Collaboration is essential for the future of the church. In this episode Beth Ludlum, the Co-Director of The Hub for (Re)imagining Ministry and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Wesley Theological Seminary, shares how moving beyond ministry silos can create deeper relationships, greater creativity, and new possibilities for the church. She also explores how building relationships, embracing vulnerability, and creating space for new voices can help churches imagine new ways of serving their neighbors and living out their mission.
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Collaboration is essential for the future of the church. In this episode Beth Ludlum, the Co-Director of The Hub for (Re)imagining Ministry and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Wesley Theological Seminary, shares how moving beyond ministry silos can create deeper relationships, greater creativity, and new possibilities for the church. She also explores how building relationships, embracing vulnerability, and creating space for new voices can help churches imagine new ways of serving their neighbors and living out their mission.
Jonathan Page: Hey there friends. My name is Jonathan Page. I am the director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, and I’m excited to come to you today with another episode of Leading Ideas Talks. Normally this is a podcast space where we bring on folks from all over the country and world, talk about church leadership and how we can implement leadership tactics in our local church. Today I am talking with two people who are in different parts of the country. They just happen to be my teammates. And so, I am excited to welcome Dr. Beth Ludlum from the Hub for (Re)imagining Ministry and Dr. Karen Stewart, who is both from the Hub for (Re)imagining Ministry and the Lewis Center for Church Leadership. We’re all a part of the team at Wesley Theological Seminary, and today we’re going to be talking about collaboration and what collaboration can look like in local church settings and why it might be fuel for the future of church leadership. So. Beth, Karen, welcome to the podcast.
Karen Stewart: Thanks, Jonathan. Thank you so much. Glad to be back.
Jonathan Page: Yeah, it’s always good to be together even when we’re not in the same room. And so as we’re as we’re getting into this, I want to lean to start on the work of the Hub. So, you know, the Hub is one of our great centers at Wesley Theological Seminary. And the focus is on the idea of “(Re)imagining” ministry. So, I wonder for the two of you, maybe we’ll start with Beth and then Karen, you can add on here. In your experience, why is collaboration so essential to imagination? It seems like leaders can’t just innovate in a vacuum anymore. So, what’s the role of collaboration and innovation?
Beth Ludlum: Yeah, Jonathan, thanks. So, you know we’ve been working with congregations in cohorts for a little over—for about 10 years now and helping them to reimagine what ministry looks like specifically with people outside of their congregations. So, who is around then? What are the emerging generations or the populations that they are hoping to engage or feel called to engage and how do they do that well? And what we’ve really discovered is that collaboration is absolutely key to that. A piece of that is collaboration directly with neighbors. So how are people listening well, getting to know? Each other, you know, collaboration really happens at the speed of trust. And so, starting to really build those relationships so that they can design ministries, programs, community initiatives together. Not “if we build it, maybe they will come.” And we see the same thing with partnerships and collaboration with other churches, with community entities. Businesses or nonprofits, they’re really there is an essential level of trust to be built. But then that that’s what fuels new possibilities in the community and in the church.
Karen Stewart: Yep. I think my position with the Hub and now with the Lewis Center embodies all of that, right? Your neighbors, the people that are nearest to you, the folks that are in your community that are helping. Everybody is pulling in the same direction. But why would we not? If there are some areas of overlap so that everybody is the beneficiary, everybody benefits when there is an opportunity for organizations to come together to do the same thing, you have further reach, your scope can be greater. All of that. And so, the Lewis Center and the Hub working together embodies what we feel and what we do with the organizations that we work with. So, it’s exciting to not only say we help other organizations to do collaboration, but now we can say “and we.” Not only do we are we collaborators with you as you work in the area of ministry in your community, but that is what we do in our own organization. Two sister centers of excellence are now sharing a staff person because there are overlaps that both organizations can benefit from; both centers can benefit from. So it’s really exciting to be able to say we live what it is that we teach other people to do.
Jonathan Page: No, I couldn’t agree more. And one of the things that really strikes me about this is that I think what I hope we’re putting into practice not to like—I feel like we’re starting off by bragging on ourselves, which is always a good way to start a conversation— but hey, let’s brag for a second. I think one of the really beautiful things about the nature of this collaboration is that it’s multi-layered. It’s not—when I think about in the local church, a lot of times the natural sources of collaboration are like clergy to clergy. Or sometimes you’re fortunate enough to have like, “OK, both of our churches went on the same mission trip and now we want to do other stuff together,” kind of thing.
I know for us one of the key factors I think that has influenced that sort of multi layered nature of collaboration has been a spirit of vulnerability to be able to say like, “Hey, here’s what I’m good at and here’s what I’m really not good at, or places where there might be a gap that you could be a part of filling.” I wonder, first off, I wonder if you all would say like, “Hey, that might be true” just because I need a pat on the back, but no. But what is the role of vulnerability in collaboration? And are there other practices that would be a part of actually putting collaboration into practice in the local context.
Beth Ludlum: Well, Jonathan, of course I’m going to affirm you, I’m going to affirm you in that. I mean, I think that ties in perfectly, Jonathan. I mean about my statement about trust, right? We collaborate when we trust, we build trust by vulnerability. I mean the bulk of Brené Brown’s amazing writings are on that very fact, right is vulnerability. It is recognizing our weaknesses. It is recognizing where others are doing something that that we can’t do or shouldn’t be doing or aren’t called to do that really form a ground. And the other thing I would say with that is it is a vulnerability that we can find shared value as well. When we can really say, “What is the thing that God has laid on my heart? What is the—what are the gifts that God has given me? And what do I see in you? Um, and I think that’s the other piece for, for a lot of what we’ve done with churches is figuring out where are the shared values. You don’t have to be the same in every way, but if there’s a common passion, a common calling, a common value that you hold and you’re willing to come to the table together, that’s a really great place to get started.
Karen Stewart: Yeah. I also think that innate to vulnerability is taking risks. You have to take a risk—you are taking a risk when you say “Ok, we’re going to collaborate on this particular thing.” You’re both saying, “we’re going to take a step into the unknown together and see how it goes.” And we have to be prepared that maybe the collaboration doesn’t work. Um, and are we willing to risk it? I think in ministry, we spend so much time endeavoring to be successful and I don’t say that flippantly and I don’t say that as though, you know, you go into something expecting to fail. Nobody goes into anything expecting to fail. But we just don’t like to talk about things not working and learning from them. We just kind of—in all our end of the year reports, we want to talk about everything that worked beautifully, but there are some times that things may not go as well as they should.
So there’s risk that you have to take and that makes you be a little more vulnerable than maybe you are comfortable with. But collaborations are worth the risk because the benefits outweigh the challenges, I think.
Jonathan Page: Yeah, I used to say with some frequency, I don’t think this is original to me, but I can’t remember where I picked it up, so I’ll take credit for it for the second, “there’s no such thing as failure. There’s only learning.” And oftentimes one of the challenges I think that we face in the church is that whether it be our internal context with like members of the church, judicatory leadership, other spaces, failure actually is an option that you can end up being punished for in some ways. And that’s really hard when part of the spirit of experimentation is like failure is acceptable because it means that you’re learning, it means that you’re growing, it means that you’re … you’re getting better, hopefully.
I wonder and Karen, maybe we’ll start with you on this one. That that seems like a roadblock or a friction point that a church would face when they’re trying to collaborate, especially if they’re trying to collaborate along generational lines, sociocultural, ethno-racial lines in the also experience. I mean, you’ve served over 120 congregations through these cohorts that you all are doing: what are some other roadblocks or friction points that are common that churches face when they first try to collaborate across those lines?
Karen Stewart: I think the first thing that challenges our cohort churches is 1 stepping into the unknown. When they are signing up to be a part of the work that we do, they’ve either been more than likely “volun-told,” or there’s been someone who’s extraordinarily excited about what it is that we’re endeavoring to do, and so they might drag some other people along, not necessarily kicking or screaming, but with this uncertainty to it.
And then as they venture into doing this work, it always is about our push is about experimentation. And that’s just not something that you talk about in ministry. Let’s, you know, you might say we’re going to try this. But you never kind of think of it in terms of an experiment so that we can learn from it, adapt it, grow from it, pivot whatever it is that we need to learn. So, all of those things are really reframing how churches do ministry, and that is the first area of “I’m not sure,” because especially across generations, “we’ve always done it this way” is just the mantra in the mission work. “This is how it’s worked before.” So why are we doing anything different or what are these spaces you know, younger people are facing challenges. So is that really a challenge in light of the challenges that I had to face with I was a young person, you know, especially moving beyond the digital age into AI and all of that.
So, it just can be fraught with challenges across generations, but I think our role is to try to help people to navigate these challenges. But that that means that they’ve got to, kind of have to drop their guard and say, “Ok, let’s lean into trying this a different way.” Even having to acknowledge where your congregation is can be a point of conflict. Some people might think the congregation is healthier than maybe it really is, or—
Jonathan Page: No, no way.
Karen Stewart: –Yeah, well yeah. And some of the people that we have to work with—you’re putting on the same team a pastor and a newer member and a lay person and an older member, and there are four different opinions on how ministry health might actually be. How do you have those kinds of tough conversations to really move a ministry forward? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all the different things that can be the challenges that ministries face as they endeavor to do collaborative work. They’ve got to—we’ve got to get past our own selves before we even start saying, “OK, now let’s go collaborate with my neighbor.”
Jonathan Page: Beth, anything that you would want to add on to that?
Beth Ludlum: Well, first of all, I just want to say Karen, I’ll—everything you said I completely agree with around how we are viewing our own churches and building collaboration even within our own churches and listening to one another.
So, one thing I would add, I think UM is a big barrier is time. And with that priority what we’ve seen a lot is, you know, everybody’s busy, right? There’s all sorts of statistics about our culture and the business of our culture and the lack of time in our culture. And I think you know, we’ve seen time and time again where churches come to a new program and you want to grab the people who are going to show up and do the work, which are probably the people who are showing up and doing the work in four other areas as well oftentimes.
And one of the things we’ve really realized is that any of these things, collaboration, innovative, reimagination, reimagining ministry: it takes time, it takes meals, it takes conversation. It’s waiting. It takes play. And so, we have to—I think we have to shift our mindset from “we’re going to commit to six weeks of fast-paced learning and we’re going to launch something” to “what if we were the church that was like, what if we were the church that sat with people in our community?” If we were the church that as disciples made space in our lives, right, which is a total, I mean, that’s a much bigger thing.
But oftentimes when we’re adding, “we’re going to collaborate with local partners” on top of 75 other things that we’re doing in the church and in our personal lives. We never can build that. We never get to that point of that vulnerability, and it becomes one more like, “what can we whip out, what program can we create and send off into the universe and then turn our attention to something else” as opposed to really building those relationships, really dreaming together, playing together, praying together that really takes root in a congregation.
Jonathan Page: Yeah, that’s when you were saying that. It made me think of the the kinds of conversations that I have sometimes in a one-on-one space. Where like, have you ever been in a conversation with someone where you know they’re not really listening to you, they’re just waiting for their turn to speak?
I have to be really careful that that’s not what this podcast turns into when I’m hosting it. You know, and, and I think that’s one of the big dangers that the church has when it becomes embodied within community is that it can become nothing more than a like, “hey, I’m with you but just so that I can say what I want to say to you. And I’m going to just; I’m going to do what it takes to wait you out to then do what I wanted to do in the first place.”
And a part of this work of collaboration is mutual transformation, and it means that like when you hear somebody’s story, you can’t leave the same way that you came in, but you have to actually hear the story to be able to live in that space and to do that. And that gets to time, to vulnerability, to all of these pieces that that we’re referencing. And it makes this hard work, right? Like it’s not, it’s almost the sort of Lone Ranger, solo heroic leader sometimes is an easier way to lead because you only have to be accountable to yourself. And to sort of your own spirit, I wonder for leaders who are listening to this, who are thinking about like, “Hey, I might want to shift to a collaborative model knowing that I’m currently a do it all myself kind of person.”
In yall’s experience, what are the challenges that leaders should expect when shifting from sort of a do-it-all mentality to a co-creating mentality.
Beth Ludlum: Karen, I’m looking at you.
Karen Stewart: I’m looking at you too!
Jonathan Page: You can’t rock paper scissors for this.
Karen Stewart: We all look at one another like who’s going first? I figure I went first last time, so I’m tapping. I’m tapping you in.
Beth Ludlum: I mean, Jonathan, I think you’re absolutely right. And I think the challenge is there’s a lot of potential challenges, right? I mean, to your point, it takes … it takes time, it takes vulnerability, it takes risk, it takes possibly disappointing a congregation that expects you to show up and act and lead in a certain way. It takes all of this.
The one thing I would say is, I mean, I think there has to be a deep conviction that this is the way God is calling us to live, right? There, I think there has to be some teaching around that, you know, some good—if I’m on this journey and suddenly, I am—as a leader—I’m feeling called to live and minister in a more collaborative, team-based way, how do I share the things that I’m wrestling with and learning with my broader congregation and bring them along on that journey and begin to model that?
And then who are the people, colleagues, people on this, you know, business owners who I’ve developed relationships [with], nonprofit directors who are nearby who share a similar orientation, but who are my people who I can go back to on a regular basis. Hopefully clergy has some sort of a covenant group or discipleship group or a colleague group, but who you can share, “You know, I’m really struggling because this isn’t working out,” or, “my congregation is upset about this,” or “I haven’t figured out how to shift this part of my leadership.” But that idea of collaborative learning, collegiate learning, support other people that have your back, I think is so essential because it is all it is full of risk, especially if you and your congregation are used to a particular way of leading.
Karen Stewart: I was reflecting on the question and as I was listening to Beth, there was this opportunity for collaboration in the state of Arizona. Now I’m going back several years, but it was back when the King holiday, we were working for the King holiday and it wasn’t any a particular group, it wasn’t just churches that could make that happen. It had to be statewide, collaborative effort. And what the learning that came out of that was to keep the main thing, the main thing. The collaboration was across religions. It was across beliefs. It was across a lot of races, everything. Because sometimes we’re called—God calls us to collaborate with people that are very, very different to us because they can help us, because the main thing is the main thing.
And sometimes we’ll think that we can only collaborate with someone who looks, thinks, talks, acts like us, and that’s not necessarily the case. And that was one of the biggest learnings because it took everybody to get the King holiday fight across the finish line in our state, only state in the union that has the King holiday by a majority vote of the people. I will make that plug for Arizona. But that’s how it was accomplished. So, collaboration sometimes is going to stretch you further than you wanted to be stretched, and to allow it. Because this group now has new friends and new colleagues that are very different, that they may have never been a part of their circle that’s now a part of their circle.
And I think that’s been a benefit to the church. I think the church has been a benefit to the community because the community was allowed to see the church differently.
Discovering God’s Future for Your Church is a turnkey tool kit to help your congregation discern and implement God’s vision for its future. The resource guides your church in discovering clues to your vision in your history and culture, your current congregational strengths and weaknesses, and the needs of your surrounding community. Learn more and watch an introductory video now.
Jonathan Page: Well, Amen, Karen. And a lot of what you’re saying is it’s really centered like one of one of the leadership principles that I believe pretty strongly. And it’s this idea of polycentric leadership. Which if you, for anybody who’s not familiar with it, imagine you’re back in first grade and you have to pass a ball to be able to speak in a classroom, right? Like this is ultimately, like, polycentric leadership is essentially passing the ball. To be able to say, like given in in a given situation, who has the right skill set to take the lead in this space, knowing that it’s not forever, it’s for this moment.
And then you’re ready to pass to somebody else and you learn those systems of interaction. And that’s, that’s part of—a word that comes to my mind about what we’re describing here is a nimbleness, you know. That you’re not so fixed in a place of like, well, this is how we have to do this. We’ve always had the Brunswick Stew on the on the third weekend of October and so we’ve got to do it right then. And if you scheduled your cruise then, then you’re going to hell. No. Like it, it’s not, it’s being able (and honestly, that’s a very silly example), but like it’s breaking free from those notions of really like “here’s what has to be and getting into a space of here’s what could be.” And I think that that sort of notion of possibility is really meaningful.
I’m thinking specifically about the work of the Hub and one of the spaces that the Hub’s doing a lot of work right now is with younger generations. I wonder if you all would speak to, and Karen, we’ll start with you this time. When it comes to engaging younger generations in collaborative work, how does that collaboration shift a dynamic from something that we’ve kind of already touched on just a little bit?
Like it’s the mission of how do we get them into our pews transitioning to how do we build something of meaning together. What is collaboration’s role in that sort of shift?
Karen Stewart: Very interesting question. I feel though that I might need to start with, I’ve never had Brunswick Stew, so if it’s a real thing recipe never heard of it and I’m interested.
Jonathan Page: The Virginian in me just came out, I’m sorry. Let’s get you Brunswick Stew next time you’re here.
Karen Stewart: We really endeavor to engage younger people. It’s a unique way of doing that because we engage with congregations and congregations engage—well we have other programs that engage specifically with young people—the two programs that I work specifically with get to younger people through their congregations.
So, for our perspective we have to kind of charge them in their team building approach to think about a team that is diverse in who they’re bringing to the table and also when they’re at the table, what their voice is at the table. So they’re not just—a younger person is not just at the table as a symbol saying “look, yay, we have a young adult that’s on our team,” but that that young adult is empowered to speak and to think and to help them to strategize so that means you also can’t shut young people down because what they’re saying might be very different than what you’re accustomed to or what you are comfortable with.
So that’s a unique way that we help our congregations to engage a younger demographic in the work that they’re doing and ironically, one of the churches that we are working with currently, look, their whole team, their whole team was the first time we saw their team, they were older adults. Now their team is younger adults. So, it has really changed that dynamic. But also as that cohort gathers together when they hear these younger adults talking from another context, another church. Even from another denomination, that resonates with these older team members, and it makes them to rethink their strategy.
So, you know, even just by bringing everybody around in a cohort group so that they can hear from one another when they hear from different generations younger people are influenced by what they hear from older people and older people are influenced by what they hear from younger people. So that is one of the ways that we kind of engage younger generations now.
Beth Ludlum: Um, you know, my mind is going to so many stories over the last 10 years because there are just so many, so many amazing things that churches have done with young people. I will say, one of the things that I found both hard and helpful as we’ve worked with 100—more than 100 congregations over the last decade. Is helping people come back to their “Why.” You know, we sometimes we ask the question, for whom does your heartbreak or for whom would your church die?
We follow a Savior who saved the world through his death and resurrection. For whom would our church die? Because I think it’s essential to shift away from institutional survival, right? How do I save my church? For what? For what purpose? If you can tell me what your church is called to in the world, what difference you’re trying to make in a lot and it’s who you love, well then we can start there.
The reality is that that engaging younger generations I think can be the most life giving thing for all of us because the church is one of the few places in society where intergenerational community outside of family bond, like family lines still can exist and it is so critical. There’s nothing that young people need more than other people who are not their parents, who are aunties and uncles and grandpas and grandmas, who are not their blood relatives, who love them and care for them and remind them that God loves them and that they’re precious and that they have gifts and that they are seen and valued, right. And it’s the same across generations.
So, I think one of the things that we’ve really tried to do in that deep listening is listen to the heart of the church. How do you unpack the layers of like “we need to replace our boiler and we’re down to a quarter-time pastor, and like just what’s going to happen to my church?” And get back to one of the things that “Who do we love, who does our heartbreak for in our neighborhood? What are the things that have been values for this church throughout time and that continue to lead us forward and then allow helping the church to see the gift that it has to give? Across generations, not to get people into the pews for the sake of their institutional survival, but because there is something that God is still calling every single church to be in their neighborhood that only they can be. And part of that is loving and engaging and being in relationship with people across generations.
Jonathan Page: It’s, it’s just so true. And this idea, I mean, both of you hinted at this. I mean, a part of part of the center of the question I asked you is: if you don’t have a compelling mission, don’t expect people to participate in it with you. You know, like the mission of the church is not to survive. I think Jesus says this line right about like seeds dying and producing new life. Just throwing it out there that like, and that’s not saying, “Hey, we wish to have a bunch of a bunch of churches,” or anything like that. It’s really saying, “Hey, what would it take for us to do something that creates transformation in our community.”
And sometimes that can happen inside a building and sometimes it can’t. And what most important in all of that, though, is the people who make up that community. And the more that you’re able to integrate the actual needs and opportunities of the community into the life of what you’re doing, I think the more that you’re going to have folks who are willing to participate. I’ll never forget when I was serving in Northern Virginia at a local church and I went to meet the principal of our high school that was right across the street from the church on my first day on the job and I said, “Hey, what’s the biggest gap in our community that the church could be a part of addressing.” And she after a joke, she said gang violence. And I remember being like, wait, what? I moved to Northern Virginia. This is supposed to be like a wealthy suburb of D.C. What’s this about? And then I started having conversations with people, and you know what was a big problem in our community? Gang violence.
And so, but what that meant too was that all of a sudden—it was not easy, but it was more attainable to find community partners to address that issue because it was a known issue in that community that oftentimes, not that the church had shied away from it, but it just hadn’t paid attention to it. And so, the more the more that you can lean in and say, “hey, what’s actually going on here?” I think, I think that’s just an example of how that can end up being kind of transformative for the community and the people that are a part of it.
So, I’m wondering, Karen, if a church leader is listening to this right now and saying, “Hey, I’m stuck in a silo.” Surely, that’s nobody. Not even. Not even if you’re outside the local church. What would you recommend? What’s one step somebody could take this week to start breaking out of a silo?
Karen Stewart: OK, how do you break out of a silo if you are stuck? You know, it’s odd because it’s like who’s in a silo and who would be in a silo? But I guess there might be somebody who might be feeling stuck in whatever it is that they are doing. I would tell them, especially if they are in church leadership, to take a walk in their community. And just look around at what’s happening, maybe what’s not happening. Who’s there, who’s not there. And start to get to know your neighbors. And it almost leans into what it is that you said because you thought you had moved into this community and there was not that particular issue. And when you start asking about the issues, you might be surprised to find out what’s going on.
So, I would say get re-engaged in the community that you are in by taking a rock in your favor now in Arizona. Do it in the morning. Or in the evening, depending on how the weather is what in your part of the woods. But I would start by getting to know your community better. You know, hearing what’s happening in your community. Now, in Arizona do it in the morning. Or in the evening depending on how the weather is in your part of the woods. But I would start by getting to know your community better. Hearing what’s happening in your community.
Jonathan Page: That’s really great. Beth, any practices you’d want to add to that?
Beth Ludlum: Well, I love that. And I’m gonna come do a walk in your community in January. Yeah, there you go. Not in the morning. January.
You know, the thing that I keep leaders of all ages that I encourage strongly is relentlessly pursuing, and I recognize that this could become annoying, but relentlessly pursuing relationships with people you admire.
And so, if you are feeling isolated, if you’re feeling siloed, you know, looking around and saying, who are the clergy I just want to be like someday? If you’re young, you know, or who are the community leaders? I really admire the way they’re leading in the community and just reaching out and calling people. For some folks, that’s a really natural thing, but for a lot of us it’s not. And it takes a lot of courage, and it takes a lot, right? Who am I to call this person? But looking around and going, “who are the people who I admire, who I want to be like, who are leading in a way I really respect,” and just having dinner with them or lunch with them or coffee with them.
Because I think then the more that we can continue leading, the more that we can continue being excited about leading, excited about ministry, excited about what God is doing in our neighborhood, that affects our entire congregation. The more that we can come with joy and excitement to our congregations on Sunday morning and saying, “Guess what God is doing in our neighborhood?” Then people get to be excited as opposed to, you know, as opposed to we are here in our own little silo in our sanctuary.
And we’ll do the thing we’ve always done, and then we’ll go our separate ways but never talk about anything else, right. I think the more that we can do that, make those connections, build those relationships, bring that enthusiasm and that joy and that learning back to our congregations, the healthier our ministries and our own leadership is going to be.
Jonathan Page:
Yeah. And I don’t know too many leaders that hate to hear that they are admired, right? Like it’s usually not a bad thing to be like, “Oh, you admire me. Say more.” You know that can … I think you’re right that being able to … and that does get back to that vulnerability idea, right, of just being able to say, “Hey, this is this is where I’m at.” And I think he would be a part of making things better, you know, and, and maybe that we would be a part of making things better together. And there’s something really radical that can come from that.I wonder as we’re getting kind of close to the end, we are doing some collaborative work together as the Lewis Center and the Hub. Karen, you’re at the center of a lot of that. I wonder if you talked for just a little bit about, I guess we could all take a stab at this to a degree, but why is it that this is a season for collaboration in the space of theological education? And what’s our why for why we want to work together more?
Karen Stewart: I really feel like you and Beth are the ones who should answer that question first because it was you two who came up with this why, not me. I was the result of the why. So, we want you to get back to you, Jonathan. Put the question back to you, Jonathan and Beth. Why was it in our best interest to do this now? Maybe that’s the question for you two.
Jonathan Page: OK, well, I’ll, I’ll jump in since I haven’t gone first yet. Other than asking questions.
Karen Stewart: There you go.
Jonathan Page: You know, one of the things that kind of became clear to me coming into Wesley from—by the way, this is my first endeavor into a space of higher education other than like going to school—and so I think there has been a legacy of sorts. We have five centers at Wesley and they’re all really great. But for a long time, they’ve been really independent and it’s sort of like a “Stay in your lane, do your thing” kind of mentality. And I think one of the things that we see today is that. Resources are changing, the availability of resources changes, but also the crossover between some of these different spaces is kind of natural. Like it’s really hard for me to think about leadership that doesn’t have some form of innovation.
I imagine it might be hard for you all to think about innovation that doesn’t involve some form of leadership. Right? So, so like these are these are two spaces that tend to play in a similar sandbox. And because of that, finding ways to collaborate and work together seems great.
Now, it just so happens that there’s this great hinge point for this relationship that’s called Karen. And it turns out that Karen’s got a lot of gifts in both the leadership space and the innovation space and specifically in the ways that she is able to lead and direct and coach and guide cohorts and be active in that space and be a relatable leader and sounding board and guide, I think is incredible. And Karen knows a lot of people, and she knows how to get a thing or two done.
And so, for us at the Lewis Center in that content development space, I think it’s just been really great to bear witness to what partnership really can look like when we’re willing to say, “Hey, here’s what I have. Here are my hands, how can I help?How can we share this together? Because it turns out, I think when we work together, we can find more fruit than when we work by ourselves. And so. I’m grateful for the fruit that exists in Karen’s work and then our shared partnership. But you know, the why for me is really about, “Hey, this is how we’re going to face the future.” It’s not that we have to do—that we have to be best pals and slap 5 every day or anything like that. But like we, we do have a responsibility to say what are the possibilities that are created when we collaborate with them, when we can occupy space together.
So what do you think, Beth?
Karen Stewart:
Well, let me just say, you are very kind, Jonathan. You’re very kind. I feel inadequately prepared always. But you are very kind. Yes, Beth.Beth Ludlum: Oh goodness. There are so many “whys.” I mean I think for me, a couple … I mean, for one, I think collaboration is always more joyful and more generative, right? Anytime that we can bring in other voices, combine strengths and figure out how we can reach new people together, there is a generativity and a joy in that. I also think that in theological education, in higher education, in the church, in any of these spheres, there is a reality that the needs of the communities are shifting. We need to think differently about what does education training information look like? How is that more fluid as opposed to more segregated across degree programs and non-degree programs and continuing education and our lifelong learning. And how do we bring all of the elements to that?
So, Jonathan, to your point, I mean, we’ve pulled in folks from the Luce Center for Arts and Religion before to help us think about creativity through physical expression, right? And, how that fuels innovation for a team. We have; we’ve relied on folks for the Community Engagement Institute to help us think about. How do we do as we’re doing good listening to our neighbors, how do we really think about asset mapping, asset-based need, development equity in those in those neighborhoods. But I think the more now that we’re moving structurally to not only do that on a case-by-case basis or try to use tools from the other, but to structurally build something different, I think, is for the good of the church and ultimately for the good of God’s dream for the world. And for me that is the ultimate motivation. How do we take the resources, the gifts that we’ve been given and really use them in the way that best brings the Kingdom to earth in new ways?
Karen Stewart: Wonderful answer, thank you both.
Jonathan Page: And now you don’t have to say anything. Just Kidding. Is there anything you’d want to add, Karen?
Karen Stewart: You know, I think the only thing I would add is that collaboration is always a wonderful opportunity. Um, it stretches you, it stretches your organization and you know, we throw in 100%, but when you collaborate, although we always give everything our 100%, your organization may not have to give 100%. And so, it really does allow the resources that you have to stretch further when you have collaborative partners and when everybody’s carrying it.
What is it? The saying more hands make lighter lifting or lighter work, something along that, that’s what collaboration allows. And then you reach further and you’re able to do more. And I think in in the instance between the Hub and the Lewis Center, it allows us to reach a little bit further, not just within our own denominational boundaries, but beyond our denominational boundaries as I’m someone who is outside of the UMC, so it’s really a great opportunity to kind of highlight, especially in these times when people don’t play together well, that we’re able to model, you can play together well and this is what the church looks like. Not some of this other stuff. This is what it looks like.
Jonathan Page: Wow. Well, and one of the things you’re saying there Karen that I think is so important is I think, especially as leaders, we have to be careful not to keep a scorecard of like who we want to play with just to say, “Ok, you have to meet this, this, this, this and this criteria, and then we can get in the sandbox together.” Now, like somebody like if somebody’s a racist, you may say, “Hey we’re gonna take a break on collaborating” well, you figure that out like there can be some non-negotiables in there. But there’s this great episode of Full House from back in the early 90s where Danny Tanner is going on dates again he’s newly single, his wife passes away and his, his friend and his brother-in-law came to live with them. And so he goes on a date with somebody and it’s like apparently, it’s gone really well. And then he comes back after a second date and the brother says or the brother-in-law says, “Well, what went wrong,” because he said it was a bad date, and then he said, “Ohh, her ears are shaped too funny.”
And it’s like, Ok, like, that was a really critical analogy to tell you like, sometimes we’re too busy pointing out the flaw in people’s ear structure instead of leaning into the possibility of what can be when we work together. Again, I think it’s really important for leaders to like, if you have some non-negotiables, be clear about those, but don’t make that list so exhaustive that you build a wall around yourself such that you can’t be worked with. I think that’s really, really key.
So hey, we’re nearing the end of our time. So last question that is for both of you. And I guess we’ll start with Beth since it’s easier to point to somebody to start with. So, if you look down the road, let’s say 5-10 years from now, if collaboration is more successful in the lives of leaders and churches, what will the shape of the church look like in 5 to 10 years.
Beth Ludlum: So, I think leaders will be healthier, more connected. I think churches will be healthier. I don’t think that if true collaboration happens and, and it really took off and, and in very deep ways, I think we would have stronger church presence without possibly as many distinct churches like this is this church ex on corner of a and b. But there would be more infusion of ministry of mission of living with people of sharing resources generously throughout our communities with less concern about whose name is branded on it or whose, you know, whose churches is sponsoring this, but that we would be coming closer to a vibrant healthy ministry throughout our communities and neighborhoods with healthier leaders who are more deeply connected to the to the ministry and not to a specific instance of church.
Jonathan Page: It’s beautiful. What do you think, Karen?
Karen Stewart: I would say, and Jonathan, thank you for such a simple, easy, non-complex question. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.
But I think the reputation of the church would change, and I mean capital C, the reputation of the Church. Because I think the Church universal is getting a hit, especially in the United States, that our witness to the world and our witness to “nones, dones and nevers” is just at an all-time low and that would change because they would see us all in the sandbox with one another and say “Huh. Maybe, maybe there is something to what Jesus has to say.” I think when we collaborate, we look like Jesus. And so, I think it would change the way the church is perceived.
Jonathan Page: I love that and I can’t think of a better way to, to wrap up than to say, yeah, it, it would bring out the best in us. And because we’re better together, we’re, I believe strongly that when we were created, when we were uniquely and wonderfully knit in the womb and all that good stuff, that part of that knitting that’s common amongst us is that we’re hardwired for community and we’re hardwired for connection. And so, the more that we can lean into that and see that. That we’re better when we’re together, the better off we’ll be.
So, I know I’m better off because of the two of you and in the work that we get to do together. And I think—I hope—all of our listeners are better off for having had this conversation to participate in today. Beth, Karen, thank you so much. Is there anything you want to plug before we wrap up? Other than churchleadership.com, subscribe.
Karen Stewart: And always, always, always, uh, get to know the Hub better and the work that we are doing because we do church—we do work right alongside churches in our community. We have some virtual workshops that are planned. So, we would love for you to get to know us better. And you can find us on Wesley’s website. We will soon launch our own website. And you can get to know us on YouTube. So just look for the Hub for (Re)imagining Ministry. We’d love for you to get to know us better.
Jonathan Page: Sweet. Awesome. Well, you all are great. Thank you everybody for listening. We’ll be back soon with another episode of Leading Ideas Talks.
In the meantime, have a great day, Go lead well, and thanks for tuning in.
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An Aura of Hope: United Methodism’s Next Chapter in the United States
(Abingdon Press, 2026) by Lovett H. Weems Jr. is available from Cokesbury, the publisher, and Amazon.
Related Resources
- The Future of the United Methodist Church featuring Doug Powe and Lovett Weems — Watch the Leading Ideas Talks podcast video | Listen to the podcast audio version | Read the in-depth interview
- Restoring Trust in the Institutional Church Requires Allegiance to Our True Purpose by Gil Rendle
- Discovering God’s Future for Your Church, a video tool kit resource from the Lewis Center
- The Importance of Why by Graham Standish
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