinguish what you’re doing from an asset-based community organized community builder? What’s unique? Is there something that’s inviolate or specific about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it?

Pastor Joseph: I think for so long the church had become siloed. The church used to be the center of the community. It was the community center of engagement and social enterprise. I think over time the church was invited out. Maybe these days, the church is dying and rising at the same time. I think that in asset-based community development the first thought on people’s minds is generally not how to get the church involved, because people are finding community in other ways.

What I’m finding is that we can create a way for the church to reclaim that place at the table, but to do it so that the church has an impact that is nonjudgmental, that is radically focused on inclusion, that meets people where they are even if we disagree. We find a unity in humanity. St. Matthew’s and other churches are tearing our walls of separation down. We’re asking, “Can we join the conversation? Can you teach us to be your evangelist?” We have a church that needs to be evangelized by the greater community.

Peter: It’s almost like being de-vangelized.

Pastor Joseph: Absolutely. You have to re-imagine everything.

Here’s another funny story. The local coffee house in Westerville: the people who own it are agnostic, Buddhist, or just not church-centric people. All of a sudden, the more that they began to see what was happening with St. Matthew’s, word got around.

I was sitting in the coffee house one day listening to the conversation they were having. I asked if this could be a place for stories. One of the owners, Ralph, says, “Hey, I know a storyteller.” I said, “What if we brought storytellers together and learned to tell stories and listen?” On the third Thursday every month, Ralph is going to open up the backroom in the coffee house for a storytelling event.

Ralph’s first thought was, why is St. Matthew’s in on this? Is St. Matthew’s going to slap their name on this thing? What is their intent? My initial thought was, I’m coming because I love stories. I told Ralph I would (metaphorically) take my collar off. I would come as someone who loves stories, and if you need a facilitator I will be there to support the story. Yes, I’m a priest at St. Matthew’s but I will come as one from the community.

It was funny because the next time we met Ralph found himself giving me back my collar (metaphorically), by asking me to stand up and welcome everybody. Now, for two and a half years, at the bottom of the flyer every month they have our logo and our house logo. Since then, we’ve done blues fests and he’s opened up the coffee house for sunrise service on Easter.

John: I want to recommend to our listeners a paper Joseph has written called “The Church and Proximity.” It’s a wonderful theologically oriented adventure. You say at one point that what we are bringing to the community is a method by which we can make sacred what is now thought of as secular. [https://www.abundantcommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Leadership_Paper_May_20_2018_2_intro_-_Copy.pdf]

That’s such a wonderful idea: The spread of the sacred in a space thought secular. Can you talk a little about that?

Pastor Joseph: If we define our form by a house, it automatically transforms our theology and our sacramental understanding. As an Episcopal priest I love the mystery, I love sacrament, I love that liturgical dance. All of a sudden we re-imagine that it’s playing everywhere. That I can sit in a coffee house and have a cup of coffee and a scone with somebody who has been wounded or hurt in their spiritual journey. At that moment it’s sacramental. This is where I say that the front porch becomes the fellowship hall. The living room can become a sanctuary. Our kitchen becomes this place of hospitality. All of a sudden this re-imagined our language, re-imagined our understanding of sacred space.

Over time, members of the community became excited by watching what we were doing. The head of the feeding program for the entire community got interested.  When they see how we’re re-imagining the church through the house and pub, we’re now invited into a world of other people, focusing on other institutions, whether it’s the academic institution or the political institution.

If I can be a priest and St. Matthew’s can see themselves as a congregation who brings God’s love and compassion into those conversations, you no longer have a separation of sacred and secular. It becomes all sacred.

Peter: You would say that the idea of secular space is just a construction we can let go of?

Pastor Joseph: I think so. Secular leads to the sense of privilege. If you go back to Jesus, he was saying that the temple will be no more. You will be worshiping in relationship. He was even trying to re-imagine the law not as the structure of institution but as a vehicle, and then relationship, compassion, love become the temple, the building. Then you see every individual person being a facet or the brick and mortar. I mean that if the mortar is love and we’re all bricks, we can build ourselves together.

Peter: People listening have some questions.

How do you make it work? Who owns the house, do people live there, is the house in the neighborhood where church members live, do you have programming for children, do they come to the pub with adults?

Pastor Joseph: In the Episcopal world the diocese in essence owns all property. In our re-imagining we help the diocese find ways of investing, so the house is a mutual investment. If we’re investing our time and talents in St. Matthew’s, we are indeed the research and development function. From the dividends that come out of that investment, the diocese is beginning to learn some fresh expression and look at ways of re-imagining the church. St. Matthew’s has become not a laboratory but a movement that may be able to help other congregations in their context to re-imagine. Within St. Matthew’s we’re trying to imagine holding both the traditional models and the fresh ones, but how do we re-imagine Sunday school? Or when you look at the traditional side of church, what does re-imagining the structure of leadership look like?

I think for so long we’ve just been content with vacation bible school and Sunday school in classrooms with a curriculum and teachers. But can a drama troupe called Brave Young Voices, where you make the children the teacher, become a new expression of Sunday school?

We now have a core group of leadership beginning to re-imagine finances. In a traditional church’s budget 80% of the money or assets takes care of the infrastructure of the church –– the staff, the building facility. We’re trying to re-imagine a flipping, where we become an 80/20 church and we’re giving 80% of everything away to the community and 20% we keep to ourselves. Now we’re trying to monetize everything we do. “Monetize” meaning put some value on every single thing that we’re doing and trying to get to a goal of being a congregation that completely surrenders itself away.

Peter: There’s a question about how we reach our children. What needs to be taught to us by our children? How are you taught by your children?

Pastor Joseph: Brave Young Voices might be an example. I know that the traditional model is that the children have been receptacle of our teaching, then the children grow up into adulthood and hopefully remember their homing device back to church. It’s happening in our world when tragedies and horrible events happen in the lives of our children. All of a sudden we’re seeing that children are needing a voice and given a platform.

With Brave Young Voices, my hope is that we have an example of how to do that. Carmel came into Westerville and she is a teacher and very much rooted in acting in theater. She spent a lot of time in Chicago in Cabrini Green, working with the youth there and teaching them drama and theater as a way to find voice and find themselves. As she brought her work to Westerville, she connected to what we’re doing at St. Matthew’s. Ten to twelve children come into a semester-long session, and we give them space to work on a play on a particular theme. They’re looking at identity and bullying and who they are and finding their voice, writing music and everything for the drama. They give a presentation at the end of July.

At the end of that presentation, Carmel brings everybody together to have a question and answer with the young people about what inspired them and what their message was and giving them voice to articulate. They become the teachers, the adults become the students. My hope is that’s the way that St. Matthews can re-imagine education and who the teacher really is and who the student is.

Peter: You focus on learning rather than teaching and that’s a huge shift.

I’ll just read you another question. How do you and the diocese train core leaders when engaging in a wider circle?

Pastor Joseph: I think we’re at the genesis of a question of leadership development. The seminaries are asking that question. I wrote “The Church and Proximity”  and used it as a discipline because I wanted to be able to see whether I could get on paper what it is we’re doing. It was fascinating because we’re right at this juncture where seminaries are losing students, and it begged the question “How do you help create an environment where people can discern a calling into leadership?”

I’m asking whether St. Matthew’s can become a learning community. Can the world become an extension to the seminary? I know at least 15 people who would be amazing faculty members in a street seminary: a barista, a bartender, a city leader.

John: If I were in the neighborhood and talking to people who are not your members, and asked, what is this church, what do you think the idea of who you are or what you are is among people in the neighborhood? How is this affecting them and their understanding?

Pastor Joseph: Well, I think the house and the pub have given people in the community a sense of a church that was willing to adapt, willing to become vulnerable and to be maybe a holy listener. We’re not apologizing or giving up the core of Christ, the core of sacrament, but we’re trying to live into the Sermon on the Mount. To live into the fact of radical hospitality. That has automatically endeared us to atheists, agnostics. Also, we’re starting to show up to join the conversation on race. We’re trying to learn how to be present in conversations on poverty and immigration.

At the same time, we’re trying to find a way to make it inclusive. At St. Matthew’s right now we are Black, white, gay, straight. We are republican and we are democrat. If you look at it traditionally as a church, we probably have about 100 people who call St. Matthew’s home. The community sees us living through a house and a pub and showing up.

The second part I’ll say is, as a priest, I also happen to be in a wheelchair and I have a leg that decided not to work for me. But I’ve used the chair automatically as a tool of relationship. If you lead with your vulnerability and the fact that you don’t have it all together, and lead with a spirit of “let’s journey together,” I’m coming in as a trained spiritual leader but also as one who wants to learn.

Peter: We’re near the end. I just have a thought, Joseph. Maybe you would close this session with a prayer. Given the context of what you’re talking about and the people joining us. That would be a first for us.

Pastor Joseph: I would be honored to.

The Lord be with you. Let us pray.

Almighty God, we thank you. In the midst of a world of institution and a world of status quo that you call us into deep community, deep listening, to be present. Help us to re-imagine ourselves as both community in mind, heart, and spirit. That we are collaborative of human becoming. We thank you, Lord, for the vision of our leaders that have come to re-imagine us into new ways of being our mystics, our prophets, both inside and outside the church. Amen.

Peter: Thank you, Joseph.

———————

Quotes from Joseph Kovitch:

“It’s not about a church growth. We’re not going out to get more people in church. We’re trying to see that the world is our parish, the world is our seminary.”

“The thing that I see changing, at least for St. Matthew’s and other churches, are tearing their walls of separation down to say, ‘Can we join the conversation?’ We have a church that needs to be evangelized by the greater community. They’re amazing spiritually gifted. The church is out there.”

“We’re not apologizing or giving up the core of Christ, the core of sacrament, but we’re trying to live into the Sermon in the Mount. To live into the fact of radical hospitality and that we lead with love …”

Learn more:
stmattspraythinklove.org

For more information about where the future exists in the present, visit designedlearning.com/activating-the-common-good

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash